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NUCLEAR POLICY
1 [NYTr] French Repeatedly Warned Niger Uranium Story Was Bogus
2 Los Angeles Times: French Told CIA of Bogus Intelligence -
3 UPI: Report: French warned CIA on uranium claim
4 [NYTr] Iran, the IAEA & US-EU Machinations
5 Guardian Unlimited: Israel Won't Rule Out Strike Against Iran
6 Guardian Unlimited: Iran's Plans to Enrich Uranium Draws Heat
7 Washington Post: U.S. Official Says Iran 'Very Aggressive'
8 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Reveals Plans to Produce Nuclear Fuel
9 AFP: EU, Iran set for nuclear talks on December 21 - diplomats -
10 Mos News: No Need to Politicize Iran Nuclear Issue — Russian FM -
11 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Invites U.S. to Bid on Power Plant
12 Guardian Unlimited: N.Korea Decries U.S. Envoy's Criticism
13 Korea Times: Blow to Six-Party Talks
14 AFP: Nuclear talks suspended indefinitely - NKorea -
15 Guardian Unlimited: N. Korea Slams U.S. Envoy Over Comments
16 US: Austin American-Statesman: In federal job: Blow whistle, get boo
17 [southnews] Britain knew 1950s nuclear ingredient was
18 AFP: UN nuclear watchdog, ElBaradei receive Nobel Peace Prize
19 The Observer: MI6 and CIA 'sent student to Morocco to be tortured'
20 Guardian Unlimited: Nobel Winner ElBaradei: Nuke Risk Remains
21 Sunday Times: We'd rather keep the lights on than be green -
22 Sydney Morning Herald: ElBaradei issues nuclear warning -
23 AFP: US seconds ElBaradei's call to stop spread of nuclear weapons
24 Guardian Unlimited: Britain Accused of Israel Nuclear Cover-Up
25 Bellona: Russia’s NGO bill has ripple effects in Europe
26 BBC: UN watchdog receives Nobel prize
27 Washington Post: slate: Keep the Nuclear Watchdog Neutral
28 AFP: Britain admits it knew 1950s nuclear ingredient was Israel-boun
29 Globe and Mail: Report touts nuclear power
30 Xinhua: India separates civil, military nuclear facilities
31 Guardian Unlimited: ElBaradei demands end to nuclear programme
32 Scotsman.com News: Britain accused of nuclear cover-up
33 Ireland Sunday Business Post: Debate needed on energy policy -
NUCLEAR REACTORS
34 [NYTr] Iran Offers US Share in Nuclear Plants
35 Guardian Unlimited: Pro-nuclear mandarin 'shifted' from top post
36 Sunday Times: Costing nuclear energy -
37 US: San Luis Obispo Tribune: Give PG&E the Diablo permits
38 US: SanLuisObispo.com: Flirting with disaster: Part 1 of a 4-part Tr
39 CANOE Money: Ontario Power Generation urges quick action on nuclear
40 CTV Toronto: Darlington best reactor location for OPG -
41 The Hindu: Work on separation of nuclear facilities at advanced stag
42 Sunday Herald: LibDems split on new generation of nuclear power stat
43 Independent: Energy chief ousted as No 10 eases in more nuclear-frie
44 US: Rutland Herald: Douglas looking for outs on energy
45 Gateway To Russia: Chernobyl may become nuclear burial ground -
46 TheStar.com: Put $35B in nuclear power, report says
47 TheStar.com: Call for nuclear plants lauded
48 TheStar.com: What choice does Ontario really have?
49 US: Dallas Morning News: Perry's energy push gets mixed readings
50 US: Boston Globe: Plymouth, neighbors weigh Pilgrim's safety, future
51 US: MPG Newspapers: Editors notes: Give both sides of debate a heal
52 US: Columbus Telegram: NPPD to participate in Hydrogen Utility Group
53 Ottawa Citizen: Ontario must spend $40B fixing nuclear plants, $30B
NUCLEAR SECURITY
54 US: RGJ.com: Device that contains radioactive material lost in north
55 WorldNetDaily: Nuclear terrorism
56 US: Gainesville Sun: UF changes reactor security after ABC report
57 US: Los Angeles Times: The air cargo security gap -
NUCLEAR SAFETY
NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
58 US: Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Mill will transform into pride of
59 US: Bradenton Herald: Official silence angers group
60 US: KRT Wire: DOD orders Army to find chemical weapon dumpsites
61 US: Bradenton Herald: Chemical weapon dumping probed
62 US: Bradenton Herald: Tallevast roots run deep
63 US: Charlotte Observer: State of the environment
64 US: Deseret News: Don't let up on nuke fight
65 US: Deseret News: See through the nonsense
66 US: Deseret News: Political shenanigans endure even during holidays
67 US: Deseret News: Write BLM, Hatch urges
68 US: Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Don't limit Tallevast's options
69 US: Casper Star-Tribune: Nuclear waste site backers pull their suppo
70 US: Salt Lake Tribune: the Wild Utah Project, applauded Hatch for
71 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Atlas threat to air will be discussed
72 US: EPA: Superfund at 25 in California - Superfund - Region 9 -
PEACE
73 The Observer: Laureate urges ban on nuclear weapons
74 Guardian Unlimited: ElBaradei Accepts Nobel Peace Prize
US DEPT. OF ENERGY
75 HeraldNet: Groups call for access to reports of lab accidents
76 Seattle Times: Groups seek more info about nuclear mishaps
77 Las Vegas SUN: Editorial: A bungling for all to see
78 Pueblo Chieftain: Critic disputes claim that Rocky Flats is clean
79 Chicago Sun-Times: Fermilab: Leak not harmful
80 LongmontFYI: Critic: Flats site not clean
81 Paducah Sun: DOE has long way to go on cleanup
82 NY Newsday: What's good for BNL is good for America
83 Arizona Daily Sun: Landowner near Rocky Flats sues to keep water and
84 Pahrump Valley Times: Test Site's groundwater display on exhibit at
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1 [NYTr] French Repeatedly Warned Niger Uranium Story Was Bogus
Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2005 14:47:58 -0600 (CST)
X-Fingerprint: owner-imap@chumbly.math.missouri.edu-127.127
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
Los Angeles Times - Dec 11, 2005
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-niger11dec11,0,3678379.story
French Told CIA of Bogus Intelligence
The foreign spy service warned the U.S. various times before the war that
there was no proof Iraq sought uranium from Niger, ex-officials say.
By Tom Hamburger, Peter Wallsten and Bob Drogin
Times Staff Writers
PARIS -- More than a year before President Bush declared in his 2003
State of the Union speech that Iraq had tried to buy nuclear weapons
material in Africa, the French spy service began repeatedly warning
the CIA in secret communications that there was no evidence to support
the allegation.
The previously undisclosed exchanges between the U.S. and the French,
described in interviews last week by the retired chief of the French
counterintelligence service and a former CIA official, came on
separate occasions in 2001 and 2002.
The French conclusions were reached after extensive on-the-ground
investigations in Niger and other former French colonies, where the
uranium mines are controlled by French companies, said Alain Chouet,
the French former official. He said the French investigated at the
CIA's request.
Chouet's account was "at odds with our understanding of the issue," a
U.S. government official said. The U.S. official declined to elaborate
and spoke only on condition that neither he nor his agency be named.
However, the essence of Chouet's account -- that the French repeatedly
investigated the Niger claim, found no evidence to support it, and
warned the CIA -- was extensively corroborated by the former CIA
official and a current French government official, who both spoke on
condition of anonymity.
The repeated warnings from France's Direction Generale de la Securite
Exterieure did not prevent the Bush administration from making the
case aggressively that Saddam Hussein was seeking nuclear weapons
materials.
It was not the first time a foreign government tried to warn U.S.
officials off of dubious prewar intelligence.
In the notorious "Curveball" case, an Iraqi who defected to Germany
claimed to have knowledge of Iraqi biological weapons. Bush and other
U.S. officials repeatedly cited Curveball's claims even as German
intelligence officials argued that he was unstable and might be a
fabricator.
The case of the forged documents that were used to support claims that
Hussein was seeking materials in Africa launched a political
controversy that continues to roil Washington.
A special prosecutor continues to investigate whether the Bush
administration unmasked a covert CIA operative in a bid to discredit
her husband, a former diplomat whom the CIA dispatched in February
2002 to investigate the Niger reports. The diplomat, Joseph C. Wilson
IV, like the French, said he found little reason to believe the
uranium story. The investigation into the leak led to the indictment
of Vice President Dick Cheney's former Chief of Staff I. Lewis
"Scooter" Libby on charges of obstruction of justice and perjury.
The French opposed U.S. policy on Iraq and refused to support the
invasion. But whether or not that made top U.S. officials skeptical of
the French report on Niger, intelligence officials from both countries
said that they cooperated closely during the prewar period and
continued to do so. And the French conclusions on Niger were supported
by some in the CIA.
The CIA requested French assistance in 2001 and 2002 because French
firms dominate the uranium business internationally and former French
colonies lead the world in production of the strategic mineral.
French officials were particularly sensitive to the assertion about
Iraq trying to obtain nuclear materials given the role that French
companies play in uranium mining in France's former colonies.
"In France, we've always been very careful about both problems of
uranium production in Niger and Iraqi attempts to get uranium from
Africa," Chouet said. "After the first Gulf War, we were very cautious
with that problem, as the French government didn't care to be accused
of maintaining relations with Saddam in that field."
The French-U.S. communications were detailed to The Times last week by
Chouet, who directed a 700-person intelligence unit specializing in
weapons proliferation and terrorism.
Chouet said the cautions from his agency grew more emphatic over time
as the Bush administration bolstered the case for invading Iraq by
arguing that Hussein had sought to build a nuclear arsenal using
uranium from Niger.
Chouet recalled that his agency was contacted by the CIA in the summer
of 2001 -- shortly before the attacks of Sept. 11 -- as intelligence
services in Europe and North America became more concerned about
chatter from known terrorist sympathizers. CIA officials asked their
French counterparts to check that uranium in Niger and elsewhere was
secure. The former CIA official confirmed Chouet's account of this
exchange.
Then twice in 2002, Chouet said, the CIA contacted the French again
for similar help. By mid-2002, Chouet recalled, the request was more
urgent and more specific. The CIA was asking questions about a
particular agreement purportedly signed by Nigerian officials to sell
500 metric tons of uranium to Iraq.
Chouet dispatched a five- or six-man team to Niger to double-check any
reports of a sale or an attempt to purchase uranium. The team found
none.
Chouet and his staff noticed that the details of the allegation
matched those in fraudulent documents that an Italian informant
earlier had offered to sell to the French.
"We told the Americans, 'Bull - - - -. It doesn't make any sense,' "
Chouet said.
Chouet said the information was contained in formal cables delivered
to CIA offices in Paris and Langley, Va. Those communications did not
use such coarse language, he said, but they delivered the point in
consistent and blunt terms.
"We had the feeling that we had been heard," Chouet said. "There was
nothing more to say other than that."
The former CIA official could not confirm the specifics of this 2002
communication, but said the general conclusions matched what many in
the CIA were learning at the time.
Chouet left the French government in the summer of 2002, after the
center-right coalition led by President Jacques Chirac won control,
forcing out top officials who had been aligned with the outgoing
Socialist Francois Mitterand.
When Bush gave his State of the Union address in January 2003, citing
a report from the British that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium
in Africa, other French officials were flabbergasted.
One government official said that French experts viewed the statement
attributed to the British as "totally crazy because, in our view,
there was no backup for this." Nonetheless, he said, the French once
again launched an investigation, turning things "upside-down trying to
find out what was going on."
Chouet's comments come as the FBI and the Italian government reopen
investigations into the origins of the documents that surfaced in 2002
purporting to prove the Iraq-Niger link. The documents in question
originally surfaced in Rome.
Before speaking with The Times last week, Chouet had told part of his
story to La Repubblica, a Rome newspaper, prompting Italian
investigators to resume their inquiry and seek Chouet's testimony.
In the U.S., the FBI recently reopened its inquiry into the documents
in part because it had won access to new information.
Wilson, the former U.S. ambassador sent to Niger by the CIA to
investigate the allegations, said he believed that his trip was
inspired by the forged documents. He said the briefing he received at
the CIA referred to a sales agreement between Iraq and Niger that
sounded like the forged documents.
Bush attributed the African uranium information to British
intelligence in his 2003 address: "The British government has learned
that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium
from Africa."
The British government maintains that its conclusions were based not
on the forged documents but on other, more reliable sources. In fact,
British officials have said that they reached their conclusions long
before the forged documents surfaced.
Still, Chouet said in the interview that the question from CIA
officials in the summer of 2002 seemed to follow almost word for word
from the documents in question. He said that an Italian intelligence
source, Rocco Martino, had tried to sell the documents to the French,
but that in a matter of days French analysts determined the documents
had been forged.
"We thought they [the Americans] were in possession of the documents,"
Chouet said. "The words were very similar." The former CIA official
said that in fact the U.S. had been offered the same documents in 2001
but had quickly rejected them as forgeries.
A spokeswoman for the British Embassy in Washington declined to
comment on Chouet's remarks, reiterating that the British government
continued to stand behind its conclusions that Iraq had sought to
purchase uranium in Africa.
A British report on prewar intelligence found the Africa claims in
Bush's speech to be "well-founded," noting that British suspicions on
Iraq's efforts to buy uranium originated with visits in 1999 by Iraqi
officials to Niger and the Congo.
Bush's assertions in his 2003 State of the Union speech had previously
been made by other U.S. officials in speeches and internal documents.
On Sept. 8, 2002 -- within months of the third French warning --
Cheney and then-national security advisor Condoleezza Rice spoke in
dire terms of Iraq's alleged efforts to pursue nuclear materials. Rice
warned: "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."
Chouet, asked for his reaction to Bush's speech and the claims of his
lieutenants, said: "No proof. No evidence. No indication. No sign."
White House officials scrambled to explain how the 16 words found
their way into the 2003 speech when so much doubt surrounded the
claims. Ultimately, then-deputy national security advisor Stephen
Hadley took responsibility for allowing them to remain.
On June 17, 2003, five months after Bush's State of the Union, the CIA
clarified its position on whether Iraq had sought uranium from Africa.
"Since learning that the Iraq-Niger uranium deal was based on false
documents earlier this spring, we no longer believe that there is
sufficient other reporting to conclude that Iraq pursued uranium from
abroad," the agency said in an internal memorandum that was disclosed
by the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Bush critics now say that -- in light of the warnings from the French
and others -- the White House owes the public a better explanation.
Former Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.), who was chairman of the Intelligence
Committee when the Niger claims first surfaced in 2002, said some
officials in the U.S. State Department were also expressing doubts:
"The big mystery is why did the administration, in the face of at
least a very persuasive contrary view, feel the president should take
the risk of stating this?"
[Hamburger and Wallsten reported from Paris and Washington, Drogin from
Washington. Times staff writer Sebastian Rotella in Paris contributed
to this report.]
Copyright 2005 Los Angeles Times
*
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2 Los Angeles Times: French Told CIA of Bogus Intelligence -
December 11, 2005
latimes.com : National News
THE WORLD
+ The foreign spy service warned the U.S. various times before
the war that there was no proof Iraq sought uranium from Niger,
ex-officials say.
By Tom Hamburger, Peter Wallsten and Bob Drogin, Times Staff
Writers
PARIS More than a year before President Bush declared in his
2003 State of the Union speech that Iraq had tried to buy
nuclear weapons material in Africa, the French spy service began
repeatedly warning the CIA in secret communications that there
was no evidence to support the allegation.
The previously undisclosed exchanges between the U.S. and the
French, described in interviews last week by the retired chief
of the French counterintelligence service and a former CIA
official, came on separate occasions in 2001 and 2002.
The French conclusions were reached after extensive
on-the-ground investigations in Niger and other former French
colonies, where the uranium mines are controlled by French
companies, said Alain Chouet, the French former official. He
said the French investigated at the CIA's request.
Chouet's account was "at odds with our understanding of the
issue," a U.S. government official said. The U.S. official
declined to elaborate and spoke only on condition that neither
he nor his agency be named.
However, the essence of Chouet's account that the French
repeatedly investigated the Niger claim, found no evidence to
support it, and warned the CIA was extensively corroborated by
the former CIA official and a current French government
official, who both spoke on condition of anonymity.
The repeated warnings from France's Direction Generale de la
Securite Exterieure did not prevent the Bush administration from
making the case aggressively that Saddam Hussein was seeking
nuclear weapons materials.
It was not the first time a foreign government tried to warn
U.S. officials off of dubious prewar intelligence.
In the notorious "Curveball" case, an Iraqi who defected to
Germany claimed to have knowledge of Iraqi biological weapons.
Bush and other U.S. officials repeatedly cited Curveball's
claims even as German intelligence officials argued that he was
unstable and might be a fabricator.
The case of the forged documents that were used to support
claims that Hussein was seeking materials in Africa launched a
political controversy that continues to roil Washington.
A special prosecutor continues to investigate whether the Bush
administration unmasked a covert CIA operative in a bid to
discredit her husband, a former diplomat whom the CIA dispatched
in February 2002 to investigate the Niger reports. The diplomat,
Joseph C. Wilson IV, like the French, said he found little
reason to believe the uranium story. The investigation into the
leak led to the indictment of Vice President Dick Cheney's
former Chief of Staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby on charges of
obstruction of justice and perjury.
The French opposed U.S. policy on Iraq and refused to support
the invasion. But whether or not that made top U.S. officials
skeptical of the French report on Niger, intelligence officials
from both countries said that they cooperated closely during the
prewar period and continued to do so. And the French conclusions
on Niger were supported by some in the CIA.
The CIA requested French assistance in 2001 and 2002 because
French firms dominate the uranium business internationally and
former French colonies lead the world in production of the
strategic mineral.
French officials were particularly sensitive to the assertion
about Iraq trying to obtain nuclear materials given the role
that French companies play in uranium mining in France's former
colonies.
"In France, we've always been very careful about both problems
of uranium production in Niger and Iraqi attempts to get uranium
from Africa," Chouet said. "After the first Gulf War, we were
very cautious with that problem, as the French government didn't
care to be accused of maintaining relations with Saddam in that
field."
The French-U.S. communications were detailed to The Times last
week by Chouet, who directed a 700-person intelligence unit
specializing in weapons proliferation and terrorism.
Chouet said the cautions from his agency grew more emphatic over
time as the Bush administration bolstered the case for invading
Iraq by arguing that Hussein had sought to build a nuclear
arsenal using uranium from Niger.
Chouet recalled that his agency was contacted by the CIA in the
summer of 2001 shortly before the attacks of Sept. 11 as
intelligence services in Europe and North America became more
concerned about chatter from known terrorist sympathizers. CIA
officials asked their French counterparts to check that uranium
in Niger and elsewhere was secure. The former CIA official
confirmed Chouet's account of this exchange.
Then twice in 2002, Chouet said, the CIA contacted the French
again for similar help. By mid-2002, Chouet recalled, the
request was more urgent and more specific. The CIA was asking
questions about a particular agreement purportedly signed by
Nigerian officials to sell 500 metric tons of uranium to Iraq.
Chouet dispatched a five- or six-man team to Niger to
double-check any reports of a sale or an attempt to purchase
uranium. The team found none.
Chouet and his staff noticed that the details of the allegation
matched those in fraudulent documents that an Italian informant
earlier had offered to sell to the French.
"We told the Americans, 'Bull - - - -. It doesn't make any
sense,' " Chouet said.
Chouet said the information was contained in formal cables
delivered to CIA offices in Paris and Langley, Va. Those
communications did not use such coarse language, he said, but
they delivered the point in consistent and blunt terms.
ADVERTISEMENT
"We had the feeling that we had been heard," Chouet said. "There
was nothing more to say other than that."
The former CIA official could not confirm the specifics of this
2002 communication, but said the general conclusions matched what
many in the CIA were learning at the time.
Chouet left the French government in the summer of 2002, after
the center-right coalition led by President Jacques Chirac won
control, forcing out top officials who had been aligned with the
outgoing Socialist Francois Mitterand.
When Bush gave his State of the Union address in January 2003,
citing a report from the British that Iraq had attempted to
purchase uranium in Africa, other French officials were
flabbergasted.
One government official said that French experts viewed the
statement attributed to the British as "totally crazy because, in
our view, there was no backup for this." Nonetheless, he said,
the French once again launched an investigation, turning things
"upside-down trying to find out what was going on."
Chouet's comments come as the FBI and the Italian government
reopen investigations into the origins of the documents that
surfaced in 2002 purporting to prove the Iraq-Niger link. The
documents in question originally surfaced in Rome.
Before speaking with The Times last week, Chouet had told part of
his story to La Repubblica, a Rome newspaper, prompting Italian
investigators to resume their inquiry and seek Chouet's
testimony.
In the U.S., the FBI recently reopened its inquiry into the
documents in part because it had won access to new information.
Wilson, the former U.S. ambassador sent to Niger by the CIA to
investigate the allegations, said he believed that his trip was
inspired by the forged documents. He said the briefing he
received at the CIA referred to a sales agreement between Iraq
and Niger that sounded like the forged documents.
Bush attributed the African uranium information to British
intelligence in his 2003 address: "The British government has
learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant
quantities of uranium from Africa."
The British government maintains that its conclusions were based
not on the forged documents but on other, more reliable sources.
In fact, British officials have said that they reached their
conclusions long before the forged documents surfaced.
Still, Chouet said in the interview that the question from CIA
officials in the summer of 2002 seemed to follow almost word for
word from the documents in question. He said that an Italian
intelligence source, Rocco Martino, had tried to sell the
documents to the French, but that in a matter of days French
analysts determined the documents had been forged.
"We thought they [the Americans] were in possession of the
documents," Chouet said. "The words were very similar." The
former CIA official said that in fact the U.S. had been offered
the same documents in 2001 but had quickly rejected them as
forgeries.
A spokeswoman for the British Embassy in Washington declined to
comment on Chouet's remarks, reiterating that the British
government continued to stand behind its conclusions that Iraq
had sought to purchase uranium in Africa.
A British report on prewar intelligence found the Africa claims
in Bush's speech to be "well-founded," noting that British
suspicions on Iraq's efforts to buy uranium originated with
visits in 1999 by Iraqi officials to Niger and the Congo.
Bush's assertions in his 2003 State of the Union speech had
previously been made by other U.S. officials in speeches and
internal documents.
On Sept. 8, 2002 - within months of the third French warning -
Cheney and then-national security advisor Condoleezza Rice spoke
in dire terms of Iraq's alleged efforts to pursue nuclear
materials. Rice warned: "We don't want the smoking gun to be a
mushroom cloud."
Chouet, asked for his reaction to Bush's speech and the claims of
his lieutenants, said: "No proof. No evidence. No indication. No
sign."
White House officials scrambled to explain how the 16 words found
their way into the 2003 speech when so much doubt surrounded the
claims. Ultimately, then-deputy national security advisor Stephen
Hadley took responsibility for allowing them to remain.
On June 17, 2003, five months after Bush's State of the Union,
the CIA clarified its position on whether Iraq had sought uranium
from Africa.
"Since learning that the Iraq-Niger uranium deal was based on
false documents earlier this spring, we no longer believe that
there is sufficient other reporting to conclude that Iraq pursued
uranium from abroad," the agency said in an internal memorandum
that was disclosed by the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Bush critics now say that - in light of the warnings from the
French and others - the White House owes the public a better
explanation.
Former Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.), who was chairman of the
Intelligence Committee when the Niger claims first surfaced in
2002, said some officials in the U.S. State Department were also
expressing doubts: "The big mystery is why did the
administration, in the face of at least a very persuasive
contrary view, feel the president should take the risk of stating
this?"
*
Hamburger and Wallsten reported from Paris and Washington, Drogin
from Washington. Times staff writer Sebastian Rotella in Paris
contributed to this report.
Copyright 2005 Los Angeles Times | Privacy Policy | Terms of
*****************************************************************
3 UPI: Report: French warned CIA on uranium claim
United Press International - NewsTrack -
12/10/2005 11:02:00 PM -0500
PARIS, Dec. 10 (UPI) -- More than a year before President Bush
said Iraq tried to get uranium in Africa, French officials told
the CIA there was no evidence to support the charge.
France warned the CIA in secret communications in 2001 and 2002
that its own investigation found no evidence to substantiate the
claim, the Los Angeles Times reported.
The newspaper said the previously undisclosed exchanges between
the United States and France were described in recent interviews
by the retired chief of the French counter-intelligence service
and a former CIA official.
The former French official, Alan Chouet, said his nation's
intelligence service arrived at its conclusion after extensive
investigations in Niger and other former French colonies, where
uranium mines are controlled by French companies. He said the
French investigated at the CIA's request.
A U.S. government official told the Times Chouet's account was
"at odds with our understanding of the issue." The official, who
spoke on condition that neither he nor his agency be identified,
declined to elaborate.
However, the Times said a former CIA official corroborated
Chouet's assertion that the French repeatedly investigated the
Niger claim, found no evidence to support it, and warned the CIA.
© Copyright 2005 United Press
International, Inc. All Rights Reserved
*****************************************************************
4 [NYTr] Iran, the IAEA & US-EU Machinations
Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2005 12:36:03 -0600 (CST)
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
Workers World - Dec 15, 2005
http://www.workers.org/2005/world/iran-1215/
Iran, the IAEA & U.S.-EU machinations
By Ardeshir Ommani
The Iranian government's statement earlier this fall that it might
withdraw from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) drew immediate threats of force
and even war from the U.S. and British governments. It was at this
juncture that, according to a Nov. 9 Al-Jazeera report, Iran decided
to set up a market for oil and associated derivatives that sends out
invoices for energy contracts in euros rather than dollars.
Al-Jazeera wrote, "The contention that this could unseat the dollar's
dominance as the de facto currency" of reserve for oil and major
commercial and world financial transactions "may be overstated, but
this has not stopped many commentators from linking America's
political disquiet with Iran to the proposed Iranian Oil Bourse (IOB).
The plan to set up the IOB was put forward, for the first time, in
Iran's Third Development Plan of 2000-2005. But the depreciation of
the dollar since the year 2000 has been one strong reason for the
shift to euros.
"It is a general consensus that if the plan is successfully
implemented, the IOB will reward Iran with concrete economic benefits,
especially if more of the invoices of its energy contracts are issued
in euros. From the economic and geopolitical point of view, invoicing
in euros is a rational strategy, since 45 percent of its total trade
is with the euro zone. Furthermore, Europe is the final destination
for one-third of Iran's oil exports, while the U.S. is not a direct
purchaser of Iran's oil production.
"Every student of economic discipline is aware that the U.S., by
fixing the dollar in the position of world reserve currency, has
enjoyed tremendous advantage in international trade and benefited
handsomely for more than half a century."
According to Emilie Rutledge of Aljazeera.net, "George Perkovich of
the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has
argued that Iran's decision to consider invoicing oil sales in euros
is `part of a very intelligent strategy to go on the offensive in
every way possible and mobilize other actors against the U.S.'"
The Iranian government's decision to begin the process of converting
yellowcake uranium to the gaseous state of uranium tetrafluoride
invited an immediate reaction by George Bush and Tony Blair. Both
threatened Iran with isolation and Blair warned that Iran will face "a
much more difficult life" if it does not follow the direction set by
the Western states, according to ABC Online of Nov. 3.
The response of the Iranian people was to demonstrate by the millions
in many cities. Realizing it could not cow them into accepting the
language of force and violence, the U.S.-EU coalition of imperialists
came up with a new design for a new day. This fresh mirage looked like
a compromise that Iran could not reject in the eyes of the so-called
international community--another name for the big powers that rule the
world.
The new plan proposed to grant Iran the right to continue the
conversion process as it has done since August 2005, that is, the
chemical change prior to the enrichment of uranium that would be
needed to make usable fuel. But the process of enriching uranium would
be done in Russia, which would ship the fuel for energy reactors back
to Iran.
>From the start of this plot, the EU and U.S. knew that the Iranian
people and their government would not accept such a pseudo solution to
their inviolable right to determine their own destiny. Meanwhile,
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was shuttling between Moscow and
Beijing to convince the leaders there to bring pressure on Iran to
give up its right to a full-fledged nuclear energy program and accept
the solutions of ever-dependency on other countries for the future
generations to come. According to the Nov. 10 New York Times, the new
proposal is an effort to give Iran a face-saving way out of its
standoff, reflecting the views of officials from both the U.S. and
Europe.
The Iranian response on Nov. 14 to the fraudulent proposal was a
resounding "no." Iran went a step further and announced that it was
ready to cooperate with other countries in a joint venture to produce
fuel for its civilian nuclear energy reactors. Both Russian and
Chinese leaders have often said that Iran has an inalienable right to
the uranium enrichment process within the framework of the nuclear
Non-Prolif eration Treaty. These two countries also disassociated
themselves from the new scheme of Washington and London.
On the other hand, Bush and Blair came into possession of a new
propaganda tool against Iran, hoping to influence the IAEA board
members at their Nov. 24 meeting to refer Iran's actions to the UN
Security Council. The problem for Washington and London was that the
composition of the IAEA board was to change by that date; the
newcomers are Cuba, Belarus and Syria. In mid-October Condoleezza Rice
had admitted that the U.S. might lack the votes to pass a resolution
referring Iran to the UN Security Council. No action was taken against
Iran by the IAEA during its Nov. 24 meeting in Vienna. (Christian
Science Monitor, Dec. 6)
By early November, Iran had invited the IAEA to inspect its Parchin
facility, a military base that the U.S. had claimed to be the most
intensive Iranian nuclear enrichment plant for the production of
nuclear bombs. IAEA spokesperson Melissa Flem ing confirmed that the
UN inspectors "were allowed to visit everywhere at the complex, do
interviews, and take samples." She reaffirmed that "we are pleased, we
got access; it was not restricted. We were allowed to see all the
buildings and to take environmental samples." (New York Times, Nov. 7)
But anytime the imperialist establishments and their henchmen in the
U.S. or abroad do not like what they hear from international agencies,
they begin discrediting their results and challenging the legitimacy
and credibility of their findings. For example, the Oct. 14 Toronto
Star tried to discredit the UN agency but said not a word about
Israel, which has already amassed a stockpile of nuclear weapons and
is not even a party to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Apparently, the newspaper's editors think that some countries and
classes are above the law.
The U.S. has resorted to its old tricks, ones concocted in the
laboratories of the CIA and the offices of President George W. Bush
and Vice-President Dick Cheney--who defends exempting the U.S.
military from the ban on torture of prisoners kidnapped around the
world.
For its final act of deception before the IAEA meeting on Sept. 24,
the U.S. government publicized that it was in possession of a laptop
showing Iran's "intention" of planning to construct atomic warheads to
fit its new missile, called Shahab (Shooting Star). The Bush
administration, apparently understanding the width of its credibility
gap, discussed the content of the laptop computer in a dozen private
and secret settings, including the top of a skyscraper in Vienna. The
content of the laptop is not actual data from practical research study
or test results, but simply a simulation.
A European diplomat who was privy to the secret meeting said after the
gathering, "I can fabricate that data."
This article is copyright under a Creative Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
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5 Guardian Unlimited: Israel Won't Rule Out Strike Against Iran
the Associated Press
[UP]
Sunday December 11, 2005 7:31 AM
By LAURIE COPANS
Associated Press Writer
JERUSALEM (AP) - Israel has not ruled out a military strike
against Iran if the country advances further in its efforts to
develop nuclear weapons, a senior Defense Ministry official said
Sunday.
Amos Gilad denied a Sunday Times article that Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon already had a plan to attack Iran in March, saying
Israel was working with the rest of the world to solve the
matter with diplomatic means.
``Right now the situation requires the focus on the
international issue of protecting the peace of world,'' Gilad
told Israel Radio. ``But it isn't correct to say that a country
that is threatened should deny that it will ever consider a
different option.''
Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said Sunday: ``Israel can not
live in a situation in which Iran has the atomic bomb.''
According to the newspaper report, Israel has a plan for a
combined air and ground attack on targets in Iran if diplomacy
fails to stop the nuclear program. Sharon's inner Cabinet
authorized the attack in a meeting last month, the newspaper
said.
Sharon said earlier this month that the ability to take out
Iran's nuclear program by force ``of course exists.''
Although Israel is preparing for the possibility that Iran will
acquire nuclear weapons, it will not lead the fight against the
Islamic state's nuclear ambitions, Sharon has said.
Israeli warplanes destroyed an unfinished Iraqi nuclear reactor
in 1981, but experts say a similar strike would be difficult
because of the dispersed nature of Iran's nuclear program.
The chairman of the parliamentary Foreign Affairs and Defense
Committee, Yuval Steinitz, suggested that Israel knew where Iran
was conducting its nuclear program.
``Israel has acted well in regards to intelligence and deployed
accordingly,'' Steinitz told Army Radio.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
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6 Guardian Unlimited: Iran's Plans to Enrich Uranium Draws Heat
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Saturday December 10, 2005 8:31 PM
AP Photo XHS124
By ALI AKBAR DAREINI
Associated Press Writer
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran will enrich uranium and produce nuclear
fuel domestically despite international efforts to curb its
atomic program, the nation's nuclear chief said Saturday,
drawing sharp criticism from the United States.
Gholamreza Aghazadeh, head of the Atomic Organization of Iran,
also described a European offer to shift Iran's contentious
nuclear enrichment program to Russia as ``flawed,'' adding that
Moscow has not even approached Tehran about the idea.
Meanwhile, state-run television announced that nuclear talks
with Europe - aimed at ensuring Iran's nuclear program cannot
produce weapons - will resume Dec. 21 in Vienna, Austria. Talks
broke off in August after Tehran restarted uranium conversion, a
precursor to enrichment.
Iran is standing its ground amid international pressure to cut
back on its nuclear activities, particularly uranium enrichment,
which can produce material for use in warheads or fuel for
nuclear plants to generate electricity. Iran, one of the world's
largest oil producers, maintains its program is for producing
power.
Despite Iranian denials, the United States claims Iran is trying
to build atomic weapons and is pushing for Tehran to be hauled
before the U.N. Security Council, where it could face economic
sanctions for violating a nuclear arms control treaty.
Gregory L. Schulte, chief U.S. representative to the
International Atomic Energy Agency, called it ``sad and ironic''
that Tehran's announcement coincided with IAEA chief Mohamed
ElBaradei's acceptance of the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo,
Norway.
``It underscores that Iran is today's greatest threat to the
proliferation regime'' and efforts to keep nuclear weaponry out
of the wrong hands, Schulte told The Associated Press in Vienna.
In Norway, ElBaradei did not mention Iran while accepting the
prize, which he won jointly with the IAEA, but he said Friday
the international community was losing patience with Iran over
its nuclear program.
``They are inching forward and I'm asking them to leap
forward,'' he said then. ``The ball is in Iran's court. It is up
to Iran to show the kind of transparency they need to show.''
In response, Aghazadeh said: ``Iran is also losing its patience
with them.''
Aghazadeh did not say when Iran would resume its work.
``For me, there is no doubt that the process of producing
nuclear fuel in Iran will be accomplished,'' he said. ``There is
no doubt that we have to carry out uranium enrichment.''
Germany, France and Britain have suggested shifting Iran's
enrichment activities to Russia, where nuclear material would be
enriched only to fuel levels and not to weapons grade. But
Aghazadeh said the idea was unacceptable.
``Russia has not presented an official proposal to us. It has
just raised ideas which are seriously flawed,'' he said.
Iran's past experience of joint nuclear cooperation has been
poor, said Aghazadeh, who claimed Tehran has 50 tons of UF-6
gas, the feedstock for enrichment, in France's Eurodif uranium
enrichment plant but has not been allowed to use it.
``Iran can't trust promises by Europeans that it will deliver
nuclear fuel,'' he said. ``There is no guarantee that the West
will supply us with nuclear fuel.''
But in a goodwill gesture, Aghazadeh said Iran will not carry
out enrichment processes during Iran's upcoming talks with
European negotiators. Aghazadeh said all outstanding issues
still can be resolved if the Europeans demonstrate a ``political
will'' to reach an understanding with Iran.
``We don't want to enter open-ended, aimless or floating
negotiations,'' he said.
After the talks broke down, Iran restarted uranium conversion -
a step toward enrichment - at a facility near Isfahan in central
Iran.
Iran temporarily froze its enrichment program in November 2004,
but the Europeans want it permanently halted. Tehran says it
will never give up its right under the Nuclear Nonproliferation
Treaty to enrich uranium and produce nuclear fuel.
Iran also plans to build a 360-megawatt light water nuclear
power plant based on local technology in southwestern Iran,
Aghazadeh said. Iran now is building a 40-megawatt heavy water
nuclear power plant in the central part of the country.
Iran also wants to produce 2,000 megawatts of electricity by
building nuclear power plants with foreign help in southern
Iran, he added.
Iran is the fourth-largest producer of crude oil in the world
and second-largest in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting
Countries, with a current production quota of about 4.1 million
barrels a day.
---
Associated Press reporters William J. Kole in Vienna, Austria,
and Doug Mellgren in Oslo, Norway, contributed to this report.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
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7 Washington Post: U.S. Official Says Iran 'Very Aggressive'
By BARRY SCHWEIDThe Associated Press
Friday, December 9, 2005; 5:47 PM
WASHINGTON -- Iran is closing in on production of nuclear
weapons and even U.N. sanctions may not deter the aggressive
government in Tehran, a top State Department official said
Friday.
Describing the Iranian government as "very aggressive, very
determined to develop nuclear weapons," Robert Joseph,
undersecretary for arms control and international security,
dismissed Iran's contention that it seeks only civilian nuclear
power.
"We know this is not the case," Joseph said at the University of
Virginia's Miller Center in Charlottesville.
Iran has methodically taken all but one last step to turn out
nuclear weapons, he said. "Once they begin to enrich, that is
the point of no return."
