***************************************************************** 06/24/07 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 15.147 ***************************************************************** 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 IAEA: IAEA Team to arrive in Pyongyang Tuesday for Talks 2 Guardian Unlimited: U.S.-NKorea Set Timeline to Shut Reactor 3 US: SF Chron: Energy bill reflects shift in political power / Victor 4 US: MyWestTexas.com: Going underground for a greenhouse gas solution 5 US: Public Citizen: Senate’s Underwhelming Energy Bill Shows Oil NUCLEAR REACTORS 6 BBC NEWS: Bid to create UK 'energy coast' 7 Independent: 10,000 nuclear jobs for British workers - 8 AFP: Bangladesh to build nuclear power plant - 9 Daily Star: Dhaka gets IAEA nod to set up N-plant 10 Telegraph: Sparks of nuke hope 11 Telegraph: Nuclear talks go under cover 12 AFP: Singapore FM sees Myanmar nuclear programme as unlikely - 13 ottawasun.com: Future of energy goes nuclear NUCLEAR SECURITY 14 The Hindu: India to join global container security initiative NUCLEAR SAFETY 15 US: [NYTr] Nuke Industry Workers Denied Government Benefits 16 US: Murfreesboro Post: Local officials never told about radiation 17 Telegraph: Nuclear watchdog's safety warning NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 18 US: Tri-City Herald: Perma-Fix aims to treat more waste 19 Independent: The future of Sellafield lies deep in Scandinavia - 20 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Defense bill contains threat to case against 21 US: Moscow Time: Uranium Reserves Top 1 Million Tons 22 US: Reuters: Miners having a blast in Utah uranium rush 23 US: Kommersant Moscow: Russian Uranium to Become Richer - 24 US: Murfreesboro Post: EDITORIAL: Stop radioactive dumping here 25 US: Murfreesboro Post: Area group on radioactive waste meets Monday 26 US: Murfreesboro Post: Radioactive would have alerted county officia 27 US: Press-Enterprise: Perchlorate hearing deferred | 28 US: Press-Enterprise: Water-contamination hearing deferred again | 29 Reid: Reid Hails Passage Of Energy Bill That Strengthens Nevada 30 US: Portland Press Herald: Maine repeats nuclear waste-site error 31 Las Vegas SUN: Editorial: Bye, bye Johnny 32 Las Vegas SUN: Editorial: Let's listen this time PEACE US DEPT. OF ENERGY 33 Inside Bay Area: Feds try to reassure lab workers about benefits 34 Tracy Press: Site 300 meeting rescheduled 35 lamonitor.com: Citizens board takes the long view 36 Columbian: Its time to rethink Hanford - ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 IAEA: IAEA Team to arrive in Pyongyang Tuesday for Talks Press Release 2007/08 18 June 2007 | The invitation from the DPRK’s Director General of the General Department of Atomic Energy, Mr. Ri Je Son, came on 16 June. The team is expected to discuss and agree on modalities for verification and monitoring by the IAEA of the shutdown of the Yongbyon nuclear facility. DPRK officials confirmed the timing of the visit this afternoon. “This is good news,” IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei told a press conference today, “and I think we finally should be able to start what I think will be a long and complex process, but I believe very much a process in the right direction.” Notice to journalists: The IAEA team will not be giving any interviews. Limited photo opportunities may be possible on Sunday, 24 June 2007, at Vienna International Airport. Please contact Ayhan Evrensel for more information. Melissa Fleming Head, Media and Outreach Section Spokesperson Division of Public Information [43-1] 2600-21275 [43] 699-165-21275 (mobile) Ayhan Evrensel Press and Public Information Officer Media and Outreach Section Division of Public Information [43-1] 2600-21271 [43] 699-165-21271 (mobile) About the IAEA The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) serves as the world's foremost intergovernmental forum for scientific and technical co-operation in the peaceful use of nuclear technology. Established as an autonomous organization under the United Nations (UN) in 1957, the IAEA carries out programmes to maximize the useful contribution of nuclear technology to society while verifying its peaceful use. NOTE TO EDITORS: For additional information visit the Press Section of the IAEA's website (http://www.iaea.org/Resources/Journalists/), or call the IAEA's Division of Public Information at (431) 2600-21270. Copyright ©, International Atomic Energy Agency, P.O. Box 100, Wagramer Strasse 5, A-1400 Vienna, Austria Telephone (+431) 2600-0; Facsimilie (+431) 2600-7; E-mail: ***************************************************************** 2 Guardian Unlimited: U.S.-NKorea Set Timeline to Shut Reactor From the Associated Press Saturday June 23, 2007 10:16 AM By HIROKO TABUCHI Associated Press Writer TOKYO (AP) - North Korea could shut down its plutonium-producing reactor within three weeks, a top U.S. nuclear envoy said Saturday after returning from a rare visit to the reclusive country. Christopher Hill - the chief U.S. negotiator at international talks on North Korea's nuclear programs - also told reporters in Tokyo that the next round of nuclear negotiations could begin in early July, before a full shutdown of the Yongbyon reactor. Hill said the reactor would be closed after North Korea and the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog agree on how to monitor the process. U.N. inspectors are to arrive in North Korea on Tuesday. ``We do expect this to be soon, probably within three weeks ... though I don't want to be pinned down on precisely the date,'' Hill told reporters after briefing his Japanese counterpart, Kenichiro Sasae, on the outcome of his two-day surprise trip to the North Korean capital. North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency described the talks as ``comprehensive and productive'' on Saturday. The trip - the first by a high-ranking U.S. official since 2002 - came amid growing optimism that North Korea may finally be ready to take concrete steps toward fulfilling a promise to dismantle its nuclear programs. Last week, the secretive nation invited inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency to begin discussing the procedures for shutting down its Yongbyon reactor. The country expelled the U.N. nuclear inspectors in late 2002. The IAEA announced Friday that a delegation led by Olli Heinonen, the agency's deputy director general for safeguards, would arrive in Pyongyang on Tuesday for a five-day visit. Hill said earlier he was happy that the team was set to go, but cautioned that halting the reactor was just a first step. ``Shutting down the reactor won't solve all our problems, but in order to solve our problems we need to make this beginning,'' he told reporters after arriving in Tokyo. ``We really think this is the time to pick up the pace.'' North Korean officials told Hill during his visit that they were prepared to shut down the Yongbyon facility as called for in a disarmament agreement reached in February, under which North Korea pledged to close the reactor and allow in U.N. inspectors in exchange for energy aid. North Korea was to have done that by mid-April, but missed the deadline over a delay in resolving a separate financial dispute involving North Korean funds frozen at a Macau bank. The bank was blacklisted by the U.S. for allegedly aiding North Korea in money laundering and counterfeiting, leading to the freezing of some $25 million of North Korean money. The funds were freed earlier this year, but only last week started to be transferred to a North Korean account at a Russian bank. Russian news agencies, citing unnamed finance ministry officials, reported Saturday that the North Korean funds had reached Dalkombank, a bank in the Russian Far Eastern city of Khabarovsk. Bank officials could not be located to comment on the reports, while no one answered phones at the Central Bank or the Finance Ministry. Russia's deputy foreign minister said Friday the funds would be fully transferred sometime next week. North Korea had made the money's release a main condition for its disarmament, and used the financial dispute as a reason to stay away from six-party nuclear talks - involving the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the U.S. - for more than a year, during which it conducted its first-ever nuclear test explosion in October. Hill said Saturday that talks could begin before the reactor was fully shut down. ``I would expect it to happen soon after shutdown begins,'' Hill said, adding the exact timing depended on scheduling by the host nation, China. KCNA said that during Hill's trip, ``both sides shared the views that they would start implementing the (February) agreement on the premise that the issue of the remittance of the funds is finally settled.'' North Korea is to ultimately get aid worth 1 million tons of heavy fuel oil and other political concessions after it fully disables the reactor. KCNA also said the two sides would seek to hold a meeting in early August of foreign ministers from the six nations in the nuclear talks on the sidelines of an Asian security forum in the Philippines. --- Associated Press writer Bo-Mi Lim in Seoul contributed to this report. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007 ***************************************************************** 3 SF Chron: Energy bill reflects shift in political power / Victory in November allowed Democrats to move focus from drilling to conservation Zachary Coile, Chronicle Washington Bureau Saturday, June 23, 2007 (06-23) 04:00 PDT Washington -- The Senate's passage of an energy bill this week shows that elections matter -- even a slight Democratic majority, with the help of some Republicans, has begun shifting the nation's energy policy from a focus on drilling to conservation and using renewable fuels. For six years while Republicans controlled Congress, the majority followed the motto of Vice President Dick Cheney, who led the administration's energy task force and famously said: "Conservation may be a sign of personal virtue, but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy." Now the pendulum is swinging the other way. Senate Democrats focused their new energy bill on trying to reduce America's thirst for oil by approving the first major hike in fuel-economy standards for cars and trucks. The bill also includes a host of efficiency measures -- including new standards for appliances and lightbulbs -- and requires all federal buildings to use 30 percent less energy by 2015 and stop using all fossil-fuel-based energy by 2030. "It's the beginning of a revolution in American energy policy," Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., said Friday. Some environmental groups complained that the fuel economy standards didn't go far enough, and Senate Democrats lost on two major proposals that would have steered America even further toward renewable fuels: a $32 billion tax package, which would have asked oil and gas companies to subsidize alternative energy, and a requirement that electric utilities produce 15 percent of their power from renewable sources. Republicans, egged on by oil companies and electric utilities, defeated both measures. But Senate Democrats pointed to the differences with the last energy bill, passed by a Republican Congress in 2005, which offered billions of dollars in tax breaks for energy production, mostly oil, gas, coal and nuclear, while also boosting the ethanol industry. "Take a look at the last energy bill and then take a look at this energy bill, and take a look at the contrast," said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., noting that the previous bill did not address fuel economy or climate change. "Global warming wasn't even supposed to be mentioned in polite Republican company." Democrats passed the most far-reaching piece -- the increase in fuel economy -- by tying it to an offer that farm-state Republicans couldn't refuse: a mandate that Americans use 36 billion gallons of biofuels by 2022, a sevenfold increase in the ethanol supply that is sure to delight corn growers and cellulosic ethanol entrepreneurs. The package won over 18 Republicans, including ethanol champions such as Sens. Charles Grassley of Iowa, Richard Lugar of Indiana, Norm Coleman of Minnesota and John Thune of South Dakota. Still, a few GOP lawmakers from the heartland, including Nebraska's Chuck Hagel and Kansas' Pat Roberts, opposed the bill. Democratic leaders knew they would lose votes from their party -- members from auto-producing states where raising fuel economy is politically taboo. Michigan Sens. Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow and Missouri's Claire McCaskill joined the majority of Republicans in voting against the bill. But the package passed on a 65-27 vote, after a surprising number of pro-drilling Republicans -- including Alaska's two senators -- agreed that raising fuel economy and boosting ethanol were worthy goals. Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, a longtime advocate of increased oil and gas drilling, noted how stunned automakers were when he -- following President Bush's lead -- proposed a 4 percent yearly increase in federal fuel-economy standards. "The auto companies came to me and said, 'Why are you doing that? You've never supported (Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards) before,' " Craig said. "I said, 'You haven't changed in 27 years and I haven't changed in the 27 years I've been in Congress. I'm changing and it's time for you to change.' We expect them to change." Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Friday the timing was right for a shift on energy. Americans have grown frustrated as the price of a gallon of gas nationwide soared above $3 this spring. The public, and especially the Democratic Party's liberal base, is demanding action on climate change, which means reducing greenhouse gases from cars and other sources. The war in Iraq -- plus turmoil in oil-rich Middle East, Africa and Venezuela -- is reminding lawmakers of the economic and national security risks of America's dependence on foreign oil. "The fight is not over," Reid said, noting that a major showdown over fuel economy still looms in the House. "But this is a big first step." Environmentalists are debating whether the Senate energy bill was a victory or a setback for conservation efforts. Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen, said the deal cut on fuel economy -- an increase to 35 miles per gallon by 2020, to be set by the Transportation Department -- will replace "the fair, across-the-board corporate average standard with a complex, size-based sliding scale that allows manufacturers to set their own standards based on their product plans." "This is not a win, nor is it a step forward for fuel economy, consumers or the environment," said Claybrook, who was administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration during the Carter administration. "This is a step backward." But David Friedman of the Union of Concerned Scientists, said he's more of an optimist, noting that Bush has said he supports a major increase in fuel economy -- and a future administration may be even more supportive. "The administration, if they so choose, could still undercut the will of the American public," he said. "We heard very loudly that the Senate supports 35 miles per gallon, and I think we'll soon hear the Congress does as well. At the end of the day, I think everyone here is going to be working very hard to keep the administration's feet to the fire to make sure it gets done." Energy proposal The Senate energy legislation approved late Thursday night: -- Increases automobile fuel-economy requirements to a fleetwide average of 35 mpg by 2020 from the current requirements of 27.5 mpg for cars and 22.2 mpg for sport utility vehicles and small trucks. -- Requires that half of the new cars manufactured by 2015 be capable of running on 85 percent ethanol or biodiesel fuels. -- Mandates the production of 36 billion gallons a year of ethanol, as a substitute for gasoline, by 2022 -- a sevenfold increase over production in 2006. Ethanol would be made from corn and cellulosic sources such as prairie grass and wood chips. -- Establishes price-gouging provisions that make it unlawful to charge an "unconscionably excessive" price for oil products including gasoline and gives the federal government new authority to investigate oil industry market manipulation. -- Creates new appliance and lighting efficiency standards and requires the federal government to accelerate use of more efficient lighting in public buildings. -- Provides grants, loan guarantees and other assistance to promote research into fuel-efficient vehicles, including hybrids, advanced diesel and battery technologies. -- Supports large-scale demonstrations that capture carbon dioxide from coal-burning power plants and injects it into the ground. Source: Associated Press E-mail Zachary Coile at zcoile@sfchronicle.com. This article appeared on page A - 3 of the San Francisco Chronicle ***************************************************************** 4 MyWestTexas.com: Going underground for a greenhouse gas solution Houston Chronicle Midland Reporter-Telegram 06/24/2007 Houston Chronicle DAYTON -- While world leaders made pledges to cut greenhouse gases at the recent G8 Summit in Germany, Sue Hovorka was in the backwoods of East Texas working to help them keep those promises. For more than 10 hours during the summit, the University of Texas geologist, her colleague Tip Meckel and a team from the company Praxair toiled in the heat and haze, using sensitive gas-detection equipment around a pair of inactive oil wellheads. Their goal: to find even the slightest hint that the carbon dioxide they injected 4,000 feet underground two years ago had made it to the surface at the heavily wooded site near the Trinity River. Known as the Frio Brine Project, the site is on the leading edge of Department of Energy-funded studies looking into carbon sequestration, the process of injecting CO2 -- a byproduct of burning fossil fuels -- deep into the ground. Carbon capture and storage could be part of the solution to global warming, which many climatologists attribute at least partly to a greenhouse effect that occurs when carbon dioxide and other gases trap heat in the atmosphere. The hope is that CO2 can be stripped from the emissions of power plants and other users of fossil fuels, shipped by pipeline and injected deep underground into old oil and natural gas fields or brine formations. The idea may seem simple, particularly because companies have been injecting CO2 into the ground to force oil and natural gas out of hard-to-reach formations for decades. But no one has tried to keep so much CO2 in storage, particularly the millions of tons that would need to be injected to keep up with annual CO2 emissions. The U.S. generates about 6 billion tons of CO2 per year from all sources, according to the Department of Energy. Not easy, and not cheap Experts say it also isn't going to be easy or cheap. The notion of putting power plant byproducts deep underground may sound a bit like the controversial Yucca Mountain, Nev., storage site for spent nuclear fuel. But Hovorka said the two aren't anything alike. CO2 isn't considered a toxic or hazardous substance like uranium, she said. And once CO2 is injected into a formation, like the brine reservoir near Dayton, it is hard to get it back out. About 20 percent of it dissolves in the brine, creating a weak acid much like what puts the fizz in a carbonated soda. The rest is trapped in the sand and rock of the formation through a process called phase trapping, Hovorka said. It's a process similar to a sponge soaking up a fluid, except that it's much harder to wring the gas back out. "It's like getting grease on your tie," Hovorka said. "You can't just rinse it out with water. You have to use another chemical to separate it." During the tests researchers found traces of CO2 in the soil around the wellheads, but after hours of testing they determined it came from a tiny leak in the wellhead. Avoiding aquifers A more likely hazard from CO2 injection would be if the salty water it displaces in the brine were pushed into a fresh water aquifer that was being used for drinking water, Hovorka said. That can be avoided by using brine formations that aren't near drinking water sources. Finding such formations shouldn't be hard. Between brine formations like the one Hovorka is working with and oil and gas reservoirs, there may be capacity for as much as 500 billion tons of CO2 storage in the U.S., according to studies done by the University of Texas' Bureau of Economic Geology. South Texas alone has capacity to store an estimated 171 billion metric tons of CO2. Hovorka and Meckel hope to take their work to the next level this fall. That's when they will begin working with Denbury Resources to inject 1 million tons of CO2, or roughly the annual output of a coal-fired power plant, into an underground formation in Mississippi. The technology for carbon capture and storage already exists, and in some instances has been used for decades, said Mark Morey, a director at Cambridge Energy Research Associates. But it can add a lot of cost to a project. The greatest cost in the process is carbon capture, or removing the CO2 from the fuel of a power plant before it is burned or from the exhaust afterwards. Morey says a typical coal plant can cost between $50 and $60 per megawatt hour to build and operate, but adding the capacity to capture the CO2 can add an additional $25 to $30 per megawatt hour, he says. The cost of transporting and storing the CO2 underground would be $10 to $15 per megawatt hour, Morey said, but that's assuming the pipeline and storage infrastructure were already in place. For companies to invest in such systems there would have to be an economic incentive, such as a tax on carbon emissions greater than the cost of capture and storage. Even if the penalties for emitting CO2 were high enough to convince companies to capture it, a number of serious legal liabilities also would keep companies from rushing into the storage business, said Tim Bradley, head of Kinder Morgan's CO2 business. ©MyWestTexas.com 2007 ***************************************************************** 5 Public Citizen: Senate’s Underwhelming Energy Bill Shows Oil Companies and Other Polluters Still Calling the Shots, Misses Opportunities to Support Renewable Energy, Strong Fuel Economy and Clean Energy Investments June 22, 2007 Senate’s Underwhelming Energy Bill Shows Oil Companies and Other Polluters Still Calling the Shots, Misses Opportunities to Support Renewable Energy, Strong Fuel Economy and Clean Energy Investments Statement of Tyson Slocum, Director of Public Citizen’s Energy Program Late Thursday, the Senate passed energy legislation that will do very little to address climate change or alleviate high energy prices. While the bill provides marginal improvement in some energy efficiency standards for appliances, it fails to make the comprehensive reforms needed to shift subsidies away from the coal, oil and nuclear industries to investments in home renewable energy and energy efficiency initiatives. Lawmakers let automakers off the hook by not requiring them to provide real and achievable improvements in fuel economy. Instead, the bill allows for a size-based sliding scale that enables manufacturers to set their own standards. It also would allow President Bush and future administrations to go below the target of 35 miles per gallon by 2020 if they produce a cost-benefit analysis justifying a lower goal – thereby rendering the target meaningless. (For more analysis of the fuel economy provisions in the bill, click here.) The bill’s consumer price-gouging protections are limited because they would apply only after the president has declared an emergency. The Senate rejected an effort to repeal $9 billion in recently awarded oil company tax breaks and raise an additional $10 billion through increased royalty fees, which would have financed more financial incentives for people to install home solar systems and encouraged eco-friendly household renovations. The Senate also rejected a federal renewable electricity standard that would have followed the lead of similar plans in 22 states to require that electric utilities procure or produce 15 percent of their power from renewable resources by 2020. The bill backs dubious science, putting the cart before the horse on a number of issues. It mandates that 21 billion gallons of non-corn ethanol (and 15 billion gallons of corn ethanol) be used to fuel automobiles by 2022 – despite the fact that most experts dispute the ability of agricultural fuels to meet this target. And the legislation spends more than $1.5 billion promoting carbon sequestration, the controversial plan to place underground millions of tons of carbon dioxide from new coal-fired facilities in an effort to combat climate change. America deserves an energy policy that puts money in the hands of citizens to install home-based renewable energy systems and invest in energy efficiency. Instead, the Senate continued down the path of handing taxpayer subsidies to big energy companies, and as a result we are not any closer to solving climate change or bringing relief from high energy prices. The House of Representatives should not follow suit. ### ***************************************************************** 6 BBC NEWS: Bid to create UK 'energy coast' Last Updated: Sunday, 24 June 2007, 09:35 GMT 10:35 UK The government is considering plans which could transform West Cumbria into "Britain's Energy Coast". It is claimed the plan, put forward by regeneration bosses, business leaders and MPs, could create 16,000 jobs and a Ł700m boost to Cumbria's economy. It includes the creation of business parks, an academy for nuclear skills, a new hospital and major improvements to transport links and housing. 