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                         NUCLEAR POLICY
 
1 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: How to Address the Nuclear Threats by Nor
2 Guardian Unlimited: North Korea Condemns Cheney Remarks
3 US: [NYTr] US Nuke Hypocrisy: Bad for America, Bad for the World
4 US: FOXNews.com: Greens Are the Real Energy Problem
5 US: TheDay.com: Region Rallies 'Round The Sub Base
6 Moscow Times: A Drain on Russia's Energy
7 Physics World: New light on Hitler's bomb 
8 Interfax: Moscow makes terms for negotiating tactical nuke control
9 WP: Rumsfeld Travels to Meet Asian Officials
10 AFP: Seven years after going nuclear, India and Pakistan thriving
 
                         NUCLEAR REACTORS
 
11 US: [NukeNet] NRC criticizes PSEG for firing staff without
12 [NukeNet] Sweden shuts nuclear plant in shift to wind 
13 US: [NukeNet] NRC criticizes PSEG for firing staff without
14 Indiatimes: India to tap cheap nuclear energy
15 US: NRC: New NRC Resident Inspector Assigned to Limerick Nuclear Pla
16 US: Platts: NRC has requested $20-mil for 2006 to prepare for new re
17 US: Rutland Herald: Yankee deal angers some Democrats
18 Xinhua: Indonesia targets on nuclear power plants   
19 US: NRC: Nuclear Management Company, LLC; Monticello Nuclear Generat
20 US: CounterPunch: Russell D. Hoffman: High Tension at San Onofre
21 US: Boston.com: Congressmen claim more Seabrook security problems - 
22 AU ABC: Key component of Lucas Heights reactor being installed.
23 AU ABC: Carr calls for nuclear power debate. 
24 AU ABC: Outcry over call for nuclear power debate. 
 
                          NUCLEAR SECURITY
 
25 US: NRC: NRC Revises Regulations on Access to Classified Information
 
                          NUCLEAR SAFETY
 
26 [du-list] Marshall Islands
27 [progchat_action] Fallout from French EU Vote
28 US: Fw: Depleted Uranium:- Excellent summary of science and
29 [southnews] Building Hell in the Heavens
30 US: [du-list] Depleted, it ain't! So-called depleted uranium, that
31 US: [du-list] [ RadSafe ] DU and other sublimed metals;
32 US: Depleted Uranium Bill Introduced into Congress 
33 US: Las Vegas SUN: NTS to test nuclear detection devices 
34 US: TheDay.com: Radiation Questions Remain A Concern At Submarine Ba
35 US: NRC: RIN 3150-AH52 Nuclear Facility Security
36 FENA News: BiH NEEDS TO ESTABLISH AN EXPERT TEAM FOR INVESTIGATING 
37 US: DOE: Health Effects Subcommittee
38 US: Arizona Republic: Feds call Palo Verde to task on safety plan
 
                         NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
 
39 [NukeNet] Monju: Comments by plaintiff's lawyers
40 US: Brattleboro Reformer: Dry cask storage goes to Senate
41 Guardian Unlimited: British Nuclear Group to cut 500 Sellafield jobs
42 US: Press Herald: Snowe, Collins, Allen say nuclear waste will not b
43 Bellona: France to invest 900 million euros in Russia's nuclear wast
44 Platts: DOE, Air Force discuss Yucca Mt. restricted fly zone
45 US: Salt Lake Tribune: D.C. lobbyist joins nuke battle 
46 US: PISJ: Researchers to look at using nuke waste to create power
47 ThisisLondon: 500 Sellafield jobs to go 
48 US: AU ABC: Minister stays silent on uranium mining policy. 
49 US: Cañon City Daily Record: Cotter clean up in the works
50 Whitehaven News: THORP QUESTION NEEDS ANSWERS 
51 The Whitehaven News: INSPECTORS HIGHLIGHT SELLAFIELD ‘FAILINGS’ 
52 The Whitehaven News: SELLAFIELD-RELATED LOCAL FOOD TESTING COSTS £1M
53 The Whitehaven News: THORP FUEL LEAKED FOR THREE MONTHS BEFORE DETEC
54 The Whitehaven News: RADIATION LINKS ARE QUERIED 
55 US: Vermont Guardian: Panels last-minute concerns could slow Vermont
 
                           PEACE
 
 
                        US DEPT. OF ENERGY
 
56 Tri-City Herald: Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman to make first stop a
57 Tri-City Herald: Work under way on Hanford landfill 
58 DOE: Environmental Management Site-Specific Advisory Board, Paducah
59 Rocky Mountain News: Flats building demolished
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                         FULL NEWS STORIES
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 1 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: How to Address the Nuclear Threats by North Korea by Larry M.
 
  >     Updated Jun.2,2005 15:37 KST   
 
  When President Bush was first elected in 2000, many observers
felt that the major themes that guided the Bush campaign would
be abandoned once the reality of office confronted the
Administration. 

It has amazed cynical political observers that the Bush
presidency has been based on consistent and strongly held
values. The ideas and ideals continued through the first Bush
Administration, and I believe that they will continue through
the second term. The themes of freedom, democracy, human rights,
free trade and increasing prosperity for the world community as
well as Americans are central to this administration. The
importance of the rule of law also has been the bedrock ideals
and values that have guided Bush¡¯s approach to foreign policy.
These themes will affect security policy on the Korean Peninsula
in the second term. 

Finding a satisfactory resolution to the North Korean nuclear
problem will be difficult, and the US Congress is not leaving
the issue in the hands of the Bush administration. Both
Congressman Kurt Weldon (R-PA) and Solomon P. Ortiz (D-TX) have
been to Pyongyang twice on trips. Members of the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee have made it clear that the sort of formula
that worked to secure and destroy the nuclear weapons and
missiles in return for substantial aid in the former Soviet
Union could work in North Korea. 

The administration continually sends signals to Pyongyang that a
peaceful resolution of the nuclear program is the US goal. The
United States is ready to resume the talks at an early date,
without preconditions, and has asked North Korea to return to
the table. However, the United States has insisted on the
Six-Party format in order to underscore that this is not a
bilateral issue between the United States and the DPRK, but a
matter of great concern to its neighbors in East Asia. 

In the military area, Pentagon strategists are convinced that
the United States can compensate for troop withdrawals from the
Korean Peninsula through the exploitation of new technology.

They have positioned more American forces in Guam in the event
of any conflict in the Pacific. Command and control can be
enhanced and combat efficiency improved through a greater
reliance on intelligence, which improves the efficiency of
weapons and their effects on the battlefield. 

In the next decade the Navy will have a primary and important
missile defense mission in Northeast Asia. Even a relaxation of
tension in the Taiwan Strait would not effect the direction of
US, and Japanese, defense policy. Both nations will seek to
protect their citizens and their military from attack by
ballistic and cruise missiles. The United States will work with
its most capable and willing allies, primarily Australia and
Japan, to improve the ability to deter aggression, dissuade
potential adversaries, and, if need be, defeat challenges to the
free transit of international waters and airspace. 

There have been recent indicators of strains in the US-ROK
defense alliance. South Korea announced that it will not work
with the US military to update a plan designed to address
contingencies if there was a collapse in government in North
Korea. Neither command and control nor financial issues are
insoluble. But it is clear that South Korea is seeking a more
independent stance as an equal to the US. 

Both sides must think through how to react if North Korea simply
refuses to end its nuclear program and actually fields a nuclear
missile. The Bush administration has not fully addressed that
question. My view is that because of the overwhelming nuclear
forces available to the United States, and our conventional
strength, as long as there is a viable US-ROK alliance, North
Korea can be deterred. And Japan would not move to become a
nuclear power as long as its leaders and people had faith in the
US nuclear umbrella. We must deploy effective ballistic missile
defenses. Such defenses provide strategic stability and make
North Korea¡¯s nuclear blackmail less viable. The ROK should
pursue PAC-III aggressively and pursue a missile-defense
architecture that is compatible with that of the US, Japan, and
the NATO allies. 

The United States should reconsider its own removal of nuclear
weapons from deployed ships and aircraft. If North Korea moves
forward with fielding a nuclear capability, the US nuclear
posture should be revised to go back to NCND policy. And the
North Korea nuclear matter should be referred to the United
Nations. 

The US-ROK alliance remains a strong factor in the stability of
Northeast Asia and in deterring any aggression by North Korea.
The United States has been a reliable alliance partner and has
not taken military measures that would increase the threat to
its allies. This has been the case whether responding to crises
out of the region, in responding to crises involving China and
Taiwan, or regarding North Korea. A clear-headed consideration
of national interest by the people of the United States and
South Korea will reinforce the need to keep the alliance strong. 

Larry M. Wortzel is a visiting fellow at the Heritage
Foundation. 

*****************************************************************
 2 Guardian Unlimited: North Korea Condemns Cheney Remarks
 
From the Associated Press        
	 
[UP] 

	Thursday June 2, 2005 12:16 PM
 	
AP Photo COEA101 
By BURT HERMAN 
Associated Press Writer 

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea called Vice President Dick
Cheney a ``bloodthirsty beast'' and said Thursday his recent
remarks labeling ruler Kim Jong Il irresponsible are another
reason for it to stay away from six-nation nuclear disarmament
talks. 

``What Cheney uttered at a time when the issue of the six-party
talks is high on the agenda is little short of telling (North
Korea) not to come out for the talks,'' an unnamed North Korean
Foreign Ministry spokesman said, according to the state-run
Korean Central News Agency. 

Nearly a year since the last session of the six-nation talks,
North Korea has refused to return to the table, citing a
``hostile'' U.S. policy. More recently, it has also called for
an apology for being labeled one of the world's ``outposts of
tyranny'' by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. 

In a Sunday interview on CNN, Cheney called the North Korean
leader ``one of the world's most irresponsible leaders'' who
runs a police state and leaves his people in poverty and
malnutrition. 

President Bush himself has sounded a more conciliatory tone
recently, referring to Kim this week at a news conference using
the title ``Mr.'' 

Rice has also said the U.S. recognizes the North as a sovereign
nation, and U.S. officials insist they have no intention to
attack the communist state. 

But North Korea said Thursday that the remarks by Cheney, ``boss
of the hawkish hard-liners, revealed the true colors of this
group steering the implementation of the policy of the Bush
administration.'' 

The North also leveled a bitter personal attack on Cheney,
saying he was ``hated as the most cruel monster and bloodthirsty
beast as he has drenched various parts of the world in blood.'' 

Despite the tough talk, the North said it maintains its
commitment to ending the nuclear standoff on the Korean
Peninsula and seeking a peaceful solution to the current
standoff. 

``But if the U.S. persists in its wrong behavior, misjudging our
magnanimity and patience as a sign of weakness, this will entail
more serious consequences,'' the spokesman said, without any
elaboration. 

Earlier this week, Pyongyang's state media also lashed out at
Rice in harsh personal terms, implying she was in control of the
White House. 

Meanwhile, the North also Thursday criticized a Defense
Department decision to halt missions to recover remains of
thousands of U.S. soldiers from the Korean War and said it would
disband its own search unit. 

``In consequence, the U.S. remains buried in Korea can never be
recovered but are bound to be reduced to earth with the flow of
time,'' a North Korean army spokesman said, according to KCNA. 

Washington said it was halting the missions, which began in
1996, out of concerns for U.S. troops' safety. Pyongyang denied
they had ever been at risk and said the Americans had been able
to remove remains ``without having even a single fingernail
hurt.'' 

Also Thursday, the North demanded the U.S. withdraw 15 F-117A
Nighthawk stealth fighters recently deployed to South Korea on a
regular annual training exercise. 

The latest nuclear standoff with North Korea was sparked in late
2002 when U.S. officials accused Pyongyang of running a secret
uranium enrichment program in violation of a 1994 agreement. The
North later pulled out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty
and restarted its main reactor - which it shut down this year
and said it had removed the fuel rods, a step that would enable
it to harvest more weapons-grade plutonium. 

The last round of six-nation talks - including China, Japan,
Russia, the United States and the two Koreas - met in June.

Three rounds of the negotiations in Beijing have failed to lead
to any breakthroughs. 	 
		 	 	   
      Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
 3 [NYTr] US Nuke Hypocrisy: Bad for America, Bad for the World
 
Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 18:01:05 -0500 (CDT)

 
Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit
 

[Krieger blames the Bush regime "overwhelmingly" for the failure of the NPT
conference, and quotes representatives of other nations clucking about how
terrible the US is. Yes, Bush has pushed the envelope farther than any
of his predecessors.  But how much did Clinton do to fulfill the promises
made by the Big Nuke powers over the years? How much did those other powers
do to keep their own promises?  What have England, France and Russia done
to reduce the nuclear menace?  Where has their leadership been in pressuring
*Israel especially* -- which has refused to sign on to the NPT?  How much
of Bush's utter disregard for international law can be laid at the feet of
Robin Cook's own country -- he who is so upset by Bush -- which has
slavishly supported and joined in on Bush's murderous Crusade in Iraq (and
on so many other things the Brits have gone along with over the years)? The
Canadians can flap their wings all they want -- they haven't done anything
to resist seriously the Evil Empire to their south. Until the nations of the
[slightly more civilized] world are willing to confront this monstrous
country, and bear the pain that implies, in a united front, nothing is going
to change, it's only going to get worse and worse until the US rules the
whole planet and no one has any hope of stopping it.  The American people
are not going to rise up -- it's up to the rest of the world to put the
US down, like the crazed, diseased dangerous animal it is.-NY Transfer]

sent by Ed Pearl

CounterPunch - May 31, 2005
http://www.counterpunch.com/krieger05312005.html

US Nuclear Hypocrisy:

Bad for America, Bad for the World

By DAVID KRIEGER

Every five years the parties to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty meet in
a review conference to further the non-proliferation and disarmament goals
of the treaty. This year the conference ended in a spectacular failure with
no final document and no agreement on moving forward. For the first ten days
of the conference, the US resisted agreement on an agenda that made any
reference to past commitments.

The failure of the treaty conference is overwhelmingly attributable to the
nuclear policies of the Bush administration, which has disavowed previous US
nuclear disarmament commitments under the treaty. The Bush administration
does not seem to grasp the hypocrisy of pressing other nations to forego
their nuclear options, while failing to fulfill its own obligations under
the disarmament provisions of the treaty.

The treaty is crumbling under the double standards of American policy, and
may not be able to recover from the rigid "do-as-I-say, not-as-I-do"
positions of the Bush administration. These policies are viewed by most of
the world as high-level nuclear hypocrisy.

Paul Meyer, the head of Canada's delegation to the treaty conference,
reflected on the conference, "The vast majority of states have to be
acknowledged, but we did not get that kind of diplomacy from the US." Former
UK Foreign Minister Robin Cook also singled out the Bush administration in
explaining the failure of the conference. "How strange," he wrote, "that no
delegation should have worked harder to frustrate agreement on what needs to
be done than the representatives of George Bush."

What the US did at the treaty conference was to point the finger at Iran and
North Korea, while refusing to discuss or even acknowledge its own failure
to meet its obligations under the treaty. Five years ago, at the 2000
Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference, the parties to the treaty,
including the US, agreed to 13 Practical Steps for Nuclear Disarmament.
Under the Bush administration, nearly all of these obligations have been
disavowed.

Although President Clinton signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1996,
the Bush administration does not support it and refused to allow
ratification of this treaty, which is part of the 13 Practical Steps, to
even be discussed at the 2005 review conference. The parties to the treaty
are aware that the Bush administration is seeking funding from Congress to
continue work on new earth penetrating nuclear weapons ("bunker busters"),
while telling other nations not to develop nuclear arms.

They are also aware that the Bush administration has withdrawn from the
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in order to pursue a destabilizing missile
defense program, and has not supported a verifiable Fissile Material Cut-off
Treaty, although the US had agreed to support these treaties in the 13
Practical Steps.

The failure of this treaty conference makes nuclear proliferation more
likely, including proliferation to terrorist organizations that cannot be
deterred from using the weapons. The fault for this failure does not lie
with other governments as the Bush administration would have us believe. It
does not lie with Egypt for seeking consideration of previous promises to
achieve a Middle East Nuclear Weapons Free Zone.

Nor does the fault lie with Iran for seeking to enrich uranium for its
nuclear energy program, as is done by many other states, including the US,
under the provisions of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. It would no doubt be
preferable to have the enrichment of uranium and the separation of
plutonium, both of which can be used for nuclear weapons programs, done
under strict international controls, but this requires a change in the
treaty that must be applicable to all parties, not just to those singled out
by the US.

Nor can the fault be said to lie with those states that, having given up
their option to develop nuclear weapons, sought renewed commitments from the
nuclear weapons states not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear
weapons states. It is hard to imagine a more reasonable request. Yet the US
has refused to relinquish the option of first use of nuclear weapons, even
against non-nuclear weapons states.

The fault for the failure of the treaty conference lies clearly with the
Bush administration, which must take full responsibility for undermining the
security of every American by its double standards and nuclear hypocrisy.

The American people must understand the full magnitude of the Bush
administration's failure at the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference.
This may not happen because the administration has been so remarkably
successful in spinning the news to suit its unilateralist, militarist and
triumphalist worldviews.

As Americans, we can not afford to wait until we experience an American
Hiroshima before we wake up to the very real dangers posed by US nuclear
policies. We must demand the reversal of these policies and the resumption
of constructive engagement with the rest of the world.

[David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.]
       
                                *
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.          Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us         .
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*****************************************************************
 4 FOXNews.com: Greens Are the Real Energy Problem
 
Thursday, June 02, 2005                         

By Steven Milloy         
	 	 	
It goes without saying that the global economy depends on the 
availability of affordable energy. Many place their hopes for 
abundant energy supplies in yet-to-be-imagined technologies.
 
But while researchers tinker with far-off possibilities, theres 
something we should do right now to keep the energy flowing: 
break the radical environmentalists chokehold on national energy 
policy.
 
Regardless of form  whether oil, gas, coal or nuclear  the 
Green movement is blocking efforts to harness our accustomed 
energy sources while leading us down the primrose path of 
so-called renewable energy.
 
First, were not running out of oil. 	 
	 	 		 			 			 				 
Notwithstanding the recent paucity of discoveries of new major 
oil fields, innovation has proved adequate to meet ever-rising 
demands for oil, wrote Alan Greenspan last October in "Middle 
East Economic Survey."
 
Gross additions to reserves have significantly exceeded the 
extraction of oil the reserves replaced, added Greenspan. These 
new reserves dont include unconventional oil sources, including 
the vast Canadian tar sands and Venezuelan heavy oil.
 
Nevertheless environmentalists are hindering efforts to obtain 
that oil  witness, for example, their fight against drilling in 
the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). Environmentalists 
currently are whipping up Floridians against the offshore 
drilling provisions in the current energy bill in Congress, 
forcing Republican Sen. Mel Martinez to defy Senate leadership 
and kowtow to the activists.
 
Any weakening of protections currently in place off Florida's 
coasts is unacceptable, says Martinez, echoing the anti-drilling 
position of environmental groups.
 
			 			 				 			 			 				 
Green opposition to increased oil production is international in 
scope. Acting through such diverse groups as Amnesty 
International and Christian Brothers Investment Services, 
activists are harassing oil company BP about its $3.2 billion 
Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline from the Caspian Sea to the 
Mediterranean Sea.
 			 			 				 			 			 				 					 
The recent increase in gasoline prices is only partially due to 
higher demand from developing countries like China and India. 
Price spikes have also been fueled by the failure of U.S. 
refining capability to keep pace with demand. No new gasoline 
refinery has opened since 1976  thanks to unnecessarily strict 
government regulations and community opposition, both of which 
have been tirelessly orchestrated by the environmental movement.
 			 			 				 			 			 				 
Theres also plenty of natural gas to be had  if the Greens 
would let us have it.
 			 			 				 			 			 				 
As spotlighted recently by the Wall Street Journal editorial 
page, environmentalists have successfully pushed moratoriums for 
most new offshore drilling of the fuel, have fought to keep the 
most gas-rich federal lands off-limits to exploration, and have 
used lawsuits to tie up those pieces that are accessible.
 			 			 				 			 			 				 
The Greens are also obstructing the importation of liquefied 
natural gas by blocking the construction of new port facilities 
based on fears that they would be terrorist targets.
 			 			 				 			 			 				 
Coal is a cheap and abundant source of energy, but 
environmentalists are making its use more difficult with 
hysterical claims that coal burning releases poisons like 
mercury into the air. Environmentalists also oppose so-called 
clean coal technology on the grounds that, although less 
nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide are emitted, mercury emissions 
remain.
 			 			 				 			 			 				 
The reality of the matter is that the vast majority of mercury in 
the environment comes from natural sources; mercuryemitted from 
coal burning power plants is not linked with detectable harm to 
human health or the environment.
 			 			 				 			 			 				 
As to nuclear power, environmentalist fear-mongering has ensured 
theres been no new nuclear power plant construction since the 
1970s. Theyre trying to shut down nuke plants in operation by 
blocking the Yucca Mountainnuclear waste storage facility in the 
Nevada desert, forcing nuclear plants to temporarily store waste 
in limited, politically unpopular on-site facilities.
 			 			 				 			 			 				 
General Electric, producer of nuclear power technology, is hoping 
fears about global warming and energy supplies will interest the 
public and environmentalists in nuclear energy. No doubt GE hoped 
it was getting a Green ally in jointly announcing its recent 
Ecomagination initiative with the eco-activist World Resources 
Institute (WRI). Such hope is pretty naïve, however.
 			 			 				 			 			 				 
WRI has worked more closely and a lot longer with the likes of 
anti-nuke groups like Environmental Defense and Greenpeace, 
which, by the way, is currently trying to block the construction 
of a new nuclear power plant in Southern Maryland.
 			 			 				 			 			 				 
The energy crisis has arisen not because theres a lack of 
sufficiently clean and affordable energy supplies  our problem 
is that weve allowed the Greens to have too much power.
 
			 			 				 			 			 				 
Steven Milloy publishes <em>JunkScience.com</em>and 
<em>CSRwatch.com</em>, is adjunct scholar at the Competitive 
Enterprise Institute, and is the author of <em>Junk Science Judo: 
Self-defense Against Health Scares and Scams (Cato Institute, 
*****************************************************************
 5 TheDay.com: Region Rallies 'Round The Sub Base

, New London, CT
 		 		 		
Friday, Jun 3, 2005   								   									 										
												 												 												 										 										
BRAC members are told Pentagon recommendation seriously flawed

  Bob Walker of Groton, a member of the Sub Vets and employed at
the base, waves a sign of support and an American flag as the
BRAC motorcade passes by on Route 12 in Groton on Wednesday.  
  
  BRAC Commission Chairman Anthony J. Principi, right, talks
with U.S. Senators Dodd, left, and Lieberman, center, before
leaving the press conference at the Goton-New London Airport
Wednesday.  

  That was the best part of the whole morning. ;I think they
were led to believe it was a decrepit, aging, old base. What
they saw was a very modern installation.
State Sen. Cathy Cook, R-Mystic
  
  BRAC Commission Chairman Anthony J. Principi  

  BRAC Commissioner Retired Congressman from Navada James H.
Bilbray  

  I'm encouraged that they listened and learned, but I don't
want to read anything into it. This is the first real official
step in a long journey, and the journey continues until
September 8th. Until the last step, I am not going to speculate
on our chances.

JohnC. Markowicz, chairman, Subase Realignment Coalition
  
  BRAC Commissioner Retired Air Force General Lloyd W. Newton  

  BRAC Commissioner Philip Coyle, retired assistant secretary of
Defense  

By ROBERT A. HAMILTON
Day Staff Writer, Navy/Defense/Electric Boat
Published on 6/2/2005

Groton  A former top Pentagon official, now a member of the
base closure commission, said he can't understand why the
Defense Department's recommendation to close the Naval Submarine
Base gives the base no credit for having piers, especially after
he saw them and walked on them this week.

 That was the best part of the whole morning, said state Sen.
Cathy Cook, R-Mystic. I think they were led to believe it was a
decrepit, aging, old base. What they saw was a very modern
installation.

 As four members of the nine-person Defense Base Closure and
Realignment Commission (BRAC) finished a two-day tour of
southeastern Connecticut with a briefing at the Submarine Force
Library and Museum, base backers said they are confident they
scored a number of points in their effort to undermine the Navy
and Defense Department case.

 John C. Markowicz, chairman of the Subase Realignment
Coalition, a grass-roots group battling to keep the base open,
gave a 12-slide presentation on what the coalition believes were
biases in the Navy's case to move forces to Kings Bay, Ga.

 Markowicz noted that despite its claim that all bases were on
the table, the Navy was guided by the principle that it needs a
base dedicated to strategic missile submarines on each coast,
and since Kings Bay is the only base of that type on the East
Coast, it was never in danger.

 In addition, the Navy's ranking of military value assigned
4.15 points to bases that could transport and store nuclear
weapons, but only Kings Bay would need to have that capability.
In ranking security and emergency services, 75 percent of the
weight was given to bases that handled nuclear weapons.

 Why give them credit for being able to store nuclear weapons
in two different questions? Markowicz said.

 Kings Bay also got points for being closer than Groton to an
anti-air warfare range and a naval gunnery range, even though
submarines never use those ranges, he said.

 Markowicz said there were other parts of the scoring that are
impossible to explain because the Defense Department has not
released the data it used to reach its conclusions. For
instance, the Naval Submarine Support Facility in Groton, which
performs major repairs to the 18 submarines there and often
works on visiting submarines, got 0.30 military value points;
the repair yard at Kings Bay, which is more limited in the scope
of work it can perform and works on just five submarines, got
almost twice that score at 0.58.

 And while Groton got no military value points for piers, it got
one point for having relatively new piers on another question,
Markowicz said.

 I can't explain it, but it certainly raises some questions
that the commission should be considering, Markowicz said.

 Overall, he asked the commission to consider how Groton, home
port to 18 submarines, 10,000 personnel, Navy regional
headquarters, the school that serves the entire submarine force,
and a large repair yard got a military value score of 50.68,
while Kings Bay with five submarines  four by the end of the
summer  3,500 people and a much smaller training capability,
ranked 63.51.

 And he noted that Groton was recommended for closure while
another base with the same score was spared, as were most of the
15 installations that scored lower than Groton.

 I thought that, in about 18 minutes, we were able to explain,
very specifically, about concerns we had with how the Navy
placed the submarine base on the closure list, Markowicz said.
One of the things we set out to do was show that the weighting
factors seemed to imply there were biases in favor of certain
bases, and I think we accomplished that.

 """Gov. M. Jodi Rell said she presented some statistics on the
economic impact closing the base would have. She said she
realized the commission has said military value will be its
overarching concern, but she thought it was important to put a
human face on the cost.

 Rell said it seemed to impress the commission when she argued
that the Navy's estimate that it would cost the region 15,800
jobs might be about half the actual impact, and it could drive
up the unemployment rate in the region from 4.1 to 8 percent or
more.

 In addition, she said, she argued that the Navy has severely
underestimated the cost of the environmental cleanup at the
base, pegging the price at less than $24 million.

 I made the comment that they were off at least one zero in
that calculation, and possibly two, Rell said.

 U.S. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, D-Conn., said he emphasized that
the Navy has a limited amount of nuclear-certified waterfront
now, and once you close it, it's closed forever.

 We argued with the passion of preachers, and in some cases
with the precision of surgeons, Lieberman said, adding that he
felt the arguments were extremely effective.

 U.S. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, D-Conn., said all the members of
the delegation stressed the synergy between the base and nearby
Electric Boat, which designs, builds and repairs submarines, and
the proximity to the Naval Undersea Warfare Center in nearby
Newport, R.I.

 In addition, he said, EB President John P. Casey presented an
outstanding explanation of how the co-location of the base and
the shipyard benefits both.

 This is not just a base  there is an entire infrastructure in
southeastern Connecticut that is critical to our national
security, Dodd said.

 In addition, he said, the base is home to agencies such as the
Naval Undersea Medical Institute, which trains the independent
duty corpsmen who serve as the docs on submarines, and the
Naval Submarine Medical Research Laboratory, which conducts
research into medical issues facing submariners, such as how to
improve survival rates on a disabled boat. Those commands would
be scattered to inland bases.

 That kind of relationship doesn't exist anywhere else in the
world, and we lose it if we break it up, Dodd said.

 I do not believe synergy was considered at all, because if it
was, there would be no logical reason to recommend closing
(Groton), said U.S. Rep. Rob Simmons, R-2nd District.

 Simmons also brought Robert Ballard, head of the Institute for
Exploration in Mystic, to the closed-door meeting. Ballard, a
retired Navy officer, testified about the unique capabilities
that Groton's submarines bring to information-gathering missions.

 Markowicz said despite the fact he feels the presentations were
well received, he fell back on his earlier statements that
Groton has about a 1-in-10 chance of getting off the list, since
base-closure panels typically accept more than 85 percent of
Pentagon recommendations.

 I'm encouraged that they listened and learned, but I don't
want to read anything into it, he said. This is the first real
official step in a long journey, and the journey continues until
September 8th. Until the last step, I am not going to speculate
on our chances. 

[The Day Publishing Co.]                                                              
*****************************************************************
 6 Moscow Times: A Drain on Russia's Energy
 
Opinion/Columnists/Defense Dossier   
    
Thursday, June 2, 2005. Issue 3179. Page 9. 
    
 By Pavel Felgenhauer 

When the power blackout hit Moscow last week, I was attending a 
presentation of the Russian contribution to the latest Stockholm 
International Peace Research Institute Yearbook on Armaments, 
Disarmament and International Security. The SIPRI Yearbook is 
translated and published with the help of the Moscow Institute of 
World Economy and International Relations, or IMEMO, one of 
Russia's best-known state-financed think tanks dedicated to 
security, defense and foreign policy.
 
The presentation was at the IMEMO building on Profsoyuznaya
Ulitsa. Most of the speakers, both Russian and foreign, were
harping on the threat of the proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction coming from North Korea and Iran. As the nearby
orange metro line stopped running and the traffic lights went
black, I asked the speakers to assess whether they thought a
large-scale power failure in the Moscow region -- which is full
of various kinds of WMD like hazardous industrial plants,
nuclear reactors and military bases -- would be a danger
comparable to a rogue state possessing nukes.
 
A Russian government official responded that everything
potentially dangerous in our country has reserve emergency power
supplies, that nothing can possibly go wrong. SIPRI director
Alison Bailes replied that the institute had recently been
conducting extensive research into the consequences of the
possible use of "weapons of mass disruption": deliberate,
catastrophic blackouts, transportation and communications
failures.
 
As the power crisis in Moscow and the neighboring regions
developed, it became apparent that many vital installations did
not have any emergency power supplies. Generating equipment had
either been stolen or only installed on paper. Russia was lucky
that last week's blackout did not lead to major loss of life or
to a major industrial accident, but how long will our luck last?
 	
Specialists had predicted a Moscow blackout would strike. Last
February, former Deputy Energy Minister Vladimir Milov stated at
a Moscow conference that only 10 percent of the Moscow regional
power supply comes from sources outside the region. Moscow is
the fastest growing regional economy in Russia, and electricity
consumption has already surpassed its Soviet-era maximum, but no
new generating capacity has been built. Moscow has virtually no
spare power to meet emergencies, so a relatively small accident
can lead to a huge breakdown. Blackouts could become a regular
event.
 
Milov explained that Russia has one of the highest energy
consumption rates per unit of GDP in the world. The collapse of
industrial production in the 1990s created the illusion of large
reserve energy capacity that could last a long time. Now that
production has begun to recover, economic growth has swiftly
increased consumption, while artificially low, state-controlled
electricity and natural gas prices have discouraged investment
in conservation.
 
