***************************************************************** 04/12/07 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 15.86 ***************************************************************** 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 Reuters: Iran atom plan shows need for missile shield - Germany 2 UPI: Bank has major role in N. Korea nuke flap 3 US: UCS: States Reach Renewable Energy Milestone 4 Rediff: India's N-programme: The perils ahead 5 Asia Times Online: India as a nuclear pariah - or partner 6 Reuters: India tests longest-range ballistic missile 7 Reuters: Gulf states nuclear ambitions to take years - IAEA 8 EiTB24: Hans Blix to back banning of any kind of nuclear weapons 9 AFP: India successfully tests medium-range missile - 10 NDTV.com: Clinton offered Pakistan $5Billion not to test 11 Guardian Unlimited: India Test Fires Nuclear-Capable Missile 12 Guardian Unlimited: Experts Prepare New Nuclear Treaty NUCLEAR REACTORS 13 AU: ABC: Nuclear reactor firm to buy stake in Summit 14 Times of India: US hawks slam greedy India over nuclear deal- 15 NY Daily News: Chernobyl survivors urged to get health tests 16 RIA Novosti: Russian co. completes assembly of 2nd block at China NP 17 US: APP.COM: County would back suit against NRC | 18 US: Chattanoogan.com: TVA Seeks NRC Assessment Of Browns Ferry - 19 US: Rutland Herald: Time to switch off nuclear power 20 US: Rutland Herald: NRC: Yankee warm water a state issue 21 Charter'97: Chernobyl veterans set to appeal to world community if b 22 US: Brattleboro Reformer: NRC tosses Yankee water challenge 23 US: UPI: NRC issues final licensing language 24 US: UPI: NRC flags Wisconsin nuke plant's safety 25 US: UPI: Energy subcommittee prioritizes funds 26 UPI: India nuclear demands could stop U.S. deal 27 US: Hemscott: TVA seeks check before reactor startup 28 US: Dunn Daily Record: County Faces Nuclear Disaster In Mock Exercis 29 edie news centre: France gives nuclear reactor green light 30 Japan Times: 1999 uncontrolled reaction suspected | 31 US: Vermont Guardian: Feds reject review of warm water discharge fro 32 AFP: Gulf states have right to nuclear energy - UN atomic chief - 33 US: KSBY 6: Mothers for Peace: New Diablo Canyon Fire Truck Nice but 34 Lancashire Evening Post: Nuclear plant gets neighbours' go-ahead 35 Whitehaven News: Nuclear new-build back on agenda 36 US: WNA: US nuclear plant sold for $380 million NUCLEAR SECURITY NUCLEAR SAFETY 37 US: Reuters: Nuclear scanners said ready for use at U.S. ports | U.S NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 38 WNA: German waste site go-ahead incontestable 39 US: The Australian: Uranium battle gains heat PEACE 40 IRNA: OIC Sec Gen asks for declaring Mideast as Nuclear Free Zone US DEPT. OF ENERGY 41 DOE: Bush Administration Establishes Program to Reduce Foreign Oil 42 DOE: Secretary Bodman in Illinois Highlights Scientific Research 43 DOE: DOE to Invest up to $8.2 Million for Hydrogen Storage Research 44 Lawrence lab reapplies for blasts permit 45 Hanford News: PNNL team to study uranium contamination in 300 Area 46 Hanford News: Water sample test methods questioned 47 Hanford News: Project manager for PNNL appointed as replacement 48 Hanford News: Hanford building set for demolition 49 Tri-City Herald: Hanford building set for demolition (w/ video) 50 Recordnet.com: Livermore lab says bigger blasts would send depleted 51 Rocky Mountain News: Rocky Flats whistle-blower dies at 82 52 Inside Bay Area: Report doubts lab terror threat 53 Rocky Mountain News: Sick ex-nuclear workers sue, claim feds withhol 54 KnoxNews: TVA ready for final Browns Ferry review 55 KNDO/KNDU: Another Part of Historic Plutonium Finishing Plant Coming ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 Reuters: Iran atom plan shows need for missile shield - Germany Thu Apr 12, 2007 6:41PM EDT By Louis Charbonneau BERLIN (Reuters) - The latest developments with Iran's nuclear program reinforce the case for a U.S. missile shield to protect Europe from attacks, German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung said. "Precisely these latest developments also confirm that such protection makes sense," Jung told Reuters in an interview earlier this week. "Timely precautions must be taken against the foreseeable increase of the range of offensive missiles of certain problem states, even if it concerns long-term developments," he said. The minister did not name Iran directly but it was clear the countries he had in mind included Iran and North Korea -- the "rogue states" Washington says the shield would protect against. The United States wants to build a radar station in the Czech Republic and a missile battery in Poland to defend against possible missile attacks. Plans for the missile shield have angered Russia and German Chancellor Angela Merkel's center-left coalition partneranrs. The comments by Jung, a member of Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats (CDU), are among the strongest yet from a senior German official favoring discussion of the U.S. project. Continued... Reuters 2007. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 2 UPI: Bank has major role in N. Korea nuke flap United Press International - NewsTrack - Top News - Published: April 12, 2007 at 9:45 AM PYONGYANG, North Korea, April 12 (UPI) -- A little Macau bank reportedly has a telling role on U.S. efforts to calm North Korean nuclear plans. The release this week of $25 million in North Korean funds frozen 18 months ago at Banco Delta Asia in Macau is seen as a hopeful sign toward a permanent halt to its nuclear weapons program and normalization of relations, the Wall Street Journal said. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, returning from a visit to Pyongyang, said North Korean leaders promised to move promptly, after receiving the funds, to start shutting down their Yongbyon nuclear reactor. U.S. diplomats, meanwhile, are outlining plans to integrate North Korea into the global economy. This would potentially allow it to join the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, the report said. Copyright 2007 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 3 UCS: States Reach Renewable Energy Milestone April 11, 2007 New Renewable Energy Resources Available from UCS WASHINGTON (April 10, 2007) —The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) projects that 21 states and the District of Columbia that have adopted renewable electricity standards are on track to reduce their global warming emissions by 108 million metric tons (MMT) of carbon dioxide by 2020, an amount equivalent to taking 17.7 million cars off the road. Recent increases in the amount of renewable electricity required under existing standards in Colorado, Minnesota and New Mexico put the states over the 100 MMT milestone. By 2020, UCS projects the state standards will produce more than 46,000 megawatts of clean, renewable power, enough to meet the needs of 28.5 million typical homes. State renewable electricity standards are expanding, with at least 10 more states considering adopting a requirement or raising existing targets. The success of state renewable energy standards is helping build momentum for a federal standard of 20 percent renewable energy by 2020. The federal standard would increase renewable energy output nearly four times over current state standards. To help track and compare state standards, UCS has developed a new, one-stop resource, the Renewable Electricity Standards Toolkit. The toolkit includes summaries of all 22 standards, as well as maps illustrating existing standards and projections for future renewable energy development. In addition, the toolkit features a database with detailed information about state standards, ranging from how renewable energy technologies are defined to how standards are enforced. UCS experts are available to comment on the politics, economics and environmental benefits of renewable energy and the traditional fossil fuels that it can replace. Contacts Reporters: Join our notification list to receive breaking news from UCS. For general media inquiries, please call our press office at 202-331-5420. Press Contacts: EMILY ROBINSON Press Secretary 202-331-5427 erobinson@ucsusa.org AARON HUERTAS Assistant Press Secretary 202-331-5458 ahuertas@ucsusa.org ELLIOTT NEGIN Media Director 202-331-5439 enegin@ucsusa.org Union of Concerned Scientists Page Last Revised: 04/11/07 ***************************************************************** 4 Rediff: India's N-programme: The perils ahead April 12, 2007 Whether India will be unable to acquire enough weapon-grade fissile materials for its perceived credible minimum deterrent requirement after it concludes the 123 Agreement with the United States and frees itself from the technology apartheid is at the heart of the debate on the civilian nuclear deal with the US. Till a couple of weeks ago this remained a distant possibility because the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva was deadlocked on the issue. Now reports from the CD reveal that a coordinator has been appointed to help to initiate discussions on the subject. Already the US has tabled a draft treaty on the subject. The draft contradicts all previous stands on arms control issues. Till now the US used to stand by President Ronald Reagan's famous dictum 'Trust but verify'. But this time, the US has come round to the conclusion that verification in this case would involve too intrusive an inspection regime to a degree unacceptable to it and also would be excessively costly. Consequently, the US argues that a simple treaty among all pledging to cease production of weapon-grade fissile materials subject to verification by individual national technical means of verification would be adequate. Such a stand by US contradicts its demand to enforce proliferation security initiative which is based on the assumption that there will be clandestine transfer of fissile materials. The director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency Dr Mohammed El-Baradei described Dr A Q Khan's operations as a nuclear Walmart. The origin of equipment and materials for Dr A Q Khan came mostly from Western European countries most of which are non-nuclear but advanced nuclear technology powers. 'When A Q Khan called me a Hindu bastard' It is part of recorded history that Pakistan's nuclear weapon programme was based on the supply of fissile materials and nuclear technology from China. In these circumstances it is not clear how far the US draft will be found acceptable to other countries and if it will lead to a full arms control treaty. Pakistan's nuclear bazaar What is surprising is that in spite of all this information being available and the extent of availability of weapon-grade fissile materials having been at the centre of nuclear debate there is no discussion in our media on the future strategy for India on the issue. Some have focused, as often happens, on US policies and raised the question whether India concentrating on the verification issue would be considered a breach of understanding between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and US President George W Bush that the two countries collaborate on progressing towards the conclusion of a Fissile Materials Cutoff Treaty. While no doubt this is a valid and relevant question for the Indian policymaking, the more fundamental question is whether in the next two or three years which would take for a FMCT to be concluded, India would have adequate weapon-grade fissile material and if not, whether India should stay out of the Treaty as it did with the Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. The consequences of not signing the NPT are well known. India is being subject to technology apartheid. India did not suffer very much for not joining the CTBT, thanks to the US Senate action the treaty did not come into force. However, India should be prepared for the consequences of not going along with US on the discussions leading to the FMCT. When India stayed out of NPT it relied on Homi Bhabha's three stage programme for nuclear energy. The expectation was that within 50 years India would have crossed stage I -- the heavy water-natural uranium reactor -- stage II -- the fast breeder reactor and would have reached stage III -- the thorium conversion to U-233. At that stage India would be more than self-sufficient in thorium that could be converted into fissile material U-233. Some 47 years after the NPT came into force, India is at the second stage of Bhabha Plan. 'Bhabha wanted India to be a Nuclear Weapons State' According to Frontline magazine dated March 23, 'A problem however remains: the shortage of natural uranium that fuels the indigenous PHWRs (Pressurised heavy water reactors). The projects for mining uranium are delayed because of the local opposition, especially in Mehgalaya and Andhra Pradesh. This in turn has led to a delay in starting on the construction of 700 MW indigenous PHWRs. The capacity factor of the operating 220 MW PHWRs has also dropped because of the shortage.' If India stays out of FMCT, then India will have to devise a strategy to reach the stage III of the Bhabha plan of having a series of fast breeder reactors which will convert thorium to uranium 233 on the basis of indigenously available uranium. Otherwise the shortage of indigenous uranium will slow down and bring to a halt our nuclear programme unless new discoveries of uranium ore are made in the country. China too will depend upon imported uranium for its nuclear reactor requirements. But China already has a significant arsenal and has accepted all conditionalities imposed by the US 123 agreement, the Nuclear Suppliers Group and the recent agreement with Australia for supply of uranium ore. There can be two results to a long term projection of our nuclear programme based on indigenous ore. The first is that India will be able to reach the third stage of having adequate number of fast breeder reactors that can generate enough U-233 fissile material for India's future needs. Knowledgeable observers feel that U-233 technology is at least some 40-50 years off. That would mean that India should have adequate indigenous uranium to see us through the next four to five decades. The requirement of natural uranium for such a programme is a matter of calculation and the Department of Atomic Energy should be able to tell the country whether this is feasible on the basis of data available and reasonable assumptions that can be made. The second result is the country cannot support such a nuclear programme on the basis of indigenous uranium ore only and we would need imported ore. In that case India will not be in a position to stay out of the FMCT. That will call for an appropriate strategy both in respect of building up of our assessment level of credible minimum deterrent and to sustain our future nuclear energy programme. We may have to take into account the international repercussions of our staying out of FMCT with respect to our participation in various international nuclear energy programmes. It is not the purpose of this article to advocate any particular strategy. This article is only a plea that the country should start debating its options in a world where FMCT comes into force. Our Cirus reactor and Israeli Dimona reactor were commissioned at the same time. Thereafter in mid-1980s India added Dhruva with double the capacity of Cirus and Dimona. While Israel is reputed to have a significant arsenal, in India concern is expressed about our credible minimum deterrent. Obviously it was a question of management strategy of fissile materials production. The lesson is the imperative need for strategic thinking about the future of our nuclear programme and management of our arsenal. K Subrahmanyam © 2007 Rediff.com India Limited. All Rights Reserved. Disclaimer ***************************************************************** 5 Asia Times Online: India as a nuclear pariah - or partner Apr 13, 2007 By Sudha Ramachandran BANGALORE - While it is India's negotiations with the United States on the civilian nuclear deal that has captured media attention over the past 19 months, no less important has been New Delhi's diplomacy to get the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) on board in its effort to break out of its three-decade-long nuclear isolation. Indian officials have been seeking support from NSG members to exempt India from nuclear export controls. Two weeks ago, former foreign secretary Shyam Saran, who is currently the Indian government's chief interlocutor with the US on the civilian nuclear deal, was in Australia and New Zealand - both members of the NSG - to persuade them to support India's case. Australia, which commands nearly 40% of the world's known uranium reserves, has been a vociferous supporter of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and was among the fiercest critics of India's nuclear tests. But it seems to have become more open to allowing nuclear trade with India. Ahead of Saran's visit, Australian Prime Minister John Howard said that while a formal decision to scrap its policy with regard to providing India with uranium had not been made, he "wouldn't rule out a change". After negotiation with the Australians, Saran noted that Australia's "positive stance" was now "in a sense, confirmed", indicating that it is coming around to backing India. NSG guidelines forbid nuclear trade with India, a non-signatory to the NPT. India is seeking to get these restrictions lifted so that it can access nuclear fuel and equipment. A lifting of these restrictions is required not only for India and the US to engage in civilian nuclear trade but also for India to do so with other countries. Indian and US officials have began negotiating details of the 123 Agreement ("123" refers to Section 123 of the US Atomic Energy Act of 1954). The 123 Agreement is the bilateral pact that will define the legal and administrative nature of civilian nuclear cooperation between India and the US. Since NSG decisions require consensus, India will have to get the nod of all of its 45 members if it wants the embargo lifted, hence the all-out diplomatic efforts to persuade NSG members to change their rules prohibiting trade with India. Several NSG members believe that lifting restrictions on nuclear trade with India amounts to giving it a free pass when it has refused to sign up to global nuclear non-proliferation regimes such as the NPT. They don't want to be seen to be rewarding India for not conforming. They want India to sign on to the NPT first. India's argument is that it has an "impeccable record on non-proliferation" even though it is not a signatory to the NPT. Indian diplomats say they have "covered much ground" in convincing NSG members over the past year. "While some countries didn't need convincing as they were already in favor of engaging in nuclear commerce with India, others have softened their stance considerably," an official in the Ministry of External Affairs told Asia Times Online. The strongest proponents of revision of global nuclear rules in favor of India are the Western nuclear powers - the US, Russia, France and the United Kingdom. France and Russia had in fact been pushing for rewriting the rules to allow nuclear trade with India long before the US got into the game in 2005. Incidentally, these four countries are engaged in hectic lobbying for revising NSG rules in favor of India. All four are eyeing a share in the big business deals that will open up once the nuclear trade embargo on India is lifted. The prospect of business deals has prompted several others to soften their stance. China and Australia, which were initially bitterly opposed to the India-US deal, do not seem averse to engaging in nuclear cooperation with India. China has not clarified whether or not it will support the lifting of NSG nuclear-trade restrictions on India. But in a joint declaration issued at the end of President Hu Jintao's visit to India last November, India and China agreed "to promote cooperation in the field of nuclear energy, consistent with their respective international commitments". Its willingness to engage in dialogue with India on civilian nuclear cooperation, which represents a significant shift from the past, has been interpreted as an indication that it will back the lifting of the embargo on trade with India in the NSG. "By now agreeing to explore civil nuclear cooperation with India if China's 'international commitments' allow it, President Hu is implicitly telling the Indian side his government is not opposed to NSG changing its norms to permit commerce with India," Siddharth Varadarajan wrote in The Hindu after Hu's visit. Strobe Talbott, formerly US president Bill Clinton's interlocutor with India on the nuclear issue, observed last year: "China may ask difficult questions about India being excepted from the NPT regime and why such an exception should be country-specific. But China is not in the business of being a spoiler anymore." A significant boost to India's prospects of getting the NSG guidelines altered has come from Brazil and South Africa, two countries that voluntarily dismantled their nuclear-weapons program to join the non-proliferation regime. These countries had initially opposed the India-US nuclear deal. It was believed that they would be at the forefront of the charge against rewarding India, strengthening the argument of the non-proliferation hardliners. But they came around to endorsing India's quest for civilian nuclear technology late last year. "South Africa has absolutely no problem; we will surely support India," said its president, Thabo Mbeki. Indian officials say that while they still have a long way to go with regard to winning the support of Japan, the country that was the fiercest in its response to India's nuclear tests in 1998, they are "satisfied" with the softening of Tokyo's stance. Japan had expressed reservations over the India-US deal at the NSG meeting in 2005 but has since "come around to a more flexible position". Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is said to have told the Indian government that Japan wants India first to conclude the bilateral civil nuclear-energy pact with the US and a safeguard agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency. Japan will decide on supporting India at the NSG only after this. It will make its decision regarding supporting India in the NSG only after the picture with regard to the safeguards that India's nuclear program will be subjected to becomes clearer. Of considerable concern to India's campaign to get the NSG guidelines revised is the position of "non-proliferation purists" such as New Zealand, Ireland, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Austria that see the India-US nuclear deal as weakening international the non-proliferation regime. But Indian diplomats remain hopeful. After all "Canada, which we once considered as the toughest nut to crack among the non-proliferation purists, has come out in support of the nuclear deal", the ministry official pointed out. "India is hoping that recent converts, like Canada, will convince the skeptics to come on board." The decision on nuclear trade with India is unlikely to figure on the agenda of the NSG when it meets at Cape Town next Monday through Friday. General speculation is that the group could convene an extraordinary meeting for that purpose later in the year. However, proponents of lifting the nuclear embargo on India will keenly watch the Cape Town meet for indications on the direction the wind is blowing. At an informal meeting a year ago, France, Russia and the UK supported the US position, but 27 other NSG members who were present are said to have opposed the deal, asked questions about it without taking a stand, or remained silent. India, the US and others will look to see whether their efforts at persuasion have contributed to a shrinking in the ranks of the skeptics. In the coming months, India will step up its campaign with the NSG. The focus of its diplomatic energies will be the non-proliferation purists. India as a nuclear pariah or partner? The NSG will have to make up its mind soon as to which of these roles it wants for India. Delhi will seek to convince the body that a responsible partner - such as itself - is in the interests of the non-proliferation efforts of the international community. Sudha Ramachandran is an independent journalist/researcher based in Bangalore. (Copyright 2007 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.) Copyright 1999 - 2007 Asia Times Online (Holdings), Ltd. ***************************************************************** 6 Reuters: India tests longest-range ballistic missile Thu Apr 12, 2007 6:41AM EDT BHUBANESWAR, India (Reuters) - India carried out a successful test on Thursday of its longest-range ballistic missile, the Agni III, which is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead more than 3,000 km (1,900 miles), scientists said. Defense analysts say the Agni III is primarily designed to counter the military strength of China, which also has nuclear weapons, while shorter-range versions of the missile have been developed with long-time rival Pakistan in mind. The launch of the longest-range Agni, which means "fire" in the Sanskrit language, came after a failed test last July when the missile plunged into the Bay of Bengal after take-off. "Yes, the test was absolutely successful," W. Selvamurthy, a senior official of the Defense Research and Development Organization, which designed the missile, told Reuters. "It took off at 10:50 a.m. (0520 GMT) and landed at 11:05 a.m.," he said. "We are absolutely satisfied with all the results and we have rectified the errors of last year's failure. It met all the target coordinates." The missile was launched from Wheeler island off India's eastern coast. India has around 100 to 150 nuclear warheads and staged tests in 1974 and 1998. Reuters 2007. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 7 Reuters: Gulf states nuclear ambitions to take years - IAEA Thu Apr 12, 2007 10:43AM EDT RIYADH (Reuters) - Arab Gulf states may need a decade or more to train experts and carry out studies before they can develop nuclear energy, the head of the U.N. atomic watchdog said on Thursday. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) agreed in February to cooperate on a feasibility study on regional plans for a nuclear energy program. The GCC, which groups Arab countries in the world's top oil and gas exporting region, said in December it had decided to set up the joint civil atomic program, raising concerns in the West that the Arab states may want to protect themselves if Iran acquires nuclear weapons and sparking fears of an arms race. IAEA's chief Mohamed ElBaradei said Gulf states wanted to use nuclear energy for desalination, power generation and health care. "Preparation in the long-term for the use of nuclear energy in desalination and power generation may not happen tomorrow but it may happen be within 10 years or 15 years," ElBaradei told reporters after meeting GCC officials in Riyadh. "Building up national expertise that will be ready and able to use this technology ... will be vital." ElBaradei defended the bloc's right to nuclear energy, dismissing doubts raised by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in December on the motives for plan in a region rich in oil and gas. "Nothing prevented ... the United States ... or the Soviet Union ... from developing nuclear energy while they were producing large quantities of oil," he said. Continued... Reuters 2007. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 8 EiTB24: Hans Blix to back banning of any kind of nuclear weapons :Portada * Euskara April 13, 2007 | 10:08:24 Basque News and Information Channel CONFERENCE IN BILBAO 04/12/2007 The former United Nations chief weapons inspector in Iraq Hans Blix is to give a lecture in the Basque city of Bilbao in which he will back banning all kind of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. The Basque city of Bilbao hosts Thursday a conference by Hans Blix, President of the World Federation of United Nations Association (WFUNA) and former United Nations chief weapons inspector, one of the people that looked unsuccessfully for mass-destruction weapons in Iraq. Blix, who will give a lecture in a event convened by the College of Lawyers of Bizkaia, is to submit a report backing the worldwide banning of all the chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. eitb24 - 2007 All Rights Reserved ***************************************************************** 9 AFP: India successfully tests medium-range missile - Thu Apr 12, 3:36 AM ET NEW DELHI (AFP) - India's defence ministry declared successful a test of a homegrown intermediate-range ballistic missile capable of reaching the Chinese cities of Beijing and Shanghai. Calling it a "major milestone in missile technology," the ministry said in its statement, "The 16-metre-long (52-feet) missile weighing 48 tonnes lifted off successfully from its rail mobile launcher system. "The entire flight path of approximately 15 minutes duration validated all mission objectives." The ministry gave the range of the missile tested Thursday as more than 3000 kilometres (1,860 miles) and said it was capable of carrying a nuclear or conventional payload of 1.5 tonnes. The launch of the Agni-III missile took place from Wheeler Island, 180 kilometres (110 miles) northeast of Bhubaneswar, the capital of eastern Orissa state. The test Thursday was the second test of the Agni-III, a two-stage solid-fuelled missile which has a diameter of 1.8 metres (six feet) and can carry nuclear or conventional warheads. The first test ended in failure last July, when it crashed into the sea without hitting a designated target. "With this success, the design team is happy that the problems faced in the previous attempt on July 9 last year have been fully understood and solved," the ministry said. Copyright 2007 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 10 NDTV.com: Clinton offered Pakistan $5Billion not to test Thursday, April 12, 2007 (Islamabad) Former Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif has claimed he was offered $5 billion by the then US president Bill Clinton for not conducting nuclear tests in 1998. In an interview to a Pakistani channel Sharif said, "President Clinton telephoned me five times to offer $five billion for not testing the nuclear weapons. I refused the offer for the integrity and security of Pakistan." The exiled Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Chief also denied ordering the blocking of the runway to prevent then Army Chief General Pervez Musharraf from landing just before the military coup. Sharif claimed President Musharraf had "fabricated the story." Copyright 2007 ***************************************************************** 11 Guardian Unlimited: India Test Fires Nuclear-Capable Missile From the Associated Press Thursday April 12, 2007 7:16 AM By MUNEEZA NAQVI Associated Press Writer NEW DELHI (AP) - India test fired a new missile capable of carrying nuclear warheads across much of Asia and the Middle East, a state government official said Thursday. An earlier test firing of the Agni III missile had failed when it plunged into the Bay of Bengal short of its target in July last year. There was no immediate comment whether the current test was successful. The missile was launched from Wheeler Island off the eastern state of Orissa, the state government official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. India's current crop of missiles has been largely intended to confront neighboring archrival Pakistan. The Agni III, in contrast, is India's longest-range missile, designed to reach 1,900 miles - putting China's major cities well into range, as well as targets deep in the Middle East. It also is said to be capable of carrying up to a 300-kiloton nuclear warhead. India's missile program, together with its nuclear program and drive for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, is part of its ongoing efforts to establish itself as a world power. India's homegrown missile arsenal already includes the short-range Prithvi ballistic missile, the medium-range Akash, the anti-tank Nag and the supersonic Brahmos missile, developed jointly with Russia. Guardian Unlimited Guardian News and Media Limited 2007 ***************************************************************** 12 Guardian Unlimited: Experts Prepare New Nuclear Treaty From the Associated Press Thursday April 12, 2007 9:01 AM By EDITH M. LEDERER Associated Press Writer UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Independent arms control experts from 15 countries are drafting a treaty to ban production of uranium and plutonium for nuclear weapons that could rival a U.S. text under consideration by the U.N.'s top disarmament body. Frank von Hippel, a professor of public and international affairs at Princeton University, said Wednesday the International Panel on Fissile Materials is not only developing a draft treaty, ``but more importantly, an in-depth analysis of the verification issues associated with the treaty.'' The Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty submitted by the U.S. last May omits verification measures, leaving it up to individual governments to detect and report violations by other nations. The U.S. says it wants to improve the world's leverage against nuclear states such as Iran and North Korea while avoiding protracted negotiations over issues such as verification. But von Hippel said verifying compliance with such a treaty shouldn't be much harder than doing so for the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which came into force in 1970 and is aimed at preventing the spread of nuclear weapons. ``And we think this can be done with reasonable cost,'' he told diplomats, U.N. staff and disarmament activists who gathered Wednesday on the sidelines of the U.N. Disarmament Commission's three-week meeting. The nuclear physicist served in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy in 1994-95 and is now the panel's co-chairman. Stephen G. Rademaker, acting U.S. assistant secretary of state for arms control, urged the 65-nation Conference on Disarmament to conclude work on a new treaty by September. The U.S. proposal is still under review in the conference, the U.N.'s top arms control body. During Wednesday's discussion, differences emerged on whether to consider a step-by-step or a wide-ranging treaty, with or without verification. An Egyptian diplomat insisted that the nuclear powers should be subject to the same rule as non-nuclear states, and that the treaty's aim should be disarmament, not legalizing the retention of weapons by the nuclear powers. Princeton research scientist Zia Mian, who works with the panel, said a key issue is the lack of information on the quantities of highly enriched uranium in some major countries - first and foremost Russia, but also France and China. The U.S. and Britain have declared their stockpiles, he said. The five nuclear weapon states have all stopped producing highly-enriched uranium and plutonium for nuclear weapons, but have set aside large quantities for future military and civilian use, he said. ``We need to get a better handle on who has how much fissile material in the world,'' he said. The U.S., Britain and Russia all use highly enriched uranium for nuclear propulsion for submarines. The U.S. also uses it for aircraft carriers and Russia for ice-breakers. If the U.S. and Russia reduced the number of nuclear warheads in their stockpiles to 1,000, a lot less highly enriched uranium would be needed, but Mian said the continued naval demands would create problems and probably require ``extra conditions'' in a treaty. France has moved to fuel its submarines with low-enriched uranium, he said, suggesting that Russia, the U.S. and Britain could do the same. As for plutonium, Mian said, there are about 150 tons in weapons today, ``but there's about 100 tons that the U.S. and Russia have declared as excess to their military needs ... and there's a very large civilian stock in the world.'' A minimal treaty should subject all civilian nuclear activities by stages to international safeguards, put excess fissile material under safeguards, and ensure that highly enriched uranium for naval reactors is not diverted to weapon use, he said. Von Hippel said a verification program would have to ensure that production facilities for highly enriched uranium and plutonium are shut down or converted to civilian use, that civilian nuclear material is not converted to weapons, that there is no clandestine or undeclared production or diversion, and that excess fissile material is not returned to weapons use, he said. No verification is perfect, von Hippel said, but ``in my view it's much better than nothing.'' The panel, founded in January 2006 and funded with a five-year grant to Princeton by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, includes nuclear experts from Brazil, Britain, China, Germany, India, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Pakistan, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden and the United States. --- On the Net: http://www.fissilematerials.org Guardian Unlimited Guardian News and Media Limited 2007 ***************************************************************** 13 AU: ABC: Nuclear reactor firm to buy stake in Summit ABC Queensland (ACST)Thursday, 12 April 2007. 14:41 (AWST) The mining company Summit Resources has agreed to sell the world's largest builder of nuclear reactors an 18 per cent stake in the company. French multinational corporation Areva is also the world's largest uranium marketing company and the third-largest uranium producer. Summit Resources controls 25 uranium deposits around Mount Isa in Queensland that are worth about $10 billion. Summit managing director Allan Eggers says the deal, under which Areva's initial 9 per cent stake will increase to 18 per cent over six months, ensures the future development of the deposits. "Areva have agreed over the next six months to inject some $292 million into Summit at an average price of $ 6.75 a share," he said. "This backing along with their technical expertise will ensure that we have the financial ability to take the project forward as well as we have a sales agreement for our products down the road." Mr Eggers says a takeover bid for the company is still viable. He says the deal does not mean a $1 billion takeover bid by Paladin Resources should not go ahead. "The Paladin bid is still on the table, it's an unconditional bid," he said. "Our shareholders have the option at any time to either cash the shares on the market or accept Paladin stock for it until Paladin either changes the bid conditions or withdraws the bid. "That's really up to our shareholders what they do but certainly we believe this is the superior offer." ***************************************************************** 14 Times of India: US hawks slam greedy India over nuclear deal- 13 Apr, 2007| Updated at 1051hrs IST Chidanand Rajghatta & Indrani Bagchi WASHINGTON/NEW DELHI: With the Indo-US nuclear deal floundering, accusations have begun to fly thick and fast. A key American official negotiating details of the deal has expressed frustration at New Delhi’s pace even as some US analysts have begun predicting the collapse of the agreement because of India’s "greedy" demands. In a review of talks which have been going on for more than 18 months since the deal was first announced on July 18, 2005, USA Today cited unnamed senior administration officials and some known nuclear non-proliferation hawks as saying India is making demands that would increase its military nuclear capabilities, and not lessen it, which it said was Washington’s objective in doing the deal. Among the "greedy" Indian demands mentioned is New Delhi’s insistence on fuel reprocessing rights and the right to undertake nuclear tests if required, both of which would enhance India’s nuclear weapons capability. It cited two senior Bush administration officials, who did not want to be named because of the sensitivity of the talks, as saying, "India’s demands could torpedo an agreement." On record, US officials were more circumspect but indicated some wrinkles were developing. "I don’t question India’s goodwill," undersecretary of state Nicholas Burns said. "But there is a fair degree of frustration in Washington that the Indian government has not engaged seriously enough or quickly enough with both the United States and the IAEA." The "frustration" in Washington coincides with clear sign suggesting that the will to wrap up the deal may be evaporating in India as well. It has ignored veiled criticism from key officials on the US side, including secretary of state