***************************************************************** 06/16/05 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 13.138 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** Send News Stories to news@energy-net.org with title on subject line and first line of body NUCLEAR POLICY 1 BBC: Iran's presidential hopefuls 2 Korea Herald: Seoul calls for second inter-Korean summit 3 Korea Herald: Chung urges 'strategic decisions' by N.K. 4 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: Japan Daily Bemoans Failure of June 15 Su 5 Japan Times: Enveloped in a nuclear fog 6 MIT Tech Review: Nuclear Accountability 7 Korea Times: NK Human Rights Not Agenda for 6-Way Talks 8 Korea Times: Chung Urges NK to Return to Nuke Talks 9 asahi.com: EDITORIAL: The two Koreas 10 US: Las Vegas SUN: Gibbons demands administration account for fed 11 US: Baltimore Chronicle: US Energy Policy: The Devil Is in the Detai 12 US: Las Vegas SUN: Senate approves requirement for utilities to use 13 US: Scoop: The Downing Street Memo Comes To Washington 14 TNF: Gary Brown argues nuclear weapons are terrible things but they 15 US 'torpedoed Kursk nuclear sub' 16 UK The Times: Nuclear freeze could thaw rift with the West 17 Sunday Times: Nuclear freeze could thaw rift with the West - 18 Bellona: Swiss court rules Adamov should be released from detention 19 RIA Novosti: IAEA SENDS INSPECTORS TO GEORGIA 20 Guardian Unlimited: Saudia Arabia Exempt From Nuke Inspections NUCLEAR REACTORS 21 US: Nearly 300 groups reject nuclear power as global warming solutio 22 US: Brattleboro Reformer: Wall, built of Yankee Rowe plant scraps, i 23 US: Brattleboro Reformer: FEMA faults state, towns on VY disaster dr 24 Guardian Unlimited Letter: Green views 25 US: Cumberland County News: Hope Creek restarts only to spring anoth 26 US: Public Citizen: Nearly 300 Groups Reject Nuclear Energy as Globa 27 US: Rutland Herald: Review of Yankee does not meet requirements 28 US: QCTimes.com: Nuclear value could waste away 29 US: NRC: Agency Information Collection Activities: Submission for th 30 US: NRC: Pacific Gas and Electric Company Diablo Canyon Power Plant, 31 US: Boston Globe: Nuclear reconsidered 32 US: Vermont Guardian: Environmental groups oppose U.S. subsidies to 33 US: Westchester.com: Study Of Indian Point Alternatives Released 34 US: Brattleboro Reformer: Panel advises PSB to reject NRC's inspecti NUCLEAR SECURITY 35 US: Rutland Herald: State gets scathing review of nuclear drill NUCLEAR SAFETY 36 US: Hanford Area Tests Find Plutonium in Fish, Mulberry Trees 37 US: [du-list] Photo Radioactive Cylinder in Transit 38 US: Chillicothe Gazette: DOE proposes fine for safety company over w 39 US: Fairfield Daily Ledger Inc.: Ammunition plant workers near their 40 Whitehaven News: Whitewash fears over child cancers report NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 41 US: Bradenton Herald: SRQ launching assessment of contamination's im 42 US: columbia tribune: Waste shipments no big deal, local authorities 43 US: Daily News: Foes cheer cutback at toxic waste site 44 US: Las Vegas SUN: Lawmakers spar over nuke storage 45 US: Las Vegas SUN: Editorial: 'Solutions' spell danger 46 US: Cincinnati Enquirer: Dredging done at Fernald waste pits 47 US: CNW Group: Tournigan acquires significant US uranium potential 48 PRWEB: Proposed Alternative to Yucca Mountain Project 49 Korea Times: New Incentives Set for Nuclear Waste Dump 50 US: American Online: NRC releases LES reports 51 US: Newsday.com: Decision will step up waste shipments from nuclear 52 NPR: Plan Could Reduce Waste Sent to Yucca Mountain 53 Business Gazette: BNFL BOSSES BONUSES SLASHED AS THORP LEAK PROBE C PEACE US DEPT. OF ENERGY 54 DOE: West Valley Demonstration Project Waste Management Activities 55 Albuquerque Tribune: Man of many hats 56 DOE: Innovative American Technology, Inc. 57 Summit Daily: Allard proposes solution to mineral rights dilemma at 58 Tri-City Herald: Public sounds off on worries 59 USATODAY.com: INL eyes plutonium for powering spacecraft 60 ABQJOURNAL: Lockheed Martin Formalizes LANL Bid Team 61 KRQE News 13: More fraud allegations at LANL 62 PRN: Lockheed Martin Announces Los Alamos Bid Team 63 Guardian Unlimited: Los Alamos Lab Accuses Two in Fraudulence ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 BBC: Iran's presidential hopefuls Last Updated: Wednesday, 15 June, 2005 Eight candidates are in the running, with former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani seen by many as favourite. Mostafa Moin, an aide to outgoing reformist President Khatami, is considered in with a chance, but only if turnout is high. Ex-broadcasting chief Ali Larijani is the conservatives' main contender. AKBAR HASHEMI RAFSANJANI Aged 70, he has been active in politics for over 40 years. Served as parliament speaker (1980-89) and twice as president (1989-97). Currently chairman of the influential Expediency Council which rules on disputes between the Majlis (parliament) and the Guardian Council, the country's main supervisory body. A member of the conservative Militant Clergy Association, Mr Rafsanjani is often termed a "pragmatic conservative". As president he gave priority to economic over political development, which critics said hampered social change and led to human rights abuses. He took over as armed forces commander in 1988, the last year of the war with Iraq, and is seen as instrumental in Iran's acceptance of the UN Resolution which ended the war. His influence in Lebanon helped bring about the release of Western hostages in the early 1990s. He studied Islamic jurisprudence with the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Khomeini. Married with five children. His daughter, Faezeh Hashemi, advocates women's rights and her journal Zan (Woman) was closed down by hardliners in 1997. MOSTAFA MOIN A former cabinet minister, Dr Moin is currently adviser to President Khatami. His candidacy is backed by the reformist Participation Front. He served twice as Minister of Culture and Higher Education, under President Rafsanjani (1989-1993) and President Khatami (1997-2003). During the latter term he submitted his resignation three times, in 1999 in protest at the suppression of student riots, then twice in 2003 over what he called "meddling" by the authorities in his work. On the third occasion his resignation was accepted, "with deep regret", by President Khatami. Born in 1951 in Najafabad he graduated in paediatrics in 1980 and obtained a PhD in immunology from Tehran University in 1996. Married with two children. ALI LARIJANI Dr Ali Larijani headed Iran's state broadcaster IRIB for 10 years until 2004. Before that he served as Minister of Culture and Islamic guidance under President Rafsanjani. The Islamic Co-ordination Council, Iran's main conservative alliance, chose him as its candidate in April. He is currently security adviser to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Born in 1957, he is the son of late Grand Ayatollah Haj Mirza Hashem Amoli. He graduated in mathematics and computer sciences and has postgraduate degrees in Western philosophy from Tehran University.MAHMUD AHMADINEZHAD Tehran Mayor Mahmud Ahmadinezhad is backed by the conservative political group Abadgaran, or Developers, who dominate the current parliament. His website says he was a founding member of the student union which took over the US embassy in Tehran in 1979. Since becoming mayor in May 2003 he is known to have quarrelled with reformist President Mohammad Khatami. Dr Ahmadinezhad was born in Garmsar near Tehran in 1956. He studied civil engineering in Tehran and obtained a doctorate in transport in 1997. As mayor, he has tried to solve Tehran's traffic problems. MEHDI KARRUBI A veteran politician as well as a cleric, he served as a an MP for 16 years and Majlis speaker for eight. He is identified with the reformist camp and backs consensus politics within the ruling system. He split from the conservative-controlled Militant Clergy Association and founded the left-leaning Militant Clerics in 1988. He has headed the group ever since. After the death of Ayatollah Khomeini, to whom he was close, he suffered a setback as the conservatives' power increased. He supported the reformist camp after Mohammad Khatami's rise to power in 1997. Born in Aligudarz in 1937, he was active against the Shah and arrested several times. Married with four sons.MOHSEN MEHRALIZADEH A vice-president under President Khatami, he chairs Iran's Physical Education Organisation. He describes himself as an "independent reformist". He worked in industry in the 1980s and early 1990s, and was vice-chairman of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation from 1993-1995. He is said to be the official who signed a contract with Russia in 1992 to build the Bushehr nuclear power station. From 1997-2001, he was governor of Khorasan, Iran's largest province at the time. Born in Maragheh in northwestern Iran in 1956, he is a mechanical engineer and is married with three children.MOHSEN REZAI (withdrawn) A former Revolution Guards commander (1981-1997), Dr Rezai combines a military past with a background in economics. His candidacy was put forward by a group of conservative parties in early 2005. Despite that he said he would distance himself from conservatives if they move too far to the right. He has been identified as an author of Iran's 20-year plan and heads the economics committee on the Expediency Council, which settles disputes over legislation between parliament and the Guardian Council. Born in 1954 in Khuzestan Province, he studied mechanical engineering and completed his PhD in economics in 2001. He recently accepted full responsibility after his son sought asylum in the US, saying his duties had meant he was too busy to dedicate much time to his family. However, in a last minute twist, he announced he was pulling out of the race - to give his fellow conservative candidates a better chance. MOHAMMAD BAQER QALIBAF Dr Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf is a conservative candidate and at 43 the youngest to stand. In July 1999 he was one of the 24 Revolution Guards commanders who sent a letter to President Khatami, urging him to quash the student unrest. Appointed chief of police in 2000, he set out to modernise the force and recruited women for the first time. He resigned to run in the election. He joined the Basij paramilitary volunteers in 1980 and fought in the Iran-Iraq war. At the age of 22 he was appointed division commander. He was appointed commander of the air wing of the Revolution Guards in 1997. Born in the holy city of Mashhad in 1962, he is married with three children. He took a PhD in geopolitics in Tehran in 2001. BBC Monitoringselects and translates news from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages. It is based in Caversham, UK, and has several bureaus abroad. ***************************************************************** 2 Korea Herald: Seoul calls for second inter-Korean summit (smjoo@heraldm.com) By Joint Press Corps and Joo Sang-min 2005.06.16 PYONGYANG - The South Korean government and civil delegations called yesterday for a nuclear free peninsula and a second summit as a four-day joint event in Pyongyang celebrating the fifth anniversary of the inter-Korean summit accord reached the halfway stage. At a morning event attended by more than 6,000 Koreans, civilian representatives from both Koreas made a five-point joint statement pledging to "work together to avert nuclear threats on the peninsula." But North Korea also stressed inter-Korean cooperation, a phrase often used by the North in a bid to shun international pressure to give up its nuclear ambitions, without clearly referring to its nuclear weapons development programs. The 40-member government delegation led by Unification Minister Chung Dong-young held government-level joint ceremonies in the afternoon with the 24-member North Korean government officials led by Kim Ki-nam. Kim serves as secretary of the Workers' Party's central committee. Inter-Korean government and civilian delegates attend a joint event in a cultural center in Pyongyang yesterday to mark the fifth anniversary of the June 15 inter-Korean summit accord. [Joint Press Corps] Lim Dong-won, a former Unification Minister and a key confidant of former President Kim Dae-jung, who had the historic first summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, called on the two governments to arrange a second summit. "Seventy million Koreans sincerely wish that summit talks are held again to make progress for peace and reunification," Lim said in a congratulatory speech. At the 2000 summit in Pyongyang, Kim Jong-il promised to make a return visit to the South at an appropriate time but has shown no signs yet of doing so. It is the first time government officials have attended the annual events marking the June 15, 2000 summit, which led to unprecedented inter-Korean cooperation and exchanges in economic and cultural sectors. Former President Kim Dae-jung did not visit Pyongyang for this week's summit anniversary celebrations. "From now on, South and North Korea should join forces to begin the process of building a peace mechanism," Minister Chung said. He officially invited North Korean government and civilian representatives to Seoul on Aug. 15 to jointly celebrate the 60th anniversary of liberation after 35 years of Japanese colonial rule. The South Korean government hoped that the four-day joint festival now going on here could be an opportunity to make headway with the stalled six-party talks aimed at resolving the nuclear standoff. "The government will actively use inter-Korean talks in Pyongyang to urge North Korea to return to the six-party talks so that both the nuclear dispute and inter-Korean relations may go smoothly," Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon said at his weekly news briefing in Seoul. Earlier in Pyongyang, about 295 southern civilian representatives of labor unions, farming organizations, religious groups and lawmakers held a civilian-led ceremony during which both sides pledged their joint efforts to promote peace on the peninsula. "We should put priority on our cooperation to prevent war and clear away military hostility," civilian delegation head Baik Nak-chung, an honorary professor at Seoul National University, said in a keynote speech. North Korea called for increased cross-border cooperation to "crush warlike foreign forces," an apparent reference to the United States. "Increasing the people's power is the only way to maintain peace. We should not sit idle and beg peace. Rather we should safeguard peace with our unified power," Ahn Kyung-ho, the chief civilian North Korean delegate, said. Today, Chung will meet Kim Young-nam, the country's ceremonial head of state as chairman of the North's Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly. Media reports said government delegation leader Chung would brief the North on the results of last weekend's Seoul-Washington summit and convey a message containing a guarantee of regime security for Pyongyang and a pledge that the communist state will have a collective security guarantee and a "more normal relationship" with Washington if it gives up its nuclear program. It was not certain whether Chung could meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. The government delegates are staying at the upper-scale Baekhwawon Guest House in Pyongyang as North Korea changed the planned accommodation from two lower-level state guest houses. The change sparked media speculation Kim may meet the southern delegation since the new location is mainly used for meetings between the reclusive Kim and foreign state guests. Former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung stayed there during the 2000 summit. The government and civilian delegation from the South arrived on Tuesday and participated in the opening ceremony at Kim Il-sung Stadium, named after the communist country's founder and father of current leader Kim Jong-il. They will return to the South on Friday. ***************************************************************** 3 Korea Herald: Chung urges 'strategic decisions' by N.K. (smjoo@heraldm.com) By Joint Press Corps and Joo Sang-min 2005.06.17 The Nation's No.1 English Newspaper PYONGYANG - Unification Minister Chung Dong-young, in Pyongyang to celebrate the historic inter-Korean summit in 2000, met North Korea's No. 2 man Kim Young-nam yesterday evening and urged the North to make a "strategic decision" to return to negotiations. During a 40-minute discussion on the third day of the four-day summit celebrations, Chung explained possible economic benefits and security guarantees in return for the communist country dismantling its nuclear arms program. Pyongyang has been boycotting six-party denuclearization talks for almost a year, citing Washington's hostility towards the communist regime, while seeking to increase its stockpile of nuclear weapons. Recently, it said it is willing to rejoin the discussion, but did not give a specific timetable. Chung was originally scheduled to meet Kim, ceremonial head of state as chairman of the North's Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly in the early morning, but it was delayed to the evening, sparking speculation Chung might meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. But South Korean government officials said the figurehead leader changed the schedule as he wanted to host a dinner at 8 p.m. Chung reportedly briefed the North on the results of a recent Seoul-Washington summit, where U.S. President George W. Bush mentioned a collective security guarantee and a "more normal relationship" with Washington if it gives up its nuclear program. Earlier in the day, about 20 South Korean civilian representatives also in Pyongyang paid a visit to Kim Young-nam after an unexpected invitation on Wednesday night. The North's figurehead leader stressed inter-Korean cooperation to avert the threat of war on the Korean Peninsula, and criticized the United States for stifling his regime and pouring malicious language. "We should put the spirit of inter-Korean cooperation on top priority and block attempts to oppose inter-Korean collaboration," Kim said during the 20-minute meeting with the South's civic representatives. "The United States exerts pressure on us in various fields - political, economic and military, and slandered us as an outpost of tyranny, but we didn't flinch." Among the participants of the meeting were Ven. Bub-jang, executive director of the Jogye Order, the largest Buddhist sect in Korea, Park Yong-gil, wife of late South Korean pro-reunification activist Rev. Moon Ik-hwan, Rep. Won Hee-ryong of the conservative opposition Grand National Party and some ruling Uri Party lawmakers. The 40-member and 295-member South Korean government and civil delegations participated in the closing ceremony held in Chung Ju Young Gymnasium which was built to commemorate its late Hyundai Group founder Chung Ju-young, who initiated inter-Korean economic projects like the tour program to Mount Geumgang. The two southern delegations will return to the South today via a direct air-route from Pyongyang to Incheon. ***************************************************************** 4 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: Japan Daily Bemoans Failure of June 15 Summit Home> National/Politics Updated Jun.16,2005 18:58 KST Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun on Thursday said a landmark 2000 summit between the two Koreas achieved quite the opposite of what its South Korean proponents hoped it would. Titling an editorial on the fifth anniversary of the June 15 Joint Declaration "South Korea has changed, North Korea hasn't," the paper said South Korea had since then "psychologically disarmed" while the North continued to build up its weapons arsenal. The summit between president Kim Dae-jung and the North¡¯s Kim Jong-il ¡°brought about no changes whatsoever in the North Korean regime. On the contrary, it is South Korean society that has undergone marked changes since the talks,¡± the editorial lamented. ¡°South Korea has failed to persuade the North to abandon its nuclear ambitions even after offering Pyongyang the carrot of economic assistance." The editorial accused the Roh administration of in effect approving the Stalinist country¡¯s nuclear ambitions while paying lip-service to denuclearization of the Peninsula. ¡°Even after Pyongyang publicly declared that it has nuclear arms, [Seoul] has not changed its policy of 'expanding exchanges and cooperation' between the two Koreas,¡± it said. ¡°That is tantamount to the administration's approving of Pyongyang's becoming a nuclear power." It said a new sense of inter-Korean brotherhood in the South meant the country lost the sense of a real and present danger posed by the North, citing as evidence the omission of the term ¡°main enemy¡± to describe North Korea from a South Korean defense white paper last year. ¡°This is a major change from the perspective of a country's national security policy," it said. Meanwhile, it also said Pyongyang's declaration that it is a nuclear power ¡°has also drastically changed the security environment for Japan.¡± Then it offered a suggestion of its own: ¡°North Korea will not change its stance unless there are threats of economic sanctions or containment tactics." The Yomiuri concluded, "Former South Korean president Kim Dae-jung was criticized for the fact that the talks were only realized after cash and other inducements equivalent to US$500 million were handed over to Pyongyang. Yet all the summit produced was a change in the way South Korea perceives national security." (englishnews@chosun.com ) ***************************************************************** 5 Japan Times: Enveloped in a nuclear fog Friday, June 17, 2005 By HARVEY STOCKWIN HONG KONG -- Any day now the mere oscillation of a seismograph needle could precipitate uncertainties and greatly increase tensions: North Korea may become the second East Asian nation to shock the world with an underground nuclear test explosion, just as China did at Lop Nor in 1964. At the end of April the Bush administration informed the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna and several allied nations that an underground test was being prepared by the North Koreans and could take place as early as June. Governments made sure that their seismographs were ready to read any rumbles emanating from northeast North Korea. Prudently, the Americans were not categorical regarding dates. Washington knows full well that, as ever, North Korea marches to its own unpredictable drumbeat. The current personification of the Kim communist dynastic dictatorship, Kim Jong Il, will decide on the propitious moment for that initial nuclear detonation, perhaps in consultation with one or two North Korean military leaders. While North Korea's timing may be unpredictable, it seems fairly certain that the test will eventually take place, mainly because the two nations with the capacity to stop it do not wish to do so. China could ruthlessly withhold its regime-sustaining aid to Pyongyang, but Beijing has decided that it much prefers a weak, albeit nuclear, client state on its border rather than risk North Korea's collapse and the emergence of a dynamic reunited Korea. The United States could try to entice Kim with a generous package of concessions. But the Bush administration sees any such "gift" as encouraging nuclear proliferation as well as sustaining an obnoxious regime. Kim would still recognize that his retention of nuclear weapons was the only guarantee of continued American "generosity." Additionally, Beijing now rejects insistent American pressure aimed at getting China to fully exert its influence over North Korea. For nearly a year now, China had been either unwilling or unable to even get North Korea to resume participation in the six-party talks (the two Koreas, Russia, Japan, China and the United States) -- the object of which has been to reinstate the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. But even if, as some diplomats currently hope, a fourth round of six-nation talks does take place, it will probably only mean that a North Korean nuclear test will be delayed for a while. U.S. spy satellites detect North Korean tunnel-building and excavation in a northeastern region in the vicinity of Kilju. One such excavation has been filled in, consistent with preparations for the explosion of an underground test. Yet all those earth-moving preparations could be a Pyongyang ruse. Remember the huge underground cavern that the Clinton administration considered to be part of North Korea's nuclear threat? Pyongyang received a lot of aid in return for permitting a U.S. inspection, which discovered that the cavern was completely empty. The North Koreans would probably like nothing better than to once again prove American intelligence wrong by first sending misleading signals, and then showing that nothing was there. Conversely, having completely missed the signs in 1998 that India and Pakistan were about to conduct nuclear tests, American intelligence could now be overcompensating for that failure. There are of course disincentives for Kim. He cannot be sure how neighboring nations will react to any nuclear tests. At a time when Pyongyang is significantly increasing its still modest amount of trade with Russia, China and South Korea, it may not want to risk yet another economic setback. The North Koreans are heavily indebted to Beijing for food and fuel aid, and may fear that, after a nuclear test, China might reverse itself and end this source of sustenance. Yet the reasons why a North Korean nuclear test will probably take place, any day now, are much more compelling. The fact that the North Koreans recently unloaded 8,000 fuel rods from the Yongbyon reactor is suggestive. Had the North Koreans waited another year, the yield of weapons-grade plutonium from those rods would have been much greater. To do so now, and accept a lesser yield, could indicate a degree of political impatience on Kim's part as he hurries to replenish his limited stock of weapons-grade plutonium, before exploding part of it. Any fears Pyongyang has of Chinese pressure to prevent a test appear to be groundless even though the Americans have asked Beijing to apply it. Spokesman Liu Jianchao has rejected any thought of sanctions if North Korea conducts a test, as China "is not in favor of exerting pressure or imposing sanctions on North Korea. We believe that such measures are not necessarily effective." Perhaps the best example of China's contrary view came May 11 when the banner story in the China Daily urged direct contact between the U.S. and North Korea as the best way to solve the nuclear impasse -- the very policy option Bush has consistently rejected. Since the North Koreans must know of these Sino-American differences by now, a nuclear test may recommend itself as a way of increasing a Sino-American rift. Yet the more compelling reason a North Korean nuclear test is probably inevitable is that it is the only way to make its long-standing nuclear diplomacy credible, and to ensure that North Korea is taken seriously by otherwise hostile states. Kim almost certainly notes that India and Pakistan have been taken much more seriously by the U.S. since their 1998 nuclear tests. Above all, a nuclear North Korea fits Kim's vision of realpolitik on the Korean Peninsula. Pyongyang has steadily pursued nuclear development since the Eisenhower administration used the nuclear threat to secure Russian and Chinese compliance with a Korean armistice in 1953, thereby depriving the Kim Dynasty of any chance of establishing one Korea under its rule during the last 52 years. At the very least, Kim believes that the undisputed advent of a nuclear North Korea will establish a better balance of power with an economically stronger but politically deferential South Korea. Kim believes that once he has conclusively demonstrated that he possesses nuclear capability, the U.S. and Japan, and even China, will be far more respectful, fearing that he may place an atomic warhead on top of his intermediate-range as well as his intercontinental, ballistic missiles. While a nuclear test explosion may make sense from Kim's point of view, it seems unlikely to enhance the long-term stability and prosperity of East Asia. Harvey Stockwin has been reporting on developments on the Korean Peninsula since taking up residence in Hong Kong in 1976. The Japan Times: June 17, 2005 (C) All rights reserved The Japan Times Ltd. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 6 MIT Tech Review: Nuclear Accountability techreview.com By Graham Allison July 2005 Scenario one: If North Korea fired a nuclear-armed missile that devastated an American city, how would the U.S. government respond? The state-sponsored attack would fit within the Cold War paradigm; therefore, the certain American response would be an overwhelming retaliation aimed at destroying Pyongyang, Kim Jong Il's nuclear and missile programs, and North Korea's million-man army. Such a response would result in enormous collateral damage, killing millions of North Koreans. Despite reservations about the morality of such a response, those who established the Cold War nuclear doctrine recognized--and accepted--the unintended deaths of millions of innocents. Whoever occupied the White House during such a nuclear attack would understand this also. Scenario Two: If North Korea were discovered to have sold a nuclear bomb to al-Qaeda, which smuggled the weapon into the United States and used it to destroy a city, how would the U.S. government respond? As things stand today, it would, again, launch an overwhelming retaliation against North Korea. Scenario Three: Now imagine a nightmare in which an unknown terrorist group smuggles a nuclear bomb into the United States and detonates it in Manhattan or Los Angeles, killing hundreds of thousands of Americans--but the U.S. government is uncertain where the bomb came from and who delivered it. The logic of deterrence requires a deterrer and an identified deterree. In Henry Kissinger's formula, "Deterrence requires a combination of power, the will to use it, and the assessment of these by the potential aggressor. Moreover, deterrence is the product of those factors and not the sum. If any one of them is zero, deterrence fails." An adversary with no known return address might calculate that it could escape retaliation. In scenario three, as an American city lies smoldering, how would the U.S. respond if Osama bin Laden announced that he had ordered the action? If the U.S. government knew where bin Laden was, it would already be there. The terrorist nuclear weapon that destroyed an American city, or the material from which it was made, would almost certainly have originated in a state. Fortunately, producing highly enriched uranium or plutonium--the key ingredients of a nuclear bomb--is a multibillion-dollar, multiyear undertaking, something beyond the capability of nonstate terrorists. After a nuclear September 11, the U.S. government would be eager to exact swift vengeance. But against whom? It must first determine who was responsible for the attack. Did a state make and deliver the bomb or willingly sell it to terrorists? Or was the weapon stolen from a state that had no intention of losing it? (Indeed, the material could even have come from American stockpiles.) In the first case, identification would provide a bull's-eye for retaliation. In the second, the certainty that the weapon was stolen from, say, a Russian or Pakistani arsenal would generate a demand for the immediate global lockdown of all nuclear weapons and materials. Today, the technological prerequisite for rethinking the unthinkable is nuclear forensics: the ability to identify a bomb's source from radioactive debris left after it explodes. Building on Cold War techniques, the Pentagon has developed new methods for collecting samples from ground zero, measuring data such as isotopic ratios and the efficiency of the fuel burn in the detonation, and comparing that information to known nuclear data to determine the origin of the materials. Much about foreign nuclear materials is already known, collected from Cold War military tests, commercial transactions, scientific exchanges, and covert means. But the recent debate about the uranium hexafluoride that Libya turned over after renouncing its nuclear-weapons program illustrates gaps in our knowledge. The U.S. intelligence community believes that North Korea was the source; however, according to informed press reports, it reached that determination by the process of elimination--not by identifying the uranium directly, but rather by ruling out other known sources. The goal of a robust nuclear forensics program must be to identify nuclear material definitively and quickly. The 2002 study by the National Research Council Making the Nation Safer: The Role of Science and Technology in Countering Terrorism concluded that "The technology for developing [postexplosion nuclear attribution] exists but needs to be assembled, an effort that is expected to take several years." Establishing this capability should be a top priority, since effective deterrence requires convincing potential perps that the United States will be able to identify the culprit. Graham Allison, the director of Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, is the author of Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe. ***************************************************************** 7 Korea Times: NK Human Rights Not Agenda for 6-Way Talks Hankooki.com > The Korea Times > Nation By Ryu Jin Staff Reporter North Korea¡¯s human rights issue is not an official agenda item in the negotiations on its nuclear program, though it could emerge in bilateral contacts between the United States and the North within the context of the six-party talks, officials said on Thursday. ``It is not an agenda item for the six-party talks,¡¯¡¯ a senior South Korean official, deeply involved in the North Korean nuclear issue, said on condition of anonymity. ``The main purpose of the talks is to resolve the standoff over the North¡¯s nuclear weapons program.¡¯¡¯ In a press briefing on a meeting in Seoul earlier in the day between the chief nuclear negotiators from South Korea and the U.S., he said the U.S. also shares the view and understands South Korea¡¯s position on the North¡¯s human rights problems. Deputy Foreign Minister Song Min-soon, right, shakes hands with Christopher Hill, U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, prior to talks on the North Korean nuclear issue at the ministry in Seoul, Thursday. /Korea Times Christopher Hill, U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, also said ``there has been no change in the U.S. position¡¯¡¯ on the purpose of the six-party talks, though his country would not remain silent on what he said are serious human rights abuses in North Korea. ``Frankly at the end of the day, as we get to the point where the U.S. is in a position to have a normal bilateral relationship with North Korea, obviously how normal that relationship would be would depends on a number of factors,¡¯¡¯ he told reporters. Hill, the U.S. point man on the nuclear issue, held talks with a couple of South Korean officials including his counterpart, Deputy Foreign Minister Song Min-soon, to discuss follow-up measures of last Friday¡¯s summit between the two allies. In their Washington summit, President Roh Moo-hyun and President George W. Bush laid out a package of incentives, including security guarantees, substantial economic aid and ``more normal relations¡¯¡¯ between North Korea and the U.S., in exchange for a nuclear dismantlement. North Korea, which has been boycotting the six-nation talks since June last year, has yet to respond to the ``positive message¡¯¡¯ from the Roh-Bush summit. It has demanded bilateral talks with the U.S., which the U.S. said is possible within the framework of the multilateral talks. ``We discussed not only ways to get the six-party process restarted but also measures to see substantial progress once the talks are resumed,¡¯¡¯ Song said after 70-minute talks with Hill. ``We also talked about the inter-Korean meetings which are now underway in Pyongyang.¡¯¡¯ However, just days after the summit, which officials from the two sides rated as ``highly successful¡¯¡¯ in displaying a united front of the allies, the Bush administration made a series of moves to underscore the importance which it attached to the North¡¯s human rights record. Media outlets have raised concerns that the latest American moves could have a negative effect on the joint efforts of the other countries to resume the six-party nuclear talks by undercutting the good atmosphere created in the Roh-Bush summit. Officials in Seoul, however, tried to play down the significance of Washington¡¯s aggressive approach on the North Korean human rights issue, despite the widely known differences found in their policies. A senior government official who asked not to be identified said South Korea, like any other nation in the world, regards the human rights issue as a matter of grave concern, though it believes the issue should be dealt with in a way that would ``effectively improve¡¯¡¯ the situation. ``What is important to us is not a `slogan¡¯ but a `solution,¡¯ not `anger¡¯ but `answers,¡¯¡¯¡¯ he said. ``What we really need are tools to effectively improve human rights conditions in the North. They are not improved by simply saying that they are bad.