'Working hard' A formal bid for government funding for the scheme is due to be made in the autumn. The plan is a direct response to the ongoing decommissioning of the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant, which is expected to have a huge impact on the West Cumbrian economy. Jamie Reed, chairman of West Cumbria strategic forum, said: "Our Energy Coast plan has been warmly welcomed by government. This is an exciting time for our plan and we must continue to work hard to ensure that it happens." Steven Broomhead, chief executive of the Northwest Development Agency, added: "Designed to ensure the area is ready to grasp the opportunities offered by nuclear decommissioning, the programme will help the local economy to successfully adapt to the decline in employment at the Sellafield site." * BBC Copyright Notice ***************************************************************** 7 Independent: 10,000 nuclear jobs for British workers - Published: 24 June 2007 This week, Canadian nuclear company AECL will pledge to employ over 10,000 UK workers if it wins the contract to build a new generation of nuclear reactors. AECL will sign a joint agreement with the Unite union on Tuesday to use mostly UK workers, companies and suppliers if it leads the rebuilding programme in the UK. It submitted its Candu reactor design on Friday to the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate. Areva of France and General Electric and Westinghouse of the US have also submitted designs. Unite national officer Dougie Rooney said: "UK manufacturing needs a cut of the action and that's why we are supporting AECL. There is no point reducing our dependency on Vladimir Putin's oil and gas to become dependent on the intellectual expertise of France or the US." © 2007 Independent News and Media Limited ***************************************************************** 8 AFP: Bangladesh to build nuclear power plant - Sun Jun 24, 9:17 AM ET DHAKA (AFP) - Bangladesh's emergency government said it will build a nuclear power plant to meet electricity shortages that have sparked riots and hit the country's economy. The International Atomic Energy Commission, the global nuclear watchdog, had approved a government plan to set up a nuclear power plant, interim Energy Minister Tapan Chowdhury told reporters. "We have now got the approval from the organisation and already there is an offer from (South) Korea to finance 60 percent of the project," he said, without elaborating. Bangladesh faces massive electricity shortages that have hit its booming textile industry, with generation of 3,000 megawatts at peak times still 2,000 megawatts short of actual demand. Last year, violence over power cuts in a northern Bangladesh town left at least 20 people dead in clashes between police and farmers who had demanded increased power supply for irrigation. The country's military-backed government, which took over in January after an emergency was imposed and elections cancelled over vote-rigging allegations, has made tackling the power crisis one of its top priorities. The World Bank in July last year estimated that Bangladesh needed 10 billion dollars in investment for its electricity supply in the next decade. Copyright © 2007 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 9 Daily Star: Dhaka gets IAEA nod to set up N-plant Web Edition Vol. 5 Num 1090 Unb, Dhaka Bangladesh along with seven other countries has got the much-desired approval of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to set up nuclear reactors for power generation. Disclosing the news, Power and Energy Advisor Tapan Chowdhury told reporters yesterday that the present caretaker government has initiated various moves to resolve the country's nagging power crisis. His disclosure has come at a time when the country has been experiencing the worst power crisis with 3,200 MW of generation against its demand for over 5,000 MW. The adviser, however, refrained from detailing the IAEA approval or Bangladesh's plan for the plant. Official sources said the Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission (BAEC), instructed by the government, is considering reviving an old plan to set up a nuclear power plant. "Capacity of the proposed nuclear power plant is likely to be 600 MW and it will be set up at Ruppur in Dinajpur where about 260 acres of land was acquired before the country's independence," a BAEC official told the news agency. Another source said a high-powered delegation will visit South Korea next month to attend a conference of the IAEA and discuss the matter with a Korean power company, which offered to invest in the nuclear power plant project. The source also said an IAEA delegation is now in Dhaka to discuss different nuclear issues with the BAEC officials. The other countries which got the IAEA approval for setting up nuclear reactor includes Indonesia, Malaysia, Egypt, Morocco and some small countries in central Asia. As part of the government move to resolve the persisting power crisis, the advisor said, a high-powered delegation will visit Myanmar to discuss the prospect of setting up a hydropower plant there and thus adding electricity to the national grid. "We're considering all kinds of possible options to resolve the power crisis," Tapan said after a meeting at the power ministry. The meeting was convened to discuss the relevant issues on setting up hydropower plants and import of electricity from the neighbouring country. ***************************************************************** 10 Telegraph: Sparks of nuke hope Calcutta | Monday, June 25, 2007 | Advertise with us SANJAY OJHA Jamshedpur, June 24: Atomic Energy Commission chairperson Anil Kakodkar today brushed away speculation of shelving of a nuclear plant in East Singhbum ?due to its proximity to uranium ore at Jadugoda?. ?The site selection committee is looking into the project and at the moment there is no plan to shelve the project. This is a suitable site and we are keen on its becoming a reality,? he said. He also hinted at plans to increase nuclear power generation capacity of the country beyond the proposed plants in different parts of the country. Eight sites, which have already been approved are at Kudankulam in Tamil Nadu (2x1000 MWe), Kakrapar in Gujarat (2x700 MWe), Rawatbhata in Rajasthan (2x700 MWe) and Jaitapur in Maharashtra (2x1000 MWe). The total additional generation will be to the tune of 6800 MWe capacity. Kakodkar was in the city this evening for the inauguration of a processing unit of Uranium Corporation of India Ltd at Turamdih. He is scheduled to visit the other installation of UCIL and proposed mining sites at Baduhurang and Mohuldih in East Singhbhum before leaving for Ranchi. Sources in the DAE said approval of ministry of environment and forest for the proposed sites is at different stages. ?Pre-project activities have been initiated at some of the sites,? they said. Copyright © 2006 The Telegraph. All rights reserved. Disclaimer | ***************************************************************** 11 Telegraph: Nuclear talks go under cover Calcutta | Monday, June 25, 2007 | Advertise with us K.P. NAYAR Washington, June 24: The tortured negotiations over a 123 Agreement to operationalise the Indo-US nuclear deal will resume ?under cover? here on Monday. The negotiations are under cover because no formal meeting has been scheduled between Indian and US negotiators and nothing is on the official calendar of either government. But India?s regular negotiator on the 123 Agreement and the high commissioner to Singapore, S. Jaishankar, is arriving in Washington late Sunday. For the record, Jaishankar is here to speak at a biennial international non-proliferation conference hosted by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. One of his hosts will, therefore, be Ashley Tellis, the senior associate at the Endowment specialising in international security, defence, and Asian strategic issues. Tellis was part of the team which accompanied Nicholas Burns, the US under-secretary of state for political affairs, to New Delhi for a recent, much-publicised 123 round of talks. Tellis will informally talk to Jaishankar soon after his arrival, it is learnt. On Monday, Jaishankar will be joined by another Indian negotiator, Raminder Jassal, the deputy chief of mission at the Indian embassy here, in similar informal chats with US officials during breaks at the non-proliferation conference. The two sides will then sit down, unannounced, for a more organised round of discussions on Tuesday. The secrecy surrounding the latest negotiations has been prompted by new clouds gathering over the Indo-US nuclear deal, which neither Jaishankar nor his primary US interlocutor, Richard Stratford, the state department?s director for nuclear energy, safety and security, can control. There are fresh anxieties in New Delhi about the nuclear deal following a decision by the Conference on Disarmament (CD) in Geneva on the mandate of a newly-appointed coordinator to speed up negotiations on a Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty (FMCT). India is committed, under the original July 18, 2005, joint statement by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President George W. Bush, to working with the Americans on an FMCT. India agreed to that part of the joint statement two years ago because it appeared that the CD would not make progress towards an FMCT in the foreseeable future. The possibility of a new coordinator pushing through an end to fissile material production is creating nightmares in New Delhi and in Trombay, the high table of the country?s nuclear establishment. A restrictive 123 Agreement combined with an end to fissile material production could cap India?s nuclear weapons programme at a time when domestic uranium production is being hampered by a variety of reasons. As such, no external supplies of uranium have opened up and may not do so in future if the 123 Agreement being negotiated is loaded against New Delhi. In the face of these new challenges before the Indo-US nuclear deal, the government has so far put up a brave front. Copyright © 2006 The Telegraph. All rights reserved. Disclaimer | ***************************************************************** 12 AFP: Singapore FM sees Myanmar nuclear programme as unlikely - Sunday June 24, 04:07 PM Myanmar is unlikely to develop a nuclear programme as the military-run country already has enough domestic problems to overcome, Singapore's Foreign Minister George Yeo said Sunday. "I can't believe that a nuclear programme is high up on their list of priorities... They have enough problems of their own," Yeo said in response to a question at the World Economic Forum on East Asia. Russia announced in May that it had agreed to help build a nuclear research centre in Myanmar. Washington denounced the plan, saying such a facility would be a singularly bad idea given Myanmar's abysmal rights record and non-existent nuclear oversight structure. Myanmar is under US and European economic sanctions imposed in response to rights abuses and the house arrest of 62-year-old democracy icon and Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. Washington has accused the Myanmar regime of torturing, raping and executing its own people as well as waging war on minorities and looking the other way while drug and human trafficking grows. The impact of the sanctions has been muted as China, India, Russia and Thailand have spent billions of dollars to gain a share of Myanmar's vast energy resources. Myanmar is one of 10 members in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which includes Singapore, but it has embarrassed the regional bloc by refusing to introduce democratic reforms. The junta crushed pro-democracy demonstrations in 1988 and two years later rejected the results of national elections won by Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy. ASEAN is pursuing a policy of "constructive engagement" to encourage Myanmar to democratise. But this has led to friction with the United States and the European Union. Save to MyWebEmail storyPrintable view Copyright © 2007 Yahoo!7 Pty Limited. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 13 ottawasun.com: Future of energy goes nuclear Sunday June 24 2007 World in grip of nuke industry 'renaissance' By ALAN FINDLAY When Whitecourt Mayor Trevor Thain looks into the future of his western Alberta city, he gazes past the three mills, beyond its agricultural heritage and over the black gold that powers the province's economy. Thain and city council, along with a feisty Calgary entrepreneur and at least one unnamed oil company, are hoping to plant nuclear power on the fringes of the oilpatch. "The economy of our area (is) primarily forestry-based, and now there's the pine beetle epidemic that's going to affect our industry in the next few years," Thain explained during a recent telephone interview. "The oil and gas industry tends to peak and valley. We would love to have another industry in our community that would be a sustaining factor." The notion began to gather steam after a small Calgary company teamed up with Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. and won the support of at least one oil company looking for an alternative power source to pricey natural gas. Energy Alberta Corp. is expected to file a site application this week to build a nuclear plant, costing an estimated $3 billion, in either Whitecourt or the town of Peace River farther north. "We're going," Wayne Henuset declared confidently. As the man leading the company's charge into the nuclear industry, Henuset is aiming to have reactors powering at least one company's oilsands operation and feeding additional juice into the provincial grid by 2016. Nuclear power in the land of oil and gas would have sounded more like the punchline to one of Alberta's endless supply of Newfie jokes a few short years ago, but it marks a renewed interest in the controversial power source that stretches across the country and around the globe. Ontario is currently shopping around for the best technology as it looks to ramp up more nuclear power and crank down its four remaining coal-fired, polluting generators. New Brunswick Premier Shawn Graham recently flew to France on a similar venture as his province eyes more power of the glowing variety. Elsewhere, Finland is in the midst of building a new generation of nuclear generating units twice the size of any in Canada. China, India and several European countries are also abuzz with plans for nuclear power in a way not seen for almost two decades. OUTLOOK The latest global outlook on power supplies by the International Energy Agency suggests nuclear power around the world could grow by more than 40% over the next 25 years under the right conditions. It is being called nothing short of a nuclear renaissance. Opponents have another word for it, however. "What the nuclear industry calls a renaissance, I call a re-run," said Energy Probe director Tom Adams. "We've seen all this stuff before." He and other critics suggest the buzz is nothing short of an international public relations campaign aimed at reviving an industry hobbled by chronic cost overruns, construction delays, reliability problems and nagging safety concerns. "I think it's not going to happen, to be honest," predicted University of Greenwich researcher Steve Thomas. He describes the growing interest around nuclear power as possibly the last chance for the present industry to extend its life. But he also concedes that the renewed interest is uncommonly strong. "There is more political will behind this than any previous attempt to get nuclear power back on track that I remember," said Thomas. Canada's natural resources minister is a good example. The B.C. MP surprised many when he came out unequivocally supporting nuclear power in the oil patch late last year. Like many politicians and industry leaders around the world, Gary Lunn sees nuclear as a way to keep the lights on and the rigs running without pumping greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. He's also keen to see federally owned Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.'s Candu reactors win any new contracts at home and abroad. "AECL is going to have to be prepared to deliver and their record in the last decade has been very good," he said. Canadian Nuclear Association president Murray Elston said that interest and support is quickly growing. His early days promoting nuclear power were lean times with little public interest in his wares, even in Ontario where nuclear makes up roughly half the province's power supply. Now Elston finds himself invited to speak to previously unthinkable venues such as the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce. Much of the renewed interest is fuelled by an increasingly insatiable global appetite for energy. Surging economies and rapidly growing populations in developing countries -- many of whose communities still lack household electricity -- are crying out for massive power sources. POLLUTIOn As those countries' economies and industries grow, so does their pollution. The International Energy Agency predicts China will overtake the United States as the largest source of CO2 emissions by 2010. Enter the nuclear industry. Speaking to a House of Commons committee last month, Elston went for the hard sell on its green benefits. "Globally we have saved between two billion and three billion tonnes of carbon dioxide per year because of nuclear generation," he said. "We have 440 nuclear units operating around the world, and several more are being planned -- over 200, in fact." Even its controversial radioactive leftovers are spun as "spent fuel" and a reusable product rather than nuclear waste. Two weeks ago Lunn announced plans to begin the decades-long process to select a site and construct a storage area deep underground where waste could be retrieved once new technology makes it affordable to reprocess the fuel and run it through the reactors again. Beginning with concerns that burying radioactive waste is far from a green solution, critics on both the environment and energy scenes warn that nuclear is not the magic bullet it may seem for many reasons. Peek behind the sales pitch and the industry still faces the same challenges it always had, they say. Take for example Finland's new generating station. It was already 18 months behind schedule after 18 months of construction by France's Areva, said Greenwich University's Thomas. With cost overruns already pegged at 700 million euros (almost $1 billion Cdn), questions are growing whether Areva can even deliver on its fixed-price contract. A big challenge closer to home is a shortage of qualified people to handle any surge in nuclear activity. Labour pressures range from the experts at the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) needed to approve and inspect the stations to the people needed to build and run them. Ontario Power Generation (OPG) has already warned of a major demographic crunch at existing facilities as operators who take up to 10 years to earn their qualifications rush toward retirement. Earlier this month, Oshawa's University of Ontario Institute of Technology handed out its first 40 diplomas for its new nuclear engineering program. Accepting about 100 students a year, the program will help replace the aging ranks of expertise. JOBS But even the program's dean readily points out the number of grads won't fulfill the additional needs of new generation when it takes 700 to 800 new people to run a plant like the one planned in Alberta. A month out of school, most of the graduates already have permanent, full-time jobs with Ontario Power, Atomic Energy, the federal safety commission or consultants, said the dean, George Bereznai. "In terms of the demand for students at the moment, it's to maintain the existing units and ... rehabilitation," said Bereznai. Energy Alberta's Henuset voiced frustration over the time it takes to plow through the federal approvals process at CNSC. "They have a number of mining projects, they have a number of nuclear projects that are being planned, they have some facilities they're upgrading," Henuset told the same House of Commons committee. "We're concerned about their ability to look at our process in a timely fashion." Even so, Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. cites recent projects in China and Romania and vows that it can guarantee new projects on time and on budget, even in labour-strapped Alberta. "We can build a lot of the plant away from the construction site and ship it up," said Jack Scott, AECL's vice-president in charge of developing the oilsands project with Energy Alberta Corp. Despite his support, Lunn said the federal government will not go so far as subsidizing or providing a financial backstop for any AECL projects. "We don't intend to do that," he said. "We've made that very, very clear." While public support for nuclear power wavers depending on how it is presented by pollsters, safety remains a sensitive issue. Recently, Greenpeace released a study warning that pregnant women and children under four shouldn't live within 10 km of an atomic generating station. But Whitecourt's mayor said the community is heavily on board. "We took it to the people in the way of a town hall meeting and response was really good," said Thain. If they're taxpayers, they should be nervous, warns Energy Probe's Adams. Regardless of international projects, Ontario's most recent refurbishments have meant cost overruns as high as 500% (Pickering) and nearly plummeted the publicly owned OPG into bankruptcy. Ontarians still pay a special debt retirement charge on their electricity bills in a bid to whittle down $20 billion in so-called stranded debt racked up by the former Ontario Hydro as it built up its fleet of nuclear plants. Most recently, Ontario's auditor general found that provincial price guarantees granted to the privately owned Bruce Power so it would embark on a $4.25-billion refurbishment of two units were found to be overpriced. Echoing Lunn's comments, Alberta Energy Minister Mel Knight vowed that his province would not be putting public money at risk. "This is a market decision," he said. "The risk is borne by investors." Given the overall environmentalists' bent against nuclear power, Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore would seem an unlikely champion for the industry. Despite railing against Ontario's nuclear power program in the 1970s, Moore was converted along the road to greenhouse gases and ended up promoting nuclear power at a Whitecourt town hall meeting this spring. Previous story: Civil servant gas scam fuels fed probe Next story: New career has grads 'glowing' Published by Sun Media Corporation, a Quebecor Media company at 6 Antares Dr., Phase 3, Ottawa, Ont., Canada, K1G 5H7 Publisher Rick Gibbons; Editor-in-chief Mike Therien Copyright © 2006, Canoe Inc. All rights reserved. Test ***************************************************************** 14 The Hindu: India to join global container security initiative Monday, June 25, 2007 : 0230 Hrs New Delhi, June 25 (PTI): With concerns rising over the proliferation of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, India is moving towards joining a global initiative aimed at disrupting supplies that could pose a security threat. Discussions are at an advanced stage for India's participation in the US-led Container Security Initiative (CSI), a multi-national programme for monitoring and disrupting supplies of dangerous items before they can reach the shores of a participating country. Conceptualised after the September 2001 terror attacks in the US, CSI is designed to safeguard global maritime trade while allowing cargo containers to move faster and more efficiently through the supply chain at seaports worldwide. It is designed to prevent containerised shipping from being exploited by terrorists. "The CSI has strategic as well as commercial dimensions," a source told PTI here, while citing the reasons for India's keen interest to join the club. By participation in CSI, India can ensure better national security by preventing any dangerous items from reaching its shores. With regard to commercial advantages, sources said the participation was aimed at ensuring unhindered movement of items across the globe, particularly those having genuine technological use but suspected by some of having dual use. India's list of items having dual use does not match with that of the US and other Western countries and there is a need to have convergence on these, sources said. India's participation in CSI will enable it to register its voice on dual use issues and matters that concern the country's developmental needs. The issue was discussed about a week ago when K C Singh, Additional Secretary in the External Affairs Ministry, held talks here with US Acting Under Secretary for Non- Proliferation John C Rood on non-proliferation issues. With India's overseas business engagement expanding, the government apprehends that the difference of perception on dual use items could hamper supplies of items, particularly those critical for its technological development. On the domestic front too, the government has started reaching out to industry to apprise businessmen about items that are banned in the international market. Lack of knowledge about these items leads to problems at times for businessmen, the sources said. The CSI proposes a security regime to ensure that all containers which pose a potential risk for terrorism are identified and inspected at foreign ports. It offers participant countries, on reciprocal basis, the opportunity to send custom officers to major US ports to target ocean-going, containerised cargo to be exported to their territories. The CSI addresses the threat to global trade posed by the potential for terrorist use of a maritime container to deliver a weapon. Copyright © 2007, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the ***************************************************************** 15 [NYTr] Nuke Industry Workers Denied Government Benefits Date: Sat, 23 Jun 2007 17:23:01 -0500 (CDT) Workers World - Jun 28, 2007 issue