***************************************************************** 04/17/05 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 13.87 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** Send News Stories to news@energy-net.org with title on subject line and first line of body NUCLEAR POLICY 1 Mehr News: Most Europeans back Iran’s nuclear rights 2 US: North County Times: Back to basics on energy 3 US: Guardian Unlimited: Bush Prods Congress on Energy Legislation 4 Sunday Herald: SNPs nuclear poll claims mass Trident opposition 5 Jakarta Post: RI seeks Japan's help in boosting competitiveness NUCLEAR REACTORS 6 Bellona: US and Russia look for international aid to shut down Russi 7 US: DECATUR DAILY: Browns Ferry guards accept agreement 8 US: The Advocate: Nuclear reactor shut down to investigate problem 9 US: PRN: Dominion Ends Alert at Millstone Power Station 10 Ottawa Citizen: Transformer fire sparks shutdown at nuclear plant 11 Sofia News Agency: Civic Referendum on Bulgaria's Sole Nuclear Plant 12 London Free Press: Bruce nuclear fire causes oil spill NUCLEAR SECURITY 13 [NYTr] New Campaign Beats the Drums for War with Iran 14 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: U.S. Scholar: N. Korea to Unload Nuke Fue 15 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: N. Korea Could Boost Nuclear Capability: 16 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: Japanese Legations to Take Claims from Ko 17 US: Washington post: Lost: One H-Bomb. Call Owner 18 US: APP.COM: Enriched uranium missing from company 19 Xinhua: IAEA reports removal activities at Iraqi nuclear sites 20 Xinhua: DPRK condemns "US fabrication" on exporting nuclear substanc 21 Xinhua: Iran raps US deadline on Iran-EU nuclear talks 22 AFP: Iran says EU nuclear incentives not enough 23 LA Times: S. Korea Rejects Response With U.S. to N. Korea Collapse 24 Al Jazeera: Dismantling of key Iraqi nuclear sites worries IAEA - 25 US: lamonitor.com: Homeland Security director assesses terrorist pot NUCLEAR SAFETY 26 US: [RADFOOD] The Minnesota Struggle 27 US: Deseret News: CDC says it's 'committed' to learning nuclear effe 28 US: The Mercury: Is cancer a nuclear plant fallout? 29 US: The Indiana Star: Accident closes toll road 30 AFP: US study finds H-bomb tests still causing cancer in Marshalls 31 Ynetnews: Reactor employees seek damages 32 Yokwe: Gathering to remember nuclear impacts on the Marshall Islands 33 US: PISJ: Crapo to offer bill for victims of testing - First he want NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 34 Las Vegas SUN: Las Vegas mayor worried about possible rail car disas 35 US: Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star: Spent-fuel storage 'secure' 36 US: Lawrence Journal-World: Professor joins study of radioactive was 37 Las Vegas RJ: HAZARDOUS CARGO: Rail car disaster looms, mayors say 38 Las Vegas RJ: GOP chairman expects thorough e-mail probe 39 US: Casper Star-Tribune: High uranium prices prompt expansion of Wyo 40 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Homeland clarifies position on study of stora 41 AFP: NKorea ready to reprocess spent nuclear fuel into plutonium - 42 US: PE.com: Officials discover another tainted well 43 UK The Times: Salmond under nuclear attack 44 US: The Signal: Water District About-Face Upsets Allies 45 US: Bradenton Herald: Tallevast neighbors: 'It's hard to believe' 46 US: Bradenton Herald: Tallevast plume reaches 131 acres 47 US: AP Wire: Tallevast's groundwater woes more widespread than thoug PEACE US DEPT. OF ENERGY ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 Mehr News: Most Europeans back Iran’s nuclear rights MehrNews.com - TEHRAN, April 17 (MNA) – Iran announced on Sunday that most European states support the Islamic Republic’s right to make use of nuclear energy for civilian purposes and there are only some differences over objective guarantees that Iran’s nuclear program will remain peaceful. “There is a new approach among most European countries that Iran has an inalienable right to make peaceful use of nuclear technology,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told a regular news briefing. “Currently, the issue of objective guarantees is not clear to them (Europeans) and efforts should be made to specify the issue and we hope the Europeans would present clear proposals for reaching objective and firm guarantees.” Iran, in a goodwill gesture has suspended all uranium enrichment-related activities to prove that its nuclear program is only geared for producing electricity to meet the rising demands but it has announced the suspension would be short-lived and cannot last for a long time. “The (uranium enrichment) suspension is a voluntary and temporary decision and will not last long,” Asefi said. “In the next meetings it will become clear where we go.” Negotiators from Iran and the European Union trio (France, Britain, and Germany) are to hold talks Tuesday in Geneva in a working group, ahead of a meeting of senior foreign ministry officials from the two sides scheduled for April 29 in London. The Foreign Ministry spokesman hit out at a statement by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice who had told the Wall Street Journal that Washington is giving European efforts to rein in Iran's nuclear program a few more months before considering tougher measures. "For the moment, it's best for the Americans to follow the process from the grandstand as spectators, and leave negotiators to do their job." “We ourselves believe that the negotiations should reach a conclusion as soon as possible” but countries like the United States which are trying to weaken the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) by their actions are not in a position to preach others on proliferation of nuclear weapons. Iraq hostage standoff in line with occupiers’ interests Asefi condemned the hostage standoff in Iraq and said this is a suspicious act which runs counter to the wills of the Iraqi people, saying, “We are against any move which takes place against the Iraqi people.” “Those people who cause instability in Iraq are trying to show that the government is not able to secure the country and create more problems in order to prepare the ground for the presence of others.” “Now that the Iraqi president has been chosen and the government is taking shape such acts are done by those persons who are against the stability of Iraq.” Iraqi troops rescued several Shiite hostages Sunday after they battled their way into the city of Al-Madain where Sunni extremists abducted dozens of people and threatened to kill the town's Shiite residents. A Defense Ministry official told AFP that police forces entered the town at 9:00 am (05H00 GMT) and encountered severe resistance from the terrorists. Government forces have recaptured half of the town and freed 10 to 15 families held hostage by the gunmen, he said, adding that the clashes were continuing. Officials have suggested the number of Shiite hostages in town could be as high as 80. © 2003 Mehr News Agency ***************************************************************** 2 North County Times: Back to basics on energy North San Diego and Southwest Riverside County columnists Saturday, April 16, 2005 9:18 PM PDT By: North County Times - Editorial Our View: For the sake of our troops, our economy and our children, this nation deserves a coherent energy policy. Government must rapidly phase out subsidies to oil companies, impose tough new efficiency standards, kill regulations that help refiners gouge California drivers, and allow market forces to wean this nation from dependence on foreign energy sources. Our state and federal lawmakers are beginning to panic about high gasoline prices, as constituent outcry begins to intrude upon those fancy fund-raising dinners in Washington and Sacramento. But gas isn't the half of it. Electricity and natural gas prices have more than doubled. Coal is more expensive around the world, stoked by demand from steel-makers. Talk of new nuclear power plants has sparked a rush to dig for uranium. Experts debate whether an end to cheap energy has arrived. As energy costs bite family budgets and threaten economies, cash is flowing to oppressive regimes in the Middle East, where U.S. troops have died in two wars in just the last 15 years. Into this mess wades Congress, which has been gridlocked on an energy bill since 2001. Crafted by Republicans, it is an atrocity of central planning, larded with goodies for farmers and lavish gifts to the oil industry. It is past time to invoke some guiding principles and apply the lessons of past energy crises: + For openers, the Republicans who run Washington must relearn that markets are the best allocators of scarce resources as well as the nation's prime engine of innovation. Billions in subsidies since 1974 for ethanol production, oil exploration and "clean coal" technology have mostly been wasted. Innovators will find our next energy sources, not bureaucrats. + Government's role is primarily to set energy efficiency and other standards. Here, the Republicans have lost their way: Conservation fits conservative ideology. Federal standards for fuel economy, building insulation, heat-reflecting windows and efficient appliances have produced dramatic cuts in consumption. This is the chief reason prices haven't crippled the U.S. economy. Markets do a lousy job encouraging long-range efficiency investments -- here is where government intervention is vital. Gasoline mileage for cars must increase substantially, and other efficiency standards can ratchet up a notch. + Similarly, government must set pollution limits and then get out of the way. Oil refiners are able to gouge California because local regulators crafted a unique gas formula. The feds must end this practice, set a single air quality benchmark for the entire nation, then let oil companies sell any fuel that will burn cleanly. That way, fuel can move across state lines to ease shortages and push down prices. + Opening up the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling is not the answer. Our society will need oil for decades to come, but selling off parks to marginally boost domestic production is a bad trade-off. + It may be time for a "moon shot" approach to finding a new energy source. Government can fund basic research in materials science, fuel technology and subatomic electronics without lavishing tax dollars on big business. + Regulators must vigorously enforce antitrust laws. Here again, the dominant Republicans have blown it. Teddy Roosevelt would be rightly alarmed at the oil industry's behavior of late. For the first time in 100 years, the oilies are cutting exploration budgets in a time of tight supplies and record profits -- a serious threat to the economy. Industry consolidation is the most likely cause. The spike in energy prices has not yet tipped into crisis. With smart leadership, this nation can raise its standards and still unshackle market forces to reduce its vulnerability to unstable energy supplies. webmaster@nctimes.com 1997-2005 North County Times - Lee Enterprises editor@nctimes.com ***************************************************************** 3 Guardian Unlimited: Bush Prods Congress on Energy Legislation From the Associated Press [UP] Saturday April 16, 2005 3:16 PM AP Photo OHTD102 By DEB RIECHMANN Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush prodded Congress on Saturday to pass a long-stalled national energy strategy, saying American families and small businesses are feeling the pinch from rising gasoline prices. ``If you're trying to meet a family budget or a payroll, even a small change at the pump can have a big impact,'' Bush said in his weekly radio address. Bush is using concern over the recent spike in fuel prices to pressure lawmakers into passing an energy bill set for a vote next week. Although the House bill is focused in the long term on diversifying the nation's energy supply and increasing production, it is not likely to provide immediate relief at the pump. According to the Energy Department, prices are expected to remain well above $2 a gallon through the busy summer driving season. Republicans included two controversial provisions in the House bill: a green light to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska and a shield against product liability lawsuits for makers of the gasoline additive MTBE, which has been linked to groundwater contamination. Democrats have criticized the measure for failing to deal with gas-guzzling automobiles. They also oppose drilling in the Alaskan wildlife refuge - an item that likely would be left out of the Senate's energy bill because it would attract a Democratic-led filibuster and could jeopardize passage of the legislation. ``Today our energy needs are growing faster than our domestic sources are able to provide,'' Bush said. ``Demand for electricity has grown more than 176 percent in the past decade, while our transmission ability lags behind. And we continue to import more than one-half of our domestic oil supply.'' The House energy bill is tilted heavily toward helping traditional energy industries - mainly coal, oil and natural gas - and offers little to encourage energy efficiency. Less than $500 million in tax incentives are directed at renewable energy and efficiency programs. Bush said the legislation must encourage the use of technology to improve conservation and production at home in environmentally sensitive areas. Moreover, he believes the bill must diversify the nation's energy supply by developing alternative sources of energy like ethanol or biodiesel. The House measure would boost production of corn-based ethanol, a boon to farmers, by requiring refiners to use at least 5 billion gallons a year as a gasoline additive. In his broadcast, Bush said the nation must promote the use of safe, clean nuclear power and create more energy choices. ``Congress should provide tax credits for renewable power sources such as wind, solar and landfill gas,'' he said. ``We must also continue our clean coal technology projects so that we can use the plentiful source of coal in an environmentally friendly way. The bill must also support pollution-free cars and trucks, powered by hydrogen fuel cells instead of gasoline.'' Any future energy strategy must also help find more reliable ways to deliver energy to consumers, the president said. ``In some parts of the country, our transmission lines and pipelines are decades older than the homes and businesses they supply,'' he said. ``Many of them are increasingly vulnerable to events that can interrupt and shut down power in entire regions of the country.'' Guardian Unlimited Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005 ***************************************************************** 4 Sunday Herald: SNPs nuclear poll claims mass Trident opposition By Liam McDougall ALMOST 80% of Scots oppose government plans to purchase a nuclear alternative to Trident, according to a poll. The new research, carried out last month by System Three and commissioned by the Scottish National Party, found that voters of all political persuasions were against a new nuclear missile system. Scots were asked: Would you support or oppose the government buying a new nuclear missile system to replace Trident? While 13% said they would support plans for the British government to spend billions on an updated nuclear deterrent, 78% said they would oppose the move. Of the 1000 voters polled in March, 69% of traditional Conservative voters said they would be against the move, as were 79% of Labour voters and 82% of those who would normally vote Liberal Democrat; 87% of Scottish Socialist Party voters opposed it while the biggest opposition came from SNP voters, who registered 89%. Last night, the results triggered a political row. As SNP leader Alex Salmond said the results of the poll sent a clear message of Scotlands determination to rid itself of Trident, Labour hit back by accusing the nationalists of playing politics with the jobs of thousands of workers based at the Faslane naval base on the Clyde, where Trident is based. Yesterday, Salmond and Joanna Strathdee, the partys candidate for Gordon, were in Inverurie to campaign against nuclear dumping sites in Scotland. Across the country, SNP candidates were out in force to campaign against the sites. Salmond said: Scots know that the only weapons of mass destruction [WMDs] associated with Tony Blair are those stationed on the Clyde. Parliament is due to decide after the election whether or not to replace Trident. This poll sends a clear message to the London parties that Scotland says no to new nuclear weapons on her shores. The SNP are the only party who can make the wishes of the Scottish people matter in May. Rather than spending billions on WMDs of our own, we should be investing in Scotlands priorities. However, a spokesman for the Labour Party said: It is hardly surprising that when you pay a lot of money for polls you get the result you are looking for. This election is a choice between Michael Howard and Tony Blair. The nationalists, who are playing politics with the jobs of thousands of workers at Faslane, are utterly, utterly irrelevant to that. In the next parliament, the UK government will make a decision over whether to purchase a new missile system for the country. It is thought that the decision to upgrade Britains nuclear capability would cost the taxpayer around 20 billion. The government is considering the replacement of ageing missile systems with new submarines and brand new weapons from America. A range of options is being considered, including new, smaller, more advanced submarines, possibly equipped with long-range cruise missiles to succeed the Trident missile system . 17 April 2005 newsquest (sunday herald) limited. all rights reserved ***************************************************************** 5 Jakarta Post: RI seeks Japan's help in boosting competitiveness The Journal of Indonesia Today Business News April 18, 2005 Zakki P. Hakim, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta The Indonesian government was still seeking Japan's help in enhancing its own industrial competitiveness to optimize trade relations, in a bid to eventually establish a bilateral free trade agreement (FTA), a senior official said. "We emphasized cooperation to run simultaneously with the expected negotiations of trade and investment liberalization agreement," said Halida Miljani, who heads an Indonesian delegation at preparatory talks preceding a possible bilateral FTA. According to Halida, even if Japan opened its market 100 percent, Indonesia might not have an optimum benefit due to the country's inability to meet Japanese tastes and standards. "Therefore, we want to prioritize cooperation in establishing an FTA with Japan," she told The Jakarta Post and Investor Daily after returning from the talks in Tokyo. The Tokyo talks were the third meeting, after the first and the second in February and March in Jakarta and Bali, respectively. The preparatory talks, involving private sector businesspeople, academics and government officials, as well as representatives from non-government organizations, discussed trade in industrial goods, farm products, service and investment. Indonesia is urging Japan to facilitate personnel transfers, remove tariffs on forestry and fish products and support small businesses in this country. "The group just identified concerns, actual negotiations would not start before the two leaders agreed. But the negotiations would be based on the concerns raised at the preparatory talks," said Halida, who is a former ambassador to the World Trade Organization (WTO). During the talks, aside from seeking a cooperation to enhance local industrial competitiveness through Japan's assistance in developing domestic supporting industries, Indonesia raised other concerns in the agriculture and fisheries sectors. In Agriculture, Indonesia asked Japan to recognize the country as one that is free from hoof and mouth disease, so in the future Indonesia may export meat and dairy products. Indonesia also sought Japan's support in strengthening local tuna fisheries management, as well as combating illegal fishing in the country's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). Meanwhile, Japan requested that Indonesia work out investment rules and eliminate tariffs on vehicles and auto parts. Halida said that Japan sought explanations about Indonesia's rules in investment in oil, natural gas and mining, as well as in the power sector. "They were asking about the annulment of Law No.20/2002 on electricity," she said, referring to a controversial ruling handed down by the Constitutional Court recently. Furthermore, Japan wants greater liberalization in the financial services industry, particularly non-banking financial services, including insurance. Also, responding to Indonesia's request, Japan was reviewing rules to give a possibility for unskilled workers to be placed as permanent employees in Japan, she said. Expectations for an FTA between the two are high following recommendations from a joint study, which concluded that an FTA would further enhance bilateral economic ties. The group expected the two country leaders to sign the FTA as soon as possible, as it would be ideal to have the talks, in conjunction with Japan's ongoing FTA negotiations with ASEAN, said Halida, who is also a special assistant to Minister of Trade Mari E. Pangestu. All contents copyright of The Jakarta Post. webmaster@thejakartapost.com ***************************************************************** 6 Bellona: US and Russia look for international aid to shut down Russias production reactors News Analysis In what has becoming an increasingly unpredictable, expensive and far overdue programme, the US Department of Energy (DOE) and