¡¯¡¯ jinryu@koreatimes.co.kr 06-16-2005 19:38 ***************************************************************** 8 Korea Times: Chung Urges NK to Return to Nuke Talks Hankooki.com > The Korea Times By Joint Press Corps &Ryu Jin Staff Reporter PYONGYANG _ Unification Minister Chung Dong-young and North Korea's No. 2 leader, Kim Yong-nam, met here in the North's capital on Thursday, to resolve the nuclear standoff and other issues, according to officials. On the last evening of the four-day event to mark the summit between the two Koreas in June 2000, Chung again urged North Korea to return to the six-party talks on its nuclear weapons program, reaffirming Seoul's promise to present an ``important proposal.'' Chung, who is leading a 40-member government delegation, met Kim, the nominal head of state chairing the North's Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly, without any other attendance. It was unclear how Kim responded to Chung's remarks at the closed-door session. But, in opening remarks during a meeting with the Southern delegates the previous day, he argued there has been ``no change in U.S. hostile policies'' toward the North. North Korea has been boycotting the six-party talks, hosted by China and involving the United States, South Korea, Japan and Russia, citing what it calls a hostile U.S. attitude against it. South Korea is utilizing cross-border meetings this month, including this week's festival as well as next week's inter-Korean ministerial talks in Seoul as an opportunity to persuade the North to return to the multilateral denuclearization talks. The largely civilian festival, including a group of 295 South Korean civic leaders took part in, concluded with a grand closing ceremony and an evening dinner gala. Members of the civilian delegation, led by Paik Nak-cheong, a professor emeritus at Seoul National University, also met with Kim Yong-nam in a separate meeting earlier that day. The delegations are to return to Seoul on Friday in separate chartered planes via the direct air route established in June 2000. However, the fifth anniversary of the historic inter-Korean summit was marred by ideological discord in the South where the country's conservative forces tried to find fault with the ongoing joint festival. The main opposition Grand National Party (GNP) criticized Yoo Hong-joon, head of the Cultural Heritage Administration and a member of the government delegation, for singing a North Korean song at Wednesday's dinner party. ``Does it make any sense that a ranking government official gets swayed by his mood and sings a song praising the (North Korean) people's army,'' said Rep. Maeng Hyung-kyu, chairman of the conservative party's policy committee, demanding his resignation. jinryu@koreatimes.co.kr 06-16-2005 19:56 ***************************************************************** 9 asahi.com: EDITORIAL: The two Koreas 06/16/2005 Five years have passed since North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and Kim Dae Jung, then president of South Korea, embraced each other during their historic Pyongyang summit, an event that stunned the world. On Tuesday, a high-level South Korean delegation arrived in the North Korean capital for talks and celebratory events. Among the delegates is Unification Minister Chung Dong Young. This time around, though, Seoul is displaying none of the public enthusiasm that was so evident in 2000. There are no festive banners and posters festooning the streets, and our recollection of people snapping up Kim Jong Il T-shirts feels as if it happened in the distant past. The joint declaration that resulted from the summit came across as a fervent prayer that eventually would result in the reunification of the two Koreas based on their own will. Seoul essentially applied its "Sunshine" policy, hoping to prod Pyongyang into internal reform by continuing to extend cooperation and friendship. And Pyongyang, because it was in dire straits, accepted the olive branch. The progress in North-South relations has indeed been amazing since the summit. A decade ago, it would have been unthinkable that the two Koreas would be connected by a road and railway service. Economic cooperation and government-level talks led to 27,000 people exchanges last year, up from 9,000 four years ago. Bilateral trade is also expanding. Ten reunions have already taken place for families broken up by the military demarcation line separating the two countries. More than 1 million South Korean tourists have visited the scenic Kumgang mountains in North Korea. Also, South Korean corporations are flourishing in the Kaeson industrial zone, exporting their products to third countries. All these developments are intended to prevent another tragic war, and we urge the two Koreas to continue making their best efforts. Still, not everything has turned out as people had hoped. For instance, Kim Jong Il has yet to visit Seoul, even though the joint declaration specifically called for it "at an appropriate time." The discovery that $500 million was illegally transferred from Seoul to Pyongyang just before the summit resulted in allegations that South Korea had "bought" the summit. Even though there is little visible reform in North Korea, the fact remains that money will flow into the North from the South with increased exchanges. Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program is the greatest damper on the enthusiasm that surged among South Koreans five years ago. Back then, a framework agreement was in place under which South Korea, Japan and the United States would provide light-water reactors to North Korea in exchange for the latter's freezing and eventual abandonment of its nuclear program. No one at the time thought Pyongyang would threaten the world with its declared possession of nuclear weapons. The nuclear crisis cannot be resolved by the two Koreas alone. It has become glaringly apparent that Japan, the United States, China and Russia must be involved if tensions are to ease on the Korean Peninsula. How should South Korea deal with these changed circumstances? While we understand the feelings of South Koreans about their shared identity with North Koreans and the importance of self-determination, we also believe it is time for them to fine-tune their direction and indicate it in more specific terms. In that sense, we applaud President Roh Moo Hyun, who was in Washington last week for summit talks with President George W. Bush. The meeting reaffirmed the importance of South Korea-U.S. relations, which had become strained of late. Tokyo and Washington believe Seoul is "pampering" Pyongyang, but South Korea has its own geopolitical reasons for doing so. We believe it is essential that Seoul try anew to explain its strategy in dealing with the situation on the troubled peninsula, thereby bolstering its ties with Tokyo and Washington. --The Asahi Shimbun, June 15(IHT/Asahi: June 16,2005) ***************************************************************** 10 Las Vegas SUN: Gibbons demands administration account for fed funding shortfalls By Suzanne Struglinski SUN WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., on Wednesday prodded Bush administration officials to account for shortfalls in payments made by the federal government to states that are largely federally owned. The PILT money is designed to help large swaths of Western states like Nevada where the federal government owns land and there is little tax base to support local services for the people who live there. President Bush in his budget for the next fiscal year proposed about $200 million for the program known as Payment in Lieu of Taxes, or PILT, roughly a $26.8 million cut from last year. Interior Department officials have said that far more -- roughly $343 million -- would be needed to "fully fund" the program adequately. The proposed Bush cuts would equal about a 12 percent cut for Nevada from last year, amounting to roughly $1.6 million less than the $13.5 it received last year. Nevada lawmakers, and allies in other Western states with federal in-holdings, vowed to restore at least some of the money. The House has approved an Interior spending bill that allocates $242 million. The Senate version allocates $235 million, although the full Senate has not voted on it yet. Nevada lawmakers have long made the case that PILT payments were falling short. But in a congressional committee hearing Tuesday, Mark Rey, the Agriculture Department's undersecretary of Natural Resources and Environment said that "in a tight budget environment we make tough decisions about priorities." Gibbons on Tuesday argued that PILT money is important to rural counties that cannot pay for schools, hospitals and other public services due to a low tax base. At a meeting of the House Resources subcommittee on forests and forest health, Gibbons pointed to Nevada on a map. The map showed 85 percent of Nevada shaded red, depicting the percentage owned by the federal government. "It's almost impossible to find the white, which is the private land," Gibbons said. "We have counties up there bigger than some states." Gibbons sits on the Resources Committee. He is not a member of the forests subcommittee but was allowed to sit in on the meeting to plead his case. "Nevada has been shortchanged by the federal government long enough," Gibbons said outside the hearing. Nevada lawmakers have long sought other legislative remedies in Congress to make up for the fact that the federal government owns so much of the state. One of those laws, the Southern Nevada Public Lands Management Act, allows for auctions of federal land in Clark County. Profits remain in Nevada and are used for land programs, as well as school and water programs. That program has been the subject of controversy lately as profits from the land sales swell into the billions of dollars. The Bush administration has proposed funneling some of the proceeds into federal coffers, while Nevada lawmakers seek to keep the money in the state. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev. ***************************************************************** 11 Baltimore Chronicle: US Energy Policy: The Devil Is in the Details ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: by Fred Cederholm We cant process/refine the oil that we already have. We havent opened a new refinery capable of processing 200,000 barrels per day in almost 25 years. -->Ive been thinking about energy. Actually Ive been thinking about Jimmy Carter, national policy, Alaska, Yucca Mountain, base recycling, and legacies. In a speech given on April 18th, 1977, then-President Carter identified the crisis we now face. His ten points of actions/considerations are just as relevant (if not more so) today, but few if any were implemented. You see, even though 28+ years have transpired, this nation still lacks a comprehensive national energy policy. While President Bush has identified it as a priority of his second term, so too had Carter, but not much materialized. Carters Middle Eastern triumph of Camp David was more than eclipsed by the gas rationing/lines when Uncle $ugar domestically produced 70% of our energy needs and 30% was imported, and America was held hostage in Iran. What could/should we expect now that those percentages are reversed, and America is held hostage in Iraq? There are rumblings from Capitol Hill and the Rose Garden that there must be action on an energy plan before this Congress returns home for the July recess, but I fear there will be little substance and any action will be far from comprehensive. At the least we can expect a rubber-stamping/lip service to the Bush proposals that have surfaced thus far. Remember: a chain is only as strong as the weakest link, and the devil is always in the details. This nation has an untapped/non-accessed repository of natural resources--oil, gas, coal, oil shale, timber and minerals. Many rest undisturbed on Federal lands protected by Executive Orders of numerous Presidents. But... what one presidential order has "protected," a later one can place on the auction block. In responding to why he had so acted on another (unrelated to energy) matter, Lyndon Johnson responded " Because Im the President, and I can!" There's still an oil glut from Prudhoe Bay, but there's no ready infrastructure to share it with the Heartland, East, and South. Months back, we learned how Bush intends to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for energy exploration. Were told the oil and gas are there, and we need them. Will its implementation (which is years away) solve our problems? And while we're thinking about that, we need to ask if the proposed pipeline(s) to the "lower 48" will pass through recently hyperactive earthquake sectors of South and Central Alaska. Consider this: We cant process/refine the oil that we already have! Since 1981, US refineries have decreased from 324 to 153--a reduction of 52%. We havent opened a new refinery capable of processing 200,000 barrels per day in almost 25 years. There's still an oil glut from Prudhoe Bay, but there's no ready infrastructure to share it with the Heartland, East, and South. The President has suggested increasing our nuclear power generating capabilities. My electricity comes from a nuclear plant less than 30 miles from my home. There are presently 103 such plants operating in the continental US (11 in Illinois alone). The problem with such generation rests with what to do with the radioactive by-products/waste. The promised national storage site at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, has been debated for almost two decades. Despite what has already been done/spent, it would be 2010 (at the earliest) before it could accept any such multi-millennial refuse. Radioactive materials are now "temporarily" stored at the 103 reactor sites. Add to those the "temporary" storage locations for similar materials from labs, medical facilities, and military sites... the solution to the radioactive pollution of these hazardous materials is NOT dilution. We need the national storage sitefirst. Bush and VP Cheney have a unique opportunity to build a lasting legacy of energy security for the US. No predecessors shared their first-hand knowledge of (and connections to) the energy industry. Also on the table: Recycling closed military facilities for "energy independence" and using them for additional refineries, liquid natural gas (LNG) portals, and nuclear power facilities. The conversion of such Federal sites will surely cut through a lot of red tape. But... who will hold title to the real estate? What price would be paid? Would Federal exemption from property tax levies flow to the new occupants, thereby costing local government units (and schools) millions in foregone tax revenues? President Bush and VP Cheney have a unique opportunity here for building a lasting legacy. No predecessors shared their first-hand knowledge of (and connections to) the energy industry. Will the American people be the beneficiaries this time, or will this prove yet another twisted opportunity in Uncle $ugars long history of rewarding insiders, friends, and contributors in our times of need? Im Fred Cederholm and Ive been thinking. You should be thinking, too. Copyright 2005 Questions, Inc. All rights reserved. Fred Cederholm is a CPA/CFE and a forensic accountant. He is a graduate of the University of Illinois (B.A., M.A. and M.A.S.). He can be reached at asklet@rochelle.net. To "Audit" this column, and to learn more about the subjects discussed, please check out: + The President's Proposed Energy Policy: Carter Speech of April 18th, 1977 + Refinery Capacity data: Index to 14 PDF file reports on the subject + "TH*NK*NG (REFINEMENTS)" Column for July 12th, 2004 + Oil development in America’s Arctic: Prudhoe Bay + Arctic National Wildlife refuge: (ANWAR) — Oil Development Scenario + Recent Earthquake Activity in the USA + White House Promotes U.S. Nuclear Power + About Yucca Mountain and the Standards + "If not Yucca Mountain, then what?" + "The Science of Yucca Mountain Debate Lingers over Safety of Nation's Proposed Nuclear Vault" Copyright © 2005 The Baltimore Chronicle. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 12 Las Vegas SUN: Senate approves requirement for utilities to use renewable fuels By H. JOSEF HEBERT ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON (AP) - Nevada Sen. John Ensign was one of nine Republicans who crossed party lines Thursday to help Democrats pass a measure that would require utilities to generate at least 10 percent of their electricity from renewable sources. Separately, a package of environmentally friendly tax incentives was advanced by a committee as senators made clear their intention to fashion a sharply different energy bill from one passed by the House. Electric utilities would have to rely more heavily on wind turbines, solar energy, biomass from garbage or plants and other non-fossil fuels to generate electricity under the provision approved by a 52-48 vote. Opponents argued the mandate, which would begin in 2020, would force higher electricity prices in regions of the country where such renewable fuels are not widely available. But Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., the measure's chief sponsor, said any modest price increase would be offset by lower natural gas prices as utilities shift from gas to other energy sources. He said 18 states already have requirements for utilities to use some renewable fuels, including some that are much more ambitious that his proposal. California, for example, is requiring 20 percent of its electricity to come from renewable sources by 2017; Maine is requiring 30 percent by 2011, said Bingaman. Ensign said the renewable requirement is an important part of a comprehensive energy policy. "With passage of this measure we have diversified our energy supply, encouraged the development of renewable resources and helped protect the environment by reducing emissions," he said. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada as among the 42 Democrats who backed the proposal along with one independent. "Renewable energy will bolster our national security because it's made in the USA and the supply can't be manipulated by any foreign power," Reid said. The Senate Finance Committee advanced $18 billion in energy tax breaks that lean heavily toward promoting energy efficiency, renewable, alternative motor fuels and clean coal technologies. House tax measures totaled only $8 billion and went almost exclusively toward developing traditional energy sources. "What came out of the House was not even a pale green. This is deep forest green," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. Finance Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said he expects the tax provisions to be rolled into the energy bill early next week. "We don't expect a lot of fuss on this on the floor," said Grassley. The provisions, covering tax breaks over 10 years, include nearly $3.8 billion for energy conservation and efficiency, including tax credits for solar panels, energy-efficient appliances and construction of energy-efficient homes. It also provides $2.6 billion in tax breaks to promote alternative fuels, including a tax credit for people who buy hybrid gasoline-electric cars and incentives to produce biodiesel fuel. The tax package would recoup some of the cost of the incentives with $4.3 billion in revenue from new or revamped energy taxes, bringing the cost to the government to $14 billion over 10 years, still more than twice the amount the White House had wanted. Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., said he opposed the measure because "a lot of the subsidies will support very popular programs" that, he argued, could be developed without government help. Hybrid automobiles have been growing in popularity and the wind power industry - which would receive about $3 billion in tax breaks over 10 years - is growing on its own, he maintained. The House legislation calls for $8 billion in energy tax breaks, of which less than $500 million would go to energy efficiency and renewable energy sources. House Republicans also have said they would oppose a requirement for utilities to use renewable energy. Bingaman called his provision "modest" and easily achievable, dismissing complaints that the requirement might be difficult to achieve in some parts of the country. While wind, geothermal sources and other renewables might be concentrated, biomass fuels from wood chips, plants and other sources "are everywhere," said Bingaman. He also said a utility could buy credits if it was unable to meet the 10 percent mandate. "It's a big rate increase," countered Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., citing an assessment by the Energy Department that said the renewable mandate would cost the utility industry $18 billion over 20 years - costs, he said, which will be passed on to consumers. "The $18 billion will be more than offset by the savings utilities would get by not having to invest in traditional sources of fuel," said Bingaman. -- ***************************************************************** 13 Scoop: The Downing Street Memo Comes To Washington Thursday, 16 June 2005, 1:04 pm DEMOCRACY NOW INTERVIEW The Downing Street Memo Comes To Washington; Conyers Blasts "Deafening Sound of Silence" Wednesday, June 15th, 2005 Listen to Segment || Download Show mp3 Watch 128k stream Watch 256k stream We speak with Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) who is convening a public hearing tomorrow in Washington on the so-called Downing Street Memo and other newly released documents that he says show the Bush administration's "efforts to cook the books on pre-war intelligence." We also speak with former CIA analyst Ray McGovern. [includes rush transcript] Tomorrow in Washington, Congressmember John Conyers of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, will convene a public hearing on the so-called Downing Street Memo and other newly released documents that Conyers says show the administration's "efforts to cook the books on pre-war intelligence." Conyers also says that he plans to raise new documents that back up the accuracy of the Downing Streets memo, which is actually the classified minutes of a July 2002 meeting of Tony Blair and his senior advisers. The minutes, which were published May 1 by the Sunday Times of London, paint a picture of an administration that had already committed to attacking Iraq, was manipulating intelligence and had already begun intense bombing of Iraq to prepare for the ground invasion. This was almost a year before the actual invasion officially began. The minutes are from a July 23, 2002 briefing of Prime Minister Tony Blair and his top national security advisers by British intelligence chief Richard Dearlove. The minutes contain an account of Dearlove's report that President George W. Bush had decided to bring about "regime change" in Iraq by military action; that the attack would be "justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD" (weapons of mass destruction); and that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." Meanwhile, this past weekend, The Sunday Times of London had another expose, showing that British cabinet members were warned that the UK was committed to taking part in a US-led invasion of Iraq and they had no choice but to find a way of making it legal. The memo was written in advance of the Downing Street meeting that produced the Downing Street Minutes. Despite the explosive information in these documents, they have received very little attention in the corporate media in this country and Bush administration officials have only been asked about it a handful of times. On June 7, after more than a month of media silence, a reporter for the Reuters news agency finally questioned President Bush and Tony Blair on the Downing Street Memo. + President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair, Joint news conference, June 7, 2005. The Conyers hearing is scheduled for tomorrow on Capitol Hill but only today did Conyers announce that they would be inside of the Capitol. Until this morning, they were scheduled to take place at the Democratic National Committee because the Republicans controlling the House Judiciary Committee refused to permit the ranking Democratic Member, John Conyers, to hold official hearings. Conyers now says he has managed to get an official room. Among those scheduled to testify tomorrow are former US ambassador to Iraq, Joe Wilson, attorney John Bonifaz and parents of soldiers killed in Iraq. The hearings will be followed by a rally outside the White House tomorrow evening and a petition with some half a million signatures will be delivered to the White House, calling on Bush to answer questions on the memo. + Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), tomorrow he will be convening hearings on Capitol Hill on the Downing Street Minutes. + Ray McGovern, 27-year career analyst with the CIA. During the Reagan administration, he was the senior intelligence briefer of then-Vice President George HW Bush. He is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. For more information go to: AfterDowningStreet.org *********** RUSH TRANSCRIPT This transcript is available free of charge. However, donations help us provide closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing on our TV broadcast. Thank you for your generous contribution. Donate AMY GOODMAN: On June 7, after more than a month of media silence, a reporter for the Reuters news agency finally questioned President Bush and Tony Blair on the Downing Street Memo. REPORTER: On Iraq, the so-called Downing Street Memo from July 2002 says, “Intelligence and facts remain fixed around the policy of removing Saddam through military action.” Is this an accurate reflection of what happened? Could both of you respond? TONY BLAIR: Well, I can respond to that very easily. No, the facts were not being fixed in any shape or form at all. And let me remind you that that memorandum was written before we then went to the United Nations. Now, no one knows more intimately the discussions that we were conducting as two countries at the time than me. And the fact is, we decided to go to the United Nations and went through that process, which resulted in the November 2002 United Nations resolution to give a final chance to Saddam Hussein to comply with international law. He didn't do so. And that was the reason why we had to take military action. But, you know, all the way through that period of time, we were trying to look for a way of managing to resolve this without conflict. As it happened, we weren't able to do that because, as I think was very clear, there was no way that Saddam Hussein was ever going to change the way that he worked or the way that he acted. GEORGE W. BUSH: Well, I, you know, I read kind of the characterizations of the memo, particularly when they dropped it out in the middle of his race. I'm not sure who they dropped it out is, but I'm not suggesting you all dropped it out there. And somebody said, well, you know, we had made up our mind to go to use military force to deal with Saddam. There is nothing farther from the truth. My conversations with the Prime Minister was how can we do this peacefully, what could we do, and this meeting, you know, evidently that took place in London happened before we even went to the United Nations or I went to the United Nations, and so it’s – look, both of us didn't want to use our military. Nobody wants to commit military into combat. It's the last option. AMY GOODMAN: President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, responding to a question about the Downing Street Memo on June 7. Well, hearings are scheduled for tomorrow, but they won't be held in an official committee room. Instead, they will be held at the Democratic National Committee, because the Republicans controlling the House Judiciary Committee refuse to permit the ranking Democratic Member, John Conyers, to hold official hearings. Among those scheduled to testify on Thursday are former U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Joe Wilson, attorney John Bonifaz and the parents of soldiers killed in Iraq. The hearings will be followed by a rally outside the White House tomorrow evening, and a petition with some half a million signatures, which will be delivered to the White House calling on Bush to answer questions on the memo. We're joined now in our Washington, D.C. studio by two guests: Democratic Congress Member John Conyers of Michigan, who is organizing the hearing, and Ray McGovern, who will be testifying at the hearing. He was a 27-year career analyst with the C.I.A. During the Reagan administration, he was the senior intelligence briefer of then Vice President George H.W. Bush. He is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. We welcome you both to Democracy Now! We're going to begin with Congress Member Conyers. Can you talk about why you are holding this hearing, Congress Member Conyers? And welcome. REP. JOHN CONYERS: Well, there are a lot of reasons, but being on the Judiciary Committee, charged with protecting the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, we have got a very fundamental question here that goes beyond when did the President begin to decide he was going to invade, and to notice, Amy, that the President is still denying that he ever intended to use force, yet those criticizing the memo are saying that everybody knew all along that he was going to do it. So, this is playing out, but we have a very deeper constitutional question over the authority to go to war, because it now appears that the President was planning to go to war, from both information we have received inside his administration and now outside of it, and that is the importance of the Downing Street Memo and the detail that is now coming out of it. We now have a serious question of whether -- if the Members of Congress had known of the determination, the fixed stated position of the President when at the same time he was telling us that he was exploring every option to avoid war, I don't think he would have got a successful vote that gave him additional military authority. So, we're talking about who determines how we go to war, and it's been cleverly set up through this administration, a war against terror, and a war in which we were going to get in a preemptive sort of way someone that was a danger to this country, and that looks so absurd now, that Iraq, with hardly anything, was going to be a danger to this country. It makes it clear that the much deeper question is not how do we get our boys out of there, which of course, we want to do, but who is going to have this awesome power if we're in this unending war against terror to commit the United States and its awesome military power to force. AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about why you're holding this meeting, not in Congress, but in the Democratic National Committee headquarters? REP. JOHN CONYERS: Well, we have been precluded, as you have suggested, but flash, this just in: We think that we're going to be able to get a room for the hearing inside the Capitol. AMY GOODMAN: So, it won't be at the D.N.C.? REP. JOHN CONYERS: No, ma'am. AMY GOODMAN: Ah. REP. JOHN CONYERS: We would much prefer it to be very accessible to our colleagues, and it's very appropriate. This is a very serious matter. We're talking about who has the right to declare war, and were we properly informed? Misleading the Congress and the American people is a very serious matter, and what we're trying to do is document, Amy, on evidence around and outside of the administration the fact that it was a clear intention of President Bush to go into Iraq months before he ever got the permission from Congress. But yet, he’s still denying that he ever wanted to go to war. And those -- there are those in -- some in the media who are saying oh, everybody knew that all the time. There's nothing new about the Downing Street Memo. AMY GOODMAN: When we come back, we'll continue with Congress Member John Conyers, as well as former C.I.A. analyst, Ray McGovern, on the Downing Street Memo. Stay with us. [break] AMY GOODMAN: I'm Amy Goodman, as we talk about the Downing Street Memo, a hearing being held on this issue by Congress Member John Conyers in Congress tomorrow. Congress Member Conyers joins us in Washington, along with former C.I.A. analyst, Ray McGovern. Ray McGovern, can you talk about what is most explosive about both, what is being called the Downing Street Memo, that talks about fixing the facts and intelligence around the policy, and this latest exposé of the Sunday Times of London, showing British cabinet members were warned that Britain was committed to taking part in the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, and they had no choice but to find a way to make it legal? RAY McGOVERN: Well, Amy, we Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity had been saying for three years that the intelligence and the facts were being fixed to support an unnecessary war. We never in our wildest dreams expected to have documentary proof of that under a SECRET label: “SECRET: U.K. EYES ONLY” in a most sensitive document reserved just for cabinet officials in the Blair government. And so, what we have now is documentary proof that, as that sentence reads, the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The Washington Post this morning is still at it. They quote that sentence, and they say, “Well, this is vague, but intriguing.” Well, there's nothing vague about that at all, and it's not at all intriguing. It's highly depressing. Now, we veteran professionals, we professionals that toil long and hard in the intelligence arena are outraged at the corruption of our profession, but we are even more outraged by the constitutional implications here because as Congressman Conyers has just pointed out, we have here a very clear case that the Executive usurped the prerogatives of Congress of the American people and deceived it into permitting, authorizing an unauthorizeable war. And, you know, when you get back to how our Constitution was framed by those English folks that were used to kings marching them off to the war blithely for their own good, of course, those framers of our Constitution were hell-bent and determined and wrote into the very first Article of our Constitution that the power to make or authorize war would be reserved to the representatives of people in the Congress, not in the Executive. And so, for that usurpation to happen, that is a constitutional issue, and we're even more outraged by that. AMY GOODMAN: Congress Member John Conyers, there's a piece at Salon.com by Eric Boehlert that talks about the press coverage of this in this country, it's called "We Dropped the Ball on Downing Memo,” a quote of A.P. And it says, "As newspaper editors look back and examine why the controversial Downing Street Memo, first published by the Times Of London received so little coverage in their paper, several of them are pointing to the same culprit, the Associated Press. Editors rely on the worldwide wire service to let them know what's worthy of attention, and that's particularly true for international events. In the case of the Downing Street Memo out of London, they say the A.P. simply failed to cover the story.” Jim Cox, USA Today Senior Assignment Editor for Foreign News tells Salon that when the story first broke last month, (quote), “We looked to wires for guidance, but for days didn't see anything. It was a month before the paper reported on the memo.” Cox takes the blame for that omission. On Sunday, the Ombudsman at the Minneapolis Star Tribune addressed readers’ complaints about the paper's lack of Downing memo coverage. According to that account, the paper's Nation-World Editor, Dennis McGrath was aware of the memo story when it broke in May, and he and his deputies (quote) “began watching for a wire story.” A week later they were still watching. He said, ‘We were frustrated the wires were not providing stories on this.” The paper eventually assigned the story to a local reporter. And it goes on to say, finally, that in response to a request, Deborah Seward, A.P.'s International Editor, conceded to Salon in an email, “Yes, there is no question A.P. dropped the ball in not picking up on the Downing Street Memo sooner.” “Seward deserves credit,” says Eric Boehlert, “for admitting A.P.’s error, but a more pressing question remains about the media at large: Why, in the face of the clearly newsworthy memo which made international headlines and went straight to the issue of how and why President Bush decided to invade Iraq, did senior editors and producers at virtually every major American news outlet let the story slip through the cracks?" Congress Member Conyers. REP. JOHN CONYERS: Miss Goodman, the problem with the media in the United States is that it's been intimidated, seduced, and in other words brought under the thrall of this administration like no other time in my 40-year experience here in Washington, D.C. It's incredible. Now, this news was perfectly available to any citizen, not only A.P. or any other media service. Recently, I held a forum with a dozen other members of Congress about bias in the media. This selectivity to protect the President and the administration at all costs, and hoping that these stories will go away. Remember Watergate. A little three-sentence blurb in The Washington Post far in the back part of the paper about