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Send News Stories to news@energy-net.org with title on subject
line and first line of body
NUCLEAR POLICY
1 Sun Herald: Arms sites looted in Iraq
2 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Extends Freeze on Nuclear Enrichment
3 AFP: Iran sets new conditions on maintaining nuclear freeze -
4 Al Jazeera: Iran agrees to maintain nuclear freeze -
5 AL Jazeera: Osiraq-like strike on Iran -
6 AFP: Rumsfeld says North Korean nuclear proliferation a threat to wo
7 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: 'N.K. Nuke Crisis Started With Aluminum I
8 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: Korea, U.S. Agree to Compromise N.Korea '
9 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: [EDITORIALS]A welcome agreement
10 Xinhua: S. Korea, Japan sound off on talks
11 Korea Times: NK Nuke Negotiator Gets Promotion
12 Korea Times: US Hopeful of N. Korea¡¯s Return to 6-Party Talks
13 Guardian Unlimited: N.Korea Again Faults U.S. Nuclear Policy
14 Guardian Unlimited: U.S. May Push U.N. to Punish North Korea
15 US: 3 Action/News Items: PFS, BRC, Nukes/climate
16 US: Sacramento Bee: Opinion - Editorial: Nuclear punt -
17 US: STLtoday: Lawmakers get away, courtesy of special interests
18 US: Las Vegas SUN: Letter: Atomic museum omits some facts
19 US: WorldNetDaily: Bolton's legacy
20 Guardian Unlimited: McNamara attacks UK nuclear policy
NUCLEAR REACTORS
21 Why Iran Needs Nuclear Power: Hidden Facts
22 Why Iran Needs Nuclear Power: Hidden Facts, part II
23 The Hindu: India readies itself for quantum jump in nuclear power
24 Times of India: Nuclear energy is unsafe, uneconomical-
25 The Hindu: 4th reactor of Tarapore synchronised
26 RIA Novosti: Putin establishes September 28 as the Nuclear Power Ind
27 US: adn.com: Galena nuclear plan gets a boost
28 PTI: Nuclear energy important component of India's energy basket - P
29 AU ABC: Nuclear power a threat to Qld economy - Beattie.
30 english.eastday.com: Nuclear safety lab set up
NUCLEAR SECURITY
31 Bellona: Financial difficulties hinder repairs and upgrade of Russia
32 US: L.A. Daily News: Radiation detectors to protect ports
NUCLEAR SAFETY
33 [du-list] Fw: BBC File On 4 radio interview set on DU, will be
34 US: Deseret News: Southern Utah cancer clinic aiding downwinders
35 US: Quincy Herald-Whig: Cancer Hot Spots
36 US: adn.com: Comp checks cut for Amchitka workers
37 US: Guardian Unlimited: Radiation Detectors to Scan Calif. Ports
NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
38 US: L.A. Daily News: Perchlorate in well water
39 US: Bradenton Herald: Tallevast requests health analysis
40 US: New Mexican: N.M. leaders strike deal on uranium waste plant
41 US: STLtoday: Radioactive waste will roll through area
42 US: AFP: Australia in talks to sell uranium to China for first time
43 Sunday Herald: Files reveal nuclear waste dumping shambles -
44 Telegraph: Disturbing deficiency at Seabrook plant
45 US: Rutland Herald: Bill lets Yankee apply for fuel storage
46 US: SLT: Nuclear waste storage: It's time for peace talks with the
47 Independent: Waste woes that bias our energy debates
48 US: Guardian Unlimited: Panel Sets Aside Proposal on Nuclear Waste
PEACE
US DEPT. OF ENERGY
49 Albuquerque Tribune: Los Alamos fears brain drain
50 Tri-City Herald: New energy secretary promising but untested
51 Tri-Valley Herald: Retrial rejected in whistle-blower case
52 Guardian Unlimited: Drilling Near Nuclear Blast Site on Hold
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FULL NEWS STORIES
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1 Sun Herald: Arms sites looted in Iraq
Posted on Sat, Jun. 04, 2005
White House says facilities secure
By JENNIFER LOVEN
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON - The White House on Friday played down a report in
which U.N. weapons inspectors documented additional materials
missing from weapons sites in Iraq.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the Bush
administration had taken steps to ensure sites were secured, and
he suggested it was doubtful the looted material was being used
to boost other countries' weapons programs.
In a report to the U.N. Security Council, acting chief weapons
inspector Demetrius Perricos said that satellite imagery experts
had determined that material that could be used to make
biological or chemical weapons and banned long-range missiles
had been removed from 109 sites, up from 90 reported in March.
The sites have been emptied of equipment to varying degrees,
with the largest percentage of missing items at 58 missile
facilities.
For example, 289 of the 340 pieces of equipment to produce
missiles - or about 85 percent, had been removed, the report
said.
Biological sites were the least damaged, according to the
analysts at the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection
Commission.
Perricos said he's reached no conclusions about who removed the
items or where they went. He said it could have been moved
elsewhere in Iraq, sold as scrap, melted down or purchased.
He said the missing material can be used for legitimate
purposes. "However, they can also be utilized for prohibited
purposes if in a good state of repair."
McClellan said that the United States has helped to remove low
enriched uranium and radioactive sources, offered jobs to
weapons experts from Saddam Hussein's programs to keep them from
taking their expertise elsewhere, and helped Iraq establish an
independent radioactive source regulatory authority.
"We have been working closely with the government in Iraq to
ensure that Iraq's former weapons of mass destruction personnel
and proliferation materials do not contribute to proliferation
programs in other countries," McClellan said.
U.N. inspectors have been blocked from returning to Iraq since
the U.S.-led war in 2003. They have been using satellite photos
to see what happened to the sites that were subject to U.N.
monitoring because their equipment had both civilian and
military uses.
Since the war, U.S. teams took over the weapons search. Former
chief arms hunter Charles Duelfer and his Iraq Survey Group
found no weapons of mass destruction in the country,
discrediting President Bush's stated rationale for invading
Iraq.
McClellan referred to findings by Duelfer, saying that "any
looting was the work of uncoordinated elements rather than
directed at an effort to try to export equipment to a country
that might obtain or have a weapons of mass destruction
program."
He also noted that Duelfer had concluded that, since the looted
materials are easily obtained elsewhere, "other governments are
not likely to look to Iraq to buy used versions of it."
*****************************************************************
2 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Extends Freeze on Nuclear Enrichment
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Sunday June 5, 2005 9:31 PM
By NASSER KARIMI
Associated Press Writer
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran injected some breathing space into the
international crisis over its nuclear program on Sunday, saying
it will extend its suspension of uranium enrichment until the
end of July to give European negotiators time to prepare a
proposal it can accept.
The announcement, which followed Tehran's agreement last month
to review a European Union proposal for a new round of
negotiations in the summer, provides a temporary respite in the
dispute. But Iran warned against wasting the opportunity to
strike a deal.
``The Europeans have time up to the end of July to prepare
details of their proposal,'' said Ali Aghamohammadi, a spokesman
for Iran's Supreme National Security Council.
``To make Iran's nuclear facilities active in a proper way, both
sides should work toward providing guarantees,'' Aghamohammadi
was quoted as saying by the official Islamic Republic News
Agency.
Europe sees suspension of uranium enrichment by Tehran as a
precondition for further talks. No date has been set for the
summer negotiations.
Iran suspended enrichment last November under international
pressure led by the United States. Iran maintains its program is
peaceful, but the EU and the United States fear the program is
being used to develop nuclear weapons in violation of the
Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
Six months of talks with Europe have made no progress on the key
point of contention - Iran's insistence on the right to enrich
uranium and European opposition to such plans.
Enriched uranium can be used to produce warheads, but it also
can be used in the production of electricity, which Iranian
officials insist is the sole purpose of their nuclear program.
Iran has said repeatedly that its November decision to suspend
all uranium enrichment-related activities was voluntary and
temporary. The Europeans have been offering economic incentives
in the hope that Iran will make it permanent.
Aghamohammadi called on the Europeans to firm up the agreement
reached between Iran and the Europeans last November in Paris,
which committed Tehran to suspension of enrichment and all
related activities while the two sides discuss a pact meant to
provide Iran with EU technical and economic aid and other
concessions. Since then, the two sides have sparred over the
exact terms of the agreement.
France, Britain and Germany, acting on behalf of the 25-nation
EU, want Tehran to abandon its enrichment activities in exchange
for economic aid, technical support and backing for Iran's
efforts to join the World Trade Organization.
``The two sides should have offers in line with the main goal of
the Paris agreement; that is objective guarantees from our side
and solid agreements from the European side,'' Aghamohammadi
said.
Efforts to resolve the crisis also got a boost last month when
the World Trade Organization agreed to open membership
negotiations with Iran - a move widely seen as an immediate
reward for Tehran's decision to stick with talks with Europe.
Iran first applied to join the WTO in 1996, but the United
States blocked its application 22 times. The United States said
in March it would drop its veto, after consultations with
France, Germany and Britain, the European negotiating countries.
The United States has been skeptical of Europe's approach to
Iran's atomic program, although of late President Bush has
struck a gentler note. Last week he insisted that Europe-led
talks with Iran ``are making some progress'' and defended his
decision to allow Iran to apply for WTO membership as a key, but
measured, step to advance those discussions.
The EU has threatened to take Iran to the U.N. Security Council
for possible sanctions if it resumes uranium reprocessing.
Tehran says it won't give up its right to enrichment but is
prepared to offer guarantees that it is not seeking to build
nuclear weapons.
Aghamohammadi said Hasan Rowhani, Iran's top nuclear negotiator,
would begin a weeklong tour to Yemen, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and
the United Arab Emirates on Monday to discuss the progress of
the nuclear talks and seek support for its program.
Iran hopes the four nations - in particular Yemen, a member of
the board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency
- will support its nuclear program.
A breakdown of the EU-Iran talks would have fed U.S. hopes of
having the June 13 board meeting of the IAEA refer Tehran to the
U.N. Security Council for nuclear activities that Washington
insists show an attempt to build weapons.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
3 AFP: Iran sets new conditions on maintaining nuclear freeze -
Sunday June 5, 08:21 PM
TEHRAN (AFP) - A senior Iranian official said that Tehran has
only conditionally agreed to EU demands it maintain a suspension
of sensitive nuclear activities until the end of July, the
official news agency IRNA reported. "Iran has conditionally
agreed to the EU offer, and Europe has until the end of July to
provide a complete proposal with details," Supreme National
Security Council official Ali Agha Mohammadi was quoted as
saying.
He said the conditions were that three joint working groups and a
steering committee meet before the end of July and "that there is
an exchange between the European foreign ministers and the
secretary of the Supreme National Security Council (Hassan
Rowhani)".
Tehran has continued to complain the Europeans have been seeking
to drag out the talks, and therefore Iran's nuclear suspension.
But the demand for talks to be brought forward may prove a
headache for Eurocrats planning their summer holidays.
Mohammadi said the demands were aimed at ensuring that any
European proposal is in line with the "agreed aims" of a nuclear
suspension agreement signed in Paris between Iran and Britain,
France and Germany last November. "The two sides must have offers
in line with the main aims of the Paris agreement, which is
objective guarantees on our part and firm guarantees from the
European side," Mohammadi said.
Iran has pledged to suspend its activities linked to uranium
enrichment, which makes what can be fuel for civilian power
reactors or the raw material of atom bombs, for the duration of
the negotiations. But it insists it has the right to carry out
enrichment within the framework of a peaceful nuclear programme.
Disagreement over enrichment, which the European trio wants Iran
to definitively abandon in return for trade, technology and
security incentives almost scuttled the EU-Iran talks that began
in December.
Rowhani meanwhile reaffirmed Tehran's insistance that Europe
would have to acknowledge Iran's right to the entire nuclear fuel
cycle in their new offer, as he arrived on a visit to Kuwait.
Rowhani meanwhile reaffirmed Tehran's insistance that Europe
would have to acknowledge Iran's right to the entire nuclear fuel
cycle in their new offer, as he arrived on a visit to Kuwait. "In
Geneva, we told the three European foreign ministers that their
proposals would be accepted if they stipulated that Iran can
produce nuclear fuel inside Iran," he said.
A US diplomat contacted by AFP in Vienna said the United States
"has no formal view on when or how often they meet as long as the
EU3 holds firm on enforcing the Paris agreement and as long as
Iran negotiates in good faith on that basis."
The US in particular accuses Iran of seeking nuclear weapons
under the guise of an energy programme. Iran insists its bid to
master the full nuclear fuel cycle, including uranium enrichment,
is merely aimed at generating electricity and is a right for any
country that has signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It
has already proposed starting a phased resumption of fuel cycle
work but that has already been rejected by the Europeans.
Copyright © 2005 AFP AFP. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
4 Al Jazeera: Iran agrees to maintain nuclear freeze -
Aljazeera.com
6/5/2005 9:00:00 PM GMT
Iran insists it is it's right to run a peaceful nuclear program
Iran has conditionally agreed on Sunday to maintain the
suspension of nuclear activities until the end of July, senior
Iranian official told IRNA news agency.
After reviewing and discussing the Europeans' proposal, Iran has
announced its agreement. Europeans have time up to the end of
July to prepare details of their proposal," Supreme National
Security Council official Ali Mohammadi Agha said.
“Iran has conditionally agreed to the EU offer, and Europe has
until the end of July to provide a complete proposal with
details,” Mr. Mohammadi was said.
"To make Iran's nuclear facilities active in a proper way, both
sides should work toward providing guarantees," he was quoted as
saying.
The conditions Iran has set were that three joint working groups
and a steering committee meet before the end of July and “that
there is an exchange between the European foreign ministers and
the secretary of Supreme National Security Council (Hassan
Rowhani)” the official said, adding that those conditions are
mainly aimed at ensuring that any future European proposal is in
line with the “agreed aims” of a nuclear suspension agreement
signed in Paris last November between Iran and the EU big-three,
Britain, France and Germany.
“The two sides must have offers in line with the main aims of
the Paris agreement, which is objective guarantees on our part
and firm guarantees from the European side,” Mr. Mohammadi said.
Iran agreed last November to temporarily freeze all activities
related to uranium enrichment, but insists it has the right to
soon resume enrichment within the framework of a peaceful
nuclear programme.
The EU-Iran talks that began in December were scuttled due to
disagreement over enrichment, as the Europeans want Iran to
permanently abandon in return for trade, technology and security
incentives.
But at a ministerial-level meeting in Geneva last month, Iran
and the EU negotiators agreed to resume talks in August, after
Iran’s presidential election June 17, giving the Europeans time
to come up with concrete proposals on cooperation with Iran.
Teheran has complained that the Europeans have been seeking to
drag out the talks.
Backed by Washington, the EU has threatened refer Iran’s nuclear
dossier to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions if
Tehran refused to resume suspension of uranium enrichment.
Insisting on its right to run a peaceful nuclear program, Iran
refuses to give up uranium enrichment, saying it is ready to
offer guarantees that is not seeking nuclear weapons.
Copyright 2005 Al Jazeera Publishing Limited
*****************************************************************
5 AL Jazeera: Osiraq-like strike on Iran -
Aljazeera.com
6/1/2005 10:10:00 PM GMT
Satellite image of Iran's military facilities in Parchin
Launching a military strike on Iran won’t stop it from resuming
its nuclear activities, but could be a last resort to delay any
attempt to produce an atomic bomb, the mastermind of Israel’s
1981 air strike on the Iraqi reactor at Osiraq has said.
While Israel and Washington said they wouldn’t rule out using
the military option against Iran if the European Union
diplomatic initiative aimed at persuading the Islamic Republic
suspend its nuclear programme failed, independent experts say
that Tehran’s facilities are too fortified to be eliminated
militarily.
David Ivry, the mastermind of the Osiraq raid as then chief of
the Israeli air force, argued against thinking in all-out terms.
"You cannot eliminate an idea, a national will. But you can
delay progress on a nuclear programme with the appropriate
military action, " Ivry told reporters on Monday.
"That is a valuable objective in itself. "
Eight Israeli F-16 jets, with detachable fuel containers and
relatively light bombs to extend their range, were used to
destroy Osiraq In 1981.
"When Israel struck Osiraq, the intention was never to get rid
of Saddam Hussein’s nuclear plans. We wanted to buy time, and we
succeeded in doing that, " Ivry said.
Iran has more than once rejected the United States and Israel’s
repeated claims that it was seeking an atomic weapons programme,
saying it is solely used for peaceful purposes.
Iran agreed last November to suspend all activities related to
Uranium enrichment at the behest of the EU big- three; France,
Britain and Germany.
But the United States seeks referring Iran’s nuclear case to the
UN Security Council for possible sanctions.
On the other hand, Israel, believed to be the Middle East’s only
nuclear power, has made it clear it would confront Iran
militarily if it refused to abandon its nuclear ambitions. But
it denied attacking its arch-foe unilaterally.
Several Israeli officials have claimed that Iran will obtain the
know-how to make atomic weapons within months.
"A country decides when to act against the enemy based on its
assessment of when the threat has become insufferable. You set a
deadline beyond which you believe you will lose the option of
acting, " Ivry said, adding that "with Osiraq, it was the fact
that the Iraqis were about to bring uranium into the reactor. "
Kaveh Afrasiabi, a political analyst at Tehran University stated
in a recently published report that "Israel’s best option would
be a simultaneous multi-pronged strike using different routes,
for example through Jordan and Iraq as well as the Mediterranean
route through Turkey and or Azerbaijan".
"Yet at present neither option is available to Israel ... given
Iran’s cordial relations with its neighbors and the fears and
concerns of those neighbours of a severe Iranian backlash in
case they permit their air space for an Israeli attack on Iran."
"I do not know of any country that would ask permission of
another (to use its air space). Doing so would compromise the
secrecy of the mission, and approval would not be forthcoming
anyway. When dealing with a mission seen as crucial for national
security, such issues are irrelevant, " Ivry said, disputing the
assumption that all of Iran’s facilities would have to be
tackled in a strike.
"It is enough to hit the key component of the production cycle
to put the whole operation out of action, " he said. "Given the
sensitivity of the technologies in question, a strike that
simply shakes the structure housing them is usually sufficient
to cause irreparable damage. Total destruction of the target is
not necessary or even desirable. "
Ivry, moreover, suggested that Israel still have tricks in store
if it decided to strike Iran.
"If and when Iran is attacked, I think I can assure you it will
come as a surprise to everyone. "
Copyright 2005 Al Jazeera Publishing Limited
*****************************************************************
6 AFP: Rumsfeld says North Korean nuclear proliferation a threat to world
Saturday June 4, 3:54 PM
Photo: AFP
SINGAPORE (AFP) - US Defense Secretary Donald Rusmfeld conceded
he had no idea how North Korea might be persuaded to resume
negotiations on its nuclear weapons program as allies debated
the next steps if Pyongyang continues to shun six-party talks.
"I have no way of knowing what might conceivably finally
persuade the people in the North to behave in a way that is more
consistent with the behavior of other countries in the world,"
Rumsfeld told an international conference on Asia security
Saturday.
"My hope is that the countries in the six-party talks will
continue to be persuasive, try to be more persuasive with them
and that they will see it is in their interest to enter those
discussions," he said.
Rumsfeld made the comment in response to questions following a
speech in which he warned that Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions
threaten the security not just of the region, but of the world.
Given North Korea's record in selling ballistic missile
technologies, as well as trafficking in illegal drugs and
counterfeit currency, he said "one has to assume that they will
sell anything and they would be willing to sell nuclear
technologies."
North Korea has boycotted the talks with the United States,
South Korea, Japan, China, and Russia for the past year to
protest what it regards as a hostile US policy.
"You ask what are the alternatives (to the six-party talks.)
Well it seems to me that is a question for the world to ask,"
Rumsfeld said.
"It requires the United Nations to ask itself if it wants to
have a role in trying to avoid allowing the kind of
proliferation that is threatened. No one country can do that. It
requires the cooperation of many countries," he said.
South Korean Defense Minister Yoon Kwang Ung told the conference
he was confident his government would be able to persuade
Pyongyang to rejoin the talks, noting that the North was
dependent on South Korean economic support.
He said a South Korean delegation was traveling to Pyongyang on
June 15 and would be hosting a North Korean ministerial level
delegation in Seoul between June 21-24.
In between those meetings, South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun
will meet in Washington with President George W. Bush.
"We are confident we will be successful with this kind of
peaceful means, that we can persuade North Korea to come back to
six-party talks," he said.
He indicated that South Korea wanted to avoid taking the issue
to the UN Security Council.
"I'd like to emphasize we are the on-the-spot nation directly
related to the North Korea nuclear issue," he said.
"If it goes the wrong way, we will lose all economic
infrastructure as well as the value of the lives of more than 40
million people in Korea."
Japanese Minister of State for Defense Yoshinori Ohno, however,
warned that there was growing sentiment in favor of
international sanctions against North Korea if it persists in
boycotting the six-party talks.
"North Korea should recognize that if it refuses to participate
in the six- party talks, chances might be large that this
problem will be raised up in the framework of the United Nations
Security Council," he said.
"And then what would happen, I'm not sure."
If North Korea returns to the talks, and the nuclear issue is
resolved, the international community will help it out of its
serious economic problems, he said.
In February North Korea announced that it had nuclear weapons,
and claims it has unloaded 8,000 spent fuel rods from its
reactor that could be reprocessed into weapons-grade plutonium.
Copyright © 2005 AFP. All rights reserved. All information
*****************************************************************
7 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: 'N.K. Nuke Crisis Started With Aluminum Imports¡¯
> Updated Jun.5,2005 21:00 KST
after the U.S. learned that Pyongyang imported 150 tons of
aluminum tubing from Russia, enough to make 2,600 centrifuges
for use in uranium enrichment, Japan¡¯s Asahi Shimbun reported.
The paper¡¯s front page story on Sunday quoted several delegates
to six-party talks on North Korea¡¯s nuclear program, including
a former high-ranking U.S. official, as saying U.S. intelligence
authorities learned of the sale in June 2002.
The aluminum purchased from a Russian businessman is the same
that is used in aluminum tubing used in centrifuges developed by
British-German-Dutch uranium enrichment company Urenco.
The daily said Washington accused Pyongyang in talks between
high-ranking U.S. and North Korean officials in October 2002,
four months after it first learned of the sale, of planning a
uranium enrichment program, which it later said the reclusive
country admitted. This ultimately led to the collapse of the
Geneva Accords, it said.
(Jung Kwon-hyun, khjung@chosun.com )
*****************************************************************
8 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: Korea, U.S. Agree to Compromise N.Korea 'Concept Plan'
Home> National/Politics Updated Jun.5,2005 21:34 KST
Korean Defense Minister Yoon Kwang-ung holds a press
conference with U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld after
a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the Asia Security
Conference in Singapore on Saturday./Yonhap
Seoul, Washington to Talk Fresh N.K. Contingency Plans
U.S. Stealth Bombers Already Arriving
U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Visits Korea
During a meeting on the sidelines of the Asia Security
Conference in Singapore on Saturday, Korean Defense Minister
Yoon Kwang-ung and U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld agreed
to improve and develop ¡°Concept of Operations Plan (CONPLAN)
5029,¡± which includes plans for a joint response to sudden
changes in North Korea, but not to put the plan into ¡°operation
plan (OPLAN)¡± format.
The apparent compromise solution seems to have settled
differences between the allies over Seoul¡¯s decision the scrap
OPLAN 5029 at the 11th hour. A concept plan, unlike an
operational plan, includes no specific provisions for things
like deployment of military units.
The ill-fated OPLAN 5029 also started its brief life as a
concept plan covering five possible sudden changes in North
Korea, including civil war. Work on more concrete responses in
OPLAN 5029 started later, but early this year Korea¡¯s National
Security Council pulled the plug over concerns that it could
violate South Korea¡¯s sovereignty.
A Defense Ministry official on Sunday portrayed the Singapore
agreement as a sign that the U.S. is accepting Korea¡¯s
position. Rumsfeld said in a press conference his meeting with
Yoon had been an opportunity to firm up the Korea-U.S. alliance.
The defense ministries of the two nations plan to hand down
¡°strategic guidelines¡± for the improvement of the new concept
plan to the Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff and the U.S. Forces in
Korea.
Meanwhile, a high-ranking U.S. Defense Department official on
Sunday hinted Washington could soon decide to refer the North
Korean nuclear dispute to the UN Security Council. He said his
government was ¡°deeply considering¡± the matter and a decision
would be reached within the next couple of weeks.
Rumsfeld earlier drew attention with strong criticism of China
as well as North Korea when he told the meeting of the Asia
Security Conference, sponsored by Great Britain¡¯s International
Institute for Strategic Studies, that Pyongyang¡¯s nuclear
ambitions were a threat to world security.
(Jang Il-hyeon, ihjang@chosun.com )
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9 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: [EDITORIALS]A welcome agreement
June 6, 2005 KST 12:29 (GMT+9)
South Korea and the United States have agreed that the Con
Plan 5029, which is the U.S.-ROK Combined Forces Command plan to
prepare for the collapse of North Korea, will be supplemented
and developed to a point before conversion into an operational
plan in complete format.
The agreement, which was concluded in a brief meeting between
South Korean Defense Minister Yoon Kwang-ung and U.S. Secretary
of Defense Donald Rumsfeld during an Asian Defense Ministers
meeting Saturday, is a welcome sign that this issue, which had
been the subject of much controversy, can be solved if the two
parties set their differences aside.
