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NUCLEAR POLICY
1 IPS-English POLITICS: German Urges Compromise on Iran
2 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: Iran, Ukraine discuss bilateral ties
3 AFP: Iran says could be 'flexible' in nuclear talks
4 AFP: Iran says call to suspend enrichment not 'reasonable'
5 IRNA: MP: US seeking to hasten examination of Iran's nuclear issue -
6 IRNA: Asefi optimistic about nuclear talks
7 IRNA: US incoherent stance prevents talks with Iran - Asefi
8 AFP: US shrugs off North Korea nuclear threat
9 Boston Globe: Plan would seal US-India alliance, open trading doors
10 US: MJ: Pentagon Fireworks Deferred
11 HindustanTimes.com: RSS gushes over Indo-US nuke deal
NUCLEAR REACTORS
12 [NukeNet] UK: Nuclear cut back in energy plans
13 US: NRC: Dr. Dale Klein Sworn In as NRC Chairman
14 US: Platts: New NRC chairman to take oath
15 US: NRC: Notice of Availability of Environmental Assessment and Find
16 US: NRC: Agency Information Collection Activities: Submission for th
17 US: NRC: Environmental Assessment and Finding of No Significant Impa
18 US: NRC: Environmental Assessment and Finding of No Significant Impa
19 US: St. Petersburg Times: Nuclear power plants not as scary as portr
20 US: The Day: Millstone Foes Storm The Beach
21 AU ABC: Campaigner attacks nuclear inquirys credibility
22 FT.com: A changing climate for nuclear energy
NUCLEAR SECURITY
23 US: UPI: NNSA sets up new nuclear planning office
24 US: UPI: NNSA dismantles W56 nukes
25 US: UPI: NNSA delivers restored nuclear weapon
NUCLEAR SAFETY
26 [NukeNet] Jane Goodall on the Marshall Islands
27 [NYTr] Remembering the Marshall Islands
28 US: NRC: RIN 3150-AH48
29 US: IEER: Environmental Transport of Radium and Plutonium
NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
30 US: Green Left Weekly: Aboriginal, environmental alliance against ur
31 US: baltimoresun.com: Nuclear folly -
32 BBC: BNFL sees positive nuclear future
33 Las Vegas SUN: Book says geology wrong at Yucca
PEACE
US DEPT. OF ENERGY
34 Tri-City Herald: Vit plant earthquake study under way
35 Tri-City Herald: PNNL scientists working to end power grid debacles
36 lamonitor.com: 'LANL: The Real Story' blog shuts down
37 DOE: Dismantlement of Office of Environment, Safety and Health
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FULL NEWS STORIES
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1 IPS-English POLITICS: German Urges Compromise on Iran
Date: Mon, 03 Jul 2006 16:20:22 -0700
ROMAIPS EU MM NA HD IP BW ML NU=20
POLITICS: German Urges Compromise on Iran Enrichment
Analysis by Gareth Porter*
WASHINGTON, Jul 3 (IPS) - German Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung's sugg=
estion that Iran should be allowed to carry out a limited enrichment prog=
ramme under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IA=
EA) has exposed a fundamental crack in the fa=E7ade of unity among the si=
x countries that have given Iran a proposal aimed at halting all its enri=
chment activities.
The United States immediately insisted that the German government had tol=
d it the story, reported by Reuters on Jun. 28, was =94erroneous=94. How=
ever, Bonn never retracted Jung's statement, although it reiterated its s=
upport for the proposal to Iran from the five permanent U.N. Security Cou=
ncil members plus Germany (P5 + 1).
The proposal offers a number of economic incentives in return for Iranian=
suspension enrichment and lists possible economic measures against Iran =
if refuses. It allows a return to enrichment in the indefinite future onl=
y with Security Council approval.
The episode highlights the fears of many in Europe that the present refus=
al by the P5 + 1 to compromise on the enrichment issue will produce the o=
pposite outcome -- an unrestrained and unmonitored Iranian enrichment pro=
gramme.
In an interview with Reuters last week, Jung was asked if Iran should be =
allowed to enrich uranium under the scrutiny of the Vienna-based IAEA. He=
answered, =94I think so.=94
Jung said he understood U.S. reservations about allowing any enrichment a=
ctivities, but added, =94One cannot forbid Iran from doing what other cou=
ntries in the world are doing in accordance with international law. The k=
ey point is whether a step toward nuclear weapons is taken. This cannot h=
appen,=94 Jung said.
Jung said close IAEA oversight could show the world whether Tehran's nucl=
ear programme was as peaceful as it says, according to Reuters. =94IAEA i=
nspections can provide those assurances through monitoring,=94 he was quo=
ted as saying. =94That is not a problem.=94
U.S. State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said the following day that th=
e German government had been contacted about the interview and had told t=
he United States, =94This is an erroneous story=94.
But German government spokesman Ulrich Wilhelm neither denied nor renounc=
ed Jung's position. Instead he told Reuters that Germany stood behind the=
Jun. 6 offer to Iran.
Jung's expressed willingness to allow enrichment by Iran nevertheless put=
s Germany sharply at odds with the George W. Bush administration and its =
British and French allies, which are determined to demand a complete halt=
to all Iranian uranium enrichment activities.
It also departs dramatically from the position represented in the formal =
proposal from the P5 +1 given to the Iranians on Jun. 6.
That proposal, which has not been made public, was based on the premise t=
hat IAEA inspections cannot be relied on to indicate whether or not Iran'=
s nuclear programme is being used for weapons development. The proposal w=
ould not permit any enrichment activities until the six powers themselves=
are prepared to allow it.
As reported by the New York Times on Jun. 8, the six powers had reached a=
n understanding among themselves that, even if Iran's nuclear programme w=
ere to be given the IAEA seal of approval, Tehran could not resume enrich=
ment unless the Security Council votes unanimously to permit it.
A senior European official was quoted by the Times as saying, =94The pack=
age does not say that if the IAEA gives Iran a clean bill of health that =
it will be the end of the moratorium. It simply means we will re-examine =
it.=94
That would deprive the more objective IAEA of any role in judging Iran's =
good faith and give the United States a veto power over Iran's enrichment=
programme. The Bush administration is well known to have no intention of=
allowing Iran to have any enrichment under any circumstances.
A European official who asked not to be identified told IPS on Jun. 29 th=
at the Iranians are well aware that the proposal would give the United St=
ates a veto power over any Iranian resumption of enrichment.
=94The Iranians see it as a trap,=94 the official said. =94They would lik=
e to discuss the veto power of the United States over the question of con=
fidence building.=94
Until Jung's interview, the six countries behind the Jun. 6 proposal to I=
ran had been careful not to say anything suggesting disagreements until I=
ran had replied. But it has become increasingly clear in recent weeks tha=
t Iran will not accept the P5 + 1 suspension demand.
Jung's call for a compromise indicates a high level of concern in Bonn th=
at the P5 + 1 position on enrichment will create a dangerous diplomatic i=
mpasse.
The United States, Britain and France appear poised to initiate a move fo=
r a tough Security Council resolution if Iran does not respond positively=
to the proposal by mid-July. On Jun. 28, Reuters quoted a Western diplom=
at as saying that, if Iran does not produce a firm pledge to do so by Jul=
. 12, the coalition would =94dust off a Security Council resolution we ha=
d been looking into to make a suspension mandatory=94.
Both Russia and China have publicly opposed sanctions against Iran. Germa=
ny has said it has not ruled out economic sanctions but has never committ=
ed itself to that course.
If the six powers fail to negotiate a compromise with Iran in the coming =
months, Iran may proceed with an enrichment programme that would not be c=
onstrained either by international agreement or by strict IAEA monitoring
Iranian officials have offered on several occasions since March 2005 to n=
egotiate an agreement that would limit the number of centrifuges that Ira=
n could use to enrich uranium and place the programme under the strictest=
possible IAEA monitoring. Those proposals were dismissed officially by B=
ritain, France and Germany.
If Iran were limited by an agreement to the 164 centrifuges currently in =
use, the U.S. State Department has calculated that it would take a little=
over 13 years to produce enough highly enriched uranium for a nuclear we=
apon.
But in April, Iran informed the IAEA that it plans to construct 3,000 cen=
trifuges at Natanz by April 2007. Once Iran masters a 3,000-centrifuge ca=
scade it would be able to produce enough enriched uranium for a nuclear w=
eapon within 271 days, according to the U.S. calculations.
Some EU officials, including the Germans, have long believed that the EU3=
-- France, England and Germany -- would have to eventually agree to a li=
mited enrichment programme. Last October, an unnamed European official wh=
o had been involved in the negotiations with Iran said in an interview wi=
th the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, =94In the end, we are g=
oing to have to move further and put more creative ideas on the table, an=
d a supervised, strictly limited enrichment scheme on Iranian soil may be=
one of them.=94
The Bush administration appears bent on maintaining a confrontation with =
Iran that precludes any compromise on enrichment. But the Jung interview =
suggests that there will be frantic efforts in the coming weeks by some i=
n the coalition to head off a diplomatic disaster on Iran's nuclear progr=
amme.
*Gareth Porter is an historian and national security policy analyst. His =
latest book, =94Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to W=
ar in Vietnam=94, was published in June 2005.
*****
+POLITICS: Defying U.S. Deadline, Iran Recalls 2005 Stall (http://ipsnews=
.net/news.asp?idnews=3D33767)
+U.S./IRAN: Conditional Offer for Talks Seen as a Gamble (http://ipsnews.=
net/news.asp?idnews=3D33447)
(END/IPS/NA/EU/MM/IP/HD/NU/BW/ML/GP/KS/06)
=20
=3D 07031904 ORP005
NNNN
*****************************************************************
2 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: Iran, Ukraine discuss bilateral ties
2006/07/02
04:07:45 È.Ù
Iran and Ukraine Sunday discussed the latest developments in
Tehran-Kiev bilateral relations.
Outgoing Ukrainian Ambassador to Tehran Vladimir Ivanovich
Butyaga in a meeting with Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Mehdi
Mostafavi Bade farewell to him at the end of his mission in
Tehran.
Highlighting the significance of further bolstering Tehran-Kiev
ties, Mostafavi said, "Tehran sees no obstacle in its way to
expand ties with Kiev."
Butyaga, for his part, pointed to the existing ground for
expansion of political, economic and cultural cooperation
between the two countries and said presence of Iranian
university students in Ukraine and increase in volume of
bilateral trade in 2005, were indications to the two sides
determination to boost ties.
Iran-Ukraine bilateral trade exchanges stood at some dlrs 600
million in 2005.
SM
Copyright 2004, All Rights Reserved By Islamic Republic of Iran
Broadcasting News Network Sponsored By IRIB News Computer Center.
E-Mail: ebmaster@IRIBNEWS.ir
*****************************************************************
3 AFP: Iran says could be 'flexible' in nuclear talks
Mon Jul 3, 12:01 PM ET
TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran " /> Irancould be flexible in talks aimed at
resolving a nuclear standoff with the international community if
its "red lines" are respected, according to a senior national
security official.
"It is necessary to show some voluntary flexibility that does
not violate principles and red lines if the issue is pursued on
an acceptable path," Ali Hosseini-Tash, a member of the Supreme
National Security Council, told the student ISNA news agency.
Iran has been offered a package of incentives if it agrees to
suspend sensitive uranium enrichment -- a process in the nuclear
fuel cycle which can also make the core of an atom bomb.
But Tehran considers enrichment as its non-negotiable red line,
and Hosseini-Tash reiterated that "suspension of peaceful
nuclear activities is not a pre-condition" to talks over the
incentive package.
The enrichment activities are at the focus of concerns in the
West that the hardline regime of Tehran could acquire nuclear
weapons, although Iran insists the program is only aimed at
generating electricity.
Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The
*****************************************************************
4 AFP: Iran says call to suspend enrichment not 'reasonable'
by by Hiedeh Farmani Mon Jul 3, 4:19 PM ET
TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran " /> Iran's chief nuclear negotiator said the
international community's proposal for Tehran to suspend uranium
enrichment was unreasonable, ahead of a key meeting with the EU
on the nuclear dispute.
"We have given our opinion before, and we believe it is not a
reasonable proposal," he said, quoted by the semi-official Mehr
news agency.
The Islamic republic has been offered a package of incentives by
the world's major powers if it agrees to suspend sensitive
uranium enrichment -- a process in the nuclear fuel cycle that
can also make the core of an atom bomb.
Larijani and the European Union
" /> European Union's foreign policy chief Javier Solana are to
meet in Brussels on Wednesday on the package, but the Iranian
official ruled out any speedy response from Tehran on the
proposal.
Earlier, a senior Iranian security official said that Tehran
could be flexible in the talks to resolve the nuclear standoff
with the West if its "red lines" were respected.
"It is necessary to show some voluntary flexibility that does
not violate principles and red lines if the issue is pursued on
an acceptable path," Ali Hosseini-Tash, a member of the Supreme
National Security Council, told the student ISNA news agency.
Tehran considers enrichment to be its non-negotiable red line,
and Hosseini-Tash reiterated that "suspension of peaceful
nuclear activities is not a pre-condition" for talks over the
incentive package.
The enrichment activities are the focus of concerns in the West
that Tehran could acquire nuclear weapons, although the Islamic
republic insists the programme is only aimed at generating
electricity.
The United States said Friday it expected Iran to respond to the
international offer -- which it received June 6 -- at the
Brussels meeting.
"We've seen lots of political statements from lots of political
figures. We are waiting for the authoritative channel which is
the Larijani channel to Solana," US Under Secretary for
Political Affairs Nicholas Burns said.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has set August 22 as the
date for Tehran's response.
And Larijani warned that deadlines would "not help" resolve the
dispute. "Such a question is not up for discussion" at the
meeting in Brussels, said the chief negotiator.
"Once the packet of proposals has been studied, we will announce
the result" of Iran's decision, he said.
Asefi on Sunday insisted the Iranian authorities were not trying
to buy time. "It is not a question of tactics and wasting time.
It is a multi-dimensional package and takes time to examine," he
said.
"There are ambiguities (in the package) which need to be
discussed with the Europeans.
"We will submit a logical response considering our country's
rights and interests," said Asefi said, adding that "alleviating
the West's concerns should not be interpreted as sacrificing our
interests."
Senior US military officers, meanwhile, have warned the
Washington administration that bombing raids against Iran would
likely fail to destroy the country's nuclear programme because
of a lack of reliable intelligence, the New Yorker magazine
reported Sunday.
Pentagon " /> Pentagonofficers "have told the administration that
the bombing campaign will probably not succeed in destroying
Iran's nuclear program", Pulitzer Prize winning journalist
Seymour Hersh wrote in the magazine's latest edition. The
officers are concerned about contingency plans to launch air
strikes against Iran in the absence of reliable intelligence or
concrete evidence of bomb-making, the magazine said, citing
unnamed active duty and retired officers and officials.
Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The
*****************************************************************
5 IRNA: MP: US seeking to hasten examination of Iran's nuclear issue -
Tehran, July 2, IRNA
Iran-Jalali-Nuclear
Rapporteur of Majlis' National Security and Foreign Policy
Commission Kazem Jalali said here Sunday that the US is trying
to hasten the process of examining Iran's nuclear issue.
He told IRNA that the process of hastening the issue is
improper and cannot guarantee the interests of those involved.
"As Europe has repeatedly called for more time for submitting
their proposals and responding to our views, so it is now quite
natural for Iran to require more time to examine the package of
proposals and arrive at a decision.
"The Europeans should not call for expediting the assessment
process and expect a hasty response. Of course, Iran has already
specified the time its response is expected to be announced," he
added.
In response to the question about the objective of rushing Iran
to respond to Europe's proposal, he said that in fact, Western
states do not seek to solve Iran's nuclear issue and that they
have shown no goodwill in this respect.
Replying to another question about Iran's stance on the issue,
Jalali said, "Iran's view in this respect can be divided in two
parts.
One relates to the part of the issue considered to be positive
and a step forward.
"The other is about the part of issue on which Iran has a point
of view. This requires to be discussed to reach a common
position." 2326/2322/1412
*****************************************************************
6 IRNA: Asefi optimistic about nuclear talks
Tehran, July 2, IRNA
Iran-Asefi-Nuclear
Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid-Reza Asefi on Sunday expressed
optimism about Iran's nuclear talks with European states.
Asefi said this while speaking to domestic and foreign
reporters at his weekly press conference during which he was
asked about the nuclear negotiations.
"If talks are based on logic, I am optimistic about them.
Unless the European sides show an irrational attitude.
"Negotiations should restore rights of the Islamic Republic of
Iran," he said.
In response to a question on a statement issued by G-8 which
assessed as disappointing Iran's response to a package of
incentives offered by the six world powers (P5+1), he added, "We
do not regard such statements as very constructive. We did not
present any response yet to be disappointing.
"Iran's response will take into consideration national
interests and the rights of the country. We will, however,
strive to remove the concerns of the West."
The European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana, on June
6, visited Iran to hand over a package of incentives approved by
the five permanent members of the UN Security Council -- Russia,
China, Britain, France and the United States -- plus Germany
(Permanent 5+1) to persuade Iran to suspend its uranium
enrichment activities and resume talks to settle the dispute
over its nuclear program.
The spokesman added, "There are ambiguities in the package in
different aspects which should be discussed with the Europeans."
He pointed to the views of European officials who have said the
P5+1 offered an attractive and multi-dimensional package to Iran
which included security, political and economic issues, saying,
"If such remarks were correct, it will take time to give
response.
"It is not a question of tactics and wasting time. Europe
should be happy and content that Iran will give its response
next month.
"Europe should be grateful to Iran for the precise response it
is going to give to its proposed package. The Europeans also
know that precision should not be sacrificed for speed."
Asked about place and date set for negotiations between
Secretary of Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Ali
Larijani and Solana, Asefi said, "We have close talks with the
European states and are serious in our task."
Pointing to serious and daily work by different committees on
Europe's proposed package, he said Larijani and Solana are in
regular contact.
Asefi added Larijani and Solana would meet on Wednesday
probably in a European country.
"In the meeting, the two sides will express their views to
remove ambiguities and arrive at a result."
The spokesman expressed hope Iran's constructive talks with
Europe would not be diverted from its natural course and that
they would bear acceptable fruits.