its Russian counterparts are seeking international donations in their project to shut the last three remaining weapons-grade plutonium production reactors in Russia. Seversks still-operating weapons-grade plutonium production reactors. Bellona Archive Charles Digges, 2005-04-15 15:51 The weapons-grade plutonium producing reactors, two of which are located in the central Siberian city of Seversk, near Tomsk, and the other in Zheleznogorsk, near Krasnoyarskare the last three of Russias 13 production rectors to be shut down. The United States 14 production reactors have all been halted. The reactor shut-down program which was originally part of the US Department of Defenses Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) programme efforts in 1997, was in 2002 reassigned to the US Department of Energys (DOE) National Nuclear Safety Administration (NNSA), which spearheads DOE threat reduction efforts with Russia. The programme is currently known as the Elimination of Weapons-Grade Plutonium Production programme, and will replace the reactors with fossil fuel plants. Both the original and current programmes have experienced cost overruns that are equal to more than 100 percent of their respective anticipated costs. The joint US-Russian effort has now taken its troubles, hat in hand, before the international community to solicit further funding for the project. NNSA Administrator Linton Brooks. Bellona Archive The DOE has requested $132 million for the program in its fiscal year 2006 budget request, a 200 percent increase over the 2005 allocation. NNSA Administrator Linton Brooks, in a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee March 2, said that the budget request was fully adequate to shut down the two nuclear reactors at Seversk, the web-based Arms Control Today reported. But shutting down the third Russian plutonium-producing reactor in Zheleznogorsk entails constructing a new fossil fuel plant, a venture that, according to the DOE, requires at least $100m from international donors to meet its completion target date of 2011, said the web site. The DOEs budget request for fiscal year 2006, if it is approved by US Congress, will de-emphasise funding for activities at Zheleznogorsk compared to the fiscal year 2005 allocation because of the current emphasis on closing the two reactors at Seversk, and in anticipation of heightened international support for the Zheleznogorsk. The DOE, which in 2002 estimated project costs for building replacement fossile fuel plants at less than $470m, revised its position in 2003 after re-auditing cost projections to accommodate Russian inflation, rising labor costs, and contractor fees. Though the project baseline cost will not be determined by Moscow and Washington until June, reported Arms Control Today, nuclear officials on both sides of the ocean interviewed by Bellona Web have estimated that cost could skyrocket to nearly $1 billion. Canada and US join forces to shut down Russia Pu production reactors Canada and the United States announced that they have signed a memorandum of understanding aimed at closing one of the last reactors producing military grade plutonium in Russia, Ottawa and Washington said in a joint statement released in late February. Cash begins to drip in On February 8th and 9th, the United States took its first steps toward soliciting outside help by holding a conference in Spiez, Switzerland in an effort to convince attending states like Canada, Finland, Italy, the Netherlands, Russia, Slovakia, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom to pony up with donations, Arms Control Today reported. The conference, primarily sponsored by the Swiss government, discussed how to shift these communities away from the nuclear industry. Russian officials asked for aid in cleaning up decommissioned sites and creating new employment opportunities for thousands of nuclear workers who will be left jobless when the reactors are shut down. So far, the United Kingdom has pledged $20m to the effort, to be spread over a three-year period, and Canada has offered US $7m, spokesmen for both governments told Bellona Web. Technical Agreement for Plutonium Disposition Allowed to Lapse by US In a long-anticipated act of inaction, the US Government let expire a 1998 US-Russian agreement on technical cooperation for plutonium disposition over concerns that the agreement did not provide sufficient liability protections for US officials and contractors involved in the project, the National Nuclear Security Administration, or NNSA, and Russias nuclear regulatory agency confirmed. The history of the shut down agreement Agreement to shut the reactors down was reached by the Gore-Chernomyrdin commissiona lose confederation between Clinton-era Vice President Al Gore and then Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdinin 1994. The agreement stipulated that the reactors would no longer be producing weapons grade plutonium by no later than 2000. That agreement has overshot its deadline by several years, and according to accounts given by both Russian and DOE officials who have spoken to Bellona Web on the condition of anonymity, there is as yet, not even a blueprint as to how to begin decommissioning the three reactors. The joint effort, according to the Russian and US officials, employs at least 17 contractorseach of which has its own set of subcontractors, and all of whom are waiting for clear marching orders that have yet to be hammered out by US officials. A US General Accounting Office (GAO) report indicated in June 2004 that the sheer number of entities involved in the shutdown process, and the upwardly spiraling costs, threatened to collapse the programme under its own bureaucratic weight. The new official date for their closure was estimated in 2003 by another former Russian prime minister, Mikhail Kasyanov, and his US counterparts to be 2008 for Tomsk and 2011 for Zheleznogorska figure many in the DOE consider to be overly optimistic. Technical Agreement for Plutonium Disposition Allowed to Lapse by US In a long-anticipated act of inaction, the US Government let expire a 1998 US-Russian agreement on technical cooperation for plutonium disposition over concerns that the agreement did not provide sufficient liability protections for US officials and contractors involved in the project, the National Nuclear Security Administration, or NNSA, and Russias nuclear regulatory agency confirmed. CTRs handoff of the shut down programme The main shift in emphasis between the CTR programme and the DOE programme is the disposition of the reactors themselves. Both reactors provide heat and power for the approximately 400,000 residents of the closed cites, plus a portion of residents on Tomsks power grid. Originally, CTR had planned on a so-called core conversion project for the reactor. Core conversion in theory changes a reactors physics and makes it less likely to catch fire in the event that it looses coolant. It also allows reactors to run at reduced power levels, allowing for a margin of error should an emergency arise. But the US core conversion processoriginally estimated to cost $80mhad numerous fundamental and dangerous engineering flaws, say US physicists who were involved with the erstwhile project. Addressing these basic oversights soon ballooned the cost of core conversion to $800m. Soon thereafter, US government audits suggested the most effective means of shutting down the reactors while still maintaining heat and power for the concerned communities was to build or refurbish fossil fuel plants that are located nearby Seversk and Zheleznogorskat the previously anticipated cost of some $470m. Fossil Fuel Plant to Replace Zheleznogorsk Plutonium Reactor May Already Be Literal Fossil One hot morning in early July, three brick masons, carrying clinking shoulder packs, showed up for work at the Sosnovoborsk Heat and Electrical Central, known by its Russian abbreviation as TETs. The bomb-grade plutonium keeps coming As the reactors themselves have been kept running for the stated purpose of heating and powering their respective communities, it follows that the estimated 1,200 to 1,500 kilograms of weapons-grade plutoniumenough to make some 300 warheads a year that they produce would be rendered surplus as per the 2000 US-Russia Plutonium Disposition agreement. This agreement signed by former US president Bill Clinton and Russian President Vladimir Putin, stipulated that each country will dispose of 34 tonnes each of weapons-grade plutonium declared surplus to its military need. The primary method for disposing of the fuel was mandated by the Bush administration to be via the use of MOX, or mixed uranium and weapons-grade plutonium fuel in specially retrofitted commercial reactorsdespite the significantly lower costs of immobilization. But the MOX programme hit a brick wall in late 2003 when the US State Department refused to renew an earlier 5-year-long research and information exchange agreement signed in 1998 between the two countries. The State Departments refusal to renew the programme was its insistence that 1998 agreement be renegotiated to include all stipulations in the CTR Umbrella Agreement, which was designed to exempt US nuclear dismantlement efforts in Russia from all liability. The Russians remain opposed to the Umbrella Agreement. Originally, the Russia side had agreed to incorporate at least that plutonium produced at the Seversk and Zheleznogorsk reactors, which is stored in oxide form on site at the respective plants. But the head of Russias Federal Agency for Atomic Energy (Rosatom)the defunct Ministry of Atomic Energys successorAlexander Rumyantsev has in recent months issued ambiguous statements about the fate of the plutonium produced in Seversk and Zheleznogorsk, largely, say Russian nuclear regulatory officials, out of frustration with the hard line US policies on liability and the uncertainty that the 2000 Plutonium Disposition agreement will ever reach the stage of implementation. The US and Russia have also turned to the international community for donations toward building Russias industrial scale MOX fabrication plant, which carried an estimated price tag of $2 billion. So far, only $800m has been forthcoming and few G-8 member countries have expressed interest in donating to the project. Even if the plan were built, though, it will require millions of dollars more for Russia to retrofit and build new reactors capable of handling the fuel in order to meet the 2000 agreements stipulated weapons-grade plutonium disposition quota of 2 tonnes per year. Meanwhile, Russias plutonium stocks, thanks to the Zheleznogorsk and Seversk reactors, will have increased by at least 3 tonnesenough for an estimated 3000 warheadsbeyond the original shut down date of 2000 by the project shut down date of 2008. 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 ***************************************************************** 7 DECATUR DAILY: Browns Ferry guards accept agreement SATURDAY, APRIL 16, 2005 By Samira Jafari Associated Press Writer MONTGOMERY  Security officers at the Tennessee Valley Authority nuclear power plant near Athens accepted a contract agreement Friday after two days of contract talks with Pinkerton Government Services. An earlier contract was rejected by union members. Union members voted 99-4 to accept the new contract. The contract increases pay by 25 percent to 30 percent, improves family health care coverage and adds one more paid holiday for guards at Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant. "It's considerably more than what we anticipated," said Eric McMillen, president of Local 22 of the United Government Security Workers of America, on Friday. "I'm elated, to be honest," McMillen said. "We got everything in our contract we asked for." Pinkerton spokesman Jim McNulty did not immediately return calls to The Associated Press on Friday. The officers' 4-year-old contract with TVA subcontractor Pinkerton expired March 1 after the new contract proposal was unanimously rejected by the union, which covers 130 Pinkerton officers at Browns Ferry. Leaders of the union said their wage and benefit troubles began in 1998, when TVA went from employing its own security officers to hiring a private security contractor. McMillen said the switch cut average hourly pay by about $4 to $12.85. Plus, the workload of the officers has significantly increased since security measures and training were heightened after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, but their wages are what they were eight years ago, he said. McMillen said the new contract increases the pay substantially, depending on how long each officer had worked for the company. TVA, the nation's largest public utility, stayed out of the contract talks between Pinkerton and its officers. Browns Ferry spokesman Craig Beasley said, "TVA continues to expect Pinkerton to provide the security force that we need. We feel the nuclear plants are the most secure in the country and we're going to keep them that way." Federal contractors like TVA are responsible for making sure their subcontractors meet wage and benefit requirements under the federal Service Contract Act, which provides for wage, safety and health standards on federal contracts, according to the Department of Labor. Copyright 2005 THE DECATUR DAILY. All rights reserved. THE DECATUR DAILY 201 1st Ave. SE P.O. Box 2213 Decatur, Ala. 35609 (256) 353-4612 www.decaturdaily.com ***************************************************************** 8 The Advocate: Nuclear reactor shut down to investigate problem Associated Press April 17, 2005 WATERFORD, Conn. -- A nuclear reactor at the Millstone Power Station shut itself down after detecting a problem Sunday morning, causing a release of non-radioactive steam into the air, a plant official said. Unit 3, one of two working reactors at the station, discovered a problem in the steam system at about 8:30 a.m. There was no release of radioactive material and no one was injured, said Pete Hyde, a spokesman for Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, owner of the complex. Federal officials said the plant was "stable." The plant released steam into the air most of Sunday as Millstone staff worked to completely shut down the unit. Some residents near the plant were concerned and called Millstone because the release of steam is not a usual event at the complex, Hyde said. The problem had not been identified Sunday. Millstone officials said Unit 3 would be shut down indefinitely while the problem is found and fixed. Dominion declared an alert, the second lowest of four action levels in Millstone's emergency response plan, at about 8:42 a.m. Local, state and federal officials were notified. The alert was canceled at about 7 p.m. The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission was monitoring the problem and opened its incident response center in King of Prussia, Pa. NRC inspectors were at Millstone. "The NRC is following this event closely," said Wayne Lanning of the NRC. "There has been no impact on public health and safety." The state Department of Environmental Protection also sent officials to the nuclear power complex to monitor the situation. Millstone has had similar shutdowns in the past, the last coming two years ago when Unit 2 went offline. A federal report determined that Millstone engineers did not do proper tests when they made changes to pumps and valves. The pumps malfunctioned. Fewer than 50 gallons of radioactive water leaked out, and some radioactive steam was released. Nuclear fuel is used to heat a primary water source, which then heats a secondary water source into steam that turns the plant's turbines to produce electricity. The secondary water source and steam are not radioactive. Hyde said the steam released from Unit 3 on Sunday was from the secondary water source and posed no health or environmental problems. "We're going to take the unit offline so we can take a look at all the systems to see what's going on," Hyde said. "There's no radioactivity. The plant responded as it was designed to do." Hyde said Millstone officials would not restart the plant until they were certain it was safe to do so. Millstone has 3 reactors. Unit 1 has been shutdown since 1995 and is dormant. Unit 2 is currently shut down for routine refueling. Hyde said Sunday's shutdown was not expected to affect the electricity grid, because the grid operator was going to transfer power from other areas if needed. Millstone 3 produces 1,215 megawatts of electricity a day, enough to power about 1,000 homes. Copyright 2005, The Associated Press [Aparrtments.com] 2005, Southern Connecticut Newspapers, Inc. All rights ***************************************************************** 9 PRN: Dominion Ends Alert at Millstone Power Station [PR Newswire - A United Business Media This is the logo for Dominion (NYSE: D), the United States' largest fully integrated natural gas and electric power company. The company's major subsidiaries are Dominion Energy, Dominion Exploration &Production, Dominion Retail, Dominion Virginia Power, Dominion North Carolina Power, Dominion East Ohio, Dominion Peoples, and Dominion Hope. Dominion's headquarters is in Richmond, Va. For more information, visit the company's Internet site atwww.dom.com. (PRNewsFoto) RICHMOND, VA USA 03/14/2005 www.dom.com WATERFORD, Conn., April 17 /PRNewswire/ -- Dominion ended an Alert at Millstone Power Station Unit 3 at 7:05 p.m. Sunday. An investigation into the cause of the event continues. (Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20000831/DLOGO ) Dominion declared an Alert, the second lowest of four emergency classifications used by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, at 8:42 a.m. Sunday after Unit 3 automatically shutdown because of indications of low steam pressure in the secondary piping system. The secondary piping system moves steam from the steam generator to the turbine. While a large release of steam from the secondary piping system occurred at the station, no one was injured and no release of radioactive material occurred beyond those small releases associated with normal station operations. Federal, state and local emergency response agencies were notified. Millstone Unit 3, a 1,150-megawatt pressurized water reactor, had been operating for 344 days continuously. The unit will remain shut down during the investigation. No decision has been made on when the unit will be restarted. Millstone Unit 2, an 870-megawatt unit, is being refueled and is not operating. Millstone Unit 1 is being decommissioned. The event Sunday began when Unit 3 shut down automatically at 8:29 a.m. The cause of the shutdown is not known at this time. Alan Price, site vice president-Millstone, said the company would investigate all aspects of the event and report those findings to the NRC. "Our operations personnel responded to the event quickly and effectively as they are trained to do, and they brought the unit to shutdown in a safe and orderly manner," said Price. No release of radioactive material occurred during the event beyond those small releases associated with normal station operations. These minor releases pose no danger to the public or station workers and are below federally approved operating limits, below natural background levels and cannot be detected at the site boundary. Dominion is one of the nation's largest producers of energy, with an energy portfolio of about 28,100 megawatts of generation, about 6 trillion cubic feet equivalent of proved natural gas reserves and 7,900 miles of natural gas transmission pipeline. Dominion also operates the nation's largest underground natural gas storage system with more than 965 billion cubic feet of storage capacity and serves retail energy customers in nine states. For more information about Dominion, visit the company's Web site at http://www.dom.com. SOURCE Dominion Web Site: http://www.dom.com ***************************************************************** 10 Ottawa Citizen: Transformer fire sparks shutdown at nuclear plant canada.com network Canadian Press April 16, 2005 TIVERTON, Ont. -- A transformer fire at Ontario's Bruce B nuclear plant prompted the shutdown of one unit and caused some oil to spill into Lake Huron Friday evening. No one was injured in the fire, which occurred on the non-nuclear side of the plant, according to a statement issued by Bruce Power. It was extinguished quickly by an automatic sprinkler system. Insulating oil made its way to Lake Huron, likely through a storm drain, but officials say it contains no PCBs or radioactive material. Crews have since plugged the drain and set up a boom in the station's outflow to contain the mineral-oil based substance. Officials have reported the incident to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission as required. It is not yet known how long the affected unit -- Unit 6 -- will remain offline. Units 3, 5, 7 and 8 remain at high power. Unit 4 was taken offline for a scheduled inspection on March 12. Canadian Press 2005 Copyright CanWest Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. CanWest Interactive Inc. is an affiliate of CanWest Global Communications Corp. ***************************************************************** 11 Sofia News Agency: Civic Referendum on Bulgaria's Sole Nuclear Plant Underway www.novinite.com Krassimir Karakachanov (L), leader of nationalistic VMRO was among the first to cast a ballot in the referendum on the future of Bulgarias sole nuclear power plant Kozloduy that opened Sunday. Photo by G. Kostadinova (Sofia News Agency) | buy photo | Top news: 17 April 2005, Sunday. A civic referendum on the future of Bulgaria's sole nuclear power plant Kozloduy opened Sunday at the main entrance of the National Palace of Culture in Sofia. The referendum gives citizens an opportunity to offer their opinions by casting ballots, telephone calls, post or online vote. Ballot boxes will be opened across the country from April 17 till 24. Organizers of the referendum are the second pre-election right-wing coalition, which emerged at the end of February on the jagged spectrum, bringing together the Union of Free Democrats of Sofia Mayor Stefan Sofianski, the Agriculture Party (BZNS) of Anastasia Mozer and the nationalistic VMRO of Krassimir Karakachanov. They demand that the decision for Kozloduy units decommissioning be reconsidered to prevent electricity price hikes. Bulgaria closed two of the six units at its sole nuclear plant Kozloduy in 2003. The country has agreed with the EU to shut down two units at Kozloduy, which produces 40% of the country's power, by the end of 2006. The results of the referendum will be announced on the eve of Bulgaria's EU accession treaty signing on April 25 in Luxembourg.