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                         NUCLEAR POLICY
 
1 Guardian Unlimited: Bush told Blair of 'going beyond Iraq'
2 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Warned to Clear Up Nuclear Questions
3 BBC: US presses Iran on nuclear talks
4 NewsFromRussia.Com: Iran walks away from nuclear talks 
5 Xinhua: Iranian FM: Iran to resolve nuke issue through talk   
6 AFP: US and France warn Iran over nuclear activities - 
7 Guardian Unlimited: U.S., Allies Huddle on Iran Nuke Question
8 Guardian Unlimited: Condoleezza Rice Warns Iran on Nukes
9 Guardian Unlimited: Rice Seeks Russian Support on Iran
10 Guardian Unlimited: Richardson Heads to North Korea for Talks
11 Korea Times: Pyongyang Ought to Honor Agreement 
12 Korea Times: Envoy to US Hints at Recess in Nuke Talks 
13 AFP: US Governor Richardson will hold nuclear talks with North Korea
 
                         NUCLEAR REACTORS
 
14 US: Arizona Daily Wildcat: Reactor security report flawed - 
15 US: Arizona Central: Problem with reactor cooling system went undete
16 Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Europe pioneers renaissance of nuclear
17 US: Independent Florida Alligator: Officials: Report on UF reactor o
18 AFP: Oil costs delay Taiwan nuclear power plant by three years 
19 Globe and Mail: Ontario to dust off 2 reactors, NDP says
20 US: Salt Lake Tribune: U. disputes claims nuclear facility unsafe 
21 US: TheIndyChannel.com: Purdue Professor: Nuclear Reactor Is Safe
22 Sofia Morning News: Sofia Rules Out Energy Chapter Reopening
 
                          NUCLEAR SECURITY
 
23 US: Centre Daily Times: 'Radioactive Road Trip' draws fire
24 US: Deseret News: U. protests TV report on nuclear security 
25 US: Wisconsin State Journal: UW dismisses ABC undercover report
26 US: The Tech: ABC Says MITs Nuclear Reactor Unsafe - 
27 US: Badger Herald: UW calls nuclear lab secure
 
                          NUCLEAR SAFETY
 
28 US: AP Wire: Agency approves payments for stricken Cold War era work
 
                         NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
 
29 AP Wire: Officials hold groundbreaking for MOX nuclear fuel facility
30 AU ABC: Dump fight far from over, says commentator
31 reviewjournal.com: DOE accused of seeking 'favors' in Yucca project
32 US: Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Lawmakers push for Tallevast buyout - 
33 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Envirocare cleaning up in New England
34 Japan Times: Spent-fuel reprocessing to continue for 10 more years
35 Japan Times: Nuclear program raises issues
36 Pahrump Valley Times: Inyo receives highway study grant 
37 AU ABC: NT MPs push for waste dump. 
38 AU ABC: Nuclear waste dump opponents vow to fight on. 
 
                           PEACE
 
 
                        US DEPT. OF ENERGY
 
39 Casper Star-Tribune: Freudenthal opposes plutonium plan
40 The Coloradoan: Rocky Flats cleanup ends; healing begins
41 DenverPost.com: $7 billion cleanup at Rocky Flats is complete
42 Corvallis Gazette-Times: From nuclear to nature
43 lamonitor.com: Academies called in to evaluate wells 
44 Guardian Unlimited: $7B Cleanup at Rocky Flats Said Finished
45 Rocky Mountain News: Cleanup of Flats declared finished
*****************************************************************
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                         FULL NEWS STORIES
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 1 Guardian Unlimited: Bush told Blair of 'going beyond Iraq'
 
Richard Norton-Taylor
Saturday October 15, 2005
The Guardian 		
 		
George Bush told Tony Blair shortly before the invasion
of Iraq that he intended to target other countries, including
Saudi Arabia, which, he implied, planned to acquire weapons of
mass destruction.

Mr Bush said he "wanted to go beyond Iraq in dealing with WMD
proliferation, mentioning in particular Saudi Arabia, Iran,
North Korea, and Pakistan," according to a note of a telephone
conversation between the two men on January 30 2003.

The note is quoted in the US edition, published next week, of
Lawless World, America and the Making and Breaking of Global
Rules, by the British international lawyer Philippe Sands. The
memo was drawn up by one of the prime minister's foreign policy
advisers in Downing Street and passed to the Foreign Office,
according to Mr Sands.
 			 		 			 			 			Article continues 			
It is not surprising that Mr Bush referred to Iran and North 
Korea, or even Pakistan - at the time suspected of spreading 
nuclear know-how, but now one of America's closest allies in the 
"war on terror". What is significant is the mention of Saudi 
Arabia.

In Washington, the neo-cons in particular were hostile to the
Saudi royal family and did not think they were doing enough to
quell Islamist extremists - 15 of the 19 September 11 attackers
were Saudis. But the Bush administration did not in public
express concern about any Saudi nuclear ambitions.

In September 2003, the Guardian reported that Saudi Arabia had
embarked on a strategic review that included acquiring nuclear
weapons. Until then, the assumption in Washington was that Saudi
Arabia was content to remain under the US nuclear umbrella
despite the worsening relationship between Riyadh and Washington.

It is not clear how Mr Blair responded to Mr Bush's remarks
during the telephone conversation, which took place on the eve
of a trip to Washington for talks with the US president.

In his book, Blair's Wars, John Kampfner says that at the
meeting the two leaders "agreed to concentrate not just on Iraq
... but also the Middle East". But that was taken to be a
reference to Palestine. Mr Blair wanted Mr Bush to express
concern about the plight of the Palestinians to appease the
Labour party.

Mr Blair at the time was careful to avoid any suggestion that
the Bush administration intended to target other countries after
the invasion of Iraq. However, for the first time he suggested
there were links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida.

After the invasion, Washington adopted a calmer approach towards
Iran, leaving it to Britain, France, and Germany to pursue a
diplomatic course.

Despite hard evidence that Pakistan was deeply involved in
exporting nuclear technology, the Bush administration embraced
President Pervez Musharraf as an ally against al-Qaida.

Washington's relations with Saudi Arabia remain cool. Mr Sands
does not shed further light on the issue.
 	

   Useful links  

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office
The Department for International Development


Email comments for publication to:
politics.editor@guardianunlimited.co.uk

[UP] 

		 	 	   
Guardian Unlimited Š Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
 2 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Warned to Clear Up Nuclear Questions
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 
 	 
Saturday October 15, 2005 12:46 AM
 	
By ANDREA DUDIKOVA 
Associated Press Writer 

VIENNA, Austria (AP) - The chief U.S. representative to the U.N.
atomic agency warned Iran again on Friday to clear up questions
about its nuclear program as the organization's 35-nation board
met to mark its Nobel Peace Prize. 

The International Atomic Energy Agency and its director, Mohamed
ElBaradei, jointly won the 2005 prize a week ago for what the
Nobel Committee hailed as ``efforts to prevent nuclear energy
from being used for military purposes and to ensure that nuclear
energy for peaceful purposes is used in the safest possible
way.'' 

Gregory Schulte, Washington's chief envoy to the IAEA, said he
conveyed a message from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
calling the award ``well-deserved,'' and he said the honor would
boost the agency's resolve and credibility around the world. 

The decision to grant the prize to ElBaradei and the
Vienna-based IAEA was viewed as a vindication for the Egyptian
diplomat, who favors diplomacy over confrontation in his work to
curb nuclear proliferation. 

In the lead-up to the Iraq war, ElBaradei publicly challenged
U.S. claims that former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein possessed
weapons of mass destruction. His more recent refusal to back
U.S. assertions that Iran has a covert nuclear weapons program
has hardened opposition to him in the Bush administration. 

Speaking Friday, Schulte warned Iran anew on Friday that it
risks being reported to the U.N. Security Council if it does not
ease fears about its nuclear program. If not, he said, the IAEA
board would have a decision to make. 

``The ball is really in the court of Tehran at this point,''
Schulte said. ``If Iran continues down the road that it's going
... then the board will need to carry out its statutory
responsibility to report Iran to the Security Council.'' 

The IAEA wants to interview military officials thought to be
associated with what Iran says is a purely civilian nuclear
program. The agency is also asking for documents linked to its
uranium enrichment program. 

--- 
On the Net: 
IAEA, www.iaea.org	 
		 	 	   

      Guardian Unlimited Š Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
 3 BBC: US presses Iran on nuclear talks
 
Last Updated: Friday, 14 October 2005
 
[US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice]                                

Ms Rice has won French support for US pressure on Iran                                                          

The US secretary of state has urged Iran to resume talks with the 
European Union on its nuclear programme. 

Condoleezza Rice was speaking after talks with French leaders, 
who along with Britain and Germany have tried to engage Iran in 
dialogue. 

The US has accused Iran of secretly trying to develop nuclear 
weapons - a charge Tehran vehemently denies. 

The US is threatening to refer Iran to the UN Security Council if 
it fails to scrap plans to enrich uranium. 

"There is always the course of negotiation ... but there is also 
the course of the Security Council," Ms Rice said. 

"It is therefore important that Iran negotiate in good faith." 

France has previously argued in favour of a diplomatic approach, 
but on Friday Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said 
referring the matter to the UN was a real option. 

Russia talks 

France, Britain and Germany had been negotiating with Iran over 
its nuclear programme but talks broke down in August, and Tehran 
has threatened to resume uranium enrichment. 

Last month, the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic 
Energy Authority (IAEA), supported a resolution threatening Iran 
with referral to the UN Security Council. 

The IAEA will meet again next month, but it is still not clear if 
there is enough backing to refer Iran to the UN Security Council. 

This week, Tehran said it would welcome the resumption of talks 
with the Europeans without preconditions. 

French thaw 

When Ms Rice was last in Paris eight months ago, she spoke of 
opening up a new chapter in Franco-American relations, to heal 
the rift over the US-led war in Iraq. 

Both sides insist they have put all major disagreements behind 
them and stress they are working together on a range of issues, 
including foreign policy. 

Ms Rice has now arrived in Moscow for talks with Russian 
President Vladimir Putin. 

Russia, which helped Tehran develop its nuclear facilities, 
abstained from voting on the IAEA resolution threatening Iran 
with referral to the Security Council. 

After talks in Moscow, Ms Rice will travel to London for talks 
with UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and Foreign Minister Jack 
Straw. 

		 	 		 	 	 



*****************************************************************
 4 NewsFromRussia.Com: Iran walks away from nuclear talks 


  Pravda.ru:

16:34 2005-10-14

 Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her French counterpart
warned Iran on Friday that Tehran faces referral to the powerful
U.N. Security Council unless it backs away from its defiant
stance on nuclear energy.France and two other European
powershave tried to persuade Iran to drop what the United States
insists is a covert drive for nuclear weapons, but Iran walked
away from talks and has resumed nuclear activities it suspended
during negotiations. 

"There's also the option of the Security Council. It is a course
that is available to the international community, so it's
important that the Iranians negotiate in good faith," Rice said
at a news conference after meetings with French President
Jacques Chirac and French Foreign Minister Philippe
Douste-Blazy. 

"We must make the Security Council option credible," Doust-Blazy
said. 

The upcoming constitutional vote in Iraq, Lebanese politics and
the potential spread of bird flu were also on Rice's agenda. She
called for complete transparency between nations to avoid a flu
pandemic. 

"We believe firmly that there has to be complete transparency
about what is going on with avian flu. The world should not be
caught unawares by a very dangerous pandemic because countries
refuse to share information, and so that is our very strong
concern," she said at the Paris news conference with French
leaders. 

France and the United States cooperated last year on a United
Nations resolution calling on Syria to pull troops and
intelligence agents out of Lebanon, where Syria dominated for
nearly 30 years. 

Although Syrian troops did depart during a spring of political
upheaval in Lebanon, the United States and its allies say there
is no doubt Syria is still trying to influence politics under a
newly elected government. 

Rice will see Russian President Vladimir Putin and the country's
foreign minister in Moscow for talks on several Middle East
issues, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Thursday.
The stop comes as Rice nears the close of an eight-nation zigzag
across Central Asia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, France, Russia and
Britain. 

Russia handed the United States and European partners a subtle
diplomatic victory last month when it abstained rather than vote
no on a measure setting up possible United Nations punishment
over a nuclear energy program in Iran the United States insists
is a cover for bomb making, reports the AP. 
I.L.

  Pravda.RU:World       

  Copyright Š1999 by "Pravda.RU". When reproducing our materials
*****************************************************************
 5 Xinhua: Iranian FM: Iran to resolve nuke issue through talk   

  www.xinhuanet.com

  www.chinaview.cn 2005-10-14 20:27:45   

    BEIJING, Oct. 14 (Xinhuanet) -- The visiting Iranian Foreign
Minister Maouchehr Mottaki said here Friday that Iran is still
determined to resolve the nuclear issue through peaceful
negotiation with the concerned parties. 

    Mottaki made the remark at a press conference in the Iranian
embassy in Beijing. According to a Chinese-language translation
of his remarks made in Persian, the foreign minister said that
Iran will continue to seek an appropriate resolution of the
nuclear issue within the framework of the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA). 

    Since becoming an IAEA member, Iran has cultivated good
cooperation with the agency, said Mottaki, noting that Iran has
maintained good exchange and communication with all IAEA
members, including the three EU nations of Britain, Germany and
France. 

    On late Tuesday, the Iranian Foreign Ministry issued an
official statement announcing that Tehran was prepared to
restart nuclear negotiations with the IAEA and all of its
members, including the European Union (EU), without conditions. 

    The statement, quoted by the semi-official Mehr news agency
on Wednesday, also said that Tehran would seek to observe "a
balanced approach to rights and commitments and to welcome the
negotiations under the current circumstances." 

    The nuclear negotiations between Iran and the EU have been
stalled since Tehran in early August defiantly resumed its
highly sensitive uranium conversion activities, the preparatory
step for uranium enrichment, which has also bring the Iranian
nuclear issueto a radical deadlock. The IAEA on Sept. 24 adopted
a resolution drafted by the EU which urged Iran to fully suspend
all of its activities related to uranium enrichment before
November and warned of referring the case to the UN Security
Council otherwise. 

    Iran also welcomes other countries to make proposals for the
resolution of the nuclear issue, Mottaki said, stressing that
Iran opposes and has no intention to engage in any projects for
the development of nuclear weapons. 

    Mottaki said Iran's projects for the peaceful utilization of
nuclear power is transparent, highlighting that the Iranian
people have the rights of peaceful and just use of nuclear
power. 

    He also expressed the willingness to invite foreign
enterprises to participate in Iran's peaceful development of
nuclear energy. 

    "Foreign companies, whether it is state-owned or private, is
welcomed to our nuclear projects," Mottaki said. 

    Foreign companies in Iran are allowed to hold stakes of up
to 49 percent. Enditem   


  Copyright Š2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 6 AFP: US and France warn Iran over nuclear activities - 

 Fri Oct 14, 8:08 AM ET 
		 	 
PARIS (AFP) - The United States and France urged Iran " /> to 
resume negotiations on its nuclear activities, and reaffirmed a 
threat to bring Tehran before the UN Security Council over the 
issue. 

"We have to have a very strong message that of course there is
always the course of negotiation ... but there is also the
course of the Security Council," US Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice said after talks in Paris.
 
"It is a course that is available to the international community
and it is therefore important that Iran negotiate in good
faith," she said.
 
A spokesman for French President Jacques Chirac
" /> said that he and Rice agreed that "the perspective of an
Iran in possession of nuclear weapons is unacceptable."
 
But Chirac said that "it is necessary to continue the way of
dialogue started by Germany, Britain and France in close
concertation with Russia, in complete openness with the US, and
with full respect by Iran of the Paris Accord" of November 2004,
the spokesman said.
 
Under the Paris Accord Tehran agreed to suspend its enrichment
of uranium which the Europeans and the United States suspect
could be used for nuclear weapons.
 
On September 24 the board of governors of the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) adopted a resolution on Iran's 
nuclear programme which -- while falling short of an open call 
for the issue to be taken to the UN Security Council -- sets out 
the steps that could lead there.
 
Since then Tehran has indicated it is willing to resume talks
with the European three.
 