Negotiations between the European Union and Iran to stop Iran
with offers of economic incentives have foundered.
Still, Joseph said the United States was relying on diplomacy to
try to deter Iran.
In the meantime, he said, the Bush administration has held off
seeking economic sanctions against Iran in the U.N. Security
Council in order to solicit the support of Russia and China.
However, Iran is so determined to produce nuclear weapons that
sanctions might not stop the accelerating drive, he said.
Negotiation to halt North Korea's nuclear weapons program is
"easy compared to Iran," Joseph said.
Unlike North Korea, Iran has huge resources and "is not
motivated by a desire to stay isolated. Iran has a very
aggressive agenda," Joseph said.
He cited, as an example, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's
statement that Israel should be "wiped off the map."
The negotiations on North Korea are expected to resume in
January. The United States is joined by China, South Korea,
Japan, and Russia in trying to stop North Korea with offers of
trade and a U.S. pledge that it will not be attacked.
Speaking Friday in Oslo, Norway, Nobel Peace Prize laureate
Mohamed ElBaradei said the international community was losing
patience with Iran over its nuclear program.
ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said
he hopes the outstanding nuclear issues with Iran will be
clarified next year.
"They are inching forward and I'm asking them to leap forward,"
said ElBaradei, who shares the award with the IAEA.
He said he hopes outstanding nuclear issues with Tehran will be
clarified by the time he presents his next report on Iran in
March, because "the international community is losing patience
with the nature of that program."
"The ball is in Iran's court. It is up to Iran to show the kind
of transparency they need to show," ElBaradei told reporters.
He encouraged European negotiators to continue talks with Iran.
2005 The Associated Press
© Copyright1996- The Washington Post Company | User
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8 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Reveals Plans to Produce Nuclear Fuel
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Saturday December 10, 2005 6:01 PM
AP Photo XHS123
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran's top nuclear official said Saturday
that his country will enrich uranium and produce nuclear fuel
despite an international campaign to persuade it to abandon such
ambitions.
Gholamreza Aghazadeh, head of the Atomic Organization of Iran,
gave no date for when the processes would start but stressed
they would do so at some stage.
``For me, there is no doubt that the process of producing
nuclear fuel in Iran will be accomplished,'' Aghazadeh told a
news conference. ``There is no doubt that we have to carry out
uranium enrichment.''
Iran has been under intense pressure to curb its nuclear
program, which the United States claims is part of an effort to
produce weapons. Iran says its program is aimed at generating
electricity.
While Iran froze its enrichment program a year ago as a goodwill
gesture, it restarted uranium conversion - a step toward
enrichment - in August. Enrichment can produce fuel for either
nuclear reactors or atomic bombs.
Aghazadeh, who is also an Iranian vice president, said Iran
would refrain from either process during upcoming Iranian talks
with European negotiators.
No date has been set for the talks between Iran and the EU3 -
France, Germany and Britain - which broke off in August. They
had been set to resume in early December but did not. The
parties maintain they are committed to resuming negotiations.
Aghazadeh further said Iran plans to construct a 460 megawatt
nuclear power plant based on domestic technology in Dar Khovin,
in Khuzestan province in southwestern Iran.
Iran wants to produce 2,000 megawatts of electricity through the
construction of nuclear power plants with foreign help, he
added.
The International Atomic Energy Agency has warned Iran that its
nuclear program could be referred to the U.N. Security Council,
which has the power to impose sanctions on the country.
Iran has also said it will not consider a European proposal that
its uranium enrichment be moved to Russia to ensure it cannot be
secretly used for weapons.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
9 AFP: EU, Iran set for nuclear talks on December 21 - diplomats -
Sat Dec 10, 6:45 AM ET
VIENNA (AFP) - The European Union" /> European Unionand Iran" />
Iranwill hold nuclear talks on December 21 but expectations that
Tehran will abandon sensitive nuclear activities are "very low,"
Western diplomats told AFP.
Diplomats said Saturday that the two sides would be meeting
alone, and not with Russian experts as originally planned. The
meeting will probably be held in Vienna, although this could
change.
"December 21 is confirmed. It will probably be in Vienna but the
venue is not totally locked up," said a Western diplomat, who
asked not to be identified due to the sensitivity of the issue.
This information was confirmed by a second diplomat, who asked
only to be identified as a European envoy.
The Western diplomat said: "Expectations are very low. The EU-3
(EU negotiators Britain, France and Germany) expects Iran to
press for agreement on a pilot centrifuge plant. The EU-3 will
make clear that that is unacceptable and that time is about to
run out on the Iranians."
Centrifuges are used to enrich uranium into what can be fuel for
nuclear power reactors or the raw material for nuclear devices.
The meeting is "to talk about talks," the European diplomat
said, to see at a senior level if formal, possibly
ministerial-level talks on winning guarantees that Iran will not
make nuclear weapons can resume.
EU-Iran talks collapsed in August when Tehran ended its
suspension of uranium conversion, the first step towards making
enriched uranium.
The climate for talks is now particularly bad since Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad set off an international furor
with remarks this week questioning the Holocaust and suggesting
that the "tumour" of the state of Israel" /> Israelbe relocated
to Europe.
Meanwhile, the head of the UN nuclear watchdog International
Atomic Energy Agency" /> International Atomic Energy Agency,
Mohamed ElBaradei, said Friday in Oslo, where he is to receive
the Nobel Peace Prize, that the international community was
losing patience with Iran over its nuclear programme.
Iran's top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani told AFP last week
that Iran could soon resume making centrifuges and their parts
and conducting "research" as Tehran insists on its right to the
peaceful use of nuclear technology.
The EU and the United States fear Iran is using its drive toward
nuclear energy for electricity generation as a cover for
developing nuclear weapons but Iran says its program is
peaceful.
The December 21 meeting is "to talk about talks," the European
diplomat said, to see at a senior level if formal, possibly
ministerial-level talks on winning guarantees that Iran will not
make nuclear weapons can resume.
The IAEA had in September found Iran in non-compliance with the
nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) for almost two decades of
hidden nuclear activities, a finding that requires eventual
referral to the UN Security Council, which can impose sanctions.
But the IAEA in November put off taking Iran to the Council
after the EU-3 agreed to give more time for new Russian
diplomacy to work.
Russia, an Iranian ally which is building the Islamic Republic's
first nuclear power reactor, has proposed allowing Iran to
conduct uranium enrichment in Russia, rather than Iran, so
Tehran does not obtain the nuclear technology crucial to making
atom bombs.
Iran refuses however to give up the right to enrichment on its
territory.
Russia and China, which have strong economic ties to Iran,
oppose referral to the Security Council, as do non-aligned
states which point to Tehran's right under the NPT to work on
the nuclear fuel cycle.
The Western diplomat said however that "even the Russians are
distancing themselves from Iran's unpredictable tactics.
"If Iran does anything on enrichment, the West believes that
Russia won't stop the IAEA from reporting Iran to the United
Nations" /> United NationsSecurity Council," the diplomat said.
Copyright © 2005 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The
*****************************************************************
10 Mos News: No Need to Politicize Iran Nuclear Issue — Russian FM -
MOSNEWS.COM
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov / Photo: AP
Created: 11.12.2005 15:38 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 15:38 MSK
MosNews
Russia is strongly opposed to any attempts to politicize Iran
nuclear issue, the country’s foreign minister has said,
asserting that Moscow will be guided by the need to retain
non-proliferation regime intact, PTI reported Sunday.
“We would be very strongly opposed to any attempts to politicize
this issue and to be guided by anything except the need to keep
non-proliferation regime intact,” Sergei Lavrov told Russia
Today TV, the country’s first 24-hour English- language news
channel.
Pointing out that Iran was presently cooperating with
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors, Lavrov
said the IAEA Board of Governors would prepare a regular report
on the issue in two-three months.
He dismissed the charges in a section of Western media that
Russian citizens were involved in violating nuclear
non-proliferation regulations.
“All these were investigated. I have never seen anything of that
sort in the last few years,” he said.
Lavrov said nuclear cooperation with Iran at an
intergovernmental level was limited to building the Bushehr
nuclear power plant.
“This is done in a fully transparent manner under permanent
monitoring of International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors,”
Lavrov said.
The United States and the EU want Iran to abandon plans to
enrich uranium, a process that can be used to make nuclear
warheads, on its own soil and instead join an enrichment joint
venture in Russia, but Iranian officials have repeatedly said
they will push ahead with efforts to produce their own nuclear
fuel, via enrichment, for a number of planned civilian power
reactors.
Moreover, Russia has agreed to sell Iran sophisticated air
defense missile systems, saying that the deal, which has drawn
criticism from the United States and Israel, was legal and would
not upset the balance of power in the Middle East.
: info@mosnews.com
Copyright © 2004 MOSNEWS.COM
*****************************************************************
11 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Invites U.S. to Bid on Power Plant
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Sunday December 11, 2005 11:01 AM
By NASSER KARIMI
Associated Press Writer
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran on Sunday offered the United States a
share in building a new nuclear power plant in an apparent
effort to curb U.S. opposition to its atomic program.
``America can take part in international bidding for the
construction of Iran's nuclear power plant if they observe the
basic standards and quality,'' Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid
Reza Asefi said at a news conference.
Asefi was apparently talking about a 360-megawatt light water
nuclear power plant in southwestern Iran, which the head of the
country's top atomic organization announced plans to build on
Saturday.
Iran also wants to produce 2,000 megawatts of electricity by
building nuclear power plants with foreign help in southern
Iran.
Relations between both countries have been severed since Iran's
1979 Islamic revolution. Washington also imposes unilateral
sanctions on Iran, preventing U.S. companies from doing business
in Iran.
The United States has also ratcheted up pressure against Tehran,
accusing it of pursuing a nuclear weapons program and supporting
anti-Israeli militants.
Iran, which denies it wants to build atomic bombs, has been
involved in stalled talks with European negotiators over its
contentious nuclear program aimed at making Tehran permanently
freeze uranium enrichment.
Enrichment is a process that can produce material for use in
warheads or fuel for nuclear plants to generate electricity.
The United States backs the Iran-Europe talks, which broke off
in August and will resume Dec. 21 in Vienna, Austria. Tehran has
since restarted uranium conversion, a precursor to enrichment.
``The (Vienna) meeting will be a serious one,'' Asefi said.
``Everything is dependent on the meeting and the talks.
Everything will be decided there. We will make a decision based
on its results in the future.''
Asefi refused to speculate on the result of the talks, saying
only that ``if Europe works based on the nonproliferation
treaty, safeguards and international measures, then there will
be no room for concern.''
He reiterated that the meeting's agenda would focus on Iran's
right to enrich uranium and that the talks would be held on a
senior level.
Germany, France and Britain have suggested shifting Iran's
enrichment activities to Russia, where nuclear material would be
enriched only to fuel levels and not to weapons grade.
But Iran said it would enrich uranium and produce nuclear fuel
domestically despite international efforts to curb its atomic
program.
On Friday, Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the United Nations'
International Atomic Energy Agency, said the international
community was losing patience with Iran over its nuclear
program. ElBaradei was awarded the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize on
Saturday.
``ElBaradei should not politicize issues,'' Asefi said. ``He
knows Iran has not diverted in its nuclear program. Some of
words that he said were not correct at all. It would be better
for him not to have many interviews.''
Iran is standing its ground amid international pressure to cut
back on its nuclear activities, particularly uranium enrichment,
which can produce material for use in warheads or fuel for
nuclear plants to generate electricity.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
12 Guardian Unlimited: N.Korea Decries U.S. Envoy's Criticism
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Saturday December 10, 2005 7:31 AM
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea has denounced recent
criticism of the communist regime by a senior U.S. diplomat as a
``declaration of a war'' and threatened to retaliate, North
Korean media reported Saturday.
The U.S. ambassador to South Korea on Tuesday called the North a
``criminal regime,'' citing its alleged involvement in illicit
activities such as money laundering and counterfeiting.
Ambassador Alexander Vershbow's comments are ``a sort of
provocative declaration of a war ... and (North Korea) will
mercilessly retaliate against it,'' an unidentified spokesman
for the North's committee on peaceful reunification of the
peninsula told the official Korean Central News Agency Friday.
``The recent case glaringly revealed once again the ulterior
aggressive design of the U.S. to stifle the DPRK at any cost,''
the spokesman said. ``This clearly proved that nothing has
changed in its hostile policy toward the DPRK although it signed
the joint statement at the six-party talks.''
DPRK stands for Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the
country's official name.
In the joint statement adopted in September, North Korea agreed
to give up its nuclear programs in exchange for aid and security
assurances. The fifth and latest round of nuclear talks recessed
in November with no sign of progress on ways to disarm the
North.
The talks involve the two Koreas, United States, China, Japan
and Russia.
Vershbow's comments also drew criticism from South Korean
officials.
``It's not desirable to publicly characterize the other side,''
Song Min-soon, South Korea's chief negotiator at the six-party
talks, told The Associated Press in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
13 Korea Times: Blow to Six-Party Talks
Hankooki.com > The Korea Times > Opinion
Pyongyang-Washington Invective Not Constructive
The six-party nuclear negotiations have been overshadowed by a
verbal war between the United States and North Korea, following
U.S. Ambassador to Seoul Alexander Vershbow's description of
Pyongyang as a criminal regime on Tuesday for committing illegal
activities such as money laundering and counterfeiting.
On Saturday, the North lashed out against Vershbow's labeling,
saying his charges are fabricated. The communist country said
that the resumption of the six-party talks would depend on the
U.S. attitude. The North accused the Bush administration of
trying to invalidate the Sept. 19 agreement reached in the
fourth round of the dialogue, paving the way for a peace
resolution to the three-year nuclear standoff between Pyongyang
and Washington. The agreement makes it obligatory for the North
to abandon all nuclear activities, return to the nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and abide by the United Nations'
nuclear safeguard regime in exchange for political and economic
benefits. On Friday, the North denounced Vershbow's verbal
attack as a U.S. declaration of war against it and promised
retaliation.
Vershbow's criticism of the Kim Jong-il regime also perplexed
Seoul which has virtually kept silent about the human rights
situation in the North and Pyongyang's illicit activities in the
global community in consideration of the six-party talks and
inter-Korean relations. The U.S. envoy's denunciation followed
the recent revelation that George W. Bush called Kim Jong-il a
tyrant in his meeting with Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro
Koizumi in Pusan last month in connection with the Asia-Pacific
Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit.
President Bush's invective and that of other U.S. officials
will seriously impede progress in the six-party negotiations,
which have been adjourned since early last month, a few days
after the start of the fifth round because of the APEC
conference. To make matters worse, the fifth round failed to fix
a date for resuming the dialogue because the North took
exception to Washington's financial sanctions against it in
retaliation for Pyongyang's alleged spread of counterfeit U.S.
dollars and deals in weapons of mass destruction. Before
Vershbow's attack, the North threatened that it would not take
part in the six-party nuclear negotiations unless the U.S. lifts
its financial strictures against Pyongyang.
Even though the North deserves denunciation for the harsh
suppression of its people and its illegal activities abroad,
Washington needs to restrain itself from provoking the North as
much as possible for the sake of a successful conclusion of the
six-party talks, thereby restoring peace
12-11-2005 17:06
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14 AFP: Nuclear talks suspended indefinitely - NKorea -
Sun Dec 11, 6:43 AM ET
SEOUL (AFP) - North Korea" /> North Koreasays six-nation talks
on dismantling its nuclear programme have been suspended "for an
indefinite period" because of US financial sanctions on the
Stalinist state.
In its latest response to comments by a US envoy that Pyongyang
is a "criminal regime" engaged in money laundering and
counterfeiting, a spokesman for North Korea's foreign ministry
said the United States was "faking up lies" to disrupt the
six-way talks.
"The US is now overturning the basic principles of the joint
statement reached at the six-party talks one by one," the
spokesman said in an interview with the North's official Korean
Central News Agency conducted on Saturday and carried on Sunday.
"It scuttled the DPRK (North Korean)-US financial talks, in
particular, holding off the six-party talks for an indefinite
period."
A proposed US-North Korean meeting on the financial sanctions
did not take place this month, because North Korea wanted to
negotiate on the issue while the United States simply wanted to
hold a briefing.
The six-party talks involving China, the two Koreas, the United
States, Russia and Japan are aimed at ending North Korea's
nuclear weapons programs in exchange for diplomatic and economic
benefits and security guarantees.
But a start date for the next session is uncertain amid the
latest row.
The US Treasury Department" /> Treasury Departmentin September
told US financial institutions to stop dealing with a Macau
bank, Banco Delta Asia, which it accused of being a willing
front for North Korean counterfeiting.
A month later the US blacklisted eight North Korean companies
allegedly involved in the proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction.
North Korea on Tuesday had threatened to boycott the six-way
talks unless the United States lifts the financial sanctions.
US ambassador to Seoul Alexander Vershbow on Wednesday dismissed
the threat, calling Pyongyang as a "criminal regime" engaged in
illegal activities.
A spokesman for North Korea's Committee for the Peaceful
Reunification of the Fatherland said Saturday the remarks by
Vershbow amounted to a "declaration of war," further dimming the
prospect of talks resuming.
After more than two years of negotiations, North Korea agreed in
principle at the fourth round of talks in Beijing in September
to dismantle its nuclear weapons program.
But the latest session ended in stalemate last month, with the
North accusing the United States of breaching the September
agreement by imposing sanctions on its firms.
Negotiators agreed to resume the talks soon but set no date.
South Korea" /> South Koreahas been pushing for a resumption in
January.
The six-way talks began in August 2003 almost a year after the
latest nuclear standoff began, when the United States accused
North Korea of running a secret uranium-enrichment program.
The North has since expelled UN International Atomic Energy
Agency" /> International Atomic Energy Agencyarms inspectors and
abandoned the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Rodong Sinmun, the North's communist party daily, said Sunday
the United States had recently decided to deploy a brand new
aircraft carrier off Japan with the "undisguised intention to
mount a preemptive nuclear attack" on the Stalinist state.
The North has said it is developing nuclear weapons for
self-defense.
Copyright © 2005 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The
*****************************************************************
15 Guardian Unlimited: N. Korea Slams U.S. Envoy Over Comments
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Sunday December 11, 2005 12:46 AM
AP Photo SEL102
By BO-MI LIM
Associated Press Writer
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea denounced the new U.S.
ambassador to South Korea for calling the communist nation a
``criminal regime,'' saying Saturday his remark was tantamount
to a declaration of war.
Ambassador Alexander Vershbow made the comment Tuesday, citing
alleged illicit activities by North Korea like money laundering
and counterfeiting.
North Korea called the statement ``a sort of provocative
declaration of a war'' and threatened to ``mercilessly retaliate
against it,'' the official Korean Central News Agency quoted an
unidentified spokesman for the North's committee on peaceful
reunification as saying.
A State Department spokeswoman said the U.S. was trying to
verify the North Korean comments and had no immediate response.
The North also said Vershbow's comment ``overturned the spirit''
of a joint statement adopted at nuclear disarmament negotiations
in September, during which the North agreed to abandon its
nuclear program in exchange for security guarantees and aid.
However, Pyongyang has since insisted it get a nuclear reactor
for power before it disarms.
North Korea threatened on Tuesday to boycott the nuclear talks -
which also involve South Korea, China, Japan and Russia - unless
Washington lifts financial sanctions.
In October, Washington imposed sanctions on eight North Korean
companies it said acted as fronts for the proliferation of
weapons of mass destruction. The United States also suspects
North Korea of counterfeiting and money laundering.
Calling such U.S. allegations ``sheer lies,'' the North's
Foreign Ministry said Saturday that ``the prospect of the
six-party talks' resumption and progress will entirely depend on
the U.S. attitude.''
The spokesman accused Washington of making ``scenarios to deter
(North Korea) from going to the six-party talks and lead them to
a final collapse,'' according to KCNA.
The fifth and latest round of nuclear talks took a recess in
November with no sign of progress on ways to disarm North Korea.
Vershbow's comment also drew criticism from South Korea, which
has actively engaged the heavily militarized North since a
summit between their leaders in 2000.
``It's not desirable to publicly characterize the other side,''
Song Min-soon, South Korea's chief negotiator at the six-party
talks, told The Associated Press in Malaysia.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
16 Austin American-Statesman: In federal job: Blow whistle, get boot -
Rebecca CarrIn federal job: Blow whistle, get boot
Workers say broken system doesn't protect them from retaliation
By WASHINGTON BUREAU
Sunday, December 11, 2005
WASHINGTON Russell Tice was a senior intelligence analyst at
the National Security Agency until he demanded to know in April
2003 what had happened to a report he had filed about a former
colleague he suspected of spying for China. Two months later, he
found himself checking coolant at the agency's motor pool.
Not only did Tice get demoted from the elite ranks of the
intelligence community, but he was also deemed "paranoid" by one
of the agency's psychologists, a death sentence in the
intelligence field. Just nine months earlier, Tice had been
found psychologically sound during a routine evaluation.
Rick McKay COX WASHINGTON BUREAU
(enlarge photo)
Russell Tice, a former intelligence analyst for the National
Security Agency, was fired in May after raising questions about
suspicions he'd reported about a colleague while working at
another agency.
Tice's case is one of a number of troubling episodes involving
government whistle-blowers: federal employees who step forward
to expose lapses, failures and fraud.
More than four years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist
attacks, federal employees working to help prevent another
terrorist strike have virtually no legal protection from losing
their jobs when they point out graft, incompetence or holes in
national security.
That's because the law requires federal employees who work for
intelligence-gathering agencies to seek recourse within their
own agency, which is usually the very agency on which they are
blowing the whistle.
The Defense Intelligence Agency, where Tice worked when he
reported his concerns about his co-worker, and the National
Security Agency, which he joined in November 2002, won't say
whether there was any truth to Tice's allegations. But Tice says
he was retaliated against for doing what he thought was his
duty: unmasking someone he thought was a spy.
"You do the right thing, and then they take away your security
clearance, your job, your life," said Tice, 44, who spent two
decades working for federal intelligence agencies before being
fired in May. "It's like committing suicide to come forward."
The National Security Agency and Defense Intelligence Agency
both declined to comment on Tice's case, citing privacy
concerns.
The Defense Department's inspector general issued an
unclassified report in September that found "no evidence" to
support Tice's claims.
"Even if he turned out to be wrong, he shouldn't have been
punished for raising those concerns," said Danielle Brian, the
executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, a
nonpartisan watchdog group in Washington. "He should have been
rewarded for caring enough to report his suspicions. There is no
beauty in being a whistle-blower."
The rest of the civil service doesn't fare much better in a
system that was created by Congress more than 25 years ago to
protect whistle-blowers from retaliation, government records and
interviews with whistle-blowers and government watchdog groups
show.
That system, set up to encourage whistle-blowers to step
forward, instead works to prevent the disclosure of embarrassing
information while meting out revenge against employees who make
such claims, whistle-blowers and government watchdog groups say.
"There is no place to go," said Coleen Rowley, a former FBI
lawyer who made headlines three years ago when she blew the
whistle on how officials in Washington ignored reports from her
Minnesota field office in August 2001 about Zacarias Moussaoui,
a French citizen who has since admitted conspiring with al Qaeda
in the attacks that came one month after his arrest. Rowley
retired last year in frustration and is now running for Congress
from Minnesota.
Federal employees who work for the nation's intelligence
agencies are especially vulnerable. They typically lose the
security clearances that are vital to their jobs when they
report misdeeds.
Many are then transferred, like Tice, to places such as a
shipping depot, car park or basement filing room where they wait
out their time before being officially terminated.
A troubled system
On paper, the system appears to help government employees who
point out wrongdoing by offering them a safe haven to make their
complaints at the U.S. Office of Special Counsel. But records
show that the vast majority of federal employees face a dead end
when they go to this office.
Cases that are found to have merit are sent back to the
whistle-blower's agency for a full investigation and report. But
just a fraction of the cases meet this standard. Of the 1,262
cases processed in 2004 by the Office of Special Counsel, just 2
percent were found to have a "substantial likelihood" of
wrongdoing, up from 1 percent in 2003, the office's statistics
show.
Catherine Deeds, the public affairs director at the Office of
Special Counsel, said as much as 90 percent of cases brought to
the office are clearly without merit or are dismissed because
the office lacks jurisdiction over the matter.
But the office, by its own admission, has confronted a chronic
backlog of cases, prompting watchdog groups to charge that it
does not adequately protect whistle-blowers from retaliation.
Between 1997 and 2003, 96 percent of the whistle-blower
disclosure cases took an average of more than six months to
process. Three-quarters of the time, the office missed a 15-day
time limit set by Congress to examine the merits of each case, a
March 2004 report by the General Accounting Office found.
Responding to the chronic backlog of cases cited in the GAO
report, the Office of Special Counsel's chief, Bush appointee
Scott Bloch, said in a May 17, 2005, letter to U.S. Comptroller
David Walker that he was aware that the problem "has plagued the
agency for several years." He took over the office in January
2004.
The problem could stem from faulty organization, "procedural
inefficiencies," a lack of personnel or a combination of those
factors, he wrote, adding that the backlogs prevent the office
from "dispensing justice."
Bloch himself, however, is under investigation for violating the
laws he is supposed to enforce.
A group of staffers at the Office of Special Counsel and
watchdog organizations filed a complaint in March with the
President's Council on Integrity and Efficiency, an umbrella
group of inspectors general and oversight agencies, accusing
Bloch of creating a hostile work environment, forcing employees
to accept involuntary geographic reassignments, cronyism and
prematurely closing hundreds of whistle-blower cases.
The case is under investigation by Patricia Marshall, the
inspector general for the Office of Personnel Management at the
White House.
Bloch declined to respond to written questions about the
investigation, but he did respond in writing to other questions.
Bloch said he has reduced the historic backlog of cases, without
sacrificing quality. The agency reduced the overall case backlog
by 82 percent to 201 cases last year.
Watchdog groups question whether those cases were hastily closed
to make it appear that the office is tackling whistle-blower
concerns.
But Bloch said that a bipartisan group of congressional staff
counsels and investigators questioned senior office attorneys
and reviewed hundreds of random closed case files last spring.
They found that the Office of Special Counsel was making strides
to address the problems cited in the GAO report, he said.
House Government Reform Committee Chairman Tom Davis, R-Va.,
wrote Bloch a letter on the same day that Bloch wrote to Walker,
praising him for the "seriousness" with which he dealt with the
backlogs. Conversely, Rep. Henry Waxman, the ranking Democrat of
the committee, said he finds what is going on in the Office of
Special Counsel "very disturbing."
Moved to busywork
Beyond addressing the steep hurdles evident at the Office of
Special Counsel is a more fundamental issue: providing
whistle-blowers adequate protection for finding holes in the
federal effort to deter another terrorist attack.
In 9/11's aftermath, it became clear that people within the
government had been pushing their superiors to recognize parts
of the plot as it unfolded, without success.
It wasn't just Rowley, who as an FBI lawyer in Minneapolis tried
unsuccessfully to flag suspicious flight training that Moussaoui
took in Minnesota in the summer of 2001.
Bogdan Dzakovic, a former senior security tester for the Federal
Aviation Administration, warned that hijacking was likely.
Dzakovic's team found it could penetrate security about 90
percent of the time in covert tests at airports around the
country. He warned his superiors that a "disastrous hijacking"
was inevitable. Dzakovic said he was told not to write up his
findings or retest airports that flunked the security tests in
some cases.
In October 2001, one month after the terrorist attacks, Dzakovic
filed a whistle-blower complaint with the Office of Special
Counsel, which ordered an investigation. The inquiry supported
his claims.
Rather than praise Dzakovic for his findings, however, the
Transportation Security Administration took away all of his job
duties in February 2002. He found himself punching holes in
training manuals. When the Office of Special Counsel protested,
Dzakovic was given a new assignment answering phones in a local
operations center during the graveyard shift.
In August 2003, he was transferred to the Department of Homeland
Security, where his duties consisted of updating a phone book.
TSA officials declined to comment on Dzakovic's case, citing
privacy concerns.
"I'm grateful that I still have a job, because you are
essentially blacklisted as a whistle-blower, and it would be
next to impossible for me to get another job and make as much as
I am making now," said Dzakovic, 51, who makes just over
$100,000 per year. "But I'm doing idiot work for the most part."
Had Dzakovic been in the intelligence community, he wouldn't
have been allowed to go to the Office of Special Counsel.
Federal workers in the intelligence community can appeal only to
officials within their agency.
Is it getting worse?
Whistle-blowers whose cases are turned down by the Office of
Special Counsel can appeal to the Merit Systems Protection
Board.
But the three-member board rarely sides with whistle-blowers,
the board's records for the past five years show.
Of the 30 appeals the board heard this year, just two were sent
back to an administrative judge in the board's regional office
to be reviewed again.
Beth Slavet, former chairwoman of the Merit Systems Protection
Board, said the whistle-blower system has been broken for a long
time, but it seems worse now than in the past.
When Slavet joined the board in August 1995, it sided with
whistle-blowers over agencies in about 3 percent of the cases.
During her tenure, the number substantially increased, watchdog
groups said.
Slavet would offer a sobering suggestion to whistle-blowers
today.
"I would have to advise them not to report the matter, because
they can be subject to retaliation in so many different ways,
from taking away job duties to being put in a closet to do his
work, to criticizing every little thing the whistle-blower does
that would pass muster if the work was done by someone else,"
Slavet said.
Federal employees who are not satisfied with the outcome of
their complaints to the merit board can take their cases to the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit based in
Washington.
But history suggests that they stand virtually no chance of
winning there, either.
Since 1994, the court has sided with government agencies in 104
of the 105 decisions where it ruled on the merits of the case,
according to the Government Accountability Project, a nonprofit
watchdog group based in Washington.
Groups such as the Project on Government Oversight are trying to
persuade Congress to allow federal employees to bypass the Court
of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and take their cases directly
to federal court in their local jurisdiction.
Last summer, Congress passed a provision in the energy bill that
allowed employees for the Department of Energy and the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission to go straight to federal court in their
region, bypassing the Appeals Court in Washington.
The National Security Whistleblowers Coalition is also pushing
Congress to amend the law to protect federal employees who
aren't allowed to seek recourse at the Office of Special Counsel
and the Merit Systems Protection Board because they work in the
intelligence community.
Whistle-blower protection laws have "degenerated into an
efficient machine that enforces secrecy through rubber-stamping
retaliation," said Tom Devine, legal director of the Government
Accountability Project.
"The law has become the best reason for employees to look the
other way and remain silent observers."
Copyright 2001-2005 Cox Texas Newspapers, L.P. All rights
reserved.
*****************************************************************
17 [southnews] Britain knew 1950s nuclear ingredient was
Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2005 02:28:02 -0600 (CST)
X-Fingerprint: owner-imap@chumbly.math.missouri.edu-127.127
------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~-->
Give at-risk students the materials they need to succeed at DonorsChoose.org!
http://us.click.yahoo.com/wlSUMA/LpQLAA/E2hLAA/7gSolB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~->
Britain has admitted that it knew that heavy water it sold in the 1950s,
a key ingredient in making nuclear weapons, was bound for Israel, amid
claims of a cover-up.
Britain admits it knew 1950s nuclear ingredient was Israel-bound
AFP Sunday December 11,
Britain has admitted that it knew that heavy water it sold in the 1950s,
a key ingredient in making nuclear weapons, was bound for Israel, amid
claims of a cover-up.
An investigation by BBC television's "Newsnight" programme on Friday
unearthed papers showing a deal was done to export heavy water.
The probe showed that "Britain knew that the heavy water was going to
Israel and that the Israelis were likely to use it to make nuclear
weapons," alleged BBC reporter Michael Crick.
Britain's Foreign Office minister Kim Howells has insisted that Britain
had merely negotiated the sale back to Norway of surplus heavy water.
That surplus was then sold on to Israel.
Officials had added that they were unaware that Israel might have has
nuclear weapons ambitions.
However, a Foreign Office spokesman, while maintaining that it was
purely a deal between Britain and Norway, admitted Britain knew the
heavy water's final destination.
"The papers show that we agreed to transfer back to Norway control of 25
tons of heavy water," the spokesman told the BBC.
"We were aware at the time that Norway planned to sell the heavy water
to the Israeli Atomic Energy organisation," he said, going further than
Howells.
The BBC said new documents had emerged which cast doubt on claims that
British officals had no idea of Israel's intentions.
In 1958 Britain's Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) wrote to Foreign
Office official Donald Cape, who gave the ministry's approval for the deal.
Britain had seemingly bought too much heavy water from a Norwegian
company and wanted to sell the surplus.
According to one letter, UKAEA said another Norwegian company, Noratom,
wanted to purchase it to sell it on to Israel.
"The new customer is the Israeli atomic energy organisation," the letter
said, according to the BBC.
This would put Britain in a tricky position as "it could be argued that
the Israelis will receive the heavy water by reason of our reselling it
to Noratom; that therefore we are parties to the supply to Israel".
"Newsnight" also said it had a copy of Israel's contract with the
Norwegian firm which said it would provide heavy water from the UKAEA.
The programme said it had seen a letter written by Cape quoting secret
US Central Intelligence Agency reports from 1957 and 1958, which took
the view "that the Israelis must be expected to try and establish a
nuclear weapons programme as soon as the means were available to them".
The confidential documents also apparently show that the Foreign Office
knew Israel was secretly trying to buy uranium from South Africa.
Other secret government documents apparently say: "It has been, and
remains our opinion, that Israel wanted an independent supply of
plutonium so as to be in a position to make a nuclear weapon if she wished."
Cape denied the sale back to Norway was a "sham" and said officials at
the time did not suspect that Israel hoped to manufacture nuclear weapons.
The programme alleged that Britain took the heavy water out of its
military stockpile and loaded it onto Israeli ships at a British port in
June 1959 and June 1960.
Menzies Campbell, foreign affairs spokesman for the smaller opposition
Liberal Democrats, is demanding clarification from Foreign Secretary
Jack Straw.
He said: "The trouble with this cover-up is that this is not a cover-up,
it simply flies in the face of the known facts, now that we have access
to previously classified documents."
Jeremy Corbyn, a left-wing MP from Prime Minister Tony Blair's governing
Labour Party, has called for a parliamentary committee to investigate.
"Right back to the late 1950s we were a party to the transfer of nuclear
technology to Israel," he said.
"We were party to the development of a nuclear facility in Israel that
could and has been used for the manufacture of nuclear weapons. Norway
was always a smokescreen."
The archives of South News can be found at
http://southmovement.alphalink.com.au/southnews/
*****************************************************************
18 AFP: UN nuclear watchdog, ElBaradei receive Nobel Peace Prize
10/12/2005 12h59
The 2005 Nobel Peace Prize laureates pose at the Royal palace
in Oslo
©AFP/Scanpix - Orn Borgen
OSLO (AFP) - The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and
its director general Mohamed ElBaradei have received the 2005
Nobel Peace Prize at a ceremony in Oslo for their efforts to
halt the spread of nuclear weapons.
Just over 60 years after the world's first atomic attack,
ElBaradei and the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency,
represented by the chairman of its board of governors, Yukiya
Amano, were honored on Saturday for "their efforts to prevent
nuclear energy from being used for military purposes".
They received the prestigious prize, consisting of a Nobel
diploma, a gold medal and 10 million Swedish kronor (1.3 million
dollars, 1.1 million euros) to be split between them, from
chairman of the Nobel Committee Ole Mjoes at a formal ceremony
in Oslo's City Hall.
The UN agency and ElBaradei received their distinction 60 years
after the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Hiroshima
and Nagasaki in Japan on August 6 and 9, 1945, the world's only
nuclear attacks.
"At a time when the threat of nuclear arms is again increasing,
the Norwegian Nobel Committee wishes to underline that this
threat must be met through the broadest possible international
cooperation," Mjoes said.
"This principle finds its clearest expression today in the work
of the IAEA and its director general," he added.
The IAEA was founded in 1957 to promote civilian use of nuclear
energy and at the same time work to eliminate the proliferation
of nuclear weapons.
"At a time when disarmament efforts appear deadlocked, when
there is a danger that nuclear arms will spread both to states
and to terrorist groups, and when nuclear power again appears to
be playing an increasingly significant role, this work is of
incalculable importance," Mjoes said.
The agency and its chief have most recently been instrumental in
thorny nuclear negotiations with Iran, threatening to take the
country before the UN Security Council for violating nuclear
non-proliferation rules.
ElBaradei on Friday said the international community was losing
patience with Iran over its nuclear programme, which Tehran
insists is merely designed to meet domestic energy needs, but
cautioned against using military action.
"I don't believe there is a military solution to the issue," he
said.
In a jab at the United States, Mjoes also hailed the IAEA for
its inspection work prior to the war in Iraq.
Despite crushing pressure from the United States to turn up
weapons of mass destruction, "the (agency's) inspectors carried
out their task in Iraq in an independent, thorough and correct
manner," Mjoes said.
"As the world could see after the war in Iraq, the weapons that
were not found proved not to have existed," he added.
The agency and its director received their award in a brightly
decorated City Hall, decked with yellow orchids and carnations,
and in the presence of Norway's King Harald.
Actresses Salma Hayek and Julianne Moore, who will host the
traditional Nobel concert in Oslo on Sunday, were also present.
Musician and activist Bob Geldof, who himself has been nominated
for the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, was seen in the audience
snapping pictures with a digital camera.
At a separate ceremony on Saturday, the anniversary of the death
of prize founder Alfred Nobel, the winners of this year's
Literature, Medicine, Physics, Chemistry and Economics prizes
will receive their awards from King Carl XVI Gustaf in
Stockholm's Concert Hall.
That ceremony will be followed by a gala banquet at Stockholm's
city hall.
