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                         NUCLEAR POLICY
 
1 [NYTr] Iraq: Another WMD Hunter Belatedly Speaks Out
2 [NYTr] Iran Defends Right to Peaceful Nuclear Research
3 [NYTr] The USA's Iranian Puzzle
4 Is War Inevitable? - Can the Iran Nuke Crisis be Defused?
5 IRNA: German politicians urge more diplomacy over Iran's nuclear pro
6 IRNA: IAEA report indicates urgency to return to talks - Asefi 
7 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Defies U.N. on Enriching Uranium
8 Guardian Unlimited: Comment Shows Russian Impatience on Iran
9 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Vows Not to Give Up Nuclear Program
10 Guardian Unlimited: EU: Too Early for Sanctions Against Iran
11 Guardian Unlimited: Beckett makes appeal to Iran
12 New York Times: Highly Enriched Uranium Found at Iranian Plant - 
13 Guardian Unlimited: EU Cautions Against Early Decision on Iran
14 Guardian Unlimited: Reports: Russia Regrets Iran's Decision
15 Guardian Unlimited: Bush demands action as Iran snubs UN
16 AFP: 10,000 German jobs jeopardized by Iran sanctions
17 RIA Novosti: Iran-6 to meet soon to discuss nuclear issue
18 RIA Novosti: Moscow regrets Iran's refusal to stop uranium enrichmen
19 IRNA: Senior cleric hopes others will recognize Iran's N-rights
20 RIA Novosti: Sanctions against Iran would be futile - Russian MP
21 AFP: EU foreign ministers meet over Iran, Middle East 
22 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: Iran in full cooperation with IAEA 
23 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: Resolution over IRI opposed to NPT 
24 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: Europe should maintain its independence 
25 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: No UN inspection if rights rejected 
26 AFP: US keen to push for Security Council sanctions over Iran's nucl
27 AFP: Iran fails to stop uranium enrichment but time before UN sancti
28 AFP: Iran refuses to budge in nuclear standoff
29 AFP: Iran will not cede on nuclear issue - Ahmadinejad 
30 Guardian Unlimited: AP: U.S. Envoy to Inspect N. Korea Complex
31 Korea Herald: Seoul plans response to possible nuke test   
32 AFP: US envoy to visit China next week over NKorea
33 US: [NYTr] Bush Pushes Nuclear Weapons Development in US
34 US: [southnews] US carries out sub-critical nuclear test
35 Guardian Unlimited: Analysis: Bush Struggles to Deliver
36 [NYTr] People's History: 25th Anniv of Greenham Common 
37 Guardian Unlimited: Defiance, divisions and dilemmas
 
                         NUCLEAR REACTORS
 
38 US: [NukeNet] Nuclear's future heads to governor - Blakeslee bill
39 US: [NukeNet] Diablo Canyon NPP shut down because of water leak
40 The Hindu: China may build six nuclear plants for Pakistan
41 US: Philadelphia Inquirer: A nuclear answer for energy Worldwide, tw
42 US: San Luis Obispo Tribune: Nuclear's future heads to governor
43 US: NRC: NRC Issues Mid-Cycle Assessments for All U.S. Nuclear Plant
44 US: San Luis Obispo Tribune: Diablo operators search for leak source
45 US: Star-Telegram: TXU plans up to 6 nuclear plants
46 US: San Luis Obispo Tribune: UPDATE: Diablo back to full power
47 BBC: First contracts for nuclear plant
48 RIA Novosti: Russia may bid for Moroccan nuclear plant contract
49 RIA Novosti: Russia to join international thermonuclear reactor proj
50 RIA Novosti: Decision to build NPP in Belarus to be based on public 
51 RIA Novosti: Ukraine stepping up nuclear power sector development - 
52 US: kgw.com: Court sends Trojan refund issue back to regulators 
53 US: Dallas Business Journal: Group denounces TXU nuclear power plan
54 US: NRC: Wolf Creek Nuclear Operating Corporation; Notice of
55 US: NRC: Agency Information Collection Activities: Proposed Collecti
56 US: NRC: Agency Information Collection Activities: Proposed Collecti
57 US: NRC: Agency Information Collection Activities: Submission for th
58 US: NRC: Notice of Availability of Environmental Assessment and Find
59 US: NRC: Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station; Notice of Withdrawal 
60 US: Hudson Valley News: Kelly wants independent safety review at Ind
61 US: MyWestTexas.com: Basin can be new leader for nuclear energy
 
                          NUCLEAR SECURITY
 
 
                          NUCLEAR SAFETY
 
62 US: Las Vegas SUN: Whistleblower victory for ex-BLM worker at toxic 
63 US: Deseret News: Medical plans not ready for nuclear attack
64 US: Courier Journal: Mitchell quarry won't be site for test of power
65 US: NRC: The Ohio State University Notice of Acceptance for Docketin
 
                         NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
 
66 US: Uranium Flood
67 US: The State: Nuclear waste meeting canceled
68 reviewjournal.com: State officials won't appeal ruling on Yucca Moun
69 US: Reuters: U.S. tribe sees riches in Utah nuclear waste storage
70 In Business Las Vegas: Strategic planning firm having an impact in L
 
                           PEACE
 
 
                        US DEPT. OF ENERGY
 
71 Knight-Ridder: DOE reorganization raises concerns about worker safet
72 DOE: Assistant Secretary of Energy Highlights Clean Coal 
73 islandpacket.com: SRS fuel project wastes money 
74 Hanford News: Plan would recycle used nuclear fuel; TRIDEC prepares
75 Hanford News: DOE combines 2 safety-related offices
76 Hanford News: Hazardous materials managers earn awards
77 Hanford News: Lawmakers' demand for open hearings on nuclear waste d
78 SF Chronicle: LIVERMORE / Lawrence Lab fined over waste disposal
79 lamonitor.com: Science being applied to Rocky Flats cleanup 
80 Physics Today: Science-based cleanup of Rocky Flats - 
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 1 [NYTr] Iraq: Another WMD Hunter Belatedly Speaks Out
 
Date: Fri, 1 Sep 2006 16:59:32 -0400 (EDT)

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Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit
 
[Well, no shit, Sherlock... and why did it take this guy two and a half
years to open his mouth? No courage is required NOW to speak up. -NY Transfer]

sent by Dave Muller (southnews) - Aug 31, 2006


AP via Mainichi Daily News, Japan - Aug 31, 2006
http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/international/africa-oceania/news/20060831p2g00m0in041000c.html

CIA used WMD search to try to justify Iraq war, 
former Australian  official says

SYDNEY, Australia -- An Australian who took part in the hunt for weapons 
of mass destruction in Iraq revealed Thursday that he quit because he 
felt the CIA controlled the program and had dedicated it to justifying 
Washington's decision to go to war.

John Gee, a chemical weapons expert with Australia's Department of 
Foreign Affairs and Trade, quit the U.S.-led Iraq Survey Group in March 
2004, months before it finally concluded that Saddam Hussein's regime 
had dismantled its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs 
years before the U.S.-led invasion in early 2003.

His reasons weren't made public at the time, or during a parliamentary 
investigation last year into claims that U.S. officials censored 
investigators' reports on the search for weapons in Iraq to support the 
contention of U.S. President George W. Bush's administration that the 
weapons programs existed.

In letters and e-mails printed Thursday in The Sydney Morning Herald, 
Gee said he resigned because the Iraq Survey Group's activities were "to 
all intents and purposes determined by the CIA" and its methods and 
operations were "fundamentally flawed." He also explained his reasons in 
a radio interview.

The CIA analysts in teams searching for chemical and biological weapons 
were the same ones who concluded before the invasion -- officially 
called Operation Iraqi Freedom -- that they must exist, Gee wrote in his 
resignation letter to a senior diplomat assigned to the Australian 
government's Iraq task force.

"Much of the two teams' work is geared to trying to justify pre-OIF 
judgments rather than any attempt to establish the facts surrounding 
Iraq's WMD programs," Gee wrote in the later, dated March 2, 2004.

"This is reinforced by a marked reluctance in Washington to face up to 
the fact that Iraq almost certainly did not have WMD pre-OIF," he wrote.

Bush used the alleged threat posed by Iraqi weapons of mass destruction 
to explain his decision to go to war in Iraq. A massive U.S.-led 
investigation after the invasion revealed no such weapons, and the Iraq 
Survey Group concluded in its final report in September 2004 that 
Baghdad had dismantled its chemical, biological and nuclear arms 
programs under U.N. supervision in 1991. Bush's administration hasn't 
directly accepted the finding.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard is a staunch supporter of the Iraq 
war and sent a small number of Australian troops to the fight. The 
Australian government mirrored Washington's claims about Iraq's weapons 
to justify its participation.

Gee told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio on Thursday that both 
Washington and Canberra had a "preconceived" view that weapons of mass 
destruction existed in Iraq, and that they didn't want to hear a 
different message.

"It didn't seem to me to be an intellectually honest process," Gee said. 
(AP)

                              ***

ABC Australia - Aug 31, 2006
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200608/s1729679.htm

WMD search intellectually dishonest: inspector.

A former weapons inspector in Iraq says the process of searching for 
weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) was intellectually dishonest.

John Gee is an expert on chemical weapons who worked with the United 
States-led Iraqi Survey Group after the Iraq war.

Dr Gee resigned from the survey group in March 2004 because he had no 
confidence in the process.

He has now spoken out about his concerns.

"The advice I gave the Government was there was no WMD in Iraq," he said.

"I had lost confidence in the process that was being carried out in Iraq 
by the Iraq Survey Group.

"It didn't seem to be to be an intellectually honest process because it 
was based on a preconception that there was WMD there to be found rather 
than what I would term an intellectually honest process."

He says he had no choice but to resign.

Dr Gee says he explained his reasons in a report to the Foreign Minister 
Alexander Downer, but claims the Minister suppressed it.

"I found out on my return that he'd issued instructions that it not be 
distributed outside the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade," he said.

"I think there were some things in it that were uncomfortable for the 
Government."
       
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 2 [NYTr] Iran Defends Right to Peaceful Nuclear Research
 
Date: Fri, 1 Sep 2006 17:58:58 -0500 (CDT)

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Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit
 
Prensa Latina, Havana
http://www.plenglish.com

Iran Defends Right to Peaceful Nuclear Research

Tehran, Sep 1 (Prensa Latina) Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadineyad
reiterated Friday that the development of a nuclear program for a peaceful
purpose is an inalienable right of his nation.

Ahmadineyad said Iran will continue researching in that field because it is
legitimate, and criticized western nations for distorting the truth about
Iranian nuclear activities.

Western allegations that Iran is looking for nuclear weapons is a huge lie,
the president told a huge crowd in Maku, adding that they seek to impede
Iran4s development.

Ahmadineyad made his remarks a day after the July 31 dateline that the UN
Security Council gave Iran to stop uranium enrichment activities.

ef/ccs/ecq/joe
       
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 3 [NYTr] The USA's Iranian Puzzle
 
Date: Sat, 2 Sep 2006 02:48:12 -0400 (EDT)

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Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit
 
Le Nouvel Observateur via Truthout - Aug 31, 2006
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/090106G.shtml


The United States' Iranian Puzzle
      
By Philippe Boulet-Gercourt

English translation by Leslie Thatcher (TruthOut)

In Washington, the war in Lebanon has chilled partisans of a military
option against Tehran. But shouldn't the United States also revise its
diplomatic strategy?

 A CIA-organized conference at the end of 2002. Wayne White, one of
the State Department's Middle East specialists, listens to pollster John
Zogby detail the results of a poll on American unpopularity in Arab
countries. In passing, Zogby gives the results for Iran: as calamitous
as for the rest of the region. White hits the ceiling: up until then,
State Department investigations showed the United States enjoyed good
regard among the Iranian population in spite of the mullahs' tirades.
The official, seized with a suspicion, raises his hand: "When was the
poll effected?" Zogby: "The end of January, 2002, why?" White: "Just
after Bush's speech on Iran being part of the 'Axis of Evil!'" "We hoped
that this speech would be a single gaffe only," recounts the official,
who left the State Department in 2005. But no, Bush reiterated it, even
as the administration encouraged regime change in Tehran. "If that's
your objective, the last thing to do is alienate the population."

Welcome to the strange universe of Iranian-American relations!
Forget the UN Security Council, which fixed August 31 as the last day
for the Iranians to suspend their uranium enrichment activities; forget
the British, French, Germans, Russians, and Chinese! "The present crisis
can essentially be summarized as a face-off between the Iranians and the
United States," White recalls. "It's a fascinating dance: when we invite
them onto the floor, they say they're tired. And when they invite us, we
tell them, 'Not now. We'll see about later.'" "And it's been going on
like that at least since Reagan," notes George Perkovich,
non-proliferation specialist at the Carnegie Foundation. When Washington
is in a position of strength as in 2002-2003, the Iranians make under
the table appeals that are ignored; when, on the other hand, the
Americans get bogged down in Iraq or in their support for the war in
Lebanon, it's the Iranians who reject every advance. Their pas de deux
is hypnotic: when one of the dancers absens themselves, as when, in
2004-2005, the United States took a back seat to the Europeans, nothing
happens: dance and music stop completely!

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's election to the Iranian presidency has not
made things better. Beginning in 2006, relations had become so toxic;
the American administration seriously studied the prospect of a massive
military attack against Iranian nuclear installations. The White House
even wanted the Pentagon to consider use of tactical nuclear weapons to
destroy the most inaccessible bunkers. But the military scenario is no
longer current. According to our information, a series of detailed
briefings in the spring and this summer have convinced the White House
that the military option was not viable. All the experts emphasized it
and even the neo-conservatives acknowledge it: the idea of a single
"surgical" strike is a fantasy. By attacking Iran, the United States
would launch itself into a real war, extraordinarily costly militarily
and economically. An aggravating factor: the US being bogged down in
Iraq monopolizes its military capacity, and its presence in that country
would make a perfect target for the Iranias.

"The only ones who still don't understand that no good military
option exists are part of the Cheney team. Certainly, that's a powerful
component of the administration, but less so than before Iraq,"
Perkovich remarks. Seymour Hersh, the legendary "New Yorker" reporter,
has told how the Bush administration had given the Israelis its
preliminary green light against Hezbollah, seeing the Lebanese campaign
as a sort of dress rehearsal for what could be an offensive against
Iran. To obtain Washington's agreement, "the Israelis started with
Cheney," Hersh reports. There's no point in detailing that the
disastrous results of the Israeli campaign chilled what remained of
American warrior designs.

But the simple fact of abandoning - at least temporarily - the
military scenario is not enough. A good number of experts deem that it's
time for Washington to change its diplomatic strategy. "Most of the
administration's demands are perhaps not unjustified, but they are
unrealistic because Washington does not have any means to impose them.
The more you insist on unrealistic demands, the weaker you appear in
negotiations," asserts Trita Parsi, a specialist in Iranian-Israeli
relations. "The United States would do better to engage immediately in
real negotiations with Iran, dropping this prerequisite of a cessation
of enrichment activities. They've got to understand that the Iranians
are more ready than ever to negotiate since they don't know what the
world will be like in two years and they feel they're in a position of
strength today." The prospect of forgetting about potential UN sanctions
certainly does not please everybody: "It would be a mistake to abandon
what constitutes a United Nations demand followng violations denounced
by the International Atomic Energy Agency, and not the United States,"
says non-proliferation specialist Perkovich, "but at the same time, we
should announce that we are ready to discuss everything: their regional
security, Iraq, the Persian Gulf, etc." Even enrichment. Many experts
deem that the Iranians could accept the principle of a limited
enrichment capacity on their soil.

If the United States is right to want to prevent Iran from becoming a
nuclear power, it must acknowledge one of the underlying rationales for the
Iranian effort: with an already nuclear Pakistani rival and an America that
unceasingly allows the threat of an attack to hang over it, "Iran
illustrates the classic case of a state that seeks to procure nuclear
weapons for deterrence," insists Scott Sagan, of Stanford University in
California. In other words, the United States may not only consider the
Iranian position to be that - not necessarily imaginary - of a terrorist
state ready to unleash nuclear Armageddon. It must also take into account
the nationalism of the Iranians, for whom the bomb is a symbol of their
historic dominance of the region and a means to protect themselves. "Every
solution viable to the Iranians' nuclear appetite demands that Washington
learn to coexist peacefully with the Tehran government, however problematic
that may be," writes Scott Sagan [1].

A big recognition carrot matched, all the same, with an obvious
stick. For "all the Clinton administration efforts to establish good
contact with the Iranians, in particular those of Madeleine Albright,
failed," Wayne White acknowledges. "We should," he suggests, "get this
message to the Iranians: we're serious on two fronts; we want real
negotiations, without prerequisites, but if those fail, we won't
hesitate to resort to the military solution." Probably an exercise too
subtle for the White House jack boots ...

End Notes:

[1] "How to Keep the Bomb From Iran," Foreign Affairs,
September-October 2006.
       
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 4 Is War Inevitable? - Can the Iran Nuke Crisis be Defused?
 
Date: Fri, 1 Sep 2006 05:03:24 -0500 (CDT)

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August 31, 2006
Counterpunch
www.counterpunch.org

Is War Inevitable?

Can the Iran Nuke Crisis be Defused?

By 

DAVID MacMICHAEL
Former CIA analyst.

On Tuesday, August 22, Iran responded formally to the demand of the European
Union, represented by France, Germany and Great Britain of July 1, that, in
return for unspecified economic and other benefits, it permanently give up
the enrichment of uranium for its nuclear power plants and submit to certain
other limitations on its nuclear program or face possible United Nations
sanctions (unspecified) per Security Council Resolution 1696 of July 31. The
Iranian response, delivered to EU Foreign Secretary Javier Solano, but not
yet made public, reportedly declares Tehran's willingness to negotiate on
all points-including, apparently, uranium enrichment and regional security
issues-but pointedly rejects pre-conditions for talks. This official
response was repeated in public statements by Iranian government figures and
political and religious leaders. They emphasized Iranian openness to
negotiation but unwillingness to submit in advance to European demands, seen
as being of US origin, that would limit Iranian international law and treaty
rights.

It is important to note that the ostensible reason for the US and EU push is
fear, indeed for many, conviction, that Iran, although a signatory of the
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) which prohibits member states from
producing nuclear weapons, secretly intends to do so. Their government
spokesmen continue to argue this case despite the fact that since 2003 Iran,
fearful that the US might subject it to the treatment given Iraq over that
country's supposed (but non-existent) nuclear weapons program, has submitted
to extraordinary inspections of its facilities by the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA) under an "Additional Protocol" going far beyond its
obligations under the NPT. These inspections have resulted in repeated
findings by the IAEA that Iran is in "substantial compliance" with its NPT
obligations. Granted, the IAEA has expressed displeasure that some past
Iranian nuclear activities were not disclosed until establishment of the
additional protocol, but IAEA chief Mohammed al-Baradei, even under heavy
pressure from the US and UK which tried to have him removed from his post,
has stuck to his conclusions, receiving a Nobel Peace Prize in recognition
of his integrity.

The Iranian answer, given precisely on the date Tehran had promised,
resulted in immediate expressions of disappointment from European leaders
and predictable cries of outrage from the United States, even though
Washington is, by its own decision not to deal directly with Iran, not
formally a party to the process. Notably, the New York Times, apparently
having learned little from its humiliating experience in leading the press
in making false charges about Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction
during the runup to the US invasion of that country, published a lead
editorial on August 25 commenting on the document just issued by the staff
of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI). The
editorial rightly condemns the ludicrous attempt by Chairman Peter Hoekstra
(R-Mich) and ex-CIA analyst and assistant to the US's Iranophobic UN
ambassador John Bolton, Frederick Fleitz, to use an ostensible critique of
US intelligence on Iran to whip up war frenzy against Tehran by '"helping
the American people understand" that Iran's fundamentalist regime and its
nuclear ambitions pose a strategic threat to the United States.' It then
astonishingly states: "It's hard to imagine that Mr. Hoekstra believes there
is someone left in this country who does not already know that." Further on,
the editorial, after more cautionary remarks about the dangers of cooking
intelligence to policy preferences says: "It's obvious that Iran wants
nuclear weapons, has lied about its programs and views America as an enemy."

The Washington Post, if anything, waved the bloody shirt even more
vigorously. Its lead editorial of August 25 titled "Iran Stalls: A test for
Russia and China" rants: "It's been four years since the existence of Iran's
nuclear program was confirmed and since then Iran has succeeded in stalling
the world's efforts to ensure that the country's enriched uranium is used
exclusively for peaceful purposes."

The Post fails to acknowledge that Iran's nuclear program is of long
standing.: In the 1960s the US built for Iran-then ruled by the Shah who had
been made sole ruler of Iran by the United States after a CIA-directed coup
d'etat in 1953 over threw the elected parliamentary government of Mohammed
Mossadegh-its still functioning nuclear research reactor in the center of
Tehran. At the same time-forty not four years ago-the US provided Iran with
10 pounds of weapons-grade enriched uranium. There is nothing secret about
the facility which trains nuclear engineers from Iran and other countries.

Iran's NPT right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes is not acknowledged
and its submission to IAEA inspections, going even beyond its NPT
obligations, are scoffed at as mere attempts to stave off sanctions. The
Post deplores Iran's alleged ability to avoid meeting the demands of the EU
by proposing negotiations rather than merely accepting the package of
demands, and finds "scandalous" the possibility that Russia and China might
endorse this and thus prevent the UN from imposing sanctions, the only way,
in the Post's judgment, to "defuse the Iran crisis" and "an eventual war
over Iran's nuclear ambitions."

The official US public response, despite obvious undertones of anger, was
relatively low key. White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said only that,
"their response falls short." UN Ambassador Bolton, evidently accepting the
near certainty that China and Russia will veto any attempt to have the
Security Council impose serious sanctions on Iran-and that France, if the
most recent statements of its foreign minister Philippe Dousty-Blazy about
the unwisdom of a confrontation with the Iranians and the need "to hold out
our hands to them" are any indication, no longer will back the US and
UK-muttered about having something like a coalition of willing nations
individually establish their own economic sanctions regimes on Iran. The US,
which essentially has allowed no trade with Iran since the Islamic
Revolution of 1978, is pressuring Japanese and European banks to freeze the
assets of Iranian leaders and refuse to handle Iranian transactions.
Already, a US Treasury spokeswoman, Molly Millerwise, told the Los Angeles
Times on August 26, that the Union Bank of Switzerland had cut off
relationships with Iran and that other financial institutions might not want
to be bankers for a country which had nuclear bomb ambitions and supported
Hezbollah.

Whether international banks or the economics ministries of European nations
currently doing business with Iran will be swayed by this moralistic
argument is questionable. France and Germany each currently export forty to
fifty billion dollars worth of goods to Iran annually and, of course, are as
reliant as anyone else for oil on the world's second largest producer of
petroleum. Even as pundits talked of the dire political consequences of
Iran's refusal to submit to the European demands, economists raised the
possibility of world oil prices soaring past $100 per barrel if no
compromise was reached. Italy, a country thoroughly disillusioned with US
Middle East policy and now rapidly pulling its troops out of Iraq, just this
past weekend demanded that it be made a party to the EU talks with Iran to
make sure that its own considerable economic interests there are protected.

As to the "eventual war" with Iran predicted, and apparently even desired by
the Post, it is true that the Bush administration continues to maintain that
the unilateral military option "remains on the table." However, there are
clear signs that while use of that option was a strong probability back last
spring when the EU issued its ultimatum to Tehran and in July when
Resolution 1696 was passed by the Security Council Iranian diplomacy,
insufficiently reported on in the US press, has been enormously successful
both in the Islamic world broadly and in the Middle East, producing near
total opposition to the EU (read US) position. In addition, the war in Iraq
has so drained American ground force capabilities as to make very dubious
any successful attack against Iran by US forces alone or even with the
assistance of the only possible ally, Israel. This does not mean that US air
and naval power could not, as in Iraq, quickly eliminate Iran's very limited
air and armor forces. But, as in Iraq, Iran has the capacity and,
apparently, the will, as it showed in its 1980s war with Iraq, to employ
irregular infantry to great effect. According to Pentagon sources most
senior Army and Marine Corps officers are arguing strongly against any
military attack on Iran regardless of the outcome of the sanctions dispute.
(Some Air Force senior officers, according to the same sources, however,
appear eager to launch their bunkerbusters in another display of shock and
awe, believing somehow that this time, despite the historical lessons
showing the contrary, strategic bombing will win the day.)

Former CIA Middle East specialist Ray Close, however, is among those who
argue that Bush and his neo-con allies will not be swayed by logic. Sometime
prior to leaving office in 2009-after the inevitable international
compromise over Iran's nuclear program, the UN's refusal to impose punitive
sanctions on Iran, the unwillingness of the EU countries (with the possible
exception of the UK) to accept the US position-a frustrated Bush will launch
massive air attacks on Iran, possibly with Israeli participation, ostensibly
designed to destroy that country's oh-so-dangerous nuclear power
installations before they can be used against us. 

The result of such action, Close concludes, will be utterly to the
disadvantage of the United States, not only in the Middle East and the
Islamic World, but globally. However, Close sees Bush as a maniac, who
believes such an outcome is preferable to the personal humiliation that
acceptance of a diplomatic solution he openly opposes would be.

On the other hand, more and more analysts are concluding that the
forthcoming negotiations with Iran will produce successful compromise. As
noted above, Iran has played its diplomatic cards well over the past few
months. The New York Times, and Washington Post and the large majority of
the American public which takes its opinions from them may, as the most
recent Angus-Reid poll shows, fervently believe that Iran has or is busy
making nuclear weapons However, the rest of the world, including such old
Iranian foes as Saudi Arabia and, ironically, most western intelligence
agencies, their credibility in tatters since 2003, accept the fact that
there is no substantial evidence to prove it.

A good brief summary of the way the situation might well play out is
provided by Trevor Royal, diplomatic editor of Australia's Sunday Herald in
his August 27th column, "Negotiated nuclear settlement a possibility." Iran,
he says, "may well be interested in a negotiated settlement. This will be
sold [to the Iranian and world publics] not so much as a climb-down but as
the introduction of some much-needed common sense, which will spike US
threats to push for sanctions. The most likely outcome is that Iran will
accept the [EU] offer in principle but question the small print in an
ettempt to win concessions. For example, they are desperate to have
international support for producing nuclear energy and they need the
technology, but before they do anything they require guarantees." When Royal
says "before they do anything they require guarantees" he obviously refers
to the EU demand for suspension of uranium enrichment, and he cites Mark
Fitzpatrick of the UK's International Institute for Strategic Studies on the
question of whether suspension in some form will occur early or later on in
the forthcoming negotiations.

>From the perspective of this writer it seems very likely that a negotiated
agreement will take something like the following form. Russia, currently
Iran's major nuclear energy supply source, involved in the building of at
least one nuclear energy plant in Iran, has long offered to construct a
nuclear fuel plant for Iran on Russian soil with its production going
exclusively for the Iranian nuclear power program if Iran gives up its own
attempts at fuel production. Iran has rejected this on grounds of its NPT
right to produce fuel and on the pragmatic argument that it cannot risk
having to rely entirely on a foreign supplier, even one as ostensibly
friendly as Russia. Moreover, Iran has argued that, by turning over nuclear
fuel supply to a foreign power (or powers) and abandoning its own efforts,
its ability to advance scientifically will be thwarted, relegating it
permanently to second class scientific status. This is something, Tehran
declares, represents a European and US policy to keep Islamic nations
subordinate and technically underdeveloped.

However, it is clear, and Iran grudgingly accepts this, that it cannot
within any reasonable period of time develop the uranium enrichment capacity
to fuel its power plants on its own. Therefore, Iran will probably agree to
the establishment of the Russian-proposed fuel plant provided that Iranian
scientists and technicians form a significant part of the management and
staff. Moreover, Iran will also insist that such an arrangement does not
cancel its NPT right to pursue nuclear fuel research and development on its
own. This would mean that, under IAEA supervision, some sort of
international nuclear research program be established on Iranian soil also.
Regardless of what arrangements are arrived at, it has to be recognized by
not only the negotiating parties but by the US as well that any country of
Iran's size and level of development with a functioning nuclear energy
program ipso facto will beable to produce nuclear weapons at some point.
Doubtless, whatever the safeguards built in to the agreement suspicions
about Tehran's ultimate intentions will remain. On the other hand, while the
US and EU declare that they have no intention of attacking Iran or trying to
cripple it economically, Iran on the basis of its experience with the US and
its allies over the past 50 years, has even more reason for suspicion. It
will take a while for real mutual trust to be established among the parties.

It is certainly in Iran's interest to show its willingness to enter into the
bruited regional security arrangement. The details of this will probably be
negotiated separately from the nuclear issue and most surely will involve
dealing with the Israeli question, especially the informal alliance between
Israel and the US which is at the root of the current Middle Eastern
problem. It is too much to expect that there will be any real change in
either Washington or Tel Aviv as a result of the EU-Iran talks but merely
openly addressing the Israel and US-Israel relationship issues would be a
positive step.. However, as things look now, one can be optimistic that the
Iranian nuclear crisis-whether real or contrived-will be satisfactorily
concluded. 

--

David MacMichael, a former analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency, is a
member of the steering committee of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals
for Sanity (VIPS). vips@counterpunch.org

==========

http://www.counterpunch.org/macmichael08312006.html

==========
*****************************************************************
 5 IRNA: German politicians urge more diplomacy over Iran's nuclear program 

Berlin, Sept 1, IRNA

Germany-Iran-Politicians 

German politicians have called for continued talks with Iran
over its nuclear program despite the expiration of an UN
ultimatum, news reports said on Friday.

 The defense policy spokesman of the co-ruling Social Democratic
Party (SPD) faction, Gert Weisskirchen was quoted as saying in
the daily Berliner Zeitung there was "still room for diplomacy".

 The sentiment was echoed by the foreign policy spokesperson of
the governing Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party Eckart von
Klaeden who stressed that a negotiated diplomatic settlement had
to be prioritized.

 Meanwhile Germany's opposition parties like the Greens or the
liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) also urged a political
solution of Iran's nuclear case amid US efforts to impose quick
sanctions against Tehran.

 The deputy head of the Green party, Juergen Trittin harshly
criticized the US for repeatedly threatening Iran with military
strikes and economic sanctions.

 He made clear it was important for the US to finally talk with
Iran.

 The foreign policy expert of the FDP lashed out at Washington's
failed isolation policy towards Iran, terming the US policy a
"self-inflicted wreckage of American foreign policy".

 Germany has time and time again called for a political
settlement of the nuclear dispute with Iran.

*****************************************************************
 6 IRNA: IAEA report indicates urgency to return to talks - Asefi 
 
Tehran, Sept 1, IRNA

Iran-Asefi-Nuclear 

Iran on Friday said Thursday report by the International Atomic 
Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mohammad ElBaradei on its peaceful 
nuclear case was another indication of the country's broad 
cooperation with the agency and stressed the importance of 
resuming talks.

 "The report proved the urgency of return to negotiations,"
Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid-Reza Asefi said.

 He added, "A major part of the report included Iran's broad
cooperation with the IAEA and its inspectors.

 "The report well indicated that Iran has carried out its
responsibilities within frameworks of international regulations,
the Safeguard and the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

 "The report also showed that as Iran has repeatedly announced,
it is ready to continue the path of cooperation and negotiation
with the IAEA."
 Asefi said, "Iran's nuclear activities are transparent, obvious
and peaceful with no ambiguity which can be settled easily
through negotiations.

 "Despite pressures of the United States and misinformation of
certain circles, the IAEA report showed that any hasty and
illegal measure with political motivation should be prevented
through following up logic."

 He stated, "The US officials intend to misuse the report in
line with their political goals by their unilateralism and
political motivation."

 The spokesman reiterated Iran's readiness to continue talks
with the five permanent members of the United Nations Security
Council -- China, Russia, Britain, France and the US -- plus
Germany (Group 5+1).

 "The Islamic Republic of Iran believes fair and acceptable
outcomes will be achieved just through negotiations and respect
for Iran's inalienable rights," he said.

 In a report, released on Thursday, the UN nuclear watchdog
chief Mohammed ElBaradei confirmed Iran's full cooperation with
the watchdog.

 In a six-page report, released at the International Atomic
Energy Agency's Vienna headquarters on Thursday, ElBaradei said
Iran's peaceful nuclear activities have been based on the
nuclear safeguards and under complete supervision of the Agency.

 The report also referred to Iran's facilitating the IAEA
inspectors' overall access to all its nuclear facilities and
equipment as well as related documents.

 It emphasized that the IAEA will continue investigation into
all the remaining issues on Iran's nuclear activities.

 Copies of the report were made available to the 35-nation IAEA
Board of Governors as well as the UN Security Council.		 				 		
*****************************************************************
 7 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Defies U.N. on Enriching Uranium
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Friday September 1, 2006 11:46 AM

AP Photo UNMA112 

By NASSER KARIMI 

Associated Press Writers 

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran underlined its disregard Friday for the
U.N. deadline to halt uranium enrichment - now expired - when
its president vowed never to give up its nuclear program and
accused the West of misrepresenting Tehran's nuclear activities. 

Iran had until midnight Thursday to halt its enrichment
activities or face the possibility of economic sanctions under a
United Nations Security Council resolution passed July 31. 

Although the U.N. nuclear watchdog reported Thursday that Iran
has not halted enrichment, thereby opening the way for punitive
measures, U.S. and other officials said no action would be
sought before a key European diplomat meets with Tehran's atomic
chief next week to seek a compromise. 

