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Send News Stories to news@energy-net.org with title on subject
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NUCLEAR POLICY
1 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Poised to End Nuclear Activity Freeze
2 Xinhua: Britain urges Iran not to resume uranium enrichment
3 Guardian Unlimited: North Korea Advancing Nuclear Program
4 [NYTr] Blix chides U.S. over nuclear outlook
5 US: Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Hydrogen part of more stable economy
6 US: Las Vegas SUN: Editorial: Sadly, secrecy prevails
7 US: toledoblade.com: Where's the energy?
8 [NukeNet] Act Now To End Arms Race In Space
9 BBC: Experts seek clean, green power
10 Japan Times: IRKING RUSSIA, CHINA - Japan's new foreign policy
NUCLEAR REACTORS
11 US: [NukeNet] [UnplugSalem] NRC Public Meeting for PSEG June 8,
12 US: NRC: NRC to Conduct Special Inspection at Waterford Nuclear Plan
13 Deutsche Welle: Germany Shuts Down Atomic Reactor
14 BBC: Germany shuts down nuclear plant
15 US: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Nuclear engineer arraigned in federal c
16 US: Cincinnati Post: Regulators won't make merger easy
17 US: NRC: NRC to Discuss 2004 Performance Assessment for LaSalle Nucl
18 US: Lincoln County News: Maine Yankee Removes Railcars from Topsham
19 US: NRC: NRC to Discuss 2004 Performance Assessment for Monticello N
20 US: Monticello Times: NRC meeting draws light crowd
21 AFP: North Korea finishes removing spent fuel rods from nuclear reac
22 US: NRC: NRC to Present Preliminary Findings of Millstone 3 Special
23 Guardian Unlimited: N. Korea Removes Nuclear Rods From Reactor
NUCLEAR SECURITY
24 [NYTr] US Secretly Kept Nukes at Canada Base: US Vet
NUCLEAR SAFETY
25 US: [du-list] DU bill
26 US: Bradenton Herald: Lockheed uncovers workers' health files
27 BBC: Europe stages nuclear crisis test
28 US: NRC: NRC Issues Confirmatory Order to R Engineering Consultants
29 US: Pocatello Idaho State Journal: Radioactive 'seed' maker eyes Poc
30 US: PISJ: Ball in Congress' court on downwinders' plight
31 US: SR.com: Defense rests in Hanford downwinders case
NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
32 Deutsche Welle: Nuclear Leak Sparks Renewed EU Concern
33 Las Vegas RJ: E-mail scandal doesn't doom Yucca, Bodman tells lawmak
34 Bellona: Sellafield’s Thorp reprocessing plant incident perturbs
35 US: The Herald: MOX testing should begin within month
36 Las Vegas SUN: Bodman refuses to halt Yucca
37 Xinhua: EU seeks new nuclear safety rules after incident
PEACE
38 Nonproliferation Realities: * McNamara * Ellsberg
39 7news: Veterans take action over nuclear tests
US DEPT. OF ENERGY
40 ABQJOURNAL: Environment Department Fines LANL $63,000
41 Tri-Valley Herald: UC partners on Los Alamos bid
42 DOE: Advance Notice of Intent To Prepare an Environmental Impact
43 Guardian Unlimited: Former Los Alamos Scientist Dies
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FULL NEWS STORIES
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1 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Poised to End Nuclear Activity Freeze
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Thursday May 12, 2005 12:16 AM
By GEORGE JAHN
Associated Press Writer
VIENNA, Austria (AP) - The standoff between Iran and Europe
escalated into a showdown Wednesday, with Tehran poised formally
to end its freeze of activities that can be part of the process
of making nuclear weapons - a move that could lead to action by
the U.N. Security Council.
Reached by telephone, senior Iranian envoy Sirous Nasseri
confirmed to The Associated Press that he had flown just hours
earlier to Vienna with a letter from his government to the
International Atomic Energy agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog
charged with overseeing Tehran's suspension of uranium
enrichment and related activities.
Nasseri declined to discuss the contents of the letter. But
diplomats close to the IAEA said they expected it contained
formal notification that Iran was resuming conversion of uranium
ore as part of a process whose end result is uranium
hexafluoride - a substance that then can be used to produce
weapons-grade uranium.
One of the diplomats - who like his colleagues spoke on
condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue -
said he expected Nasseri to present his letter Thursday.
Any such formal notification of resumption of conversion will
torpedo Iran's talks with France, Germany and Britain. Those
talks are intended to lessen suspicions about Tehran's ultimate
nuclear aims. The United States says Iran wants to make the
bomb, but Iran insists it is interested in the atom only as a
source of energy.
Washington has long maintained that Iran's nuclear program -
kept secret for nearly two decades until revealed by a dissident
group in 2002 - is meant to make weapons, and as such, Tehran's
nuclear dossier belongs in the hands of the Security Council.
But because of strong resistance at previous IAEA board
meetings, it reluctantly embraced the European diplomatic
efforts.
The on-off talks, which began last year, have failed from the
beginning to find common ground on the European insistence that
Iran scrap - or at last agree to a long-term suspension of -
uranium enrichment and related activities, and Tehran's
insistence that any freeze was voluntary and short-lived. The
last formal round ended inconclusively April 29.
The Europeans appeared braced for the inevitable. Diplomats on
Wednesday said the three nations had begun informal contacts
with the IAEA about convening a special session of its 35-nation
board should the Iranians tell the agency they were ready to
break IAEA seals on conversion equipment in the central city of
Isfahan.
Such a session could be called within days of formal
notification by Iran of plans to resume conversion. The
diplomats said a likely scenario would see board nations giving
Iran a two- to three-week deadline to change its mind. If it
refused, sentiment at the next board meeting - probably in June
- would be strong to declare Tehran in violation of its
agreements to suspend enrichment while negotiating in good faith
with the Europeans. In that case, the board might refer the case
to the U.N. Security Council.
One senior Western diplomat said the three European nations also
were consulting with the United States on a common course of
action. A senior U.S. official in Washington said earlier that
the Bush administration was conferring closely with the allies
and that all the governments were determined there would be
consequences for Iran if it ends the moratorium.
While the Europeans had been key in previous board opposition to
referring Iran to the Security Council, senior officials in
several European capitals suggested any resumption of
reprocessing would leave them no choice but to support such a
move.
``I think the reaction of the ... Europeans is going to be very
tough if conversion resumes,'' said one. ``It's not possible to
get the Europeans scared.''
Suggesting that European patience had run out with Iran's
negotiating tactics, another said: ``The game of poker is
over.'' Both spoke on condition of anonymity.
A third official said the three European nations had delivered a
strongly worded letter to the Iranian government formally
warning it against resuming any enrichment-related activity.
In another sign that conversion was about to start again,
Iranian Vice President Gholamreza Aghazadeh said Tuesday that
reprocessing could resume as soon as Thursday. He said the move
is a message to Europeans that Iran can't continue offering
unilateral concessions against nothing from Europe.
---
On the Net: www.iaea.org
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
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2 Xinhua: Britain urges Iran not to resume uranium enrichment
www.xinhuanet.com
www.chinaview.cn 2005-05-12 02:14:20
LONDON, May 11 (Xinhuanet) -- Britain has urged Iran not to
resumeuranium enrichment-related activities, The Guardian
newspaper reported on Wednesday.
"If the Iranians do resume activity on their uranium
conversion..., that would breach the Paris agreement," a
spokesman for the British Foreign Office said in response to
Iran's announcement Tuesday that it plans to resume the
conversion of raw uranium intogas within the next few days.
"Our opposition has been absolutely clear from the beginning
that we would have other option but to refer it to the (United
Nations) security council," he said.
The spokesman said such a move of Iran's would automatically
halt two years of negotiations between Iran and the European
trio -- Britain, France and Germany.
These three countries are acting on behalf of the 25-nation
European Union in negotiations with Iran to seek its guarantees
that it will not use its nuclear program to make weapons, as
Washington suspects.
Iran last year voluntarily halted enrichment -- a process
that can produce nuclear reactor fuel and, when taken to a
higher level,material for bombs -- to build confidence in
negotiations with European powers and avoid UN Security Council
referral for possible sanctions.
Iran said its November decision to suspend all uranium
enrichment-related activities was voluntary and temporary. The
European trio have been offering economic incentives to woo Iran
to turn its temporary suspension into a permanent freeze.
Enditem
Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
3 Guardian Unlimited: North Korea Advancing Nuclear Program
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Wednesday May 11, 2005 11:16 PM
AP Photo NY190
By BURT HERMAN
Associated Press Writer
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea said Wednesday it had
taken steps that could allow it to harvest more plutonium for
atomic bombs and that it would bolster its arsenal, the
communist country's latest provocation amid deadlocked talks
over its nuclear program.
A North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman said the country had
removed 8,000 fuel rods from the reactor at its main nuclear
complex at Yongbyon, 50 miles north of Pyongyang. North Korea
kicked out international nuclear inspectors in late 2002, making
it impossible to verify the claim.
If reprocessed, the rods could, after several months, yield
enough plutonium for a couple of nuclear bombs, South Korean
media reported. The North claimed in February to have nuclear
weapons, and the head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog said recently
the North previously had enough plutonium for up to six nuclear
bombs.
The move comes amid rising international speculation about a
possible North Korean nuclear test. U.S. officials said last
week that spy satellites looking at northeastern Kilju saw
tunnel digging and the construction of a reviewing stand -
possible indications of a test.
On Tuesday, China rejected using sanctions to prod North Korea
to return to six-nation talks on its nuclear ambitions, with a
spokesman saying Beijing's political and trade relations with
its neighbor should be kept separate.
The statement by Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao
came as a Bush administration official said the United States
has asked Beijing to redouble its efforts to lure North Korea
back to the negotiations. Three rounds of talks including China,
Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States haven't led to
any breakthroughs.
The Bush administration is depending heavily on China to rescue
a faltering diplomatic effort to negotiate an end to the dispute
but has suggested no specific pressure tactics to Beijing,
senior U.S. officials said Wednesday.
``We have normal bilateral relations'' with North Korea, the
Chinese Embassy spokesman, Maoming Chu, said in Washington. ``We
don't try to solve problems through pressure or sanctions.''
The U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said
they were unable to verify China has dismissed the idea of
sanctions to pressure North Korea.
The Washington Post reported last week that China had turned
down a U.S. request to pressure North Korea to return to nuclear
disarmament talks by cutting off oil supplies.
On Tuesday, the North's main newspaper alleged the United States
was making a ``fuss'' by spreading reports of the alleged test
preparations. However, the commentary in the state-run Rodong
Sinmun daily didn't deny the North was planning a test.
North Korea issues daily warnings to its citizens of the alleged
threat of invasion by the United States, and since June 2004 has
refused to return to the disarmament talks, citing Washington's
``hostile'' policy. The United States has repeatedly said it has
no intention to attack North Korea, but U.S. officials have said
the nuclear impasse won't be allowed to drag on forever.
The top U.S. negotiator on the North Korean nuclear dispute will
visit South Korea this week as part of efforts to lure Pyongyang
back to the negotiating table, an official said Wednesday.
During the four-day visit starting Friday, U.S. Assistant
Secretary of State Christopher Hill will meet South Korean
Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon and another official, Song
Min-soon, to discuss the issue.
International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei said
last weekend that Pyongyang already had enough plutonium to make
up to six bombs from an earlier batch of fuel rods. The
estimated yield was higher because those rods spent more time in
the reactor, which was last restarted in 2003 when North Korea
withdrew from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
On Wednesday, the North Korean official noted the country had
already announced plans to operate the five-megawatt reactor at
Yongbyon and resume construction on a bigger reactor there
because the United States pulled out of a 1994 deal on the
North's nuclear program made with the Clinton administration.
U.S. officials accused North Korea of running a secret uranium
enrichment program in 2002 in violation of the earlier deal,
under which Pyongyang agreed to forgo nuclear weapons
development in exchange for energy aid and the construction of
nuclear reactors that couldn't be diverted for weapons use.
South Korea expressed ``serious concern'' at the latest
development.
``North Korea should immediately halt actions that have a
negative impact'' on efforts to resume disarmament talks, the
Foreign Ministry said. ``We strongly urge North Korea to return
to the six-party talks without delay.''
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi noted North Korea has
made such statements before to bolster its negotiating position.
``We must work to show that North Korea will benefit the most
from returning quickly to the six-nation talks and disposing of
its nuclear program,'' he said.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
4 [NYTr] Blix chides U.S. over nuclear outlook
Date: Wed, 11 May 2005 13:06:48 -0500 (CDT)
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
AP via Toronto Globe and Mail - May 10, 2005
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20050510.wblix0510/BNStory/International/?page=rss&id=RTGAM.20050510.wblix0510
Blix Chides US on Nuclear Weapons Outlook
by The Associated Press
United Nations Washington isn't taking the common bargain of the
Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty as seriously as it once did, hurting global
support for the U.S. campaign to shut down the North Korean and Iranian
nuclear programs, former chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix says.
U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton, by questioning the value of
treaties and international law, has also damaged the U.S. position, Mr. Blix
said.
There is a feeling the common edifice of the international community is
being dismantled, the Swedish arms expert said.
Mr. Blix, now chairman of the Swedish government-sponsored Weapons of Mass
Destruction Commission, spoke with reporters Monday in the second week of a
month-long conference to review the 1970 nonproliferation treaty.
Under the 188-nation pact, nations without nuclear weapons pledge not to
pursue them, in exchange for a commitment by five nuclear-weapons states
the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China to negotiate toward
nuclear disarmament.
The review conference has been stalled, without an agenda, because of a
dispute over agenda language dealing with the very dissatisfaction of which
Mr. Blix spoke: the complaints by some that the nuclear-weapons states are
moving too slowly toward disarmament.
A last-minute objection by Egypt on Friday scuttled an apparent agreement on
the agenda. The Egyptians wanted language that focused more on assessing
how well the nuclear powers have done in taking specific steps toward
disarmament, under commitments they made in 2000 at the last of these
twice-a-decade conferences.
Nuclear have-nots complain that the Bush administration, in particular,
has acted contrary to those commitments, by rejecting the nuclear test-ban
treaty, for example.
Washington, for its part, wants the conference to focus on what it alleges
are Iran's plans to build nuclear arms in violation of the treaty, and on
North Korea's withdrawal from the treaty and claim to have nuclear bombs.
Mr. Blix told reporters there is a great deal of concern about North Korea
and Iran among states without nuclear weapons.
But that feeling of concern is somewhat muted by the feeling that the
United States in particular, and perhaps some other nuclear weapons states,
are not taking the common bargain as seriously as they had committed
themselves to do in the past, he said.
He cited U.S. proposals to build new nuclear weapons and talk in Washington
even of testing weapons, ending a 13-year-old U.S. moratorium on nuclear
tests. He also referred to statements by Mr. Bolton, President George W.
Bush's embattled nominee to be UN ambassador, that devalue treaties and the
authority of international law.
Why are you complaining about (North Korea) breaching the treaty if
treaties are not binding? Mr. Blix, an international lawyer, asked
rhetorically.
In 2002-03, Mr. Blix led UN teams that found no evidence of weapons of mass
destruction in Iraq in 700 inspections, undermining Bush administration
assertions that such weapons existed. Despite these findings, Mr. Bush
ordered the invasion of Iraq, and U.S. inspectors have since similarly
found no such weapons programs.
*
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5 Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Hydrogen part of more stable economy
[seattlepi.com]
[OPINION]
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
By SIM LARKIN GUEST COLUMNIST
In his recent news conference, President Bush said, "We must
develop promising new sources of energy, such as hydrogen."
Indeed, the promise of a new "hydrogen economy" -- cars and
offices and factories powered by clean-burning hydrogen -- is
often held up as a looming revolution providing environmentally
friendly power and a replacement for fossil fuels.
Does the new hydrogen economy have the potential to eliminate
our dependence on oil and natural gas, the vast majority of
which is imported? It does. But switching to hydrogen alone will
not accomplish that. The difficulty is that hydrogen is a medium
for transporting energy, not a source of it. We cannot simply
mine hydrogen. We have to extract it (typically from natural gas
or water) before we can use it. That requires energy.
Think of hydrogen as a battery. In order to get energy out of a
battery, you must first put energy into it. In order to get
energy from hydrogen, you must first put energy into extracting
it. Hydrogen provides a great mechanism for transporting energy,
but it is not a net source of it. Therein lies the rub.
Currently, the only source of energy available in the quantities
needed to power the hydrogen economy is petrochemical -- oil and
natural gas. Thus, even switching to a hydrogen economy leaves
us at the mercy of oil production and oil prices. Meet the new
boss, same as the old boss.
The hydrogen economy has the luster of a futuristic technology
that can solve our energy problems. A silver bullet. Yet, by
itself, it will not change anything except how we fill up our
gas tanks. The primary production of the energy we need, and the
prices we pay for it both economically and environmentally, will
stay substantially the same.
There is a huge advantage to hydrogen: We can charge our
hydrogen "batteries" using any type of energy source we choose
-- oil, natural gas, coal, nuclear, solar, wind, tidal, biomass.
We are no longer bound to oil. We just have to produce energy
using our chosen source, use it to generate hydrogen and then
ship the hydrogen off to the local service station, ready to be
burned to water vapor at your leisure.
This ability to choose an energy source is a great opportunity.
We can choose to stick with business as usual by continuing to
rely on oil as our primary energy source. This will ensure that
we continue to be mired in dependence on foreign oil, always at
the mercy of oil price shocks. Or we can choose to move to an
alternative energy source and finally end the oil economy and
our dependence on global oil supply and demand.
The president's proposals point to his choice -- more
refineries, more oil, more of the same. Our debate needs to be
over whether this is the best choice or whether we should pursue
other, "green" energy sources such as solar power and wind
generation. By developing alternative energy sources together
with hydrogen technology, we can indeed build a more stable,
less dependent and more environmentally friendly economy -- a
stronger nation.
It is our choice; it is our opportunity. What we choose will
influence the stability and viability of our nation for the next
century and beyond. Sim Larkin is a climate scientist in
Seattle. E-mail: sim@simlarkin.com.