The agreement was all the more welcome as it would help to
stabilize the Korea-U.S. alliance, damaged by the rift between
South Korea and the United States and uncertainties about its
future.
This plan in concept format would take effect in case of civil
insurgencies in North Korea, the collapse of the North Korean
regime, a massive refugee situation or other contingencies. As
such, the plan is bound to raise questions about the line
between the sovereignty of South Korea and the authority of the
U.S.-ROK Combined Forces Command that will only be mitigated by
Seoul and Washington arriving at an understanding beforehand
through scrupulous research.
It is natural and fortunate that the top defense policymakers of
the two countries have decided to establish a team to develop
this plan further. However, as the plan must include a far more
general range of contingencies than those in the U.S.-ROK
Combined Forces Command plan, it is possible that the
differences of opinion between the two sides on future military
operations will be exposed.
However, there is no need to harbor unnecessary
misunderstandings about the Korea-U.S. alliance, which has been
an important foundation of the stabilization of the Northeast
Asian region for more than 50 years. If the two sides continue
to work together under the major principle that the Korea-U.S.
alliance should be fortified and that peace and security must be
established on the Korean Peninsula, it will only be a matter of
time before the differences are settled and a new agreement is
reached.
Hopefully, this spirit and principle of cooperation will
continue in the Korea-U.S. summit meeting to be held in
Washington on Saturday and the two allies will reach a firm
consensus on resolving North Korea's nuclear program and
alleviating the fear of our people.
2005.06.05
Copyright by Joins.com, Inc. Terms of Use |
*****************************************************************
10 Xinhua: S. Korea, Japan sound off on talks
www.xinhuanet.com
www.chinaview.cn 2005-06-05 16:41:00
Beijing, June 5 -- South Korea is still hoping the DPRK will
return to six party talks on the Korean Peninsula's nuclear
issue. The message came from South Korean Minister of Defense
Yoon Kwang Ung, who also said a resolution could only be
achieved through peaceful means.
Yoon said South Korea will not tolerate a nuclear weapons
development programme by DPRK under any circumstances. He went
on to say the DPRK's return to the talks could help maintain
peace and stability in the region.
Meanwhile, Japan's Minister of State for Defense Yoshinori
Ohno called for more transparency in the DPRK's nuclear
activities. In February, the DPRK announced it possessed nuclear
weapons, and was boycotting the six-party talks.
(Source: CCTV.com)
Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved.
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11 Korea Times: NK Nuke Negotiator Gets Promotion
Hankooki.com > The Korea Times > Nation
Ri Gun, deputy chief delegate from Pyongyang to the six-party
nuclear talks, has recently gained a one-rank promotion in North
Korea¡¯s Foreign Ministry, diplomatic sources here in Seoul said
Sunday.
He was promoted from deputy director general of the ministry¡¯s
North American Affairs Department to the director general rank
several months ago, probably around the end of last year, the
government sources said.
Due to the protracted deadlock in the six-party talks,
involving the two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and
Russia, South Korean officials in charge of the nuclear talks
have not yet had an opportunity to deliver a congratulatory
message to him, they said.
They added Ri earned his promotion 10 years after rising to the
deputy director general rank. At present, Vice Foreign Minister
Kim Kye-gwan is the chief nuclear negotiator of the communist
country.
S. Korean Man Dies at Mt. Kumgang
A South Korean man on a sightseeing trip to North Korea¡¯s Mt.
Kumgang was found dead in his hotel room Sunday, his family said.
The 37-year-old man identified only as Chung, a researcher at a
think tank for South Korea¡¯s ruling Uri Party, was found
unconscious by his wife in their hotel room in the mountain
resort early Sunday morning. He was later pronounced dead at a
local hospital.
``I was awakened by some noise at around 3 a.m. and found my
husband unconscious after falling from the bed,¡¯¡¯ Chung¡¯s
wife said.
Chung and Song left Saturday for a three-day private trip to
the scenic mountain near the inter-Korean border on the east
coast. Police said that the man seems to have died of heart
failure, saying a medical investigation is under way.
Seoul Issues Travel Advisory in Philippines
SEOUL (Yonhap) -- South Korea's spy agency Sunday asked its
nationals traveling to the Philippines to exercise caution as a
growing number of terrorist acts and accidents are taking place
in the island nation.
``In Manila and Islamic-controlled places in the southern
Philippines, terrorist acts are frequently occurring, so when
traveling to the Philippines, South Koreans should refrain from
visiting crowded places, like night clubs frequented by foreign
travelers,¡¯¡¯ the National Intelligence Service (NIS) said in a
statement.
The NIS said South Koreans who travel to the southern part of
the Philippines, like Mindanao, should notify the South Korean
embassy of how they can be contacted during their journey.
This year, a total of 11 South Korean travelers and residents
were killed in shootings or other incidents in the Southeast
Asian country, the spy agency explained.
06-05-2005 18:31
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12 Korea Times: US Hopeful of N. Korea¡¯s Return to 6-Party Talks
Hankooki.com > The Korea Times
By Ryu Jin
Staff Reporter
Officials from North Korea and the United States spoke by
telephone recently, in a possible prelude to further talks
between the two antagonists, a Japanese newspaper reported on
Saturday.
Officials in Washington would not confirm the telephone
conversation but said the U.S. was ``hopeful¡¯¡¯ that the
reclusive North would return to the six-party talks aimed at
ending the nuclear impasse, the daily Mainichi Shimbun said.
Quoting diplomatic sources, the report predicted U.S. State
Department officials were likely to soon visit North Korean
diplomats at the United Nations in New York to hear from them
Pyongyang¡¯s stance on whether to rejoin the multilateral
negotiations.
A senior official in Seoul, deeply involved in the issue, kept
a more cautious attitude when asked by The Korea Times about the
news report. ``We might expect an answer soon from the North,
though it is not clear what the answer would be.¡¯¡¯
North Korea has held negotiations with the U.S. three times
with South Korea, China, Japan and Russia also taking a seat in
the six-party talks, launched in August 2003 to address the
nuclear standoff that emerged in October 2002.
But the talks have stalled since June last year as the North
has boycotted further negotiations while demanding the U.S. drop
its ``hostile¡¯¡¯ policies and engage in bilateral talks before
a new round of the multilateral talks.
U.S. and North Korean officials met for informal talks in
mid-May at the U.N. headquarters, reactivating the so-called New
York channel that has been shut down for several months since
late last year. U.S. delivered its position to the North and is
now waiting for an answer.
The telephone talks, which the Japanese paper said took place
some time before last Friday, coincided with rare praise by
Pyongyang last week for U.S. President George W. Bush, who has
earlier addressed the North¡¯s leader as ``Mr. Kim Jong-il.¡¯¡¯
Bush often called him a ``tyrant.¡¯¡¯
``We have yet to hear from the North Koreans that they will
return to the talks,¡¯¡¯ a senior U.S. official said. ``We
remain hopeful that they will return to the six-party talks.¡¯¡¯
Amid mixed prospects for the nuclear talks, however, a senior
U.S. official traveling to Singapore was quoted by news outlets
as saying that the Bush administration would make a final
decision in a matter of weeks on whether to bring the North¡¯s
case to the U.N. Security Council.
North Korea, for its part, yesterday reiterated that the U.S.
must drop its ``hostile¡¯¡¯ policy in order to resolve the
standoff peacefully. ``As long as the U.S. adheres to its
anachronistic hostile policy, a stumbling block in resolution of
the nuclear problem cannot be removed,¡¯¡¯ the state-run Minju
Joson newspaper said in a commentary.
In the meantime, Nihon Keizai Shimbun, a Japanese economic
daily, reported that China has sent a strong message to North
Korea warning it not to conduct a nuclear test, saying such a
step would be a ``red line in diplomacy.
The paper speculated that China¡¯s warning seems indicative of
unilateral sanctions if the North conducts a nuclear test.
Beijing stressed in the hard-line message that the other parties
in the six-way talks shared this stance, it said quoting
diplomatic sources.
jinryu@koreatimes.co.kr 06-05-2005 19:23
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13 Guardian Unlimited: N.Korea Again Faults U.S. Nuclear Policy
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Sunday June 5, 2005 4:16 AM
By BO-MI LIM
Associated Press Writer
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea on Sunday repeated its
demand that the United States drop what the communist nation
calls a hostile policy toward resolving the nuclear standoff,
two days after it struck what appeared to be a conciliatory tone
with the Bush administration.
The remarks Sunday with the precondition for the North's return
to talks came after Pyongyang's rare praise for President Bush
on Friday, welcoming his use of the title ``Mr.'' when referring
to leader Kim Jong Il.
``The U.S. intention is to corner our republic as a terrorist
nation and internationally isolate us,'' the North's Cabinet
newspaper Minju Joson said in a commentary carried Sunday by the
North's official Korean Central News Agency.
A Japanese newspaper reported Saturday that U.S. and North
Korean officials recently spoke by telephone and likely
discussed resuming six-nation talks aimed at ending North
Korea's nuclear weapons ambitions.
A senior Bush administration official on Saturday would not
confirm the report, but said the United States from time to time
contacts the North's U.N. representative in New York to
communicate, not to negotiate.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the Bush
administration has not heard from the North Koreans that they
will return to the talks.
North Korea, which has a history of using brinksmanship to wring
aid from the West, has stayed away from the nuclear talks since
June last year.
Efforts to resume the talks - among the two Koreas, United
States, China, Japan and Russia - gained urgency in February
when the North claimed it already had nuclear weapons. It has
since announced it has removed fuel rods from a nuclear reactor,
a step toward extracting weapons-grade plutonium.
---
Associated Press writer Deb Riechmann contributed to this report
from Crawford, Texas.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
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14 Guardian Unlimited: U.S. May Push U.N. to Punish North Korea
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Sunday June 5, 2005 3:31 PM
AP Photo XAF101
By MATT KELLEY
Associated Press Writer
BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) - The Bush administration may ask the
United Nations to punish North Korea for refusing to return to
international talks about its nuclear weapons program, Pentagon
officials say.
Such a move would signal the failure of the six-nation talks
aimed at persuading the communist country to abandon its nuclear
ambitions.
Since the discussions broke off last June, North Korea has
claimed that it possesses nuclear weapons and has rebuffed calls
to resume bargaining. The other countries involved in the talks
are China, Japan, Russia and South Korea.
At an Asian security conference in Singapore over the weekend,
U.S. and Japanese officials floated the possibility of sending
the matter to the U.N. Security Council for consideration of
economic penalties and other punishments.
North Korea has said it would interpret U.N. penalties as an act
of war. But it is not clear whether North Korea actually would
consider military action or whether the statement was just more
of the country's harsh rhetoric.
The U.S. plans to decide by month's end what to do next about
North Korea, according to a senior defense official traveling
with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the
sensitivity of the issue, said the administration was seriously
considering idea of referring the matter to the Security
Council.
Rumsfeld told reporters on his trip that U.S. policy on North
Korea is under review. He would not offer further details.
Japan's defense chief, Yoshinori Ono, said at the security
conference on Saturday that taking the issue to the United
Nations was possible if the U.S., China, Japan, Russia and South
Korea agreed that was the best option.
Rumsfeld also raised the possibility, saying the world is
threatened by North Korea's nuclear weapons.
``It would require, certainly, the United Nations to ask itself,
does it want to have a role in trying to avoid allowing the kind
of proliferation that is threatened?'' Rumsfeld said during a
question-and-answer session at the security conference.
South Korea has resisted the U.N. option, asking instead for
more time to persuade North Korea to resume negotiations.
South Korea's defense minister, Yoon Kwang-ung, repeatedly
reminded officials at the conference that his country has the
most to lose from a North Korean attack. He said he hoped for
progress when a South Korean delegation visits the North for
talks this month.
The senior U.S. defense official said the U.S. does not see much
hope for progress because North Korea has rejected the proposal
from the last round of talks and has not agreed to further
discussions.
The official said the administration is worried that North
Korea's nuclear claim this year and its rhetoric since about its
need for a nuclear deterrent are a ``downward spiral of threats
by North Korea.''
The administration is prepared to offer assurances to North
Korea that it will not be attacked. U.S. partners have dangled
economic inducements to North Korea.
U.S. officials said last month that spy satellites showed North
Korea could be preparing to test a nuclear weapon. North Korean
state media dismissed those reports as a U.S. fabrication.
Rumsfeld, who was in Thailand on Sunday, planned to meet with
the country's defense minister, Gen. Thammarak Issarangkura na
Ayudhaya. Thailand, a longtime U.S. military ally, is battling
Muslim militants in its south who have attacked military
facilities and set off bombs in civilian areas.
On Tuesday, Rumsfeld meets in Norway with the country's defense
minister, Kristin Krohn Devold. The trip concludes with a stop
in Belgium for a meeting of NATO defense ministers.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
15 3 Action/News Items: PFS, BRC, Nukes/climate
Date: Sun, 05 Jun 2005 18:12:12 -0700
June 3, 2005
Its been a busy week&.
Below are three items: 1) A letter-to-the-editor campaign to bring needed
public attention to the Private Fuel Storage high-level waste dump on
Native American land in Utah. The NRC Commissioners are expected to approve
this project very soon. Your actions now to help make this visible will
help! 2) A press release on an unexpected victory as the NRC Commissioners
voted unanimously not to proceed with their deregulation rulemaking at this
time; 3) a reminder to sign on to the Environmental Statement on Nuclear
Energy and Global Warming.
Michael Mariotte
Executive Director
Nuclear Information and Resource Service
___________________________________________________
Stop Radioactive Racism! Last chance to sign anti-PFS letter; Letter to
Editor campaign to local papers
*If your group has not yet signed onto the letter opposing PFS, go to
www.nirs.org/radwaste/scullvalley/svgoshutesgrltr3142005.htm
to review the letter and groups already signed on, then email ASAP your
personal name, title if any, group name, city and state to
kevin@nirs.org to be added to the letter.*
*Write a Letter to the Editor to your local paper. Use the fact sheets
below to compose your own letter for your local paper.
Culminating an eight year long process, the Atomic Safety and Licensing
Board (ASLB), the adjudicatory arm of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
(NRC), approved a preliminary license for Private Fuel Storage (PFS) on May
24, rejecting Utah's motion for reconsideration and paving the way for the
NRC Commissioners to consider the matter. The Commissioners are expected to
approve the project quickly, perhaps within days or weeks. PFS hopes to
open its doors to high-level radioactive waste from any commercial reactor
in the U.S. by 2007, meaning Mobile Chernobyls could begin rolling through
most states and hundreds of major population centers in less than two
years. Go to
http://www.ewg.org/reports/nuclearwaste/find_address.php
and type in your address to see how close you are to Yucca Mountain,
Nevada-bound high-level radioactive waste truck and train routes (rail
routes to PFS would be similar, even identical, throughout much of the
country).
PFS is the proposal made by eight commercial nuclear utilities to build and
operate a "temporary" commercial high-level radioactive waste dump on the
Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation in Utah. On April 4, Public Citizen
and Nuclear Information and Resource Service hosted a briefing at the
National Press Club in Washington, D.C. regarding Private Fuel Storage -
laying out the reasons why the project is unnecessary, irresponsible, and
unethical. The State of Utah made oral arguments to the ASLB the very next
day, April 5th, urging the Board to reconsider its Feb. 24th preliminary
license approval.
PFS will not reduce the risks posed by high-level radioactive waste even
temporarily. Waste will always remain on-site at operating reactors, and by
transporting it and storing it aboveground in yet another part of the
country, PFS will just make the existing problem worse. The "temporary"
nature of PFS is also questionable, as this aspect of the project is
completely dependent on the opening of Yucca Mountain, which has been beset
with problems, and may very well never open.
Public Citizen and NIRS recently published a number of fact sheets and
timelines on the problems with PFS. Please go to
http://www.citizen.org/cmep/energy_enviro_nuclear/nuclear_waste/hi-level/fuel/
for a backgrounder on PFS, explanation of why it is neither necessary or
responsible, and presentation of the reasons as to why this dump is all of
a sudden on the fast track towards approval (namely, the nuclear power
industry's need for the "illusion of a solution" to the nuclear waste
problem in order to justify the building of new reactors).
There are also two timelines related to the unethical nature of the
project, the first showing how scores of Native American tribes have been
targeted for high-level radioactive waste dumps since 1987, and the second
how the Skull Valley Goshutes in particular have come so close now to
actually being the first tribe to be dumped on. This PFS/Skull Valley
Goshutes timeline also raises significant questions about the legitimacy of
the lease agreement between the tribe and the nuclear utility consortium
comprising PFS, the supposed legal basis for the entire proposal.
Further background and history can be found at the NIRS website section
http://www.nirs.org/radwaste/scullvalley/skullvalley.htm
, and a summary fact sheet entitled "Environmental Racism, Tribal
Sovereignty, and Nuclear Waste" is at
http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/pfsejfactsheet.htm
.
The ASLB decision should soon be available on the NRC website, and in the
meantime, we have a PDF copy we can email upon request.
If we can answer any questions, please just let us know.
Together, we can and must stop this radioactive racism in its tracks!
Sincerely,
Kevin Kamps
Nuclear Information and Resource Service
kevin@nirs.org
www.nirs.org
202.328.0002 ext. 14
Committee to Bridge the Gap
Nuclear Information and Resource Service
Public Citizen
For immediate
release Contact: Daniel
Hirsch (831) 332-3099
3 June
2005
Diane DArrigo (202) 841-8588
Michele
Boyd (202) 454-5134
NRC Unanimously Rejects Atomic Waste Deregulation Rulemaking
in Surprising Victory for Environmentalists and Public
Washington, DC - By a 5-0 vote, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has
rejected a rulemaking proposal by its staff that would have permitted
radioactive waste to be dumped in municipal landfills, used in roadbeds,
and recycled into consumer products. The turnaround was all the more
remarkable because the Commissioners themselves had earlier strongly
directed staff to prepare the waste deregulation rulemaking in the first place.
Environmentalists cautiously praised the decision. The NRC
clearly backed down from this crazy idea because it recognized the
firestorm of public concern that would be triggered,said Daniel Hirsch,
President of the Los Angeles-based Committee to Bridge the Gap (CBG) that
has fought such radioactive deregulation proposals for years. The public
doesnt want radioactive waste in their local garbage dump, childrens
braces, or tools.
This is an important victory for public health and
environmental protection,stated Diane DArrigo of Nuclear Information and
Resource Service (NIRS), although possibly temporary since some
commissioners want to proceed with it AFTER new nuclear reactors are
licensed. Maybe they dont want the public to realize new nuclear reactors
means nuclear waste that could end up in our kidstoys and other everyday
items. The NRC should be on notice, however: Dont even think of trying this
again. Well remain vigilant.
In 1986 and 1990, the NRC tried a similar deregulation plan,
called Below Regulatory Concern(BRC). It would similarly have permitted
radioactive waste to go to unlicensed landfills, contaminated metals and
other materials to be recycled into consumer products, and other wastes to
avoid having to go to radioactive waste disposal facilities licensed and
designed for that purpose. The BRC Policies created widespread public
opposition, media coverage and legislation in numerous states. In 1992
Congress intervened and overturned the NRCs radioactive waste deregulation
policies.
In 2002 the Commissioners directed NRC staff to prepare a new
regulation releasing significant volumes of radioactive wastes from the
requirement that they be disposed of in licensed radioactive waste
facilities. In March 2005 the proposed regulation was sent to the
Commission for approval. Numerous environmental groups weighed in opposing
it as a revival of the discredited BRC Policy. This week, the
Commissioners unanimously rejected the proposed regulation. They did,
however, hold out the prospect of possibly reviving it at some time in the
futuretwo, five, or ten years from nowaccording to one Commissioner.
The NRC will, however, continue to release nuclear waste under its current
case-by-case exemption procedures, which are not readily open to public
notice, comment or intervention. Opposition from the public and state
officials recently forced the cancellation of shipments of reactor
decommissioning wastes to unlicensed waste sites in Idaho and Texas that
NRC staff had quietly approved using the exemption process.
While we are pleased that the Commissioners are not moving forward with
this ill-begotten proposal, we remain concerned about the so-called
case-by-casereleases that are occurring today,said Wenonah Hauter, director
of the Energy Program at Public Citizen. No releases of radioactively
contaminated materials should be allowed for reuse, recycling, or disposal
into municipal landfills. The NRC should make public information about the
releases that have occurred thus far.
This decision is a major step in the right direction but it is tempered by
the NRCs recent deregulation of nuclear materials in transport,DArrigo
continued, pointing out that NRC, with the US Department of Transportation
has approved some of the very same exemptions in the 2004 radioactive
transport regulations. NIRS, CBG and Public Citizen are among a group of
organizations now challenging the both agencies in federal court for the
transport exemptions.
# # #
____________________________________________________________
We hope every grassroots group will sign on to the following statement. To
sign on, please send your name, organization, city, state to
nirsnet@nirs.org Organizations only, please;
individuals, please call your Senators and tell them no more subsidies for
nuclear power!
Environmental Statement on Nuclear Energy and Global Warming
As national and local environmental, consumer, and safe energy
organizations, we have serious and substantive concerns about nuclear
energy. While we are committed to tackling the challenge of global
warming, we flatly reject the argument that increased investment in nuclear
capacity is an acceptable or necessary solution. Instead we can
significantly reduce global warming pollution and save consumers money by
increasing energy efficiency and shifting to clean renewable sources of energy.
For at least thirty years, the public, policymakers and private investors
have viewed nuclear power as uneconomical, unsafe, and unnecessary. As a
result no new reactors have been ordered in this country. With respect to
these serious concerns, nothing has changed. While we urgently need to
reduce our global warming emissions, nuclear power still remains the least
attractive, least economic, and least safe avenue to pursue.
*Nuclear Power is Unnecessary: We can meet our future electricity needs
and reduce global warming pollution without increasing our reliance on
nuclear energy. For example, a 2004 study by Synapse Energy Economics
found that the US could reduce carbon dioxide emissions from electricity
generation by more than 47% by 2025 compared to business as usual and meet
projected electricity demand, while saving consumers $36 billion
annually. In fact, we can do this while cutting our reliance on nuclear
power by nearly half.
The states are moving forward with clean energy solutions. Nineteen states
have passed renewable electricity standards requiring an increasing
percentage of energy to be generated by renewable energy
sources. Replicating this effort nationally would increase our ability to
reduce global warming emissions, while benefiting public health, consumers
and the environment. Several states are working to increase efficiency
standards for appliances, while many are working to reduce global warming
pollution from cars. The states are demonstrating that there is an
effective arsenal of clean energy solutions that can significantly curb our
global warming emissions; it is these ideas that we need to draw upon.
*Nuclear Power is Too Expensive: The economics of nuclear power remain so
unattractive that without additional federal subsidies, no new plants will
be built. Despite fifty years and more than $150 billion in federal and
state support, the nuclear power industry is still seemingly incapable of
building a new plant on its own. In fact, the U.S. DOEs Energy Information
Administration stated in its 2005 Annual Energy Outlook that new [nuclear]
plants are not expected to be economical.
Dominion CEO & Chairman Thomas Capps has stated that:
If you announced you were going to build a new nuclear plant, Moodys and
Standard & Poors would assuredly drop your bonds to junk status, hedge
funds would be bumping into each other trying to short your stock.
Not surprisingly, private investors have shown such disinterest in
supporting new nuclear power plants that the industry is, yet again, at the
mercy of federal handouts. Last year, Senator Domenici included extensive
federal incentives in his original energy bill, including loan guarantees
and power purchase agreements covering up to half the cost of building a
new plant, as well as clean air credits and federal lines of
credit. Despite this, Standard & Poors concluded:
Standard & Poors Ratings Services has found that an electric utility with
a nuclear exposure has weaker credit than one without and can expect to pay
more on the margin for credit. Federal support of construction costs will
do little to change that reality. Therefore, were a utility to embark on a
new or expanded nuclear endeavor, Standard & Poors would likely revisit its
rating on the utility.
Due to the lack of private investment, it is the inevitable that any new
nuclear construction will result in significant public cost to taxpayers.
Between 1950 and1998, the federal government spent 56% of the energy supply
research and development on nuclear energy, while only 11% was invested in
all renewable technologies. If the federal government is going to spend
any money on energy, those dollars should be focused on clean and safe
technologies.
*Nuclear Energy is Too Dangerous: Nuclear energy has never been safe, but
post 9-11 nuclear power plants and radioactive waste storage facilities y
have become terrorist targets as well. Al-Qaeda operatives were surveying
nuclear power plants as potential terrorist targets; in the post 9-11 world
these risks are only elevated. The National Academy of Sciences has raised
serious concerns about the safety of irradiated nuclear fuel storage
facilities from terrorist attacks in its report entitled Safety and
Security of Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage. Furthermore, protecting the fuel
from terrorists as it is moved to longer term storage facilities, if they
are ever built, will be nearly impossible.
Reactors in the U.S. are also deteriorating with age and inadequate
oversight by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission provides further reason for
concern. Just three years ago, for example, a nuclear reactor in Ohio came
within one-fifth of an inch of stainless steel from a rupture that would
have vented radioactive steam into the reactors containment building and
could have led to a meltdown.
