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                         NUCLEAR POLICY
 
1 US: sacbee.com: Massive energy bill shields MTBE makers - 
2 US: PRAVDA.Ru: Mikhail Gorbachev diagnoses America's problems - 
3 US: SF Chronicle: House Approves Far-Reaching Energy Bill
4 US: Democrat & Chronicle: Science squeezed by budget 
5 US: AFP: House passes energy reform bill laden with extras for US oi
6 Vanunu's Restrictions Tightened; Protest at Dimona on
 
                         NUCLEAR REACTORS
 
7 US: KPBS television show a great promotional piece for SONWGS!
8 US: NRC: NRC to Meet with Southern Nuclear Officials to Discuss Safe
9 US: toledo blade: THE DAVIS-BESSIE NUCLEAR POWER PLANT
10 US: Rutland Herald: Looking beyond Vermont Yankee
11 US: NRC: McGuire Nuclear Station, Units 1 and 2; Notice of Issuance 
12 US: NRC: NRC to Discuss 2004 Performance at Oconee Nuclear Power Pla
13 US: NRC: Nuclear Management Company, LLC, Notice of Correction to
14 AFP: Iran honoring safety regulations in building Bushehr power plan
15 Kyiv Post: Chernobyl plant faces potentially dangerous power cut due
16 ITAR-TASS: Chernobyl NPP facing prospect of energy blockade
17 US: SouthBendTribune.com: NRC: Hospital at fault for errors
18 US: Edie news centre: Regulatory uncertainty could cause power failu
19 Scotsman.com News: New nuclear power stations not ruled out
20 US: Public Citizen: NRC's Proposed Fine Against Nuclear Operator 
21 Al Jazeerah: Take a 2nd Look at Nuclear Power This Earth Day 
22 US: Guardian Unlimited: NRC Slaps FirstEnergy With Record Fine
 
                          NUCLEAR SECURITY
 
23 US: SABCnews.com: Alleged nuclear material traffickers appear in cou
24 Korea Herald: Roh, Bush may hold June summit on N. Korea nukes   
25 Las Vegas SUN: N. Korea Says Nukes Needed for Defense
26 St. Petersburg Times: Russia insists on Korea adopting non-nuclear s
27 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: Referral of the N.K. Nuclear Issue to UNS
28 Pakistan Times: Mumtaz Hamid Rao's Editorial: The Nukes Scrutiny? 
29 People's Daily Online: DPRK urges US to clear its nuclear weapons 
30 AFP: Iran says expectations partly fulfilled in nuclear talks 
31 DAWN: India denies buying N-parts from Israel -
32 Guardian Unlimited: N. Korea Says Nukes Needed for Defense
 
                          NUCLEAR SAFETY
 
33 US: Fort Morgan Times: Differences in radioactive materials describe
34 US: Cibola County Beacon: Uranium workers and energy employee benefi
 
                         NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
 
35 US: Denver Post: Uranium mill faces safety warning
36 US: Bradenton Herald: Contamination from Tallevast concerns SRQ
37 Washington Times: The Yucca Mountain scandal
38 US: The Herald: County officials feel reassured after MOX briefing  
39 Las Vegas SUN: New pro-Yucca group formed
40 Las Vegas SUN: Columnist Jeff German: Expect Bush to be mum on Yucca
41 Las Vegas SUN: New e-mails: Yucca 'flunked'
42 RGJ: Anti-Yucca forces still can’t rest
43 US: washington post: D.C. 1, Toxic Waste 1 
44 Las Vegas SUN: Nevada lawyer says e-mails show Yucca Mountain 'flunk
45 US: Xinhua: S. Korea, Kazakhstan agree on joint mining of uranium   
46 US: Deseret news: Envirocare clears expansion hurdle 
47 US: PE.com WYLE: Perchlorate isn't found on Raquel Road, but is dete
48 Fiji Times: Greenpeace warns of nuclear highway - 
49 US: Guardian Unlimited: Navajo Nation Outlaws Uranium Mining
 
                           PEACE
 
50 US: [du-list] Hiroshima Appeals to President Bush:  an opinion ad
51 US: Chicago Sun-Times: Nagasaki A-bomb victim to accompany exhibit h
 
                        US DEPT. OF ENERGY
 
52 Denver Post: Allard backs benefits for Flats workers
53 Las Vegas SUN: Report: DOE needs better management of records
54 Oakland Tribune: UC, lab want suit verdict tossed
55 The Paducah Sun: DOE funds drying up for PACRO - 
56 Rocky Mountain News: Allard: Full benefits for Flats workers
*****************************************************************
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                         FULL NEWS STORIES
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 1 sacbee.com: Massive energy bill shields MTBE makers - 

House-passed plan includes Arctic drilling
 
By Nicole Tsong and David Whitney -- Bee Washington Bureau
Published 2:15 am PDT Friday, April 22, 2005
 
A1--> WASHINGTON - The House passed a comprehensive energy bill
Thursday that included a provision to drill for oil in the
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and protected manufacturers of
the gasoline additive MTBE from lawsuits.

 The energy bill, approved 249-183, is the fifth version in four
years to pass the House and marks the third time the House has
approved a bill permitting drilling in the Alaska coastal plain.

 The MTBE lawsuit protection provision was one of the main
reasons the energy legislation failed last year.

 Throughout the two-day debate, the biggest battle was over the
provision that would shield the oil-company makers of MTBE from
liability for the cost of cleaning up underground water supplies
contaminated with the product.

 An effort to scrap the provision fell six votes short.

 California's 53-member House delegation was divided on the
issue straight down party lines.

 MTBE, or methyl tertiary butyl ether, was the leading additive
used by the oil industry under a 1990 Clean Air Act amendment
aimed at reducing air pollution. While it may have worked to cut
smog, it also turned into a water pollution problem when it
leaked into the ground from underground tanks at service
stations.

 Nearly 1,500 lawsuits have been filed alleging product
liability, and the cost of cleaning up polluted sites has been
put at $29 billion, although the industry contends the bill will
be far less.

 With the manufacturers immunized from lawsuits, critics charged
that cities and states would have to pay the cleanup costs for a
product that the industry knew would become a major pollution
problem if it ever leaked into the ground.

 The Congressional Budget Office determined that the provision
would amount to an unfunded mandate - a term popularized by
Republicans for government actions that unfairly thrust the cost
of federal decisions on the states.

 Democrats hammered hard on Republicans not only for refusing to
enforce their own doctrines against such mandates but also for
protecting the oil industry as part of an energy bill already
full of subsidies.

 House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco,
condemned that provision as an "outrageous giveaway." Rep. Henry
Waxman, D-Los Angeles, said "your local governments are going to
have to pick up billions of dollars in costs to clean up the
drinking water."

 But Republicans, even reading from Waxman's own remarks at the
time, said it was well understood in 1990 that Congress was
virtually directing the oil industry to use MTBE to reduce air
pollution.

 Led by Rep. Lois Capps of Santa Barbara, the Democrats forced a
reluctant House Republican leadership to hold a vote on yanking
the provision, which last year was blamed for scuttling a deal
with the Senate on an energy package.

 The Capps amendment was defeated 219-213, but the margin was
close enough that it is certain to add to pressure already
facing the House leadership to compromise on its defense of the
oil industry.

 Rep. Charles Bass, R-N.H., who sits on the Energy and Commerce
Committee's environment and hazardous material panel, said the
search is on for an MTBE remediation plan that would include
"all the responsible entities."

 "This problem is not going to be solved by lawsuits," he said.

 This week's debate on the House floor over the energy bill took
on an urgent tone because of rising gasoline prices. Republicans
touted the bill as critical to lowering energy prices, although
they acknowledged the bill would not provide immediate relief
for fuel prices.

 But at a press conference Wednesday, Energy Secretary Samuel
Bodman and several House leaders stood in front of the words
"Fill 'er up" printed over a picture of a full fuel gauge.
President Bush also called on Congress this week to pass the
bill, saying it would help lower energy prices and encourage
domestic oil production with drilling in ANWR.

 The bill also:

 * Includes $8 billion in tax breaks for oil, gas, nuclear, coal
and electric utilities.

 * Requires refiners to increase use of corn-based ethanol.

 * Expands daylight-saving time by two months to the first
Sunday in March and the last Sunday in November.

 * Allows the federal government to decide where to place
liquefied natural gas import terminals. California lawmakers
fighting two proposed LNG terminals off the coast of Oxnard
oppose this item.

 * Provides a tax credit of 20 percent, up to $2,000, for
homeowners who install more efficient windows and doors and
improved insulation.

 * Alters the Clean Air Act by giving localities whose polluted
air comes from distant states more time to meet national air
quality standards.

 * Sets mandatory reliability standards for electric power
lines, instead of industry self-regulation.

 * Provides $2 billion in royalty relief to the oil and gas
industry over 10 years for research on ways to recover more oil
and gas from the Gulf of Mexico.

 Joining the GOP majority in passing the bill were 41 Democrats.
Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, said the size of the Democratic
support was a sign that this year's legislation might fare
better in the Senate than the energy bill that died there two
years ago.

 Proponents still need to maneuver through several more steps
before the legislation becomes law. They are awaiting a
companion bill from the Senate, which likely will not include a
provision to open the Arctic coastal plain to drilling. A
long-standing filibuster threat from Democrats has stalled ANWR
provisions in the past, and this year the Republican leadership
passed the ANWR measure in the Senate's budget resolution, which
is not subject to a filibuster.

 
About the writer:
 
  + The Bee's David Whitney can be reached at (202) 383-0004 or
. The Associated Press, Washington Post and Ventura County Star
contributed to this report. 

[The Sacramento Bee] -
*****************************************************************
 2 PRAVDA.Ru: Mikhail Gorbachev diagnoses America's problems - 

  04/22/2005 15:16   
  
[Gorbachev criticises USA] Mikhail Gorbachev is still a very
popular personality in the United States. And this didn't stop
him from criticizing the foreign policy of U.S. administration.
He accused the White House of displaying hypocrisy and double
standards. He also blamed USA for its reluctance to reduce
America's huge stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction.

74-year-old Russian politician leveled his criticism at U.S.
administration during his ten-day visit to USA and Canada. Mr.
Gorbachev delivered an address at the UN Headquarters in New
York this Thursday. During his speech he called on the
international community to conclude an agreement on guarantees
for clean water supply to the world"s population. Getting the
world leaders to sign the agreement is quite a challenge, said
Mr. Gorbachev. 

Mikhail Gorbachev is touring the States till April 22nd. His
trip to USA is getting a lot of coverage in the American media.

He took part in a meeting of the Council for Information
Technologies in Boston, Massachusetts. The meeting focused on
issues relating to cooperation between Russia and USA in the
field of information technologies. Earlier this week Mr.
Gorbachev met with the Governor of New Jersey Richard Cody in
Trenton, the state's capital. Besides, the Nobel Peace Prize
winner read lectures in a few prestigious universities. The
lectures were related to the 20th anniversary of perestroika. 

Recent opinion polls show that the majority of Americans still
view Mikhail Gorbachev as one of the most influential historical
leaders of the 20th century. No wonder a capacity crowd shows up
every time he makes a public speech or gives a press conference
on the American soil. 

On a press conference in New York Mr. Gorbachev accused the Bush
administration of conducting a policy of double standards. He
said that Washington was not taking any steps to reduce its own
stockpiles of nuclear weapons while demanding that other nations
disarm. Mr. Gorbachev called for further steps aimed at the
significant reduction of strategic nuclear weapons in USA and
Russia. The former Soviet leader believes that Russia is ready
to continue cooperation in this field. However, Mr. Gorbachev
doubts whether U.S. administration really intends to play along.

"The United States is the only superpower at the world stage
these days so I would not say that the Americans are ready to
continue the disarmament process because America has a winner"s
complex and the condition should be cured," said he. Mr.
Gorbachev said that humankind should get rid of nuclear weapons
once and for all. But the process of  reduction of nuclear
weapons in the world slowed down, according to Mr. Gorbachev.

Now USA and Russia have 34,000 nuclear warheads in their
arsenals. The bombs and missiles are capable of causing repeated
obliteration of the planet Earth. An international conference
will be held in the UN this May to analyze observance of the
treaty for nonproliferation of nuclear arms that came into force
in 1970. 

Mikhail Gorbachev believes that the present military doctrines
of both countries should be revised. USA and Russia already
changed their military doctrines to allow the use of nuclear
weapons under certain conditions including preemptive strikes. 

Mr. Gorbachev is confident that both countries made a big
mistake by changing their doctrines. "This is a mistake
affecting the global interests of all humankind because we are
talking about nuclear weapons capable of causing irreparable
damage to human civilization," said he. 

In the meantime, Gorbachev welcomes an ongoing dialogue between
the presidents of USA and Russia. "We should welcome the process
of dialogue because it will eventually result in consent which
is a necessary condition for resolving issues common to all
humankind," said he. The Russian politician is confident that
the United State could be a true leader of the world. In his
opinion, America's leadership should be built on a basis of
international partnership as opposed to the world domination
policy. "The old methods are not longer applicable to today"s
global world and the violation of UN principles and
international law is totally unacceptable," stressed the former
president of the USSR. 

Mikhail Gorbachev handed the Alan Cranston Peace Prize to the
founder of CNN Ted Turner on Wednesday. The ceremony took place
in the UN Headquarters in New York. In 1997 Ted Turner, a media
magnate and philanthropist, allocated $1 billion to the UN
Foundation, a charitable organization founded by Mr. Turner. The
Global Security Institute awarded the prize to Mr. Turner for
his effort in the fight for nuclear disarmament, sustainable
development, and innovation in the area of mass communications. 
     
 
 Mikhail Pervushin   
  
Read the original in Russian: (Translated by: Guerman Grachev)
 
  L1999-2002 "PRAVDA.Ru". When reproducing our materials in
*****************************************************************
 3 SF Chronicle: House Approves Far-Reaching Energy Bill
 
By H. JOSEF HEBERT, Associated Press Writer 

Friday, April 22, 2005 (04-22) 04:43 PDT WASHINGTON, (AP) -- 

For the fifth time in four years the House has approved a 
far-reaching energy bill. Unresolved is whether the Senate will 
be able to put together legislation that both chambers can 
embrace. 

That's been a long-standing problem  and it's likely to continue 
to be one this time around. 

Despite concern across the country as high gasoline prices pinch 
the pocketbook, the struggle to enact a new national agenda on 
energy probably won't ease in the months ahead. Senate 
Republicans hope to get their energy bill ready for a vote before 
the end of May. 

The bill the House passed Thursday by a 249-183 margin reflects 
many of President Bush's energy priorities, and energy industries 
and the business community quickly embraced it. Just as quickly, 
environmentalists and many congressional Democrats denounced it, 
although 41 Democrats voted for passage. 

Bush, who had challenged Congress to send him something on energy 
before their summer recess in August, called the House bill "an 
important step to secure our energy future and to reduce our 
dependence on foreign sources of energy." 

It includes $8.1 billion in energy tax breaks and several billion 
in other subsidies, including $2 billion to increase research 
into drilling for oil and gas in extremely deep waters of the 
Gulf of Mexico. And there is $2 billion to makers of the gasoline 
additive MTBE to help them defray the cost of phasing out the 
product, which contaminates drinking water. 

The House also called for opening the coastal plain of the Arctic 
National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil companies. Sen. Pete 
Domenici, R-N.M., whose committee will put together the Senate's 
energy bill, has said such a provision would prompt a filibuster 
in the Senate and likely could not be overcome. 

Instead, the Senate hopes to address the Arctic refuge issue 
through a separate budget process for which a filibuster is not 
possible. 

The House bill also would give MTBE makers, including major oil 
companies and refiners, protection against product liability 
lawsuits stemming from the water contamination. More than 80 such 
suits already have been filed by water districts, municipalities 
and the state of New Hampshire. 

Two years ago an identical MBTE liability waiver stopped a nearly 
completed energy bill in its tracks. 

The House bill is cheaper than the one that came close to being 
approved by Congress in 2003. Still, the Taxpayers for Common 
Sense, an advocacy group, estimated if all of programs authorized 
by the bill were to get money  which they will not  it would 
cost taxpayers $89 billion over 10 years. 

Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, who guided the bill during floor 
debate, said he would guess the bill will cost about $10 billion 
to $12 billion over five years. That's still too much for the 
White House. 

"The president's very pleased with this bill," Energy Secretary 
Samuel Bodman told reporters. But he said he hoped that as the 
energy legislation works its way in the Senate and eventually in 
a conference between both chambers the cost can be brought down. 

The bill has some provisions not seen in past energy legislation. 

It would expand daylight-saving time by two months. The measure's 
supporters said that could save the equivalent of 100,000 barrels 
of oil a day. Nobody objected to that provision. 

However, another new item in the House bill is likely to cause a 
stir if pursued in the Senate: language that assures the Federal 
Energy Regulatory Commission has final say over where to build 
liquefied natural gas import terminals, overriding state and 
local opposition if necessary. 

In many ways the House bill is not much different from 
legislation it passed in 2001 and again in 2003. Those bills also 
called for oil drilling in the Alaska wildlife refuge and were 
tilted heavily to promoting energy production with modest 
attention to energy conservation. 

Each time, however, the Senate came up with different energy 
priorities. When negotiators for both the House and Senate 
finally agreed on a bill in 2003, the deal fell apart over MTBE 
liability protection, which House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of 
Texas refused to abandon. 

Since then, Senate Republicans have strengthened their majority. 

Barton said after the House vote that he believes he can find a 
compromise with the Senate over MTBE  perhaps funneling more 
money and federal attention toward water cleanup and the problem 
with leaking gasoline storage tanks. Still, Barton was surprised 
at the strength of the opposition to the MTBE provision, which 
fell just six votes shy of being scrapped. 

"This was a surrogate vote on Tom DeLay," Barton said. 

DeLay has been under attack from Democrats over unrelated ethics 
issues.                                 
 			
©2005 Associated Press |
*****************************************************************
 4 Democrat & Chronicle: Science squeezed by budget 

Geological Survey chief, at UR, says that limits our knowledge 

Staff Writer 

(April 22, 2005)  During winters more than 40 years ago,
University of Rochester undergraduate Charles G. "Chip" Groat
used to walk across the iced-over Genesee River to a jazz club
on Plymouth Avenue. 

Chuck Mangione, just getting started as a horn player, provided
a welcome break in Groat's studies of rock formations, minerals
and paleontology.

Today, the one-time geology major — a 1962 UR grad — is director
of the U.S. Geological Survey, a natural sciences agency that
employs 9,000 scientists, maintains 400 offices nationwide and
has a budget of more than $1 billion. 

"It was more fun when there was money," he said of his six-year
tenure at the Virginia-based USGS, where budgets to study
natural resources nationwide have lately barely kept up with
inflation. 

Groat, who earned a doctorate at the University of Texas at
Austin, grew up in grape county along Lake Erie south of
Buffalo. He was in Rochester on Thursday to deliver the final
Neilly Series lecture of the academic year. 

The agency's present challenge is to offer up scientific
expertise in ways that are understandable to citizens and
policymakers — including the real risks from natural hazards
such as invasive species, forest fires and earthquakes. 

One example: an online program called ShakeMap, which provides
in near-real time an earthquake's effects on bridges, rail,
roads and other infrastructure. 

"We're going to be translators of our own science," said Groat.

In the Rochester region, budget shortfalls have kept the USGS
from measuring the effect of changing land use on the Finger
Lakes. "We still have it," he said of the study plan. "We'd be
happy to dust it off." 

A tight budget also means the USGS can't quickly update its
topographical maps, which on average are 23 years old — despite
going to an electronic system that builds maps in layers of
digital data. 

And the cash-strapped agency needs to know "how much (fresh)
water we have — and we don't," said Groat, 65. Pilot projects
are under way in the Great Lakes and in the lower Colorado
River. 

Even more elusive are good estimates of U.S. reserves of
groundwater, the complex underground rivers that percolate
through rock and are recharged by precipitation. 

Getting a measure of that resource, increasingly used by cities
and farms, "is one of our largest emerging issues," said Groat.

Another challenge to the agency came in the aftermath of the
Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. 

"We did some soul-searching" about what federal data to keep
public, said Groat. In the end, the USGS decided to keep
everything in the public eye, but not everything online. 

Sensitive material, such as maps of military bases, are
available by request only, so authorities can check on who's
asking.

Sometimes, said Groat, the pursuit of science clashes with the
political climate. 

In 1998, the USGS reassessed the potential holdings of the
embattled Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. The numbers
had gone up, to an estimated 10.4 billion barrels of oil —
upsetting the political agenda of the Clinton White House. 

Recently, the agency did a biological assessment of the same
fragile reserve. It looked at the impacts of proposed oil
exploration on caribou, polar bars and musk ox — upsetting the
political agenda of the Bush White House. 

"The science says what the science says," offered Groat, whose
agency stays above the fray. "And we can't change it."

Politics and science have rubbed together the hardest at Yucca
Mountain in Nevada, the vault of underground volcanic rock where
federal energy officials want to store high-level radioactive
waste from power plants and military applications. 

"The safest way to do that is in a geological repository," said
Groat, whose USGS is one of 80 agencies and contractors studying
the Yucca Mountain site. 

Yucca is a charged issue, both scientifically and politically,
said UR geophysicist John Tarduno, who introduced Groat at the
lecture.

"You have this national need," he said — but we also have
uncertainty in the scale of geologic time. The repository has to
stay undisturbed by tremors and infiltrating water for 100,000
years. 

The USGS faces a cultural struggle, too, said Groat: integrating
branches of science that historically have ignored one another,
including geology, geography and biology. 

Beyond even money and politics, he said, "we've had a very
challenging time."

Feedback Copyright 2005 Rochester Democrat and Chronicle | 55
Exchange Boulevard | Rochester, NY 14614 | (585) 232-7100
*****************************************************************
 5 AFP: House passes energy reform bill laden with extras for US oil industry - 

  New Scientist | AFP
 
Friday April 22, 02:17 PM

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The House of Representatives passed energy
reform legislation in a bid to stimulate oil and gas production
and reduce energy consumption at a time of spiraling fuel costs.

The bill, which passed by a vote of 249 to 183, authorizes over
80 billion dollars in spending and over eight billion dollars in
subsidies and tax incentives for oil companies. "America is in
the midst of an energy crisis that threatens our national and
economic security," said House Speaker Dennis Hastert. 

"The House legislation ... reduces our dependence on foreign oil 
by expanding domestic supplies and allowing oil and gas 
exploration right here in the United States. "Incentives are 
provided for the energy industry to increase refining capacity 
for gasoline, diesel fuel, home heating oil and jet fuel," said 
Hastert, the top Republican in the House of Representatives. 

Business groups hailed the legislation, which has yet to be taken 
up by the US Senate. "Enactment of comprehensive energy 
legislation is critical to American livelihoods and to our 
economy," said William Kovacs, vice president of environmental 
affairs for the US Chamber of Commerce. 

"At a time when everyone feels the pinch from higher gas prices, 
this plan puts us back on track for securing our nations energy 
needs," said Kovacs. But after the vote, critics -- including 
some lawmakers from George W. Bush's Republican party -- decried 
the financial incentives for big business. 

"The most effective thing the federal government can do in terms 
of energy policy is to find ways to get out of the way and let 
the free market improve quality and reduce cost," said Republican 
Representative Jeff Flake. 

"Unfortunately, this bill goes in the other direction with 
special interest giveaways and subsidies." 

"If Americans believe that they will pay less at the pump because 
of this bill, they are sorely mistaken," Flake said. 

One public interest group, Taxpayers for Common Sense, said in a 
statement that the only winners in the legislation is the energy 
industry. "Corn Country gets billions, Big Oil gets billions, 
Nuclear Power gets billions, King Coal gets billions -- and 
taxpayers get stuck paying record prices at the pump." the group 
said. 

"This legislation is nothing more than a grab bag of high-priced 
special interest goodies for energy corporations." Other lamented 
environmental aspects of the big, notably that it would permit 
oil and gas drilling in the pristine Alaska National Wildlife 
Refuge. 

Late last week, Bush deplored high fuel prices in the United 
States, saying US families needed relief and calling on Congress 
to expedite legislation. 

"American families and small businesses across the country are 
feeling the pinch from rising gas prices," the president said in 
his weekly radio address. "If you're trying to meet a family 
budget or a payroll, even a small change at the pump can have a 
big impact." 

The US president said the country's prosperity depended today on 
reliable, affordable and secure sources of energy, and noted that 
US energy needs were growing faster than national domestic 
sources currently are able to provide.     

