***************************************************************** 07/22/05 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 13.168 ***************************************************************** 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 The Iran War Buildup 2 Xinhua: Iran insists on nuclear rights 3 Mehr News: Iran hates WMD and denying nations nuclear energy - Ahmad 4 Xinhua: DPRK delegation leaves for six-party talks 5 Xinhua: Over 300 overseas correspondents to cover six-party talks 6 Korea Times: NK Human Rights ¡®Not on Table¡¯ for 6-Party Talks 7 Guardian Unlimited: N. Korea Offers to Abandon Nuke Weapons 8 US: Vandenberg to Kwajalein MM3 launched early Thursday am Date 9 US: JS Online: Hiroshima — 60 years later 10 Mos News: Russian Nuclear Subs Launch Major Naval Exercises - 11 DAWN: INDIA: 1988 nuclear accord faces test - NUCLEAR REACTORS 12 US: [epa-impact] Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, Inc. (Dominion), Mill 13 RIA Novosti: Lithuanian conservatives support construction of new nu 14 US: APP.COM: Oyster Creek nuclear plant applies for license renewal 15 US: AP: Tuscaloosa: TVA to begin writing off $3.9 billion nuclear pl 16 US: NRC: Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, Inc. (Dominion), Millstone Po 17 US: BCTAT: FirstEnergy replacing three steam generators, reactor uni 18 US: Newsday: Regulators give Millstone favorable environmental revie NUCLEAR SECURITY NUCLEAR SAFETY 19 US: Fw: [du-list] " ..there was no military need to use the bomb." 20 US: [du-list] " ..there was no military need to use the bomb." re 21 [du-list] As USUK genocide continues unreported, WMD lies 22 US: [du-list] [ RadSafe ] Sandia completes depleted uranium study 23 US: Newswise: Sandia Completes Depleted Uranium Study 24 US: Paducah Sun: Cleanup choice delays PACRO role in nickel work 25 US: Sun Herald: Radioactive material removed from site 26 US: AP Wire: Health officials haul away depleted uranium NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 27 US: FR: Idaho: Final Authorization of State Hazardous Waste Manageme 28 Las Vegas RJ: YUCCA MOUNTAIN: Final weeks for quality control chief 29 US: HoustonChronicle.com: Environmental law gets hearing in Nacogdoc 30 RIA Novosti: Russia and the international problem of nuclear waste 31 RIA Novosti: $7 million will go to Ukraine for nuclear disposal plan 32 Las Vegas SUN: Letter: State GOP must never concede on nuclear dump 33 Las Vegas SUN: GAO to update probe of Yucca Mountain 34 US: Argus Leader: Uranium mines cleanup to cost $20 million 35 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Goshutes: The agency has technical queries ab 36 US: The Dispatch: Perchlorate lawsuits way out of line 37 Las Vegas SUN: DOE turns over subpoenaed documents in Yucca 38 Pahrump Valley Times: Yucca Mountain is a wasteland alright, right i 39 Pahrump Valley Times: Yucca suppository 40 US: AU ABC: Ranger Mine closure to cost $176m, says ERA. 41 KRNV: Management shake-up continues at Yucca Mountain project in Nev 42 US: Globe and Mail: Uranium deal with China questioned 43 US: Brattleboro Reformer: Dry cask storage case may take a year to s PEACE US DEPT. OF ENERGY 44 New Standard: Renewal at Los Alamos Weapons Lab Resurrects Deeper De 45 Tri-City Herald: Laid-off pipefitters finally get day in court 46 Oakland Tribune: Lab's new computer exceeds expectations 47 lamonitor.com: LANL's academic network compared 48 Rocky Mountain News: Sen. Salazar aims to prod agencies on Flats pla ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 The Iran War Buildup Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2005 16:57:26 -0500 (CDT) 22nd July 2005 The Nation The Iran War Buildup by Michael T. Klare There is no evidence that President Bush has already made the decision to attack Iran if Tehran proceeds with uranium-enrichment activities viewed in Washington as precursors to the manufacture of nuclear munitions. Top Administration officials are known to have argued in favor of military action if Tehran goes ahead with these plans--a step considered more likely with the recent election of arch-conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as Iran's president--but Bush, so far as is known, has not yet made up his mind in the matter. One thing does appear certain, however: Bush has given the Defense Department approval to develop scenarios for such an attack and to undertake various preliminary actions. As was the case in 2002 regarding Iraq, the building blocks for an attack in Iran are beginning to be put into place. We may never know exactly when President Bush made up his mind to invade Iraq--some analysts say the die was cast as early as November 2001; others claim it was not until October 2002--but whatever the case, it is beyond dispute that planning for the invasion was well advanced in July 2002, when British intelligence officials visited Washington and issued what has come to be known as the Downing Street memo, informing Prime Minister Tony Blair that war was nearly inevitable. What these officials undoubtedly discovered--as was being reported in certain newspapers at the time--was that senior officers of the US Central Command (CENTCOM) in Tampa, Florida, had already been developing detailed scenarios for an invasion of Iraq and that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had been deeply involved in these preparations. On July 5, 2002, for example, the New York Times revealed that "an American military planning document calls for air, land, and sea-based forces to attack Iraq from three directions--the north, south, and west." Further details of this document and other blueprints for war appeared in the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal. At the same time, moreover, the Pentagon reportedly stepped up its aerial and electronic surveillance of military forces in Iraq. This record is worth revisiting because of the many parallels to the current situation. Just as Bush gave ambiguous signals about his intentions regarding Iraq in 2002--denying that a decision had been made to invade but never ruling it out--so, today, he is giving similar signals with respect to Iran. "This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous," Bush declared in Belgium on February 22. He then added: "Having said that, all options are on the table." And, just as Bush's 2002 denials of an intent to invade Iraq were accompanied by intense preparations for just such an outcome, so, today, one can detect similar preparations for an attack on Iran. Just what form such an attack might take has probably not yet been decided. Just as he considered several plans for an invasion of Iraq before settling on the plan described in the Times, Rumsfeld is no doubt considering a variety of options for action against Iran. These could range from a burst of air and missile attacks to a proxy war involving Iranian opposition militias or a full-scale US invasion. All have obvious advantages and disadvantages. An air and missile attack would undoubtedly destroy some key nuclear centers but could leave some hidden facilities intact; it would also leave the hated clerical regime in place. The use of proxy forces could also fail in this regard. An invasion might solve these problems but would place almost intolerable demands on the deeply over-stretched US Army. It is these considerations, no doubt, that are preoccupying US military planners today. But while a final decision on these options may be put off for a time, the Defense Department cannot wait to make preparations for an assault if it expects to move swiftly once the President gives the go-ahead. Hence, it is taking steps now to prepare for the implementation of any conceivable plan. The first step in such a process is to verify the location of possible targets in Iran and to assess the effectiveness of Iranian defenses. The identification of likely targets apparently began late last year, when the Central Intelligence Agency and US Special Operations Forces (SOF) began flying unmanned "Predator" spy planes over Iran and sending small reconnaissance teams directly into Iranian territory. These actions, first revealed by Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker in January, are supposedly intended to pinpoint the location of hidden Iranian weapons facilities for possible attack by US air and ground forces. "The goal," Hersh explained, "is to identify and isolate three dozen, and perhaps more, such targets that could be destroyed by precision [air] strikes and short-term commando raids." It is also probable, says military analyst William Arkin, that CENTCOM is probing Iran's air and shore defenses by sending electronic surveillance planes and submarines into--or just to the edge of--Iranian coastal areas. "I would be greatly surprised if they're not doing this," he said in an interview. "The intent would be to 'light up' Iranian radars and command/control facilities, so as to pinpoint their location and gauge their effectiveness." It was precisely this sort of aggressive probing that led to the collision between a US EP-3E electronic spy plane and a Chinese fighter over the South China Sea in April 2001. As this information becomes available, it is no doubt being fed into the various "strategic concepts" and "strike packages" being developed by US strategists for possible action against Iran. That such efforts are indeed under way is confirmed by reports in the international press that Pentagon officials have met with their Israeli counterparts to discuss the possible participation of Israeli aircraft in some of these scenarios. Although no public acknowledgment of such talks has been made, Vice President Dick Cheney declared in January that "the Israelis might well decide to act first" if Iran proceeded with the development of nuclear weapons--obviously hinting that Washington would look with favor upon such a move. There are also indications that the CIA and SOF officials have met with Iranian opposition forces--in particular, the Mujaheddin-e Khalq (MEK)--to discuss their possible involvement in commando raids inside Iran or a full-scale proxy war. In one such report, Newsweek disclosed in February that the Bush Administration "is seeking to cull useful MEK members as operatives for use against Tehran." (Although the MEK is listed on the State Department's roster of terrorist groups, its forces are "gently treated" by the American troops guarding their compound in eastern Iraq, Newsweek revealed.) Given the immense stress now being placed on US ground forces in Iraq, it is likely that the Pentagon's favored plan for military action in Iran involves some combination of airstrikes and the use of proxy forces like the MEK. But even a small-scale assault of this sort is likely to provoke retaliatory action by Iran--possibly entailing missile strikes on oil tankers in the Persian Gulf or covert aid to the insurgency in Iraq. This being the case, CENTCOM would also have to develop plans for a wide range of escalatory moves. Repeating what was said at the outset, there is no evidence that President Bush has already made the decision to attack Iran. But there are many indications that planning for such a move is well under way--and if the record of Iraq (and other wars) teaches us anything, it is that such planning, once commenced, is very hard to turn around. Hence, we should not wait until after relations with Iran have reached the crisis point to advise against US military action. We should begin acting now, before the march to war becomes irreversible. Copyright: The Nation. ------------ http://informationclearinghouse.info/article9544.htm ------------ ***************************************************************** 2 Xinhua: Iran insists on nuclear rights www.xinhuanet.com www.chinaview.cn 2005-07-22 10:13:24 BEIJING, July 22 -- Iranian President-elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has stated that Iran would never allow its legal rights to use of nuclear technology peacefully to be compromised by other nuclear states. The hardline president-elect made the statement in his first-ever public speech on Thursday in the city of Mashhad, 600 miles northeast of the capital, Tehran. He said that his government will insist on the right of the Iranian nation to enjoy nuclear energy for civilian purposes, a law enshrined in the Non-Proliferation Treaty. He argued that developing nations are entitled to use nuclear energy for civilian utility in line with international conventions, but will not cave in to the hypocritical demands of world super-powers. "We hate atomic weapons. We respect international treaties and agreements, but we will not accept illogical pressures and the demands of powers,'' Ahmadinejad told the meeting. "We witness unfairness in the international arena. Some consider themselves as the lord of the world while they enjoy the biggest amount of weapons of mass destruction,'' Ahmadinejad said. He did however reaffirmed that Iran would never pursue weapons of mass destruction. Currently Iran has ceased its uranium enrichment and other key parts of its nuclear program to avoid being taken to the U.N. Security Council for possible reprimands. Ahmadinejad, the hardliner who won a landslide victory in Iran's ninth presidential election in late June, will take office in early August. (Source: CRIENGLISH.com) Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 3 Mehr News: Iran hates WMD and denying nations nuclear energy - Ahmadinejad MehrNews.com - Iran, world, political, sport, economic news Ahmadinejad said in Mashhad on Thursday that Iran despises weapons of mass destruction as much as it hates the fact that certain nations are deprived of nuclear energy. “In fact, we consider it a great violation of rights,†he added. Criticizing countries that possess nuclear weapons but bar others from making use of nuclear technology meant for peaceful purposes, Ahmadinejad said countries that possess such weapons are considered threats to the international community. These weapons are a source of concern for the entire world, and the international community should make strenuous efforts to eliminate the threat they pose, he emphasized. “Today double-standard policies are not acceptable,†the president-elect observed. “We are committed to international regulations but will not allow the Iranian people to be deprived of their rights.†Global monopolists seek to deprive Iran of its nuclear rights: Rafsanjani Expediency Council Chairman Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani warned the Iranian nation here on Friday not to renounce their legal right to make use of nuclear energy. “Global monopolists seek to deprive Iran of its rights, and our failure to make use of nuclear technology will only lead to a black mark in Iran’s history,†Rafsanjani told worshippers at Friday Prayers in Tehran. He noted that Iran could achieve a great triumph in the history of the Islamic Revolution by maintaining its nuclear rights. Elsewhere in his remarks, Rafsanjani called on the Islamic world to cooperate to help resolve the problems of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Palestine. “Hidden hands are at work in these three countries to intensify insecurity and create discord among Muslims,†he observed. Referring to the deteriorating security situation in the Middle East, the EC chairman said that suspicious hands in Iraq are trying to prevent the innocent Iraqi nation from attaining their rights. The occupiers are tasked with preventing bloodshed, fighting corruption, and tackling underdevelopment, he pointed out. Rafsanjani also stated that Iran is prepared to cooperate with Iraq in every field. The situation in Afghanistan is also insecure, and there is no sign of goodwill to be seen in Palestine, he said. “Up until now, the war was between the Israelis and the Palestinians, but now there’s a struggle between the Palestinians themselves.†The Islamic world is responsible to (take action about) these events and should not shirk this responsibility, he stressed. Rafsanjani also called for the strengthening of national solidarity to pursue the goals of Iran’s 20-year Outlook Plan. Various evil forces and conspiracy centers are active in the region, thus unity is essential for the future, he said. The Fourth Five-Year Development Plan and the 20-year Outlook Plan are irrevocable and play an important role in creating national solidarity, he added. Rafsanjani stated that the 20-year Outlook Plan focuses on efforts to protect national and Islamic values, to cooperate with various countries and cultures, to expand social justice and development, to establish real security, and to create cooperation between the government and various groups in society as some of the main issues that can boost national solidarity. National solidarity is a necessity for progress, and the entire nation, including intellectuals, clerics, authors, various groups and movements, artists, and scholars, should help Iran in this path, he said in conclusion. HL/HG End MNA Photo © 2003 Mehr News Agency ***************************************************************** 4 Xinhua: DPRK delegation leaves for six-party talks www.xinhuanet.com www.chinaview.cn 2005-07-22 12:51:22 PYONGYANG, July 22 (Xinhuanet) -- A Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) delegation led by Kim Kye-gwan, vice-minister of Foreign Ministry, left Pyongyang Friday to participate in the six-party talks for settling the nuclear issue scheduled to open in Beijing on July 26. It was seen off at the airport by Kim Yong-il, vice-minister ofForeign Ministry, Wu Donghe, Chinese ambassador to the DPRK, and Andrei Karlov, Russian ambassador to the DPRK. Enditem Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited. ***************************************************************** 5 Xinhua: Over 300 overseas correspondents to cover six-party talks www.xinhuanet.com www.chinaview.cn 2005-07-22 19:25:00 BEIJING, July 22 (Xinhuanet) -- More than 300 overseas correspondents will report on the fourth round of six-party talks on the nuclear issue of the Korean Peninsula, which is scheduled to open in Beijing on July 26, said sources from the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs here Friday. The international correspondents include over 100 residing in Beijing and another 200 who have registered with the Chinese Foreign Ministry from abroad. The total number of domestic and overseas correspondents to cover the event in Beijing this time is expected to top 500. More than 500 journalists covered the previous round of the six-party talks held in Beijing in June last year. China will open a press center for the six-party talks on the morning of July 25. The press center is located at the Diaoyutai Hotel, next to the venue of the talks in Diaoyutai State Guesthouse. The six parties refer to China, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Russia and the United States. Enditem ¡¡ Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 6 Korea Times: NK Human Rights ¡®Not on Table¡¯ for 6-Party Talks Hankooki.com > The Korea Times > Nation By Park Song-wu Staff Reporter The North Korean human rights issue will be excluded from the six-party nuclear talks next week in Beijing, the chief South Korean delegate to the multilateral negotiation forum said on Friday. ``The human rights issue is not and cannot be an agenda item for the six-party talks,¡¯¡¯ Deputy Foreign Minister Song Min-soon, who is set to leave for the Chinese capital on Saturday, said at a media briefing in Seoul. ``All the nations have already reached a consensus on this point.¡¯¡¯ Song¡¯s remarks came a day after the U.S. State Department indicated that its delegation, led by Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, would make an issue of Pyongyang¡¯s abuse of human rights. ``One cannot ignore it,¡¯¡¯ Adam Ereli, deputy spokesman, said at a press briefing in Washington, D.C. ``One cannot fail to speak out about it. And so it will always be an element of our approach to the issue of North Korea.¡¯¡¯ Song, however, underlined that the official topic of the talks is how to achieve the goal of nuclear-free Korean Peninsula. ``The agenda of the six-party talks is denuclearization of North Korea¡¯s nuclear weapons program,¡¯¡¯ he stressed. South Korean officials have suggested ``other issues,¡¯¡¯ such as the North¡¯s human rights abuses and the abductees issue between North Korea and Japan, be discussed in bilateral contacts within the framework of the six-way talks or some other diplomatic channel. A high-ranking official in Seoul told The Korea Times on a customary condition of anonymity that the state department spokesman simply expressed Washington¡¯s principle of valuing human rights. Song predicted that the fourth round of six-party talks would be a ``long process¡¯¡¯ as participating countries have agreed to carry out the dialogue with no official closing date. The multilateral talks are set to begin with an opening ceremony at Diaoyutai state guesthouse in western Beijing on Tuesday. The ceremony will not last more than one hour so that delegates can begin bilateral or other forms of negotiations right away, Song said. ``Chief delegates from each country will give two- or three-minute opening comments during the ceremony,¡¯¡¯ he said. ``Keynote speeches (by chief delegates) will be delivered at the plenary session the next day.