***************************************************************** 08/10/06 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 14.189 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** Send News Stories to news@energy-net.org with title on subject line and first line of body NUCLEAR POLICY 1 IRNA: For the US, Iranian nuclear issue is just an excuse, Larijani 2 AFP: Iran rejects 'illegal' nuclear demands 3 AFP: Ahmadinejad demands US change 'behavior' 4 Guardian Unlimited: Iranian President Criticizes Bush 5 HindustanTimes.com: Oppn raises N-issue, asks PM to respond NUCLEAR REACTORS 6 US: NRC: Dean Overland Named Resident Inspector at Waterford 3 Nucle 7 Guardian Unlimited: Spillages cost nuclear firms £2m fines 8 Guardian Unlimited: Nuclear operators fined £2m each for radioactive 9 London Times: Nuclear operators fined £2m each for leaks - 10 RIA Novosti: Russia repatriates spent nuclear fuel from Poland react 11 Independent: Nuclear plants fined £2m each for leaks 12 US: NRC: Notice of Availability of Environmental Assessment and Find 13 US: NRC: Regulatory Guide and Associated Standard Review Plan; Issua 14 News & Star: No such thing as safe nuclear 15 News & Star: Ā£2m fine for the leak which closed Thorp NUCLEAR SECURITY 16 US: Global Strike nuclear exercise scheduled Oct. 24 - Nov. 8 2006 17 US: [NukeNet] NRC Says Wackenhut Security Failures at Seabrook 18 US: Seattle Times: Radioactive camera found undamaged 19 IAEA: Sensitive Nuclear Material Removed From Poland NUCLEAR SAFETY 20 UK: Herald: New £7m centre to teach nuclear clean-up skills 21 US: Hanford News: Hanford workers comp claims are denied at too high 22 US: Tri-City Herald: PNNL's radiation monitor has wheels 23 Independent: Nuclear firms fined £4m for safety lapses that led to 24 US: DenverPost.com: City radium disposal may stall 25 AU ABC: Court dismisses farmer's uranium concerns - 26 US: CBN: Are Depleted Uranium Weapons Sickening U.S. Troops? NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 27 US: AP Wire: Graham wants MOX construction to begin by year's end 28 RGJ.com: Yucca plan may soon be put to rest 29 North West Enquirer: Dont make Sellafield a nuclear landfill site 30 US: Cox News Service: Government moving to 'recycle' nuclear waste 31 UPI: Analysis: Concerns linger on Yucca site 32 Whitehaven News: Ex-Sellafield boss lands role with US bidder Fluor 33 US: Op-Ed: Shell Game (nwaste at reactors) PEACE 34 [NYTr] The Great Equalizer: Kolko on Hiroshim/Nagasaki US DEPT. OF ENERGY 35 Knox News: Peace Alliance tries to get message to Bechtel 36 KnoxNews: State officials push for Ky. lab location 37 Albuquerque Tribune: Sandia Labs' landfill lets chemicals seep into ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 IRNA: For the US, Iranian nuclear issue is just an excuse, Larijani - New Delhi, Aug 9, IRNA Press-India-Larijani-Interview Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council Ali Larijani said in Tehran that for the US, Iranian nuclear issue is just an excuse. In an interview with New Delhi-based 'The Hindu' to be published on Saturday, he said, "Iran is a member of the NPT [Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty] and all our nuclear energy activities are within its framework. The International Atomic Energy Agency inspects our facilities and has installed surveillance cameras in atomic centers where we have our activities. "What we are seeking is nothing more than our legitimate rights within the framework of the NPT. Just as we have some obligations within the framework of the NPT, we also have some rights. "Therefore, the UNSC resolution does not have any legal basis. When the 'five plus one' [Britain, France, United States, Russia and China plus Germany] offered us a package [last June], they said they respected our rights. But this resolution means they don't want Iran to exercise its rights! This is illogical and unjust. "The United Nations Security Council resolution means they have a different intention from the one [they said they were pursuing] when they gave the package to us. "Maybe they imagine that by adopting this resolution, they will change Iran's mind. But there is no change in our stance. We [will] continue our activities... "What was the stated intention behind the package? "When Javier Solana, [the European Union's negotiator] brought the package to Tehran, it was proposed that we were going to carry forward this process. Accordingly, we established different committees to work on the proposals in the package. And it was proposed that we would express our point of view and also raise any points of ambiguity with Mr. Solana [at subsequent meetings]. But before these meetings could take place, [the 5+1] met in a hurry and then issued this resolution! Within the framework of this package, it was proposed that we would meet each other and discuss and come to a conclusion together. This resolution shows that the package was only a smoke-screen." The reporter pointed out, "But you met Mr. Solana in Brussels on July 11, and it was after that, on July 12, that the 5+1 met and decided to go to the Security Council." Responding, Larijani said, "Mr. Solana and I had only one round of discussions but we need more than one round for the package's ambiguities to be removed. "Unless we remove these and come to a mutual understanding, we cannot have a solution. Maybe the 5+1 thought that by these means, they could hold this stick over our heads. They want to put pressure on us but it won't have any effect. If anything, it may lead to a very harsh reaction by us. We are always ready for just negotiations. "But we don't understand negotiation under pressure!" The reporter asked, "Some European diplomats we spoke to said that in your last meeting with Mr. Solana, he expected you to seek clarifications about the package but this did not happen and this convinced him that Iran was not serious. What actually happened?" Larijani said, "In that meeting, we said that over some issues we were in agreement with them. First, that negotiation is the basis for solving the problem. Secondly, we agreed that this package would be considered a base for starting our logical cooperation. But its capacity should be completed and its ambiguities removed so that we can have a common judgment over it." The reporter wanted to know, "What kind of ambiguities are you referring to?" Larijani responded, The package has many ambiguities. For instance, it says that they are for long-term cooperation with Iran. We want to find out what they mean by long-term cooperation. Does long-term cooperation mean a relationship in all fields with Iran or only in nuclear activities? "Depending on the answer, our interpretation of the package will be different. For instance, one of the provisions of this package mentions talking to Iran about regional security arrangements. "Now this doesn't relate to the nuclear issue. This provision means they want to have very comprehensive negotiations with Iran. This will need its own instruments. So we raised these issues. The detailed questions needed to be taken up in another round of negotiations. Asked by the reporter, "Iran had said earlier that it would give its response to the 5+1 package on August 22. Are you still going to do that?" Larijani replied, "In fact, by this action of the Security Council they have kicked out the package! So this package does not have any use. We are not in charge of this. Those who have done this act are the ones who should give their response. We have always announced that we are ready for just and constructive negotiations. "But we don't accept negotiation under pressure. In many cases, they approach us for collaboration, particularly with regard to Lebanon. Their language is [full of] double standards. In one place, they are talking with force and in another place they are seeking our cooperation! If you see the attitude of the US towards Israel, you can see the double standards. "We can also compare the attitude of the US towards the nuclear energy programs of Iran and India. India does not accept the NPT and has nuclear weapons. But America has no problem with this and is also concluding a long-term nuclear energy agreement with India. But we are a member of the NPT and we don't have the bomb. There is no place for it in our national security doctrine. We consider the atomic bomb a very heavy poison for us in our region. If we go for that, it will create a very dangerous competition in the region. But the point is that we don't have the atomic bomb and this is admitted even by the Americans. [John] Negroponte, who is in charge of intelligence assessment in the US, said that Iran does not have nuclear weapons and will not reach there for the next 10 years. But why do they have this type of attitude towards Iran? For us, India is a friendly country and we don't have any problem that you have concluded a nuclear energy agreement with the US. But what we want to clarify is the double standard policy of the US. Asked by the reporter, "Were you expecting this line-up in the Security Council, where only Qatar stood up to oppose the resolution?" Larijani replied, "When they announced they would like to solve this problem through negotiations, we thought they were sincere. And we worked very seriously over this project. The work of the different specialized committees has also been clarified. But this action taken by them in the UNSC places a question mark over their intentions. "In 2003, three European foreign ministers came to Tehran. They said that if you suspend enrichment for several weeks we can resolve the problem. These several weeks of suspension got converted to more than two years! In the past two years and some months, they inspected our installations more than 26 times but did not find anything. But they used this pressure to impose their intentions. "In Tehran, they suspended the activities of our centrifuges, in Brussels they said all spare-part manufacturing should be suspended and in Paris they said all kinds of activities should be stopped! Even though we asked for 10 centrifuge machines for research, they did not allow us. They said that in a few months we will reach an 'objective guarantee' by which you can have enrichment so we would be sure that there is no diversion." ***************************************************************** 2 AFP: Iran rejects 'illegal' nuclear demands [Russian and Iranian technicians work inside the Reactor building of the Bushehr nuclear power plant] TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran has again rejected an end-of-the-month UN Security Council deadline to suspend sensitive nuclear fuel work saying it would not accept "illegal international obligations". "We will continue our nuclear activities and do not accept illegal international obligations," Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki was quoted as saying by state television Thursday. "We will not retreat from the nation's rights under any circumstances and our diplomacy is based on protecting national interests," Mottaki added. The UN Security Council has given Iran until August 31 to halt enrichment and reprocessing activities or face possible sanctions. The resolution was pushed through after Iran ignored a previous non-binding deadline and failed to respond to an international offer of incentives in exchange for a moratorium on nuclear fuel work. Iran has repeatedly insisted its nuclear programme is for civil purposes only despite Western concerns that it may be cover for an attempt to develop the bomb. AFP ***************************************************************** 3 AFP: Ahmadinejad demands US change 'behavior' Thu Aug 10, 2:12 AM ET WASHINGTON (AFP) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused the United States of harboring imperial ambitions and demanded the administration change its behavior, in an interview with a US television network. The Americans want to build an empire, said Ahmadinejad, according to excerpts of the interview published by the CBS network on its website Wednesday. And they don't want to live side-by-side in peace with other nations. The American government, sir, it is very clear to me they have to change their behavior and everything will be resolved," said Ahmadinejad. The interview, which was to be broadcast in full on Sunday on the "60 minutes" program, coincides with rising tensions between Washington and Tehran over The interview, which was to be broadcast in full on Sunday on the 60 minutes program, coincides with rising tensions between Washington and Tehran over Iran's disputed nuclear program and Israel's offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon." "Related information on Iran">Iran's disputed nuclear program and Israel's offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon. The hardline Iranian president said the administration of President George W. Bushhad adopted a condescending attitude towards Iran over its nuclear program and criticized a UN Security Council resolution requiring Tehran suspend uranium enrichment activities or face the prospect of sanctions. "Well, please look at the makeup of the American administration, the behavior of the American administration. See how they talk down to my nation. And this recent resolution passed about the nuclear issue, look at the wording." The July 31 resolution was pushed through after Iran ignored a previous non-binding deadline and failed to respond to an international offer of a package of incentives in exchange for a moratorium on nuclear fuel work. Ahmadinejad said Iran was still reviewing the package of incentives. Western powers had "presented us with a package which we are studying right now," the president said. "We even gave them a date for our response. Ignoring that, they passed a resolution." Ahmadinejad also expressed disappointment that the US administration had not responded to a letter he sent to Bush in May, which Tehran had presented as an important diplomatic initiative. "Well, (with the letter) I wanted to open a window towards the light for the president so that he can see that one can look on the world through a different perspective," he said. The Bush administration, however, dismissed the 18-page letter as little more than a rambling philosophical treatise that offered nothing new on the nuclear crisis. Ahmadinejad scoffed at Bush for refusing his "invitation" in the form of his letter. "We are all free to choose. But please give him this message, sir: Those who refuse to accept an invitation will not have a good ending or fate," he said. "You see that his approval rating is dropping every day. Hatred vis-a-vis the president is increasing every day around the world." CBS said the interview was conducted on Tuesday. The Guardian (UK)., Aug 08 Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 4 Guardian Unlimited: Iranian President Criticizes Bush From the Associated Press [UP] Thursday August 10, 2006 4:16 AM NEW YORK (AP) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad criticized President Bush for failing to respond to his overture made in a letter in May, warning that ``those who refuse to accept an invitation will not have a good ending or fate.'' The hard-line leader declared in the letter in May that liberalism and democracy had failed, and he lambasted Bush for his handling of the Sept. 11 attacks and a host of other issues ranging from the invasion of Iraq to U.S. support for Israel. It was the first formal communication between leaders of the two nations in 27 years, but Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice dismissed it, saying it failed to resolve the dispute over the Iranian nuclear program. ``Well, I wanted to open a window toward the light for the president so that he can see that one can look on the world through a different perspective. ... We are all free to choose,'' Ahmadinejad told CBS' Mike Wallace in an interview Tuesday. ``But please give him this message, sir: Those who refuse to accept an invitation will not have a good ending or fate.'' In response, White House spokesman Tony Snow said Wednesday: ``The president's view is that he doesn't respond publicly to private correspondence.'' Ahmadinejad said public opinion was turning against Bush at home and internationally. ``You see that his approval rating is dropping every day. Hatred vis-a-vis the president is increasing every day around the world,'' the Iranian president said. ``For a ruler, this is the worst message that he could receive. Rulers and heads of government at the end of their office must leave the office holding their heads high.'' CBS released excerpts and said the full interview would be broadcast Sunday on ``60 Minutes.'' The Iranian leader also accused Washington of ignoring Tehran's efforts to negotiate over the nuclear issue by insisting on a U.N. Security Council resolution that was passed last month calling for Iran to suspend uranium enrichment by Aug. 31 or face the threat of economic and diplomatic sanctions. The United States has accused Iran of seeking nuclear weapons though Tehran maintains its program is peaceful and aimed at generating electricity. ``They want to build an empire. And they don't want to live side-by-side in peace with other nations,'' he said. ``The American government, sir, it is very clear to me they have to change their behavior and everything will be resolved.'' Bush ``believes that his power emanates from his nuclear warhead arsenals,'' Ahmadinejad said. ``The time of the bomb is in the past, it's behind us. Today is the era of thoughts, dialogue and cultural exchanges.'' Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 5 HindustanTimes.com: Oppn raises N-issue, asks PM to respond Press Trust of India New Delhi, August 10, 2006 Opposition BJP and Samajwadi Party on Thursday sought to raise the issue of a Parliamentary resolution on the Indo-US civilian nuclear cooperation in Rajya Sabha, but were disallowed by Chairman Bhairon Singh Shekhawat. As soon as the House met for the day, former external affairs minister Yashwant Sinha raised the issue of a "Sense of the House" resolution saying Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was present on both occasions during the past two weeks when the issue was raised. "We want to know whether he is in favour (of the resolution) or not," he asked. He was joined by his colleagues and members from TPD, AIADMK and SP. Amidst the uproar, the Chairman made a plea for continuing the Question Hour and said members could raise the issue after that. Sinha wanted the Prime Minister, who was present, to respond. His request was disallowed by the Chairman and the House resumed the Question Hour.  ***************************************************************** 6 NRC: Dean Overland Named Resident Inspector at Waterford 3 Nuclear Plant News Release - Region IV - 2006-01 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, Region IV No. IV-06-017 August 10, 2006 CONTACT: Victor Dricks Phone: 817-860-8128 E-mail: opa4@nrc.gov Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials in Arlington, Texas, have selected Dean Overland as the new Resident Inspector at the Waterford 3 nuclear plant. Entergy Nuclear operates the plant near New Orleans, La. The NRC has two inspectors assigned to the plant. Mr. Overland joins Senior Resident Inspector Grant Larkin, who was been assigned at Waterford 3 since 2001. Dean Overlands experience and commitment to safety will help the NRC ensure that Waterford 3 conducts operations with the highest safety standards to protect the public health and safety, said NRC Region IV Administrator Bruce S. Mallett. Following U.S. Navy service as a reactor operator, Mr. Overland obtained his bachelors degree in nuclear engineering technology and worked for the operations department at the Palisades nuclear plant in Covert, Mich., from 1998 until 2001. In 2001, Mr. Overland began working in the NRCs Office of Regulatory Research in Rockville, Md., where he served as a project manager and prepared materials to inform the Commission of activities to risk-inform existing regulations and practices. In 2004, Mr. Overland moved to the NRCs Region IV office in Arlington, Texas, where he performed specialized inspections at commercial nuclear facilities in the western United States. Each U.S. commercial nuclear power plant site has at least two NRC resident inspectors. They serve as the agencys eyes and ears at the facility, conducting inspections and monitoring significant work projects. The Waterford 3 resident inspectors can be reached at: (985) 783-6253. Last revised Thursday, August 10, 2006 ***************************************************************** 7 Guardian Unlimited: Spillages cost nuclear firms £2m fines Press Association Thursday August 10, 2006 The operators of two nuclear power plants have each been fined £2m over radioactive spillages, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority revealed today. The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) was penalised over an incident at Dounreay in Caithness, last September. And BNG Sellafield was fined for a radioactive leak at its Thorp reprocessing plant in Cumbria, in April last year. The penalties will be imposed in the form of £2m deductions from money that the authority pays the operators. In the Dounreay incident 266 litres of hazardous, dissolved spent fuel spilled on to a laboratory floor. The liquid, which is kept in underground tanks, was being pumped to the plant where it is mixed with cement then stored in 500-litre drums. No employees were injured or exposed to radiation during the scare, but it led to the plant being temporarily closed. The radioactive leak at Sellafield's Thorp reprocessing plant involved enough toxic material to half fill an Olympic-size swimming pool. No one was injured after the plutonium and uranium fuel dissolved in concentrated nitric acid seeped through a fractured pipe, but the plant had to be shut for several months. The fines are detailed in the NDA's annual review for 2005/06. Its report says: "As a consequence of failings that led to incidents at Thorp and Dounreay, the NDA has made a fee deduction of £2m from both BNG Sellafield Ltd and UKAEA respectively." A spokesman for the UKAEA said: "It shouldn't have happened, but the plant was designed to protect the workforce and the environment in case something like this did happen. "There was no danger to any of our employees and the necessary steps were taken." The operators of Dounreay could also face legal action over claims that radioactive particles were released from the plant. The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) has submitted reports to prosecutors about the facility. Sepa is now waiting to see if legal proceedings will be brought against the UKAEA. Dounreay, a former experimental reactor establishment, was shut in 1994 and is earmarked for a £2.9bn decommissioning by 2033. More than 1,000 radioactive particles, fragments of spent uranium fuel rods about the size of a grain of sand, have been found on beaches and the sea bed around the facility. Sepa said it had submitted reports to prosecutors in February this year and November 2004. Useful links British Energy Department of Trade and Industry British Nuclear Fuels Ltd Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament Greenpeace Come Clean WMD awareness programme UK atomic energy authority National Radiological Protection Board Friends of the Earth World Nuclear Association World Nuclear Transport Institute [UP] Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 8 Guardian Unlimited: Nuclear operators fined £2m each for radioactive spillages Mark Milner Friday August 11, 2006 Two British nuclear operators have been fined £2m each by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority over spillages of radioactive materials. The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) was penalised for a spill while radioactive liquid was being mixed with cement at Dounreay. BNG Sellafield was also fined after a mixture of radioactive fuel and concentrated nitric acid leaked from a pipe at its Thorp reprocessing plant. The NDA, which took over the sites in April last year as part of the government's plans for nuclear decommissioning, said the fines sent a clear signal to those working in the industry. In its first annual operational review it said: "The NDA has made clear its absolute commitment to the highest standards for health and safety, security and protection of the environment and expects contractors to deliver sustained excellence in HSSE [health, safety, security and the environment] performance. As a consequence of failings that led to incidents at Thorp and Dounreay, the NDA has made a fee deduction of £2m from both BNG Sellafield Ltd and UKAEA respectively." The NDA also owns the nuclear research sites at Harwell and Winfrith and Britain's fleet of Magnox nuclear reactors, most of which have been switched off. It has been handed the job of decommissioning the 20 public sector nuclear sites and is keen to encourage competition for clean-up contracts. Useful links British Energy Department of Trade and Industry British Nuclear Fuels Ltd Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament Greenpeace Come Clean WMD awareness programme UK atomic energy authority National Radiological Protection Board Friends of the Earth World Nuclear Association World Nuclear Transport Institute [UP] Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006 ***************************************************************** 9 London Times: Nuclear operators fined £2m each for leaks - Law - Times Online August 10, 2006 By Times Online and Agencies The operators of two British nuclear facilities have been fined £2 million each for radioactive spillages. The Nuclear Decomission Authority (NDA) penalised the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority for an incident at Dounreay in Caithness and BNG Sellafield for a radioactive leak at its Thorp reprocessing plant in Cumbria. The fines will be deducted from the fee the quango pays to the operators. More than 260 litres of hazardous, dissolved fuel was spilled on a laboratory floor at Dounreay's cementation plant in September last year. The liquid, kept in underground tanks, was being pumped to the plant, where it is mixed with cement before being stored in 500-litre drums. No employees were injured or exposed to radiation during the incident, but it led to a temporary closure. The leak at Sellafield's Thorp plant in May 2005 involved enough toxic material to fill half of an Olympic-sized swimming pool. No one was injured after the plutonium and uranium fuel dissolved in concentrated nitric acid that had seeped through a fractured pipe, but the plant had to shut for several months. A spokesman for the UKAEA said the Dounreay accident was unfortunate but no employees had been harmed. "It shouldn‘t have happened, but the plant was designed to protect the workforce and the environment in case something like this did happen," she said. "There was no danger to any of our employees and the necessary steps were taken." The Dounreay operators are also facing legal action over the release of radiactive particles into the atmosphere. The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) said it had submitted reports to prosecutors about the facility and is now waiting to see if proceedings will be brought. More than 1,000 radioactive particles, fragments of spent uranium fuel rods about the size of a grain of sand, have been found on beaches and the sea bed around the plant, which closed in 1994 and has been earmarked for a £2.9 billion decommissioning by 2033. Copyright 2006 Times Newspapers Ltd. ***************************************************************** 10 RIA Novosti: Russia repatriates spent nuclear fuel from Poland reactor 10/ 08/ 2006 MOSCOW, August 10 (RIA Novosti) - Russia has taken back dozens of kilograms of highly enriched spent uranium from a reactor built with Soviet assistance in Poland, the Russian Federal Agency for Nuclear Power said Thursday. About 40 kilograms (90lb) of 20-80% 235 HEU was repatriated from the Maria research reactor, in the Polish city of Swierk, as part of a U.S.-Russian presidential agreement reached last year. Under the document, signed by presidents George Bush and Vladimir Putin during a meeting in Bratislava in February 2005, HEU of U.S. and Russian origin should be repatriated to prevent non-civilian use of fissile material by third countries. Russia has already repatriated about 900kg (2,000lb) of spent HEU from Soviet-built plants in six countries: Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Libya, Latvia and Uzbekistan. Spent nuclear fuel from all 17 reactors built by Russia's specialists outside the country is expected to return by 2012-13. © 2005 RIA Novosti ***************************************************************** 11 Independent: Nuclear plants fined £2m each for leaks By Matt Dickinson, PA Published: 10 August 2006 The operators of two nuclear facilities have each been fined £2 million over radioactive spillages. The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority was penalised over an incident at Dounreay in Caithness. And BNG Sellafield was fined for a radioactive leak at its Thorp reprocessing plant in Cumbria. The fines were imposed by the Nuclear Decommission Authority (NDA) and will be deducted from the fee the quango pays to the operators. In September last year 266 litres of hazardous, dissolved spent fuel spilled on to a laboratory floor at Dounreay's cementation plant. The liquid, which is kept in underground tanks, was being pumped to the plant where it is mixed with cement then stored in 500-litre drums. No employees were injured or exposed to radiation during the scare, but it led to the plant being temporarily closed. The penalty is thought to be the biggest suffered after a safety breach at Dounreay. The radioactive leak at Sellafield's Thorp reprocessing plant in May 2005 involved enough toxic material to half fill an Olympic-size swimming pool. No one was injured after the plutonium and uranium fuel dissolved in concentrated nitric acid seeped through a fractured pipe but the plant had to be shut for several months. The fines are detailed in the NDA's annual review for 2005/06. Its report says: "As a consequence of failings that led to incidents at Thorp and Dounreay, the NDA has made a fee deduction of £2 million from both BNG Sellafield Ltd and UKAEA respectively." A spokesman for the UKAEA said the Dounreay accident was unfortunate but no employees had been harmed. She added: "It shouldn't have happened, but the plant was designed to protect the workforce and the environment in case something like this did happen. "There was no danger to any of our employees and the necessary steps were taken." In a separate development, the operators of Dounreay could face legal action over the release of radioactive particles. The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) said it had submitted reports to prosecutors about the facility. Sepa is now waiting to see if legal proceedings will be brought against the UKAEA. Dounreay, a former experimental reactor establishment, was shut in 1994 and is earmarked for a £2.9 billion decommissioning by 2033. More than 1,000 radioactive particles, fragments of spent uranium fuel rods about the size of a grain of sand, have been found on beaches and the sea bed around the facility. Sepa said it had submitted reports to prosecutors in February this year and November 2004. © 2006 Independent News and Media Limited ***************************************************************** 12 NRC: Notice of Availability of Environmental Assessment and Finding FR Doc E6-13110 [Federal Register: August 10, 2006 (Volume 71, Number 154)] [Notices] [Page 45862-45864] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr10au06-123] of No Significant Impact for Renewal of the Operating License for the Honeywell Metropolis Works Uranium Conversion Facility in Metropolis, IL 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: mgr@nrc.gov. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: I. Introduction The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) proposes to issue a license amendment to Source Materials License No. SUB-526, held by Honeywell International, Inc. (Honeywell), to approve the renewal of its operating license to operate a [[Page 45863]] Uranium Conversion Facility at the Metropolis Works Uranium Conversion Facility (MTW) in Metropolis, Illinois. 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 By letter dated May 27, 2005, Honeywell submitted an application to renew the Source Materials License, SUB-526, for the MTW uranium hexafluoride (UF6) facility near Metropolis, Illinois, for a period of 10 years. At the MTW facility, uranium conversion services have been performed for the commercial nuclear power industry since it was originally licensed by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission in 1958. The current license was issued by NRC in June 1995 for a 10-year period. The original licensee, AlliedSignal, Inc., has merged with Honeywell, since the time of the last renewal, and the facility's license has been transferred to Honeywell. NRC staff has prepared this EA pursuant to Council on Environmental Quality regulations (40 CFR Parts 1500-1508), NRC regulations (10 CFR Part 51) which implement the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, and applicable guidance from NUREG-1748, Environmental Review Guidance for Licensing Actions Associated with Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards Programs. The purpose of this EA is to assess the environmental impacts (radiological and non- radiological) of the proposed license renewal for this facility. The format and methodology employed for this EA are consistent with those for the EA that assessed the last license renewal for this facility in 1995; this assessment reflects regulatory changes and operational and environmental experience obtained during the most recent 10 years of facility operation. The environmental impacts of the proposed action have been evaluated in accordance with the requirements presented in 10 CFR Part 51. NRC staff has determined that the renewal of license SUB-526 allowing continued Honeywell operations at the MTW facility will not have a significant impact on the human environment. 