This makes the present policy of economic growth utterly
unsustainable. The more the state stimulates industrial
production, the worse the energy crisis will become. 

The reform of the electric power monopoly, Unified Energy
Systems, has stalled. The reform of the gas monopoly Gazprom has
been abandoned altogether. The state-controlled energy
monopolies barely invest: Russia has abundant reserves of
natural gas, but Gazprom has been decreasing investment in
production in recent years, while using its connections in the
Kremlin to prevent independent gas field development.
 
Milov believes that this mismanagement of the Russian energy
sector will continue since Vladimir Putin and many others in
Kremlin have a personal interest in keeping the inefficient
Gazprom monopoly unreformed. By 2007, gas production in Russia
will be in decline, and electricity production will at best
stagnate. And Kremlin plans to take over oil production and
limit foreign investment will most likely increase the energy
havoc.
 
In a couple of years, the present mirage of a politically stable
and economically prosperous nation could vanish without a trace.
Russia will again become the economic basket case it was in the
1990s. As constant blackouts cripple the security
infrastructure, the unreformed, disgruntled security services
and the military may not be able or willing to protect Russia's
nuclear arsenal and vital installations. 

The weakness and corruption in the Kremlin today are just as
great a threat to Russia -- and the world -- as Soviet might was
during the Cold War.
 
Pavel Felgenhauer is an independent defense analyst based in
Moscow.
 
  	 © Copyright 2005 The Moscow Times. All rights reserved. 	   

*****************************************************************
 7 Physics World: New light on Hitler's bomb 

Forum: June 2005

Controversial new historical evidence suggests that German
physicists built and tested a nuclear bomb during the Second
World War. Rainer Karlsch and Mark Walker outline the findings
and present a previously unpublished diagram of a German nuclear
weapon

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the American nuclear
attack on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The
atomic bombs that were dropped on Japan in August 1945 were the
fruit of a herculean wartime effort by the American, British and
émigré scientists involved in the Manhattan Project. They had to
overcome great obstacles and were only able to test their first
atomic bomb after Germany surrendered in May of that year. The
main motivation for these scientists when the project began in
1941 was the possibility that they were engaged in a race with
their German counterparts to harness nuclear fission for war.
 
Even Albert Einstein had been involved, signing a letter to
President Roosevelt in 1939 urging that the US take nuclear
weapons seriously. And in December 1943 the Danish physicist
Niels Bohr visited Los Alamos - the home of the Manhattan
Project - to offer both scientific and moral support. But when
the war was over, it was clear that the Germans did not have
atomic bombs like those used against Japan.
 


  [Figure 1] 
Figure 1  

 
The German "uranium project" - which had been set up in 1939 to
investigate nuclear reactors, isotope separation and nuclear
explosives - amounted to no more than a few dozen scientists
scattered across the country. Many of them did not even devote
all of their time to nuclear-weapons research. The Manhattan
Project, in contrast, employed thousands of scientists,
engineers and technicians, and cost several billion dollars.
 
Not surprisingly, historians have concluded that Germany was not
even close to building a working nuclear device. However, newly
discovered historical material makes this story more complicated
- and much more interesting. 

Germany and the bomb: a turbulent tale

 
Our understanding of the German nuclear-weapons project during
the Second World War has changed over time because important new
sources of information keep turning up. For example, in 1992 the
British government released transcripts of secretly recorded
conversations between 10 German scientists who had been interned
at Farm Hall near Cambridge in 1945. With the exception of Max
van Laue, all the scientists - Erich Bagge, Kurt Diebner,
Walther Gerlach, Otto Hahn, Paul Harteck, Werner Heisenberg,
Horst Korsching, Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker and Karl Wirtz -
had been involved in the uranium project. What was most
interesting was the surprise with which the scientists greeted
the news that Hiroshima had been bombed. Ironically, at the end
of the war German scientists had been convinced that they were
ahead of the Allies in the race for nuclear energy and nuclear
weapons.
 
Further intriguing material appeared in 2002 when the Niels Bohr
Archives in Copenhagen released drafts of letters that had been
written by Bohr in the late 1950s about a visit to occupied
Denmark by Heisenberg and von Weizsäcker in September 1941.
After the war, the two German physicists claimed that they had
merely gone to Copenhagen to assist Bohr and enlist his help in
their efforts to forestall all nuclear weapons. But in the
letters, Bohr denied that their actions or motivations had been
so noble. The intrigue surrounding the visit has been well
dramatized in Michael Frayn's play Copenhagen.
 


  [Figure 2] 
Figure 2  

 
We now have an extra twist to the tale with new documents that
were recently discovered in Russian archives, including papers
from the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Physics in Berlin. There
are four particularly notable items among this material: an
official report written by von Weizsäcker after a visit to
Copenhagen in March 1941; a draft patent application written by
von Weizsäcker sometime in 1941; a revised patent application in
November of that year; and the text of a popular lecture given
by Heisenberg in June 1942.
 
One of us (RK) has used these documents - as well as many other
sources - as the basis of a new book Hitlers Bombe. The book,
which was published in March, prompted a heated debate about how
close Germany was to acquiring nuclear weapons and how
significant these weapons were (see Physics World April 2005
p7). Working with the journalist Heiko Petermann, RK discovered
that a group of German scientists had carried out a
hitherto-unknown nuclear-reactor experiment and tested some sort
of a nuclear device in Thüringia, eastern Germany, in March
1945. According to eyewitness accounts given at the end of that
month and two decades later, the test killed several hundred
prisoners of war and concentration-camp inmates. Although it is
not clear if the device (figure 1) worked as intended, it was
designed to use nuclear fission and fusion reactions. It was,
therefore, a nuclear weapon.
 
Following the publication of Hitlers Bombe, another document has
turned up from a private archive. Written immediately after the
end of the war in Europe, the undated document contains the only
known German drawing of a nuclear weapon (figure 2). 

What did German scientists know?

 
Over the years, several authors have concluded that Heisenberg
and his colleagues did not understand how an atomic bomb would
work. These authors include the physicist Samuel Goudsmit, who
in 1947 published the results of a US Army investigation -
entitled Alsos - into Germany's bomb effort. The historian Paul
Lawrence Rose came to the same conclusion in his 1998 book
Heisenberg and the Nazi Atomic Bomb Project 1939-1945. These
critics argue that the German scientists did not understand the
physics of a nuclear-fission chain reaction, in which fast
neutrons emitted by a uranium-235 or plutonium nucleus trigger
further fission reactions. Both Goudsmit and Rose also say the
Germans failed to realize that plutonium can be a nuclear
explosive.
 
These criticisms of the Germans' scientific incompetence are
apparently reinforced by the Farm Hall conversations, which
reveal that Heisenberg initially responded to the news of
Hiroshima with a flawed calculation of critical mass, although
within a few days he had improved it and provided a very good
estimate. However, there was other evidence that, no matter how
Heisenberg responded at Farm Hall, he and his colleagues
understood that atomic bombs would use fast-neutron chain
reactions and that both plutonium and uranium-235 were
fissionable materials.
 
For example, in February 1942 the German army officials who were
responsible for weapons development described the progress of
the uranium project in a report entitled "Energy production from
uranium". This overview, which was discovered in the 1980s, drew
upon all classified material from Hahn, Harteck, Heisenberg and
the other scientists working on the project. The report
concluded that pure uranium-235 - which forms just 0.7% of
natural uranium, the rest being non-fissionable uranium-238 -
would be a nuclear explosive a million times more powerful than
conventional explosives. It also argued that a nuclear reactor,
once operating, could be used to make plutonium, which would be
an explosive of comparable force. The critical mass of such a
weapon would be "around 10-100 kg", which was comparable to the
Allies' estimate from 6 November 1941 of 2-100 kg that is
recorded in the official history of the Manhattan Project - the
so-called Smyth report.
 
Von Weizsäcker's draft patent application of 1941, which is
perhaps the most surprising find from the new Russian documents,
makes it crystal clear that he did indeed understand both the
properties and the military applications of plutonium. "The
production of element 94 [i.e. plutonium] in practically useful
amounts is best done with the 'uranium machine' [nuclear
reactor]," the application states. "It is especially
advantageous - and this is the main benefit of the invention -
that the element 94 thereby produced can easily be separated
from uranium chemically."
 
Von Weizsäcker also makes it clear that plutonium could be used
in a powerful bomb. "With regard to energy per unit weight this
explosive would be around ten million times greater than any
other [existing explosive] and comparable only to pure uranium
235," he writes. Later in the patent application, he describes a
"process for the explosive production of energy from the fission
of element 94, whereby element 94...is brought together in such
amounts in one place, for example a bomb, so that the
overwhelming majority of neutrons produced by fission excite new
fissions and do not leave the substance".
 
This is nothing less than a patent claim on a plutonium bomb.
 
On 3 November 1941 the patent application was resubmitted with
the same title: "Technical extraction of energy, production of
neutrons, and manufacture of new elements by the fission of
uranium or related heavier elements". This submission differed
in two significant ways. First, the patent was now filed on
behalf of the entire Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, instead of just
von Weizsäcker. Second, every mention of nuclear explosive or
bomb had been removed.
 
The removal of any reference to weapons could reflect the change
of fortunes in the Second World War: in November 1941 a quick
German victory no longer appeared as certain as it had done
earlier in the year. Another possible explanation is that von
Weizsäcker and his colleagues had a change of heart - perhaps
their initial enthusiasm for the military applications of
nuclear fission had cooled. This would support Heisenberg's and
von Weizsäcker's post-war claims that they had visited Bohr in
September 1941 because they were ambivalent about working on
nuclear weapons. Perhaps the most forceful exponent of this
thesis is Thomas Powers in his 1993 book Heisenberg's War.
 
But another of the new Russian documents - von Weizsäcker's
report on his visit to Copenhagen in spring 1941 - suggests
that, at least at that time, he was enthusiastic about the
uranium work. Indeed, we know that, after the war, scientists
from Bohr's institute accused Heisenberg and von Weizsäcker of
acting as German spies when they came to Copenhagen. There may
at least be some truth to this because in March 1941, when
Germany had not yet invaded the Soviet Union and victory
appeared likely, von Weizsäcker reported the following to the
Army.
 
"The technical extraction of energy from uranium fission is not
being worked on in Copenhagen. They know that in America Fermi
has started research into these questions in particular;
however, no more news has arrived since the beginning of the
war. Obviously Professor Bohr does not know that we are working
on these questions; of course, I encouraged him in this
belief...The American journal Physical Review was complete in
Copenhagen up to the January 15, 1941 issue. I have brought back
photocopies of the most important papers. We arranged that the
German Embassy will regularly photocopy [make photographs of]
the issues for us." 

The spotlight turns to Diebner

 
RK's book Hitlers Bombe draws upon what was already known about
the German wartime work on nuclear reactors and isotope
separation, and uses documents from Russian archives, oral
history and industrial archaeology to open up a new chapter in
the history of German nuclear weapons. For most of the war,
there were two competing groups working on nuclear reactors: a
team under the Army physicist Kurt Diebner in Gottow near
Berlin; and scientists directed by Werner Heisenberg in Leipzig
and Berlin.
 
Whereas the experiments under Heisenberg used alternating layers
of uranium and moderator, Diebner's team developed a superior 3D
lattice of uranium cubes embedded in moderator. Heisenberg never
gave Diebner and the scientists working under him the credit
they were due, but the Nobel laureate did take up Diebner's
design for the last experiment carried out in Haigerloch in
south-west Germany. RK now reveals that Diebner managed to carry
out one last experiment in the last months of the war. The exact
details of the experiment are unclear. After a series of
measurements had been taken, Diebner wrote a short letter to
Heisenberg on 10 November 1944 that informed him of the
experiment and hinted that there had been problems with the
reactor. Unfortunately, no more written sources have been found
relating to this final reactor experiment in Gottow. Industrial
archaeology done at the site during 2002 and 2003 suggests that
this reactor sustained a chain reaction - if only for a short
period of time - and may have ended in an accident.
 
In 1955 Diebner submitted a patent application for a new type of
"two-stage" reactor that could breed plutonium. An internal
section would use enriched uranium to achieve a self-sustaining
chain reaction, while a much larger external section would
surround the internal reactor and run at a subcritical level.
Plutonium could then be removed from internal section. It
appears likely that Diebner's 1955 patent application drew upon
his last wartime experiment.
 
More surprising, if not shocking, is another revelation in RK's
book: a group of scientists under Diebner built and tested a
nuclear weapon with the strong support of both Walther Gerlach -
an experimental nuclear physicist who by 1944 was in charge of
the uranium project for the Reich Research Council. (Hahn,
Heisenberg, von Weizsäcker and most of the better-known
scientists in the uranium project apparently were not informed
about this weapon.) This device was designed to use fission
reactions, but it was not an "atomic" bomb like the weapons used
against Nagasaki and Hiroshima (figures 1a and b). And although
it was also designed to exploit fusion reactions, it was nothing
like the "hydrogen" bombs tested by the US and the Soviet Union
in the 1950s.
 
Instead, conventional high explosives were formed into a hollow
shape, rather than a solid mass, to focus the energy and heat
from the explosion to one point inside the shell (figure 1c).
Small amounts of enriched uranium, as well as a source of
neutrons, were combined with a deuterium-lithium mixture inside
the shell. This weapon would have been more of a tactical than a
strategic weapon, and could not have won the war for Hitler in
any case. It is not clear how successful this design was and
whether fission and fusion reactions were provoked. But what is
important is the revelation that a small group of scientists
working in the last desperate months of the war were trying to
do this. 

Blueprint for a bomb

 
Shortly after the end of the war in Europe, an unknown German or
Austrian scientist wrote a report that describes work on nuclear
weapons during the war. This report, which RK discovered after
Hitlers Bombe was published, contains both accurate information
and less accurate speculation about nuclear weapons, and may
well include some information from the Manhattan Project - the
word "plutonium" is used, for example. Unfortunately, the title
page is not included and there is no other evidence of who
composed it. However, this individual does not appear to have
been a member of either the mainstream German uranium project or
the group working under Diebner.
 
What the report does demonstrate is that the knowledge that
uranium could be used to make powerful new weapons was fairly
widespread in the German technical community during the war, and
it contains the only known German diagram of a nuclear weapon
(figure 2). This diagram is schematic and is far removed from a
practical blueprint for an "atomic bomb". The unknown author
also mentions a critical mass of slightly more than 5 kg for a
plutonium bomb. This estimate is fairly accurate, because the
use of a tamper to reflect neutrons back into the plutonium
would cut the critical mass by a factor of two. Moreover, this
estimate is particularly significant because such detailed
information was not included in the Smyth report.
 
The new report is also interesting because it makes clear that
German scientists had worked intensively on theoretical
questions concerned with the construction of a hydrogen bomb.
Two additional sources con- firm this. The papers of Erich
Schumann, director of the Army's weapons-research department,
include many documents and theoretical calculations of nuclear
fusion. The Viennese physicist Hans Thirring also discussed this
topic in his book The History of the Atomic Bomb, which was
published in the summer of 1946. 

Not the last word

 
Historians, scientists and others have debated for decades
whether Heisenberg and von Weizsäcker wanted to build atomic
bombs.Taken together, the new revelations change our picture of
German nuclear weapons. None of this new information supports in
any way either the interpretation of Heisenberg and his
colleagues as resistance fighters (Powers) or as incompetents
with Nazi sympathies (Rose). 
However, these new documents and RK's revelations do place
Heisenberg and von Weizsäcker in a different context by making
their ambivalence about nuclear weapons much clearer. Although
they continued to work on nuclear reactors and isotope
separation, and dangled the prospect of nuclear weapons in front
of powerful men in the Nazi state, they did not try as hard as
they could to create nuclear weapons for Hitler's regime. Other
scientists were doing that, notably Walther Gerlach,Kurt Diebner
and the researchers working under him. 
It would be rash indeed to believe that this is the last word on
the matter. The German atomic bomb is like a zombie: just when
we think we know what happened, how and why, it rises again from
the dead.
 
Box 1: Heisenberg's role

 
During the Second World War, Werner Heisenberg was one of the
most influential scientists in Germany and its leading
theoretical physicist. He had won a Nobel prize for his work on
quantum mechanics and the uncertainty principle, had become one
of the youngest full professors in Germany when he began
teaching at the University of Leipzig, and in 1942 at the age of
40 was appointed director of the prestigious Kaiser Wilhelm
Institute for Physics as well as professor at the University of
Berlin.
 
However, in the early years of the Third Reich, Heisenberg had
been attacked by his fellow Nobel laureate Johannes Stark in an
SS publication for being a "white Jew" and "Jewish in spirit". A
subsequent investigation by the SS ended in 1939 with his public
and political rehabilitation. The result was that, by 1942,
Heisenberg enjoyed the support of influential figures in the
Nazi regime, including the armaments minister Albert Speer, as
well as the industrialist Albert Vögler, who was president of
the Kaiser Wilhelm Society.
 


  [Pulled both ways] 
Pulled both ways  

 
In February 1942 Heisenberg gave a popular lecture to an
influential audience of politicians, bureaucrats, military
officers and industrialists. At the time, the future of
Germany's uranium project was in doubt because the Army was only
interested in weapons that could be delivered in time to
influence the outcome of the war. As we know from a transcript
of the talk, which was discovered by the historian David Irving
in the 1960s, Heisenberg emphasized both the potential of
nuclear weapons and how difficult it would be to make them. His
conclusion was clear.
 
"1) Energy generation from uranium fission is undoubtedly
possible, provided the enrichment of isotope uranium-235 is
successful. Isolating uranium-235 would lead to an explosive of
unimaginable potency. 2) Common uranium can also be exploited to
generate energy when layered with heavy water. In a layered
arrangement these materials can transfer their great energy
reserves over a period of time to a heat-engine. It thus
provides a means of storing very large amounts of energy that
are technically measurable in relatively small quantities of
substances. Once in operation, the machine can also lead to the
production of an incredibly powerful explosive."
 
However, by the summer of 1942, the uranium project had been
transferred from the German Army to the civilian Reich Research
Council and the German uranium-project scientists once again
enjoyed secure institutional support. In June of that year
Heisenberg gave a lecture at the Kaiser Wilhelm Society in
Berlin before Speer and other military and industrial leaders of
the Nazi state. The lecture has become famous because of the
story that Heisenberg responded to a question about the size of
an atomic bomb by saying that it would be about as big as a
pineapple.
 
This anecdote was first reported in Irving's 1968 book The Virus
House, but a transcript of the talk had never been found.
However, it has now been discovered in the new Russian
documents. The text of the June lecture - entitled "The work on
uranium problems" - differs significantly from the February
talk. Heisenberg begins by mentioning the discovery of nuclear
fission in 1939, noting that interest in this new development
had been "exceptionally great", especially in the US. "A few
days after the discovery," he notes, "American radio provided
extensive reports and half a year later a large number of
scientific papers had appeared on this subject."
 
Heisenberg continues by describing Germany's work on isotope
separation and nuclear reactors since the start of the war,
cautioning that "naturally a series of scientific and practical
problems will have to be cleared up before the technical goals
can be realized". Mid-way through the talk, Heisenberg makes his
only mention of nuclear weapons in a rather understated way.
"Given the positive results achieved up until now," he says, "it
does not appear impossible that, once an uranium burner has been
constructed, we will one day be able to follow the path revealed
by von Weizsäcker to explosives that are more than a million
times more effective that those currently available."
 
But even if that did not happen, the nuclear reactor would have
an "almost unlimited field of technical applications". These
include boats and even planes that could travel long distances
on small amounts of fuel, as well as new radioactive substances
that could be useful for many scientific and technical problems.
Heisenberg concludes by saying that new discoveries of "the
greatest significance for technology" will be made "in the next
few years".
 
Since the Germans knew that "many of the best laboratories" in
America were working on this problem, they could hardly afford
"not to follow these questions", Heisenberg points out. Even if
"most such developments take a long time", they had to reckon
with the possibility that - if the "war with America lasted for
several years" - the "technical realization of atomic nuclear
energies" might "play a decisive role in the war".
 
Heisenberg was right about that, of course. But fortunately for
him and his countrymen, the first atomic bombs fell on Hiroshima
and Nagasaki instead of Frankfurt and Berlin. 

Box 2: A timeline to the bomb

 
January 1933              Nazis come to power in Germany
 December 1938          Otto Hahn, Lise Meitner and Fritz 
                                   Strassmann discover nuclear
fission in 
                                   uranium
 2 August 1939            Einstein warns President Roosevelt of 
                                   dangers of an atomic bomb
 1 September 1939      Germany invades Poland and launches 
                                   "uranium project"
 3 September 1939      Britain and France declare war on Germany 
1941                           Von Weizsäcker files a draft
patent 
                                   application that refers to a
plutonium bomb
 March 1941                 Von Weizsäcker visits Bohr in
Copenhagen
 June 1941                   Germany invades Soviet Union
 September 1941         Von Weizsäcker visits Bohr again, this
time 
                                   with Heisenberg
 6 December 1941       Manhattan Project begins in Los Alamos
 7 December 1941       Japan attacks Pearl Harbour
 8 December 1941       US enters Second World War
 February/June 1942   Heisenberg gives popular lectures on 
                                   nuclear weapons
 December 1943           Bohr visits Los Alamos
 March 1945                 Germany tests a nuclear device in 
                                    Thüringia, eastern Germany
 7 May 1945                 Germany surrenders
 16 July 1945                Trinity test - world's first atomic
blast
 6 August 1945             US bombs Hiroshima
 9 August 1945             US bombs Nagasaki
 14 August 1945           Japan surrenders
About the author
 		
Rainer Karlsch is an independent historian based in Berlin and
author of Hitlers Bombe (Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt), e-mail
rkuek@t-online.de. Mark Walker is in the Department of History,
Union College, Schenectady, NY, US, e-mail walkerm@union.edu.
 
Author
 
Rainer Karlsch and Mark Walker 
  
Tel +44 (0)117 929 7481 | Fax +44 (0)117 925 1942 | E-mail
info@physicsweb.org
 Copyright© IOP Publishing Ltd1996-2005. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 8 Interfax: Moscow makes terms for negotiating tactical nuke control

     Interfax.com    Text version    Site map

Jun 2 2005 11:30AM
 
BAIKONUR SPACE CENTER. June 2 (Interfax) - Moscow is prepared to
negotiate an agreement on controlling tactical nuclear weapons
with countries possessing them only on the condition that these
weapons are deployed on the territories of those countries, said
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov. 

"We are prepared to start talks about tactical nuclear weapons
only when all countries possessing them store them in their
territories," Ivanov told the press at the Baikonur space center
on Thursday, commenting on an initiative by former U.S. senator
Sam Nunn on signing a Russian-U.S. agreement on control over
tactical nuclear weapons. 

"Russia stores its tactical nuclear weapons on its own
territory, which cannot be said about other countries," Ivanov
said. 


© 1991-2005 Interfax
 All rights reserved
 
News and other data on this web site are provided for
information purposes only, and are not intended for
republication or redistribution. Republication or redistribution
of Interfax content, including by framing or similar means, is
expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of
Interfax.
*****************************************************************
 9 WP: Rumsfeld Travels to Meet Asian Officials
					
washingtonpost.com  
 
By MATT KELLEYThe Associated Press

Thursday, June 2, 2005; 2:22 AM
 
WASHINGTON -- Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld gets a chance
this weekend to consult with Asian allies about containing North
Korea's nuclear threat and to outline U.S. military policy for
the region at a conference with many of the area's top leaders.

Rumsfeld was leaving Thursday for Singapore, where he will
attend an annual Asian security conference sponsored by the
International Institute for Strategic Studies. His schedule
includes one-on-one meetings with his counterparts from Japan
and South Korea, and a keynote speech Saturday where he is
expected to discuss issues such as shipping security, fighting
terrorists and his plans to restructure U.S. troop presence in
the region.

[Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld gestures during a news
conference at the Pentagon, Wednesday, June 1, 2005,  where he
discussed various topics including the situation in Iraq. (AP
Photo/Susan Walsh)] Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld
gestures during a news conference at the Pentagon, Wednesday,
June 1, 2005, where he discussed various topics including the
situation in Iraq. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) (Susan Walsh - AP) 

North Korea is sure to be a main topic at the conference. The
U.S. is trying to restart six-way talks with North Korea, South
Korea, Japan, China and Russia aimed at getting North Korea to
give up its nuclear weapons programs.

The reclusive communist country's government has said it has
nuclear weapons, and U.S. officials say Pyongyang may have as
many as six atomic bombs. U.S. officials recently have warned
the North against testing a nuclear weapon, saying it could lead
to an arms race in Asia.

Citing security concerns, the Pentagon last week broke off its
only cooperative effort with North Korea _ expeditions to
recover the remains of U.S. servicemen missing from the Korean
War.

At a news conference Tuesday, President Bush defended his
diplomatic approach to North Korea, rejecting criticism that it
has allowed North Korea's government to expand its nuclear
program. Bush said trying to persuade Pyongyang to abandon the
program through six-nation talks was the most likely route to
success.

Last week, the U.S. announced plans to send 15 F-117A stealth
fighters to South Korea in a move the Pentagon said was for a
training exercise. North Korea condemned it, saying through
state-run Korean Central News Agency that the deployment was a
"danger signal predicting the outbreak of a war."

Such fiery rhetoric is common from North Korea, which says it
must have a nuclear deterrent because the U.S. is hostile to
Pyongyang. Bush and other U.S. officials say they have no
intention to invade North Korea.

Next week, Rumsfeld travels to Norway to meet with Defense
Minister Kristin Krohn Devold. The two will visit a NATO center
and then travel to a meeting of NATO ministers.

On the Net:

Pentagon: http://www.defenselink.mil

Print This ArticleE-Mail This ArticleRSS Feed		 	© 2005 The
Associated Press 	 	 	 	 

© Copyright1996-        The Washington Post Company       |  
*****************************************************************
 10 AFP: Seven years after going nuclear, India and Pakistan thriving

Thursday June 2, 04:20 PM 

Seven years after going nuclear, India and Pakistan thriving 

NEW DELHI (AFP) - Based on the experiences of India and Pakistan
since they tested nuclear weapons in 1998, North Korea could be
forgiven for thinking the price of carrying out an atomic test
is worth paying.
 
The South Asian rivals at first triggered global condemnation,
only to emerge stronger as key partners in the US-led "war on
terror".
 
The two countries became the target of international sanctions
-- led by the United States and Japan -- after conducting
underground tests in May 1998.
 
US sanctions included a selective ban on bilateral and
multilateral loans and a blacklist of 40 Indian and Pakistani
agencies and their 200 subsidiaries that US firms were banned
from dealing with.
 
India's trade ministry estimated the measures cost 1.14 billion
dollars -- less than a two billion dollar estimate put out by
the White House.
 
New Delhi contained the economic fallout by approving investment
proposals worth 11.5 billion dollars during the first year of
sanctions. It also raised over four billion dollars via a
foreign currency bond -- called the Resurgent India Bond --
issued to expatriate Indians.
 
"Despite the gloom and doom of living with sanctions there was
no irretrievable damage for the resilient Indian economy," said
Hari Dhaul of the Independent Power Producers Association of
India.
 
"India efficiently neutralised the effects of the sanctions by
tailoring government policies to attract investment and floating
overseas bonds," he added.
 
The sanctions, however, cut deeper for a Pakistan struggling to
turnaround its anaemic economy and relieve the burden of over 37
billion dollars in foreign debt.
 
"The post-test sanctions hurt Pakistan badly and we came very
close to defaulting on our international payments," said Riffat
Hussain, head of the department of strategic studies at
Islamabad's Quaid-e-Azam University.
 
However, analysts say the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks
in the US changed Washington's priorities. Most sanctions were
soon lifted, save some defence sale ones.
 
"India and Pakistan won a reprieve as Washington was keen to
shore up support in the South Asian nations for President George
Bush's war against terror," said Uday Bhaskar, head of the
Indian military thinktank, Institute for Defence Studies and
Analyses.
 
"The September 11 terrorist strikes in the US have re-arranged
everything."
 
In March 2003, Bush dispensed with the final set of punitive
measures against Pakistan following General Pervez Musharraf's
bloodless 1999 coup.
 
Bush has also upgraded relations with Pakistan by formally
naming it as a major non-NATO ally.
 
"Pakistan would have continued to suffer under economic
sanctions but the events of September 11 created a situation
wherein the US assigned greater priority to combating terrorism
over all other foreign policy considerations," said Hasan
Askari, former head of the political science department at
Pakistan's Punjab University.
 
"It enabled Pakistan to stage a comeback on the international
scene and derive economic advantages from the changed
international environment."
 
Pakistan has emerged as a key US ally, severing its links to
Afghanistan's Taliban rulers, who protected the Al-Qaeda network.
 
Pakistan's status as a non-Nato ally makes it eligible for a
series of benefits in the areas of foreign aid and defence
co-operation, including priority delivery of defence items.
 
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said that Washington
is trying to build relations with Pakistan and India and
defended the decision to sell F-16 fighters to Pakistan. The
revived sale will form part of a three-billion-dollar assistance
programme spread over five years.
 
The United States has also declared plans for "a decisively
broader strategic relationship" with India and has not ruled out
helping it develop nuclear power plants.
 
Rice underlined the need to pay close attention to India's
regional role saying "India is an element in China's
calculation, and it should be in America's too."
 
Japan, a close US ally, is also seen to be cooperating with
Washington in a new drive to build closer ties with India in
response to China's growing influence.
 
Tokyo lifted sanctions on India in 2001. Prime Minister
Junichiro Koizumi last month visited India and then Pakistan
where he lifted a seven-year freeze on yen loans.
 
India, bidding for a seat on an expanded UN Security Council,
has seen top politicians parade through its capital, keen to
strengthen ties with a nation of more than one billion people
and one of the fastest-growing economies.
 
"The US is now looking at India not as a counter-balance to
Pakistan but to China," said Rahul Bedi, analyst with the
London-based Jane's Defence Weekly.
 
"It sees India as a strategic partner because it has the only
navy in this region with carrier capability and long-range
strike airforce. India is also a nuclear missile weapon state."
 

   Copyright © 2005 AFP. All rights reserved. All information
*****************************************************************
 11 [NukeNet] NRC criticizes PSEG for firing staff without
 
Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2005 14:41:35 -0700

 
<x-flowed>
Criticism is all well and good, but how about a massive fine?

June 02, 2005

Salem Nuclear criticized for firings

By JEROME MONTES Staff Writer, (856) 794-5115

The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Wednesday said the owners of
the Salem Nuclear Generating Station dismissed employees without following
procedures established to improve the troubled facility's work environment.

The 292-acre facility in Lower Alloways Creek Township, Salem County,
contains three of New Jersey's four nuclear reactors and has been under
increased federal scrutiny for issues ranging from faulty equipment to
workers being reluctant to report maintenance problems for fear of
retaliation.

Kymn Harvin, the facility's former organizational manager, has said she
was fired in 2003 for raising safety concerns. An NRC investigation
concluded that Harvin was not retaliated against.

But the Public Service Enterprise Group, the Newark-based company that
owns the facility, did agree in 2004 to establish an executive review
board to review proposed personnel actions and ensure such actions weren't
retaliatory.

In a letter to PSEG, the NRC said that the company had taken personnel
actions without consulting the board. NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan confirmed
that eight employees had been dismissed without the board's review.

Neither Sheehan nor PSEG spokesman Chic Cannon revealed who was dismissed
or the exact timing of these terminations.

Sheehan said some of the dismissals were made to accommodate PSEG's
contract with Chicago-based Exelon Corp.