a political burglary, and it had to grow from there. The administration has been stonewalling. Can you imagine that it started off with 89 members of Congress sending him a letter just asking him a few questions about the Downing Street memorandum, transcribed by British intelligence, and we got nothing? Now we have over 500,000 American citizens now. It’s incredible what's happened. The harder they try to keep this down, the more people become enraged, and they have joined us and we're going to be delivering petitions of these citizens that are saying, “Just speak to this question, Mr. President. How many Congressmen have to sign a letter to get you to respond to something as fundamentally important as this?” AMY GOODMAN: In our news headlines today, Wisconsin, the state's Democratic Party, has passed a resolution calling for the impeachment of President Bush, as well as Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. The resolution called on Congress to initiate impeachment proceedings against the three officials accusing them of misleading the country in the lead up to war. Last year, the Democratic Party in Nevada passed the same resolution. The National Green Party, as well as former presidential candidate, Nader, have -- Ralph Nader, have called on Bush's impeachment. Are you calling for President Bush's impeachment? REP. JOHN CONYERS: At this point, I'm still collecting evidence. There are a lot of other bits of evidence that we have to put together to make it perfectly clear that this isn’t a matter of how you interpret a memo that speaks in the plainest of language, and I, as the senior member on the committee that would be in charge of anything that comes under the rubric of the I-word, I am staying away from that subject until I have completed my investigation. There are others, who -- constitutional scholars, lawyers, professors that are all looking at this question, but I can tell you this: Deceiving the Congress, deceiving the American people, planning a war that is not pre-emptive, cooking the books to create weapons of mass destruction, and then trying to beef up the intelligence to comport to a -- to provoke Iraq to join us in a war, then going to the United Nations, hoping that the United Nations demand to go in and examine for these hidden weapons, all of these pretexts which failed, and now we have the question of whose -- does Article I, Section 8, giving the Congress the power to declare war, is that still in existence or have we slipped into this era where in a never-ending war against terrorism, we may be confronted with presidents who may operate as carelessly and as recklessly as this President that we have at this point? AMY GOODMAN: We're talking to Michigan Congress Member John Conyers who is holding a hearing on the Downing Street Memo tomorrow, and has won a small victory. It will actually be able to be held in Congress. Ray McGovern also with us, a long-time C.I.A. analyst for more than a quarter century, a top briefer for former Vice President George H.W. Bush. I wanted to ask you about Saddam Hussein's son-in-law, who had said that there were no weapons of mass destruction, cited by western officials, U.S. officials, for many other reasons, but they never brought up that issue. Can you talk about the significance of this? RAY McGOVERN: Yes. This gentleman's name was Hussein Kamel. He was one of Saddam Hussein's sons-in-law. And he defected in 1995 and was thoroughly debriefed by U.N. and U.S. and U.K. debriefers. He had quite a story to tell, because he was head of the missile, chemical, biological and nuclear programs in Iraq. And he was able to finger some of the things that the U.N. inspectors did not know, and what he told them turned out to be quite right. He also told them that the chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs and weapons were destroyed at his order in July of 1991, right after the Gulf War. That's in black and white. It's in the debriefing report. An enterprising British researcher went to Vienna. I don't know how he got access to the debriefing report, but he did, and he found out that Kamel also said, as I said, that all those weapons were destroyed at his order. Of course, he was in charge. Now, curiously enough, that seemed to escape our leaders. It was never cited, although Hussein Kamel himself was held up as the paragon of a reliable source. Dick Cheney, himself, in his major speech of 26 August, 2002, held Hussein's son-in-law as one of our most lucrative, reliable sources, but he never told us that this source, this wonderful source, also told us that all those weapons had been destroyed in July of 1991 at his order. Now, there's no excuse for them not knowing that. It may have slipped in a crack between the F.B.I. and the C.I.A., I suppose, but it also appeared in Newsweek four weeks before the war. Four weeks before the war, the report that Hussein Kamel, their paragon source, had said all those weapons had been destroyed. Now, the C.I.A and the spokesmen there and all of the other spokesmen in government said this was ludicrous, this was false; besides, it's untrue and everything else. And they came down real hard on it. Guess what our domesticated press did with that. No more story on that, because they were all cheerleading for the war. And I’ll just make one more point about our domesticated press. The Washington Post today in this lead editorial says that these memos were not given much play in the press because, (quote), “They do not add a single fact to what was previously known about the administration's pre-war deliberations.” Now, if The Washington Post knew that as of 23 July, 2002, the President had, in the British word, inevitably decided on war, if they knew that the president intended to use as justification the conjunction between terrorism and so-called weapons of mass destruction, and if they knew that the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy, you know, they really ought to -- they surely should have told us that, The Washington Post should have. It's really ludicrous. It would be laughable if it weren't so serious a situation. Because what needs to happen here is you have a start-up newspaper in Washington called The Washington Spark, okay? Now, on the 11th of May, they carried the whole story, including the memo itself. Right here. Now, that hasn't appeared in The Washington Times or The Washington Post, but here in The Washington Spark, new start-up paper, just days after the memo, it's there. So it's possible there's some kind of a rule against publishing things that are so critically damaging of our President, and the editorial in the Post today is Exhibit A. AMY GOODMAN: I encourage people to go to our website at DemocracyNow.org. We interviewed Rolf Ekeus, who had questioned Hussein Kamel and said that at the time, he said, there were no weapons of mass destruction. By the way, the son-in-law of Saddam Hussein did ultimately go back to Iraq, and he was executed by Saddam Hussein and his forces. Question for Congress Member John Conyers, as you hold this hearing tomorrow, what kind of attention are you getting, and what kind of response have you gotten from Republicans? Have any supported you in this raising of questions around the fixing of the facts and intelligence to fit the policy? REP. JOHN CONYERS: A few Republican members of Congress have quietly given me the thumbs up sign to indicate that they know that what we're doing is not partisan, that it is indeed trying to make sure our Constitution isn’t ripped to shreds in this one administration, but none of them have dared to come forward. Well, I take that back. We had a vote on Lynn Woolsey’s amendment a couple weeks ago in which we said that the President must come forward with a plan to leave Iraq, and we were able to get several members of Congress, not Democrats, to join us on that. There have been little, tiny indications from one or two or three or four members that they're prepared to publicly state that what we are seeking has nothing to do with partisanship. We're trying to preserve the greatest Constitution for a democratic government that's ever been written. And it can't be preserved if we're going to allow these transgressions that, as you and Mr. McGovern have pointed out, are so obvious that the media's ignoring them, gives a deafening roar of silence. The silence, it becomes so loud that even the people are now rising up. And you can’t keep the truth down. And it finally begins to come up. We have seen that in Watergate. We have seen that in the Vietnam incident. I think we may be seeing it now because more and more media are now turning to it, and now they're apologizing, and as usual, I forgive all of the media for their lapses and transgressions, but please, let's cover -- RAY McGOVERN: Let’s do it now. REP. JOHN CONYERS: Let's start doing the job. RAY McGOVERN: Amen. AMY GOODMAN: Well, on that note, I want to thank you very much for being with us. Congress Member John Conyers of Michigan will be holding a hearing on Thursday on the Downing Street Memo. It will take place in Congress. Former C.I.A. analyst, Ray McGovern, thank you for joining us. We know that you can get more information at AfterDowningStreet.organd of course, you can go to our website which links to all of the information related to this at DemocracyNow.org. To purchase an audio or video copy of this entire program, click here for our new online ordering or call 1 (800) 881-2359. ***************************************************************** 14 TNF: Gary Brown argues nuclear weapons are terrible things but they may be the one factor that prevents World War III - On Line Opinion - 17/6/2005 [ON LINE OPINION - Australia's e-journal of social and political debate] Nuclear insurance This year will see the 60th anniversary of the obliteration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the only nuclear weapons ever used in anger. There is still debate about whether the decision to use “The Bomb” on the Japanese was militarily necessary, let alone morally supportable (insofar as any use of lethal force against civilian populations in war can ever be said to be moral). But that it drove the Japanese to immediate surrender is beyond dispute: the war was shortened, though nobody can say whether by days, weeks or months. Baby Boomers like me (I was born in 1950) lived through the Cold War at its worst. There was an orgy of atmospheric testing of ever bigger bombs. The Soviets eventually exploded a monster of about 60 megatons - about 3,000 times the power of the Hiroshima bomb. (What conceivable military use this thing might have had I still do not know.) Arsenals and delivery systems expanded at rates one could have called ludicrous were the subject less deadly. I was 12 at the time of the Cuban missile crisis and was plenty scared, less because I really understood the danger than because I could see adults were seriously frightened. Later, as a professional defence analyst, I came to understand all too well the nature and scale of the threat which hung over the world for decades - sometimes nearer, sometimes further, but never absent. It is hardly surprising then that I came to hate and fear nuclear weapons. But the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union is, like the USSR itself, history. Since about 1990 there have been substantial reductions in both US and Russian strategic nuclear forces. More are promised under a 2002 agreement, albeit one regrettably loose in the extended time frame (2012), it allows for compliance with its terms. Nevertheless, even when this agreement is fully implemented, each country could still have as many as 2,200 strategic nuclear warheads - enough, if used, to cause a disaster unparalleled in human history. We are indeed fortunate that the chances are low. Chances staying low inevitably depend on continued cordial (if not actually warm) relations between Washington and Moscow. Let some political upheaval occur (for example, a hard-line nationalist and authoritarian regime coming to power in Russia) and things could be very different. In a very real sense, continued global nuclear stability is - to a large extent - at the mercy of Russian Federation politics. In time - though that time is not yet - it will also be subject to decisions taken in Beijing, as China's nuclear arsenal grows in size and sophistication. However, our experience of the mad Cold War nuclear arms race and our eventual survival seems to have taught us something very important. By "us" I mean all nuclear-armed states and almost everyone else, excepting perhaps a few truly fanatic terrorist types who do not appear to have access to functional and deliverable nuclear weapons. (Does anyone think that if al-Qaida, for instance, had such weapons it would not have used them by now?) The lesson is: nukes are truly dangerous things. Use one on somebody who has them too and you will suffer terrible retaliation. Use one on somebody who doesn't have them, and still run the risk that that someone's nuclear-armed friend might intervene. States dare not use these weapons as they do, for example, tanks or aircraft carriers. Nukes are now weapons of last resort. Israel has had them for decades: it will never use them unless credibly threatened with military destruction by its Arab neighbours. Pakistan likewise will not use its nuclear weapons unless threatened with conquest by India. Therefore, the Arabs will not attempt to destroy Israel by arms; nor will India try to conquer Pakistan. The nuclear threat has acted as a powerful restraint. It has done nothing to solve the underlying conflicts in either case - it has actually added to mutual fears - but it has stopped these conflicts escalating to what might otherwise have been their logical conclusions. Despite the ever-increasing sophistication and proliferation of military technology, there has not been a truly major war for 60 years. By contrast, a mere two decades separated the World War I and World War II. We have not had universal peace in these 60 years - far from it indeed - but there is no mileage for anyone in another global conflict. One reason is undoubtedly that such a conflict would probably go nuclear and, once that happened, nobody can predict the consequences. Certainly the risks inherent in a third World War are huge. Those who triggered World War I can be excused, as it were, for not realising what they were unleashing: global conflict sustained by an industrial base was something new. It was supposed to be over in less than six months. The World War II was triggered by a regime, Nazi Germany, which actually thought war was a “good thing” for the "Aryan race" and the natural way of settling irreconcilable international differences. Armies, declared Hitler, exist for triumphant exertion in war. Alas (from his viewpoint), the triumphant exertions were those of his enemies who, whatever their later differences, destroyed everything he stood for. But now, even a latter-day aggressive thug like Hitler would give pause if a global war were the likely result of his or her policies. What price war on this scale where nuclear weapons are in the mix? If one's major population centres are vulnerable from day one, if one's industrial base - which sustains the conventional armed forces - can be wiped out in a trice, what price major war then? In short, I am suggesting that nuclear weapons, precisely because of their extreme destructiveness and the fear they generate in all but the suicidal, have turned out to have a backhanded security value. They do nothing to resolve conflicts, indeed they can even escalate mutual fear and suspicion. But they have imposed upper limits on these same conflicts. In a non-nuclear world I think there can be little doubt that the West and the old Communist bloc would have engaged in a huge war of a scale and nature similar to World War II, but with modern military technology. Similarly I suspect that India and Pakistan, and Israel and the Arabs, would have fought major wars (to the ultimate ruin, I suspect, of Israel and Pakistan). As things stand, we have little fear of a World War III - though there is much trepidation over many lesser but still major possible conflicts (for example China and the US over Taiwan). This (relative) security is due to the fear of nuclear weapons. By learning that there is nothing in the world worth blowing it up to acquire, we have perhaps made the best of a bad lot. Nuclear weapons are terrible things, but fear of them may save us from repeating in this century the disastrous mistakes of the first half of the last. Gary Brown is a former Defence Advisor with the Parliamentary Information and Research Service at Parliament House, Canberra. He is now an independent defence and security analyst. [Creative Commons License] On Line Opinion wins at Qld Media Awards © The National Forumand contributors 2000-2005. All rights reserved. ISSN 1442-8458. ***************************************************************** 15 US 'torpedoed Kursk nuclear sub' Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 23:34:03 -0500 (CDT) http://tinyurl.com/8cql5 May 09, 2005 US 'torpedoed Kursk nuclear sub' Daniel Stacey, London A FORMER British military official has backed a sensational claim that the Russian nuclear submarine, the Kursk, was torpedoed by US forces in August 2000. An official inquest concluded that the disaster - in which all 118 crew drowned in the Barents Sea, 135km off the Russian coast - was caused by an accidental explosion of an onboard torpedo. But Maurice Stradling, a former torpedo engineer and a key figure in the original investigation, believes a new French documentary, The Kursk: A Submarine in Troubled Waters, should change world opinion on the sinking. "On the balance of probabilities, the Kursk was sunk by an American MK-48 torpedo," said Mr Stradling, formerly a senior member of the British Defence Ministry. BBC editor Nick Fraser called the claim a "pack of lies" and has refused to air the documentary, which attracted a record audience of more than 4 million when it screened on French TV. The BBC used Mr Stradling as its main authority for a documentary it made in 2001 - What Sank the Kursk?, in which Mr Stradling theorised that the sinking was caused by the malfunctioning of an old-fashioned HTP torpedo. Mr Stradling, who also appears in the new French documentary, said: "At the time (2001), that was a perfectly reasonable film, given the facts as we knew them then, when there seemed to be no third-party involvement," The new explanation for the Kursk's downing is based on film footage of a hole in the side of the vessel, and evidence placing US submarines in the area at the time it was sunk. The French film shows stills of the Kursk raised above the water after being salvaged, with a precise circular hole in its right side. The hole clearly bends inwards, consistent with an attack from outside the submarine. A US military source in the documentary declares the hole to be the trademark evidence of an American MK-48 torpedo, which is made to melt cleanly through steel sheet due to a mechanism at its tip that combusts copper. The film suggests the attack happened while two US submarines, the Toledo and Memphis, were shadowing the Kursk in a routine military exercise. The documentary says the Toledo accidentally collided with the Kursk, at which point the Russian submarine opened its torpedo tubes, leading to an attack from the Memphis, which was protecting the damaged Toledo while it retreated. The cause of the sinking was covered up at the time in an act of diplomacy between then US presidents Bill Clinton and Russian President Vladimir Putin - a deal that included the cancellation of $US10 billion ($12.5 billion) of Russian debt, the film states. After the documentary received its only public broadcast in Britain, some claimed the Russian navy had drilled the hole and fed doctored footage to the film-makers to create a false impression. ***************************************************************** 16 UK The Times: Nuclear freeze could thaw rift with the West June 17, 2005 Foreign Editor's Briefing By Bronwen Maddox WILL the next President of Iran be someone the West can deal with? Almost certainly yes, particularly if the winner is the front-runner, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the 70-year-old cleric and businessman who has held the presidency twice before. The most startling feature of today’s extraordinary election, one of the most unpredictable in Iran’s history, is the craving revealed by candidates and the public to be on speaking terms again with the US. That doesn’t mean a deal on Iran’s nuclear ambitions is imminent. A new United Nations report yesterday listed three new incidents of deviousness when Iran had said its research was less advanced than it was. Neither Rafsanjani nor anyone else is going to freeze this work lightly — and probably none will agree to do so permanently. But the longing for contact with the West suggests a deal may not be quite dead. The funniest part of BBC Newsnight’s interview with Rafsanjani on Wednesday night was when he was asked if he thought the US was still the “Great Satan” and Britain the “Small Satan”, those iconic terms of the 1979 revolution. The answer: “If they decide to behave in a just manner, then no, they’re no longer satans”. Nice to know; and delivered with all the authority of a cleric to determine how many devils are at large. But his remark that he did, indeed, see signs of such “just” behaviour marks a real shift. That has been matched by most candidates, although all insist that the US must treat Iran with “dignity” and “fairness”, not words yet leaping from the lips of Washington’s conservatives. The interest in better relations with the West is just one of the new, pragmatic themes of this campaign. Previous ones have been preoccupied with philosophy and religion, but this one has focussed on “delivery”, in new Labour’s phrase. The decision by the Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamanei, the Supreme Leader, to allow Mustafa Moin, 54, the former Higher Education Minister, to enter the race, has magnified this change. Moin’s entry triggered a competition for the huge youth vote (71 per cent of Iranians are above the voting age of 15) and pulled conservatives towards the centre, at least in their talk. There has been huge emphasis on job creation, and on keeping the more relaxed social rules of the past eight years. There has been very little talk about religion, to the point where some have quipped that there was more in November’s US presidential election. Rafsanjani, a pragmatic conservative, has not criticised the religious establishment’s supremacy over secular institutions, as Moin has done. But he has been pushing privatisation, economic liberalisation and a greater role for non-governmental groups, all things likely to challenge religious control. But Rafsanjani would hardly offer an easy resolution to the nuclear stalemate, in which Britain, France and Germany have been trying to persuade Iran to freeze its research. Rafsanjani has stuck to the official position that Iran should continue the work for purely peaceful purposes — a line that appears generally popular with Iranians. But that may lay the ground for a clash with Europe and the US this summer. In a tough report yesterday, the International Atomic Energy Agency listed three counts on which Iran’s work was more advanced than it had revealed. + Iran had said its experiments with plutonium were in 1993 “and that no plutonium had been separated since then”. But Iranian officials now concede to the IAEA that there were experiments in 1995 and 1998. Copyright The Times - timesonline.co.uk ***************************************************************** 17 Sunday Times: Nuclear freeze could thaw rift with the West - Bronwen Maddox Mike Parker, chief executive of BNFL, told The Times that the board was close to going ahead with a Westinghouse sale, which will be overseen by the nuclear group’s usual bankers, NM Rothschild. The Westinghouse disposal comes as many countries, including the US and the UK, are considering building new nuclear power stations as a way of securing their power supplies and cutting carbon emissions from fossil fuels. The Pittsburgh-based company is bidding against French and Russian rivals to build four major power stations in China. It is also working with a consortium of US utilities on plans to start building new nuclear reactors in the US. “The UK Government has been asking whether a new-build programme really fits with the risk profile it is seeking,” Mr Parker said. “It believes in the market; it doesn’t want to own assets.” A review of BNFL’s role in 2003 said that the company must run its Westinghouse and other businesses for “value”. However, a hoped-for Public Private Partnership was shelved because of the problems at British Energy and Railtrack. British Nuclear Group America, the US clean-up arm, is also likely to be sold in time after a dispute over legacy contracts was recently resolved. Cerberus Global Investments, a private equity firm chaired by Dan Quayle, the former US Vice-President, is thought to be interested in the company and has hired Norman Askew, former chief executive of BNFL, as an adviser. Other interested parties are likely to include Areva, the French nuclear group, and Shaw Group, the Lousiana-based company that is bidding with Westinghouse for the Chinese contract. Results from BNFL are due to be published in July and are expected to show that the company has reversed the losses that have dogged it since 1999. Last year it reported losses of £303 million but its losses for 2004-05 are likely to be in the region of £150 million. The company’s four separate businesses are thought to be profitable at the operating level, but the company has exceptional costs of £220 million relating to restructuring and legacy contracts in the US. BNFL is expecting to make about £150 million of operating profit and resume paying a dividend in 2006. London Times ***************************************************************** 18 Bellona: Swiss court rules Adamov should be released from detention A Swiss court ruled that former Russian atomic energy minister, Yevgeny Adamov, should be released from detention in Bern, Switzerland, where he was picked up on a US warrant for allegedly laundering $9m in US nuclear aid money through a number of businesses he owns in the United State, news agencies reported. Former Russian Minister of Atomic Energy Yevgeny Adamov. Kurchatov Institute Charles Digges, 2005-06-16 11:41 At the moment, however, he still remains in custody pending an appeal from the Swiss Justice Ministry, a spokesman there told the Associated Press. The Swiss Federal Criminal Court upheld an appeal from Adamov late last week, but the Justice Ministry immediately appealed the decision to the country's supreme court. Adamov will remain in custody until the court rules on that appeal, said Justice Ministry spokesman Folco Galli. "The federal supreme court hasn't responded yet, but at the moment he's still in detention," Galli said. Court cites ‘Immunity’ for Adamov Lawyers for Adamov, who was originally arrested May 2nd in Switzerland on a US warrant issued by the US District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania where Adamov’s Omeka company is register, appealed May 17 against his detention on the basis that Switzerland violated his immunity as a former minister. Adamov also has holdings in the US state of Delaware. Moscow will fight former nuclear chief’s extradition to the United States The Russian Foreign ministry requested this week that Switzerland send the detained former Russian atomic energy minister Yevgeny Adamov back to Moscow for prosecution and to reject demands to extradite him to the United States, where he is facing charges of diverting $9m in US nuclear aid money to personal businesses, among other accusations.  Read on » If extradited to the United States and found guilty, Adamov faces up to 60 years in prison and a fine of $1.75 m. The US indictment also includes Adamov’s business partner, Russia-born US national Mark Kaushansky. Lanny Breuer, Adamov's American attorney, told a news conference in Washington that the Swiss court found that Adamov's arrest was illegal and violates Swiss and international law. "This decision shows that without question the Swiss courts are independent and have shown, in our view, great wisdom," Breuer said, according to the Associated Press. "The rule of law in Switzerland remains strong despite, in our view, the overreaching of the United States government and the United States Department of Justice." In Washington, Justice Department spokesman Bryan Sierra declined to comment on the ruling or its future implications. He said the department does not "comment on extradition on specific cases." He referred questions to the US Attorney's office in Pittsburgh, which didn't return messages left by Bellona Web and other news agenicies. At the United States' request, Adamov was arrested May 2 during a visit to his daughter in the Swiss capital Bern to help her untangle a number of her bank accounts that had been frozen. Adamov has since been indicted by a US federal grand jury in Pittsburgh on conspiracy to transfer stolen money and securities, conspiracy to defraud the United States, money laundering and tax evasion. The United States says he diverted up to $9 million from US Energy Department (DOE(funds intended to improve Russian nuclear security. Russia vs. United States over Adamov extradition But Adamov’s detention has set off a legal firestorm between Moscow and Washington over which country the foreign ministry should be extradited to. The United States has not yet filed an extradition appeal for Adamov, though it has until June 30 to do so. The country has, however, prepared an indictment, reviewed by Bellona Web, reading several dozen pages detailing Adamov’s private bank transactions through his US accounts and indicting him with conspiracy to transfer stolen money and securities, conspiracy to defraud the United States, money laundering and tax evasion. Russia initially appeared to distance noting he was facing charges in connection with his commercial activities in the early 1990s prior to his appointment as Russian atomic energy minister. But Moscow officials did a quick turnabout when it apparently occurred to them that Adamov’s possible extradition to the US could be a ploy to obtain Russian nuclear secrets that the former minister was privy to during his tenure between 1998 and 2001. A Moscow court then filed an extradition petition with the Swiss government. Switzerland has extradition treaties with both the United States and Russia, and it has been suggested that Russia’s earlier filing of its extradition papers will give it primacy when Swiss courts rule on Adamov’s destination. 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 ***************************************************************** 19 RIA Novosti: IAEA SENDS INSPECTORS TO GEORGIA 17/06/2005 VIENNA, June 16 (RIA Novosti, Borislav Pechnikov) - The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will send inspectors to Georgia. An informed source in the IAEA in Vienna said on Thursday that the aim of the Agency experts' inspection is to clear up the disappearance of fissionable materials which can be used for the creation of nuclear weapons. Apart from that, the IAEA inspectors also intend to visit one of the scientific and research institutions in Abkhazia to study the issue of disappeared plutonium and highly enriched uranium. As the source explained, this is the problem of radioactive materials which disappeared in an unknown amount in the period of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the partition of the nuclear industry among the former republics of the USSR. He said that this information was always topical for the IAEA, however presently all the prerequisites and conditions have appeared for carrying out such an inspection. The source did not name the date of the IAEA inspection going to Georgia and Abkhazia, but said that it might begin in the next few days. The IAEA Secretariat has neither confirmed nor refuted this information. © 2005 "RIA Novosti" ***************************************************************** 20 Guardian Unlimited: Saudia Arabia Exempt From Nuke Inspections From the Associated Press [UP] Thursday June 16, 2005 1:31 PM By GEORGE JAHN Associated Press Writer VIENNA, Austria (AP) - The U.N. atomic watchdog agency on Thursday approved a deal that exempts Saudi Arabia from nuclear inspections, despite serious misgivings about the arrangement in an era of increased concern over proliferation. Although the Saudis resisted Western pressure to compromise and allow some form of monitoring, the board of the International Atomic Energy Agency had no choice but to allow it to sign on to the agreement. Called the small quantities protocol, the deal allows countries whose nuclear equipment or activities are thought to be below a minimum threshold to submit a declaration instead of undergoing inspection. There is little concern the Saudis are trying to make nuclear arms, but diplomats accredited to the meeting said Riyadh's resistance to inspections was disconcerting at a time of heightened fears that countries or terrorists might be interested in acquiring such weapons. With the deal approved, delegates focused on a report on Iran, to be presented later Thursday to the closed board meeting and made available ahead of delivery to The Associated Press. It says Iran has acknowledged working with small amounts of plutonium, a possible nuclear arms component, for years longer than it had originally admitted and receiving sensitive technology that can be used as part of a weapons program earlier than it initially said it did. The Saudis insist they have no plans to develop nuclear arms - and no facilities or nuclear stocks that warrant inspection. As such, they qualify for the protocol, which has been implemented by 75 nations, most of them small and in politically stable parts of the world and which leaves the agency with little choice but to accept the word of nations involved that they have nothing to inspect. But the timing of the deal for the Saudis comes amid persistent tensions in the Middle East and concern about Iran's nuclear ambitions. It also coincides with an agency push to tighten or rescind the protocol, as suggested in a confidential IAEA document prepared for the board and also made available to AP on Tuesday. While the Saudi government insists it has no interest in nuclear arms, in the past two decades it has been linked to prewar Iraq's nuclear program and to the Pakistani nuclear black marketeer A.Q. Khan. It also has expressed interest in Pakistani missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads, and Saudi officials reportedly discussed pursuing the nuclear option as a deterrent in the volatile Middle East. The Saudis have resisted pressure from the United States, the European Union and Australia to either back away from the small quantities protocol or agree to inspections, as reflected by a confidential EU briefing memo given the AP earlier this week by a diplomat accredited to the agency who insisted on anonymity because he was not authorized to release it. It quoted the Saudi deputy foreign affairs minister, Prince Turki bin Mohammed bin Saud al-Kabira, as telling EU officials in Riyadh that his country would be ``willing to provide additional information'' to the IAEA ``only if all other parties'' to the protocol did the same. Diplomats inside Thursday's closed meeting said the Saudis repeated those conditions as part of debate over their deal. The report on Iran does not prove or disprove that Tehran had weapons ambitions. But its details are significant as the agency tries to piece together the puzzle of nearly 18 years of a clandestine nuclear program first revealed in February 2002. The IAEA first said that Iran produced small amounts of plutonium as part of covert nuclear activities in November 2003. The agency has not linked the laboratory-scale experiments to weapons, nor has it done so for other parts of the program - including ambitious efforts to be able to enrich uranium. But it criticized Tehran for not voluntarily revealing its plutonium work and other activities that could be linked to interest in making nuclear arms. Plutonium can be used in nuclear weapons but it also has uses in peaceful programs to generate power - which is what Iran says is the sole purpose of its nuclear activities. The document says that while Iran had said its plutonium experiments were conducted in 1993 ``and that no plutonium had been separated since then,'' Iranian officials revealed two months ago that there had been linked experiments in 1995 and 1998. Focusing on shipments of equipment for uranium enrichment, the report said Tehran earlier this year provided documents showing that in at least two instances some components arrived in 1994 and 1995. Those dates ``deviate from information provided earlier by Iran,'' said the report, saying one particular delivery had earlier been said to have reached the country in 1997. --- On the Net: IAEA: www.iaea.org Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005 ***************************************************************** 21 Nearly 300 groups reject nuclear power as global warming solution Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 11:21:35 -0400 For Immediate Release:

 

U.S. Public Interest Research Group * Public Citizen * Sierra Club * Greenpeace * Nuclear Information and Resource Service * Friends of the Earth

 

News Release

 

For Immediate Release:                        Contact: Erica Hartman, Public Citizen (202) 454-5174

June 16, 2005                                                    Michael Mariotte, NIRS (202) 328-0002

                                                                                                           

Nearly 300 Groups Reject Nuclear Energy

as a Global Warming Solution

 

Groups Urge Congress to Choose Clean Energy Path, Not Embrace Dangerous and Dirty Nuclear Power

 

WASHINGTON, D.C. – In response to an industry campaaign touting new nuclear reactors as a solution to global warming, nearly 300 international, national, regional and local environmental, consumer, and safe energy groups reiterated their substantial concerns today over nuclear energy and rejected the argument that nuclear power can solve global warming.  Rather, the groups urged a focus on clean and renewable sources of energy and energy efficiency and conservation.

 

With votes on global warming amendments anticipated in the next week during Senate consideration of the energy bill, representatives of several of the groups called on Congress to reject legislation that subsidized nuclear power plants as part of reducing global warming pollution.

 

“Global warming is the most serious environmental problem facing us today and we should aggressively increase energy efficiency and renewable energy to reduce carbon dioxide pollution,†said Anna Aurilio, Legislative Director for the U.S. Public Interest Research Group.  “We’re now one of nearly 300 public interest groups that say nuclear power is too dangerous and expensive and should not be part of a global warming solution,†she added.

 

Nuclear power has long been viewed as uneconomical and unsafe, especially after the Chernobyl disaster abroad and the Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania. As a result no new reactors have been ordered in the United States for 30 years.

 

In an environmental statement on nuclear energy and global warming, the groups outlined five key reasons why nuclear energy should not be part of a solution to global warming stating that nuclear energy is unnecessary, too expensive, too dangerous, too polluting and that using nuclear power to address global warming would exacerbate the problems posed by the technology.  “We can meet our future electricity needs and reduce global warming pollution without increasing our reliance on nuclear energy,†the groups wrote. The groups noted that 19 states have passed renewable electricity standards requiring an increasing percentage of energy to be generated by renewable energy sources, and that several studies have shown that clean energy solutions can dramatically reduce global warming pollution. 

 

Recently, nuclear energy proponents have championed nuclear power as a means to tempering climate change. But the groups today dispelled the argument that nuclear power could be used as a solution to reduce global warming.  In fact, a recent MIT study noted that using nuclear power to have any significant effect on climate change would require building at least 1,000 new reactors worldwide.

 

“Addressing climate change is too important to leave to the failed nuclear industry,†said Michael Mariotte, Executive Director of Nuclear Information and Resource Service. “Throwing a few billion dollars of taxpayer money at the nuclear industry might make some utility executives happy, but would do virtually nothing to reduce carbon emissions. In fact, by diverting limited resources that should be used for sustainable technologies, subsidizing nuclear power would be counterproductive.â€

 

“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,†the groups said.

 

So far, Congress has been leaning toward supporting a revived nuclear future. The pending Senate energy bill is likely to include many nuclear-friendly provisions designed to encourage energy companies to build new reactors. Already, the U.S. House of Representatives passed its version of energy legislation in April, including $6.1 billion in taxpayer subsidies and tax breaks, as well as other incentives.  The Senate version of the energy bill includes $4.3 billion in subsidies; the tax provisions, which are likely to include billions in tax breaks for the nuclear industry, have not been completed yet.

 

“Instead of relapsing back into our failed nuclear experiment, let’s embrace a trend towards actual clean and safe energy,†said Wenonah Hauter, Director of Public Citizen’s energy program. “Nuclear power is fatally flawed and we cannot overcome all of its obstacles. It’s time to support renewable energy technologies because they already exist and have great potential and provide a real opportunity to keep our planet healthy for future generations.â€

           

For more information on the downsides and dangers of nuclear power, visit www.citizen.org/cmep/fatalflaws. For more on the energy bill, visit ww.stopenergybill.org.  To read the letter to Congress, go to http://www.citizen.org/documents/GroupNuclearStmt.pdf or http://www.nirs.org/climate/background/nuclearglobalwarmingstatement6162005.pdf.

 

###

 