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 the renewal and supporting documentation, are available electronically at NRC's Electronic Reading Room at http://www. nrc. gov/reading-rm/adams. html. From this site, you can access NRC's Agencywide Documents 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: Document ADAMS accession No. Date Final Environmental Assessment for ML061780260 June 30, 2006. Renewal of NRC License No. SUB-526 for the Honeywell Specialty Materials Metropolis Work Facility. Notification for Exceeding Nearest ML012000117 July 13, 2001. Resident Concentration, License No.: SUB-526, Docket No.: 40-03392. Letter to U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Document Control Desk. Metropolis, Illinois: Honeywell Specialty Chemicals. 30-day written report to NRC per license ML040260290 January 20, 2004. requirement for exceeding effluent administration limit associated with the UF6 release on 12-22-03. Letter to U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Document Control Desk. Renewal of U.S. NRC Source Materials ML052310382 May 27, 2005. License. Letter (May 27) to Michael Raddatz, NRC, Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards. Environmental Report, Renewal of Source ML052310401 May 25, 2005. Material License SUB-526, Docket 40- 3392, for HONEYWELL SPECIALTY MATERIALS, Metropolis Works (MTW) Metropolis, Illinois. Honeywell Metropolis Works Safety ML052310387 May 27, 2005. Demonstration Report for Source Material License SUB-526. Metropolis, Illinois: Honeywell Specialty Materials. Response to requests for additional ML060530490 May 27, 2005. information for the Honeywell Metropolis Works license renewal application. Letter to Mr. Michael G. Raddatz, NRC, Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards. Response to requests for additional ML060530491 Oct. 21, 2005. information for the Honeywell Metropolis Works license renewal application and environmental report. Letter to Mr. Michael G. Raddatz, NRC, Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards. Provides additional information ML060540413 Jan. 15, 2006. requested during NRC site visit to the Honeywell Metropolis Works facility in support of the license renewal environmental review. Letter to Mr. Michael G. Raddatz, NRC, Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards. Provides additional information required ML060970153 Mar. 28, 2006. to complete review of radiological dose assessment. E-mail from J. Tortorelli to Michael Raddatz, NRC, Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards. IEMA (Illinois Emergency Management ML061780124 June 13, 2006. Agency), 2006. Documents completion of review of the draft Honeywell Environmental Assessment. Letter to Ms. B. Jennifer Davis, NRC. Springfield, Illinois. NUREG-1748, ``Environmental Review ML031000403 April 10, 2003. Guidance for Licensing Actions Associated With NMSS Programs--Final Report,'' Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC. 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 pdr@nrc.gov. 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 4th day of August, 2006. [[Page 45864]] 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. E6-13110 Filed 8-9-06; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P ***************************************************************** 13 NRC: Regulatory Guide and Associated Standard Review Plan; Issuance, FR Doc E6-13115 [Federal Register: August 10, 2006 (Volume 71, Number 154)] [Notices] [Page 45864] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr10au06-125] Availability The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has issued for public comment a revision of a regulatory guide (and its associated Standard Review Plan). Regulatory Guides are developed to describe and make available to the public such information as methods acceptable to the NRC staff for implementing specific parts of the NRC's regulations, techniques used by the staff in its review of applications for permits and licenses, and data needed by NRC staff in its review of applications for permits and licenses. Regulatory Guide 1.200, Revision 1, ``An approach for Determining the Technical Adequacy of Probabilistic Risk Assessment Results for Risk-Informed Activities,'' provides guidance to licensees in determining the technical adequacy of a probabilistic risk analysis used in a risk-informed, integrated decision-making process, and to endorse standards and industry guidance. Guidance is provided in four areas: (1) A minimal set of functional requirements of a technically acceptable PRA. (2) NRC position on consensus PRA standards and industry PRA program documents. (3) Demonstration that the PRA (in toto or specific parts) used in regulatory applications is of sufficient technical adequacy. (4) Documentation that the PRA (in toto or specific parts) used in regulatory applications is of sufficient technical adequacy. RG 1.200, Revision 1, proposes to endorse, with certain clarifications and substitutions, ASME Standard, ``Standard for Probabilistic Risk Assessment for Nuclear Power Plant Applications'' (RA-S-2002, RA-Sa-2003 and RA-Sb-2005, dated April 5, 2002, December 5, 2003, and December 30, 2005, respectively), Revision A3 of NEI-00-02, ``Probabilistic Risk (PRA) Peer Review Process Guidance,'' with its August 16, 2002 and May 19, 2006 supplemental guidance on industry self-assessment, and NEI-05-04, ``Process for Performing Follow-on PRA Peer Reviews Using the ASME PRA Standard,'' January 2005. Standard Review Plan Chapter 19.1, Revision 1, ``Determining the Technical Adequacy of Probabilistic Risk and Assessment Results for Risk-Informed Activities,'' has been developed for the NRC staff to use in conjunction with Regulatory Guide 1.200, Revision 1. It is the NRC's intent to update this RG when a new or revised PRA standard or industry program is published. If a new standard or program is published, an additional appendix will be added to set forth the staff position. If a revision of a current standard or program would impact the staff position, the appropriate appendix would be revised. The NRC staff is soliciting comments on these proposed documents. Comments may be accompanied by relevant information or supporting data. Written comments may be submitted to the Rules and Directives Branch, Office of Administration, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555. Copies of comments received may be examined at the NRC Public Document Room, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, MD. Comments will be most helpful if received by September 15, 2006. Comments received after this date will be considered if it is practical to do so, but the NRC is able to ensure consideration only for comments received on or before this date. You may also provide comments via the NRC's interactive rulemaking Web site through the NRC home page (http://www.nrc.gov). This site provides the ability to upload comments as files (any format) if your web browser supports that function. For information about the interactive rulemaking Web site, contact Ms. Carol Gallagher, (301) 415-5905; e-mail CAG@NRC.GOV. For information about the draft guide and the related standard review plan chapter, contact Ms. M.T. Drouin at (301)415-6675; e-mail MXD@NRC.GOV. Although a time limit is given for comments on this draft guide, comments and suggestions in connection with items for inclusion in guides currently being developed or improvements in all published guides are encouraged at any time. Electronic copies of this draft RG are available on the NRC's Web site http://www.nrc.gov in the Reference Library under Regulatory Guides. Electronic copies are also available in NRC's Public Electronic Reading Room at the same Web site; DG-1122 is under ADAMS Accession Number ML062150231. Regulatory guides are available for inspection at the NRC's Public Document Room, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, MD; the PDR's mailing address is USNRC PDR, Washington, DC 20555; telephone (301) 415-4737 or (800) 397-4205; fax (301) 415-3548; e-mail PDR@NRC.GOV. Requests for single copies of draft or final guides (which may be reproduced) or for placement on an automatic distribution list for single copies of future draft guides in specific divisions should be made in writing to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555, Attention: Reproduction and Distribution Services Section; or by e-mail to DISTRIBUTION@NRC.GOV; or by fax to (301) 415- 2289. Telephone requests cannot be accommodated. Regulatory guides are not copyrighted, and Commission approval is not required to reproduce them. (5 U.S.C. 552(a)). Dated at Rockville, MD this 3rd day of August 2006. For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Farouk Eltawila, Director, Division of Risk Assessment and Special Projects, Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research. [FR Doc. E6-13115 Filed 8-9-06; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P ***************************************************************** 14 News & Star: No such thing as safe nuclear Published on 10/08/2006 Brian Nicholls Radioactive waste is a bit like the stranger you find asleep behind the settee after the party has finished and everyone else has gone home. You certainly donā€™t want him there but try as you might you just canā€™t seem to find a way to get rid of him. Yet another report advocates digging holes ā€“ admittedly very elaborate holes ā€“ and burying the huge amount of waste that is waiting for a ā€œpermanentā€ solution for its safe disposal. The problem with this stuff is that by its very nature it is permanently dangerous and whichever place is chosen will have to live with that fact. Everybody knows where that place is going to be and by the same token everyone knows where it is not going to be. It is not going to be under Hyde Park, or beneath Balliol College, Oxford or anywhere in the Home Counties where the authors of this report live. It is going to be as far away from those places as possible and, as usual, West Cumbria looks like the favourite dumping ground. This time around financial incentives are on offer for communities willing to accept the stuff. Sounds like an old fashioned bung, back-hander or bribe to me. Itā€™s rather disgusting that these people believe that some communities might hold their heritage and their environment so cheaply that they would be willing to even consider selling themselves to the nuclear waste industry. They always promise total safety and try to fool us into believing they can achieve it with a procedure for dealing with ā€œincidentsā€ and leaks that involves a sliding scale of telling porky pies. Stage 1: say nothing and hope no one notices. Stage 2: Damn, somebody found out ā€“ say the problem was contained within the works. Stage 3: Double damn, admit it got into the environment but the levels were so low there was no danger to anyone. Stage 4: Iā€™m out of here! Burying radioactive waste is burying our heads in the sand. ***************************************************************** 15 News & Star: Ā£2m fine for the leak which closed Thorp Published on 10/08/2006 Closure: Sellafield operator BNG is still waiting to be sentenced after admitting three charges brought by the Health and Safety Executive and faces an unlimited fine By Andrea Thompson SELLAFIELD operator British Nuclear Group has to pay a Ā£2 million penalty for the serious radiation leak which closed the Thorp reprocessing plant. The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority says BNG failed to meet high-quality safety and environmental requirements. NDA spokesman Brian Hough said: ā€œThe Ā£2 million is deducted from BNGā€™s contract to run the Sellafield site. ā€œIt underlines the value we place on health and safety and the impact that falling below these standards can clearly have on operations.ā€ Thorp, Sellafieldā€™s Ā£1.8billion flagship reprocessing plant, is still closed after the leak of 83,000 litres of highly radioactive liquor from a fractured pipe. It went undetected for nine months. BNG is still awaiting to be sentenced after admitting three charges brought by the Health and Safety Executive, and faces an unlimited fine. The cost of cleaning up the Thorp spillage, and coming up with a complex repair plan has already soared to Ā£50 million. The NDA is in favour of Thorp re-starting but the final say-so rests with the government. As well as Thorp, BNG also operates the Magnox reprocessing which has brought more bad news for the company. Because reprocessing has fallen well below target in 2005-6, Ā£87 million of income has been lost. The NDA also reports that commissioning of the controversial Sellafield MOX plant is still lagging behind target, although there was encouraging progress. In its operational review for 2005-6, the NDA says it has made a saving of Ā£124 to each British taxpayer, thanks to work over its 20 UK nuclear sites exceeding what was planned. This amounted to more than Ā£2 billion and the two per cent of efficiency savings will go towards helping local communities. AThompson@cngroup.co.uk ***************************************************************** 16 Global Strike nuclear exercise scheduled Oct. 24 - Nov. 8 2006 Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2006 12:53:13 -0500 (CDT) X-Sender-Host-Name: chumbly.math.missouri.edu X-Spam-Class: HAM-VERY-WHITELIST False Flag News www.falseflagnews.com False Flag News Our goal is to save the planet, one drill at a time. If a terror drill is being run in the United States, we will advertise it. If a war game is being run in the Persian Gulf, we will expose it. If a private firm announces a "simulation" of a WMD attack or bird flu pandemic, we will immediately alert our readers. The goal of FalseFlagNews will be to prevent the next false-flag terror attack or Gulf of Tonkin style staged event, which will be used to launch World War III. ========= Global Strike nuclear exercise Global Lightning 07 scheduled Oct. 24 - Nov. 8 2006 http://www.falseflagnews.com/wargames/red_alert_october_24_november_8_2006_s tratcom_global_strike_exercise_global_lightning_07 TinyURL http://tinyurl.com/s379e =============== ***************************************************************** 17 [NukeNet] NRC Says Wackenhut Security Failures at Seabrook Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2006 15:01:01 -0700 X-Nohoney: yes white-hard - relay H=adsl-63-203-231-61.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net (borg.energy-net.org) [63.203.231.61] X-Sender-Host-Address: 63.203.231.61 X-Sender-Host-Name: adsl-63-203-231-61.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net X-Spam-Class: HAM-VERY-WHITELIST NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net) SEIU: NRC Says Wackenhut Security Failures at Seabrook Nuclear Plant Draw Possible Fine for Florida Power & Light Third Wackenhut-Guarded FP&L Nuclear Plant under NRC Investigation This Year DOE Also Investigating Wackenhut for Falsification of Training Records at Oak Ridge Reservation Nuclear Facility WASHINGTON, Aug. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has proposed to fine Florida Power and Light (FP&L) $65,000 for a violation of security requirements at New Hampshire's Seabrook Station nuclear power plant. FP&L, which owns and operates Seabrook Station, contracts out security to the Wackenhut Corporation, a subsidiary of London-based Group 4 Securicor. Wackenhut is the U.S. government's largest supplier of private guards, holding multimillion dollar contracts with the Department of Energy and other agencies. The company guards nearly half the nation's commercial nuclear power plants and highly sensitive nuclear weapons sites where there have been numerous security problems. This NRC fine was issued for failure to "maintain complete and accurate records of test results." News of security failures at Seabrook follows the Department of Homeland Security dropping Wackenhut's $9.6 million/yr. contract to protect its Washington, D.C. headquarters and the Department of Defense cutting short contracts to protect U.S. Army bases -- including one where Wackenhut is eligible to receive an estimated $47 million/yr. as a subcontractor -- to put them out for competitive bidding. Wackenhut was a loser in 2003 when a portion of the Army base security work had been put out to competitive bidding. "Wackenhut has again demonstrated an inability to play by the rules and provide adequate security. Until the NRC takes action against this irresponsible contractor, the public can have little confidence that our nation's nuclear facilities are safe and secure," said Stephen Lerner, Director of Property Services of Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the nation's largest security officers' union working to raise standards in the security industry. Alleged Homeland Security Lapses at Seabrook United States Representatives Edward J. Markey (D-MA) and John Tierney (D- MA) raised questions about Seabrook's security in a May, 2005 letter to NRC chairman Nils Diaz noting alleged homeland security lapses at the nuclear power plant. Among the problems cited in the letter and subsequent press reports were: * A perimeter intrusion detection system was never correctly installed and had never been operational; * Security guards used to compensate for the broken detection system were forced to work excessive amounts of overtime; * A security fence intended to prevent outside threats to Seabrook Station failed an NRC inspection and was declared inoperable, according to an internal plant document obtained by Seacoast Newspapers; * There was "inadequate monitoring of system performance," "no evidence of management oversight of system testing," and "security human performance observations are performed almost exclusively by Wackenhut personnel and are not self-critical." Additionally, NRC Conditions Reports from 2005 document further security lapses at the site, including: * Excessive overtime, including 17 instances of supervisors working shifts that exceeded 13 hours between 5/29/2005 and 06/03/2005; * A newly appointed Security Manager had no security background/expertise; * No objective evidence that four Armed Security Officers completed the annual written examination. Third Wackenhut-Guarded FP&L Site under NRC Investigation This Year Seabrook is the third Wackenhut-guarded FP&L plant to be under investigation by the NRC this year. "Significant issues" drew an Augmented Inspection Team (AIT) to Florida's Turkey Point nuclear power plant in February. Three months later, a local news crew visiting the site found "a single (Wackenhut) guard working the front gate at the plant, sporting an M-16 without ammunition." The report generated a response from elected officials across the state, including Florida governor Jeb Bush who questioned security protocols at the facility. Earlier this year the NRC completed a special investigation into "security-related concerns" at FP&L's St. Lucie nuclear power plant in Florida. In 2004 six Wackenhut security officers and their supervisor were removed from duty by FP&L after they took shortcuts during patrols and allowed unescorted visitors to enter protected areas. In 2003 a number of unsearched new fuel containers were transported into St. Lucie's protected area on a flat bed truck where they were left unattended near the Unit 2 Fuel Handling Building. DOE also Investigating Wackenhut for Falsification of Training Records Wackenhut is also facing investigation concerning falsification of training records at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge Reservation, according to the DOE Inspector General. A conviction or civil judgment for falsification of records may be grounds for suspension or debarment of contracts under the U.S. government's federal acquisitions regulations. Wackenhut security practices at a number of nuclear facilities have come under fire. * Wackenhut was caught cheating on an anti-terrorism drill at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. * Wackenhut "systematically" violated weapons inventory and handling policies and performed poorly on an anti-terrorism drill at the Nevada Test Site. * Wackenhut had employees showing new hires at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant where they could take naps while on duty. * Wackenhut's involvement -- through a contract with the Nuclear Energy Institute -- in testing security forces at Wackenhut-guarded plants has come under fire as a clear conflict of interest. For more information, visit http://www.EyeonWackenhut.com - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "Liberty and democracy become unholy when their hands are dyed red with innocent blood": Gandhi, Non-violence in Peace and War, 1948 "Man is the only animal that deals in that atrocity of atrocities, War. He is the only one that gathers his brethren about him and goes forth in cold blood and calm pulse to exterminate his kind. He is the only animal that for sordid wages will march out... and help to slaughter strangers of his own species who have done him no harm and with whom he has no quarrel.... And in the intervals between campaigns he washes the blood off his hands and works for "the universal brotherhood of man" - with his mouth": Mark Twain Molly Johnson 6290 Hawk Ridge Place San Miguel, CA 93451 Cell: 805 296-0524 __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com _______________________________________________________________________ Subscribe/Unsubscribe Here: http://www.energyjustice.net/nukenet/ Change your settings or access the archives at: http://mail.energyjustice.net/mailman/listinfo/nukenet_energyjustice.net ***************************************************************** 18 Seattle Times: Radioactive camera found undamaged Thursday, August 10, 2006 - Page updated at 12:00 AM Local Digest A radioactive camera that was in the cab of a truck stolen from a South Everett parking lot Wednesday morning was recovered when the truck was found in an abandoned strip mall. The truck belonging to Weld Sonix International was stolen at a hotel, police said, after the driver left the keys in the vehicle. The radiographic camera  which is used to inspect underground pipelines  contains iridium-192, a radioactive agent, in a tamper-resistant casing. The alert for the stolen vehicle and device was issued as a safety advisory because exposure to the radioactive agent could cause burns and other injuries. The truck was ransacked, but the camera was not damaged, police said.Vancouver, B.C. Serial-killing trial to cover 6 killings Robert Pickton, accused in a string of prostitute killings in Vancouver, will be tried initially on six counts of murder, not 26, a judge ruled Wednesday. Justice James Williams said that trying Pickton on all the counts at once would pose an unreasonable burden on a jury. His decision separating the six counts from the rest of the case does not prevent Pickton from being tried on the remaining 20 counts later, he said. Williams noted the length of the trial and the volume of evidence as the reasons for his ruling. He said the evidence in support of the six counts is materially different from that supporting the other 20, another justification to split the trials. Pickton will be tried starting in January. He has been in custody since February 2002 on charges of murdering prostitutes who disappeared from the city's downtown Eastside.Olympia Extra time to mull ruling on marriage Lawyers for gay and lesbian couples will get two more weeks to challenge the state Supreme Court's ruling upholding Washington's gay-marriage ban. Plaintiffs' attorneys still haven't decided whether to ask the high court to reconsider its 5-4 decision, which held that the state's law limiting marriage to heterosexual couples was constitutional. The court has agreed to move the deadline for a reconsideration filing from Tuesday to Aug. 29, while lawyers consider a next move. "The longer we have to think about it, the better off we are," said Lisa Stone, director of the Northwest Women's Law Center. "We are analyzing every conceivable option, and nothing's off the table at this point." Supreme Court justices rarely agree to revisit a ruling, lawyers in the case said. "It's an important case, so I think the court's obviously going to keep treating it that way," said Assistant Attorney General Bill Collins, who defended the state's Defense of Marriage Act in court. Federal Way Man critical after Tuesday stabbing A Federal Way man was listed in critical condition at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle after, according to police, a woman stabbed him Tuesday night. The woman reportedly showed up at the man's apartment in the 27900 block of Pacific Highway South about 9:45 p.m. and banged on the his door and windows with a hammer, said Federal Way police spokeswoman Stacy Flores. Once let inside, the woman, the man and another woman who was inside the apartment began arguing, Flores said. At some point the woman who had banged on the door pulled out an 8-inch knife and stabbed the man, police said. The woman was arrested on investigation of assault.Kent Detective accused of rape is charged A King County sheriff's detective accused of raping an adult family member and holding her hostage was charged Wednesday with three misdemeanors that could yield a three-year jail sentence. The charges in Kent Municipal Court against M. Amaad DeAllah were filed five days after King County prosecutors said they didn't have enough evidence to pursue felony counts. Kent City Attorney Tami Perdue charged DeAllah, 45, with fourth-degree assault with sexual motivation, attempted unlawful imprisonment and assault. DeAllah was arrested April 29 in Kent after the woman told detectives that he struck her in the face, head and shoulders before raping her, according to a police report. About a day after he posted bail, DeAllah was rearrested for allegedly violating the terms of his release by contacting the woman. The 21-year veteran remains on paid leave from his department. Seattle Participants sought for Hutch registry The Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center is asking people of color to participate in a bone-marrow registry. The registry is intended to help patients who have life-threatening illnesses but cannot find a donor from their own ethnic or racial group because so few have signed up. The registry and a blood drive for African-American, Hispanic, Asian/Pacific Islander, multiracial and Native American donors is set for 9 to 11:30 a.m. and 12:15 to 3 p.m. on Aug. 18 at the Hutchinson Center, Thomas Clinical Research Building, 1100 Fairview Ave. N. Those joining the registry will be asked to do paperwork about contact information and health history. A 10-minute screening involves a cheek swab. No blood donation or appointment is necessary.Snoqualmie Pass Easton Hill project halfway completed The state Department of Transportation is halfway through a large slope-stabilization project at the top of Easton Hill on Snoqualmie Pass. Work began in June and should be finished in October. Workers have pulled down more than 12,000 tons of rock, enough to fill nearly 1,000 dump trucks. The area, 14 miles east of the summit, was identified in a report to Gov. Christine Gregoire as the top priority on a list of potential slide areas needing immediate attention. The work is 14 miles east of where a rock slide last September killed three women. Times staff and news services Copyright © 2006 The Seattle Times Company ***************************************************************** 19 IAEA: Sensitive Nuclear Material Removed From Poland [IAEA.ORG :: Atoms for Peace] In a mission completed 9 August 2006, the IAEA helped Polish authorities to remove close to 40kg of highly enriched uranium (HEU) from a nuclear research reactor facility at Otwock-Swierk near the capital of Warsaw. The HEU was safely airlifted back to Russia, which had originally supplied it to fuel Poland“s research reactors. The two-day mission was a joint effort between the United States, Poland, Russia, and the IAEA. Both IAEA safeguards inspectors and technical experts from the US National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were present to monitor loading the fuel into canisters. Under armed guard, it was then airlifted by cargo plane, in an early morning operation that safely returned the nuclear fuel to a secure facility close to Novosibirsk. The Russian facility will down-blend the fissile material to low enriched uranium that can not be used to make a bomb. The fuel removal was funded by the United States, through an IAEA technical cooperation project that conducted the work needed to make the shipment a reality. It is part of the Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI) to identify, secure and recover high-risk vulnerable nuclear and radiological materials around the world. IAEA Project Manager, Mr. Arnaud Atger, said the operation was "another critical step towards enhancing the security of fissile material, by eliminating stockpiles of HEU". "Poland“s cooperation and commitment was key to this joint non-proliferation effort," he said. Dr. Igor Bolshinsky, NNSA Project Manager, said it was "another successful mission". "The NNSA and IAEA partnership is valuable in securing nuclear material and I look forward to continuing our non-proliferation efforts together." Altogether some 195 kg of HEU of Russian origin has been returned to Russia from foreign research reactors built under Soviet projects. The IAEA is also working with Poland to convert its powerful research reactor, called MARIA, from HEU to using LEU fuel, which is less of a proliferation risk. The reactor was named after the famous Polish scientist, Marie Curie, whose discovery of radium paved the way for nuclear physics and cancer therapy. The MARIA reactor is used to produce isotopes for medical treatment and diagnoses, and to test power reactor fuel and conduct other research. "Poland serves as a model of cooperation for other eligible countries, to encourage them to ship back their remaining inventories of fresh HEU fuel and convert their research reactors to proliferation resistant LEU," Mr. Atger said. Deputy Director of the Polish Institute for Atomic Energy, Mr. Grzegorz Krzysztoszek, said: "The value of converting the research reactor to LEU is in part because the cost of HEU is high, and its availability limited, but more importantly, it is a safer alternative to HEU." This Polish shipment comes two weeks after the completion of a similar operation in Libya. Over the past three years, the IAEA has helped to repatriate HEU from Libya, Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria, Uzbekistan, Latvia and the Czech Republic back to its country of origin. More than 100 research reactors around the world still run on weapons-grade HEU. The Agency is working with its Member States to convert their research reactors to LEU fuel. In conjunction with a US programme, the Agency is working to reduce and eventually eliminate international commerce in HEU for research reactors. As part of its broader efforts, the IAEA assists Member States to upgrade physical security and improve overall safety at research reactors. A particular focus is on ageing or shut-down reactors and their spent fuel storage facilities. Copyright ©, International Atomic Energy Agency, P.O. Box 100, Wagramer Strasse 5, A-1400 Vienna, Austria Telephone (+431) 2600-0; Facsimilie (+431) 2600-7; E-mail: Official.Mail@iaea.org ***************************************************************** 20 UK: Herald: New £7m centre to teach nuclear clean-up skills Web Issue 2591 August 11 2006 DAVID ROSS, Highland Correspondent August 11 2006 Britain's first purpose-built nuclear decommissioning training and research centre was opened near Thurso yesterday. It will support the £70bn programme to clean up after the UK's nuclear power stations. The centre at Janetstown provides facilities for companies to train staff and test the equipment needed to dismantle hazardous facilities at nuclear sites. It is also being marketed to the oil and gas and environmental sectors for testing equipment. It will be leased and managed by T3UK Ltd for use by local, national and international contractors. The facility was built at a cost of £7.1m by Highlands and Islands Enterprise with assistance from the European Regional Development Fund. It is also home to the UHI Decommissioning and Environmental Remediation Centre (DERCS), part of North Highland College UHI which is a partner in UHI Millennium Institute  the future university for the Highlands and Islands. It was officially launched by Dr Ian Roxburgh, chief executive of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, with more than 60 leading figures from the industry in the UK and abroad present. Dr Roxburgh said: "The T3UK/DERC facility is vital to develop the safety of decommissioned nuclear sites, support for research development and helping communities face up to the social and economic benefits from the closure of nuclear sites." T3UK Ltd believes the centre can establish the reputation of Scotland as a world leader in nuclear clean-up skills. Company