*Nuclear Power is Too Polluting: Beyond operating concerns remains the
unsolved and disturbing issue of waste disposal. Some 95% of the
radioactivity ever generated in the US is contained in the nations civilian
high-level atomic waste. Despite almost two decades of pushing to make
Yucca Mountain in Nevada the nations high-level waste repository, it has
not been shown scientifically to be suitable to safely store the waste. The
Yucca Mountain project is further thrown into doubt by the recent
revelations of the falsification of scientific data by USGS scientists, as
well as the court ruling that found EPAs public health standards for the
site to be illegal. No country in the world has solved its nuclear waste
problem. It makes little sense to begin building new reactors when we dont
know what to do with the lethal waste from the ones we have.
*Using Nuclear Power to Address Climate Change Would Exacerbate the Problems:
Major studies, such as those by MIT, agree that using nuclear power to have
any significant effect on climate change would require building at least
1,000 new reactors worldwide. This would exacerbate all of the problems of
the technology: more terrorist targets, more cost (potentially trillions of
dollars), less safety, need for a new Yucca Mountain-sized waste site every
4 or 5 years, more proliferation of nuclear materials and technologies,
dozens of new uranium enrichment plants, and even then, a severe shortage
of uranium even within this century--while displacing the resources needed
to ensure a real solution to the climate change issue.
*Conclusion: We believe that the financial and safety risks associated
with nuclear power are so grave that nuclear power should not be a part of
any solution to address global warming. There is no need to jeopardize our
health, safety and economy with increased nuclear power when we have
cleaner, cheaper solutions to reduce global warming pollution.
*****************************************************************
16 Sacramento Bee: Opinion - Editorial: Nuclear punt -
sacbee.com
Sacbee Home Page] Sacbee: / Opinion
Nonproliferation efforts founder
Published 2:15 am PDT Saturday, June 4, 2005
B6--> Virtually everyone expected the monthlong review
conference of the 1970 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to fail.
It did, and the world is less safe as a result.
Much of last month's meeting at United Nations headquarters in
New York consisted of mutual finger pointing by the United
States on the one hand and Iran and other nuclear have-nots on
the other. The U.S. delegation wanted to put greater pressure on
Iran - and North Korea, which says it already has nuclear
weapons - to dissuade them from proceeding. But Iran, which says
its program is only for peaceful purposes, and other nuclear
have-nots accused the United States of not taking serious steps
to shrink its huge nuclear arsenal. The Bush administration
resisted on several fronts, including its refusal to embrace the
nuclear test-ban treaty and to end its plans to develop new
nuclear weapons.
By the end, no progress was made on a critical need - to make
it more difficult for non-nuclear powers to secretly develop
nuclear bombs under the guise of a peaceful program. U.S. and
European officials accuse Iran of doing that, based on Tehran's
secret, 18-year uranium enrichment program it admitted only
after Iranian dissidents produced evidence.
Some countries accuse Washington of a double standard in
calling on others to desist from developing nuclear weapons
while refusing to take serious disarmament steps. For its part,
the administration has touted its Proliferation Security
Initiative, backed by some 60 other countries, under which
cargoes suspected of containing nuclear or other contraband
weapons are intercepted. But apart from a seizure that was
followed by Libya giving up its nuclear weapons program, U.S.
officials have been vague about citing the PSI's successes.
Most troubling is that the status quo is anything but static.
With Israel, India and Pakistan armed with nukes outside the
NPT, with North Korea an avowed nuclear weapons power and with
Iran resisting pressure to cease uranium enrichment on grounds
of sovereignty, the prospect of a growing nuclear club seems
real. Japan has been deeply committed to a non-nuclear defense
strategy, but could be spooked into changing course if North
Korea continues on its current course. And other countries that
are NPT signatories - Saudi Arabia is one - want the
International Atomic Energy Agency to let them report on their
peaceful nuclear programs without any assurance they would allow
spot IAEA inspections. With such loopholes, it's no wonder the
treaty has failed to measure up to its promise.
The Bush administration's record is mixed, but not encouraging.
It has taken thousands of warheads off alert, but without
dismantling them; it says it wants to develop meaningful
nonproliferation programs, but outside the U.N. framework and
thus with no formal U.S. commitments. Even if such partial
programs achieve some success, it's not reassuring that China,
for example, is not part of the PSI nor that some countries
expect the world to simply take their word, Iran being a prime
example.
Arguably the NPT is doomed to failure - indeed, some would say
it has already failed. But if the community of nations is
serious about heading off a nuclear free-for-all that would make
an already unstable world even more so, someone must lead. And
the one country in the best position to do that without serious
risk to its own security is this one.
*****************************************************************
17 STLtoday: Lawmakers get away, courtesy of special interests
the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
By Deirdre Shesgreen
Post-Dispatch Washington Bureau
06/04/2005
WASHINGTON - On a brisk January day in 2004, Rep. Jo Ann Emerson
and her husband traded the chill winds of southern Missouri for
the warm breezes of the Hawaiian island of Kauai.
This wasn't a typical post-holiday getaway. It was an
"educational" trip, with a Washington lobby group picking up the
$13,000 tab for the Cape Girardeau congresswoman and her
labor-lawyer husband, Ron Gladney.
Current members of Congress from the bistate area and their
aides have accepted more than $1 million in free trips from
outside interest groups in the last eight years - to far-flung
destinations such as France, Israel and Italy, along with
domestic warm-weather spots like Pebble Beach, Calif., and Palm
Beach, Fla., disclosure reports show.
Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and his wife went to the Grand Cayman
Islands. Rep. Kenny Hulshof, R-Columbia, Mo., spoke at
conference on Florida's Amelia Island. Rep. William Lacy Clay
Jr., D-St. Louis, visited Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and other
cities in Brazil.
Although nonprofit think tanks and public-policy groups
sponsored some of the trips, others were paid for by special
interests with pressing business before Congress - from
Washington's most powerful pro-Israel lobby group to the nuclear
power industry to the American Association of Airport
Executives, which hosted Emerson and other lawmakers in Hawaii.
In addition to privately paid travel, lawmakers can take
government-funded trips, or dip into their campaign accounts to
pay for other jaunts.
Under House and Senate ethics rules, lobbyists can't pay for the
trips. But businesses and other interest groups can. And
lobbyists are free to join lawmakers on travel paid for by their
employers.
"There's very legitimate fact-finding educational trips that
members of Congress should participate in," said Mary Boyle, a
spokeswoman for the watchdog group Common Cause. "The concern
is, when you have some of these privately funded trips that
basically amount to corporations ... trying to buy this access
and influence."
The trips often offer a unique opportunity to bend a
congressman's ear, Boyle said. "You're out of town, you're
flying around the world with a member of Congress, you're having
dinner, you're having drinks with them, maybe you're even
sitting poolside with them. Some of these trips amount to little
more than an effort to cozy up to these guys."
Lawmakers defend their use of the perk, saying travel is an
important part of their job and the trips offer a chance to
learn firsthand about important problems or policy issues facing
the country.
During her trip to Hawaii, Emerson said, she and other lawmakers
talked with airport executives about crucial transportation
issues. And she held a meeting with Federal Aviation
Administrator Marion Blakey and the executives to discuss
homeland security.
"It's having all the people in the same room, all the airport
executives, talking about what are the challenges, especially in
homeland security, that we face today," Emerson said. But, she
added, "I will be the first one to admit that (on) that Hawaii
trip, you only have to work every morning."
In 2004, the airport association spent about $1 million lobbying
Congress and the executive branch on a wide range of issues,
from cargo security to increased funding for airports, according
to the group's lobbying disclosure reports. Emerson has sway
over funding issues, since she sits on the House Appropriations
Committee, including its homeland security panel. Jeffrey
Connor, her spokesman, said Emerson has supported some increases
in homeland security funding for airports, saying she wants to
do "what's necessary to help airports cope with new mandates"
put in place after 9/11.
"I was the roof guy"
Rep. John Shimkus, R-Collinsville, took the most expensive trip
of any local lawmaker - a $19,000 five-day journey with his
wife, Karen, to China, paid for by the U.S. Asia Foundation. His
office racked up nearly $150,000 in free travel, second only to
Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Strafford, Mo., the House majority whip, among
the members examined by the Post-Dispatch.
"There are some very credible trips that encourage learning and
are just a good experience for members to get a handle on issues
around the world," Shimkus said.
Shimkus said the China trip, taken in October 2003, wasn't a
leisurely vacation. He and his wife spent nearly three days en
route, and two days there helping to build a one-room computer
lab at a rural Chinese school.
"I was the roof guy," Shimkus said. "By the time we were done,
they had about 18 computers hooked up to the World Wide Web for
the first time."
But there was a bonus for the company helping to fund the U.S.
Asia Foundation and coordinate the trip, United Parcel Service.
UPS sent some 40 lobbyists along to work side-by-side with
Shimkus and the three other lawmakers on the project.
Shimkus said UPS' interest in China is obvious. "They're having
great growth in the Chinese market" and hope that will increase
with the 2008 Olympics.
The company's interest in Shimkus is also obvious. He sits on
the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee, which deals with a
broad range of business issues, from environmental regulations
to foreign commerce.
This trip offered a unique opportunity for "relationship
building" and a chance to tell lawmakers about UPS, said company
spokesman David Bolger.
"We want to take the opportunity, while we're nailing down
plywood with a member of Congress, to say you may not have known
this" about UPS, Bolger said. "It gives them the opportunity to
learn about us and gives us the opportunity to learn more about
them."
By the end of the building effort, he said, "It was not
Congressman (Rep. Jim) Clyburn or Congressman Shimkus. It was
Jim and John," Bolger said. (Clyburn, a Democrat from South
Carolina, was also on the trip.)
UPS spent more than $4 million in 2003 lobbying on everything
from pension reform to the energy bill, which was before
Shimkus' committee.
Shimkus said UPS officials didn't talk to him about legislation
during the China trip. And he disputed any suggestion that such
trips give lobbyists special access to him.
Noting the office hours he holds in his home district, he said,
"I probably give the public more access ... than I give
lobbyists, and that works well."
Heading to Israel
One of the most popular destinations for members of Congress is
Israel, whose decades-old conflict with the Palestinians is
front and center in American foreign policy.
An affiliate of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee,
one of Washington's most formidable lobbying forces, and other
pro-Israel groups have spent more than $70,000 sending five area
lawmakers or their aides to the region in the last eight years.
The group's Washington lobbyists often go on the trips.
The trips "provide members of Congress with the opportunity to
see firsthand the situation on the ground and to have an
incredible educational experience," said Josh Block, a spokesman
for AIPAC.
Block said the trips do not tilt toward his group's perspective.
Lawmakers are able to "form their own impressions based on
meetings" with Israeli and Palestinian politicians, academics,
journalists and others who represent "a wide variety of opinions
across the political spectrum," he said.
Blunt has been the most avid Israel traveler. He and his aides
have taken six trips, totaling more than $45,000, at the AIPAC
affiliate's expense, including one trip with his son Andrew and
another with his daughter Amy.
Blunt often hosts GOP freshman lawmakers on the trip, a role
Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., plays for Democrats.
Blunt, who plans to take freshmen on another AIPAC trip in
August, is also one of the staunchest defenders of Israel in the
House. He recommends the trip because "of all the places in the
world, the problems of the Middle East are best seen by being
there in Israel."
He acknowledged that "you do see it through (AIPAC's) eyes." But
he said he always suggests an "alternative schedule" to the one
proposed by the group that includes more meetings with
Palestinians.
More travel for the leader
Overall, Blunt's office accepted more than $300,000 in free
travel during the period, the most of any lawmaker reviewed by
the Post-Dispatch. He's gone to Boca Raton and Miami to speak to
business groups. He's also gone to less exciting destinations,
such as Maryland and West Virginia, for congressional retreats
paid for by a public-policy group.
Blunt said his tab is higher than most because of his leadership
position; he has more staff and they are involved in more
issues. Blunt also defended his use of another travel perk:
corporate jets to get to fundraisers and other events. Lawmakers
reimburse companies for such flights from their campaign
accounts, but critics say the rates never match the actual cost
and convenience.
A Washington Post analysis found that Blunt and House Majority
Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, were the top two users of corporate
jets among congressional leaders. Blunt attributed his frequent
travel to the 100 congressional districts he visited in the last
election to raise money or campaign for GOP candidates, saying
if he had to rely solely on commercial flights, it would have
taken "forever" to get to some of the GOP's rural districts.
In a Post-Dispatch interview, Blunt acknowledged the jets are
"certainly one of the more helpful things under the law that a
company can still do. (But) it's no more helpful a relationship
than the hundreds of thousands of dollars in corporate dollars
that my friend Dick Gephardt raised over the years," a reference
to the now-banned unlimited soft money contributions that the
former St. Louis County congressman raised for Democrats.
Las Vegas and Alaska
Las Vegas is a favorite domestic destination for Congress.
The draw, lawmakers say, is not the casinos but Yucca Mountain,
the proposed site to store the nation's nuclear waste. The
Nuclear Energy Institute, which supports Yucca, sponsors the
visits.
Shimkus' office alone has gotten six trips from the nuclear
industry, five to Las Vegas and one to France, Belgium and the
Netherlands.
"It was a pretty important trip for me to take since I'm in the
room and writing national energy policy with regard to nuclear
energy," Shimkus said, a reference to his seat on the energy
committee.
Shimkus said it was an efficient way for him to see the site:
after a four- or five-hour tour, he went straight back to the
airport and flew home. Shimkus has twice voted in favor of the
Yucca Mountain site.
"Having a national repository ... is not only in our national
interest but also in our local interest," Shimkus said.
"Illinois is a big nuclear state. We've got 12 nuclear plants,
and we have high-level nuclear waste spread" across the state.
Durbin got quite a different view of a controversial
environmental issue when, in August 2003, he and his son Paul
went camping in Alaska, where they trekked along the
crystal-clear Canning River in the shadow of the Brooks Range.
The Alaska Wilderness League picked up the $4,200 tab.
The area where Durbin and his son stayed - the Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge - was at the time a subject of hot Senate
debate. The Bush administration has proposed opening the refuge
to drilling - a measure Democrats such as Durbin have vehemently
opposed. In four separate votes both before and after his trip,
Durbin has opposed opening the refuge to drilling.
He said the trip allowed him to see firsthand the difference
between the protected refuge and an adjacent area opened to oil
exploration. "They took a piece of this real estate and
desecrated it," he said of the latter.
"The next time there was a debate about it in the Senate, I felt
like I had a better feeling for (the issue) than other members,"
he said. His feeling, of course, was the same one promoted by
the Alaska Wilderness League.
The senator's other destinations in recent years have included
Rome, San Juan, the Cayman Islands and Lithuania. As with the
Alaska trip, he said the other trips have enriched his
understanding of key issues and made him a more engaged
legislator.
"I believe every member of Congress should have to explain why
they don't travel at least once a year to an important place,"
Durbin said. "It's inspired me to be involved in a lot of issues
that I never would have dreamed of."
A trip to Africa, for example, spurred the Illinois Democrat to
start the Global AIDS Task Force and push for increased funding
to fight the disease. And a trip to Bangladesh got him
interested in a small loan program to help poor individuals in
Third World countries. "These trips have put a face and a story
behind some interesting public policy issues," he said. "Were it
not for travel I probably would have an interest in these things
but not a passion."
Durbin said he favors trips funded by the Aspen Institute, a
nonpartisan public policy group, because the trips allow members
to immerse themselves in an issue and they don't push a
particular political agenda.
Plus, he said, he gets to take his wife, Loretta, to nice
locales. "I have spent 23 years in this business and my wife has
paid a price for this," he said. "If I get a chance, at someone
else's expense, not the government's, to take her with me, I
jump at it."
Ed Ronco of the Post-Dispatch's Washington bureau contributed to
this report.
Reporter Deirdre Shesgreen E-mail: dshesgreen@post-dispatch.com
Phone: 202-298-6880
St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
*****************************************************************
18 Las Vegas SUN: Letter: Atomic museum omits some facts
June 03, 2005
LAS VEGAS SUN
The Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas is impressive in its
scope, but it doesn't tell the whole story. Nor is there any
opportunity to make suggestions.
There is an exhibit about ancient Shoshone culture, but no
mention that the Nevada Test Site violated the Ruby Valley
Treaty of 1863 by forcing the Test Site on native lands. Nowhere
does the exhibit honestly address the ongoing danger of
radiation that leads to cancer resulting from decades of testing.
What about the opposition to nuclear testing? This effort
continues today. Subcritical/low-yield tests are still conducted
to continue with our weapons of mass destruction program, which
we insist other nations should not develop. This is a good
position, but shouldn't we start at home?
Shame on the Smithsonian for not telling the public the whole
truth.
JOAN MONASTERO
Saugerties, N.Y.
*****************************************************************
19 WorldNetDaily: Bolton's legacy
SATURDAY JUNE 4 2005
Posted: June 4, 2005
© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com
Even if Under-Secretary of State John Bolton isn't our next
Ambassador to the United Nations, he already has a legacy. At
the recently concluded Review Conference for the Treaty on
Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, his underlings managed to
seriously undermine both the NPT and the Safeguards regime of
the International Atomic Energy Agency.
How?
By insisting that certain NPT signatories be denied – by force,
if "necessary" – their "inalienable right" under the NPT to
enjoy "without discrimination" all the peaceful benefits of
nuclear energy.
But, the NPT now requires all non-nuke signatories to subject
their "nuclear materials and activities" to the IAEA regime and
assigns to it – not to the NPT signatories, individually or
collectively – the responsibility for verifying nuclear energy
is not used for a "military purpose."
Yes, the Bush-Boltonites argue, but the IAEA is, at least,
incompetent. The Bush-Boltonites just know that Iran has had a
covert nuclear-weapons program for 20 years, and the IAEA – in
spite of being able to go anywhere, interview anyone and see
anything – hasn't been able to find it.
What to do?
Sign on to the Bush-Bolton ! Then when Bush-Bolton suspect some
country like Iran has a nuke program the IAEA can't find,
Bush-Bolton will just "take it out."
Yeah, like two years ago, when Bush-Bolton defied the U.N.
Security Council, overrode the IAEA, invaded Iraq, turned the
country upside down, went everywhere, "interviewed" everyone and
saw everything there was to see? It turned out the reason the
IAEA hadn't been able to find the Iraqi nuke program was that
there wasn't one.
The Bush-Boltonites have been insisting the IAEA Safeguarded
nuclear power plant the Russians are completing at Bushehr
should be destroyed "before it's too late."
Too late?
Nonsense.
Once the power plant goes "on-line" next year – the Iranians
would have to operate it for a year, withdraw from the NPT, kick
out the IAEA inspectors, shut down the power plant, remove the
fuel from the reactor and let it "cool off" in a "swimming pool"
for a couple of years.
Meanwhile, they would have to construct – and get "on-line" – a
plant for recovering the plutonium contained in that fuel once
it cools off.
Also, establish a research and development program for producing
a high-explosive spherical-implosion system like that employed
in Fat Man, the nuke we dropped on Nagasaki.
(Fat Man weighed about 10,000 pounds. If Iran wants to deliver
nukes by ballistic missile to Israel, Iran will have to get that
weight down to about a thousand pounds. That took us ten years.)
Maybe so, the Bush-Boltonites argue, but Iran has also been
constructing a secret underground uranium-enrichment plant at
Natanz.
As soon as they get it up and running, producing low-enriched
uranium, allegedly for power plant fuel, they will withdraw from
the NPT, kick out the IAEA inspectors, further enrich that
low-enriched uranium to weapons-grade and make gun-type nukes,
like the Little Boy the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima. "We" have to
take it out, before it's too late.
More nonsense!
It will take the Iranians five to six years to produce – subject
to IAEA Safeguards – the tens of thousands of gas-centrifuges
that now-empty, but IAEA-Safeguarded, underground plant was
meant to house. Then spend at least several more years producing
– under IAEA Safeguards – tons of IAEA-Safeguarded low-enriched
uranium. Finally, Iran will have to withdraw from the NPT, kick
out the IAEA inspectors and re-configure the gas-centrifuges to
produce a thousand pounds or so of weapons-grade highly-enriched
uranium.
In any case, Little Boy also weighed about 10,000 pounds. Even
the South African gun-type nukes weighed more than 2,000 pounds,
still too heavy to be delivered from Iran to Israel by ballistic
missile.
So, what can NPT signatories do to protect those NPT signatories
subject to the NPT-IAEA Safeguards regime from the pre-emptive
Bush-Bolton Proliferation Security Initiative?
Well, all Bush-Bolton doomsday scenarios involve the NPT
signatory kicking out the IAEA inspectors.
The original Iranian Safeguards Agreement had a clause that said
the agreement would only remain in force so long as Iran
remained a signatory to the NPT. (The North Korean agreement had
a similar clause.)
So, all the Iranians have to do to provide additional assurances
that they won't kick out the IAEA – even if the Bush-Boltonites
succeed in destroying the NPT – is to have that clause removed.
The NPT doesn't require them, so all such clauses should be
removed. Then NPT withdrawal wouldn't affect the authority of
the IAEA to verify compliance with Safeguards Agreements and to
report "non-compliance" to the U.N. Security Council for
possible punitive action.
Physicist James Gordon Prather has served as a policy
implementing official for national security-related technical
matters in the Federal Energy Agency, the Energy Research and
Development Administration, the Department of Energy, the Office
of the Secretary of Defense and the Department of the Army. Dr.
Prather also served as legislative assistant for national
security affairs to U.S. Sen. Henry Bellmon, R-Okla. -- ranking
member of the Senate Budget Committee and member of the Senate
Energy Committee and Appropriations Committee. Dr. Prather had
earlier worked as a nuclear weapons physicist at Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory in California and Sandia National
Laboratory in New Mexico.
[WorldNetDaily.com]
*****************************************************************
20 Guardian Unlimited: McNamara attacks UK nuclear policy
Richard Norton-Taylor
Saturday June 4, 2005
The Guardian
Robert McNamara, the US defence secretary at the time of the
Cuban missile crisis, yesterday described the British and
American approach towards nuclear weapons as "immoral, illegal
and militarily unnecessary".
It was "very, very dangerous and destructive of the
non-proliferation regime which has served us so well", he added.
Though he was reluctant to appear to be telling the Blair
government what to do, Mr McNamara made clear he was referring to
the British position on nuclear weapons as well as that of the
Bush administration.
"Neither the UK nor the US should develop new nuclear weapons
capabilities," he said, referring to a successor to the Trident
missile system de ployed by Britain and the US. Mr McNamara was
speaking at a press conference organised by the Pugwash group,
which includes nuclear scientists and campaigns against nuclear
weapons. He is to appear at the Guardian Hay literary festival
tomorrow.
The dangers and threats surrounding the 1962 Cuban missile
crisis were similar to those which exist today, he said. About
2,000 US strategic nuclear weapons are on hair-trigger alert,
ready to be fired in 15 minutes.
Iraq had shown that the consequences of military action were
unpredictable and intelligence was imperfect, Mr McNamara said.
But Cuba had already demonstrated that. It was 29 years before
it became known that the Soviet Union had 1,700 nuclear warheads
on Cuba.
Email comments for publication to:
politics.editor@guardianunlimited.co.uk
[UP]
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
21 Why Iran Needs Nuclear Power: Hidden Facts
Date: Sat, 4 Jun 2005 19:36:48 -0500 (CDT)
Facts the grab-oil-via-war crowd don't want you to know:
1) Iran Oil production has already peaked:
"It may be a surprise to some policy analysts supplying deep thoughts
for Great Game 2 strategists that Iran, which was the 'Persia' in
the Anglo-Persian Oil Co. of the 1920s and later became BP (by the late
1990s it had given itself the nickname Beyond Petroleum), is an oil
exporter a long way past its peak production capacity. This was
attained in 1978, only 8 years after the USA attained its ultimate peak
of oil production."
2) Iran faces massive domestic energy demand growth:
Why Iran Needs Nuclear Power: Hidden Facts
Date: Sat, 4 Jun 2005 19:36:48 -0500 (CDT)
Facts the grab-oil-via-war crowd don't want you to know:
1) Iran Oil production has already peaked:
"It may be a surprise to some policy analysts supplying deep thoughts
for Great Game 2 strategists that Iran, which was the 'Persia' in
the Anglo-Persian Oil Co. of the 1920s and later became BP (by the late
1990s it had given itself the nickname Beyond Petroleum), is an oil
exporter a long way past its peak production capacity. This was
attained in 1978, only 8 years after the USA attained its ultimate peak
of oil production."
2) Iran faces massive domestic energy demand growth:
"Iran's national or domestic demand continues to grow with population
and economic growth, and, after China, Iran has the fastest-growing car
fleet in Asia."
3) Iran may need to import oil in the not to distant future:
"Domestic demand is so strong, and Iran's oil production is so far
past its peak that by 2008-2011 (see above), it will likely cease to
have any exportable surplus of oil, and will become an importer
country."
4) The author suggests Iran can use natural gas to oil conversion.