Copyright © 2005 AFP AFP. All rights reserved. 
*****************************************************************
 6 Vanunu's Restrictions Tightened; Protest at Dimona on
 
Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2005 14:49:32 -0700

 
<x-flowed>
Free Mordechai Vanunu - Info & Action Alert #61 - April 22, 2005

 From the U.S. Campaign to Free Mordechai Vanunu
http://www.vanunu.com and http://www.nonviolence.org/vanunu/

** PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY TO SYMPATHETIC LISTS **

IN THIS ALERT:

1)  Press release from the International Campaign to Free Mordechai Vanunu: 
Vanunu's Restrictions Tightened; Protest at Dimona on Anniversary of His 
Prison Release

2)  Letter to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon from the international delegation 
in Israel.
On Friday, April 22, about 50 international and Israeli activists processed 
with signs and banners through the hecklers of a Jewish neighborhood to the 
Prime Minister's residence.  They were not permitted to vigil there, and 
were escorted by police back to nearby Paris Square.

3)  Defying New Restrictions, Vanunu blasts Israel in Internet chat with 
Norwegian readers

============
1)  Press release from the International Campaign to Free Mordechai Vanunu
INTERNATIONAL CAMPAIGN TO FREE MORDECHAI VANUNU

April 22, 2005
For immediate release

VANUNU RESTRICTED FROM LEAVING THE COUNTRY FOR ANOTHER YEAR

INTERNATIONAL GROUP PROTESTS AT DIMONA ON FIRST ANNIVERSARY OF VANUNU'S 
RELEASE FROM ASHKELON PRISON

On April 21, the one year anniversary of his release from Ashkelon Prison, 
Israeli nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu learned that Minister of the 
Interior, Ophir Paz-Pines, signed the document that continues the 
restrictions forbidding Vanunu from leaving the country for another 
year.  The remainder of the restrictions given to him upon his release from 
prison last April were also renewed, with the addition of now being 
forbidden to speak about nuclear weapons at all, including information that 
has already been published. Additionally, Vanunu is now not allowed to 
enter the West Bank.

The same day, over 50 activists from Israel and around the world gathered 
at the Dimona nuclear facility in the Negev Desert, where Vanunu worked 
more than 20 years ago.  With the Dimona reactor dome visible in the 
distance, the group held signs calling for worldwide nuclear abolition and 
complete freedom for Mordechai Vanunu. Demonstrators scattered ashes across 
the sand, symbolizing the destruction of a nuclear explosion.

The first speaker at the demonstration was Ryoko Noma of Hiroshima, Japan, 
who spoke movingly of the aftermath and suffering of the victims of the 
atomic bombing of Hiroshima.  Carmel Martin of London, England read this 
message from Mordechai Vanunu:  "Dimona is a real holocaust.  The Israelis 
are producing genocide weapons here.  End the production of these genocide 
weapons.  Shut Dimona."

Other speakers included Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire, Kathy Kelly 
from Voices in the Wilderness, Chicago, U.S., Israeli poet Mati Shmuelov, 
Knesset member Issam Makhoul, and Israeli anti-nuclear activists Akiva Orr 
and Rayna Moss.

Today, April 22, the international delegation currently in Israel to call 
for the lifting of Vanunu's restrictions, will culminate their week's 
activities with a vigil at Jerusalem's Paris Square starting at 10 a.m., 
holding photos of Mordechai Vanunu with signs that read "We are All 
Mordechai Vanunu" and "Wherever We Are, Vanunu Is".

Contact information:

In Israel: Rayna Moss: Tel. 972-50 -7368236, email: legalese@netvision.net.il
In the USA: Tel/Fax 520-323-8697, email: freevanunu@mindspring.com
In Britain: Tel. +44 20 8808 7568, e-mail: campaign@vanunu.freeserve.co.uk
In Norway: Fredrik Heffermehl, Tel. +47-2244 8003 Fax: +47-2244 7616 email: 
fredpax@online.no

www.vanunu.com, www.vanunu.co.uk

============
2)  Letter to Ariel Sharon from the International Delegation in Israel

Dear Prime Minister Ariel Sharon,

We, delegates from several countries gathered in Jerusalem for the 
anniversary of Mordechai Vanunu's release, express our concern, 
disappointment, shock and disbelief at the recent decision to renew the 
sanctions on Mordechai Vanunu for another 12 months.  To us, Mordechai 
Vanunu is a hero of world peace and a voice of sanity and truth in a world 
increasingly threatened by the insanity of nuclear weapons.

Your courts found him guilty of espionage and treason and sentenced him to 
18 years in prison.  The crime for which he was sentenced was revealing the 
secrets of Israel's nuclear arsenal - although 19 years later you 
officially tell the world that Israel has no nuclear arsenal at 
all.  Mordechai Vanunu served his cruel sentence in Israeli prisons and 
last year, on the 21st of April, we were present at Ashkelon for his release.

We pass over his unlawful kidnapping in Rome and his unlawful return to 
Israel, shackled and drugged.  We pass over his secret trial and conviction 
and the long period of solitary confinement you imposed on him, which 
shocked the world and created a new unflattering record for this type of 
inhumane and barbaric treatment of a human being.

These are all in the past and while they remain as stubborn facts that can 
never be erased we are concerned now only with the present.

Since his release last April, Mordechai Vanunu has been forbidden to enjoy 
two of the most basic rights of human beings:  freedom of speech and 
freedom to travel.  He has now received a new order not to talk about the 
subject of Dimona or nuclear weapons even if what he says has already been 
published.  The spurious and specious argument has been made within Israel 
that "he has more secrets to tell." Outside of Israel, few believe this 
argument.  Even within Israel, many Israelis do not believe it.  All the 
information that he has was published 19 years ago in the Sunday 
Times.  Nuclear technology has moved on.  It is clear that the restrictions 
placed on Mordechai Vanunu must not be for reasons of Israeli security but 
for reasons of revenge, anger or even malice.

Mordechai Vanunu, who today was inaugurated as Rector of Glasgow University 
and has received innumerable other honors from around the world, has said 
NO to these unjust and cruel sanctions.  Outside and inside of Israel, most 
fair-minded people agree with him.  It will not redound to the benefit of 
Israel if your government continues to play with the life, feelings and 
dignity of this human being.

We have resolved that while he is forbidden to speak, we will speak out 
openly and often on his behalf in our different countries around the 
world.  While he is forbidden to travel, your country's reputation with 
regard to human rights will continue to decline.  We do not wish this on 
your country.  We join with other organizations, groups and individuals 
around the world in asking you with all the vehemence and power we can 
muster to do the big thing, the noble thing and the right thing and let 
Mordechai Vanunu go.

Somewhere it as been said, a prophet is honored everywhere but in his own 
country.  Mordechai Vanunu has tried to save the children of Israel from a 
nuclear disaster.  Do not dishonor him.  Give him his passport and let 
Mordechai Vanunu go.

Best personal wishes,
s/  Members of the international delegation

============
3)  Defying New Restrictions, Vanunu blasts Israel in Internet chat with 
Norwegian readers

http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/568445.html
April 22, 2005

Vanunu blasts Israel in Internet chat with Norwegian readers
By The Associated Press

OSLO, Norway - Nuclear whistle-blower Mordechai Vanunu lashed out at Israel 
Friday in an Internet chat with readers in Norway, defying a ban on contact 
with foreigners.

The former nuclear technician exposed his country's nuclear weapons program 
in 1986, and was sentenced to 18 years in prison.

"I saved Israel from its madness to go toward nuclear genocide war," Vanunu 
said in the chat set up by Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet. "I am very proud 
of publishing nuclear secret."

Vanunu, released from prison last year, has been in the news in Norway 
after it rejected his asylum application.

Dagbladet editor Helge Oegrim said they repeatedly called Vanunu on a 
secret telephone number to be sure he was the person answering the readers.

"I'm not saying it couldn't be a top spy answering," Oegrim told The 
Associated Press. "But we feel very certain that this is the real person."

Vanunu confirmed to the Associated Press in Israel that he had participated 
in the Norwegian paper's question and answer session.

Israel this week extended a ban on Vanunu leaving the country or contacting 
foreigners for another year, drawing protests the London-based human rights 
group Amnesty International.

Security officials have said Vanunu could still have classified information 
that he didn't release earlier

Vanunu, 50, said he was taking the risk of contact with foreigners because 
to help continue his campaign against nuclear weapons in Israel and the world.

"All my activity here is open and known to everyone," said Vanunu. "The 
Israel government can put me back in prison if they want."

Vanunu has applied for asylum in numerous countries, including Norway, 
which rejected his request because he applied at Oslo's embassy in Israel 
rather than in Norway as required. The government also said it feared 
compromising its role as a mediator in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Vanunu, who has repeatedly been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize given 
annually in Oslo, said he was disappointed by the rejection, but buoyed by 
support from the Norwegian people, including a city that offered him 
shelter under an international program to protect persecuted writers.

Vanunu was convicted of treason in 1988 for divulging information and 
pictures of Israel's top secret nuclear reactor. The details, published in 
London's Sunday Times, led experts to conclude that Israel has the 
sixth-largest stockpile of nuclear weapons, including hundreds of warheads.

Israel neither acknowledges nor denies having a nuclear weapons' program, 
following a policy of nuclear ambiguity.

============
Felice Cohen-Joppa
Coordinator
U.S. Campaign to Free Mordechai Vanunu
POB 43384
Tucson, AZ 85733
Phone/Fax 520-323-8697
freevanunu@mindspring.com
www.vanunu.com

</x-flowed>
*****************************************************************
 7 KPBS television show a great promotional piece for SONWGS!
 
Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2005 14:49:24 -0700

 
<x-flowed>
To: fullfocus@kpbs.org, "Editor, NC Times" <opinion@nctimes.com>
cc: nasa-prometheus-peis@nasa.gov, "New Horizons Public Comments" 
<osspluto@hq.nasa.gov>

April 22nd, 2005  -- Nuclear Activism Newsletter -- Russell Hoffman, Editor.

(1) Comments: on KPBS television "promo" regarding San Onofre's Steam 
Generator Replacement plan
(2) Letter: to KPBS about their television show
(3) Article: by Dr. Helen Caldicott: Nuclear power is the problem, not a 
solution
(4) Letter: to the North County Times: Censorship continues unabated at the 
NC Times
(5) NASA: Promiscuous about Prometheus and other nuclear hotties
(6) Letter: Bruce Gagnon on NASA's multitude of nuclear projects (from the 
space4peace.org web site)
(7) Contact information for the author of this newsletter

Dear Readers,

Pro-nukers live in a world of delusions, misrepresentations, illogical 
statements, falsehoods, or, perhaps, even LIES.

To start with, most of them assume that all background radiation is 
harmless or maybe even GOOD for you.  They think they are spreading little 
vitamins around.  I KID YOU NOT.  They really are THAT DELUDED.  But what 
else is "Hormesis" if not the theory that radioactive particles are tiny 
little sunshine vitamins you can take internally?  It's about as logical as 
describing grenades as being small, healthy versions of atomic bombs.

Pro-nukers generally assume that all cell damage by so-called "low-level" 
radiation is repairable, which is incorrect.  Pro-nukers mistake "no 
immediate significant danger" for "no danger whatsoever", and "no immediate 
visible health effects" for "no health effects whatsoever."  These also are 
wildly inaccurate assumptions.

One pro-nuker proffered many of their various delusions on the local public 
television station, KPBS, earlier this week.  The show seemed like a 
promotional piece for San Onofre in support of their upcoming steam 
generator replacement project.  The show didn't start with hard facts about 
the dangers of nuclear power, and what we MIGHT have learned since 9-11 and 
since Davis-Besse and the Tsunami of last December.  Rather, it started by 
giving the San Onofre plant spokesperson an open mike and a loving photo 
essay accompaniment.

The steam generator replacement project will probably cost well over $1 
billion before it is all said and done.  The utility has whittled the 
APPARENT cost down from around $820 million last summer when it was 
starting to get occasional front page news (astute citizens have known it 
was coming much longer) to $680 million as they begin to get more publicity 
and we come closer to the deadline for a public policy decision.

How did they do that?

Mainly by SEPARATING OUT numerous other repairs they KNOW they will do at 
the same time!  So far, about $140 MILLION has been removed that way in 
less than a year!  By the time the project is actually completed, probably 
enough will have been hidden away to bring the total HIDDEN COSTS to well 
over A BILLION DOLLARS.  That's on top of the $680 million.

That's a lot of wind turbines that could be bought instead, and there are 
other savings available from switching away from dangerous, dirty, and 
inefficient nuclear power to safe and clean replacements.  Society would 
quickly feel a financial benefit, and there are VERY SERIOUS potential 
consequences from NOT SWITCHING.

The entire issue of steam generator replacement is a distraction at 
best.  Refusing to saddle ratepayers with the cost of the replacement 
program MIGHT result in the utility shutting the reactors down when they 
cross some threshold of non-profitability, around 2010 or 2012 (or perhaps 
much later), or when the NRC determines that a sufficient number of tubes 
have leaked that the reactor must be shut down, something they are unlikely 
to do any time soon, since the NRC basically assume that, "if the utility 
thinks they are making money, what's the problem?"  San Onofre's owners can 
find ways around this steam generator replacement "problem" if it's the 
only thing blocking their continued operation, and anyone who thinks they 
can't isn't following along!  For example, Bush/Cheney are promising 
BILLIONS to support nuclear investments at home and abroad.  Perhaps SCE 
will be able to pay for the upgrade through some sort of federal support, 
in which case, the whole tactic of opposing San Onofre by opposing the 
steam generator replacement on the grounds of cost will fall through YEARS 
AFTER IT WILL APPEAR TO HAVE SUCCEEDED.

There's plenty wrong with the idea of replacing San Onofre's steam 
generators, but if KPBS wanted to pretend to discuss the pros and cons of 
nuclear power -- as they indicated with their leadoff questions -- the show 
shouldn't have focused on the steam generator issue, and specifically a 
cost/benefit analysis which does not account for terrorism, tsunamis, 
earthquakes, and the many other possible causes of a meltdown.

Why?  Because San Onofre IS a meltdown waiting to happen!  How long it will 
wait depends on things like Mother Nature and people like Osama bin Laden 
-- really predictable things like that. It also depends on factors such as 
accelerated embrittlement, which the nuclear industry NEVER EXPECTED and 
which is causing problems across the country and around the world at 
numerous nuclear power facilities.  It's not just the steam generators 
which will need replacing -- it's lots and lots of other parts, too.  About 
half the SCRAM's at San Onofre are due to aging parts (the other SCRAMs are 
due to things like kelp in the intake valves, faulty monitoring devices, 
and "unknown causes" which they sometimes never determine).

Since the KPBS show's hosts made it clear right from the start that they 
don't know a cooling tower from a containment dome (literally), they were 
walked all over by Ray Golden, the spokesliar for San Onofre, and by the 
"scientist" they had on to promote the supposed safety and economy of 
nuclear power.

According to the pro-nuker, nuclear waste is safe.  The problem is simply 
that government failed to take back the waste -- bad government -- just 
make that bad ol' government take back the waste and the waste problem is 
solved!  According to the pro-nuker, replacement power would not be 
feasible and would take 15 years.  It was hard to believe he really 
believed anything he was saying, since he contradicted himself.  One minute 
nuclear waste is perfectly safe, the next it's so dangerous that a 
terrorist wouldn't want to try to steal it!  He did not mention that a 
terrorist could cause a catastrophe -- killing 100,000 people or more -- 
simply by blowing up the spent fuel where it sits.  He did not mention that 
global cancer rates would rise as a result.

Now, let's talk about some of the other guests on the show.

Rochelle Becker of A4NR.org actually said "yes" when asked if we (San 
Diego) "needed" San Onofre's power today.  That's WRONG.

The math just doesn't support the idea that San Onofre's power cannot be 
replaced virtually overnight if we wish.  Even if the "overnight" solutions 
are temporary until better, more cost-effective solutions evolve, they 
would still work and they would still be better than keeping San Onofre 
open.  Furthermore, ALL recent blackouts in California, especially the fake 
energy crises of 2000-2001, have been caused by politics, not over-use of 
electricity by the lowly citizen who once again is being told by the 
authorities that they must choose between nuclear power and freezing in the 
dark.

Several web sites which indicate the facts about the supposed "energy 
crises" are listed below.  There is no benefit to continuing to pretend 
that we need San Onofre.  We don't.

Fortunately, after her initial gaffe, Ms Becker was quite effective in 
pointing out the dangers of nuclear power.

Alas, the other two guests, while clearly not hopeful about the future of 
electrical energy from nuclear generators in San Diego county, had deluded 
themselves into believing that San Onofre's future was sealed simply 
because SDG&E, a part owner of the plant, wants to divest its 20% 
share.  These guests seemed to feel that this somehow means the facility 
won't matter to San Diego residents because they are mostly SDG&E 
customers, not customers of SCE, the primary owner.

But in reality, a MELTDOWN won't look at your utility bill to see if you 
should be poisoned because you are (or are not) a paying customer.  Mark 
both of these guests as fairly confused about the issues.

Below, I have included a letter I sent to KPBS after watching their 
show.  (I am also sending them this newsletter.)

Also shown below is an article by Dr. Helen Caldicott, who is a Nobel Peace 
Prize Nominee, a Harvard-educated pediatrician, a nuclear researcher, the 
author of numerous books which include highly technical details on how 
radiation damages fetuses and other living things, a professor with 
honorary degrees from 19 universities, and, among many other honors and 
responsibilities, the founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility.  Dr. 
Caldicott's article drives home the point that nuclear power is NOT A 
SOLUTION.  The author sent the article to me for publication here, for 
which I am grateful.

Lastly, earlier this week in Florida, NASA held the first of two hearings 
about PROMETHEUS, their newest nuclear rocket, and I've included a very 
informative letter by Bruce Gagnon about NASA's nuclear commitment, which I 
found on the space4peace.org web site.

In 2006 NASA plans to launch a highly RADIOACTIVE probe to Pluto called New 
Horizons.  The probe will contain approximately 24 pounds of deadly 
Plutonium-238 -- about 132,500 Curies of the stuff -- a frightful 
amount.  In the event of an accident, this amount will be added to all the 
other radioactive burdens we each must carry, from fallout from nuclear 
weapons testing, to nuclear accidents, to daily, approved releases from our 
local nuclear power plants, to dental, medical, and security x-rays and the 
many other unnatural causes of our own personal cumulative radioactive burden.

NASA is taking excessive risks, which could release of an Armageddon of 
poisonous alpha-radiation emitters into our environment -- AGAIN.  They 
claim they have done this successfully for 35 years (before that they did 
not shield the plutonium AT ALL and at least once, lost the full load (2.1 
pounds)).  These nuclear rockets and probes are CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY and 
NASA's traditional FAILURE RATES are SHOCKINGLY HIGH!  NASA will continue 
to have radioactive dispersals, unless they are banned from using nuclear 
power sources in space.  Otherwise, children will die, and be born 
deformed, because NASA is STILL spinning wildly out of control.  Columbia 
didn't sober them up one little bit, nor have any of the many other 
failures since Cassini was successfully launched. (Cassini was the last big 
nuclear probe, although smaller amounts of nuclear material have been 
launched on several other "civilian" space probes, and who-knows-what has 
been launched on secret military missions.)

NASA's many failures in the past few years seem to have only made them more 
determined to launch more unmanned, high-powered (read: NUCLEAR) 
probes.  They might be saving the lives of NASA astronauts this way -- a 
good thing, in theory -- but choosing nuclear power sources means THOSE 
lives will be saved at the expense of OTHER (and vastly more) lives around 
the globe.  That is normally called murder -- or, in this case, it will be 
genocide.

In some accident scenarios involving collisions with space debris, 100% of 
the plutonium payload -- 132,000 Curies -- could be released as fine 
aerosolized particles -- POISON GAS -- during the launch of NEW 
HORIZONS.  NASA claims it won't become a particulate, but their own tests 
suggest otherwise -- they use statistical averaging to claim the system is 
safe, not sound engineering.  132,500 Curies of plutonium (or anything) is 
about 294,000,000,000,000,000 decays per minute.

Pu-238 has a half-life of 87.75 years, making it an immediate threat of 
extreme magnitude in the event of an accident or terrorist attack during 
the launch.  The public is not being told much about this risk to their 
safety.  NASA again estimates the odds against an accident using 
unrealistic assumptions NOT based on their own 50 years of real-world failures.

Sincerely,

Russell Hoffman
Concerned Citizen
Carlsbad, CA

-------------------------------------------------------------------

See this page to realize that California DOES HAVE ENOUGH CAPACITY TO SHUT 
SAN ONOFRE FOREVER.  There are usually nearly 10,000 megawatts of excess 
capacity in the state.  Peak period shortages, usually only during a few 
summer days, can be made up for quickly with natural gas generators until 
renewable energy systems come on line to replace them:
http://www.caiso.com/outlook/outlook.html

On 4/20/2005, for example, average capacity was about 34,000 megawatts and 
average usage was about 25,000 megawatts.  BOTH FIGURES CAN BE MADE TO VARY 
WITH THE WILL OF LARGE CORPORATIONS so by the time you read this, it might 
be quite different, but on average, there is PLENTY OF EXCESS CAPACITY to 
shut our nukes down FOR GOOD immediately.  So no citizen or report need 
ever claim anything else is true, because it isn't.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

This web page looks at the phony energy crises, including a discussion of 
peak usage before and during the "crises" which proves there was no crises 
at all.  The figures below are taken from the URL given and are in line 
with similar figures this author has seen:

FROM: http://gning.org/electricity-2001.html

Highest peak rate of power flow through the Independent System Operator in 
2000:
     43.8 gigawatts, on August 16.
Highest peak rate of power flow through the ISO in 1999:
     45.9 gigawatts, on July 12.

Peak ISO load for the week in January 2001 when rolling blackouts hit:
     31.7 gigawatts.  Note how much lower this is than the summer peak.
Peak ISO load for the corresponding week of January 2000, when there was no 
crisis:
     32.2 gigawatts.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Here's a look a little further back into California's energy history, by 
Harvey Wasserman:

From:
http://www.seen.org/pages/media/20010601_power.shtml

"On February 23, 1995, responding to a SoCalEdison petition, FERC blocked a 
California Public Utilities Commission order that required the utilities to 
purchase more than 600 megawatts of renewable energy, primarily from wind 
and geothermal sources. Among other things, the FERC said -- with what now 
seems terrible irony -- "we have grave concerns about the need for this 
capacity," mostly because the state commission" was relying on 1990 data, 
which FERC called "stale.""

Also:
"In 1996 hearings, SoCalEd and PG&E branded their nuclear reactors at San 
Onofre and Diablo Canyon as too uneconomical to compete in the competitive 
free market that deregulation would allegedly bring."

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Historic data for California Energy Generation (1983 - 2003):
http://www.energy.ca.gov/electricity/electricity_generation.html

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Why would anyone think for even a minute that we cannot shut San Onofre AND 
Diablo Canyon down IMMEDIATELY?  WE CAN AND WE MUST!

=================================================
(2) Letter to KPBS about their television show:
=================================================

To: fullfocus@kpbs.org
Subject: Why we should shut San Onofre now; unpublished letters to NC 
Times, NY Times

April 18th, 2005

To Whom It May Concern, KPBS,

Your report today was frightening.  To think that reporters "attempting" to 
present the "full focus" story on San Onofre don't even know a cooling 
tower from a containment dome (and Tom Fudge didn't know the difference 
this afternoon, either).

I hope KPBS employees make a serious effort to learn about San Onofre and 
its deadly nuclear waste.  I hope you'll also make the effort to understand 
that there ARE clean energy alternatives which San Diego could implement in 
months -- not years, and certainly not "15 years," like that pro-nuclear 
scientist you had on was alluding to.  Admittedly, "up-front" costs would 
be high to make a bold commitment to, say, wind energy.  But long-term 
costs would be extremely low.  San Diego has more than enough energy from 
renewable sources to be a net energy EXPORTER, not an IMPORTER.  Right now 
we import fossil fuels and uranium fuel rods primarily.  We burn the fossil 
fuels and we stick the uranium fuel rods together so the rods 
self-irradiate themselves until they are so "hot" with daughter "fission" 
products that they are of no use to society without expensive, dirty, and 
dangerous "reprocessing," which is illegal under current federal law.

If we switched to renewable sources of energy, environmental risks would be 
extremely low, and terrorism threats would be non-existent.  Wind and solar 
power are only two choices which can be implemented quickly and can be very 
widespread.  Renewable energy IS ready.  We're just not buying it, because 
pro-nukers on shows like yours tell us nuclear waste is safe -- even 
though, in the same show, they have to admit it's so dangerous they don't 
think a terrorist would survive an attempt to steal it!  (But where are all 
those missing fuel rods, one has to ask?  Could they have been made into 
nuclear bombs????  YES!  So-called "spent fuel" contains bomb-making 
material.  Reprocessing spent fuel into reactor fuel ALSO enables the 
creation of nuclear bombs -- which is one reason we made reprocessing 
nuclear fuel illegal in America several decades ago.)