director John Campbell said: "Our facility has all the necessary engineering, trials, testing and training elements to develop safe and cost effective solutions for all industry requirements." Professor Bob Cormack, UHI principal, said: "Nuclear clean-up is one of the most important issues facing the environment." Sandy Cumming, HIE chief executive, claimed: "This project provides an opportunity for Caithness to lead the world in pioneering new techniques." Copyright © Newsquest (Herald & Times) Limited. All Rights ***************************************************************** 21 Hanford News: Hanford workers comp claims are denied at too high a rate This story was published Wednesday, August 9th, 2006 By Shannon Dininny, Associated Press Writer YAKIMA, Wash. (AP) - Tom Peterson labored at several jobs on the Hanford nuclear reservation for 14 years. But three years into working there, the ironworker began complaining about night sweats, shortness of breath and a chronic cough. Peterson thought he was having a heart attack. Ten years passed before doctors diagnosed him with chronic beryllium disease, believed to have been caused by breathing in dust or mist of the lightweight metal. Peterson and his wife have been fighting his health problems and the workers' compensation program for Hanford workers ever since. "Unless you have a clear-cut case - I fell at work, broke my leg, everybody saw me - it's going to be a fight," said Janet Peterson, Tom's wife, who handles the mountain of paperwork that came with the disease. Workers and retirees navigate a maze of state and federal agencies and third-party administrators when they get sick or injured on the job. In recent months, dozens of Hanford workers have complained about their workers' compensation programs. Congress pulled the Energy Department's oversight of one such program for federal nuclear workers last year amid complaints that claims were languishing, transferring the program to the Labor Department. Now, another program is under fire from a Hanford watchdog group. In a report being released Wednesday, the Government Accountability Project in Seattle contends that Hanford workers' claims were denied at twice the rate of self-insured companies in Washington state in 2004. "Our concern is that DOE is creating another generation of workers that don't have access to health care and basically are sacrificing their health to fulfill the federal government's mission," said Lea Mitchell, an investigator for the Government Accountability Project. The federal government created Hanford in the 1940s as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb. Workers there continued to produce plutonium for the nation's nuclear weapons arsenal through the Cold War. Today, Hanford is the nation's most contaminated nuclear site. Nearly 10,000 people work at the site to clean up a mix of radioactive and toxic materials. The work varies, as do the work-related illnesses and injuries employees sustain. A list of workers' compensation claims filed in 2004 includes everything from sprains, strains and hearing loss, which make up nearly half of all claims that year, to chemical exposure and cancer. To manage those claims, the Energy Department hired Irving, Texas-based Contract Claims Services Inc. in 2000. The move came after the state Department of Labor and Industries, which had been administering the program, urged the agency to join other large employers in Washington state, such as Boeing, as a self-insured entity. The state still ultimately decides whether claims are denied or approved for self-insured companies, but does not administer their programs. The companies themselves pay for all approved claims. The change created an environment ripe for interference by the Energy Department and its contractors, GAP contends. The report accuses CCSI of routinely using independent medical exams that made denying or diminishing claims easier, and contends that those doctors often base their decisions on incomplete information. After a number of workers complained, the Energy Department asked the state to audit the program. The audit, released in April, concluded that the system was being appropriately administered. Jean Vanek, self-insurance program manager for the state Department of Labor and Industries, noted that the state agrees with the recommendation to deny a claim 80 percent of the time at Hanford, compared to 85 percent for other self-insured companies. Vanek said many workers have unrealistic expectations of workers' compensation. "It isn't intended to cover all of their medical expenses, and sometimes ... the expectation gap between what the program should deliver and what it could deliver is part of the confusion," she said. However, when comparing data from two years that the state managed the program with two years since CCSI assumed claims processing, the percentage of claims denied nearly tripled, according to information provided to The Associated Press by the state. In 1997-98, Hanford workers filed 1,369 claims with the state, which rejected 137 of them, or about 10 percent. In 2002-03, after CCSI took over claims processing, Hanford workers filed 1,230 claims. The state ultimately rejected 355 of those claims, or about 29 percent. "That does seem to be fairly dramatic," Vanek said. "I can't imagine the nature of the claims has changed dramatically." GAP's report recommends that the Energy Department remove CCSI and return the program to the state - a proposal the workers' union endorses. A CCSI spokeswoman declined to comment because she had not yet seen the report. The Energy Department also declined to discuss the report, but released a statement. "We care about our workers. That's why last year we asked the state of Washington to commission an independent, comprehensive review of this program. It found us to be in full compliance with applicable regulations," the statement said. "Still, we are actively working to improve the program further, to ensure that claims are handled with care and that employees know what to expect from the process." The state audit reviewed the files of more than 40 random workers, while the GAP report reviewed medical files of 15 selected workers, about half of which the group represents. While finding that that the current program meets regulatory compliance, the state audit also offered several recommendations, such as reducing the caseloads for claims managers. The Energy Department is following that recommendation, as well as mandating that CCSI have early contact with employees and initial phone contact with physicians. The agency is enforcing 30-day "diary updates" so that the status of cases can be easily reviewed, said Colleen French, a department spokeswoman. The department also created a new position to oversee the program and act as a liaison and troubleshooter between employees, CCSI, the state and physicians, she said. Peterson, the ironworker who fights a daily battle with chronic fatigue, joint aches and chest pains, welcomed the position, but said it does not go far enough to aid sick workers. "Maybe she can help a few, but there's a bunch of us out there and there's a lot of claims," he said. "Too many people just give up." --- On the Web: Government Accountability Project: http://www.whistleblower.org Hanford: http://www.hanford.gov Washington state Department of Labor and Industries: http://www.lni.wa.gov © 2006 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 22 Tri-City Herald: PNNL's radiation monitor has wheels Published Thursday, August 10th, 2006 By John Trumbo, Herald staff writer At first glance, the big, white truck looks like it is overloaded with oversized metal boxes. Smaller than a garbage truck but bigger than a boom truck, the specially built Ford 650 is a mobile radioactive detection rig, the latest technological tool designed at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory for the Department of Homeland Security. So far, the lab has had 30 of them built at a cost of $190,000 each at a custom truck body builder in Chesterfield, Mich. They come equipped with the same kind of radiation portal monitors that are used around the world to intercept illicit radioactive materials, except that these rigs are capable of being driven to a site. Randy Hansen of PNNL, who is the manager of the radiation portal monitor project, said each truck has two detection panels mounted so it can cover an area from six inches above ground to more than 11 feet -- the height of a semi tractor-trailer or a shipping container. The trucks are ideal for cruising through a yard at a port of entry, where they can sense tiny amounts of radiation hidden inside a shipping container. It's been demonstrated that a radiation portal monitor truck can drive by and scan 85 containers within 15 minutes. Hansen said the panels are so sensitive that they can detect medical isotopes in someone's body. The radiation emitted from the illicit material strikes a special kind of plastic, which producES light photons. The intensity of the photons signals that there are gamma rays, Hansen said. The panels also are able to detect neutron radiation, which means the mobile units are able to identify two kinds of radiation. The trucks are being built to PNNL's specifications and being shipped to locations all around the U.S., said Bruce Carlisle, manager at PNNL for the mobile radiation portal monitor project. The project has been under way for 18 months, and the contract with Homeland Security calls for up to 200 of the trucks to be delivered. Hansen said the Border Patrol began asking for mobile radiation detection equipment in early 2002, but the need became urgent after Sept. 11, 2001. The trucks are designed to be self-contained. They have a generator to produce the power required to run the monitors, and they can serve as a field office and communications base for the operators. Carlisle said the trucks, which are expected to have a 10-year lifespan, have modules and plug-in systems so they can receive upgraded systems. They are being installed at land and rail border crossings, at international airport terminals and seaports, and at international mail and express consignment courier facilities. One of the trucks is back at the Richland lab for several months while Carlisle and his team test its capabilities for other use in radiation detection. The lab also is looking at the possibility of using the trucks at special events where there could be security issues, he said. © 2006 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press &Other Wire Services ***************************************************************** 23 Independent: Nuclear firms fined £4m for safety lapses that led to radioactive leaks By Michael Harrison, Business Editor Published: 11 August 2006 Two of Britain's leading nuclear companies were fined a total of £4m yesterday and given severe reprimands after safety lapses led to the release of radioactive material. The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) imposed penalties of £2m each on the state-owned British Nuclear Group (BNG) and United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) after separate incidents at the Sellafield and Dounreay waste reprocessing plants. The fines are a serious blow to BNG and UKAEA, both of which are bidding for up to £70bn worth of nuclear decommissioning contracts which the NDA is due to award over the next five years. The Government is preparing to privatise BNG next year in a move which is expected to raise £300m-£500m. There has also been speculation that UKAEA may be part-privatised. BNG's Thorp spent fuel reprocessing facility at Sellafield is still closed after the leak of radioactive liquid in May 2005, involving enough material to half fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool. BNG was prosecuted separately over the incident by the Health and Safety Executive in June and is due to be fined in October. At the UKAEA's Dounreay facility in Scotland last September, 266 litres of hazardous nuclear waste split on to a laboratory floor when it was being mixed with concrete and pumped into 500-litre drums for storage. A spokesman for the NDA said: "We wanted to send out a strong signal that safety is our number one priority. We will not tolerate inadequate levels of performance such as this and we will not shrink from taking tough action. The NDA is not a pushover." The penalties were disclosed in the NDA's annual review for 2005-06, which said the organisation had deducted £2m from the fees of each company "as a consequence of failings that led to incidents at Thorp and Dounreay". The review also reveals that Sellafield's controversial MOX fuel fabrication plant, which mixes uranium and plutonium from spent nuclear waste to make new reactor fuel, is not performing adequately, with only 2.92 tonnes of material processed so far against a target of 5.08 tonnes. The NDA is due to begin inviting firms to tender for the first of several multibillion-pound nuclear contracts in October. The first contract will be to handle low-level waste from the 20 civil nuclear sites for which the NDA is responsible. BNG and UKAEA, which has teamed up with the engineer Amec to bid, will face stiff competition from overseas groupsincluding Washington and Bechtel of the US. A spokeswoman for the UKAEA said the Dounreay incident had been unfortunate but stressed that no employees had been harmed. The NDA said that in the case of Sellafield, no release of radiation had occurred beyond the boundary of the site and no workers had been irradiated but it was nevertheless a serious lapse in management. © 2006 Independent News and Media Limited ***************************************************************** 24 DenverPost.com: City radium disposal may stall Article Launched: 08/10/2006 01:00:00 AM MDT An oversight board won't let Denver send waste to an Idaho facility despite a battle over whether the preferred landfill near Last Chance has the proper permits. By Kim McGuire Denver Post Staff Writer Denver's plan to remove radium-tainted waste from a site near Cheesman Park this summer may stall because of a continuing dispute over the legal status of a waste disposal facility in Adams County. A regional board overseeing low-level radioactive waste disposal decided Wednesday to once again deny the city's request to continue shipping radium street waste to an Idaho waste site. Instead, the board ruled, the city should make plans to send the waste to a newly licensed landfill near Last Chance owned by Massachusetts- based Clean Harbors Environmental Services Inc. Denver, however, continues to question whether the Clean Harbors landfill is properly permitted. "I can't think of a worse situation for us to be in," said Assistant City Attorney Shaun Sullivan. Sullivan said the city believes the waste facility never got permission from Adams County to begin accepting low-level radioactive waste. Adams County has threatened to seek a legal injunction against anyone who disposes waste at the landfill, Sullivan said. "We can't take the risk of having a street open and having an injunction over us that would force us to stop," Sullivan said. In the 1920s, waste from a local radium processing plant was used to pave streets in the Capitol Hill area. The Denver Radium Site, consisting of 65 properties, was designated a federal Superfund site in 1983, and for the past decade, crews have excavated the material. City officials had hoped to complete the project next year, but that goal may be missed as a result of the legal wrangling over the Clean Harbors site. "We don't want to be tied down in this mess," said Ali Sogue, the city's project manager. "Let us do our work." Clean Harbors officials, backed by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, insist they have the required waste disposal permits. "The notion our license is not valid is at the heart of the litigation Adams County has brought against us," said Clean Harbors vice president Bill Geary, noting that two judges recently dismissed the county's claims. Company officials say they've already spent $3 million making sure the site could receive Denver's radium waste and anticipated receiving $2.1 million for the transport and disposal of that material. The Rocky Mountain Low- Level Radioactive Waste Compact Board - which regulates low-level radioactive waste in Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico - decided that Denver's request to use an Idaho waste site would deliver an undue economic blow to the Clean Harbors facility. Staff writer Kim McGuire can be reached at 303-820-1240 or . All contents Copyright 2006 The Denver Post or other copyright ***************************************************************** 25 AU ABC: Court dismisses farmer's uranium concerns - 10/08/2006 A farmer at Esperance in Western Australia is fighting to stop uranium exploration on her property. Yvonne Hallam