He said no deadline has been set for Iran to give its response
to the proposed package of incentives, adding raising such
statement would not be constructive.
"Different committees are carrying out their task with
precision and seriousness in reviewing the Europe's proposals.
The Islamic Republic of Iran will announce its response next
month which will not be a long time.
"The Europeans have just said they expect Iran to present its
reply at the earliest," Asefi said.
*****************************************************************
7 IRNA: US incoherent stance prevents talks with Iran - Asefi
Tehran, July 2, IRNA
Iran-US-Talks
Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid-Reza Asefi said here Sunday
that lack of coherent stance among US officials prevented talks
between Tehran and Washington.
"The US officials have not made up their mind to hold
negotiations with Iran," Asefi told reporters at his weekly
press conference.
"The US was confused whether to talk with Iran or not.
Sometimes they set preconditions and sometimes they set no
preconditions.
"This is while Iran adopted a transparent stance from the very
beginning," he added.
Pointing to the US repeated calls to hold talks with Tehran, he
said, "The Islamic Republic of Iran agreed to negotiate with
Washington upon a request from Iraqi officials and based on
Iraq's interests.
"Iran was not very optimistic about talks with the US from the
beginning and did not regard it as practical and constructive."
2327/2322/1412
*****************************************************************
8 AFP: US shrugs off North Korea nuclear threat
Mon Jul 3, 4:29 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The White House dismissed North Korea " />
North Korea's threat of a nuclear strike in the event of a US
attack as "deeply hypothetical" and urged Pyongyang to rejoin
nuclear negotiations.
North Korea vowed Monday to counter any strike by the United
States with its "mighty nuclear deterrent," accusing Washington
of raising tension on the Korean peninsula.
"It is a statement about what may happen if something that
hasn't happened, happened, if you follow my drift. It is still
deeply hypothetical," said White House spokesman Tony Snow.
North Korea has since November boycotted six-nation talks on
ending its atomic drive, saying it will only come back to the
table after the US lifts financial sanctions.
"The strong preference of the United States and the other
parties to the six-party talks, other than North Korea, is for
North Korea to rejoin the talks, to sit down at the table," said
Snow.
The negotiations involve the two Koreas, Japan, Russia, the
United States and China.
Echoing the White House's stance, the State Department said the
United States had no plans to launch an attack on North Korea.
"As the president and the secretary have made clear, the United
States has no intention of invading or attacking North Korea,"
said Julie Reside, a State Department spokeswoman.
The six nations involved in negotiations with North Korea have
set out "a framework whereby North Korea could achieve a
fundamentally different relationship with both the United States
and its neighbours in the context of the complete and verifiable
elimination of its nuclear weapons and nuclear programs," Reside
said.
In a joint declaration brokered in September 2005, North Korea
agreed in principle to end its atomic weapons program in return
for security and diplomatic guarantees and critical energy aid.
The six-party talks were suspended last November when Washington
rejected Pyongyang's demand for the removal of US sanctions
imposed on a Macao-based bank for allegedly distributing
counterfeit US dollars and laundering money for the Stalinist
state.
Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The
*****************************************************************
9 Boston Globe: Plan would seal US-India alliance, open trading doors
[Vice President Dick Cheney addressed the leadership summit of
the US-India Business Council in Washington, D.C. He stressed
support for the US-India civilian nuclear deal.]
(Scott Applewhite/ Associated Press)
Trade plan would allow nuclear sales to India Boston Globe
WASHINGTON -- Over the past six years, the largest consortium of
businesses in India spent more than $1 million on fact-finding
trips to India for US members of Congress, their staff, and
spouses, and on lobbying Congress to pass a law that would
fundamentally change India's relationship with the United
States.
Critics call deal bad foreign policy
By Farah Stockman, Globe Staff | July 3, 2006
WASHINGTON -- Over the past six years, the largest consortium of
businesses in India spent more than $1 million on fact-finding
trips to India for US members of Congress, their staff, and
spouses, and on lobbying Congress to pass a law that would
fundamentally change India's relationship with the United States.
Last week, the efforts of the New Delhi-based Confederation of
Indian Industry and a simultaneous lobbying campaign by American
industrial companies paid off: Two key congressional committees
approved a controversial plan to allow trade with India
involving nuclear technology and other sensitive areas.
If the full Congress approves the plan, the deal would cement a
historic new US-India alliance and open the doors to billions of
dollars worth of high-tech and military sales to the South Asian
nation. India will become the only country in the world to gain
access to sensitive US nuclear technology without signing the
Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and agreeing to give up its
nuclear arsenal. In return, India would tighten its export
controls and place some of its nuclear reactors under
international inspections.
Supporters of the plan say it is a ``win-win" proposal,
increasing business ties with one of the world's fastest-growing
economies and strengthening nuclear safeguards in India at the
same time.
But critics say billion-dollar business interests -- in the
United States as well as India -- have trumped the decades-old
policy of trying to get India to give up its nuclear weapons
program. They point to the massive, behind-the-scenes lobbying
effort by the Confederation and US businesses as proof.
``It is clear that business interests and US defense contractors
and former US officials involved in South Asia policy have been
working hard to push this deal," said Daryl Kimball, executive
director of the Arms Control Association. ``History has shown
that US nonproliferation policy has consistently been
compromised by interests in maintaining good relations or
expanding business ties."
President Bush backed the proposal as a way to allow India to
buy civilian nuclear reactors from the West, helping it feed its
ever-growing needs for power without resorting to
pollution-prone conventional power plants. Bush administration
officials say the deal also provides a host of strategic
advantages, including building a lasting friendship with a
rapidly growing democracy in Asia, as a check on China's growing
influence.
But few deny that the prospect of business opportunities worth
billions of dollars helped fuel the deal. For Indian
entrepreneurs, it is an opportunity to make money on privatized
nuclear power plants and buy high-tech equipment that has been
restricted for decades. For US businesses, it is a chance to
invest in India's rapidly growing energy sector, to sell
supplies to Indian nuclear reactors, and -- for the first time
-- to have a shot at large-scale military contracts.
The legislation approved by the committees would lift
prohibitions on civilian nuclear trade with India. Selling
nuclear equipment to India has been off-limits since it
developed and tested a nuclear weapon in 1974 outside the
Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Poor relations and intermittent
s anctions have prevented other kinds of military trade.
``I believe that all things being equal, we will get a
considerable portion of the $20 [billion] to $40 billion in
acquisition that the Indians plan on making by 2020," said
Raymond Vickery, a senior adviser to the US-India Business
Council, the US counterpart to the New Delhi-based
Confederation, which is carrying out its own extensive lobbying
effort.
Vickery said that congressional approval of the deal would give
Lockheed Martin a reasonable chance to get a $4 billion to $9
billion contract to supply 126 combat fighter planes to India's
Navy, a contract that India would have been unlikely to approve
while sanctions were in place.
Westinghouse, whose nuclear division is based in Western
Pennsylvania, could help India build a civilian nuclear reactor,
and Atlanta-based General Electric would be well-placed to get a
contract to supply India's reactors with nuclear fuel, Vickery
said.
The business prospects have spurred the US-India Business
Council, which represents 200 US businesses operating in India,
to hire heavyweight lobbying firm Patton Boggs to work on the
issue and hold strategy meetings about how to approach skeptics
on Capitol Hill. Reports on the expenses of the American group's
lobbying on India have not been filed.
But one of the quietest and most persistent efforts to influence
Congress on India policy has come from the Confederation of
Indian Industry, which represents some of India's most
profitable companies. The group was among the top international
organizations paying for congressional travel between 2000 and
2005, even though they were not registered to lobby at the time,
according to a review of congressional disclosure records
conducted by the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit
research organization in Washington.
During that period, they paid more than $538,000 in travel
expenses for trips by 19 Congress members, 11 spouses, and 58
congressional staffers, according to the records.
The group spent the most money on travel for Representative Jim
McDermott, a Washington Democrat, and his staffers, whose four
trips to India cost about $40,955. McDermott, a cofounder of the
Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans, has not
taken a formal position on the India nuclear proposal, according
to his spokesman, Michael DeCesare.
DeCesare said the 2004 trip to India was intended to discuss
AIDS in workplaces, and McDermott was not approached at that
time on the nuclear issue.
Foreign organizations and governments are allowed to lobby the
US government, but they must register with federal officials.
Of the 50 members serving on the House Foreign Relations
Committee, eight had trips to India paid for by the
Confederation, traveling or sending a staffer. One of the eight,
Representative Barbara Lee, a California Democrat, voted against
the proposal last week when the committee overwhelmingly
approved the deal.
In April 2005, the Confederation registered to lobby for the
first time, paying Barbour Griffith & Rogers , a well-connected
lobbying firm, $520,000 to lobby US government agencies,
including Congress, the White House, the State Department, and
the Department of Defense.
Robert Blackwill , who served as ambassador to India and deputy
national security adviser under Bush, was hired by the firm to
run the effort. A former foreign policy staffer for Senator
Chuck Hagel assisted. In September 2005, the embassy of India
also hired the firm, paying $240,000.
Businesses on both sides of the ocean have advocated closer
US-India ties for years. But the issue of India's nuclear
program always got in the way.
``It was like a cinder in our eye," said Frank Wisner , another
former ambassador to India who once served as chairman of the
US-India Business Council.
Indian officials said the legislative deal will send a signal to
businesses of a lasting alliance between the two countries and
give a legal framework to their new relationship.
``There are going to be opportunities for investment and
infrastructure and energy that are mind-boggling," said Raminder
Jassal, deputy chief of mission at the Indian Embassy.
For decades, the United States and India distrusted one another.
During the Cold War, India refused to take sides and embraced a
socialist economy.
After its 1974 test, India refused US demands to sign the
Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which gives five countries,
including the United States, a right to retain nuclear weapons
but prohibits others from developing them.
US efforts to contain India's nuclear program carried a price
for US businesses. For instance, General Electric had to stop
supplying nuclear fuel to Indian reactors.
By the early 1990s, when India moved to a more capitalist
economy, trade flourished. But in 1998, India tested a nuclear
device again and Congress responded by cutting off everything
from the sales of high-powered computers to World Bank loans and
engine parts for India's emerging space program. Indians
resented the US sanctions, feeling as though the United States
refused to acknowledge their country had become a world power.
President Clinton took steps to repair the relationship, but
Bush has taken the effort further. He lifted the 1998
restrictions on India and launched a dialogue about military and
economic cooperation, including a forum with American and Indian
executives.
In 2005, Bush hosted Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India at
the White House and announced that he would initiate civilian
nuclear cooperation .[ /]
© Copyright 2006 Globe Newspaper Company.
*****************************************************************
10 MJ: Pentagon Fireworks Deferred
[Mother Jones]
Bush's motivations in Iran; a history of right-wing
fearmongering; net neutrality; high-tech ballot tampering
Pentagon Fireworks Deferred
Commentary: Divine Strake, Hellish Repercussions
By Chip Ward
July 2, 2006
Shock and awe is coming home. The Bush administration is
planning to conduct future preemptive wars with "mini-nukes"
and, to that end, wants to set off a nuclear-sized explosion at
the government's Nevada Test Site, sixty-five miles northwest of
Las Vegas. So far, the Department of Defense's latest testing
plan -- code named "Divine Strake" -- has been thwarted by the
organized citizens of Utah and Nevada, but the clock is running
out. The DOD announced the plan in April and scheduled the blast
for early June. After an initial public outcry in the region, it
was postponed for two weeks, then postponed again until
"September or later." Those unfamiliar with the nightmarish
ambitions and skewed reasoning of the nation's wannabe
nuclear-warriors may find Divine Strake unfathomable. Sadly, the
inhabitants of America's original Ground Zero -- where our
nuclear and chemical weapons were honed during the Cold War --
know that thinking all too well. It's a dirty shame...
Dirt Bomb: Imagine a fertilizer bomb 280 times more powerful
than the one Tim McVeigh used to blow apart the Murrah Federal
Building in Oklahoma City -- enough to take down an entire city.
Imagine that bomb as fifty times more powerful than our largest
conventional weapon -- the Massive Ordinance Air Blast Bomb, or
MOAB, that has to be shoved by hand out of the belly doors of a
specially fitted cargo plane and carries the nickname, "the
Mother of All Bombs." But the bomb we are imagining is way too
large to be delivered by any known conventional method. It would
take two cargo planes to deliver the explosive fuel that will be
packed into a pit thirty-six feet deep by thirty-two feet in
circumference. Imagine, then, that this massive pile of
explosives is to be set off on an arid, windswept desert floor
made of a fine, dry soil that has been contaminated by decades
of exposure to nuclear radiation. Although the explosive fuel
itself will not be radioactive -- thus avoiding an obvious
violation of international treaties that ban aboveground nuclear
tests -- the dirt and debris that drifts downwind may very well
be radioactive, a possibility that the Pentagon is not keen to
know more about.
Now, picture what happens after the load is fired off. If you
see a gigantic, thick, and rolling mushroom cloud of toxic dirt
that climbs 10,000 feet into the atmosphere, then you agree with
the Department of Defense's own expectations. That toxic cloud
will drift and fall eastward over Utah, Colorado, the Midwest,
or wherever the wind carries it.
If your mental image of that mushroom cloud is vivid, then you
are of a certain age. Maybe you also live in this neck of the
West and so are familiar with the phenomenon from the
hundred-plus aboveground atomic explosions set off at the Nevada
Test Site in the 1950s or the more than 800 "underground"
explosions that continued until 1992. Most of those underground
tests turned out to be "leakers," often producing smaller
mushroom clouds that escaped through cracks fissured into the
ground as the explosions displaced millions of tons of earth
instantly and the surface of the desert collapsed into immense
craters. The radiation that was vented then drifted far and
wide.
Divine Strake, the latest experiment in irradiating Americans,
was postponed briefly when a public outcry ensued; then
postponed indefinitely when the protests continued to mount and
Utah's powerful Senator Orin Hatch joined Salt Lake City Mayor
Rocky Anderson and various Nevada politicians calling for more
risk assessment first. Although an exact date to conduct Divine
Strake has not been set, the Department of Defense is still
intent on conducting their experiment as early as this autumn,
according to the latest DoD announcement.
The citizens of Las Vegas, the nation's sex-alcohol-and-gambling
mecca, and the puritanical Mormon citizens of Utah might seem
unlikely political allies -- except for the fact that they share
a legacy of cancer and chronic illness, a consequence of the
last time our military rolled the nuclear dice on the Nevada
desert floor. Recent research reveals that most of the nation
also suffers from that legacy of illness, they just aren't as
aware of it as the "downwinders" of Nevada and Utah who actually
saw the clouds of fallout heading their way. Once again, the
citizens of those two states find themselves on the front lines
of a struggle with profound international repercussions. For us,
Divine Strake is a weapon of mass déjà vu
Dirty Lies: As in earlier decades, planning documents obscure
what is happening; official reassurances are misleading; and the
tests are facilitated by federal agencies whose hallmarks are
being distant, secretive, inaccessible, and arrogant. Last time
the Nevada Test Site was active, the citizens of Utah and Nevada
living directly downwind were described in a classified military
report as "a low use segment of the population." In other words,
expendable. Today, sanitized language cloaks the same old
disregard for the consequences of military testing, again
masking a willingness to sacrifice the health of citizens on the
altar of nuclear hegemony.
Listen to Irene Smith, a spokesperson for the Pentagon's Defense
Threat Reduction Agency that will help facilitate the explosion.
According to her, the test would not be a nuclear simulation at
all, but would merely "assess computer programs to reduce
uncertainties in target characterization, target function,
layout, operational status, and geotechnical features." Oh, okay.
Another Pentagon spokesperson, David Rigby, put it a tad more
directly. The purpose of Divine Strake, he stated, was "to
develop better predictive tools for defeating hardened
underground targets." Then he added, "It is not a precursor to a
nuclear test."
Unsaid: whether or not it's a precursor to such a test, it is
certainly a precursor to nuclear use. What, after all, are they
predicting? They want to know what size nuclear warhead will take
out a hardened underground target in a geologic formation much
like the one where we suspect Iran is developing nuclear weapons.
A tunnel has already been drilled through the jointed limestone
directly below the site where Divine Strake would be exploded.
North Korea is thought to have similar tunnels to hide its
nuclear weapons-making facilities. Other nations have built such
underground retreats for their national leaders, much as we did
in hillsides around Washington D.C. Then there are underground
facilities for shielding the aircraft of potentially hostile
powers of the future -- like a hardened "airbase" at Feidong,
China. The descriptions the Department of Defense has offered of
Divine Strake paint the military as cautious and responsible in
trying to determine the size of the smallest nuclear warhead that
could destroy such buried targets. Forget the fact that every
target on their hit list is surrounded by innocent civilians who
will certainly be killed, just as every target is upwind from
everyone else on the planet.
Dirty Joke: Then there's that name -- Divine Strake. Strake, not
strike, which might seem logical under the circumstances.
"Strake" is either an obscure nautical term meaning a line of
horizontal planking running the length of a ship's hull or the
aerodynamic surface mounted on the fuselage of an aircraft to
control airflow. Why it has been used in this faux-nuclear
context is not clear. Apparently, war planners regard the test as
a platform, support, or control for something else -- but what?
Or maybe, consciously or not, strake is an amalgam of "strike"
and "mistake." Anyway, whatever one makes of "strake," "divine"
conveys a breathtakingly unabashed and self-righteous hubris.
It's also a clear case of linguistic bait n' switch since there
is nothing divine about slaughtering innocents or destroying
whole landscapes, unless of course it is death we are worshipping
and our own power to play God and decide the fates of untold
numbers of people.
If we wonder how the rest of the world, especially Islamic
cultures, hear these words, we have only to think how we would
hear them if they were used by Iranians to describe a weapons
program they were developing with the obvious purpose of
targeting us. Proof of fanaticism, we would insist. Maybe we are
in a holy war, after all, at least in the minds of those
fashioning the weapons to fight it. While Islamacists set off car
bombs and call it "jihad", we prepare a simulated nuclear
explosion and label it "divine." The people of Utah and Nevada
may be forgiven if they feel like hostages caught in the
crossfire of warring zealots.
