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NUCLEAR POLICY
1 Reuters: US calls Iran backtracking on nuke threat positive
2 Reuters: EU holds back call for urgent nuclear talks on Iran
3 Reuters: Iran says it hopes for nuclear restart on Wednesday
4 Guardian Unlimited: U.N. Agency Urges Iran Against Activity
5 IPS-English NORTH KOREA-NUKE PROGRAMME: It's economy not
6 Japan Times: Resume talks with North: think tank
7 Reuters: N.Korea crisis talks totter into no man's land
8 Reuters: China battles to save Korea nuclear talks
9 Guardian Unlimited: North Korea Hedges on Nuclear Statement
10 Guardian Unlimited: N. Korea Talks May End Without Agreement
11 US: Op-ed: Nuclear Power - The ³Other White
12 US: t r u t h o u t: George Monbiot | The Treaty Wreckers
13 US: Roanoke Times: Energy bill is lawmakers' crudest, blindest hour
14 US: Hampton Daily Press: Cost of Texas sub now up 24 percent
15 US: Press Herald: Bush says closures won't be political
16 Atom Bomb 60th Anniversary: * Japanese Survivors Speak *
17 [NukeNet] US Suppressed Footage of Hiroshima for Decades
18 BBC: How Britain helped Israel get the bomb
19 BBC: UK helped Israel get nuclear bomb
20 EDITOR & PUBLISHER: SPECIAL REPORT: Hiroshima Film Cover-up Exposed
21 SF Chronicle: HIROSHIMA: Reconciling the Memories /
22 Sify: Vajpayee seeks national debate on nuclear deal
23 Japan Times: China buildup on Defense Agency radar
24 Japan Times: Hiroshima mayor seeks antinuclear committee at U.N.
25 Reuters: U.S. suppressed footage of Hiroshima for decades
26 UK The Times: Old enemies' wargames send a powerful message to the U
27 Guardian Unlimited: US kept in the dark as secret nuclear deal was s
NUCLEAR REACTORS
28 BBC: Planning law challenge launched
29 canadaeast.com: Lepreau plan points to power price pinch
NUCLEAR SECURITY
NUCLEAR SAFETY
30 US: NRC: NRC Proposes Further Strengthening Drug-Testing and Worker
31 US: Battle Creek Enquirer: Depleted uranium is not harmless
32 US: IEER Report: Bad to the Bone
33 US: IEER Report: Bad to the Bone
34 asahi.com: 160 caught twice in radioactive fallout
NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
35 AU ABC: Residents voice concerns over nuclear dump
36 AU ABC: 'Super floods' raised as nuke dump hazard
37 AU ABC: NT nuclear dump site row intensifies
38 Las Vegas RJ: Group: Water standard for radioactivity unsafe
39 Las Vegas SUN: Report: EPA should update nuke levels for drinking wa
40 AU ABC: Ancient Worlds News: Shifting rivers cast doubt on nuclear d
41 Nuc News: Yucca Mountain QA 101
42 AU ABC: Call for information on NT dump plans -
43 US: AU ABC: Macfarlane happy with Ranger uranium mine.
44 US: PittsburghLIVE.com: Doubts about nuclear waste resurface -
45 Mos News: Environmentalists Warn Europe Illegally Dumping Uranium Wa
46 North-West Evening Mail: Nuke waste details stored on paper
47 Pahrump Valley Times: Yucca application at least six months away
PEACE
48 Scoop: 60 Years: Hiroshima-Nagasaki A-Bomb Exhibition
49 asahi.com: Duarte: Allowing nuclear treaty to collapse not an option
US DEPT. OF ENERGY
50 The State: S.C. delegates tout SRS
51 DOE: Agency information collection activities: Proposed collection;
52 Courier Journal: Energy Secretary Bodman visits Paducah plant
53 BoiseWeekly: A Glimpse of our Glowing Future
54 DOE: Notice of Preferred Sodium Bearing Waste Treatment Technology
55 RedNova News: Team Looking into Spread of LANL Contaminant
56 lamonitor.com: Contaminant traced to Kansas and Colorado
57 Paducah Sun: Bunning, Bodman to tour Paducah plant -
58 Paducah Sun: Bodman urges workers to find future use for plant -
59 Tri-City Herald: DOE unlikely to meet Hanford cleanup goal
60 AP Wire: Group tours SRS to see about nuclear power plant
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FULL NEWS STORIES
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1 Reuters: US calls Iran backtracking on nuke threat positive
Wed Aug 3, 2005 2:57 PM ET
(Adds quotes, background)
WASHINGTON, Aug 3 (Reuters) - The United States welcomed news
Iran had backed away from a threat to restart work at a uranium
conversion plant on Wednesday, a move that averted an immediate
crisis over the Islamic republic's nuclear program.
Faced with repeated warnings in recent days from the West not to
resume nuclear fuel activities, Iran said it now hoped to do so
by early next week.
"If they've heeded those calls, that's a good thing," said State
Department spokesman Tom Casey.
"It certainly is a positive thing that the steps that the
Iranians had previously suggested they would take have not
occurred," he added.
The West has warned a resumption would mean an end to two years
of negotiations on Iran's atomic ambitions and prompt moves to
report Tehran to the U.N. Security Council for possible
sanctions.
Iranian officials accuse European negotiators of breaking a 2004
deal under which Iran suspended nuclear fuel work, saying the EU
has dragged its heels in the talks started under that agreement.
But the resumption delay -- announced on Wednesday by chief
Iranian nuclear negotiator Hassan Rohani -- gives the European
Union time to make its planned offer of incentives for Iran to
freeze its nuclear fuel activities indefinitely.
The United States has backed Britain, France and Germany in
their negotiations with Iran but has agreed with those countries
that if talks fail, the Europeans would support a U.S. drive to
report Iran to the Security Council.
Iranian officials have repeatedly said they took an irreversible
decision to resume nuclear fuel work in the central city of
Isfahan, where they hope to convert uranium ore into feed gas for
centrifuges.
Centrifuges then enrich uranium by spinning it at supersonic
speed.
Tehran says it wants the uranium only to generate electricity
but the West suspects it aims to use it to make nuclear bombs.
© Reuters 2005.
All Rights Reserved.
*****************************************************************
2 Reuters: EU holds back call for urgent nuclear talks on Iran
Wed Aug 3, 2005 6:52 AM ET
BRUSSELS, Aug 3 (Reuters) - The European Union is holding back a
request for emergency U.N. talks on Iran's nuclear programme in
the hope of a diplomatic solution to its threat to resume uranium
ore conversion, an EU official said on Wednesday.
Britain, France and Germany, which have been negotiating with
Tehran on its nuclear ambitions, warned Iran on Tuesday that it
would bring the talks to an end by carrying out its declared
intention to restart conversion work at a plant in Isfahan this
week.
Iran said it hoped to restart the work, which the West says
could help it develop a bomb, on Wednesday despite pleas from the
EU and the International Atomic Energy Agency to hold off.
The official said the three European powers had not yet sent a
request for an emergency meeting of the IAEA board but that would
be the likely next move if it were confirmed that Iran had
actually resumed conversion.
"Clearly we have reached a critical juncture and this week will
be a crucial week for relations between Iran and EU," European
Commission spokesman Stefaan de Rynck told a daily news briefing.
"We are very concerned by the news of a possible resumption of
activity at Isfahan."
The three European powers are due to deliver a comprehensive
package of proposals for nuclear, economic and political
cooperation to the new Iranian government by Sunday after
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad takes office.
Ahmadijenad became president on Wednesday when he was formally
appointed by the country's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei.
EU officials said they still suspected Iran was ratcheting up
pressure to put the Europeans on the defensive but would not
actually make good on the threat to restart converting uranium
ore into a gas used for nuclear fuel enrichment.
"The feeling among our diplomats is that the irreparable has not
yet been committed," one said, adding that Tehran had an interest
in receiving the EU package before deciding whether to carry on
with the negotiations.
In an article for Germany's Capital magazine, EU foreign policy
chief Javier Solana again warned Tehran against seeking to enrich
uranium.
Ahmadinejad "faces a strategic choice: to continue down a road
that leads to isolation, or to decide on and reap the benefit of
international cooperation," Solana wrote, according to a summary
Capital released ahead of publication.
French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said on Tuesday
that Iran would be opening a major international crisis if it
resumed any of the nuclear enrichment-related activities which it
agreed in November 2004 to suspend for the duration of
negotiations with the EU3.
© Reuters 2005.
All Rights Reserved.
*****************************************************************
3 Reuters: Iran says it hopes for nuclear restart on Wednesday
Wed Aug 3, 2005 7:34 AM ET
By Parisa Hafezi
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran said it hoped to restart work at a
uranium conversion plant on Wednesday, rejecting Western appeals
to hold off completely and refusing to wait a week so U.N.
inspectors can monitor the activities.
The European Union has warned Iran any resumption of nuclear
fuel activities would mean an end to two years of talks over
Iran's atomic ambitions, which Tehran says are peaceful but which
the West suspects are aimed at making a bomb.
The EU would then back U.S. calls to start a process that could
end in the Islamic Republic being referred to the U.N. Security
Council for possible sanctions.
But the spokesman for Iran's Supreme National Security Council,
Ali Aghamohammadi, said inspectors from the International Atomic
Energy Agency and Iranian experts were already preparing the
plant near the central city of Isfahan.
"They are doing the executive work and we hope that today we
will be able to restart activities," he told reporters, on the
day Iran got a new, conservative President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Iranian officials have repeatedly said the decision to resume
nuclear fuel work was irreversible, but would be carried out
under the supervision of IAEA inspectors.
But the IAEA said it would take at least a week to send
surveillance equipment from its headquarters in Vienna and
install it in Isfahan.
"One week is not acceptable for Iran for the installation of
equipment," Aghamohammadi said. "Iran is hoping we will be able
to resume activities today."
The IAEA repeated its call for a delay.
"We need until the middle of next week to get our surveillance
equipment in place before any seals could be cut and nuclear
activities started," it said in a statement.
"The agency calls on Iran again not to start any activities in
Isfahan before the IAEA inspection system is in place."
Washington and the EU suspect Iran wants to build nuclear
weapons under the veil of a civilian atomic fuel programme.
The so-called EU3 of Britain, France and Germany has been
planning to offer Iran nuclear, political and economic incentives
to freeze its nuclear fuel activities indefinitely.
ROAD TO ISOLATION?
But the trio has said a resumption would torpedo two years of
hard bargaining and spark an international crisis.
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said Ahmadinejad faced "a
strategic choice, to continue down a road that leads to
isolation, or to decide on and reap the benefit of international
cooperation," in an article for Germany's Capital magazine,
according to a pre-publication summary.
Iran insists the EU recognise its right to enrich uranium,
something the bloc has refused to do.
Iranian officials accused the EU of breaking a 2004 deal which
suspended Iran's nuclear fuel work, saying the bloc has dragged
its heels in the talks started under that agreement.
Iran, like all signatories of the nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty, is obliged to open civilian nuclear sites to inspection.
Tehran has agreed to allow cameras at its facilities.
The EU3 said they were holding back a request for a special
session of the IAEA board of governors in the hope of a
diplomatic solution, an EU official said.
"Clearly we have reached a critical juncture and this week will
be a crucial week for relations between Iran and EU," a European
Commission spokesman said.
The conversion plant near Isfahan turns uranium ore into gas.
The gas is then enriched into fuel that could be used either in
power stations or to make weapons.
A new U.S. intelligence review estimates Iran is about 10 years
away from being able to build a nuclear bomb, The Washington Post
said on Tuesday.
President Ahmadinejad, taking office, made no specific mention
of the issue, but said: "Elements of global threat including
weapons of mass destruction, chemical and biological, which are
now in the hands of the hegemony must be eradicated."
In Iran's opaque political system, analysts are split on whether
top policy makers are somehow setting the stage for Ahmadinejad
to save the day with a new deal or whether he is subservient to
their greater national goals.
EU officials said they still suspected Iran was ratcheting up
pressure to put the Europeans on the defensive but would not
actually make good on the threat to restart converting uranium
ore into a gas used for nuclear fuel enrichment.
© Reuters 2005.
All Rights Reserved.
*****************************************************************
4 Guardian Unlimited: U.N. Agency Urges Iran Against Activity
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Wednesday August 3, 2005 11:01 PM
By SUSANNA LOOF
Associated Press Writer
VIENNA, Austria (AP) - The U.N. nuclear watchdog Wednesday urged
Iran not to resume uranium conversion until the agency can set
up a system to monitor the activity, which can be used for a
nuclear program.
In Iran, however, President-elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad railed
against nuclear weapons in a speech, saying the West should
disarm, and supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei suggested Iran
would continue with its nuclear program despite intense Western
pressure.
Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Hasan Rowhani, responded to the
U.N. request by saying Tehran would push back the reopening of
its uranium conversion plant in Isfahan until ``early next
week'' to give the International Atomic Energy Agency time to
install surveillance equipment inside the facility.
Tehran had threatened to resume uranium conversion at the plant
starting Wednesday, sparking harsh criticism from the European
Union, the United States and others.
The IAEA began urging the country earlier this week not to break
its seals at the plant until a surveillance system had been
installed.
While agency inspectors are now in Isfahan as part of a
previously planned routine inspection, they would only begin
``preparing for a restart of the conversion facility once the
surveillance equipment has arrived,'' agency spokeswoman Melissa
Fleming said.
``We have made it clear that we need until the middle of next
week to get our surveillance equipment in place before any seals
could be cut and nuclear activities started,'' Fleming added.
Iran had agreed with representatives from Britain, Germany and
France to freeze uranium conversion and related activities until
negotiations about the future of Iran's nuclear program were
finished. The country invited the IAEA to verify the suspension
beginning in November last year.
Uranium conversion produces uranium gas, the feedstock for
uranium enrichment. Highly enriched uranium can be used to make
weapons while uranium enriched to lower levels is used to
produce energy.
Washington accuses Iran of trying to produce nuclear weapons,
but Tehran insists its nuclear program is entirely peaceful.
In Tehran, Ahmadinejad spoke after receiving religious approval
from Iran's supreme leader, a key first step toward his taking
office.
``Global threats, including weapons of mass destruction,
chemical and biological weapons that are in the hands of
dominant powers should be dismantled,'' Ahmadinejad said.
Khamenei's tone was more defiant.
``All powers, and especially the Great Satan America, should
know that the Iranian people would not pay tribute to any
power,'' Khamenei said, employing the hard-line term for the
United States.
France, Britain and Germany have said they plan to seek an
emergency meeting of the IAEA board in coming days. The board
can report countries to the U.N. Security Council, which in turn
can impose sanctions.
The foreign ministers of the three European countries and Javier
Solana, the EU foreign policy chief, sent a letter to Tehran
authorities on Tuesday, urging Iran to refrain from resuming
conversion. The letter said EU negotiators would soon present
new incentives in return for Iran dropping its uranium
enrichment program and related activities.
In comments to the Hannover Neue Presse daily, German Chancellor
Gerhard Schroeder said he expected the European proposal to lead
to a peaceful resolution of the issue.
``I hope very much that the recommendations of the European
negotiators will lead to an amicable solution,'' Schroeder said.
``I hope very much that in the end reason will prevail.''
White House press secretary Scott McClellan said the Bush
administration ``continues to support the efforts by the
Europeans to resolve this matter diplomatically.''
``We have long-standing concerns about Iran's ambitions. Iran
made a commitment - the Paris agreement with Europeans - not to
restart their uranium enrichment and reprocessing activities
while the talks are ongoing, McClellan told reporters Wednesday
in Grapevine, Texas, where President Bush was making a speech.
``It's important for Iran to live up to that commitment and
abide by it. We've made it very clear as have the Europeans,
that we're prepared to pursue further course of action if
necessary.''
Britain's U.N. Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry said in New York that
what happens next depends on the Iranians' reaction to the EU
proposal the three EU countries will deliver by the end of the
week.
The package represents a beginning of a relationship with the
European Union to satisfy Iran's civilian nuclear energy
requirements and start a scientific, economic, political
relationship with Europe, Jones Parry said, adding that the
approach is supported by the United State.
``That's what's on offer,'' he told two reporters at U.N.
headquarters on Wednesday. ``That's not on offer if they embark
on a path which takes us towards enrichment and the prospect of
proliferation of nuclear weapon capacity.''
Jones Parry said he hopes the Iranians appreciate ``what a key
moment this is and why they should react what we would say,
positively, to the offer.''
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
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5 IPS-English NORTH KOREA-NUKE PROGRAMME: It's economy not
Date: Wed, 03 Aug 2005 17:50:01 -0700
autolearn=ham version=3.0.4
X-Spam-filter-host: darwin.ctyme.com - http://www.junkemailfilter.com
AP IP HD
NORTH KOREA-NUKE PROGRAMME: It's economy not nuclear weapons that rules the
world
Att.Editors: The following item is from the Emirates News Agency (WAM)
DUBAI, Aug. 3 (WAM) - A United Arab Emirates (UAE) daily has said developing
countries need to learn from developed nations that it is the economy that
counts not weapons.
"About time the developing countries learn a lesson or two from the rich
and developed world. It's not the weapons, nuclear or otherwise, that
dictate the balance of power in the 21st century but economic muscle and
clout.
"The developed world realised the folly of arms race in the last century
and is today completely focused on economy. It's economy, not nuclear arms,
that rules our world today," said 'Khaleej Times' in an editorial today.
The Dubai-based English language newspaper was commenting on the
different approaches by the developed and developing worlds to various
issues as the globe is observing the 60th anniversary of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki bombing.
The paper noted that while the developed world is cutting down on its
existing military strength, the developing world is chasing after more
lethal and destructive arms. It cited North Korea, which it said is one of
the poor and bankrupt states that are incredibly keen to lay their hands on
these dangerous arms perhaps to sate the delusions of grandeur of their
leaders.
"Ironically, many states in the developing world may not have enough
resources to feed their people but they are prepared to spend their precious
wherewithal on the efforts to have a nuke or two of their own," the paper
maintained.
It pointed out that few in the developing world appear to have woken up
to this strategic shift. To be fair, 'Khaleej Times' adds, Asia appears to
be catching up with the trend.
"China, ruled by Maoist dictators, appears to have got it right. It's
completely focused on building itself as an economic superpower as it
invades world markets," concluded the paper. (WAM)
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6 Japan Times: Resume talks with North: think tank
Wednesday, August 3, 2005
Staff report
Japan should seize the opportunity to resume normalization talks
with Pyongyang if major progress is made at the six-party talks
being held on North Korea's nuclear program in Beijing, experts
said Tuesday.
If the six parties can reach an initial agreement on conditions
for North Korea to abandon its nuclear program, Japan should
resume bilateral talks with Pyongyang and provide specific plans
on economic aid, according to a report compiled by the experts
on Japan-North Korea issues.
Such measures will help resolve other outstanding bilateral
issues, including North Korea's past abductions of Japanese
nationals, it says.
The report was released at a lecture Tuesday in Tokyo by the
Japan Institute of International Affairs, a
government-affiliated think tank.
Masao Okonogi, a professor of international relations at Keio
University, said Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, given his
close personal ties with U.S. President George W. Bush, has a
major role to play in encouraging the United States to continue
talking with North Korea.
The Japan Times: Aug. 3, 2005
(C) All rights reserved
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7 Reuters: N.Korea crisis talks totter into no man's land
Wed Aug 3, 2005 6:05 PM ET
By Brian Rhoads
BEIJING, Aug 4 (Reuters) - Six-party talks on North Korea's
nuclear crisis totter into a 10th day on Thursday with parties
appearing no closer to agreement on the scrapping of Pyongyang's
nuclear programmes.
Three previous rounds of talks failed to end the crisis, and --
meeting for the fourth time in two years -- negotiators from the
two Koreas, the United States, Japan, Russia and host China
appeared to be hurtling toward another abortive outcome after
failing to reach agreement on even a bland joint statement.
Japan's chief negotiator, Kenichiro Sasae, has declared that
another round of talks without agreement would call the entire
Beijing talks process into question -- an outcome which could
tempt Washington to take the issue to the U.N. Security Council.
That option has been opposed by Pyongyang's closest ally, China,
which has much at stake as host of the six-party talks, and by
North Korea, which has denounced the possibility of U.N.
sanctions as tantamount to war.
Weary envoys to marathon talks on the crisis agreed to meet for
a 10th day on Thursday as China battled to save the six-party
process from collapse.
With discussions deadlocked over ways of ending North Korea's
weapons programmes, the hosts offered a new draft of a proposed
joint statement of basic principles on which success now hangs.
Pyongyang has demanded energy aid, security guarantees and
diplomatic recognition in return for scrapping its nuclear
programmes. Washington has insisted the programmes are jettisoned
before the concessions flow.
"The United States and North Korea remain far apart over their
positions on key issues," said one Japanese delegate.
With tensions high, Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing and
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke by telephone on
Wednesday. The Foreign Ministry said the pair had exchanged views
on Sino-U.S. relations and "issues of common concern".
NARROWING DIFFERENCES
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said the
sides had been narrowing their differences over a possible joint
text but it was unclear whether negotiations would bear fruit.
"I think we're really getting to the end of the negotiating
process," Hill said.
"I'm not going to predict that it's over today or tomorrow, I
just don't know, but certainly in terms of the negotiating
process for this past 10 days, I think we are getting to the end
of this," he added.
Top South Korean envoy Song Min-soon said the latest Chinese
draft statement contained points on the North's dismantling of
the programmes and matching measures by the other parties.
Other points included supplying the energy-strapped North with
heavy fuel oil and electricity, a provision on the peaceful use
of nuclear energy by Pyongyang, and normalisation of its
relations with the United States and Japan.
Seoul's Yonhap news agency said it also contained points on
security guarantees and verification.
Intelligence experts estimate the North Koreans have stockpiled
enough plutonium for up to nine nuclear weapons.
The crisis erupted in October 2002 when U.S. officials
confronted the reclusive state with evidence it was violating
international protocol by pursuing a clandestine uranium
enrichment weapons programme.
The North Koreans responded by throwing out U.N. weapons
inspectors, abandoning the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and
restarting their mothballed Yongbyon reactor.
Pyongyang upped the stakes in February, announcing it now had
nuclear weapons and demanding aid, assurances and diplomatic
recognition from Washington in return for scrapping them.
This fourth round of six-party talks has been the most promising
in terms of an unprecedented level of contact between the U.S.
and North Korean delegations and the length of debate over the
joint statement.
© Reuters 2005.
All Rights Reserved.
*****************************************************************
8 Reuters: China battles to save Korea nuclear talks
Wed Aug 3, 2005 7:03 AM ET
By Jack Kim and Teruaki Ueno
BEIJING (Reuters) - Weary envoys to marathon talks on the Korean
nuclear crisis agreed on Wednesday to meet for a 10th day as
China battled to save the six-party process from collapse.
With discussions deadlocked over ways of ending North Korea's
weapons programmes, the hosts offered a new draft of a proposed
joint statement of basic principles on which success now hangs.
Delegates held a series of bilateral contacts during the morning
to discuss the text, the fourth draft so far, but no agreement
was reached, Xinhua news agency said.
An expected afternoon plenary session of the six top negotiators
never took place, but Xinhua said the parties would meet again on
Thursday.
In early evening, chief U.S. negotiator Christopher Hill left his
hotel for the Chinese state guesthouse, saying he would meet
Chinese officials and possibly the North Koreans.
"The United States and North Korea remain far apart over their
positions on key issues," a Japanese delegate told reporters.
With tensions high, Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing and U.S.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke by telephone on
Wednesday. The Foreign Ministry said the pair had exchanged views
on Sino-U.S. relations and "issues of common concern".
Failure in Beijing could mean Washington losing patience with the
whole six-party process and taking the debate to the U.N.
Security Council, a move certain to escalate the crisis. China
opposes such a step and North Korea has warned that any U.N.
sanctions would be tantamount to war.
"GETTING TO THE END"
"I think we're really getting to the end of the negotiating
process," Hill said.
"I'm not going to predict that's it's over today or tomorrow, I
just don't know, but certainly in terms of the negotiating
process for this past 10 days, I think we are getting to the end
of this," he added.
"Nothing's over around here, but I suspect the Chinese may want
further discussions and you know we'd be happy to do whatever the
host wants us to do so..." Hill said.
The crux of the dispute which has kept negotiators from the two
Koreas, the United States, Russia, Japan and China closeted now
for nine days is when Pyongyang should scrap its nuclear
programmes -- before, or after, it receives U.S. security
guarantees and aid.
Top South Korean envoy Song Min-soon said the latest Chinese
draft contained statements on the North's dismantling of the
programmes and matching measures by the other parties.
Points included supplying the energy-strapped North with heavy
fuel oil and electricity, a provision on the peaceful use of
nuclear energy by Pyongyang, and normalisation of its relations
with the United States and Japan.
Seoul's Yonhap news agency said it also contained points on
security guarantees and verification.
UP TO NINE BOMBS?
Intelligence experts estimate that the North Koreans have
stockpiled enough plutonium for up to nine nuclear weapons.
The crisis erupted in October 2002 when U.S. officials confronted
the reclusive state with evidence it was violating international
protocol by pursuing a clandestine uranium enrichment weapons
programme.
The North Koreans responded by throwing out U.N. weapons
inspectors, abandoning the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and
restarting their mothballed Yongbyon reactor.
Pyongyang upped the stakes in February, announcing it now had
nuclear weapons and demanding aid, assurances and diplomatic
recognition from Washington in return for scrapping them.
Four rounds of six-party talks have been held since 2003. The
latest has been the most promising in terms of an unprecedented
level of contact between the United States and North Korean
delegations and the length of debate over the joint statement.
Whether the parties can agree on even a bland statement before
the talks break up remains to be seen.
© Reuters 2005.
All Rights Reserved.
*****************************************************************
9 Guardian Unlimited: North Korea Hedges on Nuclear Statement
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Wednesday August 3, 2005 8:16 PM
AP Photo XED101
By AUDRA ANG
Associated Press Writer
BEIJING (AP) - China is struggling to persuade its ally North
Korea to agree to a statement meant to lay the foundation for
nuclear disarmament, the chief U.S. envoy to the negotiations
said Wednesday, insisting Washington has done all it can.
Envoys from all sides have repeatedly expressed determination to
make progress in this round of six-nation talks - the fourth in
a series that began in 2003, which so far have failed to make
any breakthroughs on the standoff.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke by telephone with
Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing, State Department spokesman
Tom Casey said without elaborating.
``At the moment, what we're doing is waiting to hear from the
Chinese on the next steps in this process,'' Casey said in
Washington. ``All six parties are continuing to participate.''
Senior Chinese officials tried to persuade North Korea to accept
the draft statement during an unusual late-night session at a
Chinese government guesthouse, said the American envoy,
Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill.
But Hill said North Korea had not agreed to ``basic elements''
of the statement proposed by China at the talks, which were
scheduled to stretch into their 10th day Thursday. He wouldn't
give any details.
Negotiators have suggested this round of talks was nearing its
end, but gave no sign they had agreed to anything.
``We're confident the Chinese will work very hard to get the
DPRK to sign onto the draft agreement,'' Hill said, referring to
the North by the initials of its formal name. Hill said he
didn't know how long the talks would last, but added: ``I'm a
patient person.''
North Korea ``is a country suffering from a profound number of
problems,'' Hill said of the impoverished communist nation that
relies on outside aid to feed its people. ``None of those
problems can be solved with nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons are
not going to pave the roads, they're not going to build health
care, they're not going to build schools.''