[ width=] NOVINITE.COM All Rights Reserved Novinite Ltd., 2001-2005 - Copyright Bulgaria news Novinite.com (Sofia News Agency - www.sofianewsagency.com) is unique with being a real time news provider in English that informs its readers about the latest Bulgarian news. The editorial staff also publishes a daily ***************************************************************** 12 London Free Press: Bruce nuclear fire causes oil spill TIVERTON -- A transformer fire at the Bruce B nuclear plant prompted the shutdown of one unit and caused some oil to spill into Lake Huron Friday evening. No one was injured in the fire, which occurred on the non-nuclear side of the plant, said a statement issued by Bruce Power. It was extinguished quickly by an automatic sprinkler system. Insulating oil made its way to Lake Huron, likely through a storm drain, but officials say it contains no PCBs or radioactive material. Crews have since plugged the drain and set up a boom in the station's outflow to contain the mineral-oil based substance. Copyright The London Free Press ***************************************************************** 13 [NYTr] New Campaign Beats the Drums for War with Iran Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2005 08:03:07 -0500 (CDT) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit New Propaganda Campaign Beats the Drums for War with Iran The arch-reactionary WorldNet Daily reported on April 13, 2005 that a new alarmist TV ad campaign is about to unleashed in 20 cities with propaganda about the "imminent" danger from a nuclear-capable Iran. It's being run by a group called The Iran Freedom Foundation, which also has a website, (which features the TV spot) and a book to peddle -- "Atomic Iran: How the Terrorist Regime Bought the Bomb and American Politicians." The Foundation appears to be funded by the same folks who brought you Swift Boat Veterans. The book (heavily promoted on the website) is by one Jerome R. Corsi, co-author of the Kerry-bashing book from the 2004 presidental campaign, "Unfit for Command." Corsi is a rabid right-wing attack dog who is favored by the worst talk-show hosts on Fox News. Some of his most lunatic pronouncements, besides being incredibly racist, homophobic, religiously bigoted and offensive, are nowhere to be found on the "Foundation's" website, which is designed to make him sound sane and scholarly. The site has a mission statement outlining the group's plans, including outreach to Iranian students in the US, broadcasting "news" to Iran, translation of the book to Farsi for Iranian readers, marches, etc. You can find out more about him on the Media Matters website. Links to all the above follow. excerpt from WorldNet Daily - Apr 13, 2005 http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=43766 Iran nuke commercial hits TV markets Spot depicting atomic terror attack in NYC to be seen in 20 cities A commercial produced by an organization fighting for the freedom of Iran that depicts a nuclear terror attack in America the kind many experts believe is possible should Tehran get the bomb will run in 20 markets across the country this month. Titled "An Atomic 9-11: When Evil is Appeased," the spot, sponsored by the Iran Freedom Foundation, is based on a scenario described in the new WND Books release "Atomic Iran: How the Terrorist Regime Bought the Bomb and American Politicians," by Jerome R. Corsi, co-author of the best-selling "Unfit for Command." -NY Transfer News The ad can be viewed on the IFF website. [...] Iran Freedom Foundation http://www.iranfreedomfoundation.org/default.php?page_id=1 Read more about Jerome Corsi on Media Matters: http://mediamatters.org/items/200408060010 See his mug here: http://www.blythe.org/users/rrichard/jerome_corsiahem.gif * Search the NYTr Archives at: http://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ To subscribe or unsubscribe or change your settings via the web, visit: http://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= ***************************************************************** 14 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: U.S. Scholar: N. Korea to Unload Nuke Fuel Rods This Month Home> National/Politics Updated Apr.17,2005 15:26 KST the coming weeks, but may freeze the production of nuclear arsenal only after direct talks with the U.S. under strict conditions. So says Selig Harrison, a Washington-based researcher at the Center for International Policy. He returned from Pyongyang last weekend. Harrison quoted top North Korean officials as saying, Pyongyang plans to unload plutonium fuel rods from its nuclear plant in Yongbyon and reprocess them for three months. Harrison says this will give them 8,000 more spent fuel rods, which is enough to double the country's existing stash of nuclear bombs that some experts have estimated at six to eight. But North Korean officials reportedly told Harrison that a possible freeze is contingent upon either official or unofficial contact with Washington. Their conditions are mainly: an apology for U.S. State Secretary Condoleezza Rice's "outpost of tyranny" label, a pledge to respect the North's sovereignty and territorial integrity, willingness to coexist peacefully and no demands for a regime change. In Pyongyang, Harrison met with North Korea's Number Two in command Kim Yong-nam and senior foreign ministry officials including Kang Sok-ju and Kim Gye-gwan who relayed their preconditions. Harrison, a critic of the Bush administration's North Korea policy says Washington lost the chance to negotiate a step-by-step agreement toward nuclear dismantlement due to Pyongyang's frustrations over the lack of direct contact. Harrison pointed out that Pyongyang's new demand for formal relations is a victory for North Korea hard-liners, but complicates the stalled six-party nuclear dialogue. Arirang TV ***************************************************************** 15 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: N. Korea Could Boost Nuclear Capability: U.S. Expert Home> National/Politics Updated Apr.17,2005 18:33 KST director Selig Harrison, back from a recent trip to North Korea, said Friday that North Korea would begin removing fuel rods from its Yongbyon reactor this month, and if it reprocesses those fuel rods, it could double the number of nuclear weapons in North Koreas possession. Japans Asahi Shimbun reported Sunday quoting U.S. intelligence officials that North Korea shut down a 5,000 kw reactor in Yongbyon in April and could now remove spent fuel rods. The paper said the U.S. would send Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian Affairs Christopher Hill to Korea, China and Japan to discuss a response. Besides satellite photos, analysis of the temperature of the reactor's concrete wall and the amount of steam emitted from the complex confirmed it was shut down, the daily said. Harrison, who met with high-ranking North Korean officials while visiting the country from April 5 to April 9, said they told him North Korea was ready to discuss freezing its nuclear program either in the six-party talks or in direct negotiations with the U.S. But he said Pyongyang was not ready to dismantle the program until it has completely normalized relations with Washington. North Korea reiterated it wanted to negotiate from a position of equality since both it and the U.S. are nuclear powers, Harrison said. Pyongyang wants Washington to dismantle its nuclear weapons deployed in South Korea and the surrounding area. The director said North Korea was asking the U.S. to respect its sovereignty, be willing to coexist peacefully with the North and not pursue regime change. He said the U.S. should agree to these demands and quickly restart negotiations. (Heo Yong-beom, heo@chosun.com ) ***************************************************************** 16 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: Japanese Legations to Take Claims from Korean A-Bomb Victims Home> National/Politics Updated Apr.17,2005 21:53 KST Nagasaki may soon be able to claim healthcare benefits from Japanese legations in Korea. Japan's Asahi Shimbun daily reported Sunday that Tokyo decided to allow its legations abroad to accept applications for healthcare benefits from nuclear bomb victims living overseas who cannot come to Japan due to old age or illness. The system is first expected to be applied in Korea, home to many victims imperial Japan drafted into forced labor in the two cities, where they fell victim to the bomb at the end of World War II. The Asahi said the plan, which Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is to unveil at a Korea-Japan summit slated for late June, was to help ease tensions in the relationship between the neighbors caused by Japanese claims to Korea's Dokdo islets. It said Japan told Korea it was considering the step when their foreign ministers met on April 7. At present even certified atomic bomb victims with health cards have to go to Japan and apply to a regional government there for healthcare benefits of some Y34,000 (about US$300) a month. The fresh plan does not eliminate all inconvenience as it will still require victims to go to Japan for new health cards. The Asahi said the Japanese Foreign Ministry could also send Japanese doctors to overseas legations to examine victims of the atomic bombings. Japan estimates that there are about 4,500 victims of the atomic bombs living outside Japan, primarily in Korea and China. It estimates that 3,500 of them had health cards to claim benefits as of December. (englishnews@chosun.com ) ***************************************************************** 17 Washington post: Lost: One H-Bomb. Call Owner After 47 Years, a WMD Remains AWOL By Clark Rumrill Special to The Washington Post Sunday, April 17, 2005; Page D01 Just after midnight on Feb. 5, 1958, two U.S. Air Force jets, each traveling 500 mph, collided 35,000 feet over the Georgia countryside. Improbably, all four crew members survived and the accident might have passed into dim memory if not for the thermonuclear weapon jettisoned off Tybee Island, Ga. The bomb is still there. Howard Richardson, now a retired Air Force colonel, with a B-47 model. He landed the bomber safely after it was heavily damaged during a routine practice mission that went horribly awry. (Rogelio Solis -- AP) After a weeks-long search, it was "declared irretrievably lost on 16 April 1958," the Air Force reported four years ago in an assessment of whether to conduct a new search and recovery mission. It concluded that "it is in the best interest of the public and the environment to leave the bomb in its resting-place." The Navy Supervisor of Salvage, the report noted, didn't think the bomb could be found. Energy Department engineers' best guess was that it lay "buried nose-down, probably 5-15 feet below the seabed." Clearly, the Air Force would have been glad to let it go at that. However, it did not count on the determination of Derek Duke, a 60-year-old retired Air Force officer who lives nearby and for more than six years has been searching for the bomb in the waters around Tybee Island, about 16 miles from Savannah. Responding to Duke's claim that he had found an area of high radiation the Air Force returned last September to look again. The report on the new search has not been released. Maj. Stephanie Holcombe, an Air Force spokeswoman, says the "coordination process" is proceeding slowly but she hopes the report will be out by the end of this month. It would close another chapter in the saga of Bomb No. 47782. The story, based on interviews with the three living crew members, the Air Force accident report and other Defense and Energy Department documents, begins with a routine Cold War training mission gone awry. 3:58 p.m., Feb. 4, 1958 On a clear day, pilots departing to the north from Homestead Air Force Base in Florida occasionally can see a Cape Canaveral rocket launch, particularly spectacular from the air. But not on this February day. Maj. Howard Richardson, 36, and his two-man crew take off in a U.S. Strategic Air Command bomber, and turn west toward New Orleans. The B-47 is on a two-plane practice mission designed to mimic the requirements of wartime attacks on targets in the Soviet Union. Typically these flights include an aerial refueling, a round trip of about 5,000 miles at speeds up to 600 mph and an electronic "bomb drop" scored by a ground station in Europe or North America. To add verisimilitude to the SAC exercises, the bombers are often "attacked" along the way by Air Force fighters. On this mission, the B-47 carries in its bomb bay an 11-foot-7-inch-long, 7,600-pound Mk 15 Mod 0 thermonuclear weapon, another touch of realism, although the bombs on SAC training runs usually do not contain a full load of fissionable uranium or plutonium. Over the Gulf of Mexico, it tops off its fuel tanks, a delicate maneuver. Near New Orleans, Richardson turns north and flies to a point near the Canadian border, then turns south to make a bombing run on the radar scoring facility at Radford, Va. The B-47 drops an electronic "bomb" and heads toward home. After covering 4,000 miles in eight hours, the crew is ready to relax for the last several hundred miles. Richardson is assured by a message from headquarters that everything south of Virginia is friendly territory and "enemy" fighters will not operate there. But at Charleston Air Force Base in South Carolina, Lt. Clarence Stewart, 23, two other pilots and three crew chiefs, are in the alert shack near the end of the runway. During a typical 12-hour tour, they will play cards, read, sleep, drink coffee and wait for the horn to go off. Their instructions are that they can attack Richardson's plane any time before it lands in Florida. Their three F-86L aircraft are fueled, armed and connected to power carts, ready for the start of a near-supersonic ascent to a game of cat-and-mouse six miles overhead. 12:09 a.m., Feb. 5, 1958 The horn in the alert shack blares. Air Defense Control radar has picked up a single plane about 180 miles to the north. It fails to spot the second B-47 flying in the mission. The F-86 crew chiefs race outside, the pilots strap in, and in 50 seconds the turbines are turning. The planes are airborne about three minutes later. Radar ground control directs the pilots to a point several thousand feet above and about 15 miles behind Richardson's oblivious B-47. This brings the bomber within airborne radar range and permits the fighters to gain enough speed to overtake it. With the target in range, the F-86 pilot looks down at his radar scope to plan the attack. If he looks up to check the sky around him, he could lose the target's track. Stewart's F-86 locks onto a plane. But his radar does not spot the second plane, the one ground radar also missed. Tracking the B-47 several thousand yards ahead, he is unaware he is descending on Richardson's plane directly in front of him. Feeling turbulence, Stewart looks up from the radar screen -- it is a bright moonlit night and visibility is excellent -- and sees the sky is "filled with airplane." His reflexes, providentially, tell him to roll his plane to the right. The ground station records a distinct radio "click" as the planes collide. Flight Paths Maj. Howard Richardson and Lt. Clarence Stewart were born and raised in Mississippi and their lifelines may have crossed before that night in 1958. Richardson's father practiced medicine in rural Winston County, delivering several thousand babies, starting in 1907. Stewart's mother, born in Winston County in 1910, before the state kept birth records, could well have been one of those babies. In any case, the two young men both developed an interest in flying. Discussing his career at his home outside Jackson, Miss., a year ago, Richardson says he was a college student when the United States entered World War II. He joined the Army in late 1942, took pilot training and was stationed in England as a B-17G pilot. He flew 35 combat missions over France and Germany in a bomber named "Mississippi Miss." After the war, he received a degree from Mississippi State University and joined the FBI. While he was in agent training at the FBI Academy in Quantico, the Air Force offered him a regular commission and a career in flying. He returned to active duty in 1947. Stewart, on the other hand, just looked up at the sky one day in 1948 and found his calling. "When I was 14, I was plowing a field behind a mule in the Mississippi Delta and a crop-dusting plane came over," he says over lunch near his home in Fort Walton Beach, Fla. "We didn't see many planes in those days and it scared the living [expletive] out of my mule. Right then I decided being a pilot would be a whole lot more fun than using a mule's [behind] for a compass the rest of my life." He located the crop-duster's pilot and signed on with him to do odd jobs. By 16 he had learned to fly and undertook 30 or 40 crop-dusting assignments, mostly on weekends. He went on to Sunflower Junior College in Moorhead, where one night in 1953, Stewart says, he and several acquaintances heard that an alligator had been caught in the nearby countryside. They purchased it, although memories differ on the price. Stewart remembers $5 but his friend Thomas Taylor, a retired county agricultural agent living outside Greenwood, Miss., recalls$10. One night shortly thereafter, between the first and second acts of the Sunflower spring operetta, the alligator was released into the school fishpond. (This fine body of water covers about two acres and can be seen to this day on the campus of what has been renamed Mississippi Delta Community College.) Word got around, and the third act of the operetta had to be canceled when everyone raced to the pond to see if there actually was an alligator in it. There was. One thing led to another, Stewart says, and his academic deferment from Korean War duty suddenly became inoperative. He volunteered for the Air Force, went to flying school, thrived, and some years later wound up in the moonlit sky over Georgia on a cold winter night. 