Dirty Trick: If Divine Strake happens, its mushroom cloud will
rise like an extended middle finger to Congress, which killed
funding for the "Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator," a nuclear
weapon the Bush administration has been eager to develop to
penetrate the earth to hardened bunkers below, and has otherwise
refused to fund the development of a new set of mini-nukes it
also desperately wants, or to fund the rapid re-activation of the
Nevada Test Site so it can resume testing for such "mini-nukes."
Testing has always been a key component of developing new weapons
of mass destruction -- war planners cannot use such a weapon if
they are not sure what it does on the ground. Since large-scale
testing stopped in 1992, the Nevada Test Site has been operating
with a skeleton crew.
Deprived of the means to develop a new class of bunker-buster
nuclear weapons that can drill deep into the earth, the Bush
administration's war gamers are now planning to simply blow-up
nuclear warheads above such targets. If they can't dig the
bastards out, they want to know just what size nuke will cave-in
their hideouts from above. Whatever the Pentagon says, Divine
Strake will closely resemble the destructive yield of a B-61
nuclear warhead, one of the smallest in the arsenal. Eventually,
war planners will argue that they need to build a new class of
even smaller nukes so as to avoid the casualties and damage that
the bigger ones in the American nuclear arsenal would cause --
such is the mad humanitarian logic of nuclear warriors.
The underlying willingness to launch a "preventive" nuclear war
to prevent a nuclear war, as expressed in such planning, has
already become embarrassing and so must now be hidden. As late as
2005, budget documents describing the Tunnel Target Defeat
Advanced Concept and Technology Demonstration Series (of which
the Divine Strake is a key component) still made it clear that
their overall purpose was to "improve war fighters confidence in
selecting the smallest proper nuclear yield necessary to destroy
underground facilities." Similarly, the Divine Strake piece of
the puzzle was clearly identified as a nuclear simulation. But
2006 budget documents covering the same plans erased all
references to nuclear simulation and nuclear weapons. As has so
often been the case in the Bush era, satisfied that they could
alter reality simply via a new description of reality, Pentagon
spokespeople now insist that the project that looked, walked, and
quacked like a nuclear duck was just a conventional war chicken
that, gosh, only resembles a duck. Or, as spokesperson Rigby
proclaimed, "The planned detonation has been redefined."
Dirty Job: Reactivating the semi-comatose Nevada Test Site is
considered crucial to the development of a new set of nuclear
warheads. Hence, the rush to test by any means necessary -- even
with a crude, mammoth fertilizer bomb. Unstated in the official
documentation, and seldom considered by critics, the Department
of Defense is also desperate to start up the testing again for
another reason entirely: The human infrastructure that developed
and managed America's nuclear arsenal is retiring or dying off.
We stopped underground testing in 1992 and haven't developed a
new nuclear weapon since the W88 Trident II warheads over a
decade ago. The human knowledge-and-experience base that learned
how to handle nuclear weaponry and the skill sets that can only
be attained firsthand are melting away over time. Reviving the
Nevada Test Site would give the Department of Energy that runs
the facility for the DoD a valuable training ground to rebuild
that knowledge base. It would also give a new generation of
technicians and engineers the hands-on experience they need to
keep the nuclear ball rolling. If they can get the Test Site up
and running soon, even for a fertilizer bomb, the veteran
technicians left over from the Cold War will still be available
to instruct and mentor the nuclear newbies. Unfortunately for
them, time is not on their side.
Eat Dirt: As citizens immediately downwind demanded evidence that
Divine Strake would not raise soils still contaminated by
generations of previous nuclear explosions, Pentagon spokespeople
offered the usual assurances, even while admitting that they had
little in the way of data to back them up. Nothing resembling an
environmental impact assessment had been done, but the
implication was that the Pentagon's word should be good enough.
Richard Miller, an industrial health technician, has documented
that six nuclear detonations from the 1950s were conducted within
eight miles of the proposed Divine Strake site, contaminating the
surface soil with radioactive debris that could be dangerous for
many decades to come. Local activists who have visited the Nevada
Test site note that DoD employees do not allow them to pick up
and carry off stones from the area because, they were told, even
dirt sometimes sets off the Geiger counters wielded by the guards
at the gate.
Contrary to Pentagon claims that the 10,000 foot mushroom cloud
from Divine Strake should dissipate within a mile or two of the
explosion, Miller's research shows that a similarly large debris
column that leaked from the "Baneberry" underground test in 1970
was caught up in the jet stream and carried all the way to Canada
before falling out. Climate scientists who are studying how dust
from storms in Mongolia coats Colorado mountain snowpack would
not find this surprising; nor would scientists who suspect that
high background levels of mercury in Western states can be
explained by the prevailing winds sweeping across toxic residues
from open-pit gold mining in Nevada and carrying mercury as well
as other harmful chemicals hundreds of miles downwind.
Miller's previous studies of fallout patterns from the Nevada
Test site showed that, according to the government's own reports,
radioactive materials from both aboveground and underground tests
traveled much farther than previously assumed and in greater
concentrations -- some hot clouds of fallout settled on places in
the Midwest and even on the New York/New Jersey metropolitan
areas. Back in the 1950s and 60s, radiation from the Nevada
testing grounds reached deep into food chains, contaminating
grain harvests and milk production sometimes thousands of miles
away. Although airborne debris from a non-nuclear explosion will
contain less harmful materials than the debris from an actual
nuclear blast, no analysis has been done of how arsenic and other
naturally occurring toxins as well as the more exotic toxins that
will result from blowing up 700 tons of ammonium nitrate will be
dispersed into the wind. Clearly, however, whatever is in that
dirt ball will land on playgrounds, lawns, farms, cattle, and
watersheds. We have learned the hard way from pollution, cancer,
and global climate change that we all live downwind and
downstream from one another; that, through a complex global food
web, we also eat each others' dirt.
Salt of the Earth: During the first era in which the Nevada Test
Site practiced for the Apocalypse, the people immediately
downwind were naive, trusting, and mostly silent. No more. By now
the stories about misshapen calves, miscarried babies, and
children with leukemia who died in the wake of atomic testing
have become common lore. Everyone here can name a victim. Cancer
continues to stalk downwinders decades after the last exposure.
Birth defects and chronic illness are showing up in their
children and grandchildren. Because health is complex, dynamic,
synergistic, variable, and its patterns emerge slowly -- and
because no effort has been made to track those exposed and
collect data -- legal proof of the harm that came with the atomic
winds is hard to come by and accountability is nowhere to be
found. Congress did agree to compensate those who were most
obviously exposed to fallout, but applicants had to document
their exposure and the illnesses that followed and, in the
process, jump through a bewildering set of bureaucratic hoops.
Most will die before they see a check.
Polls show that the citizens of Utah and Nevada are as
overwhelmingly opposed to new atomic weapons testing at the
Nevada Test Site as they are to having the waste from the
nation's commercial nuclear power plants dumped in their deserts.
The same grassroots groups that have led the campaigns against
proposed nuclear-waste repositories at Yucca Mountain, Nevada,
and Skull Valley, Utah, responded quickly to the Divine Strake
plan and mobilized media campaigns, Congressional lobbying, and
sign-carrying demonstrations.
In the face of immediate and widespread opposition, the DoD
agreed to hold town-hall meetings in Las Vegas and in St. George,
Utah. Preston Truman, director of Downwinders, a local
organization that represents the victims of Cold War era nuclear
testing, predicts that those public hearings will only lead "to
escalating demands for hearings from Las Vegas to Boise. Instead
of quieting the ticked-off natives, the delay will give us time
to organize and pressure elected representatives to draw a line
and say ?no' we will not allow another generation of us to be
created."
Local politicians understand that they will be judged by whether
they can halt the explosion and that they will win important
bragging rights if they succeed. They also know that
postponements are not the same as a cancellation and that there
is no guarantee the Pentagon will not eventually have its way. We
know from experience that military planners are tenacious in
pursuit of pet projects and will do everything in their power to
ignore or thwart a public that disagrees with them. Vanessa
Pierce, an organizer for HEAL Utah, a grassroots group that has
led the opposition to shipping and storing nuclear waste to Utah,
warns that "weapons designers will do whatever it takes to get
their fix."
The Real Dirt: It is not hard to imagine that some future enemy
might threaten our nuclear hegemony by constructing the
radioactive equivalent of a car bomb -- what Mike Davis has
termed "the poor man's air force" -- in some cave or bunker. It
is harder to imagine why war planners think that the development
of a new class of bunker-busting bombs would be a "deterrent," or
that we can meet the threats we face by blowing up nuclear
warheads above bunkers and tunnels. Do war planners seriously
think we could use our nuclear weapons "preventively" on
underground targets without horrific consequences to regional
populations that would unleash such hatred and condemnation as
well as the desire for revenge and violence as to render such a
strike as impractical as it is immoral?
This much is clear to those of us who live immediately downwind
from the Nevada Test Site and other hellish places like Utah's
Dugway Proving Grounds where the military did open-air tests with
nerve agents that sickened hundreds of workers and unknown
numbers of nearby residents, or Hanford, Washington, where the
weapons were loaded with their nuclear fuel, also contaminating
groundwater, soil, and the bloodstreams of hundreds of workers in
the process. Once again in a new age of nuclear testing, American
citizens will be the first victims of our own weapons of mass
destruction. We will not be shredded or incinerated as an enemy
would be. Domestic civilian casualties will sicken and die
slowly.
If there is a next time, we will not go unnoticed again, but
neither will we be able to prove that our suffering resulted from
military testing according to the narrow legal standards that
apply. There will yet again be little or no accountability; and,
like unwilling guinea pigs in some ghastly experiment, we will
live with uncertainty and doubt while waiting for the results of
our own military folly to unfold in our tissues, our blood, our
chromosomes, and our bones. As an elderly woman walking a picket
line in St. George to protest Divine Strake said, "This is
supposed to be about national security. I don't feel more secure.
Do you?"
Chip Ward is a political activist, writer, and a library
administrator. He is the author of Canaries on the Rim: Living
Downwind in the West (Verso) and Hope's Horizon: Three Visions
for Healing the American Land (Shearwater/Island Press).
Copyright 2006 Chip Ward
This article appeared first, with an introduction by Tom
Engelhardt, at Tomdispatch.com.
© 2006 The Foundation for National Progress
*****************************************************************
11 HindustanTimes.com: RSS gushes over Indo-US nuke deal
HindustanTimes.com » Indo-US ties » Nuclear Renaissance »
HT Correspondent
New Delhi, July 3, 2006
Differing radically from the BJPs stand on the Indo-US nuclear
deal, RSS publication Organiser has expressed the view that the
deal has presented India with a new opportunity and a stepping
stone for entry into the big league.
The other option for India was to continue with isolation and
perpetually be in competition with Pakistan, said the weekly,
generally perceived to be the Sangh mouthpiece, in an editorial
titled The N-deal debate. The editorial was critical of
decades of non-alignment and Commonwealth obsessions that had
not yielded India much global significance.
Today India is entering a big league. If President Bush, whose
domestic rating was rock bottom, is using the Indo-US deal as
the most important foreign policy success and has managed to
garner support from the sceptical Democrats because they did not
want to be seen as voting against India, it only proves Indias
growth as a world power. This should make India proud, it
stated.
Observing that India had to suffer nuclear apartheid all these
years, it differed significantly from BJP senior leader MM
Joshis contention that the Bill approved by the US panel
attempted to impose severe restrictions on research activities
of Indian scientists.
The editorial also dismissed Joshi's objections about India
getting into CTBT and FMCT regime though not a signatory. It
said these problems could be taken care of if the Indian
government insists on it when the US legislation is taken up on
the full floor of House of Representatives this month end.
On the Congress, the journal said they can't celebrate the deal
fearing the wrath of Communists and the Muslims.
*****************************************************************
12 [NukeNet] UK: Nuclear cut back in energy plans
Date: Mon, 03 Jul 2006 18:08:30 -0700
NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net)
Nuclear cut back in energy plans
Gaby Hinsliff, political editor
Sunday July 2, 2006
Observer
Britain could be spared a mass building programme of nuclear power
stations under plans to force power companies to reduce energy use
and help the public cut their fuel bills.
Alistair Darling, the Trade and Industry Secretary, said tackling the
'waste' of power would ease pressure on resources and, while that
would not be enough to avoid the need for nuclear power altogether,
it would mean fewer reactors being built over the next three decades.
Darling, who admitted he would be 'hard pressed to find anybody' who
wanted a new power station near them, is said to have told colleagues
privately that as few as two or three reactors might eventually be
built compared with the 20 originally suggested in Downing Street
leaks of his energy review. He told The Observer it was possible,
although 'unlikely', that Britain would end up without a single new
nuclear plant.
Wind farms will also get a boost in the review, published this month,
which sets out how to keep energy flowing as the current generation
of nuclear reactors reach the end of their useful lives. Planning
inquiries for all major power projects - from nuclear to green
technologies such as windfarms - will be shortened to prevent them
becoming bogged down in years of legal battles with local residents.
The shift of emphasis in the review, which critics had feared would
represent a headlong rush for nuclear power, reflects government
fears of being 'out-greened' by David Cameron - and Treasury
resistance to plans to make reactors more economically attractive to
build. The Tories are still debating their position, with pressure
from frontbencher Alan Duncan to come out against nuclear power, but
are expected to argue in a paper this week that the case is not yet
proved either way and that the market should decide whether new
reactors are necessary.
Both they and the government will back proposals for mini
neighbourhood power stations, which would use heat generated by
creating electricity to provide hot water for nearby homes - a more
efficient use of power which Darling said could eventually meet up to
a fifth of Britain's energy needs.
'The main drivers here are to cut demand: and we have got to exploit
renewables and the greener forms of energy effectively in a way that
we have just not done,' he said.
Power companies could, in future, be given incentives to kit out
customers' homes with low-energy bulbs, loft insulation or 'smart'
meters which warn customers when they are wasting power, he said.
That would reduce the amount of electricity that householders needed.
'It's all very well to encourage individuals to change their
behaviour, but, frankly, asking 27 million householders to do that
depends on an awful lot of people, and we are all human,' he said.
'There are six people who supply our energy, on the other hand, and
the regulatory regime encourages them to supply as much energy as
they can at the moment. What we need is to put an obligation to
supply it [efficiently]. If this works, we might have to build fewer
power stations in the next 30 years than we would otherwise do.'
The approach will be backed by a report to be published this week
from the think-tank the Institute of Public Policy Research, arguing
that greater efficiency could cut energy use by 30 per cent. 'We
should be up in arms about energy that's wasted,' said Simon
Retallack, head of its climate change programme.
Government insiders say that Darling has produced a 'greener' review
than expected. 'Alistair has rather cleverly changed the emphasis, so
it is not nuclear with a vengeance,' said one Whitehall source.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
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13 NRC: Dr. Dale Klein Sworn In as NRC Chairman
News Release - 2006-09
U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs
Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 20555-0001 E-mail:
opa@nrc.gov No. 06-090 July 1, 2006
Dr. Dale E. Klein, designated by President Bush as chairman of
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), was sworn in Saturday
in a private ceremony at the NRC headquarters in Rockville, Md.
As a Commissioner, Klein will serve a five-year term on the NRC.
As the NRC faces the challenges of the coming years, I intend to
do all I can to ensure the safety and security of the American
public as the NRC does the critical job of overseeing the
operations of nuclear reactors, the use of nuclear materials,
and effectively reviewing expected applications for new reactors
in a timely manner, Klein said.
I consider regulatory stability a crucial element in ensuring
that our work is done in a timely manner, added Klein, who holds
a doctorate in nuclear engineering.
Klein, 58, previously served as Assistant to the Secretary of
Defense for Nuclear and Chemical and Biological Defense
Programs, a position he assumed Nov. 15, 2001.
Prior to his appointment by President Bush, Klein was the
Vice-Chancellor for Special Engineering Programs at The
University of Texas System while also serving as a professor in
the Department of Mechanical Engineering (Nuclear Program) at
The University of Texas at Austin. Klein served as the Chairman
and Executive Director of the Amarillo National Research Center
(ANRC), during which time he oversaw over $45 million of funding
concerning plutonium research and nuclear weapon dismantlement
issues.
Klein held other positions during his tenure at The University
of Texas at Austin where he holds a Bob R. Dorsey Endowed
Professorship: Director of the Nuclear Engineering Teaching
Laboratory; Deputy Director of the Center for Energy Studies;
and Associate Dean for Research and Administration in the
College of Engineering. In addition to his duties at The
University of Texas at Austin and The University of Texas
System, Klein was an active member of several Department of
Energy national committees, including the Nuclear Energy
Research Advisory Committee.
He has been honored with the distinction of Fellow of the
American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the American
Nuclear Society. Dr. Klein has also received many awards,
including the Joe J. King Professional Engineering Achievement
Award by UT Austin and Engineer of the Year for the State of
Texas by the Texas Society of Professional Engineers. Having
received his Ph.D. in nuclear engineering from the University of
Missouri-Columbia, Klein has been honored with the University of
Missouri Faculty-Alumni Award and the University of Missouri
Honor Award for Distinguished Service in Engineering.
While at the University of Texas Austin, Klein received over $50
million in research funding, equipment and educational support.
He has published over 100 technical papers and reports, and
co-edited one book. He has made over 300 presentations on energy
and has written numerous technical editorials on energy issues
that have been published in major newspapers throughout the
United States.
Last revised Monday, July 03, 2006
*****************************************************************
14 Platts: New NRC chairman to take oath
Washington (Platts)--30Jun2006
Dale Klein was expected to be sworn in as the new chairman of the
US Nuclear Regulatory Commission over the July 1-2 weekend.
The former Department of Defense official has had several
transition briefings recently and has scheduled his first formal
meeting with NRC senior managers on July 3, an NRC official said.
Klein is expected to temporarily keep in place staffers from
outgoing chairman Nils Diaz's office, according to NRC sources,
who said at least one member of Klein's team will come from
outside the agency. Diaz, whose term expired June 30, was working
to clear out his office and held meetings "up to the last
minute," an NRC spokesman said.