Condoleezza Rice. The two sides remain far apart on key issues: First is reprocessing. US now says India has recently introduced this demand in the talks. But India has demanded this since the first draft of the House Bill cleared the House International Relations Committee (HIRC) in June 2006. The US is unwilling to give India the right to import enrichment and reprocessing technology to reprocess and reuse spent fuel for use again in the civilian safeguarded reactors. India is resolute — given that spent fuel from Tarapur could not be used for precisely this reason. The US has given such technology only to EURATOM, Japan and Switzerland. India wants to be the fourth. The second dispute is over what happens after nuclear cooperation ceases, if India tests another weapon. Cessation of cooperation is part of US domestic law but this, from India’s perspective, conflicts with fuel supply guarantees provision in the March 2, 2006, agreement. According to the separation plan, US would convene a group of friendly suppliers for ensuring fuel to India. This is a clause the government wants clearly marked out in the 123 text. India does not want the unfortunate precedent of Tarapur to be repeated. But the US is interpreting Indian demands as looking for ways to increase its military capabilities. To compound matters, the arms of the government that are negotiating this deal are at war with each other. While the diplomats want to continue working to find a way out, the scientists are on an all-or-nothing mode. Moreover, while Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had earlier managed to bring the two sides on the same page, he is now clearly unwilling to crack the whip. Copyright 2007Times Internet Limited. All rights reserved. For ***************************************************************** 15 NY Daily News: Chernobyl survivors urged to get health tests BY TANYANIKA SAMUELS Thursday, April 12th 2007, 4:16 PM Edward Atbashyan was a young soldier in the Russian Army when an explosion ripped through the Chernobyl nuclear plant on April 26, 1986. As radioactive material poured into the air, he helped evacuate the thousands of people living near the plant. He spent more than three weeks at the site. Two decades later, the aftermath of the nuclear disaster still lingers for Atbashyan in the insidious threat of thyroid cancer. "I have always known that I potentially might have a future problem," said Atbashyan, 42, who now lives in Bellmore, Long Island. Now a unique effort is underway to help Atbashyan and 200,000 other Chernobyl survivors living in the New York area, including a large number in Brooklyn. Project Chernobyl, championed by a coalition of community groups and health professionals, aims to provide early diagnosis and treatment for at-risk members of the Russian community. "We are trying to develop a system where the right people are getting the right test," said Dr. Igor Branovan, of the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary, who is spearheading the effort. He is working to expand the program to Los Angeles and Chicago. Over the last decade, physicians at New York Eye and Ear have noticed a high incidence of thyroid abnormalities in Russian immigrants from Belarus, Ukraine and southwestern Russia. A recent study showed the number of abnormalities was nearly triple that of the average New Yorker. "While other incidents could be attributed to it, we decided the most likely source was some sort of exposure," Branovan said. Thyroid cancer typically takes about 20 years to develop, and medical experts in Russia have long been expecting a spike. So, the trend among Russian immigrants in New York is not surprising, local health experts said. With the backing of Assembly members Helene Weinstein (D-Flatbush) and Alec Brook-Krasny (D-Coney Island, Dyker Heights), Branovan helped secure $535,000 in state funding to kick off the project. The five-year plan is to launch in July with television and newspaper ads, advising Chernobyl survivors to call a special hotline. Callers meeting certain criteria will be tested at a participating neighborhood medical center and be alerted to their potential risk for developing thyroid cancer. The project calls for the involvement of 12 to 15 medical centers citywide, with at least half of them in Brooklyn. The goal is to test 50,000 people each year. "The likelihood is that most people will not develop cancer," Branovan said, "but an unfortunate few will get it." Roza Nepomnashi, 53, who emigrated from Gomel, a city in Belarus heavily contaminated by the radiation from Chernobyl, already overcame thyroid cancer. But she is anxious to have her two children tested. "I am scared for my kids because now we have a family history. I will get my kids in the program, just in case," said Nepomnashi, of Staten Island. As for Atbashyan, having already overcome health problems stemming from the nuclear disaster, he is prepared to tackle any new ones head on. "A lot of people are suffering directly or indirectly from this tragedy. So, this project is a great thing for people," Atbashyan said. tsamuels@nydailynews.com Copyright 2007 NYDailyNews.com. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 16 RIA Novosti: Russian co. completes assembly of 2nd block at China NPP 18:09 | 12/ 04/ 2007 MOSCOW, April 12 (RIA Novosti) - Atomstroyexport has completed the assembly of the second reactor block at the Tianwan nuclear power plant in China, the Russian nuclear equipment export monopoly said Thursday. Atomstroyexport is building the Tianwan NPP in eastern China's port city of Lianyungang. The plant, which is being built under a 1992 bilateral agreement, features improved VVER-1000 reactors and K-100-6/3000 turbo-generators. The final assembly began March 23 after fuel had been loaded at the unit, which is due to be launched in May. Experts are conducting hydraulic tests of the first and second reactor circuits and preparing technological systems and equipment for minimum controlled reactor power operation. The first unit of the Tianwan NPP went on line in early January. RIA Novosti ***************************************************************** 17 APP.COM: County would back suit against NRC | Asbury Park Press Online Thursday, April 12, 2007 SEEKING HEARING ON PLANT SECURITY BY KIRK MOORE TOMS RIVER BUREAU Post Comment TOMS RIVER With the Nuclear Regulatory Commission rejecting requests for a public hearing dedicated to security at the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant, Ocean County officials are ready to join if state officials take the NRC to court, Freeholder John P. Kelly said Wednesday. At a meeting of the freeholder board, Kelly said the county had received notification from the NRC that no special hearing would be held to listen to security concerns about the plant. Along with plant critics, county officials contend there are issues related to terrorism and security that deserve an airing of their own. But NRC officials maintain security matters have been adequately addressed as part of their review of Oyster Creek, Kelly said. Plant operators are seeking a renewal of the reactor's license, a document that could allow the Lacey reactor to be the first U.S. commercial nuclear generator to exceed 40 years of operational life. Copyright 2007 Asbury Park Press. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 18 Chattanoogan.com: TVA Seeks NRC Assessment Of Browns Ferry - posted April 12, 2007 TVA has informed the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant, TVAs first nuclear power plant, is poised to resume three-unit operation as planned later this year. TVA has told the NRC that it is prepared for an NRC Operational Readiness Assessment Team to evaluate Browns Ferrys management oversight, corrective action programs, and other programs, processes and procedures necessary to support safe operations. NRC conducts operational readiness assessments of nuclear plants that are starting up for the first time or that are restarting after an extended outage. TVA expects the assessment to take place in late April. Its important to show that we have the ability to operate and maintain all three units at Browns Ferry along with demonstrating that work to restart Unit 1 has been done well, said TVA Nuclear Operations Senior Vice President Ashok Bhatnagar. This is one of the final, overall reviews of the Unit 1 recovery effort that will ensure we are ready to operate this plant as it was designed, and we are ready. We believe we have established the appropriate operating safety standards to resume power production from Unit 1, and maintain safe and reliable operation from all three Browns Ferry units, said Bhatnagar. TVA is on schedule to complete the maintenance and testing of the final systems needed to restart Unit 1 safely in May. TVA completed more than 15 million work hours during the last five years, modifying, refurbishing or replacing Browns Ferry Unit 1 systems and components to ensure they meet regulatory, technical and operational requirements for producing electricity safely and reliably. TVA has conducted more than 1,200 tests that show Unit 1 meets the design and regulatory requirements for safe operation. In addition, NRC personnel and experts from other nuclear utilities have also inspected the work to ensure it meets regulatory requirements, appropriate codes and operational standards. TVA used a checklist developed for the successful restart of units 2 and 3 to ensure Unit 1 systems, structures and components meet requirements for safe operation. Browns Ferry is located on Wheeler Reservoir in Athens, Ala. TVA began construction of Browns Ferry in 1967, and Unit 1 began commercial operation in 1974. Unit 1 is capable of generating more than 1,155 megawatts, enough power to supply 650,000 homes. Units 2 and 3 are also capable of producing more than 1,155 megawatts of electricity each. TVA shut down all three Browns Ferry reactors in 1985 to address management and operational concerns. Browns Ferry units 2 and 3 were returned to service in 1991 and 1995, respectively.In May 2002, the TVA Board approved returning Unit 1 to service, calling it the best business decision to meet the Tennessee Valleys long-term power needs. The Board based its decision on improved nuclear performance, increased power demand in the Valley, a positive evaluation of the environmental impact, and a detailed scoping, estimating and planning effort for Unit 1 recovery. news@chattanoogan.com (423) 266-2325 ***************************************************************** 19 Rutland Herald: Time to switch off nuclear power Rutland Vermont News & Information April 12, 2007 By HATTIE NESTEL Entergy's aggressive media blitz throughout Vermont portrays Vermont Yankee's energy as clean, green and reliable. Full-page ads and paid public relations consultants are everywhere. However all the ads in the world and all the glib PR spokespersons don't make any of it true. Nuclear power is dangerous. Every nuclear reactor releases radioactive substances into the air, water, and biosphere. "Each day, a nuclear reactor releases more than 100 chemicals into the air," states Joseph Mangano, national coordinator of the Radiation and Public Health Project, RPHP. Some of these chemicals are radioactive like iodine 131, strontium 90 and cesium 137. These radioactive emissions accumulate in the biosphere and remain highly toxic for hundreds of thousands of years. There is no level of exposure to ionizing radiation at which the human body is said to be safe (National Academy of Science BEIR V11 report). Radioactive releases can kill or mutate our cells. Cellular mutations cause diseases, mental retardation, infertility and other serious birth defects. Genetic mutations pass from generation to generation through sperm, ovum, mother's milk or the food chain. Entergy's ads and PR spokespeople do not mention these low-level radiation releases into our air and water. However, noted, credible scientists like Rachel Carson, Linus Pauling and Andrei Sakharov knew about the dangers posed by exposure to radiation and have tried to warn us through their writings. Alice Stewart, a British medical doctor and epidemiologist whose published studies raised awareness about the effects of low-level radiation on genes states, "Even more than the cancer is the threat to future generations. That's what you ought to be really afraid of. It's the genetic damage, the possibility of sowing bad seeds into the gene pool from which future generations are drawn. There will be a buildup of defective genes into the population. It won't be noticed until it's too late. Then we'll never root it out. Never get rid of it. It will be totally irrevocable." (See Gayle Greene's "The Woman Who Knew Too Much: Alice Stewart and the Secrets of Radiation.") Entergy's ads neglect to mention how the entire nuclear chain, beginning with the mining of uranium to fuel the reactor and build it, is fossil fuel-dependent. Decommissioning the radioactive building, storing and managing the highly radioactive waste will be fossil fuel-dependent. It is folly to say that nuclear power creates no fossil fuel emissions. As the uranium undergoes the fission process in the reactor core, it becomes one billion times more radioactive. Vermont Yankee now has over 35 million curies of cesium 137 in its spent fuel reactor pool 70 feet in the air, outside containment under a simple tin roof. Compare that to 2,000 curies of cesium 137 released by the Hiroshima bomb, and the danger becomes much easier to grasp. A single spent fuel rod is so radioactive that a person standing near it will receive a lethal dose of radiation within seconds. Wanting to get rid of the on-site waste is wishful thinking. Twenty years of planning and $9 billion dollars have been poured into creating a radioactive waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. However, it is well acknowledged that Yucca Mountain has too many geological problems to store this dangerous waste and is not a viable option. Therefore, Vermont, along with every other reactor in the country, must deal with its own waste for the foreseeable future. Water poses another major problem for Vermont Yankee which, like every nuclear reactor depends on an immense supply of water to cool the reactor and spent fuel pool. Each day Vermont Yankee takes in about 20,000 gallons of water a minute from the Connecticut River. Only 5,000 gallons of that return to the river. The other water is emitted as steam from the cooling stack. The heat level of water returned to the river threatens fish and fauna downstream. A court case is under way challenging Vermont Yankee's releases of high temperature water into the Connecticut River. Of course, Entergy ads and PR spokespeople omit this important fact. How can we be certain that the effects of global warming will reduce the water supply in the Connecticut River? Will agricultural or drinking water needs in future years have to be sacrificed so that Vermont Yankee can cool its reactor core and avoid a catastrophic disaster? Without millions of gallons of water required on a daily basis to cool the reactor, Vermont Yankee cannot continue to operate. This is hardly a reliable or dependable source of energy. What about accidents? No nuclear power plant can be certified as accident-free. Risks of human and mechanical error are always a possibility. Vermont Yankee at 34 years old is antiquated. As equipment corrodes, cracks and wears out, the accident risk increases greatly. Most old reactors have already closed down. Aware of the inherent risks of nuclear reactors, no insurance company will provide insurance for our homes or businesses due to a nuclear accident. If an accident should occur, hundreds of thousands of us will have to flee with nothing but the clothes on our backs. Let's get real. If we want electricity, why not fund sources that do not pose the dangers inherent in nuclear power? Sustainable green sources like wind, solar and small hydro are viable options that need state subsidies to be affordable and available to the average person. Carbon dioxide emissions are mainly caused through the transportation industry. Let's subsidize energy-efficient cars and mass transportation. Conservation of homes, schools and businesses can create local industries and cut our needs for much of the fossil fuels we use to heat our homes and municipal buildings. Energy efficiency can decrease usage by between 25 percent and 45 percent. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory report shows that 99 percent to 124 percent of the nation's electricity can be supplied by renewables by 2020. Wind power is now a sophisticated industry, growing worldwide from 25 percent to 35 percent per year. The United States is lagging behind much of the world because wind, solar, and energy efficiencies are barely funded in this country. We need to change that. Instead of spending billions of taxpayer dollars to subsidize the nuclear industry while it rakes in multi-millions in annual profits, let's fund safe, truly sustainable alternatives and create local, cost-effective energy. Having sustainables in place will assure that our needs will still be met when Vermont Yankee is decommissioned on or before its license expires in 2012. Decommissioning Vermont Yankee, managing millions of curies of radioactive spent fuel and guarding it for the next million years or so, create a significant burden for future generations. Enough is enough. Lobby your legislators to vote a resounding no for another the 20-year relicensing of Vermont Yankee. Hattie Nestel, a member of Citizens Awareness Network (www.nukebusters.org), lives in Massachusetts 20 miles south of Vermont Yankee. 2007 Rutland Herald ***************************************************************** 20 Rutland Herald: NRC: Yankee warm water a state issue Rutland Vermont News & Information April 12, 2007 By Susan Smallheer Herald Staff The Nuclear Regulatory Commission ruled Wednesday that whether Entergy Nuclear can discharge warmer water into the Connecticut River is a state issue, not a federal one. The federal agency dismissed a challenge filed by the New England Coalition, which had urged that the matter be considered as part of the overall review of environmental issues involved in the relicensing of Vermont Yankee for another 20 years. The matter of the warmer water is already under appeal before the Vermont Environmental Court. The Agency of Natural Resources granted Entergy Nuclear a permit just over a year ago, but the Connecticut River Watershed Council and other environmental groups have challenged the permit, saying it violated the Clean Water Act. Entergy Nuclear wants to discharge an unspecified amount of heated water from the cooling system at the Vernon reactor such that the river's temperature in the immediate vicinity of the plant would rise 1 degree. Part of the reason behind the discharge is to save money the company would be able to sell the energy that it now uses to cool the water during warmer weather months. The decision was notable because the full federal commission, which is appointed by President George Bush, reversed the NRC appeals board, the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, which had accepted the challenge from the New England Coalition last year. But the full commission, saying that the matter could set a national precedent, reversed the Atomic Safety Licensing Board and bounced it back to Vermont, according to NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan. "The NRC cannot treat heat shock generically, but must, instead, address it on a case-by-case basis," the commission wrote in the 23-page decision released Wednesday. Sheehan noted that the New England Coalition had filed six challenges to the relicensing of Vermont Yankee and the state had filed three. "This is not a matter for the NRC, it's a state matter," Sheehan said, admitting it was unusual for the full commission to reverse the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board. The NRC rejected one argument that because the state discharge permit is only for five years, it warranted federal review for the full 20 years of the reactor's license. Robert Williams, spokesman for Entergy Nuclear, said that Entergy, which had appealed the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board's decision, was pleased. "It's important that the license renewal receive a thorough review. But, in this case, we believe that the issue has been addressed adequately at the state level. It's within the purview of the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources," Williams said. "We're pleased that the NRC recognizes the jurisdictional boundaries." Sheehan said thermal discharges from nuclear power plants has been the topic of environmental challenges and court decisions all over the country, most recently in New York case. The Vermont permit granted Entergy's request to discharge the warmer water from June 16 to Oct. 14, but had held off on the more environmentally sensitive time of May 16 to June 15. Environmental groups argue that the higher temperatures would affect young fish. Raymond Shadis, senior technical advisor for the New England Coalition, said the group's Vermont attorney, Karen Tyler, would be studying the 23-page decision. Contact Susan Smallheer at susan.smallheer@rutlandherald.com. 2007 Rutland Herald ***************************************************************** 21 Charter'97: Chernobyl veterans set to appeal to world community if bill abolishing benefits for them is enacted :: 11:44, 12/04/2007 Belarus` veterans of the desperate efforts to contain the Chernobyl nuclear disaster plan to appeal to the world community if a bill abolishing benefits for this category of the population is enacted. As Alyaksandr Valchanin, a social worker who spearheads the effort to found an association of Chernobyl veterans, said in an interview with BelaPAN, on April 11, he met with Vital Kulik, chairman of the lower parliamentary house`s standing Committee on Chernobyl Problems, Environment and Nature Management. Mr. Valchanin learned at the meeting that a bill had been drafted, which would abolish all benefits for former Chernobyl cleanup workers ("liquidators"), including free treatment at health resorts, free medicines, two extra weeks of paid vacation, and a lower retirement age (55 years). "If this bill is enacted, people who combated the aftermath of the Chernobyl explosion in 1986 and 1987 will be completely deprived of benefits," said Mr. Valchanin. On behalf of 30 Chernobyl veterans, he proposed to Mr. Kulik that a parliamentary hearing should be held on this bill with the participation of liquidators. "If our opinion is not heard, we reserve the right to appeal to the state secretary of the Belarusian-Russian Union State, Pavel Borodin, and to international organizations," Mr. Valchanin stressed. 