The two power companies are in the midst of a merger that, if approved by
regulators, would place all four of the state's nuclear reactors in the
hands of one entity.

Exelon, which operates Ocean County's Oyster Creek reactor through a
subsidiary, began providing management services to the facility in late
January.

Harvin, who has filed a whistleblower lawsuit against PSEG in a New Jersey
court, said those dismissed included facility work environment manager
Neil Bergh and Vice President John Carlin.

"Fear, not truth-telling, still rules, and the leaders of the site are
accountable for putting the public more at risk," she said.

The letter said PSEG's inconsistency in using the review board was in part
to blame for "a range of worker perceptions regarding the advisability of
raising issues or challenging decisions in the current environment."

It called on PSEG to address the review board and worker perception issues
and provide information on these actions within 30 days.

"We're not done with this," Sheehan said. "We will be very interested in
their response."

The NRC letter also called on PSEG to discuss the issue at a meeting open
to the public on June 8.

At the meeting, federal officials plan to discuss their 2004 safety
assessment of the station, which has been plagued by mishaps such as
radioactive steam leaks.

Cannon said the company should have a preliminary response to the NRC
letter by the June 8 meeting.

The meeting is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. at the Bridgeport Holiday Inn
in Swedesboro, N.J.

NRC officials said the discussion will be open to the public for
observation. Following the discussion, NRC staff will be available to
answer questions from on public on the facility's safety performance.

To e-mail Jerome Montes at The Press:

JMontes@pressofac.com

-- 
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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*****************************************************************
 12 [NukeNet] Sweden shuts nuclear plant in shift to wind 
 
Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2005 14:35:44 -0700

 
<x-flowed>
NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net)

Content-class: urn:content-classes:message
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
         boundary="----_=_NextPart_001_01C567AF.F08AE7A0"

A little good news for a change&



Kevin Kamps, NIRS



   MSNBC.com

Sweden shuts nuclear plant in shift to wind
Voters backed move in 1980, before global warming became factor

<http://www.reuters.com/>Reuters

Updated: 9:13 a.m. ET June 1, 2005



STOCKHOLM, Sweden - A Swedish nuclear reactor has produced its last watt, 
shut down at the stroke of midnight Tuesday as part of a citizen-sanctioned 
shift to more environmentally friendly power.

The Barseback-2 nuclear reactor was Sweden's oldest, accounting for three 
percent of the country's total electricity output. Nuclear power provides 
40 percent of Sweden's electricity.

The closure is part of nuclear phase-out program backed in a referendum in 
1980. The first reactor at Barseback closed in 1999.

In the short term, the Barseback-2's output will be replaced by increased 
production at other reactors, which have been overhauled and modernized in 
recent years.

$1 billion wind investment
Longer term, Sweden is planning a big increase in renewable energy. 
State-owned Vattenfall, which operates Barseback, said it would invest $1 
billion in building northern Europes biggest wind farm.

Vattenfall said it hoped to begin construction of 100-150 wind power 
turbines in 2009, generating more than 2 terawatt hours of electricity per 
year from 2010.

Barseback produced around 4 terawatt hours out of Swedens total 148 in 2004.

It also plans to invest $218 million to build an offshore wind power park 
in the Oresund sound near the bridge between southern Sweden and Denmark.

However, some in the industry don't feel wind will be as reliable as 
nuclear power since power can fluctuate depending on the weather.

Less support due to warming fears
In addition, public support of the shutdown has waned due to growing 
worries about the carbon dioxide emissions that many scientists fear are 
tied to global warming. Unlike power plants that run on fossil fuels, 
nuclear power does not emit CO2.

Swedens neighbor Finland is building its fifth reactor, which is to come on 
line in 2009.

And critics say that closing Barseback goes against the governments policy 
of promoting environmentally friendly energy as the shortfall will have to 
be made up by importing energy produced from fossil fuel power stations.

It will increase carbon dioxide emissions,said Kalle Lindholm, spokesman 
for Swedens power industry group Swedenergy.

But the closure was met with relief in Denmark, which has lobbied Stockholm 
for years to close the plant due to its proximity to Copenhagen.

In a statement, Denmark's Defense Ministry said the closure "ends several 
years of a political tug-of-war between Denmark and Sweden and the people 
of Copenhagen can now look forward to a life without a nuclear power plant 
in their line of sight."

Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or 
redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior 
written consent of Reuters.



© 2005 MSNBC.com

URL: <http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8058171/>http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8058171/


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*****************************************************************
 13 [NukeNet] NRC criticizes PSEG for firing staff without
 
Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2005 14:35:41 -0700

 
<x-flowed>
NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net)

Criticism is all well and good, but how about a massive fine?
Norm


June 02, 2005


Salem Nuclear criticized for firings


By JEROME MONTES Staff Writer, (856) 794-5115

The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Wednesday said the owners of
the Salem Nuclear Generating Station dismissed employees without following
procedures established to improve the troubled facility's work environment.

The 292-acre facility in Lower Alloways Creek Township, Salem County,
contains three of New Jersey's four nuclear reactors and has been under
increased federal scrutiny for issues ranging from faulty equipment to
workers being reluctant to report maintenance problems for fear of
retaliation.

Kymn Harvin, the facility's former organizational manager, has said she
was fired in 2003 for raising safety concerns. An NRC investigation
concluded that Harvin was not retaliated against.

But the Public Service Enterprise Group, the Newark-based company that
owns the facility, did agree in 2004 to establish an executive review
board to review proposed personnel actions and ensure such actions weren't
retaliatory.

In a letter to PSEG, the NRC said that the company had taken personnel
actions without consulting the board. NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan confirmed
that eight employees had been dismissed without the board's review.

Neither Sheehan nor PSEG spokesman Chic Cannon revealed who was dismissed
or the exact timing of these terminations.

Sheehan said some of the dismissals were made to accommodate PSEG's
contract with Chicago-based Exelon Corp.

The two power companies are in the midst of a merger that, if approved by
regulators, would place all four of the state's nuclear reactors in the
hands of one entity.

Exelon, which operates Ocean County's Oyster Creek reactor through a
subsidiary, began providing management services to the facility in late
January.

Harvin, who has filed a whistleblower lawsuit against PSEG in a New Jersey
court, said those dismissed included facility work environment manager
Neil Bergh and Vice President John Carlin.

"Fear, not truth-telling, still rules, and the leaders of the site are
accountable for putting the public more at risk," she said.

The letter said PSEG's inconsistency in using the review board was in part
to blame for "a range of worker perceptions regarding the advisability of
raising issues or challenging decisions in the current environment."

It called on PSEG to address the review board and worker perception issues
and provide information on these actions within 30 days.

"We're not done with this," Sheehan said. "We will be very interested in
their response."

The NRC letter also called on PSEG to discuss the issue at a meeting open
to the public on June 8.

At the meeting, federal officials plan to discuss their 2004 safety
assessment of the station, which has been plagued by mishaps such as
radioactive steam leaks.

Cannon said the company should have a preliminary response to the NRC
letter by the June 8 meeting.

The meeting is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. at the Bridgeport Holiday Inn
in Swedesboro, N.J.

NRC officials said the discussion will be open to the public for
observation. Following the discussion, NRC staff will be available to
answer questions from on public on the facility's safety performance.

To e-mail Jerome Montes at The Press:

JMontes@pressofac.com

-- 
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.



-- 
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.323 / Virus Database: 267.4.0 - Release Date: 6/1/05


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 14 Indiatimes: India to tap cheap nuclear energy

>The Economic Times>                         

IANS[ THURSDAY, JUNE 02, 2005 03:16:46 PM]   

  NEW DELHI: Grappling with a growing power deficit, India is
looking at tapping cost-effective nuclear energy by
commissioning nine nuclear reactors in what is being termed the
world's largest such project. India has set a target of 20,000
MW nuclear power generation by 2020, as against the current
capacity of 2,700 MW power from 14 nuclear power reactors.

"India is very much on course as far as nuclear power generation
is concerned," said S.K. Jain, chairman and managing director of
the state-run Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL)."We
are at present simultaneously working to set up nine nuclear
power plants that will create 4,000 MW new capacity by 2007-08.

We will be investing around Rs.200 billion ($4.5 billion) in
these projects," he added. He said against the average cost of
Rs.2.30 per unit of power through other sources, nuclear power
could cost as low as Rs.1 or Rs.2 with an upper end of Rs.2.60
in places like Rajasthan. Currently, the share of nuclear power
in the total energy mix stands at only about three percent with
thermal power accounting for the largest share in the total
generation capacity of 116,245 MW. 

According to Jain, among the nine projects being commissioned 
simultaneously, two are coming up at Tarapur in Maharashtra, each 
with a 540 MW capacity. These two projects are expected to be up 
and running by the end of this fiscal.The remaining projects that 
are under way include three reactors in Tamil Nadu (two at 
Koodangulam and one at Kalpakkam), two in Rajasthan (at 
Rawatbhatta) and two more in Karnataka (at Kaiga). "All our plans 
are being implemented on commercial terms with 30 per cent equity 
from the government.

The remaining 70 per cent is being raised from the market as 
borrowings and from internal resources," Jain said. During the 
current fiscal, NPCIL is planning Rs.450 billion capital 
expenditure. While the government is contributing Rs.120 billion 
as equity, the rest of the money is being raised from internal 
resources and market borrowings, he added. In the medium term, 
the company plans to invest another Rs.140 billion ($3.2 billion) 
to reach a total generation capacity of 10,000 MW by 2012. By 
then, India's total electricity requirement is estimated to touch 
200,000 MW.   

  Copyright © 2005 Times Internet Limited. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 15 NRC: New NRC Resident Inspector Assigned to Limerick Nuclear Plant
 
News Release - Region I - 2005-03 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY 
COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, Region I 475 Allendale Road, 
King of Prussia, Pa. 19406 No. I-05-031                          
June 1 , 2005 CONTACT:     Diane Screnci (610) 337-5330 Neil A. 
Sheehan (610) 337-5331                     E-mail:   
  
Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials in King of Prussia, Pa.,
have assigned Carey Colantoni as the new resident inspector at
the Limerick nuclear power plant in Limerick, Pa. She joins NRC
Senior Resident Inspector Samuel Hansell at the two-unit site
operated by Exelon Nuclear.
 
"Carey Colantonis experience and commitment to safety will help
the NRC ensure that Limerick conducts operations with the
highest safety standards to protect the public health and
safety," said NRC Region I Administrator Samuel J. Collins. 

Ms. Colantoni joined the NRC in 2002 as a reactor inspector in
the Regional Office. Prior to joining the agency, she worked for
Bechtel-Bettis in Charleston, SC., at the Naval Nuclear Power
Training Unit.
 
Ms. Colantoni is a graduate of Pennsylvania State University,
where she earned a bachelors degree in chemical engineering.
She also completed the U.S. Navys nuclear power school.
 
Each U.S. commercial nuclear plant has at least two NRC resident
inspectors. They serve as the agency's eyes and ears at the
facility, conducting inspections, monitoring major work projects
and interacting with plant workers and the public.
 
The Limerick resident inspectors can be reached at 610/327-1344.
   



  


 	Last revised Thursday, June 02, 2005 	
*****************************************************************
 16 Platts: NRC has requested $20-mil for 2006 to prepare for new reactor
 
+ NRC has requested $20-mil for fiscal 2006 to prepare for new 
reactor licensing applications and expects to seek a similar 
amount for FY-07, the agency said in response to a senator's 
question. 

Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) asked NRC in follow-up questions to 
an Apr 26 hearing on DOE's Nuclear Power 2010 initiative whether 
the agency had the resources it needs to review the early site 
permits, design certifications, and combined construction 
permit-operating license requests the industry anticipates 
filing. 

NRC said in May 17 correspondence, posted on May 31 on its 
document system Adams, that it will need to significantly 
increase the size of the staff beginning in FY-08 if the industry 
applications materialize. 

It also anticipates having to expand office space and has begun 
working with the General Services Administration, which is the 
federal government's leasing and purchasing agent. 

This story was originally published in Nuclear News Flashes 
http://www.nuclearnews.platts.com 

New York (Platts)--1Jun2005
 
Copyright © 2005 - Platts, All Rights Reserved [The McGraw-Hill 
Companies]   
*****************************************************************
 17 Rutland Herald: Yankee deal angers some Democrats
 	 	 	 	
 June 02, 2005
 
 Nuclear advisory panel takes up accord today 

By Darren M. AllenVermont Press Bureau   
  			 
MONTPELIER - The political wrangling over a spent-waste storage
deal between legislative leaders and the owners of Vermont's
only nuclear power plant will continue today in a showdown
largely between Democrats.
 
Although the deal permitting Vermont Yankee owner Entergy
Nuclear Corp. to seek permission from regulators to build an
above-ground nuclear waste facility was endorsed Tuesday 113-5
by the House, some senators have balked at the accord.
 
Sen. Mark MacDonald, D-Orange, is upset at the deal brokered
behind closed doors by the Democratic leaders of the House and
Senate over the past several weeks. He said he called tonight's
meeting of the Vermont State Nuclear Advisory Panel because he
was concerned about the accord that allows for so-called
dry-cask storage in exchange for $15 million over the next six
years, if the plant's pending request for a 20 percent power
boost is approved.
 
"I have serious concerns about this, and we're expected to vote
on it," MacDonald, one of the advisory panel's members, said
Wednesday.
 
The panel, comprised of legislators, residents and
representatives of the Douglas administration, was formed by
then-Gov. Richard Snelling in the wake of the partial meltdown
of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant near Harrisburg, Pa., in
1979. Its role is to give lawmakers and the administration
advice on the nearly 35-year-old plant on the shores of the
Connecticut River in Vernon.
 
MacDonald's request for what he is calling a "special meeting"
of the panel was echoed by Rep. Steve Darrow, D-Dummerston, who
on Tuesday spoke out against the deal on the House floor,
claiming that many legislators and the public had been left out
of a negotiation that will determine the future of nuclear power
in Vermont.
 
But while MacDonald and Darrow were complaining of a raw deal
from the negotiations, other Democrats who helped broker the
deal were outraged, suggesting that it was they who are abusing
the lawmaking and advisory process.
 
"Here we go again, with Democrats slaughtering Democrats," said
Rep. Tony Klein, D-East Montpelier and a participant in the
negotiations with Yankee. "In any negotiation, there are people
who walk away satisfied and people who walk away dissatisfied.
What they are doing is going to cause anxiety among the public
and for nothing more than political gain."
 
For his part, Senate President Pro Tem Peter Welch, D-Windsor,
downplayed the intraparty warfare, and suggested that seeking
guidance from the advisory panel was fully within MacDonald's
rights.
 
"I will respect their need for more information," said Welch,
another participant in the negotiations. "This is an opportunity
to get relevant information, and it is the prerogative of the
members of the Senate to seek it."
 
Supporters of the deal, however, were seething through much of
the day, suggesting that calling the advisory panel on such
short notice would unnecessarily frighten the public,
particularly those who live near the southern Vermont facility.
 
"I think it is meeting for nothing more than political reasons,
and it is a total abuse of power," said Rep. Patricia O'Donnell,
R-Vernon, whose constituents include many of the 600 people who
work at the plant. "They didn't get their own way, so they are
trying to use the panel to get what they want. But they are
going to unnecessarily scare people and that's wrong."
 
Tonight's meeting, from 7 to 9 in Room 11 of the Statehouse, was
welcomed by anti-nuclear activists, who have been critical of
the negotiating process from the beginning. Peter Alexander,
executive director of the New England Coalition, said he was
pleased that such a meeting would be called.
 
"It's a very important meeting, and, I would say, there is
hardly a more important nuclear issue to be brought before the
state since the plant was licensed," he said. "They have been
jamming this agreement down the throats of legislative
committees, and I think they are feeling this."
 
Entergy rejected the need for the meeting, although its
spokesman said that the company would participate and cooperate.
The company - which some analysts estimate makes a profit of $30
million a year on Yankee, a figure that could double as a result
of a power boost - had hinted that it might abandon its Vermont
operations short of a deal on dry-cask storage.
 
"Legislators worked for months hearing many hours of testimony,
and I think they really had the long-term best interests of the
state when they recognized Entergy's position," said Rob
Williams, a plant spokesman. "We are pleased that there was such
a level of support for continued operations of the plant."
 
Contact Darren Allen at darren.allen@rutlandherald.com.
   
© 2005 Rutland Herald
*****************************************************************
 18 Xinhua: Indonesia targets on nuclear power plants   

  www.xinhuanet.com
    
  www.chinaview.cn 2005-06-02 18:10:15   

    JAKARTA, June 2 (Xinhuanet) -- The Indonesian National
Atomic Energy Agency (Batan) proposed Thursday the construction
of at least four nuclear power plants to cope with the growing
power shortage problem. 

    Batan head Soedyartomo Soentono said in a hearing with
legislators here that the government has targeted the plants to
generate power of 4,000 megawatts, which can supply 1.9 percent
for the country's total electricity demand. 

    "As each plant has a capacity of between 600 megawatts and
1,000 megawatts, we need at least four," Soentono said. 

    The project is expected to begin in 2010 and go into
operation in 2016, he added. 

    Indonesia planned to build its first nuclear reactor in the
Central Java town of Jepara. Enditem 

  Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 19 NRC: Nuclear Management Company, LLC; Monticello Nuclear Generating 
 
                         FR Doc E5-2793 
[Federal Register: June 2, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 105)] 
[Notices] [Page 32381-32382] From the Federal Register Online via 
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr02jn05-111]                         
 
Plant, Notice of Intent to Prepare an Environmental Impact 
Statement and Conduct Scoping Process Nuclear Management Company, 
LLC (NMC) has submitted an application for renewal of Facility 
Operating License DPR-22 for an additional 20 years of operation 
at the Monticello Nuclear Generating Plant (Monticello). 
Monticello is located on the southern bank of the Mississippi 
River in the City of Monticello, Wright County, Minnesota, 
approximately 22 miles northwest of St. Cloud, Minnesota. The 
operating license for Monticello expires September 8, 2010. The 
application for renewal, submitted pursuant to Title 10 of the 
Code of Federal Regulations Part 54 (10 CFR part 54), was 
received on March 24, 2005. A notice of receipt and availability 
of the application, which included the environmental report (ER), 
was published in the Federal Register on April 6, 2005 (70 FR 
17482). A notice of acceptance for docketing of the application 
for renewal of the facility operating licenses was published in 
the Federal Register on May 12, 2005, (70 FR 25117). The purpose 
of this notice is to inform the public that the U.S. Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission (NRC) will be preparing an environmental 
impact statement (EIS) in support of the review of the license 
renewal application and to provide the public an opportunity to 
participate in the environmental scoping process, as defined in 
10 CFR 51.29. In addition, as outlined in 36 CFR 800.8, 
``Coordination with the National Environmental Policy Act,'' the 
NRC plans to coordinate compliance with Section 106 of the 
National Historic Preservation Act in meeting the requirements of 
the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA).
 
In accordance with 10 CFR 51.53(c) and 10 CFR 54.23, NMC 
submitted the ER as part of the application. The ER was prepared 
pursuant to 10 CFR part 51 and is available for public inspection 
at the NRC Public Document Room (PDR), located at One White Flint 
North, 11555 Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville, Maryland 
20852, or from the Publicly Available Records component of NRC's 
Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS). ADAMS 
is accessible from the NRC Web site at http://www.nrc.gov/ 
reading-rm/ adams.html, which provides access through the Public 
Electronic Reading Room link. Persons who do not have access to 
ADAMS, or who encounter problems in accessing the documents 
located in ADAMS, should contact the NRC's PDR Reference staff at 
1-800-397-4209, or 301-415-4737, or by e-mail to pdr@nrc.gov. The 
application may also be viewed on the Internet at 
http://www.nrc.gov/ reactors/ operating/ licensing/ renewal/ 
applications/ monticello.html. In addition, the Monticello Public 
Library (220 West 6th Street, Monticello, MN 55362) and the 
Buffalo Public Library (18 Northwest Lake Boulevard, Buffalo, MN 
55313) have made the ER available for public inspection.
 
This notice advises the public that the NRC intends to gather the 
information necessary to prepare a plant-specific supplement to 
the Commission's ``Generic Environmental Impact Statement (GEIS) 
for License Renewal of Nuclear Plants,'' (NUREG-1437) in support 
of the review of the application for renewal of the Monticello 
operating license for an additional 20 years. Possible 
alternatives to the proposed action (license renewal) include no 
action and reasonable alternative energy sources. The NRC is 
required by 10 CFR 51.95 to prepare a supplement to the GEIS in 
connection with the renewal of an operating license. This notice 
is being published in accordance with the National Environmental 
Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA) and the NRC's regulations found in 10 
CFR part 51.
 
The NRC will first conduct a scoping process for the supplement 
to the GEIS and, as soon as practicable thereafter, will prepare 
a draft supplement to the GEIS for public comment. Participation 
in the scoping process by members of the public and local, State, 
Tribal, and Federal Government agencies is encouraged. The 
scoping process for the supplement to the GEIS will be used to 
accomplish the following: a. Define the proposed action which is 
to be the subject of the supplement to the GEIS.
 
b. Determine the scope of the supplement to the GEIS and identify 
the significant issues to be analyzed in depth.
 
c. Identify and eliminate from detailed study those issues that 
are peripheral or that are not significant.
 
d. Identify any environmental assessments and other ElSs that are 
being or will be prepared that are related to, but are not part 
of the scope of the supplement to the GEIS being considered.
 
e. Identify other environmental review and consultation 
requirements related to the proposed action.
 
f. Indicate the relationship between the timing of the 
preparation of the environmental analyses and the Commission's 
tentative planning and decision-making schedule.
 
g. Identify any cooperating agencies and, as appropriate, 
allocate assignments for preparation and schedules for completing 
the supplement to the GEIS to the NRC and any cooperating 
agencies.
 
h. Describe how the supplement to the GEIS will be prepared, and 
include any contractor assistance to be used.
 
The NRC invites the following entities to participate in scoping: 
a. The applicant, Nuclear Management Company, LLC. b. Any Federal 
agency that has jurisdiction by law or special expertise with 
respect to any environmental impact involved, or that is 
authorized to develop and enforce relevant environmental 
standards.
 
c. Affected State and local government agencies, including those 
authorized to develop and enforce relevant environmental 
standards.
 
d. Any affected Indian tribe. e. Any person who requests or has 
requested an opportunity to participate in the scoping process.
 
f. Any person who has petitioned or intends to petition for leave 
to intervene.
 
In accordance with 10 CFR 51.26, the scoping process for an EIS 
may include a public scoping meeting to help identify significant 
issues related to a
 
[[Page 32382]] proposed activity and to determine the scope of 
issues to be addressed in an EIS. The NRC has decided to hold 
public meetings for the Monticello license renewal supplement to 
the GEIS. The scoping meetings will be held at the Monticello 
Community Center, 505 Walnut Street in Monticello, Minnesota, on 
June 30, 2005. There will be two sessions to accommodate 
interested parties. The first session will convene at 1:30 p.m. 
and will continue until 4:30 p.m., as necessary. The second 
session will convene at 7 p.m. with a repeat of the overview 
portions of the meeting and will continue until 10 p.m., as 
necessary. Both meetings will be transcribed and will include: 
(1) an overview by the NRC staff of the NEPA environmental review 
process, the proposed scope of the supplement to the GEIS, and 
the proposed review schedule; and (2) the opportunity for 
interested government agencies, organizations, and individuals to 
submit comments or suggestions on the environmental issues or the 
proposed scope of the supplement to the GEIS.
 
Additionally, the NRC staff will host informal discussions one 
hour before the start of each session at the Monticello Community 
Center, 505 Walnut Street in Monticello, Minnesota. No formal 
comments on the proposed scope of the supplement to the GEIS will 
be accepted during the informal discussions. To be considered, 
comments must be provided either at the transcribed public 
meetings or in writing, as discussed below. Persons may register 
to attend or present oral comments at the meetings on the scope 
of the NEPA review by contacting NRC Environmental Project 
Manager, Ms. Jennifer Davis, at 1-800-368-5642, extension 3835, 
or by e-mail to the NRC at MonticelloEIS@nrc.gov no later than 
June 23, 2005. Members of the public may also register to speak 
at the meeting within 15 minutes of the start of each session. 
Individual oral comments may be limited by the time available, 
depending on the number of persons who register. Members of the 
public who have not registered may also have an opportunity to 
speak, if time permits. Public comments will be considered in the 
scoping process for the supplement to the GEIS. Ms. Davis will 
need to be contacted no later than June 23, 2005, if special 
equipment or accommodations are needed to attend or present 
information at the public meeting, so that the NRC staff can 
determine whether the request can be accommodated.
 
Members of the public may send written comments on the 
environmental scope of the Monticello license renewal review to 
the Chief, Rules and Directives Branch, Division of 
Administrative Services, Office of Administration, Mailstop 
T-6D59, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 
20555-0001, and should cite the publication date and page number 
of this Federal Register notice. Comments may also be delivered 
to the NRC, Room T-6D59, Two White Flint North, 11545 Rockville 
Pike, Rockville, Maryland 20852-2738, from 7:30 a.m. to 4:15 p.m. 
during Federal workdays. To be considered in the scoping process, 
written comments should be postmarked by August 2, 2005. 
Electronic comments may be sent by e-mail to the NRC at

 
MonticelloEIS@nrc.gov and should be sent no later than August 2, 
2005, to be considered in the scoping process. Comments will be 
available electronically and accessible through ADAMS at 
http://www.nrc.gov/ reading-rm/ adams.html. Participation in the 
scoping process for the supplement to the GEIS does not entitle 
participants to become parties to the proceeding to which the 
supplement to the GEIS relates. Notice of opportunity for a 
hearing regarding the renewal application was the subject of the 
aforementioned Federal Register notice (70 FR 25117). Matters 
related to participation in any hearing are outside the scope of 
matters to be discussed at this public meeting.
 
At the conclusion of the scoping process, the NRC will prepare a 
concise summary of the determination and conclusions reached, 
including the significant issues identified, and will send a copy 
of the summary to each participant in the scoping process. The 
summary will also be available for inspection in ADAMS at 
http://www.nrc.gov/ reading-rm/ adams.html. The staff will then 
prepare and issue for comment the draft supplement to the GEIS, 
which will be the subject of separate notices and separate public 
meetings. Copies will be available for public inspection at the 
above-mentioned addresses, and one copy per request will be 
provided free of charge. After receipt and consideration of the 
comments, the NRC will prepare a final supplement to the GEIS, 
which will also be available for public inspection.
 
Information about the proposed action, the supplement to the 
GEIS, and the scoping process may be obtained from Ms. Davis at 
the aforementioned telephone number or e-mail address.
 
Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 26th day of May 2005.
 
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
 
Samson S. Lee, Acting Program Director, License Renewal and 
Environmental Impacts Program, Division of Regulatory Improvement 
Programs, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation.
 
[FR Doc. E5-2793 Filed 6-1-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P

 
*****************************************************************
 20 CounterPunch: Russell D. Hoffman: High Tension at San Onofre
 
June 2, 2005
 
The Humpty-Dumpty Nuclear Reactor
 
High Tension at San Onofre
 
By RUSSELL D. HOFFMAN
 
Tensions are running high around San Onofre.
 
This week the North County Times published a follow-up article
about one aspect of the recent CPUC (California Public Utilities
Commission) hearings, namely, worries about the de-tensioning of
the steel cables within the walls of the containment dome, which
ring the reactor and are encased on all sides with cement.
 
A typical containment dome under construction looks a lot like a
super-sized wicker basket. Hundreds of cables are laid down in
rings around the dome, and hundreds more form polar
quarter-circles out from the top, or semicircles that run near
the top, and/or they follow various ellipses around the dome.
 
The main cables are typically 2 to 3 inches thick with some even
thicker, and they are cross-braced with thousands of shorter
1-inch-thick cables. The whole thing is filled in around all the
cables with concrete, forming the infamous domes that you see
from the highway.
 
This system is called "pre-stressed" because a portion of the
cable is left outside the concrete and is pulled with tremendous
pressure while the concrete is hardened around the cable, and it
is only after the concrete has hardened that the device doing
the pulling is relaxed. Sometimes the "device" is a tightened
bolt on a threaded end of the cable, which is left on afterwards.
 
San Onofre's containment domes, for all their apparent mass and
heft when viewed from the outside, are surprisingly thin and
eggshell-like when considered in proportion. Or when it is
considered that the containment dome is believed by most people
to be strong enough to survive the impact of a 747 or an A-380
Airbus, but it can't. It can only survive the impact of much
smaller planes -- even smaller than the four 767s used by
terrorists on 9-11.
 
Furthermore, that's not really their purpose. The real purpose
of the containment dome is to hold back explosions inside the
dome during a meltdown or near-meltdown of the core. These are
expected to generate forces less than about 3.5 atmospheres
within the dome -- otherwise, the containment dome will burst
and once it does, "all hell breaks out."
 
Evacuate!
 
Ah, but 3.5 atmosphere is not really all that much. And what if
the containment dome, with all its mass, were to fall apart
during an earthquake?
 
Well, they worried a little about that and decided to make the
wires a little thicker and put a few more of them in place and
tension them a bit tighter and viola! Instant earthquake-proof!
 
Of course, it's bogus too. Maybe they made what might survive a
6.8 earthquake into something that might survive a 7.4. And
maybe they overstressed something and didn't realize it and the
containment dome can now only survive a 6.3. Or maybe some of
the wires have rusted inside because nobody noticed a wet rag
that was dropped into the cement as it was poured, or a tool,
that formed a bimetallic contact point. These things most
certainly DO happen, although the nuclear industry assumes they
don't when they calculate the "safety factor" of their
containment domes.
 
We're talking about a very serious disaster here, and
calculations might be "off!" There are so many factors involved.
Only a real "test" -- ie, an earthquake -- will tell for sure.
But if some big chunk of concrete falls onto a major component
of the reactor during a 7.5 or 7.6 earthquake or whatever, then
guess what? As one former San Onofre employee put it to me once,
"Katie, bar the door!" For 100,000 years.
 
No nuclear reactor like San Onofre has ever been required to
somehow survive a major breakage in the coolant system, such as
might be caused by a steam generator being knocked over or
disconnected by a large chunk of concrete falling from the
ceiling of the containment dome.
 
None of this is discussed in the North County Times article,
however, which only wonders whether, after cracking Humpty
Dumpty apart to squeeze in the new steam generators, he can be
put back together again correctly.
 
The article tells us that engineers from San Onofre went up in
Northern California to study the shuttered Rancho Seco reactors.
But nobody is rebuilding Rancho Seco, and they are not
attempting to shake it as if in an earthquake (which would be a
Herculean task, and very expensive), so there is a limit to what
the San Onofre engineers can learn. According to the article, a
couple of other reactors with less earthquake protection have
had similar cuts in them and were determined by the NRC to be
adequately repaired. The NRC could require a retrofit to the
outside of the containment dome to reinforce it, like what is
done to bridges all the time around California. Thus, even this
tension issue would not cause the reactors to be shut down. Only
stopping the Price-Anderson act is likely to do that, since that
act absolves the nuclear industry of 99.9% of the costs of a
nuclear reactor accident and puts it on the people who are
actually harmed by the accident to pay for it themselves.
 
Without Price-Anderson's protection, San Onofre's owners would
never have opened the plant. Price-Anderson is a criminal piece
of legislation which should never have been enacted. It is
unAmerican to absolve someone of responsibility for their
actions and yet time and again, we find that that is the only
way the nuclear industry can function.
 