Copyright © 2006 - Platts, All Rights Reserved
[The McGraw-Hill Companies]
*****************************************************************
15 NRC: Notice of Availability of Environmental Assessment and Finding
FR Doc E6-10349
[Federal Register: July 3, 2006 (Volume 71, Number 127)]
[Notices] [Page 37962-37964] From the Federal Register Online via
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr03jy06-79]
of No Significant Impact for License Amendment for Rio Algom
Mining LLC, Ambrosia Lake, NM AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory
Commission.
ACTION: Notice of availability.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Michael G. Raddatz, Project
Manager, Fuel Cycle Facilities Branch, Division of Fuel Cycle
Safety and Safeguards, Office of Nuclear Material Safety and
Safeguards, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC,
20555. Telephone: (301) 415-6334; fax number: (301) 415-5955;
e-mail: .
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: I. Introduction The Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC) proposes to issue a license amendment to Source
Materials License No. SUA-1473 held by Rio Algom
[[Page 37963]] Mining LLC (the licensee), to approve a soil
decommissioning plan for its uranium mill tailings site in
Ambrosia Lake, New Mexico. The NRC has prepared an Environmental
Assessment (EA) in support of this amendment in accordance with
the requirements of 10 CFR part 51.
Based on the EA, the NRC has concluded that a Finding of No
Significant Impact (FONSI) is appropriate. The amendment will be
issued following the publication of this Notice.
II. EA Summary The licensee's plan addresses the methods and
procedures to be implemented to ensure that soil remediation is
performed in a manner that is protective of human health and the
environment. The Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act, as
amended, and regulations in Title 10 of the Code of Federal
Regulations, 10 CFR part 40 require that material at uranium mill
tailings sites be disposed of in a manner that protects human
health and the environment. On February 15, 2000, May 30, 2001,
and July 7, 2005, Rio Algom Mining, LLC requested that the NRC
approve the proposed amendment. The licensee's request for the
proposed change was previously noticed in the Federal Register on
June 29, 2000, (65 FR 40144) with a notice of an opportunity to
request a hearing and an opportunity to provide comments on the
amendment and its environmental impacts.
The staff has prepared the EA in support of the proposed license
amendment. The staff considered impacts that the licensee's Soil
Decommissioning Plan (SDP) will have on ground water, surface
water, socioeconomic conditions, threatened and endangered
species, transportation, land use, public and occupational
health, and historic and cultural resources.
The EA supports a FONSI because of the following: The Uranium
Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act, as amended, and regulations
in Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations, 10 CFR part 40
require that material at uranium mill tailings sites be disposed
of in a manner that protects human health and the environment:
The methods and procedures described in the SDP have been judged
by staff to be acceptable because the plan addresses those
methods and procedures to be implemented by the licensee to
ensure that soil remediation is performed in a manner that is
protective of human health and the environment. The actual
decommissioning of the licensee's mill tailings site will utilize
the SDP and as each area is remediated, it will be verified that
it is in compliance with all regulatory requirements and the SDP.
III. Finding of No Significant Impact On the basis of the EA, NRC
has concluded that there are no significant environmental impacts
from the proposed amendment and NRC staff has determined not to
prepare an environmental impact statement.
IV. Further Information Documents related to this action,
including the application for amendment and supporting
documentation, are available electronically at the NRC's
Electronic Reading Room at .
From this site, you can access the NRC's Agencywide Document
Access and Management System (ADAMS), which provides text and
image files of NRC's public documents. The ADAMS accession
numbers for the documents related to this notice are as follows:
ADAMS accession Document No. Date
NUREG-1748,
``Environmental Review Guidance for ML031000403 April 10, 2003.
Licensing Actions Associated With NMSS Programs--Final Report,''
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC.
NUREG-1620, Rev. 1, ``Standard Review Plan for ML032250190 June
30, 2003.
Review of a Reclamation Plan for Mill Tailings Sites Under Title
II of the Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act of 1978,''
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC.
Rio Algom Mining LLC, 2004, ``Soil ML050400566 January 19, 2005.
Decommissioning Plan''.
Rio Algom Mining LLC, 2005, ``Response to ML052060155 June 15,
2005.
Request for Additional Information for Soil Decommissioning Plan
and the Closure Plan-- Lined Evaporation Ponds for Ambrosia Lake
Facility''.
Rio Algom Mining LLC, 2005, ``Response to ML052090175 July 15,
2005.
Request for Additional Information Items 6, 9, and 13 for the
Soil Decommissioning Plan and the Closure Plan--Lined Evaporation
Ponds for Ambrosia Lake Facility''.
Rio Algom Mining LLC, 2005, ``Response to July ML053000439
September 26, 2005.
21, 2005 Request for Additional Information for the Soil
Decommissioning Plan and the Closure Plan--Lined Evaporation
Ponds for Ambrosia Lake Facility''.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Letter to M. ML052910059 October
31, 2005.
Raddatz.
Data Recovery Plan For lA 82634 and lA 82635 at ML060670532
December 31, 2005.
Rio Algom Mine, Near Ambrosia Lake, McKinley County, New Mexico.
Final Environmental Assessment, Soil ML061630291 May 15, 2006.
Decommissioning Plan for Rio Algom Mining LLC's Uranium Mill
Tailings Site, Ambrosia Lake, McKinley County, New Mexico.
[[Page 37964]] If you do not have access to ADAMS or if there are
problems in accessing the documents located in ADAMS, contact the
NRC's Public Document Room (PDR) Reference staff at
1-800-397-4209, 301-415-4737, or by e-mail to .
These documents may also be viewed electronically on the public
computers located at the NRC's PDR, O1 F21, One White Flint
North, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, MD 20852. The PDR
reproduction contractor will copy documents for a fee.
Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 27th day of June, 2006.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Gary S. Janosko, Chief, Fuel Cycle Facilities Branch, Division of
Fuel Cycle Safety and Safeguards, Office of Nuclear Material
Safety and Safeguards.
[FR Doc. E6-10349 Filed 6-30-06; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
*****************************************************************
16 NRC: Agency Information Collection Activities: Submission for the
FR Doc E6-10350
[Federal Register: July 3, 2006 (Volume 71, Number 127)]
[Notices] [Page 37960-37961] From the Federal Register Online via
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr03jy06-77]
Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Review; Comment Request
AGENCY: U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). ACTION: Notice
of the OMB review of information collection and solicitation of
public comment.
SUMMARY: The NRC has recently submitted to OMB for review the
following proposal for the collection of information under the
provisions of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (44 U.S.C.
chapter 35). The NRC hereby informs potential respondents that an
agency may not conduct or sponsor, and that a person is not
required to respond to, a collection of information unless it
displays a currently valid OMB control number.
1. Type of submission, new, revision, or extension: Revision. 2.
The title of the information collection: 10 CFR Part 60--
``Disposal of
[[Page 37961]] High-Level Radioactive Wastes in Geologic
Repositories.'' 3. The form number if applicable: Not applicable.
4. How often the collection is required: The information need
only be submitted one time.
5. Who will be required or asked to report: State or Indian
Tribes, or their representatives, requesting consultation with
the NRC staff regarding review of a potential high-level
radioactive waste geologic repository site, or wishing to
participate in a license application review for a potential
geologic repository (other than a potential geologic repository
site at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, currently under investigation by
the U.S. Department of Energy, which is now regulated under 10
CFR part 63).
6. An estimate of the number of annual responses: 1; however none
are expected in the next three years.
7. The number of annual respondents: 1; however none are expected
in the next three years.
8. An estimate of the total number of hours needed annually to
complete the requirement or request: 1; however, none are
expected in the next three years.
9. An indication of whether section 3507(d), Public Law 104-13
applies: Not applicable.
10. Abstract: Part 60 requires States and Indian Tribes to submit
certain information to the NRC if they request consultation with
the NRC staff concerning the review of a potential repository
site, or wish to participate in a license application review for
a potential repository (other than the Yucca Mountain, Nevada
site proposed by the U.S. Department of Energy). Representatives
of States or Indian Tribes must submit a statement of their
authority to act in such a representative capacity. The
information submitted by the States and Indian Tribes is used by
the Director of the Office of Nuclear Material Safety and
Safeguards as a basis for decisions about the commitment of NRC
staff resources to the consultation and participation efforts. As
provided in Sec. 60.1, the regulations in 10 CFR. Part 60 no
longer apply to the licensing of a geologic repository at Yucca
Mountain. All of the information collection requirements
pertaining to Yucca Mountain were included in 10 CFR part 63, and
were approved by the Office of Management and Budget under
control number 3150-0199. The Yucca Mountain site is regulated
under 10 CFR part 63 (66 FR 55792, November 2, 2001).
A copy of the final supporting statement may be viewed free of
charge at the NRC Public Document Room, One White Flint North,
11555 Rockville Pike, Room O-1 F21, Rockville, MD 20852. OMB
clearance requests are available at the NRC worldwide Web site:
http://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/doc-comment/omb/index.html. The
document will be available on the NRC home page site for 60 days
after the signature date of this notice.
Comments and questions should be directed to the OMB reviewer
listed below by August 2, 2006. Comments received after this date
will be considered if it is practical to do so, but assurance of
consideration cannot be given to comments received after this
date.
John A. Asalone, Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs
(3150- 0127), NEOB-10202, Office of Management and Budget,
Washington, DC 20503.
Comments can also be e-mailed to John_A._Asalone@omb.eop.gov or
submitted by telephone at (202) 395-4650.
The NRC Clearance Officer is Brenda Jo. Shelton, 301-415-7233.
Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 27th day of June, 2006.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Brenda Jo. Shelton, NRC Clearance Officer, Office of Information
Services.
[FR Doc. E6-10350 Filed 6-30-06; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
*****************************************************************
17 NRC: Environmental Assessment and Finding of No Significant Impact
FR Doc E6-10354
[Federal Register: July 3, 2006 (Volume 71, Number 127)]
[Notices] [Page 37961-37962] From the Federal Register Online via
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr03jy06-78]
Related to Issuance of Technical Specification Amendment for the
Humboldt Bay Power Plant Unit 3 License DPR-007, Humboldt, CA
AGENCY: U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. ACTION: Environmental
assessment and finding of no significant impact.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: John Hickman, Division of Waste
Management and Environmental Protection, Office of Nuclear
Material Safety and Safeguards, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, Mail Stop: T7E18, Washington, DC 20555-00001.
Telephone: (301) 415-3017; e-mail: jbh@nrc.gov.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: I. Introduction The U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff is considering a request dated
January 19, 2006, by the Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PGE or
the Licensee), to approve an amendment to Facility Operating
License No. DPR-7 that would revise Technical Specification (TS)
3.1.2 to correct an editorial error, and TS 5.2.2 to allow
leaving the Unit 3 control room temporarily unmanned during
emergency conditions requiring personnel to evacuate occupied
buildings for their safety.
II. Environmental Assessment Background Humboldt Bay Power Plant
(HBPP) was permanently shut down in July 1976, and until recently
was in safe storage condition (SAFSTOR). SAFSTOR is defined as a
method of decommissioning in which the nuclear facility is placed
and maintained in safe condition for an extended period of time
to permit radioactive material to decay to levels that ease
subsequent decontamination and decommissioning of the facility. A
Decommissioning Plan was approved in July 1988. Subsequent to the
1996 decommissioning rule, the licensee converted its
decommissioning plan into its Defueled Safety Analysis Report
which is updated every two years. A Post Shutdown Decommissioning
Activities Report was issued by the licensee in February 1998.
The licensee is now engaged in some incremental decommissioning
activities. In December 2003, PG formally submitted a license
application to the NRC for approval of a dry-cask Independent
Spent Fuel Storage Installation (ISFSI) at the Humboldt Bay site.
A license and safety evaluation report for the Humboldt Bay ISFSI
were issued on November 17, 2005. PG should begin active
decommissioning of the facility in 2007.
On June 14, 2005, a magnitude 7.2 earthquake occurred 97 miles
WNW of the Humboldt Bay site and was felt onsite. Subsequently a
tsunami warning was issued for an area that included the plant
site. In accordance with plant emergency procedures, site
personnel evacuated the facility to the high ground evacuation
site within the owner controlled area of the site. Since TS
5.2.2.c requires continuous staffing of the Unit 3 control room,
or alternatively of the Units 1 and 2 control station, this
necessitated that the licensee invoke the provisions of 10 CFR
50.54(x) for noncompliance with the TS. Based on this experience,
and that the site will continue to be subject to potential
earthquakes and tsunamis, the licensee requested the change to
the TS to allow temporarily not manning the Unit 3
[[Page 37962]] control room, or the Units 1 or 2 control station,
when necessary to protect worker health and safety.
This Environmental Assessment (EA) has been developed in
accordance with the requirements of 10 CFR 51.21. Proposed Action
The change proposed by this LAR will modify TS 3.1.2, Limiting
Condition for Operation (LCO) 3.1.2, Condition A to replace the
word ``restriction'' with the word ``weight'' so that action is
required if the load weight, rather than the load restriction, is
not within the limit. The change will also modify TS 5.2.2.c to
allow the Unit 3 control room, and the associated control station
in Units 1 and 2, to be temporarily unmanned in an emergency when
personnel are required to evacuate occupied buildings for their
health and safety. The proposed action is in accordance with the
licensee's application dated January 19, 2006, requesting
approval.
Need for Proposed Action The proposed change to TS 3.1.2 will
clarify the LCO and is needed to ensure that the appropriate
limit is maintained. The proposed change to TS 5.2.2.c to allow
the Unit 3 control room, and the associated control station in
Units 1 and 2, to be temporarily unmanned in an emergency
requiring evacuation is needed to protect personnel health and
safety.
Environmental Impacts of the Proposed Action The NRC has
completed its evaluation of the proposed amendments to the
Technical Specifications and concludes the changes would have no
significant impacts to the environment.
The NRC evaluated the safety impacts of the proposed changes and
determined that the changes proposed by this license amendment
request, to clarify an existing requirement and allow the
licensee evacuate the control room in an emergency that requires
site evacuation for the protection of site staff health and
safety, will better ensure that a safety limit is maintained and
will not hinder the licensee's response to an emergency.
Allowing the control room operators to evacuate the control room
during an emergency will not create a situation where response
will be delayed or less effective due to the absence of the
monitoring and coordination provided by the control room
operators, because the plant operators who perform the recovery
actions will also be evacuated in a life threatening emergency,
thereby removing the staff that the control room operators would
direct in the emergency. Additionally, the possible loss of the
control room operator in an emergency would further delay the
site recovery when the emergency condition has passed. Therefore,
for the hazardous conditions considered, the proposed action
would best insure that the personnel required for recovery are
available when the recovery can be performed. Based on the above,
the proposed action would not increase the probability or
consequences of accidents, would not change the types of
effluents that may be released offsite, and would not increase
occupation or public radiation exposure.
Since the amendment only affects actions in the industrial
portion of the facility, the proposed action does not have a
potential to affect any historic sites.
Alternatives to the Proposed Action The alternative to the
proposed action would be to deny the request. Denial of this
amendment request would have the same environmental impact as the
proposed action.
Agencies and Persons Consulted This EA was prepared by John B.
Hickman, Project Manager, Decommissioning Directorate, Division
of Waste Management and Environmental Protection (DWMEP). NRC
staff determined that the proposed action is not a major
decommissioning activity and will not affect listed or proposed
endangered species, nor critical habitat. Therefore, no further
consultation is required under Section 7 of the Endangered
Species Act. Likewise, NRC staff determined that the proposed
action is not the type of activity that has the potential to
cause previously unconsidered effects on historic properties, as
consultation for site decommissioning has been conducted
previously. There are no additional impacts to historic
properties associated with the disposal method and location for
demolition debris.
Therefore, no consultation is required under Section 106 of the
National Historic Preservation Act. The NRC provided a draft of
its EA to the Radiologic Health Branch of the California State
Department of Health Services. The state official had no
comments.
III. Finding of No Significant Impact On the basis of the
environmental assessment, the NRC concludes that the proposed
action will not have a significant effect on the quality of the
human environment. Accordingly, the NRC has determined not to
prepare an environmental impact statement for the proposed
action.
IV. Further Information For further details with respect to the
proposed action, see the licensee's letter dated January 19,
2006. (ADAMS Accession No. ML060310499) The NRC Public Documents
Room is located at NRC Headquarters in Rockville, MD, and can be
contacted at (800) 397-4209. Documents may be examined, and/or
copied for a fee, at the NRC's Public Document Room (PDR),
located at One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike (first
floor), Rockville, Maryland. Publicly available records will be
accessible electronically from the Agencywide Documents Access
and Management System's (ADAMS) Public Library component on the
NRC Web site, http://www.nrc.gov (the Public Electronic Reading
Room). Persons who do not have access to ADAMS or who encounter
problems in accessing the documents located in ADAMS should
contact the NRC PDR Reference staff by telephone at
1-800-397-4209, or 301-415-4737, or by e-mail at pdr@nrc.gov.
Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 22nd day of June, 2006.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Keith I. McConnell, Deputy Director, Decommissioning Directorate,
Division of Waste Management and Environmental Protection, Office
of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards.
[FR Doc. E6-10354 Filed 6-30-06; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
*****************************************************************
18 NRC: Environmental Assessment and Finding of No Significant Impact
FR Doc E6-10355
[Federal Register: July 3, 2006 (Volume 71, Number 127)]
[Notices] [Page 37964-37965] From the Federal Register Online via
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr03jy06-80]
Related to Exemption From the Recordkeeping Requirements of Title
10 of the Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR) Part 50.71(c); 10
CFR Part 50, Appendix A; 10 CFR Part 50, Appendix B for the
Yankee Atomic Electric Company License DPR-003, Rowe, MA AGENCY:
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. ACTION: Environmental
assessment and finding of no significant impact.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: John Hickman, Division of Waste
Management and Environmental Protection, Office of Nuclear
Material Safety and Safeguards, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, Mail Stop: T7E18, Washington, DC 20555-00001.
Telephone: (301) 415-3017; e-mail: jbh@nrc.gov.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: I. Introduction The U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission (NRC) is considering granting a partial
exemption from the Recordkeeping requirements of Title 10 of the
Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR) 50.71(c); 10 CFR part 50,
Appendix A; 10 CFR part 50, Appendix B; and 10 CFR 50.59(d)(3),
for the Yankee Nuclear Power Station (YNPS) as requested by
Yankee Atomic Electric Company (YAEC or the Licensee) on February
15, 2006, as supplemented on March 23, 2006. An environmental
assessment (EA) was performed by the NRC staff in support of its
review of the exemption request.