On Friday, in the first comments by an Iranian official since
the deadline passed, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, told a
rally, ``Exploitation of peaceful nuclear energy is our obvious
right. We will never give up our legal right.'' 

``The West's claim that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons is a
sheer lie,'' state TV quoted him as telling the gathering in
Maku, northwestern Iran. ``The West basically opposes progress
by Iran.'' 

Striking a more conciliatory note, Iranian Foreign Ministry
spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi urged the West to desist from taking
hasty action, saying that the current situation underlined the
need for talks with the Security Council's permanent members
plus Germany, state TV reported Friday. 

John Bolton, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said the
Security Council would wait to consider possible actions until
European Union foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, met Iran's
top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, sometime in the middle of
next week. 

The EU reiterated on Friday its commitment to a diplomatic
resolution. 

``For the EU, diplomacy remains the No. 1 way forward,'' said
Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja, whose country holds the
EU presidency. 

He said ``this is not the time or place'' for the international
community to hit Iran with sanctions. Tuomioja spoke at a
meeting of EU foreign ministers in Finland. 

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan also was expected to raise the
issue during a visit to Tehran this weekend. 

But council permanent member Russia signaled its impatience with
Iran Friday, saying it ``regrets'' Tehran's decision not to halt
uranium enrichment by the deadline, according to reports by
Russian news agencies. 

``We share the position of (the International Atomic Energy
Agency) and express our regret that Iran has not fulfilled
Resolution 1696 by the designated date and refused to stop work
on uranium enrichment,'' Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail
Kamynin was quoted as saying. 

Russia and fellow veto-wielding council member China have
generally taken a back seat to other council members in the push
to get tough with Iran on its nuclear programs. Trade sanctions
could cut off badly needed oil exports to China and Iran is
building a reactor with assistance from Russia. 

In the aftermath of the deadline, comments by a conservative
Iranian cleric implied that Tehran may be counting on divisions
within the council to avert sanctions. 

``The U.S. supports sanctions, but we hope others will use their
wisdom,'' Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati said during his Friday prayer
sermon. He described Russia and China as ``independent'' and
said that ``Europe should be independent and not follow the
U.S.'' 

U.S. and European diplomats have said they are focusing on
low-level punishment at first to win backing from Russia and
China. Proposals include travel bans on Iranian officials or a
ban on the sale of dual-use technology to Iran. Russia and China
are expected to resist heavier measures, like trade sanctions. 

Ahmadinejad denounced the United States Thursday, accusing it of
applying a double standard to its foreign policy. 

``They claim to be supporting freedom but they support the most
tyrannical governments in the world to pursue their own
interests,'' he told a crowd of thousands in the northwestern
town of Orumiyeh. 

``The Iranian nation will not succumb to bullying, invasion and
the violation of its rights,'' Ahmadinejad said. 

In a report Thursday, the International Atomic Energy Agency
confirmed Tehran had not halted uranium enrichment and said
three years of IAEA probing had been unable to confirm ``the
peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program'' because of lack of
cooperation from Tehran. 

Iran denies it is trying to acquire atomic weapons in violation
of its commitments under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
Tehran insists its nuclear program is peaceful, with the sole
aim of producing electricity with nuclear reactors. 
		 	 	   
Guardian Unlimited � Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
 8 Guardian Unlimited: Comment Shows Russian Impatience on Iran
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 
 	 
Friday September 1, 2006 2:46 PM

AP Photo MOSB110 

By MIKE ECKEL 

Associated Press Writer 

MOSCOW (AP) - Russia said Friday it regrets Iran's decision not
to halt uranium enrichment by a U.N. deadline, underscoring the
growing impatience of one of Tehran's key allies on the Security
Council. 

``We share the position of (the International Atomic Energy
Agency) and express our regret that Iran has not fulfilled
Resolution 1696 by the designated date and refused to stop work
on uranium enrichment,'' Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail
Kamynin was quoted as saying by the Interfax and RIA-Novosti
news agencies. 

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, however, signaled that Russia
continued to have a dim view of efforts to quickly impose
sanctions on Tehran. He said Russia wanted to keep all options
open - a statement that appeared to be a response to U.S.-led
efforts to quickly bring sanctions against Iran. 

``We take past experience into account and we cannot join
ultimatums that only lead everyone to a dead end,'' he told
reporters. ``There are many countries whose policies raise
questions and provoke concern but we live in one world and we
need to search for solution through dialogue, involve them in
dialogue, and not through isolation.'' 

U.S. and other officials have said that no action will be sought
against Tehran before a key European diplomat meets with Iran's
atomic chief next week to seek a compromise. Russia - along with
China - is a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council and
both nations are opposed to quick and harsh penalties. 

``We want to make sure that the nonproliferation regime in the
sphere of nuclear weapons is unshakable and that the right of
each country participating in the nonproliferation treaty in
good faith to peacefully develop nuclear energy is respected,''
Lavrov said. 

``As to which methods should be used to achieve these goals, it
is being discussed. We allow for various tools but tools that
would advance us toward the goal that I mentioned and not block
the path to it,'' he said. 

Moscow is helping Iran to build an atomic power plant. 

Meanwhile, Iran's hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed
that his country would continue its disputed nuclear program.
``Exploitation of peaceful nuclear energy is our obvious right.
We will never give up our legal right,'' state television quoted
Ahmadinejad as saying Friday in Maku, Iran. 

In a report Thursday, the Vienna-based IAEA confirmed Tehran had
not halted uranium enrichment as demanded by the Security
Council and said three years of IAEA investigating had been
unable to confirm ``the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear
program'' because of lack of cooperation from Tehran. 

Iran denies it is trying to acquire atomic weapons in violation
of its commitments under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
Tehran insists its nuclear program is peaceful, with the sole
aim of producing electricity with nuclear reactors. 

U.S. and European diplomats have said they are focusing on
potential low-level punishment for Tehran at first to win
backing from Russia and China. Proposals include travel bans on
Iranian officials or a ban on the sale of dual-use technology to
Iran. 

More extreme sanctions would be a freeze on Iranian assets or a
broader trade ban, but those would likely be opposed by Russia,
China and perhaps others, particularly since it could cut off
badly needed oil exports from Iran.	 
		 	 	   
Guardian Unlimited � Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
 9 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Vows Not to Give Up Nuclear Program
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Friday September 1, 2006 6:01 PM

AP Photo VAH103 

By NASSER KARIMI 

Associated Press Writers 

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran underlined its disregard Friday for the
now-expired U.N. deadline to halt uranium enrichment when its
president vowed never to give up its nuclear program and accused
the West of misrepresenting Tehran's nuclear activities. 

Iran had until midnight Thursday to halt its enrichment
activities or face the possibility of economic sanctions under a
U.N. Security Council resolution passed July 31. 

Although the U.N. nuclear watchdog reported Thursday that Iran
has not halted enrichment, thereby opening the way for punitive
measures, U.S. and other officials said no action would be
sought before a key European diplomat meets with Tehran's atomic
chief next week to seek a compromise. 

On Friday, in the first comments by an Iranian official since
the deadline passed, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, told a
rally, ``Exploitation of peaceful nuclear energy is our obvious
right. We will never give up our legal right.'' 

``The West's claim that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons is a
sheer lie,'' state TV quoted him as telling the gathering in
Maku, northwestern Iran. ``The West basically opposes progress
by Iran.'' 

Striking a more conciliatory note, Iranian Foreign Ministry
spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi urged the West to desist from taking
hasty action, saying that the current situation underlined the
need for talks with the Security Council's permanent members
plus Germany, state TV reported. 

John Bolton, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said the
Security Council would wait to consider possible actions until
European Union foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, met Iran's
top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, sometime in the middle of
next week. 

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan also was expected to raise the
issue during a visit to Tehran this weekend. 

The EU reiterated its commitment to a diplomatic resolution but
said a resolution could not wait forever. 

``For the EU, diplomacy remains the No. 1 way forward,'' said
Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja, whose country holds the
EU presidency. 

He said ``this is not the time or place'' for the international
community to hit Iran with sanctions. Tuomioja spoke at a
meeting Friday of EU foreign ministers in Finland. 

The European Union as a whole has been a moderate voice on the
Iran issue. However, Britain and France, which are also
permanent Security Council members, support tough action, while
Germany, another leading EU member, is also believed to back
that stance. 

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said he will meet with Ali
Larijani, Iran's top nuclear negotiator in the coming days, but
``that does not mean that Iran has indefinite time.'' 

``We hope that at the next meeting, or couple of meetings, we
have enough knowledge (about Iran's position) to see if formal
negotiations can start or not'' on a package of economic and
other incentives in exchange for Iran's suspension of uranium
enrichment. 

Russia, also a permanent council member, signaled its impatience
with Iran Friday, saying it ``regrets'' Tehran's decision not to
halt uranium enrichment by the deadline, according to reports by
Russian news agencies. 

``We share the position of (the International Atomic Energy
Agency) and express our regret that Iran has not fulfilled
Resolution 1696 by the designated date and refused to stop work
on uranium enrichment,'' Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail
Kamynin was quoted as saying. 

Russia and fellow veto-wielding council member China have
generally taken a back seat to other council members in the push
to get tough with Iran on its nuclear programs. Trade sanctions
could cut off badly needed oil exports to China and Iran is
building a reactor with assistance from Russia. 

In the aftermath of the deadline, comments by a conservative
Iranian cleric implied that Tehran may be counting on divisions
within the council to avert sanctions. 

``The U.S. supports sanctions, but we hope others will use their
wisdom,'' Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati said during his Friday prayer
sermon. He described Russia and China as ``independent'' and
said that ``Europe should be independent and not follow the
U.S.'' 

U.S. and European diplomats have said they are focusing on
low-level punishment at first to win backing from Russia and
China. Proposals include travel bans on Iranian officials or a
ban on the sale of dual-use technology to Iran. Russia and China
are expected to resist heavier measures, like trade sanctions. 

Ahmadinejad denounced the United States Thursday, accusing it of
applying a double standard to its foreign policy. 

``They claim to be supporting freedom but they support the most
tyrannical governments in the world to pursue their own
interests,'' he told a crowd of thousands in the northwestern
town of Orumiyeh. 

``The Iranian nation will not succumb to bullying, invasion and
the violation of its rights,'' Ahmadinejad said. 

In a report Thursday, the IAEA confirmed Tehran had not halted
uranium enrichment and said three years of probing had been
unable to confirm ``the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear
program'' because of lack of cooperation from Tehran. 

Iran denies it is trying to acquire atomic weapons in violation
of its commitments under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
Tehran insists its nuclear program is peaceful, with the sole
aim of producing electricity with nuclear reactors. 
		 	 	   
Guardian Unlimited � Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
 10 Guardian Unlimited: EU: Too Early for Sanctions Against Iran
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Friday September 1, 2006 8:16 PM

AP Photo LON807 

By ROBERT WIELAARD 

Associated Press Writer 

LAPPEENRANTA, Finland (AP) - Despite mounting U.S. pressure for
sanctions against Iran, the European Union said Friday it is too
early to punish Tehran for its failure to halt uranium
enrichment by the U.N. Security Council's deadline. 

The call for renewed diplomacy came as Iran's president vowed
never to give up a nuclear program that he said is being
misrepresented by the West. 

``Exploitation of peaceful nuclear energy is our obvious right.
We will never give up our legal right,'' state TV quoted
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as telling a rally in Maku, Iran.
``The West's claim that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons is a
sheer lie.'' 

Iran ignored the Security Council's Thursday deadline to suspend
uranium enrichment, opening the way for consideration of
economic or other sanctions against the Islamic republic, which
the U.S. and others suspect is trying to develop atomic weapons. 

President Bush said Thursday that ``there must be consequences''
for Iran's defiance, saying ``the world now faces a grave threat
from the radical regime in Iran.'' 

But EU leaders cautioned against pushing a confrontation. 

``This is not the time or place'' for sanctions, Finnish Foreign
Minister Erkki Tuomioja, whose country holds the rotating EU
presidency, said after a meeting of the bloc's foreign
ministers. ``For the EU, diplomacy remains the No. 1 way
forward.'' 

The EU as a whole has been a moderate voice on the Iran issue.
However, Britain and France support tough action, while Germany
is also believed to back that stance. 

And the bloc stressed Iran will not be given unlimited time to
resolve Western suspicions about its nuclear aims and demands
for strengthened international supervision of its atomic
program. 

The EU's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, said he would meet
with Ali Larijani, Iran's top nuclear negotiator, in the coming
days, likely in Europe. 

``That does not mean that Iran has indefinite time,'' Solana
told reporters. ``We hope that at the next meeting, or couple of
meetings, we have enough knowledge (about Iran's position) to
see if formal negotiations can start.'' 

John Bolton, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said the
Security Council would wait to consider possible actions until
after Solana met with Larijani. 

In Moscow, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin
expressed regret that Iran ignored the U.N. deadline. But
Russian news agencies said Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov felt
strong sanctions would be counterproductive in trying to get
Iran to cooperate. 

Russia and China, which as permanent members of the Security
Council can veto its actions, have generally opposed punishing
Iran. Trade sanctions could cut off badly needed oil exports to
China, and Russia is helping Iran build a nuclear reactor. 

The other three permanent members - the United States, Britain
and France - have taken a tougher line. 

British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said she expected
officials from the five permanent council members and Germany to
meet soon to discuss the situation. Those six nations have
offered a package of economic incentives seeking to entice Iran
into giving up uranium enrichment. 

``Our goal remains a negotiated solution on the basis of
far-reaching proposals'' in the package, Beckett said in a
statement. 

French Foreign Minister Philippe Souste-Blazy said the offer of
economic incentives remained on the table. ``I repeat our
readiness to have a lucid, responsible and transparent dialogue.
We are holding out our hand.'' 

The International Atomic Energy Agency, a U.N. watchdog agency,
formally told the Security Council on Friday that three years of
IAEA probing had been unable to confirm ``the peaceful nature of
Iran's nuclear program'' because of lack of cooperation from
Tehran. 

Iran denies it is trying to acquire atomic weapons in violation
of its commitments under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. It
says its nuclear program is peaceful, with the sole aim of
producing electricity with nuclear reactors. 

Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the German foreign minister, said it
was crucial that the ``Security Council and its member states do
not allow themselves to be divided by this conflict'' with Iran. 

But comments by a conservative Iranian cleric hinted Tehran may
be counting on divisions to avert sanctions. 

``The U.S. supports sanctions, but we hope others will use their
wisdom,'' Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati said during his Friday prayer
sermon. He described Russia and China as ``independent'' and
said that ``Europe should be independent and not follow the
U.S.'' 

U.S. and European diplomats have said they are focusing on
low-level punishment at first to win backing from Russia and
China. 

Sanctions could include travel bans on Iranian officials or a
ban on the sale of dual-use technology to Iran. Russia and China
are expected to resist heavier measures, like trade sanctions. 	 
		 	 	   
Guardian Unlimited � Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
 11 Guardian Unlimited: Beckett makes appeal to Iran
 
[UP] 

Press Association 

Friday September 1, 2006 1:43 PM

Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett has called on Iran to
co-operate with the international community, adding that she
regretted Tehran had not taken steps to halt its uranium
enrichment programme. 

As Iran and the US appear to be more firmly on a collision
course, Mrs Beckett said the Government's position was still to
push for a negotiated solution. 

She called on the country to take the steps required by the
Security Council, which would allow negotiations to resume. 

But she added that the UK would now be consulting with its
allies on "next steps" which would require further action from
the Security Council. 

Ms Beckett was speaking after Iran defied a UN deadline to stop
enriching uranium, opening the door for possible sanctions. 

Iran's hard-line president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said the US
government was "tyrannical" and insisted that Tehran would not
be "bullied" into giving up the right to use nuclear technology. 

President George Bush called for "consequences to Iran's
defiance", adding that the "world now faces a grave threat from
the radical regime in Iran". 

Mrs Beckett said: "We are studying the latest International
Atomic Energy Authority report, which confirms that Iran has
failed to comply with the mandatory requirement in Security
Council Resolution 1696 to resume the suspension of all
enrichment related and reprocessing activities. The report also
suggests a lack of full co-operation with the IAEA. 

"We will be consulting our international partners on next steps,
which will require further action by the Security Council, as
envisaged in Resolution 1696. 

"I expect there to be an early meeting of E3 plus 3 officials to
discuss how to proceed." 

� Copyright Press Association Ltd 2006, All Rights Reserved. 
		 	 	   
Guardian Unlimited � Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
 12 New York Times: Highly Enriched Uranium Found at Iranian Plant - 

By ELAINE SCIOLINOPublished: September 1, 2006 			 

VIENNA, Aug. 31 � The global nuclear monitoring agency deepened
suspicions on Thursday about Iran�s nuclear program, reporting
that inspectors had discovered new traces of highly enriched
uranium at an Iranian facility. 

Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the International
Atomic Energy Agency, in Vienna on Thursday. 

Iran Remains Steadfast in Pursuing Nuclear Plans as U.N.

Deadline Arrives(September 1, 2006) 
 
Inspectors have found such uranium, which at extreme enrichment
levels can fuel bombs, twice in the past. The International
Atomic Energy Agencyconcluded that at least some of those
samples came from contaminated equipment that Iran had obtained
from Pakistan.

But in this case, the nuclear fingerprint of the particles did
not match the other samples, an official familiar with the
inspections said, raising questions about their origin.

In a six-page report to the United Nations Security Councilon
Thursday, the agency withheld judgment about where the material
came from and whether it could be linked to a secret nuclear
program. 

Iran says that its nuclear program is intended only for the
production of energy, which would use uranium enriched at far
lower levels than the sample described in the report. 

As expected, the report confirmed that Iran had continued
producing enriched uranium, but only on a small scale and at
relatively low levels, at its vast Natanz facility. 

Thursday was the deadline set by the Security Council for Iran
to freeze its enrichment-related activities. Iran�s failure to
comply means that it is vulnerable to further punitive action,
perhaps economic and political penalties, either by the entire
Council or a smaller group of countries led by the United States.

 In a speech at the American Legion national convention in Salt
Lake City, President Bush ratcheted up his warning to the
Iranian leadership, saying that the war in Lebanon and Iran�s
support for Hezbollah�made it clearer than ever that the world
now faces a grave threat from the radical regime in Iran.�

He concluded by saying that while he was committed to a
diplomatic solution to the confrontation with Iran, �There must
be consequences for Iran�s defiance, and we must not allow Iran
to develop a nuclear weapon.�

The European Unionforeign policy chief, Javier Solana, and
Iran�s nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, are to meet in Europe
next week in a final attempt to seek a way out of the impasse.
Afterward, the major world powers will meet in Europe to discuss
Iran�s case. But Russia and China are resisting sanctions and
Iran has shrugged off all threats, vowing to continue its
nuclear activities even as it seeks negotiations.

As in the past, the nuclear agency painted a confusing and
incomplete picture of the state of Iran�s nuclear program,
underscoring the limits of outside inspectors whose access to
Iran�s nuclear sites was curtailed by Iran early this year.

 On one hand, the report makes clear that, as the official
familiar with the inspections said, �Inspectors have not
uncovered any concrete proof that Iran�s nuclear program is of a
military nature.�

 On the other hand, the report captures the long pattern of
confusion, stonewalling, partial disclosure of information and a
minimum of cooperation under Iran�s international obligations to
the agency and details new suspicious activities.

 Since February, when the agency referred the Iran dossier to
the Security Council, Iran has drastically reduced the access of
the international inspectors. The decision has limited or
blocked inspections of hundreds of the country�s atomic sites,
programs and personnel; the result is more uncertainty and less
information about Iran�s progress in mastering the basics of
uranium and plutonium, the foundations for both producing
electricity and building bombs.

 Most noteworthy in the report was the discovery of particles of
highly enriched uranium on a container at a waste storage
facility at Karaj, not far from Tehran.

 The particles were taken from the container for testing a year
ago, but the agency obtained the result only a few weeks ago
because of the limited capacity of its verification laboratory.

 In late 2003, the discovery of traces of highly enriched
uranium in Iran touched off international concern about the
country�s nuclear intentions and raised questions about where
the material had originated. Another find of the radioactive
material earlier this year redoubled the sense of alarm.

 But Thursday�s disclosure was different, diplomats said. �This
is the first case with no known linkage,� said one European
diplomat who could not be quoted by name because of diplomatic
rules. �But we have to be careful because over time these things
can be explained away, at least in theory.�

 Robert Joseph, the under secretary of state for arms control
and international security, was cautious in talking about the
new evidence, but said, �We need to be very concerned that Iran
may well be undertaking experiments, and may be undertaking the
construction of centrifuge machines, out of sight of I.A.E.A.
inspectors.�

 Highly enriched uranium, containing 80 percent or more of the
rare uranium-235 isotope, is considered bomb grade and can be
fashioned into the core of a nuclear weapon.

 Iran says its atomic program is meant to enrich uranium to the 
low levels of up to 5 percent for the production of nuclear 
power, but the United States calls that effort a cover for the 
acquisition of a nuclear arsenal.

The agency has written to Iran asking for an explanation of the 
source of the highly enriched particles, but has not received a 
response.

The report did not specify the level of the particles or whether 
they were weapons-grade quality. The official who was discussing 
the report refused to be drawn into that discussion, suggesting 
that such a definition was meaningless. "You cannot say 
weapons-grade, but very high," he said.

The report also concluded that Iran had continued to produce 
enriched uranium but on a modest scale, despite claims of various 
Iranian officials of plans to build and operate thousands of gas 
centrifuges on an industrial scale.

Indeed, Iran has built and operated only one 164-machine cascade 
or set of centrifuges, and other isolated machines.

Over the summer, the centrifuges did not produce enriched uranium 
continuously, but only for a few days and then often operated 
empty, the report said.

In addition, only a few kilograms of nuclear material was fed 
into the machines; only a small amount of uranium - tens of grams 
- was enriched, the official said.

"The qualitative and quantitative development of Iran's 
enrichment program continues to be fairly limited," the official 
said. He added, "From a technical point of view, we have not seen 
a very extensive experimentation with those machines."

The program appears to be lagging behind Iran's stated deadline 
to install 3,000 centrifuges at Natanz in the last quarter of 
this year.

The report documented Iran's refusal last summer to allow 
inspectors into an underground part of the Natanz facility and to 
give inspectors multiple-entry one-year visas for easy access to 
the country. Iranian officials since have backed down.

The report also faulted Iran for once again failing to answer 
questions and provide documents and access on a wide range of 
issues, some of which have been outstanding for more than three 
years.

"There is a standstill" in resolving these issues, said the 
official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of normal 
diplomatic rules. The agency, he added, is losing confidence that 
it can give the world assurances about the "completeness" of 
Iran's program.

William J. Broad and David E. Sanger contributed reporting from 
Washington for this article.
*****************************************************************
 13 Guardian Unlimited: EU Cautions Against Early Decision on Iran
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Friday September 1, 2006 10:31 AM

AP Photo YL101 

LAPPEENRANTA, Finland (AP) - The European Union presidency on
Friday cautioned against an early decision to impose economic
and other sanctions against Iran, saying that ``for the EU,
diplomacy remains the Number One way forward.'' 

Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja said ``this is not the
time or place'' for the international community to hit Iran with
sanctions over its nuclear enrichment program. 

``We are still, all of us, wanting to engage Iran seriously'' in
the search for a negotiated solution to the crisis over the
country's nuclear ambitions, Tuomioja said.	 
		 	 	   

Guardian Unlimited � Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
 14 Guardian Unlimited: Reports: Russia Regrets Iran's Decision
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Friday September 1, 2006 10:16 AM

By MIKE ECKEL 

Associated Press Writer 

MOSCOW (AP) - Russia said Friday it regrets Iran's decision not
to halt uranium enrichment by a U.N. deadline, underscoring the
growing impatience of one of Tehran's key allies on the Security
Council. 

``We share the position of (the International Atomic Energy
Agency) and express our regret that Iran has not fulfilled
Resolution 1696 by the designated date and refused to stop work
on uranium enrichment,'' Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail
Kamynin was quoted as saying by the Interfax and RIA-Novosti
news agencies. 

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, however, signaled that Russia
continued to have a dim view of efforts to quickly impose
sanctions on Tehran. 

U.S. and other officials have said that no action will be sought
against Tehran before a key European diplomat meets with Iran's
atomic chief next week to seek a compromise. Russia - along with
China - is a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council and
both nations are opposed to quick and harsh penalties. 

``Russia will put forward a wide range of tools for the
resolution of the Iranian atomic problem, but only those tools
that for us would advance the purpose of resolution and not shut
down the road to it,'' Lavrov was quoted by Interfax and
RIA-Novosti as saying. 

Moscow is helping Iran to build an atomic power plant. 

Meanwhile, Iran's hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed
that his country would continue its disputed nuclear program.
``Exploitation of peaceful nuclear energy is our obvious right.
We will never give up our legal right,'' state television quoted
Ahmadinejad as saying Friday in Maku, Iran. 

In a report Thursday, the Vienna-based IAEA confirmed Tehran had
not halted uranium enrichment as demanded by the Security
Council and said three years of IAEA investigating had been
unable to confirm ``the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear
program'' because of lack of cooperation from Tehran. 

Iran denies it is trying to acquire atomic weapons in violation
of its commitments under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
Tehran insists its nuclear program is peaceful, with the sole
aim of producing electricity with nuclear reactors. 

U.S. and European diplomats have said they are focusing on
potential low-level punishment for Tehran at first to win
backing from Russia and China. Proposals include travel bans on
Iranian officials or a ban on the sale of dual-use technology to
Iran. 

More extreme sanctions would be a freeze on Iranian assets or a
broader trade ban, but those would likely be opposed by Russia,
China and perhaps others, particularly since it could cut off
badly needed oil exports from Iran. 
		 	 	   
Guardian Unlimited � Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
 15 Guardian Unlimited: Bush demands action as Iran snubs UN
 
Ewen MacAskill and Oliver Burkeman in New York

Friday September 1, 2006
The Guardian 		 

[Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad salutes at a press
conference in Tehran] 

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad salutes at a press
conference in Tehran. Photo: Behrouz Mehri/Getty

 President George Bush demanded that there be "consequences" for
Iran after it ignored a UN security council deadline yesterday
to suspend part of its nuclear programme. Washington wants UN
sanctions imposed on Tehran as quickly as possible, but the
security council is seriously divided.

In a defiant speech to cheering crowds during a regional tour,
the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said the country
would not be bullied. The Iranian government has hinted at
retaliatory action if sanctions are imposed.

The way to sanctions was opened yesterday when the security 
council received a negative report from Mohamed El Baradei, the 
head of the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy 
Agency. It confirmed that, as of Tuesday, the last day that its 
inspectors were able to carry out observations: "Iran has not 
suspended its enrichment activities." It also said that three 
years of IAEA investigations still had not been able to confirm 
"the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear programme because of lack 
of cooperation from Tehran".

The security council is due to meet next week to begin
discussion on a new resolution to impose sanctions, but the
negotiations could take months. Russia and China, which have
close economic ties with Iran and are veto-wielding permanent
members of the security council, are lukewarm about punitive
measures.

Britain and France, also permanent members, have positioned
themselves between the US and Russia and China: prepared to back
sanctions while leaving open the prospect of further
negotiations with Tehran.

The security council is unlikely to meet until after talks
between the EU foreign affairs chief, Javier Solana, and Iran's
head of national security, Ali Larijani. They spoke by telephone
yesterday and agreed to a face-to-face meeting soon, possibly
within days.

Mr Bush, underlining Washington's increasing impatience, said
Tehran had reacted with defiance and delaying tactics in
response to the UN deadline. "It is time for Iran to make a
choice," he told a convention of US veterans. "We've made our
choice. We will continue to work closely with our allies to find
a diplomatic solution, but there must be consequences for Iran's
defiance and we must not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon."

John Bolton, Washington's hawkish ambassador to the UN, said it
was time for the security council to draw up sanctions against
Tehran. The IAEA report showed "ample evidence" of Iran's
defiance and obstructionism, he said, along with activities that
would be "simply inexplicable if their real purpose [were] a
peaceful nuclear power programme".

The security council, after three years of protracted
negotiations with Iran, on July 31 agreed a resolution imposing
a deadline of August 31 for Tehran to suspend its uranium
enrichment programme, which the west sees as a step towards
achieving a nuclear weapons capability. Iran says its nuclear
programme is purely for civilian purposes.

President Ahmadinejad, in a speech at Orumiyeh, said: "The
Iranian nation will not succumb to bullying, invasion and the
violation of its rights." He said enemies of the country were
trying to stir up differences among the Iranian people, but "I
tell them 'you are wrong. The Iranian nation is united'." The
Iranian government claims the US and European countries are
covertly trying to undermine it by stirring up ethnic unrest.

As well as finding that Iran had failed to suspend uranium
enrichment, the IAEA report expressed concern about new findings
of minute particles of highly-enriched uranium at a university
involved in possible military work. It also said that the
Iranians were no longer allowing it access to suspicious
diagrams related to a warhead, and that there had been a bar,
albeit temporary, on allowing the IAEA inspectors access to an
underground facility.

Muhammad Saeedi, the deputy head of Iran's nuclear programme,
offered a different interpretation of the IAEA report from that
of the US and the EU, insisting that it had failed to prove that
Tehran's intentions were anything other than peaceful. He said
the report confirmed that Iran had been working within the legal
guidelines set down by the UN nuclear watchdog. "Generally,
although this report has not fully satisfied us, it shows that
America's propaganda and politically motivated claims over
Iran's nuclear programme are baseless and based on American
officials' hallucinations," he told Iran's official news agency
IRNA.

FAQ

What happens now?

UN resolution 1696 says that if Iran fails to comply with the
deadline the "intention" was to adopt "appropriate measures"
under article 41: the article that deals with sanctions.

Will sanctions be imposed?

Of the five permanent members, the US wants sanctions almost
immediately, Britain and France are prepared to allow for
further talks, and Russia and China want to slow the process
even further. Discussions could begin next week and may take
months.

What sanctions are likely?

Relatively light ones that would target ministers, officials and
scientists in the form of travel bans and a freeze on foreign
assets.

What would be the consequences?

Iran could respond by withdrawing from the Nuclear Proliferation
Treaty, barring UN inspectors.

And in the longer-term?

Iran holds most of the cards. But the US still has options, the
most extreme of which would be a military strike on Iranian
nuclear plants. An alternative would be to stir up Iran's
minorities, a move Tehran fears. If Russia and China refuse to
back sanctions, the US could organise a coalition of willing
countries, including Britain, France and Germany, to join it in
implementing sanctions. Or America could open direct
negotiations with Tehran.
 
	
 	Q
28.04.2006: Iran's nuclear programme

[UP] 

Guardian Unlimited � Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
 16 AFP: 10,000 German jobs jeopardized by Iran sanctions

  Friday September 1, 06:38 PM 

BERLIN (AFP) - More than 10,000 jobs in Germany could be
jeopardised if economic sanctions are imposed against Iran, the
German federation of chambers of commerce DIHK has said.
"Economic sanctions against Iran would not solve political
problems, as the example of Iraq has shown dramatically," it
said in a statement. "The German economy would be severely hit
in an important growth market. The loss of business in Iran
could threaten more than 10,000 jobs in Germany," it said. The
conflict between Iran and the international community has
already generated a climate of uncertainty which was having a
negative effect on growth, the federation argued. German exports
to Iran had fallen by 10 percent in the first six months of the
current year. DIHK said that around 50 German companies had
branches in Iran and more than 12,000 firms had representatives
there. Iran was the biggest market in the Middle East for German
exports in 2005, ahead of the United Arab Emirates and Saudi
Arabia. Germany exported goods worth more than 4.4 billion euros
(5.6 billion dollars) there in 2005. A UN Security Council
deadline for Iran to suspend uranium enrichment -- a process
used to run a nuclear power plant or potentially fuel an atomic
bomb -- passed Thursday without compliance from the Islamic
republic. The United States and the EU fear that Iran wants to
build nuclear weapons, a suspicion that Tehran has repeatedly
insisted is unfounded, and say that international sanctions
against Iran may be the next step. 

Copyright � 2006 AFP AFP. All rights reserved. 
*****************************************************************
 17 RIA Novosti: Iran-6 to meet soon to discuss nuclear issue
 
31/ 08/ 2006                                  

MOSCOW, August 31 (RIA Novosti) - Representatives from the six
powers mediating Iran's nuclear problem will meet in the near
future to discuss the issue, the Russian Foreign Ministry said
Thursday. 

The deadline set by a UN Security Council resolution for Iran,
which some countries suspect is pursuing a covert weapons
program, to suspend all uranium enrichment activities, expires
on August 31. 

The five permanent UN Security Council members and Germany
drafted a package of incentives to persuade the Islamic Republic
to halt work on enriching uranium, but Iran gave no definite
response, saying only that it was ready for "serious talks." 

The countries intend "to analyze the current situation around
the Iranian nuclear program," Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail
Kamynin said. 

Kamynin also said that another stage of the UN's work on the
problem would start after Mohamed El-Baradei, head of the
International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN nuclear watchdog,
delivers a report on what Tehran has done to comply with the
resolution and the package of incentives. 

� 2005 RIA Novosti   
*****************************************************************
 18 RIA Novosti: Moscow regrets Iran's refusal to stop uranium enrichment-1
 
01/ 09/ 2006

MOSCOW, September 1 (RIA Novosti) - Russia regrets Iran's
refusal to comply with a UN resolution to stop its uranium
enrichment program, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said Friday. 

The UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1696 July 31,
demanding that Iran suspend uranium enrichment by August 31 or
face possible economic and diplomatic sanctions. 

"Mohammed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy
Agency, presented his report. We share his position and express
regret that Iran did not comply with UN Resolution 1696 and did
not abandon its uranium enrichment program by the deadline,"
Mikhail Kamynin told a news conference. 

The IAEA report said that Tehran has not suspended its uranium
enrichment activities and has been blocking IAEA inspectors from
inspecting Iran's nuclear facilities. 

Kamynin said in a statement that representatives from the six
powers mediating the Iranian nuclear crisis, as well as members
of the UN Security Council, will meet soon to discuss further
actions in relation to Iran. 

The United States has long been pushing for sanctions against
the Islamic Republic under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, while
Russia and China, which both have a veto in the Security
Council, have consistently called for a more cautious approach,
saying they will not support harsh measures. 

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Friday Russia can agree on a
variety of ways to resolve the Iranian nuclear issue, but only
if they do not hinder the ultimate settlement. 

"Russia may consider a variety of ways to resolve the Iranian
nuclear issue, but only those that would move us closer to the
goal [the settlement], rather than put obstacles on the road
toward it," Lavrov told a news conference. 

Lavrov said it was necessary to maintain the nuclear
non-proliferation regime and take into account the right to
develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. 

Following Lavrov's statement, Russian Deputy Prime Minister
Sergei Ivanov said the foreign ministers of the UN Security's
Council five permanent members and Germany will meet September 6
in Vienna to discuss Iran's controversial nuclear programs. 

"As far as I know, on September 6 the foreign ministers of the
six countries involved in resolving the conflict plan are to
meet in Vienna to coordinate actions on the Iranian nuclear
problem," said Ivanov, who is also Russia's defense minister. 

� 2005 RIA Novosti   
*****************************************************************
 19 IRNA: Senior cleric hopes others will recognize Iran's N-rights

Tehran, Sept 1, IRNA

Iran-Jannati-Nuclear
 
Substitute Friday Prayers Leader of Tehran Ayatollah Ahmad
Jannati on Friday expressed hope others would follow up logic on
Iran's nuclear case and recognize the country's nuclear rights.

 "We call on the other party not to turn Group 5+1 into 1+5 in a
way that five countries would follow just one state," said
Jannati in his Friday prayers sermon to large groups of
worshipers at Tehran University campus.

 Jannati insisted, "China and Russia are independent states.

 Europe should also maintain its independence and observe Iran's
rights about its nuclear case."

 He pointed to a package of incentives and penalties set forth
by Group 5+1, saying, "Iran gave response to this proposed
package with an Iranian package. We told them we are ready for
talks and will accept your rational words.

 "Therefore, they should also accept our logical statements." A
package of incentives was presented to Iran on June 6 by five
permanent members of the UN Security Council -- China, Russia,
Britain, France and the United States -- plus Germany (Group
5+1).

 Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council (SNSC)
Ali Larijani presented Tehran's response to ambassadors of the
Group 5+1 as well as Swiss envoy who is acting as caretaker of
US interests in Iran on August 22.

 The senior cleric said inauguration of Arak heavy water plant
was among "successes of Iranian scientists" and added,
"Completion of activities of Arak heavy water plant will have
great impacts on agricultural and medical fields and treatment
of incurable diseases." 2327/1420
*****************************************************************
 20 RIA Novosti: Sanctions against Iran would be futile - Russian MP
 
01/ 09/ 2006                                  

MOSCOW, September 1 (RIA Novosti) - A senior Russian lawmaker
said Friday that possible sanctions against Iran, which has
refused to halt uranium enrichment by a United Nations deadline,
would be futile. 

"Practice shows that Mideast regimes are resilient to sanctions.
So the sense in enforcing them is debatable," Mikhail Margelov,
chairman of the upper house of parliament's committee for
international affairs, said in a statement. 

The UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1696 July 31,
demanding that Iran suspend uranium enrichment by August 31 or
face possible economic and diplomatic sanctions. However,
hard-line Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said his country
would not give up its right to nuclear technology. 

Margelov said sanctions against the Islamic Republic would not
necessarily cause a change of power within the country, which is
what proponents of sanctions are hoping for. Most of the
population of this volatile region "lives badly, even without
sanctions, but the authorities are always helped out by
international corruption," he said, adding that talks would be
more effective. 

Countries that suspect Iran of pursuing a clandestine nuclear
weapons program, most prominently the United States, have backed
the idea of sanctions. However, Russia and China, both permanent
members of the UN Security Council, oppose harsh penalties. Iran
has given no definite response to a package of incentives put
forward by the six world powers mediating the issue. 

The Russian lawmaker said the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,
which permits only five nations to own nuclear weapons, and to
which Iran is a signatory, is based on "a carrot-and-stick
principle." 

"The stick, which has already been used against Iran, doesn't
seem to have frightened anyone there. The size of a carrot
capable of outweighing Iran's ambition to become a regional
leader is hard to imagine," Margelov said. 

"So the crisis is in full swing," he concluded. 

� 2005 RIA Novosti   
*****************************************************************
 21 AFP: EU foreign ministers meet over Iran, Middle East 

 Friday September 1, 08:01 AM 

  [Iranian employees pose for a picture at the newly opened
heavy water plant in Arak]   
    
LAPPEENRANTA, Finland (AFP) - European foreign ministers are to
open two days of talks here to discuss the diplomatic challenge
of keeping dialogue open with Iran despite the Islamic
republic's refusal to suspend its nuclear activities.

The ministers will also discuss ways to strengthen the European
Union's influence in the Middle East -- particularly with
Israel, in the wake of its month-long war against Hezbollah.

Iran's nuclear ambitions will take centre stage at the talks, in 
the town of Lappeenranta near the border with Russia, given 
Tehran's rejection of a UN Security Council deadline to freeze 
enrichment activities by Thursday.

Iran's defiance has forced the EU to tread a diplomatic
tight-rope; working toward sanctions with the United States
without compromising the dialogue, however unsatisfactory so
far, with Iran.

"There are two things happening at once," an EU diplomat said
late Thursday.

As the deadline passed, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana,
who will brief the ministers on Saturday, sought to keep up
diplomatic efforts, agreeing to meet "face-to-face" with Iran's
top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani.

The pair will discuss, perhaps as soon as Wednesday, Iran's
21-page response to an international package of political and
economic incentives in exchange for Tehran suspending enrichment.

"It's going to be a clarification meeting and give them the
opportunity to explain their response," the diplomat said,
adding that the document had been "long and confused."

According to a Western diplomat in Vienna, their talks are to be
followed the next day -- September 7 -- by a meeting of Britain,
China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States.

Iran maintains that it is exercising its right to develop
civilian atomic energy but many fear that it is really trying to
build a nuclear bomb, and with the UN deadline now past,
Washington believes it is time to act.

Security Council members China and Russia, however, are wavering
on sanctions, and could veto any such moves.

Late on Wednesday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad urged
the Europeans not to follow the "wrong and aggressive" policies
of the United States, which broke diplomatic ties with Iran in
1979, and continue to negotiate.

Friday's talks in Finland, which currently holds the EU's
rotating presidency, begin with a working lunch during which the
bloc's 25 top diplomats will discuss Israel's relations with
Lebanon and the Palestinians.

Following the conflict in southern Lebanon, France and Italy
have contributed several thousand troops to a peacekeeping
force, increasing the EU's leverage with Israel and, indirectly,
the United States.

Taking the lead of the peacekeeping mission is seen as a new
step toward making Europe a key player in the Middle East rather
than a massive aid donor, even as the EU announced new funds for
Lebanon on Thursday.

"I believe that it would be timely to evaluate the EU's role and
our own working methods in order to see whether there is
something we can do to enhance our impact," Finnish Foreign
Minister Erkki Tuomioja told his EU partners.

At the final session of their informal talks, the ministers will
on Saturday discuss the Union's ties with nearby Russia as the
EU draws up a new legal framework for relations with Moscow, due
to be introduced next year. 

Copyright � 2006 Yahoo! UK Limited. All rights reserved.

AFP
*****************************************************************
 22 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: Iran in full cooperation with IAEA 

  2006/09/01   
  
UN Nuclear Watchdog chief Mohammed Elbaradei has stressed Iran's 
full cooperation with the Watchdog. 

In a six-page report, released at the International Atomic Energy 
Agency's Vienna headquarters on Thursday, Elbaradei said Iran's 
peaceful nuclear activities have been based on the nuclear 
safeguards and under complete supervision of the agency. 

The report also refers to Iran's facilitating the IAEA 
inspectors' overall access to all its nuclear facilities and 
equipment as well as related documents. 

It emphasized that the IAEA will continue investigation into all 
the remaining issues on Iran's nuclear activities. 

FK   

  Copyright 2004, All Rights Reserved By Islamic Republic of Iran 
Broadcasting News Network Sponsored By IRIB News Computer Center. 
E-Mail: Info@IRIBNEWS.ir     
*****************************************************************
 23 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: Resolution over IRI opposed to NPT 

  2006/09/01   
  
Deputy Secretary of Supreme National Security Council for
International Affairs Mohammad Saeedi said on Thursday that the
Security Council resolution calling on IRI to stop fuel cycle is
in contravention with Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
 
Reacting to a report of International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) on IRI's refusal to accept the call, Saeedi said that the
context of the report well indicated IRI's full cooperation with
the UN nuclear body.
 
"There is no justification in terms of international law and NPT
regulations to stop the fuel cycle when all Iranian nuclear
sites are under supervision of the IAEA," he said.
 
Saeedi said that there remains some outstanding issues that
would be resolved through close cooperation with the agency in
future.
 
On Tuesday, Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council
Ali Larijani said in his briefing to formal session of the
assembly of experts that IRI is ready to give guarantees to
European states that Iranian nuclear program will not be
diverted to military purpose.
 
M/D   

  
  Copyright 2004, All Rights Reserved By Islamic Republic of Iran 
Broadcasting News Network Sponsored By IRIB News Computer Center. 
E-Mail: Info@IRIBNEWS.ir     
*****************************************************************
 24 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: Europe should maintain its independence 

  2006/09/01   
  
Tehran's Friday Prayers Leader, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati on
Friday expressed hope others would follow up logic on Iran's
nuclear case and recognize the country's nuclear rights. 

"We call on the other party not to turn Group 5+1 into 1+5 in a
way that five countries would follow just one state," said
Jannati in his Friday prayers sermon to large groups of
worshipers at Tehran University campus. 

Jannati insisted, "China and Russia are independent states.
Europe should also maintain its independence and observe Iran's
rights about its nuclear case." 

He pointed to a package of proposals set forth by Group 5+1,
saying, "Iran gave response to this proposed package with an
Iranian package. We told them we are ready for talks and will
accept your rational words. 

"Therefore, they should also accept our logical statements." 

The Prayers Leader said inauguration of Arak heavy water plant
was among "successes of Iranian scientists" and added,
"Completion of activities of Arak heavy water plant will have
great impacts on agricultural and medical fields and treatment
of incurabl e diseases." 

FK   

  Copyright 2004, All Rights Reserved By Islamic Republic of Iran 
Broadcasting News Network Sponsored By IRIB News Computer Center. 
E-Mail: Info@IRIBNEWS.ir     
*****************************************************************
 25 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: No UN inspection if rights rejected 

  2006/09/01   
  
  04:27:21 �.� 
A Majlis deputy said Friday that Iran will suspend all
inspections of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to
its nuclear sites if it is deprived from its inalienable rights. 

Head of Majlis Foreign Policy and National Security Commission
Alaeddin Boroujerdi made the remark while addressing residents
of western city of Boroujerd. 

"The Commission is studying a bill on Iran's suspension of all
IAEA inspections in the case the United Nations Security Council
intends to deprive the Iranian nation from its inalienable
rights," he said. 

sam   


  Copyright 2004, All Rights Reserved By Islamic Republic of Iran 
Broadcasting News Network Sponsored By IRIB News Computer Center. 
E-Mail: Info@IRIBNEWS.ir     
*****************************************************************
 26 AFP: US keen to push for Security Council sanctions over Iran's nuclear defiance - 

 by Gerard Aziakou Fri Sep 1, 12:23 PM ET 		 	 

UNITED NATIONS (AFP) - World powers gear up for a fresh round of 
nuclear diplomacy next week to respond to Iran" /> Iran's refusal 
to halt uranium enrichment, with the United States pressing the 
UN Security Council to slap targeted sanctions against Tehran. 

 The 15-member council took no action Thursday as its deadline
for Tehran to suspend its sensitive nuclear fuel work or face
possible sanctions expired. 

A report by the International Atomic Energy Agency" />
International Atomic Energy Agencyconcluded Thursday that Iran
"has not suspended its enrichment-related activities." 

US Ambassador to the United Nations" /> United NationsJohn
Bolton said Thursday that the council would not act until after
a meeting between EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and
Iran's top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani in Berlin next
Wednesday. 

Senior officials of Britain, China, France, Russia and the
United States -- the five permanent members of the council --
plus Germany, the six powers trying to resolve the nuclear
standoff with Iran, are also meet in Berlin next Thursday. 

The council had demanded that Iran suspend all uranium
enrichment and reprocessing activities by August 31 or face
possible sanctions, with Western countries suspecting that
Tehran's nuclear program hides a bid to develop an atomic bomb. 

The six powers had hoped to win Iran's cooperation by offering a
package of security, trade and technology incentives. But Tehran
remains defiant, asserting its right to enrichment as a
signatory of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. 

In the first official reaction to the IAEA report, Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed that his country "will not
give up one iota" of its nuclear rights. 

US officials are meanwhile keen to see the council impose
gradual targeted sanctions against Iran, beginning with
relatively symbolic steps such as bans on travel by Iranian
nuclear officials but then building to more substantial measures
such as financial restrictions and trade embargoes. 

"We'll find out in the next several weeks whether we're able to
proceed to sanctions," Bolton told CNN television Friday. "We're
consulting with European countries. What we're going to aim at
is the leadership of Iran and the programs involving their
nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities." 

He said efforts would be made to avoid sanctions that could hurt
the average Iranian citizen. 

While US diplomats here would not go into details, The New York
Times on Thursday quoted senior officials saying the United
States, Britain, France and Germany had been working on a
three-tier menu of sanctions. 

The list would begin with low-impact measures including an
embargo on the sale of nuclear-related materials, a freeze of
overseas assets and a travel ban for some Iranian officials,
said officials involved with the talks. 

If that failed to persuade Iran, the measures a few weeks later
would escalate to a broader travel ban and freezing assets of
Iranian government members, it said. 

And if needed, the sanctions would be ratcheted up to include
restrictions on commercial flights and efforts to get
international banks and financial institutions to stop lending
to Iran. 

It remained unclear whether such a plan would gain the backing
of China and Russia, which both have extensive economic ties
with Iran and traditionally oppose the use of sanctions as a
diplomatic tool. 

Friday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov Russia said: "We
will consider a whole range of options for resolving the Iranian
nuclear question, but only those options that take us forward
toward this goal and not those that prevent us from reaching
it." 

And he reiterated Moscow's aversion to imposing sanctions on
Iran, saying: "a way out needs to be sought through dialogue and
not through the path of isolation and sanctions." 

Bolton however reiterated Friday that sanctions could be imposed
outside of the Security Council. "There's a wide range of
sanctions we could seek to impose on Iran that do not require
Security Council authorization," he told CNN. 

"If for whatever reason, we don't achieve the level of sanctions
we want, and even if we do, there are other things we're going
to pursue that countries like the European Union" /> European
Union, Japan and others can impose by their own national
decisions," he added. 

The United States has already imposed a broad range of sanctions
against Iran. 

"In the area of financial transactions, investment transactions
and large flows of capital there are a number of things that
governments could do already under existing authorities
concerning anti-terrorism legislation," Bolton said. 	 		 			

Copyright � 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The
*****************************************************************
 27 AFP: Iran fails to stop uranium enrichment but time before UN sanctions - 

 by Michael Adler Fri Sep 1, 4:50 AM ET 		 	 

VIENNA (AFP) - Iran" /> has defied a UN Security Council deadline 
to halt uranium enrichment but UN sanctions are on hold until a 
last-ditch EU-Iran meeting next week, officials said. 

 The United Nations" /> nuclear watchdog announced in Vienna
Thursday that "Iran has not suspended its enrichment related
activities," in a confidential report, filed to the Security
Council to mark an August 31 deadline and that could lead to UN
sanctions against the Islamic Republic. 

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has vowed that Iran "will not give
up one iota of its nuclear rights," state media said in the
first official reaction to an International Atomic Energy
Agency" /> (IAEA) report. 

"The enemies should know Iranians are standing firm on obtaining
their rights and will not give up one iota of their nuclear
rights," he told a rally in the northwestern city of Makou. 

"Using different pretexts, the Iranian nation's enemies oppose
our progress, to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear technology
for peaceful purposes," Ahmadinejad added on the second day of a
tour of West Azarbaijan province. 

"They should know our country is united, and the slogan 'nuclear
energy is our undeniable right,' is that of the entire nation,"
he said. 

Those opposed to Iran's nuclear program "should know they cannot
force the Iranian people from its path with propaganda, pressure
and psychological warfare," Ahmedinejad stressed. 

In New York, US Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton
said the report "provides ample evidence of (Iranian) defiance." 

But Bolton said the Council was not planning any immediate
response and would await the results of a last-chance meeting in
Berlin on Wednesday between European Union" /> foreign policy
representative Javier Solana and chief Iranian nuclear
negotiator Ali Larijani to move towards a negotiated deal. 

"Then we will be consulting here and in capitals about where to
go from there," Bolton said. 

European foreign ministers were to meet Friday in southern
Finland to confront the diplomatic challenge of keeping dialogue
open with Iran. 

With the UN deadline past, Washington believes it is time to
switch from the carrot to the stick. The US State Department
said the major UN powers will meet in Berlin next Thursday to
discuss sanctions. 

This would be preceded however by the Solana-Larijani last-ditch
meeting. 

But US diplomats were already preparing a proposal for graduated
sanctions against Iran. 

Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, the third-ranking US
diplomat, who will represent Washington in Berlin, said he
expects the Security Council to adopt a sanctions plan within a
month. 

The Council had in July demanded that Iran suspend all uranium
enrichment related activities by August 31, spurred by US-led
concerns that Tehran's nuclear programme is a covert attempt to
produce nuclear weapons. 

Uranium enrichment makes fuel for civilian nuclear reactors but
in highly refined form can serve as the raw material for atom
bombs. 

Iran says its programme is a peaceful effort to generate
electricity and on August 21 said it was ready to talk to world
powers about a package of incentives they were offering to get
Tehran's nuclear program under control. 

But Iran did not meet the requirement to stop enriching uranium. 

Security Council members China and Russia are wavering on
sanctions, and could veto any such moves. 

Russia has said it will wait until the results of the
Solana-Larijani meeting before deciding what to do, a Western
diplomat told AFP. 

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said he refused to cede "an
inch" to the growing pressure and the report said Tehran had
started a new round of uranium enrichment only a week ago. 

US President George W. Bush" /> said: "It is time for Iran to
make a choice," in a speech to a US veterans group as the
deadline ticked by. 

"We will continue to work closely with our allies to plan a
diplomatic solution, but there must be consequences for Iran's
defiance and we must not allow Iran to develop a nuclear
weapon," Bush said. 

"Inspectors have not uncovered any concrete proof that Iran's
nuclear program is of a military nature," a senior official
close to the IAEA told reporters on condition of anonymity. 

But the UN watchdog was getting little help from Iran in probing
additional questions, the official said. 

"There is a standstill with regard to the resolution of
outstanding issues which would clarify the peaceful nature of
Iran's program," the senior official said. 

The report said the IAEA was investigating a new case of
contamination by highly enriched uranium, which could be a sign
of weapons work, and that Iran has not been forthcoming about
its work with sophisticated P2 centrifuges to enrich uranium and
blueprints Iran possesses to make nuclear weapons parts. 

In Tehran, the deputy chief of Iran's nuclear agency Mohammad
Saeedi said the IAEA report was "not negative" and that
enrichment would "continue within the framework of research and
under the control of the IAEA". 

The report said Iran had started another round of small-scale
uranium enrichment, with plans to have running by September a
second 164-centrifuge line, or cascade, able to do this work. 

But the senior official close to the IAEA stressed that "the
inspectors' findings indicate that the qualitative and
quantitative development of Iran's enrichment program continues
to be fairly limited". 	 		 			

Copyright � 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The
*****************************************************************
 28 AFP: Iran refuses to budge in nuclear standoff

 by Farhad Pouladi Fri Sep 1, 3:18 PM ET 		 	 

TEHRAN (AFP) - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sent a curt message 
to global powers vowing that Iran" /> Iran"will not give up one 
iota" of its nuclear rights, in the first official reaction to a 
critical International Atomic Energy Agency" /> International 
Atomic Energy Agency(IAEA) report. 

 "The enemies should know Iranians are standing firm on obtaining 
their rights and will not give up one iota of their nuclear 
rights," Ahmadinejad told a rally in the northwestern city of 
Makou, state media reported. 

On Thursday, the UN nuclear watchdog concluded in a confidential 
report that Tehran had not suspended its enrichment-related 
activities, as demanded by the Security Council. 

The deputy chief of Iran's nuclear agency insisted the report was 
"not negative" and vowed to continue uranium enrichment for 
research purposes while keeping open negotiations with the 
international community. 

"The report is very factual and adds that the Iranian nuclear 
program is under the supervision of the IAEA and that there has 
been no deviation" towards any military purpose, he said. 

Iran insists it is exercising a right to develop civilian atomic
energy. 

On Friday, Russia expressed "regret that Iran did not fulfill
the demands of (UN) Resolution 1696 ... and did not stop work on
uranium enrichment," foreign ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin
said. 

Russia and China have consistently resisted calls for sanctions
against Iran, preferring a diplomatic solution to the crisis. 

In a speech to university students, Russian Foreign Minister
Sergei Lavrov said: "We will consider a whole range of options
... but only those options that take us forward." 

The IAEA report was submitted to the Security Council as an
August 31 deadline for Iran to suspend uranium enrichment
expired, and could lead to UN sanctions against Tehran. 

Uranium enrichment provides fuel for civilian nuclear reactors
but in highly refined form can also serve as the raw material
for atom bombs. 

In New York, US ambassador to the United Nations" /> United
NationsJohn Bolton said the report "provides ample evidence of
(Iranian) defiance." 

European foreign ministers meeting Friday in Finland were faced
with a diplomatic tight-rope act -- considering sanctions with
Washington without compromising dialogue with Tehran. 

"European Union diplomacy remains the number one way forward,"
Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja said. 

"If their (Iran's) response is truly what they say, that they
are ready to engage in negotiations, then we have to see what
the conditions are, if these can be met," he said. 

British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett voiced regret and
urged Iran's leadership to restart talks with the West. 

"I regret that Iran has not taken the steps required by the (UN)
Security Council. I urge Iran once again to do so, which would
allow negotiations to resume," she said. 

France said the world could not accept Iran's nuclear
activities, while Italy identified the country as one of the
chief international challenges. 

"We cannot accept that Iran should be able to resume its
activities in the nuclear field," French Prime Minister
Dominique de Villepin said, describing Iran's response as
"unsatisfactory." 

"The door must always remain open to dialogue, but the
international community cannot accept that undertakings given
are not respected." 

Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi emphasised his country's
agreement with France and said "Iran is one of the great
challenges to resolve." 

As the Security Council deadline passed, EU foreign policy chief
Javier Solana also sought to maintain diplomatic efforts,
agreeing to meet with Iran's top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani
in Berlin on Wednesday. 

They were to discuss Iran's 21-page response to an international
package of political and economic incentives in exchange for
Tehran suspending enrichment. 

Solana warned Friday against any firm action on sanctions that
could compromise the discussions. 

"Since we are going to have a period of talks, during this
period of talks it would not be reasonable to move on" with
sanctions, he said in Finland. 

But he said the fact that Europe is willing to talk does not
mean Tehran has an unlimited amount to continue its nuclear
activities and that he hoped to know soon whether the
negotiations would be fruitful. 

"That doesn't mean that Iran has an infinite time," he warned. 

According to a Western diplomat in Vienna, the talks with Solana
would be followed by a meeting in the German capital of Britain,
China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States. 

Once the UN deadline expired, Washington said it was now time to
act. 

In a speech to a US veterans' group, President George W. Bush"
/> President George W. Bushsaid: "It is time for Iran to make a
choice. 

"We will continue to work closely with our allies to plan a
diplomatic solution, but there must be consequences for Iran's
defiance and we must not allow Iran to develop a nuclear
weapon." 

Iran's ambassador to France told France-Info radio that Tehran
would repel any US military attack. 

"If they go that way, we will be forced to defend ourselves. We
are capable of defending ourselves and confronting any sort of
threat," he said. 

US Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, who will represent
Washington in Berlin, said he expected the Security Council to
adopt a sanctions plan within a month, although either China and
Russia could veto such proposals. 

Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said the
IAEA report "clearly shows that Iran has acted within the
framework of the international safeguards and Non-Proliferation
Treaty and is ready to answer the remaining issues through talks
with the IAEA." 	 		 			

Copyright � 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The
*****************************************************************
 29 AFP: Iran will not cede on nuclear issue - Ahmadinejad 
 
 Fri Sep 1, 6:08 AM ET 		 	 

TEHRAN (AFP) - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has vowed that Iran" 
/> Iran"will not give up one iota of its nuclear rights," state 
media said in the first official reaction to an International 
Atomic Energy Agency" /> International Atomic Energy Agency(IAEA) 
report. 


 "The enemies should know Iranians are standing firm on
obtaining their rights and will not give up one iota of their
nuclear rights," he told a rally in the northwestern city of
Makou on Friday. 

"Using different pretexts, the Iranian nation's enemies oppose
our progress, to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear technology
for peaceful purposes," Ahmadinejad added on the second day of a
tour of West Azarbaijan province. 

"They should know our country is united, and the slogan 'nuclear
energy is our undeniable right,' is that of the entire nation,"
he said. 

Those opposed to Iran's nuclear program "should know they cannot
force the Iranian people from its path with propaganda, pressure
and psychological warfare," Ahmedinejad stressed. 

On Thursday, the UN nuclear watchdog concluded in a confidential
report that Iran had not suspended activities related to uranium
enrichment as demanded by the Security Council's five permanent
members joined by Germany. 

The IAEA report was submitted to the Council to mark an August
31 deadline for such work to be suspended, and could lead to UN
sanctions against the Islamic Republic. 

The report said Tehran had started a new round of uranium
enrichment only a week ago. 

In New York, US Ambassador to the United Nations" /> United
NationsJohn Bolton said it "provides ample evidence of (Iranian)
defiance". 

But while US diplomats planned a program of graduated sanctions
against Iran, hopes for a solution hung on a last-chance meeting
in Berlin on Wednesday between European Union" /> European
Unionforeign policy representative Javier Solana and chief
Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani. 

Their discussion would be followed by a meeting of the major UN
powers in the German capital to discuss possible sanctions,
Bolton said. 

	 		 			
Copyright � 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The
*****************************************************************
 30 Guardian Unlimited: AP: U.S. Envoy to Inspect N. Korea Complex
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Friday September 1, 2006 7:16 AM

AP Photo NY108 

By FOSTER KLUG 

Associated Press Writer 

WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S. envoy for North Korean human rights
said he will visit the country this year for the first time to
inspect a jointly run North-South industrial complex that he has
criticized for exploiting workers. 

Jay Lefkowitz has no plans to visit the capital, Pyongyang, but
he indicated a trip there to talk with officials in Kim Jong
Il's reclusive regime was a possibility some day. 

``I'm not sure that the time is right for that type of contact
yet, but it's certainly something that's under consideration,''
Lefkowitz said Thursday in a telephone interview with The
Associated Press. 

He said he has had no contact with North Korean officials about
a trip to the capital. 

When asked whether a visit to Pyongyang would allow the United
States to exert more pressure for change in the communist-led
country, Lefkowitz said, ``I'm not sure. I think that as long as
the regime is set on the types of policies that embody it right
now, I've got a tough job ahead.'' 

Lefkowitz's appointment a year ago as special envoy to keep tabs
on North Korea's human rights activities angered Kim's
government. It was one reason North Korea cited for one of
numerous suspensions of six-nation talks on ending its
self-described nuclear weapons production program. 

Diplomats are struggling to resume the on again-off again
negotiations, which have been stalled this time since November. 

North Korea long has been accused of torture, public executions
and other atrocities against its people. But the human rights
issue has been overshadowed recently by the North's defiant test
launch of seven missiles in early July and by worries that
Pyongyang might be preparing a test of a nuclear bomb for the
first time. 

In May, a group of six North Korean refugees arrived in the
United States, the first from North Korea to be given official
refugee status since passage by Congress of a 2004 law that
makes it easier for North Koreans to apply. 

Lefkowitz would not provide specific details about other
refugees headed to the United States. 

He said he expected ``growing numbers'' to arrive, however, as
word spreads of the first group's success, but he said most
defectors probably would settle in South Korea. 

It has ``taken some time for our policy to evolve,'' Lefkowitz
said. ``But I'm comfortable now that our policy is one where
we're really quite open to North Korean refugees. It's really
just a question of their safe passage once they leave North
Korea.'' 

Lefkowitz had planned to tour the North-South industrial complex
in the North's border city of Kaesong in mid-July but delayed
the trip after the missile tests. He did not have specific dates
for when he would travel, only that it would be this year. 

``I'm certainly eager to see the working conditions of the work
force in Kaesong,'' he said. 

Lefkowitz previously has criticized the complex for a lack of
labor rights and for low wages paid through the North Korean
government, not directly to the workers. 

On Thursday he said, ``I don't know that we have enough
information - and that's part of the problem - to make an
assessment.'' 

He said the Kaesong project, if done right, could allow
thousands of North Korean citizens to learn about the outside
world from South Koreans at the complex. Kaesong is 40 miles
northwest of South Korea's capital, Seoul, just across the 38th
parallel truce line that serves as the international border. 

``On the other hand,'' he said, ``if the people working there
are being shipped in from North Korea to an artificial
environment, are being deprived of any kind of contact with the
outside world, are being shipped back home and then not even
getting their wages directly, then I think it raises some cause
for concern.'' 

--- 

On the Net: 

CIA World Factbook on North Korea: 

https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/kn.html	 
		 	 	   
Guardian Unlimited � Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
 31 Korea Herald: Seoul plans response to possible nuke test   
        
From news reports

 South Korea has begun working on a concrete contingency plan
for North Korea's possible test of its nuclear weapons, Seoul's
top diplomat said yesterday.

 "The government has started to review concrete measures against
North Korea's nuclear test," Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon said
at a meeting with senior journalists in Seoul. He refused to
provide details.

 Ban said, however, the international community needs to pay
attention to some "unusual expressions" used in the latest
statement by the North Korean Foreign Ministry.

 The ministry said in the statement last Saturday that "the DPRK
(North Korea) would like to have the six-party talks more than
ever as it will gain from the implementation of the agreement
more than others."

 "We will have to study more its real intention, but it may
reflect the candid mind (of North Koreans) that they have a lot
of things to benefit from the six-way talks. We need to pay
attention to this," Ban said.

 Ban reiterated Seoul's earlier position that it has no clear
evidence backing media reports that Pyongyang is preparing to
conduct an underground nuclear test.

 "(South Korea) is keeping a close eye on the possibility. But
there is no concrete indication at this moment," Ban said.

 "North Korea's nuclear test will not only threaten the security
of the entire Northeast Asian region, but also undermine the
international nonproliferation system."

 Ban admitted that prospects for the six-way talks on the
North's nuclear ambitions remain bleak amid Washington's
intensifying restrictions on Pyongyang's alleged illegal
financial activities. The negotiations have been on hold for
nearly a year due to the North's boycott and despite a hard-won
agreement on Sept. 19 in which the communist nation agreed to
abandon its nuclear program in return for security guarantees
and economic aid.

 Ban also expressed his thoughts on how to normalize Seoul's
strained ties with Tokyo, calling on Japan to change. 

"All the responsibility lies with Japan," Ban said. "Problems
can be resolved either today or tomorrow, depending on Japan's
decision. As Japan causes all the problems, it only needs not to
do so. Japan has the key to resolving them."

 Japan's war-related Yasukuni Shrine, its distortion of history
textbooks and consistent claim to South Korea's Dokdo islets
remain as three key stumbling blocks in the two countries, Ban
said.

 "We can't author Japan's history textbooks. The Yasukuni issue
will be resolved if Japanese leaders do not go there. We can't
control it. The Dokdo problem will be squared away as well if
Japan does not claim its sovereignty," Ban said.

 The South Korean foreign minister also underlined the need for
continued dialogue between the two sides, saying the current
standoff should not be allowed to exist for long.

 "In that sense, we welcome a visit by (Japan's) Vice Foreign
Minister Shotaro Yachi to South Korea, if he wants to do so,"
Ban said.

 Japanese media reported earlier this week that Yachi plans to
make a trip to Seoul for strategic dialogue with his South
Korean counterpart Yu Myung-hwan.

2006.09.02
*****************************************************************
 32 AFP: US envoy to visit China next week over NKorea

 Fri Sep 1, 9:51 AM ET 		 	 

BEIJING (AFP) - US envoy Christopher Hill will visit China next 
week, a US embassy spokeswoman said, amid efforts to revive the 
long stalled six-party talks aimed at ending North Korea" /> 's 
nuclear program. 