Yes, the tension around San Onofre is incredible.
 
Ronald D. Hoffman, a computer programmer in Carlsbad,
California, has written extensively about nuclear power. His
essays have been translated into several different languages and
published in more than a dozen countries. He can be reached at:
rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com

*****************************************************************
 21 Boston.com: Congressmen claim more Seabrook security problems - 

  Congressmen claim more Seabrook security problems Associated
Press Two Massachusetts congressmen again are questioning
alleged security problems at New Hampshire's Seabrook nuclear
plant. June 1, 2005 --> [The Associated Press] 
 
June 1, 2005
 
CONCORD, N.H. -- Two Massachusetts congressmen again are
questioning alleged security problems at New Hampshire's
Seabrook nuclear plant.

Democrats Edward Markey and John Tierney said Wednesday in a
second letter to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that the
agency "take immediate action to protect public safety."
 
Last week, Tierney and Markey said an intruder detection system
wasn't installed correctly and did not work and the plant forced
security guards to work overtime to compensate.
 
On Wednesday, they said additional safety issues were raised by
a Seabrook employee regarding defective security cameras and the
plant's failure to conduct a security analysis.
 
"Last week I learned that the security fence at Seabrook has
been broken for months," Markey said.
 
"Now it turns out that this is just the tip of the iceberg. The
fence is broken, the security cameras don't work, and some
required security analysis hasn't even been performed. It seems
the plant motto is 'see no evil, hear no evil, maybe no evil
exists.'"
 
Plant spokesman Alan Griffith said federal law prohibits him
from discussing security matters, but he said that "our safety
system is vast, multilayered, not dependent on any one system.
Public health or safety has never been compromised."
 
NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said the agency does not comment on
safety issues.

New York Times Company
*****************************************************************
 22 AU ABC: Key component of Lucas Heights reactor being installed.
                   
02/06/2005. ABC News Online
 	
Australian Broadcasting Corporation Online">   

A key component of the new nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights on
Sydney's southern fringes is being installed today.

 The reflector vessel is the central part of the reactor
facility and operates to reflect neutrons released from the
reactor back into the core.

 The part was made in Argentina and shipped to Australia on a
Hercules jet.

 Ross Miller from ANSTO says the reflector vessel will be placed
inside the 13-metre deep reactor pool.

 "It will be crane lowered into the bottom of the reactor pool
where it will be bolted in position," Mr Miller said. 

"There will be several months of the fit out, the interface of
the components with that - the cooling systems, the radiation
facilities and the beam facilities." 


&copy; 2005 ABC| Privacy Policy
*****************************************************************
 23 AU ABC: Carr calls for nuclear power debate. 

02/06/2005. ABC News Online
 	
"Australian Broadcasting Corporation Online">   

New South Wales Premier Bob Carr has called for a debate on the
benefits and risks of nuclear power as an alternative energy
source.

 Amid speculation that his Government may soon announce another
coal-fired power station for New South Wales, Mr Carr says he
wants the merits of nuclear power canvassed. 

"The world's got to debate whether uranium-derived power is more
dangerous than coal," he said.

 "Coal is looking very dangerous - there ought to be a debate."

 Mr Carr says a new energy source needs to be found because
alternative power sources such as wind, solar and hydrogen are
not yet viable options.

 "You could have a wind farm across all of outback New South
Wales," he said. "It'd kill every kookaburra but it wouldn't
provide the base-load [power] we need."

 Mr Carr says he is keen on hearing discussion about whether
uranium-derived power is more dangerous than coal.

 "I want to hear arguments about the latest methods of waste
disposal, of disposing of nuclear waste," he said.

 "I think there have got to be arguments as well about reactor
safety, and about the impact of an expansion of nuclear power on
proliferation of nuclear weapons."
Lucas Heights

 Meanwhile, construction of Australia's new nuclear reactor in
Sydney's southern suburbs is on schedule despite its costs being
more than $80 million higher than originally planned.

 The central part of the reactor at the Lucas Heights site - the
reflector vessel - was put in the reactor pool today.

 Assistant project manager Ross Miller says the rising costs
were not due to budgetary problems.

 "We've had a couple of extensions of costs on the facility,
they're associate with regulatory requirements, security reviews
that took place after September 11," he said.

 "They're also associated with some seismic anomalies that we
found on the site."

 Nuclear fuel is due to be loaded into the OPAL (Open Pool
Australian Light-water) reactor in May next year. 

&copy; 2005 ABC| Privacy Policy
*****************************************************************
 24 AU ABC: Outcry over call for nuclear power debate. 

03/06/2005. ABC News Online
 	
"Australian Broadcasting Corporation Online">   

[NSW Premier Bob Carr has called for a debate over nuclear
power. ] 

New South Wales Premier Bob Carr's call for a debate on the
merits or otherwise of nuclear power has been labelled
"ludicrous" by environmentalists, who say it is too risky an
option to even consider.

 As speculation grows that the State Government is about to
announce another coal-fired power station for NSW, the Premier
yesterday called for a debate over nuclear power as a feasible
alternative energy source. 

"Whether uranium-derived power is more dangerous than coal, coal
is looking very dangerous, there ought to be a debate," he said.

 Prominent anti-nuclear campaigner Dr Helen Caldicott says
nuclear power production creates massive amounts of global
warming gases and she describes it as a "cancer industry". 

"It will over time produce epidemics of cancer - leukaemia and
genetic disease, particularly in children," she said.

 The Nature Conservation Council (NCC) has labelled it mad and
dangerous and argues other safer alternatives are available. 

Greens Senator Bob Brown says the tide of public opinion is
against it.

 "It was sealed with Chernobyl, that was really the end,"
Senator Brown said.

 Senator Brown is suspicious of Mr Carr's motives. 

"Asking for a debate about nuclear power is code for getting on
with more nuclear installations," he said.
 
&copy; 2005 ABC| Privacy Policy
*****************************************************************
 25 NRC: NRC Revises Regulations on Access to Classified Information
 
News Release - 2005-08 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office 
of Public Affairs     Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 
20555-0001     E-mail: opa@nrc.gov No. 05-087     June 2, 2005   
  

expand the categories of persons who may seek access to
classified information associated with NRC-regulated activities,
as well as the categories of facilities that may be authorized
to store such information. The effective date will be July 5,
2005. 

An initial version of the revised regulations was published in
the Federal Register on Dec. 15, 2004, with an effective date of
Feb. 28, 2005. The NRC indicated that if significant adverse
comments were received, the revisions would be withdrawn. Since
at least one significant comment was received, the agency
withdrew the rule on Feb. 24 to consider the comments, which
were contained in a letter from a group of seven national
environmental and public interest organizations.
 
The comments dealt primarily with concerns over how the rule
would affect members of the public, including environmental and
public interest organizations, that plan to seek to intervene in
the expected Yucca Mountain licensing proceeding. As explained
in a Federal Register notice published today, the rulemaking
will broaden the scope of the regulations so that potential
intervenors, such as the environmental and public interest
organizations that commented, can seek access authorizations and
facility security clearances. The revisions to the regulations
do not affect how information is classified and do not expand
the scope of information that can only be obtained by those with
access authorizations.
 
The revisions will allow the agency to process any requests for
security clearances from (1) potential intervenors in a hearing
for a potential high-level radioactive waste repository and (2)
advanced reactor design vendors. 

Before access authorization to classified information is
granted, a satisfactory background investigation must be
completed, and the individual will be informed that unauthorized
disclosure of classified information could result in civil or
criminal penalties. A person seeking access to classified
information must, in addition to having a security clearance,
have a need to know the particular information being sought. 

The amendments also extend the regulations on facility security
clearances. Current regulations permit persons and companies
associated with NRC-regulated reactors, fuel cycle facilities
and independent spent fuel storage installations to seek a
facility security clearance to use, store, reproduce, transmit,
transport or handle NRC classified information. The changes
allow persons associated with other activities designated by the
Commission (such as advanced reactor design vendors) to apply
for a facility security clearance. 

After considering the public comments, the NRC decided to adopt,
without change, the initial version of the revised regulations
that was published in the Federal Register on Dec. 15, 2004.
   



  


 	Last revised Thursday, June 02, 2005 	
*****************************************************************
 26 [du-list] Marshall Islands
 
Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2005 14:35:42 -0700

 
<x-flowed>

The US House had hearings on the plight of the Marshall Islanders on May 25.

Very little came out of the hearings.  This is a testimony of a Marshall
Island survivor that had to be submitted in writting because she was not
allowed
to declare in front of the Joint House Committee on Resources and Pacific
Affairs.  The question of the Change of Circumstances Petition will now be
before
the US Senate sometime in July.

The people of the Marshall Islands want two things at this stage.

1. to get survivors on the Senate Hearing agenda of the commitee that will
hold hearings on the Change of Circumstance Petition.

2.  having  2 trips by Congressmen and Senators to hear further testimony of
survivors;  One trip to Majuro, the capital of the Marshall Islands and
another to Honolulu, Hawaii to hear testimony from survivors getting medical
treatment there.

The Marshall Islands were the site where the US tested  67 atomic bombs
during the late 1940s, 1950s and 1960s..

Ms. Chiyoko Tamayose's Testimony
Hearing on the Changed Circumstances Petition (CCP) US Congress House Joint
Hearings Resources Committee and Foreign Affairs Pacific Area.
May 25, 2005

My name is Chiyoko Tamayose. I was born May 2, 1937. I am from Rongelap
atoll in the Marshall Islands. I returned to Rongelap in 1957, three years
after the nuclear fallout contaminated my homeland & at the time when
scientists informed us that the land was clean and safe to go back home. I
noticed that not everything was right in 1957.  The arrowroots that before
grew everywhere were gone.  The coconut trees were bearing green and yellow
nuts from the same tree; very unusual.  The water changed color when we
cooked our foods; we tried to change the water many times, but the same
thing kept happening. On occasion, we found some of our fish had thyroid
problems. Small hardened nodules were found in the fish gills; these were
very hard to crack; but after opening them up & tossed in the water; the
water changed to the colors of a rainbow.

Because we did not understand the reason for the change in the water; we
played & splashed in it. We were only instructed not to eat the coconut
crabs which were plentiful in Rongelap, but during the times when there was
a shortage of food we ate these delicacies. As we ate other locally grown
food, we developed blisters all over our mouths, but we continued to eat
them because we were hungry.  Later on, we were told that it was alright to
eat the coconut crabs ­ meaning that all locally available food wass safe to
consume. I became very sick with the convulsion, and at the more severe
times my family thought I was dead.  When I came through, I saw they were
crying by my side. I could not bear to be in bright daylight. All the
windows and doors of my house were kept shut.

The Department of Energy officials sent me to New York for treatment.
Thereâ€™s this machine (I do not know what it was called) that they put me
inside. I could not remain in it any second longer because my body felt like
it was on fire and pierced by a thousands fine needles. I was told that the
radiation content in my body was higher than some of the survivors of 1954
fallout in Rongelap.  I had my thyroid surgery at a hospital in Cleveland
and was informed that there were three more thyroids to remove later on.  I
was given so many kind of medication as treatment. I did not want to take so
many pills; I was a grown woman, but crying unashamedly because I was afraid
to take those medication. I was one of the people who were secretly given
injection for unknown reasons.

The DOE doctors assigned us numbers; we were referred to only in numbers and
as the â€˜Control Groupâ€™.  I believe this program was called â€˜Project 
4.1â€™ It


was the people who were not exposed to nuclear fallout, but became exposed
and sick from the injections that doctor gave us without our consent and
from eating food crops that were grown in the contaminated soil.  I watched
the doctors drew blood from my vein, mixed it in some type of solution
before returning it again to my body.  Sometime this procedure was repeated
3 or 4 times in one sitting. I was frightened to see so much blood taken
from me, but I patiently allowed that to happen. I trusted the American
doctors to treat me fairly and take good care of my illness, rather than
using me as guinea pig as I later on learned.

In 1992 when the DOE official documents were declassified and made available
to the public, I received a letter to inform me that the injections that I
previously received were routine tests.  I do not believe that. I have 12
children and some of them are physically handicapped. I believe in my heart
that their problems began with me. I have one son that had liver cancer; he
was operated on at the Kuakini Hospital in Honolulu and he died during the
operation. He left a family of 4 children and a wife. Another son had
problems with his thyroid ­ so severe that he could not eat nor swaallow
water.  A daughter was born with the lower body so soft as if there was no
bone. I have a 40 year old son who was born with a good size blister on his
back. Two weeks later we were sent to the Naval Hospital in Guam for
surgery.  The doctors informed that theyâ€™d never seen that type of case
before.  He became paralyzed; he crawls around the house, he helps me
prepare meals when I am tired; he changes his own pampers.  Heâ€™s a great
son, but very heart-breaking for a mother to see in that condition. These
are cases involving my immediate family.  There are numerous cases in
Rongelap that have not been reported or heard by many people or doctors.
One of my cousins, gave birth to what is known these days as jelly fish
baby; another one of her babies was born without any back bone.  These are
unusual cases that never happened to us before.

I am asking you to come to the Marshalall Islands and listen to the
survivorsâ€™ stories.  Hold hearings in the Marshall Islands and in Hawaii
where many survivors reside now in order to be closer to the hospitals.  My
voice is one of the survivors. There are hundreds of cases that you must
hear as you deliberate on the Changed Circumstances Petition. The Changed
Circumstances Petition is critical because if it is not approved by Congress
that means all the survivors and their affected descendants are left to fend
for themselves ­ which means either stay at home and receive minimaal health
care or travel off island to receive treatment.  There will be no funds to
treat their health condition. That is not so attractive an idea for those
who can not afford to travel.  If the Petition is not approved, that means
Congress is washing its hands off its moral obligation to care for the
problems that it created.

Today, I am 68 years of age - more than half of my life I've lived with many
types of health problems such as thyroid. I believe the health problems that
we in the Marshall Island have now will continue beyond my time.  Your
support is critical for as long as these  problems that derived from the
nuclear testing program exist. Thank you.




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



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</x-flowed>
*****************************************************************
 27 [progchat_action] Fallout from French EU Vote
 
Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 00:23:37 -0500 (CDT)

 
( The rejection of the EU by the French electorate has definitely
shaken things up a bit, not just on the right but also on the
moderate left. Faubus, who was Premier under Mitterand in the 1980s
and who earned much hatred for his pro-market policies appears to
have made a comeback).

Fabius sees opportunity in post-poll Socialist disarray

By John Lichfield 31 May 2005

http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=642861

The French left has claimed victory in Sunday's referendum, boasting
that the French "no" would begin a socialist revolution across
Europe.

Or rather, part of the French left claimed victory.

The entire moderate, reformist leadership of the Socialist and Green
parties - including almost all former left-wing cabinet ministers
and presidential hopefuls - were plunged into anger and despair.

What had seemed a favourable run-in to the presidential election
in 2007 has turned into a nightmare. With the knives out in the
Parti Socialiste, its leader Frangois Hollande, who campaigned for
a "yes" result, refused to cede his place to Laurent Fabius, who
led the party's "no" campaign.

The vote has, on the surface, achieved the impossible and united
many of the mutually hating tribes of the left, from Trotskyists
and communists to greens, behind the "no" banner.

The former Socialist treasurer, Henri Emmanuelli - a campaigner for
the "non"

- said on Sunday that the result was the beginning of a "socialist
Europe".

The great loser on the left is M. Hollande, who saw 59 per cent of
his voters desert the party line and vote against the constitution.
Anti-EU Socialists are calling for his resignation.

He and other pro-EU leftists have seen the party's base desert them.

The great winner was the former prime minister M. Fabius, who
deserted his pro-European principles to argue for a "no". He hopes
to emerge as the only politician capable of uniting the left in
2007. There are calls among the pro-EU Socialist hierarchy for M.
Fabius to be disciplined and even suspended.

Anti-treaty Socialists hope to use the spring-board of the "no"
vote to call into question the reformist, social-democratic direction
taken by the Socialists since 1983. But even they have doubts about
the real intentions of M. Fabius.

Would he, as President Fabius, really attempt to deliver a socialist
paradise?

Or is he just another careerist social democrat in disguise?

This email was cleaned by emailStripper, available for free from
http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm
*****************************************************************
 28 Fw: Depleted Uranium:- Excellent summary of science and
 
Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2005 15:23:04 -0700

 
<x-flowed>
  Sent: Thursday, June 02, 2005 1:56 PM
Subject: Depleted Uranium: Lessons in "Humanitarian" and Other Warfare

by Jeremy R. Hammond

June 2, 2005



Depleted uranium, or DU, is produced through the process of enrichment, in 
which the concentration of the U235 isotope of uranium is increased. For 
every 1 ton of enriched uranium resulting from the process, another 7 tons 
of “depleted” uranium are produced as a byproduct. Several hundreds of 
thousands of tons of DU are currently stockpiled in the United 
States.<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn1#_ftn1>[1]



DU is heavy, nearly twice as dense as lead, and is used by weapons 
manufacturers because its properties allow munitions tipped with DU to 
effectively penetrate armor, and also because the use of such munitions 
also relieves governments of the responsibility to properly store 
DU.<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn2#_ftn2>[2] And 
while the adjective “depleted” is used to describe the material because of 
its lower concentration of the U235 isotope, it is still both radioactive 
and chemically toxic. As Dan Fahey, a leading expert on DU, has put it, 
“The adjective depleted by no means diminishes the chemical and radioactive 
properties of DU, but it can affect how people perceive DUs 
risks.”<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn3#_ftn3>[3] 
When a DU weapon strikes its target, it forms a fine aerosol of uranium 
oxides, which can be spread by the wind and inhaled by humans into the 
lungs, from where it can to other areas in the 
body.<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn4#_ftn4>[4]



Weapons manufacturers and Pentagon officials are quick to point out that 
“depleted” uranium is less radioactive than natural uranium and claim that 
there are no adverse effects from exposure to DU. They are equally quick to 
make claims about its incredible effectiveness on the battlefield. In a 
briefing on DU, a Defense Department spokesperson explained that uranium 
was preferred over tungsten because it “has a characteristic that allows it 
to sharpen itself as it penetrates the target. The uranium shreds off the 
sides of the penetrator instead of squashing or 
mushrooming.”<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn5#_ftn5>[5] 
Its first major use in combat was during the 1991 Gulf War. The Pentagon 
has acknowledged that at least 320 tons of DU remained on the ground after 
the war.<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn6#_ftn6>[6]



But while the Pentagon claims that DU poses no significant health risk, 
Iraqi doctors have long claimed that the numbers of cancer cases and birth 
defects have increased dramatically since the war, and that the increase is 
due to the use of DU 
munitions.<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn7#_ftn7>[7] 
Kudhim Ali, an oncologist at a cancer clinic in Basra, said in 1998 that 
“Since 1991 the number of cancer cases has increased five to six times over 
what it 
was.”<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn8#_ftn8>[8] 
Abdel Karim Hassan Sabr, deputy director of the Hospital for Maternity and 
Children in Basra reported that the rate of birth defects at the hospital 
rose from 1.8 percent in 1993 to more than 4 percent by 
2001.<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn9#_ftn9>[9]



But reports from the Iraqi government on the health effects resulting from 
the use of DU weapons have been long dismissed by the US as propaganda. In 
one instructive example, the White House website published a report 
entitled “Apparatus of Lies” that states, “In recent years, the Iraqi 
regime has made substantial efforts to promote the false claim that the 
depleted uranium rounds fired by coalition forces have caused cancers and 
birth defects in Iraq. Iraq has distributed horrifying pictures of children 
with birth defects and linked them to depleted uranium.” This “campaign has 
two major propaganda assets”, which are that “Uranium is a name that has 
frightening associations in the mind of the average person, which makes the 
lie relatively easy to sell”, and that “Iraq could take advantage of an 
established international network of antinuclear activists who had already 
launched their own campaign against depleted 
uranium.”<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn10#_ftn10>[10] 
There is little doubt that the Iraqi government has exploited the issue for 
propaganda purposes, but the possibility that there might be some truth to 
the Iraqi claims is, in such a manner, totally disregarded by the US 
government.



Many also believe there is a link between DU and the “Gulf War syndrome” 
which many veterans suffered after returning home from the war. There have 
also been reports of increased rates of birth defects among children of 
Gulf War 
veterans.<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn11#_ftn11>[11] 
One study performed by Dr. Asaf Durakovic, a professor of medicine who also 
formerly served as a US colonel, found a “significant presence” of DU in 
two-thirds of the 17 veterans he tested. Speaking to the European 
Associations of Nuclear Medicine at a conference in Paris, he said, “Some 
of those particles were inhaled, and if they were too big to be absorbed 
they stayed in the lungs, and there they can present a risk of 
cancer.”<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn12#_ftn12>[12]



In April, 2004, the New York Daily News conducted an investigation into the 
health effects of DU in Gulf War veterans. The Pentagon claimed that it has 
tested about 1000 veterans for DU, with only three coming up positive. But 
the paper’s investigation found four who came up positive for DU – out of 
only 9 
tested.<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn13#_ftn13>[13] 
After this story was published, Army National Guard Spec. Gerard Darren 
Matthew contacted the Daily News and asked to have a laboratory screening 
arranged. He had been ill since returning from the Gulf War. A subsequent 
story reported that

One side of Matthew's face would swell up each morning. He had constant 
migraine headaches, blurred vision, blackouts and a burning sensation 
whenever he urinated. The Army transferred him to Walter Reed Army Medical 
Center in Washington for further tests, but doctors there could not explain 
what was wrong. Shortly after his return, his wife, Janice, became 
pregnant. On June 29, she gave birth to a baby girl, Victoria Claudette. 
The baby was missing three fingers and most of her right hand. Matthew and 
his wife believe Victoria's shocking deformity has something to do with her 
father's illness and the war - especially since there is no history of 
birth defects in either of their families. They have seen photos of Iraqi 
babies born with deformities that are eerily similar.

After learning of his child’s deformity, Matthew asked the Army to test him 
for DU – but he never received the results. When he called to learn what 
had been the result of his urine sample, he was told that there was no 
record of his urine specimen. The test arranged by the Daily News found 
Matthew positive for 
DU.<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn14#_ftn14>[14]



Leuren Moret is a leading anti-DU activist. In August 2004, she wrote an 
article in the San Francisco Bay View stating that

Just 467 U.S. personnel were wounded in the three-week Persian Gulf War in 
1990-1991. Out of 580,400 soldiers who served in Gulf War I, 11,000 are 
dead, and by 2000 there were 325,000 on permanent medical disability. This 
astounding number of disabled vets means that a decade later, 56 percent of 
those soldiers who served now have medical problems. The number of disabled 
vets reported up to 2000 has been increasing by 43,000 every year.

Accordingt to Moret, one study of 251 veterans who all had healthy children 
before the Gulf War showed that “67 percent of their post-war babies were 
born with severe birth defects. They were born with missing legs, arms, 
organs or eyes or had immune system and blood 
diseases.”<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn15#_ftn15>[15]



Dr. Doug Rokke is a former US army colonel who was sent by the Army as a 
health physicist to the Gulf in 1991 to advise on cleanup procedures 
involving depleted uranium. According to Rokke, at least 30 members – 
nearly one-third of his entire team – are now seriously ill (himself 
included), and several others have died from 
cancer.<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn16#_ftn16>[16] 
“According to the Department of Defense’s own guidelines put out in 1992,” 
says Rokke, “any excretion level in the urine above 15 micrograms of 
uranium per day should result in immediate medical testing, and when you 
get up to 250 micrograms of total uranium excreted per day, you’re suppose 
to be under continuous medical care…. My excretion rate was approximately 
1500 micrograms per 
day.”<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn17#_ftn17>[17]

“Since 1991,” Rokke has said, “numerous U.S. Department of Defense reports 
have said that the consequences of DU were unknown. That is a lie. We 
warned them in 1991 after the Gulf War, but because of liability issues, 
they continue to ignore the problem.” The procedures his team developed for 
training and management with regard to DU were 
ignored.<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn18#_ftn18>[18]



Rokke’s team, uninformed about the dangers of DU, studied vehicles struck 
by DU shells during the Gulf War. Soldiers who died from DU explosions came 
to be called “crispy critters” by the team because they were so badly 
burned.<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn19#_ftn19>[19] 
“When uranium munitions hit,” says Rokke, “it’s like a firestorm inside any 
vehicle or structure, and so we saw tremendous burns, tremendous injuries. 
It was devastating.” Besides contaminating Iraq with DU, “The US military 
decided to blow up Saddam’s chemical, biological, and radiological 
stockpiles in place, which released the contamination back on the US troops 
and on everybody in the whole 
region.”<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn20#_ftn20>[20]



Rokke’s experience as an expert appointed by the Army to study DU in Iraq 
has led him to one unavoidable conclusion, which is that “uranium munitions 
must be banned from the planet, for eternity…” In an interview with YES! 
Magazine, Rokke, who was in the military for 35 years, observed: “When you 
reach a point in war that the contamination and the health effects of war 
can’t be cleaned up because of the weapons you use, and medical care can’t 
be given to the soldiers who participated in the war on either side or to 
the civilians affected, then it’s time for 
peace.”<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn21#_ftn21>[21]



Since the Gulf War, DU has also been used in the NATO bombing of Kosovo in 
1999 and in Bosnia in 1994-95. According to the Pentagon, 31,000 rounds of 
DU were used in Kosovo and around 10,800 rounds were used around 
Sarajevo.<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn22#_ftn22>[22] 
A United Nations task force asked NATO to provide information on specific 
areas contaminated with DU immediately after the end of the Kosovo 
campaign. NATO didn’t respond until eight months later – to confirm that 10 
tons of DU had indeed been dropped on Kosovo and Serbia. It took another 
seven months, under increasing pressure from among European allies, before 
NATO disclosed the locations of a number of contaminated sites, and several 
months more before the organization finally posted warnings at those 
sites.<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn23#_ftn23>[23]



A UN sub-commission, meanwhile, called for an initiative to ban the use of 
DU. But the initiative has been blocked by the United States, according to 
Karen Parker, a lawyer with the International Educational 
Development/Humanitarian Law Project. According to Parker, international 
humanitarian law recognizes four standards which weapons must meet to be 
considered legal. Weapons may not “have an adverse affect off the legal 
field of battle”, defined as “legal military targets of the enemy in war”; 
may not continue to act after cessation of hostilities; may not be 
inhumane; and may not have significant negative effects on the environment. 
According to Parker, “Depleted uranium fails all four of these 
rules.”<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn24#_ftn24>[24] 
In August 2002, a UN sub-committee determined that the use of DU violated 
the UN Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Genocide 
Convention, the Convention Against Torture, the four Geneva Conventions of 
1949, the Conventional Weapons Convention of 1980, and the Hague 
Conventions of 1899 and 
1907.<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn25#_ftn25>[25]



Moreover, the commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection 
of Minorities, a sub-commission of the UN Commission on Human Rights, 
passed a resolution on August 29, 1996, categorizing DU munitions as 
weapons of mass destruction by urging “all States to be guided in their 
national policies by the need to curb the production and the spread of 
weapons of mass destruction or with indiscriminate effect, in particular 
nuclear weapons, chemical weapons, fuel-air bombs, napalm, cluster bombs, 
biological weaponry and weaponry containing depleted 
uranium”.<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn26#_ftn26>[26]



While NATO was pressured to release data on the use of DU to assist in 
studies of the aftermath of the war, the information finally given was not 
detailed enough to allow “an accurate field assessment of the environmental 
and human health consequences”, according to the United Nations’ Balkan 
Task Force (which later became the UN Environment Programme’s Post-Conflict 
Assessment Unit, or PCAU). In its report on the environmental aftermath of 
the Balkan conflict, the UN said it had been “forced to rely on available 
published information” due to the reluctance of NATO to assist with more 
detailed 
information.<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn27#_ftn27>[27]



Yugoslav authorities accused NATO of polluting the environment, noting 
attacks on oil refineries and chemical factories in addition to the use of 
DU, and claimed that the number of DU rounds used by NATO forces was 
substantially higher than 
claimed.<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn28#_ftn28>[28] 
Italy joined in the criticism of NATO and called upon the organization to 
give a full account of its use of DU following the deaths of several 
soldiers who served in the Balkans from 
cancer.<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn29#_ftn29>[29] 
In early 2001, European Commission President Roman Prodi demanded an 
investigation into the claims that DU had caused deaths or illnesses, and 
several more European nations echoed his concerns. NATO dismissed the 
claims, saying that DU poses only a “negligible 
hazard”.<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn30#_ftn30>[30] 
Germany also joined Italy in calling for a ban on DU munitions until it 
could be proven that they were truly 
harmless.<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn31#_ftn31>[31] 
And despite NATO’s continued claims that DU posed no significant health 
threat, a German Defense Ministry document was released that showed that 
NATO had warned in July 1999 of a “possible toxic threat” and advised 
soldiers and aid workers to take “preventative 
measures”.<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn32#_ftn32>[32] 
At the same time, briefings on the dangers of DU weapons had been cancelled 
for 1,000 British servicemen who were sent to Kosovo because of “pressure 
on the course 
programme.”<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn33#_ftn33>[33]



Belgium, Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands followed Italy in reporting a 
number of cancer cases among veterans who had served in the Balkans, while 
others complained of symptoms reminiscent of the “Gulf War syndrome”. 
Despite increasing concerns among European allies, the US continued to 
dismiss the claims. Madeleine Albright, then Secretary of State, answered 
the criticisms by saying that “There’s absolutely no proof that there’s a 
connection” between DU and health concerns, such as increased risks of 
cancer. “It’s a very effective weapon”, responded a special adviser to the 
NATO Secretary General. “The medical consensus believes it does not pose 
health problems. It’s got less radiation than the normal uranium that can 
be found in your own backyard.” But besides being radioactive, DU is also 
chemically toxic, and as the 1999 NATO memo had warned, there is also 
“residual heavy metal toxicity in armored vehicles” struck by DU that could 
pose health risks to people who came into contact with 
them.<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn34#_ftn34>[34]



This was not the first time that the public claims of proponents of the use 
DU munitions were contradicted by their own internal reports. According to 
a report from the US Army Environmental Policy Institute from before the 
Gulf War, “If DU enters the body, it has the potential to generate 
significant medical consequences. The risks associated with DU in the body 
are both chemical and radiological. Personnel inside or near vehicles 
struck by DU penetrators could receive significant internal 
exposure.”<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn35#_ftn35>[35] 
After the Gulf War, the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute found 
that it is DU’s toxicity, rather than its radioactivity, that posed the 
greater threat and could cause damage to the immune system and central 
nervous system, as well as contributing to the risk of cancer. Another 
Army-funded study found that DU caused cancer when implanted in laboratory 
animals.<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn36#_ftn36>[36] 
In 1991, according to Robert Collier of the San Francisco Chronicle, a 
study by Britain’s Atomic Energy Authority that was suppressed by the 
British government until 1998 estimated that the use of DU in the Gulf War 
could result in hundreds of thousands of “potential deaths from 
cancer.”<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn37#_ftn37>[37] 
A 1995 report from the US Army Environmental Policy Institute stated that 
“If DU enters the body, it has the potential to generate significant 
medical 
consequences.”<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn38#_ftn38>[38]



A United States Defense Nuclear Agency memorandum that was delivered to 
Doug Rokke’s team stated: “As Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD), ground 
combat units, and civil populations of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Iraq come 
increasingly into contact with DU ordnance, we must prepare to deal with 
potential problems. Toxic war souvenirs, political furor, and post conflict 
clean up (host nation agreement) are only some of the issues that must be 
addressed. Alpha particles (uranium oxide dust) from expended rounds is a 
health concern but, Beta particles from fragments and intact rounds is a 
serious health threat, with possible exposure rates of 200 millirads per 
hour on 
contact.”<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn39#_ftn39>[39]



In 1998, the Pentagon acknowledged that “Combat troops or those carrying 
out support functions generally did not know that DU contaminated equipment 
such as enemy vehicles struck by DU rounds required special handling. The 
failure to properly disseminate such information to troops at all levels 
may have resulted in thousands of unnecessary 
exposures.”<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn40#_ftn40>[40] 
This “failure”, however, was unlikely to have been a mere oversight. A July 
1990 Army report predicted that, “Following combat, the condition of the 
battlefield and the long-term health risks to natives and combat veterans 
may become issues in the acceptability of the continued use of DU for 
military applications”, and added that DU is “linked to cancer when 
exposures are 
internal.”<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn41#_ftn41>[41]



Similarly, a 1991 memo from the Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico 
entitled “The Effectiveness of Depleted Uranium Penetrators” was also sent 
to Doug Rokke’s 
team.<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn42#_ftn42>[42] 
The memo noted that there was “a relatively small amount of lethality data 
for uranium penetrators”, but that the belief was “that DU penetrators were 
very effective against Iraqi armor”, adding that “assessments of such will 
have to be made.” The memo went on to argue that “proponency” should be 
“garnerned” in order that “a valuable combat capability” should not be 
lost. To this end, the memo noted: “There has been and continues to be a 
concern regarding the impact of DU on the environment. Therefore, if no one 
makes a case for the effectiveness of DU on the battlefield, DU rounds may 
become politically unacceptable and thus, be deleted from the 
arsenal.”<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn43#_ftn43>[43]



Leuren Moret has commented on the origins of nuclear material for use in 
munitions. “The blueprint for depleted uranium weapons,” she writes

is a 1943 declassified document from the Manhattan Project. Harvard 
President and physicist James B. Conant, who developed poison gas in World 
War I, was brought into the Manhattan Project by the father of presidential 
candidate John Kerry. Kerry’s father served at a high level in the 
Manhattan Project and was a CIA agent. Conant was chair of the S-1 Poison 
Gas Committee, which recommended developing poison gas weapons from the 
radioactive trash of the atomic bomb project in World War II. At that time, 
it was known that radioactive materials dispersed in bombs from the air, 
from land vehicles or on the battlefield produced very fine radioactive 
dust which would penetrate all protective clothing, any gas mask or filter 
or the skin. By contaminating the lungs and blood, it could kill or cause 
illness very quickly. They also recommended it as a permanent terrain 
contaminant, which could be used to destroy populations by contaminating 
water supplies and agricultural land with the radioactive 
dust.<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn44#_ftn44>[44]

Dan Fahey, a Navy veteran who has studied and written extensively about 
DU<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn45#_ftn45>[45], 
has observed that

In order to ensure the continued use of DU munitions and avoid 
responsibility for environmental cleanup and health care costs, DoD 
spokesmen have lied about the health of US Gulf War veterans exposed to DU 
and exaggerated the importance of DU rounds. In addition, the US government 
has so far refused to conduct a thorough study of the health of the 
thousands of Gulf War veterans it acknowledges were exposed to DU, enabling 
DoD spokesmen to plausibly but deceptively deny the existence of evidence 
linking DU to veterans health 
problems.<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn46#_ftn46>[46]

The Pentagon has responded to earlier revelations from its own internal 
documents about the health hazards associated with DU by claiming that 
scientific research contradicting those earlier findings has since 
occurred.<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn47#_ftn47>[47] 
In particular, a RAND Corporation study, sponsored by the Department of 
Defense, found that no Gulf War veterans were exposed to enough DU to cause 
any health problems. As Dan Fahey has noted, the Department of Defense

is using the RAND report not only to argue that not one Gulf War veteran 
could be sick from depleted uranium poisoning, but also to assert that the 
use of depleted uranium munitions in current and future conflicts poses no 
risk to human health. This position contradicts many pre- and post-Gulf War 
military reports and documents which acknowledge health risks to armed 
forces and civilian populations following the use of DU ammunition in combat.