This is very true, however, the massive natural gas needed
just to keep its oil going for the next 5 or so years (natural
gas, is injected to keep oil pressure up) is something
we have posted about in the last 6 months on usenet...so
natural gas, sorry, will not save Iran
Footnote: of course, we do
not think nuclear power is the best solution...massive renewables
and conservation are the best answer...however it is not
only arrogance but madness to think it would be even workable
to say some countries are allowed nuclear power and others are not,
and, worse, instead of spending billions helping the third
world get massive wind and solar technology upgrades, our 'leaders'
prefer to spend tens to hundreds of billions on bombing
the rest of the world, instead
5) Peaceful use of nuclear energy to help power Iran
is not some new invention of the current not-in-love-with-Washington
Iran government...it goes back to the puppet kissing-washington's-rear
Shah days of Iran:
"Even before the overthrow of Shah Pahlavi by the Khomenei-led
revolution of 1979, the country's oil discovery/production indicators
showed that Iran was heading towards that day -- then a long way in the
future -- when it would cease to export oil.
"One consequence was the entirely 'classic' economic decision for a
program to develop civil nuclear power for electricity production.
http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=3D37070
= = = =
STILL FEELING LIKE THE MAINSTREAM U.S. CORPORATE MEDIA
IS GIVING A FULL HONEST PICTURE OF WHAT'S GOING ON?
= = = =
Daily online radio show, news reporting: www.DemocracyNow.org
More news: UseNet's misc.activism.progressive (moderated)
= = = =
Sorry, we cannot read/reply to most usenet posts but welcome email
FOR MORE INFORMATION: http://EconomicDemocracy.org/wtc/ (peace)
http://economicdemocracy.org/eco/climate-summary.html (Climate)
And http://EconomicDemocracy.org/ (general)
** ANTI-SPAM NOTE: For EMAIL "info" and "map" DON'T work. Email to
** m-a-i-l-m-a-i-l (without the dashes)at economicdemocracy.org instead
*****************************************************************
22 Why Iran Needs Nuclear Power: Hidden Facts, part II
Date: Sat, 4 Jun 2005 19:48:19 -0500 (CDT)
The above are interesting and certainly are part of the answer,
perhaps most of the answer. Personally I think at least part of the
answer is one I have not heard elsewhere: most people talk about worry
that Iran might want nuclear weapons and pretend they 'only' want
nuclear power; no one has pointed out the (to me) obvious possibility
that they want nuclear power and for their own protection need to have
'deliberate ambiguity' to deter a US attack. After all Bush attacked
Iraq, not North Korea.
Therefore, Iran, far from "pretending they don't have,
when they do/want to have" nuclear weapons, might instead
need to be "pretending they DO or COULD have nuclear weapons, when in
fact they don't"
Why Iran Needs Nuclear Power: Hidden Facts, part II
Date: Sat, 4 Jun 2005 19:48:19 -0500 (CDT)
The above are interesting and certainly are part of the answer,
perhaps most of the answer. Personally I think at least part of the
answer is one I have not heard elsewhere: most people talk about worry
that Iran might want nuclear weapons and pretend they 'only' want
nuclear power; no one has pointed out the (to me) obvious possibility
that they want nuclear power and for their own protection need to have
'deliberate ambiguity' to deter a US attack. After all Bush attacked
Iraq, not North Korea.
Therefore, Iran, far from "pretending they don't have,
when they do/want to have" nuclear weapons, might instead
need to be "pretending they DO or COULD have nuclear weapons, when in
fact they don't"
For their own protection they can't lie and say "we have nukes" since
that would be too much hay for Washington, but for their own
protection, too, they want SOME ambiguity and thus don't want to
convince the world with utter 100% certainty that they DON'T have
nuclear weapons (or ability to make same on short notice), thus they
may be doing the opposite of what they are accused of: making it look,
at least a little bit, closer to nuclear weapons ready, than the
reality, instead of making it look like less nuclear weapons ready
than the reality.
The earlier article above, shows why Iran damn well does have good
reasons for wanting new energy despite "all that oil"..but the
comments just given now may be another dimension, one 99% of
commentators are blind to not because they are less intelligent but
because of ideological blinders or the need to stay "publishable"
within mainstream media.
= = = =
STILL FEELING LIKE THE MAINSTREAM U.S. CORPORATE MEDIA
IS GIVING A FULL HONEST PICTURE OF WHAT'S GOING ON?
= = = =
Daily online radio show, news reporting: www.DemocracyNow.org
More news: UseNet's misc.activism.progressive (moderated)
= = = =
Sorry, we cannot read/reply to most usenet posts but welcome email
FOR MORE INFORMATION: http://EconomicDemocracy.org/wtc/ (peace)
http://economicdemocracy.org/eco/climate-summary.html (Climate)
And http://EconomicDemocracy.org/ (general)
** ANTI-SPAM NOTE: For EMAIL "info" and "map" DON'T work. Email to
** m-a-i-l-m-a-i-l (without the dashes)at economicdemocracy.org instead
*****************************************************************
23 The Hindu: India readies itself for quantum jump in nuclear power
Sunday, June 5, 2005 : 2200 Hrs
Hyderabad, June 5.(UNI): Amid its first 500 MWe reactor under
construction at Kalpakkam, India is looking at its Fast Breeder
Reactors (FBRs) to give the "quantum jump" to its nuclear power
generation as it has a potential to generate 500,000
megawatts(MWe) of electricity, Atomic Energy Commission (AEC)
Chairman Anil Kakodkar indicated today.
India has Fast Breeder Test Reactor of 40 MWth at Kalpakkam in
Tamilnadu and construction is underway for the country's first
500 MWe Reactor there.
The design of Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor is in advanced
stage and it is likely to be commissioned in 2010-2011.
This forms the second stage of India's three-staged nuclear
energy programme drafted targetting generation of 20,000 MWe of
electricity by 2020, the AEC Chairman said during his
interaction with the media on the sidelines of the 14th National
Symposium on Environment which began at Osmania University here.
The thrust of the first stage of the "20000 MWe by 2020"
programme is on Pressurised Heavy Water Reactor (PHWRs) to
generate 10,000 MWe.
Currently India has fourteen reactors in operation and eight
other reactors under construction.
The total capacity of the operating PHWRs reactors is about 2800
MWe which will be increased to 4500 MWe by 2008.
En route India has recently commissioned its first large size
PHWR of 540 MWe capacity upgrading from the earlier 220 MWe
capacity PHWR at Tarapur, Kota, Kalpakkam, Narora, Kakrapar and
Kaiga.
Design is underway for 700 MWe PHWR.
The second stage with FBRs is to provide atleast 5000 MWe though
the potential is estimated at five lakh MWe from FBRs.
In the third stage reactors will be based on large scale
utilisation of U-233 which will be produced at Stage-Two (from
FBRs). Work is on in designing the 3000 MWe Advanced Heavy Water
Reactor to use Thorium, he added.
Copyright © 2005, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of
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24 Times of India: Nuclear energy is unsafe, uneconomical-
COUNTERVIEW
A SRINIVAS
[ MONDAY, JUNE 06, 2005 12:16:14 AM ]
Two decades after Chernobyl, nuclear energy is making a
stealthy comeback. The reasons for that are not far to seek. As
a carbon-free fuel, it can sidestep the Kyoto Protocol that
obliges member countries to clean up their act by reducing
carbon emissions. Nuclear power producers, India included, can
pile up tradable carbon credits against their name. No wonder,
Indian and global spin doctors are back in action, peddling the
clean technology argument.
Chernobyl, we are told, will not happen because of the
technological advancements that have taken place since then.
It is another matter that India picked up Soviet technology
within years of the disaster. Are we then to believe that
nuclear power suddenly poses fewer dangers? There is still no
clean method of dealing with radioactive waste, which stays
toxic for generations. Besides, the plant conditions of Indian
reactors do not inspire confidence.
Former chairman of the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board A
Gopalakrishnan, soon after retirement in 1996, spilled the beans
on appalling safety conditions in India's antiquated nuclear
plants. That a Chernobyl has not occurred in India is a miracle.
In a country where Bhopal happened despite early warnings, can
we afford to be complacent? What's worse, nuclear energy, unlike
thermal or hydel, is shrouded in awe and state secrecy. As a
result, minor accidents never come to light.
Nuclear power, which accounts for just 3 percent of our power
output, is not efficiently generated either. The average plant
capacity utilisation is less than 40 percent. Besides, plant
operations have to be heavily subsidised. All this hardly points
to nuclear power being the energy of the future. Instead of
sinking crores in it, the government should invest those sums in
micro technology, solar and wind power. If it pursues the
nuclear option, it would only be helping a dying, discredited
industry.
Copyright © 2005 Times Internet Limited. All rights reserved.
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25 The Hindu: 4th reactor of Tarapore synchronised
Monday, Jun 06, 2005
T.S. Subramanian
Power generation to be stepped up to 270 MWe shortly
+ "Reactor's systems behaving perfectly"
+ Now generating 110 MWe of capacity 540 MWe
+ Eight more reactors under construction
CHENNAI: The fourth nuclear power reactor of the Tarapur Atomic
Power Station (TAPS) in Maharashtra was synchronised to the
State grid at 11.25 p.m. on Saturday. It was generating 110 MWe
of its capacity of 540 MWe. In a day or two, its generation is
expected to go up to 270 MWe. TAPS-4 is the largest power unit
of any type in the country and it reached criticality on March 6
last year.
TAPS is situated on the edge of the Arabian Sea near Tarapur in
Thane district of Maharashtra. S.K. Jain, Chairman and Managing
Director, Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL),
said from Mumbai that "the reactor's systems are behaving
perfectly all right and we have got clearance from the AERB
[Atomic Energy Regulatory Board] to go up to 50 per cent of the
capacity." In other words, the AERB, which is entrusted with
maintaining safety in nuclear power stations in the country, has
authorised the NPCIL to raise the power generation of TAPS-4 to
270 MWe.
"We have taken the machine to 110 MWe to see whether it has
stabilised. In a day or two, we will go to 270 MWe. Then we will
receive the results on the performance of the systems of the
reactor, which will demonstrate the safety of the reactor," Mr.
Jain said. The grid should not fail when the unit's power
generation is stepped up to 270 MWe. The reactor will generate
270 MWe for a week. After the AERB gives its clearance, "we will
slowly raise the power generation to the full power of 540 MWe,"
Mr. Jain said. Later, the unit would sell the electricity to
other States.
"All the systems of the reactor are behaving better than we
expected. It shows the maturity of our Pressurised Heavy Water
Reactors (PHWRS)." TAPS-4 is a PHWR that uses natural uranium as
fuel, and heavy water as both moderator and coolant. The Nuclear
Fuel Complex in Hyderabad manufactures the fuel rods of natural
uranium. There are several plants in the country which
manufacture heavy water. The construction of the third reactor
of the TAPS, which will also generate 540 MWe, is nearing
completion. It will be commissioned early next year.
TAPS-4 was commissioned ahead of TAPS-3. The original cost of
construction of both was Rs. 8,000 crores but they were built at
a cost of Rs. 6,000 crores. So the electricity generated from
the two units, which was to be sold to States in the western
region for Rs.3.50 a unit, would be sold at Rs. 2.65 a unit.
While Maharashtra will receive the major share of power, Madhya
Pradesh, Gujarat, Goa, Daman and Diu will also receive
electricity from TAPS-3 and 4. The Centre will also allot power
to deficit States. Fifteen nuclear power reactors are operational
in the country, which together generate about 3,270 MWe. Eight
reactors are under construction.
Copyright © 2005, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of
*****************************************************************
26 RIA Novosti: Putin establishes September 28 as the Nuclear Power Industry Day
MOSCOW, June 5 (RIA Novosti) - Russian President Vladimir Putin
signed a decree On the Nuclear Power Industry Day, announced the
Kremlin press service on Sunday. The decree establishes a new
professional holiday - the Nuclear Industry Day set for
September 28.
The nuclear power industry in Russia is one of the key
industries providing energy stability of the state. With the
power production rate of more than 2% annually, the industry is
facing the task of increasing the supply of electric power by 8
billion kWh per year and the supply of heat by up to 1.5 million
Gcal per year.
According to the Energy Strategy of Russia, even with a moderate
development of the economy, the demand for electric power
produced by nuclear power plants in 2020 will constitute not
less than 230 billion kWh.
The potential growth of electric power production at nuclear
power plants is based on the development of the domestic nuclear
power complex, which consists of a number of designer bureaus,
the industry capable of supplying it with necessary equipment
and materials, and a large group of professional experts.
A year ago, the nuclear power industry in Russia celebrated its
50th anniversary. June 28, 2004, marked the 50th anniversary of
the launch of the first nuclear power plant in the world, the
Obninsk NPP (80 kilometers south-west of Moscow)
© 2005 "RIA Novosti"
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27 adn.com: Galena nuclear plan gets a boost
Anchorage Daily News: Alaska's Newspaper
POWER: Legislature OK'd money to study feasibility of an energy
plant in Galena.
By MATT VOLZ
The Associated Press
Published: June 4th, 2005 Last Modified: June 5th, 2005 at 02:39
JUNEAU -- Galena officials' idea to bring nuclear power to the
residents of their isolated Yukon River community took a step
forward when the state Legislature approved $500,000 as part of
the capital budget to study the plan.
City manager Marvin Yoder, in San Diego on Friday for the
American Nuclear Society's annual meeting, said the state money
will be used to conduct a series of 90-day studies to see
whether it could work.
"We think there are some real general questions to be answered
before this can be considered for Alaska," Yoder said. "We are
going to hire the right scientific people to answer these
questions."
Among the questions Galena and Toshiba Corp., the corporate
backer developing the 10-megawatt plant, will attempt to answer
are what would happen to the reactor core after its 30-year
life, what the safety issues would be and what would be
necessary to guard it, Yoder said.
Critics previously have said they were not sure how nuclear
reactors would be affected by the extreme climate of Alaska.
Because of Galena's inaccessibility and the necessity to ship
diesel fuel by barge, residents pay from 20 cents to $1 per
kilowatt hour, while the national average is less than 9 cents.
With nuclear power, residents could pay a third of what they now
pay to power their homes, Yoder said.
If it's feasible in Galena, nuclear power could be used to lower
energy costs throughout rural Alaska, state lawmakers said.
"Nuclear power is something folks might frown on, but it's
self-contained," said House Speaker John Harris, R-Valdez. "It
has a lot of potential for areas" that have high fuel costs.
Harris and Senate President Ben Stevens, R-Anchorage, supported
the studies and pushed to include the $500,000 appropriation in
next year's capital budget.
"The amount of money we spend on fuel in rural Alaska is
staggering, and it gets more and more expensive every year,"
Stevens said.
Many questions will have to be answered, Stevens said, such as
how the plant would be regulated and what its security
requirements would be.
Several Democratic lawmakers, when contacted Friday, said they
were unfamiliar with the proposal and declined to comment.
Galena's representatives, Sen. Albert Kookesh, D-Angoon, and
Rep. Woodie Salmon, D-Beaver, could not be reached Friday.
The capital budget has yet to be transmitted to Gov. Frank
Murkowski, but his staff already is reviewing the appropriations
in it, said spokeswoman Becky Hultberg. She indicated Murkowski
would not be inclined to veto the Galena study.
"Governor Murkowski believes that affordable energy is critical
to ensuring economic development in rural Alaska," she said. "He
will be evaluating the Galena appropriation with that in mind."
Yoder and Toshiba representatives are scheduled to hold a panel
discussion on the proposal Monday at the American Nuclear
Society meeting. He said all the key players will be at the
meeting.
By Tuesday, he said, "we'll have a real plan of attack on this."
© Copyright 2005, The Anchorage Daily News, a subsidiary of The
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28 PTI: Nuclear energy important component of India's energy basket - PM
June 4, 2005 08:14:00 PM
Mumbai, Jun 4 (PTI) Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today said
nuclear energy is an important component of country's overall
energy basket and "we can not allow energy constraints to retard
our economic and social growth."
"India would like to participate in all initiatives which will
accelerate the use of atomic energy for providing greater energy
security to a world, which is today faced with uncertain
supplies or environmental consequences of unrestrained growth of
traditional sources of energy," he said while addressing BARC
scientists and engineers.
Singh emphasised that "to ensure our energy securites in the
future, we must recognise that nuclear energy is an important
component as it is a clean energy." Singh, accompanied by
National Security Advisor M K Narayanan and Minister of State
Prithvi Raj, said "India's nuclear programme has reached global
standards of excellence and our scientific and technological
achievements have given us will and confidence to explore
enhanced interactions and exchanges with the outside world."
Emphasising that "artificial barriers and technology denial
regimes are an anachronism in this age of globalisation and they
must be progressively dismantled", he said, given our scientific
credentials, we can add value to international efforts through
cooperative endeavours. PTI
© Copyright PTI 2003-2004
Sansui Software Pvt. Ltd.
*****************************************************************
29 AU ABC: Nuclear power a threat to Qld economy - Beattie.
05/06/2005. ABC News Online
Queensland Premier Peter Beattie has rejected suggestions
Australia may need to consider developing a nuclear power
industry.
Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson has reportedly called for
debate on the issue, saying high emission coal-fired power
stations are impacting on the environment.
Mr Beattie says that with 300 years supply of coal in
Queensland, the state's economy would be undermined if there
were a move away from it.
"The big challenge for us is to ensure that we develop clean
coal technologies, which is what we are working on now," he said.
"It's a gasification process - that's the answer to dealing
with global warming, not nuclear power.
"Why would you go down the road of bringing in another source
of energy like nuclear power, which does have long-term problems
and long-term risks?"
© 2005 ABC| Privacy Policy
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30 english.eastday.com: Nuclear safety lab set up
4/6/2005 9:13
Shanghai Daily news
France and China have jointly established a laboratory in the
city to study nuclear power generation safety, officials said
yesterday at a seminar on nuclear energy for civilian use.
The financial details were not disclosed, however.
The country plans to nearly triple its nuclear generating
capacity by 2020.
"China considers France a very important partner to realize its
advancement of nuclear generation technology," said Zheng
Mingguang, vice president of Shanghai Nuclear Engineering
Research and Design Institute.
Established in April, the Severe Accident Management Laboratory
is co-run by the institute and the French Atomic Energy
Commission.
Zheng said laboratory researchers, including those from France,
will concentrate on preventing potential radioactive risks. They
will also try to resolve ways to safely remove residual heat - a
by-product created during nuclear power generation, which if not
treated properly could lead to pollution of underground water.
Zheng said French researchers are expected to provide a computer
database that will allow the calculation of potential risks in
nuclear power generation.
The nuclear generating system adopted by France is called the
Europe Pressurized Reactor - which, depending on its four backup
systems, can significantly improve the country's nuclear
generating power safety level, scientists said.
There are no nuclear reactors in the city, but some equipment
and technologies needed to build them have been invented by
local scientists, insiders said.
According to a central government plan, China expects to almost
triple its current nuclear power generation capacity. It hopes
nuclear power will account for 4 percent of total power output
by 2020.
It is estimated the country needs 28 nuclear reactors to achieve
the goal. The cost could exceed US$40 billion.
France and the United States are the most competitive potential
suppliers of nuclear reactors.
By taking part in the laboratory project, France may improve its
prospects of winning future contracts with China.
*****************************************************************
31 Bellona: Financial difficulties hinder repairs and upgrade of Russian
strategic nuclear submarines
Difficulties with the financing of defence orders hinder the
upgrade program of the Delta-IV strategic nuclear submarines in
Severodvinsk.
2005-06-03 20:22
The program originally stipulated to finish the repairs by 2007,
but is likely to be postponed due to the unstable money
transfers from the defence ministry, Interfax reported referring
to a source at Zvezdochka shipyard.
The sea trials of K-114 Tula submarine were scheduled for spring
but delays with delivery of the new sonar system led to another
postponement. Meanwhile the commander of the submarine prolonged
the sponsorship agreement of city Tula for the submarine’s crew.
The mayor of Tula promised to send working and sport clothes to
the submariners as well as a minibus. In exchange, every year
Tula submarine receives conscripts from the sister-city. The
submarine commander also promised to invite representatives from
Tula when the submarine is back in operation after the overhaul
in October 2005. The upgrade of K-114 will allow the submarine
to operate 10 years more. The project 667 Tula, Delta-IV, was
built at the Sevmash plant in 1987 K-114 sub is one of the last
Soviet built subs. Sevmash built it in 1987. Tula got its name
in 1995 together with the sponsorship from the city of Tula.
The biggest difficulties are with K-117 Bryansk, which is
underfinanced and could be hardly finished even in 2007. K-18
Karelia, where president Putin drank seawater and became a
submariner, also lacks financing. No repair works at all were
carried out at the presidential Delta-IV.
Earlier Zvezdochka shipyard has successfully repaired Verhoturye
and Ekaterinburg, the subs of the same class, Interfax reported.
Publisher: Bellona Foundation, President: Frederic Hauge
Information: info@bellona.no, Technical contact:
webmaster@bellona.no
Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62 * P.O.Box
2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway
*****************************************************************
32 L.A. Daily News: Radiation detectors to protect ports
Article Published: Saturday, June 04, 2005 -
Homeland chief says three devices will be used to screen cargo
containers
By Felix Sanchez, Staff Writer
SAN PEDRO — Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said
Friday that radiation detectors will be in place by January 2006
to help guard the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles from
nuclear weapons and so-called "dirty bombs."
Chertoff, who spoke after touring the two ports by Coast Guard
boat, said three detectors will help screen incoming cargo
containers.
"We can take the appropriate steps to intercept a threat,"
Chertoff said. "The ultimate objective is to get complete
coverage of all our maritime ports … and airports."
Although the new technology will fall short of offering "total
protection," Chertoff added, "layers of technology and people
(will) give us as close to 100 percent as is humanly possible."
The L.A.-Long Beach ports, the nation's busiest, won't be the
first to use anti-terrorism technology. The 20-foot high devices
known as radiation portal monitors are in place in the harbors
of Jersey City, N.J., and Oakland.
More than 4.3 million cargo containers enter the ports of Long
Beach and L.A. every year, and officials have long considered
the giant boxes potential terrorist targets.
The screeners, which cost $250,000 each and will be federally
funded, take about five seconds to screen each container,
officials said.
"They basically detect radiation emitted from inside the
containers, so they don't need to open the containers up,"
Chertoff said. "They can read inside the cargo without slowing
up the process."
He earlier met with emergency crews who are working in the
aftermath of landslides in Laguna Beach and with Rep.
Christopher Cox, R-Newport Beach, who was nominated this week to
serve as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
During Friday's tour, Chertoff met with Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger, U.S. Reps. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Huntington Beach,
Jane Harman, D-El Segundo, Los Angeles Mayor-elect Antonio
Villaraigosa and outgoing Mayor Jim Hahn.
Under the plan for radiation screening at the ports, trucks
carrying containers unloaded from ships will pass through the
detectors. If the machines find signs of radiation, the
container will get another scan and possibly inspection by
hand-held devices to help identify how much and what kind of
radiation is present.
The machines look for plutonium and highly enriched uranium,
according to federal officials.
Union officials representing port workers criticized the
measure, saying some cargo containers linger on the docks for
hours or days before being placed onto trucks and might not be
checked right away.
"We think it's hypocritical that they don't screen it
immediately after it's unloaded," said Miguel Lopez, port
representative of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
"It puts everybody in jeopardy, not just the truckers," he said.
Chertoff began his two-day Southern California visit Thursday
by taking a first look at security measures at Los Angeles
International Airport. He said passengers using LAX should feel
"comfortable' with the security in place.
The Associated Press and City News Service contributed to this
report.
Copyright © 2005 Los Angeles Daily News
*****************************************************************
33 [du-list] Fw: BBC File On 4 radio interview set on DU, will be
Date: Sun, 05 Jun 2005 18:13:12 -0700
This excellent program on DU will be rebroadcast on 8 June
Downloaded from www.bbc.co.uk/radio4
BRITISH BROADCASTING CORPORATION RADIO 4
TRANSCRIPT OF "FILE ON 4"
CURRENT AFFAIRS GROUP
TRANSMISSION: Tuesday 3rd June 2003 2000 - 2040
REPEAT: Sunday 8th June 2003 1700 - 1740
REPORTER: Jenny Cuffe
PRODUCER: Gregor Stewart
EDITOR: David Ross
PROGRAMME NUMBER: 03VY3022LHO
THE ATTACHED TRANSCRIPT WAS TYPED FROM A RECORDING AND NOT COPIED FROM AN
ORIGINAL SCRIPT. BECAUSE OF THE RISK OF MISHEARING AND THE DIFFICULTY IN
SOME CASES OF IDENTIFYING INDIVIDUAL SPEAKERS, THE BBC CANNOT VOUCH FOR ITS
COMPLETE ACCURACY.
"FILE ON 4"
Transmission: Tuesday 3rd June 2003
Repeat: Sunday 8th June 2003
Producer: Gregor Stewart
Reporter: Jenny Cuffe
Editor: David Ross
EXTRACT FROM SIX O'CLOCK BBC TV NEWS BULLETIN, 28th May 2003
NEWSREADER: Well as Tony Blair was arriving in the Gulf, the helicopter
carrier, HMS Ocean, was arriving home after its tour of duty in the region.
Hundreds of wellwishers packed the jetty at Devonport naval base in Plymouth
to welcome the crew back.
CUFFE: Last week, another batch of troops returned from Iraq after a
conflict which has once again shown the crushing superiority of American and
British fire-power. The allies made extensive use of weapons containing
depleted uranium - a toxic and radioactive material that's been the subject
of heated controversy since its use in the first Gulf War.