II. Environmental Assessment Background YNPS is a deactivated
pressurized-water nuclear reactor located in northwestern
Massachusetts in Franklin County, near the southern Vermont
border. The YNPS plant was constructed between 1958 and 1960 and
operated commercially at 185 megawatts electric (after a 1963
upgrade) until 1992. In 1992, YAEC determined that closing of the
plant would be in the best economic interest of its customers. In
December 1993, NRC amended the YNPS operating license to retain a
``possession- only'' status. YAEC began dismantling and
decommissioning activities at that time. Transfer of the spent
fuel from the Spent Fuel Pit (SFP) to the Independent Spent Fuel
Storage Installation (ISFSI) was completed in June 2003. With the
exception of the greater than class C waste stored at the ISFSI,
the reactor and all associated systems and components, including
those associated with storage of spent fuel in the SFP, have been
removed from the facility and disposed of offsite. In addition,
the structures housing these systems and components have been
demolished. Physical work associated with the decommissioning of
YNPS is scheduled to be completed in 2006.
This Environmental Assessment (EA) has been developed in
accordance with the requirements of 10 CFR 51.21. Proposed Action
Yankee Atomic Electric Company (YAEC) is requesting the following
exemption, for records pertaining to systems, structures, or
components (SSCs) and/or activities associated with the nuclear
power generating unit, Spent Fuel Pit, and associated support
systems, from the retention requirements of: (1) 10 CFR part 50
Appendix A Criterion 1 which requires certain records be retained
``throughout the life of the unit''; (2) 10 CFR part 50 Appendix
B Criterion XVII which requires certain records be retained
consistent with regulatory requirements for a duration
established by the licensee; (3) 10 CFR 50.59(d)(3) which
requires certain records be maintained until ``termination of a
license issued pursuant to'' part 50; and (4) 10 CFR 50.71(c)
which requires records retention for the period specified in the
regulations or until license termination.
Need for Proposed Action The requested exemption and application
of the exemption will eliminate the requirement to maintain
records that are no longer necessary due to the permanently
shutdown status of the facility and thereby reduce the financial
burden on ratepayers associated with the storage of a large
volume of records.
Environmental Impacts of the Proposed Action The proposed action
is purely administrative in nature and will not significantly
increase the probability or consequences of accidents. No changes
are being made in the types of effluents that may be released off
site and there is no significant increase in the amount of any
effluent released offsite. There is no significant increase in
occupational or public radiation exposure. Therefore, there are
no significant radiological environmental impacts associated with
the proposed action.
With regard to potential nonradiological impacts, the proposed
action does not have a potential to affect any historic sites.
It does not affect nonradiological plant effluents, and it has no
other environmental impact. Therefore, there are no significant
nonradiological environmental impacts associated with the
proposed action.
Accordingly, the NRC concludes that the proposed action will have
no significant effect on the environment.
Environmental Impacts of the Alternatives to the Proposed Action
As an alternative to the proposed action, the staff considered
denial of the proposed action (i.e., the ``no-action''
alternative). Under this alternative YNPS would continue to store
the records in question until license termination which would
result in no change in current environmental impacts. The
environmental impacts of the proposed action and the alternative
action are similar.
Agencies and Persons Consulted None.
III. Finding of No Significant Impact Based on this review, the
NRC staff has concluded that there are no significant impacts on
the quality of the human environment. Accordingly, the staff has
determined that preparation of an Environmental Impact Statement
is not warranted, and a Finding of No Significant Impact is
appropriate.
IV. Further Information For further details with respect to the
proposed action, see the licensee's letter
[[Page 37965]] dated February 15, 2006, (ADAMS Accession No.
ML060550077) as supplemented on March 23, 2006. (ADAMS Accession
No. ML060960065) The NRC Public Documents Room is located at NRC
Headquarters in Rockville, MD, and can be contacted at (800)
397-4209. Documents may be examined, and/or copied for a fee, at
the NRC's Public Document Room (PDR), located at One White Flint
North, 11555 Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville, Maryland.
Publicly available records will be accessible electronically from
the Agencywide Documents Access and Management System's (ADAMS)
Public Library component on the NRC Web site, http://www.nrc.gov
(the Public Electronic Reading Room). Persons who do not have
access to ADAMS or who encounter problems in accessing the
documents located in ADAMS should contact the NRC PDR Reference
staff by telephone at 1-800-397-4209, or 301-415-4737, or by
e-mail at
pdr@nrc.gov. Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 22nd day of June,
2006.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Keith McConnell, Deputy Director, Decommissioning Directorate,
Division of Waste Management and Environmental Protection, Office
of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards.
[FR Doc. E6-10355 Filed 6-30-06; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
*****************************************************************
19 St. Petersburg Times: Nuclear power plants not as scary as portrayed
By Dr. A Keith Furr
Published July 3, 2006
Re: Second nuclear plant won't come without risks, Greg Hamilton
column, June 21 Citrus Times.
Mr. Hamilton has a long, undistinguished record as an opponent
of nuclear power. As usual he provides a mass of misinformation
designed to frighten the reader, rather than inform them. I
would like to point out specifics.
First, let us discuss spent fuel. The fuel is not really spent.
It is simply not usable in its current state due to the
accumulation of fission fragments from the uranium that has
undergone fission. The vast majority of the uranium is still
usable if the fission fragments were removed. France, where more
than 80 percent of its electrical energy comes from nuclear
power, has been safely reprocessing fuel for itself and others
for many years. We could do the same if it were not for the
misguided decision of former President Jimmy Carter to ban
reprocessing. It is a national problem because of individuals
such as Mr. Hamilton who have played, all too successfully, on
the fears of the public. Even if one treats the fuel as waste,
which it certainly is not, there are several ways to store it
safely.
The next paragraph claims that there is a great pile of spent
fuel pellets that are stored in a deep pool on the Crystal River
site. This, if nothing else, shows the ignorance of Mr.
Hamilton. The spent fuel rods, which contain the pellets, are in
fact stored in a pool of water designed to prevent the rods from
melting.
The elements are carefully spaced so that localized heat
generated by the decaying fission fragments would not permit the
elements to melt, nor to undergo further chain reactions. No one
would be so foolish as to pile the pellets up!
There is a glimmer of truth in the next paragraph. The radiation
diminishes fairly rapidly over time. The rate at which it decays
is governed by a formula that soon simplifies to a reciprocal of
the time raised to the 1.2 power (1/t1.2) with the time being
expressed in days from the time the element was in the reactor.
In a year, the heat being generated is greatly less and so is
the radiation from the element. It would still be substantial
but engineering permits the elements to be transported for
reprocessing or stored safely for long periods of time. If an
individual were exposed to a bare element shortly after removal,
yes, the individual could die quickly. But you would have to be
very close. In general, people exposed to an amount of radiation
at a level of 450 rem would have a 50/50 chance of survival with
no treatment, and with treatment this level could be increased
substantially. However above a thousand rems, draconian measures
would be needed, even above 10,000 rems death would not be
instantaneous but over a finite time. Radiation is NOT of itself
at all levels. If so, we would all be dead from the potassium
and carbon-14 in our bodies, and cosmic rays. At the boundary of
a nuclear plant in the U.S., the level is not permitted to
exceed 0.005 rem.
There are only a few fission fragments that would still be
around for a million years, and the risk from them is minimal
after a fraction of that time. If reprocessing were allowed and
chemical separation were done, the storage problem of these
long-lived elements would be easily handled.
The next paragraph says this is nasty stuff. Yes, it will be
stored at the plant site but it need not be if the alarmists
would permit it to be taken to a safe storage facility.
What does Mr. Hamilton think France, Great Britain and Japan are
doing with the fuel that is being reprocessed?
Fuel can be shipped safely in casks carried by trucks. These
casts can withstand horrendous accidents such as being slammed
into solid concrete barriers at high speeds, then falling off
high bridges onto shaped spikes, then being immersed in flaming
petroleum for an extended period and finally immersed is cold
water while still hot. If engineers can do that, and the
concrete reactor shell can withstand the impact of a 747 without
being breached, then I am confident that huge concrete casks can
also be built that would withstand hurricane force winds or even
the kind of explosives that are available to even the most
determined terrorists.
It wasn't the impact that caused the World Trade Center to
collapse, it was the heat of the burning jet fuel that caused
the internal support columns to soften and give way. The analogy
is forced and entirely inappropriate.
If a second plant were built at Crystal River, it is very
unlikely that it would cause the dramatic increase in area that
his discussion envisions nor should it affect the Suncoast
Parkway in any significant way.
What's with this huge transmission lines problem? We already
have transmission lines. The lines from the new plant need be no
larger or intrusive than the ones already in place.
He talks about the cost, but fails to mention the cost if we do
not build it. I have done a great deal of research involving
pollutants from traditional power plants, and I can assure you
there are far more dangers from these than the problems from any
nuclear plant built to the standards that we require in this
country.
Please, Mr. Hamilton, stop trying to frighten everyone with your
ranting. You are too uninformed to do so realistically.
Normally I do not do this but just a few words about my
credentials. I have a doctorate in nuclear physics from Duke
University and was a full professor at Virginia Tech, where for
15 years I ran the reactor. I was on the Radiation Safety
Committee for 35 years and chaired it for more than 20.
I have published more than 60 papers in physics and the role of
pollutants in the environment. I was director of the
university's Department of Environmental Health and Safety,
which I created at the request of the university. Mr. Hamilton,
what are your credentials? [Last modified July 3, 2006, 01:07:48]
© 2006 All Rights Reserved St. Petersburg Times 490 First
Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111
*****************************************************************
20 The Day: Millstone Foes Storm The Beach
theday.com
Monday, Jul 3, 2006
By Jenna Cho Day Staff Writer\, Ledyard\/North Stonington
E-mail: j.cho@theday.com Phone No.: (860) 701 - 4376
by Suzanne Ouellette
"Beachgoers watch as protesters walk Sunday along Hole In The
Wall Beach in Niantic calling for the closure of Millstone Power
Station.The nuclear-power complex is visible across the water in
Waterford.
'I feel nuclear energy could be an important part of a national
energy plan. It should be evaluated on facts.' Stephen Packard of
Guilford, who accepted protesters' challenge to drink
contaminated goat's milk
"DJ Middleton of Clinton, left, along with banner bearers
Darryl Baker of Clinton and Nancy Burton, director of the
Connecticut Coalition Against Millstone, march down Main Street
in Niantic on Sunday.
East Lyme In an attempt to make a point, Nancy Burton,
director of the Connecticut Coalition Against Millstone,
squeezed a few drops of milk from a reluctant goat named Katie
into a drinking glass Sunday afternoon.
Burton then asked anyone is they wanted to drink the milk. It
was in jest, considering the coalition had brought its pet goat
Katie to the rally, to emphasize that tests on milk of the
region's goats have shown high levels of the radioactive isotope
strontium 90, which can cause cancer in large amounts. The
coalition, which tests Katie's milk for toxic radiation, charges
that the high levels of strontium 90 is coming from Millstone
Power Station in Waterford.
Nobody was supposed to actually drink the milk at Sunday's
rally. But then, Stephen Packard of Guilford stepped forward and
said he would do it. It was not part of the plan. Burton
stalled, then declined to let Packard drink the milk.
I think we'll save this for scientific testing, she said.
Packard said afterward that he had come to the rally because he
felt a lot of what the coalition was advertising was based on
junk science.
I feel nuclear energy could be an important part of a national
energy plan, said Packard, a computer repairman who said he was
unaffiliated with Millstone or any state agency. It should be
evaluated on facts.
The milking came as the coalition Connecticut chapter of the
Sierra Club held a rally opposing Millstone Power Station and
its alleged radioactive contamination of the region at Liberty
Park in Niantic. The rally drew about 20 people.
The coalition is urging the power station to convert its cooling
system, which the coalition says regularly dumps radioactive
waste into Long Island Sound, into a closed cooling system.
A closed cooling system would recycle the water instead of
drawing it from and discharging it into the Sound. The coalition
also wants the power station closed.
Liberty Park, at the corner of Main Street and Pennsylvania
Avenue, was covered in signs that read Capture the wind! Close
Millstone! and Swim here at your own risk! Identical
stuffed-animal ducks had signs that read, I am a sitting duck
for Millstone terrorism.
The coalition also displayed signs that it wants the town of
East Lyme to post in beaches, warning swimmers of possible
exposure to radioactive waste.
Swim at your own risk: Your government is not protecting you,
it read.
Burton spoke about the dangers of radioactive waste coming from
Millstone. She said the power station regularly dumps chemicals
and radioactive waste into Long Island Sound and that residents
exposed to the waste are developing cancer and other illnesses.
Cynthia Besade, whose late father Joseph H. Besade helped start
the coalition with Burton 11 years ago, spoke passionately about
family and friends who have contracted grave diseases that she
said were associated with Millstone pollution.
I've watched this community be poisoned, she said.
Besade said her father passed away three years ago of lung
cancer. He worked as a pipefitter at Millstone for 20 years and
lived two miles away from the power station, she said.
Pete Hyde, the spokesman for Dominion, the owner of Millstone,
said the coalition's claims about radioactive pollution were
not entirely true.
What we discharge, small amounts, (are) well within federal
limits, Hyde said. The federal government sets limits on what
we can discharge into the Sound. We do discharge minute amounts
of chemicals and some radioactive materials, but a minute
amount.
He also disputed the coalition's belief that Millstone was
causing illnesses in the area's residents. Hyde said that the
strontium 90 found in goats' milk is a result of atomic weapons
testing from the 1970s and 80s.
There are a lot of studies that have proven that nuclear
plants do not have an impact on the local population, he said.
John Calandrelli, state director of the Connecticut Sierra Club,
said the club wants to eliminate nuclear power and replace it
with clean energy.
It's doable, Calandrelli said before his rally speech. Not
only technically, but financially. It's just the political will.
The rally lasted two and a half hours and ended with a march
down to Niantic's Hole-in-the-Wall beach, led by Clinton
resident DJ Middleton on the snare drum. Middleton, who is in a
metal band, said Burton asked him to play at the rally after
seeing him drumming on a counter at a Dunkin' Donuts shop.
Scott Curtiss of Southington was bicycling by the rally on
Sunday and stopped to listen. He said he fished in Niantic, and
while he felt Millstone does contribute to killing off a lot of
fish, he wanted to know how much of what the coalition was
saying was true.
There's two sides to every story, Curtiss said.
Clinton resident Tom Callinan, who was the state's first
official state troubadour, sang anti-Millstone songs on his
banjo, guitar and bodhran (a drum) in the park's gazebo. He said
he has been writing environmental songs since the '70s and wrote
his latest song at 1:30 a.m. Sunday.
We gotta mothball Millstone/It's the only choice to
make/'Cause our lives are all at stake/I remember 9/11 and what
solidarity can do/I don't want a Millstone meltdown/Do you?
sang Callinan.
Beachgoers enjoying the warm weather watched the rally proceed
down to the edge of the water, where rally participants posed
for a group photo with Millstone in the background. The rally,
silent save for the constant beat of the snare drum, then
continued to the far end of the beach and back. It exited with
little fanfare save for a few grumbles from beachgoers.
It's just rude, said a man eating a bag of Cheetos.
j.cho@theday.com East Lyme
[TheDay.com]
Contact Us at 1 (860) 442-2200 | New London, CT | ©
1998-2006 The Day Publishing Co.
*****************************************************************
21 AU ABC: Campaigner attacks nuclear inquirys credibility
7.30 Report - 03/07/2006:
Australian Broadcasting Corporation 7.30 Report
http://www.abc.net.au
Reporter: Kerry O'Brien
KERRY O'BRIEN, PRESENTER: Twenty-five years ago, Australian
doctor Helen Caldicott was one of the most powerful and
compelling figures on America's public stage. She founded a
movement of more than 20,000 physicians and scientists against
the nuclear arms race, and even her enemies had to acknowledge
the potency of her appeal.
DR HELEN CALDICOTT: Don't believe what they're saying, watch
what they do.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
KERRY O'BRIEN: In one disarmament rally in New York's Central
Park in 1982, something like a million people turned out to hear
her speak. But the end of the Cold War was pretty much the end
of the movement, and the one-time Nobel Prize nominee eventually
retired to the NSW Central Coast. Yet in recent years, she's
sought to rekindle the spark of protest. And now, as the
Australian Government launches its inquiry into the feasibility
of nuclear power here, she's already moved to attack its
credibility, with her own launch in Melbourne this week - a book
called Nuclear Power is Not the Answer. I spoke with Helen
Caldicott at her home near Gosford.
Helen Caldicott, can I begin with, I suppose, the most obvious
question. You had an enormous following in the early 80s. The
impetus of your campaign tended to peter out as the threat of
nuclear holocaust dissipated. You retired to your coastal garden
and to spend more time with family. Why the comeback?
DR HELEN CALDICOTT, ANTI-NUCLEAR ACTIVIST: Well, I, too, thought
that the risk of nuclear war would just dissipate and go away
and the main movers and shakers would get rid of the nuclear
weapons and for a while there in the 90s, no-one really knew
which direction it was going to take. And then Clinton was
elected and Clinton didn't have the courage to take on the
Pentagon. He was scared of them. He just let the matter lie. And
now America and Russia still target each other on hair-trigger
alert with thousands of nuclear weapons. And I'm trying to set
up a conference with the Pentagon at the moment and the White
House and the Russians to talk about the fact that we could be
blown off the face of the earth tonight. And it's more serious
now than it was at the height of the Cold War.
KERRY O'BRIEN: And yet, you found it very hard to reignite the
spark this time round, haven't you? Why?
DR HELEN CALDICOTT: Because people think the risk's gone away.
They're practising psychic numbing. Thank God it's all finished,
we're friendly with the Russians. But the fact is the Russian
early warning system doesn't work and by accident or by
terrorist intrusion they could blow up the world tonight.
KERRY O'BRIEN: On nuclear power, on which your book is about to
be launched, you say the arguments against nuclear power are
overwhelming. You're not shaken by the fact that some
highly-respected global warming campaigners say that the threat
of greenhouse is so great that the risks of nuclear power are
outweighed by the benefits that nuclear power on a large scale
would deliver on greenhouse.