1998-2007 Charter'97. E-mail: charter@charter97.org Dear Colleagues. Remember, please, you are expected to refer to the Charter`97 Press Center when using the site materials. News export , javascript-informer Technical Support webmaster@charter97.org. Ads on the site adv@charter97.org ***************************************************************** 22 Brattleboro Reformer: NRC tosses Yankee water challenge By BOB AUDETTE, Reformer Staff Thursday, April 12 BRATTLEBORO -- It's the state's responsibility. That was the reason given Wednesday by the five commissioners of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for overturning a decision by the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board. The licensing board had ruled in favor of the New England Coalition on Nuclear Pollution's request to have a hearing on Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant's license renewal application in regards to the temperature of water discharged into the Connecticut River. "The Commission earlier this year decided it wanted, on its own volition, to review the admittance of that contention," wrote Neil Sheehan, spokesman for the NRC, in an e-mail to the Reformer. "In its ruling, the commission finds that the contention should not be admitted because the state has jurisdiction when it comes to regulating water discharges from the plant. The state carries out those duties under a permitting process." An attorney for the New England Coalition on Nuclear Pollution, Karen Tyler, said the organization disagreed with the commission's ruling. "We are surprised that the NRC would rely on a discharge permit that is currently under review by the Vermont courts and which Vermont courts have found potentially inadequate to protect water quality and against the public interest," said Tyler. The coalition had challenged Entergy's relicensing application for Yankee on numerous grounds. One of the Coalition's arguments was that the environmental report submitted by Entergy inadequately addressed the impacts of increased thermal discharges into the Connecticut River during the license renewal period. Entergy filed an application to renew it operating license for Yankee in January 2006. It is asking the NRC to extend it license from 2012 to 2032. In February 2003, Entergy asked the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources both to renew its discharge permit and to amend it to increase the thermal limitations by 1 degree for May 16 through Oct. 14. The agency authorized the increase, saying that it wouldn't affect fish and shellfish between June 16 and Oct. 14. However, it postponed its decision on whether to allow the temperature increase for the period May 16 through June 15. Entergy, the coalition and the watershed council appealed the permitting decision to the state's environmental court, which stayed ANR's permit amendment. The pre-amended version of the permit remains in effect and the case is scheduled to be heard by the environmental court in June. "This appeal is really the only review that the plant is going to get," said David Deen, river steward with the Connecticut River Watershed Council, which is also contesting ANR's discharge permit. "The NRC relies on the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources and Entergy to reach its decision," he said. "It has not come up here and put a thermometer in the river." The watershed and the council are asking the agency perform a review "and do it at a level that is meaningful," said Deen, "and not off of a document submitted by Entergy." The coalition contended that a 1 degree increase in temperature would have a negative affect -- called heat shock -- on fish and shellfish during the proposed 20-year license extension. Heat shock falls within the scope of the Clean Water Act, which delegates the permitting authority to the Environmental Protection Agency or a designated state agency, wrote the commission. Therefore Vermont, and not the federal government, determines the temperature of the water the plant is allowed to discharge into the river. "Indeed, the Clean Water Act's legislative history indicates that Congress ... intended to deprive the NRC's predecessor agency (the Atomic Energy Commission) of such authority," wrote the commission. "If it is kicking it back to the state to reach a decision that it will abide by, that is an important statement on its part," he said. "The NRC has done nothing but assert its jurisdiction over the state. If its saying Vermont is in charge and in the driver's seat, we will see if it pays attention when the environmental court makes its decision." The coalition had argued that Entergy had failed to assess the effects of the increased temperature on river marine life in its application. It insisted that Entergy's proposal to increase its capacity by 20 percent, recently granted, necessitated a review of the "cumulative environmental impact" over the 20 years of the proposed license renewal. Entergy contended that the Clean Water Act prohibited the NRC from reviewing Vermont's effluent limitation and from setting its own limits. The commission agreed with Entergy. The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board had admitted the contention on the grounds that it raised questions concerning Entergy's environmental report, specifically that the report "contains an insufficient analysis of the thermal impacts in the Connecticut River." The commission agreed with a dissenter to the licensing board's decision that Entergy's discharge permit satisfied the requirements of the statute governing such licensing. "The dissent reasoned that, if the Vermont Environmental Court overturned the amended permit on appeal, the contention would be rendered moot," wrote the commission. "The dissent further pointed out that the permit's five-year term allowed for ongoing reassessment of the effects of the 1 degree temperature increase." The commission concluded that it is required "to take at face value the evaluation of the Agency and is forbidden from engaging in independent analysis." "We do not share the majority's concern that the Commission cannot legitimately rely on a state permit which expires only five years into the 20-year renewal period," wrote the commission. It also concluded that the Vermont Environmental Court's stay "is irrelevant to the issue now before us. All the stay accomplishes is to reinstate, temporarily, the pre-March 30 version of the permit -- an action that does not adversely affect the Coalition's interests (in fact, it favors them)." The stay "merely places that permit in limbo," it wrote. "The Coalition thus confuses a stayed permit with a vacated one." "The NRC is a rouge agency bent on satisfying every whim of the nuclear industry, even if it means putting the people and the environment at risk," said NEC consultant Ray Shadis, in an e-mail to the Reformer. The coalition is now weighing its options and may decide soon to appeal the decision to a federal court, he wrote. Bob Audette can be reached at raudette@reformer.com or 802-254-2311, ext. 273. ***************************************************************** 23 UPI: NRC issues final licensing language United Press International - Published: April 11, 2007 at 4:39 PM ROCKVILLE, Md., April 11 (UPI) -- Federal regulators will require future U.S. nuclear plants to update safety reviews every four years as part of new changes to the reactor licensing process. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced Wednesday it has approved the final rule for issuance of "Licenses, Certifications, and Approvals for Nuclear Power Plants." The final rule language, covering permits, design certification and a new Combined Operating and Licensing Application procedure, is to be published in the Federal Register later this year. Jerry Wilson, senior policy analyst at the NRC, said this final rule is the culmination of years of effort to update the NRC's licensing processes for new nuclear power plants. "The commission directed in its staff requirements memorandum that the licensees update and maintain probabilistic risk assessments for the life of their nuclear plant," Wilson said. The plants will have to comply with the "latest accepted industry standards" in the PRA updates every four years "to aid the NRC in monitoring the safety of future nuclear power plants." He said current plants would also have to start using similar safety assessments. Copyright 2007 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 24 UPI: NRC flags Wisconsin nuke plant's safety United Press International - Energy - Briefing Published: April 11, 2007 at 2:33 PM ROCKVILLE, Md., April 11 (UPI) -- Federal regulators have ruled that lax action to fix a backup generator leak was a safety lapse by operators of a Wisconsin nuclear plant. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced Tuesday it issued a "yellow" finding for a June 2006 incident at the Kewaunee Nuclear Plant. "Yellow" is the second-most severe of the NRC's color-coded safety ratings for nuclear plants, indicating the incident was of "substantial importance to safety." According to an NRC release, workers at the plant, operated by Dominion Energy Kewaunee Inc., located a leak in a backup diesel generator. The generator powers safety functions of the plant during a power outage. The workers on June 28, 2006, "did not follow procedures to evaluate the condition under the plant's correction action program." Two months later, workers saw an increase in the generator leak. A subsequent test found the generator could only power the plant for four hours because of the leak. "The test results led the utility to conclude that the emergency diesel generator was inoperative for 51 days," the NRC release said. Dominion fixed the leak and conducted corrective action program training with workers. "This incident shows the importance of following procedures at nuclear power plants," said James Caldwell, regional administrator for NRC's Region III office in Lisle, Ill. "Even though routine plant operations were not affected by this issue, the utility's failure to follow procedures could have resulted in the failure of one of the plant's safety systems to fulfill its function in case of an accident. This resulted in a reduction in plant safety margins." Dominion has 30 days to respond to the NRC notice of violation, which could result in increased inspections. Copyright 2007 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 25 UPI: Energy subcommittee prioritizes funds United Press International - Energy - Briefing Published: April 12, 2007 at 12:59 PM WASHINGTON, April 12 (UPI) -- Senior members of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water say Department of Energy fiscal year 2008 budget requests are inadequate. At a hearing of the subcommittee Wednesday, Sens. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., and Pete Domenici, R-N.M., agreed more funding for developing new technologies was necessary to wean the United States off oil and imports. Both legislators reiterated the need for swift implementation of the loan-guarantee program, enacted in the 2005 Energy Policy Act, but differed on other specific programs. Dorgan debated with Alexander Karsner, assistant secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, over weatherization, which was cut drastically in the new budget. While Dorgan claimed home weatherization is crucial to conservation and efficiency, Karsner argued the return on investment is not economical. A number of other "insufficient" programs were cut as well while nuclear, specifically waste storage and projects like FutureGen, would receive increases in funds. Cleaner-burning coal, nuclear, and loan guarantees for solar, wind and hydro will likely be the mix of fuel and power that help reduce oil and natural gas use. However, Domenici argued, without efforts from China and India, any advancement made in the United States will be in vain. "I'd be willing to shift the priorities of entire budget to give you greater ability, I'm just growing so very tired, as the American people are, of seeing this great nation being jerked around by puppet governments around the world," said Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho. Copyright 2007 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 26 UPI: India nuclear demands could stop U.S. deal United Press International - NewsTrack - Top News - Published: April 12, 2007 at 1:06 PM WASHINGTON, April 12 (UPI) -- A U.S. nuclear deal with India may be in danger of collapsing after India made a series of demands that contradict the Bush administration's goals for the pact. President Bush told Congress last year before a bill was passed to authorize the deal that the agreement would prevent a nuclear arms race between India and Pakistan and halt the spread of nuclear weapons. However, India is now demanding as part of the deal that it be allowed to continue nuclear testing and continue to increase nuclear capabilities, USA Today reported Thursday. "I don't question India's goodwill," said Nicholas Burns, the undersecretary of state who supervised negotiations. "But there is a fair degree of frustration in Washington that the Indian government has not engaged seriously enough or quickly enough with both the United States and the IAEA," the International Atomic Energy Agency. Burns said three rounds of talks with India have resulted in very little progress. Two administration officials speaking anonymously said India's demands could mean an end to the deal, despite the fact that it has no set deadline for completion. Copyright 2007 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 27 Hemscott: TVA seeks check before reactor startup KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - The Tennessee Valley Authority on Thursday told federal regulators it is ready for a final inspection before returning its oldest nuclear reactor to service after a five-year, $1.8 billion restoration. TVA asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to send its 'operational readiness assessment team' to the Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant in Athens, Ala., to evaluate the Unit 1 reactor. The reactor is slated to power up in May after a nearly 22-year shutdown. 'It is kind of the last significant test,' TVA spokesman John Moulton said. 'It is basically telling the NRC, 'Bring your team in and confirm that this plant's ready to operate again as a three-unit plant.'' Unit 3 would be the first 'new' nuclear power capacity in the United States in the 21st century. The country's last new plant was TVA's Watts Bar station opened in 1996. All three Browns Ferry reactors were idled in 1985 over management and operational concerns. Units 2 and 3 returned to service in 1991 and 1995, respectively. 'It's important to show that we have the ability to operate and maintain all three units at Browns Ferry along with demonstrating that work to restart Unit 1 has been done well,' said Ashok Bhatnagar, TVA's senior vice president for nuclear services. The NRC review, required for new plants and those restarting after an extended outage, will evaluate Browns Ferry's management oversight, corrective action programs and safety processes. TVA spent more than 15 million work hours modifying, refurbishing or replacing Browns Ferry Unit 1 systems and components. The agency also conducted more than 1,200 safety tests. Moulton said TVA expects to remain on schedule with the Unit 1 recovery, depending 'on what the NRC team tells us we need to do' after the inspection. Browns Ferry Unit 1 began commercial operation in 1974 and made international news a year later when a worker using a candle to check for air leaks started a fire that disabled safety systems throughout the plant. It was the worst commercial reactor accident in the United States prior to the Three Mile Island meltdown in Pennsylvania in 1979. However, TVA, the country's largest public utility, has new hope for nuclear as a cleaner energy source than coal-fired power plants at a time of rising demand for electricity. Browns Ferry Unit 1 will be able to generate more than 1,155 megawatts, enough power to supply 650,000 homes. Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Hemscott PLC - Serious Investment Research Copyright 2007 Hemscott Group Limited. Hemscott is the UK registered trademark of Hemscott Group Limited. ***************************************************************** 28 Dunn Daily Record: County Faces Nuclear Disaster In Mock Exercise 4/12/2007 Harnett County Fire Marshal Jimmy Riddle, posing as a citizen, is checked for radioactive contamination in a mock exercise at Harnett County Middle School. Federal Emergency Management Agency evaluator Bill Larabee observes the simulation. -Photo Courtesy/Harnett County Department of Emergency Services Steve Reed Reporter The Harnett County Emergency Operations Center (EOC) was abuzz with activity Tuesday. Representatives from every county department and agency, under the supervision of the county's Emergency Services office, worked a mock training exercise under the watchful eyes of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The imaginary disaster was a nuclear accident at the Shearon Harris nuclear power plant in Wake County. In the wake of the imaginary disaster, mock emergency shelters were established with bilingual workers to render aid to Hispanic residents. In an actual emergency, fire, rescue and law enforcement officers would be dispatched throughout the county. "This is a joint effort," said Gary Pope, director of Harnett County Emergency Services. "The Emergency Operations Center activates whenever there is a large-scale emergency in Harnett County." The county's fire and rescue squads did their in-field simulation March 19 and 20. At Harnett Central Middle School, emergency services set up a congregate care facility and reception center. "This is where the public comes to be monitored for contamination," Emergency Services Coordinator Beverly Williams said. "We set it up like a shelter. If a citizen checks out OK, they can sign in and leave. If a person has to be decontaminated, they can stay there for awhile." Harnett County schools are used as emergency shelters run by the Department of Social Services, with assistance from the American Red Cross and the county health department. When a person goes to one of these facilities, they are monitored twice for contamination. "They will go through a portal monitor and we'll also hand monitor them," Emergency Management Technician Larry Smith said. "If we find contamination, they enter the de-con apparatus and go through a series of showers. Once they're finished, we remonitor them. If they're clean, they can enter the shelter. If not, we have to repeat the process." This week the drill moved to the EOC at the county Law Enforcement Center in Lillington. In the EOC, seven sections saw county employees busy. The sections manned in the crowded EOC are data entry, direction and control, communications, emergency operations, support, logistics and planning and public information. At data entry, volunteers key in significant events and messages. They also order resources. When an event is finished, they provide a log of what happened. County Manager Neil Emory and Mr. Pope coordinate the event's activities from the direction and control section. "Everything has to go through D and C for approval," Mrs. Williams said. "If an emergency is declared, it has to be approved by Mr. Emory and the county commissioners. If there's a need for generators or other supplies, D and C sends a request to the state for approval." At the communications section, a 911 dispatcher monitors emergency calls. The dispatcher also has a Global Information System computer to pull up maps of locations affected by the emergency. Emergency operations are coordinated by law enforcement, the state Department of Transportation, the forestry service, fire and rescue and public utilities at the operations section. At the support section, information technology personnel make sure computers are functioning properly. The county tax office and inspectors form a Damage Assessment Team which goes out and assesses damaged properties. Also in this section, Cooperative Extension agents and animal control officers monitor the affect of the emergency on crops, livestock and pets. General services coordinates activities at the landfills and waste stations. At the logistics section, services for the public are coordinated by the Department of Social Services, the health department, Red Cross, Harnett County Schools and Sandhills Mental Health. DSS coordinates the shelters and the Red Cross makes sure there is ample food for both the volunteers and the people staying at the shelters. The health department helps with special needs such as verifying if extra beds are available at local nursing homes. Logistics section volunteers receive calls from people who wish to help. They keep a list of volunteers and if there's a need, such as someone's yard needing cleaned, dispatch volunteers to the scene. At the public information section, volunteers issue press releases and coordinate with the Joint Information Center in Raleigh. The section also handles rumor control, answering questions from people who call in inquiring about the event. Even the county's library personnel got involved in the drill. The library workers handled typing and runner chores. "All of our departments work together," said Melanie Collins, director of the Harnett County Library. "This is a good team building exercise." Mr. Emory even worked as an information runner during the mock drill. While Harnett County employees were working, their colleagues in Lee, Chatham and Wake counties were going through similar emergency response exercises. The efforts of all four counties were coordinated through a Joint Information Center at the Progress Energy Customer Service Center in Raleigh. Mr. Pope said his office will receive FEMA's official evaluation on the drill in about a month, and a public briefing is set for today at the nuclear plant's welcome center. While Tuesday's mock exercise was a nuclear disaster, what participants learned can be applied to other large-scale emergencies. "This prepares us for natural disasters," Mr. Pope said. "It's what keeps Harnett County proactive." "The drills improve our capabilities and help us be prepared for a real incident," Mrs. Williams said. 2007 Record Publishing Co. Dunn, North Carolina. ***************************************************************** 29 edie news centre: France gives nuclear reactor green light The French government gave the go-ahead for the construction new nuclear reactor to be built in Normandy, sparking protests from environmentalists and politicians alike. French protesters denounce the dangers of nuclear. Image: Greenpeace The controversial European Pressurised Reactor was finally approved with a decree signed by French Prime Minister Dominic de Villepin on Wednesday, and construction work is scheduled to start by the end of the year on the cliffs near the town of Flamanville. Politicians from opposition parties denounced the lack of debate in the lead-up to the decision, rendered particularly sensitive by the approaching presidential elections. Greenpeace also called the decision a "denial of democratic rights" and threatened to take the issue up in court. 78% of all French say renewables should be developed as a priority and only 19% back the government in its continued support for nuclear energy, according to a recent survey. "Despite the government's assurances, the EPR nuclear reactor project has been decided without democratic debate. Signing the decree during the election campaign period reflects yet again methods we thought had evolved - those of a government sold out to the nuclear lobby," said Frdric Marillier of Greenpeace France. "With this decree the government has in the end ignored the opinion of the majority and tried to push through a project questioned by most of the presidential candidates," he said. The reactor will generate 1600MW by 2012 if it comes online as planned, and will help test a new technology that could replace France's existing 58 nuclear reactors when they are decommissioned. France currently gets 80% of its electricity from its 58 nuclear reactors located in 19 nuclear power stations. The EPR project has been causing controversy across France for some time. 60,000 protesters came out in opposition to the project last month - one in a series of large scale protests that have been building up since last year (see related story). Goska Romanowicz Faversham House Group Ltd 2007. edie news articles may be copied or forwarded for individual use only. No other reproduction or distribution is permitted without prior written consent. ***************************************************************** 30 Japan Times: 1999 uncontrolled reaction suspected | japantimes.co.jp Web Thursday, April 12, 2007 Kyodo News An uncontrolled nuclear reaction may have occurred during a 1999 accident at Hokuriku Electric Power Co.'s Shika power plant, the Japan Nuclear Technology Institute said Wednesday. Michio Ishikawa, president of the institute comprising companies related to the electricity business, dismissed concerns that the "prompt critical" reaction could have resulted in a serious accident, like the deadly Chernobyl meltdown in 1986, saying what happened at the Shika plant was "a phenomenon of a very small scale." According to Ishikawa, the reaction might have occurred in parts of the reactor where three control rods were accidentally dislodged. The plant is located in Shika, Ishikawa Prefecture, on the Sea of Japan coast. The institute analyzed various conditions that could have resulted from the development. The worst possible case it came up with suggested that the temperature of the troubled spot could have gone up to about 150 degrees. He said 3,300 degrees is the point that can melt nuclear fuel and release radioactivity into cooling water, according to Ishikawa. The Japan Times ***************************************************************** 31 Vermont Guardian: Feds reject review of warm water discharge from Vermont Yankee By Shay Totten | Vermont Guardian Posted April 12, 2007 ROCKVILLE, MD — The impact of warmer water discharges from Vermont Yankee into the Connecticut River will be decided by state, not federal, officials, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission ruled today. The ruling places a greater focus on a case currently in state Environmental Court, and scheduled to go to trial in June. Currently, a permit allowing Vermont Yankee to heat up the river an additional degree has been appealed by a coalition of environmental groups. In January, the five-member board that oversees the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) said it would review the dispute over the impact of warmer water discharges by Vermont Yankee if its license to operate beyond 2012 is extended. This move trumped an earlier decision by a key advisory panel — the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (ASLB) — who wanted to take on the issue as part of the formal federal review into the license application. The NRC bypassed the ASLB because they believe the question of thermal discharge has broader implications across the industry, and could come up in other license renewal cases. The contention was one of several raised by the New England Coalition, and scheduled to be heard by the ASLB. Vermont Yankee appealed the decision to review the contention. The coalition believes Entergy has not adequately answered questions about the long-term impact on the Connecticut River that a rise in water temperature — by one degree over what is currently allowed in its permit — will have on various aquatic species. In its appeal, Vermont Yankee (VY) claimed there would be no adverse impact due to the change. “From our standpoint, we have demonstrated that the plant does not have an adverse impact on the river, and it will not under a renewed license,” said Rob Williams, a VY spokesman, who was pleased with the ruling. “It’s important that the license renewal receive a thorough review, but in this case we believe that the river issue has been addressed adequately at the state level where it’s within the purview of the Agency of Natural Resources and the Vermont Environmental Court.” The NRC, in its ruling, believes that Vermont Yankee has adequately responded to date in the process, but more importantly that the NRC cannot intercede in a process governed by the state Agency of Natural Resources. In some states, like Vermont, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, has given the authority to review Clean Water Act provisions related to power plants over to the state. “In its ruling issued today, the commission finds that the contention should not be admitted because the state has jurisdiction when it comes to regulating water discharges from the plant. The state carries out those duties under a permitting process,” said Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the regional office of the NRC. Sheehan said the federal Clean Water Act makes it clear that Vermont has the authority, and, at lest in this instance, the NRC does not want to step in and overrule that authority. The state has granted Vermont Yankee a modified permit to heat up the river an additional degree beyond its previous permit. The New England Coalition (NEC), along with the Connecticut River Watershed Council, Trout Unlimited, and Citizens Awareness Network, have intervened. The NEC may appeal today’s ruling. “The questions of appeal are immediate and we haven’t had time to look at it yet to determine if we will appeal,” said Ray Shadis, a technical advisor to the New England Coalition (NEC). “It is rare that the commission will overturn an ASLB decision on such preliminary matters such as accepting a contention, and even rarer that they will do this on behalf of an industry. Granted, the NRC is certainly not famous for leaping to the defense of the environment. So in that sense nobody is surprised by the ruling.” The focus on water discharges now turns to the state Environmental Court where Judge Meredith Wright will determine later this month whether to extend a stay of the permit while the case is being litigated. That ruling is expected April 30, said Evan Mulholland, an attorney with Brock, Cheney, and Saudek in Montpelier. “We believe she will re-issue the stay mainly because the argument remains the same, and nothing has changed,” said Mulholland who is representing the groups in their appeal of the state permit. “Entergy hasn’t’ given any reason to show that the stay shouldn’t continue.” NEC won an initial stay of the permit last year, but it was only good until June of this year, said Mulholland. If Wright extends the stay, it means that Vermont Yankee would have to abide by its older permit likely through the summer while the case goes to trial and they await a decision. “It may harm them some, but our position is that it will harm the fish more and harm to the fish should outweigh the harm to Entergy,” said Mulholland. The American Shad is the one species of fish they are most concerned about, said Mulholland, but other species could be affected, too. He added that environmental permitting standards require Entergy to look at the interaction of the warmer water with chemicals they release into the water as well as with chemicals already in the water. “They haven’t done that,” said Mulholland. “Or, maybe they have, but they haven’t shown us yet. We’re hoping to get some of that information during the discovery process, which we’re just beginning.” A trial date is scheduled for June 26. Today’s ruling is part of a string of positive rulings for Entergy, but they still face a number of contentions that will be taken up before the ASLB. In September, the ASLB agreed to hear contentions filed by the state of Vermont and a citizen watchdog group as part of its review of Vermont Yankee’s bid to operate beyond 2012. Vermont Yankee appealed their ruling to the full NRC. The ASLB ruling allowed one of the state Department of Public Service’s three contentions, and four of the six contentions filed by the New England Coalition. It denied outright contentions from two other interested groups — the Massachusetts Attorney General and the Town of Marlboro. The Massachusetts attorney general’s office has appealed the ruling. Of these five allowed contentions, four relate to various safety aspects of operating the plant beyond its original 40-year license, while the fifth related to the environmental impact its water discharges would have on the Connecticut River. That was rejected today. The ASLB, which is a quasi-judicial panel of judges within the NRC, has only allowed several outside groups to contest license extensions. Vermont Yankee's 40-year license expires on March 21, 2012. Entergy, the plant’s owner, has formally asked to extend that term for 20 years. If approved, the extension — coupled with a 20 percent uprate that has been implemented at the plant — would increase the output of radioactive waste, and it may also add stress to the plant beyond its original design, critics contend. The ASLB agreed to hear NEC’s concerns about Entergy’s plans to monitor key components as the plant ages and produces power at a higher rate than originally licensed. The group contends that Entergy’s proposed plan to monitor for overall metal fatigue at the aging plant is inadequate, and specifically falls short in relation to two key components — the steam dryer and the pipes that carry the steam. z The ASLB agreed to hear one contention by Vermont officials. They are questioning Entergy’s plan to monitor and manage the aging concrete that surrounds most of the reactor containment vessel, called a “drywell.” The first request for proposals window will be May 1-June 15. In order to be considered, proposals must, at a minimum: • Target risk-adjusted, market-rate returns equivalent to or higher than other available investments in a similar asset class, and, • Provide a substantial, direct, and measurable benefit to economic or community development within the state of Vermont. This isn’t the only current case of Vermont’s large cash holdings at work in Vermont. Spaulding has also been diverting some of the state’s short-term investments and cash holdings — which can range from $20 to $300 million on any given day — into local Vermont banks. His office hosts a monthly Internet bidding process, and is circulating about $40 million through a series of local banks. Spaulding said the state is seeing better interest rate returns through this process. z “We feel there are benefits to doing this because we believe the banks will recirculate the money in Vermont, and if we can do that and get a better return then that is a win-win for everybody,” said Spaulding. Beyond keeping the green in Vermont, Spaulding is also a founding member of the Investor Network on Climate Change, which is a collaboration of institutional investors who work to engage the investment community on “what kind of new risks the carbon-constrained world presents to companies and investors.” Vermont’s first foray into this investor-led proxy was sponsoring a shareholder resolution at a recent annual meeting of Bed Bath & Beyond. Spaulding said the resolution called on the company to be more climate neutral. “We didn’t win that one,” said Spaulding. However, 65 investment groups and Merrill Lynch did place a call to Congress urging members to enact clear regulatory frameworks so businesses know what kinds of rules and regulations they are going to have to adhere to in the future. This, said Spaulding, will especially give investors an idea of what companies are living up to the standards, and which ones might not be. Friday, Apr. 13, 2007 Northern Vermont: PO Box 335, Winooski, VT 05404 Southern Vermont: 139 Main Street, Suite 603, Brattleboro, VT 05301 Contact: 802.861.4880 (ph) | 802.861.6388 (fax) | 877.231.5382 (toll-free) 2007 Vermont Guardian | Visit us: www.vermontguardian.com This document can be located online: www.vermontguardian.com/local/042007/NRCWater.shtml ***************************************************************** 32 AFP: Gulf states have right to nuclear energy - UN atomic chief - Thu Apr 12, 1:56 PM ET RIYADH (AFP) - The head of the UN atomic watchdog said on Thursday that the oil-rich Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) has the right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful ends. "It is a natural right for the GCC countries to possess nuclear energy in order to use it for peaceful purposes," said the head of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei. "There are some 150 countries which use nuclear energy," he told a joint news conference in Riyadh with GCC chief Abdulrahman al-Attiyah. During their annual meeting in Riyadh last December, GCC heads of state announced their determination to develop a joint nuclear technology programme for peaceful use under international rules. Their interest in developing atomic energy comes amid a continuing standoff between the West and the GCC's neighbour Iran over its programme to enrich uranium. ElBaradei said he advised the GCC countries to begin by constructing a plant for research purposes to train staff. The six GCC countries are Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Copyright 2007 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 33 KSBY 6: Mothers for Peace: New Diablo Canyon Fire Truck Nice but Not Enough Thursday, April 12, 2007 Reported by: Amy Andrews DIABLO CANYON Local environmental groups say a five-hundred thousand dollar fire engine doesn't make them feel any safer living near the power plant. Mothers for Peace and ECOSLO representative Morgan Rafferty says the money could have been better spent. "They're still are producing high level radioactive waste on the coast with no place to put it with aging components. They have to replace the steam generators an its just a first in a series of repair project. Honestly, I think it's great that they have a new fire truck but it's the least that we need up there." A superior court judge has ruled against a petition to stop the steam generator replacement project at Diablo Canyon. A request to halt the permits was filed by the Coastal Law Enforcement Action Network of Playa del Rey. An ECOSLO spokesperson says even though the petition wasn't directly filed by a local group, the ruling is disappointing. PG&E has offered to conserve more than one thousand acres around the Point San Luis Lighthouse to help minimize environmental damage. All content Copyright 2000 - 2007 WorldNow and KSBY. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 34 Lancashire Evening Post: Nuclear plant gets neighbours' go-ahead In association with Preston College Fulwood Campus, St Vincents Road, Preston, PR2 8UR, 01772 225002. * Published Date: 11 April 2007 One of Lancashire's biggest employers has been given the green light by its neighbours to carry on fuelling. A consultation programme run by nuclear fuel manufacturer Springfields Fuels Ltd, in Salwick, near Preston, has shown local people are happy for it to keep on producing fuel for the country's reactors until it is decommissioned in 2031. The survey also showed that people would like to see the site redeveloped into a mixture of an industrial estate, a recreation or nature conservation area and a site for technology development or research when fuel production ends. Results of the consultation will now be presented to the government's Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, which owns the site operated by nuclear firm Westinghouse, and be incorporated into its national strategy. Community relations manager Steve Whitehead said: "Springfields will remain a commercial nuclear fuel manufacturing plant for the foreseeable future and the current assumption is that these operations would cease in 2031. "However, there is a real possibility that fuel production will continue beyond this date with the potential of a new generation of nuclear reactors in the UK and an extension to the lifetimes of existing reactors." The factory, which has been in operation for more than 60 years, employs around 1,600 people and its operations support a total of 2,400 jobs across Lancashire. County Coun Bernard Whittle, who chaired the sub-group overseeing the consultation, said the recommendation to continue operations would be of "benefit to all those who live around it." The firm has also picked up an award at the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents health and safety awards for its performance during the last 12 months. Springfields has introduced a number of safety initiatives in recent years, including regular safety workshops for all employees and 'near-miss' reporting. Last Updated: 11 April 2007 All rights reserved 2007 Johnston Press Digital Publishing ***************************************************************** 35 Whitehaven News: Nuclear new-build back on agenda Published on 12/04/2007 THE GOVERNMENT’S energy white paper will be published in May, the industry secretary Alistair Darling has announced. The document will be accompanied by a consultation document on nuclear ‘new build’ in the wake of criticism about a past lack of public consultation after a judicial review granted Greenpeace an order quashing the government’s decision, published in the Energy Challenge in July 2006, to build new nuclear power stations. “Following the judicial review, I said that it was likely that the White Paper would be published in May,” Mr Darling told MPs before the Easter recess. “It is perhaps a statement of the obvious that it will not be possible to publish it next week, so I thought it helpful to tell the House that it will definitely be published in May.” View this story and the latest newspaper in full digital reproduction, just like the printed copy at www.whitehaven-news.co.uk/digitalcopy ***************************************************************** 36 WNA: US nuclear plant sold for $380 million 12 April 2007 Consumers Energy has completed the sale of the Palisades nuclear power station to Entergy Corporation for $380 million. As part of the purchase, Entergy will sell 100% of the plant's output back to Consumers Energy for 15 years. Although some consumer groups and Michigan's attorney general had argued that the sale would be bad for customers, the Michigan Public Service Commission estimates that customers stand to save up to $700 million in energy costs over that time. Palisades is a single unit 789 MWe pressurized water reactor (PWR) in Michigan. The plant started commercial operation on 31 December 1971, and recently received a 20-year operating licence renewal from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), extending its current licence to 2031. NRC approved the transfer of the plant's operating licence to Entergy on 6 April. New Orleans-based Entergy owns and manages 11 nuclear power plants and manages one plant for the State of Nebraska. The company is also involved in plans to construct a new nuclear power plant at Grand Gulf in Missouri, which received an Early Site Permit from the NRC in March. With the sale of Palisades, Consumers Energy's generating portfolio no longer contains nuclear - it has completed decommissioning its other nuclear power plant, Big Rock Point, which shut down in 1997 after 35 years of operation and returned to greenfield status in 2006. ***************************************************************** 37 Reuters: Nuclear scanners said ready for use at U.S. ports | U.S. Wed Apr 11, 2007 7:55PM EDT By Daniel Trotta NEW YORK (Reuters) - The next generation of radiation-detection technology should be ready for use at U.S. ports and borders this year, helping distinguish harmless goods from nuclear material, a U.S. official said on Wednesday. Tests underway at the New York Container Terminal have gone well enough that the director of the Department of Homeland Security's Domestic Nuclear Detection Office said he was inclined to recommend deployment at 400 sites nationwide. "We're very optimistic that when we go to the secretary this summer he will give us permission to go to production," Vayl Oxford told reporters. Oxford is due to report to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff in mid-July on the performance of three competing portals being tested alongside current technology at the terminal. The advanced models on trial are made by Canberra Industries, part of the French group Areva; Integrated Defense Systems, a business of Raytheon Company; and Thermo Fisher Scientific. Oxford said there has been a noticeable difference in the performance of the three models but declined to elaborate, saying he could recommend going into full production with one, two or all three versions. All three firms are prepared to ramp up production immediately, Oxford said. Last year, they were awarded $1.16 billion in contracts to develop the new technology. Continued... Reuters 2007. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 38 WNA: German waste site go-ahead incontestable World Nuclear Assoc 12 April 2007 Germany's first disposal site for low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste is set to go ahead after the Federal Administrative Court ended years of legal argument and delay. Structures above the closed Konrad iron ore mine (Image: DBE) The plan to convert the Konrad site, a former iron ore mine in Lower Saxony, and to use it as a final repository, was first approved by the state environment ministry in 2002 after almost 20 years of proceedings. Local communities and farmers appealed against the licensing decision. Those lawsuits were dismissed in March 2006, without leave for further appeal, but subsequent appeals were made against the denial of leave to appeal. These were finally dismissed on 3 April, exhausting the legal process and rendering the site license to convert the Konrad mine into a final repository incontestable. The Konrad site will hold up to 303,000 cubic metres of waste - some 95% of the waste volume with 1% of the radioactivity from Germany's nuclear industry. It may be operational about 2010. The low- and intermediate-level waste includes items like filters, tools, chemical wastewater, sludges/suspensions, cleaning materials and contaminated metals and non-metals. The waste undergoes treatment to reduce its volume before being packed into drums for disposal. Lower Saxony environment minister Heinrich Sander welcomed the court ruling, saying "There's finally legal certainty and clarity." However, federal environment minister Sigmar Gabriel said the ruling would not affect another lengthy and ongoing German waste debate, on proposals for a high-level waste repository at Gorleben. Further information ***************************************************************** 39 The Australian: Uranium battle gains heat This story is from our news.com.au network Source: AAP * April 12, 2007 PREDATOR Paladin Resources has increased its bid for uranium explorer Summit Resources by about $230 million to $1.23 billion and declared its offer final. Paladin is now offering one Paladin share for every 1.67 Summit shares, equating to about $6.23 per Summit share. The offer compares to its initial bid of one share for every 2.04 shares, which valued the target at $5.12 per share. “The increased offer is final, meaning that the offer will not be further increased, in the absence in a competing proposal,'' Paladin said. The revised offer follows Summit's announcement yesterday that it had entered into a strategic alliance with French nuclear giant Areva. As part of the deal Summit will place 19.5 million shares to Areva at $6.20 per share each for $121.1 million. Areva also has an option to subscribe for a further approximately 23.85 million shares at $7.20 per share to acquire an 18 per cent stake in Summit. Areva bid not enough: Paladin Paladin managing director John Borshoff said today that the price Areva was paying for its initial stake was “substantially below'' Summit's headline figures. “The cost to Areva of the placement shares is actually $6.20 less the value of the options and rights granted to Areva,'' he said. “Our valuation of the share option alone is 26 cents per placement share, implying a value per Summit share of approximately $5.94, which is supported by the Summit trading prices after announcement of the proposal. “The values of the pre-emptive rights and uranium marketing rights are more difficult to quantify but clearly they are of material value.'' Paladin launched a hostile $1 billion bid for Summit in February but the target's board rejected the offer as opportunistic and inadequate. Summit and Paladin are 50/50 joint venture partners in the Isa uranium joint venture in north-west Queensland, which holds the large Valhalla/Skal uranium deposits. The Australian ***************************************************************** 40 IRNA: OIC Sec Gen asks for declaring Mideast as Nuclear Free Zone (REPETITION:to make correction in headline) - Irna Tehran, April 12, IRNA Secretary General of Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) said here Wednesday OIC is determined to set a cornerstone for ending application of double standards regarding nuclear issues. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu made the comment at his joint press conference with IRI Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, adding, "In line with pursuing that objective, the OIC asks for declaring the Middle East a Nuclear Weapons Free Zone, so as to impose pressure over Israel to conduct its nuclear activities under the supervision of the IAEA, and to abide by that agency's treaties." He added, "We already have a good example of a Nuclear Weapons Free Zone in Central Asia." Ihsanoglu said, "In line with the same objective, we also encourage Iran to adopt measures to build trust among regional countries and to help to end all remaining worries regarding its peaceful nuclear program, and to continue them while maintaining constructive interactions with regional countries." He referred to his talks with the IRI President and the Iranian Foreign Minister on latest status of nuclear developments, arguing, "From OIC's point of view, all countries, including Iran, are entitled to take peaceful advantage of nuclear technology under the supervision of the IAEA, and abiding by all NPT regulations." Ihsanoglu further emphasized, "Regarding Iran's nuclear program we seriously believe in need to respect that right, and we emphasize that till solving all remaining issues it should keep abiding by IAEA regulations and keep cooperating with that UN agency." He stressed that the OIC approves resuming of peaceful negotiations based on international laws and without any preconditions, save for abiding by NPT rules, in a bid to end solve the problem, believing that sanctions will not solve any problems. The OIC Chief said, "There are numerous cases in the world that sanctions have not yielded to any results, and on the contrary, they have led to negative results, including inflicting losses against people." In response to a question why the OIC, as an important member of the international community, does not strongly and openly support Iran, or even reflect its supportive viewpoints in written documents, Ihsanoglu said, "I must admit that is not OIC's problem, since we are constantly exchanging information with Iran, and regarding sanctions, too, the OIC has openly declared its viewpoints." He emphasized, "We clearly defend Iran's absolute rights, as well as the rights of all our other members, and we believe issuing resolutions and imposing sanction yield no favorable results and lead to negative aftermaths, as well." Mottaki, too, at the joint press conference appreciated the OIC Secretary General for supporting Iran's logical stands in insisting to pursue its peaceful nuclear activities. Referring to Ihsanoglu's meeting with President Ahmadinejad, he said, "During that meeting the OIC Secretary General was asked to present his proposals aimed for eliminating the possible remaining worries among some regional countries regarding activities at Iran's Bushehr Nuclear Reactor." Mottaki also focused on probability of holding a meeting in Iraq, arguing, "Iran favors holding a conference, inclusive of Iraq's neighbors, in addition to Egypt and Bahrain, in accordance with previous agreements, in Iraq." News sent: 01:02 Thursday April 12, 2007 Print ***************************************************************** 41 DOE: Bush Administration Establishes Program to Reduce Foreign Oil Dependency, Greenhouse Gases April 10, 2007 WASHINGTON, DC In step with the Bush Administrations call to increase the supply of alternative and renewable fuels nationwide, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today established the nations first comprehensive Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) program. At a press conference today, EPA Administrator Johnson, joined by Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman and National Highway Traffic Safety Administrator Nicole Nason, discussed the RFS program, increasing the use of alternative fuels and modernizing CAF standards for cars. The Renewable Fuel Standard offers the American people a hat trick it protects the environment, strengthens our energy security, and supports Americas farmers, said EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson. Today, were taking an important first step toward meeting President Bushs 20 in 10 goal of jumping off the treadmill of foreign oil dependency. "Increasing the use of renewable and alternative fuels to power our nation's vehicles will help meet the President's Twenty in Ten goal of reducing gasoline usage by 20 percent in ten years," Secretary Bodman said. "The Administration's sustained commitment to technology investment will bring a variety of alternative fuel sources to market and further reduce our nation's dependence on foreign sources of energy." While we must look at increasing the availability of renewable and alternative fuels, we must also continue to improve the fuel efficiency of our passenger cars and light trucks, said Nicole R. Nason, Administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. As a part of the Presidents 20 in 10 energy security plan, we need Congress to give the Secretary of Transportation the authority to reform the current passenger car fuel economy standard. Authorized by the Energy Policy Act of 2005, the RFS program requires that the equivalent of at least 7.5 billion gallons of renewable fuel be blended into motor vehicle fuel sold in the U.S. by 2012. The program is estimated to cut petroleum use by up to 3.9 billion gallons and cut annual greenhouse gas emissions by up to 13.1 million metric tons by 2012 -- the equivalent of preventing the emissions of 2.3 million cars. The RFS is an important first step toward meeting President Bushs call on our nation to reduce gasoline use by 20-percent within 10 years by growing our renewable and alternative fuel use to 35 billion gallons by the year 2017. The RFS program will promote the use of fuels such as ethanol and biodiesel, which are largely produced from American crops. The program will create new markets for farm products, increase energy security, and promote the development of advanced technologies that will help make renewable fuel cost-competitive with conventional gasoline. In particular, the RFS program establishes special incentives for producing and using fuels produced from cellulosic biomass, such as switchgrass and woodchips. The RFS program requires major American refiners, blenders, and importers to use a minimum volume of renewable fuel each year between 2007 and 2012. The minimum level or standard which is determined as a percentage of the total volume of fuel a company produces or imports, will increase every year. For 2007, 4.02 percent of all the fuel sold or dispensed to U.S. motorists will have to come from renewable sources, roughly 4.7 billion gallons. The RFS program is based on a trading system that provides a flexible means for industry to comply with the annual standard by allowing renewable fuels to be used where they are most economical. Various renewable fuels can be used to meet the requirements of the program. While the RFS program establishes that a minimum amount of renewable fuel be used in the United States, more fuel can be used if producers and blenders choose to do so. The RFS brings the nation closer to President Bushs Twenty in Ten goal to reduce gasoline consumption 20 percent in ten years. To achieve this goal, the Bush Administrations Alternative Fuel Standard (AFS) proposal builds on the RFS and requires use of 35 billion gallons of renewable and alternative fuels in 2017 - nearly five times the RFS target of 2012. The AFS proposal will displace 15 percent of projected annual gasoline use in 2017 through the use of fuels, including corn ethanol, cellulosic ethanol, biodiesel, methanol, butanol, hydrogen, and other alternative fuels. The Twenty in Ten plan also calls for reforming and modernizing CAF standards to increase the fuel economy of cars. This will reduce projected annual gasoline use by up to 8.5 billion gallons, a further 5 percent reduction that will bring the total reduction in projected annual gasoline use to 20 percent. President Bush has called on Congress to act on these proposals by the start of the summer driving season this year. For more information: http://www.epa.gov/otaq/renewablefuels/ Media contact(s): Megan Barnett, DOE, (202) 586-4940 Jennifer Wood, EPA, (202) 564-4355 Heather Hopkins, NHTSA, (202) 366-9950 Secretary of Energy to deliver Keynote remarks at the American Association of Blacks in Energy Conference in Washington, DC U.S. Department of Energy | 1000 Independence Ave., SW | Washington, DC 20585 1-800-dial-DOE | f/202-586-4403 ***************************************************************** 42 DOE: Secretary Bodman in Illinois Highlights Scientific Research Investments to Advance Americas Innovation April 11, 2007 ROMEOVILLE, IL U.S. Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman today joined Rep. Judy Biggert (IL-13th) at a technology firm in Illinois to highlight scientific research investments that have led to partnerships between DOEs National laboratories and private industry. At Advanced Diamond Technologies, Inc., Secretary Bodman touted the key contributions of scientists and engineers across the country and the importance of sustaining innovation and entrepreneurship in advancing energy and economic security. Moving technologies from the laboratory setting to commercial demonstration is critical to meeting the energy security challenges that our nation faces, Secretary Bodman said. Sustained investment in scientific research and development through the President's American Competitiveness Initiative is empowering our nation's scientists and engineers to develop and deploy cutting edge technologies and lead the world in innovation. Secretary Bodman toured Advanced Diamond Technologies, Inc. (ADT), a technology company established in 2003. ADT applies research in ultrananocrystalline diamonds created at DOEs Argonne National Laboratory and brings the commercial product to the marketplace. ADTs man-made precious gems are used in applications for cell phones, artificial retinas and biosensors. To bolster investments in science necessary to develop advanced technologies, President Bush announced the American Competitiveness Initiative (ACI) in 2006, which commits to doubling the federal commitment to the most critical basic research programs in the physical sciences over the next 10 years. This ambitious strategy ensures that the United States continues to lead the world in opportunity and innovation, and provide American children with a strong foundation in math and science. Secretary Bodman highlighted the Presidents Initiative at ADT as a critical investment in keeping Americas economy strong by generating knowledge and tools necessary to develop and deploy new advanced technologies. Media contact(s): Megan Barnett, (202) 586-4940 U.S. Department of Energy | 1000 Independence Ave., SW | Washington, DC 20585 1-800-dial-DOE | f/202-586-4403 ***************************************************************** 43 DOE: DOE to Invest up to $8.2 Million for Hydrogen Storage Research April 12, 2007 WASHINGTON, DC U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Samuel W. Bodman today announced DOE plans to provide up to $8.2 million, over four years (FY07-10), for six hydrogen storage research projects, directly supporting President Bushs Advanced Energy Initiative (AEI). The AEI aims to increase our energy security and reduce our reliance on imported oil by changing the way we power our cars, homes and businesses. These projects, subject to negotiation of scope and funding, are also integral to the Presidents Hydrogen Fuel Initiative. As a clean energy technology, hydrogen has great potential to help reduce our reliance on imported oil and serve as an integral part of our nations energy mix, Secretary Bodman said. Increasing hydrogens efficiency and storage capacity are crucial to its long-term success, and we are eager for this research to help move us toward making hydrogen vehicles with a 300-mile plus driving range commercially available to consumers. The HFI accelerates research and development of hydrogen technologies including hydrogen storage, production, and polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells, which deliver high-power density and offer low-weight and volume, compared to other fuel cells. Four projects selected seek to develop high capacity materials that could enable hydrogen storage systems for fuel cell vehicles to meet customer expectations in terms of driving range and performance. Two projects will also focus on understanding material safety to help select the most appropriate materials for use in future vehicles. Selected organizations are: * Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, IL, for up to $1.88 million for storage research * Miami University, Oxford, OH, for up $1.44 million for storage research * Sandia National Laboratories, Livermore, CA, for up to $2.0 million for materials safety research * United Technologies Research Center, East Hartford, CT, two awards: up to $1.07 million for materials safety research and up to $1.01 million for storage research * University of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI, for up to $810,000 for storage research. For more information about DOEs Hydrogen Program, visit: http://www.hydrogen.energy.gov/. Media contact(s): Julie Ruggiero, (202) 586-4940 U.S. Department of Energy | 1000 Independence Ave., SW | Washington, DC 20585 1-800-dial-DOE | f/202-586-4403 ***************************************************************** 44 Lawrence lab reapplies for blasts permit Lodi, California • By John Upton San Joaquin News Service Last updated: Thursday, April 12, 2007 6:47 AM PDT Proposed explosives tests upwind from Tracy will release as much as 450 pounds of radioactive depleted uranium dust into the air every year, according to an air pollution permit application filed Friday by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The blasts will annually release other elements into the air, some of which will also be radioactive. A permit allowing the blasts was approved with no public scrutiny by the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District in November, but was withdrawn after a community backlash. Regulators in March instructed the weapons lab to reapply for the permit and to provide data that would allow it to analyze the health effects of radiation that would be released by the blasts. The district does not normally regulate radioactive material, and it had not been informed by the lab that the blasts would be radioactive. District spokeswoman Jaime Holt said Wednesday that air pollution controllers had begun to evaluate the lab's new permit application. "We'll be looking to see the extent of their risk assessment, and if we need to conduct one ourselves, we will," Holt said. Holt said there would be an "appropriate opportunity for public input" before the district approves or rejects the permit based on guidelines in the California Environmental Quality Act. Many of the radioactive elements in the blasts already pollute the soil and water at Site 300, which along Corral Hollow Road is hidden in hills southwest of Tracy. The director of the lab's public affairs department said late Tuesday that she was unable to answer technical questions about the application. "Nothing has changed from our application last fall," Susan Houghton said. "We have simply resubmitted our application." The $1.7 billion a year Department of Energy lab has sought to increase its outdoor test limits from the equivalent of 100 pounds of TNT to 350 pounds, and to increase its annual testing amount eight-fold to 8,000 pounds "in support of homeland security and national defense activities," according to the permit application. Houghton and other lab representatives in January told the Tracy City Council that the lab has currently planned just three of the 30 blasts in the 350-pound range that would be allowed by the permit in the coming 18 months. Contact reporter John Upton at jupton@tracypress.com. 125 N. Church St. P.O. Box 1360 Lodi, CA 95241 (209) 369-2761 Fax: (209) 369-1084 * Map 1998-2007 Lodi News-Sentinel • AP Copyright ***************************************************************** 45 Hanford News: PNNL team to study uranium contamination in 300 Area This story was published Wednesday, April 11th, 2007 By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer A study to better understand how to loosen pollutants' grip on soil could lead to more effective cleanup of the soil and water beneath the Hanford nuclear reservation. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has been awarded a $13 million grant in the Department of Energy's Field-Scale Subsurface Research Challenge. The lab will use the money to lead research programs both at Hanford's 300 Area and also at the Uranium Mill Tailings Site in Colorado over five years. At Hanford, John Zachara, PNNL chief scientist, will lead a team of researchers looking at how different conditions affect uranium contamination in the north end of the 300 Area near Richland. Past production of fuel for Hanford's plutonium-producing reactors have left 96 acres of ground water beneath the 300 Area contaminated with uranium. DOE had planned to let the plume naturally dissipate, but that has not happened as quickly as expected. Zachara will be investigating one of the key features needed for cleanup, the rate of mass transfer, or how quickly the uranium loosens its grip on soil and is transferred into ground water. Most cleanup methods rely on getting pollutants into solution to remove them from the ground or immobilize them in the ground. The rate at which uranium unbinds from the soil is slow and made slower by the continual rising and dropping of the level of the Columbia River. The ground water contains bicarbonate that tends to pull the uranium off sediments and make it more soluble. But as the Columbia River rises and its purer water wells up, it redeposits the uranium back in the soil. Zachara's research team will try injecting water with different levels of bicarbonates into the ground to see how long it takes the uranium to attach and detach to the soil. The study, paid for through DOE's Office of Science, is intended to advance basic science knowledge. But it also should complement DOE Office of Environmental Management work to find new ways to clean up the uranium plume. "Results from the study will be extremely useful" as decisions are made about how to clean up the 300 Area ground water, said Mike Thompson, DOE ground water geologist. It also should be helpful at other contaminated Hanford sites along the river, said Tom Fogwell, scientific director, manager of integration and assessments for Fluor Hanford. Fluor Hanford is cooperating with the study, including drilling the wells needed for it. Results from the study will be incorporated into models of ground water contamination at Hanford to better predict their behavior. Now most Hanford models used to forecast the migration of contaminants in Hanford ground water do not account for the time they take to disengage from the soil. DOE is preparing to inject polyphosphate into the 300 Area in a demonstration project this summer to see if it can immobilize the uranium before it reaches the river. But its effectiveness will depend on how efficiently the uranium comes out of the soil and reacts to the chemical. Information from the study led by PNNL should be helpful not only for that project, but also for a project to install a chemical barrier upriver near N Reactor to trap radioactive strontium. The second project paid for with the grant will study adding nutrients to stimulate microorganisms to reduce and immobilize uranium contaminating the ground. © 2007 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 46 Hanford News: Water sample test methods questioned This story was published Thursday, April 12th, 2007 Chris Mulick, Herald Olympia bureau OLYMPIA - Representatives from three federal agencies spent four hours reviewing and copying records at an Energy Northwest environmental lab this week after a former employee questioned methods used in a water sample test for a Hanford contractor last spring. Armed with a search warrant, the Environmental Protection Agency, the FBI and the Department of Energy all participated in the probe, said Energy Northwest spokesman Brad Peck. A Seattle-based EPA spokesman said he could neither confirm nor deny the existence of an investigation. Energy Northwest operates the 1,150-megawatt nuclear plant north of Richland, the Columbia Generating Station. The public power consortium operates a lab at the site that performs a wide array of environmental tests involving nuclear and non-nuclear materials. The test of a water and sediment samples was conducted in March 2006 for Environmental Assessment Services, a subcontractor at Hanford. A representative from the company signed a document that outlined methods used in conducting the test, Peck said. He said he didn't have firsthand knowledge about the specifics of the complaint nor would he discuss the former employee, who left Energy Northwest last fall. Peck said representatives from the three federal agencies copied paper and electronic records. "We appear to have a difference of opinion with a former employee and his former supervisor," Peck said. "We're confident in the end they'll determine this is either a misunderstanding or a professional difference of opinion." © 2007 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 47 Hanford News: Project manager for PNNL appointed as replacement This story was published Thursday, April 12th, 2007 Sara Schilling, Herald staff writer Kennewick's newest school board member is a project manager for Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Greg Herman, 45, was appointed to the board during Wednesday's school board meeting. He replaces Kathy Daily, who announced in February her plans to resign because of work and family commitments. Daily, a nurse, joined the board in 1994. Herman's work as a member of the district's strategic planning committee was part of what made him a good pick for the position, said board President Dan Mildon. "His longtime involvement with the district was one of the highlights of his background," he said. Herman, a Kamiakin High School graduate, also has been involved with Parent Teacher Organizations and Parent Teacher Associations in the district, he said. He has a daughter at Desert Hills Middle School and two sons who graduated from Kamiakin. "The (goals) the board has set and worked on are a great foundation. I just want to try and add to that the best I can," he said. Six other people applied for the position: Jerry Kurtz Jr., Amy Ward, Fitzgerald Reyes, Steve Blodgett, Kathleen White and Bill Parks. Herman will have to run for election in November to keep his seat. © 2007 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 48 Hanford News: Hanford building set for demolition This story was published Thursday, April 12th, 2007 Annette Cary, Herald staff writer After 428 "dives" by Hanford workers into the vaults beneath the Plutonium Finishing Plant's Liquid Waste Treatment Facility, the Cold War relic is ready to come down. It will be the second of nine highly contaminated buildings at the Plutonium Finishing Plant to be demolished and likely the last to be demolished for several years. "The surface contamination when we started (was) pretty much off the scale," said project manager Brian Skeels of Fluor Hanford. In many cases, radiation levels were too high for instruments to read when cleanup work started. And the air within the vaults was contaminated at levels 30,000 times what workers are allowed to breathe without respirators. The Plutonium Finishing Plant began operating in 1949 to make plutonium produced in Hanford reactors into metal buttons the size of hockey pucks for shipment to the nation's production plants for nuclear weapons. The 241-Z Liquid Waste Treatment Facility opened when the main plant did, collecting waste with acids and plutonium from the plant in five underground tanks and treating it for disposal. Although the Plutonium Finishing Plant stopped operating in 1989, the waste treatment facility was used as recently as 2004 to hold liquid waste from stabilizing plutonium and cleanup. Cleanup of the facility was one of the most challenging jobs in the 15-acre Plutonium Finishing Plant complex, said Bruce Klos, Fluor Hanford vice president for closure of the plant. "It was a very tough assignment" for the workers, he said. They climbed down ladders into vaults 22 feet deep and 17 feet square, each holding a 4,600-gallon tank. "It's hot," said Jerome Piwetz, a radiological control technician. "There's not a whole lot of light." Because of the high contamination levels, workers on the "dives" into the vaults wore respirators tethered to an air supply, double layers of protective clothing with hoods and "ice vests" as defense against the summer heat. Some wore an additional layer of fire-protective clothing as they used plasma-arc tools to cut holes into the sides of the tanks within the vaults to gain access to the inside of the tanks. To get airborne radiation levels down, a fog containing glycerin was pumped into the vaults to settle out contaminants before each dive. But sometimes the industrial hazards in the vaults seemed more challenging than the radiation hazards, said Tim Trevis, lead nuclear chemical operator. The vaults were filled with equipment and debris they had to climb over and around in tight spaces. "You're attached to a fresh air hose," Piwetz said. "You have to make sure each step you don't get caught up on a piece of equipment or mixed up with another worker as far as tangled up lines." They also had to make sure they didn't step on any loose contamination that might become airborne. They carried hand misters to keep fogging. "Wetter is better," they told each other, Piwetz said. Because of the hoods, workers had "severe tunnel vision" as they went up and down ladders, moved around the vaults and did work, Trevis said. As many as five workers went into the vaults in each dive, with 20 support people remaining above. They stayed down for up to 90 minutes at a time, although sometimes the radiation readings were so high that they had to come back up almost immediately. Piping in the vaults was cut into 18-inch pieces, and up to 1,720 pounds of piping and equipment in each vault were placed into cloth bags and lifted out of the 31/2-foot entries. Enough waste, including an 800-pound overflow tank, was collected from the vaults to fill 873, 55-gallon drums. Most of the waste has enough plutonium contamination to require it to be sent to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, a national repository in New Mexico. When work began, residues had to be scraped and scrubbed from the floors of each tank. The final step was spraying an epoxy paint to hold any remaining contamination in place. "It's as clean as we could get it," said Stacy Charboneau, the Department of Energy project manager. As much as 50 grams of plutonium may remain etched into the concrete and tanks. The entries to the vaults have been sealed, and workers have removed contaminated duct work and disconnected building utilities to prepare it for demolition in May with hydraulic sheers mounted on heavy equipment. The work will be completed well ahead of the legal deadline under the Tri-Party Agreement. DOE has a 2011 deadline for the tanks to be cleaned out and a 2016 deadline for buildings to be removed. The underground tanks will remain for now, with a cap placed over the lower level of the building to prevent water from penetrating until further cleanup decisions are made for central Hanford. The liquid waste facility is the last of the highly contaminated buildings that DOE plans to take down for several years. Hanford officials are hoping that they'll receive approval to start shipping weapons-grade plutonium now stored at the Plutonium Finishing Plant to an off-site location, likely at the Savannah River, S.C., site. That will take two or three years, then several years of cleaning out buildings is planned. © 2007 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 49 Tri-City Herald: Hanford building set for demolition (w/ video) Demolition of 232-Z at PFP Cleanout "dives" into 241-Z at PFP Published Thursday, April 12th, 2007 By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer After 428 "dives" by Hanford workers into the vaults beneath the Plutonium Finishing Plant's Liquid Waste Treatment Facility, the Cold War relic is ready to come down. It will be the second of nine highly contaminated buildings at the Plutonium Finishing Plant to be demolished and likely the last to be demolished for several years. "The surface contamination when we started (was) pretty much off the scale," said project manager Brian Skeels of Fluor Hanford. In many cases, radiation levels were too high for instruments to read when cleanup work started. And the air within the vaults was contaminated at levels 30,000 times what workers are allowed to breathe without respirators. The Plutonium Finishing Plant began operating in 1949 to make plutonium produced in Hanford reactors into metal buttons the size of hockey pucks for shipment to the nation's production plants for nuclear weapons. The 241-Z Liquid Waste Treatment Facility opened when the main plant did, collecting waste with acids and plutonium from the plant in five underground tanks and treating it for disposal. Although the Plutonium Finishing Plant stopped operating in 1989, the waste treatment facility was used as recently as 2004 to hold liquid waste from stabilizing plutonium and cleanup. Cleanup of the facility was one of the most challenging