 The visit will be the second leg of a three-nation trip to
countries that are key players in the effort to convince
Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear weapons program. 

"He's coming out to meet with senior officials on bilateral,
regional and global issues of mutual interest, and he will also
meet with his six-party talks counterparts in the countries
where he's visitng," said the spokeswoman. 

The US assistant secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific
affairs will arrive in Beijing Tuesday, fly to Chengdu Wednesday
and head to Guangzhou Friday, before heading to Shanghai
Saturday, the spokeswoman said. 

Hill will visit Japan first and head to South Korea" /> after
China. 

He made his last visit to China, North Korea's main aid provider
and ally, in July after Pyongyang drew international
condemnation by test-firing several missiles. 

At the time, China failed to make headway in convincing the
reclusive regime to come back to the negotiating table. 

Hill's latest visit comes amid fears the North may test a
nuclear weapon. 

North Korea said in February 2005 that it had nuclear weapons,
but there have never been reports that it has tested a nuclear
bomb. 

Since the missile tests, the United States has stepped up
pressure on China to take stronger action to urge North Korea to
return to the six-way talks. 

The talks, which involve China, the United States, North Korea,
South Korea, Russia and Japan, have been stalled since November,
with Pyongyang refusing to return unless Washington lifts
financial sanctions against it. 

Copyright � 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The
*****************************************************************
 33 [NYTr] Bush Pushes Nuclear Weapons Development in US
 
Date: Sat, 2 Sep 2006 02:49:42 -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
 
Truthout - Sep 1, 2006
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/090106J.shtml


Bush Pushes Nuclear Weapons Development in US

By Sarah Olson

In the face of increased Congressional opposition to US nuclear
weapons development, the Bush administration appears to be making an end
run around governmental checks and balances. The bizarrely named Divine
Strake project is a 700-ton explosive experiment, first scheduled to
detonate at the Nevada Test Site in June of this year. Thanks to furious
grass-roots opposition to the proposal, Divine Strake has been twice
delayed, and is currently projecting a detonation date of no sooner than
early 2007.

But as the Department of Defense attempts to justify this explosion,
many say the government is simply obfuscating and delaying: the blast,
they say, is a simulated nuclear explosion designed to provide important
test and calibration data for existing and possibly new nuclear weapons.
It will happen at the Nevada Test Site after the elections, and it will
kick up a 10,000-foot mushroom cloud potentially full of Cold War-era
radioactive dust.

Further, as the UN Security Council deadline for Iran to halt its
uranium enrichment program passes, and hostilities throughout the Middle
East increase, many find the possible threat of US nuclear weapons
development to be an unnecessary exacerbation of hostilities. The Bush
administration, they say, is engaging belligerent nuclear swashbuckling,
and as a result, it is putting US citizens in danger.

What Is Divine Strake and Why Should We Care?

Divine Strake is a planned test explosion managed by the Department
of Defense's combat support organization, the Defense Threat Reduction
Agency (DTRA). According to DTRA spokesperson Irene Smith, "Divine
Strake would consist of a surface detonation of 700 tons of ammonium
nitrate-fuel oil, or ANFO, above a tunnel, constructed for multiple
research efforts. The amount of explosive was selected to produce the
energy needed to cause differing levels of ground shock - severe to
light - along the length of the tunnel."

Divine Strake is not a nuclear weapons test; it's also not a
conventional weapons test. It is simply 700 tons of explosives deposited
into the ground and detonated. According to Smith "Divine Strake would
not use a nuclear device or nuclear weapon materials, and would not test
a weapon." Perhaps it is the uncertainty of precisely what Divine Strake
is all about that has local activists so concerned; that, and the threat
of a 700-ton explosive disturbing the Cold War-era radioactive dust.

In addition to postponing the Divine Strake test after activists
protested, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), which
manages the Nevada Test Site, was also forced to withdraw its finding of
no significant impact regarding the environmental impact of the
explosion at the Nevada Test Site. In a May 26th press release, NNSA
announced: "This action is being taken to clarify and provide further
information regarding background levels of radiation from global fallout
in the vicinity of the Divine Strake experiment. Atmospheric testing of
nuclear weapons by several countries in the 1950s and 1960s resulted in
the dispersion of radioactive fallout throughout the northern
hemisphere. The efforts of the Nevada Site Office are focused on
explaining, in a means clearly understandable to all, what background
radiation from this fallout means with respect to the contemplated
Divine Strake experiment."

According to DTRA's Irene Smith, "NNSA and DTRA are developing a
plan that would permit the experiment if it is determined that Divine
Strake can be conducted safely, in compliance with the National
Environmental Policy Act, and there is a favorable court ruling on legal
proceedings regarding the experiment. DTRA is also assessing other
possible sites for the experiment."

Bedford, Indiana was one of those sites until Wednesday when DTRA
confirmed it would not seek to detonate Divine Strake in a limestone
quarry there. John Blair is the director of the Indiana-based
environmental group Valley Watch. "When I learned about Divine Strake
coming to Indiana, I sent out an email and I said something kind of bold
- that this will only happen over my dead body. And I kind of meant it."
With the risk to Indiana averted, Blair says he and other activists will
turn some of their attention to helping west coast activists defeat
Divine Strake.

There are two largely interconnected types of objection to the
Divine Strake explosion. The first is that Divine Strake appears to be a
test to simulate a nuclear weapons explosion, and as such it puts the
United States on a path towards a new generation of nuclear weapons. The
second is that if Divine Strake were to be detonated at the Nevada Test
Site, the blast is likely to unsettle radioactive dust from the Cold
War-era nuclear tests.

"Slippery Slope"

Utah Congressman Jim Matheson wrote DTRA's director that he was
greatly concerned that Divine Strake was an attempt to build low-yield
nuclear devices. The DTRA budget, Matheson writes, "states that the
demonstration 'will develop a planning tool that will improve the
warfighter's confidence in selecting the smallest proper nuclear yield
necessary to destroy underground facilities while minimizing collateral
damage.' That sounds like preparation for a low-yield nuclear weapon to
me."

While DTRA's Irene Smith declined to comment on whether Divine
Strake would provide information for nuclear weapons, she did say that
it "is part of the Hard Target Defeat program that develops and
demonstrates new weapons, delivery concepts and planning capabilities to
defeat hard and deeply buried targets. The improved computer model
planning tools that are expected from the Divine Strake experiment could
eventually help give combatant commanders greater operational
flexibility and confidence in their ability to defeat hardened and
deeply buried targets."

In general, DTRA has been reticent on whether they were testing for
the effects of nuclear weapons, but they officially declined to rule it
out. Hans Kristensen, at the Federation of American Scientists, reported
that on April 3rd, DTRA acknowledged in written correspondence that
Divine Strake was "a low-yield nuclear weapons calibration simulation
against an underground target."

This confirmation alarmed peace and environmental activists. "The
reason you want to see the effect of the impact of a weapon is to see if
the weapon works," says Vanessa Pierce, director of the environmental
advocacy group HEAL Utah.

"This really does represent a slippery slope to creating a new
generation of nuclear weapons," says Pierce. She says the Bush
administration has consistently pushed for a nuclear weapons program,
and Congress has consistently said no.

According to Pierce, Divine Strake represents a thwarting of
Congressional will. Traditionally, funding for nuclear weapons goes
through the Department of Energy. However, Pierce explains, funding for
Divine Strake was obtained through the Department of Defense. By
wrapping Divine Strake funding inside the defense budget and decoupling
it from traditional nuclear funding sources, the Bush administration
succeeded in funding a program that neither Congress nor the public
wants.

And this is done in the face of increased global tension regarding
nuclear weapons development programs. "The hypocrisy is incredible. You
cannot preach temperance from a barstool. And that's precisely what the
Bush administration is doing," says Pierce. "Divine Strake sends a
message to other nations. It escalates the value of nuclear weapons in
the eyes of those who seek to attack this country."

"Children of the Bomb"

J. Truman is the director of Downwinders, an organization advocating
for the rights of those downwind from Cold War-era atomic testing at the
Nevada Test Site. He was born in 1951, the year the atomic testing
started. "It was like a big carnival," Truman says. "We were encouraged
to go watch history being made. The government said there was no
danger."

First the sheep in the area started dying. Then people began to die
too. A 1997 National Cancer Institute Study - the most comprehensive
study of the effects of atomic testing at the Nevada Test Site to date -
estimated fallout from nuclear weapons testing generated anywhere from
10,000 to 75,000 cases of thyroid cancer. Political activism in the
1980s revealed documents admitting the government knew the danger to
downwind populations, even at the time of the tests.

According t0 Truman, this disaster is easily repeatable. "Divine
Strake is just a steady step toward resuming testing. Another round of
nuclear weapons development could make us all downwinders."

A lawsuit filed on behalf of two Western Shoshone tribes and
downwinders from Nevada and Utah is attempting to stop Divine Strake
based on these same health concerns. Attorney Robert Hager accused the
Department of Defense and Bechtel of Nevada of "junk science" and
intentionally failing to conduct proper soil samples.

Toxic exposure expert Richard Miller and Physicians for Social
Responsibility both filed papers in support of the lawsuit. Miller wrote
that "insufficient research [has been done] regarding the health effects
of many of the potential radio isotopes possibly buried in the soil that
may be entrained in the dust cloud as a result of the Divine Strake
event."

Dr. Thomas Fasy is with the executive committee of the New York
chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility. Fasy argues: "to a
reasonable degree of medical and scientific certainty ... the 'Divine
Strake' explosion would disperse large amounts of radioactive particles
into the atmosphere ... millions of citizens living downwind ... are at
risk of inhaling particles." Fasy also believes "it is virtually certain
that this inhalation of radioactive particles would result in an
increased frequency of a variety of cancers in the exposed populations.
Moreover, the increased risk of developing cancers would be borne
disproportionately by the children living downwind."

Opposition to nuclear testing and nuclear weapons development isn't
a radical issue for people in the southwest, according to J. Truman.
Nearly everyone knows someone who has cancer. Nearly everyone in his
generation has been affected by the tests. "Those of us who were
children of the bomb are in charge now. We said, 'You're not going to do
this to our children. To our grandchildren. No more downwinders.
Enough.'"

HEAL Utah's Vanessa Pierce agrees this is an issue shared by many in
the west. "When you lose a part of yourself because the federal
government put you in harm's way, that's not a transgression you can
ever forgive or forget. This goes to the very core of human survival."

"Divine Strake Is an Important Wake-Up Call"

Jacqueline Cabasso is the executive director of the Western States
Legal Foundation. She says it's important to understand that Divine
Strake is not a nuclear weapons test; it's a test to evaluate the effect
of existing nuclear weapons. This distinction should not mollify concern
about nuclear weapons use. To the contrary.

"Operationally, nuclear weapons are more fully integrated into the
US defense plan than ever before," Cabasso says. Strategic Command
(USSTRATCOM) was previously in charge of all US nuclear weapons; its
arsenal has been streamlined to include both nuclear and conventional
weapons under the same roof.

Worse still, she says, the US public doesn't fully understand the
reality of US nuclear position. "There is no public discussion or debate
about US nuclear weapons. Their existence, their purpose, or their
future. Yet they are integrally related to our wars."

"In every aspect, the nuclear weapons program is moving forward.
Billions of dollars have been spent. This Divine Strake test is a tiny
point of this program that has become visible. But there are many
interconnected programs also happening just below the radar of public
scrutiny." For example, on Wednesday, even as we discussed Divine
Strake, the Nevada Test Site was conducting a subcritical nuclear test.

Divine Strake has a certain symbolic importance. The more the US
appears to be considering nuclear weapons use - appears to be moving
forward with nuclear weapons development and testing - the more other
countries will consider themselves in danger. But, Cabasso says, it's
important to consider Divine Strake within the context of the existing
nuclear arsenal and the ongoing conventional weapons testing. "This is
just one of many, many ongoing tests. Divine Strake should be seen as a
wake-up call."
       
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 34 [southnews] US carries out sub-critical nuclear test
 
Date: Fri, 1 Sep 2006 11:42:39 -0500 (CDT)

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The United States "successfully" carried out a sub-critical nuclear 
experiment at an underground test site in Nevada, the 23rd such test 
since 1997, the energy department has said.

Yesterday's test came amid intensifying US-led international efforts to 
press North Korea and Iran to abandon their nuclear programmes as well 
as recent media reports that Pyongyang may be preparing to conduct its 
first nuclear experiment.

Many activists and experts argue that the tests undermine the 
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) on nuclear weapons and that the 
Bush administration is carrying them out to boost its efforts to develop 
new nuclear arms.

US carries out subcritical nuclear test

ABC News Online: Thursday, August 31, 2006. 9:27am (AEST)

The United States says it has carried out a subcritical nuclear 
experiment successfully at an underground test site in Nevada - the 23rd 
such test since 1997.

The test came amid intensifying US-led international efforts to press 
North Korea and Iran to abandon their nuclear programs.

It was the 10th test under the administration of President George W 
Bush, despite persistent criticism by anti-nuclear groups.

The previous test was conducted on February 23.

Many activists and experts argue that the tests undermine the 
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty on nuclear weapons and that the Bush 
administration is carrying them out to use them to boost its efforts to 
develop new nuclear arms.

The US Government maintains the subcritical tests do not violate the 
treaty because they do not involve a nuclear chain reaction and are 
necessary to ensure the safety of nuclear stockpiles.

It also insists they are fully consistent with nuclear test moratorium 
it has maintained since 1992.

"The Los Alamos National Laboratory conducted the experiment to gather 
scientific data that provides crucial information to maintain the safety 
and reliability of the nation's nuclear weapons without having to 
conduct underground nuclear tests," the department's National Nuclear 
Security Administration said in a statement.

The administration said the subcritical tests do not involve nuclear 
explosion because they are designed to "examine the behaviour of 
plutonium as it is strongly shocked by forces produced by chemical high 
explosives".

"No critical mass is formed and no self-sustaining nuclear chain 
reaction can occur," it said.

-Kyodo
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200608/s1728616.htm
*****************************************************************
 35 Guardian Unlimited: Analysis: Bush Struggles to Deliver
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Friday September 1, 2006 6:46 PM

AP Photo UTEV117 

By TOM RAUM 

Associated Press Writer 

WASHINGTON (AP) - As the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11
terror attacks nears, President Bush is finding it increasingly
hard to make good on foreign-policy promises or threats. The
biggest source of his frustration is the ``axis of evil'' -
Iran, North Korea and Iraq - that he warned four years ago
imperiled world peace. 

Bush faces a daunting number of simultaneous international
crises as he tries to shore up flagging support at home for the
Iraq war and roll back nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea. 

Sectarian violence remains rampant in Iraq, suicide attacks are
increasing in Afghanistan and a truce in southern Lebanon
between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas is wobbly. Iran and
North Korea ignore his insistence that they must not have
nuclear weapons. Syria turns a deaf ear to U.S. demands that it
stop supporting terrorism. 

A U.N. Security Council deadline came and went on Thursday for
Iran to stop uranium enrichment, yet veto-wielding Russia and
China are resisting Bush's call for stiff sanctions. Likewise,
six-nation talks to restrict North Korea's nuclear program have
been stalled for months. 

Some analysts suggest Bush has overreached, or set the bar
impossibly high, laying out goals he cannot achieve - while not
acknowledging blunders. 

``Spreading democracy, eradicating terrorism, ending Iran's
nuclear potential. Those are huge goals. When one makes an
assessment and sees that none of these is closer to being
achieved, it becomes a real problem for America's credibility,''
said Shibley Telhami, a Mideast scholar at the University of
Maryland. 

Bush asserted earlier this summer, ``You know, the problem with
diplomacy: It takes a while to get something done. If you're
acting alone, you can move quickly.'' Ever since, diplomacy has
only gotten harder. 

The president has embarked on a series of speeches bracketing
Sept. 11 and leading up to an address to the U.N. General
Assembly later this month. 

Likening the war against terrorism to struggles against World
War II and Cold War foes, Bush told an American Legion
convention on Thursday: ``It is the decisive ideological
struggle of the 21st century.'' He makes another speech in the
series on Tuesday in Washington, D.C. 

It's the administration's third public relations offensive in
less than a year to try to rally support for the war. 

Violence persists in Iraq as U.S. public opinion turns
increasingly against the war, a big liability for Republicans on
the ballot in November. More than 2,600 members of the U.S.
military have died since the war began in March 2003. 

Fully one-third of Americans think the terrorists may be winning
the war, an AP-Ipsos poll suggested this week. It showed that
Iraq worries have spilled over into the broader campaign against
terrorists who directly target the United States. Half in the
poll questioned whether the costs of the anti-terror campaign
are too great, and even more admit that thought has crossed
their mind. 

While Bush has declared a nuclear Iran ``unacceptable'' and has
threatened sanctions, administration officials are already
talking about a potential backup plan if the Security Council
doesn't go along: assembling a separate coalition of countries
willing to slap economic sanctions on Iran. 

``There are just contradictions between goals and objectives and
the reality of contemporary politics,'' said Stephen Wayne, a
Georgetown University political scientist. ``The fact of the
matter is that Iran and North Korea having nuclear weapons is
unacceptable. But that doesn't mean we're going to be able to do
anything about it.'' 

Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, the Taliban have increased suicide
attacks, borrowing tactics from militants in Iraq. The
escalation in the Taliban insurgency has stoked bitter fighting.
More than 1,600 people, mostly militants, have died across
Afghanistan in the past four months. 

Bush jettisoned the go-it-alone bravado of his first term. But
he is finding that working more cooperatively with European and
other allies has not been particularly rewarding. And it's
angered some hardline conservatives in his own party. 

``The State Department has succeeded in the past year in making
the Bush administration more Euro-friendly and U.N.-attentive
than ever,'' wrote Bill Kristol, who worked in the first Bush
White House and is now editor of the conservative Weekly
Standard. ``For this, the president has reaped no political
benefit at home - and the dangers continue to mount abroad.'' 

Nearly all two-term presidents have trouble advancing their
agendas in their second terms. Bush also has failed to get key
domestic initiatives through the GOP-led Congress, including
Social Security overhaul and revamping immigration laws. 

``What I see is a problem many administrations have, which is an
unwillingness to acknowledge mistakes for fear that your
political rivals will seize on them,'' said Jon Alterman, an
analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. 

``The problem is, you find yourself backed into a corner
supporting strategies that don't work,'' Alterman said. 

--- 

Tom Raum has covered Washington for The Associated Press since
1973, including five presidencies. 
		 	 	   
Guardian Unlimited � Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
 36 [NYTr] People's History: 25th Anniv of Greenham Common 
 
Date: Fri, 1 Sep 2006 13:59:26 -0500 (CDT)

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Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit
 
The Irish Times - Aug 31, 2006
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/opinion/2006/0831/1156791288656.html

An Irishwoman's Diary 

Looking back, it seemed the most cumbersome way of doing things

by Mary Russell.

First they got the missile into the launcher which then had to be taken
out of its silo, driven to the perimeter of Greenham Common US Airbase
in Berkshire where the gate would slowly open and the whole cavalcade -
mobile launcher with its Cruise missile on board accompanied by an
assortment of armoured personnel carriers including Hum Vees - would set
out to make its slow way through the English countryside, in the dark,
to destinations unknown so that the US crew could practise what to do if
they ever had to launch their nuclear missile.

This they did about once a month, their "secret" activities monitored by
that group of people now known as the Greenham Common women.

Nuala Young, an Oxford city councillor who also works as a tour guide,
was a regular visitor to Greenham.

"We had a great network going. One woman knew another woman who lived
near the house of a US military driver and whenever this man's wife
washed his uniform and hung it out on the line to dry, word got around
that Cruise was due for an outing."

This was the signal for Cruise-Watch to swing into action. Cars would be
waiting at roundabouts to see which way the huge procession was going
and a message would be sent on ahead so that as the launcher arrived on
Salisbury Plain, a favoured "secret" training ground, women would pop up
from behind strategic bushes holding up their welcome banners.

"Of course," Young says, "these were Americans unfamiliar with the
highways of rural Oxfordshire and Berkshire and they often took a wrong
turning. Sometimes, they even went round the roundabout the wrong way."

The Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp began 25 years ago when a group
of women - and four men - set off from Cardiff on a peace protest to
walk 120 miles to Greenham Common, at that time given over to the US
Airforce.

Helen John was one of the women and when they reached their destination,
she and a few others chained themselves to the railings. The military
told them to move on, explaining that it was hospitality night at the
base when the men would get drunk and possibly rape the women.

"They got annoyed when we laughed," said John. "They didn't realise we
weren't that easily put off." Next, the camp commander was brought out
to talk to the women and made the mistake of telling them angrily that
as far as he was concerned, they could stay there as long as they liked.
Which they did, setting up camps at all the gates and remaining for 20
years. "We stay," explained John, "until the job is done."

On Saturday, women and men from all over Britain and abroad will mark
the 25 years of the women's peace camp by opening a peace garden at
Greenham Common. For the Common has been returned to the people (bought
by a trust for #7 million would be a more appropriate word) and is now a
place where wild Dartmoor ponies roam free and people walk their dogs
without fear of being arrested.

There is even a seat, carved out of a tree trunk, where you can sit and
gaze at the six huge silos, now empty but which in their day housed up
to 96 nuclear warheads.

The women were spat on, ridiculed, had urine sprayed on them from
squeezy bottles, were constantly being arrested and rearrested -
anything up to 20 times was not unusual - and frequently had all their
belongings taken by the bailiffs.

Sarah Hipperson, another regular, now 75, recounts how she slept outside
with only a bin liner for cover for two whole months. They were a mixed
bunch: schoolgirls taking their O-levels, magistrates, Quaker prison
visitors, countless people on the dole, teachers, retired doctors,
nurses, plain old peaceniks, young women who needed to get away from
home, feminists who wanted the work of housewives to be put on the same
economic footing as that done by soldiers.

People gravitated towards different gates, according to their political
beliefs - Yellow Gate was the only one to exclude men totally, while the
other gates welcomed them during the day only.

And all the time the work went on. Women, self-educated about legal
matters, put on party policemen's hats at demonstrations and made sure
any woman arrested knew her rights and that someone was there to meet
her when she was released from custody. Rotas were organised so that
some women stayed awake at night guarding tents and benders while others
slept. And there was always humour: one woman regularly brought her
knitting into court with her and when called up by the clerk would ask:
"Do you mind hanging on till I get to the end of this row?"

Disguise was useful when trespassing, so some women dressed up as furry
animals to invade the base or as teddy bears to have a picnic within the
razor wire.

On one occasion some 50,000 women converged on Greenham to embrace the
base. The sale of wire cutters soared.

Eventually, the Cold War thawed. Gorbachev came on the scene and talks
opened up.

In 1987, the Intermediate Nuclear Force Treaty was signed by the US and
the USSR under which both undertook to reduce their nuclear weaponry,
paving the way for the last Cruise missile to be taken out of commission
in 1991.

But neither nuclear weapons nor the Greenham women have gone away.

Last month, Angie Zelter, a full-time environmental campaigner, boarded
a US plane suspected of transporting military personnel via the civilian
airport at Prestwick and is now waiting to see if she is going to be
prosecuted.

Meanwhile, she has set up a project - www.faslane365.org/intro.php -
which will enable groups of people to show their concern at the
continuing manufacture of nuclear weapons by blockading Faslane, in
Scotland, where the Trident nuclear warhead is brought from Aldermaston
to be loaded on to submarines at nearby Coulthorpe, there to await the
push of the red button by the US military.

The first group to mount the blockade at the end of October will be
Greenham women. War is an on-going story.

) The Irish Times 
       
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 37 Guardian Unlimited: Defiance, divisions and dilemmas

Saturday September 2, 2006

No one was surprised this week when Iran failed to meet the UN's
deadline to halt uranium enrichment. From President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad downwards, Iranian officials had made it defiantly
clear long in advance that there would be no backing down on
this key demand. But the predictability of the event does not
mean it does not matter. By ignoring the UN security council and
its nuclear agency, the IAEA, Iran is cocking a snook at the
rest of the world over an issue of profound importance: the
danger that nuclear weapons will spread in the already volatile
Middle East and encourage others elsewhere to follow suit.

Tehran insists it wishes only to use nuclear power to generate
electricity as it is entitled to do under the nuclear
non-proliferation treaty. The problem is that few believe that
because of its long record of evasion and concealment, and
evidence that what it is doing only makes sense if its true
goals are military. Still, a US senate committee pointed
recently to gaps in the intelligence picture of Iran as big as
those which were uncovered after the war in Iraq.

Iran may be short on trust, but otherwise it is in an enviable
position. The Islamic Republic emerged the clear winner from the
US invasion of Afghanistan and the overthrow of the Taliban. In
Iraq the demise of Iran's hated Ba'athist enemy has brought the
country's Shia Muslim majority to power in Baghdad. Now the war
in Lebanon between (nuclear-armed) Israel and Iran's protege
Hizbullah has exposed the limits of conventional power in
defeating well-equipped Shia fighters who are riding a wave of
hostility to Israel and the US. For some, the whole dismal
episode was an ominous dress-rehearsal for what might happen if
Iran itself ever came under attack. And Iran knows too that
cutting its oil exports could trigger another 1970s-style shock
that would be devastating to the world economy.

Mr Ahmadinejad and colleagues can also see that with Iraq
bleeding, none in the US except the most diehard neocons have
any appetite for regime change in Tehran, though some in
Washington think there is a military option. Israel, its
suspicions of Iran sharpened in Lebanon, has signalled it might
try a rerun of the bombing of Iraq's nuclear reactor in 1981.
International law, military effectiveness and political sense
should all rule that out.

Iran's intransigence means that sanctions will now be considered
by the security council but will be very hard to agree. The
fragile unity that produced a UN-endorsed package of economic
and technological incentives for Iran is unlikely to survive for
long. Russia and China have made clear their opposition to
punitive measures. Britain and France, backed by the EU, both
said yesterday that they saw the need for more diplomacy. In a
situation where there are so few good options, simply playing
for time isn't a bad choice.

Sanctions would in any case almost certainly be
counter-productive and useless if not multilateral. (Bilateral
US sanctions, it is worth recalling, have been in force since
after the revolution in 1979). The smarter choice would be to
take up Iran's offer of "serious negotiations" to test whether
it might halt enrichment by some other route - though that would
have to include a tight UN inspections regime to allay
suspicions. Any such effort should be accompanied by intensified
contacts with Tehran. The current visit to the US of the former
Iranian president. Mohammed Khatami. is a timely reminder of his
call for a "dialogue of civilisations" in 1998. But he may not
even meet Jimmy Carter, let alone George Bush.

Iranian confidence, international divisions and the sheer
importance of what is at stake here make this a fiendishly
difficult tangle. That must be a spur to creativity, not a
counsel of despair. Like it or not, Iran's nuclear defiance
poses a huge challenge to the battered credibility of the UN. It
cannot just be ignored. 

Guardian Unlimited � Guardian
Newspapers Limited 2006. 
Registered in England and Wales. No. 908396
 Registered office: 164 Deansgate, Manchester M60 2RR
*****************************************************************
 38 [NukeNet] Nuclear's future heads to governor - Blakeslee bill
 
Date: Fri, 01 Sep 2006 15:36:35 -0700

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<x-flowed>
NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net)

http://www.sanluisobispo.com/mld/sanluisobispotribune/15414508.htm
To read a copy of the bill:
http://www.sanluisobispo.com/mld/sanluisobispo/news/special_packages/extras/15408807.htm
Nuclear's future heads to governor
Blakeslee bill would require California to evaluate the costs of continued
storage of highly radioactive waste
By David Sneed
dsneed@thetribunenews.com

State energy officials would evaluate the future of nuclear power in
California under a bill sent Thursday to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The bill --introduced by Assemblyman Sam Blakeslee, R-San Luis Obispo
--requires that the state Energy Commission examine the costs incurred by
state and local governments for the continued storage of highly
radioactive waste at California' two nuclear power plants.

It also requires contingency planning for the loss of a large power plant
--such as Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant --as a result of an
earthquake.

The bill was one of a package of three energy bills authored by Blakeslee
that await action by the governor. He has until Sept. 29 to enact or veto
them.

Blakeslee said in a Thursday announcement that the new law would "ensure
that communities like San Luis Obispo --which are most likely to be
affected by seismic risk, nuclear waste and nuclear relicensing decisions
--can be assured that the state has a plan to address these critical
issues."

Numerous local governments and advocacy groups as well as Pacific Gas and
Electric Co. supported the bill.

The state has not enacted legislation concerning nuclear power since its
nuclear plants were constructed in the 1980s.

"This is a huge step to have the state acting on nuclear issues after a
20-year hiatus," said Rochelle Becker of the San Luis Obispo-based
Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility.

The intent of the bill is to make sure the state has adequately planned in
case an earthquake brings down a power plant that provides significant and
continuous electrical power to California.

Earthquakes are a perennial concern at Diablo Canyon --which is near
several faults --including one just offshore.

It also addresses the local costs of the federal government' continued
delays in opening a national nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in
the Nevada desert.

Both Diablo Canyon and the San Onofre nuclear generating station in
Southern California --the state' other nuclear power plant --are
constructing above-ground storage facilities to take the overflow from
their used fuel storage pools, which are nearing capacity.

Two other energy-related bills by Blakeslee were approved Thursday by the
Legislature.

One bill allows utilities to apply increased output of small hydroelectric
power plants toward state requirements that power companies increase their
renewable energy portfolios by 1 percent annually. Utilities estimate that
the bill will increase electrical outputs by 5 to 10 percent per plant.

The other requires that state conservation agencies develop
recommendations for speeding the reduction of greenhouse-gas emissions by
storing more of them underground --a process called carbon sequestration.

Reach David Sneed at 781-7930.



- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"I came to America because of the great, great freedom which I heard
existed in this country. I made a mistake in selecting America as a land of 
freedom, a mistake I cannot repair in the balance of my lifetime." - Albert 
Einstein, who would accumulate nearly 100,000 pages of FBI files before he 
died.

"Liberty and democracy become unholy when their hands are dyed red with
innocent blood": Gandhi, Non-violence in Peace and War, 1948

Molly Johnson
6290 Hawk Ridge Place
San Miguel, CA  93451
Cell: 805 296-0524

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 39 [NukeNet] Diablo Canyon NPP shut down because of water leak
 
Date: Fri, 01 Sep 2006 17:41:13 -0700

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Water leak shuts down Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant

http://www.kesq.com/Global/story.asp?S=5355154&nav=9qrx
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. A reactor at the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant
has been shut down because of a water leak.

Officials say no radioactive material is expected to escape.

Operators of the Pacific Gas and Electric Company nuclear power plant are
working to locate the source of the leak. It was discovered just after 2
p-m yesterday.

The reactor was shut down so repairs could be made.

A spokesman for the plant says that the leak is inside a large concrete
containment dome that prevents any radioactivity from escaping to the 
environment.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"I came to America because of the great, great freedom which I heard
existed in this country. I made a mistake in selecting America as a land of 
freedom, a mistake I cannot repair in the balance of my lifetime." - Albert 
Einstein, who would accumulate nearly 100,000 pages of FBI files before he 
died.

"Liberty and democracy become unholy when their hands are dyed red with
innocent blood": Gandhi, Non-violence in Peace and War, 1948

Molly Johnson
6290 Hawk Ridge Place
San Miguel, CA  93451
Cell: 805 296-0524

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*****************************************************************
 40 The Hindu: China may build six nuclear plants for Pakistan

 report 

Saturday, September 2, 2006 : 0300 Hrs

Beijing, Sept 2. (AP): China hopes to sign a deal in November to
supply reactors to Pakistan for six new nuclear power plants, a
Government news agency said on Friday. 

The plants would be built within 10 years, the Xinhua News
Agency said, citing an unidentified Pakistani official. It
didn't give a price for the deal. 

China and Pakistan are close allies. 

The planned power plants each would have a capacity of 300
megawatts, according to Xinhua. 

China helped Pakistan construct a 300-megawatt nuclear power
station at Chashma in Punjab province in 1999. A second facility
is under construction at the same site.

Copyright � 2006, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of


*****************************************************************
 41 Philadelphia Inquirer: A nuclear answer for energy Worldwide, two billion people lack 
electricity. A new technology could get them plugged in.

| 09/01/2006 | 

Paul Driessen is senior policy adviser for the Congress of Racial 
Equality () and the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow () 

'The only good thing about the good old days is that they're 
gone." 

My grandmother's wisdom came from experience. As a teenager in 
late 19th-century Wisconsin, she had cleared tons of rocks from 
fields and hauled countless buckets of water on the family farm. 
If she had to select just one modern technology, she said, she 
would choose running water. But electricity was a close second. 

No wonder. Without electricity, modern life reverts to her 
childhood: no lights, refrigeration, heating, air-conditioning, 
radio, television, computers, safe running water, or mechanized 
equipment for homes, schools, shops, hospitals, offices and 
factories. 

Incredibly, this is what life is still like every day for two 
billion people in developing countries. Viewed at night from 
outer space, Africa really is the Dark Continent: Only 10 percent 
of its 700 million people regularly have electricity. Much of 
poor and rural Asia and Latin America faces a similar 
predicament. 

Instead of turning on a light or stove, millions of women and 
children spend their days gathering wood, grass and dung, to burn 
in primitive hearths for cooking and heating. Instead of turning 
a faucet, they spend hours carrying water from distant lakes and 
rivers that are often contaminated with bacteria. The dearth of 
electricity also means minimal medical facilities, manufacturing 
and commerce - and impoverished countries forever dependent on 
foreign aid. 