DR HELEN CALDICOTT: What are the benefits it would deliver? The
fact is that the nuclear fuel cycle from A to Z, mining,
milling, enriching, building the reactor, storing the waste for
half a million years, produce a lot of greenhouse gases. So
nuclear power, in fact, adds to greenhouse warming, does not
detract, does not negate it, adds to it substantially.
KERRY O'BRIEN: But once a nuclear power station is built, it is
then not adding to greenhouse, correct?
DR HELEN CALDICOTT: No, but you've got to make the fuel, Kerry.
You've got to enrich the uranium, you've got to dig it up and
the quality of uranium will be declining rapidly over time and
it's going to produce, use a huge amount of fossil fuel to
enrich it. So soon, in a decade or two, a nuclear power plant
will produce as much CO2 as a similar sized gas-fired plant. So
the argument is fallacious, but the nuclear industry is spending
hundreds of millions of dollars to convince people that nuclear
power is the answer to global warming, which it's not.
KERRY O'BRIEN: But some highly credible scientists, eminent
scientists, are swayed by the argument.
DR HELEN CALDICOTT: Name them. Which ones?
KERRY O'BRIEN: Well, I'll tell you. James Lovelock is a powerful
environmentalist and scientific voice, isn't he? When he calls
for a massive expansion in the world's nuclear energy programs
because he believes it's the only option left to stem the rapid
advance of the greenhouse threat, I mean, is he dumb on this?
DR HELEN CALDICOTT: He's off the tracks. I've spoken to James
Lovelock several times. He thinks that oxygen causes cancer,
although he's a medical scientist. And he said, "Look, the way
to heat my house is to put nuclear waste in my basement". So he
wasn't open to reason or understanding. He's right on greenhouse
warming, absolutely. He's totally wrong on nuclear power. And
nuclear power from a medical perspective will, over time, induce
epidemics of cancer and leukaemia and genetic disease forever
more. And if he's a medical scientist he should indeed be
concerned about that.
KERRY O'BRIEN: No-one can doubt Tim Flannery's scientific and
environmental credentials. He says James Lovelock has a point on
nuclear power. Flannery, too, is coming to see nuclear power as
possibly a lesser of evils with regard to greenhouse in
Australia.
DR HELEN CALDICOTT: You don't replace one evil with another,
Kerry.
KERRY O'BRIEN: If it's the lesser of evils?
DR HELEN CALDICOTT: It's not the lesser of evils. The generation
of nuclear power is the only electricity generation that can
destroy a city. There are two huge nuclear reactors 35 miles
from Manhattan. They were targets for the 9/11 terrorists. If
one of those goes and the wind blows towards Manhattan, that's
the end of the financial capital of the world.
KERRY O'BRIEN: If all the arguments against nuclear power are as
overwhelming as you assert, particularly the economic arguments
like the need for massive government subsidies, surely those
arguments have to win the day? In which case, what have you got
to worry about?
DR HELEN CALDICOTT: Yeah, it's a good point. I mean, Wall Street
is very reluctant to invest in nuclear power. Standard &Poor's
now - they are very allergic to it. And really, it's a
socialised industry. The Energy Bill of 2005 in the US allocated
$13 billion to subsidise nuclear power. It can't operate without
huge government subsidies. So it's a socialised industry and a
capitalistic society. And if the government keeps subsidising
it, then I guess they can build a few reactors but certainly not
enough to make any difference to global warming, not that they
will anyway in the long term.
KERRY O'BRIEN: You attack the nuclear industry for
propagandising, but haven't you been guilty of setting out to
manipulate your audiences over the years in the way you have
sold your case, at times, dare I suggest, to harangue, generate
fear, to push your arguments to the limits, to enlist the public
to your cause?
DR HELEN CALDICOTT: How?
KERRY O'BRIEN: I've seen you give speeches to audiences.
DR HELEN CALDICOTT: And?
KERRY O'BRIEN: I would say promoting fear by painting very
fearful cases of the picture that you paint of a nuclear
holocaust, the picture that you paint in this interview of
nuclear accident, isn't that pushing at emotions?
DR HELEN CALDICOTT: Kerry, I don't want the only life in the
universe to be destroyed and it's possible to do that now and it
makes me scared and I'm a paediatrician having taken the
Hippocratic oath. All the world's children are potentially my
patients. I'm practising global preventative medicine. And so I
have to speak the truth. And if it makes people frightened...you
know, it's hard to speak this stuff, because it's boring, you
know, and if you've got an audience and you're giving them fact
after fact, they sort of go to sleep. So you have to be an
actress, too, to wake them up and get them to face reality. Like
getting a person to stop smoking. I've done that lots of times
by scaring them and they hate me. But you know what, they stop
smoking. This is practising preventative medicine.
KERRY O'BRIEN: Coming back to your personal motivation. You say
in retirement you became depressed, did you honestly ask
yourself whether a part of that depression was simply that you
missed the fray?
DR HELEN CALDICOTT: Partly and partly because I'm pretty
intuitive to my detriment. And I know what's happening, I can
see what can happen in the future. I'm not good at denial, I'm
not.
KERRY O'BRIEN: You've talked before about the personal cost to
your family of your years of campaigning. What's been the worst
of that personal cost?
DR HELEN CALDICOTT: I lost my marriage.
KERRY O'BRIEN: Worth it?
DR HELEN CALDICOTT: It's hard to know, really, isn't it? I mean,
it was my destiny to do this work and it kind of still is. I
knew from a child that I would do something like this.
KERRY O'BRIEN: But isn't that - look, I'm not suggesting that
this is so in your case, but when a person talks about their
destiny, isn't there a little bit of a danger in that that you
kind of can persuade yourself to all sorts of things because you
say it's your destiny?
DR HELEN CALDICOTT: I couldn't not have done it, Kerry. I read
On The Beach when I was 15. And that was the turning - I lost my
innocence. I lived in Melbourne. I could feel the bombs
exploding shortly after that. We could destroy life on earth.
Then I did medicine at the age of 17, I learned about genetics
and radiation. It was so obvious to me and Russia and America
were blowing up bombs in the atmosphere and the fallout was
falling down and Linus Pauling said children would get leukaemia
and cancer, medically it's obvious. Now, I could practise
medicine, I could have stayed at Harvard and done really well. I
had a great boss. But I could see beyond pouring stuff into test
tubes and treating individual patients. What was the use of
caring for my patients so carefully if, in fact, they had no
future?
KERRY O'BRIEN: And so here you go again?
DR HELEN CALDICOTT: Yeah.
KERRY O'BRIEN: Helen Caldicott, thanks for talking with us.
DR HELEN CALDICOTT: Thanks, Kerry.
*****************************************************************
22 FT.com: A changing climate for nuclear energy
Comment & analysis / Editorial comment -
Financial Times FT.com
Published: July 3 2006 03:00 | Last updated: July 3 2006 03:00
The government has been dropping broad hints of its new
enthusiasm for privately funded nuclear power plants. The latest
one was implicit in last week's announcement of unexpectedly
tough caps on carbon dioxide emissions from 2008-12.
The government is steadily restricting the supply of tradeable
permits to emit carbon. This is the most cost-effective way of
reaching any given emissions target because it means that those
who can easily clean up their act will do so while those who are
producing valuable products will instead buy permits.
The government has given away many of these valuable permits to
the big industrial polluters while forcing electricity generators
to buy many of theirs. There is no environmental reason for this;
the permits, after all, are tradeable. How much emissions are
reduced and by whom will be un-affected by the initial
allocation, which is merely a handout to whichever industries are
in favour. Ideally, all permits would be auctioned.
But the government's focus on the electricity industry seems to
be another sign that it is preparing the ground for new nuclear
power stations. As a way to deal with climate change, nuclear
power has much to recommend it. Nuclear power stations provide
baseload capacity; they are always on, while fossil fuel power
stations need then be switched on less often, at peak times,
minimising carbon emissions.
Mining uranium and building nuclear power stations does generate
carbon dioxide, but much less than the constant burning of
fossil fuels. Carbon permits, therefore, rightly tilt the
playing field in favour of nuclear but, unless the price of
permits rises much higher than it is at present, that will not
be the factor that persuades private investors to build nuclear
power stations. They will be looking at political risks, capital
costs and the cost of competing fuels.
The government also announced that some of the revenues from
permit auctions will be used to fund renewable energy projects.
This looks like a sopto the environmental lobby, but it need not
be. Renewable technologies will have a role to play in reducing
climate change if they are applicable in China, Brazil, Mexico
and India. Some renewable energy schemes - includingoffshore
wind farms - have dealt with the parochial concerns of small,
rich nations. The innovation fund should concentrate on ideas
that will work all over the world.
Nuclear power stations produceradioactive waste and this has an
environmental cost. Generators should not be able to produce
this pollution for free. But new nuclear power stations produce
much less radioactive waste than earlier models. If waste can be
stored safely for a few decades, this problem is likely to
become easier to resolve over time. We cannot have the same
confidence about climate change.
The Financial Times Limited 2006
+ © Copyright 2006. "FT" and "Financial Times" are trademarks
of The Financial Times Ltd.
*****************************************************************
23 UPI: NNSA sets up new nuclear planning office
United Press International - Security &Terrorism -
7/3/2006 1:10:00 PM -0400
WASHINGTON, July 3 (UPI) -- The U.S. National Nuclear Security
Administration has announced the establishment of a new Office
of Transformation.
The new body will focus the agency's efforts to modernize its
Cold War-era nuclear weapons complex, the NNSA said in a
statement.
"Since nuclear weapons will remain a part of the U.S. national
defense for the foreseeable future, NNSA will need the
scientific and manufacturing infrastructure to support them. Our
goal is to have a nuclear weapons complex that is smaller, more
efficient, more secure and capable of providing the tools a
future president may need to respond to changing national
security needs," said NNSA administrator Linton F. Brooks.
The new office will guide and oversee the implementation of
NNSA's transformational vision, titled Complex 2030. The
comprehensive plan was unveiled in April to outline NNSA's goals
through the year 2030 to keep the U.S. nuclear stockpile safe
and reliable without underground nuclear testing.
In 2004, President George W. Bush directed that the size of the
U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile be reduced by nearly 50 percent
by 2012, which will result in the smallest stockpile since the
Eisenhower administration.
The NNSA said that the key to its transformational efforts would
be the Reliable Replacement Warhead, which is intended to ensure
the long-term reliability and safety of the U.S. nuclear weapons
stockpile and reduce the possibility that the United States
would ever need to return to underground nuclear testing.
The NNSA also plans to dismantle retired warheads, consolidate
special nuclear materials, establish a consolidated plutonium
center, and implement more efficient and uniform business
practices throughout the U.S. nuclear complex. The NNSA said it
planned to increase the dismantlement of nuclear weapons by
nearly 50 percent from Fiscal Year 2006 to Fiscal Year 2007.
© Copyright 2006 United Press International, Inc. All Rights
*****************************************************************
24 UPI: NNSA dismantles W56 nukes
United Press International - Security &Terrorism -
7/3/2006 1:12:00 PM -0400
Newstrack: New Jersey casinos lost a legal fight
WASHINGTON, July 3 (UPI) -- The top official of the U.S.
National Nuclear Security Administration announced last week
that the last W56 nuclear warhead has been dismantled.
The 1960s-era system has been safely and securely taken apart
and will never again be a part of the U.S. nuclear weapons
stockpile, the NNSA statement said.
"Dismantling the last W56 warhead shows our firm commitment to
reducing the size of the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile to
the lowest levels necessary for national security needs," said
Linton F. Brooks, head of NNSA.
In 2004, President George W. Bush directed that the size of the
U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile be reduced by nearly 50 percent
by 2012, which will result in the smallest stockpile since the
Eisenhower administration. NNSA's work to dismantle nuclear
weapons will increase by nearly 50 percent from Fiscal Year 2006
to Fiscal Year 2007, the agency said.
NNSA's Lawrence Livermore and Sandia National Laboratories
designed the W56 warhead, which supported the nation's
intercontinental ballistic missile program. It was produced in
the 1960s and saw service until the early 1990s. The delivery
platforms were the U.S. Air Force Minuteman I and II ICBMs.
As a key part of its national security mission, NNSA is actively
responsible for safely dismantling weapons that are no longer
needed, and disposing of the excess material and components.
The dismantlement process includes four steps: retiring a weapon
from active or inactive service; returning and storing it at
NNSA's Pantex Plant; taking it apart by physically separating
the high explosives from the special nuclear material; and
disposing of the material and components, which includes
demilitarization, sanitization, evaluation, reuse and ultimate
disposal.
© Copyright 2006 United Press International, Inc. All Rights
Reserved
*****************************************************************
25 UPI: NNSA delivers restored nuclear weapon
United Press International - Security &Terrorism -
7/3/2006 1:23:00 PM -0400
WASHINGTON, July 3 (UPI) -- The U.S. Department of Energy's
National Nuclear Security Administration has completed a
six-year effort to deliver the first refurbished B61 nuclear
bomb.
This program will extend the life of the B61 mod-7 and mod-11
strategic bombs in the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile, the NNSA
said in a statement last week.
The program is part of an ambitious effort which helps to ensure
that the nation's aging nuclear weapons stockpile is capable of
meeting national defense requirements without conducting
underground nuclear tests. The purpose of the B61 refurbishment
is to extend the bomb's life by 20 years and to provide the
necessary structural restoration, the NNSA said.
"Completing the B61 first production unit is an important step
in keeping our nuclear weapons stockpile safe and reliable. Our
nuclear weapons were never intended to last this long and they
were not designed to be taken apart, so it is a credit to our
scientists and engineers across the complex who have come
together to deliver this unit on time," said NNSA Deputy
Administrator for Defense Programs Tom D'Agostino.
The B61 bombs are an integral part of the U.S. strategic defense
system and are the oldest weapons in the U.S. nuclear stockpile.
Many of them were originally produced in the late 1960s and
early 1970s. The B61-7/11s are slated to be refurbished by
fiscal year 2009.
No new U.S. nuclear weapons have been produced since the end of
the Cold War. At the time of production, these weapons were not
intended to last indefinitely, and over time nuclear warheads
deteriorate, even when kept in storage. Therefore, to maintain a
credible nuclear deterrent without conducting underground tests,
NNSA uses science-based research to extend the lifetime of
nuclear weapons.
© Copyright 2006 United Press International, Inc. All Rights
Reserved
*****************************************************************
26 [NukeNet] Jane Goodall on the Marshall Islands
Date: Mon, 03 Jul 2006 18:08:20 -0700
From: "Nuclear Age Peace Foundation"
To:
Subject: Jane Goodall on the Marshall Islands
Date: Sat, 1 Jul 2006 11:37:51 -0400
June 30, 1946 marked the first of 67 deadly US nuclear weapons tests in the
Marshall Islands - tests that brought untold sorrow to the people of the
Marshall's. The article below by Jane Goodall, a member of the Foundation's
Advisory Council, and Rick Asselta, was published in today's San Francisco
Chronicle. Please take a moment to read it and to consider the suffering
and death we have inflicted with the hubris of our nuclear policies.
Remembering
the Marshall Islands
Jane Goodall, Rick Asselta
Friday, June 30, 2006
As a result of nuclear testing on the Marshall Islands 60 years ago, many
of the Marshallese Islanders still suffer today. Yet, few Americans know
about this shameful chapter of history. Today, June 30, which marks a
painful anniversary for many in the South Pacific, is just another day for
those unaware of the atrocities that took place there. This year, I hope
the anniversary might open the eyes of people in America and around the
world: We must acknowledge the damage done in the past and rise up out of
our apathy to ensure such horrors are not perpetrated again.
I became aware of the nuclear testing program initiated after World War II
from a friend who witnessed the aftermath of the devastation first hand.
Rick Asselta was sent to the Marshall Islands as a Peace Corps volunteer to
help comfort islanders whose homes and lives were destroyed by the testing.
Between 1946 and 1958, the American military tested 67 nuclear weapons at
Bikini and Enewetak. Prior to the first of these tests, the islanders were
evacuated to other atolls, more than 100 miles away, and, as a precaution,
the inhabitants of three other atolls were moved temporarily.
In 1952, the first hydrogen bomb was tested -- at 10.4 megatons, it was
some 750 times larger than the Hiroshima bomb. In 1954, an even larger
hydrogen bomb was detonated. On the eve of this test, code-named Bravo,
weather reports indicated that atmospheric conditions were deteriorating,
and on the morning of the test, the winds were blowing strongly toward a
number of U.S. ships as well as several inhabited islands, including
Rongelap and Utrik. Nevertheless, despite the clear danger to the people on
these islands, the bomb, 1,000 times the strength of the Hiroshima bomb,
was detonated. Great clouds of gritty, white ash rained down on several
atolls, affecting many people, including some American weathermen.
It would be two days before people were moved from Rongelap, the worst
affected island, and another day passed before Utrik was evacuated. The
islanders suffered skin burns, and their hair fell out. Yet, in a statement
to the press, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission stated that some Americans
and Marshallese were "unexpectedly exposed to some radioactivity. There
were no burns. All were reported well." Subsequently, the commission
drafted a report, not publicly released, in which it concluded that the
Bravo fallout may have contaminated as many as 18 atolls and islands. Some
years after that, an additional survey by the U.S. Department of Energy
revealed that yet other atolls and islands had been affected by one or more
of the tests, including five that were inhabited.
Three years after Bravo, in 1955, the inhabitants of Utrik were allowed to
return because their island "was only slightly contaminated and considered
safe." Two years later, Rongelap was declared safe "in spite of slight
lingering radiation" and the people returned. A chilling report was issued
at this time by Brookhaven National Laboratory scientists, who stated that
although the contamination was considered perfectly safe "the levels of
activity are higher than those found in other inhabited locations in the
world. The habitation of these people on the island will afford most
valuable ecological radiation data on human beings" (my italics).
In 1963, nine years after their exposure to Bravo, the first thyroid tumors
began appearing among the people of Rongelap. Thirteen years later, 20 of
the 29 Rongelap children who were under 10 years old at the time of Bravo
had developed these tumors. At the same time, it became clear that people
exposed to lower levels of radiation were still at risk -- there was simply
a longer latency period before health problems appeared.