In File on 4, we report on new scientific research, which suggests it may be
more harmful than the military is prepared to admit. Faced with increasing
public concern, the MOD is offering a medical test to those who think
they've been exposed to DU on the battlefield. But will the test provide the
reassurance veterans seek? And who'll protect the people of Iraq and other
recent theatres of war?
SIGNATURE TUNE
BEACH: Depleted uranium is a dense, tough, heavy metal which - for weapons
purposes - is 20% better at penetrating an armoured target like a
tank.
CUFFE: General Sir Hugh Beach helped introduce depleted uranium, or DU, into
the British armoury.
BEACH: There is one other feature of depleted uranium, which in point of
fact makes it extremely effective, and that is it is what is known as
pyrophoric, which means to say that when it hits armour and goes through it,
produces a cloud of particles which spontaneously ignite in the air and so
you get a great heat flash which then of course, generally speaking, kills
the people inside the tank anyway, which is an advantage.
CUFFE: But the cloud of particles released on impact contain a hidden
danger. Depleted uranium is radioactive as well as toxic - a by-product of
the nuclear industry. And since its use in the first Gulf War of 1991,
there's been growing concern that it could do long-term harm to those who
breathe it in. In information published this year, the MOD sets out how
troops will be protected from DU on the battlefield. It says:
READER IN STUDIO: Appropriate safety instructions have been issued to those
who have been deployed.
CUFFE: 'The Safety Guidance and Procedures to UK Armed Forces and MOD
Civilians' was produced by the MOD's Gulf Veterans' Illnesses Unit.
It warns:
READER IN STUDIO: The main DU hazard is inhalation of particulate material
formed during a fire or explosion, or an impact or when DU is damaged.
Anything which prevents particulate material being inhaled - for example
wearing a respirator or dust mask - or redistributed - for example working
in wet conditions - reduces the risk.
CUFFE: But File On 4 has learned that some troops were never told about DU
and never given any safety instructions. Alan Hopkins is recently back from
Iraq where he served in Basra as a member of the Territorial Army. He was
called up in February and underwent basic training with his platoon of 2nd
Battalion Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. He says the risk from
DU munitions didn't even get a mention. Out in the field, Alan Hopkins was
in a team recovering Iraqi tanks that had come under fire. None of them was
given any protective clothing. And when he questioned his commanding
officers about this, he says they couldn't tell him what the official
policy was.
HOPKINS: When you start dragging the tanks out, there's a lot of dust
getting kicked up, and the knowledge I did have of DU, I know that it itself
is in a dust form. You know DU is getting used out there, you start to
think, 'Well is this normal desert dust or DU dust?' This is where you
start asking yourself the questions, then put it to your superiors,
hopefully for them to find out. Unfortunately they didn't. There was four
crews in my platoon. One of the crews was half way through dragging an
Iraqi tank out when a German TV crew pulled up to them and said, 'You do
realise we've just tested that for DU contamination?' Then they told them
it was positive. And also a British medical colonel pulled up to one of the
crews and started jumping up and down saying, 'Who's told you to move that?
None of them have been cleared.' And yet this is halfway into our operation
of clearing the Iraqi tanks.
CUFFE: So how did the crews react to that news?
HOPKINS: They were obviously very concerned and raised these points when
they got back, and once again no information came back down apart from 'Put
your name on the list and we'll get you tested when you get home.'
CUFFE: It was only when he got back home that he realised what protection he
should have got from the MOD. According to these safety guidelines, you
should have been wearing a respirator or a dust mask. Were you at any time
issued with those?
HOPKINS: No, and the first time I saw those instructions was when I looked
at the web site today.
CUFFE: And it says that after work in a contaminated area, all your outer
clothing should be stored in a plastic bag until laundering or disposal
among non-radioactive waste.
HOPKINS: Nothing happened like that at all, absolutely nothing. When I was
getting de-mobilised, I requested to see a doctor and raised my concerns
with him that I may have been contaminated with DU. Basically he didn't know
what DU was when I mentioned it, it just says DU. And all he did was read
out an A4 sheet of paper what the current policy was - you put your name on
the list and you'll get tested as and when we get round to it.
CUFFE: So how confident do you feel that you are being properly protected by
the MOD?
HOPKINS: I don't feel confident at all. They don't seem to show the sense of
urgency that I would like when it's my health. Not happy at all.
CUFFE: The Defence Minister responsible for veterans' affairs is Dr Lewis
Moonie. How does he respond to Alan Hopkins' concerns?
MOONIE: Anybody who was definitely going into situations where depleted
uranium was either being used or had been fired will have been given the
briefing and will know what to do.
CUFFE: Well, he was a member of the Royal Mechanical and Electrical
Engineers and he was clearing Iraqi tanks.
MOONIE: Well, in that case I do not believe that he hasn't had the briefing.
Everybody in that regiment has.
CUFFE: So you dispute his word?
MOONIE: I do dispute his word, yes.
CUFFE: This is a soldier who has been out in the field. He says that at no
time did he or any of the others get instructions about wearing protective
clothing - in fact they didn't even have protective clothing to wear.
MOONIE: I'm quite sure that if he wishes to raise this with the Ministry or
with those responsible, the matter will be dealt with. Everybody, but
everybody is given the briefing on how to deal with it.
CUFFE: The lack of protection was an issue back in the first Gulf War but
you'd think that after twelve years this would have been sorted out and
there wouldn't be any disputes.
MOONIE: As I have said to you, and at the risk of sounding boring, clear
instructions have been given. They have been issued in writing to every
soldier who's gone out there. Dust masks are available - if not, then they
can use an even higher level of protection, which is the respirator mask,
which every soldier has been issued with. There is no excuse for anybody
going into an Iraqi tank which has been struck by depleted uranium, not
properly protected.
CUFFE: So should he take this matter up with you?
MOONIE: He should certainly take it up with his superiors and I'll be taking
it up with his regiment as well, to find out the truth of the matter.
CUFFE: For the first time, the MOD is offering a test to anyone who's
worried about exposure to depleted uranium.
ACTUALITY ON AIR BASE
CUFFE: Wattisham Air Base in Suffolk is home of the Army Air Corps and the 7
Air Assault Battalion of Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. A
thousand troops from this base were deployed in Iraq and many of them are
now safely back home. Casualties were light, but experience from previous
conflicts suggests there may be long-lasting effects. As well as
confronting Saddam Hussein's forces, many of these men and women are likely
to have been exposed to DU.
CURRY: Captain Ballard?
BALLARD: I've just recently got back from Iraq and before we left theatre we
got a DU testing card, and I thought I'd come into the medical centre and
ask if I can possibly have one of these tests.
CUFFE: Captain Phil Ballard is leaving the army in a few weeks' time and he
wants to be sure nothing about his service in the Gulf comes back to haunt
him.
BALLARD: We spent most of our time down in Southern Iraq in the Ramala oil
fields. Due to my skills, I can speak Arabic, and I was used as an
interpreter quite often.
CUFFE: So why have you come for this test, and why are you interested
particularly in depleted uranium?
BALLARD: Out there I've been in the vicinity of some Iraqi vehicles possibly
struck by DU ammunition. We'd go in and actually have a look at the Iraqi
position that was destroyed. Quite often it would be a dug-in tank position
or artillery position. Some were smouldering, some were just completely
burnt out. I thought it best to come and get it checked out.
CUFFE: The Captain's the first in his regiment to ask for the test, but his
doctor Lieutenant Colonel Ian Curry says he's sure more will follow.
CURRY: Depleted uranium is something you can't see, can't taste, can't feel,
can't touch. I think there's a very rational fear of the unknown. None of
them have been exposed by virtue of being hit by a DU munition. I would
imagine that a good proportion of them would have been in the area where
the possibility of DU rounds being used exists. So, taking a precautionary
view, then one must assume that potentially most of them may have walked
past a hulk that may have had DU used on it. It is possible that the
majority of them will have been exposed.
CUFFE: And what test are you offering exactly?
CURRY: The test that I - via the MOD - is offering is a urine test for total
body uranium. And if any soldier has an abnormally high level of total body
uranium, then they will be called back for subsequent testing to assess the
different amounts of the different isotopes or types of uranium that they
have in their body.
CUFFE: The MOD's announcement that returning troops would be tested was
welcomed by Malcolm Hooper - professor of medicine at Sunderland
University - who advises Gulf War veterans. He sits on the Government's DU
Oversight Board, a committee of scientists and officials from the MoD and
British Legion. But when Professor Hooper learned that the initial test was
for uranium, and that only those showing high levels would be given a more
sensitive test to identify depleted uranium, he was furious. In his view,
there will be soldiers with potential contamination who'll be missed.
HOOPER: I want the assurance that they're going to be looking at depleted
uranium and not uranium on this false assumption that if uranium exposure is
going to cause long-term damage then it will be only if there are high
levels being excreted in the urine. That is a false assumption. It's an
invalid assumption. Uranium testing is not going to discover depleted
uranium.
CUFFE: Our understanding is that the Ministry of Defence is setting a
threshold, so they're testing for uranium. If there is a quantity that is
above a certain threshold then they will go on and look for depleted
uranium.
HOOPER: Yes.
CUFFE: Is that not a perfectly legitimate and cost-effective approach?
HOOPER: It's not an approach that's valid scientifically. If we're concerned
about depleted uranium, you have to measure depleted uranium. So any idea
of a cutoff point is really just sticking your finger in the air and
thinking of a number. And it's not good enough. It's just avoiding doing
good science, and I think we need to do good science.
CUFFE: Professor Hooper is at odds with Defence Minister Lewis Moonie.
MOONIE: Well, I'm afraid that this is scientific illiteracy. There is no
difference chemically whatsoever between depleted uranium and ordinary
uranium. Ask any competent scientist in the country and they will tell you
that.
CUFFE: Does that mean that you've put incompetent scientists on your DU
Oversight Board?
MOONIE: I have put representatives of the veterans and various veterans'
committees on who are not scientists and who frankly from what you've said
just now don't know what they're talking about. I've said this to them
repeatedly, time and time again. There is no difference chemically between
the two. If you test for uranium in the first instance as a gross test,
you're testing also for depleted uranium. If the gross test for uranium is
positive then you can do the isotope tests that you need for depleted
uranium afterwards.
CUFFE: But with so much controversy around the levels of exposure, wouldn't
it be better just to test straightaway for depleted uranium, and then you'd
finish the arguments once and for all?
MOONIE: I doubt very much if we'd finish the arguments once and for all:
you're talking about people who are arguing for the sake of it now. If
anybody is exposed to uranium in such a way as to produce physical effects
then it will show up in the tests that we're offering them.
CUFFE: But it's not quite as clear-cut as the Minister suggests. Among
scientists on the DU Oversight Board, there's heated debate about the level
of radiation exposure needed to cause harm. On impact, a DU shell sends
microscopic ceramic particles into the air. These are insoluble and can
lodge in body tissue, especially in the lungs, where they continue emitting
low-level radiation for years to come. Professor Hooper's argument is that
you don't need many of them to suffer irreparable damage, and people who've
been contaminated won't necessarily have high quantities in their urine. He
wants a broad range of military personnel to be tested - not just
volunteers worried by maximum exposure.
HOOPER: In the Minister's words, I don't see how he can make any sweeping
assertion that if you are not excreting large quantities of uranium, you're
not at risk and we don't need to look for depleted uranium. That is a
statement that is not valid and is being challenged within the Board very
actively. The debate has been about who will be exposed to depleted
uranium? The answer is that we don't really know, because you can't make
statements about the possibility of contamination, particularly with the
very tiny particles, very fine particles of depleted uranium dust which blow
about all over the place, so that
anybody could be contaminated. It's a lottery.
CUFFE: The DU Oversight Board includes members of the MOD and you would
think that there was a full and frank discussion between you about what was
now taking place.
HOOPER: Well this is what has disappointed me particularly. We've actually
established all the ground rules and we had in fact come to a place of
considerable agreement about how to go ahead. But if we don't do that we're
going to be in serious trouble and we'll just be back to a dogfight about
the meaning of the data and the quality of the data - things that we've
already taken care of.
CUFFE: One certainty in the mist of scientific argument is that there's a
lot we don't know about depleted uranium. Professor Brian Spratt sits on
the Oversight Board, but he's also chair of the Royal Society's DU Working
Party. They've looked at all the research so far and decided that there's
an increased risk of lung cancer, but only for those who've been exposed to
high levels. But Professor Spratt says more work needs to be done.
SPRATT: We've also been pushing the MOD to try and do a rather broader
survey of soldiers on the battlefield to try and get a much better idea of
the intakes of DU that occur across the battlefield, because we really need
that information to understand about exposures to DU on the battlefield. And
I think they are listening to us.
CUFFE: Listening, but they haven't agreed to take action?
SPRATT: I'm getting positive noises that they may take, say, a tank regiment
who are likely to have some of the heaviest exposures and may do some DU
tests on those.
CUFFE: And is the MOD sharing its methodology with you?
SPRATT: We have had some views on the tests that they're going to do, but we
haven't heard in any great detail.
CUFFE: Internationally, there's growing concern about depleted uranium, as
veterans from previous conflicts report mystery illnesses. Two years ago,
several European leaders called on NATO to remove DU from its arsenal, after
it was reported that eight Italian peacekeepers in the Balkans had since
died from leukaemia. The US government tried to reassure them by pointing
to a study of about 60 veterans of the first Gulf War who'd been wounded
with DU shrapnel and whose health was being monitored.
EXTRACT FROM US PILOT ACTUALITY ON TEN O'CLOCK BBC TV NEWS BULLETIN
21st August 2002
MAN 1: . just killed a bunch of people you know.
MAN 2: Yeah, but we don't know which ones they are.
MAN 3: Friendlies, they were US people.
CUFFE: 104 US soldiers were inside vehicles when they were struck by DU
shells in so called friendly fire. There's no greater exposure to DU than
that. One of them was Jerry Wheat from New Mexico.
WHEAT: I was a scout for 47 . out of the Third Armoured Division. In March
of 91 we went up against the Terracotta division of the Republican Guard,
and my vehicle was hit with a tank round. It had knocked me out, it had
knocked my helmet off, and when I came to, the vehicle was filled with
smoke, my body was kind of burning up because it had blown a fireball when
the round had penetrated. And after taking off again, the vehicle was struck
again with another round. And when the second round went through, I was hit
with about 25 pieces of shrapnel. So I had shrapnel in my head, second and
third degree burns, and then shrapnel all down my back.
CUFFE: After being patched up in the field hospital, he was sent back to the
battlefield.
WHEAT: When I did return back to my unit, my vehicle still ran so I was
still driving that vehicle for a good three, four days afterwards. All the
gear was covered with almost like a talcum powder. I pretty much lived in
that vehicle for those three, four days - ate off that vehicle, I slept in
that vehicle, I inhaled the dust. We had no idea that we could have been
exposed to DU.
CUFFE: Jerry Wheat only discovered that it was DU when his father, a Los
Alamos lab technician, removed one of the pieces of shrapnel. Since then his
health has been regularly monitored by the US Department of Veterans'
Affairs, as part of its research study. But according to Dan Fahey, a legal
expert who advises US veterans, the study's findings havebeen deliberately
misrepresented by the US Government.
FAHEY: Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the US study is that Pentagon
spokesmen have actually lied about the health of veterans in the study and
have claimed falsely that there have been no cancer cases, and most recently
that there have been no tumours among the veterans in the study. Now in
2001, when there was a large controversy in Europe over the use of depleted
uranium in the Balkans, Dr Kilpatrick, who is the Pentagon's main spokesman
on depleted uranium issues, was sent to Europe and he gave a press briefing
in Brussels at which he stated very clearly, 'We have seen no cancers among
the veterans in our study,' and he therefore used that assertion to claim to
the press in Europe that if we haven't seen cancers among our vets, then
there's nothing really for you to worry about.
But we now know that there had, in fact, been a cancer case among those
veterans. More recently there has been a story coming out of Baghdad in
which a US military medical doctor has claimed there have been no tumours,
and in fact I know there's been a tumour because at least one veteran who
has had a tumour is a friend of mine, and he's been in a study since 1993,
so sometimes they lie and other times they're very carefully choosing their
words. But the overall theme that's coming out is that the Department of
Defence is willing to misrepresent the health of veterans in the United
States study in order to achieve a political goal of downplaying public
concern about depleted uranium weapons.
CUFFE: The veteran whose tumour was not reported in the study was Jerry
Wheat.
WHEAT: I had a tumour that had developed in my left arm, and when they
removed it I had asked that it was to be sent to the lab in Canada so that I
could get a second opinion on it, but that didn't happen because they got
rid of it. Then they're saying that the tumour could have been there since
birth and it wasn't related to anything, in any way related to the depleted
uranium.
CUFFE: Couldn't you have got that tumour earlier, as they suggested?
WHEAT: It didn't start bothering me until four years after the Gulf War,
which is about the time it would have taken to develop. If they would have
sent the tumour off to a private lab like I had asked, I would have known
for sure.
CUFFE: He's now worried about a pain in his right arm and is having further
medical tests. Dr Michael Kilpatrick is the Pentagon's spokesman on DU, who
was sent to reassure European leaders. He now concedes that some of the
veterans have had health problems. You've said that there have been no
cancers among the veterans in that study. It's also been reported that
there are no tumours. Is that still the case?
KILPATRICK: Well, no. Dr McDermott in late 2002 in a report described one of
her new arrivals into the study as having Hodgkin's Lymphoma. There is now
one in her series who were involved in friendly fire who has a cancer, a
Hodgkin's Lymphoma.
CUFFE: It's also been said that there have been no tumours, but in actual
fact we have spoken to a veteran in the study who has developed a bone
tumour.
KILPATRICK: The word tumour is one from a medical standpoint that means any
sort of growth, and that could be anything from a fatty lipoma to a cancer,
and one would expect that there would be incidences of cancers over time in
any population that you follow. We believe that it is important to follow
them over time, because we just don't have enough in the medical literature
to be able to have any conclusion of is there a health effect.
CUFFE: So really it's too soon for people to be drawing any conclusions from
your shrapnel study about the potential health effects of DU?
KILPATRICK: Well, I think that from that study, when we do not see any
really large number of any sort of medical condition, that is comforting,
but it is not something that you can say we can close our mind and close the
book on depleted uranium. We must keep an open mind and continue to follow
these individuals over time.
CUFFE: It is not just the US military who have relied on the shrapnel study
to support their contention that no veteran has suffered serious ill health
as a result of DU radiation. The Royal Society quotes it. So too does the
MOD's chief medical adviser, Sir Keith O'Nions.
O'NIONS: There are no clear health effects that are attributable to depleted
uranium, even within the US set of those individuals that have uranium
shrapnel embedded in their bodies. That is getting fairly close to facts,
which are extremely important.That's really what we're trying to get at.
CUFFE: That shrapnel study in the US looked at only sixty veterans. It says
that there are no cancers as a result, and yet in fact there are two cases
of ill health that could be attributed to depleted uranium.
O'NIONS: Well, I think the details of the tests and the observations on
American veterans is up to the US to talk to you about.
CUFFE: Well of course, but I mean you draw on it as part of your approach to
depleted uranium and your understanding of depleted uranium, and therefore
obviously it is important that we get the facts straight about it.
O'NIONS: I mean, I'm simply unable - not only unable, unwilling - to comment
on the details of that because I don't have the details of those things in
front of me.
CUFFE: But if you, in a sense, rely on that study, aren't you worried that
perhaps its credibility has been thrown into question?
O'NIONS: Well we rely on a very large number of studies, and we rely very
greatly on independent assessments of a very large amount of data.
CUFFE: Both the MOD and the US Department of Defence have consistently said
that there's no reliable evidence linking health effects to depleted
uranium. But important new research funded by the US Government shows for
the first time how DU might cause cancer. It was carried out by Dr Alexandra
Miller of the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute in Maryland. She
has found direct evidence that radiation from DU damages
chromosomes within cells, and that the radiological and toxic effects of DU
may combine to cause cancer.
MILLER: What I wanted to find out is whether or not the exposure to the
cells from depleted uranium would lead the cells to exhibit what's called
genomic instability.Now genomic instability is a persistent and
transmissible instability from a cell that was irradiated to future
generations of offspring cells that are not irradiated or not exposed to the
initial metal or the radiation. And the finding was that we could induce
this type of instability in the offspring cells.
CUFFE: Does that mean that the cell is damaged in some way, and does that
equate to cancer?
MILLER: The data, in other model systems, in vivo and in human studies, has
not yet shown that there is a direct link between genomic instability and
carcinogenesis or cancer development. There is within the scientific
community theories that genomic instability in general is associated with
recarcinogenesis stages. In theory there is a link between instability and
the process of carcinogenesis.
CUFFE: Dr Miller's research was a test tube study, but a German scientist
has been examining blood taken from sixteen war veterans and a civilian
control group. The veterans' chromosomes showed a significant increase in
particular aberrations associated with exposure to ionising radiation.
ACTUALITY OF JUSTIN HARVEY WITH HIS FIANCEE
HARVEY: Is there 53 of these?
FIANCEE: Yes, I think so.
CUFFE: One of the veterans in the study is Justin Harvey, now 31 and getting
married in two weeks time. Sorting out the guests' buttonholes
is a welcome distraction from his ailments.
HARVEY: That's one job less for the wedding day, isn't it?
FIANCEE: And you've paid for it, haven't you?
HARVEY: Yes, it's all paid for now.
CUFFE: Justin was 18 when he served in the Royal Armoured Corps in the Gulf.
He was in the reconnaissance unit, identifying enemy positions and bringing
down air strikes or artillery, moving in and out of areas where tanks were
still smouldering. Back home he became so ill he had to be pensioned out of
the army, and he now suffers from osteoporosis, a bone condition normally
associated with older people. His generation of veterans have been left
to find out for themselves if they've been contaminated with DU.
HARVEY: Out of sheer frustration, myself and other veterans, we instigated
going abroad and getting tests done, because the MOD weren't interested in
doing any testing at that time.
CUFFE: So you sent away to the Canadian laboratory, and it said?
HARVEY: That I'd actually been internally contaminated with depleted
uranium, and I agreed to travel to Berlin and another test was done. The
test came back with chromosomal aberrations, which I understand is damage at
a cellular level. It could lead to further health problems. There is some
concern about the prospect of having children. That could well be affected
by my service in the Gulf.
CUFFE: The scientist who carried out the research is Albrecht Schott of the
World Depleted Uranium Centre in Berlin. Although it's only a pilot study
and needs to be extended, he says it raises concerns about the long term
health effects of those who've been exposed to DU.
SCHOTT: The alpha radiation breaks the chromosomes and sometimes the cell
makes mistakes in repairing, and so you get false chromosomes.
CUFFE: What is the long term effect of those?
SCHOTT: The chromosomes are the genetic substance. The uranium also damages
sperm and eggs and this leads to the congenital damage to babies.
CUFFE: If exposure leads to congenital abnormalities and cancers, you'd
expect to be seeing that now, twelve years from the first Gulf War. The MOD
points to an epidemiological study of mortality and morbidity rates among a
sample of veterans compared to a control group, which shows no overall
increase in cancer. But Malcolm Hooper, Professor of Medicine at Sunderland
University, says the published research requires closer scrutiny.
HOOPER: The only handle we've got on the health of Gulf War veterans from
the centre is a cancer registry, and the mortality studies have shown that
overall, between the comparison group of soldiers who didn't go and those
who did, that the mortality rates are roughly comparable. But if you start
breaking down the figures, you begin to find some very important
differences. The cancer rates in both groups are similar. But when you look
at the type of cancer, you come up with things like, in the Gulf War
veterans a significant excess of lymphomas, which is what you'd expect from
radiation, and we know that lymphoma is associated with this because we have
a study on the Italian Cohort of Peacemakers in Kosovo who have come back
with something like eight times the rate of lymphoma of their comparison
group. The mortality figures on their own can be easily used to make a case
that all is well, there's nothing particularly different. When you start
looking at the detail you begin to see that there are significant things
that are different, and the mortality is just a gross figure and it's got to
be unpacked to get key information about what's going on in the health of
these guys.
CUFFE: The study, published in Hansard in July last year, showed that
between 1991 and 2002, 14 Gulf veterans died from cancer of the bone,
compared to 8 in the control group, and 19 died from lymphatic cancers,
compared to 11 controls. But Sir Keith O'Nions, the MOD's chief medical
officer, insists that it's the total cancer rate that's important.
O'NIONS: The overall conclusion from the Royal Society concerning that study
and a variety of other studies is that there is no clear excess of cancers
related to exposure to depleted uranium.
CUFFE: And yet it ignores the findings that there is an increase in cancers
involving the lymph system and the bone.
O'NIONS: I don't think it's ignoring anything. It's basically taking into
account all of the conclusions and claims that have been reached and putting
their peer scientific judgement as to what are the clear statements that can
confidently be made on the basis of it. That's rather different from just
saying things that you could say that might be true. I think it's the job of
independent peer groups to tell the public what you can say confidently on
the basis of the research that's taken place, and their views are quite
clear.
CUFFE: And can't you confidently say on the basis of that research that
there is an increase in malignancy of the lymph and lymphatic system and the
bone?
O'NIONS: There is no clear correlation between exposure to DU and those
excesses of those cancers. That's clear in the epidemiological studies and
the view of the Royal Society.
EXTRACT FROM 10 o'clock NEWS ON BBC TV, 21st March 2003
REPORTER: It was shocking and it was awesome. Tonight, this new phase of the
air war smashed into the heart of Baghdad.