http://www.workers.org/2007/us/atom-workers-0628 Atom workers denied government benefits By Larry Hales Denver Though a federal panel, the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, voted June 12 to expand compensation for ex-workers at Rocky Flatsba former weapons facility 16 miles northwest of downtown Denverb75 percent of the facilitybs former work force will still be ineligible for automatic compensation. The compensation will only cover those that worked at Rocky Flats from 1959 to 1966. Workers there from 1952-1958 had been recommended for compensation earlier. The U.S. Atomic Energy Commissionbs Rocky Flats weapons production facility first began production in 1952 under management of the Dow Chemical Co., producing detonators or nuclear triggers. It was later operated by Rockwell International. A sprawling facility composed of several buildings on 6,500 acres, the plant was closed in 1991 after being raided in 1989 by the FBI. The new decision has yet to go before U.S. Health and Human Services Department, which will have to make a recommendation on compensation to Congressbfrom which the final decision will be made. The panelbs recommendation is ultimately a defeat of justice for the over 15,000 workers who worked under dangerous conditions being exposed to high levels of radiation and chemicals. There were many incidences of accidents during the facilitybs 40-year lifespan, ranging from fires to leakages to improper storing of wasteball leading to contamination of the ground soil and water sources in the plantbs vicinity. In 2006 the facilitybs owners were made to pay millions of dollars in fines and damages to owners of property in a class-action lawsuit that had lasted 16 years Justice denied These workers are called bCold War veterans.b The Department of Energybs official history on Rocky Flats states that bthe urgency of the nuclear arms race placed a national priority on weapons production and testing,b which illustrates the U.S. governmentbs callousness toward even those it deems bheroes,b something especially seen today with U.S. imperialist wars against the Iraqi and Afghan peoples. The panelbs argument is that the question of whether the facility exposed the workers enough to these deadly chemicals to justify compensation has proved inconclusive. Currently, according to a study conducted by the University of Colorado, there are 1,259 cases of cancers among these former workers. In a document titled bRocky Flats A Local Hazard Forever. Citizenbs Guide to the bCleanupb Wildlife Refuge A Bad Precedent For Other Sites,b LeRoy Moore, Ph.D, indicates that there was a great deal of plutonium released into the environment by the plant and that two studiesbone by the Department of Energy and one by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Healthbfound increased cancers in workers exposed to 5 percent of the permissible level according to DOE. Many workers who are already sick are afraid they will die before receiving any compensation. The Rocky Mountain News studied the number of workers who were awarded compensation and never received it, and found: b" bIn cases where the workerbs illness was linked to radiation, beryllium or silica, 46 workers died before claims were paid; their survivors were paid $6.9 million; 279 workers received compensation totaling $41.7 million; 159 workers were dead when survivors filed claims and they were paid $23.7 million.b b" bIn cases where the workerbs illness was linked to chemicals or other toxic exposures, 21 workers died before claims were paid; their survivors were paid $2.6 million; 16 workers received compensation totaling $1.5 million; 153 workers were dead when survivors filed claims and they received $19.2 million.b Moore goes on to refute the governmentbs claim that the $7 billion allocated for cleanup of the areab$36 billion was necessarybwas enough and that the cleanup was successful enough for the government to use Rocky Flats as a wildlife refuge and to open it to the public. According to Moore, regarding evidence from autopsies on bone samples done from 1975 to 1979 and closer to the actual site of the plant: bThe researchers in this DOE- funded study sorted the bone samples according to place of residence within three areas defined by concentric circles drawn at intervals of 25 kilometers (about 15 miles) out from 903 Pad at Rocky Flats. They found the highest plutonium concentrations in bone samples from the inner ring closest to Rocky Flats, with concentrations decreasing as they moved progressively away from the facility.b He cited the study in response to a 1998 report released by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. Moore states, bIn 1998 the Colorado Central Cancer Registry of CDPHE weighed in on the public health issue with a report asserting that there is no evidence of adverse health effects in residential areas near Rocky Flats by comparison with areas elsewhere in the Denver area.b He quotes a German radiation specialist named Bernd Franke, who said the report was meant to bcalm people down, for public relations purposes.b Former FBI agent Jon Lipsky, who was part of the Rocky Flats raid and investigation, has filed a lawsuit against the Department of Justice in order to unseal records of contamination. He has filed this lawsuit with Wes McKinley, the former leader of the Rocky Flats grand jury, and Jacque Brever, a former chemical operator who suffers from radiation exposure. In an article in Muckraker, Lipsky said: bI left so I could help expose the truth. Without the truth there can be no real understanding of the extent of this environmental crime, and there can be no thorough cleanup.b According to Lipsky, Brever and McKinley: bThe department allocated $7 billion to the cleanup, a sum initially criticized as far too low to enable a thorough job. And less than 8 percent of the allocated sum is even being used to decontaminate the site. ... The rest is going to administrative costs and decommissioning the plant.b And the article reports, bShe [Brever] said several fields and hillsides that had been dumping grounds for toxic and radioactive wastes have been excluded from the cleanup. Additionally, she said, the sampling techniques for determining contamination levels are misleading, and the standards for soil and water purification are weak.b (Jan. 21, 2005) The workers are being denied their just due from the governmentbin the name of expanding profits worldwide for U.S. capitalismbthat also lied about the dangers of the poisons workers and those in the surrounding communities were being exposed to. Articles copyright 1995-2007 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved. Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011 Email: ww@workers.org Subscribe wwnews-subscribe@workersworld.net * ================================================================ .NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems . Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us . .339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org .List Archives: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ .Subscribe: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================ ***************************************************************** 16 Murfreesboro Post: Local officials never told about radiation Sun, Jun 24, 2007, 22:50 CST By Michelle Willard Post staff writer Tennessee has no law requiring the notification of local governments as to what types of waste are being disposed of in their counties, said a Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation official. How could local government officials not know was one of the main questions raised by the revelation of low-level radioactive waste dumping in Middle Point landfill through the state’s Bulk Survey for Release (BSFR) program. “There is no notification process mandated or suggested by law or regulation to notify governments of special waste approvals,” said Tisha Calabrese-Benton, deputy communications director with Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC). Callabrese-Benton said the BSFR falls under the heading of special waste. The state government must approve all special waste before it is place in a Class I sanitary landfill like Middle Point. According to the TDEC website, special wastes include pesticides, medical waste and sludge from sewage treatment plants. However, Middle Point is no longer allowed to accept sewage sludge due to multiple odor complaints. It can also include waste that is combustible or large and difficult to manage, like a telephone pole and some industrial equipment. “Those special waste approvals are all kept in each landfill’s files and those records are open for review according to State law for anyone who would like to see them,” she continued. But don’t bother going to Middle Point’s office on Jefferson Pike, because the files aren’t there. The mile-long paper trail can be found at TDEC’s Nashville field office. There are so many different special waste approval permits for Middle Point alone they take up two shelves, subdivided alphabetically, in the Rutherford County section. “A Special Waste Letter of Approval is needed for every different type of waste, including the volume of the waste, but not every load of waste,” said Frank Padovich, TDEC Division of Solid Waste environmental specialist and inspector of Middle Point landfill. But, he continued, even if a letter is issued, it doesn’t mean that amount or type of waste actually came to Middle Point. Padovich is responsible for both ensuring Middle Point’s compliance with federal and state law and also approving the different types for special waste that enters the landfill. Padovich issues letters of approval to the bulk processors – IMPACt Services, Inc. and Toxco Material Management Center – of waste, not the individual landfill sites, he explained. Both Toxco and IMPACt are located in Oak Ridge and specialize in recycling and disposing of materials that have low levels of radioactive contamination. Copies of the letters are then filed with the landfill and state government. Part of the problem in tracking down what exactly is coming into Rutherford County is there are many state departments overseeing the BSFR program. Division of Solid Waste approves Class I landfills for different types of waste. Division of Radiological Health oversees the bulk processors. And other departments, like the EPA and TDOT, oversee other aspects of the classification and transportation of the materials, Padovich explained. “I try to do as many inspections as I can, but I deferred to their expertise that the bulk processors are doing what they are supposed to be doing,” Padovich said. But, Padovich does do routine inspections at Middle Point to ensure it is doing what it is supposed to be doing. “It’s required to be inspected monthly, however it can be done more frequently,” he said. Those inspections include ground water, erosion control and leachate monitoring, among other things. “Middle Point is safe in as far as they maintain their permit conditions and are compliant,” he explained. However, over the past several months it has had problems with erosion control. Padovich explained these were minor violations concerning the erosion of the landfill’s dirt and grass cap. And all issues were resolved at the next inspection. Padovich continued Middle Point has never had any violations with the BSFR program. “At least Middle Point has a detector system that is probably one of the only monitors between a household and the landfill,” Padovich said. “If a detector is tripped it’s not going to be by this type of waste.” He explained medical waste from people who are undergoing radiation treatment or trash from a medical facility is more likely to trip the radiation detector than the low-level radioactive waste from the BSFR program. 