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                         NUCLEAR POLICY
 
1 US: [NYTr] Bush aide denies ties to fake Iraq-Niger documents
2 [NYTr] Italy Warned US that Iraq/Niger Docs Were Fake
3 US: Guardian Unlimited: FBI: Financial Gain Drove Uranium Forgery
4 AFP: Rome says Iraq-Niger dossier faked by sacked agent
5 Guardian Unlimited: Ahmadinejad Steering Iran to Isolationism
6 IRNA: EU to decide how to take forward Iran relations
7 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: [VIEWPOINT] Is the glass half empty or half f
8 Korea Times: Public Opinion on Korea-US Ties 
9 AFP: China confident of progress in North Korea nuclear talks -
10 US: Las Vegas SUN: Editorial: Get energized about energy 
11 Guardian Unlimited: ElBaradei Urges Nuke Facility Oversight
12 [NYTr] Goading China: Of Madmen and Nukes
13 Sydney Morning Herald: US cuddles up to latest member of nuclear clu
14 AFP:  China choked by pollution but signs emerge it is addressing th
15 Xinhua: Sino-Russian cooperation substantial despite squabbling   
16 Xinhua: FM press briefing on President Hu's 4-nation trip   
17 Xinhua: China, Russia issue joint communique   
18 Sify: China attacks Indo-US nuclear deal            
19 Asia Times: Beijing blusters over India's nuclear deal 
 
                         NUCLEAR REACTORS
 
20 US: Brattleboro Reformer: Yankee uprate report is released to public
21 US: San Luis Obispo Trib: Nuclear agency downgrades safety rating at
22 Bellona: Kola Nuclear Plant Operating Illegally
23 US: NRC: NRC Assigns New Sr. Resident Inspector 	to Oyster Creek Nuc
24 US: APP.COM: NRC: Delay by workers violated Oyster Creek regulations
25 US: PoughkeepsieJournal.com: Flaws found at nuke plant
26 US: JOURNAL NEWS: Indian Point leak sources found
27 FT.com: France looks to cash in on nuclear revival
28 US: NRC: Nine Mile Point Nuclear Station, LLC (NMPNS); Long Island 
29 US: NRC: Notice of Availability of Model Application Concerning 
30 US: courant.com: NRC To Gather Soil, Concrete Samples 
31 US: Hudson Valley News: Entergy briefs government officials on India
32 US: Petoskey News-Review: Down comes the dome: Big Rock sphere disma
33 US: ABQJOURNAL: Feds Monitor Mock Disaster Drill at Palo Verde Nucle
 
                          NUCLEAR SECURITY
 
 
                          NUCLEAR SAFETY
 
34 US: Morris Daily Herald: NRC to discuss regulations with public
35 US: NRC: RIN 3150-AH68: Comment on 10,000 year dose standard
 
                         NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
 
36 US: [NukeNet] Nov. 12, Symposium on Nuclear Transport in Western NC
37 US: SimiValley Acorn: Fire damage to Rocketdyne test site concerns s
38 US: Deseret News: Nuke waste on ice? 
39 RIA Novosti: Armenia to allocate $190,000-plus to build spent nuclea
40 US: BYU NewsNet: Nuclear rail line nixed 
41 RGJ.com: Rail trench is leaking, but officials not worried
42 Pahrump Valley Times: Bechtel: Audit flawed 
43 US: NRC: NRC Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste to Meet in Rockvill
44 US: ksl.com: Investigative Report: Contaminant Found in Utah Milk (P
45 Canada: Globe and Mail: Bury nuclear waste underground, group says 
46 CBC New Brunswick: Lord cautious on nuclear waste storage suggestion
47 Pahrump Valley Times: Who really owns Yucca Mountain? 
48 US: Salt Lake Tribune: N-waste plan hits a new obstacle 
49 US: Deseret News: No spur, no nuclear dump? 
 
                           PEACE
 
 
                        US DEPT. OF ENERGY
 
50 reviewjournal.com: Nuclear materials sent to test site
51 United Press International: Oak Ridge receives Los Alamos uranium
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 1 [NYTr] Bush aide denies ties to fake Iraq-Niger documents
 
Date: Fri, 4 Nov 2005 13:22:06 -0600 (CST)


Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit
 
Reuters via Info Clearing House - Nov 2, 2005
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info//article10862.htm

Bush aide denies ties to fake Iraq-Niger documents

By Adam Entous

11/02/05 WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush's national security
adviser, Stephen Hadley, denied on Wednesday that he or his staff received
fake documents in 2002 that showed Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger, a
claim that formed part of the administration's case for going to war.

After consulting with a member of his staff "to refresh my memory," Hadley
told reporters that the documents were first obtained by the State
Department and then shared with the CIA, and that he does not recall ever
discussing the issue with Italian intelligence officials.

"Suffice to say they didn't come to me. They didn't come to the NSC," Hadley
said, referring to the National Security Council.

Bush, in making a case for war in his 2003 State of the Union address, said
there was evidence that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Africa to further
apparent nuclear-weapons ambitions. Bush cited British intelligence as the
source of the information.

The FBI has been investigating the origin of the forged documents. U.S.
officials have said in the past that the information was partly traced back
to Italian intelligence sources.

The White House acknowledged after the war that the intelligence was faulty
and Hadley took the blame for the reference that showed up in Bush's State
of the Union speech.

According to reports in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, Italian
intelligence helped pass off forged documents that accused Iraq of trying to
buy 500 tons of "yellowcake" uranium from Niger.

Focus has centered on Hadley because of his September 9, 2002, meeting with
Italy's intelligence chief, Nicolo Pollari.

Exactly one month later, on October 9, 2002, an Italian journalist provided
the U.S. Embassy in Rome with copies of documents about the alleged
Iraq-Niger uranium sale, according to a U.S. congressional investigation.
Copies of the documents were then sent to State Department headquarters and
the CIA, the congressional report said.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's office said last week that the
government and Italian intelligence had no "direct or indirect role in the
fabrication and the transmission of the 'fake dossier on Niger uranium.'"

Backing up Berlusconi's account, the White House said earlier this week that
U.S. officials who attended the September 9, 2002, meeting do not remember
any discussion of the Niger claim or any exchange of documents.

ITALY'S ROLE?

Pollari is due to address an Italian parliamentary committee overseeing the
intelligence service on Thursday at a closed-door meeting called to discuss
the latest claims.

Asked if he or any member of his staff met with Italian intelligence outside
the White House when the issue was discussed, Hadley said: "I can tell you
my recollection. My recollection is no, not here, not anyplace else."

The Niger documents were declared forgeries by the International Atomic
Energy Agency in March 2003.

The Niger issue has attracted renewed attention as U.S. special counsel
Patrick Fitzgerald wraps up his investigation into the leak of covert CIA
operative Valerie Plame's identity. As part of his investigation, Fitzgerald
has asked witnesses about the Niger report.

Bush's 2003 uranium claim fueled criticism from Plame's husband, former
diplomat Joseph Wilson, that the administration twisted intelligence to
bolster its case for war.

Wilson based his criticism in part on a CIA-sponsored mission he made to
Africa in 2002 to check out reports that Iraq sought uranium from Niger.
Wilson said the report was unsubstantiated, and later accused the White
House of leaking his wife's identity in retaliation.

) Reuters 2005.
       
                                *
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 2 [NYTr] Italy Warned US that Iraq/Niger Docs Were Fake
 
Date: Fri, 4 Nov 2005 13:23:58 -0600 (CST)


Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit
 
AP via Info Clearing House - Nov 3, 2005
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info//article10873.htm

Italian Lawmaker Says Country's Secret Service Warned U.S. 
That Iraq Uranium Documents Were Fake

By ARIEL DAVID
Associated Press Writer

11/03/05 "AP" ROME--Italian secret services warned the United States months
before it invaded Iraq that a dossier about a purported Saddam Hussein
effort to buy uranium in Africa was fake, a lawmaker said Thursday after a
briefing by the nation's intelligence chief.

"At about the same time as the State of the Union address, they (Italy's
SISMI secret services) said that the dossier doesn't correspond to the
truth," Sen. Massimo Brutti told journalists after the parliamentary
commission was briefed.

Brutti said the warning was given in January 2003, but he did not know
whether it was made before or after President Bush's speech.

The United States and Britain used the claim that Saddam was seeking to buy
uranium in Niger to bolster their case for the war. The intelligence
supporting the claim later was deemed unreliable.

Copyright 2005 The Associated Press.
       
                                *
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.NY Transfer News Collective    *    A Service of Blythe Systems
.          Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us         .
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*****************************************************************
 3 Guardian Unlimited: FBI: Financial Gain Drove Uranium Forgery
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Saturday November 5, 2005 12:16 AM
 	
WASHINGTON (AP) - The FBI has determined that financial gain,
not an effort to influence U.S. policy, was behind the forged
documents that the Bush administration used to bolster its
prewar claim that Iraq sought uranium ore in Niger. 

The FBI's investigation began after questions were raised about
a brief portion of President Bush's January 2003 State of the
Union speech when he said that Iraq was pursuing the uranium
ore, part of his argument to justify the coming invasion of
Iraq. 

Some U.S. and foreign officials disputed the authenticity of
documents, supporting Bush's contention, that showed Saddam
Hussein was seeking the uranium ore for a nuclear weapons
program. 

The FBI had refused comment on the matter until Italian news
sources reported this week that FBI Director Robert Mueller sent
the Italian government a letter in July with the results of the
bureau's two-year investigation. 

The investigation ``confirmed the documents to be fraudulent and
concluded they were more likely part of a criminal scheme for
financial gain,'' FBI spokesman John Miller said Friday,
describing the contents of the letter. 

Miller did not say what led the FBI to its conclusion or
identify the perpetrators of the hoax. 

Italian officials earlier this week identified Rocco Martino,
described as a one-time informant for the Italian secret
service, as the source of the forged documents, according to
Italian Sen. Massimo Brutti. 

Martino had previously given media interviews acknowledging his
role. 

But Italy's spy chief, Nicolo Pollari, denied that Italian
intelligence had any hand distributing the phony dossier, Brutti
and other lawmakers who attended a closed-door briefing said. 

The session occurred following a newspaper report alleging Italy
had passed the documents to Britain and the United States
knowing that they were fake. 

Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, the senior Democrat on
the Senate intelligence committee, said he still has unanswered
questions, despite the committee's recent closed-door briefing
by the FBI. 

``Until I receive additional information about the thoroughness
of the investigation, I cannot make a judgment on the accuracy
of the conclusions,'' Rockefeller said. 

The Niger claim also is at the center of the CIA leak
investigation that led to the indictment last week of Vice
President Richard Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis
``Scooter'' Libby. 

Libby pleaded innocent to charges he obstructed the
investigation and lied to investigators and the grand jury that
has been looking into the leak of the identity of covert CIA
operative Valerie Plame, the wife of Bush administration critic
Joseph Wilson. 

Wilson traveled to Niger in 2002 on behalf of the CIA to check
out the Iraq uranium story. Plame's CIA status was exposed after
Wilson accused the administration of twisting intelligence in
the run-up to the war to exaggerate the Iraqi threat. 
		 	 	   
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
 4 AFP: Rome says Iraq-Niger dossier faked by sacked agent

 Fri Nov 4, 5:53 AM ET 
		 	 
ROME (AFP) - Italy's military intelligence chief has denied his 
agency played any role in the fabrication or passing to the 
United States of a forged dossier claiming Iraq " /> had bought 
uranium from Niger, telling a parliamentary committee it was 
written by a sacked former employee. 

"The SISMI had no role in the fabrication of the dossier on the
sale of Niger uranium to Saddam Hussein
" /> 's regime," General Nicolo Pollari told a parliamentary
committee, according to a Corriere della Sera report Friday.
 
"On the contrary, from the start we shared the confusion of
other intelligence agencies about the dossier, until we declared
it was not credible," Pollari told the committee hearing on
Thursday evening.
 
The special session of the intelligence committee was called
after the opposition-supporting daily La Repubblica claimed last
week that the Niger dossier had been fabricated by Italian
intelligence agents.
 
The claim that Iraq had purchased uranium from Niger to realise
its nuclear ambitions was one of Washington's main arguments for
invading Iraq in March 2003.
 
"The dossier was passed to the United States via a journalist
for the Panorama weekly, who left it at the US embassy in Rome,
and it was delivered to the French intelligence services by
Rocco Martino," Pollari said.
 
Martino was dismissed from the SISMI and forged the dossier with
the help of staff from the Niger embassy in Rome, according to
Pollari.
 
La Repubblica had alleged that the SISMI, and in particular its
director Pollari, had circulated the dossier knowing it to be
fake to boost US President George W. Bush
" /> 's claim that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass
destruction and to justify military intervention in Iraq.
 
The intelligence chief also pointed out that in his evidence to
the same committee in late 2002, he had said it would take "a
minimum of five years for Iraq to develop a potential nuclear
weapon".
 
Pollari was accompanied at the hearing by Gianni Letta, Prime
Minister Silvio Berlusconi's right-hand man and the most senior
politician in charge of the Italian intelligence services.
 

	 		 			
  Copyright © 2005 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 5 Guardian Unlimited: Ahmadinejad Steering Iran to Isolationism
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Friday November 4, 2005 9:31 PM
 	
AP Photo XHS113A 
By ALI AKBAR DAREINI Associated Press Writer 

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Since taking office in August, President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has jettisoned Iran's foreign policy of
detente and moderation, provoking international outrage and
deepening the country's isolation. Some in Tehran's leadership
cadre are searching for a way to rein him in. 

It took the ultraconservative Ahmadinejad less than three months
to re-stamp the country's international and social agendas with
the radicalism of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and to
largely bury the reforms crafted by his predecessor, Mohammad
Khatami, during an 8-year struggle to loosen the control of the
country's Shiite Muslim clerical ruling class. 

Ahmadinejad replaced all the pragmatists on the Supreme National
Security Council, a powerful body that handles Iran's nuclear
negotiations with Europe, with hard-liners. 

His interior minister replaced all reformist provincial
governors with hard-liners supporting Ahmadinejad's anti-reform
domestic agenda. 

Then, the president provoked global condemnation after he said
Israel should be ``wiped off the map.'' The call sounded alarm
bells in the United States and some European capitals, prompting
fresh calls for containment of the Islamic republic and its
nuclear ambitions. Washington says Tehran wants to build a
weapon. The Iranians say their atomic program is for generating
electricity. 

Ignoring global and domestic outrage, perhaps even relishing it,
an unrepentant Ahmadinejad renewed his call for the Jewish
state's destruction just days later. 

His comment sent the stock exchange plummeting 30 percent
despite continued high oil prices. Iran is the Organization of
Petroleum Exporting Countries' second largest producer. 

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan also canceled a planned trip
to Iran, saying it was ``not an appropriate time'' for him to go
because of the ``ongoing controversy'' surrounding Ahmadinejad's
remarks, according to a statement Friday from his spokesman,
Stephane Dujarric. 

Further consolidating the changes, Ahmadinejad's foreign
minister announced Wednesday that 40 of Iran's ambassadors and
senior diplomats - all of whom supported warmer ties with the
West - will be removed from their posts by March. Some have
already lost their jobs. 

Reformists from other key ministries have also been ousted in
the largest shake-up inside Iran's ruling establishment in more
than 20 years. 

``Ahmadinejad believed democratic reforms pursued by Khatami
betrayed the goals of the 1979 Islamic revolution that brought
hard-line clerics to power,'' said Hashem Sabbaqian, a liberal
dissident and former interior minister. ``He seeks to take Iran
back to its days of radicalism in the 80s.'' 

Sabbaqian said Ahmadinejad - a former Tehran mayor and
Republican Guard commander - is fulfilling his campaign pledge
to fight Western influence and return Iran to the fundamentalist
state that emerged under Khomeini after the ouster of the
U.S.-allied shah. 

Ahmadinejad's cultural policy seeks to re-impose many social
restrictions Khatami had eased step by step. 

His minister of culture, Hossein Safar Harandi, has banned women
employees at his ministry from work after sunset, saying females
need to be home to look after their families. 

The all-powerful clerics who have the last say in national
affairs appear to be watching developments closely. 

``The establishment is now thinking about how to contain this
president whose actions risk global confrontation with Iran,''
said Davoud Hermidas Bavand, a professor of international
relations at Tehran's Imam Sadeq University. 

It's not clear how far Iran's supreme ruler, Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei, can comfortably back Ahmadinejad. So far, Khamenei has
refused to say anything for or against Ahmadinejad since his
anti-Israel comments. But some observers say Khamenei is not
entirely pleased. 

He has increased the powers of the Expediency Council, which
arbitrates between the parliament and the government. That
effectively undercuts the authority of Ahmadinejad's government
and hard-line voices in the parliament, many of them former
military commanders opposed to the United States. 

``Khamenei is worried that Ahmadinejad, his trusted agent, is
causing too many problems for Iran. It appears that Khamenei
doesn't like everything Ahmadinejad does but wants to give him
time,'' Bavand said. 

Meanwhile, moderates including former president Hashemi
Rafsanjani have sought to dial back the rhetoric and assure the
world that Ahmadinejad won't be allowed to turn Iran into a
full-fledged rogue nation. 

Rafsanjani told King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia during a recent
visit to Saudi Arabia that Ahmadinejad will be contained, a
close aide to Rafsanjani said on condition of anonymity because
he was not authorized to speak to the press. 

--- 
Ali Akbar Dareini has covered Iran for The Associated Press in
Tehran since 1999. 
		 	 	   
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
 6 IRNA: EU to decide how to take forward Iran relations

London, Nov 4, IRNA                                                                                                              

EU-Iran 

EU Foreign Ministers are to discuss policy towards Iran at their
General Affairs Council meeting in Brussels on Monday and that
conclusions were expected, Britain's Europe Minister Douglas
Alexander has revealed.

 "The Council will focus on how the EU should take forward its
relationship with Iran taking into account developments in the
EU's areas of concern," Alexander said in a statement to the
British parliament, published Friday.

 He said areas of concern include "Iran's nuclear programme,
human rights record, approach towards terrorism, and opposition
to the Middle East Peace Process."
 Foreign Minister from the 25-member bloc would also discuss
recent remarks made by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
about Israel's right to exist, the minister said.

 It is not known whether the conclusions from the discussions
will go any further forward than reiterating areas of concern
and calling on Iran to return to talks on its nuclear programme
with the so- called EU3 of Britain, France and Germany.

 During parliamentary business questions on Thursday, leader of
the House of Commons Geoff Hoon also revealed that Foreign
Secretary Jack Straw set out several concerns about Iran at
Prime Minister Tony Blair's weekly cabinet meeting.

 In response to calls to allow MPs to debate relations with
Iran, Hoon said that he wanted to emphasise again the
"importance" that the British government attaches to the
situation in Iran, which he referred to as "disturbing" but set
no date for a debate.

 On Tuesday, Foreign Office Minister Lord Triesman told
parliament that the British government, which is the current
president of the EU, was adopting a cautious diplomatic approach
towards peacefully resolving.

 "Cutting links with Iran will do nothing to advance those
objectives. The United States, which has no contacts with Iran,
continues to urge us to maintain our contacts with Iran to try
to keep some dialogue going," Triesman said.

*****************************************************************
 7 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: [VIEWPOINT] Is the glass half empty or half full?
   
  Despite considerable skepticism about the efficacy of a
nuclear deal with North Korea, I readily acknowledge that
several recent developments are encouraging.

 The Sept. 19 agreement on general principles provides a clear
framework for the six-party talks. The objective, "a verifiable
denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in a peaceful manner,"
is unexceptionable, and North Korea's stated commitments to
abandon all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs, to
return at an early date to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty
and to permit a resumption of Internation Atomic Energy Agency
safeguards is welcome.

 The parties seem to be positioning themselves for the tough
bargaining that lies ahead. North Korea, according to New Mexico
Governor Bill Richardson, has affirmed its intent to participate
in the next round of talks. Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit
to Pyongyang should put the North's leader, Kim Jong-il, under
continuing pressure to keep Beijing happy. South Korea's offer
to make substantial conventional power supplies available to the
North provides a tangible response to its most critical economic
requirement. 

Japan maintains a balanced portfolio of potential incentives and
selective sanctions, to utilize in response to Pyongyang's
conduct in the talks. And the United States has displayed a more
professional interest in serious negotiations by avoiding
gratuitous public slurs on the North's leaders, commencing more
regular exchanges with Pyongyang's negotiators, and signaling a
readiness to modify its earlier "take it or leave it" bargaining
stance.

 All these developments suggest that the diplomatic cup may be
half full. Lest this conclusion betray the proverbial triumph of
hope over experience, it is prudent to recall that ample grounds
exist for caution. 

First, it is much easier to achieve consensus on general
principles than to resolve nagging disagreements over details.
The agreement on general principles, moreover, is full of weasel
words, and most of the contentious issues were finessed. For
example, there is no mention of the North's uranium enrichment
program, no clarity as to what will happen to its existing
nuclear facilities, and no clue as to the nature and scope of
verification arrangements. 