  Copyright Š 2005 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 7 Guardian Unlimited: U.S., Allies Huddle on Iran Nuke Question
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Friday October 14, 2005 8:01 AM
 	
AP Photo ISL107 
By ANNE GEARAN 
AP Diplomatic Writer 

PARIS (AP) - A nuclear standoff with Iran and the upcoming
constitutional vote in Iraq were among the topics for Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice's visits with allies in Europe and for
a surprise trip to Moscow. 

Lebanese politics also was on the agenda Friday for Rice's
meeting in Paris with President Jacques Chirac and French
Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy. The two nations
cooperated last year on a United Nations resolution calling on
Syria to pull troops and intelligence agents out of Lebanon,
where Syria has dominated for nearly 30 years. 

Although Syrian troops did depart during a spring of political
upheaval in Lebanon, The United States and its allies say there
is no doubt Syria is still trying to influence politics under a
newly elected government. 

Rice will see Russian President Vladimir Putin and the country's
foreign minister in Moscow on Saturday for talks on several
Middle East issues, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack
said Thursday. The stop comes as Rice nears the close of an
eight-nation zigzag across Central Asia, Afghanistan, Pakistan,
France, Russia and Britain. 

Russia handed the United States and European partners a subtle
diplomatic victory last month when it abstained rather than vote
no on a measure setting up possible United Nations punishment
over a nuclear energy program in Iran the United States insists
is a cover for bomb making. 

Russia is an Iranian ally and is helping the Tehran regime set
up part of its declared nuclear energy program. The United
States is not trying to shut down that partnership, but does
want Russia's cooperation ahead of another meeting of the U.N.
nuclear watchdog agency in November. 

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Thursday dismissed
speculation that Moscow might join talks between Iran and
European negotiators Britain, France and Germany on Tehran's
disputed nuclear program. 

``As for relations between the European trio and Russia, we are
not expecting any change in these relations. There is no need
for that,'' Lavrov told reporters. 

On Iraq, Rice's Russia visit coincides with the crucial national
referendum vote on a democratic constitution. Iraqi lawmakers
this week approved a set of last-minute amendments to the
constitution without a vote, sealing a compromise designed to
win minority Sunni Arab support for the charter. Even so, it is
not clear whether the charter will pass. 

U.S. and Iraqi forces increased security across the country
Thursday and prepared to impose an overnight curfew to try to
reduce insurgent attacks aimed at wrecking the voting. 

In Washington, President Bush sought to rally U.S. troops in
Iraq ahead of the vote and to brace them for an expected surge
in violence around the time of the vote. 

``The enemy understands that a free Iraq would be a blow to
their vision,'' Bush said in a video conference with soldiers
from the Army's 42nd Infantry Division, based in Tikrit. 

--- 
On the Net: 
State Department: http://www.state.gov 

      Guardian Unlimited Š Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
 8 Guardian Unlimited: Condoleezza Rice Warns Iran on Nukes
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Friday October 14, 2005 12:46 PM
 	
AP Photo MEU101 
By ANNE GEARAN 
AP Diplomatic Writer 

PARIS (AP) - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her French
counterpart warned Iran on Friday that Tehran faces referral to
the powerful U.N. Security Council unless it backs away from its
defiant stance on nuclear energy. 

France and two other European powers have tried to persuade Iran
to drop what the United States insists is a covert drive for
nuclear weapons, but Iran walked away from talks and has resumed
nuclear activities it suspended during negotiations. 

``There's also the option of the Security Council. It is a
course that is available to the international community, so it's
important that the Iranians negotiate in good faith,'' Rice said
at a news conference after meetings with French President
Jacques Chirac and French Foreign Minister Philippe
Douste-Blazy. 

``We must make the Security Council option credible,''
Doust-Blazy said. 

The upcoming constitutional vote in Iraq, Lebanese politics and
the potential spread of bird flu were also on Rice's agenda. She
called for complete transparency between nations to avoid a flu
pandemic. 

``We believe firmly that there has to be complete transparency
about what is going on with avian flu. The world should not be
caught unawares by a very dangerous pandemic because countries
refuse to share information, and so that is our very strong
concern,'' she said at the Paris news conference with French
leaders. 

France and the United States cooperated last year on a United
Nations resolution calling on Syria to pull troops and
intelligence agents out of Lebanon, where Syria dominated for
nearly 30 years. 

Although Syrian troops did depart during a spring of political
upheaval in Lebanon, the United States and its allies say there
is no doubt Syria is still trying to influence politics under a
newly elected government. 

Rice will see Russian President Vladimir Putin and the country's
foreign minister in Moscow for talks on several Middle East
issues, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Thursday.

The stop comes as Rice nears the close of an eight-nation zigzag
across Central Asia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, France, Russia and
Britain. 

Russia handed the United States and European partners a subtle
diplomatic victory last month when it abstained rather than vote
no on a measure setting up possible United Nations punishment
over a nuclear energy program in Iran the United States insists
is a cover for bomb making. 

Russia is an Iranian ally and is helping the Tehran regime set
up part of its declared nuclear energy program. The United
States is not trying to shut down that partnership, but does
want Russia's cooperation ahead of another meeting of the U.N.
nuclear watchdog agency in November. 

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Thursday dismissed
speculation that Moscow might join talks between Iran and
European negotiators Britain, France and Germany on Tehran's
disputed nuclear program. 

``As for relations between the European trio and Russia, we are
not expecting any change in these relations. There is no need
for that,'' Lavrov told reporters. 

On Iraq, Rice's Russia visit coincides with the crucial national
referendum vote on a democratic constitution. Iraqi lawmakers
this week approved a set of last-minute amendments to the
constitution without a vote, sealing a compromise designed to
win minority Sunni Arab support for the charter. Even so, it is
not clear whether the charter will pass. 

U.S. and Iraqi forces increased security across the country
Thursday and prepared to impose an overnight curfew to try to
reduce insurgent attacks aimed at wrecking the voting. 

In Washington, President Bush sought to rally U.S. troops in
Iraq ahead of the vote and to brace them for an expected surge
in violence around the time of the vote. 

``The enemy understands that a free Iraq would be a blow to
their vision,'' Bush said in a video conference with soldiers
from the Army's 42nd Infantry Division, based in Tikrit. 

--- 
On the Net: 
State Department: http://www.state.gov 
		 	 	   
      Guardian Unlimited Š Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
 9 Guardian Unlimited: Rice Seeks Russian Support on Iran
 
[UP] 

	Friday October 14, 2005 10:01 PM
 	
AP Photo PAR107 
By ANNE GEARAN 
AP Diplomatic Writer 

MOSCOW (AP) - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is seeking
Russian support for a tougher line in the nuclear standoff with
Iran as she tries to ensure a united European front. 

After consulting with French leaders on Iran and other Middle
East issues, Rice shuttled to the Russian capital on Friday
ahead of hastily arranged meetings Saturday with Russian
President Vladimir Putin and others. The consultations were
coming six weeks before a vote over Tehran's nuclear program at
the United Nation's nuclear watchdog agency. 

France, Britain and Germany have led an effort to persuade Iran
to drop what the United States insists is a covert drive for
nuclear weapons. Iran's new hard-line government walked away
from talks and has resumed nuclear activities it suspended
during negotiations. 

``We hope that the Iranians will return to the table to discuss
... what a negotiated solution might be,'' Rice said after
meetings in Paris with French President Jacques Chirac and
French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy. 

Rice planned to meet with Putin and Russia's foreign secretary,
Sergey Lavrov. She squeezed in an overnight trip to Moscow
before backtracking to London for more talks Saturday and Sunday
on Iran and other Middle East topics. 

The International Atomic Energy Agency last month passed a
resolution warning Tehran it would be referred to the U.N.
Security Council unless it allayed fears about its nuclear
program. Another vote is planned for Nov. 24, and it is not
clear how the Russians will vote. 

Russia handed the United States a subtle diplomatic victory last
month when it abstained, rather than vote no, on a measure
setting up possible U.N. punishment over a nuclear energy
program in Iran. The United States insists Iran is trying to
make a bomb. 

The European negotiators were trying to broker a deal that would
allow Iran to continue what it says is a peaceful nuclear energy
program, without allowing the Tehran regime full access to
nuclear technology that could be easily transferred to make
weapons instead of electricity. 

Russia could be an important go-between. Moscow is an Iranian
ally and is helping the Tehran regime set up part of its
declared nuclear energy program. The Iranian-Russian arrangement
keeps some of the most sensitive nuclear technology out of
direct Iranian control. 

The United States is expected to make a strong push to bring
Iran before the U.N. Security Council. Russia and China, both
allies of Iran and permanent members of the Security Council,
could block economic sanctions or other tough punishment at the
Security Council if the case gets that far. 

French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said the threat of
the Security Council is enough to persuade Iran to drop its
demands for full access to nuclear technology. 

``There is a necessity to explain that with the Russians and the
Chinese,'' Douste-Blazy said Friday. 

Iran has said it has nothing to fear from the Security Council,
presumably out of confidence that Russia and China would veto a
tough proposal for punishment from the United States or the
Europeans. 

``We must make the Security Council option credible,''
Douste-Blazy said. 

Rice was circumspect. 

``We're in discussions and I think there will be further
discussions in Moscow,'' she said in reply to a question about
Iran. ``We are not today talking about new steps,'' she said,
adding that the Europeans are taking the lead in finding a
solution. 

The United States has had no diplomatic relations with Iran
since the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, in which
American diplomats were held hostage for more than a year. The
United States already maintains its own strict economic
sanctions on Iran. 

Rice's discussions on Iran come at a sensitive time. Iran has
indicated a willingness to return to negotiations, but not to
drop what it calls its right to full nuclear know-how. Iran's
supreme leader also may be trying to undercut the authority of
Iran's new hard-line government. 

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei recently strengthened the powers of
Expediency Council chief Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president
who lost to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in June's elections. He recently
criticized the handling of Iran's nuclear issue by Ahmadinejad's
government. 

^--- 
On the Net: 
State Department: http://www.state.gov 
		 	 	   
      Guardian Unlimited Š Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
 10 Guardian Unlimited: Richardson Heads to North Korea for Talks
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Saturday October 15, 2005 12:01 AM
 	
By SUE MAJOR HOLMES 
Associated Press Writer 

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) - Gov. Bill Richardson, a former U.S.
ambassador to the United Nations, is heading to North Korea next
week for talks aimed at persuading that country to give up its
nuclear arms program. 

The Democratic governor said Friday he won't represent the
United States as an official negotiator. He said the trip is
intended ``to move the diplomatic process forward'' after an
agreement last month in which North Korea said it would give up
the arms program in return for economic aid and security
assurances. 

Richardson planned to leave Saturday and arrive in North Korea
on Monday for three days of talks. 

His trip, he said, is being undertaken ``to ensure that our
national objectives, to eliminate nuclear weapons in North
Korea, happen, and that the six-party talks succeed.'' 

``I am supportive of Secretary Rice's efforts to engage the
North Koreans with diplomacy, and I believe the last round of
the six-party talks produced the most results ever,'' Richardson
said in an interview with The Associated Press. 

In return for North Korea agreeing to end its nuclear arms
program, the United States and the five other nations involved
in the talks agreed to discuss giving North Korea a light-water
nuclear reactor ``at an appropriate time.'' 

Doubts were later raised about the accord when North Korea said
it would not dismantle its nuclear program unless Washington
gives it civilian nuclear reactors to generate power. 

Richardson said he was invited by the North Koreans in June, and
asked State Department officials if he should go. They said at
the time they did not want his trip to interfere with the
six-party talks then being arranged. 

The North Koreans asked him again later in the summer, but
Richardson said he would not go unless the State Department
supported his effort. This time, Richardson is being provided an
Air Force plane for the trip. 

``I want to be helpful as an American citizen,'' he said. 
State Department spokesman Adam Ereli brushed aside any
suggestion that Richardson's service to the Clinton
administration, as energy secretary and U.N. ambassador, made
him an inappropriate envoy to North Korea. 

``That's not a concern, frankly,'' Ereli said. ``I think as a
result of our discussions with Governor Richardson, I think we
both share an interest in seeing North Korea make the right
decision with regard to ending its nuclear program and choosing
a path of reintegration with the international community.'' 

Ereli said the Air Force plane was offered as ``courtesy and
convenience'' and because he is a former Cabinet official. 

As a congressman from New Mexico in 1994, Richardson helped
arrange the release of an American soldier whose helicopter had
strayed into North Korean airspace. In 1996, he helped secure
the release of an American detained by North Korea for three
months on spy charges. 

Richardson has maintained his contacts with North Korea,
briefing then-Secretary of State Colin Powell and other
officials during President Bush's first term on his relations. 

In January 2003, months after North Korea admitted having
violated the terms of a 1994 Clinton-era accord freezing its
nuclear program, top North Korean envoys went to Santa Fe with
Richardson, who had just taken office as governor. 

Richardson is traveling with a delegation of New Mexico business
leaders. His visit will include meetings between New Mexicans
and the North Koreans on energy resources, the law, health and
agriculture. 

Richardson has been mentioned as a possible presidential
candidate in 2008, but he said his trip had nothing to do with
politics. ``When it's national security issues, politics stops
at the water's edge,'' he said. 	 
		 	 	   
      Guardian Unlimited Š Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
 11 Korea Times: Pyongyang Ought to Honor Agreement 

Hankooki.com > The Korea Times > Opinion   

Christopher Hill held a discussion regarding the Six-Party Talks
in Washington D.C. last Thursday. 

He reiterated that the United States will deal with North Korea
through diplomatic channels and said that the ultimate goal of
the talks and the resolution of the issue is to bring North
Korea back to the world community and to have it function as
other neighbors do. 

He said North Korea has used agreeing and turning away as their
strategies, and the United States is willing to tolerate
possible shakeups by North Korea in the future.

 It seems that North Korea could turn the table over, destroying
all the efforts of the past couple of months by claiming that
they want a guarantee of receiving a light water reactor. The
United States wants the North to dismantle all nuclear programs
before discussing a light water reactor. 

According to BBC News, Japan is also opposed to the NorthĄŻs
demand. 

Now, I wonder what will happen with the Six-Party talks in
October because the demand for a light water reactor and the
reaction of North KoreaĄŻs neighbors are in collision. It looks
like more tension.

 Hopefully, North Korea will soon begin to dismantle its nuclear
facilities as it agreed to so that it can get what it wants as a
nuclear-free nation.

 Kim Se-jong United States 
10-14-2005 17:14         
  
*****************************************************************
 12 Korea Times: Envoy to US Hints at Recess in Nuke Talks 

Hankooki.com > The Korea Times   

By Park Song-wu
 Staff Reporter

 The six-party talks, set to resume early next month, could take
a recess to avoid an overlap with the Asia-Pacific Economic
Cooperation (APEC) summit, SeoulĄŻs new ambassador to
Washington, Lee Tae-sik, said on Thursday. 

``We are examining the possibility of calling a recess of the
talks because it could overlap with the APEC summit if the
denuclearization talks are protracted,ĄŻĄŻ he said at a meeting
with South Korean correspondents just after arriving in
Washington. 

Lee, however, underlined that the six-party talks should be
resumed as promised to keep their momentum alive. 

The two Koreas, the U.S., China, Russia and Japan agreed on
Sept. 19 to hold the fifth round of the talks in Beijing in
early November at a date to be determined through consultations. 

The APEC summit, which will be attended by 21 heads of state, is
scheduled to take place in Pusan, South Korea, on Nov. 18-19. 

Answering to questions on the chances of hitting a breakthrough
in the next round of the six-party talks, which will negotiate
the sequence of North KoreaĄŻs scrapping of its nuclear programs
and the corresponding rewards, Lee said, ``It would be difficult
to draw the roadmap in a short period as they have to negotiate
a very difficult issue this time.ĄŻĄŻ 

On Sept. 19, the six countries adopted a joint statement of
principles focusing on the NorthĄŻs commitment to abandon all of
its nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs. In return,
the five other participants promised to give Pyongyang energy
aid, security guarantees and chances to enhance diplomatic
relations, among other things. But a critical question about
which side will take action first still remains unsolved. 