¡¯¡¯ In the previous three rounds of talks, opening ceremonies were used to present the delegation¡¯s positions in detail in long keynote speeches. The terms used for the keynote speeches _ such as Washington¡¯s hope for ``complete, verifiable, irreversible dismantlement¡¯¡¯ of Pyongyang¡¯s nuclear programs _ used to lead Pyongyang to show strong resistance, spoiling the talks¡¯ atmosphere. ``One merit (of keynote speeches being made a day later) would be that the delegations can deliver speeches after narrowing their differences by holding several rounds of bilateral or other forms of talks,¡¯¡¯ Song said. On Monday, delegates from six nations are scheduled to begin working-level talks and attend a welcoming reception that will be hosted by China¡¯s Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing. South Korea¡¯s delegates consist of eight negotiators, including Song, and 17 aides. Most of them are scheduled to depart for Beijing on Sunday. Next week¡¯s talks mark the resumption of the nuclear dialogue that North Korea has stalled for 13 months. The six participating countries are the two Koreas, the U.S., China, Russia and Japan. im@koreatimes.co.kr 07-22-2005 19:52 ***************************************************************** 7 Guardian Unlimited: N. Korea Offers to Abandon Nuke Weapons From the Associated Press [UP] Friday July 22, 2005 12:46 PM AP Photo BEJ103 By BURT HERMAN Associated Press Writer SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea has offered to abandon its nuclear weapons if the two sides in the Korean War sign a peace agreement to replace the 1953 cease-fire that halted hostilities but did not resolve the conflict. A peace pact would halt what the North calls U.S. hostility ``which spawned the nuclear issue,'' a spokesman from the North's Foreign Ministry said in a statement. That would ``automatically result in the denuclearization of the peninsula.'' The unnamed spokesman, quoted by the North's official Korean Central News Agency, said such a move would ``give a strong impetus'' to the six nation arms talks set to resume Tuesday in Beijing. The North said earlier this month it would end its 13-month boycott of the talks - which include China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States - after being reassured by a U.S. envoy that Washington recognized its sovereignty. Three previous rounds aimed at convincing the North to disarm have failed to resolve the nuclear standoff. North Korean leader Kim Jong Il has been encouraging recently about the prospects for the talks. He mentioned to a visiting South Korean Cabinet minister last month that the denuclearization of the peninsula was the dying wish of his father, the North's founding ruler Kim Il Sung. The elder Kim died in 1994. However, it wasn't clear if the North's new demand could throw off next week's talks by creating yet another troublesome negotiating point - one that's festered for five decades already since the fighting stopped. Most recently, the U.S. has objected to discussing a peace deal or any other concessions until after North Korea gives up its weapons. The North, however, said its new request ``presents itself as an issue pending an urgent solution for fairly settling the nuclear issue between (North Korea) and the U.S.'' The North alleged Friday that Washington has for decades stifled efforts to turn the Korean War cease-fire into a lasting peace agreement. Doing so ``is essential not only for the peace and reunification of Korea but for the peace and security in Northeast Asia and the rest of the world,'' the North's spokesman said. The July 27, 1953, cease-fire ending the Korean War established the 2.5-mile-wide Demilitarized Zone dividing the peninsula. There have been periodic talks since then about establishing a peace treaty, but they have failed to make progress. In the absence of a treaty, the two Koreas remain technically at war with hundreds of thousands of troops facing off across the DMZ, including 32,500 U.S. troops. Since 2000, the two countries have sought to reconcile as South Korea has pursued a policy of engagement with its communist neighbor. The nuclear standoff began in 2002 after U.S. officials accused the North of running a secret uranium enrichment program. The North has since withdrawn from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and made moves that would allow it to create more radioactive materials for atomic bombs. In February, North Korea claimed it had nuclear weapons, but it hasn't performed any known tests that would confirm its arsenal. The North's delegation to the talks, led by Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan, departed Friday for Beijing, KCNA reported. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005 ***************************************************************** 8 Vandenberg to Kwajalein MM3 launched early Thursday am Date Thu, 21 Jul 2005 06:51:24 -0700 (PDT) The object of concern by many in the midwest where DOD has hundreds of silos of Minuteman III's. Three nuns were given long prison terms for their peaceful action on a Colorado MM3 silo. Missiles and rocket launches interupt local fishing and other tradtional life and cause ripples in an already insecure world. - Sheila LAUNCH ALERT Brian Webb Ventura County, California SUCCESSFUL LAUNCH Vandenberg AFB News Release Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. – An unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile was successfully launched from North Vandenberg at 1:01 a.m. PDT today. The launch was a team effort by airmen from the 30th Space Wing and the 576th Flight Test Squadron and the 595th Space Group. The spacelift commander for this mission was Col. Jack Weinstein, 30th SW commander. Capt. Kevlin Dumas, 576th FLTS, was the launch director. Members of the 595th SG installed tracking, telemetry and command destruct systems on the missile to collect data and meet safety requirements. In addition, members of the 576th FLTS Top Hand program are conducting all missile crew duties for this launch. The mission was to demonstrate the ability to integrate new products into the weapon system. The missile’s one unarmed re-entry vehicles traveled approximately 4,200 miles in about 30 minutes, hitting a pre-determined target at the Kwajalein Missile Range in the western chain of the Marshall Islands. Copyright © 2005 Brian Webb. All rights reserved. This newsletter ***************************************************************** 9 JS Online: Hiroshima — 60 years later City hit by atomic bomb at end of World War II today serves as symbol of peace By JOHN DeBAUN Last Updated: July 22, 2005 Hiroshima, Japan - As we walked through the railway station, music filled the hallways - and not piped-in music, but the music of a live orchestra. In The People's Plaza area of the underground maze adjoining Hiroshima's train station, the youthful Machikado Concert Orchestra had drawn a small crowd. My wife and I, the only two obvious foreigners among the onlookers, stopped for a moment. As we listened to Vivaldi's "Four Seasons," a man approached and handed us a copy of the program - never mind that it was in Japanese - and smiled and pointed to where the musicians were in the mini-concert. [56414] Hiroshima: After The Bomb Photo/Gayle Debalin The Atomic Bomb Dome in Hiroshima was the Commercial Exhibition Hall, one of the few buildings in the main blast area to partly survive the 1945 atomic bombing. It was left standing and serves today as a symbol of peace, much like many sites in the city. Photo/Gayle Debalin The Cenotaph for A-Bomb Victims is the centerpiece of memorials for those killed or injured in the 1945 bombing. Photo/Gayle Debalin Hiroshima proved to be a welcoming city, from residents going out of their way to help visitors to a local orchestra playing at the train station. Related Coverage Island is welcoming gate The City of Peace Graphic/Journal Sentinel If You Go Getting there: Hiroshima has an airport served by domestic flights, and it is on the Shinkansen (bullet train) main line, which connects to international airports in Osaka, Nagoya and Tokyo. It was a pleasant welcome to a city with a tragic past. It was 60 years ago on Aug. 6 that Hiroshima was obliterated by the first atomic bomb, dropped by a U.S. B-29 in the final days of World War II. The statistics are horribly grim. An estimated 100,000 people died instantly, and thousands more died of burns, injuries, radiation sickness and a variety of cancers in the ensuing years. It's a wound that may never fully heal, but rather than hide its past, Hiroshima has embraced it to become a cosmopolitan "City of Peace," a world icon. We would have stayed longer at the concert, but it was nearly noon and we would be leaving in less than 48 hours - and we had so much to do. The music helped soothe the sense of unease we had about the visit. But we still wanted to make the Peace Memorial Museum and Peace Memorial Park our first stop that afternoon, to see the nearby Atomic Bomb Dome, which was the Commercial Exhibition Hall at the time of the 1945 bombing and is one of the few surviving buildings in the blast area, and then move on to other less disturbing activities. The next day we planned to visit the nearby island of Miyajima, where visitors are greeted by the famous vermilion torii gate that seems to be "floating" in the waters just offshore (see accompanying story), and then to return to Hiroshima to see as much as we could in what remained of the day. In two years I spent in Japan with the Navy in the early 1970s, I traveled extensively but never visited Hiroshima. I may have avoided it partly because I thought it would be too sad, or that it would leave me feeling guilty - although I wasn't even born at the time of the bombing. Yet I am a child of Hiroshima in many ways, most of all because the bombing brought an abrupt end to the war and allowed my father to return from the Pacific, to come home and start his life with my mother and start a family. I was born a little over a year later, on the leading edge of the baby boom. Expanded for 50th anniversary In 1979 I did visit Hiroshima with a group of journalists. At that time, the museum was a place of pathos, one that seemed to portray the Japanese only as victims. It is not a characterization that I quarrel with, because many who died immediately in the city were civilians, women and children, victims of both their government and the U.S. bombing. But the museum was expanded into two sections in 1995 for the 50th anniversary and more context was added, including an accounting of how the war unfolded and how Japan's actions led to the eventual outcome. The newer part of the museum is where visitors enter, and it shows what Hiroshima looked like before the war, already a large city with a population estimated at about 300,000. Today it is home to more than 1.1 million people. One exhibit that seemed largely the same was a dramatic model of the city, perhaps 15 feet across, complete with its own miniature version of the Atomic Dome, and with a red ball hanging over it to represent where the bomb exploded in midair, You can see the real Atomic Dome from the museum's north windows, with the rebuilt city surrounding it. The other exhibit I remembered was a diorama with a girl, badly burned with strips of skin hanging from her arms. It was still there, as shocking now as it had been 25 years ago, as awful as it would be seeing any child caught in any war anywhere suffering such pain and fear. There is so much to the museum, more than can be expressed in words: • A watch frozen in time at 8:15 a.m. on the day of the explosion, items like mutilated lunch boxes that show the effects of the bombing, shadows of victims burned onto walls. • A wall of more than 200 copies of letters of protest from Hiroshima's mayors sent over the years after every nuclear weapons test, whether by the United States, France, China or any other nuclear power. • The story of Sadako Sasaki, a girl who was 2 years old at the time of the bombing and who came down with leukemia at age 11. Her goal was to fold 1,000 origami paper cranes - a traditional symbol of health and longevity - in hopes that she would be healed, but she died the next year. Children's groups today still continue to fold paper cranes in her memory and in honor of all the children who died. The children's memorial in the park was inspired by her efforts, and her story is known through Eleanor Coerr's children's book, "Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes." 'Repose ye in peace' As we left the museum, it had started to rain, so we walked around the rest of the park with umbrellas deployed. The Cenotaph for A-Bomb Victims, designed by noted architect Kenzo Tange, who died earlier this year, is the centerpiece of the memorials for the victims. A stone chest underneath contains the names of the known victims of the bombing, with the words "Repose ye in peace, for the error shall not be repeated" inscribed in Japanese. A flame at the monument will burn until the last nuclear weapon has been removed from the earth. We visited the Children's Peace Monument dedicated to children like Sadako, viewed the Atomic Dome from across the Motoyasu River, toured the National Peace Memorial Hall, a research facility, then returned to our hotel. It was a difficult, moving experience, but we were glad we went. On our second afternoon, after spending the morning wandering amid the pet deer of Miyajima, we decided to visit Hiroshima Castle. The original was destroyed in the atomic blast (and had already fallen into disrepair at that time), but an exact replica was built after the war. A helping hand We had been using cabs as our main transportation, but were going to try the city bus this time. As we were trying to decipher the routes, a proverbial "kindly old gentleman" saw our plight, approached and led us to the right bus. To our surprise, he got on, sitting by us and explaining our situation to the bus attendant - that we were confused and needed a little help finding the castle. He said his name was "Okamoto." When we reached the right stop, he motioned to us to get off, then he got off, too, and started leading us in the direction of the castle, with a sort of shuffle-limp as he pulled his slumped body along. We started feeling a little uneasy and a little concerned about his condition, but he kept leading us toward the castle - even after it came into view. I indicated that we could take it from here, but he continued with us for several more blocks and through the grounds until we were at the castle steps. Then he motioned with his hand as if to say, "Here it is." He bowed and accepted our thanks, then left us as quickly as he had first appeared - having spent at least a half-hour providing two foreigners with more help than they could ever have expected and not asking anything in return. The castle itself was impressive from the outside, but not as much so inside, just a museum with a diorama of the ancient castle village, some historical photos and some old swords, with most everything labeled in both Japanese and English. A final evening The day was winding down when we left the castle, so we made our way along the moat and through a park where Japanese high school students were running for track, both boys and girls. We took a bus back to the train station and then sought out a place to check our e-mail before dinner. We had been told there was an Internet cafe on the sixth floor of a nearby bookstore, so we headed there. You had to go up several flights on an escalator, and on the fifth floor was a noisy, crazy electronic game arcade - and a sign on the stairway blocking the way and saying entry was prohibited beyond that point. Annoyed, we headed back toward the down escalator when a young man came running up and led us to an elevator on the other side of the building that did have access to the sixth floor. And up we went. I had to become some sort of "member" for a few hundred yen (two or three dollars), even though I knew I wouldn't be back for a long time, but I was able - through a cloud of cigarette smoke - to get on a computer and check and send some e-mail. We had our final dinner in a restaurant at the top of a department store near the train station, then prepared to get up early the next morning and depart. The meaning of Hiroshima has been debated for years and will continue to be debated. Some say it is a symbol of the result of Japan's self-destructive behavior that led to the war; others say it is a symbol of U.S. ruthlessness because we made guinea pigs of the residents of Hiroshima. Knowing of all the nuclear weapons that exist in the world today, and of all the development efforts that are still ongoing, it seems realistic to conclude that it will be a very long time before the eternal flame for Hiroshima victims is extinguished. It was not our place at two travelers on a brief visit to even begin to resolve all the emotions and questions that swirl around the city and its history. But - from the young man at the game arcade to Mr. Okamoto, from the hotel staff to taxi drivers to the helpful young woman at the tourist information desk - we had been lucky enough to experience a little of the human kindness that is at the heart of Hiroshima today. Appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on July 24, 2005. ***************************************************************** 10 Mos News: Russian Nuclear Subs Launch Major Naval Exercises - MOSNEWS.COM Granit class submarine, photo from aeronautics.ru Created: 22.07.2005 12:39 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 12:39 MSK MosNews There are currently 10 Russian nuclear submarines at sea, including the Barents Sea where a planned combat exercise is under way, Vladimir Masorin, chief of staff of the Russian Navy, told the Interfax news agency on Thursday. “Northern Fleet nuclear submarines in particular are carrying out missile and torpedo practice against a notional enemy, the role of which is played by Northern Fleet surface ships,” Masorin said in Moscow on Thursday at the presentation of a film devoted to the great Russian admiral, Fyodor Ushakov. He said that a day earlier a group of Northern Fleet surface ships headed by the flagship of the fleet, the Pyotr Veliky missile cruiser, carried out target practice with cruise and anti-aircraft missiles. “All the launches passed off successfully,” Masorin said. He said the exercise in the Northern Fleet is taking place as part of preparations by the Northern Fleet forces ahead of an expedition to the North Atlantic that is to take place this fall. Copyright © 2004 MOSNEWS.COM ***************************************************************** 11 DAWN: INDIA: 1988 nuclear accord faces test - Top Stories; July 22, 2005 By Jawed Naqvi NEW DELHI, July 21: Nuances of the 1988 agreement between India and Pakistan to not attack each other’s nuclear facilities could be tested by New Delhi’s deal with Washington whereby India will clearly segregate its civilian nuclear facilities from the military-oriented units, analysts and diplomats said on Thursday. The December 31 India-Pakistan pact of 1988 came into force on January 1, 1991. It forbids aiding or abetting any action aimed at causing destruction or damage to any nuclear installation or facility in each country. The pact describes a nuclear installation or facility and requires each party to inform the other of the precise locations, latitude and longitude of installations and facilities by 1 January of each calendar year and whenever there is any change. Significantly, according to diplomats here, the agreement does not provide for detailed disclosures of nuclear-related activities and this is likely to be the rub in the India-US agreement. Starting in January 1992, India and Pakistan have exchanged lists of their respective civilian nuclear-related facilities. However, each side has questioned the completeness of the other’s list. “The difficulty will arise for India, when it has to tell the world a few good things about its military and civilian nuclear facilities, separating the bran from the chaff,” one diplomat told Dawn on condition of anonymity. “That will be a different story than what India and Pakistan have been telling each other for years.” At the same time, Indian scientists say the agreement reached between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and US President George W. Bush to segregate India’s nuclear civilian and military facilities may involve “staggering costs”. Former director of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Dr A.N. Prasad, told The Asian Age the proposal might sound fine on paper, but in practice it was totally unfeasible. “If we were to segregate these facilities, which in itself will be almost impossible, we will have to ensure that each has the necessary workload, which might then not always be the case. We cannot afford to keep such costly equipment idle,” Dr Prasad said. According to The Asian Age Indian nuclear scientists are worried about the decision to separate the facilities on three counts: The expense of segregation, the scientists said, will be absolutely “ridiculous”. It will put an unnecessary financial burden on the country, which can ill afford this. Two separate facilities will have to be funded, with separate highly expensive equipment, and even separate sourcing of heavy water. India’s best brains will be diverted to effect this segregation, which will be very complicated and frustrating. Instead of being used for constructive nuclear work, scientists will be involved in sorting out highly intricate complications with uncertain results. India’s nuclear programme is so integrated that it will be virtually