Terrorists, on the other hand, can separate out the bomb elements from 
spent fuel without anybody's permission.  And they can attack our nuclear 
power plants with those rogue nuclear weapons.  Or our cities.  But even 
conventional weapons can be used to cause a MELTDOWN at San Onofre.  And an 
operating reactor is much more susceptible to catastrophic accidents such 
as those at Three Mile Island or Chernobyl, or like Davis-Besse (Ohio, 
2002) almost was.  A reactor which has been shut down is much less 
vulnerable.  One that's been shut for many years is even less likely to 
cause a catastrophic loss of life -- accidents can STILL happen, 
though.  We will never be rid of this problem.  But there is no reason to 
keep making it worse.

Please read the list of problems at San Onofre from just the last few years 
(shown below) and visit some of my web pages on the subject of nuclear 
power (given at the end of this email).  PLEASE educate yourselves, instead 
of letting pro-nukers walk all over you.

In addition, you should be aware that Ray Golden, who got SOOOO MUCH air 
time in the preliminary segment, has a LICENSE TO LIE from the Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission (NRC).  It reads as follows:  "Statements made by the 
public affairs officer of a NRC licensee are not regulated 
activities.  Therefore, the veracity of such statements will not be 
investigated by the NRC."  That description was in a letter from the NRC to 
this author, about Ray Golden specifically, March 30th, 2002.  Since all 
other judicial bodies defer all technical issues regarding nuclear power to 
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, it is a very effective license to lie, 
which Golden uses regularly (see below).

Please wise up before San Onofre's owners fool the public into extending 
their license to kill.  Every day they release extremely hazardous 
radioactive products into our environment.  So-called "small" leaks in the 
current  steam generators at San Onofre produce deformed babies in our 
community.  Not maybe.  Not possibly.  It's what they do.  It's a 
scientific, medical, statistical certainty.  The power plant owners deny 
every death they cause.  They deny every danger.  They hide every problem 
they possibly can.  Not one of your guests mentioned the constant threat 
from tsunamis.  Yet you could do a whole show just on the dangers from the 
loss of hydrostatic pressure in the intake systems!  KPBS needs to catch up 
with reality BEFORE your reports are all about how much San Onofre is 
leaking and how far we should run!

Sincerely,

Russell Hoffman
Concerned Citizen
CARLSBAD CA

(Note: Yesterday's newsletter was attached.)

=================================================
(3) Article by Dr. Helen Caldicott: Nuclear power is the problem, not a 
solution:
=================================================

The article shown below was published in several papers in the United 
States as well recently, and the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) referred to 
it as a "diatribe" in a response published in an Ohio paper.  The response 
from NEI was, itself, illogical and was not able to substantiate its claim 
that the following article is in any way a "diatribe" at all.  It is a 
knowledgeable person's look at a dangerous situation.  The NEI is guilty of 
libel, in addition to their day-to-day crime of genocide. -- rdh

--------------------------------------------------

From: "helen caldicott" <hcaldic@bigpond.com>
To: "'Russell D. Hoffman'" <rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com>
Subject: FW: corrected article

Russell,
Did you see this?
It was published in the Australian last Wednesday
Helen
PS Feel free to circulate


Nuclear power is the problem, not a solution
Helen Caldicott
13apr05

THERE is a huge propaganda push by the nuclear industry to justify nuclear
power as a panacea for the reduction of global-warming gases.

At present there are 442 nuclear reactors in operation around the
world. If, as the nuclear industry suggests, nuclear power were to replace
fossil fuels on a large scale, it would be necessary to build 2000 large,
1000-megawatt reactors. Considering that no new nuclear plant has been
ordered in the US since 1978, this proposal is less than practical.
Furthermore, even if we decided today to replace all
fossil-fuel-generated electricity with nuclear power, there would only be
enough economically viable uranium to fuel the reactors for three to four
years.

The true economies of the nuclear industry are never fully accounted for.
The cost of uranium enrichment is subsidised by the US government. The
true cost of the industry's liability in the case of an accident in the US
is estimated to be $US560billion ($726billion), but the industry pays only
$US9.1billion - 98per cent of the insurance liability is covered by the US
federal government. The cost of decommissioning all the existing US
nuclear reactors is estimated to be $US33billion. These
costs - plus the enormous expense involved in the storage of radioactive
waste for a quarter of a million years - are not now included in the
economic assessments of nuclear electricity.

It is said that nuclear power is emission-free. The truth is very
different.

In the US, where much of the world's uranium is enriched, including
Australia's, the enrichment facility at Paducah, Kentucky, requires the
electrical output of two 1000-megawatt coal-fired plants, which emit large
quantities of carbon dioxide, the gas responsible for 50per cent of global
warming.

Also, this enrichment facility and another at Portsmouth, Ohio, release
from leaky pipes 93per cent of the chlorofluorocarbon gas emitted yearly
in the US. The production and release of CFC gas is now banned
internationally by the Montreal Protocol because it is the main culprit
responsible for stratospheric ozone depletion. But CFC is also a global
warmer, 10,000 to 20,000 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

In fact, the nuclear fuel cycle utilises large quantities of fossil fuel
at all of its stages - the mining and milling of uranium, the
construction of the nuclear reactor and cooling towers, robotic
decommissioning of the intensely radioactive reactor at the end of its 20
to 40-year operating lifetime, and transportation and long-term storage of
massive quantities of radioactive waste.

Contrary to the nuclear industry's propaganda, nuclear power is
therefore not green and it is certainly not clean. Nuclear reactors
consistently release millions of curies of radioactive isotopes into the
air and water each year. These releases are unregulated because the
nuclear industry considers these particular radioactive elements to be
biologically inconsequential. This is not so.

These unregulated isotopes include the noble gases krypton, xenon and
argon, which are fat-soluble and if inhaled by persons living near a
nuclear reactor, are absorbed through the lungs, migrating to the fatty
tissues of the body, including the abdominal fat pad and upper thighs,
near the reproductive organs. These radioactive elements, which emit
high-energy gamma radiation, can mutate the genes in the eggs and sperm
and cause genetic disease.

Tritium, another biologically significant gas, which is also routinely emitted
from nuclear reactors is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen composed of two 
neutrons
and one proton with an atomic weight of 3. The chemical symbol for
tritium is H3. When one or both of the hydrogen atoms in water is
displaced by tritium the water molecule is then called tritiated water.
Tritium is a soft energy beta emitter, more mutagenic than gamma
radiation, that incorporates directly into the DNA molecule of the gene.
Its half life is 12.3 years, giving it a biologically active life of 246
years. It passes readily through the skin, lungs and digestive system
and is distributed throughout the body.

The dire subject of massive quantities of radioactive waste accruing at
the 442 nuclear reactors across the world is also rarely, if ever,
addressed by the nuclear industry. Each typical 1000-megawatt nuclear
reactor manufactures 33tonnes of thermally hot, intensely radioactive
waste per year.

Already more than 80,000 tonnes of highly radioactive waste sits in
cooling pools next to the 103 US nuclear power plants, awaiting
transportation to a storage facility yet to be found. This dangerous
material will be an attractive target for terrorist sabotage as it travels
through 39 states on roads and railway lines for the next 25 years.

But the long-term storage of radioactive waste continues to pose a
problem. The US Congress in 1987 chose Yucca Mountain in Nevada, 150km
northwest of Las Vegas, as a repository for America's high-level waste.
But Yucca Mountain has subsequently been found to be unsuitable for the
long-term storage of high-level waste because it is a volcanic mountain
made of permeable pumice stone and it is transected by 32 earthquake
faults. Last week a congressional committee discovered fabricated data
about water infiltration and cask corrosion in Yucca Mountain that had
been produced by personnel in the US Geological Survey. These startling
revelations, according to most experts, have almost disqualified Yucca
Mountain as a waste repository, meaning that the US now has nowhere to
deposit its expanding nuclear waste inventory.

To make matters worse, a study released last week by the National
Academy of Sciences shows that the cooling pools at nuclear reactors,
which store 10 to 30 times more radioactive material than that contained
in the reactor core, are subject to catastrophic attacks by terrorists,
which could unleash an inferno and release massive quantities of deadly
radiation -- significantly worse than the radiation released by
Chernobyl, according to some scientists.

This vulnerable high-level nuclear waste contained in the cooling pools at
103 nuclear power plants in the US includes hundreds of radioactive
elements that have different biological impacts in the human body, the
most important being cancer and genetic diseases.

The incubation time for cancer is five to 50 years following exposure to
radiation. It is important to note that children, old people and
immuno-compromised individuals are many times more sensitive to the
malignant effects of radiation than other people.

I will describe four of the most dangerous elements made in nuclear power
plants.

Iodine 131, which was released at the nuclear accidents at Sellafield in
Britain, Chernobyl in Ukraine and Three Mile Island in the US, is
radioactive for only six weeks and it bio-concentrates in leafy
vegetables and milk. When it enters the human body via the gut and the
lung, it migrates to the thyroid gland in the neck, where it can later
induce thyroid cancer. In Belarus more than 2000 children have had their
thyroids removed for thyroid cancer, a situation never before recorded in
pediatric literature.

Strontium 90 lasts for 600 years. As a calcium analogue, it concentrates
in cow and goat milk. It accumulates in the human breast during
lactation, and in bone, where it can later induce breast cancer, bone
cancer and leukemia.

Cesium 137, which also lasts for 600 years, concentrates in the food
chain, particularly meat. On entering the human body, it locates in
muscle, where it can induce a malignant muscle cancer called a sarcoma.

Plutonium 239, one of the most dangerous elements known to humans, is so
toxic that one-millionth of a gram is carcinogenic. More than 200kg is
made annually in each 1000-megawatt nuclear power plant. Plutonium is
handled like iron in the body, and is therefore stored in the liver, where
it causes liver cancer, and in the bone, where it can induce bone cancer
and blood malignancies. On inhalation it causes lung cancer. It also
crosses the placenta, where, like the drug thalidomide, it can cause
severe congenital deformities. Plutonium has a predisposition for the
testicle, where it can cause testicular cancer and induce genetic diseases
in future generations. Plutonium lasts for 500,000 years, living on to
induce cancer and genetic diseases in future generations of plants,
animals and humans.

Plutonium is also the fuel for nuclear weapons -- only 5kg is necessary to
make a bomb and each reactor makes more than 200kg per year.
Therefore any country with a nuclear power plant can theoretically
manufacture 40 bombs a year.

Nuclear power therefore leaves a toxic legacy to all future generations,
because it produces global warming gases, because it is far more
expensive than any other form of electricity generation, and because it
can trigger proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Helen Caldicott is an anti-nuclear campaigner and founder and president of
the Nuclear Policy Research Institute, which warns of the danger of
nuclear energy.

-- 
John Loretz
Program Director
International Physicians for the
Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW)
727 Massachusetts Ave., 2nd floor
Cambridge, MA 02139
(617) 868-5050, ext. 280
(617) 868-2560 (fax)

http://www.ippnw.org


==============================================
(4) Letter: to the North County Times: Censorship continues unabated:
==============================================

Subject: North County Times CENSORSHIP continues unabated...

April 22nd, 2005

To The Editor:

It is amazing to see the North County Times get all worked up about a pile 
of dirt in Moab, Utah and yet support, year after year, San Onofre NUCLEAR 
WASTE GENERATING STATION.

Your horror at the idea that the radioactive mine tailings in Moab might 
slide into the Colorado river is not wholly inappropriate, but it IS wholly 
out of balance.

San Onofre is a much bigger threat.

And while it's true, as one of your pro-nuclear readers recently pointed 
out, that the United States has cut into a salt bed in New Mexico, called 
it a "Low Level Waste Dump," and furiously started trucking so-called Low 
Level Radioactive Waste there at the rate of many shipments per week, it is 
illogical to compare that dump to Yucca Mountain -- as the pro-nuker did, 
pretending the technical challenges were exactly the same.

Yucca Mountain, if it is ever built (which is very unlikely for scientific 
reasons as well as political, environmental, environmental racism, and 
other reasons) will contain waste which is a minimum of a million times 
worse (10^6), and usually 10-million or 100-million times worse than the 
waste that is being shipped to the WIPP project in New Mexico.  Here, 
"worse" might be defined as, for example: Capable of forcing the permanent 
abandonment of any town it passes through if an accident happens on the way 
to Yucca Mountain.  Or perhaps:  Capable of being ignited by a terrorist 
with ONE Rocket-Propelled Grenade and causing significant increases in 
cancer rates as far as 500 miles downwind, as well as killing hundreds of 
thousands in the first few hours and days after the accident.  Or 
pragmatically: Capable of causing trillions of dollars in damage.

Nothing being shipped to New Mexico's facility right now is capable of that 
level of destruction.  Since the pro-nuker undoubtedly is aware of this, 
his comments were presumably meant to mislead the public 
intentionally.  Even though Yucca Mountain may never exist, new highways 
are being built all around the country just to transport the "high-level" 
waste away from the reactors, INCLUDING a new highway that goes directly 
towards Yucca Mountain from San Onofre, without going through Los Angeles, 
something the nuclear industry wants to avoid like the plague.

In any event, the pro-nuker whose letter you recently published only came 
out of the woodwork to libel one of the anti-nukers.  This time he picked 
on activist Shirley Vaine, who became concerned about San Onofre just a few 
years ago, and bless her for joining the fold.  She was, at the time, 
concerned mostly about Depleted Uranium Poison Gas Munitions, another 
serious nuclear issue and again, a local one that is not being covered by 
your paper.  Depleted Uranium Munitions (DUM) is a local issue because it 
poisons our soldiers when they use DUM in Iraq, for instance, and we have a 
huge military community in the local area.

Many of these soldiers will come back poisoned, like in World War One, but 
this time, instead of blinding them, we give them FLAMING SEMEN!  This is 
just one of the symptoms of Depleted Uranium Poison Gas Munitions 
poisoning, along with dozens of other horrific ailments including kidney 
failure, deformed children, and seizures.

But back to the spent fuel pools.  The pro-nuker's comments about Ms 
Vaine's letter actually had some small amount of substance.  Her apparent 
concern -- about the consequences of the water simply evaporating from the 
spent fuel pool -- is, by itself, not terribly significant, as published, 
because someone can, after all, pour more water on the pool, 
right?  Perhaps -- but not if the pool is UNDER a flaming 747 carcass at 
the time!  There are many dangers to leaving spent nuclear reactor cores in 
our midst, but probably the gravest danger regarding the spent fuel pools 
and dry storage casks has to do with accidents and terrorist acts which 
drain the pools QUICKLY or ignite the dry casks as they sit on our 
coast.  For example, a private plane filled with explosives taking off from 
Oceanside airport would, in under five minutes, be able to cause the 
largest catastrophe in history by breaking open just ONE dry cask!  In 
fact, just a gram from that dry cask's deadly payload would be enough to 
force the permanent evacuation of any typical North County city, if it were 
simply ground up or IGNITED and spread around the town in fine particles 
too small to clean up effectively -- in other words, a typical DIRTY BOMB 
would need less than a gram of spent reactor core fuel!  But one private 
plane from Oceanside, filled with explosives and gasoline, could release 
ten million DIRTY BOMBS into our community -- from ONE dry cask!

Perhaps, the original un-edited version of Ms Vaine's letter referred to a 
scenario like that, which the pro-nuker did not address AND CANNOT ADDRESS 
without lying, obfuscating, or misrepresenting the facts.

Of course, no one, pro-nuker or anti-, can do the topic justice within your 
absurd space limitations.

And you guys aren't telling the public any of this, are you?  You don't 
want to scare them or something, I guess.  Well, being afraid of things 
that might really kill you is perfectly reasonable.  The public should be 
told, so that they will properly factor in these concerns when deciding to 
support -- or NOT -- the San Onofre steam generator replacement project, or 
the creation of additional dry storage casks on our coast, or the continued 
operation of the reactors at all.

You have a monopoly in the community -- yours IS North County's "paper of 
record," for what it's worth.  The First Amendment was created so that 
people who want to tell the public the truth would have a forum to do so 
within their communities and across the nation, but the North County Times 
consistently fails to tell the public the whole story, and then you prevent 
others from doing so on your behalf and in your place, by your pathetic 
letters policy.

Sincerely,

Russell Hoffman
North County's most censored writer and speaker on nuclear power
Carlsbad CA



==============================================
(5) NASA: Promiscuous about Prometheus and other nuclear hotties:
==============================================

NASA has all sorts of nuclear assaults up its sleeve.  Crossing it's 
collective fingers with each launch, hoping against hope that they will not 
irradiate first and foremost Florida with their foul footprint, and then 
Africa and onward and outward across the planet and across the solar system 
-- and beyond.

What are they looking for?  Signs of life.  What will they kill to get 
there? Life.  Your children.  Your children's children.

Notice that even though much of the work will undoubtedly be done in 
California, at JPL and so forth, nevertheless, all three hearings about 
Prometheus are on the East Coast.

NASA criminals should be stopped!  NO NUKES IN SPACE!!

------------------------------------------------------------

FROM NASA:

NASA's Prometheus program is looking for input on the possibility of 
developing a space nuclear reactor.

Prometheus Nuclear Systems & Technology, along with Department of Energy's 
Office of Naval Reactors, is evaluating the possibility of developing a 
space nuclear reactor to supply future exploration spacecraft with a 
significant increase in on-board power and spacecraft propulsion 
capability. Such an increase in power would enable missions to the outer 
reaches of the solar system and beyond as well as substantially increasing 
the amount of science per mission.

As a first step, NASA is evaluating whether or not to pursue development of 
a space nuclear reactor to provide on-board spacecraft power and propulsion 
capabilities.

"We're seeking input on what sorts of issues we should consider in our 
evaluation," said Matt Forsbacka, the program manager. "We welcome public 
comment at each stage of the process." Prometheus Nuclear Systems and 
Technology will document the evaluation, including alternatives to be 
considered in a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) 
scheduled for publication in 2006.

NASA plans to hold three public scoping meetings to provide information on 
the Prometheus PEIS and solicit public comments. Two meetings will be held 
on Tuesday, April 19, at the Florida Solar Energy Center in Cocoa, Florida, 
from 1 to 4 p.m. and 6 to 9 p.m EDT. A third meeting will be held in 
Washington, DC on April 26 from 1 to 4 p.m. EDT at the Hyatt Regency 
Washington on Capitol Hill.

For more information about Prometheus Nuclear Systems and Technology, the 
PEIS scoping meetings and information on submitting comments, please visit 
the Prometheus Home page.

http://www.exploration.nasa.gov/programs/prometheus/

------------------------------------------------------------

Email comments to NASA about prometheus here:
nasa-prometheus-peis@nasa.gov

Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space:
http://www.space4peace.org/

View a flash animation by Russell Hoffman about nukes in space here:
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/mx/nasa/columbia/index.swf


==============================================
(6) Bruce Gagnon on NASA's multitude of nuclear projects (from the 
space4peace.org web site):
==============================================

Mr. Kurt Lindstrom
Mission and Systems Management Division
Science Mission Directorate
NASA HQ
Washington DC
osspluto@hq.nasa.gov

Dear Mr. Lindstrom:

I write on behalf of our organization to offer comments about NASA's Draft 
Environmental Impact Statement on the New Horizons mission to Pluto.  We, 
as we have been since the 1989 launch of Galileo, remain opposed to the 
launching of nuclear power in space for any purpose.

It is known that when NASA and the Department of Energy (DoE) identify a 
new mission they have a joint committee that sits down to decide on the 
kind of power source to be used.  It is our understanding that the nuclear 
industry, who views space as a new market, have made sure to place their 
operatives right in the middle of this process.  So at the very outset this 
is a rigged game.

It is also known to us that NASA and the DoE have been defunding the 
research and development of alternative space power concepts in recent 
years.  It is abundantly clear that the nuclear industry intends to ensure 
that there are not other significant players in the game.

Our concern and opposition is of course centered around the fact that space 
technology can and does fail.  We have seen rocket explosions on launch. We 
remember the 1996 Russian Mars mission carrying plutonium on-board that 
failed to achieve proper orbit and fell back to Earth burning up over the 
mountains of Chile and Bolivia spreading the plutonium over that 
region.  At the time the Boston Globe reported that those governments 
requested assistance from the U.S. to send in radiological teams to help 
identify the plutonium contamination belt, but then President Bill Clinton 
refused to respond.  Then we witnessed the Columbia shuttle disaster two 
years ago and I myself saw NASA operatives on TV dressed in haz-mat suits 
with Geiger counters taking readings of people in Texas and Louisiana who 
had come in contact with debris from that accident.  Local police forces 
were heard on National Public Radio warning the public to stay away from 
Columbia debris and said they were told by NASA that "radioactive" sources 
were on-board that mission.  Just what was the radioactive source on Columbia?

In addition to space accidents, we are also concerned about the entire 
nuclear production process and its contamination of workers and 
communities.  You should understand that we have very little confidence in 
the DoE.  Years of contamination at the nuclear labs across the country is 
a matter of public record.  The New Mexican, in Santa Fe, reported in 1996 
that "Mishaps in which workers and equipment have been contaminated with 
radioactive sources are on the rise at Los Alamos National 
Laboratory."  The reason?  "Lab officials say the rise in radiation 
exposure and radioactive mishaps since 1993 has one primary cause: the 
[NASA] Cassini project and an ongoing effort to build radioactive heat 
sources."  So in fact, even if there is no launch problem the production 
process is already contaminating and likely killing people.

Now NASA and DoE are saying that they have so many plans for space nuclear 
power in the coming years that they must ramp up production of plutonium 
and it appears that DoE will center its operations for these missions at 
the Idaho National Laboratory.  A $230 million proposed facility expansion 
is now underway.  Citizens across Idaho are opposed to this expansion and 
they fear, with good reason, that they will not get the truth about 
contamination from the DoE.  In a recent article in the Boise Weekly 
newspaper, Jeremy Maxand, director of the nuclear watchdog group The Snake 
River Alliance, says the following in regard to this issue:  "The DoE is 
proposing a project that could leave Idahoans breathing plutonium for the 
next 80 years and they won't tell us what its for.  Let's talk about 
something they can't hide from the public.  Plutonium-238 is lethal and 
difficult to contain.  Is this secrecy going to benefit Idahoans given the 
DoE's well-documented and abysmal track record for worker, community, and 
environmental safety?"

Maxand goes on to say, "It makes me highly suspicious that on one hand they 
sell this extremely hazardous process to Idahoans via sleek NASA space 
batteries, when in fact we've made them for decades using plutonium 
purchased from Russia's stockpile.  Then in the next breath they'll say 
that the plutonium-238 produced in Idaho will be used for classified 
national security missions...."

Forgive us for not believing anything our government says.  But you all 
have no credibility.  One example is Kodiak island in Alaska.  The U.S. 
government built a rocket launch facility there and promised the citizens 
of Alaska that it would only be used for civilian launches, never 
military.  But in reality the only missions that have yet been launched 
have been Missile Defense Agency (MDA) tests.  We are convinced that the 
expansion of nuclear power in space for missions like New Horizons are a 
Trojan Horse.  We are convinced that NASA, DoE and the Pentagon are setting 
up the nuclear space infrastructure to eventually build nuclear reactors 
for warfare in the heavens.  New Horizons is an ice breaker.

For all these reasons we must say that the New Horizons mission must be 
cancelled.  NASA and DoE must develop new non-nuclear power sources for 
space exploration.  We will work against the New Horizons mission in the 
same way we did for Galileo (1989), Ulysses (1990) and Cassini 
(1997).  Project Prometheus, the nuclear rocket, will also be a target of 
our organization.  NASA has been taken over by the military and the nuclear 
industry.

The time has come for the public to reject plans to move war and nuclear 
power into space.  It is our money that is being wasted on these dangerous 
projects while schools and libraries close across the nation and people 
can't afford health care.  Jobs are leaving the U.S. by the millions and we 
are told there is no money to help the people.  The public is turning 
against NASA and their gee-whiz plans for nuclear launches because the 
public understands the dangers involved.  NASA and DoE are out of control 
and must be restrained by the taxpayers of the nation and the citizens of 
the world.

In anticipation of a nuclear space accident the U.S. Congress has created 
the Price-Anderson Act that limits the liability of the U.S. for nuclear 
contamination clean-up.  This law would not have been passed if NASA did 
not expect a space nuclear accident at some point in the future.  We will 
not wait until the tragedy happens before we speak out.  Cancel New 
Horizons and all other space nuclear missions today before it is too late.