 ***************************************************************** 22 Brattleboro Reformer: Wall, built of Yankee Rowe plant scraps, is slightly radioactive June 16, 2005 Brattleboro, VT By The Associated Press READSBORO (AP) -- Officials have discovered that a 250-foot retaining wall was built with concrete blocks from the now-closed Yankee Rowe nuclear power plant and they are slightly radioactive. Tests of the retaining wall behind the Readsboro General Store, conducted in February by the Vermont Department of Health, show it is contaminated with the radioactive isotope tritium. State and federal officials say the wall poses no health risk. The tritium has a half-life, or remains radioactive, for 12.3 years. The retaining wall was built along the West Branch of the Deerfield River behind the store, located on Vermont Route 100. It was built with 35 large, interlocking concrete blocks taken from the reactor building of the nearby nuclear plant in Rowe, Mass., about three miles from the small southern Vermont town of Readsboro in Bennington County. The blocks were once part of a concrete shield around the reactor core. The blocks were taken from the site -- with the company's permission -- by employee Tom Dente of Readsboro, who owns the Readsboro General Store with his wife, Brenda. "It made a beautiful retaining wall; it was the cheapest thing I could build," Dente said. He has worked at Yankee Rowe for most of the past 20 years, the past 13 years for a subcontractor at the plant in the shipping department. The reactor's owner, Yankee Atomic Electric Co., tested the blocks in 1999 as part of a decommissioning and demolition process and found them free of radioactivity, said the company and Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Yankee Atomic spokeswoman Kelley Smith said the retaining wall was the only case of recycled building material from the reactor building at Yankee Rowe being released to the public. NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said the commission was investigating whether the handling of the waste material was a violation of federal policies. Tests in Readsboro in February showed the wall was releasing one millirem of radioactivity a year above normal background levels of radioactivity exposure, which is estimated at 360 millirems a year, Sheehan said. For comparison, a chest X-ray adds 20 millirems of radioactivity a year to normal background levels; a cross-country airplane ride adds 4 millirem. "One millirem does not pose a radiological health risk," said Robert Stirewalt, programs and policy coordinator for the Vermont Department of Health. Jonathan Bloch, a Putney attorney who represents the Citizen Awareness Network, an anti-nuclear group based near Yankee Rowe, said he was not surprised about the tritium problem. "We are of course outraged, but not surprised," he said. "This material was put in a public place and the public was exposed to it. What else is out there? Perhaps something more dangerous? This happened in 1999 and they're telling us now?" Copyright © 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This ***************************************************************** 23 Brattleboro Reformer: FEMA faults state, towns on VY disaster drill June 16, 2005 Brattleboro, VT By CAROLYN LORIé Reformer Staff BRATTLEBORO -- Local and state officials made several mistakes during a Vermont Yankee evacuation drill conducted in May, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. FEMA cited the state for problems in the following areas: * direction and control -- getting the towns accurate information and insuring that they are following the correct procedures; * alert and notification of residents in the emergency planning zone; * and releasing accurate information to the public and media. Vernon and Halifax officials were cited for deficiencies in alert and notification. The three-day drill tested the ability of Vermont Yankee, local and state officials from Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts to coordinate an evacuation in the event of a release of radiation from the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon. In a letter from a FEMA official to Kerry Sleeper, commissioner of the Department of Public Safety, the state was taken to task for a number of problems. Among them was the failure to notify, in a timely manner, towns within the emergency planning zone to sound their sirens a second time. Because of the delay, residents would not have tuned in to their radios in time to get crucial directions about evacuation and sheltering in place. The drill included state officials issuing press releases and holding press conferences, as well as issuing messages to the towns. According to FEMA, at various stages of the drill, state officials conveyed information that was "misleading, inaccurate, lacked direction, and in many instances was contradictory, confusing and incomplete." At one point, farmers were advised to milk their cows prior to evacuation, which FEMA officials suggested was not a good recommendation because it could have delayed farmers leaving in a timely manner. The advice was not repeated in subsequent announcements, but there was no official explanation of why it was removed. There are several state agencies involved in the running of the emergency operation center, including Vermont Emergency Management, the Department of Health, the Agency of Natural Resources, the State Police and the Department of Public Service. Marc Metayer, deputy commissioner of the Vermont Department of Public Safety, responded to the FEMA letter, stating that steps were being taken to correct the mistakes and requesting a meeting with representatives from the federal agency. Metayer, however, also called into question the results of the report. "...I do believe that the performance issues were evaluated in a manner that was more rigid than in past exercises and certainly beyond what was appropriate in this specific exercise." In Vernon, FEMA officials noted problems with the sounding of the sirens. They attributed the confusion to the fact that Selectboard Chairman Douglas Fletcher was unexpectedly put in the role of emergency director. The town's appointed director, Ken Farabaugh, who works for Vermont Yankee, was out of town on business. His substitute, Michael Klass, had a personal emergency and could not fill in. Despite glitches with the sirens, FEMA officials commended Fletcher for handling a job for which he was not trained. In Halifax, there was trouble with the back-up alerting system. If the sirens fail, officials must drive through the town and alert residents of the emergency. Federal regulations require that this be completed within 45 minutes. It took the Halifax team one hour and 14 minutes to complete the route, exceeding the limit by 29 minutes. The towns of Richmond, N.H., and Colrain, Mass., were cited for the same problem. These were the only deficiencies found by FEMA in both states. Richmond and Colrain officials have since successfully re-demonstrated that portion of the drill. State officials have 120 days to correct the problems. While FEMA is charged with overseeing the evacuation plan, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission monitors Vermont Yankee's role. The NRC sent a letter to Jay Thayer, vice president at the plant, on Wednesday requesting that plant officials work with the state agencies to resolve the deficiencies. "We'll work with the state until all of the issues are addressed," said Rob Williams, spokesman for Vermont Yankee. "It is in everyone's best interest that the evacuation plan be as effective as it can be." In November 2004, the NRC cited Vermont Yankee officials for not insuring that all residents with the emergency planning zone had the tone alert radios meant to notify them of an emergency. Vermont Yankee officials have since taken steps to remedy the problem. In response to the citation and other perceived problems with the emergency response plan, the New England Coalition, a nuclear watchdog, filed a petition with the NRC in December 2004. The grass-roots group asked that the NRC shut the plant down until the plan was examined and public health and safety could be assured. Recently, the regulator proposed denying the request, claiming that the system was adequate. A final decision has not yet been issued. Raymond Shadis, technical advisor to the coalition, said the FEMA findings underscore the concerns outlined in the petition. "The NRC and FEMA believe that the chain is only as weak as its strongest link and that should be of no comfort at all to the people of the area," said Shadis. Copyright ©1999-2005 New England Newspapers, Inc., a ***************************************************************** 24 Guardian Unlimited Letter: Green views Friday June 17, 2005 The Guardian My light-hearted remarks to Marcus Brigstocke were taken out of context (Not easy being green?, G2, June 14). I said that, while individual actions are useful in mitigating climate change, the onus should be on the government to set the sustainable energy-saving agenda. How he twisted that into "the chair of the Green party can't be bothered with a green lifestyle" I don't know. I can think of many reasons why nuclear power is unsuitable for providing our energy needs but the bottom line is that it kills people. I also made clear that the Green party campaigns against SUVs, and we would ban them in cities. Hugo Charlton Chair, Green Party of England and Wales [UP] Guardian Unlimited ¿ Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005 ***************************************************************** 25 Cumberland County News: Hope Creek restarts only to spring another leak The Press of Atlantic City June 15, 2005 By JEROME MONTES Staff Writer, (856) 794-5115 LOWER ALLOWAYS CREEK TOWNSHIP - The Hope Creek nuclear reactor began restart procedures Monday, nearly one week after a radioactive leak shut it down. On Tuesday, it sprang another leak, forcing yet another shutdown. Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said Tuesday the latest leak originated from a "main steam isolation valve packing leak-off line" and contained very low amounts of radiation that posed no threat to employees or the public. But federal officials say this is the fourth time since October that a leak has caused an unplanned shutdown, and the second in as many weeks. The latest leak sprang from an isolation valve in a "packing area" - similar to a nut on a garden hose - in the reactor's steam lines. Steam from Hope Creek's boiling water reactor is used to power the facility's turbine, which generates electricity. The isolation valves are in place to ensure that the highly pressurized steam can be isolated within the lines in case of an emergency. A spokesman for the Public Service Enterprise Group, which owns Hope Creek and two other reactors at the Salem Nuclear Generating Station, said the problem would be solved by eliminating an outmoded leak-off line associated with the valve. No precise timetable was given for the current shutdown, although Sheehan estimated the shutdown would be brief. Sheehan said a June 7 shutdown had been caused by a malfunctioning indicator that controlled a valve on the reactor's residual heat removal system. He said the problem had been solved without any major complications. But the leak came one day before a public meeting at which the NRC discussed its safety assessment of the Salem station. The 292-acre facility contains three of New Jersey's four nuclear reactors and is under heightened federal scrutiny for equipment problems, operational mishaps and work environment issues. At the meeting, NRC officials said the Salem station was making slow progress, but that the June 7 leak indicated the facility still faced performance problems. The NRC also criticized PSEG for its dismissal of eight employees without referring the actions to the facility's executive review board. Kymn Harvin, the facility's former organizational manager, has said PSEG terminated her for raising safety concerns. The NRC concluded Harvin's termination was not retaliatory, but she has filed a whistleblower lawsuit against PSEG in a New Jersey court. The executive review board was created to ensure any future personnel actions would not be retaliatory. Newark-based PSEG is in the midst of a merger with Chicago-based Exelon that, if approved, would place all four of New Jersey's nuclear reactors in the hands of one entity. Exelon, which is currently providing management services at the Salem station, operates Ocean County's Oyster Creek nuclear reactor through a subsidiary. To e-mail Jerome Montes at The Press: ***************************************************************** 26 Public Citizen: Nearly 300 Groups Reject Nuclear Energy as Global Warming Solution U.S. Public Interest Research Group * Public Citizen * Sierra Club * Greenpeace * Nuclear Information and Resource Service * Friends of the Earth News Release   June 16, 2005  Groups Urge Congress to Choose Clean Energy Path, Not Embrace Dangerous and Dirty Nuclear Power WASHINGTON, D.C.  In response to an industry campaign touting new nuclear reactors as a solution to global warming, nearly 300 international, national, regional and local environmental, consumer, and safe energy groups reiterated their substantial concerns today over nuclear energy and rejected the argument that nuclear power can solve global warming.  Rather, the groups urged a focus on clean and renewable sources of energy and energy efficiency and conservation. With votes on global warming amendments anticipated in the next week during Senate consideration of the energy bill, representatives of several of the groups called on Congress to reject legislation that subsidized nuclear power plants as part of reducing global warming pollution. Global warming is the most serious environmental problem facing us today and we should aggressively increase energy efficiency and renewable energy to reduce carbon dioxide pollution, said Anna Aurilio, Legislative Director for the U.S. Public Interest Research Group.  Were now one of nearly 300 public interest groups that say nuclear power is too dangerous and expensive and should not be part of a global warming solution, she added. Nuclear power has long been viewed as uneconomical and unsafe, especially after the Chernobyl disaster abroad and the Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania. As a result no new reactors have been ordered in the United States for 30 years. In an environmental statement on nuclear energy and global warming, the groups outlined five key reasons why nuclear energy should not be part of a solution to global warming stating that nuclear energy is unnecessary, too expensive, too dangerous, too polluting and that using nuclear power to address global warming would exacerbate the problems posed by the technology.  We can meet our future electricity needs and reduce global warming pollution without increasing our reliance on nuclear energy, the groups wrote. The groups noted that 19 states have passed renewable electricity standards requiring an increasing percentage of energy to be generated by renewable energy sources, and that several studies have shown that clean energy solutions can dramatically reduce global warming pollution.  "Nuclear power creates far more problems than it solves, and is not the answer to global warming. It is too dangerous and too expensive," said David Hamilton, Director of the Sierra Club's Global Warming and Energy Program. "Clean energy, like renewable energy and energy efficiency, is a cheaper and safer solution. Using clean energy, we can reduce seven times the greenhouse gas emissions for the same price as a new generation of power plants. Americans should resist the attempt by the nuclear industry to force a nuclear energy revival on us." Recently, nuclear energy proponents have championed nuclear power as a means to tempering climate change. But the groups today dispelled the argument that nuclear power could be used as a solution to reduce global warming.  In fact, a recent MIT study noted that using nuclear power to have any significant effect on climate change would require building at least 1,000 new reactors worldwide. Addressing climate change is too important to leave to the failed nuclear industry, said Michael Mariotte, Executive Director of Nuclear Information and Resource Service. Throwing a few billion dollars of taxpayer money at the nuclear industry might make some utility executives happy, but would do virtually nothing to reduce carbon emissions. In fact, by diverting limited resources that should be used for sustainable technologies, subsidizing nuclear power would be counterproductive. 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 Mountainsized 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 centurywhile displacing the resources needed to ensure a real solution to the climate change issue, the groups said. So far, Congress has been leaning toward supporting a revived nuclear future. The pending Senate energy bill is likely to include many nuclear-friendly provisions designed to encourage energy companies to build new reactors. Already, the U.S. House of Representatives passed its version of energy legislation in April, including $6.1 billion in taxpayer subsidies and tax breaks, as well as other incentives.  The Senate version of the energy bill includes $4.3 billion in subsidies; the tax provisions, which are likely to include billions in tax breaks for the nuclear industry, have not been completed yet. Instead of relapsing back into our failed nuclear experiment, lets embrace a trend towards actual clean and safe energy, said Wenonah Hauter, Director of Public Citizens energy program. Nuclear power is fatally flawed and we cannot overcome all of its obstacles. Its time to support renewable energy technologies because they already exist and have great potential and provide a real opportunity to keep our planet healthy for future generations.  "Nuclear power is not the answer to our nation's energy needs, nor to global warming," stated Erich Pica, Campaign Director at Friends of the Earth. "Only through a dramatic committment to renewable energies and energy efficiency can we decrease our global warming emmissions as well as reduce our dependence on fossil fuels." To read the letter to Congress, click here. For more information on the downsides and dangers of nuclear power, click here. For more on the energy bill, click here.  ### ***************************************************************** 27 Rutland Herald: Review of Yankee does not meet requirements June 16, 2005 By Herald Staff BRATTLEBORO — With an 8-1 vote Tuesday, the Windham Regional Commission's executive committee said that the Public Service Board's request for an independent engineering assessment, including the in-depth look at four key systems at the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant, wasn't fulfilled. Last summer's special inspection of the plant didn't meet the requirements set by the Public Service Board before the plant could increase power. The PSB set that requirement as one of the conditions for its permit granted to Entergy Nuclear in March 2004 to increase power at Vermont Yankee by 20 percent, or 110 megawatts. "At this time and based on the information provided to date, the WRC respectfully suggests that the board's requirement of an independent engineering assessment of a vertical slice of each of four systems, has not been met," the board wrote. The Windham Regional Commission has added its voice to that of the New England Coalition, the Brattleboro-based anti-nuclear watchdog group, which said last week that the special engineering inspection didn't do what it was supposed to do. The New England Coalition has long advocated for a more in-depth examination of the 33-year-old reactor. The coalition wants an independent safety assessment similar to one conducted at Maine Yankee nuclear power plant. That inspection revealed widespread serious problems at the reactor, leading its owners to decide to shut it down, rather than pay the bill to fix it. The group has collected 10,000 signatures on a petition calling for the more detailed inspection, which it plans on presenting to Gov. James Douglas. So far, the Douglas administration has resisted the request. James Matteau, executive director of the Windham Regional group, said Wednesday that based on information given by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to the Public Service Board last month the commission has doubts about the independence and thoroughness of the review. "We do not know from this information that the inspection was comprehensive and truly independent," wrote Matteau to the PSB. In a telephone interview, Matteau said that while the NRC's special inspection team "may have done more" than the PSB wanted, it failed to do the top-to-bottom reviews of four systems as specified in the permit. The special inspection team found eight problem areas at the plant, none of them serious. Matteau said that the one commissioner who opposed the motion thought it should be worded even stronger. Raymond Shadis, senior technical advisor, said that Vermont Yankee was in essence "an antique plant," and it really needed a thorough, independent exam. The power boost would put the plant under extreme stress, he said. Shadis said last summer's engineering inspection logged 900 hours, of which 500 hours were not additional time spent by inspectors. In the case of Maine Yankee, the special safety inspection represented 24,000 additional hours examining the plant. "An independent safety assessment is a top to bottom examination," he said. Robert Williams, spokesman for Entergy Nuclear, the owner of Vermont Yankee, said the company believed last summer's special inspection filled the requirements set by the PSB as a condition of its certificate of public good for the power increase ***************************************************************** 28 QCTimes.com: Nuclear value could waste away The Quad-City Times Newspaper The Quad-Cities can be proud to be home to a $100 million nuclear energy plant. It definitely beats one alternative: being home to a $0 nuclear waste dump. Exelon Quad-City Nuclear Generating Station ended two years of sometimes hostile negotiations this week with a smile and a handshake. Company officials agreed to a $100 million assessed value for their Cordova plant that keeps about $4 million in property taxes flowing each year to Rock Island County, Erie schools and nine other taxing districts absolutely reliant upon that cash. At one point, Exelon execs declared the old plant had no taxing value. The plant hadn't been updated and licensed to continue operations. Its internal waste storage pools were almost full. And Illinois' energy deregulation had left the future of the old plant in doubt. The plant had been assessed at $77 million. Exelon sought a $21 million assessment. The county countered with $110 million. The compromise holds the value at $100 million over the next five years. Of course that value doesn't approach Exelon's actual investment or the profitability. But it does more accurately reflects the heavy investment Exelon and its ratepayers have made at the site: $10 million in security, including a ring of towers for armed guards. And $1.5 million for outdoor waste storage. Both add value to Exelon's property and signify a longer future for the plant. But it's not forever. The latest extension allows operation of existing nuclear power generation through 2032. The extension is a mixed blessing for the Quad-Cities. It continues the company's presence, which provides jobs, commerce and tax money critical to our area. And it continues to pile up dangerous waste in the county. Our Federal Department of Energy has failed to implement a plan to get that waste out of the county. Exelon won a $300 million award n payable by federal taxpayers n because of that failure. Until our federal Department of Energy finds a place to store that waste or recycle it, the Cordova site becomes more of a waste dump and less of a power plant with each passing year. © Copyright 2005, The Quad-City Times, Davenport, IA | ***************************************************************** 29 NRC: Agency Information Collection Activities: Submission for the FR Doc E5-3087 [Federal Register: June 16, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 115)] [Notices] [Page 35137] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr16jn05-82] [[Page 35137]] Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Review; Comment Request AGENCY: U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). ACTION: Notice of the OMB review of information collection and solicitation of public comment. SUMMARY: The NRC has recently submitted to OMB for review the following proposal for the collection of information under the provisions of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (44 U.S.C. Chapter 35). The NRC hereby informs potential respondents that an agency may not conduct or sponsor, and that a person is not required to respond to, a collection of information unless it displays a currently valid OMB control number. 1. Type of submission, new, revision, or extension: Revision. 2. The title of the information collection: 10 CFR Part 54, ``Requirements for Renewal of Operating Licenses for Nuclear Power Plants''. 3. The form number if applicable: N/A. 4. How often the collection is required: One-time submission with application for renewal of an operating license for a nuclear power plant and occasional collections for holders of renewed licenses. 5. Who will be required or asked to report: Commercial nuclear power plant licensees who wish to renew their operating licenses. 6. An estimate of the number of annual responses: 26. 7. The estimated number of annual respondents: 17. 8. An estimate of the total number of hours needed annually to complete the requirement or request: Approximately 148,000 hours (128,000 hours one-time reporting burden and 20,000 hours recordkeeping burden). 9. An indication of whether Section 3507(d), Pub. L. 104-13 applies: N/A. 10. Abstract: 10 CFR part 54 of the NRC regulations, ``Requirements for Renewal of Operating Licensees for Nuclear Power Plants,'' specifies the procedures, criteria, and standards governing nuclear power plant license renewal, including information submittal and recordkeeping requirements, so that the NRC may make determinations that extension of the license term will continue to ensure the health and safety of the public. A copy of the final supporting statement may be viewed free of charge at the NRC Public Document Room, One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike, Room O-1 F21, Rockville, MD 20852. OMB clearance requests are available at the NRC worldwide Web site: http://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/doc-comment/omb/index.html. The document will be available on the NRC home page site for 60 days after the signature date of this notice. Comments and questions should be directed to the OMB reviewer listed below by July 18, 2005. Comments received after this date will be considered if it is practical to do so, but assurance of consideration cannot be given to comments received after this date. John A. Asalone, Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (3150-0155), NEOB-10202, Office of Management and Budget, Washington, DC 20503. Comments can also be e-mailed to John_A._Asalone@omb.eop.gov or submitted by telephone at (202) 395-4650. The NRC Clearance Officer is Brenda Jo. Shelton, 301-415-7233. Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 10th day of June, 2005. For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Brenda Jo. Shelton, NRC Clearance Officer, Office of Information Services. [FR Doc. E5-3087 Filed 6-15-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P ***************************************************************** 30 NRC: Pacific Gas and Electric Company Diablo Canyon Power Plant, FR Doc E5-3088 [Federal Register: June 16, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 115)] [Notices] [Page 35137] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr16jn05-83] Units 1 and 2 ; Notice of Withdrawal of Application for Amendment to Facility Operating License The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (the Commission) has granted the request of Pacific Gas and Electric Company (the licensee) to withdraw its January 7, 2004, application for proposed amendment to Facility Operating License No. DPR-80 and Facility Operating License No. DPR-82 for the Diablo Canyon Power Plant, Unit Nos. 1 and 2, respectively, located in San Luis Obispo County, California. The proposed amendments would have revised the Technical Specifications to allow application of 4-volt alternate repair criteria at intersections of the SG tube hot-legs with the four lowest SG tube support plates. The Commission had previously issued a Notice of Consideration of Issuance of Amendment published in the Federal Register on February 3, 2004 (69 FR 5206). However, by letter dated May 13, 2005, the licensee withdrew the proposed changes. The licensee's application dated January 7, 2004, and withdrawal letter dated May 13, 2005 are available in the NRC's Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS) under Accession Numbers ML040120619 and ML051440406, respectively. For further details with respect to this action, see the application for amendment dated January 7, 2004, and the licensee's letter dated May 13, 2005, which withdrew the application for the license amendments. Documents may be examined, and/or copied for a fee, at the NRC's Public Document Room (PDR), located at One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville, Maryland. Publicly available records will be accessible electronically from the ADAMS Public Electronic Reading Room on the internet at the NRC Web site, http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams/html. Persons who do not have access to ADAMS or who encounter problems in accessing the documents located in ADAMS, should contact the NRC PDR Reference staff by telephone at 1-800-397-4209, or 301-415-4737 or by e-mail to pdr@nrc.gov. Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this10th day of June 2005. For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Girija S. Shukla, Project Manager, Section 2, Project Directorate IV, Division of Licensing Project Management, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. [FR Doc. E5-3088 Filed 6-15-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P ***************************************************************** 31 Boston Globe: Nuclear reconsidered Boston.com - Editorials - News CARBON-FREE KILOWATTS June 16, 2005 Fourth in a series THE BUSH administration still denies that manmade greenhouse gases are changing the planet's climate. But one sign of how serious environmentalists consider the threat of global warming is that some are calling for a new look at nuclear power, which emits no carbon dioxide in generating electricity. The electric power industry is also testing the waters. Three consortiums of energy companies are proposing to try out a new, more streamlined licensing process of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Nuclear power's most committed supporters see it not only as a carbon-free source of electricity but, down the road, as instrumental in the production of hydrogen to fuel the nation's cars and trucks without CO{-2} emissions. Against these lofty aspirations for nuclear, however, is the simple fact that -- while nuclear power provides 20 percent of US electricity -- no US utility has ordered and built a nuclear power plant since the 1970s. The chief reason for this is economic. Since the widespread deregulation of power generation and distribution in the 1990s, it has been power-company investors, not ratepayers, who have borne the financial risk if a new plant proves uncompetitive in the market or, worse, suffers a severe accident. Power producers have looked at the numbers, including those caused by the uncertainties of the nuclear licensing process, and opted for plants fueled by natural gas or coal. The financial case for existing nuclear plants has been enhanced by the improved productivity of the plants in recent years and by many owners' success in getting their licenses renewed for an extra 20 years. Also, recent steep increases in the cost of natural gas have somewhat improved the prospects of new nuclear power in competition with that fuel, but it is difficult to imagine a resurgence of nuclear energy unless Congress and the Bush administration get religion on climate change and sharply penalize -- through a carbon tax or a cap on carbon emissions -- the production of electricity with fossil fuels. But not just cost has kept nuclear power from playing a greater role. There is also the danger of an operating accident, a serious waste disposal problem, the risk that countries or individuals will misuse civilian reactors to produce material for nuclear weapons, and the threat of terrorist sabotage. Two years ago, a group of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard professors led by John Deutch and Ernest Moniz studied nuclear energy's future. The professors found that ''the nuclear option should be retained precisely because it is an important carbon-free source of power," but they also acknowledged the unresolved problems of the technology. Moniz said this week that the 2003 study has had its intended effect of opening a ''healthy" new dialogue on nuclear energy. But he said he would liked to have seen more progress since 2003 on the resolution of the waste disposal issue. Shirley Ann Jackson, president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission during the Clinton administration, believes that progress has been made in developing new reactor designs that reduce the hazard of operating accidents. She is also encouraged by international cooperation among plant operators and nuclear regulators to share best practices and prevent a new Chernobyl that would undercut support for nuclear power globally. Still, Jackson called waste disposal the industry's ''Achilles' heel." Innovative techniques can ''reduce the volume and nastiness of what you have," she said in an interview, but she believes a central solution, such as the proposed Yucca Mountain site in Nevada, is also needed. In the meantime, plants have begun to take spent fuel from storage in water pools, which in many cases have reached their capacity, and moved them into on-site dry steel and concrete casks, which are less vulnerable to terrorist attack. As for the threat of nuclear proliferation, the Deutch-Moniz study calls for the United States and other nations with major nuclear power programs to offer guaranteed supplies of fuel and waste-management services to countries that forgo enrichment and reprocessing activities, which create the greatest potential for weapons production. This policy and aggressive antiproliferation enforcement by the International Atomic Energy Agency are needed whether or not new nuclear power plants are built in America or elsewhere. If new reactor designs prove as safe as hoped and if progress is made on waste disposal, proliferation prevention, and protection against terrorism, nuclear power will deserve a chance to compete in the market against other sources of power that do not emit CO{-2}. But the market for any alternatives to fossil-fuel power will open up only after the United States decides to cap or tax the carbon emissions that fossil-fuel plants contribute to the atmosphere's greenhouse.[ /] © Copyright 2005 Globe Newspaper Company. 2005 The New York Times Company ***************************************************************** 32 Vermont Guardian: Environmental groups oppose U.S. subsidies to nuclear power By Maryann Ullmann | Special to the Vermont Guardian Posted June 16, 2005 BRATTLEBORO More than 300 environmental organizations, local officials and small businesses have signed a statement opposing a move by Sens. John McCain and Joseph Lieberman to subsidize the nuclear industry as a way to combat global warming. Nuclear power is too dangerous and expensive, and should not be used, said Anna Aurilio, legislative director of U.S. Public Interest Research Group, which spearheaded the statement. Aurilio and representatives from other groups including Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, and Public Citizen, announced their effort in a national teleconference on Thursday. Aurilio said she supported the original version of the McCain-Lieberman Climate Stewardship Act, which includes mandatory caps on carbon dioxide emissions with a credit-trading system modeled after the Clean Air Act. But that bill failed in a close vote 19 months ago. In the hopes of winning more votes, the measure was reintroduced with billions of dollars of incentives. The House version, which has passed, included $6.1 billion in nuclear incentives. The Senate version, to which the groups were responding Thursday, includes $4.3 billion in incentives for nuclear power development. The provisions would encourage the first construction of new nuclear reactors in more than 30 years. We havent seen a single senator who supported the original version come out in support of the nuclear version, said Aurilio. We think this takes us backward politically. Lieberman, D-CT, said the nuclear support was included in the revised bill to create a range of options that would be prioritized by the market. Every technology, every innovation has to be on the table so that the market can choose the best ideas and inventions, Lieberman, said in a statement explaining the new provisions. Sen. McCain and I have developed a bill that shuns picking winners and losers between and among different technologies we want the market to do that. Instead, our bill would create a system that puts every technological option on the menu to ensure that there will be viable low greenhouse gas emitting products and energy services available to face the challenge of climate change. Lieberman said. Just to be clear, there are no environmental groups promoting or supporting nuclear power. You cant be an environmentalist and support this, says Aurilio. The USPIRG statement outlines five provisions that signatories hope senators will consider in the Energy Bill: a 10 percent renewable energy standard; a goal of saving at least 1 million barrels of oil per day by 2015; mandatory electricity reliability standards; energy efficiency standards and incentives; and a mandatory cap on carbon dioxide global warming pollution that reduces emissions to 2000 levels by 2010. Signatories include a wide range of groups and individuals including mayors from Colorado, state senators from Pennsylvania, the Wisconsin Agribusiness Council, Yoga Living Magazine, the Indigenous Environmental Network, labor unions, faith-based groups and renewable energy companies. A few nuclear reactors wouldnt stop climate change, said Michael Mariotte of the Washington-based Nuclear Information and Resource Service, which signed the statement. It would take hundreds, thousands around the world at a cost of thousands of dollars. There are currently 440 nuclear power plants worldwide, according to Mariotte, and 1,500 would be needed to make any difference. Its absurd to think the world could even build these in time to do anything to stop global warming. On the issue of waste disposal, he added, We would need a Yucca Mountain every three or four years. Yucca Mountain, the proposed site for a permanent national nuclear waste storage facility in Nevada, is also an unsettled issue. Scientists and engineers have lied about the safety of storage, said Tara Smith, Southern Nevada Conservation organizer for the Sierra Club. Even the simple hint of an accident will destroy Las Vegas. Smith pointed out the dangers of transporting nuclear waste across the country to Yucca Mountain as well. There is not a safe way to transport it, and there is not a safe way to store it, she said. Any measure that increases nuclear power produces nuclear waste. Mariotte said energy efficiency standards are the most common-sense approach. Its the cheapest source of electricity at this point. Aurilio agreed. You can replace growth with efficiency for sure, she says. Were half as efficient as Germany and Japan. Vermont Guardian PO Box 335 Winooski, VT 05404 ***************************************************************** 33 Westchester.com: Study Of Indian Point Alternatives Released Westchester.com Thursday, 16 June 2005 [Westchester Government & Political News] White Plains, NY - Westchester County will aggressively pursue a two-pronged policy, including voluntary retirement, to see that the Indian Point plants are not relicensed, County Executive Andy Spano said June 14th as he released a year-long study of the options for closing the plants and replacing their energy. At a community meeting where Levitan & Associates presented its report, Spano said that the potential costs to taxpayers and ratepayers of condemning the plants made that option unrealistic and unwise. Instead, he said, the county would expand its effort to see that the two nuclear reactors are not relicensed -- a “carrot and stick” approach where Entergy, the plants’ owner, would be offered incentives to build replacement power on-site instead of applying for license extensions, and where simultaneously the county would press the federal government to deny Entergy’s relicensing application. “If we plan now, ratepayers, taxpayers and our economy will not be impacted. This is a pragmatic approach to our effort to protect the people of Westchester, but at the same time make sure that we have the energy that the region needs,” Spano said. He added, “There are no quick solutions, but I call on Entergy to join me in this effort. It is not predestined that we should be adversaries in this matter. This report shows that if we work together, and partner with the state and federal governments, we can give Westchester residents the peace of mind they deserve after 9/11 and at the same time ensure we have affordable energy and that our local economy is protected.” The current licenses for Indian Point 2 and 3 expire in 2013 and 2015 respectively. Although Entergy has not yet applied for license extension, the county expects it to do so and has been pressing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to adopt more stringent relicensing requirements – requirements that might preclude relicensing Indian Point. Key members of the Board of Legislators joined Spano in accepting the Levitan report and pushing ahead. "It's clear we have alternatives to nuclear power,” said Board Chairman Bill Ryan. “We need to identify and start implementing the best option. Converting to another fuel source will be a long and complicated process but the safety and security of our people requires that we begin making this change now. Any change needs to happen in a way where we continue to have the electricity we need with minimal economic impact to our workers, schools and the surrounding communities." Legislator Michael Kaplowitz said, “The results of the Levitan Study are timely, in that we are at a critical phase in our fight to close, decommission and convert the Indian Point site from nuclear to natural gas or an alternative source of fuel. As the series of Board Resolutions have stated, particularly in Resolution No. 142-2002 which was passed by the Board unanimously, we need a comprehensive plan in order to be able to replace the power, jobs and taxes that Indian Point currently provides. The findings of the Levitan Study will be a key resource in that plan. I would like to thank the County Executive and the county’s Utility Agency for their partnership in this effort.” Levitan & Associates, a Boston-based management consulting firm with vast experience in the power and fuel industries, was hired last year by the county and its Public Utility Agency. The study, paid for with funds from the utility agency with no impact on the tax levy, cost $385,000. In April, Spano vowed he would do everything possible to prevent the relicensing of the nuclear plants. As a first step, he petitioned the NRC to broaden the criteria it uses when it acts on relicensing applications. Current relicensing guidelines for nuclear plants allow the NRC to consider only issues such as the age of the power plants and the effect of aging on plant safety. Other issues such as local demographics, siting, and the ability to conduct an effective emergency evacuation are excluded from consideration in renewal decisions. In his petition and testimony to the NRC, Spano argued that the criteria must be broadened to protect the public. “We insist that the NRC consider the current difficulties and realities if an emergency evacuation were to take place in a dense, congested population center with limited roadways, even though the area was not as developed when the facility was first constructed. If