South KoreaĄŻs top delegate to the six-party talks, Song
Min-soon, will visit Washington on Saturday to coordinate
strategies with his U.S. counterpart, Christopher Hill. 

Answering questions on a controversy in South Korea over the
statue of General Douglas MacArthur, Lee said it is not proper
to generalize the public sentiment by magnifying a single issue. 

``It would be inappropriate to say that there is something wrong
in South Korea-U.S. relations after just hearing one segment
among multiple numbers of different voices in our society,ĄŻĄŻ
he said. 

South Korea has recently been mired in a hot debate over whether
it is necessary to preserve the statue of the American commander
who led the famous Inchon landing during the 1950-53 Korean War
and apparently reversed the war situation in the SouthĄŻs favor. 

``There is no change in our government's perception that Gen.
MacArthur contributed to protecting freedom and peace in South
Korea,ĄŻĄŻ Lee said. 

The new ambassador also mentioned a South Korean sociology
professorĄŻs controversial remarks on the Korean War. ``I think
it was inappropriate for the professor to say that,ĄŻĄŻ Lee
said. ``It is his own opinion, with which our government does
not agree.ĄŻĄŻ 

Kang Jeong-koo, 60, said the Korean War should be regarded as a
``war for unification,ĄŻĄŻ catering into North KoreaĄŻs
propaganda. His remarks in a column on an Internet news media
website in July triggered immediate protests from conservative
groups calling for his punishment on charges of violating the
National Security Law. 

im@koreatimes.co.kr 10-14-2005 17:17         

Lee Tae-sik
                 SeoulĄŻs Ambassador to the U.S.
   

*****************************************************************
 13 AFP: US Governor Richardson will hold nuclear talks with North Korea

: report - Yahoo! News
 
 Fri Oct 14, 4:23 AM ET 
		 	 
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Democratic Governor Bill Richardson will
visit North Korea next week in a White House supported bid to 
persuade the communist nation to abandon its nuclear weapons 
program, The New York Times said. 


 The New Mexico governor and former US ambassador to the UN
under president Bill Clinton, told the daily that his three-day 
visit starting Monday was intended "to move the diplomatic 
process forward."
 
"I am not an official envoy, but I am supportive of the 
administration's new policy to engage the North Koreans through 
dialogue and diplomacy," Richardson said in an interview.
 
"North Korea is at a crossroads today, and it should take 
advantage of the goal of the six-party talks, a nuclear-free 
Korean peninsula, to advance its own interest in reviving its 
economy and building a better life for its citizens," he added.
 
White House officials said they supported the governor's trip,
for which they have made and Air Force plane available, but did
not want it to be seen as a back-channel mission, but rather as
an opportunity to have their message repeated to Pyongyang by
someone outside President George W. Bush's camp.
 
"We've been in touch with Governor Richardson and we look forward 
to being in touch with him again on his return," said Christopher 
Hill, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific 
affairs and the administration's chief envoy to the talks with 
North Korea.
 
A new round of six-party talks -- North Korea, China, Japan, 
Russia, South Korea, United States -- on scrapping the North's 
nuclear arsenal is expected in November.
 
The last round ended in Beijing in September with the North
agreeing to a statement of principles on abandoning its atomic
weapons in return for energy and security guarantees.
 
But it has since warned it will not dismantle its nuclear
arsenal until the United States delivers light-water reactors to
allow it to generate power.
 
Richardson's office said the governor on his visit to North
Korea will be accompanied by experts from New Mexico in the
field of energy, heart disease, public health, law and
agriculture.
 
The intention of the visit, they added, was to present North
Korea some expert thinking on its food, health and energy
problems with the implication that such help would be more
forthcoming in the event of a deal on its nuclear programs.
 
Chairman of the Democratic Governors' Association, Richardson,
57, has long maintained contacts with North Korea since the
1990s and has often briefed White House officials, including
former secretary of state Colin Powell, of his discussions.
 
Richardson's aides said the governor had been invited to North
Korea in late May and later again this year, but that both times
the White House declined to give its approval.
 
They said Richardson would leave Saturday and arrive in North
Korea on Monday for three days of talks.
 
After the trip, they added, the governor will visit Japan and
South Korea to brief officials there before returning to the
United States.
 

  Copyright Š 2005 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 14 Arizona Daily Wildcat: Reactor security report flawed - 

Friday, October 14, 2005 
		 		 		 		
Officials: Nuclear materials cannot be used to make terror
'dirty bomb' 

An ABC report that labeled the UA's nuclear reactor as a
national security threat was decried by officials yesterday, who
said the report was inaccurate and sensationalized. 

The video report, which showed ABC interns gaining access into
the Engineering building where the reactor is located, cites the
UA as one of 25 college campuses across the country that could
be targets of terrorism. 

The ABC report said the nuclear fuel contained in the reactor
could be used to make a dirty bomb, which would spread
radioactive material across the campus. 

But UA officials said the TRIGA reactor on campus has been safe
since its installation in 1958, and the amount of fuel in the
reactor is insufficient for a dirty bomb. 

There are also secret security measures in place to prevent such
intrusions, said UA spokesman Paul Allvin. 

These secret measures, which Allvin called "invisible" to the
community, have been approved by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission and consistently tested by FBI, Tucson Police
Department and State Homeland Security, he said. 

Allvin refused to elaborate on what safety protocols are in
place, citing that the NRC prohibits releasing such information,
but said there are security measures designed to prevent people
from taking sensitive materials to create a bomb. 

"Just because you can't see the security measures in place
doesn't mean that they aren't there," Allvin said. 

Allvin characterized the ABC report as inaccurate and
sensationalistic. He said the unlocked door identified by ABC
was not to the reactor itself but was open to allow students
access to an all-night computer lab in the same building. 

If someone were to try to enter the room where the reactor is,
they would know, he said. 

The report also questioned whether the reactor, located in the
middle of campus and visible from a ground-level window, had
enough security measures in place. 

Allvin said the ability for the interns to see directly into the
reactor room by looking through a window shows how minor the
threat of the reactor is. 

"If anything, it's a testament to how benign the equipment is.
It's not a huge nuclear power plant. It's a very small piece of
equipment with very benign purposes," Allvin said. 

Security has always taken into account the reactor's proximity
to public roads and classrooms, Allvin said. 

"It's been that way since the 1950s," Allvin said. "Just because
ABC News sent interns out doesn't mean we suddenly have a
problem." 

President Peter Likins characterized the threat to the public as
"a fantasy" hyped by ABC. 

The TRIGA research reactor was designed by Edward Teller, who
has been called the father of the hydrogen bomb, to be a
fundamentally safe and an inherently stable reactor, Likins
said. 

The reactor itself was designed to run at room temperature and
is incapable of exploding, Likins said. 

Likins said the TRIGA reactor is different than power-generating
nuclear reactors like Three Mile Island or Chernobyl, which both
experienced serious accidents that released radioactive material
to the surrounding communities. 

"Our reactor can't experience a runaway reaction like that,"
Likins said. 

The concerns about using radioactive material as a dirty bomb,
Likins said, were also exaggerated by ABC. 

Likins said the amount of the radioactive material present in
the reactor is low level, on par with radiation present in
cancer wards in some hospitals. 

"It's really nothing to be alarmed by," Likins said. 

Allvin also downplayed the threat of a dirty bomb. 

"If someone were to try to damage the building to get to the
material, the biggest problem you'd have on your hands is the
damaged building. It's a very small amount that is very well
controlled." Allvin said. 

ABC conducted a four-month investigation of nuclear research
reactors operating on 25 college campuses across the country by
sending interns to gauge their security. 

The investigation, which aired last night on "Primetime Live,"
found several campus reactors with unmanned guard booths,
unlocked doors and a guard who appeared to be asleep. Several
also received guided tours of the reactor facilities. 

ABC is reporting the NRC will be investigating security on five
of the campuses mentioned in the report. It is unknown whether
this investigation will include the UA. 

Allvin said he was not aware of any investigations. 

"Security was not breached. ABC News is scaring the hell out of
the American public and using us to do it," Allvin said. 			
                                
                                
webmaster@wildcat.arizona.edu                           
Š Copyright 2005 - The Arizona Daily Wildcat - Arizona
*****************************************************************
 15 Arizona Central: Problem with reactor cooling system went undetected for 19 years
 
[azcentral.com]     

Bob Christie
Associated Press
Oct. 14, 2005 11:05 AM						 

A potential problem with the emergency reactor core cooling
system at the nation's largest nuclear power plant went
undetected from 1986, when it began producing power, until last
week, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the plant operator
confirmed Thursday.

 The issue was identified when engineers at the Palo Verde
Nuclear Generating Station did an analysis after NRC inspectors
raised questions at a detailed inspection early last week. The
NRC was following up to see if earlier cooling system problems
had been fixed.

 The review showed the emergency cooling system may not operate
as expected to provide water to reactor cores after a small leak
in the reactor cooling lines, NRC spokesman Victor Dricks said. 

The worst-case scenario of an emergency cooling system failure
is a meltdown of the reactor core and release of radioactivity
into the atmosphere. Plants have many redundant systems,
however, and many other failures would have to occur before that
happened, nuclear experts said.

 The design flaw put the plant outside of its licensing
guidelines and operator Arizona Public Service Co. shut down the
two operating reactors immediately until a fix is put in place.
The third reactor in the complex 50 miles west of Phoenix was
already down for maintenance and refueling.

 There's no estimate for when the plant will come back online.

 Engineers are looking at reconfiguring the system or writing
new manual procedures to get around the problem, plant spokesman
Jim McDonald said. They also are rechecking their calculations
to see if the system may actually operate as expected.

 The plant provides electricity for as many as 4 million
customers in California, Arizona, Texas and New Mexico served by
seven utility companies.

 The power is cheaper than many other sources, but several power
companies say it is unclear if they'll need to raise rates to
recoup their losses.

 The emergency cooling systems in each of the three units are
designed to replace water cooling the reactor cores in unusual
situations.

 Earlier this year, the NRC fined the plant operator $50,000
because of another problem in a different part of the same
cooling system.

 In the more recent case, pumps that provide emergency cooling
water may not sense that a storage tank is getting low on water
and switch to another source, Dricks said.

 The fact the potential problem took so long to be discovered
should prompt the NRC to look at other plants and procedures,
said David Lochbaum, a nuclear safety engineer for the Union of
Concerned Scientists, a nuclear watchdog group.

 Lochbaum said the Palo Verde plant has been a "stellar"
performer until the past two years, when a series of problems
have cropped up.

 "It's a fairly subtle problem, and it was a good catch by the
NRC," Lochbaum said of the current issue. "It just would have
been a great catch sooner."

 ---

 On the Net:

 APS: http://www.aps.com


          Facts about the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station:

 

-Location: Wintersburg, Ariz., about 50 miles west of downtown
Phoenix.

 -Design: Uranium-fueled, steam-electric nuclear plant using a
pressurized water reactor.

 -Capacity: 3,812 megawatts from three 1,270 MW units.

 -Construction: Began in 1976, first unit online in 1986. Third
and final unit running in 1988.

 -Cost: $5.9 billion for construction and startup testing.

 -Owners: Arizona Public Service Co., Salt River Project
(Arizona), El Paso Electric Co., Southern California Edison,
Public Service Co. of New Mexico, Southern California Public
Power Authority, Los Angeles Department of Water & Power.

 -Of note: Palo Verde is the nation's largest nuclear plant
complex.

Source: Salt River Project

 	Copyright Š 2005, azcentral.com. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 16 Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Europe pioneers renaissance of nuclear power | 

ajc.com
 
By SHELLEY EMLING
        
Published on: 10/14/05                                                                                                                                                                                  
	 	
London  Nuclear energy  its image sullied for decades by scary
reactor accidents and the stubborn problems of securing
radioactive material  is poised for a comeback in the United
States, thanks to the soaring cost of fossil fuels.
 
The energy bill signed this summer by President Bush included
substantial subsidies designed to get new U.S. nuclear reactors
up and running for the first time in more than 30 years.

Yet concerns over safety, waste disposal and proliferation of
weapons persist. Won't more nuclear power only add up to a more
dangerous world?
 
To see how a possible nuclear renaissance in the United States
might play out, one needs only to look at Europe, where a
reliance on nuclear energy has been building for years.
 
France generates more than 78 percent of its electricity in
nuclear reactors, according to the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development. The figure is above 30 percent for
seven other European OECD members, including Germany, Sweden and
Switzerland.
 
By contrast, about 20 percent of U.S. electricity is nuclear, an
amount likely to drop to 15 percent by 2020 as old plants are
taken out of commission.
 
Construction has begun in Finland on the first of a new
generation of reactors designed to alleviate many of the
concerns that arose after the accidents at the Three Mile Island
plant in Pennsylvania in 1979 and at Chernobyl in Ukraine in
1986.
 
The new plants are designed to be simpler and more rugged. They
employ "passive" methods to shut down in an emergency that are
based on physical phenomena such as gravity or temperature
resistance rather than engineered parts. Proponents say they
virtually eliminate the danger of a meltdown of the nuclear core.
 
The new reactors also contain safety features not found in older
U.S. plants, such as water-filled basins that would capture and
cool the core if a meltdown did occur.
 
"In terms of safety, the reactor being built in Finland is the
only reactor in the world in which the consequences of a core
melt accident would be restricted to the plant itself, thanks to
the core catcher and other features," said Anne Lauvergeon,
chairman of the executive board at Areva, a French-owned nuclear
engineering firm that's helping to build the Finnish plant.
 
"And, with its extremely robust containment, it's the reactor
with the highest resistance against an airplane crash
worldwide," she said.
 
Finally, the new reactors are supposed to produce much less
nuclear waste  perhaps only one-tenth of that produced by
existing reactors.
 
Less opposition
 
Even a growing number of environmentalists are warming to the
notion of nuclear energy as they balance its hazards against the
evidence that fossil fuels may cause severe damage to the planet
through global warming.
 
Bruno Comby, president of Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy,
a group based near Paris that provides information on nuclear
energy and the environment, said the United States could learn
much from France in the area of nuclear energy.
 
Comby said the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel  a chemical
process that removes fissionable uranium and plutonium for reuse
in reactors  "greatly minimizes both the volume, the toxicity
and the life span of the waste." Britain, France, Japan, Russia
and India all reprocess used nuclear fuel, he said.
 
In the United States, one of the biggest objections to
reprocessing is that it increases the availability of plutonium,
a tiny amount of which could be used to create a nuclear weapon.
 
Comby said that proliferation concerns could be minimized by
making verifiable deals with maturing countries.
 
"These deals must offer countries safe and non-proliferant
nuclear civilian reactors in exchange for a strong commitment on
their side not to develop nuclear arms  and their acceptance of
being controlled," he said.
 
'Bomb factories'
 
Despite support from the environmental group, a large part of
the world's green movement still lines up against nuclear power.
 
"Nuclear plants are potential bomb factories," said Jim Green,
nuclear campaigner for Friends of the Earth Australia, a
federation of local environmental groups.
 
He also said that nuclear power is no solution to climate change
concerns.
 
"A doubling of global nuclear power output by 2050 would reduce
greenhouse gas emissions by just 5 percent  less than one-tenth
of the reduction required," he said.
 
Yet the growing need for power already has pushed many
industrialized nations to rely more on nuclear energy to
generate electricity.
 
Studies show that global electricity consumption is expected to
double by 2030, even as easily obtainable oil and gas supplies
dwindle.
 
In Britain, where nuclear power generates about 20 percent of
the country's electricity, Prime Minister Tony Blair told Labor
Party members last month that he is considering committing the
country to a new generation of nuclear power plants.
 
Bernard Ingham, who leads a British group known as the
Supporters of Nuclear Energy, said that Britain and other
European governments must start doing more to foot the bill for
new nuclear reactors.
 
He also said the United States should learn its lessons on
nuclear energy only from the Finns and the French, where the new
reactors are either under construction or are being developed.
 
The former press secretary for Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher
said most of the rest of Europe has been ignoring the advantages
of nuclear energy for years while becoming increasingly
dependent on foreign gas.
 
"The best thing for the United States to do is to ignore most of
Europe because of its pathetic political correctness and to make
sure it is as self-sufficient in energy as possible," Ingham
said. "That can only be achieved by a substantial nuclear
contribution.
 