Hill and the North Koreans were both present late Wednesday at
the guesthouse that is the main site of the talks, but were in
separate rooms and had no direct contact. He said Chinese
diplomats spoke to both groups but didn't relay messages between
them.
China didn't ask the U.S. delegation to change its position on
the statement, Hill said.
Earlier Wednesday, Hill said, ``We have done everything we can
do. We've talked to everyone we can talk to.'' He said the
United States has ``shown a certain amount of flexibility in
dealing with this tough issue.''
Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura, speaking in Tokyo,
said earlier Wednesday that disputes centered on to what extent
the North's nuclear program should be dismantled and whether it
should retain the right to peaceful use of nuclear technology.
South Korea's representative, Deputy Foreign Minister Song
Min-soon, said the text includes a clause about normalizing
Pyongyang's relations with Washington and Tokyo - a sticking
point in previous rounds.
None of the diplomats at the meeting - which also involves
Russia - has given any details of the draft.
Hill said the North Koreans would ``decide on their own''
whether to agree to the draft.
``They're not going to listen to pressure from me,'' he said.
The North Koreans and Americans have said they want to narrow
their differences. But Pyongyang's chief negotiator insisted
Tuesday that the Stalinist regime won't give up its atomic
weapons program until Washington withdraws alleged threats.
The nuclear crisis erupted in late 2002 after U.S. officials
said the North acknowledged violating a 1994 deal by embarking
on a secret uranium enrichment program.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
10 Guardian Unlimited: N. Korea Talks May End Without Agreement
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Wednesday August 3, 2005 6:16 AM
AP Photo XHG202
By BURT HERMAN
Associated Press Writer
BEIJING (AP) - Delegates to North Korean disarmament talks said
Wednesday they were approaching the final stages of discussions
but that a resolution to the dispute over the communist nation's
nuclear weapons program ultimately lay in its own hands.
As meetings entered a ninth day, envoys from the two Koreas, the
United States, Japan and Russia were preparing to review the
latest draft of principles crafted by host China meant to move
the stalled negotiations forward.
Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, the top U.S.
envoy, said Wednesday that agreeing to the text is something
North Korea is ``going to decide on their own. They're not going
to listen to pressure from me.''
``In a very real sense, (North Korea) really does stand at a
crossroads and they can look forward to a brighter future, a
more secure future, a more prosperous future,'' Hill said. ``But
they really can't do it with nuclear weapons. They've really got
to get off that.''
The North has insisted that it doesn't want to give up its
nuclear program without receiving anything first, while
Washington is wary of Pyongyang's promises and instead wants to
see the weapons verifiably eliminated before giving any rewards.
Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura, commenting in
Tokyo on the talks to a parliamentary committee Wednesday, said
disputes were centered on to what extent the North's nuclear
program should be dismantled and whether it should retain the
right to peaceful use of nuclear technology.
``We are approaching the final stage,'' Kenichiro Sasae, Japan's
chief negotiator, said in Beijing. ``We are doing our most to
reach an agreement, but much depends on North Korea's
attitude.''
Hill said the draft is ``really designed to narrow the
differences and maybe, maybe even get to the point where we can
really agree on something.''
Song Min-soon, South Korea's representative, said the text
includes a clause about normalizing Pyongyang's relations with
Washington and Tokyo - a sticking point in previous rounds.
The draft ``contains items North Korea wants in return for
dismantling its nuclear program ... the part about normalizing
relations is certainly included,'' Song said.
``I expect positive responses,'' he said, adding the draft
``makes every country a winner.''
In February, the North claimed it had nuclear weapons and has
since taken steps that would allow it to harvest more plutonium
for possible use in bombs. Many experts believe the North
already has enough weapons-grade material for about a half-dozen
atomic weapons.
In its first public statement since the talks began, Pyongyang
said Tuesday that it wants to narrow differences with the United
States but also insisted it won't give up its atomic weapons
program until Washington withdraws alleged threats.
``Our decision is to give up nuclear weapons and programs
related to nuclear weapons, if the United States removes its
nuclear threat against us, and when trust is built,'' Vice
Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan said outside his country's embassy
in Beijing.
It wasn't clear when the talks - now lasting three times longer
than three previous rounds - will end. Hill said Tuesday that it
may be a matter of days.
U.S. officials said in late 2002 that the North admitted
violating a 1994 deal by embarking on a secret uranium
enrichment program, sparking the latest nuclear crisis.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
11 Op-ed: Nuclear Power - The ³Other White
Date: Wed, 03 Aug 2005 17:52:50 -0700
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----------
Op-ed: Nuclear Power - The ³Other White Meat²*
"My party, the Republican party, is too deep in bed with the coal,
oil and electric utility industries to remember its free market principles."
Jim Rubens, former state senator from Hanover, New Hampshire
Federal legislation recently passed by Congress spells the demise of the
free enterprise system as a means to address our energy problems. Remember
when Republicans were welded to the notion that entrepreneurs should
decide what constitutes the most prudent investment? Wasn¹t it yesterday
that conservatives proclaimed that the market is best suited to determine
what technology should move America forward?
Turns out that politicians know what¹s best after all. Welcome to this
century¹s version of corporate socialism.
The ³new energy policy² failed to increase mileage standards, did nothing
to decrease fossil emissions, and gambled the nation¹s energy security on
rusted technologies. The legislation provided massive subsidies and
tax-credits to energy companies, but eased export restrictions on
bomb-grade uranium.
The energy bill was the right bill for the wrong century. The legislation
revisits failed solutions from the 20th century with financial giveaways
not seen since the great railroad plunders of the 19th century. Tom DeLay
was able to squirrel away $1.5 billion for an energy center in his home
district without public debate. In short, Congress has made nuclear power
the ³other white meat².
The energy industry is enjoying record profits, yet nuclear companies will
be guaranteed $2 billion in federal insurance to cover construction delays
caused by court challenges or anything outside ³normal business risks².
³Incentives² in the energy bill include $1.6 billion for research and
development of nuclear power. Since the establishment of the Department of
Energy in 1978, more than $20 billion of taxpayer money has been spent on
nuclear power research and development.
The legislation commits up to $5.7 billion in tax credits for the first six
nuclear reactors to be built. But wait, it gets better. Exelon, Entergy,
Constellation and Florida Power & Light are entitled to unlimited loan
guarantees for up to 80% of the cost of new reactors.
There is considerable exposure for Joe Q. Taxpayer. The Congressional
Budget Office (CBO) considers the risk of default on government nuclear
plant loan guarantees "to be very high--well above 50%." In a report issued
on May 7, the CBO concluded the risk of default by private companies comes
from the expectation that a new nuclear plant "would be uneconomic to
operate because of high construction costs, relative to other electricity
generation sources."
Federal welfare is separate from the state windfalls Pennsylvania nuclear
plants received after deregulation. Exelon and PPL gobbled up over $9.5
billion in stranded costs primarily associated with the construction of
nuclear power plants at Limerick and Berwick. ³While homeowners are paying
an average of 30 percent more than they did in 1997, Exelon, Pennsylvania
Power & Light, and the other major electric utility companies in the state
are paying 85 percent less in taxes on their plants, down from about $120
million annually to about $20 million² (Philadelphia Inquirer, July 13, 2003).
Does the nuclear industry really need additional subsidies?
Perhaps the answer lies in an essay penned by the Cato Institute¹s Jerry
Taylor and Peter Van Doren on May 18, 2001, the day after president Bush
unveiled his energy plan. ³Aren't conservatives supposed to be skeptical
about having the federal government pick winners and losers in
the marketplace?²...In the final analysis, the nuclear industry is purely
a creature of government. The administration needs to practice the
free-market rhetoric that it preaches and put away its nuclear pompoms.²
_____
* By Eric J. Epstein: ericepstein@comcast.net or #717-541-1101. Mr.
Epstein is the Chairman of Three Mile Island Alert, Inc., a safe-energy
organization based in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and founded in 1977. TMIA
monitors Peach Bottom, Susquehanna, and Three Mile Island nuclear
generating stations.
2
*****************************************************************
12 t r u t h o u t: George Monbiot | The Treaty Wreckers
Date: Wed, 03 Aug 2005 17:53:21 -0700
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--
Peace,
owlswan
"Whenever 'A' attempts by law to impose moral standards upon 'B',
'A' is most likely a scoundrel."
-- H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) American Journalist, Editor
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Go to Original
The Treaty Wreckers
By George Monbiot
The Guardian UK
Tuesday 02 August 2005
In just a few months, Bush and Blair have destroyed global restraint on the
development of nuclear weapons.
Saturday is the 60th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. The
nuclear powers are commemorating it in their own special way: by seeking to
ensure that the experiment is repeated.
As Robin Cook showed in his column last week, the British government
appears to have decided to replace our Trident nuclear weapons, without
consulting parliament or informing the public. It could be worse than he
thinks. He pointed out that the atomic weapons establishment at Aldermaston
has been re-equipped to build a new generation of bombs. But when this news
was first leaked in 2002 a spokesman for the plant insisted the equipment
was being installed not to replace Trident but to build either mini-nukes
or warheads that could be used on cruise missiles.
If this is true it means the government is replacing Trident and
developing a new category of boil-in-the-bag weapons. As if to ensure we
got the point, Geoff Hoon, then the defence secretary, announced before the
leak that Britain would be prepared to use small nukes in a pre-emptive
strike against a non-nuclear state. This put us in the hallowed company of
North Korea.
The Times, helpful as ever, explains why Trident should be replaced.
"A decision to leave the club of nuclear powers," it says, "would diminish
Britain's international standing and influence." This is true, and it
accounts for why almost everyone wants the bomb. Two weeks ago, on
concluding their new nuclear treaty, George Bush and the Indian prime
minister Manmohan Singh announced that "international institutions must
fully reflect changes in the global scenario that have taken place since
1945. The president reiterated his view that international institutions are
going to have to adapt to reflect India's central and growing role." This
translates as follows: "Now that India has the bomb it should join the UN
security council."
It is because nuclear weapons confer power and status on the states
that possess them that the non-proliferation treaty, of which the UK was a
founding signatory, determines two things: that the non-nuclear powers
should not acquire nuclear weapons, and that the nuclear powers should
"pursue negotiations in good faith on ... general and complete
disarmament". Blair has unilaterally decided to rip it up.
But in helping to wreck the treaty we are only keeping up with our
friends across the water. In May the US government launched a systematic
assault on the agreement. The summit in New York was supposed to strengthen
it, but the US, led by John Bolton - the undersecretary for arms control
(someone had a good laugh over that one) - refused even to allow the other
nations to draw up an agenda for discussion. The talks collapsed, and the
treaty may now be all but dead. Needless to say, Bolton has been promoted:
to the post of US ambassador to the UN. Yesterday Bush pushed his
nomination through by means of a "recess appointment": an undemocratic
power that allows him to override Congress when its members are on holiday.
Bush wanted to destroy the treaty because it couldn't be reconciled
with his new plans. Last month the Senate approved an initial $4m for
research into a "robust nuclear earth penetrator" (RNEP). This is a bomb
with a yield about 10 times that of the Hiroshima device, designed to blow
up underground bunkers that might contain weapons of mass destruction.
(You've spotted the contradiction.) Congress rejected funding for it in
November, but Bush twisted enough arms this year to get it restarted. You
see what a wonderful world he inhabits when you discover that the RNEP idea
was conceived in 1991 as a means of dealing with Saddam Hussein's
biological and chemical weapons. Saddam is pacing his cell, but the
Bushites, like the Japanese soldiers lost in Malaysia, march on. To pursue
his war against the phantom of the phantom of Saddam's weapons of mass
destruction, Bush has destroyed the treaty that prevents the use of real ones.
It gets worse. Last year Congress allocated funding for something
called the "reliable replacement warhead". The government's story is that
the existing warheads might be deteriorating. When they show signs of
ageing they can be dismantled and rebuilt to a "safer and more reliable"
design. It's a pretty feeble excuse for building a new generation of nukes,
but it worked. The development of the new bombs probably means the US will
also breach the comprehensive test ban treaty - so we can kiss goodbye to
another means of preventing proliferation.
But the biggest disaster was Bush's meeting with Manmohan Singh a
fortnight ago. India is one of three states that possess nuclear weapons
and refuse to sign the non-proliferation treaty (NPT). The treaty says
India should be denied access to civil nuclear materials. But on July 18
Bush announced that "as a responsible state with advanced nuclear
technology, India should acquire the same benefits and advantages as other
such states". He would "work to achieve full civil nuclear energy
cooperation with India" and "seek agreement from Congress to adjust US laws
and policies". Four months before the meeting the US lifted its south Asian
arms embargo, selling Pakistan a fleet of F-16 aircraft, capable of a
carrying a wide range of missiles, and India an anti-missile system. As a
business plan, it's hard to fault.
Here then is how it works. If you acquire the bomb and threaten to use
it you will qualify for American exceptionalism by proxy. Could there be a
greater incentive for proliferation?
The implications have not been lost on other states. "India is looking
after its own national interests," a spokesman for the Iranian government
complained on Wednesday. "We cannot criticise them for this. But what the
Americans are doing is a double standard. On the one hand they are
depriving an NPT member from having peaceful technology, but at the same
time they are cooperating with India, which is not a member of the NPT."
North Korea (and this is the only good news around at the moment) is
currently in its second week of talks with the US. While the Bush
administration is doing the right thing by engaging with Pyongyang, the
lesson is pretty clear. You could sketch it out as a Venn diagram. If you
have oil and aren't developing a bomb (Iraq) you get invaded. If you have
oil and are developing a bomb (Iran) you get threatened with invasion, but
it probably won't happen. If you don't have oil, but have the bomb, the US
representative will fly to your country and open negotiations.
The world of George Bush's imagination comes into being by government
decree. As a result of his tail-chasing paranoia, assisted by Tony Blair's
cowardice and Manmohan Singh's opportunism, the global restraint on the
development of nuclear weapons has, in effect, been destroyed in a few
months. The world could now be more vulnerable to the consequences of
proliferation than it has been for 35 years. Thanks to Bush and Blair, we
might not go out with a whimper after all.
-------
Jump to today's TO Features: Today's TO Features --------------
Stirling Newberry | New Politicking in Ohio Judge Says Bush's Easing of
Forest Plan Is Illegal Jihad: Who's Joining, and Why? Bush Makes Second
Recess Appointment Normon Solomon | Media Flagstones along a Path to War on
Iran Europe Threatens to Punish Iran if Nuclear Work Restarts Cindy Sheehan
| Where Do I Live? Jesuits Study "Authentic" Development Torture by Special
Forces, CIA and Iraqi Allies Revealed CIA-Trained Scorpions Did the "Dirty
Work" Roberts Helped Coach Reagan Administration on Civil Rights Bush
Remarks Roil Debate over Teaching of Evolution Rightwing Evangelicals Snub
Frist for Stem-Cell Stand Jim Lobe | Reviving 'The Radical Center' George
Monbiot | The Treaty Wreckers NOW | Truth in Journalism Prosecutor Zeros In
on Rove, Questions Key Aides 14 Marines Killed in Single Attack, 21 in Past
3 Days -------------- t r u t h o u t Town Meeting t r u t h o u t Home
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13 Roanoke Times: Energy bill is lawmakers' crudest, blindest hour
roanoke.com
Editorial Columnists Stories -
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
Jay Bookman
Bookman is the deputy editorial page editor of The Atlanta
Journal-Constitution. New York Times News Service
Any way you look at it -- economically, militarily,
environmentally, geo-strategically -- the energy bill agreed to
by Congress represents an abdication of national responsibility.
Consider the situation:
We are stuck in a war in the Middle East driven in large part by
our dependence on oil. Defense experts warn that in the next few
decades, competition for oil in places such as Central Asia is
likely to produce major conflict with other oil-thirsty nations
such as China, which will double its energy consumption by 2025.
Today, the world uses two barrels of oil for every new barrel
that we discover, a ratio that will worsen as demand increases
and new reserves become more elusive.
Already, oil at $60 a barrel is draining family bank accounts,
accelerating the flow of U.S. dollars overseas, driving
companies such as Delta Air Lines toward bankruptcy and putting
a serious hurt on U.S. auto companies that bet their
profitability and future on SUVs.
And environmentally, of course, even President Bush has been
forced to concede publicly that the planet is undergoing an
unnaturally rapid heating caused by fossil fuels such as coal
and oil. If left unaddressed, that change threatens to disrupt
the global environment at a fundamental level.
Taken together, these trends constitute a multifaceted challenge
of immense proportions, and business executives and government
officials all over the world recognize that fact. The bid by a
Chinese company to buy Unocal, a major American-based oil
company, is just the beginning of the global scramble to tie up
oil supplies.
And what is our own government's response to that challenge?
What new national policies are we adopting to prepare us for a
coming world of scarce and expensive oil?
As embodied in the energy bill, our strategy is to pump and burn
the world's remaining oil faster and faster. If somebody's gonna
burn that last barrel of oil, Congress wants that somebody to be
an American.
And unfortunately, that's pretty much it. Conservation gets
short shrift: The bill does not, for example, require our
automobiles to become more fuel-efficient, even though
efficiency standards haven't changed in roughly two decades. To
the extent that global warming is recognized, it is only as an
excuse to justify the expansion of nuclear power, a goal that
energy companies had long sought anyway. Most of the $14.5
billion in tax breaks contained in the bill go to oil and energy
companies that are already reaping record profits, and are
designed to encourage those companies to keep on doing what
they're already doing.
Overall, when we need vision from our leaders, they give us
greed instead. When we need politicians willing to take a hard
look at the future, we get hacks who turn out to be soft touches
for lobbyists.
That lack of courage and vision among our political leaders is
all the more glaring given the widespread recognition that
something fundamental has changed in the energy picture.
Electric utilities such as Duke Power, for example, now concede
that climate change requires government action. Exxon/Mobil
recently acknowledged that non-OPEC oil production may peak in
five years, then decline even as demand soars by 50 percent by
2030. OPEC oil is projected to peak in roughly a decade.
"Economic growth is likely to be compromised if we cannot meet
the significant supply-and-demand challenges that face us," the
company warned.
Another major oil company, Chevron, recently purchased magazine
ads to spread a similar message.
"It took us 125 years to use the first trillion barrels of oil,"
the Chevron ad begins. "We'll use the next trillion in 30."
"One thing is clear: The era of easy oil is over," Chevron CEO
David O'Reilly says in the ad. "We can wait until a crisis
forces us to do something. Or we can commit to working together,
and start by asking the tough questions: How do we meet the
energy needs of the developing world and those of industrialized
nations? What role will renewables and alternative energies
play? What is the best way to protect our environment? How do we
accelerate our conservation efforts? Whatever actions we take,
we must look not just to next year, but to the next 50 years."
When you hear oil companies stress conservation, you know
something's changed. In its "Outlook for Energy: A 2030 View,"
Exxon-Mobil advocates cars that go 80 miles on a gallon. Chevron
envisions an auto fleet that's 50 percent more efficient.
But Congress? Congress envisions nothing.
*****************************************************************
14 Hampton Daily Press: Cost of Texas sub now up 24 percent
HAMPTON ROADS, VA.
The Navy says General Dynamics Electric Boat needs to assert
its role over Newport News.
NORTHROP GRUMMAN PHOTO
Aug 3, 2005
TEXAS RISE
The cost of the Texas submarine has risen 24 percent in six
years.
Cost in 1999:
$2.19 billion
Cost in 2005:
$2.71 billion
BY PETER DUJARDIN 247-4749
NEWPORT NEWS --
The Texas submarine being built at Northrop Grumman Newport News
is now on pace to cost 24 percent more than its original $2.19
billion price tag.
The cost to taxpayers on the Texas - the second in a new class
of nuclear-powered attack submarines and the first being
delivered by the Newport News shipyard - has risen to $2.71
billion, or $520 million more than the original 1999 estimate,
Navy documents show. More than a third of the increase came in
the past 17 months.
The yard expects to complete the Texas in May 2006, two months
later than the Navy's earlier estimate - and 11 months past 1999
projections.
The Navy's concerns over the performance on the Texas has
spurred aggressive recent steps by the Navy to boost oversight.
In April, the Navy's assistant secretary for acquisitions, John
Young, initiated a panel to conduct an investigation into the
problems.
That panel recommended in June that General Dynamics Electric
Boat, the shipyard's partner on the program and the Navy's prime
contractor, stiffen its monitoring over the local yard.
Though the shipyards have always highlighted their 50-50
partnership since the inception of the Virginia-class program,
the panel - also called the Red Team - recommended that Electric
Boat take a more assertive lead.
"The Red Team perceived that General Dynamics Electric Boat was
not exercising enough management attention over Northrop Grumman
Newport News," Navy Capt. Tom Van Leunen, a spokesman for Young,
said in a statement. "It is the prime contractor's
responsibility to exercise management control ... over all
subcontractors."
The Navy has also sent its program manager for the Virginia
class, Navy Capt. John Heffron, to Newport News every other week
to review costs and schedules. "Proper attention is being
applied in all areas of concern," Van Leunen's statement said.
The Virginia class of nuclear-powered submersibles is designed
as a replacement for the aging Los Angeles class of 50 attack
submarines. Newport News and Electric Boat, under the contract
to build the first 10 boats in the class, make the vessels in a
unique teaming arrangement. Each yard specializes in parts of
the boats and takes turns on final assembly.
The rising costs have already spurred the Navy to indefinitely
cut back on plans to buy two subs a year. Some members of
Congress also want a new class of cheaper subs.
The Texas is the first submarine Newport News is delivering to
the Navy since the USS Cheyenne, the last of the Los
Angeles-class boats, in 1996. The first in the new class, the
USS Virginia, got its final assembly at Electric Boat and was
delivered by that yard in October.
"It is important to recognize that lead ships, in any class, by
their very nature are complex and present unanticipated
challenges," said Newport News shipyard spokeswoman Jerri Fuller
Dickseski. "On Texas, we believe we have come through most of
the challenges."
The yard has improved its performance, she said, and expects to
meet the May delivery date.
The cost of designing and building the first four boats in the
program - the Virginia, Texas, Hawaii and North Carolina - is
now projected to cost $11 billion, 17 percent higher than 1999
projections.
The Texas' price tag is up the most of the first four boats. The
Virginia, Hawaii and North Carolina have increased in cost by 17
percent, 13 percent and 15 percent, respectively.
The $2.71 billion price tag to build the Texas includes both
shipyard construction and parts provided by the Navy. The
shipyard construction costs have grown to $1.57 billion, 43
percent more than initial estimates. Navy-provided parts - such
as electronics, nuclear reactors and propulsion systems - and
other costs are up by a more modest 5 percent, to $1.14 billion.
In August 2004, Young wrote to Ron Sugar, Northrop's chief
executive officer, complaining of "performance issues" in
Newport News.
In April, Young initiated the panel. The team was led by Don
Matteo, a military procurement expert at Perot Systems, a Texas
firm founded by former presidential contender Ross Perot.
One Navy official has said recent management changes in Newport
News' submarine program came after Navy complaints about the
yard's cost and schedule performance, which the official said
have both significantly lagged performance at Electric Boat.
Such changes, the Navy official has said, includes the yard's
move to install an experienced yard official, Matt Mulherin,
into a newly created yard post of senior vice president of
programs. Mulherin monitors both carrier and submarine cost and
scheduling issues.
Newport News disagreed with the assessment that its performance
lagged Electric Boat's and wouldn't comment on Mulherin's
appointment.
Since the shipyards have to cover part of the increases for the
work, the expected profits to Northrop Grumman and General
Dynamics on the Texas have eroded to contract minimums. On the
Texas, the $120 million fee once expected has fallen to about
$89 million.
In February, the Government Accountability Office, Congress'
investigative arm, blamed higher labor hours and material costs
for 88 percent of the overruns on the Virginia and Texas.
The initial contract between the Navy and shipyards estimated
the first four Virginia-class subs would take 42.7 million labor
hours - or an average of 10.7 million hours a vessel. The hours
to build the Texas, the GAO said, have grown by 4 million.
Part of the problem, the report said, was that the vendors went
out of business, leading the yards to scramble to find new ones.
Parts were late, leading to scheduling issues and forcing lots
of overtime work once the parts came in.
Copyright ©2005 Daily Press
*****************************************************************
15 Press Herald: Bush says closures won't be political
In a discussion with reporters, the president calls the BRAC
process difficult but defends the need to reduce the number of
U.S. bases. Tell Us: Do you believe the president's base closure
decision will be politicized? -->
[Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram] Home " News "
Wednesday, August 3, 2005
By BART JANSEN Washington D.C. Correspondent,
Copyright © 2005 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.
In Depth: Base Closings
on how upcoming military base closures could affect Maine
features documents from the Pentagon, a blog covering news and
analysis from around the country.
The section also keeps an archive of local news stories about
the Brunswick Naval Air Station and Portsmouth Naval Shipyard.
Readers also can add their comments to selected stories and vote
in an online survey.
WASHINGTON — Maine is facing major job cuts in the current round
of base closures, President Bush acknowledged Tuesday, but he
said he won't interfere with the process. "I understand this is
difficult," Bush said during a roundtable discussion with
reporters from eight regional newspapers, including the Portland
Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram. "I know Maine fairly well.
It's a fantastic place. It's difficult for folks."
He said he will take a "good look" at the recommendations of the
Base Realignment and Closure Commission. "What I'm not going to
do is politicize the process," he said. "That's important for
people to understand."
By Sept. 8, the commission must submit a final list of closures,
which Bush and Congress can either accept or reject but cannot
change.
The Pentagon wants to close the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in
Kittery and the Defense Finance Accounting Service office in
Limestone and relocate the aircraft now stationed at Brunswick
Naval Air Station. In all, some 7,000 jobs are threatened.
Maine's entire congressional delegation and Gov. John Baldacci
are opposing the round of base closures both because of the job
losses - Maine stands to lose the second most in the country -
and out of concern for national security.
Defenders say Portsmouth, which specializes in maintaining
nuclear submarines, is the most efficient of four government
shipyards, and Brunswick's strategic location in the Northeast
is too valuable to lose.
Another concern for Maine is the proposed reduction in Navy
destroyer construction, which could hurt Bath Iron Works, the
state's largest employer with about 6,000 jobs.
"I indisputably believe the Department of Defense is abandoning
the Northeast with their recommendations in this latest
base-closing round," said Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine. "That is
borne out by the fact that if the DOD has their way, there will
be no significant military presence left in New England."
Bush, as a former governor of Texas, testified himself in
support of military bases targeted for closure during the
Clinton administration.
"I appreciate their concerns," Bush said of Snowe and Sen. Susan
Collins, R-Maine. "I can understand why people are standing up
and defending bases in their local communities."
But he defended the need to reduce the number of domestic
military bases.
"Obviously the Cold War is over. This country faces different
threats," he said. "We believe we can achieve the objectives of
stability and security with fewer troops and different equipment
alignments."
In other comments, Bush promoted energy legislation he expects
to sign next week, threatened to veto pending legislation to
expand embryonic stem-cell research and praised the Medicare
prescription-drug benefit.
On the war in Iraq, he insisted that progress is being made, but
said setting a timetable for withdrawing American troops would
invite terrorists to wait.
"As the Iraqis stand up, we'll stand down," Bush said.
The 50-minute question-and-answer session was held in the White
House's Roosevelt Room. Bush spoke enthusiastically about his
policies, spreading his hands to embrace a point or rapping the
table for punctuation.