The fundamental problem with the RAND study, Fahey writes, is that

The assumption that not one Gulf War veteran could have been exposed to 
enough depleted uranium to cause any health problems is inherently flawed 
and it undermines the overall conclusions of the RAND report. The fact is 
no one can state with any reliable degree of certainty how much depleted 
uranium individual Gulf War veterans may have inhaled or ingested in single 
and multiple exposure incidents during and after the war. The baseline data 
for such an assessment is missing: no risk assessments of depleted uranium 
on the battlefield were performed after the war and a only a small 
sub-group of the veterans believed to be most heavily exposed were tested 
and examined two years after their exposure.

Furthermore, “No one is willing to explain why not even one veteran was 
tested after the war for a DU exposure, in blatant violation of U.S. Army 
safety regulations. To protect the careers of current and future military 
commanders, the U.S. Army has re-written its regulations to deny medical 
testing for soldiers exposed to DU in 
combat.”<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn48#_ftn48>[48]

Other researchers have pointed out that many studies, including those 
produced by the World Health Organization and the RAND Corporation, failed 
to closely examine the effects from the inhalation of DU, which is regarded 
as the most dangerous form of exposure. Leonard Dietz, a research associate 
of the Uranium Medical Research Centre, said that the fact that no 
governmental study has examined inhaled DU “amounts to a massive 
malpractice.” Dietz was part of a study published in the Military Medicine 
journal that looked at inhaled DU in Gulf War veterans. The study found 
that, nine years later, 14 out of 27 veterans excreted DU in their 
urine.<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn49#_ftn49>[49]



Also contrary to the Pentagon’s repeated declarations, other studies also 
continue to show that there are health risks associated with DU. A 1997 
British Ministry of Defense document warned that “Inhalation of insoluble 
uranium dioxide dust will lead to an accumulation in the lungs with very 
slow clearance – if any”, adding that “Although chemical toxicity is low, 
there may be localized radiation damage of the lung leading to cancer.” In 
a passage under the heading “Risk assessment relating to Gulf war uranium 
exposure”, the document stated that “All personnel…should be aware that 
uranium dust inhalation carries a long-term risk…[and] has been shown to 
increase the risks of developing lung, lymph and brain 
cancers.”<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn50#_ftn50>[50]



A 2001 WHO report recommended that “Where practicable, areas where 
significant DU contamination actually or potentially exists should be 
cordoned off until a survey has determined that it is safe for habitation. 
If levels warrant a clean-up of the area, the cordons should be retained 
and appropriately adjusted for actual conditions until results of a final 
status survey show the area is safe for unrestricted access.” The report 
added that “collecting of intact or fragmented DU penetrators or other 
equipment containing DU for souvenirs or fabrication into other products 
should be actively 
discouraged.”<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn51#_ftn51>[51]



In January 2001, the European Parliament called for a ban on the use of DU 
while investigations into its possible effect on the health of those who 
are exposed to it are carried 
out.<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn52#_ftn52>[52] 
The European Commission ordered an investigation, and in March a panel of 
experts found no evidence that DU had an effect on human health. Professor 
Ian McAulay, who headed the panel, said, “I don’t think there is any reason 
to be afraid.” However, the panel seems to have focused primarily on the 
possible effects of radiation, but at the same time noted the possibility 
that the toxicity of DU may be of more concern. Despite there not being 
“any reason to be afraid”, McAualay also determined that “Warning signs 
should be put up where there are large concentrations of depleted 
uranium.”<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn53#_ftn53>[53]



Other scientists questioned the EU panel’s findings. Malcolm Hooper, a 
professor of chemistry at the University of Sunderland, told the BBC that 
“Any inhalation of insoluble depleted uranium is a health hazard. It emits 
alpha radiation. There is published work showing that there is no safety 
threshold for internal alpha radiation – one alpha particle is enough to 
cause a mutation in a gene.” Referring to the panel’s findings, he asked, 
“Are these researchers saying all this earlier work is 
wrong?”<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn54#_ftn54>[54]



Similarly, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) published its 
findings on the impact of DU in Kosovo, concluding that the “radiological 
and chemical risks are insignificant” - after finding no widespread ground 
contamination in the areas investigated, which were limited due to the lack 
of cooperation from NATO. The group did, however, express concern for the 
safety of groundwater, saying that there was a risk of contamination. They 
also called for a similar examination of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and 
recommended several precautions, including the removal of radioactive 
shrapnel, decontamination of affected areas, and instructions for locals on 
what to do if a contaminated site is 
found.<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn55#_ftn55>[55] 
The team also found low levels of radioactivity at a number of sites where 
DU weapons were used and warned its personnel to avoid those 
areas.<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn56#_ftn56>[56]



In January 2001, the World Health Organization responded to requests from 
Iraq for an international inquiry into the use of DU by announcing that it 
was planning to perform a study to determine whether the increases in 
cancer and birth defects were attributable to 
DU.<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn57#_ftn57>[57] 
The WHO had sent a mission to Iraq in 1995 to look at the cancer issue and 
provide advice. A second mission was sent in August 1998 to advise on 
potential investigations into the growing cases of 
leukemia.<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn58#_ftn58>[58] 
But no study on the relationship between DU and the growing health concerns 
in Iraq had ever been performed. The growing concern in Europe over the 
weapons (which could not be dismissed as Iraqi “propaganda”) played no 
small role in Iraq’s pleas for an investigation finally receiving some 
attention from the international 
community.<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn59#_ftn59>[59] 
In August, the WHO announced that it would send a delegation to Baghdad to 
investigate the reports of increased rates of cancer and birth 
defects.<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn60#_ftn60>[60] 
A WHO spokesman said, “The Iraqis have been saying for a while that there 
has been an increase in cancers caused by depleted uranium. If we have 
determined there has been an increase, then we will look at possible 
causes.”<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn61#_ftn61>[61]



According to Dr. Alim Yacoub, dean of the medical school at Mustansiriya 
University in Baghdad, the WHO project was blocked by UN sanctions, which 
prevented the necessary radiology equipment from being 
imported.<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn62#_ftn62>[62] 
I contacted Dan Fahey to ask if he had any information on what became of 
the WHO mission, and he said that according to one of his sources, the 
project was blocked by the government of Iraq, which wanted a level of 
control over the study that was unacceptable to the WHO. For example, Iraq 
wanted to choose which sites and hospitals could be visited and did not 
want any samples removed from the country. Dr. Michael Kilpatrick said in a 
Department of Defense briefing that “The World Health Organization went 
into that area [around Basra] and took a look at what it would take to do 
the appropriate epidemiological medical studies to understand why are 
people ill in this area of the world. They laid out that requirement of 
that kind of study and said the World Health Organization is capable and 
willing to do this. And the government of Iraq said 
no.”<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn63#_ftn63>[63] 
Little has been reported on what became of the WHO mission, and just what 
occurred is largely unknown and shrouded in ambiguity.



In February 2004, Scotland’s Sunday Herald reported that a WHO sponsored 
study concluding that inhalation of DU could lead to cancer was 
“suppressed”. Dr Keith Baverstock, the principle author of the report, 
which was completed in 2001, and the WHO’s top expert on radiation and 
health for 11 years, alleges that it was deliberately kept secret. “Our 
study suggests that the widespread use of depleted uranium weapons in Iraq 
could pose a unique health hazard to the civilian population,” Baverstock 
said, adding that “There is increasing scientific evidence the 
radioactivity and the chemical toxicity of DU could cause more damage to 
human cells than is assumed.” According to one WHO official, “The article 
was not approved for publication because parts of it did not reflect 
accurately what a WHO-convened group of international experts considered 
the best science in the area of depleted uranium.” In other words, it was 
not considered fit to print because the report contradicted earlier 
findings. Among the report’s conclusions were that DU particles, which can 
be blown around by wind, are likely to be inhaled by civilians for years to 
come and that once inside the body, its radiation and toxicity could lead 
to the growth of malignant tumors and an increased risk of 
cancer.<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn64#_ftn64>[64]



Iraq also proposed that the UN itself study the effects of DU. In November, 
a report from Reuters noted that the Iraq Health Ministry had reported an 
increase in cancer cases from 6,555 in 1989 to 10,931 in 1997, “especially 
in areas bombed during the war”, but that, “After lobbying by Washington, 
the General Assembly rejected yesterday an Iraqi proposal that the UN study 
the effects of the depleted-uranium shells by US-led forces in the Gulf 
War.”<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn65#_ftn65>[65]



Leuren Moret has also alleged that there has been a widespread cover-up of 
the effects of DU. In just one example, “A medical doctor in Northern 
California reported being trained by the Pentagon with other doctors, 
months before the 2003 war started, to diagnose and treat soldiers 
returning from the 2003 war for mental problems only. Medical professionals 
in hospitals and facilities treating returning soldiers were threatened 
with $10,000 fines if they talked about the soldiers or their medical 
problems. They were also threatened with 
jail.”<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn66#_ftn66>[66]



There are historical precedents for such a cover up. According to a 1994 
congressional report, “Approximately 60,000 military personnel were used as 
human subjects in the 1940s to test two chemical agents, mustard gas and 
lewisite [blister gas]. Most of these subjects were not informed of the 
nature of the experiments and never received medical followup after their 
participation in the research. Additionally, some of these human subjects 
were threatened with imprisonment at Fort Leavenworth if they discussed 
these experiments with anyone, including their wives, parents and family 
doctors. For decades, the Pentagon denied that the research had taken 
place, resulting in decades of suffering for many veterans who became ill 
after the secret 
testing.”<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn67#_ftn67>[67]



“Military men,” Henry Kissinger is alleged to have said, “are just dumb 
stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign 
policy.”<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn68#_ftn68>[68] 
That mindset seems to hold true for policy makers at the Department of Defense.



Reports on the potential dangers of DU, meanwhile, have continued to 
emerge. In 2001, the Royal Society, one of the United Kingdom’s premier 
scientific bodies, released a report saying that “It should be incumbent on 
nations using DU munitions in future conflicts to advise the local 
population of the potential dangers of handling fragments of 
penetrators.”<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn69#_ftn69>[69] 
In March, 2002, another Royal Society report was released, which concluded 
that inhaling or swallowing high levels of DU could lead to kidney failure 
within days, and that there are long-term risks for children who play in 
contaminated 
areas.<http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1320695.htm#_ftn70#_ftn70>[70]



In March 2003, UNEP released its report from its investigation of DU in 
Bosnia and Herzogovina. The report notes that “there has been very little 
scientific fieldwork with proper measurements as well as laboratory work 
outside of the military community”, making it “difficult to come to any 
significant conclusions.” Despite this, four “new and significant findings” 
are found in the report. First, analysis of surface soil samples “revealed 
low levels of localized ground contamination.” Second, DU penetrators 
buried beneath the surface had corroded, losing 25% of their mass over a 7 
years period. Third, DU contamination was found in drinking water at one 
site, and while the doses found “are insignificant for any health risk”, 
the report adds that “because the mechanism that governs the contam

posted Thursday, 2 June 2005





</x-flowed>
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 29 [southnews] Building Hell in the Heavens
 
Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 10:54:07 -0500 (CDT)

 
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This week's phrase - ''full spectrum dominance'' - came to me thanks to 
Nobel-prize winner Helen Caldicott, who now heads the Nuclear Policy 
Research Institute.

Military Creating 'Rods from God"

by Sean Gonsalves

Tuesday, May 31, 2005 by the Cape Cod Times
This week's phrase - ''full spectrum dominance'' - came to me thanks to 
Nobel-prize winner Helen Caldicott, who now heads the Nuclear Policy 
Research Institute.

She invited me to a bipartisan seminar on the militarization of space at 
the Airlie Conference Center in Warrenton, Va., about 45 minutes outside 
of the nation's capital. The conference was attended by top defense 
experts, scholars, diplomats and a handful of reporters. (Disclosure: 
The research institute, an anti-nuclear advocacy group, partially funded 
Gonsalves' attendance.)

''Full-Spectrum Dominance'' comes right out of U.S. military doctrine as 
outlined in documents such as ''Full Spectrum Dominance and Air Force 
Space Command Strategic Master Plan FY06,'' which states that the U.S. 
military goal is to fight war ''in, from and through'' space, based on 
the Rumsfeld logic that whoever controls space will dominate earth.

Dr. Craig Eisendrath, who helped write the 1967 Outer Space Treaty and 
is now a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, gave an 
overview on the history of ballistic missile defense. The U.S. actually 
deployed a ballistic missile defense (BMD) system in North Dakota in 
1976, which cost $6 billion. Four months after it was set up, it was 
dismantled because it didn't work.

Dr. Theodore Postol, professor of science, technology and national 
security at MIT, talked about why we're barking up the wrong 
circuit-tree, having spent about $130 billion on BMD research and 
technology to date. Postol, probably the best-known expert critic of 
BMD, began his talk by saying ''I like weapons that work.'' He 
explained, in technical detail, why scientists can't make a viable BMD 
system. He called it the ''problem of discrimination.''

''Imagine looking for a bomb in a suitcase but you can't look inside the 
suitcase, even though it's the contents that need to identified...if 
multiple objects have the same appearance, then discrimination is 
impossible.''

Simple decoys like aluminum balloons look like missiles or light-seeking 
warheads. And even when a ballistic missile is targeted by the ''eyes'' 
of interceptors, their sight is analogous to looking at a target 
''through a drinking straw.''

A half-dozen distinguished scientists agreed, including two Nobel prize 
winners, Dr. John Polyanni, chemistry professor at the University of 
Toronto, and Dr. Steven Weinberg, director of Theory Research Group at 
the University of Texas in Austin.

In fact, Weinberg went so far as to say that manned space exploration 
has far less scientific value than do unmanned space exploration, which 
has all but gone down the tubes with the decommissioning of the Hubble.

President Bush announced manned-space exploration as a goal of his 
administration, which would cost hundreds of billions of dollars.

Wasting money on a costly, unworkable system that offers the illusion of 
absolute security; taxpayer money that could be better spent on public 
needs like health care, he said, is ''criminal.''

As you read this, defense officials are developing plans to put weapons 
in space, things like hypervelocity rod bundles, which insiders call 
''Rods from God,'' whose purpose is to penetrate subterranean targets.

Our policy planners and so-called leaders are provoking China and Russia 
in their pursuit of God-like powers to dominate the earth, which is the 
most dangerous form of idolatry imaginable.

Meanwhile, most Americans have never heard of this stuff, even from the 
''liberal'' media, as conservative Christians, who seem to be hogging 
the national microphone, debate about same-sex marriage and stem-cell 
research.

If it's ''the kids'' and future generations we're really concerned 
about, we had better get more acquainted with ''full-spectrum 
dominance'' and re-acquaint ourselves with words like proportionality, 
priorities and moral discernment.

For more info, go to www.nuclearpolicy.org.

Sean Gonsalves is a Cape Cod Times staff writer and a syndicated columnist.

) 2005 Cape Cod Times

The archives of South News can be found at
http://southmovement.alphalink.com.au/southnews/ 

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 30 [du-list] Depleted, it ain't! So-called depleted uranium, that
 
Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2005 14:35:31 -0700

 
<x-flowed>
Depleted, it ain't! So-called depleted uranium, that is!

By Bob Nichols, May 31, 2005
Project Censored Award Winner & Online Journal Contributing
Writer

http://www.onlinejournal.com/Commentary/053105Nichols/053105nichols.html

OKLAHOMA CITY, Red State of Delusion—The term "Depleted
Uranium" is misleading, on purpose.

So-called "depleted uranium" (DU) results from making
hydrogen bombs. The CIA tries to deceive us all, all the
time. They have succeeded for 55 years. George Lakoff blows
the lid off the "Big Lie" about uranium weapons use.

Processing natural uranium removes about half of the bomb
making material. It is then called "depleted uranium" by the
powers that be, because it can no longer be used to make
H-Bombs; but it is used to make uranium bullets, shells,
land mines and regular bombs instead.

The so-called "depleted uranium" is 88 percent as
radioactive as the original uranium. There is a huge amount,
about 1.5 billion pounds, of "depleted uranium" at H-bomb
factories in the US.

The word depleted does not mean the uranium is safe or okay
to use, it means it has been used to make H-Bombs, that's all.

A less deceptive name would be George Lakoff's "Radioactive
Weaponry."

Or "12 percent depleted uranium;" but Lakoff's term
"Radioactive Weaponry" better describes what the US military
is currently widely using in Iraq and Central Asia.

Copyright by Bob Nichols.


-- 

Posted for educational and research purposes only,
~ in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 ~

NucNews Links and Expanded Archives - http://nucnews.net

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 31 [du-list] [ RadSafe ] DU and other sublimed metals;
 
Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2005 14:35:30 -0700

 
<x-flowed>
I think the depleted uranium "nanoparticle" theories are wrong.

About 18% of the DU munitions' particulate combustion products
are less than 0.1 microns wide (J. Glissmeyer et al., "Prototype
Firing Range Air Cleaning System," 18th D.o.E. Nuclear Airborne
Waste Management and Air Cleaning Conference, August 1984), and
such particles are absorbed into the bloodstream in a matter of
a few to a few dozen minutes, even if they are "insoluble":
    http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/full/105/4/411

However, the nanoparticle researchers claim that uranium burns
at 3000 deg. Celsius, which is needed to explain the aerial
mobilization of other metals that Gatti and others suggest.
In fact, uranium burns in air at about 1400 deg. Celsius, and
doesn't exceed 2700 deg. even in pure oxygen (L. Baker et al.,
"The Ignition of Uranium," Journal of Nuclear Materials, vol.
20 (1966) pp. 22-38, at p. 30.)

Nanoparticle theorists also ignore the chemical toxicity of
uranium, repeating the quaint and wrong claim that uranium
poses only a danger to the kidneys, and try to explain the
deleterious effects solely in terms of radioactivity, which
causes literally a million times less damage to DNA than
the catalytic production of hydroxyl and other radicals --
    http://www.bovik.org/du/Miller-DNA-damage.pdf
-- which is the major mode of uranium chemical toxicity apart
from the kidneys, affecting white blood cells, the reproductive
system, the liver, and the brain.

Sincerely,
James Salsman


Jim Barnes wrote:

 > Several months ago, I was forwarded a paper by Dr.
 > Antonietta Gatti, who is a researcher in the subject
 > of nano-pathology (the effect of sub-micron particles
 > on health).  In this particular work Dr. Gatti
 > described a technique whereby extremely tiny particles
 > of metals (and maybe other materials; I forget) can be
 > located and identified at the cellular level.  Because
 > the particles are extremely small, they don't behave
 > as larger particles do, and can quite readily migrate
 > throughout the body.  In this application, Dr. Gatti
 > was evaluating tumor tissues of individuals living in
 > the Balkans (and I believe some Italian soldiers) who
 > had purportedly been exposed to DU munitions....
 >
 > http://avigolfe.ifrance.com/studies.htm
 >....







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 32 Depleted Uranium Bill Introduced into Congress 
 
Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 06:23:30 -0500 (CDT)

 
http://www.iconoclast-texas.com/News/22news04.htm

    Depleted Uranium Bill Introduced into Congress
    The Lone Star Iconoclast

    01 June Issue

    Washington, DC - Congressman Jim McDermott (D-WA), a medical doctor, on
May 17 introduced legislation with 21 original co-sponsors in the House of
Representatives that calls for medical and scientific studies on the health
and environmental impacts from the U.S. Military's use of depleted uranium
(DU) munitions in combat zones, including Iraq. The McDermott bill also calls
for cleanup and mitigation of sites in the U.S. contaminated by DU.

    "The need is urgent and imperative for full, fair and impartial studies,"
McDermott said. "We may be endangering the health and lives of U.S. soldiers
and Iraqi civilians. All we've gotten so far from the Pentagon are assurances.
We need facts backed by science. We don't have that today."

    Because of its density, the military uses DU as a protective shield around
tanks, and in munitions like armor piercing bullets and tank shells. DU tends
to spontaneously ignite upon impact, disintegrating into a micro-fine residue
that hangs suspended in the air where it can be inhaled and falls to the
ground to leach into the soil.

    DU is a by-product of the uranium enrichment process; it is chemically
toxic. and DU has low-level radioactivity. About 300 metric tons of DU
munitions were fired during the first Gulf War, and about half that amount has
been used to date in the Iraq War.

    "I've been concerned about DU since veterans of the first Gulf War began
to experience unexplained illnesses, commonly called 'Gulf War Syndrome' that
remain mysterious," McDermott said.

    McDermott added that there are reports from Iraqi doctors and others today
of seemingly unexplained serious illnesses including higher rates of cancer
and leukemia, and even birth defects.

    "We pretended there was no problem with Agent Orange after Vietnam and
later the Pentagon recanted, after untold suffering by veterans. I want to
know scientifically if DU poses serious dangers to our soldiers and Iraqi
civilians."

    The Depleted Uranium Munitions Study Act of 2005 has 21 original
co-sponsors, all Democrats, including: Reps. Charles Rangel, Pete Stark,
Sherrod Brown, Peter DeFazio, Maurice Hinchey, Raul Grijalva, Jan Schakowsky,
Robert Wexler, Sam Farr, Tammy Baldwin, Robert Andrews, Bob Filner, Jay
Inslee, Jose Serrano, Lynn Woolsey, Earl Blumenauer, Bart Stupak, Mike Honda,
Tom Udall, Barney Frank and Ed Markey.

  -------
*****************************************************************
 33 Las Vegas SUN: NTS to test nuclear detection devices 

Today: June 02, 2005 at 9:28:35 PDT 

By Jeff Donaldson 

LAS VEGAS SUN 

Detection devices that pick up potential nuclear threats from 
terrorists will be tested at a new facility at the Nevada Test 
Site before being installed at the nation's border and airport 
checkpoints, federal officials said Wednesday. 

Officials from the Department of Homeland Security and the 
National Nuclear Security Administration broke ground on a $35 
million facility that will be located in the heart of the 
nation's nuclear testing grounds. 

Coined the Radiological-Nuclear Countermeasures Test and 
Evaluation Complex, or Rad-NucCTEC, the facility is designed to 
test detection devices built by at least 10 international 
companies vying for a bid, which is expected to be awarded next 
year. 

The company that wins the bid will provide more than 2,000 
devices for more than 350 ports of entry throughout the United 
States. The systems can detect uranium, plutonium or other 
radiological materials terrorists might try to bring into the 
country in trucks or luggage. 

"The Nevada Testing Site is now the front line in the battle to 
protect the country from terrorist threats," said Jerry Paul, 
principal deputy administrator of the Nuclear Security 
Administration, addressing those attending the groundbreaking. 
The event took place in the shadows of the test site's nuclear 
storage facility, which will provide the materials used for 
testing. 

The Test Site no longer conducts nuclear weapons experiments, 
but scientists still use radiological materials to maintain 
nuclear stockpiles. The presence of those materials -- along 
with the remoteness of the location -- makes the Test Site an 
ideal place for the new facility, Paul said. 

Although the new facility won't be operational until 2007, a 
temporary site has been installed along a quarter-mile stretch 
of asphalt at the Test Site. The roadway is lined on both sides 
with 15-foot tall yellow steel towers, each equipped with one of 
10 detection systems. 

Officials with Bechtel Nevada, the Test Site's management 
company, demonstrated the systems by driving vehicles through 
the barriers. The trucks contained different natural materials, 
such as cat litter, fertilizer and other substances that can 
throw off current detection devices. 

Bechtel and the Nuclear Security Administration will begin 
testing actual plutonium and uranium on the systems during an 
eight-week period in August, said Michael Carter, chief 
scientist in the newly formed Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, 
located within the Department of Homeland Security. 

"This facility will provide definitive ground truth" about the 
threats and capabilities of terrorists, Carter said. 

President Bush's war on terrorism in Iraq has intensified 
concerns that weapons of mass destruction -- to include 
radiological materials -- could find their way into the United 
States. 

The new facility, which has portals, or lanes for trucks to 
pass through -- or luggage to pass through at airports -- will 
pave the way for tighter security measures at those checkpoints, 
officials said. 

Carter said the nuclear threat has always been considered a 
"highly unlikely" scenario, but that Homeland Security officials 
must consider the extremes some terrorists might go to. 

"We'll be deploying these systems with people who, if they're 
lucky, will never see a nuclear weapon, but we have to remain 
vigilant," Carter said. 

The National Nuclear Security Administration already conducts 
first response training at the Test Site for emergency officials 
who are trained in handling radiological threats. To date, more 
than 25,000 people have been trained at the top secret area. 

The first of the new devices are expected to be in use at 
border checkpoints in June 2006. 

All contents copyright 2005 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. 
*****************************************************************
 34 TheDay.com: Radiation Questions Remain A Concern At Submarine Base

, New London, CT
 		 		 		
Friday, Jun 3, 2005   								   									 										
												 												 												 										 										
Featured in Military  

Levels Of Potentially Harmful Contamination Still Largely Unknown

By JUDY BENSON
Health/Science/Environment Reporter
Published on 6/2/2005

If the Naval Submarine Base in Groton closes, one of the many
environmental issues that will have to be sorted out is whether
potentially harmful levels of radiological contamination linger
in the base buildings, soils, river sediments, instruments and
dry docks from a half-century of berthing nuclear-powered
submarines.

 There are outstanding questions, state Department of
Environmental Protection Commissioner Gina McCarthy said after
touring the base last week with a team of DEP experts, including
those from the Radiation Division. My largest concern is what
we don't know. We've only really seen it (radiological issues)
minimally looked at at this point.

 Concerns about environmental issues at the base, named to the
federal Superfund list of the nation's most polluted sites in
1990, were rekindled May 13 when the Defense Department
announced the nation's oldest submarine installation was being
recommended for closure. 

Since the Superfund designation, much of the cleanup has been
accomplished, but how much remains is a matter of debate, as is
the cost. Some of the cleanup has been done to standards
acceptable for an industrial site and a working military base,
but not to higher residential standards that would be required
for the 687-acre property to be reused for residential or
recreational purposes. 

McCarthy emphasized that the Navy's current practices in
handling radiological materials seem to be sound and no threat
to public health. A Navy report in 1997 concluded that there was
no danger to humans or the environment and that no remedial
action was necessary.

 But for at least the first 25 years of the nuclear Navy  when
some haphazard methods for disposal of toxic chemicals and other
waste were employed on the base  controls of equipment, reactor
cooling water and other radiation-contaminated materials were
weak by today's standards, according to Navy and federal
Environmental Protection Agency documents. While low levels of
radiation occur naturally in the environment, added radiation
from man-made sources can become a public health concern because
it has been linked to higher rates of cancer. 

"""

 Kymberlee Keckler, the EPA official overseeing the Navy's
cleanup of the chemical contamination as required by law, said a
decision to close the base would set in motion an Environmental
Baseline Survey that would take a whole new look at things
including radiation issues. With an operating base, the EPA does
not involve itself with radiation issues, although the Navy has
been required to assess base radiation as part of its Superfund
obligations. 

I'm pretty satisfied things are being adequately addressed,
she said. 

The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Navy are
monitoring the base for compliance with radiation control
standards. The NRC's responsibilities are confined to reviewing
results of periodic leakage tests of calibration equipment used
at the base that contains radiological components, said Neil
Sheehan, spokesman for the agency. No leakage has been reported,
he said. The equipment is licensed to the Navy by the NRC. 

If and when it comes time to decommission the base, we would of
course look at the leak rates, the tests that were performed,
he said. We would have to do surveys. We don't have any other
jurisdiction on any site that deals with the nuclear Navy.

 The bulk of the radioactive waste generated by the
nuclear-powered submarines homeported in Groton is handled at
the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Maine, where the subs travel
when their nuclear reactors need refueling. That process
includes removal of used nuclear fuel. The Portsmouth facility
is also on the list of bases recommended for closure.