"There isn't much point in waging war against terrorists if you
depend on Islamic oil supplies to keep your economy in
business," he said.
 
  Š 2005 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution| Customer care|
[Cox Newspapers, Inc.] 	 	   
*****************************************************************
 17 Independent Florida Alligator: Officials: Report on UF reactor overblown

> Friday, October 14, 2005 1:00 a.m.                 

 Investigators took regularly scheduled tours
 
By JUSTIN RICHARDS Alligator Writer

In response to a recent ABC News story decrying "gaping security
holes" at university nuclear reactors that names UF as a
culprit, university officials said the network's coverage was
inaccurate and overzealous. 

"They really did get some things wrong, and they really did blow
it out of proportion," UF spokesman Steve Orlando said. 

ABC News quoted Dan Hirsch, head of the nuclear watchdog group
Committee to Bridge the Gap, saying that a terrorist with "a
little bit of explosives" could wreak radioactive havoc on UF's
populated campus. 

"Bin Laden would love to do something like that," he said. 

The network teamed up with the Carnegie Corp. in New York to put
together groups of college students, who traveled the country
testing security at on-campus reactors. The investigators told
UF officials they were prospective students interested in the
nuclear program. 

The Nuclear and Radiological Engineering Department routinely
gives escorted tours of its reactor. 

ABC reported that its team was able to bring large tote bags,
which were not inspected, into a room next to the UF reactor. 

The story neglected to mention that the reactor is surrounded by
walls 10 to 15 feet thick, totaling 50 tons of concrete, Nuclear
Facilities Director Bill Vernetson said. 

He added that the bags were left in a nearby room, but it was
not adjacent to the reactor. Rather, it was in a separate but
linked building. 

But even if a visitor strapped explosives to his chest while on
a tour, the blast would not reach the reactor, Vernetson said.
In the improbable event that all 50 tons were blown to rubble,
he said, the radioactive matter is sealed inside aluminum
plates. 

The ABC story also warned of a "dirty bomb," which would use a
conventional explosive like dynamite to spread radioactive
material. 

Orlando was skeptical. 

"Actually getting to the material is virtually impossible," he
said. 

For security reasons, officials were wary of giving details of
the material's accessibility. ABC reported that its findings
were shared with the universities it investigated. 

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which oversees civilian use
of nuclear power, sent a letter to ABC on Oct. 12 stating that
university reactors "remain safe and secure." 

NRC Public Affairs Director Eliot Brenner said under its
concrete shell, the nuclear material is "buried under a fair
amount of water." 

He echoed Orlando in saying that retrieving the material is not
easy. 

"The radioactive material is what we call 'self-protecting,'" he
said. "[It] has sufficient radioactivity as to disable or kill
anyone who tries to handle it." 

Again for security, Brenner could not say what kind of
surveillance UF's reactor was under. 

"[But] any attempt to do anything unauthorized in one of these
reactors would bring a very swift and very armed response," he
said. 

A tour of the reactor is always chaperoned by a guide from the
nuclear engineering department. 

The first entrance to the reactor facility is a locked steel
door. 

Tourists are relieved of their cell phones and led to a control
room, which features a kitchen counter-size fixture with an
instrument panel. 

Another locked door leads to the reactor "cell." Visitors are
led up a staircase to the top of the reactor's concrete housing. 

Through a locked portal at the top of the concrete, objects can
be dipped into the reactor on a string. The reactor is switched
on and off, and the newly radioactive object is gauged for
levels of various elements. 

Anyone leaving the reactor cell has to stand on a "portal
monitor," which resembles the sensors at supermarket exits. The
monitor measures any radioactivity that a person's body gives
off in the form of gamma rays. 

The facility also has a "frisker," a hand-held device that
detects radioactivity levels on the body like an airport
security wand. 

But there are no metal detectors or armed guards, which are
common fixtures at many full-scale nuclear power plants. 

Orlando said UF's site does not produce power for a grid of
users. That, and its relative size, makes such security
precautions excessive. 

He compared it to the nearby nuclear plant in Crystal River,
which guards 100 tons of uranium. UF's reactor, Orlando said,
holds only a few pounds. 

In statements on its Web site, the NRC affirms that university
reactors pose a low risk. It stated that even if a dirty bomb
were set off using material from a research reactor, "no
significant injuries from radiological exposure would result." 

UF nuclear engineering graduate student Brian Triplett said the
ABC News report was deceptive and lacked technical background. 

"It was a ridiculous attempt at being sensational by ABC News,"
said Triplett, who is also treasurer for the UF chapter of the
American Nuclear Society. "They want to incite fear and action." 
	
Copyright Š 19962005 Alligator Onlineand Campus Communications.
[bottom of gator head] 
*****************************************************************
 18 AFP: Oil costs delay Taiwan nuclear power plant by three years 

 Friday October 14, 2005, 4:44 pm 

TAIPEI (AFP) - Soaring oil costs and a sluggish domestic economy
have slowed construction of Taiwan's controversial fourth
nuclear power plant and could delay operations by three years,
state-run Taiwan Power Company (Taipower) says.
 
In an internal assessment report, the plant's operation would be
delayed to 2009 from July 2006 as originally scheduled, a
Taipower spokesperson said, adding the report was pending a
review of cabinet.
 
"The construction has been seriously affected by rising import
costs of crude and raw materials and a local economic slowdown
which has discouraged investment interest in the project," the
spokesperson said.
 
Taipower should have completed 86 percent of the plant, located
in the island's northeastern town of Kungliao, by the end of
September, but only 62 percent was finished, he said.
 
One unit of the plant's core reactor, with a capacity of 1,350
megawatts, was to begin operations in July 2006, while the
second unit with the same capacity had been scheduled to become
operational in July 2007.
 
But the spokesperson said no power shortage was expected since
Taipower's liquidified-natural-gas fueled power plant was
scheduled to begin operation next year to provide up to 1,400
megawatts in electricity.
 
The 5.6 billion US dollar project has been mired in controversy
since the 2000 presidential election which the Democratic
Progressive Party (DPP) won.
 
The DPP government scrapped the partly built nuclear plant
without consulting parliament in October 2000, but reinstated
the project in February 2001 after public pressure.
 
The suspension was likely to add an additional 1.3 billion
dollars to the construction costs, officials have said.
 
Critics said the three-year operation delay could further raise
the total costs by an extra 30-70 billion Taiwan dollars (90
million US-2.1 billion US).
     
   Copyright Š 2005 AFP. All rights reserved. All information
*****************************************************************
 19 Globe and Mail: Ontario to dust off 2 reactors, NDP says

 By KAREN HOWLETT 
						 		
Friday, October 14, 2005 Page 
		 	 		 		
The Ontario government is poised to unveil a multibillion-dollar
plan to restart two mothballed reactors at the privately run
Bruce Nuclear Station as early as today, according to New
Democratic Party Leader Howard Hampton.
 
He accused Premier Dalton McGuinty of striking a deal behind
closed doors with Bruce Power, the consortium that operates the
nuclear station, instead of holding a public debate, as
promised, on what role nuclear energy should play in the
province.
 
The restart of Bruce A Units 1 and 2, which have been shut down
since the mid-1990s, would be the fastest way to add badly
needed power to help address the province's looming electricity
crisis. The units can produce 1,540 megawatts of electricity,
enough power for more than one million homes.
 
A spokeswoman at Bruce Power would not comment last night on the
timing of an announcement. "We're just working on finalizing the
details," she said.
 
Mr. McGuinty declined to confirm during Question Period whether
an announcement is imminent.
 
The government struck a tentative agreement last March with a
provincial negotiator to refurbish the Bruce reactors near
Tiverton, Ont. "That is not a secret, and neither is it a secret
that we are up against it when it comes to ensuring we have a
sufficient supply of generating capacity in the Province of
Ontario," Mr. McGuinty said.
 
Donna Cansfield, Ontario's newly minted Energy Minister, was
equally coy. "I don't know when it will be done, but it will be
done shortly," she told reporters.
 
Mr. Hampton said many aspects of nuclear power remain
contentious, including concerns about nuclear waste and the huge
cost overruns from building other reactors that saddled
Ontarians with billions of dollars in debts.
 
"I think before the province goes down the nuclear road again,
there needs to be a full debate across the province," he told
reporters yesterday.
 
The reactors are owned by the government and operated under a
long-term lease by Bruce Power, a consortium whose major
shareholders include Cameco Corp., TransCanada Corp. and a unit
of the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement Board.
 
At the same time that the government is preparing to refurbish
the Bruce reactors, it is considering building new ones. The
province faces a severe energy shortfall over the next decade if
it does not urgently deal with the gap between supply and
demand. Mr. McGuinty has said it needs to refurbish, rebuild or
replace 25,000 megawatts of supply over the next 15 years.
 
The Ontario government is considering spending billions of
dollars on new reactors just as the nuclear power industry is
going through a quiet rehabilitation in North America.
 
Three things are driving the renewed interest in nuclear power:
the high cost of oil and gas, concerns over security of energy
supplies, and the need to limit greenhouse gas emissions. The
last time a new nuclear plant went online in Ontario was 1992.
 
The province's main problems with nuclear power have been
unreliability and cost overruns. In 1997, seven nuclear units
were shut down and a massive refurbishment was done on 12 others.
 
Mr. Hampton said the province might have to turn to nuclear
power because the government plans to close all of Ontario's
aging, coal-fired generating stations by 2008. The coal stations
produce about one-quarter of the province's electricity.
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 20 Salt Lake Tribune: U. disputes claims nuclear facility unsafe 

Article Last Updated: 10/14/2005 12:46:09 AM 

'Primetime': A TV news magazine says security in the research 
building is lax, and its interns went in without trouble 

By Christopher Smart The Salt Lake Tribune 

University of Utah officials are denouncing as unfounded an 
ABC News report that lists the school's nuclear reactor among 
those lacking proper security that could be targeted by 
terrorists for a so-called dirty bomb. 

The network's "Primetime" news magazine aired its report 
Thursday night with results of a four-month investigation that 
reportedly found "gaping security holes" at many of the research 
reactors operated on 25 college campuses. 

"Late at night at the University of Utah, students were 
unchallenged as they approached the building housing the 
reactor," according to the ABC report. 

"Primetime" quoted one of its undercover interns, who was 
assigned to gain access to the reactors: "We were expecting, of 
course, that all the doors would be locked, and we tried to find 
a door, and the door was open. It was 12:30 a.m., and we walked 
in, and that was pretty scary." 

But the notion that someone could enter the Merrill 
Engineering Building at night didn't come as a surprise to U. 
police - who call the reactor a security priority - or Melinda 
Krahenbuhl, the reactor administrator and director of the 
school's nuclear engineering program. 

The building is often open to accommodate the comings and 
goings of graduate students and researchers, Krahenbuhl said. 
But unauthorized people cannot enter the secure reactor 
facility. 

"The reactor safety and security were never compromised," 
she said. 

Further, Krahenbuhl explained, the small amount of "low 
enriched" uranium that powers the 100 kilowatt reactor is not 
enough to make a bomb - even if someone were skilled enough to 
remove it. 

"You'd need a lot more fuel," she said. "This reactor is 
1,000 times smaller than any [nuclear] power plant in the 
country." 

Nonetheless, the ABC report has at least some members of 
Congress agitated. 

Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass, a senior member of the House 
Energy and Commerce Committee that oversees the Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission, said he wants assurances that all of the 
research facilities are secured from potential terrorist 
attacks. 

"The security problems exposed here offer yet more evidence 
that, four years after 9/11, the NRC has not done nearly enough 
to secure our nation's nuclear facilities," he told ABC. 

In a Salt Lake Tribune interview, Markey's 
spokesman, David Moulton, said ABC's undercover students were 
able to tour university reactors carrying backpacks and other 
bags. A suicide bomber could blow up such a facility creating a 
dirty bomb, he said. 

"A dirty bomb, by its nature, doesn't need a lot of 
radioactivity to exact its purpose," he said. "Such an explosion 
in an urban area would be sufficient to create panic, if not 
death." 

Moulton said Markey and others will be pressing the NRC 
about the agency's ability to join the post 9/11 world of 
security. "Does the NRC enforce its own regulations on 
campuses?" he asked. "We suspect, no." 

Krahenbuhl said the U. forbids visitors from carrying 
backpacks when touring the reactor facility. Even if they could, 
she added, a backpack full of explosives could not set off even 
a small nuclear reaction. 

"With the amount of explosives they could carry in a 
backpack, they could probably kill themselves," she said. "But 
the amount of water in the reactor would make the explosion 
ineffectual. It could not disperse the fuel." 

An NRC spokesman said that after discussing the report with 
ABC News for the past two months, agency officials found nothing 
that posed a security risk. 

"Even if there were a malicious act at one of these small 
research reactors, the possibility of radiological consequences 
is very, very small," Scott Burnell said. "But if anything ABC 
provides shows that anyone has not lived up to NRC regulations, 
we will take action." 

--- 

Tribune reporters Greg Lavine and Shinika Sykes contributed 
to this report. 

ÂŠ Copyright 2005, The Salt Lake Tribune. 
*****************************************************************
 21 TheIndyChannel.com: Purdue Professor: Nuclear Reactor Is Safe

University Says ABC's Suggestion Of Risk Is Far-Fetched

POSTED: 8:18 pm EST October 13, 					 					2005

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. -- Reacting to an ABC News report that
criticizes security at Purdue University's nuclear reactor, a
professor in charge of the reactor said Thursday that it is well
protected and safe.

ABC News, which has been evaluating nuclear threats in the U.S.
on segments airing on "World News Tonight" and other network
shows, reported that it sent two women to Purdue to pose as
prospective students and see how easily they could access the
reactor facility.

The women, using a video camera, showed that they had easy
access to reactor's building at all hours and -- although the
reactor itself was behind a series of locked doors and other
layers of security -- they were able to get a tour of the
reactor area while carrying bags.


ABC security consultants believe the bags could have carried
enough explosives to blow up the reactor -- effectively becoming
what is known as a dirty bomb, causing the deaths of a
significant number of Purdue students.

-----------------------------------------------------------------
    Previous Slideshow: Students Shocked To Find Easy Access 
         Video: Professor Says Nuclear Reactor Is Safe 


Lefteri Tsoukalas, a Purdue nuclear engineering professor who is
responsible for the reactor, told Call 6 for Help's Rafael
Sanchez that the building is accessible to anyone on campus
because classes are held there. However, while giving Sanchez a
tour, Tsoukalas stressed that accessing the reactor area
requires and ID check and someone to allow passage through
locked doors.

Federal rules prohibit the site from revealing its security
plans. Purdue says ABC's suggestion that people are at risk is
far-fetched.

"It's a very safe facility," Tsoukalas said Thursday.

ABC News reported that the women were granted a tour of the
reactor area without anyone checking the bags, despite walking
past a sign that said packages were subject to search.

Tsoukalas said bag searches are done at the discretion of the
person managing the site. He also said that the reactor's highly
enriched uranium can be removed only by special equipment.

Purdue says its reactor is low-power, capable at full force of
powering only 10 100-watt light bulbs.

ABC News chief investigative correspondent Brian Ross told RTV6
that Purdue officials "have to be embarrassed" because they
allowed the women near the reactor with unchecked bags.

Copyright 2005 by TheIndyChannel.comAll rights reserved. This
*****************************************************************
 22 Sofia Morning News: Sofia Rules Out Energy Chapter Reopening

Politics: 14 October 2005, Friday.

Sofia ruled out the reopening of the Energy chapter of the
acquis communautaire, describing such a move as "harmful".
 
In an interview for private bTV channel Economy and Energy
Minister Rumen Ovcharov said that the will for preservation of
units 3 and 4 of Bulgaria's only nuclear power plant in Kozloduy
should not pose a threat to the country's future EU membership.
 
EU concerns over the safety of Soviet-designed 440-MW reactors
of Bulgaria's only nuclear power plant Kozloduy has hinged the
country's EU accession in 2007 on their closure in 2003.
 
The decommissioning of both oldest units at the end of 2002 came
after strong pressure from the European Union. The nuclear lobby
and opposition parties protested that the reactors are
economically necessary and called EU demands "arm-twisting."