Bush also commented on how fit Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa.,
appeared while undergoing chemotherapy for Hodgkins disease,
scheduling confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee John
Roberts and negotiating legislation for asbestos and stem cells.
"I don't expect everyone to agree with me," Bush said of
Specter, who supports expanded stem-cell research.
In speaking about disagreements, Bush quoted his former
lieutenant governor of Texas, a Democrat.
"You know if we agreed with each other 100 percent of the time,
one of us wouldn't be necessary," Bush said.
Washington D.C. Correspondent Bart Jansen can be contacted at
202-488-1119 or at:
Reader Comments
Do you believe the president's base closure decision will be
politicized?
Paul of portland, me
Aug 3, 2005 5:45 PM
The US military does not expect to fight a war in Europe. They
are also getting out of the business of subs launching nukes at
the Soviet Union. PNS and BNAS less useful given those facts.
The military wants to realign to prepare to fight in 1. Persian
Gulf 2. Pacific coast of Asia 3. Africa. The fact that this
hurts states that vote heavily Democratic is a happy coincidence
for the Administration.
DFAS was a pork barrel favor to Sen Mitchell after Loring was
closed. That chit has expired.
The closures will definitely throw Maine into a recession from
fall of aggregate demand. What people need to get going on is
improving the business climate and skills. With better
leadership than we currently have we can replace the military
with something with more growth potential.
rob of Lisbon, Me
Aug 3, 2005 3:38 PM
Political? Of course it is! Of course the Liberals will never
mention the RED states that were on the closure list during the
Clinton reign of inept governing. Even in the perfect world of
politics, what goes around comes around.
Dick Parry of Raymond, ME
Aug 3, 2005 2:19 PM
The only information that I have on this issue is what I read in
the paper and on line. So any thing written in this e-mail is
just my opinion. I believe that it appears some blue states will
suffer dearly if all the bases close as planned.
On the other hand the red states in the south and southwest
fared very well. This look political, smells political and I
believe it is political because it doesn't make any sense to
starve New England of military presence such as the aircraft
that will be transferred to Jacksonville Fla from BNAS. makes no
sense. How do you cover the entire east coast properly. It will
cost a lot more unless they don't intend to cover N.E. I
understand it cost $8000 to put one of those planes in the air.
If the Bush administration is playing politics they should be
held accountable.
Larry W. Mayes of Lewiston, me
Aug 3, 2005 2:08 PM
The BRAC has already been politicised when it targeted Blue
states for the brunt of the hit over his brother's and father's
state. Mr Bush's conduct from the oval office makes me wonder if
he is more concerned about Saddam Hussein than about the inept
manner that the White House as lead the war in Iraq and the war
against American jobs. Most people can't carry a bible in one
hand misrepresent the truth.
of the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram
Copyright © 2005, Blethen Maine Newspapers, Inc.
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16 Atom Bomb 60th Anniversary: * Japanese Survivors Speak *
Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2005 12:05:13 -0500 (CDT)
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Institute for Public Accuracy
915 National Press Building, Washington, D.C. 20045
(202) 347-0020 * http://www.accuracy.org * ipa@accuracy.org
___________________________________________________
Wednesday, August 3, 2005
Atom Bomb 60th Anniversary:
* Japanese Survivors Speak
* Censored Footage Unearthed
August 6 and 9 will be the 60th anniversaries of the atomic bombings of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
SATORU KONISHI, AI MAEOKA, tara@trivalleycares.org,
http://www.trivalleycares.org/
Konishi is a Hiroshima survivor. He stated: "Nuclear arms are the
very height of violence and cruelty. We condemn the atomic bombings of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki; however, we have never demanded 'retaliation.' But
from the beginning we have been asking the U.S. government to make an
apology and to show its sincerity through an act: to realize its
'unequivocal undertaking' to abolish its nuclear arsenals."
Maeoka is from Hiroshima and was part of the Hiroshima World Peace
Mission, which toured the Livermore and Los Alamos nuclear weapons
laboratories in the United States. Maeoka's grandmother survived the atomic
bombing of Hiroshima.
MASAKO HASHIDA, KOJI UEDA, clong@lasg.org
Hashida is a Nagasaki survivor and board member of Kumamoto
Prefectural Hidankyo, an organization of atom bomb survivors. This is the
first time that she has traveled outside of Japan. Ueda is a Hiroshima
survivor and Assistant General Secretary of the Tokyo Federation of A-Bomb
Sufferers' Association. He was a delegate to the 2005 Non-Proliferation
Treaty Review Conference at the United Nations in May. They will both
attend the commemoration at the Los Alamos Nuclear Weapons Laboratory in
New Mexico on August 6.
GREG MITCHELL, gmitchell@editorandpublisher.com,
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001001583
Greg Mitchell is the editor of Editor and Publisher and former editor
of Nuclear Times. Mitchell is also the co-author of "Hiroshima in America"
and was an adviser to the award-winning film "Original Child Bomb," which
will be aired by Sundance Channel on August 6. In a recent article titled
"Hiroshima Cover-up Exposed," he wrote: "In the weeks following the atomic
attacks on Japan almost 60 years ago, and then for decades afterward, the
United States engaged in airtight suppression of all film shot in Hiroshima
and Nagasaki after the bombings. ... In addition, for many years all but a
handful of newspaper photographs were seized or prohibited. The public did
not see any of the newsreel footage for 25 years, and the U.S. military
film remained hidden for nearly four decades. I corresponded and spoke with
.. Lt. Col. (Ret.) Daniel A. McGovern, who directed the U.S. military
filmmakers in 1945-1946, managed the Japanese footage, and then kept watch
on all of the top-secret material for decades. 'I always had the sense,'
McGovern told me, 'that people in the Atomic Energy Commission were sorry
we had dropped the bomb. The Air Force -- it was also sorry. I was told by
people in the Pentagon that they didn't want those [film] images out
because they showed effects on man, woman and child. ... They didn't want
the general public to know what their weapons had done -- at a time they
were planning on more bomb tests. We didn't want the material out because
.. we were sorry for our sins.'"
Mitchell added: "After 60 years at least a small portion of that
footage will finally reach part of the American public in the unflinching
and powerful form its creators intended. Only then will the Americans who
see it be able to fully judge for themselves ... why the authorities felt
they had to suppress it, and what impact their footage, if widely aired,
might have had on the nuclear arms race -- and the nuclear proliferation
that plagues, and endangers, us today."
For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167
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17 [NukeNet] US Suppressed Footage of Hiroshima for Decades
Date: Wed, 03 Aug 2005 19:48:53 -0700
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NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net)
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/080305R.shtml
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-media-anniversary.html?
US Suppressed Footage of Hiroshima for Decades
Reuters
Wednesday 03 August 2005
Washington - As the world prepares to mark the
60th anniversary of the dropping of the first
atomic bomb on Saturday, some American media
experts see uncomfortable echoes between the
suppression of images of death and destruction
then and coverage of the war in Iraq today.
As author Greg Mitchell lays out in an article
in Editor & Publisher this week, in the weeks
following the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, U.S. authorities seized and suppressed
film shot in the bombed cities by U.S. military
crews and Japanese newsreel teams to prevent
Americans from seeing the full extent of
devastation wrought by the new weapons.
Tens of thousands died in each attack.
The U.S. military footage shot in color was
classified as secret. It remained hidden until the
early 1980s and has never been fully aired. The
Japanese film shot in black and white was
declassified and returned to Japan in the late
1960s.
Some of the images captured in the days after
the bombings will finally be shown on a U.S. cable
television channel as part of a documentary on
Saturday.
"Although there are clearly huge differences
with Iraq, there are also some similarities," said
Mitchell, co-author of Hiroshima in America and
editor of Editor & Publisher.
"The chief similarity is that Americans are
still being kept at a distance from images of
death, whether of their own soldiers or Iraqi
civilians," he said.
In May, the Los Angeles Times released a
survey of six months of media coverage of the Iraq
war in six prominent U.S. newspapers and two
newsmagazines - a period during which 559
coalition forces, the vast majority American, were
killed. It found they had run almost no
photographs of Americans killed in action. The
same publications ran only 44 photos to represent
the thousands of Westerners wounded during that
same time.
"There's a mixture of censorship and
self-censorship. In an information age,
unfortunately what is missing is truthful and
factual information," said Yahya Kamalipour, a
communications professor at Purdue University in
Indiana and author of Bring 'Em On: Media and
Politics in the Iraq War.
Examples of overt censorship are the
Pentagon's ban on filming the coffins of dead
servicemen and women being brought back to Dover
Air Force Base in Delaware, as well as its
continuing legal fight to prevent the publication
of photographs and videos of detainee abuse in Abu
Ghraib prison.
'Too Shocking'
Self-censorship happens when individual
editors decide not to run photographs or footage
of casualties because they deem them "too
shocking" for readers or because they wish to
avoid controversy or criticism.
"So much of the media is owned by big
corporations and they would much rather focus on
making money than setting themselves up for
criticism from the White House and Congress," said
Ralph Begleiter, a former CNN correspondent, now a
journalism professor at the University of
Delaware.
Last October, Begleiter filed a lawsuit to
force the Pentagon to release military photographs
and video of the coffins being returned.
In April, the Pentagon made public more than
700 images all taken before June 2004. Begleiter
said it appeared the military had stopped taking
pictures of casualties being returned to avoid
being forced to release more images.
In May 2004, when ABC's Nightline screened the
names and photos of 721 U.S. forces killed in the
Iraq war without any commentary, it caused furor.
One company which owned eight ABC stations ordered
them not to show the program and some
conservatives denounced it as an anti-war gimmick.
One month before, when four U.S. contractors
were murdered in Fallujah and their charred bodies
were strung up from a bridge, most TV stations did
not use the images. A survey of the 20 top
circulating newspapers in the United States found
only seven put a picture of the bodies on their
front pages.
In 1945, U.S. policymakers wanted to be able
to continue to develop and test atomic and
eventually nuclear weapons without an outcry of
public opinion.
"They succeeded but the subject is still a raw
nerve. Americans remain very divided about nuclear
weapons. We'll never know what impact the footage,
if widely aired, might have had on the nuclear
arms race and nuclear proliferation that plagues
and endangers us today," Mitchell said.
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18 BBC: How Britain helped Israel get the bomb
Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2005 14:12:11 -0500 (CDT)
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The documents unearthed by Newsnight show British officials
decided not to tell Washington about it. They seemed to have no idea of
the implications of what they were doing
=============================
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/4743493.stm
Michael Crick
By Michael Crick
BBC Newsnight
Documents uncovered by Newsnight in the British National Archives show
how, in 1958, Britain agreed to sell Israel 20 tonnes of heavy water,
a vital ingredient for the production of plutonium at Israel's top
secret Dimona nuclear reactor in the Negev desert.
Robert McNamara, President Kennedy's Defence Secretary, has told
Newsnight he is "astonished" at the revelation that Britain kept this
secret from America.
In Wednesday's programme, Newsnight reveals how British officials
decided it would be "over-zealous" to impose safeguards on the
Israelis, and chose not to insist that Israel only use the heavy water
for peaceful purposes.
Earlier the Americans had refused to supply heavy water to Israel
without such safeguards.
Making money
The documents unearthed by Newsnight also show British officials
decided not to tell Washington about it. They seemed to have no idea of
the implications of what they were doing
Lord Gilmour
Former Defence and Foreign Office minister
"On the whole I would prefer NOT to mention this to the Americans,"
concluded Donald Cape of the Foreign Office. When contacted by
Newsnight this week, Mr Cape could remember nothing about the episode.
"I think it is quite extraordinary," says the former Conservative
Defence and Foreign Office minister Lord Gilmour. "Whether the civil
servants who were involved knew what they were doing, or whether they
didn't, I don't know." He thinks they put Britain's economic interests
first.
"One must assume they must have known ... And what's more they seemed
to have no idea of the political or indeed even the technical and
foreign policy implications of what they were doing. They just seemed
to be concerned with making a bit of money."
Escaping criticism
Until now both France and Norway have been criticised for helping the
Israelis develop the bomb, but Britain has escaped criticism.
John F Kennedy sits in a meeting with Secretary of Defense Robert
McNamara and Vice President Lyndon B Johnson in 1961
It's very surprising to me that we weren't told
Robert McNamara
JFK's Secretary of Defense, pictured in 1961
Frank Barnaby, who worked on the British bomb project in the 1950s,
and later debriefed the Israeli whistle-blower Mordechai Vanunu, says
he had "no idea" that Britain was "involved" in supplying Israel with
heavy water.
"Heavy water was crucial for Israel," he says. "Therefore it was a
significant part of their nuclear programme."
More extraordinary, the archives suggest that the decision to sell
heavy water was taken simply by civil servants, mainly in the Foreign
Office and the UK Atomic Energy Authority.
Newsnight has found no evidence that ministers in the Macmillan
Government were ever consulted about the sale, or even told about it.
Surplus
Michael Crick reading documents from the British National Archives
The papers show how officials presented the sale internally as a
straight sale from Norway to Israel
The 20 tonnes of heavy water were part of a consignment which Britain
bought from Norway in 1956, but the UK later decided this was surplus
to requirements.
The papers in the National Archives in London show how officials
presented the sale internally as a straight sale from Norway to
Israel. But the minutes reveal that the heavy water was shipped from a
British port in Israeli ships - half in June 1959 and half a year
later.
In 1960 the Daily Express first exposed the Israelis' work at Dimona
and the fact that Israel was probably making a bomb.
When Israel asked Britain for a further five tonnes of heavy water in
1961 the Foreign Office decided against a second transaction.
"I am quite sure we should not agree to this sale," advised Sir Hugh
Stephenson of the Foreign Office. "The Israeli project is much too
live an issue for us to get mixed up in it again," he wrote.
Robert McNamara, who became President Kennedy's Defence Secretary in
1961, has expressed his surprise to Newsnight that Britain didn't
inform the Americans it had sold heavy water to Israel. "The fact that
Israel was trying to develop a nuclear bomb should not have come as
any surprise ... But that Britain should have supplied it with heavy
water was indeed a surprise to me.
"It's very surprising to me that we weren't told because we shared
information about the nuclear bomb very closely with the British."
Michael Crick's report can be seen on Newsnight on Wednesday, 3 August
at 10.30pm on BBC2.
*****************************************************************
19 BBC: UK helped Israel get nuclear bomb
Last Updated: Wednesday, 3 August, 2005
[Dimona plant in Israel - a satellite photo from 1971]
Israel is thought to have about 200 nuclear warheads at Dimona
Britain secretly sold Israel a key ingredient for its nuclear
programme in 1958, according to official documents obtained by
BBC News.
Papers in the British National Archives show a deal was done to
export 20 tonnes of heavy water for about £1.5m.
This was vital for plutonium production at the top-secret Dimona
nuclear reactor in Israel's Negev desert.
No "peaceful use only" condition was placed on its use. Officials
said imposing one would be "over zealous".
Ministers in Harold Macmillan's government were unaware of the
deal. It was also kept secret from the US.
In one of the documents Foreign Office official Donald Cape
concluded: "On the whole I would prefer not to mention this to
the Americans."
It is very surprising to me were not told because we shared
information about the nuclear bomb very closely with the British
Former US defence secretary Robert McNamara
Washington had refused to supply heavy water to Israel without a
guarantee it would only be used for peaceful means.
US President John F Kennedy's defence secretary from 1961, Robert
McNamara, told BBC News he was "astonished" by the cover-up.
"It is very surprising to me we were not told because we shared
information about the nuclear bomb very closely with the British.
"The fact Israel was trying to develop a nuclear bomb should not
have come as any surprise.
"But that Britain should have supplied it with heavy water was
indeed a surprise to me."
The heavy water - surplus from a consignment bought from Norway
in 1956 - was shipped from a British port to Israel.
They just seemed to concerned with making a bit of money Former
Conservative defence and foreign office minister Lord Gilmour
Officials presented it as a deal between Norway and Israel.
Former Conservative defence and foreign office minister Lord
Gilmour told BBC News the revelations were "quite extraordinary".
The civil servants involved must have known Israel would use the
heavy water to develop a nuclear bomb, he added.
"They just seemed to be concerned with making a bit of money."
By the time Israel asked the UK for more heavy water in 1961, the
existence of the Dimona reactor and a probable nuclear weapons
programme had been exposed by the Daily Express newspaper,
leading the Foreign Office to block the sale, the papers show.
The Israeli project is much t live an issue for us to get mixed
up in it again Sir Hugh Stephenson
Sir Hugh Stephenson wrote: "I am quite sure we should not agree
to this sale.
"The Israeli project is much too live an issue for us to get
mixed up in it again."
While Israel has not publicly conducted a nuclear test and does
not admit or deny having nuclear weapons, it has not signed the
Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty.
This means the International Atomic Energy Agency does not have
the power to inspect Israeli nuclear facilities.
The Israelis say that will not change as long as they feel
threatened by countries in the Middle East.
*****************************************************************
20 EDITOR & PUBLISHER: SPECIAL REPORT: Hiroshima Film Cover-up Exposed
By Greg Mitchell
Published: August 03, 2005 10:00 PM ET
NEW YORK
In the weeks following the atomic attacks on Japan almost 60
years ago, and then for decades afterward, the United States
engaged in airtight suppression of all film shot in Hiroshima
and Nagasaki after the bombings. This included footage shot by
U.S. military crews and Japanese newsreel teams. In addition,
for many years all but a handful of newspaper photographs were
seized or prohibited.
The public did not see any of the newsreel footage for 25 years,
and the U.S. military film remained hidden for nearly four
decades.
The full story of this atomic cover-up is told fully for the
first time today at E&P Online, as the 60th anniversary of the
atomic bombings approaches later this week. Some of the
long-suppressed footage will be aired on television this
Saturday.
Six weeks ago, E&P broke the storythat articles written by famed
Chicago Daily News war correspondent George Weller about the
effects of the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki were finally
published, in Japan, almost six decades after they had been
spiked by U.S. officials. This drew national attention, but
suppressing film footage shot in Hiroshima and Nagasaki was even
more significant, as this country rushed into the nuclear age
with its citizens having neither a true understanding of the
effects of the bomb on human beings, nor why the atomic attacks
drew condemnation around the world.
As editor of Nuclear Times magazine in the 1980s, I met Herbert
Sussan, one of the members of the U.S. military film crew, and
Erik Barnouw, the famed documentarian who first showed some of
the Japanese footage on American TV in 1970. In fact, that
newsreel footage might have disappeared forever if the Japanese
filmmakers had not hidden one print from the Americans in a
ceiling.
More Special Reports
The Embedded 'New York Times' Reporter Who Brought Us the
'Atomic Age'- 07/25/05
'A Warning to the World'- 6/20/05
A Great Nuclear-Age Mystery Solved- 06/16/05
War Photos We Must Never See Again- 05/10/05
The color U.S. military footage would remain hidden until the
early 1980s, and has never been fully aired. It rests today at
the National Archives in College Park, Md., in the form of
90,000 feet of raw footage labeled #342 USAF.
When that footage finally emerged, I corresponded and spoke with
the man at the center of this drama: Lt. Col. (Ret.) Daniel A.
McGovern, who directed the U.S. military filmmakers in
1945-1946, managed the Japanese footage, and then kept watch on
all of the top-secret material for decades.
"I always had the sense," McGovern told me, "that people in the
Atomic Energy Commission were sorry we had dropped the bomb. The
Air Force -- it was also sorry. I was told by people in the
Pentagon that they didn't want those [film] images out because
they showed effects on man, woman and child. ... They didn't
want the general public to know what their weapons had done --
at a time they were planning on more bomb tests. We didn't want
the material out because ... we were sorry for our sins."
Sussan, meanwhile, struggled for years to get some of the
American footage aired on national TV, taking his request as
high as President Truman, Robert F. Kennedy and Edward R.
Murrow, to no avail.
More recently, McGovern declared that Americans should have seen
the damage wrought by the bomb. "The main reason it was
classified was ... because of the horror, the devastation," he
said. Because the footage shot in Hiroshima and Nagasaki was
hidden for so long, the atomic bombings quickly sank,
unconfronted and unresolved, into the deeper recesses of
American awareness, as a costly nuclear arms race, and nuclear
proliferation, accelerated.
The atomic cover-up also reveals what can happen in any country
that carries out deadly attacks on civilians in any war and then
keeps images of what occurred from its own people.
Ten years ago, I co-authored (with Robert Jay Lifton) the book
"Hiroshima in America," and new material has emerged since. On
Aug. 6, and on following days, the Sundance cable channel will
air "Original Child Bomb," a prize-winning documentary on which
I worked. The film includes some of the once-censored footage --
along with home movies filmed by McGovern in Hiroshima and
Nagasaki.
THE JAPANESE NEWSREEL FOOTAGE
On Aug. 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb over
Hiroshima, killing at least 70,000 instantly and perhaps 50,000
more in the days and months to follow. Three days later, it
exploded another atomic bomb over Nagasaki, slightly off target,
killing 40,000 immediately and dooming tens of thousands of
others. Within days, Japan had surrendered, and the U.S. readied
plans for occupying the defeated country -- and documenting the
first atomic catastrophe.
But the Japanese also wanted to study it. Within days of the
second atomic attack, officials at the Tokyo-based newsreel
company Nippon Eigasha discussed shooting film in the two
stricken cities. In early September, just after the Japanese
surrender, and as the American occupation began, director Sueo
Ito set off for Nagasaki. There his crew filmed the utter
destruction near ground zero and scenes in hospitals of the
badly burned and those suffering from the lingering effects of
radiation.
On Sept. 15, another crew headed for Hiroshima. When the first
rushes came back to Toyko, Akira Iwasaki, the chief producer,
felt "every frame burned into my brain," he later said.
At this point, the American public knew little about conditions
in the atomic cities beyond Japanese assertions that a
mysterious affliction was attacking many of those who survived
the initial blasts (claims that were largely taken to be
propaganda). Newspaper photographs of victims were non-existent,
or censored. Life magazine would later observe that for years
"the world ... knew only the physical facts of atomic
destruction."
Tens of thousands of American GIs occupied the two cities.
Because of the alleged absence of residual radiation, no one was
urged to take precautions.
Then, on Oct. 24, 1945, a Japanese cameraman in Nagasaki was
ordered to stop shooting by an American military policeman. His
film, and then the rest of the 26,000 feet of Nippon Eisasha
footage, was confiscated by the U.S. General Headquarters (GHQ).
An order soon arrived banning all further filming. It was at
this point that Lt. Daniel McGovern took charge.
SHOOTING THE U.S. MILITARY FOOTAGE
In early September, 1945, less than a month after the two bombs
fell, Lt. McGovern -- who as a member of Hollywood's famed First
Motion Picture Unit shot some of the footage for William Wyler's
"Memphis Belle" -- had become one of the first Americans to
arrive in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He was a director with the
U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, organized by the Army the
previous November to study the effects of the air campaign
against Germany, and now Japan.
As he made plans to shoot the official American record, McGovern
learned about the seizure of the Japanese footage. He felt it
would be a waste to not take advantage of the newsreel footage,
noting in a letter to his superiors that "the conditions under
which it was taken will not be duplicated, until another atomic
bomb is released under combat conditions."
McGovern proposed hiring some of the Japanese crew to edit and
"caption" the material, so it would have "scientific value." He
took charge of this effort in early January 1946, even as the
Japanese feared that, when they were done, they would never see
even a scrap of their film again.
At the same time, McGovern was ordered by General Douglas
MacArthur on January 1, 1946 to document the results of the U.S.
air campaign in more than 20 Japanese cities. His crew would
shoot exclusively on color film, Kodachrome and Technicolor,
rarely used at the time even in Hollywood. McGovern assembled a
crew of eleven, including two civilians. Third in command was a
young lieutenant from New York named Herbert Sussan.
The unit left Tokyo in a specially outfitted train, and made it
to Nagasaki. "Nothing and no one had prepared me for the
devastation I met there," Sussan later told me. "We were the
only people with adequate ability and equipment to make a record
of this holocaust. ... I felt that if we did not capture this
horror on film, no one would ever really understand the
dimensions of what had happened. At that time people back home
had not seen anything but black and white pictures of blasted
buildings or a mushroom cloud."
Along with the rest of McGovern's crew, Sussan documented the
physical effects of the bomb, including the ghostly shadows of
vaporized civilians burned into walls; and, most chillingly,
dozens of people in hospitals who had survived (at least
momentarily) and were asked to display their burns, scars, and
other lingering effects for the camera as a warning to the
world.
At the Red Cross Hospital in Hiroshima, a Japanese physician
traced the hideous, bright red scars that covered several of the
patients -- and then took off his white doctor's shirt and
displayed his own burns and cuts.
After sticking a camera on a rail car and building their own
tracks through the ruins, the Americans filmed hair-raising
tracking shots that could have been lifted right from a
Hollywood movie. Their chief cameramen was a Japanese man, Harry
Mimura, who in 1943 had shot "Sanshiro Sugata," the first
feature film by a then-unknown Japanese director named Akira
Kurosawa.
THE SUPPRESSION BEGINS
While all this was going on, the Japanese newsreel team was
completing its work of editing and labeling all their black &
white footage into a rough cut of just under three hours. At
this point, several members of Japanese team took the courageous
step of ordering from the lab a duplicate of the footage they
had shot before the Americans took over the project.
Director Ito later said: "The four of us agreed to be ready for
10 years of hard labor in the case of being discovered." One
incomplete, silent print would reside in a ceiling until the
Occupation ended.
The negative of the finished Japanese film, nearly 15,000 feet
of footage on 19 reels, was sent off to the U.S. in early May
1946. The Japanese were also ordered to include in this shipment
all photographs and related material. The footage would be
labeled SECRET and not emerge from the shadows for more than 20
years.
The following month, McGovern was abruptly ordered to return to
the U.S. He hauled the 90,000 feet of color footage, on dozens
of reels in huge footlockers, to the Pentagon and turned it over
to General Orvil Anderson. Locked up and declared top secret, it
did not see the light of day for more than 30 years.
McGovern would be charged with watching over it. Sussan would
become obsessed with finding it and getting it aired.
Fearful that his film might get "buried," McGovern stayed on at
the Pentagon as an aide to Gen. Anderson, who was fascinated by
the footage and had no qualms about showing it to the American
people. "He was that kind of man, he didn't give a damn what
people thought," McGovern told me. "He just wanted the story
told."
In an article in his hometown Buffalo Evening News, McGovern
said that he hoped that "this epic will be made available to the
American public." He planned to call the edited movie "Japan in
Defeat."
Once they eyeballed the footage, however, most of the top brass
didn't want it widely shown and the Atomic Energy Commission
(AEC) was also opposed, according to McGovern. It nixed a Warner
Brothers feature film project based on the footage that Anderson
had negotiated, while paying another studio about $80,000 to
help make four training films.
In a March 3, 1947 memo, Francis E. Rundell, a major in the Air
Corps, explained that the film would be classified "secret."
This was determined "after study of subject material, especially
concerning footage taken at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is
believed that the information contained in the films should be
safeguarded until cleared by the Atomic Energy Commission."
After the training films were completed, the status would be
raised to "Top Secret" pending final classification by the AEC.
The color footage was shipped to the Wright-Patterson base in
Ohio. McGovern went along after being told to put an I.D. number
on the film "and not let anyone touch it -- and that's the way
it stayed," as he put it. After cataloging it, he placed it in a
vault in the top-secret area.
"Dan McGovern stayed with the film all the time," Sussan later
said. "He told me they could not release the film [because] what
it showed was too horrible."