[Seattle Post-Intelligencer] 101 Elliott Ave. W. Seattle, WA
98119 (206) 448-8000
Send comments to newmedia@seattlepi.com
*****************************************************************
6 Las Vegas SUN: Editorial: Sadly, secrecy prevails
Today: May 11, 2005 at 9:05:27 PDT
LAS VEGAS SUN
On Tuesday a federal appeals court ruled that Vice President
Dick Cheney can keep secret the records of an energy task force
he headed in 2001. Two groups, the Sierra Club and Judicial
Watch, had sought to make public the records from the meetings
of the task force, which had helped forge President Bush's
energy policy. The appeals court's ruling wasn't a big surprise,
however. Last year the U.S. Supreme Court, in sending the case
back to the appeals court for a final resolution, made it clear
that it sided with the Bush administration's view that the
records could be kept secret.
Despite the legal victory for Cheney, himself a former oil
company executive, the public is the real loser in this case,
since we don't know exactly how the task force operated. What is
clear is that environmental groups were shut out of any
meaningful input in the process as evidenced by the
recommendations favoring those industries -- oil, coal, natural
gas and nuclear power -- that sat in on the meetings. To get a
sense of the arrogance of the Bush White House, Cheney wouldn't
even submit to Congress a list of the names of energy executives
who attended the meetings. Nevadans in particular had an
interest in finding out just what went on in the closed-door
meetings so we could determine how crucial a role the nuclear
power industry played in establishing the administration's
subsequent policy of wanting to bury 77,000 tons of high-level
nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, just 90 miles northwest of Las
Vegas.
Granted, it's not terribly surprising that energy companies
that lavished campaign contributions on George Bush received
favorable treatment once he was elected president. Still, the
public deserves to know more about money's corrupting influence
on politics in this instance. Just how far did the oil, coal,
natural gas and nuclear power industries go in helping set -- if
not actually dictating -- Bush's energy policy? In light of how
forcefully the Bush White House has sought to keep the records
from the view of the public, the documents must be damning.
*****************************************************************
7 toledoblade.com: Where's the energy?
Article published Wednesday, May 11, 2005
DRAMATIC price hikes at the gas pumps are starting to get to the
White House. No, the President doesn't have to pump his own
unleaded, much less reach for a $50 bill to pay for it. So
forget the economic problems high gas prices pose. The
administration is becoming increasingly worried about the
political damage soaring energy costs are beginning to inflict
on President Bush's approval rating.
That concern was obvious when the administration slapped
together a couple of inventive energy proposals the President
floated in subsequent speeches to emphasize his resolution to
solve the current energy crisis. But proposing that oil
companies be allowed to build refineries on closed military
bases, or that federal insurance be offered to the nuclear power
industry to mitigate the cost of regulatory delays, falls short
of a coherent energy policy.
Besides having no short-term effect on oppressively high
gasoline prices, the President's plans have almost no likelihood
of progressing in the long run.
Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid rightly calls Mr. Bush's
stump ideas "little more than half-measures and wrongheaded
policies that will do nothing to address the current energy
crisis or break the stranglehold that foreign oil has on our
nation."
That would take some semblance of strategy to marry national
conservation efforts with aggressive fuel efficiency efforts.
That would take a road map to seriously pursue alternative
energy sources, shouldering the initial investment to reap
future payoffs in energy independence. That would take political
foresight and courage.
Which is why next to nothing has been done to wean the United
States from its addiction to foreign oil. As long as gasoline
was relatively cheap there was no urgency for the government to
act. But when pump prices begin to seriously deplete disposable
incomes and slow down economic growth, Washington suddenly feels
compelled to do something, like proposing refineries where
shuttered military bases stand.
Besides the fact that local communities may not want them for
environmental reasons and oil companies don't want them for
supply and demand profit reasons, there's cost.
Building a refinery from the ground up is a hugely expensive,
time-consuming proposition to comply with new stringent
environmental standards. That's why no new U.S. oil refineries
have been built since the 1970s.
Same goes with nuclear power plants. Since the 1970s there has
not been a new one ordered in America because of expense often
exacerbated by regulatory delays. The President would offer the
nuclear industry federal "risk insurance" against lengthy
licensing delays, with an unknown cost to government.
"See, we've got a fundamental question we got to face here in
America," said Mr. Bush in a recent speech. "Do we want to
continue to grow more dependent on other nations to meet our
energy needs? Or, do we need to do what is necessary to achieve
greater control of our economic destiny?"
Or do we want to continue to placate Americans with well
intended proposals that substitute for responsible, workable
policy and just prolong the pain at the pumps?
The Toledo Blade Company, 541 N. Superior St., Toledo, OH 43660
, (419) 724-6000
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8 [NukeNet] Act Now To End Arms Race In Space
Date: Wed, 11 May 2005 14:42:20 -0700
NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net)
Please pass this around to as many lists, NGOs
and interested parties as possible.
REP. CYNTHIA MCKINNEY TRIES TO DEFUND NUCLEAR
ROCKET: YOUR HELP URGENTLY NEEDED
On May 5, Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) sent a
"Dear Colleague" letter to all members of Congress
urging them to join her in an effort to defund
Project Prometheus, the nuclear rocket. See her
letters at this link:
www.space4peace.org/articles/cynthis_mckinney.pdf
In the letter, Rep. McKinney says, "I write to
invite you to join me as a co-signer on the two
attached letters. They are intended to protect
our citizens from the potential of a catastrophic
nuclear accident posed by the Prometheus Project,
a NASA/DoE/Pentagon program to develop and deploy
a nuclear propulsion rocket."
"The first letter is directed to the office that
will prepare the Preliminary Environmental Impact
Statement for the Prometheus Program. The second
letter is to express the support of Members of
Congress for shifting Federal funding from the
development of nuclear propulsion systems to
research and development for solar and other
alternative energy systems that can support our
space program."
This effort by Rep. McKinney is a crucial step in
the effort to ensure that we stop the
nuclearization of space. In addition, it is the
nuclear rocket that could be used to power weapons
in space like the space-based laser so it is also
a vital step in ensuring that we cut-off the power
source for the weaponization of space. (In a
study Commissioned by Congress called Military
Space Forces: The Next 50 Years, staffer John
Collins reported that "Nuclear reactors thus
remain the only known long-lived, compact source
able to supply military space forces with electric
power.... Larger versions could meet multimegawatt
needs of space-based lasers..... Nuclear reactors
must support major bases on the moon until better
options, yet unidentified, become available.")
We urge all our affiliate members and supporters
to immediately call your Congressperson in
Washington DC and request that they contact Rep.
McKinney's office to become a cosigner of her
letter calling for the defunding of the nuclear
rocket. Please call the Congressional switchboard
right away at (202) 224-3121 and ask for the
office of your Congressional representative.
Please help us by passing this e-mail on to your
personal lists so that we can expand the numbers
of people who see it. Call me if you have any
questions.
It is not often that we get Congressional support
to end the arms race in space. We don't want to
let Rep. McKinney down! Please act today.
Thank you.
Bruce K. Gagnon
Coordinator
Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in
Space
PO Box 652
Brunswick, ME 04011
(207) 729-0517
(207) 319-2017 (Cell phone)
globalnet@mindspring.com
http://www.space4peace.org
http://space4peace.blogspot.com (Our blog)
_______________________________________________________________________
Subscribe/Unsubscribe Here: http://www.energyjustice.net/nukenet/
Change your settings or access the archives at:
http://energyjustice.net/mailman/listinfo/nukenet_energyjustice.net
*****************************************************************
9 BBC: Experts seek clean, green power
Last Updated: Wednesday, 11 May, 2005
[Harlock Hill windfarm]
Britain aims to cut carbon emissions by a fifth by 2010
Scientists are due to take part in a brainstorming session to
seek the future's clean, green energy sources.
Energy experts from the world's leading economies will join a
two-day workshop at Oxford University to find solutions to the
global warming crisis.
The scientists will present the fruits of their deliberations to
a meeting of the G8 of key industrialised nations in Gleneagles
in Scotland in July.
Tony Blair has made tackling climate change a priority of his G8
leadership.
The conference, at St Anne's College, Oxford, will also involve
experts from the G8 states and the five largest developing
nations; China, India, Brazil, South Africa and Mexico.
'Nuclear issue'
It is hoped the sharing of any technological advances with these
states will help reduce any environmental damage associated with
their economic development.
A spokesman for the Department of Productivity, Energy and
Industry said the technical workshop aimed to bring together and
co-ordinate international thinking on sustainable energy
research.
The event, organised by the government-backed UK Energy Research
Centre, comes as the debate over whether to expand Britain's
nuclear power capacity is reignited.
Documents leaked at the weekend revealed that the new energy
minister Alan Johnson is being urged to consider the "nuclear
issue" shortly.
CO2
This has sparked fears among environmentalists that the
government was about to embark on a huge nuclear power station
building programme.
The government gas pledged to cut carbon emissions (at 1990
levels) by 20% by 2010 and energy firms are being required to
source a proportion of the energy they sell from renewable
sources.
Mr Blair has said he does not want to "shut the door" to nuclear
energy.
But in an interview in the Guardian, the government's chief
scientist Sir David King said reports of an immediate return to
nuclear power were premature.
He said: " This is an issue we will have to re-examine but not
yet."
*****************************************************************
10 Japan Times: IRKING RUSSIA, CHINA - Japan's new foreign policy
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
By DAVID WALL Special to The Japan Times
LONDON -- As Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has traveled about
and made his speeches in recent months, it is possible to trace
his perception of a new foreign policy for Japan.
The new focus in Japan's foreign policy seems to have started
last Sept. 2 when Koizumi took a boat ride around the Northern
Territories, the four islands (also known as the southern
Kurils) that the Russians occupied at the end of World War II.
Disputing claims of sovereignty over them have prevented the two
countries from signing a peace agreement 60 years after the end
of the war.
When Koizumi went around the islands, he declared them to be
Japanese territory. He held off from actually going ashore, but
his declaration was sufficient to seriously damage Japan's
relations with Russia.
Koizumi had thought that by offering billions of dollars of
Japanese tax-payers' money to help Russia build pipelines to
exploit its gas deposits in Siberia, he could ensure that those
pipelines would bypass China and deliver the gas to ports north
of Vladivostok, convenient for shipping to Japan.
Russia has now announced that it will probably build a pipeline
into China first. This has produced some spluttering in Tokyo
among politicians who thought that the pipeline was in the bag.
They should reread the anti-Russia nationalist speech that
Koizumi made as he traveled around the islands.
In December, Japan announced that its commitment to work with
the United States on developing antimissile defense technology
was aimed at the threat from China. Until then, public
discussion had made North Korea the fantasy threat to justify
joining America's Theater Missile Defense program -- not the
real existence of hundreds of nuclear armed missiles in China
capable of reaching all of Japan.
In February the Japanese government further upset the Chinese
by agreeing with the U.S. that Taiwan was a "common security
issue" in which the U.S.-Japan military alliance had an interest
doing "whatever it takes" to defend Taiwan, as U.S. President
George W. Bush put it. Although this was known to be the case
for some time, it was the first time that the Japanese
government had agreed to have it stated so publicly and so
baldly.
In the last six months, Koizumi has had several other
significant summit meetings. In November he met with President
Gloria Macapagal Arroyo of the Philippines and promised her that
Japan would press ahead with plans for a bilateral free-trade
agreement.
Later that month he met Vietnamese Prime Minister Phai Van Thai
in Hanoi and said that even though Japan was now in financial
difficulties it would still increase aid to Vietnam and support
its application to join the World Trade Organization.
In India, Koizumi followed in the footsteps of Chinese Premier
Wen Jiabao, who had signed an agreement with India's Premier
Manmohan Singh to establish "strategic partnership for peace and
prosperity." Singh said to Wen as he left that "we have started
to create new history together."
Koizumi and Singh signed an eight-point plan setting up a
"strategic and cooperative partnership." India's media reaction
was to describe Koizumi's visit as "Japan's PM in India to
strengthen ties amid rift with China."
In Pakistan, where the Chinese and Pakistani premiers had
strengthened their economic and military ties through an
"all-weather partnership of friendship, cooperation and good
neighborly relations" a few days earlier, Koizumi held
discussions on a wide range of bilateral issues. He trumped the
Chinese offers of friendship with a promise to restart the soft
loan aid program that Japan stopped after Pakistan tested its
nuclear weapons in 1998.
Upon hearing that, Pakistani President Shaukat Aziz said this
meant that Japan would regain its "position as Pakistan's
principal development partner."
With Taiwan, Vietnam, India and Pakistan, a pattern emerges.
Having gotten up Russia's nose with his trip to the southern
Kurils, Koizumi has moved on to the Chinese, who have been, as
you might imagine, irritated by these "containment activities."
After Pakistan, Koizumi traveled to Europe and pressed the
European Union to "proactively approach Japan and East Asia," as
this "should lead to the world's stability and prosperity." He
explained by telling the Europeans that Japan does not want the
EU to end its embargo on arms sales to China.
He also made it clear that he expects EU support for Japan's
bid for a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council. This
would be against the strongly expressed wish of China; China has
a veto on such decisions in the U.N., as does Russia.
In Europe, Koizumi has pressed the EU to locate the new $10
billion nuclear fusion research station in Japan rather than in
France. ITER is a massive new research project designed to
generate electricity from the sort of nuclear fusion that powers
the sun. The project will create about 10,000 jobs.
Japan is lobbying hard for ITER to be built in Japan. ITER is
being financed by Japan, the U.S., South Korea, the EU, Russia
and China. Russia and China have said they are against the
project being located in Japan. I wonder why.
David Wall is an associate fellow at Chatham House.
The Japan Times: May 11, 2005
(C) All rights reserved
*****************************************************************
11 [NukeNet] [UnplugSalem] NRC Public Meeting for PSEG June 8,
Date: Wed, 11 May 2005 16:24:16 -0700
NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net)
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
X-MIME-Autoconverted: from 8bit to quoted-printable by icewall5.peco.com id
j4BLt7L9004229
Hi all,
Please circle June 8th on your calendars and plan to attend this important
NRC meeting.
Due to a prior personal commitment that I can't get out of, I won't be
able to make
this meeting, so I really need some Unplug folks to step forward and agree
to attend.
Thanks
Norm
May 10, 2005
MN No. 05-026
U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
REGION I
NOTICE OF SIGNIFICANT MEETING
Licensee: PSEG Nuclear LLC
Facility: Salem and Hope Creek Nuclear Generating Stations
Docket Nos: 05000272, 05000311, 05000354
Date/Time: June 8, 2005 at 7:00 p.m.
Location: Bridgeport Holiday Inn
One Pureland Dr.
Interstate 295 at Exit 10
Swedesboro, NJ 08085
856-467-3322
Purpose: This is an NRC-requested management meeting with PSEG, open to
public
observation, to discuss the NRC’s assessment of the safety performance at
the
Salem and Hope Creek Generating Stations for calendar year 2004 and to
review PSEG actions to improve performance in the following areas:
! Safety conscious work environment;
! Problem identification and resolution;
! Procedure adherence and other elements of human performance; and
! Quality of engineering products particularly as they relate to
evaluation of
degraded equipment and associated operational decision making.
These areas were identified in the NRC’s July 30, 2004 letter to PSEG
regarding
the work environment at the Salem and Hope Creek Generating Stations and in
our March 2, 2005 letters that transmitted our annual assessments of the
performance at Salem and Hope Creek.
NRC Attendees: S. Collins, Regional Administrator
A. Blough, Director, Division of Reactor Safety
E. Cobey, Chief, Projects Branch 3
D. Orr, Senior Resident Inspector, Salem
M. Gray, Senior Resident Inspector, Hope Creek
2
PSEG Attendees: W. Levis, President and Chief Nuclear Officer
T. Joyce, Site Vice President, Salem
G. Barnes, Site Vice President, Hope Creek
M. Gallagher, Vice President, Engineering and Technical Support
C. Perino, Director, Licensing and Nuclear Safety
Public Participation: This is a Category 1 Meeting. The public is invited
to observe this
meeting. The NRC will answer questions from the public following the
business portion of the meeting.
Background information can be found at the Hope Creek and Salem web-page
on the NRC’s
website at:
http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/plant-specific-items/hope-creek-salem-issues.html.
The
NRC’s assessment letters for Salem and Hope Creek can be located in ADAMS
with accession
numbers ML050610352 and ML050610334 respectively. This meeting notice,
with the attached
meeting agenda, can also be located in ADAMS with accession number
ML051290287.
ADAMS is accessible at: www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html.
Additional information relative to the NRC’s Annual Assessment process and
the safety
performance of Salem and Hope Creek can be found on the NRC’s web site at:
http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/index.html
Meeting Contact: Eugene W. Cobey, Chief, Projects Branch 3
610-337-5171
E-mail: ewc@nrc.gov
• Handicapped persons requiring assistance to attend the meeting shall
make their
requests known to the NRC meeting contact no later than two business days
prior to the
meeting. Attendance by other NRC personnel at this meeting should be made
known
by June 1, 2005, via telephone to the NRC meeting contact.
Approved by: /RA/
Eugene W. Cobey, Chief
Projects Branch 3
Division of Reactor Projects
3
Distribution:
W. Levis, President and Chief Nuclear Officer, PSEG Nuclear LLC
T. Joyce, Site Vice President - Salem
G. Barnes, Site Vice President - Hope Creek
M. Gallagher, Vice President - Engineering and Technical Support
W. F. Sperry, Director - Business Support
C. Perino, Director - Regulatory Assurance
C. J. Fricker, Salem Plant Manager
M. Massaro, Hope Creek Plant Manager
J. J. Keenan, Esquire
M. Wetterhahn, Esquire
Consumer Advocate, Office of Consumer Advocate
F. Pompper, Chief of Police and Emergency Management Coordinator
J. Lipoti, Ph.D., Assistant Director of Radiation Programs, State of New
Jersey
K. Tosch - Chief, Bureau of Nuclear Engineering, NJ Dept. of Environmental
Protection
H. Otto, Ph.D., DNREC Division of Water Resources, State of Delaware
N. Cohen, Coordinator - Unplug Salem Campaign
W. Costanzo, Technical Advisor - Jersey Shore Nuclear Watch
E. Zobian, Coordinator - Jersey Shore Anti Nuclear Alliance
Regional Administrator Secretary, RI
DRP Division Secretary, RI
DRS Division Secretary, RI
DNMS Division Secretary, RI
DRM Division Secretary, RI
Region I Receptionist
Region I Docket Room (with concurrences)
4
Agenda
NRC’s Annual Assessment Meeting
Salem and Hope Creek Nuclear Generating Stations
June 8, 2005
• Introductions and Opening Remarks
• Review of Reactor Oversight Process
• National Summary of Plant Performance
• Discussion of Salem and Hope Creek Performance
• PSEG Response
• PSEG Presentation on Progress to Improve Performance in the
Following Areas:
• Work Environment;
• Problem Identification and Resolution (PI&R);
• Human Performance; and
• Quality of Engineering Products.