All Rights Reserved Š Novinite Ltd., 2001-2005 - Copyright


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 23 Centre Daily Times: 'Radioactive Road Trip' draws fire

10/14/2005 | 
 
By David Bauder

 The Associated Press

NEW YORK -- ABC News is taking heat for using college interns in
an investigative report that alleges lax security at nuclear
reactors on 25 U.S. college campuses, including Penn State. 

The "Primetime Live" report examines how close those interns
were able to get to the reactors, theorizing the facilities
could be vulnerable to terrorists who could set off bombs that
release radiation into the atmosphere. 

ABC said its interns found unlocked doors, saw unmanned security
booths and, in some cases, were given guided tours that gave
them access to control rooms and reactor pools. 

Officials at Kansas State and Ohio State universities expressed
anger about the report before its scheduled airing Thursday. 

"We are concerned that interns, college students, were placed in
a position where they were dishonest about their roles and
intentions," Terry King, dean of Kansas State's engineering
school, said in a letter. 

ABC said its interns were instructed not to lie. 

Two students each from Columbia, Northwestern, Harvard, Southern
California and California-Berkeley universities were working at
ABC News as part of an internship program financed by the
Carnegie Corp. and the Knight Foundation. They were assigned to
the project and supervised by reporter Brian Ross and his
investigative team -- and were picked, in part, because they
looked the part. 

"The day has long since passed that I could pass as a college
student," said Ross, 56. 

They were told to go to the reactor facilities, say they were
graduate students interested in nuclear power, and ask if they
could look around. They carried regular cameras, not TV cameras,
and did not say they were from ABC News. They weren't being
untruthful, Ross said. 

Ohio State and Kansas State officials say they give tours
because, as educational facilities, it's their job to spread the
word about how nuclear energy is being used. 

Saying the interns were able to get close to the facility is
"like coming to my driveway and saying, 'Guess what? I just got
into McDonald's!'" said Earle Holland, Ohio State senior
director for research communications. 

At Ohio State, security procedures were correctly followed, and
the interns had their bags searched and held during the tour.
The tour was ended because one of the interns attempted to take
a placard that listed security precautions in case of a bomb
scare, he said. 

At Kansas State, officials anticipated the visit; word had
gotten around the small nuclear research community that
reporters saying they were students had approached facilities.
The students were given a tour anyway, even though this was
later cited by ABC an example of a potential security risk. 

The interns flirted with security officers to try to get in,
said Ken Shultis, Kansas State's nuclear energy program
director. The guards flirted back, since they were trying to get
the interns to pose for a picture they wanted to provide to the
FBI. 

Both university officials said the interns should have
identified themselves as being from ABC News. 

"I think the ethics is somewhat questionable," Shultis said.
"It's a fine point when they were trying to misdirect or
mislead." 

But ABC said it's likely they would have been treated
differently as reporters. The point was to show how a terrorist
could pose as a student and easily be a threat, Ross said. 

"We were students," said Dana Hughes, a Columbia University
Graduate School of Journalism student who worked on the project.
"We were interested in the programs. We did not hide our
cameras. We were hiding in plain sight. It wasn't as sneaky as
they were making it out to be." 

If all it took to get into facilities was talking like a student
or flirting, "some people could find that a questionable line of
defense," she said. 

Alex Jones, director of the Joan Shorenstein Center on the
Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard, which provided two
of the interns, said he didn't want to prejudge ABC's report. 

"I don't think there's anything wrong with finding out whether
minimal security was being observed at nuclear facilities,
providing you didn't misrepresent yourself," he said. "And from
what I understand, none of these students did." 

Ross said it wasn't a case of the interns being taught "gotcha"
journalism instead of investigative journalism. The students did
a great deal of research into the nuclear programs before going
to the universities, he said. 

The students didn't embark on the project with a specific result
in mind. "A lot of them were hoping that they didn't find these
stories," he said. 

Two of the students have subsequently gotten jobs at ABC News
and Ross said he hoped the network would hire more.   

*****************************************************************
 24 Deseret News: U. protests TV report on nuclear security 

[deseretnews.com] 

Friday, October 14, 2005 

By Stephen Speckman Deseret Morning News 

A national report this week by ABC TV that security was 
compromised at the University of Utah's research reactor is being
called "appalling" and inaccurate by U. officials. 

The U. was part of a broader ABC report about reactors on 
college campuses across the country. 

Last June two female student interns with ABC were given 
a guided tour of the U.'s Merrill Engineering Building and the 
reactor, where about 1,000 people reportedly have visited this 
year. 

ABC apparently told a different story. 

"They are telling people there was a gaping hole in our 
security, which there was not," said Melinda Krahenbuhl, 
director of the U. nuclear engineering program. "The security 
plan worked  they (the students) were escorted at all times." 

Krahenbuhl said security checks were run on the two 
students and that they were asked to leave their backpacks 
outside the reactor and its control room. 

ABC's coverage also reported the U. shut down its reactor 
for security reasons during the 2002 Winter Olympics here. 

"The university was closed  there was nobody here," 
Krahenbuhl said. 

A "shutdown" implies that the U. reactor was requested to 
be decommissioned, "and that's not true," she added. The U. was 
being "proactive," she said, by going into a "sub-critical 
configuration," which means the reactor cannot sustain power. 

Krahenbuhl is also considered the reactor administrator 
by the nuclear Regulatory Commission, which oversees activity at 
the U.'s small reactor used for educational purposes only. 

There are no nuclear power reactors in Utah, according to 
a Utah Department of Environmental Quality spokesman quoted in a 
March 2005 story in the Deseret Morning News. The U. reactor has 
been in operation since the early 1970s. 

Only a small amount of waste is produced by the U. 
reactor, which is capable of generating enough power to run a 
small truck engine, according to Krahenbuhl. She said the U. 
uses a low-enriched uranium fuel that poses a "negligible" risk 
to students and staff. The waste is sent to a low-level 
radioactive waste disposal site near Hanford, Wash. 

"We are engineered and designed to be safe," Krahenbuhl 
added. 

She said the ABC interns did, in fact, walk unescorted 
into the U. engineering building at night, like many graduate 
students do, but that they did not get through four locked doors 
to access the reactor by themselves. Krahenbuhl said U. 
officials were aware the students, Traci Curry and Michelle 
Rabinowitz, were in the building. 

But ABC, she said, has been getting its facts wrong, 
despite her attempts to set an ABC producer in New York straight 
during an August phone call. That producer, Maddie Sauer, was 
unavailable for comment. 

"She didn't include any of the facts," Krahenbuhl said. 
"I think ABC's national news is being irresponsible." 

She said it's appalling to teach students that it's OK to 
air "unethical" and inaccurate reporting for the sake of a 
"sensationalized" story. 

Local TV and radio media picked up on the story Thursday 
and U. spokeswoman Coralie Alder was making sure reporters here 
had accurate information  namely that the ABC interns were 
escorted through the reactor facilities. 

"We have tours all the time up there," Alder said. "They 
didn't get in and wander through the reactor." 

E-mail: sspeckman@desnews.com			 		 		 

Š 2005 Deseret News Publishing Company 
*****************************************************************
 25 Wisconsin State Journal: UW dismisses ABC undercover report
                                                                        

00:00 am 10/15/05

DOUG ERICKSON derickson@madison.com                                                             

UW-Madison officials punched back at ABC News Thursday while 
seeking to assure the public that the school's nuclear reactor is 
impervious to terrorists.

A report on ABC's "Primetime" Thursday night purported to find
"gaping security holes" at many college research reactors,
including the one operating at UW-Madison.

Michael Corradini, UW-Madison's director of nuclear engineering
and engineering physics, called the report "much ado about
nothing." University Assistant Police Chief Dale Burke said the
report needlessly frightened people.

University officials had been briefed ahead of time by ABC
employees on the network's findings.

Corradini said two interns working for ABC News entered the
Mechanical Engineering Building, 1513 University Ave., in June
and knocked on the doors of the reactor until a student worker
opened the door and talked to them. The women asked for an
impromptu tour, which the student worker correctly said was not
possible, Corradini said.

Corradini said the worker allowed the women to take photos from
the door's threshold. While photos are allowed on scheduled
public tours, the worker should not have let people who had not
gone through a security clearance be in the door's threshold,
Corradini said. The university is tightening its policy, he said.

Terry Devitt, a UW-Madison spokesman, said the university
disagrees with the contention by ABC News that the interns had
any meaningful access to the laboratory or that their presence
constituted a security threat. 

Corradini said that even if the women had been terrorists
carrying bombs on their bodies, they could not have damaged the
reactor. The reactor's radioactive core is near the bottom of a
pool of water 40 feet deep, and the water is encased in
high-density concrete 12 feet thick, he said.

A suicide bomber would be killed but the reactor would be
unscathed, Corradini said. Furthermore, the campus research
reactor is so small - 3,000 times smaller than a typical nuclear
reactor used to generate power - that even blowing it up would
cause little radioactive danger to the immediate vicinity, he
said.

Although the highly enriched uranium used for fuel could be
tempting to bomb-making terrorists, the radiation in the water
surrounding the reactor's core makes it virtually inaccessible,
Corradini said.

"You'd have to get it, and you'd die trying," he said.

The reactor has operated on campus for nearly 50 years and is
essential for research and student training, Devitt said. "This
is where nuclear engineers come from. They have to be trained in
these kind of facilities."

ABC News said that in its investigation of 25 college nuclear
reactors, it found unmanned guard booths, unlocked building
doors and guided tours that provided easy access to control
rooms and reactor pools that hold radioactive fuel. It said many
of the schools permit vehicles in close proximity to the reactor
buildings.

Corradini said the U.S. Corps of Engineers investigated the
possible threat to the reactor from a vehicle bomb in 1970
following the bombing of Sterling Hall on campus. The agency
concluded that a vehicle bomb couldn't permeate the reactor, he
said.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission inspected the campus reactor
in August and "indicated they were satisfied with our security
plan," Devitt said, although no paperwork on the inspection has
been received. He said he does not think the university is
currently being reviewed by the commission for any security
concerns.

Burke, the university assistant police chief, said if the
reactor were unsafe, he would be one of the first to be
concerned - his office is just a block away.
 					 					 				 				 				
Copyright Š 2005 Wisconsin State Journal                                                                                

*****************************************************************
 26 The Tech: ABC Says MITs Nuclear Reactor Unsafe - 

 
By Beckett W. Sterner 
NEWS EDITOR 

How vulnerable are nuclear research reactors to terrorist
attacks? An ABC News investigative report that aired last night
claimed that many university reactors, including MITs, need to
take stronger security measures to protect their uranium stocks. 

ABCs report, which wades into the highly technical and
classified topic of nuclear reactor security, has encountered
controversy over some of its claims. The report often elides
important differences between the reactors that would influence
the risk levels of certain attacks. 

There are three major ways in which the uranium used by a
reactor could play a role in a terrorist attack: theft for use
in a weapon, a bomb detonated outside the reactor, and a bomb
exploded near the reactor core. 

In ABCs investigation they were able to park a large truck
about 30 feet from MITs reactor. However, that distance is not
significantly less than the distance to Albany Street, and is
still larger than the reactors security perimeter, said Nuclear
Reactor Laboratory Director David E. Moncton PhD 75. 

Considering the broader context of terrorist attacks, MITs
reactor poses relatively little threat, said Police Chief John
DiFava. 

For example, he said, there is a 800900 foot long liquid
natural gas tanker that docks in Boston Harbor regularly.I
dont think anybody really knows what would happen if that hull
would breach, he said, noting divergent studies that suggest
the fuel may just burn or could result in a 3-mile radius
explosion. 

Regarding MITs reactor, he said, is it a real risk  is it a
perception issue, or is it just people who are hostile to
nuclear power? 

The MIT reactor is used for medical and nuclear power research,
said Vice President for Research Alice P. Gast. Nuclear power is
likely to play an increasingly important role in Americas
energy supply as gas reserves decline and fuel prices rise, as
stated by a report on nuclear power released by MIT in 2003. 

Down and dirty with uranium 

MITs reactor runs on highly enriched uranium (HEU), a possible
ingredient for nuclear weapons. The fuel can also be used in
dirty bombs that disseminate vaporized harmful radioactive
material over a large area. 

Most research reactors have converted to low enriched uranium
(LEU) in a slow process funded by the Department of Energy, and
MIT will follow suit when the DOE provides funding, Gast said.

LEU fuel must undergo a complex reaction to be turned into
weapons-grade material, but can still be used in dirty bombs. 

Attacking a nuclear reactor is not as simple as blowing it up or
walking in with guns blazing, however. MITs reactor is shielded
by many layers of metal and concrete, making it difficult for an
external explosion to vaporize the radioactive material inside.

ABCs report raises questions over what security measures are
needed to deter attacks and also over what scenarios pose a
significant danger. 

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which oversees security
requirements at research reactors, is examining evidence
provided by ABC to see whether further action needs to be taken
at any facility, said Elliot Brenner, director of the NRC Office
of Public Affairs. 

Nothing about the access or tour has been criticized by ABC,
Moncton said, referring to the undercover tour taken by two ABC
journalist interns. MIT has more security measures in place than
many reactors, and ABC found that MITs reactor was one of only
two with armed guards. 

ABC Media Relations spokesperson Adam Pockriss did not respond
to questions submitted on the story yesterday. 

ABC reports weak security 

After a four-month investigation during which journalism interns
traveled to the 25 reactors on college campuses across the
country, ABC reported finding unmanned guard booths, a guard
who appeared to be asleep, unlocked building doors and, in a
number of cases, guided tours that provided easy access to
control rooms and reactor pools that hold radioactive fuel. 

The story also highlighted the issue that many of the schools
permit vehicles in close proximity to the reactor buildings
without inspection for explosives. 

Whether or not an external explosion could release radioactive
material into the atmosphere depends on the design of the
reactor. 

A pretty big plane could fly into it and not damage it,
Moncton said, referring to MITs reactor core. 

In the worst case scenario, that building is going to implode,
not explode, DiFava said. 

On the other hand, the televised investigation reported that the
interns were able to walk up to another colleges open water
reactor with large tote bags that were not searched by staff. 

The two major concerns raised by the investigation regarding
MITs reactor in particular did not involve direct access to the
reactor, but rather access to online information and the ability
to drive a truck to within 30 feet of the reactor building. 

Given that the reactor is about 50 feet from Albany Street and
about 300 from Massachusetts Avenue, regular traffic passes
nearly as close as the ABC truck had reached. A large bomb would
have to be closer to significantly damage the building, Moncton
said. 

He said a study on the effect of an explosion on the reactor was
conducted by Lincoln Laboratory scientists with consultation of
MIT faculty shortly after 9/11. The report showed that the
reactor would not be significantly damaged by a large truck bomb
at the distance of the security perimeter. 

DiFava said that explosions from large bombs carry most of their
force upwards, rather than outwards, lessening the impact on the
reactor building. 

There wouldnt be any dispersal of material, Moncton said, and
that to be a dirty bomb, the explosion must vaporize the uranium
instead of just blowing apart chunks of it. 

Another problem ABC investigators reported was that they were
able to find floor plans for the reactor using computers in
Barker Library. 

Moncton said that these plans are out of date and do not list
the location of guards or security cameras. 

Director of Reactor Operations John A. Bernard Jr. said that
many nuclear engineering dissertations have the same diagrams as
those available at Barker. The floor plans had been publicly
available before Sept. 11, 2001, but were taken offline
afterwards by MIT. 

The final criticism leveled at MIT by ABC was that the schedule
for the reactor was available online. 

Moncton said that the availability of the schedule had been
under discussion with the NRC for several months before ABCs
investigation began. The schedule is used by off-campus
researchers who use the reactor, he said. 

Bernard said that about one month ago, after ABCs visit, MIT
decided to stop publicly listing times when the reactor was
inactive for fuel delivery, thus making it impossible to tell
when fuel deliveries were being received based on the activity
of the reactor. 

Some confusion seemed to prevail on NRCs awareness of the
schedule being online. Thats something Id want us to pursue,
and we will, said Roy Zimmerman, director of the Office of
Nuclear Security and Incident Response for the NRC, after
learning about the online schedule from ABC lead investigator
Brian Ross. 