CUFFE: Cities like Baghdad and Basra are now littered with the debris of
war, and internationally there's growing concern about the safety of
civilians. After the first Gulf War, doctors in the south of the country
reported an alarming increase in cancers and children born with
abnormalities, though the US and British governments have dismissed any link
to DU. Alan Hopkins, the TA soldier now home from service in Basra, thinks
the people of Iraq need protection.
HOPKINS: A lot of the tanks were placed in civilian locations by the Iraqis,
greatening the risk of contamination to the local population as well. You
see a lot of the small children out there, they're very innocent, they go
climbing over anything and touching things, as British children do. There's
got to be future risk there as well for them.
CUFFE: And when you say those tanks are in civilian areas, I mean, how close
to houses?
HOPKINS: You're looking 10, 15 metres some of them, sort of parked in
someone's driveway. Very very close.
CUFFE: The UN says protecting the Iraqi population from accidental exposure
to DU should be a priority, but first it needs information from the allies
about where the munitions were used. Professor Brian Spratt of the Royal
Society is also calling for action.
SPRATT: We're very concerned, and so is the United Nations' environmental
programme, that DU penetrators should not be left lying around, particularly
in residential areas, and there should be clean up. That's one thing that
needs
to be done.
CUFFE: And as far as you know, are there any plans to do that?
SPRATT: The answer to that is we don't really know. We believe from talks
with the MOD that they have sealed off the tanks in the areas where they
control, but we have at the moment no indications that the Americans are
going to give us the data on where DU was used, and particularly important,
where it was used in residential areas where mothers, children as well as
soldiers might be exposed.
CUFFE: The Pentagon spokesman, Michael Kilpatrick, says he can't give any
information yet about the amount of depleted uranium that was used or where
it fell.
KILPATRICK: We certainly do agree with the United Nations' environmental
programme that it is very important to get in and to be able to assess what
are the health risks. We do agree with the United Nations that picking up
any of the penetrators that are on the surface of the ground is important.
CUFFE: It's essential to know where they are. The UN is wanting to go in and
look at those areas and seal them off. When will you give them the
information that's needed?
KILPATRICK: Well again, I think that this is going to be very dependent on
the situation and the war and when we are able to safely have people come in
to do that, it'll be important. Where depleted uranium was used has been
recorded and will be made available.
CUFFE: But why can't you do that now? You don't need to be safe on the
ground, surely, in order to give that information to the UN?
KILPATRICK: Well again, this is more than just a Department of Defence
interaction, and it certainly is an interaction with the United States and
the United Nations, and that process is underway, there are dialogues and
discussions being held as we are sitting here talking.
CUFFE: After the conflict in Kosovo, it took the UN 18 months to get NATO to
say where they'd used DU weapons. It was too late then to cordon off areas
and protect civilians, but it meant they could monitor the soil and ground
water. They detected radioactivity, but said the only serious risk was if
people got contaminated soil on their hands and then transferred it to
their mouth. The European Parliament has called for a moratorium on the use
of depleted uranium munitions. A UN sub-commission on human rights has
declared them illegal because they cause indiscriminate harm. But Britain's
Defence Minister, Lewis Moonie, is adamant they're the best weapons for the
job.
MOONIE: There is no question of these weapons being illegal, nor has that
ever been suggested to my knowledge by the UN or by anybody else. We will
carry on using depleted uranium until we have an effective alternative. The
purpose of using a weapon like this is to ensure that the enemy are killed
and destroyed and our people are not, and that is my primary duty as a
Defence Minister.
CUFFE: The UN sub-commission on human rights has suggested that these
weapons are illegal because they cause indiscriminate suffering.
MOONIE: I'm afraid this is again, you're talking about scientific
illiterates here. They do not cause indiscriminate suffering. They knock a
hole in a tank, they kill or injure the crew inside, and they prevent that
tank from destroying our own. I will use a weapon like this, to which there
are no legal objections whatsoever, and I will use it whenever possible to
ensure that my people exit battle as far as possible unscathed.
CUFFE: While the government continues to hold firm, the latest scientific
research does raise further questions about the safety of DU. This conflict
in Iraq presents an opportunity for more detailed study. But the
controversy over the MOD's tests and the Pentagon's delay in giving
information about where the munitions were used won't reassure those
looking for definitive answers.
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34 Deseret News: Southern Utah cancer clinic aiding downwinders
[deseretnews.com]
Sunday, June 5, 2005
Screenings offered to those exposed to nuclear testing
By Nancy Perkins Deseret Morning News
ST. GEORGE — Oncology nurse Becky Barlow knows the numbers by
heart, and they aren't pretty.
Among the cancer facts she has memorized are the
estimated 40,000 area residents exposed to radiation from
above-ground nuclear weapons tests at the Nevada Test Site
during the 1950s and 1960s.
Another fact: About 8,000 local residents have received
information about the federal government's Radiation Exposure
Compensation Act, with RECA applications provided to about 440
people.
As director of the Radiation Exposure Screening and
Education Program at Dixie Regional Medical Center, Barlow keeps
the tallies many people don't want to talk about.
Since opening the RESEP clinic on March 10, 2004, Barlow
said 878 patients have been seen. Two-thirds of them have been
referred for follow-up visits or for further screenings, she
said. A clinic at Valley View Medical Center in Cedar City is
also accepting appointments.
"The most commonly discovered cancers diagnosed at the
clinic are breast, prostate, skin and precancerous polyps in the
colon," said Barlow, who is a firm believer in the clinic's push
for early detection.
"We are glad to have had such a great response and want
to hammer home the point that when dealing with cancer, early
detection is the key," she said, pointing out there are some
good numbers hidden among the bad.
Several dozen people showed up to a public meeting at the
hospital this past week to learn more about the RESEP clinic and
to hear from Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, about his efforts to
stop the push toward resumed nuclear weapons tests.
"These new nuclear weapons are designed to be offensive,
to be used in the early stages of a conflict," Matheson said
during a question-and-answer period. "I think we can go after
those deeply embedded bunkers without using nuclear weapons."
Those attending the meeting couldn't agree more. A
tearful Michelle Thomas thanked Matheson for his stance against
renewed nuclear tests.
"I've been to Washington, D.C., before and I find there
are people there who kind of wish these downwinders would just
fly off this planet and go away," said Thomas. "That way they
could do whatever they want to do. I'm so grateful to this
congressman. He has never turned his back on us once, not ever."
Several people said the federal government knew at the
time of the nuclear tests that the bombs would release radiation
into the air.
"My husband gathered milk samples for the government
after each test. He died of lymphoma," said one woman. "I think
that's another indication that people knew something was up."
Another woman said she attended the University of Utah in
1963 and she frequently saw "do not drink the milk" notices
posted.
Numerous studies have proved that radiation fallout
spreads globally, Matheson said.
"I commissioned a study on fallout, and it turns out that
some counties had more fallout than Washington County," he said.
"I think the government should admit fault. If it involves a
heavily populated county, so be it."
Compensation under RECA is limited to five different
categories of claimants, according to an information pamphlet.
Uranium miners, uranium millers, ore transporters, downwinders
and on-site participants qualify if they lived in an affected
area during a specific point in time.
The RESEP clinic provides education and medical
screenings of those who were exposed, Barlow said.
"Whether they come to RESEP or to their own primary care
physician for these yearly cancer screenings, the important
thing is that they go somewhere, " she said. "Downwinder
patients are at a higher risk for certain cancers. They can't
change the exposure risk, but they can be proactive about
screening and early detection. This does save lives."
To learn more about the RESEP clinics in St. George or
Cedar City, or to find out more about RECA, call the clinic at
435-688-5990.
E-mail: nperkins@desnews.com
© 2005 Deseret News Publishing Company
*****************************************************************
35 Quincy Herald-Whig: Cancer Hot Spots
Sunday, June 5, 2005
Leiwstown's Bill TenEyck, right, battled colon cancer in 1975.
Seventeen years later, he was diagnosed with skin cancer. Just
this past December he was diagnosed with leiomyosarcoma, a tumor
of smooth muscle that invaded the bone in his left leg. Dr. Gene
Childress practices medicine in Lewistown and believes
radioactive fallout from nuclear weapons testing in Nevada from
1951 to 1962 could be the culprit for the high number of cancer
cases, like TenEyck, in Northeast Missouri.
LEWISTOWN, Mo. — Bill TenEyck is battling cancer for the third
time.
First, in 1975, it was colon cancer. Seventeen years later, he
was diagnosed with a form of skin cancer. He learned this past
December he had leiomyosarcoma, a tumor of smooth muscle that
invaded the bone in his left leg.
"It's slowed things down. I can't do much," says TenEyck, 56, a
former industrial arts teacher who would much rather be hunting
or fishing than sitting idly in his Lewistown home.
"I'm just hoping it did some good," he says of his radiation and
chemotherapy treatments.
TenEyck talks matter-of-factly about his cancer. Perhaps it's
because the disease is all too familiar to him, and not just
because he's gone through treatments three times.
Cancer seems to run in the family.
Both parents, his sister and aunt all had cancer, and each one
of them battled different types of the disease.
TenEyck doesn't think much about why so many of his family
members have been diagnosed with cancer, or why so many other
people he knows in Northeast Missouri have had cancer.
However, Dr. Gene Childress has a theory.
Childress, who practices at Quincy Medical Group's Lewistown
affiliate, believes radioactive fallout from nuclear weapons
testing in Nevada from 1951 to 1962 could be the culprit.
"I'm not saying I'm right ... but prove me wrong," Childress
says. "We have an inordinate number of cancers for a reason."
Map shows fallout patterns.
Hot spots in Knox,
Lewis counties
Childress has been trying to determine the reason for the area's
high cancer rates for decades. He particularly has noted high
rates of colorectal and breast cancer in his practice.
About 10 years ago, he began communicating with Richard Miller,
who has done extensive research about nuclear fallout and the
potential cancer link. In 2000, Miller published "The U.S. Atlas
of Nuclear Fallout 1951-1962," which strengthened Childress'
belief that a link between fallout and cancer exists across the
nation.
The atlas correlates fallout levels with cancer levels, county
by county across the U.S.
Miller's research shows hot spots were all across the country,
not only for iodine-131, which is linked to thyroid cancer, but
for a variety of other radionuclides and radioisotopes
associated with fallout.
In a letter to Childress in 2001, Miller said that Knox and
Lewis counties — as well as much of northern Missouri — were
exposed to significant levels of nuclear fallout in 1952 and
1962.
Miller's book shows that Knox and Lewis counties received more
fallout than any other county in the nation after a June 1,
1952, nuclear weapons test called Tumbler-Snapper George. The
atlas says the blast deposited fallout on 2,937 counties, 95
percent of the total counties in the U.S., ranking it third
among the above ground tests for widespread fallout.
In addition to Knox and Lewis, other Northeast Missouri counties
also were ranked fairly high on the list regarding fallout from
that blast, as was Adams County in Illinois.
How could the nuclear debris travel that far?
"When a bomb explodes, it has a mushroom effect," Childress
said, adding that the path of the debris from the blast depends
on weather conditions. Wind can carry the debris, and when it
rains the debris goes directly into the ground.
"That contaminates the food chain," he said. "The cows eat the
grass, and we drink the milk."
People also could have eaten vegetables from their gardens that
were contaminated by the radioactive fallout.
"I want the populace to know if you resided in this area from
1951 to 1962, ignore the existing guidelines for screening and
screen earlier," Childress said.
He says individuals whose parents lived in the nuclear fallout
hot spots also should consider being screened for cancers
earlier than guidelines advise because of the potential for a
genetic defect to be passed on to children.
For example, Childress says he has treated a 56-year old man and
his 54-year-old wife, who both would have been children in Lewis
County during the nuclear testing. The man had to have his
thyroid removed, and his wife has a thyroid goiter. Their
25-year-old daughter also had to have her thyroid removed, and
their youngest daughter has thyroid disease.
"I believe fallout to be the factor," Childress said.
Doctors urge caution
Diane Lay, administrator at the Lewis County Health Department,
doesn't feel comfortable speculating about causes of cancer in
the county, but appreciates Childress' efforts.
"I don't have any theories personally," she said. "I'm glad
we've got someone in our community looking into it. If we ever
get to a cause, it would be valuable information. It breaks your
heart when you deal with all the cancer patients in the area."
The National Cancer Institute in August 1997 released a
two-volume report about radioactive fallout, particularly
regarding iodine-131, or I-131, which accumulates in the thyroid
gland.
The thyroid, in the front of the neck just above the top of the
breastbone and overlying the windpipe, controls many body
processes, including heart rate, blood pressure and body
temperature, as well as childhood growth and development.
The report said that people exposed to I-131 during the nuclear
tests in Nevada, especially children, may have an increased risk
of thyroid disease, including thyroid cancer.
Bonnie Kleissle, administrative director of the Cancer Center at
Blessing Hospital in Quincy, Ill., pays particular attention to
the word "may" in the report.
"Although I highly respect Dr. Childress' research regarding
this, the NCI urges caution in interpreting the results from any
of these studies. Yes, this could cause cancer in people. But
there's no conclusive study to guarantee to say that is the only
cause," she said.
Kleissle points to heredity, viruses and bacteria, and chemicals
as other potential causes of cancer.
"There are a lot of carcinogens in the workplace today," she
said.
The NCI report stresses that the potential of developing thyroid
cancer from exposure to I-131 is small, but "it is important for
Americans who grew up during the atomic bomb testing ... to be
aware of risks."
The report says that those who lived in heavy fallout areas,
especially children who drank large quantities of milk, might
have received higher doses of I-131. Children were more likely
to drink larger amounts of milk than adults, and their thyroid
glands were smaller.
Kleissle says that I-131 has a short half-life, so less than 1
percent remained 80 days after most nuclear tests. The NCI says
exposure to the released I-131 occurred primarily during the
first two months after a test.
The NCI provides extensive information about I-131 radiation
exposure on its Web site, www.cancer.gov/i131. The site includes
a calculator that assesses a person's exposure to I-131
depending on their age, county of residence and milk consumption
patterns, and gives an estimated risk of developing thyroid
cancer.
"Thyroid cancer is relatively uncommon compared to other forms
of cancer," Kleissle says. "It accounts for just 1.6 percent of
all cancers diagnosed in the U.S. It occurs more than twice as
often in women than men."
The disease is a slow-growing cancer that is highly treatable.
Kleissle urges anyone who is concerned about potential fallout
exposure to see a health professional and get a thyroid
screening.
Assessing the evidence
Childress realizes no scientific study backs up a link between
fallout and cancer, but he is convinced nonetheless.
He traveled to Salt Lake City on July 29, 2004, to testify in
front a scientific panel from the National Academies, Division
on Earth and Life Studies, based in Washington, D.C. The panel
convened to assess the evidence associating radiation exposure
with cancers or other impacts on human health.
"Having patients from surrounding counties in my practice, the
question was raised as to why, with the same geographic terrain,
population, agricultural industry and social habits, Lewis
County remained with a disproportionate number of cancer victims
relative to the state and immediate neighboring counties,"
Childress told the panel.
Data from the Missouri Cancer Registry show that the rate of all
cancers from 1996 to 2000 was 598 per 100,000 population in
Lewis County, compared to 470.7 per 100,000 statewide.
Colorectal cancer rates in Lewis County during that time period
were 88.5 per 100,000, compared to just 58.6 per 100,000
statewide.
Childress also points to statistics from the cancer registry at
the Cancer Center at Blessing Hospital, which shows 68 cancer
patients were from Knox County between 1985 and 2002, while 195
cases were from Clark County and 819 were from Lewis County.
"That certainly did not capture all cases, but it did provide me
with enough immediate information to investigate further,"
Childress said. "I don't think it can be ignored."
He dismisses other potential factors such as chemical or
agriculture exposures, or behaviors such as smoking and
drinking, because studies show those factors are about the same
for all Northeast Missouri counties.
"The only variable is the fallout," Childress said.
Miller, who also addressed the panel in Salt Lake City, said
Iowa and Missouri are among the hottest fallout states in the
nation and specifically mentioned Lewis and Knox counties in
testimony.
He encourages more research.
"It is time we carefully evaluate the fallout deposition history
not only in Utah, but also in the rest of the country," he told
the panel. "It would give us a unique big-picture view of an
interesting period of our nation's history and could possibly
shed light on the etiologies of some unusual cancers seen in the
fallout zones — such as soft tissue sarcomas.
"However," he continued, "the greatest contribution would be
that of identifying and understanding some of the risk factors
associated with our American population — a function that would
allow physicians such as Dr. Childress to properly assess risk
profiles in patients and thus aid in their practice of
preventive medicine."
Childress says too many of his patients have lost their lives to
cancer, and he wants to do all he can to detect future cases in
their earliest stages through screening.
"All I ask for is we notify the individuals they need to screen
for cancer sooner than the guidelines for the rest of the
country," he said. "Let's put an extra step of precaution in
there."
Childress also worries that the Bush administration is
considering starting nuclear testing again.
During last summer's hearing in Salt Lake City, "the crowd was
hostile," Childress said. "Everybody there was either a victim
or a family member of a victim or a scientist who is adamant we
stop testing."
It would be a shame, he says, to repeat the mistakes of the past.
Contact Staff Writer Kelly Wilson at kwilson@whig.com
or (217) 221-3391
©2003-2005 The Quincy Herald-Whig
*****************************************************************
36 adn.com: Comp checks cut for Amchitka workers
Anchorage Daily News: Alaska's Newspaper
CLAIMS: Sen. Lisa Murkowski pushed effort to aid ill atomic laborers.
By DON HUNTER
Published: June 4th, 2005 Last Modified: June 5th, 2005 at 02:39 AM
The checks are in the mail, finally. That's the word from U.S.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski this week to more than 260 former Amchitka
atomic workers or their survivors.
In a press conference at her Anchorage office Wednesday,
Murkowski said 296 of 614 nuclear workers' compensation claims
received so far have been approved by the U.S. Department of
Labor. Awards to 267 of the successful claimants -- totaling
$28.8 million -- should be landing in mailboxes soon, she said.
Murkowski was a supporter of legislation last year that shifted
the responsibility for processing the atomic workers' claims
from the U.S. Department of Energy to the Labor Department. The
same legislation made the federal government responsible for
paying atomic workers' compensation claims; formerly, agencies
had to find a contractor that had employed workers during the
atomic testing era to be a "willing payer" for the claims.
Amchitka Island, in the Aleutian Chain and located about 1,400
miles southwest of Anchorage, was the site of three underground
nuclear blasts between 1965 and 1971. The last, nearly 5-megaton
Cannikin, was the largest underground test conducted by the
United States.
Various agencies have estimated that between 2,000 and 3,000
people worked on the island during the testing period as
construction workers, miners and in other trades. Many have
since contracted radiation-linked cancers and respiratory
diseases.
Murkowski said the nation owes such workers.
"We have individuals who, under the direction of the military,
went out to Amchitka Island, exposed themselves to radiation,
have become ill and died, and have not been compensated for it,"
she said.
"These people didn't have any idea what they were signing up for
at the time."
Atomic workers are eligible for compensation under two different
programs, both administered by the Labor Department, and their
survivors may also be eligible under a separate provision.
Murkowski said former atomic workers with questions can find
information on the Labor Department's Web site at or contact the
Seattle office of the Labor Department's energy workers'
compensation program at 1-866-888-3322.
The Alaska Resource Center, an agency set up in Alaska to help
workers file claims and answer their questions, also can be
reached at 258-4070 in Anchorage, toll-free at 1-888-908-4070,
or by e-mail at .
Daily News reporter Don Hunter can be reached at or 257-4349
© Copyright 2005, The Anchorage Daily News, a subsidiary of
*****************************************************************
37 Guardian Unlimited: Radiation Detectors to Scan Calif. Ports
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Saturday June 4, 2005 5:16 AM
AP Photo CACC103
By ALEX VEIGA
Associated Press Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) - The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach will
receive radiation detectors to scan every incoming cargo
container for nuclear weapons or dirty bombs, Homeland Security
Secretary Michael Chertoff said Friday.
The 20-foot-high devices, already in use in at seaports in
Jersey City, N.J., and elsewhere, should be at the Southern
California ports by the end of the year, Chertoff said. They are
part of the U.S. government's strategy to prevent a possible
attack by terrorists using nuclear or radiological weapons at
the nation's busiest port complex.
``A key element of that strategy is detection,'' Chertoff said
after touring the waterways surrounding the ports aboard a Coast
Guard ship. ``If we know this radiological material is coming in
... we can take the appropriate steps to intercept a threat.''
About 4.3 million containers are shipped to the dual ports each
year. The Southern California harbor will become the second
major U.S. harbor to have all incoming cargo screened, Chertoff
said.
In April, officials announced Oakland was the first major harbor
to install enough radiation machines to check all incoming
cargo. It has 25.
Trucks carrying containers unloaded from ships will pass through
the detectors. If the machines find signs of radiation,
containers will get another scan and possibly inspection by
hand-held devices.
At a cost of about $250,000 each, the machines were funded by
federal dollars and take about five seconds to screen each
container, officials said.
Union officials representing port workers said some cargo
containers linger on the docks for hours or days - and might not
be checked right away.
``We think it's hypocritical that they don't screen it
immediately after it's unloaded, said Miguel Lopez, port
representative of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters,
whose union has about 500 truckers at the ports. ``It puts
everybody in jeopardy, not just the truckers.''
Chertoff said the process of checking containers could be
optimized to reduce delays in scanning, citing officials in
Baltimore who found ways to speed up the process.
He also said scanning would not slow the flow of cargo at the
ports, which last year experienced delays handling a large
volume of cargo from the Far East.
``Taking an extra couple minutes to promote homeland security is
something the trucking industry would endorse,'' said Patty
Senecal, vice president of Transport Express Inc., a harbor
trucking and warehouse company. ``It's a different story if
trucks are delayed for hours and hours ... but we don't expect
that.''
^----
Associated Press Writer Jeremiah Marquez contributed to this
report.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
38 L.A. Daily News: Perchlorate in well water
- Santa Clarita
Article Published: Friday, June 03, 2005 - 12:00:00
Chemical find unlikely to alter West Creek
By Susan Abram, Staff Writer
SANTA CLARITA -- Perchlorate has been found in water in one of
the supply wells intended to serve a proposed 2,200-home
community, county and development officials said this week.
The discovery was made in April during a routine analysis of
the water by the Valencia Water Co., in a well that is adjacent
to the planned West Creek housing development site. The well is
east of Bouquet Creek and the Santa Clara River.
An environmental impact report for the 2,200-home project on
996 acres in unincorporated northern Valencia was certified by
the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors in March. The
Newhall Land and Farming Company is the developer.
Neither Newhall Land nor county officials said the detection of
perchlorate, a chemical compound used in manufacturing
munitions, was a surprise. The discovery is unlikely to deter
plans.
Local water officials have testified before the county board
saying there is enough water for the planned community.
"We don't expect it to have any impact on the water supplies,"
said Marlee Lauffer, spokeswoman for Newhall Land. "We were
actually preparing ourselves for the possibility for
perchlorate. There is a known perchlorate issue in that area."
"The additional analysis was not unforeseen," said Assistant
County Counsel Richard Weiss. "This does not change any
conclusions."
A supplement to the environmental impact report is currently
being circulated for public comment. County officials are
expected to discuss the supplement in July.
Perchlorate contamination has hampered development in the
city's core for more than a decade. For nearly 50 years, the
now-defunct Whittaker-Bermite munitions plant tested dynamite,
missiles and small rockets on some 996 acres off Soledad Canyon
Road. The factory closed in 1987, but the site is contaminated
with various chemical compounds, which have migrated into the
valley's groundwater system.
In April, another area well near the planned 1,100-home
Riverpark project tested positive for perchlorate. But unlike
the West Creek well, the one near Riverpark was not meant to
supply homes with water.
As a result of the positive detection near the West Creek
project, the Valencia Water Co. has removed the well from
service until the water has been treated.
The West Creek project has endured through years of legal
challenges.
The project has stalled since 2000, when local environmental
groups -- including the Santa Clarita Organization for Planning
the Environment -- sued in Los Angeles County Superior Court to
block it.
A lower court upheld the county supervisors' original approval,
but an appellate court ruled the environmental impact report
needed to examine West Creek's water supply and use of
California Aqueduct water in greater detail.
Also, the rare Western spadefoot toad -- termed a species of
concern -- was found last year at the project site. Newhall Land
moved the toads to an appropriate habitat last fall.
Besides 2,200 homes, Newhall Land also plans an elementary
school site, a 15-acre park and road and bridge improvements as
part of West Creek.
Susan Abram, (661) 257-5255 susan.abram@dailynews.com
Copyright © 2005 Los Angeles Daily News
*****************************************************************
39 Bradenton Herald: Tallevast requests health analysis
| 06/05/2005 |
Current and future medical issues would be assessed
DONNA WRIGHT
Herald Staff Writer
TALLEVAST - Tallevast residents' health concerns must be
addressed, an environmental consultant said this week.
And nothing less than a three-tiered approach will be adequate
to determine how an underground plume of contamination has
impacted their health, said Tim Varney, the independent
scientist advising residents of this historical community.
That approach, says Varney, must include the participation of
state and local health officials as well as Lockheed Martin
Corp., which has assumed responsibility for cleaning up the
pollution.