Second, it is unclear whether the North is interested in a deal
or merely in buying time to continue the development of its
nuclear capabilities. There are plenty of ways in which it can
string the bargaining out, and it has already shown some of
them, such as the upfront demand for a light water reactor.

 Third, Seoul's economic cooperation with the North is steadily
expanding. Its readiness to link the North's growing stake in
economic cooperation with the South to progress in the nuclear
talks, however, remains unclear. The same can be said of China.

 Fourth, while I perceive no recent change in Japan's posture
toward North Korea, its relations with Beijing and Seoul have
taken a dive in recent months. This will not make the diplomatic
coordination essential to a favorable diplomatic outcome any
easier to contrive.

 Finally, the Bush administration, while displaying more
tactical flexibility in the last round of six-party talks, is
now confronting an unanticipated and escalating political
challenge at home. It is not coming from its traditional
Democratic opponents, but from its core supporters. The
Republican Party's fiscal conservatives are up in arms about the
administration's lack of budget discipline. Social conservatives
lament the nomination, now withdrawn, of Harriet Miers to the
Supreme Court. Conservative "realists" are increasingly critical
of the "utopianism" they ascribe to the president's aspirations
for the Middle East. 

Most everyone is irritated by the ineptitude of the Federal
Emergency Management Agency in responding to Hurricane Katrina.
And if this were not enough, House Republican leader Tom DeLay
has been indicted, and I. Lewis Libbey, Vice President Dick
Cheney's chief of staff, appears in jeopardy from a special
prosecutor. In this context, one may fairly ask how far the
administration will proceed down a negotiating path that will be
excoriated by the right as a replay of the 1994 Agreed Framework
which they disdain. 

These are among the considerations that suggest the glass is
still half empty, and that the hard diplomatic work lies ahead.
It is important to test North Korea's willingness to make a hard
choice with respect to its nuclear activities. Our best chance
of presenting Pyongyang with that choice will continue to depend
on transforming shared non-nuclear objectives among the United
States, South Korea, Japan and China into an effective and
well-coordinated negotiating strategy. This means there is
plenty for our respective diplomats to do in the coming weeks,
and I hope they will be successful in establishing a basis of
agreement among themselves, before entering the next round with
the North's representatives. I will keep my fingers crossed, and
my expectations hopeful, but modest.
 
* The writer, a former U.S. ambassador to Japan, is a professor
at Stanford University.

by Michael H. Armacost   
	  
  2005.11.04       

Copyright by Joins.com, Inc. Terms of Use |
*****************************************************************
 8 Korea Times: Public Opinion on Korea-US Ties 

Hankooki.com > The Korea Times > Opinion   
      

The followings are excerpts from a keynote speech given by Dr.
Cho Ki-suk, senior secretary to the president for public
information, at Thursday¡¯s conference sponsored by the Sejong
Research Institute and Georgetown University, at Georgetown
University in Washington, D.C., under the theme ¡°New Era, New
Alliance.¡± _ ED

 Many argue that the Korea-U.S. alliance has been strained over
the past several years. 

I can think of five causes of confusion among some scholars and
politicians with regard to public opinion in Korea. First, there
are differences in ways of thinking between the younger and the
older generations. The older generation sees North Korea through
a Cold War mentality. In other words, they understand
international relations as a dichotomy.

 The young generation in Korea no longer uses a dichotomous
framework. They are comfortable with lateral thinking on many
issues. They think favorably both of North Korea and the United
States; North Korea as a kin deserving assistance, and the
United States as an ally deserving a respectable relationship. 

When compared with older people who idolized the United States,
favorable responses to the United States among the young people
may have somewhat declined. However, the decline in people¡¯s
favorable attitudes toward the United States is not limited only
to young Koreans. Close attention should be paid to an overall
phenomenon _ the popularity of the United States is dwindling in
other countries as well. 

Third, incidents like the attempt to demolish the statute of
General McArthur are a source of misunderstanding about public
opinion in Korea. Public opinion should be understood through
objective indexes rather than dramatic events. If people
perceive an unusual event launched by an extremely small number
of people to attract public attention as representing the whole,
it is quite dangerous as we may reach an erroneous policy
decision. Psychologists call this phenomenon ¡°subjective
probability.¡±

 Fourth, interpreting rallies in memory of the two schoolgirls
killed by an armored military vehicle of the U.S. as an
expression of anti-Americanism or anti-American sentiment may be
another cause of confusion. It is my understanding that American
officials were stunned at the seemingly anti-American street
rallies in the course of the 2002 Korean presidential election. 

It is true that a handful of the participants burned the US flag
and chanted Yankee Go Home slogans. Yet their extreme behavior
could not be sustained because other participants who witnessed
such conduct strongly protested and left the rally.

 Fifth, some may raise the following question concerning the
source of confusion. Some conclusions even in scientifically
designed opinion polls are hard to understand. For example,
there was a survey question asking, ¡°Which country would you
side with if a war breaks out between North Korea and the United
States?¡± To this question, 65.9 percent of the younger
generation responded, ¡°We should side with North Korea,¡± while
28.1 percent said, ¡°We should side with the United States.¡±
(Chosun Ilbo, August 15, 2005). Many assume that responses to
survey questions are quite rational and calculated. In reality,
however, the opposite is often the case. Thus, mass opinion and
public opinion should be differentiated. 

Finally, I would like to emphasize one point. A faction in the
United States contends, ¡°Anti-American sentiment of Koreans is
encouraged and widespread because the Korean government is
critical of the United States.¡± This is an erroneous contention
arising out of serious misunderstanding of the Korean
government¡¯s stance.

 For instance, one representative case of such misperception is
that the Korean government has supported North Korea rather than
the United States in the process of resolving North Korean
nuclear programs during the latest round of six-party talks.
What we consistently advocated was our own stance on the issue.
Some even raised an issue over the Korean government¡¯s emphasis
on the peaceful resolution of the nuclear problem, arguing that
it constituted unwarranted appeasement of Pyongyang. The Korean
government sought this goal as it is our foremost principle to
prevent another war from breaking out on the Korean Peninsula.
This is not a question of favoritism over North Korea and the
United States but one of the very survival of the Republic of
Korea.

 In addition, it is important to understand precisely why the
Korean government has been emphasizing a horizontal Korea-U.S.
relationship in the course of negotiating various pending
bilateral issues. Such emphasis is not an indirect expression
that the Korean government has bad feelings against the United
States or its policies. It shows our willingness to elevate the
Korea-U.S. relationship to a friendly one at a more mature and
advanced level that reflects the changed environment of economic
development of the nation and heightened national self-esteem. 

Compared to the situation in 2002, public opinion in Korea
toward the United States and President Bush has been much
improved. A good majority of the Korean people support
reconciliation with Pyongyang and further enhancement of the
Korea-U.S. alliance. Many Koreans also support the idea of Korea
assuming a more active role in the process. 

The Participatory Government of President Roh Moo-hyun believes
that, while some tension has been seen in the course of
redefining the bilateral alliance, a good many pending issues
that had been delayed for a long time have been resolved
reasonably well through negotiations. On the strength of those
good results, the Korea-U.S. alliance will continue to move
forward toward a more advanced relationship, and I am confident
that such an advanced alliance will serve as an important pillar
buttressing peace in Northeast Asia. 

11-04-2005 22:09         

Cho Ki-suk 
  
*****************************************************************
 9 AFP: China confident of progress in North Korea nuclear talks -
                           
 Fri Nov 4, 2:50 AM ET 
		 	 
BEIJING (AFP) - Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing has
expressed confidence progress will be made at next week's
six-party talks on the North Korean nuclear issue. 

"I firmly believe one thing, and that is that people's
aspirations cannot be violated because everyone in the world
wants to see a peaceful, stable and nuclear free Korean
peninsula," Li told journalists.
 
"We have confidence that thanks to the patient and flexible
efforts of the various parties, the six-party talks will be
carried forward, despite that we are quite sure that some
problems will be unavoidable."
 
The fifth round of the talks are due to begin in Beijing on
November 9.
 
At the last round in September the six sides issued a joint
statement of purpose agreeing to verifiably scrap North Korea
" /> North Korea's nuclear programs in exchange for energy
assistance and other benefits.
 
However, sharp differences remain in the talks, which include
hosts China, the two Koreas, the United States, Japan and
Russia, over the sequence in which the highly technical process
will be done.
 
"It is fair to say that the joint statement is a very important
step in a 10,000 li (mile) march, it is very good and it has not
come by easily," Li said.
 
He said he was buoyed by the commitment that the United States,
North Korea and Russia have voiced in recent days to move the
process forward and lightheartedly revealed some of the
"difficulties along the way".
 
"During the fourth round, which was divided into two sections,
(we calculated that it) added up to 2,500 cappuccinos (coffees)
consumed by all the participants and staff members," Li said.
 
"Another estimate put it at 4,000 cappuccinos, all these
cappuccinos were of course at my cost and were imported from EU
countries. So we indeed contribute to the talks."
 
Li predicted next week's round of talks would need less coffee,
further reflecting views that September's joint statement of
objectives was a crucial hurdle in the long-winded process.
 
A senior US official speaking on condition of anonymity said
Thursday North Korea could submit a plan to dismantle its
nuclear weapons arsenal at the talks.
 
"If the North Korean government arrives at the table and says:
'here is our plan for dismantling our nuclear programs, and our
plan for a nuclear free peninsula', and that is on its face
acceptable to all the other governments, then clearly that would
merit further and intensive discussions," he said.
 
  Copyright © 2005 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 10 Las Vegas SUN: Editorial: Get energized about energy 

Today: November 04, 2005 at 9:26:42 PST 

It would be good if Bill Clinton's speech about renewable energy 
would create the same kind of interest in this industry that 
flared in Las Vegas in the early and mid-1990s 

For all of the optimistic talk about Nevada becoming a national 
or even global center for the production of renewable energy, 
little in the way of tangible progress has been made. The 
potential certainly exists in this state, as noted Saturday by 
former President Bill Clinton, who was in town to deliver the 
keynote speech at the Nevada Development Authority's annual 
meeting. 

In his talk to the authority, a nonprofit organization that 
works to attract businesses, Clinton said that if he were in 
charge of economic planning in Nevada or Las Vegas, he would 
"start by making a complete and total commitment to a clean 
energy future, because I think you can create more jobs there 
than anywhere else." Clinton said opportunity in this emerging 
field is wide open for the Nevada business community. 

We were delighted that Clinton chose Nevada's potential for 
producing renewable energy as a central theme for his speech. 
History has proven that for the state to get moving on this 
subject, it takes someone of high public stature to endorse it. 

The last time renewable energy made a splash in Nevada was 
because then-Gov. Bob Miller, then-Sen. Richard Bryan and Sen. 
Harry Reid (currently the Senate minority leader) all noted 
Nevada's nearly limitless potential for using solar energy to 
produce the "energy of the future" -- hydrogen. 

That was in February 1993, when Miller, Bryan and Reid attended 
an international energy conference at UCLA. Reid followed up the 
meeting by holding Senate hearings on hydrogen. Bryan spoke of 
the environmental and political problems caused by oil, saying, 
"We need to reorient the focus of the Energy Department, which 
is now mesmerized by nuclear energy and fossil fuels." Miller 
touted Nevada as a state "willing to try new things," and said 
hydrogen research and production would be a logical next use for 
the Nevada Test Site. 

For the next several years Southern Nevada was a hub of 
renewable energy activity, as businesses and nonprofit 
scientific and engineering associations presented ideas for 
using millions of acres of surrounding desert to place solar 
collectors, whose gathered energy would be used to separate 
hydrogen atoms from water. 

Envisioned were manufacturing plants for building the 
collectors, installation businesses for getting them set up and 
an expanded utility industry for selling hydrogen and excess 
solar energy. 

Possibly because conventional energy prices were still 
reasonable, or because the proposed technology was too 
land-intensive, or because reliance on foreign oil wasn't the 
issue that it is today, the political and entrepreneurial will 
eventually fizzled. 

It's a different world today, and we hope Clinton's speech 
brings back the old excitement about a large-scale renewable 
energy industry in Nevada. 

All contents copyright 2005 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. 
*****************************************************************
 11 Guardian Unlimited: ElBaradei Urges Nuke Facility Oversight
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Friday November 4, 2005 3:16 AM
 	
AP Photo MASR105 
By THEO EMERY 
Associated Press Writer 

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) - The head of the U.N.'s atomic energy
agency said Thursday that multinational oversight of nuclear
technology was the best way to prevent the spread of nuclear
weapons amid increasing demand for atomic energy. 

``We cannot afford to have every country be sitting on an
enrichment factory,'' said Mohamed ElBaradei, the director
general of the International Atomic Energy Agency. 

If that happened, every country would be able to develop nuclear
weapons in a matter of months, he said. ``This level of security
is too close for comfort.'' 

ElBaradei, who won this year's Nobel Peace Prize along with the
agency he heads, gave the lecture at the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology. 

He said that every diplomatic means should be exhausted before
using military force to make sure that countries without nuclear
weapons keep up their obligations not to try to get them, citing
the examples of Iraq, Iran, and Libya. 

``Clearly we need to use every possible means that we have
before we think of other alternatives. Are we saying, never,
never will we use force? No, but we could only talk about using
force when it is the last resort, and it is the best resort,''
he said. 

Earlier in the week, he made his first speech to the U.N.
General Assembly since winning the prize. ElBaradei said his
goals this year would include bringing North Korea back into the
Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and answering unresolved
questions about Iran's nuclear program. 

ElBaradei (pronounced ehl-BEHR'-uh-day) has faced U.S.
opposition throughout his tenure, much of it stemming from a
perception in Washington that he has not been tough enough on
Iran because he has not declared the country in violation of the
treaty. 

ElBaradei also refused to endorse Washington's belief that Iran
was working to make nuclear weapons and also disputed U.S.
claims that Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq had an active atomic
weapons program. 

He said Thursday that the number of countries that are part of
the treaty was unlikely to rise, even though India, Pakistan and
Israel all have nuclear weapons. 

``We bagged as many as we can. I don't think these three are
going to come to the NPT through the normal route,'' he said. 
		 	 	   
      Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
 12 [NYTr] Goading China: Of Madmen and Nukes
 
Date: Fri, 4 Nov 2005 20:37:47 -0600 (CST)


Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit
 
CounterPunch - Nov 4, 2005
http://www.counterpunch.org/kimball11042005.html

Goading China

Of Madmen and Nukes

By DARYL G. KIMBALL

Chinese Major General Zhu Chenghu told journalists last July that China is
prepared to use nuclear weapons against the United States if it targets
Chinese ships, aircraft, or territory in a confrontation over Taiwan. "We
Chinese will prepare ourselves for the destruction of all of the cities east
of Xian. Of course the Americans will have to be prepared that hundredsof
cities will be destroyed by the Chinese," he warned.

With Zhu's suicidal nuclear threats as backdrop, U.S. Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld told his military counterparts in Beijing last month that
"advances in China's strategic strike capacity raise questions" about its
intentions. Rumsfeld suggested that "greater clarity would generate more
certainty in the region."

Excellent points, Mr. Secretary. But China, of course, is not the only state
to amass nuclear weapons to defend and advance its interests. Although other
Chinese officials disavowed Zhu's remarks, he is not the first to suggest,
officially or unofficially, that his government is "mad" enough to use
massive nuclear force against conventional attacks.

Since the beginning of the nuclear age, U.S. presidents have developed
policies and issued statements intended to make nuclear threats appear
credible and create uncertainty about when and where they might be used. As
unnerving as China's estimated arsenal of 100-400 nuclear weapons and Zhu's
remarks may be, Beijing's official no-first-use policy arguably makes its
posture more restrained than that of the United States today.

To deter other nuclear-armed states, particularly Russia, from attacking
with their nuclear arms, current U.S. strategy calls for the maintenance of
a massive arsenal of approximately 2,200 deployed strategic nuclear warheads
on high alert through 2012 and beyond. In addition, the United States will
still possess some 3,000 additional strategic warheads in storage and
several hundred substrategic weapons.

The Pentagon's March 2005 draft "Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations" also
outlines a wide range of options to deal with non-nuclear scenarios. It
would allow for the possible first use of nuclear weapons to help support
U.S. forces or allies against conventional attacks, such as a conflict with
China over Taiwan, as well as other scenarios, including pre-emptive nuclear
strikes on suspected chemical or biological weapons targets in
non-nuclear-weapon states.

Given the absence of a hostile, well-armed nuclear adversary, U.S.
conventional military dominance, and the possibility that additional states
might acquire nuclear weapons, is such a large U.S. arsenal and expansive
view of the role of nuclear weapons necessary, justifiable, and sustainable?
No.

There is no conceivable circumstance in which the United States would need
to use or could justify the use of nuclear weapons to fight or terminate a
conventional conflict with a non-nuclear adversary. On several occasions,
U.S. presidents from Truman and Eisenhower to Kennedy, Nixon, and George H.
W. Bush have considered the limited use of nuclear weapons in tactical
situations, but they have always rejected doing so. The calculus should be
no different today.

Policies that assert a war-fighting role for nuclear weapons only deepen the
risk of proliferation. They undermine existing pledges by nuclear-weapon
states that they will not use nuclear arms against countries without them.
They give states such as North Korea and Iran a cynical excuse to maintain
their nuclear weapons options and send a green light to nuclear rivals India
and Pakistan to contemplate their battlefield use.

The lessons of the Cuban missile crisis and other U.S.-Soviet confrontations
during the Cold War make clear that even limited nuclear engagement risks
escalation and unacceptable annihilation. Nuclear weapons are, therefore,
not a realistic war-fighting option in a conventional conflict against a
nuclear-armed adversary.

Some nuclear acolytes believe new types of weapons are needed to provide
"credible" options against future adversaries and targets, including
underground bunkers and chemical or biological threats. Such thinking
ignores the reality that employing any nuclear weapon would produce
disproportionate and unacceptable collateral destruction and severe
political fallout.

A saner nuclear weapons policy is feasible and overdue. As long as the
United States and others possess nuclear weapons, their role should be
limited to deterring other states from using them. Further, if that is their
only function, there is no reason why the United States cannot observe a
policy of no-first-use. Nor would there be any need to develop and test new
nuclear-weapon capabilities or maintain Cold War-sized arsenals on high
alert, a condition that risks accidental or unauthorized launch.

It has been 60 years since the last nuclear bomb was used in war. Perhaps
more than any other state, the United States has the most to lose if others
not only seek to acquire nuclear weapons but come to view them as legitimate
and useful instruments of coercion and war. But if U.S. policymakers expect
nuclear restraint from China and other states, they must reconsider and
readjust the role of U.S. nuclear forces.

[Daryl G. Kimball is director of the Arms Control Association.]
       
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*****************************************************************
 13 Sydney Morning Herald: US cuddles up to latest member of nuclear club 

smh.com.au
 
  + Large font November 5, 2005
 	 	
Even the global advertising creatives have hopped on the
bandwagon. "For India, the world is waiting," declares British
Airways' new TV campaign, pandering shamelessly to swelling
national pride.
 
But it is not empty flattery. After decades in the geopolitical
wilderness, India has found itself firmly on the diplomatic
A-list. With the United States, China and Russia jostling for
influence in Delhi, and its own nuclear weapons on hand, modern
India has never enjoyed so much potential global clout.
 
Why India is diplomacy's new darling is, in part, a simple story
of wealth. India may be getting richer more slowly and less
efficiently than China, but the promise of new money and markets
has a momentum of its own. Then there's location - India lies
strategically between East Asia's wealth belt and the energy
economies of the Middle East and Central Asia.
 
But that is not enough to explain the extraordinary recent
efforts of the US President, George Bush. The US, he declared,
is willing to lend its considerable weight to securing India's
untroubled ascent to great-power status.
 
"It's probably the most significant global power shift in more
than a decade," says one Western diplomat in Delhi.
 
India and the US are the world's two largest democracies, but
they have not been close. During the Cold War, Delhi styled
itself as a global leader of the poor, meek and powerless but,
in fact, leant heavily towards the Soviet Union and pursued its
own power agenda. India conducted nuclear tests in the 1970s in
an arms race with Pakistan and demonstrated its illegal nuclear
weapons in 1998 to howls of condemnation from the West.
 
"We sent the message to the world that we believe in a strong
India. We are a power, we have the bomb," a former Indian
official who asked not to be named says of Delhi's decision to
ignore international test bans.
 
So, why such favour in Washington, when the Bush Administration
is pursuing rogue nuclear states such as Iran? Delhi clearly has
no intention of relinquishing its unauthorised nuclear armoury.
 
The US "has placed its biggest bet on India", writes Ashley
Tilley for the Carnegie Endowment for Peace. "Augmenting Indian
power is judged to be essential to US interests because it
permits Washington to pursue a 'balance of power strategy in
Asia'," he says. That is, to counter China and to prevent China,
India or Russia from aligning, in any combination, to dilute
American influence in the region.
 