Abundant, reliable, affordable electricity is thus a critical
priority for developing nations. Hydroelectric projects offer
one solution, coal-fired power plants another. They aren't
perfect ecologically, but neither are wind turbines, which
require extensive acreage, kill birds, and provide inadequate
amounts of intermittent, expensive electricity that cannot
possibly sustain modern societies. 

Now a revolutionary nuclear-energy technology is being designed
and built in South Africa, with suppliers and partners in many
nations, including the United States. 

The 165-megawatt Pebble Bed Modular Reactors (PBMR) are small
and inexpensive enough to provide electrical power for emerging
economies, individual cities or large industrial complexes.
Multiple units can be connected and operated from one control
room, to meet the needs of large or growing communities. 

Process heat from PBMR reactors can also be used directly to
desalinate seawater, produce hydrogen from water, turn coal, oil
shale and tar sands into liquid petroleum, and power refineries,
chemical plants and tertiary recovery operations at mature oil
fields. 

The fuel comes in the form of baseball-size graphite 

balls, each containing sugar-grain-size particles of uranium
encapsulated in high-temperature graphite and ceramic. This
makes them easier and safer to handle than conventional fuel
rods, says Pretoria-based nuclear physicist Kelvin Kemm. 

It also reduces waste-disposal problems and the danger of
nuclear-weapons proliferation. Conventional fuel rod assemblies
are removed long before complete burn-up, to avoid damage to
their housings, but PBMR fuel balls are burned to depletion. 

Because they are cooled by helium, the modules can be sited
anywhere, not just near bodies of water, and reactors cannot
suffer meltdowns. If the chain reaction must be shut down in an
emergency, the fuel's residual decay heat dissipates slowly and
naturally. 

Since PBMRs can be built where needed, long, expensive power
lines are unnecessary. Moreover, the simple design permits rapid
construction (in about 24 months), and the plants don't emit
carbon dioxide. 

PBMR technology could soon generate millions of jobs in
research, design and construction industries - and millions in
industries that would prosper from having plentiful low-cost
heat and electricity. It would help save habitats that are now
being chopped into firewood - and improve health and living
standards for countless families. 

Not surprisingly, dozens of companies and countries are
interested in PBMR technology, and the first pilot plant will go
online in 2011. But assorted special-interest groups have lined
up against it. 

George Soros' Open Society Foundation supports antinuclear
organizations that oppose PBMR. Danish interests see it as
undesirable competition for their wind-turbine businesses.
Others assert that electricity "destroys" traditional cultures. 

Poor people everywhere hope these patronizing attitudes will
soon be replaced by a recognition that they have an inalienable
right to take their place among Earth's healthy and prosperous
people. 

*****************************************************************
 42 San Luis Obispo Tribune: Nuclear's future heads to governor

09/01/2006 | 

Posted on Fri, Sep. 01, 2006 email this print this 
Nuclear's future heads to governor
 
Blakeslee bill would require California to evaluate the costs of
continued storage of highly radioactive waste

 By David Sneed 
  + 

State energy officials would evaluate the future of nuclear
power in California under a bill sent Thursday to Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger. 

The bill --introduced by Assemblyman Sam Blakeslee, R-San Luis
Obispo --requires that the state Energy Commission examine the
costs incurred by state and local governments for the continued
storage of highly radioactive waste at California' two nuclear
power plants. 

It also requires contingency planning for the loss of a large
power plant --such as Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant --as a
result of an earthquake. 

The bill was one of a package of three energy bills authored by
Blakeslee that await action by the governor. He has until Sept.
29 to enact or veto them. 

Blakeslee said in a Thursday announcement that the new law would
"ensure that communities like San Luis Obispo --which are most
likely to be affected by seismic risk, nuclear waste and nuclear
relicensing decisions --can be assured that the state has a plan
to address these critical issues." 

Numerous local governments and advocacy groups as well as
Pacific Gas and Electric Co. supported the bill. 

The state has not enacted legislation concerning nuclear power
since its nuclear plants were constructed in the 1980s. 

"This is a huge step to have the state acting on nuclear issues
after a 20-year hiatus," said Rochelle Becker of the San Luis
Obispo-based Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility. 

The intent of the bill is to make sure the state has adequately
planned in case an earthquake brings down a power plant that
provides significant and continuous electrical power to
California. 

Earthquakes are a perennial concern at Diablo Canyon --which is
near several faults --including one just offshore. 

It also addresses the local costs of the federal government'
continued delays in opening a national nuclear waste repository
at Yucca Mountain in the Nevada desert. 

Both Diablo Canyon and the San Onofre nuclear generating station
in Southern California --the state' other nuclear power plant
--are constructing above-ground storage facilities to take the
overflow from their used fuel storage pools, which are nearing
capacity. 

Two other energy-related bills by Blakeslee were approved
Thursday by the Legislature. 

One bill allows utilities to apply increased output of small
hydroelectric power plants toward state requirements that power
companies increase their renewable energy portfolios by 1
percent annually. Utilities estimate that the bill will increase
electrical outputs by 5 to 10 percent per plant. 

The other requires that state conservation agencies develop
recommendations for speeding the reduction of greenhouse-gas
emissions by storing more of them underground --a process called
carbon sequestration. 

Reach David Sneed at 781-7930. 

*****************************************************************
 43 NRC: NRC Issues Mid-Cycle Assessments for All U.S. Nuclear Plants
 
News Release - 2006-10 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office 
of Public Affairs     Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 
20555-0001     E-mail: opa@nrc.gov No. 06-105     September 1, 
2006   

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued mid-cycle
assessment letters for 103 operating nuclear power plants and
posted them to its Web site. 

The letters show that U.S. commercial nuclear power plants
continue to operate safely. Every six months each plant receives
either a mid-cycle review letter or an annual assessment letter
along with an NRC inspection plan. Updated information on plant
performance is posted to the NRC Web site every quarter. The
next annual assessment letters will be issued in March 2007. 

The assessment letters for each plant will be available on the
NRC Web site at:
http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/listofasmrpt.html and
through ADAMS, the Agencywide Documents Access and Management
System. Help in using ADAMS is available from the NRC Public
Document Room by calling (301) 415-4737 or (800) 397-4209.   



  


 	Last revised Friday, September 01, 2006 	   
*****************************************************************
 44 San Luis Obispo Tribune: Diablo operators search for leak source

| 09/01/2006 | 

Thursday's discovery prompted officials to shut down a reactor;
no radioactivity is expected to escape to the outside

 By David Sneed 

Operators at Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant were working
Thursday night to locate the source of a water leak that caused
them to begin shutting down one of the facility's two reactors. 

The leak was discovered Thursday at 10:15 a.m. The reactor was
losing a gallon or two of water a minute that could contain
radioactive material, said plant spokesman Jeff Lewis. 

However, the leak is inside the unit's large concrete
containment dome, which prevents any radioactivity from escaping
to the environment. 

"You have small bits of radioactive material that can come out
in a leak, but it's a very small leak, and it's inside
containment," he said. 

This is the first time in several years that operators at Diablo
Canyon have had to shut down a reactor to make repairs. Lewis
said he is not aware of a previous unexpected shutdown because
of a leak in the part of the reactor that contains radioactive
water. 

Operators hope to have the leak found and fixed by today, after
which they can begin ramping the reactor back up to full power,
Lewis said. Operators suspect the leak is in a seal where a
monitor goes into the reactor. 

Workers within the containment area wear dosimeters that track
the amount of radiation each receives. These devices would alert
any worker who is in danger of receiving an unhealthy dose in
the process of repairing the leak. Workers can also put up
shielding to block radiation if needed, Lewis said. 

Although the reactor was shut down unexpectedly, the problem is
not serious enough to require that the plant declare an unusual
event. An unusual event is the federal government's lowest
notification requirement for problems at nuclear plants. 

Plant operators have notified state energy regulators so that
they can begin bringing additional electricity sources onto the
state power grid to make up for the loss of the reactor, if
needed. When the plant is at full power, it provides about 10
percent of the state's electrical needs. 

Jane Swanson, spokeswoman for the nuclear watchdog group San
Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace, said a leak in the aging nuclear
plant is not surprising. 

"The plant has been operating for over 20 years, and over the
decades it is inevitable that materials will age and fail," she
said. 

David Sneed can be reached at 781-7930.
*****************************************************************
 45 Star-Telegram: TXU plans up to 6 nuclear plants

09/01/2006 | 

 By BOB COX STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER [MAP: NUCLEAR PLANT]

STAR-TELEGRAM MAP: NUCLEAR PLANT 

Spurred by rising demand for electrical power and the lure of
federal financial incentives, TXU Corp. on Thursday became the
latest company to announce plans to build nuclear
power-generating plants. 

TXU officials said they plan to file applications by 2008 with
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for approval to locate and
build as many as six nuclear power plants, with hopes of having
the first producing power by 2015. 

TXU's existing Comanche Peak power plant at Glen Rose, southwest
of Fort Worth, would likely be the site of one or more of the
reactors. 

The nuclear plants, capable of producing up to 6,000 megawatts a
day, would be in addition to TXU's previously announced plans to
build 11 new coal-fired generating plants that would produce
about 9,000 megawatts. If all the proposed plants are built,
TXU's generating capacity would nearly double. 

"The coal plants are a short-term solution" to meet growing
electricity demand and would be in operation by 2010, said TXU
spokesman Chris Schein. "Nuclear is the long-term solution." 

Adding both coal and nuclear plants, Schein said, would enable
to TXU to produce more power with less pollution at lower costs.
Each 1,000-megawatt power plant would cost at least $1 billion. 

TXU is the latest in a string of U.S. power-generating companies
that have recently warmed to the idea of building nuclear power
plants. After nearly 30 years without a new nuclear plant, at
least 16 companies have expressed interest in building up to 25
reactors across the U.S., according to published reports. 

The Energy Department recently announced rules that allow the
federal government to provide $2 billion worth of guarantees to
the first six nuclear plants to be built. Experts say the
regulators will look closely at the applications and, because of
the risk of huge construction-cost overruns, will likely select
companies with sound financial backing. 

TXU earned $1.7 billion in profit for 2005. TXU shares (ticker:
TXU) gained $1.21 Thursday on word of the nuclear plants, to
close at $66.21. 

NRG Energy Inc., a New Jersey company, announced plans in June
to invest $5.2 billion to add two reactors to a power plant
complex in Houston. Amarillo Power has expressed interest in
building a nuclear plant near Amarillo. 

The last nuclear plant license was issued by the NRC in 1973.
Comanche Peak, which like many other plants was delayed for
years by political and legal challenges and construction delays,
was the last nuclear plant completed and began operating in
1992. 

Two Glen Rose residents said they would welcome an expansion of
the plant. 

"I think it's great," said Pat Simmons, who worked at the plant
for 15 years. "I've lived here all of my life, and Glen Rose
doesn't have a lot of jobs. And unless you work at the power
plant, there isn't much else to do." 

Expansion "will probably be a good thing because it will mean
more people and more jobs," said Linda Hammond, owner of Loco
Coyote Grill. "I don't worry about added pollution or waste
because [TXU has been] pretty good over the years." 

Spokesmen for consumer- and environmental-advocacy groups were
cautious in their assessment of TXU's plans but didn't express
opposition. 

"There are issues with safety and [nuclear] waste that haven't
been adequately addressed" by the federal government, said Colin
Rowan, of Environmental Defense in Austin. "We would like to see
those issues addressed." 

A more immediate concern, Rowan said, is that the planned
nuclear plant expansion will divert public and government
attention from TXU's plans "to build 11 dirty coal plants now." 

Public Citizen spokesman Tom Smith questioned TXU's ability to
manage construction of a nuclear plant in light of the company's
record in building Comanche Peak. 

It was originally budgeted at $800 million and ended up costing
$11 billion. 

"Why should we trust TXU to do a better job this time?" Smith
said. 

TXU's Schein said the difference now is that with electric
deregulation, power-generating companies can't pass power-plant
construction costs directly to consumers through increased
rates. Investors who buy TXU stock or bonds, or invest with the
company in new plants, Schein said, would bear the risk of cost
increases. 

TXU said it has had a preliminary discussion with other utility
companies about investing in the planned nuclear plants. 

After being heavily promoted by government and industry,
nuclear-power development in the U.S. ground to a halt by the
mid-1970s. After accidents at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania
and later at Chernobyl in the former Soviet Union, companies
struggled to complete projects and implement more stringent
safety requirements while dealing with huge cost increases. 

Staff writer John Gutierrez-Mier contributed to this report 

COMANCHE PEAK 

TXU opened the Comanche Peak power plant in 1992. 

Fuel: Uranium dioxide 

Output: 2,300 megawatts (of TXU's 18,300 daily total) 

Employs: 1,300 workers 

TXU expects to add 9,000 megawatts to its capacity with 11 new
coal-fired generating plants planned for the next five to seven
years. 

Bob Cox, 817-390-7723 rcox@star-telegram.com
*****************************************************************
 46 San Luis Obispo Tribune: UPDATE: Diablo back to full power

| 09/01/2006 | 

Leak contained, officials say

 Mariecar Mendoza mmendoza@thetribunenews.com

A water leak at Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant is now
contained, allowing operators to bring the facility�s reactor
back to full power Friday. 

Operators worked all night Thursday after the leak was
discovered at about 10:15 a.m. in one of two reactors at the
plant. A monitoring system within the reactor�s containment dome
notified operators liquid was being lost from the unit, plant
spokesman Jeff Lewis said, and they began to power down the unit
at 2:10 p.m. 

The plant returned to full power at about 5:30 a.m. Friday. The
power plant provides about 10 percent of the state�s electrical
needs. 

"We ran the unit down to 73 percent power overnight to isolate
and find the leak and make repairs to the system," Lewis said.
"Then it was a matter of bringing the unit up to full power." 

Though the total gallon of water lost is uncertain, Lewis said
one to two gallons per minute leaked out over a span of several
hours Thursday. 

The small leak in the reactor flowed into the containment dome
and was contained throughout the day preventing any
radioactivity from escaping to the environment, Lewis said. 

The matter never approached emergency classification, Lewis
said. 

"It was an operational issue ... and we only went down to 300
megawatts," he said. "It wasn�t that dramatic." 

*****************************************************************
 47 BBC: First contracts for nuclear plant
 
Last Updated: Friday, 1 September 2006
 
[The superphenix reactor at Creys Malville]                             

EdF is recruiting allies for an ambitious new nuclear power 
project

French power utility Electricite de France has begun awarding 
contracts for a 3.3bn euro (�2.2bn) nuclear plant. 

Engineering company Alstom will build a steam turbine, the 
largest it has ever constructed, for the Flamanville plant in 
Northern France. 

Alstom's slice of the project is worth 350m euros, while the 300m 
contract to build the plant has gone to Bouygues. 

The winners of the other 150-odd contracts for the project have 
yet to be announced. 

Challenging summer 

Work on the European Pressurised Reactor (EPR), driven by 
so-called "third generation" nuclear technology, is expected to 
start next year. 

Current plans call for the plant to start generating electricity 
in 2012. 

Earlier this year, EdF faced problems in meeting domestic power 
needs. 

Extreme temperatures in July triggered excess electricity demand 
through increased air conditioning usage, prompting EdF to buy 
surplus capacity from other European nations. 

Low water levels had affected power output at its hydro-electric 
stations and hampered the cooling process at some EdF nuclear 
facilities. 

EdF's chairman Pierre Gadonneix warned then that the company 
needed to invest in order to ensure France's energy security. 

EdF relies on 19 nuclear sites to generate 88% of its electricity 
output. 

France embraced nuclear power on a massive scale in the wake of 
the 1973 oil crisis, amid fears of over-reliance on Middle East 
oil sources and a desire for autonomy in energy. 
*****************************************************************
 48 RIA Novosti: Russia may bid for Moroccan nuclear plant contract
 
31/ 08/ 2006

MOSCOW, August 31 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's nuclear power 
equipment and service export monopoly may bid for the contract to 
build Morocco's first nuclear power plant, Atomstroiexport said 
Thursday.

 The company's press service said a delegation from Morocco's 
National Electricity Office met with representatives of Russia's 
Federal Agency for Nuclear Power, the nuclear power generating 
monopoly Rosenergoatom, the nuclear fuel producer and supplier 
TVEL and Atomstroiexport in Moscow August 30.

 The Moroccan delegation was offered a complete overview of 
Russian organizations capable of building modern and safe nuclear 
power plants overseas.

 "We have the necessary means," the source said.

 Construction would be completed in 2016-2017.

 Atomstroiexport is Russia's leading organization implementing 
intergovernmental agreements on the construction of nuclear 
facilities abroad. The company is currently building five power 
plants in China, India and Iran, projects worth $4.5 billion. 

� 2005 RIA Novosti   
*****************************************************************
 49 RIA Novosti: Russia to join international thermonuclear reactor project
 
01/ 09/ 2006                                  

MOSCOW, September 1 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's government decided
to sign an agreement to join a multi-billion-euro international
nuclear fusion reactor project, the cabinet press service said
Friday. 

The project to build an experimental fusion reactor - expected
to produce clean and safe energy by 2016 for 20 years - in
Caradache in southern France is worth at least $12 billion. 

The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER)
project already involves the European Union, China, India, South
Korea, the United States and Japan. 

In a news release, the government's press service said that the
project would be valuable experience for Russia. 

"Russia's participation in the construction of the ITER reactor
and then research will allow the country to obtain industrial
technologies of generating thermonuclear fusion energy, gain
unique experience in building and employing thermonuclear
reactors, and train researchers and engineers for future
thermonuclear plants," the news release said. 

Russia will contribute to the project by producing and supplying
technological equipment and investing about 10% of the reactor's
cost, like all the other project participants. 

The project is widely seen as both environmentally friendly and
capable of producing unlimited amounts of electricity, which
makes it highly significant in the conditions of growing energy
consumption. 

The idea of ITER began when the Soviet Union suggested that the
four most advanced nuclear nations - the U.S.S.R., the U.S.,
Europe and Japan - create a "tokamak" reactor, a doughnut-shaped
chamber to confine in a magnetic field incandescent plasma that
no material can withstand. Thermonuclear fusion of hydrogen
isotopes deuterium and tritium then proceeds in the plasma. 

� 2005 RIA Novosti   
*****************************************************************
 50 RIA Novosti: Decision to build NPP in Belarus to be based on public opinion
 
01/ 09/ 2006

MINSK, September 1 (RIA Novosti) - A decision on whether to
build a nuclear power plant in Belarus will be made with account
for public opinion, the president of the former Soviet republic
said Friday.

 Alexander Lukashenko said the Belarusian economy needed a
nuclear power plant, which would cut the country's dependence on
supplies of energy resources by 24%. He said Belarus was
studying NPP projects proposed by France and Russia.

 "Belarus needs an NPP, but the issue will not be forced in the
country. The decision will be made with due account for public
opinion," said the authoritarian leader. 

Alexander Lukashenko, dubbed Europe's last dictator in the West,
but popular with many in his country for defending national
interests, suggested the nation would support the idea of
building a plant if it were a modern and safe facility.

 "There are several NPPs using outdated technology in
neighboring countries. Belarus is vulnerable in terms of
security, and the Chernobyl accident testifies to that," the
president said.

 The president said the issue was being discussed, but that it
could not be imposed on the people for economic, as well as
psychological reasons.

 Mush of Belarus was badly affected by the world's worst nuclear
accident - the April 1986 explosion in the fourth reactor of the
Chernobyl NPP in Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union. The
radioactive fallout also contaminated large areas in Ukraine,
Russia, northern Europe and other regions further from the
disaster. 

About 135,000 people were evacuated from within an 18-mile zone,
which has left the surrounding area largely deserted to this
day. 

In April, Greenpeace said in a report that up to 600,000 people
may die of cancers developed as a result of Chernobyl radiation
exposure, a huge increase on UN figures, which put the excess
cancer death toll at 9,300.

 In Europe, countries are divided on nuclear power, which could
help the European Union to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and
meet its Kyoto targets, while satisfying growing electricity
demand. 

While also using renewables in electricity generation, some
countries, in particular Finland and France, are building new,
fourth generation, reactors which are considered economically
competitive and safer, to replace old ones.

 However, safety concerns prevail in other countries, including
Germany and Spain, which have moved to phase out nuclear plants.
Britain has yet to choose which way to move forward.

 Russia's president called in June on the nuclear industry to
assume a greater role in meeting the nation's energy needs and
for security to be tightened at nuclear facilities.

 Vladimir Putin tasked the government to bring the share of
nuclear power in overall electricity production from the current
16% up to 25%.

� 2005 RIA Novosti   
*****************************************************************
 51 RIA Novosti: Ukraine stepping up nuclear power sector development - minister
 
01/ 09/ 2006

KIEV, September 1 (RIA Novosti, Anna Vernoslova) - Ukraine is
stepping up its nuclear power program, the country's fuel and
energy minister said Friday.

 "There is no alternative to nuclear power industry
development," Yuriy Boyko said.

 He said the United States and China planned to build 20 nuclear
reactors each in the next few decades, and that they were also
developing fast neutron reactor projects.

 "Our country, which is among the top three nuclear power
producers, and which has huge experience in this sphere,
including experience of tragedy, should be actively integrated
into these projects and take part in all civilian nuclear power
development programs," the minister said.

 Ukraine's four nuclear power plants currently employ a total of
fifteen power units. National energy company Energoatom plans to
build another 10 power units in the country by 2030.

� 2005 RIA Novosti   
*****************************************************************
 52 kgw.com: Court sends Trojan refund issue back to regulators 

News for Oregon and SW Washington | AP Wire

09/01/2006 

By BRAD CAIN  / Associated Press 

Customers of Portland General Electric could be in line for
refunds of as much as $500 million, according to one estimate,
as a result of an Oregon Supreme Court ruling Thursday in a
dispute involving PGE's defunct Trojan power plant. 

In its ruling, the state's highest court rejected PGE's request
that it nullify a lower court ruling aimed at forcing the
Portland utility to make the refunds to customers. 

Instead, the Supreme Court said the dispute should be considered
again by the Oregon Public Utility Commission to determine how
much customers should receive in refunds or rate reductions from
the utility. 

A consumer advocacy group called the ruling a "major victory"
for PGE customers who, its says, have been improperly saddled
with costs associated with the Trojan plant. 

PGE, which has denied that assertion, issued a statement
characterizing Thursday's ruling as a "step forward" in
resolving the decade-long dispute over the defunct nuclear
generating plant. 

PGE closed the Columbia County plant in 1993 after concluding
that the expense of fixing steam generator problems didn't
justify continuing its operation. But the Public Utility
Commission has allowed it to recoup its investment through
electricity rates. 

The Utility Reform Project, a Portland-based ratepayer advocacy
group, mounted a legal challenge because the PUC also permitted
the company to recover from ratepayers  from 1995 to 2000  an
amount representing estimated profits on the plant had it
remained open. 

The state Court of Appeals ruled that utility regulators
couldn't allow PGE to charge ratepayers for a return on
investment in a plant that no longer was operating. 

Marion County Circuit Judge Paul Lipscomb in 2003 ordered the
PUC to find a way to return the improperly collected money to
customers. That has led to legal haggling over whether
regulators can make refunds, so Lipscomb has allowed the Reform
Project to pursue a separate class-action lawsuit in an effort
to get the money returned to PGE customers. 

PGE had asked the state's highest court to step in and nullify
the refund decision and end the class-action case. 

In Thursday's ruling, the Supreme Court refused to do that, and
instead it put the lower court proceeding on hold while the PUC
looks again at the issue. 

"We conclude, in short, that the PUC has primary jurisdiction to
determine what, if any, remedy it can offer to PGE ratepayers,"
the court said in a decision written by Justice Michael
Gillette. 

"If, on the other hand, the PUC determines that it cannot
provide a remedy, and that decision becomes final, then the
court system may have a role to play," Gillette wrote. 

Portland lawyer Dan Meek, a leader of the Reform Project, has
estimated that that roughly 800,000 current and former PGE
customers could be due refunds totaling about $500 million. 

PGE spokesman Steve Corson questioned Meek's dollar estimate. 

"We're not sure specifically where he gets that number," Corson
said. "There are a variety of numbers as to what might be at
play here." 

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copy; 2006, KGW-TV  
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 53 Dallas Business Journal: Group denounces TXU nuclear power plan

Dallas Business Journal - 2:48 PM CDT Thursday
 
A consumer advocacy group has blasted a plan by TXU Corp. to 
build nuclear power generators at one to three sites in Texas. 

Washington, D.C.-based , which has an office in Austin, says the 
plan could add to Texans' out of control electric bills. 

"This is part of TXU's master plan to drive out competition in
the Texas market, which will result in higher bills for all of
its customers," said Tom "Smitty" Smith, director of Public
Citizen's Texas office. 

The group claims that, although TXU (NYSE: TXU) says nuclear
reactors could provide lower-priced sources of power, the
previous nuclear reactor TXU built was more than $11 billion
over budget, resulting in large rate increases for customers. 


� 2006 American City Business Journals, Inc. and its licensors.
All rights reserved. The material on this site may not be
reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used,
except with the prior written permission of bizjournals.   
*****************************************************************
 54 NRC: Wolf Creek Nuclear Operating Corporation; Notice of
 
                        FR Doc E6-14511 
[Federal Register: September 1, 2006 (Volume 71, Number 170)] 
[Notices] [Page 52173-52175] From the Federal Register Online via 
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr01se06-89]                         
 
Consideration of Issuance of Amendment to Facility Operating 
License, Proposed No Significant Hazards Consideration 
Determination, and Opportunity for a Hearing The U.S. Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission (the Commission) is considering issuance of 
an amendment to Facility Operating License No. NPF-42, issued to 
Wolf Creek Nuclear Operating Corporation (the licensee), for 
operation of the Wolf Creek Generating Station, located in Coffey 
County, Kansas.
 
The proposed amendment would revise Technical Specification (TS) 
3.7.2, ``Main Steam Isolation Valves (MSIVs),'' and TS 3.7.3, 
``Main Feedwater Isolation Valves (MFIVs),'' to add the 
associated actuator trains to (1) the limiting condition for 
operation (LCO), (2) the conditions, required actions, and 
completion times for the LCO, and (3) the surveillance 
requirements. Each MSIV and MFIV has
 
[[Page 52174]] two actuator trains. The Table of Contents for the 
TSs would be changed to account for the resulting renumbering of 
TS page numbers.
 
Before issuance of the proposed license amendment, the Commission 
will have made findings required by the Atomic Energy Act of 
1954, as amended (the Act), and the Commission's regulations.
 
The Commission has made a proposed determination that the 
amendment request involves no significant hazards consideration. 
Under the Commission's regulations in Title 10 of the Code of 
Federal Regulations (10 CFR), Section 50.92, this means that 
operation of the facility in accordance with the proposed 
amendment would not (1) involve a significant increase in the 
probability or consequences of an accident previously evaluated; 
or (2) create the possibility of a new or different kind of 
accident from any accident previously evaluated; or (3) involve a 
significant reduction in a margin of safety. As required by 10 
CFR 50.91(a), the licensee has provided its analysis of the issue 
of no significant hazards consideration, which is presented 
below: (1) Does the proposed change involve a significant 
increase in the probability or consequences of an accident 
previously evaluated? Response: No.
 
The proposed changes to incorporate requirements for the MSIV and 
MFIV actuator trains do not involve any design or physical 
changes to the facility, including the MSIVs, MFIVs, and actuator 
trains themselves. The design and functional performance 
requirements, operational characteristics, and reliability of the 
MSIVs, MFIVs, and actuator trains are thus unchanged. There is 
therefore no impact on the design safety function of the MSIVs 
and MFIVs to close (as an accident mitigator), nor is there any 
change with respect to inadvertent closure of an MSIV or MFIV (as 
a potential transient initiator). Since no failure mode or 
initiating condition that could cause an accident (including any 
plant transient) evaluated per the Updated Safety Analysis 
Report- described safety analyses is created or affected, the 
change cannot involve a significant increase in the probability 
of an accident previously evaluated.
 
With regard to the consequences of an accident and the equipment 
required for mitigation of the accident, the proposed changes 
involve no design or physical changes to the MSIVs, MFIVs, or any 
other equipment required for accident mitigation. With respect to 
MSIV and MFIV actuator train Completion Times, the consequences 
of an accident are independent of equipment Completion Times as 
long as adequate equipment availability is maintained. The 
proposed MSIV and MFIV actuator Completion Times take into 
account the redundancy of the actuator trains, only 3 of 4 MSIVs 
and MFIVs are assumed to close in the accident analyses, and are 
limited in extent consistent with other Completion Times 
specified in the Technical Specifications. Adequate equipment 
availability would therefore continue to be required by the 
Technical Specifications. On this basis, the consequences of 
applicable, analyzed accidents (such as a main steam line break) 
are not significantly impacted by the proposed changes.
 
Based on all of the above, the proposed changes do not involve a 
significant increase in the probability or consequences of an 
accident previously analyzed.
 
(2) Does the proposed change create the possibility of a new or 
different kind of accident from any accident previously 
evaluated? Response: No.
 
The proposed changes to incorporate requirements for the MSIV and 
MFIV actuator trains do not involve any design or physical 
changes to the facility, including the MSIVs, MFIVs, and actuator 
trains themselves. No physical alteration of the plant is 
involved, as no new or different type of equipment is to be 
installed. The proposed changes do not alter any assumptions made 
in the safety analyses, nor do they involve any changes to plant 
procedures for ensuring that the plant is operated within 
analyzed limits. As such, no new failure modes or mechanisms that 
could cause a new or different kind of accident from any 
previously evaluated are being introduced.
 
Therefore, the proposed change does not create the possibility of 
a new or different kind of accident from any accident previously 
evaluated.
 
(3) Does the proposed change involve a significant reduction in a 
margin of safety? Response: No.
 
The proposed change to incorporate requirements for the MSIV and 
MFIV actuator trains does not alter the manner in which safety 
limits or limiting safety system settings are determined. No 
changes to instrument/system actuation setpoints are involved. 
The safety analysis acceptance criteria are not impacted by this 
change and the proposed change will not permit plant operation in 
a configuration outside the design basis.
 
Therefore, the proposed change does not involve a significant 
reduction in the margin of safety.
 
The NRC staff has reviewed the licensee's analysis and, based on 
this review, it appears that the three standards of 10 CFR 
50.92(c) are satisfied. Therefore, the NRC staff proposes to 
determine that the amendment request involves no significant 
hazards consideration.
 
The Commission is seeking public comments on this proposed 
determination. Any comments received within 30 days after the 
date of publication of this notice will be considered in making 
any final determination.
 
Normally, the Commission will not issue the amendment until the 
expiration of 60 days after the date of publication of this 
notice. The Commission may issue the license amendment before 
expiration of the 60- day period provided that its final 
determination is that the amendment involves no significant 
hazards consideration. In addition, the Commission may issue the 
amendment prior to the expiration of the 30- day comment period 
should circumstances change during the 30-day comment period such 
that failure to act in a timely way would result, for example, in 
derating or shutdown of the facility. Should the Commission take 
action prior to the expiration of either the comment period or 
the notice period, it will publish in the Federal Register a 
notice of issuance. Should the Commission make a final No 
Significant Hazards Consideration Determination, any hearing will 
take place after issuance. The Commission expects that the need 
to take this action will occur very infrequently.
 
Written comments may be submitted by mail to the Chief, Rules and 
Directives Branch, Division of Administrative Services, Office of 
Administration, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, 
DC 20555-0001, and should cite the publication date and page 
number of this Federal Register notice. Written comments may also 
be delivered to Room 6D59, Two White Flint North, 11545 Rockville 
Pike, Rockville, Maryland, from 7:30 a.m. to 4:15 p.m. Federal 
workdays. Documents may be examined, and/or copied for a fee, at 
the NRC's Public Document Room (PDR), located at One White Flint 
North, Public File Area O1 F21, 11555 Rockville Pike (first 
floor), Rockville, Maryland.
 
The filing of requests for hearing and petitions for leave to 
intervene is discussed below.
 
Within 60 days after the date of publication of this notice, the 
licensee may file a request for a hearing with respect to 
issuance of the amendment to the subject facility operating 
license and any person whose interest may be affected by this 
proceeding and who wishes to participate as a party in the 
proceeding must file a written request for a hearing and a 
petition for leave to intervene. Requests for a hearing and a 
petition for leave to intervene shall be filed in accordance with 
the Commission's ``Rules of Practice for Domestic Licensing 
Proceedings'' in 10 CFR Part 2. Interested persons should consult 
a current copy of 10 CFR 2.309, which is available at the 
Commission's PDR, located at One White Flint North, Public File 
Area O1F21, 11555 Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville,
 
[[Page 52175]] Maryland. Publicly available records will be 
accessible from the Agencywide Documents Access and Management 
System's (ADAMS) Public Electronic Reading Room on the Internet 
at the NRC Web site, .
 
If a request for a hearing or petition for leave to intervene is 
filed by the above date, the Commission or a presiding officer 
designated by the Commission or by the Chief Administrative Judge 
of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel, will rule on the 
request and/or petition; and the Secretary or the Chief 
Administrative Judge of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board 
will issue a notice of a hearing or an appropriate order.
 