they do as we insist, there is no way Indian Point can be relicensed,” Spano will continue to challenge relicensing with the NRC, but he will also pursue the parallel path of “voluntary retirement.” The Case for Voluntary Retirement Levitan & Associates evaluated a scenario in which the county, the state, Entergy and other stakeholders would negotiate a consensual agreement to retire Indian Point voluntarily. Under this scenario, Entergy would not submit applications for relicensing, and would work with the county, the state and other stakeholders to arrive at an acceptable solution. According to Levitan, there are several reasons why Entergy might be willing to consider this alternative: - In order to continue operating beyond the term of the existing licenses, Entergy would have to replace its once-through cooling system with a closed-cycle system that would protect millions of fish. The estimated cost of that conversion and other repairs or improvements, required by the state Department of Environmental Conservation, would be about $1 billion. - In addition to avoiding the cost of building cooling towers, Entergy could avoid the estimated nine-month shutdown to convert to the closed-cycle system and the performance penalties that cooling towers would impose. - If the NRC refuses to relicense Indian Point, Entergy would not be entitled to any financial compensation. - If Entergy voluntarily retires the plants and does not construct the cooling towers, the site could accommodate a gas-fired combined cycle plant. Although Levitan could not determine the maximum size plant that could be located on the site, it may be possible to replace all of the Indian Point capacity. Levitan believes these factors provide a window of opportunity for the parties to negotiate a consensual agreement that could accomplish three goals: allow Entergy to continue operating Indian Point through the end of the existing licenses, develop on-site replacement generation that would maintain many of the local economic benefits, and assure power system reliability for state ratepayers. An additional benefit to the county would be that it would no longer have to spend in excess of $4.4 million in security costs associated with protecting the public and for the planning, technology and training associated with the emergency response plan. If an agreement were reached by Dec. 31, 2010, Entergy and other developers would have three to five years to replace Indian Point nuclear power -- sufficient lead time to construct replacement generation and maintain system reliability. The Indian Point site has many advantages for a gas-fired replacement plant, including a transmission pathway to downstate markets and a nearby interstate gas pipeline. In fact, Entergy had proposed building a gas-fired plant at the site three years ago, but later dropped those plans. Said Spano, “I am calling on Entergy to meet with me to discuss these issues. A cooperative approach would be better for the company, its shareholders, and the residents of Westchester. I am calling on the Governor, and all our other federal, state and local officials to join us in getting a cooperative effort underway. But at the same time Entergy should understand we are serious about our effort to change the NRC’s relicensing guidelines if Entergy is unwilling to work with us,” he said. The Case Against Condemnation When Levitan was hired, one of its directives was to determine whether it was financially and legally possible for the county and/or state to acquire Indian Point through condemnation. The consultants concluded that condemnation was not a good strategy for the following reasons: - Entergy would be entitled to just and reasonable compensation. The consultants estimate this value at about $1.8-2.7 billion, assuming a Jan. 1, 2008 acquisition and retirement date. Entergy most certainly would argue the compensation should be even greater, with the likelihood that the price would get settled by the courts. - The county would become responsible for plant decommissioning as well as storage and disposal of existing spent nuclear fuel. Although existing decommissioning funds should be sufficient to pay for some of those activities, decommissioning requires specialized skills and resources. Levitan projected an additional cost of $240 million associated with disposal of spent nuclear fuel. - Condemnation would hasten a drop in property tax payments, employment, local spending on goods and services, and other economic impacts. While employment and local spending impacts would not be felt immediately as decommissioning and spent fuel activities continued, the loss of property tax payments would hurt local communities unless replacement generation was built on the site. Background on Levitan & Associates, Inc. Levitan & Associates, Inc. (LAI) is a management consulting firm that specializes in the energy industry. Founded in 1989, its clients have included many utilities, end-users, and agencies throughout the Northeast, as well as the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO), ISO-New England, and the Pennsylvania-New Jersey – Maryland Interconnection (PJM). LAI’s staff of experts prepare fuel cost and power price forecasts, evaluate project feasibility, model pipeline network deliverability and electric transmission system flows, assist customers with self-generation options, recommend fuel supply / storage / transportation strategies, recommend competitive market design improvements, and provide financial assessments to investors and financial institutions. LAI was assisted by a subcontractor, WPI, in this assignment. WPI is an energy consulting firm with specialized expertise in nuclear decommissioning and spent fuel management. Westchester.com ***************************************************************** 34 Brattleboro Reformer: Panel advises PSB to reject NRC's inspection of Yankee June 16, 2005 Brattleboro, VT By CAROLYN LORIé Reformer Staff BRATTLEBORO -- In comments submitted to the Vermont Public Service Board on Tuesday, the Windham Regional Commission stated that it does not believe last year's engineering inspection by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission of Vermont Yankee satisfies the board order of March 15, 2004. When Vermont Yankee officials proposed increasing power at the plant by 20 percent, state law required that they get approval from the Public Service Board. The Windham Regional Commission was a party in the case, as was the Vermont Department of Public Service, the nuclear watchdog the New England Coalition and the Connecticut River Watershed Council. Last year, the board gave conditional approval of the increase, known in the industry as an "uprate." One of the conditions was the successful completion of an independent engineering inspection by the NRC, in which four systems were "vertically sliced," meaning examined top to bottom. Though the NRC was initially resistant to supplementing its baseline inspections of the nuclear reactor, the regulator announced last May that it was instituting a pilot inspection program that would satisfy the board's order. The inspection was completed last August, with eight findings that were considered to be of low safety significance. On May 27, NRC officials met with the board to discuss the inspection. Jeff Jacobson, team leader for the inspection team, explained that the inspection looked at 45 different components, operator actions and operating experiences. He said this was a more thorough look at the plant than the vertical slices would have yielded. Jim Matteau, executive director of the Windham Regional Commission, said the commission was not disputing the technical merits of the NRC's efforts but was instead suggesting that it was not what the board requested. The New England Coalition came to a similar conclusion earlier in the year. "The Windham Regional Commission confirms our take on it, that the NRC inspection just doesn't cut it," said Raymond Shadis, technical advisor of the coalition. During the uprate case before the board, the coalition lobbied strongly that the plant undergo an independent safety inspection similar to what was done at the Maine Yankee plant in 1996. That NRC-run inspection uncovered numerous problems, ultimately leading to the owners of plant shutting it down. Since the uprate case began, Shadis said the coalition has circulated petitions signed by more than 10,000 individuals calling on the NRC do an independent safety inspection at Vermont Yankee. Because the board is not allowed to regulate matters of radiological health and safety, which only the NRC can do, it could not order a safety inspection. The engineering inspection was meant to insure reliability, which does fall under the board's purview. Also in the order was the request that the Advisory Committee of Reactor Safeguards -- an independent branch of the NRC -- approve the inspection results and the application. The uprate application, however, is still under review by the NRC staff and has not yet been given to the advisory committee. Until the application is reviewed, the uprate case before the board will remain open. In January, the Department of Public Service submitted comments to the board stating that the NRC inspection satisfied its order. Rob Williams, spokesman for Vermont Yankee, said plant officials disagreed with the conclusion of the coalition and the Windham Regional Commission. "It's our view that the independent engineering assessment not only satisfies the Public Service Board's request but went beyond it," he said. Copyright ©1999-2005 New England Newspapers, Inc., ***************************************************************** 35 Rutland Herald: State gets scathing review of nuclear drill June 16, 2005 By Susan SmallheerHerald Staff ONE COMPLAINT Farmers in Vernon and Guilford were advised to milk their cows before evacuating, when they were supposed to evacuate immediately, according to federal officials. The federal government has sharply faulted the state and two southern Vermont towns for their handling of key components of last month's test of emergency response at Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant. The Federal Emergency Management Agency identified five "deficiencies" — high-level problems affecting human health and safety — in the graded emergency exercise held May 24-26. Kenneth Horak, acting regional director of FEMA in Boston, sent a letter last week to the Vermont Department of Public Safety detailing those deficiencies. "The large number of issues in each of these areas tells FEMA there is a significant problem … and they should be classified as deficiencies," he wrote. Three of the five deficiencies were cited in the state's Emergency Operations Center in Waterbury, and one each against the towns of Vernon and Halifax. Vermont Yankee is located in Vernon. Horak said the emergency operations center's 14-minute delay in sending out an evacuation notice to the residents of Vernon and Guilford — and a warning to the towns of Brattleboro, Dummerston and Halifax to seek shelter — was unacceptable and jeopardized human life. "This could result in the public not hearing information to allow them to take protective actions," he said. Horak's letter also said the state sent out public information messages that were "misleading, inaccurate, lacked direction and in many instances it was contradictory, confusing and incomplete." In one instance, farmers in Vernon and Guilford were advised to milk their cows one last time before evacuating, Horak wrote, when they were supposed to evacuate immediately because of a radiological release from the plant under the emergency scenario planners were working on. Vernon's problem centered on a warning siren that was eight minutes late, Horak wrote. He added that one Vernon selectman filled in for the emergency director and "without proper training and experience, he was not prepared to direct and control the organization." Since the emergency warning came late, Horak wrote, residents could have mistaken the late siren for the real thing "and may have caused unnecessary panic." In Halifax, town officials took too long to complete their emergency notification route, according to FEMA. The notification is supposed to be completed in 45 minutes, but it took an hour and 14 minutes. Because the problems were rated deficiencies due to their potential impact on public health and safety, Horak noted, the state and the towns must correct the problems within 120 days. The state responded to FEMA in a letter dated Wednesday, taking issue with the harsh language. At the same time, it said it was working quickly to address the problems. Marc Metayer, deputy commissioner of the state Department of Public Safety, said that while Vermont had been given 120 days to re-test the problem areas, the state hoped to correct the problems in 60 days, in time for FEMA's final report in August on the biennial exercise. Last month's graded exercise was particularly important because it was the first exercise in six years to test the state's and the towns' on-the-ground response to the path of radiological releases. "I must take exception with your decision to characterize the above noted exercise performance issues as deficiencies," Metayer wrote in the state's response. "I do believe that the performance issues were evaluated in a manner that was more rigid than in past exercises and certainly beyond what was appropriate in this specific exercise." Metayer said in a telephone interview Wednesday that he had spoken to his counterparts in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, which were also faulted for problems in their emergency exercises, and all agreed that FEMA was being much more critical than before. Metayer said he didn't necessarily attribute the more critical nature of FEMA after Sept. 11, 2001, since nuclear power plants are considered to be possible, if not prime, targets of terrorists. But he called the state employees who participated in the exercise, and the preparatory drills leading up to it, as "worthy of the public's trust and confidence." "This seemed to be a much more critical review process, more than any of us had experienced, and we're not sure for the reason for it," Metayer said. "It didn't seem to us to rise to the level of a deficiency rating," he said. "A deficiency rating is a very serious piece. Yeah, we'd like to do things better, we've already got plans in place." He said the most serious problem — the 14-minute delay in getting notice to Vernon and Guilford to evacuate — was the result of an employee at the Emergency Operations Center being swamped with information. Metayer said the 14-minute problem did not indicate sloppy work or lack of preparedness. He noted that the three preparation drills leading up to the exercise went well. "The transmission of the information went to the right party, who was distracted with a couple of other issues by the time they got to that notice," he said. "We were off by those 14 minutes, we recognize that, but you can't undo it," Metayer said. Robert Williams, spokesman for Entergy Nuclear, which is not involved directly with any emergency planning outside the Vernon reactor's gates, said the company would work closely with Vermont, the towns and the other states to correct the problems identified by FEMA. "We will work with the state to ensure that all the issues are addressed," he said. "It's in everyone's best interests that the emergency plan is as effective as it can be." While Entergy leaves the emergency planning to the state and towns, it pays for much of it. Officials in Halifax and Vernon, including Ken Farabaugh, Vernon's director of emergency planning, couldn't be reached for comment Wednesday. Contact Susan Smallheer at susan.smallheer@rutlandherald.com. © 2005 Rutland Herald ***************************************************************** 36 Hanford Area Tests Find Plutonium in Fish, Mulberry Trees Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 14:29:10 -0500 (CDT) Environment News Service ENS Latest Environmental Information Education Current Issues RSS Hanford Area Tests Find Plutonium in Fish, Mulberry Trees http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jun2005/2005-06-15-06.asp SEATTLE, Washington, June 15, 2005 (ENS) - Radioactive contamination in public areas surrounding the Hanford Nuclear Site in Richland, Washington is higher and more geographically widespread than previously thought, according to a report today from a government watchdog group and a chemical data firm. The Government Accountability Project (GAP) and Boston Chemical Data Corporation issued a study that includes the first reports of plutonium in clams and fish in the Columbia River. The report includes evidence that radiation levels in mulberry trees are higher than previously reported, and that strontium-90 has entered the ecosystem in high levels. "This is hard evidence that points to past Department of Energy reports as being inadequate to protect the people of southwest Washington and northern Oregon," said Tom Carpenter, GAP Nuclear Oversight Campaign Director. The data collection and written report was completed by Marco Kaltofen, a registered professional engineer and environmental scientist with more than 19 years of experience in environmental investigations. He is the president of Boston Chemical Data, a corporation specializing in environmental investigations. The company is a member of the American Chemical Society and the American Society of Civil Engineers. Samples were analyzed by Pace Analytical Services, Inc. of Madison, Pennsylvania and PASC/Maxxam of Burlington, Ontario, Canada. The report, "Citizens Monitoring of Columbia River Radionuclides," was peer reviewed by a retired Hanford scientist and reviewed by the Oregon Office of Energy. In addition to plutonium being found for the first time in fish, increased levels of strontium, mercury, beryllium, uranium, and cesium were detected in aquatic creatures. Short and long term effects of this exposure remain unknown, the report states. It was also found that mulberry leaves from the shoreline of the Columbia River at the Hanford perimeter are toxic, indicating that the mulberries themselves may be contaminated. Strontium 90 levels in mulberry leaves in the area tested "are 875 times higher than levels found near Richland," the report states. "At this level ingestion of 0.05 ounces per day of similarly-contaminated food would exceed EPA's maximum allowable risk level of 4 mRem [millirem] per year." While the mulberry contamination shows "increased environmental risk via transfer of groundwater hazards into the biosphere," Kaltofen writes that the uptake of strontium 90 by mulberry plants may offer a potential method of remediation for groundwater cleanup in the root zone of mulberry plants. Rodent scats from the test area showed greater than 13-fold elevated levels of strontium 90 compared to downstream areas, "showing that the material has entered the food chain for higher organisms," according to the report. An area of the Columbia River 20 miles upstream from the Hanford site showed high uranium readings, according to testing conducted for this report. "There is no explanation for this finding at this time, though possible explanations could include that the uranium comes from natural sources, from a source upstream of Hanford, or that contamination was either windblown or carried up the river by aquatic organisms," the report states. Possible windblown contamination was also measured in attic dust collected from homes in Richland. One sample showed levels of radiation six times higher than samples taken from attics in houses in other parts of the country. The 586 square mile Hanford Site is located along the Columbia River in southeastern Washington state. A plutonium production complex with nine nuclear reactors and processing facilities, Hanford played a pivotal role in the nation's defense for more than 40 years, beginning in the 1940s with the Manhattan Project. Today, under the direction of the U.S. Department of Energy, Hanford is engaged in the world's largest environmental cleanup project, "with a number of overlapping technical, political, regulatory, financial and cultural issues," the Hanford Office of River Protection states. The Hanford Site includes more than 50 million gallons of high-level liquid waste in 177 underground storage tanks, 2,300 tons of spent nuclear fuel, 12 tons of plutonium in various forms, about 25 million cubic feet of buried or stored solid waste, and about 270 billion gallons of groundwater contaminated above drinking water standards, spread out over about 80 square miles, more than 1,700 waste sites, and about 500 contaminated facilities, according to Hanford officials. Included in this report is a reproduced graphic by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that shows the regions which were sampled for this study. "The Corps' original graphic directs the reader to conclude that the Columbia River marks the end of the portions of the Hanford Reservation which are not yet cleaned of radionuclide wastes," Kaltofen writes. "One purpose of this study has been to determine whether the Columbia River truly represents the point where contamination ends," he writes. "In reviewing the test results, the data do not show that the river is a barrier or boundary to Hanford-related contamination. Instead," Kaltofen writes, "the Columbia River is both a sink and a transport mechanism for these wastes." Decision makers from the Department of Energy, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Washington State Department of Ecology host the Fourth Annual "State of the Hanford Site" Public Meeting tonight at the Red Lion Hanford House in Richland. Carpenter and Kaltofen attended that meeting to publicize the results of their study. "The DOE does not place a priority on testing conditions outside of the Hanford perimeter in places where the public is allowed to fish and recreate. Our findings call for increased scrutiny on all levels regarding this area that is of grave public concern," Carpenter said. GAP is requesting Congressional funding for a Natural Resources Injury Assessment, independent of the Energy Department, to examine contamination around the Hanford site, said Carpenter. "We need to find out what this data means for public health concerns immediately. At a time when the government is planning to import nearly double the amount of contaminated waste already at Hanford, it is crucial to have credible environmental data," he said. The report is available at GAPs website at: www.whistleblower.org. ***************************************************************** 37 [du-list] Photo Radioactive Cylinder in Transit Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 16:10:58 -0700 Dear All, Before I left this morning on this photo mission, I had the premonition that the target would just be right there for me and indeed it was. It was just approching the underpass as I approched the overpass to the on-ramp to I-75. It took a few minutes to catch up with it. Since yahoogroups will not allow attachments, I'll post photo in group photo files. Attached Photo of radioactive cylinder in transit taken this morning [June 16] North-bound on Interstate Highway I-75 between Berea and Richmond, KY . The HazMat placards [2 diamond-shaped objects on tail end of the flatbed] are blurry—the truck and I were traveling at least 75 miles per hour. I did not think if I requested the driver to pullover so I could take photos he would do it! Since the speed limit is 65 MPH we were both speeding. The placard on the left has the international “Radioactive” symbol in yellow and the word “RADIOACTIVE.” The placard on the right reads “CORROSIVE” for if the cylinder were breached in an accident a highly toxic and corrosive plume of hydrogen fluoride gas would escape. I passed the vehicle for I knew from seeing one previously that there would be identification information on the side. In painted yellow stencil was: “DOT 13738.” A keyword search for DOT 13738 on an internet search engine once I got home was informative. DOT-E 13738 is an exemption pertaining to “one-time transportation in commerce of up to 2,831 mode l480M, 48T, and 480cylinders containing depleted uranium hexafluoride from DOE plant in Oak Ridge, TN to the United States Enrichment Plant in Piketon, OH.” The DOE is not exempt from displaying HazMat placards such as the military is. Though described as cylinders of depleted uranium hexafluoride [DUF6] such description is blatant obfuscation. The corroded steel cylinder itself has become radioactive due to transmutation caused by constant bombardment of products of radioactive decay of its contents. The contents are a radio-toxic brew far more diverse and complex than DUF6, again due to radioactive decay and resulting bombardment of the contents by the products of that decay. The cylinders will supply feedstock for the centrifuge enrichment plant under construction in Piketon in an effort to squeeze every last particle of Uranium-235 from the contents. The U-238? It will then be available for munitions, military and consumer products and . . . unless something changes. As I neared the vehicle and its load I was seized by feelings of anxiety and dread which have taken all day to quell. It was in Arizona, in the late 1970’s, that I became an activist on nuclear/environmental issues. In the Diné [Navajo—of Arizona and New Mexico] creation story, the people were warned not to touch a yellow substance called 'cledge', to leave it in the ground. 'Cledge', now known to be uranium, was from the underworld. Through their songs and stories, the Diné express that they had a choice between using the uranium or the yellow corn pollen and that they chose the way of beauty, the way of life. Uranium was to remain in the ground. If removed, it would bring great suffering, evil, death, and destruction to the world. According to the Diné, Turquoise Mountain is the home of the chief of the enemy gods or monsters. The literal translation of the Diné word for monster is "that which gets in the way of a successful life." This corresponds nicely with the concept of 'obstructing demons' which are spoken of in the teachings of Tibetan Buddhism. According to Esther Yazzie, Navajos believe that one of the best ways to overcome or weaken a monster is to name it. "Every evil - each monster - has a name. Uranium has a name in Navajo. It is leetso - meaning 'yellow brown' or 'yellow dirt'." DUinKY Awareness Campaign [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] To unsubscribe from this groups send a message to du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com. In the body of the message type unsubscribe and send. Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-list/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ***************************************************************** 38 Chillicothe Gazette: DOE proposes fine for safety company over worker's firing Concerned woman later lost her job www.chillicothegazette.com Thursday, June 16, 2005 By DANIEL PRAZER Gazette Staff Writer + U.S. Department of Energy:www.doe.gov, www.eh.doe.gov/enforce + Safety and Ecology Corp.: www.sec-tn.com PIKETON - The Department of Energy has proposed a $55,000 fine on a company that handles radiological safety at the Piketon uranium enrichment plant. Safety and Ecology Corp., a Tennessee-based subcontractor of Bechtel Jacobs Co., violated department regulations when it fired a worker who raised safety concerns, according to a June 14 letter from the department to SEC. The company has 30 days to file a response. "Unless they can deny it, or whatever, with sufficient justification, it becomes final," said DOE spokesman Jeff Sherwood. The letter alleges SEC fired Sue Rice Gossett, a radiological control technician, after she brought safety concerns to management, including "stopping work performed without appropriate radiological personnel present" and "reporting a personnel contamination." She filed a whistleblower complaint with the DOE in January 2001. "The DOE worker protection program has worked exactly as it should have, in my case," Gossett said. "If I have to be the example that lets workers know they have rights and there are programs that protect them from this kind of behavior, I guess that's who I have to be." In a written statement, SEC said it shares the DOE's position workers who raise safety complaints shouldn't fear retaliation, but Gossett was fired for other reasons. "SEC released this employee from Portsmouth in 2001 in our effort to ensure that only qualified staff, with the proper certifications, are employed on our DOE projects," said SEC President Mark Duff. "The employee was released based on the failure to successfully pass the (radiological control technician) exam after three attempts." Duff's statement said SEC's safety record includes no lost-time accidents or illnesses in over a year. The Price-Anderson Act of 1988 allows the department to levy fines based on violations of its nuclear safety requirements. This is the first fine levied under that act for retaliation against a whistleblower, Sherwood said. The DOE's Office of Hearing and Appeals found Gossett's firing was retaliatory - that's automatically considered a nuclear safety violation - and that finding was upheld by a federal court in Washington, D.C. But as support and cleanup contracts at the plant are transitioned from Bechtel Jacobs Co. to small businesses, Gossett said she stands to be out of work again. She found out Wednesday she didn't make the first round of hires into the company that will take over for SEC. SEC is scheduled to leave the Piketon plant site next week, she said. (Prazer can be reached at 772-9364 or via e-mail at dprazer@nncogannett.com) Originally published June 16, 2005 Copyright ©2005 Chillicothe Gazette. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 39 Fairfield Daily Ledger Inc.: Ammunition plant workers near their goal By Erik Gable, Ledger assistant news editor June 16, 2005 The end of the road is near for the hundreds of people seeking compensation for illnesses brought on by working at the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant in Middletown during the Cold War. Last month, Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt approved compensation for people who contracted any one of 22 different types of cancer believed to have been caused by working at the plant, which manufactured nuclear weapons until the mid 1970s. Under federal law, Congress has 30 days from Leavitt's decision to block the compensation. If Congress takes no action, the compensation goes through. This weekend, the 30 days will be up. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, plans to mark the occasion with ammunition plant workers and their survivors at 2:30 p.m. Saturday at the Mechanist Union Hall, 16452 Highway 34, West Burlington. "The workers at IAAP and their families devoted their lives to our national security," Harkin said in a press release. "They are the unsung heroes of the Cold War and it is past time that we recognize their dedication and selfless contribution." Congress established the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program in 2000, but until now, most workers at the Middletown plant were not able to get compensation because a lack of records made it hard to prove a connection between their jobs and their illnesses. For the complete story, read the June 16 Fairfield Ledger. ©Fairfield Daily Ledger Inc. 2005 ***************************************************************** 40 Whitehaven News: Whitewash fears over child cancers report Published on 16/06/2005 A CUMBRIAN anti-nuclear group claims that the latest report which shows no excess of childhood cancer around the country’s nuclear power stations will help pave the way for building new stations. COMARE, the Committee on the Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment, has come up with the statistics but Janine Allis-Smith, who continues to blame Sellafield for her son’s leukaemia, hit back: “We find it curious that at the very time the government is making noises about building new power stations in the UK its appointed Committee should come up with a clean bill of health for existing nuclear power stations. “It is also fortunate for Sellafield that radiation does not leave a visiting card and the actual victims cannot be identified. Given that BNFL compensates its own workers on as little as a 20 per cent probability that their cancers were caused by work-related radiation, we reject COMARE’s suggestion that the unacceptably high authorised and accidental discharges outside the fence have not affected our children’s health.†Although the incidences of childhood cancers in the Seascale area are higher than the national average, previous COMARE reports have found no evidence to link the incidence with Sellafield and suggested a possible connection with population mixing in the early days of the nuclear plant, an influx of new people into the village causing a virus. In the latest research, COMARE has used a unique database consisting of more than 32,000 cases of childhood cancer in Great Britain between 1969 and 1993 to study the incidence of childhood cancer in the vicinity of all the major licensed sites (power stations and other nuclear installations). “Using the most appropriate statistical test for each site we found no evidence of excess numbers of cases in any local 25km area around any of the nuclear power stations. The distance would include either primary exposure to radioactive discharges or secondary exposure from re-suspended material. “Around other nuclear installations our study demonstrated similar results to previously published studies that showed excesses of some types of childhood cancer. “We found an excess of leukaemia and non-Hodgkin lymphoma near Burghfield, Dounreay and Sellafield,†the Committee points out. Janine Allis-Smith said: “There is nothing new about Sellafield in this report which concentrates largely on nuclear power stations rather than reprocessing and other plant. COMARE has even trotted out the population mixing theory for the Sellafield cancers which the report refers to as a ‘blip’. As an affected parent I take exception to our children being referred to as blips — and their cancers being attributed to a mere theory for which no virus has ever been identified, which has never been supported anywhere else in the world and of which there is no sign in Japan’s remote Rokkasho village, where thousands of non-local workers have been imported over almost two decades to build a reprocessing plant similar to Sellafield.†***************************************************************** 41 Bradenton Herald: SRQ launching assessment of contamination's impact Posted on Thu, Jun. 16, 2005 DANA SANCHEZ Herald Staff Writer MANATEE - Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport has hired a geologist and plans to engage an environmental lawyer to explore whether groundwater contamination from the former American Beryllium Co. plant in nearby Tallevast devalued airport property. Larry Sims, a Rockledge-based geologist, will monitor a Department of Environmental Protection investigation and will interpret those results for airport officials, said Dan Bailey Jr., legal counsel for the airport. "We want to see what the data says and see if we have a problem first before going to the legal team," Bailey said. Airport officials are chiefly concerned with the 18-acre Suncoast Golf Center, which the airport owns and which falls within a contamination plume identified by Lockheed Martin Corp., former owner of the beryllium plant. Lockheed has accepted responsibility for cleaning up the contamination. "Any pollution today that we may have only affects the golf course," said Fred Piccolo, airport CEO and executive director. The airport chose the law firm of Holland & Knight to represent it in possible future litigation. Bailey and airport authority members seemed unperturbed by a potential conflict of interest between the law firm, the airport and Lockheed Martin. Holland & Knight represents Lockheed and a group of other entities at a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Superfund site in Orange County. But Lockheed has waived any conflict with the law firm representing the airport, Bailey said. Fees related to the contamination will be paid for from a professional services budget maintained and replenished annually by the airport. The budget runs around $275,000 a year. "Traditionally, we use about three quarters of it," Piccolo said. Though the pollution issue for the airport is only in the exploratory phase, Bailey and Piccolo said they don't envision it involving large sums. "At this time, our expenses are minimal," Piccolo said. "We're going to ask to recover damages should we pursue some legal relief." ***************************************************************** 42 columbia tribune: Waste shipments no big deal, local authorities claim www.columbiatribune.com By KATIE FRETLAND of the Tribune’s staff Published Thursday, June 16, 2005 Emergency responders in Boone County are not alarmed about truckloads of radioactive waste planned for shipment through Columbia this summer along Interstate 70. Officials with the Columbia Fire Department and the Boone County Fire Protection District said they would react to a highway emergency involving the waste in the same way they have been trained for years. That would involve activating a hazardous materials response team, identifying the product, isolating the area and calling in additional resources for cleanup. The state Department of Natural Resources, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Department of Energy and state and federal departments of transportation would combine efforts to ensure safety after an accident. Columbia Fire Department Battalion Chief Steve Sapp said he sees more risk with tanker trucks of gasoline on the highway than the tractor-trailers carrying sacks of cold metal oxide that have begun traveling through Missouri. A former Cold War uranium refinery in Fernald, Ohio, is sending about 275 shipments of cold metal oxide in a dry, crumbly form through Columbia en route to an Envirocare disposal facility in Clive, Utah. The material is a by-product of uranium processing, marked Radioactive Class 7. From 1952 to 1989, the Fernald federal refinery produced high-purity uranium metal fuel cores for weapons production. The refinery supplied the products to defense-related U.S. Department of Energy facilities. The Fernald site is closed and being cleaned up. "This is an interesting shipment, but I don’t think it’s a huge concern," Sapp said. "The packaging alone is designed to protect for leakage or spilling, even in the event of a crash." Fluor Fernald, the private contractor in charge of the cleanup project, had to prove before shipment that a person who touched the surface of the waste containers could get no more than 200 millirems per hour of radiation. The shipments traveling through Columbia emit a tiny fraction of that. A normal dose of radiation in Mid-Missouri for one year is the equivalent of about 10 chest X-rays, said Keith Henke, the radiological emergency response planner with the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services. A chest X-ray produces 10 to 36 millirems, and a dental X-ray produces about 25 millirems. The sun and certain man-made products give off radiation, and the Earth has radioactivity of its own, said Gale Carlson, hazardous substance assessment chief with the health department. "There are naturally occurring radiation forms everywhere," Carlson said. "A transcontinental flight gives you around 7 millirems, and we don’t consider that a greater risk." Theoretically, Carlson said, one X-ray could hit a cell and cause cancer, but usually the cell simply dies instead of becoming malignant. "Radiation does its damage by entering a living cell, scrambling up your DNA and causing your DNA to become abnormal," Carlson said. If a person stands close enough to touch the waste containers for one hour, that person will receive from 5 to 8 millirems of radiation, said Jeff Wagner, spokesman for Fluor Fernald. If a person drives for one hour 2 meters away from a truck carrying the waste, that person will receive .8 to 1.2 millirems of radiation. "You’d have to stand up against the container for an hour to get less than one chest X-ray," Henke said. Shipments started in May and will end at the end of August. On June 12, five shipments went out and arrived safely in Utah on Tuesday, Wagner said. Fluor Fernald will send six trucks on Saturday. "There has been no type of unusual occurrence or anything warranting a report since the program started," Wagner said. The type of waste Fluor Fernald ships is lower in radioactivity than what would go to a high-level radioactive waste depository such as the proposed Yucca Mountain site in Nevada. Reach Katie Fretland at (573) 815-1731 or kfretland@tribmail.com. Copyright © 2005 The Columbia Daily Tribune. All Rights ***************************************************************** 43 Daily News: Foes cheer cutback at toxic waste site BY HUGH SON DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER An unpopular Williamsburg radioactive and toxic waste storage facility will store smaller amounts of hazardous materials and for only 10 days, a top Radiac official said yesterday. The Radiac warehouse on Kent Ave. - which activists called a "dirty bomb" waiting to explode - was downgraded to a transfer site after Radiac withdrew its permit application to store materials for up to a year, which the Daily News reported exclusively yesterday. "There will be a lower inventory because of the limited amount of time they can hold the materials," said Radiac lawyer Tom West. "If you can keep stuff for a year, you're going to accumulate more of it." Before the changes, up to 15,000 gallons of poisons, acids and flammable liquids were stored along with radioactive materials in buildings on Kent Ave. near homes and a block of Public School 84. Activists and politicians deemed the sudden reversal by Radiac a huge victory - especially since the company had pushed for a permit renewal from the state Environmental Conservation Department since 1994. "One of the fastest-growing neighborhoods in New York can breathe a bit easier," said Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). Radiac officials insisted the facility was safe and would continue to operate in much the same way as it has for 35 years. "They'll have more flexibility operating as a 10-day facility than before," West said. "It's a prudent business decision, not a retreat at all." But federal laws also will limit the kinds of hazardous materials now allowed at the Radiac transfer site, said Mike Gerard, an environmental lawyer hired by groups opposing Radiac. "The regulation under which they're going to operate prevents the storage of incompatible materials in the same room, such as acids and cyanides," Gerard said. West refused to comment on the kinds of chemicals the company is now allowed to handle. Originally published on June 16, 2005 All contents © 2005 Daily News, L.P. ***************************************************************** 44 Las Vegas SUN: Lawmakers spar over nuke storage June 15, 2005 By Benjamin Grove SUN WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF WASHINGTON -- The newly hatched House plan to begin storing the nation's high-level nuclear waste at temporary sites is on a collision course with the Senate, which could doom it for this year. Two key senators on Tuesday said House legislation that offers the Energy Department $10 million to launch the plan was woefully short on funds and specifics. A massive new interim program cannot be started with "$10 million and a paragraph" of legislation, said Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee on energy and water programs. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., called the House plan a "half-baked" proposal. Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, had inserted the interim storage provisions in a House energy and water spending bill, saying that temporary sites were prudent given all the obstacles that have delayed Yucca Mountain, which Congress selected as the nation's permanent waste storage repository. But Domenici said he doesn't want the legislation included in this year's energy and water bill. Domenici's opposition will make it difficult for the interim plan to survive when a panel of House-Senate negotiators begin meeting to iron out differences on the broader spending bill. Reid has said the nation should simply leave nuclear waste where it currently sits, on-site at nuclear plants nationwide. Nuclear utilities say that plan is not a long-term solution, and they have sued the government because Congress agreed to begin hauling waste away to a repository by 1998. But Reid still plans to revive his legislation that would allow the Energy Department to "take title" -- ownership -- of nuclear waste at the plants. Reid on Tuesday said he had not decided how to best re-introduce the legislation this year. The energy and water spending bill also included $577 million for Yucca Mountain in the next fiscal year, beginning Oct. 1. President Bush had requested $651 million and the House approved $661, which included the extra $10 million for the interim program. The differences set up an annual tussle over the Yucca budget, which usually plays out behind closed doors where Reid negotiates to slash Yucca funds. "Every year I cut the budget because it's a project that's fraught with fraud and mismanagement and the more time we have, the more the facts come to light," Reid said in a statement. "There is no way to safely open a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain." The Senate bill also includes more than $300 million for Nevada projects, including money for flood control and environmental programs, as well as increased funding for homeland security training at the Nevada Test Site, Reid aides said. Included in the bill: ••• Yucca program oversight money -- $3.5 million for Nevada, $8.5 million for eight Nevada counties affected by Yucca to split, plus a special $500,000 pot for Nye County. ••• Roughly $45 million for Test Site programs, including money for subcritical nuclear weapons experiments, bio-terrorism first-responders programs, and general upgrades, including road maintenance. ••• Research at UNLV, including: $4 million for a solar-produced hydrogen program; $4 million for hydrogen fuel cell research and development; $4 million for a renewable hydrogen refueling station system; $3 million for photoelectric chemical production of hydrogen; and $4 million for biofuels development. ••• $2.5 million for UNLV's Institute for Security Studies, which offers a master's degree in homeland security. ***************************************************************** 45 Las Vegas SUN: Editorial: 'Solutions' spell danger Today: June 16, 2005 at 9:16:38 PDT LAS VEGAS SUN What to do with lethal nuclear waste is a question whose answer continues to elude and divide members of Congress. The House last month inserted a provision in a spending bill that would commit $10 million for the Energy Department to start a temporary, aboveground storage program by 2006. The provision was the idea of Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, chairman of the House Appropriations energy subcommittee. It would settle the waste on federal sites in Idaho, Washington and perhaps in other states. Hobson argued that the proposed permanent solution -- burial at Southern Nevada's Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas -- is so mired in legal and scientific obstacles that temporary sites are needed. He is wrong to believe that temporary storage is an interim solution, for some of the same reasons that permanent burial at Yucca is wrong. Transporting the waste to the sites, for example, would endanger every community along the routes. The risk of an accident is a risk the nation cannot afford to take. Fortunately, a Senate Appropriations subcommittee dropped Hobson's provision from the larger spending bill. The action leaves the House and Senate divided on what to do with the waste that is accumulating at nuclear power plants. In our view, underground, permanent storage at Yucca Mountain is an invitation to catastrophe, as is aboveground, temporary storage at federal sites. Until an intelligent solution for disposal is found, we say leave the waste at the power plants, where it has been safely stored for decades. ***************************************************************** 46 Cincinnati Enquirer: Dredging done at Fernald waste pits Thursday, June 16, 2005 By Dan Klepal Enquirer staff writer CROSBY TWP. - The largest job in the $4.4 billion cleanup of radioactive waste at Fernald is finished. The dredging of the so-called waste pits - six vast dumping grounds equal to a 10-acre, 42-foot-deep hole at the Cold War-era uranium foundry - is complete and the last shipment of material left by rail Wednesday for a disposal site in Utah. The waste pits became a graveyard of sorts for every kind of chemical and radioactive byproduct produced at the plant during four decades of operation. There were rumors from retired workers about entire pieces of machinery buried in the waste pits. No machinery was unearthed, but nearly 1 million tons of material was dug up, dried in an enormous furnace, and shipped off the site by train since April 1999 - the largest rail transportation project in U.S. Department of Energy history. "We had a train leaving every two weeks, and it ran like clockwork," said Jamie Jameson, president of Fluor Fernald, the government contractor performing the cleanup. "And that was a big part in building public confidence in our ability to do the cleanup." The waste pits represented a $400 million project within a project. It was the biggest part of the overall environmental restoration of the 1,050-acre site. Other projects include cleaning the aquifer, removing mountains of contaminated soil, demolishing numerous buildings and other structures, along with removing waste from three concrete storage silos. The waste from the storage silos - the most-radioactive material at the site - has recently begun being trucked to Texas for disposal. "They did extremely well," citizen watchdog Lisa Crawford said of the waste pits project. "It was a long, hard haul. Years ago, we were very skeptical because they had never done anything like this by rail. The light at the end of the tunnel is getting brighter." Contaminated soil still must be removed from the pits - about a three-month job. The area will then be tested to make sure radiation levels are low before it is turned into a wetland area. E-mail dklepal@enquirer.com Copyright1995-2005. The Cincinnati Enquirer, a Gannett Co. ***************************************************************** 47 CNW Group: Tournigan acquires significant US uranium potential Canada NewsWire Group Attention Business Editors: Symbol: Canada TSX.V - TVC Frankfurt, Berlin - TGP VANCOUVER, June 16 /CNW/ - Tournigan Gold Corporation is pleased to announce an agreement to acquire up to 100 percent of a portfolio of uranium mining claims in Wyoming, USA from Sweetwater River Resources LLC ("Sweetwater"). This portfolio adds significant exploration potential and North American exposure to Tournigan's four recently-announced uranium deposits in the Slovak Republic, Europe. Some of the areas covered by the Sweetwater claims were previously held by major resource companies Anaconda Mining, Rocky Mountain Energy and Gulf Oil. Tournigan believes it is the only junior resource company with strategic uranium holdings in the top two energy- consuming continents of North America and Europe. The portfolio consists of six groups of federal lode claims totaling 243 claims and 19.7 square kilometres within the Shirley Basin, Great Divide Basin, and Green River Basin Uranium Districts in Wyoming. Five of the six claim groups host drill-documented uranium mineralization, including two reported historical resource estimates. The Shirley Basin is highly prospective for uranium and was the site of significant production, with four uranium mines in operation from 1960 to 1980. The Great Divide Basin hosts one former producing operation and more importantly, was the focus of several large exploration programs at the end of the last uranium boom. The Sweetwater claims in the Green River Basin include key portions of a zone 13 miles long, which itself is part of a reported 22-mile prospective roll-front type trend of uranium mineralization. Since the first production, Wyoming mines have produced 193 million lbs of uranium oxide (U3O8). The vast majority of uranium mineralization is hosted in lower Eocene, fluvial sandstone-hosted deposits. The Shirley Basin deposits are contained within the Wind River formation ranging in depth from 100 to 500 ft. Former production was won mostly from open pits, but also included underground and in-situ leach operations phases. Green River Basin mineralization is hosted in the Wasatch formation at depths ranging form surface to greater than 650 ft. In the Great Divide Basin, uranium mineralization is hosted in several sand units of the extensive Battle Springs Formation over thicknesses up to 2,000 ft. Tournigan intends to locate additional uranium mining claims in the western United States, while initiating work programs and acquiring detailed data on the existing land positions. The Company's US initiative will be spearheaded by Dr. Kent Ausburn, VP Exploration, whom, in addition to holding a PhD focused on research of epithermal gold deposits (such as Tournigan's Kremnica project), completed a Masters Degree on the geochemistry of the Eocene sediment-hosted Hansen uranium deposit in Colorado. Dr. Ausburn will work closely with Mr. John Glasscock who has over 15 years experience conducting mineral exploration in Wyoming. These two individuals have over 50 years of minerals experience between them, with over 30 years focused on the Western United States. In addition, Sweetwater has employed Mr. Norbert Jerome, a senior uranium geologist with experience in uranium exploration and development/production dating back to the last uranium up-cycle, and who was active in uranium exploration in Wyoming and the Western US during the 1960's and 1970's. Mr. Jerome was actively involved in targeting and acquiring the existing Sweetwater portfolio and will continue to work closely with the Tournigan-Sweetwater group in acquisition, exploration and development of new and existing uranium properties. The agreement with Sweetwater will be replaced by a definitive option agreement, the terms of which involve Tournigan earning an 85% interest in the portfolio by making an initial payment of US$50,000, funding an initial US$90,000 exploration and acquisition program (which includes any additional claims acquired in the United States), issuing 200,000 Tournigan shares to Sweetwater, and making anniversary payments of US$25,000, US$50,000 and US$50,000 at the end of years 1, 2 and 3, respectively. Tournigan would then have the right to purchase Sweetwater's remaining 15% for shares in Tournigan, based on an independent valuation. The signing of the definitive option agreement is subject to a maximum 30-day period of due diligence by Tournigan, as well as Board and regulatory approval. Appointment of CFO Tournigan is also pleased to announce the appointment of Robert Nowell as Chief Financial Officer of the Company. Mr. Nowell is a CGA with 17 years of extensive public company experience in senior financial roles. Tournigan wishes to thank Mr. Jon Lever, the Company's former CFO, for his valuable contributions during the past three years. Tournigan Gold is focused on developing two advanced gold projects in Europe - Curraghinalt in Northern Ireland and Kremnica in Slovakia. The acquisition of new uranium projects in Slovakia and now Wyoming adds a dynamic component to Tournigan's asset mix. Visit www.tournigan.com for more information TOURNIGAN GOLD CORPORATION "Damien Reynolds" ---------------------------------------- Damien Reynolds, Chief Executive Officer The Qualified Person for these projects, Dr. Kent Ausburn, has reviewed all technical disclosure in this release. The TSX Venture Exchange has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Statements in this press release other than purely historical information, including statements relating to the Company's future plans and objectives or expected results, constitute forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on numerous assumptions and are subject to all of the risks and uncertainties inherent in the Company's business, including risks inherent in mineral exploration and development. As a result, actual results may vary materially from those described in the forward-looking statements. %SEDAR: 00005627E For further information: Damien Reynolds, CEO or Garry Stock, Executive VP, (604) 683-8320, or visit www.tournigan.com TOURNIGAN GOLD CORPORATION - More on this © 2005 CNW Group Ltd. PRIVACY &TERMS ***************************************************************** 48 PRWEB: Proposed Alternative to Yucca Mountain Project June 16, 2005 Global News &Press Release Distribution @PRWeb.com E-Mail Before Chernobyl, Soviet scientific officials were optimistic about the safety of building a reactor in Moscow’s Red Square. We now know the results of that tragic mistake. Despite this, the U.S. administration continues to support the claim that the Yucca Mountain storage is safe for 10,000 years! We must get the legislators to stop the Yucca Mountain Project. It's time to consider safer, less expensive alternatives. Take action and call your representatives now! (PRWEB) June 16, 2005 -- As a former Ukrainian nuclear physicist, now a naturalized U.S. citizen, I have developed a process (patent pending) to safely convert about 95% of the nuclear waste into a usable fuel source. The process, involving a subcritical power module and a proliferation-resistant fuel cycle, would also eliminate the possibility of fuel meltdown and nuclear reactor explosions (please see some details at ). Such a power module might be developed in 10 years at a cost of less than 15 billion dollars. This is minuscule compared with the cost of maintaining the safety and security of nuclear waste storage facilities for 10,000 years. A compact subcritical module, which is not radioactive when it is launched, could also serve as a vital component in NASA's deep space missions. Public support is essential for us. You can help in two ways: first, by making your research facilities available for concept modeling or feasibility studies, and second, by contacting your representatives, so that these ideas may find a way to the Department of Energy and Nuclear Regulatory Commission headquarters. # # # CONTACT INFORMATION Anatoly Blanovsky TEACHER TECHNOLOGY CENTER 323-650-7739 © Copyright 1997-2004, PR Web™. All Rights Reserved ***************************************************************** 49 Korea Times: New Incentives Set for Nuclear Waste Dump Hankooki.com > The Korea Times > Nation By Seo Jee-yeon Staff Reporter South Korea may soon decide the location of a nuclear waste repository as the government on Thursday reopened a bid for the site, offering a variety of incentives. ¡°We will restart the selection of a low-level nuclear waste dumpsite by November,¡± Cho Seok, director-general of the Ministry of Commerce, Energy and Industry (MOCIE), said on Thursday. Under the new procedure, candidates have to submit an application by Aug. 31. Geological and environmental surveys on candidates will be conducted by Sept. 15. Citizens will then vote on whether to house a nuclear waste dumpsite in their community in November. To be in the final round, onethird of the citizens in a candidate city have to vote and more than half of the voters must be in support of the construction. ¡°The MOCIE will select the final destination based on criteria such as geological suitability and the citizens¡¯ approval by the end of November,¡± Cho said. Despite continued uncertainties, competition has heated up among seven cities, including Kunsan in North Cholla Province, Pohang in South Kyongsang Province and Kyongju in North Kyongsang Province, since the government promised many incentives with a special law last year. Those cities have made efforts to gain support from citizens to apply for the bid, particularly stressing the site location is critical for regional development. Key incentives to be offered to the low-level radioactive waste site include 300 billion won in financial support and relocation of the Korea Hydro &Nuclear Power headquarters from Seoul to the site. ¡°The local government to house the site will also receive a commission income on the inflow of nuclear waste, which is estimated at 8.5 billion won a year,¡± Cho said. Despite its 27-year history of nuclear energy generation since 1978, Korea, the world¡¯s sixth largest nuclear power plant operator with 20 nuclear power plants, has not selected a site for radioactive waste repository as it failed to obatin social consensus. In 2003, the government selected Wido, a small island located 14 kilometers off the southwestern coast, as the site for the nation¡¯s first nuclear waste repository. However, it scrapped the construction project, yielding to strong protests from residents and environmental activists. The government cannot hold off the construction of the nuclear dumpsite any longer as the storage capacity for the nation¡¯s lowlevel radioactive waste is expected to run out by 2008. Forty percent of Korea¡¯s total electricity depends on nuclear power. The government plans to raise the level to 46.4 percent by 2015 to secure stability in the energy supply and to protect environment. jyseo@koreatimes.co.kr 06-16-2005 20:12 ***************************************************************** 50 American Online: NRC releases LES reports Thursday, 16 June 2005 c /o Odessa American 222 E. 4th Street P.O. Box 2952 Odessa, TX 79760 Environmental, safety findings meet standards By Ruth Campbell Odessa American The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued two reports Wednesday that will help pave the way for Louisiana Energy Services to obtain a license to build the proposed National Enrichment Facility near Eunice, N.M. The Safety Evaluation Report and Final Environmental Impact Statement both passed NRC muster. “The SER concludes that LES has demonstrated it has adequate safety programs to construct and operate the proposed facility,” a NRC news release said. Also, the Final Environmental Impact Statement “concludes that the proposed facility will have small to moderate impacts,” the release said. Meanwhile, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Atomic Safety and Licensing Board has issued a decision in favor of LES on contentions raised at an evidentiary hearing in February. Nuclear Information and Resource Services and Public Citizen raised the contentions, which addressed ground and surface water, impact on water supplies, deconverting depleted uranium and whether the facility is needed. Both organizations are appealing the ruling, Tim Johnson, NRC project manager, said. If all goes as timed, Johnson said a license could be issued in June 2006. There is a mandatory hearing before the license is issued and there will be a public meeting to talk about the Final Environmental Impact Statement and Safety Evaluation Report at the end of July or sometime in August in Eunice, he said. The State of New Mexico and LES have also reached an agreement that would limit LES storage of byproduct to 5,000 cylinders, equivalent to eight to 10 years of enrichment at full capacity, a news release from Gov. Bill Richardson’s office said. This is a 67 percent reduction from the amount of storage requested by LES in its license application with the NRC. Under the agreement, if storage exceeds this amount, the facility must stop all operations that generate new byproducts. No single container can be stored more than 15 years total, the release said. All byproducts must be converted or disposed of outside New Mexico. The agreement will be sent to the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board for approval, the release said. Public Citizen policy analyst Joseph Malherek said his organization does not agree with the NRC’s environmental and safety reports. He added that he thinks the uranium byproduct will be shipped to the nearby Waste Control Specialists site, which is inadequate because it is a “shallow landfill.” He said the byproduct should be placed in a deep mine. Malherek said Public Citizen is also concerned about NRC’s independence in evaluating LES’ plans. “I thought they relied too much on their contractors” or past environmental impact statements done by the U.S. Department of Energy, for example. “They trusted absolutely without verifying the work by their contractors,” he said. ***************************************************************** 51 Newsday.com: Decision will step up waste shipments from nuclear site By CAROLYN THOMPSON Associated Press Writer June 16, 2005, 3:17 PM EDT BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Out-of-state shipments of low-level nuclear waste from the West Valley Demonstration Project will be stepped up under a Department of Energy decision that will keep the most dangerous waste on site for several more years. The Energy Department has been weighing how to handle waste generated during cleanup of the site 30 miles south of Buffalo, which once housed the nation's only commercial nuclear fuel reprocessing operation. Under the decision released this week, low-level waste will be removed by truck or train over the next 10 years. The shipments are expected to number about 1,966 if made by truck or 608 if by rail. "We have shipped waste in the past," said Dan Sullivan, a DOE officer at West Valley. "The difference here is we're going to do it a little more often at the site." About 300 canisters of high-level waste are eventually destined for Yucca Mountain in the Nevada desert, but would remain at West Valley until the permanent dump site is completed. The Yucca Mountain site, the planned repository for 77,000 tons of defense and commercial nuclear waste to be buried for 10,000 years and beyond, has run into setbacks and is not expected to be finished until at least 2012. About 600,000 gallons of high-level radioactive waste has been solidified and is currently stored in specially designed stainless-steel canisters behind thick concrete walls at West Valley. The DOE considered shipping the high-level waste to an interim site while awaiting completion of Yucca Mountain, but ruled against moving the waste twice and potentially doubling the risk of accidents. Authorities also considered storing most low-level waste, along with the high-level waste, on site for the immediate future but determined that removing it more quickly would hasten the cleanup. None of the alternatives would have had an effect on public safety, an environmental impact statement concluded. "Waste management activities under each alternative would result in the limited exposure of workers to small amounts of radiation and contaminated material, and exposure of the public to very small quantities of radioactive materials," the DOE decision said. From 1966 to 1972, spent nuclear fuel from commercial nuclear power plants and DOE sites was chopped, dissolved and its uranium and plutonium extracted at West Valley. The operation shut down for upgrades in 1972 but remained closed after stricter regulatory requirements passed during the closure made the prospect of reopening too expensive. The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority now holds title to the 3,300-acre site. The 1980 West Valley Demonstration Project Act passed by Congress made the state and Department of Energy partners in its decontamination and decommissioning. A separate environmental impact statement expected in 2007 will address the thorny issue of which agency should be responsible for long-term stewardship of the site. Copyright 2005 Newsday Inc. ***************************************************************** 52 NPR: Plan Could Reduce Waste Sent to Yucca Mountain to this story...] by David Kestenbaum [Yucca Mountain] Yucca Mountain Department of Energy Morning Edition, June 16, 2005 · There is new interest in a plan to recycle nuclear waste, which could then be used again in a reactor to make electricity. Reprocessing could also reduce the amount of material destined for Nevada's Yucca Mountain. Japan and France reprocess their waste, and the United States used to. In the early 1970s there was a reprocessing plant in West Valley, N.Y. It took waste from nuclear plants, extracted the plutonium and shipped it back to a reactor that produced electricity. Detractors say reprocessing would be prohibitively expensive and presents an unacceptable risk that the technology could be used by terrorists to extract plutonium for bombs. ***************************************************************** 53 Business Gazette: BNFL BOSSES BONUSES SLASHED AS THORP LEAK PROBE CONTINUES Published in Whitehaven News on Thursday, June 16th 2005 By David Siddall TOP executives in BNFL  including Sellafield managing director Barry Snelson  are to have their annual performance bonuses slashed because of the Thorp radiation leak. According to the Financial Times, the decision was made last month by the BNF company remuneration committee. BNFL chairman Gordon Campbell has written to the companys Government paymasters to inform them of the planned cuts to the annual performance bonuses, which constitute a maximum of 30 per cent of the basic salary of the executives last year. Mike Parker, chief executive of BNFL, Lawrie Haynes, chief executive of BNFLs government services business group, and Mr Snelson are said to be among those who are to lose half their bonuses. Middle-managers are likely to face a cut in their bonuses for the financial year 2005/6 because of the Thorp debacle. The band three staff can normally gain an extra 5% on their pay from annual bonuses, of which 3% is based on site-wide produictivity and performance and 2% on individual assessment. A spokesman confirmed that, although the bonus for the financial year 2004/5 was not affected, it is highly likely the bonus for 2005/6 will be. The leak of tens of thousands of litres of highly radioactive acid into a containment sump in Thorp arose because of a design fault. It will take some six months to correct and the Health and Safety Executive was this week investigating whether the issue would lead to a prosecution. Asked about the bonus cuts, a spokesman said: No final decision has yet been made on the bonuses, but the Thorp incident will obviously be taken into account even though there was no radioactive release whatsoever into the environment. The company has completed its board of inquiry into the Thorp leak, but has not yet published its findings. Individual interviews are now starting with managers in the affected area. It is understood that all the contaminated liquid has now been pumped out of the Thorp sump. ***************************************************************** 54 DOE: West Valley Demonstration Project Waste Management Activities FR Doc 05-11882 [Federal Register: June 16, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 115)] [Notices] [Page 35073-35077] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr16jn05-32] AGENCY: U.S. Department of Energy. ACTION: Record of decision. SUMMARY: In the Final West Valley Demonstration Project Waste Management Environmental Impact Statement (WVDP WM EIS, Department of Energy (DOE)/EIS-0337, December 2003), DOE considered alternatives for the management of WVDP low-level radioactive waste (LLW), mixed (radioactive and hazardous) LLW (MLLW), transuranic (TRU) waste, and high-level radioactive waste (HLW). DOE prepared the WVDP WM EIS pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), 42 United States Code (U.S.C.) 4321 et seq., the Council on Environmental Quality's regulations for implementing the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) (40 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) parts 1500- 1508), and DOE's NEPA Implementing Procedures (10 CFR part 1021). To make progress toward fulfilling its responsibilities under the WVDP Act, DOE needs to disposition the wastes that are either currently in storage at the site or that will be generated at the site over the next ten years. DOE evaluated three alternatives for the management of the wastes: A No Action Alternative (Continuation of Ongoing Waste Management Activities), Alternative A (Off-site Shipment of HLW, LLW, MLLW, and TRU Wastes to Disposal), and Alternative B (Off-site Shipment of LLW and MLLW to Disposal, and Shipment of HLW and TRU Waste to Interim Storage [prior to disposal]). Based on the analysis of the potential impacts documented in the EIS, implementation of any of the alternatives would result in very low impacts to human health and the environment. DOE has decided to partially implement Alternative A, the preferred alternative, for the management of WVDP LLW, MLLW, and HLW that are either currently in site over the next ten years: DOE will ship LLW and MLLW off site for disposal in accordance with all applicable regulatory requirements, including permit requirements, waste acceptance criteria (WAC), and applicable DOE Orders. DOE will dispose of LLW and MLLW at commercial sites (such as Envirocare, a commercial radioactive waste disposal site in Clive, Utah), one or both of two DOE sites (the Nevada Test Site [NTS] in Mercury, Nevada; or the Hanford Site in Richland, Washington), or a combination of commercial and DOE sites, consistent with DOE's February 2000 decision regarding LLW and MLLW disposal.\1\ Disposal of WVDP LLW and MLLW at Hanford would be subject to the limits DOE has imposed upon non-Hanford waste receipts in its June 2004 decision regarding waste management at the Hanford Site,\2\ and contingent upon the resolution of ongoing Hanford litigation in which a preliminary injunction has been entered against shipping off site LLW and MLLW to Hanford. ----------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- \1\ Record of Decision for the Department's Waste Management Program: Treatment and Disposal of Low-Level Waste and Mixed Low- Level Waste; Amendment of the Record of Decision for the Nevada Test Site (65 FR 10061, February 25, 2000). \2\ Record of Decision for the Solid Waste Program, Hanford Site, Richland, Washington: Storage and Treatment of Low-Level Waste and Mixed Low-Level Waste; Disposal of Low-Level Waste and Mixed Low-Level Waste, and Storage, Processing and Certification of Transuranic Waste for Shipment to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (69 FR 39449, June 30, 2004. ----------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- Consistent with the Waste Management Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement High-Level Waste Record of Decision (64 FR [[Page 35074]] 46661, August 26, 1999), DOE will store canisters of vitrified HLW at the WVDP site until transfer to a geologic repository. Contingent upon issuance of a license by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to construct and operate the repository and the execution of a disposal contract between DOE and the State of New York, DOE plans to dispose of the canisters there when the repository becomes available. DOE is deferring a decision on the disposal of WVDP TRU waste, pending a determination by DOE that the waste meets all statutory and regulatory requirements for disposal at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP). ADDRESSES: Copies of the WVDP WM EIS and this Record of Decision (ROD) may be obtained by calling (716) 942-2152 or (800) 633-5280 (toll- free), by sending an e-mail request to sonja.allen@wvnsco.com, or by mailing a request to: Mr. Daniel W. Sullivan, EIS Document Manager, DOE West Valley Area Office, 10282 Rock Springs Road, WV-49, West Valley, New York 14171-9799. This ROD will be available on the DOE NEPA Web site, http://www.eh.doe.gov/nepa/pub_rods_toc.html, and the WVDP Web site, http://www.wv.doe.gov. The WVDP WM EIS is available at the WVDP Web site and through DOE's NEPA Web site at http://www.eh.doe.gov/nepa/. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Questions concerning WVDP waste management activities can be submitted by calling (716) 942-2152 or (800) 633-5280 (toll-free), by sending an e-mail request to sonja.allen@wvnsco.com, or by mailing them to Mr. Daniel W. Sullivan at the above address. For general information on the DOE NEPA process, please contact: Ms. Carol M. Borgstrom, Director, Office of NEPA Policy and Compliance, (EH-42), U.S. Department of Energy, 1000 Independence Avenue, SW., Washington, DC 20585, Telephone: (202) 586-4600, or leave a message at (800) 472-2756. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Background The Western New York Nuclear Service Center (Center) comprises 14 square kilometers (5 square miles) in West Valley, New York, and is located in the town of Ashford, approximately 50 kilometers (30 miles) southeast of Buffalo, New York. It was the only commercial nuclear fuel reprocessing plant to have operated in the United States. The Center operated under a license issued by the Atomic Energy Commission in 1966 to Nuclear Fuel Services, Incorporated, and the New York State Atomic and Space Development Authority, now known as the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA). During reprocessing, spent nuclear fuel from commercial nuclear power plants and DOE sites was chopped, dissolved, and processed by a solvent extraction system to recover uranium and plutonium. Fuel reprocessing ended in 1972, when the plant was shut down for modifications to increase its capacity, reduce occupational radiation exposure, and reduce radioactive effluents. At the time, the owner and operator of the reprocessing plant, Nuclear Fuel Services, Incorporated, expected that the modifications would take two years and $15 million to complete. However, between 1972 and 1976, there were major changes in regulatory requirements, including more stringent seismic and tornado siting criteria for nuclear facilities and more extensive regulations for radioactive waste management, radiation protection, and nuclear material safeguards. In 1976, Nuclear Fuel Services, Incorporated, judged that over $600 million would be required to modify the facility to increase its capacity and to comply with these changes in regulatory standards. As a result, the company announced its decision to withdraw from the nuclear fuel reprocessing business and exercise its contractual right to yield responsibility for the Center to NYSERDA. Nuclear Fuel Services, Incorporated, withdrew from the Center without removing any of the in-process nuclear wastes. NYSERDA now holds title to and manages the Center on behalf of the people of the State of New York. In 1980, Congress passed the WVDP Act (Public Law No. 96-368, 42 U.S.C. 2021a). The WVDP Act requires DOE to demonstrate that the liquid HLW from reprocessing can be safely managed by solidifying it at the Center and transporting it to a geologic repository for permanent disposal. Specifically, Section 2(a) of the Act directs DOE to take the following actions: 1. Solidify HLW by vitrification or such other technology that the DOE deems effective; 2. Develop containers suitable for the permanent disposal of the solidified HLW; 3. Transport the solidified HLW to an appropriate Federal repository for permanent disposal; 4. Dispose of the LLW and TRU waste produced by the HLW solidification program; and 5. Decontaminate and decommission the waste storage tanks and facilities used to store HLW, the facilities used for solidification of the HLW, and any material and hardware used in connection with the project in accordance with such requirements as the NRC may prescribe. In the 20 years since the WVDP Act was enacted, DOE has succeeded in preparing all 2.3 million liters (600,000 gallons) of waste resulting from reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel for disposal, including treatment of HLW by vitrification (combining liquid HLW with borosilicate glass), and has developed stainless-steel canisters suitable for HLW permanent disposal (actions 1 and 2). The Decommissioning and/or Long-Term Stewardship at the WVDP and the Western New York Nuclear Service Center EIS, currently being prepared, will address decommissioning and closure alternatives. DOE published a Notice of Intent to prepare the Decommissioning and/or Long-Term Stewardship at the WVDP and the Western New York Nuclear Service Center EIS on March 13, 2003 (68 FR 12044, March 13, 2003). Although DOE does not manage low-level radioactive waste according to the classes of NRC's regulations for shallow land disposal, 10 CFR 61.55, a 1987 Stipulation of Compromise between the Coalition on West Valley Nuclear Wastes and DOE specified that an EIS be prepared that addresses the disposal of those Class B and C wastes generated as a result of the activities of DOE at the WVDP. Purpose and Need for Action In accordance with the directives in the WVDP Act, DOE is responsible for the facilities used in connection with the WVDP HLW vitrification effort and for disposal of the LLW, MLLW, HLW, and TRU waste produced by the WVDP HLW solidification program. To make progress in fulfilling its responsibilities under the WVDP Act, DOE needs to identify a disposal path for the wastes that are currently stored onsite and that will be generated from ongoing operations and decontamination activities that will occur over the next ten years. Decommissioning and/or long-term stewardship (LTS) decisions will be made under the Decommissioning and/or Long-Term Stewardship at the WVDP and the Western New York Nuclear Service Center EIS. Alternatives Considered The WVDP WM EIS evaluates alternatives for meeting DOE's onsite waste management and off-site [[Page 35075]] transportation and disposal responsibilities under the WVDP Act. To address the range of reasonable alternatives, the WVDP WM EIS evaluated three alternatives. Each alternative is described below. In implementing any of these alternatives, DOE would comply with applicable laws, regulations, orders, agreements, receiving site permits and WAC, and state-approved closure plans. No Action Alternative--Continuation of Ongoing Waste Management Activities Under this alternative, DOE would provide continued operational support and monitoring of WVDP waste management facilities to meet the requirements for safety and hazard management. Waste management activities currently in progress would continue for onsite storage of existing Class A, B, and C (per 10 CFR 61.55) LLW and MLLW, TRU waste and HLW waste and off-site disposal of a limited quantity of Class A LLW at a commercial facility such as Envirocare in Utah, or at DOE disposal facilities at the Hanford Site in Washington or NTS in Nevada. Removal of these wastes for off-site disposal would require 169 truck shipments or 85 rail shipments. The HLW storage tanks and their surrounding vaults would continue to be ventilated to manage moisture levels as a corrosion prevention measure until decommissioning and/or LTS decisions are made based in part on the impact assessment to be provided by the Decommissioning and/or Long-Term Stewardship at the WVDP and the Western New York Nuclear Service Center EIS. Alternative A (Preferred Alternative)--Off-Site Shipment of HLW, LLW, MLLW, and TRU Wastes to Disposal Under this alternative, DOE would ship Class A, B, and C LLW and MLLW to either or both of two DOE potential disposal sites (the Hanford Site or NTS) and/or to a commercial disposal site (such as Envirocare), ship TRU waste to WIPP (near Carlsbad, New Mexico), and ship HLW to the Yucca Mountain Repository (in Nye County, Nevada). LLW and MLLW would be shipped over the next ten years (requiring approximately 1,966 truck shipments or 608 rail shipments). TRU waste shipments to WIPP could be completed within the next ten years if the TRU waste is determined to meet all the requirements for disposal at WIPP (requiring approximately 270 truck shipments or 172 rail shipments); however, if some or all of WVDP's TRU waste does not meet these requirements, the DOE would need to explore other alternatives for disposal of this waste. Approximately 300 canisters of HLW would be shipped to the Yucca Mountain Repository (requiring approximately 300 truck shipments or 60 rail shipments). These shipments would occur when the repository becomes available, which is contingent upon authorization by NRC to construct and operate the repository, and the execution of a disposal contract between the DOE and the State of New York. The waste storage tanks would continue to be managed as described under the No Action Alternative. Alternative B--Off-Site Shipment of LLW and MLLW to Disposal, and Shipment of HLW and TRU Waste to Interim Storage Under this alternative, LLW and MLLW would be shipped off-site for disposal at the same locations as Alternative A. TRU wastes would be shipped to the Hanford Site; Idaho National Laboratory in Idaho Falls, Idaho; the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee; and/ or the Savannah River Site (SRS) in Aiken, South Carolina, for interim storage and then to WIPP for disposal. TRU waste also could be shipped to WIPP for interim storage prior to disposal there. HLW would be shipped to SRS or Hanford for interim storage, with subsequent shipment to the Yucca Mountain Repository for disposal. Implementation of this alternative would require 540 truck shipments or 344 rail shipments of TRU waste and 600 truck shipments or 120 rail shipments of HLW; this represents the number of shipments required from WVDP to the interim storage site and then from interim storage to the disposal site. It is assumed that the shipment of LLW and MLLW to disposal would occur within the next ten years, and that TRU waste and HLW would be shipped to interim storage during that same ten years. Ultimate disposal of TRU wastes and HLW wastes would be subject to the same constraints described under Alternative A. The impacts of transporting these wastes to their ultimate disposal sites, as well as to the interim storage sites, were included in the impact analyses for this alternative. The waste storage tanks would continue to be managed as described under the No Action Alternative. Environmental Impacts The waste management actions proposed under all alternatives would be conducted in existing facilities (and in the case of waste transportation, on existing road and rail lines) by the existing work force at the involved facilities and would not involve either new construction or building demolition. Because there would be no mechanism for new land disturbance under any alternative, there is no potential, except for transportation accidents, to directly or indirectly impact current land use; biotic communities; cultural, historical, or archaeological resources; visual resources; ambient noise levels; threatened or endangered species or their critical habitats; wetlands; or floodplains. None of the onsite management activities under any of the alternatives would result in any new criteria air pollutant emissions. Additionally, because the work force needed for the waste management activities analyzed in this EIS would be the same under all alternatives and there would be no increases or decreases from current employment levels as a result of waste management activities, there is no potential for socioeconomic impacts. Waste management activities under each alternative would result in the limited exposure of workers to small amounts of radiation and contaminated material, and exposure of the public to very small quantities of radioactive materials. The human health impacts to involved and noninvolved workers and the public at or near the WVDP site are small and are dominated by ongoing WVDP site operations that would continue under all alternatives. Any differences in the potential impacts among the three alternatives would not be discernible. Implementation of any of the alternatives would result in very small impacts to human health or the environment. The EIS analysis of potential human health impacts shows that onsite waste management actions under each alternative would result in less than one latent cancer fatality (LCF) among workers (maximum 0.1 LCF) and the public (maximum 0.0015 LCF) under normal operating conditions. Further, neither individual involved workers, the maximally exposed individual, nor the public, near the WVDP site would be expected to incur a LCF under any atmospheric conditions if an accident were to occur during waste management activities. Projected impacts from off-site waste transportation are less than one LCF among workers and the public for all three alternatives. The consequences of the maximum reasonably foreseeable transportation accidents under each alternative would vary slightly among the alternatives and between truck and [[Page 35076]] rail transport. Under the No Action Alternative, the maximum reasonably foreseeable transportation accident would involve Class A LLW. For truck transport, this accident could result in about one LCF, and for rail about two LCF's, among the exposed population (the annual probability of such an accident occurring is about five in ten million for truck transport, or about two in one million for rail transport). For Alternatives A and B, the maximum reasonably foreseeable truck or rail transportation accident with the highest consequences would involve TRU waste. Because one TRU waste shipping container (a TRUPACT- II container) was assumed to be involved in either the truck or rail accident, the consequences for the truck or rail accident would be the same. Among the exposed population, this accident could result in