impossible to successfully separate military and civilian nuclear facilities, The Age said. The decision to sign the additional protocol will now open Indian nuclear installations to rigorous IAEA inspections that include protocol-free inspections, no-notice inspections that scientists, according to The Age, describe as “interventionist” and “obstructionist”. The newspaper quoted former Indian national security adviser Brajesh Mishra as admitting that the nuclear deal had been in the works for some time. © DAWN Group of Newspapers, 2005 ***************************************************************** 12 [epa-impact] Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, Inc. (Dominion), Millstone Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2005 11:18:41 -0400 (EDT) http://epa.gov/EPA-IMPACT/2005/July/Day-22/ ======================================================================= [Federal Register: July 22, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 140)] [Notices] [Page 42395] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr22jy05-103] ======================================================================= ----------------------------------------------------------------------- NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION [Docket Nos. 50-336 and 50-423] Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, Inc. (Dominion), Millstone Power Station, Units 2 And 3; Notice of Availability of the Final Supplement 22 to the Generic Environmental Impact Statement for License Renewal of Nuclear Plants, Regarding Millstone Power Station, Units 2 And 3 Notice is hereby given that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (Commission) has published a final plant-specific supplement to the Generic Environmental Impact Statement for License Renewal of Nuclear Plants (GEIS), NUREG-1437, regarding the renewal of operating licenses DPR-65 and NPF-49 for an additional 20 years of operation at Millstone Power Station, Units 2 and 3 (Millstone), respectively. Millstone is located in Waterford, Connecticut, on Millstone Point between the Niantic and Thames Rivers, approximately 40 miles to the southeast of Hartford, Connecticut. Possible alternatives to the proposed action (license renewal) include no action and reasonable alternative energy sources. Section 9.3 of the final Supplement 22 states: Based on: (1) The analysis and findings in the GEIS (NRC 1996; 1999), (2) the ER [environmental report] submitted by Dominion (Dominion 2004b), (3) consultation with Federal, State, and local agencies, (4) the staff's own independent review, and (5) the staff's consideration of public comments, the recommendation of the staff is that the Commission determine that the adverse environmental impacts of license renewal for Millstone, are not so great that preserving the option of license renewal for energy planning decision makers would be unreasonable. The final Supplement 22 to the GEIS is publicly available at the NRC's Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS). ADAMS is accessible at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html; a link is provided to access documents through the Web-based component of ADAMS. The accession number for the final Supplement 22 to the GEIS is ML051960293. Persons who do not have access to ADAMS, or who encounter problems in accessing the documents located in ADAMS, should contact the NRC's PDR Reference staff at 1-800-397-4209, or 301-415-4737, or by e-mail at pdr@nrc.gov. In addition, the Waterford Public Library, 49 Rope Ferry Road, Waterford, Connecticut, and the Three Rivers Community College, Thames River Campus Library, 574 New London Turnpike, Norwich, Connecticut, have agreed to make the final Supplement 22 to the GEIS available for public inspection. For Further Information, Contact: Mr. Richard L. Emch, Jr., License Renewal and Environmental Impacts Program, Division of Regulatory Improvement Programs, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555. Mr. Emch may be contacted at 1-800-368-5642, extension 1590 or via e-mail at RLE@nrc.gov. Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 18th day of July, 2005. For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Pao-Tsin Kuo, Program Director, License Renewal and Environmental Impacts Program, Division of Regulatory Improvement Programs, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. [FR Doc. E5-3919 Filed 7-21-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P ------------------------------------------ http://www.epa.gov/fedrgstr/EPA-IMPACT/index.html Comments: http://www.epa.gov/fedrgstr/comments.htm Search: http://epa.gov/fedreg/search.htm EPA's Federal Register: http://epa.gov/fedreg/ ------------------------------------------ You are currently subscribed to epa-impact as: NEWS@energy-net.org To unsubscribe, send a blank email to leave-epa-impact-46782Y@lists.epa.gov OR: Use the listserver's web interface at https://lists.epa.gov/read/all_forums/ to manage your subscription. For problems with this list, contact epa-impact-Owner@lists.epa.gov ------------------------------------------ ***************************************************************** 13 RIA Novosti: Lithuanian conservatives support construction of new nuclear power plant 22/07/2005 VILNIUS, July 22 (RIA Novosti, Vladimir Vodo) - Lithuania's conservative politicians advocate the construction of a new nuclear power plant (NPP) in Lithuania. Tevine Sajunga, a Lithuanian opposition party, said in a statement the nuclear power plant was necessary in developing a new energy strategy for the country. Conservatives said it would be expedient to build a nuclear power plant jointly with Latvia and Estonia. The construction cost is estimated at 1.3-1.4 billion euros. Given the future decommissioning of the Ignalina NPP, the Lithuanian energy sector will be completely dependent on Russian natural gas supply. Vaclovas Miskinis, the laboratory director of the Lithuanian Energy Institute, told an international seminar on the security of energy supply that construction of a new 1,250-megawatt power-generating unit would cost 927 million euros. Miskinis said extending the operation of the Ignalina NPP's second power-generating unit until 2017 would result in a profit of 440 million euros. As part of its EU membership, Lithuania agreed to decommission the Ignalina NPP's first power-generating unit on December 31, 2004, and the second unit by the end of 2009. International experts said recently the decision on the Ignalina NPP decommissioning was made under pressure from Western countries, and Lithuania could operate it much longer, with the first and second power-generating units operational up until 2008 and 2032 respectively. According to experts, the natural gas share in electricity production in Lithuania will rise from 17% in 2005 to 23% in 2010 and 73% in 2035. © 2005 "RIA Novosti" ***************************************************************** 14 APP.COM: Oyster Creek nuclear plant applies for license renewal Asbury Park Press Online Published in the Asbury Park Press 07/22/05 BY TODD B. BATES ENVIRONMENTAL WRITER The Oyster Creek Nuclear Power Station in Lacey applied today to extend its operation license, according to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Oyster Creek's license, which is to expire in 2009, would be renewed for another 20 years if the NRC approves. The plant, the longest operating commercial nuclear power generator in the nation, produces 650 megawatts. It began operation in 1969. Plant owner AmerGen is facing another deadline from state environmental regulators. The plant has until Sept. 7 to decide whether to build a cooling tower to reduce losses of fish and other marine life linked to the plant's cooling water system or restore 3,500 acres of wetlands (a preliminary estimate) in the Barnegat Bay watershed, according to a state Department of Environmental Protection fact sheet. Copyright © 2005 Asbury Park Press. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 15 AP: Tuscaloosa: TVA to begin writing off $3.9 billion nuclear plant investment The Associated Press July 22. 2005 7:23AM The Tennessee Valley Authority will begin writing off a three-point-nine (b) billion dollar investment in the unfinished Bellefonte (BEHL'-uh-fahnt) nuclear plant in north Alabama. The twin-reactor plant in Scottsboro has been mothballed since 1988. T-V-A officials have decided that (b) billions spent in the 1970s and 1980s on the plant have no value for its future. Chief Financial Officer Michael Rescoe said in an interview with The Associated Press that the decision to depreciate most of what T-V-A spent on Bellefonte over the next ten years was an accounting move to satisfy regulators. The federal utility has not given up on the 15-hundred acre Bellefonte site as a viable location for a power plant, possibly a next-generation nuclear plant. About The Tuscaloosa News ***************************************************************** 16 NRC: Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, Inc. (Dominion), Millstone Power FR Doc E5-3919 [Federal Register: July 22, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 140)] [Notices] [Page 42395] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr22jy05-103] Station, Units 2 And 3; Notice of Availability of the Final Supplement 22 to the Generic Environmental Impact Statement for License Renewal of Nuclear Plants, Regarding Millstone Power Station, Units 2 And 3 Notice is hereby given that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (Commission) has published a final plant-specific supplement to the Generic Environmental Impact Statement for License Renewal of Nuclear Plants (GEIS), NUREG-1437, regarding the renewal of operating licenses DPR-65 and NPF-49 for an additional 20 years of operation at Millstone Power Station, Units 2 and 3 (Millstone), respectively. Millstone is located in Waterford, Connecticut, on Millstone Point between the Niantic and Thames Rivers, approximately 40 miles to the southeast of Hartford, Connecticut. Possible alternatives to the proposed action (license renewal) include no action and reasonable alternative energy sources. Section 9.3 of the final Supplement 22 states: Based on: (1) The analysis and findings in the GEIS (NRC 1996; 1999), (2) the ER [environmental report] submitted by Dominion (Dominion 2004b), (3) consultation with Federal, State, and local agencies, (4) the staff's own independent review, and (5) the staff's consideration of public comments, the recommendation of the staff is that the Commission determine that the adverse environmental impacts of license renewal for Millstone, are not so great that preserving the option of license renewal for energy planning decision makers would be unreasonable. The final Supplement 22 to the GEIS is publicly available at the NRC's Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS). ADAMS is accessible at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html; a link is provided to access documents through the Web-based component of ADAMS. The accession number for the final Supplement 22 to the GEIS is ML051960293. Persons who do not have access to ADAMS, or who encounter problems in accessing the documents located in ADAMS, should contact the NRC's PDR Reference staff at 1-800-397-4209, or 301-415-4737, or by e-mail at pdr@nrc.gov. In addition, the Waterford Public Library, 49 Rope Ferry Road, Waterford, Connecticut, and the Three Rivers Community College, Thames River Campus Library, 574 New London Turnpike, Norwich, Connecticut, have agreed to make the final Supplement 22 to the GEIS available for public inspection. For Further Information, Contact: Mr. Richard L. Emch, Jr., License Renewal and Environmental Impacts Program, Division of Regulatory Improvement Programs, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555. Mr. Emch may be contacted at 1-800-368-5642, extension 1590 or via e-mail at RLE@nrc.gov. Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 18th day of July, 2005. For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Pao-Tsin Kuo, Program Director, License Renewal and Environmental Impacts Program, Division of Regulatory Improvement Programs, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. [FR Doc. E5-3919 Filed 7-21-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P ***************************************************************** 17 BCTAT: FirstEnergy replacing three steam generators, reactor unit head Beaver County Times Allegheny Times - News - 07/22/2005 - Times Staff SHIPPINGPORT - The tentlike structures being erected at the Beaver Valley Nuclear Power Station are only part of the construction going on in preparation for the replacement of three steam generators and the reactor unit head on Unit 1. Workers on Wednesday began spreading fabric coverings over the arched metal frames that have been in place for several weeks. The smaller of the two structures will be used for training. The larger will temporarily store the new steam generators while they are being prepared for installation. They are to arrive by barge in mid-October, FirstEnergy spokesman Scott Shields said. Other construction related to the $250 million upgrade includes temporary office trailers that will be moved inside the plant from their spot in the plant parking lot for subcontractors and plant personnel assigned to the project. Although the tents and trailers are visible to those driving on Route 168 outside the plant, other less visible construction is also under way. A concrete long-term storage facility is being built to store the three old steam generators and the reactor vessel head that will be removed. They will remain on the site until the power plant is decommissioned sometime mid-century and its equipment is sent to an offsite storage facility. An access building is going up between Units 1 and 2 to enable workers to get into the containment building to work. The steam generators and reactor unit head will be replaced during a scheduled refueling in February. About 2,000 people are expected to participate in the two-month project. The steam generators and reactor unit head have been in the plant since the unit went online in 1976, Shields said. Kimberly K. Barlow can be reached online at kbarlow@timesonline.com. ©Beaver County Times Allegheny Times 2005 ***************************************************************** 18 Newsday: Regulators give Millstone favorable environmental review Newsday.com July 22, 2005, 5:06 PM EDT WASHINGTON -- The Millstone nuclear power plant in Connecticut moved one step closer to a 20-year permit renewal Friday as federal regulators concluded that the extension would have little environmental impact. In its final environmental review, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said that any adverse impacts are not so great that license renewal would be unreasonable. The staff, however, found that the impact from electromagnetic fields in the area is uncertain. Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, which owns and operates Units 2 and 3 at the Millstone Power Station in Waterford, has applied for a 20-year permit extension. Unit 1 is being decommissioned. The nuclear power complex is located on Long Island Sound. So far, the NRC has approved such renewals for nearly 30 other units at 16 nuclear plants around the country. A final decision on the application is not expected until about a year from now. The NRC still must complete a safety evaluation, and the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards also must weigh in, according to NRC spokesman Scott Burnell. Dominion must show that it has procedures, plans and maintenance necessary to deal with the effects of aging on the plant. The license for Unit 2 expires on July 31, 2015, and for Unit 3 on Nov. 25, 2025. Copyright © 2005, The Associated Press ***************************************************************** 19 Fw: [du-list] " ..there was no military need to use the bomb." Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2005 14:38:32 -0700 aggro query from Helbig.. has joined the list. (May be Muck Twine aka sceptical chemist stand-in.) "Col. Helbig has consistently misrepresented himself and his participation, voluntarily or on a paid basis, as a "minder" or enforcer for the DOD lie about Uranium Munitions in direct contravention of US Army Regulations and Orders," Nichols stated. "Col. Helbig apparently is fervently following the Secret Los Alamos Memo about Uranium Weapons (UW), aka so-called "Depleted Uranium," instructing personnel to lie about Uranium Weapons to maintain the political viability of continued use of the Genocidal Weapons: "weaponized radioactive and poisonous ceramic uranium oxide gas and dust" in Iraq and throughout Central Asia," added Nichols. http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/printer_16798.shtml Roger Helbig. Posted by Bon Jovie on Wednesday, October 27 at 5:16:45 PM. This f**king ass hole is a phoney who nere saw a day of combat in his life. Check him out with pow networkwww.trainingforum.com/Tools/tf-bbs.pl?section=tf&id=000559.000001 ----- Original Message ----- From: "Roger Helbig" To: Sent: Friday, July 22, 2005 8:26 PM Subject: Re: [du-list] " ..there was no military need to use the bomb." re first US nuclear war crime So who are you and what are your credentials besides marching on the street? ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Broatch" To: Sent: Friday, July 22, 2005 12:03 AM Subject: [du-list] " ..there was no military need to use the bomb." re first US nuclear war crime plus new US microwave weapon. -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.323 / Virus Database: 267.9.2/55 - Release Date: 7/21/05 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/ ***************************************************************** 20 [du-list] " ..there was no military need to use the bomb." re Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2005 14:38:25 -0700 plus new US microwave weapon. Hiroshima bomb may have carried hidden agenda http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7706 a.. 13:46 21 July 2005 b.. NewScientist.com news service c.. Rob Edwards Related Articles a.. The A-bomb: 60 years on, is the world any safer? b.. 16 July 2005 c.. Nuclear test fall-out killed thousands in US d.. 01 March 2002 e.. Careful with that nuke f.. 30 June 2001 Web Links a.. Peter Kuznick, American University b.. Mark Selden, Cornell University c.. Lawrence Freedman, King's College London The US decision to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 was meant to kick-start the Cold War rather than end the Second World War, according to two nuclear historians who say they have new evidence backing the controversial theory. Causing a fission reaction in several kilograms of uranium and plutonium and killing over 200,000 people 60 years ago was done more to impress the Soviet Union than to cow Japan, they say. And the US President who took the decision, Harry Truman, was culpable, they add. "He knew he was beginning the process of annihilation of the species," says Peter Kuznick, director of the Nuclear Studies Institute at American University in Washington DC, US. "It was not just a war crime; it was a crime against humanity." According to the official US version of history, an A-bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, and another on Nagasaki three days later, to force Japan to surrender. The destruction was necessary to bring a rapid end to the war without the need for a costly US invasion. But this is disputed by Kuznick and Mark Selden, a historian from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, US. They are presenting their evidence at a meeting in London on Thursday organised by Greenpeace and others to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the bombings. Looking for peace New studies of the US, Japanese and Soviet diplomatic archives suggest that Truman's main motive was to limit Soviet expansion in Asia, Kuznick claims. Japan surrendered because the Soviet Union began an invasion a few days after the Hiroshima bombing, not because of the atomic bombs themselves, he says. According to an account by Walter Brown, assistant to then-US secretary of state James Byrnes, Truman agreed at a meeting three days before the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima that Japan was "looking for peace". Truman was told by his army generals, Douglas Macarthur and Dwight Eisenhower, and his naval chief of staff, William Leahy, that there was no military need to use the bomb. "Impressing Russia was more important than ending the war in Japan," says Selden. Truman was also worried that he would be accused of wasting money on the Manhattan Project to build the first nuclear bombs, if the bomb was not used, he adds. Kuznick and Selden's arguments, however, were dismissed as "discredited" by Lawrence Freedman, a war expert from King's College London, UK. He says that Truman's decision to bomb Hiroshima was "understandable in the circumstances". Truman's main aim had been to end the war with Japan, Freedman says, but adds that, with the wisdom of hindsight, the bombing may not have been militarily justified. Some people assumed that the US always had "a malicious and nasty motive", he says, "but it ain't necessarily so." Details of US microwave-weapon tests revealed a.. 23 July 2005 VOLUNTEERS taking part in tests of the Pentagon's "less-lethal" microwave weapon were banned from wearing glasses or contact lenses due to safety fears. The precautions