Sussan wrote a letter to President Truman, suggesting that a
film based on the footage "would vividly and clearly reveal the
implications and effects of the weapons that confront us at this
serious moment in our history." A reply from a Truman aide threw
cold water on that idea, saying such a film would lack "wide
public appeal."
McGovern, meanwhile, continued to "babysit" the film, now at
Norton Air Force base in California. "It was never out of my
control," he said later, but he couldn't make a film out of it
any more than Sussan could (but unlike Herb, he at least knew
where it was).
THE JAPANESE FOOTAGE EMERGES
At the same time, McGovern was looking after the Japanese
footage. Fearful that it might get lost forever in the
military/government bureaucracy, he secretly made a 16 mm print
and deposited it in the U.S. Air Force Central Film Depository
at Wright-Patterson. There it remained out of sight, and
generally out of mind. (The original negative and production
materials remain missing, according to Abe Mark Nornes, who
teaches at the University of Michigan and has researched the
Japanese footage more than anyone.)
The Japanese government repeatedly asked the U.S. for the full
footage of what was known in that country as "the film of
illusion," to no avail. A rare article about what it called this
"sensitive" dispute appeared in The New York Times on May 18,
1967, declaring right in its headline that the film had been
"Suppressed by U.S. for 22 Years." Surprisingly, it revealed
that while some of the footage was already in Japan (likely a
reference to the film hidden in the ceiling), the U.S. had put a
"hold" on the Japanese using it -- even though the American
control of that country had ceased many years earlier.
Despite rising nuclear fears in the 1960s, before and after the
Cuban Missile Crisis, few in the U.S. challenged the consensus
view that dropping the bomb on two Japanese cities was
necessary. The United States maintained its "first-use" nuclear
policy: Under certain circumstances it would strike first with
the bomb and ask questions later. In other words, there was no
real taboo against using the bomb. This notion of acceptability
had started with Hiroshima. A firm line against using nuclear
weapons had been drawn--in the sand. The U.S., in fact, had
threatened to use nuclear weapons during the Cuban Missile
Crisis and on other occasions.
On Sept. 12, 1967, the Air Force transferred the Japanese
footage to the National Archives Audio Visual Branch in
Washington, with the film "not to be released without approval
of DOD (Department of Defense)."
Then, one morning in the summer of 1968, Erik Barnouw, author of
landmark histories of film and broadcasting, opened his mail to
discover a clipping from a Tokyo newspaper sent by a friend. It
indicated that the United States had finally shipped to Japan a
copy of black & white newsreel footage shot in Hiroshima and
Nagasaki. The Japanese had negotiated with the State Department
for its return.
From the Pentagon, Barnouw learned in 1968 that the original
nitrate film had been quietly turned over to the National
Archives, so he went to take a look. Soon Barnouw realized that,
despite its marginal film quality, "enough of the footage was
unforgettable in its implications, and historic in its
importance, to warrant duplicating all of it," he later wrote.
Attempting to create a subtle, quiet, even poetic, black and
white film, he and his associates cut it from 160 to 16 minutes,
with a montage of human effects clustered near the end for
impact. Barnouw arranged a screening at the Museum of Modern Art
in New York, and invited the press. A throng turned out and sat
in respectful silence at its finish. (One can only imagine what
impact the color footage with many more human effects would have
had.) "Hiroshima-Nagasaki 1945" proved to be a sketchy but quite
moving document of the aftermath of the bombing, captured in
grainy but often startling black and white images: shadows of
objects or people burned into walls, ruins of schools, miles of
razed landscape viewed from the roof of a building.
In the weeks ahead, however, none of the (then) three TV
networks expressed interest in airing it. "Only NBC thought it
might use the film," Barnouw later wrote, "if it could find a
'news hook.' We dared not speculate what kind of event this
might call for." But then an article appeared in Parade
magazine, and an editorial in the Boston Globe blasted the
networks, saying that everyone in the country should see this
film: "Television has brought the sight of war into America's
sitting rooms from Vietnam. Surely it can find 16 minutes of
prime time to show Americans what the first A-bombs, puny by
today's weapons, did to people and property 25 years ago."
This at last pushed public television into the void. What was
then called National Educational Television (NET) agreed to show
the documentary on August 3, 1970, to coincide with the 25th
anniversary of dropping the bomb.
"I feel that classifying all of this filmed material was a
misuse of the secrecy system since none of it had any military
or national security aspect at all," Barnouw told me. "The
reason must have been--that if the public had seen it and
Congressmen had seen it--it would have been much harder to
appropriate money for more bombs."
THE AMERICAN FOOTAGE COMES OUT
About a decade later, by pure chance, Herb Sussan would spark
the emergence of the American footage, ending its decades in the
dark.
In the mid-1970s, Japanese antinuclear activists, led by a Tokyo
teacher named Tsutomu Iwakura, discovered that few pictures of
the aftermath of the atomic bombings existed in their country.
Many had been seized by the U.S. military after the war, they
learned, and taken out of Japan. The Japanese had as little
visual exposure to the true effects of the bomb as most
Americans. Activists managed to track down hundreds of pictures
in archives and private collections and published them in a
popular book. In 1979 they mounted an exhibit at the United
Nations in New York.
There, by chance, Iwakura met Sussan, who told him about the
U.S. military footage.
Iwakura made a few calls and found that the color footage,
recently declassified, might be at the National Archives. A trip
to Washington, D.C. verified this. He found eighty reels of
film, labeled #342 USAF, with the reels numbered 11000 to 11079.
About one-fifth of the footage covered the atomic cities.
According to a shot list, reel #11010 included, for example:
"School, deaf and dumb, blast effect, damaged ... Commercial
school demolished ... School, engineering, demolished. ...
School, Shirayama elementary, demolished, blast effect ...
Tenements, demolished."
The film had been quietly declassified a few years earlier, but
no one in the outside world knew it. An archivist there told me
at the time, "If no one knows about the film to ask forit, it's
as closed as when it was classified."
Eventually 200,000 Japanese citizens contributed half a million
dollars and Iwakura was able to buy the film. He then traveled
around Japan filming survivors who had posed for Sussan and
McGovern in 1946. Iwakura quickly completed a documentary called
"Prophecy" and in late spring 1982 arranged for a New York
premiere.
That fall a small part of the McGovern/Sussan footage turned up
for the first time in an American film, one of the sensations of
the New York Film Festival, called "Dark Circle." It's
co-director, Chris Beaver, told me, "No wonder the government
didn't want us to see it. I think they didn't want Americans to
see themselves in that picture. It's one thing to know about
that and another thing to see it."
Despite this exposure, not a single story had yet appeared in an
American newspaper about the shooting of the footage, its
suppression or release. And Sussan was now ill with a form of
lymphoma doctors had found in soldiers exposed to radiation in
atomic tests during the 1950s -- or in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
In late 1982, editing Nuclear Times, I met Sussan and Erik
Barnouw -- and talked on several occasions with Daniel McGovern,
out in Northridge, California. "It would make a fine documentary
even today," McGovern said of the color footage. "Wouldn't it be
wonderful to have a movie of the burning of Atlanta?"
After he hauled the footage back to the Pentagon, McGovern said,
he was told that under no circumstances would the footage be
released for outside use. "They were fearful of it being
circulated," McGovern said. He confirmed that the color footage,
like the black and white, had been declassified over time,
taking it from top secret to "for public release" (but only if
the public knew about it and asked for it).
Still, the question of precisely why the footage remained secret
for so long lingered. Here McGovern added his considerable
voice. "The main reason it was classified was...because of the
horror, the devastation," he said. "The medical effects were
pretty gory. ... The attitude was: do not show any medical
effects. Don't make people sick."
But who was behind this? "I always had the sense," McGovern
answered, "that people in the AEC were sorry they had dropped
the bomb. The Air Force--it was also sorry. I was told by people
in the Pentagon that they didn't want those images out because
they showed effects on man, woman and child. But the AEC, they
were the ones that stopped it from coming out. They had power of
God over everybody," he declared. "If it had anything to do with
nukes, they had to see it. They were the ones who destroyed a
lot of film and pictures of the first U.S. nuclear tests after
the war."
Even so, McGovern believed, his footage might have surfaced "if
someone had grabbed the ball and run with it but the AEC did not
want it released."
As "Dark Circle" director Chris Beaver had said, "With the
government trying to sell the public on a new civil defense
program and Reagan arguing that a nuclear war is survivable,
this footage could be awfully bad publicity."
TODAY
In the summer of 1984, I made my own pilgrimage to the atomic
cities, to walk in the footsteps of Dan McGovern and Herb
Sussan, and meet some of the people they filmed in 1946. By
then, the McGovern/ Sussan footage had turned up in several new
documentaries. On Sept. 2, 1985, however, Herb Sussan passed
away. His final request to his children: Would they scatter his
ashes at ground zero in Hiroshima?
In the mid-1990s, researching "Hiroshima in America," a book I
would write with Robert Jay Lifton, I discovered the deeper
context for suppression of the U.S. Army film: it was part of a
broad effort to suppress a wide range of material related to the
atomic bombings, including photographs, newspaper reports on
radiation effects, information about the decision to drop the
bomb, even a Hollywood movie.
The 50th anniversary of the bombing drew extensive print and
television coverage -- and wide use of excerpts from the
McGovern/Sussan footage--but no strong shift in American
attitudes on the use of the bomb.
Then, in 2003, as adviser to a documentary film, "Original Child
Bomb," I urged director Carey Schonegevel to draw on the atomic
footage as much as possible. She not only did so but also
obtained from McGovern's son copies of home movies he had shot
in Japan while shooting the official film.
"Original Child Bomb" went on to debut at the 2004 Tribeca Film
Festival, win a major documentary award, and this week, on Aug.
6 and 7, it will debut on the Sundance cable channel. After 60
years at least a small portion of that footage will finally
reach part of the American public in the unflinching and
powerful form its creators intended. Only then will the
Americans who see it be able to fully judge for themselves what
McGovern and Sussan were trying to accomplish in shooting the
film, why the authorities felt they had to suppress it, and what
impact their footage, if widely aired, might have had on the
nuclear arms race -- and the nuclear proliferation that plagues,
and endangers, us today.
Greg Mitchell
(gmitchell@editorandpublisher.com) is the editor of E&P and
former editor of Nuclear Times. He co-authored (with Robert Jay
Lifton) the book "Hiroshima in America" and served as adviser to
the award-winning film "Original Child Bomb."
© 2005 VNU eMedia Inc. All rights reserved. Terms
*****************************************************************
21 SF Chronicle: HIROSHIMA: Reconciling the Memories /
Wrestling with ghosts of war / New attacks on Japan's atrocities
-- conservatives tired of apologies
Charles Burress, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 3, 2005
The slender, bruised arm of Japanese dancer Nao Ohta -- injured
in her nation's revived civil war over World War II history --
could be a symbol for modern Japan.
"We all have them," Ohta, 31, said of her fresh scab and bruises
as she gestured toward three fellow dancers last week. They had
just taken a battering in their intense Tokyo performance of
"Silent Trace," an allegory about the brutal treatment suffered
by "comfort women," the women forced to become sex slaves for
the Japanese Imperial Army.
East Asia, unlike Europe and the United States, is still
wrestling with the ghosts of World War II. The 60th anniversary
of the Hiroshima atomic bombing on Saturday, of the Nagasaki
bombing on Tuesday and of the war's end in Asia next weekend
find Japan under renewed attack from activists who say the
country never faced up to the atrocities its army committed
before and during the war.
Japan's ruling conservatives in the Liberal Democratic Party are
fighting back on multiple battlefronts: a war shrine that extols
the World War II heroism of Japan's soldiers, including 14 found
to be war criminals; a new middle school history textbook that
critics accuse of whitewashing wartime atrocities; and proposed
revision of Japan's "Peace Constitution." Imposed by the United
States in 1947, the Constitution's Article 9 renounces war and
prohibits Japan from maintaining forces for waging war.
Complaining that liberal war-guilt since 1945 has given the
nation a masochistic self-image, conservatives are pushing to
revise the nation's basic education law to instill more
patriotism in the nation's youth. Education Minister Nariaki
Nakayama said in a June speech that the curriculum under the
nation's left-leaning teachers "has overemphasized that Japan is
a bad country, " the Associated Press reported.
Last year, scores of teachers were reprimanded for disobeying a
1999 law mandating respect for the flag and singing of the
national anthem in schools. Many teachers objected to what they
viewed as symbols of Japanese imperialism.
Intensifying the conflict, the Chinese government frequently
criticizes Japan, focusing especially on Prime Minister
Junichiro Koizumi's annual visits to Yasukuni Shrine. Among the
2.5 million Japanese soldiers whose souls are believed enshrined
there are Gen. Hideki Tojo and 13 others classified by the Tokyo
War Crimes Tribunal as Class A war criminals.
Chinese anger flared into widely publicized street
demonstrations this spring in response to Japan's bid for a U.N.
Security Council seat, to a joint U.S.-Japan endorsement of
peace over Taiwan as a "common strategic objective" and to
government approval of the middle school textbook, though the
book has been adopted by only a tiny fraction of schools.
Koizumi and his supporters say China shouldn't interfere in
Japan's domestic issues. A poll last month by the liberal
Mainichi newspaper found 51 percent of Japanese citizens opposed
Koizumi's continued visits to Yasukuni and that 39 percent
favored them.
Keeping it low-key
Unlike the 50th anniversary of the war's end, when Socialist
Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama issued a full apology, and a
sharply divided Parliament passed an equivocal apology after
prolonged debate, this anniversary has a low profile among
national government ranks.
Most of the planned commemorations have been organized by
nongovernmental organizations and activists, while local
governments in Hiroshima and Nagasaki are participating in
events there.
Last Saturday, an estimated 9,500 people gathered in Tokyo to
oppose revising the Constitution, as the Liberal Democratic
Party has been working to do. And on Sunday, the new Women's
Active Museum on War and Peace opened in Tokyo to tell the
comfort women's story.
Conservatives have stepped up their defense of the nation's
record, saying Japan has settled the disputed issues in various
treaties and has apologized enough. A few justify Japan's
invasion of China or even deny that atrocities like the Nanjing
massacre occurred, though most say Japan's brutal aggression was
wrong even if other nations acted similarly.
Particularly infuriating to Japan's critics are comments like
Nakayama's last month when he approvingly cited an e-mail he
received saying that comfort women could take pride that "their
existence soothed distraught feelings of men in the
battlefield," Japan's Asahi newspaper reported. In the past when
Cabinet ministers made such remarks, they usually did so at the
cost of their jobs.
"In the old days," said Xiaohua Ma, a Chinese expert in
international studies teaching at Osaka University of Education,
"they had to resign, but not now. It's a big change."
Supporters of the former comfort women say the Japanese military
and private procurers coerced 200,000 women into sexual slavery.
Most were from Korea, but many were from China, the Philippines,
Indonesia and elsewhere.
One of the comfort women, a Korean named Song Shin-do who is now
84 and living in Japan, said at a press gathering last week that
she just wanted a sincere apology. In an unsuccessful lawsuit
against the government, she said she had been tricked at age 16
into going to a "comfort station" where she was threatened with
death if she didn't submit, was routinely slapped around, lost
her hearing in one ear when her eardrum was ruptured and saw the
suicides of some of the women and the murder of one who refused
to have sex because she was sick.
Prime Minister Koizumi most recently expressed a "heartfelt
apology" before Asian and African leaders in Jakarta. In 1995
the government authorized a privately funded Asian Women's Fund
to offer compensation and a written apology from the prime
minister to each former comfort woman.
'A bunch of lies'
Song and many other former comfort women refused the gestures,
saying the funds should come from the government.
"It's all a bunch of lies by fools and idiots!" Song replied
when asked about the government apologies. "If you truly feel
sorry, or if you truly feel regret, it doesn't matter if you can
say things in a particular official or beautiful way."
Japan's largest-circulation newspaper, the conservative Yomiuri,
said earlier this year that many allegations by the comfort
women's supporters were false. Government leaders say they've
apologized over and over -- to China and South Korea
individually and to all victims collectively -- for "the
tremendous damage and suffering" caused by Japan's aggression.
The most popular candidate to replace Prime Minister Koizumi
when he steps down is Shinzo Abe, secretary-general of the
Liberal Democratic Party, who blames China's "anti-Japanese and
nationalistic education" for Chinese resentments.
"The Japanese government has shown a sincere attitude toward
China," Abe said at a press conference two weeks ago. "Japan has
apologized 20 times."
Opinions differ on how much the general public in Japan cares
about the war-memory debates, but it is hard for anyone who
watches TV or walks past a newsstand to ignore the controversy.
Media giants NHK public broadcasting and the influential liberal
Asahi newspaper have battled openly over an NHK program in which
the emperor was found guilty of war crimes in a mock trial by
comfort women's supporters. Asahi reported that NHK censored the
program under pressure from Abe and another high-ranking Liberal
Democratic Party politician.
Abe -- grandson of former Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi, who was
imprisoned as a Class A war criminal but later released without
trial -- said he merely advised NHK officials to be fair.
The stakes for some of the combatants inside Japan are nothing
short of Japanese identity and the direction the nation must go
at a momentous crossroads in the nation's long history.
People's spirit on trial
Should Japan continue its 60-year commitment to pacifism, which
includes military dependence on the United States and the
consequent sacrifice of foreign policy independence? Or should
the nation seek "normal country" status, along with increased
military power?
"The spirit of the Japanese people is on trial," Koizumi
declares in a speech captured in the documentary film "Japan's
Peace Constitution," which is now showing in Tokyo theaters.
Despite Article 9, Japan's military spending is large -- the
highest or second-highest in Asia, depending on whether one
accepts China's own military- spending figures or U.S. estimates
of Chinese outlays.
But Japan so far has renounced having a strong offensive
capacity or defending an ally under attack. The issue is
particularly fraught with tension because most citizens still
have a deep aversion to war because of what Japan did in World
War II and the devastation it suffered.
Japan recently has moved gingerly toward a more active military,
in large part under pressure from the United States. It is
cooperating with the American government on an anti-missile
shield, and last year it sent troops to Iraq in noncombat roles,
the first dispatch of soldiers to a combat zone since 1945. A
few ardent conservatives have even raised the possibility of
Japan's acquiring nuclear arms, largely in response to North
Korea's nuclear threat.
The current turmoil may be just the latest quake along a deep
fissure that has ruptured many times. But both Japan and China
display signs of rising nationalism fanned by government support
while Japan's relations with South Korea and China are
plummeting.
"It's the lowest point," said Hisayoshi Ina, a columnist and
editorial writer for the Nihon Keizai business daily.
Public opinion polls in China and Japan have shown significant
increases in each population's negative feelings toward the
other.
"The young generation -- they hate each other," said Ma, the
Osaka University of Education professor.
Though analysts disagree over how much the Chinese government
may be orchestrating anti-Japan protests, one result seems to be
a backlash in Japan, not only among staunch Japanese
conservatives but also among many less- political citizens who
believe there are limits to the responsibility Japanese bear now
for the actions of an earlier generation.
The memory war, meanwhile, continues to take a toll.
"This is a major impediment to Japan playing a larger and more
constructive role on the world stage," said Steven Vogel, a
Japan expert and associate professor of political science at UC
Berkeley. "It is a major impediment to better relations with
China, South Korea and other Asian countries."
Japan appears deadlocked. With regard to Yasukuni, one side sees
the prime minister's visits as "a thorn lodged in the side of
the Japan-China relationship," Ina wrote in his Nihon Keizai
column. "They think bilateral relations will improve with the
removal of the thorn."
The other side believes that China uses history as a diplomatic
weapon to intimidate Japan and that capitulation would, Ina
writes, invite "greater pressure from China for more compromises
on Taiwan, Senkaku Islands, gas fields, history textbooks and
other thorny bilateral issues."
E-mail Charles Burress at cburress@sfchronicle.com.
Page A - 1
The San Francisco Chronicle]
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22 Sify: Vajpayee seeks national debate on nuclear deal
PTI
Wednesday, 03 August , 2005, 17:38
New Delhi: The Opposition and Left parties in the Lok Sabha on
Wednesday expressed concern over the impact of the Indo-US
nuclear deal on India's foreign policy with former Prime
Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee asking the Government to clarify
whether "indirect conditionalities" have been imposed on the
country.
Seeking a national debate and a consensus on the nuclear
question, Vajpayee asked whether India's future interests had
been taken into account while entering into deals which, among
other things, entailed separation of the country's civilian and
military nuclear facilities.
Initiating a debate on the statement made by Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh, regarding his recent US visit, Vajpayee, who
made his speech while being seated, said in a world faced with
terrorism, "we cannot say with conviction when which facility
will be required to safeguard our national interests."
He expressed apprehension that the nuclear deal with the US
could affect production of nuclear materials by India which, in
turn, would impact national security.
CPI leader Prabodh Panda said India, through the recently
concluded agreements with Washington, had become a "junior
partner of the US in fulfilling its global ambitions."
He charged the Government with "deviating" from its independent
foreign policy based on anti-imperialism and continuing the
"pro-US shift initiated by the erstwhile Vajpayee Government."
Countering the charges, Congress member P K Bansal, said India
would get "unlimited access" to nuclear materials and technology
as a result of the recent deal, which was denied earlier.
© Copyright Sify Ltd, 1998-2004. All rights reserved.
Sify.comhosted at SifyHosting India's first Level 3 Internet
DataCentre.
*****************************************************************
23 Japan Times: China buildup on Defense Agency radar
Wednesday, August 3, 2005
Sub intrusion, other marine incidents merit monitoring: annual
report
By KANAKO TAKAHARA Staff writer
Tokyo is monitoring China's rapid military buildup and remains
on alert in the wake of recent incidents, including the
intrusion of a submarine into Japanese territorial waters and
frequent operations by its marine research vessels nearby,
according to an annual report on defense released Tuesday.
The defense white paper, endorsed by the Cabinet, notes that
China's defense budget increased by more than 10 percentage
points over the past 17 years.
"It is necessary to keep paying attention to these
modernization trends and to carefully evaluate whether the
modernization of China's military forces exceeds the level
necessary for its national defense," the paper says.
The report was made public following the Pentagon's assessment
on China's military, released earlier this month. It said
Beijing's military buildup poses a long-term threat to regional
powers, including Japan and India.
The white paper says Tokyo is "closely monitoring" activities
by China's naval vessels navigating near Japan's territorial
waters.
The most notable case took place last November when a submerged
Chinese nuclear-powered submarine briefly intruded into Japanese
territorial waters, resulting in diplomatic tension between
Tokyo and Beijing, the paper notes.
Tokyo is also concerned that China's gas field project in the
East China Sea will suck up resources on the Japanese side of
the median line drawn by Japan as the demarcation of the two
countries' exclusive economic zones, it adds.
"We have to be good friends with China as a neighboring
country," Defense Agency chief Yoshinori Ono told reporters. "To
do so, we urge China to be more transparent" on its military
budget and activities.
The report says North Korea's military activities, including
Pyongyang's nuclear arms and missile programs, are increasing
tension on the Korean Peninsula and are "unstable factors"
affecting security in East Asia, including Japan.
It says North Korea's nuclear arms program may be "considerably
advanced" in light of the North's repeated remarks that it has
developed atomic weapons, although the paper does not elaborate.
The Self-Defense Forces need to be more prepared to deal with
"new threats" the nation faces, including terrorist attacks,
ballistic missile attacks and large-scale natural disasters, the
white paper says.
The Japan Times: Aug. 3, 2005
(C) All rights reserved
*****************************************************************
24 Japan Times: Hiroshima mayor seeks antinuclear committee at U.N.
Wednesday, August 3, 2005
HIROSHIMA (Kyodo) Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba said Tuesday
he will ask the U.N. to set up a special committee to examine
how to rid the world of nuclear weapons.
The plan was disclosed in an outline of this year's Peace
Declaration. He will deliver the speech Saturday at a ceremony
marking the 60th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing.
Akiba said he will make the request at a meeting of a U.N.
international security panel to be held in October.
This year's declaration says the collapse of the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty review conference showed that the
nuclear powers are not listening to the majority of the world's
citizens, who want nuclear weapons eliminated.
The mayor will take his pitch to the First Committee on
Disarmament and International Security at the U.N. General
Assembly.
The Japan Times: Aug. 3, 2005
(C) All rights reserved
*****************************************************************
25 Reuters: U.S. suppressed footage of Hiroshima for decades
Wed Aug 3, 2005 11:30 AM ET
WASHINGTON, Aug 3 (Reuters) - As the world prepares to mark the
60th anniversary of the dropping of the first atomic bomb on
Saturday, some American media experts see uncomfortable echoes
between the suppression of images of death and destruction then
and coverage of the war in Iraq today.
As author Greg Mitchell lays out in an article in Editor &
Publisher this week, in the weeks following the atomic attacks on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki, U.S. authorities seized and suppressed
film shot in the bombed cities by U.S. military crews and
Japanese newsreel teams to prevent Americans from seeing the full
extent of devastation wrought by the new weapons.
Tens of thousands died in each attack.
The U.S. military footage shot in color was classified as
secret. It remained hidden until the early 1980s and has never
been fully aired. The Japanese film shot in black and white was
declassified and returned to Japan in the late 1960s.
Some of the images captured in the days after the bombings will
finally be shown on a U.S. cable television channel as part of a
documentary on Saturday.
"Although there are clearly huge differences with Iraq, there
are also some similarities," said Mitchell, co-author of
"Hiroshima in America" and editor of Editor & Publisher.
"The chief similarity is that Americans are still being kept at
a distance from images of death, whether of their own soldiers or
Iraqi civilians," he said.
In May, the Los Angeles Times released a survey of six months of
media coverage of the Iraq war in six prominent U.S. newspapers
and two newsmagazines -- a period during which 559 coalition
forces, the vast majority American, were killed. It found they
had run almost no photographs of Americans killed in action. The
same publications ran only 44 photos to represent the thousands
of Westerners wounded during that same time.
"There's a mixture of censorship and self-censorship. In an
information age, unfortunately what is missing is truthful and
factual information," said Yahya Kamalipour, a communications
professor at Purdue University in Indiana and author of "Bring
'Em On: Media and Politics in the Iraq War."
Examples of overt censorship are the Pentagon's ban on filming
the coffins of dead servicemen and women being brought back to
Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, as well as its continuing legal
fight to prevent the publication of photographs and videos of
detainee abuse in Abu Ghraib prison.
'TOO SHOCKING'
Self-censorship happens when individual editors decide not to
run photographs or footage of casualties because they deem them
"too shocking" for readers or because they wish to avoid
controversy or criticism.
"So much of the media is owned by big corporations and they
would much rather focus on making money than setting themselves
up for criticism from the White House and Congress," said Ralph
Begleiter, a former CNN correspondent, now a journalism professor
at the University of Delaware.
Last October, Begleiter filed a lawsuit to force the Pentagon to
release military photographs and video of the coffins being
returned.
In April, the Pentagon made public more than 700 images all
taken before June 2004. Begleiter said it appeared the military
had stopped taking pictures of casualties being returned to avoid
being forced to release more images.
In May 2004, when ABC's Nightline screened the names and photos
of 721 U.S. forces killed in the Iraq war without any commentary,
it caused furor. One company which owned eight ABC stations
ordered them not to show the program and some conservatives
denounced it as an anti-war gimmick.
One month before, when four U.S. contractors were murdered in
Fallujah and their charred bodies were strung up from a bridge,
most TV stations did not use the images. A survey of the 20 top
circulating newspapers in the United States found only seven put
a picture of the bodies on their front pages.