Debate over fuel safety heats up 

Perhaps the best recognized security threat posed by research
reactors is the possibility that a terrorist could steal highly
enriched uranium for use in a nuclear weapon. 

Once HEU is placed in a reactor, however, it acquires a lethal
level of radioactivity that would incapacitate a person in a few
minutes. Accordingly, someone trying to steal active fuel would
need extremely strong protective shielding. 

Before being placed in the reactor, HEU is both safe enough to
hold in your hands and immediately usable for a nuclear weapon.

MITs reactor has at most two kilograms of fresh HEU on site at
any time, Moncton said, a small fraction of what is needed for a
bomb. He said the fuel is delivered on a just-in-time basis, so
that the reactor does not need to stockpile fuel. 

Transporting spent fuel is dependent on a political balancing
act between the danger of storing fuel at the reactor and the
danger of transporting it long-distance to another site. 

Being able to ship is a complicated alignment of a number of
stars, Moncton said. The MIT reactor has sometimes been unable
to send away its fuel for multiple years at a time, he said,
although the current amount being stored is at a historical low. 

We could probably smooth out the bureaucratic process, Gast
said. I think nationally we need to deal with spent fuel as a
national priority. 

The difficulty of a terrorist transporting spent fuel is under
debate. Moncton said that spent fuel can still incapacitate
someone trying to carry it without shielding. 

The international definition for what level of radioactivity is
incapacitating is too low for a suicidal terrorist, though, said
Matthew G. Bunn G, a senior research associate at Harvard who
studies nuclear non-proliferation measures. One person can pick
it up and carry it away, Bunn said, referring to spent fuel
from a reactor like MITs. Bunn is also finishing his thesis in
the Engineering Systems Division at MIT. 

The effort needed to turn spent fuel into weapons material is
not nearly as significant as that to produce enriched uranium
from scratch, Bunn said. 

The difficulty in shipping away spent fuel has been a problem
for MIT in the past. Moncton said that reactor staff were unable
to ship away fuel for long enough that last year they slightly
exceeded the limit imposed by the NRC on how much total uranium
could be stored on site, requiring MIT to notify the NRC of a
regulations infraction. 

One of the most significant security issues facing reactors,
then, requires the coordination of state and federal regulators,
as well as the vigilance of reactor staff.

 This story was published on Friday, October 14, 2005. 
Volume 125, Number 46
Copyright and distribution information.


*****************************************************************
 27 Badger Herald: UW calls nuclear lab secure

University of Wisconsin-Madison
 
Enlarge image [UW calls nuclear lab secure] 
 						 						
by Darryl Schnell                       

Friday, October 14, 2005

The University of Wisconsin released a statement Thursday
insisting its Nuclear Reactor Laboratory is operated and
maintained in a safe and secure manner. 

The release is a response to accusations stemming from an ABC
News investigation probing security of research reactors on 25
college campuses across the nation. The investigation claimed to
have found many gaping holes in the security at uranium-fueled
campus reactors, including one at a UW lab. 

However, professor Michael Corradini, director of UWs
engineering and engineering physics program, said the reactor
has always been protected. 

The reactor has a security plan, Corradini said. It is not
possible for someone to gain direct access to our nuclear
reactor. 

The UW reactor is of a type designed to automatically shut down
in the event of an emergency, and the uranium would be lethal to
anyone who tried to remove it. 

There is no way anyone would be able to steal the uranium from
the reactor even if they did have direct access, Corradini
said. 

Corradini said any weaknesses in lab security found in the
investigation and reported were false. 

According to the release, two female ABC interns who posed as
students attempted to gain access to the lab, but were turned
away. The interns reached the threshold of the lab by following
a student employee who opened a door in front of them. The
release insists the interns did not have meaningful access to
the lab. 

Adam Pockriss, ABC News spokesperson, refused to comment on the
genesis of the investigation, but said ABC sent 10 college
graduate students to probe the security of several campus
laboratories. Pockriss said the interns were conducting the
research as part of a fellowship program. 

[The graduate students] received intensive training and
specific instructions, Pockriss said. Throughout their work,
these fellows were supervised on a daily basis. 

The ABC News program Primetime aired the story Thursday night.
Pockriss said the purpose of the program was to show what kind
of access regular people had to nuclear reactors. Though the
program implied there should be legitimate concern about
terrorism and the use of the reactors uranium as a weapon,
Pockriss denied a terrorism correlation. 

It was not meant to be a simulation of a terrorist plot,
Pockriss said. 

The release concedes that because UW is a public research
university, the reactor cannot be restricted. The purpose of a
public university is to remain an open, scholarly environment
where people can share knowledge. Consequently, UW provides
tours of the lab. 

However, security measures like identity verification and bag
searches are conducted routinely in conjunction with the tours,
and the UW release acknowledged a general need for heightened
security. 

In the post-Sept. 11 world, the university understands the need
to be aware and prepared for many different contingencies, the
release stated. The security plan for the research reactor has
been altered accordingly, undergoes regular review and
represents an appropriate level of security. We are confident in
the plan and the ability of various campus units & to maintain
the high level [of] security the lab requires. 			 			
 			 			 			 				 			 			 		 		 			 	 		
Copyright Š 1999-2005 Badger Herald, Inc. Some rights reserved. 
*****************************************************************
 28 AP Wire: Agency approves payments for stricken Cold War era workers

10/14/2005 | 

Associated Press

WASHINGTON - The Department of Health and Human Services has
approved another round of payments for Missouri Cold War era
workers stricken with cancer from exposure to radiation, Sen.
Kit Bond's office said Friday. 

The employees, who worked from 1949 to 1957 at the Mallinckrodt
Chemical Co. plant in St. Louis, or their survivors, will be
eligible for compensation of up to $150,000 from the federal
government. 

The decision takes effect 30 days after it is submitted to
Congress, unless Congress halts the payments. 

"After much waiting our Cold War workers will receive the
compensation they deserve for their great service to our
nation," Bond, R-Mo., said in a statement. 

At an August meeting in St. Louis, a federal panel recommended
expedited payments for Mallinckrodt employees with 22 types of
cancer tied to radiation exposure. The plant's nuclear
production facilities employed about 3,500 people from 1942 to
1957 who were exposed to large doses of radiation. 

In April, the government approved payments for another group of
employees who worked at Mallinckrodt from 1942 to 1948. 

Congress set up a program in 2000 to allow for faster payment of
claims to former energy workers at nuclear plants in Ohio,
Tennessee, Kentucky and Alaska. But workers at lesser-known
plants, such as those in St. Louis and Iowa, were left out. 

Without approval for expedited payments, the government requires
doctors to investigate each claim and review work histories,
plant records and monitoring data to determine if an employee's
exposure merits approval.   

*****************************************************************
 29 AP Wire: Officials hold groundbreaking for MOX nuclear fuel facility

| 10/14/2005 | 

Associated Press

AIKEN, S.C. - A groundbreaking ceremony was held Friday for a
factory that would convert weapons-grade nuclear material into
fuel that power plants can use. 

U.S. and Russian officials were at the Savannah River Site near
Aiken near the future site of the mixed oxide fuel, or MOX,
fabrication facility that will handle 34 metric tons of
potentially lethal material under terms of a 2000 nuclear
nonproliferation pact. 

But paying for the $1.6 billion Department of Energy facility
remains an issue, The Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle reported for its
Saturday editions. 

The DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration has $600
million to build the plant, officials said. But the Senate and
House have not agreed on how to pay for the balance of the
project. 

Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman previously has said the plant
won't meet a 2009 production-start deadline. That means the DOE
could face a $1 million-a-day fine South Carolina. 

It's important that it be completed, said U.S. Sen. Lindsey
Graham, R-S.C. 

"What's it worth to the world to get 34 metric tons of weapons
grade plutonium off the Russian market?" Graham asked. Other
risks "pale in comparison of what could be done if plutonium
fell into the wrong hands." 

"We live in dangerous times," Graham said. 

While Russia plans to build its own MOX plant, construction
there has been delayed because of liability concerns. 

In Aiken, workers will prepare the site for construction during
the next 10 months as the U.S. and Russia work out the liability
problems. They're expected to reach an agreement later this
month. 

"Finally, the two sides have found a mutually acceptable
agreement," said Vladimir I. Rybachenkov, a counselor with the
Russian federation's embassy in Washington who attended the
ceremony. 

Environmental groups oppose putting money into the program. 

Georgians Against Nuclear Energy was barred from the event
Friday. It called the ceremony a "desperate shadowplay designed
to restore public confidence."   

*****************************************************************
 30 AU ABC: Dump fight far from over, says commentator
 
 13:13 (AEDT)Friday, 14 October 2005. 10:13 (AWST)

 A leading political commentator says the Northern Territory
Government can still mount a legal challenge against Federal
Government legislation forcing the Northern Territory to accept
a nuclear waste dump. 

The Federal Government yesterday introduced legislation it said
would remove any doubts about the Commonwealth's right to build
the dump in the Northern Territory. 

NT Chief Minister Clare Martin has expressed outrage over the
move, saying it shows a lack of respect for Territory rights. 

But Dean Jaensch, from South Australia's Flinders University,
says all states and territories have the right to test any Act
of Parliament in the High Court. 

"The only way this legislation can finally be overriding the
states in a legal sense is if the High Court says 'yes you do
have the power' so to interpret this legislation as already
having brought in the ability to override the states is
pre-empting any decision of the High Court," he said.

*****************************************************************
 31 reviewjournal.com: DOE accused of seeking 'favors' in Yucca project
 
  Oct. 14, 2005

Lawyer for state says access to documents at issue       

By STEVE TETREAULT <br/>STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU <br/>
	
WASHINGTON -- A new dispute flared Thursday over the handling of 
information for the Yucca Mountain repository plan.
 
Martin Malsch, an attorney for the state of Nevada, charged that 
the Department of Energy was seeking "special favors" to control 
access to several categories of nuclear waste documents.
 
Though not officially classified as secret, the documents are
categorized to contain sensitive information about nuclear
safeguards, military nuclear fuel and other data deemed for
"official use only." 

According to DOE estimates at a Nuclear Regulatory Commission
hearing on Thursday, the documents might total about 5,150 out
of roughly 3 million the government plans to make available in
advance of NRC repository licensing hearings. Most are U.S. Navy
documents.
 
An NRC judicial panel normally would referee disputes over
access to Yucca Mountain information, but Energy Department
lawyers argued the agency has limited authority over the
unclassified but sensitive documents. 

"DOE's position is outrageous and unsupported," Malsch said.
"DOE has been assuring the state that once it gets before the
NRC, they would be treated like any other (license) applicant
and now it is asking for special favors." 

DOE attorney Jeffery Edwards said any concern was unwarranted.
 
"The case we are dealing with is not withholding information,
all we are talking about is how to disseminate it," he said,
adding DOE could control how the documents are viewed to prevent
leaks.
 
Malsch said he was concerned about access to information about
nuclear waste from Navy submarine reactors that is planned for
burial at Yucca Mountain. 

An attorney for the Navy said there was a U.S. citizenship
requirement to review the information.
 
Malsch said that could shut out several of the state's
consultants.
 
Michael Thorne, a state-hired expert on repository performance
and safety, is British. The state also has hired five other
British scientists to work on hydrology and repository computer
modeling, according to Susan Lynch, technical administrator for
the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects.
 
Malsch said Nevada might hire more consultants from overseas
during the Yucca licensing process. Most U.S. experts have
conflicts of interest by having worked for the government or the
nuclear industry that favors the repository, he said.
 
Though there is a citizenship requirement, Navy attorney Frank
Putzu said waivers also might be granted. 

"This problem as a practical matter may go away," said NRC
administrative Judge Thomas Moore. 
	   

Copyright Š Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2005
 Stephens Media GroupPrivacy Statement
*****************************************************************
 32 Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Lawmakers push for Tallevast buyout - 

Friday, October 14, 2005                  

ELAINE SKYLAR / STAFF PHOTO
 
Wanda Washington, bottom left, and Laura Ward discuss polluted 
sites in Tallevast with State Rep. Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton, top 
right, and State Rep. Frank Peterman, D-St. Petersburg.
 
"... we've got to realize that every day that goes by is
critical."

-- State Rep. Bill Galvano

Lawmakers push for Tallevast buyout
 
The legislation would use state funds to buy back homes and
relocate families.

 By SCOTT CARROLL

TALLEVAST -- State Rep. Bill Galvano used the Tallevast
pollution problem to pass a significant environmental law last
spring, and now residents are hoping he can do it again.

Galvano's 2005 Tallevast bill, requiring businesses to notify
residents of pollution in their community, was hailed by
environmentalists and government officials. It was signed into
law with Galvano flanked by Tallevast residents and Gov. Jeb
Bush.

Galvano, R-Bradenton, was back in Tallevast on Thursday to gain
support for an even more ambitious effort -- getting $20 million
in state funds to buy the 100 or so homes that make up this
predominately black community in south Manatee County plagued by
pollution. The families would then be moved out of the polluted
area.

Galvano walked through the community with Rep. Frank Peterman,
D-St. Petersburg, whose district stretches into Manatee, and a
dozen aides and media representatives.

Peterman worked with Galvano on the Tallevast bill, and said he
wants to help push the buyout legislation through.

"Bill and I are sort of joined at the hip on a lot of issues,"
Peterman said.

Galvano acknowledged that such an expensive buyout would be
unprecedented in Florida.

One reason lawmakers have been reluctant to propose such buyouts
is the precedent it would set, he said.

"Everybody is walking real gingerly because" a polluted
community "is not a unique situation in the state of Florida,"
Galvano said. "But we've got to get people to realize that every
day that goes by is critical."

The pollution was left behind by the former American Beryllium
Co. plant, which for nearly 40 years built parts for nuclear
warheads under contract with the federal government. The
Tallevast Road plant closed in 1996. In 2000, Lockheed Martin,
which had purchased the plant property, notified county and
state officials that the soil and ground water at the site was
polluted.

Tests have shown a plume of ground water laced with potentially
cancer-causing chemicals spreads out under at least 130 acres,
and soil in parts of the community is also tainted with arsenic,
heavy metals and other dangerous materials. Lockheed has said
cleaning up the community could take up to a decade.

Residents are convinced the pollution is responsible for a host
of health afflictions in neighbors, including liver and kidney
diseases, birth defects, impotency and even nose bleeds. 
[Picture] 
ELAINE SKYLAR / STAFF PHOTO
 
Galvano greets lifelong Tallevast resident Leroy Mazon, 78, who
was sitting outside his house as Galvano and Peterman toured the
area Thursday afternoon.
 
Last modified: October 14. 2005 5:37AM
*****************************************************************
 33 Salt Lake Tribune: Envirocare cleaning up in New England

Article Last Updated: 10/14/2005 12:54:23 AM                              
                   
  Envirocare of Utah has begun work under an $8.3 million
contract to clean up radioactive waste from a Massachusetts
Superfund cleanup site where uranium-tipped bullets used to be 
made, The Boston Globe reports. 

The Tooele County radioactive waste disposal company is expected 
to remove 3,800 barrels of uranium waste and 317 tons of 
uranium-contaminated cleanup material from the 46-acre Starmet 
Corp. site in West Concord.

The initial cleanup, funded by the Army, is expected to take six 
months. Further cleanup, if needed, is expected to last as long 
as two years. 

The Globe said Starmet's predecessor, Nuclear Metals Inc., 
produced uranium-tipped bullets for the Army from 1970 to 1999. 
The site was added to the Superfund toxic waste cleanup priority 
list in 2001.   
                  
ÂŠ Copyright 2005, The Salt Lake Tribune. 
*****************************************************************
 34 Japan Times: Spent-fuel reprocessing to continue for 10 more years

  Saturday, October 15, 2005   
  
The government decided Friday to continue reprocessing spent
nuclear fuel for the next 10 years based on a policy outline
compiled by the Atomic Energy Commission.

 The commission, headed by Shunsuke Kondo, said Japan will
continue pursuing the nuclear fuel cycle based on pluthermal
power generation.