jobs in the 15-acre Plutonium Finishing Plant complex, said Bruce Klos, Fluor Hanford vice president for closure of the plant. "It was a very tough assignment" for the workers, he said. They climbed down ladders into vaults 22 feet deep and 17 feet square, each holding a 4,600-gallon tank. "It's hot," said Jerome Piwetz, a radiological control technician. "There's not a whole lot of light." Because of the high contamination levels, workers on the "dives" into the vaults wore respirators tethered to an air supply, double layers of protective clothing with hoods and "ice vests" as defense against the summer heat. Some wore an additional layer of fire-protective clothing as they used plasma-arc tools to cut holes into the sides of the tanks within the vaults to gain access to the inside of the tanks. To get airborne radiation levels down, a fog containing glycerin was pumped into the vaults to settle out contaminants before each dive. But sometimes the industrial hazards in the vaults seemed more challenging than the radiation hazards, said Tim Trevis, lead nuclear chemical operator. The vaults were filled with equipment and debris they had to climb over and around in tight spaces. "You're attached to a fresh air hose," Piwetz said. "You have to make sure each step you don't get caught up on a piece of equipment or mixed up with another worker as far as tangled up lines." They also had to make sure they didn't step on any loose contamination that might become airborne. They carried hand misters to keep fogging. "Wetter is better," they told each other, Piwetz said. Because of the hoods, workers had "severe tunnel vision" as they went up and down ladders, moved around the vaults and did work, Trevis said. As many as five workers went into the vaults in each dive, with 20 support people remaining above. They stayed down for up to 90 minutes at a time, although sometimes the radiation readings were so high that they had to come back up almost immediately. Piping in the vaults was cut into 18-inch pieces, and up to 1,720 pounds of piping and equipment in each vault were placed into cloth bags and lifted out of the 31/2-foot entries. Enough waste, including an 800-pound overflow tank, was collected from the vaults to fill 873, 55-gallon drums. Most of the waste has enough plutonium contamination to require it to be sent to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, a national repository in New Mexico. When work began, residues had to be scraped and scrubbed from the floors of each tank. The final step was spraying an epoxy paint to hold any remaining contamination in place. "It's as clean as we could get it," said Stacy Charboneau, the Department of Energy project manager. As much as 50 grams of plutonium may remain etched into the concrete and tanks. The entries to the vaults have been sealed, and workers have removed contaminated duct work and disconnected building utilities to prepare it for demolition in May with hydraulic sheers mounted on heavy equipment. The work will be completed well ahead of the legal deadline under the Tri-Party Agreement. DOE has a 2011 deadline for the tanks to be cleaned out and a 2016 deadline for buildings to be removed. The underground tanks will remain for now, with a cap placed over the lower level of the building to prevent water from penetrating until further cleanup decisions are made for central Hanford. The liquid waste facility is the last of the highly contaminated buildings that DOE plans to take down for several years. Hanford officials are hoping that they'll receive approval to start shipping weapons-grade plutonium now stored at the Plutonium Finishing Plant to an off-site location, likely at the Savannah River, S.C., site. That will take two or three years, then several years of cleaning out buildings is planned. * Annette Cary: 582-1533; acary@tricityherald.com © 2007 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press & Other Wire Services ***************************************************************** 50 Recordnet.com: Livermore lab says bigger blasts would send depleted uranium into air By Jake Armstrong Record Staff Writer April 12, 2007 6:00 AM TRACY - Bigger outdoor blasts proposed at an explosives test range southwest of Tracy could release up to 453 pounds of depleted uranium into the air a year, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory officials told air pollution regulators in an application last week. Lab officials did not disclose that information in a November request to the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District to more than triple the amount of explosives used in detonations at its test range, Site 300. The district initially granted the lab permission, but revoked the permit in March after learning the blasts would contain radioactive materials. Depleted uranium is less radioactive than naturally occurring uranium, and when detonated, it would be carried by wind, said Gretchen Gallegos, of the lab's Operations and Regulatory Affairs Division. The lab has not found radiation levels above federal thresholds at its monitoring stations, she said. "All of our activities are well within any health measure, and there's nothing to be concerned about," Gallegos said. The public will be able to give input on this new explosives request at public meetings the dates of which are yet to be determined, said Jaime Holt, the district's public information administrator. District staff approved the lab's permit without any public scrutiny in November, causing a public outcry. This time, the district will perform a risk assessment on the blasts and review the request according to the California Environmental Quality Act, Holt said, adding the district just began reviewing the application and does not yet have a time line for completion. Lab officials want to increase the amount of explosives used in blasts from 100 pounds to 350 pounds for government tests performed at the site, which is owned by the U.S. Department of Energy and operated by the University of California. The explosions would be capped at 8,000 pounds a year; lab officials said they plan only three tests per year at the 350-pound level. Meanwhile, U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials will tour Site 300 Monday to further evaluate the University of California's proposal to locate there the National Bio- and Agro-Defense Facility, which would research incurable diseases that harm humans, animals and plants. The visit is part of a nationwide tour of 18 sites vying for the federal laboratory. DHS officials will then shorten the list of proposals, conduct environmental reviews of the finalists, and decide on a site in October 2008. Contact reporter Jake Armstrong at (209) 239-3368 or jarmstrong@recordnet.com. Reader Reaction These discussions and our forums are not moderated. We rely on users to police themselves, and flag inappropriate comments and behavior. You need not be registered to report abuse. In accordance with our Terms of Service, we reserve the right to remove any post at any time for any reason, and will restrict access of registered users who repeatedly violate our terms. Click here if you wish to report inappropriate comments or behavior. Copyright 1998 - 2007 ONI Stockton, Inc., All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 51 Rocky Mountain News: Rocky Flats whistle-blower dies at 82 James Stone recently lost bid for $1 million James Stone "wanted to solve the problems, not ignore them." By Laura Frank And Ann Imse, Rocky Mountain News April 12, 2007 James Stone was an engineer to the core. And that made it impossible for him to leave a problem until it was solved. His hardscrabble life in a Depression-era orphanage and his hard-won engineering degree led to his career-defining challenge: being the chief whistle-blower on environmental crimes at the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons site near Denver. "He would work on a problem round the clock," son Bob said. "That's what got him in trouble at Rocky Flats. He wanted to solve the problems, not ignore them." Stone, who suffered from Alzheimer's, died Wednesday at the Julia Temple Center in Englewood. He was 82. Stone, who worked at Rocky Flats from 1980 to 1986, was the first Flats insider to go to the FBI with details of the radioactive pollution released by the site contractor, Rockwell International. Rockwell pleaded guilty to 10 environmental crimes and paid $18.5 million in fines. Stone filed a whistle-blower fraud case against Rockwell and won $4.2 million in damages for the federal government. Just two weeks ago, after an 18-year fight, the U.S. Supreme Court denied him a $1 million share in those damages. "He died with nothing more than the clothes on his back and the love of his family and friends," Bob Stone said. "I know if he had it to do all over again, even knowing how it turned out, he would have done it just the same." Stone was born in 1924. His parents couldn't afford to keep him during the Depression, his son said, so he went to a Catholic orphanage in St. Louis. As a young teen, a family with a coal business took him in. Barred from World War II because of a hearing problem, he worked on engineering jobs in Alaska, on the Air Force Academy chapel and on the Brown Palace heating system. He worked on missile silos in Idaho and Wyoming, and surveyed a pipeline across Greenland. He also invented a sewage treatment system for rural mountain homes and a municipal trash incinerator. Stone helped design Rocky Flats before it opened in 1952, and he warned against the location "because Denver was downwind a few miles away," said his longtime attorney and friend Hartley Alley. Jon Lipsky, the FBI agent who led the 1989 raid on Rocky Flats, said Stone "was the first one who worked at the plant to talk to me." Stone's job was to identify problems at the plant and recommend solutions. So he was able to give the FBI a road map, Alley said. Alley said Stone was the source of a key allegation in the FBI search warrant - that Rockwell was incinerating radioactive waste in secret at night. That charge was dropped when Rockwell settled the criminal case, and prosecutors said it wasn't true. But Alley says he had two other clients who witnessed it. Stone's motivation for filing the whistle-blower lawsuit in 1989 was patriotic, Alley said. "He felt the people who operated Rocky Flats in the 1980s were guilty of treason" by building nuclear weapons that wouldn't explode, Alley said. In the fraud suit, Stone alleged that Rockwell was defrauding the government by taking money for building faulty weapons while polluting the environment. Proving faulty production was impossible because the evidence was classified, Alley said. Jim Stone "wasn't afraid of jumping into anything," his son said. "The world is a better place with people like him." Stone is survived by his wife Virginia, sons Bob, of Lakewood, and Randy, of Wheat Ridge, five grandchildren and 13 great- grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his eldest son, James Stone Jr. imsea@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5438 frankl@RockyMountain News.com or 303-954-5091 Site Map | Photo Reprints | Corrections 2007 The E.W. Scripps Co. ***************************************************************** 52 Inside Bay Area: Report doubts lab terror threat Nuclear watchdog says analysis of attack risk insufficient as Livermore facility takes step toward opening By Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER Article Last Updated: 04/12/2007 02:58:52 AM PDT Federal authorities said the odds of a successful terrorist plot against a new biodefense lab in Livermore are too uncertain and remote to calculate, and that in any event the consequences of an attack or theft at the lab would be manageable. The National Nuclear Security Administration, ordered by a federal appeals court last year to weigh the risks of terrorist acts at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratorys new biodefense research lab, reiterated Wednesday many of the same conclusions the agency cited to avoid analyzing terrorist threats in the first place. NNSA believes the probability of a successful terrorist act at the LLNL BSL-3 facility is very low, and it is not an event expected during the life of the facility, the agency wrote in its latest environmental study of the lab. Intentional malevolent acts, such as terrorist acts, do not lend themselves to the type of probability analysis conducted in (environmental review) documents for accidents. The agencys contemplation of terrorist risk is nonetheless the first time a federal agency after the Sept. 11 attacks has evaluated terrorism as part of legally mandated environmental studies. Barring objections from the public, those conclusions are a step toward the nuclear agencys finding of no significant risk from the new lab and opening it for research aimed at better detecting and thwarting bioterror attacks. Appeals by critics could keep the matter of its operation before the courts for a year or more. My conclusion is this document is not the serious analysis that the community deserves and that the court ordered. This document is intended toreassure, and it does not make me feel safer because it does not deal with the genuine risks that come with operation of this facility, said Marylia Kelley, head of a Livermore-based nuclear watchdog group, Tri-Valley CAREs. In short, the agency found, terrorists are too unpredictable and are unlikely to attack a federal nuclear-weapons lab equipped with its own SWAT-like paramilitary force and truck-mounted machine guns. Smart terrorists would get their germs from animals and soil, the same way that governments built their own biological arsenals. Federal documents show the facility could contain as many as 25,000 different samples of germs that cause anthrax, plague, Q fever and other diseases, for a total of as much as 100 liters. If terrorists did attack Lawrence Livermores biolab, the nuclear agency concluded, the attack itself probably would destroy the germs inside with blast, heat and exposure to ultraviolet rays in sunlight. Therefore, a terrorist act, such as a plane crash, would not be expected to result in a release of greater magnitude than from other catastrophic events already considered in this document or, for example, from releases that routinely occur during lambing season at numerous local ranches, or from births of other infected domestic or wild animals, the agency concluded. Kelley called the comparison of a suicidal plane crash into a lab full of germ warfare specimens to the birth of an infected ewe ludicrous. If what they were saying is true, you wouldnt need any safety measures whatsoever. Its like comparing the amount of uranium you find in granite to stockpiles of weapons-grade uranium, she said. Sure, live anthrax exists in nature, but obviously a terrorist would be more interested in getting a milled biowarfare agent or an agent concentrated in solution from a laboratory. I dont think this document is honest. Courts typically defer to federal agencies in the evaluation of environmental harm. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected an earlier environmental study of the lab for failing to evaluate terrorist risk but could conclude the latest evaluation is sufficient. We think this does the job, said NNSA spokeswoman Lauren Martinez. The study can be found at http://www.envirinfo.llnl.gov. Contact Ian Hoffman at ihoffman@angnewspapers.com or (510) 208-6458. 2000-2006 ANG Newspapers | Privacy Policy ***************************************************************** 53 Rocky Mountain News: Sick ex-nuclear workers sue, claim feds withholding care Lives are at risk as D.C. dawdles, lawsuit alleges By Laura Frank, Rocky Mountain News April 12, 2007 Six former nuclear weapons workers filed a class-action federal lawsuit Wednesday in Denver, saying their lives are at risk because the government is withholding payment of medical costs it promised to cover. The plaintiffs are Cold War veterans who became ill after working around radiactive or other toxic materials as they made bombs for the country's nuclear arsenal. Most of them are dying. The attorney who filed suit on their behalf says federal officials seem to have followed a pattern of trying to contain costs at the expense of ill workers. The workers are eligible for home health care as part of a compensation program created by federal law in 2001, when the government acknowledged, after decades of denials, that nuclear weapons workers had faced health risks that were sometimes hidden from them. The lawsuit in U.S. District Court contends that Labor Department officials are denying, delaying and limiting doctors' orders to provide high levels of home nursing care for severely ill and dying weapons workers. Some workers have waited seven months or more for their care to be approved, and then at levels less than their doctors ordered. "That's saving the government a great deal of money," said attorney Greg Piche, of the Denver law firm of Holland & Hart. "But it's also putting these people in harm's way." In an interview last week, Assistant Deputy Labor Secretary Shelby Hallmark, who oversees the program and is named a defendant in the suit, said the department is not trying to deny care but is trying to make sure the level of care is appropriate. Hecould not be reached Wednesday. The suit says the workers "for the most part (are) isolated, frail and suffering severe and/or terminal disease," and that delaying or restricting their care is "life- threatening" to them. It added that officials are "dodging the payments mandated by Congress." Former weapons worker Addison Keaton, a plaintiff from Ohio, said his doctor ordered full-time nursing care, but the Labor Department would approve only a nurse's aide who wasn't qualified to administer his medication. "We're not asking them to do anything they didn't already say they would do," he said. Denver's Professional Case Management, the nation's largest provider of home nursing care to ill weapons workers, hired Holland & Hart to file the suit. PCM President Greg Austin said some clients didn't participate because they feared retribution on their compensation cases. But he said he expects other clients to join in the suit. Department of Labor officials have come under fire in the past few months from the ill, their advocates and some lawmakers who say recently released internal documents show Labor officials and the White House discussed ways to limit compensation. "You have the same effect and the same players," Piche said, referring to the officials in charge of the compensation and medical coverage programs. "It's not too hard to draw the dots." frankl@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5091 ***************************************************************** 54 KnoxNews: TVA ready for final Browns Ferry review By ANDREW EDER, edera@knews.com April 12, 2007 TVA has told the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that it is ready for a final review of its restart of the Unit 1 reactor at Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant. Unit 1, which TVA expects to return to service in May, would be the first new nuclear generation in the United States this century. The NRC, which oversees TVA's three nuclear plants, will send a team to evaluate Browns Ferry's management oversight, corrective action programs and other procedures necessary to support safe operations, according to a release from TVA. TVA expects the assessment to take place in late April. More details as they develop online and in Friday's News Sentinel. Copyright 2007, Knoxville News Sentinel Co. ***************************************************************** 55 KNDO/KNDU: Another Part of Historic Plutonium Finishing Plant Coming Down Tri-Cities, Yakima, WA | RICHLAND, Wash.- A highly contaminated building that once helped produce most of the nation's weapons grade plutonium is coming down. Crews have worked for three years to clean out highly contaminated tanks below the building. The plant produced two-thirds of the nation's Plutonium during the Cold War. DOE hasn't decided what they'll do with underground tanks once the building is down, they'll cover them with an environmentally safe cover until that decision is made. All content Copyright 2000 - 2007 WorldNow and KNDO/KNDU. 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