In July this year Mr Bush revealed just how high a price he's
willing to pay for the promise of Indian allegiance.
 
The US President has offered Delhi access to US civilian nuclear
technology and is asking the world's nuclear suppliers to do the
same; in effect forgiving India its illegal weapons program.
That's as close as Washington can go to endorsing India as a new
member of the most exclusive global club of all. The "nuclear
five" - the US, China, Russia, Britain and France - may soon be
six.
 
"After so many years of being ignored, we have some real
strategic opportunities to exploit right now," says the Indian
foreign affairs analyst, Amit Baruah. "We have to play them very
carefully."
 
What the world is really waiting for from India is a clear
signal on which way it will jump. "The US has acknowledged India
as a power - that's very seductive," says the Western diplomat.
 
But, just as Mr Bush has the US Congress to confront in pushing
through the extraordinary "nuclear exception" for India, many
Indians remain deeply suspicious of US foreign policy and a US
President bearing gifts.
 
"We are still not comfortable in our new clothes," says the
diplomatic commentator Indrani Bagchi. "For so long, our foreign
policy has been geared to saying nothing. The Government is
suddenly realising that if you have power you are expected to do
something with it, to take sides."
 
General Satish Nambiar, a military think-tank director, says:
"China needs to be balanced, but we'd be making a big mistake if
we gang up with the US."
 
America's strategic interests are clear. But, India's current
foreign policy agenda is just as pragmatic. Eighty per cent of
India's energy is imported. Unless India secures new energy
sources it won't rise to great power status.
 
The US deal promises India nuclear power stations in the long
term. But in the short term there's another reality; it's Iran
and Central Asia that have natural gas ready to pipe.
 
Copyright © 2005. The Sydney Morning Herald.
*****************************************************************
 14 AFP:  China choked by pollution but signs emerge it is addressing the issue - 
 
 Fri Nov 4, 8:56 AM ET 
		 	 
BEIJING (AFP) - China, the factory of the world, is being slowly
choked by the pollution brought on by its unrelenting economic
transformation and the government is starting to realise it
needs to do something about it. 

Environmentalists describe the situation as extremely serious,
but they say a window of opportunity still exists to reverse a
worsening trend.
 
"The government is not just sitting idle but it is also clear
they are not doing enough to cope with the current crisis," said
Greenpeace China spokesman Szeping Lo.
 
"There are reasons to be worried. It's all about whether the
central government has the political will and executive power to
implement its policies."
 
Parts of the Chinese apparatus acknowledge the problems that
exist, although many provincial and local level governments
continue to turn a blind eye to the environmental costs of
development.
 
According to the State Environmental Protection Administration
(SEPA), acid rain fell more often and on more cities last year,
affecting 298 urban areas -- more than half of all the cities
monitored.
 
Most of China's large waterways -- including its seven biggest
rivers and 25 out of its 27 major lakes -- were polluted, some
seriously, it said.
 
Urban pollution is another fast-growing problem, as statistics
show only one third of the sewage and about 57 percent of the
garbage generated in cities is being treated.
 
Coal is the worst culprit. It is used to fire 80 percent of
China's power stations which fuel the economic drive, but such a
heavy polluting resource is damaging the environment and harming
its people.
 
The World Bank
" /> estimates 400,000 people in China die each year from air
pollution-related illnesses, mainly lung and heart diseases. It
says direct damage costs China an annual 8-12 percent of its 1.4
trillion dollars GDP
" /> .
 
The capital Beijing is one of the worst affected cities and is
regularly engulfed in a thick gritty haze.
 
The conditions forced experts last week to warn the pea-soup
smog could cause headaches and dizziness and even breathing
difficulties and asthma attacks -- all this just three years
before it hosts the Olympics.
 
But after years of blind economic development, China is
gradually waking up to the environmental costs, and is trying to
do something about it as pressure builds from its citizens.
 
"China's urbanization process is now at a crucial juncture,"
admits Yang Weimin, director of the Development and Planning
Department under the National Development and Reform Commission
(NPRC), the country's top policy regulator.
 
"If the process continues in an unsustainable manner, it would
result in serious consequences," he was cited as saying recently
by Xinhua news agency.
 
Authorities are currently focusing efforts on developing clean
energy by using wind and solar sources to generate power.
 
China's need for clean, non-fossil fuel based energy is also
expected to make it the largest constructor of nuclear power
plants in the coming decades.
 
Greenpeace's Szeping applauded the steps but urged still more. 
"Right now we are facing a very serious situation and the
government needs to take this opportunity," he said. 
"It needs to invest hugely into the reneweable energy sector.
There is still far too much being invested in coal. The picture
now is bad enough, we can't afford to wait another 10 years to
realise this." 

China's citizens are also growing more environmentally aware
with an official survey last month of four million people in 31
provinces and regions showing water and air quality were key
concerns.
 	 		 			
  Copyright © 2005 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 15 Xinhua: Sino-Russian cooperation substantial despite squabbling   

  www.xinhuanet.com

  www.chinaview.cn 2005-11-04 20:38:15   

    BEIJING, Nov. 4 (Xinhuanet) -- From a 200 million US dollar
buyers' credit to a pledge to treat kids in the Beslan hostage
crisis, Russian Prime Minister Fradkov pocketed nine cooperation
documents after a short but high-profile China visit. 

    The pacts, however, excluded the highly anticipated but long
delayed oil pipeline project, which enables China to ship crude
oil from oil-rich Siberia. 

    Enterprises are still working hard to seek a solution
"satisfactory to both", he told the press after the 10th regular
prime ministers meeting between he and Chinese Premier Wen
Jiabao,adding that Russia will "honor its commitment" for energy
cooperation with China. 

    By means of a railway shipments, China is expected to
receive 8 million tons of crude oil in 2005, up from 5.8 million
in 2005.      

    China hopes the project construction pact could be signed
"at an early date", Premier Wen said. 

    In the joint communique signed by the two heads of
government, China and Russia have agreed to increase annual oil
shipment by railway to "no less than 15 million tons as of
2006." 

    But the sluggish pipeline deal has not dampened the
enthusiasm for China and Russia to boost bilateral ties. 

    During the past decade, dual-track trade soared from 5.46
billion US dollars to 21.2 billion dollars in 2004. 

    "The figure is expected to hit 28 billion dollars this
year," Wen said. 

    The two sides set the goal at 60 to 80 billion dollars in
2010."China's foreign trade in 2004 exceeded 1 trillion US , so
anyone can see the proportion of Sino-Russian trade and the
future potential," said Shen Jiru, a researcher with the Chinese
Academy of Social Sciences. 

    Both China and Russia realized the urgency to tighten
economic links. During the just concluded meeting, the two sides
elaborateda long list for future cooperation, including natural
gas supply, nuclear power station construction, cross-border
optical fiber andcargo transport. 

    The most noteworthy item lies in space technology. After
China's successful launch of the Shenzhou VI manned spaceship,
thetwo major powers in the space arena agreed to "explore the
possibility for moon and deep space exploration". 

    "Such cooperation will help to break the US monopoly in
manned space flight. But more significant is that it will
facilitate the world's space research if Russia, China and the
European Union coordinated together on space research," said
Shen. 

    But though Chinese premier described the bilateral ties in
"thebest period in history", there remain disagreements. 

    Chinese shoes and other commodities exported to Russia are
always troubled by the so-called "grey custom" while Russia is
complaining of shrinking Russian mechanical and electronic
exportsto China. 

    However, Fradkov said all these problems can be "completely
overcome and resolved." 

    Experts attributed his confidence to the strategic need for
both countries to cooperate. 

    China and Russia have a treaty featuring neighborliness and
friendship; a multi-faceted exchange mechanism ranging from
meetings between heads of state and government to all key
ministries and localities, in particular the bordering regions;
and carried out a joint military drill involving more than 8,000
troops last summer, 

    "The overall situation, or the political atmosphere,
provides asound outer environment for the two countries to boost
economic cooperation, the foundation for the future growth of
bilateral relations," Shen noted. Enditem   

  Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 16 Xinhua: FM press briefing on President Hu's 4-nation trip   

  www.xinhuanet.com

  www.chinaview.cn 2005-11-04 20:48:56   

    BEIJING, Nov. 4 (Xinhuanet) -- Chinese Foreign Minister Li
Zhaoxing said here Friday that the six-party talks would
constantly achieve progress with the concerted efforts of
parties concerned. 

    Chinese President Hu Jintao will pay state visits to
Britain, Germany, Spain and the Republic of Korea (ROK) from
Nov. 8 to 17, according to Chinese Foreign Ministry. 

    At a press briefing on President Hu's upcoming visits, when
asked to make comments on whether the six-party talks would be
the topic for Chinese and ROK leaders, Li said the six-party
talks on the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue, as a problem of
great sensitivity and importance, is always discussed by Chinese
and foreign leaders on many occasions. 

    The six-party talks, involving China, the Democratic
People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), the United States, the ROK,
Russia and Japan, have been held for four rounds in Beijing
since August 2003. 

    Li said certain progress has been made during the fourth
round of six-party talks, which was concluded in August this
year, since the joint statement, aimed at resolving the nuclear
issue, was signed by all concerned parties. 

    "We hope that new progress will be made in the future under
the framework of the six-party talks, although we know that
there would be inevitable difficulties," Li said. 

    The whole world shares a common desire to see a peaceful and
nuclear-weapons-free Korean Peninsula, which is a fundamental
drive force to advance the six-party talks to make progress, Li
noted. 

    China, as a host nation for the six-party talks, served more
than 4,000 cup of coffee to all delegates during the fourth
round of talks, and all negotiators and working staff of the
six-party talks are very tired. Although a great cost has been
paid, said Li,"We should regard it as an honor and feel proud of
making efforts to bring humankind peace," he said. 

    With the upcoming visit to the ROK to be paid by the Chinese
President, the current kimchi problem between China and the ROK
has also become a focus for the media. 

    The ROK announced on Oct. 21 that it had found parasite eggs
inChinese-made kimchi, a spicy food made of fermented cabbage
and radish consumed in almost every meal by Koreans. Later on
Oct. 31,parasite eggs were also found by China in kimchi and
other food products imported from the ROK, and China announced
to stop such imports from that date. 

    When asked to comment on whether the kimchi problem would
causetrade disputes between the two sides, the foreign minister
said that the problem should be solved as long as the two
nations make their practices in compliance with trade rules
universal in the international community. 

    The two sides should solve the problem through discussions
withthe spirit of flexibility and creativity, Li added. 

    "I personally love to eat Kimchi," Li said, acknowledging
that he was confident that the Kimchi problem would be solved
through contact between the two sides. Enditem   

  Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 17 Xinhua: China, Russia issue joint communique   

  www.xinhuanet.com

  www.chinaview.cn 2005-11-04 00:06:35   

    BEIJING, Nov. 4 (Xinhuanet) -- China and Russia issued a
joint communique here Friday, pledging to further deepen
cooperation of mutual benefit in various fields. 

    The communique was signed at the 10th regular meeting
between Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Russian Prime Minister
Mikhail Yefimovich Fradkov amid Fradkov's official visit to
China from Nov. 2 to 4. 

    During Fradkov's stay in China, Wen held talks with him, and
Chinese President Hu Jintao and top legislator Wu Bangguo met
withhim separately. 

    During the meeting between Hu and Fradkov, both sides had an
in-depth exchange of views on deepening of Sino-Russian
strategic cooperation, strengthening of cooperation in politics,
economy, trade, energy, science, technology and culture,
bilateral relations and other international and regional issues
of common concern, according to the communique. 

    The two prime ministers spoke highly of the significant role
the mechanism of regular meetings has been playing in promoting
"practical" bilateral cooperation in various fields over the
past decade. 

    They also carefully reviewed the implementation of the
Sino-Russian Good-Neighborly Treaty of Friendship and
Cooperation,approved by the heads of state of the two countries
last year, andexpressed satisfaction with the progress scored in
the fields of economy, trade and culture ever since the ninth
regular meeting between the two prime ministers on Sept. 24,
2004. 

    The two sides are pleased to see that the Sino-Russian
strategic partnership has been forging healthily ahead with
content being enriched gradually. Political mutual trust has
been strengthening steadily, and cooperation in various fields
has expanded and deepened steadily. All this has produced
fruitful results and brought significant benefits to the two
peoples and also made great contributions to world peace and
stability, the communique says. 

    The two prime minister signed 11 documents at the 10th
regular meeting, including the communique itself, the Summary of
Minutes for the Ninth Meeting of the Commission for Chinese and
Russian Prime Ministers and other memorandums and agreements. 

    Both sides reiterated to well handle the demarcation work in
the remaining section along the eastern border in an effort to
build up a friendly nexus for the two peoples along the border
areas, according to the communique. 

    The two sides have agreed to promote bilateral economic and
trade ties, the communique says. 

    To realize the target of scoring a dual-track trade volume
of 60-80 billion dollars by 2010 and making China's investment
in Russia hit 12 billion dollars by 2020, both sides agreed to
increase the ratio of electric and mechanical, new and high-tech
products in bilateral trade, continue to streamline
Sino-Russiantrade and protect the legitimate rights of
law-abiding businessmen. 

    The two countries believe that energy cooperation is
"significantly important", and are supportive to Chinese and
Russian companies for their work to lay out and build an oil
pipeline from Russia to China. 

    The two sides encourage Chinese and Russian oil companies to
carry out cooperation in various forms, including launching
joint ventures so as to achieve substantial development in oil
prospecting and processing. They also hail the possibility of
joining hands to develop oil and gas in China, Russia and a
third country. 

    The two sides agreed to ensure steady oil supply to China by
rail, promising annual supply of at least 15 million tons of oil
as of 2006. 

    According to the communique, both countries will promote gas
cooperation and step up the study and implementation of the gas
transmission project from eastern Siberia and the Far East to
China. 

    Both sides noted that the long-term agreement signed between
China's State Power Group and the Unified Energy System of
Russia on July 1, 2005 was "fairly important" since the
agreement has expanded bilateral cooperation in the power
sector. 

    According to the communique, the two countries will
strengthen cooperation in such fields as the peaceful use of
nuclear energy, basic science, front-line applied science,
technologies and techniques; deepening long-term partnership in
space, transportation, development of forest resources and
environmental protection; give attention to big joint space
projects and study the possibility of carrying out cooperation
in the exploration of the moon and deep space. 

    The two sides are pleased to see the completion of two
international fiber cable projects and the steady progress of
cooperation between the banks in the two countries. 

    The two sides have also pledged to strengthen cooperation in
cracking down on terrorists, extremists, separatists, and
criminalactivities involving transnational organized crime and
the illegal trafficking of arms, drug crimes, organized illegal
migration and grave cases of economic offense, and cooperation
in protecting thelegitimate rights of citizens in the two
countries as well. 

    The two countries hope to set up an effective mechanism for
supervising drugs in the region and continue the work of
building "drug-free zones" so as to greatly curb drug smuggling
from Afghanistan and the illegal shipment of precursors to China
and Russia. 

    China and Russia issued a joint statement on international
order in the 21st century in July this year. The two prime
ministers stressed the statement is of great significance for
pushing forward multi-polarization and promoting democratization
in international relations and in the formation of a just and
rational international order. 

    The two countries will strengthen strategic cooperation in
international affairs and make efforts to promote world peace,
stability and development. 

    The two parties denounce terrorism in all forms and are
committed to strengthening cooperation in cracking down on
terrorism. 

    According to the communique, China and Russia are firmly
opposed to the proliferation of nuclear weapons. They hold that
all parties concerned should make efforts to bring about an
earlier peaceful solution to nuclear issue on the Korean
Peninsula. 

    The communique says that the 10th regular meeting between
Chinese and Russian prime ministers was held in a "particularly
friendly and cooperative atmosphere of mutual understanding "
and has produced tangible achievements. The two sides are
satisfied with the result, the communique says. 

    The two sides also agreed to hold the 11th regular meeting
between the two prime ministers in 2006, but the specific date
will be subject to diplomatic channels. Enditem   

  Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 18 Sify: China attacks Indo-US nuclear deal            

PTI   

Friday, 04 November , 2005, 13:44             
     	
  Beijing: Risking the hard-won forward movement in India-China 
relations, the Chinese official media has attacked the Indo-US 
nuclear energy cooperation agreement insisting that the bilateral 
deal will inflict a "hard blow" to global non-proliferation 
regime and trigger a domino effect.

"This would be a hard blow on America's leading role in the
global proliferation prevention system as well as the system
itself," the Renmin Ribao (People's Daily), the mouthpiece of
the ruling Communist Party of China said in an editorial against
the Bush Administration for being soft on India and undercutting
the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). 

"This will bring about a series of negative impacts," the
leading Chinese political newspaper said. 

"Now that the United States buys another country in with nuclear
technologies in defiance of international treaty, other nuclear
suppliers also have their own partners of interest as well as
good reasons to copy what the United States did," it said. 

"A domino effect of nuclear proliferation, once turned into
reality, will definitely lead to global nuclear proliferation
and competition," the paper warned. 

"Always calling itself a "guard" for nuclear proliferation
prevention, the US often condemns other countries for
irresponsible transfers but this time, it hesitates not a bit in
revising laws, taking the lead in "making an exception" (in the
case of India), the editorial noted.   

  © Copyright Sify Ltd, 1998-2004. All rights reserved.
Sify.comhosted at SifyHosting India's first Level 3 Internet
*****************************************************************
 19 Asia Times: Beijing blusters over India's nuclear deal 

By Siddharth Srivastava 

NEW DELHI - Will the goodwill that has been built between India 
and China in the recent past end up being sacrificed at the altar 
of improved India-US relations? In another indication that there 
may be trouble brewing between Beijing and New Delhi, the 
official Chinese media have made a frontal assault on the 
landmark India-US nuclear pact and cautioned of its "negative 
impact" on the global nuclear order. 

This is the first instance of a direct and open criticism of a 
crucial aspect of India-US relations that has been picked up by 
the official Chinese machinery/organs, which previously chose to 
be quiet about the nuclear deal inked between Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh and President George W Bush in July. 

The latest fusillade runs the risk of opening up other niggling
issues between India and China, such as the border questions
that have been set aside in the interest of building trade and
business between the two countries. 

In the past few months, Beijing has found itself ranged against
India at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Iran
and the Nuclear Supplier's Group (NSG). However, China has never
publicly criticized the India-US nuclear agreement that aims to
recognize India as the sixth nuclear power of the world as well
as open up civilian nuclear supplies, despite being a
non-signatory of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). 

There have been niggling issues between India and Beijing
recently. Beijing's involvement in Nepal has upset New Delhi,
with it conveying its strong displeasure on the issue. Beijing
has sought to explain its lack of support to India's quest for a
seat in the UN Security Council due to the bracketing with Japan
in the G-4 (Brazil, India, Japan and Germany). 

However, there have been no such exchanges about the India-US
nuclear agreement, until this frontal attack. 

The Renmin Ribao, China's leading political daily, has accused
Washington of being soft on India and deriding the NPT.
Reproving the US of "double standards" on nuclear proliferation,
the Renmin Ribao said if the US made a "nuclear exception" for
India, other powers could do the same with their friends and
weaken the global non-proliferation regime. 

"Now that the United States buys another country in with nuclear
technologies in defiance of international treaty, other nuclear
suppliers also have their own partners of interest as well as
good reasons to copy what the United States did," Renmin Ribao
said. 

"A domino effect of nuclear proliferation, once turned into
reality, will definitely lead to global nuclear proliferation
and competition," the paper added. The Chinese criticism of the
India-US nuclear pact is in contrast to the solid support for
the deal from Russia, France, Britain and Canada. 

Commenting on the shift in US nuclear policy toward India,
Renmin Ribao questioned: "US acts leave people more and more
dubious: is it striving to prevent nuclear proliferation or
actively pushing in the opposite direction? 

"Always calling itself a 'guard' for nuclear proliferation
prevention, the United States often condemns other countries for
irresponsible transfers but this time, it hesitates not a bit in
revising laws, taking the lead in 'making an exception'," for
India," Renmin Ribao wrote, warning "this will bring about a
series of negative impacts". 

With China aggressively and openly joining the voices against
the India-US nuclear deal, New Delhi's quest for nuclear
technology is turning knottier by the day. A reflection of
Chinese thinking comes in the face of last month's meeting of
the 45-nation NSG in Vienna that put off action on the US
proposal to lift restraints on transferring nuclear technology
to India. According to reports, there was positive feedback to
the proposal at the group's meeting, but a "decision was
deferred until the future". 

At the meeting, Britain, France, Germany, Russia, Czech Republic
and Canada were generally supportive, but Sweden and New Zealand
asked "hard questions", while Japan seemed wary of the India
deal, officials have been quoted. These countries want a
permanent regime change rather than making an exception for
India. 