• Break
• NRC to address public questions *
NRC / PSEG
NRC
NRC
NRC
PSEG
PSEG
All
NRC / Public
* Note: In the interest of better meeting the information needs of the
public, meeting
participants are encouraged to contact Eugene Cobey of the NRC prior to
the meeting to
present topics of interest they want to discuss at this question and
answer session.
5
Distribution w/encl: (Via E-Mail):
Executive Director for Operations, OEDO, (RIDSEDOMAILCENTER)
Deputy Executive Director for Reactor Programs, OEDO, (RIDSEDOMAILCENTER)
Director, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, NRR, (RIDSNRROD)
Deputy Director, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, NRR/ADPR,
(RIDSNRROD)
Director, Division of Regulatory Improvement Programs, NRR, (RIDSNRRDRIP)
Director, Division of Inspection Program Management, NRR, (RIDSNRRDIPM)
Director, Division of Licensing Project Management (RIDSNRRDLPM)
Project Directorate I-1 (PD1/2), NRR (RIDSNRRDIPMLPDI)
Asst General Counsel Materials Litigation and Enforcement, OGC,
(RIDSOGCMAILCENTER)
S. Collins, RA
J. Wiggins, DRA
K. Farrar, RI, Regional Counsel
B. Holian, Acting Director, DRP
A. Blough, Director, DRS
E. Cobey, DRP
B. Welling, DRP
S. Lee, RI OEDO
R. Laufer, NRR
D. Collins, PM, NRR
D. Orr, SRI
M. Gray, SRI
D. Screnci, Sr. Public Affairs Officer, RI
N. Sheehan, Public Affairs Officer, RI
R. Bores, State Liaison Officer, RI
G. Matakas, ORA
PMNS
Region I Docket Room (with concurrences)
SISP Review Complete: ___EWC_______ (Reviewer’s Initials)
DOCUMENT NAME: E:\Filenet\ML051290287.wpd
After declaring this document “An Official Agency Record” it will be
released to the Public.
To receive a copy of this document, indicate in the box: "C" = Copy
without attachment/enclosure
"E" = Copy with attachment/enclosure "N" = No copy
OFFICE RI/DRP RI/DRP RI/DRP RI/DRS
NAME TWingfield/TVW ECobey/EWC BHolian/BEH ARBlough/ARB
DATE 05/09/05 05/09/05 05/09/05 05/09/05
OFFICE RI/PAO
NAME DScrenci/DPS
DATE 05/10/05
OFFICIAL RECORD COPY
--
Coalition for Peace and Justice
UNPLUG Salem Campaign; 321 Barr Ave, Linwood
NJ 08221; 609-601-8583; cell 609-742-0982
ncohen12@comcast.net; http://www.unplugsalem.org
http://www.coalitionforpeaceandjustice.org
"A time comes when silence is betrayal.
Even when pressed by the demands of
inner truth, men do not easily assume
the task of opposing their government's
policy, especially in time of war.
Nor does the human spirit move without
great difficulty against all the apathy
of conformist thought, within one's own
bosom and in the surrounding world."
- Martin Luther King Jr.
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321 Barr Ave; Linwood NJ 08221
609-601-8583/8537
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12 NRC: NRC to Conduct Special Inspection at Waterford Nuclear Plant
News Release - Region IV - 2005-01
U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Office of Public Affairs, Region IV
No. IV-05-019 May 9, 2005
CONTACT: Victor Dricks
Phone: 817-860-8128
E-mail: opa4@nrc.gov
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will conduct a special
inspection into unexpected conditions that developed while
operators were preparing the reactor at the Waterford 3 nuclear
plant for refueling. Entergy Operations runs the plant, located
near Taft, La.
On April 19, operators were lowering the level in the reactor
coolant system in preparation for lifting the reactor vessel
head to begin refueling. Because operators failed to open valves
for air to enter the reactor coolant system as the water level
was lowered, vapor bubbles formed. The bubbles were pushed
through the shutdown cooling system, causing flow to fluctuate.
When operators attempted to open an access hatch in the
pressurizer, they subsequently discovered that a vacuum had
formed in the reactor coolant system. The vacuum condition was
then corrected. Although there was no immediate safety concern,
following analysis, the NRC staff has decided to examine the
circumstances leading up to the event in a more detailed way
using a special inspection.
While public health and safety were not impacted by this event,
we have questions about operator performance and plant
configuration control that need to be answered, Region IV
Administrator Bruce S. Mallet said. If there are lessons to be
learned from this event, we will share them with other nuclear
plant operators.
The NRC will dispatch a three-person special inspection team to
the site in June to better understand the circumstances
associated with the event, the licensees response to it, and its
risk significance. Prior to the teams arrival on site, resident
inspectors are continuing to monitor the licensees ongoing
review of the event.
The NRC inspection team includes specialists from the Region IV
office in Arlington, Texas. The team is expected to spend about
one week on site before returning to the regional office, where
information they gather will be analyzed and evaluated.
The report of the special inspection will be publicly available
when it is issued, about 30 days after the close of the special
inspection. It will be posted in the NRCs electronic reading
room at: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams/web-based.html. To
locate the report, once it is issued, enter the docket number
for the Waterford plant (50-382) in the search phrase box.
Last revised Tuesday, May 10, 2005
*****************************************************************
13 Deutsche Welle: Germany Shuts Down Atomic Reactor
11.05.2005
[Environment Minister JĂĽrgen Trittin wants to shut off all
nuclear plants ]
Germany closed down a second atomic reactor -- also the country's
oldest -- on Wednesday. The move is part of a government policy
to phase out nuclear power.
After nearly 37 years in operation, Germany's oldest atomic
reactor, in Obrigheim, was disconnected on Wednesday,
Baden-WĂĽrttemberg state officials said.
Energie Baden-WĂĽrttemberg (EnBW) said the shutdown would cost
some 500 million euros ($642 million). The three-phase shutdown
process is expected to last until around 2020, the company said.
Two down... 17 to go?
[Obrigheim nuclear plant]
Obrigheim is the second reactor that was shut down as a result
of national legislation agreed between the EnBW and the
red-green coalition government in the summer of 2000. The first
to close was E.ON's 672 mw Stade reactor, which was switched off
in November 2003.
The 340 megawatt Obrigheim reactor will be prepared for final
shut down over the course of the year. There are 17 other atomic
reactors still active in Germany.
But despite the German energy policy, nuclear power is back in
vogue elsewhere in Europe. Atomic reactors produce almost no
greenhouse gas emissions, unlike coal and gas power stations.
Debated issue
The policy of phasing out nuclear energy is still subject to
debate, however. Industry and political opposition want it to be
reviewed but the government is standing firm by the 2000
decision.
The southern German state's environment minister, Tanja Gönner,
told Reuters news agency she wants a discussion on the possible
lengthening of running times of EnBW's remaining nuclear
facilities in Baden-WĂĽrttemberg.
Baden-WĂĽrttemberg relies on nuclear energy for 55 percent of
its electricity. Replacing lost local nuclear power with
imported nuclear power from France or restarting idled coal
plants does not make sense, especially if Germany wants to meet
climate protection targets, Gönner said.
DW staff (jen)
[de:mehr] -->
[Info]
Nuclear Leak Sparks Renewed EU Concern
In the wake of a radioactive leak at the Sellafield nuclear
plant in England, the European Union is pushing for tougher EU
safety standards. (May 11, 2005)
Germany's "Electricity Rebels"
Germany's reputation for environmental friendliness may have
found its expression in the Black Forest citizens' initiative
that won a David and Goliath battle against the local
electricity provider. (April 18, 2005)
France Forges Ahead with Nuclear Power
Flamanville on Normandy's Atlantic Coast is already home to one
nuclear facility, and it's about to get another. Paris plans to
start building the first of a new generation of nuclear plants
in 2007. (Oct. 22, 2004)
[Feedback]
Should Germany shut down all of its atomic reactors? Please send
us an email, and include your name and country.
*****************************************************************
14 BBC: Germany shuts down nuclear plant
Last Updated: Wednesday, 11 May, 2005
[Obrigheim nuclear plant]
Germany plans to increase use of alternative energy sources
Germany has shut down its oldest nuclear reactor as part of the
country's plan to phase out nuclear power by 2020.
The 36-year-old 340-megawatt plant in the southwestern town of
Obrigheim was turned off at 0758 (0558 GMT), said energy firm
EnBW.
It is the second of Germany's 19 reactors to be closed down.
To replace the energy demands, the government is proposing
investment in other sources such as wind power.
Germany's nuclear programme and its efforts to reduce its
reliance on fossil fuels have made it a leader in efforts to
fulfil the Kyoto protocol.
But there have been concerns that the country could be creating
an energy crisis for itself.
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats and their
environmentalist Green partners in the ruling coalition reached
agreement with Germany's main energy providers in 2001 to phase
out nuclear power.
Wind power
Under the current legislation, each of Germany's 19 reactors will
be phased out on its 32nd birthday - at which point it is closed.
The first to close was the Stade nuclear reactor, near Hamburg,
which is now awaiting decommissioning.
Germany already produces 40% of all the world's wind power and
the hope is that by 2010, wind will meet 12.5% of German energy
needs.
The country has 16,000 wind turbines, mostly concentrated in the
north of the country, near the border with Denmark - including
the biggest in the world, owned by the Repower company.
Reuters says the Biblis A nuclear reactor, which has been used
since 1975, will be the next one to close in February 2007.
*****************************************************************
15 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Nuclear engineer arraigned in federal court
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
Gene J. Puskar, Associated Press
Mark Kaushansky arrives for arraignment yesterday in Federal
Court in Pittsburgh.
A former Westinghouse Electric Corp. nuclear engineer from
Monroeville made his first appearance in federal court yesterday
on charges that he helped Russia's former atomic energy minister
steal more than $9 million intended to improve nuclear safety in
Russia.
Mark M. Kaushansky, 53, was released on a $100,000 bond pending
his arraignment next week. He had no comment.
Federal prosecutors in Pittsburgh say he and Yevgeny Adamov, 66,
of Moscow, were business partners who conspired to divert money
that was supposed to be used to upgrade Russia's atomic power
plants.
Kaushansky, a Ukrainian immigrant, was working as an engineer at
Westinghouse in the late 1980s when he met Adamov and assisted
in translations for company officials during meetings with him.
Copyright ©1997-2005 PG Publishing Co., Inc. All Rights
*****************************************************************
16 Cincinnati Post: Regulators won't make merger easy
By Jon Newberry Post staff reporter
• Cinergy to buy Ind. plant
Cinergy Corp. and Duke Power Corp. want to complete their $9
billion merger by next summer, but getting the go-ahead from
regulators won't be a slam dunk, analysts say.
The deal could take longer to accomplish than the companies
projected on Monday when they gave summer 2006 as their target,
said Charles Fishman, a utility analyst with A.G. Edwards in St.
Louis.
"There's a few things going on that could make it take longer
than normal," he said.
The companies need approvals from utility regulators in five
states - Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, and North and South Carolina -
plus several more agencies on the federal level, including the
Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the
Justice Department, which has to review antitrust issues.
"There are lots of different entities that are party to the
process, and any one of them can be troublesome," said David
Burks, a utility analyst with Hilliard Lyons in Louisville.
One potential roadblock is an old federal law been dusted off in
another big utility merger.
Last week, an administrative law judge ruled that a 2000 merger
between Columbus-based American Electric Power and Central and
South West Corp. of Texas violated the federal Public Utilities
Holding Company Act of 1935 because it combined public utility
operations that are not confined to a single area or region.
The SEC had approved the merger in 2000 based on AEP's
commitment to link the Ohio and Texas utilities through leased
high-voltage transmission lines. But a federal appeals court in
2002 sent the decision back to the SEC after it was challenged
by the American Public Power Association and the National Rural
Electric Cooperatives Association.
Fishman said the ruling likely caught Duke and Cinergy by
surprise as they were preparing to unveil their merger proposal
Monday. They have not said how they plan to comply with the law,
except to note that an energy bill now working its way through
Congress includes a provision to repeal it.
Fishman said his main concern is that if the law isn't repealed,
the ruling will lead to tougher scrutiny by the SEC, which won't
begin its review until all state approvals have been obtained.
A spokesman for the rural electric coop group said it hasn't had
time to study the proposed Duke-Cinergy merger or poll its more
than 900 members.
"Where you're merging corporations of that size, smaller
utilities are going to be affected," said Patrick Lavigne.
The customer-owned utilities generally are concerned that a
merger might reduce competition for wholesale power, he said,
noting that its members buy about half of the power they
consume. Some also sell power, and all are inevitably dependent
on the transmission facilities of publicly owned utilities such
as Duke and Cinergy to move the power they generate, Lavigne
said.
Ohio and North Carolina regulators pose particular risks for
Cinergy and Duke, Fishman said.
Ohio is transitioning to a deregulated market for electric
generation and wants to keep Cinergy's cheap coal-fired power
for the benefit of Ohioans rather than have the company sell it
in higher-priced markets out of state. That has given Cinergy a
strong bargaining stance up until now, but the merger proposal
puts it in a weaker position because it now needs regulators'
approval, he said.
Publication date: 05-11-2005
Copyright2005 The Cincinnati Post, an E.W. Scrippsnewspaper.
*****************************************************************
17 NRC: NRC to Discuss 2004 Performance Assessment for LaSalle Nuclear Power Station
News Release - Region III - 2005-02
U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Office of Public Affairs, Region III
No. III-05-024 May 10, 2005
CONTACT: Jan Strasma (630) 829-9663
Viktoria Mitlyng (630) 829-9662 E-mail: opa3@nrc.gov
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will meet with
representatives of Exelon Generation Company on Tuesday, May 17,
to discuss the agencys assessment of safety performance for last
year at the LaSalle County Nuclear Power Station. The plant is
located near Seneca, Ill.
The meeting, which will be open to the public for observation,
is scheduled to begin at 3 p.m. at Brookfield Township Hall,
2099 E. 27th Road, Seneca.
Before the meeting is adjourned, NRC staff will be available to
answer questions from the public on the safety performance of
the LaSalle plant, as well as the role of the NRC in ensuring
safe plant operation.
The NRC continually reviews the performance of the LaSalle plant
and the nations other commercial nuclear power facilities, NRC
Region III Administrator James Caldwell said. This meeting will
provide an opportunity for a discussion of our annual assessment
of safety performance with the company and with local officials
and residents who live near the plant. Our goal is to explain
the NRC oversight process and make as much information as
possible available to the public regarding our regulation of
these facilities.
A letter sent from the NRC Region III Office to plant officials
addresses the performance of the plant during the period and
will serve as the basis for the meeting discussion. It is
available on the NRC web site:
http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/LETTERS/lasa_2004q4.pdf
[PDF Icon] .
The NRCs assessment concluded that the LaSalle plant operated
safely during the period. The NRC uses color-coded inspection
findings and performance indicators to assess nuclear plant
performance. The colors start with green and then increase to
white, yellow or red, commensurate with the safety significance
of the issues involved.
All of the NRC inspection findings and performance indicators
for LaSalle during 2004 were determined to be green. As a result
of this performance, the NRC will conduct the normal, baseline
level of inspections during the upcoming year.
During the year, however, NRC inspectors identified 10 instances
where human performance was not adequate, although all of the
incidents were of very low safety significance. The utility has
developed a comprehensive plan to address human performance
errors, but it is too soon to determine the effectiveness of the
plan.
Exelon is expected to discuss its efforts to improve human
performance during the May 17 meeting and to submit a written
report to the NRC.
Routine inspections at the LaSalle plant are performed by two
NRC Resident Inspectors assigned to the plant and by inspection
specialists from the Region III Office in Lisle, Ill., and the
agencys headquarters in Rockville, Md. Among the areas of plant
operations to be inspected this year by NRC specialists are fire
protection, maintenance, emergency planning, problem
identification and resolution, and environmental monitoring.
Current performance information for LaSalle is available on the
NRCs web site at:
http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/LASA1/lasa1_chart.html
and
http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/LASA2/lasa2_chart.html.
Last revised Tuesday, May 10, 2005
*****************************************************************
18 Lincoln County News: Maine Yankee Removes Railcars from Topsham
May 12, 2005
Maine Yankee has removed 26 railcars used for transporting low
level radioactive waste from a siding in Topsham.
Local residents complained about the railcars after they were
discovered near a residential area.
Complaints began after young people reported seeing the railcars
to their parents.
Maine Yankee had not reported to the residents that they would
be parked there for a while, company spokesman Eric Howes
admitted.
“Maine Yankee could have done a better job notifying the
people,” he said. “There was a lack of information.”
After hearing from residents of the subdivision, which is only
about 50 feet from the railroad siding area, the company recalled
the railcars to the Wiscasset plant site to avoid any further
problem.
“The issue has been resolved,” Howes said.
Both Topsham and Sagadahoc County emergency management officials
inspected the railcars and vicinity using detection equipment
after receiving permission from Maine Yankee and Maine Eastern
Railroad. They discovered no radioactivity other than is
naturally found in the environment, according to Howes.
“Part of the issue is that the siding is near a residential
area,” he said. “People are not used to having rail traffic in
that area.”
The company was to meet Monday at the Topsham library to discuss
the matter with concerned citizens and to answer any questions
they might have.
