***************************************************************** 03/11/07 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 15.58 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** Send News Stories to news@energy-net.org with title on subject line and first line of body NUCLEAR POLICY 1 Antiwar.com: An Open Letter to Chris Matthews 2 Antiwar.com: More Sand In Our Faces - 3 In Nuclear Dispute With Iran UN Atomic Watchdog Suspends 22 Technica 4 Guardian Unlimited: Iraq Summit Offers U.S., Iran Icebreaker 5 AFP: US, Iran square off at Baghdad meet: Khalilzad - 6 AFP: North Korea warns US to keep promise on lifting sanctions - 7 US: Statesman Journal: The censorship of science undermines democrac 8 Guardian Unlimited: Aide resigns in rebellion over Trident 9 Guardian Unlimited: Government accused over Polaris files 10 BBC NEWS: Davidson condemns Trident update 11 BBC NEWS: Trident rebels 'will be defeated' 12 AFP: Blair faces large rebel vote on British nuclear plans - poll - 13 Guardian Unlimited: Comment is free: Chain reaction 14 Guardian Unlimited: Meacher pledge on Trident future 15 Guardian Unlimited: Backbenchers 'oppose Trident' NUCLEAR REACTORS 16 The Hindu: N-safety team coming to India 17 Guardian Unlimited: How Europe can save the world 18 AU: The Age: 'Nuclear the answer' ? if we really have a crisis - 19 AU: The Age: Nuclear energy brings responsibilities with it - Opinio 20 AU: The Age: Cutting emissions: the new power ploy - Opinion - 21 US: toledoblade.com: Feds declare problem over at Fermi plant 22 US: ENS: Nuclear Power Industry Wins First Site Approval in 30 Years 23 MDN: Germany's environment ministry refuses extension for nuclear pl 24 US: Herald News: Agency OKs preliminary permit for Exelon reactor 25 US: Fulton Sun: Chemistry problem shuts down nuclear plant 26 US: toledoblade.com: FirstEnergy recommits to annual assessments 27 US: toledoblade.com: Judge orders separate trials in Davis-Besse cas 28 US: DenverPost.com: Going nuclear on warming 29 US: Brattleboro Reformer: Another nuclear plant in Vernon? 30 UPI: EU reaches renewable energy deal 31 US: Albuquerque Tribune: Nuclear energy can devastate in ways solar 32 Manila Bulletin: DoST conducts study on revisiting possible use of n 33 The Australian: EU deal boosts nuclear industry NUCLEAR SECURITY 34 US: Philadelphia Inquirer: Disaster management plans kept from sight 35 The Local: Sweden ready to join NATO anti-terror force 36 Tanzania Standard: Nuclear test facility installed at UDSM NUCLEAR SAFETY 37 Poison DUst _DU Ordinance is Nuclear Proliferation _Prenatal Terrori 38 US: [progchat_action] Feds tried to cut aid to sick and dying nuclea 39 Sydney Morning Herald: British nuclear test survivors denied benefit 40 US: Rocky Mountain News: Feds tried to cut aid--Limits sought on hel 41 Morning Call: Why is thyroid cancer rate up? 42 US: Rocky Mountain News: Long wait for relief drags on 43 US: UPI: Ounce of uranium found in pawn shop 44 US: UPI: Report: Nuke worker benefits were targeted 45 US: Orlando Sentinel: Shock, awe: Store owner finds yellowcake urani 46 AFP: American mother and daughter confirmed with thallium poisoning NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 47 About - News & Issues: USGS Yucca Mountain Gaffes Costing Taxpayers 48 US: DAILY SOUTHTOWN: 'Let us build the dump, now' 49 US: Star-Banner: Uranium yellow cake found in Belleview | Ocala.com 50 US: Whittier Daily News: Residents want answers from storage site 51 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Rolly: How Huntsman schooled the Legislature 52 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Moving expenses 53 US: Gloucester Co. Times: Clayton wants all nuclear waste removed fr 54 The Herald: Making the best of the job 55 US: GoUpstate.com: S.C. must stop prostituting itself to nuclear ind 56 US: Walla Walla Union-Bulletin: Hearing to discuss nuclear fuel recy 57 Telegraph: No UK bidders make nuclear shortlist 58 The Australian: Owners offered 100-year rent plan for nuke dump 59 US: TradeTech Weekly: Nuclear Utilities Stunned by Force Majeure PEACE US DEPT. OF ENERGY 60 SF New Mexican: LANL Former worker pleads guilty to embezzlement 61 Inside Bay Area: Hard drive erasure rules ignored 62 Rocky Mountain News: Limits sought on help for ill workers 63 lamonitor.com: The fire next time ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 Antiwar.com: An Open Letter to Chris Matthews Blog · Saturday, March 10th, 2007 in News, War party by Scott Horton| Dear Sir, I am writing you today because I think you and your investigative reporter, David Shuster, are two of the only men on TV news who might have the guts to step up and cover a very important story that is currently suffering from a near-total media blackout. That blackout is deep enough that it’s likely you haven’t even heard that 2 new FBI whistleblowers have come forward – one named, the other still anonymous – vouching for the veracity of the claims of former FBI contract linguist-turned-whistleblower Sibel Edmonds, who is once again pushing – this time backed by more than thirty public interest groups – for public congressional hearings into her case. One of these new whistleblowers, a 20-year veteran agent named Gilbert Graham, has revealed in a leaked letter [.pdf] to the Justice Department Inspector General’s office that the intercepts she was involved in translating as part of official FBI investigations into high-profile criminal activity in 2001 and 2002 were themselves illegal wiretaps on some very influential people – begun under authority from Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants when they should have been using the old-fashioned 4th Amendment kind. I think that makes this story an official double-whammy. Perhaps this lawbreaking by the investigators is part of why the Justice Department has waged such a battle against this courageous woman’s right of free speech and right to seek redress in court by using (abusing) the “States Secrets Privilege” to prevent her from saying what she learned during her part in the investigation. Many current and former federal police and intelligence officials, Senators and Congressmen, and the Inspector General himself have vouched for Edmonds’s credibility. No one of significance has challenged her facts, only her right to tell us what they are. Edmonds told me Wednesday, March 7th, in a joint interview with renowned intelligence reporter James Bamford, “[I]f Congress moves forward and holds this public hearing, I can guarantee you that you are going to be seeing some major criminal indictments here because we are not talking about light-level stuff – we are talking about very serious criminal activities.” From what I understand, this may be an understatement. Why not invite her on your show? I am certain she will be an energetic and informative guest, and there’s no doubt that your TV cameras will like her too. Her gag order is severe, but she can say enough to set your man Shuster on the path to the story of a lifetime. This link is to the .pdf file of the unclassified version of Graham’s letter to the Department of Justice’s Inspector General’s office. Thanks very much for your time. Best, Scott Horton (from Antiwar.com, not the world-renowned anti-torture lawyer) Powered by WordPress and Tarski ***************************************************************** 2 Antiwar.com: More Sand In Our Faces - by Gordon Prather March 10, 2007 Within hours of the verdict that Lewis "Scooter" Libby had "obstructed justice" – had prevented Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald from finding out whether a crime had been committed in the "outing" of CIA Non-Official Cover operative Valerie Plame and her cover, Brewster-Jennings & Associates, and if so, who had committed it – the Cheney Cabal and its media sycophants were vehemently attacking Fitzgerald, accusing him of prosecutorial misconduct for even attempting to find that out. The Cabal argument is that Fitzgerald "knew" going in that then Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage was syndicated columnist Bob Novak’s "primary source" for the "outing" of CIA operative Valerie Plame. However, no evidence has yet surfaced that Armitage was the primary source. In fact, on the basis of a taped conversation that Armitage had at that time with Bob Woodward of the Washington Post, introduced into evidence at Libby’s trial, it appears Armitage didn’t even know the name of "Wilson’s wife," much less that she was a NOC CIA agent whose cover was Brewster-Jennings. As of this writing, Fitzgerald still doesn’t know who leaked that information to Novak, nor does he know if the leaking was a deliberate attempt to destroy the career of NOC Valerie Plame and hundreds – perhaps thousands – of her Brewster-Jennings cohorts. For, make no mistake, if the seemingly authoritative revelations about Brewster-Jennings are basically correct, serious damage has been done to our intelligence community and to our National Security by that outing. So, was the outing of Plame and Brewster-Jennings deliberate, or not? In a Truthout column written on the eve of the trial Jason Leopold noted that – "A list of potential witnesses released by Libby's defense attorneys and Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor trying the case, reads like a who's who of pre-war Iraq planning. It not only may offer the first on-the-record account of the details that led to the leak of the CIA officer, but may also provide a window in which to see how the Bush administration manipulated intelligence to make a case for war – a war that has resulted in the deaths of more than 3,000 U.S. soldiers and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians. "Many of the officials identified as potential witnesses were members of the White House Iraq Group (WHIG), which came together in August 2002 to publicize the threat posed by Saddam Hussein. WHIG was founded by Bush's chief of staff Andrew Card and operated out of the vice president's office. The WHIG was not only responsible for selling the Iraq War, but it took great pains to discredit anyone who openly disagreed with the official Iraq War story." Great Zot! WHIG operated out of the vice president’s office and was responsible for discrediting anyone – in and out of government – who openly disagreed with the Cheney Cabal plan to invade and occupy Iraq? Well, the Cheney Cabal had managed to get into the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq’s WMD capabilities a hotly disputed allegation that Saddam had attempted to import thousands of aluminum tubes, which, according to National Security Advisor Condi Rice were "only really suited for nuclear weapons programs ... centrifuge programs." Now, according to David Corn and Michael Isikoff, "A shipment of the tubes was seized in Jordan under an operation headed by Valerie Plame Wilson. She oversaw the operation that intercepted these tubes that were then shipped back to the CIA." Valerie Plame had reportedly "left" Brewster-Jennings and had become Valerie Wilson, an official CIA employee, on January 1, 2001. "She [Wilson] actually was Chief of Operations for the Joint Task on Iraq. It's part of the Counter-proliferation Division which is part of the super-secret Operations Directorate. So she was actually in charge of overseeing and running operations for two years prior to the invasion that were designed to find evidence of Iraq's WMD's." What happened to the aluminum tubes Valerie Wilson seized? A single CIA analyst – later code-named "Joe Centrifuge" to protect his identity – came to the conclusion that these tubes could only be used for a nuclear centrifuge to enrich uranium for a nuclear bomb. But an internationally recognized expert on uranium-enrichment, David Albright, publicly questioned – on technical grounds – the suitability of such aluminum-tubes for centrifuges as early as September 2002. (As did experts at the International Atomic Energy Agency.) National Security Council and CIA officials told Leopold that Cheney had visited CIA headquarters and asked several CIA officials "to dig up dirt on Albright," and to put together a dossier that would discredit his work that could be distributed to the media. Now, Joseph C. Wilson IV, without revealing his mission to Niger a year earlier, had been openly discrediting the Cheney Cabal war plan. He had even written an article in the March 3, 2003 edition of The Nation. "The upcoming military operation also has one objective, though different from the several offered by the Bush Administration. "This war is not about weapons of mass destruction. The intrusive inspections are disrupting Saddam's programs, as even the Administration has acknowledged. "Nor is it about terrorism. Virtually all agree war will spawn more terrorism, not less. It is not even about liberation of an oppressed people. Killing innocent Iraqi civilians in a full frontal assault is hardly the only or best way to liberate a people. "The underlying objective of this war is the imposition of a Pax Americana on the region and installation of vassal regimes that will control restive populations." Then, on May 6, 2003, Nicholas Kristof dropped this bombshell: "I'm told by a person involved in the Niger caper that more than a year ago the vice president's office asked for an investigation of the uranium deal, so a former U.S. ambassador to Africa was dispatched to Niger. In February 2002, according to someone present at the meetings, that envoy reported to the CIA and State Department that the information was unequivocally wrong and that the documents had been forged." Vice president's office? Well, that tore it. Go WHIG! Find out who that former Ambassador was. Dig up dirt on him! Discredit him! Who was it? Joe Wilson? The guy who's been questioning for months our motives in print and on TV? Result? A Top Secret memo [.pdf] prepared for Under-Secretary of State Marc Grossman, who was, according to the Libby indictment, responding to a request from Scooter Libby for an explication of Wilson's mission to Niger and the consequences thereof. "In a February 19, 2002 meeting, convened by Valerie Wilson, a CIA WMD manager and the wife of Joe Wilson, he previewed his plans and the rationale for going to Niger…" It was basically this memo that Secretary Powell shared with others aboard Air Force One on Bush’s trip to Africa, which began on July 7, 2003. Notice that it makes no mention of Valerie Plame. In fact, insofar as the evidence introduced at Libby’s trial is concerned, there is only one place where the name "Valerie Plame" occurs prior to Novak’s column of July 14, 2003. In Judith Miller’s notes of her 2-hour long meeting of 8 July, 2003 with Scooter Libby. Libby has testified that the vice president directed him to meet with Miller on that date and personally wrote out the points he wanted Libby to make. Antiwar.com Home Page Physicist James Gordon Prather has served as a policy implementing official for national security-related technical matters in the Federal Energy Agency, the Energy Research and Development Administration, the Department of Energy, the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Department of the Army. Dr. Prather also served as legislative assistant for national security affairs to U.S. Sen. Henry Bellmon, R-Okla. -- ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee and member of the Senate Energy Committee and Appropriations Committee. Dr. Prather had earlier worked as a nuclear weapons physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico. Copyright 2007 Antiwar.com ***************************************************************** 3 In Nuclear Dispute With Iran UN Atomic Watchdog Suspends 22 Technical Aid Projects Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2007 19:46:26 -0500 IN NUCLEAR DISPUTE WITH IRAN UN ATOMIC WATCHDOG SUSPENDS 22 TECHNICAL AID PROJECTS New York, Mar 8 2007 2:00PM The Board of Governors of the United Nations atomic watchdog agency today suspended 22 technical aid projects in Iran in conformity with sanctions imposed by the Security Council over a programme that Tehran says is for producing energy but which critics maintain The UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Board’s decision followed a <"http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Board/2007/gov2007-08.pdf">report by IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei that Iran had continued uranium enrichment, which can produce fuel for generating electricity or, at a much higher level, make nuclear bombs, despite the Council’s call in December that it suspend such activities. In his report Mr. ElBaradei said that because of the lack of “the necessary level of transparency and cooperation” from Iran, the IAEA could not provide assurances that the Iranian programme was solely for peaceful purposes and stressed that the issue was in a class of its own because of Tehran’s two decades of undeclared activities in breach of its obligations under Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (<"http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Treaties/npt.html">NPT). While the IAEA has been able to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran, it continues to be unable to reconstruct fully the history of Iran’s nuclear programme and some of its components, and “quite a few uncertainties still remain about experiments, procurements and other activities relevant to our understanding of the scope and nature of Iran’s programme,” he added. It was the discovery in 2003 of Iran’s hidden activities that gave rise to the current crisis and he stressed that “the IAEA’s confidence about the nature of Iran’s programme has been shaken because of two decades of undeclared activities.” Mr. ElBaradei has suggested a “timeout” to allow for talks, with Iran suspending uranium enrichment and the international community suspending sanctions. Meanwhile, the Council’s five permanent members – China, France, Russia, United Kingdom and United States – together with Germany are now considering what further action to take. The talk among them is “about how to continue with the negotiated process, while at the same time being ready to increase the pressure should that be necessary,” Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo of South Africa, which holds the 15-member body’s rotating presidency, told reporters on Tuesday. “Right now we understand they are discussing the elements of what would be in the draft [resolution] if it comes before us,” he said, naming four elements under consideration: a travel ban; greater movement restrictions on either entities or persons; arms exports; and financial arrangements. 2007-03-08 00:00:00.000 ___________________ For more details go to UN News Centre at http://www.un.org/news To listen to news and in-depth programmes from UN Radio go to: http://radio.un.org/ _______________________________ To change your profile or unsubscribe go to: http://www.un.org/apps/news/email/ ***************************************************************** 4 Guardian Unlimited: Iraq Summit Offers U.S., Iran Icebreaker From the Associated Press Saturday March 10, 2007 7:01 AM By BRIAN MURPHY Associated Press Writer BAGHDAD (AP) - Washington is sending a veteran Middle East hand. Tehran's envoy is a British-educated diplomat considered one of Iran's top analysts of the West. Combine that with a flexible agenda and a matchmaking Iraqi host - and the international gathering Saturday to help steer Iraq's future also appears as a prime opportunity for some icebreaking overtures between Iran and the United States. But any outreach - no matter how limited - would be shadowed by deep suspicions and grievances from both sides in their odd-couple roles: old foes yet also Iraq's two most influential allies. ``Don't expect any miracles,'' said Hamid Reza Jalaipour, a professor of political affairs at Tehran University. On Saturday morning, Iraqi and U.S. troops bolstered a vast security ring for the conference. Security was extremely tight around the Foreign Ministry conference site, which is outside the heavily protected Green Zone. Roads were sealed off around the area and vehicles at other checkpoints around Baghdad were closely searched. Expectations have been kept very modest before the conference - which includes delegates from Iraq's six neighbors, the five permanent U.N. Security Council members and several Arab representatives. In Washington, the U.S. chief delegate, David Satterfield, said ``we are not going to turn and walk away'' if approached by Iran or Syria to discuss Iraq. But Satterfield, the top State Department adviser on Iraq, added Thursday that the United States plans to use the meeting to reinforce its accusations against both nations. They include U.S. claims that Syria allows foreign jihadists and Sunni insurgents to cross its border into Iraq, and that weapon shipments from Iran reach Shiite militias. Both nations deny the allegations. Iran's chief envoy, Abbas Araghchi, left Tehran without directly mentioning the United States, but said Iran ``hopes to take more steps'' to support the U.S.-backed government - which is led by a Shiite prime minister with close ties to Shiite heavyweight Iran. Iran, however, has strongly denounced the U.S. military presence. The complaints grew more pointed in December after American forces detained two Iranian security agents at the compound of a major Shiite political bloc in Baghdad. Six other Iranians were arrested Jan. 11 at an Iranian liaison office in northern Iraq. The U.S. military said they were members of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard - a charge Tehran rejects. The showdown over Iran's nuclear program also lurks behind any attempt to ease the nearly 28-year diplomatic freeze with Washington. ``But both Iran and the United States realize they are stuck together on Iraq,'' said Alireza Nourizadeh, chief researcher at the London-based Center for Arab-Iranian Studies. ``So perhaps they see this meeting as a way to open some doors for bilateral talks.'' For Iran, opening more direct contacts with Washington could help promote their shared interests in Iraq, including trying to stamp out Sunni-led insurgents. U.S. officials, meanwhile, need the support of Iranian-allied political groups in Iraq to keep a lid on Shiite militias. On a trip to Brazil on Friday, President Bush said the message to Syria and Iran won't change at the Baghdad conference. ``We expect you to help this young democracy,'' Bush said. ``We will defend ourselves and the people in Iraq from weapons being shipped in that cause harm; that we will protect ourselves and help the Iraqi people protect themselves against those who would murder the innocent to achieve political objectives.'' There have been other chances in the past for one-one-one dialogue, but rarely with such promise. In September, the United States joined Iran and Syria in talks on Iraq - although Washington ruled out direct talks with Iran in advance. This time, however, there is an open invitation to Iran. And both sides have dispatched well-suited diplomats. Satterfield has served in posts in Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Lebanon and Syria, as well as Washington positions including the National Security Council staff. Araghchi did postgraduate studies in England and served as ambassador to Finland. He's regarded as one of Iran's leading diplomatic strategists on relations with the West. The host, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, juggles close ties with Iran and the United States and has left ample room for closed-door discussions and possible bilateral exchanges. Washington broke ties with Iran after militants stormed the U.S. Embassy in the wake of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The one-day session in Baghdad also carries little pressure on the delegates. It's designed only to pave the way for a high-level gathering possibly in April. Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, said he would not necessarily object to meeting with the Iranians. ``But, the first point to make to them is that they need to stop arms, Iranian arms, coming across the border,'' he told ABC's ``Good Morning America.'' The meeting also is the first time in nearly two years that Washington is willing to discuss security issues with Iran - at a time when the Pentagon is pumping more than 20,000 troops into a Baghdad crackdown and boosting forces to strongholds of Sunni insurgents northeast of the capital. The head of Iraq's largest Shiite political bloc, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, endorsed the gathering in an address in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, where millions of pilgrims have gathered for an important Shiite religious commemoration. ``It is necessary to pay attention to the sacrifices of Iraqis over the past four years,'' said al-Hakim, who leads the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which is strongly linked to Iran. Al-Hakim also took a swipe at the Arab League - pointing to likely tensions at the meeting. The Cairo-based group said this week that it would urge changes in Iraq's constitution to give more political power to Sunnis, who are outnumbered nearly 3-to-1 by Shiites. Many Shiites in Iraq saw the statement as a challenge to the legitimacy of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government. Other potential friction at the meeting could come from Turkey, which opposes plans to hold a referendum sometime this year on whether the northern oil hub of Kirkuk will remain in Arab-dominated territory or shift to the semiautonomous Kurdish zone. Turkish officials fear that oil riches for the Kurds could stir separatist sentiments and spill over into Kurdish areas in Turkey. One of the main extremist factions, the al-Qaida-linked Islamic State of Iraq, posted a statement on an Islamic Web site denouncing ``the meeting of the hypocrites and the agents'' and said it seeks to ``extinguish the flame of the blessed jihad.'' ``All the delegates are united by one thing: the fear of a prolonged civil war in Iraq. It would hurt them each in different ways,'' said Abdel-Moneim Said, director of Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo. ``Fear is the one thing bringing them all together.'' --- Associated Press reporter Nasser Karimi in Tehran contributed to this report. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007 ***************************************************************** 5 AFP: US, Iran square off at Baghdad meet: Khalilzad - Saturday March 10, 08:21 PM WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States challenged Iran directly over its activities in Iraq, and Tehran rejected the accusations in the first high-level meeting between the two sides in years Saturday, US ambassador to Baghdad Zalmay Khalilzad said. In an interview with US television network NBC's Meet the Press program, to be broadcast Sunday, Khalilzad said he spoke with his Iran counterpart for a few minutes Saturday at the opening of the regional conference of Iraq's neighbours and world powers on restoring security to the country. While there were no "substantive" direct talks between the two sides, Khalilzad said he raised US allegations that Iran was supplying arms and other support to Iraqi insurgents. "I did specifically mention the role that the neighbors have played, particularly those that have provided arms that have been negative; money, weapons and also provocative statements. "I did raise that with them, and we will see the impact of this meeting and future engagements on what they do ... will they stop supplying arms and training and money to militias and other unauthorized groups, what happens to their statements since they broadcast into Iraq," Khalilzad said. Asked if the Iranians denied providing arms and training to Iraqis, Khalilzad replied: "They did, and they also raised some issues of concern on their part, the arrest of some of their officials, and I responded to that." "We will be monitoring their behavior. That's what ultimately will count, but this meeting and exchanges today were constructive." The exchange during the Baghdad talks constituted a rare meeting between representatives of Iran and the United States. Washington has had no diplomatic relations with Tehran for decades, and has refused to engage directly until Tehran freezes its nuclear program. But in recent weeks the United States has appeared warmer to the idea of communicating directly with its Middle East adversary. Khalilzad played down the idea of a change in policy, telling NBC: "The meeting today was in a multilateral setting, and it was focused on Iraq at the invitation of the Iraqi government. So, this is, in my view, not a change in policy, but something that we have said we would do, and we have stated that repeatedly for some time." He also said that the discussions on rebuilding Iraq were constructive, that participants agreed to form working groups to look at security, refugee problems, and oil and electricity. "The exchanges were good," he said. "We will see what happens on the ground, but I think as the meeting goes, as a first step, it was a good meeting." AFP ***************************************************************** 6 AFP: North Korea warns US to keep promise on lifting sanctions - Saturday March 10, 12:46 PM BEIJING (AFP) - North Korea will retaliate if the United States fails to keep its promise to lift financial sanctions imposed on the communist regime, Pyongyang's chief nuclear negotiator said Saturday. The warning from Kim Kye-Kwan came after he held landmark negotiations in the United States with his US counterpart Christopher Hill earlier this week. Washington agreed to begin talks that would lead to the lifting of sanctions that resulted in a freeze on 24 million dollars in North Korean funds at the Macau bank Banco Delta Asia as part of a February agreement on ending Pyongyang's nuclear weapons drive. "The US has promised the North it would scrap financial sanctions on the Banco Delta Asia (BDA) and the North is keeping a close eye on the promise," Kim Kye-Gwan was quoted as saying by Yonhap news agency at Beijing international airport before boarding a flight to Pyongyang. He said if the US failed to solve the issue completely, the North would have to take action against it. Washington had said BDA was laundering North Korean-made counterfeit US 100 dollar bills. The accord at six-party talks among China, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Russia and the United States came four months after Pyongyang carried out its first nuclear test. Under the deal North Korea promised to shut down its main nuclear facility and dismantle its atomic weapons programme in exchange for aid and moves toward full diplomatic ties with Washington. Kim and Hill discussed normalisation of relations on Monday and Tuesday in New York and will meet again here at six-nation talks expected to convene on March 19. AFP ***************************************************************** 7 Statesman Journal: The censorship of science undermines democracy Opinion - StatesmanJournal.com Sunday, March 11, 2007 Commentary By