According to reports, China, Brazil, South Korea and Austria
were among the countries that opposed any nuclear supplies to
India. Countries such as South Africa, Brazil and Argentina that
voluntarily dismantled their nuclear weapons program to join the
non-proliferation regime are against any move to grant a special
status to India. 

Commenting on the Renmin Ribao piece, foreign policy analyst C
Raja Mohan said, "India might be willing to countenance the talk
of nuclear 'double standards' from the White Knights of the
Western world like Sweden or Ireland. India, however, will be
deeply troubled by at similar rhetoric from Beijing." 

New Delhi, which bitterly complained about China's support for
Pakistan's nuclear weapons program in the 1980s and Islamabad's
missile capabilities in the 1990s, will find it a bit rich if
Beijing now opposes international civilian nuclear energy
cooperation with India in the name of double standards. 

"India has been willing to overlook the extraordinary campaign
by Beijing to defeat the attempt by the G-4 - India, Japan,
Germany and Brazil - to expand the permanent membership of the
UN Security Council earlier this year," Mohan said. "China
explained away this campaign by saying that the target was Japan
and not India. A similar campaign on denying the benefits of
civilian nuclear energy cooperation to India could reopen New
Delhi's many past grievances against Beijing." 

Indeed, New Delhi does understand that there are vexed issues to
be addressed that are going to take some time before the nuclear
supplies open up. The NSG is scheduled to meet only in May
unless a special meeting (there is one to discuss Iran) is
called to change the rules. 

There will be other tricky areas to cover, including the number
of nuclear facilities India agrees to place under IAEA
safeguards (by separating civilian and military installations)
and how quickly it does so. 

Hearings at the US Congress are going to be tough, where India's
proximity with Tehran will be scrutinized. India's stand on the
November 24 vote of the IAEA, that will decide whether Tehran
will be referred to the UN for sanctions, will be crucial as far
as support from the US is concerned. 

New Delhi will also like to ensure that any exception in its
case will not be used by Pakistan, which is also aiming for some
nuclear leeway in the NSG. New Delhi has never been comfortable
with Beijing's proximity with Islamabad. 

Pakistan in turn is looking to leapfrog on a US promise to open
civilian nuclear interactions with India, despite the
allegations of proliferation in the past. Pakistan has formally
approached the NSG seeking a deal similar to the one between the
US and India to produce nuclear power, saying that it needed
more atomic power plants to meet future energy requirements. 

Given that Pakistan continues to be a crucial ally in
Washington's "war on terror", Islamabad's concerns cannot be
completely ignored. The US has been trying to mollify Pakistan
through military sops. In the past, President George W Bush has
spoken to President General Pervez Musharraf and assured him
that the India-US nuclear pact was not directed against Pakistan
and would not in any way tilt the "balance of power" in South
Asia. Some observers say that ultimately US will end up
supplying nuclear reactors to Pakistan as well. 

However, analysts agree that the nuclear deal will come through
given the lucrative market that India offers, though nobody
hazards a time frame. India will hope that the hurdles will be
overcome at the US Congress before May when the NSG is likely to
look to change the rules. 

Several powerful nations do not want to lose out on the nuclear
contracts that are likely to follow. Russia sees India as a
major market and has been keen on expanding nuclear links with
India. French President Jacques Chirac has been the first
international leader to speak of the need to accommodate India
into the global nuclear order. British Prime Minister Tony Blair
has endorsed the US decision, while Canada's move to renew civil
nuclear energy cooperation following India's vote against Iran
at the IAEA has been a big bonus. 

India has been closely watching China, which has recently become
a member of the NSG. By launching such a strong criticism,
India's aspirations have turned that much more difficult. 

Siddharth Srivastava is a New Delhi-based journalist. 

(Copyright 2005 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.
														
Hau Fook Mansion, No. 8 Hau Fook St., Kowloon, Hong
Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110                                                                                          
*****************************************************************
 20 Brattleboro Reformer: Yankee uprate report is released to public

November 04, 2005 Brattleboro, VT                                                                                 
 			 								 					

By K. CECCAROSSI 
Reformer Staff

BRATTLEBORO -- The public and interested parties can now get
their hands on the federal review of a plan to boost power at
Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant.

 All 330 pages of the highly technical report were released
Thursday, two weeks after it was distributed to Entergy Nuclear,
owners of the plant.

 The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission gave Entergy first
glance so officials there could redact any proprietary
information.

 The report is a safety evaluation of the plant and the
components involved in a so-called power "uprate" that would
raise the reactor's output to 120 percent.

 Nuclear watchdog groups and residents critical of the uprate
are not concerned about what details may have been censured in
the report, but rather the limited time they have to pore over
its pages before an upcoming public hearing with the NRC. 

On Nov. 15 and 16, an NRC panel will be at the Quality Inn in
Brattleboro from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. In the afternoons, the
panel will take comments.

 "The NRC is showing a huge disrespect to the people of
Vermont," said Raymond Shadis, technical advisor for the
watchdog group New England Coalition.

 But Neil Sheehan, spokesman for the NRC, said public access to
the agency's review of the uprate has been considerable, citing
two open meetings in the region since Entergy applied for the
uprate in 2003.

 Earlier in October, NRC engineers issued a tentative review,
saying they would proceed only if Entergy agreed to a set of
conditions. The crux of the conditions was that Entergy would
have to gradually increase its power to 120 percent and, along
the way, keep closer review of any possible hazards the added
pressure creates within the plant.

 The report released Thursday gives further details on NRC's
position on Entergy's uprate application.

 The report is up for public scrutiny now, but it will also go
to an independent NRC panel called the Advisory Committee on
Reactor Safety for review. It's members of that panel who will
come to Brattleboro in two weeks to hear what local people have
to say about the uprate.

 Panel members will give a statement to the NRC on the uprate
and the NRC will weigh that, along with public input, when it
issues a final safety evaluation on the uprate next February.

 The New England Coalition, along with the state Department of
Public Service, is challenging the uprate before the Atomic
Safety and Licensing Board, another branch of the NRC.

 That challenge, dealing with safety issues not addressed by the
NRC's conditions on the uprate, is still pending. However, the
uprate could be approved by the NRC while hearings before the
Atomic Safety and Licensing Board are still under way. If that
happens, the plant could begin running at increased power even
as the safety of the uprate is being challenged.

 The state's Public Service Board must also sign off on the
uprate. Although the board already approved the uprate proposal,
it did so with conditions. The board has yet to decide whether
the safety assessment conducted by the NRC is satisfactory or if
an independent safety assessment is necessary.

 The NRC safety report can be found at
www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.htmlEnter accession number
ML053010167.
 
K. Ceccarossi can be reached at kceccarossi@reformer.comor (802)
254-2311, ext. 160. 		   	 	

       Copyright ©1999-2005 New England Newspapers, Inc., 
*****************************************************************
 21 San Luis Obispo Trib: Nuclear agency downgrades safety rating at Diablo Canyon
	
  Friday, Nov 04, 2005 
 
David Sneed

Record keeping errors during recent emergency drills have caused
the federal government Friday to downgrade a key safety rating
at Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant. 

The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission lowered Diablo
Canyon’s performance rating in the area of emergency exercises.
During three recent drills, plant operators misidentified the
exercises as actual emergencies on reports they submitted to the
NRC. 

“We place great importance on the accuracy of the reports we
receive from our licensees,” said Victor Dricks, NRC spokesman.
“It’s significant because it reflects a declining trend.” 

Plant owners Pacific Gas and Electric Co. is responding by
having plant operators undergo additional training to make sure
they are filling out their NRC documentation correctly, said
Jeff Lewis, plant spokesman. They hope to have the problem
corrected by the end of the year. 

Read Saturday’s Edition of The Tribune for the full story. 

--David Sneed, dsneed@thetribunenews.com   

*****************************************************************
 22 Bellona: Kola Nuclear Plant Operating Illegally
 
Commentary

ST. PETERSBURG - The Murmansk Region’s Prosecutor has declared
the granting of an operating licence for the Kola Nuclear Power
Plant's No. 1 and 2 reactors to be illegal. 

  The Kola Nuclear Power Plant.   
  Bellona archive   

Andrei Ozharovsky, 2005-11-04 12:37

The current conflict revolves around the following: Reactor
blocks 1 and 2 at the Kola Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) were built
in 1973 and 1974, with projected service lives of 30 years. In
other words, in 2003 and 2004 the old reactors should have been
closed. But this did not happen, and instead a so-called
“working life extension” was granted. Formally, the permit for
use of the reactor is the license issued by Russia’s nuclear
regulatory body within the Federal Service for Energy,
Technological and Atomic Oversight (FSETAN). The law says that
when a license is issued, an environmental expert assessment
must be carried out—and not just any expert assessment, but a
state expert assessment. In the case of the Kola NPP, the expert
assessment never happened. 

Why are the nuclear scientists afraid of the state environmental
expert assessment? The fact is that the old reactors are
genuinely dangerous, and they genuinely need to be closed, and
quickly. Truly independent experts would not have supported the
dubious idea of prolonging these resources. 

The letter from Murmansk Region First Deputy Prosecutor says
that the licenses to extend the working life of the worn-out
reactors 1 and 2 at the Kola NPP were “issued with breaches of
the requirements of RF legislation”. 

There were many more breaches, but the most important thing is
that the dangerous reactors are working illegally. 
“At one of Russia's oldest NPP's, an absolutely illegal
experiment is taking place to extend the working lives of
reactors that were projected to have a working life of 30
years,” said Ekozashchita! co-president Vladimir Slivyak. 
“This could lead to a nuclear disaster, since reactor blocks 1
and 2 are some of the first generation of Soviet reactors, with
a safety level comparable to the Chernobyl NPP. “The prosecutor
is obliged to punish the NPP management for flouting the law,
and get the illegal licenses cancelled.” 

The prosecutor has sent an Injunction regarding the breaches of
the law, reprinted below: 

Prosecutor's Office of the Murmansk Oblast 
28-04-2005 7-23 

INJUNCTION regarding breaches of the law in the sphere of
exploitation of nuclear power 
The check showed that the licensing proceeded with breaches of
legal requirements. 

In accordance with Articles 23 and 24 of the Federal Law On the
Usage of Nuclear Power, no. 170-FZ, dated November 25th 1995,
with the aim of state safety regulation in the sphere of use of
nuclear power, the authorised federal executive bodies give
permission (licenses) for the right to carry out work in the
sphere of nuclear power usage. 

Based on Articles 37 and 37 of the Federal Law On the Usage of
Nuclear Power, the Rosenergoatom concern, as well as its
subsidiary, the Kola Nuclear Power Plant, is operating
organisations and their activities in the use of nuclear power
are subject to licensing. Since activity with the use of nuclear
power can have an effect on the environment, in accordance with
Article 11 of the Federal Law On Ecological Expert Assessments,
No. 174-FZ, dated November 23rd 1995, the substantive materials
for the licensing to carry out the said activity—which in
accordance with the legislation of the Russian Federation fall
under the competence of federal executive organs—are subject to
an obligatory state environmental expert assessment. 

Nevertheless, the check showed, in breach of the law, that the
Kola NPP did not fulfil its obligation to carry out a state
environmental expert assessment in its application for a license
to use reactor blocks 1 and 2. 

Despite the absence of a state environmental expert assessment,
licenses nos. GM 03-101-1130, dated June 27th 2003, and GM
03-101-1414, dated June 30th 2004, were issued by the Russian
Federal Oversight Board for Nuclear and Radiation Safety—a
division of FSETAN—which carried out licensing in 2003-2004 to
Rosenergoatom, giving it the right to use reactor blocks 1 and 2
of the Kola Nuclear Power Plant. 

Recommendations 

1. Immediately study the present Injunction and take measures to
eliminate breaches of the law and reasons and conditions that
promote them;

 2. Rosenergoatom without delay to solve the question of
carrying out state expert assessment at the KNPP facilities
named in this Injunction (reactor blocks 1 and 2);

 3. The Federal Service for Environmental, Technological and
Nuclear Oversight to provide the appropriate control of
fulfilling obligations in carrying out an expert assessment. 

4. Inform the Prosecutor’s Office of the results of study of the
Injunction and decisions taken within the 1-month period
established by law. 

But for the nuclear scientists, even the Prosecutors’ Office
does not give orders. At the meeting with environmentalists on
June 17th, the director of the Kola NPP, Yury Kolomtsev, said:
“Prosecutors are not nuclear scientists, and are not very
competent in these matters”. Thus did the director show
disrespect for the Prosecutor's Office. A similar reaction came
from the nuclear oversight agency that issued the licence. 

Federal Service for Energy, Technological and Atomic Oversight 

Letter 1-16-788, dated May 18th 2005 

To the First Deputy Prosecutor of the Murmansk Oblast 
On examination of the declaration of the Murmansk Oblast

Prosecutor's Office 

“The Federal Service for Environmental, Technological and
Nuclear Oversight has examined the Injunction regarding breaches
of the law in the sphere of exploitation of nuclear power, No.
7-23-2-2005, dated April 28th 2005, presented by the Murmansk
Oblast Prosecutor's Office, and informs as follows: 
In accordance with Article 3 of the said Law [On Environmental
Expert Assessment], an environmental expert assessment is based
on principles of obligatory state expert environmental
assessment prior to taking the decision on implementing the
object of the expert assessment. 

From this it follows that a state environmental expert
assessment was not necessary when presenting materials to obtain
a license for usage of reactor blocks 1 and 2 at the Kola NPP.” 

Acting head
 Malyshev 

So what is the result? If a shop or street stall had been caught
breaking the law during a license application, it would have
been closed down. That is how breaches are dealt with. And the
director would not have argued, but would have dealt with the
breaches. 

But the law was not written for nuclear scientists, and the
prosecutor cannot give them orders. 

There is absolutely no logic here. Yes, the law takes about an
obligatory state environmental inspection during planning of the
facilities. But the law does not ban state environmental
inspections at other stages, and it directly establishes the
necessity for a state environmental inspection when every
license is obtained. This is especially so during modernisation
of reactor blocks, which the nuclear scientists tell us are
“twice as safe” as they were previously. Yes, it may not be
convenient for the nuclear scientists, but it is the law. 

We know that the local prosecutor is now preparing documents to
send to the federal Prosecutor General. We hope that the
Prosecutor General’s office will examine the question
thoroughly, and that the law will be applied, and furthermore
that citizens will be able, at open meetings held during the
state environmental inspection phase, to make their opinions
heard about the project. 

Only during the Communist era was it impossible for civil
society to get a nuclear power plant closed. One could only wait
until they closed themselves. Chernobyl has already closed on
its own initiative. 

The regional prosecutor discovered infringements in the
activities of federal bodies—Rosenergoatom and the former
Gosatomnadzor (now an arm of FSETAN). 

Therefore, I once again ask the General Prosecutor of Russia: 
1. To check the legality of the extension of the working life
beyond the projected limit of reactor blocks 1 and 2 of the Kola
NPP;

 2. If the breaches found by the Murmansk Oblast prosecutor are
confirmed, to suspend the license for rector blocks 1 and 2 from
2003 and 2004 and force the interested parties to carry out a
state environmental inspection;

 3. To inform the editors and in particular the author of this
article at the address: flat 112, 88/26 Kashirov Shosse, Moscow
115551. 

Andrei Ozharovsky is an activist with the Russian environmental
organisation Ekozashita! He contributed this comment to
BellonaWeb.   

  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
*****************************************************************
 23 NRC: NRC Assigns New Sr. Resident Inspector 	to Oyster Creek Nuclear Plant
 
News Release - Region I - 2005-05 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY 
COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, Region I 475 Allendale Road, 
King of Prussia, Pa. 19406 No. I-05-058                          
November 4, 2005 CONTACT:     Diane Screnci (610) 337-5330 Neil 
A. Sheehan (610) 337-5331                     E-mail: 
opa1@nrc.gov  
  

  Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials in King of Prussia,
Pa., have selected Marc S. Ferdas as the new senior resident
inspector at the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant in Lacey
Township, N.J. 
"Marcs experience and commitment to safety will help the NRC
ensure that Oyster Creek conducts operations with the highest
safety standards to protect the public health and safety," said
NRC Region I Administrator Samuel J. Collins. 

Ferdas replaces Robert Summers, who was reassigned to the NRC
Regional Office in King of Prussia. 

Ferdas joined the NRC in 1998 as a reactor engineer intern.
After a period of training, he was assigned as a region-based
inspector in the Region I Division of Reactor Safety. As such he
performed inspections at nuclear power plants in the
northeastern United States. Most recently, he was a resident
inspector at the Hope Creek site in Hancocks Bridge, N.J., for
three years. 

Ferdas earned a degree in chemical engineering from Rutgers
College of Engineering in Piscataway, N.J. He also received a
masters in engineering management from Drexel University in
Philadelphia. 

Every commercial nuclear power plant in the U.S. has at least
two NRC resident inspectors. They have an office and work at the
facility, conducting regular inspections and monitoring
significant work projects.
 
The Oyster Creek resident inspectors can be reached at
609/693-0702.
   



  


 	Last revised Friday, November 04, 2005 	
*****************************************************************
 24 APP.COM: NRC: Delay by workers violated Oyster Creek regulations 

| Asbury Park Press Online
 	 	 	 	 	 	 	
Posted by the Asbury Park Presson 11/4/05 

BY KIRK MOORE STAFF WRITER
                                                 
LACEY — Workers at the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant took 45 
minutes to declare an alert Aug. 6 after floating sea grass 
clogged one of two cooling water intakes, a delay that violated 
the plant's requirements, plant operators and the Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission said today.

The operators reduced power levels and maintained safety margins
during the incident, and the public was never at risk, operators
AmerGen and the NRC said. AmerGen officials said they are
accepting a preliminary "white'' finding -- the NRC's
designation of low to moderate safety significance -- and an
agency inspection of the plant's emergency preparedness program.

AmerGen said its workers should have declared an alert within 15
minutes of water levels dropping in the plant's north intake,
which pulls in water from Barnegat Bay to cool the plant's heat
exchanger.

"If they had performed the plant-specific procedures they would
have recognized the condition and issued the alert,'' said
Rachelle Benson, an AmerGen spokeswoman.

  Copyright © 2005 Asbury Park Press. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 25 PoughkeepsieJournal.com: Flaws found at nuke plant
 
Friday, November 4, 2005 
Camera uncovers possible leak sources
 
By Greg Clary The Journal News
 		 		 
BUCHANAN — Entergy engineers told a group of elected and public
officials yesterday they have isolated three locations inside
Indian Point 2's spent fuel pool that may be the source of
leaking radioactive water at the site and will start to work on
those areas next week.

They also said they will start drilling at least five new wells
at the same time to make sure the leak has been contained
properly.

Though the tests are not yet conclusive, engineers said the
flaws in the tank which range in size from 1 to 6 inches were
discovered this week at joints along a quarter-inch stainless
steel pool liner during an underwater camera inspection of the
400,000-gallon tank.

By next week, a diver will go into the pool and place a box over
two of the locations between 16 and 22 feet from the top of the
pool to create a vacuum and verify if the flaws are actual
openings. If the leaks are coming from those locations,
officials said, divers will seal the spots with new welds or an
industrial coating.

The third location, according to officials, is too far down to
allow a diver and would have to be sealed by another means,
which engineers are still considering.

The five new wells, as deep as 90 feet into the ground, will be
dug to test how the underground water around the fuel pool is
moving. State health officials yesterday asked for samples of
the earth and water collected during those borings and were
promised they could independently analyze whatever is found.

Officials from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and New York
state's Department of Environmental Conservation corroborated
the leakage findings, announced during a presentation and tour
of the plant for about four dozen elected officials, their
representatives and members of government agencies.

Entergy Nuclear Northeast, the owner of Indian Point, invited
the group to answer officials' growing concerns and questions
about the leak, which was discovered in August and continues to
produce between 1 and 2 liters of radioactive water per day.

"We don't have all the answers," said Fred Dacimo, an Entergy
vice president in charge of Indian Point. "We're working to get
all the answers."

Two hairline cracks at the base of the spent fuel tank were
found Aug. 22. Since then, samples near the leaks have turned up
cesium, cobalt and tritium, all radioactive elements.

After touring the site of the leak, officials from Westchester,
Putnam and Rockland counties said they had a better idea of what
the problem was and what Entergy was doing to fix it.

"I think it puts things in perspective," said Susan Tolchin,
Westchester County Executive Andrew Spano's chief adviser,
adding Entergy's effort to educate leaders about the leak didn't
change Spano's call for the plant's closing.
 
Greg Clary can be reached at gclary@thejournalnews.com
          
Copyright ©2005 PoughkeepsieJournal.com 
*****************************************************************
 26 JOURNAL NEWS: Indian Point leak sources found

By GREG CLARY

(Original publication: November 4, 2005)
 
BUCHANAN — Entergy engineers told a group of elected and public
officials yesterday that they have isolated three locations
inside Indian Point 2's spent-fuel pool that may be the source
of leaking radioactive water at the site and will start to work
on those areas next week.