As required by 10 CFR 2.309, a petition for leave to intervene 
shall set forth with particularity the interest of the petitioner 
in the proceeding, and how that interest may be affected by the 
results of the proceeding. The petition should specifically 
explain the reasons why intervention should be permitted with 
particular reference to the following general requirements: (1) 
The name, address and telephone number of the requestor or 
petitioner; (2) the nature of the requestor's/petitioner's right 
under the Act to be made a party to the proceeding; (3) the 
nature and extent of the requestor's/petitioner's property, 
financial, or other interest in the proceeding; and (4) the 
possible effect of any decision or order which may be entered in 
the proceeding on the requestors/petitioner's interest. The 
petition must also identify the specific contentions which the 
petitioner/requestor seeks to have litigated at the proceeding.
 
Each contention must consist of a specific statement of the issue 
of law or fact to be raised or controverted. In addition, the 
petitioner/requestor shall provide a brief explanation of the 
bases for the contention and a concise statement of the alleged 
facts or expert opinion which support the contention and on which 
the petitioner intends to rely in proving the contention at the 
hearing. The petitioner/requestor must also provide references to 
those specific sources and documents of which the petitioner is 
aware and on which the petitioner intends to rely to establish 
those facts or expert opinion. The petition must include 
sufficient information to show that a genuine dispute exists with 
the applicant on a material issue of law or fact. Contentions 
shall be limited to matters within the scope of the amendment 
under consideration. The contention must be one which, if proven, 
would entitle the petitioner to relief. A petitioner/requestor 
who fails to satisfy these requirements with respect to at least 
one contention will not be permitted to participate as a party.
 
Those permitted to intervene become parties to the proceeding, 
subject to any limitations in the order granting leave to 
intervene, and have the opportunity to participate fully in the 
conduct of the hearing.
 
If a hearing is requested, the Commission will make a final 
determination on the issue of no significant hazards 
consideration. The final determination will serve to decide when 
the hearing is held. If the final determination is that the 
amendment request involves no significant hazards consideration, 
the Commission may issue the amendment and make it immediately 
effective, notwithstanding the request for a hearing. Any hearing 
held would take place after issuance of the amendment. If the 
final determination is that the amendment request involves a 
significant hazards consideration, any hearing held would take 
place before the issuance of any amendment.
 
Nontimely requests and/or petitions and contentions will not be 
entertained absent a determination by the Commission or the 
presiding officer of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board that 
the petition, request and/or the contentions should be granted 
based on a balancing of the factors specified in 10 CFR 
2.309(c)(1)(i)-(viii). A request for a hearing or a petition for 
leave to intervene must be filed by: (1) First class mail 
addressed to the Office of the Secretary of the Commission, U.S. 
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, 
Attention: Rulemaking and Adjudications Staff; (2) courier, 
express mail, and expedited delivery services: Office of the 
Secretary, Sixteenth Floor, One White Flint North, 11555 
Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland, 20852, Attention: Rulemaking 
and Adjudications Staff; (3) e-mail addressed to the Office of 
the Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, ; or (4) 
facsimile transmission addressed to the Office of the Secretary, 
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC, Attention: 
Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff at (301) 415-1101, 
verification number is (301) 415-1966. A copy of the request for 
hearing and petition for leave to intervene should also be sent 
to the Office of the General Counsel, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, and it is requested that 
copies be transmitted either by means of facsimile transmission 
to 301-415-3725 or by e-mail to . A copy of the request for 
hearing and petition for leave to intervene should also be sent 
to Jay Silberg, Esq., Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP, 2300 N 
Street, NW., Washington, DC 20037, attorney for the licensee.
 
For further details with respect to this action, see the 
application for amendment dated August 25, 2006, which is 
available for public inspection at the Commission's PDR, located 
at One White Flint North, File Public Area O1 F21, 11555 
Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville, Maryland. Publicly 
available records will be accessible from the Agencywide 
Documents Access and Management System's (ADAMS) Public 
Electronic Reading Room on the Internet at the NRC Web site, .
 
Persons who do not have access to ADAMS or who encounter problems 
in accessing the documents located in ADAMS, should contact the 
NRC PDR Reference staff by telephone at 1- 800-397-4209, 
301-415-4737, or by e-mail to .
 
Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 28th day of August 2006.
 
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
 
Jack Donohew, Senior Project Manager, Plant Licensing Branch IV, 
Division of Operating Reactor Licensing, Office of Nuclear 
Reactor Regulation.
 
[FR Doc. E6-14511 Filed 8-31-06; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P

 
*****************************************************************
 55 NRC: Agency Information Collection Activities: Proposed Collection: 
 
                        FR Doc E6-14513 
[Federal Register: September 1, 2006 (Volume 71, Number 170)] 
[Notices] [Page 52171-52172] From the Federal Register Online via 
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr01se06-84]                         
 
Comment Request AGENCY: U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission 
(NRC). ACTION: Notice of pending NRC action to submit an 
information collection request to OMB and solicitation of public 
comment.
 
SUMMARY: The NRC is preparing a submittal to OMB for review of 
continued approval of information collections under the 
provisions of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (44 U.S.C. 
Chapter 35). Information pertaining to the requirement to be 
submitted: 1. The title of the information collection: 10 CFR 
Part 71, ``Packaging and Transportation of Radioactive 
Material.'' 2. Current OMB approval number: 3150-0008. 3. How 
often the collection is required: On occasion. Applications for 
package certification may be made at any time. Required reports 
are collected and evaluated on a continuing basis as events 
occur.
 
4. Who is required or asked to report: All NRC specific licensees 
who place byproduct, source, or special nuclear material into 
transportation, and all persons who wish to apply for NRC 
approval of package designs for use in such transportation.
 
5. The estimated number of annual respondents: 250 licensees. 6. 
The number of hours needed annually to complete the requirement 
or request: 42,896 hours (37,304 hours for reporting requirements 
and 5,592 for recordkeeping requirements).
 
7. Abstract: NRC regulations in 10 CFR Part 71 establish 
requirements for packing, preparation for shipment, and 
transportation of licensed material, and prescribe procedures, 
standards, and requirements for approval by NRC of packaging and 
shipping procedures for fissile material and for quantities of 
licensed material in excess of Type A quantities.
 
Submit, by October 31, 2006, comments that address the following 
questions: 1. Is the proposed collection of information necessary 
for the NRC to properly perform its functions? Does the 
information have practical utility? 2. Is the burden estimate 
accurate? 3. Is there a way to enhance the quality, utility, and 
clarity of the information to be collected?
 
[[Page 52172]] 4. How can the burden of the information 
collection be minimized, including the use of automated 
collection techniques or other forms of information technology? A 
copy of the draft supporting statement may be viewed free of 
charge at the NRC Public Document Room, One White Flint North, 
11555 Rockville Pike, Room O-1 F21, Rockville, MD 20852. OMB 
clearance requests are available at the NRC worldwide Web site: 
http://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/doc-comment/omb/index.html. The 
document will be available on the NRC home page site for 60 days 
after the signature date of this notice.
 
Comments and questions about the information collection 
requirements may be directed to the NRC Clearance Officer, Brenda 
Jo. Shelton, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, T-5 F52, 
Washington, DC 20555-0001, by telephone at 301-415-7233, or by 
Internet electronic mail to INFOCOLLECTS@NRC.GOV. Dated at 
Rockville, Maryland, this 24th day of August 2006.
 
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
 
Brenda Jo. Shelton, NRC Clearance Officer, Office of Information 
Services.
 
[FR Doc. E6-14513 Filed 8-31-06; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P

 
*****************************************************************
 56 NRC: Agency Information Collection Activities: Proposed Collection; 
 
                        FR Doc E6-14514 
[Federal Register: September 1, 2006 (Volume 71, Number 170)] 
[Notices] [Page 52172] From the Federal Register Online via GPO 
Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr01se06-85]                         
 
Comment Request AGENCY: U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). 
ACTION: Notice of pending NRC action to submit an information 
collection request to OMB and solicitation of public comment.
 
SUMMARY: The NRC is preparing a submittal to OMB for review of 
continued approval of information collections under the 
provisions of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (44 U.S.C. 
Chapter 35). Information pertaining to the requirement to be 
submitted: 1. The title of the information collection: NRC Form 
171, ``Duplication Request''.
 
2. Current OMB approval number: 3150-0066. 3. How often the 
collection is required: On occasion. 4. Who will be required or 
asked to report: Individuals or companies requesting document 
duplication.
 
5. The number of annual respondents: 7,940. 6. The number of 
hours needed annually to complete the requirement or request: 990 
hours ( about 7.5 minutes per respondent). 7. Abstract: This form 
is utilized by individual members of the public requesting 
reproduction of publicly available documents in NRC Headquarters' 
Public Document Room. Copies of the form are utilized by the 
reproduction contractor to accompany the orders and are then 
discarded.
 
Submit, by October 31, 2006, comments that address the following 
questions: 1. Is the proposed collection of information necessary 
for the NRC to properly perform its functions? Does the 
information have practical utility? 2. Is the burden estimate 
accurate? 3. Is there a way to enhance the quality, utility, and 
clarity of the information to be collected? 4. How can the burden 
of the information collection be minimized, including the use of 
automated collection techniques or other forms of information 
technology? A copy of the draft supporting statement may be 
viewed free of charge at the NRC Public Document Room, One White 
Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike, Room O-1 F21, Rockville, MD 
20852. OMB clearance requests are available at the NRC worldwide 
Web site: 
http://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/doc-comment/omb/index.html. The 
document will be available on the NRC home page site for 60 days 
after the signature date of this notice.
 
Comments and questions about the information collection 
requirements may be directed to the NRC Clearance Officer, Brenda 
Jo. Shelton (T-5 F52), U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 
Washington, DC 20555-0001, by telephone at 301-415-7233, or by 
Internet electronic mail to INFOCOLLECTS@NRC.GOV. Dated at 
Rockville, Maryland, this 23rd day of August 2006.
 
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
 
Brenda Jo. Shelton, NRC Clearance Officer, Office of the Chief 
Information Officer.
 
[FR Doc. E6-14514 Filed 8-31-06; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P

 
*****************************************************************
 57 NRC: Agency Information Collection Activities: Submission for the 
 
                        FR Doc E6-14515 
[Federal Register: September 1, 2006 (Volume 71, Number 170)] 
[Notices] [Page 52172-52173] From the Federal Register Online via 
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr01se06-86]                         
 
Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Review; Comment Request 
AGENCY: U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). ACTION: Notice 
of the OMB review of information collection and solicitation of 
public comment.
 
SUMMARY: The NRC has recently submitted to OMB for review the 
following proposal for the collection of information under the 
provisions of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (44 U.S.C. 
Chapter 35). The NRC hereby informs potential respondents that an 
agency may not conduct or sponsor, and that a person is not 
required to respond to, a collection of information unless it 
displays a currently valid OMB control number.
 
1. Type of submission, new, revision, or extension: Extension.
 
2. The title of the information collection: NRC Form 398: 
``Personal Qualification Statement--Licensee''.
 
3. The form number if applicable: NRC Form 398. 4. How often the 
collection is required: On occasion and every six years (at 
renewal).
 
5. Who will be required or asked to report: Individuals requiring 
a license to operate the controls at a nuclear reactor.
 
6. An estimate of the number of annual responses: 1,350 (one each 
per respondent).
 
7. The estimated number of annual respondents: 1,350 annually.
 
8. An estimate of the total number of hours needed annually to 
complete the requirement or request: 3,250 (2.4 hours per 
response).
 
9. An indication of whether Section 3507(d), Pub. L. 104-13 
applies: Not applicable.
 
10. Abstract: NRC Form 398 requests detailed information that 
should be submitted by a licensing applicant and facility 
licensee when applying for a new or renewal license to operate 
the controls at a nuclear reactor facility. This information, 
once collected, would be used for licensing actions and for 
generating reports on the Operator Licensing Program.
 
A copy of the final supporting statement may be viewed free of 
charge at the NRC Public Document Room, One White Flint North, 
11555 Rockville Pike, Room O-1 F21, Rockville, MD 20852. OMB 
clearance requests are available at the NRC worldwide Web site: 
http://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/
 
[[Page 52173]] doc-comment/omb/index.html. The document will be 
available on the NRC home page site for 60 days after the 
signature date of this notice.
 
Comments and questions should be directed to the OMB reviewer 
listed below by October 2, 2006. Comments received after this 
date will be considered if it is practical to do so, but 
assurance of consideration cannot be given to comments received 
after this date. John A. Asalone, Office of Information and 
Regulatory Affairs (3150- 0090), NEOB-10202, Office of Management 
and Budget, Washington, DC 20503.
 
Comments can also be e-mailed to John_A._Asalone@omb.eop.gov or 
submitted by telephone at (202) 395-4650.
 
The NRC Clearance Officer is Brenda Jo. Shelton, 301-415-7233.
 
Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 25th day of August, 2006.
 
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
 
Beth C. St. Mary, Acting NRC Clearance Officer, Office of 
Information Services.
 
[FR Doc. E6-14515 Filed 8-31-06; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P

 
*****************************************************************
 58 NRC: Notice of Availability of Environmental Assessment and Finding
 
                        FR Doc E6-14519 
[Federal Register: September 1, 2006 (Volume 71, Number 170)] 
[Notices] [Page 52175-52177] From the Federal Register Online via 
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr01se06-90]                         
 
of No Significant Impact for License Amendment for Heritage 
Minerals, Inc.; Manchester Township, NJ AGENCY: Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission.
 
ACTION: Notice of availability.
 
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Marjorie McLaughlin, Project 
Manager, Decommissioning Branch, Division of Nuclear Materials 
Safety, Region I, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 475 
Allendale Road, King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, 19406-1415. 
Telephone: (610) 337-5240; fax number: (610) 337-5269; e-mail: 
mmm3@nrc.gov.
 
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: I. Introduction The U.S. Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission (NRC) is considering the
 
[[Page 52176]] issuance of a license amendment to Materials 
License No.
 
SMB-1541 issued to Heritage Minerals, Inc. (HMI or the licensee), 
to authorize release of the NRC-licensed areas of its facility in 
Manchester Township, New Jersey (the Heritage site) for 
unrestricted use and license termination, and has prepared an 
Environmental Assessment (EA) in support of this amendment in 
accordance with the requirements of 10 CFR part 51. Based on the 
EA, the NRC has concluded that a Finding of No Significant Impact 
(FONSI) is appropriate. The amendment will be issued following 
the publication of this Notice.
 
II. EA Summary The purpose of the proposed amendment is to allow 
the release of the NRC-licensed areas of the licensee's 
Manchester Township, New Jersey, facility for unrestricted use 
and license termination.
 
HMI was authorized by the NRC on January 2, 1991, to possess 
radioactive source materials resulting from past minerals 
processing operations at the site. The facility was used by HMI 
and previous owners from 1973-1989 for the mechanical processing 
of dredged native sand to extract various heavy minerals 
(zirconium and titanium). The native sand also contained natural 
uranium and thorium, which were concentrated in the waste 
tailings of the processing operation.
 
The processing operation involved two stages, with each stage 
producing a separate tailings waste stream that was immediately 
combined and stockpiled on site. In 1987, HMI began reprocessing 
the stockpiled tailings to extract any remaining heavy minerals, 
producing a more concentrated combined waste stream. This more 
concentrated waste was then further processed by HMI starting in 
1989. With this further reprocessing, HMI also installed a 
process change, by which the waste streams from the two stages 
were no longer combined, but were instead maintained separate. 
The resultant waste tailings from one stage of this process 
contained a concentration of uranium and thorium in excess of 
0.05% by weight, meeting the 10 CFR part 40 definition of 
radioactive source material (10 CFR 40.4). This concentration 
exceeds the unimportant quantity exemption for source material 
stated in 10 CFR 40.13(a), and therefore required an NRC license. 
HMI separated the source material from all other waste material, 
and stored this sand within a stockpile area that was later 
enclosed by a fence. On March 10, 1989, HMI submitted an 
application for an NRC source material license. Before the 
license was issued, reduced demand and price for zircon caused 
HMI to cease processing activities, and no additional source 
material was added. On January 2, 1991, the NRC issued Materials 
License No. SMB-1541 authorizing HMI to possess the stockpiled 
source material and to perform decommissioning of the impacted 
areas of the site (two mill buildings and the ground beneath the 
stockpile), comprising approximately one acre.
 
The ground (approximately 287 acres) between and surrounding the 
impacted areas contains uranium and thorium concentrations that 
are above background but below 0.05% by weight. The 
above-background concentrations of source material in these 
regions resulted from staging and regrading waste sands from 
previous (unlicensed) processing activities. Because the source 
material concentration of this material is below 0.05% by weight, 
it remains exempt from NRC regulations, and is not part of the 
license. Removal of this material may be required by the State of 
New Jersey. Within this region, however, NRC confirmatory surveys 
identified several pockets of material exceeding 0.05% source 
material concentration by weight. NRC staff determined that these 
pockets were inadvertently formed from the staging and grading of 
the exempt material described above. Consequently, the staff 
determined that this material was ``licensable,'' in that it met 
the 10 CFR part 40 definition of source material. The staff 
required HMI to remediate all pockets of licensable material in 
the same manner as the licensed material.
 
On March 4, 2005, HMI requested that NRC release the facility for 
unrestricted use. Both mill buildings have been demolished and 
only the concrete pads remain. The stockpiled licensed material 
has been disposed and the ground beneath the pile excavated. The 
pockets of licensable material identified between the impacted 
areas have also been excavated and disposed offsite. The HMI has 
conducted surveys of the impacted areas and the remediated 
pockets and provided information to the NRC demonstrating these 
areas meet the license termination criteria for unrestricted 
release in its approved Decommissioning Plan (DP). HMI's DP was 
previously noticed in the Federal Register on September 1, 1999 
(64 FR 47872-47877), along with a notice of an opportunity to 
request a hearing.
 
The 10 CFR 20 Subpart E, ``The License Termination Rule'' (LTR), 
bases termination of NRC licenses and release of facilities for 
unrestricted use on meeting residual radioactivity levels 
distinguishable from background, that do not result in a Total 
Effective Dose Equivalent (TEDE) to an average member of the 
critical group above 25 millirem (mrem) per year. The rule was a 
change from past practice, which based release of a site for 
unrestricted use on meeting specific concentration-based cleanup 
levels. When the LTR was published (62 FR 39088), a provision was 
included in 10 CFR 20.1401(b)(3) to ``grandfather'' sites with 
DPs submitted to the NRC before August 20, 1998, and approved by 
August 20, 1999, (the approval date was extended to August 20, 
2000, for 12 sites, including Heritage Minerals, by SECY-99-195). 
Grandfathered sites are decommissioned under the criteria in 
their approved DPs, using the previous concentration- based 
cleanup levels. These cleanup standards were considered to result 
in a dose less than the public dose limit of 100 mrem/yr, 
specified in 10 CFR 20.1301. The NRC staff has prepared an EA in 
support of the proposed action of terminating HMI's Materials 
License No. SMB-1541, and releasing the NRC-licensed areas of the 
Heritage site for unrestricted use.
 
The staff evaluated the request from HMI and the results of their 
surveys, performed independent, confirmatory measurements, and 
performed a quantitative dose assessment of the licensed areas. 
The mill pads were modeled with the assumption of reuse of the 
structures for residential occupancy. The highest resultant TEDE 
for this scenario is 1.6 mrem/yr. The stockpile area was modeled 
for a suburban resident, resulting in a maximum possible TEDE of 
40 mrem/yr.
 
III. Finding of No Significant Impact The staff has prepared an 
EA in support of the proposed license amendment to terminate 
HMI's license and release the NRC-licensed areas of the Heritage 
site for unrestricted use. The staff has found that the 
radiological environmental impacts from the proposed action would 
not exceed the public dose limit of 100 mrem/yr. Surface and 
groundwater analyses performed at the site confirm that no 
significant radionuclide transport or elevated concentrations are 
occurring in the surface water or aquifer system. The NRC staff 
has determined that the proposed action would have no impact on 
site geology, ecology, or water.
 
The staff has also found that the proposed action is procedural 
in nature because HMI has completed all NRC-required remediation 
at the site. On the basis of the EA, NRC has concluded that there
 
[[Page 52177]] are no significant environmental impacts from the 
proposed action of terminating HMI's license and releasing for 
unrestricted use the NRC- licensed areas of the Heritage site, 
and has determined not to prepare an environmental impact 
statement.
 
IV. Further Information Documents related to this action, 
including the application for amendment and supporting 
documentation, are available electronically at the NRC's 
Electronic Reading Room at 
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. From this site, you can 
access the NRC's Agencywide Document Access and Management System 
(ADAMS), which provides text and image files of NRC's public 
documents. The ADAMS accession numbers for the documents related 
to this notice are: 
----------------------------------------------------------------- 
------- ADAMS Accession Summarized document description         
No.
 
----------------------------------------------------------------- 
------- 1..................  Environmental Assessment for the 
ML062350098 Proposed Termination of U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission Materials License No. SMB-1541, Issued to Heritage 
Minerals, Inc. in Manchester Township, New Jersey, and Release 
for Unrestricted Use.
 
2..................  ``Five Options for NRC Approval ML033630718 
of Disposal or Onsite Storage of Thorium or Uranium Wastes From 
Past Nuclear Operations,'' dated 10/23/81.
 
3..................  FC 83-23 ``Termination of ML003745523 
Byproduct, Source, and Special Nuclear Materials Licenses,'' 
dated 11/4/83.
 
4..................  Letter terminating Heritage ML030370350 
plant activities, dated 8/23/90.
 
5..................  Additional Information for ML030370324 
License Application, dated 7/25/ 90.
 
6..................  Environmental Assessment and ML003721778 
Finding of No Significant Impact for HMI DP, dated 10/19/ 99.
 
7..................  HMI Final Status Survey, dated ML021150357 
11/25/01.
 
8..................  NRC Confirmatory Survey Report, ML021060589 
dated 4/10/02.
 
9..................  HMI proposed additional ML030830547 
remediation activities, dated 3/ 10/03.
 
10.................  HMI amendment to proposed ML031320537 
additional remediation activities, dated 5/6/03.
 
11.................  NRC Confirmatory Survey Phase 2, ML040250070 
dated 12/31/03.
 
12.................  HMI proposed final remediation ML041910222 
activities, dated 6/30/04.
 
13.................  NRC letter accepting proposed ML043240049 
final remediation activities, dated 11/17/04.
 
14.................  HMI Termination Request, dated 3/ 
ML050960109 04/05.
 
15.................  Soil Sample Results from HMI, ML050960038 
dated 2/14/05.
 
16.................  NJDEP comments on draft HMI EA, ML052000408 
dated 7/12/05.
 
17.................  Dose Assessment for Unrestricted ML052410061 
Future Use Scenarios of the HMI site, dated 8/25/05.
 
----------------------------------------------------------------- 
------- If you do not have access to ADAMS or if there are 
problems in accessing the documents located in ADAMS, contact the 
NRC Public Document Room (PDR) Reference staff at 1-800-397-4209, 
301-415-4737, or by e-mail to pdr@nrc.gov. These documents may 
also be viewed electronically on the public computers located at 
the NRC's PDR, O 1 F21, One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville 
Pike, Rockville, MD 20852. The PDR reproduction contractor will 
copy documents for a fee.
 
Dated at King of Prussia, Pennsylvania this 23rd day of August, 
2006.
 
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
 
Marie Miller, Chief Decommissioning Branch, Division of Nuclear 
Materials Safety, Region I.
 
[FR Doc. E6-14519 Filed 8-31-06; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P

 
*****************************************************************
 59 NRC: Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station; Notice of Withdrawal of 
 
                        FR Doc E6-14525 
[Federal Register: September 1, 2006 (Volume 71, Number 170)] 
[Notices] [Page 52173] From the Federal Register Online via GPO 
Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr01se06-88]                         
 
Application for Amendment to Facility Operating License The U.S. 
Nuclear Regulatory Commission (the Commission) has granted the 
request of Entergy Nuclear Operations, Inc. (the licensee) to 
withdraw its December 15, 2004, application for proposed 
amendment to Facility Operating License No. DPR-28 for the 
Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station, located in Windham County.
 
The proposed amendment would have revised the Technical 
Specifications pertaining to control rod operability, scram time 
and control rod accumulator technical specification surveillance 
testing requirements. The Commission had previously issued a 
Notice of Consideration of Issuance of Amendment published in the 
Federal Register on January 18, 2005 (70 FR 2889). However, by 
letter dated August 10, 2006, the licensee withdrew the proposed 
change.
 
For further details with respect to this action, see the 
application for amendment dated December 15, 2004, as 
supplemented on December 12, 2005, and July 6, 2006, and the 
licensee's letter dated August 10, 2006, which withdrew the 
application for license amendment. Documents may be examined, 
and/or copied for a fee, at the NRC's Public Document Room (PDR), 
located at One White Flint North, Public File Area O1 F21, 11555 
Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville, Maryland. Publicly 
available records will be accessible electronically from the 
Agencywide Documents Access and Management Systems (ADAMS) Public 
Electronic Reading Room on the internet at the NRC Web site, 
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm.html. Persons who do not have 
access to ADAMS or who encounter problems in accessing the 
documents located in ADAMS should contact the NRC PDR Reference 
staff by telephone at 1-800-397- 4209, or 301-415-4737 or by 
e-mail to pdr@nrc.gov. Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 28th 
day of August 2006.
 
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
 
James Shea, Project Manager, Plant Licensing Branch I-1, Division 
of Operating Reactor Licensing, Office of Nuclear Reactor 
Regulation.
 
[FR Doc. E6-14525 Filed 8-31-06; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P

 
*****************************************************************
 60 Hudson Valley News: Kelly wants independent safety review at Indian Point   

Friday, September 1, 2006 

Washington , DC  Congresswoman Sue Kelly has appealed to the new
head of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to submit to her
request  and the requests of other local officials and area
residents  and authorize an Independent Safety Assessment at
Indian Point. Kelly also requested a meeting with new NRC
Chairman Dale Klein, who became the leader of the agency last
month, to discuss Indian Point safety matters. 

In her letter to Klein, Kelly said the NRC has a serious
credibility problem in the Hudson Valley. "This credibility
problem prevents many local residents and local officials from
placing much confidence in the Commission's oversight of Indian
Point," Kelly wrote. "It wasn't long ago that lax NRC oversight
contributed to a steam generator tube failure at Indian Point,
after the NRC refused our requests for months to compel Con Ed
to replace the faulty steam generators." 

An ISA could help restore the public's confidence in the NRC's
oversight, and better guarantee the safety of the plant and our
local communities. 

    
  HEAR today's news on MidHudsonRadio.com, the Hudson Valley's
                only Internet radio news report. 
  
*****************************************************************
 61 MyWestTexas.com: Basin can be new leader for nuclear energy
                 
Midland Reporter-Telegram                                                                                                                                         

09/01/2006

There continues to be good news on the nuclear energy front for 
both New Mexico and Texas.                                                      

The job now is to complete the task of bringing the nuclear test 
reactor to Andrews. 

Officials held groundbreaking ceremonies on the National 
Enrichment Facility outside Eunice, N.M., Tuesday. We hope this 
signals a surge of future activity in the nuclear field in the 
coming months. 

America is poised for a nuclear energy renaissance and there is 
no reason the Permian Basin should not take the lead in that new 
expansion in environmentally friendly energy. 

We should become the epicenter of this expanding industry and
the Eunice facility is a step in that direction. The $1.5
billion uranium enrichment facility will provide fuel for
existing and planned U.S. nuclear power plants. The National
Enrichment Facility is expected to employ 1,000 workers during
peak construction and have some 300 full and part-time jobs.
Payroll is estimated at $10 million and an estimated $3.1
million in annual benefits. 

Undoubtedly, the NEF will serve as an economic beacon to the 
region. It will produce jobs and will bring money into the area. 
But the overall ramifications of the facility being located in 
this part of the world will also open new doors of economic 
expansion and add to the power of the region as an energy giant. 

It also adds to the lure of Andrews as the natural choice for the 
new test nuclear reactor that will pave the way for whole new 
generation of nuclear reactors that will eliminate melt down 
scenarios while still producing the cleanest energy available on 
the planet. 

This also would set the stage for UTPB to become one of the 
leading nuclear energy research centers in the world, a leading 
institution that will give us tomorrow's answers for our energy 
needs. 

Officials in Eunice noted the new plant will provide 25 percent 
of the enriched uranium needed to make nuclear energy in the 
United States. Today, the United States gets 65 percent of its 
oil and 75 percent of its enriched uranium overseas. 

The Permian Basin will continue to be an energy-based region as 
the nation and the world will continue to look here for solving 
energy needs. 

There is still much work to be done to see that this complete 
dream becomes a reality, but the NEF near Eunice is a big step in 
that direction and all such endeavors should be supported by all 
Basin communities. The NEF project should help pave part of the 
road we need to travel. 

The Basin truly can become a center for nuclear waste storage, 
uranium enrichment, nuclear power production and zero emission 
coal burning operations. The Basin can be at the center of 
America's changing guard in energy production -- and should be. 

�MyWestTexas.com 2006                                   
*****************************************************************
 62 Las Vegas SUN: Whistleblower victory for ex-BLM worker at toxic Nevada mine 

Today: September 01, 2006 at 15:25:19 PDT 

By SCOTT SONNER ASSOCIATED PRESS 

RENO, Nev. (AP) - An administrative law judge ruled Friday that
the U.S. Bureau of Land Management illegally fired a former
supervisor for speaking out about the health and safety dangers
at a toxic mine site in Nevada. 

The federal judge ordered the BLM to pay Earle Dixon two years
worth of back pay and benefits totaling more than $120,000,
saying it was clear that "Dixon was fired for his whistleblowing
activities" at the former Anaconda copper mine in Yerington
about 60 miles southeast of Reno. 

The BLM also must reimburse Dixon for $10,000 in moving expenses
after he was fired in October 2005 as well as attorney fees and
costs expected to exceed $50,000, under the ruling by Richard K.
Malamphy, an administrative judge for the Labor Department in
Newport News, Va. 

"This is both a victory for Earle Dixon and for the idea that
the federal government is not above the law," said Richard
Condit, a lawyer for the Washington D.C.-based Public Employees
for Environmental Responsibility who represented Dixon along
with co-counsel Mick Harrison of Bloomington, Ind. 

"The people of Nevada should now be asking hard questions about
whether they are being put at risk by the very public agencies
that are supposed to be protecting them," he said. 

The judge denied Dixon's request for up to $1 million in
exemplary damages. He stopped short of ordering the BLM to
reinstate Dixon but instructed the agency to give him a
"favorable or at least neutral job reference." 

Condit said they would consider appealing that portion of the
ruling so that Dixon might have the option of returning to the
BLM. After he was fired, Dixon eventually went to work as an
environmental consultant for Tsali Associates in Gallup, N.M. He
did not immediately return a call seeking comment on Friday. 

The BLM also has the option of appealing the ruling. An agency
spokesman referred calls Friday to Kevin Mack, the Interior
Department's assistant solicitor in Sacramento who did not
immediately return a call seeking comment. 

Dixon, whose annual salary was about $58,000, argued he was
fired in retaliation for publicizing the increasing health and
safety hazards being unearthed at the abandoned mine owned by
Atlantic Richfield Co., including unsafe levels of uranium that
he claims state regulators knew about but covered up since 1984. 

In his whistleblower complaint filed in November 2004, Dixon
said he had he refused to go along with repeated attempts by BLM
management and the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection
to downplay the issue. 

Last year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency assumed lead
responsibility for cleaning up the mine covering 6 square miles
on the edge of Yerington, something Dixon long had advocated. 

"Earle Dixon's courage helped shield Nevadans from the neglect
of their own government," Condit said Friday. 

Dixon said during a three-day administrative hearing in Reno in
February that the cleanup costs at the abandoned mine had risen
dramatically - from an estimated $10 million or $20 million to
potentially more than $200 million - as a result of research he
conducted or directed on dangers from uranium and other toxins. 

Tests conducted while Dixon was in charge in the summer of 2004
found unusually high levels of radiation in soil samples at the
mine. Earlier groundwater tests showed high concentrations of
uranium in wells on site - up to 200 times the U.S. drinking
water standard. 

Dixon said BLM responded by criticizing him for his disclosures,
ordering him not to speak to the media, and censoring and
editing his technical communications and memos. 

Mack, who represented the BLM in the case, argued that Dixon was
fired because he undermined efforts by the state agency and
state regulators to get Atlantic Richfield to voluntarily clean
up contamination as the lead party responsible for the effort. 

Mack said during the hearing that Dixon was "a hardworking,
serious-minded federal employee," but that his tactics became
"more strident, unforgiving ... and obstructionist." 

"Mr. Dixon's inability to work cooperatively with partner
agencies became a serious impediment for the BLM," he said. 

At the hearing, Dixon's immediate supervisor said he gave Dixon
a satisfactory job appraisal a month before he was fired. Two
other higher ranking supervisors also testified that they
opposed Dixon's firing. 

Jim Sickles, EPA's lead official at the mine, said he had a good
working relationship with Dixon and that he did "good, sound
technical work." 

All contents copyright 2005 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
 63 Deseret News: Medical plans not ready for nuclear attack
 
[deseretnews.com] 

Friday, September 1, 2006                        
	 
By Lara Jakes Jordan

 Associated Press                                             

WASHINGTON � The government doesn't have plans for treating 
people downwind from a nuclear attack for radiation exposure, a 
report released Thursday concludes.

       The study by the Physicians for Social Responsibility also 
faults the Homeland Security Department for lacking communication 
plans to tell the public whether to evacuate or take shelter 
where they are after a nuclear blast.