In peace,

Bruce K. Gagnon
Coordinator
Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
globalnet@mindspring.com


==============================================
(7) Contact information for the author of this newsletter:
==============================================

*************************************************
** THE ANIMATED SOFTWARE COMPANY
** Russell D. Hoffman, Owner and Chief Programmer
** P.O. Box 1936, Carlsbad CA 92018-1936
** (800) 551-2726
** (760) 720-7261
** Fax: (760) 720-7394
** Visit the world's most eclectic web site:
** http://www.animatedsoftware.com
*************************************************

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</x-flowed>
*****************************************************************
 8 NRC: NRC to Meet with Southern Nuclear Officials to Discuss Safety Performance at
Farley Nuclear Power Plant

News Release - Region II - 2005-02
 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 

Office of Public Affairs, Region II
  No. II-05-021   		        April 22, 2005   
  CONTACT:     Ken Clark (404) 562-4416
 Roger D. Hannah (404) 562-4417     E-mail: opa2@nrc.gov  
  

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will meet with
Southern Nuclear Operating Company officials on Wednesday, April
27, to discuss the results of NRC's annual assessment of safety
performance at the Farley nuclear power plant near Dothan, Ala. 

The meeting will be held at 4:00 p.m. at the Houston County
Administration Building, 3rd Floor, County Commissioners
Chambers, 462 North Oats Street, in Dothan. The public is
invited to observe the meeting, and NRC officials will be
available before the conclusion of the meeting to answer any
questions.
 
A letter from the NRC to Southern Nuclear addresses plant safety
performance during the previous year and forms the basis for the
meeting discussions. It says Farley operated safely and that
plant performance was at a level requiring no additional NRC
inspection beyond normal during 2005. The letter is available
from Region II Public Affairs and on the NRC web site at
www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/LETTERS/far_2004q4.pdf [PDF
Icon] . 

In addition to the routine inspections, the NRC will conduct
inspections of the reactor vessel head replacement, pressurizer
penetration nozzles and the plants Independent Spent Fuel (Dry
Cask) Storage Installation. 

The NRC Region II Administrator, Dr. William Travers, said each
year the NRC staff rates the performance of the Farley plant and
all of the nations other commercial nuclear plants. This gives
us a chance to discuss our assessment with the company, with
local officials and with residents near the plant. Our aim is to
make this information available to the public and answer any
questions people may have about our oversight. 

Routine inspections are performed by NRC resident inspectors
assigned to the plant and by specialists from the Region II
office in Atlanta and the agencys headquarters in Rockville, Md. 

Current performance indicators for the two units at the Farley
plant are available at
www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/FAR1/far1_chart.html and
www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/FAR2/far2_chart.html.   



  


 	Last revised Friday, April 22, 2005 	   
*****************************************************************
 9 toledo blade: THE DAVIS-BESSIE NUCLEAR POWER PLANT
 
Saturday, April 23, 2005 

 FirstEnergy is slapped with $5.45M fine
 NRC cites deception, corroded reactor lid

  [Photo] 
Former Davis-Bessie engineer Andrew Siemaszko. 
( THE BLADE ) 

By BLADE STAFF WRITER

WASHINGTON - The Nuclear Regulatory Commission yesterday
proposed a record $5.45 million fine against FirstEnergy Corp.
for allowing Davis-Besse's old nuclear reactor head to get so
corroded that it nearly burst in 2002.

The regulatory agency has described the neglect as one of the
biggest safety letdowns in the nuclear industry's performance
history.

The NRC said that $450,000 of the proposed $5.45 million fine is
specifically attributed to an attempt to mislead regulators
about the plant's status after Davis-Besse's reactor was
refueled in 2000.

Luis Reyes, the agency's executive director for operations,
termed it a "willful failure to provide the NRC with complete
and accurate information."
 
  [Photo] 
Rust coating the nuclear reactor in this 2000 photo had
developed from a leak that went unnoticed during inspections.
The extent of the leak was discovered two years later. A section
of the reactor lid was nearly eaten through by acid. 

FirstEnergy and Andrew Siemaszko, a former Davis-Besse system
engineer accused of withholding information from the NRC about
the status of the reactor head, have 90 days to appeal. The NRC
did not rule out penalties against others.

FirstEnergy hasn't decided whether it will appeal, Richard
Wilkins, a company spokesman, said.

Mr. Siemaszko, who lives in Louisiana, called the NRC's
accusations against him an "outrage."

He told The Blade that the NRC is diverting attention away from
high-level managers at FirstEnergy and the government agency.

Mr. Siemaszko's attorney in Washington, Billie Pirner Garde,
said the NRC "stooped to a new low" by trying to make her client
into a scapegoat.

She said his efforts to clean Davis-Besse's reactor head were
thwarted by FirstEnergy management who refused to spend the time
- and money - to do the job right.

FirstEnergy's proposed fine is 2 1/2 times bigger than the
record $2.1 million fine against Northeast Nuclear Energy Co. on
Dec. 10, 1997.

Northeast was cited for violations at the company's Millstone
nuclear plant complex in Waterford, Conn.

Gov. Bob Taft said he fully supports the NRC's proposed
sanction. He said it "should send a clear message to FirstEnergy
that the safety of Ohioans should never be compromised."

U.S. Sen. George Voinovich (R., Ohio) agreed.

U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D., Cleveland) renewed his call to
have FirstEnergy's license revoked.

He said the utility's "reckless neglect of safety procedures"
endangered millions of Ohio and Michigan residents as well as
millions of gallons of fresh water in the Great Lakes.

U.S. Sen. Mike DeWine (R., Ohio) and U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D.,
Toledo) could not be reached for comment.

Legal proceedings
 The NRC wanted to delay issuing a civil penalty until a federal
grand jury investigation into possible criminal wrongdoing was
completed. But the agency was up against a five-year statute of
limitations due to expire May 18, Scott Burnell, a NRC
spokesman, said.

The grand jury, seated in Cleveland, has been reviewing evidence
for more than a year. While its proceedings are secret, U.S.
Attorney Gregory A. White told The Blade yesterday that the
investigation is winding down and that a decision is imminent.

In a Dec. 10 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange
Commission, FirstEnergy acknowledged being put on notice by Mr.
White's office that prosecutors believe "it is likely that
federal charges will be returned" against the utility's nuclear
subsidiary.

NRC records show that FirstEnergy and at least one NRC inspector
had a photograph from the 2000 refueling that showed
Davis-Besse's reactor head ready to go back into service with
streaks of rust. The picture later came to be known among NRC
officials as the "red photo."

Davis-Besse's reactor operated without incident from May 18,
2000, until its next refueling outage that began on Feb. 16,
2002. However, in the fall of 2001, NRC officials sensed that
reactor tubes were leaking. FirstEnergy's legal team
successfully fought off what would have been the government's
first safety-related shutdown order since 1987.

Then, in March, 2002, three weeks after the 2002 refueling
outage began, massive degradation of Davis-Besse's reactor head
was made public during an inspection.

Officials tore off the reactor head's insulation and discovered
leaking acid had burned the thick steel lid down to two-tenths
of an inch in one spot.

Laboratory tests showed the lid had a high probability of
rupturing, a situation which could have allowed radioactive
steam to form inside the containment building. The only instance
of that happening occurred in 1979 near Harrisburg, Pa., at
Three Mile Island's Unit 2, which experienced a partial meltdown.

Other inspections indicated that Davis-Besse's emergency safety
systems could have failed to cool the reactor if a meltdown
occurred at the Ottawa County power plant.

FirstEnergy spent millions to replace Davis-Besse's reactor head
and improve the plant's safety systems over two years.

The NRC gave the utility authorization to restart the plant in
the spring of 2004.

Mixed reaction
 Activists who followed the saga said they were pleased to see a
hefty fine, but disappointed that Mr. Siemaszko was singled out.

Mr. Siemaszko, who began working at Davis-Besse in 1999, claimed
in a U.S. Department of Labor whistle-blower complaint in 2003
that he was fired illegally from his job on Sept. 18, 2002, for
the amount of maintenance he insisted was needed on the plant's
four reactor coolant pumps.

In his complaint, he alleged that he would have lost his job if
he did not approve a document that stated the reactor head was
fit to be put back into service in 2000. He claimed that he had
insisted that the company to do more maintenance on the head and
that scaffolding was taken down without his approval while he
was gone.

FirstEnergy, which has denied Mr. Siemaszko's allegations, won a
decision from a labor judge in the summer of 2003. That case is
being appealed.

David Lochbaum, a nuclear enginer with the Union of Concerned
Scientists, a group that monitors the industry, said the
government should use the $5.45 million fine to investigate
what's wrong with the NRC.

"It just baffles me they've singled [Mr. Siemaszko] out as the
sole reason for the problems," he said, noting a report from the
NRC's inspector general which blamed the agency for failing to
act on the "red photo."

The NRC also came under criticism from its inspector general
because the agency's former nuclear reactor regulation director,
Sam Collins, allowed FirstEnergy executives to talk him out of
issuing the 2001 shutdown order. NRC staff had prepared and its
attorneys had approved the blocked order, Mr. Lochbaum noted.

Ottawa County Administrator Jere Witt was among several local
officials who conceded after the 2002 shutdown that FirstEnergy
had lost their trust.

"They have regained our trust," Mr. Witt told The Blade
yesterday. "At the same time, we will continue to watch them
much more closely than we have in the past - not just
Davis-Besse or FirstEnergy, but also the NRC."

The NRC proposed a $900,000 fine against Toledo Edison Co., a
FirstEnergy subsidiary, following an incident at Davis-Besse on
June 9, 1985, in which a series of pumps and valves failed,
causing a loss of coolant water to the reactor core of the plant.

That incident resulted in a 564-day outage, Davis-Besse's
longest until the reactor head problem. Toledo Edison ultimately
persuaded the NRC to cut the fine in half, to $450,000.

The NRC said at the time it was impressed by Toledo Edison's
aggressiveness toward establishing "a long-range, in-depth
corrective action program to address the problems that existed
at Davis-Besse."

Contact Tom Henry at: thenry@theblade.com or 419-724-6079.


      © 2005 The Blade. The Toledo Blade Company, 541 N. Superior 
St., Toledo, OH 43660 , (419) 724-6000
*****************************************************************
 10 Rutland Herald: Looking beyond Vermont Yankee

April 22, 2005 

I attended the public hearing in Brattleboro on April 14, held
by the Senate and House Committees on Natural Resources,
regarding Vermont Yankee and its need to switch to dry cask
storage for its high-level nuclear waste.

I agree with all the Vermont Yankee employees and other
supporters who spoke that the existing waste now stored in a
pool of water seven stories high, and the additional waste that
the plant will create in these last seven years of its designed
lifespan of 40 years, must be changed urgently to dry cask or
other safer storage on-site.

The Yucca Mountain national waste site in Nevada looks like it
will never be built, and with all the uncertainties and risks
involved, it probably shouldn't be. So we have to store this
waste at the nuclear reactor sites as safely as we can for
thousands of years to prevent accidental release of radiation or
terrorist attacks.

But I don't agree with them that Vermont Yankee should be
granted the ability to build any more dry cask storage capacity
than that, to handle even more waste generated by its proposed
20 percent power uprate and its likely request for relicensing
for another 20 years.

Several speakers said we'd never be able to replace the 33
percent of our power from Vermont Yankee if it had to shut down.
And that even with new renewable energy sources like sun and
wind, they are intermittent and couldn't do the job. I'd like to
point out that a study was done a few years ago for the Public
Service Department about how much energy we could save through
expanded conservation and efficiency efforts. The answer: 30
percent.

So just by better caulking and insulation, compact fluorescent
light bulbs, and other efficiency improvements, we could replace
almost all of Vermont Yankee's power. Contact me, the PSD, or
Efficiency Vermont, for a copy of this report.

Is Vermont Yankee needed to stop global warming because it
doesn't emit greenhouse gases? That's true when the plant is
making electricity. But it's not true at the beginning of the
nuclear fuel cycle when the uranium fuel is mined and then
refined and milled into the fuel rods. That requires a huge
amount of energy, much of it coming from fossil fuel plants. As
for reprocessing the radioactive waste like France, U.K., Japan,
and Russia do, that also leaves a huge amount of liquid
radioactive waste, and it too takes lots of energy that makes
greenhouse gases.

Will our whole economy and way of life crumble if we decide to
phase out Vermont Yankee in 2012, and nuclear power nationwide,
and choose a clean, renewable energy path? Germany has decided
to do this, and their society is as technologically savvy and
sophisticated as ours. Other countries are moving in this
direction, too.

For the sake of our children, grandchildren, and all of earth's
beings and beauty, we must turn toward cleaner, safer
technologies for our power, while learning to need and use much
less of it. One important place to start is by contacting your
legislators and urging them to vote for S.52, the clean energy
bill; and for other bills that call for tax credits for
renewable energy and hybrid vehicles, and for stronger
efficiency standards for appliances.

JOHN BERKOWITZ

Putney
   
*****************************************************************
 11 NRC: McGuire Nuclear Station, Units 1 and 2; Notice of Issuance of 
 
                         FR Doc E5-1904 
[Federal Register: April 22, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 77)] 
[Notices] [Page 20938] From the Federal Register Online via GPO 
Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr22ap05-102]                         
 
Amendments to Facility Operating Licenses; Correction AGENCY: 
Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
 
ACTION: Notice of issuance; correction.

SUMMARY: This document corrects a notice appearing in the Federal 
Register on April 12, 2005 (70 FR 19110), that corrects Amendment 
Nos. 227 and 207 for Duke Energy Corporation, Docket Nos. 50-369 
and 50-370, McGuire Nuclear Station, Units 1 and 2.
 
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: James J. Shea, Office of Nuclear 
Reactor Regulation, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 
Washington, DC 20555-0001; telephone (301) 415-1388, e-mail: 
jjs@nrc.gov.
 
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: On page 19118, in the third column, 
Amendment Nos.: 227 and 207, should have read Amendment Nos.: 225 
and 207.
 
Dated in Rockville, Maryland, this 15th day of April 2005.
 
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
 
Ledyard B. Marsh, Director, Division of Licensing Project 
Management, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation.
 
[FR Doc. E5-1904 Filed 4-21-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P

 
*****************************************************************
 12 NRC: NRC to Discuss 2004 Performance at Oconee Nuclear Power Plant
 
News Release - Region II - 2005-02 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY 
COMMISSION 

Office of Public Affairs, Region II No. II-05-022                         
April 22, 2005 CONTACT:     Ken Clark (404) 562-4416 Roger D. 
Hannah (404) 562-4417     E-mail: opa2@nrc.gov  
  

with Duke Energy officials April 27 to discuss the NRCs annual 
assessment of safety performance at the Oconee nuclear power 
plant, located near Seneca, S.C. The period covered is the 
calendar year 2004. 

The 3:00 p.m. meeting at the Oconee Complex Building Auditorium, 
155 East Pickens Highway (Hwy. 183) in Seneca is open to public 
observation. Before the meeting ends, NRC staff will be available 
to answer public questions on the plants safety performance, as 
well as the agencys role in ensuring safe operation of the 
facility. 

Each year the NRC staff rates the performance of the Oconee plant 
and all of the nations other commercial nuclear power plants, NRC 
Region II Administrator William Travers said. This meeting gives 
us a chance to discuss our assessment with the company, with 
local officials and with residents near the plant. Our aim is to 
make this information available to the public and answer any 
questions people may have about our oversight. 

Overall, the Oconee plant operated safely during 2004, but the 
NRC said the plant did have a moderate degradation in safety 
performance. The NRC uses color-coded inspection findings and 
performance indicators to assess performance. The colors start 
with green and increase to white, yellow or red, commensurate 
with the safety significance of the issues involved. 

During the assessment period, the NRC had two white (low to 
moderate safety significance) inspection findings related to 
mitigating systems at the plant. These findings mean the NRC 
staff will conduct an additional inspection next month. The NRC 
continues to review several issues that may also result in 
additional inspections beyond the normal level if any of these 
issues are found to be of greater than very low risk 
significance. 

In addition to routine inspections at the plant in 2005, the NRC 
plans operator licensing examinations, inspections of the plants 
dry cask spent fuel storage, and inspections of pressurizer 
penetration nozzles and steam space piping connections. 

The Oconee plant also received a $60,000 fine during 2004 for the 
failure to obtain NRC approval before making a change to the 
plant involving unreviewed safety questions. 

A letter sent from the NRC Region II Office to plant officials 
addresses the performance of the plant during the period and will 
serve as the basis for the meeting discussion. It is available on 
the NRC web site at 
www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/LETTERS/oco_2004q4.pdf [PDF 
Icon] . 

Routine inspections are performed by NRC Resident Inspectors 
assigned to the plant and by specialists from the Region II 
Office in Atlanta, and the agencys headquarters in Rockville, Md. 

Current information for the Oconee plant is available on the NRC 
web site at: 
www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/OCO1/oco1_chart.html, 
www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/OCO2/oco2_chart.html and 
www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/OCO3/oco3_chart.html.   



  


 	Last revised Friday, April 22, 2005 	   
*****************************************************************
 13 NRC: Nuclear Management Company, LLC, Notice of Correction to
 
                         FR Doc E5-1905 
[Federal Register: April 22, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 77)] 
[Notices] [Page 20938-20939] From the Federal Register Online via 
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr22ap05-103]                         
 
Biweekly Notice of Issuance of Amendment to Facility Operating 
License AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
 
ACTION: Notice of issuance; correction.
 
SUMMARY: This document corrects a notice appearing in the Federal 
Register on April 12, 2005 (70 FR 19122). The correct date of 
issuance should be ``March 24, 2005'' instead of ``March 17, 
2005.'' Also, the safety evaluation
 
[[Page 20939]] should be dated ``March 24, 2005.'' This action is 
necessary to correct an erroneous date.
 
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Fred Lyon, Office of Nuclear 
Reactor Regulation, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 
Washington, DC 20555- 0001; telephone (301) 415-2296, e-mail: 
CFL@nrc.gov.
 
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: On page 19122, in the second column, 
in the second paragraph, seventh line, it is corrected to read 
from ``March 17, 2005'' to ``[March 24, 2005 ].'' Also, on the 
same page and column, the fifth paragraph down, the third line 
should read ``Safety Evaluation dated March 24, 2005.'' Dated in 
Rockville, Maryland, this 18th day of April, 2005.
 
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
 
Carl F. Lyon, Project Manager, Section 1, Project Directorate 
III, Division of Licensing Project Management, Office of Nuclear 
Reactor Regulation.
 
[FR Doc. E5-1905 Filed 4-21-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P

 
*****************************************************************
 14 AFP: Iran honoring safety regulations in building Bushehr power plant  - UN agency - 

  Reuters | AFP | Sky News | Photos
 
Friday April 22, 07:19 PM

VIENNA (AFP) - Iran is honoring international safety operating 
standards in building its first nuclear power plant, with Russian 
help, in the southeast of the country, a UN atomic agency 
official said. Both the United States and Israel have objected to 
the building of the Bushehr reactor, which could go online at the 
end of next year, as they claim Iran is secretly trying to 
develop nuclear weapons and that having such a facility will be a 
proliferation risk. 

Ken Brockman, director of the division of nuclear installation
safety of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), was
only speaking of the current construction of the facility, which
is monitored by the IAEA, and whether the plant would be safe
from an operational point of view, not whether it would be a
security risk. "So far, so good," Brockman told reporters. He
was speaking on the sidelines of a nuclear safety meeting of the
65-nation Convention on Nuclear Safety at IAEA headquarters in
Vienna. 

Brockman said the IAEA is "trying to find ways (so that) the 
Iranian state ... has the expertise to be able to safely operate 
this facility, remembering, once again, it's a commercial nuclear 
power plant and that's the aspect in which we're providing this 
particular guidance and assistance to the Islamic republic of 
Iran." 

Brockman said the IAEA had "projects ongoing with the regulatory 
body of Iran to make sure they have an effective regulatory body" 
and also with Russia, which is helping Iran build the Bushehr 
reactor. Brockman said the Iranians had shown a commitment "to 
doing appropriate quality checks" at Bushehr. 

"I've seen many applications out there where the Iranians have 
identified construction that did not meet their quality standards 
and they've been very aggressive in going in and replacing it and 
making sure it does," he said.

Bushehr, which will be Iran's first nuclear power reactor, is
being built under an agreement between the Russian and Iranian
governments for 800 million dollars (615 million euros). Russia
signed a technological cooperation agreement with Tehran in 2002
that opened the way for construction of up to five reactors --
including a second one at Bushehr -- over the coming 10 years.

The agreement on Bushehr hinges on Iran's agreement to return
the spent nuclear fuel to Russia for storage -- a provision both
Russia and the West were insisting on to make sure that the
Islamic state does not use the material to produce a nuclear
weapon.     

         Copyright © 2005 AFP AFP. All rights reserved. 
*****************************************************************
 15 Kyiv Post: Chernobyl plant faces potentially dangerous power cut due to debt
 
Apr 22 2005, 18:52 

(AP) - The Chernobyl nuclear power plant, site of the world's
worst nuclear accident, is facing a potentially dangerous power
cut due to a huge debt, an official said April 22. 

The state-run company responsible for decommissioning the plant
where a reactor exploded in 1986 in the world's worst commercial
nuclear accident, owes more than $6 million (4.6 million euros)
in overdue wages and unpaid bills for electricity, gas, fuel and
transport, said company spokesman Semyon Shtein. 

Shtein warned that the cutoff of electricity and gas supplies
could be "rather dangerous and it can result in breaches of
nuclear safety." He did not elaborate. 

Shtein said his company had warned Ukraine's government of the
potential danger. 

He said the plant will be forced to use its own scarce fuel
reserves to power generators and provide transport for workers
if the plant is cut off from the power grid and gas supply. 

The Soviet-era accident on April 26, 1986, at the plant about
100 kilometers (some 60 miles) north of the Ukrainian capital
sent radioactive fallout over then-Soviet Ukraine, Russia,
Belarus and much of northern Europe. 

Some 7 million people are estimated to suffer from
radiation-related effects, and Ukraine has registered some 4,400
deaths blamed on the accident. Chernobyl's last working reactor
was shut down in December 2000, but decommissioning works have
continued. 

Chernobyl's managers have repeatedly warned that the
decommissioning might be delayed due to lack of funds for the
storage of nuclear fuel from the undamaged reactors and the
highly radioactive debris that is still scattered inside the
destroyed reactor No. 4, which was hastily entombed in a
concrete-and-steel shelter after the accident. 

The shelter is crumbling and Ukrainian and Western experts say
it needs urgent repairs. 

Shtein said that the money for Chernobyl's expenses was expected
to be allocated earlier this year from a special state fund. He
said the money has never reached it because of the government's
failure to finalize details for their transfer. 

Earlier this month, Ukraine's Energy and Fuel Minister Ivan
Plachkov said that it would cost over $1 billion (770 million
euros) to build a new, safer structure to confine the destroyed
reactor, and that foreign donors including the United States had
promised to contribute. 

Work on the new confinement structure is scheduled to begin next
year and end within three years, Plachkov said. Separately, a
Ukrainian-Russian consortium began a three-year operation aimed
at reinforcing the existing structure over the reactor. 

© 2004 SputnikMedia.net.
*****************************************************************
 16 ITAR-TASS: Chernobyl NPP facing prospect of energy blockade

22.04.2005, 14.07

KIEV, April 22 (Itar-Tass) - The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant
(NPP), whose operation was suspended after the accident of April
1986, is facing the threat of an energy blockade. Power and gas
supply to the NPP may be interrupted, along with the railway
transportation of the personnel, because of a critical situation
with financing. 

The debt to the state-owned Chernobyl NPP amounts to some six
million dollars, a representative of the NPP management told
Itar-Tass. The sum includes 1.6 million dollars of wage debts,
800,000 dollars of debts for electricity supply, 120,000 dollars
of debts for gas supply and 300,000 dollars of debts for the
railway transportation of the personnel. 

The NPP management is ready to use reserve fuel, if the NPP is
cut off from electricity and gas supply. 

Money for the Chernobyl NPP is to be allocated in 2005 from a
special fund, which is to be formed on the basis of deductions
of the Energoatom energy-generating stock company. The
government has not worked out so far a mechanism for the
transfer of money to the fund, while the money cannot be
transferred to it without a corresponding government resolution. 

The NPP management forwarded letters to the ministry of fuel and
energy, the finance ministry and the government of Ukraine on
the situation the Chernobyl NPP is facing. 

The NPP chief executives stressed that, despite financial
problems, the personnel continued to ensure the functioning of
the life-support systems of the power units and industrial
facilities, the radiation and nuclear security and the
technological processes, connected with the maintenance of the
safety of the power units and the “sarcophagus”, built over the
destroyed fourth power unit. 