They also said they will start drilling at least five new wells
at the same time to make sure the leak has been contained
properly.

Though the tests are not yet conclusive, engineers said the
flaws in the tank — which range in size from 1 to 6 inches —
were discovered this week at joints along a quarter-inch
stainless steel pool liner during an underwater-camera
inspection of the 400,000-gallon tank.

By next week, a diver will go into the pool and place a box over
two of the locations — between 16 and 22 feet from the top of
the 40-foot-deep pool — to create a vacuum and verify if the
flaws are actual openings. If the leaks are coming from those
locations, officials said, divers will seal the spots with new
welds or an industrial coating.

The third location, according to company officials, is too far
down to allow a diver and would have to be sealed by another
means, which engineers still are considering.

The five new wells, as deep as 90 feet into the ground, will be
dug to test how the underground water around the fuel pool is
moving. State health officials yesterday asked for samples of
the earth and water collected during those borings and were
promised they could independently analyze whatever is found.
Officials from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the state's

Department of Environmental Conservation yesterday corroborated
the leak findings, which were announced during a presentation
and tour of the plant for about four dozen elected officials,
their representatives and members of government agencies.

Entergy Nuclear Northeast, the owner of Indian Point, invited
the group to answer officials' growing concerns and questions
about the leak, which was discovered in late August and
continues to produce between 1 and 2 liters of radioactive water
per day.

"We don't have all the answers," said Fred Dacimo, an Entergy
vice president in charge of Indian Point. "We're working to get
all the answers."

Two hairline cracks at the base of the spent-fuel tank were
found Aug. 22 during an excavation to put in a new crane to
handle spent-fuel assemblies as they're being moved in and out
of water for storage.

Since then, samples near the leaks have turned up cesium, cobalt
and tritium, all radioactive elements. Tritium, the weakest of
those, was the only material found far from the leak site,
officials said, probably because it can be carried in water
through the ground, while the other two materials were likely
stopped by dirt.

Yesterday's visitors watched as workers continued to excavate 30
feet below ground level, at the base of the spent fuel pool,
while a plastic sheet connected to a hose collected whatever
water came through the wall. Initially, engineers said it took
days just to collect 2 teaspoons of water to be analyzed.

The water is being collected and disposed of properly, Entergy
officials reiterated yesterday. Both plant officials and those
from the NRC said there was no threat to public health or
workers at the plant.

After touring the site of the leak, near excavation work at the
southwest corner of the spent-fuel storage pool at Indian Point
2, and the locations of wells used to check for further leaking,
officials from Westchester, Putnam and Rockland counties said
they had a better idea of what the problem was and what Entergy
was doing to fix it.

"I think it puts things in perspective," said Susan Tolchin,
Westchester County Executive Andrew Spano's chief adviser. "I
thought it was a really good presentation. It could have been
worse."

Tolchin, who said Entergy's effort to educate leaders about the
leak didn't change Spano's call for the plant's closing, called
on the NRC to expand its monitoring of older spent-fuel pools
nationwide, a suggestion NRC officials at the meeting said was
under consideration.

Assemblywoman Sandra Galef, D-Ossining, who attended the tour,
asked Indian Point officials for more frequent and comprehensive
updates. U.S. Rep. Nita Lowey, D-Harrison, who sent a
representative, in a later statement said the NRC must provide
"independent oversight of Indian Point to ensure that local
officials and the public have accurate and up-to-date
information on any potential health and safety risks."

Dacimo said he would ensure that stakeholders were updated via
conference calls every few weeks. NRC officials said they also
would increase their efforts to inform the public.
 
Copyright 2005 The Journal News,. Inc. newspaper serving
Westchester, Rockland and Putnam Counties in New York. Use of
*****************************************************************
 27 FT.com: France looks to cash in on nuclear revival

International economy - 

Published: November 4 2005 21:01 | Last updated: November 4 2005

[nuclear power plant] Five years ago, GÃ©rard Kottmann did not 
know whether the small French company he managed would survive.

A leading supplier of nickel alloy tubes to nuclear power
stations, employing 290 people, Valinox Nucleaire was facing a
dearth of orders and no obvious prospect of any more soon. 

â€œOur industry was dead,â€ says Mr Kottmann, executive
vice-president of the Burgundy-based subsidiary of Franceâ€™s
Vallourec group. â€œThe refurbishment sector was not active, and
there were no plans for new nuclear power stations. For all the
members of our industry it was a question of survival.â€

Today however, the outlook is brighter than it has been for some
time, as high oil prices and supply concerns prompt governments
to reconsider the role of nuclear power in energy policy. In
addition, Europeâ€™s ageing fleet of nuclear power stations will
have to be renewed in coming years. These stations, at an
estimated 300GW, represent roughly three-quarters of the
worldâ€™s installed capacity.

For Franceâ€™s long-established atomic industry, and the more
than 100,000 people it employs, business is already improving.
Five years ago, Valinox had barely a yearâ€™s worth of orders
and was forced to cut its workforce to 90 people. Now its
capacity has been allocated up to 2009. â€œThe perspectives are
getting better,â€ says Mr Kottmann.

France is one of the worldâ€™s leading nuclear power generators,
an expertise developed to secure supply after the oil shock of
the 1970s. Today EDF, the soon-to-be-privatised electricity
group, runs 59 reactors, which generate almost 80 per cent of
the countryâ€™s electricity. Apart from Lithuania, no other
country relies so heavily on nuclear power for its electricity.
According to government statistics, the industry generates
â‚¬3bn-â‚¬4bn ($3.6bn-$4.8bn, Â£2bn-Â£2.7bn) in export revenues
a year.

France also boasts the worldâ€™s largest nuclear group. Areva
does everything from the design and construction of power
stations through its Framatome joint venture with Siemens of
Germany, to supplying and recycling the uranium that fuels them. 

Areva is expected to be one of the winners in the competition to
build four Chinese nuclear power stations, one of the biggest
contracts put to international tender in many years. At least
two of the planned reactors are likely to be Arevaâ€™s new
generation â‚¬3bn EPR, whose first model is being built in
Finland. 

For President Jacques Chirac, selling Franceâ€™s nuclear
expertise abroad is an obvious way to help redress the
countryâ€™s export weaknesses.

 Unlike Germany, France exports relatively little to the rapidly
growing Asian economies. Last spring, when Jean-Pierre Raffarin,
then prime minister, visited China, he took with him not only
Arevaâ€™s chief executive Anne Lauvergeon, but dozens of smaller
French nuclear suppliers, in the hope they would win business.

Yet despite the obvious renewal of interest in nuclear power,
insiders warn that it will be some time before the French
economy really benefits. 

  Atomic comeback Part 3: Wind of change in US blows dust off
nuclear facilities 


Despite increasingly optimistic noises, many European countries
such as Belgium, Germany and Spain still have laws against the
construction of new nuclear plants. And those that do not, such
as the UK, have yet to commit themselves to development
programmes.

Then there is the time it takes to get a nuclear power station
up and running. â€œEven in our best scenarios, where we imagine
a huge surge in demand for new nuclear plants, it will take time
for them to be built, and for them to be connected to power
grids,â€ says Guillaume Dureau, Arevaâ€™s strategy director. 

The whole process from contract award to grid connection can
take up to six years. â€œFor the moment it is mainly about
modernisation of the existing reactors and nuclear fuel
services,â€ according to Mr Dureau.

For Mr Kottmann, the delay is not necessarily a bad thing. The
years of famine have left many of Franceâ€™s small but vital
nuclear power suppliers under-invested and with outdated
equipment.

  Atomic comeback Part 2: German poll hinders nuclear revival


Moreover, demographics are posing a serious challenge to the
nuclear industry. 

â€œWe didnâ€™t hire a lot of people in the lean years and our
pyramid of ages has shifted a lot,â€ he says. â€œWe need
trained people. Not only doctors and engineers, but skilled
workers.â€


  Atomic comeback Part 1: Nuclear solutions needed for
intractable problems

For that reason, Franceâ€™s nuclear industry has formed a
partnership with public research and higher education to lend
the sector weight in winning international orders and government
support.

â€œThere are only two clusters in the world that can do
everything on a nuclear power station,â€ says Mr Kottmann, who
is also head of the Pole Nucleaire Bourgogne partnership. â€œOne
is in Japan [uniting Westinghouse of the US with Japanese
manufacturers], and the other is ours.â€

In the meantime, he says, even though the revival will not
happen overnight, â€œwe are feeling more sereneâ€. The industry
may not be cracking open the champagne just yet, but â€œthe
bottles are in the fridgeâ€.
This is the final article in a series about the fortunes of the
nuclear power industry across the globe. Read the full series at
www.ft.com/nuclear
  
Â© Copyright The Financial Times Ltd 2005. "FT"
and "Financial Times" are trademarks of the Financial Times.
*****************************************************************
 28 NRC: Nine Mile Point Nuclear Station, LLC (NMPNS); Long Island 
 
                         FR Doc E5-6118 
[Federal Register: November 4, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 213)] 
[Notices] [Page 67202] From the Federal Register Online via GPO 
Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr04no05-107]                         
 
Lighting Company; Notice of Withdrawal of Application for 
Amendment to Facility Operating License The U.S. Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission (the Commission) has granted the request of 
NMPNS (the licensee) to withdraw its April 1, 2005, application 
for proposed amendment to Facility Operating License No. NPF-69 
for the Nine Mile Point Nuclear Station, Unit No. 2, located in 
Oswego County, New York.
 
The proposed amendment would have revised the Technical 
Specifications (TSs) pertaining to Required Action A.1 of TS 
3.8.7, ``Inverters--Operating,'' to extend the Completion Time 
for one emergency uninterruptible power supply (UPS) inverter 
inoperable from 24 hours to 7 days. The associated Bases would 
also be changed to reflect the proposed TS change.
 
The Commission had previously issued a Notice of Consideration of 
Issuance of Amendment published in the Federal Register on May 
10, 2005 (70 FR 24653). However, by letter dated September 30, 
2005, the licensee withdrew the proposed change.
 
For further details with respect to this action, see the 
application for amendment dated April 1, 2005, and the licensee's 
letter dated September 30, 2005, which withdrew the application 
for license amendment. Documents may be examined, and/or copied 
for a fee, at the NRC's Public Document Room (PDR), located at 
One White Flint North, Public File Area O1 F21, 11555 Rockville 
Pike (first floor), Rockville, Maryland. Publicly available 
records will be accessible electronically from the Agencywide 
Documents Access and Management Systems (ADAMS) Public Electronic 
Reading Room on the internet at the NRC Web site, 
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams/html. Persons who do not have 
access to ADAMS or who encounter problems in accessing the 
documents located in ADAMS, should contact the NRC PDR Reference 
staff by telephone at 1-800-397-4209, or 301-415-4737 or by 
e-mail to

 
pdr@nrc.gov. Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 28th day of 
October 2005.
 
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
 
Timothy G. Colburn, Senior Project Manager, Section 1, Project 
Directorate I, Division of Licensing Project Management, Office 
of Nuclear Reactor Regulation.
 
[FR Doc. E5-6118 Filed 11-3-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P

 
*****************************************************************
 29 NRC: Notice of Availability of Model Application Concerning 
 
                         FR Doc E5-6119 
[Federal Register: November 4, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 213)] 
[Notices] [Page 67202-67203] From the Federal Register Online via 
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr04no05-108]                         
 
Elimination of Typical License Condition Requiring Reporting of 
Violations of Section 2.C of Operating License Using the 
Consolidated Line Item Improvement Process AGENCY: Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission.
 
ACTION: Notice of Availability.
 
SUMMARY: Notice is hereby given that the staff of the Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission (NRC) has prepared a model application 
related to the elimination of the license condition that requires 
reporting of violations of other requirements (typically in 
License Condition 2.C) in the operating license of some 
commercial nuclear power plants. The purpose of this model is to 
permit the NRC to efficiently process amendments that propose to 
delete the reporting requirement from operating licenses. 
Licensees of nuclear power reactors to which the model applies 
may request amendments using the model application.
 
 
DATES: The NRC staff issued a Federal Register notice (70 FR 
51098, August 29, 2005) that provided a model safety evaluation 
(SE) and a model no significant hazards consideration (NSHC) 
determination relating to the elimination of the license 
condition that requires reporting of violations of other 
requirements (typically in License Condition 2.C) in operating 
licenses. The NRC staff hereby announces that the model SE and 
NSHC determination may be referenced in plant- specific 
applications to adopt the changes. The NRC staff has posted a 
model application on the NRC Web site to assist licensees in 
using the consolidated line item improvement process (CLIIP) to 
delete the reporting requirement in operating licenses. The NRC 
staff can most efficiently consider applications based upon the 
model application if the application is submitted within a year 
of this Federal Register notice.
 
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: William Reckley, Mail Stop: 
O7D1, Division of Licensing Project Management, Office of Nuclear 
Reactor Regulation, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 
Washington, DC 20555- 0001, telephone 301-415-1323.
 
 
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Background Regulatory Issue Summary 
2000-06, ``Consolidated Line Item Improvement Process for 
Adopting Standard Technical Specification Changes for Power 
Reactors,'' was issued on March 20, 2000. The CLIIP includes an 
opportunity for the public to comment on proposed changes to 
operating licenses, including the technical specifications (TS), 
after a preliminary assessment by the NRC staff and a finding 
that the change will likely be offered for adoption by licensees. 
The CLIIP directs the NRC staff to evaluate
 
[[Page 67203]] any comments received for a proposed generic 
change to operating licenses and to either reconsider the change 
or to proceed with announcing the availability of the change for 
proposed adoption by licensees. Those licensees opting to apply 
for the subject change to operating licenses are responsible for 
reviewing the NRC staff's evaluation, referencing the applicable 
technical justifications, and providing any necessary 
plant-specific information. Each amendment application made in 
response to the notice of availability will be processed and 
noticed in accordance with applicable rules and NRC procedures.
 
This notice involves a change that deletes a requirement for 
licensees to report violations of other requirements (typically 
in License Condition 2.C) of a facility's operating license. 
Applicability This proposal to eliminate the reporting of 
violations of specific requirements (typically in License 
Condition 2.C) of facility operating licenses is applicable to 
any licensee that has such a provision in its facility operating 
license. The NRC staff notes that many operating licenses do not 
contain the requirement because it was never added or was removed 
by a license amendment before issuance of this notice. The CLIIP 
also addresses similar requirements if they exist in the 
Administrative Section of TS. The CLIIP does not address 
reporting requirements contained in operating licenses other than 
those specifically involving reports of violations of other 
requirements (typically in License Condition 2.C) of the facility 
operating license or requirements that restate the need to submit 
reports in accordance with 10 CFR 50.72, ``Immediate notification 
requirements for operating nuclear power reactors,'' and 10 CFR 
50.73, ``Licensee event report system.'' To efficiently process 
the incoming license amendment applications, the NRC staff 
requests each licensee applying for the changes using the CLIIP 
to provide the information identified in the model application 
posted on the NRC Web site.
 
Public Notices In a notice in the Federal Register dated August 
29, 2005 (70 FR 51098), the NRC staff requested comment on the 
use of the CLIIP to process requests to delete the subject 
reporting requirement in operating licenses. In addition, there 
have been multiple notices published for plant-specific amendment 
requests to adopt changes similar to those described in this 
notice.
 
The NRC staff's SE and model application may be examined, and/or 
copied for a fee, at the NRC's Public Document Room, located at 
One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike (first floor), 
Rockville, Maryland. Publicly available records are accessible 
electronically from the Agencywide Documents Access and 
Management System (ADAMS) Public Library component on the NRC Web 
site, (the Electronic Reading Room).
 
The NRC staff received two responses following the notice 
published August 29, 2005 (70 FR 51098), soliciting comments on 
the model SE and NSHC determination related to the elimination of 
the reporting requirement in operating licenses. The responses 
were from the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) in a letter dated 
September 28, 2005, and South Carolina Electric and Gas (SCE) in 
a letter dated September 26, 2005. Both letters supported the 
generic approach proposed in the notice and did not offer changes 
to the model SE or NSHC determination. The NRC staff finds that 
the previously published models remain appropriate references and 
has chosen not to republish the model SE and model NSHC 
determination in this notice. As described in the model 
application prepared by the NRC staff, licensees may reference in 
their plant- specific applications to delete the reporting 
requirement, the SE, NSHC determination, and environmental 
assessment previously published in the Federal Register (70 FR 
51098; August 29, 2005).
 
Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 25th day of October 2005.
 
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
 
William D. Reckley, Senior Project Manager, Section 1, Project 
Directorate IV, Division of Licensing Project Management, Office 
of Nuclear Reactor Regulation.
 
[FR Doc. E5-6119 Filed 11-3-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P

 
*****************************************************************
 30 courant.com: NRC To Gather Soil, Concrete Samples 

 Move Follows Report Of Water Leak At Connecticut Yankee
 November 4, 2005 

By GARY LIBOW, Courant Staff Writer   


HADDAM --        A Nuclear Regulatory Commission inspector Monday 
will conduct radiological tests and remove samples from the 
decommissioned Connecticut Yankee nuclear power plant, a week 
after the agency learned contaminated water had leaked from the 
spent fuel pool building.

The inspector will secure samples of soil and concrete from the 
spent fuel pool building for independent testing off-site, said 
Marie Miller, the NRC's regional decommissioning chief.

	Local resident Jelle DeBoer, professor emeritus of earth and
environmental sciences at Wesleyan University, is fearful the
radioactive leakage could have contaminated groundwater. Even
though Connecticut Yankee has 40 test wells scattered around the
plant site, DeBoer advocates that more holes be drilled around
the pool building, especially on the east side where the leak
occurred.

Connecticut Yankee estimates a few gallons of contaminated water
a day breached a 6-foot-thick concrete wall for an undetermined
time. It is not known when the leak occurred.

Connecticut Yankee reports the east side concrete wall exhibits
"very low concentrations" of cesium, cobalt, strontium and
tritium, isotopes that may cause cancer in high doses.

"You are talking very low levels of activity. There is not a
safety concern," Miller said Thursday.

No additional contamination from leaked spent fuel pool water
was found Thursday, said Connecticut Yankee spokeswoman Kelley
Smith. To date, a 4-by-4 foot area of soil tainted with cesium
has been cleaned, she said.

But DeBoer says the leak could be dangerous to public health.

"Any leak is of a major concern. We are dealing here with
radioactive materials and we don't want to have them in the
groundwater," DeBoer said.

The NRC thinks the tainted water breached the concrete wall
through hairline cracks, while Connecticut Yankee theorizes it
seeped through concrete seams.

 "A construction seam is the same thing as a crack. At the end,
there was as many as a thousand highly radioactive fuel rods in
the pool," DeBoer said. "Water made it out of the pool and it
should never have happened."

In addition to drilling around the building to monitor
groundwater, Connecticut Yankee should test water in area
bedrock fractures, DeBoer said.

DeBoer isn't impressed with Connecticut Yankee's track record.

"We have had pollution there time and time and time again. They
[Connecticut Yankee] are minimizing it all the time," DeBoer
charged.

First Selectman Tony Bondi said he is hopeful the NRC inspection
helps gauge contamination in need of remediation.

Bondi voiced concern that Connecticut Yankee leave "behind a
clean piece of property - healthwise and ecologically."

"My concern is being that they are cost driven, they are driven
to perform to achieve the minimum standards," Bondi said. "My
concern is that we put in a maximum effort."

 Mike Firsick, supervisory radiation control physicist for the
state Department of Environmental Protection, reports
Connecticut Yankee notified him of the problem Oct. 28.

Firsick said Connecticut Yankee is currently cleaning about
300,000 gallons of water remaining in the spent fuel pool, and
plans to begin draining it in three weeks.

DEP will test the water, soil and air at Connecticut Yankee when
the plant reports all contamination has been cleaned up, Firsick
said.

The NRC reports that a spent fuel pool leak occurred recently at
the operating Indian Point 2 nuclear power plant in upstate New
York. The spent fuel pool at the operating Salem Nuclear
Generating Station in New Jersey experienced a leak in 2002. 	 

  To comment on this story, or to request a correction click
here to send a message to Karen Hunter, The Courant's reader
representative.  <b>Click here </b>to read Karen's daily Weblog.
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courant.com is Copyright © 2005 by The Hartford Courant   

*****************************************************************
 31 Hudson Valley News: Entergy briefs government officials on Indian Point issues   

Friday, November 4, 2005 

Local, state and federal officials were briefed yesterday on the
source of the recent leak at the Indian Point 2 nuclear power
plant in Buchanan.  Plant operator Entergy also conducted a tour
of some areas of the facility.  