       A Homeland Security Department spokesman said the
government has focused on preventing nuclear attacks and that
the report "seems to lack a grasp of reality."

       The study looks at health risks downwind from a nuclear
attack or dirty bomb � a mix of explosives with radioactive
material � in New York City, Washington and Chicago. Though
little could be done about tens of thousands of people who would
die at the attack's epicenter, thousands of others might be
saved if they received fast medical treatment or effective
evacuation guidance, said Dr. Ira Helfand, one of the report's
authors.

       In one scenario � a nuclear blast in lower Manhattan � an
estimated 52,000 people would be killed immediately and another
10,000 would receive lethal doses of radiation. But the fate of
an estimated 200,000 people downwind from the blast � up to 30
miles away with a wind speed of 10 mph � depends on the
government's planning, Helfand said.

       Those people "might live if we have a plan in place to
evacuate or shelter them effectively," Helfand said in an
interview Wednesday. "But at this point, we don't have a plan,
and that's fairly shocking, five years after 9/11."

       Under the nation's plan for responding to major
disasters, the Health and Human Services Department generally is
responsible for dealing with federal medical programs. A
department representative declined to comment on the report
until it could be thoroughly reviewed.

       Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke said the
government can track the radiation plume from a nuclear blast
within an hour to direct medical care and other resources to
those who would be at risk. The department also is grappling
with how to communicate and advise potential nuclear victims in
an attack's immediate aftermath.

       "However well-intentioned, this report seems to lack a
grasp of reality," Knocke said. "The department is intensely
focused on preventing a high-concentrated attack like (nuclear
weapons of mass destruction) or a dirty bomb from being
detonated somewhere in the homeland. That is our highest
priority."

� 2006 Deseret News Publishing Company

*****************************************************************
 64 Courier Journal: Mitchell quarry won't be site for test of powerful new bomb 

http://www.courier-journal.com

  Thursday, August 31, 2006    

Staff and AP Dispatches

MITCHELL, Ind. -- A Southern Indiana limestone quarry won't be
used by the military to test a powerful new bomb intended to
penetrate solid rock formations, according to two members of
Congress and the site's owner. 

Mitchell Quarry, about 30 miles south of Bloomington, had been
mentioned as a possible site for a test called "Divine Strake,"
that involves detonating 700 tons of explosives. The Defense
Threat Reduction Agency has declined to say whether the site was
under consideration for the test. 

A statement yesterday from U.S. Sen. Dick Lugar's office said
the agency confirmed in a letter Tuesday that it would not
conduct the test in Indiana. 

Lugar, R-Ind., had written to Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld on Aug. 16 asking about a report in the Las Vegas
Review-Journal that indicated Indiana was being considered as a
possible test location. 

Greg Gould, a vice president of Nashville, Tenn.-based Rogers
Group, which owns the quarry, also said no immense military bomb
blasts would take place there. 

"We do not intend to have any blast beyond what we typically
have for our mining operations," Gould said. 

Rep. Steve Buyer, R-Ind., said he had been told by the agency
that the test would not be conducted in Indiana. 

The test at first was planned for June at the Nevada Test Site
as part of an effort to design a weapon that can destroy bunkers
in which a country might store nuclear weapons or other weapons
of mass destruction. 

Environmentalists and some residents had objected to moving the
test to Indiana. The military has confirmed testing up to 1.5
tons of explosives at the Mitchell Quarry in detonations between
July 2004 and March 2005. 

Mitchell Mayor Morris Chastain said he was relieved that the
quarry would not be the test site for the large bomb. 

Copyright 2005 The Courier-Journal.
*****************************************************************
 65 NRC: The Ohio State University Notice of Acceptance for Docketing of 
 
                        FR Doc E6-14512 
[Federal Register: September 1, 2006 (Volume 71, Number 170)] 
[Notices] [Page 52173] From the Federal Register Online via GPO 
Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr01se06-87]                         
 
the Application and Notice of Opportunity for Hearing Regarding 
Renewal of The Ohio State University Research Reactor Facility 
License No. R-75 for an Additional 20-year Period; Extension of 
Comment Period AGENCY: United States Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission.
 
ACTION: Extension of comment period.
 
SUMMARY: On August 2, 2006 (71 FR 43818), the U.S. Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission (NRC) published for public comment a Notice 
of Acceptance for Docketing of the Application and Notice of 
Opportunity for Hearing Regarding Renewal of the Ohio State 
University Research Reactor.
 
An additional 30 days has been added to this Federal Register 
Notice. The date for an applicant to file a request for hearing 
and a petition for leave to intervene has been extended to 
October 2, 2006.
 
 
DATES: The comment period has been extended and now expires on 
October 2, 2006.
 
 
ADDRESSES: Mail Written comments to: the Office of the Secretary 
of the Commission, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 
Washington, DC 20555- 0001. Attn: Rulemaking and Adjudications 
Staff. Hand delivered comments should also be addressed to: the 
Office of the Secretary, Sixteenth Floor, One White Flint North, 
11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland, 20852, Attn: 
Rulemaking and Adjudications Staff. This should be delivered 
between 7:30am and 4:15pm Federal Workdays.
 
Certain Documents relating to this renewal may be examined at the 
NRC Public Document Room, 11555 Rockville Pike, Room O1F21, 
Rockville, Maryland, 20852. For more information, contact the 
Public Document Room Reference Staff at 1-800-397-4209, or at 
301-415-4737, or by e-mail at .
 
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Daniel Hughes, U.S. Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, telephone 
301-415-1631, e-mail .
 
Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 23rd day of August 2006.
 
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
 
Brian E. Thomas, Branch Chief, Research and Test Reactors Branch, 
Division of Policy and Rulemaking, Office of Nuclear Reactor 
Regulation.
 
[FR Doc. E6-14512 Filed 8-31-06; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P

 
*****************************************************************
 66 Uranium Flood
 
Date: Fri, 1 Sep 2006 22:57:51 -0500 (CDT)

X-Sender-Host-Name: chumbly.math.missouri.edu
X-Spam-Class: HAM-VERY

September 1, 2006 

Living Rivers
www.livingrivers.org

LR Press Release
September 1, 2006 
Scientists reveal a higher volume and frequency of extreme floods along the
Colorado River

For immediate release: 
September 1, 2006 

Contact: John Weisheit 435-259-1063
Cell: 435-260-2590
Sarah Fields: 435-259-4743

Utah's uranium waste pile is at risk while funding for removal stalls in
Congress 

In an effort to better understand the impacts from extreme floods on the
infrastructure and water resources of the Colorado River corridor, Living
Rivers, supported by a grant from the Citizens' Monitoring and Technical
Assessment Fund, commissioned two flood studies in Utah near the town of
Moab. 

Two critical issues were examined:
1) River migration adjacent to the second largest uranium waste pile in the
United States
2) The magnitude and frequency of large floods along the Colorado River

These investigations were performed by two professors of geology from the
University of Arizona: John C. Dohrenwend and Noam Greenbaum. Victor Baker,
a pioneer in the field of flood research, reviewed their findings. 

The report on river migration by Dohrenwend emphasized how previously
contracted investigations by the Department of Energy (DOE) failed to
provide reasonable assurances that this radioactive waste pile in Utah was
safe from probable maximum floods within the next 1,000 years, a reclamation
standard the DOE is required to fulfill under Environmental Protection
Agency regulations. 

Dohrenwend also announced to the DOE that a paleoflood study would help to
remove the uncertainty, and that a professional investigation would be
conducted. Paleoflood studies are detailed examinations of flood sediments
and organic deposits--the remnants of huge floods that once tumbled down the
Colorado River before modern-day instruments began to measure stream flow.
This was to be the first study of its kind for the Colorado River upstream
of Arizona.

The results of the paleoflood study were completed in June 2006 by
Greenbaum, who provided physical evidence to support a conclusion that
floods occurring at 100- and 500-year intervals in the Colorado River Basin
are not yet properly understood. 

It is generally accepted by resource managers that a 100-year flood on the
Colorado River has a peak discharge of about 100,000 cubic feet per second
(cfs), and that a 500-year flood has a peak discharge of about 120,000 cfs.
The limit of a maximum flood is considered to have a peak discharge of
300,000 cfs and occurs around intervals of 10,000 years. 

Greenbaum's preliminary findings indicate that these conventional flood
estimates are vastly underestimated by a factor of five times. His data
shows that over the past 2000 years, at least 20 floods have matched or
exceeded the 500-year estimate, and that five probable maximum floods have
also occurred in the same time period. Greenbaum also discovered the
possibility that two floods may have exceeded 350,000 cfs. 

Says Greenbaum, "This study shows that catastrophic floods can occur with
much greater frequency than originally speculated, and such floods could
happen, quite frankly, sooner as opposed to later."

"Such floods are induced by springtime storms that drop warm rain on
mountainous snow packs," added Victor Baker from Tucson.

The scientists recommend additional investigation be undertaken to better
understand the potential for severe flooding along the Colorado River above
Glen Canyon Dam. 

"These preliminary results of high magnitude floods occurring at greater
frequencies spotlight future vulnerabilities for the entire Colorado River
watershed," says John Weisheit, conservation director of Living Rivers.
"This paleoflood study provides useful information for all resource managers
of the Colorado River, so that they can take action to reduce the hazards
associated with catastrophic floods." 

The findings of Dohrenwend and Greenbaum are contained in the recently
published report by Living Rivers, The Moab Mill Project: A technical report
towards reclaiming uranium mill tailings along the Colorado River in Grand
County, Utah. 

The 36-page color report (with additional photos and drawings) is available
for download at: 

Moab Mill Project [4m PDF File]
http://www.livingrivers.org/MoabMillProject.pdf 

Printed copies are also available from:
Living Rivers
PO Box 466
Moab, UT 84532

Supplemental information 

Two years ago it seemed likely that the uranium waste pile (the former Atlas
Corporation uranium processing facility) along the Colorado River near Moab,
Utah, would remain in place with nothing to protect it from large flood
events other than a veneer of clay and large rocks. 

Instead, the Department of Energy (DOE), the agency designated by Congress
in 2000 to reclaim the site and remediate the groundwater, issued a Record
of Decision in 2005 announcing that the pile would be moved 30 miles to the
north and out of harm's way. 

The Colorado River supplies water for metropolitan areas such as Phoenix,
Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and San Diego, as well as much of the region's
agricultural industry. Other river resources at risk of radioactive
contamination include the riverine ecosystems of national parks, such as
Grand Canyon and Canyonlands. 

On July 17, at a public meeting in Moab, it was disclosed that DOE's funding
cycle for the next five-years will be insufficient to remove the pile as
scheduled. Instead, DOE documents reveal that continuing site remediation
and incremental preparatory work is anticipated, until which time a
committed appropriation for removal by Congress is approved. 

Since taking over responsibility of the pile in October of 2001, the DOE and
the project contractors have expended in excess of $23.5 million at the end
of the first quarter for year 2006. For the next five years, it is projected
they will spend about $136 million, with no financial guarantee that the
next five-year cycle will mean the actual removal of the pile. 

Department of Energy: Moab Project
http://gj.em.doe.gov/moab/ 

City of Moab and Grand County Council
http://www.moabtailings.org 

========

http://www.livingrivers.org/archives/article.cfm?NewsID=730

========
*****************************************************************
 67 The State: Nuclear waste meeting canceled

09/01/2006 

Decision comes after Spratt, Dingell object to closed talks

 By JAMES ROSEN 

WASHINGTON  Pressure from Reps. John Spratt of South Carolina
and John Dingell of Michigan prompted the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission to cancel a closed meeting with the Department of
Energy over a disputed plan to clean up nuclear weapons waste at
the Savannah River Site near Aiken and the Idaho National
Laboratory. 

The two agencies were scheduled to meet Thursday. They are at
odds over how much power Congress gave the commission, in 2004
legislation, to monitor department cleanup of the South Carolina
and Idaho complexes. 

This is a matter of enormous public interest, and we believe
the public should not be barred from meetings on the subject
unless a significant national security concern is being
discussed, Spratt and Dingell wrote Tuesday in a letter to Dale
Klein, the commission chairman. 

Dingell is senior Democrat on the House Energy Committee.
Spratt, of York County, is senior Democrat on the House Budget
Committee and has closely tracked the mounting costs of cleanup
efforts at the Savannah River Site. 

David McIntyre, a commission spokesman, said the agency
reluctantly agreed to close the meeting at the Energy
Departments insistence. 

Our preference is for open meetings, and the vast majority of
the ones weve had have been public, McIntyre said. DOE has
always wanted them to be closed to the public. 

Megan Barnett, an Energy Department spokeswoman, said the
meeting with NRC had not been rescheduled. 

At the end of the day, we are focused on moving forward and
getting the waste-cleanup work of this department safely done to
best carry out our mission and the provisions of the law,
Barnett said. 

Were committed to the safe storage and ultimate disposal of
tank waste, working in consultation with our federal and state
partners. 

The power struggle between the Energy Department and the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission is rooted in department efforts to change
the classification of some atomic weapons waste in South
Carolina and Idaho from high level to low level. 

After a federal judge ruled against the initiative, Congress
passed a measure in October 2004 aimed at reaching a compromise.
In exchange for authorizing the department to reclassify the
waste, lawmakers gave the commission new powers to monitor such
actions. 

Since then, the commission has tried to assert its new authority
while the Energy Department has sought to limit it. Each agency
points to different sections of the 2004 law to support its
position. 

The waste at both sites is the byproduct of nuclear weapons
production during the Cold War. It is only a fraction of the
total waste at the Savannah River and Idaho sites, two of 15
weapons complexes nationwide. 

At SRS, the disputed waste totals more than 60 million gallons
in 49 giant tanks, some as large as 85 feet by 34 feet. At the
Idaho site, there are 15 smaller tanks holding about 3.4 million
gallons of waste. 

Geoff Fettus, a staff attorney for the Natural Resources Defense
Council, said the Energy Department has long tried to keep its
nuclear disposal processes secret. 

DOE seemingly does not want public scrutiny of its cleanup
decisions, Fettus said. 

Fettus environmental organization filed the federal lawsuit
that eventually led to the 2004 law, which in turn sparked the
power struggle.
*****************************************************************
 68 reviewjournal.com: State officials won't appeal ruling on Yucca Mountain
 
Sep. 01, 2006

STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU

WASHINGTON -- Nevada officials have decided not to appeal a Yucca 
Mountain court ruling that the state lost this summer, an 
official said Thursday. 

Lawyers concluded the chances were small that judges would agree
to rehear the case in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District
of Columbia, said Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada
Agency for Nuclear Projects. 

In an Aug. 8 ruling, a three-judge panel dismissed Nevada's
claims that the Department of Energy violated environmental law
and federal rules when it began putting together a shipping
program for the proposed nuclear waste repository. 

The court concluded that some of Nevada's claims were premature
while others were without merit. 

It said the state could resurrect its lawsuit later. 

"The odds are so small (for appeal), and the court has invited
us back," Loux said. 

The state raised a series of technical objections to the Energy
Department's final environmental impact statement for Yucca
Mountain. 

It also challenged the department's decision to designate a
319-mile railroad corridor as its favored route to ship waste
from Caliente in eastern Nevada to the Yucca site. 

Loux said the Energy Department seemed to have changed course
already on one of Nevada's concerns. 

He said a plan to load nuclear waste-filled truck casks onto
trains for shipment to Nevada appeared to be no longer operative
since the Energy Department now envisioned new multipurpose
canisters for the task. 	   

Copyright � Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2006
*****************************************************************
 69 Reuters: U.S. tribe sees riches in Utah nuclear waste storage
        
01 Sep 2006 

 SKULL VALLEY, Utah, Sept 1 (Reuters) - As some U.S. Indian
tribes have grown rich in recent years through casinos, others
far from population centers have struggled to overcome a
historical legacy of poverty.

 One tiny tribe in Utah, one of two states that bars gaming, has
shocked residents and officials by planing to turn part of their
barren reservation into a temporary storage for highly
radioactive nuclear fuel waste.

 "They gave us crap for land, but they want it back. It's kind
of funny to me," said Leon Bear, 50, chief of the 18,000-acre
Skull Valley Goshute Reservation. "As long as we are not doing
something, the state of Utah is happy."

 Recognized Native American tribes have special rights on their
sovereign land, but many in Utah say the nuclear plan should be
stopped anyway. Even the tribe is bitterly divided.

 The arid Goshute reservation lies between two mountain ranges
45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. For decades, the United
States engaged in toxic activities nearby, including biological
and chemical weapons storage and testing.

 "We don't have a resource like oil or gas or coal," Bear said.
"We feel that we're being prejudiced against as far as gaming."

 The Skull Valley tribe has just 123 enrolled members. Fewer
than 30 live on the reservation, mostly in prefabricated houses
along a side road. They boast a single gas station/store.

 Only in the late 1970s did Goshutes get running water and
electricity. The funding came from allowing Hercules Aerospace
to test rocket engines in a program that ended long ago.

 Bear now hopes to usher in a new era of unprecedented tribal
prosperity with spent fuel storage. He also recently opened a
commercial dump for construction and household waste that
accepts 4,000 tonnes a day.

 MILLIONS AT STAKE

 The tribe's dollar stake in nuclear fuel storage is not public.
"Millions, I wouldn't say tens of millions -- maybe over time,"
Bear said. "We do get an annual fee -- it's more tuned to
profit."

 In other words, the more concrete and steel storage casks the
$3.1 billion project brings in, the more the tribe earns.

 Behind the plan is Private Fuel Storage (PFS), a consortium of
eight electric utilities including Xcel Energy <XEL.N>, American
Electric Power Co. <AEP.N>, Edison International <EIX.N> and
Entergy Corp. <ETR.N>

 They foresee temporary storage lasting 40 years for up to
44,000 tonnes of nuclear fuel rods. With the nation's long-term
nuclear dump beneath Yucca Mountain in Nevada still highly
uncertain, Bear sees his storage plans possibly lasting even
longer.

 "If Yucca Mountain isn't open by then, they'll have nowhere
else to put waste," he said. "By that time we're going to call
the shots. The tribe can probably ask for anything they want to."

 The effort received a major boost this year when the U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission gave its licensing approval.

 A number of obstacles remain: the plan needs approval of the
U.S. Bureau of Land Management; some questions about
transporting spent fuel are unanswered; and the state of Utah,
which strongly opposes the project, has appealed the license.

 "We've spent the better part of 10 years trying to figure out
whether what they propose could be done safely and our
determination was it could not be," said Dianne Nielson, head of
Utah's Department of Environmental Quality.

 TRIBAL DISSENT

 Chief Bear also faces opposition from within his tribe,
including his neighbor across the road, Margene Bullcreek. "He's
turning the reservation into a dump," she said. "He's corrupt."

 "But what is really important to me is not Leon's lies, it's
not his dishonesty, his crookedness, it's PFS coming down on a
small tribe. It's environmental racism," she said.

 Chief Bear has also had personal legal difficulties.

 In 2003 he was indicted on federal theft and tax-evasion
charges. He reached a deal to pay off back taxes and return some
tribal funds. "That's all they could find on me," he said. "All
of my books were clean."

 "How can I be dirty and corrupt? Look around here, there's
nothing," he said. "If I'm so corrupt why I am sitting here? Why
am I not someplace better?"

 His living room in a prefabricated house was comfortable but
not opulent. As for the taxes, he said: "Previous chairmen never
had to pay no taxes. ... On my income tax I put down
'unemployed.'"

 Critics also complain Bear does not have a democratic mandate
as the tribe has not had a quorum of 44 people to hold a new
leadership election due since 2004. "If they don't want to come,
what am I supposed to do?," he said. "I'm chief for life at this
point."

 In the end, Chief Bear sees all of his personal troubles as
stemming from the fuel storage plan.

 "Margene doesn't want the reservation to improve, that's what's
going on," he said. "You can't go back; I wish you could. We're
in the 2000s. We can't go back to the 70s or the 50s." 		 		
 		 
*****************************************************************
 70 In Business Las Vegas: Strategic planning firm having an impact in LV   

September 1 - September 7

  By Danielle Birkin   

  Sheila Conway, managing partner of Urban Environmental
Research, is shown in a conference room.   

  Photo by Steve Marcus   

Sheila Conway is committed to ensuring her clients' dynamic
growth by paving their way for nominal risk and optimal
profitability. 

And as managing partner of Urban Environmental Research (UER), a
Las Vegas-based economic impact assessment and strategic
planning firm, Conway has had the opportunity to assist myriad
businesses and governmental entities in addressing the complex
social, economic, environmental and public safety challenges
they must navigate. 

"We're helping to grow businesses and minimize risk and optimize
profits," said Conway, who has been an impact-assessment
consultant for 20 years. "We do property value and other types
of impact assessment and develop impact tools for businesses and
government and also do strategic planning with businesses and
government. We specialize in working with the both the
construction and development community and with technology
companies and helping companies stay on the cutting edge of
where the market is changing. We also do impact assessment if a
company is deciding if they want to develop a specific type of
property or expand into a broader market." 

She said Urban Environmental Research was founded in Phoenix in
1997 by Alvin Mushkatel, who has worked in the area of public
policy analysis and impact assessment for more than 30 years.
UER has worked with the state of Nevada and Clark County, and
eventually picked up more business with the cities of Las Vegas,
North Las Vegas, Henderson and Mesquite, which prompted the
decision to relocate here in 1999. 

Prior to joining UER, Conway previously served as senior project
manager for ICF Kaiser Engineers in New Jersey and also worked
for the Colorado Center Environmental Management, where she
oversaw the building of a private-public partnership to
demonstrate and commercialize new environmental techniques. In
her current capacity as managing partner, she researches and
prepares comprehensive property value analysis, regulatory
analysis, compliance planning and risk management, and is
responsible for communication and training for complex
environmental projects and issues in Southern Nevada and the
Western United States. 

  Urban Environmental Research LLC Owners: Sheila Conway and 
Alvin Mushkatel 

Year founded: 1997 

Address: 10100 W. Charleston Blvd., Suite 200 
Workforce: 10   

Irene Navis, planning manager for the Department of Comprehensive 
Planning for Clark County, which manages the nuclear waste 
program, said UER has been providing their impact assessment 
consulting services since 1999. 

"They research and provide advice and analysis to us for all of
the potential impacts related to the Yucca Mountain program,"
Navis said. "So they've done studies on what the impacts related
to transporting high-level nuclear waste would be to Clark
County. One of the biggest things they've done is the community
indicators monitoring program, a Web-based monitoring program
that looks at these impacts and quality of life indicators in
the areas of fiscal impacts, environmentalism, pubic safety and
community well-being." 

Navis said there are 10 counties, including Clark County,
designated by the federal government as affected units of local
government. 

"So we get federal funding to do our work and impact assessment
is one of the things we're allowed to do under the law," she
said. "This program is very complicated so to have people (like
UER) who understand all of the environmental aspects, how the
licensing process works, and how the Department of Energy thinks
and works gives us a great advantage as we conduct oversight of
Yucca Mountain. Urban Environmental Research is nationally and
internationally recognized as experts in the field and we are
fortunate to have them as part of this team." 

Maggie Plaster, management analyst with the Las Vegas city
manager's office, has also worked with Urban Environmental
Research on issues related to Yucca Mountain. 

"We've worked with them on our Yucca Mountain monitoring
program, and they have collected data on various areas for the
city," Plaster said. "They've looked at public safety and
neighborhood indicators and also established a baseline of what
the city looks like now, which will allow us to look at nuclear
waste transportation if it has an impact in the future. They're
very responsive and they are always there when I have
questions." 

Since relocating to Las Vegas, Conway said the company has grown
500 percent in revenue, and is currently actively recruiting
qualified employees in order to fuel future growth. 

"Our company has grown very rapidly  much more than we expected 
and we're bulging at the seams," she said, adding that the
challenges to running a small business such as UER include
understanding the many needs of her clients. 

"It requires listening and being in touch with the pressures and
demands of their industry," she said. "Our workforce is growing
and our community is growing but the market is changing globally
and many times businesses understand part of what they need but
aren't aware of all the challenges they are facing in a global
market. We work in a very interactive way with our clients and
try to deep-delve and understand their business, because our job
is to help them minimize risk and increase return on
investment." 

She credits the company's success to a credo she believes will
benefit other small business owners as well: 

"Give your client 150 percent all of the time and you will
develop clients for life," she said. "The people we work with
know that they can count on what we will deliver whatever we ask
them to do and so much comes from reputation and goodwill for
producing top work all of the time." 

Vegas.com. Vegas.com. 
All contents � 1998 - 2006 Vegas.com 
*****************************************************************
 71 Knight-Ridder: DOE reorganization raises concerns about worker safety
                
Saturday, Sep 02, 2006 Posted on Fri, Sep. 01,

 By Les Blumenthal McClatchy Newspapers 

WASHINGTON - Months before new health and safety rules are to 
take effect for more than 100,000 workers at Department of Energy 
sites across the nation, the DOE is dismantling the office that's 
in charge of implementing them. 

The move has drawn sharp criticism on Capitol Hill and from 
others, who say it will gut the department's worker-safety and 
health programs. Lawmakers and other critics say the 
restructuring will roll back more than 20 years of better worker 
safeguards while appeasing contractors who've long complained 
about overly restrictive regulations. 

"This is the pendulum swinging back," said David Michaels, who 
headed the office as an assistant secretary of energy in the 
Clinton administration. 

Department officials defended the restructuring, saying the 
Office of Environment, Safety and Health needed to be overhauled. 
Combining it with the DOE's security office will increase, not 
lessen, workers' safety, they said. 

They bristled at any suggestion that the department is 
downgrading its commitment to safety. "That is absolutely and 
totally incorrect," said Clay Sell, the department's deputy 
secretary. 

Critics said their concerns extended beyond the uncertainty over 
the new rules. 

Since the Bush administration took office, they said, security 
issues and modernizing the nation's nuclear arsenal have taken 
priority over efforts to clean up the toxic legacy of Cold War 
weapons production and ensure that workers are protected. 

"We have great concerns about where this is heading," said Tom 
Carpenter of the Government Accountability Project in Seattle, 
which tracks developments at the Energy Department. 

The department has 14,000 direct employees and 100,000 more who 
work for contractors. 

Those workers face any number of dangers, from exposure to 
nuclear materials or highly toxic waste to the problems possible 
at any major construction or industrial site. Recently, there 
were concerns that workers at the Hanford nuclear reservation in 
Washington state were being exposed to possibly dangerous vapors 
venting from underground storage tanks that hold nuclear waste, 
and two workers were seriously injured in a construction crane 
accident at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. 

Since the days of its predecessor, the Atomic Energy Commission, 
the department has been self-regulating on issues of worker 
health and safety rules and the environment. 

But in the mid-1980s, amid mounting reports of serious worker 
health and safety problems, widespread environmental 
contamination and abuses by contractors, Congress stepped in to 
tighten oversight. 

It created the Office of Environment, Safety and Health to 
develop and oversee DOE regulations on worker safety and health 
and environmental issues. It also created an independent watchdog 
agency, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. 

The department announced Wednesday that it would proceed with 
merging its Office of Environment, Safety and Health with its 
security office. 

"Combining health, safety, security enforcement and independent 
oversight responsibilities into the Office of Health, Safety and 
Security creates one unified office that will result in improved 
coordination among important functions, including an integrated 
approach to managing risks involving safety and security 
considerations," the DOE said in explaining the move. 

The Environment, Safety and Health Office had been headed by an 
assistant secretary appointed by the White House and confirmed by 
the Senate. The merged office will be headed by a career 
professional. 

The former office's environmental functions, including writing 
environmental-impact statements required under the National 
Environmental Policy Act, will be transferred to the department's 
general counsel's office. 

In defending the restructuring, Sell said the Office of 
Environment, Safety and Health was disorganized and inattentive 
to the needs of the department's field offices and lacked 
oversight authority. 

The new office's responsibilities will be equally divided between 
safety and health issues and security, he said. 

"The criticism we are downgrading worker safety and we are 
returning to the 1980s or giving contractors additional influence 
is completely and absolutely false," Sell said. 

An assistant secretary is supposed to oversee the new safety 
rules, which are scheduled to take effect in early February. Sell 
said there would be no "adverse effects" from the reorganization. 

"We expect there will be a more effective implementation," he 
said. 

The department also has quietly moved to redefine its 
relationship with the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, 
which has no enforcement powers but has issued a stream of 
sometimes highly critical reports on the DOE's projects and 
policies over the years. 

In a May memo, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman reminded employees 
that it was the DOE, not the safety board, that was responsible 
for department operations. 

"When we appear to allow any outside group to make our decisions, 
we are not meeting that obligation and are abdicating our 
responsibility," Bodman wrote. 

As word of the department's proposal to merge its health and 
safety office with its security office spread on Capitol Hill 
late last spring, criticism quickly mounted. Much of the 
opposition has come from Democrats, though some Republicans also 
have expressed concerns. 

In a letter to Bodman, Sens. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., and Edward 
Kennedy, D-Mass., charged that the change could damage the health 
of DOE workers and people who lived near the department's sites; 
they also said it probably would complicate the implementation of 
the new safety rules. 

Paul Ziemer, who headed the Office of Environment, Safety and 
Health in the administration of President George H.W. Bush, 
joined in a letter with Michaels, who headed it under Clinton, 
asking Bodman to reconsider the reorganization. They warned that 
the move would be perceived as weakening the DOE's health and 
safety programs. 

"The department can ill afford to fuel such a perception," they 
wrote. 

Criticism also came from the state level. 

"The DOE plan downgrades and weakens safety and health 
protections and is the wrong action to take and the wrong time," 
Democratic Govs. Christine Gregoire of Washington state and Bill 
Richardson of New Mexico said in a letter to Bodman. Richardson 
served as energy secretary in the Clinton administration. 

Democratic members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee 
have asked the Government Accountability Office to investigate. 

On Thursday, Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., asked the chairman of 
the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee to hold 
hearings. 

"I'm deeply disappointed the Bush administration continues to try 
to move ahead with this," Cantwell said. 

It's unclear whether the chairman of the Senate Energy Committee, 
Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., will call a hearing. Sell, who helped 
write the reorganization plan, is a former Domenici staffer. 

Bodman has the authority to make the changes without Congress' 
approval. 

Carpenter, of the Government Accountability Project, said the 
timing of the reorganization, just months before the new safety 
rules take effect, was suspicious. 

"Isn't that amazing?" he said. "It looks like they are doing an 
end run." 
*****************************************************************
 72 DOE: Assistant Secretary of Energy Highlights Clean Coal 
Technologies to Sustain Americas Economic Growth
 
  September 1, 2006
 
PITTSBURGH, PA  U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Assistant
Secretary for Fossil Energy Jeffrey Jarrett today joined Rep.
Tim Murphy (PA-18th) for an energy conference, Coal: The Jewel
of Pennsylvania, at Carnegie Mellon University, to highlight the
importance of clean coal technology and tout Americas robust
economy.  Assistant Secretary Jarrett discussed President Bushs
commitment to invest $2-billion in clean coal technologies over
ten years, and the construction of the worlds largest clean
coal power plant that will produce virtually no emissions
through the FutureGen Initiative.  Clean coal is a key element
of President Bushs Advanced Energy Initiative, which seeks to
invest in the development of clean and reliable energy
technologies to reduce dependence on foreign energy sources. 

Clean coal is our nations most abundant and affordable energy
source that powers our homes and businesses and keeps our
economy thriving, Assistant Secretary Jarrett said.  Through
Bush Administration research investments, DOEs National Energy
Technology Laboratory is helping to change the outlook of
Americas energy future by advancing clean coal technology
research to increase efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas
emissions. 

Pittsburgh stands on a 250-year supply of coal, a seam which is
one of the most valuable natural resource supplies in the
world, Rep. Murphy said.  The development of clean coal
technology and the ability to use waste coal as a source of
energy are absolutely vital in leading us towards energy
independence.  We have to diversify our energy sources in order
to reduce the trend toward higher natural gas and oil prices.
Coal is the ace in Southwestern Pennsylvania's hand. 

In addition to discussing positive impacts of new energy
technologies on strengthening Americas economic and energy
security, Assistant Secretary Jarrett also discussed the overall
health of the U.S. economy, underscored by new unemployment
figures released today.  128,000 jobs were created nationwide in
August.  The economy has created more than 1.7 million jobs over
the past 12 months - and more than 5.7 million jobs since August
2003.  Our economy has now added jobs for 36 straight months and
the unemployment rate is 4.7 percent - below the average of each
of the past three decades.  These figures indicate that the
American economy is strong by almost any measure. 

Assistant Secretary Jarrett discussed the FutureGen Initiative,
which will create the world's first coal-based, zero-emissions
electricity and hydrogen power plant.  This $1 billion, 10-year
demonstration project is designed to dramatically reduce air
pollution and capture and store greenhouse gases.  Assistant
Secretary Jarrett also discussed progress on the
Administrations 10-year Clean Coal Power Initiative, which is
reducing emissions and improving the efficiency of existing and
new coal-based power plants, enabling a strong future for
America's most abundant resource. 

Joining Assistant Secretary Jarrett and Rep. Murphy at todays
conference were Dr. Pradeep Khosla, Dean, Carnegie Institute of
Technology, and local academic and business leaders. 

Media contact(s): Julie Ruggiero, (202) 586-4940     [ ]   

  U.S. Department of Energy | 1000 Independence Ave., SW | 
Washington, DC 20585 1-800-dial-DOE | f/202-586-4403
*****************************************************************
 73 islandpacket.com: SRS fuel project wastes money 

Island Packet Online
 		
Hilton Head Island - Bluffton, SC 		

Friday, September 1, 2006

Comment 

To the Packet: 

The Aug. 21 editorial on the plutonium project in Aiken reminds
us of a historical fact: For as long as the nuclear industry has
been in existence, it has never found a solution for safely
disposing of its highly dangerous radioactive waste. 