12:33:30 a.m., Feb. 5, 1958 The pilot and co-pilot of the B-47 see a bright flash as a tremendous jolt rocks the plane. Calipers in the navigator's hand bounce to the floor. A look from the pilots' position, assisted by the bright moonlight, shows the far right engine canted up at a 30-degree angle and the right external fuel tank missing. The collision rips the left wing off the F-86. When the fuel accumulation tank bursts, the right wing is blown off. Stewart, startled to realize he is flying a wingless aircraft, ejects. Richardson and his crew are as prepared as any B-47 crew in the Air Force for an in-flight emergency. Three months before, Richardson and co-pilot Robert Lagerstrom say, they came in third -- out of 1,000 crews -- in the Strategic Air Command Bombing and Navigation Competition. Richardson has clocked more than 1,000 hours in the aircraft, served as an instructor pilot and is well acquainted with the capabilities and peculiarities of the B-47. The severely misaligned engine is still producing power, causing the plane to roll. Richardson cuts the fuel to it, then drops the left external fuel tank to better trim the aircraft. He takes the B-47 down to 20,000 feet, cuts the speed, extends the flaps and lowers the wheels to determine if he can land safely. The plane remains stable at 240 miles an hour and Richardson heads for nearby Hunter Air Force Base outside Savannah. The Hunter tower advises that repair work has left an 18-inch drop at either end of the runway. If the B-47 lands short, the landing gear and dangling engine could snag, sending the 7,600-pound payload hurtling through the cockpit and down the runway at 200-plus mph. To avoid such an undesirable outcome, at about 1:10 a.m. Richardson informs SAC headquarters he'll ditch the bomb in the Atlantic. Pilots, like ship captains, have wide latitude in safety matters, and he does not feel obliged to wait for a reply. Moments after he pitches it into the saltwater near Tybee Island, SAC tells him to drop it 20 miles out. Losing almost four tons of weapon lowers the projected landing speed and makes the B-47 easier to control, but the landing still is anything but routine. Richardson comes in at about 225 mph, 80 mph faster than normal at that weight, using full rudder and holding the right wing as high as possible to keep the damaged engine from dragging. The plane glances off the runway, becoming airborne again. The 16-foot-diameter runway-brake parachute is deployed in the air, a use for which it was not designed, and the plane hits the runway a second time and slows. ("We turned off the runway, shut down the engines and got the hell out of there," co-pilot Lagerstrom says .) It is 1:33 a.m. Stewart, meanwhile, is about 35,000 feet over Sylvania, Ga., in minus-50-degree air, wearing a thin flying suit and no gloves -- they have holes and Stewart had taken them off so they wouldn't snag on the radar control knob. The ejection system is designed to open his parachute at about 12,000 feet, but he isn't counting on it. He pulls the ripcord just after ejecting and is rewarded with a very long, very cold ride east across the Savannah River to a spot two miles west of Garnett, S.C. Although he has scant protection from the cold, he does have an oxygen bottle to help him breathe in the thin atmosphere. In about 30 minutes he travels six miles vertically and 22 miles horizontally. As Stewart describes it, he touches down "in a little clearing in the biggest damn swamp in South Carolina," a lucky landing, but the temperature is just 35 degrees, according to the Air Force accident report. He inflates his life raft, turns it upside down and huddles beneath it, wrapped in his parachute. After several hours he hears an aircraft and fires the flare gun in his survival kit. His frozen fingers fumble and the flare barely misses his toes before plowing into the parachute. The plane fails to spot this interesting fiasco, but the ruckus does awaken a sleeping dog. In due course forest ranger Andy Walker appears, convinced he's caught a poacher. By sunrise Stewart is wrapped in a blanket next to a wood stove, drinking some fine, untaxed South Carolina whiskey. Because long-distance calls are expensive and because he considers the matter official government business, Stewart calls Charleston AFB collect to report his survival. Citing regulations, the base operator refuses to accept the call. Walker graciously foots the bill for the call and drives Stewart to the Walterboro hospital, where his hands are soaked in ice water -- appropriate treatment for frostbite. There an Air Force helicopter fetches him and returns him to his base. Stewart remains in the hospital for a month while doctors work to save his badly swollen and discolored fingers. At one point they recommend amputating all or parts of five of them, a prospect that so horrifies him, Stewart says, that he threatens to desert from the hospital. In addition to defending his fingers, Stewart must face an accident board, a proceeding designed to prevent future accidents rather than affix individual responsibility. He is not convinced of the board's benign purpose. "What they really wanted to do was fry my young [posterior]," he says. That becomes impossible when the device that recorded his plane's radar images is found five weeks later and several miles away. It was part of the canopy assembly and had been blown out of the aircraft during ejection. The device confirms that the F-86's radar had indeed focused on the B-47 farthest away and somehow "missed" Richardson's looming aircraft. One might imagine that a plane with both wings missing would smash into the ground and disintegrate. In fact, Stewart's F-86 did not. The tail surfaces apparently provided some gliding capability and, bizarrely, the aircraft hit the ground almost horizontally four miles from Sylvania, near Whitehill, Ga. That Pesky Nuke After 47 years, the Mk 15, a thermonuclear weapon with a design power at least 60 times the Hiroshima bomb, remains underwater within perhaps 16 miles of downtown Savannah. Despite adamant denials by the Air Force that the bomb is a threat, Derek Duke says, "It's still out there and anything could happen in the future. Maybe terrorists could come up with a new technology that would let them do with it as they wish." (The bomb off Tybee Island wasn't the only nuclear weapon to be dropped unintentionally by a U.S. Air Force plane. Air Force records outline three refueling incidents involving nuclear-armed bombers that led to the unscheduled release of eight weapons. (The most publicized incident took place in January 1966, during the refueling of a B-52 over Palomares, Spain, and killed seven of 11 crew members. Of the B-52's four weapons, one parachuted to earth and was recovered intact; two hit land and were destroyed when their high-explosive triggers went off, spreading plutonium dust over several hundred acres; and one landed in the Mediterranean and was recovered by a midget sub several months later.) The Air Force Nuclear Weapons and Counterproliferation Agency, in an April 12, 2001, report on the possible recovery of the Tybee weapon, states that it contains an unspecified amount of uranium and 400 pounds of high explosives. That sounds ominous, but weapons-grade uranium is a strange substance. If present in more than a specific critical mass it explodes spontaneously, with massive power and the familiar mushroom cloud. The radiation given off by a less-than-critical mass of weapons-grade uranium, however, is primarily alpha particles, which "can't penetrate tissue paper," according to Billy W. Mullins, former associate director of nuclear and counterproliferation for the Air Force. He adds that low radioactivity of subcritical weapons-grade uranium would make it unsuitable for use in a terrorist's "dirty bomb" should the Tybee bomb ever be dug up. In addition, while the design of the weapon has not been made public, evidence leans toward it being a gun-type nuclear weapon. To explode this type of bomb, a capsule containing one subcritical piece of uranium is fired into another, with their combined mass setting off the fission reaction. The nuclear safety technique of choice through 1957-58 was to keep the core of fissionable material (the "capsule") separate from the body of the weapon. In wartime, a second capsule could be inserted promptly in a quick-opening aperture. Before that fateful flight, Richardson signed a receipt for the Mk 15 cautioning him not to "allow any active capsule to be inserted into it at any time." That supports the Air Force assertion in 2001 that the weapon had a removable capsule. And Richardson strongly maintains that for the training mission he did not receive a nuclear capsule. Without the second capsule, any danger still presented by the Tybee bomb is from the 400 pounds of conventional explosives or from humans somehow ingesting uranium that might escape from the bomb and its silt prison. The initial 1958 search for the weapon covered an area of three square miles and lasted nine weeks before the bomb was declared "irretrievably lost." The same area was the site of the 1996 Summer Olympics yachting competition. The second search, in September 2004, was undertaken in response to Duke's assertion that he had found a hot spot of radiation near where the bomb is believed to have fallen. Although the final report from the interagency team has not yet been released, the Associated Press reports that an April 4 letter to a Georgia newspaper from Col. James DeFrank, the Air Force deputy director of public affairs, said no "significant" levels of radiation were detected. The team reportedly concentrated its efforts in an area the size of a football field. Silvered Wings Clarence Stewart went on to fly 130 1/2 combat missions in Southeast Asia, he says, won the Silver Star and became a fighter squadron commander. After serving for more than 21 years, he retired, owned several restaurants, bought and sold Florida land and gained local renown for his creative services to the English language. Grateful for his rescue from the Carolina swamp, he showed Andy Walker his appreciation by inviting him to his wedding and going hunting with him regularly over the years. Howard Richardson became a B-47 squadron commander, moved on to B-52s and became commander of the Air Force Nuclear Weapons School. He earned an MBA and served in senior financial management positions with the Air Force, retiring as a full colonel after 31 years of service. For bringing the B-47 and its crew back safely, Richardson was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. The Air Force later contended the nuclear weapon was dropped at SAC's instruction, an assertion the pilot quietly but firmly disputes. He has on his wall at home a framed copy of Atomic Energy Commission form AL-569, revised 8-57, acknowledging his receipt on Feb. 4, 1958, of weapon serial number 47782. The form provides him, prophetically, with an office to contact in case the bomb should somehow get lost. Clark Rumrill was stationed at Hunter Air Force Base outside Savannah at the time of the incident. He heard of it over breakfast that morning. ***************************************************************** 18 APP.COM: Enriched uranium missing from company Asbury Park Press POSSIBLY THROWN IN TRASH Published in the Asbury Park Press 04/16/05 By TOM BALDWIN GANNETT STATE BUREAU TRENTON A small amount of enriched uranium went missing from a New Jersey company between March 30 and April 12, a spokesman for the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission confirmed Friday. The spokesman said the missing material does not pose a major health or safety threat as it is about one-eighth the amount of what a patient receives in a chest X-ray. But he stressed that officials are concerned that anything at all was lost. "Our concern is that radioactive material in the post-9/11 environment is properly controlled," NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said. He added later, "The concern is, this is material that is supposed to be tightly controlled, and it went to this laboratory, and now they cannot account for it." The company, Ledoux and Co., is in Teaneck, near the George Washington Bridge. For more than a century it has figured in some of the great mysteries and challenges in the precise world of assay, or determining purities of ores and other materials. Sheehan said about 3.3 grams of enriched uranium, a uranium aluminum powder, is missing. It was shipped from a factory in Virginia to Teaneck, he said. "The shipment arrived March 30. The lab discovered on April 12, last Tuesday, that this material was missing. They notified us the next day," Sheehan said. Sheehan, who said the NRC dispatched investigators to the site, said the amount compares in size to about one-tenth of a small paper clip, or one-tenth of an ounce. "The idea is the material may have been inadvertently disposed of in trash," Sheehan said. "The trash goes to a waste-transfer station. . . . From there to five different landfills, four in Pennsylvania and one in New York State." "The material is so small and the radioactive level is so low, it would not pose a hazard to public health. . . . We are continuing to get to the bottom of what happened," Sheehan said. the Asbury Park Press Copyright 2005 Asbury Park Press. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 19 Xinhua: IAEA reports removal activities at Iraqi nuclear sites www.xinhuanet.com www.chinaview.cn 2005-04-16 06:13:40 UNITED NATIONS, April 15 (Xinhuanet) -- Satellite imagery reveals "significant dismantling and removal activities" at 37 Iraqi sites linked to Saddam Hussein's clandestine nuclear program since his fall two years ago, but without on-site inspections no conclusions can be drawn, the UN atomic watchdog said in a new report issued Friday. Since the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has been largely absent from the country and has had to rely on satellite imagery and other analysis for its twice-yearly reports to the Security Council. Previously it had carried out widespread inspections of Saddam Hussein's nuclear installations in an effort to verify his obligation to destroy his weapons of mass destruction following the 1991 Persian Gulf War. "In the course of this assessment, IAEA also focused on areas where destroyed equipment from the former nuclear program had been stored or discarded," IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei said in the latest report. "Satellite imagery has indicated that at least one site containing buried contaminated rubble has been extensively excavated." "The above assessments, however, need to be followed up throughverification in Iraq in order for the agency to draw conclusions, "he added. He also said the IAEA has received no additional information that could shed light on the more than 340 tons of high explosives subject to UN monitoring that the Iraqi authorities reported stolen from a government facility last October. Enditem Copyright 2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 20 Xinhua: DPRK condemns "US fabrication" on exporting nuclear substances www.xinhuanet.com www.chinaview.cn 2005-04-17 18:14:18 PYONGYANG, April 17 (Xinhuanet) -- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Sunday condemned the United States on fabricating a sheer lie over the DPRK's exporting raw substances for nuclear weapons to Libya. "What is peculiar in the US fabrication of information and plot-breeding is that it uses dissident forces, those opposed to the political system in those countries incurring its displeasure and political exiles to fabricate sheer lie," said a commentary of Rodong Sinmun, the biggest daily in the country. According to the commentary, the US newspaper Washington Post disclosed a shocking fact that the US government offered to South Korea, Japan and other countries a fraud information that the DPRKexported raw substances for nuclear weapons to Libya in a bid to escalate pressure on Pyongyang. "This reveals once again that the US information is based on fiction and fabrication," the commentary said. The commentary said the White House committed the invasion of Iraq "on the basis of the fraud information premeditated and fabricated by it beforehand" and also took Iran's construction of an atomic power station as a good opportunity to intensify its hostile policy toward Tehran. Enditem Copyright 2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 21 Xinhua: Iran raps US deadline on Iran-EU nuclear talks www.xinhuanet.com www.chinaview.cn 2005-04-17 23:29:37 TEHRAN, April 17 (Xinhuanet) -- Iran lashed out Sunday at a reported US deadline of next summer set for the ongoing nuclear talks between Iran and the European Union (EU)."The Americans had better look on the negotiations in their right positi on and watch the negotiators of the two sides do their jobs by themselves," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid-Reza Asefi told reporters at his weekly news briefing. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was quoted as saying on April 14 that Washington would only wait and see the bilateral nuclear negotiations going on until next summer."I don't want to put a timeline on it, but I think we probably want to make an assessment this summer and see where we are and see how far we've gone," Rice was quoted. Rejecting the deadline, Asefi said Iran also opposes any prolongation of the talks and is trying to come to a quick conclusion. "Tehran will not let the Europeans waste any time, and I hope that the new round of talks next Tuesday will yield a conclusion,"Asefi said. The United States accuses Iran of developing nuclear weapons covertly and supports a referral of Iran's case to the United Nations Security Council. However, Washington has softened its stance recently and showed willingness to support EU's diplomatic efforts. Iran, rejecting the US accusation as "politically motivated",has held five rounds of nuclear talks with the EU since itsuspended its highly sensitive uranium enrichment activities in November 2004 to "build confidence". The ongoing negotiations have been stalled with uncompromisingstances of both sides. The EU insists Iran should halt all its work on building nuclear fuel cycles, while Tehran claims it will never give up its legitimate rights to nuclear technology. Enditem Copyright 2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 22 AFP: Iran says EU nuclear incentives not enough Saturday April 16, 09:36 PM TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran said it had not seen enough incentives from the European Union to pave the way for a deal over its controversial nuclear activities, ahead of a new round of talks next week. Senior negotiator Cyrus Nasseri warned that Tehran would pull out of the talks with the so-called EU3 without tangible progress, but said nevertheless that the negotiations were on the right track. He told the IRNA news agency that the European offers in the negotiations, aimed at allaying international concerns Iran is trying to build a nuclear bomb, were not enough. Britain, France and Germany have been trying to secure "objective guarantees" that Iran will not use its atomic energy ambitions to acquire weapons, and in exchange they are offering a package of trade, security, diplomatic and technology benefits Iran calls "firm guarantees." "We don't have much time for reaching a solution, time is limited and we will halt (negotiations) as soon as we feel we are not making tangible progress," Nasseri said ahead of a new round of discussions on April 19. However "the negotiations are on the right track ... leading to a wise, logical and balanced solution satisfactory to both sides," he added. 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". The United States in particular suspects archfoe Tehran of seeking to use its nuclear program to produce atomic weapons, for which enrichment is a vital component, and has not ruled out the possibility of military action. However Washington announced it would help the EU put together the incentives by dropping objections to Iran's membership of the World Trade Organization and allowing it access to spare parts for civilian aircraft. Nasseri said he did not see "any need" for a US role in the negotiations. But "it seems that Americans have wised up that there is no way of confronting Iran and if they do, the danger of them getting hurt is very high." Copyright 2005 AFP AFP. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 23 LA Times: S. Korea Rejects Response With U.S. to N. Korea Collapse [Los Angeles Times - latimes.com] 5:14 PM PDT, April 15, 2005 E-mail story Print Most By Barbara Demick, Times Staff Writer SEOUL, South Korea  U.S. troops stationed in South Korea were forced earlier this year to scrap a contingency plan for the possible collapse of Kim Jong Il's regime in North Korea because of objections by Seoul, the South Korean government said Friday. Seoul's rejection of the classified plan, which was supposed to be developed jointly by the U.S. and South Korean militaries, is the latest sign of tension in the alliance. Code named Op-Plan 5029, the plan mapped out allied military responses in the event that Kim suddenly lost power and the Communist country started to come apart. South Korean officials apparently feared that the United States wanted to take command in case of a power vacuum and would send its troops hastily marching toward Pyongyang, perhaps under the flag of the same U.N. command that waged the 1950-1953 Korean War. South Korea, which considers all of the Korean peninsula to be rightfully its territory, wants to take the lead if North Korea collapses. "The plan could be a serious obstacle to exercising South Korea's sovereignty," South Korea's National Security Council said Friday in a terse statement confirming that the plan had been scrapped. The cancellation took place in January, but was only confirmed Friday after leaks began to appear in the South Korean media. The South Korean Defense Ministry also confirmed that the plan had been canceled. U.S. officials in Seoul had no comment. "We don't discuss operational matters," said Lt. Col. Deborah Bertrand, a spokeswoman for U.S. forces in South Korea. As South Korea has developed into the world's 12th largest economy, its government bristles at the idea that the United States would take the lead in another war on the Korean peninsula. Disagreements about the command structure have been a long-running source of tension in the U.S. and Korean military alliance. The United States and South Korea also have sharply contrasting visions of how to deal with the renegade regime in North Korea as it plows ahead with its pursuit of nuclear weapons. President Bush says he has no plans to invade North Korea but has made no secret of his loathing for Kim Jong Il and his preference for a change of regime. South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun is anxious to avoid a collapse that could send North Korean refugees streaming across the border. "The possibility of North Korea's collapse is very low," Roh said Wednesday during a visit to Germany, according to comments released by his office here. "And we don't have any intention to encourage it either." After touring Berlin's famous Brandenburg Gate, which during the Cold War formed part of the wall dividing the city, Roh said he did not envision anything like the collapse of the Berlin Wall happening on the Korean peninsula. Copyright 2005 Los Angeles Times ***************************************************************** 24 Al Jazeera: Dismantling of key Iraqi nuclear sites worries IAEA - Aljazeera.com 4/16/2005 9:05:00 AM GMT International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei. The UN nuclear watchdog expressed concern on Friday at the removal of equipment and "significant dismantling" at 37 key sites in Iraq previously monitored for potential nuclear activity. In a letter to the UN Security Council, the head of the IAEA said satellite imagery revealed extensive excavation at one site where contaminated rubble from Saddam Hussein's nuclear program was buried. The Director General of the IAEA Mohamed ElBaradei said that these assessments needed to be investigated in person "in order for the agency to draw conclusions." However, getting UN nuclear inspectors back into Iraq remains problematic. Inspectors from the nuclear watchdog agency left Iraq just before the U.S.