Among those at the briefing was Westchester/Rockland
Congresswoman Nita Lowey. "I am very upset that Entergy and the
Nuclear Regulator Commission did not inform local officials
about the leak in the spent fuel pool and the presence of
radioactive material outside of the spent fuel pool sooner, she
said after the briefing. While today's meeting could be an
indication of a more open dialogue between the plant operators
and the community, I remain concerned about how this situation
was handled from the beginning.  

Lowey said the NRC must provide independent oversight of Indian
Point to ensure that local officials and the public have
accurate and up-to-date information on any potential health and
safety risks. 

She said the continued failure of Entergy to provide timely
information about this leak and other safety concerns at the
plants gives the community little confidence that we would be
notified in the event of a larger, more dangerous problem at
Indian Point. 

Just days ago, the NRC said it would take more of an oversight
role at Indian Point.   
  
                                
HEAR today's news on MidHudsonRadio.com, the Hudson Valley's
*****************************************************************
 32 Petoskey News-Review: Down comes the dome: Big Rock sphere dismantled 

BY JEREMY MCBAIN NEWS-REVIEW STAFF WRITER

Friday, November 4, 2005 1:53 PM EST 

A longtime sight on Lake Michigan will soon be gone now that the
green containment sphere at Big Rock Point is being brought down.

Workers at the decommissioned nuclear power plant began tearing
down the well-known landscape icon on Oct. 14. The sphere is
expected to be completely torn down by the first week of
December said Consumer's Energy spokesperson Tim Petrosky.

Petrosky said for people who have worked at the facility over
the years, the sight of the sphere coming down is surreal and a
sign that the end of Big Rock is near.

He said it is weird to walk into what is left of the sphere,
look up and see sky.

The sphere, which served as containment surrounding the concrete
monolith inside that housed the reactor vessel, is located off
of U.S. 31, just north of Charlevoix. Workers are using
oxy-propane torches to cut through the three-quarters of an inch
thick steel making up the over 130-foot high sphere into 86
total pieces, which will then be shipped out to a Waste
Management facility in Waters.

The total weight of the steel used in the sphere is 2.5 million
pounds. 

The largest piece the workers will cut weighs a little less than
20,000 tons. Workers are cutting five to seven pieces off of the
sphere a day. Crews will be cutting 4,000 linear feet of steel
to bring the sphere down.

However, Petrosky said this is very weather dependent, as crews
can only work in winds of 25 mph or less, because of the use of
a 300-foot crane being used to move the pieces of the sphere.

After the sphere is taken down, all that will be left is a the
concrete monolith that housed the reactor vessel and a 27-foot
deep hole.

Petrosky said work will begin on tearing down the concrete
monolith in December. For this, crews will use explosives to
soften the concrete enough to allow it to be removed with
backhoes. 

There is 23 million pounds of concrete in this, of which 18
million will be taken with a very low level of radioactivity to
a facility in Tennessee. The rest will be taken as low level
radioactive waste to a facility in Utah.

Petrosky said the project is moving along well toward its plan
of having the area restored to a #8220greenfield by fall 2006.

This will mean the only portion of Big Rock left on the site
will be the spent nuclear fuel containment casks, which are
expected to be shipped out to the government storage facility by
2012 at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

Jeremy McBain can be contacted at 439-9316, or . 
  
*****************************************************************
 33 ABQJOURNAL: Feds Monitor Mock Disaster Drill at Palo Verde Nuclear
Plant 

Wednesday, November 02, 2005 

Albuquerque Journal--> 
Associated Press 

PHOENIX — Federal regulators are closely watching a 
three-day mock disaster drill at the nation's largest nuclear 
power facility. 

The drill began Tuesday at the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating 
Station, some 50 miles west of downtown Phoenix, to test the 
state's emergency response system. 

State, county and local officials are being evaluated by 
inspectors from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the 
Nuclear Regulatory Commission on their handling of a mock 
accident at the plant. 

In the mock disaster, a power failure and a broken backup 
generator cause the reactor in Palo Verde's Unit 1 to shut down. 

Minutes later, a leak develops in the cooling system. 
Superheated, radioactive steam fills the containment vessel, and 
some of it gushes outside in a deadly vapor cloud. 

Working out of the National Guard armory at Phoenix's Papago 
Park, more than 60 officials studied computer screens, plume 
maps, weather reports and emergency plans. 

Gov. Janet Napolitano and administrators followed guidelines 
in the state's Emergency Response and Recovery Plan. 

In an actual disaster at the triple-reactor facility, 42 
sirens would have wailed to warn residents living within 10 
miles of the plant. 

About 150 people inside a two-mile radius would have been 
evacuated, along with 720 students and staff from nearby schools.

Local air space would have been closed, monitors from the 
Arizona Radiation Regulatory Agency would have begun testing air 
and soil for contamination, hazmat teams would have been 
deployed to decontaminate victims, and hospitals would have 
geared up to treat radiation sickness. 

There are two emergency drills at Palo Verde each year. A 
major exercise is conducted every four years under the scrutiny 
of federal regulators. 

The idea is to anticipate escalations, plan for every 
possible problem, and learn from mistakes. 

Palo Verde is the nation's largest nuclear plant, with three 
reactors producing nearly 4,000 megawatts of electricity. APS 
owns 29.5 percent of the plant and operates it for a consortium 
of utility companies in four states. 

The plant supplies electricity to about 4 million customers 
in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and California. 

Copyright Albuquerque Journal 

Steve@abqjournal.com 
*****************************************************************
 34 Morris Daily Herald: NRC to discuss regulations with public
 			   							 			   		 		
  11/4/2005 1:04:00 PM

Herald Writer

 WASHINGTON, D.C. – Federal spokesmen will be in Morris next
week to publicize consolidation and strengthening of regulations
for workers at nuclear stations.

“To make sure the public understands the regulations are being
applied,” noted David Diec, spokesman for the Nuclear Regulator
Commission.

“That they are not inadvertently or perhaps trying to stretch
the envelope that could cause some unintended consequence,
especially when it comes to operation of nuclear power plants,”
he said today. 

The meeting will be Monday, Nov. 7, at the Holiday Inn, 200 Gore
Road. There will be two sessions. The first is 1 to 5 p.m., and
the second from 6 to 9 p.m. There will be opportunity for
questions from the public.

 During both sessions, NRC staffers will discuss proposed
improvements to the agency’s fitness-for-duty requirements for
workers who have unescorted access to protected areas in nuclear
power plants. 

Discussions will include the proposed changes to drug and
alcohol tests and proposed fatigue management provisions.

Diec said the NRC extensively revised the agency’s drug and
alcohol testing rules to include similar regulations by the
Department of Health and Services, and Department of
Transportation.

“There isn’t a problem,” he said. “It’s a matter of
consolidation and clarification - making the regulations more
defined.”

The clarifications are, however, more stringent in sanctions
regarding those who violate, or do not meet the chemical test
requirements, Diec said.

He said the fatigue management requirements include proposed
limits on the number of hours nuclear workers can accumulate in
a given period of time.

“That they cannot work more than 16 hours a day, or 26 hours in
any two days, or 72 hours per week,” he said. “The 72-hour work
week has always been there. It’s a position we’ve been taking
for a long time, and we just want to make sure everybody follows
it the same way.”

The requirements also introduce break requirements, or time out
between duty shifts, Diec noted.

“To have 10-hour breaks between shifts, and a 24-hour break
every week, and a 40-hour break every two weeks. You have to
build in limits such as that to prevent cumulative fatigue
effects,” he added.

NRC Region 3 spokesman Viktoria Mitlyng, Lisle, said the changes
are geared toward having employees work as effectively as they
possibly can.

“Establishing the number of hours a person can work effectively
in a given stretch of time without having productivity reduced,”
she said.

“It’s the NRC looking at its own rules,” she added.

   Morris Daily Herald • 1804 N. Division St. • Morris, Illinois
60450 
(815) 942-3221 • (800) 215-9778 
 Software © 1998-2005 , All Rights Reserved

   	

   


*****************************************************************
 35 NRC: RIN 3150-AH68: Comment on 10,000 year dose standard

 
                        FR Doc 05-22121 
[Federal Register: November 4, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 213)] 
[Proposed Rules] [Page 67098-67099] From the Federal Register 
Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr04no05-10]                         
 

Implementation of a Dose Standard After 10,000 Years; Extension 
of Comment Period AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
 
ACTION: Proposed rule: Extension of comment period.
 
SUMMARY: On September 8, 2005 (70 FR 53313), the U.S. Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission (NRC) published for public comment a 
proposed rule that would
 
[[Page 67099]]
amend its regulations governing the disposal of high-level 
radioactive wastes in a proposed geologic repository at Yucca 
Mountain, Nevada. The proposed rule would implement the U.S. 
Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) proposed standards for 
doses that could occur after 10,000 years but within the period 
of geologic stability. The comment period for EPA's proposed 
standards currently expires on November 21, 2005 (extended 30 
days from October 21, 2005); the comment period for NRC's 
proposed rule currently expires on November 7, 2005.
 
A letter was received from U.S. Senators Harry Reid and John 
Ensign from the State of Nevada requesting that the comment 
period for NRC's proposed rule be extended to a total of 180 
days, or at least past the date of EPA's 30-day extension. 
Another letter representing several citizen and environmental 
groups requested that the deadline for comments be extended to 
180 days. In addition, a letter from the Agency for Nuclear 
Projects, on behalf of the State of Nevada, requested that NRC 
extend its comment period for an additional 30 days, consistent 
with EPA's 30-day extension of its comment period.
 
Given the interrelationship between these two proposed rules, and 
for consistency with the ongoing EPA rulemaking process, NRC has 
decided to extend the comment period for its rulemaking an 
additional 30 days to December 7, 2005, for a total comment 
period of 90 days. In vacating the compliance period in NRC's 
rule at 10 CFR part 63, the United States Court of Appeals for 
the District of Columbia Circuit has made clear that it is 
``NRC's obligation under the [Energy Policy Act of 1992] to 
maintain licensing criteria that are consistent with the public 
health and safety standards promulgated by EPA.'' See Nuclear 
Energy Institute, Inc. v. EPA, 373 F.3d 1251, 1299 (D.C. Cir. 
2004). Thus NRC's proposed rule, for the most part, simply 
implements EPA's proposed standards for doses that could occur 
after 10,000 years but within the period of geologic stability, 
and its final rule will need to implement any changes EPA may 
make with respect to its standards. NRC's proposed rule provides 
further detail for implementing the EPA standard in only two 
specific areas: A value to represent climate change after 10,000 
years; and a requirement that calculations of radiation doses for 
workers use the same weighting factors that EPA is proposing for 
calculating individual doses to members of the public. A lengthy 
period of time should not be needed by potential commenters to 
address these issues. Hence the NRC's 30-day extension is 
believed to be appropriate.
 
 
DATES: The comment period has been extended and now expires on 
December 7, 2005. Comments received after this date will be 
considered if it is practical to do so, but NRC is able to assure 
consideration only for comments received on or before this date.
 
 
ADDRESSES: You may submit comments by any one of the following 
methods. Please include the following number (RIN 3150-AH68) in 
the subject line of your comments. Comments on rulemakings 
submitted in writing or in electronic form will be made available 
to the public in their entirety on the NRC rulemaking Web site. 
Personal information will not be removed from your comments.
 
Mail comments to: Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 
Washington, DC 20555-0001, Attn: Rulemakings and Adjudications 
Staff.
 
E-mail comments to: . If you do not receive a reply e- mail 
confirming that we have received your comments, contact us 
directly at (301) 415-1966. You may also submit comments via the 
NRC's rulemaking Web site at . Address questions about our 
rulemaking Web site to Carol Gallagher (301) 415-5905; e-mail . 
Comments can also be submitted via the Federal eRulemaking Portal 
at .
 
Hand deliver comments to: 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, 
Maryland 20852, between 7:30 a.m. and 4:15 p.m. Federal workdays. 
(Telephone (301) 415-1966.) Fax comments to: Secretary, U.S. 
Nuclear Regulatory Commission at (301) 415-1101.
 
Publicly available documents related to this rulemaking may be 
examined and copied for a fee at the NRC's Public Document Room, 
Public File Area O1 F21, One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville 
Pike, Rockville, Maryland. Selected documents, including 
comments, can be viewed and downloaded electronically via the NRC 
rulemaking Web site at .
 
Publicly available documents created or received at the NRC after 
November 1, 1999, are available electronically at the NRC's 
Electronic Reading Room at . From this site, the public can gain 
entry into the NRC's Agencywide Document Access and Management 
System (ADAMS), which provides text and image files of NRC's 
public documents. If you do not have access to ADAMS or if there 
are problems in accessing the documents located in ADAMS, contact 
the NRC Public Document Room Reference staff at 1-800-397-4209, 
(301) 415-4737, or by e-mail to .
 
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Timothy McCartin, Office of 
Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, telephone (301) 415-7285, 
e-mail ; Janet Kotra, Office of Nuclear Material Safety and 
Safeguards, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 
20555- 0001, telephone (301) 415-6674, e-mail ; or Frank Cardile, 
Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards, U.S. Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, telephone (301) 
415- 6185, e-mail .
 
Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 1st day of November, 2005.
 
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
 
Luis A. Reyes, Executive Director for Operations.
 
[FR Doc. 05-22121 Filed 11-3-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P

 
*****************************************************************
 36 [NukeNet] Nov. 12, Symposium on Nuclear Transport in Western NC
 
Date: Fri, 04 Nov 2005 15:20:51 -0800

<x-flowed>
NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net)

Common Sense At The Nuclear Crossroads -- Keep Our Children Safe
An educational symposium -- November 12       10:00 am -- 4:00 
pm   registration and networking at 9:30
Owen Conference Center, University of North Carolina, Asheville        -- 
Free and open to the public
3rd floor of Owen Hall, for directions

<http://www.unca.edu/campusmap/>http://www.unca.edu/campusmap/


The morning will focus on the types of nuclear materials that are currently 
traveling on roads and rails in Western North Carolina -- on a weekly 
basis, as well as report news about the programs that may cause a 
significant increase in the numbers and types of these shipments.

The afternoon will be an opportunity to look at WNC readiness for dealing 
with any problem with nuclear shipments as well as what people can do to 
get involved and reduce risks. The issue of route, including the proposed 
I-3 will be discussed.

Speakers include:  Mike Hopping, Commons Sense at the Nuclear Crossroads
Jim Warren, NC WARN
Glenn Carroll, Georgians Against Nuclear Energy
Lou Zeller, Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League
Sara Barczak, Southern Alliance For Clean Energy
Mary Olson, Nuclear Information and Resource Service
Debbie Gilbert, Regional Disaster Planner for Hospitals and EMS Services
Stewart Coates, Director Madison County Emergency Response
Dr. Don Richardson, Physicians For Social Responsibility of Western North 
Carolina
John Clarke, Stop I-3 Coalition
Ned Ryan Doyle, Common Sense At The Nuclear Crossroads
Cecil Bothwell, music
Other invitations pending.


The event is sponsored by:

Common Sense At The Nuclear Crossroads
Physicians For Social Responsibility of Western North Carolina
Nuclear Information and Resource Service
Rolling Thunder / Asheville
Southern Energy and Environment Expo
University of North Carolina Asheville Environmental Studies Department



Contact: Mary Olson 828-675-1792  or 
<http://us.f336.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=nirs@main.nc.us>nirs@main.nc.us
or CSNC:  828-296-0821  or 
<http://us.f336.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=csatnc@aol.com>csatnc@aol.com

Sunday November 13:  Nuclear Relapse -- a round table discussion of new 
nuclear power reactor plans in our region. If you are interested in 
attending this session, please contact Mary Olson for time and place. 
828-675-1792 or 
<http://us.f336.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=nirs@main.nc.us>nirs@main.nc.us

_______________________________________________________________________
Subscribe/Unsubscribe Here: http://www.energyjustice.net/nukenet/
Change your settings or access the archives at:
http://energyjustice.net/mailman/listinfo/nukenet_energyjustice.net

</x-flowed>
*****************************************************************
 37 SimiValley Acorn: Fire damage to Rocketdyne test site concerns senator 

November 4, 2005   
  
By Daniel Wolowicz danielw@theacorn.com 

Health officials say preliminary results for local air quality
during and after the recent Topanga fire do not show unusual
levels of toxic contaminants in the air. 

Environmentalists, however, say the information being released
by the state agencies performing the tests is too ambiguous and
unsubstantiated to be considered valid. 

Concerned by toxins released by the fire, Sen. Diane Feinstein
wrote a letter to Barbara Riordan, interim chair for the
California Air Resources Board, asking for an air quality
report. The request came after the wildfire scorched more than
2,000 acres of Rocketdyne’s Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL)
in the Simi Hills. The fire damaged 10 buildings on the test
field, destroying seven. 

Because the test field was used by Rocketdyne, the Defense
Department, NASA and the Energy Department to conduct rocket,
missile and nuclear testing for nearly 40 years, health
officials, politicians and residents were worried that the fire
released toxic and radioactive materials trapped in the soil and
surrounding brush. “I am deeply concerned thatoxic and
radioactive contamination concentrated in vegetation and
soicould be transported downwind by the fire and expose the
public to health risks,” wrote Feinstein. “The cleanup at the
Santa Susana Field Laboratory has been ineffective abest, as the
radioactive and toxic contamination in the soil (and thus
vegetation) largely remains.” 

The fires burned over 27,000 acres throughout East Ventura
County and West Los Angeles County in late September and early
October. 

Sam Atwood, a spokesperson for the South Coast Air Quality
Management District, said the agency took several air samples
from nearby and downwind from the test field. The levels of
toxins, he said, were the same “you would see throughout the Los
Angeles basin,” and did not raise any red flags for the agency. 

The state agency is analyzing the raw data they collected during
the fires and will have a full report by early November,
according to Atwood. 

The air quality agency doesn’t typically take air samples during
a fire. That job is usually left to the local fire department,
Atwood said. In this instance, however, because the test site
continues to be a source of concern for many residents, the
South Coast Air Quality Management District conducted the tests. 

Feinstein’s letter and air quality took center stage at the SSFL
Workgroup meeting last week in Simi Hills. 

“I’m just really irritated with (the South Coast Air Quality
Management District) because they issue statements to the press
that they found nothing, but when you press them for
information, they can’t remember what they tested for or when
they tested for it,” said Daniel Hirsch, a member of the
workgroup panel and head of the environmental watchdog group
Committee to Bridge the Gap. 

“I’m a numbers guy,” Hirsch said. “I want to see the numbers. I
want to know what they were testing for, and what their
threshold detection was and what they considered to be
background.” 

Both Hirsch and Feinstein want to know what levels of
perchlorate, beryllium, dioxins, polychlorinated biphenyls
(PCBs), among other chemicals, were detected in the air during
and after the fire. 

Atwood couldn’t say what exact chemicals his agency had tested
for. 

Headed by the United States Protection Agency, the SSFL
Workgroup meets quarterly to discuss the ongoing effort to clean
up the Santa Susana Field Laboratory, a 2,668-acre parcel used
for rocket and nuclear testing. 

The South Coast Air Quality Management District is not a member
of the workgroup. 

The joint presentation by the Department of Toxic Substances
Control (DTSC) and the Ventura County Air Pollution Control
District at the SSFL Workgroup meeting last week had
environmentalists and area residents feeling frustrated that
neither of the two agencies were able to collect air quality
data. 

“Any county that has in it a major rocket testing and nuclear
facility—one that is known to be contaminated—should have the
capability to test for those contaminants in case of an
emergency, and the county doesn’t have it,” Hirsch said. 

Hirsch was frustrated that county and state agencies didn’t act
sooner to mitigate health problems. 

In a letter written five years ago to then-Gov. Gray Davis,
Hirsch warned of the potential health problems caused by a
wildfire on the test field. 

“This year’s fires have revealed a dangerous situation, which
the state’s regulatory agencies do not seem to be addressing—the
potential for radioactively and chemically contaminated sites to
catch fire, releasing their toxic materials, putting at risk
both firefighters and the general public,” Hirsch wrote. “Our
state government needs to strengthen its safeguards to protect
communities from nuclear and toxic contaminants that can be
unleashed by burning.” 

Michael Villegas, an air pollution control officer for the
county, said the six air quality monitoring systems in Ventura
County are geared to detect smog and ozone levels. They do not
test for toxic or radioactive material in the air. 

Villegas said the closest air quality monitoring device to the
SSFL is located at Simi Valley High School. The county does not
have a mobile monitoring unit. 

The Ventura County Air Pollution Control District did declare
unhealthy air quality levels for both the Simi and Conejo
Valleys during the fires. 

Villegas said his agency was able to convince local high schools
to play their football games in Ventura on Saturday morning
instead of at their home fields on Friday night. 

“We were glad we could convince (the high schools) to move their
games,” Villegas said. “It was something we couldn’t get them to
do two years ago.” 

Jeanne Garcia, a spokeswoman for the DTSC—the agency in charge
of cleaning up toxic and hazardous material on the test field—
said the fire didn’t increase any health risks to surrounding
residents. 