© ITAR-TASS. All rights reserved. You undertake not to copy,
*****************************************************************
 17 SouthBendTribune.com: NRC: Hospital at fault for errors
 
April 22, 2005 

 SJRMC admits giving unintended doses of radiation to five
cancer patients

 By DAVID RUMBACH Tribune Staff Writer 

 Dr. Jon Frazier of Saint Joseph Regional Medical Center speaks 
to two members of the audience following a public meeting 
Thursday. Tribune Photo/GENE KAISER   

SOUTH BEND -- Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials said
Thursday that Saint Joseph Regional Medical Center failed to
test radiation sources before using them in the treatment of
five cancer patients last year. 

The failure was a contributing factor in errors that exposed the
legs of the patients, who were being treated for cervical
cancer, to unintended doses of radiation last year, said John
Madera, chief of the NRC's materials inspection branch. 

"They lacked a step that should have been done,'' Madera said. 

The NRC has been investigating the hospital's handling of
radioactive materials since late March, when the hospital first
reported the accidental exposures more than a year after the
treatments in question. 

It released its findings of that probe at a meeting, open to the
public, with the medical center's president and other hospital
officials in attendance. 

NRC officials also said the medical center failed to report the
treatment errors on time and did not adequately oversee the
consulting firm that delivered the treatment, Advanced
Radiotherapy Consulting. 

The commission, however, has not yet determined whether the
medical center violated any regulations or whether any
enforcement actions will be taken, said Gary L. Shear, a
regional deputy director for nuclear materials safety. 

A second investigation will begin soon to address those issues,
Shear said. 

The treatments in question were given in February and March of
2004 but the hospital did not report them to the NRC until March
28 of this year. 

Three of the five women given the botched treatments developed
radiation burns, or ulcers, on their inner thighs. One of the
women sought medical treatment for a recurrence of her ulcer in
January. 

Gary Perecko, president of the medical center, said the hospital
did not report the problem earlier because it had
"misinterpreted NRC guidelines to determine whether the
conditions were reportable. ...'' 

Nonetheless, Perecko said, the hospital's staff and consultants
did take prompt steps to correct the problem and prevent it from
happening to any more patients, he said. 

"I am pleased to report that our system of checks and balances
was effective in addressing the situation we identified,''
Perecko said. 

According to the NRC, the mishap occurred because the wrong size
of radiation source was loaded into the device used to deliver
the cancer treatment. 

The sources, or seeds, were procured from an alternative
manufacturer and were smaller than the ones recommended for the
device, Madera said. As a result, they slipped out of place
during treatment, exposing the skin of the leg instead of the
cervix during part, but not all, of each treatment. 

Madera said the hospital had provided smaller-size seeds to the
consulting firm, called Advanced Radiotherapy Consulting. 

The consultants did not know that the seeds were too small to
fit securely into the device, he said. That became apparent only
after two patients suffered the radiation burns on their legs. 

Within a few weeks, Madera said, the consultants solved the
problem by using a solid plunger rather than a spring to load
the device and to hold the seeds in place. That made the device
safe to use, Madera said. 

Madera said it was not wrong for the medical center to use an
alternative brand of seeds for its treatment. That's an accepted
part of medicine. 

Where it went wrong was failing to perform a routine test,
called an acceptance test, needed to make ensure that the device
would hold the alternative seeds. 

That's done by simply putting "dummy seeds,'' non-radioactive
pellets of the exact same size, into the device and trying it to
make sure it works. 

"The difference is size between these two kinds of seeds is very
small,'' Madera said. "They couldn't tell by looking at them
that they weren't the right size.''The type of radiation
treatment in question, called brachytherapy, involves the
placement of a radioactive isotope very close to a tumor. 

In these particular cases, a cylindrical device was being used
to position containers of radioactive material close to the
cervix. The device was inserted into the patient's vagina. 

Madera explained that the too-small seeds were loaded into that
cylinder through a hollow tube and then held in place by a long
spring. 

Whenever a patient sat during treatment, the pellet fell through
the spring and settled at the end of the tube, outside her body
and next to her leg. When she lay back down, the seed would fall
to the other end of the device, where it was supposed to be. 

So, in the botched treatments, the women received radiation both
to their tumors and to their legs. 

Perecko said all five of the cancer patients are in remission.
The medical center, however, did not have information on the
condition of the burns suffered by some of the women. 

The NRC has hired a medical consultant to provide independent
evaluations of the women and any harm they may have experienced
as a result of the treatment errors. 

Madera said the Food and Drug Administration is reviewing the
device in question to ensure that similar problems don't occur
in other hospitals around the country. It may ask the
manufacturer to include a stronger warning about using the right
size of seeds. 

Contact the southbendtribune.com
Web staff.
the South Bend Tribuneunless otherwise specified.
Copyright &copy; 1994-2005 South Bend Tribune
*****************************************************************
 18 Edie news centre: Regulatory uncertainty could cause power failure and nuclear revival
 
(published on 22-Apr-2005) 

Regulatory uncertainty is holding back vital investment in the 
utility sector and could lead to blackouts and an inconsistent 
power supply, a leading market analyst survey has reported. 

This uncertainty will affect investment in renewables and could
lead to a revival in the fortunes of the nuclear industry, it
claims. 

Under Pressure, PricewaterhouseCoopers' seventh Global Utilities
Survey, found that regulatory worries top the list of investor
concerns about funding the industry. Over a third (39%) say that
deregulation and market reforms are damaging confidence,
highlighting the dangers of inconsistent regulation, energy, tax
and environmental policies within regions and between countries. 

This anxiety within the industry means that, despite its growth
prospects, it is failing to attract the investment it needs. 

The PWC survey found that most investors rate utilities as being
as attractive as several other sectors such as financial
services, consumer, retail and pharmaceuticals. This sentiment
was also found in investors already focused on utilities. 

A spokesperson for PWC told edie news that the EU was a good
example of regulatory uncertainty: "Each territory in the EU has
separate regulations for each utility, so you can have around 50
different regulatory bodies all saying slightly different
things. And, that produces uncertainty as you don't always know
what's coming. There is a similar problem in the US where
different states can have different regulations for different
utilities - so making longer term plans can be a problem." 

Two-thirds of utility company respondents to the report said
that without regulatory certainty and high levels of investment,
power blackouts could be a more frequent occurrence, and these
concerns are spreading across the industry. 

Nearly 72% of utility company respondents say supply security
and transmission capacity are major concerns facing the sector -
up from 65% in 2004. 

This is also affecting investment in renewables, the report
says. While the focus on renewables is increasing, with the
industry trying to change the fuel mix, investors feel this area
will face the biggest funding challenge creating a new
vulnerability for the sector. Over half the respondents, 52%,
said they expected a nuclear revival in such a climate. 

Manfred Wiegand, Global Utilities Leader at PWC, said the
challenge for the sector was immense: "We urge governments,
utility companies, investors and consumers to work together to
find a truly sustainable and long-term strategy for the
industry. This means getting the equation right in the market
through a balanced view of renewables and a streamlined
regulatory environment, generating market rates of return for
investors and encouraging transparent and well-communicated
business strategy among utility companies." 

Despite the uncertainty over certain regulations, utility
companies report that they are being driven more by other
regulatory influences such as Sarbanes-Oxley and International
Finance Reporting Standards to bring greater transparency to
reporting. Nearly two-thirds of companies signal that they
intend to step-up environmental reporting. 

By David Hopkins 


© Faversham House Group Ltd 2005. 
*****************************************************************
 19 Scotsman.com News: New nuclear power stations not ruled out
 
Saturday, 23rd April 2005    	 

GERRI PEEV 

NEW nuclear power stations could be on the cards if other
strategies to halt climate change are not effective, the
Environment Secretary Margaret Beckett said yesterday. 

Improving energy efficiency and moving to renewable energy
sources is the governmentâ€™s preferred way to tackle
environmental concerns, but Mrs Beckett stressed that just half
of the governmentâ€™s targets could be met using these methods. 

This left the door open for boosting nuclear capacity. 

She said: "There is a huge amount we need to do [to combat
climate change], and between 2010 and 2020 we can probably do
about at least half of what we need to, through energy
efficiency and renewable energy." 

However, Mrs Beckett also highlighted that one of the major
hurdles for returning to nuclear energy is cost. 

No company was actually asking "please let me build a new
nuclear power station", she said. 

"We canâ€™t close down that option. It is possible that in the
end, for climate change reasons, we would need to reconsider
that," she continued. 

Mrs Beckett signalled that a further white paper could be
produced, examining the possibilities of new nuclear power
stations. 

Her admission follows a call from the Scottish Affairs Committee
for a "proper debate" on nuclear energy after the election. 

While Westminster politicians, including Tony Blair, have
signalled their support for considering the nuclear option, the
Scottish Parliament could prove to be a stumbling block for any
new reactors north of the Border. 

But the admission that the nuclear option had not been ruled out
was condemned by the Scottish National Party. 

The party has campaigned against new nuclear power stations and
the dumping of nuclear waste in Scotland. 

The SNPâ€™s energy spokesman for Westminster, Mike Weir, said:
"Scotland will pay dear for Labourâ€™s nuclear madness. 

"They are obsessed with creating a nuclear future for Scotland,
looking to spend billions on new nuclear power stations that we
donâ€™t need as well as spending billions on nuclear weapons on
the Clyde." 

• A total of 51 radioactive particles were found yesterday
during an annual scan of the seabed near Dounreay nuclear plant.

*****************************************************************
 20 Public Citizen: NRC's Proposed Fine Against Nuclear Operator 
FirstEnergy Does Not Absolve Agency of Its Failures; Lax 
Regulation Led to Serious Safety Violations at Ohio Nuclear Plant
 
April 21, 2005 

NRCs Proposed Fine Against Nuclear Operator FirstEnergy Does
Not Absolve Agency of Its Failures; Lax Regulation Led to
Serious Safety Violations at Ohio Nuclear Plant 

Statement of Wenonah Hauter, Director, Public Citizens Critical
Mass Energy and Environment Program 

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commissions (NRC) proposed $5.45
million fine, announced today, against FirstEnergy Nuclear
Operating Company for safety violations at its Davis-Besse
nuclear plant in Oak Harbor, Ohio, is too little too late, and
it does not forgive the NRC for failing to properly enforce its
own regulations. 

Both the NRC and FirstEnergy are at fault in the mismanagement
that allowed severe degradation of the nuclear reactor vessel
head to go unnoticed for years until it was finally discovered
in March 2002 that a mere three-eighths of an inch of metal
cladding was all that contained the hot reactor core, a dire
situation that could have easily led to a reactor breach and
potential meltdown. The fine against FirstEnergy is deserved, to
be sure, but it does not correct the NRCs troubling emphasis on
plant performance and profitability, which inhibited an earlier
shutdown and inspection of the troubled plant. 

A December 2002 report by the NRCs inspector general (IG) found
that the NRCs decision to allow the continued operation of
Davis-Besse was driven in large part by a desire to lessen the
financial impact on FENOC [FirstEnergy] that would result from
an early shutdown.   The IG further concluded that the NRC
appears to have informally established an unreasonably high
burden of requiring absolute proof of a safety problem, versus
lack of reasonable assurance of maintaining public health and
safety, before it will act to shut down a power plant. 

While the proposed fine is significantthe largest ever proposed
by the NRCit does not correct a heavily pro-industry bias that
has compromised the agencys capacity for effective regulatory
oversight and discipline. The NRC allowed the Davis-Besse plant
to restart in March 2004, and it has recently approved a slew of
power uprates (increases in power generation) and license
renewals for operators of stressed, aging nuclear plants,
indicating a preference for performance over robust and thorough
regulation. 

FirstEnergy should be disciplined for its mismanagement, and the
fine is deserved, but more stringent oversight by the NRC is the
key to preventing the kind of malfeasance that nearly led to
disaster in Ohio. 

Public Citizen
*****************************************************************
 21 Al Jazeerah: Take a 2nd Look at Nuclear Power This Earth Day 

By Anthony Watson 

Opinion Editorials, April 2005,           
    
Al-Jazeerah, April 22, 2005 

On Earth Day 1989, I experienced my own personal nuclear
epiphany. The light bulb that went on over my head sixteen years
ago was partially lit by the Exxon Valdez disaster, but really
did not come to full brightness until that Earth Day. I was
standing there admiring some coast redwoods that had been
planted next to Highway 50 in Rancho Cordova, California.
Something about redwood trees and Earth Day just seems to go
together, especially when you are in Northern California. I
noticed how brown and burnt the new growth was on the little
grove of trees. 

It is the dirty little secret of the Sacramento Valley that smog
is pretty bad. I remembered that the California coast redwood
was allegedly very tolerant of exhaust fumes. If this was what
happened to trees that were tolerant of roadside air pollution,
I wondered what the pollution intolerant species looked like. I
suddenly realized that those trees probably would be far better
off if the nearby nuclear power plant, Rancho Seco, was online
and functional. I began to see how the anti-nuclear power
environmentalists were doing a great disservice to these trees
and by extension the global environment as a whole. The trees
and the world would do better on nuclear power instead of the
burning of fossil fuels was the clear inspiration I had that
Earth Day. 

Most people that know me find me to be a pretty "green"
individual. With that kind of reputation in my own social
circles, I thought that I could push the idea of pro-nuclear
environmentalism. I thought that the logic of it was so
self-evident that not only would Rancho Seco stay open, but I
would be able to get national attention to this new way of
thinking. Unfortunately, the concept of a pro-nuclear
environmentalist was an oxymoron to many and difficult for
people to accept. I sustained quite a bit of abuse trying to
advocate the idea. 

Periodically over the last sixteen years I have tried to
resurrect it. During that time the environment continues to
deteriorate to such an extent that no other position seems
tenable when one considers all the facts. So here I am back
again, trying to push this idea, because I feel it is so, so
important. With the Bush/Cheney crowd poised to begin drilling
in untouched parts of the Alaskan Wilderness, I feel an even
greater urgency. Nuclear power is our last hope of maintaining a
high standard of living in conjunction with a relatively clean
environment. The truth is that no matter whether the drilling
begins or not, the Artic will be destroyed in a generation or
two by global warming. 

The main objection to nuclear power is that nuclear waste
disposal techniques are inadequate. This argument is not
compelling when other power sources are held to the same
standard. Current disposal methods for spent fossil fuels are
non-existent. We do not trap the exhaust from fossil fuel
combustion and put it into barrels. Instead, we spew the
poisonous byproducts into our atmosphere. The waste products of
fission are put into barrels and their whereabouts catalogued.
Yucca Mountain really is perfect for storing barrels of nuclear
waste, though I think that affected communities should likely
receive some compensation to overcome NIMBY-ism. Admittedly,
those barrels will be hazardous for many thousands of years.
Nonetheless, one should consider that the half-life of fossil
fuel combustion is not known. These gases hang around to affect
our environment and weather detrimentally for an unknown period. 

Nuclear waste can also be reduced by a large amount, if some of
the rules and regulations were changed. The government currently
allows civilian reactors to use only low grade nuclear fuel,
because of national security concerns primarily. This creates
far more waste than necessary. Nationalization could ease
national security concerns and allow the reactors to burn high
grade, 99% pure fuel, as the military does. Any nuclear waste,
be it from high grade pure fuel or the current weak version used
in civilian reactors, could be used to make a dirty bomb, so the
national security interest does not appear to be served by
burning low grade fuel. The analogy of an urban sewer system is
useful when considering the nuclear power situation. The lack of
fossil fuel waste disposal condemns us to sit in and breathe our
own excrement. With nuclear fission we can at least put our
waste into a septic tank. 

Many environmentalists claim simple conservation should be
enough to fix the problem. Environmentalists are ignoring future
demand for electrical power that will outstrip conservation
savings, in my opinion. For example, if more cities build rail
mass transit systems, this would create a new and very large
demand for electrical power, since many of these light rail and
subway systems are electric. Bullet trains, using
superconductivity technology, will also use enormous amounts of
power. What about the coming of the electric car? This is rarely
factored into the conservation equations. 

Huge amounts of electricity will be required for the transition
to electric transportation. The EPA has determined that an
electric car will actually generate more carbon monoxide than
the current combustion model. On the average, a gasoline powered
vehicle emits 354 grams of carbon monoxide per 100 miles of
travel, while the energy required to charge an electric car for
a similar journey would create 393 grams of carbon monoxide.
This is because the energy has to be created offsite and then
transported to the vehicle. Creation of the power within the
vehicle by burning gasoline is far more efficient. Less energy
is used to travel a given distance in a gasoline automobile,
hence less pollution is created. Unless the electricity is
generated cleanly, the electric car can solve nothing. 

We cannot put our faith in a new technology like fuel cells
which have greenhouse gas emissions, too. Even if fuel cell
vehicles could be created whose only emission were water vapor,
the effect on the climate cannot even be calculated. Pumping
industrial amounts of water vapor into the atmosphere will
surely change rainfall patterns, besides the fact that water
vapor is a greenhouse gas itself. Beyond that, hydrogen needs to
be extracted from some source, usually water and this requires
additional energy. The costs of extracting hydrogen alone are
likely to put a similar load on the environment as the current
state of affairs. It is the Hindenberg all over again. 

We need immediate solutions more than ever. The other alternate
energy sources are subject to the vagaries of weather and still
have a ways to go before they can replace current electrical
generation methods. The generation of 21st century amounts of
industrial electrical power on demand is a tall order. Excess
electricity generated on especially sunny or windy days cannot
be stored, easily. When there is no wind or sun then electricity
must be generated by oil or natural gas. Nuclear energy does not
suffer from these limitations and is a proven industrial
strength energy generator. We need real alternatives now, not
later. I have no objections to pursuing these alternatives while
we run fission plants, but the pursuit of those alternatives
should involve climate modeling. There is some evidence in
recent studies that large wind power generation can change
weather patterns. Blanketing large areas of the world with solar
panels could have similar effects, not too mention the exotic
materials necessary to create the panels becoming waste hazards
themselves. We just do not know, because the science is not
being done. 

Nuclear fission is the lesser of two evils, but certainly the
lesser. Precisely because it is not perfect means that
environmentalists must get involved in the production of energy
by fission. Environmentalists must accept the need for nuclear
fission and draw up an agenda for its development.
Environmentalists have a role as government watchdogs to make
sure the bureaucrats do not cut corners at the expense of the
environment. If environmentalists strike first and modify their
position with the condition that environmentalists are given
monitoring functions, the chances of getting that watchdog
status are far greater. Geiger counters are readily available.
It will be very easy for independent and bureaucratic watchdogs
to detect problems. It is actually far more difficult for the
average person to detect problems like MTBE contamination of
ground water than it would be to detect a nuclear radioactivity
leak. 

Admittedly, the public has an overwhelming fear of nuclear
reactors, but this is an education issue. Environmentalists need
to be at the forefront of an education effort to end the
demonization of nuclear fission. Three Mile Island and Chernobyl
scared a lot of people, but the simple truth is that a
coal-fired electricity plant will produce more radioactivity
than a nuclear fission reactor. . After Chernobyl, whole forests
had to be cleared, not because they were dead, but because they
were radioactive and a threat to human life. The trees lived on! 

Imagine a nuclear accident that irradiated part of the Sierra
Nevada east of Sacramento via a Rancho Seco accident. The Sierra
east of Sacramento is being paved over by a growing population
shift to those scenic foothills. If that area was irradiated by
a nuclear accident, humans would leave, but plants and animals
might remain undisturbed and thriving. Environmentally, a
nuclear accident might be the best thing for those foothills.
Humanity's long lifespan makes it more vulnerable to long term
damage resulting in cancer, etc. While many mammals with their
shorter lifespans may actually have population rebounds in the
area irradiated. Plant life is far more resistant to radiation,
because of its simpler structure. 
Of course, the human suffering would be great, but Earth
Firsters rarely consider that in their equations. The fact is
that the nuclear power is far more destructive to human life
specifically than the environment in general, including animal
life. I do not mean to make light of this, but these are the
facts and their logical extension. Our world, as we know it,
cannot survive another twenty years of fossil fuel combustion
like the last. We as a nation and as a planet must come to grips
with this atmospheric pollution problem and the global climate
change caused by it. 

Weather prediction is one of the last bastions of human
inductive reasoning. Computer models simply cannot run fast
enough with small enough cell sizes for the weather prediction
to be calculated before the weather actually happens. Therefore
our models are always imperfect. We just cannot know what the
future holds in terms of global climate change. Nuclear power is
the only alternative that allows us to stop pumping our waste
into the atmosphere NOW and we need to do it NOW. The poles are
melting and things are changing rapidly on planet Earth. Global
climate change is already happening and we can only hope to slow
it if we take action NOW. Doing nothing is not a good option. 

Anthony Watson is a computer programmer living in California. 

  Earth, a planet hungry for peace   

Opinions expressed in various sections are the sole
responsibility of their authors and they may not represent
Al-Jazeerah's. 
editor@aljazeerah.info   
*****************************************************************
 22 Guardian Unlimited: NRC Slaps FirstEnergy With Record Fine
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Friday April 22, 2005 10:46 AM

AP Photo CD102 

By JOHN SEEWER 

Associated Press Writer 

TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) - The Nuclear Regulatory Commission proposed a
record $5.45 million fine against a nuclear plant operator where
inspectors found the most extensive corrosion ever seen at a
U.S. nuclear reactor. 

The NRC said Thursday that FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Co.
restarted the Davis-Besse plant in 2000 without completing a
cleaning and inspection of the reactor vessel head, then misled
the agency about what it had done. 

Leaking boric acid was found two years later during a routine
inspection. The acid ate nearly all the way through a
6-inch-thick steel cap. 

``This substantial fine emphasizes the very high safety and
regulatory significance of FirstEnergy's failure to comply with
NRC requirements,'' said Luis Reyes, NRC executive director for
operations. 

The NRC also said it is banning one of the company's former
engineers from working in the nuclear industry for five years.
The agency said that Andrew Siemaszko was responsible for making
sure the reactor vessel head was cleaned and inspected and that
he deliberately provided false information. 

The damage at the plant along the Lake Erie shore, 30 miles east
of Toledo, ranks among the nation's worst nuclear problems since
the accident at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania in 1979. It
led to a review of 68 similar plants nationwide. 

The Davis-Besse plant was closed for two years but returned to
full power last April. 

The fine more than doubles the previous record of $2.1 million
handed down by the NRC in 1997 against the operators of the
Millstone nuclear plant in Connecticut for safety violations. 

FirstEnergy spokesman Richard Wilkins said the company had no
immediate comment. The plant operator and Siemaszko have 90 days
to appeal. 

A federal grand jury is investigating whether the company
provided false statements to the NRC, and the utility said in
December that it probably would face charges. 	 
		 	 	   
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
 23 SABCnews.com: Alleged nuclear material traffickers appear in court                             April

South African Broadcasting Corporation Copyright ©

April 22, 2005, 14:00

A trial date is expected to be set next month for Gerhard Wisser
and Daniel Geiges, Randburg engineering firm directors who face
charges relating to weapons of mass destruction. Makhosini
Nkosi, spokesperson for the National Prosecuting Authority says
the two men appeared in the Vanderbijlpark Regional Court today.
 
The case has been postponed to May 18. The trial was expected to
be heard in the Pretoria High Court, and the two men are
currently out on bail. They were arrested last year on charges
under the Non-Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction and
Nuclear Energy acts.
 
The charges relate to the alleged import and export of goods
which could be used to enrich uranium. The investigation is
linked to a probe into Libya's now abandoned nuclear weapons
programme and to Abdul Khadeer Khan, former Pakistan nuclear
expert, who is believed to have supplied that programme.
 
Similar charges were dropped against Johan Meyer, a
Vanderbijlpark engineering company director, who has become a
State witness. Several truckloads of equipment were taken from
his factory to the Pelindaba nuclear facility west of Pretoria
for testing. 				

*****************************************************************
 24 Korea Herald: Roh, Bush may hold June summit on N. Korea nukes   

 (smjoo@heraldm.com) By Joo Sang-min 

2005.04.23
        
The government is pushing for a summit between President Roh
Moo-hyun and U.S. President George W. Bush in the United States
around June amid signs of escalating tensions over the North
Korean nuclear standoff and signs of strains in the time-honored
alliance between Seoul and Washington.

 Officials in Seoul said yesterday that the two governments have
held working-level talks to draw up a specific outline for a
summit meeting.

 "Although nothing has been fixed, we see high chances of the
summit meeting. A specific schedule will come out after further
consultation," Yonhap news agency quoted an unidentified
official as saying. 