+ Àðàáñêèé Copyright Disclaimer ©AFP 2005
*****************************************************************
19 The Observer: MI6 and CIA 'sent student to Morocco to be tortured'
[Guardian Unlimited]
[UP]
An Ethiopian claims that his confession to al-Qaeda bomb plot was
signed after beatings, reports David Rose in New York
Sunday December 11, 2005
The Observer
An Ethiopian student who lived in London claims that he
was brutally tortured with the involvement of British and US
intelligence agencies.
Binyam Mohammed, 27, says he spent nearly three years in the
CIA's network of 'black sites'. In Morocco he claims he
underwent the strappado torture of being hung for hours from his
wrists, and scalpel cuts to his chest and penis and that a CIA
officer was a regular interrogator.
After his capture in Pakistan, Mohammed says British officials
warned him that he would be sent to a country where torture was
used. Moroccans also asked him detailed questions about his
seven years in London, which his lawyers believe came from
British sources.
Western agencies believed that he was part of a plot to buy
uranium in Asia, bring it to the US and build a 'dirty bomb' in
league with Jose Padilla, a US citizen. Mohammed signed a
confession but told his lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, he had
never met Padilla, or anyone in al-Qaeda. Padilla spent almost
four years in American custody, accused of the plot. Last month,
after allegations of the torture used against Mohammed emerged,
the claims against Padilla were dropped. He now faces a civil
charge of supporting al-Qaeda financially.
A senior US intelligence official told The Observer that the CIA
is now in 'deep crisis' following last week's international
political storm over the agency's practice of 'extraordinary
rendition' - transporting suspects to countries where they face
torture. 'The smarter people in the Directorate of Operations
[the CIA's clandestine operational arm] know that one day, if
they do this stuff, they are going to face indictment,' he said.
'They are simply refusing to participate in these operations,
and if they don't have big mortgage or tuition fees to pay
they're thinking about trying to resign altogether.'
Already 22 CIA officers have been charged in absentia in Italy
for alleged roles in the rendition of a radical cleric, Hassan
Mustafa Osama Nasr, seized - without the knowledge of the
Italian government - on a Milan street in February 2003.
The intense pressure on US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
last week, coupled with Friday's condemnation of the use of
evidence extracted under torture by the House of Lords, has
intensified concerns within the CIA. The official said:
'Renditions and torture aren't just wrong, they also expose CIA
personnel and diplomats abroad to enormous future risk.'
Mohammed arrived in Britain in 1994. He lived in Wornington
Road, North Kensington, and studied at Paddington Green College.
For most of this time, said his brother, he rarely went to a
mosque. However, in early 2001 he became more religious.
The Observer has obtained fresh details of his case which was
first publicised last summer. He went to Pakistan in June 2001
because, he says, he had a drug problem and wanted to kick the
habit. He was arrested on 10 April at the airport on his way
back to England because of an alleged passport irregularity.
Initially interrogated by Pakistani and British officials, he
told Stafford Smith: 'The British checked out my story and said
they knew I was a nobody. They said they would tell the
Americans.'
He was questioned by the FBI and began to hear accusations of
terror involvement. He says he also met two MI6 officers. One
told him he would be tortured in an Arab country.
The interrogations intensified and he says he was taken to
Islamabad; then, in July 2002, on a CIA flight to Morocco. His
description of the process matches independent reports. Masked
officers wore black. They stripped him, subjected him to a full
body search and shackled him to his seat wearing a nappy.
In Morocco he was told he had plotted with Padilla and had
dinner in Pakistan with Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the planner of
9/11, and other al-Qaeda chiefs. 'I've never met anyone like
these people,' Mohammed told Stafford Smith. 'How could I? I
speak no Arabic... I never heard Padilla's name until they told
me.'
During almost 18 months of regular beatings in Morocco, Mohammed
says he frequently met a blonde woman in her thirties who told
him she was Canadian. The US intelligence officer told The
Observer this was an 'amateurish' CIA cover. 'The only Americans
who historically pretended to be Canadian were backpackers
travelling in Europe during the Vietnam war. Apart from the
moral issues, what disturbs me is that, as an attempt to create
plausible deniability, this is so damn transparent.'
According to Mohammed, he was threatened with electrocution and
rape. On one occasion, he was handcuffed when three men entered
his cell wearing black masks. 'That day I ceased really knowing
I was alive. One stood on each of my shoulders and a third
punched me in the stomach. It seemed to go on for hours. I was
meant to stand, but I was in so much pain I'd fall to my knees.
They'd pull me back up and hit me again. They'd kick me in the
thighs as I got up. I could see the hands that were hitting
me... like the hands of someone who'd worked as a mechanic or
chopped with an axe.'
Later he was confronted with details of his London life - such
as the name of his kickboxing teacher - and met a Moroccan
calling himself Marwan, who ordered him to be hung by his
wrists. 'They hit me in the chest, the stomach, and they knocked
my feet from under me. I have a shoulder pain to this day from
the wrenching as my arms were almost pulled out of their
sockets.'
Another time, he told Stafford Smith: 'They took a scalpel to my
right chest. It was only a small cut. Then they cut my left
chest. One of them took my penis in his hand and began to make
cuts. He did it once, and they stood still for maybe a minute
watching. I was in agony, crying, trying desperately to suppress
myself, but I was screaming... They must have done this 20 to 30
times in maybe two hours. There was blood all over.'
In September he was taken to Guantanamo Bay where he has been
charged with involvement in al-Qaeda plots and faces trial there
by military commission. Stafford Smith said: 'I am unaware of
any evidence against him other than that extracted under
torture.'
The Foreign Office, the Moroccan Embassy and the CIA refused to
comment yesterday.
[UP]
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
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20 Guardian Unlimited: Nobel Winner ElBaradei: Nuke Risk Remains
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Saturday December 10, 2005 8:46 PM
AP Photo JMC120
By DOUG MELLGREN
Associated Press Writer
OSLO, Norway (AP) - Fifteen years after the end of the Cold War,
the risk of nuclear disaster is as great as ever with terrorists
zealously pursuing atomic weapons, chief U.N. nuclear inspector
Mohamed ElBaradei said Saturday in accepting the 2005 Nobel
Peace Prize.
ElBaradei and the International Atomic Energy Agency he leads
received the coveted award in the Norwegian capital for their
efforts to control the spread of nuclear weapons - a job
ElBaradei nearly lost because of a dispute with the United
States over Iran and Iraq.
``We are in a race against time,'' the 63-year-old Egyptian said
about efforts to keep nuclear weapons away from terrorists. ``In
four years, we have completed perhaps 50 percent of the work.
But this is not fast enough.''
To escape self-destruction, the world must make atomic weapons
as much of a taboo as slavery or genocide, ElBaradei said in his
acceptance speech. It has been 60 years since the 1945 atomic
bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, yet the world is
still deeply concerned over nuclear programs in Iran and North
Korea.
The Bush administration has bristled at ElBaradei's positions on
the nuclear threat posed by Iran and Iraq and unsuccessfully
lobbied to block his appointment to a third and final four-year
term this year.
ElBaradei and the IAEA locked horns with Washington in the
run-up to the 2003 Iraq war by challenging U.S. claims that
Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. No such
weapons were ever found.
More recently, ElBaradei's refusal to back U.S. assertions that
Iran has a covert nuclear weapons program hardened opposition to
him within the Bush administration.
As ElBaradei received his peace award, Iran's top nuclear
official said his country would enrich uranium and produce
nuclear fuel, despite an international drive to curb such
efforts. Gholamreza Aghazadeh, head of the Atomic Organization
of Iran, did not say when the processes would begin. Iran denies
its nuclear program is aimed at developing weapons.
Gregory L. Schulte, chief U.S. representative to the Vienna,
Austria-based IAEA, called it ``sad and ironic'' that Tehran's
announcement coincided with the Peace Prize ceremony.
The Nobel prizes are always presented on Dec. 10, the
anniversary of the 1896 death of founder Swedish industrialist
Alfred Nobel. The prizes in literature, physics, chemistry,
medicine and economics were handed out in Stockholm, Sweden.
Literature prize winner Harold Pinter could not travel to Sweden
to accept his award due to poor health. Pinter, 75, has been
treated for cancer in recent years. The British playwright's
publisher accepted the award on his behalf.
In Oslo, a smiling ElBaradei and the IAEA's Board of Governors
Chairman Yukiya Amano of Japan accepted the Peace Prize to
applause from a crowd that included Norway's King Harald V and
Queen Sonja.
ElBaradei said his half of the $1.3 million prize would go to
orphanages in his native Egypt, while the IAEA planned to
establish a fund for cancer and nutritional research.
Awards committee chairman Ole Danbolt praised the winners'
efforts to curb the spread of nuclear weapons. He also reminded
the world of the horrible consequences of using such weapons.
``The atom bombs fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki 60 years ago,''
he said. ``Since then, the world has been united in the wish
that nothing like that must ever happen again.''
ElBaradei said globalization, with the free flow of people and
products, had presented new challenges in curbing the spread of
nuclear weapons, especially by terrorists. He has warned that
nuclear terror attacks could be imminent.
``Our security strategies have not yet caught up with the
security threats we are facing,'' ElBaradei said.
``There are three main features to this changing landscape:
first, the emergence of an extensive black market in nuclear
material and equipment; second, the proliferation of nuclear
weapons and sensitive nuclear technology; and third, the
stagnation in nuclear disarmament,'' the laureate said.
He said immediate steps were needed to curb all three trends.
ElBaradei also said it was baffling that nuclear powers remained
on ``hair-trigger alert,'' ready to destroy other nations in
minutes, so many years after the end of the Cold War caused many
to hope the balance of terror would end.
``A good place to start would be for the nuclear weapons states
to reduce the strategic role given to these weapons,'' he said.
``Today, eight or nine countries continue to possess nuclear
weapons. We still have 27,000 warheads in existence. To me, this
is 27,000 too many.''
``Imagine that the only nuclear weapons remaining are the relics
in our museums. Imagine the legacy we could leave to our
children,'' he said.
---
Associated Press Writer Mattias Karen contributed to this report
from Stockholm, Sweden.
---
On the Net:
http://www.nobel.no
http://www.iaea.org
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
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21 Sunday Times: We'd rather keep the lights on than be green -
The Sunday Times December 11, 2005
IRWIN STELZER
THE 189 nations and 8,000 delegates gathered last week in
Montreal at the Climate Change Conference faced an ugly reality:
most of the countries that promised to cut their greenhouse gas
emissions to meet their Kyoto treaty obligations have failed to
do so. It seems that job-creating economic growth trumps
environmental concerns, especially given the uncertainty
surrounding the presence and causes of global warming.
Besides, developing countries such as India, China, South Africa
and Brazil have shown no inclination to join, although richer
countries agreed in Montreal to increase their incentives to cut
emissions.
Indeed, when the energy crunches come, politicians quickly shed
their green clothes. This week the Opec oil cartel hinted that
its members might cut production to keep the price of crude oil
above $60 a barrel. That sent consuming countries' policymakers
into a spin. They want Opec to pump more, not less, oil to feed
their thirsty cars, trucks and factories, and to heat the homes
of those who have not switched to natural gas. Oh yes, that oil
will produce more greenhouse-gas emissions - but that's a problem
for another international conference.
Then there is natural gas. Suddenly the politicians are less
concerned about the emissions resulting from the burning of
natural gas than about shortages that might force some factories
to shut down during periods of peak use of that relatively - but
only relatively - clean fuel. Hell hath no fury like that of a
workman (read, voter) laid off because his government's energy
policy has resulted in a supply shortage.
Which brings us to renewable energy. Wind and solar energy will
play an increasingly important role in meeting the world's
growing need for energy, but they cannot replace the huge amounts
of energy produced by coal- and gas-fired power stations and by
nuclear plants.
Besides, these sources are not without consequences for the
environment - witness the opposition of Tony Blair's supporters
to the construction of a wind farm in his constituency.
This reduces the options to three: clean coal technology,
conservation, and nuclear power. America is pioneering the first
of these options, which may well be the most important if China
goes ahead with plans to build hundreds of coal plants - and
American firms, indeed, build the 90 plants they now say they
have on the drawing board.
As for conservation, it remains an important factor. Because
vehicles have become more efficient, and factories more
energy-stingy, energy use per unit of GDP has declined sharply.
That enabled the American economy to shrug off high oil and
petrol prices that in an earlier time combined with some inept
policy reactions to produce severe economic downturns.
Then there is nuclear, the new darling of policymakers, to the
glee of GE, Westinghouse and others eager to end a decades-long
drought of orders. Britain, which now gets about a fifth of its
electricity from its ageing nuclear plants, is about to go
through the trauma of yet another energy-policy review, with
Blair eager to reopen the nuclear option before all save one of
its existing plants are decommissioned in 2023.
In America, at least eight companies have announced that they
intend to pursue construction licences, but none has yet
committed itself to building a new nuclear station. One of the
utility industry's shrewdest and most successful operators told
me that until the waste disposal problem was solved, he would
restrain his engineers, who were champing at the bit to get
started on another round of nuclear plant construction.
That problem is far from a solution. The best site for depositing
the waste is Yucca Mountain, unfortunately in Nevada, the home
state of the powerful minority leader of the Senate, Harry Reid,
who has sworn to prevent the use of that site. Result: stalemate.
Unless, of course, some of the companies that are considering
building nuclear plants decide they can continue to store the
waste in the hundreds of ponds that dot the American landscape,
to the increasing consternation of Homeland Security officials.
If any of the potential sponsors of new plants do go forward, the
best guess is that the earliest plant might come on line in 2016.
That plant will probably be in the south, where competition has
not replaced old-style regulation, meaning that the owners of
these facilities would be shielded from the competition with
fossil fuels that prevails in electricity markets in other parts
of the United States.
Meanwhile, attention is focused on Finland, where a new model
Areva EPR (evolutionary pressurised reactor) is under
construction by TVO (Teollisuuden Voima Oy). Most American
companies are less enthusiastic than their European counterparts:
they say the Areva EPR is 33% more costly to build than the
technologies on offer from GE and Westinghouse, and is well
behind competing models in securing the necessary approval of the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Approval for the Areva EPR design
probably won't come until 2009.
In the end, the prospects for nuclear power will depend heavily
on three things: the forecast price of competing fossil fuels;
the expected cost of the carbon permits that users of coal,
natural gas and oil must buy; and the extent to which governments
streamline licensing approvals and, very likely, subsidise
nuclear power.
The subsidies might take the form of government guaranteeing the
price of the nuclear-generated electricity, or making a
convincing promise to bear the costs of waste disposal and
decommissioning.
It would also depend, of course, on the risk tolerance of
investors who have seen American companies take ruinous losses on
plants built during the last wave of enthusiasm for nuclear
power.
Irwin Stelzer is a business adviser and director of economic
policy studies at the Hudson Institute. He has served as a
consultant to many energy companies and advises a leading
developer of wind farms.
Times Newspapers Ltd.
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22 Sydney Morning Herald: ElBaradei issues nuclear warning -
World - smh.com.au
By Walter Gibbs in Oslo
December 12, 2005
THE world should stop treating the nuclear ambitions of Iran and
North Korea as isolated cases and instead deal with them in a
common effort to eliminate poverty, organised crime and armed
conflict, the director-general of the United Nations' nuclear
monitoring agency said in accepting the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize.
Mohamed ElBaradei said a "good start" would be for the US and
other nuclear powers to cut nuclear weapon stockpiles sharply
and redirect spending towards international development.
"More than 15 years after the end of the Cold War, it is
incomprehensible to many that the major nuclear weapon states
operate with their arsenals on hair-trigger alert," Dr
ElBaradei, 63, said on Saturday.
Despite some disarmament, the existence of 27,000 nuclear
warheads in various hands around the world still hold the
prospect of "the devastation of entire nations in a matter of
minutes", he said.
Feelings of insecurity and humiliation, exaggerated by the
nuclear imbalance, are behind the spread of bomb-development
programs at the national level, said Dr ElBaradei, who has
headed the International Atomic Energy Agency since 1997.
No less dangerous, he added, are the presumed efforts of
extremist groups to acquire nuclear materials.
"We cannot respond to these threats by building more walls,
developing bigger weapons or dispatching more troops. These
threats require primarily multinational co-operation."
The Norwegian Nobel Committee divided the 2005 award between Dr
ElBaradei and the agency as a whole. They will split this year's
prize money of 10 million Swedish kronor ($1.7 million) and have
promised their shares to charitable causes.
Also at the Oslo ceremony, to receive their prize for medicine,
were the Australian scientists Barry Marshall and Robin Warren
from the University of Western Australia. Professor Marshall
became one of the most memorable Nobel prize winners for his
experiment to prove his theory that a bacterium caused stomach
ulcers rather than stress. He downed a brew that contained the
Helicobacter pylori bacterium that he and Dr Warren were sure
caused stomach ulcers.
Copyright © 2005. The Sydney Morning Herald.
*****************************************************************
23 AFP: US seconds ElBaradei's call to stop spread of nuclear weapons
10/12/2005 16h56
The 2005 Nobel Peace Prize laureates pose at the Royal palace
in Oslo
©AFP/Scanpix - Orn Borgen
VIENNA (AFP) - The United States has seconded UN nuclear chief
Mohamed ElBaradei's call in his Nobel peace laureate speech to
keep any more countries from acquiring nuclear weapons, in a
clear reference to Iran.
"We agree that the proliferation of nuclear weapons poses one of
the greatest threats to everyone, everyone," Gregory Schulte, US
ambassador to ElBaradei's Vienna-based International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA), told AFP in a telephone interview
Saturday.
"As the director general just said, 'We must ensure absolutely
that no more countries acquire these deadly weapons'," Schulte
said.
The United States charges that Iran is using its drive toward
nuclear energy for electricity generation as a cover for
developing nuclear weapons but Iran says its program is
peaceful.
The IAEA has been investigating Iran's nuclear program for
almost three years and ElBaradei says "the jury is still out" on
whether or not Iran is secretly developing nuclear weapons.
ElBaradei was awarded in Oslo Saturday the Nobel Peace Prize for
his work as director general of the IAEA, and made the comment
Schulte referred to in his acceptance speech.
Schulte said the United States congratulated "Dr. Elbaradei and
the capable staff of the IAEA for this well-deserved honor".
He said the United States also supported ElBaradei's "emphasis
on keeping nuclear and radiological material out of the hands of
terrorists and on limiting the spread of enrichment and
reprocessing technologies".
"We also support his emphasis on strengthening the verification
capability of the IAEA backed as necesssary by the UN Security
Council."
The IAEA had in September found Iran in non-compliance with the
nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) for almost two decades of
hidden nuclear activities, a finding that requires eventual
referral to the Security Council, which can impose sanctions.
But the IAEA in November put off taking Iran to the Council
after the European Union agreed to give more time for new
Russian diplomacy to work.
Russia, an Iranian ally which is building the Islamic Republic's
first nuclear power reactor, has proposed allowing Iran to
conduct uranium enrichment in Russia so Tehran does not obtain
the nuclear technology crucial to making atom bombs.
The EU and Iran will hold new nuclear talks on December 21 but
expectations that Tehran will abandon sensitive nuclear
activities are "very low," Western diplomats told AFP Saturday.
Formal EU-Iran talks collapsed in August when Tehran ended its
suspension of uranium conversion, the first step towards making
enriched uranium that can be fuel for nuclear power reactors but
also atom bomb material.
+ Àðàáñêèé Copyright Disclaimer ©AFP 2005
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24 Guardian Unlimited: Britain Accused of Israel Nuclear Cover-Up
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Saturday December 10, 2005 1:01 AM
LONDON (AP) - Two British lawmakers have accused the government
of a cover-up for refusing to admit that Britain helped launch
Israel's nuclear program in 1959 by secretly selling the Jewish
state a batch of heavy water - a key ingredient in producing
weapons-grade materials.
The British Broadcasting Corp. first reported the allegations -
contained in previously classified documents - in August, but
Foreign Office Minister Kim Howells swiftly denied the claims to
the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Howells' account ``simply flies in the face of the known facts,
now that we have access to previously classified documents,''
Menzies Campbell, a lawmaker and foreign affairs spokesman from
the small centrist Liberal Democrat party, told the BBC's
Newsnight program late Friday.
Jeremy Corbyn, a lawmaker from the governing Labor Party who
wants a committee of lawmakers to investigate, told the program
that Howell's statement is ``simply untrue.''
``Right back to the late 1950s we were a party to the transfer
of nuclear technology to Israel,'' he said. ``We were party to
the development of a nuclear facility in Israel that could and
has been used for the manufacture of nuclear weapons.''
According to previously classified papers, the 20 tons of heavy
water were part of a consignment that Britain bought from Norway
but later decided was surplus to requirements.
The documents show how officials presented the transaction as a
straight sale from Norway to Israel. The documents reveal,
however, that the heavy water was transported from a British
port in Israeli ships in two shipments, half in June 1959 and
half a year later.
The revelation is potentially embarrassing for the British
government at a time when London is heavily engaged with its
European Union partners in trying to persuade Iran - a nation
hostile to Israel - to give up its nuclear ambitions.
There was no immediate comment from the Foreign Office.
Heavy water is used both as a reactor coolant and as a moderator
in the process of turning natural uranium into weapons-grade
plutonium.
Israel has always refused to confirm reports that it has a
nuclear arsenal consisting of several hundred warheads.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
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25 Bellona: Russia’s NGO bill has ripple effects in Europe
Kasparov in the European Parliament: Russia back to pre-Glasnost
regime
BRUSSELS—Renowned Russian chess champion turned political critic
Garry Kasparov strongly criticised Russia’s President Vladimir
Putin for introducing corruption and electoral fraud and
suffocating democratic forces at a press conference hosted the
European Parliamentarian (EP) Bart Staes.
Bart Staes (left) and Garry Kasparov address reporters in the
EU.
Bellona
Ingvild Jenssen, 2005-12-10 11:21
Former Chairman and current member of the EP Joint Parliamentary
Committee with the Russian State Duma, Staes also specifically
mentioned that NGOs, such as The Bellona Foundation, could see
their activities and indeed their mere existence in Russia,
seriously threatened because of a bill on the floor of Russian
Duma. Staes intends to table a parliamentary resolution urging
European leaders and the European Commission (EC) to express
their concerns to the Russian Government.
Russian Duma votes to tighten screws on civil society
organisations
In a sweeping vote, the Russian State Duma approved on the
first of four mandatory readings an initiative that will
severely tighten regulations governing non-governmental
organisations (NGOs) operating in Russia, requiring that they
register with the state or risk losing all of their funding.
The Russian bill—introduced by Kremlin loyalist and majority
party Unity—passed the first of four required readings with
flying colours. The remaining readings are scheduled for later
in December, when it is expected to again draw hefty support
from Kremlin backed factions. Should it become law it will
require all non-governmental organisations (NGOs) operating in
Russian to register with the state, effectively quashing their
independence.
Press conference in the European Parliament
Speaking at the EP press conference, Kasparov gave shocking
witness to recent political and electoral difficulties in
Russia. Green Member of European Parliament (MEP) and Bellona
ally Bart Staes held a press conference Wednesday December 7th
in the EP about recent developments in Russian politics.
Joining him was world chess champion turned political
commentator Kasparov who spoke to the European press about
electoral fraud and lack of political freedom during the latest
round of Russian presidential and Moscow City Council elections,
the Chechen and Northern Caucasus conflicts, and the newly
proposed bill on reigning in NGO. Kasparov has earlier said that
he will support any political party opposing Putin in the Duma
and Putin’s possible third term in office.
Both Staes and Kasparov urged Europe to actively take a stand
against Russian President Putin’s undemocratic regime.
Electoral fraud
According to Kasparov, neither the Russian general elections of
2004 nor the recent Moscow City Council elections were held
according to democratic standards.
“All we want is free and fair elections” said Kasparov, who has
been following the developments in Russian politics closely. He
asserted that the foundation of Putin’s totalitarian regime
partly lies in high oil prices and added that the conflict in
Chechnya is in that sense advantageous for the government.
“Putin needs tension because tension keeps the oil prices high”
Kasparov told reporters in Brussels. The strategic importance of
oil and gas makes western governments wary of criticising the
Russian president for his lack of respect of fundamental human
rights and democratic principles. Kasparov saw these governmets’
silence as indirect support of Putin’s dictatorial leadership.
NGOs are concerned
At the press conference, Bellona’s Brussels representatives Paal
Frisvold and Claire Chevallier voiced their concerns over the
controversial Russian NGO bill. Indeed, the Russian Lower House
of parliament has given strong preliminary backing to a bill
that will restrict the activities of NGOs.
If the bill passes into law, it will require several hundred
thousand NGOs in Russia to re-register under a new and stricter
regime making it difficult for them to receive foreign donations
or hire foreign workers at their offices. Only citizens of the
Russian federation or non-citizens with a permanent Russian
residence permit will be allowed to represent these
organisations.
The Russian authorities will also be given wide powers to make
inspections of the NGOs under unclear pretexts. More than 1,000
NGOs have been urging Russia to reject the bill. Frisvold also
urged the EP to play a more active role so that NGOs like
Bellona can continue their important and comprehensive work in
Russia.
EP follow-up
The EP will have a formal discussion about the situation in
Russia during their December plenary in Strasbourg next week
where a resolution condemning the legislative developments in
the Russian Duma will be adopted. MEP Staes also specially urged
the Belgian government to give the situation in Russia priority
while chairing the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in
Europe (OSCE) in 2006.
Publisher: Bellona Foundation, President: Frederic Hauge
Information: info@bellona.no, Technical contact:
webmaster@bellona.no
Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62 * P.O.Box
2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway
*****************************************************************
26 BBC: UN watchdog receives Nobel prize
Last Updated: Saturday, 10 December 2005
[Mohamed ElBaradei and Yukiya Amano, chairman of IAEA board]
Mohamed ElBaradei will use his prize money to support orphans
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and its Director
General Mohamed ElBaradei have received the Nobel Peace Prize in
Oslo.
They were being recognised for their efforts to contain the
spread of nuclear weapons.
The award comes as the agency and its head are wrestling with the
issue of Iran's nuclear ambitions.
Mr ElBaradei told the BBC Iran should be given another three
months to co-operate fully with the agency.
He said UN sanctions may not persuade Tehran to end its nuclear
programme.
"It might be slow, it might be frustrating, but diplomacy and
verification is the way to go," he said.
"If we reach a dead end, if we discovered for example that Iran
is not co-operating, is digging their heels, that we see a
imminent threat, well we have a different ball game."
Anxiety
The prize consists of a Nobel diploma, a gold medal and 10
million Swedish kronor ($1.3m, £700,000), to be split between the
agency and its head.
Mr ElBaradei has said his prize money will help support
orphanages in his home country of Egypt.
"The award provides the agency with the added credibility, the
moral authority and the visibility that we have today to speak on
these issues," Mr ElBaradei told reporters in Oslo before the
ceremony.
The chairman of the IAEA board of governors, Yukiya Amano, added:
"Unfortunately nuclear weapons continue to exist and it has
become likely that they [will] spread. Therefore, we need to work
harder to prevent proliferation."
The award is made in honour of the IAEA's non-proliferation
efforts in this 60th anniversary year of the 1945 bombings of
Nagasaki and Hiroshima in Japan, the world's only combat use of
atomic weapons.
The IAEA said anxiety about the danger posed by nuclear weapons
was growing.
When the prize was announced, the Nobel committee said the IAEA's
role was of "incalculable importance" at a time when the nuclear
threat was growing.
While the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony is held at Oslo city hall,
the Nobel awards for literature, medicine, physics, chemistry and
economics will be presented in Stockholm.
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27 Washington Post: slate: Keep the Nuclear Watchdog Neutral
By Michael A. Levi
Saturday, December 10, 2005; Page A21
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and its director
general, Mohamed ElBaradei, will receive the Nobel Peace Prize
today at ceremonies in Oslo. This award has been interpreted by
many as a vote for conciliation over confrontation in the fight
against the spread of nuclear arms, and to be sure, the less
hawkish option has certainly been ElBaradei's preference.
But to so interpret this Nobel Prize, or to give it any other
narrow political reading, shortchanges the atomic energy agency.
To effectively do its job of spotlighting illegal behavior, the
IAEA must in fact assiduously preserve its neutrality, not only
between countries but between the different arms control
strategies those countries prefer. By shining a light on illicit
behavior, but then standing back, the IAEA provides other
parties with powerful ammunition for more effective diplomacy
and more forceful confrontation -- a far greater contribution
than supporting any one approach alone.
The Nobel Peace Prize is being awarded for "efforts to prevent
nuclear energy from being used for military purposes." But
precisely what have those efforts been? The IAEA cannot coerce:
It has no armies with which to control nuclear arsenals; nor
does it place a country's stockpiles under inviolable lock and
key. It cannot induce: The IAEA has no incentives to offer to
states that forgo nuclear arms. Nor does it provide a forum
where major proliferation threats are resolved; these have been
dealt with outside the IAEA process. The IAEA does not, in any
direct sense, prevent nuclear energy from being used for
military purposes.
And yet the agency is indispensable to that task. It provides
what no other body does: reliable, impartial and irreplaceable
information about nuclear programs in hard-to-penetrate states.
In the past three years it has provided information from inside
Iran, Iraq and North Korea -- information that no individual
nation could have obtained.
It has also provided information from states judged not to be
pursuing nuclear arms, such as Brazil, South Africa and Saudi
Arabia. When the cost of confronting proliferators is high, firm
knowledge that a state is not pursuing nuclear arms is as
important as information about those that are. Equally
important: Reliable knowledge that certain states are not
seeking nuclear arms allows their neighbors to avoid pursuing
their own nuclear programs, forestalling a series of arms races.
The IAEA may never have explicitly resolved a proliferation
crisis, but these contributions to nuclear security are more
than enough to deserve the prize.
The IAEA model provides an ingenious route to acquiring
information. It relies on a country's desire to convince others
that it is not pursuing nuclear arms. Such a country will
voluntarily invite the IAEA to inspect activities on its
territory, and the agency in turn will report its findings to
the broader community of nations. When states behave well, IAEA
inspections help them avoid scrutiny. When they engage in
illegal acts, IAEA exposure (or refusal of inspections) enables
a full spectrum of efforts, from diplomatic to coercive, to
oppose them. The hawkish American approach to Iran and the more
conciliatory European tack were both made possible by earlier
IAEA efforts that exposed Iranian cheating. The agency's
inspections in Iraq were similarly used as the basis for
divergent disarmament strategies.
With a host of proliferation challenges facing us, it is
tempting for the IAEA to throw its weight and its new prestige
behind a particular political approach. But were it to do so,
and thereby lose its image of political neutrality, its core
function would be endangered. If states saw themselves diverging
politically from the IAEA, and hence did not trust it to report
faithfully on their activities, they might bar the agency from
their territories. Were other countries, for similar reasons, to
question the impartiality of the IAEA's reports, they would
begin to ignore its findings.
The inspection-focused IAEA and a political IAEA cannot coexist.
The agency can either enable the community of states to find
solutions to Iran and other problems or it can attempt to find
solutions itself, but it cannot do both.
It appears that ElBaradei is tempted to defy this tension. Under
his leadership, the IAEA has been far more effective as an
inspection agency than it was under his predecessor, Hans Blix.
But in the past two years he has increasingly styled himself
champion of a certain global nuclear order, issuing
pronouncements on regional crises and great-power nuclear
disarmament -- all of which are beyond the IAEA mandate. His
proposals often reflect a certain wisdom, yet this much is
clear: In entering such explicitly political territory, he is
risking the perceived impartiality that provides the core
strength of the organization with which he shares the Nobel
Prize. The world has 191 nations capable of playing nuclear
politics, but it has only one apolitical IAEA.
The writer is a researcher in the Department of War Studies at
King's College London and a nonresident science fellow at the
Brookings Institution.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
The Washington Post Company:
1996- The Washington Post Company | | [ border=]
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28 AFP: Britain admits it knew 1950s nuclear ingredient was Israel-bound
Sat Dec 10, 5:57 AM ET
LONDON (AFP) - Britain has admitted that it knew that heavy
water it sold in the 1950s, a key ingredient in making nuclear
weapons, was bound for Israel" /> Israel, amid claims of a
cover-up.
An investigation by BBC television's "Newsnight" programme on
Friday unearthed papers showing a deal was done to export heavy
water.
The probe showed that "Britain knew that the heavy water was
going to Israel and that the Israelis were likely to use it to
make nuclear weapons," alleged BBC reporter Michael Crick.
Britain's Foreign Office minister Kim Howells has insisted that
Britain had merely negotiated the sale back to Norway of surplus
heavy water. That surplus was then sold on to Israel.
Officials had added that they were unaware that Israel might
have has nuclear weapons ambitions.
However, a Foreign Office spokesman, while maintaining that it
was purely a deal between Britain and Norway, admitted Britain
knew the heavy water's final destination.
"The papers show that we agreed to transfer back to Norway
control of 25 tons of heavy water," the spokesman told the BBC.
"We were aware at the time that Norway planned to sell the heavy
water to the Israeli Atomic Energy organisation," he said, going
further than Howells.
The BBC said new documents had emerged which cast doubt on
claims that British officals had no idea of Israel's intentions.
In 1958 Britain's Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) wrote to
Foreign Office official Donald Cape, who gave the ministry's
approval for the deal.
Britain had seemingly bought too much heavy water from a
Norwegian company and wanted to sell the surplus.
According to one letter, UKAEA said another Norwegian company,
Noratom, wanted to purchase it to sell it on to Israel.
"The new customer is the Israeli atomic energy organisation,"
the letter said, according to the BBC.
This would put Britain in a tricky position as "it could be
argued that the Israelis will receive the heavy water by reason
of our reselling it to Noratom; that therefore we are parties to
the supply to Israel".
"Newsnight" also said it had a copy of Israel's contract with
the Norwegian firm which said it would provide heavy water from
the UKAEA.
The programme said it had seen a letter written by Cape quoting
secret US Central Intelligence Agency" /> Central Intelligence
Agencyreports from 1957 and 1958, which took the view "that the
Israelis must be expected to try and establish a nuclear weapons
programme as soon as the means were available to them".
The confidential documents also apparently show that the Foreign
Office knew Israel was secretly trying to buy uranium from South
Africa.
Other secret government documents apparently say: "It has been,
and remains our opinion, that Israel wanted an independent
supply of plutonium so as to be in a position to make a nuclear
weapon if she wished."
Cape denied the sale back to Norway was a "sham" and said
officials at the time did not suspect that Israel hoped to
manufacture nuclear weapons.
The programme alleged that Britain took the heavy water out of
its military stockpile and loaded it onto Israeli ships at a
British port in June 1959 and June 1960.
Menzies Campbell, foreign affairs spokesman for the smaller
opposition Liberal Democrats, is demanding clarification from
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.
He said: "The trouble with this cover-up is that this is not a
cover-up, it simply flies in the face of the known facts, now
that we have access to previously classified documents."
Jeremy Corbyn, a left-wing MP from Prime Minister Tony Blair" />
Tony Blair's governing Labour Party, has called for a
parliamentary committee to investigate.
"Right back to the late 1950s we were a party to the transfer of
nuclear technology to Israel," he said.
"We were party to the development of a nuclear facility in
Israel that could and has been used for the manufacture of
nuclear weapons. Norway was always a smokescreen."
Copyright © 2005 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The
*****************************************************************
29 Globe and Mail: Report touts nuclear power
Ontario agency's $40-billion proposal would hit consumers hard
in the wallet
By KAREN HOWLETT
Saturday, December 10, 2005 Page
TORONTO -- Electricity customers in Ontario will face
skyrocketing bills if the government adopts a proposal to spend
up to $40-billion on nuclear plants over the next two decades.
In its long-awaited report released yesterday, the Ontario Power
Authority provided the government with a blueprint for
addressing a growing shortfall in the province between demand
for electricity and capacity. But the report stops short of
making specific recommendations on where -- or for that matter,
when -- nuclear plants should be built.
"Pulling the trigger, if you like, on the decision to build a
new nuclear plant isn't something that needs to be made
immediately," Jan Carr, chief executive officer of the OPA, told
reporters. Rather, he said, the government should put all the
processes in place, including seeking environmental assessments,
so it can move swiftly on a project that typically takes 10
years to complete. "We have to start now so we're not painted
into a corner."
The OPA says the province needs to add between 9,400 and 12,400
megawatts of nuclear energy by 2025 to address a looming
electricity crisis. Ontario has 16 nuclear reactors that
generate a total of 11,400 megawatts of power. It recommends
building new reactors or refurbishing existing ones to maintain
nuclear power's 50 per cent share of the province's overall
electricity production.
The report says the government needs to spend between
$56-billion and $83-billion by 2025 to build nuclear reactors,
gas-fired generation plants and hydroelectric power dams.
Mr. Carr said these capital costs would add $1.5-billion to
$2-billion a year to customers' electricity bills. That
translates into an increase of up to 17 per cent for consumers,
who now pay about $12-billion a year for electricity.
The bad news doesn't end there for consumers. A separate report
released yesterday by the Association of Major Power Consumers
in Ontario warns that the government's plan to shut down the
province's coal-fired generating plants by 2009 will drive up
electricity costs by another $3-billion a year. And those
increases are on top of price hikes next year for households,
which are currently paying artificially low prices for
electricity.
The OPA was created last year to ensure that Ontario has enough
electricity in the future. Its recommendation on nuclear power
was widely expected. "I think it's the worst-kept secret the
province has ever had," said John Mutton, the mayor of
Clarington. He has been tirelessly lobbying the government to
expand the Darlington nuclear generating station in the
fast-growing community about 80 kilometres east of Toronto.
But other aspects of the 1,100-page report were surprising,
given the government's plan to shut the coal plants by 2009. "It
would make sense to continue monitoring the timing risks around
the current schedule," the report says.
It also recommends retaining facilities at the coal-fired plants
in case technology to clean up and increase the use of coal
becomes economically feasible. Energy Minister Donna Cansfield
has said there is no such thing as clean coal technology.