Eleven years after the last nuclear tests, in 1969, the commission
announced that Bikini was safe for rehabilitation. However, the Bikini
council was not satisfied by this assurance and only a few families
returned to their homes. How fortunate -- six years later, a U.S.
Department of the Interior official reported "higher levels of
radioactivity than originally thought" -- some ground wells were too
radioactive for safe use, and several types of staple foods had to be
prohibited. Six years after returning home, the few families who had
returned to Bikini were moved yet again when additional testing showed that
they had sustained an "incredible" 75 percent increase in radioactive cesium.
Before staging this ghastly series of tests in the Marshall Islands, home
of a gentle people with an ancient culture, the United States, in its role
as administrator of the area, undertook to "protect the inhabitants against
the loss of their lands and resources". Unfortunately, this promise was
hardly fulfilled.
Eventually, in 1977, Congress approved a nuclear cleanup of Enewetak Atoll.
Of course, compensation in dollar amounts has been negotiated for the
abused and exploited islanders, though not nearly enough.
Nor was nuclear testing the only horrifying test program inflicted on the
Marshall Islands. Project Shipboard Hazards and Defense was part of a
United States chemical and biological warfare test program that was
conducted during the 1960s. Project SHAD was designed to test the
vulnerability of U.S. warships to attacks by biological and chemical agents
and to develop procedures to respond to such attacks. In 1968, biological
agents, live staphylococcal enterotoxin type B, Bacillus globigii and
uranine dye, were sprayed in aerosolized form, not only over six military
ships, but also over part of the Enewetak Atoll. Those tests were linked to
a sudden nationwide outbreak of a very severe flu-like disease in the
Marshall Islands, which caused some deaths.
Subsequently, many U.S. servicemen complained of health problems they
believed had resulted from their involvement in SHAD. It was the complaints
of these veterans that eventually led to the above disclosures by the U.S.
Department of Defense, through the Freedom of Information Act.
How many other people, in how many other countries have suffered, I wonder,
during the testing of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons? That
governments are still developing and testing nuclear bombs -- along with
chemical and biological weapons -- is a crime against humanity that surely
can never be justified or forgiven. On June 30, I hope you will pause and
reflect on the events which happened more than half a century ago, the
long-lasting effects of which continue to afflict many people of the
Marshall Islands today.
I have a small wooden carving made by an old man who, despite the risk of
radiation, returned to his island. It was his home, he said, where he had
known a carefree childhood until foreign nations determined to use it to
test their devil's weapons. He gave it to Rick, who has given it to me. I
carry it with me as a symbol of the indomitable human spirit, and also as a
reminder of the atrocities that were perpetrated that we must, somehow,
prevent from ever happening again.
Jane Goodall is a U.N. Messenger of Peace and a recipient of the
Gandhi-King Peace Award for Nonviolence. To learn more about the Jane
Goodall Institute, go to www.janegoodall.org.
©2006 San Francisco Chronicle
*****************************************************************
27 [NYTr] Remembering the Marshall Islands
Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2006 22:46:45 -0500 (CDT)
X-Sender-Host-Name: sshtunnel-receive
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
CounterPunch - Jul 1, 2006
http://www.counterpunch.org/goodall07012006.html
50 Years After Bravo
Remembering the Marshall Islands
By JANE GOODALL with RICK ASSELTA
As a result of nuclear testing on the Marshall Islands 60 years ago,
many of the Marshallese Islanders still suffer today. Yet, few
Americans know about this shameful chapter of history. Today, June 30,
which marks a painful anniversary for many in the South Pacific, is
just another day for those unaware of the atrocities that took place
there. This year, I hope the anniversary might open the eyes of people
in America and around the world: We must acknowledge the damage done
in the past and rise up out of our apathy to ensure such horrors are
not perpetrated again.
I became aware of the nuclear testing program initiated after World
War II from a friend who witnessed the aftermath of the devastation
first hand. Rick Asselta was sent to the Marshall Islands as a Peace
Corps volunteer to help comfort islanders whose homes and lives were
destroyed by the testing. Between 1946 and 1958, the American military
tested 67 nuclear weapons at Bikini and Enewetak. Prior to the first
of these tests, the islanders were evacuated to other atolls, more
than 100 miles away, and, as a precaution, the inhabitants of three
other atolls were moved temporarily.
In 1952, the first hydrogen bomb was tested -- at 10.4 megatons, it
was some 750 times larger than the Hiroshima bomb. In 1954, an even
larger hydrogen bomb was detonated. On the eve of this test,
code-named Bravo, weather reports indicated that atmospheric
conditions were deteriorating, and on the morning of the test, the
winds were blowing strongly toward a number of U.S. ships as well as
several inhabited islands, including Rongelap and Utrik. Nevertheless,
despite the clear danger to the people on these islands, the bomb,
1,000 times the strength of the Hiroshima bomb, was detonated. Great
clouds of gritty, white ash rained down on several atolls, affecting
many people, including some American weathermen.
It would be two days before people were moved from Rongelap, the worst
affected island, and another day passed before Utrik was evacuated.
The islanders suffered skin burns, and their hair fell out. Yet, in a
statement to the press, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission stated that
some Americans and Marshallese were "unexpectedly exposed to some
radioactivity. There were no burns. All were reported well."
Subsequently, the commission drafted a report, not publicly released,
in which it concluded that the Bravo fallout may have contaminated as
many as 18 atolls and islands. Some years after that, an additional
survey by the U.S. Department of Energy revealed that yet other atolls
and islands had been affected by one or more of the tests, including
five that were inhabited.
Three years after Bravo, in 1955, the inhabitants of Utrik were
allowed to return because their island "was only slightly contaminated
and considered safe." Two years later, Rongelap was declared safe "in
spite of slight lingering radiation" and the people returned. A
chilling report was issued at this time by Brookhaven National
Laboratory scientists, who stated that although the contamination was
considered perfectly safe "the levels of activity are higher than
those found in other inhabited locations in the world. The habitation
of these people on the island will afford most valuable ecological
radiation data on human beings"
In 1963, nine years after their exposure to Bravo, the first thyroid
tumors began appearing among the people of Rongelap. Thirteen years
later, 20 of the 29 Rongelap children who were under 10 years old at
the time of Bravo had developed these tumors. At the same time, it
became clear that people exposed to lower levels of radiation were
still at risk -- there was simply a longer latency period before
health problems appeared.
Eleven years after the last nuclear tests, in 1969, the commission
announced that Bikini was safe for rehabilitation. However, the Bikini
council was not satisfied by this assurance and only a few families
returned to their homes. How fortunate -- six years later, a U.S.
Department of the Interior official reported "higher levels of
radioactivity than originally thought" -- some ground wells were too
radioactive for safe use, and several types of staple foods had to be
prohibited. Six years after returning home, the few families who had
returned to Bikini were moved yet again when additional testing showed
that they had sustained an "incredible" 75 percent increase in
radioactive cesium.
Before staging this ghastly series of tests in the Marshall Islands,
home of a gentle people with an ancient culture, the United States, in
its role as administrator of the area, undertook to "protect the
inhabitants against the loss of their lands and resources".
Unfortunately, this promise was hardly fulfilled.
Eventually, in 1977, Congress approved a nuclear cleanup of Enewetak
Atoll. Of course, compensation in dollar amounts has been negotiated
for the abused and exploited islanders, though not nearly enough.
Nor was nuclear testing the only horrifying test program inflicted on
the Marshall Islands. Project Shipboard Hazards and Defense was part
of a United States chemical and biological warfare test program that
was conducted during the 1960s. Project SHAD was designed to test the
vulnerability of U.S. warships to attacks by biological and chemical
agents and to develop procedures to respond to such attacks. In 1968,
biological agents, live staphylococcal enterotoxin type B, Bacillus
globigii and uranine dye, were sprayed in aerosolized form, not only
over six military ships, but also over part of the Enewetak Atoll.
Those tests were linked to a sudden nationwide outbreak of a very
severe flu-like disease in the Marshall Islands, which caused some
deaths.
Subsequently, many U.S. servicemen complained of health problems they
believed had resulted from their involvement in SHAD. It was the
complaints of these veterans that eventually led to the above
disclosures by the U.S. Department of Defense, through the Freedom of
Information Act.
How many other people, in how many other countries have suffered, I
wonder, during the testing of nuclear, chemical and biological
weapons? That governments are still developing and testing nuclear
bombs -- along with chemical and biological weapons -- is a crime
against humanity that surely can never be justified or forgiven.
I have a small wooden carving made by an old man who, despite the risk
of radiation, returned to his island. It was his home, he said, where
he had known a carefree childhood until foreign nations determined to
use it to test their devil's weapons. He gave it to Rick, who has
given it to me. I carry it with me as a symbol of the indomitable
human spirit, and also as a reminder of the atrocities that were
perpetrated that we must, somehow, prevent from ever happening again.
[Jane Goodall is a U.N. Messenger of Peace and a recipient of the
Gandhi-King Peace Award for Nonviolence. To learn more about the Jane
Goodall Institute, go to http://www.janegoodall.org.
Rick Asselta is Roots & Shoots Coordinator of University Programs at
Western Connecticut State University.]
*
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28 NRC: RIN 3150-AH48
FR Doc E6-10422
[Federal Register: July 3, 2006 (Volume 71, Number 127)]
[Proposed Rules] [Page 37862] From the Federal Register Online
via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr03jy06-15]
National Source Tracking of Sealed Sources: Extension of Comment
Period AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
ACTION: Proposed rule: Extension of comment period.
SUMMARY: On June 13, 2006, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
(NRC) published for public comment a proposal to change the basis
for the national source tracking rule from the NRC's authority to
promote the common defense and security to protection of the
public health and safety. The comment period for this proposed
rule was to have expired on July 3, 2006. Senator Hillary Rodham
Clinton and Representative Edward Markey requested an extension
to the comment period. The NRC has decided to extend the comment
period for an additional 25 days.
DATES: The comment period for the proposed rule published on June
13, 2006 (71 FR 34024), has been extended and now expires on July
28, 2006. Comments received after this date will be considered if
it is practical to do so, but the Commission is able to ensure
consideration only for comments received before this date.
ADDRESSES: You may submit comments by any one of the following
methods. Please include the following number (RIN 3150-AH48) in
the subject line of your comments. Comments on rulemakings
submitted in writing or in electronic form will be made available
to the public in their entirety on the NRC rulemaking Web site.
Personal information will not be removed from your comments.
Mail comments to: Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission,
Washington, DC 20555-0001, ATTN: Rulemakings and Adjudications
Staff.
E-mail comments to: SECY@nrc.gov. If you do not receive a reply
e- mail confirming that we have received your comments, contact
us directly at (301) 415-1966. You may also submit comments via
the NRC's rulemaking Web site at http://ruleforum.llnl.gov.
Address questions about our rulemaking website to Carol Gallagher
(301) 415-5905; e-mail cag@nrc.gov. Comments can also be
submitted via the Federal Rulemaking Portal
http://www.regulations.gov. Hand deliver comments to: 11555
Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland 20852, between 7:30 a.m. and
4:15 p.m. Federal workdays. (Telephone (301) 415-1966).
Fax comments to: Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission at
(301) 415-1101.
Publicly available documents related to this rulemaking may be
examined and copied for a fee at the NRC's Public Document Room
(PDR), Public File Area O1 F21, One White Flint North, 11555
Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland. Selected documents,
including comments, can be viewed and downloaded electronically
via the NRC rulemaking Web site at http://ruleforum.llnl.gov.
Publicly available documents created or received at the NRC after
November 1, 1999, are available electronically at the NRC's
Electronic Reading Room at
http://www.nrc.gov/NRC/ADAMS/index.html. From this site, the
public can gain entry into the NRC's Agencywide Document Access
and Management System (ADAMS), which provides text and image
files of NRC's public documents. If you do not have access to
ADAMS or if there are problems in accessing the documents located
in ADAMS, contact the NRC Public Document Room (PDR) Reference
staff at 1-800- 397-4209, 301-415-4737 or by e-mail to
pdr@nrc.gov. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Merri Horn, Office
of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards, U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, telephone (301)
415-8126, e-mail, mlh1@nrc.gov. Dated at Rockville, Maryland,
this 28th day of June, 2006.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Annette Vietti Cook, Secretary of the Commission.
[FR Doc. E6-10422 Filed 6-30-06; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
*****************************************************************
29 IEER: Environmental Transport of Radium and Plutonium
IEER| Publications The Environmental Transport of Radium and
Plutonium: A Review Brice Smith Alexandra Amonette Institute for
Energy and Environmental Research June 23, 2006
Download full report[PDF 470kB]
Table of Contents
Chapter One: Introduction
Chapter Two: Radium Mobility in the Environment
Section 2.1 - Adsorption/Desorption Studies
Section 2.2 - Measuring the Partition Coefficient
Section 2.3 - Limitations of the Kd Approach
Section 2.4 - Biota Effects Impacts on Radium Mobility
Section 2.5 - Conclusions
Chapter Three: Plutonium Mobility in the Environment
Section 3.1 - Oxidation States of Plutonium
Section 3.2 - Complexing Agents
Section 3.3 - Colloid Mediated Transport
Section 3.4 - Erosion and Surface Water Transport
Section 3.5 - Biota Impacts
Section 3.6 - Conclusions
References
Additional Resources Available
Available at EggheadBooks: Plutonium: Deadly Gold of the
Nuclear Age International Physicians Press, 1992
Institute for Energy and Environmental ResearchComments to
Outreach Coordinator: ieer at ieer.org
Takoma Park, Maryland, USA
Posted June 30, 2006
*****************************************************************
30 Green Left Weekly: Aboriginal, environmental alliance against uranium
www.greenleft.org.au
The Alliance Against Uranium, a network of Aboriginal and
environmental organisations which was formed in 1997, declared
after a September 2005 meeting in Quorn, South Australia, that
current and future generations have a right to a clean
environment. Further, it said that Indigenous people have right
to “clean water and safe bush tucker, a strong culture and
healthy communities and protection for their sacred lands and
burial grounds”.
Attendees from the Adnyamathanha, Kokatha Moola, Warlpiri,
Anmatyere, Kungarakun and Gurindji nations took part, as well as
representatives from Friends of the Earth, the Australian
Conservation Foundation, the Medical Association for the
Prevention of War, the Mineral Policy Institute, the Campaign
Against Nuclear Dumping (SA), the Australian Student Environment
Network and the Anti-Nuclear Alliance of Western Australia.
The alliance called on the federal government to “stop forcing
nuclear projects on unwilling communities” and affirmed that
“consultation and informed group consent is an essential
precondition to the consideration of nuclear projects”.
Participants also committed themselves to share information, and
to build the links to reduce nuclear risks to people and country.
From Green Left Weekly, July 5, 2006.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.
Authorised by K. Miller, 23 Abercrombie St, Chippendale, NSW
*****************************************************************
31 baltimoresun.com: Nuclear folly -
opinion
Originally published July 3, 2006
Bipartisan celebration greeted news last week that the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission had licensed, for the first time in 30
years, a major commercial nuclear facility, to be built near the
small New Mexican town of Eunice.
Republican lawmakers saw proof of the resurgence of nuclear power
in the United States as an alternative to fossil fuels. Democrats
spoke of high-paying jobs that would come to an impoverished
section of the state.
Just one rub, though. The nuclear enrichment plant, scheduled to
be ready for operation within eight years, will produce a toxic
and corrosive waste for which there is currently no disposal site
anywhere in the country - and no certainty of one being available
soon. In fact, the only designated nuclear waste disposal
facility in the United States is still fighting a two-decade-long
battle to win regulatory approval.
Building first and dealing with the consequences later is
shortsightedness in the extreme. The attraction of new,
potentially cleaner energy sources and short-term economic gains
simply doesn't justify failing to resolve the nuclear waste issue
before building new facilities.
New Mexico expects its problem will be solved by the enrichment
plant's private owners, an international consortium that plans to
have a second facility built to decontaminate the waste so it can
be buried. These disposal plans also have to overcome a series of
hurdles, though, including finding a site.
What the rest of the country has to worry about is the precedent
set in New Mexico.
Nuclear reactor waste far more dangerous than what's left over
from the fuel enrichment process is piling up at plants around
the nation, including Maryland's Calvert Cliffs. There's no place
else to put it. If the disputes surrounding the federally
designated waste site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada aren't resolved
soon, local space will run out. New Mexico Sen. Pete V. Domenici
has proposed creating temporary waste sites on federal land, but
his legislation faces a stormy trip through Congress. Creating
more waste of any type before disposal options are certain only
heightens the danger.
Nuclear power is no panacea for America's energy woes in the best
of circumstances. It produces only electricity, and thus can't
easily replace the shrinking supplies of oil burned for
transportation. And though cleaner than coal, nuclear power is
not without adverse environmental impacts.
Even so, with improved technology and sounder safety procedures,
nuclear power deserves a place among the various energy sources
on which the nation relies - but only if political and
industrial leaders can agree on what to do with the nasty
leftovers.
baltimoresun.com (TM) and sunspot.net (R) are copyright © 2006 by
The Baltimore Sun.
*****************************************************************
32 BBC: BNFL sees positive nuclear future
Last Updated: Monday, 3 July 2006
[Sellafield plant in Cumbria]
Renewed interest is changing the nuclear landscape
State-owned British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) saw pre-tax,
post-exceptional annual profits for the year ending 30 March fall
to £153m ($282m) from £206m.
But it said the outlook for nuclear services and generation was
much improved, as its three main operating businesses come under
new ownership.
BNFL operates 18 sites including the Sellafield nuclear waste
reprocessing plant in Cumbria.
Nuclear energy is being increasingly promoted as an alternative
to oil.
Prime minister Tony Blair is thought to support nuclear power
after he said the issue was "back on the agenda with a
vengeance".
The government launched an energy review in November 2005, which
will include looking at the option of new nuclear power stations.
Meanwhile, the BNFL figures showed that after stripping out
exceptional costs, including the £29m used to close the firm's
corporate centre, underlying profits rose by 23% to £208m.
Sell-off date
BNFL Group Chairman Gordon Campbell said: "We have made
substantial progress in repositioning BNFL into the private
sector, which is in line with the board and shareholder wishes."