Word of the push for a summit coincides with a planned
Washington visit in April 26-28 by Lee Jong-seok, deputy head of
the National Security Council and a key adviser to Roh on
national security. 

Presidential spokesman Kim Man-soo refused to confirm the summit
bid. "A cordial trust exists between Korea and the United States
to discuss mutual concerns at any time when needed," he said.

 The two presidents met in Santiago, Chile, last Nov. 20 on the
sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. This
year's summit is in Busan in November and Bush is scheduled to
attend.

 An earlier meeting between Roh and Bush in mid-year would seek
to deal with the increasing tension on the Korean Peninsula over
the North Korean nuclear weapons issue.

 The situation has been worsening since Pyongyang announced Feb.
10 it possesses nuclear weapons and will indefinitely boycott
the six-party talks between the two Koreas, the United States,
China, Japan and Russia.

 Adding to the tension was North Korea's confirmation that it
has shut its key reactor at Yongbyon, a move that may allow
extraction of spent fuel rods to produce more weapons-grade
plutonium.

 The Bush administration has said it cannot tolerate North Korea
indefinitely delaying a return to the six-party talks. The third
round was held last June and Pyongyang has been stalling since
then, citing U.S. hostility.

 U.S. officials have said other options - including a possible
referral to the U.N. Security Council, which South Korea opposes
- may have to be taken.

 Roh has made clear that he opposes increasing pressure against
Pyongyang so as not to aggravate the situation. 

The envisioned summit, if confirmed, will also attempt to patch
up an apparent rift in military affairs ranging over
cost-sharing, personnel and military operations.

 Roh opposes any intervention by U.S. forces in Korea in
military disputes in other Northeast Asian nations without South
Korea's consent, especially a conflict between China and Taiwan. 

His National Security Council last week also officially refused
to accept a U.S. proposal to draft a contingency plan on North
Korea in the event of internal turmoil in the isolationist
country. 

Diplomatic efforts to get the North to give up its nuclear
weapons ambitions were continuing, including a planned visit May
2 by Chinese President Hu Jintao. China is the major ally and
aid benefactor to North Korea.

 Possible complications in the attempts to get the six-way talks
going again are the ongoing diplomatic rows between China and
Japan and South Korea and Japan over Japanese history
distortions dispute.

 But Japan is seeking summit talks this weekend with South Korea
and China. 

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi may meet Hu this week in
Indonesia and again next month in Russia in a bid to defuse
escalating tensions between Asia's two biggest economies. 

Koizumi is also seeking to meet Roh in Moscow on May 8 at a
ceremony to mark the 60th anniversary of the end of the World
War II.

*****************************************************************
 25 Las Vegas SUN: N. Korea Says Nukes Needed for Defense

Today: April 22, 2005 at 10:05:26 PDT 

 By CHRIS BRUMMITT ASSOCIATED PRESS 

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) - 

North Korea's No. 2 leader Friday accused the United States of
trying to topple Pyongyang's government, shortly after a brief
meeting with the South Korean prime minister that was the
highest-level exchange between those two neighbors in five
years. 

The developments came amid international efforts to resume
six-party talks aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear ambitions. 

In a speech to delegates at a meeting of African and Asian
leaders, Kim Yong Nam of North Korea said the reclusive
communist country needed nuclear weapons for self-defense. 

The United States, with "the largest nuclear arsenal in the
world, is now attempting to stifle the DPRK system by deploying
(the) latest means of nuclear war ... in and around the Korean
peninsula," Kim said, using the acronym that stands for
Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the North's official
name. 

"Under such circumstances, it stands to reason indeed for the
DPRK to equip itself with a nuclear deterrent as a legitimate
self-defensive means." 

Kim said the North remained committed to resolve the nuclear
issue peacefully through dialogue and negotiations, but he
reiterated earlier statements that the nuclear issue would only
be resolved when the "United States respects the DPRK's
sovereignty ... and replaces its hostile policy with one for a
peaceful coexistence." 

The United States has repeatedly said it has no intention to
attack the North. 

In February, the North claimed it already possessed nuclear
weapons and would indefinitely boycott the talks, which also
involve the United States, China, Japan, Russia and South Korea.
That claim has not been independently verified. 

Kim's comments followed a 10-minute meeting with South Korean
Prime Minister Lee Hae-chan in which the officials did not
discuss stalled nuclear disarmament talks, South Korea's Yonhap
news agency reported. 

The talks were the first by high-level officials from the two
countries since a 2000 summit between then-South Korean
President Kim Dae-jung and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. 

Lee told reporters in Jakarta that officials were working to set
up further talks with Kim Yong Nam on Saturday. He refused to
say what was discussed Friday, saying only the meeting "was
very, very good." 

Tensions heightened Thursday after the North said it would
consider any U.N. sanctions on Pyongyang over its nuclear
weapons program as a "declaration of war." The United States has
said it may take the nuclear issue to the U.N. Security Council,
a move that could eventually lead to economic sanctions on the
North. 

Chinese Ambassador to South Korea, Li Bin, said Friday that now
was not the time to discuss referring the nuclear issue to the
Security Council. 

"The important issue now is resuming six-party talks," Li told
reporters. 

Three rounds of nuclear disarmament talks - which involve the
Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States - have been
held since 2003 with no breakthrough. A September session was
never held because the North refused to attend, citing
Washington's alleged hostile policy toward Pyongyang. 

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Washington had no
timeline for taking the nuclear issue to the United Nations. 

"We are willing - when the time is right, when we believe that
we have exhausted the possibilities of the framework we are in -
to go to the Security Council," she told Fox News Channel on
Thursday while in Vilnius, Lithuania. 

China, North Korea's closest ally and a permanent Security
Council member, thwarted previous U.S. attempts to have the
United Nations condemn Pyongyang over its nuclear ambitions. 

In their meeting, Kim and Lee agreed on the need to join forces
in their territorial claims to a set of islets that are at the
center of a dispute between South Korea and Japan, Yonhap
reported. 

"South Korea and North Korea should join forces to protect" the
rocky islets, which are called Dokdo in Korea and Takeshima in
Japan, Kim was quoted as saying. 

Lee also thanked Kim for Pyongyang's prompt decision to send
back a South Korean fisherman who inadvertently piloted his boat
into the North's waters last week, the report said. 

-- 


 
*****************************************************************
 26 St. Petersburg Times: Russia insists on Korea adopting non-nuclear status 

RosBusinessConsulting

      RBC, 22.04.2005, Moscow 16:29:48.Russia is calling on the
Korean peninsula to be non-nuclear, head of the Russian Defense
Ministry Sergey Ivanov has announced at a meeting with his
Southern Korean counterpart Yoon Kwang-woong. 

According to Ivanov, North Korea's nuclear program has always 
been discussed in six-party negotiations, in which Russia 
participated. 

He emphasized that countries neighboring with North Korea are the 
most interested in its non-nuclear status. Yoon Kwang-woong has 
pointed out the importance of the above-mentioned problem, saying 
that North Korea was violating international norms. He emphasized 
the necessity of holding talks. He added that South Korea would 
do its best to make North Korea participate in talks on the 
problem. 

  materials and their placement belong to RosBusinessConsulting 
All rights reserved. © 1995-2005 RosBusinessConsulting (095) 
363-11-11
*****************************************************************
 27 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: Referral of the N.K. Nuclear Issue to UNSC an Option
: Rice
 
  Updated Apr.22,2005 14:04 KST   
 
  U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice   

With the six-party talks aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear
ambitions still in limbo, it appears Washington's patience is
wearing thin. While refusing to give time limits for Pyongyang
to return to the six-way dialogue, U.S. Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice said Washington has the right to take the issue
to the United Nations Security Council should it be necessary. 

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says Washington's goal
is to get North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons ambitions,
adding that the U.S. will only be going to do so in a context in
which Pyongyang faces the entire international community, not
just Washington. 

Rice told Fox news on the sidelines of a North Atlantic Treaty
Organization or NATO meeting in Lithuania that the U.S. reserves
the rights and the possibilities of going to the Security
Council and putting other measures in place should they be
necessary. 

While refusing to say how long she could wait before taking the
matter to the United Nations for possible sanctions, she said
when the time is right, when it believes that the six-party
nuclear frame work does not produce results, Washington will
consider going to the Security Council. 

Rice said the North Koreans are well aware that. 

U.S. forces present a significant deterrent against North Korean
nuclear weapons, if indeed they have gotten to that state,
adding that Washington will not wait indefinitely for Pyongyang
to return to the negotiating table. 

Three rounds of multilateral nuclear talks involving the two
Koreas, the United States, China, Japan, and Russia aimed at
persuading Pyongyang to scrap its nuclear ambitions took place
up to June last year but made little progress. A fourth round
scheduled last September was cancelled as North Korea refused to
participate in the dialogue, citing what it called a hostile
U.S. policy. 

Arirang TV 

  
*****************************************************************
 28 Pakistan Times: Mumtaz Hamid Rao's Editorial: The Nukes Scrutiny? 

  [Pakistan Times (PakistanTimes.net | DailyPakistanTimes.com)] 

         [Editorial]   

 By the Editor 

SPEAKING to global media in Manila, President General Pervez
Musharraf has—once again—made it crystal clear that he would
never allow foreign inspectors—into the country to examine
Pakistan’s nuclear facilities—in any style. 

‘That’s tantamount to admitting that we cannot be trusted in our
own house’—the President said with dynamism by adding; that the
same applies to Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan—who is a national hero in
Pakistan.
 
If one goes pragmatism—inspection of Pakistan’s nuclear
facilities is a very sensitive issue with the nation—which has
built them solely for self-security. 

With this perception—the categorical statement of the President
of Pakistan—that no foreign inspection of the nation’s nuclear
facilities will be allowed—is the prudent national policy in
keeping with the people’s aspirations. 

History of the subcontinent bears testimony to the fact—that
Pakistan was compelled to build nuclear deterrence in the wake
of hostile neighbor—India which had dismembered Pakistan’s
eastern limb and posed a perpetual threat to its sovereignty and
territorial integrity. 

It’s a matter of record that Pakistan had gone for nuclear tests
in May 1998—in the wake of Indian leaders’ open threats of
invasion in pretentious arrogance following detonation of
nuclear devices by New Delhi. 

It’s, therefore—high time that the world must understand that
the nuclear deterrence is sine qua non for its survival as a
dignified and self-respecting country in the comity of nations. 

Pakistan has—by its peaceful conduct over the past half a
century, proven beyond any shadow of doubt that it has no
aggressive designs against any country. Its nuclear programme is
purely defensive in nature. 

However, it’s intriguing that Pakistan’s nuclear programme is
kept into spotlight every now and then—exclusively by the
Western media as a result of deliberate leaks, which are then
focused with malice and prejudice. 

As we look at it, it’s being done intentionally with obvious
hideous motives since the West is seemingly not ready to
tolerate the acquisition of nuclear weapon capability—explicitly
by a Muslim country. 

There is a widespread apprehension in the country that the West
especially the US will target Pakistan’s nuclear programme
sooner or later. 

It’s, therefore, fitting time that the Government should be
ready—to face such a situation with a patriotic approach in
deference to the wishes of the people of Pakistan. 

President Musharraf’s clear-cut statement on this count
is—of-course soul inspiring. We wish the President all the
best—for airing to the globe such a heroic avowal not only onto
the soils of the Philippines—but even in Indonesian capital
Jakarta.Ï  
 -  Mumtaz Hamid Rao
 www.MumtazRao.net     [ ]     [ ]     

www.PakistanTimes.net | www.DailyPakistanTimes.com
 Copyright © 2003-2004 TIMES Group of Publications All rights
*****************************************************************
 29 People's Daily Online: DPRK urges US to clear its nuclear weapons 
in and near South Korea 

     UPDATED: 09:38, April 22, 2005   

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea(DPRK) on Thursday said 
if the Korean peninsula is to be nuclear-free, it is necessary to 
clear all the US nuclearweapons in and near South Korea, 
eliminating all possibilities of South Korea going nuclear. 

"This is a focal point and the master key to denuclearizing
thepeninsula," said the major newspaper Rodong Sinmun in a
commentary. 

"The DPRK cannot remain a mere onlooker given the fact that
theUS is persistently pursuing its policy to stifle the DPRK
with nukes," the article said, adding that "the DPRK's
possession of nuclear weapons is an exercise of its legitimate
right of self-defense and a measure for just defense as it aims
to avert a war and protect its ideology and system, freedom and
democracy from the US increasing nuclear threat and its attempt
of preemptive nuclear attack." 

The nuclear issue between the DPRK and the US can find a
smoothsolution if the US stops saying empty words but takes
practical measures to improve bilateral relations instead, the
commentary said. 

Source: Xinhua

  Copyright by People's Daily Online, all rights reserved   
*****************************************************************
 30 AFP: Iran says expectations partly fulfilled in nuclear talks 

Messenger 

  Friday April 22, 01:57 PM 

 TEHRAN (AFX) - Iran said negotiations with Europe over its
controversial nuclear program are making progress and that
Iran's expectations have been partly fulfilled.

 Iran is expecting 'a definitive response' from the Europeans at
the next round of negotiations set for April 29 in London, the
head of Iran's negotiating team Cyrus Nasseri told state radio.

 The two-day talks between Iran and the European three of
Britain, France and Germany which ended Wednesday in Geneva
'have shown Europeans' seriousness for the work to make
progress,' Nasseri said.

 'You could say our expectations are partly fulfilled to ensure
we will eventually reach a solution,' he said, without
elaborating.

 However, 'these are the preliminary steps,' he added.

 'We hope to have a clear and definitive answer from the EU as
soon as possible,' he said, 'We insist on having a definitive
response at next week's meeting' in London.

 Tehran warned earlier this month that months of talks could
collapse over EU demands that Iran abandon uranium enrichment to
guarantee it will not make atomic weapons.

 Copyright © 2005 AFP AFX. All rights reserved. Republication or
*****************************************************************
 31 DAWN: India denies buying N-parts from Israel -

22 April, 2005
 
By Jawed Naqvi 

NEW DELHI, April 21: India denied on Thursday that it had
purchased electronic equipment for its nuclear programme from an
Israeli middleman who was recently arrested in the United
States. 

"We have seen those reports which are regarding prosecution
proceedings of Asher Karni, an Israeli national in the US,"
Indian foreign ministry spokesman Navtej Sarna said. 

He was referring to reports that Asher Karni may have sold
advanced electronic equipment to government agencies in India.
The reports also mentioned that one Humtek Communications of
Bangalore had sought to buy electrical components for the Space
Applications Centre through Asher Karni. 

Mr Sarna said: "We have examined these reports and have found no
evidence of any procurement as reported in these news reports.
Space Applications Centre has confirmed that no item has been
procured from Humtek Communications. Furthermore the Space
Applications Centre is responsible for civilian space
applications and does not work on rockets as mentioned in these
reports." 

He said India's indigenous multi-dimensional space programme has
been developed in "a transparent manner" in order to utilize
various space applications such as satellite communications, TV
broadcasting, weather prediction and management of natural
resources as well as disasters, so as to facilitate the overall
social and economic development of India. 

American prosecutors disclosed earlier this month that the
Israeli national working in South Africa had pleaded guilty of
arranging illegal exports of American-made nuclear equipment to
India, Pakistan and other countries. The New York Times said
Asher Karni entered the guilty plea last September and had been
cooperating with investigators. 


© The DAWN Group of Newspapers, 2005
*****************************************************************
 32 Guardian Unlimited: N. Korea Says Nukes Needed for Defense
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Friday April 22, 2005 4:01 PM

AP Photo SEL115 

By CHRIS BRUMMITT 

Associated Press Writer 

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) - North Korea's No. 2 leader Friday
accused the United States of trying to topple Pyongyang's
government, shortly after a brief meeting with the South Korean
prime minister that was the highest-level exchange between those
two neighbors in five years. 

The developments came amid international efforts to resume
six-party talks aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear ambitions. 

In a speech to delegates at a meeting of African and Asian
leaders, Kim Yong Nam of North Korea said the reclusive
communist country needed nuclear weapons for self-defense. 

The United States, with ``the largest nuclear arsenal in the
world, is now attempting to stifle the DPRK system by deploying
(the) latest means of nuclear war ... in and around the Korean
peninsula,'' Kim said, using the acronym that stands for
Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the North's official
name. 

``Under such circumstances, it stands to reason indeed for the
DPRK to equip itself with a nuclear deterrent as a legitimate
self-defensive means.'' 

Kim said the North remained committed to resolve the nuclear
issue peacefully through dialogue and negotiations, but he
reiterated earlier statements that the nuclear issue would only
be resolved when the ``United States respects the DPRK's
sovereignty ... and replaces its hostile policy with one for a
peaceful coexistence.'' 

The United States has repeatedly said it has no intention to
attack the North. 

In February, the North claimed it already possessed nuclear
weapons and would indefinitely boycott the talks, which also
involve the United States, China, Japan, Russia and South Korea.
That claim has not been independently verified. 

Kim's comments followed a 10-minute meeting with South Korean
Prime Minister Lee Hae-chan in which the officials did not
discuss stalled nuclear disarmament talks, South Korea's Yonhap
news agency reported. 

The talks were the first by high-level officials from the two
countries since a 2000 summit between then-South Korean
President Kim Dae-jung and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. 

Lee told reporters in Jakarta that officials were working to set
up further talks with Kim Yong Nam on Saturday. He refused to
say what was discussed Friday, saying only the meeting ``was
very, very good.'' 

Tensions heightened Thursday after the North said it would
consider any U.N. sanctions on Pyongyang over its nuclear
weapons program as a ``declaration of war.'' The United States
has said it may take the nuclear issue to the U.N. Security
Council, a move that could eventually lead to economic sanctions
on the North. 

Chinese Ambassador to South Korea, Li Bin, said Friday that now
was not the time to discuss referring the nuclear issue to the
Security Council. 

``The important issue now is resuming six-party talks,'' Li told
reporters. 

Three rounds of nuclear disarmament talks - which involve the
Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States - have been
held since 2003 with no breakthrough. A September session was
never held because the North refused to attend, citing
Washington's alleged hostile policy toward Pyongyang. 

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Washington had no
timeline for taking the nuclear issue to the United Nations. 

``We are willing - when the time is right, when we believe that
we have exhausted the possibilities of the framework we are in -
to go to the Security Council,'' she told Fox News Channel on
Thursday while in Vilnius, Lithuania. 

China, North Korea's closest ally and a permanent Security
Council member, thwarted previous U.S. attempts to have the
United Nations condemn Pyongyang over its nuclear ambitions. 

In their meeting, Kim and Lee agreed on the need to join forces
in their territorial claims to a set of islets that are at the
center of a dispute between South Korea and Japan, Yonhap
reported. 

``South Korea and North Korea should join forces to protect''
the rocky islets, which are called Dokdo in Korea and Takeshima
in Japan, Kim was quoted as saying. 

Lee also thanked Kim for Pyongyang's prompt decision to send
back a South Korean fisherman who inadvertently piloted his boat
into the North's waters last week, the report said.	 
		 	 	   
      Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
 33 Fort Morgan Times: Differences in radioactive materials described at meet

April 22, 2005 Fort Morgan, CO                                                                                 
 			 								 					
Article Last Updated: Friday, April 22, 2005 -
 		   	 	
By LUKE CORNISH Times Staff Writer

For most people it takes years to understand the differences
between different radioactive materials. 

Officials of the Colorado Health Department had the tough job of
trying to explain those differences to the citizens of Last
Chance at an update meeting on the Deer Trail waste facility. 

About 30 people gathered at Woodlin School Thursday as the
officials explained that Clean Harbors Inc., the company that
owns the facility, had applied for a permit to begin taking
naturally occurring radioactive material (NORM) and
technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive
material (TENORM). 

"There was a lot of technical detail and the health department
did a good job of explaining it," said Drew Kramer, Clean
Harbors spokesperson. "I think the key takeaway that the health
department did a good job of explaining was that the facility
will only be accepting naturally occurring material and won't be
taking any man-made material at all." 			

 Clean Harbors has offered a covenant to that effect, limiting
the waste that can be stored at the waste facility outside Last
Chance regardless of the owners. Kramer said that any
signatories of the covenant (including Morgan County if it signs
on) could enforce it. 

"I think it went well," Kramer said. "We thought that there was
constructive dialogue between the citizens and the health
department." 

He also said that for the most part it was very rational
dialogue but that there were some citizens who had emotional
testimonies. One group that is opposed to any change in the
site's ability to accept waste is the Concerned Citizens of
Eastern Colorado. 

The group first formed in opposition to the building of the
plant in the late 1980s, and the members contend that when it
was constructed, they were promised that there would not be any
radioactive materials stored there. 

Clean Harbors' application is still in the process of being
approved. Kramer said that it's not a matter of sitting back and
waiting for approval but that there is a lot of back-and-forth
with the health department. 

The Massachusetts-based company faces a battle with those
opposing the permit application, but the health department hopes
that meetings like Thursday's will help educate the public and
alleviate some fears. 

© 1999-2005 MediaNews Group, Inc. and Eastern Colorado
Publishing Co.
*****************************************************************
 34 Cibola County Beacon: Uranium workers and energy employee benefits meeting planned
                                
Friday, April 22, 2005
   
SAN MATEO - Cibola County residents who have worked in the
uranium industry or who worked as Department of Energy (DOE)
employees, contractors or subcontractors are invited to a
meeting of the Energy Employees Occupational Illness
Compensation Program Act (EEOICOA) assistance team at the San
Mateo Church on April 28, 2005, from 1-3 p.m.

Survivors of DOE workers, including adult children, are also
welcome.

Team members from the Espanola Energy Employees Compensation
Resource Center will be there to answer questions and help
individuals fill out applications for compensation. The federal
government now offers compensation to DOE and uranium industry
workers whose health was negatively affected by exposure to
radiation. The compensation can equal up to $150,000 for DOE
workers who were employed at Los Alamos National Laboratory,
Sandia National Laboratories, the ore buying station in Grants
and Shiprock and similar facilities. Former uranium workers who
have already qualified for the $100,000 compensation under the
Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) can apply for up to
$50,000 and medical care.

Illnesses covered by this compensation include radiogenic
cancers, chronic beryllium disease and silicosis.

For more information call the Espanola Resource Center toll free
at 1-866-272-3622. 

             Copyright © 2005Cibola County Beacon. 
*****************************************************************
 35 Denver Post: Uranium mill faces safety warning

Article Published: Friday, April 22, 2005                                         
	 	
By Kim McGuire Denver Post Staff Writer
 			
 State environmental regulators have threatened to yank Cotter
Corp.'s license because of a number of problems discovered at
its Cañon City mill, including the case of one worker who
accidentally ingested uranium twice in three months. 

In February, the worker dropped an old, brittle hose into a
tank, accidentally splashing himself in the face with a
radioactive solution, according to documents on file with the
Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. 

Three months earlier, the same worker was exposed to uranium in
a different part of the mill at levels twice the amount that
state regulations permit. 

"Exposures are something we take very seriously," said Steve
Tarlton, radiation unit manager for the department. "We don't
like to see anything go over safe standards." 

In addition to the exposures, the department documented serious
flaws within Cotter's on-site radiochemistry lab and ordered the
company to employ the services of an outside facility. The
health department demanded in a notice last week that Cotter
take action or the agency could "revoke, suspend or modify" its
license. 

"We need to have a great deal of confidence in the analytical
data that comes out of that lab," Tarlton said. "When we did the
audit, we saw problems that made us nervous." 

A spokesman for the company said that many of the issues
outlined in the notice of violations sent to the company last
week had been resolved. 

Some Cañon City residents who have fought Cotter for years
questioned why the state decided to reissue the company's
operating license in December while knowing the lab had such
widespread problems. 

"Based on this notice of violation and Cotter's horrible track
record, how can the public have faith in all the environmental
sampling and analysis done by Cotter over these many years?"
said Sharyn Cunningham, co-chairwoman of Colorado Citizens
Against Toxic Waste. 

Tarlton said the department inserted provisions within the
company's license that would address some of the problems
discovered at the mill last fall. 

Staff writer Kim McGuire can be reached at 303-820-1240 or
kmcguire@denverpost.com. 		   	 	
 		   			 		   	 	
 All contents Copyright 2005 The Denver Post or other copyright
*****************************************************************
 36 Bradenton Herald: Contamination from Tallevast concerns SRQ

| 04/22/2005 | 

<b>View a map of the new estimated pollution plume (PDF
  
Airport's property value at issue

 DANA SANCHEZ

 Herald Staff Writer

MANATEE - Officials at Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport
plan to seek legal counsel with an environmental specialist amid
concerns that groundwater pollution leaked from the former
American Beryllium plant in nearby Tallevast may devalue airport
property. 