Francesca Grifo At a major congressional hearing in January, a prominent NASA climatologist spoke publicly about attempts by agency officials to interfere with his ability to release his research results that described impact of global warming on Antarctica. Sadly, the scientist is not alone. Growing evidence shows that over the past several years, political interference in federal government science has become both widespread and pervasive. To ensure that science — one of the cornerstones of American democracy — continues to serve society, public officials must act to defend taxpayer-funded science from political interference. The Bush administration has censored scientists, suppressed reports, and altered scientific documents on issues ranging from mercury pollution to childhood lead poisoning to drug safety. And for every scientist who is able to speak out against political interference in his or her work, scores of others have been pressured into silence and don’t have the standing that would allow them to speak without retribution. Recent surveys by the Union of Concerned Scientists found that nearly 40 percent (699) of more than 1,800 scientists working at nine federal agencies report that they fear retaliation for openly expressing concerns about their agency's work. In a survey of climate scientists alone, 150 scientists reported at least 456 instances of political interference in their research or the communication of their results. These numbers should be zero. Just as troubling are actions that politicize science by limiting public access to information and hindering public oversight. In its second term, the administration has closed federal scientific libraries that housed unique documents. It significantly reduced the public’s right to know about the chemicals factories release into our neighborhoods. And new administrative procedures effectively keep science out of many critical decisions. Take, for example, the air we breathe. Environmental Protection Agency staff scientists have worked for decades with an independent scientific advisory committee to review the best available science on air pollutants and recommend appropriate pollution control standards. Last year, when the committee scientists objected to an EPA decision to set soot pollution standards that twisted the science and failed to protect public health, the agency responded with a new policy that significantly limits scientific input into the process. In a more recent example, President Bush’s January amendments to an existing executive order could further centralize regulatory decision-making power in the White House. The new rules place political appointees deeper inside federal scientific agencies where they can more easily prevent scientific data from ever seeing the light of day. In response, nearly 12,000 scientists, including 52 Nobel laureates and science advisers to both Republican and Democratic presidents dating back 50 years, signed a statement condemning this abuse and calling for reform. "The distortion of scientific knowledge for partisan political ends must cease," they said, "if the public is to be properly informed about issues central to its well being, and the nation is to benefit fully from its heavy investment in scientific research and education." Indeed, our nation’s prosperity is based on a foundation of independent, unfettered scientific discovery. Decision-makers must have access to the best available scientific information to make fully informed decisions that affect public health and the environment. It’s time for action. There are no laws that protect federal scientists from retaliation for truthfully and publicly reporting their scientific results. Congress should act quickly to pass strong whistleblower protections for federal scientists who report scientific abuse. Restoring scientific integrity to federal policy making will also take the persistent and energetic engagement of the next president. Presidential candidates should promise a zero tolerance policy for the manipulation and suppression of taxpayer-funded science. Candidates must commit to a philosophy of open government that allows scientists to speak freely about their scientific research and enables science to effectively inform public policy. This is not an abstract debate. In the coming year, the administration will be faced with a number of critical science-based decisions. The EPA will set standards for pollution from lead and ozone. The Food and Drug Administration will continue to determine the safety of new prescription drugs and medical devices. And the Occupational Safety and Health Administration will debate regulations that protect the health and safety of workers. Scientific freedom — the ability of scientists to conduct research and share their results free from government interference or censorship — is vital to a democracy. The thousands of scientists employed by the federal government represent a tremendous resource. Without a culture of scientific independence, public understanding of scientific issues will suffer, and our public officials will be unable to meet America’s most pressing challenges. Dr. Francesca Grifo is a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists and director of the UCS Scientific Integrity Program in Washington. Copyright ©2007 StatesmanJournal.com All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 8 Guardian Unlimited: Aide resigns in rebellion over Trident Gaby Hinsliff, political editor Sunday March 11, 2007 The government was this weekend braced for further resignations in a growing rebellion over renewing its Trident nuclear deterrent system, as a ministerial aide quit in protest days ahead of a critical vote. Jim Devine, who succeeded the late Robin Cook as MP for Livingston and was a parliamentary private secretary - the lowest rung of the ministerial ladder - resigned yesterday so that he could vote with rebels demanding the decision be deferred. The party was this weekend awash with rumours that up to three more PPSs could follow, although no ministers are expected to quit. Up to 100 Labour MPs are expected to rebel over Wednesday's vote on the renewal of Trident in 2020, with an alternative amendment proposing deferring the decision until after a proper public debate and more detailed discussions of the future threat Britain faces. Tony Blair's dwindling influence has only encouraged MPs to rebel without fear of retribution. 'The rebellion will be quite big,' said a senior Labour party aide. 'Unfortunately, the reach of Downing Street isn't as long as it was and a lot of people are thinking they would rather have a quiet life with their constituency parties than worry about the ire of Downing Street. The big question now is PPSs resigning.' Others said to be considering their positions include Steve Pound and Andy Reed. John Mann, the MP for Bassetlaw who signed a letter from Labour MPs calling on the party to think again, is believed to be uncomfortable. He could not be reached for comment yesterday. The rebels are expected to be joined by some senior Tories, including former defence spokesman Michael Ancram and rightwinger Andrew Pelling. However, the measure is expected to be passed by the Commons. David Chaytor, the Labour backbencher who has led the debate, said the government had tried to rush MPs into a decision: 'I assume that next Wednesday there will be a Labour rebellion which could be as big as that over the war on Iraq.' Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007 ***************************************************************** 9 Guardian Unlimited: Government accused over Polaris files Richard Norton-Taylor Saturday March 10, 2007 The government has been accused of suppressing documents that showed how ministers in the 1970s were kept in the dark about defects and escalating costs of the Polaris nuclear weapons system. Lord Owen, in power when Labour upgraded Polaris, Trident's predecessor, has been prevented from having access to papers which he claims are highly relevant to the government's plans to renew the Trident nuclear weapon system. Some documents were withdrawn from the National Archives when he asked to see them. Lord Owen wanted to see them to help back up his case that the government should consider placing nuclear warheads on cruise missiles, potentially a much cheaper option than the intercontinental ballistic Trident system the government wants to renew. He said Tony Blair argued that Britain's nuclear missiles must be able to hit any target in the world. By implication, that meant the ability to penetrate Moscow's anti-ballistic missile (ABM) shield, and any future ABM system China may build around Beijing. The documents withdrawn by the government reveal how officials kept vital information about the nuclear deterrent from ministers. Field Marshal Michael Carver, then chief of the defence staff, admitted in 1975 that Britain's missiles could not hit Moscow. Yet this information was withheld from ministers, chiefly because they did not want the chancellor, Denis (now Lord) Healey, to know. Officials in the Ministry of Defence were worried the Treasury would respond by saying the whole project should be scrapped. When Lord Owen told Sir Gus O'Donnell, the cabinet secretary what had happened, he replied that the MoD told him one file had been released at the archives "in error" and had now been "recalled". He said the MoD was now "reviewing the public status of a number of other documents". Lord Owen, who was foreign secretary between 1977 and 1979, said yesterday: "Without openness and learning from the past, it is difficult to make decisions for the future. What is driving the process is embarrassment." The MoD said yesterday that some of the documents had been "misfiled" and that was why they were in the National Archives. They had now been "recalled for further review." Email us Email your comments for publication to politics.editor@guardianunlimited.co.uk Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007 ***************************************************************** 10 BBC NEWS: Davidson condemns Trident update Last Updated: Sunday, 11 March 2007, 15:54 GMT MPs will vote on Trident on Wednesday A Welsh cabinet minister has condemned the UK Government's plans to update the Trident nuclear weapons system. Education Minister Jane Davidson said she is opposed to renewing Trident and is concerned the decision is being taken too quickly. The UK Government is facing a possible Labour rebellion in the Commons over plans in Wednesday's vote on the issue. Ms Davidson said that that all members of the public should have their say. "We don't need to take a firm and final decision at a debate this week in parliament," she said. Ms Davidson said the public should have a say on Trident "This is a matter, I believe, for every Labour party member, in fact it's a matter for everybody in the United Kingdom, because what we are talking about is weapons whose purpose is killing and I feel that the evidence base has to be greater than ever before if you're taking those kinds of big decisions." The AM for Pontypridd also insisted that she has the support of First Minister Rhodri Morgan in speaking out although she refused to say if he agreed with her. She said at least one other assembly cabinet member, the finance minister Sue Essex, shared her view on Trident and had put her name to a statement she had issued. Ms Davidson also denied her attack had anything to do with any future Welsh Labour leadership contest. She said it had "absolutely nothing to do with it". A BBC survey of Labour backbenchers at Westminster found 64 out of 101 who responded opposed renewal. One ministerial aide has said he will resign over the issue. * BBC Copyright Notice ***************************************************************** 11 BBC NEWS: Trident rebels 'will be defeated' Last Updated: Sunday, 11 March 2007, 16:30 GMT The government could be forced to rely on Conservative votes Ministers have said they are confident of overcoming a possible Labour rebellion over plans to replace the UK's nuclear weapons system. A total of 64 out of 101 Labour backbenchers who responded to a BBC survey said they opposed renewal. MPs will vote on Wednesday on a £20bn government plan to replace the Clyde-based Trident system. Lack of support The survey, for BBC Radio 4's The World This Weekend programme, found that out of the 101 Labour MPs who responded, 22 said they supported the renewal of Trident. A total of 64 said they opposed it, and a further 15 remained undecided. Livingston Labour MP Jim Devine, who is parliamentary private secretary to health minister Rosie Winterton, has indicated he will resign over the issue. The Scottish National Party is urging ministers not to base the replacement in Scotland. Leader Alex Salmond said Mr Devine's resignation would signal a Labour split. Some people feel they are prisoners of the position that the party had before it changed in the 1980s Des Browne, Defence Secretary "The government's Trident replacement policy will loom large over a divided Labour party in Scotland in May," he said. Mr Salmond cited a government White Paper which states £1bn a year over a period of 15 years will have to be raised from the Treasury budget or from new taxes. Opposition to the plans could mean the government will have to rely on the votes of the Conservatives to carry Wednesday's motion to determine whether a new generation of nuclear submarines is acquired and the Trident D5 missiles updated. Mr Browne told BBC One's The Politics Show the UK had an "obligation" to retain a deterrent as part of its membership of Nato. He said: "It's not nearly as straightforward as people suggest. They sleep soundly in their beds at night because we have nuclear weapons." 'Broadly unified' Mr Browne added: "Some people feel they are prisoners of the position that the party had before it changed in the 1980s [which was one of unilateral nuclear disarmament]." He went on: "I'm still confident we will persuade people to come to our side of the argument." Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer said: "There will be people who take a different view, but I hope we demonstrate that we are broadly unified on the way to go forward." Shadow defence secretary Liam Fox said the Conservatives were supporting a replacement for Trident to ensure the UK was "prepared for all eventualities". 'New vote' He added: "When the government is doing the right thing in terms of national security we think they should get the support of the opposition." Liberal Democrat defence spokesman Nick Harvey said: "I understand that the Tories support Trident's replacement, but surely even they can see that the final decision will not be made until 2012 -14. That's when Parliament should make its decision." Labour leadership contender Michael Meacher said he would order a new vote on Trident after a "full and proper" public consultation if he won his bid to succeed Tony Blair as prime minister. * BBC Copyright Notice ***************************************************************** 12 AFP: Blair faces large rebel vote on British nuclear plans - poll - Sun Mar 11, 4:38 PM ET LONDON (AFP) - Prime Minister Tony Blair may need to rely on opposition support to approve the replacement of Britain's nuclear deterrent because of rebels within his own party, a poll indicated on Sunday. Ahead of a House of Commons vote on the issue in the coming week, 64 backbench Labour MPs polled by BBC Radio were against Blair's plans to renew the ageing Trident system, out of 101 Labour MPs surveyed. A further 15 still undecided, while 22 backed the government's proposals. Blair's Labour government has a parliamentary majority of 67, with a total of 352 MPs in the House of Commons. But while the issue has proved divisive within his own party, Blair is unlikely to be rebuffed because the main opposition Conservatives have said they agreed with his position "on substance and on timing." The leader of the smaller opposition Liberal Democrats has pledged to oppose the proposals in their current form, and has pushed for the upcoming vote to be delayed in favour of more debate. Blair unveiled plans to modernise Britain's nuclear arsenal in December, including a new generation of nuclear submarines, at a cost of up to 20 billion pounds. Copyright © 2007 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 13 Guardian Unlimited: Comment is free: Chain reaction If the government does not pull back from a railroaded decision on Trident next Wednesday, Britain will be guilty of actively encouraging nuclear proliferation. Kate Hudson March 11, 2007 11:00 AM | Printable version New information is coming through thick and fast to suggest that the government is making a big mistake in pushing ahead with a vote on Trident replacement next Wednesday. Two new sources back up this view. Firstly, the recent Populus poll commissioned by More 4. 48% of those polled think we should get rid of nuclear weapons. A further 24% do not think we should commit now to having new nuclear weapons in 20 years time. That is a total of 72% that do not back the government's determination to press ahead now with a replacement for the Trident nuclear weapons system. The public is not on the government's side. Secondly, the report published by the defence committee on 7 March. The committee has held a series of Inquiries over the past year into all aspects of replacing Trident. The committee's report is a rigorous interrogation of all the issues: the strategic security context, legal aspects, jobs and the manufacturing base, procurement issues, costs and much more. Through its detailed investigations, the report exposes the casual assertions and assumptions of the government's white paper. The report does not come down for or against replacement, but crucially, it issues a number of very specific instructions and questions for the government, which need to be addressed before the vote. Many of these are far-ranging in their scope and implications - not only for Britain, but for global stability: what does the government mean by deterrence in today's strategic environment? How does it calculate a "minimum deterrent"? Will Britain's ambiguity about the exact circumstances in which it might use its nuclear weapons lead to a lowering of the nuclear threshold? How are the UK's nuclear forces integrated into the nuclear defence of Nato and what are the implications of the Alliance's first use policy for Britain's nuclear weapons? How will the government give new momentum to what are widely perceived to be stalled non-proliferation treaty discussions? How much will the system really cost, and where will the money come from? Will the government be able to give satisfactory answers to these and the many other questions before next Wednesday? It seems unlikely. But it is not only from within British domestic opinion that concerns are raised about the impact of Britain's potential rearmament. In a letter to the Times on Thursday, Mikhail Gorbachev - who together with Ronald Reagan was responsible for massive levels of nuclear disarmament in the 1980s - stated: "The UK government's rush to deploy nuclear missiles whose service life would extend until 2050 is, to say the least, astonishing." He suggests that a responsible course of action would be to postpone the decision on the future of the UK nuclear arsenal "at least until the next review of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty" in 2010. A couple of weeks ago, Dr El Baradei from the IAEA stated: that Britain cannot "modernise its Trident submarines and then tell everyone else that nuclear weapons are not needed in the future". In a tense global situation, exacerbated by recent tendencies towards pre-emptive war, for Britain to rearm - when we face no nuclear superpower threats - is to contribute to a new nuclear arms race. And to say that we need nuclear weapons for our security will only encourage others to come to the same conclusion too - we will ourselves encourage nuclear proliferation. In the interests of Britain's security - and of global stability and non-proliferation - a decision not to replace Trident is essential. In the interests of democracy and accountability, it is vital that the government pulls back from a railroaded decision next Wednesday, and allows time for full consultation and consideration of all the issues. All our futures may depend on it. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007. Registered in England and Wales. No. 908396 Registered office: Number 1 Scott Place, Manchester M3 3GG ***************************************************************** 14 Guardian Unlimited: Meacher pledge on Trident future Press Association Saturday March 10, 2007 12:53 PM Labour leadership contender Michael Meacher has vowed to re-open the decision to replace Britain's Trident nuclear deterrent if he wins his bid to succeed Tony Blair as Prime Minister. The former environment minister accused the Government of trying to "bounce" MPs into accepting a replacement for the ageing Trident system in Wednesday's crucial Commons vote. He said that if he was in No 10, he would order a fresh vote on the issue after a "full and proper" public consultation of at least six months. Ministers are braced for a major backbench revolt on Wednesday, with rebels claiming that as many as 140 Labour MPs could be prepared to vote against the Government or abstain. That could leave the Government relying on the votes of David Cameron's Conservatives to carry its motion backing Trident renewal. There were reports that at least one ministerial aide - Jim Devine, the parliamentary private secretary to Health Minister Rosie Winterton - was preparing to resign over the issue. Mr Meacher said that the Government's consultation following the publication of a White Paper on Trident renewal last December had been a "sham". "By fixing the vote in the Commons next Wednesday, No 10 is bouncing Parliament into a momentous decision years before expert opinion says that is necessary," he said. "As leader, I would re-open this decision. I would arrange a full and proper consultation lasting at least six months and embracing all the relevant options and then have at least a two-day debate in Parliament ending with a fresh and much more authoritative vote." Although Mr Meacher is regarded as an outsider in the race to succeed Mr Blair when he steps down later this year, he will hope that his stance will help him pick up crucial votes among MPs disillusioned by the Government's decision to maintain Trident. © Copyright Press Association Ltd 2007, All Rights Reserved. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007 ***************************************************************** 15 Guardian Unlimited: Backbenchers 'oppose Trident' Press Association Sunday March 11, 2007 12:03 PM Almost two thirds of Labour backbenchers oppose the Government's decision to replace Britain's Trident nuclear deterrent, according to a poll. As MPs prepared for this week's crucial Commons vote, of the 101 Labour backbenchers who responded to a survey by BBC Radio 4's The World This Weekend, 64 said they were against Trident renewal. Only 22 backed the Government's plan to acquire a new generation of nuclear missile submarines and to update the Trident D5 missiles, while 15 said they were still undecided. The findings underline ministers' fears of a substantial backbench revolt in the Commons on Wednesday. Rebels have warned that the Government could be forced to rely on the support of the Tories to carry its motion backing Trident renewal. On Saturday Labour leadership contender Michael Meacher promised to reopen the decision to replace Trident if he wins his bid to succeed Tony Blair as Prime Minister. The former environment minister accused the Government of trying to "bounce" MPs into accepting a replacement. He said if he was in No 10, he would order a fresh vote on the issue after a "full and proper" public consultation of at least six months. Later, shadow defence secretary Liam Fox said the Tories were supporting the Government to prove the party's credentials as a "Government-in waiting". "We think the Government's decision on Trident is the right one - we think we need to make an early decision for a number of reasons - and when the Government is doing the right thing in terms of national security we think they should get the support of the opposition," he said. He warned that the end of the Cold War hadn't removed the need for Trident because Britain faced new threats from Iran, Korea and the newly rearming Russia. "If Iran does it probably other countries will join the nuclear race. We can't predict what we will have to face in the future therefore flexibility is key, making sure we are prepared for all eventualities." © Copyright Press Association Ltd 2007, All Rights Reserved. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007 ***************************************************************** 16 The Hindu: N-safety team coming to India Sunday, March 11, 2007 : 1245 Hrs Mumbai, March 11 (PTI): A fifteen-member delegation of the International Nuclear Safety Advisory Group (INSAG) will be coming to India on a four-day visit tomorrow. INSAG is a wing of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The delegation will be headed by INSAG chief Richard Meserve, S K Sharma , chairman, Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) said. The delegation will visit the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre and India's two 540 MW units at Tarapur near here, DAE officials said. Chairman and Managing director of Nuclear Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) S K Jain said issues on safety of reactors will be discussed with the members. "This is a senior advisory group of IAEA and they will interact with Chairman Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) Dr Anil Kakodkar, Jain and myself," Sharma said. Later on March 15, there will be a colloquium where INSAG chief Meserve will speak on Global Nuclear Renaissance. US Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman will be visiting India during the third week of March and meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Petroleum Minister Murli Deora, NPCIL CMD Jain said. He will also visit Mumbai and meet the DAE and NPCIL officials and may also visit Tarapur, he said. Last week, US nuclear business group had come to India for discussions with its business partners. Copyright © 2006, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the ***************************************************************** 17 Guardian Unlimited: How Europe can save the world Comment The EU's landmark deal on carbon controls must be the model for a new Kyoto agreement Will Hutton Sunday March 11, 2007 Of the many noxious legacies of Mrs Thatcher, perhaps the most poisonous is the idea that somehow the British are not European. She taught her party, the media and a large part of the country that any European initiative was necessarily hostile to our interests and originated in a mindset of which we are not part. The British may be geographically European; culturally and politically, we are different. It was nonsense. This weekend, the European Union has struck a deal which is arguably the most important since its foundation 50 years ago - which was how some in Brussels described it to me - and should help persuade even the most Eurosceptic curmudgeon that the EU has crucially important uses. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, emerging as a European politician in the great tradition of Adenauer, Brandt, Delors, Mitterand and Kohl, has used the current German presidency of the EU to mastermind an epic commitment on tackling climate change and energy security. Article continues ====================================================================== ====================================================================== The 27-nation EU has committed itself to lower its carbon dioxide emissions by 20 per cent by 2020 from their 1990 level, the chief mechanism being an increase in the use of so-called renewables - water, air, tidal power and biofuels. Twenty per cent of its energy needs, it says, will come from such sources, while allowing some flexibility for countries such as France, which is dependent on nuclear power, to count that as part of their contribution to reducing the Continent's carbon footprint. Nuclear power, clean coal and renewables are vital responses to weaning the Continent off its dependence on Middle Eastern oil and Russian gas. It is a commitment backed up with detailed action. After 2010, every new power station in Europe will have to have 'carbon capture and storage technology', virtually eliminating carbon emissions. Carbon emissions from cars are to be radically reduced starting from the beginning of next year. Farmers now compensated for leaving land idle under set-aside are, instead, to grow plants for biofuel which is to constitute 10 per cent of all petrol by 2020. There will be new bite in the European Emissions Trading Scheme as tough, new limits for carbon emissions are set; as the carbon price rises, so there will be a further incentive to economise on the use of fossil fuels. Of course there are problems. Renewable energy is expensive and itself poses environmental dilemmas. Wind farms disturb natural habitats; tidal barriers form other barriers to natural flows of marine life; mass biofuel farming in areas such as the Amazon could accelerate the destruction of the rain forest. European business will complain bitterly that it is being regulated and suffering higher energy costs than American, Chinese and Indian competitors, who can carry on using cheaper fossil fuels with impunity. But that is the point. They can't. It is obvious that climate change is both a reality and that scientific evidence points to it being manmade. We have to burn less fossil fuel and we have to do it now. What has cramped any response is what Environment Secretary David Miliband has called the 'after you, Claude' syndrome. Any one country has been frightened that if it takes a bold and costly line by leading, then others will take advantage of it. Step forward the EU, some adroit political leadership and a growing intellectual and cultural conviction that there has to be change and the 'after you' blockage has been decisively broken. The EU was founded to try to deliver collective European benefits that no one country could achieve alone. The forerunner of the European Economic Community was the European Coal and Steel Community, established to maximise the signatories' access to each other's coal deposits and steel markets. Today, carbon remains centre stage, in a diametrically different way. The catalyst has been Merkel. Environment Minister under Chancellor Kohl and one of the architects of Kyoto, she has used Germany's pivotal role in the EU to force the necessary compromises. At one time, it looked as though a coalition of the French and east Europeans was going to wreck the deal; she detached the east Europeans by conceding that they could take longer to hit the targets rather than abandon their inherited coal-fired power stations. She then offered Chirac the face-saving formula of being flexible over nuclear power and allowed the French a lower target for renewables. That meant she then had to square the Austrians and her SPD grand coalition partners, adamantly opposed to nuclear power. But the hint that Germany would go for a 40 per cent target for renewables bought off the SPD and left the Austrians without any leverage. Blair has been her right-hand man throughout, willing to commit Britain to tough targets and standards. For example, Miliband is set to introduce a climate change bill, which will bind Britain to cutting carbon emissions by 60 per cent by 2050. David Cameron's green Tories can hardly complain, nor can the Lib Dems. Indeed, the EU deal, making it the vehicle for serious climate change, puts the Tories on the spot. Their sole political ally in Europe, Czech conservatives, even debate whether climate change exists. Which is it to be? Euroscepticism or being serious about climate change? The deal matters globally. In December, the UN will convene the key meeting in Indonesia to begin the discussions about what treaty will succeed Kyoto. It needs to be tougher on targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and it needs to include the Indians, Chinese and Americans. Anything less and the world is at risk. With the EU agreement, there is a genuine chance the logjam could be broken; the other countries know that the Europeans are going ahead - they only have to follow. If they do, the EU has promised to lift its own targets by another 10 per cent. For pro-Europeans like me, there has been little to cheer about over the last 10 years. But, extraordinarily, the EU is recovering its sense of purpose. Who knows? It may even soon be safe for Britain's political class to start believing that there are votes in being pro-European. will.hutton@observer.co.uk Special reports Britain and the EU Guardian Unlimited: European integration Your MEP Find out who represents you in Europe Political Alerts Get the day's top headlines straight to your mobile Sign up for the Backbencher Our free weekly insider's guide to Westminster What do you think? Email your comments for publication to politics.editor@guardianunlimited.co.uk Useful links Europa - the EU online The European commission The European parliament European Bank for Reconstruction and Development Full list of MEPs Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007 ***************************************************************** 18 AU: The Age: 'Nuclear the answer' ? if we really have a crisis - www.theage.com.au March 12, 2007 FORMER Hawke government minister Peter Walsh says if there is a problem with carbon emissions, the only answer is nuclear power. He also said yesterday it was "rubbish" to suggest renewable energy sources could supply the necessary baseload power. But, at a time when it is unfashionable to do so, Mr Walsh said he was sceptical about global warming being caused by man-made factors. "Increased (carbon dioxide) might be having some effect, but it is negligible", he said. However, Mr Walsh did not think the ALP should change its opposition to nuclear power yet ? because nuclear power would be far more expensive than coal. He was also dubious about the hype over the benefits of an international carbon trading system, saying it would be difficult to administer. "Who's going to run the audit? Are you going to get the United Nations to do it? You know how corrupt that would be," he said. Meanwhile, in his regular AAP column, Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd said that "while some may doubt the existence of climate change, the core science is beyond dispute". He said the weekend decision by the leaders of 27 countries in the European Union to cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 20 per cent from 1990 levels before 2020 showed that responsible governments were taking action. Copyright © 2007. The Age Company Ltd. ***************************************************************** 19 AU: The Age: Nuclear energy brings responsibilities with it - Opinion - www.theage.com.au Tim Flannery March 12, 2007 News that a company has been formed that aims to build nuclear power plants in either Victoria or South Australia has added a new dimension to the nuclear power debate. Is nuclear power a good option for Australia, and how should we approach our already large (and growing) trade in uranium? These are vital questions that may be decided at the 2007 election. There are varying economic analyses of the viability of nuclear power generation in Australia. My own view is that, when properly costed, nuclear power will not be an economically viable option. In part that's because we are so blessed with other means of generating electricity, including world-class wind, solar and geothermal provinces that are all greatly under-utilised. It is true that present wind and solar technologies are limited in the extent that they can contribute to (or offset) baseload power, and thus do not play precisely the same role as nuclear power. Their technology, however, is developing rapidly and within a decade the picture may be very different. Australia may also be able to implement some "clean coal" (placing the carbon dioxide underground) within this time frame. I suspect that some of the lower costings of nuclear power do not take fully into account the cost of waste disposal, nor of gaining public acceptance of proposed facilities. An additional cost, which will loom ever larger in future, is that of water. Coal-fired power plants have large water requirements for cooling and steam generation, but these are dwarfed by the water needs of nuclear power. Some nuclear power plants can use seawater for cooling, but problems emerge when they are situated on bays and gulfs, for there the warm discharge water can accumulate and have a large impact on the local marine ecology. Both Melbourne and Adelaide sit beside enclosed waterways, making the location of proposed plants (if they use seawater for cooling) near these cities problematic. One of the determinants of how competitive nuclear power will be in Australia is the cost of carbon emissions under any trading scheme. The owners of conventional coal-fired power plants would be required to pay around $35 per tonne for their carbon dioxide pollution if nuclear power (even if given subsidies for waste disposal and gaining public acceptance) is to be competitive. If they pay about $40 a tonne, however, a large array of renewables become competitive. Electors who oppose nuclear power as an option for Australia would thus be wise to vote for a party that endorses a carbon tax of $40 a tonne or more. Would a carbon tax of $40 a tonne have an impact on the average consumer? To gain some idea of what the cost might be, we can look at the recent rises in the cost of petrol and calculate them as if they had been caused by a carbon tax. It would have taken a carbon tax of about $300 a tonne to cause the rise in petrol prices seen last year. A $40 a tonne penalty on carbon dioxide pollution is only one seventh as large as this. This indicates that with a modest energy saving scheme at home (such as turning off that second fridge, moving to compact fluorescent lights, or turning off appliances at the switch), most customers could easily offset the small price rise caused by such a carbon tax. Indeed, they may even end up saving money. Domestic electricity generation, however, is only half of the nuclear story for Australia has 40 per cent of the world's reserves of uranium, and we are large exporters. I have argued in the past that Australia's uranium has a role to play in combating climate change. That's because parts of the world are far less blessed with potential sources of energy than we are, and for them nuclear power appears to be the only currently viable option, apart from coal. Such areas include large regions of China, the eastern part of North America, and parts of Europe. Large populations, with large electricity requirements, live in these areas, and all of them already have some nuclear power. The challenge for all Australians, I believe, is to conduct our export of uranium at the highest ethical and moral level. What are we doing to support international agencies such as the UN, which fosters peace rather than war? Is our support of the International Atomic Energy Agency appropriately large? Is our condemnation of all nuclear weapons (including those held by allies such as the United States and Israel) loud enough? Are we playing a sufficient role in investing in the safe disposal of waste? These questions, I believe, should form the sharp end of the nuclear policy discussion for Australians. At the moment I feel that we're taking the money earned from the uranium trade, and conveniently avoiding the hard questions. It's very much like we have done with coal - taking the cash, yet avoiding Kyoto and climate change. And we now know how dangerous such a path can be. Tim Flannery is 2007 Australian of the Year. Copyright © 2007. The Age Company Ltd. ***************************************************************** 20 AU: The Age: Cutting emissions: the new power ploy - Opinion - www.theage.com.au George Wilkenfeld March 12, 2007 There can no longer be any doubt that rising concentrations of greenhouse gases are leading to dangerous change in the global climate. Not surprisingly, the confusion and misinformation that formerly surrounded climate change has now shifted to the debate on how to tackle it. If there is to be an effective response (and the odds do not look good at present) very large changes are required in the global economy, and especially the global energy system. For Australia, the central issue is electricity generation. Coal is the dirtiest of all fuels when it comes to greenhouse emissions, and a greater share of our electricity comes from coal than in any other developed country. Fortunately, we can start to address this today without waiting, possibly decades, for new baseload technologies such as "clean coal", for agreement on controversial options such as nuclear power, or for the type of renewable energy technology that can make a serious contribution to baseload. There is no such thing as "clean coal" from a greenhouse perspective. While some coals contain lower non-greenhouse air pollutants (e.g. sulphur), all coals lead to much higher greenhouse pollution than other fossil fuels. Generating electricity from coal with today's technology gives at least 75 per cent more greenhouse gas emissions than generating from natural gas. The difference is even greater for Victorian brown coal, which consists of more than 50 per cent water. In 2005, the average emissions intensity for Australian black coal-fired power stations was 0.95 kg carbon dioxide equivalent per kilowatt-hour sent out. For brown coal power stations it was 1.34 kg/kWh and for natural gas power stations it was 0.55 kg/kWh. The only way that coal's greenhouse pollution can be significantly reduced is by techniques that are highly energy intensive (e.g. drying, liquefaction or gasification of the fuel) or that capture and then securely sequester the emissions. None of this can be done commercially at present, so when will we know that "clean coal" has become clean enough? Until a coal-fired power station can achieve a greenhouse intensity equal to today's natural gas power stations - 0.55 kg/kWh - it cannot possibly be said to be "clean" in greenhouse terms. Some carbon dioxide capture and sequestration technologies could eventually achieve intensities of 0.2 to 0.25 kg/kWh, but this remains to be demonstrated. The probability of achieving near zero emissions from coal can be discounted, given that almost any conceivable technical alternative would be cheaper. Once a baseload power station is built, very little can be done to reduce its emissions over its life, which could be from 25 to 40 years. Therefore, the only prudent policy is not to build any new coal-fired power stations until they can match the greenhouse intensity of the alternative we already have: natural gas, which is plentiful and readily available throughout Australia. Technology is not an issue. There have been natural gas-fired baseload power stations in Australia since the 1960s. Natural gas is more expensive than coal because there is no price on greenhouse gas emissions. Most policymakers accept the need for a "carbon price signal", but it will take years to agree on how to implement it. Adopting a limit of 0.55 kg/kWh for all power stations built from today would, in effect, set an immediate carbon price signal in the area where it is most urgently needed - for decisions about new power stations. It would not affect fuel costs for existing power stations, so the overall price impact on electricity users would be small. The higher cost of energy from new plants would also provide an incentive to use electricity more efficiently, to delay new baseload investments. If we still need new baseload power stations before coal is "clean" enough, we can use natural gas. A mandatory limit of 0.55 on the emissions intensity of new power stations would, no doubt, redouble the efforts of the coal industry to develop sequestration technology, so new coal-fired power stations would again become possible. Of course, 0.55 should be a genuine intensity limit based on a thorough analysis of the fuel cycle from coal preparation to sequestration, and not a sham limit that can be circumvented by planting trees or buying "credits" or "'offsets". Mandating this is no more difficult than regulating a phasing out of inefficient light bulbs. The states could do it now using their existing pollution control legislation. Or the Commonwealth could impose the standard using its corporations or external affairs powers. This is a decision we can make today. If it avoids just one new dirty coal power station, it will save more emissions than all the solar water heaters and compact fluorescent lamps ever installed in Australia. We can even give the limit its own slogan: "0.55 to stay alive". George Wilkenfeld is a Sydney energy policy consultant who is involved in the preparation of the Federal Government's National Greenhouse Gas Inventory. Copyright © 2007. The Age Company Ltd. ***************************************************************** 21 toledoblade.com: Feds declare problem over at Fermi plant Article published Friday, March 9, 2007 NEWPORT, Mich. - Employees and management of Detroit Edison Co.'s Fermi 2 nuclear plant in Monroe County have satisfied the Nuclear Regulatory Commission with their improvement in self-diagnosing problems and resolving them. In a letter dated March 2 and made available to the public this week, the NRC told Donald Cobb, Detroit Edison assistant vice president for nuclear generation, that government inspectors noted sufficient progress in what was described as a "cross-cutting" issue affecting training and various plant procedures. "Based on this observed improvement, the [NRC] staff no longer has a concern with the scope of your efforts or progress in the cross-cutting area of problem identification and resolution because the range of corrective actions and observable trends indicate you have effectively addressed the cross-cutting theme associated with these findings." "Therefore, the cross-cutting issue is now closed," according to the cover letter for the NRC's latest assessment report. ? Flawed Fermi 2 test baffles experts; defective process eluded utility, NRC for 2 decades | 02/23/2007 © 2006 The Blade. By using this service, you accept the terms of The Toledo Blade Company, 541 N. Superior St., Toledo, OH 43660 , (419) 724-6000 ***************************************************************** 22 ENS: Nuclear Power Industry Wins First Site Approval in 30 Years Environment News Service (ENS) WASHINGTON, DC The Nuclear Regulatory Commission Thursday approved the first Early Site Permit for a nuclear power plant - demonstrating a new and previously untested licensing process for locating new nuclear plants in the United States. Critics say new nuclear plants are not needed if energy conservation is implemented. The approval - for Exelon Generation Company's Clinton site, in central Illinois - was hailed by U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman as "a major milestone" in the Bush administration's plan to expand the use of nuclear power. "NRC approval of the Clinton Early Site Permit represents a major accomplishment in this administration’s effort to address the barriers and stimulate deployment of new nuclear power plants in the United States," Bodman said. "By demonstrating effectiveness and predictability in the licensing process, utilities will have the information they need to make sound business decisions that can lead to the construction of new nuclear power plants," he said. The Early Site Permit resolves environmental, site suitability and emergency planning issues with regard to the possible construction and operation of a new nuclear plant next to the Clinton Power Station in Clinton, Illinois. Exelon has not decided to move forward with building a new nuclear plant. The Clinton Power Station is located in central Illinois with Bloomington/Normal to the north, Champaign/Urbana to the east, and Decatur to the south. Built on a 14,300-acre site, it began operating in 1987. (Photo © Kirby Vandervort) The Early Site Permit process was established by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, NRC, in 1989 for utilities to complete the site and environmental evaluations before a decision is made to build a nuclear plant. Once issued, the permit is valid for 20 years and can be used in conjunction with a subsequent combined Construction and Operating License application. "This the last major hurdle in the process. We are very pleased with how the early site permit process has progressed," said Marilyn Kray, Exelon Nuclear vice president of project manager, who has piloted the process for the company. Exelon is now waiting for the NRC staff to issue the permit, which must occur within 10 days of the commission's vote. The 20 year permit allows Exelon to "bank" the site for a possible power plant, said Kray, but it does not authorize construction of a new plant. Should the company decide to build a power plant, it would need to apply for a combined operating license. "Certain conditions would have to fall into place before Exelon would consider building a plant - a workable solution to the spent fuel disposal problem; community acceptance; the right reactor technology; and the economics must be favorable," Kray said. This Early Site Permit approval is the culmination of a four year, cost shared project between the Department of Energy and the Exelon Corporation, based in Chicago. Exelon submitted their Early Site Permit application, which includes a Site Safety Analysis Report, an Environmental Report, and an Emergency Plan, to the NRC in September 2003. The NRC issued the Final Safety Evaluation Report in May 2006, the Final Environmental Impact Statement in July 2006, and the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board hearings concluded in early November 2006. In addition to its partnership with Exelon, the Energy Department has partnered with two other companies, Entergy and Dominion Energy, to demonstrate the process. A decision on the Entergy Grand Gulf Early Site Permit is expected within the month, and later this year the decision on Dominion’s North Anna Early Site Permit is expected. The NRC vote supports the Energy Department's Nuclear Power 2010 program, a joint government-industry cost shared effort to identify sites for new nuclear power plants; develop and bring to market advanced nuclear plant technologies; evaluate the business case for building new nuclear power plants and; demonstrate untested regulatory processes. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman testifies before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy, Water, and Related Agencies about the department's FY’08 budget request (Photo courtesy DOE) President Bush's Fiscal Year 2008 budget requests $874.2 million, a 38.2 percent increase over the FY'07 request, for theOffice of Nuclear Energy. Of that request, $114 million has been allocated to complete the remaining Early Site Permit demonstration projects and continue the New Nuclear Plant Licensing Demonstration projects. Paul Leventhal, the long-time head of the nongovernmental Nuclear Control Institute, NCI, says there is "ample evidence" that "conservation alone could eliminate the need for the existing fleet of nuclear power plants, let alone new ones." Before establishing NCI, based in Washington, DC, Leventhal held senior staff positions in the U.S. Senate on nuclear power and proliferation issues. He served as co-director of the bipartisan Senate Special Investigation of the Three Mile Island Nuclear Accident, and helped to draft the 1974 legislation that established the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. "The public has yet to be heard from," said Leventhal. "The NRC is going to grant permits at existing sites assuming that these commmunities have already accepted nuclear power plants. If there was an accident, that could change overnight." He is critical of the NRC's close working relationship with the nuclear industry, saying that the "NRC could be perceived as a wholly owned subsidiary of the Nuclear Energy Institute," a nuclear industry association. Nuclear Energy Institute’s president and chief executive officer, Frank "Skip" Bowman, said Thursday, "History will record this day as one of the early milestones in the era of new nuclear power plant construction in the United States. Approval of the Clinton early site permit application by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission – the first such siting permit in the agency’s history – is a momentous occurrence." "Site pre-approval provided through the early site permit process holds the potential to shorten the time required to bring a new nuclear power plant to market," said Bowman. "As our nation seeks to increase its reliance on nuclear energy to strengthen U.S. energy diversity and security with a reliable electricity source that keeps the air clean, today’s action marks a promising day for a brighter energy future for the American people," he said. Leventhal said, "The nuclear renaissance is in the eyes of the beholder. The administration has tried to build a solid case for nuclear power based on global warming and electricity needs beyond current capacity." But, in his view, the risks outweigh the benefits. "I'm not anti-nuclear, and I have taken a neutral position on nuclear power," Leventhal said. "It can be accpetable if it is operated as safely as humanly possible." "But nuclear power plants in today's security environment should be regarded as strategic targets in the United States with the fullest protection the federal government can provide," Leventhal said. "They should be protected with ground to air missiles integrated into both the military and the Federal Aviation Administration systems with careful command and control systems. There may have to be permanent troops or special federal protection forces." But Leventhal says the industry opposes the federal government stepping in because it might alarm the public into recognizing that nuclear power plants are vulnerable. "So you have nuclear power plants protected by rent-a-cops." Energy Secretary Bodman characterizes nuclear power as "clean" and "safe" and says "nuclear power will play an increasingly important role as the demand for electricity grows worldwide." "Government's role is to create an environment in which clean energy can flourish, and I'm proud to say that we're helping doing just that," said Bodman Thursday. But Leventhal is not reassured. "There's lots of loosey, goosey stuff that makes plants vulnerable to attack," he said. "The public doesn't want to know, they're in denial." Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2006. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 23 MDN: Germany's environment ministry refuses extension for nuclear plant - MSN-Mainichi Daily News March 12, 2007 BERLIN -- Germany's environment minister Friday rejected a request to extend the life of the country's oldest nuclear power plant, highlighting the division over nuclear energy within Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition government. Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel, a Social Democrat, said the application from utility RWE was not in accord with a 2000 German law mandating the shutdown of all 17 nuclear plants by 2021 "and therefore has to be rejected." A government spokesman said Chancellor Angela Merkel disagreed with the ruling, and conservative Economics Minister Michael Glos called it "absurd." Merkel agreed to keep the 2000 shutdown plan when she and her conservatives forged a coalition government with the left-of-center Social Democrats, and she has been careful not to propose scrapping it. But as concerns over global warming have grown, the former physicist has pointed out the clash between the nuclear shutdown and Europe's goal of reducing greenhouse gases, seen as a top priority of Germany's six-month stint at the head of the EU. Power from German nuclear plants would likely be replaced by electricity generated using natural gas and coal, which produce the greenhouse gases believed to cause global warming. Environmentalists urge the use of renewable energy such as wind instead, but Germany's utilities say power demand will outstrip growth in renewables. The company wants to transfer running time from a closed nuclear plant to Biblis A, Germany's oldest plant located near the city of Worms on the Rhine River in southwestern Germany. It went on line in 1974. The shutdown law passed by the previous government of Social Democrats and anti-nuclear Greens guaranteed the nuclear power industry an average 32-year running life for its plants, and allowed running time to be transferred among plants with government approval. A government spokesman said Merkel and Economics Minister Michael Glos disagreed with Gabriel's ruling, and invited RWE to challenge the decision in court. "Contrary to the environmental ministry, the economics ministry and the chancellor came to the conclusion that a transfer would be possible," said spokesman Thomas Steg. RWE said in a statement it was examining a possible legal challenge. Biblis A was scheduled to shut down sometime in 2008. But because it has been taken off line for maintenance work, Gabriel said he saw it finally closing down in March or April 2009. (AP) Copyright 2005-2006 THE MAINICHI NEWSPAPERS. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 24 Herald News: Agency OKs preliminary permit for Exelon reactor HeraldNewsOnline.com Member of the Sun-Times News Group March 10, 2007 The Associated Press CLINTON -- Federal regulators have approved a preliminary permit requested by Exelon Corp. for a new nuclear plant to be built next to the company's existing 1,043-megawatt Clinton Power Station. However, the "early site permit" does not mean Exelon can build a new reactor at the site -- the company would still have to go through a lengthy application process for a construction and operating license. And Exelon officials said the company has not decided whether to build a reactor in Clinton, located about 25 miles north of Bloomington. "Certain conditions would have to fall into place before Exelon would consider building a plant: a workable solution to the spent fuel disposal problem; community acceptance; the right reactor technology; and the economics must be favorable," Marilyn Kray, vice president of project development for Exelon Nuclear, said in a statement. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved the 20-year permit Thursday that allows Chicago-based Exelon to "bank" a site for a possible power plant, according to the energy company. Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material ***************************************************************** 25 Fulton Sun: Chemistry problem shuts down nuclear plant Callaway County www.fultonsun.com Sunday, March 11, 2007 By KATHERINE CUMMINS The Fulton Sun Ameren UE's Callaway Nuclear Plant shut down Friday morning in response to a chemistry problem in its secondary water system. Operators shut the plant down at 10:43 a.m. after instruments detected elevated levels of sodium in the system that supplies water to the steam generators driving the turbine-generator. The system is separate from the water that circulates through the nuclear reactor. “The plant has certain technical specifications it has to meet in a number of areas, and the amount of sodium in this system had gotten to a point where it needed to be regulated,” said Mike Cleary, the plant's communications executive. “We think it was due to a condenser tube leaking inside the condensers.” He said operators suspect the cause of the imbalance was allowing processed Missouri River water from the cooling tower to leak into the secondary system, which requires more highly-treated water. “Right now we're still investigating to make sure that's the source; we're trying to isolate the problem,” Cleary said. “There are thousands of these tubes, and we're trying to find the section of the condenser it is in.” He noted that the chemical imbalance does not present a safety hazard either to the plant or the public, although a number of federal, state and local officials were notified in accordance with plant procedures. “We're just trying to keep people informed,” Cleary said. “We know anytime people don't see the cloud above the tower they wonder what's going on.” As of Friday afternoon, it was undetermined when the plant would return to service. “Any time the plant shuts down, we have a whole list of things that aren't important enough to shut us down on their own that we like to get done,” Cleary said. All Contents Copyright © 2007 The Fulton Sun. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 26 toledoblade.com: FirstEnergy recommits to annual assessments Article published Saturday, March 10, 2007 BLADE STAFF FirstEnergy Corp. will live up to its commitment to have independent assessments of the Davis-Besse nuclear power plant near Oak Harbor, Ohio performed annually through the end of 2009. Viktoria Mitlyng, a Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman, said yesterday the agency was notified Thursday that the utility had withdrawn the request it made Aug. 23 to have the last two years of assessments of plant operations waived. The NRC’s No. 1 stipulation for letting FirstEnergy restart Davis-Besse in March, 2004, was five consecutive years of independent assessments, at the utility’s expense, for operations, safety culture, corrective action, and engineering, starting in the fall of that year. The plant was coming out of a record two-year outage because the utility had allowed Davis-Besse’s old reactor head to become so thinned out by rust that it nearly burst open. If that had happened, radioactive steam would have formed in containment for the first time since the half-core meltdown of the Three Mile Island Unit 2 reactor in Pennsylvania in 1979. The NRC was not given a reason for FirstEnergy’s change of heart, Ms. Mitlyng said. © 2006 The Blade. By using this service, you accept the terms of The Toledo Blade Company, 541 N. Superior St., Toledo, OH 43660 , (419) 724-6000 ***************************************************************** 27 toledoblade.com: Judge orders separate trials in Davis-Besse case Article published Saturday, March 10, 2007 BLADE STAFF A federal judge in Toledo yesterday ordered two trials in the criminal case against a pair of former Davis-Besse engineers and an outside contractor indicted in 2006 on charges of lying to the government about the plant’s dangerous condition in the fall of 2001. U.S. District Court Judge David Katz agreed with the defendants that they can’t get a fair trial if all three are tried at once. Defendant Andrew Siemaszko has made statements against the other two defendants, David Geisen and Rodney N. Cook, and vice versa. Mr. Siemaszko’s trial is set for May 1. The trial for Mr. Geisen and Mr. Cook will be scheduled later. Each faces five years in prison and $250,000 in fines if convicted. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission sensed something was wrong with Davis-Besse in the fall of 2001, but let the plant keep operating until Feb. 16, 2002, at FirstEnergy’s request. The government regulator found out the plant’s old reactor head was within weeks of blowing apart and allowing radioactive steam to form. © 2006 The Blade. By using this service, you accept the terms of The Toledo Blade Company, 541 N. Superior St., Toledo, OH 43660 , (419) 724-6000 ***************************************************************** 28 DenverPost.com: Going nuclear on warming perspective By Bill Becker Article Last Updated: 03/10/2007 04:44:15 PM MST As we plan a response to global warming, many good thinkers are grasping at simple solutions to a very complex problem. Take nuclear power, for example. Some of the nation's most respected environmental leaders, who a year or two ago would never have endorsed the reincarnation of the nuclear industry, now say it is a necessary step to slow climate change. But as we discuss what to do about climate change, government officials, technology experts and the public all should keep a few basic facts in mind: Virtually every energy technology available today produces greenhouse gas emissions, including nuclear power. The myth that nuclear power or "clean coal" technologies are carbon-free illustrates how many of the nation's thought leaders are using first- grade math on the complex calculus of climate stabilization. The nuclear and coal industries produce greenhouse gases when they mine, mill and transport the fuels. More carbon emissions occur when utilities build power plants. Even solar collectors and wind turbines produce carbon emissions as their raw materials are extracted and their hardware is manufactured. The correct question is which of our energy resources and technologies produce the lowest carbon emissions over their lifetimes. This life-cycle calculation should include not only net carbon emissions, but also net energy consumption and net impacts on public health and the environment. The technologies and fuels that produce the greatest net benefit at lowest net cost across all of these factors are the ones that should be given highest priority by investors and policymakers. There is an important difference between problem-solving and problem-switching. The liabilities of nuclear power are well known: weapons proliferation and new targets for terrorism, in addition to the ongoing lack of consensus on where to store radioactive wastes. We should not trade carbon emissions for other serious problems when we have choices with substantially fewer downsides - aggressive energy efficiency, for example, and several of the renewable energy technologies. We often hear policymakers say that we need a "balanced" energy portfolio. But "balance" is an escape-clause for politicians afraid to offend anyone - either the environmental lobby or the nuclear and fossil-fuel industries. We need diversity in our energy mix, not balance. We should use more of the energy resources that provide the most stable energy prices and supplies, and less of the rest. All energy options should be on the table, but not all of them should make it to the field. Time is a critical factor in weighing our energy options. Leading scientists tell us we have 10 years to make dramatic reductions in greenhouse gases if we are to avoid the worst consequences of climate change. Every day that we emit greenhouse gases, we pay a "procrastination penalty" because mitigating or adapting to climate change becomes harder and more expensive. Even if nuclear power could overcome jittery investors and the impasse over its hazardous wastes, it takes years to build a nuclear power plant. Similar delays are a problem for clean-coal power plants and hydrogen, neither of which are ready for prime time. Many renewable energy technologies, on the other hand, can be deployed quickly. The climate problem cannot be solved by technology alone. Political leaders need the courage to tell the American public that we must change behaviors and values as well as light bulbs. We won't solve the climate problem by creating smart technologies to accommodate stupid behavior. Pandering to entrenched and moneyed energy industries is not a climate policy. As U.S. Rep. Mark Udall from Colorado noted in a recent column in The Denver Post, the president's new budget would increase federal spending on renewable energy by only 5 percent, while increasing the nuclear budget by 38 percent and the fossil energy budget by 33 percent. Those numbers don't reflect forward-thinking national policy. They reflect the staggering influence that the nuclear, oil, gas and coal industries have on this White House. Recently, a group of respected engineers and scientists announced findings that energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies, aggressively applied, can make dramatic reductions in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in the coming decades. It remains to be seen whether some nuclear power will be needed to achieve the deep reductions in emissions required to stabilize the climate. But before we go there, we should invest our time and treasure in exhausting the potentials of energy efficiency and renewable energy. They are not problem-free. Few options are. But they are safer, cleaner, faster, more stable and more secure than nuclear or fossil energy - and they give us a permanent foundation for building a sustainable post-carbon economy. These are the things that every schoolchild and the nation's policymakers should know. Bill Becker is a former Department of Energy official and executive director of the Presidential Climate Action Project at the University of Colorado All contents Copyright 2007 The Denver Post or other copyright ***************************************************************** 29 Brattleboro Reformer: Another nuclear plant in Vernon? BRATTLEBORO, VT By BOB AUDETTE, Reformer Staff Saturday, March 10 BRATTLEBORO -- Could Vernon one day host a new nuclear power plant? The early site permitting for a possible new reactor in Illinois is just one step along that path, said anti-nuclear activists. Exelon Corp., which operates the Clinton nuclear power plant in central Illinois, received such a permit from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission Thursday, certifying it as suitable for a new nuclear reactor. Exelon has 20 years to actually apply for a construction and operating license, but the early site permit is the first of its type since the NRC updated its permitting regulations, and the first action on a possible new nuclear power plant since before the Three Mile Island accident. By the end of this year, the NRC expects it will receive at least one construction and operating license application, said Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the NRC. If it does, he said, "it would be the first time we've received an application since Three Mile Island." Though a number of sites are being considered, he said, he expects when the NRC does receive an application, it will probably be for one of the sites with an operating power reactor in the southern United States. "This will probably be the year for a permit," said Sheehan. A spokeswoman for Entergy said its application for a construction and operating permit for its River Bend facility in Louisiana should be ready for the NRC by the end of the year. "We are actively pursuing new nuclear," said Diane Park, Entergy's communications manager for nuclear business development. Though Park said Entergy has no active plans to construct a new reactor, it is pushing ahead with permitting applications. Entergy is a founding member of Nustart, a consortium of energy companies which has thrown its combined weight at testing the new permitting procedures. Entergy also has an an early site permit pending for Grand Gulf in Louisiana, which it operates, but is owned by System Energy Resources, also supported by Nustart. "It would be exciting for us if new nuclear takes off big time," she said. "This is wishful thinking," said Deb Katz, of Citizen Awareness Network, an anti-nuclear group. Without huge government subsidies, she said, these companies can't afford to build new nuclear power plants. The only other way to pay for them, she said, is to figure out a way to transfer the costs to utility users, but that can't be done without the permission of a state's public services board. And then there are issues like spent fuel storage and how to protect nuclear sites from terrorist attack. "New nukes and relicensing are coming up against issues like waste," said Katz. Both Katz and Diana Sidebotham, of the New England Coalition, said the early site permits, and uprates and relicensing applications at plants such as Vermont Yankee, are steps in the industry's long-term plan to build nuclear power plants around the country. Though Entergy is not looking at the Northeast at this time, said Park, all of its sites have been reviewed as possible locations for new power plants. "One of the key criteria was having an existing transmission infrastructure," she said. "Both the Grand Gulf and River Bend sites were initially designed as two-unit sites but only one unit was built. That gives them the existing infrastructure." Grass-roots organizations are opposing those plans, said Sidebotham, for a number of reasons. "It matters a lot," she said. "What happens in one place inevitably will affect the others with precedent. And furthermore, we all know radiation knows no boundaries." "The place in America that has the greatest conflict about nuclear power is the Northeast," said Katz, explaining why consortiums like Nustart are focusing on the south and not sites in New England. "The truth is, if Vermont Yankee is not relicensed, they will never build a new reactor there," said Katz. "The only thing that will allow that is if it gets relicensed. That's what they are looking at." Sheehan said there are only two sites in the Northeast that are being considered for new power plants -- Nine Mile Point in upstate New York and Calvert Cliffs in southern Maryland. When issuing an early site permit, the NRC is confirming that, generally speaking, a site is suitable for a new power plant. "You can get approval for the site and you can 'bank' it and build on it later," said Neil Sheehan. An applicant still has to apply for an operating license and submit a reactor proposal before the site can be approved. That process can take up to four years to complete. Bob Audette can be reached at raudette@reformer.com or 802-254-2311, ext. 273. ***************************************************************** 30 UPI: EU reaches renewable energy deal United Press International - NewsTrack - Published: March 9, 2007 at 7:00 PM BRUSSELS, March 9 (UPI) -- European Union leaders have reached an agreement on a binding target of making renewable energy 20 percent of the EU's energy mix by 2020. The deal, which calls for a similar cut in carbon dioxide emissions, allows "less technologically advanced states" to have a smaller share of the burden, the EU Observer reported. The newspaper said the EU is hoping the United States and China will follow Europe's lead. "I'm getting the feeling that not only in the U.S. but in the industrializing countries as well, there's growing sensitivity when it comes to realizing the importance of these issues," said German Chancellor and EU President Angela Merkel. The deal was reached Friday after Austria accepted French proposals that nuclear power should be considered a renewable energy on a political par with wind or solar power, the newspaper said. © Copyright 2007 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 31 Albuquerque Tribune: Nuclear energy can devastate in ways solar and wind don't abqtrib.com By V.B. Price Saturday, March 10, 2007 How much do you really trust nuclear power? Do you find it reassuring that the nation's largest nuclear power plant, which supplies electricity to 4 million people - the Palo Verde station 50 miles west of Phoenix - was put under what the Los Angeles Times called a "tighter watch" by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission last month because of a "safety violation" with "low to moderate safety significance"? Does it convince you that every time any problems occur with nuclear energy the potential harm is always minimized? How about Chernobyl? Pro-nuke writers say it really wasn't bad. Only 56 people were killed directly by the reactor explosion, which was caused largely by human error. They fail to tell you, of course, that the explosion released as much as 40 times the amount of radioactivity of the bombs used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and that the fallout plume reached the East Coast of the United States. Does it make you comfortable to know that the nation's most important nuclear weapons facility - Pantex, near Amarillo, Texas - was under investigation last month for the general deterioration of its buildings, its leaking roofs, its compromised safety systems and its employment practices, which drive workers to the point of exhaustion, according to the Los Angeles Times? Is this the news one wants to hear as the nuclear power industry parades newly pro-nuke environmentalists like the Whole Earth Catalog's Stuart Brand around the Internet, preaching the safety and sanity of using radioactivity to make electricity, when an array of proven alternative sources of energy are languishing for want of funds? What happens when wind generation facilities go kaput? Well, they don't exhale plumes of pollution. The propellers, though, might fall off. Or how about breakdowns at solar facilities? I suppose there's a lot of broken silicon. Rational objections to nuclear energy are not always about its overkill technology - harnessing the power of the atom to boil water - but about its plumbing and its management and upkeep, often the sources of human error - the things that the efficiencies of high technology can do nothing about. You'd think that after more than 60 years the nuclear military/industrial complex would have solved the massive problems of what to do with nuclear waste. But the political will has gone into funding PR cons about how harmless radioactive waste is, not scientific research on waste removal. According to some experts it would take 1,000 new 1-gigawatt nuclear power plants in America to significantly decrease our effect on global warming. There are only 103 now. According to Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute, three years ago renewable energy sources were generating more than 500 times more electricity worldwide than nuclear power, without any of its potential, nasty side effects. Does nuclear energy really seem that appealing? Posted by atomicrod on March 10, 2007 at 5:59 p.m. (Suggest removal) I am quite comfortable with nuclear power - I lived within 200 feet of a reactor for months at a time as a US nuclear submarine engineer officer. I have a huge problem with Amory Lovins and his ability to do math. In 2003, nuclear power plants produced 2,523 billion kilowatt hours of electricity. The total amount of electricity produced in the world in that same year was 14,781 billion kilowatt hours. In other words, nuclear power produced about 17% of the world's electricity. (Source: World Energy Outlook 2006 - http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/pdf/worl...) How is it possible for renewable energy to have produced 500 times as much electricity? I am also unaware of any nasty side effects. The waste products from nuclear power stations are carefully controlled, inventoried and monitored. Can the same be said of the smoke from burning municipal solid waste - which the Department of Energy places in the "renewable energy" category or from 100 MWe natural gas fired cogeneration plants - which Amory Lovins considers to be "renewable"? Perhaps the problem is that Amory Lovins couuld never focus enough on his homework to even get an undergraduate degree. He brags about having dropped out of every college level school that he attended. His explanation is that the schools were too limiting; mine is that he felt limited by facts and math rules that he did not like. Posted by sambo4 on March 10, 2007 at 7:42 p.m. (Suggest removal) I have to echo the sentiment that I am comfortable with Nuclear power. But just to put it in perspective, let's examine what it would take in wind power to provide the electricity to Albuquerque's 800,000 people. California has 13,000 windmills throughout the state. Each windmill produces 327 Kilowatt hours of power each year. Using the average household consumption of the United States, which is 10,000 Kilowatt hours per year, let's divide Albuquerque's population up into households of 4. That would be 200,000 households. Do the math. It would take an array of 6 million, 517 thousand 431 windmills to provide that power. Let's say you placed them in a square grid with 200 feet between each of the windmills, the grid would extend from downtown Albuquerque to 30 miles North of Santa Fe and the same direction to the east or west. So, contrast that to ONE NUCLEAR power plant, 70 miles from Albuquerque which would produce enough power to provide 10,000 kilowatt hours to 16 times the population of Albuquerque based on the example of 200,000 households. I think what the discussion should center around is how to effectively resolve the problems arising from the use of Nuclear power and move forward with Nuclear power. It's one of the few areas that I find myself in agreement with the French. Their power grid is 70 percent nuclear. Posted by sambo4 on March 10, 2007 at 10:13 p.m. (Suggest removal) I may need to stand corrected if this calculation is incorrect so if there are any electrical engineers who know how to convert kilowatt hours to kilowatts, please correct me if I am mistaken. Solar power on the other hand may be a more useful means of generating electric power. Especially for a city like Albuquerque where there is a good amount of sunshine and lots of space. I calculated that 2 billion Kilowatt hours for a year broken down to a source would be a steady flow of 228.310 Megawatts. The size per watt for a photovoltaic cell is roughly 14 square inches for one watt of electricity. Let's say you'd want to double your capacity so you could store what you need for overnight. And then let's throw in some extra for the sake of error and say we wanted to generate a steady flow of 500 Megawatts. At 14 sqare inches per watt, you would need a grid of solar panels 7 billion square inches. Which is 48 million, 611 thousand square feet which would take a square grid a mile and a half wide. I guess Solar energy is not that far out of the question. Although I know nothing of the technical problems encountered with solar power. I also couldn't tell you how big the facilities would have to be to store enough energy for overnight use. Can anyone shed some light on that? The other thing to consider is the cost of installation. The installed price of solar panels commercially is about 9 dollars per watt. So for a system that is generating 500 million watts, the installation cost would be 4.5 billion dollars. Divided by 200,000 households using the example in my previous post, that would be 22500 dollars per household. And since we know the power company is going to want to re-coup that cost that it will be passed on to the customers. I might expect to see the price of electricity double. Posted by ksparth on March 10, 2007 at 10:16 p.m. (Suggest removal) Currently we do not have the luxury of comparing different modes of power.We need all of them.Winds are capricous; sun is unsteady. We need the dirty coal power stations and the unpopular nuclear power stations to provide base-load power. Every mode of power generation has advantages and disadvantages. Nuclear power technology has improved considerably to provoide safe and reliable power 24/7. Nuclear power is not what nuclear power was during the late sventies. yes the presently operating nuclear power reactors are unforgiving. The reactors to be constructed are less so. For countries such as India, nuclear power offers hope as a reliable emission free source.The per capita annual power consumption in India is less than 400 Units(kwhr). This must grow at least five fold. According to a news letter published by an Indian State electricity utility, "Electric power was thus always perceived by the Indian Government as a cheap infrastructural service to be provided by the public sector, and the Indian Electricity Act, 1948 had envisaged that public utilities should make it available on a no- loss no-profit basis. The direct investments made in the country for power development every year are of the same order as the annual revenue earnings of power utilities from the sale of electricity. Revenue surpluses of the utilities hardly cover the depreciation costs of power systems and there is very little of plough-back for additional investments. Thus a sizeable proportion of the national savings has to be diverted as investments in the power sector". This mind set has to change. But public control of power generation and distribution is necessary for the time being to ensure equitable region-wise distribution. Though nuclear power offers only about 2.7 percent of the total electricity generated in India, it plays a vital role in te regions where they are located.India considers nuclear capacity addition essential for all round growth. K S Parthasarathy Ph.D Posted by sambo4 on March 10, 2007 at 11:08 p.m. (Suggest removal) I'm not so sure I agree with you that we need all of the sources of power. With one nuclear power plant you could light up the entire state of New Mexico. And then sell the surplus to Colorado, Oklahoma, texas or Arizona. And when it was built, it could be designed with multiple reactors so that 75 percent of the capacity was more than adequate to meet demand. That way reactors could go down for maintenance without affecting service. I say leave the solar power to individual homeowners if they so choose it and go nuclear on the grid. © 2007 The Albuquerque Tribune ***************************************************************** 32 Manila Bulletin: DoST conducts study on revisiting possible use of nuclear power Monday, March 12, 2007 By MADEL SABATER With the need to use technologies that would help reduce the adverse effects of global warming, the Department of Science and Technology (DoST) is looking at "revisiting" the possible use of nuclear power in the future. In an interview with the Manila Bulletin, Science and Technology Secretary Estrella Alabastro said "now is the time to revisit nuclear power," considering the "unequivocal" effects of global warming caused by human activities, including the use of coal power plants. Based on research, nuclear power is generated with the use of uranium. It produces "around 11 percent of the world’s energy needs, and produces huge amounts of energy from small amounts of fuel, without the pollution (usually acquired) from burning fossil fuels." It does not produce smoke or carbon dioxide, so it does not contribute to the greenhouse effect. It also produces small amounts of waste. Alabastro said, however, that if the country reexamines the possibility of nuclear power, the most critical factor that should be addressed is the human resources. "Lahat kasi ng mga nuclear engineers natin, nagretire na, wala na halos (most of our nuclear engineers have already retired. We’re losing human resources in this field)," she lamented. Alabastro’s suggestion on revisiting nuclear power came after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, prepared by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), revealed that global warming caused by human activities is "equivocal" as the global mean temperature had increased to t 0.74 degrees Celsius from 1906 to 2005 from the estimate of 0.60 degrees Celsius in 2001. The IPCC report, released last February, also confirmed that the marked increase in atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide since 1750 "is the result of human activities." The report revealed that if concentrations of greenhouse gases double, compared to pre-industrial levels, it will "likely" cause an average warming of three degrees Celsius, adding that if the greenhouse gas level reaches 650 parts per million (ppm), it would likely warm global climate by 3.6 degrees Celsius. At 750 ppm, the warming could reach 4.3 degrees Celsius; at 1,000 ppm, 5.5 degrees Celsius; and at 1,200 ppm, 6.3 degrees Celsius. President Arroyo has ordered the formation of a task force on global warming, which will be headed by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), with the DoST and the Department of Energy (DoE) as among the members. Earlier, former DoE Secretary Francisco Viray said the country must prepare for the advent of nuclear power as a source of energy in the future. He said that based on the DoE’s 35-year plan, the country "might have to look at nuclear energy as a source of power" in 2025. "We need to prepare the electricity sector. The science and technology (S & T) community (should) spearhead preparing for the advent of nuclear energy in the country," he said, adding, "there is still enough time." Philippine Nuclear Research Institute (PNRI DOST) executive director Dr. Alumanda de la Rosa also said nuclear power "has a very good chance of coming back and becoming part of the energy mix not only in the Philippines but (in) other countries as well" due to the rising cost of fossil fuels and their environmental effects. Copyright © 2001-2005, Manila Bulletin. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 33 The Australian: EU deal boosts nuclear industry * March 12, 2007 THE role of nuclear power in Europe received an unexpected boost at the weekend as EU leaders hailed a landmark climate change deal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and switch to renewable fuels. Environmentalists complained that an ambitious headline goal to cut Europe's CO2 emissions by a fifth by 2020 had been weakened by concessions to the main nuclear nations and the biggest polluters in Eastern Europe. Nonetheless, German Chancellor Angela Merkel will use the agreement struck at the EU summit in Brussels to put pressure on world leaders to follow suit when she hosts the G8 meeting in June. China, India and Brazil will join that summit and, like the US, be challenged to accept the principle of binding CO2 cuts for the first time. As well as agreeing in principle to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, EU leaders pledged to ensure that 20 per cent of Europe's energy would come from renewable sources by 2020. The commitment of all 27 member nations is legally enforceable by the European Court of Justice. Months of haggling will follow as diplomats argue over targets for individual countries. Each will contribute a different amount, and diplomats made clear that less would be expected of the heaviest-polluting former communist countries. The Czechs and Slovaks had both complained that they had only just left decades of five-year plans behind them. In a sop to France and the Czech Republic, a country's nuclear power capability will be taken into account when calculating national commitments to renewable energy. France produces 80 per cent of its electricity from nuclear power stations and insisted that this "non-carbon" source of fuel should be taken into consideration. French diplomats believe this will lessen the EU demand for more renewable sources such as wave, wind and solar power. French President Jacques Chirac welcomed the deal as one of the top three achievements of the EU during his 12 years in the Elysee Palace. British leader Tony Blair was also pleased with the concession towards the nuclear powers. The outcome will give a boost to Mr Blair's plans to rebuild Britain's ageing nuclear power stations, which suffered a setback last month when the High Court ruled that the consultation process was seriously flawed. Mr Blair said: "There is then the 20 per cent target on renewable energy. In setting that, there will be permission to look at the energy mix that countries have ... including nuclear technology, which obviously helps the UK as well." Environmentalists were less enthusiastic. Friends of the Earth said the targets were timid. A spokesman said: "Heads of states gave a modest boost to the uptake of renewable energies, but agreed that the EU should aim low on cutting greenhouse gases, and failed again to agree on any concrete commitment towards reducing Europe's appalling waste of energy." Mr Blair and Mr Chirac were full of praise for the handling of the summit by Ms Merkel, who faced strong opposition to her climate change ambitions from several nations, not least in Eastern European countries -- such as Poland -- which still rely heavily on fossil fuels. But she was determined to give herself the best possible leverage on members of the G8 to persuade them to follow suit and prepare a post-Kyoto global framework for cutting harmful emissions. Mr Chirac described the outcome as "one of the great moments of European history". "It was not easy, but Ms Merkel achieved it with lots of intelligence and brio," he said. Key to any new global deal will be the US, where Congress refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, but also China, India and Brazil, which were all excused Kyoto targets because they were classed as developing nations in the 1990s. The EU deal allows Ms Merkel to challenge other global players to match the EU's commitment -- with the extra pledge that Europe will go further and cut emissions by up to 30 per cent if others are prepared to follow suit. © The Australian ***************************************************************** 34 Philadelphia Inquirer: Disaster management plans kept from sight 03/11/2007 | Citing the 9/11 attacks and security concerns, officials have limited public access to emergency preparations. By Craig R. McCoy, Edward Colimore and Art Carey Inquirer Staff Writers After the Bhopal chemical leak in India killed thousands in 1984, Congress decided public safety required openness about the chemical plants in our midst. Now, some officials have decided secrecy is better. Officials across the United States, including some in the Philadelphia region, have ended public access to information about facilities with hazardous materials, a new survey shows. Citing the 9/11 attacks and security concerns, they refuse to release the information despite a 1986 federal law called the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act. It requires communities to develop - and make public - plans for coping with disasters at chemical or hazardous-material plants or facilities. The survey found that officials refused 36 percent of the time to release any of the plans. In this area, response was mixed. In the four Pennsylvania counties ringing Philadelphia, officials agreed the public could see the plans. But Delaware County officials said they would give the FBI the name of anyone who asked. In Chester County, emergency managers refused to release any information - but relented after The Inquirer faxed them the federal law. In Philadelphia, the head of an emergency planning committee took a month to decide whether the plans were public. Eventually, chairman David Binder said a reporter could review plans at a city office - but only if the reporter knew enough to ask for a specific plan. The list of possibly hazardous sites, he said, was still secret. Access was mixed in New Jersey, too. In Burlington County, Pemberton Township's emergency management coordinator said the public had a right to see the plan: "That's why it's called the Right-to-Know Act," Craig Augustoni said. Yet in Camden County, Pennsauken officials would not release plans for dealing with a disaster at the Dow chemical plant or other facilities within the township. Elsewhere, secrecy was more common. The highest rejection rate happened here in the Mid-Atlantic region, where officials turned down nearly half the requests. Agencies in the South were the most open, making plans public three-quarters of the time. Paul Orum, a consultant on chemical safety, said such secrecy was misguided. "Giving people a clear idea of the hazards in the community is key to getting public support for emergency preparedness," said Orum, former director of the Working Group on Community Right to Know. In Bhopal, the world's worst single industrial accident, at least 3,000 people died initially and thousands more later, in a disaster aggravated because the plant had no plan to cope with a spill and had kept local leaders ignorant about the pesticides produced there. In a coordinated effort by journalism groups, reporters, student journalists, and volunteers from the League of Women Voters fanned out across the nation earlier this year to request the emergency plans. The federal law passed two years after Bhopal says the plans "shall be made available to the general public." The plans identify facilities with hazardous materials and explain how authorities will cope with a dangerous release. In all, reporters from 162 news organizations, including The Inquirer, took part, as did other volunteers. They sought emergency plans from 375 emergency planning committees in 36 states, putting requests in for about 1 out of every 8 plans in the United States. The results were made public today. Terrorism was mentioned repeatedly as a reason for keeping plans secret. A freelance radio reporter in Louisiana was denied access to the plan in New Orleans by an official who told her "it wasn't the kind of information we want the terrorists to get." Several reporters said they were told they were getting documents because they didn't look like terrorists. In other cases, the request drew suspicion. A query from the Columbus Dispatch newspaper prompted the Ohio State Highway Patrol to e-mail the state's 88 counties to ask them to be on the alert for similar requests. In Philadelphia, the release of emergency response plans for chemical facilities is overseen by Binder, an executive with a locally based ammonia company. He chairs the city emergency planning committee. After a month's consideration, Binder said last week plans could be inspected at a city office with a monitor watching - but only if those requesting plans know what they want. "I cannot give you a list of facilities," he said in an e-mail. MaryAnn E. Marrocolo, the city's new deputy managing director of emergency management and preparedness, also declined to release the city's overall disaster management plan, a 200-page document covering all manner of emergencies, from hurricanes to nuclear meltdowns. "While you may not have evil intent," she said, "somebody might, and there might be one detail in there that speaks to their plans." The Inquirer's appeal is pending. In Delaware County, Edward Doyle, cochair of the Delaware County Local Emergency Planning Committee, said the county would make all plans public - but would inform the FBI and plant operators of all requests. "It's not intended to keep people from seeing the information but to ensure that those seeing it are seeing it for the reasons they're supposed to be seeing it," he said. Doyle said he could remember only two requests for the plans in the last two decades. In New Jersey, access to plans related to chemical plants is often controlled by officials in cities and towns. Access varied in a sampling of cities The Inquirer selected. In Gloucester County, officials in West Deptford Township readily made public hundreds of pages detailing how they would cope with any disaster at the Eagle Point Refinery or other facilities. The plans contain everything from where the emergency command center would be to how to handle mass casualties. But Jack Mattera, head of emergency management in Pennsauken Township, would not release the township's plan for responding to an accident at a number of chemical plants. He said Camden County officials had told him such plans were not public, citing a 2002 executive order from then-Gov. Jim McGreevey barring release of documents that might aid "sabotage or terrorism." The Inquirer wrote to county officials urging the plans' release, arguing that federal law trumps state directives. Though the plans were public in the Pennsylvania suburbs, officials in Bucks and Montgomery Counties required those seeking the information to fill out forms or write letters identifying themselves. Reporters elsewhere ran into more severe obstacles. In Illinois, police ran the name of a reporter through a database to see whether he'd ever been arrested. Tom Glass, Chester County hazardous-materials coordinator, said that after Bhopal, plant managers readily share information with emergency managers. On the other hand, he said, he remained anxious about sharing it with the public. Contact staff writer Craig R. McCoy at 215-854-4821 and cmccoy@phillynews.com. Inquirer staff writers Mari Schaefer and Jeff Price contributed to this article. ***************************************************************** 35 The Local: Sweden ready to join NATO anti-terror force Published: 10th March 2007 09:45 CET Online: http://www.thelocal.se/6648/ Sweden's military has set aside resources to allow the country to take part in a NATO-led anti-terror force in the Mediterranean later this year, according to Swedish Radio. The Swedish contribution to the force has been accounted for in the military's budget despite the fact that no decision has yet been taken at a political level about Sweden's involvement. Sweden's possible involvement in the NATO operation, Active Endeavour, is seen as particularly controversial as it was launched as a direct response to the 9/11 attacks on the US in 2001. According to NATO, Active Endeavour's mission includes "actions aimed at preventing or countering terrorism coming from or conducted at sea and all illegality possibly connected with terrorism, such as human trafficking and smuggling of arms and radioactive substances". The operation was launched in the Eastern Mediterranean in October 2001 and then extended to monitor sea traffic, using ships, aircraft and submarines, in the whole of the Mediterranean in March 2004. The Swedish government's official line is that it is still weighing up the factors involved in participation. However, the military has budgeted 80 million kronor for a contribution in 2007. The Green Party's member of the parliamentary defence committee, Annika Nordgren-Christensen, said that such a move would be tantamount to actively joining America's war on terror. She said that a political decision to send a Swedish warship to the NATO operation could be ushered in through the back door of the spring budget. "It's just good manners and good government practice to ensure that issues like this aren't stuck in a supplementary budget without wider exposure," she told Swedish Radio. TT/The Local (news@thelocal.se The Local © The Local Europe AB 2007 News from Sweden in English ***************************************************************** 36 Tanzania Standard: Nuclear test facility installed at UDSM ASSAH MWAMBENE Sunday News; Sunday,March 11, 2007 @00:05 A NUCLEAR test detection facility, the first in East Africa, which is able to pick atmospheric atomic blasts from any part of the globe, has been commissioned at the University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM). With the facility in place, Tanzania can now be able to detect nuclear test or natural explosions like landslide and tremor from any part of the world, the Director- General of Tanzania Atomic Energy Commission (TAEC), Mr Abraham Nyanda said. Commissioning the equipment, the Minister for Higher Education, Science and Technology, Prof. Peter Msolla, paid tribute to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organisation (CTBTO) for choosing Tanzania to host the station. He said that locating the station in Tanzania would form a cornerstone for the country's commitment to non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and essential verification system for compliance to nuclear disarmament. Prof Msolla said Tanzania stands to benefit from the development of expertise in environmental radiation measurement and having access to information from the international data centre. The new state-of-the-art nuclear test detector was installed at the Physics Department of the University of Dar es Salaam at the cost of 500,000 US dollars (about 600m/-), financed 100 per cent by the CTBTO. Earlier, the TAEC Board Chairman, Dr Edward Masalla, told the minister that Tanzania was chosen by the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organisation because of its geographical location to capture information on the nuclear explosion. Comment on this Story Copyright @TSN 2006 All Rights Reserved Contacts: TSN Daily News building, Samora Avenue, Plot No. 7, P.O.Box 9033, Dar es Salaam, E-mail: newsdesk@dailynews-tsn.com; Telephone: +255222110595, Fax: +255222135239 0r +255222112881 ***************************************************************** 37 Poison DUst _DU Ordinance is Nuclear Proliferation _Prenatal Terrorism Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2007 11:34:16 -0500 (CDT) Ra Energy Fdn. Raleigh Myers Worksheet bio http://raenergy.igc.org/ArchitypeOfFairness.html Poison DUst _DU Ordinance is Nuclear Proliferation _Prenatal Terrorism DU Ordinance is Nuclear Proliferation_PreNatal Terrorism, Depleted Uranium for depopulating indigenous, kills forever, possible quarantine for the military involved, replaces small pox strategy that killed millions of indigenous in America and Africa, worse that leprosy, prenatal terrorism. http://raenergy.blogspot.com/2005/08/du-ordinance-is-nuclear.html A Must Watch Video Poison DUst tells the story of young soldiers who thought they came home safely from the war, but didn't. Of a veteran's young daughter whose birth defect is strikingly similar to birth defects suffered by many Iraqi children. - Every American who cares about our troops should watch this film. Everyone who cares about the innocent civilians who live in the countries where these weapons are used should watch this film. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17249.htm @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Op Ed into the last century http://groups.google.com/groups?q=raenergy&start=0&scoring=d&ie=UTF-8& Obama the End of Trogladitics _ the Earth is not flat. Obama says share the presidency rather than just vote for him. Nowhere in the GOP or the DLC is there a hint of sharing anything. Experience is how to ask the people what they need and then get it done. An Electrician became the president of Poland in the worst of times today we have an Idiocracy _ now we need to manage a paradigm shift. The alphabet soup crowd brought us GAIAcide and Corporatism _ it could hardly get any worse. If we get a young president with an already shifted mindset, the youth of the world will respond in kind _ much of the planets war torn population are under twenty five. Now for something different: http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/wahl/047 http://foxattacks.com/ Energy Policy for the second superpower http://raenergy.igc.org/energypolicy.html#municipal VIDEO: What is a Progressive? http://cdncon.vo.llnwd.net/o2/fotf/progressiveVideo/swf/index.html Being an Activist is a high calling _ seeking the high moral ground for fairness is prophetic. http://raenergy.igc.org/bio.html#concerts Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. ~Margaret Mead Select and paste if the URLs are split Google it for more info also click on groups example: Solar Hydrogen Economy @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Some other lectures leading to solutions http://raenergy.igc.org/Googleclick.html Corporatist - Fascistic factoids FDR Eisenhower Mussolini Lincoln warned of the corporatist-Fascist attack strategy. http://raenergy.igc.org/sig.html Ra Energy Fdn. Raleigh Myers Worksheet bio http://raenergy.igc.org/bio.html Blog http://raenergy.blogspot.com/ Op Ed back 20 years http://groups.google.com/groups?q=raenergy&start=0&scoring=d&ie=UTF-8& Call to Action virtual seminar for change. http://raenergy.igc.org/action.html I may be singing to the choir, with these talking points, but there are over six billion people who need attitude adjustment as you were in the same need just a bit ago. They need this help because many of you did not share your newly acquired awareness with them. If you have made your contribution please use these points for more outreach_give them a piece of your MIND. http://raenergy.igc.org/mindone.html http://raenergy.igc.org/ArchitypeOfFairness.html#Think Let us experiment with laws and customs, with money systems and governments, until we chart the one true course - until we find the majesty of our proper orbit as the planets above have found theirs& And then at last we shall move all together in the harmony of our sphere under the great impulse of a single creation - one unity, one system, one design. Roger Bacon FAIR USE NOTICE: This may contain copyrighted (C ) material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. It is believed that this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. http://www.eff.org/bloggers/lg/faq-ip.php ***************************************************************** 38 [progchat_action] Feds tried to cut aid to sick and dying nuclear weapons workers Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2007 23:30:38 -0600 (CST) Feds tried to cut aid Limits sought on help for ill workers By Ann Imse & Laura Frank, Rocky Mountain News March 10, 2007 Federal officials secretly schemed to limit payouts for sick and dying nuclear weapons workers, including thousands from the Rocky Flats plant outside Denver, newly released documents show. The officials responsible for helping those workers went behind their boss's back, called on White House officials for help and tried to hide their efforts, according to internal e-mails and memos obtained by a congressional committee and posted on its Web site. They also wanted to get the White House to override scientific decisions granting compensation and pack the program's advisory board with members less sympathetic to workers. Labor officials say the plans were never carried out, and they deny trying to hide them. The U.S. Department of Labor oversees the program to compensate workers whose illnesses can be tied to working with radioactive and other toxic materials at nuclear weapons plants, such as the now-defunct Rocky Flats. More than 60,000 ill atomic bomb makers, including thousands from Rocky Flats, have sought help. About 16,000 workers nationwide have received a total of $2.6 billion. Far more have been denied or still are waiting for help. Throughout the documents, Assistant Deputy Secretary for Labor Shelby Hallmark and other officials express grave concern that the bill for providing $150,000 per ill worker could reach $7 billion over 10 years. Coincidentally, $7 billion is what the U.S. Department of Energy spent over 10 years cleaning up just one of its sites - Rocky Flats. The department has spent $65 billion so far cleaning up 84 of its weapons sites, which were left contaminated by the drive to win the Cold War. In the memos, Hallmark worries about compensation costs soaring in "an arms race among members (of Congress) jockeying to demonstrate their ability to bring home 'special' benefits to their constituents." His boss, Assistant Secretary of Labor Victoria Lipnic, bemoaned, "There is not a fiscal conservative left anywhere." Now, the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, is looking into whether the Labor Department overstepped its bounds and meddled in the payments illegally. Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo., said, "Clearly, the administration put dollars above honoring the nation's promise to the Cold War veterans." He added this is "almost worse" than the bad conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. That was negligence, Udall said, where "this seems to be a pretty callous plan that the administration knew could harm sick veterans." Some lawmakers see the documents as evidence of continued stonewalling in the program, as workers died before they could collect benefits. "Those involved in this back-room manipulation of the program have destroyed the government credibility again," U.S. Rep. John Hostettler said in December. The Indiana Republican held hearings last year to investigate the program, which has been plagued by delays since 2000. "This program was supposed to ensure workers that the deceit was over and the government was finally going to do right by them. Those tasked with implementing the program have failed that purpose miserably and they need to be exposed for what they have done." Instead of helping workers, the program has spawned a "culture of disdain" toward them, Hostettler said. Rising costs In memos and e-mails in October 2005, Labor Department officials expressed concern about approving compensation for whole groups of workers, called "special exposure cohorts." Congress ordered these special cohorts if records on workers' radiation exposure were so incomplete, missing or destroyed that scientists could not reconstruct the radiation doses to link them to workers' illness. Workers at many sites, including Rocky Flats, have requested SEC status. Rocky Flats workers are expecting a decision in May. Each special cohort approved makes more workers eligible for compensation and would add to costs. In a Jan. 31, 2005, memo, Hallmark wrote about Iowa and Missouri sites that the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health was about to approve for special cohort status. He worried this would make it easier for other sites, such as Rocky Flats, to get the same status. NIOSH had written a notice for the Federal Register granting the status. Hallmark wrote: "We have revised the attached version of the notice . . . to require that NIOSH DENY (the petition)." Labor officials suggested in memos to the White House's Office of Management and Budget that OMB should have final say on future requests for special cohorts. That would mean budget officials would overrule scientific conclusions about exposures. Giving special cohort status to the Iowa and Missouri sites had "the potential to vastly increase the cost of the program and decrease its scientific validity," Labor Department attorney Jeffrey Nesvet said in a memo on Oct. 6, 2005. Costs could approach $7 billion, Nesvet said. "At this point, it is clear that only intervention by the OMB is likely to stem this trend," his memo said. Hallmark, in other memos, notes that it would be unfair to pay claims to "undeserving" workers whose illnesses might not be related to their work. In a late 2005 memo, OMB agreed and said the White House would convene a work group to recommend ways to "contain growth in the costs" of the compensation program. In February 2006, Hallmark told OMB in an e-mail that he was "still smarting" over its memo a few months earlier citing his office as the source of the cost-containment suggestions. "I am uncomfortable with even an unofficial sharing of my briefing piece for today's meeting with my second-floor people (the U.S. secretary of labor's office) since I am not at all convinced they will be willing to argue directly for any or all the actions it proposes. . . . But if you promise not to spread it, and if you don't use the language in your documents such that NIOSH will know where the verbiage came from, I'll share it." Denials to Congress In December, Hallmark testified in Hostettler's congressional hearing that allegations of a covert cost-containment effort "are simply not true." No such effort ever happened, he said. "Cost containment is not part of any strategy or involvement that the Department of Labor has had in this process," testified Hallmark, who has worked for the Labor Department since 1980. Hallmark also denied to Congress that the Labor Department was trying to prevent approvals of special cohorts. Hallmark declined to be interviewed by the Rocky but responded to written questions sent to his office. Hallmark said the OMB proposals "have not been and will not be pursued." When asked about Labor Department efforts to limit costs, Hallmark said he was concerned only with the "overall consistency and fairness of the program." He noted that he must be able to defend decisions as reasonable and objective to the federal courts and to the public. "Workers at the Rocky Flats facility who suffered some of the highest exposures of the DOE complex deserve no less," he said. Change of view The memos indicate a big shift in Labor Department sympathies since early 2004. Hallmark wrote in a February 2004 e-mail that it seemed like "common sense" to give Rocky Flats special cohort status since it is "probably one of, if not THE, dirtiest site." At one point, he wondered in writing if they should just give every nuclear weapons worker the benefit of the doubt. Then something changed. The same month, Labor Department officials began to request rewrites in NIOSH documents that mentioned problems with radiation exposure reports. Acknowledging faults with the records would "undermine confidence" in how scientists determine workers' radiation doses, the memos say. In December 2004, Hallmark complained that NIOSH's independent radiation advisory board was successfully pushing NIOSH to approve more claims, the memos show. The next month, Hallmark said he was worried that giving cohort status to the plants in Iowa and Missouri would set a precedent for approving other sites. The draft approval for the Mallinckrodt plant in St. Louis cited missing or corrupted data. "The same allegation has been made for virtually every DOE site, and in most cases, acknowledged to one degree or another," Hallmark wrote Jan. 31, 2005. Giving this reason for the special cohort status "would essentially signal acceptance of SECs at all DOE sites," he wrote. For the Iowa plant, the advisory board recommended approval because the government couldn't tell workers exactly what they were exposed to. Doing so would reveal secret information about nuclear weapons manufacturing. Hallmark wrote Feb. 10, 2005, that if Iowa was approved for cohort status, "certainly Pantex (Texas), Y-12 (a big part of Oak Ridge nuclear facility in Tennessee), Los Alamos (New Mexico), Hanford (in Washington state), Piniellas (in Florida) and Rocky Flats and probably several others - can be expected to be filed immediately on the 'classified data' basis." At least part of his concern was staved off when Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael Leavitt, whose department oversees NIOSH, ratified the cohort status for Iowa without mentioning classified data. It is not clear whether the Labor Department influenced that decision. In addition, NIOSH obtained a ruling from the Department of Justice saying that classified data are not a valid reason for a cohort status. In February 2005, the Steelworkers' union filed its petition for cohort status for Rocky Flats. It argued that autopsies have shown more plutonium in Rocky Flats workers' bodies than shown in tests while they were alive. That's proof exposure records are unreliable, the union said. By law, a decision on the petition was supposed to be made within six months of the filing. The decision expected in May is nearly two years late. Troubled program The recently released internal documents have infuriated lawmakers, who say Congress intended to give Cold War veterans the benefit of the doubt and help them as quickly as possible. More than half a billion dollars has been spent on administrative costs and trying to reconstruct workers' dosages of radiation. The compensation program was so problem-plagued that the half run by the Energy Department was transferred in 2004 to the Labor Department. Other concerns about the Labor Department's handling of the program have arisen. Congressman Hostettler said during his December hearing that the Labor Department was "selectively culling" worker claims for review. Hallmark replied that most of the pulled cases had actually been headed for denial. "We were nearly always giving the claimant a second chance," Hallmark said. The GAO will be investigating how the Labor Department has handled the program. Daniel Bertoni, who heads the GAO's workforce investigations, said, "The concern is: What had changed? If they weren't reviewing these cases before, why are they now?" Udall, of Colorado, said the documents "confirm what many of us suspected was under way, which was the administration tried to override science to cut costs at the expense of sick workers. And it might have succeeded if the plan hadn't been exposed." http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5408519,0 0.html This email was cleaned by emailStripper, available for free from http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Something is new at Yahoo! Groups. Check out the enhanced email design. http://us.click.yahoo.com/kOt0.A/gOaOAA/yQLSAA/XgSolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> ***************************************************************** 39 Sydney Morning Herald: British nuclear test survivors denied benefits - www.smh.com.au Linton Besser March 12, 2007 ALMOST 500 people who say they were affected by the nuclear tests that contaminated the Monte Bello Islands and large parts of South Australia have been refused benefits under a landmark health scheme that is less than a year old. Fifty years after the British detonated 12 atomic bombs on Australian soil, 1185 people have applied for a "white card" to subsidise the treatment of malignant cancers. Following a cancer incidence study commissioned by the Department of Veterans Affairs and published last June, the Australian Participants in British Nuclear Tests (Treatment) Bill 2006 was passed to provide subsidised care for those who were still alive. Of the 17,000 Australians involved in the British testing program during the 1950s, it is estimated about 5500 are still alive. As of last month the department had approved 681 applications under the scheme, with 240 of these for men who had previously received no formal defence health cover. But the Department of Veterans Affairs has rejected just over 40 per cent of applicants under strict eligibility criteria. The department's official definition of an eligible "participant" excludes men like Mervin Heath, who still has his Box Brownie photograph of the first mushroom cloud seen on an Australian horizon. The then 19-year-old was standing on the upper deck of HMAS Tobruk, 97 kilometres from the Monte Bello Islands, when a 25-kiloton atomic bomb was detonated. "The captain came over: 'Attention on deck, turn around, hands in front of eyes'," Mr Heath said. "It went off and you could see your bones, and light through your hands." The surviving crew members of some of the ships that guarded the Monte Bello site during the test, including the Tobruk, have been ruled out of the program. The Government says no link exists between the radiation released in the experiments and cancer. It describes the scheme as, "non-liability health treatment for all malignant cancers irrespective of causation". It has also stripped eligibility from servicemen who were not within a set distance from the blasts. Ann Munslow-Davies, the daughter of a test participant, was a member of the scientific advisory committee that took part in the cancer incidence study last year. She condemned the study's findings and said the Government's exclusions demonstrated the inherent contradiction of the scheme. "The minister can not have it both ways," she said. "If radiation is not responsible for the increases in cancer, then all nuclear veterans should be covered for a white card." The Minister for Veterans Affairs, Bruce Billson, said the health study was a peer-reviewed "world class" report and the Government's decision to create a compensation system provided both treatment and a level of certainty to ageing test participants. "While the cancer incidence is unrelated to radiation, the Government has responded positively with a $15.9 million initiative," Mr Billson said. "[It] gives security that regardless of the cause of cancer, they will get treatment." ***************************************************************** 40 Rocky Mountain News: Feds tried to cut aid--Limits sought on help for ill workers - Ann Imse And Laura Frank By Rocky Mountain News March 9, 2007 These recently released e-mails and memos discuss the compensation program for ill nuclear weapons plant workers. It?s run by the U.S. Department of Labor. NIOSH (National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health) attempts to reconstructs workers' radiation dosages to decide if workplace contamination caused their cancers. When exposure records are missing, NIOSH, which