In 1945, U.S. policymakers wanted to be able to continue to
develop and test atomic and eventually nuclear weapons without an
outcry of public opinion.
"They succeeded but the subject is still a raw nerve. Americans
remain very divided about nuclear weapons. We'll never know what
impact the footage, if widely aired, might have had on the
nuclear arms race and nuclear proliferation that plagues and
endangers us today," Mitchell said.
© Reuters 2005.
All Rights Reserved.
*****************************************************************
26 UK The Times: Old enemies' wargames send a powerful message to the US
August 03, 2005
By Jane Macartney
Russia and China hope to sign a massive arms deal after staging
joint exercises for the first time
RUSSIA will show off its most modern bombers to its best
military customer and China will have a chance to demonstrate
that it is a force to be reckoned with when the giant neighbours
hold their first joint military exercises this month.
The decision to hold the drills off the east China coast in the
Yellow Sea came after a disagreement over Beijing’s initial
desire for the games to take place further south, opposite the
island of Taiwan — which it hopes one day to recover, by force
if necessary.
Yesterday’s announcement that 100,000 troops would mass from
August 18 to 25 marked the culmination of years of rapprochement
between countries that were once bitter enemies, which went to
war in a minor territorial dispute in the 1970s, but now see
themselves as strategic partners.
Their common interests include the sale of Russian oil to help
to meet the energy needs of China’s fast-growing economy as well
as the strategic goal of showing the United States that other
powers were rising in the East.
History has enabled them to leave behind old enmities. Shi
Yinhong, Professor of the School of International Studies at
Renmin University, Beijing, said: “China needs to buy Russian
military equipment and resources. For Russia, China is an
important market and a source of hard currency.”
Peace Mission 2005, involving army, navy, air force, marine,
airborne and logistics units, will begin on August 18 near the
Russian Pacific Fleet headquarters in Vladivostok, moving to the
Yellow Sea and then to an area off the Jiaodong peninsula in the
coastal Chinese province of Shandong. “The exercises neither aim
at any third party nor concern the interests of any third
country,” the Chinese Defence Ministry said.
Russian paratroops will jump on to the peninsula, while Russian
ships will engage in amphibious landing exercises.
Air force exercises involving Sukhoi Su27 fighter aircraft and
Tupolev TU95MSs and TU22M-3s will round out the drills, with
long-distance bombing runs and cruise missile attacks. The
exercises could also involve China’s nuclear submarine fleet and
antisubmarine warfare capability.
Analysts say there is little doubt that China is keen to send a
message to the US. Not only is it gradually expanding its
influence in Asia, eroding decades of dominance by Washington,
but it also has the cash to go on a spending spree to update its
military.
Russia’s TU160, TU95MS and TU22M3 strategic bombers and the
improved Su27SM fighters will scream through the skies. It is
not only their high-tech cockpits that Russia wants to show off.
China may want to update its fleet of old, lumbering bombers
with TU22M3s and TU95s capable of carrying long-haul
nuclear-tipped cruise missiles. Russian nerves tingled when the
European Union considered lifting its arms embargo on China
earlier this year and since then Moscow has shown an interest in
offering higher-technology arms to its top buyer.
The war games will involve a Russian airlift of an airborne unit
to the training location by Il76 transport aircraft, launching a
cruise missile to an imaginary target with TU22M3 medium-range
bombers and bombing ground units with Su27SM fighters.
The two governments have invited observers from other
governments in the six-nation Shanghai Co-operation
Organisation, a security group led by Beijing and Moscow. The
group, meant to combat separatism and Islamic extremism in
Central Asia, includes Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and
Kazakhstan.
The show of strength is enough to shake China’s neighbours, but
may not go too far in tipping the balance of power in the
Pacific. So China is relying on diplomacy as well to boost its
influence, quietly eroding the pre-eminence of the United States
in the process. Li Zhaoxing, the Chinese Foreign Minister, has
had a helping hand recently from Condoleezza Rice, the US
Secretary of State. She stayed away last week from an annual
strategic forum involving the US, Japan and China in a meeting
of South-East Asian nations. That left the stage to Mr Li, who
dropped in to show Asia that China cared. The unspoken message
was that Washington had seen fit to send only less-senior
officials.
Vadim Solovyov, the Chief Editor of the Independent Military
Survey, said: “These exercises are a challenge to the US and its
allies — a new military alliance is forming. Now there is a
unipolar world. Russia and China can make a second pole.”
Copyright The Times - timesonline.co.uk
*****************************************************************
27 Guardian Unlimited: US kept in the dark as secret nuclear deal was struck
David Leigh
Thursday August 4, 2005
The Guardian
Israel's acquisition of nuclear bombs has been one of the most
sustained pieces of deceit in recent history. The project was
guarded with such passion that in the 1980s the technician
Mordechai Vanunu was kidnapped and spent 11 years in solitary
confinement for blowing some of its secrets.
It is remarkable then, that documents lying unnoticed in the
public records office at Kew should reveal Britain's hitherto
unknown role 47 years ago in deceiving the US and supplying
Israel with the means to go nuclear.
The main files on the subject, from the UK Atomic Energy
Authority, are still classified. But BBC Newsnight producer
Meirion Jones says he found a handful of key copies in a
routinely declassified but obscure Foreign Office
counter-proliferation archive.
Apart from a passing mention of a British connection in 1998 by
Israeli academic Avner Cohen, the UK's key role seems to have
been completely unknown to historians.
What the documents still fail to reveal, however, is how high up
in the Macmillan government the decision was taken to go behind
the back of President Eisenhower and load 20 tons of heavy water
from Britain on to Israeli ships, thus enabling Israel to start
up its Dimona reactor.
On the face of it, the decision was mere avarice. Britain's own
highly secret nuclear weapons project had spent in the region of
£1.5m on barrels of heavy water from Norway.
But a different technological route had been chosen for the UK
in the end, using graphite as a moderator to bring about nuclear
reactions. Norway refused to cancel the heavy water contract. It
must have been tempting for those in charge of Whitehall budgets
to be offered a chance to get their money back.
In the days of the cold war, the Official Secrets Act ensured
that there was little danger of civil servants being held to
account by MPs or the public for what they had done. They could
scrawl without anxiety, as one did, "I would prefer not to
mention this to the Americans", or "It would be somewhat
over-zealous for us to insist on safeguards".
Only the US, Russia and the UK had nuclear weapons at the time,
shortly to be joined in the "nuclear club" by France. The west
was, officially at least, dedicated to preventing nuclear
proliferation to small, unstable countries. But Israel was to be
the first to break through this embargo.
In 1958, Israeli bulldozers had just started to break the ground
at Dimona in the Negev desert for a top-secret French team to
start constructing what France was later to claim it believed to
be a small "research reactor".
France supplied Israel with a small quantity - four tons - of
heavy water, but Israel needed much more if it was to to start a
reactor that could manufacture weapons quantities of plutonium.
In September 1958, Israel offered, via the Norwegians, to buy 25
tons of heavy water which Britain possessed.
David Peirson, secretary of the UKAEA, wrote to Whitehall
officials that he intended to sell "without restrictions". It
was clear from his letter that there had already been
discussions within the British government about the proposed
sale.
It could be argued, he wrote, that if Britain was a party to the
sale to Israel, there should be safeguards to prevent Israel
using the heavy water to make bombs.
On the other hand, Britain had got the heavy water from Norway
for its own military purposes: "It might be regarded as somewhat
unreasonable that we should now stipulate for conditions we did
not accept ourselves."
Technically, Britain would be selling back to Norway, and Norway
would re-sell to Israel: "It would be primarily for [the
Norwegians] to consider the issue ... It would be somewhat
over-zealous of us to insist on safeguards."
At the Foreign Office, Alexander Stirling suggested: "We might
make the gesture of informing the Americans ... unless there was
any risk of a US firm stealing the Israeli orders."
He was rapidly overruled by Douglas Cape, first secretary at the
FCO in charge of nuclear security, in terms that made it clear
the fear was the US would demand too many safeguards: "I would
prefer not to mention this to the Americans lest it lead them to
ask us to take up what would in fact be an untenable position
vis-a-vis the Norwegians."
The cover story was that the heavy water was "understood to be
required by Israel for peaceful use in a reactor connected with
desert irrigation".
Accordingly in June 1959, and again the following June, two lots
of heavy water of 10 tons each were, according to a note by Alan
Brooke-Turner, then first secretary at the FCO in charge of
disarmament, "put on board Israeli ships at a UK port" and
shipped out to Dimona.
But Israel never got its final five tons of the British
consignment, and had to turn elsewhere. To Whitehall's
discomfiture, news of Israel's activities started to leak and
there was an international row.
A US spyplane, the U2, had been taking high-level photos of the
activities in the Negev desert. US intelligence had become
suspicious, and summoned the Israeli ambassador in Washington to
question him.
In December 1960, a story was planted in the British press, via
the Daily Express veteran defence correspondent Chapman Pincher,
that Israel was trying to make atomic bombs.
The following March, the UKAEA told the Norwegians they thought
it was unlikely Israel could have the outstanding five tons,
although the deal was commercially "attractive". This was, wrote
Peirson, because of "the political sensitivity of Israel's
nuclear activities".
Henry Hainsworth, head of the FCO's atomic energy department,
noted sternly: "We have been far from satisfied by the
assurances so far furnished by the Israelis of the exclusively
peaceful nature of their operations. I should be strongly
opposed to letting them have a further five tons."
One of the FCO's most senior officials, Sir Hugh Stephenson,
finally stamped on the idea. "I am quite sure we should not
agree to this sale. The Israeli project is much too live an
issue for us to get mixed up in it again."
Rehearsing the history of the earlier shipment from British
ports, another official warned: "This information should not be
used in response to inquiries about the heavy water."
By the time the Israeli prime minister, David Ben-Gurion,
arrived in London on an official visit that June, Whitehall had
arranged itself into a position of high-minded disapproval of
Israeli behaviour.
The British prime minister, Harold Macmillan, wrote in a minute
classified "secret": "I saw Mr Ben-Gurion this afternoon and
told him of our concern about the Israeli nuclear reactor in the
Negev. Mr Ben-Gurion explained that its object was to train
personnel in preparation for an atomic energy programme in 10 or
15 years' time aimed at providing cheap power for taking the
salt out of sea water to irrigate the Negev.
"I asked Mr Ben-Gurion whether he could not accept international
inspection ... Mr Ben Gurion said he did not think he could
since this would mean bringing in the Russians and Arabs."
British concern came too late. Israel is now believed to have a
secret stockpile of up to 130 nuclear missiles.
Email comments for publication to:
politics.editor@guardianunlimited.co.uk
[UP]
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
28 BBC: Planning law challenge launched
Last Updated: Tuesday, 2 August 2005
[M74]
Objectors could be prevented from blocking major projects like
the M74
Campaigners have launched a petition aimed at ensuring the public
is given the chance to object to projects like motorways and
nuclear power stations.
Environmentalists and community councils said a Scottish
Executive White Paper to overhaul planning laws had failed local
communities.
They also condemned the new proposals for failing to introduce a
"third party right of appeal" for objectors.
The petition aims to persuade MSPs to amend the plans before they
become law.
Groups including Scottish Environment LINK and the Association of
Scottish Community Councils (ASCC) said the current system was
weighted heavily in favour of developers - who could appeal
planning permission refusals.
They had called for limited third party appeal to give
communities similar redress if a development got the go-ahead.
Public involvement
But this was rejected in the White Paper unveiled by Communities
Minister Malcolm Chisholm on 29 June.
However, the executive said the proposals would ensure "more
fairness, balance and greater involvement" in the planning
system.
These included new procedures for involving the public in
development plans and applications, and a requirement for
planning authorities to give reasons for their decisions.
But the paper caused further unease by proposing that
developments deemed to be of "national significance" - such as
the M74 extension - could only be challenged on location or
detail, but not on need.
Douglas Murray, of the ASCC, which represents 650 community
councils, said it wanted stronger powers for communities as well
as accountability from local and national government.
The new system would all people to express their view of a
planning proposal but give no real weight to their opinion Anne
McCall Scottish Environment LINK
"The White Paper does not deliver on either, nor does it allow
communities sufficient safeguards on decisions made against their
wishes or even where the local authority makes an error," he
said.
"The Scottish Parliament has the power to make these changes, and
this petition gives notice of our intentions."
Anne McCall, of the LINK coalition, branded the White Paper a
"mess".
"The new system would allow people to express their view of a
planning proposal but give no real weight to their opinion," she
said.
An executive spokesman said ministers had urged people to examine
the "package of reforms as a whole" and consider their views on
issues such as third party appeal rights in light of the
proposals.
He said the overhaul of the planning system aimed to strengthen
the participation of local people from the outset.
*****************************************************************
29 canadaeast.com: Lepreau plan points to power price pinch
As published on page D1 on August 3, 2005
JOEL O'KANE The Daily Gleaner
Energy analysts are warning New Brunswickers the price of their
electricity will skyrocket in the next decade as ratepayers start
to pay non-subsidized power prices.
Consumers will shoulder the costs from refurbishing Point Lepreau
and the botched Orimulsion supply deal, experts say.
Tom Adams, executive director of Energy Probe, said New
Brunswickers will start paying higher costs than its neighbouring
provinces very soon.
On its website, NB Power said its customers "enjoy electricity
rates that are among the lowest in Atlantic Canada and
north-eastern North America."
But not for long, Adams said.
"We still haven't seen some of the bad ones get into the rates
yet, like the Orimulsion fiasco," he said.
"It hasn't showed up much on your power bill, but it's coming,
and it's going to be nasty."
Adams is referring to the recent $1.4-billion decision to
refurbish the Point Lepreau nuclear plant and the hundreds of
millions of dollars NB Power incurred by not getting a signed
supply agreement for Orimulsion to fuel its Belledune plant.
NB Power residential customers now pay a lower rate per
kilowatt-hour than customers in Nova Scotia and P.E.I.
Here, a residential-urban customer pays $17.74 for electricity
service plus 8.37 per kWh. After 1,300 kWh, the rate dips to
6.63 cents per kWh.
In Nova Scotia, where power is supplied by Emera Inc. subsidiary
NS Power, residential customers pay $10.83 for electrical
service plus 9.22 cents per kWh.
In Prince Edward Island, where electricity is routinely
imported, residential-urban customers pay $21.55 for electrical
service plus 10.33 cents for the first 1,200 kWh. After that,
the rate drops to 8.01 cents per kWh.
Adams said New Brunswickers are in for a rude awakening as they
start to pay the real costs for their electricity.
The $1.4-billion refurbishment of Point Lepreau will help buffer
ratepayers from soaring energy costs in the oil markets, but he
said New Brunswickers will eventually have to pay for the
refurbishment in higher rates.
"There's only one way to recoup the costs, and that's by
charging ratepayers for it," said Bruce Winchester, director of
research services at the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies.
"That means the rates will go up. The question is, given other
options, how much will they go up under this scenario than
another one?"
When the provincial government announced their decision to
refurbish Lepreau last week, Premier Bernard Lord told reporters
the refurbishment decision was made because it had the lowest
impact to ratepayers.
He also warned it had the highest risk because the CANDU-6
reactor is the first to be refurbished in Canada.
In cost breakdowns given to the media, Lepreau's refurbishment
was listed as the lowest cost, followed by coal, natural gas,
wind and importing electricity to meet demand.
A coal-fired plant -- projected to cost anywhere from $50
million to $400 million more than refurbishing Lepreau -- would
drive electricity rates up one to four per cent.
Investing in wind energy would cost another billion dollars
above the cost of Lepreau's refurbishment, with the potential to
drive rates up by 10 per cent.
Winchester said hydroelectric power, which is produced at the
Mactaquac dam, is the least expensive form of power, with
nuclear likely the next cheapest option.
But he said nuclear energy has its own challenges, including
more up-front costs and the inability to scale energy output to
meet demand.
In Ontario, home to several nuclear power plants, soaring summer
demand is exceeding supply.
Winchester said that province could be in an energy crunch any
year now, with potentially damaging ramifications for its
manufacturing sector.
Serving the needs of New Brunswick's relatively large industrial
base was one reason Lord gave for refurbishing Lepreau, where
nuclear power supplies almost one-third of the province's power
needs.
Winchester said an interesting system to look at is Alberta,
where customers buy power through private competing companies in
a deregulated marketplace.
As thousands of people move to take advantage of Alberta's
booming economy, Winchester said, private suppliers are keeping
up with the demand and are even taking advantage of alternative
energy sources.
Albertans are also paying real prices for electricity, he said,
instead of getting cheaper rates through subsidized public
utilities.
In Ontario, customers are charged 0.7 cents per kWh to cover
Ontario Hydro's debt incurred from subsidized rates.
Most Ontario residential customers are charged between 10 to 11
cents per kWh for their electricity. In Alberta, most companies
charge a cent or two less.
Adams said Nova Scotians might have paid higher electricity
bills in the past but they may pay cheaper rates in the long run.
"Nova Scotia has a solvent utility; it's financially stable," he
said.
"It has no significant debt overload ... It's a relatively
efficient utility. Compared with New Brunswick, you have an
astronomical amount of debt and the utility is rather
inefficient."
Winchester warned the money spent on Lepreau might be missed
when dollars are needed for other government departments but
there's not enough ratepayers to cover its refurbishment costs.
"It may not be possible to recoup that from ratepayers and, as a
result, taxpayers will end up paying for it," he said.
"In other words, money that the government of New Brunswick
might have spent elsewhere might be spent paying off the debt to
refurbish the plant."
NB Power spokesperson Pamela McKay said the utility will apply
for another rate increase for the 2006-2007 fiscal year. A
recent three per cent increase was the third in 16 months.
McKay said NB Power's diversity of supply and ability to export
power during the summer may help off-set future costs.
"Export sales do help keep in-province rates lower," she said.
"However, we are still faced with the same financial pressures
from the cost of fuel as all other utilities around the world."
"There's only one way to recoup the (Lepreau refurbishment)
costs, and that's by charging ratepayers for it."Bruce
WinchesterAIMS director of research services -->
Copyright © 2005 Brunswick News Inc. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
30 NRC: NRC Proposes Further Strengthening Drug-Testing and Worker Fatigue Provisions for
Nuclear Workers
News Release - 2005-10
U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Office of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200
Washington, DC 20555-0001 E-mail: opa@nrc.gov
No. 05-108 August 3, 2005
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is proposing improvements to
the agencys fitness-for-duty requirements for workers who have
unescorted access to a nuclear power plants protected areas.
The changes are outlined in a proposed rule that would apply to
all currently operating plants, as well as any future plants
licensed by the NRC. The drug- and alcohol-testing provisions
would also apply to facilities that transport or handle
strategic special nuclear material, including the Department of
Energys proposed mixed-oxide fuel facility.
"The NRC has long had strong fitness-for-duty requirements, and
the proposed changes would provide even greater assurance that
workers with unescorted access are trustworthy and reliable,"
said NRC Executive Director for Operations Luis Reyes. "The
changes were proposing will also set work hour limits to ensure
nuclear power plant employees get enough rest to carry out their
jobs."
The proposed rule sets out detailed requirements in many areas
of fitness-for-duty programs, including:
Requiring validity tests for urine samples to determine if a
specimen has been adulterated, diluted or substituted;
Toughening sanctions for violations, including permanent
denial of unescorted access for refusing or attempting to
subvert a test;
Adding the position of Substance Abuse Expert and specifying
the role that person would fulfill in the fitness-for-duty and
return-to-duty processes;
Codifying individual work hour limits for some workers of no
more than 16 hours in a 24-hour period, 26 hours in a 48-hour
period and 72 hours in a week, excluding shift turnover time;
Establishing minimum individual breaks for some workers of at
least 10 hours between shifts, a 24-hour break each week and a
48-hour break every two weeks, and
Requiring some groups of workers to average a maximum of 48
hours per week while the plant is operating.
The proposed changes represent the resolution of the NRCs
activities in response to petitions for rulemaking regarding
work hour limits and certain inspections of fitness-for-duty
programs. The rule would also, in part, replace and expand on an
Order the NRC issued on April 29, 2003, setting work hour limits
for security personnel, as well as codify a Commission policy
statement on fatigue issued in 1982. For more information on the
proposed rule, contact staff member Rebecca Karas by phone at
301-415-3711 or via e-mail at rlk@nrc.gov.
Comments on the proposed changes will be accepted for 120 days
following publication of the proposed rule in the Federal
Register, expected shortly. Comments may be mailed to:
Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, D.C.
20555-0001, ATTN: Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff. They may
be e-mailed to: SECY@nrc.gov, via the NRCs rulemaking Web site
at http://ruleforum.llnl.gov, or through the Federal Rulemaking
Portal at http://www.regulations.gov[exit icon] . Comments may
also be faxed to the Secretary at 301-415-1101, or
hand-delivered to 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Md., between
7:30 a.m. and 4:15 p.m. on federal workdays.
Last revised Wednesday, August 03, 2005
*****************************************************************
31 Battle Creek Enquirer: Depleted uranium is not harmless
Letters -
- www.battlecreekenquirer.com
Wednesday, August 3, 2005
Your Opinions
This is a response to a letter to the editor, arguing that
depleted uranium (DU) was either not used by the U.S. military
or if used, is harmless before and after deployment.
+ Each "bunker buster" bomb we dropped in Baghdad contained
5,000 pounds of depleted uranium and we dropped thousands of
bombs and used many other weapons containing depleted DU.
+ The DU metal in the bombs and missiles does burn and vaporize
upon impact with the target and contaminates the surrounding
environment.
+ DU emits a kind of "lower level" radiation, alpha particles.
DU also emits small amounts of high level radiation - beta
particles and gamma rays.
+ There is a direct connection with soldiers sitting on DU
munition boxes in Bradley fighting vehicles and the increased
number of rectal and uterine cancer among returning troops.
+ Uranium poisoning is showing up in the lungs, kidneys and
testicles of many Gulf War I and Iraq war veterans. Many
soldiers also have skin problems probably related to radiation
exposure.
+ Birth defects are occurring at a much higher rate in U.S.
military families involved in the Gulf Wars and in the people of
Iraq and Bosnia who have been exposed to DU.
+ DU is used to tip the missiles carried on various fighting
machines: the A-10 Thunderbolt, the M-1 Abrams tank, the Bradley
fighting vehicles. DU is used on Tomahawk cruise missiles and on
the Phalanx missiles which are used on almost all types of ships
in the U.S. navy.
R. Heubel
Battle Creek
Originally published August 3, 2005
Copyright ©2005 Battle Creek Enquirer. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
32 IEER Report: Bad to the Bone
IEER| Publications
Analysis of the Federal Maximum Contaminant Levels for
Plutonium-239 and Other Alpha-Emitting Transuranic Radionuclides
in Drinking Water
By: Arjun Makhijani, Ph.D.
Institute for Energy and Environmental Research
August 2005
Press Release | Full report in PDF [282KB; 33 pages] | Letter to
the EPA | Sign the EPA letter
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Main Findings
Recommendations
I. Introduction
II. National Primary Drinking Water Regulations- Radionuclides
A. Bone dose estimation in ICRP 2
B. Bone dose estimation, present-day dose conversion factors
1. Bone doses according to FGR 11
2. Bone doses according to FGR 13
III. Conclusions
IV. Costs
V. Estimating the impact of residual radioactivity
VI. Other risks and radionuclides
References
Press Release
Letter to the EPA
Take Action to keep drinking water safe from plutonium
contamination
Download PDF version of report [282KB; 33 pages]
Order the report
Publications Index
Institute for Energy and Environmental ResearchComments to
Outreach Coordinator: ieer at ieer.org
Takoma Park, Maryland, USA
August 3, 2005
*****************************************************************
33 IEER Report: Bad to the Bone
For Release August 3, 2005
For further information contact: Arjun Makhijani: 301-270-5500 or
301-509-6843, arjun[at]ieer.org
P R E S S R E L E A S E
EPA Drinking Water Standard for Plutonium Is 100 Times Too Weak;
New Research Shows Current Level is Based on Decades-Old,
Obsolete Science
Waste at Nuclear Weapons Sites Threatens Vital Water Resources;
EPA Urged to Act Quickly to Tighten Maximum Contaminant Limits
Takoma Park, Maryland, August 3, 2005: The federally-allowed
level of drinking water contamination by plutonium-239, one of
the ingredients of atomic bombs, and other radioactive materials
with similar properties is 100 times too high, according to a
new scientific analysis released today by the Institute for
Energy and Environmental Research (IEER). The report called on
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to set new
standards that better protect human health.
"The EPA's Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) for plutonium and
other alpha-emitting long-lived transuranic radionuclides is one
hundred times too lax because it is based on obsolete, 1950s
science," said Dr. Arjun Makhijani, president of IEER and author
of the new report, Bad to the Bone: Analysis of the Federal
Maximum Contaminant Levels for Plutonium-239 and Other
Alpha-Emitting Transuranic Radionuclides in Drinking Water. "The
current scientific assessment of plutonium indicates that the
dose to human bones is far greater than was estimated at the
time standards were published."
The current MCL for plutonium and related radioactive pollutants
was set in 1976, when the EPA first issued its safe drinking
water standards for radionuclides under the Safe Drinking Water
Act.
According to the report, advances over the past three decades in
the scientific understanding of the behavior in the body of
plutonium and other alpha-emitting, long-lived transuranic
radionuclides shows that such radionuclides concentrate near the
bone surface and deliver a dose per unit intake that is far
higher than previously estimated. The scientific research has
been published by the EPA in its guidance documents. Yet, the
IEER report demonstrates that the science has not been
incorporated into the MCLs for these radionuclides.
"The EPA is required to review and update its rules for the
protection of public health on a regular basis," said Geoff
Fettus, staff attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council
(NRDC). "This IEER study shows that the EPA should act with
alacrity to tighten standards to protect public health and
remain within the intent and spirit of the drinking water
regulations. NRDC will work with IEER and other organizations in
the coming year to make sure it does so."
IEER, joined by NRDC, Clean Water Action and other groups,
transmitted the report today to Cynthia Dougherty, director of
the EPA groundwater and drinking water office, with a letter
urging the agency to change the combined drinking water limit
for alpha-emitting, long-lived transuranic radionuclides from 15
picocuries per liter to 0.15 picocuries per liter. The groups
also asked the EPA to incorporate the IEER analysis into the
agency's next regulatory review of the radionuclides portion of
the Safe Drinking Water Act, slated for 2006.
"The urgency that the EPA implement this change derives from the
fact that long-lived radioactive waste, including plutonium, is
being cemented in tanks or otherwise left in the vicinity of
crucial water resources," said Dr. Makhijani, referring to a law
Congress passed in 2004 allowing the U.S. Department of Energy
(DOE) to reclassify residual high-level waste as incidental
waste.
According to the report, water resources such as the Savannah
River, which forms the border between South Carolina and
Georgia, the Snake River Plain Aquifer in Southern Idaho, and
the Columbia River are at risk from wastes containing
alpha-emitting, long-lived transuranic radionuclides.
"The Department of Energy is proceeding without strict, national
remediation rules," said Jeremy Maxand, Executive Director of
the Snake River Alliance, which has endorsed the report's
findings. "Once plutonium gets into the water, it will not be
possible to remediate it - and we have a ton of it here,
literally, above the Snake River Plain Aquifer. Several major
cleanup decisions at our site will be made in the next year or
two, and the EPA needs to act to ensure that the DOE adheres to
protective norms so far as drinking water is concerned."