But Lockheed Martin, the aerospace giant that has accepted
responsibility for the cleanup, said groundwater contamination
typically does not diminish property values. 

A Tallevast community leader disagrees and welcomes the
airport's involvement. 

A new report released last week showed a contamination plume 2½
times larger than originally feared, extending from a former
site used to make Beryllium parts in the heart of Tallevast, a
residential neighborhood. 

Airport property, including an 18-acre driving range at Suncoast
Golf Center, falls within the plume. 

The northeastern part of the airport runway is now under
investigation for groundwater contamination. 

Two monitoring wells will be placed near airport runways, said
Fred Piccolo, chief executive officer of the Sarasota-Manatee
Airport Authority. 

"There's no evidence that the property has been devalued,"
Piccolo said. "We just have to be ready. We need to protect the
airport's interests." 

Gail Rymer, director of corporate and community affairs for
Lockheed Martin, said she could appreciate the airport's desire
to protect its interests. 

"But it has been our experience over the years in environmental
cleanups that there has not been a diminishment of property
values as a result of groundwater contamination," Rymer said.
"We don't believe it's something that anyone at the airport or
the Tallevast area needs to worry about." 

Residents of the Tallevast neighborhood are worrying, said Laura
Ward, president of Tallevast's neighborhood community
development group, Family Oriented Community United and Strong. 

Lending institutions have been reluctant to lend money to
Tallevast residents and some have had difficulty refinancing
their homes, she said. 

"Maybe now that it's gone to the airport, maybe someone will
listen," Ward said. "Since we're in it, I'm happy to have
someone of the magnitude of the airport in it with me." 

With property in Manatee County appreciating at break-neck
speed, the golf driving range owned by the airport will soon be
more valuable than a driving range can support, said Bill Myers,
a recreational pilot and Airport Authority-watcher. 

"Lockheed has accepted responsibility, and they should clean up
the mess," Myers said.   

*****************************************************************
 37 Washington Times: The Yucca Mountain scandal
 
                Editorials/OP-ED - April 22, 2005

By Joshua Gilder
 				 			 			
Ronald Reagan may have gotten it wrong. The closest thing to 
eternal life in Washington is not a government program. It's 
e-mail. 

    Once again, e-mails surfacing from the past have erupted into 
scandal, complete with congressional hearings and even possible 
criminal investigations. These particular e-mails were written by 
scientists conducting studies on the government's plan to create 
a deep geologic storage site for nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain 
in the Nevada desert. 
		
While the significance of the e-mails remains in doubt,
anti-nuclear environmental groups and Nevada politicians have
jumped on the issue in the hope of stopping final approval of
the nuclear waste repository. 

    Each group has long opposed Yucca: the environmentalists
because closing the site, which has been intensely studied for
more than two decades now, will effectively doom the future of
nuclear power in this country (if we can't store nuclear waste
in the almost ideal conditions of the Nevada desert, we won't be
able to store it anywhere). The politicians are simply
responding to their constituents, who, like all Americans, have
been subjected to over three decades of fear-mongering on
nuclear power and quite naturally  though unnecessarily  are
apprehensive about the waste being stored in their state. 

    Given that more heat than light is bound to be generated by
the coming investigations, it's worth putting the issue in
perspective. The e-mails in question concern computer models of
possible water seepage at the site, which might then eventually
carry radioactive residue into the nearby, sparsely populated
Amargosa Valley. (The Yucca aquifer is separate from, and poses
no threat to, Las Vegas, which is 100 miles distant.) In order
to obtain licensing from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission,
scientists will likely be required to demonstrate that the
repository will pose no health risks for the next 10,000 years. 

    Give that one a moment to seep in. 

    Ten thousand years ago was the beginning of the Mesolithic
era, when the Ice Age was ending, Great Britain became an
island, and human beings started to take up agriculture. If
Yucca is still a problem in 10,000 years, it will only be
because our civilization has completely collapsed and we've all
reverted back to the Stone Age. 

    Nevertheless, the models currently estimate that nearby
residents will receive little to no radiation from Yucca in the
next 10,000 years. Three hundred thousand years from now, nearby
residents might receive an additional 260 millirem per year,
assuming earth hasn't been demolished by an asteroid by then.
You could expose yourself to almost as much extra radiation by
becoming a frequent flyer. 

    We certainly don't want scientists doctoring statistics  if
that is indeed what happened  but the more important issue is
why the waste from nuclear power is being held to such an
extraordinary standard to begin with. A typical 1,000-megawatt
coal-fired plant produces about 88 pounds of radioactive waste
every day because the coal it burns contains trace amounts of
radioactive elements. About 1 percent of that or more will be
released into the atmosphere, the rest ending up on the slag
heap, along with highly toxic metals such as arsenic, lead and
mercury. 

    The fact is, whatever the ensuing investigations into the
computer models reveal, we have every reason to believe Yucca
will be safe even by the exceptional standards being asked of
it. Throughout the Southwest, scientists have found underground
rat nests  made up of droppings and other organic debris that
would easily rot if exposed to water  as much as 50,000 years
old. The Egyptian mummies attest to how well dry climates
preserve things. 

    The nuclear waste at Yucca is going to be vitrified into
solid glass, sealed in non-corrosive casks, and stored in caves
1,000 feet underground that are designed to keep moisture away.
Even in the unlikely event that these double and triple
precautions don't suffice, careful monitoring of nearby ground
water would provide ample time to take remedial action. 

    We're not the only ones to deal with this issue, either.
Canada, France, Finland, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland and the
United Kingdom have all conducted their own studies and plan to
store their nuclear waste in geologic repositories. Needless to
say, these will mostly be located in much more heavily populated
areas. 

    Recent world events have brought home how precarious it is
to rely on Middle Eastern oil to supply our energy needs,
especially as so many of our petrodollars end up in the hands of
terrorists and their sponsors, and  in the case of Iran  help
to finance the construction of atomic weapons. These are real
dangers measured in years, not millennia. Also real is the
danger of continuing to store our nuclear waste, as we do now,
in some 131 temporary facilities in 39 states. 

    Any rational energy policy will have to include nuclear
power generation in the mix of resources our nation relies on in
the future. The errant e-mails should certainly be investigated,
but short of any major revelations, we should move ahead with
the licensing and construction of Yucca Mountain with all
deliberate speed. 
     
    Joshua Gilder is a visiting fellow at the Lexington
Institute. 
    
Copyright 2005 News World Communications, Inc.                                           
*****************************************************************
 38 The Herald: County officials feel reassured after MOX briefing   

Updated: 04/22/05   

By Jason Cato The Herald 

York County officials are confident that residents are not in
danger from the coming shipment of nuclear fuel containing
weapons-grade plutonium to the Catawba Nuclear Station.

 County officials met with representatives from the National
Nuclear Security Administration on Thursday to discuss the
shipment of mixed-oxide, or MOX, fuel to the Duke Power plant on
Lake Wylie.

 The shipments are expected as soon as Duke implements a number
of security measures imposed by the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission.

 Catawba's Reactor 1 is expected to undergo refueling within the
next few weeks, and the shipment is expected to have arrived by
then.

 Duke officials will not comment on the status or timetable for
complying with the additional security measures.

 Cotton Howell, county emergency management director, complained
recently that requests from his office to be included in
discussions about the shipment had been ignored by Duke and
federal officials.

 Thursday's meeting was a special meeting to accommodate his
concerns. A briefing with other York County and Rock Hill
officials, including first responders, was held a few weeks ago.
Howell, however, was not present.

 Bryan Wilkes, a NNSA spokesman, did not attend Thursday's
meeting but said he'd been told it went well.

 "It's always good to work with local officials," Wilkes said.
"We really tried to take his (Howell's) concerns seriously, and
that's why we sent a special group down there."

 Steve McNeely, chairman of the York County Council, issued the
only statement from county officials.

 "We are now confident that York County emergency responders can
react to any situation effectively," his statement read. "I feel
certain that the shipments are secure and our citizens are in no
danger."

 Howell, who is actually in charge of the safety of residents in
the event of an emergency, said he could not offer additional
comment.

 He said previously that he wanted four things from the meeting:
a plan in the event of an accident, a way to test the plan, open
communication with federal officials and to know the day and
time of the shipment.

 In general, Wilkes said the NNSA doesn't reveal the schedule or
route of its nuclear shipments to anyone outside select people
within the agency.

 The NNSA, a division of the Department of Energy, is
responsible for the safety and security of the nation's nuclear
stockpile. It does not rely on local or state departments to
assist in the shipments or protection of nuclear materials,
Wilkes said.

 MOX fuel contains a small amount of plutonium oxide mixed with
uranium oxide, the fuel normally used in nuclear reactors.

 The MOX fuel to be used at the Catawba plant contains plutonium
taken from nuclear warheads. The Catawba plant will be the first
in the United States to use MOX fuel and the first in the world
to use weapons-grade plutonium.

 Four MOX assemblies, or fuel rods, will be tested in the
Catawba reactor for three years. It is the first phase of a
program designed to purge 34 metric tons of weapons-grade
plutonium in the United States and Russia.

 The French-made fuel rods arrived in Charleston on April 11 and
now are believed to be at the Savannah River Site near Aiken. A
plant is planned to be built at SRS to make future MOX
assemblies that would be used in a full program that could
include more than just the Catawba plant.

 Jason Cato " 329-4071

 jcato@heraldonline.com  

-Heraldonline.com Staff   

The Herald is owned by The McClatchy Company
  Copyright © 2005 The Herald, Rock Hill, South Carolina   
*****************************************************************
 39 Las Vegas SUN: New pro-Yucca group formed

Today: April 22, 2005 at 9:38:24 PDT 

By Benjamin Grove <grove@lasvegassun.com> SUN WASHINGTON BUREAU 
CHIEF

 WASHINGTON -- A collection of advocates for a national nuclear
dump on Monday is to announce the launch of a new lobbying
group, the Yucca Mountain Task Force.

 The group's top goals will be advocating more congressional
funding for a nuclear dump at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest
of Las Vegas, and "facilitating" a timely new radiation standard
for the containment of highly radioactive waste at Yucca
Mountain.

 The founding groups will be the Nuclear Energy Institute, the
nuclear power industry's top lobby group; the National
Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners; the U.S.
Transport Council, a group formed in 2002 to educate the media
and public about waste shipping; and the Nuclear Waste Strategy
Coalition, the waste strategy coalition's executive director,
Martez Norris, said.

 Yucca budget shortfalls have long slowed progress of the
nuclear waste repository project, frustrating nuclear power
industry leaders, as well as officials and utility commissioners
in states where waste is piling up at power plants. Yucca
advocates have argued that the Energy Department should have
more access to a national nuclear waste fund, rather than being
limited in spending by Congress every year. So far lawmakers
have rejected relinquishing any annual budget control.

 The new group's co-chairmen will be David Wright, a South
Carolina Public Service Commissioner, and Charles Pray, nuclear
safety adviser for Maine. 


 
*****************************************************************
 40 Las Vegas SUN: Columnist Jeff German: Expect Bush to be mum on Yucca 
 
Columnist Jeff German: Expect Bush to be mum on Yucca Jeff 
German's column appears Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays 
in the Sun. Reach him at german@lasvegassun.comor (702) 259-4067.

 If nothing else, Rep. Shelley Berkley deserves credit for
making an effort to get President Bush's attention on the
faltering Yucca Mountain Project.

 Berkley sent the president a letter this week asking him to
halt work on the high-level nuclear waste dump amid allegations
that government scientists falsified documents to move the
project along.

 But I don't think the Democratic congresswoman can expect much
of a response from the man who wouldn't let Nevada reporters
question him about Yucca Mountain during last year's campaign.

 Even Berkley's aides recognize that it's a long shot to get an
answer from Bush, much less an admission that he was wrong to
recommend Yucca Mountain to Congress.

 "We felt it was important to at least get it on the record,"
said Berkley's press secretary, David Cherry.

 Bush still hasn't responded to Lt. Gov. Lorraine Hunt, a member
of his own Republican Party. Hunt sent a letter to the White
House a month ago asking the president to reconsider moving
forward with the troubled project.

 Hunt said Thursday she's still holding out hope of hearing from
the president.

 "We know there's been so many things going on in the world, but
I would certainly expect a response," she said.

 And I certainly expect to win the $12.5 million Megabucks
jackpot, Lorraine.

*****************************************************************
 41 Las Vegas SUN: New e-mails: Yucca 'flunked'

Today: April 22, 2005 at 11:21:58 PDT 

Messages show DOE knew that rock alone wouldn't isolate waste

 By Suzanne Struglinski SUN WASHINGTON BUREAU

 WASHINGTON -- A new set of e-mails written by Yucca Mountain
employees shows the Energy Department knew the project "flunked"
because the mountain couldn't live up to its scientific billing,
an attorney for Nevada says.

 E-mails found on a public database of documents supporting the
Energy Department's plan to request a license to store nuclear
waste at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, show
how scientists came to accept that the mountain itself couldn't
keep moisture away from stored nuclear waste as planned.

 A 1997 message from department scientist Larry Rickertsen,
titled "Real Trouble Ahead," says: "The answer is clearer than
ever. Engineering has to do the job."

 It's a key point because the original plan, approved by
Congress, was to store high-level nuclear waste in a geological
repository, meaning the rock would stop radiation.

 Egan said the messages provide missing details about how
program managers and scientists decided to change the rules in
the late 1990s, shifting the program away from what Congress had
directed them to find -- a waste repository reliant on "natural"
rock barriers to keep water away from the waste -- to one that
relied heavily on man-made "engineered" barriers, such as
high-tech metal waste containers and drip shields.

 "They (the e-mails) show the site not only flunked but it
flunked spectacularly and there is nothing they can do to stop
it," said Joe Egan, a Washington attorney representing the state
in its fight against Yucca Mountain. "I think this is going to
go down in history as the greatest scientific fraud of all time."

 Egan, who represents the state on Yucca issues, and his staff
found the new batch of e-mails in the project's public document
database.

 "These e-mails are part of the back-and-forth that is
reflective of any collaborative scientific process," said
department spokeswoman Anne Womack Kolton. "As part of the
license application that DOE (the Energy Department) is
developing and will submit to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission,
we will thoroughly outline the safety basis for Yucca Mountain.

 "DOE's application will address all appropriate public health
and safety, scientific and technical issues as part of the NRC's
thorough and public review process."

 These e-mails are different from those written by U.S.
Geological Survey employees and now under investigation by the
Energy and Interior Departments and the FBI. But Egan said they
are just as important and give more ammunition to the state's
fight against the proposed repository.

 In September 1997, one scientist urged another to stop clinging
to the notion that Yucca's rock tunnel walls could isolate
waste, telling him that Yucca Mountain itself "cannot do the
job."

 "I know you are trying to dodge the geologic disposal problem,
and steering clear of fatal flaw type concerns," the scientist
wrote to his colleague. "But the simple fact is that the only
purpose of the natural system now is to provide a benign
environment for the engineering."

 Egan said the messages show the radiation exposure will be a
lot higher and come quicker than originally predicted and would
not be able to meet a radiation protection standard.

 "We knew what they did but didn't know how to prove it," Egan
said. "This is what we are going to prove in the licensing
hearings. There's no mystery to this anymore."

 In the e-mails, scientists discuss how the department will need
to use the drip shields and containers because the potential
radiation exposure levels has jumped from a "few hundred"
millirem a year to "tens of rem/yr (or thousands)." Their
research discovered water flows through the mountain faster than
they expected creating "indefensible flow models."

 "The beauty of the drip-shield approach is that I don't need to
know that stuff any more," according to a March 1997 e-mail from
Rickertsen.

 Yucca critics have argued for years that the Energy Department
abandoned its pursuit of proving that a purely geologic
repository could isolate waste once it became apparent Yucca
couldn't do the job. Critics say the department then embraced a
plan that relied on a combination of protection from the rock
and man-made or "engineered barriers."

 Bob Loux, executive director of the state's Agency of Nuclear
Projects, has said the term "geologic" is key because it set
Yucca apart from other sites designated as suitable to store the
waste. Nevada's attorneys used these arguments as part of the
state's six lawsuits argued before the U.S. Court of Appeals for
the District of Columbia in January 2004.

 Nevada sued the Energy Department for changing the Yucca
Mountain guidelines in 2001 to rely on man-made protection, and
then sued the Nuclear Regulatory Commission when it changed its
licensing rules to fit the department's man-made barrier
additions.

 Department officials have argued that they always intended to
rely on both natural barriers and robust waste containers.

 Ultimately, in a ruling last year, the court declared the
Nevada argument "moot" because Congress approved the site and
the president signed it into law.

 But if the project moves into a Nuclear Regulatory Commission
licensing hearing, Nevada officials will use these e-mails to
resurrect the argument in challenging Yucca. The NRC will
ultimately would decide whether the site is safe, and whether to
grant a license to the Energy Department.

 "You can pass legislation based on lies and cheating but you
can't get a license based on lies and cheating," Egan said. "It
will still fail the test of science."

 Egan said the department lied to Congress, telling lawmakers it
had a suitable site when it knew it did not.

 Nevada lawyers plan to sing a familiar refrain: If the Energy
Department acknowledges that it is relying on engineered
barriers, then it could bury the waste anywhere, including, as
some Yucca critics have sarcastically suggested, the basement of
the department's Washington headquarters.

 Egan said his staff has discovered new e-mails by searching the
Energy Department's Yucca database using the word
"falsification" since the Energy Department announced last month
it discovered USGS employees may have made up some scientific
data.

 In a 1998 e-mail, the scientist describes how a manager has
said "calculations without the waste packages are not allowed."

 "That kind of calculation will let the state argue we are
engineering a bad mountain," according to one 1998 e-mail from
Rickertsen, quoting his manager, Steve Brocoum.

 Attempts to reach the scientists were unsuccessful.

 The department was supposed to use just the mountain to contain
the radiation, but this conversation not only shows that
measurements would not meet requirements without the waste
packages but that it knew the state would use that point.

 The Energy Department continues to assemble the license
application for the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca.
It aims to have the application completed by the end of the
year, although the schedule may depend on the outcome of e-mail
investigations and the issuance of a new radiation protection
standard by the Environmental Protection Agency. 
 
*****************************************************************
 42 RGJ: Anti-Yucca forces still can’t rest
 
Reno Gazette-Journal]  April 22, 2005
Reno, Nevada, USA  775-788-6200

4/21/2005 09:51 pm 
Letters to the Editor for April 21, 2005         
Letters to the Editor for April 20, 2005                                               

Nevada’s congressional delegation and other officials fighting
the Yucca Mountain project can’t hear this often enough: There
could well be a sea change in attitudes after discovery of
e-mail discussions about falsifying data. But the time hasn’t
yet arrived when they can feel confident that the tide has
turned against the project for good.

It is a good sign that colleagues on Capitol Hill are expressing
increased skepticism about the value of the plan to store the
nation’s nuclear waste in the desert near the state’s largest
population center. Discovery of messages written by U.S.
Geological Survey scientists discussing how to make up quality
assurance data, delete inconvenient facts and create two sets of
figures motivated that. 

Knowing that criminal investigations are under way in the
Interior and Energy departments may have changed a few minds
about Nevadans’ concerns. Perhaps it is finally clear that the
state is embroiled in a David and Goliath battle against an
attempt to push the project through, regardless of cost. 

The administration remains resolute and Energy officials are
determined to complete the license application, saying the
nation needs a permanent geologic repository. (Certainly,
there’s a need for viable alternative plans for disposing of
waste. In fact, working on a project to develop such plans might
decrease the urgency regarding Yucca Mountain.) Further, the
citizens in every state with reactor sites would feel much more
comfortable burying waste someplace besides their own back yards.

Yucca Mountain opponents must remember something they all know.
Political reality is marked by change and surprise. They cannot
allow signs of support and understanding to lull them into
complacency. 

© Copyright Reno Gazette-Journal, a Newspaper.
*****************************************************************
 43 washington post: D.C. 1, Toxic Waste 1 

[Editorial] 

Thursday, April 21, 2005; Page A22 

CSX TRANSPORTATION, stung by its defeat in federal district
court on Monday, rushed to the U.S. Court of Appeals on Tuesday
and won a ruling blocking the D.C. law banning the
transportation of highly toxic chemicals near the Capitol from
taking effect yesterday. U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan,
who had upheld the city's 90-day ban on CSX's freight cars
bearing hazardous toxic materials, concluded that the federal
government had failed to provide a consistent and comprehensive
policy addressing the risk of terrorism on railcars transporting
hazardous materials in the nation's capital, which faces
disproportionate terrorist risks. In the absence of federal
action to address the threat, Judge Sullivan ruled that the
District had authority under its traditional police powers to
prohibit certain hazardous materials from being transported
through the city. However, CSX, claiming that only the federal
government can regulate rail transport, sought and won a
reversal from a three-judge appeals court. 

It didn't have to come to this. No one, least of all District
leaders, disputes the federal government's unique responsibility
for protecting the nation, including working with rail carriers
to minimize security risks. But what are the consequences when
the federal government fails to face up to that enormous
responsibility, especially with respect to chemicals that are
toxic by inhalation, such as chlorine gas transported on
railcars? In his ruling, Judge Sullivan cited testimony by
Richard Falkenrath, former deputy homeland security adviser, who
warned Congress in January that "since 9/11 we have essentially
done nothing" to reduce the inherent vulnerability of the
nation's chemical sector. 

The implications of doing nothing are enormous. As Judge
Sullivan observed: "One study estimates that an attack on a
single rail tank car of chlorine traveling through Washington,
during a celebration or political event, could kill or seriously
harm 100,000 people within an hour. The toxic plume resulting
from such an attack could extend over 40 miles from the point of
release, including a core area of about 4 miles by 14.5 miles,
within which exposure could be deadly." Instead, however, of
working with the city to minimize the catastrophic possibility,
the feds and CSX are spending their time and energy in
litigation defending CSX's balance sheet and U.S. government
turf. 

Monday's federal court decision considered the claims of CSX and
the Justice Department that the District overstepped its bounds
and also encouraged copycat legislation by other local
jurisdictions that ultimately could bring interstate shipments
of hazardous materials to a halt. Addressing each of the
complaints, Judge Sullivan found that applicable federal laws
gave states and cities a limited sphere of authority over rail
safety and security, that the city's ban on CSX would not cause
irreparable harm to the carrier, and that absent evidence that
the federal government has come up with a "definitive and
authoritative" plan to enhance the security of trains in the
city, the District was within its rights to take action. 
The appeals court ordered the District to file written responses
to the CSX appeal by tomorrow. The final and deciding round,
which we hope will sustain the district court's concern for the
safety and security of the capital, may not be far off. 

         © 2005 The Washington Post Company 

*****************************************************************
 44 Las Vegas SUN: Nevada lawyer says e-mails show Yucca Mountain 'flunked' test
 
ASSOCIATED PRESS 

LAS VEGAS (AP) - A new set of e-mails written by Yucca Mountain
employees shows the Energy Department knew the project "flunked"
because the volcanic rock formation couldn't live up to its
scientific billing, an attorney for Nevada said. 

E-mails found on a public database of documents supporting the
Energy Department's plan to request a license to store nuclear
waste at Yucca Mountain show how scientists concluded the
mountain couldn't block moisture as planned. 

A 1997 message from department scientist Larry Rickertsen,
titled "Real Trouble Ahead," says: "The answer is clearer than
ever. Engineering has to do the job." 

Egan said the messages provide details about how program
managers and scientists decided to change the rules in the late
1990s, shifting the program away from what Congress had directed
them to find - a repository reliant on natural rock barriers to
keep water away from nuclear waste - to one that relied heavily
on engineered barriers, such as high-tech metal waste
containers. 

"They (the e-mails) show the site not only flunked but it
flunked spectacularly and there is nothing they can do to stop
it," said Joe Egan, a Washington attorney representing the state
in its fight against Yucca Mountain. 

An Energy Department spokeswoman said the e-mails only
demonstrate an ongoing collaborative scientific process. 

"As part of the license application that DOE is developing and
will submit to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, we will
thoroughly outline the safety basis for Yucca Mountain,"
department spokeswoman Anne Womack Kolton said. 

Egan said his staff discovered the e-mails by searching the
Energy Department's database using the word "falsification"
since the department announced last month it discovered U.S.
Geological Survey employees might have fabricated scientific
data. 

While the new e-mails are different from those written by USGS
employees and now under investigation by the Energy and Interior
Departments and the FBI, Egan said they are just as important
and provide ammunition to the state's fight against the proposed
repository. 

In September 1997, one scientist urged another to stop clinging
to the notion that Yucca's rock tunnel walls could isolate
waste, telling him that Yucca Mountain itself "cannot do the
job." 