Yesterday, Ms. Cansfield said she will review the report and
seek public input before making any decisions. "It's our job to
keep the lights on; it's what we're here for," she said.
Any decisions are expected to be made directly in Premier Dalton
McGuinty's office, not by Ms. Cansfield, government and industry
sources said.
Environmentalists and opposition members criticized the OPA
report and the government's energy policies yesterday.
"This is a whitewash for the nuclear industry," said New
Democratic Party Leader Howard Hampton, adding that the
government all along has planned on building expensive nuclear
reactors.
Progressive Conservative MPP John Yakabuski criticized the
government for not exploring clean coal technology.
Jack Gibbons, head of the Ontario Clean Air Alliance, said the
OPA is proposing a 1950s-style solution to meet the province's
electricity needs. "This is a huge mistake," he said. "Nuclear
power is the highest cost and the least reliable option to keep
the lights on." Search globeandmail.com Search
Saturday, December 10, 2005
Globeandmail.com
*****************************************************************
30 Xinhua: India separates civil, military nuclear facilities
www.xinhuanet.com
www.chinaview.cn 2005-12-11 20:08:37
NEW DELHI, Dec. 11 (Xinhuanet) -- Indian Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh on Sunday said the separation of India's civil
and military nuclear facilities was at an "advanced stage" but
refused to go into specifics, Indo-Asian News Service reported.
Singh delivered the wards on a special flight to Malaysia,
where he will attend the first East Asia Summit, about what
India was doing to comply with the conditions laid down in the
civil nuclear cooperation agreement signed with the US on July
18.
Singh said that two teams from India and the US were
currently "working on it."
The agreement makes it mandatory for India to separate its
civil and military nuclear facilities in order to receive
nuclear know-how and technology from the US.
Informed sources said that India was insisting on a
reciprocal arrangement with the US in the process of
implementing the July 18pact, whereby the US keeps its side of
the bargain by transferring nuclear fuel and advanced technology
while India takes measures to identify and separate its civil
nuclear facilities from the military ones and brings them under
international safeguards. Enditem
Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
31 Guardian Unlimited: ElBaradei demands end to nuclear programme
Associated Press in Oslo
Saturday December 10, 2005
The Guardian
The international community is losing patience with Iran over its
nuclear programme, Nobel peace prize laureate Mohamed ElBaradei
said yesterday. "They are inching forward and I'm asking them to
leap forward," he said.
Dr ElBaradei, who shares the prize with the International Atomic
Energy Agency he leads, said there was no reason to suspect Iran
already had nuclear weapons, and urged countries with atomic
warheads to reconsider their policies. "If you really want to
stop the spread of nuclear weapons, the nations that have them
should lead the way," he said.
[UP]
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
32 Scotsman.com News: Britain accused of nuclear cover-up
The Government has been accused of a cover-up after claims
Britain secretly sold Israel a key ingredient for its nuclear
programme.
In August the BBC's Newsnight programme unearthed papers showing
a deal was done to export 20 tonnes of heavy water in the 1950s.
Foreign Office minister Kim Howells insisted Britain was not
party to the deal. He said Britain had merely negotiated the
sale back to Norway of surplus heavy water. That surplus was
then sold on to Israel. Officials also said they had no idea
that Israel wanted to use the material to make nuclear weapons.
However, new documents have come to light casting doubt on those
claims.
In 1958 the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) wrote to Foreign
Office official Donald Cape. He was the man who gave Foreign
Office approval for the deal.
The UK had apparently bought too much heavy water from a
Norwegian firm and wanted to sell the surplus. According to the
documents the energy authority said another Norwegian firm
wanted to buy it to sell on to Israel. Newsnight also has a copy
of Israel's contract with the firm which said it would provide
heavy water from the UKAEA for Israel.
Mr Cape insisted the Government had told the truth. He denied
Britain was a party to the sale. He dismissed as "absolute
nonsense" the idea of selling it back to Norway was a sham. "It
was a sale back to Norway," he said.
Mr Cape has insisted he had "no idea" Israel wanted to make
nuclear weapons. But the programme has obtained confidential
letters written by him before the delivery suggesting otherwise.
They apparently show the Foreign Office knew Israel was secretly
trying to buy uranium from South Africa. And one letter quotes
secret CIA reports from 1957 and 1958 which take the view "the
Israelis must be expected to try and establish a nuclear weapons
programme as soon as the means were available to them".
Other top secret Government documents apparently say: "It has
been, and remains our opinion, that Israel wanted an independent
supply of plutonium so as to be in a position to make a nuclear
weapon if she wished." But Mr Cape told the programme: "We had
no idea at that stage, nobody suspected - not only in Britain
but in the US - that the Israelis hoped to manufacture nuclear
weapons."
© Copyright Press Association Ltd 2005, All Rights Reserved.
©2005 Scotsman.com| contact
*****************************************************************
33 Ireland Sunday Business Post: Debate needed on energy policy -
11 December 2005 By Veronica McDermott
Energy, the economy and the environment have a symbiotic
relationship. In Ireland, we're never quite done basking in the
glow of self-congratulation surrounding our economic miracle of
the past ten years.
But the environment is a bit more dodgy; we have little or no
prospect of reaching even the modest targets we've accepted
under the Kyoto Treaty.
As for our energy policy - we don't have one.
Energy generation, especially the use of fossil fuels, is key to
climate change, the scale of which is increasingly frightening.
The latest edition of science journal Nature reports that
current levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are higher
than at any time in the past 650,000 years.
Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have risen 200 times faster
over the past 50 years than at any other time during this
period, according to the team of international scientists which
has been analysing Antarctic ice cores going back over eight ice
ages.
At this month's UN climate change conference in Montreal,
delegates from more than 100 nations, including Ireland, are
considering the fallout of further poisoning the global
environment through our reliance on fossil fuels. While the
talks have not collapsed in acrimony, they do not appear to have
made any real progress either.
In the 20th century, ocean levels increased by between 15 and
20cm.They are expected to rise by at least a further 40cmthis
century.
The ice-sheets of Greenland and Antarctica are gradually
melting, increasing the flow of freshwater to the sea, which, in
turn, is raising sea temperatures.
In a further twist, this affects the incidence and severity of
hurricanes and storms.
One of Greenland's biggest ice sheets, the Helheim glacier, has
dropped 100 feet this summer alone. A runaway melt is now a
distinct prospect.
This influx of warm fresh water from the disappearing glaciers
combined with a melting polar ice-cap could break the North
Atlantic drift conveyor belt, plunging North Western Europe -
including Ireland - into an Arctic environment, not to mention
the broader global catastrophe it would set in train.
In short, if action isn't taken now to reverse the trend towards
global warming and the undeniable human contribution to it, we
all face a long night of permafrost, ecological desolation and
possibly mass extinction. To stabilise global warming, every
country needs to come up to the mark.
Logically, then, responsible governments will review their
long-term energy policy options and think with their heads, as
opposed to their hearts, when devising a sustainable strategy.
Britain is already engaged in a massive public debate about its
energy review, which was announced recently by prime minister
Tony Blair.
Discussion is focused on whether it should opt for a new
generation of nuclear plants as a carbon-free energy source to
meet its strategic and economic requirements for energy price
stability and security of supply.
Finland has long since nailed its colours to the mast, and is
currently building a nuclear reactor of French design.
France is the EU's largest electricity exporter, mainly to
Italy. Because it has 75 per cent dependence on nuclear energy
and 15 per cent use of renewable energy, it enjoys security of
supply and reasonable electricity prices.
France is due to start pilot testing its new EPR nuclear station
in Normandy in 2007 for its programme of nuclear plant
replacement. In France and Finland, there has been a robust and
hard-headed public debate about the best way forward. Britain is
now engaged in a similar process.
Here, Noel Dempsey, the Minister for Communications, Marine and
Natural Resources, has promised to publish an energy policy
sometime next year. An Oireachtas committee, examining the issue
for the past two years, will report in mid-2006. But there's no
debate and even less public engagement. Worse, anyone tracking
our parliamentary debates might be pardoned for thinking they're
travelling through a parallel universe.
Our politicians prefer to engage in the recriminations game,
such as demanding Dick Roche, the Minister for the Environment,
send the diplomatic equivalent of a gunboat up the Thames to
protest at any British energy review that includes nuclear
power. Or else we are treated to fantastic delusions about
Ireland's wave and wind resources powering the universe, which
is entirely possible in theory, but hardly practical in reality.
The solution, if one listens to policymakers and the ESB,
apparently lies in our connection to a broader market.
But what if the 2006 British energy review commits it to a new
nuclear building programme? Before he boards any gunboat heading
for the Thames, our Minister for the Environment might want to
check that he really is wearing a new suit of clothes.
Meanwhile, perhaps we might have a debate.
Veronica McDermott is a public affairs consultant.
© The Sunday Business Post, 2004, Thomas Crosbie Media TCH
*****************************************************************
34 [NYTr] Iran Offers US Share in Nuclear Plants
Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2005 22:33:57 -0600 (CST)
X-Fingerprint: owner-imap@chumbly.math.missouri.edu-127.127
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
[Of course the US doesn't want a "share" in Iran's nuke program. It wants it
ALL. And not just the nuke program. It wants the whole country. The appeal
to US greed is not given much chance of success, as you will read.-NYTr]
AP via Yahoo - Dec 11, 2005
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051212/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iran_nuclear
Iran Offers U.S. Share in Nuclear Plants
By NASSER KARIMI
Associated Press Writer
TEHRAN, Iran - Iran opened the door Sunday for U.S. help in building a
nuclear power plant -- a move designed to ease American suspicions that
Tehran is using its nuclear program as a cover to build atomic weapons.
The offer, which did not seem likely to win acceptance in Washington, was
issued as Israel said it had not ruled out a military strike against Iranian
nuclear facilities.
"America can take part in international bidding for the construction of
Iran's nuclear power plant if they observe the basic standards and quality,"
Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said in a news conference.
Asefi was apparently talking about a 360-megawatt light water nuclear power
plant that the head of the country's atomic organization said Saturday would
be built in southwestern Iran.
Iran also wants to produce 2,000 megawatts of electricity by building
nuclear power plants with foreign help in southern Iran.
In Washington, neither the State Department nor the White House issued any
comment on the proposal.
While it was unclear how the Americans would react to the Iranian proposal,
relations between Tehran and Washington, which were severed after Iran's
1979 Islamic revolution, have seldom been worse. The United States has
imposed unilateral sanctions on Iran, preventing American companies from
doing business in Iran.
The United States also has ratcheted up pressure against Iran, accusing it
of pursuing a nuclear weapons program and supporting anti-Israeli militants.
Iran says its nuclear program is designed only to generate electricity.
Still, the United States is pushing for Tehran to be hauled before the U.N.
Security Council, where it could face economic sanctions for violating a
nuclear arms control treaty.
The Iranian offer comes at a time when Iran is facing a barrage of criticism
over President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's recent remarks, first that Israel
should be wiped off the map and later that the Jewish state should be moved
to Europe.
On Sunday, Israel denied a British newspaper report it has plans to attack
Iran in March, but officials said they would not rule out a military strike
if Iran makes advances in building nuclear weapons. The report appeared in
the Sunday Times.
Amos Gilad, a senior Defense Ministry official, said attention was now
focused on an international solution over the Iranian program but added, "It
isn't correct to say that a country that is threatened should deny that it
will ever consider a different option."
Israel Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said the country would never accept a
nuclear-armed Iran.
"Israel can't live in a situation in which Iran has the atomic bomb," he
said.
Iranian political analyst Saeed Leilaz said Tehran's offer was somewhat
genuine but also politically motivated.
"Iran made the offer seriously to show the United States that it won't
produce a bomb and ease its concern," Leilaz said. "And partly, Iran made
the offer because it's almost sure the United States won't accept it."
Iran has been involved in stalled talks with European negotiators aimed at
making Tehran permanently freeze nuclear enrichment, which can produce
material for use in warheads or fuel for nuclear plants to generate
electricity.
Tehran temporarily froze its enrichment program in November 2004, but the
Europeans want it permanently halted.
The United States backs the Iran-Europe talks, which broke off in August but
will resume Dec. 21 in Vienna, Austria. Tehran since has restarted uranium
conversion, a precursor to enrichment.
"The (Vienna) meeting will be a serious one," Asefi said. "Everything is
dependent on the meeting and the talks. Everything will be decided there. We
will make a decision based on its results in the future."
Asefi refused to speculate on the result of the talks, saying only that "if
Europe works based on the nonproliferation treaty, safeguards and
international measures, then there will be no room for concern."
He said again that the agenda would focus on Iran's right to enrich uranium,
and the talks would be held on a senior level.
Germany, France and Britain have suggested shifting Iran's enrichment
activities to Russia, where nuclear material would be enriched only to fuel
levels and not to weapons grade.
But Iran said it would enrich uranium and produce nuclear fuel domestically.
On Friday, Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy
Agency, said the international community was losing patience with Iran over
its nuclear program.
"ElBaradei should not politicize issues," Asefi said. "He knows Iran has not
diverted in its nuclear program. Some of the words that he said were not
correct at all."
*
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35 Guardian Unlimited: Pro-nuclear mandarin 'shifted' from top post
Oliver Morgan
Sunday December 11, 2005
The top energy official at the Department of Trade and Industry
is leaving her post amid rumours she is being shifted for being
seen as too pro-nuclear to head the government's energy review.
Joan MacNaughton, director general of energy at the DTI is to be
replaced early in the new year but will remain in the department
until the summer so as to be able to 'hand over' to her
successor.
The timing has triggered speculation in the nuclear industry that
her departure has been engineered to make way for a neutral
figure while the government's energy review, announced in
November, is conducted in the first half of next year.
Although Tony Blair has emphasised the importance of considering
the case for a new generation of nuclear reactors to meet
Britain's needs, he and the energy minister, Malcolm Wicks,
insist that they, and the review, are 'agnostic' on the issue.
MacNaughton has also attracted criticism for the way the Nuclear
Decommissioning Authority, the government body with
responsibility for decommissioning nuclear sites, was set up.
A DTI spokesman said she was leaving after four years and there
was nothing unusual about the move. However, industry sources,
think otherwise. MacNaughton is known to favour a new generation
of nuclear reactors. In a briefing paper written before the
election for the incoming Trade and Industry Secretary, Alan
Johnson, she urged the DTI to get on the 'front foot' on the
issue, and said a review into the need for reactors should start
quickly.
She believed that nuclear plants, with renewables, would help
cut carbon dioxide emissions and offset reliance on imported gas.
An industry source, speaking about the NDA, added: 'Its income
has been tied to the revenues of BNFL and these have fallen
dramatically because of problems at the Thorp reprocessing plant
[shut down in the spring after a radioactive leak]. That has
caused big problems.'
[UP]
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
36 Sunday Times: Costing nuclear energy -
YOUR article New tax may fund nuclear power stations (News,
November 27), not only breached rules on confidentiality but also
managed to completely misinterpret the meaning of my comments at
an energy debate held under Chatham House rules.
I have never suggested that a tax should be introduced to fund
nuclear power stations and nor have I ever used or implied the
term directly attributed to me, a "security of supply levy". The
transcript of the meeting does not contain these phrases.
The UK has a liberalised energy market which, through competition
between utilities, provides best value for consumers and
maintains our competitive edge by keeping down energy prices.
This is one of the key targets in the 2003 Energy White Paper.
Another important target, to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, is
met through the introduction of an obligation for the utilities
to produce a predetermined fraction of energy on the grid from
renewables, the fraction rising with time. The third target,
security of supply, is being reviewed alongside the commitment to
reduce emissions, in light of the falling supply of North Sea oil
and gas and a changing international situation.
The government does need to return to the option left open in the
2003 white paper: to build new nuclear power stations as the
older ones are decommissioned. But giving a green light to that
option does not imply a government subsidy. Individual decisions
on nuclear new build would be made by the private sector, guided
by its own analysis of the relative costs of nuclear against
other energy source costs, taking into account the need to meet
emissions targets and to have a secure energy supply.
The success of CO2 emissions trading across Europe makes both
renewables and nuclear power more attractive energy sources.
Sir David King
Chief Scientific Adviser to HM
Government and head of the
Office of Science and Technology
Copyright 2005 Times Newspapers Ltd.
*****************************************************************
37 San Luis Obispo Tribune: Give PG&E the Diablo permits
Editorial/Opinion of The Tribune
Posted on Sun, Dec. 11, 2005
The Tribune
For the first time in 20 years, PG&E will be undertaking a major
upgrade at Diablo Canyon when it replaces its eight steam
generators in 2008-2009. It's a big job -- each generator weighs
360 tons, or as much as 72 elephants, and is five stories tall.
The job's cost is also steep, $770 million.
So far, all the approvals are in place. The Nuclear Regulatory
Commission has given its blessing; the state Public Utilities
Commission has certified the project's environmental review.
Up next should be a simple vote by the county's Planning
Commission on whether the project should receive land use
permits. But given local politics, we can already hear the howls
of protest when the commission meets Jan. 12.
That's too bad, because this is merely prudent planning on the
utility's part in upgrading Diablo's energy efficiency, which
means continued low electricity costs for about 1.6 million
households -- which is about 10 percent of all electricity users
in the state.
(Diablo delivers electricity at
2 cents per kilowatt-hour as opposed to 8 cents per
kilowatt-hour for the next cheapest fuel, gas.)
The commission will decide whether to approve or deny a coastal
development permit for up to 70,000 square feet of temporary
buildings for the project, and a conditional use permit for an
18,000-square-foot reinforced decontamination storage facility
to warehouse the old steam generators. Each of the two signature
domes at Diablo holds four generators, and the used ones have
the same level of radiation as hospital waste. That will cool to
a level of background radiation in 25 years.
At first blush, the project sounds like a lot of land will be
ripped up and paved over, but the county's own report says: "The
project will result in no new disturbance on the site. The
proposed project is within the Public Facilities land use
category."
In fact, the bulk of the project's temporary buildings will be
built on an existing parking lot. Other structures, such as the
building to hold the old generators, will be out of sight, up an
adjacent canyon.
We believe the Planning Commission should give the project due
diligence and approve it as it pertains to county land use rules
for the following reasons:
• The project's EIR has been certified by the Public Utilities
Commission.
• The structures will be temporary, slated to be torn down by
2014 -- with the exception of the used generator containment
building.
• The structures will be built on an existing parking lot with
no new disturbance of land.
We also believe the project should go forward because of the
economics involved:
• New, efficient generators mean $1.2 billion in savings to
customers over other forms of fuel-generated energy.
• The $770 million project will deliver a boost to the local
economy in the form of bringing in about 2,000 highly paid
workers for two 80-day installation periods in 2008 and 2009.
The upgraded generators will also boost property tax income for
county government, including schools, by about $2 million to the
existing $25 million tax base that Diablo annually generates.
PG&E's replacement of the steam generators is sound business
practice. It makes sense from a ratepayer's point of view and
will enhance the local economy. For these reasons, we believe
the Planning Commission should approve the utility's Coastal
Development Permit and Conditional Use Permit when it meets Jan.
12.
*****************************************************************
38 SanLuisObispo.com: Flirting with disaster: Part 1 of a 4-part Tribune investigation
Posted on Sun, Dec. 11, 2005
[Dummies play the part of victims in a simulated chemical
spill during a recent training exercise at Camp San Luis Obispo.
The exercise combined a terrorist attack with toxic spills.]
Tribune photo by David Middlecamp
Dummies play the part of victims in a simulated chemical spill
during a recent training exercise at Camp San Luis Obispo. The
exercise combined a terrorist attack with toxic spills.
Flirting with disaster: Part 1 of a 4-part Tribune investigation
Why we aren't ready for the worst
Bob Cuddy
The Tribune
The tragic consequences of a major disaster in San Luis Obispo
County could be magnified by significant flaws in preparedness,
a two-month investigation by The Tribune has found.
Judged by the sheer number of disaster documents produced by
professional responders in San Luis Obispo County, residents
should be safe. And, in fact, county disaster preparation
organizers get high marks from federal and state governments for
their planning. They’ve handled past emergencies, including
evacuations.
Still, experts agree that a foreseeable catastrophe –
particularly an earthquake greater than magnitude 7.0 – could
test those plans to their limits. Even worse, such an event
could happen on multiple fronts, such as an earthquake that
leaves fire or releases nuclear radiation in its wake.
Among The Tribune’s findings:
Nursing home survival plans are so skimpy and have such little
oversight that many frail and elderly people could be stranded.
Shut-ins, the disabled an other fragile people would be left to
fend for themselves if they have not signed on to a list to
receive help – and only 1.27 percent of the county’s disabled
has done so.
Methods of getting information to the public before a disaster
are so fragmented that many residents wouldn’t know what to do
if an emergency strikes.
Residents largely ignore the information that does get out.
A strong public commitment to disaster planning is lacking,
evidenced by thin budgets and a shortage of workers whose sole
responsibility is emergency response.
A shift of focus to terror attacks, even on the isolated Central
Coast, has drawn attention away from preparing for fires and
earthquakes – the most likely large-scale calamities facing San
Luis Obispo County.
Beginning today and continuing Thursday, Friday and next Sunday,
The Tribune will explain what could go wrong and who’s
responsible for making changes before the worst happens.
*****************************************************************
39 CANOE Money: Ontario Power Generation urges quick action on nuclear recommendations
December 11, 2005
By STEVE ERWIN
2005-12-11 14:36:00
TORONTO (CP) - Ontario Power Generation is ready and waiting to
build more nuclear reactors and its Darlington station is the
best place to do it, according a top official of the Crown
corporation.
Since it can take years to complete construction of a new
nuclear plant, let alone a refurbishment of existing units, the
province should act soon on an Ontario Power Authority report
released Friday, which calls for nuclear expansion, said Pierre
Charlebois, OPG's chief nuclear officer.
"If a decision is to be made. . . our Darlington site clearly
would be an ideal site for a new build," Charlebois told The
Canadian Press in an interview.
"We have a very supportive community, and we have the capability
at Darlington."
He added that environmental assessments - which can take two or
three years to complete - could begin as early as next year to
study new units and plans to refurbish existing units at
Darlington. Those existing units are scheduled to go offline in
seven to 10 years.
"If we are going to have considerations of plant refurbishments
down the road, in order to extend the life of the existing
facilities, that needs to occur early in the process,"
Charlebois said.
The Darlington nuclear station is located 80 kilometres east of
Toronto in the town of Clarington. Sources say the government
has been looking at the possibility of building two 900-megawatt
Candu reactors at the site, which would increase Darlington's
total output by 50 per cent.
Friday's report from the OPA calls for up to $40-billion worth
of new nuclear power projects in Ontario over the next 20 years.
It's part of an overall strategy that recommends nuclear power
maintain a 50 per cent share of Ontario's energy supply mix to
address potential future shortages.
Critics of nuclear expansion say it's too expensive and unsafe.
Past projects went billions of dollars over budget, including
Darlington. Its $4-billion cost eventually swelled to $15
billion.
And much of those cost overruns are still being paid off by
hydro customers in Ontario, through debt retirement charges that
appear on bills.
"Every nuclear reactor has undergone huge cost overruns - in the
70s, the 80s and the 90s - and we're seeing the same thing has
continued to happen with the refurbishment of these reactors as
they reach the end of their life," said Shawn-Patrick Stensil of
Greenpeace Canada.
He noted that Ontario Power Generation's efforts to restore Unit
4 at the Pickering A facility cost $1.25 billion, almost three
times the original projected cost.
"This is headed totally in the wrong direction," New Democrat
Leader Howard Hampton said of calls for nuclear expansion.
"The Ontario experience with nuclear has been very, very
expensive."
But Charlebois said construction-management methods for nuclear
projects have improved. And he said the province could agree to
launch environmental assessments of a Darlington expansion
without committing to the project.
"Clearly, you can launch the environmental assessments and you
can start looking at planning without actually committing to a
project. But that work needs to be done," he said.
Ontario has already approved an expansion of Bruce Power's
nuclear station near Kincardine.
There's a little more than 11,000 MW of nuclear generating
capacity in the province currently. But including the Bruce
refurbishment and a recent refurbishment at OPG's Pickering A
station, only 3,500 MW of nuclear are scheduled to be in place
by 2025.
That means between 9,400 and 12,400 MW of nuclear must be added
by 2025, according to the OPA.
There's no room to expand Pickering B, and no plans to
reconsider refurbishing units 2 and 3 at Pickering A.
The government deemed it was not economical to complete the
refurbishments because specific major components of those units
are in such poor condition, Charlebois said.
But at Darlington, there's room for expansion. The site was
originally designed to accommodate eight reactors but currently
has only four. Also, transmission lines to carry a greater load
of nuclear-generated electricity are already in place.
Even roads that were put in place to carry construction supplies
from boats to the site are still intact.
A Darlington expansion also has the blessing of Clarington's
mayor and the broader Durham regional council, who are rubbing
their hands over the prospect of thousands of jobs being created
for multi-year construction projects.
There is room on Bruce's site to build a Bruce "C" set of
nuclear units, though Bruce Power CEO Duncan Hawthorne has
previously noted that more transmission lines would have to be
built to accommodate a higher load.
*****************************************************************
40 CTV Toronto: Darlington best reactor location for OPG -
CTV News, Shows and Sports -- Canadian Television
Sun. Dec. 11 2005 3:33 PM
Canadian Press
Ontario Power Generation is ready and waiting to build more
nuclear reactors and its Darlington station is the best place to
do it, according a top official of the Crown corporation.
Since it can take years to complete construction of a new
nuclear plant, let alone a refurbishment of existing units, the
province should act soon on an Ontario Power Authority report
released Friday, which calls for nuclear expansion, said Pierre
Charlebois, OPG's chief nuclear officer.
"If a decision is to be made ... our Darlington site clearly
would be an ideal site for a new build," Charlebois told The
Canadian Press in an interview.
"We have a very supportive community, and we have the capability
at Darlington."
He added that environmental assessments, which can take two or
three years to complete, could begin as early as next year to
study new units and plans to refurbish existing units at
Darlington. Those existing units are scheduled to go offline in
seven to 10 years.
"If we are going to have considerations of plant refurbishments
down the road, in order to extend the life of the existing
facilities, that needs to occur early in the process,"
Charlebois said.
The Darlington nuclear station is located 80 kilometres east of
Toronto in the town of Clarington. Sources say the government
has been looking at the possibility of building two 900-megawatt
Candu reactors at the site, which would increase Darlington's
total output by 50 per cent.
Friday's report from the OPA calls for up to $40-billion worth
of new nuclear power projects in Ontario over the next 20 years.
It's part of an overall strategy that recommends nuclear power
maintain a 50 per cent share of Ontario's energy supply mix to
address potential future shortages.
Critics of nuclear expansion say it's too expensive and unsafe.
Past projects went billions of dollars over budget, including
Darlington. Its $4-billion cost eventually swelled to $15
billion.
And much of those cost overruns are still being paid off by
hydro customers in Ontario, through debt retirement charges that
appear on bills.
"Every nuclear reactor has undergone huge cost overruns _ in the
70s, the 80s and the 90s _ and we're seeing the same thing has
continued to happen with the refurbishment of these reactors as
they reach the end of their life," said Shawn-Patrick Stensil of
Greenpeace Canada.
He noted that Ontario Power Generation's efforts to restore Unit
4 at the Pickering A facility cost $1.25 billion, almost three
times the original projected cost.
"This is headed totally in the wrong direction," New Democrat
Leader Howard Hampton said of calls for nuclear expansion.
"The Ontario experience with nuclear has been very, very
expensive."
But Charlebois said construction-management methods for nuclear
projects have improved. And he said the province could agree to
launch environmental assessments of a Darlington expansion
without committing to the project.
"Clearly, you can launch the environmental assessments and you
can start looking at planning without actually committing to a
project. But that work needs to be done," he said.
Ontario has already approved an expansion of Bruce Power's
nuclear station near Kincardine.
There's a little more than 11,000 MW of nuclear generating
capacity in the province currently. But including the Bruce
refurbishment and a recent refurbishment at OPG's Pickering A
station, only 3,500 MW of nuclear are scheduled to be in place
by 2025.
That means between 9,400 and 12,400 MW of nuclear must be added
by 2025, according to the OPA.
There's no room to expand Pickering B, and no plans to
reconsider refurbishing units 2 and 3 at Pickering A.
The government deemed it was not economical to complete the
refurbishments because specific major components of those units
are in such poor condition, Charlebois said.
But at Darlington, there's room for expansion. The site was
originally designed to accommodate eight reactors but currently
has only four. Also, transmission lines to carry a greater load
of nuclear-generated electricity are already in place.
Even roads that were put in place to carry construction supplies
from boats to the site are still intact.
A Darlington expansion also has the blessing of Clarington's
mayor and the broader Durham regional council, who are rubbing
their hands over the prospect of thousands of jobs being created
for multi-year construction projects.
There is room on Bruce's site to build a Bruce "C" set of
nuclear units, though Bruce Power CEO Duncan Hawthorne has
previously noted that more transmission lines would have to be
built to accommodate a higher load.
© 2005 Bell Globemedia Inc. All Rights Reserved.
*****************************************************************
41 The Hindu: Work on separation of nuclear facilities at advanced stage
Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Dec 12, 2005
Amit Baruah
A question of affordability for EPF: Manmohan
KUALA LUMPUR: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Sunday said the
exercise of separating India's civilian and military nuclear
facilities was at "a fairly advanced stage."
Two groups were set up — one in India and the other in the
United States — to discuss the implementation of the July 18
civilian nuclear deal with the U.S. The groups were
"interacting."
The Prime Minister was answering questions from presspersons on
board a special aircraft on his way to Kuala Lumpur.
Asked whether he was satisfied with the Employees Provident Fund
(EPF) Board fixing an 8.5 per cent interest rate for the current
year, Dr. Singh said it was not a question of his being
satisfied or dissatisfied.
"It is a question of what the EPF Organisation can afford. We
need the organisation to be strong financially. They should
declare interest rates they can sustain. If they can sustain a
higher rate [of interest], I will be very happy."
To a query whether there would be any political intervention to
settle the issue, he said that even last year the government
said there was no scope for budgetary support for EPF rate. "Any
rate that has to be paid has to come out of the resources of the
EPF Organisation."
On the terms of reference of the R.S. Pathak Inquiry Authority,
appointed to look into the allegations contained in the Volcker
Committee Report, Dr. Singh said these were spelt out in the
notification on the setting up of the panel. "We have no
proposal to tinker with that."
Asked whether the government would place the documents obtained
by special envoy Virendra Dayal from the United Nations in
Parliament, he said these papers were the property of the Pathak
Inquiry Authority.
The Prime Minister promised that the Pathak panel report and the
action taken report of the government would be made available to
Parliament. "We are not going to keep anything hidden from
Parliament."
PTI reports:
Dr. Singh parried a question about assigning the External
Affairs portfolio ahead of the upcoming visits by two key heads
of state. "The decision will be known when it comes," he said to
a question when he would name a new External Affairs Minister.
French President Jacques Chirac is expected in February next and
U.S. President George W. Bush is expected to come soon after.
Dr. Singh has been keeping External Affairs with him after
Natwar Singh was relieved of the charge.
Copyright © 2005, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of
*****************************************************************
42 Sunday Herald: LibDems split on new generation of nuclear power stations -
By Paul Hutcheon
A SPLIT emerged in the Scottish Liberal Democrats last night
after a senior MP said there was a case for building a new
generation of nuclear power stations.
John Thurso, the partys Scotland spokesman, said new reactors
could be the the least worst option for maintaining security of
supply and reducing carbon emissions.
He also dismissed emotional arguments against the controversial
form of power generation and claimed a solution to radioactive
waste would be found. But his comments contradict the Scottish
LibDems stance of opposing new nuclear power stations.
The junior coalition partners in the Executive will use the UK
governments energy review to harden their position on nuclear
power and further commit themselves to renewables. They have
said no new reactors should be commissioned unless the problem
of radioactive waste is resolved a position also adopted by the
coalition.
But Thurso, whose Highlands constituency includes the Dounreay
nuclear reprocessing plant, says he cannot sign up to his partys
policy. I take a different view. We should not rule it out, he
said.
In an interview with the Sunday Herald, Thurso said he would be
relaxed about the energy review backing new nuclear power
stations in Scotland.
If, as may be the case, the answer were to be nuclear, in those
circumstances it would not give me a problem. It would be
responsible to consider nuclear as one of the options, he said,
adding that nuclear could be the least worst option in terms of
guaranteeing security of supply.
If nuclear fulfilled the criteria I set out, it would not give
me the level of worry it gives other people. I see no reason to
rule it out on emotional grounds. We need honest information.
Asked if renewables, a key plank for Scottish Liberal Democrat
energy policy, could fill the gap left behind by the closure of
existing nuclear power stations, Thurso said: No. The point
about renewables is they are not constant. You must have a
baseload capacity when a particular form of renewable is not
producing power.
Thurso also contradicted his partys view on nuclear waste Lib
Dems believe the issue is unlikely to be resolved by saying he
was confident of a solution.
I wouldnt want to prejudice the review, but I have talked to
engineers and scientists who have told me there is no technical
problem with nuclear waste. It is simply a question of political
will. There are technical solutions that have been around for
some time.
Thursos comments will embarrass Nicol Stephen, who has tried to
put distance between the LibDems and Labour on the issue. Party
strategists believe a tough anti-nuclear line will shore up the
partys core vote ahead of the 2007 Holyrood election and win
support from Labour.
But the stance was undermined recently when Euan Robson, a
LibDem MSP, said his party would have an open mind on nuclear.
Tory MSP Murdo Fraser said he agreed with Thursos views on
energy.
John Thurso is finally waking up to the facts of the situation
that unless we are prepared to consider nuclear as an option, we
are facing a major energy gap, he said.
An SSP spokesman last night blasted Thursos comments:
If John Thurso has a solution for nuclear waste that takes
millions of years to decay, Id be interested to hear it. He
hasnt, of course, but what he does have is Dounreay in his
constituency and we know that the nuclear industry is very good
at tricking MPs with nukes in their area.
11 December 2005
© newsquest (sunday herald) limited. all rights reserved
*****************************************************************
43 Independent: Energy chief ousted as No 10 eases in more nuclear-friendly face
By Tim Webb and Katherine Griffiths
Published: 11 December 2005
The government official in charge of energy policy is being
ousted on the eve of the country's most wide-ranging energy
review for decades.
Sir Brian Bender, the newly appointed permanent secretary at the
Department of Trade and Industry, is removing Joan McNaughton
from her post as director-general for energy early next year.
She has held the post since 2002.
William Rickett, a former director-general for transport
strategy, is being strongly tipped to succeed Ms McNaughton, who
oversaw the Government's last energy review in 2003. The review
favoured renewable energy, such as wind power, over nuclear. Mr
Rickett has been advising No 10 more recently, and is thought to
be more amenable to nuclear.
Ms McNaughton, who is generally well respected within the energy
industry, has been asked to stay on until the summer to advise
the Government on international energy issues. It is understood
that she may be paying the price for failing to get a better
deal when she was leading negotiations with the US on behalf of
the state-owned nuclear group BNFL, over a fixed clean-up
contract that went way over budget. After months of
negotiations, BNFL agreed to write off around $1bn (£570m) in
losses from the clean-up contract earlier this year.
A spokeswoman for the DTI confirmed that Ms McNaughton would be
replaced early next year, but denied this was because the
Government was unhappy with her work. It was normal, the
spokeswoman said, for director-generals to move to different
departments after four years. She added that the Government's
preparations for the energy review to be launched early next
year would not be disrupted.
Separately, trade body the Nuclear Industry Association (NIA)
last week told the Government that it would take as little as
10-11 years to gain planning consent and to build a new fleet of
nuclear reactors.
© 2005 Independent News and Media Limited
*****************************************************************
44 Rutland Herald: Douglas looking for outs on energy
Rutland Vermont News & Information
December 10, 2005
By Herald Staff
BRATTLEBORO — Gov. James Douglas said Friday that his
administration is evaluating whether it makes sense for Vermont
to put most of its energy eggs in the baskets held by
Hydro-Quebec and Entergy Nuclear, the owner of Vermont Yankee
nuclear power plant.
Douglas said he met with the president of Hydro-Quebec while he
was in Montreal earlier this week and inquired whether power
would be available to Vermont customers after the Hydro-Quebec
contracts with Vermont utilities start expiring in 2015. He said
the answer he got was encouraging but noncommittal, and he
pointed out that any actual contract would have to be negotiated
by utilities, not the state.
Vermont's energy future has a lot of question marks, as not only
the Hydro-Quebec contracts with Central Vermont Public Service
and Green Mountain Power start expiring in six to eight years,
but the utilities' contracts with Entergy expire in 2012 — and
with it two-thirds of all the electricity needed by Vermonters.
Douglas said Public Service Commissioner David O'Brien had
established what he termed "a working group" to evaluate what
direction the state should pursue and exactly how diversified
the state's energy portfolio should be.
"We have a very clean portfolio," he said, referring to low
greenhouse gas emissions from hydro and nuclear power.
Douglas, whose administration so far has been a strong supporter
of Entergy Nuclear's various plans, said that the company
provides the cheapest power for Vermont consumers. That contract
was negotiated by the Dean administration as part of the sale of
Vermont Yankee to Entergy in 2002.
The wholesale price of electricity coming from Vermont Yankee is
around 4 cents per kilowatt hour.
Douglas said his administration hasn't decided on the proposed
license extension of Vermont Yankee for 20 years. He noted that
while his administration had supported the 20 percent power
boost or uprate on economic grounds, the Public Service
Department had raised serious safety issues which still haven't
been resolved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Douglas was in Brattleboro Friday as part of the annual
"Governor's Day," where he toured various businesses and
nonprofit organizations, met one-on-one with private citizens
for 15 minute sessions and met with the press to discuss state,
regional and local issues.