Maine Yankee has been transporting low level radioactive waste
in railcars to the Envirocare repository in Utah as part of the
decommissioning process to remediate the plant site in Wiscasset.
The company has been removing the soil around the Bailey Point
area which possibly contains a small amount of radioactivity.
To the Topsham residents concerned, any amount of radio-activity
raised red flags for them.
The railcars in question have since been moved to the plant
site. “Possibly more than likely they’re empty at this point,”
Howes said. “None of those cars were dripping.”
Railcars parked behind Taste of Maine Restaurant in Woolwich
also raised some concerns from residents and officials there as
well a couple of weeks before the Topsham issue.
The local health officer with the assistance of Maine Yankee
workers inspected the cars there and expressed satisfaction that
they posed no health risk to the community.
Both complaints surfaced after Envirocare issued a stop order
for Maine Yankee’s shipments to the dump site after discovering
water leakage from a few of the cars.
In response, Maine Yankee ordered 48 railcars headed for the
site to be returned. The situation has since been remedied by
inspecting the soil in the railcars and replacing deteriorated
sealant.
Vol. 130 - No. 19 [
This site is owned by Lincoln County News © 2002
*****************************************************************
19 NRC: NRC to Discuss 2004 Performance Assessment for Monticello Nuclear Power Plant
News Release - Region III - 2005-02
U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Office of Public Affairs, Region III
No. III-05-025 May 11, 2005
CONTACT: Jan Strasma (630) 829-9663
Viktoria Mitlyng (630) 829-9662 E-mail: opa3@nrc.gov
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will meet with
representatives of Nuclear Management Co. Thursday, May 19, to
discuss the agencys assessment of safety performance last year
at the Monticello Nuclear Power Plant. The plant is located in
Monticello, Minn.
The meeting, which will be open to public observation, is
scheduled to begin at 4 p.m. at the Monticello Community Center,
505 Walnut Street, Suite 4, Monticello.
Before the meeting is adjourned, NRC staff will be available to
answer questions from the public on the safety performance of
the Monticello plant, as well as the role of the NRC in ensuring
safe plant operation.
The NRC continually reviews the performance of the Monticello
plant and the nations other commercial nuclear power facilities,
NRC Region III Administrator James Caldwell said. This meeting
will provide an opportunity for a discussion of our annual
assessment of safety performance with the company and with local
officials and residents who live near the plant. Our goal is to
explain the NRC oversight process and make as much information
as possible available to the public regarding our regulation of
these facilities.
The NRCs assessment concluded that the Monticello plant operated
safely during the period. The NRC uses color-coded inspection
findings and performance indicators to assess nuclear plant
performance. The colors start with green and then increase to
white, yellow or red, commensurate with the safety significance
of the issues involved.
All of the inspection findings and performance indicators for
Monticello during 2004 were determined to be green. As a result
of this performance, the NRC will conduct the normal, baseline
level of inspections during the upcoming year.
Routine inspections are performed by two NRC Resident Inspectors
assigned to the plant and by inspection specialists from the
Region III Office in Lisle, Ill., and the agencys headquarters
in Rockville, Md. Among the areas of plant operations to be
inspected this year by NRC specialists are license renewal,
safety system design capability and modifications, and problem
identification and resolution.
A letter sent from the NRC Region III Office to plant officials
addresses the performance of the plant during the period and
will serve as the basis for the meeting discussion. It is
available on the NRC web site at:
http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/LETTERS/mont_2004q4.pdf
[PDF Icon] .
Current performance information for Monticello is available on
the NRCs web site at:
http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/MONT/mont_chart.html.
Last revised Wednesday, May 11, 2005
*****************************************************************
20 Monticello Times: NRC meeting draws light crowd
monticellotimes.com
Thursday, May 12, 2005
Eric O'Link News Editor
Turnout was relatively light at the first federal public meeting
in Monticello regarding extension of the operating license at
Monticello’s nuclear power plant.
About 25 people showed up for the Wednesday, April 20, evening
meeting. The majority of those were from either the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission (NRC), a state agency, Xcel Energy, which
owns the plant, or Nuclear Management Company, which operates it.
Less than a dozen were members of the public, and though the
discussion did have a few livelier moments, it remained civil.
The NRC’s Daniel Merzke, project manager with the Office of
Nuclear Reactor Regulation in Washington, D.C., gave a thorough
presentation on the NRC’s role in the Monticello plant’s license
renewal process.
“We find it very important to keep the public informed about
what we’re doing,” he said.
In March, Xcel Energy filed an application with the NRC to
extend Monticello Nuclear Generating Plant’s operating license
by 20 years. The current license expires in 2010, and if the
license renewal request is not granted, the plant would have to
shut down at that time.
Merzke explained that the NRC would perform a series of
extensive inspections and evaluations of the plant and its
systems, including on-site audits. The NRC will verify, during
its safety and technical reviews, that the plant and its reactor
can continue to operate safely during the license extension
period, 20 years in this case.
Periods of public comment
He also outlined some of the opportunities the public will have
to comment on the process. Several public meetings or comment
periods will occur between now and the NRC’s decision, expected
sometime in 2007.
The most imminent public comment opportunity will begin next
month, when the NRC dockets Xcel’s application and issues a
notice of opportunity for a public hearing. Merzke said that
would probably happen during the first two weeks of May.
Once the opportunity for public hearing notice is issued, the
public has 60 days to file a request for a hearing. A group of
administrative law judges reviews hearing requests and grants
them provided the person or organization that filed the request
could be adversely affected by the plant’s adversely affected by
the plant’s continuing to operate until 2030.
A schedule of future public meetings is also expected in early
May, with the docketing of Xcel’s application.
Merzke took questions throughout Wednesday’s meeting, but his
presentation turned into more of an open discussion near its
end. A few people who attended voiced concerns about access to
information throughout the process. But while the discussion was
frank, it remained courteous.
The subject of spent fuel rod waste in dry cask storage also
came up, though Xcel’s request for outdoor waste storage at the
Monticello plant is being handled by the state, not the NRC.
A unique situation
Chief among those who commented was George Crocker, executive
director of the North American Water Office, based in Lake Elmo.
His organization fought similar waste storage at Xcel’s Prairie
Island nuclear plant near Red Wing more than 10 years ago.
Crocker said it seemed like there was some confusion over
environmental impact statements (EIS) and where the information
for each EIS would be available. While the NRC is handling the
EIS for license renewal, the Minnesota Environmental Quality
Board is overseeing the EIS related to waste storage.
Merzke admitted that the process was confusing, at least
initially.
“I believe there was some confusion over jurisdiction, who has
responsibility for what, environmental impact statements, who’s
issuing what,” he said.
After the meeting, Merzke told the Times that Monticello’s
situation is unique because the NRC has never handled a license
renewal request at the same time a plant is working on a dry
storage facility, known in the industry as an ISFISI. That is
further complicated by Minnesota’s requirements for the process,
he continued, including the opportunity for the legislature to
consider and act on the storage facility during its session.
“We’ve haven’t had an application where we’ve had to deal with
an applicant submitting a request to build an ISFISI at the same
time (as license renewal), plus the fact that Minnesota has some
unique state regulations regarding that that we have to deal
with at the same time,” Merzke said. “It’s a very unique
situation.”
Pointed discussion
During the meeting, Crocker said he wanted to be pointed.
“Here we have these two proceedings coming at us at the same
time, and we don’t have anywhere near the resources that the
industry has...and we don’t even know where to go to figure out
what’s supposed to be in the EIS to deal with the state issue or
federal issue,” Crocker said. “Where’s your efficiency in terms
the review?”
NRC officials at the meeting responded that they were just
starting the process.
“We’re kind of catching up because the certificate of need was
applied for a few weeks back,” Merzke said, “well before the
application was submitted.”
“If you’re playing catch-up, where does that leave us?” Crocker
asked.
Merzke said the NRC “bends over backwards” to be open to the
public.
“And we appreciate that,” Crocker said. “We’re glad you’re here,
don’t get us wrong.”
The discussion wandered from waste storage to where public
information was available about gasses released from the plant.
Small amounts of radioactive gasses that have been allowed to
decay are sometimes released from the plant’s tower.
Kevin Krone, a resident of Monticello Township, is the plant’s
closest neighbor. He lives about a half-mile from the reactor
building and, with his wife Jonay, was at Wednesday’s meeting.
“This whole business about them releasing gasses into the air, I
don’t care if it’s in a different form or not, now, to say it’s
all right, they don’t live next to the plant,” he said. “I’m
just really concerned. I try to ask a simple question about
where I can review this information, it took half an hour to get
a simple answer. I’m not real comfortable with the storage
facility.”
After the meeting, Merzke reiterated that the federal license
renewal process and the state waste storage approval were
separate things.
“The ISFISI is actually outside the scope of what license
renewal is all about,” he said. “People are trying to tie the
two together, but they’re not, they’re separate issues. We can
go ahead and issue a renewed license if it comes to that, and
they might not get approval to build the ISFISI.”
If that’s the case, he added, Xcel and Nuclear Management Co.
would have to come up with a new solution for dealing with the
spent fuel rods–or shut down the plant.
Merzke also said the NRC’s Web site, www.nrc.gov, was a good
source of information about the process. Public documents are
available for review on the Web site and meeting dates will be
posted there.
He said the government’s computerized filing system for public
documents is “good if you know exactly what you’re looking for.”
But if a user does not have that exact information, “it can be a
little frustrating.”
“The information is out there,” he said. “If they search hard
enough, they’ll find it. We’re not trying to hide it, it just
sometimes presents a challenge, even for me, to find a document.”
He emphasized that the NRC is trying to be as open about the
license renewal process.
“License renewal is one of the most open topics out there,” he
said. “We don’t want any surprises; we want everybody to know
what’s going on.”
Copyright 2005, Monticello Times
*****************************************************************
21 AFP: North Korea finishes removing spent fuel rods from nuclear reactor
Wednesday May 11, 08:28 PM
SEOUL (AFP) - North Korea says it has completed removing spent
fuel rods from a nuclear reactor in a key step towards the
manufacture of more nuclear weapons.
Some 8,000 spent fuel rods had been removed from a five megawatt
nuclear reactor at North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear complex, a
foreign ministry spokesman said Wednesday through the country's
official Korean Central News Agency, according to Yonhap news
agency.
The move sparked speculation North Korea was pushing ahead with
its nuclear weapons program using plutonium. Experts say the
Stalinist country can acquire enough plutonium to make several
nuclear bombs.
The Yongbyon reactor was frozen under a 1994 accord with the
United States but North Korea has vowed get it running again.
On February 10 Pyongyang said it had nuclear weapons and planned
to build more.
More recently it shut down its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon, 90
kilometres (55 miles) north of Pyongyang, and said it planned to
reprocess spent fuel rods, leading experts to conclude that it
could produce enough plutonium for several more bombs within a
few months.
Copyright © 2005 AFP. All rights reserved. All information
*****************************************************************
22 NRC: NRC to Present Preliminary Findings of Millstone 3 Special Inspection
News Release - Region I - 2005-02
U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Office of Public Affairs, Region I No. I-05-028
May 11, 2005 CONTACT: Diane Screnci (610) 337-5330 Neil A.
Sheehan (610) 337-5331 E-mail:
The preliminary results of an NRC special inspection conducted
following an April 17th shutdown of the Millstone Unit 3 nuclear
power plant will be presented at a meeting of Connecticuts
Nuclear Energy Advisory Council (NEAC) on Wednesday, May 18. The
session is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. at Waterford Town Hall,
at 15 Rope Ferry Road in Waterford, Conn.
Members of the public are invited to observe the NRC
presentation. Prior to adjournment, attendees will have an
opportunity to ask questions of NRC staff regarding the special
inspection preliminary results.
The Millstone 2 and 3 nuclear power plants are located in
Waterford and operated by Dominion Resources. During the April
17th event, the Millstone 3 unit experienced an automatic
shutdown from full power. The event also involved the activation
of one of two safety subsystems. As the reactor was shutting
down, multiple steam line safety valves lifted and at least one
main steam safety valve appeared to remain open. It was the
apparent failure of the valve to reclose that resulted in the
declaration of an Alert the second-lowest of four levels of
emergency classification. Subsequent review determined that the
valve did in fact close.
There were no injuries due to the event and any releases of
radioactivity were small and well below allowable federal
limits.
An NRC special inspection team, consisting of four full-time and
three part-time inspectors, was dispatched to the site on April
20 to evaluate the circumstances surrounding the event. After
presenting its preliminary findings on May 18, the team will
document its findings and conclusions in a report to be issued
within 45 days.
Last revised Wednesday, May 11, 2005
*****************************************************************
23 Guardian Unlimited: N. Korea Removes Nuclear Rods From Reactor
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Wednesday May 11, 2005 12:01 PM
AP Photo SEL104
By BURT HERMAN
Associated Press Writer
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea said Wednesday it had
completed removing spent nuclear fuel rods from a reactor at its
main nuclear complex - a move that could allow it to harvest
more weapons-grade plutonium - in the communist state's latest
provocation amid a deadlock in disarmament talks.
A North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman said the country had
``successfully completed'' removing 8,000 fuel rods from the
reactor at Yongbyon, according to a statement carried by the
North's official Korean Central News Agency.
The step comes after South Korean officials confirmed last month
that the Yongbyon reactor was shut down, which would allow the
rods to be removed and be reprocessed to extract weapons-grade
plutonium. The North didn't specifically say Wednesday it would
take such a step.
``We are continuing to take necessary measures to increase (our)
nuclear arsenal for self-defense purposes,'' the unnamed
spokesman said.
Experts have earlier said reprocessing 8,000 spent nuclear fuel
rods could yield enough plutonium for between five to eight
nuclear bombs, depending on the weapon design. To get the
plutonium, the rods would first need to cool for a couple months
and then be reprocessed, which also takes a couple months.
North Korea kicked out international nuclear inspectors in late
2002, making it impossible to verify their latest claim.
The North Korean spokesman noted Wednesday that the country had
already announced plans to operate its 5-megawatt reactor at
Yongbyon, some 50 miles north of Pyongyang, and resume
construction on a bigger reactor there because the United States
pulled out of a 1994 deal on the North's nuclear program.
U.S. officials accused the North of running a secret uranium
enrichment program in 2002 in violation of the earlier deal made
under the Clinton administration, sparking the latest nuclear
crisis.
Worries have also grown recently that the North is preparing to
conduct a nuclear test, with U.S. officials saying last week
that spy satellites show activity in northeastern Kilju -
including tunnel digging and the construction of a reviewing
stand a sufficient distance away - that could indicate such a
move.
On Tuesday, the North's main newspaper alleged the United States
was making a ``fuss'' by spreading reports of alleged test
preparations. However, the commentary in the state-run Rodong
Sinmun daily didn't deny the North was planning a test.
Amid the tension, International Atomic Energy Agency chief
Mohamed ElBaradei said over the weekend that Pyongyang already
had enough plutonium to make up to six bombs.
International disarmament talks with North Korea - including
China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States - have
been stalled since last June, with Pyongyang insisting it won't
return until Washington drops its ``hostile'' policy.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
24 [NYTr] US Secretly Kept Nukes at Canada Base: US Vet
Date: Wed, 11 May 2005 13:07:54 -0500 (CDT)
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
sent by mart
CBC - National News - Tue, 10 May 2005
http://www.cbc.ca/storyview/MSN/world/national/2005/05/10/argentia-cancer050510.html
Ex-marine claims nuclear weapons stored at Nfld. base
FT. LAUDERDALE, FLA. - An American veteran who says he guarded a secret
stash of nuclear weapons in Newfoundland claims his government would rather
see him dead than admit to violations of international law.
Almon Scott, who worked as a guard at the Argentia military base between
1963 and 1965, claims that years before Ottawa allowed nuclear weapons on
Canadian soil, he was guarding them at a secret weapons lab in Placentia
Bay.
Scott, who is dying, blames the cancer in his blood and bones on his duties
four decades ago.
He claims the U.S. government is not only refusing to help him, but will not
give the veteran his own service records because that would mean admitting
to its ally that it had nuclear materials on Canadian soil without informing
the government.
Scott, now 65, said that when he was a young marine assigned to duties at
the military base in Argentia, he did what he was told.
"It was a different time. We did our duty, and we didn't ask questions," he
said.
With top-secret clearance, Scott said he was assigned to guard duty at a
heavily barricaded weapons laboratory.
It was there, he claims, that he was exposed to nuclear weapons.
The U.S. government says there is no proof Scott was exposed to nuclear
material at Argentia.
The Department of Foreign Affairs told the CBC any questions about nuclear
weapons at Argentia would have to go through the Access to Information Act.
Like other American military facilities in Newfoundland and Labrador, the
U.S. naval base and air station at Argentia was built during the Second
World War.
Strategically important to North Atlantic activities during the war, the
base was also key during the Cold War, with many of its activities
considered secret.
The base closed in 1994. Cleanup efforts are still continuing.
***
Scripps Howard via Knoxville Studio - May 9, 2005
http://www.knoxstudio.com/shns/story.cfm?pk=RADIATION-05-09-05&cat=WW
40 years later, a Cold War mission still haunts him
By AMIE PARNES
Scripps Howard News Service
As a doe-eyed young Marine during the height of the Cold War, he didn't know
specifically what he was guarding.
But he knew it was important, and that was what mattered - mattered enough
to him that he spent more than 14 months on a North Atlantic Navy base,
looking for any sign of Soviets through the thick of the exhausts, not
knowing a thing about what was happening in the facility beneath him, only
assuming.
And when the lance corporal left the Argentia Naval Base in Newfoundland, he
was sworn to never say anything about what he saw or didn't see.
Scott kept his word.
Forty years later, that secret, that very question what exactly he was
- guarding in the bitter cold of Newfoundland - haunts
him.
Scott, now a 64-year-old Stuart, Fla., resident, is crippled by multiple
myeloma, a cancer that spread through his blood and has eaten away at his
bones. It is a disease he believes he acquired while guarding the top-secret
nuclear-weapons facility on the base.
Still, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs denies the condition is
connected to Scott's service.
He doesn't qualify for disability payments.
Hazardous duty
Scott claims that during his time at the Argentia base between 1963-1965, he
and other Marines were tasked with protecting the materials used by the U.S.