615-869-0800 | online@murfreesboropost.com | 630 Broadmore Blvd. Suite 120, P.O. 10008, Murfreesboro, TN 37129 ***************************************************************** 17 Telegraph: Nuclear watchdog's safety warning By Our Foreign Staff Last Updated: 12:51am BST 25/06/2007 The United Nations nuclear watchdog is so poorly financed that it might be unable to deal with an atomic accident and no longer has top-grade equipment to detect secret weapons programmes, its director has warned. "If an accident were to happen tomorrow, we would be hard-pressed to carry out core functions. This is a reality," Mohamed ElBaradei told a meeting of the governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). His comments come as the international community struggles to cope with nuclear proliferation risks such as Iran, which the West fears aspires to build nuclear bombs, and North Korea, which has a fragile deal with five powers to dismantle its nuclear arms programme. The IAEA has asked for a two per cent increase in its Ł190 million budget but major contributors have opposed this, citing their own budgetary constraints or arguing that the agency could do its work more efficiently with the resources it now has. "The proposed budget does not by any stretch of the imagination meet our basic, essential requirements," Mr ElBaradei said at the meeting. A new budgetary challenge for his agency will be the imminent mission to North Korea to verify its promised nuclear disarmament. "I do not want in the future to see a clandestine nuclear weapon programme in some place, or a safety accident in another, that we have failed to pre-empt because we did not take the measures that were needed, as we saw in the case of the weapons programme in Iraq and the [nuclear disaster] at Chernobyl," he said. A key aspect of IAEA investigations in Iran has been the testing of traces of highly enriched - bomb-grade - uranium to assess their origin but the work often must be farmed out to non-IAEA laboratories due to shortcomings in agency equipment. "Today we cannot consistently do environmental sampling analysis ourselves due to the unreliability of an instrument that is 28 years old," Mr ElBaradei said. "The budget essentially is a political statement. The basic question is: what kind of agency do you want to have? You can easily have a mediocre agency. Or you can have an effective one capable of carrying out functions assigned to it and crucial to development and security, indeed to survival." © Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2007. | Terms ***************************************************************** 18 Tri-City Herald: Perma-Fix aims to treat more waste Published Wednesday, June 20th, 2007 ANNETTE CARY Perma-Fix Northwest sees opportunities to treat more Hanford waste as well as expand its business in treating commercial radioactive waste at the former Pacific EcoSolutions site. Perma-Fix Environmental Services, based in Atlanta, has just completed its purchase of Pacific EcoSolutions, or PEcoS, in Richland, and has renamed it Perma-Fix Northwest. Company officials visited the Tri-Cities on Tuesday to introduce their company to the community. It purchased PEcoS as part of Nuvotec to expand its radioactive waste treatment capacity, increase its presence in the West and secure PEcoS radioactive and hazardous waste permits and licenses. "We see a lot of very special waste at Hanford," said Louis Centofanti, president of Perma-Fix Environmental Services. "We think we can add the technology to get the waste treated and find a path forward." At the Oak Ridge, Tenn., nuclear site it has been able to work with the Department of Energy and its contractor, Bechtel Jacobs, to find ways to treat different types of waste left from the 1960s and '70s that had little characterization information available. The company wants to repeat that success at Hanford, said Larry McNamara, chief operating officer of Perma-Fix Environmental Services. The former PEcoS facility has resources to treat low-level nuclear waste and low-level nuclear waste mixed with hazardous chemicals. It sees the possibility of treating miscellaneous waste from the many processes used at Hanford for the past production of plutonium for the nation's nuclear weapons program. It also sees opportunities in treating low activity waste separated from the 53 million gallons of radioactive and hazardous chemical waste now stored in Hanford's underground tanks. Some of its technologies might be applied immediately to tank wastes if regulatory issues can be worked out, McNamara said. It also may be able to work with another business partner to come up with solutions that will make bulk vitrification more attractive, such as preconditioning the waste for glassification in large boxes similar to land-sea shipping containers. If that proves successful, some of the technology might be applicable to help with the waste-feed process at the main vitrification plant under construction at Hanford, McNamara said. The company already has experience treating some specialized Hanford waste that has been sent to its treatment facility in Tennessee and then returned to Hanford. That includes depleted uranium chips packed in oil and buried at Hanford's 300 Area until they were discovered in 1998. It also has cleaned equipment contaminated with tank waste for CH2M Hill Hanford Group. Perma-Fix Environmental Services brings not only its technological expertise, but also its expertise in complying with nuclear waste regulations to the Perma-Fix Northwest facility adjacent to Hanford, Centofanti said. The company also sees expansion opportunities in the 40 percent of its business focused on commercial radioactive waste, drawing more of the business in the western United States. Its customers now include utilities and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. It treats the waste, but does not dispose of it. Commercial waste it treats from western states would be disposed of at US Ecology, a commercial site on the Hanford nuclear reservation, or at EnergySolutions disposal site in Utah. It anticipates some upgrades to the Richland facility, but those are still in the planning stages. Initially, Perma-Fix will be focused on more training and improving health and safety and regulatory compliance programs at the Richland site, McNamara said. The business now has 82 employees in Richland and more people will be hired if its work increases, he said. Richard Grondin, who ran mixed-waste operations at the plant when it was owned by Allied Technology Group, has been named general manager. He's been vice president for technical services for Perma-Fix based in the Tri-Cities for five years. Perma-Fix completed its purchase of Nuvotec and its wholly owned subsidiary PEcoS, last week for $11.2 million. It issued $6.8 million in stock and debt instruments payable over four years to Nuvotec shareholders. It also assumed $9.4 million in debt. Nuvotec acquired PEcoS from bankrupt Allied Technology Group, or ATG, in 2003. Bob Ferguson, who was the chairman of Nuvotec and PEcoS, will serve on the Perma-Fix board. © 2007 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press & Other Wire Services ***************************************************************** 19 Independent: The future of Sellafield lies deep in Scandinavia - As the UK deliberates, says Tim Webb in Oskarshamn, the Swedes are digging in to make spent fuel safe Published: 24 June 2007 Staff at the nuclear complex at Oskarshamn, southern Sweden, held an unusual birthday party last week. Passing slices of cake around the office, they celebrated the 25th anniversary of the launch of the Sigyn, the specially constructed ship that every week transports the country's spent nuclear fuel to the Clab temporary storage facility. The ship is named after the loyal wife of the Norse god Loki, who was chained by his enemies beneath a poisonous snake. According to legend, Sigyn held a bowl above her husband to catch the venom dripping on to his head. A scientist at the Clab facility laughs at any suggestion that the snake stands for the Swedish nuclear industry, which produces the waste. However you look at it, Sweden is at least cleaning up its nuclear legacy. The British Government, which this week launches (another) consultation on its nuclear waste policy, could learn a thing or two. There are currently 470,000 cubic metres of nuclear waste scattered around the UK on 30 temporary sites. The Government and the industry body charged with responsibility for the waste (the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority) need to decide soon what to do with it. Otherwise, public support for plans to build new nuclear reactors could be undermined. At the Oskarshamn site, the nuclear waste joint venture SKB (owned by the German energy group E.ON and Swedish state-owned firm Vattenfall, among others) has built the world's largest underground laboratory to test conditions for the permanent storage of nuclear waste. Named the Hard Rock Laboratory (no relation to the celebrity hamburger chain), it meanders 450 metres underground. Branching off from the main tunnel, which is large enough to park a coach, dozens of horizontal chambers have been excavated. Here scientists experiment with different types of rock to discover how best to bury copper-encased, spent-fuel canisters. The underlying principle of storing nuclear waste, on which virtually all countries with civil nuclear power are agreed, is simple. The waste is buried in a large hole deep underground, which is then filled up. The timescales are mind boggling. Scientists estimate that the spent fuel (classified as high-level waste, containing uranium and plutonium) must remain inert for at least 100,000 years. But if a better way of disposing of the waste is found in the future, it can in theory be dug up. At the exhibition centre at Oskarshamn, which attracts 20,000 visitors a year, a poster for children uses pictures to reassure them about how quickly the risk from nuclear waste will fall. The radioactivity of a spent fuel rod starts off as big as a 22-storey building, family house. A year later, it is the size of a family house, 1,000 years later a dog kennel; 100,000 years later, a snail. Admirable as this attempt to explain the principles of nuclear waste storage may be, it takes more than a children's poster to convince people that it is safe to build a repository near them. This challenge is even greater than actually building the repository itself. Having decided in the 1980s on how the waste should be stored, SKB has spent the past 15 years talking to local communities about where to site it. The company wrote to all of the country's municipalities to find out which were prepared to host a repository. Eight expressed an interest. Following nine years of feasibility studies looking at factors ranging from the geology to the transport links in each area, SKB whittled the shortlist down to three, of which Oskarshamn and Forsmark now remain. (The other dropped out after local opposition.) Mistakes were made, especially early in the process. Two of the eight municipalities that initially responded positively to the SKB's overtures backed out due to pressure of public opinion, even before a definite decision on whether to site a facility in their area had been taken. Eva Hall, SKB's spokeswoman, says that the company could have handled communications with local people more sensitively. "We should have sent press relations people, not just technical staff, to explain," she admits. SKB will make a final decision on which site to use in 2009. It hopes to start construction in 2012, with completion pencilled in for 2019. If taking the best part of 50 years to build a repository sounds like a long time, Sweden is still decades ahead of the UK. An impasse was reached 10 years ago in Britain when the Government rejected a proposal to build an experimental underground repository at the huge nuclear site at Sellafield in Cumbria on scientific grounds. A series of committees of nuclear experts was then appointed. After the best part of a decade's deliberations, they have concluded what the rest of the world's scientific community and nuclear industries already knew - that long-term storage underground is the best option. The consultation process that starts this week will focus on how a location for the storage of nuclear waste should be chosen. A "voluntarist" approach has been settled on, which like that in Sweden, envisages local authorities wanting to host a repository rather than having one foisted on them. Benefits for the area would include new jobs from the construction and operation of the facility. Road and rail links are also likely to be improved around the chosen site. If they get the go-ahead, the Oskarshamn authorities intend to use the rock excavated from the building of a repository for a new railway line between the towns of Kalmar and Vastervik. In Britain, plans could be complicated by the possibility - admitted last week in a government consultation and reported by The Independent on Sunday - that nuclear waste imported here from overseas may also have to be stored permanently. The opinion in the nuclear industry is that a repository will be built in Sellafield. It would make sense, as that is where the vast majority of the waste is already stored temporarily. The situation in Sweden is similar. The Oskarshamn site already hosts the Clab interim storage facility. But both the British and Swedish governments need to go through the motions of "consultation", even though everyone knows what the final decision is likely to be. The big difference is that the Swedes are a long way down the line in convincing Oskarshamn to host the site. The UK Government has much further to go before Cumbria signs up. Further reading: For an account of management at the Cumbrian complex, read Harold Bolter's 'Inside Sellafield' © 2007 Independent News and Media Limited ***************************************************************** 20 Salt Lake Tribune: Defense bill contains threat to case against nuclear dump Skull Valley waste proposal Sen. Hatch says the Senate Armed Services Committee is addressing the issue Article Last Updated: 06/23/2007 01:27:14 AM MDT A provision tucked into a