took court action this week to try to stop the exploration application but her case was dismissed. She says she is worried about biosecurity problems from letting people on to her land. "I think we've got the right to continue with the farming that we've been doing for probably 40 years, and people before us, and people after us without having to worry about who's coming and going, and opening, and shutting gates, or maybe not shutting gates and all that sort of thing," she said. Nova Energy, which made the application, says it will not go where it is not wanted and will not undertake any onground exploration on the property. ***************************************************************** 26 CBN: Are Depleted Uranium Weapons Sickening U.S. Troops? CBN Newswatch Christian World News By Deborah Hastings AP National Writer August 10, 2006 NEW YORK (AP) - It takes at least 10 minutes and a large glass of orange juice to wash down all the pills - morphine, methadone, a muscle relaxant, an antidepressant, a stool softener. Viagra for sexual dysfunction. And Valium for his nerves. Four hours later, Herbert Reed will swallow another 15 mg of morphine to cut the pain clenching every part of his body. He will do it twice more before the day is done. Since he left a bombed-out train depot in Iraq, his gums bleed. There is more blood in his urine, and still more in his stool. Bright light hurts his eyes. A tumor has been removed from his thyroid. Rashes erupt everywhere, itching so badly they seem to live inside his skin. Migraines cleave his skull. His joints ache, grating like door hinges in need of oil. There is something massively wrong with Herbert Reed, though no one is sure what it is. He believes he knows the cause, but he cannot convince anyone caring for him that the military's new favorite weapon has made him terrifyingly sick. In the sprawling bureaucracy of the Department of Veterans Affairs, he has many caretakers. An internist, a neurologist, a pain-management specialist, a psychologist, an orthopedic surgeon and a dermatologist. He cannot function without his stupefying arsenal of medications, but they exact a high price. "I'm just a zombie walking around," he says. Reed believes depleted uranium has contaminated him and his life. He now walks point in a vitriolic war over the Pentagon's arsenal of it - thousands of shells and hundreds of tanks coated with the metal that is radioactive, chemically toxic, and nearly twice as dense as lead. A shell coated with depleted uranium pierces a tank like a hot knife through butter, exploding on impact into a charring inferno. As tank armor, it repels artillery assaults. It also leaves behind a fine radioactive dust with a half-life of 4.5 billion years. Depleted uranium is the garbage left from producing enriched uranium for nuclear weapons and energy plants. It is 60 percent as radioactive as natural uranium. The U.S. has an estimated 1.5 billion pounds of it, sitting in hazardous waste storage sites across the country. Meaning it is plentiful and cheap as well as highly effective. Reed says he unknowingly breathed DU dust while living with his unit in Samawah, Iraq. He was med-evaced out in July 2003, nearly unable to walk because of lightning-strike pains from herniated discs in his spine. Then began a strange series of symptoms he'd never experienced in his previously healthy life. At Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C, he ran into a buddy from his unit. And another, and another, and in the tedium of hospital life between doctor visits and the dispensing of meds, they began to talk. "We all had migraines. We all felt sick," Reed says. "The doctors said, 'It's all in your head.' " Then the medic from their unit showed up. He too, was suffering. That made eight sick soldiers from the 442nd Military Police, an Army National Guard unit made up of mostly cops and correctional officers from the New York area. But the medic knew something the others didn't. Dutch marines had taken over the abandoned train depot dubbed Camp Smitty, which was surrounded by tank skeletons, unexploded ordnance and shell casings. They'd brought radiation-detection devices. The readings were so hot, the Dutch set up camp in the middle of the desert rather than live in the station ruins. "We got on the Internet," Reed said, "and we started researching depleted uranium." Then they contacted The New York Daily News, which paid for sophisticated urine tests available only overseas. Then they hired a lawyer. Reed, Gerard Matthew, Raymond Ramos, Hector Vega, Augustin Matos, Anthony Yonnone, Jerry Ojeda and Anthony Phillip all have depleted uranium in their urine, according to tests done in December 2003. For months during that time, they bounced between Walter Reed and New Jersey's Fort Dix medical center, seeking relief that never came. The analyses were done in Germany, by a Frankfurt professor who developed a depleted uranium test with Randall Parrish, a professor of isotope geology at the University of Leicester in Britain. The veterans, using their positive results as evidence, have sued the U.S. Army, claiming officials knew the hazards of depleted uranium, but concealed the risks. The Department of Defense says depleted uranium is powerful and safe, and not that worrisome. Four of the highest-registering samples from Frankfurt were sent to the VA. Those results were negative, Reed said. "Their test just isn't as sophisticated," he said. "And when we first asked to be tested, they told us there wasn't one. They've lied to us all along." The VA's testing methodology is safe and accurate, the agency says. More than 2,100 soldiers from the current war have asked to be tested; only eight had DU in their urine, the VA said. The term depleted uranium is linguistically radioactive. Simply uttering the words can prompt a strong reaction. Heads shake, eyes roll, opinions are yelled from all sides. "The Department of Defense takes the position that you can eat it for breakfast and it poses no threat at all," said Steve Robinson of the National Gulf War Resource Center, which helps veterans with various problems, including navigating the labyrinth of VA health care. "Then you have far-left groups that ... declare it a crime against humanity." Several countries use it as weaponry, including Britain, which fired it during the 2003 Iraq invasion. An estimated 286 tons of DU munitions were fired by the U.S. in Iraq and Kuwait in 1991. An estimated 130 tons were shot toppling Saddam Hussein. Depleted uranium can enter the human body by inhalation, the most dangerous method; by ingesting contaminated food or eating with contaminated hands; by getting dust or debris in an open wound, or by being struck by shrapnel, which often is not removed because doing so would be more dangerous than leaving it. Inhaled, it can lodge in the lungs. As with imbedded shrapnel, this is doubly dangerous - not only are the particles themselves physically destructive, they emit radiation. A moderate voice on the divisive DU spectrum belongs to Dan Fahey, a doctoral student at the University of California at Berkeley, who has studied the issue for years and also served in the Gulf War before leaving the military as a conscientious objector. "I've been working on this since '93 and I've just given up hope," he said. "I've spoken to successive federal committees and elected officials ... who then side with the Pentagon. Nothing changes." At the other end are a collection of conspiracy-theorists and Internet proselytizers who say using such weapons constitute genocide. Two of the most vocal opponents recently suggested that a depleted-uranium missile, not a hijacked jetliner, struck the Pentagon in 2001. "The bottom line is it's more hazardous than the Pentagon admits," Fahey said, "but it's not as hazardous as the hard-line activist groups say it is. And there's a real dearth of information about how DU affects humans." Reed and the seven brothers from his unit hate what has happened to them, and they speak of it at public seminars and in politicians' offices. It is something no VA doctor can explain; something that leaves them feeling like so many spent shell rounds, kicked to the side of battle. But for every outspoken soldier like them, there are silent veterans like Raphael Naboa, an Army artillery scout who served 11 months in the northern Sunni Triangle, only to come home and fall apart. Some days he feels fine. "Some days I can't get out of bed," he said from his home in Colorado. Now 29, he's had growths removed from his brain. He has suffered a small stroke - one morning he was shaving, having put down the razor to rinse his face. In that moment, he blacked out and pitched over. "Just as quickly as I lost consciousness, I regained it," he said. "Except I couldn't move the right side of my body." After about 15 minutes, the paralysis ebbed. He has mentioned depleted uranium to his VA doctors, who say he suffers from a series of "non-related conditions." He knows he was exposed to DU. "A lot of guys went trophy-hunting, grabbing bayonets, helmets, stuff that was in the vehicles that were destroyed by depleted uranium. My guys were rooting around in it. I was trying to get them out of the vehicles." No one in the military talked to him about depleted uranium, he said. His knowledge, like Reed's, is self-taught from the Internet. Unlike Reed, he has not gone to war over it. He doesn't feel up to the fight. There is no known cure for what ails him, and so no possible victory in battle. He'd really just like to feel normal again. And he knows of others who feel the same. "I was an artillery scout, these are folks who are in pretty good shape. Your Rangers, your Special Forces guys, they're in as good as shape as a professional athlete," he said. "Then we come back and we're all sick." They feel like men who once were warriors and now are old before their time, with no hope for relief from a multitude of miseries that has no name. © 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material The Christian Broadcasting Network, Inc. © 2006 ***************************************************************** 27 AP Wire: Graham wants MOX construction to begin by year's end 08/10/2006 | Associated Press AIKEN, S.C. - U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham says he hopes construction of a mixed-oxide plant at the Savannah River Site begins before the end of the year, even though future funding for the project remains unclear. "The need for MOX is greater today than the day we awarded the project," Graham, R-S.C., said Wednesday. Construction of a MOX plant at the former nuclear weapons complex near Aiken and across the river from Augusta, Ga., has been held up because of complications with a corresponding Russian facility. Under an agreement with Russia, the United States plans to blend 34 tons of U.S. plutonium no longer needed for warheads with depleted uranium so it can be used in a commercial power reactor and can't be used in a bomb. Russia also had planned to build a conversion plant for 34 tons of its excess plutonium, but has recently decided to use alternate technology. "History will judge us poorly if we let this moment pass," Graham said. Funding issues still must be worked out for the next fiscal year. The U.S. House didn't allocate any money for the MOX program, but the Senate funded the facility. Graham said the differences will be worked out when Congress returns from its summer break. "We will get a number, I hope, that will keep the MOX program moving forward and viable," Graham said. Rep. Gresham Barrett, R-S.C., said he knew the budget battle would be a tough fight this year. "At this pace, I think it is going to take us a lame duck session" to reach a compromise, he said. Earlier this summer, Rep. John Spratt, D-S.C., called for an investigation into the status and future of the MOX program. Spratt wanted lawmakers to look into the cost of terminating the MOX program and exploring alternatives. ***************************************************************** 28 RGJ.com: Yucca plan may soon be put to rest Nevada, USA 775-788-6200 August 10, 2006 RGJ.com By Kenny Guinn During my two terms as Nevada's governor, perhaps no single issue has been as vexing and problematic as the efforts of the federal government to locate a repository for highly radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel at Yucca Mountain, just 90 miles from Las Vegas. Now, after years of strong, sustained and unified opposition by the state, its political leaders, congressional delegation, citizens, local governments and others, Yucca Mountain finally and deservedly appears to be headed toward the trash bin of history. In 2002, I issued a statement outlining reasons why I had disapproved the president's decision to recommend Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waste repository. In that statement, I observed: "Yucca Mountain is but the latest in a long series of Department of Energy (DOE) boondoggles -- one based on bad science, bad law and bad public policy." More than $2 billion of taxpayer and ratepayer dollars later, Congress finally appears to have reached the same conclusion. U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Pete Domenici, a prominent supporter of nuclear power and the nuclear industry, recently introduced new legislation that shifts focus from the failed Yucca Mountain program to the concept of interim storage, either at existing reactor locations or at regional "consolidation and preparation" facilities. The legislation, subsequently approved by the full committee, implicitly recognizes for the first time that the country is on the wrong track in its approach to dealing with spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste. Even so, recent media coverage of the DOE's revised Yucca Mountain schedule clearly demonstrates that officials at DOE's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management will continue the agency's bureaucratic effort to keep the fiction surrounding this site alive. As with other major federal programs that have ultimately collapsed under the weight of shoddy science, excessive costs and strong opposition, the Yucca Mountain program is not likely to simply disappear overnight, and Sen. Domenici may have envisioned such an eventuality when he suggested that the time has come to put Yucca on the "back burner." The Yucca Mountain fight has been a long and difficult one. Nevadans can be justifiably proud of how the state has pulled together to bring this dangerous, ill-advised and unnecessary project to a standstill. Nevada has often stood alone in opposing the project and exposing Yucca's fraudulent science, excessive costs and unacceptable impacts and risks. Nevada also has been at the forefront of the effort to alert the nation to the tremendous hazards associated with transporting thousands of shipments of deadly radioactive waste across the country to an unsafe site in Nevada. It has been Nevada's strong and unyielding opposition over the past two decades that has prevented an out-of-control federal bureaucracy from making a mistake of unprecedented proportions, which would impact many generations of citizens -- in Nevada and around the U.S. -- for thousands of years. Although the battle is not yet over, I am very encouraged by the new thinking and direction in Congress. Thanks to the sustained efforts of all Nevadans, we may finally be seeing the light at the end of the Yucca Mountain tunnel and the beginning of a new chapter in the nation's approach to solving the nuclear waste problem. Kenny Guinn is governor of Nevada. Gov. Guinn's Forecast on Yucca Thu Aug 10, 2006 1:01 pm So, in Governor Guinn's column on August 10, he concludes that the plan being proposed by Sen. Domenici to set up interim storage facilities for spent nuclear fuel during the delay in developing the permanent disposal facility at Yucca Mountain represents a way of putting Yucca Mountain on the "back burner." Gov. Guinn should read Sen. Domenici's August 3 opening statement in a hearing he chaired that day on Yucca Mountain legislation. In the three page statement there was only one sentence that was underlined in the text. It said, "Let me be clear: We need Yucca Mountain." © Copyright , a Newspaper. ***************************************************************** 29 North West Enquirer: Dont make Sellafield a nuclear landfill site Aug 10 2006 by Jason Teasdale UNION leaders at Sellafield in Cumbria are set to oppose plans for long-term nuclear waste storage there unless it is tied to a deal for a new reactor. Gary Smith, national officer at the GMB, said: If the government wants to build a repository on site at Sellafield, that will come at a price. We will not allow Sellafield to be perceived as a dumping ground. Members of the GMB are ramping up pressure on the government following last weeks report into how Britains nuclear waste should