Navy for highly classified research and development work involving
underwater weapons - some of them nuclear - and systems that included
elements of ionizing radiation and toxic chemicals.
Time and again, Scott said, he acted as an armed escort as planes carrying
research and development materials arrived in the dark of night on an
isolated runway. Without protection, he sometimes helped move the material
onto the planes and even assisted at crash sites that he believes exposed
him to radiation.
But the Navy, the Defense Department and the VA have repeatedly denied
Scott's claims. No one in the federal government will reveal what he was
guarding.
The battle escalated to another level more than two years ago when Rep. Mark
Foley, R-Fla., became involved.
Frustrated with the lack of response from government agencies, Foley has
asked the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs to investigate the matter.
Foley said the Navy repeatedly asked the Canadian government for nuclear
rights at the Argentia base, but did not receive approval until 1967, three
years after Scott was discharged.
In a letter to the committee, Foley wrote that Scott was denied VA benefits
because "the U.S. was likely in violation of international law and will not
admit it stored hazardous materials at the research lab at the Argentia
base."
"To the best of my knowledge," Foley wrote to committee Chairman Steve
Buyer, R-Ind., "his service medical records have never been produced, yet
the VA determined his illness to be unconnected to his service."
Foley said in an interview that there is "clear, compelling evidence in the
Scott case and everything seems to say he is in the right.
"If he told me he was having hearing problems because he used to fire off
cannons, I would have a hard time believing it. A lot of people have a hard
time hearing and they've never been near a gun," Foley said. "But this is
different. He has a cancer that is directly linked to radiation."
The agencies involved in the case are "hiding behind the veil of secrecy,"
he said. "The answer lies in what he was guarding."
Claim juggling
When he tells the story of the day he joined the Marine Corps, his eyes
begin to water.
As a 17-year-old with little direction and guidance, Scott walked into a
Marine Corps office in Nyack, N.Y., and talked to a recruiter about signing
up. Just the Marine uniform was enough of a selling point. "You walk in and
talk to a guy dressed in blue and you're done."
But mostly, Scott felt like he was a part of something important. After
training in South Carolina, he was shipped to Vieques, Puerto Rico, then to
the Argentia base in Newfoundland. Several months after he got there, he was
given top-secret clearance and ordered by superiors "not to ever say a damn
thing about it."
"The fact of the matter is, I was there guarding some of the most
top-secret, hazardous material in a top-secret location with the most
protected movement of such material," Scott said, sitting in a beige leather
chair in his living room, where he spends his days, unable to move very far.
"I don't wish to reveal anything or to know anything except what is obvious
to me."
Scott's story and his claim bounced from one agency to another.
In May 2003, the Naval Dosimetry Center, which analyses exposure to
radiation, responded to a VA request for information, stating there weren't
any records of occupational exposure to ionizing radiation pertaining to
Scott. The center suggested that Scott's service medical records be
examined.
But to date, no one has been able to locate the medical records. Both the
Naval Dosimetry Center and the VA say the records are "unavailable."
Still, despite numerous appeals, the VA determined that his illness is
unrelated to his service. In a VA letter written to Scott in June, the
agency denied him benefits.
"Entitlement to service connection for multiple myeloma is denied because
this condition neither occurred in nor was caused by service," the letter
states. "Evidence of record does not show that you were exposed to toxic
material in service and there is no evidence of exposure to ionizing
radiation to invoke the statutory provisions of presumption for the claimed
disability."
It was the latest disappointment for Scott in a four-year battle to find the
truth behind the walls of bureaucracy.
The illness started with a sharp pain in Scott's hip. First, the doctors
told him he had arthritis. They sent him home and told him to take aspirin
to take away the pain. But the pain persisted and spread. Suddenly, he hurt
all over - in his back, his chest.
He went to another doctor at the VA hospital and this time the doctor broke
the news.
He had multiple myeloma: a rare bone cancer believed to be associated with
ionizing radiation and environmental exposure.
Scott searched his memory for a cause.
"How did this happen to me?" he thought. "And when?"
Almost instantly, he thought of Argentia.
Just a few months earlier, he remembered reading that thousands of U.S.
sailors were unknowingly exposed to potentially dangerous biological agents
as they were aboard the destroyer Power in the port at Newfoundland. The
test was conducted 22 days after Scott had been discharged from Argentia.
Thirty years later, the sailors received letters informing them about
possible exposure.
If the tests were being performed just after he left, he thought, he had
most likely helped to guard those biological agents in the nuclear facility
while he was there.
Just days after staring chemotherapy, he went searching for answers.
VA: evidence lacking
Even though the United States will not admit to storing nuclear weapons on
the naval base, documents released by the Canadian government indicate that
such weapons were there. Several reports also indicate that ships at the
military base were loaded with mustard gas and other toxic materials that
were later discarded off Canada's coast.
In a 2003 proceeding of Canada's Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries and
Oceans, consultants testified to members of the Canadian Senate that the
dumping of chemical munitions occurred during the Cold War through the
1970s.
And when the U.S. government finally turned over the base in 1994, it left a
huge cleanup effort that continues today.
Remediation officials said the cleanup effort included, among other things,
the treatment of a large volume of contaminated soil and removal of
hazardous materials, two potential causes of the bone cancer.
Scott presented this as evidence along with letters from his VA doctors and
asked the agency to give him "the benefit of the doubt," a code in their own
guidelines that said "when there is an approximate balance of positive and
negative evidence regarding any issue material to the determination of the
matter, the secretary shall give the benefit of the doubt to the claimant."
But officials in the VA regional office in St. Petersburg, Fla., say Scott
has not proven enough and "has yet to rebut the government's evidence."
One year to live
Already in the advanced stages of the cancer, with tumors the size of
baseballs, Scott said he initially filed his claim for service-connected
disability and pension in 2002 but never heard back from his local VA
office.
In the meantime, he was suffering. He was undergoing six separate
chemotherapy treatments, four of which took place five days a week, 24 hours
a day.
Scott has had more than 50 radiation treatments and a stem-cell transplant.
He began to look less and less like himself. In two months he lost more than
40 pounds. Once a hardy man with strong legs, he was forced to rely on a
walker and his 24-year-old son's arms for mobility.
Simple things became difficult. He couldn't sleep. He couldn't eat. He
couldn't go to the bathroom.
Around that time in late 2002, the doctor told him that he had a year to
live. Meanwhile, the bills grew at home.
When he didn't get a response from the VA, he called Foley's office and
asked for help.
Dying claim
For Dianne Robbins, a congressional aide in Foley's office, it all started
with a note.
"I thought it was a simple matter," she said. "I'll make a call to the
Veterans Affairs office and it'll be done. I thought it was routine
casework."
The note slowly grew into a thick case file and a three-year battle that
bounced from one agency to another. The case moved in "slow motion," Robbins
said.
Upset by the lack of response, Foley's office sent letters to the
secretaries of defense, navy and veterans affairs asking for an answer to
the question that haunts Scott.
"For the past twenty months, Mr. Scott and I have been fighting with the
Department of Defense for the answer to one question: What was Almon Scott
guarding?" Foley wrote in a letter to the VA regional office.
"The response has been deafening silence."
"Even my letters to the secretaries of Defense and the Navy remain
unanswered," he wrote. "I simply cannot comprehend nor accept the fact that
our country readily sends our men and women into dangerous situations and
then ignores their pleas for help when that service results in a terminal
illness."
To Robbins, who has worked on hundreds of veterans' cases in Foley's office,
the Scott case is the "most disturbing" she has seen. Robbins, who married
a naval aviator and had a brother who served in the Air Force, has always
believed her country would take care of those who served to protect it.
She has her doubts now, she said.
"It's very troubling," she said. "They're just waiting for him to die. And
unfortunately, when he dies, his claim dies with him."
***
CBC Newfoundland - May 10, 2005
http://stjohns.cbc.ca/regional/servlet/View?filename=nf-argentia-vet-050510
Exposed to nuclear materials at Argentia: vet
ST. JOHN'S - An American veteran who says he guarded a secret stash of
nuclear weapons in Newfoundland claims his government would rather see him
dead than admit to violations of international law.
Almon Scott, who worked as a guard at the Argentia military base in the
early 1960s, claims that years before Ottawa allowed nuclear weapons on
Canadian soil, he was guarding them at a secret weapons lab in Placentia
Bay.
Scott, who is now dying, blames the cancer in his blood and bones on his
duties four decades ago.
He claims the U.S. government is not only refusing to help him, but will not
give the veteran his own service records.
Scott, now 65, says when he was a young marine and assigned to duties at the
military base in Argentia, he did what he was told.
"It was a different time. We did our duty, and we didn't ask questions," he
says.
With top-secret clearance, Scott was says he was assigned to guard duty at a
heavily barricaded weapons laboratory.
It was there, he claims, he was exposed to nuclear weapons, weapons that
were not even supposed to be on Canadian soil.
The U.S. government says there is no proof Scott was exposed to nuclear
material at Argentia.
"I was exposed to ionizing radiation. I have the disease," he says.
"But my records are sealed because those weapons were not supposed to be in
Canada at that time."
The Department of Foreign Affairs told CBC any questions about nuclear
weapons at Argentia would have to go through the Access to Information Act.
Like other American military facilities in Newfoundland and Labrador, the
U.S. naval base and air station at Argentia was built during the Second
World War.
Strategically important to North Atlantic activities during the war, the
base was also key during the Cold War, with many of its activities - which
included surveillance - secret.
The base was closed in 1994.
*
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25 [du-list] DU bill
Date: Wed, 11 May 2005 14:42:22 -0700
Hi to everyone, HR6008 the bill calling for independent testing for DU
contamination in Gulf War vets passed the Ct. House of Reps' Appropriations
Committee with only 2 votes opposed, both Republicans. The pro-votes
included the other Repubs as well as all the Dems. Now we have the job of
getting it to the House floor before June and then to the Senate, hopefully
during this session.
Of course, this is only the beginning - a good one.
Stopping the military (and commercial) use of the mounting millions of tons
of waste product from uranium mining for nuclear reactors, ie uranium238
(DU) should be our long-range goal. Remember, of the total amount mined,
only about 2% , uranium235, is used in the nuclear reactor in the US; the
rest is waste, almost all u238 with a deadly lifetime of about 10-20 X its
half-life (including its products of disintegration) of about 4.5 BILLION
years, one particle of which, in the body, can cause illness and death,
this for the rest of the life of our planet.
Look what we've allowed to be done in our name!
Mitzi
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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26 Bradenton Herald: Lockheed uncovers workers' health files
| 05/11/2005 |
DONNA WRIGHT
Herald Staff Writer
Lockheed Martin Corp. has located medical records for former
Loral American Beryllium Co. employees.
Those health histories could help hundreds of former workers or
their survivors qualify for a federal benefits and compensation
program to aid employees sickened by exposure to toxic beryllium
dust.
For Merle Garrett of Lakeland, the missing records could be the
link to prove her deceased husband had lung problems consistent
with beryllium disease.
If the records provide the proof Garrett needs, the 73-year-old
widow could receive up to $150,000 in compensation for her
husband's illnesses through the Energy Employees Occupational
Illness Compensation Program, administered through the U.S.
Department of Labor.
The compensation and benefits program aids workers who made
parts for atomic weapons and nuclear guidance systems for the
U.S. Department of Energy during the Cold War.
Ray Stephens, former union negotiator at the Tallevast plant,
has been pressuring Lockheed for more than a year to come up
with the records.
The former union officer credits Sen. Bill Nelson and Rep.
Katherine Harris for their support in pressuring Lockheed to
find the missing records.
Gail Rymer, Lockheed Martin's communications director,
attributed the delay to sorting through "thousands of boxes of
records" the company acquired when it purchased the Loral
American Beryllium plant in 1996.
"That doesn't make sense to me in this computer age," said
Stephens.
Rymer notified Stephens on Tuesday that his medical records had
been found and should arrive within a week.
"I won't really believe it until I have those records in my
hands," said Stephens, who has already qualified for medical
treatment for beryllium sensitivity, a forerunner of chronic
beryllium disease.
Chronic beryllium disease can be fatal if not treated.
Rymer said that Lockheed has received seven requests so far and
that medical records have been found for all of those employees.
Joe Bivona, who worked at the Tallevast plant from 1981 until
the mid-1990s, requested his records and those of his deceased
wife, Cynthia, who also worked at the plant.
Cynthia Bivona died July 19, six months after she was diagnosed
with non-Hodgkins Lymphoma.
Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma has been traced to trichloroethylene, or
TCE, a carcinogenic solvent.
TCE was used extensively at the Tallevast plant to clean the
precision tooled beryllium parts during the machining process.
Bivona said each worker had a TCE bath at his or her work
station. Workers, he said, did not wear gloves or a mask when
working with the toxic solvent.
Bivona, 49, has been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and is
now on total disability. He believes both his illness and his
wife's cancer were caused by toxic exposure at the Tallevast
plant.
Bivona hopes the company medical records of annual physicals
will support his claims for compensation.
Rymer confirmed that Lockheed Martin has all the records still
existing from the old plant, but she could not promise those
records are complete and that records will be found for all
employees submitting requests.
Donna Wright, health and social services reporter, can be
reached at 745-7049 or at dwright@HeraldToday.com.
How to get records
Former Loral American Beryllium Co. workers can obtain medical
records by contacting Gail Rymer, communications director for
Lockheed Martin.
Write: 6801 Rockledge Dr., Bethesda, MD 20817
Call: (301) 897-6934
Fax: (301) 897-6252
E-mail: gail.rymer@lmco.com
Herald watchdog
This report is part of The Herald's in-depth coverage of toxic
contamination stemming from the former Loral American Beryllium
Co. in Tallevast.
HeraldToday.com
Find extensive coverage of Tallevast contamination and its
recovery online.
*****************************************************************
27 BBC: Europe stages nuclear crisis test
Last Updated: Wednesday, 11 May, 2005
[Chernobyl reactor]
The exercise tests lessons learned since the 1986 Chernobyl
disaster
Nuclear experts are simulating a major accident at a power plant
in Romania to test the global response to a disaster.
More than 60 countries are taking part in the 36-hour test,
organised by the UN atomic energy agency and centred on the
Cernavoda nuclear power station.
The test began at 0600 (0300 GMT) when nuclear fuel was said to
have spilled from a pipe in the core of the reactor.
Emergency response teams in Romania are tackling the situation,
while other countries are tracking nuclear fallout.
Full details are being kept secret to make the simulated accident
as real as possible for emergency teams.
The exercise was set to last through Wednesday night and for much
of Thursday.
Disaster unfolding
In the test scenario at Cernavoda - some 180km (120 miles)
south-east of the Romanian capital, Bucharest - a containment
vessel failed after a fuel leak in one of 300 pipes in the
reactor's nuclear core.
That allowed a major release of radioactive material into the
atmosphere.
Police cars toured the streets with a megaphone message to people
to stay at home, keep windows shut and drink only bottled water.
The BBC's Nick Thorpe, watching the exercise, said most people
appeared to ignore the warning, knowing it was a false alarm.
He said the distribution of "iodine tablets" (in truth, sweets)
at schools was more enthusiastically received.
Cernavoda mayor Gheorghe Hansa said they were learning where
improvements needed to be made.
"I personally hesitated for half an hour to give orders. I
realised later that I had hesitated," he said.
Lessons of Chernobyl
Romania's five international neighbours have been placed on
alert, while the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in
Vienna and World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva were also
contacted.
[A radiation warning sign]
One-fifth of Belarus' farming land is still contaminated by
Chernobyl
The last similar test was one held at the Gravelines nuclear
power plant on the northern coast of France in May 2001.
Planners hope to incorporate lessons learned in the 19 years
since the devastating Chernobyl accident in Ukraine.
Experts involved in planning the exercise have stressed the
likelihood of a major nuclear accident is very low, but
contingency plans must be in place.
Chernobyl was the world's worst civilian nuclear disaster and led
directly to the deaths of 30 workers at the reactor site, while
hundreds of others were treated in hospital.
About 6.7 million people were exposed to radiation fallout,
according to the WHO, which led to a 10-fold increase in thyroid
cancer among children in affected areas.
*****************************************************************
28 NRC: NRC Issues Confirmatory Order to R Engineering Consultants of Alaska
News Release - Region IV - 2005-02
U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Office of Public Affairs, Region IV
No. IV-05-020 May 10, 2005
CONTACT: Victor Dricks
Phone: 817-860-8128
E-mail: opa4@nrc.gov
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued a confirmatory
order requiring R&M Engineering Consultants of Fairbanks,
Alaska, to transfer two devices containing radioactive material
to an authorized licensee after the NRC found the company was
deliberately violating agency requirements. The order is
effective immediately.
The company holds an NRC license authorizing it to possess
portable density gauges containing sealed radioactive sources,
used by the construction industry to measure soil density.
An NRC inspection conducted in June 2004 identified an apparent
failure by the company to conduct leak tests of its gauges, as
required by its license. NRC staff also determined James
Wellman, the companys president, did not provide accurate
information when he told NRC inspectors that the leak tests had
been performed.
As part of an agreement made with the NRC, Wellman agreed to
transfer the companys two gauges to an authorized licensee and
request termination of R&Ms license. In consenting to the
issuance of the confirmatory order, he waived his right to a
hearing.
Any other person adversely affected by this order has 20 days to
request a hearing.
Last revised Wednesday, May 11, 2005
*****************************************************************
29 Pocatello Idaho State Journal: Radioactive 'seed' maker eyes Pocatello
POCATELLO - IsoRay Medical Inc., a Washington-based manufacturer
of medical isotopes used in the treatment of prostate cancer,
announced Wednesday it is considering moving its operations to
Pocatello as early as next year.
The company said in a news release it has spoken with state and
local government officials and economic leaders in an effort to
establish IsoRay as a leader in what it calls the "emerging
medical isotope industry," and to further attract additional
medical isotope manufacturers to "a site near the Idaho State
University campus."
IsoRay received Food and Drug Administration approval for its
Cesium-131 brachytherapy seeds for use in treating prostate
cancer in 2003. The company began production and marketing of
the treatment roughly a year later. The treatment involves the
placement of "radioactive seeds" about the size of an uncooked
piece of rice into or near a tumor.