 But the sub base does generate some radioactive waste, in the
form of radiation-contaminated tools, clothing, rags and other
equipment used in reactor maintenance and repairs. The materials
are shipped off the Groton base in sealed, radiation-proof
containers for disposal at approved sites, according to a Navy
report. The base does not contain any disposal sites for nuclear
waste. Any leakage of fission products from the submarines is in
trace amounts, the report states, adding that such leakage is
not compatible with operation of the ships. 

But low levels of radiation have been found at and around the
base, and 27 low-level accidental releases are listed between
1975 and 1992 in the latest Navy report on base radiation.
Conducted by the Radiological Controls Office at the Portsmouth
Naval Shipyard, it covers base activities from 1954 to 1993. A
final version of the report was published in November 1997 and
can be found on CD-ROM files at Groton and Ledyard public
libraries. 

The accidental releases stemmed from ship discharges, spills,
contaminated clothing and equipment such as tool bags, vents
found outside radiation-control areas, improper work practices
and a variety of other mishaps. The highest release, of 27,000
pico-curies of radiation detected on a sailor who left a secure
area without first going through decontamination procedures,
occurred in October 1989. The report describes all steps taken
to respond to the various releases. 

"""

 Lt. Tommy Crosby, deputy public affairs officer for the Naval
Facilities Engineering Command, said in a written response to
questions from The Day that quarterly monitoring by the Navy of
harbor sediment, water, marine life and air has shown that
radiation levels from the base are low and do not reach levels
considered harmful to humans or the local ecosystem. 

Trace levels of one radioactive substance, cobalt-60, have been
found in river sediments, according to Crosby. These are
believed to be left from discharges into the Thames River of
reactor cooling water from submarines from the 1950s until 1972,
when the Navy stopped the practice. The amounts of cobalt-60 are
well below international levels at which sediments must be
characterized as radioactive, Crosby said. 

Cobalt-60 is considered a tag element to detect radiation
contamination from a reactor. Because it does not occur
naturally and is relatively easy to measure, it is typically the
first substance monitors look for, said Edward Wilds, director
of the DEP's Radiation Division. If high enough levels are
found, more tests would be conducted to determine if other
radioactive elements are also present at levels that would be of
concern. 

Wilds said his office is in the process of gathering data from
the federal Department of Energy and the Navy about its ongoing
monitoring. DEP staff, he said, regularly tests the Thames River
and river sediments near the base for radiation emanating from
the submarines docked nearby. 

In general there doesn't seem to be a big problem there, he
said. But we have very minimal information on the land.

 Wilds added that if the base were to close the standards for
allowable levels of radiation contamination at the base could
change, and all the possible ways radiation could travel would
be considered. Currently, the lower industrial standard is
used. 

We shoot for unrestricted reuse, Wilds said. We would look
for all the pathways an individual could be exposed. The
allowable exposures would definitely change, and the amount of
radiation that can be there. 

"""

 The 1997 Navy report on radiation on the base was revised after
the EPA's Keckler sent a letter in 1995 to Mark Evans, remedial
project manager for the Navy office in charge of the base
cleanup. 

In the letter, the EPA is critical of the completeness and
quality of the Navy report, and raised concerns about radiation
hot spots that showed up in some of the data. The DEP also
raised dozens of questions about the draft report, including one
about hot spots of higher-level radiation found in sediment
samples. 

The EPA letter also faulted the Navy for lack of data from the
early years of its nuclear submarine program, and for not
interviewing former base workers about how radiological waste
was disposed of. 

The letter states that there have been significant radiological
releases in the vicinity of the base. Keckler said this week
that the letter was prepared after an outside consultant and
expert on nuclear issues reviewed the Navy's report.

 The Navy answered the EPA's criticism with a lengthy,
point-by-point reply. In it, the Navy defended much of the
report as complete and agreed to revise other sections. One of
the major revisions added a section about trace quantities of
radioactive releases from the surface of the reactors and in
coolant. The added section also described the main sources of
radioactivity: inadvertent releases of small volumes of liquids
into the river ... inadvertent releases of small amount of
liquid or solid material (or, very rarely, gases) ... air
exhausts from work areas ... and trace quantities of fission
product gasses and carbon-14 gaseous products from primary
coolant which has been depressurized. The report's conclusion
did not change form the draft to the final version. 

The final report concluded: The berthing of and work on
nuclear-powered ships at the Sub base has had no adverse effect
on the human population or the environment of the region. Trace
levels of cobalt-60 found within river bottom sediments do not
require remediation, due to the low levels detected and due to
the environmental harm that would occur during removal of bottom
material by extensive dredging ... No additional
characterization and no remedial actions are necessary as a
result of NNPP (Naval nuclear propulsion program) activities at
the base.

 Keckler said that the final report, published after meetings
between the EPA, Navy and DEP, answered all of the concerns. 

[The Day Publishing Co.]                                                              
*****************************************************************
 35 NRC: RIN 3150-AH52 Nuclear Facility Security
 
                        FR Doc 05-10933 
[Federal Register: June 2, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 105)] [Rules 
and Regulations] [Page 32224-32228] From the Federal Register 
Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr02jn05-2]                         
 

 
Broadening Scope of Access Authorization and Facility Security 
Clearance Regulations AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
 
ACTION: Final rule.
 
SUMMARY: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC or Commission) is 
amending its regulations to broaden the scope of the regulations 
applicable to persons who may require access to classified 
information, to include persons who may need access in connection 
with licensing and regulatory activities under the regulations 
that govern the disposal of high-level radioactive waste in 
geologic repositories, and persons who may need access in 
connection with other activities as the Commission may determine, 
such as vendors of advanced reactor designs. The Commission is 
also amending its regulations to broaden the scope of the 
regulations applicable to procedures for obtaining facility 
security clearances, to include persons who may need to use, 
process, store, reproduce, transmit, transport, or handle NRC 
classified information in connection with the above-identified 
activities. In addition, NRC is correcting the scope section of 
the regulations that govern access authorization for licensee 
personnel to include certificate holders and applicants for a 
certificate; clarifying the definition of ``license'' in the 
regulations that govern access authorization for licensee 
personnel and govern facility security clearance to include a 
reference to the regulations that govern combined licenses; 
correcting a typographical error in the definition of ``security 
container'' in its facility security regulations; and updating 
the references to Executive Order 12958 which has been amended.
 
 
DATES: The final rule is effective on July 5, 2005.
 
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Dr. Anthony N. Tse, Office of 
Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, telephone (301) 415-6233, 
e-mail .
 
 
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Background NRC's regulations at 10 CFR 
Parts 25 and 95 govern access to and protection of classified 
information by licensees or other persons who have a need for 
access to this information. Part 25 contains procedures for 
establishing initial and continuing eligibility for access 
authorizations for individuals who may require access to 
classified information. Part 95 contains procedures for obtaining 
a facility security clearance for licensees, certificate holders, 
or other persons who need to use, process, store, reproduce, 
transmit, transport, or handle certain types of NRC classified 
information at any location in connection with Commission-related 
activities. The purpose of this rulemaking is to amend Parts 25 
and 95 to: (1) Add references to 10 CFR Parts 60 and 63 in Sec. 
Sec.  25.5, 25.17(a) and 95.5; (2) expand the scope of Sec. Sec.  
25.3 and 95.3 to include persons who may not be licensees or 
certificate holders or applicants for a license or certificate; 
(3) clarify the definition of ``license'' in Sec.
 
Sec. 25.5 and 95.5 to include a reference to Part 52; (4) correct 
the omission of a reference to certificate holders in Sec.  25.3; 
(5) correct a typographical error in the definition of ``security 
container'' in Sec.  95.5; and (6) update references to Executive 
Order 12958 to reflect that this Executive Order has been amended 
and could be further amended in the future.
 
Direct Final Rule and Companion Proposed Rule On December 15, 
2004 (69 FR 74949), the NRC published in the Federal Register a 
direct final rule that would have amended NRC's regulations to 
broaden the scope of the regulations in 10 CFR Parts 25 and 95. 
The direct final rule was to become effective on February 28, 
2005. The NRC concurrently published a companion proposed rule on 
December 15, 2004 (69 FR 75007).
 
In the direct final rule, NRC stated that if any significant 
adverse comments were received, a notice of timely withdrawal of 
the direct final rule would be published in the Federal Register. 
As a result, the direct final rule would not take effect.
 
NRC received one public comment letter consisting of at least one 
significant adverse comment on the direct final rule; therefore, 
NRC withdrew the direct final rule on February 24, 2005 (70 FR 
8921). NRC is addressing the comments received on the companion 
proposed rule in this final rule.
 
Discussion Although 10 CFR 25.3 speaks broadly of the regulations 
that apply to ``licensees and others who may require access to 
classified information related to a license or an application for 
a license,'' in 10 CFR 25.5, ``license'' is defined to mean ``a 
license issued pursuant to 10 CFR Parts 50, 70, or 72.'' 
Similarly, 10 CFR 95.3 states that the regulations apply to 
licensees and certificate holders and others regulated by the 
Commission who need access in connection with a license or 
certificate or an application for a license or certificate. 
However, at 10 CFR 95.5, ``license'' is defined to mean ``a 
license issued pursuant to 10 CFR Parts 50, 70, or 72.'' Absent 
from these provisions is any reference to the Commission's 
regulations that govern the issuance of construction 
authorizations and licenses for disposal of high-level 
radioactive waste in geologic repositories (10 CFR Part 60) or in 
a potential geologic repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada (10 CFR 
Part 63). Parts 25 and 95 were published on March 5, 1980; 45 FR 
14476, before issuance of Part 60 (February 25, 1981; 46 FR 
13971) or Part 63 (November 2, 2001; 66 FR 55732) and Parts 25 
and 95 were not amended to include these regulations. The 
Commission currently anticipates receiving a license application 
from the U.S. Department of Energy under the provisions of Part 
63. An adjudicatory proceeding on this license application could 
implicate the need for access authorizations and facility 
security clearances by persons who plan to participate in the 
proceeding. Accordingly, NRC is amending the definition of 
``license'' in Sec. Sec.  25.5 and 95.5 to include references to 
licenses issued under Parts 60 and 63. For the same reason, 
references to Parts 60 and 63 are added to Sec. 25.17(a). A 
second restriction that presently exists in 10 CFR 25.3 and 95.3 
is that the requested access authorizations or facility security 
clearances must be related to a license or certificate, or an 
application for a license or certificate. However, there may be 
certain Commission-related activities undertaken by entities who 
are not licensees or certificate holders, or applicants for a 
license or certificate where an access authorization or facility 
security clearance may be needed. The NRC believes there is a 
need for access authorizations and facility security clearances 
for vendors who are involved in the design of advanced reactors. 
These vendors could need access to classified information which 
would enable them to consider potential
 
[[Page 32225]] mitigative measures for operating reactors and 
design features for the various advanced reactor systems. 
Currently, a vendor who is not an NRC licensee or a contractor to 
an NRC licensee and does not have a facility clearance or access 
authorization provided by another government agency, is not 
eligible for an access authorization or a facility security 
clearance under Parts 25 and 95. NRC believes that most current 
vendors of advanced reactor designs are NRC licensees or 
contractors to NRC licensees or holders of clearances from other 
government agencies. However, to allow for the possibility that 
there could be vendors who would need to seek access 
authorizations and facility security clearances through the 
regulations at Parts 25 and 95, the NRC is adding language to the 
scope sections of these parts to allow the processing of requests 
for access authorization or facility security clearances with 
respect to ``other activities as the Commission may determine.'' 
This language could also be used to begin the processing of such 
requests, in advance of NRC's receipt of a license application 
under Part 63, by potential parties in an adjudication on the 
application, or in circumstances when a need for access 
authorization might arise in the future.
 
Further, the NRC is clarifying the definition of ``license'' in 
Sec. Sec.  25.5 and 95.5 to include a reference to Part 52 which 
contains provisions for combined licenses in Subpart C and for 
manufacturing licenses in Appendix M. Although NRC's intent that 
access authorizations needed in connection with activities under 
Part 52 be included is evidenced by a reference to Part 52 in 
Sec. 25.17(a), a similar reference to Part 52 does not appear in 
the definition of ``license'' in Sec. Sec.  25.5 and 95.5. The 
Commission is correcting this oversight.
 
The NRC is also correcting the omission of a reference to 
certificate holders in Sec.  25.3. Although Sec.  25.5 includes a 
definition of ``certificate holder'' and Sec.  25.17(a) includes 
activities under Part 76 that issue certificates to gaseous 
diffusion plants, Sec.  25.3, unlike Sec.  95.3, does not include 
a reference to certificate holders or certificates. The NRC 
believes this is an oversight that is now being corrected.
 
In addition, the NRC is correcting a typographical error which 
appears in the definition of ``security container'' in Sec. 95.5. 
In the description of a ``safe'' in paragraph (2), the phrase 
``at least \1/2\ thick'' should read ``at least \1/2\ inch 
thick.'' Finally, NRC is amending references to Executive Order 
12958 where they appear in Parts 25 and 95 to include the phrase 
``as amended.'' This reflects that Executive Order 12958 was 
amended on March 25, 2003 by Executive Order 13292 (68 FR 15315; 
March 28, 2003) and could be further amended in the future.
 
Response to Public Comments The NRC received one public comment 
letter from a group of seven national environmental and public 
interest organizations. A summary of the comments contained in 
this letter and NRC's responses are presented below.
 
Comment 1: The commenters expressed concern that the direct final 
rule did not make clear that public intervenors, such as 
environmental and public interest organizations that plan on 
taking part in the Yucca Mountain licensing proceeding, would be 
granted access authorizations and security clearances.
 
Response: An adjudicatory proceeding on DOE's anticipated 
application for a license under the provisions of 10 CFR Part 63 
may necessitate access authorizations and facility security 
clearances by persons who plan to participate in the proceeding. 
An access authorization is a necessary prerequisite for access to 
classified information as that term is defined in 10 CFR Part 25. 
The intent of this rulemaking is to broaden the scope of the 
regulations in Parts 25 and 95 so that potential intervenors, 
such as the environmental and public interest organization 
commenters, can seek access authorizations and facility security 
clearances in accordance with the existing requirements in these 
parts.
 
Part 25 establishes the procedures for authorizing access to 
classified information. Prior to this rulemaking, 10 CFR 25.3 
stated that Part 25 applies ``to licensees and others who may 
require access to classified information related to a license or 
an application for a license.'' However, the term ``license'' for 
the purposes of Part 25 was defined to mean ``a license issued 
pursuant to 10 CFR Parts 50, 70, or 72.'' See 10 CFR 25.5 (2004). 
Similarly, the former regulations provided that security 
clearances for access to classified information ``must be 
requested for licensee employees or other persons (e.g., 10 CFR 
Part 2, Subpart I) who need access to classified information in 
connection with activities under 10 CFR Parts 50, 52, 54, 70, 72, 
or 76.'' See 10 CFR 25.17(a) (2004). NRC would issue any license 
for the proposed repository at Yucca Mountain under the 
regulations at 10 CFR Part 63. Thus, the scope of the Part 25 and 
95 regulations needed to be revised to include references to Part 
63 to make it possible for those who plan to participate in the 
adjudicatory proceeding on DOE's license application to seek 
access authorizations and facility security clearances. This is 
accomplished in this rulemaking. Comment 2: The commenters sought 
clarification as to how broadly or narrowly NRC will apply 
``need-to-know'' limitations upon potential intervenors in the 
proceeding, such as environmental and public interest 
organizations.
 
Response: A person with an access authorization must establish a 
``need-to-know'' the particular information being sought before 
such information can be provided by the holder of the 
information.
 
``Need- to-know'' is defined in 10 CFR Part 25 to mean ``a 
determination by an authorized holder of classified information 
that a prospective recipient requires access to a specific 
classified information to perform or assist in a lawful and 
authorized governmental function under the cognizance of the 
Commission.'' See 10 CFR 25.5. A ``need-to- know'' determination 
could be made by the holder of the information in the cognizant 
NRC office responsible for the specific information being sought 
or, once an adjudicatory proceeding using the special procedures 
of 10 CFR Part 2, Subpart I, is commenced, by the presiding 
officer or the Commission.
 
Comment 3: The commenters also expressed concern that any 
proposed rule changes, including the direct final rule, not be 
used by NRC or any other federal agencies involved in the Yucca 
Mountain licensing proceeding (such as DOE) to inappropriately 
restrict access to documents by improperly classifying documents 
vital to intervenors' contentions against the proposed 
repository.
 
Response: This rulemaking does not affect how information is 
classified and does not expand the scope of information that can 
only be obtained by those with access authorizations. NRC 
cognizant information is classified under either the provisions 
of Executive Order 12958, as amended, for National Security 
Information, or the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended, for 
Restricted Data.
 
Section 1.7(a)(4) of Executive Order 12958, as amended, states: 
``In no case shall information be classified in order to: * * * 
(4) prevent or delay the release of information that does not 
require protection in the interest of national security.'' 
Comment 4: The commenters sought clarification as to which 
categories of information, as well as specific documentation, NRC 
and other federal
 
[[Page 32226]] agencies involved in the Yucca Mountain licensing 
proceeding plan on declaring ``classified.'' Although NRC's 
direct final rule refers only to ``classified information,'' they 
questioned if NRC intends to effectively also include 
``sensitive'' and ``safeguards'' information. They urged that 
this point be clarified, and that comprehensive definitions for 
``sensitive'' and ``safeguards'' be given.
 
Response: As stated in response to Comment 3, this rulemaking 
does not affect how information is classified. Questions 
concerning the classification of ``sensitive'' or ``safeguards'' 
information, or access to such information, are beyond the scope 
of this rulemaking.
 
After considering the public comments, NRC has determined to 
adopt the amendments contained in the proposed rule without 
change, as explained in the following section.
 
Discussion of Amendments by Section Section 25.3 Scope. This 
section currently limits the access to classified information to 
access ``related to a license or an application for a license.'' 
This scope is broadened to include persons who may need access in 
connection with such other activities as the Commission may 
determine, such as vendors of advanced reactor designs. Thus, the 
phrase ``or other activities as the Commission may determine'' is 
added to this section. The Commission is also correcting an 
oversight by including certificate holders in this section.
 
Section 25.5 Definitions. References to Parts 52, 60 and 63 are 
added to the definition of ``license.'' The phrase ``Executive 
Order 12958'' is replaced by ``Executive Order 12958, as 
amended'' under definitions of ``classified national security 
information'' and ``national security information.'' Section 
25.17 Approval for processing applicants for access 
authorizations.
 
References to Parts 60 and 63 are added to paragraph (a).
 
Section 25.37 Violations. The phrase, ``Executive Order 12958'' 
is replaced by ``Executive Order 12958, as amended'' in paragraph 
(b).
 
Section 95.3 Scope. This section currently applies to 
``licensees, certificate holders and others regulated by the 
Commission'' who may require access to certain types of 
classified information ``in connection with a license or 
certificate or an application for a license or certificate.'' The 
Commission is broadening the scope of the regulations applicable 
to procedures for obtaining facility security clearances, to 
include persons who may need to use, process, store, reproduce, 
transmit, transport, or handle NRC classified information in 
connection with other types of activities as the Commission may 
determine, such as vendors of advanced reactor designs. Thus, the 
phrase ``regulated by the Commission'' is deleted and the phrase 
``or other activities as the Commission may determine'' is added.
 
Section 95.5 Definitions. References to Parts 52, 60 and 63 are 
added under the definition of ``license.'' The phrase ``E.O. 
12958'' is replaced by ``E.O. 12958, as amended'' under 
definitions of ``classified national security information,'' 
``infraction,'' and ``violation.'' The phrase ``at least \1/2\ 
thick'' is replaced by ``at least \1/2\ inch thick'' under the 
definition of ``Security container,'' paragraph (2).
 
Section 95.59 Inspections. The phrase ``E.O. 12958'' is replaced 
by ``E.O. 12958, as amended.'' Agreement State Compatibility 
Under the ``Policy Statement on Adequacy and Compatibility of 
Agreement State Programs'' approved by the Commission on June 30, 
1997, and published in the Federal Register on September 3, 1997 
(62 FR 46517), this rule is classified as Compatibility Category 
``NRC.'' Compatibility is not required for Category ``NRC'' 
regulations.
 
The NRC program elements in this category are those that relate 
directly to areas of regulation reserved to the NRC by the Atomic 
Energy Act of 1954, as amended (AEA), or the provisions of Title 
10 of the Code of Federal Regulations. Although an Agreement 
State may not adopt program elements reserved to NRC, it may wish 
to inform its licensees of certain requirements via a mechanism 
that is consistent with the particular State's administrative 
procedure laws, but does not confer regulatory authority on the 
State.
 
Voluntary Consensus Standards The National Technology Transfer 
Act of 1995 (Pub. L. 104-113) requires that Federal agencies use 
technical standards that are developed or adopted by voluntary 
consensus standards bodies unless the use of such a standard is 
inconsistent with applicable law or otherwise impractical. In 
this final rule, the NRC broadens the scope of Parts 25 and 95 by 
adding references to Parts 60 and 63 and by including language in 
the scope sections which will enable NRC to consider access 
authorizations and facility security clearance for persons who 
are not licensees or certificate holders or applicants for a 
license or certificate. This action does not constitute the 
establishment of a standard that establishes generally applicable 
requirements.
 
Environmental Impact: Categorical Exclusion The NRC has 
determined that this final rule is the type of action described 
in categorical exclusion 10 CFR 51.22(c)(1). Therefore, neither 
an environmental impact statement nor an environmental assessment 
has been prepared for this final rule.
 
Paperwork Reduction Act Statement This final rule contains new or 
amended information collection requirements that are subject to 
the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (44 U.S.C. 3501 et seq.). 
These requirements were approved by the Office of Management and 
Budget, approval numbers 3150-0046 and 3150- 0047.
 
The burden to the public for these information collections is 
estimated to average 1.4 hours per response, including the time 
for reviewing instructions, searching existing data sources, 
gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and 
reviewing the information collection. Send comments on any aspect 
of these information collections, including suggestions for 
reducing the burden, to the Records and FOIA/Privacy Services 
Branch (T-5 F53), U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, 
DC 20555-0001, or by Internet electronic mail to ; and to the 
Desk Officer, Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, 
NEOB-10202, (3150-0046 and 3150-0047), Office of Management and 
Budget, Washington, DC 20503.
 
Public Protection Notification The NRC may not conduct or 
sponsor, and a person is not required to respond to, a request 
for information or an information collection requirement unless 
the requesting document displays a currently valid OMB control 
number.
 
Regulatory Analysis A regulatory analysis has not been prepared 
for this final rule because this rule is considered minor and not 
a substantial amendment; it has no
 
[[Page 32227]] economic impact on NRC licensees or the public.
 
Regulatory Flexibility Certification In accordance with the 
Regulatory Flexibility Act of 1980 (5 U.S.C. 605(b)), the 
Commission certifies that this rule does not have a significant 
economic impact on a substantial number of small entities. This 
rule merely makes procedures available to individuals and 
entities for obtaining access authorizations and facility 
security clearances in connection with licensing activities under 
Parts 60 and 63 or with other activities as the Commission may 
determine, corrects the omission of a reference to Part 52 in the 
definition of ``license'' in Parts 25 and 95, corrects the 
omission of a reference to certificate holders in Part 25, 
updates references to Executive Order 12958, and clarifies a 
dimension used to describe a security container.
 
Backfit Analysis The NRC has determined that the backfit rule 
(Sec. Sec. 50.109, 70.76, 72.62, or 76.76) does not apply to this 
final rule because this amendment does not involve any provisions 
that would impose backfits as defined in the backfit rule. 
Therefore, a backfit analysis is not required.
 
Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act In accordance 
with the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act of 
1996, the NRC has determined that this action is not a major rule 
and has verified this determination with the Office of 
Information and Regulatory Affairs of OMB.
 
List of Subjects 10 CFR Part 25 Classified information, Criminal 
penalties, Investigations, Reporting and recordkeeping 
requirements, Security measures.
 
10 CFR Part 95 Classified information, Criminal penalties, 
Reporting and recordkeeping requirements, Security measures.
 
0 For the reasons set out in the preamble and under the authority 
of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended; the Energy 
Reorganization Act of 1974, as amended; and 5 U.S.C. 552 and 553; 
the NRC is adopting the following amendments to 10 CFR parts 25 
and 95.
 
PART 25--ACCESS AUTHORIZATION FOR LICENSEE PERSONNEL 0 1. The 
authority citation for part 25 is revised to read as follows: 
Authority: Secs. 145, 161, 68 Stat. 942, 948, as amended (42 
U.S.C. 2165, 2201); sec. 201, 88 Stat. 1242, as amended (42 
U.S.C. 5841); sec. 1704, 112 Stat. 2750 (44 U.S.C. 3504 note); 
E.O. 10865, as amended, 3 CFR 1959-1963 Comp., p. 398 (50 U.S.C. 
401, note); E.O. 12829, 3 CFR, 1993 Comp., p. 570; E.O. 12958, as 
amended, 3 CFR, 1995 Comp., p. 333, as amended by E.O. 13292, 3 
CFR, 2004 Comp., p.196; E.O. 12968, 3 CFR, 1995 Comp, p. 396. 
Appendix A also issued under 96 Stat. 1051 (31 U.S.C. 9701). 0 2. 
Section 25.3 is revised to read as follows: Sec.  25.3  Scope. 
The regulations in this part apply to licensees, certificate 
holders, and others who may require access to classified 
information related to a license, certificate, an application for 
a license or certificate, or other activities as the Commission 
may determine.
 
0 3. In Sec.  25.5, the definitions of Classified National 
Security Information, License, and National Security Information 
are revised to read as follows: Sec.  25.5  Definitions. * * * * 
* Classified National Security Information means information that 
has been determined pursuant to E.O. 12958, as amended, or any 
predecessor order to require protection against unauthorized 
disclosure and that is so designated.
 
* * * * * License means a license issued pursuant to 10 CFR parts 
50, 52, 60, 63, 70, or 72.
 
* * * * * National Security Information means information that 
has been determined pursuant to Executive Order 12958, as 
amended, or any predecessor order to require protection against 
unauthorized disclosure and that is so designated.
 
* * * * * 0 4. In Sec.  25.17, paragraph (a) is revised to read 
as follows: Sec.  25.17  Approval for processing applicants for 
access authorization.
 
(a) Access authorizations must be requested for licensee 
employees or other persons (e.g., 10 CFR part 2, subpart I) who 
need access to classified information in connection with 
activities under 10 CFR parts 50, 52, 54, 60, 63, 70, 72, or 76.
 
* * * * * 0 5. In Sec.  25.37, paragraph (b) is revised to read 
as follows: Sec.  25.37  Violations. * * * * * (b) National 
Security Information is protected under the requirements and 
sanctions of Executive Order 12958, as amended.
 
PART 95--FACILITY SECURITY CLEARANCE AND SAFEGUARDING OF NATIONAL 
SECURITY INFORMATION AND RESTRICTED DATA 0 6. The authority for 
Part 95 is revised to read as follows: Authority: Secs. 145, 161, 
193, 68 Stat. 942, 948, as amended (42 U.S.C. 2165, 2201); sec. 
201, 88 Stat. 1242, as amended (42 U.S.C. 5841); sec. 1704, 112 
Stat. 2750 (44 U.S.C. 3504 note); E.O. 10865, as amended, 3 CFR 
1959-1963 Comp., p. 398 (50 U.S.C. 401, note); E.O. 12829, 3 CFR, 
1993 Comp., p.570; E.O. 12958, as amended, 3 CFR, 1995 Comp., p. 
333, as amended by E.O. 13292, 3 CFR, 2004 Comp., p.196; E.O. 
12968, 3 CFR, 1995 Comp., p. 391. 0 7. Section 95.3 is revised to 
read as follows: Sec.  95.3  Scope. The regulations in this part 
apply to licensees, certificate holders and others who may 
require access to classified National Security Information and/or 
Restricted Data and/or Formerly Restricted Data (FRD) that is 
used, processed, stored, reproduced, transmitted, transported, or 
handled in connection with a license or certificate or an 
application for a license or certificate, or other activities as 
the Commission may determine.
 
0 8. In Sec.  95.5, the definitions of Classified National 
Security Information, infraction, License, paragraph (2) of 
Security container, and violation are revised to read as follows: 
Sec.  95.5  Definitions. * * * * * Classified National Security 
Information means information that has been determined pursuant 
to E.O. 12958, as amended, or any predecessor order to require 
protection against unauthorized disclosure and that is so 
designated.
 
* * * * * Infraction means any knowing, willful, or negligent 
action contrary to the requirements of E.O. 12958, as amended, or 
its implementing directives, that does not comprise a 
``violation,'' as defined in this section.
 
* * * * *
 
[[Page 32228]] License means a license issued pursuant to 10 CFR 
parts 50, 52, 60, 63, 70, or 72.
 
* * * * * Security container includes any of the following 
repositories: * * * * * (2) A safe--burglar-resistive cabinet or 
chest which bears a label of the Underwriters' Laboratories, 
Inc., certifying the unit to be a TL-15, TL-30, or TRTL-30, and 
has a body fabricated of not less than 1 inch of steel and a door 
fabricated of not less than 1\1/2\ inches of steel exclusive of 
the combination lock and bolt work; or bears a Test Certification 
Label on the inside of the door, or is marked ``General Services 
Administration Approved Security Container'' and has a body of 
steel at least \1/2\ inch thick, and a combination locked steel 
door at least 1 inch thick, exclusive of bolt work and locking 
devices; and an automatic unit locking mechanism.
 
* * * * * Violation means any knowing, willful, or negligent 
action that could reasonably be expected to result in an 
unauthorized disclosure of classified information or any knowing, 
willful, or negligent action to classify or continue the 
classification of information contrary to the requirements of 
E.O. 12958, as amended, or its implementing directives.
 
0 9. Section 95.59 is revised to read as follows: Sec.  95.59  
Inspections. The Commission shall make inspections and reviews of 
the premises, activities, records and procedures of any person 
subject to the regulations in this part as the Commission and CSA 
deem necessary to effect the purposes of the Act, E.O. 12958, as 
amended, and/or NRC rules.
 
Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 19th day of May, 2005.
 
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
 
Luis A. Reyes, Executive Director for Operations.
 
[FR Doc. 05-10933 Filed 6-1-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P

 
*****************************************************************
 36 FENA News: BiH NEEDS TO ESTABLISH AN EXPERT TEAM FOR INVESTIGATING 
THE LEVEL OF DEPLETED URANIUM RADIATION
 
 DESK Sarajevo
 
Cemaluša 1, 71000 Sarajevo
 
Telefon: ++387 33 445336, 663-772; e-mail: desk.sarajevo@fena.ba
  
02.06.2005 (23:38)
 
SARAJEVO, June 2 (FENA) – BiH needs to establish an expert team
that would work on establishing the level of depleted uranium
radiation and its affect on the health of humans, vegetation and
animals. 

This was stated on Thursday at a meeting of members of the BiH
House of Representatives’ Commission responsible for
investigating the level of depleted uranium radiation and its
affect on the health of BiH citizens with representatives of
relevant institutions in this field. 

They stressed that the state parliament should provide funds for
the work of that expert team, as well as that NATO and the
International Atomic Energy Agency should be consulted on this
issue. 

Participants in the meeting concluded that depleted uranium
munitions were used in BiH beyond any doubt and that analysis by
certain experts indicated that there is a danger of their
decomposition over a longer period of time. 