“Usually excess inorganics will actually kill plants, hence the
occurrence of ‘stressed vegetation,’” Garcia said. “I’m informed
that the extent to which inorganics concentrate in plants does
not significantly increase the potential health risk over that
produced by a fire in general.” 

Garcia said DTSC doesn’t handle any radioactive material on the
test field. Officials with the South Coast Air Quality
Management District said they don’t monitor for radioactive
material released in the air. 

The United States Department of Energy (DOE) is the agency in
charge of cleaning up radioactive contamination on the SSFL.
Because of disagreements between the DOE and the EPA several
years ago, the DOE doesn’t send representatives to the workgroup
meetings. 

“None of our structures were damaged, and monitoring to date
shows there were no releases of radiological materials,” said
Mike Lopez, a representative with the DOE. 

Lopez said the DOE will present their findings at their next
public meeting at 6:30 p.m. Tues., Nov. 15 at the Grand Vista
Hotel in Simi Valley. 

The next SSFL Workgroup meeting will be held at 6:30 p.m. Wed.,
Jan. 11 at the Simi Valley Cultural Arts Center. 
  
*****************************************************************
 38 Deseret News: Nuke waste on ice? 

[deseretnews.com] 

Friday, November 4, 2005 

Deseret Morning News editorial 

Thanks to now-retired Rep. Jim Hansen, a proposed nuclear waste 
repository in Skull Valley may be in stall mode. In 2000, Hansen 
inserted language in the Military Appropriations Act that calls 
for a moratorium on land-use planning in the Skull Valley area. 
The manager of the Bureau of Land Management's Salt Lake office 
believes the moratorium prohibits him from signing an agreement 
needed to permit Private Fuel Storage to build a railroad spur to
its proposed nuclear waste facility. 

The moratorium will remain in place unless Congress lifts 
it or the Air Force completes a resource study, which it appears 
to be in no rush to do. Considering that the Utah Test and 
Training Range is nearby the proposed above-ground nuclear 
repository, it strains logic that the Air Force would do 
anything to facilitate the placement of an above-ground storage 
facility considering the small but undeniable risk of airplane 
crashes or mishaps with live munitions used in training 
exercises. The moratorium and delays in the Air Force resource 
review are glimmers of hope that the PFS facility could be in 
limbo indefinitely. It's welcome news. 

Neither the proposed PFS facility nor Yucca Mountain are 
suitable solutions to the storage of nuclear waste stacking up 
at nuclear power plants throughout the country. But if the waste 
is as safe as PFS officials contend, there should be no rush to 
move it to the interior West. Moreover, the PFS and Yucca 
Mountain facilities have finite storage capacity. They would 
soon fill with the waste that has now accumulated at nuclear 
power plants. What then becomes of the waste stream from ongoing 
electrical production at nuclear power plants? 

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, says Hansen's legislative work 
is part of multipronged attack on plans for the high-level 
nuclear waste repository. On Tuesday, Hatch also released 
letters from the U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman and a 
letter Hatch wrote to Nils J. Diaz, chairman of the Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission, which has approved — but not yet issued — 
a license to PFS for the facility. 

In essence, the Bodman letter says if Yucca Mountain is 
constructed, the need for the PFS facility will be reduced, if 
not eliminated. Moreover, the DOE does not consider the PFS 
facility "as part of the department's overall strategy for the 
management of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive 
waste." The letter also states that the DOE cannot provide 
financing or funding for the PFS project, which will be 
privately constructed. 

Hatch says Bodman's letter is particularly important 
because it tells PFS, "This is never going to happen." At the 
very least, the BLM memorandum indicates to PFS that the project 
is "a long way from happening." 

Credit Jim Hansen, who retired from Congress in 2002 
after 22 years of service, for a heads-up legislative move that 
at a minimum will postpone the PFS project. It is incumbent on 
the current congressional delegation to pull out all the stops 
to halt the PFS project once and for all. 

© 2005 Deseret News Publishing Company 
*****************************************************************
 39 RIA Novosti: Armenia to allocate $190,000-plus to build spent nuclear fuel storage
 
04/ 11/ 2005

YEREVAN, November 4 (RIA Novosti, Gamlet Matevosyan) - The
Armenian government said Friday it had allowed the energy
ministry to spend over $190,000 to build a new dry storage of
spent nuclear fuel. 

The contract for building the storage was signed by the Armenian
Nuclear Power Plant and France's Cogema Logistics on September
30, 2005. 

Plant director Gagik Markosyan said Cogema Logistics would share
its technology with Armenia and consult the republic on the
construction of the facility. 

Markosyan said 24 new storage modules designed for 56 casks
would be built. The first batch of spent fuel is scheduled to be
loaded in September 2007. 

Armenia's first dry storage facility was built by France's
Framatom. It was commissioned in 2000 and currently stores about
600 spent nuclear fuel casks. 

Armenia's nuclear power plant was opened in 1980 and shut down
in March 1989 for political reasons, but was reopened in
November 1995 during an acute energy crisis in the republic. 

Outfitted with a Russian-made first-generation reactor, the
plant's second unit generates up to 40% of Armenia's overall
power output and can remain operational until 2016, experts
estimate. Since 1993, the republic has received a total of $80
million to improve security at the plant. 

Since September 2003, the plant has been run by an affiliate of
Unified Energy Systems and Rosenergoatom, Russia's major
electricity producers and its trust managers for a five-year
period. 

The EU has said the plant should be shut down temporarily and it
would be willing to provide 100 million euros in funding.
Armenian experts, however, said building alternative power
facilities would require nearly a billion euros.

© 2005 "RIA Novosti"   
*****************************************************************
 40 BYU NewsNet: Nuclear rail line nixed 

By Bonnie Boyd Daily Universe Staff Reporter - 4 Nov 2005 

The Bureau of Land Management refused to approve a new rail 
line going to the proposed nuclear waste storage site in 
Utahâ€™s west desert â€“ a move Sen. Orrin Hatch said, shows the 
Bush administration is on Utahâ€™s side. 

	The Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued a license to Private 
Fuel Storage in September for the proposed nuclear waste site in 
Skull Valley. Opposition to the plan has come from many levels 
of Utah government and the local community. The BLMâ€™s decision 
makes it more difficult for PFS to find a way to transport waste 
coming from other states to the site. 

	The Pentagon needs the opportunity to study how the BLMâ€™s 
wilderness areas affect operations at the Utah Test and Training 
Range, said Don Banks, communications director for the BLM in 
Salt Lake City. 

	The range is a Department of Defense bomb and target practice 
range. According to the Associated Press, the Pentagon is far 
from starting the study. 

	The National Historic Preservation Act requires all relevant 
agencies to sign a Memorandum of Agreement on the proposed plan 
for Skull Valley before license is granted. The BLM rejected the 
current memorandum. Banks said the BLM would not grant their 
approval until their concerns are met. 

	Hatch warned the NRC in a news release Tuesday that the law 
prohibits nuclear fuel storage licensing without the BLMâ€™s 
approval. 

	â€œI appreciate the BLMâ€™s decision to follow the law,â€ 
Hatch said in the news release. â€œThis has jammed the NRC, and 
the BLM has sent a clear signal of more obstacles to come.â€ 

	BLM officials said they would not consider doing anything with 
the land until the Department of Defense took a look at it, 
Banks said. Approving a rail line is currently not an option for 
the BLM at this time. 

	Sen. Hatch said this was just one of the many legal hurdles his 
administration was raising before the nuclear waste site ever 
became a reality. 

	 In a letter to NRC Chairman Nils Diaz on Nov. 1, Hatch said 
it would be inappropriate for the NRC to issue licenses before 
all agencies have satisfied their legal and regulatory 
requirements. 

	The railroad would cross 33 miles of BLM land. It would spur 
off of the Union Pacific Railroad mainline and continue straight 
to the storage site. 

	â€œLetâ€™s face it,â€ Hatch wrote. â€œIf the administration 
really wanted the Private Fuel Storage to be built, there would 
be bulldozers out there right now.â€ 

	The proposed nuclear storage site sits on the Goshute Indian 
Reservation in Skull Valley. The 44,000 tons of nuclear waste 
would be stored 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City for up to 
40 years. 

Copyright, BYU NewsNet                                                           
*****************************************************************
 41 RGJ.com: Rail trench is leaking, but officials not worried

Nevada, USA  775-788-6200    November 04, 2005 		 		 		 		 			
RGJ.com                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL -->
Posted: 11/4/2005 

Before Reno's downtown railroad trench project was approved,
city officials often described it as a "watertight bathtub."

As it turns out, the trench is allowed to leak up to 2,500
gallons a day of ground water, under special provisions included
in the contract between Granite Construction Co. and the city of
Reno in 2002, said Steve Varela, Reno public works director.

Varela describes the leaks as insignificant.

"It will always leak. It's almost impossible to make it 100
percent leakproof," he said.

And if leakage should become a problem, Varela said that would
come in the first five years, when Granite would be obliged to
fix it under a five-year warranty provided in its $171 million
contract. After that, it's up to city taxpayers to maintain the
trench.

Of the 2.3-mile-long trench, about three-quarters of a mile is
below the ground water table, from Ralston Street to just east
of Evans Avenue, Granite spokesman Dante Pistone said.

If the 2,500 gallons of seepage were poured evenly over the
bottom of the trench, Pistone said the 2.3-mile-long puddle
would be 1/13,000th of an inch deep. But with Reno's dry
climate, he said, most of the seepage would evaporate.

Mike Robinson, whose campaigns were based on his anti-trench
stance, said he is surprised by the amount of leakage allowed.
Before the project was approved in 2002, he repeatedly
questioned whether significant maintenance costs should have
been added to contend with ground water problems over the
decades.

"Once the heavy trains start rumbling through there, the leaks
and cracks are going to get bigger," Robinson said. "What it
tells me is there's going to be some maintenance on this."

Varela said a maintenance manual for the trench is being
finalized, and will include cost estimates for maintaining the
integrity of the trench, bridge inspections and maintenance for
the pump station. The city will maintain everything but the
tracks, ballast, ties and signal system.

City and Granite Construction officials say the trench is sound,
that cracks on the trench floor are not a structural problem.
The trench floor contains two slabs of concrete anchored into
the ground, creating a shield averaging 3 to 5 feet thick. It's
more than 10 feet thick near a pump station, the lowest point of
the trench.

Storm drains along both sides of the trench catch ground water,
rain and snowmelt and drain to a pump station east of Lake
Street. Holes in the trench walls allow excess ground water to
enter the trench and storm drains rather than build up pressure
against the walls.

The pump station can remove 14,000 gallons per minute. The first
flush of water goes into the city sewer lines for treatment and
the rest into storm sewers and the Truckee River.

During the last public tours of the construction Sept. 29, bus
riders could see large puddles in the trench over at least a
two-block section in the heart of downtown, where the trench is
33 feet deep and dips several feet below the groundwater table.

Since then, Pistone said, the company has sealed the joints and
cracks, not required in the contract. Since that work was
completed in mid-October, he said leakage has stopped and
provided pictures as proof.

He said small puddles along the trench wall near the Golden
Phoenix hotel-casino must have come from trucks spraying water
for dust. Union Pacific is dumping gravel along the tracks, the
last major work before the trench can open in December.

After the water trucks are gone, Pistone said the pump station
will be able to measure the seepage. No figures before the
sealant was added are available.

"As long as the city maintains the drainage and the pump
station, that 2,500 gallons should not be a problem," said Mark
Davis, Union Pacific Railroad spokesman.

James Taranik, director of the Mackay School of Earth Science
and Engineering at the University of Nevada, Reno, agreed the
leakage is no big deal. He said every underground facility that
broaches the ground water level has water in it, including the
tunnels dug for the Yucca Mountain nuclear dump site.

"When below the groundwater table, a hydrostatic head (of
pressure) pushes against the concrete joists," he said. "And all
concrete poured has some cracks in it."

While Mayor Bob Cashell was surprised to learn the trench is
expected to leak, former Mayor Jeff Griffin said he knew all
along seepage would occur in the trench.

"We've engineered for it. It's overengineered," Griffin said.
 
 Reno Gazette-Journal network: | | | 
*****************************************************************
 42 Pahrump Valley Times: Bechtel: Audit flawed 
 
November 4, 2005

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS 

LAS VEGAS - The managing contractor on the Yucca Mountain
nuclear waste dump project said recently that a critical audit
report from the Energy Department's inspector general was
flawed. 

Bechtel SAIC issued a statement in response to the audit report,
that had said the company was paid incentives even though it
turned in late and low-quality work. 

The report released a day earlier "contains a number of factual
errors and inaccuracies," Bechtel said, though it did not
specify them. 

"All work was performed, and all fee awards were earned, in
accordance with requirements documented in our contract," the
company said. 

The inspector general questioned $4 million in incentives paid
to Bechtel for work on the planned Nevada dump from 2001-2004 -
nearly 10 percent of the total $43.4 million in incentives
Bechtel received during that period. 

Paul Golan, director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste
Management that issued the payments, said in a letter to the
inspector general that he agreed with the report's findings and
would take corrective action. 

The criticism comes as Yucca Mountain, approved by Congress in
2002 as the nation's repository for nuclear waste, has suffered
a series of setbacks. The government was forced by an appeals
court to rewrite its radiation safety standards and internal
emails surfaced last spring suggesting government workers had
falsified data on the project 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
The dump's opening date has been repeatedly delayed and is now
expected in 2012 or later. 

Yucca Mountain is meant to hold 77,000 tons of nuclear waste for
10,000 years and beyond.

Copyright © Pahrump Valley Times, 1997 - 2005 
*****************************************************************
 43 NRC: NRC Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste to Meet in Rockville, Maryland, Nov. 14-16
 
News Release - 2005-15
U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs     
Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 20555-0001     E-mail: 
opa@nrc.gov No. 05-150     November 4, 2005   
  

  The Nuclear Regulatory Commissions Advisory Committee on
Nuclear Waste (ACNW) will meet Nov. 14-16 in Rockville, Md., to
discuss, among other items, the NRCs plans for the
implementation of the Environmental Protection Agencys dose
standard for the proposed geologic repository at Yucca Mountain
after 10,000 years. There will also be discussion on low-level
radioactive waste. 
The committee reports to and advises the Commission on all
aspects of nuclear waste management.
 
The sessions on Monday and Tuesday will run from 8:30 a.m. to
5:30 p.m. The session on Wednesday will run from 10 a.m. to
noon. The meeting will be held in Room T-2B3 of the agencys Two
White Flint North Building, at 11545 Rockville Pike. 

Anyone wanting to use video teleconferencing to observe the
meeting should contact Theron Brown, at 301-415-8066 at least
five days before the meeting to ensure availability.
 
A complete agenda will be available on the NRCs Web site at this
address:
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/acnw/agenda/2005/.
Individuals interesting in making statements or those seeking
more information should contact Sharon Steele, at 301-415-6805. 
  



  


 	Last revised Friday, November 04, 2005 	
*****************************************************************
 44 ksl.com: Investigative Report: Contaminant Found in Utah Milk (Percholate)
         
               -11/04/2005                                                                                             


Debbie Dujanovic Reporting

Tonight, a secret uncovered about something in the milk you and 
your family drink. It isn't clear whether it is a serious public 
health threat or not, but what is clear is nearly all experts 
agree more testing is needed. What is also clear, the State of 
Utah did test, but never told anybody, so we did our own tests.

We are not going to suggest you stop drinking milk. We are going 
to show you what's in the samples we had tested. It is 
controversial --experts disagree on how much is too much-- but we 
found something you should know about.

Renee Sharp, Environmental Working Group: "People absolutely have 
the right to know their food may be contaminated."


With what? Perchlorate, a contaminant making headlines. It's 
prolonged exposure that raises concerns. It's an ingredient in 
solid rocket propellant. It's seeped into drinking and river 
water around the country. In Utah, it's in groundwater at three 
defense sites.

It may be getting into our milk if contaminated water reaches 
grazing areas or livestock feed.

Eyewitness News tested milk from all over Utah to find out what 
you and your family are drinking. We also discovered the state of 
Utah conducted similar tests.

Renee Sharp: "It is a travesty that we even have to be here 
talking about this."

Our investigation took us to Oakland. The Environmental Working 
Group has researched Perchlorate in California's food supply, 
concerned about unborn babies, children, and developing IQ.

Renee Sharp: "In children their bodies are developing, their 
brains are developing, so there is more of a potential to have 
permanent long-term effects."


In research: Perchlorate targets the thyroid and can interfere 
with hormone production, a factor in brain development. Other 
concerns include metabolism and thyroid tumors.

One State Agency is tasked with testing milk for contaminants. So 
we filed a records request with the Utah Department of 
Agriculture. Had officials there tested Utah milk for 
Perchlorate? No. In writing, "We don't have any Perchlorate test 
results."

Larry Lewis, Utah Department of Agriculture: "The public needs to 
know the dairy products in Utah are safe. There's no evidence of 
Perchlorate in Utah milk, to date."

But our sources tell us a much different story. And Eyewitness 
News has seen internal documents which reveal a top official 
within the Department of Agriculture did authorize Perchlorate 
testing on milk last December. We've learned the results: all six 
samples tested positive for Perchlorate.

Since the state won't acknowledge it, we paid to have milk 
analyzed.

Renee Sharp: "The idea that a television station has to be the 
ones to go out and test the milk, to inform the public, seems 
really backwards."

We traveled to 10 Utah cities, Brigham City to St. George, buying 
a carton of milk in each city. Then we delivered the samples to 
Data Chem laboratory, Perchlorate testing experts.

We began in July. By October all the results were in.

Kevin Griffiths, Datachem Laboratories: "There is Perchlorate 
being found in the milk."

Perchlorate in every carton of milk we bought, measured in parts 
per billion. The range: almost 10 for whole milk from West Valley 
to just over one in chocolate milk we purchased in Provo. The 
overall average is almost 5-parts per billion.

Is that dangerous? Citing reports, like one from the FDA, the 
Utah Dairy Commission says you shouldn't change your diet; the 
levels we found can't hurt you. Officials in Massachusetts worry 
it can, citing tumors in animal offspring and concern for 
children's health.

In Magna, Utah Water company officials found Perchlorate in a 
drinking water well and shut it down. The amount was less than we 
found in milk.

Ed Hansen, Magna Water Company: "I sleep well at night knowing 
that I protected the residents by not putting a contaminant, an 
unknown contaminant into the water system."

An interesting coincidence today, as we prepared this report, the 
Department of Agriculture tracked down the same tests it's been 
telling us for weeks didn't exist. The story now: the tests were 
tucked away in a file.

One state doctor looked at the results-- three to six parts per 
billion-- and on his own determined there is no need for concern.

Because of our report, they will change the way future tests are 
reviewed, and will do Perchlorate tests on grazing areas next 
spring. 

 Salt Lake City UT

*****************************************************************
 45 Canada: Globe and Mail: Bury nuclear waste underground, group says 
    
Final disposal would not begin for 60 years 
	 	 	 	 	 	 	 							 		 						 		[Headshot of Murray Campbell] 
 By MURRAY CAMPBELL

Friday, November 4, 2005 		 Posted at 4:59 AM EST
 		
Waste from Canada's nuclear generation plants should be
permanently disposed of by spending at least $24-billion to bury
it 1,000 metres underground, an industry association says.

But the Nuclear Waste Management Organization says this final
disposal would not start for about 60 years and that only
"willing" communities should be considered. The focus of the
site search would be in Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and
Saskatchewan.
 
The NWMO, which is controlled by the nuclear industry, yesterday
capped three years of study of what to do with nuclear waste
piling up at electricity-generation and research reactors in six
provinces by submitting its report to federal Natural Resources
Minister John McCallum.
 
It said that the two million used fuel bundles accumulated in
the past four decades will remain for "many thousands of years"
a potential health, safety and security hazard. It predicted
that there will be 3.7 million bundles if the currently
operating nuclear generation plants have an average operating
life of 40 years.
 
"Used fuel will need to be contained and isolated from people
and the environment essentially indefinitely," the report says.
 
The waste issue is now in the hands of the federal government,
but initial indications are that it will face opposition in
finding a permanent disposal site. Saskatchewan Premier Lorne
Calvert said that as long as he is in his job there will be no
disposal facility in his province. 

Ontario Natural Resources Minister David Ramsay was similarly
defiant, saying: "We don't like the idea of nuclear waste coming
to Northern Ontario."
 
There was no immediate comment from New Brunswick and Quebec.
 
Spent fuel is currently stored on site at nuclear reactors. The
bundles of uranium pellets, about the size of a fire log, are
initially stored in water-filled pools to reduce their heat and
radioactivity, then placed in dry storage after about 10 years.
 
But the NWMO rejected this option because the storage sites
would need to be overhauled every 100 years. 

"There's a recognition that waste is safely stored in the
interim facilities, but a real sense that we can't keep putting
this off," NWMO president Elizabeth Dowdeswell said.
 