raise concerns about how safe the Active Denial System (ADS) weapon would be if used in real crowd-control situations. The ADS fires a 95-gigahertz microwave beam, which is supposed to heat skin and to cause pain but no physical damage (New Scientist, 27 October 2001, p 26). Little information about its effects has been released, but details of tests in 2003 and 2004 were revealed after Edward Hammond, director of the US Sunshine Project - an organisation campaigning against the use of biological and non-lethal weapons - requested them under the Freedom of Information Act. The tests were carried out at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Two experiments tested pain tolerance levels, while in a third, a "limited military utility assessment", volunteers played the part of rioters or intruders and the ADS was used to drive them away. The experimenters banned glasses and contact lenses to prevent possible eye damage to the subjects, and in the second and third tests removed any metallic objects such as coins and keys to stop hot spots being created on the skin. They also checked the volunteers' clothes for certain seams, buttons and zips which might also cause hot spots. The ADS weapon's beam causes pain within 2 to 3 seconds and it becomes intolerable after less than 5 seconds. People's reflex responses to the pain is expected to force them to move out of the beam before their skin can be burnt. But Neil Davison, co-ordinator of the non-lethal weapons research project at the University of Bradford in the UK, says controlling the amount of radiation received may not be that simple. "How do you ensure that the dose doesn't cross the threshold for permanent damage?" he asks. "What happens if someone in a crowd is unable, for whatever reason, to move away from the beam? Does the weapon cut out to prevent overexposure?" During the experiments, people playing rioters put up their hands when hit and were given a 15-second cooling-down period before being targeted again. One person suffered a burn in a previous test when the beam was accidentally used on the wrong power setting. "What happens if someone is unable to move away from the beam?" A vehicle-mounted version of ADS called Sheriff could be in service in Iraq in 2006 according to the Department of Defense, and it is also being evaluated by the US Department of Energy for use in defending nuclear facilities. The US marines and police are both working on portable versions, and the US air force is building a system for controlling riots from the air. From issue 2509 of New Scientist magazine, 23 July 2005, page 26 ---------- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.323 / Virus Database: 267.9.2/55 - Release Date: 7/21/05 [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/ ***************************************************************** 21 [du-list] As USUK genocide continues unreported, WMD lies Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2005 14:38:28 -0700 http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/nationalsecurity/disarm.html a.. The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed in the 1990s that Saddam Hussein had an advanced nuclear weapons development program, a design for a nuclear weapon, and was working on methods of enriching uranium for a nuclear bomb. He recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa, according to the British Government. He has attempted to purchase high strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons, according to our intelligence sources. Yet he has not credibly explained these activities. a.. etc ---------- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.323 / Virus Database: 267.9.2/55 - Release Date: 7/21/05 [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/ ***************************************************************** 22 [du-list] [ RadSafe ] Sandia completes depleted uranium study Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2005 14:40:01 -0700 Bob Cherry asks about this Sandia National Laboratory study: http://www.bovik.org/du/snl-dusand.pdf Most telling is perhaps the quote, "This assessment should not be interpreted to be a general validation of the SNL National Securities Studies Department methodology for studying the consequences of terrorist use of radiological dispersal devices." In other words, it's not good enough to correctly predict the effects of uranium combustion weapons. By the way, did anyone notice how Jose Padilla is now charged with plotting to blow up high-density housing with "natural gas" instead of uranium? UO3 gas is both natural and artificial. I agree that Table ES-1 on page 12 indicates a 24% increase in fatal cancer risk and an 8% increase in birth defects, and ignores chemical toxicity by reporting radiological risk only. Also, "veterans" is apparently used to mean "all veterans," instead of "exposed veterans," as far as I can tell. Please let me know if I am wrong about that. Uranium causes 1e+6 more DNA damage from chemical toxicity than from its radiological hazard. Miller, et al., J Inorg Biochem, vol. 91, no. 1 (2002), pp. 246-252: http://www.bovik.org/du/Miller-DNA-damage.pdf Therefore, if only 5% of veterans were exposed, then the risk ratios for the exposed are 4.8e+6 for fatal cancer, and 1.6e+6 for birth defects, above the radiological risks reported. However, I can not agree with the study because it is self- contradictory. In earlier sections in section 1.2 on scope, it claims to include complete evaluation of both radiological and nonradiological hazards, but Section 5.2 on p. 72, "Other Heavy Metal Effects," reads: > Some evidence has been reported for the possibility of other > chemical effects associated with uranium internalization (see > Appendix D).... Among the tested veterans, McDiarmid's team > observed a statistically lower score in [a] neurocognitive > test for veterans with high uranium concentrations in their > urine.... > > Veteran, animal, and in vitro testing suggests that a few > other chemically induced health effects are possible, such > as reproductive effects and chemically induced cancers.... A few? There are over 30 categories of congenital malformation. > Uranium is also deposited in the kidney, liver, lymph nodes, > and other organs in small quantities.... -- ignoring testes and gonocyte contamination -- > Some evidence has been reported for other chemical effects > associated with uranium internalization. In vitro studies suggest > that DU can induce malignant transformations with frequencies > similar to those observed with the nonradioactive heavy metal > carcinogens, nickel and lead. Studies by Benson et al. on female > rats with DU implants have shown that uranium can cross the > placental barrier.... So, female reproductive toxicities are considered, but not male? > Furthermore, no excess health effects of any type have been > observed from epidemiological studies for uranium workers [12]. No excess health effects of any type? [D-12] is A. Bordujenko, 'Military Medical Aspects of Depleted Uranium Munitions,' ADF Health, vol. 3 (September 2002.) Way out of date! Several excess health effects have been observed in epidemiological studies of uranium workers. > The incremental risk of DU-induced birth defects for civilians > is estimated by multiplying the equivalent dose to the gonads > by 0.013 per person-Sv. "0.013" should be "1e+6". No wonder they used radiological risk and not chemical risk in the executive summary. Therefore, the risk ratios are 4.8e+6 for fatal cancer, and 1.6e+6 for birth defects among the exposed. Is that right? Sincerely, James Salsman 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/ ***************************************************************** 23 Newswise: Sandia Completes Depleted Uranium Study Source: Sandia National Laboratories Released: Fri 22-Jul-2005, 08:35 ET DEPLETED URANIUM HEALTH EFFECTS MILITARY EXPOSURE Newswise  Sandia National Laboratories has completed a two-year study of the potential health effects associated with accidental exposure to depleted uranium (DU) during the 1991 Gulf War. The study, “An Analysis of Uranium Dispersal and Health Effects Using a Gulf War Case Study,†performed by Sandia scientist Al Marshall, employs analytical capabilities used by Sandia’s National Security Studies Department and examines health risks associated with uranium handling. U.S. and British forces used DU in armor-piercing penetrator bullets to disable enemy tanks during the Gulf and Balkan wars. DU is a byproduct of the process used to enrich uranium for use in nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons. During the enrichment process, the fraction of one type of uranium (uranium-235) is increased relative to the fraction found in natural uranium. As a consequence, the uranium left over after the enrichment process (mostly uranium-238) is depleted in uranium-235 and is called depleted uranium. The high density, low cost, and other properties of DU make it an attractive choice as an anti-tank weapon. However, on impact, DU particulate is dispersed in the surrounding air both within and outside the targeted vehicle and suspended particulate may be inhaled or ingested. Concerns have been raised that exposure to uranium particulate could have serious health problems including leukemia, cancers, and neurocognitive effects, as well as birth defects in the progeny of exposed veterans and civilians. Marshall’s study concluded that the reports of serious health risks from DU exposure are not supported by veteran medical statistics nor supported by his analysis. Only a few U.S. veterans in vehicles accidentally struck by DU munitions are predicted to have inhaled sufficient quantities of DU particulate to incur any significant health risk. For these individuals, DU-related risks include the possibility of temporary kidney damage and about a 1 percent chance of fatal cancer. Several earlier studies were carried out by the U.S. Department of Defense, by University Professors Fetter (University of Maryland) and von Hippel (Princeton), and by an Army sponsored team from Pacific Northwest National Laboratories and Los Alamos National Laboratory. The conclusions from the Sandia study are consistent with these earlier studies. The Sandia study, however, also includes an analysis of potential health effects of DU fragments embedded as shrapnel in the bodies of some U.S. veterans. The Sandia study also looked at civilian exposures in greater detail, examined the potential risk of DU-induced birth defects in the children of exposed individuals, and provided a more detailed analysis of the dispersion of DU following impact with a number of targeted vehicles. For a full copy of the report, download the following pdf file from : “An Analysis of Uranium Dispersal and Health Effects Using a Gulf War Case Study†Sandia is a multiprogram laboratory operated by Sandia Corporation, a Lockheed Martin company, for the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration. With main facilities in Albuquerque, N.M., and Livermore, Calif., Sandia has major R&D responsibilities in national security, energy and environmental technologies, and economic competitiveness. © 2005 Newswise. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 24 Paducah Sun: Cleanup choice delays PACRO role in nickel work Paducah, Kentucky The DOE has not yet lifted its ban against removing contaminated metal from the plant for recycling. By Joe Walker jwalker@paducahsun.com 270.575.8656 Friday, July 22, 2005 Several firms are interested in recycling contaminated scrap nickel at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant now that the Department of Energy has included recycling in its new request for bids for cleanup work. Three companies that have approached the Paducah Area Community Reuse Organization estimate the local share of sale proceeds from the nickel well above the $10 million to $12 million cited a few years ago by a Canadian recycling firm, PACRO officials say. The spot price for nickel is now about $8 an ounce and there are an estimated 9,700 tons of the scrap at the plant. "All the people and entities involved are acting about as well as you would think they would act in the California gold rush," said Henry Hodges, chairman of the PACRO facility reuse committee. PACRO director John Anderson said the three firms are "very credible," and he is seeking permission from DOE to correspond with them. "We think they are subcontractors of the cleanup bidders," he said. "They have the customers and infrastructure in place to dispose of the nickel, and they've asked us to team with them." But DOE officials have cautioned against negotiating now because PACRO, an economic development group, might get left out of the process if the winning cleanup bidder is not affiliated with any of the recycling firms, Anderson said. Bids are due Aug. 4. The new company will replace Bechtel Jacobs on Nov. 1. Despite the bid language, DOE continues a five-year, safety-related ban on removing contaminated scrap metal from any of its plants. Anderson said he is unsure if the department will approve talking with prospective recyclers. The nickel has traces of low-level radiation. DOE says uranium is the main contaminant in the nickel and 33,000 tons of total scrap metal at the plant, but other minute pollutants — such as the toxic metal beryllium — could be found. Any recycler would be required to clean the metal to a safe level and either dispose of it or resell it for industrial or commercial use. DOE wants the nickel moved no later than June 30, 2007. The Energy Department has held fast to the ban pending a determination by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as to what is safe. On June 1, the NRC tabled publishing a proposed rule to set the cleanup level at 1 millirem per year, a measurement of radiation exposure well below that of natural radiation or levels set for safe drinking water. DOE's scope of work calls for the new cleanup firm to "develop and evaluate alternate use of the nickel ingots (bars) and acquire competitive bids for its reuse." But the firm must have prior DOE approval for implementation and must return to the government all revenue in excess of contractor costs. The new language and flurry of recycling interest prompted U.S. Rep. Ed Whitfield, R-Hopkinsville, to write Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman a week ago asking if DOE intends to lift the ban and when. He also asked if there would be export restrictions on selling the nickel. If the ban is lifted, part of the sale profits should be returned to the Paducah area to improve cleanup and create jobs to help offset the planned closure of the 1,270-worker plant starting in 2010, Whitfield wrote. Whitfield had not received an answer as of Thursday, said press secretary Jeff Miles. Formed to offset plant job losses, PACRO wants to be an agent for nickel recycling to generate money to survive. Its funding was discontinued by DOE last year, and the organization is seeking revenue sources and other federal funding. For five years, PACRO has been negotiating with Toronto-based Chemical Vapor Deposition Manufacturing, hoping the ban would be lifted. CVD, which has a U.S. subsidiary, recycles nickel and other metals by converting it to gas. The company has wanted to build a recycling facility here that would create 26 to 40 jobs and, through the sale of nickel, generate up to $12 million to help create jobs for displaced plant workers. Although the nickel produced is virtually pure, the process gas is highly toxic, but CVD has an outstanding safety record, PACRO officials say. ***************************************************************** 25 Sun Herald: Radioactive material removed from site | 07/22/2005 By JOSHUA NORMAN jdnorman@sunherald.com GULFPORT - Mississippi Health Department officials hauled away four containers of depleted uranium from Gulfport on Thursday after they were found unprotected. Workers from the Radiological Health Division arrived late Wednesday evening to examine the two boxes of the radioactive material at the old Irby steel plant on Creosote Road. They were discovered earlier in the day by Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality emergency responder Earl Ethridge during a routine waste oil spill cleanup. A Baton Rouge company was called in to dispose of the two large, tool-box-sized containers as well as another two that Division officials knew about at the Struthers Industries site on 34th Street in Gulfport. All four containers were owned and neglected by the same man, whom state investigators are contemplating charging. The current owner of the sites, purchased in a bankruptcy auction, was unaware of the radioactive material, Ethridge said. The surrounding environment had not been contaminated, he said. In another surprise at the Irby site, a cleanup worker who used to work nearby showed Ethridge a 40-year-old underground storage container on city-owned property that contained toxic photo cleaning chemicals, Ethridge said. An investigation showed the container was leaking. Ethridge said the discovery of unknown and unprotected hazardous materials is not uncommon in his line of work. "You lose your property in bankruptcy and people just walk away," he said. ***************************************************************** 26 AP Wire: Health officials haul away depleted uranium | 07/22/2005 | Associated Press GULFPORT, Miss. - Mississippi health officials have hauled away containers of depleted uranium from a closed steel plant site in Gulfport. Workers from the Radiological Health Division on Thursday moved two boxes of the radioactive material from the old Irby steel plant. The boxes were discovered Wednesday by Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality officials during a routine waste oil spill cleanup. A Baton Rouge, La., company was called in to dispose of the two large, tool-box-sized containers as well as another two containers that health officials knew about at the Struthers Industries site in Gulfport. Authorities said all four containers were owned and neglected by one person, whom state investigators are contemplating charging. Officials have not identified the man. Officials said the current owner of the sites, purchased in a bankruptcy auction, was unaware of the radioactive material. They said the surrounding area has not been contaminated. Information from: The Sun Herald, http://www.sunherald.com ***************************************************************** 27 FR: Idaho: Final Authorization of State Hazardous Waste Management FR Doc 05-14545 [Federal Register: July 22, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 140)] [Rules and Regulations] [Page 42273-42276] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr22jy05-9] ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY 40 CFR Part 271 [FRL-7942-9] Program Revision AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency. ACTION: Final rule. SUMMARY: Idaho applied to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for final authorization of changes to its hazardous waste program under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). On May 16, 2005, EPA published a proposed rule to authorize the changes and opened a public comment period. The comment period closed on June 15, 2005. EPA has decided that these revisions to the Idaho hazardous waste management program satisfy all of the requirements necessary to qualify for final authorization and is authorizing these revisions to Idaho's authorized hazardous waste management program in today's final rule. DATES: Final authorization for the revisions to the hazardous waste program in Idaho shall be effective at 1 p.m. E.S.T. on July 22, 2005. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Jeff Hunt, Mail Stop AWT-122, U.S. EPA Region 10, Office of Air, Waste, and Toxics, 1200 Sixth Avenue, Seattle, Washington 98101, phone (206) 553-0256. E-mail: hunt.jeff@epa.gov. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: A. Why Are Revisions to State Programs Necessary? States which have received final authorization from EPA under RCRA section 3006(b), 42 U.S.C. 6926(b), must maintain a hazardous waste program that is equivalent to and consistent with the Federal program. States are required to have enforcement authority which is adequate to enforce compliance with the requirements of the hazardous waste program. Under RCRA Section 3009, States are not allowed to impose any requirements which are less stringent than the Federal program. Changes to State programs may be necessary when Federal or State statutory or regulatory authority is modified or when certain other changes occur. Most commonly, States must change their programs because of changes to EPA's regulations in title 40 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) parts 124, 260 through 266, 268, 270, 273 and 279. Idaho's hazardous waste management program received final authorization effective on April 9, 1990 (55 FR 11015, March 29, 1990). EPA also granted authorization for revisions to Idaho's program effective on June 5, 1992 (57 FR 11580, April 6, 1992), on August 10, 1992 (57 FR 24757, June 11, 1992), on June 11, 1995 (60 FR 18549, April 12, 1995), on January 19, 1999 (63 FR 56086, October 21, 1998), on July 1, 2002 (67 FR 44069, July 1, 2002), and on March 10, 2004 (69 FR 11322). Today's final rule addresses a program revision application that Idaho submitted to EPA in September 2004, in accordance with 40 CFR 271.21, seeking authorization of changes to the State program. On May 16, 2005, EPA published a proposed rule announcing its intent to grant Idaho final authorization for revisions to Idaho's hazardous waste program and provided a period of time for the receipt of public comments. The proposed rule can be found at 70 FR 25798. B. What Were the Comments to EPA's Proposed Rule? EPA received two letters during the public comment period. One letter was dated June 3, 2005, from Mr. Chuck Broscious on behalf of the Environmental Defense Institute and a second letter was dated June 14, 2005, from Mr. Chuck Broscious on behalf of the Environmental Defense Institute, Keep Yellowstone Nuclear Free, and David B. McCoy, collectively the commenters. The comment letters focused on issues originally raised in petitions submitted to EPA on August 8, 2000, and September 13, 2001, and on numerous follow up letters and correspondence related to those petitions. The petitions themselves centered on issues related to specific units located at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) in Idaho Falls, Idaho. The comment letters also raised a concern about nuclear defense activities at the same INL facility. In response to this aspect of the commenters' letter EPA observes that defense activities related to nuclear production and propulsion programs will generally not meet the definition of solid waste under the RCRA regulations and may be regulated by other federal authorities. With respect to mixed waste, Idaho's hazardous waste program is authorized for mixed waste. In the September 13, 2001, petition which commenters refer to in their current comments, the commenters as petitioners sought EPA's withdrawal of Idaho's authorization to implement the hazardous waste program under RCRA [[Page 42274]] because of petitioners' concerns with hazardous waste issues at the INL facility. EPA in response to that withdrawal petition request conducted an informal investigation and determined that sufficient evidence did not exist to initiate formal withdrawal proceedings. The investigation findings were issued on March 20, 2002, with a follow up response on June 20, 2002. The supporting documentation was provided to the commenters and the documentation is currently available to the public under the Freedom of Information Act. On February 6, 2003, the EPA Office of Inspector General (OIG) requested that Region 10 conduct a second investigation to answer a series of follow up questions related to the September 13, 2001, petition. EPA Region 10 conducted a second investigation and issued its findings on April 10, 2003. The investigation results were provided to Mr. David McCoy, one of the current commenters, as part of an October 13, 2004, Freedom of Information Act response. On February 5, 2004, after conducting independent field work, the OIG issued a final evaluation report which concluded, ``Region 10 generally relied on appropriate regulatory requirements and standards in reaching its conclusion that evidence did not exist to commence proceedings to withdraw the State of Idaho's authority to run its RCRA Hazardous Waste program.'' While the evaluation report concluded that evidence did not exist to commence withdrawal proceedings, the OIG did identify areas of concern for further Regional and State follow up. As detailed in the Evaluation Report, the OIG and EPA Region 10 agreed to specific follow up actions. To document resolution of these action items, EPA Region 10 submitted quarterly progress reports to the Region 10 OIG Audit Liaison on January 13, 2004, April 16, 2004, July 15, 2004, October 12, 2004, February 9, 2005, and April 8, 2005. These reports document the steps taken by EPA and the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality to meet the specific actions recommended by the OIG. The first three of these quarterly reports were sent to the commenters and the OIG as part of a July 26, 2004, letter from then Regional Administrator, L. John Iani. Hardcopies of all the quarterly reports were made directly available to the public as part of the authorization docket for the proposed authorization with repositories in Seattle, Washington and the University of Idaho in Moscow. These quarterly reports are also currently available to the public under the Freedom of Information Act. While the Region will continue its ongoing obligation to conduct state oversight, EPA considers the follow up to the September 13, 2001, withdrawal petition and the February 5, 2004, OIG Evaluation Report complete. The information documenting EPA's follow up to the February 5, 2004, OIG Evaluation Report was contained in the authorization docket available to the public through the Region 10 Library in Seattle, Washington, as well as through the Freedom of Information Act process. In response to a request by Mr. Chuck Broscious, EPA made a hardcopy version of the docket available to the public at the University of Idaho Library in Moscow, Idaho. Furthermore, in response to a request from the Shoshone Bannock Tribe, and Mr. Chuck Broscious, EPA electronically scanned the State of Idaho's authorization application and made this document available on the Region 10 Web site at: http:// yosemite. epa. gov/ R10/ OWCM. NSF/ ed6c 817875 102 d2d 8825650 f00714a59/ 2b 89088 c6ed 735 17882 570 140081 e7f9? Open Document. Based on the follow up actions that were taken in response to the OIG Evaluation Report, EPA disagrees with comments submitted on June 3 and 14, 2005, alleging that EPA and the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality have not sufficiently responded to the issues raised by the February 5, 2004, OIG Evaluation report. Therefore, EPA has determined that these comments do not constitute basis for continued delay or denial of Idaho's application for program revision. C. What Decisions Have We Made in This Rule? EPA has made a final determination that Idaho's revisions to the Idaho authorized hazardous waste program meet all of the statutory and regulatory requirements established by RCRA for authorization. Therefore, EPA is authorizing the revisions to the Idaho hazardous waste program and authorizing the State of Idaho to operate its hazardous waste program as described in the revision authorization application. Idaho's authorized program will be responsible for carrying out the aspects of the RCRA program described in its revised program application, subject to the limitations of RCRA, including the Hazardous and Solid Waste Amendments of 1984 (HSWA). New Federal requirements and prohibitions imposed by Federal regulations that EPA promulgates under the authority of HSWA are implemented by EPA and take effect in States with authorized programs before such programs are authorized for the requirements. Thus, EPA will implement those HSWA requirements and prohibitions in Idaho, including issuing permits or portions of permits, until the State is authorized to do so. D. What Will Be the Effect of Today's Action? The effect of today's action is that a facility in Idaho subject to RCRA must comply with the authorized State program requirements and with any applicable federally-issued requirement, such as, for example, the federal HSWA provisions for which the State is not authorized, and RCRA requirements that are not supplanted by authorized State-issued requirements, in order to comply with RCRA. Idaho has enforcement responsibilities under its State hazardous waste program for violations of its currently authorized program and will have enforcement responsibilities for the revisions which are the subject of this final rule. EPA continues to have independent enforcement authority under RCRA sections 3007, 3008, 3013, and 7003, which include, among others, authority to: --Conduct inspections; require monitoring, tests, analyses or reports; --Enforce RCRA requirements, including State program requirements that are authorized by EPA and any applicable Federally-issued statutes and regulations; suspend, modify or revoke permits; and --Take enforcement actions regardless of whether the State has taken its own actions. This final action approving these revisions will not impose additional requirements on the regulated community because the regulations for which Idaho's program is being authorized are already effective under State law. E. What Rules Are We Authorizing With Today's Action? In September 2004, Idaho submitted a complete program revision application, seeking authorization for all delegable federal hazardous waste regulations codified as of July 1, 2003, as incorporated by reference in IDAPA 58.01.05.(002)-(016) and 58.01.05.997, including previously unauthorized portions of the Post Closure Rule promulgated on October 22, 1998 (63 FR 56710). F. Who Handles Permits After This Authorization Takes Effect? Idaho will issue permits for all the provisions for which it is authorized and will administer the permits it [[Page 42275]] issues. All permits or portions of permits issued by EPA prior to final authorization of this revision will continue to be administered by EPA until the effective date of the issuance, re-issuance after modification, or denial of a State RCRA permit or until the permit otherwise expires or is revoked, and until EPA takes action on its permit or portion of permit. HSWA provisions for which the State is not authorized will continue in effect under the EPA-issued permit or portion of permit. EPA will continue to issue permits or portions of permits for HSWA requirements for which Idaho is not yet authorized. G. What Is Codification and Is EPA Codifying Idaho's Hazardous Waste Program as Authorized in This Rule? Codification is the process of placing the State's statutes and regulations that comprise the State's authorized hazardous waste program into the Code of Federal Regulations. EPA does this by referencing the authorized State's authorized rules in 40 CFR part 272. EPA is reserving the amendment of 40 CFR part 272, subpart F for codification of Idaho's program at a later date. H. How Does Today's Action Affect Indian Country (18 U.S.C. 1151) in Idaho? EPA's decision to authorize the Idaho hazardous waste program does not include any land that is, or becomes after the date of this authorization, ``Indian Country,'' as defined in 18 U.S.C. 1151. This includes: (1) All lands within the exterior boundaries of Indian reservations within or abutting the State of Idaho; (2) Any land held in trust by the U.S. for an Indian tribe; and (3) Any other land, whether on or off an Indian reservation that qualifies as Indian country. Therefore, this action has no effect on Indian country. EPA retains jurisdiction over ``Indian Country'' as defined in 18 U.S.C. 1151. I. Statutory and Executive Order Reviews 1. Executive Order 12866 Under Executive Order 12866 (58 FR 51735, October 4,1993), the Agency must determine whether the regulatory action is ``significant'', and therefore subject to OMB review and the requirements of the Executive Order. The Order defines ``significant regulatory action'' as one that is likely to result in a rule that may: (1) Have an annual effect on the economy of $100 million or more, or adversely affect in a material way, the economy, a sector of the economy, productivity, competition, jobs, the environment, public health or safety, or State, local or tribal governments or communities; (2) create a serious inconsistency or otherwise interfere with an action taken or planned by another agency; (3) materially alter the budgetary impact of entitlements, grants, user fees, or loan programs, or the rights and obligations of recipients thereof; or (4) raise novel legal or policy issues arising out of legal mandates, the President's priorities, or the principles set forth in the Executive Order. It has been determined that this final rule is not a ``significant regulatory action'' under the terms of Executive Order 12866 and is therefore not subject to OMB review. 2. Paperwork Reduction Act The Paperwork Reduction Act, 44 U.S.C. 3501, et seq., is intended to minimize the reporting and recordkeeping burden on the regulated community, as well as to minimize the cost of Federal information collection and dissemination. In general, the Act requires that information requests and recordkeeping requirements affecting ten or more non-Federal respondents be approved by OPM. Since this final rule does not establish or modify any information or recordkeeping requirements for the regulated community, it is not subject to the provisions of the Paperwork Reduction Act. 3. Regulatory Flexibility The Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA), as amended by the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act (SBREFA), 5 U.S.C. 601 et seq., generally requires federal agencies to prepare a regulatory flexibility analysis of any rule subject to notice and comment rulemaking requirements under the Administrative Procedure Act or any other statute unless the agency certifies that the rule will not have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities. Small entities include small businesses, small organizations, and small governmental jurisdictions. For purposes of assessing the impacts of today's rule on small entities, small entity is defined as: (1) A small business, as codified in the Small Business Size Regulations at 13 CFR part 121; (2) a small governmental jurisdiction that is a government of a city, county, town, school district or special district with a population of less than 50,000; and (3) a small organization that is any not-for-profit enterprise which is independently owned and operated and is not dominant in its field. EPA has determined that this action will not have a significant impact on small entities because the final rule will only have the effect of authorizing pre-existing requirements under State law. After considering the economic impacts of today's rule, I certify that this action will not have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities. 4. Unfunded Mandates Reform Act Title II of the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (UMRA) of 1995 (Pub. L. 104-4) establishes requirements for Federal agencies to assess the effects of their regulatory actions on State, local and tribal governments and the private sector. Under section 202 of the UMRA, EPA generally must prepare a written statement, including a cost-benefit analysis, for proposed and final rules with ``Federal mandates'' that may result in expenditures to State, local and tribal governments, in the aggregate, or to the private sector, of $100 million or more in any year. Before promulgating an EPA rule for which a written statement is needed, section 205 of the UMRA generally requires EPA to identify and consider a reasonable number of regulatory alternatives and adopt the least costly, most cost-effective or least burdensome alternative that achieves the objectives of the rule. The provisions of section 205 do not apply when they are inconsistent with applicable law. Moreover, section 205 allows EPA to adopt an alternative other than the least costly, most cost-effective or least burdensome alternative if the Administrator publishes with the final rule an explanation why the alternative was not adopted. Before EPA establishes any regulatory requirements that may significantly or uniquely affect small governments, including tribal governments, it must have developed under section 203 of the UMRA a small government agency plan. The plan must provide for notifying potentially affected small governments, enabling officials of affected small governments to have meaningful and timely input in the development of EPA regulatory proposals with significant Federal intergovernmental mandates, and informing, educating, and advising small governments on compliance with the regulatory requirements. This rule contains no Federal mandates (under the regulatory provisions of Title II of the UMRA) for State, local or tribal governments or the private sector. It imposes no new enforceable duty on any State, local or tribal governments or the private sector. Similarly, EPA has also determined that this rule contains no regulatory [[Page 42276]] requirements that might significantly or uniquely affect small government entities. Thus, the requirements of section 203 of the UMRA do not apply to this rule. 5. Executive Order 13132: Federalism Executive Order 13132, entitled ``Federalism'' (64 FR 43255, August 10, 1999), requires EPA to develop an accountable process to ensure ``meaningful and timely input by State and local officials in the development of regulatory policies that have federalism implications.'' ``Policies that have federalism implications'' is defined in the Executive Order to include regulations that have ``substantial direct effects on the States, on the relationship between the national government and the States, or on the distribution of power and responsibilities among various levels of government.'' This rule does not have federalism implications. It will not have substantial direct effects on the States, on the relationship between the national government and the States, or on the distribution of power and responsibilities among various levels of government, as specified in Executive Order 13132. This rule addresses the authorization of pre- existing State rules. Thus, Executive Order 13132 does not apply to this rule. 6. Executive Order 13175: Consultation and Coordination With Indian Tribal Governments Executive Order 13175, entitled ``Consultation and Coordination with Indian Tribal Governments'' (65 FR 67249, November 9, 2000), requires EPA to develop an accountable process to ensure ``meaningful and timely input by tribal officials in the development of regulatory policies that have tribal implications.'' This rule does not have tribal implications, as specified in Executive Order 13175. Thus, Executive Order 13175 does not apply to this rule. 7. Executive Order 13045: Protection of Children From Environmental Health and Safety Risks Executive Order 13045 applies to any rule that: (1) Is determined to be ``economically significant'' as defined under Executive Order 12866, and (2) concerns an environmental health or safety risk that EPA has reason to believe may have a disproportionate effect on children. If the regulatory action meets both criteria, the Agency must evaluate the environmental health or safety effects of the planned rule on children, and explain why the planned regulation is preferable to other potentially effective and reasonably feasible alternatives considered by the Agency. This rule is not subject to Executive Order 13045 because it is not economically significant as defined in Executive Order 12866 and because the Agency does not have reason to believe the environmental health or safety risks addressed by this action present a disproportionate risk to children. 8. Executive Order 13211: Actions That Significantly Affect Energy Supply, Distribution, or Use This rule is not subject to Executive Order 13211, ``Actions Concerning Regulations that Significantly Affect Energy Supply, Distribution, or Use'' (66 FR 28355, May 22, 2001) because it is not a ``significant regulatory action'' as defined under Executive Order 12866. 9. National Technology Transfer and Advancement Act Section 12(d) of the National Technology Transfer and Advancement Act of 1995 (``NTTAA''), Public Law 104-113, 12(d) (15 U.S.C. 272) directs EPA to use voluntary consensus standards in its regulatory activities unless to do so would be inconsistent with applicable law or otherwise impractical. Voluntary consensus standards are technical standards (e.g., materials specifications, test methods, sampling procedures, and business practices) that are developed or adopted by voluntary consensus bodies. The NTTAA directs EPA to provide Congress, through the OMB, explanations when the Agency decides not to use available and applicable voluntary consensus standards. This rule does not involve ``technical standards'' as defined by the NTTAA. Therefore, EPA is not considering the use of any voluntary consensus standards. 10. Executive Order 12898: Federal Actions To Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low Income Populations To the greatest extent practicable and permitted by law, and consistent with the principles set forth in the report on the National Performance Review, each Federal agency must make achieving environmental justice part of its mission by identifying and addressing, as appropriate, disproportionately high and adverse human health and environmental effects of its programs, policies, and activities on minority populations and low-income populations in the United States and its territories and possessions, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and the Commonwealth of the Mariana Islands. Because this rule addresses authorizing pre-existing State rules and there are no anticipated significant adverse human health or environmental effects, the rule is not subject to Executive Order 12898. 