On wind energy development, Douglas said last week's vote in the
Northeast Kingdom town of Sheffield, which voted strongly in
favor of a proposal by UPC to build a wind facility, hadn't
changed his mind at all.
"I feel comfortable with what we've said," Douglas said, who has
said he is in favor of "Vermont scale" wind facilities — small,
residential-scale projects.
He noted that while Sheffield, along with another Northeast
Kingdom town of East Haven, have now gone on record supporting
wind energy development in the towns, their eyes may be more on
tax revenues than ridgeline development.
"We have to weigh the economic value against the environmental
impact," he said.
Douglas said he believed the environmental trade-offs were
greater than the economic benefits of wind facilities on
Vermont's mountaintops. He said while Vermont ski areas have
developed Vermont's mountaintops and ridgelines, they have
provided more of an economic boost than the proposed wind
projects.
"It's up to the Public Service Board to make the ultimate
decision," he said.
Douglas attended the annual meeting of Brattleboro Memorial
Hospital at noon, briefing the hospital's leaders on his health
care initiatives. Earlier in the day, he said, he met with
Richard Palmisano, the CEO of Retreat Healthcare, a large
private psychiatric facility in Brattleboro.
Douglas said that The Retreat, as it is commonly called, could
play a role in the state's decision to close the Vermont State
Hospital in Waterbury, by hosting a smaller, intermediate care
facility.
© 2005
*****************************************************************
45 Gateway To Russia: Chernobyl may become nuclear burial ground -
Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko is ready to consider the
issue of burying spent nuclear fuel from other countries in the
Chernobyl region and make a political decision, subject to
approval by experts and scientists, and after debating the
problem publicly, he said at a news conference in Chernobyl on
Thursday.
Yushchenko said such proposals could be discussed after a
thorough examination of all stages of the project, his press
service told RBC. “This is a long-term project, and it must be
approved by the public,” the Ukrainian head-of-state said,
stressing that he would never make such decisions without public
approval, however economically feasible they might be.
The second spent nuclear storage facility of the Chernobyl
nuclear power plant would come on stream in 2010, Yushchenko
said. The construction project is being examined by
international experts. The European Bank for Reconstruction and
Development (EBRD) pointed to the effective performance of a
Swiss auditing firm, the Ukrainian President said.
He expressed hope that the auditors would finish their work by
the end of this year, and funds would be allocated for the final
stage of the construction of the storage facility.
The technologically complicated construction problem was being
solved consistently, Yushchenko added.
The second spent nuclear storage facility of the Chernobyl power
plant is designed to provide a long-term safe storage of the
whole of the power plant’s spent nuclear fuel. It was supposed
to be put into use back in 2003, but the construction was
suspended by the Chernobyl plant in April 2003 due to
significant defects.
The contractor, the French company Framatome ANP, says it would
take it about four years and a half to complete construction,
which is financed by the EBRD.
An estimated 600,000 people were exposed to large doses of
radiation as a result of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. 4,000,
most of them children, were diagnosed with thyroid cancer.
Ukraine and Belarus lost 784,320 hectares of agricultural lands
and 694,200 hectares of forest lands after the Chernobyl
catastrophe. Re-cultivation of those territories requires
significant spending on fertilizers, supplement feeds and
special cultivation techniques.
© Copyright Gateway to Russia 2003
*****************************************************************
46 TheStar.com: Put $35B in nuclear power, report says
Sun. Dec. 11, 2005. | Updated at 04:28 AM
Put $35B in nuclear power, report saysMust supply half Ontario's
needs, report says
Total cost to build electricity sector will be $83 billionDec.
10, 2005. 10:29 AMRICHARD BRENNAN AND JOHN SPEARSSTAFF REPORTERS
The energy crunch is coming at Ontario so fast it has no choice
but to rely on nuclear energy to supply half its needs, a report
to the provincial government says.
That means overhauling or replacing all of the nuclear reactors
in the province at a cost of up to $35 billion, the 1,100-page
report from the Ontario Power Authority said. The report, made
public yesterday, estimates it will cost $83 billion to rebuild
Ontario's electricity sector over the next 20 years.
And consumers will be picking up the tab to the tune of 16 per
cent a year extra on their hydro bills in the future just to pay
for the new generation capacity.
The recommendation that Ontario continue to rely on nuclear
power for 50 per cent of its energy needs will be controversial.
But the report tries to balance that by recommending a boost to
renewable energy as well.
Renewable sources such as wind, solar and water power should go
from 23 per cent of electricity supply to 43 per cent by 2025,
the report said. The OPA was told by the government not to
consider coal as an alternative since the Liberals want the
existing coal-fired power plants closed by 2009.
The cost to consumers will be significant. Consumers and
businesses collectively pay about $12 billion a year for
electricity today, but to pay for the new supply needed they'll
have to pay about $14 billion a year — a 16 per cent increase —
in the future, officials estimate.
The cost of transmission lines, fuel and other operating costs
would be in addition to that, driving the bill still higher.
The OPA report, the first power supply review in 15 years, says
controversial nuclear power should continue to supply at least
half of the province's electricity needs.
"It is a 20-year planning horizon and it will be reworked every
three years ... it's really a three-year action plan set in a
20-year context," OPA chair Jan Carr said in a conference call.
Critics cast doubt on whether the OPA is truly independent of
the government and slammed the agency for continuing to rely so
heavily on nuclear power while giving conservation short shrift.
"This is a very one-sided report, it's all about expensive
nuclear and very expensive natural gas ... and it is going to
mean very expensive electricity for the people of Ontario and
it's going to continue to drive industries and jobs out of
Ontario and it doesn't even try energy conservation and
efficiency," NDP Leader Howard Hampton said.
Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory said the OPA's
reliance on nuclear power is "realistic" and called the report a
"buffet of items ... but not a plan" to prevent blackouts.
Energy Minister Donna Cansfield said she could not answer
questions about the report, explaining she hadn't read it yet.
"We will carefully review the report's advice and analysis as
well as public input before making a decision on future supply
mix," said Cansfield, who wouldn't talk about the conservation
section of the report even though she had the file before being
named to cabinet.
Premier Dalton McGuinty, who was not available for comment
yesterday, had no such reservations about endorsing new nuclear
generators when asked about it in September.
"We are prepared to go ahead with economical, safe, new nuclear
if that is recommended by the OPA," McGuinty said then.
`This is a huge mistake. Nuclear power is the highest cost and
least reliable option to keep the lights on.'
Jack Gibbons, executive director of the Ontario Clean Air
Alliance
Cansfield said the report will be posted on the Environmental
Bill of Rights website for 60 days, which will be the public's
only chance for input. There will be no public hearings as
promised by former energy minister Dwight Duncan, she said.
Next year, the OPA is to develop an integrated power system
plan, which will be reviewed by the Ontario Energy Board.
The Ontario Chamber of Commerce applauded the continued emphasis
on nuclear generation, including new capacity.
"Just like investing for retirement, investments in our energy
supply must take a balanced approach," said OCC president Len
Crispino. "We need nuclear, wind, cleaner coal, natural gas and
hydro capacity to ensure we have the energy we need to grow our
economy."
The OPA plan also assumes a huge increase in production from
renewable sources — including power carried over long distances
from mammoth hydroelectric developments in Labrador and northern
Manitoba.
Carrying power thousands of kilometres to Ontario markets from
remote northern areas will require big investment in
transmission wires crossing vast stretches of wilderness, much
of it controlled by aboriginal groups.
Progressive Conservative energy critic MPP John Yakabuski
(Renfrew Nipissing Pembroke) said the government's election
promise to close down the coal-fired plants, which currently
produce 25 per cent of Ontario's electricity, will result in a
"complete crisis" in the short term.
Yakabuski noted that not one of the gas-fired plants touted by
the Liberals as part of the immediate solutions are even off the
ground yet. "What they have completely squandered is the
opportunity to clean up coal-fired plants," he said.
Jack Gibbons, executive director of the Ontario Clean Air
Alliance, denounced the power authority's scheme and its
reliance on nuclear power as "a 1950s-style solution to meet our
electricity needs in the 21st century."
"This is a huge mistake," Gibbons said. "Nuclear power is the
highest cost and least reliable option to keep the lights on."
While OPA officials said consumption per person in the province
is expected to decline, they nevertheless foresee total demand
rising 0.9 per cent a year because of Ontario's growing
population and expanding economy.
The report is contradictory about the value of conservation,
said Keith Stewart of the Toronto Environmental Alliance.
He noted the OPA describes conservation as the lowest cost
option for attacking the province's electricity problem. But it
proposes spending only $5 billion to $11 billion on conservation
— against $30 to $40 billion for nuclear plants.
Stewart said simply releasing the report and giving the public
60 days to comment isn't an adequate consultation process.
Tom Adams, executive director of Energy Probe, said the OPA is
recommending "extremely expensive electricity" generated by
complex, risky technology.
"We should be looking at how to get off our nuclear dependency
instead of trying to maintain it," said Shawn-Patrick Stensil,
energy campaigner for Greenpeace Canada.
Legal Notice: Copyright Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All
*****************************************************************
47 TheStar.com: Call for nuclear plants lauded
Sun. Dec. 11, 2005. | Updated at 02:16 AM
Industry wary of renewable energy
`Challenge is cost and reliability'Dec. 10, 2005. 01:00
AMNAOMI ARNIOLBUSINESS REPORTER
Industry groups and companies praised a report suggesting Ontario
continue to rely on nuclear energy for half its electricity.
But they were skeptical about proposals to replace energy from
coal-fired plants with natural gas in the short term and
renewable sources of energy over the longer term.
The report released yesterday by the Ontario Power Authority
calls for up to $40 billion of new nuclear-power projects, and
the construction of new natural gas plants and renewable sources
such as wind and solar to ensure the province has enough
electricity through 2025.
Renewable sources of power "have some potential now and they have
some potential into the future. The challenge is cost and
reliability," said Adam White, president of the Association of
Major Power Consumers Ontario. "Wind generation produces power
when the wind blows and it doesn't otherwise. You can't have a
major industrial economy reliant on intermittent power."
While natural gas was once relatively cheap, it has become much
more expensive, White said. Relying more on natural gas will hurt
the economy as companies struggle to pay rising energy bills,
said Laurie Gregg, director of energy management at Falconbridge
Ltd.
That's why the report recommends gas be used strategically, such
as in generating heat and electricity at the same time, said Amir
Shalaby, vice-president of Power System Planning at the Ontario
Power Authority.
"Gas is becoming very expensive, so you want to limit its use to
places where it adds a lot of value," he said.
Cost is also partly why the authority recommended the use of
natural gas eventually taper off.
"In the longer term, conservation and renewables will replace
coal," Shalaby said.
While the province wants to close coal-fired plants, some
industry groups don't think coal should be put out to pasture.
"Cleaner coal technologies need to be explored and implemented
now," said Ian Howcroft, vice-president of the Canadian
Manufacturers and Exporters' Ontario division.
Coal-gasification is a method of refining coal into liquids and
gases rather than burning it.
"It's a chemical process that can be used more cleanly," Shalaby
said.
It may have a role in the future. The Ontario Power Authority
recommended keeping the existing coal-fired generation
infrastructure intact until "the potential future use of coal
gasification is more certain."
Legal Notice: Copyright Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All
*****************************************************************
48 TheStar.com: What choice does Ontario really have?
Sun. Dec. 11, 2005. | Updated at 04:42 AM
All the options seem to have downside
Dec. 10, 2005. 01:00 AMIAN URQUHART
The report of the Ontario Power Authority all 1,100 pages of
it landed with a thud at Queen's Park yesterday and launched
the province on a new nuclear journey.
In its long-awaited assessment of Ontario's future electricity
needs, the power authority said nuclear power should definitely
remain a major part of the supply mix.
And with today's nuclear reactors reaching the end of their
operational lifespans within 15 to 20 years, that means the
province should soon begin the process of building new nuclear
facilities.
The power authority's report is just advisory. The final
decision rests with the government, which yesterday pledged full
public consultation before making up its mind.
But the consultation process is just eyewash.
Premier Dalton McGuinty went on record 11 weeks ago saying that
if the authority recommends new nuclear power, "We are prepared
to go ahead with (it)."
And the environmentalists and anti-nuclear activists have
already begun raising hell about it. The Sierra Club was first
out of the gate yesterday with a press release calling the
nuclear option "insanity."
But, really, what choice does Ontario have following a summer of
brownouts and near blackouts?
Let's consider the options:
+ Keep burning coal.
The government is committed to shutting the coal-fired power
plants by 2009. While coal is relatively cheap power, there is a
huge hidden health cost. The coal-fired plants produce pollution
equivalent to that produced by 6.1 million cars.
Closing the plants will also go a long way toward meeting our
Kyoto commitments and give us the moral high ground in
negotiations with the U.S. about cross-boundary pollution.
What about "clean coal" technology?
The environmentalists say that is an oxymoron.
+ Convert to natural gas.
Gas is much less polluting than coal, but it is also much more
expensive. Over the past five years, the price for gas has risen
five-fold and made it less competitive than coal or even nuclear
power.
Another advantage to this fuel was that gas-fired plants could
be built close to market, thereby reducing transmission costs.
But doubt has recently been cast on this supposed advantage as
NIMBYism has forced cancellation or delay of proposed gas-fired
plants in the Greater Toronto Area.
+ Import hydroelectric power.
There are proposals in the works to import power from new dams
planned in Manitoba and Labrador. But while the power itself
would be relatively cheap, the cost of new transmission lines
would be formidable, especially for the Manitoba project.
The Sierra Club was first to issue a press release calling the
nuclear option `insanity'
Another complication is that the lines from Manitoba would cross
First Nations territory.
As for the Labrador project, it will require complex
negotiations among three governments Ontario, Quebec and
Newfoundland.
+ Invest in renewable energy, primarily wind power.
At first glance, this seems to be a viable option.
One estimate suggests wind could generate potentially 630,000
megawatts of power, or more than 20 times our current capacity.
But 95 per cent of this potential is north of the 50th parallel
too far from market.
Even where potential wind farms are near existing transmission
lines, they cannot be counted on for base-load power because
wind comes and goes.
+ Rely on conservation, or demand management.
This is the option favoured by the environmentalists and the New
Democratic Party. They say the government's 5 per cent goal for
saving electricity through conservation is far too modest and
point to examples in the United States, notably California,
where much greater savings have been achieved.
But the problem with such comparisons is that they often
overlook the key factor in any conservation program: the price
of electricity. The higher the price, the greater the incentive
for consumers and businesses to conserve.
California's electricity rates are roughly double those in
Ontario.
To which the environmentalists say: fine, raise the price.
That is already happening under the Liberal government, but we
are still a long way from California-like rates.
The concern is that, if we were to increase rates more rapidly,
it would be at the cost of tens of thousands of jobs in the
manufacturing sector, particularly energy-intensive industries
like paper, steel and chemicals.
Which brings us full circle to nuclear power.
Is there not a downside to this option? Of course, and the power
authority enumerates some of the negatives in its report,
including enormous cost overruns in past projects, ongoing
maintenance problems, and the still unresolved question of what
to do with nuclear waste.
The authority expresses the opinion that changes in nuclear
technology should make new plants "simpler to operate, cheaper
to run, and better performing."
That leaves the waste the Achilles heel of nuclear power.
Despite years of studies and tests, we still don't have a
permanent storage facility for it.
Both the government and the nuclear industry should make sure
they have an answer to the waste question before breaking ground
on a new reactor.
Legal Notice: Copyright Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All
*****************************************************************
49 Dallas Morning News: Perry's energy push gets mixed readings
Governor's office says moves are meant to aid ratepayers, not
utilities
12:00 AM CST on Sunday, December 11, 2005
By SUDEEP REDDY / The Dallas Morning News
Gov. Rick Perry's efforts this fall to quell the uproar over
soaring electricity bills could prove helpful in next year's
gubernatorial race. They also should help TXU Corp. well
beyond the election season.
After hurricanes Katrina and Rita rocked energy markets, Mr.
Perry won concessions from TXU Energy and other companies to
help consumers being hit with the largest rate hikes ever.
Weeks later, Mr. Perry directed state agencies to accelerate
approval of new power plants, possibly saving developers
hundreds of millions of dollars. The order dovetailed with TXU's
plans to become a major developer of coal plants.
Were these farsighted, pro-consumer initiatives, as the governor
and industry leaders say? Or were they mutual back-scratching
that got Dallas-based TXU favorable treatment and Mr. Perry some
political cover, as critics assert?
The questions go to the heart of the long-running debate over
how to structure the state's power industry: regulation vs.
deregulation; the right mix of generation from nuclear, coal,
natural gas and renewable fuels; ensuring that low-income Texans
can afford electricity.
The governor's office and industry officials say the recent
initiatives will help consumers cope with high prices and
encourage long-term solutions to the state's power problems.
"The governor continues to fight hard to protect consumers as
much as possible against rising costs of energy," said Kathy
Walt, a spokeswoman for Mr. Perry. "His interest is making sure
that we have competitive and alternative energy markets for
consumers."
Critics say the agreements between Mr. Perry and TXU parent of
TXU Energy were designed to help the governor deflect any
attacks over high energy prices in his 2006 campaign.
"We believe this is part of a political payment to the electric
utilities for their large contributions to Perry," said Tom
"Smitty" Smith, the Texas director for Public Citizen, a
consumer advocacy group. "We'll all pay the high price for this
decision" through higher electric bills, more pollution and
global warming, Mr. Smith said.
Regulation debate
By Jan. 1, electricity rates for TXU Energy's residential
customers in North Texas will have increased more than 80
percent in the four years since power companies were allowed to
compete.
The state's electric deregulation law, signed in 1999 by Gov.
George W. Bush with strong bipartisan support, gave many Texans
the right to choose a power provider. But three-fourths of
customers remain with the former monopolies.
In 2002, deregulation became a campaign issue when Mr. Perry's
Democratic challenger, Tony Sanchez, blamed the governor for
"skyrocketing" electric bills, linking price increases with
political contributions from power companies.
Consumer groups have sparred with state and industry officials
over the formula that determines the rate that residential users
pay TXU Energy and other so-called incumbent power providers.
That rate, which is partially regulated, is known as the "price
to beat."
The companies can raise that rate twice a year to reflect the
rising costs of natural gas, which is used to generate half the
state's electricity. Rate regulation ends in 2007, when all
providers will be able to charge whatever they want without
approval from the Public Utility Commission.
Critics have called for stricter regulation, saying that TXU
Energy and other former monopolies shouldn't be able to peg rate
increases to gas prices when they also use cheaper coal and
nuclear power. Prices in deregulated areas of the state have
increased twice as quickly as those in the corners where
utilities are still regulated.
"Real relief for consumers would be setting rates based on the
cost of producing or acquiring the electricity," said Tim
Morstad, a policy analyst at Consumers Union.
Regulators and companies say that such an approach would harm
the state's long-term goal: competition among providers. These
companies use Texas' wholesale market to buy electricity, and
those prices are pegged to natural gas, to ensure a level
playing field.
Hurricanes' impact
Against this volatile political backdrop, Hurricane Katrina blew
in and sent natural gas futures soaring 19 percent in a week.
The fallout would end up drawing TXU and the governor's office
together.
Public furor over the price spikes sent state officials into an
awkward dance: They didn't want to interfere with the market
forces they had defended for years. But they also didn't want
short-term, hurricane-created fluctuations to hurt consumers.
TXU Energy and other retail providers, meanwhile, said they were
losing money because they were paying more for natural gas and
couldn't pass along the costs.
"It was not a good market environment," TXU spokesman Chris
Schein said. "As much as customers hate to have price increases,
it's not going to do anybody any good if everybody's bankrupt.
See California."
Even before the providers filed for rate increases, the
governor's staff started talking with the companies and the PUC
in early September about how to minimize the impact on
consumers, Ms. Walt said. The PUC also held hearings to consider
options, including suspending the rules governing price hikes.
When TXU filed for its rate increase, it asked for 24 percent.
But, citing an agreement with the PUC staff, the company agreed
to delay half of the boost till January.
Mr. Perry's office wasn't finished. The governor's staff kept on
talking with TXU in hopes of further buffering consumers, Ms.
Walt said.
TXU responded with a three-point program: It agreed to let
consumers lock in rates for a year, donated $25 million to a
fund to help low-income customers and gave $2.5 million to a
program to educate customers about electricity choice.
It also pledged not to file for another rate increase until
April 1. That is about three weeks after Mr. Perry competes in
the Republican primary on March 7.
Those points were outlined in an Oct. 13 letter to the
governor's chief of staff from TXU Energy chief chairman and
chief executive Jim Burke.
He added: "TXU agrees with you that the commitments described
herein, along with ongoing efforts to ensure adequate
development of new generation resources in the state, are
important to preserving the benefits of the competitive
electricity market in Texas."
Shorter approval time
Mr. Perry would return to the theme of developing "new
generation resources" two weeks later.
When he issued the executive order outlining the
consumer-education program, he also offered something that would
help TXU and other power generators a speedier process for
approving new power plants. The order slashed in half, from a
year to six months, how long outside groups could fight a new
power plant.
Environmental groups blasted the order, saying it would prevent
a full evaluation of the health effects of any new projects.
"The governor's executive order short-circuits much of that
process and doesn't allow the evidence and the alternatives to
be fully analyzed," said Mr. Smith of Public Citizen.
"The time to do the analysis is before the plants are built,
because these plants will typically last 50 years, and we'll be
paying for the mistakes made for another generation," he said.
Industry officials say the longer permitting process is one
reason that gas-fired power plants have popped up faster.
"It's a lot easier to sink some money into a gas plant than a
coal plant," said Randy Eminger of the Center for Energy and
Economic Development, an industry group.
The result, they say, is that consumers have become more
vulnerable to volatile natural gas prices. As demand rises, the
state would have to rely on older and costlier gas plants
raising electricity prices further if other fuel options
aren't pursued.
In early November, TXU announced a new growth strategy. At its
core is a multibillion-dollar bet that the company can become a
leading generator of power from coal plants.
The company filed a permit for one major Texas project in July
and hopes it will become one of the state's first new coal
plants in more than a decade. A total of seven coal plants are
on the drawing board, including another TXU project.
Because natural gas is used to benchmark electricity prices,
power from coal and nuclear plants fetches an even bigger margin
as gas goes up.
TXU said it didn't ask specifically for faster permitting during
its discussions with the governor's office over the rate
increases. But the company did address the root causes of the
higher prices and advocated fuel diversity, as it's done with
state officials for decades, Mr. Schein said.
"There was no quid pro quo, period," he said.
The governor's office and TXU dismissed arguments that
contributions to Mr. Perry's campaigns played a role. TXU's
political action committees and executives contributed more than
$50,000 to Mr. Perry in the year ended June 30.
The governor has been calling for streamlined permitting across
state agencies for years, Ms. Walt said, and opponents of a coal
project still have the opportunity to weigh in during the
permitting process.
The timing of the initiatives was simply a result of the
hurricanes hitting when they did, Ms. Walt said.
"The executive order was an attempt to put in order several
initiatives that were unrelated into both a short-term and a
long-term energy policy statement," she said.
Consumer groups say the governor can do far more to help
consumers as power prices rise.
"I think it's unavoidable that skyrocketing electricity rates
will become a political issue going into 2006," said Mr. Morstad
of Consumers Union. "The governor can show leadership in working
with PUC to revisit its rule that governs price increases."
E-mail sreddy@dallasnews.com
[JOEL ANDREWS/The Lufkin Daily News] JOEL ANDREWS/The Lufkin
Daily NewsGovernor Perry's office says an energy plan will help
consumers. Critics say it will help him deflect campaign
attacks.
© 2005 The Dallas Morning News Co.
*****************************************************************
50 Boston Globe: Plymouth, neighbors weigh Pilgrim's safety, future
Calls to link renewal, more compensation
By Robert Knox, Globe Correspondent | December 11, 2005
PLYMOUTH -- If the Pilgrim nuclear power plant is going to get a
20-year extension on its license to operate -- as many
residents, including even some Pilgrim foes, accept as likely --
the plant's owners should pay area communities to compensate for
the accompanying risk, say some in the evolving debate over the
nuclear plant's future.
The call for compensation, aired last week at the first
town-sponsored forum on Pilgrim's relicensing, formed a middle
ground between the established turf of outright foes, who want
the plant shut down, and supporters, who welcome the plant and
lauded its owner, Entergy, as a good corporate citizen.
The increased risk, said some residents at the Nuclear Matters
Committee-sponsored session, comes from the plant's
vulnerability in the new age of terrorism; worry that the more
than 30-year-old facility is wearing out; and a near-unanimous
conviction that emergency evacuation plans wouldn't be
successful in the increasingly populous area. All that argues
for increased compensation, they told the committee, which
advises town officials.
''Today we know that Pilgrim is a site targeted by terrorists,"
resident Paul Martino said. ''I'm trying to make the best deal
that we should have made in 1972."
''It's a different world since 9/11," said Frank Albani.
Supporters of the plant, including several Pilgrim employees who
attended the session, said their own day-to-day experience and
professional expertise persuaded them of the plant's safety.
They said they would not bring their families to live near
Pilgrim if they were not convinced. It's a ''safe place to
work," said Plymouth resident Matt Briggs.
The exchange of views was tempered by the acknowledgment that
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is likely to approve Entergy's
license extension; the federal body charged with overseeing the
nuclear industry has never turned down a renewal request from
any plant.
But speakers argued that extending Pilgrim's license for 20
years (from 2012 to 2032) should come with greater obligations
on the part of the plant owner to protect the town and its
residents against disaster. If a major disaster happened at
Pilgrim, Martino predicted, Entergy would likely put its
Plymouth entity into bankruptcy. He called on officials to press
for assurances from Entergy that it would share residents'
liability.
Town Meeting member Richard Neely urged selectmen to set up a
committee to find an expert in nuclear regulations to negotiate
''the best deal for Plymouth."
Residents called on the company and town officials to
renegotiate Entergy's payment agreement with the town, with
industry deregulation having sharply reduced the plant's local
tax burden. Entergy is paying $12 million this year, but the
total is scheduled to drop to $1 million in 2008, leaving the
town to scramble to make up for the lost revenue. But some also
argued that the company should make additional payments to the
town to compensate for the burden imposed by storing nuclear
waste on the power plant site in Plymouth's Pine Hills section.
''Shouldn't the town be compensated for additional risks?" asked
Brian Sullivan, a retired aviation security expert who cited the
increased risk of terrorist attack.
Mary Lampert of Duxbury said compensation should be shared by
neighboring towns. ''You have to recognize the risk goes beyond
Plymouth," she said. Another resident proposed the federal
government buy insurance policies for every person living within
a 20-mile radius of the plant; the companies holding those
policies would then become strong advocates for safety.
While critics of relicensing said the area's population boom
since the 1970s presents a new challenge to emergency
evacuation, plant backers said the growth demonstrates the
plant's contributions to the community. Plymouth's population
was under 20,000 when Pilgrim was built in 1972. It's more than
55,000 today.
''People show they think it's safe just by being in the town, or
they would not have moved here," said Dave Landeche of Plymouth.
''They certainly knew the plant was here."
Teacher Michael Bastoni praised Entergy for supporting the
technology club at Plymouth North High School, a program he says
has encouraged many students to pursue careers in science.
Town Meeting member Ric Cone said the town should hold a
nonbinding referendum to ask voters whether they favor the
relicensing of Pilgrim.
Nuclear Matters Committee chairman Jeff Berger said the panel
was looking for input from residents and ''would take the
information to heart" in advising town officials. Plymouth has
the right to comment in the relicensing review process, with the
final decision made by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Robert Knox can be reached at rc.knox@gmail.com. [ /] ©
Copyright 2005 Globe Newspaper Company. More:
*****************************************************************
51 MPG Newspapers: Editors notes: Give both sides of debate a healthy dose of
skepticism
SouthofBoston.com 9 Long Pond Rd. Plymouth, MA 02360 (508)
746-5555 CONTACT US
By Nan Anastasia MPG Newspapers
It's no surprise at all that more than one newspaper quoted
Loring Tripp, out of more than 40 people who spoke Tuesday at a
local hearing on the Pilgrim nuclear power plant.
Tripp, a member of the local planning board, painted a vivid
picture in a few words, of a small town seduced by money and
power. He remembered being a student in Pilgrim spokesman David
Tarantino's class when the nuclear plant was under construction
and Tarantino taught at the high school. He remembered Tarantino
making a pitch to the class about the benefits of nuclear power,
and noted Tarantino is a former town selectman.
Highly quotable, intensely local material here, whether you
agree with Tripp's views or not. There's just one thing. The
numbers don't work. In 1972, the year the Pilgrim nuclear plant
began operating, Tripp was 6 years old.
It is true Tarantino was a local teacher before he went to work
for the state and, later, for Pilgrim. He taught social studies
at the high school and was elected to the board of selectmen in
the spring of 1971. I took his European history class the next
fall. At times, the class veered far from Europe or history, but
I don't remember now if we ever talked about the nuclear power
plant under construction a few miles away.
I definitely don't remember any 6-year-olds enrolled in social
studies classes at the high school as Pilgrim powered up the
reactor in the fall of 1972.
The devil is in the details here. There's definitely some truth
in Tripp's tale, a familiar truth for many people who grew up in
town. Local officials did throw their weight solidly behind the
plant, and flacks did visit local schools to tell Plymouth's
children about our friend the atom. A smiling man visited my
class at Nathaniel Morton School while it was still a middle
school. But it wasn't Tarantino, and Tripp probably hadn't
learned to walk yet.
Tripp says he realized after the hearing that something was
wrong with his dates. And, no, he didn't take one of Tarantino's
classes. He says what he remembers is Tarantino bringing some
speakers into the high school to speak about nuclear power to a
group of classes gathered in the lecture room upstairs, across
from the science labs.
Originally, Boston Edison planned to build more than one
Plymouth plant. It's possible Tripp was remembering a classroom
program about Pilgrim II. It wasn't cancelled until the early
1980s, when he was a high school student.
But that's not quite as good a story, and it's not how he told
it Tuesday.
He said he didn't plan to speak. He found the hearing on live
cable TV and decided to go on the spur of the moment. And high
school was a long time ago, and nobody's memory is perfect.
Even if I could, I wouldn't want to discourage Tripp from
speaking n and this isn't one of the times when I entirely
disagree with everything he said. He overstates his case that
Pilgrim is responsible for the town's troubles, but he wins
points for taking the time and trouble to participate.
It's not a good idea to blindly accept n or entirely discount n
anything said at that hearing, by anyone, whether it's a member
of the planning board, an Entergy employee, or a local
organization supported by Entergy donations.
The high school robotics coach spoke in favor of the nuclear
plant Tuesday, as did some of his students. Entergy and its
employees give money and time to the robotics program. It's good
public relations, more appropriate than those long ago pitches
to captive classes, and far more beneficial to students. It does
count for something on the balance sheet, as Plymouth weighs the
pluses and minuses. It also counts that Entergy employees are
confident enough to live and raise their own families next to
Pilgrim, even if someone nudged them into standing up and saying
so.
Truth is complicated and often hard to find and weigh, on both
sides of the debate.
e-mail nanastasia@mpgnews.com
MPG Newspapers, 9 Long Pond Rd., Plymouth, MA 02360
Telephone: (508) 746-5555
*****************************************************************
52 Columbus Telegram: NPPD to participate in Hydrogen Utility Group
Columbus, Nebraska
By JEAN WILSON/Telegram Assistant Editor
COLUMBUS - Looking ahead on how to generate more electricity, as
well as revenue - while being environmentally friendly - Nebraska
Public Power District's board of directors discussed several
alternative fuel strategies.
Approval was given Friday for NPPD to participate in the
Hydrogen Utility Group, which shares ideas on producing and
using hydrogen.
#8220This is an opportunity, said Bill Fehrman, NPPD president
and CEO.
Researchers are saying hydrogen-based fuel could some day be
inexpensive enough that commercial buildings or homes might have
their own power supplies.
The most common methods currently used to produce
hydrogen-powered fuel cells are expensive - separating it from
steam, extracting it from methanol or biomass such as corn, or
splitting water into oxygen and hydrogen.
A catalyst from nickel, aluminum and tin could be hundreds of
times less expensive, according to researchers at the University
of Wisconsin-Madison. But another important discovery would be
finding catalysts that are more active or which work at lower
temperatures.
Cooper Nuclear Station uses hydrogen as part of its Optimum Water
Chemistry System to protect the reactor vessel and its internal
structure from corrosion, according to NPPD Media Specialist
Jeanne Schieffer. Cooper generates its own supply of hydrogen by
using a process that extracts hydrogen from water. With this use,
NPPD has developed an understanding of the technology, but it
also wants to see what other avenues hydrogen may play in the
future of the nation's economy and, specifically, in the future
of the power industry, Schieffer said.
#8220One way in which to gain more experience and understanding
of how this fuel source will impact the future is to participate
in the research of alternative technologies that can reduce our
energy dependency and potentially reduce greenhouse gas
emissions, Schieffer said.
The board also approved a resolution Friday for NPPD's
participation in the Utility Plug-In Partners Program to support
research for affordable production of high-mileage plug-in
hybrid vehicles, which use batteries that are periodically
recharged by plugging into an electrical outlet. This could lead
to a reduction in oil imports, fuel costs and air emissions
while enhancing the economy, Schieffer said.
Fehrman also reported on another environmentally-friendly
program the utility is involved with - the Ainsworth wind
facility.
During the Nov. 27-28 blizzard, two of the turbines recorded
wind gusts of 114 miles per hour, while another turbine recorded
100 mph. Designed to withstand a 3-second wind gust of 130 miles
per hour with a half-inch layer of ice, the turbines proved
their durability, Fehrman said. The turbines additionally are
designed to automatically shut down at 52 mph. #8220Overall, the
system is running pretty well, Fehrman said.
Also, during blizzard, line crews and system operators restored
service within 48 hours to thousands of NPPD customers across
central and northeast Nebraska. Approval was given during
Friday's board meeting for the purchase of materials and
services to repair the estimated $1.5 million in damages caused
by the storm.
Copyright © 2005 Columbus Telegram
*****************************************************************
53 Ottawa Citizen: Ontario must spend $40B fixing nuclear plants, $30B more on wind
power, report declares
Energy shortage looms as coal phased out
TORONTO - A provincially appointed body is recommending Ontario
refurbish or replace its fleet of 12 nuclear power plants at a
cost of $30 billion to $40 billion, according to a report
released yesterday.
Registered 7-day subscribers to the Ottawa Citizen newspaper or
electronic edition will enjoy full access to all
OttawaCitizen.com content.
© 2005 CanWest Interactive, a division of . All rights
*****************************************************************
54 RGJ.com: Device that contains radioactive material lost in northwest Reno
Reno, Nevada, USA 775-788-6200 December 11, 2005
RGJ.com Weather Calendar Jobs Cars
RAY HAGARand
DAVID JACOBS
RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL -->
Posted: 12/10/2005
Whom to call
If found, anyone is advised not handle or manipulate the device,
police said. Police ask anyone who finds the device to call,
334-2121.
A moisture density gauge containing nuclear material was lost in
northwest Reno on Friday night when a driver inadvertently left
it on his tailgate, Reno police said.
Officials from Kleinfelder Inc., told police that the gauge was
lost when the driver was en route from the Somersett development
in northwest Reno to the corner of Seventh Street and McCarran
Boulevard when the gauge turned up missing, police said.
"The driver's route was checked a number of times by a number of
people, and the thing is still outstanding," said Reno police
Sgt. Dave Evans.
The "Troxler" moisture density gauge is about 21/2-feet in
length. It has a bright yellow base with two source rods rising
approximately 2 feet from the base. The item weighs 35 pounds,
according to police.
Moisture density gauges can contain small amounts of radioactive
material and are used to measure moisture and compaction in
soils, concrete, asphalt and other aggregates, according to a
report from the Maryland Department of the Environment. The
device is not a hazard to the public as long as the radioactive
material remains locked in the device, according to the Maryland
report.
The gauge emits very low levels of radioactive material when it
is unopened, Reno police said. When activated, the device emits
a greater level of radioactive material, but the levels are
still considered very low and are not lethal, according to a
police report.
If it were somehow activated, "you could get a dose equivalent
to a number of X-rays," said Daniel Kammen, a professor of
nuclear engineering and director of the Renewable and
Appropriate Energy Laboratory at the University of California,
Berkeley.
"It should not prove fatal to anyone, no matter what they did,"
he said by telephone at press time Friday. "It should not prove
a serious health risk. But it is a little bit alarming because
no one wants to get the equivalent of a number of X-rays."
The situation "really depends" on what the device is being used
for, Kammen said.
"If the employee was there with it, it presumably was not in the
'on' configuration," he said.
"The worst case you can think of is that it was set up to do
some testing, and for some reason was abandoned. It doesn't make
any sense why that would happen," Kammen said.
"That would be a case where someone could happen upon it and
basically sit with their rear end on top of it. They could get a
dose that is not good."
"It shouldn't have been left around," Kammen said. "It is a
little bit odd for one to be left around. There's not a lot of
them sitting around to be left around. It's certainly not a good
thing."
Attempts to reach Kleinfelder on Friday night were not
successful. A message was left for the company.
Reno Gazette-Journal
*****************************************************************
55 WorldNetDaily: Nuclear terrorism
SATURDAY DECEMBER 10 2005
[Supercritical Thoughts] [Gordon Prather]
Posted: December 10, 2005
© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com
The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United
States – which was required, inter alia, to recommend actions
the federal government should take to prevent future attacks –
issued its final report18 months ago.
Its members have now issued an ad hoc "report card" on the
actions thus far taken on the commission's recommendations:
In the report card we issue today, our purpose is not to praise
or to criticize. Our purpose is to be constructive – to point
out those areas where attention and improvement are still
needed.