States with water resources that may be impacted by large
amounts of DOE plutonium wastes include South Carolina, Georgia,
Idaho, Washington, Oregon, New Mexico, and Nevada.
The report, Bad to the Bone: Analysis of the Federal Maximum
Contaminant Levels for Plutonium-239 and Other Alpha-Emitting
Transuranic Radionuclides in Drinking Water, can be downloaded
in full from IEER's website at http://www.ieer.org.
-30-
Hard copies of the report are also available:
Email ieer[at]ieer.org, call 1-301-270-5500, or .
Institute for Energy and Environmental Research Comments to
ieer[at]ieer.org
Takoma Park, Maryland, USA
August 3, 2005
*****************************************************************
34 asahi.com: 160 caught twice in radioactive fallout
08/03/2005 The Asahi Shimbun
HIROSHIMA-More than 100 people who were in Hiroshima on and
after the Aug. 6, 1945, atomic bombing were subjected to more
radioactive fallout when they visited Nagasaki to help victims
of the second atomic bombing three days later, a study shows.
In total, at least 160 people were exposed to double doses of
radiation. Some had gone from Nagasaki to Hiroshima.
The individuals, mostly soldiers and nurses, were in the two
cities to care for the injured or dispose of bodies.
The twin bombings killed more than 240,000 people.
The study by the Hiroshima National Peace Memorial Hall for
Atomic Bomb Victims was triggered by the donation of memoirs
this spring of a Hiroshima woman recounting her exposure to
radiation in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Intrigued by this irony, officials wanted to find out if there
were others who may have been exposed twice to radioactive
fallout.
The hall keeps memoirs from bomb victims in its permanent
collection. The collection also includes photos of deceased bomb
victims that were donated by bereaved family members.
Records are kept on each individual associated with either a
memoir or photo.
The study examined all of the individuals on whom information is
available at the hall. The total number of people, in both the
photos and memoirs, is about 130,000.(IHT/Asahi: August 3,2005)
+ The Asahi Shimbun Company
*****************************************************************
35 AU ABC: Residents voice concerns over nuclear dump
17:31 (ACST)Wednesday, 3 August 2005. 18:31 (AEDT)Wednesday, 3
About 150 residents from Katherine in the Northern Territory
have attended a fiery public meeting about the Federal
Government's proposed Commonwealth nuclear waste dump.
Fischers Ridge, south of Katherine, is one of three defence
sites in the Northern Territory being considered for a waste
dump.
Commonwealth officials provided information about the site and
what a dump would involve.
Concern in Katherine has been based around the impact of a dump
on underground aquifers.
A representative from the Department of Education, Science and
Training says it would be an above ground facility storing solid
wastes and therefore not an issue for underground water.
The spokesman assured residents it would be safe.
This prompted questions from the crowd as to why it was not
being built on land near a city, one lady suggesting near The
Lodge.
The department spokesman replied that the potential site was
Commonwealth land and it was a government decision.
*****************************************************************
36 AU ABC: 'Super floods' raised as nuke dump hazard
20:19 (ACST)Wednesday, 3 August 2005. 21:19 (AEDT)Wednesday, 3
Rare flooding could put possible nuclear dump site at risk.
Rare 'super floods' may cause rivers to change course,
scientists say, compromising a site the Australian Government
has shortlisted for a nuclear waste dump in the Northern
Territory.
Hydrogeologist Peter Jolly of the Territory's Environment
Department, who previously raised concerns about the suitability
of the proposed dump site at Fishers Ridge, has now also cast
doubt on the Harts Range site, 100 kilometres north-east of
Alice Springs.
Mr Jolly says the Harts Range site is on a flood plain between
two active river channels that come off the ranges.
He says evidence shows that over hundreds or thousands of years
massive flooding has been responsible for "catastrophic changes"
in the course of rivers in central Australia.
"A river goes in one spot at the moment but a 'mega flood' can
lead to it changing its course completely," Mr Jolly said.
He says such issues are important to consider given the
long-term nature of a nuclear dump.
"The river channels may migrate across the [dump] site, so if
you're looking at a containment time of 500 years or a couple of
hundred years, the site may end up in the river channel at some
stage," he said.
Mr Jolly says recent studies of water bores drilled near the two
sites show there is an aquifer in river sediments of sand and
gravel beneath the Harts Range site.
"That would tend to suggest that anything that would leak would
leak pretty quickly into the sand and gravel and into the
groundwater," he said.
He says the other site at Mount Everard, 27 kilometres
north-west of Alice Springs, has more suitable water flow and
river erosion of the landscape for a dump.
That site has brackish saline water beneath it, as well as 50 to
90 metres of clay, then granite. Mr Jolly says it has no river
sediments.
"That would suggest that it would contain any spill," he said.
"From a hydrogeological and a geomorphological point of view
it's probably the better site."
The Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST), whose
preliminary assessment led to shortlisting the sites, has
defended its proposals.
It says the hydrogeology and geomorphology of the sites will be
examined during site investigation studies.
*****************************************************************
37 AU ABC: NT nuclear dump site row intensifies
07:18 (ACST)Thursday, 4 August 2005. 08:18 (AEDT)Thursday, 4
Northern Territory Environment Minister Marion Scrymgour says
her Government will explore all avenues in its fight against a
Commonwealth nuclear waste dump.
She addressed a meeting of Alice Springs residents in central
Australia last night.
More than 200 residents attended the meeting and many were
concerned the dump will eventually be used to store high-level
waste.
Ms Scrymgour says NT Worksafe legislation may be able to stop
any waste that is not from Lucas Heights in Sydney in New South
Wales being transported to the Territory.
"There has to be a licence or a certificate issued by the
minister for Worksafe to allow that to come in," she said.
Federal Labor Member for Lingiari Warren Snowdon has told a
meeting of Alice Springs residents there is no reason a nuclear
waste dump should not be built in NSW rather than the Northern
Territory.
Mr Snowdon told the meeting the Federal Government has chosen
the Territory for the waste dump because it contains only two
Federal seats.
He says there is no other reason to transport nuclear waste from
Sydney to central Australia.
"If this stuff is as harmless as you say it is, why are we
moving it half way across Australia when it can be kept at Lucas
Heights," he said.
Mr Snowdon says there are a number of sites on Commonwealth and
Defence land in NSW where the Federal Government could put the
dump instead.
Arid Lands Environment Centre (ALEC) spokesman John Brisbin says
he has been told by the Australian Nuclear Science and
Technology Organisation (ANSTO) that nuclear waste could be
safely stored in Sydney.
He says transporting waste to central Australia is a waste of
money.
"There's no reason why that shouldn't stay at the already
approved reactor site in Sydney," Mr Brisbin said.
"They've already got the facilities there, they've got the
technicians, it's a perfectly safe place to store this perfectly
safe waste.
"Why should the taxpayers have to fund this new facility for
something that could be stored at Lucas Heights."
Mr Brisbin believes the Federal Government will use the site to
store other types of waste in the future.
"That once they do make the investment and facilities here,
they're going to start looking at the market opportunities for
importing other kinds of waste," he said.
"Maybe there's other toxic waste that they want to store at this
facility, once they've made that investment there's an economic
rationalist argument to say 'let's use it for something else'
and we don't want that."
Alice Springs resident Denise Senior says she was opposed to the
dump before attending last night's meeting but wanted more
information on the Federal Government's plan.
She says she is particularly concerned that a nuclear waste dump
might affect the underground water supply in central Australia.
"Alice Springs relies so much on that water table and that's a
huge concern, and plus the fact that there's a possibility that
we could become the international dumping ground for nuclear
waste," she said.
Resident Geoff Senior says he also attended last night's meeting
because he has many questions about what a waste dump in NT will
involve.
"Where the dump was going and who was opposing it and why the
Commonwealth Government decided to put it here and they just
haven't given a reason for it," he said.
"It's just because as they say it's out in the middle of
nowhere. I live in the middle of nowhere and I don't want it in
my backyard."
*****************************************************************
38 Las Vegas RJ: Group: Water standard for radioactivity unsafe
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
Nevada officials ponder report's implications for planned Yucca
Mountain waste site By STEVE TETREAULT
STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON -- The government is underestimating the health risks
from the presence of radioactive particles in drinking water, an
environmental science group said in a report it plans to release
today.
Nevada officials who have seen the report said it could focus
new attention on the safety of groundwater near the proposed
Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository.
Advances in science have clarified the dangers of long-lived
radioactive particles like plutonium and neptunium that could
travel in water where the government conducted atomic bomb
activities, the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research
said.
Such particles concentrate in the bones and deliver doses far
higher than previously estimated, according to the institute's
analysis.
The institute urged the Environmental Protection Agency to set
new standards that the group said would protect human health
better.
The present EPA standard for plutonium in drinking water, 15
picocuries per liter, is one hundred times too high, said Arjun
Makhijani, institute president and report author. The standard
was set in 1976, he said.
Makhijani said Tuesday that public water supplies are not in
danger.
Even with tougher standards, "public water systems are not at
present contaminated at or near the requested (maximum limit),"
the study said.
The more practical effect of the new standards, Makhijani said,
would be to guide the Energy Department's cleanup of former
nuclear weapons sites.
The study recommended that the department pay for a set of
baseline water samples drawn near sites that have plutonium
waste or soil contamination.
The sites could include the Savannah River, which divides
Georgia and South Carolina, the Columbia River in Washington and
Oregon, and the Snake River aquifer in southern Idaho.
Makhijani urged the EPA to use his recommendations in a review
of drinking water standards scheduled for next year. The agency
did not respond to a request for comment on the report.
Groundwater standards for the proposed nuclear waste repository
at Yucca Mountain are based on the EPA's safety levels for
drinking water, Nevada officials said Tuesday.
If the EPA were to adopt a tighter drinking water standard for
radioactive particles, "it could make it harder for the
repository to meet the standard over the long term," said Joe
Egan, the state's nuclear waste lawyer.
Copyright Las Vegas Review-Journal
*****************************************************************
39 Las Vegas SUN: Report: EPA should update nuke levels for drinking water
Today: August 03, 2005 at 11:14:59 PDT
By Benjamin Grove <> SUN WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON -- The Environmental Protection Agency should revise
its 29-year-old standard for radioactive materials in drinking
water, according to a report released today that could have
implications for the Nevada Test Site and the nuclear dump
planned for Yucca Mountain.
In general, the nation's drinking water is safe from
radioactive contamination, said the report's author, Arjun
Makhijani, president of the Maryland-based Institute for Energy
and Environmental Research, and a critic of Yucca Mountain.
But radioactive materials could endanger water sources near
former government nuclear weapons facilities, including
groundwater near the Nevada Test Site, Makhijani said.
"I'm worried about some very specific sites," Makhijani said.
Other water sources at risk include the Savannah River running
between South Carolina and Georgia, the Snake River Plain
Aquifer in Southern Idaho and the Columbia River in Washington.
The Nevada Test Site was the site of above- and below-ground
testing for four decades, ending in 1992. Makhijani said he was
concerned about plutonium that was dispersed during testing,
especially in the 1950s and 1960s.
The federal drinking water standard for allowable levels of
materials like plutonium-239, an atomic bomb ingredient, is too
lax, Makhijani said. The report recommends that the EPA set a
standard that is 100 times more strict, especially as the
government continues clean-up efforts at former nuclear weapon
sites.
Clean-up efforts include enclosing radioactive waste, including
plutonium, in tanks, but the waste is still left near vital
water sources, Makhijani said.
Makhijani also recommends that the stricter standard be applied
to the proposed underground nuclear waste repository at Yucca
Mountain.
Nevada officials have said Yucca cannot meet current standards
limiting the release of radiation into the environment. Waste
that would be permanently stored in casks in the repository
tunnels would contain long-lived radionuclides like plutonium
and neptunium that could ultimately seep into groundwater if the
repository fails in the future, said Joe Egan, a lawyer for the
state on Yucca issues.
Makhijani's recommendation "would make for a standard that is
much more difficult for the Department of Energy to meet over
the long term," Egan said.
An EPA spokesman said that the agency reviews its standard
every six years.
"Unless someone has significant information not previously
available, there is not a compelling case to change the rule,"
EPA spokesman Dale Kemery said.
All contents copyright 2005 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
40 AU ABC: Ancient Worlds News: Shifting rivers cast doubt on nuclear dump
- 03/08/2005
Rare superfloods may cause rivers to change course, scientists
say, compromising a site the Australian government has
shortlisted for a nuclear waste dump.
Hydrogeologist, Peter Jolly of the Northern Territory's
environment department, who previously raised concerns about the
suitability of the proposed dump site at Fishers Ridge, now also
casts doubt on the Harts Range site, 100 kilometres northeast of
Alice Springs.
Jolly says the Harts Range site is on a flood plain between two
active river channels that come off the ranges.
He says evidence shows that over hundreds or thousands of years
massive flooding has been responsible for "catastrophic changes"
in the course of rivers in Central Australia.
"A river goes in one spot at the moment but a megaflood can lead
to it changing its course completely," says Jolly.
He says such issues are important to consider given the
long-term nature of a nuclear dump.
"The river channels may migrate across the [dump] site, so if
you're looking at a containment time of 500 years or a couple of
hundred years, the site may end up in the river channel at some
stage."
Jolly also says recent studies of water bores drilled near the
two sites show there is an aquifer in river sediments of sand
and gravel beneath the Harts Ranges site.
"That would tend to suggest that anything that would leak would
leak pretty quickly into the sand and gravel and into the
groundwater," he says.
But he says the other site at Mount Everard, 27 kilometres
northwest of Alice Springs, has more suitable hydrogeology
(water flow) and geomorphology (river erosion of the landscape)
for a dump.
This site has brackish saline water beneath it, as well as 50 to
90 metres of clay, then granite. Jolly says it has no river
sediments.
"That would suggest that it would contain any spill," he says.
"From a hydrogeological and a geomorphological point of view
it's probably the better site."
Ancient flood history
Dr Mary Bourke, a geomorphologist with the Planetary Science
Institutein Tucson in the US, has studied how central
Australia's landforms have changed over the millennia.
While she has not worked specifically on the Harts Range, and
declined to comment specifically on the site, she says the
region generally has been subject to catastrophic rainfall and
floods over time, and some rivers there have changed course.
"If you have rivers whose banks are composed of erodable
materials, and generally we think in terms of gravels and sands,
if the force of the river is high enough it can actually erode
away that sediment."
She says periodic large floods have caused the Todd River, which
at one point flows through Alice Springs, to change its course
several times in the past 2000 years.
Bourke says the floods she is referring to are much larger than
those in recorded history.
Further investigation
The federal Department of Education, Science and Training(DEST),
whose preliminary assessment led to shortlisting the sites, has
defended its proposals.
"Radioactive waste will be managed in a single, purpose-built,
state of art facility, and as a result it will not present a
hazard to either the community or the environment," DEST says.
"The hydrogeology and geomorphology of all potential sites will
be examined during the site investigation studies," DEST says.
"It is premature to offer further comment at this stage."
The two sites also host the Jindalee Facility Alice Springs, one
of three operational radars the Australian government uses for
surveillance of the country's northern coastline and beyond.
There are currently no plans to decommission the facility and
the Department of Defencesays an evaluation on the suitability
of the sites is in its early phases and DEST will thoroughly
investigate the impact on current radar operations and future
research and development activities before making
recommendations on the site.
DEST says there will be no impact on the continued operations of
the Jindalee system.
Related Stories Govt defends rainy site for nuclear dump, News in
Science 27 Jul 2005Nuclear dump site gets thumbs down, News in
Science 25 Jul 2005Online rain stats show wetter Oz, News in
Science 10 Jan 2000
*****************************************************************
41 Nuc News: Yucca Mountain QA 101
by Kristi Hodges
August 01, 2005
When it comes to what quality assurance (QA) is and/or isn't,
the experts are the last ones consulted. So it's been left to
well-meaning laymen to interpret the subtleties of a seemingly
complex profession - it's no surprise that most get it wrong. To
read that Yucca's QA organization has failed to improve quality
is like screeching fingernails across a chalk board to those in
the QA profession. Someone needs to give QA 101 training;
someone needs to set the record straight. Considering the
silence of the current leaders of my profession, I'll give it my
best shot - it's certainly not rocket science.
When a building fails an inspection, it's because a building
code violation has occurred. It's not a building code problem,
as the building code is not the problem. The problem is that
someone failed to perform work to requirements of the city
building code. Therefore, work must be redone in order for the
building to pass inspection.
Likewise, when a work activity fails a QA audit, it's because
one or more QA requirements were violated. It's not a QA
problem, as QA is not the problem. The problem is that someone
failed to perform work to the requirements established in the QA
Program. Therefore, work must be corrected in order to close the
deficiency documents and pass the next audit.
In early 2001, when significant QA deficiencies recurred, new
terminology slipped into the Yucca Mountain dialogue. For
dubious reasons, violations of QA requirements were restated as
QA problems. Although resisted by the QA organization, the mere
repetition of the fallacy created a perception that couldn't be
shaken. It wasn't long before failures in QA implementation were
being attributed to the QA organization. And not long after that
the DOE QA Director was removed, which is another story
altogether.
To attribute QA violations to the QA organization would be the
same as attributing building code violations to building
inspectors. We've all heard of shooting the messenger, but
rarely has the messenger been blamed for the shooting.
Welcome to our world.
Upon the news that Yucca Mountain had QA problems, those on the
Yucca reporting beat took the "QA is the problem" bait and ran
with it. With the heat placed on the QA overseers, QA
circumventors appeared to be home free. But soon the project
became embroiled in controversy over QA whistleblowers - every
problem became a QA problem, every report a QA document, and
every worker a QA worker. "It's the QA stupid!"
So what did DOE do?
To fix the alleged QA problems, a new QA Director was appointed
to "get QA out of the spotlight." Subsequent changes to reduce
the QA organization's oversight role were referred to as "QA
improvements." But three years down the road and another QA
Director has tried and failed to fix QA.
As Bill Belke, the former NRC on-site representative, once said
in regard to the QA organization, "Why fix what's not broken?"
That since has been updated to there's no fixing what's been
broken.
But if the experts had been consulted, they would have explained
that QA auditors, like inspectors, don't do the work; they make
sure work is done correctly. And QA Directors don't direct the
work; they direct the oversight of the work. One can change the
composition and leadership of the QA organization, and identify
deficiencies all day long, but only those responsible for doing
the work can improve the quality of the work. This simple
concept has somehow eluded comprehension of even the best of
reporters (and DOE managers).
But I digress.
The QA 101 student must first learn the basics:
- There are workers and overseers of work;
- Scientists and engineers are workers;
- QA auditors are overseers;
- Workers implement QA requirements;
- QA auditors assess implementation of QA requirements;
- Workers prepare technical reports; and
- QA auditors prepare audit reports.
To get right what most get wrong, next learn the lingo:
Quality Assurance vs. Quality Control (QC):
Although often used interchangeably, there are differences
between QA and QC. QA aims to assure that quality is built into
work; QC aims to confirm that quality was built into work. QA
has auditors; QC has inspectors. QA auditors evaluate
implementation and effectiveness of processes used to complete
work; QC inspectors evaluate completed work for conformance to
specifications & drawings. Hint: The QA Director at Yucca
Mountain is not a QC Manager.
QA Organization vs. QA Implementation:
Like all organizations, QA organizations have problems, but QA
problems are not necessarily QA organization problems. Most QA
problems are in implementation of QA requirements. Therefore,
it's important, when writing an article or speaking as a member
of Congress, to articulate whether the perceived problem is with
the QA organization or those responsible for quality, which
would be the workers and their management.
QA Document vs. Technical Document:
QA organizations prepare lots of documents, e.g., audit reports,
deficiency documents, procedures, and requirement
interpretations. However, QA organizations don't produce
technical documents; those are prepared by scientists and
engineers. Note that the infiltration studies at the center of
the USGS e-mail kerfuffle were not conducted by QA workers. Also
note that QA workers conducted an audit in January 2000, which
is why most of the substantive issues related to the USGS
e-mails were previously identified and corrected. Hint: There
still is "no technical smoking gun." Sorry Jon.
QA Independence vs. Organizational Conflict of Interest:
Beware of those that tout their independence, as they are only
as independent as the ones signing their paychecks. For
instance, most "independent" investigators are hired by those
with an agenda; therefore, most "independent" investigation
reports are written before the investigation has started - the
only independence being from reality as they think we're
actually buying their baloney.
But QA auditors are required to be independent. In other words,
they can have no personal involvement in producing the work
subject to audit - that would be a conflict of interest.
However, there are conflicts of interest and there are
organizational conflicts of interest (OCI). One can be
independent of the work and still violate federal OCI
regulations, which preclude personnel, including QA auditors,
from overseeing their company's work on behalf of the
government. Hint: DOE cannot take credit for its prime
contractor, BSC's, internal QA audits. What were they thinking?
QA Auditor vs. QA Whistleblower:
When auditors identify deficiencies they are not whistleblowing;
they are doing their jobs. When auditors are retaliated against
and removed from their positions for identifying deficiencies
there is a good chance that they will become whistleblowers.
There are plenty of faux whistleblowers with slick attorneys
extorting money from vulnerable nuclear projects, but there are
also legitimate whistleblowers that never in a million years
wanted to be in their situations. Note: Bogus whistleblowers
have been hitting Las Vegas jackpots off Yucca Mountain at the
expense of the American taxpayer - details to come.
Kristi Hodges, a Senior Quality Assurance Specialist and 15-year
YMP employee, was instrumental in facilitating whistleblower
legislation introduced by the Nevada Senators, which was amended
to the 2005 Energy Bill. She is currently championing efforts to
expose and preclude whistleblower fraud.
Contact at khodges850@aol.com
*****************************************************************
42 AU ABC: Call for information on NT dump plans -
03/08/2005
Meetings are being held in the Northern Territory today to
debate the Federal Government's plan to store radioactive waste
there.
Three Commonwealth sites near Alice Springs and Katherine are
being considered for the dump.
While there has been cautious support from some areas, cattle
producers remain doubtful.
Stuart Kenny, from the NT Cattlemen's Association, wants more
information about how the waste site might affect the beef
industry's reputation.
"I've been a number of stations, not just neighbouring ones,
but ones in the region and concerns are what will these sites
entail," Mr Kenny said.
"Certainly in central Australia, the area there has been built
up around a clean green product, and we would like to make sure
that is maintained so we would certainly need more information
before we can make a sound decision on the matter."
*****************************************************************
43 AU ABC: Macfarlane happy with Ranger uranium mine.
03/08/2005. ABC News Online
Update: Wednesday, August 3, 2005. 8:00pm (AEST)
The federal Resources Minister says the success of the Ranger
uranium mine boosts the argument for more uranium mines in the
Northern Territory.
The Minister, Ian Macfarlane, toured the mine, near Kakadu
National Park, today.
He says he is happy with the changes implemented since
incidents in which 150 workers drank contaminated water and
contaminated equipment was driven off site.
Mr Macfarlane says what he saw today proves uranium can be
mined safely and that such mines are assets to local communities.
The Minister says he was particularly interested to visit the
Ranger operation because of the Northern Territory Government's
ban on new uranium mining.
"We didn't discuss it specifically," he said.
"Obviously they've got issues in terms of continuation of
mining in the Northern Territory and I'm hopeful of having a
discussion with Clare Martin on that matter over the next day or
so."
*****************************************************************
44 PittsburghLIVE.com: Doubts about nuclear waste resurface -
Thursday, August 4, 2005
Photo Gallery
LOUIS B. RUEDIGER/VALLEY NEWS DISPATCH
The state Department of Environmental Resources is accepting
comments until Aug. 22 on the plan to remove ash from the Kiski
Valley Water Pollution Control Authority lagoon.
To comment, write to the Pennsylvania Department of
Environmental Resources, attention Diane McDaniel, 400
Waterfront Drive, Pittsburgh, PA 15222.
By Wynne Everett
VALLEY NEWS DISPATCH
Wednesday, August 3, 2005
Residents exposed to nuclear contamination from the former B
plant for decades reacted with skepticism Tuesday night to a
plan to move unranium-contaminated ash from a water treatment
plant lagoon in Allegheny Township.
"Don't endanger us any more and don't plague any other community
with this stuff," said Leechburg resident and community activist
Patty Ameno at a public hearing on the issue.
The DEP is considering a plan to remove about 12,000 cubic yards
of ash from the lagoon at the Kiski Valley Water Pollution
Control Authority's treatment plant in Allegheny Township.
The ash contains low levels of uranium, carried there between
1977 and 1984 via wastewater from the former Babcock &Wilcox
facility in Apollo.
In the early 1990s, the authority planned to remove the ash as
part of a routine upgrade of its facilities, but was stopped
when the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission found uranium
contamination in the ash. In 1994, the NRC ordered the authority
not to move the material.
Earlier this year, the NRC concluded the ash is safe to remove.
The change in the commission's position is related to changes in
the way the state and federal government measures radioactivity,
said Dwight Shearer, chief of DEP's radioactive materials
section.
In 1994, the NRC measured the concentration of uranium in the
ash and ruled it was higher than acceptable levels for ordinary
landfill waste.
Today, however, the NRC measures uranium based on the dosage a
person would receive from the contamination.
Based on that measurement, the ash is safe for a landfill,
Shearer said.
"This thing has been tested to death, and it has passed every
test," Shearer said.
The authority's director, Robert Kossak, said he and the
authority board believe the NRC's conclusions are correct.
"I live in this community," Kossak said. "I want to make sure
Kiski Valley doesn't do anything to harm me, my employees, the
people who live in this Valley."
Residents who have listened to generations of government
officials promise that the nuclear-processing plants and the
waste they left behind were safe, are skeptical.
"There are no safe levels; this stuff all causes cancer." said
Ameno, who has suffered multiple brain tumors she blames on
exposure to contamination from B. "This is totally
unacceptable."
Ameno was one of a dozen residents at the meeting. Most agreed
they want the uranium-contaminated waste out of their community,
but they don't trust the current plan is safe.
The authority has proposed hauling the ash in lined dump trucks
covered with tarps to a landfill.
Although state and federal agencies don't require such
precautions, Kossak said the authority plans to take steps to
ensure the removal is safe:
= Workers will wear protective suits to ensure they don't carry
contaminated dust home on their clothing.
= The trucks will be hosed down before leaving the authority
property to make sure no contaminated dust is clinging to their
exteriors.
= Workers will conduct airborne sampling at the site to test for
radioactivity.
The precautions didn't satisfy residents, however, who suspect
the ash requires even more stringent precautions.
"What about a leaky truck? What about a spill? What if there is
an accident?" Ameno asked.
Ameno also said she believes the ash should go to a nuclear
waste facility, not an ordinary landfill.
Kossak said the authority plans to take the ash either to a
landfill either in Monroeville or in Penn Township, Westmoreland
County, depending on which one submits a lower bid.
According to the authority's proposal, the ash removal would
begin in October and take four to six weeks.
By December 2006, the site should be completely cleaned up,
regraded and seeded with new grass, Kossak said.
Residents asked the state to delay a decision on the plan so
they can review it.
"It's been sitting up there for 11 years and all of a sudden
they want to rush this through," Apollo Councilman Bill
Whitlinger said.
Whitlinger said borough officials want to discuss the plan and
come to a consensus on the proposal before giving input to DEP.
"We find when we react as a borough, as a municipality, it is
more effective than standing up alone," Whitlinger said.