be disposed of. A report by the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM) recommended burying the material at sites deep underground. Although the committee hasnt pin-pointed locations for that disposal, Sellafield is seen as a frontrunner. Bargaining chip But union bosses believe the facility should be seen as more than that, and are planning to use the option as a bargaining chip in a bigger fight for investment in more lucrative areas of the nuclear industry. Senior union figures like Smith believe they have considerable muscle in the negotiations now getting under way. They have already met with Tony Blair and are hoping to discuss their concerns further with the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, Alistair Darling, and his team of civil servants. Smith said Sellafield must become a centre of excellence for all aspects of the nuclear industry not just disposal. He said: We think there should be at least one reactor at Sellafield. Sellafield should be more than just a hole in the ground. Well-being The principle of benefits which could sweeten the deal for communities willing to host a disposal site has already been established by CoRWM. Councillor Timothy Heslop, Cumbria County Councils cabinet member responsible for nuclear issues, said: This report clearly states communities that are willing to participate should expect their well-being to be enhanced. One of the UKs leading experts on the nuclear industry, John Large, said Cumbrians do not want to be seen as nuclear dustmen and so have a lot to bargain with. Last month the governments energy review suggested nuclear power will play a role in meeting Britains energy needs. However, it failed to say how many plants would be needed, only that they would be built and operated by the private sector. Large said: Will new power plants be operated by French companies with no support from the UK? Or are we going to have plants built that will invigorate the British industry? That is the battle, and that is what probably underlies the unions concerns. Sour Large believes waste disposal alone is not enough to sustain expertise in Cumbria, and he warned that without broader investment the British nuclear industry could die out. The nuclear industry is at the point where it could disappear very quickly, he said. As all we will see is decommissioning activity, people will sour towards that and ask what they are paying for. That is the position the government has put Sellafield in. The GMB is already heavily engaged in the political process and Smith believes everything is still to play for in the battle to make Sellafield more than just a nuclear landfill site. I think the government will be forced to take our views seriously, Smith said. A total of 700 new jobs could be created at the Sellafield nuclear plant this year. Site operator British Nuclear Group is recruiting 300 workers to meet decommissioning targets and is looking to take on staff from the Corus steel plant in Workington, which closes later this month, and the Alcan Pechiney plant at Lillyhall, which shuts next year. BNG, which already employs 8,500 people, added that this years work programme could also mean a further 400 jobs are created. Read also: The N game Security review for nuclear trains Faustian threat beneath the Irish Sea "http://www.nw-enquirer.co.uk ***************************************************************** 30 Cox News Service: Government moving to 'recycle' nuclear waste Thursday, August 10, 2006 WASHINGTON Brushing aside concerns from members of Congress, scientists and anti-proliferation activists, the Energy Department is moving ahead with a plan to recycle nuclear waste into new power plant fuel. The plan would reverse 30 years of U.S. policy, first outlined by President Jimmy Carter, opposing the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel on the grounds it would increase the threat of nuclear proliferation. Dennis Spurgeon, assistant secretary of energy for nuclear power, announced last week that the government would spend up to $20 million to study the private development of a "commercial-scale" fuel reprocessing plant and an advanced reactor that could use fuel produced from the waste. The department asked for "expressions of interest" in the plan from private companies in the United States and other countries and gave interested companies until Sept. 7 to request financial assistance. Spurgeon said the fuel reprocessing facility would not be part of the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility proposed for the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, where surplus weapons-grade plutonium is to be reprocessed into power plant fuel. The immediate goal, he said, is to take spent nuclear fuel from commercial power plants that otherwise would go to the Yucca Mountain waste repository and extract plutonium and other materials for reuse. About 77,000 tons of spent fuel rods are waiting at more than 100 nuclear power plants to be shipped to the Nevada repository, which is not expected to open before 2017. By reducing the amount of highly radioactive, heat-generating material in the waste, the program could increase the storage capacity of Yucca Mountain 50- to 100-fold, Spurgeon said. In the long run, the Energy Department anticipates not only reprocessing used U.S. fuel and reusing it, but accepting nuclear waste from other countries for reprocessing as well. It says the output of reprocessing facilities will not be usable as nuclear explosives. However, the technology needed for some steps in reprocessing the waste does not exist, and neither do facilities known as "fast burner reactors" that could use the reprocessed fuel, Spurgeon acknowledged at a news conference. In addition, declassified Energy Department documents have revealed that "reactor grade" plutonium was used to carry out a nuclear explosion at the Nevada Test Site 1962. Critics said the plan is poorly conceived and does not offer a final solution for disposing of some of the most toxic portions of the spent fuel. "If this sounds crazy to you, then you are right," said Edwin Lyman of the Union of Concerned Scientists, an environmental and anti-proliferation group. "It is crazy." The administration has asked Congress to include $250 million in the Energy Department's 2007 budget for the nuclear recycling plan, which is part of President Bush's Global Nuclear Energy Partnership. Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, chairman of the House subcommittee with jurisdiction over the Energy Department's budget, objected that his committee was not given enough information to approve a plan that could cost billions of dollars. The subcommittee reduced the request by $100 million. The full House Appropriations Committee then pared another $30 million and ordered the department to consult with the National Academy of Sciences before going ahead with the idea. "The overriding concern is simply that the Department of Energy has failed to provide sufficient detailed information to enable Congress to understand fully all aspects of this initiative, including the cost, schedule, technology development plan and waste streams," the committee said. The corresponding Senate subcommittee reinstated the funding. A final appropriations bill for the Energy Department has not been approved by either chamber. In an exchange of e-mail, Spurgeon said the highly radioactive spent fuel rods would be cut into small segments and dissolved in an acid solution. He said most of the material removed from the power plant waste would be uranium-238, which can be handled and stored easily. The department's national laboratories are working on finding ways to fabricate plutonium and other highly radioactive elements removed from the waste as fuel for a planned "advanced burner reactor," he said. A major advantage of the process, as far as Yucca Mountain is concerned, would be the removal of "fission products," especially strontium and cesium, from the waste, he said. These substances, which cannot be used to make nuclear fuel, generate large amounts of heat. Since there are limits on how much heat the Yucca Mountain repository can be subjected to, removing the substances would greatly increase the repository's capacity, Spurgeon said. The Union of Concerned Scientists' Lyman said that leaves open the question of how these materials, which continue to give off heat for up to 300 years,?would otherwise be stored. "The trade-off for achieving this vast increase in repository space is an array of storage facilities for cesium and strontium and a complex of reprocessing facilities and burner reactors, all which would require operation for several hundred years," he said. Rodney Ewing, a University of Michigan professor of nuclear engineering and a longtime critics of the Yucca Mountain project, said he had been unable to find out what the department planned to do with strontium, cesium and other fission products. "I suppose you could build a repository for this material anywhere," he said, "but I haven't seen the analysis and it seems to me there are a lot of unexplained parts of the way all of this is supposed to connect up." Jeff Nesmith is a Washington correspondent for Cox Newspapers. © 2006 Cox Ohio Publishing - Oxford Press ***************************************************************** 31 UPI: Analysis: Concerns linger on Yucca site United Press International - Energy - 8/10/2006 9:11:00 AM -0400 By BEN LANDO UPI Energy Correspondent WASHINGTON, Aug. 9 (UPI) -- A central repository for toxic nuclear waste has been a plan in the United States for decades. After numerous deadlines, the Energy Department now says the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada won't open until 2017, which is debatable, as are concerns of what to do with the spent fuel in the meantime. Yucca Mountain, or any warehouse for highly radioactive waste, needs approval by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The Energy Department announced in July plans to submit an application for the site, located about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, by June 2008, along with a calendar of benchmarks for opening. "Experience has shown that the schedule for Yucca is a slippery thing," said Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., during an Aug. 3 hearing of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, which he chairs. A 2010 opening was set by the Energy Department in 1993; that changed to 2017 last year. Domenici said he supports the Yucca Mountain concept, but worries about a continually lagging project that has kept nuclear waste in a temporary storage state and cost money. Utilities and consumers have paid into the Nuclear Waste Fund since 1982, money dedicated to a central repository to be opened in 1998. "My concern is that the new timetable does not include any margin for any further project delays by the DOE, its contractors, or legal action by the State of Nevada, all of which would cause DOE to miss these new deadlines," Domenici said at the hearing. Edward Sproat, director of the department's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, told the committee the new timeline is "the best achievable schedule." "I'm not saying that was the most probable schedule," Sproat said. The Atomic Energy Act of 1954 put the burden of nuclear waste on the federal government. Two years later, the National Academy of Sciences recommended isolating it in a deep geological area and the search was on, with further parameters set by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982. That act, in part, called for two repositories -- to create parity among the NIMBY -- or not in my backyard -- crowd. But when Yucca Mountain was chosen by Congress in 1987 as the sole repository to store highly radioactive nuclear materials in a controlled environment -- for tens of thousands of years until it loses toxicity, the NRC says -- it began a continuum of legal challenges still ongoing. This includes lawsuits filed by Nevada and a veto by its governor over the site selection, to no avail, as well as lawsuits filed by nuclear-producing states and the nuclear industry after the Energy Department missed the 1998 deadline to start taking in waste. A U.S. Court of Appeals for Washington, D.C., Tuesday rejected a petition by Nevada to review the Energy Department's latest environmental assessment as well as a plan for transporting waste to Yucca Mountain. Transporting the waste safely is a flashpoint for critics of the central site proposal. The NRC estimates 54,000 metric tons of spent fuel is being stored at 76 sites around the country -- 65 of which are operating reactors. Two-thousand metric tons of waste is created annually, which means there will be enough to fill Yucca Mountain in eight years. That's at current levels of production, but high energy prices and reliance on foreign oil has rejuvenated the pro-nuclear energy folks who haven't seen a new reactor built approved since 1978 and come online since 1996, a trend whose reversal would increase the amount of radioactive waste needing to be stored. The Energy Department wants the storage cap moved from 70,000 metric tons to the 120,000 metric tons a recent department environmental assessment says it can hold. Domenici says he agrees Yucca Mountain's storage cap needs to be raised -- while criticizing the Energy Department's schedule -- and wants an interim storage plan set up as well as a whole-hearted effort at nuclear waste recycling, which could increase the power generated from nuclear as well as reduce the amount of toxic waste. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., says Yucca Mountain should be forgotten and until a permanent alternative is determined, the nuclear waste should be kept, cooled and protected at the nuclear reactor that produced it. The NRC is getting ready for a safety review of Yucca Mountain in anticipation of the Energy Department's application. Although the NRC says it will complete its review within the legally mandated three years following submission, Martin Virgilio, NRC's deputy executive director for materials, research, state and compliance programs, expressed concern at the Aug. 3 hearing about a Bush administration-backed bill that would force it to complete the inspection within one year -- with a six-month extension if needed. Citing "statutory obligations to protect public health and safety," Virgilio wrote in testimony to the recent Senate energy committee hearing: "Our main concern here is that the NRC be given sufficient time to conduct a comprehensive review of DOE's applications." (Comments to energy@upi.com) © Copyright 2006 United Press International, Inc. All Rights ***************************************************************** 32 Whitehaven News: Ex-Sellafield boss lands role with US bidder Fluor Published on 10/08/2006 By Alan Irving AMERICAN nuclear giant Fluor has enlisted the help of former Sellafield boss Brian Watson in its bid to take over running of the site. Mr Watson was head of Sellafield for five years befopre retiring just over two years ago. He directed Sellafield operations during the most critical time in its history as the falsification of Mox fuel pellet data threatened Sellafieldā€™s future. But Mr Watson played a big part in helping to restore BNFLā€™s reputation worldwide. He could emerge as a key factor as the battle hots up between Fluor and rivals Bechtel when the NDA puts the site management and operation out to competitive tendering following the sale of British Nuclear Group. ā€œFluor approached me and I liked what I saw, itā€™s as simple as that,ā€ Mr Watson said. ā€œAlready I have a feel for the organisation and the fact that they are very sensitive to both community issues and people issues on the site.