The use of depleted uranium is brought into connection with a
negative influence on the health of the population and an
increase in malignant disease, especially leukaemia in children,
but medical institutions have been unable to confirm this so
far. 

The military maintenance centre in Hadzici, the former barracks
in Hadzici and the barracks and storage in Han-Pijesak are the
locations suspected of being polluted with depleted uranium. 

(Fena) jc 

  
*****************************************************************
 37 DOE: Health Effects Subcommittee
 
                        FR Doc 05-11037 
[Federal Register: June 2, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 105)] 
[Notices] [Page 32342-32343] From the Federal Register Online via 
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr02jn05-75]                         
 
Name: Public meeting of the Citizens Advisory Committee on PHS 
Activities and Research at DOE Sites: Oak Ridge Reservation 
Health Effects Subcommittee (ORRHES).
 
Time and Date: 12 p.m.-6 p.m., June 28, 2005. Place: DOE 
Information Center, 475 Oak Ridge Turnpike, Oak Ridge, TN. 
Telephone: (865) 241-4780. Status: Open to the public, limited 
only by the space available. The meeting room accommodates 
approximately 50 people.
 
Background: Under a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed in 
October 1990 and renewed in September 2000 between ATSDR and DOE. 
The MOU delineates the responsibilities and procedures for 
ATSDR's public health activities at DOE sites required under 
sections 104, 105, 107, and 120 of the Comprehensive 
Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA 
or ``Superfund''). These activities include health consultations 
and public health assessments at DOE sites listed on, or proposed 
for, the Superfund National Priorities List and at sites that are 
the subject of petitions from the public; and other 
health-related activities such as epidemiologic studies, health 
surveillance, exposure and disease registries, health education, 
substance-specific applied research, emergency response, and 
preparation of toxicological profiles.
 
In addition, under an MOU signed in December 1990 with DOE and 
replaced by an MOU signed in 2000, the Department of Health and 
Human Services (HHS) has been given the responsibility and 
resources for conducting analytic epidemiologic investigations of 
residents of communities in the vicinity of DOE facilities, 
workers at DOE facilities, and other persons potentially exposed 
to radiation or to potential hazards from non-nuclear energy 
production and use.
 
HHS has delegated program responsibility to CDC. Community 
involvement is a critical part of ATSDR's and CDC's 
energy-related
 
[[Page 32343]] research and activities and input from members of 
the ORRHES is part of these efforts.
 
Purpose: The purpose of this meeting is to address issues that 
are unique to community involvement with the ORRHES, and agency 
updates.
 
Matters To Be Discussed: Agenda items will include a brief 
discussion on the Toxic Substance Control Act Incinerator public 
health assessment, presentation from Susan Kaplan on her report, 
update on ATSDR project management plan and the schedule of 
Public Health Assessments to be released in FY 2005-2006, and 
updates and recommendations from the Exposure Evaluation, 
Community Concerns and Communications, and the Health Outcome 
Data Workgroups, and agency updates.
 
Agenda items are subject to change as priorities dictate.
 
Contact Persons for More Information: Marilyn Horton, Designated 
Federal Official and Health Communication Specialist, Division of 
Health Assessment and Consultation, ATSDR, 1600 Clifton Road, NE 
M/S E- 32 Atlanta, Georgia 30333, telephone 1-888-42-ATSDR 
(28737), fax 404/ 498-1744.
 
The Director, Management Analysis and Services Office, has been 
delegated the authority to sign Federal Register notices 
pertaining to announcements of meetings and other committee 
management activities, for both CDC and ATDSR.
 
Dated: May 26, 2005.
 
Alvin Hall, Director, Management Analysis and Services Office, 
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
 
[FR Doc. 05-11037 Filed 6-1-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 4163-18-P

 
*****************************************************************
 38 Arizona Republic: Feds call Palo Verde to task on safety plan
 
[Arizona Republic Online Print Edition]     June 2, 2005   

Ken Alltucker
The Arizona Republic

Federal nuclear regulators on Wednesday met with operators of
the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station to review the plant's
apparent violation of the government's emergency safety plan
requirements.

 Plant operator Arizona Public Service Co. changed the plan last
fall to create what it believes would be a more efficient way of
measuring radiation levels in the event of a nuclear emergency.
But the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Agency said that changes
actually would have made it more difficult to accurately measure
radiation and therefore rendered the plan less effective.

 "We agreed with them. We made the change in error," said Craig
Seaman, the utility's director of regulatory affairs. 

The paperwork change had no effect on the actual safety of the
plant, and APS already has restored the original plan. 

Federal regulators will review the utility's response over the
next month and decide whether further disciplinary action or
fines are warranted. 

The apparent violation is the latest action taken by federal
inspectors at the plant 50 miles west of Phoenix.

 Last year, four special investigative teams were dispatched to
Palo Verde to look at a range of systems and equipment. The most
serious problem came after a four-month probe in which
inspectors found air in a pipe that could have disrupted the
plant's emergency cooling system. Inspectors levied a $50,000
fine for the "yellow" safety violation, a measurement the agency
considers a "substantial safety significant" issue.

 Palo Verde, which operated with a stellar safety record for
most of the past decade, was the nation's only nuclear power
plant to receive a yellow finding last year, which will trigger
a follow-up inspection this summer.

 Clearly aware of the increased scrutiny, APS conducted a more
detailed review of other aspects of its emergency plan changes.
The utility informed regulators of finding two other plan
changes that the agency may want to review.

 The utility's self-review showed that Palo Verde staff changed
the emergency plan's requirements for the reactor's water levels
and temperature measurements. 

The revised temperature measurements may prove more accurate in
most cases, Seaman said, but the utility will keep the changes
only if regulators agree.

 However, the original water-level requirements likely will be
restored, Seaman said. 

Reach the reporter at (602) 444-8285 or
ken.alltucker@arizonarepublic.com.

 	Copyright © 2005, azcentral.com. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 39 [NukeNet] Monju: Comments by plaintiff's lawyers
 
Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2005 14:35:34 -0700

 
<x-flowed>
NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net)

The introductory comments and translation below are by Aileen Mioko Smith. 
The legal details are rather esoteric, but people on this list might be 
interested to know that the Supreme Court's ruling on the Monju Fast 
Breeder doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

Philip White

QUICK LEGAL CRITIQUE OF MONJU SUPREME COURT VERDICT BY PLAINTIFF LAWYER

2005 June 1

Plaintiffs, plaintiff lawyers, and critics of the Monju Supreme Court
verdict state the following:

(This is a quick English translation by Aileen of an analysis written
June 1st by Yuichi KAIDO, one of the plaintiff lawyers. It is not an
official statement issues by the plaintiffs' organization.  However,
all these points were made by plantiffs and lawyers at the May 30th
press conference immediately following the verdict. Okay to circulate
on that basis.)

(Note "safety review" refers to the government's licensing procedure
for the reactor.)


INFORMAL TRANSLATION:

THE SUPREME COURT VERDICT VIOLATES THE CODE OF CIVIL PROCEDURE:
Code of Civil Procedure 318 limits parties appealing to the Supreme
Court two areas of appeal: to have the Supreme Court rule whether the
Appelate Court verdict contravenes previous juridical rulings, and when
there is a weighty iteam (area) regarding interpretation of law. Also
if the lower (Appelate Court) applied the law appropriately, the upper
(Supreme Court) is restricted from entering into the factual matters
the Appelate Court addressed and ruled on. (Code of Civil Procedure
321.)

Therefore, the mission/role of the Supreme Court is to judge whether or
not the Appelate Court made a legally correct ruling based on the
factual matters presented in court.

The Monju Supreme Court ruling oversteps the authority of the Supreme
Court, because it oversteps into the Appelate Court ruling and very
extensively and substantively re-writes the portions concerning the
factual matters that were ruled on by the Appelate Court. This is
clearly a violation of Code of Civil Procedure 321.

ADDITIONAL SERIOUS PROBLEMS ARISING WITH THE SUPREME COURT VERDICT:
As stated above, the Supreme Court did not keep within its
restrictions. The Supreme Court ignored the main reasons defendants
submitted for appealing the case to the Supreme Court (Argument 1-3).
Instead, it makes issue of Arguments 4-8 of defendants, and addresses
in the verdict the actual factual matters of each of the specific
technical issues.

Moreover, it adds on technical facts which were not included in the
Appelate Court verdict. However, because of the limitation of the
Supreme Court, it is restricted in the ability to elaborate on how it
reached its conclusions (the steps in reasoning to reach its
conclusion). As a result, conclusions are made without basis of
fact/reasoning. As a corollary, of the many factual matters concluded
by the Appelate court, those which contradict the conclusions of the
Supreme Court were eliminated without reason by the Supreme Court.

SUPREME COURT MAKES MANY FACTUAL MISTAKES AS A RESULT OF ITS FORCED
RULING OF THE FACTS:
Because the Supreme Court reached its conclusions on these factual
matters without sufficient debate and without undertaking fact-finding,
it repeatedly makes mistakes throughout the ruling.

(Here three examples are given.) One of them is that the court states
that the government's safety review found that rupture of steam
generator tubes would not occur due to generation of high temperatures,
whereas, in actuality, the government's safety review never even
deliberated this matter. And on the issue of a core disruptive accident
(CDA), the Supreme Court states that there was a safety review
undertaken on this matter, whereas in actuality there was no review
made of this by the government during the safety review/licensing
procedure.

In this manner, the factual conclusions reached by the Supreme Court
are on issues not even included in the Appelate Court ruling.


IN PATRONIZING THE GOVERNMENT'S EXECUTIVE BRANCH, THE SUPREME COURT
ACTUALLY GOES BACKWARDS:
After the Monju accident of 1995, the government made changes in the
licensing, thus in effect admitting that its original safety review and
licensing of Monju was deficient. However, the Supreme Court patronizes
the government executive branch to the extent it states no changes in
licensing actually needed to take place and that there were no
problems/deficiencies with the government's original licensing of
Monju.  This is a backward step, something even the executive branch is
not doing. It clearly is playing favorite for, and patronizing the
executive branch.

This verdict will indeed be a serious, dirty blemish on the judiciary.


WHEN MONJU IS CLOSED, IT IS THE SUPREME COURT THAT WILL BE PUT TO SHAME:
Monju has been closed for 10 years. It is already deteriorating and
aging. Also, most of the technical experts originally on the project
have retired. It is obvious that Monju cannot be re-started easily.

Moreover, recently the government's Earthquake Inspection Advancement
Main Branch has come out with its report concerning the danger of
serious extensive earthquakes. Therefore, it is self-evident that
problems and accidents at Monju will follow.  Who lost as a result of
the Supreme Court verdict is not the people who were plaintiffs, but
the government and the Supreme Court.

Citizens' Nuclear Information Center
3F Kotobuki Bdg, 1-58-15, Higashi-Nakano, Nakano-ku, Tokyo 164-0003
Phone: 81-3-5330-9520
Fax: 81-3-5330-9530
http://cnic.jp/english/
cnic@nifty.com


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*****************************************************************
 40 Brattleboro Reformer: Dry cask storage goes to Senate

June 02, 2005 Brattleboro, VT                                                                                 
 			 								 					

By CAROLYN LORIÉ Reformer Staff

BRATTLEBORO -- The future of dry cask storage at Entergy Nuclear
Vermont Yankee is now in the hands of the Vermont Senate.

 Last Thursday, the Senate Finance Committee and the Committee
on Natural Resources and Energy took testimony on a bill passed
by the House of Representatives earlier in the week.

 Both committees will hear more testimony today. A final vote by
the full Senate could come as soon as Friday.

 The House passed the bill after weeks of work by the Natural
Resources and Energy Committee and behind-the-scenes
negotiations between Entergy employees and the state.

 In the original bill crafted by the committee, Entergy was to
pay the state $4 million a year for permission to install dry
casks -- concrete containers used to store spent nuclear fuel --
on the plant grounds. Payments were to start in 2006 and
continue as long as the casks were in the state. 

The bill was re-written after a deal was struck between Entergy
and the state, leaving several local representatives frustrated
with the results.

 Instead of $4 million, Entergy is to make annual payments of
$2.5 million to the state, but only if its bid to increase power
by 20 percent is approved. The amount must be re-negotiated in
2012.

 Payments collected from the company will go into a renewable
energy fund.

 Among the county's 12 representatives, only two -- Reps. Steve
Darrow, D-Dummerston, and Virginia Milkey, D-Brattleboro --
voted against the newly crafted bill [see sidebar]. Rep. David
Deen, D-Westminster, said he would have voted against it also
but had to leave before a final vote was taken.

 Deen, however, introduced an amendment that would have required
Entergy officials to return to the Legislature for license
extension. It was defeated by a 104-17 vote.

 Several members voiced frustration with the negotiation
process, which included several members of the House Natural
Resources and Energy Committee and representatives from the
Department of Public Service.

 "I am concerned about the executive branch doing our business
and making decisions for us," said Deen, referring to the role
played by the Department of Public Service.

 The Douglas administration was against imposing a charge,
especially after Entergy officials threatened to shut the plant
down.

 David O'Brien, commissioner of the Department of Public
Service, however, said that the department did nothing to usurp
the Legislature's power.

 "We didn't take over negotiations. We simply played a
facilitory role to help the Legislature and the company work out
whatever the issues were."

 Darrow, a member of the Natural Resources and Entergy
Committee, also made accusations that the behind-the-scenes
talks undermined the legislative process, as did the decision by
legislative leadership to speed up the approval process.

 "This closed-door negotiation with Entergy is a textbook
example why public policy is supposed to be made in public,"
Darrow wrote in an e-mail to the Reformer. "With normal
procedure, the bill would have taken three days to pass the
House and the Senate. Instead, leadership of both major parties
cracked the whip and suspended the rules three times in order to
accomplish this in a few hours."

 Rep. Tony Klein, D-Montpelier, one of the committee members
involved in direct talks with Entergy, disagreed with Darrow's
assessment.

 "I think we made the best of a difficult situation," said
Klein, adding that it is routine to keep negotiations with a
for-profit company out of the public realm.

 According to Milkey, the vote was a difficult one, especially
for those in Windham County.

 "It was a tough vote because there was a lot in the bill and
the [agreement] that I do support," said Milkey, who voted
against the bill.

 Her primary concern, she said, was that Entergy is no longer
required to come to the Legislature to operate beyond 2012, but
only for approval of waste storage beyond that time.

 The company's operating license expires in 2012. If its
application to increase power production by 20 percent is
approved, company officials said they would apply to the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission to extend the plant's license by 20 years.

 Vermont law requires the company to come before the Vermont
Public Service Board for approval as well and the bill now being
considered mandates legislative approval to store waste beyond
2012.

 Deen, Milkey and Darrow, however, said they were concerned that
Entergy could get approval from the NRC and the Vermont Board
for license extension before coming to the Legislature for
storage approval.

 "The pressure would be horrific," said Milkey of that potential
scenario.

 The amendment calling for legislative approval, before it went
before the board, would have "allowed for open debate, a good
process without the pressure," added Milkey.

 Other local representatives who voted for the bill said they
did so with reservations.

 In a statement to the speaker, Rep. Sarah Edwards,
P-Brattleboro, said she was disappointed that the environmental
provisions in the bill were weakened but voted for it because of
the clean energy fund.

 "[The fund will help] us to get further away from our addiction
to nuclear power," said Edwards. "The further we move away, the
less likely it will be that we are held hostage when the issue
of storage of high-level nuclear waste re-emerges in 2012, just
a few years from now."

 Vermont Yankee supplies the state with one-third of its
electricity and does so at far below market rates.

 House Majority Leader Carolyn Partridge, D-Windham, called the
agreement a "reasonable compromise."

 She added that while she would like to see Entergy contribute
to the clean energy fund, she would prefer that the uprate not
get approved and that the plant shut down in 2012.

 Among local representatives who strongly supported the final
bill was Rep. Patricia O'Donnell, R-Vernon, who lauded the role
played by House Speaker Gaye Symington, D-Jericho, and Senate
President Pro Tem Peter Welch, D-Windsor.

 "I am absolutely proud of how the legislative leadership
handled the negotiations," O'Donnell said. "It's an excellent
deal for the state of Vermont."
 		   	 	
       Copyright ©1999-2005 New England Newspapers, Inc., 
*****************************************************************
 41 Guardian Unlimited: British Nuclear Group to cut 500 Sellafield jobs
 
Mark Tran
Thursday June 2, 2005 		
 		
British Nuclear Group today said it would cut 500 staff
at its Sellafield plant over the next two years as part of a
management shake-up. 

It said job losses at the plant, which currently employs around
10,000 people, would come through natural wastage and not
compulsory redundancies.

British Nuclear Group, which is part of the state-owned company
BNFL, said the cuts were part of a move to cut down on
"unnecessary bureaucracy from across the site". 
                                                                  
Article continues Barry Snelson, Sellafield's managing director, 
said they would go towards BNFL's preparations for its future as 
a decommissioning and clean-up organisation. British Nuclear 
Group was established by BNFL to specialise in clean-up 
operations. 

There are 20 sites around the coast of Britain, from Sellafield,
in Cumbria, to Sizewell, in Suffolk, where the UK has carried
out research and operated the civil nuclear programme that
currently provides around 20% of UK electricity. All include
radioactive buildings and facilities that need dismantling.
At Sellafield - by far the biggest site - there are experimental
plants along with a series of first-generation Magnox reactors
and their reprocessing facilities.

There are also two newer reprocessing units: Thorp, which deals
with fuel from the British Energy plants, and the Sellafield Mox
Plant, which has yet to start operating but is intended to
reprocess spent fuel into a new and reusable form known as Mixed
Oxide Fuel. 

Last month, a leak of highly radioactive nuclear fuel dissolved
in concentrated nitric acid - enough to half fill an
Olympic-size swimming pool - forced the closure of the Thorp
plant. 

The highly dangerous mixture, containing around 20 tonnes of
uranium and plutonium fuel, leaked through a fractured pipe into
a huge stainless steel chamber which is so radioactive that it
is impossible to enter. 

Recovering the liquids and fixing the pipes will take months.
The operation could require special robots to be built and
sophisticated engineering techniques to be devised to repair the
£2.1bn plant.
 	
[UP] 

      Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
 42 Press Herald: Snowe, Collins, Allen say nuclear waste will not be stored on bases 

Members of Maine's congressional delegation said Tuesday there
is no chance that the state's military bases, if closed, could
become nuclear waste repositories. --> 

  Thursday, June 2, 2005 

Snowe, Collins, Allen say nuclear waste will not be stored on
bases 

Blethen Maine Newspapers

Members of Maine's congressional delegation said Tuesday there
is no chance that the state's military bases, if closed, could
become nuclear waste repositories.

 That possibility began circulating several days ago after the
U.S. House of Representatives passed a spending bill for energy
and water development. Tucked in the bill is $15.5 million in
funding for reprocessing nuclear waste from power plants and
building an interim nuclear waste dump. 

The actual bill does not specify where the temporary dump would
be, but a report attached to the bill suggests the Department of
Energy investigate other federally owned sites, including closed
military bases.

 Maine officials said the mere suggestion of a nuclear waste
facility at either location was ridiculous at best.

 Rep. Tom Allen, D-Maine, called the provision "crazy," and
stated emphatically that there would be no such site in Maine.

 "This is an outrageous suggestion," Allen said Tuesday. "First
of all, no bases have been closed yet. I think more likely than
not, this is coming from members of Congress who haven't been
able to solve the Yucca Mountain issue yet."   


[Morning Sentinel and Kennebec Journal] Home Delivery

  Copyright © Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.  

*****************************************************************
 43 Bellona: France to invest 900 million euros in Russia's nuclear waste storage 

France is ready to invest some 900 million euros in the program
of environmental rehabilitation of the coastal storage facility
for spent nuclear fuel in Gremikha (Kola Peninsula). 

2005-06-02 19:05

The federal state unitary enterprise SevRAO has already signed a
150,000-euro contract with France's Commissariat for Atomic
Energy to produce and supply the first mobile decontamination
and sanitary inspection facility to Gremikha. Its installation
in Gremikha is expected to be carried out in August 2005. 

The preparation of documents for concluding a 750 million-euro
agreement has also begun. The agreement includes construction of
the second sanitary facility, purchase and supply of equipment
for radioactive examination of the storage facility's territory
and ensuring the safety of the maintenance staff, a SevRAO
representative said to Interfax. 

European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the EU
Tacis (Technical Assistance to the Commonwealth of Independent
States) program take part in the project together with France,
which is Russia's main ideological foreign partner in the
implementation of the program of Gremikha environmental safety.

Gremikha is the second coastal storage facility of Northern
Fleet's spent nuclear fuel, it is also the largest centre for
decommissioned nuclear submarines mainly belonging to the first
generation. 

The mobile decontamination station is a 40-feet 10-tonns
shipping container. It can accommodate 10 people at a time and
is used for radiation control and decontamination of the
personnel engaged in operations with the radioactive waste. The
equipment for the stations will be delivered from France. At the
next stage of the Gremikha rehabilitation project the
specialists of the Kurchatov Institute will conduct a detailed
radiation examination of the site. 

The France takes part in the project in the frames of the
agreement signed by France, European Bank of Reconstruction and
Development, or EBRD, and TACIS program. The strategic master
plan on the submarine dismantling presented by the EBRD
stipulates funding of the nine first-priority projects in 2005,
five of them are in Gremikha, and the France is the main
ideological partner, Interfax reported. 

Gremikha is the second land storage facility of the Northern
fleet and is the biggest site for the laid-up nuclear
submarines, mostly first generation. The base is situated
approximately 350km from the Murmansk harbour and cannot be
reached by land transport. The connection is only by sea or air.

The base is accommodating 800 rods with spent nuclear fuel and
six active zones from the reactors with liquid coolant of Alfa
class submarines, project 705. Besides, 19 submarines and 38
reactors with unloaded spent nuclear fuel are also stored at the
site. In 2001, the navy on-shore facilities in Gremikha and
Andreyeva bay were handed over to the ”Northern Federal Company
on handling with radioactive waste”, or SevRAO, which was
established by Russia to create infrastructure on nuclear
submarines dismantling, handling of the nuclear spent fuel and
radioactive waste, rehabilitation of the nuclear sites in the
North of Russia, reported Interfax. 
  
  Publisher: , President: 
Information: , Technical contact: 
Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62  * P.O.Box
2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway
 Menu system java script courtesy of .         
*****************************************************************
 44 Platts: DOE, Air Force discuss Yucca Mt. restricted fly zone
 
+ DOE and the Air Force are negotiating a restricted fly zone 
over Yucca Mountain, Nev., site of DOE's planned repository, DOE 
officials told NRC today. 

A memorandum of understanding that DOE hopes to sign with the Air 
Force, which has a large base north of Yucca Mountain, would not 
allow any military flights lower than 10,000 feet above the top 
of Yucca Mountain within a 5.5-mile radius from the repository 
surface facilities, DOE said. 

Military flights above the 10,000-foot level, however, would not 
be restricted, DOE said. 

It said any problems with a plane that developed at that level 
over Yucca Mountain would not affect the site. 

Because of the glide factor, the plane would not touch ground 
until it was well beyond the site, DOE said. 
  
Washington DC (Platts)--1Jun2005
 
Copyright © 2005 - Platts, All Rights Reserved
 [The McGraw-Hill Companies]   
*****************************************************************
 45 Salt Lake Tribune: D.C. lobbyist joins nuke battle 

Article Last Updated: 06/02/2005 01:22:46 PM 

Firm boosts effort to keep waste out of state 

By Rebecca Walsh The Salt Lake Tribune 

Utah's governor has hired a high-powered Washington lobbying 
firm to boost his efforts to keep hotter nuclear waste out of 
the state. 

Dutko Worldwide, listed by Political Moneyline as the 
sixth-largest lobbying firm in the nation's capital for the 
first half of 2004, will represent Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. and the 
state in the fight to block a proposed high-level nuclear waste 
storage site in Utah. 

Utah will join a list of about 140 current Dutko clients, 
from Harley Davidson to the U.S. Virgin Islands. 

Dutko lobbyist Bill Simmons, an ex-staffer for former U.S. 
Rep. Jim Hansen, says the firm and its 57 lobbyists are uniquely 
positioned to represent Utah's interests. 

"We have unique expertise nobody else has," Simmons said, 
noting he was in Hansen's meeting with members of the Skull 
Valley band of Goshutes representatives when they first pitched 
the idea of a radioactive waste landfill on their Tooele County 
reservation in the early 1990s. 

Dutko represents Vermont, North Dakota, Los Angeles County, 
the Western Governors Association and the Western Governors 
University. Many of its lobbyists are former congressional 
staffers. By number of clients, nuclear and energy issues are 
ranked fourth among Dutko's lobbying issues by the Center for 
Public Integrity. 

When Huntsman took office in January, he closed the state's 
long-time Washington office. Then in March, the governor's 
office requested proposals from lobbying firms interested in 
representing the state - one for public lands and water rights 
issues, another for transportation and a third for companies 
that focus on high-level nuclear waste. Dutko is the first firm 
to be hired. 

"We determined the nuclear issues had the most immediate 
need," said Tammy Kikuchi, Huntsman's spokeswoman. "As the other 
issues become hot, we'll go ahead and select a lobbyist for 
those." 

In an open-ended contract, Dutko will be paid $7,500 a month 
- $90,000 annually - plus pre-approved expenses. Simmons expects 
expenses to be minimal. The state will pay about the same amount 
Sandy City paid the company for its lobbying contract in 2004, 
according to the Center for Public Integrity. 

The nonprofit, nonpartisan research group reports Dutko's 
2004 lobbying contracts totalled $9 million last year. Since 
1998, the company has represented more than 250 clients. Besides 
local and state governments, Dutko lobbies for telecommunications
giants AT and Sprint, Union Pacific Corp. and several energy and 
oil companies, including BP Amoco and CITGO Petroleum Corp. 
Simmons said a Dutko internal conflict of interest check found no
clients that will undermine his responsibility to represent Utah 
in the fight to keep a consortium of energy companies from 
building a nuclear waste site on the Goshutes' reservation. 

Environmental activist Jason Groenewold is waiting to see 
how Dutko does with the complex job. "The nuclear industry has 
been working the halls of Congress for a long time," he said. 
"It's imperative that we have people in Washington working on 
Utah's behalf. At this point, we need someone full-time. We're 
under the gun." 

Huntsman's decision to close the Washington office earlier 
this year was controversial. For more than 20 years, Utah had an 
office in the nation's capital. Governors from Scott Matheson to 
Olene Walker had set aside money to staff an office responsible 
for the state's lobbying and politicking on Capitol Hill. 
Huntsman pitched the closure as a way to save money - the 
Washington office space and two staff salaries cost the state 
$230,000 a year - and fine-tune lobbying efforts. A former 
diplomat, he said he could handle some of the work himself. 

"It's a more focused approach rather than an everything 
approach," Kikuchi said. 

Joanne Neumann, the former director of Utah's office, says 
Huntsman had the right to change things. "We thought it was 
important to have a Washington office. But each administration 
comes in and does it their own way," Neumann said. "Hopefully, 
this new approach will work for them." 

Â© Copyright 2005, The Salt Lake Tribune. 
*****************************************************************
 46 PISJ: Researchers to look at using nuke waste to create power
 
Pocatello Idaho State Journal: 

IDAHO FALLS - On his first trip to the Gem State as the nation's
energy secretary, Samuel Bodman didn't sugarcoat the realities
of creating a high-profile nuclear energy think tank in Idaho
Falls.

POCATELLO - It sounds something like alchemy, but researchers
from throughout the United States and Europe will gather at
Idaho State University today and Thursday to examine how nuclear
waste might be destroyed while producing energy in the process,
according to a press release.

The ISU Idaho Accelerator Center will hold the third annual
workshop on Accelerator-Drive Subcritical Systems experiments in
the Pond Student Union Building. 
  
The conference attracts nuclear scientists from the five U.S.
universities that are partners in the Reactor-Accelerator
Coupling Experiments Project, as well as nuclear scientists from
a number of European countries.

"The practical application of what we're studying is the
development of technology for the destruction of nuclear waste,
while creating energy at the same time," said Denis Beller, IAC
visiting research professor and director of the RACE Project. 
He said Russian, Chinese, Japanese and European scientists are
all involved in studying the potential of this phenomena, but
the only experimental studies taking place in the United States
are those by the RACE universities that include ISU, Texas A
University, University of Texas-Austin, the University of Nevada
Las Vegas and the University of Michigan.

"We're developing the technology to create a prototype that can
demonstrate the capabilities of the kind of reactor that could
reduce the volume and radiotoxicity of nuclear waste and create
energy," Beller said. 
He emphasized that studies are still in their initial stages,
but they are important nonetheless.

"To create the kind of reactor needed is not an easy engineering
task and there are many challenges ahead of us, but the problems
are solvable and we will find engineering solutions, given the
time and resources," Beller said. 

The workshop will run from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. today and from
8:30 a.m. to noon tomorrow. 

	 	 	 	 	
The ISU Idaho Accelerator Center will hold the third annual
workshop on Accelerator-Drive Subcritical Systems experiments in
the Pond Student Union Building."> 	

 This document was originally published online on Thursday, June
                            02, 2005
 
Copyright © 2005 Pocatello Idaho State Journal
 P O Box 431 Pocatello, ID 83204-0431   
*****************************************************************
 47 ThisisLondon: 500 Sellafield jobs to go 

2 June 2005 

Nuclear reprocessing giant British Nuclear Fuels is to axe 500 
management jobs over the next two years under "business 
improvement" plans, it was announced.

The jobs will go from the firm's site at Sellafield in Cumbria, 
which employs about 10,000 workers.

BNFL said there would be no compulsory redundancies and expected
to achieve the cutback by natural wastage or "limited" voluntary
severance.

Barry Snelson, managing director of Sellafield, said: "This is
another step along the way of the change programme at Sellafield
as we prepare for the future as a decommissioning and clean-up
organisation.

"Just as we did with the senior management restructuring, we
will achieve this with prudence, sensitivity and always with
safety as our guide."
 
The company said it was about to embark on a second phase of its
business improvement, with increased emphasis on waste treatment
and decommissioning as well as reprocessing.
 
"Following the restructuring of the senior management group
earlier this year, the company is now preparing to look for
efficiencies in the next layer of management and also to drive
out unnecessary bureaucracy from across the site.

"This will ensure that the right skills are in place to operate
the site to the highest levels of safety and effectiveness.

"It will be achieved using a phased process over the next two
years but will still create opportunities to recruit graduates,
trainees, apprentices and special skills," the firm said in a
statement.

  &copy;2005 Associated New Media| Terms | Privacy policy   

*****************************************************************
 48 AU ABC: Minister stays silent on uranium mining policy. 

02/06/2005. ABC News Online
 	
"Australian Broadcasting Corporation Online">   

The Northern Territory's Mining Minister has explained why he is
opposing a uranium mine at Koongarra but will not reveal his
party's broader position on uranium.

 When a five-year moratorium expired a month ago, French mining
company AREVA re-applied for an exploration licence for the
deposit in Kakadu National Park.

 Kon Vatskalis says a mine of any kind at Koongarra would be in
sight of the iconic Nourlangie Rock.

 "It could be an iron-ore mine, or it could be an oil rig, we
would still be opposing something like that," he said. 

"We have to really evaluate what tourism offers the Territory
and what a mine, any mine can offer the Territory." 

But Mr Vatskalis would not be drawn on the Labor Party's general
stance on uranium mining in the Northern Territory. 