Whitlinger questioned why the authority was responsible for
removing the ash, instead of B. He also wondered if removing the
contaminated material would jeopardize any future litigation
against the company.
Kossak and the authority's lawyer said a confidentiality
agreement with B prevented them from answering those questions.
Wynne Everett can be reached at weverett@tribweb.comor (724)
226-4676.
Images and text copyright © 2005 by The Tribune-Review
Publishing Co.
*****************************************************************
45 Mos News: Environmentalists Warn Europe Illegally Dumping Uranium Waste in Russia
- NEWS - MOSNEWS.COM
[Environmental group has evidence of the import of about 10,000
tons of radioactive waste from 1996 to 2001 / Photo by Roberto
Caccuri]
Photo by Roberto
Caccuri
Created: 03.08.2005 12:00 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 12:00 MSK
MosNews
Russian environmentalists intend to report to the Prosecutor
General’s Office that Europe is violating the law that bans the
entry of radioactive waste into Russia, Interfax reported
Tuesday.
“There is a very secret business of bringing in quite a large
amount of radioactive waste to Russia from Western Europe,
particularly from Germany,” the co-chairman of the environmental
organization Ekozashchita (EcoDefense), Vladimir Slivyak, said
at a press conference on Tuesday.
According to EcoDefense’s information, Western European
companies Urenco and Urodif have been sending so-called uranium
tailings to Russia for enrichment since 1996, Slivyak said.
These companies then obtain the equivalent of natural uranium,
which is sent back to Europe, while the radioactive waste left
after enrichment remains in Russia, he said.
“This business involves Russian companies such as the Urals
electrochemical factory in the Sverdlovsk region, the Siberian
chemical combine, or Tomsk-7, and the Angarsk electrolysis
chemical factory in the Irkutsk region,” Slivyak said.
The environmentalist said his organization has evidence of the
import of about 10,000 tons of radioactive waste from 1996 to
2001, and claimed that from 2001 to 2005 similar amounts of such
waste were brought into Russia as well.
“Between 67% and 76% of the imported uranium tailings remain in
Russia. Thus, the volume of radioactive waste accumulated
between 1996 and 2005 is about 14,000-15,000 tons,” the expert
said.
The disposal of waste in Russia is economically profitable for
Western companies, as the cost of disposing of their radioactive
products in the West would be about five times higher, Slivyak
said.
“Both sides pretend that no radioactive waste exists, and
foreign companies only pay for enrichment. Legally they pay for
processing, but in fact it’s for storage,” he said.
“Article 48 of the law on environmental protection bans the
entry of radioactive waste into Russia. Thus, Rosatom is
violating Russian law,” he said.
“We are collecting evidence and planning to go to the
prosecution authorities to report Rosatom’s gross violation of
Russian law,” he said.
Write us: info@mosnews.com
Copyright © 2004 MOSNEWS.COM
*****************************************************************
46 North-West Evening Mail: Nuke waste details stored on paper
Published on 03/08/2005
SENSITIVE details about nuclear waste at Windscale are now being
stored on paper instead of computers.
The aim is to preserve information for future generations.
Bosses believe information stored traditionally on paper will
last longer than electronic software because details on computers
can be corrupted and software rapidly becomes outdated.
Management at the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority made the
groundbreaking decision after they carried out a study over
several months with radioactive waste agency Nirex.
TO FIND OUT MORE, READ THE EVENING MAIL -->
*****************************************************************
47 Pahrump Valley Times: Yucca application at least six months away
August 3, 2005
MOST RECENT TARGET DATE CHANGED FROM DECEMBER TO MARCH IN LATEST
LICENSING SETBACK EXPERIENCED BY ENERGY DEPARTMENT
By ERICA WERNER
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON - The Energy Department likely will not submit its
license application to build Yucca Mountain until March 2006 at
the earliest, several months later than the most recent target
date, according to an updated project timeline first reported in
last week's Pahrump Valley Times.
The Energy Department plans to update a Nuclear Regulatory
Commission licensing board on the timeline this week. An Energy
Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity so as
not to interfere with the licensing process, disclosed the
timeline to The Associated Press.
Under Nuclear Regulatory Commission rules, the Energy Department
cannot submit its license application to build the nuclear waste
dump until it publicly releases background documents for the
application. DOE must certify, six months before submitting the
license application, that all relevant documents have been
disclosed through a Web-based Licensing Support Network that can
be viewed by the public at www.lsnnet.gov/
Under the updated timeline, the certification would not happen
until September or later, the official said. That would make
March 2006 the earliest date DOE could submit its license
application.
DOE had hoped to submit the license application last December,
and it certified in June 2004 that it had made the background
documents available as required. That certification was rejected
as inadequate by a Nuclear Regulatory Commission board.
After that setback, DOE said it would aim for this December.
That date has now slipped as well.
The Energy Department official said no new date has been set.
The official emphasized that the department's priority is to
ensure that this time, the certification passes muster. To that
end, a two-step process has been established that would involve
review of the certification by a department manager and an
outside team.
The official said the Energy Department has completed 85 percent
to 90 percent of the work of entering the millions of relevant
documents into the Licensing Support Network.
Yucca Mountain, planned for Nye County less than an hour's drive
northeast of Pahrump and less than 20 miles north and east of
Amargosa Valley and Beatty, respectively, has been beset by a
series of problems, including an appeals court's rejection last
year of the government's proposed radiation safety standard for
the dump. This spring, internal e-mails became known suggesting
government workers on the project had falsified data.
The Environmental Protection Agency is still developing a new
radiation standard, and the contents of the e-mails are under
review, though DOE has concluded preliminarily that the
scientific basis for the project remains sound.
Yucca Mountain is meant to hold 77,000 metric tons of nuclear
waste for 10,000 years and beyond.
Doug McMurdo contributed to this report.
For comment or questions, please e-mail
webmaster@pahrumpvalleytimes.com
Copyright © Pahrump Valley Times, 1997 - 2005
*****************************************************************
48 Scoop: 60 Years: Hiroshima-Nagasaki A-Bomb Exhibition
Wednesday, 3 August 2005, 3:12 pm
Opinion: Sonia Nettnin
By Sonia Nettnin
(Chicago) – “60 Years Later The Hiroshima-Nagasaki A-Bomb
Exhibition,” is on display at The Peace Museum.
August 6 and 9 mark the 60th anniversary of the atomic bombs
dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Over 200,000 people died
immediately or soon after the 1945 bombings – thousands of
Hibakusha (radiation victims) died of leukemia and cancer in the
years following.
The Nagasaki and Hiroshima Peace Memorial Halls hosted the
exhibit in Chicago, which has survivor accounts, photographic
panels, artifacts, video presentations, paper cranes, and
messages of peace.
On a photographic panel, Nagasaki National Peace Memorial Hall’s
Director Toru Maruta shares his message:
“Now our two memorial halls are pleased to present, this
“Hiroshima-Nagasaki A-bomb Exhibition in the United States of
America, one of the world’s nuclear powers,” he explains. “As
representatives of the people of Japan, the only country ever to
suffer from atomic bombings, we feel that this is a deeply
significant event, and hope that it leads to the elimination of
nuclear weapons at the earliest possible date.”
The memorial exhibition contains an art installation called,
“Peace 2005 &Beyond Peace Crane Installation,” created by artist
Michel Alfonso, “…intended to unite citizens of the world in a
wish for peace.” Surrounded by lights, hundreds of colorful
peace cranes hang above water.
Based on a Japanese legend, whoever folds 1,000 cranes will be
granted a wish; the installation seeks 1,000 honorees to support
the paper crane exhibit. Upon attainment, the Peace Museum will
send the 1,000 cranes to an Iraqi hospital or school, where
Iraqis can make a wish for peace.
Near the installation, text on a hanging, photographic panel
explains that in 1955, Sadako Sasaki suffered from leukemia.
When the A-bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Sasaki was two years-old.
In hopes of curing her illness, she folded peace cranes in her
hospital bed, so she could make her wish. After eight months of
treatment, she died.
“Sadako’s classmates, shocked by her death and the story of her
paper cranes, started collecting money for a monument that would
console her soul and the souls of the many other children killed
by A-bomb…” which resulted in the Children’s Peace Monument,
erected in Hiroshima Memorial Park in 1958. The monument depicts
“…a young girl lifting a paper crane high over her head.”
The exhibition weaves personal stories, information and images
to communicate the depth of these atrocities and the people
victimized by the A-bombings.
For example, panels have diagrams that explain the different
categories of damage to human beings. When the bombs dropped,
victims suffered from acute symptoms, such as burns from heat
rays and fire. The damage from the blast caused contusions,
lacerations and broken bones.
In the years following, Hibakusha suffered aftereffects that
resulted in malignant tumors, leukemia and keloids. Photographs
of people with keloids, which are “abnormally thick scar
tissue,” illustrate victims’ physical scars. The panel gives a
history about Hibakusha who had keloids.
“Beginning in early 1946, the skin and flesh over burns
considered healed began to swell. Skin puckered and thickened
into keloids, causing extreme physical and emotional pain.”
A photograph shows a woman’s back covered with keloids. Another
photograph shows a man who suffered from keloids on his face and
neck – most of his ear cartilage is gone.
Throughout the 1950s, 60s and 70s, researchers investigated
aftereffects in victims with malignant neoplasms. Their findings
showed significant increases in thyroid, breast, lung, gastric,
and colon cancers, as well as multiple myelomas. “Radiation is a
proven causal factor,” they concluded. The information panel
explains:
“In some cases, researchers have reported a direct correlation
between distance from the hypocenter or probable radiation
absorbed and malignancy rate.”
How many people suffered from aftereffects?
According to December 1945 population estimates, 40 per cent of
Hiroshima’s population died. As a result, approximately 210,000
survivors could have suffered from these symptoms.
In Nagasaki, approximately 31 percent of the city’s population
perished from the A-bomb and approximately 166,000 victims
survived. In total, 370,000 – 376,000 Hibakusha survived the
explosions and were exposed to radiation also.
Burns caused by heat rays and fire caused acute symptoms in
Hibakusha. Videography shows a boy on his stomach, because the
entire back of his body had bloody burns and lacerations. At the
time of the blast, he was 1.8 km from the hypocenter. Afterwards
he spent one year and nine months lying on his stomach.
He told caretakers: “Please kill me.”
A photograph shows a victim whose kimono patterns burned onto
her skin, which may have resulted in permanent scars.
In the video presentation, a human shadow remains on stone
steps. The wall behind the shadow is white. The stone etching of
this person was 260 meters from the hypocenter.
In the video presentation one woman confessed that her life was
never the same after the A-bomb. She spent years going to the
doctor for her pain. The bomb impacted her emotionally also.
“I was filled with despair,” she said. “I was ruined, my youth
gone forever.”
Although Hiroshima and Nagasaki are thriving cities today, many
Hibakusha live with haunted memories and trauma. In the video,
several survivors concluded that war should never repeat itself
– people should not endure these atrocities again.
Across the world, the citizens for peace shall overcome.
**
Sonia Nettnin is a freelance writer. Her articles and reviews
demonstrate civic journalism, with a focus on international
social, economic, humanitarian, gender, and political issues.
Media coverage of conflicts from these perspectives develops
awareness in public opinion.
Nettnin received her bachelor's degree in English literature and
writing. She did master's work in journalism. Moreover, Nettnin
approaches her writing from a working woman's perspective, since
working began for her at an early age.
She is a poet, a violinist and she studied professional dance.
As a writer, the arts are an integral part of her sensibility.
Her work has been published in the Palestine Chronicle, Scoop
Media and the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. She
lives in Chicago.
*****************************************************************
49 asahi.com: Duarte: Allowing nuclear treaty to collapse not an option
08/03/2005 The Asahi Shimbun
HIROSHIMA-The president of the latest review conference of the
Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty on Wednesday dismissed notions
that the decades-old pact was showing signs of crumbling.
Speaking at an international symposium here, Sergio de Queiroz
Duarte said despite bickering at the review conference in New
York in May, the goal of nuclear nonproliferation remains fixed.
"It is imperative that all parties to the treaty muster the
necessary resolve to avoid further damage to the multilateral
system of peace and security," Duarte said.
If anything could be learned from the failed 2005
Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference, he said it would be
that sterile confrontation was not the way to address legitimate
concerns.
"No nation or restricted group of nations, however militarily
powerful, can by itself ensure stability and the achievement of
a world order based on cooperation rather than confrontation ...
."
The symposium, "Aiming at a Nuclear-Free World-Japan's Role in
Northeast Asia," was organized by The Asahi Shimbun to mark the
60th anniversary of the end of World War II.
During a panel discussion, Hiromichi Umebayashi, president of
the nongovernmental organization Peace Depot, called for the
establishment of a Northeast Asian nuclear-free zone involving
Japan and the two Koreas.
Although supportive of the idea, Katsuya Okada, leader of the
opposition Minshuto (Democratic Party of Japan), said setting up
such a pact could only work if the three nations received
assurances they would not be the target of preemptive nuclear
attacks by the United States, Russia and China.
Also participating in the panel discussion were: Koichi Kato, a
former secretary-general of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party;
Choi Sang Yong, former South Korean ambassador to Japan;
Motofumi Asai, president of Hiroshima City University's Peace
Institute; and Yukiya Amano, a senior Foreign Ministry
official.(IHT/Asahi: August 3,2005)
+ The Asahi Shimbun Company
*****************************************************************
50 The State: S.C. delegates tout SRS
08/03/2
New nuclear power plants could find homes in Aiken
By AARON GOULD SHEININ
Staff Writer
AIKEN The organization that hopes to build the nations first
nuclear power plants in 30 years toured the Savannah River Site
on Tuesday, cheered on by elected officials who see a boon for
the states economy.
NuStart Energy a consortium of power companies was in Aiken
as part of its visits to six potential sites from the
Mississippi River to the Atlantic Ocean.
The community and elected leader support is overwhelming, said
Gary Miller, manager of license renewal for Progress Energy, one
of the companies behind NuStart.
But it will take more than community support for SRS to land
what could be a $1 billion project with 250-400 permanent,
high-paying jobs.
The group also will consider:
• The site itself its topography, seismic potential, water
sources
• Other financial means of support, specifically job-creation
and tax incentives offered by local and state governments.
NuStart wants to pick its sites in September, Miller said. It is
operating under a federal grant essentially to be nuclear guinea
pigs for new federal regulations governing construction of
reactors.
The organization will choose two sites and develop plans and
designs for placing a reactor on each. NuStart then will work
with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to secure federal
licenses for the plants construction.
Then, Miller said, NuStart hopes some member company or some
third party will actually go out and secure the capital and
build that plant.
While a site being licensed does not guarantee the plants
construction and its economic development windfall, Miller said,
the group wants to maximize the odds the reactors will be
built.
Members of South Carolinas congressional delegation were on
hand Tuesday to try to tip the odds in SRS favor.
SRS and Aiken County understand what nuclear power means for the
country, said U.S. Rep. Gresham Barrett, a Republican from
Westminster whose district includes SRS.
Its important not only for our economy, he said, but for our
national security.
Barrett produced a letter of support for the project signed by
every member of the congressional delegation, as well as U.S.
Rep. Charlie Norwood, a Republican from the Georgia side of the
Savannah River.
South Carolina already is home to seven nuclear reactors and
gets 50 percent of its electrical power from those plants,
Barrett said.
U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson, a Republican from Springdale, said SRS
already has not only the community support necessary, but also
the security.
Other sites cant have the level of security we already have in
place, Wilson said.
Because of SRS history as the nations nuclear bomb builder, he
said, security is tight.
But some environmentalists fear there is still a danger to
building a new nuclear plant: what to do with radioactive waste
created by nuclear reactors.
Barrett agreed that issue must be addressed. The proposed
federal high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in
Nevada is years behind on its construction schedule. And Barrett
said estimates are that when it opens, it will reach capacity in
just 10 years.
Reach Gould Sheinin at (803) 771-8658 or asheinin@thestate.com
TheStateOnline
*****************************************************************
51 DOE: Agency information collection activities: Proposed collection;
FR Doc 05-15292
[Federal Register: August 3, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 148)]
[Notices] [Page 44600-44601] From the Federal Register Online via
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr03au05-87]
comment request AGENCY: Energy Information Administration (EIA),
Department of Energy (DOE).
ACTION: Agency information collection activities: Proposed
collection; comment request.
SUMMARY: The EIA is soliciting comments on the proposed
three-year extension to the ``Recordkeeping Requirements of DOE's
General Allocation and Price Rules,'' ERA-766R.
DATES: Comments must be filed by October 3, 2005. If you
anticipate difficulty in submitting comments within that period,
contact the person listed below as soon as possible.
ADDRESSES: Send comments to Mr. John D. Bullington. To ensure
receipt of the comments by the due date, submission by FAX
(202-586-6191) or e- mail () is recommended. The mailing address
is Office of General Counsel, GC-90, Forrestal Building, U.S.
Department of Energy, Washington, DC 20585. Alternatively, Mr.
Bullington may be contacted by telephone at 202-586-7364.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Requests for additional
information or copies of any forms and instructions should be
directed to Mr. Bullington at the address listed above.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: I. Background II. Current Actions III.
Request for Comments I. Background The Federal Energy
Administration Act of 1974 (Pub. L. No. 93-275, 15 U.S.C. 761 et
seq.) and the DOE Organization Act (Pub. L. No. 95-91, 42 U.S.C.
7101 et seq.) require the EIA to carry out a centralized,
comprehensive, and unified energy information program. This
program collects, evaluates, assembles, analyzes, and
disseminates information on energy resource reserves, production,
demand, technology, and related economic and statistical
information. This information is used to assess the adequacy of
energy resources to meet near and longer term domestic demands.
The EIA, as part of its effort to comply with the Paperwork
Reduction Act of 1995 (Pub. L. 104-13, 44 U.S.C. Chapter 35),
provides the general public and other Federal agencies with
opportunities to comment on collections of energy information
conducted by or in conjunction with the EIA. Any comments
received help the EIA to prepare data requests that maximize the
utility of the information collected, and to assess the impact of
collection requirements on the public. Also, the EIA will later
seek approval by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) under
Section 3507(a) of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995.
The recordkeeping requirements are authorized by section
203(a)(1) of the Economic Stabilization Act (ESA) of 1970, as
amended (Pub. L. 92-210, 85 Stat. 743) and by section 13(g) of
the Federal Energy Administration Act (FEAA) of 1974, as amended
(Pub.L. 93-275). DOE proposes to extend for three years the
limited recordkeeping requirements presently contained in 10 CFR
210.1. The antecedent regulation was narrowed by amendment in
January 1985. This limited extension is proposed as a protective
measure to preserve records relating to the prior price and
allocation regulations for an additional three years.
II. Current Actions This is an extension with no change of the
existing requirements. The requirements are proposed to be
extended for a period of three years, from February 28, 2006, to
February 28, 2009.
III. Request for Comments Prospective respondents and other
interested parties should comment on the actions discussed in
item II. The following guidelines are provided to assist in the
preparation of comments.
General Issues A. EIA is interested in receiving comments from
persons regarding whether the proposed recordkeeping requirements
are necessary for the proper performance of the functions of the
agency and does the information have practical utility? Practical
utility is
[[Page 44601]] defined as the actual usefulness of information to
or for an agency, taking into account its accuracy, adequacy,
reliability, timeliness, and the agency's ability to process the
information it collects.
B. What enhancements can be made to the quality, utility, and
clarity of the information to be collected? As a Potential
Respondent to the Request for Information A. Are the instructions
regarding the recordkeeping requirements clear and sufficient? If
not, which instructions require clarification? B. Can information
be maintained as specified in the recordkeeping requirements? C.
Public reporting burden for the recordkeeping requirements are
estimated to average 4 hours per respondent. The estimated burden
includes the total time, effort, or financial resources expended
to generate, maintain, retain, disclose and provide information.
D. The agency estimates respondents will incur no additional
costs other than the hours required to maintain the records. What
is the estimated: (1) Total dollar amount annualized for capital
and start-up costs, and (2) recurring annual costs of operation
and maintenance, and purchase of services associated with these
recordkeeping requirements.
Comments submitted in response to this notice will be summarized
and/or included in the request for OMB approval of the form.
They also will become a matter of public record.
Statutory Authority: Section 3507(h)(1) of the Paperwork
Reduction Act of 1995 (Pub. L. No. 104-13, 44 U.S.C. Chapter 35).
Issued in Washington, DC, July 26, 2005.
Jay H. Casselberry, Agency Clearance Officer, Energy Information
Administration.
[FR Doc. 05-15292 Filed 8-2-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 6450-01-P
*****************************************************************
52 Courier Journal: Energy Secretary Bodman visits Paducah plant
www.courier-journal.com
Wednesday, August 3, 2005
He gives no update on cleanup plans
By James Malone jmalone@courier-journal.comThe Courier-Journal
PADUCAH, Ky. -- Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman toured the
Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant yesterday but gave no updates
about the ongoing cleanup of polluted groundwater and
radioactive scrap at the complex.
It was the federal official's first visit to the plant, about
10 miles west of Paducah, where since 1951 the government has
processed uranium to be used in bombs and, later, nuclear power
plant fuel.
Bodman, a chemical engineer and former associate professor at
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said the Energy
Department hopes to name a new cleanup contractor at the site
after reviewing bids due this week.
Bodman said after meeting with workers that he saw first-hand
the importance of hiring a replacement contractor.
In response to questions about the ultimate fate of the
3,425-acre property when the cleanup ends, Bodman said it isn't
the Energy Department's responsibility to find future uses for
the plant.
"We are not an economic development agency," Bodman said.
"Our job is to clean it up."
He noted that another government cleanup site, the Rocky Flats
weapons complex north of Denver, will be turned over to the
Interior Department as a wildlife refuge.
U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning, R.-Ky., who met with Bodman, said he was
"amazed at the improvements that have been made in safety & and
the general overall condition at the plant."
Bunning said he hoped the future of the site might include some
reindustrialization similar to what occurred at the former Naval
Ordnance Station in Louisville.
The Paducah cleanup may take two decades to complete, according
to Energy Department estimates.
Bodman said he was not aware of any plans for a study of the
feasibility of buying about 10,000 acres of private property
atop a plume of contaminated groundwater, a proposal Congress is
considering.
Copyright 2004 The Courier-Journal.
*****************************************************************
53 BoiseWeekly: A Glimpse of our Glowing Future
AUGUST 3, 2005
Did Idahoans make their voices heard to with the Department of
Energy?
BY LAURA WYLDE
Erin Ruiz
Approximately 300 people gathered in the Red Lion Downtowner
last Thursday to attend a meeting with the Department of Energy
regarding a proposed plutonium production facility at the Idaho
National Laboratory. Moderators were forced to expand the room
to accommodate those who came, mostly to gripe about the plan.
But by the end of the nearly three-hour meeting, about a third
of the estimated 50 people who had signed up to get their
opinion of the project on public record had left without
speaking, backing up many people's claims that their concerns
were not being taken seriously.
Last November, the DOE proposed to consolidate its plutonium-238
production operations from the three current plants at INL,
Tennessee and New Mexico. Consolidating production in a new $300
million plant at the INL would enable the department to
concentrate security efforts, said Tim Frazier, the DOE
spokesman who has spearheaded the department's environmental
impact study that was the subject of Thursday's meeting. Frazier
said upped security at the INL would guard against potential
terror attacks, and that by condensing operations, the
department could reduce risky interstate transportation of
radioactive materials.
The DOE uses non-weapons grade plutonium-238 to make
radioisotope power systems, which the government has been
producing for the past 35 years. These systems power long-term,
unmanned projects like deep space probes for NASA. According to
Frazier and the EIS, the technology will also be used for
"national security measures," the specifics of which are
classified.
The U.S. has used plutonium stocks from Russia in the past, but
there is no domestic production capability, Frazier said. While
the U.S. has an inventory to meet short-term needs, production
must begin now to meet future needs, according to the EIS.
Frazier estimates about 11 pounds of domestic plutonium would be
produced annually to fulfill the deep space project needs and
future national security projects.
The EIS, drafted as a mandate from the National Environmental
Policy Act, analyzes potential risks to the environment and
surrounding population under three proposed plans. NEPA requires
a public comment period of the draft EIS before a final draft is
published and a decision made. As part of the public comment,
the DOE held eight lengthy, contentious meetings in Idaho and
Wyoming over the last several weeks-Boise's meeting was the last
of these.
The three proposals listed in the draft EIS are: the No Action
Alternative, where plutonium would continue to be produced in
both Idaho and Tennessee; the Consolidation Alternative
(preferred by the DOE), where the INL would house all
operations, and the Consolidation with Bridge Alternative that
Frazier said was drafted in response to public concerns voiced
at the initial planning phase. Under that plan, just over four
pounds of plutonium would be made at the Oak Ridge site until
the new facilities at INL are completed, supposedly in 2011.
Attendees of Thursday's meeting largely supported the No Action
plan among those choices, with the caveat that most prefer no
nuclear operations whatsoever, given concerns over the DOE's
nuclear production accidents and waste management.
"There is a clear and undeniable track record when it comes to
the government's handling of plutonium," said Jeremy Maxand,
director of the Snake River Alliance. "They say, 'We're going to
learn from our past mistakes,' but if they have learned from the
past mistakes, we wouldn't see (medical) effects from workers
inhaling plutonium. Statistics are there since as recently as
2003. And statistics show a third of the workers who developed
cancer in the Rocky Flats area (a former nuclear facility just
outside of Denver) got it from the job."
The DOE panel, consisting of Frazier and two public relations
officers from the INL, tried to appease public outrage about its
former secrecy. "We have tried to make a more open and honest
process, trying to get out and talk with the public ... to get
input. We have been very forthcoming," Frazier said.
But some in the meeting questioned what Maxand had earlier
called "unreasonable" safety statistics. Frazier said both the
facility proposed at the INL and the spacecraft housing the
radioactive plutonium have been extensively tested for safety,
and the harm imposed to Idahoans and the local environment are
slight. But, he admitted upon adamant questioning, "anything is
possible," in regards to an unforeseen accident.
"If engineers are wrong about safety ... thousands will die,"
said Martin Orr, a sociology professor from Boise State. "Are
you guys delusional or what?" Other speakers questioned risks
posed by either an earthquake or a potential terror strike at
the plant.
"The INL has an existing reactor that will continue to operate
whether we consolidate or not," Frazier responded. "We will
produce nuclear material at a secure and safe site, and for that
we will use existing nuclear operations. There is a great
security force at the INL, and the DOE preferred using Idaho
operations as the best idea."
Comments throughout the meeting, both over the microphone or
muttered under audience members' breaths, raised issue with how
the DOE would consider the public's views in its final decision.
"The original intent of holding hearings such as these has its
root in a noble attempt to let people express their concerns to
our elected lawmakers," said Nino Carpenter of Boise.
"Unfortunately, I fear too often these attempts are just
patronizing window dressings offered by lawmakers who feel they
know better than the ordinary citizen ... Even when public and
scientific opinions weighs heavily against a governmental
proposal, the powers that be ignore ... these opinions and do
what they want-especially when these issues are framed under the
heading of 'national security.'"
Of the about 50 who spoke during the meeting, three voiced
support for the proposal. "I want to mention that ... I think
INL is a great asset to Idaho," said Gary Bennett, a consultant
and former employee of the DOE. "I think your plan is very well
thought out. It mitigates a lot of risks and provides what I
think is a critical need of technology."