First, the risk-based allocation of homeland security funding.
It should be obvious that our defenses should be strongest where
the enemy intends to strike – and where we are most vulnerable.
The first responders to any attack will be local police,
firefighters and emergency medical technicians. They are a
crucial part of our national defense. Therefore, the Commission
recommended that federal grants to first responders be
distributed based on an impartial assessment of risk and
vulnerability.
However, the current formula for allocating these grants has no
risk assessments or benchmarks to guide this spending.
One city used its homeland security money for air-conditioned
garbage trucks.
One used it to buy Kevlar body armor for dogs.
These are not the priorities of a nation under threat.
Indeed, they are not.
What should they be?
Almost every threat assessment made over the past 15 years has
concluded that the most serious threat would involve terrorists
getting their hands on a nuclear weapon.
In the fall of 1991, Soviet officials visited the United States
to request financial and technical assistance in the
dismantlement of excess Soviet nukes and the peaceful
disposition of fissile material recovered.
A few weeks later, the Soviet Union having disintegrated,
then-President Bush signed into law the Soviet Nuclear Threat
Reduction Act (usually referred to thereafter as the Nunn-Lugar
Act) providing up to $400 million in U.S. aid to assist the
Russians securely and safely transport and store, dismantle and
peacefully dispose of the excess Soviet nukes.
Although most of the billions of Nunn-Lugar funds that have been
appropriated during the past 15 years have been spent by the
Pentagon on things that had nothing whatever to do with reducing
the nuke threat, the Russians have nevertheless managed to
prevent terrorists from getting their hands on a nuke or the
makings, thereof.
After Pakistan tested several "Islamic" bombs in 1998 –
demonstrating to the world that they had a relatively
sophisticated nuclear weapons production capability – the most
obvious source for terrorists getting a nuke or the makings,
thereof, became Pakistan.
However, in his 2002 State of the Union address, President Bush
had nothing to say about Pakistan, but had this to say about the
terrorist "threat" posed by Iraq, Iran and North Korea:
States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an
axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By
seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave
and growing danger.
They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the
means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or
attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases,
the price of indifference would be catastrophic.
In his 2003 State of the Union address, again nothing about
Pakistan. Instead, Bush focused in on the terrorist "threat"
posed by Saddam Hussein:
Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications and
statements by people now in custody reveal that Saddam Hussein
aids and protects terrorists, including members of al-Qaida.
Secretly, and without fingerprints, he could provide one of his
hidden weapons to terrorists, or help them develop their own.
Before September the 11th, many in the world believed that
Saddam Hussein could be contained. But chemical agents, lethal
viruses and shadowy terrorist networks are not easily contained.
Imagine those 19 hijackers with other weapons and other plans,
this time armed by Saddam Hussein. It would take one vial, one
canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of
horror like none we have ever known.
Well, now, after more than 2,000 of our servicemen have been
killed in Bush's war of aggression in Iraq, we know that
Saddam's vials, canisters and crates, were, indeed, "imaginary,"
and the allegations that Saddam aided and protected terrorists
were bald-faced lies.
So, in addressing the terrorist threat in his 2006 State of the
Union address, what will Bush focus on?
Well, you can bet it won't be Pakistani nukes.
Physicist James Gordon Prather has served as a policy
implementing official for national security-related technical
matters in the Federal Energy Agency, the Energy Research and
Development Administration, the Department of Energy, the Office
of the Secretary of Defense and the Department of the Army. Dr.
Prather also served as legislative assistant for national
security affairs to U.S. Sen. Henry Bellmon, R-Okla. -- ranking
member of the Senate Budget Committee and member of the Senate
Energy Committee and Appropriations Committee. Dr. Prather had
earlier worked as a nuclear weapons physicist at Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory in California and Sandia National
Laboratory in New Mexico.
© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com, Inc.
webmaster@worldnetdaily.com
*****************************************************************
56 Gainesville Sun: UF changes reactor security after ABC report
Gainesville.com | The | Gainesville, Fla.
By JACK STRIPLING
Sun staff writer
December 11. 2005 6:01AM
The story behind reactor security
+ ABC News reported that two undercover visitors with student
IDs were taken through three locked doors and permitted to tour
UF's nuclear reactor control room.
+ After ABC Primetime aired the story, which featured 25
universities, UF officials insisted their facility was
completely safe and up to standards set by the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission.
+ After a review of the segment, the NRC found that UF was in
compliance with the commission's standards, an NRC spokesman
said Friday.
+ After the ABC report, the commission sent letters to all
universities with reactors and asked them to "reverify" their
security plans and procedures, Eliot Brenner of the NRC said
Friday. UF complied with the request, he said.
month after a nationally televised investigative report
raised concerns about the safety of nuclear training reactors on
university campuses, the University of Florida has implemented
more stringent security standards at its nuclear facility, a UF
spokesman said Thursday.
After ABC Primetime aired the story, which featured 25
universities, UF officials insisted their facility was
completely safe and up to standards set by the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission.
"They're perfectly in line with the NRC guidelines," said Steve
Orlando, UF's associate director of News and Public Affairs.
"But if there's any perception in the public of an unsafe
situation, it needs to be addressed. (These changes) in part go
toward accomplishing that."
Orlando would not elaborate on the changes that have taken
place at the reactor in UF's Nuclear Science Building, citing
NRC guidelines that require universities to keep security
matters confidential.
ABC News reported that two undercover visitors with student IDs
were taken through three locked doors and permitted to tour UF's
nuclear reactor control room.
After a review of the segment, the NRC found that UF was in
compliance with the commission's standards, an NRC spokesman
said Friday.
"The University of Florida did not break any rules," said Eliot
Brenner, director of the NRC's Office of Public Affairs.
After the ABC report, the commission sent letters to all
universities with reactors and asked them to "reverify" their
security plans and procedures, Brenner said Friday. UF complied
with the request, Brenner said.
One university, which Brenner would not name, is still under
investigation.
"There is one instance where we are having discussions with a
university," he said, declining to elaborate on the source of
any concerns. "I cannot name it, but I will tell you it's not
the University of Florida."
Orlando took particular issue with a segment of ABC's report
which stated that UF and others were under NRC "investigation"
in light of the news program's reporting. But Brenner said the
NRC's inquiries in the last month could accurately be
characterized as an investigation.
"In the sense that we were checking what ABC reported on, you
could describe it as that," he said.
UF's nuclear reactor, surrounded by 50 tons of concrete, is
fueled by nearly 5 kilograms of enriched uranium and has a power
level of 100 kilowatts. UF's reactor is in the low- to midsize
range among some 40 active university research reactors.
University reactors were first constructed on campuses in 1953
as part of President Eisenhower's "Atoms for Peace" program.
UF's reactor was installed in 1959.
After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, NRC required all
universities to make confidential security upgrades. Brenner
said the NRC constantly re-accesses security measures.
"We continue to conclude that the security plans, procedures
and measures are adequate to protect public health and safety,"
he said. "But we will not hesitate to act if we conclude
additional security measures are appropriate."
When asked if UF might scrap its reactor program in light of
concerns, Orlando said, "That's absolutely not going to happen."
Sun staff writer Bob Arndorfer contributed to this report. Jack
Stripling can be reached at 374-5064.
© Copyright 2004, The Gainesville Sun, Reproduction without
*****************************************************************
57 Los Angeles Times: The air cargo security gap -
December 11, 2005
EDITORIAL
The air cargo security gap
SMALL SCISSORS AND NOVELTY tools can't blow a jumbo jet out of
the sky, but that doesn't stop them from keeping airport
screeners busy poking through passengers' carry-on bags. That's
why the Transportation Security Administration was right to
relax its rules barring certain sharp trinkets from passenger
flights, freeing up airport screeners to more thoroughly check
passengers for a far bigger threat to air safety: bombs.
Yet if TSA chief Kip Hawley, who announced the new rules Dec. 2,
is so concerned about explosives getting on board airplanes, he
should take a harder and long overdue look at their cargo holds.
More than four years have passed since Americans said "never
again" to a terrorist attack from the skies, but much of the
cargo on commercial flights still isn't checked for bombs. A
report last month from the Government Accountability Office
found that plans to fully implement a thorough cargo-screening
program are still largely on the drawing board and that
screening procedures have far too many holes.
About 23 billion pounds of cargo was sent by air across the
United States in 2004, roughly a quarter of which was stowed in
passenger airplanes. Screening it all would be enormously
expensive, so the TSA has decided to fully check only the
riskiest cargo. The trouble is, the agency still hasn't done
enough risk assessments to know what cargo it should be
screening, according to the GAO report.
Currently, the tightest security is reserved for cargo on
passenger jets, but even that screening is porous. Most cargo on
passenger flights must come from "known shippers" companies
that have a long business relationship with airlines. Even
there, the GAO report found, the program "may not provide
adequate assurance that shippers are trustworthy and that air
cargo transported on passenger aircraft is secure." (The GAO
report, for security reasons, did not elaborate on specific
weaknesses.)
The 9/11 attacks, and more recent attacks in Iraq by
insurgents, show how brazen and creative terrorists can be. In
2003, the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the
TSA, warned that Al Qaeda might hijack cargo planes and crash
them into nuclear power plants. That sounds farfetched, but it's
troubling that it's still so easy to sneak people or bombs into
a plane's cargo hold. Since air travel security was beefed up in
2001, several human stowaways have been found tucked away with
the cargo in planes.
After 9/11, Congress and the Bush administration took a hard
look at the lax security rules that allowed airlines to operate
smoothly but at passengers' peril. Air cargo safety is long
overdue for the same treatment.
Copyright 2005 Los Angeles Times
*****************************************************************
58 Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Mill will transform into pride of area |
ajc.com
By STACY SHELTON
Published on: 12/11/05
Savannah Camden County real estate broker Debra Maner had
learned to use sleight of hand when she drove clients past the
rusting paper mill, unavoidable on the edge of St. Marys'
historic downtown.
She would pull on her scarf, tug at her earrings or adjust the
radio.
"It's ugly," Maner said of what has been the coastal town's
working-class welcome mat since 1941. "You fiddle with something
to distract them."
But after this week's high-stakes auction of the bankrupt mill
and its assets, Maner and every other agent in town will be
highlighting the site and talking about the hotel, shops,
restaurants, homes and condominiums on the way.
The LandMar Group, a Florida-based developer affiliated with
Duke Energy, bid $36.5 million for the mill on the North River,
on about 750 acres. From the water's edge, there's a view across
the river and its tidal marshes to Point Peter and Florida's
Fernandina Beach. By land, it's a 15-minute walk to the dock
where visitors to Cumberland Island catch the ferry.
The company has not drawn up specific plans, but the theme will
be a waterfront village with a marina that looks like the rest
of downtown St. Marys' white-clapboard and brick buildings. As
many as 1,100 to 1,400 residential units could be built on the
750-acre site.
As Maner said, with that much money invested, "I don't see how
they could muck it up. ... From being a mill town, [St. Marys]
will be a tourist town."
One step in development
The coming transformation of an aging manufacturing plant to
high-priced residential development is the latest and most
striking rust-to-gold tale of Georgia's coast. From Savannah to
St. Marys, a storm of development is buffeting the shore,
tagging marshland views with million-dollar prices and whipping
up a buying frenzy among developers and retirement-bound baby
boomers.
Joe McDonough, a homebuilder and developer from St. Simons,
said, "Everybody's down here looking for property major
companies, New York Stock Exchange-type companies."
The Georgia coast looks good to developers mostly because
there's still a lot of room to build, especially in comparison
to its neighbors. It doesn't have the easy-to-reach miles of
beaches that made Florida and South Carolina desirable, but it
does have intercoastal waterways and undisturbed tidal marsh.
And a growing number of people want to live out their retirement
near the water. Hurricane dodgers also are ready to invest in
coastal property protected by undeveloped barrier islands.
"They are coming from all over the country, particularly out of
the Northeast, particularly out of the Atlanta market,"
McDonough said. "They're retirees and the baby boomers right on
the brink of retirement. They're just getting their affairs in
order and getting a piece of the dirt while it's still
available."
Looking to the future
St. Mary's dates back to the mid-1500s, when the Spanish, the
French and local native Americans formed a fishing village and
port at the mouth of the St. Mary's River. City leaders claim it
as America's second oldest city, and they take pride in the
historic downtown, a few-block gathering of shops, offices,
restaurants and inns.
But lately they've been focused on the future, a promise of
growth, growth and more growth.
Mayor-elect Rowland Esk-ridge Sr. said the population of 18,000
is expected to grow to 27,000 in ten years. Right now, about
3,000 homes are planned or under construction not counting what
will be built on the site of the old mill.
Eskridge and several other St. Mary's city council members who
attended this week's auction of Durango-Georgia Paper Company's
assets in a ballroom at the Westin Savannah Harbor Golf Resort
&Spa said the town is long past wishing the paper mill would
reopen.
At first, there were concerns about the tax losses and
unemployment rate, but local leaders said many of those who lost
their jobs got help from the state in job training and further
education. Many have found new jobs in the exploding
construction industry, and the $700,000 annual tax loss about
10 percent of the town's budget is recovering with the
increased value of real estate and a big new employer: Express
Scrips Inc., a prescription benefits call center that opened
last year and provides about 550 jobs. It has plans to expand by
100 jobs next year, said Bob Noble, executive director of the
Camden County Joint Development Authority.
City and county leaders now say the closing of the paper mill
which spewed ashes and a rotten-egg smell until it closed in
2002 was necessary for St. Marys to re-create itself as a
resort destination.
Eskridge said smoke from the mill stacks tended to blow toward
Cumberland Harbour, where lots, without homes, are now selling
for up to $1 million. The 1,014-acre gated community is being
developed by Atlanta-based Land Resource Companies.
High-stakes bids
Only a few paper companies were among the more than 200 groups
that expressed interest in the old paper mill and its assets,
which include 2,658 acres of inland forest land and a 13-mile
rail track, said Mitchell Kahn, president of Illinois-based
Hilco Real Estate, which marketed the mill for the creditors.
Most of the interest came from residential developers and
investors.
In the end, only three serious contenders bid on the property.
In addition to LandMar, the bidders were Carl "Chip" Drury III,
an Atlanta developer who is developing a golf course community
in Camden County called Laurel Island; and Cherokee St. Marys, a
partnership between Cherokee Investment Partners, a
redevelopment specialist, and East West Partners, a resort
developer.
LandMar won with a $36.5 million all-cash bid, payable over
three years with 8 percent interest. The trustees, or creditors
owed money by Durango, valued the bid at $42.1 million.
Other groups bought the timberland, which sold for about $2.8
million, and the paper mill's machines and other equipment,
which also sold for $2.8 million.
A controversy over the paper mill's water permit turned out to
be a nonstarter. No one bid on it.
Environmental groups howled earlier this year when the trustees
said they would auction the mill's state-issued water permit,
which allowed it to pump 40 million gallons of water a day. The
trustees set the permit's value at $250,000.
A federal bankruptcy judge in Brunswick will be asked to certify
the auction on Monday.
Cleanup costs a factor
The mill site will be LandMar's third community in St. Marys.
The company, based in Florida, acquired Osprey Cove, a gated
golf course community, and is developing Winding River, a
338-acre community of 570 planned homes. Half-acre waterfront
lots in Osprey Cove are selling in the range of $648,208 to
$785,250.
Jim Cullis, LandMar's regional manager, said 30 percent to 40
percent of their buyers come from Atlanta. Camden County, within
minutes of the Jacksonville airport but far enough away from
Florida's crowded coast, "is the new up and coming area for
active adults and retirees."
The auction also gave a hint as to the cost of cleaning up the
potentially contaminated site. Demolition costs alone could
reach $5 million. The state Environmental Protection Division
estimated it will cost $932,520 just to close the landfill on
the site. There are also two ponds holding black liquor, a
chemical byproduct of the messy paper-making process, as well as
radioactive materials, asbestos and corrosive materials on site.
LandMar should be able to use the state's brownfield
redevelopment program, started in 2002 to make industrial sites
more attractive by limiting buyers' liability.
"We all had mixed feelings when the plant shut down," Cullis
said. "On the other hand, the air's significantly cleaner. Our
sales have exploded since then."
© 2005 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution| Customer care|
*****************************************************************
59 Bradenton Herald: Official silence angers group
> Sunday, Dec 11, 2005 Local
Posted on Sat, Dec. 10, 2005
Fearing lawsuit, county puts end to Tallevast meetings
DONNA WRIGHT
Herald Staff Writer
TALLEVAST - Manatee County government has gone mum on Tallevast.
And Tallevast leaders are angered by the silence.
Recent e-mails asking for a meeting with county staff to discuss
Tallevast issues have not been answered, said Wanda Washington,
vice president of FOCUS, a citizens advocacy group fighting for
the preservation of the community threatened by a toxic plume.
The silence puzzled Washington because the bimonthly meetings
had been a tradition since early spring to keep communication
lines open.
The first e-mail was sent Nov. 17 to County Administrator Ernie
Padgett, Commissioner Donna Hayes, and Carol Clark and Michael
Wood from the planning department.
When no answer came, a second e-mail was sent Nov. 22,
Washington said.
The Herald was sent copies of both e-mails.
Padgett confirmed Friday that there had been no response to
Washington's request.
County attorneys, Padgett said, had instructed him to put an end
to the bimonthly meetings.
"They are concerned about the Tallevast attorneys pulling us
into a lawsuit," said Padgett. "They cautioned us about having
meetings or having people saying different things."
Instead, the attorneys advised all communication come from
Padgett's office.
The county's attorneys also gave the same advice to
commissioners, said Hayes, whose district includes Tallevast.
But nobody told FOCUS.
"I apologize if they have not been informed," Hayes said. "It
had been my understanding that Mr. Padgett would be advising
them."
But she wasn't sure if that task fell to Padgett or to County
Attorney Tedd Williams.
"It was an error on my part and I apologize," Hayes said. "I
assumed they were following up. It certainly was not
intentional."
The new policy, Washington said, shuts out Tallevast.
"How do we as citizens fit into this picture while they are
watching and waiting on whether they get pulled into the
lawsuit?"
Washington and 253 Tallevast residents have filed a negligence
complaint over a plume of toxic underground pollution now known
to cover more than 131 acres surrounding Tallevast. A second
suit was filed last month by a smaller group of residents.
The plume has been traced to the former Loral American Beryllium
Co. plant at 1600 Tallevast Road. The facility is now owned by
BECSD LLC and operated by WPI Sarasota.
Lockheed Martin Corp,. which bought out Loral in 1996, was the
owner of the plant when the contamination was found in 2000 and
is responsible for cleaning up the mess.
Although Lockheed told county and state officials about the
pollution in 2000, Tallevast residents did not learn about the
plume until late 2003. By then the toxins had poisoned private
drinking-water wells.
Both Tallevast suits name Lockheed Martin Corp., Loral Corp.,
BECSD, WPI Sarasota and Wire Pro Inc. as defendants.
County attorneys fear they may be pulled into the suit if
someone says something at one of the meetings that may implicate
the county, Padgett said.
Padgett said the new policy, which has been in development for
the past 30 days, does not mean communications have been shut
down between Tallevast leaders and his staff.
"It's just I will find out the answers for any questions that
the FOCUS group raises and get that information to whomever
asked the question," he said.
Padgett plans to call Washington on Monday to explain how the
policy works.
"In other words, they can do whatever they want," said
Washington. "We haven't had any communication with them. We have
issues we need to continue talking about."
Clarke and Woods of the planning department and attorney
Williams could not be reached late Friday.
HeraldToday.com
Go to HeraldToday.com for an archive of stories, maps and
documents about the Tallevast plume.
*****************************************************************
60 KRT Wire: DOD orders Army to find chemical weapon dumpsites
Sunday, Dec 11, 2005 Nation
Posted on Sat, Dec. 10, 2005
BY JOHN M.R. BULL
Daily Press (Newport News, Va.)
NEWPORT NEWS, Va. - The military is plowing through old records
to find any and all information on the Army's ocean dumping of
chemical weapons decades ago, a high priority effort to
determine where they all are located and what danger they pose
today.
The Army hopes to finish its records search by the end of March,
said Addison Davis, an assistant secretary of the Army.
"What we're conducting right now is probably the most
comprehensive search on records that has ever been done," he
said. "Our goal is to compile the best, most comprehensive,
up-to-date information possible."
An order from the highest levels of the Pentagon has gone out to
all branches of the military to search for all ocean dumping
records, not just of chemical weapons but of conventional
ordnance as well, Davis said.
The Army is most interested in discovering where it dumped all
its chemical weapons into the sea from World War I until 1970,
when the practice was halted.
Officials want to know exactly where they are located and what
type of chemical weapons as well as how many are in each
dumpsite.
Then the Army will be better able to assess the risk each site
poses to fishermen or the environment, Davis said.
The records search was prompted by a Daily Press investigation
published in October based on never-before released Army reports
covering 1944 to 1970 that revealed the military dumped at least
64 million pounds of chemical weapons into the ocean in dozens
of locations that virtually ring the country.
The dumpsites mostly containing mustard and nerve gases and some
radioactive waste are off the coastlines of at least 11 states.
Additional dumpsites are off the coasts of 16 other countries.
The sites were created when the U.S. Army dumped its overseas
stockpiles of chemical weapons at the close of World War II.
The Army knows where only half the dumpsites off the U.S. coast
are, because the known surviving records are vague and others
have been destroyed.
More dumpsites likely exist, because the Army only now is
reviewing chemical weapons dumping in the World War I era, when
it was common to throw the weapons over the side of ships in
relatively shallow water.
Some scientific evidence suggests the weapons may be slowly
leaking after decades of saltwater corrosion.
In the wake of the newspaper's investigation, the Army has begun
a military-wide records search which includes a review of ship
manifests, a look at historical nautical charts, and perusal of
old chemical weapons shipments kept at a variety of Army bases.
The Army also has collected scientific research on long-known
dumpsites overseas of chemical weapons. It briefed at least
eight federal lawmakers who demanded data about the dumping.
"We've tried to be very responsive in replying to questions on
the Hill," said Davis, a civilian near the top of the Army's
chain of command. "That I personally did the briefing sends a
signal of the importance I place on this."
The Army also has been busy researching the stories of
individuals who came forward to report health effects they said
are related to their participation in dumping operations long
ago.
Davis said the Army has learned that safety measures were taken
at the time to ensure that military personnel were not casually
exposed to chemical agents or radioactive waste.
Medical records of one former serviceman who helped dump
radioactive waste off the coast of Virginia in 1960 show that he
was exposed only to the equivalent of eight chest X-rays, Davis
said.
No new chemical weapons dumpsites have been identified since the
record search began at the end of October.
But if others are found, Davis promised that information would
be promptly released to Congress and the news media. He also
vowed to give Congress progress reports, as the paperwork search
continues and as discussions begin on what to do about the
weapons that were dumped.
There is no easy answer for handling the weapons, once all the
dumpsites are identified and their contents are catalogued.
Most, but not all, are in deep water far from shore, according
to Army reports completed in 1989 and 2001, and released to the
Daily Press this summer.
Some of the weapons may have released their deadly contents long
ago, causing an unknown environmental impact.
Others likely remain intact where they were dumped,
barnacle-encrusted and too unstable after all these years in the
ocean to haul up from the ocean floor.
Shells corrode at different rates, depending on their thickness
and the temperature of the water, and some may already be
leaking an extreme danger to any recovery effort.
A 2002 study by Norwegian scientists who studied chemical
weapons dumped off that country's coast by the U.S. or British
military after World War II revealed that some shells have
leaked. Others are slowly corroding, and some seem to be
undamaged, so far, by the saltwater.
Some scientists estimated the weapons pose a continuous risk of
leaking over the next 100 years.
"We believe it is highly unlikely any of this stuff is in danger
of washing up on shore," Davis said. "But we're putting a
full-court press on this issue."
*****************************************************************
61 Bradenton Herald: Chemical weapon dumping probed
| 12/11/2005 |
Army searching through records for site activity
JOHN M.R. BULL
Knight Ridder Tribune News Service
NEWPORT NEWS, Va. - The military is plowing through old records
to find any and all information on the Army's ocean dumping of
chemical weapons decades ago, a high priority effort to
determine where they all are located and what danger they pose
today.
The Army hopes to finish its records search by the end of March,
said Addison Davis, an assistant secretary of the Army.
"What we're conducting right now is probably the most
comprehensive search on records that has ever been done," he
said. "Our goal is to compile the best, most comprehensive,
up-to-date information possible."
An order from the highest levels of the Pentagon has gone out to
all branches of the military to search for all ocean dumping
records, not just of chemical weapons but of conventional
ordinance as well, Davis said.
Assessing risk
The Army is most interested in discovering where it dumped all
its chemical weapons into the sea from World War I until 1970,
when the practice was halted.
Officials want to know exactly where they are located and what
type of chemical weapons as well as how many are in each
dumpsite.
Then the Army will be better able to assess the risk each site
poses to fishermen or the environment, Davis said.
The records search was prompted by a Daily Press investigation
published in October based on never-before released Army reports
covering 1944 to 1970 that revealed the military dumped at least
64 million pounds of chemical weapons into the ocean in dozens
of locations that virtually ring the country.
The dumpsites mostly containing mustard and nerve gases and some
radioactive waste are off the coastlines of at least 11 states.
Additional dumpsites are off the coasts of 16 other countries.
The sites were created when the U.S. Army dumped its overseas
stockpiles of chemical weapons at the close of World War II.
The Army knows where only half the dumpsites off the U.S. coasts
are, because the known surviving records are vague and others
have been destroyed.
More dumpsites likely exist, because the Army only now is
reviewing chemical weapons dumping in the World War I era, when
it was common to throw the weapons over the side of ships in
relatively shallow water.
Some scientific evidence suggests the weapons may be slowly
leaking after decades of saltwater corrosion.
Search of records
In the wake of the newspaper's investigation, the Army has begun
a militarywide records search which includes a review of ship
manifests, a look at historical nautical charts, and perusal of
old chemical weapons shipments kept at a variety of Army bases.
The Army also has collected scientific research on long-known
dumpsites overseas of chemical weapons. It briefed at least
eight federal lawmakers who demanded data about the dumping.
"We've tried to be very responsive in replying to questions on
the Hill," said Davis, a civilian near the top of the Army's
chain of command. "That I personally did the briefing sends a
signal of the importance I place on this."
The Army also has been busy researching the stories of
individuals who came forward to report health effects they said
are related to their participation in dumping operations long
ago.
Davis said the Army has learned that safety measures were taken
at the time to ensure that military personnel were not casually
exposed to chemical agents or radioactive waste.
Medical records of one former serviceman who helped dump
radioactive waste off the coast of Virginia in 1960 show that he
was exposed only to the equivalent of eight chest X-rays, Davis
said.
No new chemical weapons dumpsites have been identified since the
record search began at the end of October.
But if others are found, Davis promised that information would
be promptly released to Congress and the news media. He also
vowed to give Congress progress reports, as the paperwork search
continues and as discussions begin on what to do about the
weapons that were dumped.
Waiting for a resolution
There is no easy answer for handling the weapons, once all the
dumpsites are identified and their contents are cataloged.
Most, but not all, are in deep water far from shore, according
to Army reports completed in 1989 and 2001, and released to the
Daily Press this summer.
Some of the weapons may have released their deadly contents long
ago, causing an unknown environmental impact.
Others likely remain intact where they were dumped,
barnacle-encrusted and too unstable after all these years in the
ocean to haul up from the ocean floor.
(EDITORS: STORY CAN END HERE)
Shells corrode at different rates, depending on their thickness
and the temperature of the water, and some may already be
leaking an extreme danger to any recovery effort.
A 2002 study by Norwegian scientists who studied chemical
weapons dumped off that country's coast by the U.S. or British
military after World War II revealed that some shells have
leaked. Others are slowly corroding, and some seem to be
undamaged, so far, by the saltwater.
Some scientists estimated the weapons pose a continuous risk of
leaking over the next 100 years.
"We believe it is highly unlikely any of this stuff is in danger
of washing up on shore," Davis said. "But we're putting a
full-court press on this issue."
*****************************************************************
62 Bradenton Herald: Tallevast roots run deep
12/11/2005 |
DONNA WRIGHT
Herald Staff Writer
TALLEVAST - To Lockheed Martin Corp., Tallevast is a liability,
a community on top of a plume of underground pollution that the
defense giant is obligated to clean up.
To some real estate and business leaders, the tiny, historic and
primarily black community is a roadblock to industrial
expansion, occupying land that could be developed to expand a
growing hub of airport commerce.
But to the residents who have lived along Tallevast Road for
almost a century, the small grid of streets running north and
south is home - a home they do not want to leave, but a place
where many are afraid to stay.
Ties run deep in Tallevast, through interlocking generations of
a handful of families who came to southern Manatee County to
slash the pines and draw the gum in turpentine camps, or work
the fields to grow sugarcane, celery and strawberries.
To Helen Heathington, who traces her roots back to one of the
original families, the Jeffersons, Tallevast is her past, her
present and her future - despite the poisons in her backyard
that leaked from a former beryllium plant just down the street
from her house.
While many families have demanded relocation to protect their
health and investment in their properties, Heathington wants to
stay, even though she knows the toxic plume stretches beyond
Tallevast and the boundaries have not yet been found.
"What's the use?" says Heathington, who was one of Manatee
County's first black registered nurses. "The damage has already
been done. I don't want to leave my home."
The Rev. Willie Shaw, associate pastor of Mt. Tabor Missionary
Baptist Church, shares Heathington's passion for her hometown -
a passion that he says goes beyond financial investment, even
beyond family ties to the very land itself.
It was land that, in the early part of the 20th century, housed
blacks who worked in the turpentine camps and harvested celery
and cane in the fields, a village avoided by most white folks
who lived nearby, sequestered by the confines of segregation.
Those confines were often specific.
Shaw carries in his briefcase a copy of an old deed that clearly
states land south of the Old Bradenton Road near the dog track
could never pass to anyone who had any degree of colored blood.
Hemmed in by segregation that dictated black workers live in
quarters and follow the rules of the turpentine camp boss, those
early families of Tallevast workers clung together.
They were their brothers' - and sisters' - keepers. A tradition,
Heathington says, that continues to define the community today.
"Nobody ever goes hungry in Tallevast," she says. "Nobody's in
need, because we always help each other out."
While Shaw now lives in Sarasota, he still considers Tallevast
home, tracing his roots back to the Colsons, another early
family.
"There is this connection to the land in Tallevast that is
almost biblical," Shaw says. "It's Mosaic how the land passes
from one generation to the next."
Every Sunday when Heathington goes to Mt. Tabor Missionary
Baptist Church, she renews that connection as she passes the
portrait of her grandmother, Sister Josephine Jefferson, a
founding member.
During Mt. Tabor's early days, there was no choir, no organ or
piano. But the congregation still reveled in the gospel spirit,
accompanied by Brother Vander Jefferson and Brother Shelton
Shaw, playing harmonicas and slapping their legs, while Sister
Jefferson blew air through her fists to produce a melody, says
church historian Mary Ward.
Today, three choirs take turns leading the worship services,
their powerful voices energizing the congregation with strength
and courage in times of trouble.
The Rev. Kenneth Flemming, another Mt. Tabor associate pastor,
is married to Heathington's cousin, Lilly Jefferson Flemming.
In a sermon three weeks ago, Flemming gripped the pulpit and
raised his face heavenward, chanting with a melodious rhythm
that rocked his flock to his beat.
"We live in difficult times - Amen! - but not too difficult for
you, oh God! For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but
against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of
the darkness of this world, against spiritual weakness in high
places."
Since its founding in 1909, Mt. Tabor has been the center of
Tallevast, its heart and its soul.
Flemming, who is blind, turned sightless eyes toward his flock.
"God," he thundered," is our leaning post. . . you may not see
him, but never forget he is by your side."
Mt. Tabor has become command central, the rallying point where
Tallevast residents gather to keep their community together
despite the 131-acre plume that threatens their lives and homes.
The beginnings
Before there was Tallevast, or a beryllium company or a plume of
toxic waste, there was a marsh - 800 acres of inhospitable land
covered with hammocks of pine and islands of saw grass floating
among ponds and lakes.
The only way across was by boat when Dr. Francis Moore Pearce,
an English physician and adventurer who owned huge plantations
in British Honduras, arrived in Manatee at the turn of the 20th
century, looking for his next fortune.
He found his opportunity in the rich soil - "the black gold" -
beneath the waters and swamps that drained the land from Braden
River on the north to Whitaker Bayou on the south.
Pearce bought land and dug a canal - a good share of it with his
own hands - to drain the marsh so he could plant sugar cane and
grow cattle.
Three-quarters of a mile north of what is now Tallevast Road, he
built a small community for whites called New Pearce.
To the south, he built cabins, known as the quarters, for black
workers he brought from British Honduras.
Next to the Pearce plantation, the Tallevast brothers, J.H. and
Lide, set up a turpentine camp in October 1902, according to the
newspaper Manatee River Journal. The camp was near Bowles Creek,
seven miles from Bradenton and just east of the present-day
village of Tallevast.
The Tallevasts were one of the pioneering families who helped
lay the foundation for the metropolis destined to become Manatee
County. Their friends and neighbors make up the social register
of those early days - the Murphys, the Tabors, the Gaars, the
Youngs, the Gates, the Rawls and others, many of whom lived and
farmed the rural land.
The Tallevast brothers' naval store - the name given to
turpentine camps and stills that supplied the resin to seal and
caulk the Navy's sailing ships - created jobs that drew black
families from as far as Georgia and the Carolinas.
J.H. Tallevast married Frances Louise Murphy, daughter of the
early pioneering family who had cattle ranches and turpentine
camps in Myakka as well as the Tallevast area.
Manatee County Library archives include an interview from the
1970s with Elizabeth (Libby) Tallevast Mitchell - the daughter
of J.H. and Francis - who was born near Tallevast in 1905 in
what is now Whitfield Estates. She described the land that would
become Tallevast as a wilderness. "The pine trees were many,
many years old and it was just like a thicket that they were
grown in," Mitchell said. "A snake or a rabbit could hardly run
through it. It was so thick."
She remembered how the raw turpentine was loaded into barrels
and shipped to Jacksonville on the spur railway that connected
to the Seaboard line.
"The camp had to have a name, so they put up a little building
and they called it Tallevast. . . for my father and uncle who
were turpentining the property at the time."
Mitchell described slashing the pine to get the gum to distill
into resin.
"One slash one way and one slash the other way and it formed a
little cup and they would put in a tin cup in the center. . .
the collecting was done, of course, by Negro help."
She recounted her mother's fascination and fear of the black
workers. "She could hear them near the area where their home
was. They would be chanting. She said it was really pretty to
hear that chanting, in those trees. But she was frightened
there."
Mitchell remembered a "Mr. J. Stevens" taking over the
turpentine business some years later, after it fell on hard
times.
Churches frame community
The people of Tallevast who worked in the sugar, turpentine or
cattle industries each had their own gardens and their own
livestock pens, according to The Herald archives. At its height,
the little village counted more than 300 families as residents.
Life centered around the church.
Mt. Tabor was founded in 1909. At the time, Tallevast also had a
sawmill, as well as farms that employed a small band of black
pioneers, many of them sons and daughters of former slaves, Mary
Ward wrote in her church history.
The first church was housed near the Seaboard spur that carried
mill products and produce to other markets.
The name was taken from Mt. Tabor in Galilee, the site of the
transfiguration of Jesus. The choice, wrote Ward, "denotes a
place where we can find the substance for inner change for
uplifting one's spiritual self."
That definition holds true today, as the community battles
circumstances that threaten to tear it apart.
By the 1920s, a larger church was constructed where Dr. Billy
Ward's dentist office now stands.
In keeping with the times, the congregation cleared the land and
made the pews, tables and pulpit furnishings, Ward wrote.
Among those early builders were members of the core families of
present-day Tallevast - Brother Ed Willis and the Riley
brothers, Deacon Ulysses Ward and Brother Jeremiah Williams.
Sister Irene Pinkney organized the youth department.
The first choir was organized in 1950. Deacon Fred Bryant, a
member of that original choir, still sings today.
Baptisms were performed in the pond on Walter Schmid's farm
until the present-day church was built in 1955.
Bryant Chapel Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, founded in
1925 by Brother Eli Bryant, sat on the other side of the
railroad tracks.
Like religious bookends, the two churches defined and bolstered
the thriving village.
It was the same J. Stevens who bought out the Tallevast brothers
who gave Eli Bryant an old framed house on what is now known as
18th Street to have worship services.
The Bryants hailed from Jasper in Hamilton County. The first to
arrive in Manatee County was Thomas, who moved to Tallevast in
1923. Eli followed after the death of his wife.
Like the Jeffersons and the Wards, the Bryants form a strong
branch of the Tallevast extended family tree.
Thomas Bryant married Addie Holmes. Together they had eight
children: Louise, James, Carter, Omero, Ponzy, Bernice, Thomas
Jr. and Cornelius.
Walter Bryant, another brother, married Mary Morgan and had
seven sons: Arthur, Walter Jr., Harnell, Fred, Carver, Ulysses
and Howard.
Arthur Bryant and his wife Ruth opened a grocery store in 1945
that was destined to become the cornerstone of Tallevast. The
store was as famous for its barbecue ribs and sausage sandwiches
as the family was for its strong work ethic that allowed all of
their children to complete college.
That ethic has been the backbone of Tallevast over the years.
Today the descendents of those early families who worked the
fields and slashed the pines are nurses, doctors, teachers,
computer programmers, machinists, scientists and professionals.
But when they get together, it doesn't take long for them to
travel back to their roots.
And the stories flow.
Like the one Clarence Byers tells of the day Salvan "Judge"
Gilmore bought the big shiny Ford with the chrome bumpers. It
was the slickest, fastest car in Tallevast back in the 1930s,
and it glided over the dirt roads as if they were glass.