"We are in discussions about what a development and economic
package would include," Roger Girard, IsoRay's chairman and
chief executive officer said. "It's clear that the leaders there
have a clear vision of how we can further Idaho's economic
goals."
A decision on where the company may relocate could come in
September.
"We're doing our due diligence in reviewing permanent site
options," Girard said. "Idaho and Washington have been
frontrunners from the beginning."
IsoRay's headquarters and production facilities employ 23
nationwide, and projects adding three to 10 employees per month
"as production ramps up."
Bannock Development Corporation Executive Director Ray Burstedt,
among those who are involved in discussions with IsoRay, said
the company already has a local relationship attracting it to
Pocatello. Although he could not say what local firm IsoRay is
working with, he did mention that the Idaho National Laboratory
would be pivotal to IsoRay's relocation.
"A lot of what they are doing would depend on facilities they
will use at Idaho National Laboratory," Burstedt said. "There is
a lot of work to be done coordinating that."
He said that developing the right relationship with the federal
site in southern Idaho is key to bringing IsoRay to Pocatello.
Burstedt also said that part of IsoRay's desire to relocate is
the passage of Washington's Initiative 297 by voters last fall.
The initiative, which took effect Dec. 1, bars the U.S.
Department of Energy from sending any nuclear waste from outside
the state to its Hanford nuclear reservation until all existing
waste is cleaned up.
"I-297 hit us between the eyes Dec. 1," Michael Dunlop, IsoRay's
chief financial officer told the Associated Press in January.
"Prior to that we had no other thought but to establish our
manufacturing base and company in the (Hanford area)."
The Energy Department responded by stopping cleanup at Hanford,
as well as any research involving radioactive material at
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, where IsoRay housed its
research and manufacturing operation.
IsoRay subsequently moved to an interim facility in Richland in
February while it searches for a permanent location.
"We're impressed with Isoray and their president. We are
grateful for their interest in Pocatello, Bannock County and
their potential partnership with Idaho State University," said
Idaho Director of Commerce and Labor Roger Madsen, who is part
of the discussions with IsoRay. "We are extremely anxious to see
them relocate their corporate headquarters to Idaho and
specifically Pocatello."
Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne, Pocatello Mayor Roger Chase, and
Idaho State University Vice President of Academic Affairs Robert
Wharton, were also among those taking part in the relocation
discussions with IsoRay. None were available for comment before
deadline Tuesday.
Burstedt said that once IsoRay makes its decision where to
relocate, it will still be a while before they open shop.
"It would probably take about a year for construction of a
site," Burstedt said. "Their plans are to be in a new facility
in 18 months."
The company said in a news release it has spoken with state and
local government officials and economic leaders in an effort to
establish IsoRay as a leader in what it calls the "emerging
medical isotope industry," and to further attract additional
medical isotope manufacturers to "a site near the Idaho State
University campus."">
This document was originally published online on Wednesday, May
11, 2005
Copyright © 2005 Pocatello Idaho State Journal
P O Box 431 Pocatello, ID 83204-0431
*****************************************************************
30 PISJ: Ball in Congress' court on downwinders' plight
Pocatello Idaho State Journal: Journal Views
A comprehensive study by The National Academies has confirmed
what should have been evident long ago - that fallout from
atomic weapons testing a half century ago was too widespread to
say that residents of only three states may have suffered from
ill effects.
Congress, lacking much science-based information, decreed in
1990 that only "downwinders" who lived in Arizona, Nevada and
Utah at the time of weapons testing would be eligible for
compensation under the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act. But
The National Academies' recent study found that most states, not
just three, were subject to possible nuclear contamination.
As a result, the study recommends Congress establish new
scientific criteria for awarding federal compensation to people
who developed certain cancers or other specific diseases as a
result of exposure to radioactive fallout. Any new individual
claim would have to be based on "probability of causation,"
otherwise known as "assigned share" - a method that is now
widely used in the courts and in other radiation compensation
programs. That means the claimant would have to show the
radiation exposure is likely the cause of an individual's
cancer. Significantly, the committee's study concluded that "in
most cases, it is unlikely that exposure to radioactive fallout
is a substantial contributing cause of cancer in downwinders."
Before the revised process is implemented, the National Cancer
Institute or some other responsible agency should conduct a
study to determine the likelihood that any individuals in a
given population - such as a group of people of similar age with
certain diseases who lived in particular places and consumed
similar amounts of potentially contaminated milk or food - might
meet the new eligibility criteria set by Congress.
It's clearly a massive task. But since it is impossible to say
that every cancer sufferer in the United States is a victim of
radioactive fallout who deserves compensation, the only
alternative would seem to be denial of benefits to anyone. That
is unacceptable.
"To be equitable, any compensation program needs to be based on
scientific criteria and similar cases must be treated alike,"
says committee chair R. Julian Preston, director, Environmental
Carcinogenesis Division, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
"The current geographic limitations are not based on the latest
science."
So what should an Idahoan with cancer do, if he or she believes
fallout may be to blame? Sen. Mike Crapo's vow that "I will
remain committed to assisting those in Idaho who deserve
compensation" suggests his office might continue to serve as the
touchstone for further information. Not all is lost, if Congress
adopts the recommendations of The National Academies. But it's
clearly going to take a while, and time is not often on the side
of cancer victims. Let's start today.
Ball in Congress' court on downwinders' plight
A comprehensive study by The National Academies has confirmed
what should have been evident long ago - that fallout from
atomic weapons testing a half century ago was too widespread to
say that residents of only three states may have suffered from
ill effects.">
This document was originally published online on Wednesday, May
11, 2005
Copyright © 2005 Pocatello Idaho State Journal
P O Box 431 Pocatello, ID 83204-0431
*****************************************************************
31 SR.com: Defense rests in Hanford downwinders case
By Jim Camden
Staff writer
May 11, 2005
A jury will begin deliberating Thursday whether radioactive
releases from Hanford caused cancer in nearby residents.
In a move that stunned lawyers representing the Hanford
Downwinders, attorneys defending the U.S. Department of Energy
rested their case today after calling just two experts to rebut
more than two weeks of testimony that linked cancer to the
production of nuclear weapons in south central Washington.
John D. Boice, an expert in cancer research, defended the
government’s Hanford Thyroid Disease Study, which concluded
there’s no way to tell whether any person’s thyroid disease is
the result of radiation released from the weapons plants.
“It was a fine study,” Boice said in response to a question from
lawyers representing the government. “It was remarkable in the
way it was conducted.”
But on cross examination, Boice was asked to read from a
standard textbook on cancer, a book to which he himself has
contributed. That book, which Boice agreed was “the Bible” for
cancer specialists, says there are only two known causes of
thyroid cancer – radiation and genetics.
Hanford U.S. District Judge William Fremming Nielsen told
attorneys to be ready to present closing arguments Thursday
morning to a jury that must first decide whether the nuclear
release were a cause of the Downwinders’ cancer. If the jury
rules that it was a cause, they will likely hear more testimony
before determining how much, if anything, they should receive in
damages.
*****************************************************************
32 Deutsche Welle: Nuclear Leak Sparks Renewed EU Concern
11.05.2005
[Part of Britain's Sellafield nuclear site was shut down after
the leak]
In the wake of a radioactive leak at the Sellafield nuclear plant
in England, the European Union is pushing for tougher EU safety
standards.
The European Commission is trying to introduce new legislation
that would create unified safety standards at nuclear plants
throughout the 25-member bloc.
Now, news of a radioactive leak at the Sellafield reprocessing
plant in northwestern England has lent the commission's arguments
more strength.
Enough nuclear waste "to half-fill an Olympic-sized swimming
pool" leaked from a cracked pipe at the plant, according to a
report in British daily The Guardian. The fluid, a uranium and
plutonium fuel in concentrated nitric acid seeping from a broken
pipe into a steel chamber is so dangerously radioactive that
special robots may have to be built to clean up the mess,
officials said. The lead occured on April 18, causing part of the
Sellafield facility to be shut down two days later. But the news
only hit headlines this week, leading the EU to renew calls for
unified safety legislation.
"The recent Sellafield incident shows once more that the EU
should be allowed overall framework control for the safety of
nuclear installations," Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs said
in a statement. "It is not possible to continue to function
efficiently in relation to the varying national legislation in
force. In an area as sensitive as nuclear energy, it is essential
to show the greatest form of transparency."
Running afoul of the EU
[Nuclear power plant in France. Atomic energy is still popular
in Europe.]
It isn't the first time that Sellafield has provoked the EU. Last
year, EU commissioners threatened legal action after Britain
refused to give EU inspectors access to the entire reprocessing
plant.
Former EU Energy Commissioner Loyola de Palacio had pushed for
unified and tougher safety standards but amended the commission's
controversial proposals. The revised rules would require members
to create plans for dealing with radioactive waste, though a
commission-imposed deadline for those plans was dropped after
opposition from England and Germany.
Germany, meanwhile, decided to close a second atomic reactor as
part of a government plan to phase out nuclear power altogether.
The reactor, in Obrigheim in southern Germany, is the oldest one
in Germany and was in operation for 37 years. DW staff (jb)
[de:mehr]
[Info]
Germany Shuts Down Atomic Reactor Germany will close down a
second atomic reactor -- also the country's oldest -- on
Wednesday. The move is part of a government policy to phase out
nuclear power. (May 11, 2005) Germany's "Electricity Rebels"
Germany's reputation for environmental friendliness may have
found its expression in the Black Forest citizens' initiative
that won a David and Goliath battle against the local electricity
provider. (April 18, 2005) German Conservatives Urge Nuke Energy
Rethink Germany's conservative Christian Social Union party
defends nuclear energy in the face of high oil and coal prices
and demands that the government abandon its plan to close all
German nuclear power plants. (April 29, 2005)
*****************************************************************
33 Las Vegas RJ: E-mail scandal doesn't doom Yucca, Bodman tells lawmakers
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
By STEVE TETREAULT STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU
Samuel Bodman
Energy secretary meets for first time with Nevada delegation
WASHINGTON -- Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said Tuesday the
Bush administration will continue to move forward at Yucca
Mountain while it investigates e-mail messages that suggest some
quality assurance documents on the nuclear waste project might
have been faked.
"It has been my judgment that until I see something that
indicates the science of this project has been compromised,
we're going to go forward," Bodman said after emerging from a
meeting with Nevada lawmakers.
"We continue to do our work, and I don't consider Yucca
Mountain to be dead," Bodman said.
The energy secretary conveyed the same message to four Nevada
lawmakers during a half-hour meeting. Rep. Shelley Berkley,
D-Nev., was in Las Vegas with her son, Max, who underwent an
appendectomy on Tuesday.
It was decidedly not the message the state leaders wanted to
hear in response to their calls for repository planning to be
put on hold while investigators weigh possible effects of the
controversial e-mails.
The session was described by participants as cordial turned
frosty as Bodman was direct in answering the Nevadans' calls for
a project halt, and for DOE to move faster to turn over
documents to a House subcommittee investigation headed by Rep.
Jon Porter, R-Nev.
"I just don't know if he needs better skills on Capitol Hill,"
Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said after Bodman left the meeting.
"He just brushed it off like it was no big deal, and we believe
it was a big deal."
The gathering in the U.S. Capitol office of Senate Minority
Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., marked the first meeting between
Bodman and the Nevada delegation since he became energy
secretary early this year.
It also was their first meeting since the energy secretary on
March 16 disclosed a cache of e-mail messages from 1998-2000
that suggested one or two scientists might have falsified
documents to satisfy quality assurance requirements on hydrology
research they were performing.
Inspectors general at the Energy Department and the Department
of Interior are investigating with assistance from the FBI. DOE
has initiated another internal review to see whether the work
being questioned affected decisions to seek a license for Yucca
Mountain as a nuclear waste burial site.
Bodman said he did not know when the internal reviews would be
finished.
"Until the work is completed I have not yet formed a judgment
on the validity or the lack of validity of the science," Bodman
said. "Everybody is working hard in an effort to make that
determination."
Nevada lawmakers charged that Bodman did not convey a sense of
urgency to them.
"We thought he would be concerned about e-mails that indicate
the science was rigged," Reid said. "Frankly, that was of no
interest to him. He said the project was going forward as is. He
was not apologetic to us at all."
Porter said DOE has dragged its feet in turning over documents
to his subcommittee, saying the secretary's "respect for the
legislative process was less than it should be."
According to participants, Bodman said he did not want to take
any steps that might jeopardize ongoing investigations, an
answer that did not satisfy the lawmakers.
"It was something of an eye-opening experience to realize they
have an obvious mandate to license Yucca Mountain despite what
the science may say or what they don't know," said Rep. Jim
Gibbons, R-Nev.
Gibbons said Nevada lawmakers might seek to withhold Energy
Department money later this year.
"It gets down to playing hardball," Gibbons said. "We control
their funding."
Copyright Las Vegas Review-Journal
*****************************************************************
34 Bellona: Sellafield’s Thorp reprocessing plant incident perturbs
an impatient Europe
The European Union's executive Commission has renewed calls for
tougher EU nuclear safety standards on Tuesday after part of
Britain's Sellafield Thorp reprocessing facility was shut down
after a broken pipe leaked 83 cubic meters of a uranium and
plutonium solvent into a steel chamber designed for such
purposes.
England's Sellafield nuclear complex.
Bellona
Charles Digges, 2005-05-11 16:47
The leak was discovered by UK nuclear officials on April 18th.
Officials held a local media briefing in West Cumbria, where the
Sellafield complex is located, on April 23rd, but the London
Guardian brought the incident more international attention on
the front page of its May 9th issue.
The European Commission is trying to push through new EU
legislation that would create unified standards on safety at
nuclear installations throughout the 25-nation bloc, but has
faced opposition from countries such as Britain, Germany and
Sweden.
"The recent Sellafield incident shows once more that the EU
should be allowed overall framework control for the safety of
nuclear installations," Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs said
in a statement to Bellona Web.
"It is not possible to continue to function efficiently in
relation to the varying national legislation in force. In an
area as sensitive as nuclear energy, it is essential to show the
greatest form of transparency."
Piebalgs' predecessor on the energy brief, Loyola de Palacio,
amended the Commission's controversial proposals for nuclear
safety and waste management legislation in September 2004.
The revised rules would require member states to create plans
for interring radioactive waste, though a Commission-imposed
deadline for those plans was dropped from the proposal to win
backing from some sceptical EU governments, many of which joined
the EU last summer from Eastern Europe and have their hands full
finding waste solution problems for their Soviet-built plants.
The Commission has been at odds with Britain over Sellafield
before. Last autumn the EU executive said it was taking Britain
to court for failing to grant EU inspectors full access to the
storage ponds at the site that store highly radioactive waste.
Radioactive leak closes Thorp reprocessing plant at Sellafield
A highly radioactive mixture of plutonium and uranium fuel
that was dissolved in concentrated nitric acid leaked through a
fractured pipe into an enormous steel chamber late last month,
forcing the closure of Sellafield’s Thorp reprocessing plant by
UK nuclear authorities, British nuclear officials confirmed
Monday.
Read on »
Thorp clean-up
British Nuclear Group (BNG), which manages Sellafield for
Britain’s newly-created Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA),
on Monday confirmed it had shut part of the Sellafield nuclear
reprocessing plant after engineers discovered faults in some
pipe work in the plant’s fuel clarification cell. It remains
unclear whether the leakage was caused by a manufacturer’s
welding failure or whether there was a rupture in the piping
itself, one UK nuclear official told Bellona Web on Monday.
The shutdown of Thorp represents a financial setback to the
NDA’s overall per annum decommissioning budget. Approximately Ł2
billion, of which some Ł560 million would be contributed by the
Thorp’s profits, one British nuclear official told Bellona Web
in an interview earlier this week. BNG officials said they could
not confirm this figure. Other European news outlets on
Wednesday published figures indicating that the clean-up effort
at Thorp would cost at least Ł12m, but BNG has said it is far
too early to say how much that effort will cost.
Sellafield's managing director Barry Snelson, of BNG, said the
Thorp plant was in a safe and stable condition.
"Safety monitoring has confirmed no abnormal activity in air and
there has been no impact on our workforce or the environment,"
he said in a statement received by Bellona Web.
On Wednesday, Ali McKibbon, a spokeswoman for BNG who works on
the Sellafield site confirmed Snelson’s remarks. She said that
the clean-up effort was proceeding in three stages, two of which
have almost been completed. The overall goal of the effort is to
reduce the radioactive inventory of the facility, she said in a
telephone interview with Bellona Web.
The first stage, she said was emptying the highly radioactive
fluid into buffer storage.
Stage two, which is currently underway, consists of measuring
the radioactive inventory of the Thorp plant. This consists of
determining how much radioactive material is at the Thorp plant
overall, and determining how much needs to be recovered.
The third stage will consist of recovering the radioactive
liquids remaining at the bottom of the fuel clarification cell.
This, she said, would be an automated procedure and require none
of the robotic technology that Sellafield is a pioneer in
developing. She did not rule out that robotic technologies would
be sent back into the ruptured pipe, however, so as to determine
the precise cause of the leak.
“There are no official cost estimates for the clean-up operation
at this time simply because we have no idea how long it will
take. Anything speculated on in the media is just
that—speculation,” she said.
“Where ever the figure of Ł12m has come from, it has not come
from us,” she added.
Trials shows 95% technetium cleansing rate in Sellafield
discharges
Testing of a new treatment process based on a chemical called
tetraphenylphosphonium bromide, or TPP, launched last autumn is
proved to be successful in limiting controversial discharges of
Technitium-99, or Tc-99, from Britains Sellafield nuclear
facility.
Norwegian concerns
Wednesday’s edition of Norway’s national Aftenposten carried a
scathing editorial on Sellafield. Norway has long suffered from
emissions of the radioactive chemical Technetium-99 (Tc-99)
along its coastline as the Gulf Stream carries the toxin north
along the country’s fishery dependent coast. Tc-99 contamination
has been measured as far north as Norway’s Arctic Spitsbergen
Island.