As the state's health assessment enters its final months, local
efforts to investigate health concerns in Tallevast have stalled
over a disagreement with residents about what kind of
investigation can be done.
Meanwhile, the underground plume of contamination traced to the
former Loral American Beryllium Co. plant now covers more than
131 acres, and drilling continues to find the pollution's
perimeter.
The Department of Environmental Protection recently released a
critical review of Lockheed's efforts.
The report cited many deficiencies, including Lockheed's failure
to complete an evaluation of the current and future exposure
risks to humans as well as the environment.
Varney was pleased that DEP has now mandated such a study, but
that data, he warned, will not adequately answer Tallevast
residents' questions.
The health risks of past exposure to the toxins must also be
evaluated, Varney said, and that role should fall to local
health officials.
Varney said the local health department must provide the
historical perspective through a survey to determine if
Tallevast has an excess rate of cancer, birth defects,
respiratory illnesses and other medical conditions that may be
related to toxic exposure.
Leaders of the Tallevast advocacy group Family Oriented
Community United and Strong say that Dr. Gladys Branic, director
of the Manatee County Health Department, promised to do such a
survey in December but that she has now backed off because the
local health department does not have the resources to fulfill
her promise.
Branic said that she is willing to do everything she can within
the health department's mission but that her resources do not
allow her to do the causative study Tallevast residents want.
She has offered to do an epidemiological investigation of
reportable diseases, including cancers, among Tallevast
residents. She said the same methodology used to investigate any
other outbreak of illness, such as meningitis or tuberculosis,
would be implemented in Tallevast.
That data, said Branic, would then be sent to the state health
department and forwarded to the Agency for Toxic Substances and
Disease Registry.
Because of confidentiality rules, the data could not be made
public or shared with any group, including FOCUS, said Dr. James
Ogedegbe, the health department's epidemiologist who would
conduct the study.
FOCUS President Laura Ward said Branic's offer falls short of
what the community needs.
Ward and other FOCUS leaders are concerned that the data would
sit on a shelf.
Ward said Branic told the community last year that the local
health department would do a study that would create a database
of medical conditions and illnesses in Tallevast that could be
matched with the contaminants in the plume to see if there was
any correlation.
"If you want to attempt to do a study of causation, it will take
years to complete and be very expensive," Branic said. "You have
to have a comparative population. These kinds of studies must be
driven by scientific data. Otherwise you exhaust limited
resources without reliable outcome."
Local health officials did ask Randy Merchant, environmental
administrator for the Florida Department of Health, in a March
11 e-mail exchange if the state could do such a study. Merchant
heads up the state health assessment team.
"Any study would be contingent of available funds." Merchant
wrote in his reply. "There are inherent limitations to any
epidemiological study. At best . . . the study may be able to
show an association but cannot prove causation."
Small populations also limit the power of such studies, Merchant
said.
Varney disagrees.
"A greater sample size would present more statistical power,"
Varney said. "But there is no reason why the Tallevast
population cannot be compared to a larger population or stable
community somewhere else. The community has asked for such a
study and twice in a public forums the promise to do such a
study has been made."
Branic said she apologizes if she has created any
misunderstanding.
The scope and mission of the health department, Branic said,
dictate what she can do.
"Our role is to assure that the best available resources are
brought together," Branic said. "We have offered and it still
stands to do an epidemiological investigation on reportable
disease."
Ward said FOCUS has neither accepted nor refused Branic's offer.
Instead they want the scope of the investigation widened.
FOCUS has done a health survey of its own, but Branic and
Ogedegbe said they could not accept that data because it was not
collected through the standard procedures the health department
requires.
HeraldToday.com
Find ongoing and past coverage online of the Tallevast
contamination.
*****************************************************************
40 New Mexican: N.M. leaders strike deal on uranium waste plant
June 4, 2005
State leaders have hammered out an agreement with the private
company that proposes to build a uranium-enrichment plant near
Hobbs to limit the storage of radioactive waste there.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has stymied the state's
efforts to raise concerns about waste-storage and disposal
issues in the plant's ongoing federal permitting process. The
commission has disallowed several contentions that both the New
Mexico Environment Department and the state attorney general's
office had sought to raise.
Gov. Bill Richardson said Friday that the agreement with
Louisiana Energy Services, the private company pushing to open
the plant, gives the state assurances it's been unable to secure
otherwise.
"We have been shut out on every issue, storage and disposal, at
the NRC licensing process," Richardson said. "And I believe that
this agreement is a strong assurance on these two important
issues."
Under the agreement, LES would pledge not to store more than
about
5,000 canisters of radioactive waste at the plant site -- about
eight to 10 year's production. The company would also pledge not
to allow any single canister to remain on the site longer than
15 years.
If LES ever violated those restrictions, it would have to shut
down operations at the enrichment plant, which is intended to
make fuel for nuclear reactors. The state could enforce its
agreement with the company in either state or federal court.
If the NRC agrees to incorporate the agreement between the state
and LES into the company's federal permit, the state will drop
out from further participation in the federal permitting
process. That would leave only two citizens' groups, the Nuclear
Information and Resource Service and Public Citizen, to press
concerns about the plant in the federal permitting process.
"We've gotten some substantial assurances that I believe satisfy
my conditions on storage and safety, and enforcement,"
Richardson said. "So I believe that we have an environmentally
sustainable agreement that balances the jobs created in
southeastern New Mexico with strong, responsible financial
assurances and environmental safeguards."
Richardson said the state will hold off on issuing a
groundwater-quality permit the plant still requires before it
could operate.
"There still has to be some commitment and oversight on behalf
of LES, but I think this is a major step forward," Richardson
said.
Since announcing plans to build the enrichment plant, LES has
contributed thousands of dollars to Moving America Forward,
Richardson's political-action committee. The company has also
retained as a consultant Butch Maki, a close friend of
Richardson's and a member of Richardson's staff when he served
in Congress.
Richardson said Friday that the company's contributions haven't
had any effect on his decisions.
"If anything, I think this is an agreement that is quite tough
on LES, and I've insisted that those are the only conditions
under which they would be welcome in New Mexico," Richardson
said. "There's no factor here; there's no political factors. I
believe I've gotten a very strong environmental agreement for
the state."
Lindsay Lovejoy, a Santa Fe lawyer who represents both citizens
groups before the NRC, said Friday that he wants to make sure
the commission allows his clients to challenge the provisions of
the state agreement before final permitting. Yet he said he's
afraid the company will want to avoid any such public hearing.
Lovejoy said LES had earlier committed to Richardson that it
wouldn't attempt to store waste at the site beyond the life of
the plant. However, he said under the deal announced Friday, the
company apparently can seek to leave depleted uranium containers
on site for as long as 15 years after the plant ceases operation.
Lovejoy also questioned the adequacy of the financial assurances
LES agrees to post under the agreement to address ultimate
cleanup of the plant.
The agreement announced Friday calls for LES to put up $7.15 per
kilo of uranium byproduct. That amount could rise over time
based on a review of disposal costs. Lovejoy said his clients
believe actual processing costs for the waste byproduct could
prove to be closer to $30 per kilo.
"The state could be holding the bag for that," Lovejoy said.
Michael Mariotte, executive director of Nuclear Information and
Resource Service in Washington, D.C., said Friday that the
state's willingness to enter into the agreement directly with
LES shows the state's frustration with the federal permitting
process.
While Mariotte said the state's frustration is understandable,
he said he still doesn't believe what the state got out of the
agreement is enough.
"When you look at it from the perspective of people in Eunice,
5,000 canisters of waste is an awful lot of waste," Mariotte
said. "We still don't see a storage site on the horizon."
There's currently no facility in the United States that can
process the plant's waste to make it safe for disposal. Hundreds
of thousands of tons of similar waste are stockpiled at U.S.
government enrichment plants in Ohio and elsewhere awaiting
eventual construction of a treatment plant.
Ned Farquhar, Richardson's environmental adviser, said the $7.15
per-kilo figure is substantially higher than suggested figures
released by the NRC. He said workers at the attorney general's
office and the state Environment Department are satisfied the
figure is adequate and also emphasized the agreement calls for
the figure to rise as storage at the site approaches the limit
specified in the agreement.
LES president Jim Ferland said Friday that his company is happy
with the agreement. He said LES expects a French company to
construct a treatment plant for the waste in the United States.
At the $7.15 per-kilo rate, Ferland said, his company would have
to post a bond of more than $300 million with the federal
government to assure ultimate treatment of the maximum 5,000
canisters of waste. The company would also have to post an
additional bond to cover decommissioning the plant, he said.
While LES has emphasized it would prefer to have private
industry process the waste from its plant, the company has also
cooperated with U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., on legislation
that specifies the U.S. Department of Energy would take the
waste for disposal if necessary.
The agreement announced Friday specifies that if LES ever
attempts to turn waste from its plant over to the DOE, it must
first ensure the federal agency will take the waste out of New
Mexico.
Ferland said he expects a groundbreaking for the plant to occur
late in the summer of next year. There's strong support in
southeastern New Mexico for the plant, and the Lea County
government has approved industrial-revenue bonds giving tax
breaks to the multibillion-dollar plant.
LES is largely owned by a coalition of European energy
companies, including Urenco. Based in the Netherlands, Urenco
specializes in centrifuge technology that allows uranium to be
enriched either to the level of reactor fuel or further enriched
to the level used in nuclear weapons.
Decades ago, Urenco technology fell into the hands of the
Pakistanis, authorities say. From there, it has spread to North
Korea and possibly other rogue nations that have used it to
develop nuclear weapons. LES officials have said the loss of the
technology is no reflection on their operations in the United
States.
Copyright 2004 Santa Fe New Mexican
*****************************************************************
41 STLtoday: Radioactive waste will roll through area
News - St. Louis City / County
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
By Elizabethe Holland
Of the Post-Dispatch 06/04/2005
This picture from October 1954 shows the Mallinckrodt Chemical
Works plant at 65 Destrehan Street in St. Louis.
(Post-Dispatch file photo)
Beginning Monday and extending through the end of the year,
trucks loaded with thousands of tons of radioactive waste will
pass through the St. Louis area on their way to a temporary
resting place in Texas.
More than half of the waste will be making its second visit
here. It came from the Mallinckrodt Chemical Works on the
riverfront just north of downtown. Mallinckrodt, an atomic-age
pioneer, altered the course of World War II by developing a way
to purify uranium to the grade needed to make the atomic bomb.
After the war - in the 1950s - 6,000 tons of radioactive
byproducts from the processing were shipped to a uranium
processing plant northwest of Cincinnati, where it was kept in
silos. There it has stayed for the last half-century. But now
the Department of Energy is intent on cleaning up the site at
Fernald, Ohio, and shutting it down for good because it's
located near a major water supply and heavily populated areas.
That means finding yet another home for the waste.
The department has chosen a temporary site in Texas, which means
that the waste will be carted on flatbed trailers and sent along
highways that snake through the Metro East area, south St. Louis
County and westward to Texas. The site in Texas is not near a
water supply and is in a less populated area. It is also drier
in Texas, and so drainage problems from the site would be
minimal.
Radiation coming from radioactive waste can cause cancer and
genetic damage. Experts have long differed on how much exposure
is dangerous. The waste coming from Cincinnati will be shipped
in secured steel containers, and the material inside is encased
in concrete. Those involved in the shipping say hazardous
material in containers far less secure moves on the nation's
highways every day.
Unconvinced is Kay Drey, a local activist and board member of
the Washington-based Nuclear Information and Resource Service.
She notes the irony of having the waste return to the Gateway
City, even if it is only passing through. And she and other
environmentalists are not at all pleased that it will make a
1,300-mile trek across the country, particularly when its
destination is a place it may remain for only two years.
"They're moving from one temporary disposal facility in this
massive attack on our highways to another temporary facility,
and with no permanent place to go - and placing people at risk
... everywhere along the way," said Drey, of University City.
The contractor in charge of the move, Fluor Fernald, also would
prefer to ship the waste to a permanent site. But spokesmen for
the company said the material could be moved safely.
"You always hate to speculate when it comes to what's vulnerable
out on the road, but we'll argue there are things that are
traveling across the interstate every day that would make more
of a statement than a concrete block in a steel casing," said
Jeff Wagner of Fluor Fernald.
"Everything we can do from a personal health and safety
standpoint is being considered on this, and certainly the same
holds true for environmentally."
15 trucks a day
The move will begin with one truck taking to the highway Monday.
Eventually, though, Fluor Fernald plans to move 15 trucks per
day, with each truck carrying two 20,000-pound containers of
encased waste. The trucks will run seven days a week through
December. In all, Fluor Fernald expects to move 4,000
containers, said Dennis Carr, the project director.
The containers, riveted shut when full, are made of
half-inch-thick carbon steel and measure 6 1/2 feet tall and 6
feet in diameter. Empty, each weighs 4,000 pounds.
In each will be a combination of radioactive waste, concrete and
flyash - a fine black ash produced in a coal-fired boiler plant,
according to Wagner. Radioactive waste from two of Fernald's
silos will make up about 20 percent of each container, with
concrete and flyash making up the other 80 percent, Wagner said.
The waste - byproducts of ores that were exceptionally rich in
uranium from the former Belgian Congo - includes radium,
thorium, lead, polonium and actinium.
The trucks will be outfitted with global positioning systems,
and authorities who would respond to possible emergencies
involving the shipments have been informed of what is coming
their way, Carr said.
"There's no expectation of a problem, but in the event that
there is, we're prepared to deal with it," he said.
Lee Sobotka, a Washington University professor of nuclear
chemistry and nuclear physics, said the waste's packaging falls
short of being as safe as it could be. He would rather see the
waste undergo vitrification - a process that would turn it into
a glasslike product that many scientists feel would remain more
stable over time.
But if Fluor Fernald takes no shortcuts in preparing and
packaging the waste, risks to public safety while the waste is
in transit are low, Sobotka said.
Sobotka would also prefer to see the material delivered to a
permanent site.
"It's not an ultimate solution," Sobotka said. "As a scientist,
do I wish that there was a better plan and that it was being
vitrified? Yes. Do I wish it was going to its final resting
place? Yes. But the plague of trying to do everything perfect is
paralysis."
Sierra Club suit
Cyrus Reed, a lobbyist for the Lone Star chapter of the Sierra
Club, would rather see Fluor Fernald's plans paralyzed. The
chapter has appealed a decision earlier this year that paved the
way for Dallas-based Waste Control Specialists to accept the
waste, a move that resulted in a $7.5 million contract for the
company.
A hearing for the appeal is scheduled for July 11 - well after
the shipments are under way.
"They're jumping the gun," Reed said. "Waste is being moved
before we've even had a hearing."
Meanwhile, Waste Control Specialists is hoping for another
change in its license - one that would allow it to permanently
dispose of the radioactive materials as well, said George Dials,
the firm's president and chief operating officer.
As it stands, the waste can remain at the Andrews County site
along the Texas-New Mexico border for only two years from the
dates shipments arrive.
"We would have loved to go immediately to a disposal facility,
but that option was not open," Wagner said. "At least you're
getting the material off-site, which is certainly a step in the
right direction in order to be able to finish the Fernald
cleanup."
Drey vehemently disagrees. She suspects Fluor Fernald is acting
quickly due to extra money it will receive depending on when the
cleanup is done. The Department of Energy has a target date of
Dec. 31, 2006. If Fluor Fernald completes the cleanup by March
2006, it will receive an "incentive fee" of $288 million on top
of reimbursement for cleanup costs, according to Wagner. If it
completes its work after December 2006, the incentive fee falls
to $63 million.
Overall, including costs accrued since the 1989 plant closing,
the Department of Energy is expected to spend $4.4 billion on
the cleanup, Wagner said.
Whatever the reasons behind the shipments to begin this weekend,
Drey would like to see them stalled until a better solution is
developed.
"What's the rush if it's been there for 50 years?" Drey asked.
"It could go back again, it really could, as crazy as it sounds.
We have no idea."
Reporter Elizabethe Holland
E-mail: eholland@post-dispatch.com
Phone: 314-340-8259
Note* Bottom photo credit: These containers, made of
half-inch-thick carbon steel, will transport radioactive waste
from Ohio to Texas. Photo from Fluor Fernald
the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
*****************************************************************
42 AFP: Australia in talks to sell uranium to China for first time
AFP Business News - Financial News -
Saturday June 4, 2005, 1:49 pm
SYDNEY (AFP) - The Australian government is in negotiations to
export uranium to China for the first time.
The Weekend Australian reported Saturday that officials have
been in talks with the Chinese for several weeks over nuclear
safeguards which could allow Australia to send the lucrative
export to China.
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer told the paper that the matter
had been discussed when China's number two, chair of China's
National People's Congress Wu Bangguo, visited Australia last
month.
"We have entered into those discussions and the negotiations are
moving ahead reasonably positively," he was quoted as saying.
"It is in Australia's national interest, since we export
uranium, that there be a global expansion of nuclear energy."
Nuclear energy is banned in Australia but debate over the issue
has crept into the political agenda in recent weeks as an
environmental alternative to fossil fuels.
"Nuclear energy can be expected to have an important place in
meeting future energy needs over the next few deacades," Downer
was quoted as saying.
China has embarked on a plan to boost nuclear energy sources to
mitigate chronic energy shortages.
Australia earns some 400 million dollars (300 million US
dollars) annually from uranium exports.
Copyright © 2005 AFP. All rights reserved. All information
*****************************************************************
43 Sunday Herald: Files reveal nuclear waste dumping shambles -
By Rob Edwards, Environment Editor
NEWLY released files revealing the shambles of the nuclear
industrys investigations into radioactive waste dumping in the
1990s have sparked fears that current decisions about nuclear
power will be marred by incompetence.
According to secret government documents made public last week
under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act, two successive
secretaries of state for Scotland, Malcolm Rifkind and Ian Lang,
gave the go-ahead to controversial research on nuclear waste,
despite doubts about the professionalism of the industry.
Critics warn that the same pattern of industry incompetence and
government compliance could plague todays renewed arguments over
how to dispose of Britains growing mountain of nuclear waste.
The nuclear industry keeps behaving like a three-year-old
screaming at the supermarket checkout, and successive
governments keep giving it sweeties, alleged Lorraine Mann, from
Scotland Against Nuclear Dumping.
The remarkable inside story of how ministers and senior
officials struggled to deal with one of the most sensitive of
political issues is disclosed in a series of confidential papers
made available by the Scottish Executive at the National
Archives of Scotland in Edinburgh. The documents chart some of
the key events which led to the demise of Dounreay as the
nuclear industrys hope for the future.
In 1990, when John Major was Prime Minister, Britain got caught
up in a heated argument over where to build a deep underground
repository for the nations medium-level radioactive waste. Two
candidates had emerged as possibilities: a farm near the
Sellafield nuclear complex in Cumbria and land near the Dounreay
nuclear plant in Caithness.
In May that year, the then Scottish secretary, Rifkind, gave the
go-ahead to the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) to drill two
deep boreholes at Dounreay. The aim was to study whether
underground rock would be stable enough to store waste safely .
The application had been opposed by Highland Regional Council,
and by three-quarters of the people of Caithness in a
referendum. But despite the controversy, civil servants failed
to consult Rifkind on the timing of his announcement.
As a result it took ministers by surprise and gave them some
concern, according to a memo from a senior official. I very much
regret any embarrassment that this has caused, he wrote.
Just a few days after approving the UKAEAs application , Rifkind
discovered that the industrys nuclear waste agency, Nirex, had
put in another application for up to 6000 more holes over 1350
hectares near Dounreay.
Angry, he considered revoking planning consent, but was advised
that this would be legally very dubious. In July 1990, after
talking to the UKAEA and Nirex, a senior official told Rifkind
that there was also the possibility of a third planning
application for a further 10 deep boreholes. After the shambles
that they have made of the planning aspects of phase one, the
UKAEA are clearly anxious to handle phase two more
professionally, the official stated in a memo.
The Scottish Office was trying to ensure that both Nirex and the
UKAEA handled planning more competently than they have hitherto.
In order not to prejudice Rifkinds impartiality, the official
added, we shall accordingly be circumspect, as well as
constructive, in our dealing with nuclear bodies. This memo
prompted a caustic response from Rifkinds political adviser,
Graeme Carter. He welcomed the UKAEAs new-found professionalism
but expressed very grave concerns about the application for up
to 6000 holes, fearing a major political row from which the
government could not be protected.
By November 1990, the month that Rifkind was replaced by Lang
as secretary of state for Scotland, Nirex had let it be known
that Sellafield was the clear frontrunner for the nuclear waste
research. That effectively let both ministers off the hook.
Nevertheless, in April 1991 Lang gave the go-ahead to the
6000-hole application, though again confusion surrounded the
announcement. A hand-written ministerial note in the margin of a
memo demanded to know why it had been announced without warning,
without agreement and without the preparation of defensive
briefing for ministers and for the PM.
In 1997, the government abandoned plans to investigate land near
Sellafield as a potential underground waste repository, after it
was rejected by a public inquiry. Now ministers are awaiting new
advice on how best to dispose of the waste from an expert
committee.
Pete Roche, a consultant to Greenpeace, argued that Britains
plans for nuclear waste were still a shambles. With Nirex and
secrecy, its a bit like Groundhog Day, he said. Only the public
has got more sophisticated over the years, so has enjoyed the
farce less.
Nirex, whose shares were transferred from the nuclear industry
to the government in April, is planning to publish a long-secret
list of potential waste dumps within the next two or three
weeks. It declined to comment on what had happened in the 1990s,
as it hadnt seen the newly released files.
Dounreays spokesman, Colin Punler, confirmed that the UKAEA had
worked with Nirex to investigate the disposal of radioactive
waste in the past. We are no longer involved in any waste
disposal proposals of that kind, he said.
Our job today is to get the waste into a form that makes it
suitable for deep disposal. It is up to society to decide how it
should be managed in the long term.
05 June 2005
© newsquest (sunday herald) limited. all rights reserved
*****************************************************************
44 Telegraph: Disturbing deficiency at Seabrook plant
[NashuaTelegraph.com]
Published: Saturday, Jun. 4, 2005
BACKGROUND: A leaked Nuclear Regulatory Commission report showed
that the perimeter intruder detection system at the Seabrook
nuclear power plant probably hadn’t worked in six months.
CONCLUSION: While a plant spokesman says at no time had the plant
lost its ability to protect public health and safety, the report
remains a matter of concern.
The public relations spokesman for the Seabrook nuclear power
plant makes it abundantly clear that the people who run the
operation think that security was never compromised, but its
hard not to be more than a little concerned that the “perimeter
intrusion detection system” has probably not been working since
it was installed more than six months ago.
According to an internal plant document, that appears to be the
conclusion reached by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission after it
inspected the system, or fence, earlier last month.
Heres some other scary things in the document:
Several “zones” in the detection system “failed” testing and
were declared “inoperable.” (Translation: The thing didnt work.)
The systems design was “inadequate.” (Translation: It would
never have worked.)
The “testing” to “commission the system” and “to ensure
operability” were “deficient.” (Translation: Somebody or some
people at the plant screwed up.)
The plants owners review and approval of the system vendor
“lacked vigor.” (Translation: They really dropped the ball on
this one.)
The plant had or has, at least where this system is concerned,
“inadequate security organizational effectiveness.”
(Translation: The plants security agency and managers were not
doing a good enough job, at least where the detection system was
concerned.)
That kind of information makes it sounds like intruders
(terrorists) could have walked right up to the plant on a dark,
moonless night.
But, spokesman Al Griffith insists that is not the case. He
assures that “At no time have we lost our ability to protect
public health and safety.”
Griffith says the detection system was a “segment” of the
security system that was “not operating the way we wanted it
to.” And, “full compensatory measures” are now in place.
He is not allowed, nor should he, go into details about what
those measures might be, but an image of additional security
guards, dogs, night vision goggles and the like comes to mind.
Nonetheless, this is a major embarrassment for the plant and its
security.
The plant didnt want this information before the public. It was
leaked. And we, for one, are glad it was.
This was a serious deficiency in plant security that was
mandated after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
We are thankful the NRC discovered the problem and that measures
have been taken as a result.
We want to believe Griffith when he says were safe and not to
worry.
But we would rather know that something went wrong and is being
fixed than to have had the information hidden from us. And we
would feel better about the situation had it been the plant or
the NRC that had made the matter public. The Exeter
News-Letter
Contact The Telegraph of Nashua Privacy Policy and User Agreement
© 2005, Telegraph Publishing Company PO Box 1008, Nashua, NH
03061 (603) 594-6440 All Rights Reserved
*****************************************************************
45 Rutland Herald: Bill lets Yankee apply for fuel storage
June 4, 2005
By Louis PorterVermont Press Bureau
Sen. Roderick Gander, D-Windham, attended the session Friday
to vote on the Yankee bill despite illness.
Photo: ALDEN PELLETT / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
MONTPELIER — The bill allowing Vermont Yankee nuclear power
plant to apply for state permission to store spent fuel in
on-site "dry casks" was approved in the Senate on Friday
Under a deal reached between plant owner Entergy Nuclear and
legislative leaders, the company will pay $2.5 million a year if
it receives permission from federal regulators to increase the
power produced by the facility.
That money, combined with payments from the company under a
separate agreement with the state, will go to a fund to support
the development of renewable energy in Vermont.