about four LCF's (for Alternative A, the annual probability of such an accident occurring is about six in ten million for truck transport, or about one in ten million for rail transport; for Alternative B, the annual probability of such an accident occurring is about eight in ten million for truck transport, or about three in ten million for rail transport). Potential impacts of waste management activities at off- site receiving locations have been addressed in earlier NEPA documents, as described in the WVDP WM EIS (Section 1.7.1). For all waste types, WVDP waste represents less than two percent of the total DOE waste inventory. Human health impacts at all sites as a result of the management (storage or disposal) of WVDP waste during the ten-year period of analysis would be very minor (substantially less than one LCF). Based on the analysis of the potential impacts documented in the WVDP WM EIS, DOE has determined that implementation of any of the alternatives would result in very low impacts to human health and the environment. Environmentally Preferable Alternative Alternative A (Off-site Shipment of HLW, LLW, MLLW, and TRU Wastes to Disposal) is the environmentally preferable alternative. Because less radioactive waste would be transported under the No Action Alternative, implementation of that alternative is likely to result in the smallest impacts over the next ten years as compared to Alternatives A or B. Over time, however, the removal of waste from the WVDP site to a safer and more secure disposal site will reduce radiological risk to workers and the public. Alternative A would have the smallest transportation risks among the action alternatives because implementation of this alternative would require half the number of TRU waste and HLW shipments as under Alternative B, and potential transportation risks decrease as the number of miles traveled and individual shipments decrease. Public Comments on the Final WVDP WM EIS and Agency Response Following the issuance of the Final WVDP WM EIS, DOE received comment letters from the Southwest Research and Information Center (SRIC) (dated January 23, 2004), the Coalition on West Valley Nuclear Wastes (Coalition) (dated February 14, 2004), and from the State of Nevada Department of Administration (dated February 17, 2004). These letters are summarized below, followed by DOE's response to the comments presented. SRIC Comment Summary: SRIC stated that it objects to those portions of the Final WVDP WM EIS action alternatives related to disposing of TRU waste at WIPP. The commenter stated that the EIS is inadequate with regard to TRU waste, and that the DOE should analyze alternatives for storage and disposal of WVDP TRU waste that do not include WIPP. The commenter further stated that WVDP waste is prohibited from disposal at WIPP under the WIPP Land Withdrawal Act because it is not defense waste and because the EIS did not describe all of the requirements for disposal at WIPP; the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency certification for the repository does not include any WVDP TRU waste; the State of New Mexico operating permit does not include any WVDP TRU waste; inventory estimates in the WVDP WM EIS differ from previous estimates such as those in the WIPP Supplemental EIS-II (DOE/EIS-0026- S-2, 1997) (WIPP SEIS-II), which shows that the DOE has inadequate waste characterization and inventory information for decisionmaking; DOE should not consider bringing West Valley HLW to be stored or disposed of at WIPP; and the public comment process on the EIS was inadequate. DOE Response: DOE is deferring a decision on the disposal of WVDP TRU waste, pending a determination by the DOE that the waste meets all statutory and regulatory requirements for disposal at the WIPP. With regard to potential WVDP TRU waste disposal at WIPP, DOE will further respond to SRIC comments when a decision on WVDP TRU waste disposal is made. However, it is appropriate at this time to respond to two more general SRIC comments. First, with regard to the suggestion that the DOE not send WVDP HLW to WIPP, this EIS did not propose to send HLW to WIPP and did not analyze an alternative that would support such a decision. The WIPP Land Withdrawal Act prohibits disposal of HLW at WIPP, and DOE does not intend to dispose of West Valley HLW at WIPP. Second, DOE disagrees with the commenter's assertion that the public comment process for this EIS was inadequate. Pursuant to the NEPA implementing regulations, DOE published notices (66 FR 16447, March 26, 2001, and 68 FR 26587, May 16, 2003) for public scoping and the public comment period for the Draft EIS in the Federal Register, and held two public hearings at the WVDP. The Draft WVDP WM EIS (and the Final EIS) were provided to the agencies in all states hosting proposed disposal or storage sites. Specifically, in New Mexico, the documents were sent to the New Mexico Environment Department (State National Environmental Policy Act Clearinghouse). DOE also provided copies of the Draft WVDP WM EIS (and the Final WVDP WM EIS) to all persons known to be interested. Copies of the Draft and Final EIS were provided to governors and Members of Congress in all potentially affected states (including Idaho, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, and Washington). DOE received and considered comments from stakeholders in states hosting DOE sites analyzed for waste storage and/or disposal; these are identified in the Final WVDP WM EIS. Coalition Comment Summary: The Coalition stated that the DOE did not respond to its comments on the Draft WVDP WM EIS regarding the Coalition's position that shipment of Class B/C waste (as determined under NRC classification regulations) off site for disposal violates the 1987 Stipulation of Compromise (Stipulation) resolving the litigation between the Coalition and DOE. In addition, the Coalition stated that the DOE did not respond to other specific comments: the preparation of the WVDP WM EIS and the Decommissioning and/or Long-Term Stewardship at the WVDP and the Western New York Nuclear Service Center EIS do not comply with the Coalition's position that only one EIS can satisfy the Stipulation; by preparing two EISs, DOE has improperly segmented the actions under NEPA by not including the impacts at receiving sites and has failed to identify impacts at those sites for larger volumes of waste that could be generated under the Decommissioning and/or Long-Term Stewardship at the WVDP and the [[Page 35077]] Western New York Nuclear Service Center EIS; in accordance with the Stipulation, Class B/C waste cannot be shipped off site until the entire closure EIS process has been completed; and DOE has acknowledged that additional NEPA documentation would be needed before West Valley waste could be shipped to Hanford. The Coalition also stated that it objects to the ``counterfeit'' version of the Stipulation DOE included in Appendix A of the WVDP WM EIS, as that version is not identical to the original version. DOE Response: DOE has reviewed all comments received on the Draft WVDP WM EIS, including those from the Coalition and its members, and has addressed the comments in Appendix E of the Final WVDP WM EIS. DOE understands that it is the Coalition's position that the Stipulation does not allow disposal of Class B or C LLW until the Decommissioning and/or Long-Term Stewardship at the WVDP and the Western New York Nuclear Service Center EIS is completed. DOE agrees with the Coalition that a decision to dispose of WVDP LLW on site would be precluded by the Stipulation prior to completion of the Decommissioning EIS; however, DOE does not believe that the Stipulation was intended to preclude a decision to dispose of WVDP LLW off site prior to completion of that EIS. Moreover, DOE's waste management activities described in the WVDP WM EIS will not affect the range of reasonable alternatives available for decommissioning or LTS. Therefore, DOE concludes that its NEPA strategy does not constitute impermissible segmentation, and that the shipment of stored wastes off site for disposal has independent utility. Chapter 5 of the WVDP WM EIS states that impacts at receiving sites, including the potential inventory of wastes to be shipped from WVDP, were analyzed in the WM Programmatic EIS (Final Waste Management Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement for Managing, Treatment, Storage, and Disposal of Radioactive and Hazardous Waste, DOE/EIS-0200- F). In addition, DOE added a statement to Chapter 5 in the Final WVDP WM EIS that future wastes generated by decommissioning and LTS are not known at this time and would be addressed under the Decommissioning and/or Long-Term Stewardship at the WVDP and the Western New York Nuclear Service Center EIS. DOE's responses to comments also stated that additional site-specific review as called for in the WM Programmatic EIS was in progress at Hanford. The Final Hanford Solid and Radioactive Waste EIS has since been issued (January 2004) and analyzes waste from off-site generators, including WVDP. DOE agrees with the Coalition that DOE should have identified the version of the Stipulation in Appendix A of the WVDP WM EIS as a reprint. However, the differences between that version and the original Stipulation are minor (such as spacing and punctuation) and did not change or affect the content of the text. State of Nevada Comment Summary: The State's Division of Water Resources stated that applications for the use of the waters of the State pertaining to the proposed geologic repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, have been denied by the State Engineer, a ruling which has been appealed to the Federal District Court in Nevada. DOE Response: The Final WVDP WM EIS stated, and DOE further states in this decision, that the WVDP immobilized HLW planned for disposal at Yucca Mountain will be stored onsite until a repository becomes available. Decision The WVDP Act (Pub. L. 96-368) mandates that DOE dispose of LLW and TRU waste generated by the HLW solidification project. To make progress in meeting its obligations under the Act, DOE has decided to implement partially Alternative A, the preferred alternative, for the management of WVDP LLW and MLLW that is currently in storage at the site or that will be generated at the site over the next ten years. Of the two action alternatives evaluated, Alternative A is the environmentally preferable action alternative, has the fewest transportation impacts, and the least radiological risk to workers and the public. In accordance with all applicable regulatory requirements, including WVDP permit requirements, WAC and applicable agreements, and DOE Orders, DOE will ship LLW and MLLW off site for disposal at commercial sites (such as Envirocare, a commercial radioactive waste disposal site in Clive, Utah); at one or both of two DOE sites, the NTS in Mercury, Nevada, or the Hanford Site in Richland, Washington; or a combination of commercial and DOE sites, consistent with DOE's February 2000 decision regarding LLW and MLLW disposal.\1\ This decision includes wastes DOE may determine in the future to be LLW or MLLW pursuant to a waste incidental to reprocessing by evaluation process. Disposal at Hanford would be subject to any of the WVDP LLW and MLLW (as well as all other off-site DOE waste) limits DOE has imposed upon non-Hanford waste receipts in its June 2004 decision regarding waste management at the Hanford Site,\2\ and contingent upon the resolution of ongoing Hanford litigation in which a preliminary injunction has been entered against shipping offsite LLW and MLLW to Hanford. During packaging, shipping, and managing WVDP waste at receiving facilities, DOE will continue to follow all practicable means to avoid or minimize environmental harm. DOE will store the canisters of vitrified HLW at the WVDP site until they can be shipped to a geologic repository for the disposal of HLW. As stated in the Waste Management Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement Record of Decision, DOE plans to transfer the canisters to the geologic repository when the repository becomes available, which is contingent upon issuance of a license by the NRC to construct and operate the repository, and subject to the execution of a disposal contract between the DOE and the State of New York. DOE is deferring a decision on the disposal of WVDP TRU waste, pending a determination by the DOE that the waste meets all statutory and regulatory requirements for disposal at the WIPP. Issued at Washington, DC, June 9, 2005. Charles E. Anderson, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management. [FR Doc. 05-11882 Filed 6-15-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 6450-01-P ***************************************************************** 55 Albuquerque Tribune: Man of many hats Varied background and ability to juggle duties makes director cut out for Sandia Labs' role By Sue Vorenberg Tribune Reporter June 16, 2005 Tom Hunter knows in detail what it takes to be a chicken catcher. It was his first job as a teenager in Florida, well before the start of his 38-year career at Sandia National Laboratories, which culminated last month when he took over as the lab's director. "If you're really good, you can grab five chickens in each hand," laughed Hunter, 59. "What happens in that job is when chicken farms load chickens onto trucks - that's the last place chickens want to go. So they usually hire teenagers to come out at 3:30 a.m. and catch the strays." Hunter replaced former Director C. Paul Robinson, who left Sandia to head the Lockheed Martin team bidding for the contract to operate Los Alamos National Laboratory. Robinson would become director of Los Alamos if the team won the bid. Robinson says he's impressed with Hunter's ability to - like chicken catching - handle several issues at a time. It's why the former director placed Hunter as head of Nuclear Weapons programs at the labs in 1999 and why he put in the good word for him as a replacement, Robinson said. "He's one of those people who's done a huge variety of things and is successful in all of them," Robinson said. "I'm amazed at how many things he can take on at the same time." Hunter will need those skills in the future. His priorities for the labs include increasing the staff's ability to work across a variety of fields, keeping the country competitive in a changing global science and technology marketplace and capitalizing on key technologies like microtech and nanotech, he said. "The big questions for Sandia's future revolve around high-performance computing, pulsed power and putting (microtech and nanotech) facilities together," Hunter said. "You should also expect to see us heavily supporting the National Nuclear Security Administration." Behind the fast-thinking manager, hints of blue collar background still linger. Hunter, a nuclear engineer, started his life with a motley collection of odd jobs that still influence him, he said. Two of those were as a construction worker and a roustabout cleaning pipes and building pumping stations in an oil field in Louisiana, he said. "I ran bulldozers, dump trucks, worked as a carpenter," Hunter said. "I still like to work with my hands, actually. It might not sound like it, but every experience helps with this job. It's important to have a spectrum of knowledge of everyone's worth and work." Hunter also sheepishly admitted one of his favorite hobbies, which he no longer has time for, is working on muscle cars. "Oh, my favorite is probably a HEMI-powered MOPAR - That's M-O-P-A-R," he said, swinging his finger in the air at each letter. "It's got to be a Chrysler, Plymouth, that sort of car. Unfortunately, everyone else wants those as well." For now, though, Hunter satisfies himself by driving big American pickups - the type he can use to work the land he owns in Florida. "You know, Tom has owned the oddest assortment of pickups of anyone in senior management," Robinson laughed. "Every time he picks me up, it seems he's driving a different one." Beyond the blue collar, Hunter also has the standard background required to manage one of the country's biggest engineering think tanks, including a master's degree in mechanical engineering from the University of New Mexico and a doctorate in nuclear engineering from the University of Wisconsin. "And being from Florida, I started out getting my bachelor's from the University of Florida - that makes me a Gator-Lobo-Badger," he said, adding that he roots for all three schools' sports teams. He also has gotten around quite a bit in his Sandia career. He managed Sandia's California laboratory of about 900 people - "think of it as a mini Sandia, about one-tenth the size of the Albuquerque labs," he said. He managed the Yucca Mountain Project proposed to store nuclear waste in Nevada, led the research and development team on the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico and for the past five years has run the Strategic Management Unit in Defense Programs, also known as the Nuclear Weapons division - which makes up about 60 percent of Sandia's $2.2 billion annual budget. "I was also very fortunate in the early 1990s. I got to go into Russia to some of the Russian secret cities when I was working in international cooperation and development," Hunter said, of the cities that housed labs from Russia's version of the Manhattan Project. "That was a truly life-changing experience - forging international cooperative partnerships and the whole Russian experience. The history of the labs in that country is just astonishing." Despite his unusual collection of experiences, Hunter is mostly known as a quiet, private, detail-oriented person at the labs, said Art Ratzel, the labs' director of Engineering Services. "He keeps his personal life very much to himself," Ratzel said. "He's also one of the most strategic leaders I've ever worked with, and he's very serious about getting all the details right." ***************************************************************** 56 DOE: Innovative American Technology, Inc. FR Doc 05-11885 [Federal Register: June 16, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 115)] [Notices] [Page 35077-35078] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr16jn05-33] AGENCY: Department of Energy, Office of the General Counsel. ACTION: Notice of intent to grant exclusive patent license. SUMMARY: Notice is hereby given to an intent to grant to Innovative American Technology, Inc. (IAT), of Boca Raton, Florida, an exclusive license to practice the inventions described in U.S. Patent No. 6,545,281, entitled ``Pocked Surface Neutron Detector'' and U.S. Patent No. 6,479,826 entitled ``Coated Semiconductor for Neutron Detection''. The inventions are owned by the United States of America, as represented by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). DATES: Written comments or nonexclusive license applications are to be received at the address listed below no later than July 18, 2005. ADDRESSES: Office of the Assistant General Counsel for Technology Transfer and Intellectual Property, U.S. Department of Energy, 1000 Independence Ave., SW., Washington, DC 20585. [[Page 35078]] FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: John T. Lucas, Office of the Assistant General Counsel for Technology Transfer and Intellectual Property, U.S. Department of Energy, Forrestal Building, Room 6F-067, 1000 Independence Ave., SW., Washington, DC 20585; telephone (202) 586-2939. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 35 U.S.C. 209 provides federal agencies with authority to grant exclusive licenses in federally-owned inventions, if, among other things, the agency finds that the public will be served by the granting of the license. The statute requires that no exclusive license may be granted unless public notice of the intent to grant the license has been provided, and the agency has considered all comments received in response to that public notice, before the end of the comment period. IAT, of Boca Raton, Florida has applied for an exclusive license to practice the inventions embodied in U.S. Patents Nos. 6,545,281 and 6,479,826 and has plans for commercialization of the inventions. The exclusive license will be subject to a license and other rights retained by the U.S. Government, and other terms and conditions to be negotiated. DOE intends to negotiate to grant the license, unless, within 30 days of this notice, the Assistant General Counsel for Technology Transfer and Intellectual Property, Department of Energy, Washington, DC 20585, receives in writing any of the following, together with supporting documents: (i) A statement from any person setting forth reason why it would not be in the best interests of the United States to grant the proposed license; or (ii) An application for a nonexclusive license to the invention in which applicant states that if already has brought the invention to practical application or is likely to bring the invention to practical application expeditiously. The Department will review all timely written responses to this notice, and will proceed with negotiating the license if, after consideration of written responses to this notice, a finding is made that the license is in the public interest. Issued in Washington, DC on June 10, 2005. Paul A. Gottlieb, Assistant General Counsel for Technology Transfer and Intellectual Property. [FR Doc. 05-11885 Filed 6-15-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 6450-01-P ***************************************************************** 57 Summit Daily: Allard proposes solution to mineral rights dilemma at Rocky Flats News for Breckenridge, Keystone, Copper and Frisco Colorado - June 16, 2005 By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS June 15, 2005 BROOMFIELD — Legislation introduced Wednesday by Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., marks one more step toward turning Rocky Flats into a national wildlife national refuge. The bill is aimed at resolving the issue over privately owned mineral rights on the grounds of the former nuclear weapons plant northwest of Denver. A disagreement over mineral rights has delayed the transfer of the 6,240-acre site to the Interior Department from the Energy Department. Beauprez to offer bill that would cut aid to Mexico DENVER — Colorado Rep. Bob Beauprez plans to introduce a bill that would block $66 million in aid to Mexico if the country fails to extradite, without condition, people accused of killing police officers. Beauprez, a Republican, began work on the bill with Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., after the May 8 killing of Denver Police Detective Donald Young and wounding of Detective John “Jack” Bishop, according to Wednesday’s Rocky Mountain News. The man wanted in the shooting, Raul Gomez-Garcia, is in Mexico jail, facing charges of second-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder. He faces up to 96 years in prison if convicted. Beauprez’s bill would cut off foreign aid to any country that doesn’t follow extradition treaties in cases of those accused of killing federal, state and local law enforcement officers. Mexico has said it wouldn’t extradite its citizens to the United States if they could face the death penalty. The Mexican Supreme Court also has blocked extradition of suspects facing life in prison without the possibility of parole. All contents © Copyright 2005 summitdaily.com Summit Daily - 40 West Main Street - Frisco, CO 80443 ***************************************************************** 58 Tri-City Herald: Public sounds off on worries This story was published Thursday, June 16th, 2005 By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer The contractor that administers Hanford claims for workers' compensation has caused Bob Immele more grief than his incurable lung illness, he said at Hanford's annual State of the Site meeting Wednesday night in Richland. Worker after worker stood up to complain to the Department of Energy about Contract Claims Services Inc. "You guys got a problem there," said Steve Lewis, who was exposed to chemical vapors from Hanford's underground tanks of radioactive waste. Too often workers are left with no resort but to hire attorneys to fight claim denials by CCSI, they said. The state of Washington has twice issued orders to pay medical claims made by Thomas Peterson, who has the same illness as Immele, chronic beryllium disease, said Peterson's wife, Janet. The illness is caused by an allergylike reaction to the metal beryllium, which is used in the nuclear industry. But CCSI continued to refuse to cover her husband's claims for medical expenses incurred before a correct diagnosis of the rare disease had been made, Janet Peterson said. "It's CCSI's mode to deny claims," she said. "They're making this adversarial. This is nothing but harassment of sick or injured workers." DOE was caught unprepared for the complaints and had no one at the meeting who worked directly with the contractor, and no representative of the contractor was there to defend its decisions. The annual meeting is a chance for workers and the community to hear an update on work at Hanford, where $2 billion is being spent each year on cleaning up contamination from the past production of plutonium for the nation's nuclear weapons program. It's also a chance for workers and the public to ask questions of DOE officials and leaders of the site's regulators, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Washington State Department of Ecology. "I've heard things that make me want to ask tough questions," said Keith Klein, manager of DOE's Richland Operations Office for Hanford. "Believe me, you've gotten my attention." Klein said he had heard few complaints about CCSI before the meeting, and studies indicated the contractor acted responsibly and within the law. But he will be talking to John Shaw, DOE's assistant secretary for environment, safety and health, to see if an independent look at the program can be done, he said. DOE's intent is not to burden sick workers with bureaucracy, said Doug Shoop, assistant manager for safety and engineering for the Richland Operations Office. "I apologize for all the difficulty you as sick workers have gone through," he said. CCSI is a state problem as well, because the state Department of Labor and Industry agreed to turn the worker compensation program over to DOE, said Gerald Pollet of Heart of America Northwest, a Hanford watchdog group. The state can investigate, he said. "I would like CCSI removed and to revert back to Labor and Industry," Immele said. He's had to wait 14 to 18 months for claims to be paid and has had to hire an attorney, even though DOE said that hiring CCSI would make filing claims easier for workers, he said. Janet Peterson said she and her husband have spent about $2,000 on attorney fees with no way to recoup the money. But CCSI's attorney fees are reimbursed by DOE, she said. "Workers deserve better," she said. More than 100 people attended the meeting, although several dozen represented Hanford contractors and government agencies with responsibilities at Hanford. Topics raised included retirement benefits, how cleanup standards will be set at Hanford and saving B Reactor, the world's first production-scale reactor, as a museum. But about half the people who stood in line to take the microphone raised issues about CCSI. © 2005 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press &Other Wire Services ***************************************************************** 59 USATODAY.com: INL eyes plutonium for powering spacecraft Posted 6/16/2005 11:46 AM IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (AP) — The Idaho National Laboratory is waiting for a green light to begin producing plutonium that would supply battery power for NASA spacecraft. Later this month the Department of Energy is expected to release an environmental study on a plan to consolidate plutonium-238 production across the nation at the Idaho site. The project has other applications besides providing voltage on the far side of Mercury. The batteries could run surveillance equipment in more remote  but still earthly  locations where access may be limited for long periods of time. Also this summer, the INL will hear whether the Naval Reactors Facility will be selected to design and eventually manufacturing small nuclear reactors that could propel spacecraft  not just supply on-board electricity. The manned mission to Mars may even be in Idaho's future, said Harold McFarlane, an INL deputy associate laboratory director, at a news conference last week. The changes are coming quickly after the Columbus, Ohio-based Battelle Energy Alliance took over operations at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory in February. Battelle was awarded the 10-year, $4.8 billion contract in 2004 when the organization outbid Bechtel and three other bidders. Battelle's first priority has been to combine the INL and Argonne laboratory programs into a world-class nuclear energy research and development effort. The site is designated as the government's lead institution for nuclear energy research. Meanwhile, the INL is attracting other programs to eastern Idaho. The Center for Space Research is a university-organized group that will be affiliated with INL and its new Center for Advanced Energy Studies. And the Department of Energy also wants to move its plutonium pellet manufacturing program from Los Alamos, Calif., to INL into a proposed $200 million-plus facility. Planning for the new programs have raised local concerns about the potential for exposure to plutonium-238 and nuclear waste materials. The Centers for Disease Control found elevated levels of plutonium around the Los Alamos laboratory and in non-employees living nearby. John Kotek, deputy manager of the DOE-Idaho office, said the department is looking at those incidents. "We think this is well within our experience to operate safely," Kotek said. But in addition to health risks, Jeremy Maxand, executive director of the Snake River Alliance, a watchdog group, is concerned about the missions from a national security perspective. He said plutonium is still available from Russia for use in non-national security missions, he said. But if the INL produces it for military use, it could become a target. "People in Idaho do not want the site tied to these missions," Maxand said. Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 60 ABQJOURNAL: Lockheed Martin Formalizes LANL Bid Team the Albuquerque Journal newspaper. Thursday, June 16, 2005 Albuquerque Journal--> Associated Press LOS ALAMOS — Lockheed Martin Corp. and the University of Texas System have signed a formal agreement for their bid to manage Los Alamos National Laboratory. The contract to run the nuclear weapons lab for the federal government has been held by the University of California since the lab's inception in 1943. But a series of security and fiscal lapses prompted the U.S. Department of Energy to put the contract out to bid. UC intends to compete to keep the contract and has teamed up with Bechtel Corp., Washington Group International and BWX Technologies Inc. for a bid. The University of California's contract was to have expired Sept. 30, but it was given a contract extension to May 31 to allow the government more time to chose a manager. Lockheed Martin and the Texas system have other partners in their bid: Denver-based engineering and consulting firm CH2M Hill and Fluor Corp., a construction and engineering company based in Aliso Viejo, Calif. Lockheed Martin announced those members last month, but Wednesday's action formalizes the deal. Bids are due to the DOE by July 1. A decision is expected by Dec. 1. The head of Lockheed Martin's team, former Sandia National Laboratories president Paul Robinson, called the team "a best of the best.'' "This whole team we've assembled brings an enormous wealth of experience on how to operate a laboratory, and I believe that is what is called for,'' he said. "You can't make up your actions as you go along.'' The chancellor of the UT System, Mark Yudof, said the agreement "represents an opportunity for Los Alamos National Laboratory to return to a position of unquestioned technical pre-eminence among our national laboratories.'' Los Alamos lab, with about 8,000 UC employees and 3,000 contract workers, is one of the nation's three chief installations responsible for maintaining the nation's nuclear arsenal. The impact of a potential new manager on employee benefits and pensions has been a large part of the debate. Los Alamos employees have until May 31 to decide whether to stay with the lab under a potential new contractor and roll existing benefits into a new plan; retire with the possibility of seeking employment from the next contractor; or freeze their UC benefits and roll vacation time and sick leave into the new plan. Robinson, who would become head of the lab if his team wins, was in Los Alamos on Tuesday meeting with civic groups and community colleges in the area. He said that if Lockheed Martin wins the contract, it intends to be a partner with residents in communities throughout northern New Mexico. "Sooner or later, you will need community support,'' he said. Copyright Albuquerque Journal Steve@abqjournal.com ***************************************************************** 61 KRQE News 13: More fraud allegations at LANL Posted: 6/15/2005 11:49:00 PM Source: AP LOS ALAMOS, N.M. -- Two Los Alamos National Laboratory employees are suspected of fraudulent purchasing activities. The nuclear weapons lab announced Wednesday night that the two cases have been turned over to authorities. One of the employees is accused of using lab credit cards to buy about $3,000 worth of gas for acquaintances in exchange for money. Another employee is accused of operating what appears to be a fraudulent purchasing scheme in which payments were collected for purchases. The lab says the cases don't appear to be related. Neither of the two employees has been identified. Lab spokesman James Rickman says both employees have been placed on leave pending the outcome of an investigation. They could face discipline up to and including termination. ***************************************************************** 62 PRN: Lockheed Martin Announces Los Alamos Bid Team [PR_Newswire] Press Release Source: Lockheed Martin Corporation Thursday June 16, 1:07 pm ET CHERRY HILL, N.J., June 16 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Lockheed Martin Corporation (NYSE: - ) and The University of Texas System have signed an agreement that officially teams the two in the Department of Energy's (DOE) competition to manage the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). Other members of the Lockheed Martin Los Alamos Alliance are CH2M Hill, headquartered in Denver, Colo., and Fluor Corporation, headquartered in Aliso Viejo, Calif. Dr. C. Paul Robinson, who will become LANL director if the Lockheed Martin-UT System team wins, said, "We have assembled a best-of-the-best team. Each member of our alliance is an experienced leader in fields of expertise required to efficiently and effectively plan, manage, and carry out the important science and technology that LANL must deliver to the nation. Simply put, we intend to provide the Los Alamos employees with the quality of leadership and management support they deserve." Proposals for the LANL management contract must be submitted to DOE by July 19. A decision is expected December 1. "The UT System is one of the world's great university systems," Robinson said. "CH2M Hill is a highly experienced environmental clean-up and restoration leader that also has unique experience with plutonium components. Fluor is a premier engineering and construction company with extensive experience developing and managing large, high-tech projects, including major facilities at Los Alamos. Fluor also is consistently rated among the world's safest contractors." Vital to the Lockheed Martin/UT System team are plans to partner with the Los Alamos residents and the citizens of Northern New Mexico communities, Robinson explained. "Our vision is that through our team's efforts these locales will become even more attractive places to live, work, and develop new businesses," he said. Mark Yudof, UT System Chancellor, said the teaming agreement "represents an opportunity for Los Alamos National Laboratory to return to a position of unquestioned technical preeminence among our national laboratories. "We decided to enter this competition," he said, "because our research told us that Lockheed Martin was the only industrial partner that could offer the combination of unerring commitment to facilitating research as well as the capacity and track record of managing the on-going security requirements that a laboratory of this scope requires." Chancellor Yudof also said, "We envision a Los Alamos that draws upon the distinctive genius of researchers from many institutions across the nation, a Los Alamos where solid management gives those researchers the freedom to do their work, and a Los Alamos with a renewed confidence and recognition of its vital role in the science and security of our nation." For additional information, visit our web site: Additional Background Los Alamos National Laboratory The Laboratory is the largest institution in Northern New Mexico with more than 8,300 employees plus approximately 3,000 contractor personnel. Its annual budget is about $2.2 billion. From its origins as a secret Manhattan Project laboratory, Los Alamos has attracted world-class scientists and applied their energy and creativity to solving some of the nation's most challenging problems. () Lockheed Martin Corporation Headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, Lockheed Martin employs about 130,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in research, design, development, manufacture, and integration of advanced technology systems, products, and services. Its core markets are defense and intelligence, civil government, homeland security, and information technology. It currently has projects with the U.S. departments of energy, defense, homeland security, commerce, health and human services, housing and urban development, justice, state, and transportation. About 60,000 of those employees are scientists and engineers with operations in about 1,000 facilities, 500 cities, 45 states, and 56 countries. A fundamental Lockheed Martin principle is to deliver high-quality products and services that perform with extraordinary reliability. Its 12-year record of Sandia National Laboratories management is one of the best in the DOE complex. Other Lockheed Martin-managed national security organizations and operations include: the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory, Schenectady, NY; the Nevada Test Site; and the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) in the United Kingdom. (More information at , , .) The University of Texas System (UT System) The UT System is one of the largest and most diverse public university systems in the nation. Almost 183,000 students attend one of the System's nine academic and six health campuses that employ more than 76,000 faculty and staff. With an annual operating budget of over $8.5 billion, the System's institutions excel at groundbreaking research in an immense variety of disciplines. In FY 2004, the 15 institutions received $1.54 billion in externally funded research. For FY2005, research at UT institutions is expected to reach $1.9 billion. Many of the UT System's research centers and labs already are closely aligned with research strengths and science conducted at LANL. Many of the System's campuses house numerous centers, institutes, and programs that conduct research similar to that at LANL. These include research in materials chemistry, nanoscience, nanostructure device fabrication, nuclear engineering, advanced polymer research, advanced computing, nonlinear dynamics, computational biology, plasma applications, quantum electronics, electromechanics, biotechnology, biodefense, and many other fields. The UT System already is working under a memorandum of understanding with Sandia National Laboratories to provide peer review for that national lab's research programs, to participate with Sandia scientists on collaborative research projects, and to provide specialized courses taught by UT professors to increase educational opportunities at Sandia. UT Austin has operated the Applied Research Laboratory, funded by the US Department of Defense, for the past 40 years. Like LANL, the UT System has significant involvement in technology transfers and collaboration with US industry. In FY2003, it posted 99 US patents, 1511 executed licenses and options, and 12 start-up companies. (More information at .) Fluor Corporation Fluor is one of the world's largest publicly owned engineering, procurement, construction, operations, and project management organizations. With more than 30,000 employees, Fluor maintains a network of offices in more than 25 countries across six continents. Consistently rated as one of the world's safest contractors, Fluor's primary objective is to develop, execute, and maintain projects on schedule, within budget, and with excellence. Over the past six years, Fluor has ranked No. 1 four times on FORTUNE magazine's America's Most Admired Companies list in the "Engineering, Construction" category. Fluor is also the only US-based company to be ranked on FORTUNE magazine's World's Most Admired Companies list in that same category. Fluor serves clients in a wide variety of industries worldwide, including oil and gas, chemicals and petrochemicals, commercial and institutional, government services, life sciences, manufacturing, power, and transportation. Its customers currently include the US departments of defense, energy, homeland security, labor, and state. Fluor's experience with nuclear-related construction dates back to the Manhattan Project. () CH2M Hill CH2M Hill, an employee-owned firm, retains its founders' original sense of entrepreneurial spirit, commitment to technical excellence, innovation, and emphasis on client service. CH2M Hill is an environmental clean-up/restoration leader with core strengths and knowledge in small-lot pit manufacturing for the US nuclear weapons complex. Its Nuclear Business Unit manages large, multifaceted nuclear programs for public and private sector clients, which led to vast experience in safe, cost-effective project delivery ranging from siting, licensing, and permitting of new facilities to cleanup and closure of large complex former nuclear weapons production facilities. CH2M Hill has managed the 10-year, $7 billion cleanup and closure of DOE's former Rocky Flats pit manufacturing and weapons production facility located 15 miles northwest of Denver. Rocky Flats is the first large nuclear weapons site to be successfully cleaned up and closed in the United States. This accelerated clean up strategy shaves 60 years and $30 billion from initial estimates. It also has been a major team member of the DOE's Hanford (Washington) Environmental Restoration Contract and obtained first-ever remediation Record of Decision at the Hanford site - authorizing cleanup of more than 500 waste sites. CH2M Hill owns a five-year, $2.2 billion contract to manage 53 million gallons of high-level waste at the Hanford Tank Farms. The scope includes infrastructure design, construction, and waste removal. () Source: Lockheed Martin Corporation Copyright © 2005 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy ***************************************************************** 63 Guardian Unlimited: Los Alamos Lab Accuses Two in Fraudulence From the Associated Press [UP] Thursday June 16, 2005 5:16 AM LOS ALAMOS, N.M. (AP) - Two more Los Alamos National Laboratory employees are suspected of fraudulent purchasing activities, just months after two former employees were sentenced in a purchasing scandal, the nuclear weapons lab said Wednesday. One of the employees is accused of misusing credit cards meant to purchase gasoline for lab vehicles. Officials at the northern New Mexico lab said the employee admitted to buying about $3,000 worth of gas for acquaintances in exchange for money. Another employee is accused of operating what appears to be a fraudulent purchasing scheme in which payments were collected for purchases. Earlier this year, two former Los Alamos employees accused of being part of a purchasing scandal that rocked the lab in 2002 were sentenced to prison for conspiracy and mail fraud charges. Peter Bussolini and Scott Alexander were accused of putting hundreds of thousands of dollars in questionable purchases on the lab's account, including television sets, barbecues and hunting gear. Since then, the lab has changes its policies and added computer software to track purchases as well as manage payroll and vacation time. Los Alamos spokesman James Rickman said the lab is cooperating with law enforcement but he declined to release further details Wednesday about the investigation. 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