The source of the contamination is Sellafield’s on-shore liquid
radioactive waste tank, which until Spring, 2003, released its
contents into the Irish sea. The liquid waste underwent
substantial cleansing, but Tc-99 remained the most prevalent
toxin released on the plant’s thrice yearly dumping schedule.
After years of appealing to the British government to employ a
cleansing agent called tetraphenylphosphonium bromide (TPP),
Bellona finally scored a victory in February 2004 when British
officials finally agreed to a trial of the chemical. Trials
showed that TPP reduced Tc-99 discharges by 95 percent. The
technology is now being employed on a permanent basis by
Sellafield.
But opinion makers at Aftenposten were aggravated by yet another
incident at Sellafield.
“For Norway and other of Great Britains neighbouring countries,
the accident is an unpleasant reminder that Sellafield is a
constant threat to our environment,” wrote Aftenposten’s
editors.
“Technetium is and will be a foreign substance in our nature,
and there is no logical boundary that it will spill out now that
they have found cleaning technology. This is what the UK took to
be sense.”
The editorial went further to criticise defenders of nuclear
power as a possible alternative that would head off greenhouse
gas emissions. “[A]tomic energy has again been forwarded as a
non-polluting energy source because it doesn’t contribute to
greenhouse gases. The latter is correct, The former is not. The
pollution just happens in another way, and it can become
expensive to avoid it. Atomic energy is no solution, neither to
energy crises nor to global warming.”
Publisher: Bellona Foundation, President: Frederic Hauge
Information: info@bellona.no, Technical contact:
webmaster@bellona.no
Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62 * P.O.Box
2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway
*****************************************************************
35 The Herald: MOX testing should begin within month
Updated: 05/11/05
By Jason Cato The Herald
LAKE WYLIE -- The four mixed-oxide, or MOX, fuel assemblies
recently delivered to the Catawba Nuclear Station will be loaded
into a reactor within the next month, a Duke Power official said
Tuesday.
Reactor 1 was shut down Friday for a regular maintenance and
refueling period, which typically takes about four weeks, said
spokesman Tim Pettit. He would not say when the MOX would be
loaded or when the reactor would be back online, due to security
and trade secret concerns.
The MOX fuel, which was made in France using weapons-grade
plutonium, will be tested in the reactor for approximately three
years as part of a test program designed to see if the material
can be used safely and effectively in commercial nuclear
reactors. The four MOX fuel assemblies will be among 189
uranium-oxide assemblies.
Should the test go well, a full MOX program could begin at
Catawba and other Duke Power plants. A full program would use
about 40 MOX fuel assemblies.
Catawba is the first U.S. nuclear plant to use MOX fuel and the
first in the world to use MOX fuel made with weapons-grade
plutonium.
Extra security, monitoring
Tom Clements, the senior adviser to Greenpeace International's
nuclear campaign, said Tuesday that Duke would have to have
extra security in place until the assemblies are loaded into the
reactor. He also said the assemblies must be moved and then
monitored with extreme caution. Besides validating the
performance of the MOX fuel, Clements said the assemblies'
fabrication also is being tested.
Since MOX fuel containing weapons-grade plutonium has never
been used before in a commercial plant, Clements said the
assemblies must be monitored to make sure the fuel rods do not
rupture or the fuel cells expand.
"That will not necessarily lead to an accident, but it wouldn't
be good," Clements said.
Duke officials have said they plan to use extreme caution when
using MOX fuel, as they do with uranium-oxide, which normally is
used. They've also said that they expect the test program to be
a success.
The MOX fuel program is the result of an agreement reached
between the United States and Russia in 2000 for each country to
dispose of 34 metric tons of weapons-grade plutonium from
nuclear weapon arsenals.
Future fuel assemblies for a full program would be made at a
MOX fabrication plant to be built at the Savannah River Site.
Officials are expected to begin site preparation for that plant
this month.
Jason Cato " 329-4071
jcato@heraldonline.com
-Heraldonline.com Staff
The Herald is owned by The McClatchy Company
The Herald is a Member of the South Carolina Press Association
Copyright © 2005 The Herald, Rock Hill, South Carolina
*****************************************************************
36 Las Vegas SUN: Bodman refuses to halt Yucca
Today: May 11, 2005 at 11:11:32 PDT
Nevada officials dismayed after meeting with secretary
By Suzanne Struglinski SUN WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON -- Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said he will not
halt the Yucca Mountain project and has not seen any evidence of
compromised science, despite Nevada lawmakers who say project
worker e-mails suggest Yucca data is flawed.
Nevada lawmakers have said the recently surfaced e-mails may be
enough evidence to kill the proposed nuclear waste repository
program. But Bodman brushed that notion aside Tuesday after a
tense meeting with the lawmakers.
Bodman seems to have already decided that the e-mails are not
ultimately damaging to the project, four of the lawmakers said.
Bodman also refused to hand over some Yucca documents that have
not been made public that Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., has
requested, they said.
Porter, chairman of a House subcommittee that is investigating
the Yucca e-mails, said he is mulling the option of using a
congressional subpoena to obtain the documents as part of the
investigation.
"Up until this moment with the secretary, I was under the
assumption that when we ask for documents and they asked for
additional time, that it was in good faith," Porter said Tuesday
after the meeting. "It is obvious to me today that he does not
have the intention of releasing documents to the committee."
Porter's panel is a subcommittee of the House Government Reform
Committee. That panel's chairman, Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., has the
power to subpoena without the vote of his whole committee.
Porter's chief of staff Windsor Freemyer said Davis and Porter
have discussed the option several times and Davis would agree to
subpoena, but only as a last resort.
Using a subpoena to obtain documents likely would have a
chilling effect on the relationship between Porter's panel and
the Energy Department. Porter wants to make sure he knows
exactly what documents he wants before taking that step, he said.
Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., said Nevada's lawmakers were
"dismayed" by the meeting with Bodman, which was held in the
office of Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.
"They have already decided upon the end result and they are
going to structure whatever they say, whatever they do or
whatever documents may say or show to that end result," Gibbons
said. "It gets down to playing hardball. We control their
funding, they have to be willing to work with Congress."
Reid said Bodman was "not apologetic at all to us" and the
implications for the project's budget or status "was of no
interest to him."
Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., scoffed at the Energy Department's
explanation that the reason it had not shared public documents
with Porter's committee was that it did not know which ones to
send.
The atmosphere of the meeting quickly turned chilly, Nevada
participants said. The lawmakers said they were surprised Bodman
did not show more interest in their concerns.
"I don't know if he just needs better skills on Capitol Hill or
what," Ensign said. "He just brushed it off like it was really
no big deal. He looked very biased in this investigation."
The delegation had asked the department to stop work on the
project until Energy and Interior Department inspector general
investigations had ended, but Bodman refused. The Energy
Department is in the midst of its own investigation into the
e-mails, which Bodman said were primarily written by two U.S.
Geological Survey scientists working on the project.
The e-mails, written between 1998 and 2000, suggest quality
assurance documents were falsified. But Bodman said he had not
seen any evidence of compromised scientific data. The department
announced in March that it had discovered the e-mails.
"Until the work is completed, I have not yet formed a judgment
on the validity or lack of validity of the science that
underlies the application, the potential application for a
license," Bodman said. "Everybody is working hard in an effort
to make that determination. I simply don't have information one
way or another."
Bodman said his department's internal investigation is aimed at
determining the impact that the e-mails have had on the science
that supports a Yucca license application. The Energy Department
aims to submit its application to the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission by year's end. The application proves Yucca is a safe
place to construct a national nuclear waste burial ground,
department officials say.
"I do not consider Yucca Mountain to be dead," Bodman said.
"Until I see something that indicates to me that the science of
this project has been compromised, we are going to continue to
go forward as planned."
The Nevada lawmakers said the meeting left them with the
conclusion that the department's position is already set despite
the investigations.
"I think he (Bodman) is under the assumption that they are OK,"
Porter said. "I think he has already made up his mind. Not
unlike the science to date, I think they have already come to a
conclusion and now they are building a case to get to that
conclusion."
Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., did not attend the meeting due to
a family medical emergency. Her oldest son had an emergency
appendectomy Tuesday morning.
*****************************************************************
37 Xinhua: EU seeks new nuclear safety rules after incident
www.xinhuanet.com
www.chinaview.cn 2005-05-11 14:30:56
BEIJING, May 11 -- The European Union's executive Commission
has renewed its call for tougher EU nuclear safety standards
after part of Britain's Sellafield nuclear site was closed down
after a broken pipe.
The Commission is trying to push through new EU legislation
that would create unified standards on safety at nuclear
installations throughout the 25-nation bloc, but has faced
opposition from countries like Britain and Germany.
The EU Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs say the recent
Sellafield incident shows once more that the EU should be
allowed overall framework control for the safety of nuclear
installations.
(Source: CRIENGLISH.com)
Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
38 Nonproliferation Realities: * McNamara * Ellsberg
Date: Wed, 11 May 2005 11:29:11 -0500 (CDT)
Institute for Public Accuracy
915 National Press Building, Washington, D.C. 20045
(202) 347-0020 * http://www.accuracy.org * ipa@accuracy.org
___________________________________________________
Noon ET -- Wednesday, May 11, 2005
Nonproliferation Realities:
* McNamara * Ellsberg
With the review conference on the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) continuing
at the United Nations, commentators available for interviews include:
ROBERT McNAMARA, dcoffice@corning.com,
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=2829&print=1
Former Secretary of Defense McNamara said today: "The NPT was signed by
a president. It was submitted to the Senate; it was ratified by the Senate.
It is today the law of the land. The U.S. government is not adhering to
Article VI of the NPT and we show no signs of planning to adhere to its
requirements to move forward with the elimination -- not reduction, but
elimination -- of nuclear weapons. That was the agreement, these other
countries would not develop nuclear weapons and the nuclear powers would
move to elimination. We are violating that." McNamara wrote the article
"Apocalypse Soon" in the current edition of Foreign Policy.
DANIEL ELLSBERG, EllsbergD@cs.com, http://www.truthtellingproject.org,
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/05/03/1357233
Currently in New York City participating in events related to the NPT
talks, Ellsberg is author of the book "Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the
Pentagon Papers." He said today: "No one has ever characterized current
U.S. nuclear policy so well, succinctly, as Robert McNamara in the current
issue of Foreign Policy: 'Immoral, illegal, militarily unnecessary, and
dreadfully dangerous.' That description has been valid for half a century.
And not in one year since the NPT went into effect 35 years ago has any
American administration acted effectively to escape those characteristics,
nor ever honestly intended even to attempt to fulfill the Article VI
'commitment' in that treaty to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons."
Ellsberg added: "No nuclear weapons state could now, or ever,
persuasively justify in public possessing even as many nuclear warheads as
Israel has -- some 200 in 1986, perhaps 400 now -- let alone the 2,000 the
U.S. still deploys, inexcusably, on hair-trigger alert, still less the
4,000 to 8,000 additional weapons in our stockpile. The same applies to
Russia, which maintains comparable numbers on alert and in its arsenal and,
like the U.S., refuses to commit itself not to initiate nuclear war at its
own discretion. De-alerting, commitment to no-first-use, a ratified
comprehensive test ban, and cut-off of production of weapons-usable
materials are rightly defined by a vast majority of nations in the world as
legal obligations pursuant to Article VI of the NPT and as measures
urgently owed by all nuclear weapons states to the survival of
civilization. Along with these, immediate massive reductions in U.S. and
Russian stockpiles are in order, far below the START II and SORT targets
which project indefinitely numbers far above the thousand warheads that
each deployed when the treaty was signed in 1968.
"But even huge reductions are not a substitute for the Article VI goal
of elimination of nuclear weapons. The measures above must be implemented
soon as concrete steps on a definite timetable toward the global, verified
nuclear abolition. For at least 40 years it has been clear to thoughtful
scientists and officials that in the long run nuclear disarmament and
nonproliferation were inextricably linked. That long run will shortly be
behind us. It will soon be all or none. Either ALL nations -- in particular
our own -- forego the right to possess and threaten the use of nuclear
weapons or EVERY nation will claim that right, and many more nations will
act on it, sharply increasing the chance of regional nuclear wars and
leakage of nuclear materials and weapons to terrorist groups."
For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167
_________________________________________________________________
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*****************************************************************
39 7news: Veterans take action over nuclear tests
Date: 11/05/05
By Paul Mulvey
More than 900 veterans and their families are considering class
action against Britain's Ministry of Defence over nuclear tests
in Australia and the Pacific in the 1950s.
The veterans from Britain, New Zealand and Fiji have instructed
two British law firms to investigate the possibility of actions
against the MoD for exposing them to excessive levels of
radiation.
No Australians are involved in the action.
More than 22,000 British, 14,000 Australian and 500 New Zealand
servicemen were involved in the 21 nuclear explosions conducted
in South Australia and several South Pacific islands from 1952
to 1958.
The Australian government of Robert Menzies supported the tests
until 1957 when scientist Hedley Marston revealed radioactive
fall-out was widespread.
The tests were then moved from Maralinga in SA to Christmas
Island where the last six explosions of the program were set
off.
In many cases pilots were ordered to fly through mushroom clouds
while ground staff were exposed to radiation without protective
clothing.
Some claim the side-effects became apparent within days, while
there have been many cases of cancers and respiratory and
psychological problems among veterans involved.
But the MoD has denied any link to the tests, saying the level
of exposure was not enough to have caused cancers and associated
illnesses.
The ministry claims scientific studies show there was no more
health problems among those involved in the tests than a
comparable group of veterans.
The Legal Service Commission is funding the preliminary
investigations being carried out by the two solicitors' firms
Alexander Harris and Clarke Wilmott.
British Police investigations closed in 2002 after finding no
criminal case against the MoD or Australian and British
governments following claims made by widow Shirley Denson that
her husband Eric was forced to fly through a mushroom cloud.
Copyright © 2005 AAP
© Copyright 2005 Seven Network (Operations) Ltd
*****************************************************************
40 ABQJOURNAL: Environment Department Fines LANL $63,000
the Albuquerque Journal newspaper.
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
Albuquerque Journal-->
Associated Press
LOS ALAMOS — The state Environment Department has
proposed fining Los Alamos National Laboratory $63,578 for eight
violations it found in inspections in March 2004 and February
2005.
Problems range from neglecting to label a container of used
oil to not getting permits for hazardous waste in a so-called
flammable storage cabinet in a technical area and in the lab's
chemistry and metallurgy building, the department said.
The lab and the department will hold settlement conferences
to determine the final amount of the fine, a lab spokeswoman,
Kathy DeLucas, said Wednesday.
James Bearzi, chief of the department's Hazardous Waste
Bureau, sent the lab and the National Nuclear Security
Administration a notice of violation last month.
The lab, in its response May 5, acknowledged not labeling
the used oil, and said a label was put on in the presence of the
Environment Department inspector.
The lab also acknowledged having hazardous waste in the
chemistry and metallurgy building and agreed to move it to an
interim storage area in the building that has a permit.
Violations of hazardous waste permits accounted for $48,360 of
the proposed fine.
Environmental regulations are meant to protect people's
health, especially those handling the materials, department
spokesman Jon Goldstein said Tuesday.
"Labels, for example, are required so a worker or handler
knows what he's dealing with, and if there's a spill, he knows
how to clean it up,'' Goldstein said.
The lab pleaded mitigating circumstances in the waste in the
storage cabinet. It said a small amount of waste generated from
a building that burned during the 2000 Cerro Grande wildfire in
Los Alamos had been kept in what the lab described as a properly
identified accumulation area.
The state has conducted hazardous materials inspections
without warning since 1993. It issues compliance orders
afterward.
DeLucas said the lab still is negotiating over about $2
million in fines from compliance orders two years ago.
Tony Grieggs, head of the lab's environmental solid waste
regulatory compliance group, said the size and number of
violations in the most recent inspections show the lab is
improving. His group is responsible for implementing state and
federal hazardous waste regulations.
Los Alamos and its divisions that generate waste have worked
hard, Grieggs said.
"And we have demonstrated that we can perform well,'' he
said. "I think the mission before us is to sustain that
improvement.''
Copyright Albuquerque Journal
Steve@abqjournal.com
*****************************************************************
41 Tri-Valley Herald: UC partners on Los Alamos bid
Article Last Updated: 05/11/2005 04:03:17 AM
By Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER
Two corporate powers of the nuclear world — Bechtel Corp. and the
University of California — are expected today to announce a joint
bid for management of the birthplace of the bomb, Los Alamos
National Laboratory in New Mexico.
The alliance brings the nation's largest research university and
one of the world's largest engineering firms head to head in
competition with teams headed by the nation's first- and
third-largest defense contractors, Lockheed Martin and Northrop
Grumman.
Executives at Bechtel National, the federal contracting arm of
Bechtel Corp., are expected to shore up the University of
California's weaknesses on day-to-day operations and management.
Repeated, high-profile failings in financial control, safety and
security prompted the U.S. Department of Energy to open the Los
Alamos contract for competition bidding for the first time.
The university had run the lab unchallenged since 1943,
supplying the scientists who designed all of the nuclear
explosives in the U.S. arsenal, most of them designed at Los
Alamos.
For months, university officials have insisted that their
expertise in weapons and scientific management in general
warranted a lead role in a team bid to retain the Los Alamos
contract.
But after lengthy negotiation, sources said, the university and
Bechtel National, agreed to a 50-50 partnership on the Los Alamos
bid, which also on the Bechtel side includes the nuclear
operations firm BWXT and the engineering and construction firm
Washington Group International. BWXT's role in the alliance is
considered essential because Los Alamos for now operates the
nation's only manufacturing facility for plutonium pits, the
crucial fission cores of thermonuclear explosives. The facility
also makes plutonium-238 batteries, known as radioisotope
thermoelectric generators, for powering NASA spacecraft and
various defense missions.
The UC-Bechtel partnership sets up an intriguing dynamic between
the scientists and executives responsible for advising the
president on whether to return to nuclear testing and the
operator of the nation's nuclear test site in the Nevada desert.
Bechtel also manages construction and cleanup work at two other
Energy Department sites.
They are pitted against Lockheed, which operates Sandia National
Laboratories, designer of the non-nuclear components of nuclear
weapons, and manufactures several delivery vehicle components for
nuclear weapons.