defense bill pending in Congress could erode a piece of the state's case against Private Fuel Storage's plan to store nuclear waste in Utah and potentially breathe new life into the waste plan. "We're very concerned that this provision was inserted into the defense authorization bill," said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. "We're working with the Senate Armed Services Committee to rectify it." Private Fuel Storage, a group of electric utilities that produce nuclear power, received approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to store 44,000 tons of highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel on the Skull Valley Goshute reservation, 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. However, in order to move the waste to the site, PFS needed the Bureau of Land Management to change its land-use restrictions on the federal land surrounding the reservation so it could build a rail line to the reservation. In 1999, then-Rep. Jim Hansen, R-Utah, added language to a Defense Department bill that would require the Air Force to study how storing nuclear waste on the reservation would affect the military's use of the adjacent Utah Test and Training Range, before the BLM could make the change. Congress never allocated money for the study and the Air Force never started it. When the Interior Department rejected the PFS lease last September, the unfinished Air Force study was cited as one of the reasons for the decision. The provision, buried in the Defense Authorization bill that has been approved by the Senate Armed Services Committee, would repeal the required study. "The Department of Defense has failed, for over six years, to submit this report, and has not given the committee any indication the report will ever be submitted," the Senate committee wrote in its report. "The committee does not believe it is fair for one government agency to restrict the actions of another agency indefinitely simply through inaction. Furthermore, circumstances have changed in the intervening years, and the committee sees no further need for this restriction." It is not clear who added the measure to the bill. Sue Martin, a spokeswoman for PFS, said the company did not push for the change, but thinks it is a good idea. The company plans to appeal the BLM's decision rejecting PFS' proposed rail line. Removing the Hansen language could help that appeal. Assistant Utah Attorney General Denise Chancellor said the state is aware of the provision and would prefer the Hansen language be left as it is, but points out it was only one piece the BLM cited in rejecting the PFS lease. In January 2006, President Bush signed a defense bill designating the Cedar Mountain Wilderness area, which essentially blocks rail access to the reservation, providing a much larger obstacle for PFS. The defense bill still has to be approved by the judiciary and intelligence committees before going to the full Senate for a vote. The House is considering a separate bill that doesn't include the repeal of the Hansen language. ***************************************************************** 21 Moscow Time: Uranium Reserves Top 1 Million Tons Monday, June 25, 2007. Issue 3684. Page 9. Reuters Itar-Tass Kiriyenko, right, attending a groundbreaking ceremony for a nuclear power unit in the Voronezh region last week. ANGARSK -- The country has about 850,000 tons of uranium in reserves and resources and more than 1 million tons if joint ventures abroad are included, Federal Atomic Energy Agency chief Sergei Kiriyenko said Friday. Kiriyenko said Russia was producing slightly more than 3,200 tons per year of yellowcake, a uranium-based commodity used to fuel nuclear power reactors. "Our confirmed reserves and resources are about 850,000 tons within Russia," Kiriyenko said on the sidelines of a conference. "Our reserves are more than 1 million tons if we include our joint ventures abroad, including our joint venture in Kazakhstan." Russia has plans to become the world's third-largest holder of uranium ore in the next few years as it looks to almost double nuclear power generation by 2030. Analysts have ranked its reserves between the third- and seventh-largest currently. Uranium prices have soared this year to their highest since the 1970s as nuclear power returns to vogue amid high oil prices and efforts to cut carbon dioxide emissions. Most of Russia's uranium is produced at the Priargunsk field in the Chita region, close to the border with China and Mongolia. n A U.S. labor union said Friday that it was calling on the U.S. Commerce Department to keep in place a 15-year-old agreement limiting the imports of Russian uranium. The United Steelworker's Union warned that failure to do so could open the floodgates for more Russian imports, forcing the shutdown of U.S. production and costing more than 1,000 U.S. jobs. © Copyright 2006. The Moscow Times. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 22 Reuters: Miners having a blast in Utah uranium rush Sun Jun 24, 2007 7:33PM EDT By Tim Gaynor MOAB, Utah (Reuters) - Utah mining prospector Kyle Kimmerle has more than a hunch that uranium will make him rich. It is a conviction so strong he has bet his house on it. "We literally spent every dollar we had in savings, hawked and sold our houses and put everything we owned into this. We went all in," said Kimmerle, who runs a funeral home in this Canyonlands city. "My wife is scared, but I'm not." He is among a rush of prospectors in the Colorado Plateau mineral belt who are thumping stakes into public land and registering claims, hoping to get rich on the back of record uranium prices. The boom is reviving the fortunes of a storied mining area in the U.S. Southwest where large uranium ore deposits were first tapped for the voracious Cold War nuclear weapons program in the early 1950s, before suffering a slump. The Bureau of Land Management said this month a new wave of prospectors have registered some 3,700 claims in the Moab and Monticello areas since October 1 last year, more than twice the total for whole of the previous year. Prospectors are banking on strong demand for uranium from a resurgent nuclear power industry, as high oil prices and a global effort to clamp down on greenhouse gases blamed for climate change have pushed prices for the metal to $135 per pound, from just $7 in 2000. "Right now nuclear is the best option," said Kimmerle, as he sipped a milkshake at a diner in Moab, a city hailed as the uranium capital of the world during the first boom. "This is a once-in-a-couple-of-lifetimes opportunity," he added. "Barring some kind of a worldwide catastrophe, nuclear power is going to be the future." RAMPING UP PRODUCTION The hopes of prospectors like Kimmerle, who seeks to parlay his $185-a-time claims into million-dollar revenues from development deals with mining firms, are widespread in the industry. Companies like Canadian Laramide Resources and Semafo Inc. are seeking to ramp up production in uranium-rich Australia and Niger respectively, while Denison Mines Corp. said it plans to open 10 more mines in the U.S. Southwest by next year. Denison mine superintendent James Fisher said he expects uranium prices to hold up for 10 to 15 years while depleted supplies are built up to meet a spiraling global appetite for smokeless fuel. "It's going to take a time for supply and demand to equal out, and until it does, the price is just going to keep rising," Fisher said. "In that lag, somebody is going to make some money," he added. Miners, meanwhile, face higher costs this time around as U.S. safety regulations have become more stringent following high-profile coal mining accidents and a better understanding of the dangers of radon gas emitted by uranium ore. "They are going to make more money than they are used to, but it's going to cost them more," Fisher said. FOR THE LOVE OF MINING Large uranium deposits were first discovered around Moab in 1952 by Texan prospector Charles Steen, who went on to make millions of dollars and have his scuffed field boots plated with bronze and displayed in the city's museum. Getting back underground to blast through hard rock in pursuit of the graphite-colored seams of uranium ore has reawakened a passion among some families with a long tradition of mining the metal. "We've lost a couple of generations, and we're just teaching younger ones now how it's done," said Mike Shumway, who owns the contracting business in charge of operations at the first Utah mine to be reopened by Denison, the Pandora Mine near La Sal. "It's hard to find people who want to work hard nowadays, but we've got a handful and they really enjoy it," he added. Shumway now has a team of more than a dozen men working at the mine, setting explosives, blasting the rock face and hauling out two to three thousand tons of six pound rock each month in sturdy mining carts. "Fire in the hole," shouted one of the miners. After an eight second delay, some 20 charges detonated in rapid sequence, sending a shock wave rumbling up the mine. The miners laughed in exhilartion after the blast. "It feels really good to be back. My dad done it, his dad done it, and I can honestly say I am having fun," Shumway, who weathered the downturn by building houses, said afterwards with a grin. "It's the only job I know where you can not have enough money for diesel one day and then be a millionaire by the end of the month." ***************************************************************** 23 Kommersant Moscow: Russian Uranium to Become Richer - June 23, 2007 // Federal Atomic Energy Agency builds up uranium-enrichment capacities Russia’s Federal Atomic Energy Agency head Sergei Kirienko disclosed on Friday the plans to develop Angarsky Electrolysis-Chemical Plant into the world’s first International Center for Uranium Enrichment (ICUE). The plant’s capacities will grow by four times. Yet, the plant will stop enriching the depleted uranium from Europe. Kirienko said the capacities have to be increased by four times before 2012. No one has managed so far to surpass Russia’s unique centrifugal technology for uranium enrichment, in which Russia has been the leader since 1950s. Thus, it enabled Russia to become the first country to create an International Center for Uranium Enrichment (ICUE). The initiative received the IAEA’s approval. ICUE allows building nuclear power stations in the countries which do not have uranium-enrichment technology, thus minimizing the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation. Russia and Kazakhstan signed the agreement on creating an ICUE on May 10, 2007. Russia’s Federal Atomic Energy Agency head Sergei Kirienko said on Friday that first investments into the joint venture for uranium enrichment in Angarsk will make up “at least $2.5 billion just for centrifuges”. Kirienko added that over a year ago, the agency decided not to prolong the contracts, valid till 2009-2010, on importing depleted uranium (the toxic waste of nuclear industry) from Europe. “Now European companies Eurodif and URENCO will have to take care of their waste themselves,” the agency said. www.kommersant.com All the Article in Russian as of June 23, 2007 © 1991-2007 ZAO "Kommersant. Publishing House". All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 24 Murfreesboro Post: EDITORIAL: Stop radioactive dumping here Jun 24, 2007, 22:50 CST BY MIKE PIRTLE Publisher/Editor Area residents and officials were stunned a few weeks ago to learn that low-level radioactive waste was being dumped at Allied Waste’s Middle Point Landfill in Walter Hill with our county government officials and citizens kept totally in the dark. The practice had been ongoing for years and years and only came to light when a group concerned about nuclear issues made it public. The uproar across the community brought concern from elected officials at all levels, including county, state and federal representatives and leaders. State law, however, leaves county officials with virtually no power in addressing the issue, but our state senators and representatives forced the issue onto the agenda late in the recently concluded legislative session and got a response. State officials will spend 60 days studying and considering the dumping of low-level radioactive waste. That study will take place during a moratorium, also demanded by legislative action that will keep any more of the radioactive material from being dumped for two months. State waste regulation officials have a number of hard questions to answer, including: • Why didn’t they tell us radioactive material from others states was being dumped here? • Why didn’t they provide regular reports on the radioactive levels, or lack thereof if that is indeed the case as they claim. • Why did all this occur in the dark? That these questions weren’t answered before the dumping begin speaks to an arrogance and indifference on the state level that is absolutely unacceptable, indeed an outrage and complete betrayal of public trust. The ultimate question, however, is why would Tennessee officials allow this type material to be dumped on this community or any community in this state. Who are the state officials serving: the public that empowers them and pays their salaries, or the people operating landfills for profit? Why is Tennessee accepting and burying in its soil nuclear material from states such as Michigan and California, according to recent reports, if the people in those states don’t want such material around them. Whether the material is a health risk or not at this point really doesn’t matter. Our officials have betrayed us; they have hidden critical information from us that would have at least allowed us to take measures to protect ourselves, such as testing our water source; they have established no such measures themselves, simply relying upon the good will of a corporate citizen in a world where the news is daily filled with stories of such citizens misbehaving. This community doesn’t want radioactive waste, even low-level, probably harmless, radioactive waste buried here. No compelling public interest or benefit to Tennessee citizens requires that it be dumped here. State officials aren’t likely to produce an answer to that. They should be held accountable and they should stop letting unwanted waste from other states to be dumped here. Immediately. 