Shortly after Bennett issued his statement to the court reporter
hired to document public opinion for the final EIS draft,
moderator Jim Parnham told the dwindling crowd there were about
15 speakers left from those who signed up before the meeting to
speak. Only one of the sixteen called names had stayed to give
his opinion-indicating to some that the DOE had already made up
its mind about bringing the plutonium plant to Idaho, regardless
of the EIS study and public scoping meetings.
"I'm not sure the DOE takes public opinion from these meetings,"
said Boise State student Megan Egbert. "I hope so, but we'll
see."
Frazier assured the Boise crowd their opinion would be included
in the draft EIS, which U.S. Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham
will have to read before signing off on the final proposal.
Frazier expected that process to be complete by next year, and
if the DOE's preferred alternative of consolidation is approved,
the plant could be built at INL by 2009.
© Copyright 2005, BoiseWeekly
*****************************************************************
54 DOE: Notice of Preferred Sodium Bearing Waste Treatment Technology
FR Doc 05-15293
[Federal Register: August 3, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 148)]
[Notices] [Page 44598-44600] From the Federal Register Online via
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr03au05-86]
AGENCY: Office of Environmental Management, U.S. Department of
Energy.
ACTION: Notice of Preferred Sodium Bearing Waste Treatment
Technology.
SUMMARY: In October 2002, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE or
the Department) issued the Final Idaho High-Level Waste (HLW) and
Facilities Disposition Environmental Impact Statement
(DOE/EIS-0287 (Final EIS)). The Final EIS contains an evaluation
of reasonable alternatives for the management of mixed
transuranic waste/sodium bearing waste (SBW),\1\ mixed HLW
calcine, and associated low-level waste (LLW), as well as
disposition alternatives for HLW facilities when their missions
are completed. DOE's preferred alternative in the Final EIS for
SBW waste processing was to implement the proposed action by
selecting from among the action alternatives, options, and
technologies analyzed in the Final EIS, and to construct
facilities necessary to prepare the SBW located at the Idaho
Nuclear Technology and Engineering Center (INTEC) for the
preferred disposition path to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant
(WIPP). In the Final EIS DOE did not identify a preferred
treatment technology for SBW from among the several technology
options evaluated.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
---------- \1\ The Final EIS refers to SBW as mixed transuranic
waste/SBW. However, a determination that SBW is transuranic waste
has not been made.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
---------- The Department is now announcing that the Non
Separations Alternative, Steam Reforming Option, as analyzed in
the Final EIS and its associated Supplement Analysis (SA), DOE/
EIS-0287-SA-01, June 2005, is DOE's preferred treatment
technology for the SBW. DOE plans a phased decision-making
process and will issue its first Record of Decision (ROD)
focusing on SBW treatment and facilities disposition no sooner
than 30-days from the date of this Notice. A subsequent ROD
addressing Tank Farm Facility Closure
[[Page 44599]] will be issued in coordination with the Secretary
of Energy's determination pursuant to Section 3116 of the Ronald
W. Reagan National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal
Year 2005, Public Law 108- 375. A future ROD for HLW calcine
disposition is scheduled for issuance
-----------------------------------------------------------------
---------- in 2009.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Requests for further information
on the preferred technology should be addressed to: Richard
Kimmel, Document Manager, U.S. Department of Energy, Idaho
Operations Office, 1955 North Fremont, MS-1222, Idaho Falls,
Idaho, 83415, Telephone (208) 526-5583, or via email at
Richard.Kimmel@nuclear.energy.gov. Any comments on the preferred
technology should be submitted to Mr.
Kimmel no later than 30-days from the date of publication of this
notice. The Final EIS and SA are available on the Internet at
http://www.id.doe.gov/ and http://www.eh.doe.gov/nepa/.html. For
further information on DOE's National Environmental Policy Act
(NEPA) process, please contact: Carol M. Borgstrom, Director,
Office of NEPA Policy and Compliance (EH-42), U.S. Department of
Energy, 1000 Independence Avenue, SW., Washington, DC 20585,
Telephone: (202) 586- 4600, or leave a message at (800) 472-2756.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Background SBW is a liquid mixed
radioactive waste (contains hazardous and radioactive
constituents) produced primarily from INTEC decontamination and
cleanup activities. SBW also includes approximately one percent
(by volume) commingled 1st cycle reprocessing waste,
approximately two percent 2nd cycle reprocessing waste, and
approximately four percent 3rd cycle reprocessing waste. SBW
contains large quantities of sodium and potassium nitrates;
however, the radionuclide concentrations for liquid SBW are
generally ten to 1,000 times less than for liquid HLW.
In 1992, DOE entered into a Notice of Noncompliance Consent Order
with the State of Idaho Department of Environmental Quality and
the Environmental Protection Agency that requires DOE to cease
use of the tanks in which the SBW is stored by December 31, 2012.
In 1995, DOE and the State of Idaho entered into a settlement
agreement that resolved litigation and that established dates for
the treatment of approximately 900,000 gallons of liquid SBW
stored at INTEC.
In September 1997, DOE published a Notice of Intent to complete
an EIS in accordance with NEPA. In September 1998, the State of
Idaho became a cooperating agency in the development of the EIS.
In January 2000, DOE issued the Draft Idaho High-Level Waste and
Facilities Disposition EIS (Draft EIS). Subsequently, DOE and the
State of Idaho evaluated approximately 1,000 comments received on
that document. The Final EIS was issued in October 2002 and
reflects changes to the Draft EIS based on public comments,
further review by DOE and the State of Idaho, and incorporation
of the DOE and State of Idaho preferred alternatives.
The Department's preferred alternative identified in the Final
EIS was to implement the proposed action, which consists of five
elements to meet the purpose and need for agency action: (1)
Select appropriate technologies and construct facilities
necessary to prepare INTEC SBW for shipment to WIPP, the
preferred disposition path, (2) prepare the HLW calcine to allow
disposal in a repository, (3) treat and dispose of associated
radioactive wastes, (4) provide safe storage of HLW destined for
a repository, and (5) disposition INTEC HLW management facilities
when their missions are completed. Alternatives/Options not
included in DOE's Preferred Alternative are: the No Action
Alternative, storage of calcine in the bin sets for an indefinite
period under the Continued Current Operations Alternative, the
shipment of calcine to the Hanford Site for treatment under the
Minimum Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory
(INEEL) Processing Alternative, and disposal of mixed LLW on the
INEEL under any alternative. The INEEL is now known as the Idaho
National Laboratory. The State of Idaho, as a cooperating agency,
identified the Direct Vitrification Alternative for SBW and
vitrification with or without separations of the HLW calcine as
their preferred waste-processing alternatives. The Final EIS did
not identify a DOE preferred treatment technology from among the
several technology options evaluated for treatment of the SBW.
DOE conducted four workshops to inform the public about the five
technologies that the DOE was considering for treatment of the
SBW with the preferred disposition at WIPP. The five technologies
were Direct Vitrification, Cesium Ion Exchange with a grout waste
form, Calcination with Maximum Achievable Control Technology
upgrades, Direct Evaporation, and Steam Reforming. DOE issued a
Federal Register notice on March 10, 2003, 68 FR 11388,
announcing the public workshops. Workshops were held between
March 13-April 28, 2003, in Jackson, Wyoming, and Idaho Falls,
Twin Falls, and Fort Hall, Idaho. In addition, briefings were
held with individual stakeholders through June 2003. The public
was given the opportunity to provide comments on all technologies
presented through August 31, 2003, via e-mail or regular mail.
Though the focus of the comment period was for SBW treatment, the
nature of the comments received also included HLW calcine and
closure of HLW facilities. DOE considered those comments, which
addressed the following issues: Potential environmental impacts
from waste processing operations, technical viability,
uncertainties related to regulatory requirements and permits,
public or agency acceptance, vitrification, cost, transportation
of waste for disposal, waste form stability, and plan and
schedule for cleanup activities. These comments did not raise any
new issues that were not expressed during the comment period on
the Draft EIS. DOE and the State of Idaho responses to these
issues are in the Final EIS, Chapter 11.
During the workshops and briefings, DOE informed the public that
the DOE's strategy was to select one of the five technologies for
treatment of the SBW. Subsequently, DOE changed this strategy by
incorporating the requirement for a contractor to propose a
treatment technology for SBW in a draft Request for Proposals
(RFP) for the Idaho Cleanup Project (ICP) contract to complete
the Environmental Management accelerated cleanup mission. At
public meetings of the Idaho Environmental Management Citizens
Advisory Board, public meetings conducted by the National Academy
of Sciences in Idaho, and other meetings with local stakeholders,
DOE informed the public of the change in strategy and that the
DOE would identify a preferred treatment technology for SBW after
the contract was awarded. At these meetings, DOE also informed
the public that they would have an opportunity to provide
comments on the draft RFP.
DOE issued the draft RFP for the ICP contract for comment in
February 2004. The draft RFP required bidders to propose
technologies for treating SBW for disposal at WIPP and an
alternative technical approach to prepare this waste for disposal
as HLW in the geologic repository for HLW and spent nuclear fuel
if this waste could not be disposed of at WIPP. DOE responded to
comments received on the draft RFP and issued the final RFP in
July 2004. The
[[Page 44600]] ICP contract was awarded on March 23, 2005. The
ICP contractor proposed Steam Reforming as the treatment
technology for SBW. Under the contract DOE would have to fulfill
its NEPA requirements before authorizing action to treat SBW.
Preferred Treatment Technology DOE has identified Steam Reforming
as its preferred treatment technology for SBW after considering
technical maturity, the regulatory schedule for treatment of the
SBW, and the environmental impacts presented in the Final EIS.
The central feature of the Steam Reforming process is the
reformer, a fluidized bed reactor in which steam is used as the
fluidizing gas and a refractory oxide material is used as the bed
medium. An organic reductant and other additives are also fed to
the bed to enhance denitration. Water in the waste is vaporized
to superheated steam, while organic compounds in the waste are
broken down through thermal processes and reaction with hot
nitrates, steam, and oxygen. A solid, remote-handled waste
consisting of primarily inorganic salts is produced. The solids
are packaged for disposal. This technology supports the
Department's objective to treat SBW in a manner such that it
would be ready for shipment out of Idaho, by December 31, 2012,
in accordance with the Environmental Management Performance
Management Plan for Accelerating Cleanup of the INEEL,
DOE/ID-11006, August 2002.
DOE prepared a SA in accordance with DOE NEPA regulations (10 CFR
1021.314) to determine whether there are substantial changes to
the scope of the proposed action identified in the Final EIS or
significant new circumstances or information relevant to
environmental concerns within the meaning of CEQ NEPA regulations
[40 CFR 1502.9(c)(1)] that would require preparation of a
supplemental EIS. The SA contains DOE's evaluation of new
information (e.g., updated waste characterization data) and
revised methodologies (e.g., for estimating cancer risk). Based
on the SA, DOE determined that a supplemental EIS is not
required.
DOE plans a phased decision-making process and will issue its
first ROD focusing on SBW treatment and facilities disposition no
sooner than 30-days from the date of this Notice. DOE will
consider any comments received before issuing this ROD.
A subsequent ROD addressing Tank Farm Facility Closure will be
issued in coordination with the Secretary of Energy's
determination pursuant to Section 3116 of the Ronald W. Reagan
NDAA for Fiscal Year 2005, Public Law 108-375. A future ROD for
HLW calcine disposition is scheduled for issuance in 2009.
Issued in Washington, DC, July 26, 2005.
Charles E. Anderson, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for
Environmental Management.
[FR Doc. 05-15293 Filed 8-2-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 6450-01-P
*****************************************************************
55 RedNova News: Team Looking into Spread of LANL Contaminant
Posted on: Tuesday, 2 August 2005, 21:00 CDT
Aug. 2--A special team of investigators has been dispatched out
of state to see if a Los Alamos National Laboratory worker
exposed to radioactive material spread it beyond New Mexico, a
spokeswoman said Monday.
And one other lab employee's home has shown signs of slight
contamination, spokeswoman Kathy DeLucas said.
The first employee was exposed to americium 241 last month while
at work, and trace amounts of that material were later found at
the employee's home and in his car, according to the lab.
Lab officials have said the contamination poses no credible risk
to the general public.
"Again, though, the contamination levels are very, very low,"
DeLucas said. "But we want to make sure that we catch anything
that went off-site."
She declined to say where the decontamination team went out of
state.
"We're monitoring everywhere he tells us he went," DeLucas said.
Three other employees' homes have been investigated as well,
DeLucas said, and one was contaminated. The homes are in Los
Alamos and Santa Fe County, she said. Those three workers
requested their homes be investigated, she said.
Lab officials discovered the worker's contamination July 25. The
Sigma facility where he worked was shut down briefly, and more
than 160 workers were checked for contamination.
All tests came up negative, but five people who worked in the
same area as the contaminated worker are being monitored more
closely for signs of exposure, DeLucas said.
Americium 241 is a man-made radioactive metal.
It's produced when plutonium atoms absorb neutrons in a nuclear
reactor or during a nuclear detonation, according to the federal
Environmental Protection Agency. Small amounts of americium are
used in household smoke detectors, inside an ionization chamber,
according to the agency.
It poses a significant health risk, including cancer, if inhaled
or swallowed, the agency reports. The exposed lab worker
received americium contamination on his skin and personal
clothing, according to the lab.
An investigation aims to determine when and how the worker was
exposed to the americium, DeLucas said.
-----
To see more of The Santa Fe New Mexican, or to subscribe to the
newspaper, go to http://ww.santafenewmexican.com.
Copyright (c) 2005, The Santa Fe New Mexican
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.
For information on republishing this content, contact us at
(800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213)
237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com.
Source: The Santa Fe New Mexican
© 2002-2005 RedNova.com. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
56 lamonitor.com: Contaminant traced to Kansas and Colorado
The Online News Source for Los Alamos
ROGER SNODGRASS, roger@lamonitor.com, Monitor Assistant Editor
The Los Alamos National Laboratory employee found to be
contaminated with low levels of radiation last week contaminated
homes visited in Kansas and Colorado over the weekend before the
person's condition was discovered.
A Department of Energy Radiological Assistance Program team was
dispatched to the undisclosed locations in the two nearby
states, a laboratory official said, and their response to the
event has been completed.
"We did remove some items from the out-of-state locations that
he visited," said Kathy Delucas, a LANL spokesperson. "The
levels were very low. They are detectable with instrumentation,
but pose no health risk. We believe we have captured all
material that went off site."
The contaminant has been identified as americium-241, the most
common isotope of the element.
According to an Environmental Protection Agency fact sheet,
americium-241 poses a significant risk, only if enough is
inhaled or ingested. The isotope and its decay products emit
alpha, beta and gamma rays, but the alpha particles pose the
greatest risk.
Delucas said the incident was still under investigation, led by
the laboratory's Performance Surety Division, and included
experts from the Department of Energy, the National Nuclear
Security Administration Los Alamos Site Office and LANL.
Part of the investigation will be to determine when the
occurrence happened and to see if proper monitoring was done.
The investigation is expected to take several more weeks.
"Most likely we will publish a lessons learned report, so we can
all learn as an institution and as a complex how to prevent
things like this from happening in the future," Delucas said.
The contamination was discovered on Monday last week and the
laboratory announced the incident two days later, after
confirming an employee in the Material Science Technology
Division, his skin, workspace, personal clothing and car was
exposed.
The employee and five co-workers were placed on a medical
diagnostic and testing regime.
Workers at the facility where the exposure took place were sent
home the day after the event, while detection and
decontamination operations were in process.
The contaminated individual's home was subjected to a sweep by
the DOE's RAP team.
The laboratory reported that several locations in the home were
found to have small but measurable amounts of radiation that
were removed.
Americium-241 is one of the by-products of plutonium fission and
is most commonly used in household smoke detectors.
Americium-241 was released into the environment by nuclear
weapons testing.
Concentrations of the radionuclide are associated with nuclear
weapons production and smoke-detector factories.
The isotope has a half-life of 432 years.
A radioactive half-life is how long it takes for half the
substance to decay to another form.
© 2003 Los Alamos Monitor All Rights Reserved.
*****************************************************************
57 Paducah Sun: Bunning, Bodman to tour Paducah plant -
Paducah, Kentucky
By Joe Walker jwalker@paducahsun.com 270.575.8656
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
The Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant may well stay open longer
than the projected five years, said U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning, who
is accompanying Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman today for a plant
visit.
"We're hopeful that USEC will take another look at their ability
to build that (replacement) plant in Portsmouth, Ohio," Bunning
said Monday. "We don't think they're going to have the cash and
ability to do that, and therefore the plant in Paducah will run
longer than originally scheduled. But who knows?"
The Department of Energy leases the massive factory to USEC, a
Bethesda, Md., firm that intends to close it starting in 2010
and replace it with a gas centrifuge plant near Portsmouth. USEC
continues an aggressive schedule to build the $1.5 billion Ohio
plant, which is expected to burn far less electricity than
Paducah's 53-year-old facility.
The Paducah plant — the nation's only remaining uranium
enrichment factory — consumes as much power as a major city.
Bodman is touring the plant here at the invitation of Bunning,
who earlier this year criticized DOE for delays in hiring a new
cleanup contractor to replace Bechtel Jacobs at Paducah. At the
time, Bunning opposed the nomination of David Garman as new
undersecretary of energy because of a two-year delay in the
hiring process. Garman was nominated, and appointed, over
Bunning's objection.
"He said, 'Let's get together and I'll come down,' " Bunning
said of Bodman. "That's what this is all about."
Bunning said he wanted Bodman to see the environmental problems
at the plant, talk to some of the 1,270 workers and get a status
report on a spent uranium recycling plant being built in front
of the factory. The recycling plant will get rid of 37,000
cylinders of toxic low-level radioactive waste.
DOE rebid the cleanup work to avoid even more delays in
resolving numerous original bid protests. Bids are due Thursday,
and Bunning said Energy Department officials assure him that all
steps have been taken to get a new contractor in place to start
work Nov. 1. About 550 people are employed by Bechtel Jacobs and
its many subcontractors.
"We'll see," he said. "We thought we had that done the last
time."
*****************************************************************
58 Paducah Sun: Bodman urges workers to find future use for plant -
Sen. Jim Bunning doubts USEC's ability to finance the Ohio
plant, which would put Paducah´s 2010 closing in doubt.
By Joe Walker jwalker@paducahsun.com 270.575.8656
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
The community will decide what to do with the sprawling Paducah
Gaseous Diffusion Plant once it closes and is cleaned up decades
from now, U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said during a
visit to the plant Tuesday.
"Economic development is not our job," he said. "We do create
jobs, but we do it as part of the cleanup process."
Bodman and U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Southgate, spoke to
reporters after touring the 750-acre factory, which enriches
uranium for use in nuclear fuel. USEC Inc. leases the plant from
the Department of Energy and employs 1,270 people. Another 550
work for DOE cleanup and infrastructure contractors.
Several workers asked about the future of the plant, slated to
close starting in 2010 and be replaced by a $1.5 billion gas
centrifuge factory in Piketon, Ohio. Bunning said he doubts
USEC's ability to finance the $1.5 billion plant on its own,
which would put the 2010 opening date in doubt.
"They can't do it from internal earnings, so they're going to
have to go out and get people who risk capital on the
marketplace to get involved," he said.
Bodman said he encouraged the workers to join in community
efforts to determine a use for the plant once it is cleaned up
within the next 20 to 30 years. DOE will support developing a
community plan, including ways of generating work to replace
plant-related jobs, he said.
There is pending federal legislation on behalf of the Paducah
Area Community Reuse Organization, an economic development
group, for an independent study of how the plant area might be
used after closure. One scenario would be to attract new
industry, and another would be for DOE to buy contaminated land
of plant neighbors.
"I think (buying land) deserves some consideration, but I can
assure you there's nothing, at least at the departmental level,
that is imminent," Bodman said.
The Energy Department continues to provide free municipal water
to 121 homes and businesses around the plant that have been or
are threatened by 10 billion gallons of plant-related
groundwater pollution.
Bunning said about half of the old Naval Ordnance Station in
Louisville is being used by Motorola and other businesses after
being cleaned up. "I think that's what we will need here, and
PACRO seems to be the lead agency right now," he said. "I think
it's a good idea to plan ahead. We know it's going to take a
long time to clean up."
Three companies interested in recycling 9,700 tons of
contaminated scrap nickel at the plant estimate the local share
of sale proceeds at tens of millions of dollars. PACRO wants to
facilitate the sale to create jobs to offset plant closure.
Bodman said there are restrictions on how that money could be
used. Probably "the best we could hope for" would be to reinvest
the proceeds in cleanup, he said. "I'm unaware of any
possibility of having money come back to the community per se."
Bunning said he planned to meet afterward with some key PACRO
officials to talk about the potential of using the money for
economic development.
For the nickel to be recycled, DOE must first lift a five-year,
safety-related ban on removing contaminated scrap metal at any
of its plants. The agency, which recently added recycling to its
scope of cleanup work, is considering lifting the moratorium for
nickel and some other scrap metal that is sufficiently cleaned,
said Charles Anderson, principal deputy assistant secretary for
DOE's Office of Environmental Management.
"We're looking at it," he said without giving a time frame for a
decision. "We have to balance it against the environmental
impact statement."
Bids for a cleanup contractor are due Thursday. The new firm is
expected to replace Bechtel Jacobs by Nov. 1.
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59 Tri-City Herald: DOE unlikely to meet Hanford cleanup goal
This story was published Tuesday, August 2nd, 2005
By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer
The Department of Energy has little chance of meeting its
commitment to save $50 billion on cleanup of the Hanford nuclear
reservation and other sites under its accelerated cleanup plan,
according to a Government Accountability Office report requested
by Congress.
DOE announced the accelerated cleanup program in 2002, saying it
would reduce costs by $50 billion, shorten the cleanup schedule
by 35 years and reduce risks to health and the environment. The
largest cost savings is to occur at Hanford, where plutonium was
produced for the nation's nuclear weapons program for more than
40 years.
Progress has been made nationwide in the initial years of
accelerated cleanup, and several projects are ahead of schedule,
the GAO said.
But three of the most challenging and costly cleanup projects
have fallen behind schedule, the report said. They include
disposing of plutonium-contaminated waste, disposing of
high-level and other radioactive waste in huge underground tanks
and closing the tanks. Savings on tank wastes at Hanford and
sites in Idaho and South Carolina were to account for almost $30
billion of DOE's estimated savings.
DOE estimated that nearly all of its savings from getting
cleanup finished sooner would come from projects at those three
major sites.
"However, DOE is behind schedule in some of its cleanup
activities at these sites and cost estimates for completing the
work are rising," the GAO report said.
DOE has fallen behind on treating 88 million gallons of waste in
tanks at the three sites. At Hanford, construction and
engineering problems at a $5.8 billion vitrification plant to
turn tank waste into glass logs for permanent disposal could
delay the start of vitrification by several years.
DOE also had planned to have 13 of the 241 tanks at the three
sites closed by now but has finished work on only two.
DOE also is behind on plans to ship 142,000 cubic meters of
transuranic waste, often waste such as tools or laboratory
equipment contaminated with plutonium, to a permanent repository
in New Mexico. That delay largely is due to problems in Idaho,
the report said.
While getting work done faster was to account for 42 percent of
savings, DOE estimated new and improved technologies would
account for 29 percent of the cleanup savings. But the GAO
questioned whether that was realistic.
For instance, at Hanford plans call for using a new technology
to treat a portion of the low-activity radioactive waste stored
in underground tanks. But the technology likely to be picked,
mixing waste with soil and turning it into large blocks of
glass, has not been fully tested, and the cost for operating the
bulk vitrification technology is unknown, the GAO said.
New contracting strategies were to account for 10 percent of the
cleanup savings. That included the awarding of major new
contracts at Hanford to replace expiring contracts held by Fluor
Hanford and CH2M Hill Hanford Group through fiscal year 2006.
But auditors already have concluded it is not appropriate to
assume cost reductions from future contracts at Hanford since
those reductions are "neither probable nor susceptible of
reasonable estimates," the GAO report said, quoting auditors.
Nine percent of the savings were to come from revising cleanup
agreements with state and federal regulators. But regulators
have resisted revisions that would have accounted for at least
75 percent of those savings, according to GAO.
That includes a plan to classify some of Hanford's tank waste as
transuranic, allowing it to be shipped to a federal repository
in New Mexico rather than turning it to glass at a greater cost.
However, in late 2004, the head of the New Mexico Environment
Department said the state would not accept the tank waste at the
New Mexico repository, the GAO said.
In addition, DOE has had problems in projects not considered in
the accelerated cleanup plan, such as delays in shipping
plutonium from Hanford and other sites to a consolidated storage
area for the nation. Since terrorism acts of 9/11, sites that
were expecting to be rid of their plutonium this year are having
to increase security for it. If plutonium remains at Hanford
long term, costs of storing and protecting it could amount to
more than $2 billion, the report said.
A delay in opening a repository for high level waste at Yucca
Mountain, Nev., also will increase DOE costs, the report said. A
five-year delay would increase costs at Hanford and the Idaho
and South Carolina sites by $720 million, the report said.
DOE's successes toward accelerated cleanup typically were in
areas where technologies and processes were well established,
the report said. For example, nuclear sites have disposed of
181,606 more cubic meters than scheduled of low level
radioactive waste, such as contaminated soil, the report said.
It praised DOE for nearly completing packaging uranium and
plutonium, including plutonium left at the Plutonium Finishing
Plant at Hanford. It was "a highly dangerous activity due to the
potential for a nuclear accident or worker exposure," the report
said.
© 2005 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press &Other Wire Services
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60 AP Wire: Group tours SRS to see about nuclear power plant
| 08/03/2005 |
Associated Press
AIKEN, S.C. - Officials from a group of power companies seeking
federal permission to build the nation's first nuclear power
plant in three decades toured the Savannah River Site to see if
it should be built there.
Officials from NuStart, a consortium of 11 power companies, are
being courted by officials and communities who want the group to
pick their backyard for what could be a $1 billion project that
would create up to 400 jobs.
NuStart officials are considering topography, seismic potential
and water sources as well as job creation and tax incentives.
The group is visiting six sites and wants to pick two to develop
plans and designs for a reactor on each site. The group is
considering sites in six states: Mississippi, Louisiana,
Alabama, South Carolina, Maryland and New York.
"The community and elected leader support is overwhelming," said
Gary Miller, manager of license renewal for Progress Energy, one
of the companies behind NuStart.
NuStart wants to pick sites in September, Miller said. NuStart
then will work with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to secure
federal licenses for the plants' construction. NuStart then
hopes a company will build the plant, Miller said.
Members of South Carolina's congressional delegation were on
hand Tuesday to show support. SRS and Aiken County understand
what nuclear power means for the country, said U.S. Rep. Gresham
Barrett, R-S.C., whose district includes SRS.
"It's important not only for our economy," he said, "but for our
national security."
Barrett had a letter of support signed by every member of the
state's congressional delegation, as well as U.S. Rep. Charlie
Norwood, a Republican from Georgia near SRS.
South Carolina already is home to seven nuclear reactors, where
it gets 50 percent of its electrical power, Barrett said.
U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., said SRS already has not only the
community support necessary, but also the security.
"Other sites can't have the level of security we already have in
place," Wilson said.
Some environmentalists are concerned about radioactive waste
that would be created by building a new nuclear plant.
Barrett agreed that issue must be addressed.
The proposed federal high-level nuclear waste repository at
Yucca Mountain in Nevada is years behind schedule. And Barrett
said estimates are that when it opens, it will reach capacity in
just 10 years.
Information from: The State, http://www.thestate.com
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