Tri-Valley Herald All Rights Reserved
*****************************************************************
42 DOE: Advance Notice of Intent To Prepare an Environmental Impact
FR Doc 05-9397
[Federal Register: May 11, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 90)] [Notices]
[Page 24775-24778] From the Federal Register Online via GPO
Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr11my05-33]
Statement for the Disposal of Greater-Than-Class-C Low-Level
Radioactive Waste AGENCY: Department of Energy.
ACTION: Advance notice of intent.
SUMMARY: The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is providing advance
notice of its intent to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement
(EIS) under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) on the
disposal of Greater-Than-Class-C (GTCC) low-level radioactive
waste (LLW) generated by activities licensed by the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission (NRC). The primary purpose of this EIS is
to address the disposal of wastes with concentrations greater
than Class C, as defined in NRC regulations at 10 CFR part 61,
resulting from NRC or Agreement State licensed activities
(hereafter referred to as NRC licensed activities).
DOE also plans to review its waste inventories with a view toward
including those wastes with characteristics similar to GTCC waste
and which otherwise do not have a path to disposal in the scope
of the EIS, as appropriate. DOE intends that this EIS will enable
DOE to select any new or existing disposal locations, facilities,
and methods for disposal of GTCC LLW and DOE waste with similar
characteristics.
The Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Amendments Act of 1985
(LLRWPAA) assigned to the Federal Government responsibility for
the disposal of GTCC radioactive waste. This EIS will evaluate
alternative locations and methods for disposal of these wastes.
Potential disposal locations include deep geologic disposal
facilities; existing LLW disposal facilities, both commercial and
DOE; and new facilities at DOE or other government sites, or on
private land. Methods to be considered include deep geologic
disposal, greater confinement disposal configurations, and
enhanced near-surface disposal facilities.
DOE is issuing this Advance Notice of Intent (ANOI), pursuant to
10 CFR 1021.311(b), in order to inform, and request early
comments from, the public and interested agencies about the
proposed action, the preliminary range of alternatives, and the
potential issues related to DOE's decisions for this category of
waste. Following the issuance of this ANOI, DOE intends to
conduct further activities to collect updated information from
licensees and DOE sites on waste characteristics and projections
to support the EIS analysis. As part of that effort, DOE may seek
assistance from industry trade associations, Agreement States,
NRC, and other appropriate entities. DOE intends to invite the
NRC and the Environmental Protection Agency to participate as
cooperating agencies in the preparation of this EIS.
DATES: Comments on this ANOI are due June 10, 2005. DOE will
consider comments received after June 10, 2005 to the extent
practicable.
DOE plans to issue a Notice of Intent (NOI) for this EIS in the
fall of 2005. The NOI will propose a range of reasonable
alternatives for disposal methods and locations. After the NOI is
issued, DOE will conduct public scoping meetings to assist in
further defining the scope of the EIS and to identify significant
issues to be addressed.
The dates and locations of all scoping meetings will be announced
in the NOI, subsequent Federal Register notices, and in local
media.
ADDRESSES: Please direct comments or suggestions on the scope of
the EIS and questions concerning the proposed project to: James
Joyce, Document Manager, Office of Federal Disposition Options
(EM-13), U.S. Department of Energy, 1000 Independence Avenue,
SW., Washington, DC 20585-0119, Telephone (301) 903-2151, Fax:
301-903-3877, E-mail to: james.joyce@em.doe.gov (use ``ANOI
Comments'' for the subject). FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: To
request further information about this EIS, the public scoping
meetings, or to be placed on the EIS distribution list, use any
of the methods listed under ADDRESSES above. For general
information concerning the DOE National Environmental Policy Act
(NEPA) process, contact: Carol Borgstrom, Director, Office of
NEPA Policy and Compliance (EH-42), U.S. Department of Energy,
1000 Independence Avenue, SW., Washington, DC 20585-0119,
Telephone: 202- 586-4600, or leave a message at 1-800-472-2756,
Fax: 202-586-7031.
[[Page 24776]] This Advance Notice of Intent will be available on
the Internet at http://www.eh.doe.gov/nepa.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Background GTCC waste is LLW generated
by NRC licensed facilities with concentrations of radionuclides
which exceed the limits established by the NRC for Class C
radioactive waste, as defined by 10 CFR 61.55. The NRC defines
LLW classes as A, B and C by the concentration of specific short-
and long-lived radionuclides, with Class C having the highest
concentration limits (see 10 CFR part 61, ``Licensing
Requirements for Land Disposal of Radioactive Waste'').
Section 3(b)(1)(D) of the LLRWPAA assigns to the Federal
Government responsibility for the disposal of certain GTCC
radioactive waste generated by NRC licensees, which is not owned
or generated by DOE, by the United States Navy from
decommissioning vessels, or by certain other federal activities.
The LLRWPAA also specifies that GTCC LLW, which is designated a
federal responsibility by subparagraph (b)(1)(D) of the Act, be
disposed of in a facility licensed by the NRC that the NRC
determines is adequate to protect public health and safety.
The LLRWPAA further states that the Secretary of Energy shall
issue a report recommending safe disposal options for such
wastes. DOE issued such a report in 1987. The report can be
obtained by contacting the Document Manager listed under
ADDRESSES above.
GTCC LLW occurs in three forms, as discussed in the following
sections and summarized in Table 1. The information in Table 1 on
waste volumes and characteristics is based on reports that are
approximately 10 years old and, therefore, may no longer be
accurate.
Accordingly, DOE plans to conduct activities to update this
information following the issuance of this ANOI. The reports
identified below can be obtained by contacting the Document
Manager listed under ADDRESSES above.
1. Sealed Sources Sealed sources contain radionuclides in
concentrated, relatively small, encapsulated packages. These
sources are widely used in medicine, agriculture, research and
industry. DOE funded a study by the Idaho National Engineering
Laboratory (Characterization of Greater- Than-Class-C Sealed
Sources, Volumes 1, 2, and 3, DOE/LLW-163 [Idaho Falls, Idaho:
Sept. 1994]), which estimated there are about 250,000 GTCC sealed
sources in the United States.
In the past, NRC has approached DOE regarding the disposition of
unwanted sealed sources that present security or safety and
health concerns due to existing storage conditions. As a result
of these concerns, DOE has been recovering domestic sealed
sources since 1992. This effort has focused on those sources that
were determined to pose the highest risk, resulting in recovery,
transfer of title and possession to DOE, and secure interim
storage by DOE of approximately 10,000 GTCC sealed sources. To
date, no disposal path for many of these sealed sources has been
identified. The September 11, 2001, terrorist events and
subsequent potential threats have heightened concerns that
individuals or organizations could gain possession of these
sources and use them as the radionuclide source to make a
Radiological Dispersal Device (also known as a ``dirty bomb'').
According to a DOE-funded study by the Idaho National Engineering
Laboratory (Greater-Than-Class C Low-Level Radioactive Waste
Characterization: Estimated Volumes, Radionuclides and Other
Characteristics, DOE/LLW-114, Revision 1 [Idaho Falls, Idaho:
Sept. 1994]), the expected volume of sealed sources requiring
disposal through 2035 is estimated to be as high as 1,913 cubic
meters (packaged volume).
2. GTCC-Activated Metals There are over 100 operating nuclear
power plants and approximately 20 non-operating power plants in
various phases of decommissioning across the United States. As a
result of reactor operations, portions of the reactor barrel and
other stainless steel components near the fuel assemblies become
highly activated by the neutron flux. The majority of this waste
is generated when nuclear power plants are decommissioned,
although some may result from maintenance activities performed
before decommissioning. Many of these nuclear power plants are
applying for and receiving license extensions from NRC.
Therefore, much of this waste will be generated in the future.
According to DOE/ LLW-114, Revision 1, nuclear utilities will
generate an estimated 864 to 5,960 cubic meters (packaged
volumes) of GTCC-activated metal LLW through 2055.
3. Other GTCC LLW The third form of GTCC LLW consists of material
such as nuclear power plant resin, filter media and general
laboratory waste (glove boxes, gloves, wipes, smoke detectors),
job wastes or other like debris from NRC-licensed fuel
fabrication, fuel testing, and research laboratories. Nuclear
utilities will generate an estimated 167 to 866 cubic meters of
such waste through the year 2035 (DOE/LLW-114, Revision 1).
In addition, DOE manages waste with radionuclide concentrations
similar to GTCC LLW. Under the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as
amended (AEA), DOE has the authority to regulate the management
of the radioactive hazard of its wastes; therefore, DOE does not
use the 10 CFR part 61 classification system, and most DOE wastes
are not generated by NRC-licensed activities. Some of these DOE
wastes are very similar to GTCC waste in that they are low-level
wastes with concentrations greater than Class C and currently do
not have an identified path for disposal. Much of the DOE waste
that is similar to GTCC waste is generated by AEA defense
activities.
Table 1.--Summary of Wastes Being Considered for Inclusion in the
Scope of the Planned Environmental Impact Statement Addressing
Long-term Disposition of Greater Than Class C Waste
-----------------------------------------------------------------
------- Waste form Primary source Volume and
activity*
-----------------------------------------------------------------
------- Sealed Sources.............. Primarily medical, Total
estimate industrial, and through 2035 is up scientific
sources to 1,913 cubic containing long- meters, with a
half-life nuclides total activity (e.g. americium,
industrial, and plutonium) and high scientific sources activity
sources of approximately with shorter half- 4,040,000
curies.
lives such as cesium-137, and strontium-90.
Activated Metal............. Primarily from more As
decommissioning than 100 nuclear of reactors power currently
proceeds over time, operating, and it is estimated
decommissioning that GTCC activated activities at 24
metal will amount plants. to about 864 plants to
5,960 cubic meters, containing 38 to 102 million curies through
year 2055.
Other Waste................. Assortment of wastes It is
estimated that such as glove the quantity of non- boxes,
fuel DOE waste in this fabrication category
will equipment, and amount to about 167 trash resulting
to 866 cubic from source meters, containing
manufacture, 6,962 to 19,707 research, utility,
curies through medical, 2035.
agricultural and industrial sources.
[[Page 24777]] DOE Waste................... DOE also plans to
DOE plans to develop review its waste an inventory,
inventories with a including volume view toward and
activity including those estimates.
wastes with characteristics similar to GTCC waste in the scope of
the EIS, as appropriate.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
------- * Volume and activity estimates were obtained from
DOE/LLW-114, Revision 1. All volume estimates are packaged
volumes. Purpose and Need for Action DOE needs to identify the
facilities and methods for disposing of GTCC LLW and similar DOE
waste. Pursuant to the LLRWPAA, the Federal Government is
responsible to provide disposal for GTCC LLW generated by NRC
licensees. DOE is also responsible for the disposal of its wastes
that are similar to GTCC waste. Currently, there are no
facilities available for disposal of GTCC waste. Until disposal
capability becomes available, the only option for managing GTCC
LLW is to store it at its current locations or to find a location
that can receive the waste and store it until a disposal facility
is available to receive it.
Discussion In the 1987 report to Congress that provided
recommendations on the disposal of GTCC LLW, the Secretary of
Energy identified a number of activities that could be undertaken
regarding GTCC waste including resolving regulatory
uncertainties, addressing technical issues, and taking steps to
ensure that entities that generate GTCC LLW bear all reasonable
costs of waste disposal.
In 2002, the General Accounting Office (now called the Government
Accountability Office or GAO) conducted a review to determine the
number of unwanted sealed sources in the United States, to
determine the status of recovery efforts within DOE, to identify
problems that may exist regarding recovery efforts, and to
determine the status of DOE's efforts to provide a disposal
facility for unwanted sealed sources. The GAO prepared a report,
Nuclear Nonproliferation-DOE Action Needed to Ensure Continued
Recovery of Unwanted Sealed Radioactive Sources, GAO-03-483,
recommending that DOE initiate the process to develop a permanent
disposal facility for GTCC LLW, and that it develop a plan that
would establish milestones for the process, evaluate disposal
options, estimate costs and address legislative, regulatory, and
licensing considerations. Although GAO focused its review on
sealed sources, DOE recognizes the LLRWPAA requirement that the
Federal Government is responsible for disposal of other types of
GTCC LLW from NRC-licensed activities. DOE also plans to review
its waste inventories with a view toward including those wastes
with characteristics similar to GTCC waste in the scope of the
EIS, as appropriate.
Potential Range of Alternatives DOE proposes to dispose of GTCC
LLW in a manner that protects human health and the environment.
Accordingly, DOE intends to prepare an EIS pursuant to NEPA that
would evaluate reasonable alternatives for disposal of these
wastes. The scope of the EIS would include disposal capacity that
will be needed for (1) current and projected GTCC LLW generated
by NRC licensees that does not have a disposal pathway, and (2)
DOE wastes with characteristics similar to GTCC waste identified
for inclusion in the EIS based on DOE's inventory review.
Alternatives to be considered include disposal in new or existing
DOE or commercial facilities, including greater confinement
disposal configurations, geologic disposal, or enhanced
near-surface disposal facilities. The varied forms of GTCC LLW
may make multiple locations and disposal methods desirable, and
this EIS would evaluate such options.
New facilities that could offer greater confinement disposal
would include capabilities such as boreholes, intermediate depth
disposal, and other specially designed facilities. DOE would also
consider which types of GTCC LLW could be safely disposed of in
existing commercial LLW disposal facilities and DOE disposal
facilities. The potential environmental impacts of using both
existing and new facilities owned and operated by DOE as well as
existing and new facilities owned and operated by commercial
licensees would be considered. DOE would evaluate whether all
waste types can or should be disposed of in the same facility or
whether different waste types would best be disposed of in
different facilities. DOE would also consider quantities and time
periods when wastes would require disposal and alternative modes
of disposal.
Invitation to Comment DOE invites the public to provide early
assistance in identifying the scope and environmental issues to
be analyzed in the forthcoming GTCC LLW disposal EIS. DOE will
consider public comments and other relevant information in
developing a Notice of Intent for publication in the Federal
Register.
Following issuance of this ANOI, DOE will initiate activities to
update information about the GTCC waste types and quantities in
need of disposition. DOE will use this information to update the
data to be analyzed in the EIS.
Preliminary Identification of Programmatic Issues DOE plans to
consider the issues listed below in its analysis of the potential
impacts of alternatives for the disposal of GTCC LLW. DOE invites
comment from Federal agencies, Native American tribes, state and
local governments, licensees of sealed sources and other GTCC
LLW, and the public on these and any other issues that should be
considered in the EIS: Identifying the best means to obtain an
accurate inventory of potential GTTC LLW and DOE waste with
similar characteristics including the source, volume,
concentrations, and other relevant characteristics.
Determining the logistics for waste characterization, inventory,
transportation, treatment, interim storage and permanent
disposal.
Evaluating mechanisms and scenarios under which GTCC waste could
be safely disposed of in existing and/or new LLW disposal
facilities.
Identifying and proposing resolution for issues associated with
the chemical constituents in the GTCC LLW that may be regulated
under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA).
Identifying options for ensuring that the beneficiaries of the
activities resulting in the generation of GTCC LLW bear all
reasonable cost of disposing of such waste.
Identifying DOE wastes that are appropriate for inclusion in the
EIS.
[[Page 24778]] Potential Environmental Issues for Analysis The
DOE has tentatively identified the following environmental issues
for analysis in the GTCC EIS. The list is presented to facilitate
early comment on the scope of the EIS; it is not intended to be
comprehensive nor to predetermine the alternatives to be analyzed
or their potential impacts.
Potential impacts to the general population and workers from
radiological and non-radiological releases.
Potential impacts, including air and water quality impacts.
Potential transportation impacts from the shipment of GTCC
radioactive waste to a disposal site.
Potential impacts from postulated accidents.
Potential disproportionately high and adverse effects on
low-income and minority populations (environmental justice).
Potential Native American concerns.
Irretrievable and irreversible commitment of resources.
Short-term and long-term land use impacts.
Compliance with applicable Federal, state, and local
requirements.
Long-term site health and environmental impacts, including
potential impacts on groundwater quality.
Long-term site suitability, including erosion and seismicity.
EIS Process DOE plans to issue the NOI in the fall of calendar
year 2005, which will be followed by a public scoping period. DOE
will announce the availability of the Draft EIS in the Federal
Register and other media, and will provide the public,
organizations, and agencies with an opportunity to submit
comments. These comments will be considered and addressed in the
Final EIS. DOE will issue a Record of Decision no sooner than 30
days after publication of the Environmental Protection Agency's
notice of availability of the Final EIS.
Issued in Washington, DC, on May 4, 2005.
C. Russell H. Shearer, Acting Assistant Secretary for
Environment, Safety and Health.
[FR Doc. 05-9397 Filed 5-10-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 6450-01-P
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43 Guardian Unlimited: Former Los Alamos Scientist Dies
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Wednesday May 11, 2005 4:16 AM
LOS ALAMOS, N.M. (AP) - A former Los Alamos nuclear lab
scientist, fired last year in a security scandal that shut down
the lab for several weeks, has died.
Todd Kauppila, 41, died Sunday of hemorrhagic pancreatitis at
the Los Alamos hospital, according to Scott Wilson, associate
director of the state medical examiner's office.
His death came two days after Kauppila publicly rejoiced over
news that the lab's director was leaving.
``Every table is packed and the beer is flowing,'' he told The
Associated Press on Friday as he celebrated with fellow
scientists at a Los Alamos eatery.
Kauppila was fired by director Pete Nanos on Sept. 23 following
a security scandal.
Kauppila said he was fired because he did not immediately return
from a family vacation during a lab investigation into two
classified computer disks that were thought to be missing.
The apparent security breach forced Nanos to shut down the lab
for several weeks.
Kauppila claimed he was made a scapegoat over the disks, which
investigators concluded never existed. The mistake was blamed on
a clerical error.
After he was fired, Kauppila accepted a job as a contractor at
Bechtel Nevada Corp., a research company that works with Los
Alamos and other national laboratories.
Nanos did not specify why he was leaving. He had been criticized
by many for his hard-nosed efforts to stop financial abuses and
security lapses.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
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