-led war, along with inspectors searching for biological and chemical weapons. The Bush administration then barred all UN inspectors from returning, preferring to deploy U.S. teams instead in what ultimately proved to be an unsuccessful search for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. But IAEA teams were allowed back into Iraq in June 2003 in order to investigate reports of widespread looting of storage rooms at the main nuclear complex at Tuwaitha, and in August 2004 to take an inventory of natural uranium in storage near Tuwaitha. Since 2003, ElBaradei said, the IAEA has analyzed satellite imagery of 141 of the 175 locations it previously identified as primary sites that contributed to Saddam's clandestine nuclear program or had technical capabilities to restart a nuclear program. "This assessment has revealed significant dismantling and removal activities at 37 of the most capable sites since March 2003," ElBaradei said, without giving any details. The IAEA also focused on sites where destroyed equipment from Iraq's former nuclear program had been stored or discarded, he said. At the request of Iraqi authorities, ElBaradei said the IAEA has compiled information to assist in future cleanups. ElBaradei also expressed concern in his last report in October at the disappearance of high-precision equipment that could be used to make nuclear weapons. He said some industrial material that Iraq sent overseas had been located in other countries, but not high-precision items. Meanwhile, the Iraqi government has been waging a public campaign to stop using Iraqi oil revenue to pay the UN weapons inspectors, calling them "irrelevant" and costly. It argues that that $12 million plus paid annually for chemical and biological inspectors and the $12.3 million over the next two years for IAEA inspectors should be used for Iraq's reconstruction. Copyright 2005 Al Jazeera Publishing Limited ***************************************************************** 25 lamonitor.com: Homeland Security director assesses terrorist potential The Online News Source for Los Alamos CAROL A. CLARK, lanews@lamonitor.com, Monitor Staff Writer SANTA FE - "There are no existing credible threats going on in New Mexico at this time," Homeland Security Director Tim Manning said. Manning discussed his initial impressions of New Mexico's vulnerability to terrorism during an interview in his office Thursday afternoon. Manning said terrorists are continually changing the way they do things to try to keep the good guys off guard. They have had success with roadside bombings so that atrocity continues but they also keep creating new ways to terrorize civilized people. "One of the emerging terrorist tactics we've seen is seizes like the schoolchildren in Russia," Manning said. "They keep changing so we have to adapt that into the way we train and exercise. We have to ensure our SWAT teams and first responders are equipped for this." On March 28, Gov. Richardson announced his appointment of Manning to lead the state's Office of Homeland Security and as his Homeland Security Advisor. Since assuming the directorship just over two weeks ago, Manning has been focusing on a close examination of what the state has done in homeland security over the last couple of years. "I want to make sure we are where we need to be and where we need to be going," Manning said. "I want to get out and start listening to the concerns of elected officials, the labs and the bases." New Mexico has several identified targets including LANL and Sandia and the military installations, he said. "Another obvious concern is our southern borders," Manning said. "A lot of people of all nationalities pass through those borders - Europeans, Africans, Middle Easterners, Asians - people from all over the world." He said there are a number of things that are monitored very closely. He said he feels positive about the state's security, adding that he has been involved in the field for a long time. He is able to create an all hazard approach to homeland security by bringing his many contacts throughout the relevant agencies together. Manning said in the broad sense his department strives to ensure a safer New Mexico and a safer environment for the people who live here. He added that in the wider focus there are a number of objectives to meet. At the same time, Manning said they must always remember to think creatively and be that step ahead of the terrorists the next time around. Manning has not met with LANL Director Pete Nanos or new Sandia Director Tom Hunter but has plans to soon. "I want to meet with all our federal key partners, base commanders, county commissioners, and mayors so we're not exchanging business cards in the middle of an event," he said. Manning works very closely with Los Alamos County Emergency Coordinator Philmont Taylor and Emergency Management Aide Dharmatma Khalsa on security matters and emergency preparedness. "Phil is our primary contact for Los Alamos County," he said. Taylor spoke of the challenge that lies ahead of Manning during an interview this morning. "I've been together with Tim in a variety of different emergency management venues," Taylor said. "He's articulate, he's intelligent and he's got a real challenge in front of him. In addition to the state emergency apparatus, Tim has the National Guard, Border Security, Dept. of Health bio-terrorism vaccine stockpile, state agencies and local coordinators he has to meld into one cohesive force." Manning said he also has a close relationship with the Emergency Management &Response, the security force at Los Alamos National Laboratory. He has toured the Los Alamos Emergency Operations Center (OEC) and his opinion could not be higher. "It's a dream facility," he said. "There is not one of my counterparts that wouldn't die for that place - if you could design a facility from the ground up, it would be like that." Manning spoke highly of New Mexico Tech in Socorro calling its responder training the premiere program of its kind in the world. He said his office sends first responders through Tech's program as part of their emergency preparedness training. Manning holds a bachelor's degree in Geology from Eastern Illinois University. He has a strong background in fire, hazardous and ground water remediation. His experience as state director for the Office of Emergency Management (OEM), which involved law enforcement, military, and homeland security made him the ideal person to lead the state's homeland security department and to advise the governor on security matters. "All the pieces came together," Manning said. The nature of Manning's position requires him to have a close working relationship with the municipalities, counties, state agencies and elected officials. The OEM, most recently headed by Manning has been way ahead of the rest of the country in terms of high-level training and certifications. President Bush recently issued HSPD 5 and 8 requiring NIMS certification for all emergency personnel. Manning said his OEM employees began going through the certification program a couple of years ago. "We are a year ahead of the rest of the country in terms of implementing this order," he said. Richardson signed an executive order a couple of weeks ago, Manning said, requiring statewide NIMS implementation. Manning holds Richardson in high esteem, stating the governor is probably the best boss he has ever had. "He trusts the people he hired to do their job and to know when there's an issue that needs to be brought to his attention," Manning said. Manning has managed emergencies such as large wildfires, flooding, and HAZMAT incidents. He lead the search and recovery efforts in New Mexico for the Space Shuttle Columbia, and oversaw the response and recovery of last year's presidential disaster declaration for flooding. "If I ever feel I've gotten it licked-I'm in trouble," Manning said. "We've got a good grasp on it but we must keep going, we can't get complacent. We can't ever be totally prepared, we can get close but I don't think we can ever be done." 2003 Los Alamos Monitor All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 26 [RADFOOD] The Minnesota Struggle Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2005 23:32:40 -0500 (CDT) As many of you are aware, current guidelines do not require labeling of irradiated food in schools, or parental notification if irradiated food is served in schools. This takes away parents' and students' ability to make informed decisions about what they are eating at school. Indeed, last year many parents (and even principals) were shocked to learn that their schools had ordered irradiated beef and they had not been informed. This led Public Citizen's California office to sponsor a right-to-know bill that would have required school board approval, parental notification, and labeling of irradiated food in California schools. This bill was passed by the California House and Senate before it was vetoed by the Governor. Currently, a grassroots group in Minnesota, Minnesota Voices for Choices, is sponsoring a food irradiation right-to-know bill in Minnesota. (www.mnvoicesforchoices.org) Introduced into the House as 1795 and the Senate as 1450, the bill would basically require the school board to adopt a formal policy prior to purchasing irradiated food, as well as labeling the product and notifying parents if irradiated food is served in schools. This legislation has been sponsored by both Republicans and Democrats. The Senate Education Committee heard the bill on Tuesday, and MUST include the bill in its education omnibus bill for the legislation to still be viable this session. Minnesota is ground zero for this issue, as it is home to some of the leading food irradiation proponents. If you live in Minnesota, and have not already done so, please take five minutes from your day to do the following: 1. Call or email the Senate Education Committee, and urge them to support the Irradiation Right-to-Know Legislation, SF 1450! The members of the committee are: Michele Bachmann (R) 651-296-4351 sen.michele.bachmann@senate.mn David Hann (R) 651-296-1749 http://www.senate.leg.state.mn.us/members/bios/sendis42_email.htm#header Steve Kelley (DFL) 651-297-8065 sen.steve.kelley@senate.mn Geoff Michel (R) 651-296-6238 sen.geoff.michel@senate.mn Gen Olson (R) 651-296-1282 sen.gen.olson@senate.mn Tom Saxhaug (DFL) 651-296-4136 sen.tom.saxhaug@senate.mn Rod Skoe (DFL) 651-296-4196 sen.rod.skoe@senate.mn LeRoy Stump (DFL) Already a sponsor David Tomassoni (DFL) 651-296-8017 sen.david.tomassoni@senate.mn 2. Send an email to your Representative at: http://www.citizen.org/cmep/foodsafety/food_irrad/schoollunch/articles.cfm?ID=13161 Send an email to your Senator at: http://www.citizen.org/cmep/foodsafety/food_irrad/schoollunch/articles.cfm?ID=13086 To find your Senator and Representative, visit http://www.leg.state.mn.us/leg/districtfinder.asp. This legislation needs support- Please forward this Action Alert to listserves, friends, colleagues, and other interested parties! Thank you for your time, Audrey *** Audrey Hill Organizer Public Citizen 215 Pennsylvania Avenue, SE www.safelunch.org Washington, DC 20003 (202) 454-5185 ******************** If you would like to be removed from the radfood list, send an email to listserv@listserver.citizen.org with the words "unsubscribe radfood" in the message. If you would like to be added to the radfood list, send an email to listserv@listserver.citizen.org with the words "subscribe radfood" in the message. To learn more about food irradiation, visit our website at http://www.citizen.org/cmep/ Questions about the radfood list can be directed to RADFOOD-request@LISTSERVER.CITIZEN.ORG -Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program ***************************************************************** 27 Deseret News: CDC says it's 'committed' to learning nuclear effects [deseretnews.com] Saturday, April 16, 2005 By Joe Bauman Deseret Morning News A spokeswoman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta says the federal agency remains committed to finding out about possible health effects due to radiation exposure in the past. Kathy Harben was responding to comments by Dr. Joseph L. Lyon, reported in Thursday's Deseret Morning News. After the CDC pulled funding for an extensive fallout-health effects study he and colleagues have been pursuing, he wondered if someone was trying to cover up fallout harm. The study, which has cost about $8 million so far, has examined about one-third of the 4,000 subjects, seeking evidence of thyroid abnormalities. A subsection of the study also was planned to check for possible deaths from reasons other than thyroid disease that could be tied to fallout. According to Lyon, it was the only study in this country actually examining individuals who were exposed to radiation, looking for health effects. The main group in the study attended Washington County schools in 1965, and when Lyon and colleagues checked them years after fallout from the Nevada Test Site had ended, they found thyroid tumors at 3.4 times the expected rate. The follow-up study was launched because thyroid disease can materialize years after exposure to radiation. Some of the 4,000 make up a control group of Arizona residents. Lyon commented after reading a letter from CDC director Dr. Julie Louise Gerberding, whose points were covered in the article Thursday. Harben read the article and said Gerberding had made a good analysis of the CDC's reasoning. "That is a very good summary for the basis for the CDC's decision not to continue funding," she said. "Besides that, the CDC remains committed to evaluating the exposure and possible effects related to past radiation released from nuclear weapons production facilities," she said. "We continue to study the health effects of these types of environmental radiation exposures through the Hanford (Washington) thyroid disease study, the Hanford Environmental Dose Reconstruction Project, the Savannah River (Georgia and South Carolina) Dose Reconstruction Project, the Los Alamos (New Mexico) Dose Reconstruction Project and the Idaho National Laboratories (Idaho) Dose Reconstruction Project." Harben added, "We do expect that findings from these studies will provide valuable information on the health effects of past radiation exposures." E-mail: bau@desnews.com 2005 Deseret News Publishing Company ***************************************************************** 28 The Mercury: Is cancer a nuclear plant fallout? News - 04/17/2005 - Evan Brandt, ebrandt@pottsmerc.com04/17/2005 POTTSTOWN -- The fact that Philadelphia County has the highest cancer death rate of the 60 most populated counties in the nation as well as the nations largest concentration of nuclear power plants within 90 miles should not be dismissed as a coincidence, a researcher argued this past week. Holding a press conference Thursday morning, hours before the Nuclear Regulatory Commissions annual performance assessment of Exelon Nuclears Limerick Generating Station which followed that evening, Joseph Mangano said he is trying to sound a warning. Mangano, who heads the controversial Radiation and Public Health Project, came armed with a fistful of statistics that he says may not prove conclusively that nuclear power plants are causing cancer, but are certainly alarming enough to warrant further study. Here are a few of those statistics: The Environmental Protection Agencys nearest radiation monitoring station is in Wilmington, Del. From 2000 to 2003 of level of radiation measured in precipitation at the station rose by 15.2 percent over measurements taken in the early 1990s, Mangano said at a Thursday press conference at Montgomery County Community Colleges West Campus in Pottstown. The period of increase coincides roughly with the time the Limerick Plant has been running at close to 100 percent capacity, which began around 1998. A chemical called strontium-90 does not occur in nature and is produced only by nuclear fission reactions, like those that power nuclear plants. This chemical behaves in the body like calcium and attaches itself to bone. As a cause of cancer, it damages cells behaving "like a wild bull in a China shop," said Mangano, and tends to create cancer more often in children, whose cells are more vulnerable to damage. In the 1950s and 1960s, a study by the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis measured the level of strontium-90 in 320,000 baby teeth to conclude that radiation from above-ground nuclear tests was slowly poisoning Americans and giving them cancer. That eventually led to the 1963 treaty banning above-ground nuclear tests and within five years, the level of strontium-90 in baby teeth dropped by half, he said. It rose again with the advent of nuclear power, said Mangano, whose Tooth Fairy Project has similarly been collecting baby teeth -- 4,400 so far -- and has found in them a rise in strontium-90. Of those teeth, 600 were from Long Island, N.Y. where Manganos first studies were done. So far, he has received 100 teeth from Pennsylvania residents, and the 37 of them that were from the 19464 and 19465 zip codes had the highest level of strontium-90 of all the Pennsylvania samples, he said. Mangano acknowledged the criticism -- a rather lengthy one is posted on the NRC Web site -- that he should not be drawing conclusions from such small samples, saying he is seeking more samples every day. But Mangano argued that even the small samples show the same strontium-90 trends he found in the larger sample of 600 on Long Island. He also said the project has received 40 teeth from children who grew up in the Philippines, which has never had a nuclear power plant, and strontium-90 levels in those teeth are one-half those he has studied from the United States. In a California community, the project found a 40 percent increase in strontium-90 levels when comparing baby teeth from the time before a nuclear plant was built to after it was put on line, he said. Then there are the cancer rates -- leukemia in particular. Nationally, cancer rates are falling, but not in Philadelphia and Montgomery counties, said Mangano. While rate of leukemia deaths has dropped 27.6 percent nationally, it has jumped by 46.4 percent in Philadelphia and 16 percent in Montgomery County, according to figures from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control supplied by Mangano. Since the late 1980s, leukemia incidences in children under 15 has "soared" almost 30 percent in Montgomery County and almost 50 percent in Philadelphia, while it has dropped by 0.7 percent nationally. Of the 60 most populated counties, which represent one third of the entire nations population, Philadelphia ranks highest in cancer deaths. "Look I am not saying we have evidence that there is a direct link here, there are many factors that go into causing cancers -- income, health insurance, genetics, behavior," said Mangano. "What I am saying is we must consider these low doses of radiation exposure as one possible factor." It would be irresponsible, Mangano said, to ignore the fact that the rate for childhood cancers in the area around the Limerick plant was below the national average before the plant was built and is now above the national average. The NRC and nuclear industry argue that the low doses of radiation produced by nuclear power plants are not harmful. But the government has argued this in the past, Mangano said, and subsequently been proven wrong. He said for years, the government argued that the low level of radiation to which workers who built nuclear weapons were exposed posed no health risk. But in 2000, the Department of Energy conceded those workers had suffered from cancer in large numbers due to low level exposure. The nuclear bomb tests in Nevada were called safe by the government until the baby teeth study. In 1997, the National Cancer Center concluded that 212,000 Americans had contracted thyroid cancer as a result of those bomb tests. "There is an assumption by the industry and government that low levels of radiation are harmless, but we dont think that assumption is grounded in adequate science," Mangano said. Rather than criticizing the projects methodology, as it has done in an eight-page critique on its Web site, the NRC should be looking at the results and considering an in-depth study of its own and more stringent regulations on nuclear plants, Mangano said. This is particularly germane when considering that the EPA just last month issued a new set of guidelines for assessing risk that indicate children are three times more susceptible to the negative effects of harmful chemicals and infants 10 times more susceptible, Mangano said. "We would hope they would be as concerned about these results as we are and decide to take action and either be partners with us, or start their own studies, rather than just practice denial," he said. The Mercury 2005 Copyright 1995 - 2005 PowerOne Media, Inc.All Rights ***************************************************************** 29 The Indiana Star: Accident closes toll road April 17, 2005 Associated Press GARY, Ind. -- Police on Friday shut down part of the Indiana Toll Road for about seven hours after a semitrailer carrying radioactive material overturned. None of the radioactive material was spilled, however, Gary Fire Chief Robert Walker said. Even so, fire crews remained at the scene for hours after the crash early Friday to make sure there was no radiation leak, he said. "We had to be sure," Walker said. Indiana State Police said the truck rolled over when the driver swerved to avoid a collision shortly after 2 a.m. The driver was not injured. The semitrailer truck was carrying 200 pounds of radioactive material, but the containers were not damaged in the crash, authorities said. Hazardous materials teams from Gary and Lake County were called to the scene about 4 a.m., and the trucking company called a contractor to remove the material from the vehicle. After testing the air and ground around the truck for radiation, authorities reopened the toll road to traffic about 9 a.m. Copyright 2005 IndyStar.com. All rights reserved ***************************************************************** 30 AFP: US study finds H-bomb tests still causing cancer in Marshalls 50 years on Sunday April 17, 09:49 PM MAJURO (AFP) - A US study has found that the number of cancers caused by hydrogen bomb testing in the Marshall Islands is set to double, more than half a century after the tests were conducted in the tiny Pacific nation. The study by the US governments National Cancer Institute (NCI) estimated 530 cancers had already been caused by the tests, particularly the explosion of a 15 megaton hydrogen bomb codenamed Bravo on March 1, 1954. It said another 500 cancers were likely to develop among Marshall Islanders who were exposed to radiation more than 50 years ago. "We estimate that the nuclear testing program in the Marshall Islands will cause about 500 additional cancer cases among Marshallese exposed during the years 1946-1958, about a nine percent increase over the number of cancers expected in the absence of exposure to regional fallout," the NCI study said. The study said because of the young age of the population when exposed in the 1950s, more than 55 percent of cancers have yet to develop or be diagnosed. The NCI completed the study in September last year but it was only publicly released last week after officials from the Marshall Islands noticed a reference to it in a US Congressional report and requested a copy. It was prepared for the US Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, which is scheduled to launch hearings next month to review a petition from the Marshall Islands seeking more than three billion dollars in additional compensation for nuclear test damages and health care. At the time of the Bravo test at Bikini Atoll, US officials played down the health implications for islanders. Bikini Islanders were not evacuated despite their land's being engulfed in snow-like radioactive fallout for two-to-three days after the Bravo bomb, which was equivalent to 1,000 Hiroshima bombs. Although many islanders developed severe radiation burns and had their hair fall out as their land was engulfed in fallout, US Atomic Energy Commission authorities issued a statement following the test saying "there were no burns" and the islanders were in good health. US officials later allowed islanders to return home to live in radioactive environments without performing any cleanup work on their islands. The US paid 270 million dollars in a compensation package in the mid-1980s part of which went to the Majuro-based Nuclear Claims Tribunal. But the tribunal says only a limited amount was made available for payouts and has described the original settlement as "manifestly inadequate". Copyright 2005 AFP AFP. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 31 Ynetnews: Reactor employees seek damages Cancer Rampant Safety Regulations Violations at Dimona Reactor, workers Workers from the Dimona and Sorek nuclear reactors are claiming they are getting sick with cancer due to negligence by administrators at the reactors and violations of safety regulations. The workers filed a variety of complaints against the plants in Tel Aviv County Court, and are seeking NIS 76 million (USD 17 million) in damages . Israel has often come under fire for housing what world organizations say is the building of nuclear weapons inside the Dimona plants. Israel has never confirmed or denied the accusations. Short cuts One shift engineer at the Dimona plant, who is 57, said "short cuts" were made during maintenance procedures in the reactors heavily radiated areas. The worker, a 35-year veteran of the plant, claimed he had discovered he had cancer six years ago. Hot zones The worker said he and his friends used to enter what they had called hot zones, which are heavily radiated areas, shortly after the reactor was closed. He said he entered a hot zone to try to find leakage in the pipes and stayed there for about an hour. He claimed management performed periodic radiation assessments of each employee to evaluate the amount of radiation he was exposed to, but said such evaluations often lacked precision. The worker is demanding the reactors management transfer accurate records of the amount of radiation he has been exposed to and compensate him with NIS 8.5 million (USD 1.9 million). Supervisor attacks management A different worker, a Dimona reactor supervisor for 30 years, gave a number of examples for how safety procedures are not reinforced. He cited an incident in which he was forced to work without radiation-measuring badges and without a protective mask. He said he was diagnosed with cancer at 52. First Published: 04.17.05, 12:56 Copyright Yedioth Internet. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 32 Yokwe: Gathering to remember nuclear impacts on the Marshall Islands Everything Marshall Islands :: http://www.yokwe.net Apr 18, 2005 - 12:29 AM [FlameBurning] Northwest Arkansas Marshallese, though far from their Pacific homeland, are endeavoring to keep the flame of courage burning bright. Last week, they gathered to remember those who have died and those who continue to suffer from long-term health effects due to US Cold War nuclear-testing in the Marshall Islands, as well as those who remain displaced from their home islands because of ongoing contamination. During this year's commemoration, vigil, and prayer service, Marshallese and friends lit candles, as the names of victims of nuclear testing were read, followed by ringing of a peace bell. The March 29 program, initiated by the Northwest Arkansas Marshallese Community Organization (NWAMCO), was held at the Jones Center Chapel, in Springdale. (photos courtesy of Carmen S. Chong Gum, President NWAMCO and photographer Leeson Katjang) Study Estimates 500 More Cancer Cases from Testing [Nuclear] 500 More Cancer Cases for Marshallese Exposed during US Nuclear-Weapons Testing, States Report A National Cancer Institute (NCI) study, requested by the US Senate, estimates that the nuclear testing program in the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) will cause about 500 additional cancer cases among Marshallese exposed during the years 1946-1958. This will be about a 9% increase over the number of cancers expected in the absence of exposure to regional fallout. More than 85% of those radiation-related cases would likely occur among those exposed in 1954 on the atolls of Rongelap, Ailinginae, Ailuk, Mejit, Likiep, Wotho, Wotje, and possibly Ujelang. LETTER TO US SENATE FROM NATIONAL CANCER INSTITUTE (NCI) on the number of baseline cancers and radiation-related illnesses from nuclear weapons testing in the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI). Dear Senator Domenici: Thank you for your inquiry with Senator Bingaman on behalf of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. You requested information from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) on the number of baseline cancers and radiation-related illnesses from nuclear weapons testing in the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI). The Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics (DCEG) was asked to develop this response because of its robust research program in radiation epidemiology, dose reconstruction, and risk estimation. Dedicated to the people of the Marshall Islands! ***************************************************************** 33 PISJ: Crapo to offer bill for victims of testing - First he wants to see federal fallout study Pocatello Idaho State Journal: By Dan Boyd- Journal Writer POCATELLO - Mike Crapo was getting antsy. Nearly six months after a public hearing in Boise at which hundreds of Idahoans afflicted with cancer, multiple sclerosis and other diseases came forward to tell their stories, Crapo was still waiting for the release of an official study detailing radiation levels in Idaho. Last Friday, the Senator from Idaho Falls sent a letter to the director of the Board on Radiation Effects Research. It said he is committed to introducing legislation in Congress on behalf of the so-called Downwinders, a group that believes they were exposed to harmful radiation as children as a result of atomic testing in Nevada. The report, which will make recommendations on whether Idaho counties should be included in the federal Radiation Compensation Exposure Act, was supposed to be released in March. Now well into April, it's still under wraps. "It was a little frustrating, but I'm certainly not casting any stones at them," Crapo said. "I'm just frustrated by the fact that they didn't meet their estimate." Crapo said the study is "pivotal" in determining whether only four Idaho counties - Gem, Custer, Lemhi and Custer - are included in the legislation or whether the scope is expanded. In his letter, Crapo said he also expects the report to show that other counties should be included. "There wouldn't be anything served by introducing (legislation) now," he said. "We're just kind of in a holding pattern." The Radiation Compensation Exposure Act pays $50,000 to those exposed to harmful radiation during a series of above-ground atomic weapons testing in the Nevada desert in the 1950s. Currently only Utah, Arizona and Nevada counties are included, but a 1997 study indicated the four Idaho counties have among the highest radioactive iodine levels in the nation. And in southeast Idaho, many residents have come forward who believe that they, too, were exposed to the radiation and later contracted cancer as a result. Marea Kettler, a former Pocatello resident who contracted thyroid cancer, said a recent scan showed the cancer is gone, but her fight isn't over. "It's been a real roller-coaster ride," she said. "It's gone for now and hopefully it's gone for good." Kettler still takes iodine and calcium capsules daily to compensate for her removed thyroid and said when she was told to step taking the medications, it wasn't a fun experience. "I just wasn't myself at all," she said. "I got really slow-minded and slow-walking and could sleep for 16 hours a day." Such stories convinced Crapo to introduce legislation, which many Idahoans say is long overdue. "No matter what the report says, he's heard enough," said Lindsay Nothern, Crapo's spokesman. While Crapo works to right the wrongs of 50 years ago, he's not against studying a new potential nuclear weapon commonly dubbed the Bunker Buster. Though still in its initial stages, Crapo supports studying such a weapon in the name of national security and said he doesn't think that stance represents a contradiction. "The tests we're talking about that caused the (Downwinder) study put the nuclear fallout into the air," he said. "Frankly, that kind of testing would never be allowed by Congress again." Dan Boyd - Journal Writer'> Nearly six months after a public hearing in Boise at which hundreds of Idahoans afflicted with cancer, multiple sclerosis and other diseases came forward to tell their stories, Crapo was still waiting for the release of an official study detailing radiation levels in Idaho."> This document was originally published online on Saturday, April 16, 2005 Copyright 2005 Pocatello Idaho State Journal P O Box 431 Pocatello, ID 83204-0431 ***************************************************************** 34 Las Vegas SUN: Las Vegas mayor worried about possible rail car disasters ASSOCIATED PRESS LAS VEGAS (AP) - On a windy April day, 20 railroad tank cars hauling everything from liquid weed killer to butane and highly flammable alcohol sat on a sidetrack in downtown Las Vegas. Ten miles away, 16 more tank cars, each of which can hold tens of thousands of gallons of hydrochloric acid and sodium hydroxide, were waiting for an engine to pull them away from Union Pacific's switchyard. There was nothing to stop someone from walking along those tracks close enough to touch them. It is this daily presence of poisonous, flammable and potentially explosive rail cargo that has Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman and at least 50 other mayors across the country demanding more emergency response information from railroad regulators and the Department of Homeland Security. A disaster looms, they say, whether it be from a derailment or would-be terrorists armed with wire cutters and toting a backpack of high explosives. "I don't think anybody can rest easy if they think these toxic substances are in their back yards," Goodman said. His comment came in an interview about the legal battle in Washington, D.C., that pits the government-backed rail industry against the District of Columbia City Council, which passed a ban on shipping hazardous materials within two miles of the Capitol. A decision from U.S. District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan regarding the constitutionality of the ban is expected any day. "Much will be resolved by the litigation taking place," Goodman said. "We'll get a good read on how much power we have to regulate the rails." Goodman said he has attempted to find out about hazardous rail cargo coming through Las Vegas, but "the government thumbs their nose at us and refuses to tell us when and where." He found out through the media about a Dec. 31, 2003, safety inspection by the Federal Railroad Administration that reportedly found a lack of rail security precautions around Las Vegas but no terrorism risk during heightened awareness about a terrorism threat that New Year's Eve. The Federal Railroad Administration declined to make the safety inspection report immediately available last week, and city officials had not seen it. However, George Gavalla, a former associate administrator for safety at the Federal Railroad Administration, told The New York Times that when he sent an inspector to Las Vegas on New Year's Eve 2003, he found a number of tank cars possibly containing chlorine and poisonous gases unguarded. At a rail yard near some hotels, no train crew members challenged the inspector's presence or even talked to him. Goodman is one of 51 mayors who backed a Jan. 18 letter to Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta and then-Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge calling for advance information about hazardous materials shipments through their cities. A Union Pacific Railroad spokesman said the company realizes that railroads are vulnerable, but the notification task would be too cumbersome. "That's really not practical," said John Bromley, Union Pacific's spokesman in Omaha, Neb. "We could do it, but it would drown municipalities in paperwork. There would be so much data that it would be ineffective to use it. You would have to have responders at the tracks around the clock." Bromley said Union Pacific does have security personnel at certain locations, and employees are instructed to report suspicious activity. --- Information from: Las Vegas Review-Journal, http://www.lvrj.com -- All contents copyright 2005 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 35 Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star: Spent-fuel storage 'secure' Fredericksburg.com Mon, Apr. 18, 2005 What is Dominion power doing to protect tons of highly radioactive spent fuel at North Anna nuclear plant? By RUSTY DENNEN Date published: 4/16/2005 Questions raised about nuke safety More than 900 tons of highly radioactive spent fuel sits in a swimming-pool-like enclosure and in 22 giant steel casks at North Anna Power Station. A byproduct of nuclear fission at North Anna's two nearby reactors, used fuel is--by far--the most potentially dangerous material at the Louisa County plant in Fredericksburg's back yard. It remains deadly for thousands of years. How well it is protected in a post-9/11 world, and the prospect of much more of it piling up here and at the nation's 103 commercial power reactors, has come into sharp focus in recent weeks as two government reports have raised questions about its storage and protection. It has become an issue locally because Dominion power--owner of the North Anna plant--has an application to add up to two more reactors wending its way through the regulatory process. More reactors would mean the storage of many more tons of spent fuel. Earlier this month the National Academy of Sciences recommended a plant-by-plant review of the storage pools at nuclear plants, suggesting that they may be vulnerable to terrorist attack. On Monday, the Government Accountability Office found that some utilities have not kept close enough track of spent fuel. The GAO report questioned oversight by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and said the materials "could be diverted or stolen and used maliciously." The report was requested last year by Vermont's two senators following news that spent fuel had been reported missing at the Vermont Yankee plant. It was later found in the spent-fuel pool, but not where records said it was supposed to be. Spent fuel also was reported missing from the Millstone nuclear plant in Connecticut in 2000 and from the Humboldt Bay plant in California last year. Millstone is owned by Dominion power, which has accounted for all the spent fuel at its North Anna and Surry plants in Virginia. Radioactive issues "These facilities are very secure," said Richard Zuercher, spokesman for Dominion's nuclear operations. He said the Nuclear Regulatory Commission "already did an assessment of individual [plant] sites and made recommendations for everybody to implement, and we are in full compliance with those orders." Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Zuercher said, security has been ramped up, and the chance of a terrorists attacking the fuel pool or the casks is remote. "A lot of money has been spent [on security] by Dominion since 9/11, but we believe the sites were very secure before 9/11." Zuercher says just how and where the security has been beefed up is a secret, for obvious reasons. But he said: "We have increased our security force. We have more officers and we have put more sophisticated surveillance equipment in that allows us to keep watch on all of the property." Zuercher said that prior to 9/11, security was focused on the secure area of the plant containing the reactors, spent-fuel pool and storage casks. "Since then, security has been enhanced to cover the whole [plant] site." Environmental groups opposing additional reactors at North Anna say the protection of the spent fuel is a legitimate concern and that expansion would present a more tempting target to terrorists. In a public hearing in February in Louisa on environmental aspects of Dominion's early site-permit application, spent fuel was addressed by a number of speakers. One of them was Sue Chase, who lives in Albemarle County, about 50 miles from North Anna. "Who can assure us that a plant won't be bombed, invaded or hit by a plane and that the fuel rods won't be exposed, resulting in a devastating fire? No one." Fueling the debate Every 18 months, North Anna's two reactors must be shut down and partially refueled. Sixty-four spent fuel assemblies are typically removed from each reactor core. Each reactor has 157 assemblies. The assemblies--rectangular modules packed with uranium-pellet-filled tubes--are lifted from the reactor and submerged in what looks like an industrial-size indoor swimming pool. Twenty-seven feet of water, infused with neutron-absorbing boron, protects workers in the room from radiation. The pool sits between North Anna's two reactors. The spent fuel assemblies are submerged, where they will stay for at least five years to cool. After that, they are placed in helium-filled steel casks, which are decontaminated and moved to the storage area outside. Helium is an inert gas that helps transfer heat to the outside of the casks, each of which holds 32 fuel assemblies. The gas is easy to detect if there's a container leak. Twenty-two of the 115-ton storage containers sit on concrete pads in a fenced, secure enclosure at North Anna. By 2010, there could be 36. Vulnerable or well protected? Dominion recently received permission from the Louisa County Board of Supervisors to add another cask-storage pad. New casks will be better protected--encased in reinforced-concrete containers. The board didn't go along with a Planning Commission recommendation that a berm be added to the fenced area around the casks to improve security from a possible shoulder-fired-missile attack. Dominion, however, was asked to study a berm. Critics say the pool and the casks are vulnerable, even if the risk is remote. The academy report said the spent-fuel pool, and others like it in 31 states, could be compromised by a suicide aircraft or high-explosive attack, exposing the assemblies and unleashing an uncontrollable fire and large amounts of radiation. The NRC has concluded release from such a fire would be "extremely low," but the agency still advised reactor operators to consider reconfiguring the fuel assemblies in the pools. NRC Chairman Nils J. Diaz, addressing the academy report in a March letter to lawmakers, said that the spent-fuel storage systems are safe and secure and that some of the panel's recommendations lacked technical merit. "Today, spent fuel is better protected than ever," he wrote. Threat from the air Jerry Rosenthal, president of Concerned Citizens of Louisa and a member of the People's Alliance for Clean Energy, formed to oppose the North Anna expansion, scoffs at the notion. "They are protected very well from ground attack, or certain types of attack. Not from above. The pool is covered by a [thin steel] building and the casks are covered by nothing." "We have video of [military] TOW missiles blowing holes in the casks," he said, adding, "Seven attorneys general around the U.S. have recommended putting towers and wire barriers above dry casks and pools for further protection from air attack." North Anna added cask storage in 1998 when its spent-fuel pool became full. About a fourth of nuclear power plants now have both pools and casks. A bigger issue and a long-term concern for area residents, Rosenthal said, is the availability of a permanent repository for the spent fuel piling up at the nation's nuclear reactors. A repository was to open under Yucca Mountain, Nev., by 2010, but that project has been plagued by delays. "It looks like [opening] Yucca is unlikely, certainly in the near future," he said, meaning that, if two more reactors were added at North Anna, "we'd be doubling the amount of spent fuelassuming all the waste stays here." The Associated Press contributed to this story. To reach RUSTY DENNEN: 540/374-5431 rdennen@freelancestar.com Date published: 4/16/2005 Fredericksburg.com, 605 William Street, Fredericksburg, VA 22401 Comments? Send us Feedback, Phone: 540-368-5055 540-374-5000. Copyright 2005, The Free Lance-Star Publishing Co. of Fredericksburg, Va. ***************************************************************** 36 Lawrence Journal-World: Professor joins study of radioactive waste [LJWorld.com | The Saturday, April 16, 2005 A Kansas university professor and administrator has been chosen for a panel examining radioactive waste stored at three federal nuclear facilities. Don Steeples, professor of geophysics and vice provost for scholarly support, will be one of 20 scholars participating in the study, which was commissioned by the National Academy of Sciences. The group is charged with reviewing and evaluating U.S. Department of Energy plans for radioactive waste management. Specifically, the group will examine the Bush administration's plan to pump out most nuclear material from a site in Savannah River, S.C., and move it to a facility near Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Officials plan to seal the remaining sludge inside the tanks and leave them in place at the Savannah River site. The group also will examine a plan to manage leftover waste at sites in Idaho and Washington state. Contents of this site are © Copyright2005 The Lawrence Journal-World. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 37 Las Vegas RJ: HAZARDOUS CARGO: Rail car disaster looms, mayors say Sunday, April 17, 2005 Goodman: Government unresponsive to information requests By KEITH ROGERS REVIEW-JOURNAL Railroad tank cars with placards marked for flammable and hazardous liquids sit on tracks in downtown Las Vegas on April 7. Photo by K.M. Cannon. An engine and tank cars sit April 8 behind a fenced area at Black Mountain Industrial Center near Henderson, where Pioneer Co. produces chlorine. Most of the tank cars were empty, but two were filled with muriatic acid. Five 90-ton cars inside the production facility contained liquid chlorine, said plant manager Gary Sulik. Photo by Jeff Scheid. On a windy April day, 20 railroad tank cars hauling everything from liquid weed killer to butane and highly flammable alcohol sat on a sidetrack in downtown Las Vegas in the shadow of Main Street Station and the Plaza. Ten miles away, on the southern end of the Las Vegas Valley, 16 more tank cars, each of which can hold tens of thousands of gallons of hydrochloric acid and sodium hydroxide, were waiting for an engine to pull them away from Union Pacific's Arden switch- yard. There was nothing to stop someone from walking along those tracks close enough to touch them. Meanwhile, dozens more tank cars, some of which contained deadly liquid chlorine, sat on an east valley rail spur behind a barbed wire-topped fence at Black Mountain Industrial Center near Henderson. It is this daily presence of poisonous, flammable and potentially explosive rail cargo that has Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman and at least 50 other mayors across the country demanding more emergency response information from railroad regulators and the Department of Homeland Security. A disaster looms, they say, whether it be from a derailment or would-be terrorists armed with wire cutters and toting a backpack of high explosives. "I don't think anybody can rest easy if they think these toxic substances are in their back yards," Goodman said His comment came in an interview about the legal battle in Washington, D.C., that pits the government-backed rail industry against the District of Columbia City Council, which passed a ban on shipping hazardous materials within two miles of the Capitol. A decision from U.S. District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan regarding the constitutionality of the ban is expected any day. "Much will be resolved by the litigation taking place," Goodman said. "We'll get a good read on how much power we have to regulate the rails." Goodman said he has attempted to find out about hazardous rail cargo coming through Las Vegas, but "the government thumbs their nose at us and refuses to tell us when and where." He found out through the media about a Dec. 31, 2003, safety inspection by the Federal Railroad Administration that reportedly found a lack of rail security precautions around Las Vegas but no terrorism risk during heightened awareness about a terrorism threat that New Year's Eve. The Federal Railroad Administration declined to make the safety inspection report immediately available last week, and city officials had not seen it. However, George Gavalla, a former associate administrator for safety at the Federal Railroad Administration, told The New York Times that when he sent an inspector to Las Vegas on New Year's Eve 2003, he found a number of tank cars possibly containing chlorine and poisonous gases unguarded. At a rail yard near some hotels, no train crew members challenged the inspector's presence or even talked to him. Goodman is one of 51 mayors who backed a Jan. 18 letter to Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta and then-Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge calling for advance information about hazardous materials shipments through their cities. The letter was spurred by Augusta, Ga., Mayor Bob Young out of concern for a train wreck in Graniteville, S.C., 10 miles from his city, that spilled liquid chlorine and created a cloud of toxic vapors that killed nine and injured more than 200. It "had the effect of the detonation of a weapon of mass destruction," the letter stated. "More than 90,000 shipments of chlorine alone are transported across the country every year. ... Our citizens should have a reasonable expectation that hazardous materials are being shipped in the safest manner possible and that local first responders are aware of such shipments in advance," according to the letter. The letter referred to a "safety and security" plan that the U.S. Conference of Mayors adopted in December 2001 that called on freight railroads to develop new notification procedures and provide better information about chemicals and hazardous materials stored on sidings and moving through cities. Young said Thursday that the mayors conference is drafting "a more encompassing resolution" that will be presented at their June meeting in Chicago. He said he realizes that banning hazardous cargo shipments in cities such as Washington, D.C., only means the problem is moved to other communities. "I think maybe to me focusing on information where the stuff is and when it's there is probably a more productive approach, although railroads are resisting it," he said. A Union Pacific Railroad spokesman said the company realizes that railroads are vulnerable, but the notification task would be too cumbersome. "That's really not practical," said John Bromley, Union Pacific's spokesman in Omaha, Neb. "We could do it, but it would drown municipalities in paperwork. There would be so much data that it would be ineffective to use it. You would have to have responders at the tracks around the clock." Bromley said Union Pacific does have security personnel at certain locations, and employees are instructed to report suspicious activity. But on April 7 and April 8, a Review-Journal reporter walked up to tank cars on a siding in downtown Las Vegas and the Arden switchyard and spent more than half an hour at each location recording placard information from the rail cars. No security personnel were in sight. Once, at the end of a late afternoon visit to a half-mile-long line of rail cars at the downtown siding, a Union Pacific worker in a Humvee drove by and asked what was going on. "I'm just taking notes. I'm parked over there," the reporter said. The worker smiled and said, "OK. That's all right." Then he drove away. Bromley acknowledged that in most cases anyone can walk up to rail cars. Fences might deter some intruders, he said. But, he noted, "It's pretty difficult to fence off 36,000 miles of railroad. It's just not going to happen. We try to respond to where we think the threats are. We can't cover every inch of it." Railroad police, he said, are responsible for security on Union Pacific land. They work in conjunction with local police. Tank cars of liquid chlorine for water treatment plants and swimming pools routinely roll through the Las Vegas Valley because it is produced at the Pioneer Co. plant near Henderson. Pioneer also handles tank cars of caustic soda and muriatic acid. Last week, there were 70 tank cars in the company yard. Most were empty, but two were filled with muriatic acid. Five 90-ton cars inside the production facility contained liquid chlorine, said plant manager Gary Sulik. In his eight years at the plant, Sulik said he hasn't seen any tampering with tank cars. Even though the cars are made of 1-inch-thick steel with 4 inches of insulation and another steel jacket, they are still susceptible to explosives. "That is always a risk," he said, noting that the cars are checked for explosives when they enter the plant and when they leave, and again by Union Pacific. The top dome on each tank car is locked in place and sealed with quarter-inch steel aircraft cable that requires special tools to cut through it, Sulik said. Although Bromley didn't have the total number of tank cars per week that pass through Las Vegas holding toxic, flammable or hazardous liquids and gases, he said typically 5 percent of what Union Pacific hauls on Western lines is hazardous. He said it would take "very lengthy detours," to avoid Las Vegas, causing trains to go hundreds of miles to the north through Reno or south through Tucson, Ariz. Local shipments of chlorine and other chemicals, however, couldn't be detoured around the Las Vegas Valley because they originate in the Henderson area. Rail car accidents rarely, if ever, happen in Las Vegas. Bromley, who has been with the railroad for 25 years, and Gary Derks, a six-year employee of the Nevada Division of Emergency Management, said they can't recall any fires, explosions or spills of toxic materials from rail mishaps in Las Vegas. The last major liquid chlorine spill in the valley occurred in May 1991, when a hole formed in a pipe at the Pioneer plant and a shutoff valve failed. The result was a toxic, green cloud that draped much of Henderson, forcing thousands to flee their homes and sending more than 200 people to hospitals for treatment. Copyright Las Vegas Review-Journal ***************************************************************** 38 Las Vegas RJ: GOP chairman expects thorough e-mail probe Saturday, April 16, 2005 Yucca remarks come during Nevada stop By ERIN NEFF REVIEW-JOURNAL Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman said Friday he expects a full Bush administration investigation into the e-mails whose authors discuss possible document falsification at the Yucca Mountain project. Mehlman, in Las Vegas to tout President Bush's domestic policies, said e-mails sent by scientists at work on the project should be considered part of the larger scientific questions about the proposed nuclear waste repository northwest of Las Vegas. "The president, since the beginning, has said that the only way that Yucca Mountain should be sited is if it is environmentally and scientifically safe," Mehlman said. "We need to make sure that's the case; and we need to get to the bottom of what happened here; and we need to make sure that every decision we make is done based on the best science and the most honest information." Mehlman said he was convinced Energy Secretary Sam Bodman will hold a "full and fair investigation." Democrats argue that Bush lied to Nevadans when, during the 2000 campaign, he promised to base any decision on Yucca Mountain on "sound science, not politics." Shortly after taking office, Bush recommended Yucca Mountain as the nation's nuclear waste repository. The state of Nevada argues there are still numerous unanswered scientific questions about burial of the waste at Yucca Mountain. Nevada has sued the federal government, and last summer a federal appellate court ruled radiation standards proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency for the safety of waste storage are invalid. A collection of e-mails from 1998 to 2000 has led to congressional and criminal investigations. Other e-mails raise questions about the calibrations of scientific instruments used in Yucca Mountain research and about how water might travel through the repository toward stored waste. Mehlman said he has not discussed the e-mails with Bush, but said, "Certainly he is very committed to making sure that this goes forward only when the people of Nevada are protected. "That was a campaign commitment. That's something he strongly believes in." State Democratic party spokesman Jon Summers said Nevadans continue to hear the same line about Yucca Mountain. "Bush has said that from the beginning," Summers said. "We've heard 'sound science' before. It's just another disingenuous statement from President Bush, his administration and his cronies." Summers said the government's news release announcing the discovery of the e-mails included a line about the continued pursuit of a license to open Yucca Mountain. Copyright Las Vegas Review-Journal ***************************************************************** 39 Casper Star-Tribune: High uranium prices prompt expansion of Wyoming mine Casper, Wyoming - Saturday, April 16, 2005 DOUGLAS (AP) -- With prices triple what they were less than five years ago, Wyoming's only active uranium mine is adding workers to pump up production. "Everybody's got a bit of jump in their step. The future looks good," said Chuck Foldenauer, manager of Power Resources Inc.'s Smith Ranch-Highland mine north of Douglas. The number of employees at the Canadian-owned operation recently increased from 82 to 92, with projections to reach 100 by next year, the Douglas Budget reported. Additional positions include geologists and engineers along with hourly construction, maintenance and plant operations workers. Uranium produced at Smith Ranch is typically yellowish powder, or "yellowcake," which is sealed in barrels and shipped to plants outside Wyoming to be enriched and formed into pellets to fuel nuclear reactors. About 20 percent of America's electricity comes from steam generated by nuclear fission. Yellowcake prices plummeted to $7.10 per pound in December 2000 but have risen steadily since and last year surpassed $20 for the first time since 1984. This week, the spot price was $23.20, according to the Ux Consulting Co., of Roswell, Ga., up 20 cents from the previous week. Global uranium production is 90 million pounds annually, while consumption is 175 million pounds by the 435 reactors in the world. Thirty-five more reactors are under construction in China, Taiwan, India, Brazil and Eastern Europe, which will further increase demand. International Nuclear Inc., an independent consulting organization based in Golden, Colo., recently released a report which stated that worldwide demand is increasing while stockpiles are nearing depletion. "The outlook for nuclear power has changed dramatically toward the positive since 2000," the report states. " ... The market for natural uranium concentrates has evolved from a market driven by excess secondary supplies to one driven by primary production. This change is not fleeting, but fundamental." The study predicts that uranium needs will jump from 175 million pounds per year to about 185 million by 2010 and 200 million by 2018. Prices will rise through 2006 before moderating in 2007, then remain stable from 2010 to 2018, the report forecast. It's all good news for the state," said Marion Loomis, executive director of the Wyoming Mining Association. "The industry is looking to establish new claims, and companies are interested in developing new claims," he said. "There are no new mines currently, but we are hopeful that this will translate to other companies developing new mining operations." In the midst of the industry's two-decade slump, Wyoming lawmakers exempted producers from paying state severance taxes until prices averaged at least $14 per pound for six months. That threshold was reached last year, and since then, the state has collected $290,221, according to the Wyoming Department of Revenue. Of that, $119,821 was collected from November through January, the most recent reported quarter. While the total is paltry compared to the hundreds of millions of dollars in mineral taxes paid by the state's energy giants -- coal, natural gas and oil -- it certainly indicates a revival for uranium, one that experts say shows no immediate signs of stalling. Mineral severance taxes collected by the state are distributed to a number of entities based on a statutory formula. Among the recipients are highways, schools, water projects, the state General Fund and local governments, meaning Converse County, home to the Smith Ranch mine, will also receive a share. The county will further benefit from increased "ad valorem" tax revenues, which are essentially property taxes on mining that are retained by the county where production occurs. Because of a lag between collection and distribution, any benefit from the higher prices won't be realized by Converse County until next year, County Treasurer Joel Schell said. Copyright 2005 by the Casper Star-Tribune published by Lee Publications, Inc., a subsidiary of Lee Enterprises, ***************************************************************** 40 Salt Lake Tribune: Homeland clarifies position on study of storage of nuclear fuel Article Last Updated: 04/16/2005 08:21:39 AM WASHINGTON -The Department of Homeland Security says it will look at security concerns involving storage of nuclear fuel, but has not committed to a formal study. The department clarified its position after Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. said following a Tuesday meeting with Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff that the department committed to a study of the issue. The state believes that a plan by Private Fuel Storage to store 44,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel on the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation poses a terrorist target and raises homeland security concerns that have not been adequately addressed. "The secretary agreed to look into the issue to determine if the department would need to do a study," said Homeland Security spokesman Brian Roehrkasse. Roehrkasse said it's unknown at this point what the department's "look into" the nuclear storage issue might entail. Huntsman spokeswoman Tammy Kikuchi said that, "It's study more as a verb than as a noun." Following his meeting with Chertoff, Huntsman said that he had tried to explain the state's concerns with the PFS facility. "I was pleased with his response," Huntsman said in an interview. "He did commit to doing a homeland security study, which has not been done." - Robert Gehrke © Copyright 2005, The Salt Lake Tribune. ***************************************************************** 41 AFP: NKorea ready to reprocess spent nuclear fuel into plutonium - report Messenger Sunday April 17, 08:47 AM TOKYO (AFX) - North Korea has halted operations at a nuclear power reactor, a move that could let Pyongyang reprocess spent fuel to retract plutonium and boost its nuclear arsenal, a Japanese newspaper reported. The United States will shortly send Christopher Hill, the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, to South Korea, Japan and China for talks to cope with the new development in the nuclear stand-off, the Asahi Shimbun said. Washington has verified that operations at the five-megawatt reactor in Yongbyon were suspended in April, the daily said in a report from Washington quoting unnamed sources including US government officials. The US administration reached the conclusion by analyzing satellite pictures and estimating temperatures on the walls of nuclear facilities and amounts of steam coming from boilers at Yongbyon, north of Pyongyang, the report said. Pyongyang could double its nuclear arsenal if it reprocesses 8,000 spent nuclear rods from the Yongbyon reactor as it has claimed to have done before. The controversial reactor was frozen under a 1994 deal with a US-led consortium which promised to provide North Korea with reactors which produce much less weapons-grade plutonium and heavy oil. But the North reactivated the reactor in late 2002 after Washington accused Pyongyang of going ahead with a separate, secret nuclear weapons program based on highly enriched uranium. The new nuclear stand-off has led to six-nation talks involving the two Koreas, China, Russia, the United States and Japan to end the North's nuclear arms ambitions. Pyongyang has suspended the negotiations, accusing the United States of hostility, and in February declared that it possessed nuclear weapons for self-defense. Copyright 2005 AFP AFX. All rights reserved. Republication or ***************************************************************** 42 PE.com: Officials discover another tainted well | Inland Southern California | Inland News RIALTO: The site near the city's airport is one of 21 perchlorate-contaminated wells in area cities. 