The nuclear fuel project at Aiken (90 miles away) only continues
the dangerous radioactive waste cycle for a whole new generation
of reactors yet to be built. Billions (not millions) of tax
dollars already have been wasted at the site. We should not
invest more in a deadly project that has no place in our energy
future. 

Finian Taylor 

Hilton Head Island 

Copyright � The Island Packet,
*****************************************************************
 74 Hanford News: Plan would recycle used nuclear fuel; TRIDEC prepares
application to study if Hanford could be site for program
 
This story was published Thursday, August 31st, 2006 

By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer 

The Tri-City Industrial Development Council is preparing a grant
application to study whether Hanford could become a site for a
new federal program to recycle used nuclear fuel. 

The proposal would include looking at the Hanford 400 Area,
which includes the Fast Flux Test Facility reactor; Energy
Northwest, which operates a nuclear power plant near the 400
Area, and possibly a Hanford nuclear analytical laboratory, also
just north of Richland. 

Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., will be supporting TRIDEC's efforts,
his office said Wednesday. 

Earlier this month, the Department of Energy announced that it
would award $20 million in grants for detailed studies of where
to locate two commercial-scale facilities for its Global Nuclear
Energy Partnership, or GNEP, program. Each grant may be as large
as $5 million. 

DOE is interested in a Consolidated Fuel Treatment Center, which
would separate reactor fuel left from making electricity into
usable and waste components. Then the second facility, an
Advanced Burner Reactor, would convert usable components -
long-lived radioactive isotopes - into shorter-lived
radioisotopes that present less of a disposal problem. The
reactor also would produce electricity. 

TRIDEC is looking at potential contractors with nuclear
experience for technical help, including Washington Group
International and Areva NP, said TRIDEC President Carl Adrian.
No agreements have been signed. Battelle, which operates Pacific
Northwest National Laboratory, also could play a role. 

Washington Group International is a major construction
contractor and Areva manufactures commercial nuclear fuel in
Richland. 

TRIDEC is interested in including Energy Northwest in the plan
because it already is certified by the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission and because of its infrastructure, such as large
transmission lines. 

The proposal is expected to offer DOE a range of options. 

They could include using specific facilities such as FFTF, a
research reactor that is being permanently shut down, and other
buildings in the 400 Area, such as the 250,000-square-foot Fuels
and Materials Examination Facility, which was built to study
used nuclear fuel but never put into service. The 400 Area also
has a dry-cask fuel storage lay-down area. 

The proposal also could include options for space to build new
facilities that would rely on existing infrastructure that
appears to match DOE's criteria. 

"In a sense, we are trying to sell DOE this site," Adrian said,
by offering multiple alternatives that might meet its needs. 

DOE is interested in proposed sites that meet minimum criteria
for size, hydrology, electricity capacity, population density,
zoning, water availability, road access and seismic stability,
DOE announced earlier this month. 

Preference for the grants will be given to sites at which there
is community and state support for use of the site for GNEP
facilities, DOE said. Preference also may be given if a proposed
site has the potential to be used for the fuel treatment center
and the reactor, DOE said. 

The community needs to rally behind the proposal for it to
succeed, Adrian said. 

DOE also could receive applications from other areas with
nuclear ties and strong community and political support,
including sites in Idaho, New Mexico and South Carolina. 

TRIDEC's application is due Sept. 7. DOE expects to announce
which applications it will fund by the end of next month.
Winning applicants would have 90 days to complete the site
studies and submit required information. 

Information from the completed studies may be used in an
environmental study that will evaluate potential environmental
impacts from each proposed GNEP facility. At the conclusion of
that study, DOE is to decide whether to move forward with the
facilities and where they would be located. 

� 2006 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 75 Hanford News: DOE combines 2 safety-related offices
 
This story was published Thursday, August 31st, 2006 

By Les Blumenthal, Herald Washington, D.C., bureau 

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Department of Energy announced Wednesday
that it will proceed with a major internal restructuring, saying
the change will improve safety for tens of thousands of workers
at DOE sites across the nation. 

The department has 114,000 workers at dozens of sites, including
Hanford. And DOE also operates a string of national
laboratories, including Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in
Richland. 

Despite congressional concerns, the Energy Department plans to
combine the Office of Environment, Safety and Health with the
Office of Safety Performance Assurance. 

The new Office of Health, Safety and Security will help form
health, safety and security policies for DOE, provide help to
department field offices, conduct oversight including "rigorous"
field investigations and enforce department regulations. 

"As secretary of energy, ensuring the safety of workers across
the DOE complex is my priority, and this new office will go a
long way in strengthening our safety and security organization,"
Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said in a statement. 

In a 17-page report explaining and justifying the
reorganization, the department said the new office would bring a
more "focused and integrated organizational approach" to the
issues of worker safety and security and would be led by a
career professional rather than an appointed assistant secretary
to provide continuity even when administrations change. 

Critics, however, said the restructuring was a step backward
when it came to protecting worker safety and health and was
being rushed into effect without proper congressional oversight. 

"Today, the Bush administration took another step to weaken the
health and safety protections our workers rely on," Sen. Patty
Murray, D-Wash., said in a statement. 

"It ignored the expertise of safety professionals and many of us
in Congress who strongly object to this flawed plan. Thousands
of Hanford workers rely on the Department of Energy to ensure
their safety on the job, and this makes their safety a lower
priority." 

Other DOE critics agreed. "This is a huge mistake," said Tom
Carpenter of the Hanford watchdog group Government
Accountability Project in Seattle. "They are downgrading the
safety function even as the secretary says it is a top
priority." 

Carpenter said the reorganization showed a lack of commitment to
cleaning up energy department sites like Hanford and protecting
the safety and health of workers. "They want to shove it into a
back corner," he said. 

Other lawmakers are taking a wait-and-see attitude. 

Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., said in a statement that federal
agencies should always be looking for ways to improve but that
worker safety must be the top priority "regardless of the
administrative framework or what you call the office." 

He said, "On many occasions I've been the first to say that DOE
is not perfect - no agency is, and sometimes changes are
warranted. Worker safety requires continual vigilance, and I'm
going to carefully monitor this, like I always have, and see if
it has the results that DOE believes it will." 

DOE officials contend that critics of the change are wrong and
that the goal is to enhance worker protections. 

"This decision is very important to the health and safety of our
workers, to our contractors and to our neighboring communities,"
Clay Sell, the agency's deputy secretary, said in a conference
call with reporters Wednesday. 

Sell said Bodman has long been concerned about the department
"lapsing into complacency" when it comes to these issues. And
the reorganization will guard against that happening. 

Sell rejected any suggestion that the department is downgrading
its commitment to worker safety and health, adding "Secretary
Bodman and I believe this will be a sufficient improvement over
the status quo."

� 2006 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 76 Hanford News: Hazardous materials managers earn awards
 
This story was published Friday, September 1st, 2006 

By the Herald staff 

Five members of the Eastern Washington Chapter of the Academy of 
Certified Hazardous Materials Managers will receive national 
academy awards. 

Rampur Viswanath of CH2M Hill Hanford Group, R. Terry Winward of 
Fluor Hanford, Michelle Yates Mandis of the Washington State 
Department of Ecology, Andrea Prignano of Fluor Hanford and 
Robbie Tidwell of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory each will 
receive a Champions of Excellence Award. They will be presented 
at the academy's annual meeting later this month. 

The Eastern Washington Chapter also will receive the Honor Roll 
of Champions Award for the seventh year in a row. It's one of 
five chapters among 66 in the nation to be honored. 

� 2006 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved.



*****************************************************************
 77 Hanford News: Lawmakers' demand for open hearings on nuclear waste disposal
at the Idaho National Laboratory and the Savannah River Site
blocks meeting
 
This story was published Friday, September 1st, 2006 

By James Rosen, McClatchy Newspapers 

WASHINGTON - Pressure from Reps. John Spratt of South Carolina
and John Dingell of Michigan prompted the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission to cancel a closed meeting scheduled for Thursday
with the Department of Energy over a disputed plan to clean up
nuclear weapons waste at the Idaho National Laboratory and the
Savannah River Site. 

The two agencies are at odds over how much power Congress gave
the NRC, in 2004 legislation, to monitor DOE cleanup of the
Idaho and South Carolina complexes. 

"This is a matter of enormous public interest, and we believe
the public should not be barred from meetings on the subject
unless a significant national security concern is being
discussed," Spratt and Dingell wrote Tuesday in a letter to Dale
Klein, NRC chairman. 

Dingell is senior Democrat on the House Energy Committee;
Spratt, senior Democrat on the House Budget Committee, has
closely tracked the mounting costs of cleanup efforts at the
Savannah River Site. 

David McIntyre, an NRC spokesman, said the agency had
reluctantly agreed to close the meeting at the insistence of the
Energy Department. 

"Our preference is for open meetings, and the vast majority of
the ones we've had have been public," McIntyre said. "DOE has
always wanted them to be closed to the public." 

Megan Barnett, a DOE spokeswoman, said the meeting with the NRC
had not been rescheduled. 

"At the end of the day, we are focused on moving forward and
getting the waste cleanup work of this department safely done to
best carry out our mission and the provisions of the law,"
Barnett said. "We're committed to the safe storage and ultimate
disposal of tank waste, working in consultation with our federal
and state partners." 

The power struggle between the Energy Department and the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission is rooted in DOE efforts to change the
classification of some atomic weapons waste in Idaho and South
Carolina from "high level" to "low level." 

After a federal judge ruled against the initiative, Congress
passed a measure in October 2004 aimed at reaching a compromise.
In exchange for authorizing DOE to reclassify the waste,
lawmakers gave the NRC new powers to monitor such actions. 

Since then, the NRC has tried to assert its new authority while
the Energy Department has endeavored to limit it. Each agency
points to different sections of the 2004 law to support its
position. 

The waste at both sites is the byproduct of nuclear weapons
production during the Cold War. It is only a fraction of the
total waste at the Idaho and Savannah River sites, two of 15
weapons complexes around the country. 

At the Idaho site, there are 15 smaller tanks holding about 3.4
million gallons of waste. At the Savannah site, the disputed
waste totals more than 60 million gallons in 49 giant tanks,
some as large as 85 feet by 34 feet. 

Geoff Fettus, a staff attorney for the Natural Resources Defense
Council, said the Energy Department has long tried to keep its
nuclear disposal processes secret. 

"DOE seemingly doe not want public scrutiny of its cleanup
decisions," Fettus said. 

Fettus' environmental organization filed the federal lawsuit
that eventually led to the 2004 law, which in turn has sparked
the power struggle between the Energy Department and the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission.

� 2006 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 78 SF Chronicle: LIVERMORE / Lawrence Lab fined over waste disposal
 
Friday, September 1, 2006

The state fined Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory $31,500
on Thursday for mishandling hazardous waste in 2004. 

The state Department of Toxic Substances Control said the
nuclear weapons lab had violated hazardous waste management laws
by combining wastes in a 5-gallon container that generated
nitrous oxide gases, a potentially volatile vapor. The incident
happened sometime in mid-2004. 

The state also cited the lab for shipping untreated hazardous
waste that failed to meet disposal restrictions and then
certifying that it met those restrictions, and for storing
hazardous waste for more than a year without proper
authorization. 

The lab is managed by the University of California under
contract to the U.S. Energy Department. 				
Page B - 3 			

The San Francisco Chronicle] 
*****************************************************************
 79 lamonitor.com: Science being applied to Rocky Flats cleanup 

The Online News Source for Los Alamos
 

ROGER SNODGRASS, roger@lamonitor.com, Monitor Assistant Editor

Los Alamos scientists recall the role of science in cleaning up
Rocky Flats in an article in this month's Physics Today
magazine. 
David Clark and David Janecky, LANL staff members, co-authored
an article on "Science-based cleanup of Rocky Flats," with
Leonard Lane, a long-time LANL consultant who lives in Tucson.

In 1989, the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant was abruptly
closed after a raid and ensuing investigations by the FBI and
the Environmental Protection Agency. 

Located within 50 miles of 2.5 million people in metropolitan
Denver and potentially affecting 300,000 people within the Rocky
Flats watershed, the site had a huge burden of radioactive and
other hazardous materials.

Nearly four decades of manufacturing components for the Cold War
nuclear build-up left behind a toxic landscape. The cleanup,
which would assume monumental proportions, was complicated by
deep distrust in the surrounding communities, aggravated by
years of secrecy 
"In 1995, there was a change in the management at Rocky Flats,
not unlike what we've gone through here," Clark said, in an
interview Thursday. "There was also a change in the mission from
weapons to cleanup and a lot of concerns."

The Los Alamos scientists used scientific analysis to reassure
the public on how plutonium and related radiological materials
mobilized in the environment and therefore, what kind of site
engineering steps made the most sense. 
Fears about heavy rains at the site and some data had indicated
that plutonium was moving in water, as if dissolved, but
scientific scrutiny was able to overturn previous models and
demonstrate that wind and surface-water transport should be
given the highest priorities.

Clark said the scientists also played a role in convincing the
public, the regulators and the contractor Kaiser Hill, to accept
an allowable standard of 50 picocuries per gram of soil.

This figure was significantly less than the standard of 651
picocuries per gram that were allowable at the time, but helped
forge a consensus that led to a compromise

"They had to haul out a lot more soil," said Clark, "but it was
the right thing."

Clark attributes a commitment to the public process and to
public education as one of his team's main contributions, along
with solving the scientific problems.

"We held the debate in front of the public. They watched it
happen," he said. "There is an important role for concerned
citizens groups, keeping the pressure on to answer the
questions. If they hadn't, we would never have been invited to
go and help answer them."

The article concludes: "Moreover, a scientific understanding of
the problems helped define a clearer endpoint and led to the
most extensive cleanup in the history of Superfund legislation.
Consequently, the project finished one year ahead of schedule,
saved taxpayers billions of dollars and removed an annual
liability of more than $600 million form the DOE budget."

"It was a great thing to be there on the final day, when they
put the padlock on the gate," Clark said. That was last October.

In 2001, according to a Government Accountability Report, the
cleanup was behind schedule and over cost. But in the second
five years, the contract beat the schedule and came in under
cost. The cost of the contract was about $7.7 billion, including
an incentive based contract fees of about $660 million.

That compares with a 1995 estimate of 70 years and $36 billion.

However, the GAO said the sufficiency has not yet been
completely ascertained. In the next few months, the EPA and the
Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment are
expected to issue their final evaluation before the new Rocky
Flats National Wildlife Refuge can open to the public.

A more thorough and technical discussion of the Rocky Flats
research was the featured subject of a special edition of the
lab's Actinide Research Quarterly this year.

That presentation apparently came to the attention of the
editors of Physics Today and inspired the current report for
wider distribution.   

  � 2003 Los Alamos Monitor All Rights Reserved.   
*****************************************************************
 80 Physics Today: Science-based cleanup of Rocky Flats - 

The chemical and physical interactions of radioactive compounds
are key to understanding how they can contaminate the
environment and, more importantly, how best to remove them.

David L. Clark, David R. Janecky, and Leonard J. Lane 

September 2006, page 34
 

From 1952 to 1989, the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant,
located about 24 km northwest of Denver, Colorado, made
components for the nation's nuclear arsenal using various
radioactive materials, including plutonium and uranium; toxic
metals such as beryllium; and hazardous solvents, degreasers,
and other chemicals. The key component produced at Rocky Flats
was the plutonium pit, commonly referred to as the trigger for a
nuclear weapon. The pit provides energy to fuel the explosion. 

In 1989 the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the
Environmental Protection Agency abruptly halted nuclear
production work to investigate environmental and safety
concerns, and the site was added to the EPA's Superfund list
later that year. In 1993 the secretary of energy announced the
end of the nuclear production mission, and the area became known
as the Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site (RFETS) in
1995. Nearly 40 years of nuclear weapons production left behind
contaminated facilities, soils, and surface and ground water. 

More than 2.5 million people live within an 80-km radius of the
site, and 300 000 of those live in the Rocky Flats watershed.
The sudden shutdown left large quantities of plutonium and other
hazardous substances in various stages of processing and
storage. Because plutonium is dangerous to human health, even in
minute quantities, the cleanup of plutonium-contaminated
materials is highly complex, tedious, and labor intensive. 

In March 1995 the US Department of Energy estimated that the
cleanup for Rocky Flats would cost in excess of $37 billion and
take 70 years to complete. By 1996, DOE and independent
contractor Kaiser-Hill Co had initiated a massive effort that
eventually resulted in a credible plan to accelerate the closure
of Rocky Flats by 31 December 2006 at a contracted cost of $7
billion. After a troubled start, Kaiser-Hill completed the task
nearly a year ahead of schedule. 

What led to the turnaround? Without question, an incentive-laden
contract, strong support and stable funding from Congress,
high-level DOE support that mobilized the entire DOE complex to
assist in the cleanup, technological innovation, and improved
scientific understanding all contributed. Much has been made of
the contractor's fee of more than $500 million, but less has
been said about the role that scientific understanding played in
guiding key cleanup decisions and facilitating good project
management. 

The impetus to understand the science behind plutonium
contamination gained momentum in 1995 when intense rainfall and
wet springtime conditions raised concerns about the mobility and
dispersal of plutonium and americium. To account for increased
concentrations of plutonium at various surface water-monitoring
locations, researchers hypothesized that plutonium was soluble
in surface and ground water. But modeling efforts at the time
predicted very little movement of plutonium. The discord between
the data and predictions prompted DOE and Kaiser-Hill in 1995 to
establish the Actinide Migration Evaluation (AME) advisory
group. The idea was to solicit advice and technical expertise on
how elements such as plutonium, uranium, and americium are
likely to behave in the air, surface water, ground water, and
soil (see box 1). 

Supported by scientific measurements, the group found that
plutonium and americium form insoluble oxides and colloids that
adhere to small organic and mineral particles in soil. The
particles can migrate throughout the Rocky Flats environment by
wind and surface water; particles are lifted from some location,
suspended in air or water, and then redeposited as sediment
somewhere else. This understanding showed that soluble transport
models were, in fact, not appropriate to describe the transport
of plutonium and americium and led to the adoption of erosion
and sediment-transport models. And it provided the basis for how
best to negotiate a cleanup agreement and settle on an allowable
standard of 50 picocuries per gram of soil. The relevant measure
of plutonium and americium concentration is how much radiation
is given off per unit volume or mass. 

Did it save a lot of taxpayer dollars? That's difficult to
determine. What everyone agrees on is that scientific
understanding provided clarity and focus on the real issues
surrounding plutonium and americium in the RFETS environment.
The clarity and focus in turn allowed for good project
management, guided remediation efforts, and most certainly
helped shave decades and billions of dollars off the initial
cleanup estimate. 

Site details
 
  [Rocky Flats] Figure 1   

Nearly the size of a small city with its own fire department,
medical offices, cafeteria, and water- and sewage-treatment
plants, Rocky Flats comprised more than 800 structures on a
1.6-square-kilometer industrial area surrounded by approximately
24 square kilometers of controlled open space (see figure 1).
The open space continues to serve as a buffer between Rocky
Flats and the nearby, growing communities and is home to many
species of animals and plants. 

Water at Rocky Flats and the surrounding area is distributed
among surface water, shallow ground water, and deep ground
water.1 A series of detention ponds had been constructed along
creeks to manage plant waste and surface water runoff. Shallow
ground water refers to water within the alluvium and weathered
bedrock and is found to a depth of 30 m. Water from the surface
filters downward, recharging the shallow ground water, which in
turn recharges the stream channels at certain times of the year.
Beneath the alluvium is highly impermeable bedrock that inhibits
vertical flow. As a result, shallow ground water flows laterally
and either discharges into the streams or emerges as hillside
springs and seeps. Deep regional ground water flows about
200300 m below the surface. Because of the intervening bedrock,
that regional ground water aquifer is hydrologically isolated
from the Rocky Flats surface and shallow ground water and from
actinide contaminants.2 

Winds at RFETS predominantly flow from the northwest to the
southeast. They can periodically become so strong and
gusty�exceeding 160 km/h�that they shatter the windshields of
vehicles parked on the site. The wind is an important factor in
the dispersal of soil and actinides. Indeed, air monitoring and
subsequent calculations of the actinide loads showed that air
transport was a dominant actinide migration pathway, before and
during cleanup. 

Radioactive contaminants
 
  [plutonium concentration map] Figure 2   

When it was operating, the Rocky Flats nuclear plant generated a
huge volume of waste contaminated with radionuclides and other
hazardous substances. The majority was shipped offsite, but
improper disposal, ruptured or leaking pipes, fires, and faulty
storage units resulted in local soil and water contamination. By
far the largest source of plutonium and americium contamination
in soils emanated from chemical drums stored in an area known as
the 903 Pad. Between 1958 and 1969, an estimated 19 000 liters
of tainted lathe coolant (about 86 g or 5.3 curies of plutonium)
leaked into the ground; wind and surface-water erosion then
carried plutonium and americium in a pattern that tracks roughly
with the prevailing winds to the east and southeast, at low
levels past the eastern site boundary (see figure 2). 

Plutonium and americium generally exhibited the same spatial
distribution in surface soils, with wide variations in
radioactive activities occurring throughout the site.
Approximately 90 percent of the radioactive inventory was in the
top 12 cm of the soil.3 The concentrations ranged up to several
picocuries per liter in streams and ponds, and up to a few
nanocuries per gram in soils and sediments. 

Chemical reactions, particularly redox reactions in soil and
ponds, are often hypothesized to explain actinide mobility. At
one extreme, the actinides may react with surrounding materials
to create soluble and mobile compounds. At the other extreme,
the actinides might remain unchanged at the molecular scale and
become bound to natural organic and mineral materials. These
natural materials themselves may undergo chemical reactions to
form mobile components, thereby carrying the actinides along
with them. 

The contrast between actinide solubilities�the solubility of
plutonium and americium is very low, whereas that of uranium is
relatively high�drove researchers' consideration of colloidal
and particulate transport processes and prompted the AME
advisory group to carefully evaluate evidence that could
distinguish solubility and colloidal and particulate results.
For example, actinide chemists have long known that under
environmental conditions plutonium is most stable as oxides,4
and colloid-sized materials,5 but detailed knowledge of their
reactivity in the environment is limited to concentrations of
picocuries per liter in water and picocuries to nanocuries per
gram in soil. 

Under natural environmental conditions, plutonium solubility is
limited by the formation of amorphous plutonium hydroxide
[Pu(OH)4] or polycrystalline plutonium oxide (PuO2). Formation
of these compounds provides an upper limit on the amount of
dissolved�that is, ionic or molecular�plutonium that can be
present. Plutonium oxide's measured solubility range5 of 1010 to
1013 mol/L is limited by the formation of Pu(OH)4. Due to that
very low solubility and the tendency of compounds of Pu(IV), the
fourth oxidation state of plutonium, to adhere to organic and
mineral particles, the primary path of plutonium transport is
through the migration of fine particles. Indeed, when
concentrations of plutonium above fallout levels have been
investigated in detail, the plutonium has been linked to
colloids and particulates.6 

Synchrotron radiation studies

Although researchers at Rocky Flats suspected that plutonium
contamination in the environment was in a particle form�most
likely the very insoluble PuO2�definitive proof did not exist to
verify its chemical form and oxidation state.7 Los Alamos
National Laboratory researchers led by Steven Conradson
performed x-ray absorption fine structure spectroscopy at the
Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory to determine the
chemical form of plutonium in RFETS soils and concretes.8
Although not well suited for the extremely dilute samples
typical of the RFETS environment, the technique successfully
identified the chemical fingerprints of select,
higher-concentration samples through a careful tuning of the
spectroscopy data collection�that is, a judicious choice of
which absorption region to analyze, together with long
data-collection times. 

X-ray absorption near-edge structure analysis identified the
oxidation state of plutonium in soils and concretes as Pu(IV).
An analysis of the extended x-ray absorption fine structure in
the spectra�the spectral oscillations in the region beyond the
absorption edge�unambiguously identified the chemical form of
plutonium in soil and contaminated concrete around the site as
the relatively insoluble hydrous oxide PuO2�xH2O (see box 2). 

Judging from the geochemical characteristics found using x rays,
one might conclude that insoluble oxides of plutonium and
americium would be trapped in the ground and remain immobile.
That's true to a point. A growing number of field studies,
however, document the movement of low concentrations of
low-solubility radionuclides in surface and ground waters.6,9,10
Those small concentrations can be transported in surface water
and soils by particles of sizes typically ranging from a
nanometer to several microns.11,12 Because the particles remain
suspended in ground water, they can move in the natural
watershed and settle into the series of ponds around RFETS. 

Ultrafiltration studies

From 1998 until 2001, Texas A&M University's Peter Santschi and
coworkers examined 239Pu, 240Pu, and 241Am concentrations in the
field and through laboratory studies at RFETS.10 Since the
environmental forms of actinides in the surface waters were in
the concentration range of 103 to 101 pCi/L, filtration and
tangential-flow ultrafiltration were the only methods suitable
to separate and analyze the different phases (see box 3).
Measurements of total 239Pu, 240Pu, and 241Am concentrations in
storm runoff and pond discharge samples collected during spring
and summer from 1998 to 2000 demonstrated that most of the
239Pu, 240Pu, and 241Am transported from contaminated soils to
streams occurred in the particulate (roughly larger than 0.45
�m) and colloidal (roughly between 2 nm to 0.45 �m) phases. 

In general, most of the Pu and Am in RFETS water was found in
the particulate phase, with most of the material that passed a
0.5 �m filter being colloidal. Based on graphite-furnace atomic
absorption spectroscopy, transmission electron microscope, and
energy dispersive x-ray microprobe images, colloids were
primarily composed of clay and organic matter. 

So-called isoelectric focusing experiments of radiolabeled
colloids from RFETS soils revealed that colloidal Pu formed in
the tetravalent state and was mostly associated with a
negatively charged organic colloid having a molecular weight of
1015 kilodaltons, rather than with the more abundant inorganic
colloids made up of iron oxide and clay. Santschi's evidence
strongly argued against the presence of mobile colloidal
microparticles mainly in the form of PuO2, but suggested that
PuO2 is imbedded in, or attached to, organic matter containing
some iron. 

Each of these complementary studies provided evidence that the
low levels of Pu and Am in surface water at RFETS are
transported by the colloidal and particulate fraction of the
water, not by the dissolved fraction. 

Modeling actinide transport

Understanding that Pu and Am exist in the form of insoluble
particles clarified that the initial models of contaminant
transport�ones based on soluble forms of Pu�were flawed and
indefensible. To best fashion the range of possible remediation
and management scenarios, AME advisers needed the ability to
predict how the radioactive material moved under existing
conditions. 

AME chose the Water Erosion Prediction Project (WEPP)
model,13,14 a state-of-the-art process-oriented computer model
that simulates hillside erosion processes and estimates the
spatial and temporal distributions of soil erosion and sediment
deposition in stream channels and impoundments. Because it
accounts for enrichment of transported sediment in fine
particles, the WEPP model is well suited for contaminant
transport calculations. 

To estimate stream channel sediment erosion and deposition,
output from the WEPP model was routed into yet another�the US
Army's Hydrologic Engineering Center sediment-transport model,
HEC-6T, which can accommodate up to 100 tributaries flowing into
a main channel.15 The combination was crucial to modeling the
RFETS watersheds and using soil data to predict surface-water
actinide concentrations. 

AME applied the soil-erosion and sediment-transport models to
the hillslopes and channel systems at RFETS and compared the
results with monitoring data to parameterize, initialize, and
calibrate the models. The coupled models could then be used to
simulate storm events and the transport of 239Pu, 240Pu, and
241Am contaminants, estimate the amount of contaminated sediment
in surface water, and analyze which hillslopes and drainages the
contamination moved along. Finally, the coupled models were used
with data on climate and soil contamination to predict rates of
sediment and contaminant transport under various management
scenarios designed to handle the cleanup. 

As part of the modeling process, the predicted soil erosion�that
is, the mass eroded per unit area�was combined with actinide
soil-concentration data to generate a map of actinide mobility
predicted for a specific storm event. Surprisingly, the results
of those maps revealed that the largest Pu and Am loads
delivered to surface water do not necessarily originate from
areas with the highest concentrations of Pu and Am in the soil.
The combination of topography, vegetative cover protecting the
soil, soil erodibility, and actinide concentration determines
the rate of erosion and contaminant transport. 

  [Plutonium mobility map] Figure 3   

The area east of the 903 Pad, for example, generally contains
the highest levels of Pu and Am in the area (see figure 3). The
area around the 903 Pad, however, is relatively flat, with
slopes of only about 1%. Consequently, that area suffers far
less soil erosion by water than other, steeper parts of the
watershed�with a corresponding reduction in the amount of Pu and
Am transported. 

Cleanup

The scientific understanding developed through the integrated
studies described above clarified the issues surrounding Pu and
Am migration in the RFETS environment. Once Kaiser-Hill, DOE,
the EPA, the Colorado state and local governments, and concerned
citizens' groups reached a common appreciation of the technical
issues, the different groups could then reach long-sought
agreements on how to proceed with cleanup. Realizing that Pu and
Am existed primarily in particulate forms led to an
understanding of their movement at the site via wind and water.
That set the stage for discussing the potential risks to human
health and the environment, possible remediation efforts,
specific soil-removal technologies, and ways to best reconfigure
the landscape. 

Site operators responded with a major shift of emphasis to soil
erosion and the need to control it. The most poignant
illustration of that shift was a management directive
distributed to every employee from Kaiser-Hill president Nancy
Tuor; the directive discussed preventing the dispersal of
contaminants during remediation efforts and reducing the
transport of Pu and Am to nearby stream channels or locations
off site. Such measures allowed site remediation to proceed
rapidly and thus meet or beat deadlines. 

In 1996 the maximum allowable radionuclide action level was 651
pCi/g. In 2002, armed with improved understanding of Pu
behavior, DOE, the Colorado Department of Public Health, and the
EPA released a series of reports that formed the basis for a new
maximum surface-soil action level of 50 pCi/g; that standard was
based on risk analysis and was the result of huge community
involvement. Because the Pu contamination was generally confined
to surface soils, the greatest public health risk came from the
forces of wind and water. In actual decontamination, demolition,
and remediation, workers therefore set up large tents at the 903
Pad to insulate work in progress from wind, rainfall, and
erosion. The work focused on removing soil contaminated at the
more aggressive standard, down to one meter below the surface,
and replacing it with fresh soil; soil contaminated at depths
greater than one meter was allowed to remain in place, even at
higher concentrations. To decontaminate the concrete walls of
buildings, workers used a variety of techniques, including
pressure washing of the top layers to remove the radioactive
particles. They then used the clean concrete as backfill around
the site. 

Operators developed a storm-water pollution-prevention plan,
designed to minimize the erosion, sedimentation, and runoff of
water across the site. Erosion-control measures included straw
bales and wattles, straw crimping, silt fences, mats, hydromulch
and crimped synthetic fibers (Flexterra), and riprap lining of
drainage channels. Some new wetland areas were also prepared. 

As a result of the cleanup activities and control measures,
surface water and air monitoring stations at the site boundary
have actually shown a decrease in actinide migration. Several of
those measures are expected to work only for a few months to a
few years, and will require regular maintenance until the region
stabilizes and the vegetation is reestablished. 

A new paradigm?
 

Superfund sites, such as RFETS, represent important
environmental problems of national significance. So it is
important that our best science is applied to improve the
technical basis for decision making.16 A confluence of several
fortunate factors made the RFETS cleanup successful: the
willingness of Kaiser-Hill to seek outside scientific advice;
the acceptance, down to the project level, of the value of that
advice in avoiding pitfalls and improving operations; and
stakeholders' acceptance, albeit more gradual, of the
independence and veracity of the AME scientific advisers. This
willingness and acceptance helped DOE, the integrating
contractor, regulators, and the involved community to focus on
specified goals and objectives. 

Establishing particle-transport mechanisms as the basis of Pu
and Am mobility, rather than aqueous sorptiondesorption
processes, provided a successful scientific foundation for
understanding the scope and nature of the problem and how best
to solve it using erosion control technology. The understanding
prompted contractors to rapidly apply soil-erosion and
sediment-transport models. That, in turn, led to the design and
sitewide use of erosion control technology to mitigate the
transport of radioactive particles. Moreover, a scientific
understanding of the problems helped define a clearer endpoint
and led to the most extensive cleanup in the history of
Superfund legislation. Consequently, the project finished one
year ahead of schedule, saved taxpayers billions of dollars, and
removed an annual liability of more than $600 million from the
DOE budget. 

We thank Christine Dayton, Ian Paton, and the Actinide Migration
Evaluation advisory group. We are grateful to Kaiser-Hill Co and
the US Department of Energy for their support of AME studies,
and thank the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory and
DOE's Office of Basic Energy Sciences and Office of Biological
and Environmental Research for their support of actinide science
that assisted the cleanup activities at Rocky Flats. 

David Clark and David Janecky are technical staff members at Los
Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Leonard Lane is a
consultant with L. J. Lane Consulting, Inc, in Tucson, Arizona,
and was a hydrologist with the US Department of Agriculture's
Agricultural Research Service. 

References
 
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Copyright� 2006 by the American Institute of Physics
    
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