ā€ Besides his nuclear work, Mr Watson is chairman of the Whitehaven International Maritime Festival. ***************************************************************** 33 Op-Ed: Shell Game (nwaste at reactors) Date: Wed, 09 Aug 2006 15:39:32 -0700 EDITORIALS Tuesday, August 08, 2006 A U.S. Senate proposal to al low highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel to remain at atomic power plants or at a single storage site in each state represents an unacceptable alternative to the proper long-term disposal of these dangerous wastes. Instead of Congress effectively rubber-stamping the inordinately long time it has taking the government to get the designated waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, up and running, it should be demanding that completion of the permanent site be accelerated. Proponents of the plan are led by Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., chairman of the energy and wa ter appropria tions subcom mittee, and Minority Leader Harry Reid, D- Nev. Reid, an ar dent opponent of storing nucle ar waste in Ne vada, said at a hearing last week: "Everyone knows that the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump is a dying beast." If that's true, it is an inordinately expensive dying beast, with some $10 billion and counting having been spent on Yucca Mountain. The Department of Energy recently offered a revised completion date of 2017. Work on the facility adjacent to the Nevada Test Site -- where nuclear weapons were once exploded -- has been ongoing for almost 20 years. As we've noted, it took a little over eight years to put a man on the Moon. How could this project take so much longer? The Domenici/Reid plan would effectively make permanent the on-site storage of nuclear wastes, while billions of dollars of ratepayer money continues to be spent at Yucca Mountain, giving Reid -- and Nevada -- the benefits of an open spigot of federal money without having to actually bear the burden of storage of radioactive waste. While questions have been raised about the long-term safety of storing the wastes at Yucca Mountain, it's likely that in coming decades the waste will be recycled as an energy source too valuable to ignore, rather than remaining in place for hundreds of thousands of years. If Yucca Mountain isn't suitable for storing nuclear waste, then no place on Earth likely is. Certainly, an island in the middle of the Susquehanna River, such as Three Mile Island, is the last place one would want to store such wastes on an indefinite basis. Failure to provide a permanent repository for the 50,000 tons of highly radioactive waste generated by 106 commercial nuclear reactors operating in 31 states is an open invitation to terrorists. It was never intended that these wastes would be stored on a temporary, ad hoc basis. This legislation, besides giving Nevada more breathing room, is intended as a gift to the nuclear industry. Under current law, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission requires utilities to show that nuclear waste will be provided safe, permanent storage before it will issue a license to build a new nuclear power plant. The failure to open Yucca Mountain in timely fashion is both a failure of governance and an accident waiting to happen. Sanctifying the current system of flawed storage for another 25 years would be the height of irresponsibility. ***************************************************************** 34 [NYTr] The Great Equalizer: Kolko on Hiroshim/Nagasaki Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2006 21:51:34 -0400 (EDT) X-Sender-Host-Name: olm.blythe-systems.com X-Spam-Class: HAM-VERY Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit CounterPunch - Aug 10, 2006 http://www.counterpunch.org/kolko08102006.html The Great Equalizer Reflections on Hiroshima and Nagasaki By GABRIEL KOLKO The United States had a monopoly of nuclear weaponry for only a few years before other nations challenged it, but from 1949 until roughly the 1990s deterrence theory worked--nations knew that if they used the awesome bomb they were likely to be devastated in the riposte. Nuclear war was not worth its risks. Today, by contrast, weapons of mass destruction or precision and power are within the capacity of dozens of nations either to produce or purchase. Every kind of weapon is now available; deterrence theory is less and less relevant, and the equations of military power relevant to the period after World War Two no longer hold. This process began in Korea after 1950 and the Americans discovered that great space combined with guerrilla warfare was more than a match for them in Vietnam. But there has now been a qualitative leap in technology that makes inherited conventional wisdom utterly obsolete. Technology is now moving far faster than the diplomatic and political resources or will to control its inevitable consequences--not to mention traditional strategic theories. Hizbollah has far better and more lethal rockets than it had a few years ago, and the U. S. Army has just released a report that light water reactors--which 25 nations, from Armenia to Slovenia as well as Spain, already have and are not covered at all by existing arms control treaties--can be used to obtain weapons-grade plutonium easily and cheaply. Within a few years, many more countries than the present ten or so will have nuclear bombs and far more destructive and accurate rockets and missiles, not to mention the means to deliver them accurately. Weapons-poor fighters will have far more sophisticated tactics as well as far more lethal equipment, which makes the heavily equipped and armed nations lose the advantages (as in Vietnam and Iraq) of their overwhelming firepower. The battle between a few thousand Hizbullah fighters and a massive, ultra-modern Israeli army proves this. Among many things, the war in Lebanon is a window of the future, and either the Israelis cease their policy of bluster and intimidation, and finally accept the political prerequisites of peace with the Arab world, or they too will eventually be wrecked by cheaper nuclear weapons. We live with 21st century technology and also with primitive political attitudes, nationalisms of assorted sorts, cults of heroism and irrationality, and the world will destroy itself unless it realistically confronts the new technological equations. Israel must now confront this reality, and if it does not develop the political skills--and serious compromises--this new equation warrants then it will be destroyed even as it devastates its enemies. This is the message of the conflicts in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon--to use only the examples in today's papers. Walls are no longer protection for the Israelis--one shoots over them. Their much-vaunted tanks have proven highly vulnerable to new weapons, and these will become more and more common. The U. S. war in Iraq is a military disaster against the guerrillas--a half trillion dollars spent there and in Afghanistan have left America on the verge of defeats in both places, its "shock and awe" strategy has utterly failed save to produce contracts for weapons makers and de facto economic bankruptcy. Adroitly, the Bush Administration has managed to deeply alienate more of America's nominal allies than any government in modern times. Its sublime confidence and reliance on the power of its awesome weaponry is a crucial cause of its failure, although we cannot minimize its preemptory hubris and extreme nationalist myopia. But if the challenges of producing a realistic concept of the world that confronts the mounting dangers and limits of military technology seriously are not resolved soon there is nothing more than wars to look forward to. [Gabriel Kolko is the leading historian of modern warfare. He is the author of the classic Century of War: Politics, Conflicts and Society Since 1914 and Another Century of War?. He has also written the best history of the Vietnam War, Anatomy of a War: Vietnam, the US and the Modern Historical Experience. His latest book, The Age of War, was published in March 2006. He can be reached at: kolko @counterpunch.org. ] * ================================================================ .NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems . Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us . .339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org .List Archives: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ .Subscribe: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================ ***************************************************************** 35 Knox News: Peace Alliance tries to get message to Bechtel By News Sentinel staff August 10, 2006 OAK RIDGE - As part of a series of protests this week, members of the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance gathered Wednesday morning at Bechtel's Oak Ridge office facility and tried to deliver a letter asking the corporation to "refrain from further business in weaponry, war preparations and profiteering from the sufferings of the poor." Ralph Hutchison, a coordinator of the peace alliance, said all doors were locked, and workers inside refused to open them. "Bechtel went into a self-imposed siege mode," Hutchison said. The peace group ultimately read the letter out loud and then left a copy at the front door, he said. Bechtel National is a partner in the management of the Y-12 National Security Complex, which historically has manufactured parts for every nuclear weapon in the U.S. arsenal. Wednesday was the 61st anniversary of the atomic bomb being dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, near the conclusion of World War II. © 2006 - Knoxville News Sentinel ***************************************************************** 36 KnoxNews: State officials push for Ky. lab location By NANCY ZUCKERBROD, Associated Press August 10, 2006 WASHINGTON - A Kentucky site moved closer Wednesday to becoming home to a new lab that would develop vaccines against biological diseases that could be spread by animals or terrorists. Tennessee officials also are pushing for the lab to be located at the Kentucky site, because it is near the Tennessee line. Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Ky., said the site, near his hometown of Somerset, has been picked as one of 18 places to locate the lab. The government plans to name the final site in early 2008. Rogers heads a House committee that oversees spending for the Department of Homeland Security, which is the agency that would be in charge of the lab. "We are up against very strong competition, but as the selection process indicates, we are effectively competing for this facility," Rogers said. The University of Tennessee and Oak Ridge National Laboratory are partners in the consortium backing the Kentucky site, and Tennessee's elected officials applauded Wednesday's announcement. "Locating this research facility in the region would create jobs, benefit the local economy, and further cement East Tennessee's standing as one of the nation's premier scientific research communities," U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said in a prepared statement. U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, R-Tenn., said the partnership of UT and ORNL "would give any consortium the strength to compete for a major mission in Homeland Security or research of this nature." About 400 people are expected to work at the $450 million facility, which is projected to open in about six years. But not everyone is excited about getting the lab. Some area residents worry about possible environmental and health hazards to neighboring areas. They also say they worry the site could become a terrorist target and negatively affect tourism. "The powers that be are not paying attention to the voice of the community," said Floyd Lovins, an area resident who has helped lead an effort to stop the project. He says a petition opposing the lab has more than 4,000 signatures. Supporters of the project say the complex would be surrounded by a 100-acre buffer zone and that air filters would prevent microorganisms from escaping. The facility would replace an aging facility at Plum Island, N.Y., which is off the coast of Long Island. The other sites under consideration are in California, Georgia, Kansas, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Texas and Wisconsin. Senior writer Frank Munger contributed to this report. Copyright 2006, Associated Press. All rights © 2006 - Knoxville News Sentinel ***************************************************************** 37 Albuquerque Tribune: Sandia Labs' landfill lets chemicals seep into the aquifer By David B. McCoy and Robert Gilkeson McCoy is assistant director of Citizen Action New Mexico. Gilkeson is a registered geologist. August 10, 2006 A hundred thousand cubic feet of a deadly witches' brew were dumped in shallow trenches atop the Albuquerque aquifer at the Sandia Laboratories' Mixed Waste Landfill on Kirtland Air Force Base. But the prediction that a vegetative cover - like "sweeping the rug over the waste" - can protect the aquifer from the downward migration of long-lived radioactive waste, volatile organic chemicals and heavy metals is based primarily on well monitoring data. Some new - and not so new - evidence has emerged that the existing monitoring wells themselves have furnished incomplete or worthless data about the contaminants of concern. Compare the situation to a pilot who is trying to land in heavy fog, has lost radio contact with ground control and has no instrument panel. Over the last decade, samples have been taken from six monitoring wells at the Sandia dump to look for hazardous waste that may be on the way to Albuquerque's drinking water. A 2006 Environmental Protection Agency report warns against using bentonite clay drilling mud and other organic drilling additives for drilling well boreholes. Guess what? The monitoring wells at the dump were drilled with bentonite clay and organic drilling additives. The upshot is that the contaminants that the regulators are searching for either won't show up in the water samples or the samples are not representative of what might actually be in the water. In particular, according to the EPA, the clay or organic drilling fluids contaminate the area surrounding the well screen by creating a stagnant layer of water and not allowing the contaminants to enter the sampling (well) area. The drilling clay binds most easily with radionuclides such as americium, plutonium, radium, strontium, thorium, uranium and the toxic heavy metals - all of which were disposed of in the dump. In hydrological circles, these are called "impacted well screens." Translation: no instrument panel. According to the EPA, two of the wells were drilled north of the dump. These wells are worthless for samples because the ground water underneath the dump flows from east to west. Furthermore, the wells will eventually go dry over the next three to nine years due to the ongoing decline of water levels in Albuquerque's aquifer. Sandia's improper method of pumping the wells dry and waiting before collecting samples causes cancer-causing compounds such as trichloroethelene and perchloroethylene to vaporize out of the water. After using drilling and sampling methods that mask and miss contaminants and that don't comply with federal law, Sandia claims that "nothing was detected." Couldn't Sandia repair the wells? No. The drilling fluids that were forced into the wells under extreme pressure can't be sucked back out to bring the wells back to their natural state necessary for collecting representative samples. The EPA adds: "Predictions of the time frames for the impacted intervals to return to natural conditions are uncertain. The time frame for this continuing impact to the representativeness of groundwater samples may be years to decades." In the early 1990s, the EPA and the New Mexico Environment Department informed Sandia that mud-rotary drilling is considered to be the worst drilling technology available for the installation of groundwater monitoring wells. Better drilling technologies were in existence at the time the Mixed Waste Landfill's wells were drilled, but were not used. At that time, the EPA and the NMED conveyed concerns that there were not enough wells installed at the landfill and that the wells used by Sandia were not properly placed to allow adequate detection of contaminated groundwater or to understand the hydrological character of the dump. Even so, early groundwater sampling found heavy metals like beryllium, chromium and lead and chemicals - like toluene, acetone and methylene chloride - above safe levels for drinking water. Sandia often claimed the contamination found in water samples was a result of "lab errors." Sandia also falsely proclaimed that little or no hazardous wastes were disposed of in the dump after 1980. Sandia failed to apply for a mandatory hazardous waste permit under a federal law called the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. That law would have required that Sandia reveal the types of hazardous waste, location and quantities and make a plan for closure of the landfill, including possible removal and treatment of the wastes. Instead, Sandia purged records of the wastes disposed of at the dump, which was not in accordance with the act. Sandia operated an illegal hazardous waste dump until 1988. Citizen Action recommends that properly drilled wells be installed at the dump with correct sampling procedures before the NMED and Governor Bill Richardson go forward with their plans to allow Sandia more of a cover-up at its Mixed Waste Landfill. The public should not have to assume more future risk from surprises - like the recent prediction that the carcinogen PCE will reach Albuquerque's aquifer by 2010. 2006 © The Albuquerque Tribune Privacy Policy ***************************************************************** NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: *****************************************************************