A burial within rock deposits of the Canadian Shield or in the
Ordovician formations in Southern Ontario and Quebec represents
the best technical solution, the study says. But it might not
provide the flexibility needed to respond quickly to calls for
enhanced security or a desire by reactor-site communities to rid
themselves of the waste.
 
The NWMO believes it will take at least 60 years to identify and
license a deep-disposal site even before construction begins. It
suggested that this long time frame could be dealt with by
storing waste at the identified site in a shallow facility just
50 metres below ground before burying it elsewhere more deeply.
Under this "adaptive phased management," governments of the
future would have the flexibility to deal with technical
innovations.
 
The report noted that 53 truck shipments a month for 30 years
would be required to move the waste from reactors to the final
site.
 
David Martin of Greenpeace, which opposes nuclear-power
generation, said NWMO had chosen the worst of all worlds by
combining the uses of on-site storage and deep-burial disposal.
He said on-site disposal would work, but only if the nuclear
program is phased out.
 
New Brunswick is spending $1.4-billion to overhaul its aging
Point Lepreau nuclear plant. Ontario is refurbishing reactors
and considering an expansion of its nuclear program.
 
Mr. McCallum said he couldn't comment on the report because he
received it only yesterday and hasn't had a chance to read it
yet. "After due consideration the government will act."
 
With a report from Simon Tuck
 	 	 	 	 		 						Search globeandmail.com			Search Site			More
  + © Copyright 2005 Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc. All Rights
Globeandmail.com:
*****************************************************************
 46 CBC New Brunswick: Lord cautious on nuclear waste storage suggestion
 
  Last updated Nov 4 2005 08:54 AM AST
 CBC News  

  Premier Bernard Lord is taking a wait-and-see approach to a
new report that suggests New Brunswick could be a storage site
for Canada's nuclear waste. 
The final report of the Nuclear Waste Management Organization
was handed to the federal government on Thursday. It recommends
"a responsible path forward" for the long-term storage of
nuclear waste. 

  + LINK:  Nuclear Waste Management Organization  [External
site] Canada is running out of storage room at its nuclear power
stations, where used fuel is currently held on a temporary
basis. 

The organization says that "in the interest of fairness," an
eventual storage site will likely come from one of the four
provinces involved in nuclear fuel production - New Brunswick,
Quebec, Ontario and Saskatchewan. Saskatchewan is the world's
biggest producer of uranium, used in nuclear power plants. The
other three provinces have nuclear plants. 

"Communities in other regions and provinces may express an
interest and should be considered," says the report. 

Lord said Friday he won't have a knee-jerk reaction to the 
suggestion. 

"I think the decision has to be based on science and data, what
is the safest for Canadians," said Lord. 
But he added that because there are more nuclear reactors in
central Canada than New Brunswick's one reactor at Point
Lepreau, "it would probably make sense to do it somewhere else." 
										 										 Elizabeth Dowdeswell, president of the
NWMO, says he organization hasn't determined if any location in
New Brunswick is suitable to be a permanent disposal site. 
"That is something that we'll have to be looking at very
closely. We haven't actually got into the site selection
process," said Dowdeswell. 

The report also suggests burying the waste deep in rocky areas
around Toronto and Hamilton. The best rock formations to bury
nuclear waste are in the Canadian shield or some forms of
sedimentary rock, said Dowdeswell. 
If the recommendations in the report are adopted by the
government, the site should be chosen in about 30 years, says
the report. 

Nuclear waste storage is controversial because the material
remains radioactive for thousands of years. 

The Nuclear Waste Management Organization is made up of energy
executives from those four provinces. 
  
  Copyright © CBC 2005   
*****************************************************************
 47 Pahrump Valley Times: Who really owns Yucca Mountain? 

November 4, 2005


TRIBE SAYS IT OWNS REPOSITORY LAND; WANTS TO BE RECOGNIZED 

By ROBIN FLINCHUM SPECIAL TO THE PVT 

 Members of Timbisha Shoshone tribe, some pictured above, express 
their concerns regarding the Yucca Mountain project at the 
community center in Tecopa. At far left is Jennifer Viereck; in 
the middle is Corbin Harney. 

TECOPA - A small number of concerned citizens turned out for a
meeting with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in Tecopa
last week, expressing their concerns about the looming specter
of the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain some
50 miles away. 

The Commission's team of representatives nearly outnumbered the
citizens on hand, but Janet Phelan Kotra, senior project manager
for the Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards, said
she was gratified by the turnout nonetheless.

 For Kotra and her team, meeting with an anxious and sometimes
angry public can be a perilous process, "but part of our job is
to make visible what we do," Kotra said. So the small cadre of
scientists, lawyers, and one charismatic meeting facilitator
named Chip Cameron, journeyed out of Washington and into the
quiet desert where the Amargosa River flows practically under
their feet, carrying with it water from Yucca Mountain.

 It wasn't the first time they visited the area, and the team
members greeted local residents at the door with information
packets and friendly, if perhaps guarded smiles. Kotra's team
has weathered plenty of unpleasantness in its effort to bridge
the gap between the affected public and the federal government
when it comes to the issue of nuclear waste. 

But in the end, as team members pointed out repeatedly, the
Commission's only job is to regulate what the Department of
Energy does. They did not create the need for the repository,
nor do they have the power to eradicate it.

 "We are an independent oversight agency," Kotra said. In other
words, they don't name the game or even the players; they are
simply the referees.

 The Commission had little news to impart to residents, with
still no firm idea as to when the Department of Energy might
submit a licensing application to begin the process of
constructing the repository at Yucca Mountain. But Kotra did
speculate that it could happen as early as January of 2007,
after which the Commission would have three to four years to
evaluate the application and decide whether to license the
facility.

 Although law limits the timeframe for the evaluation, Kotra
said, "We will take as long as it takes to do the job right."

 For those on hand who expressed the belief that the Yucca
Mountain Repository was unofficially a "done deal," Bill Reamer,
director of the Division of High-Level Waste Repository Safety
said, "There is no secret decision-making happening. This is an
independent agency. I have to be concerned with that because we
can not do the job if we can not do it independently."

 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is governed by a board of
five presidential appointees, but Reamer declared that this did
not affect is ability to function independent of partisan
interests.

 Reamer outlined the license application and evaluation process
in a slide presentation and Bill Ruland, deputy director of the
Spent Fuel Project Office, discussed methods of transportation
and the construction of casks designed to transport nuclear
waste. 

The information was similar to that presented during the
Commission's last visit two and a half years ago, but the
primary purpose of the meeting, said Kotra, "is to make people
aware of the process and how to contact us."

 The other reason, she said, was to collect public comment.
Community meetings are recorded and transcribed, Kotra said, so
that all public comment could be added into the official record
and taken into account in the decision-making process.

 Comments included concerns expressed by Western Shoshone elder
Corbin Harney, who has campaigned against the Yucca Mountain
repository and the production of nuclear waste for years. To
date, a dispute over the ownership of the land on which Yucca
Mountain is situated has not yet been resolved, since the
Western Shoshone have alleged the federal government does not
have a proper claim. 

Kotra said this is one of many issues that will have to be
cleared up before a license could be granted.

 "Everyone of us knows that radiation is killing us," Harney
said. "We know that and we see it. What you're bringing today,
it sounds good on a piece of paper. But you're getting paid to
say these things and when you get paid, you cannot go against
it."

 Barbara Durham of the Timbisha Shoshone in Death Valley and
Bishop expressed frustration that the tribe's attempt to gain
status as a unit of affected government in relation to the
proposed repository had been met with little or no response from
the Department of Interior. 

"The federal government needs to respect our tribal government
more," she said, "and deal with us government to government."
Durham said the Timbisha needed to achieve affected unit of
government status in order to apply for funding to train first
responders and, more immediately, "to hire people to represent
us who talk your language."

 As in most issues of major concern to local residents, the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission's team has no authority in matters
such as granting status to local governments. However, Kotra
said she had helped the Timbisha investigate what was happening
to their application in the past and could possibly do so again.
"We as a federal agency had an interest in seeing (the
Department of the Interior) answer their request."

 Transportation was also an issue of concern, though both Bill
Reamer and Bill Ruland stated that California Highway 127 was
presently not on the list of proposed designated transportation
routes, and that some 90 percent of shipments would be made by
rail. 

However, said Reamer, the final decision about transportation
would not be made unless the repository was successful in its
license application so it would be at least five years before
Inyo County officials would have a clear answer to that question.

 In fact, the Commission's team offered no clear answers at last
week's meeting, but rather their best efforts to inform and be
informed about the future decision-making process within the
narrow limits of their job descriptions. 

Public participation is crucial, Kotra said, and has affected
decisions made by the Commission in the past. For instance, the
final licensing application will undergo a formal hearing
process before a decision could be made. At one point the
commission considered doing away with that formal process, Kotra
said, "but the people affected wanted to retain that process and
it was retained." Public comment was an "overwhelming factor" in
that decision, Kotra said.

 Kotra added that while the Southeast Inyo area was sparsely
populated and the amount of public comment was numerically
small, she very much appreciates comment by residents like
Jennifer Viereck of Healing Ourselves and Mother Earth, a
non-governmental organization dedicated to dealing with nuclear
waste issues. 

Viereck asked detailed questions about the science of some
studies submitted by the Department of Energy at the public
meeting.

 "Jennifer is a very unusual person, very thoughtful and I have
a high regard for her comments," Kotra said.

 Soliciting public comment is an ongoing process, Kotra said,
and she urged residents of affected communities anywhere in the
region of Yucca Mountain to read the public documents available
on the Commission's Web site at:
www.nrc.gov/waste/hlw-disposal.html, or to go to the
Environmental Protection Agency's Web site at:
www.epa.gov/radiation/yucca/index.html. Many of these documents
are still open for public comment, Kotra said.

 "The strength of our ultimate decisions will be better, the
more we interact with a variety of views," she said. 

		 		     
Copyright © Pahrump Valley Times, 1997 - 2005 
*****************************************************************
 48 Salt Lake Tribune: N-waste plan hits a new obstacle 

Article Last Updated: 11/02/2005 01:29:33 AM 

Requirement: The Air Force must approve the route to the facility
that would be located near a military test range 

By Robert Gehrke The Salt Lake Tribune 

WASHINGTON - Bureau of Land Management officials in Utah are 
blocking a company that wants to store high-level nuclear waste 
from building a rail spur to a Utah Indian reservation until the 
Air Force studies the plan, creating an indefinite delay for the 
nuclear waste site. 

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has voted to approve 
Private Fuel Storage's license to store 44,000 tons of spent 
nuclear fuel on the Skull Valley reservation and is seeking 
BLM's approval for the transportation route to the site. 

But BLM can't sign off on the transportation issues until the 
Air Force studies whether the nuclear waste dump would impair 
the Air Force's use of the adjacent Utah Test and Training 
Range, because of language that former Rep. Jim Hansen added to 
a defense bill in 2000. 

"I view it definitely as a snag because we have a 
moratorium," said Glenn Carpenter, field manager of the BLM's 
Salt Lake office. "Whether the Air Force completes its study or 
if it's disposed of legislatively or otherwise doesn't matter 
much to me. We're restricted from completing any land-use 
planning activity until that requirement is met." 

Congress has not allocated any money to conduct the study 
and, although the Air Force could fund the study itself, it has 
not chosen to do so, leaving the BLM's approval in limbo. 

Carpenter notified the NRC of the BLM's position in a letter 
in August, but he said nothing has changed since then. The NRC 
voted in September to approve the PFS license. 

Sen. Orrin Hatch seized on the BLM's refusal to green-light 
the project as another indication the Bush administration 
opposes the PFS plan. 

"We're making headway on this. BLM has made this very clear 
this isn't going to happen," Hatch said in an interview Tuesday. 
"The White House made it very clear this isn't going to happen. 
The Department [of Energy] has told us it's not going to 
happen." 

PFS spokeswoman Sue Martin said the group was still reviewing 
the letter but disputed the impact. 

"Anything like this that gets inserted into the process and 
creates a delay is of course a concern for us," Martin said. 
"Will it will affect the issuance of a license? We don't know. We
understand the NRC is preparing to issue a license." 

She added that the study should have been completed by now. 
"They have known for years now they have needed to do the study 
and they just haven't done it." 

The Air Force study requirement is one of the obstacles 
Utah's congressional delegation has been able to erect to hinder 
the planned nuclear storage site. 

The delegation also is fighting to include language in an 
upcoming defense bill that would create a wilderness area around 
the Skull Valley Goshute reservation, which would prevent BLM 
from permitting a rail line to the reservation. 

PFS has said that could force it to ship the waste in trucks 
along a highway to the reservation, but that could require 
additional environmental reviews. 

Carpenter said the BLM also has identified some historic 
resources - such as the path followed by the doomed Donner Party 
and the Lincoln Highway, the first-transcontinental highway 
built in the early 1900s - that the PFS rail line would cross. 

A mitigation plan has been proposed, which Carpenter said 
requires PFS to build a visitor center and invest in other 
costly projects. But he said it would be premature to approve an 
agreement binding PFS to spend the money to build those projects 
until the Air Force study is finished and obstacles to the site 
are cleared. 

"As far as we're concerned the matter is closed unless and 
until the moratorium is fulfilled in one manner or another," 
Carpenter said. "We're very serious and very concerned about the 
perception of us making a decision without following proper 
protocol, proper legal process." 

--- 

Tribune reporter Thomas Burr contributed to this report 

Â© Copyright 2005, The Salt Lake Tribune. 
*****************************************************************
 49 Deseret News: No spur, no nuclear dump? 

[deseretnews.com] 

Wednesday, November 2, 2005 

BLM official says he can't sign accord Goshutes need 	 		 		 By 

Joe Bauman 

Deseret Morning News 

A Bureau of Land Management official is refusing to sign an 
agreement that is needed if Private Fuel Storage is to build a 
railroad spur to its proposed repository site in Skull Valley. 

['Photo'] Deseret Morning News graphic 

Glenn A. Carpenter, manager of the BLM's Salt Lake field office, 
said he cannot sign the agreement until a moratorium on land-use 
planning is lifted. And that can't happen unless Congress removes
the moratorium or the Air Force completes a resource study — a 
review the military seems in no hurry to finish. 

Carpenter's letter was among three that Sen. Orrin Hatch, 
R-Utah, released Tuesday in a multipronged attack on plans for 
the high-level nuclear waste repository. 

PFS is reconsidering its plans "because of our meeting 
with them," Hatch added in a Deseret Morning News telephone 
interview, "but I won't go beyond that for now." 

Carpenter's letter says the BLM can't analyze the route 
of a railroad spur needed for the repository until a moratorium 
is lifted on land-use planning in the Skull Valley area. The 
moratorium, part of the Military Appropriations Act of 2000, was 
inserted into the bill by former Rep. Jim Hansen, R-Utah. 

"So Jim is still working for Utah," Hatch commented. 

The moratorium forbids BLM land-use planning in that part 
of Tooele County until the Air Force completes a study of 
resources in Skull Valley under the flight route to the Utah 
Test and Training Range. So far, the study has not been 
finished, according to the BLM. 

Judging by the years that have passed since the 
moratorium began, the Air Force is in no rush to finish it. The 
storage of 44,000 tons of highly radioactive nuclear fuel rods 
below the F-16 flight route could be an inconvenience to the Air 
Force. 

In a press release, Hatch said he appreciates the BLM 
decision to follow the law. BLM's action has "jammed the NRC" 
and "sent a clear signal of more obstacles to come," he said. 

The combination of the BLM objections and a letter from 
the Department of Energy secretary make it "clear the (Bush) 
administration is on our side," Hatch added in the release. 
"Let's face it, if the administration really wanted PFS to be 
built, there would be bulldozers out there right now. 

"I am grateful the BLM and the administration are working 
with me to make sure that nuclear waste never makes a home in 
Utah." 

Carpenter said the agreement could be construed as 
planning for the project, and land-use planning is blocked by 
the moratorium. However, he wrote in a letter to the Office of 
Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards that there could be 
language in the agreement allowing the BLM to later complete its 
action regarding land-use planning. 

"BLM will not make a decision to authorize the 
construction of the railroad until after the moratorium is 
lifted," Carpenter wrote. 

In an interview, Carpenter said action on the agency's 
land can only occur within the framework of its land-use plan. 
The proposed 33-mile railroad spur from Skunk Ridge to the 
proposed PFS site on Goshute Indian property was not part of the 
plan when it was written, he said. 

Because of the moratorium against land-use planning 
contained in the military spending act, he said, the plan can't 
be modified, at least for now. 

"Obviously, there's a lot of BLM public land beneath the 
overflight area," Carpenter said. "That moratorium effectively 
suspended our action on the (land-use) plan amendment." 

The other letters were from: 

• Samuel W. Bodman, secretary of the U.S. Department of 
Energy, to Hatch, emphasizing that if the DOE's Yucca Mountain 
repository is built, it "will reduce, if not eliminate, the need 
for high-level radioactive waste to go to a private temporary 
storage facility in Utah." 

The letter adds that DOE can't provide funding or 
financial assistance for the privately constructed PFS. 

"As such, the Private Fuel Storage facility initiative is 
not part of the department's overall strategy for the management 
of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste," Bodman 
wrote. 

• Hatch, to Nuclear Regulatory Commission chairman Nils 
J. Diaz, warning the NRC not to issue a license for the facility 
before all affected federal agencies, including the BLM, have 
signed a memorandum of agreement. The agreement would assert 
that the project complies with cultural resource protection 
rules. 

"However, it is my understanding that a number of these 
agencies, including the Bureau of Land Management, have 
determined that they cannot sign the MOA because their concerns 
have not been met," Hatch wrote. 

Hatch's letter, dated Tuesday, told Diaz that it would be 
"entirely inappropriate" for the NRC to license the plant before 
the relevant agencies have satisfied their legal and regulatory 
requirements under the National Historic Preservation Act. 

Hatch told the Deseret Morning News that the Bodman 
letter is very important because it tells PFS, "This is never 
going to happen." And the BLM memo indicates to PFS, also, 
"You're a long way from this happening," he said. 

During the interview, Hatch emphasized that these actions 
are just the beginning, "just some of the things I've done to 
not leave any stones unturned." 

E-mail: bau@desnews.com			 		 		 

© 2005 Deseret News Publishing Company 	 		 			 		 	 [ /] 
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 50 reviewjournal.com: Nuclear materials sent to test site
 
Nov. 04, 2005

By TONY BATT <br/>STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU

WASHINGTON -- The Nevada Test Site received additional shipments
of weapons-grade nuclear materials last week from the Los Alamos
National Laboratory in New Mexico, according to the National
Nuclear Security Administration.
 
NNSA spokesman Bryan Wilkes said the additional materials, which
include plutonium and highly enriched uranium, arrived Oct. 26
at the test site's Device Assembly Facility.
 
The nuclear materials are being moved to the DAF because it is
considered far more secure than Technical Area 18, the storage
site at Los Alamos.
 
"With last week's transfer, the majority of material that was at
Technical Area 18 now resides at DAF," Wilkes said.
 
Wilkes declined to say how much nuclear material has been moved
to the test site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas. But the total
amount that will be transferred to Nevada has been estimated to
be two tons.
 
Some highly enriched uranium that will ultimately end up at the
test site has been moved from Technical Area 18 to Technical
Area 55 at Los Alamos, Wilkes said. 

The materials moved to the test site will be used for nuclear
materials experiments and other purposes.
 
"For example, this material is used for aging studies," Wilkes
said.
 
All of the nuclear materials are expected to be moved to the
test site within a couple of years.
 
In addition, a surplus amount of highly enriched uranium has
been moved from Los Alamos to the Department of Energy's Y-12
facility in Oak Ridge, Tenn., for permanent storage. NNSA is a
branch of the Energy Department.
 
The shipments from Los Alamos to the test site began in
September 2004 and the cost is projected to range from $125
million to $148 million.
 
"It's important to understand that this material is not nuclear
waste or byproducts," Wilkes said. "This material is used in the
weapons program."
 	   
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2005
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 51 United Press International: Oak Ridge receives Los Alamos uranium

11/4/2005 4:12:00 PM -0500                              

KNOXVILLE, Tenn., Nov. 4 (UPI) -- Government officials say the
Y-12 National Security Complex is one of the federal sites that
received nuclear materials from Los Alamos National Laboratory. 

The Oak Ridge plant is the nation's primary repository for
weapons-grade uranium, earning its nickname as the "Fort Knox of
Uranium," the Knoxville News Sentinel reported. 

The National Nuclear Security Administration announced that
weapons-usable plutonium and uranium had been removed from
TA-18, a Los Alamos facility frequently criticized as being
vulnerable to terrorism. 

Officials refused to say how much nuclear material was
transported to the site or to specify when it arrived. 

The relocation project started in September 2004 and was
completed last month.

 			
    
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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: 
<http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml> 
    
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