"I know you are trying to dodge the geologic disposal problem,
and steering clear of fatal flaw type concerns," the scientist
wrote. "But the simple fact is that the only purpose of the
natural system now is to provide a benign environment for the
engineering." 

If the project moves into a Nuclear Regulatory Commission
licensing hearing, Egan said Nevada officials will use the
e-mails to resurrect arguments challenging the basis for
selecting Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. 

The commission ultimately will decide whether the site is safe,
and whether to grant a license to the Energy Department. 

--- 

Information from: Las Vegas Sun, http://www.lasvegassun.com
*****************************************************************
 45 Xinhua: S. Korea, Kazakhstan agree on joint mining of uranium   

  www.xinhuanet.com

  www.chinaview.cn 2005-04-22 20:44:27   

    SEOUL, April 22 (Xinhuanet) -- South Korea and Kazakhstan
agreed Friday to establish a joint company to mine uranium in
the west-central Asian country, a move to ensure Seoul a safe
supply of the mineral, officials said. 

    The company, to be set up within the year, is projected to
go on line in 2008 and start full-blown production in 2010 with
an annual output of 1,000 tons, the officials at the Ministry of
Commerce, Industry and Energy, was quoted the South Korean news
agency Yonhap as saying. 

    The two countries signed an agreement on the matter at a
summit between the heads of state of the two countries last
year. 

    "The ability to mine uranium will better shield the company
from price fluctuations in the international market," a ministry
official said. 

    South Korea operates 19 nuclear reactors, but does not mine
the mineral independently or in cooperation with a third party.
In 2004, Seoul imported 3,239 tons of uranium to meet its
domestic needs, Yonhap said. 

    The country relies on imports from Australia, the United
States,France, Britain and Canada to provide the bulk of its
uranium needs. It also imports some from South Africa and
Kazakhstan. 

    In addition to the uranium project, the two countries inked
a protocol that calls for the joint development of the Zhambyl
oil field of the Caspian Sea, it news agency added. Enditem   

  Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 46 Deseret news: Envirocare clears expansion hurdle 

[deseretnews.com] 

Friday, April 22, 2005 

Tooele OKs additional use of land already owned by company 

By Doug Smeath Deseret Morning News 

TOOELE — Envirocare of Utah on Monday cleared its first hurdle in
its efforts to expand its operation on land it owns in Tooele 
County, but the company still must wait for the OK from the 
Legislature and Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. 

The County Commission, in a special meeting held Monday, 
unanimously approved an amendment to Envirocare's 
conditional-use permit, expanding the company's permission to 
use land it already owns. 

Some activists have vocally opposed the expansion, saying 
expansion of the facility is an environmental and safety hazard. 
And Cedar Mountain Environmental, a rival company owned by 
former Envirocare president Charles Judd, claims the county has 
favored Envirocare while denying similar requests from 
competitors like Cedar Mountain. 

But Envirocare's Tooele County community relations 
manager Joyce Hagan said the permit amendment is meant only to 
allow the company's new owners to add improvements to the 
property, not to expand its radioactive waste disposal 
operations at the site. 

"This is about doing business," she said. "This is about 
being able to do capital improvements and being able to do it 
legally." 

Hagan said the company has plans to build a new 
administrative building on the land covered by the expanded 
permit. It also wants to upgrade its rail lines to a loop to 
make transportation on the site more efficient, and to add a 
metal and concrete crusher and a "rollover," a device that lifts 
and tips rail cars, making it possible to unload them quickly. 

The permit amendment would allow Envirocare to use the 
expanded site for waste disposal at some point in the future if 
the company ever wanted to, county planner Nicole Cline said — 
but only from the waste stream already coming into the site. In 
other words, if Envirocare spreads out its disposal facilities 
on its site, the expansion would only be in land use, not in the 
amount of waste being disposed. 

Commissioner Matt Lawrence said Envirocare has been 
required to pay the state through the bonding process for the 
land, although it has not been able to use it. 

But Judd challenged Monday's vote, saying Cedar Mountain 
used to own the land involved in the permit amendment. He said 
before selling the land, Cedar Mountain tried to obtain a 
conditional-use permit allowing it to use that land for waste 
disposal. After about 16 months of jumping through hoops, Judd 
said, Cedar Mountain was denied a permit. 

Judd said the county reasoned that there was no need for 
expansion of the waste-disposal industry in Tooele County. Now, 
he said, the county seems to be contradicting itself by allowing 
Envirocare to expand on that same land. He said Cedar Mountain 
only sold its land because its request for a permit had been 
denied and it began to see the land as useless. 

"I'm very concerned about the process," Judd said. "I 
don't feel that it was fair. We sell (the land) as junk 
property, and three months later it's approved to again make 
hundreds of millions of dollars for this company." 

But Lawrence said Cedar Mountain and Envirocare are in 
different situations. He said Cedar Mountain was asking to build 
a new disposal facility, whereas Envirocare is asking to use 
more of its property to do the same amount of business it's 
already doing. 

"Does that mean the industry is expanding in Tooele 
County? I don't think so," Lawrence said. 

An environmental group known as the Healthy Environment 
Alliance of Utah (HEAL Utah) also opposes the expansion, 
characterizing it as a way of "further entrenching Utah as a 
dumping ground for radioactive waste," according to a press 
release the group issued last month. 

Envirocare must still win the approval of the Legislature 
and the governor before it can expand its land use. The company 
had hoped to see the issue discussed at Tuesday's special 
legislative session, but it was left off the session's call. 

E-mail: dsmeath@desnews.com 

© 2005 Deseret News Publishing Company 
*****************************************************************
 47 PE.com WYLE: Perchlorate isn't found on Raquel Road, but is detected 
in water a half-mile from the lab. 

Inland Southern California | Corona-Norco

12:59 AM PDT on Friday, April 22, 2005 

By PAIGE AUSTIN / The Press-Enterprise 

Two banks withdrew loan approvals for homebuyers because they
were looking to purchase homes near Wyle Laboratories, a local
real estate agent told community leaders Thursday. 

Washington Mutual and World Savings withdrew loan approvals for
two buyers looking to buy homes on Raquel Road, said Century 21
Olde Tyme real estate agent Lori Maxfield. 

"It's a concern because (the banks) said they withdrew the loan
approvals because the appraiser included too much information
about Wyle Labs in the homes' approvals," she said. "I've never
seen anything like this before." 

It means that the banks don't believe they could get their
investment back if the properties went into foreclosure. 

Raquel Road had been in the news recently because residents in
the area had expressed concern their health problems could be
linked to pollution from Wyle Labs. 

No pollution has been found along Raquel. 

Home values continue to rise in Norco and the two incidences do
not necessarily reflect a trend, Maxfield said. 

"It just raises concerns," she added. 

This week, state officials announced that a solvent and a
rocket-fuel chemical have been found in surface water and a well
as far as a half-mile from Wyle Laboratories. 

State tests released Monday found perchlorate in a First Street
irrigation well at 27 parts per billion -- higher than any level
found on the Wyle property to date. 

The levels were more than four times higher than the state's
drinking-water standard. 

The chemical, a salt found in rocket fuel and munitions, can
cause thyroid disorders. 

"I am concerned about the perchlorate," California's Wyle
project manager Juan Osornio told the Wyle Community Advisory
Group on Thursday. 

The state is requiring Wyle to do extensive on-site and
neighborhood testing between now and June to trace the full
extent of the contamination, he said. 

Dozens of people in the neighborhoods around Wyle have had
thyroid cancers and other thyroid-related ailments. 

Over the past two years, dozens of Wyle neighbors have blamed
the lab's pollution for their health problems, even though
regulators have not found a link between the contamination and
the cases of cancer and thyroid disease. 

State officials said they would do more testing in the next
month to determine the source of the pollution. 

Staff writer Bonnie Stewart contributed to this story. 

Reach Paige Austin at (951) 893-2106 or 
paustin@pe.comMore

Belo Interactive Inc.  
*****************************************************************
 48 Fiji Times: Greenpeace warns of nuclear highway - 
 
(Saturday, April 23, 2005) 

GREENPEACE spokesman Tiy Chung has warned the Pacific will
become a nuclear highway if island governments did not act now
to stop future shipments of nuclear waste entering their waters. 

Mr Chung was responding to the MV Pacific Sandpiper Yamada,
which was carrying nuclear waste through the exclusive economic
zones of several Pacific island countries.

"The Pacific is the path of least resistance for shipping
nations. Shipping states do not bother providing governments
with the exact location of the shipment. 

"They have not done an environmental impact assessment in case
of a nuclear mishap and they refuse to negotiate a comprehensive
and unlimited compensation should an accident occur," he said.

Mr Chung said Greenpeace, the Pacific Concerns Resource Centre,
the World Council of Churches and the Pacific Conference of
Churches had written to Pacific island governments voicing their
opposition to the transit of nuclear waste through Pacific
waters.

Pacific Islands Forum secretary-general Greg Urwin was concerned
at the ship's presence in the Pacific. 

"We have a real worry about possible economic loss if there is
an accident involving a nuclear shipment," said Mr Urwin. 

"The fragile economy of Forum island countries depends heavily
on industries involving the ocean such as fisheries and
tourism," he said.

Atsuko Nogawa, nuclear campaigner for Greenpeace Japan, warned
the Japanese Government and other shipping countries about the
dangers of the shipment.

"Carrying about 60,000 kilograms of deadly waste halfway across
the planet will put millions of people at risk," Mr Nogawa said. 

"Countries involved must seek a way to halt any nuclear
transport."

Mr Chung said if released to the environment, the waste would be
a deadly pollutant. 

"The release of a small fraction from an accident or a
deliberate attack could lead to an environmental and public
health catastrophe," he said.

"The waste is among the most radioactive material ever produced.
The glass blocks are so radioactive that a person standing
within one metre of an unshielded block would receive a lethal
dose of radiation in less than one minute."

The ship, which has reached its destination — port of
Mutsu-Ogawara in Japan, was greeted with protests from Japanese
activists opposed to the move. 

Copyright © 2004, Fiji Times Limited. All Rights Reserved
*****************************************************************
 49 Guardian Unlimited: Navajo Nation Outlaws Uranium Mining
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Friday April 22, 2005 4:31 AM

WINDOW ROCK, Ariz. (AP) - The Navajo Nation has outlawed uranium
mining and processing on its reservation, which sprawls across
parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah and contains one of the
world's largest deposits of uranium ore. 

Tribal President Joe Shirley Jr. must give the bill final
approval. His spokesman said Thursday that Shirley ``strongly''
supports it. 

Mining companies began blasting holes on the reservation, which
covers 27,000 square miles, in the 1940s and continued for
nearly 40 years until decreased demand closed the operations. 

By then, the Navajos were left with radiation sickness,
contaminated tailings and abandoned mines. To avoid repeating
the past, Navajo leaders and grassroots organizations have been
working for years to keep mining from starting again. 

The Navajo Nation Council voted 63-19 Tuesday in favor of the
mining ban. Several council delegates predicted the legislation
will be challenged in court - possibly as far as the Supreme
Court. 

Members of Navajo grassroots organizations celebrated outside
the council's chambers after the measure was approved. 

``This legislation just chopped the legs off the uranium
monster,'' said Norman Brown, a member of one of the groups,
Dine Bidzii. Dine is the Navajos' name for themselves. 

The legislation prohibits pit mining as well as ``in-situ''
processing, which involves using a solution to leach out uranium
and pump it to the surface. 

Hydro Resources Inc. has been working with the federal Nuclear
Regulatory Commission for years to get approval for in-situ
mining near the Navajo communities of Crownpoint and Church
Rock. The company estimated nearly 100 million pounds of uranium
exist at the sites. 

Hydro Resources has argued that in-situ mining is safer than
older methods, but opponents note that 15,000 people rely on the
area's underground aquifer and they fear contamination from the
proposed operation. 
		 	 	   
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
 50 [du-list] Hiroshima Appeals to President Bush:  an opinion ad
 
Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2005 14:51:45 -0700

 
<x-flowed>
Dear all,

   The NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) Review Conference is to be held
at the United Nations in New York in May.  On this occasion, HANWA
(Hiroshima Alliance for Nuclear Weapons Alliance) is going to put out, in
The New York Times, an opinion ad appealing to President Bush and American
people, not only to make serious efforts toward nuclear abolition, but also
to look at the on-going suffering caused by indiscriminate weapons: A-bombs,
Agent Orange, and DU weapons.

  It will be out some time from April 24 to 29.
So please keep an eye on The NY Times around this time.

   Nobuo Kazashi
   board member, HANWA
   director, NO DU Hiroshima Project

  HANWA=Hiroshima Alliance for Nuclear Weapons Abolition
  http//: e-hanwa.org/

***



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



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*****************************************************************
 51 Chicago Sun-Times: Nagasaki A-bomb victim to accompany exhibit here 

April 22, 2005

BY ANDREW HERRMANN Staff Reporter 

Katsuji Yoshida remembers feeling ''like a fish being fried.''

 As a teenager, Yoshida was a student at a Nagasaki, Japan,
school when, on Aug. 9, 1945, America dropped an atomic bomb on
his city. He recalled in an essay how "the skin on my arms
peeled off and was hanging down like a torn shirt from my finger
tips.''

 Yoshida will be in Chicago next month to help kick off what is
reportedly the first Japanese government-sponsored exhibit
focusing on atomic bombings to come to the United States.

 The exhibit, which features 41 photos and 23 objects --
including charred clothing and a melted Christian cross -- will
open May 6 at Chicago's Peace Museum, located in the Garfield
Park Gold Dome Building. 

Japanese officials made the announcement this week in Nagasaki,
where an atomic bomb killed 40,000 and injured another 40,000. A
separate bombing of Hiroshima claimed an estimated 70,000 to
100,000 lives.

 "I'd like to explain how tough the last 60 years have been for
a victim of an atomic bombing,'' Yoshida, now 73, told Japanese
media. "I feel I've been given an opportunity through a strange
stroke of fate. I hope the students will assume leadership
toward elimination of nuclear arms.''

 Exhibit not 'hostile' toward U.S.

Melissa Sue McGuire, executive director of Chicago's Peace
Museum, said she was contacted by the Japanese about six months
ago. 

"It's an important story to tell. I think a lot of young people
think the war ended with the liberation of the Nazi
concentration camps,'' said McGuire.

 Some of the photographs are graphic, showing blackened bodies
and blistered limbs. Those will be set up in a different room of
the Peace Museum to shield young children, said McGuire. Among
the objects is a tattered junior high school uniform found
hanging from a tree, its owner forever lost. 

Marking the 60th anniversary of what President Harry S Truman
called the "rain of ruin,'' the museum will also present
dramatic readings from accounts written by Japanese survivors,
including Yoshida.

 Truman said he ordered the bombs dropped after the Japanese
refused to surrender. He estimated the decision saved the lives
of 250,000 Allied soldiers.

 McGuire said the exhibit isn't "hostile'' against the United
States. "It talks about the war in a historical sense. I don't
think it's judgmental,'' she said.

 On a trip to Japan, McGuire said she queried several Japanese
about the bomb. "I asked the Japanese people how they felt
[about the United States], and they said the Japanese government
wouldn't have given up. They hope no one will ever have to
suffer this sort of agony again.''

Copyright 2005, Digital Chicago Inc.   

*****************************************************************
 52 Denver Post: Allard backs benefits for Flats workers

Article Published: Friday, April 22, 2005                                         
             
U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard has requested $15 million in the new
energy bill to provide benefits to Rocky Flats workers who won't
qualify because the multibillion-dollar cleanup will be complete
much sooner than expected. 

Because the project is about a year ahead of schedule, up to 25
employees at Rocky Flats would be affected for pension benefits
and up to 29 employees would be affected for health and life
insurance plan coverage, according to a federal report requested
by Allard. 

"The workers at the Rocky Flats Environmental Technology site
have worked diligently to complete the cleanup of Rocky Flats a
year ahead of schedule," said Allard, R-Colo. "Providing them
with the retirement benefits they would have received had the
Rocky Flats project continued to December 2006 is an appropriate
reward." 

 All contents Copyright 2005 The Denver Post or other copyright


*****************************************************************
 53 Las Vegas SUN: Report: DOE needs better management of records

Today: April 22, 2005 at 9:02:23 PDT 

By Suzanne Struglinski <suzanne@lasvegassun.com> SUN WASHINGTON 
BUREAU

 WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department needs to improve its
overall management of records, illustrated by problems with
Yucca Mountain project documents, according to an inspector
general's report issued Thursday.

 The report found that across all department offices there is no
method for archiving original e-mails or other electronic
information and there is a lot of redundancy in the records
programs in place. Eliminating duplicative systems could save
the department $2 million, according to the report.

 Documents are currently a hot topic for the Yucca Mountain
project, with ongoing federal investigations into e-mails that
suggest U.S. Geological Survey employees falsified scientific
information. Nevada officials are also compiling their own
arsenal of e-mails they claim prove the proposed nuclear waste
repository at Yucca, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, does not
meet criteria required by law.

 The report recommends the department create policies for
storing e-mails and electronic records. The department Chief
Information Officer Rosita Parks agreed with the reports finding
and said the department is addressing the issues.

 The department is working toward completing its submission to
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's License Support Network, a
document database designed to make information available to the
public. The commission will not docket the project's license
application until six months after the department completes the
database.

 The department said it was complete last year, but Nevada
object, saying it was missing millions of e-mails and other
documents. An administrative court within the commission agreed
with Nevada, so the department plans to try again. The
department discovered the USGS e-mails while reviewing documents
to put on the network.

 The report used the department's failure to emphasize the need
for better records management in Thursdays report.

 "...employees were required to manually review, classify, and
catalogue millions of e-mail messages prior to posting them to
the licensing network." the Inspector General found. "At the
time of the review, about 6.4 million e-mails remained
unprocessed due to the lack of system requirements for archiving
e-mail records."

 The Inspector General Office performed the review between
October 2003 and December 2004.

 The Inspector General also pointed to problems with the
department's work preparing for the project's document database
in May 2004. 
 
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 54 Oakland Tribune: UC, lab want suit verdict tossed

Article Last Updated: 04/22/2005 03:55:11 AM                              
                 
University hopes for reduction of $2 million whistle-blower 
decision

  By Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER   

After twice losing in court, the University of California and 
Lawrence Livermore nuclear weapons lab are asking a judge to 
throw out a $2.13 million verdict against them and hold a third 
trial on a former employee's claims of retaliatory firing. 

Lab officials said they felt jurors awarded too much to former
Livermore lab computer technician Dee Kotla for emotional
damages. 

The jury foreman doesn't see any reason to give the lab a third
chance to make its case. 

"Unless there's some specific, new evidence that's come to light
or some blatant legal issue, you could keep asking for new
trials over and over again without 				 				 					 					 					
				 				 				 					 					 				 there being any basis for it,
just because you lost," said foreman Read Bell, a
software-development engineer for Cisco. "I just don't see how
there could be any valid basis for another trial." 

Testimony in the case showed that a lab attorney reported Kotla
as a "hostile witness" in a sexual harassment case against the
lab and one of its senior scientists. 

When Kotla showed up to testify for a co-worker, the lab
attorney phoned lab internal police and launched an
investigation that turned up $4.30 in personal phone calls and
many computer files of work for a friend's business. 

During a break in the deposition, 				 				 					 					 					
				   				 				 					 					 				 Kotla went to the restroom
and, according to her testimony, was still in a stall when two
attorneys entered. She said she overheard the lab attorney say,
"If Kotla knows what's good for her, she'll keep her mouth
shut." 

Lab police unsuccessfully tried twice to get the Alameda County
District Attorney's Office to prosecute her, and she was fired
soon after. 

A jury in 2002 found that the lab fired Kotla in retaliation and
awarded her $1 million. The university and the lab asked for a
reduction in the award and a new trial. The judge declined a new
trial but reduced the award to $745,000. The lab and university
				 				 					 					 					 						 					 	 	 	 	 	 		 		 		 		
Kotla's expert witness had testified that the evidence in her
case suggested retaliation. A state appeals court agreed that
opinion could have swayed the jury and granted a new trial. 

A new jury spent five weeks this spring hearing the case and
deliberated a day-and-half. 

In motions filed this week, attorneys for the university and the
lab asked the judge to discard the jury's verdict and grant a
new trial. They argued that jurors had only indirect and
insufficient evidence for a verdict of retaliation. 

The Kotla case has been Exhibit A in a congressional 				 				
					 					 					 				   				 				 					 					 				 debate over
the U.S. Department of Energy's practice of reimbursing more
than 96 percent of legal costs, settlements and award payments
by the University of California and its other contractors. 

Kotla attorney Gary Gwilliam said the lab and the university
"should be ashamed of themselves." 

"It's time to bring this matter to a close," he said. "This case
is a terrible example of the ongoing harassment, intimidation
and financial waste that UC and the lab engage in." 

Bell, the jury foreman, found the request for a new trial
insulting to jurors, most of whom served for $15 a day. 

"As long as they know 				 				 					 					 					 				   				
				 					 					 				 the Department of Energy's going to write
them another check, there's no motivation for them to change
what they're doing," he said. 

Contact Ian Hoffman at 

ihoffman@angnewspapers.com. 				 				 				 			   		 		 		
 			    				 					 					 					 				 			   			    				 					
The Oakland Tribune
© 2005 ANG Newspapers 							 							 							 							 						
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 55 The Paducah Sun: DOE funds drying up for PACRO - 

Paducah, Kentucky 

The Department of Energy is ending funding for all community 
reuse organizations such as PACRO, which will get funding under a 
new name. 

By Joe Walker jwalker@paducahsun.com 270.575.8656 Thursday, April 
21, 2005 

MAYFIELD, Ky. With U.S. Department of Energy funding running out, 
a regional economic development group has cloned itself in hopes 
of securing other public and private dollars to survive. 

The Paducah Area Community Reuse Organization executive committee 
voted Wednesday to establish the Paducah Area Asset Utilization 
Board, which assumed parts of the PACRO program and will absorb 
the rest when DOE funding ceases Sept. 30. PACRO Director John 
Anderson called the new board a "mirror" of the old. 

"We want to make it clear to DOE that we will not be requesting 
more money from it," he said. "There is no more money to get." 

PACRO was formed in 1997 to use Energy Department money to offset 
job losses at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant. In eight 
years, the group has committed about $10.4 million to projects 
that have created or preserved 1,694 jobs at a cost of $5,928 per 
job, which "stacks up rather well" with similar organizations 
nationwide, Chairman Marty Nichols said. 

Because DOE is ending funding for all community reuse 
organizations, they must seek other monetary sources. Anderson is 
pursuing about $1 million federal grants and administrative 
funding to help market the Purchase Area Regional Industrial Park 
in northern Graves County and develop a master plan to reuse the 
1,270-job diffusion plant once it closes starting in 2010. The 
plan would be done by a neutral consultant, weighing the need to 
create jobs and ensure cleanup, he said. 

PACRO brokered a deal with recycling company TOXCO to rid the 
plant of contaminated fluorine cells, saving taxpayers about $2.5 
million in cleanup costs. The new board is pursuing similar 
contracts to create a stronger private income source. Among other 
things, there are discussions with firms about recycling 
thousands of tons of contaminated nickel, saving $8 million to 
$10 million in cleanup expense. 

Since its inception, PACRO has: 

Made nearly $441,000 in low-interest loans to six current or 
former plant workers to start businesses, creating or retaining 
72 jobs. Current loan recipients are local cleanup firm JBS Inc. 
and Honey Enterprises, a Chinese-American restaurant. 

Helped obtain more than $10 million in state and federal funding 
for the regional industrial park. 

Funneled about $7.2 million into spec buildings and 
infrastructure for five county industrial parks in the region.

The program has created or preserved 950 jobs, mostly through 
businesses that moved into the buildings. 

Provided financing for a database through West Kentucky Community 
and Technical College and the plant nuclear workers' union to 
market the skills of displaced plant workers. The database is 
responsible for creating or retaining 335 jobs. 
  
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 56 Rocky Mountain News: Allard: Full benefits for Flats workers

By Rocky Mountain News
April 22, 2005

U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., said Thursday he has requested a 
special appropriation to make sure that Rocky Flats clean-up 
workers are allowed to retire with full benefits, even if they 
finish the job early. 

Demolition of the former nuclear weapons plant is running a year 
ahead of schedule, and Allard didn't want several dozen workers 
to miss out on retirement because they finished early. He 
requested $15 million in the energy appropriations bill.  

SITE MAP PHOTO REPRINTS CORRECTIONS    2005 © The E.W. Scripps
Co.

  

  

				   			 			
    
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material is distributed without profit or payment to those who 
have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for 
non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more 
information go to: 
<http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml> 
    
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