 Pluthermal, or plutonium-thermal power generation, burns
plutonium-uranium mixed oxide fuel made with plutonium
reprocessed from spent fuel from light-water reactors.

 Government officials said the commission endorsed the policy
based on a comparative study of the costs and risks of disposing
of spent nuclear fuel instead of reprocessing it.

 At the same time, the commission also recommends the government
study technologies to dispose of spent nuclear fuel.

 The outline calls for using an interim storage facility to
store spent nuclear fuel that exceeds the capacity of the
nuclear reprocessing plant in Rokkasho, Aomori Prefecture,
according to the officials.

 From around 2010, the government will begin studying how to
process or dispose of the nuclear fuel in the interim storage
facility and the spent plutonium-uranium mixed oxide fuel.

 The Japan Times: Oct. 15, 2005
(C) All rights reserved 

*****************************************************************
 35 Japan Times: Nuclear program raises issues

  Friday, October 14, 2005   
  
EDITORIAL

The Atomic Energy Commission is expected to adopt a long-term
nuclear program by the end of the month. In its draft, the
commission has stated its desire to continue its policy of
establishing a nuclear-fuel cycle that reprocesses all the spent
nuclear fuel to extract plutonium for future use as nuclear
fuel. A fast-breeder reactor, which produces more fissile
material (plutonium 239) than it consumes, will play an
important role in the nuclear-fuel cycle. The program will serve
as the basis of the nation's nuclear policy for the coming
decade, but it raises issues that need to be addressed.

 The draft proposes that nuclear-power plants generate 30 to 40
percent or more of the nation's total electric-power supply from
2030. Nuclear-generated electricity used to account for about
one-third of the total supply. But its share declined from 34
percent in fiscal 2002 to 26 percent in fiscal 2003, then rose
to 29 percent in fiscal 2004. The decline was mainly due to a
stoppage and examination of Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s
nuclear-power plants after it was discovered in August 2002 that
the examination records of 13 out of TEPCO's 17 reactors had
been tampered with from the latter half of the 1980s to the
1990s -- an act that lowered the public's trust in the
nuclear-power industry. 

Many of the nation's reactors are now 20 to 30 years old but
won't be replaced by new ones until around 2030. Increasing the
share of electricity produced by nuclear reactors to, for
example, 40 percent, will place great strain on the older
reactors. To both increase the operation rate of such reactors
and ensure their safe operation will be a great challenge. Even
if the amount of electricity produced by nuclear plants is not
raised, ensuring their safe operation will still be a
significant challenge.

 The commission studied four scenarios to deal with spent
nuclear fuel: reprocessing all the spent nuclear fuel;
reprocessing part of it while burying the rest; burying all the
spent nuclear fuel underground permanently; and keeping it in
temporary storage facilities. It chose the first scenario on
grounds that the other scenarios would weaken the nation's
energy security, and that changing present policy would be too
costly.

 The commission also suggested that a fast-breeder reactor be
introduced on a commercial basis around 2050 on the condition
that economic efficiency and other conditions are satisfied.
This policy line should be viewed as only a continuation of past
policy at a time when there is no prospect of a fast-breeder
reactor being put to practical use. The suggestion may turn out
to be totally meaningless.

 The operation of the nation's prototype fast-breeder reactor
Monju in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture, has been put on hold since
an accident in December 1995 in which 0.7 tons of sodium used as
a coolant leaked and caused a fire.

 The draft does not clarify how much the fast-breeder-reactor
project will cost. The cost to dispose of radioactive waste
matter from nuclear-power plants is also unclear. The commission
should adopt an approach that takes various options into
consideration.

 A project to burn a mixture of uranium and plutonium extracted
from spent nuclear fuel in light-water reactors is not making
much progress either. Although permission has been given to
carry out "pluthermal burning" at five reactors, there is no
prospect of doing so at four of them because irregularities in
their operations have caused local governments to voice their
disapproval.

 Pluthermal burning was devised to consume surplus plutonium
that resulted from the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel.
Because of the stoppage of the Monju fast-breeder reactor and
the slow progress in pluthermal burning, Japan's stockpile of
plutonium has been increasing. At the end of last year it
amounted to 43.1 tons -- up 2.5 tons from the previous year --
with 37.4 tons stored overseas and 5.7 tons in Japan. The
commission's original policy was that Japan would not possess
surplus plutonium. Because nuclear nonproliferation is a grave
global issue, other countries may view Japan with suspicion.

 For the first time, the commission made mention in its draft of
the need to research ways to bury spent nuclear fuel underground
without reprocessing it. This could be taken as the commission's
tacit admission that the nuclear-fuel cycle plan will not work
as expected.

 An August earthquake in Miyagi Prefecture raised concern about
the safety of the nation's nuclear-power plants. At that time,
tremors topping the maximum intensity envisaged in the design
guidelines for the Onagawa nuclear-power plant were recorded.
Unless the commission presents persuasive information on the
cost and safety of nuclear-power generation, it will be
difficult to win the public's trust and support.

 The Japan Times: Oct. 14, 2005
(C) All rights reserved 
*****************************************************************
 36 Pahrump Valley Times: Inyo receives highway study grant 

October 14, 2005

POSTLE WILL USE FUNDING TO TRACK VEHICLE TRAFFIC 
By ROBIN FLINCHUM

California Highway 127 is a relatively quiet stretch of road.
Winding through the California desert on its way to Death Valley
and the Nevada state line, it passes near the tiny hamlet of
Tecopa, directly through the small village of Shoshone, and past
the Amargosa Opera House and Hotel at Death Valley Junction,
where famous dancer Marta Becket supports an ever-growing number
of stray cats, wild horses, peacocks and wandering ostriches. 

The total number of inhabitants in all of these areas, even
including the ostriches, is less than 500, but that doesn't mean
they aren't impacted by the ever-growing number of trucks
transporting hazardous materials through their neighborhoods,
said Southern Inyo Fire Protection Chief Paul Postle. And that's
why he applied for a California State Hazardous Materials
Emergency Preparedness grant to study traffic patterns on the
lonely stretch of highway that brings some of the most dangerous
materials in existence through his jurisdiction.

 Now, with a license from the state to spend $36,000, including
$6,000 in matching funds supplied by the Southern Inyo Fire
Protection District, Postle is now searching for a qualified
consultant to design a thorough study of the traffic patterns on
Highway 127. Dating from this September when the grant was
awarded, the Southern Inyo District has one year to survey the
numbers and kinds of vehicles traveling back and forth on the
road.

 "There will be several dates when someone will actually sit out
by the highway and count," Postle said. "We need to know what's
coming down that road so we can prepare appropriately for what
might happen."

 Along with tourists traveling to local attractions such as
Death Valley National Park, the Ash Meadows National Wildlife
Refuge, and the Amargosa Canyon hiking trails in Tecopa, Highway
127 is a popular route for trucks carrying nuclear waste - and
they eventually make their way through Pahrump.

 But the study is not focusing solely on radioactive waste
transport, Postle said. "We also have jet fuel, propane, liquid
oxygen and some highly explosive materials on that route."

 The study will count all traffic coming through, Postle said,
in order to better understand the ratio of passenger vehicles or
other non-hazardous trucks to those carrying potentially
problematic materials. 

This is the first time the Southern Inyo District will implement
a study of this nature independently, but Postle said he felt
compelled to apply for the grant when Inyo County officials
dropped a plan to apply for a similar grant.

 "The Inyo County study would have included Highway 395 (in the
northern part of Inyo County) and Highway 127," Postle said,
"but then funding was awarded to CalTrans to do a study of
Highway 395 and the Inyo County plan was dropped. So I applied
for the purpose of picking up Highway 127."

 Postle said he will build on data gathered in earlier studies
and will share the results of this study with Inyo County
officials in an effort to encourage cooperation in disaster
preparedness with the county. He also said he hoped the results
would be beneficial to affected neighboring communities in Nye
and San Bernardino counties.

 The second phase of the Hazardous Materials grant, Postle said,
will be to implement the data gathered in the study. "The
state's interest is in determining whether hazardous materials
are having an impact in communities. I felt I had justification
for this study because I have seen a variety of materials coming
through and this information would be beneficial not only to
local responders but to the county as a whole," he said.

 Since the potential use of Highway 127 as a designated nuclear
waste transport route is still a controversial political issue,
Postle said the Southern Inyo study could contribute useful
information to that debate. On a local level, his crews can use
the data to plan tabletop exercises to help them identify the
gaps in their own hazardous material response planning.

 Meanwhile, every day dozens of trucks barrel along the small
highway without a call box in sight and only spotty cell phone
reception. Some are carrying much needed food and potable water,
some are carrying shiny trinkets on their way to Wal-Mart, and
some are carrying Chief Postle's worst disaster nightmares. At
the end of the year, when this study is done, he'll have a
better idea which is which, not to mention how often and how
many.

Copyright Š Pahrump Valley Times, 1997 - 2005 
*****************************************************************
 37 AU ABC: NT MPs push for waste dump. 

14/10/2005. ABC News Online
 	
The CLP Member for Solomon says the time has run out to find a
better place than the Northern Territory to build a national
nuclear waste dump.

 Dave Tollner says the facility is required in order to renew
the licence at Sydney's Lucas Heights reactor in April next year.

 A former chief nuclear scientist with ANSTO has ridiculed Mr
Tollner's suggestion that vital cancer treatments could be at
risk if the new nuclear reactor is not approved.

 But Dave Tollner is standing by his comments.

 "People's lives are certainly at risk. The fact that people
will have to wait behind people of other countries, it will
obviously put a great burden on the reactors, the medical
pharmaceutical reactors in other countries," he said.

 Mr Tollner says voting against the nuclear waste dump in
Federal Parliament would be an empty gesture.

 Mr Tollner and his party colleague Senator Nigel Scullion will
vote in favour of federal legislation that prevents any legal
challenge to the dump by the NT Government.

 Mr Tollner says the legislation will pass with or without the
CLP's vote.

 He says Senator Scullion does not have the casting vote in the
Senate, as other minor parties support the legislation.

 "Certainly in the House of Representatives the legislation will
pass as most people will be aware, the Government has an
absolute majority in the House of Representatives," he said.

 "As far as the Senate's concerned, it's my understanding that
Family First and the Democrats are all supportive of the
legislation as well." 


&copy; 2005 ABC| Privacy Policy
*****************************************************************
 38 AU ABC: Nuclear waste dump opponents vow to fight on. 

15/10/2005. ABC News Online 

A coalition of groups opposed to a national nuclear waste 
facility being built in central Australia says it will continue 
to fight the proposal despite Federal Government moves to block 
any legal challenges. 

The Government introduced legislation in Parliament this week 
aimed at removing the ability of the Territory Government to 
fight the proposed dump through the courts. 

Peter Barker from Alice Action says its members will not be 
deterred. 

"We're going to do it the old fashioned way," he said. 
"We're going to keep fighting in the streets, if need be, but 
this campaign hasn't ended with this. 
"We're going to continue to pressure this Government to make 
sure that they listen to Territorians and they listen to both 
Indigenous and non-Indigenous people that are clearly saying 
that they don't want this facility in their backyard." 

Alice Action has scoffed at claims that Australia will be 
relegated to third world health status without the dump. 

NT Country Liberal Party politicians Dave Tollner and Senator 
Nigel Scullion say Australia will be prevented from producing 
radiopharmaceuticals if the facility is not built in the 
Territory. 

Mr Barker says the Government is forgetting who will be worst 
affected by the proposal. 

"The irony of that is that the CLP forgets that the people of 
this country who do have third-world health status, that is 
Indigenous Australians, will be the ones having a radioactive 
waste dump imposed on them with all the associated health and 
environmental dangers that it comes with," he said. 

&copy; 2005 ABC| Privacy Policy 
*****************************************************************
 39 Casper Star-Tribune: Freudenthal opposes plutonium plan
 
By MEAD GRUVER Associated Press writer 

Friday, October 14, 2005 

CHEYENNE -- Gov. Dave Freudenthal is opposing plans to make
plutonium-238 at the Idaho National Laboratory near Idaho Falls,
Idaho, about 100 miles west of Jackson Hole and Grand Teton and
Yellowstone national parks.

The U.S. Department of Energy wants to produce 11 pounds of
plutonium-238 a year over 35 years for "space batteries" that
could power satellites and space probes.

Such batteries are useful when spacecraft travel too far from
the sun to use solar energy effectively. But plutonium-238 is so
toxic that ingesting even a speck could be deadly.

Freudenthal said Thursday that the potential risks outweighed
the benefits. 

"My concerns revolve around the fact that the DOE wants to use
old equipment in a potentially dangerous place to produce an
extremely toxic substance," he said in a prepared statement.

Freudenthal was also concerned that the federal government had
no specific plans for storing radioactive waste produced in the
process.

He said that after reviewing a draft environmental study of the
$300 million proposal, he agreed with Wyoming residents who have
written him with concerns.

Brad Bugger, a spokesman for the Department of Energy, said that
because plans are still being developed, Freudenthal's concerns
were premature.

"Because the plutonium that would be produced in this project
would be used for national security purposes, we believe it
would be eligible for disposal outside the state of Idaho," he
said.

He also said the reactor that will be used is safe. "We update
the internals of the reactor every eight to 10 years. The
internals are the areas that are exposed to the most radiation,"
he said.

And while Freudenthal was concerned that the reactor is near a
seismically active area, Bugger said the risk of a major
earthquake at the lab is slight.

It's not the first time the 890-square-mile laboratory complex
has worried Wyoming residents. In 2000, Jackson attorney Gerry
Spence led a successful $1 billion lawsuit to close a nuclear
waste incinerator at the facility.

Tom Patricelli, president of Keep Yellowstone Nuclear Free, said
his organization was prepared to go to court again if its
concerns aren't met. He said the reactor will be 50 years old
when it is used for the project and doesn't have a concrete
containment dome like commercial reactors.

"I'm confident that they will see the serious dangers associated
with this project and will work to see that this project that
could so seriously threaten the citizens and natural treasures
of Wyoming will be stopped," he said.

Some Idaho residents have also opposed the proposal. Idaho
officials have said they will support the project but want plans
for independent monitoring and for disposal of the waste
elsewhere. 		


  Copyright Š 19952005 Lee Enterprises    a subsidiary of Lee
*****************************************************************
 40 The Coloradoan: Rocky Flats cleanup ends; healing begins

www.coloradoan.com - Ft. Collins, CO.
 
 Former nuclear weapons site will become wildlife refuge

A contractor's announcement Thursday that the cleanup has been
completed at the former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant is
welcome news for Coloradans.

Rocky Flats, which manufactured hydrogen bomb cores, had become
an unsolicited symbol of the evolution of nuclear weapons
production in the United States. Now, it has hope for new life,
metaphorically and literally.

 Created during the Cold War in 1952, the massive 800-building
facility nestled just below the mountains initially was
considered an economic boon to thousands of workers in the
Boulder and Denver area. But by 1992, the end of the Cold War
and concerns about safety in plutonium-based facilities placed
Rocky Flats square in the center of debates over the U.S. role
in nuclear weapons production and plutonium cleanup. The symbol
cut deep, particularly in Colorado, a state with an image based
on its natural environment and breathtaking views. 

Some activists called for shutting down the facility and closing
the site permanently. Others, with more foresight, including
Colorado Sen. Wayne Allard, said Rocky Flats should be reclaimed
through the Superfund cleanup program. About eight years and $7
billion later, the cleanup operation is complete.

Despite the positive news, this remains a cautionary tale.

Absolute reclamation will never be realized, given the inability
to break down plutonium. Some hot spots remain, and the
Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Agency still
have to sign off on the cleanup work to ensure safety before
public access is permitted. The DOE will monitor the site
indefinitely, as should independent scientists.

Still, what better ending for a nuclear weapons facility than
returning the site to its natural state, as much as is possible.

The buildings are gone, once again revealing the rocky terrain;
a primary route is now a dirt road; and natural grasses sway in
the wind.

This symbolic journey will appropriately conclude with a
wildlife refuge replacing a nuclear weapons facility. 


Originally published October 14, 2005
	         
 Copyright Š2005 The Fort Collins Coloradoan.