However BNFL's decision to sell different parts of its business
has been controversial.
Many critics say the firm is disposing of valuable assets just as
demand for nuclear power could increase.
Japan's Toshiba bought Westinghouse, the US power plant arm of
BNFL for $5.4bn in February.
The same month saw BNFL sell its US nuclear clean-up unit for
£51m to Utah-based Energy Solutions.
The government gave BNFL the go-ahead in March to sell British
Nuclear Group (BNG), which is expected to be completed by late
2007.
BNFL said the sale of BNG, which is being conducted with
Britain's Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), its largest
customer, was expected to start around April 2007.
The BNFL earnings statement came as BNG, which runs 14 UK sites
under contract to the NDA, posted profits of £72m in its first
year.
*****************************************************************
33 Las Vegas SUN: Book says geology wrong at Yucca
Today: July 03, 2006 at 7:6:41 PDT
Study's scientist calls part of mountain a 'volcano'
By Launce Rake Las Vegas Sun
A new book by three dozen scientists from across the country is
questioning the suitability of Yucca Mountain as a dump site for
the nation's high-level radioactive waste.
Yucca Mountain's complex geology - including what one scientist
called an active volcano - makes the site 90 miles northwest of
Las Vegas a poor choice to dump at least 77,000 tons of
radioactive waste, according to the book, "Uncertainty
Underground."
Allison Macfarlane, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology
research associate, and Rodney Ewing, a University of Michigan
professor, co-edited the anthology of 23 papers looking at the
mountain's geology. The book was published by MIT Press.
Yucca geology and chemistry have been central issues as the
federal Energy Department seeks to win approval from the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission for the dump.
As the debate continues, research produced by federal agencies on
the site has been questioned. Independent scientists have said
the mountain is more vulnerable to water flow and other issues
than once thought. And as the technical issues have piled up, the
dump's opening date has receded: It was supposed to open in 1998.
A year ago, Yucca's opening date was 2012. In recent discussions
with Congress, the Energy Department put the date at 2018.
Critics say it should never open. Macfarlane said that while the
country needs a permanent repository for nuclear waste, it
shouldn't be Yucca Mountain. Congress selected the mountain in
1987, but the science does not support the decision, she said.
"There are issues that remain unresolved, and it's a geologically
complex site," she said.
Macfarlane noted that a federal court has ordered the government
to set a radiation standard to protect the environment and people
for 1 million years.
"If we decided we were going to worry about nuclear waste for
1,000 years, then Yucca Mountain would be fine," she said. "But
10,000 or 1 million years, then there are significant issues.
It's a tectonically active site - earthquakes and volcanoes. ¦
There's a volcano at the southern tip of Yucca Mountain, and it's
80,000 years old. Eighty thousand years is a really short time,
geologically. It's considered still an active area."
Macfarlane said the dry desert environment is also a problem,
providing an "oxidizing environment" that would corrode the metal
casks holding the nuclear waste: "It's dry. Although it's touted
as a plus, it's actually a problem ¦ It makes finding canister
material more difficult."
She emphasized that those conclusions are her own, not
necessarily of the scientists across the country who contributed
to the book.
Macfarlane, who provided similar comments earlier this year to
the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said one thing
is clear from the research: Yucca Mountain "is a really
complicated place ¦ I think the solution for high-level
radioactive waste is a geologic repository, but I'm not sure
we've selected the right location. There's plenty of better
options out there."
She declined to identify other sites better suited for the dump.
Not everyone agrees with Macfarlane's assessment. Glenn Biasi, a
UNR associate professor, has studied the seismic and volcanic
conditions at Yucca Mountain. Those conditions are the "subject
of continuing study, certainly, but the things I know about ¦
wouldn't cause me to be concerned about the site."
Biasi said the volcanic activity that created Yucca Mountain over
millions of years, and that reappeared within the last 100,000
years, is a result of underground water interacting with and
helping to melt rock and bring it to the surface. That water is
now largely expelled from deep under Yucca, making a future
eruption less likely, he said.
Allen Benson, a spokesman for the Energy Department's Yucca
Mountain Project, said the site is suitable: "We have spent over
20 years and a considerable amount of money evaluating the
scientific suitability of Yucca Mountain."
The Energy Department recommended the site to President Bush in
2002, and the president forwarded that recommendation to
Congress, which further sanctioned the site. The Energy
Department is now preparing the license application of the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Benson said.
"We will have to demonstrate that Yucca Mountain can safely
protect the community and the environment," he said.
Benson said his agency does not intend to review the book and its
findings. "The scientific community in general will review it,"
he said.
Bob Loux, executive director of Nevada's Agency for Nuclear
Projects, the state agency fighting Yucca Mountain, said the book
adds to a scientific picture of Yucca Mountain that makes the
dump increasingly unlikely.
"Most independent scientists believe the issues at Yucca Mountain
are too complex to be resolved," he said. "We would agree with
those conclusions." Launce Rake can be reached at 259-4127 or at
lrake@lasvegassun.com.
All contents copyright 2005 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
34 Tri-City Herald: Vit plant earthquake study under way
Published Monday, July 3rd, 2006
By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer
Drilling has begun on a new earthquake study at Hanford's
vitrification plant.
It's the third look at how much a severe quake would shake two
massive buildings being constructed for separating and treating
high-level radioactive waste.
"The Hanford site is one of the most geologically studied areas
on the planet next to Yucca Mountain, (Nev.)," said John
Eschenberg, project manager for the Department of Energy's
Hanford Office of River Protection.
The problem is knowing exactly what's under the vitrification
plant.
To answer that question, DOE is spending an estimated $18
million to $20 million to drill four holes on the 65-acre plant
site and study the data collected.
The first hole is being drilled in the middle of the complex. On
one side is the High Level Waste Facility and on the other is
the Low Activity Waste Facility. Both facilities will take
million of gallons of pretreated radioactive and hazardous
chemical waste left from the past production of plutonium for
the nation's nuclear weapons program and turn the waste into a
stable glass form for permanent disposal.
The hope is that this new study will confirm the results of a
smaller study done in 2004. That study showed that the design
for the plant's High Level Waste Facility and the Pretreatment
Facility might be inadequate to withstand a severe earthquake.
After the results were announced, the seismic design standard
was increased 38 percent.
But under a best-case scenario, the new study could show that
the 2004 study overstated the potential harm of a severe
earthquake.
The plant's seismic design standards were originally based on a
1996 study, called a probabilistic seismic hazard analysis.
It looked at the seven fault lines in the Yakima Belt Fold, then
rated them on how active they had been in the last 10,000 years.
It then considered how sound waves caused by an earthquake would
travel through the ground beneath Hanford.
The problem was that the study was for the entire 586 square
miles of Hanford. But there's a lot of variation in the depths
of the layers of soil and rock at the site, Eschenberg said.
The issue of whether plant design practices were sound was
raised by the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, which has
oversight of DOE at Hanford, in 2002.
DOE was able to answer all the board's seismic questions
throughout 2002 except the issue of shear wave velocity,
Eschenberg said.
In 2004, the defense board followed up with specific questions
about how interbeds -- layers of sand, silt and gravel
sandwiched between layers of basalt -- would affect earthquake
energy, Eschenberg said.
DOE already had decided to drill a relatively shallow bore hole,
he said.
By fall it had actually drilled two near the site. The first was
abandoned at 350 feet deep because of problems with the casing.
In a second attempt, a hole was drilled to 550 feet.
By spring, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory delivered its
report on the findings.
"It showed the velocity of the shear wave was much quicker than
assumed," Eschenberg said.
Hanford typically has 550 feet of sand and gravel above layers
of basalt, and that was the assumption used for the 1996 study.
But there is only 365 feet of sand and gravel beneath the
vitrification plant to slow the energy of an earthquake.
The waves travel quickly through the basalt, but are slowed by
the softer soil. It's somewhat like pounding a hammer on a sheet
of metal -- the reverberations can be felt on the other end. But
pound a hammer on top of a mattress, and they'll be more
difficult to feel on the other end.
Scientific and computational modeling also has advanced in the
decade since the 1996 study. How the sound waves behave can be
predicted more accurately now, Eschenberg said.
However, the 2004 findings were based on a single hole that was
relatively shallow. And it was intended as a conservative,
bounding study, and did not fully account for the waves being
slowed as they passed through sand, according to DOE.
The study under way now should give a more complete look at how
an earthquake might affect the vitrification plant.
"(This) study proves unequivocally the soil properties under the
vit plant," Eschenberg said. "It tells us exactly what the
properties are within the fence yard."
The study will collect data from four separate holes.
"Each hole is designed for a specific purpose," said Martin
Gardner, field operations manager for EnergySolutions, a
subcontractor on the project.
Three are deep bore holes planned to reach 1,250 feet beneath
the surface. The other hole is a core boring that will collect
samples of soil and rock for physical analysis, said Thomas
Brouns, a senior program manager at PNNL.
It will provide a geologic record of how much gravel, sand and
silt is in the interbeds dispersed between the basalt layers.
All the drilling is planned to be completed by spring 2007 and
data analyzed by the end of June of that year.
DOE doesn't plan to resume construction on the two buildings
affected by the seismic issue until late spring 2007 -- when the
study is complete -- in part because of a funding cut and other
issues raised in an independent review of the plant.
Then DOE will have a better idea if the 38 percent increase in
the design standard was the right call.
Because of extra margin built into the design before the 2004
study, no concrete already in place had to be reworked at the
plant. But there could be some impacts to the design of upper
levels of the buildings yet to be built because they would sway
more than lower levels in an earthquake.
Some design changes to equipment and supports for piping in the
plant, which is extensive, also will be required.
"We used considerable amount of the design margin on seismic,"
Eschenberg said.
If the 38 percent additional design margin can be reduced,
engineers designing the plant will have more flexibility, which
could be helpful in dealing with other design issues.
"It's possible we could get back some design margin," he said.
© 2006 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press &Other Wire Services
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35 Tri-City Herald: PNNL scientists working to end power grid debacles
Published Monday, July 3rd, 2006
By Chris Mulick, Herald Olympia bureau
Researchers at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory are
developing a power grid training curriculum they believe will
help dispatchers avoid the kind of cascading blackout that
strangled the Northeast in 2003.
That event, which cut power to 50 million in the U.S. and
Canada, and the problems that led up to it, inspired researchers
to examine dispatcher training programs.
And after talking to a couple of vendors who provide those
programs, PNNL engineer Jeff Dagle said he was surprised to
learn typical simulation scenarios used to train grid operators
assume the equipment works like it is supposed to.
"Everything in the software and data is perfect," Dagle said.
One problem identified in the aftermath of the 2003 blackout was
that alarm systems that should have alerted dispatchers to a
looming problem did not perform properly. They didn't realize a
major catastrophe was bearing down on them.
What Dagle and his colleagues wanted to find out was "how do
operators respond to these events when they are presented with
less than perfect information," he said.
So they began developing a training simulator program in which
grid operators are thrown a series of curve balls. Scenarios can
include showing a power line to be deactivated when it is
actually in service, a power plant that is shown to be up and
running when it really is shut down, or scenarios featuring
alarm mechanisms that fail to trigger.
Researchers put six dispatchers, including several from the
Bonneville Power Administration, through three, two-hour shifts
in the simulator. They'd throw routine problems at them and at
some point introduce their equipment failure.
They'd watch to see whether the operators attacked the end point
of the problem -- such as areas that lacked power -- or whether
they analyzed the problem to find its root cause upstream.
Between the second and third set of simulations, the dispatchers
were put through a cyber security awareness course alerting them
to the potential for hackers to manipulate the system and throw
readings off course.
The operators more effectively rooted out problems during the
final set of simulations.
"If this isn't standard industry practice, maybe it ought to
be," Dagle said.
In developing their training program, PNNL plans to use its new
Integrated Energy Operations Center, a research and training
facility that replicates the working environment for power grid
operators.
"This is designed to serve as a control room," PNNL spokeswoman
Susan Bauer said. "It's got all the good stuff you need to do
all the training in one place."
In order to develop a prototype training program, Dagle hopes to
bring utility managers and transmission operators into the
facility to get input about common transmission and distribution
challenges they face.
"We'd like to have realistic training scenarios," Dagle said.
"That would be a more powerful training experience for them."
© 2006 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press &Other Wire Services
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36 lamonitor.com: 'LANL: The Real Story' blog shuts down
The Online News Source for Los Alamos
HEATHER CLARK, Associated Press
ALBUQUERQUE (AP) - They've compared Los Alamos National
Laboratory director Michael Anastasio to a fuzzy Star Wars ewok,
written scathing song lyrics about the nuclear weapons lab and
held serious discussions about retirement benefits and quality
science.
But the mostly anonymous posters to "LANL: The Real Story" blog
fell silent Friday after its host, Doug Roberts, shut down the
popular discussion forum.
The voices - often straightforward, angry or jocular - gave
their opinions about a turbulent period at the lab following a
2004 shutdown, the departure of former lab director Pete Nanos
and the first management change in the nuclear weapons lab's
63-year existence.
Now, they will take their place in history.
The Los Alamos Historical Society plans to include the blog in
its archives, which are tapped by nearly 50 scholars a year
researching the lab or the Manhattan Project, said the society's
vice president, Lawrence Campbell.
"It represents the interests and a cross-section of opinions,
and sociologically it gives insights to what people were
thinking and feeling," Campbell said. "It's a gold mine."
"LANL: The Real Story" is the first blog to be included in the
archive, which is not the official historical archive for the
lab.
Campbell said lab officials also will have a chance to provide
the archive with their take on the blog. Lab spokespeople have
characterized the blog posters as a small critical minority who
are not representative of most lab employees.
A lab spokeswoman said Friday her office has not yet been asked
to put its view in the archive and she's not sure whether they
will.
Roberts launched the site in December 2004 after an official Los
Alamos lab newsletter stopped accepting submissions that were
critical of the lab.
The blog was "a personal pressure release valve," he said
recently. "I was going to explode, if I had to come home from
work one more day and not provide any more feedback to the lab
and the course they were taking."
From the beginning, Roberts had said he planned to offer the
blog through the lab's management transition. On June 1, Los
Alamos National Security, LLC - which includes Bechtel Corp.,
BWX Technologies and Washington Group International and the
University of California - formally took over the lab.
And, since retiring from the lab last summer where he had worked
for about 20 years as a computer scientist, Roberts said he
believes he no longer should be running a blog for lab employees.
"Its time has come," he said. "I'm ready to be done with it."
Roberts said the blog provides a "previously unavailable insight
into a community such as Los Alamos.
"It will give people in the future, if anybody is interested,
the makeup of Los Alamos at the time," he said.
An average of nearly 1,454 people per day visited the blog. They
looked at 3,273,663 pages over its lifetime, according to data
on the blog site.
The blog was regularly checked by government officials, lab
managers, employees of Sandia and Lawrence Livermore national
labs, journalists and members of the two teams bidding to manage
the lab.
Though publishing a blog for employees at a lab that does highly
classified work might have raised a few eyebrows, Roberts said
nothing classified ever appeared on the blog.
Campbell acknowledged that the blog contained many posts by
anonymous employees, but argues it still has historical value.
"It's a mixed bag in terms of the truth," he said. "It's not a
mixed bag of what actually is authenticated and what actually
occurred. It's just part of history."
The blog, which fits on one read-only DVD, will be kept in a
safe at the archives, Campbell said. Researchers will be able to
view a copy and possibly see the blog on a computer Roberts has
offered to set up on site.
The blog will remain online for an unspecified period, but no
new posts will be accepted.
When Roberts announced the closure of the blog, he asked anyone
interested in taking it over to write him a letter about why
they wanted to host it.
"Exactly zero people responded to that," he said. "Either the
need for a forum of this type has gone away or no one is willing
to host it."
On the Net:
LANL: The Real Story: http://lanl-the-real-story.blogspot.com
Printed 7/2/06
© 2003 Los Alamos Monitor All Rights Reserved.
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37 DOE: Dismantlement of Office of Environment, Safety and Health
Letter from Glenn Bell to Secretary of Energy Bodman re:
dismantling of the Office of Environment, Safety and Health
July 1, 2006
The Honorable Samuel W. Bodman
Secretary of Energy
U.S. Department of Energy
1000 Independence Ave., SW
Washington, DC 20585
On behalf of the workers at the Department of Energy's nuclear
weapons sites, I wish to express my concerns for the proposed
dismantling of the Office of Environment, Safety and Health
(EH), and the reorganization of its duties into a new and
untried entity.
As a current worker with Chronic Beryllium Disease (CBD), I have
seen my quality of life destroyed by past failure of the
Department of Energy's predecessors, and its contractors. As a
worker advocate and chairman of the Y-12 Beryllium Support
Group, I continue to see new cases of this illness almost
monthly. Oak Ridge Operations has resulted in over 300 claims
for CBD under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness
Compensation Plan Act, another 300 for beryllium sensitivity.
Most of these claims have at least initial approval. The
Beryllium Rule, 10 CFR 850, was passed in 2000, to reduce the
number of new beryllium workers, prevent new cases, and lessen
the severity of the illness. However, there have been major
disagreements with contractor management over interpretation and
enforcement of the Rule. In February 2006, the Worker Safety and
Health Program Rule, 10 CFR 850, was passed, making the
Beryllium Rule enforceable, under authority of the Assistant
Secretary of ES&H. Elimination of EH would destroy
enforceability of 10 CFR 850. While I am open to change, there
has been no positive outcome for the workers shown by this
change.
Despite the general distrust of DOE and the contractors, EH has
had unusually strong support from workers. I have attended a
number of DOE health-related conferences, and have seen
improvements to worker health and safety programs and
communication. This momentum should not be lost in an unproven
and unnecessary reorganization. Identifying and repairing any
weaknesses in EH would be a much more rational approach.
I wish to add my objections to those of former Assistant
Secretaries for Environment, Safety and Health, especially Dr.
Michaels; the former Secretary of Energy; the Congressmen who
have contacted your office on this issue; the national labor
unions ; and most importantly, the "ground troops"- the workers.
I urge you to reconsider this unneeded and potentially damaging
change.
Respectfully,
Glenn Bell
Beryllium Victims Alliance
504 Michigan Ave.
Oak Ridge, TN 37830
865-482-7641
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