Those were happy days, says Patricia Simmons, recalling big
gardens of sweet potatoes, greens and vegetables in the yards of
most houses.
Simmons and her playmates liked to run in the backdraft of wind
created by the planes landing at Sarasota/Bradenton airport.
Often, she says, the air was filled with a white dust from the
old beryllium plant.
"It looked," she recalls, "like snow."
Then there was Fred S. Perry, who ran the train station
alongside the Seaboard Air Line railway. Perry was postmaster,
train station manager and a grocer.
Wanda Washington remembers how Perry would switch service
windows and hats depending on whether his customer wanted to buy
a train ticket, mail a letter or purchase a pound of flour.
Perry, who was white, was also a leader in the community,
according to Helen Heathington.
It was Perry, says Heathington, who donated an old delivery van
to take black children to school in the 1950s. Back then the
school bus that traveled Tallevast Road picked up only the white
children. "It seemed every Friday, that old van would break
down," says Heathington, "and the kids on the white bus would
cheer and laugh when they rode by us."
Even as late as the 1960s, blacks who wanted to go to community
college had to travel to Pinellas County, says Willie Shaw, who
graduated from a community college in St. Petersburg.
Integration brought the school buses to Tallevast and expanded
opportunities for Tallevast children.
But what is remarkable is how so many residents of Tallevast
moved ahead despite the racial barriers.
"We were taught as children how to survive," Heathington says.
"We were taught to look the other way. I felt like I knew a
secret they didn't know - the differences whites saw were based
upon their own ignorance."
Battle for survival
Tallevast families have fought for decades to preserve their
hometown against an ever-widening ring of industry and
commercial development.
Now they fight another ever-widening ring - the plume of
underground pollution stemming from the former Loral American
Beryllium Co. where so many of them once worked as top-flight
machinists making parts for nuclear weapons and reactors, as
well as NASA satellites and even the Hubble telescope.
When Visioneering, the forerunner of American Beryllium Co.,
opened in early 1950, many Tallevast residents cheered its
arrival.
When the company was bought out by Loral, the tiny village
thought the big defense company would help Tallevast grow by
providing high-paying jobs in a clean industry on the forefront
of the Cold War.
They believed themselves to be the Cold War warriors whose
contributions were vital to protecting freedom.
But in recent years, as the numbers of cancers and diseases
multiplied, they began to suspect that something in their
community was making them sick.
The signs are many: Charley Ziegler's deep cough; the strange
gray growth covering most of Beverly Bradley's left hand, her
shoulder and now spreading on her leg; the high number of
miscarriages, the numerous cancers and neurological conditions
that plague children as well as adults.
"We didn't have a clue," says Norris Bryant, who was one of the
Loral workers who used highly toxic solvents and degreasers
daily without the protection of gloves or masks.
Bitter and mistrustful, Tallevast leaders feel they have been
misled by those who should have been protecting them.
What was hardest of all, the news of the plume, came just as
leaders thought they had found a new beginning for Tallevast.
In the summer of 2003, county planners held an "Imagine Manatee"
workshop for Tallevast residents. Leaders of the countywide
visioning campaign asked Tallevast residents to dream - and to
dream big.
"We took them at their word," says Laura Ward, president of
Family Oriented Community United Strong, or FOCUS, an advocacy
group that grew out of the Imagine Manatee process.
They planned sidewalks, streetlamps, landscape projects, a
larger community center, a place where people would want to
live, worship, raise families - a thriving community built upon
the strong traditions passed down by past generations.
Then, within months, residents watched the drilling rigs and
teams of investigators move into their backyards.
They finally learned that Loral had left something behind - the
broken sump that had leaked toxic solvents, degreasers and
chemicals into the soil and groundwater.
Tallevast families learned that Lockheed had reported the
pollution to county and state authorities three years before but
said nothing to them. Lockheed Martin, which bought out Loral in
1996, is responsible for cleaning up the mess because it owned
the plant when the contamination was found.
In 2004, tests confirmed the poisons had infiltrated private
drinking water and irrigation wells.
Trust was broken, a trust government leaders and Lockheed now
struggle to mend. But their efforts often are met with deep
skepticism as the plume maps continue to grow, and little
progress is made in either moving the residents to safety or
removing the threat from their community.
But the people of Tallevast have not given up.
They have not been worn down.
With each setback, their resolve strengthens.
With each report, their knowledge deepens.
Charts and maps of the substrata of Florida soil now fill the
church hall alongside hymnals and choir robes.
And each Sunday the faithful come to renew their faith, so they
can pick up the fight again on Monday.
How far the plume may have spread is still a mystery, but one
thing is certain:
The people of Tallevast will keep coming to Mt. Tabor until the
answers are found.
They have to.
As Heathington says: "It's my home."
Donna Wright, health and social services reporter, can be reached
at 745-7049 or at .
*****************************************************************
63 Charlotte Observer: State of the environment
North Carolina's most urgent environmental challenge
Posted on Sun, Dec. 11, 2005
JACK BETTS
jbetts@charlotteobserver.com
Not long ago, Environmental Defense wrote about Caroline Tyler,
born in Charlotte in 2001, in an update on climate change.
"When she was one year old, she took her first trip to the Outer
Banks, where her mom and dad helped her build sand castles and
chase crabs," the report by the nonprofit, science-based
organization said. "When Caroline turns 30, the beaches she
visited with her family may very well have disappeared. That's
because sea level is likely to rise by about six inches by 2030,
destroying much of the coast we know now. By the time Caroline's
grandchildren are grown, sea level in North Carolina is expected
to have risen by 19 inches."
If these and similar projections from coastal geologists,
meteorologists and other scientific experts are even remotely
accurate, North Carolina is in for significant change within our
lifetimes -- all related to global climate change. And once
again, climate change tops the list of the Observer's annual
assessment of North Carolina's environment.
The eastern face of the state -- battered by increasingly
intense storms, ongoing pounding by tides and currents, and
rising sea levels related to climate change -- will break up in
spots we have long taken for granted. One estimate says 770
square miles of the coast -- about the size of the Great Smoky
Mountains National Park -- could submerge.
Agriculture and forestry faces changes just as dramatic in what
can be grown and where. Air quality may worsen as temperatures
rise, and the health of many citizens could decline. Some will
die of heat stroke.
That's why the N.C. General Assembly created a global warming
commission to assess the likely impact of dramatic climate
change on North Carolina. Among its missions is figuring out how
North Carolina should respond. Environmental Defense, among
others, has suggested a series of strategies the state should
pursue to limit the harmful impact and prepare its residents to
make some money off the changes in store.
These are among the reasons the Observer's editorial board ranks
climate change as the state's most pressing challenge in its
10th annual assessment of North Carolina's environment. The list
changes each year as new problems arise and old ones ameliorate.
This year, air quality drops out of the top 10 problems because
there were fewer bad air days than in years; scientists and
regulators think one reason for fewer problems is that controls
on smokestack pollution have begun to take effect.
Each of these annual assessments is subjective, not scientific.
Anyone who spends time pondering the subject could come up with
a different set of challenges. That's what the Observer aims to
do each year -- promote debate and focus thoughtful attention on
what steps the state ought to take in dealing with North
Carolina's top environmental challenges. The others:
2. Water
The online North Carolina Atlas notes a curious circumstance:
While there is no discernible trend in annual rainfall, writes
Peter Robinson, "the consistent annual totals mask an important
change: summers have been getting drier, while falls have been
getting wetter. As a consequence, North Carolinians tend to have
less water available for their use than they did 100 years
ago."The recent droughts in the Piedmont tend to confirm what
many have long expected: a future with insufficient water in
some areas as the state continues its dramatic urbanization.
Raleigh, the state's second-largest city, has problems with one
of its key reservoirs, Falls Lake, which supplies water to at
least eight other Wake County towns. For the past month or more,
the lake has been well below normal level, forcing Raleigh to
think about asking for an interbasin transfer from Kerr Lake on
the Roanoke River near the Virginia border. Concord and
Kannapolis have sought permission to drain some 38 million
gallons a day from the Catawba River in another interbasin
transfer.
Worries about water quality continue to mount. Storm runoff,
nutrients and sediment remain a top concern. The problem, says
Bill Holman of the N.C. Clean Water Management Trust Fund, is
that development is overwhelming the ability of regulators to
keep pollution out of water supplies. The state has taken steps
to preserve water quality, he writes in an upcoming issue of
Warren Wilson College's journal "Heartstone," but "we're losing
the war to protect water quality and the environment in North
Carolina and America. The rapid pace of development is
transforming our landscape."
3. Inappropriate growth
Rapid growth and inappropriate development embody every
significant environmental problem North Carolina faces and has
been near the top of this list for 10 years. Residential growth
consumes farmland, green space and forests, putting new strains
on air quality and water quality.
Marion Cowell, retired vice president of First Union Corp. and a
member of the state Board of Transportation, takes pride in the
dynamic growth that has come to Charlotte.
"But I've also become concerned that air pollution, along with
traffic congestion, sprawling low-density development and
related quality-of-life concerns, could interfere with our
future prosperity," he wrote in the forward to a Southern
Environmental Law Center report about air quality in Charlotte.
The fast pace of development is forcing a rethinking about
zoning controls in mountain counties that long resisted
government regulation of lands. But even in counties with zoning
plans, surging population has led to inappropriate development.
Growth and development has even threatened places where no one
ever imagined overdevelopment. Because of residential
encroachment around a jet base near Norfolk, the Pentagon wants
to put a $186 million practice landing field next to the Pocosin
Lakes National Wildlife Refuge, winter home to hundreds of
thousands of large tundra swans and snow geese. Defenders of
Wildlife, a national conservation group, calls the Pocosin Lakes
refuge one of the nation's 10-most endangered.
4. Coastal overdevelopment
In 1994 Gov. Jim Hunt appointed a special commission to examine
North Carolina's landmark 20-year-old Coastal Area Management
Act and make recommendations for the future. But a growth surge
in coastal counties has caused problems."Population growth is
exploding, and the land use planning program for the coast is
totally broken," says Todd Miller, founder and executive
director of the N.C. Coastal Federation. "It's probably time to
do away with this program" and replace it with a system that
gives incentives only to counties that enforce their plans.
Michelle Duval, a scientist with Environmental Defense, calls it
" `death by a thousand cuts' of our diverse coastal economies --
the working waterfronts that used to define the N.C. coast.
Unfortunately, as land values increase and the McMansion
economic model expands, this diversity is lost. The very people
who depend on waterfront availability for their economic
survival can no longer afford that access."
5. Energy
Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast -- and brought to
North Carolina a vivid reminder of the absence of adequate,
sustainable energy sources. Molly Diggins, state director for
the N.C. chapter of the Sierra Club, ranks energy as North
Carolina's top problem.
"How North Carolina will meet its escalating energy needs at an
affordable cost will dominate all other debate affecting the
environment in 2006 and beyond," she said.
While utilities are interested in building more nuclear plants,
they involve both significant costs and environmental risks.
Pressure grows for the state to rescind its official opposition
to offshore natural gas exploration. Michael Short, senior
policy analyst at Environmental Defense, believes North Carolina
must make"huge investments in energy efficiencies," including
more incentives to use advanced technologies such as hybrid
cars.
6. Fish and shellfish depletion
While some fish stocks have made admirable recoveries in N.C.
waters, others have declined in alarming ways. Observer outdoor
writer Jack Horan reported in October on the virtual free-fall
in river herring, once a staple of the Carolina coastal diet in
late winter: "The silvery fish have become so depleted that, for
the past four years, catches have failed to reach a quota
limit." Biologists recommended a moratorium on all fishing, but
the state Marine Fisheries commission rejected it.State
officials also remain concerned about the stocks of southern
flounder, spiny dogfish, Atlantic sturgeon, tautog and weakfish,
all listed as "overfished" by the Division of Marine Fisheries.
The division also lists oysters, bay scallops and blue crabs as
species of "concern" because of low catches.
7. Waste disposal
A 1991 law sought solid waste reduction by 40 percent by 2001,
but population growth has increased the amount going into
landfills by more than 18 percent, the Department of Environment
and Natural Resources said in March.
At the same time, the state might begin importing garbage in
landfills proposed for sparsely populated areas of eastern North
Carolina. The Sierra Club's Molly Diggins says these "massive
new landfills in sensitive areas" are a distinct environmental
threat.
Meanwhile, the state continues to search for solutions to
large-scale hog farm waste, typically held in open lagoons that
can spill over into the state's waterways before it is sprayed
onto nearby fields. Researchers have identified promising
technologies to replace lagoons, but the state appears to still
be years away from making a transition.
8. Loss of scenic landscape
Just as city folk longing for a place in the hills have bought
cottages clinging to mountainsides that once were part of the
uncluttered view along the Blue Ridge Parkway, so have thousands
more bought up the shoreline along the Intracoastal Waterway and
built out-of-scale mansions to replace the modest fish camps and
clapboard cottages that once dotted the coastal area inside the
Outer Banks.Even in the urbanized areas of the west, Piedmont
and the east, the loss of natural areas to upscale residential
developments has changed what we North Carolinians see from our
windows. Litter accumulates in startling volume along our
highways, costing the state millions of dollars in collection
costs and providing volunteers with more work than they can keep
up with in many areas. Utility poles and wires mar the
viewscape, too. Some urban areas have launched plans to replace
overhead wires and traffic signals with buried utilities and
less-obtrusive signs featuring fiberglass poles and efficient
LED lighting, but the job has barely begun.
9. Ecosystem management
Environmental leaders have been thinking about environmental
protection in a new way. Dave McNaught, senior policy analyst
for Environmental Defense, puts it like this: "The frame of
public discourse about matters environmental is consistently
flawed" because it fails to consider long-term implications of
decisions and doesn't recognize the "inherent interdependence of
conservation and development."
Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources Bill Ross hopes
to kindle public interest in rethinking why we want to protect
the environment, along the lines of Gretchen Daily and Katherine
Ellison's 2002 book "The New Economy of Nature."
"We still think of conservation basically as something to do for
moral or aesthetic reasons -- not for survival and certainly not
for profit," they wrote. "Nevertheless, the record clearly shows
that conservation can't succeed by charity alone. It has a
fighting chance, however, with well-designed appeals to
self-interest."
10. Loss of natural areas
North Carolina has more than 17 million acres of forests --
fourth-highest in the nation -- and large stands of trees in
national and state forests, parks and wildlife reserves. But
once the area was part of a nearly unbroken canopy of forestland
that extended from the coast to the Mississippi River.
The huge stands of hardwoods and regal longleaf pines are now a
small fraction of what they once were. That's why many worry
about the Bush administration's efforts in 2005 to open some
national forests to logging in roadless areas, including in the
Pisgah and Nantahala national forests in North Carolina.
In a state where development has gobbled up an average of
100,000 acres of forested lands and natural areas per year,
recent legislation may make it harder for local governments to
preserve land at a time the state's population continues to grow
-- and consume more natural areas.
*****************************************************************
64 Deseret News: Don't let up on nuke fight
[deseretnews.com]
Saturday, December 10, 2005
Deseret Morning News editorial
The state's roller coaster ride against a nuclear waste dump on
the Goshute Reservation has taken some wild turns lately and
suddenly started to slow down. However, it is unclear whether
this is just a temporary stop to let a couple of people off. For
that reason, the state and its congressional delegation can't
afford to take chances. They must continue the fight.
Sen. Orrin Hatch announced this week that two of the six
investors in Private Fuel Storage, the consortium that planned
to ship high-level nuclear waste to Utah, have decided to back
off. One, Xcel Energy, has put a hold on its investment. The
other, Southern Co., completely pulled out.
Hatch suggested this marks the end to the PFS saga in
Utah's western desert. But that seems a bit premature. It was
indeed welcome news, but these types of problems don't disappear
so easily, especially in a nation chock full of nuclear waste.
As a PFS spokesman said, plenty of other nuclear power
utilities are looking for ways to dispose of their spent fuel
rods. The Goshute site already has received federal approval for
a license to store such waste. With Congress still far from
approving a permanent nuclear waste repository, the "temporary"
site in Utah remains attractive.
That means the Utah congressional delegation needs to
keep working on a bill that would create a federal wilderness
area around the site, making it impossible to bring in shipments.
Hatch suggested his continued support for a permanent
storage site in Nevada's Yucca Mountain helped him persuade Xcel
and Southern to back off. Indeed, both companies apparently
pulled away because they felt the Goshute site would not be
ready in time and that more attention should be placed on
getting final approval for Yucca.
But Yucca isn't any better of a solution than is the
Goshute site. With the president's energy policy pushing for a
continuation of nuclear production, the idea of creating
ever-expanding storage sites for deadly waste is unworkable.
Congress and the president would be better served by turning
their attention toward fuel-rod recycling technology.
Meanwhile, the on-site storage of nuclear waste has
worked well for decades. There is little reason to abandon it to
create a transit and environmental disaster in Utah and Nevada.
Westerners can't afford to bequeath thousands of years of
contamination to future generations, especially when the waste
in question is likely to continue in an endless stream.
We applaud Hatch's announcement and the newfound
reluctance of two PFS investors. But as for the state's wild
ride on the nuclear waste roller coaster, it's best to still
keep arms and legs inside.
© 2005 Deseret News Publishing Company [ /]
*****************************************************************
65 Deseret News: See through the nonsense
[deseretnews.com]
Sunday, December 11, 2005
I feel so much safer now that Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. is crusading
so tirelessly in such a worthwhile cause (banning nuclear waste).
If he succeeds, the land will remain unspoiled and forever
outside of the sight and minds of everyone except for a few
Indians. They should be grateful for this wilderness area that
nobody would ever want to visit.
I just hope there is someone in Washington who can see through
this nonsense.
Jeff Anderson Salt Lake City
© 2005 Deseret News Publishing Company [ /]
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66 Deseret News: Political shenanigans endure even during holidays
[deseretnews.com]
Sunday, December 11, 2005
Frank Pignanelli &LaVarr Webb
Yes, it is the holiday season. But even among all the
festivities, caroling and decorations, politics isn't too far
from our twisted minds. So here, for your enjoyment (or scorn),
is a potpourri of holiday politics.
• Posturing for leadership posts is a never-ending
activity among Utah legislators, even a year before elections.
Veteran legislator and Summit County dairy farmer David Ure has
been the de facto leader of rural conservatives for some years.
Blessed with an outgoing personality, he ran twice for House
Speaker and came close to winning. Ure will not challenge
Speaker Greg Curtis, but some legislative colleagues are putting
pressure on him to run for a leadership post (leader, whip or
assistant whip) after the 2006 general election. Ure led the
opposition to the Legacy Parkway settlement, and his entry into
leadership elections always keeps things interesting.
• When Majority Whip Steve Urquhart declared his
candidacy against Sen. Orrin Hatch, many assumed that fellow St.
George lawmaker Dave Clark would fill the potential leadership
vacancy rather nicely. But Urquhart dropped out of the Senate
race and no doubt wants to retain his leadership post as a
potential launching pad into other offices. In the meantime, the
well-respected Clark has been building momentum for a leadership
undertaking. The GOP caucus will likely not elect two leaders
from Washington County, thus establishing a classic
confrontation between two legislative heavyweights.
• Many politicos were amused by Congressman Rob Bishop's
ploy to expand the western desert wilderness and Air Force
testing range to prevent transportation and storage of spent
nuclear fuel rods on the Goshute Reservation but doubted the
tactic's ultimate success. This was part of a general feeling
among politicos that some Utah leaders were not fully engaged in
the fight against nuclear waste other than the occasional press
conference. But recent activities in Washington, D.C.,
demonstrate a sincere commitment to prevent Utah from becoming
the nation's dumping ground. While leading the delegation
efforts, Bishop has been toiling quietly and tirelessly to
secure passage of the wilderness designation. Congressman Jim
Matheson is credited with garnering much-needed Democrat votes
on the salient committees, and Orrin Hatch is one of the few who
could deliver the supportive Pentagon letter crucial to the
success of the designation. A mostly unheralded contribution has
been Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.'s hard work fighting the Goshute
dump, particularly his strong personal relationship with Nevada
Sen. Harry Reid, which turned Reid around on the wilderness
designation issue.
Staffers to federal legislators from various parts of the
country are impressed with the strong momentum that the small
state of Utah has generated on this issue. These insiders also
confirm the biggest stumbling block to the designation is Nevada
Sen. John Ensign, who is still upset that some members of the
Utah delegation were not supportive of Nevada's earlier efforts
to stop nuclear-waste storage at Yucca Mountain (Ensign is a
powerful member of the Senate Armed Forces Committee, which
needs to approve the designation). The Utahns, most of whom have
repented and apologized to Nevada, hope to convince Ensign that
a united opposition is in the best interests of all Westerners.
A key to the success of the wilderness designation is the
unassuming style that Bishop presents to colleagues and the
public. His almost allergic reaction to media exposure has
convinced fellow members of Congress, who normally would not
care, that the issue is much more important than the publicity
gains, and Bishop is not simply grandstanding for his
constituents.
• Every time LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley
issues a mission call to a young, undocumented, noncitizen
church member living in America, or when a call is made to an
undocumented church member to serve in a leadership post in a
local congregation, federal law is potentially violated. This
applies to other churches as well as the LDS Church.
With the rapid growth of Hispanic congregations in Utah
and all over the country, many churches could be in technical
violation. To eliminate this absurdity, Sen. Bob Bennett has
sponsored legislation to repeal this horrendous provision. Now
in the House, the legislation is under attack and is being
ridiculed by Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo, the wackiest of
anti-immigration politicians. Third District Rep. Chris Cannon
is trying to block Tancredo, an old nemesis. In response to why
the never-used law needs elimination, Cannon's Washington office
director, Todd Thorpe, stated, "All it takes is one overzealous
prosecutor, like Ronnie Earle (the Texas district attorney
prosecuting Tom DeLay)." Enough said.
• State Rep. LaVar Christensen has announced formation of
an exploratory committee preceding his formal candidacy in the
2nd Congressional District. While the announcement makes some
references to incumbent Jim Matheson, Christensen highlights his
authorship of the 2004 Amendment 3 (the constitutional provision
defining marriage). Matheson supported Amendment 3, so what's
the big deal? Well, the other possible Republican entry in the
race is KSL radio personality Doug Wright, who attacked
Amendment 3 on numerous occasions while on the air. Christensen
is highlighting this difference to attract support from
conservative GOP delegates and dissuade Wright from getting into
the race. If two viable GOP contenders beat each other up
seeking the nomination, national PAC money is slow in coming,
and the formidable Matheson is that much harder to defeat.
Pignanelli: Two weeks ago I incorrectly labeled former
U.S. Sen. Frank Moss as a majority whip. Gordon Jones, field
director for Congressman Chris Cannon and a walking encyclopedia
of Utah political history, provided the correct detail: Moss was
selected by his caucus to serve as secretary to the Democratic
Conference. I express thanks to Jones (although he still
disagrees with my contention that Moss was a powerful member of
the Senate).
Republican LaVarr Webb was policy deputy to Gov. Mike Leavitt
and Deseret News managing editor. He now is a political
consultant and lobbyist. E-mail: lwebb@exoro.com. Democrat Frank
Pignanelli is Salt Lake attorney, lobbyist and political
adviser. A former candidate for Salt Lake mayor, Pignanelli
served 10 years in the Utah House of Representatives, six years
as House minority leader. Pignanelli's spouse, D'Arcy Dixon
Pignanelli, is executive director of the state Department of
Administrative Services in the Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.
administration. E-mail: frankp@xmission.com.
Political shenanigans endure even during holidays
© 2005 Deseret News Publishing Company [ /]
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67 Deseret News: Write BLM, Hatch urges
[deseretnews.com]
Saturday, December 10, 2005
He wants Utahns to share opinions on PFS nuclear waste plan
By Suzanne Struglinski
Deseret Morning News
WASHINGTON — Sen. Orrin Hatch said Friday he wants every Utahn to
"sit down and write a personal letter" to the Bureau of Land
Management, telling the agency whether it should grant Private
Fuel Storage the ability to move nuclear waste across public
land.
And the Utah Republican is confident those views
submitted during a 90-day public comment period will ultimately
convince BLM that the public is against giving PFS permission to
build a rail line for its proposed nuclear waste storage site at
the Skull Valley Goshute Indian reservation.
"I am confident the administration will make the right
decision," Hatch said. "BLM is putting the issue back in the
hands of the people."
The announcement of a public comment period concluded a
week of developments over the controversial proposal by a
consortium of nuclear power utilities to store some 44,000 tons
of spent nuclear fuel rods on Goshute land in Tooele County. The
state, which has long opposed PFS's plans, was denied a request
to hear its case by the U.S. Supreme Court. At the same time,
the consortium lost support among its own members.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs cannot give final approval
to PFS's lease without the BLM's right-of-way approval, which
could ruin PFS's chances of moving waste through Utah to the
proposed Tooele County storage site.
Because the BLM does not have to hold a public comment
period on the right-of-way question, Hatch said its announcement
to seek public input is good news for the state. The BLM will
publish a notice in the Federal Register with details on the
public comment period. An exact start date was not available
Friday.
Hatch sent a letter to Interior Secretary Gale Norton on
Thursday requesting a "fresh consideration" on the right-of-way.
He highlighted Thursday's news that the consortium is
losing the support of its largest members — Southern Company
announced it would pull its financial support, and Xcel Energy
is putting its investment in the project on hold. In addition,
the senator noted that the Energy Department has made clear PFS
is not part of its nuclear waste plan and no new consideration
has been give to the PFS plan since the Sept. 11, 2001,
terrorist attacks.
"I fail to see how the public's interest can be served as
long as the PFS site is associated with increased risks of
accidents and potential terrorist attack," Hatch wrote.
PFS filed the right-of-way applications in 1998 and the
environmental impact statement was finished in 2001, according
to a letter BLM Deputy Director James M. Hughes sent Hatch
Friday.
"You are quite correct that a significant amount of time
has passed since this process began and since the cooperating
agencies formally sought input," Hughes wrote. "By soliciting
comments, BLM will have an opportunity to obtain additional
information to more fully inform the decision makers."
An anticipated report from the Defense Department on the
site's military readiness must also be done before BLM could
make any decision, Hughes said.
Private Fuel Storage spokeswoman Sue Martin said the
decision on the right of way affects only a proposed 32-mile
rail line. PFS could also transport the waste by truck, which
would require approval of a transfer facility.
She said if the public does address the pros and cons of
the proposal any "reasonable person" would conclude that using
the rails rather than the roads is safer.
Meanwhile, the debate over declaring 100,000 acres of
wilderness that would help protect the Utah Test and Training
Range, which would also effectively prevent hauling nuclear
waste onto Goshute land, continued Friday without a decision.
Scott Parker, chief of staff for Rep. Bob Bishop, R-Utah,
said Friday that there had been a "flurry of activity but little
action" on the provision and discussions will continue over the
weekend.
Hatch said the "big four," meaning the top Republican and
top Democrat from the House and Senate Armed Services committees
and others involved are likely to make a decision on the
proposal Sunday night.
Hatch said he no longer believes Sen. John Ensign,
R-Nev., who had opposed the provision, will be a roadblock.
"Deep down he knows I am right on this," Hatch said.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is working
with Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., who is the top Democrat on the
Senate Armed Services Committee to get him to accept the
proposal. Reid already supports the language.
E-mail: suzanne@desnews.com
© 2005 Deseret News Publishing Company [ /]
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68 Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Don't limit Tallevast's options
December 11, 2005 Home » Opinion
Residents shouldn't have to live with toxic pollution
At a community meeting in Tallevast this week, Lockheed Martin
spokeswoman Gail Rymer said relocating residents of the polluted
neighborhood "is not an option."
Actually, it is. And it's one that should be pursued
aggressively by Lockheed as well as federal, state and county
officials.
The people of Tallevast have been forced to live with the
unknown for too long, and it's unlikely that a single person at
Lockheed would trade places with them.
For nearly four years, the residents were kept in the dark about
toxic contamination from a now-defunct beryllium plant in their
neighborhood near the Manatee-Sarasota county line. Then they
were repeatedly misled about the extent of the pollution.
Lockheed, which owns the plant site, said this week that
cleaning up the contamination will take 20 years or more and
pledged that no one will face health risks during the work.
Those assurances are hard to embrace, given the history of this
fiasco and the many unanswered questions about the extent of the
pollution. Testing is still under way, and Lockheed isn't sure
the contamination hasn't reached the Floridan Aquifer, a vast
underground reservoir that provides potable water in much of the
state.
State Rep. Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton, has said he'll ask county,
state and federal officials to fund an estimated $20 million
plan to relocate Tallevast residents.
Lockheed officials, who've hired a liaison to work in a local
public-information office, clearly want to improve their
relationship with the community. If they really want to make a
difference, however, they need to put the relocation option on
the table -- and offer to help pay for it.
Last modified: December 10. 2005 12:00AM
+
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69 Casper Star-Tribune: Nuclear waste site backers pull their support
Casper, Wyoming -
Saturday, December 10, 2005
JENNIFER TALHELM Associated Press writer
WASHINGTON -- Two members of a company seeking to build a
temporary nuclear waste facility in Skull Valley, Utah, say they
are suspending their financial support, causing some to question
the future of the project.
Southern Nuclear Operating Co. and Xcel Energy say they are
committed to a permanent waste repository planned for Nevada's
Yucca Mountain and that the Utah site no longer meets their
needs.
The companies are two of the eight members of Private Fuel
Storage, a group of utilities that applied for a license to
build the nuclear waste dump on the Skull Valley Goshute Indian
Reservation about 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City.
Both said in letters released Thursday by Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch
that while Yucca is a viable option, they will not support PFS.
"It's become clear PFS will not be open in time to allow
Southern Nuclear to be able to use the facility," Steve
Higginbottom, spokesman for Alabama-based Southern Nuclear, said
in an interview with The Associated Press. "Making Yucca
Mountain a success will require our full attention and
resources, and that's where we're going to focus our resources."
Hatch said their decision means the plan is all but dead. In
2002, six companies -- including Southern Nuclear -- pledged in
a letter to Hatch and Utah Sen. Bob Bennett they would not fund
the PFS facility past the licensing phase.
"This marks the first nail in the coffin for PFS," Hatch said in
a statement. "The PFS plan has been on life support for some
time, and we're removing the feeding tubes."
But John Parkin, chairman of the PFS board and the company's
chief executive officer, said Hatch's assessment is inaccurate.
Parkin said neither letter indicates that Xcel or Southern will
never bring waste to Utah once the PFS site opens, just that
present time the timetable for opening does not meet their needs.
Even if Xcel and Southern ultimately opt out of the Utah site,
Parkin said, "there are still a lot of other utilities out there
that have pressing needs."
In September PFS won federal approval for a license to build the
storage site, despite objections from the state of Utah. Private
Fuel Storage wants to store 44,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel
aboveground in 4,000 steel casks.
The company has more regulatory hurdles to jump through before
construction can begin, and Utah officials are trying to prevent
PFS from getting any further.
Parkin said that PFS stands by it's promise of being a temporary
facility and says PFS agrees that a permanent site must be built
whether at Yucca Mountain or elsewhere.
"There's no way we will keep (waste) in Utah," he said.
Copyright © 19952005 Lee Enterprises a subsidiary of Lee
*****************************************************************
70 Salt Lake Tribune: the Wild Utah Project, applauded Hatch for
keeping the issue on the public agenda.
including the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and the study
"I hope it will ultimately help us get some wilderness in the
Cedar Mountains" west of Skull Valley," he said. "So it is good
tburr@sltrib.com
gehrke@sltrib.com
---
Tribune reporter Judy Fahys contributed to this story.
Article Last Updated: 12/10/2005 12:20:03 AM
BLM to seek more comment on transporting N-waste
Delay for PFS: The input will be on the best way to move the
material to the Goshute Reservation site
By Thomas Burr and Robert Gehrke The Salt Lake Tribune
WASHINGTON - The Bureau of Land Management plans to seek a new
round of public input on whether to allow a rail line across
federal lands to transport nuclear waste to a proposed Skull
Valley storage site.
The BLM's decision would at least delay approval of the
storage site and - according to Hatch - could conceivably derail
the project.
However, the Bureau of Land Management said the comment
period will be narrow, limited to whether a rail line across BLM
land to the Skull Valley Goshute Indian reservation would be in
the public interest, said BLM Deputy Director Jim Hughes in an
interview.
"Our portion is the right of way. We are bound to consider
certain things on the right of way. We're certainly not trying
to judge the technical side of the project," said
Hughes.
The rail line was identified as the preferred method to
deliver waste to the site in a 2001 environmental impact
statement that took three years to complete.
Private Fuel Storage, the consortium of energy companies
proposing to temporarily store 44,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel
at the Indian reservation, says the scope of the BLM analysis
appears to be narrow, and if plans for a rail line are scuttled,
the group would truck the waste.
"Certainly the public has a right to an opportunity to
comment," said PFS spokeswoman Sue Martin. "However, it's clear
that the comments that will be asked for are not the comments on
should there be a facility like this in Utah."
In September, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission voted to
approve the waste site license, which is currently in the
drafting process.
Hatch told reporters Friday that the 90-day comment period
announced by the BLM will allow the agency to create a record on
whether to allow the rail line and it would be a "lengthy
process."
"By taking this action, the BLM will be putting this issue
back in the hands of the people," Hatch said. "I'm going to call
on every Utah citizen who can write a letter to sit down and
write a personal letter" to the secretary of the Interior
Department and the Bureau of Land Management "explaining why
this is a terrible approach towards nuclear waste."
Hughes said a notice seeking comment may be published in the
Federal Register as early as Christmas. After the 90-day comment
period closes, the BLM will compare the comments to the material
used in the prior environmental impact statement and decide if
any revisions are necessary.
"People will comment outside that scope and there's other
information they may provide, certainly we'll look at that,"
Hughes said. "From our standpoint, [the right of way] is the
main issue the senator raised."
The BLM has to sign off on the rail line because it crosses
federal land. Under a law pushed previously by the Utah
delegation, the Air Force must complete a study on whether the
PFS nuclear site would impair the military's use of the adjacent
Utah Test and Training Range.
The proposed site lies in the flight path for jets traveling
to and from the training range.
The Utah delegation also was fighting Friday to convince key
senators to include a wilderness provision and other
restrictions in a defense policy bill. That could prevent
construction of the rail line, as well, and is designed to
protect the Air Force training range.
Hatch said in a letter to Interior Secretary Gale Norton on
Thursday that "a number of events" have occurred since
preliminary approval was given to the Skull Valley project,
including the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and the study
needs to consider those concerns.
"I fail to see how the public's interests can be served as
long as the PFS site is associated with increased risks of
accidents and potential terrorist attack," Hatch wrote.
Jim Catlin, project coordinator with the environmental group,
the Wild Utah Project, applauded Hatch for keeping the issue on
the public agenda.
"I hope it will ultimately help us get some wilderness in the
Cedar Mountains" west of Skull Valley," he said. "So it is good
he is doing this."
tburr@sltrib.com
gehrke@sltrib.com
---
Tribune reporter Judy Fahys contributed to this story.
© Copyright 2005, The Salt Lake Tribune.
*****************************************************************
71 Salt Lake Tribune: Atlas threat to air will be discussed
Article Last Updated: 12/10/2005 12:20:22 AM
The U.S. Energy Department is planning meetings next week in
Moab and Thompson Springs to discuss how it will monitor the air
during the cleanup of the Atlas uranium tailings in southeastern
Utah. The massive pile, with about nine times the rubble taken
out of the World Trade Center collapse, will be scooped up in
Moab, shipped the 32 miles north and disposed of in a
specialized landfill to be built a few miles west of Thompson
Springs. "We know citizens have concerns about the quality of
the air, especially when we start transporting the tailings to
Crescent Junction," said Donald Metzler, who oversees the
project for the Energy Department. "We want to provide
information now to help them understand what the current quality
of air is and what we're doing to be protective of the public."
One meeting will take place at 7 p.m. on Dec. 14 at the fire
station in Thompson Springs. Another is set for 7 p.m. at the
Grand Center, 182 North 500 West, Moab. Energy Department
representatives will discuss what will be monitored and what they
know from monitoring already done. They also will give examples
of data collection devices and of efforts to protect workers and
the public from exposures. More information is available at
http://gj.em.doe.gov/moabnewsreleases/airmonitoring_pub_mtgs12_05.pdf
- Judy Fahys
© Copyright 2005, The Salt Lake Tribune.
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72 EPA: Superfund at 25 in California - Superfund - Region 9 -
Superfund turns 25 in California
[Superfund 25th logo] By Wayne Nastri, Administrator of the EPAs
Pacific Southwest Office
As the Superfund law celebrates its 25th anniversary this week,
it is a good time to reflect on the programs history and in
particular look at some of the success stories we have right
here in California. The law was created in 1980 to address the
thousands of abandoned, uncontrolled hazardous waste sites
across the country that were contaminating our land and soil.
Since then, the EPA has cleaned up or overseen the cleanup of
hundreds of sites nationwide. In 2004 we removed Love Canal in
upstate New York, the site that many believe led to the creation
of Superfund, from the national priorities list of sites.
In California, many of the industries that have driven the state
economy all the way back to the Gold Rush have also left us with
our biggest cleanup challenges. There are 103 Superfund sites
throughout the state, ranging from abandoned mines to former
semiconductor manufacturing plants in Silicon Valley to closed
military installations. We have removed immediate health threats
at every site in the state, and currently have soil and/or
groundwater cleanup systems in place or planned for the
remaining contamination. In Silicon Valley, for example, we have
cleaned up soil at all of the 15 sites, but groundwater cleanup
systems will continue for years in the future.