*****************************************************************
 41 DenverPost.com: $7 billion cleanup at Rocky Flats is complete

Article Launched: 10/14/2005 01:00:00 AM                                                        
		
  By Kim McGuire Denver Post Staff Writer   

      Joseph Legare, center, of the U.S. Department of Energy
discusses the Rocky Flats cleanup completion Thursday with, from
right, U.S. Rep. Bob Beauprez of Arvada, Beauprez s wife,
Claudia, and U.S. Rep. Mark Udall of Eldorado Springs. The $7
billion cleanup is reportedly the largest completed on a U.S.
Department of Energy or federal Superfund toxic-waste site.

(Post / Hyoung Chang)       
    
Kaiser-Hill Co. officials on Thursday said they have completed
the $7 billion Rocky Flats cleanup - a major milestone in the
former nuclear- trigger plant's transformation into a public
wildlife refuge. 

The cleanup is the largest completed on a U.S. Department of
Energy or federal Superfund toxic-waste site, project managers
said. 

More than 21 tons of weapons- grade nuclear material was
removed, enough radioactive waste to fill a string of rail cars
90 miles long. 				 				 					 					 					 				 				 				 					
					 				 
"When we came on board, none of this had ever been done before,"
said John Corsi, a Kaiser spokesman. "There were no models for
us to follow." 

The Energy Department has 90 days to accept the project and can
ask Kaiser-Hill to address anything it finds unsatisfactory. 

After that, the federal Environmental Protection Agency and
state health officials must verify that the work meets cleanup
guidelines. 

Rocky Flats produced plutonium triggers from 1952 to 1989 for the 
U.S. nuclear arsenal. Every nuclear weapon in the current 
stockpile contains the Rocky Flats- produced component, which 
would help detonate the bigger bomb. 

The plant, however, also left behind a trail of hazardous and
radioactive contamination. At one time, the 6,500-acre site
contained a building that was so contaminated with plutonium, it
was widely known as "the most dangerous building in America." 

A 1994 DOE study estimated the cleanup would take 60 years and 
$37 billion. 

Since the cleanup began in 1995, questions have been raised
about its thoroughness. This summer, Kaiser-Hill discovered more
than a dozen radioactive "hot spots" near an area where barrels
containing plutonium-laced oil were stored. 

"The question has always been about the cleanup standards: How
clean is clean," said Len Ackland, a University of Colorado
professor and author of "Making a Real Killing: Rocky Flats and
the Nuclear West." 

Once the site becomes a refuge, it will feature hiking trails, 
bike paths and horse-riding trails, refuge managers have said. 
All but about 1,000 acres will be accessible to the public. U.S. 
Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., helped to pass the legislation 
establishing Rocky Flats as a refuge. 

"Rocky Flats is the best example of a nuclear cleanup success
story ever," Allard said. 

Staff writer Kim McGuire can be reached at 303-820-1240 or
kmcguire@denverpost.com. 				 				 					 					 					 				 				
				 					 					 				 				 				 				 			   		 		 		
  All contents Copyright 2005 The Denver Post or other copyright
*****************************************************************
 42 Corvallis Gazette-Times: From nuclear to nature

[gazettetimes.com] 

Last modified Friday, October 14, 2005 12:13 AM PDT   
    
 
By JUDITH KOHLER Associated Press writer 

Milestone day for big cleanup of weapons plant near Denver

DENVER  In a dramatic step involving a sprawling icon of the
Cold War, the company cleaning up the old Rocky Flats nuclear
weapons plant said Thursday that the $7 billion project was
finished and the site was ready for conversion to a wildlife
refuge. 

Kaiser-Hill Co. called its work the largest, most complex
environmental cleanup project in United States history. The
project was completed about a year ahead of schedule.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service plans to use a portion of the
6,240-acre site as a refuge that could open by 2008.

Still, it could be months before the site on the rolling plains
northwest of Denver is opened to the public. The Energy
Department has 90 days to formally accept the project and can
ask Kaiser-Hill to address concerns. Then the Environmental
Protection Agency and state officials must verify the work meets
regulatory guidelines.

The spots where contamination was the worst will remain
off-limits.

Niels Schonbeck, a biochemistry professor at Metropolitan State
College in Denver who has researched Rocky Flats, praised the
Energy Department and contract workers for using innovative
approaches  like encasing contaminated machinery in plastic 
to get the work done.

But Schonbeck, who was on a panel of experts and citizens that
monitored Rocky Flats, said the area should never be opened to
the public.

The word cleanup never should have been used. They remediated
it, they didnt clean it up, Schonbeck said.

LeRoy Moore, founder of the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice
Center, worked with an advisory group that in 1995 recommended
the site be more thoroughly cleaned.

Its not wise to say that the site is safe, Moore said. I
think its not a good idea to open Rocky Flats for public
recreation.

Other critics have said the site wont be safe because the
cleanup did not include sites where radioactive waste was
illegally dumped or buried, though hot spots will not be
within the refuge boundaries.

I wouldnt take my grandkids there. I wouldnt even go myself,
and Im old and bald-headed, said state Rep. Wes McKinley,
D-Walsh, foreman of a grand jury that investigated the former
weapons plant in 1992.

He unsuccessfully introduced a measure in the Legislature
earlier this year that would have required visitors to sign a
consent form before going to the refuge.

Rocky Flats made plutonium triggers for nuclear weapons until
1992, when it was shut down because of safety concerns and the
end of the Cold War. The core plant covered nearly 400 acres
inside a 6,000-acre buffer zone, and there were once 800
buildings with 3.5 million square feet of space on the prairie
just a few miles from the foothills of the Rockies.

More than 2,000 truckloads of waste from Rocky Flats have been
shipped to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M.,
and at least 1,900 containers of plutonium were shipped to the
Savannah River Site in South Carolina.

In all, more than 21 tons of weapons-useable nuclear material
was removed, Kaiser-Hill said. 

Copyright Š 2005  Lee Enterprises
*****************************************************************
 43 lamonitor.com: Academies called in to evaluate wells 

The Online News Source for Los Alamos
 

ROGER SNODGRASS, , Monitor Assistant Editor

The Federal government's top scientific body has been asked to
provide an independent review of the groundwater
characterization program at Los Alamos National Laboratory. 
Critics have complained and new studies have confirmed that
drilling additives used during well construction have probably
diluted readings about radioactive contaminants that were given
out to the public.

One of the main purposes of the program was to help determine
the impact of radionuclides and other hazardous contaminants on
the groundwater under the lab. Quarterly meetings have been held
for the last several years of the eight-year program to reassure
the public that the aquifer was safe. 

"We have asked the National Academies of Science to review our
groundwater program," said John Ordaz, who leads the
environmental stewardship effort for the National Nuclear
Security Administration's local office.

Ordaz cited questions raised by Robert Gilkeson, a geologist,
and a report by the Inspector General, which was in turn based
on Gilkeson's complaints that there were fundamental flaws in
the well-drilling technology. 

Ordaz said the NAS has agreed to take on the project and that
the site office is in the process of transferring funding to get
the project going.

"These things take a few months, but I think something needs to
be done." he said. "And if there are problems, we will address
them." 

At a meeting in Santa Fe on Wednesday, a committee of the
Northern New Mexico Citizens Advisory Board that formalizes
public input about environmental matters at LANL received a
draft report from the Environmental Protection Agency, whom they
had asked to review Gilkeson's information along with DOE and
LANL responses.

The draft report from the National Risk Management Research
Laboratory in Ada, Okla., supports the earlier concerns, and
says that replacement of some of the wells at critical locations
should be considered.

There are 32 wells, of which 24 have used the drilling
additives. Individual wells cost from $1 million to $4.5 million
to develop, according to public documents.

The EPA report addressed the principle focus of complaints,
related to the effects of drilling additives used in developing
the wells.

"Most of the hydrogeologic characterization wells at LANL appear
to have been installed using drilling additives that may impact
the quality of data obtained from the affected well screens,"
the authors summarized their findings.

They said LANL has documented some of these impacts in their
publications, but noted that a systematic study had not been
performed.

"In particular, the constitutuents of concern that may be most
affected by the residual drilling additives are certain
radionuclides, such as americium, cerium, plutonium, radium,
strontium, uranium," as well as other metals and organic
materials impacted in the area where the samples are collected,
the report stated.

"The vast majority of the data coming out of LANL is coming from
wells and screens that are uniformaly considered valid and
reliable. According to that data there is not any detection
above any ground water standard in the regional aquifer," said
Mat Johanson of the NNSA's site office. "We

are aggressively looking at that subset of data to test its
reliability, and where the data and wells are not reliable we
have already taken corrective action."

Last week, a LANL a spokesperson said the drilling fluids were
necessary for deep drilling in the local geology. LANL maintains
that the drilling method is specifically allowable under the
federal regulations.

The Environmental Monitoring, Surveillance and Remediation
Committee chair Chris Timm said, "I am frankly disappointed that
the report has found as many problems as it did. I had hoped the
information would stand up better for the sake of the public.

Unfortunately, it raises the concern about whether the public is
being properly informed and whether their groundwater is being
protected."

Ordaz said NNSA, which took over the well-drilling project from
the laboratory a few years ago, has a study underway "to look at
all the wells and determine how good they are."

Tim Glasco, deputy utilities manager for gas, water and sewer
services for Los Alamos County said the use of drilling
additives is quite common and that all of the water production
wells were done that way, but that the county's purpose was
different from the monitoring program, where very small levels
of contaminants are at issue.

"One of the reasons we're encouraging conservation is to back
off on that pull that pumping our drinking water has on the
contaminants that are going through the aquifer," he said

On Friday last week, a review by the Inspector General of the
Department of Energy came down largely on the side of Gilkeson,
the geologist, who had asked NNMCAB and the Inspector General to
intervene in what he has described as a badly flawed drilling
methodology.

Gilkeson was a consultant who worked on remedial work plans for
some of the laboratory's most polluted areas.

In 1996 and then again from 1997 to 1998, he was associated with
the design of the lab's well drilling project, but resigned from
the project, he said, because of disagreement over the adequacy
of the wells for providing accurate data.

The dispute grew into a flurry of papers by Gilkeson, rebuttals
from the laboratory, and even more detailed technical critiques
of the lab's water testing technology by Gilkeson, which have
now begun to be noticed.

Gilkeson charged that the laboratory's production methods,
involving drilling fluids, foams and a clay compound, were
potentially distorting the results.

Furthermore, the screens used to gather samples in specified
locations in the well, he repeated during the subcommittee
meeting, were providing "spurious" information, concerning the
permeability of the underground formations.

Permeability relates to how quickly water-borne contaminants
might travel through the subsurface.

In a recent report, the Inspector General said, in effect, that
Gilkeson was right about the problems he had raised, while
granting that DOE and LANL may have been within the letter of
the law about the applicable regulations.   

  Š 2003 Los Alamos Monitor All Rights Reserved.   
*****************************************************************
 44 Guardian Unlimited: $7B Cleanup at Rocky Flats Said Finished
 
From the Associated Press        
	 
[UP] 

Friday October 14, 2005 1:01 AM
 	
By DAN ELLIOTT 
Associated Press Writer 

DENVER (AP) - The contractor hired to clean up the former Rocky
Flats nuclear weapons plant declared the $7 billion, 10-year
project completed Thursday, a major milestone in the conversion
of the site to a wildlife refuge. 

Kaiser-Hill Co. said it was proud of the effort to ``complete
the largest, most complex environmental cleanup project in
United States history.'' 

However, it could be months before the site on the rolling
plains northwest of Denver is opened to the public, because
federal regulators must certify it as safe. 

The Energy Department has 90 days to accept the project and can
ask Kaiser-Hill to address any concerns. After that, the
Environmental Protection Agency and state officials must verify
that the work meets various guidelines. 

Rocky Flats made plutonium triggers for nuclear weapons until
1992, when it was shut down because of safety concerns and the
end of the Cold War. The core plant, covering nearly 400 acres
inside a 6,000-acre buffer zone, once contained 800 buildings. 

More than 2,000 truckloads of waste from Rocky Flats were
shipped to a repository near Carlsbad, N.M., and at least 1,900
containers of plutonium were sent to the Savannah River nuclear
weapons installation in South Carolina. 

In all, more than 21 tons of weapons-useable nuclear material
were removed, Kaiser-Hill said. 

Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., pronounced Rocky Flats ``the best
example of a nuclear cleanup success story ever.'' 

Parts of the site will eventually be opened to the public as a
federal wildlife refuge, but some areas where the contamination
was worst will remain off-limits. 

``As a result of everyone's hard work, Rocky Flats will now
become a jewel of open space to be enjoyed in perpetuity,'' said
Rep. Bob Beauprez, R-Colo. 

Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo., toured the site Wednesday and said
nothing remained of the weapons plant. ``We are, in sum, much
safer than we were, and I say that as someone who lives just
three miles from the site,'' the congressman said. 

Niels Schonbeck, a biochemistry professor at Metropolitan State
College in Denver who has researched Rocky Flats, praised the
Energy Department and workers for using innovative approaches -
like encasing contaminated machinery in plastic - to get the
work done. 

But Schonbeck, who was on a panel of experts and citizens that
monitored Rocky Flats, said the area should never be opened to
the public. 

``The word 'cleanup' never should have been used. They
remediated it; they didn't clean it up,'' Schonbeck said. 

Other critics say Rocky Flats won't be safe because the cleanup
did not include sites where radioactive waste was illegally
dumped or buried, though ``hot spots'' will not be within the
refuge boundaries. 

--- 
Associated Press Writer Judith Kohler contributed to this
report. 
		 	 	   
      Guardian Unlimited Š Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
 45 Rocky Mountain News: Cleanup of Flats declared finished

By Todd Hartman And Kevin Vaughan, Rocky Mountain News

October 14, 2005

It's official. 

Kaiser-Hill, the company that undertook a 10-year, $7 billion
cleanup of the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons factory, declared the
job finished Thursday. 
			
 Several procedural steps await before Rocky Flats is turned
over to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for use as a refuge. 
The Department of Energy must determine that cleanup work is
complete, which could take up to 90 days, but will likely happen
more quickly, a DOE official said. 

Because Rocky Flats is listed as a Superfund site, a designation
that makes it one of the country's highest-priority toxic
cleanups, the Environmental Protection Agency must approve the
work as well. 

Final certification from EPA, following the site's removal from
the Superfund list, isn't likely until early 2007, said DOE's
John Rampe, overseeing Rocky Flats' closure for the agency. 

At that point, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service would take
responsibility for managing the roughly 6,000-acre site, except
for the nearly 400-acre industrial zone in the center of the
refuge. That area, formerly home to Rocky Flats' bomb-building
activities, will remain under the jurisdiction of DOE, which has
set up long-term monitoring of contamination there. 

Despite the work still to be done, officials beamed Thursday as
they stood in the middle of a newly seeded field that once was
home to 800 buildings where thousands of workers built the
nuclear bombs that form the cores to every atomic weapon in the
U.S. arsenal. 

"Ten years ago, you would be standing in the shadow of one of
the nation's nuclear weapons plants," said Joe Legare of the
Department of Energy. 

Public access to the new wildlife refuge may not come for
several years after the handover to the Fish and Wildlife
Service. That's because budget shortfalls leave the agency
ill-equipped to add staff and make trail improvements, said Dean
Rundle, Fish and Wildlife refuge manager. 

"If budget forecasts stay the way it is, Rocky Flats will go
into kind of a caretaker mode," Rundle said. 

Assuming the agency takes jurisdiction of the facility in 2007,
the Fish and Wildlife Service would probably only be able to
afford the bare minimum: provide law enforcement at the site,
control invasive weeds and monitor any endangered species. 

"People should not have a perception that if the land is
transferred on Feb. 15, 2007, that it will be open with tours,"
Rundle said. 

A 15-year management plan for the site eventually calls for a
small visitor station near the west entrance of Rocky Flats off
Colorado 93, some interpretive signs and benches and well as
16.5 miles of trails that connect to the trail networks of local
governments surrounding the site, Rundle said.  

2005 Š Rocky Mountain News
    
*****************************************************************

NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this 
material is distributed without profit or payment to those who 
have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for 
non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more 
information go to: 
<http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml> 
    
*****************************************************************