11. Congressional Review Act The Congressional Review Act, 5 U.S.C. 801 et seq., as added by the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act of 1996, generally provides that before a rule may take effect, the agency promulgating the rule must submit a rule report, which includes a copy of the rule, to each House of the Congress and to the Comptroller General of the United States. EPA will submit a report containing this rule and other required information to the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House of Representatives, and the Comptroller General of the United States prior to publication of the rule in the Federal Register. A major rule cannot take effect until 60 days after it is published in the Federal Register. This action is not a ``major rule'' as defined by 5. U.S.C. 804(2). This rule will be effective on the date the rule is published in the Federal Register. List of Subjects in 40 CFR Part 271 Environmental protection, Administrative practice and procedure, Confidential business information, Hazardous materials transportation, Hazardous waste, Indians-lands, Intergovernmental relations, Penalties, Reporting and recordkeeping requirements. Authority: This action is issued under the authority of sections 2002(a), 3006 and 7004(b) of the Solid Waste Disposal Act as amended 42 U.S.C. 6912(a), 6926, 6974(b). Dated: July 14, 2005. Michelle Pirzadeh, Acting Regional Administrator, Region 10. [FR Doc. 05-14545 Filed 7-21-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 6560-50-P ***************************************************************** 28 Las Vegas RJ: YUCCA MOUNTAIN: Final weeks for quality control chief Friday, July 22, 2005 Departure of second official announced By STEVE TETREAULT STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- The director of often-criticized Yucca Mountain quality controls said Thursday he is leaving, the second key departure this week from the nuclear waste program. The announced exit of Denny Brown after three years as director of the Office of Quality Assurance coincided with confirmation that the Government Accountability Office is launching a new Yucca Mountain investigation. The GAO, which works for Congress, is dispatching auditors to Las Vegas next week to measure DOE's efforts to improve its quality assurance, a key safety element of the project, according to T.J. Crawford, a spokesman for Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev. Porter asked that the GAO update a 2004 study, Crawford said. That report concluded DOE was failing to fix quality assurance problems and that promised reforms were not structured to succeed. Investigators also will examine quality assurance concerns that have been raised by whistle-blowers, according to documents obtained Thursday. Brown's announcement came a day after it was reported that Joseph Ziegler, the director of Yucca Mountain licensing, had resigned last week. Earlier this month, the project's management company Bechtel SAIC confirmed president John Mitchell was being transferred to another division. The departure of top managers appears to be a blow to the Energy Department as it tries to navigate legal and technical obstacles to preparing a repository license application. "Either the rats are deserting the sinking ship or these are stand-up guys who want to do the right thing, are being told to get a license or else, and they have integrity and are leaving," said Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev. Brown said in an e-mail sent to Yucca employees Thursday that he had been working under a three-year contract that expires early in October, and he would be leaving then to pursue other interests. Brown was hired in 2002 to bring order to Yucca quality assurance, which had been criticized for weaknesses throughout the 20-year history of the repository program. Criticism did not stop during his tenure. Quality assurance is a key safety element for nuclear programs that must pass muster with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, as the Energy Department hopes to do with the proposed nuclear waste repository. Nevada officials, congressional investigators and evaluators from the NRC criticized Yucca quality controls in reports dating to 1988. Energy Department officials have defended progress in Yucca quality assurance, saying they had an effective program in place to support a repository license application. More recently, the Yucca project was rocked by allegations in worker e-mails that quality assurance documents supporting hydrology research at the site may have been falsified. Brown also was tied to an internal investigation this spring that looked into allegations of harassment and discrimination within the Office of Quality Assurance, officials within the project confirmed. An anonymous whistle-blower reported the allegations and other perceived shortcomings in Yucca quality assurance in a March 15 letter sent to members of Congress and officials in the Energy Department and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. A formal complaint also was filed with the Yucca Mountain Employee Concerns program, two project officials said. The outcome of the investigation could not be learned Thursday night. DOE spokesman Allen Benson said he could neither confirm nor deny an investigation took place. Copyright Las Vegas Review-Journal ***************************************************************** 29 HoustonChronicle.com: Environmental law gets hearing in Nacogdoches HoustonChronicle.com July 21, 2005, 9:57PM Nacogdoches meeting to discuss the review process By DINA CAPPIELLO Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle RESOURCES PUBLIC FORUM The third meeting of the congressional Task Force on Improving the National Environmental Policy Act will be held Saturday in East Texas: • Title: "The Role of NEPA in the Southern States" • When: 10 a.m. Saturday • Where: Cole Concert Hall of Stephen F. Austin State University, Nacogdoches • Input: The public will be allowed to submit only written testimony. A landmark environmental law requiring the federal government to consider the harm to natural resources before a road is built, a dam constructed or gas well drilled will be scrutinized Saturday at a congressional meeting in East Texas. The meeting, at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, will be the third held nationally by a bipartisan House task force assembled in April and charged with evaluating the National Environmental Policy Act. The 1970 law requires projects funded or permitted by the federal government to undergo environmental review and public comment. Though supporters of the legislation call it the "Magna Carta" of environmental statutes, critics in recent years have said it has enabled activists to delay projects with reams of paperwork and expensive litigation, which in some cases has stretched for decades. The Texas meeting will be the first to tackle oil and gas exploration, task-force members said Thursday. Previous meetings have covered forestry issues, transportation and public works projects. "We share the goals of clean air and clean water and protecting the environment," said U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris, R-Washington, the task force's chair. "It's not a debate over changing environmental standards but improving the process by which we make decisions." Environmentalists, who complained Thursday that they will be underrepresented at the Nacogdoches meeting, see the review as an attempt to gut the law, as they claim conservatives in Congress are attempting to do with the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Air Act. The Bush administration in 2002 proposed the Healthy Forests Initiative, which streamlines the review of some logging projects in federal forests. An amendment to the House energy bill would exclude some oil and gas projects from environmental evaluations. "It seems to be in some ways a sham of a public meeting. It seems to be designed only to get the testimony they want," said Evelyn Merz, chair of the Houston Sierra Club, pointing out that only two of the nine people chosen to speak support the law. The other speakers represent logging, mining, paper, and oil and gas interests. The public will be allowed to submit only written testimony. "If you don't have NEPA, you don't have an opportunity for public comment or review," Merz said. Among the local examples she cited of the law's success was a flood-control plan for Sims Bayou. Public input and a year of negotiations prevented the government from lining the bayou with concrete. Those testifying for industry, however, will showcase what they say are the law's downsides. "Over the years, and particularly in the last 10 years, the process has been very time-consuming, expensive and has basically evolved into a process that is driven by litigation," said Steve Smith, executive director for the Texas Mining and Reclamation Association. He pointed to a uranium-mining company in New Mexico that is still in litigation after a 1997 environmental review. "Our position is that there are special interest groups that have learned how to use the system to delay and block projects they are opposed to," he said. Abitibi Consolidated, a paper company, will testify that environmental reviews of natural gas wells have increased fuel prices, causing it to shut down a Lufkin plant and lay off 600 workers, spokeswoman Debbie Johnston said. Larry Shelton, who will speak on behalf of the Texas Committee on Natural Resources, a conservation group, says NEPA isn't to blame for Abitibi's closure. U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Tyler and the only task-force member from Texas, said in a conference call Thursday that "when you hear horror stories about people being put out of business ... we need to do a better job. This is about how we can be better stewards all the way around." dina.cappiello@chron.com Houston Chronicle e-Edition ***************************************************************** 30 RIA Novosti: Russia and the international problem of nuclear waste Opinion & analysis - 22/07/2005 MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti commentator Tatyana Sinitsyna.) There is no doubt that Russia will join the list of countries that could monopolize global nuclear services, alongside other leaders in the sector such as United States, France, Britain, and China. These four are not, of course, the world's only nuclear countries. But nuclear power engineering was one conversion product of the realization by the world countries that arms programs should be curtailed and the atom adapted to civilian purposes. Although International Atomic Energy Agency Deputy Director Yuri Sokolov claims that "no list of nuclear monopolies is currently under discussion," it is obvious that the question will arise tomorrow. It was not for nothing that IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei proposed that nuclear benefits in their pure form should limit the number of countries developing nuclear technologies. It was not for nothing that experts spent a full year discussing this proposal, and certainly the international conference Multilateral Technical and Organizational Approaches to the Nuclear Fuel Cycle aimed at Strengthening the Non-Proliferation Regime, convened in Moscow July 16-18, was not held in vain. Such consistent and purposeful steps are being taken to achieve a serious goal. "Many critics of nuclear energy are saying that the idea is to turn some countries into 'waste dumps' accepting nuclear waste from all over the world. These 'dumps' are storages of nuclear fuel, a product of high technology," Federal Agency for Nuclear Energy head Alexander Rumyantsev says. "Actually, this is a sensible and pragmatic idea, and the IAEA is moving toward it by trial and error, working out the appropriate point of view." Rumyantsev said that countries wanting to solve their energy problems by means of nuclear power need not develop their own environmentally hazardous and very costly nuclear industry. Rather, they can draw on the experience and services of other countries already familiar with the nuclear cycle, thus obtaining the end product: "nuclear electricity". This arrangement nips in the bud the menace of a "military component" of nuclear energy arising, and makes its peaceful utilization universal. Thus, we are also spared agonizing thoughts about "sensitive" technologies finding their way into terrorists' hands and "rogue countries" pursuing their own secret nuclear programs. As soon as the IAEA idea wins global support, the key question will be where to store international nuclear fuel. "Russia fits the bill perfectly, if only because all nuclear materials in the country are federally owned," Rumyantsev said. "It means the state as the owner can guarantee the supply of nuclear fuel and its return for reprocessing. When we aired the issue with the French and Americans, they said they could not give such guarantees, because nuclear problems are the concern of private companies and the state has no right to interfere." A nuclear power that has a half-century's experience of handling fissile materials and a large-scale nuclear industry, Russia makes no secret that it might take part in a tender to build international nuclear storage centers. At least, during a visit to the East Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk, President Vladimir Putin said he saw no problem in the country importing spent nuclear fuel. "If everything is done according to technology, if funds are allocated to address existing environmental problems, including those created by nuclear pollution, then such a decision is right and proper," Putin emphasized, referring to a law adopted by the Duma in 2001 that allows Russia to accept nuclear waste for recycling, reprocessing and disposal, including from other countries. The country's biggest spent nuclear fuel storage site is located at Zheleznogorsk, in Siberia's Krasnoyarsk Territory, at a mining and chemical works that during the nuclear race produced weapons-grade plutonium. Today it takes irradiated fuel for long-term storage from VVER-type pressurized water reactors, which are installed not only at Russian, but also in Bulgaria, Hungary and Ukraine. It is the Zheleznogorsk works that is now seen as the site for a future international storage facility, should Russia secure the right to build one. As conceived by IAEA, an international storage site must concentrate, possibly in one place, all the potentially dangerous materials coveted by international terrorists, and give these materials the appropriate protection. According to Rumyantsev, the Zheleznogorsk facility is already in a position to accept 8,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel for storage. At present, it is being modernized to accommodate more. Experts are of the opinion that it could store tens of thousands of tons of irradiated fuel from around the world. This may bring the Russian treasury hefty revenues of about $1 million per ton of spent nuclear fuel, and give Zheleznogorsk sizable sums - up to 25% of profit - to deal with environmental problems. © 2005 "RIA Novosti" ***************************************************************** 31 RIA Novosti: $7 million will go to Ukraine for nuclear disposal plant construction 22/07/2005 KIEV, July 22 (RIA Novosti) - A special session of The Assembly of Donors of the Nuclear Safety Account in London has decided to allocate $7 million for Ukraine to complete the construction of a nuclear treatment plant and storage grounds, the Ukrainian Emergencies Ministry said Friday. According to the source, $5 million will be available before year's end and the remaining $2 million will come through at the beginning of 2006. Ukraine's cabinet addressed the assembly on the urgent necessity to solve issues in completing the construction of the liquid nuclear waste treatment plant and the storage of radioactive wastes from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the site where the worst nuclear disaster in world history occurred in 1986. The construction of the new plant and spent fuel storage facilities had been implemented by foreign contractors, but the process stalled due to specific technical reasons and a lack of funding. "Ukraine and the world community have the main goal of finishing the construction of these facilities immediately. Ukraine is ready to make additional contributions to these projects," Ukrainian Minister of Emergencies David Zhvaniya said at the London conference. The Ukrainian party proposed technical decisions that would help resume these two projects. Kiev insists that the term for the projects' completion not exceed 36 months. © 2005 "RIA Novosti" ***************************************************************** 32 Las Vegas SUN: Letter: State GOP must never concede on nuclear dump Today: July 22, 2005 at 9:1:29 PDT Letter: State GOP must never concede on nuclear dump I appreciated Richard Rychtarik's letter in reply to my July 8 letter on Yucca Mountain. But nowhere in my letter did I imply that we should not increase our fossil fuel usage. I complained about subsides for nuclear plants, which pose safety risks. If they are not risky, then why is the industry still insisting on coverage under the Price-Anderson Act, which guarantees that taxpayers would pay most of the damages in the event of a nuclear accident? We will not have a new nuclear plant online for at least another 10 years, and even if new plants are twice as efficient as the current aged plants, we will need at least 52 more. Instead of heavily subsidizing this large number of plants, why not subsidize alternative technologies that are becoming more realistic with oil at $60 a barrel? The main thrust of my letter was the reluctance of Nevada Republicans to use political pressure against President Bush, the Energy Department and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in an effort to get them to stop ignoring the major problems surrounding Southern Nevada's Yucca Mountain. These include a faulty radiation standard and the e-mails by scientists casting doubt on the ability of the mountain to safely contain the nation's nuclear waste. These problems have been widely reported, as has the suit against Yucca Mountain by the Western Shoshones, who have a good case that turning the mountain into a nuclear waste dump violates the Ruby Valley Treaty of 1863. In his letter, Rychtarik said, "Regardless of Nevada's stand on Yucca Mountain, the nuclear waste storage site will probably come to pass." I believe such statements are defeatist and a resignation to the Bush administration's apparent policy of allowing political expediency to determine whether Yucca Mountain opens instead of the president's promise of sound science. FRANK PERNA All contents copyright 2005 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 33 Las Vegas SUN: GAO to update probe of Yucca Mountain Today: July 22, 2005 at 11:13:50 PDT By Suzanne Struglinski <> SUN WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- The Government Accountability Office will be in Nevada next month to update an investigation on the Yucca Mountain project. Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., requested the review in April, after the department revealed its discovery of employee e-mails that suggest workers falsified scientific work. Several of the e-mails, which Porter's subcommittee made public, showed disdain for the quality assurance program, with one employee writing "Piss on QA." Known as QA, the quality assurance program is designed to assure the accuracy of Yucca research to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Once the department submits the Yucca license application to the NRC, its reviewers will use quality assurance documents to trace documents and models to see how scientists drew their conclusions. GAO released its last report on the project in April 2004 titled "Yucca Mountain, Persistent Quality Assurance Problems Could Delay Repository Licensing and Operation," based on a request by Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and John Ensign, R-Nev. Porter wants the GAO to update the report and find what the department has done to improve quality assurance work as well as what concerns have been raised by employees working on the project. Porter is chairman of the House Federal Workforce and Agency Organization Subcommittee and is concerned about employee coercion or intimidation. His spokesman, T.J. Crawford, said he also wants a more detailed look at harassment of whistle blowers within the project. Yucca project spokesman Allen Benson said the department will find out more about what the review will entail once it starts. Benson also confirmed that R. Dennis Brown, the project's quality assurance director is leaving. Brown was in charge of the project's quality assurance program as it received criticism from the GAO as well as an audit by the commission. All contents copyright 2005 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 34 Argus Leader: Uranium mines cleanup to cost $20 million Published: 07/22/05 The cleanup at abandoned uranium mines in Harding County will cost an estimated $20 million, according to the U.S. Forest Service. The agency hopes to have the Riley Pass Uranium Mines site included in the Environmental Protection Agency's Superfund program. Hazardous materials contaminate 12 bluffs in the Sioux Ranger District of Custer National Forest, said Laurie Walters-Clark, on-scene coordinator of the project. The Forest Service is taking public comment on its plan and will hold public meetings to explain the measures that were chosen, Walters-Clark said. - The Associated Press Copyright 2005 Argus Leader. All rights reserved ***************************************************************** 35 Salt Lake Tribune: Goshutes: The agency has technical queries about the proposed nuke waste storage site Article Last Updated: 07/22/2005 01:03:19 AM The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission this week signed on new experts to help sort through its technical questions about the proposed Skull Valley nuclear waste storage site. A notice issued Wednesday said the commission would consult with NRC staff experts in risk analysis and engineering. The experts will work for the commissioners in a final review of the project before deciding on the operating license. A consortium of nuclear-plant companies, Private Fuel Storage (PFS), applied to the NRC in 1997 for a license to build an above-ground storage facility for up to 44,000 tons of used nuclear fuel, waste that continues to be highly radioactive. The project, which would be built on the Skull Valley Goshutes reservation in Tooele County, has been under federal review ever since. The Utah state government has been the project's biggest opponent before the NRC and in public. This is the first-ever nuclear waste site that is not located at a nuclear power facility, and the commission is zeroing in on the hardiness of the casks in the event that a jet fighter from Hill Air Force Base crashed into the 100-acre storage pad. Many of the technical questions so far have involved highly complex computer modeling. "From our point of view, this [use of new experts] is good news," said Denise Chancellor, an assistant Utah attorney general working on the case. "It looks like the commission is going to step back and take a good look." There was no word Thursday on whether the added scrutiny would mean a delay in the NRC's decision on a license for PFS. A decision was expected this summer. -Judy Fahys © Copyright 2005, The Salt Lake Tribune. ***************************************************************** 36 The Dispatch: Perchlorate lawsuits way out of line Friday, July 22, 2005 OPINION The Editor A San Jose jury is now listening to arguments about whether Olin Corporation should pay tens of millions of dollars to four families who claim that perchlorate contamination damaged their rural lifestyles as well as their home values. We hope the jury will apply common sense in deciding whether the plaintiffs have actually suffered any damage. It is difficult to understand how plaintiff Teresa Pereira can claim to have suffered a damaged home value when her home has increased in value from $410,000 in 1998 to $990,000 earlier this year. It is difficult to understand how the plaintiffs can claim to have grave fears about perchlorate contamination when they showed no concern about the nitrate contamination that has been documented in South County ground water for decades, or when they refused to allow Olin to install a proven well-head treatment system. It is difficult to understand how Pereira could be so unconcerned about nitrate-contaminated water that she would give it to her young daughter and drink it all through her pregnancy, then be so anxious on learning of the perchlorate contamination that she became unable to breastfeed, even though bottled water was available, courtesy of Olin Corp. It is especially difficult to understand how Pereira could believe the perchlorate tests that say that her untreated well water contains 11 parts per billion of perchlorate, and then disbelieve those same tests when they show that an inexpensive under-the-sink reverse-osmosis system will remove those perchlorates, as well as other contaminants. Olin has not been faultless through this whole sorry saga. The company contaminated the ground water to begin with. It resisted testing the groundwater flowing north of its former road flare factory. It stopped providing bottled water to families whose water tested below 6 ppb as soon as the public health goal was set at 6 ppb. But neither has the company been a villain. It has provided bottled water to families whose wells tested above 6 ppb for perchlorate. It has hired a top-rated consultant to oversee its cleanup efforts. The company’s have removed the worst of the contaminated soil and laced it with calcium magnesium acetate and gypsum to spur growth of anaerobic bacteria which eat the perchlorate. Their efforts so far have lowered the perchlorate levels at the site from thousands of parts per billion to less than 100. The plaintiffs have a right to sue. The Seventh Amendment guarantees that right: “In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed $20, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved....” But the jury has a right, too. The jury has a right to decide that the plaintiffs’ claims are based on hysteria or greed, rather than truth or justice or common sense. The jury has a right, nay, a duty, to infuse a little justice and a little common sense into this suit at common law. We hope that they will do so. Gilroy Dispatch ***************************************************************** 37 Las Vegas SUN: DOE turns over subpoenaed documents in Yucca Mountain inquiry Today: July 22, 2005 at 17:38:5 PDT By ERICA WERNER ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON (AP) - The Energy Department on Friday turned over more than 1,600 pages of subpoenaed documents to a congressional panel investigating possible paperwork fraud on the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump in Nevada. However, the subcommittee chairman heading the investigation, Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., said that some of the documents he demanded were missing. "There's not a reason addressed, and we will find out and we'll move forward, and if they choose to not be in full compliance we then have available to us to move forward with a contempt of Congress" action, Porter said. Energy Department spokesman Craig Stevens said Porter's request involved thousands of documents and the department was as responsive as possible in the two days it was given. "It is only natural that it would take more time to assemble additional documents in light of the scope of his request," Stevens said. "Any additional existing documents that would be responsive to his request will be produced." Porter's panel, a subcommittee of the House Government Reform Committee, is investigating e-mails written between 1998 and 2000 by government scientists suggesting they made up details of their work on Yucca and kept two sets of books, one for themselves and one to satisfy quality-assurance officials. The Energy Department declined to turn over papers he requested as part of the probe, instead offering to make them available in a department reading room so that he wouldn't be able to release them publicly. In response, Porter subpoenaed a list of documents including personnel records of the scientists involved, organizational charts and records related to the Energy Department's scientific review of the purported falsifications. Much of the information was turned over Friday, but one piece was not - the Energy Department's draft of the license application it must submit to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in order to build the dump. Nevada officials have long sought that document. In a letter to Porter earlier this week, DOE acting general counsel Eric Fygi complained that the scope of Porter's inquiry threatened to "metastasize without discrete bounds." Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is planned as a national repository for 77,000 tons of spent commercial reactor fuel and high-level defense waste. The opening date has been repeatedly delayed and is now expected in 2012 or later. --- On the Net: Yucca Mountain project: http://www.ymp.gov All contents copyright 2005 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 38 Pahrump Valley Times: Yucca Mountain is a wasteland alright, right in our backyard July 22, 2005 COMMUNITY VIEWPOINT By SALLY DEVLIN When our great federal government gives money for Yucca Mountain with no strings attached, what can you do? What the Department of Energy does is write 500-plus page quarterly reports that contain all the computer models that they can devise on every subject. DOE puts disclaimers on every page and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission puts its disclaimer in too. For those of us who are a bit computer savvy these modeled probabilities on paper (7,000,000 pages so far for NRC to read for the licensing) keep the laboratories and university laboratories in "the big green." In 1997 microbic invasion and the colloidal movement of water were introduced into the science. Inside the current Y.M. 5-mile tunnel add fungi (mold, mildew) everywhere in this fractured, fissured mine. The radio nuclides in the droplets of water will seep through the proposed 100 miles of tunnels and destroy the drip shields and canisters and the engineered barriers in a couple of years. There is no design after all these years for a mine or tunnel of 100 miles. There never has been a tested prototype for the canister that will (not) last for 10 years much less 300 years (retrieval of waste?). "Ingrid Bergman," the volcano, is just 12 miles from the proposed repository. If the DOE possesses tephra divination skills, what would happen if 125-mile winds blew when "Ingrid" blows up? We have no health department in Nye County. Our overworked sheriffs, fire and emergency management personnel would have to handle any accidents, medical emergencies and all other contingencies that could and will occur with the most dangerous project ever proposed for this nation. How do we get locally elected officials, elected federal government officials, government bureaucratic agencies to be responsible to the people who pay their salaries? Twelve billion dollars has been spent on this mine hole. If we the public join together maybe we can find solutions for the HLW waste problem and stop this fraud. If you the public have ideas, solutions, concepts, etc., please let me know your opinions. Let's stop this waste! Devlin writes from Pahrump. For comment or questions, please e-mail webmaster@pahrumpvalleytimes.com Copyright © Pahrump Valley Times, 1997 - 2005 ***************************************************************** 39 Pahrump Valley Times: Yucca suppository July 22, 2005 It's encouraging to see public meetings will be held by federal agencies responsible for storage of nuclear waste at the Yucca Mountain Repository (PVT June 22). But why (fer gossake!) will future meetings be held in Las Vegas? Is it so federal agencies can affirmatively assuage the public that no nuclear waste will be transported through Clark County for storage at a site 100 miles north of Las Vegas in Nye County? Perhaps it will be the only opportunity for the reporting authorities to say something truthful and they don't want to miss the golden opportunity. Wouldn't it be more logical to hold public meetings at a location encouraging attendance by the residents affected? Pahrump first comes to mind, but since it is located on a different flood plain and aquifer, why not hold the meeting in Amargosa Valley, or Beatty, or both? Oh, they don't want to be forced to tap dance and give dishonest answers to residents with the most legitimate concerns regarding nuclear waste stored just 20 miles from their backyard, with the possibility of polluting the aquifer we all depend on. Perhaps by that time, the residents of Nye County will have evacuated the potential wasteland and it will no longer be a concern. Isn't that so typical? Let's avoid the issue and perhaps it will go away. I do not attribute blame to the Bush administration any more than every administration since the Nevada Test Site first opened for business in 1951. They are all equally to blame, and equally ineffective in their solutions. W. E. LOPEZ CRYSTAL For comment or questions, please e-mail webmaster@pahrumpvalleytimes.com Copyright © Pahrump Valley Times, 1997 - 2005 ***************************************************************** 40 AU ABC: Ranger Mine closure to cost $176m, says ERA. 22/07/2005. ABC Update: Friday, July 22, 2005. 1:00pm (AEST) The operator of the Northern Territory's Ranger uranium mine says it could cost $176 million to close the mine down. In a statement to the Australian Stock Exchange today, Energy Resources of Australia (ERA) also reported a $3 million increase in net profit. The Ranger uranium mine, surrounded by Kakadu National Park, is expected to cease operations in 2008, with processing to continue until 2011. ERA has informed the stock exchange it has developed a mine closure model which provides estimates of the technical, environmental and social costs. The company says while the model will be adjusted over the coming years it predicts the mine's closure will come at a cost of $176 million. ERA has reported a profit of $17 million for the six months to June 20 this year, compared to $14 million for the same period last year. ***************************************************************** 41 KRNV: Management shake-up continues at Yucca Mountain project in Nevada A management shake-up is continuing at the Yucca Mountain project in Nevada. Officials say Denny Brown is leaving after three years as director of quality assurance at the site Congress and the Bush administration picked to entomb the nation's nuclear waste. The announcement yesterday came a day after officials confirmed the resignation of Joseph Ziegler as the Energy Department's director of Yucca Mountain licensing. Earlier this month, project management company Bechtel SAIC said John Mitchell, the president and general manager of the Yucca project, was being reassigned. Project officials have denied the job changes have anything to do with questions that have been raised about quality controls at the project. In another development, an aide to Congressman Jon Porter says the Government Accountability Office is sending auditors to Las Vegas next week to measure Energy Department efforts to improve quality assurance. Information from: Las Vegas Review-Journal, http://www.lvrj.com (Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.) Copyright 2001 - 2005 WorldNow and KRNV. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 42 Globe and Mail: Uranium deal with China questioned Chinese general's comment raises concern Canadian product may be used in weapons By GEOFFREY YORK Friday, July 22, 2005 Page A12 BEIJING -- Canada's potential uranium exports to China are being questioned by environmental and disarmament groups after a Chinese general suggested that Beijing might use nuclear weapons in a war with the United States. Chinese government officials and investors have been visiting Canadian uranium companies in recent months to scout for uranium. With 30 nuclear reactors planned in China over the next 15 years, Beijing needs uranium to fuel its $40-billion nuclear-power expansion, and it is considering Canada as a key source. Activists are worried Canadian uranium would find its way into China's nuclear-weapons program. Those concerns grew deeper after the controversial comments by a senior Chinese military officer, who warned that China could destroy hundreds of U.S. cities with nuclear weapons if a future conflict over Taiwan escalates. "If the Americans draw their missiles and position-guided ammunition onto the target zone on China's territory, I think we will have to respond with nuclear weapons," said Zhu Chenghu, a major-general in the People's Liberation Army and a professor at China's National Defence University. "We, Chinese, will prepare ourselves for the destruction of all of the cities east of Xian," the general told an official briefing last week. "Of course, the Americans will have to be prepared that hundreds of cities will be destroyed by the Chinese." The Chinese government later said the general was giving only his personal opinion. But U.S. officials sharply criticized the comments, calling them "highly irresponsible." While China has signed international treaties pledging that its civilian nuclear program will be kept strictly separated from its military program, Canadian activists are skeptical of those promises. "The nuclear posturing by the Chinese military increases the concern that uranium sales to China could contribute to their nuclear-weapons program," said Dave Martin, energy co-ordinator at Greenpeace Canada. "China is surrounded by nuclear flashpoints in Taiwan, the Korean peninsula and the Indian subcontinent. Uranium sales to China would make Canada complicit in a new and dangerous regional arms race." Despite China's promises, there isn't a clear distinction between its civilian and military nuclear programs, Mr. Martin said. "Further sales of Canadian uranium to China would inevitably contribute, directly or indirectly, to China's nuclear-weapons program. At the very least, Canadian uranium will free up China's other supplies of uranium to be used for nuclear weapons." Norman Rubin, director of nuclear research at Energy Probe in Toronto, said Canada should not export uranium to an authoritarian regime that lacks any public control of its nuclear establishment. The exports could make it easier for China to share its nuclear technology with rogue states and unstable regimes, he said. "If we stop exporting uranium to nuclear-weapons states, they could have to choose between fuelling their power reactors and building more bombs," he added. The Chinese general's comments about a possible nuclear attack on the United States have raised doubts about China's promises that it would never launch a first nuclear strike against any country, said Ernie Regehr, director of Project Ploughshares, a peace group sponsored by Canadian churches. Canadian International Trade Minister Jim Peterson, responding to the criticism from environmental groups, said he has full confidence in Canada's export-permit system. "Each application is looked at individually, and departments throughout the government are consulted," he said in a statement to The Globe and Mail yesterday. "We research [each application] to ensure that exports are going to be used in the manner they are meant to be used." Mr. Peterson said he is satisfied with the safeguards that China accepted under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and its subsequent protocols. Search globeandmail.com Friday, July 22, 2005 ***************************************************************** 43 Brattleboro Reformer: Dry cask storage case may take a year to settle July 22, 2005 Brattleboro, VT By CAROLYN LORIE Reformer Staff BRATTLEBORO -- The Vermont Public Service Board has scheduled a pre-hearing conference for Aug. 10 in the Vermont Yankee dry cask storage case. The conference will be held in Montpelier and will set a date for hearings on the case. It marks the beginning of a process that some are predicting will take at least a year to complete. Plant officials are seeking permission to install large concrete and steel containers, called dry casks, to store used, or spent, nuclear fuel assemblies. Spent fuel at the plant is currently stored in a 40-feet deep pool in the reactor building that is reportedly filled to near capacity. As it did in the sale and "uprate" cases, the nuclear watchdog the New England Coalition plans to intervene before the board. According to Ray Shadis, technical advisor to the coalition, the group does not oppose dry cask storage but wants to insure that the project is done in the safest way possible. "We want dry cask storage in the context of addressing the problem as a whole. Our goal here is to see the best possible and practicable protection," said Shadis. The Citizens Awareness Network, another anti-nuclear group, will most likely intervene as well. Deb Katz, the executive director of the Massachusetts chapter, said the organization had to first insure that it could fund the undertaking, but was "90 percent certain" it would enter the case. "We are very concerned about what kind of casks are put on the site," said Katz. She said that concerns about security top the list. In June, the Vermont Legislature approved a bill allowing Vermont Yankee officials to file their application with the board. The vote followed months of negotiations between the company and the Legislature and drew criticism from some local residents who felt it didn't go far enough to protect the state. Copyright ©1999-2005 New England Newspapers, Inc., ***************************************************************** 44 New Standard: Renewal at Los Alamos Weapons Lab Resurrects Deeper Debate While a bidding war for control of the US’s top nuke facility pairs two state universities with two corporations, critics are asking questions that won’t appear in either team’s proposal. Jul 22 - As the 60th anniversary of the nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki approaches, one of the nation’s top nuclear weapons laboratories is seeking new management. Or more accurately, the Department of Energy is sponsoring a competitive bidding war for control of the Los Alamos National Laboratory – the first since the lab’s secretive genesis during World War II as the Manhattan Project, the birthplace of the bombs that devastated out those Japanese cities. But the contest over who will run the nation’s premier nuclear arms facility has prompted activists to ask harder questions than just those concerning who will operate the facility safer and more efficiently. Some critics challenge the very wisdom of what they see as an administration trudging headlong into another nuclear arms race. Many anti-nuclear activists and lab watchers see the debate over who should manage Los Alamos as obscuring a critical discussion of the role nuclear weapons play in the world today. On one side of the contract face-off is the University of California, which has run Los Alamos for over 60 years. UC is paired up with Bechtel, the global engineering firm best known for its