*****************************************************************
 49 Cañon City Daily Record: Cotter clean up in the works
 
http://www.canoncitydailyrecord.com

  Publish Date: 6/2/2005 			 

Jason Starr
 Daily Record Staff Writer 					 					Cotter Corp. and the

Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment hope
they’ve finally found an effective way to clean up soil and
groundwater contamination on Cotter property. They now will ask
the public if it agrees. 

A 30-day period for the public to comment on the so-called
“selected excavation” alternative for clean-up began Wednesday.
On June 9, a public meeting will be conducted at the Quality
Inn, U.S. 50 and Dozier Avenue, with representatives from the
health department and the Environmental Protection Agency on
hand to discuss the proposed excavation. Representatives from
Cotter and the Colorado Citizens Against Toxic Waste also will
likely attend. 

Of five alternatives presented by Cotter for clean up of the
contaminated soil and groundwater, the Health Department and the
EPA are recommending excavation because it “can be implemented
soon, can be tested for effectiveness quickly and easily, is
effective in the short and long term and permanently reduces
risk in the affected area,” according to a health department
statement. 

Other alternatives include: flushing the soil with water and
other liquids, containing the contaminants where they sit and
chemically treating the contaminants. 

Cotter and the health department have tried some of those
alternatives in the past with minimal success. The excavation —
although it is the cheapest of the options at an estimated cost
of $2.2 million (paid by Cotter) — should be the most thorough.
The excavated soil will be permanently disposed of in
plastic-lined ponds at Cotter. 

“We hope this will be a good remedy for it,” said Cotter Manager
of Administration Jerry Powers. “We’ve tried so many other
things, and they’ve not been 100 percent successful, so we hope
that this one will be.” 

The plan calls for the removal of up to 400,000 cubic yards of
soil with conventional earth-moving equipment. The soil has been
tested to determine uranium and molybdenum toxicity and will
continue to be tested throughout the process, according to the
health department. If the excavation option is given final
approval, work could start as early as next summer. 

“Initial testing was done to give us a good idea of where we’re
digging in general, but it will get refined as we go,” said Jeff
Deckler, remedial programs manager at the health department,
adding that the plan’s effectiveness will be continually
evaluated. 

The toxicity of the site, which was the primary uranium waste
storage area for Cotter from 1958 to 1979, has been blamed for
contaminating the groundwater of the nearby Lincoln Park
neighborhood. Lincoln Park was designated a federal Superfund
cleanup site in 1984. 

The Colorado Citizens Against Toxic Waste, a group of citizen
advocates that has monitored Cotter’s activities, is pleased
with the prospect of permanently removing the contaminated soil
through excavation but would prefer the soil does not stay on
Cotter property, according to co-chairwoman Sharyn Cunningham. 

Cunningham points to reports commissioned by the health
department that place serious doubt on the integrity of the
plastic-lined ponds that will hold the contaminated soil
indefinitely under the excavating proposal. 

One report, submitted to the health department in October, found
that the plastic liner “should take no credit as a physical
barrier for protection against liquid migration into the
material below.” 

The report also said the layer of clay that surrounds the ponds
does not have the thickness or low enough permeability to act as
a barrier for hazardous waste disposal. 

Also, the report said, the surrounding bedrock contains
fractures and springs that could ease the transmission of toxic
waste to off-site areas. 

Another report, submitted in December by Sentinel Consulting
Services in Englewood, found similar problems with the
containment ponds. Not only did it question the ability of the
ponds to contain waste but also the detection system used to
monitor seepage from the ponds. 

The health department said these problems are being addressed,
but Cunningham prefers that no toxic soil be put into the ponds
until they are completely resolved. 

“Why are they putting anything into the impoundment pond when
this whole problem of whether it’s leaking or not has not been
resolved?” Cunningham said. 

Powers acknowledged the integrity of the pond has been
questioned but “we’ve always held that the ponds are fine to use
and the state has never said ‘no,’” he said. 

Individuals wishing to comment on the proposed excavating plan
can do so by attending the June 9 meeting or by writing to Edgar
Ethington, CDPHE, Hazardous Materials and Waste Management
Division, 4300 Cherry Creek Drive S., Denver, CO 80246 or e-mail
edgar.ethington@state.co.us. 

In another development, Cotter was issued a Compliance Order
reviewing the six violations the company received in April. The
order is a technique the health department uses to lay the
groundwork for possible punitive action. The order says a fine
of $5,000 is possible for each violation. 

“It’s another step in the process of enforcement to make sure we
achieve compliance,” said Steve Tarlton of the health
department. “It reinforces the Notice of Violation and provides
us a little more authority in terms of corrective actions.” 				
  
*****************************************************************
 50 Whitehaven News: THORP QUESTION NEEDS ANSWERS 

SIR — I applaud your leader entitled: “Thorp: is the NDA playing
politics with our livelihoods?” (The Whitehaven News, May 19) It
is a legitimate question which needs an answer.

The letter the following week from Sir Anthony Cleaver (NDA
chairman), did not bring much enlightenment as to the future of
Thorp.

It was said in his letter that “these were complex issues that
need to be fully considered ... by the Government before we will
be able to recommend a course of action.” This is a recipe for
prevarication, the well-known thief of time: avoidable delay
costs taxpayers money.

The NDA must, of course, keep a watching brief on the spillage
clean-up in Thorp, but should accept that BNFL staff are
experienced and best placed to deal with it safely and
effectively, under the supervision of the Nuclear Installations
Inspectorate.

They should only need to intervene if the NII raises safety
issues which need to be resolved. The public should be informed
on the progress of the work which needs to be done, irrespective
of the future of the plant. This should be the first step to
take.

We should also be reassured by an acknowledgement by the NDA
that: “Thorp is a national asset which is needed to fulfil a £12
billion order book and generate revenue.”

This would offset some of the cost of the decommissioning work
on historic wastes arising from MOD work and obsolete Magnox
reactors.

It is now almost certain that new nuclear build will be required
to supplement renewable energy sources and fossil fuels, in
order to safeguard our economy and honour our agreements on
reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

Roy SUMERLING

Cross Lanes

Seascale

SIR — In the letter you published on May 26, Councillor Radford
of Liverpool does less than justice to the Government by
alleging that it has utterly failed to invest in alternative
energy sources.

For example, wind power is being heavily subsidised and
encouraged with the aim of increasing it during the next decade
or so from the present 0.5% to more than 10% of the UK
electricity requirements.

There are, however, serious snags to those good intentions since
wind power requires standby generation to allow for the wind not
blowing or blowing too hard and there is an increasing
realisation that wind turbines disfigure the countryside.

On present plans, the Government intends to rely overwhelmingly
on gas, oil and coal (all producers of the main greenhouse gas
CO² responsible for global warming) for electricity production
in the UK as the remaining nuclear power stations (which do not
generate greenhouse gases) are shut down at the end of life,
with steadily increasing reliance (up to 80%) on gas imported
from overseas (particularly Russia, the Middle East, Algeria and
Nigeria) at unpredictable prices in the years ahead. 

From the performance of our own Calder Hall over 50 years, and
that of the other nuclear stations in the UK, we know that they
can safely and quietly provide an extremely reliable and steady
electricity supply. What is more, the uranium that powers them
is plentiful and has no other civil use, whereas the diminishing
reserves of gas, oil and coal are needed for purposes other than
electricity production.

The Government is certainly not forcing us down the nuclear
path, but the time has surely come for it to encourage the
construction, on existing nuclear power station sites at least,
of reactors of the most modern design (economical to run and
producing only one tenth of the volume of waste arising from
older plants) starting with a compact 1000 MW station
(equivalent to a wind farm the size of Dartmoor) at or near
Calder Hall that would provide a significant input to the
national grid and a welcome boost to the local economy. 

The fuel elements discharged from them could be safely and
securely held in retrievable surface stores at the site where
they originate or be brought to Sellafield for such storage or
reprocessing.

V W ELDRED

Retired Head of UKAEA Windscale Laboratories

Santon Bridge

SIR — I am writing to congratulate your newspaper on an
excellent article in the issue of Thursday, May 19. The article
was headed ‘Friendship flourishes across the continents’ and
appeared on page 2.

As minister of Whitehaven United Reformed Church I was delighted
with the quality of the reporting by Jon Colman and the
photograph.

The well-written report gave an accurate picture of our work
with two churches in Port Elizabeth, South Africa and Xai-Xai,
Mozambique.

The Rev Geoffrey DAVIS

Whitehaven United Reformed Church

James Street, Whitehaven

*****************************************************************
 51 The Whitehaven News: INSPECTORS HIGHLIGHT SELLAFIELD ‘FAILINGS’ 

By David Siddall

SELLAFIELD has had an enforcement notice slapped on it by the
Environment Agency. 

The nuclear plant has been accused of failing to report the
levels of radioactive strontium 90 in old storage lagoons at the
Sellafield site. They have also been found to have not been
detecting “significant levels of radioactive antimony 125”
pumped out into the air from a nuclear fuel handling plant. The
news was released on Friday at the Sellafield liaison
sub-committee.

Although the aerial discharges were described by Agency expert
Matthew Emptage as “of low impact” he said inspectors discovered
“under reporting” of the radioactive gases.

He went on to report the Agency inspection uncovered a “number
of management failings”.

“There were a number of causes for concern, especially in terms
of the overall strategy and we will soon be issuing an
enforcement notice to get the concerns addressed.”

*****************************************************************
 52 The Whitehaven News: SELLAFIELD-RELATED LOCAL FOOD TESTING COSTS £1M A YEAR 

IT costs the Nuclear NDA over £1 million a year to carry out all
the radiation sampling and food testing around Sellafield. 

A meeting, on Friday last week, heard the latest information on
the low levels of radioactive contamination in sea foods and on
land, as a result of activities at Sellafield and the Drigg low
level nuclear dump.

And at the Sellafield Liaison Environmental sub-committee, on
Friday, BNFL’s Tim Parker said much of the food sampling was
duplicated, with similar work being carried out by the Food
Standards Agency. He said some rationalisation of this double
sampling was being considered.

Tim Parker from BNFL said all the figures showed the dose rates
from Sellafield technetium contamination in lobsters had dropped
from 95% of the permitted level to 16% following start up of a
new treatment plant removing the radioactivity from sea
discharges.

 None of the discharges breached safety limits but he admitted
that discharges of Carbon 14, from stacks had risen and was a
matter “under investigation.” 

The discharges were from the busy Vitrification plants where
three Vit lines were now at work turning liquid high level waste
into the safer and more manageable solid glass form.

CORE activist Janine Allis Smith asked the meeting: “Why does
Defra always monitor at the same locations around the Esk
estuary… why not look at the high levels we found at
Waberthwaite… people play by that river bank but you won’t find
any figures in environmental reports.”

Matthew Emptage for the Environment Agency said: “Over the years
a lot of work has been done on the distributions around the Esk.
Historically doses could be up to 2.5 mili sieverts a year, but
they are down to 0.2 milli Svrts today.”

Ms Allis Smith said: “But just kick at the river bank and you
get really high doses.”

MEANWHILE state-owned BNFL continues to be a big giver to
charities. Although down from highs of around £5 million in the
year 2000, the company still gives £3 million pounds a year to
charities.

*****************************************************************
 53 The Whitehaven News: THORP FUEL LEAKED FOR THREE MONTHS BEFORE DETECTION 

AN INVESTIGATION into the leak that closed Sellafield’s Thorp
plant has found nuclear fuel was seeping from a fractured pipe
for three months before it was detected.

And the leak was caused by a glaring design oversight, in that a
tank containing highly radioactive liquid could move up and
down, while connected to a fixed pipeline.

Tory shadow trade secretary, David Willetts, said: “This seems
like a basic failure, worthy of Homer Simpson.”

British Nuclear Group has ordered improved testing and
maintenance of instruments that should have warned that the
mixture of spent uranium and plutonium fuel dissolved in acid,
was going missing.

Operating practices throughout the Thorp reprocessing plant will
be reviewed. And engineering checks have been ordered across
Sellafield to spot stress-induced metal fatigue, which is
believed to have caused the pipe to fail.

Barry Snelson, managing director at Sellafield, said: “The
investigation has been extremely thorough and has identified the
root causes of the event.

“I will personally be ensuring that recommendations are
implemented not just in Thorp but across Sellafield.”

He was disappointed that the leak, discovered by a CCTV camera
on April 19, had not been found sooner.

Mr Snelson added: “I shall be taking action to ensure that any
complacency with respect to acting upon plant information is
addressed.

Safety and environmental integrity remain our absolute priority.”

Eighty-three cubic metres of highly-radioactive nuclear fuel
escaped. 

All of it was trapped in a steel-lined concrete cell, designed
to contain leaks. But the incident still forced the closure of
Thorp and cast doubt on its future.

It was a level three on the nuclear event scale.

The internal investigation found that the pipe probably
fractured in mid-January and may have started to fail in August
2004.

Had the leak been detected in January, the report says, the
quantity of liquid released could have been “significantly
reduced”.

Investigators believe the pipe failed because it fed a suspended
tank, subjecting it to high levels of stress.

Thorp is the only installation in Sellafield where this
arrangement applies.

British Nuclear Group has started a clean-up operation, which is
expected to take another four weeks.

The Government’s Nuclear Installations Inspectorate is also
investigating the leak.

Mr Snelson was confident that Thorp could reopen.

But Martin Forwood, of Cumbrians Opposed to a Radioactive
Environment, believes that the Thorp plant should be closed.

He said: “If you look at what business is left for Thorp, there
is a small amount of overseas fuel to reprocess and fuel from
British Energy’s advanced gas-cooled reactors, which BNFL told
us is an uneconomic proposition.

“Re-opening Thorp makes absolutely no sense to us.

“It was supposed to be an asset on the books of the Nuclear
Decommissioning Authority but it is going to be a total
liability.”

However, Copeland’s newly installed Member of Parliament, Jamie
Reed, said this week: “After a frank meeting with Anthony
Cleaver I have been reassured by the fact that the NDA
recognises, first and foremost, its obligations and
responsibilities to the people and workforce of West Cumbria and
Copeland in particular. Not only this, but I was reassured that
decisions relating to the future of the site are for government
to make. 

“Sir Anthony was keen to distance the Authority from claims,
recently made in the national media, and has assured me that the
Authority remains committed to the area.”

*****************************************************************
 54 The Whitehaven News: RADIATION LINKS ARE QUERIED 

THE watchdog body that monitors Sellafield has been asked to
investigate a possible link between radiation and increased
risks of strokes and heart attacks.

Anti-nuclear group Core raised the issue during public questions
on environmental health at the Sellafield Liaison meeting at
Cleator Moor on Friday.

Janine Allis Smith asked Westlake’s Prof Steve Jones: “In Russia
there is emerging heart disease issues due to high radiation
doses. 

“What about local workers? In B30 we have anecdotal evidence of
workers at the time suffering high levels of strokes and heart
disease.”

Dr Jones said he would have to check the historic mortality
statistics.

Ms Allis Smith said: “It should be considered because, for one
reason, only cancers qualify in the workers’ compensation
scheme.”

Dr Jones said the international ICRP dose limits to which the
industry worked, had been confirmed as appropriate by current
research but it accepted any radiation, however low, carried a
risk.

*****************************************************************
 55 Vermont Guardian: Panels last-minute concerns could slow Vermont Yankees 
nuclear storage plan

By Kathryn Casa | Vermont Guardian 

Posted June 2, 2005 

MONTPELIER  The states nuclear advisory panel made an 11th hour
appearance on the political scene Wednesday in a move observers
say could retard momentum of Entergys bid to store high-level
radioactive waste at the Vermont Yankee power plant. 

Late in the day Wednesday, the Department of Public Service
announced that the Vermont State Nuclear Advisory Panel (VSNAP)
had abruptly scheduled a special meeting tonight at the State
House to hear the status of Vermont Yankee spent nuclear fuel
storage issues being considered by the General Assembly. 

The move came just as senators got their first official look at
a bill passed Friday by the House that asks Entergy to pay $2.5
million a year for the next six years into a state renewable
energy fund in exchange for approval to store nuclear waste in
steel and concrete containers on the banks of the Connecticut
River in Vernon. 

Sen. Mark McDonald, D-Orange, who sits on both the Senate
Finance Committee and VSNAP, said for the upper house to get
such weighty legislation in the waning days of the 2005
legislative session is as if one body had gotten ACT 60 on the
first of June. 

The Senate needs time to hear testimony, question witnesses and
look at the long-term ramifications of the bill, McDonald said.
If that means action on the measure is stalled until the start
of the 2006 legislation session, there are some who say that if
this is a good deal today, it will be a good deal in January,
said McDonald. 

VSNAP has no real regulatory power but is charged with advising
the Legislature and the administration on nuclear issues.
McDonald said the panel could decide after Thursdays meeting to
make a recommendation to the Senate on the dry-cask proposal. 

More than one or two senators need to understand some of the
moving parts before we exercise our judgment, said McDonald. 

Entergy officials are anxious for the states approval of their
dry-cask storage plans. They say the plant will run out of
storage space in its vulnerable spent-fuel pool by 2008, or 2007
if they get state and federal approval to increase power at VY
by 20 percent. 

Douglas administration officials, too, say theyre anxious to
craft a compromise. Public Service Commissioner David OBrien has
said a premature shutdown of the plant for lack of fuel storage
capacity could mean Vermonters would have to pay millions more
each year to replace the one-third share of the states power
that Vermont Yankee has been contracted to provide at low rates
through 2012, the year the plants existing license expires 

Members of the House Natural Resources Committee began meeting
with Entergy officials even before the legislative session
opened in January in an effort to craft a measure acceptable to
all sides. The bill that emerged calling for $4 million in
annual payments met sharp resistance from the company, which
threatened to shut the plant down rather than pay the fee. 

The measure was significantly retooled in closed-door meetings
between Entergy officials and a subcommittee of House Natural
Resources and Energy committee members. The bill passed by the
full House requires Entergy to pay the $2.5 million only if the
uprate is approved. 

Asked he if thought that figure was low, McDonald said, Right
now, Vermont Yankee takes in about $29 million a year under its
current operating scheme. If it were to get an uprate and be
able to sell the uprated power on the open market, it would go
from $29 million to $69 million a year. The current power, which
is sold under contract, would go off the contract in 2012 and be
available on the open market, and no one has shared with us a
number that approximates what the profit would be. 

Observers said the short meeting notice was unusual, and could
signal a slowdown of legislation that hit the fast track after
fitful negotiations earlier in the session saw weeks with no
forward movement on the bill. 

It certainly is unusual to schedule it like this, VY spokesman
Rob Williams said of the VSNAP meeting. 

From our point of view the legislators took the time to get all
the facts and to make an informed decision that was based on
months of work and many hours of testimony, Williams said. But
we recognize that VSNAP has always had a role in communicating
our initiatives  

He said Entergy would like to bring its dry cask proposal before
the Public Service Board, which must also approve the plan, in
time to begin building the facility during the 2006 construction
season. Under state statute the PSB cannot begin reviewing the
proposal until it has legislative approval. 

Thursdays hearing begins at 7 p.m. in Room 11 of the Statehouse.
The agenda released by the Department of Public Service
includes, in the order, an introduction by O'Brien,
presentations by Entergy, members of the Legislature and DPS,
questions and comments from VSNAP members, and comments from the
public, if time allows. 
Send us your news tips, a letter to the editor or general
comments.
 
Vermont Guardian
 PO Box 335
 Winooski, VT 05404 

Visit us: www.vermontguardian.com
*****************************************************************
 56 Tri-City Herald: Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman to make first stop at Hanford 

This story was published Thursday, June 2nd, 2005
 
By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer 

New Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman makes his first visit to the
Hanford nuclear reservation today. 

"He's very interested in seeing firsthand the tremendous
progress being made at Hanford," said Mike Waldron, a Department
of Energy spokesman in Washington, D.C. 

Bodman plans a packed day with a meeting with Gov. Christine
Gregoire, a meeting with DOE employees, a tour of Pacific
Northwest National Laboratory and a tour of much of the
586-square-mile Hanford nuclear reservation. 

For more than 40 years Hanford produced plutonium for the
nation's nuclear weapons program. But now DOE is spending as
much as $2.1 billion a year to clean up the site.
 
Gregoire wrote to Bodman this spring, proposing a meeting for
some "fresh, productive dialogue" to foster a stable cleanup
program at Hanford. She was elected in November, and Bodman was
appointed in December, giving the state and DOE new leadership
on Hanford cleanup issues. 

Among the state's concerns is DOE's proposal to cut at least
$267 million from Hanford's cleanup budget in fiscal year 2006.
The U.S. House has passed a budget that restores about $200
million of that cut, but the Senate has yet to consider
Hanford's budget. 

Gregoire has been concerned that budget cuts could leave DOE
unable to meet its obligations to clean up Hanford under the
legally binding Tri-Party Agreement. 

Hanford workers have completed several projects that have
dramatically reduced the risk to the environment at Hanford over
the past 18 months. DOE officials have said that's one of the
reasons the proposed budget was reduced. 

Bodman plans to see the leak-prone K East Basin, where Hanford
workers have finished removing 2,300 tons of radioactive
irradiated fuel. He'll also tour the Plutonium Finishing Plant
where workers last year finished stabilizing and packaging
plutonium in nearly 20 tons of material left when work stopped
abruptly at the plant in 1989. 

He'll tour the tank farms, where huge underground tanks hold 53
million gallons of some of Hanford's worst radioactive and
hazardous waste. Waste began accumulating in the tanks during
World War II. But last summer, Hanford workers finished removing
the last of the liquid waste from Hanford's oldest tanks,
eliminating much of the risk of radioactive material leaking
into the ground. 

But he'll also see much work that remains to be done. 

Workers continue to struggle to get radioactive sludge out of
the K East Basin so that it can be emptied of water and closed.
At the tank farms, all but two of the 149 oldest tanks without
protective double shells still hold radioactive sludge and salt
cake. 

Work has slowed on construction of the $5.8 billion
vitrification plant after a new study indicated that parts of
the plant might not be able to withstand a worst-scenario
earthquake. The plant is planned to turn much of the waste from
the tanks into a more stable glass form for permanent disposal. 

And Hanford has thousands of structures and waste sites waiting
to be cleaned up. They range from contaminated processing plants
as long as the Seattle Space Needle is tall to in-ground waste
water disposal cribs that allowed radioactive or chemical waste
to reach the ground water beneath the site. 

The energy secretary asked to see work going on at Hanford and
also requested a meeting with employees, said Erik Olds,
spokesman for DOE's Office of River Protection at Hanford. Many
Hanford contractor employees will be able to see a webcast of
the meeting at their work sites. 

Bodman is new to the Department of Energy. He previously served
as deputy secretary of the Department of Commerce and as deputy
secretary of the Treasury in President Bush's administration. He
was sworn in as energy secretary in February. 

He brings to the job a background in science and business. He
was an associate professor of chemical engineering at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology for six years after
earning a doctorate there. He later served as president of
Fidelity Investments and chairman of Cabot Corp., a Boston-based
Fortune 300 company with global business activities in specialty
chemicals and materials.
 
© 2005 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press &Other Wire Services
*****************************************************************
 57 Tri-City Herald: Work under way on Hanford landfill 

This story was published Thursday, June 2nd, 2005
 
By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer 

Work has begun on what's expected to be Hanford's second and
last large landfill to dispose of radioactive waste from cleanup
of the nuclear reservation. 

"I think it's the last tool we'll need on site" for the types of
radioactive waste now allowed to be buried at Hanford, said
Moses Jaraysi, director of regulatory strategic planning for
Department of Energy contractor CH2M Hill Hanford Group. 

The Integrated Disposal Facility, costing $28.1 million, is
planned to meet two Hanford cleanup goals. 

It will help DOE keep its promise to stop disposing of low-level
radioactive waste, such as contaminated equipment, directly in
the soil at Hanford instead of in lined landfills.
 
The landfill also will be needed to hold the least radioactive
waste now held in 177 huge underground tanks at Hanford, left
from the past production of plutonium for the nation's nuclear
weapons program. 

The Department of Energy plans to turn tank waste into a more
stable glass form at the $5.8 billion vitrification plant under
construction at central Hanford. 

The most radioactive waste will be turned into glass logs to be
sent to a national repository for disposal, likely at Yucca
Mountain, Nev. But much of the low-activity waste mixed with
hazardous chemicals from the tanks is planned to be buried at
Hanford in the new landfill. 

DOE also is testing an alternate technology to turn some of the
low-activity radioactive waste into blocks of glass up to 24
feet long. The first test blocks of radioactive glass could be
made beginning at the end of the year and become the first
glassified waste to be sent to the new landfill. 

The state considers the project important enough that it has
allowed some work to be done at the site, such as digging the
hole and installing monitoring wells, before a final permit for
the project is issued. The state is accepting public comment now
on a proposed permit, but the preliminary start on the project
will allow the contractor to take advantage of good weather. 

The permit would allow a landfill that's about as long as five
football fields, 765 feet wide and 42 feet deep. It would hold
about 200,000 cubic yards of waste. 

Plans allow for it to be expanded in two more sections to grow
from a construction size of about 26 acres to about 60 acres,
but that would require DOE to go back to the state for approval. 

Half of the first portion is reserved for glassified waste from
the vitrification plant and bulk vitrification test plant. DOE
will use the other half for low-level radioactive waste that has
not been contaminated with chemicals. 

Whether the site would ever accept low-level radioactive waste
from elsewhere in the nation depends on the outcome of two
lawsuits in federal court on whether the state has the authority
to bar that waste from Hanford. 

But DOE needs a state permit only for the portion of the
landfill that will hold glassified waste, said Laura Cusack, a
Department of Ecology section manager. 

By constructing the two sections together, DOE likely will meet
higher standards for the low-level waste than it might
otherwise, she said. 

The Integrated Disposal Facility, in the 200 East Area of
central Hanford, will be built much like the other large
landfill at Hanford, the Environmental Restoration Disposal
Facility. 

Both have layers of soil, gravel and two liners above a layer of
clay to serve as a natural barrier. But beneath the lowest spots
under that 7-foot-thick system at the Integrated Disposal
Facility will be a third liner with a moisture leak detection
system. 

CH2M Hill expects to have the landfill finished in early 2006
and ready to accept waste in late 2006. 

Comments on the permit can be sent by June 20 to Suzanne Dahl,
Ecology, Nuclear Waste Program, 3100 Port of Benton Blvd.,
Richland, WA 99352. 

* Reporter Annette Cary can be reached at 582-1533 or via e-mail
at acary@tri-cityherald.com.
 
© 2005 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press &Other Wire Services
*****************************************************************
 58 DOE: Environmental Management Site-Specific Advisory Board, Paducah
 
                        FR Doc 05-10953 
[Federal Register: June 2, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 105)] 
[Notices] [Page 32311] From the Federal Register Online via GPO 
Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr02jn05-40]                         
 
AGENCY: Department of Energy (DOE).
 
ACTION: Notice of open meeting.
 
SUMMARY: This notice announces a meeting of the Environmental 
Management Site-Specific Advisory Board (EMSSAB), Paducah. The 
Federal Advisory Committee Act (Pub. L. 92-463, 86 Stat. 770) 
requires that public notice of this meeting be announced in the 
Federal Register.
 
 
DATES: Thursday, June 16, 2005; 5:30 p.m.-9:30 p.m.
 
ADDRESSES: 111 Memorial Drive, Barkley Centre, Paducah, Kentucky 
42001.
 
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: William E. Murphie, Deputy 
Designated Federal Officer, Department of Energy 
Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office, 1017 Majestic Drive, Suite 
200, Lexington, Kentucky 40513, (859) 219-4001.
 
 
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Purpose of the Board: The purpose of 
the Board is to make recommendations to DOE in the areas of 
environmental restoration, waste management and related 
activities.
 
Tentative Agenda: 5:30 p.m. Informal Discussion 6 p.m. Call to 
Order Introductions Review of Agenda Approval of May Minutes 6:05 
p.m. Deputy Designated Federal Officer's Comments 6:25 p.m. 
Federal Coordinator's Comments 6:30 p.m. Ex-officios' Comments 
6:40 p.m. Public Comments and Questions 6:50 p.m. Task 
Forces/Presentations Waste Disposition Task Force Water Quality 
Task Force Long Range Strategy/Stewardship Task Force --DUF6 
Project Overview Community Outreach Task Force 7:50 p.m. Public 
Comments and Questions 8 p.m. Break 8:10 p.m. Administrative 
Issues Review of Work Plan Review of Next Agenda 8:20 p.m. Review 
of Action Items 8:25 p.m. Subcommittee Reports Executive 
Committee --Chairs Meeting Recap 8:40 p.m. Final Comments 9:30 
p.m. Adjourn Public Participation: The meeting is open to the 
public.
 
Written statements may be filed with the Board either before or 
after the meeting. Individuals who wish to make oral statements 
pertaining to agenda items should contact David Dollins at the 
address listed below or by telephone at (270) 441-6819. Requests 
must be received five days prior to the meeting and reasonable 
provision will be made to include the presentation in the agenda. 
The Deputy Designated Federal Officer is empowered to conduct the 
meeting in a fashion that will facilitate the orderly conduct of 
business. Individuals wishing to make public comment will be 
provided a maximum of five minutes to present their comments. 
This notice is being published less than 15 days before the date 
of the meeting due to programmatic issues that had to be 
resolved.
 
Minutes: The minutes of this meeting will be available for public 
review and copying at the Department of Energy's Freedom of 
Information Public Reading Room, 1E-190, Forrestal Building, 1000 
Independence Avenue, SW., Washington, DC 20585 between 9 a.m. and 
4 p.m., Monday- Friday, except Federal holidays. Minutes will 
also be available at the Department of Energy's Environmental 
Information Center and Reading Room at 115 Memorial Drive, 
Barkley Centre, Paducah, Kentucky between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., on 
Monday thru Friday or by writing to David Dollins, Department of 
Energy, Paducah Site Office, Post Office Box 1410, MS- 103, 
Paducah, Kentucky 42001 or by calling him at (270) 441-6819.
 
Issued at Washington, DC on May 27, 2005.
 
R. Samuel, Deputy Advisory Committee Management Officer.
 
[FR Doc. 05-10953 Filed 6-1-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 6450-01-U

 
*****************************************************************
 59 Rocky Mountain News: Flats building demolished

By Rocky Mountain News

June 2, 2005

Heavy machinery chopped chunks out of Rocky Flats' last
remaining plutonium building Wednesday in a demolition that will
leave the contaminated, earthquake-proof basements buried on
site. 

The underground levels of Building 371 that will remain are
sufficiently contaminated to be classified as low-level nuclear
waste. They would be difficult to remove because they are
hardened, reinforced and 40 feet deep. 
			
 Building 771's basement, also contaminated with plutonium, was
buried last year. 

Building 371 contained 12 highly contaminated "canyons" where
some of the most dangerous processes in the manufacture of
nuclear weapons took place. Plutonium at Rocky Flats had to be
carefully monitored to prevent fires and criticalities -
unplanned, intense radioactive reactions. 

Workers shaved the walls, floors and ceilings of the concrete
canyons to remove the most serious contamination, according to a
Rocky Flats report to the Citizens Advisory Board. The
below-ground section of the building will be buried at least 6
feet below grade. The upper section of Building 371 will be
chopped up and sent to a waste site in Utah. 

Rocky Flats originally planned to implode that section. But
officials decided that it would be more efficient and safer not
to do so, Lutz said.  

SITE MAP PHOTO REPRINTS CORRECTIONS    2005 © The E.W. Scripps
Co.
    
*****************************************************************

NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this 
material is distributed without profit or payment to those who 
have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for 
non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more 
information go to: 
<http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml> 
    
*****************************************************************