12:33 AM PDT on Saturday, April 16, 2005 By JENNIFER BOWLES / The Press-Enterprise A rocket-fuel chemical that has fouled drinking water supplies for some 250,000 people in the San Bernardino Valley has tainted another well owned by Rialto, water-quality officials said Friday. The recent discovery brings to 21 the number of wells in Rialto, Colton and Fontana that have been contaminated by an underground plume of perchlorate stretching some 7 miles from an industrial site, said Kurt Berchtold, assistant executive officer of the Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Board. "It's extremely frustrating," said Rialto Councilman Ed Scott. Six of the city's 13 wells are contaminated. Tests in late March showed levels of perchlorate at 7.4 parts per billion in a well near the city's airport, Robert Holub, a supervising engineer, told regional water board members at a meeting Friday in Loma Linda. The amount is above the 6 parts per billion level that California officials deemed as safe in drinking water. The chemical can impair thyroid function and stunt development. Newborns and fetuses are most vulnerable. Perchlorate -- used in fireworks, rocket fuel and ammunition, and Chilean fertilizers used years ago on Inland crops -- has tainted supplies in Redlands, San Bernardino, Corona, Glen Avon and elsewhere across the nation. Rialto has raised its water rates to help pay for treatment while the city pursues a lawsuit against the Defense Department and others believed responsible for the pollution so the residents can get refunds, Scott said. The latest Rialto well to be contaminated was not in operation this past winter, Holub said, and will be outfitted with a treatment system by San Bernardino County in July, when the hot weather drives up water demand. The perchlorate is believed to stem from the county-operated Mid-Valley Sanitary Landfill, Berchtold said. Investigators believe perchlorate tainting most of the other wells is coming from an adjacent industrial site used by military and industrial companies that have operated there for more than 50 years, Berchtold said. Belo Interactive Inc. ***************************************************************** 43 UK The Times: Salmond under nuclear attack April 17, 2005 Jason Allardyce and Kenny Farquharson THE SNP was accused of childish scaremongering last night after it used a 26-year-old study to claim that Labour intends to turn Scotland into a nuclear dumping ground. Alex Salmond, the SNP leader, had claimed that 22 of 33 sites being considered as nuclear dumps are in Scotland and accused Labour of making Scots pay for its nuclear madness. The SNP cited as evidence a new report from the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM), which has been asked by ministers to look at options for the disposal of Britains nuclear waste. However, CoRWM denied that finding locations for the dumps was part of its remit and said there had been no discussion about where the waste should go. We are not making any recommendations on sites, said a spokesman. Our final report will be handed to the governments in July 2006. Later it emerged that the SNPs list of 22 possible sites in Scotland was based on a 1979 study by the Institute of Geological Sciences. o Jack McConnell has been branded a liability by some of his own senior party colleagues who believe he wrecked Labours Scottish election manifesto launch. The first minister forced the party to mount a damage limitation exercise last week when he struggled to explain at the launch in Edinburgh why NHS waiting time targets could be twice as long in Scotland as in England. The gaffe overshadowed an otherwise smooth launch led by Alistair Darling, the Scottish secretary. McConnells performance has dismayed Labour ministers and infuriated some MPs who say it is hampering their election prospects. oCharles Kennedys promise that the Lib Dems would abolish tuition fees in England caused severe embarrassment yesterday for Jim Wallace, leader of the Scottish Lib Dems and deputy first minister in the Scottish executive. Wallace was forced to admit that Kennedys manifesto commitment would leave Scottish students 2,000 worse off than their English counterparts. The Lib-Lab coalition in Edinburgh abolished upfront tuition fees during the first term of the Scottish parliament. But Labour insisted every student must instead pay a one-off endowment of 2,000, payable on graduation towards a system of grants for poorer students. Charles Kennedys manifesto for the May 5 election promises fees would be scrapped in England and no additional payment would be required from English students. Wallace yesterday admitted he was unable to give a commitment that a Kennedy government at Westminster would mean the scrapping of the endowment payment in Scotland. Copyright The Times - timesonline.co.uk ***************************************************************** 44 The Signal: Water District About-Face Upsets Allies 4/16/2005 Tracey La Monica Signal Staff Writer The district that declared Santa Clarita Valley water supplies more limited than previously stated upsetting developers, the city and school officials reversed itself this week, aligning with other water districts on the issue. Before the Newhall County Water Districts 3-2 vote Thursday night, the board was already drawing criticism from its former allies. We are ... incredulous that you could now have on your agenda a resolution to rescind the hard-won advances that you achieved by passing Resolution 2004-3 with such strong community support last year, wrote Jack Bohlka of the Sierra Club Angeles Chapter. Bohlkas letter criticized the board for embracing a water study that factors in water from wells shut down because of contamination. The reversal is discouraging to say the least, Bohlka wrote. Other letters opposed to the boards about-face came from Friends of the Santa Clara River, which challenged groundwater pumping figures, and from California Water Impact Network and the Planning and Conservation League. The resolution, passed in January 2004, declaring SCV water-availability estimates to be highly inflated, sent many developers scrambling to secure water rights and drew censure from the Santa Clarita City Council and several school boards. Developers and fellow water purveyors accused the Newhall County district of trying to limit growth by limiting available water. School districts criticized the move because new school sites are usually associated with new housing developments. The board voted Thursday to adopt water estimates outlined in the Stetson report, a study the board itself commissioned after the furor over its January 2004 resolution. The Stetson Report was issued in October 2004. We are using the Stetson as a package so we do not have two conflicting documents floating around, said board President Maria Gutzeit. Board members Lynne Plambeck and Joan Dunn opposed Thursdays vote. There were a lot of concerns on the Stetson report, Plambeck said before the meeting. I think this is a huge mistake. Why dont we just have an amendment instead of completely throwing it out? Dunn said. The whole board should work together for the old resolution. The Stetson estimate is in line with the Santa Clarita Valley Urban Water Management Plan, a 2000 state-mandated study that must be updated every five years. Ironically, a legal challenge to the Urban Water Management Plan, based on some of the claims in Newhall Countys January 2004 resolution, was upheld in state appellate court. On Jan. 24, 2005, the 5th District Court of Appeal invalidated the plan because it did not adequately address perchlorate contamination in the water supply. The case was carried to appellate court by Friends of the Santa Clara River and the Sierra Club, who said the 2000 water plan shouldnt have included Santa Claritas tainted groundwater supply. Water districts were ordered to rewrite sections of the 2000 document, bringing them into compliance with Newhall Countys earlier claims, which it rejected Thursday night. 2005 The-Signal.com - Site powered with DynamicBase by ActiveQuest, Inc. ***************************************************************** 45 Bradenton Herald: Tallevast neighbors: 'It's hard to believe' | 04/16/2005 | MELISSA FOLLOWELL and RICHARD DYMOND Herald Staff Writers TALLEVAST - With resignation and disbelief, Tallevast residents learned the news that a plume of toxic groundwater pollution is more than twice the size experts were estimating just a few months ago. Even though Marvin Washington was originally told his home was outside the plume of contamination, the 13-year Tallevast resident stopped drinking the water long before Friday's results were released. Washington wasn't shocked as much as he was dismayed and disillusioned at the new report. "When your health and your livelihood is involved and everything that's up under your land is contaminated, it's hard to believe it will get better," Washington said. "Property values at this point are worthless." A few houses down from Washington, his 78-year-old neighbor Willie Robertson thinks relocating residents is the goal. "Ever since I've been here, they've been trying to get Tallevast," said Robertson, who has lived in the area since he was 17. Robertson just doesn't speak about his disbelief, he lives by it. Large grapefruit and lemon trees loom in his front yard and he doesn't flinch at the thought of eating their fruit. "I still eat them. Those people don't know what they are talking about," Robertson said. A couple streets over, Louise Sloan's old well is still visible in her yard, though she is now on county water. The well is a reminder of her husband, whose death she feels is a direct result of the contaminated water. "When he got sick, we always thought it was from the water," Sloan said. Her husband died of cancer at a young age, leaving Sloan with four children to raise alone. "We asked the doctor, and the doctor said he wasn't sure. Unfortunately, looking back, we drank it and watered the vegetables and everything with it," Sloan said. As she looked at the map, the quiet woman whispered two words. "It's scary," she said. While his children played in his yard on 17th Street Court East, Ervin Smith and his next-door neighbor, Jewel Duncan, gasped as they looked at a map showing the enlarged plume. "That's horrific," said Duncan, who was born in Tallevast. The pair talked about the plume as only longtime Tallevast residents could, in a way that showed the area was more than just lines on a map. It is their home. "The cow pasture is in it now," said Smith, referring to a dairy farm near the corner of U.S. 301 and Tallevast Road. "I wonder what happened to those cows at Smith Dairy when they drank the water?" Duncan said. The men said they never expected the plume would be this large. "That's crazy," Smith said. "Wow, man, it goes on the airport, to the warehouse, behind the post office, to the new and old industrial park. It goes up into 18th Street where I do lawns and to the golf course." Joe Bryant, who lives nearby at 1808 Tallevast Road, was also shocked. "This is big time," Bryant said. "I never thought this would happen. This is amazing." Bryant's well-manicured house on nearly seven acres was worth $125,000 before the pollution discovery, he said. He now judges it to be worth $60,000. "I can't get anything for it," he said. Bryant worked for two months at the former American Beryllium plant when things were slow at his parent's business, Bryant's Grocery. "It smelled like a dead possum in the plant," Bryant said. At the Suncoast Golf Center off 15th Street, golfer Dave Bailey was just getting ready to drive some golf balls Friday night. He grimaced when he saw the size of the plume. "It is a shame," Bailey said. "This is a nice layout." Life in Tallevast since the plume was discovered has been discouraging, Duncan said. "People come here selling stuff all the time for the water," Duncan said. "They come door to door with scare tactics." Smith said one of their neighbors paid $800 for a water filtration system. They also said none of their neighbors can refinance their homes. Smith, who works for American Torch Tip now, was a janitor in charge of dirty uniforms at the American Beryllium plant for 10 years. His father worked at the plant for 30 years; his two brothers, for eight and seven years, respectively. "I feel OK," Smith said. "I was tested and came up negative. But I was sweeping floors and picking up contaminated uniforms." Washington feels the county and health department officials turned their backs for too long on an area in crisis. "You have it here and the county doesn't want to admit it and the health department doesn't want to admit it," Washington said. "The county said for a long time that there is nothing wrong out here." About HeraldToday.com | About the Real Cities Network | Terms of ***************************************************************** 46 Bradenton Herald: Tallevast plume reaches 131 acres 04/16/2005 | BRIAN BLANCO-The Herald Long-time Tallevast resident Willie Robertson's home is just one of the properties that fall within Lockheed Martin's latest contamination report which suggests an affected area that is 2.5 times larger than previously estimated. Toxic area is 2 times larger than last thought SCOTT RADWAY and DONNA WRIGHT Herald Staff Writers TALLEVAST - The plume of groundwater contamination from the former Loral American Beryllium plant has spread over at least 131 acres in this small residential community - more than 2 times larger than the most recent estimate. And Lockheed Martin is not done looking for cancer-causing solvents. A new Lockheed report, sent to the state and The Herald on Friday, shows a plume that has slithered under most of the homes surrounding the old plant, reaches out into farmland to the southeast and northwest, and stretches past a nearby golf course. The contamination also appears to have leached northwest, up 15th Street East into commercial properties, where warehouses stand and institutions including the Airport Animal Hospital and Goodwill operate. Lockheed, responsible for the cleanup because it purchased the site in the late 1990s, submitted the bulk of its testing results Feb. 1. Officials said then they were confident the plume was 50 acres and nearly mapped. On Friday, the community was outraged to learn that the known contamination area is vastly larger - and may grow. "These experts get up and talk about my safety and welfare and say everybody is OK," said Wanda Washington, vice president of Tallevast's community group FOCUS. "Then they draw this 50-acre plot, and now it is 131 acres? My confidence is just shrinking by the minute. Just when you think it can't get any worse, it gets worse." Lockheed has known that the Tallevast site was contaminated since 2000, and the estimated size of the contamination has steadily grown in each new report. The biggest shock to the community so far was that some people were drinking from contaminated wells for nearly four years after Lockheed started its probe. Residents say they have long suffered an inordinate number of illnesses, from respiratory problems to miscarriages to cancer. State health officials are still trying to assess how much contamination residents were exposed to from the American Beryllium plant, which operated from 1962 to 1996. County officials contacted late Friday afternoon by The Herald had not seen the Lockheed report. Charles Henry, supervisor of environmental health for Manatee County Health, declined to comment on the expansion of the plume. "I have not seen any data so it would be unfair for me to comment," Henry said. He stressed that none of the data the health department has gathered so far indicates that any new businesses or residents are at risk. In 2004, the health department hooked residents still using drinking wells in the contamination area to county water. The department has been testing drinking water wells within the areas Lockheed has been monitoring, Henry said. That area extends in a three-quarter-mile circle around the former plant. The high levels of contaminants are generally found near the plant and taper off to low levels near the edges. "The Department of Health will work closely with the Department of Environmental Protection as data becomes available," Henry said. "We will analyze it and then act upon it, if necessary." No cause for concern Lockheed spokeswoman Meredith Rouse Davis insisted the increase in estimated plume sizes should not raise concerns, saying it appeared to be largely due to mapping technology used in the latest report. No plume map accompanied the Feb. 1 report. "We were wrong in putting out the 50 number," Rouse Davis acknowledged. She pointed out that several commercial properties northwest of the plant and on the fringe of the Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport are still targeted for testing. Those results, as long as property access is granted, are expected in a month and should mark the end of the plume assessment phase, she said. The No. 1 contaminant mapped in Tallevast has been a carcinogenic solvent known as trichloroethylene, or TCE. But the last one that needs to be mapped is called 1,4-dioxane, also a solvent. Dioxane, which has been linked to cancer in lab mice, can move more quickly through the groundwater and perhaps farther out. Dioxane was identified in the Feb. 1 report for the first time. Henry said the health department did not originally test for dioxane and is retesting two wells north of the airport and west of 15th Street East. Both are drinking water wells still used by residents. Two previous tests showed the wells were not contaminated with TCE, Henry said. Those two residential wells were tested for the third time last week for 1,4-dioxane contamination to make sure the water is safe to drink. Those two wells are within the area Lockheed has been monitoring to determine the perimeter of the plume. Results are expected early next week, said Henry, who would not release the the two wells' addresses, citing the owners' privacy. DEP will review DEP spokeswoman Brenda Arnold said the agency will review Lockheed's assessment to determine whether more testing is needed or if the company should begin designing a cleanup plan. A public meeting is expected in May to discuss all new information and how Lockheed will proceed. FOCUS' Ward says the sudden jump to 131 acres is clear proof to the community that much still needs to be examined. "That tells you right there," Ward said. "Each and every time a report comes out, there is a difference in the size of the plume." The new report is also proof that the community was right to raise as much concern as it has, she added. "They have been so busy keeping everyone from being alarmed. They are trying to control the people's anxiety," she said. "But we may as well be told the truth." Manatee County Administrator Ernie Padgett also told The Herald he had not received a copy of the report. "It doesn't surprise me that the plume is larger," Padgett said late Friday. "Every time we turn around, it is a little larger than previously stated. I don't know that it even surprises me that it is more than double the original size. The more tests they do over time, the better they can plot it." But the county has worked hard to help the Tallevast community, addressing residents' day-to-day concerns and holding periodic meetings with his department heads and community leaders, Padgett contended. "I feel like we have engaged the community and we are helping as much as we can and we will continue to," Padgett said. "At the same time, I fully understand the ladies saying what they are saying. "For this plume to be more twice the size, you wonder how bad is this going to get?" The new data should be discussed in a public meeting, he added. "If it's now a plume that is more than twice as large as before, we need to keep everyone - the board and the public - abreast of what Lockheed is finding out," Padgett said. "This is a dynamic process. There needs to be another meeting, and the Department of Environmental Protection needs to be there as well as Lockheed." Scott Radway, environmental reporter, can be reached at 708-7919 or at sradway@HeraldToday.com. ***************************************************************** 47 AP Wire: Tallevast's groundwater woes more widespread than thought | 04/16/2005 | Associated Press TALLEVAST, Fla. - A plume of groundwater pollution near a former weapons manufacturing plant in Manatee County is nearly 30 times larger than initially estimated, according to the defense contractor responsible for cleaning up the property. The pollution emanated from the American Beryllium Co. plant, which operated for nearly 40 years before closing in 1996. Lockheed Martin bought the property that year. The plume covers at least 130 acres and contains several toxic chemicals, including the cleaning solvent trichloroethylene, or TCE, which can cause liver and kidney cancer and a host of other ailments if ingested. Previous tests have shown TCE at levels as high as 10,000 times the state standard for drinking water. When Lockheed first told residents of the pollution, in 2003, the plume was estimated to cover about five acres. A second round of tests last summer indicated the plume covered about 50 acres. More groundwater tests are needed to determine the exact size of the plume, Lockheed spokeswoman Meredith Davis said. Those tests should take about a month to complete. Lockheed will then meet with state officials to plan how to clean up the pollution. The cleanup could take a decade. 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