enormous, largely unfulfilled contracts to help rebuild Iraq’s war-torn public infrastructure. On the other side of the bidding war is the University of Texas, which has aggressively sought management of a national lab since 1996. UT is joined by Lockheed-Martin, the world’s top defense contractor and manager of Sandia National Laboratory in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Both groups have also added smaller contractors with experience managing components of the nuclear weapons complex as junior partners. Meanwhile, the UT-Lockheed team has involved thirty universities listed as an "Alliance Academic Network" in its portfolio. Proposals from the two consortiums were due July 19, and the Department of Energy will pick a new management team by December 1. The bidding war for Los Alamos has shaken the lab community and inspired a debate over who can best run the $2.2 billion a year operation. Most Los Alamos employees are not concerned with questions about the country’s weapons policy, according to Greg Mellow with the Los Alamos Study Group, a research organization that promotes disarmament. Instead, said Mellow, they "are mostly concerned about pensions, working conditions, and their identities as scientists." There are misgivings among some employees at the lab about working for a corporation, said Mellow, who claimed most people there prefer to consider their workplace an academic institution. "People say, ‘If I wanted to work for a corporation, I would have done so earlier in my career,’" relayed Mellow. Arms control advocates fear that the Los Alamos competition is designed, in part, to make way for a resumption of warhead production. But many anti-nuclear activists and lab watchers see the debate over who should manage Los Alamos as obscuring a critical discussion of the role nuclear weapons play in the world today. Hugh Gusterson, an MIT anthropologist who has written two books based on his experience living and studying the culture of nuclear weapons labs, sees both bids as "conservative" in that they are headed by people entrenched in the weapons bureaucracy. "The real question is, ‘Do you need two nuclear weapons labs?’" Gusterson added, referring to Los Alamos and its "sister" lab in California, Lawrence-Livermore. Arjun Makhijani, an engineer and president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, a nonprofit organization that strives to make science accessible to laypersons, is even more blunt. "I have a date when I think the [University of California] should have gotten out of the nuclear weapons business," Makhijani said. "December, 1944 – when it was discovered that Germany did not have the Bomb." Los Alamos is a flashpoint for arms control advocates because the facility is responsible for an estimated 80 percent of the nuclear weapons ever designed in the United States. In addition, lab administrators have historically had a hand in championing nuclear weapons and pooh-poohing arms control agreements and bans on testing, said Jackie Cabasso of the Western States Legal Foundation, an advocacy organization that specializes in supporting anti-nuclear activism. Paul Robinson, who stepped down as the CEO of the Sandia operation to run the UT-Lockheed bid and will be director of Los Alamos if his team wins, has been a proponent of new, low-yield nuclear weapons such as so-called "mini-nukes" and "bunker-buster" warheads designed to take out deeply entrenched targets. In a 2001 "white paper" Robinson argued for a transformation of the nuclear stockpile, including the re-design of existing warheads and the development of low-yield nukes, to deal with "To Whom It May Concern" enemies, a term applied to any non-Russian states or terrorist groups Naturally, Robinson also backed President Bush’s push – and Congress’s 2003 decision – to repeal the 1994 ban on low-yield nuclear weapons. Because the national labs rely almost entirely on federal funding, officials such as Robinson often find themselves promoting nuclear weapons to lawmakers. Los Alamos National Laboratory and the companies associated with whichever team wins the bidding war are positioned to benefit from the largesse of a nuclear arms revival. President Bush has consistently asked Congress to fund new nuclear weapons; increased production of plutonium pits, the part of the bomb that renders it atomic; and a facelift to the Nevada Test Site in order to reduce the amount of time it would take to resume underground nuclear testing. But Congress has trimmed most of the Bush administration’s requests for the past four years. Still, many arms control advocates fear that the Los Alamos competition is designed, in part, to make way for a resumption of warhead production. Several Los Alamos critics have fingered plutonium pit production as a key to Los Alamos’s future. As part of the competition, bidders will be rewarded for demonstrating how they will meet the perceived need for more plutonium pits – ones that could go to refresh older warheads or be installed in new ones. Currently, the lab is the only site in the US that can produce a pit certified for installation in a functional nuclear weapon. But a "Modern Pit Facility," capable of producing up to 450 pits per year, could find a home at Los Alamos. "The sense in Congress is that Los Alamos is really troubled," said Carah Ong, director of the Washington DC office of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and a lobbyist for that organization. Congress thinks Los Alamos "needs some results-oriented focus," she told The NewStandard.. "That’s where pit production comes in because it gives Los Alamos the unique value that Congress is looking for." Some Los Alamos critics are not sitting on the sidelines for the lab war games. Nuclear Watch in New Mexico and Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment (CAREs) in California have joined forces and sent the Department of Energy their alternative plan for the lab. Unlike UT-Lockheed and UC-Bechtel, the two watchdog groups are making their proposal public. "Our emphasis is a pretty radical mission change by truly discouraging the proliferation of nuclear weapons through concrete example," Jay Coghlan of the activist group Nuclear Watch New Mexico told TNS. "We are proposing a fundamental realignment of the nuclear weapons program," he explained, by creating an Associate Directorship of Nuclear Nonproliferation. That position would be "responsible for encouraging and verifying compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty." Nuclear weapons-related projects would have to answer to the nonproliferation director. This restructuring aligns with Nuclear Watch and Tri-Valley CAREs’ "proposed program of maintaining [but not advancing] nuclear weapons while they await dismantlement," according to the organizations’ press release. © 2005 The NewStandard. See our reprint policy. Online sources used in this news article: C. Paul Robinson: "Pursuing a New Nuclear Weapons Policy for the 21st Century" [Commentary/Analysis] Nuclear Watch / Tri-Valley ***************************************************************** 45 Tri-City Herald: Laid-off pipefitters finally get day in court This story was published Friday, July 22nd, 2005 By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer Eleven pipefitters who believe they lost their Hanford jobs for speaking up about safety concerns or supporting those who did finally brought their case before a Benton County jury Thursday. The case was filed six years ago but has been delayed by appeals that have gone all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. "All are persons of integrity who decided to put their integrity above their job security," said attorney Jack Sheridan, representing the pipefitters, who installed or welded pipes at the Department of Energy's Hanford nuclear reservation. Randy Squires, attorney for Fluor Federal Services, agreed the 11 pipefitters were highly skilled and good workers. But "there are no jobs that last forever," he said. From 1997 through 2000, the number of pipefitters needed for declining construction projects dropped from 73 to 45 and good workers had to be laid off, he said. The incident that started the case has long since been resolved. In 1997, a crew of seven pipefitters at what is now Fluor Federal Services objected when they were told to install a valve rated for 1,975 pounds per square inch for a test of radioactive waste pipes that would need to withstand 2,235 pounds per square inch. The crew was later laid off but a settlement was reached that required Fluor Federal Services to rehire them. That's when the current case begins. Foremen on the construction project were told they would have to lay off seven other pipefitters to bring the first seven back on the job, Sheridan said. Angered, they picked four people for the layoff who had supported the original whistleblowers, including supporter Jessie Jaymes, who brought pies to the lunchroom to celebrate after the settlement agreement, Sheridan said. In the note that accompanied the new "seven for seven" layoff list, the foremen wrote that the layoffs were because they'd been required to take back the seven workers and did not reflect who would better the ranks of the Hanford pipefitters. Next among the plaintiffs to be laid off was pipefitter David Faubion, who had held his job since the 1970s without any previous layoffs. Sheridan said Faubion carpooled with one of the original whistleblower pipefitters, despite being warned against it. Sheridan told the jury that the general foreman for the project, the one who ordered the underrated valve installed, asked how soon he could lay off the seven pipefitters who had been reinstated as part of the settlement agreement. He was told they must remain on the job for six months, Sheridan said. Seven and eight months after they'd reclaimed their jobs, five were laid off, Sheridan said. They also are plaintiffs in the suit. The last plaintiff to join the case, Chuck Cable, was laid off in 2000 after he was called for questioning under oath in the case. He testified he'd been told by a foreman that the last two of the original whistleblowers could not be laid off until the legal case concluded to protect against the appearance of retaliation, Sheridan said. In the past, Hanford contractors have found work for pipefitters to keep them from being laid off during slow times, Sheridan said. When contractors apply to the pipefitters local to hire someone, they have to take whomever the local decides to send, even if they lack valuable Hanford experience. Training a worker with no experience at the Hanford nuclear reservation would cost Fluor Federal Services about $17,000, Sheridan said. Because pipefitters could stay on a job for decades, Hanford jobs were prized, he said. Typically, pipefitters have to travel from job to job, often far from their families, and find new work each time a construction project ends, Sheridan said. "Hanford every year is becoming more like other construction projects," Squires countered. "You are losing a lot of people who have been there a long time." The days when contractors could carry temporarily unneeded pipefitters ended in 1996 with new requirements that workers' hours be charged to specific projects, Squires said. The seven pipefitters who won the settlement requiring them to be rehired knew there was no guarantee that they would not be laid off again, and possibly very soon, as construction work at the site declined, he said. The pipefitters are asking for lost wages, some claiming more than $100,000. They've been unable to find enough pipefitting work to equal the annual wages of about $60,000 to $75,000 that pipefitters who continued working at Hanford received, Sheridan said. They also are requesting emotional damages. In addition to Jaymes, Faubion and Cable, plaintiffs include Shane O'Leary, Pedro Nicacio, James Stull, Clyde Killen, Randall Walli, Scott Brundridge, Ray Richardson and Don Hodgin. The trial is expected to last through much, if not all, of August. © 2005 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press &Other Wire Services ***************************************************************** 46 Oakland Tribune: Lab's new computer exceeds expectations Article Last Updated: 07/22/2005 02:44:41 AM Purple, which simulates H-bomb explosions, is world's 3rd fastest By Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER Tech giant IBM and nuclear weapons scientists are to announce today that the nation's latest supercomputer for simulating H-bomb blasts is more powerful than its original design. The new machine at Lawrence Livermore weapons lab, named Purple in keeping with the color-coded scheme for weapons computers, has proved capable of 111 trillion calculations per second. That makes the 300-ton Purple the world's third-fastest computer, with about a tenth more speed than scientists originally sought. Bomb physicists are especially cheered because they suspect Purple will mark a milestone. Since nuclear testing ended in 1992, they have relied on massive pieces of software, millions of lines of code, to simulate the physics of H-bomb detonation and verify the weapons work. Until now, they have been unable to simulate the entire bomb "from button to boom," as bomb physicists say, in three dimensions and with enough detail to have confidence in a weapon's reliability. Instead they have broken a detonation lasting millionths of a second into chunks, and run weeks-long simulations on each piece. Livermore's Purple is likely to be the first computer capable of a full 3-D simulation, though the calculations ----------------------------------------------------------------- Advertisement ----------------------------------------------------------------- will still take weeks if slightly less due to the faster performance. Weaponeers expect the new IBM machine will be their workhorse for the next several years, running simulations small and large in lieu of actual nuclear explosions. Some expect the supercomputer will allow scientists to reassure the Pentagon and the president that aging or refurbished weapons will continue to work as designed and — perhaps something more controversial — provide virtual testing for entirely new nuclear bombs and warheads. In a recent report to Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, a panel of experts concluded that weapons scientists will be able to design replacements for every weapon in the U.S. arsenal and build them without ever exploding one, relying instead on Purple and its successors. Contact Ian Hoffman at ihoffman@angnewspapers.com. © 2005 ANG Newspapers ***************************************************************** 47 lamonitor.com: LANL's academic network compared The Online News Source for Los Alamos ROGER SNODGRASS, , Monitor Assistant Editor A Los Alamos National Laboratory official said the lab's current network of academic alliances is already three times the number the University of Texas System has included in its proposal with Lockheed Martin for managing Los Alamos National Laboratory. "We'd have to cut way back to get down to 33 agreements and partnerships with universities in this country; and we'd have to get rid of a fair amount of classified research and developmental projects as well," said Terry Lowe, acting program manager of LANL's Science and Technology Base Programs (STB) Office. He added the LANL program just signed an agreement with the University of Texas Austin last week. He said he was not familiar with the UTS plan, but could speak about the current laboratory program. Kicking off the Lockheed Martin-UTS bid for the LANL contract, Chancellor Mark Yudof announced a Network for Education and Research in Science and Technology. He said it would bring a "formidable array of resources" integrated through UTS into the management structure. During a press conference on Tuesday, he said it was an open-ended list that included 33 institutions so far. "It is very important that this lab not be isolated," Yudof said, describing the UTS academic network as "the best of the best." Dr. Robert Barnhill, UTS vice president for research and tech transfer said in a telephone conversation, "The members of this network were chosen for specific expertise and purposes. They are targeted in areas that will be going on at the lab itself." Only a few of the institutions named by Yudof are not already formally related to LANL. "We have relationships with over a 100 institutions, not just in this country, but in 48 different countries," Lowe said. Among the agreements under current UC management, LANL has formal contracts at the board-of-regent level with the University of New Mexico, New Mexico State University, and New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology that are each funded with a budget commitment of $500,000 per year on a five-year renewable contract. Yudof said that the New Mexico universities were not currently involved in the Lockheed-UTS partnership, because of exclusive agreements with UC. "We want them involved," he said. "And they will be included if we're successful in our bid." Charles Sorber, a special engineering advisor to the chancellor, said, "Unlike the recent benevolence of UC to throw money at institutions, we will ask institutions in our network and individuals in that network to be actively engaged in peer review with folks at Los Alamos, in their areas of expertise." Lowe said the relationship with the New Mexico universities was appropriate considering that 25 percent of degrees earned by LANL have come from New Mexico schools. California is second with 8.4 percent; and Texas, third with 6.5 pecent. A spokesman for Los Alamos National Security (LANS), the partnership of UC and a Bechtel-led team of technology companies, said the New Mexico relationships were just what LANS wanted. "They are right there in the state, understand the workforce, economic needs and resources in the community," Chris Harrington said. "They are in close proximity and understand what the lab is doing." At the same time, he noted the discussion about alliances is somewhat academic, since it compares what currently happens at LANL to what Lockheed-UTS proposes, without reference to what will happen if UC-Bechtel wins. That aspect of the UC-Bechtel proposal, the LANS concept for fostering and maintaining scientific excellence at the lab, is considered sensitive in the competition and has not yet been revealed. The next manager of the LANL contract will be a new entity, regardless of which of the two main bidders wins, and will inherit LANL's current alliances and obligations in any case. © 2003 Los Alamos Monitor All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 48 Rocky Mountain News: Sen. Salazar aims to prod agencies on Flats plans By M.E. Sprengelmeyer, Rocky Mountain News July 22, 2005 WASHINGTON - Sen. Ken Salazar has flexed some procedural muscle in the hope of getting the Rocky Flats Wildlife Refuge plans moving, but Sen. Wayne Allard's office thinks that could do more harm than good. Salazar, D-Denver, used his senator's prerogative Thursday to place a hold on three nominations for top jobs in the Department of Energy and another in the Department of Interior. It's meant to prod the two agencies into wrapping up their negotiations on a mineral-rights issue that is one of the last hang-ups before the site of a former nuclear weapons plant can be transferred to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "I don't oppose the nominees," Salazar said in an interview. "I think they're good people. This is my way of getting two agencies to agree that they're going to come together and develop the agreements with respect to the long-term management of Rocky Flats." The move surprised Allard, who has worked on the Rocky Flats issue in Congress since before Salazar took office. "Sen. Allard is concerned this action may have made things more difficult to achieve," chief of staff Sean Conway said. "I think we were literally days away from an agreement. Sen. Allard's concern is these people have been working with us in good faith. All of a sudden, their willingness to work with us gets rewarded by this?" The mineral rights under the Rocky Flats land belong to private owners. The Department of Energy plans to buy those rights and then transfer them to the Department of Interior before the land becomes a wildlife refuge. Salazar's hold delays Senate confirmation votes on four nominations: Coloradan R. Thomas -Weimer to become Interior's assistant secretary for policy, management and budget; Jill Sigal to become Energy's assistant secretary for intergovernmental affairs; David R. Hill, to become Energy's general counsel; and James Rispoli to become Energy's assistant secretary for environmental management. Senators occasionally place such holds when they want to send a message to government agencies, though they do not always announce them publicly. Salazar said that Allard placed a temporary hold earlier this year on an Army undersecretary's nomination because he was concerned about the handling of the chemical weapons depot cleanup in Pueblo. Though Conway said a Rocky Flats agreement already was close to being reached, Salazar said he saw "no movement." "It's time for me to simply get a commitment from these individuals that they will complete the mission," Salazar said. © Rocky Mountain News ***************************************************************** NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: *****************************************************************