is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and NIOSH's advisory board can approve whole groups of workers for compensation. The groups are called "special exposure cohorts," or SECs. "I agree with Pete: from what I hear Rocky (Flats) was probably one of, if not THE, dirtiest site. If there?s a justification for an SEC anywhere, common sense suggests that it should be at Rocky." ? Feb. 26, 2004, e-mail from Shelby Hallmark, Department of Labor deputy assistant secretary for the Office of Workers' Compensation Programs, to his boss, Assistant Secretary Victoria Lipnic; Pete Turcic, chief of the nuclear workers' compensation program; and others. (Read the full e-mail.) "Just in case there was any question, it's my strong belief that we should do everything possible to oppose these SEC (special cohort status) amendments. "It's quite possible that NIOSH may accept petitions creating SEC status for some time periods at both the Iowa plant and Mallinckrodt (near St. Louis), but that process should be allowed to proceed as outlined in the HHS regulations, not be short-circuited ? and extensively broadened ? by ill-considered legislation which will only inflame other Congressional delegations to join that parade. "Although it's complicated, we also think the $61 million being discussed as the 10-year cost of the amendments is far too low. But the real issue is, it would be a terrible precedent." ? June 18, 2004, e-mail from Shelby Hallmark, Department of Labor deputy assistant secretary, to his boss, Assistant Secretary Victoria Lipnic and others. (Full e-mail) Hallmark talks about how to press the NIOSH advisory board to reject SEC petitions and raises the possibility that officials should "give up and accept SEC everywhere? Any way to cap the costs or narrow the # of undeserving awards? But does it make any sense to continue to defend a dose reconstruction process that will just get more complicated and attenuated? It looks to me like it collapses in a year or so if the Board keeps on its current path." ? Dec. 15, 2004, e-mail from Hallmark to Peter Turcic, chief of the nuclear workers compensation program, and Labor Department attorney Jeffrey Nesvet. (Full e-mail) "Board approval of broadly justified SECs for Iowa and/or Mallinckrodt (near St. Louis) will fuel the fire for additional SEC aprovals throughout the complex. The 'data cloud' argument (that workers can?t be given their full histories without disclosing classified data) can be applied with at least as much justice as at Mallinckrodt at virtually every DOE facility and AWE (Atomic Weapons Employer) site. "The ultimate impact of these two SECs being granted would be to destabilize the entire rationale for the dose reconstruction process. One logical outcome would be a move ? gradual or sweeping ? to grant SEC status across the board. We estimate a $7 billion 10-year price tag for that eventuality. A second outcome could be the proliferation of SECs in virtually random locations, with the accompanying destruction of any sense of fairness of outcomes for similarly situated claimants across the complex." ? April 14, 2005, memo from Labor Department titled "Assessment of NIOSH/Advisory Board/Special Exposure Cohort Issues." Health and Human Services approved the Iowa special cohort status, but without the precedent-setting language. (Full memo) "This bill would really open the floodgates for the SEC" to just about every atomic weapons employer. ? Attorney Nesvet response to an Aug. 2, 2005, e-mail from Hallmark about a bill in Congress proposing special cohort status for certain sites. (a href="http://denver.rockymountainnews.com/art/news/030807flats1/2.shtm l">Full e-mail) Oct. 5, 2005: "NIOSH dose reconstructions are more freq'y applying assumptions that are systematically and dramatically increasing over-estimations under the premise of 'claimant friendly' assumptions... "(The contractor hired to audit NIOSH?s assessments of workers' eligibility for compensation) has basically driven NIOSH toward more and more lopsided and extreme exaggerations of dose on the grounds that every decision point must be as 'claimant favorable' as conceivably possible... "(NIOSH and the advisory board are accepting) more outlandish assertions. This is not a slippery slope, it's the expert downhill chute." ? Oct. 5, 2005, memo from Hallmark to other labor officials. (Full memo) "If there are any programmatic reforms ? leg., admin, reg'y, you name it ? that we could potentially tee up for our policy officials, we're all ears. At this pt., nothing should be ruled out. These would be (Office of Management and Budget)ideas, not DOL ideas." ? Oct. 5, 2005, response by Deputy Assistant Secretary Mark Wilson to previous memo earlier that day. "(Special cohort status requests) have the potential to vastly increase the cost of the prog and decrease its sci validity... "(HHS) appears to be leading to an all-encompassing expansion of the SEC resulting in costs approaching $7 billion... DOL has attempted to raise this issue and a # of others also threatening to result in an excessive, unjustified and inequitable increase in claims accepted under EE... w/little success. At this pt, it is clear that only intervention by the OMB is likely to stem this trend." ? Oct. 6, 2005, redraft by attorney Nesvet of a memo by Hallmark. (Full memo) "(Labor Department officials are) to be commended for identifying the potential for a large expansion of (the nuclear weapons workers compensation program) benefits through the designation of Special Exposure Cohorts (SEC). The Administration will convene a White House-led interagency workgroup including HHS and Energy to develop options for administrative procedures to contain growth in the costs of benefits provided by the program. Discussions are not limited to, but will involve, the following five options: 1. Require Administration clearance of SEC determinations; 2. Address any imbalance in membership of President's Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health; 3. Require an expedited review by outside experts of SEC recommendations by NIOSH; 4. Require NIOSH to apply "conflict of interest" rules and constraints to the Advisory Board's contractor; and 5. Require that NIOSH demonstrate that its site profiles and other dose reconstruction guidance are balance. ? Undated memo, roughly late 2005, from White House?s Office of Management and Budget to Labor Department (Full memo) "I am uncomfortable with even an unofficial sharing of my briefing piece for today's meeting with my second floor people (the Secretary of Labor's office) since I am not at all convinced they will be willing to argue directly for any or all the actions it proposes, and I know they are very reluctant to be on the cutting edge of this argument... But if you promise not to spread it, and if you don?t use the language in your documents such that NIOSH will know where the verbiage came from, I'll share it (I'm still smarting from your... citation of the ideas in the budget passback as having been suggested by (Labor Department). Is that agreeable?" ? February 2006 memo from Hallmark to Melissa Benton of the White House?s Office of Management and Budget. (a href="http://denver.rockymountainnews.com/art/news/030807flats3/3.shtm l">Full memo) Compiled by Ann Imse, Laura Frank site map Subscribe | E-mail alerts | Electronic edition | RSS Advertisement more » MOST VIEWED STORIES Buy a Link » Advertising Links SPONSORED LINKS * World Travel * Lasik Denver eye surgery * Fish Oil * Cash Advance * Denver Real Estate * Juarez Mexico Forum * Compare Prices * Baby Bedding * Colorado Land Sale * Fundraisers * Attorney Finder * Strollers * Whole House Fans * Lingerie * Personal Loan * Direct Mailing Lists * Colorado Real Estate * Juarez Mexico Forum Advertisement Archive | About Us | Contact Us | RSS Feeds | Subscribe Site Map | Photo Reprints | Corrections 2006 © The E.W. Scripps Co. Privacy Policy and User Agreement Questions? Comments? Talk to Us. ***************************************************************** 41 Morning Call: Why is thyroid cancer rate up? Last Updated: March 11, 2007 One research group thinks it knows the answer: fallout from nuclear power plants. By Ann Wlazelek Of The Morning Call this year, which is about 2 percent of all cancer diagnoses. It's rarely fatal but in 2005 claimed the life of Supreme Court Justice William H. Rehnquist. The latest snapshot of n A private research group that gained national attention three years ago for finding evidence of nuclear fallout in baby teeth is now linking power plant emissions to Pennsylvania's relatively high rate of thyroid cancer. The Norristown group, the Radiation and Public Health Project Inc., plotted nuclear reactors on a map with counties reporting the highest rates of thyroid cancer and found a ''remarkable pattern.'' Three of the four nuclear plants are in or near 13 of 14 counties with the highest cancer rates. ''This finding raises the theory that thyroid cancer risk has been raised by exposure to radioactive iodine, which is routinely released as airborne particles from each plant,'' said Joe Mangano, the group's executive director. Mangano, who holds a master's degree in public health and has had previous reports published in medical journals, brought his findings to The Morning Call because Lehigh County's average rate of thyroid cancer for 1997 through 2003 exceeded the state's. Pennsylvania's rate at 9.89 per 100,000 population is the highest in the country, he said, and Lehigh County's rate is 16.4 per 100,000. His theory deserves further study, Mangano said, because radiation is the cancer's primary risk factor and the state has a lot of reactors. Cancer experts puzzled Cancer experts don't know why the rates vary geographically, why Pennsylvania's rate of thyroid cancer, for example, is twice that of North Carolina's, which has the lowest rate in the country. But they are reluctant to blame emissions. ''There are excruciatingly low levels of radiation coming from power plants,'' said Gene Weinberg, an epidemiologist with the Pennsylvania Department of Health's cancer control program. He said the average person is exposed to about 150 to 300 millirems a year, but only about one ten-thousandth of that comes from nuclear plants. People are exposed to radiation every day from the soil, sun and electrical devices such as TVs and computers. PPL, the principal owner of the Susquehanna nuclear power plant in Luzerne County, was unaware of Mangano's report but said an independent study conducted by the American Academy of Natural Sciences found ''no known environmental or human health impact'' from the reactor's radioactive releases. The study was conducted over 25 years and was published in a health physics publication last year, said plant spokesman Lou Ramos. ''We know of no studies that show increased cancer around nuclear plants,'' he said. Mangano said his theory that emissions contribute to thyroid cancer is plausible because the reactors have been operating for years and radiation exposure is cumulative. He would like the help of physicians in continuing the research for publication. Low-level exposures have not been proven to heighten the risk of thyroid cancer, according to the American Cancer Society. However, several studies have linked radioactive fallout from nuclear weapons and power plant accidents, such as Chernobyl, to a higher risk. Radiation exposure is chief risk ''There are not that many well-known risk factors,'' said Dr. Elaine Ron, a thyroid expert at the National Cancer Institute. ''The main one is [a history of] radiation exposure in childhood.'' Ron referred to a risk in the 1950s, when doctors sometimes used radiation to treat a child's acne, scalp fungus infections, enlarged thymus gland or to shrink tonsils and adenoids. Those treatments are no longer performed, and researchers believe the increase in thyroid cancer from such exposures passed by the late 1980s. But the number of new thyroid cancers diagnosed continue to rise nationwide and at an accelerated pace. ''We've been seeing a steady ratcheting-up,'' said Brenda Edwards, a statistician with the National Cancer Institute. The annual rate increase doubled from 2 percent in the 1980s to 4.6 percent in the 1990s and about 9 percent today, she said. ''Is there something there we are all being exposed to or is the increase amplified because of surveillance?'' Edwards asked. Conventional wisdom, she said, points to more Americans being probed, screened and scanned, leading to more diagnoses. Better testing Mobile News | Subscribe Online | Order Reprints Lehigh Valley Local Links Dr. Rena Sellin, a professor and thyroid cancer expert at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Texas, said Americans are benefitting from more sensitive and sophisticated diagnostic equipment than in previous decades. By undergoing MRIs, CT scans, PET scans and ultrasound screenings, she said, many patients are discovering thyroid conditions. Most are accidental or incidental findings, Sellin said, as in church members getting a free screening of their carotid (neck) arteries and being told they have a nodule on their thyroid gland. AMA findings A May 10 article in the journal of the American Medical Association came to the same conclusion: that the increasing incidence of thyroid cancer is ''predominantly due to the increased detection of small-cancers.'' The fact that the cancers are being found at a small or early stage, researchers say, lends itself to the theory that the caseload may not be increasing as much as are doctors diagnosing the disease. Mangano contends the geographic variances suggest more than good detection. ''Are doctors in Pennsylvania twice as good at detecting than in North Carolina?'' he asked. Maybe, said the state cancer program's Weinberg. Pennsylvania has more medical schools than most other states, he said. But, he continued, ''It's an interesting cancer. When you see changes in such a short period it's generally an indication that something out there has changed as well. It lends one to think it's something more universal, not just a power plant here or a power plant there.'' An uncommon cancer Although the fastest-rising cancer in the country, thyroid cancer continues to be a largely uncommon and slow-growing cancer. The American Cancer Society estimates it will strike 33,550 Americans - mostly women - A noticeable change Logical explanation? Mangano believes radioactive particles carried downwind of the nuclear plants is a logical explanation for the increase. People inhale or ingest the fallout by drinking water from water supplies or milk from cows in the vicinity, he said. Although emitted at low levels, radiation can have a cumulative effect. Pennsylvania experienced the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in 1979 and has five plants with nine out of 12 reactors still functioning, he said.Besides Three Mile Island in Dauphin County and Susquehanna in Luzerne, those plants include Limerick in Montgomery, Peach Bottom in York and Beaver Valley in Beaver counties. Mangano said his group is not anti-nuclear but is composed of physicists, nurses and researchers interested in radiation's impact on health. The staff has published other studies on thyroid cancer and Chernobyl but is probably best known for a 10-year study completed recently in which some 5,000 baby teeth were tested for a chemical produced by nuclear power plants. The study found the highest amounts in the teeth of children who lived closest to the reactors. It received widespread media attention, with articles in The New York Times, USA Today and on network news channels, but little attention from the scientific establishment. Mangano said the fact that others in public health are not interested or critical of his work hits him like ''cold water splashed in my face.'' ''We're looking for answers,'' he said. ''There's a terrible cancer epidemic in this country.'' ann.wlazelek@mcall.com 610-820-6745 Copyright © 2007, The Morning Call NEW: Mcall.com Online Extra ***************************************************************** 42 Rocky Mountain News: Long wait for relief drags on In fight for life, ex-worker hopes for compensation Ken Papaleo © News Laura Schultz, 49, who worked at the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant for a dozen years, stands next to an X-ray of herself held by her husband, Jeff, in their Westminster home recently. Laura Schultz has survived two kinds of cancer, cataracts, seizures and a pituitary tumor, but so far, she has been turned down by the U.S. government for financial and medical aid. By Laura Frank, Rocky Mountain News March 10, 2007 Laura Schultz sits surrounded by an army of medicine bottles that keep her 49-year-old body going. She takes her last pill of the day at midnight. Schultz has survived two kinds of cancer, cataracts, seizures and a pituitary tumor. Her immune system malfunctions. Her bones don't heal properly. Her intestines process too quickly. She vomits daily. A tube feeds oxygen through her nose. And now her blood is showing a protein that is sometimes an early warning sign for blood cancer. For a dozen years, Schultz worked as an engineer at Rocky Flats, the nuclear weapons plant between Denver and Boulder that made plutonium triggers for atomic bombs until it shut down production in the 1990s. She believes that all her ailments - and a litany of former co-workers' troubles that she knows by heart - are related to working at the plant. Schultz celebrated in 2000 when then-Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, now governor of New Mexico, became the first official to publicly acknowledge that nuclear weapons workers had been placed in harm's way in the push to build atomic bombs from World War II through the Cold War. She welcomed the news in 2001, when Congress announced a compensation program would give workers with job-related illnesses $150,000 and pay their medical bills. She applied - and has been waiting four years - for help. "If they wait long enough, we'll all die off and the story will go away," Schultz said. Schultz applied for compensation for kidney cancer, one of 22 cancers with known links to radiation exposure listed in the compensation program. But the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health recently ruled there was only a 39.9 percent chance that her cancer was caused by the work she did at Rocky Flats. The government scientists arrived at that figure after poring through old records retrieved from boxes, vaults and computers at the plant. They developed a formula to estimate how much radiation Schultz might have been exposed to. To qualify for financial and medical help, the formula had to spit out an estimate of at least a 50 percent likelihood her cancer was caused by her exposures. Schultz said the government didn't take into account that, while her job records showed her headquartered in one building, she "crawled around" in every radioactive building on-site. She worked regularly in one building that was once considered the most dangerous in North America. It was where workers formed plutonium into triggers for bombs using 5,300 different types of chemicals. "They didn't monitor us for chemicals," Schultz said. Schultz has one last appeal of the government's decision. But she and her husband, Jeff, who worked at the plant but is healthy, don't put much faith in that appeal. Instead, they are hoping former Rocky Flats workers will be grandfathered into the compensation program. When Congress created the program, it was clear that records from some sites would not be reliable enough to use in re-creating a dose estimate. In those cases, the lawmakers said, groups of workers could be given "special exposure cohort" status if they suffered one of the 22 types of cancers on the list. They would not face what lawmakers called the impossible burden of trying to prove their prior exposures. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health was, by law, supposed to decide whether Rocky Flats' workers qualified for this status within six months of their application for it. But two years have passed since the application was filed. Now a decision is expected the first week of May. "When I had (the kidney) cancer, I didn't know if I was going to live or die," Schultz said. "I still don't know if I'm going to live or die. But I have hope that I'm going to live a good, long life. And I have faith that we will prevail. This is our last-ditch chance." frankl@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5091 Corrections 2006 © The E.W. Scripps Co. ***************************************************************** 43 UPI: Ounce of uranium found in pawn shop United Press International - NewsTrack - Published: March 9, 2007 at 11:48 PM BELLEVIEW, Fla., March 9 (UPI) -- A container of what appears to be an ounce of processed uranium turned up at a Florida pawn shop. The owner of Gold Mine Pawn in Belleview told police the container was in a box that has been in storage for 20 years after being bought at an estate sale outside Florida, WKMG-TV in Orlando reported. The container was lead with a warning of radioactive contents. The Marion County Fire Hazardous Materials Team took the container and planned to turn it over to the county Health Department for disposal. The uranium was in the form of yellow cake, which became notorious when the Bush administration claimed that Saddam Hussein had been trying to buy it from the African country of Niger. Police plan to try to locate the seller of the container to determine where the uranium came from. Investigators say that the pawn shop appears to have broken no laws. © Copyright 2007 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 44 UPI: Report: Nuke worker benefits were targeted United Press International - NewsTrack - Published: March 10, 2007 at 12:34 PM DENVER, March 10 (UPI) -- The U.S. Labor Department says a move to limit payments to ailing nuclear weapons workers in Colorado was never carried out. Newly released documents indicated Labor Department officials responsible sought White House assistance in finding ways to limit payouts to workers from the now-closed Rocky Flats weapons plant, including allegedly overriding scientific evidence and manipulating the makeup of the program's advisory board, the Rocky Mountain News reported. One memo cited by the newspaper came from an official who bemoaned the lack of "fiscal conservatives" out there. Thousands of former Rocky Flats workers are eligible for assistance due to illness linked to exposure to radioactive and toxic materials. The News said about 16,000 workers received $2.6 billion and the tab could reach $7 billion over 10 years. The Labor Department said the move to enlist the administration in limiting payments was never carried out. Nevertheless, some congressional Democrats said they found "back-room" maneuvering reprehensible. © Copyright 2007 United Press International, Inc. All Rights ***************************************************************** 45 Orlando Sentinel: Shock, awe: Store owner finds yellowcake uranium - By Stephen Hudak | Posted March 10, 2007 BELLEVIEW -- Every blue moon or so, collectibles dealer and pawnshop owner Frank Cafaro stumbles upon a buried gem amid an estate's junk and tchotchkes. But his latest find was so alarming he called the Fire Department. "We were in the warehouse and we pulled out this box of rocks from an estate sale," Cafaro said. "Everything was individually labeled. Amethyst. Topaz. Uranium. The guy I'm working with says, 'What's that last one? Uranium? I think that's illegal.' " Within an hour, the Gold Mine Pawn was swarming Thursday with nearly three dozen emergency workers, including Geiger-counter-waving members of a hazardous materials team and the Marion County Sheriff's Office Domestic Security Task Force. They focused their attention on a lead container the size of a soup can. Labeled with radioactive markings, the container protected a glass vial that held about an ounce of yellowcake uranium, a processed mineral that, in larger quantities, can be used to make fuel for nuclear reactors or enriched for weapons. In 2003, President Bush justified the decision to invade Iraq by citing a now-discredited intelligence report that claimed Saddam Hussein had tried to buy tons of yellowcake, presumably to manufacture weapons of mass destruction. "It was kind of scary when I heard how terrible this stuff was," Cafaro said. "This was an odd one." The mineral, which Cafaro traced to an estate sale in Miami about 10 years ago, was turned over to the Florida Department of Health's Bureau of Radiation Control for disposal, said Susan Livoti, spokeswoman for the Sheriff's Office. Yellowcake, also known as uranium oxide, is far from being a weapons-grade material, said Talat Rahman, chairman of the physics department at the University of Central Florida. She said it does not pose a serious threat in small quantities. "Yellowcake by itself is not dangerous," Rahman said, adding that it's not radioactive. "It has to be processed to be converted into something dangerous." FDLE spokeswoman Sharon Gogerty said small amounts of yellowcake are reported to the agency "on a regular basis" and are not considered especially dangerous. "A lot of times, it seems to turn up in scrap yards," she said. Cafaro, 40, said he paid the Miami estate about $10,000 for a collection of natural crystals in which the uranium vial was found. The collection filled 50 pickup truckloads, he said. Cafaro planned to resell the crystals online. "There's boxes in my warehouse from this particular sale that still haven't been opened," he said. "But to think I hadn't even given it a second thought. For all I know, I might have listed it on eBay." Stephen Hudak can be reached at shudak@orlandosentinel.comor 352-742-5930. Copyright © 2007, Orlando Sentinel | ***************************************************************** 46 AFP: American mother and daughter confirmed with thallium poisoning - Fri Mar 9, 7:23 PM ET LOS ANGELES (AFP) - A Russian-born US doctor and her daughter were confirmed to have been been poisoned by thallium here Friday in a case that has mystified friends of the two women. Marina Kovalevksy, 49, and her daughter Yana, 26, were reported to be in a stable condition at Los Angeles' Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, two days after arriving back in the United States from Russia. "Results of their toxicology tests confirm that thallium poisoning occurred. The two women continue to receive appropriate treatment," a statement from the hospital said. Thallium, an odorless, tasteless substance which is highly poisonous and can come in radioactive form, was at first suspected in the murder last November of former Russian intelligence agent Alexander Litvinenko in London. A lawyer for Kovalevksy, a doctor who emigrated to the US from Russia in 1989, said Friday the women did not believe they had been the victim of an attempt to kill them. During interviews with FBI and Los Angeles health officials since their return to the US, no "cloak-and-dagger intrigues" had come to light, Frank Capwell told reporters. "Neither Marina nor Yana believe they were targets of any attempt to kill them. "Nothing unusual occurred during their trip leading up to the time the symptoms manifested to suggest any intentional foul play, but the investigation will continue." Capwell said the women went to Russia to attend a wedding, and suddenly "came down with symptoms that required hospitalization." The women told the FBI that the only meals they shared were a buffet breakfast at a hotel, the attorney said. Russian investigators were reported to have said the pair might have been poisoned in an attempt to cover up the theft of their jewelry. However family members in contact with the women said they had not mentioned the theft, The Los Angeles Times reported earlier this week. Copyright © 2007 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 47 About - News & Issues: USGS Yucca Mountain Gaffes Costing Taxpayers Millions U.S. Gov Info From Robert Longley, According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the Department of Energy has spent over $20 million so far in dealing with records apparently falsified by U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) workers concerning site suitability testing for the Yucca Mountain, Nevada nuclear waste storage facility. In March 2005, a series of emails sent during the late 1990s between USGS employees indicated that USGS may have falsified data pertaining to the safety and suitability of the Yucca Mountain site to serve as the nation’s nuclear waste repository. Along with contending that USGS may have falsified test results on the potential dangers of water filtration at the Yucca Mountain site, the emails expressed dissatisfaction with the project's overall quality assurance program. According to the GAO, the USGS spent $4.2 million during 2005-2006 reviewing the emails and associated documents just to determine the extent and nature of the problem. Another $16 million was spent by USGS to perform a “scientific rework” of its Yucca Mountain water infiltration model. Another $5.1 million will be spent during 2007 to further refine the water infiltration model. GAO estimates that just the environmental licensing phase of the Yucca Mountain project has cost taxpayers $12 billion from 1983 through 2005, and that another $11 billion will be spent from 2006 through 2017, the latest projected opening date. The U.S. Geological Survey is a component of the U.S. Department of the Interior, a regulatory, Cabinet-level agency. Also See: USGS May Have Falsified Yucca Mountain Research "This decision stinks," says Nevada's Governor Nuclear Waste: Coming sooner to a cave near you? (1999) Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Safe for 1 Million Years, EPA Claims Tuesday February 6, 2007 | comments (0) About, Inc., A part of The New York Times Company. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 48 DAILY SOUTHTOWN: 'Let us build the dump, now' Marlene Lang March 11, 2007 The Secretary of Energy last week asked Congress, in a most urgent tone, to hurry and pass the "Nuclear Fuel Management and Disposal Act." This was a rerun of a proposal made almost one year ago to set aside 147,000 acres at Yucca Mountain, Nev., and start building an underground dump for unsavory radioactive waste. The proposal expands the request the secretary made one year ago, though. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman explained last week that there is so much radioactive waste sitting around the country -- safely contained in "Monitored Retrievable Storage" -- that if the dump were built next week, it would be at capacity. "Please let us build our radioactive waste dump now! The lawsuits are killing us." What? That's a paraphrase. Actually, the lawsuits were mentioned only after the energy secretary made an attempt at giving more popular reasons for passing his law. His entreaty was based on a few "key facts." "Expansion of nuclear power in the U.S. is a critical priority for 'energy security' and 'national security,'" his letter states. "Energy security?" Is it a priority? And, further, does a thing being a priority make that thing a fact? Maybe, since goals are facts, too, in the Department of Energy. "In order to insure (the expansion of nuclear power), the Nation must have a repository for disposal of spent nuclear fuel (that's the industry's term) and high-level radioactive waste." It IS a fact that nuclear power produces radioactive waste that takes centuries to degenerate to a state that will not cause abnormal structural changes to the atoms of, well, YOU. The DOE Web site assures us that, "These (radioactive) atoms will eventually quit being radioactive as they release their energy over time." Yes, over time. How comforting. Bring me some hot chocolate while I ponder how much time. I guess 10,000 years or so qualifies as "over time." It is a fact, though, as noted by the esteemed secretary, that IF we keep churning out that heavy-metal-driven power, we will have "spent fuel," or radioactive waste that needs a final resting place. It is not a "fact" that we must ensure that nuclear power expands. This is purely a corporate growth vision. Yucca Mountain is less than 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The industry anticipated starting the project in 1998, but, darn, many in Nevada didn't want the nation's radioactive dump in their back yard, and many didn't want any nuke waste dumps any place, so it's been a rocky road for Exelon and other giants in the "clean and reliable" nuclear power biz, with generating plants scattered across 39 states. The waste is currently stored at about 100 varied sites, often at the sites of the power plant in stainless steel pools, then in "containers" made of lead and concrete and other stuff that keeps us all safe. If the bill is approved, all that precious spent fuel will be moved to Nevada; some 55,000 metric tons awaits the journey to Yucca Mountain. If given the go-ahead, work will start soon and the dump will be ready to "receive spent fuel" 10 years from now. It'll take a while to dig that 35- or 40-mile tunnel and line it with material that is supposed to keep the bad stuff in for millennia to come. In a cross-section drawing at the DOE Web site, it looks like a giant suppository. Poor mountain. Meanwhile, as the decade marches on and the underground repository is -- or is not -- constructed, at least 20,000 metric tons more of radioactive waste will have piled up in those on- and off-site containers. Plans originally set a 70,000-ton capacity for permanent waste storage at Yucca Mountain. If the Act passes, by the time the dump is taking trash, they'll be at least 75,000 tons awaiting. The radioactive waste will be transported by train and truck from places like New Jersey and Pennsylvania and Illinois to Nevada, in containers that look like giant bar bells, atop truck beds and flat cars. The Department of Energy tells us plainly, "The number of these shipments by road and rail is expected to increase." This understatement is brought to you by the source that calls 10,000 years: "over time." When does the circus begin? Soon, the Department of Energy and the nuclear power industry hope. Meanwhile, there's the lawsuit factor. Bodman asks Congress to expedite the matter, not because of the mounting pile of radioactive waste sitting around in temporary containers, but because of the "mounting Federal Government liability associated with delays in opening the repository." Seems legislation passed in 1982 placed responsibility for disposal of spent fuel from nuclear power plants squarely on the shoulders of the federal government. Contracts were to be made with the facilities outlining removal procedures. The 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act presumed there would be a nice big dump ready by 1998 for the nasty load. Didn't happen. The energy secretary reports -- and I imagine beads of sweat dropping and forming a puddle on the Senate floor -- that 60 lawsuits have been filed against the fed for breach of contract. So far, Bodman reports, the government has paid out $214 million in three settlements. Three. The federal government is already liable to the tune of about $7 billion, Bodman notes. And even if the Act becomes law, 2017 looks a long way off. Watch for more on: The Issue Won't Go Away. Well, maybe it will, over time. Daily Southtown columnist Marlene Lang can be reached at blackbirdlang@yahoo.com">blackbirdlang@yahoo.com. © Copyright 2007 Sun-Times News Group ***************************************************************** 49 Star-Banner: Uranium yellow cake found in Belleview | Ocala.com Ocala, Fla. Published Mar. 10, 2007 7:30 am Radioactive material bought by pawn shop owners in estate sale in Miami 25 years ago. BY AUSTIN L. MILLER STAR-BANNER BELLEVIEW - A box containing an ounce of uranium "yellow cake" that, when enriched, could be used in the making of an atomic bomb or fuel for a power plant, was found in a pawn shop Thursday, causing quite a stir among Fire-Rescue workers. Frank Cafaro Sr. and his wife, Mary Ann, said they had no idea the material in the lead cannister was radioactive. In fact, they had the item for about 25 years when they purchased a rock, mineral and gem collection from a man in Miami. "We purchased his whole inventory," Mary Ann Cafaro said. Their store, Downtown Jewelers & Pawn, at 5445 S.E. 111th St., is within walking distance of City Hall and the police station. They used to have a rock and gem store in Miami. Throughout the years, the Cafaros said they've sold most of the collection from the boxes. A few years ago, they stumbled upon the box but lost it. When they located it this week, they inspected it and called authorities. Marion County Fire-Rescue Battalion Chief Ken Smithgall said when his crew arrived, the container was sealed with old tape. Outside, the markings said uranium. Below that was the yellow cake label. Using monitors, the hazardous materials team checked the lead cylinder. Outside, the markings said its contents were radioactive. No radioactivity was detected on the outside of the container, but when Smithgall opened the lid, low levels of radiation were detected. Inside the lead cylinder was a small glass jar that contained the yellow powdery substance. "We put it back and sealed it," Smithgall said. The Marion County Sheriff's Office was notified. Sgt. Scott Patch from the Intelligence Unit said the uranium yellow cake was "in its original containment vessel," and it had "no leakage or contamination." Patch said the substance is good for making weapons or reactor fuel in its final form. He stressed it wasn't in that form when it was found. Leading up to the war against Iraq, it was alleged that former dictator Saddam Hussien was attempting to purchase uranium yellow cake from the African country of Niger. As a protocol, the Sheriff's Office contacted several different agencies - the Bureau of Radiation, an arm of the state's health department, the Federal Department of Law Enforcement and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Patch doesn't think there was any "suspicious activity," nor do they believe there was any criminal intent. State authorities, however, plan to check into the estate sale and the persons who owned the property. No criminal charges will be filed. Smithgall said someone from the state health department picked up the container Friday and was transporting it to Orlando. Both Frank Jr. and his mother said authorities were "very professional" about the affair and asked about their health. The Cafaros said they have no health problems. Austin L. Miller may be reached at austin.miller@starbanner.com or 867-4118. Authorities show the uranium yellow cake found in a Belleview pawn shop. © Copyright 2007, The Ocala Star-Banner, ***************************************************************** 50 Whittier Daily News: Residents want answers from storage site By Araceli Esparza Staff Writer PICO RIVERA - Residents have spoken out against a hazardous materials storage site located at a Southern California Gas Co. facility in Pico Rivera. But utility officials say residents are needlessly worrying over what officials call "low-level" hazardous materials stored at 8101 Rosemead Ave. At a public hearing called by state Department of Toxic Substances Control officials because the storage facility's permit is up for renewal, a group of about a dozen residents Thursday night demanded to know exactly what types of chemicals are stored there and whether they pose any health risks. "This type of waste should not be held as a matter of disposal in our city," resident Richard Briones said. "Our lives depend on it." "I want a breakdown of all the chemicals on the site," resident James Roybal told state agency representatives. "We as residents need to know what's there." Residents also requested a history of the site, including why it was chosen to store the materials; whether there have been any violations; and what jurisdiction the city has in the matter. Ray Chavez, the city's neighborhood outreach coordinator, said it is the state, not the city, that regulates the Gas Co.'s operations. "But if residents are concerned, we are concerned," Chavez added. "Whatever is brought up here \, our job is to ensure that the Gas Co. addresses those." Gas Co. officials have said the utility stores and transports hazardous materials to and from the 35-acre site and has done so without any problems for the past decade. Officials said most of the materials stored there are items like motor oil, paint, gas meters and fluorescent lamps. "The term `hazardous' sets off alarms of fear, but these are low-level hazards," said Peter Hidalgo, a spokesman for the utility company. "We're not dealing with jet fuels or nuclear waste." Some of the materials can contain polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, which are cancer-causing, Hidalgo said. But those materials make up only a "very fraction" of what is stored at the site, he added. Mona Arteaga of the Department of Toxic Substances Control said a public comment period is part of her agency's normal permit renewal process. The comment period ends March 23. While officials from the agency did not respond to residents' concerns directly Thursday, they said they will do so in written form after the comment period closes. The agency then has six months from March 23 in which to deny, modify or renew the permit. Resident Henrietta Salazar told agency officials that residents should be entitled to see a list of materials stored at the site. "If you want to be our friend... we want to see documents," said Salazar. "Otherwise, we don't feel safe." araceli.esparza@sgvn.com (562) 698-0955, Ext. 3024 Los Angeles Newspaper Group ***************************************************************** 51 Salt Lake Tribune: Rolly: How Huntsman schooled the Legislature Editorials Paul Rolly Article Last Updated: 03/10/2007 04:52:17 PM MST Legislative leaders may appear a bit red-faced these days because they are still recovering from the sucker punch Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. landed on their collective jaw as the legislative session neared its end. Don't blame Huntsman and some of his staff if they are flashing an inordinate number of smirks. They pulled off a sting that would make Paul Newman and Robert Redford proud. How did Huntsman get the Legislature to flip on a bill allocating $30 million over four years for volunteer all-day kindergarten in Title I schools? Here's a clue: He made a deal with legislative leaders that if they finally gave him all-day kindergarten, seen previously as forbidden fruit denied the governor in past years, he would sign off on their bill to remove much of the oversight of EnergySolutions' nuclear waste operation. The Legislature fulfilled its part of the Faustian bargain, but Huntsman reciprocated with only a half-baked gesture, then said he would lobby a federally backed waste-control compact to enforce the same restrictions on EnergySolutions that the legislation seemed to eliminate. All-day kindergarten was one of Huntsman's top priorities this year. But two-thirds of the way into the legislative session, the bill seemed dead on arrival, languishing in the Senate Education Committee for 29 days. Huntsman's request for $7.5 million annually to pay for the program was not even on the Legislature's funding priority list. Then everything changed overnight. The bill was brought up on Feb. 13 and Education Committee Chair Margaret Dayton, R-Orem, took a predictable crack at it, calling all-day kindergarten a government baby-sitting plan that takes tots away from their parents too early. A majority of legislators seemed to share her views, since they had scotched similar bills in previous sessions. But Senate Majority Leader Curtis Bramble, R-Provo, a previously vigorous opponent of all-day kindergarten, was absent that day. Another former foe, Sen. Darin Peterson, R-Nephi, suddenly and surprisingly switched his position and voted for it. That was enough to pass the bill out of the committee with a favorable recommendation, 4-3. The bill passed the Senate 22-7, on Feb. 19, with Peterson standing up on the Senate floor and publicly apologizing to Dayton for his switch, before again voting aye. During the floor debate, Bramble appeared to have seen the burning bush and said he decided it was a good thing after all. Peterson, by the way, was the sponsor of SB155, the legislation to remove oversight of EnergySolutions operations by the governor, the Legislature and locally elected officials. And Bramble has always been a strong ally of the hazardous- and radioactive-waste company. That bill passed both houses with veto-proof majorities and Huntsman, who consistently has said he opposes expansion of nuclear waste in Utah, was lobbied heavily by constituents to veto the bill. Legislative leaders did not want a veto, even if they had the votes to override. Better to share responsibility for the controversial law with a popular governor than to shoulder it alone. The all-day kindergarten bill passed the House on the second-to-last day of the session. After the session ended, Huntsman announced he would allow the EnergySolutions bill to become law without his signature, surprising legislators who had expected him to sign it. He then said he would ask the Northwest Interstate Compact on Low-level Radioactive Waste to help cap the amount of waste allowed in Utah. Sources close to legislative leadership and the governor's office have confirmed that the all-day kindergarten bill passed because of assurances that Huntsman wouldn't veto the EnergySolutions bill. But these sources insisted on remaining anonymous. Nobody wants to own this baby. © Copyright 2007, The Salt Lake Tribune. ***************************************************************** 52 Salt Lake Tribune: Moving expenses Public Forum Letter Article Last Updated: 03/10/2007 04:52:18 PM MST It seems everyone in Utah is getting paid by EnergySolutions except me. The legislators certainly are, and the governor appears to be. Even Larry Miller got paid to put their name on the basketball arena. So EnergySolutions, if you'll give me enough money, I'll move to another state where I won't have to become radioactive and where you won't have to listen to me gripe anymore! Laural Mikkelsen Layton © Copyright 2007, The Salt Lake Tribune. ***************************************************************** 53 Gloucester Co. Times: Clayton wants all nuclear waste removed from Shieldalloy NJ.com: Posted by Gloucester County Times March 09, 2007 8:00PM Categories: County News, Municipal News By Stephanie Brown sbrown@sjnewsco.com CLAYTON -- Cleaning up the radioactive slag pile at Shieldalloy Metallurgical Corp. in Newfield is just as important to Clayton as it is to those who live right next to it. The borough council passed a resolution Thursday in support of the complete removal of all nuclear waste at the site. Township officials said they are opposed to Shieldalloy's plan to cap the low-level radioactive waste at the facility because of the health and safety affects it could have on the entire Gloucester County community. "Newfield's our neighbor, and even though we're separate towns we're still part of the same community," Mayor Patricia Gannon said. Environmental Commission Chairman Joe Abate publicly requested that the council adopt the resolution. "I want it out of there, personally and professionally," Abate said. Similar resolutions have been passed by neighboring communities. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is currently reviewing Shieldalloy's plan. | | Comments (0) | Permalink (Learn More) Share: Reddit | Digg | del.icio.us | Google | Yahoo | What is this? Comments Nickname (Don't Have a Nickname? Sign up here): Password: Remember Me Welcome back, ! Comments: (you may use HTML tags for style) From Our Advertisers Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement. Please read our Privacy Policy. ©2007 nj.com. All Rights Reserved. RSS Feeds | Complete Index ***************************************************************** 54 The Herald: Making the best of the job Web Issue 2772 March 11 2007 DAVID ROSS, Highland Correspondent March 11 2007 Comment THERE is a story that did the rounds when Norman Harrison was appointed as UK Atomic Energy Authority's (UKAEA) Dounreay site director in 2003. An employee decided to find out more about his new boss. So he put his name into Google only to learn that he had been second engineer on the Titanic when she was sunk in 1912. This was widely seen as the perfect background for anyone taking over responsibility for the Caithness plant. Simon Middlemas, 49, may well have pondered the tale when was appointed Harrison's successor last month. Just five days earlier while he was still acting director, the UKAEA had suffered the ignominy of being fined £140,000 for releasing radioactive particles into the sea and illegally dumping radioactive waste over a 20-year period. The authority's negligence had been documented by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency before reporting to the procurator fiscal. It may not have been the Titanic but it was hardly an auspicious start to his directorship. He accepts that the sins of Dounreay's nuclear fathers will forever be synonymous with the plant's name. "We get the press we deserve. We will never ever be able to step back from the legacy of the past. We can't hide from the fact that the radioactive particles that keep appearing everywhere came from here. But what I keep saying is that the guys in the past at Dounreay were good guys. They did what they thought was the right thing. They didn't come on site determined to make mistakes." Different people are in charge now. There is only one person in senior management who has been here longer than two years. "We are here now with a completely different remit." That remit is to decommission the Dounreay site by 2033. It is a challenge Middlemas relishes, and it shows. Not for him the image of the sharp-suited executive that some at his level in the nuclear industry cultivate. He looks more like a man who would be comfortable on a JCB or, indeed, with a shovel in his hand, helping bring down the office blocks and sheds that were the workplace of thousands of Caithnessians over the past 50 years. But first he has less physical work to undertake. It has been decided that for decommissioning to progress efficiently there has to be a programme of complex structural change which will begin in three weeks' time, heralding a new era at Dounreay. On April 1, the UKAEA will cease to own the Dounreay site, as ownership passes to the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA). But by April 1 next year, the thousand or so people currently employed by the publicly-owned UKAEA will be employed by one of two new commercial companies: UKAEA Limited and Dounreay Site Restoration Limited (DSRL). Most will work for the latter, which will take over the contract for decommissioning Dounreay on behalf of the NDA and will hold the licence from the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate, the authorisations from the Scottish Environment Protection Agency and all other legal obligations. We owe it to the community to help them plan for a life after Dounreay In the meantime DSRL will be owned by UKAEA Limited, a group of senior Dounreay staff which has formed an alliance between Dounreay, CH2M HILL, the Denver-based provider of engineering, construction, and operations services, and Amec, the engineering and support services giant. But between 2008 and 2009, DSRL, and its contract to decommission Dounreay, will be put out to tender by the NDA. At this point UKAEA Limited, CH2M HILL and Amec will bid for it. Whoever wins will take over some time around April 1, 2010. So ownership of the site and the nuclear legacies will remain in public ownership under NDA. However, responsibility for managing and decommissioning the site will pass to the private sector in the form of whomever has been selected by NDA to run DSRL. Middlemas is confident UKAEA Limited can win the contract and has already imported personnel from CH2M HILL and Amec into Dounreay to work within UKAEA while still a public non-departmental body, in preparation. But at the same time as navigating Dounreay through this horrendously complicated commercialisation, he has to develop a strategy to retain as many jobs as possible in the area. At present there are about 1000 UKAEA personnel and about the same number employed indirectly by Dounreay's decommissioning in "the supply chain". There was a major fright just before Christmas when NDA wrote to operators of the 20 sites being decommissioned urging them to identify savings in the coming financial year. The NDA was facing a deficit of £200m. Half of its income comes from its commercial activities, but there were projected shortfalls largely because of the giant Thorp international reprocessing plant at Sellafield in Cumbria. Thorp was supposed to contribute £560m towards the NDA's annual budget of £2.2bn, but it has been shut since May 2005 following a major leak of uranium and plutonium fuel. There had also been a drop in projected income from Magnox nuclear power stations, while faults have led to major repairs at British Nuclear Group sites at Hunterston and Hinkley Point. There were fears that Dounreay's budget for the coming year would be cut from £170m to £130m, which would mean the loss of up to 500 jobs. But three weeks ago it was announced that Dounreay could budget for expenditure of around £150m which should keep losses under 100. However, Middlemas's mission is to try to progressively relocate jobs from the UKAEA into the supply chain. "By 2033 we want to have about 2000 jobs in the supply chain, the local firms, and almost none in UKAEA. To help, we want other firms to start up here. So over the next couple of years we have got to plan how we are going to do this. "I feel passionately about this. Dounreay has been here a long time and we owe it to the community to help them plan for a life after Dounreay. I have a workforce here and unless there is something beyond Dounreay, what's in it for them to work harder to get rid of their jobs. So we need them to have a future. "This area has great assets, not least the enormous tidal power out there in the Pentland Firth which is sufficient for much of Scotland's needs. The big challenge is how to harness that power and produce a community benefit, while attracting big business to invest in it. You also have to overcome the problem with getting it south, although there is a substation out there with a connection to the grid." But there was a lot could be done on a smaller scale. "We are looking at how we can create offshoots of what we have got in here. We have got environmental laboratories with highly qualified people, and there is a market for their work out there. We could take them off the site and let them grow their business. We have got one of the best asbestos labs on the site and there is certainly a market for that work. It is the same with our cementation lab. "We also hope we can persuade the powers that be to locate the national nuclear archive they are talking about up here in Caithness. It wouldn't be many jobs, but even 10 jobs would help. If we put the environmental labs off site maybe 30 jobs, the asbestos lab another 30." His enthusiasm is infectious, but there was nothing in his career hitherto to suggest expertise in commercial diversification and job creation. Born in Bath he followed his father's chief petty officer footsteps into the Royal Navy. He joined up as a midshipman at 18, rising to the rank of commander. "I joined the submarine service when I was 23, 24. I went to sea on a Polaris missile nuclear submarine and a couple of conventionally armed subs, running out of Faslane and Devonport. I was the nuclear engineering officer looking after the nuclear reactor, the electrics, the maintenance operation, but not the weapons or sensors." His time at sea was punctuated by periods ashore, including a stint at Rolls-Royce in Derby. Then he came up to HMS Vulcan, the Navy's nuclear submarine power plant testing plant next door to Dounreay. He was there for three-and-a-half years in Caithness. It was long enough for him to fall in love with the county and to resolve that he would return. Indeed, when he left the Navy in 2004, in his departure interview he told them: "I want to be a senior manager in the decommissioning industry on the north coast of Scotland, and here I am. This was the only place my wife and I missed when we left. I love both the community up here and the emptiness up here. I live on a house on the clifftops at Scrabster and can see the sun glinting off the island of Hoy across the Pentland Firth I can see Dunnet Head. No matter where my job takes me, I will not retire anywhere else." © All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 55 GoUpstate.com: S.C. must stop prostituting itself to nuclear industry | | Spartanburg, S.C. ANN TIMBERLAKE, For the Herald-Journal Published March 11, 2007 Since the General Assembly convened in January, nuclear waste lobbyists have been hard at work to undermine the law that established the Atlantic Compact between South Carolina, New Jersey and Connecticut. This law complies with interstate commerce conventions and is the only way South Carolina can cease being the nation's nuclear dumping ground. Given the General Assembly's past record of caving in to the waste industry in 1992 and again in 1995, this attack on the current law was not unexpected. But the ease with which House members are embracing it is disturbing, especially given their widespread support for the compact when it was adopted into law seven years ago. The House's buckling under also ignores the overwhelming desire of South Carolinians to stop being the nation's dumping ground for toxics other states do not want. The law passed in 2000 that resulted in the compact was a compromise between the Barnwell low-level radioactive waste disposal site operator (Chem-Nuclear, now Energy Solutions), waste generators and utilities, the conservation community and elected officials representing Barnwell County. In short, the compact law was supported by all the players. Thus, it is vital for citizens from all over the state to question the House's rationale for changing course seven years later. We urge citizens to ask their elected representatives whether they will stick with the current law and, if not, how South Carolina would benefit. The Atlantic Compact resulted from the recommendations of the bipartisan Nuclear Waste Task Force, appointed in 1999 by Gov. Jim Hodges. It was charged to provide a "road map to discontinuance of S.C.'s role as the nation's nuclear dumping ground" and to ensure that "future needs of S.C. low-level radioactive generators are met." Former Congressman Butler Derrick served as chairman, and legislators included Sens. John Courson, Phil Leventis and Tommy Moore and Reps. Joe Neal, Joel Lourie (now senator) and Lonnie Hosey. The state-owned Barnwell site was originally proposed as a modest 10- to 20-acre landfill. Since 1971, it has accepted more commercial nuclear waste than any other facility in the nation, with 95 percent of waste generated and imported outside of South Carolina. More than 27 million cubic feet of radioactive waste, mostly from nuclear power plants, is now buried under 100 acres there. With only 2.5 million of 30 million licensed cubic feet available, the site is 90 percent full. Beginning in fiscal year 2008, space at the site is guaranteed for South Carolina's own nuclear waste needs over the next 50 years. As long as South Carolina's utilities need a place to dump their radioactive waste, the Barnwell site is available. Moreover, Energy Solutions has already filed an operating plan with the S.C. Public Service Commission showing how it can remain open even with lowered volume levels, estimated to be at least 10,000 cubic feet annually after July 1, 2008. There is simply no rationale for providing space for waste from all over the country. Legislators included a number of provisions to soften the economic impact of closing the site to other states, including a "sweetheart deal" guaranteeing a 29 percent operating profit for the site operator. Moreover, New Jersey and Connecticut have paid $12 million to the Barnwell Economic Development Fund to finance local projects and infrastructure. Rep. William D. Witherspoon recently introduced a bill (H3545) to essentially gut the provisions of the compact law. His legislation proposes to change current law and allow 40,000 cubic feet to be accepted annually from all over the country for the next 15 years. But even if some economic reasons could be found for expanding the site, the Barnwell facility makes terrible sense from an environmental perspective. The site has already leaked radioactive tritium into Mary's Branch Creek, which feeds into the Savannah River. And while the Barnwell facility is categorized as a "low-level" nuclear waste facility, that designation still allows it to accept highly radioactive and long-lived waste, including nuclear reactor filters and decommissioned reactor components. Ironically, Energy Solutions, which manages the Barnwell site, also operates a site in Utah's desert. Utah allows only lowest level "A" waste to be shipped there, while South Carolina allows the more highly radioactive and much more dangerous "B" and "C" waste to be buried practically on the banks of the Savannah River. Because Conservation Voters of South Carolina seeks to hold elected officials accountable for their positions on environmental issues, we have asked candidates and incumbents in 2004 and in 2006 to answer this simple question: "Would you support maintaining the Atlantic Compact and the current limits on out-of-state nuclear waste?" In almost every instance, the answer has been a resounding "yes." We asked the same question of Gov. Mark Sanford before deciding to endorse his re-election last year. The governor noted the failed legislative attempt in 2004 to use a budget proviso to sell the unused Barnwell capacity for $6 million -- an effort that would have tripled the amount of waste accepted in the site that year. In light of past proposals to dissolve the compact altogether and open it to all comers, Sanford stated support for "continued participation in the Atlantic Compact as part of the existing road map for the future of the site." In addition, the governor insisted that funds previously diverted from the Barnwell Extended Care Trust Fund must be repaid to allow for future maintenance and monitoring. South Carolina's willingness time and again to prostitute itself to the nuclear industry has caused other regional waste compacts to postpone opening sites elsewhere. We saw this in North Carolina in 1996 when Gov. David Beasley used this as our state's motivation for withdrawing from the Southeastern Compact. South Carolina's credibility is on the line. We have done our fair share for the nation. The safest and most predictable course for protecting our own energy future and the health of our citizens is to ask elected officials to simply stick to the current law. Ann Timberlake is executive director of Conservation Voters of South Carolina (www.conservation votersofsc.org). Don't get the Herald-Journal delivered to your home? Click here for a special offer ©2007 Spartanburg Herald-Journal | Staff directory . ***************************************************************** 56 Walla Walla Union-Bulletin: Hearing to discuss nuclear fuel recycling - Walla Walla, WA : Saturday, March 10, 2007 11:07 PM PST By Andy Porter of the Union-Bulletin A reactor fuel recycling project proposed for the Hanford Nuclear Reservation will be the subject of a public hearing Tuesday in Pasco. The meeting, which begins at 6 p.m. at the Red Lion Hotel, 2525 N. 20th Ave., will take comments for an environmental impact statement being prepared as part of the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership. The Hanford site is one of 11 locations being studied for one or more facilities to recycle spent nuclear fuel, destroy long-lived radioactive elements in an advanced recycling reactor and seek new ways to recycle reactor fuel. The U.S. Department of Energy in January awarded just over $1 million to the Tri-City Industrial Development Council and the Columbia Basin Consulting Group to do detailed siting studies for the facilities. Opponents of the proposal have urged people to attend the meeting to speak against the project. In a release, Natalie Troyer of Heart of America Northwest, said the reprocessing project is ``a polluting, dangerous and expensive project,'' it will also result in truckloads of high-level nuclear waste traveling Oregon and Washington highways. ``Hanford is already the most contaminated site in the western hemisphere. We can't afford to sit around and remain complacent with the current state of the site and the threat of adding more nuclear waste,'' she said. The Global Nuclear Energy Partnership is part of President Bush's Advanced Energy Initiative. The initiative is intended to encourage expansion of domestic and international nuclear energy production while minimizing nuclear weapon proliferation. Copyright © 2007 Walla Walla Union-Bulletin 112 S. 1st Ave. Walla Walla, WA 99362 - Phone (509) 525-3300 ***************************************************************** 57 Telegraph: No UK bidders make nuclear shortlist Sunday 11 March 2007 By Katherine Griffiths, City Correspondent Last Updated: 11:53pm GMT 10/03/2007 NM Rothschild has drawn up a shortlist of bidders for Britain's Magnox nuclear sites that includes four US companies and none from Britain. The auction of Sellafield should be completed by 2009 Unions expressed anger yesterday that none of the UK bidders had made it through to the final stage despite their having lobbied the Government last year in an attempt to ensure that know-how about the nuclear industry remains in Britain. The four US bidders that Rothschild selected to go through to the final rounds are Jacobs, Fluor, CH2M Hill and EnergySolutions. Buying the ten Magnox sites, which include Sizewell in Suffolk and Hinkley Point in Somerset, will cost about £80m, analysts believe. The successful bidder will also get a dowry of two or three years' work cleaning up those Magnox plants that are being decommissioned. Later, another clean-up contract, expected to last about seven years, will be available for tender, but industry figures believe that whoever wins the initial contract will be in a strong position to keep the work. The next stage would be worth "hundreds of millions", a source said. Only a handful of Magnox sites are still operational and all will be decommissioned within the next few years. Cleaning up the spent nuclear fuel will take decades and be expensive. The sale of the Magnox sites and the tendering of the clean-up work is part of the Government's drive to privatise Britain's nuclear industry. The Magnox sites employ about 3,500 people. Mike Graham, national secretary for the nuclear industry's union Prospect, said: "We cannot see the need for any job losses. But we would have preferred to see someone from the UK on the shortlist." Dougie Rooney, Amicus's national officer for energy, said: "We had hoped this would be an opportunity to follow how things developed around the North Sea in the 1970s. British companies collaborated with Americans and now they can compete on a level playing field." If British companies were not selected to participate in the nuclear privatisation "we will not have the expertise", Mr Rooney said. Last year the Government launched a process to sell the Magnox reactors, which are dotted around the country, and Sellafield, one of the world's largest and most complex nuclear sites, which is in west Cumbria. The Magnox sites are expected to be sold by the autumn. The Sellafield auction is more complex and should be completed in 2009. However, it is believed that the next few months will be critical for lobbying the Government and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority in order to win Sellafield. The privatisation of Britain's ageing nuclear reactors is accompanied by an initiative to build nuclear power stations. The plan suffered a setback last month when Greenpeace unexpectedly won a judicial review of the Government's nuclear policy. However, an energy White Paper, due in the next couple of months, is expected strongly to support nuclear new-build. © Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2007. | Terms ***************************************************************** 58 The Australian: Owners offered 100-year rent plan for nuke dump * March 10, 2007 ; Northern Territory * By Nigel Adlam TRADITIONAL owners have been offered $9 million every five years for 100 years to allow a nuclear waste facility to be built on their land. The Federal Government money would go to the Northern Land Council for distribution among the 395 owners of Muckaty Station, north of Tennant Creek. The offer was put by the land council at a meeting on Muckaty Station. The meeting became heated as supporters and opponents of the plan clashed. The Northern Territory News was told some of the opponents - dubbed "dissidents" by the land council - were threatened with violence. But the alleged victims said yesterday they had been told not to reveal what happened at the meeting or they would not be paid their share of the Federal Government royalties. One traditional owner said: "Those in favour were screaming at the 'dissidents'. It got very ugly. Many people were shocked at the anger and threats of violence." Land council chairman John Daly, who addressed the meeting, could not be contacted last night. Nobody lives permanently at Muckaty, with the majority of the land's traditional owners living at Tennant Creek. The rest live at Elliott. They go to Muckaty only for business meetings, ceremonies and hunting. The Federal Government will carry out an environmental assessment at Muckaty if traditional owners support the nuclear waste facility. The land council has been asked by some traditional owners to put forward a second site -- near Nhulunbuy on the Gove Peninsula. Land council chief executive Norm Fry said in a written statement: "Privacy and confidentiality requirements mean that the NLC is not prepared to comment regarding matters discussed at the meeting." © The Australian ***************************************************************** 59 TradeTech Weekly: Nuclear Utilities Stunned by Force Majeure Spot Uranium Price Indicate: US$90/Pound 2007-03-11 08:12:40 - According to TradeTech's Nuclear Market Review, the consulting service raised its weekly uranium spot price indicator to US$90/pound in light of strong bidding and the force majeure announced by uranium miner ERA on March 7th. Sarasota, FL (PR Inside) March 11, 2007 - Wednesday's force majeure announcement by the world's third largest uranium producer sent tremors through the nuclear utility industry this past week, according to TradeTech's weekly Nuclear Market Review trade magazine. As a result of the increased response to a higher uranium price, industry consulting service TradeTech raised its weekly spot price indicator by $5 to US$90/pound. ''Even before this Wednesday's announcement, there were indications that the market price had risen,'' wrote Editor Treva Klingbiel in the March 9th edition of Nuclear Market Review. Klingbiel warned, ''Doubling the active demand from the addition of ERA's customers would obviously have an impact on uranium prices.'' The magazine reported, ''It seems clear the market is rapidly headed to the triple-digit level.'' An evident conclusion was also asserted in this week's magazine, ''The uranium market must learn to deal for a while with the uncertainty of production schedules for Ranger.'' The commentary and price announcement can be found on StockInterview, the financial news service website, at www.stockinterview.com/News/03112007/Uranium-Spot-Price-ERA.html ***************************************************************** 60 SF New Mexican: LANL Former worker pleads guilty to embezzlement Sun Mar 11, 2007 4:02 pm Los Alamos National Laboratory By ASSOCIATED PRESS A former Los Alamos National Laboratory worker accused of using bogus purchase orders to embezzle more than $55,000 from the lab has pleaded guilty in the scheme. Dolores Mae Arreola, a 26-year-old ex-purchasing officer, pleaded guilty in federal court Friday to one count of making false statements or entries, one count of theft or embezzlement of public money and one count of making a false, fictitious or fraudulent claim. As part of her plea, Arreola agreed to forfeit two vehicles and $20,000 she acquired through the scam. "I recognize and accept responsibility for my criminal conduct," says the plea agreement signed by Arreola. Arreola was fired from the lab in July 2005 after the embezzlement scheme was uncovered. She faces up to 20 years in federal prison and hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines. The U.S. Attorney's Office, however, has agreed to recommend that Arreola be sentenced at the lowest end of the sentencing guideline range. A sentencing hearing has not been set. According to the plea agreement: Arreola used her position as a buyer for the lab to funnel money into a land grant association, which she served as president. Arreola arranged for the Santo Domingo de Cundiyó Heirs Association to be recognized in the lab's procurement system as an authorized vendor. She then stated that the association had been awarded contracts and purchase orders worth more than $55,000 on three separate occasions -- none of which had anything to do with land grants. Arreola would deposit the checks made out to the land grant association in its bank account and then withdraw the money. On the third occasion, however, lab officials discovered what had been occurring, and the bank froze the account. The charges are similar to a procurement scandal five years ago that landed two other former lab employees behind bars. Peter Bussolini and Scott Alexander were accused of illegally buying nearly $400,000 worth of hunting equipment, outdoor gear and TV sets on a lab account. Privacy Policy / Terms of Use | ©2007, Santa Fe New Mexican, all ***************************************************************** 61 Inside Bay Area: Hard drive erasure rules ignored Lawrence Livermore, however, has been pulverizing sensitive computers anyway By Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER Article Last Updated: 03/10/2007 02:39:08 AM PST Tighter federal rules on erasing sensitive but unclassified data from used computers didn't take hold at Lawrence Livermore nuclear weapons lab for more than two years because the nation's nuclear weapons agency took that long to write a letter outlining the new requirements. For those years, according to an inspector general's report released Friday, the National Nuclear Security Administration in Washington instructed federal and lab employees at Livermore and other weapons sites not to implement the new rules, leaving the possibility that thousands of lab computers, copiers and fax machines were sold or given away containing Social Security numbers or other personal identifying data. Lab officials say there's no cause for concern, however: While the rules required overwriting hard drives and other media at least three times, the lab for years has used a more foolproof method. Every time Livermore gets rid of a computer, classified or unclassified, the hard drives and other recordable computer media are pulverized, according to lab spokesman David Schwoegler. A lab employee carries the drives and memory components to a private contractor and watches as a hammer mill pounds them to dust. "We witness the destruction of every piece," Schwoegler said. That's a lot of computers ? at least 23,000 lab-wide because every scientist performing secret work has both an unclassified and a classified computer in both his office and lab. More than 5,000 are "surplused" every year, often by donation to nonprofit organizations or schools. Originally issued in February 2004 and June 2005, the new erasure rules are being implemented at Livermore, with the result that fax machine memory now is added to the hammer mill heap. Notice: InsideBayArea.com reserves the right to delete obscene, libelous or abusive comments. © 2000-2006 ANG Newspapers | Privacy Policy ***************************************************************** 62 Rocky Mountain News: Limits sought on help for ill workers Feds tried to cut aid Department Of Energy © An aerial view of Rocky Flats after cleanup was complete in 2005. By Ann Imse And Laura Frank, Rocky Mountain News March 10, 2007 Federal officials secretly schemed to limit payouts for sick and dying nuclear weapons workers, including thousands from the Rocky Flats plant outside Denver, newly released documents show. The officials responsible for helping those workers went behind their boss's back, called on White House officials for help and tried to hide their efforts, according to internal e-mails and memos obtained by a congressional committee and posted on its Web site. They also wanted to get the White House to override scientific decisions granting compensation and pack the program's advisory board with members less sympathetic to workers. Labor officials say the plans were never carried out, and they deny trying to hide them. The U.S. Department of Labor oversees the program to compensate workers whose illnesses can be tied to working with radioactive and other toxic materials at nuclear weapons plants, such as the now-defunct Rocky Flats. More than 60,000 ill atomic bomb makers, including thousands from Rocky Flats, have sought help. About 16,000 workers nationwide have received a total of $2.6 billion. Far more have been denied or still are waiting for help. Throughout the documents, Assistant Deputy Secretary for Labor Shelby Hallmark and other officials express grave concern that the bill for providing $150,000 per ill worker could reach $7 billion over 10 years. Coincidentally, $7 billion is what the U.S. Department of Energy spent over 10 years cleaning up just one of its sites - Rocky Flats. The department has spent $65 billion so far cleaning up 84 of its weapons sites, which were left contaminated by the drive to win the Cold War. In the memos, Hallmark worries about compensation costs soaring in "an arms race among members (of Congress) jockeying to demonstrate their ability to bring home 'special' benefits to their constituents." His boss, Assistant Secretary of Labor Victoria Lipnic, bemoaned, "There is not a fiscal conservative left anywhere." Now, the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, is looking into whether the Labor Department overstepped its bounds and meddled in the payments illegally. Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo., said, "Clearly, the administration put dollars above honoring the nation's promise to the Cold War veterans." He added this is "almost worse" than the bad conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. That was negligence, Udall said, where "this seems to be a pretty callous plan that the administration knew could harm sick veterans." Some lawmakers see the documents as evidence of continued stonewalling in the program, as workers died before they could collect benefits. "Those involved in this back-room manipulation of the program have destroyed the government credibility again," U.S. Rep. John Hostettler said in December. The Indiana Republican held hearings last year to investigate the program, which has been plagued by delays since 2000. "This program was supposed to ensure workers that the deceit was over and the government was finally going to do right by them. Those tasked with implementing the program have failed that purpose miserably and they need to be exposed for what they have done." Instead of helping workers, the program has spawned a "culture of disdain" toward them, Hostettler said. Rising costs In memos and e-mails in October 2005, Labor Department officials expressed concern about approving compensation for whole groups of workers, called "special exposure cohorts." Congress ordered these special cohorts if records on workers' radiation exposure were so incomplete, missing or destroyed that scientists could not reconstruct the radiation doses to link them to workers' illness. Workers at many sites, including Rocky Flats, have requested SEC status. Rocky Flats workers are expecting a decision in May. Each special cohort approved makes more workers eligible for compensation and would add to costs. In a Jan. 31, 2005, memo, Hallmark wrote about Iowa and Missouri sites that the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health was about to approve for special cohort status. He worried this would make it easier for other sites, such as Rocky Flats, to get the same status. NIOSH had written a notice for the Federal Register granting the status. Hallmark wrote: "We have revised the attached version of the notice . . . to require that NIOSH DENY (the petition)." Labor officials suggested in memos to the White House's Office of Management and Budget that OMB should have final say on future requests for special cohorts. That would mean budget officials would overrule scientific conclusions about exposures. Giving special cohort status to the Iowa and Missouri sites had "the potential to vastly increase the cost of the program and decrease its scientific validity," Labor Department attorney Jeffrey Nesvet said in a memo on Oct. 6, 2005. Costs could approach $7 billion, Nesvet said. "At this point, it is clear that only intervention by the OMB is likely to stem this trend," his memo said. Hallmark, in other memos, notes that it would be unfair to pay claims to "undeserving" workers whose illnesses might not be related to their work. In a late 2005 memo, OMB agreed and said the White House would convene a work group to recommend ways to "contain growth in the costs" of the compensation program. In February 2006, Hallmark told OMB in an e-mail that he was "still smarting" over its memo a few months earlier citing his office as the source of the cost-containment suggestions. "I am uncomfortable with even an unofficial sharing of my briefing piece for today's meeting with my second-floor people (the U.S. secretary of labor's office) since I am not at all convinced they will be willing to argue directly for any or all the actions it proposes. . . . But if you promise not to spread it, and if you don't use the language in your documents such that NIOSH will know where the verbiage came from, I'll share it." Denials to Congress In December, Hallmark testified in Hostettler's congressional hearing that allegations of a covert cost-containment effort "are simply not true." No such effort ever happened, he said. "Cost containment is not part of any strategy or involvement that the Department of Labor has had in this process," testified Hallmark, who has worked for the Labor Department since 1980. Hallmark also denied to Congress that the Labor Department was trying to prevent approvals of special cohorts. Hallmark declined to be interviewed by the Rocky but responded to written questions sent to his office. Hallmark said the OMB proposals "have not been and will not be pursued." When asked about Labor Department efforts to limit costs, Hallmark said he was concerned only with the "overall consistency and fairness of the program." He noted that he must be able to defend decisions as reasonable and objective to the federal courts and to the public. "Workers at the Rocky Flats facility who suffered some of the highest exposures of the DOE complex deserve no less," he said. Change of view The memos indicate a big shift in Labor Department sympathies since early 2004. Hallmark wrote in a February 2004 e-mail that it seemed like "common sense" to give Rocky Flats special cohort status since it is "probably one of, if not THE, dirtiest site." At one point, he wondered in writing if they should just give every nuclear weapons worker the benefit of the doubt. Then something changed. The same month, Labor Department officials began to request rewrites in NIOSH documents that mentioned problems with radiation exposure reports. Acknowledging faults with the records would "undermine confidence" in how scientists determine workers' radiation doses, the memos say. In December 2004, Hallmark complained that NIOSH's independent radiation advisory board was successfully pushing NIOSH to approve more claims, the memos show. The next month, Hallmark said he was worried that giving cohort status to the plants in Iowa and Missouri would set a precedent for approving other sites. The draft approval for the Mallinckrodt plant in St. Louis cited missing or corrupted data. "The same allegation has been made for virtually every DOE site, and in most cases, acknowledged to one degree or another," Hallmark wrote Jan. 31, 2005. Giving this reason for the special cohort status "would essentially signal acceptance of SECs at all DOE sites," he wrote. For the Iowa plant, the advisory board recommended approval because the government couldn't tell workers exactly what they were exposed to. Doing so would reveal secret information about nuclear weapons manufacturing. Hallmark wrote Feb. 10, 2005, that if Iowa was approved for cohort status, "certainly Pantex (Texas), Y-12 (a big part of Oak Ridge nuclear facility in Tennessee), Los Alamos (New Mexico), Hanford (in Washington state), Piniellas (in Florida) and Rocky Flats and probably several others - can be expected to be filed immediately on the 'classified data' basis." At least part of his concern was staved off when Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael Leavitt, whose department oversees NIOSH, ratified the cohort status for Iowa without mentioning classified data. It is not clear whether the Labor Department influenced that decision. In addition, NIOSH obtained a ruling from the Department of Justice saying that classified data are not a valid reason for a cohort status. In February 2005, the Steelworkers' union filed its petition for cohort status for Rocky Flats. It argued that autopsies have shown more plutonium in Rocky Flats workers' bodies than shown in tests while they were alive. That's proof exposure records are unreliable, the union said. By law, a decision on the petition was supposed to be made within six months of the filing. The decision expected in May is nearly two years late. Troubled program The recently released internal documents have infuriated lawmakers, who say Congress intended to give Cold War veterans the benefit of the doubt and help them as quickly as possible. More than half a billion dollars has been spent on administrative costs and trying to reconstruct workers' dosages of radiation. The compensation program was so problem-plagued that the half run by the Energy Department was transferred in 2004 to the Labor Department. Other concerns about the Labor Department's handling of the program have arisen. Congressman Hostettler said during his December hearing that the Labor Department was "selectively culling" worker claims for review. Hallmark replied that most of the pulled cases had actually been headed for denial. "We were nearly always giving the claimant a second chance," Hallmark said. The GAO will be investigating how the Labor Department has handled the program. Daniel Bertoni, who heads the GAO's workforce investigations, said, "The concern is: What had changed? If they weren't reviewing these cases before, why are they now?" Udall, of Colorado, said the documents "confirm what many of us suspected was under way, which was the administration tried to override science to cut costs at the expense of sick workers. And it might have succeeded if the plan hadn't been exposed." imsea@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5438; frankl@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5091 site map Subscribe | E-mail alerts | Electronic edition | RSS Advertisement more » MOST VIEWED STORIES Buy a Link » Advertising Links SPONSORED LINKS * World Travel * Lasik Denver eye surgery * Fish Oil * Cash Advance * Denver Real Estate * Juarez Mexico Forum * Compare Prices * Baby Bedding * Colorado Land Sale * Fundraisers * Attorney Finder * Strollers * Whole House Fans * Lingerie * Personal Loan * Direct Mailing Lists * Colorado Real Estate * Juarez Mexico Forum Advertisement Archive | About Us | Contact Us | RSS Feeds | Subscribe Site Map | Photo Reprints | Corrections 2006 © The E.W. Scripps Co. Privacy Policy and User Agreement Questions? Comments? Talk to Us. ***************************************************************** 63 lamonitor.com: The fire next time The Online News Source for Los Alamos A precautionary warning from new audit ROGER SNODGRASS Monitor Assistant Editor A new federal investigation of three nuclear facilities ravaged by wildfire in 2000 found progress at Los Alamos National Laboratory, but also room for improvement. Returning six years later to LANL, Idaho National Laboratory and the Nevada Test Site, where wildland fires blackened 212,000 acres in one season, the Department of Energy's Inspector General found that "essential wildfire mitigation activities" were not getting done or were not effective. At Los Alamos, the audit found, 10,000 acres of heavily forested land have been treated and important firebreaks have been created, but vegetation thinning had not been performed for hundreds of acres of canyons. "A number of mitigation activities had been planned, but not completed," the study stated. "Most notably, although identified in the site's 2005 fire management plan as critical to preventing devastating fires such as those that spread from tree top to tree top during the Cerro Grande Fire, vegetation thinning that would provide fire breaks for 1,300 acres of the site's canyons had not been completed." LANL communications officials and fire and emergency officials were not available for comment Friday afternoon, but a letter contained in the appendix of the report from the National Nuclear Security Administration said the point about unfinished work in the canyons was made out of context. "Much of the canyon land not mitigated earlier resides within steep slopes, has multiple issues with threatened and endangered species and ecological issues such as erosion and water quality," wrote Michael C. Kane, NNSA's Associate Administrator for Management and Administration. Los Alamos County Deputy Fire Chief Doug Tucker said some buffer had been created in the canyons, but agreed that the sheer canyon walls presented a special problem. "It's so steep the cost per acre was enormous," he said. "They would have almost had to use helicopter logging to do that mitigation." At the same time, less fuel on the side of the canyon would have been a welcome margin of safety. "It would have been nice, because the county is right next to the canyon," he added, referring to unmitigated flanks of Los Alamos Canyon that separates the laboratory from the town site. The Inspector General study called particular attention to an unfinished firebreak between laboratory property and Bandelier National Monument, where a "controlled burn" got out of hand in May 2000, burned down homes, destroyed lab structures and caused the evacuation of the county. "The (LANL) site's efforts, even though substantial, covered only about one-third of the acreage requiring mitigation in Fiscal Year 2005," the auditors emphasized. Among other concerns mentioned by the auditors: LANL officials told them that resources were not available to update their Fire Plans for FY 2006; Despite LANL's "complaints about lack of resources," the auditors found that a lack of planning may have contributed to the lack of funds; and The laboratory also had not performed needed updates to its Land Cover Map database (a fuel inventory assessment that is crucial for modeling how fires will spread and useful for prioritizing thinning projects). Tucker said the Los Alamos Fire Department sees a different kind of fire risk developing in the form of "flashing fuels." The grasses that have grown up in the old burn areas and are capable of spreading very quickly - up to 7,000 acres in 45 minutes, he said. "We have the potential for a large fast-moving fire. We're in better shape because of the mitigation in the county around the residences, but you constantly have to re-examine the risk," he added. Philmont Taylor, the county's emergency coordinator said more attention is being given to grassy fuels. "They're very flashy," he said. "Long term predictions of warm weather, drought, early fire seasons, and the strengthening of El Nino all point to concerns about fire. With the fuel loads as they are now and not as much moisture, not as much spring runoff as even recent predictions thought, drier and warmer weather - we're back looking at nasty fire seasons." DOE said in its response to the audit that more work would be done before the onset of fire season this year. © 2003 Los Alamos Monitor All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: *****************************************************************