[Dam associated with Iron Mountain]
At the Iron Mountain Mine outside of Redding, we have reduced the
amount of heavy metals and acid mine drainage flowing into the
headwaters of the Sacramento River by nearly one ton a day,
nearly a 95 percent reduction. Complementing our long-term
cleanup program is an emergency response unit that mobilizes on a
moments notice to address everything from oil spills to tire
fires to national emergencies.
Dam associated with Iron Mountain Mine
[Radium dials] Earlier this year, staff from our offices in San
Francisco removed more than one million radium dials from a
facility in North Hollywood, and also dispatched nearly 100
people to the Gulf Coast to assist in the hurricane aftermath.
More than a million vintage items, including World War II
aircraft gauges like these containing radioactive radium, had to
be removed for proper disposal from an abandoned Aviation
Preservation warehouse in North Hollywood. The EPA announced its
progress on March 31.
[Groundwater treatment system, Newmark site]
A new groundwater treatment system was completed at the
Muscoy Operable Unit of the Newmark Superfund site in March.
In California, in particular, we maintain an extraordinarily
high success rate in making the polluters pay for the cleanup
instead of having to dip into the federal Superfund. Responsible
parties are funding the cleanups of nearly 80 percent of our
sites, compared to the national average of 66 percent. And in
the cases where we have used federal funding to get progress
started rather than waiting for lawsuits to be settled, we have
recouped most of the money we spent. In the past year we have
reached settlements with polluters that have secured $78.5
million for the Newmark Site in San Bernardino and $44 million
for a crucial groundwater cleanup in the San Gabriel Valley.
In those cases where the little guy may get caught up in the
liability scheme, we have offered settlements that fairly
account for an entitys contribution and its ability to pay. We
have offered hundreds of de minimis and de micromis settlements
to small businesses over the past decade in order to let small
contributors cash out early rather than getting entangled in
future lawsuits. These smaller settlements have helped continue
cleanups at the Casmalia Site in Central California and the
Stringfellow Site in Southern California.
We have progressed far enough in our cleanups to now start
focusing on redevelopment opportunities for many properties that
were once seemingly written off for good. We are working closely
with the Department of Defense and local communities to free up
portions of former military bases that, while listed as
Superfund sites, have plenty of clean property to shave off and
reuse. And we maintain a robust brownfields program for the
hundreds of sites in California alone that have sat idle due to
real or even perceived contamination. Brownfields funding has
helped revitalize downtown areas in cities such as Emeryville,
West Hollywood and Stockton, where the city built a beautiful
plaza atop an old stagnant canal. [Stockton Weber block
before redevelopment] [Stockton Weber block after
redevelopment]
(L) View of downtown Stockton's Weber Block before redevelopment
in 1998, looking westward toward Port of Stockton ship canal. The
canal extended under the parking lot in the foreground, which was
being used as temporary storage for redevelopment landscaping
trees. (R) Weber Block in downtown Stockton after completion of
redevelopment.
Today we celebrate a milestone for a law that has helped improve
public health and the environment in California and across the
country. We still have many challenges ahead of us, including
large groundwater contamination cleanups and perchlorate
contamination. But our successes in eliminating health risks,
getting polluters to pay for their damages and our early
redevelopment projects bode well for the future.
For more information on Superfund in California, see .
*****************************************************************
73 The Observer: Laureate urges ban on nuclear weapons
[Guardian Unlimited]
[UP]
Alex Duval Smith, Europe correspondent
Sunday December 11, 2005
The Observer
There are 27,000 nuclear warheads in the world and that is
'27,000 too many', said International Atomic Energy Agency
director Mohamed ElBaradei after he received the Nobel Peace
prize in Norway yesterday.
Just hours before ElBaradei received the £750,000 prize, Iran
appeared to reiterate its intention to defy attempts by America
and the United Nations atomic watchdog to curb its nuclear
ambitions. In Tehran, the country's top nuclear official,
Gholamreza Aghazadeh, said there was 'no doubt' Iran would
enrich uranium and produce nuclear fuel.
In his acceptance speech in Oslo, ElBaradei, 63, said the world
should work towards nuclear weapons being seen as immoral. 'The
hard part is how do we create an environment in which nuclear
weapons - like slavery or genocide - are regarded as a taboo and
a historical anomaly?'
After receiving a gold medal and diploma with the IAEA chairman
Yukiya Amano, ElBaradei said the world faces 'threats without
borders' - weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, organised
crime, war, poverty, disease and environmental degradation -
that can only be tackled through multilateral cooperation.
'In regions where conflicts have been left to fester for
decades, countries continue to look for ways to offset their
insecurities or project their power. In some cases, they may be
tempted to seek their own weapons of mass destruction, like
others who have preceded them.
'We must ensure, absolutely, that no more countries acquire
these deadly weapons. We must see to it that nuclear weapon
states take concrete steps towards nuclear disarmament,' he said.
Before the ceremony, ElBaradei said Iran should be given three
more months to cooperate. 'It may be slow but diplomacy and
verification is the way to go,' said the Egyptian lawyer who has
headed the IAEA for eight years.
Iran has rejected an offer to shift its enrichment programme to
Russia under a plan that envisaged that Moscow would make sure
nuclear material was enriched only to fuel levels, not to
weapons-grade. The US claims Iran's programme is geared towards
producing warheads. Iran claims it is producing electricity.
On Friday, ElBaradei said the international community was losing
patience 'with the nature' of Iran's programme and that he hoped
outstanding issues would be resolved before he was due to
present his next report, in March. Yesterday, in response to
ElBaradei's comments, Aghazadeh said: 'Iran is also losing its
patience with them.'
The Nobel Peace prize was awarded to ElBaradei and the IAEA to
honour the organisation's non-proliferation efforts and to mark
the 60th anniversary of the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
Useful links
British Energy
Department of Trade and Industry
British Nuclear Fuels Ltd
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Greenpeace
HSE nuclear glossary
Come Clean WMD awareness programme
UK atomic energy authority
National Radiological Protection Board
Friends of the Earth
World Nuclear Association
World Nuclear Transport Institute
[UP]
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
74 Guardian Unlimited: ElBaradei Accepts Nobel Peace Prize
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Saturday December 10, 2005 1:31 PM
AP Photo JMC101
By DOUG MELLGREN
Associated Press Writer
OSLO, Norway (AP) - Chief U.N. nuclear inspector Mohamed
ElBaradei accepted the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize on Saturday,
sharing the award with his International Atomic Energy Agency
for efforts to control the spread of nuclear weapons.
While accepting the award, ElBaradei warned that humanity faces
a choice between atomic weapons and survival.
``I have no doubt that if we hope to escape self-destruction,
then nuclear weapons should have no place in our collective
conscience, and no role in our security,'' the 63-year-old
Egyptian said.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
75 HeraldNet: Groups call for access to reports of lab accidents
Published: Sunday, December 11, 2005
Associated Press
BOISE, Idaho - When a propane line sprang a leak last month at a
federal nuclear research complex in the Idaho desert, hundreds
of workers were evacuated and officials made regular
announcements on the status of the danger until the problem was
fixed hours later.
But dozens of smaller, "near-miss" episodes occur each year
without public notification at the Idaho National Laboratory,
where the U.S. Department of Energy wants to begin producing
plutonium-238 for the first time in decades and where Congress
just appropriated $40 million to begin developing an
experimental nuclear power reactor.
Instead, details of those minor accidents or procedural
oversights are logged in an Energy Department database, the
records of which were recently obtained by the Associated Press
through the Freedom of Information Act.
In the past year alone, there have been 21 cases of laboratory
workers accidentally contaminated with radioactive material; in
all cases, the exposure was classified as negligible. In one
case, an employee's car and home were searched after officials
feared Europium-154 found on the person's overcoat had been
carried off the high-security nuclear research compound.
In one instance, a few bolts that anchored the seismic braces
of a 38-foot-tall heat exchanger in the Advanced Test Reactor to
stabilize it during an earthquake were found to have rattled out
of their threads. All 180 bolts were found to be too short to
properly secure the braces.
And an analysis of the amount of uranium that could safely be
stored in a lab failed to take into account that the radioactive
material was in powder form, not solid, posing a much higher
health risk if spilled than originally estimated.
All the incidents were minor, and laboratory officials say none
posed a grave risk beyond the boundaries of the 890-square-mile
test compound, but they were documented and investigated in an
effort to prevent more serious problems in the future.
"The intent of the system is to find, report and fix problems
while your problems are small," said Bob Stallman, senior
operations and safety officer at the laboratory. "That's one of
the reasons there are so many reports in the system. Our
threshold for reporting is quite low because we want to know the
small problems that are occurring."
But the public has a right to know about all accidents at the
site, not just the big ones, say leaders of environmental groups
who monitor the remote facility. The Snake River Alliance,
Environmental Defense Institute and Keep Yellowstone Nuclear
Free asked the Department of Energy in a Nov. 20 letter to put
the so-called "occurrence reports" online for easy access by the
public over the Internet instead of being released only in
response to written request.
"Right now, the public operates with blinders on and only
responds to incidents that the government thinks we need to know
about," said Jeremy Maxand, director of the Snake River
Alliance. "If you take one of these incidents and combine it
with the right circumstances, you could have a serious
situation."
While the Energy Department requires written requests from the
public to disclose the reports, it sends copies to the state
each week. The federal government also notifies the state any
time the laboratory's radiological assistance team is deployed
outside the nuclear reservation.
"We try to strike a balance between the safety of having people
well-informed versus having people who might want to do us harm
well-informed," said Kathleen Trever, Idaho Gov. Dirk
Kempthorne's coordinator for lab oversight. "As you can imagine,
the pendulum at the moment is more on the side of keeping
information confidential or less readily available."
J.D. Wulfhorst, a University of Idaho rural sociologist who
surveyed Idaho residents' attitudes toward the nuclear site in
2003, said many people who live in eastern Idaho are tied to the
laboratory economically and socially and have a higher level of
trust in the department and its contractors than people outside
the area.
"That's not because they have sold out, but because they know
and have experienced the different safety mechanisms that are in
place," he said. "It's all very normal for people who live
around large, complex installations like those operated by the
military or Energy Department who deal with that risk on a daily
basis and have familiarity with it."
Copyright 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or
redistributed.
The Daily Herald Co.: Contact the newspaper | Advertising
Copyright © 2005 The Daily Herald Co., Everett, Wash.
*****************************************************************
76 Seattle Times: Groups seek more info about nuclear mishaps
Saturday, December 10, 2005 - Page updated at 12:37 AM
By Christopher Smith The Associated Press
Workers at the Idaho National Laboratory prepare to enter a
controlled area where radioactive waste is being removed from
burial pits and shipped to a permanent disposal site out of
state.
BOISE, Idaho When a propane line sprang a leak last month at a
federal nuclear-research complex in the Idaho desert, hundreds
of workers were evacuated and officials made regular
announcements on the status of the danger until the problem was
fixed hours later.
But dozens of smaller, "near-miss" episodes occur each year
without public notification at the Idaho National Laboratory
(INL), where the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) wants to begin
producing plutonium-238 for the first time in decades and where
Congress just appropriated $40 million to begin developing an
experimental nuclear power reactor.
Instead, details of those minor accidents or procedural
oversights are logged in an Energy Department database, the
records of which were recently obtained by The Associated Press
through the Freedom of Information Act.
In the past year alone, there have been 21 cases of INL workers
accidentally contaminated with radioactive material; in all
cases, the exposure was classified as negligible. In one case,
an employee's car and home were searched after officials feared
Europium-154 found on the person's overcoat had been carried off
the high-security nuclear-research compound.
In one instance, a few bolts that anchored the seismic braces of
a 38-foot-tall heat exchanger in the Advanced Test Reactor to
stabilize it during an earthquake were found to have rattled out
of their threads. All 180 bolts were found to be too short to
properly secure the braces.
And an analysis of the amount of uranium that could safely be
stored in a lab failed to take into account that the radioactive
material was in powder form, not solid, posing a much higher
health risk if spilled than originally estimated.
All of the incidents were minor and INL officials say none posed
a grave risk beyond the boundaries of the 890-square-mile test
compound, but they were documented and investigated in an effort
to prevent more serious problems in the future.
Near-misses
Some recent mishaps at the Idaho National Laboratory, according
to Energy Department records obtained by The Associated Press:
March 2005: 15 drums of spent nuclear fuel were assigned an
incorrect transportation rating because an expandable rubber
plug in the cans was not taken into account in calculating if
the drum could safely contain the material.
April 2004 May 2005: Due to perspiration wicking contamination
through protective clothing or inexperience in fastening
protective layers, 21 cases of radiological contamination
occurred, including 10 cases of skin contact with radioactive
material. In all cases, the amount of exposure was classified as
negligible.
June 2005: Workers discovered three seismic support bolts
securing the heat exchanger in the Advanced Test Reactor had
vibrated out of their anchor plates because they were too short
to properly fasten. All 180 bolts were subsequently replaced.
June 2005: A radiological survey of an employee's home was
conducted after a worker exiting an INL facility was found to be
wearing a coat contaminated with radioactive Europium-154. The
source of the contamination was not determined, and there was no
sign of contamination in the employee's home or car.
June 2005: Workers discovered that canisters of depleted and
natural uranium being stored in a building contained the powder
form of the radioactive material, not the solid form as had been
assumed when calculating the potential danger from a spill. The
amount of material exceeded the maximum allowed risk and was
removed.
August 2005: The state of Utah notified INL of 33 violations for
incomplete shipping labels on low-level radioactive waste sent
from Idaho to a private hazardous waste dump near Salt Lake
City. The mistake was classified as administrative in nature
with no safety significance.
The Associated Press
"The intent of the system is to find, report and fix problems
while your problems are small," said Bob Stallman, senior
operations and safety officer at INL. "That's one of the reasons
there are so many reports in the system. Our threshold for
reporting is quite low because we want to know the small
problems that are occurring."
But the public has a right to know about all accidents at the
site, not just the big ones, say leaders of environmental groups
who monitor the remote eastern Idaho facility. The Snake River
Alliance, Environmental Defense Institute and Keep Yellowstone
Nuclear Free asked DOE in a Nov. 20 letter to put the so-called
"occurrence reports" online for easy access by the public over
instead of being released only in response to written request.
"Right now, the public operates with blinders on and only
responds to incidents that the government thinks we need to know
about," said Jeremy Maxand, director of the Snake River
Alliance. "If you take one of these incidents and combine it
with the right circumstances, you could have a serious
situation."
While DOE requires written requests from the public to disclose
the reports, it sends copies to the state's Division of INL
Oversight and Radiation Control each week. The federal
government also notifies the state any time INL's radiological
assistance team is deployed outside the boundaries of the
nuclear reservation.
"We try to strike a balance between the safety of having people
well-informed versus having people who might want to do us harm
well-informed," said Kathleen Trever, Idaho Gov. Dirk
Kempthorne's coordinator for INL oversight. "As you can imagine,
the pendulum at the moment is more on the side of keeping
information confidential or less readily available."
J.D. Wulfhorst, a University of Idaho rural sociologist who
surveyed Idaho residents' attitudes toward the nuclear site in
2003, said many people who live in eastern Idaho are tied to INL
economically and socially and have a higher level of trust in
the department and its contractors than people outside the
immediate area.
"That's not because they have sold out, but because they know
and have experienced the different safety mechanisms that are in
place," he said. "It's all very normal for people who live
around large, complex installations like those operated by the
military or Energy Department who deal with that risk on a daily
basis and have familiarity with it."
Other residents in Idaho may be more skeptical that the federal
government would promptly alert the public to potential
environmental contamination or health hazards because they've
been influenced by critics and a Cold War legacy of the Energy
Department neglecting public health.
"There are special interest groups that have targeted the site
and have educated the general population on certain elements,
for better or worse, and that has created a distrust whether the
agencies are disclosing all the information," Wulfhorst said.
Lack of easy access to INL accident reports adds to the
skepticism some have that the federal government may not be
forthcoming about operations at the facility, said Maxand.
"If they want to tout INL as the safest place on the planet for
these programs, they should have as much transparency as
possible," he said. "More people are paying attention to what's
going on out there and there should be no reason why this kind
of safety performance information is not made readily
available."
Copyright © 2005 The Seattle Times Company
*****************************************************************
77 Las Vegas SUN: Editorial: A bungling for all to see
December 10, 2005
Editorial: A bungling for all to see
As Energy Department says it needs another billion for Yucca
Mountain, the California Energy Commission cites managerial and
technical probles and demands a refund
The Energy Department this week said that another billion
dollars would be needed to develop Yucca Mountain as a nuclear
waste dump. The announcement was just another admission of
ineptitude in the federal government's long and bungled history
of this project.
A California agency acknowledged the tangled mess last month
when it asked for a partial refund on the billion-plus dollars
that utility ratepayers in the state have paid into a federal
fund dedicated to paying for Yucca Mountain.
"The federal waste disposal program remains plagued with
licensing delays, increasing costs, technical challenges and
managerial problems," a report by the California Energy
Commission said.
Since 1982 consumers of nuclear-generated electricity have paid
a little extra in their power bills to fund the safe storage of
radioactive waste. At that time, Congress promised to have a
permanent storage facility opened by 1998. Southern Nevada's
Yucca Mountain was chosen in 1987 as the sole site for the
facility.
Nevada immediately protested and over the years has
demonstrated in studies and legal filings that Yucca Mountain is
geologically unsafe for such a use. The state's arguments have
prevented Yucca Mountain from opening, although the Energy
Department clings to the notion that it can begin operating a
facility there sometime after 2012.
The California Energy Commission wants to use its ratepayers'
money for a more sound solution -- storing waste safely on site
at its two nuclear power plants. We agree that on-site storage
should continue until a safe, permanent solution is found.
Another terrible risk involving Yucca Mountain is
transportation of the waste to the site from all parts of the
country. The final leg would be a 319-mile railroad the Energy
Department proposes to build through rugged, undeveloped terrain
west of Caliente to Yucca Mountain. Caliente is a small town 130
miles northeast of Las Vegas.
The Energy Department has said all along that this railroad
would cost $1 billion. But on Wednesday it changed that to $2
billion. (Given the department's penchant for understating Yucca
Mountain's costs, we expect even that figure to soon be revised
upward.) The Energy Department's financial and scientific
inaccuracies are so common regarding Yucca Mountain that even
Congress, which approved the project in 2002 by a large
majority, is cutting the dump's construction budget.
The California Energy Commission this month will ask that
state's Legislature to endorse its call for a refund. We agree
with Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., who hopes the California
Legislature obliges and who also hopes that other states begin
asking for refunds.
The project is too managerially flawed and too scientifically
unsafe to receive another penny.
All contents copyright 2005 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
78 Pueblo Chieftain: Critic disputes claim that Rocky Flats is clean
Online - Pueblo, Colorado U.S.A
Saturday December 10, 2005
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
DENVER (AP) - A lawmaker who was the foreman of a grand jury
that investigated the former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant
is disputing claims the site has been cleaned up.
The only thing that got cleaned up at Rocky Flats was the
Colorado taxpayer, Rep. Wes McKinley, D-Walsh, said in a
statement Thursday.
Deputy Energy Secretary Clay Sell declared the 10-year, $7
billion cleanup of Rocky Flats complete Thursday, making it the
first former nuclear weapons site to be totally remediated.
Contractor Kaiser Hill Inc. finished the project early and for
much less than the initial cost estimates, which ran as high as
$70 billion.
McKinley said he plans to introduce legislation next year that
would expose what he said were environmental crimes committed at
the site. He said he will expose the continuing safety threat.
Rocky Flats manufactured plutonium triggers for nuclear warheads
until it was shut down in 1991 because of safety problems and
the end of the Cold War. Most of the 6,240-acre site northwest
of Denver is being converted to a wildlife refuge, but state and
federal health regulators must still verify the cleanup.
McKinley served on the federal grand jury that investigated
Rocky Flats after the FBI raided the plant in 1989.
The FBI acted after allegations that Rockwell International,
which operated the plant at the time, had knowingly discharged
chemicals into creeks that flowed into municipal water supplies,
burned toxic waste and failed to adequately monitor groundwater.
Federal prosecutors refused the grand jurys request to
prosecute Rockwell International and federal officials, but the
company was fined $18.5 million after pleading guilty to 10
hazardous waste and clean water violations.
Several fires had also broken out at Rocky Flats while it was in
operation. Critics said two could have contaminated nearby
populated areas if they hadnt been quickly extinguished.
©1996-2005 www.chieftain.com Star-Journal Publishing Corp.
Pueblo, Colorado U.S.A.
*****************************************************************
79 Chicago Sun-Times: Fermilab: Leak not harmful
December 10, 2005
BY ANDRE SALLES
Staff members from Fermilab trudged through the falling snow
Thursday, delivering letters to every home in the Savannah
subdivision on Aurora's northeast side, alerting residents to
the presence of radioactive materials in Indian Creek.
But Fermilab scientists said residents should not be alarmed.
Small amounts of tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen,
were discovered in the creek by lab staff performing routine
environmental tests, said Fermilab spokeswoman Judy Jackson.
Indian Creek starts on Fermilab property and runs southwest into
a pond at the center of the Savannah subdivision, at the corner
of Kirk and Butterfield roads.
"Never in 30 years of testing the creek have we seen any sign
of tritium," Jackson said. "We immediately retested to confirm
what we were seeing."
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, tritium forms
naturally in the upper layers of the atmosphere and is usually
only harmful if ingested in large quantities. In large amounts,
it increases the risk of cancer, the EPA said. But the EPA Web
site calls tritium one of the least dangerous of radioactive
materials, since it emits weak radiation and leaves the body
quickly.
According to Jackson, tritium is a by-product of Fermilab's
normal particle accelerator operations. She said the amount
found in samples of the creek was minuscule -- 3.3 picocuries
per milliliter. A picocurie is a standard unit of measurement
for radioactive material.
That level is well below the EPA standard for drinking water,
which is 20 picocuries per milliliter, averaged annually,
according to Larry Haskell, a health physicist with the Illinois
Emergency Management Agency.
"The presumption is that you'd have to drink millions of times
that amount to have an acute dose," he said.
Also, Haskell said, the EPA standards for tritium levels in
water flowing from a nuclear plant into the groundwater is 1,000
picocuries per milliliter.
Pipe leak found, safety checks increased
Jackson said that Fermilab staff traced the leak to a pipe
connecting two cooling pools.
"We identified where it was coming from," she said, "and took
steps to keep it from getting into the creek."
According to Jackson, subsequent samples of the water in Indian
Creek have found reduced tritium levels, with the past few days'
samples revealing levels so low as to be undetectable.
Fermilab's announcement comes less than a week after an
elevated level of tritium was discovered near a nuclear power
plant in Braceville, 60 miles southwest of Chicago. The leak was
traced to a 1998 valve break, which allowed several million
gallons of water to spill into the ground water.
Though this is Fermilab's first tritium leak during 30 years of
work with the substance, Jackson said it will change the way the
lab conducts its safety examinations.
"We will step up the frequency of our monitoring all over our
site," she said. "I think our program will be permanently more
stringent."
Aurora Beacon-News
Copyright 2005, Digital Chicago Inc.
*****************************************************************
80 LongmontFYI: Critic: Flats site not clean
Publish Date: 12/11/2005
The Associated Press
DENVER — A lawmaker who was the foreman of a grand jury that
investigated the former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant is
disputing claims the site has been cleaned up.
“The only thing that got cleaned up at Rocky Flats was the
Colorado taxpayer,” Rep. Wes McKinley, D-Walsh, said in a
statement Thursday.
Deputy Energy Secretary Clay Sell declared the 10-year, $7
billion cleanup of Rocky Flats complete Thursday, making it the
first former nuclear weapons site to be totally remediated.
Contractor Kaiser Hill Inc. finished the project early and for
much less than the initial cost estimates, which ran as high as
$70 billion.
McKinley said he plans to introduce legislation next year that
would expose what he said were environmental crimes committed at
the site. He said he will expose the continuing safety threat.
Rocky Flats manufactured plutonium triggers for nuclear
warheads until it was shut down in 1991 because of safety
problems and the end of the Cold War. Most of the 6,240-acre
site northwest of Denver is being converted to a wildlife
refuge, but state and federal health regulators must still
verify the cleanup.
McKinley served on the federal grand jury that investigated
Rocky Flats after the FBI raided the plant in 1989.
The FBI acted after allegations that Rockwell International,
which operated the plant at the time, had knowingly discharged
chemicals into creeks that flowed into municipal water supplies,
burned toxic waste and failed to adequately monitor groundwater.
All contents Copyright © 2005 Daily Times-Call. All rights
reserved.
*****************************************************************
81 Paducah Sun: DOE has long way to go on cleanup
Paducah, Kentucky
SLOW PROGRESS
Thursday, December 08, 2005
It´s too soon to say the U.S. Department of Energy has turned
the corner in its massive effort to clean up the Paducah Gaseous
Diffusion Plant. But after years of barely detectable movement
on the cleanup, the agency seems to be making noteworthy
progress in removing contaminated material from the site.
The Sun reported earlier this week that state environmental
regulators are pleased with the pace of the cleanup since DOE
officials signed an agreement with the state in 2003 to speed up
the notoriously slow process.
Seven years ago, local officials and Kentucky´s congressional
delegation were exasperated by DOE´s apparent inability to clean
up even a tiny portion of the contamination at the plant. The
agency began work at the site in the late 1980s but did not
remove a single barrel of waste until 1999.
Over the past six years, the federal cleanup operation has moved
in fits and starts, beginning with the removal of “drum
mountain, a towering pile of crushed 55-gallon drums. The
cleanup seems to have gained momentum since the state imposed
timetables in the 2003 cleanup agreement.
“There´s a lot of work to be done yet, but a couple of years
down the road I believe the state is satisfied with the
progress, Tony Hatton, assistant director of the Kentucky
Division of Waste Management, told the Sun. “They´ve completed
some fairly significant projects.
Contractors working for DOE cleaned up a contaminated drainage
ditch, removing 3,000 tons of tainted soil. In a notable
achievement for the DOE cleanup, which has often bogged down in
government paperwork and bureaucratic indecision, the work on
the drainage ditch was completed five months ahead of schedule.
State officials say DOE contractors have “drastically increased
the removal of waste and contaminated scrap metal. That´s good
news, but DOE has a veritable mountain of scrap to dispose of —
53,000 metric tons, according to estimates released a year ago.
Thousands of cylinders containing depleted uranium hexafluoride
remain on the site. Fortunately, DOE, after years of delay,
responded to a congressional mandate to build facilities in
Paducah and Portsmouth, Ohio, to convert the material in the
cylinders to a safer form for disposal or reuse. The conversion
plants should begin operating in 2007.
Even with the recent progress, DOE may not be able to meet its
timetables for cleaning up the plant. The cleanup will take at
least 14 more years and additional work probably will be needed
after that to make the site suitable for reuse.
The 2003 agreement gave the state a legal club to use in holding
DOE to its cleanup commitments. State officials need to keep up
the pressure on DOE, in order to make sure that the cleanup
doesn´t begin to lag again.
Tennessee and Ohio have used lawsuits to hold DOE´s feet to the
fire on cleanup projects. Kentucky shouldn´t hesitate to take
DOE to court, if the agency doesn´t follow through on its
obligations to Paducah.
In one important area, DOE officials still are failing to
deliver on their promise to help western Kentucky recover from
the loss of jobs in the uranium enrichment industry.
A politically motivated ban on the recycling of scrap metal at
nuclear facilities remains in place five years after it was
imposed by Bill Clinton´s energy secretary.
The recycling of slightly contaminated nickel and other metals
was opposed by two key Democratic Party constituencies,
environmentalists and organized labor. If DOE lifts the ban,
companies will compete to build a recycling facility at the
gaseous diffusion plant that would create about 50 jobs and
generate at least $8 million for the community.
State officials have reason to be satisfied with the progress of
the cleanup over the past two years, especially considering the
glacial pace of the DOE operation in the 1990s. However, there
is a long, long way to go before the federal government fully
cleans up the mess it made in Paducah during the Cold War era.
*****************************************************************
82 NY Newsday: What's good for BNL is good for America
New York City -
Opinion Print Edition
Newsday.com
World-class scientists rely on equipment at Brookhaven
National Lab, but a crucial upgrade faces major hurdles
December 11, 2005
The stunning complexity of the Big Machines at Brookhaven
National Laboratory is simplicity itself, compared to the tangle
of politics and budgets that could grind it all to a halt.
This is not just a pivotal moment for the lab, but for the
region, the state, and the nation's ability to compete
scientifically. The lab is set to begin conceptual design of a
third-generation machine that will lead the globe in producing
brilliant X-rays to peer into the tiniest spaces in our world
and enable major advances in such fields as medicine, computers
and energy. Nothing equal to the proposed new national
synchrotron light source (its friends call it NSLS-II) is in
construction or even in design anywhere else on the planet.
America must have NSLS-II to remain competitive, and the lab
must have it located here to stay alive.
Promise and peril
But a mysterious turn in the federal budget for fiscal 2006 has
temporarily shut the lab's relativistic heavy ion collider
(RHIC, as in Rick), a whiz-bang nuclear physics device, raising
serious concerns about the lab's future. It's hardly the first
budget crunch for Brookhaven, but this is a unique intersection
of promise and peril, leaving scientists at the lab, and its
users, both excited and nervous.
What Killed Beethoven?
Before we get into the dense politics, a few words on what
these machines can do: This past week, Newsday and others
reported on scientists finding that Ludwig van Beethoven died of
lead poisoning. The work on that discovery took place on the
Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory in
Illinois, a third-generation machine that produces beams more
brilliant than those at Brookhaven's current national
synchrotron light source, which is a second-generation machine.
The scientist who brought that study to Argonne, Bill Walsh,
founder of the Pfeiffer Treatment Center in Illinois, searched
the globe for the facility best suited to examine the composer's
hairs without destroying them. He found it at Argonne, 20
minutes from his home, and worked with an Argonne scientist, Ken
Kemner, who lives close by.
The hair and skull fragment work took only hours at Argonne.
Kemner, who used the Brookhaven light source earlier in his
career, says the work could have been done here, but not nearly
as fast. Brookhaven's machine is a workhorse, but in years
ahead, Argonne's photon source - and, worse, new facilities
already on line and soon to open in Europe and Asia - will
eclipse this one.
If scientists don't believe that NSLS-II is on the way to
Brookhaven, they will begin to use machines elsewhere that are
better than the lab's current one. That's grim news for the lab
and for scientists in this region, whose research is better done
close to home - such as Roderick MacKinnon at Rockefeller
University in Manhattan, a Nobel laureate who works at
Brookhaven regularly.
Once Walsh discovered the power of Argonne's photon source, he
began turning its brilliant light on questions his center cares
about most: looking deeply into the brain for answers to the
tragedies of Alzheimer's and autism. It's great that he can do
it close to home, but if Brookhaven builds a machine that lets
him do it better, he'd have to fly here.
10,000 times brighter
The current Brookhaven light source was the first of its kind
when it opened in 1982. It has more than 2,300 users, including
such huge companies as IBM and ExxonMobil. But NSLS-II will
offer light more than 10,000 times as bright.
It will enable scientists to focus down to the level of a
nanometer, a billionth of a meter. So it's no accident that the
lab proposes to build NSLS-II next to its Center for Functional
Nanomaterials, now under construction. In making its pitch to
the Department of Energy to site the new machine here,
Brookhaven argues that the two facilities are inseparable. The
lab is right.
The department has recently decided that NSLS-II is necessary
for its broad mission of support to science, but it is a long
way from deciding where it will go. If DOE opts to put it
elsewhere, that would solve the national competitiveness
problem, but it would be a disaster for the lab, Long Island,
and scientists at Northeast businesses and universities. (One
reason for siting it here is that the Northeast has a heavier
cluster of universities and graduate programs than the nation's
three other quadrants.)
At the local level, the next step is for Brookhaven to spend
about 10 months on the conceptual design, which will give a
better idea of the machine's cost, estimated at $600 million to
$800 million. The lab has people to do that, but not enough
money. It has $1 million available, but the Department of Energy
must scrounge up another $6 million.
The budget hurdle
As conceptual design proceeds, the other major arena is the
fiscal 2007 budget, which the White House will propose early in
2006. If NSLS-II is to open in 2013, the budget must contain
funding for project engineering and design, the next phase after
conceptual design. Some say the amount must be $45 million;
others say $30 million is enough. Whatever the amount, the key
is to get NSLS-II money in the 2007 budget.
This is not a mission only for the lab's director, Praveen
Chaudhari, or for Steve Dierker, who runs the current light
source and leads the lab's drive for NSLS-II. It's an
all-hands-on-deck task.
A group of scientists who use Brookhaven's light source,
coordinated by the New York Structural Biology Center and
calling itself the Committee for NSLS-II, has worked to get New
York's congressional delegation to sign a letter to the Office
of Management and Budget. Almost every member of the delegation
has signed. A major player in that is an upstate powerhouse,
Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R-New Hartford), chairman of the House
Science Committee and a good friend of the lab.
Bipartisanship is the way to go
Boehlert's help is crucial. The lab has staunch support from
both New York senators, Democrats Chuck Schumer and Hillary
Rodham Clinton, and Rep. Tim Bishop (D-Southampton), whose
district includes the lab. But Republicans control Congress. So
this fight must be bipartisan. That's why Bishop worked with
Chaudhari to get Rep. Dave Hobson (R-Ohio), a key appropriations
subcommittee chairman, to tour the lab.
In that spirit, there's a big role for Gov. George Pataki, a
Republican. States such as Illinois and Tennessee have supported
the future of their labs by spending money to build ancillary
facilities. So the Brookhaven lab wants the state to put up $30
million to construct the Joint Photon Sciences Institute, where
users of NSLS-II can develop better ways of using it. Sen.
Kenneth LaValle (R-Port Jefferson) and Stony Brook University,
part of the consortium that runs the lab, are urging Pataki to
write to DOE. So is the Long Island Association. Next, we hope:
a line in the State of the State address, and money in the state
budget.
But the big bump in the road is the 2006 federal budget. The
White House cut $18 million from the relativistic heavy ion
collider. Bishop, Schumer and Clinton helped get the House and
Senate to put it back in, but then conferees took it out.
Together with higher power costs, that sharply cut RHIC's
operating time. The lab needs RHIC at full tilt, NSLS-II and the
new nanocenter to remain viable.
So, if Brookhaven is to be at the cutting edge, and if America
is to stay competitive, this is a moment of truth.
Copyright © 2005, Newsday, Inc.
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83 Arizona Daily Sun: Landowner near Rocky Flats sues to keep water and access rights
www.azdailysun.com
Sunday, December 11, 2005
By MEGAN McCLOSKEY Associated Press Writer 12/11/2005
DENVER -- A landowner near Rocky Flats filed suit against the
government on Friday, asking the court to prevent the Department
of Energy from cutting off water supplies and access to his
mining and ranching operations.
Charles Church McKay, a fourth-generation rancher in Jefferson
County, is suing in U.S. District Court to enforce a 1985
settlement agreement involving the government's operation of the
nuclear facility -- which has since been demolished.
According to the agreement, the DOE would supply up to 20,000
gallons of water per day from its water treatment facility at
Rocky Flats to the Rock Creek Industrial Park, on which McKay
owns property that he would like to develop.
The government and its contractors, including Rockwell
International and Kaiser-Hill Co., have complied with the
agreement for the last two decades, but stopped in the last year
as they vacated the buildings, the lawsuit states.
Mike Waldron, a spokesman for the DOE, declined to comment.
"It's a matter of policy," he said. "We do not comment on
ongoing legal matters."
The water treatment facility has been shut down as part of the
government's decommissioning and cleanup of the 6,200-acre Rocky
Flats facility, which DOE Secretary Clay Sell this week declared
clean.
Deliveries of potable water that had been trucked to the site
since December 2004 have stopped and the DOE is threatening to
discontinue raw water service, according to the lawsuit.
"It's a federally supervised court agreement. You'd think that
would be reliable," McKay said Friday night.
He also claims in the lawsuit that the DOE is destroying roadway
near the west gate to the park, which is a historical access
point for both McKay's cattle operation and his mining tenants.
His family has had access to the land for about 70 years, McKay
said.
"We've gone in and out of that access 365 days a year, 24 hours
a day since the 1930s," he said. "Our clay operator and three
mining companies all depend on that access."
In the 1950s the government acquired hundreds of acres of
McKay's family land, known as Church Ranch, through
condemnations. The government has surface rights to the land,
but Church Ranch maintained mineral rights, the lawsuit states.
McKay's tenants have sand and gravel mining and clay mining
operations on the land.
McKay is not seeking punitive damages for the settlement
violations, but is asking a judge for the injunction to maintain
the status quo.
"We're just trying to keep working and keep afloat and do what
we do," McKay said.
A bill that would provide $10 million to buy mineral rights on
the grounds of the former nuclear weapons plant, which will be
converted into a national wildlife refuge, was introduced in the
U.S. Senate by Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo.
Existing gravel mining, which has occurred for decades, could
continue. No mineral owners would be forced to sell.
© 2000-2005 Arizona Daily Sun
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84 Pahrump Valley Times: Test Site's groundwater display on exhibit at the Beatty
Community Library
December 9, 2005
The U.S. Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security
Administration Nevada Site Office, and Environmental Management
Program groundwater display is currently on exhibit at the
Beatty Library through Jan. 9.
All are invited to visit the display at 400 N. 4th St., on the
corner of 4th and Ward streets in Beatty. Library hours are:
Monday, Wednesday and Thursday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Tuesday
noon to 7 p.m., and Saturday 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
The display addresses frequently asked questions regarding
groundwater at the Nevada Test Site. Visit www.nv.doe.gov for
more information on transportation and other Nevada Test Site
programs.
Copyright © Pahrump Valley Times, 1997 - 2005
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NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this
material is distributed without profit or payment to those who
have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for
non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more
information go to:
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