The bill gives the company the right to apply to the Public
Service Board for permission to use dry casks for storing spent
fuel.
That bill was approved by the House earlier this week and by an
18-6 Senate vote late Friday.
Sen. Rod Gander, D-Windham, returned to the Statehouse for the
first time this session to oppose it.
"If it's buying a certificate of public good, it's wrong
whatever the dollar figure is," said Gander, who has been
undergoing chemotherapy for cancer. His illness resurfaced soon
after he was re-elected last fall.
Gander is a member of the Senate Finance Committee, where
anti-nuclear activists hoped for a last chance to stop the deal.
But the committee voted 4-2 to approve it, a recommendation the
full Senate followed later in the evening.
"The only chance to stop it was here," said Peter Alexander,
executive director of the New England Coalition. "I am deeply
disappointed in the vote. There is so much information that is
missing from the picture."
Gander and committee Chairwoman Ann Cummings, D-Washington,
voted against approving the bill in the committee.
Brian Cosgrove, director of communications for the plant, said
the Legislature had done "an admirable amount of work" on the
issue.
The company looks forward to the Public Service Board process as
a chance to "further educate the public about the benefits of
dry cask storage," Cosgrove said.
Entergy needed the Legislature to grant permission for dry cask
storage, giving lawmakers a chance to weigh in on the issue.
Legislators heard testimony this year that dry cask storage, in
which the spent fuel is stored in canisters made of several
layers of steel and concrete, is safer than storing it in
water-filled fuel pools.
"My vote is not against dry cask," Gander said.
He said the legislature has not done enough work on the issue
and should wait to take it up next year.
The vote was more about the company's desire to increase its
power production and win re-licensing in 2012 than dry cask,
Gander said.
"I have only been up here for a couple of these last minute
closings, but that's when you make all of your mistakes," said
Gander, a retired editor for Newsweek magazine.
The deal with Entergy was announced last week by Senate
President Pro Tem Peter Welch, D-Windsor, Speaker of the House
Gaye Symington, D-Jericho, and other legislative leaders.
Welch, a member of the Finance Committee, said the safety of the
plant was not impacted by the agreement with Entergy.
"We took very, very seriously this question of safety," he said.
"Safety is not for sale; it cannot be for sale.
"If we wait, we are also taking some risk," Welch said. "If we
delay … it puts us closer to that time when we have to have dry
cask or there is a shut down."
But Sen. Jeanette White, D-Windham, said the issue of timing is
not as serious as it is made out to be.
"Vermont Yankee has created this crisis," she said. "We are
asked two days before adjournment to make a decision on the most
irreversible decision we can make."
The Finance Committee heard testimony Friday that Entergy will
run out of room to store its spent fuel in 2007, and the
regulatory procedure to authorize it will take some time.
Sen. Claire Ayer, D-Addison, a member of the Finance Committee,
voted for the bill allowing the agreement.
"I don't think there is anything to be gained by waiting until
January," she said.
Gander was not the only member of the Senate to return for the
vote.
Sen. Mark Sheppard, R-Bennington, changed his plans, returned to
the Senate and supported the vote in the Finance Committee and
on the floor.
Sen. Mark MacDonald, D-Orange, another member of the committee
and a vocal critic of plant, was not there.
"I feel terrible not being there. Sometimes in a citizen
Legislature, family comes first," said MacDonald, who was
attending a relative's college graduation in Long Island, N.Y.
"I feel sort of sorry, since I stirred up the issue," he said by
telephone.
Seven senators were absent from the vote on the floor.
In the end, the majority of senators said the time they would
gain by not approving the bill this year would not make a
significant difference.
"I want to leave the most amount of time between now and the
future to deal with a year-long process with the Public Service
Board," said Hull Maynard, R-Rutland, who supported the bill.
Gander urged caution.
"We are voting to put this deadly stuff with a half-life of tens
of thousands of years on the banks of the Connecticut River for
the foreseeable future," he said.
Staff writer Darren M. Allen contributed to this story.
Contact Louis Porter at louis.porter@rutlandherald.com.
© 2005 Rutland Herald
*****************************************************************
46 SLT: Nuclear waste storage: It's time for peace talks with the
Goshutes
Salt Lake Tribune -
Opinion
Article Last Updated: 06/04/2005 11:09:02 PM
Nicole Haynes McCoy
An army of lawyers and lobbyists, costing Utah taxpayers
millions of dollars, is waging war against the Skull Valley
Goshutes. Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., following the precedent
established by Gov. Mike Leavitt, continues this battle. The
most recent volley is an open-ended contract with the lobbying
firm Dutko at $90,000 per year plus expenses.
If Utah continues its battle against the Skull Valley
nuclear waste storage site in the halls of Congress, Utah is
going to lose.
It has been two decades since the federal government (yes,
the federal government) first approached Native American tribes
about storing high-level nuclear waste on their reservations. We
have been fighting the Goshutes ever since.
Utah has two strikes against it in this battle: (1) The
federal government is required by law to take title of and store
nuclear waste, and (2) while the extent of Native American
sovereignty is confusing at the federal level, for the state's
purposes, the Goshutes are sovereign.
Every legal avenue Utah has pursued to keep the Goshutes
from accepting nuclear waste has ended in a cul-de-sac. In 2002,
a federal judge ordered the state to "stop meddling" with plans
to store waste in Skull Valley.
Since we can't win in court, we have resorted to lobbying
Congress. States with nuclear power plants (that are running out
of room for their waste) are far more politically powerful than
Utah. If Utah thinks it has a prayer of keeping the waste in
these states, or even in getting help from them in keeping it
out of Utah, we are sorely mistaken.
Even if we do get some support, what will it cost us? Not
only are there no free lunches in D.C., but what looks like a
turkey sandwich is more likely to be roadkill.
Utah citizens should be outraged, not at the Goshutes, but
at the unconscionable behavior of our legislators and governors.
If nuclear waste arrives in Skull Valley, our own state
government is to blame.
Our executive and legislative representatives have treated
the tribe with an appalling lack of respect. Every strategy our
representatives have pursued seeks to circumscribe the rights of
the Goshutes. We seem to have forgotten that if the Goshutes
didn't want nuclear waste, then all the legal battles and
lobbying would be unnecessary.
And guess what? The Goshutes don't want waste. They want, and
desperately need, economic opportunity.
The Goshutes are U.S. citizens and our neighbors; their
reservation is 40 miles from Salt Lake City. The Goshute tribe
is deeply divided over the nuclear waste storage issue, with
many members of the tribe not wishing to compromise the
sacredness of their tribal lands for the money gained from
nuclear waste storage. The cohesiveness and integrity of the
tribe have suffered as members struggle with trying to balance
economic opportunity with environmental and social cost.
Gov. Huntsman, take the fight out of D.C. Fire the lobbyists
and the lawyers, hop in an old pickup and drive out to Skull
Valley. Approach the Goshutes, hat-in-hand. Tell them, that as
a representative of the state of Utah, you apologize for actions
that contributed to the Goshutes' desperate circumstances.
Acknowledge that Utah has been taking from the Goshutes since
the early pioneers first stole their water and their food, and
then murdered their people.
Tell them that you apologize that Utah did nothing, as they
watched their reservation shrink and their borders fill with
toxic waste and munitions.
Ask the Goshutes what Utah can do to help restore the
tribe's integrity. Tell them you are done with the empty
promises of economic development, that it is time for Utah to
pay its comeuppance. What this means for Utah, I don't know. I
do know that Utah is as much the Goshutes' community as it is
ours.
They don't want to look out the windows of their homes and
see row upon row of white storage casks, but they do want to
have a home. It is time for a little creativity and a lot of
humility. It is time for a peace talk.
---
Dr. Nicole Haynes McCoy is an assistant professor of natural
resource policy and economics at Utah State University. She has
researched the nuclear waste storage issue and the Goshute tribe
for six years.
© Copyright 2005, The Salt Lake Tribune.
*****************************************************************
47 Independent: Waste woes that bias our energy debates
By Ragnar Lofstedt
05 June 2005
Britain has an energy dilemma: on one hand it wants to reduce
CO2 emissions in line with the Kyoto protocol; on the other, the
country is phasing out nuclear energy, resulting in the UK
becoming dependent on just one reactor by the year 2023.
Nuclear energy is more or less carbon-neutral. So closing the
country's ageing nuclear plants will lead to increases in CO2
emissions unless these reactors are replaced by other neutral
sources, such as renewables, and carbon-free coal, or via
energy-efficiency measures.
Partly to address this conundrum, the Government is pushing for
huge investments in wind power. By the year 2010, it is hoped
that renewables will account for 10 per cent of the country's
electricity mix.
That said, even if the Government reaches this goal, which at
present is unlikely, other carbon-free sources will be needed.
As carbon-free coal is at least a decade or two away from
commercialisation, and energy- efficiency measures will
contribute more in reducing heat than electricity use, the most
likely alternative in the near to medium term is the building of
new nuclear stations. However, as many members of the public,
stakeholders and even politicians are opposed to this, several
issues need to be addressed to help ensure that new plants can
be built in the UK.
Most importantly, politicians need to get to grips with the
waste issue. It will be difficult to build new nuclear plants if
the politicians and stakeholders are still debating where the
waste should go. Indeed Finland, the only European nation aside
from France that has ordered a new nuclear reactor in the past
couple of years, has more or less solved the problem, making the
decision to build a fifth reactor so much easier. It built a
repository to bury high- and medium-level waste deep under the
ground.
What to do and where to put the nuclear waste in the UK has been
discussed since 1976, when the Royal Commission for
Environmental Pollution recommended that a national disposal
facility should be built. Such a site still does not exist, and
another body, this time the Committee on Radioactive Waste
Management (CoRWM), is examining what should be done with the
waste. But it isn't rocket science; there are simple technical
solutions available. Hopefully, CoRWM will come to a political
acceptable one soon.
The issue of public perceptions on the possible risks posed by
nuclear energy also has to be handled properly. This remains a
topic, although researched to a great extent by academics such
as Baruch Fischhoff and Ortwin Renn, to which the nuclear sector
in this country has not paid sufficient attention. That is
unfortunate, as a close analysis would identify the key public
concerns: that the industry is veiled in secrecy; that the risks
posed by reactors are unfamiliar and out of one's control; and
that there is the potential for massive accidents. Had the
industry more closely examined these fears in the past, it would
not be struggling to address them alongside the movement for new
build.
Sweden has met public concern head-on - for example, by
developing a nuclear-waste roadshow where industry
representatives travel from town to town in a large truck full
of displays, short films and mock-ups that show what the waste
looks like and how it is stored. In so doing, the public becomes
more familiar with the issues. Is it any wonder that, today,
Sweden does not have a nuclear-waste debate?
What is needed in the UK is a three-pronged strategy. First,
find out exactly what people are worried about. Second, address
these issues with roadshow-style displays. Third, develop a
transparent process that goes right the way through from the
inquiry stage to licensing. Transparency, if done correctly,
leads to public trust; secrecy destroys it.
One worrying trend is the virtual fistfight between renewable
supporters and the nuclear sector. This is unhelpful as it
overheats the debate and leads politicians to put off making any
real decisions on the topic. In all honesty, there is room for
both renewables and nuclear build in the country's energy mix,
so why can't these parties work together?
For new build to be successful, the sector needs all the
third-party support it can get, so why not involve the
environmental NGOs that are so concerned about climate change?
To resolve these issues, the Government should consider
establishing an independent commission where an open, honest and
transparent discussion can take place.
Ragnar Lofstedt is professor and director of the King's Centre
for Risk Management. His book 'Risk Management in Post-Trust
Societies', is published by Palgrave Macmillan.
Independent Portfolio.
©2005 Independent News &Media (UK) Ltd.
*****************************************************************
48 Guardian Unlimited: Panel Sets Aside Proposal on Nuclear Waste
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Friday June 3, 2005 11:16 PM
By H. JOSEF HEBERT
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has put on
hold a proposal to allow some very low-level radioactive waste
to be routinely put into public landfills or recycled instead of
shipped to special disposal sites.
By a 5-0 vote, the commission decided against issuing a final
regulation on the matter, although it did not rule out
considering the issue again in the future. The agency's staff
had recommended that the rule change be approved, saying the
waste under consideration has such a low level of radioactivity
that it does not pose a public health risk.
The NRC acted earlier this week, but the vote only became public
Friday in a news release from several environmental and nuclear
industry watchdog groups.
The groups applauded the action, saying the proposed rule change
would have allowed radioactive material to be mixed with normal
garbage and reused in consumer products and in roadbeds.
NRC spokesman Elliott Brenner, confirming the commission's
action, said the agency did not reject the proposal outright.
``It is in a holding pattern because of higher priorities.
That's not to rule out looking at it again later,'' he said.
``Most of these materials have no residual radioactivity,'' he
said. ``Some have very small amounts, so low that potential
exposure to the public would have negligible impact.''
Brenner said the commission decided to put the issue aside
because of the ``urgent need to put resources in higher priority
areas'' such as nuclear power plant security and a rush of
applications for power reactor relicensing.
The material subject to the proposed rule change is located at
nuclear power plants and other facilities licensed by the NRC
and includes such items as office furniture, tools, equipment,
routine trash, soil and concrete.
Diane D'Arrigo of the Nuclear Information and Resources Service,
a watchdog group, said the NRC's decision is ``a victory for
public health and environmental protection,'' although she
expressed concern that the agency might reverse course.
``The NRC clearly backed down from this crazy idea because it
recognized the firestorm of public concern that would be
triggered,'' said Daniel Hirsch, head of the Los Angeles-based
Community to Bridge the Gap. ``The public doesn't want
radioactive waste in their local garbage dump, children's braces
or tools.''
----
On the Net:
Nuclear Regulatory Commission: http://www.nrc.gov
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
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49 Albuquerque Tribune: Los Alamos fears brain drain
Spike in retirements creates worry
By Sue Vorenberg
Tribune Reporter
June 4, 2005
One thing about smart people - they have options.
In the wake of problems at Los Alamos National Laboratory, some
of the smartest people in the country are starting to exercise
those options - by retiring. And that trend has lab officials
worried, said James Rickman, a lab spokesman.
"It looks like the numbers are higher than normal so far for
this fiscal year," Rickman said of the cycle that started in
October.
"Since October we've had 162 retirements, and we also have about
200 pending, but they can change their minds. That seems to show
a 50 percent higher retirement rate this year than last."
The lab employs about 8,200 people, mostly highly skilled
scientists. Of those, 39 percent are 50 or older - meaning
retirement age, Rickman said.
In 2003, 235 people retired, or about 3 percent of the work
force. In 2004, 251 retired, or about 3.1 percent of the work
force, Rickman said.
"For 2005 we're projecting 4.6 percent of the work force, or
about 380 people," Rickman said. "But we just don't have the
June data yet, which will be telling. That's when most people
retire, and that will tell the tale. It could be better; it
could be worse. But it looks now like a definite increase."
The numbers are even more worrisome because about 41 percent of
the retirees are coming from the lab's nuclear weapons groups
and 13.5 percent are coming from threat-reduction groups -
specialized areas that are part of Los Alamos' core mission,
Rickman said.
"We're very concerned about losing people with such specialized
knowledge," he said. "That sort of skill can't be taught in a
university setting. There's no short course.
"We're trying to find ways so we can transfer some of those
skills to new employees, but it's difficult."
Doug Roberts, who will retire July 1, says the exodus was
probably caused in part by the shutdown of the lab between July
and February. Pete Nanos, who was director then, shut the lab
after reports of missing computer disks - which turned out to
have never existed - and a laser accident.
That, coupled with management problems and uncertainty about
which group will be running the lab when an operating contractor
is chosen in December, has left many workers questioning their
resolve to stay, Roberts said.
The contract for operating the lab is up for bid this year for
the first time in the lab's 62-year history. A team led by
Lockheed Martin Corp. and the University of Texas is competing
against a team led by Bechtel Corp. and the University of
California.
Roberts, 54, who grew up in Los Alamos, is the founder and
operator of a blog, "LANL: The Real Story," where many lab
scientists have been airing their concerns about the lab's
turbulent past few years. The blog, which has had more than
210,000 visitors since January, is online at
lanl-the-real-story.blogspot.com.
"As a direct result of the shutdown last July we lost a lot of
staff, and a lot of those were my colleagues," Roberts said. "In
my group alone, I believe I'm the twelfth person to announce
he's leaving since that shutdown."
Roberts works in the Basic and Applied Simulation Science Group,
which makes computer simulations of social networks. The group
had about 20 employees before the spate of retirements, he said.
Roberts has already lined up work, and job hunting hasn't been a
problem for him or any of his friends who have also retired this
year, he said.
"I wasn't really ready to retire, so I'll be going to work for
another company," Roberts said. "It didn't take me long to find
something I found suitable."
Roberts will telecommute to his new job from his home in Namb?,
he added.
"I've decided I'll continue to maintain the blog," he said. "But
I'm bringing in some help from other LANL employees. I don't
feel non-lab people should maintain it."
Despite his decision to leave, Roberts says he hopes his blog
will help those that decide to stay and the new operator of the
lab. He and his fellow bloggers have compiled a list of problems
and suggested solutions for the lab on the site.
"I feel that's one of the positives to come out of this - the
desire to find and fix problems and the amount of time people
have spent doing that," Roberts said.
Still, the positives weren't enough to convince Roberts to stay,
he said.
"The bottom line is, it's just time to move on," Roberts said.
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50 Tri-City Herald: New energy secretary promising but untested
Opinions
This story was published Sunday, June 5th, 2005
Trust but verify.
That sage advice from Ronald Reagan is the perfect foundation
for the Northwest's relationship with the nation's new secretary
of energy.
Samuel Bodman is making all the right moves in the early weeks
of his administration, not least of which was his 11-hour
introduction to Hanford and the Tri-Cities last week.
But he'll have to excuse our skepticism. We've seen promises for
a new day evaporate into business as usual far too many times
not to be jaded. That doesn't mean we aren't hopeful, however.
Bodman's desire to take a firsthand look at the Herculean tasks
that he's ultimately responsible for advancing might seem like a
no-brainer. But in the world of beltway politics, it's not rare
to find an energy secretary loath to leave the other Washington.
One trip to the Northwest doesn't exactly qualify Bodman for any
frequent-flyer benefits, but it's a promising sign that his
first visit to Hanford came so early in his tenure. He was only
given the job four months ago.
His Hanford itinerary included talks with Gov. Christine
Gregoire and site employees, revealing a savvy understanding of
those he'll need on his side to make real progress with Hanford
cleanup.
Some past secretaries' failure to grasp the central role of the
Hanford work force or the political reality that defines the
rest of the Northwest has made Bodman's job harder.
Initiative 297, the anti-nuclear waste measure that Washington
voters overwhelmingly approved last year, might have passed
anyway, but the huge margin indicates the depth of mistrust for
the Department of Energy.
The public's trust in DOE always will be limited. Too much
radioactive material was poured into the ground and sent up
smokestacks amid government assurances to ever eliminate a
healthy dose of skepticism.
But the lawsuits and confrontation that have marred recent
relations between the Northwest and DOE aren't inevitable.
Dialogue is possible. So is compromise. Bodman appears ready to
make progress on both counts.
It's especially satisfying to see the job go to someone with a
technical background. Too often, loyal support for the president
has had more to do with the selection of an energy secretary
than inherent ability.
Frankly, the position has sometimes seemed like a consolation
prize for presidential friends who didn't get one of the A-list
jobs, like secretary of state or defense.
Bodman has the potential to break the mold. He earned a
doctorate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and taught
chemical engineering at the school for six years before going
into business.
His last job in the private sector was chairman of Cabot Corp.,
a Boston-based Fortune 300 company specializing in chemicals and
materials, some of it connected to the energy industry.
He has his critics, at least among Texas environmentalists who
are unhappy about pollution from Cabot's operations in their
state.
But Bodman's background in science and business could provide
the right combination of expertise that's needed, not only to
overcome barriers to improving the pace of cleanup, but also to
repair DOE's relations with the Northwest.
He claims to approach the job with a businessman's pragmatism
and an engineer's appreciation for its complexities.
We've yet to verify whether that's enough to trump the
bureaucratic inertia that too often beleaguers the federal
agency.
© 2005 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press &Other Wire Services
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51 Tri-Valley Herald: Retrial rejected in whistle-blower case
Article Last Updated: 06/04/2005 04:10:13 AM
Jury found lab fired woman for role in sexual harassment suit,
awarded her $2.2 million
By Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER
A judge Friday turned down requests from the University of
California and Lawrence Livermore nuclear-weapons lab for a third
trial after twice losing million-dollar verdicts to a lab
whistle-blower.
Lab attorneys could not be reached to discuss the ruling.
Attorneys for former Livermore lab computer technician Dee Kotla
said they have little expectation that the ruling will persuade
the university to stop fighting the case, which began eight years
ago when the lab fired Kotla ostensibly for $4.30 of personal
phone calls and misuse of her office computer.
Two juries concluded the lab more likely fired Kotla because she
was expected to to be a central witness in a coworker's sexual
harassment case against a senior lab scientist and the
university. Kotla would have testified that she had reported a
pattern of sexual harassment of her subordinates to senior
Livermore managers but that they took no action with the lab
scientist.
When Kotla appeared for a deposition in that case, a lab attorney
called back to the lab on her cell phone, identified Kotla as a
"hostile witness" and started internal
investigations of her phone and computer records.
A jury in 2002 awarded $1 million to Kotla. A judge ordered the
university to pay an equal amount in her attorneys' fees. The lab
and the university, which operates Livermore lab for the U.S.
Department of Energy, appealed and won a new trial. A second
Alameda County jury this spring awarded $2.2 million to Kotla.
Her attorneys' fees and the lab's legal fees easily could top $4
million.
According to the General Accountability Office, the investigative
arm of Congress, the U.S. Energy Department in recent years has
reimbursed more than 98 percent of its contractors' legal fees,
adverse judgments and settlements, including those of the
University of California. With at least
$6 million in costs to taxpayers and rising, the Kotla case
would rank among the most expensive such cases involving a
single plaintiff.
A Massachusetts congressman seized on the Kotla case in arguing
that federal contractors were using the U.S. Treasury as a
limitless war chest for legal battles against workers who report
waste, fraud or other wrongdoing.
Rep. Ed Markey persuaded colleagues in the House to write a
prohibition into the 2005 Energy Policy Act, requiring Energy
Department contractors to pay their own legal fees when they
persist in fighting losing cases.
Markey urged the University of California after the second jury
verdict topay Kotla and end the case.
The lab and the university asked the judge to discard the second
verdict as unmerited and grant a third trial. On Friday, Alameda
County Superior Court Judge Ronald Sabraw rejected those
requests.
"I've never seen anything like this. It just
goes on and on,"
said one Kotla attorney, Jan Nielsen. "You don't have anybody
really taking the horns on this thing and saying let's end
this."
Tri-Valley Herald All Rights Reserved
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52 Guardian Unlimited: Drilling Near Nuclear Blast Site on Hold
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Saturday June 4, 2005 10:31 AM
By JUDITH KOHLER
Associated Press Writer
DENVER (AP) - A company says it plans to drill for natural gas
near the site of an underground nuclear blast nearly four
decades ago, despite opposition from local residents and the
concerns of Energy Department officials.
Presco Inc., based in the Houston area, had received permission
from county commissioners to drill one well inside a
state-imposed buffer zone around Project Rulison in western
Colorado.
Project Rulison was part of a federal project to explore
peaceful uses for nuclear devices. The Atomic Energy Commission
detonated a 43-kiloton bomb at the site in 1969 to free gas
below the surface.
But local officials withdrew their support of Presco's drilling
project this week after learning that Presco planned to drill
four wells inside the buffer zone.
That decision prompted the state agency that issues drilling
permits to cancel plans to consider a rule change that would
have allowed the company to drill inside the buffer zone if the
bottom of the well is outside the prohibited area.
Tresi Haupt, the only commissioner who opposed allowing the
company one well in the buffer zone, said she believes there
should be no drilling inside the zone until the Department of
Energy determines it is safe.
``I don't understand why they feel the need to drill in this
location until everyone has cleared it,'' she said.
The state has asked Presco to revise its application or submit a
new one because of the county's concerns, Beaver said. The
commission then will schedule a hearing on the concerns of
officials and residents.
``Our intent is to develop the area to the extent that it's safe
and reasonable to do so,'' said Dave Wheeler, Presco executive
vice president.
The DOE expects to complete a study by the fall of 2007
examining whether radioactive gas or other material is spreading
underground. Pete Sanders, the agency's manager of the site,
said that while the DOE can provide that data, the state decides
whether or not to permit drilling.
Still, ``we would be more comfortable if drilling didn't take
place until we're done with our study,'' he said.
After the 1969 nuclear blast, the gas was considered too
radioactive to be sold commercially. The Department of Energy -
the Atomic Energy Commission's successor - began deactivating
and cleaning the surface of the site in the 1970s, finishing in
1998.
Monitoring has not found any increase in radioactivity in
surface or groundwater above normally occurring levels, a DOE
report released in January found. Sanders, the site manager,
said officials must determine whether radioactivity is spreading
underground.
Garfield County, which is experiencing a boom in natural gas
drilling, projected that allowing Presco to operate the one well
inside the buffer zone would have provided some of that
information.
``No one realized they were talking about four wells,'' said
county administrator Ed Green.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
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