615-869-0800 | online@murfreesboropost.com | 630 Broadmore Blvd. Suite 120, P.O. 10008, Murfreesboro, TN 37129 ***************************************************************** 25 Murfreesboro Post: Area group on radioactive waste meets Monday Sun, Jun 24, 2007, 22:50 CST By MICHELLE WILLARD Post staff writer Municipal Solid Waste Advisory Committee meets July 5 to discuss the Bulk Survey for Release program. The committee will provide an overview of the BSFR program by the Division of Radiological Health and an overview of special waste by the Division of Solid Waste Management. The meeting begins at 9:30 a.m. in the 17th floor conference room of the L & C Tower at 401 Church St. in Nashville. More information about the meeting can be found at www.state.tn.us/environment/news/ppo/nextsunshine.shtml#swac. Or visit http://www.state.tn.us/environment/boards/mswac.shtml for more information on the Solid Waste Advisory Committee. Citizens to End Nuclear Dumping in Tennessee also meets Monday June 25 at 6 p.m. in the Patterson Community Center in Murfreesboro. The guest speaker will be the author of the Nuclear Information Resource Service report on the landfills in Tennessee Diane D'Arrigo. A tour of the landfill is scheduled for earlier in the day. For more information, visit www.citizenstoendit.org. 615-869-0800 | online@murfreesboropost.com | 630 Broadmore Blvd. Suite 120, P.O. 10008, Murfreesboro, TN 37129 ***************************************************************** 26 Murfreesboro Post: Radioactive would have alerted county officials on The Sun, Jun 24, 2007, 22:50 CST By Mike Pirtle, Post publisher In our society few words are likely to prompt any more automatic defensive reaction than “radioactive.” It is one of if not the ultimate scare words. Its use in any context bearing any form of direct relationship to us immediately produces a fight-or-flight response. “Radioactive” doesn’t get ignored. Much like “fire” in a crowded theater. Or “snake” on a hiking trail. Or “al-Qaida” on an airplane. The immediate reaction is great concern and a deep and necessary need to know more. Recognizing that, I don’t believe any county officials knew anything about the state allowing Middle Point Landfill to dump low-level radioactive waste at the Walter Hill facility for ever how many years the practice has been going on. Even though the County Commission entered into a mid-1990s contract with BFI, the parent company for Middle Point then, county officials weren’t doing so because they wanted to. In fact, the commissioners debated the contract heatedly with those representing the Walter Hill area in particular opposing the deal that ultimately saved, and still saves, the county literally millions of dollars on waste disposal. Commissioners were concerned about the stench, the trash along roadways from big trucks headed to Middle Point, about unsafe traffic conditions from those trucks, about outside waste being brought into our community and the ongoing potential for environmental problems. Had “radioactive waste” come up in any discussions with BFI or state officials, you can pretty much bet it would have been a deal-breaker. That would have been a weapon county officials could have used to cause BFI serious problems, despite state laws that pretty much leave county officials with little say-so. Because, remember, whether the county made a deal to dispose of its waste at Middle Point or not, the landfill would keep operating and doing whatever it wanted under state law. Also remember, state law had been changed, back in the 1980s when BFI first showed up, to allow landfills to do what landfills do, regardless of local sentiment, largely because the state had to recognize that no one would willingly let a landfill operate in a particular community if it could stop it. The state took away local control because our mountains of garbage, personal, community, industrial, etc., had to go somewhere. Rutherford County’s officials then could deal with the devil or not, but he wasn’t going to leave the room. So, the county made the best deal it could. Had “radioactive” been in the mix, the county could and undoubtedly would have fought like banshees and would have received overwhelming public response in support. Our state representatives could have taken up the banner with results, just as our current representatives did so well this year in achieving quick passage of a moratorium on the radioactive dumping and an upcoming study of same. As the lead newspaper editor in this community for more than 20 years, I guarantee you if the news people working with me had heard “radioactive” mentioned in our then comprehensive coverage of the landfill deal we would have rocked the community with the news. Come on, it would have been and is now a huge story. And, it would have been a massive weapon for county officials negotiating with BFI. Finally, it is obvious state officials went well out of their way to make sure nobody had any idea it was allowing low-level radioactive waste to be dumped in grand, old Tennessee. Consider for just a moment the name state officials picked for the program to let radioactive material to come here: Bulk Survey for Release. Total gibberish. The title looks suspiciously like someone took a bunch of generic words that mean virtually nothing in and of themselves and just strung them together. “Bulk Survey for Release” sounds exactly like some state bureaucratic nonsense that serves no purpose, and even if someone received communication on same would have no idea what the heck it was, and certainly would have no reason to be alarmed. Of course, county officials could have maybe found something in state files on “Bulk Release.” Some mention is apparently made in the two shelves of Middle Point documents, some of which are applicable and some of which are not, in some state office in some state building, unmarked, somewhere in Nashville. My conclusion: County officials had no knowledge radioactive waste was being dumped here and that was no accident. 615-869-0800 | online@murfreesboropost.com | 630 Broadmore Blvd. Suite 120, P.O. 10008, Murfreesboro, TN 37129 ***************************************************************** 27 Press-Enterprise: Perchlorate hearing deferred | Inland News | PE.com | Southern California 10:00 PM PDT on Friday, June 22, 2007 A state hearing to assign blame for the Inland region's largest unabated plume of groundwater pollution was delayed until August, marking at least the third postponement in the case. The hearing was expected to begin July 9 before the chairwoman of the State Water Resources Control Board. At issue is a six-mile plume of perchlorate -- an ingredient of rocket fuel -- that has tainted more than a dozen drinking-water wells in Rialto and Colton. "While I have significant concerns about delaying the evidentiary hearing, I believe that a short delay of six weeks will further contribute to a fair and orderly hearing," Tam Doduc, the board chairwoman, who is acting as the hearing officer, wrote in her decision. The hearing is rescheduled for the weeks of Aug. 20 and Aug. 27 with specific dates to be announced later. --Jennifer Bowles jbowles@PE.com © 2007 Press-Enterprise Company ***************************************************************** 28 Press-Enterprise: Water-contamination hearing deferred again | San Bernardino County | 10:00 PM PDT on Saturday, June 23, 2007 A state hearing to assign blame for the Inland region's largest unabated plume of groundwater pollution was delayed until August, marking at least the third postponement in the case. The hearing was expected to begin July 9 before the chairwoman of the State Water Resources Control Board. At issue is a six-mile plume of perchlorate -- an ingredient of rocket fuel -- that has tainted more than a dozen drinking-water wells in Rialto and Colton. The hearing is rescheduled for the weeks of Aug. 20 and Aug. 27 with specific dates to be announced later. Reach Jennifer Bowles at 951-368-9548 or jbowles@PE.com or visit her blog at www.PE.com/blogs © 2007 Press-Enterprise Company ***************************************************************** 29 Reid: Reid Hails Passage Of Energy Bill That Strengthens Nevada 06/22/2007 Legislation will create Nevada jobs, protect consumers, strengthen national security and economy Friday, June 22, 2007 Washington, D.C.—Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada made the following statement today after the Senate passed the energy bill: "The passage of this bill is a victory for Nevada and the nation. This bill starts America on a path toward reducing our reliance on oil by increasing the nation’s use of renewable fuels and, for the first time in decades, significantly improving the fuel efficiency of cars and trucks. "We are saving hard-working Nevadans money, protecting them from gas price-gouging, making our country safer, and opening the door to the creation more than 1,200 new jobs for Nevada – all while taking steps to reduce global warming. And because I believe Washington must lead by example, several provisions in the bill will help make the U.S. Capitol and the Federal government more energy efficient, use more renewable power, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. "I believe it is more important to invest in clean, affordable energy produced in places rich with renewable energy resources, like Nevada, than to protect the multibillion-dollar oil industry. That is why in the coming months I will continue to move forward by enacting additional measures that place Nevadans, the economy, our national security and the environment first." Reno Bruce R. Thompson Courthouse & Federal Bldg 400 S. Virginia St, Suite 902 Reno, NV 89501 Phone: 775-686-5750 Fax: 775-686-5757 Las Vegas Lloyd D. George Building 333 Las Vegas Boulevard South, Suite 8016 Las Vegas, NV 89101 Phone: 702-388-5020 Fax: 702-388-5030 Carson City 600 East William St, #302 Carson City, NV 89701 Phone: 775-882-REID (7343) Fax: 775-883-1980 Washington, DC 528 Hart Senate Office Bldg Washington, DC 20510 Phone: 202-224-3542 Fax: 202-224-7327 Toll Free for Nevadans: 1-866-SEN-REID (736-7343) ***************************************************************** 30 Portland Press Herald: Maine repeats nuclear waste-site error In a Nevada official's view, Maine officials are examples of myopic political leadership that derailed national policy. Robert Loux June 17, 2007 ABOUT THE AUTHOR Robert Loux is executive director of the Nevada Governor's Office Agency for Nuclear Projects and has been closely involved with the Yucca Mountain project and the federal nuclear waste program since the early 1980s. — CARSON CITY, Nev. — Last month, Charles Pray, Maine's nuclear safety adviser, spoke to local Nevada government officials at a workshop on nuclear waste transportation in Las Vegas. Pray threatened that if Nevada did not immediately cut a deal with the federal government on the proposed Yucca Mountain dump site for spent nuclear reactor fuel and other high-level nuclear waste, the state would be forced to take the waste in the future anyway, without compensation. While Pray was making his appearance in Las Vegas, Maine's congressional delegation and the Maine Legislature were putting the finishing touches on, respectively, a letter and a joint legislative resolution. Both urged Congress to enact legislation that would fast-track the movement of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste to the proposed Nevada site. Such a fast move would bypass important health, safety and environmental laws and regulations, and run roughshod over the rights of the state of Nevada and its citizens. These actions by Maine's legislative and executive branches -- and Pray's appearance in Las Vegas -- are remarkable examples of how myopic and self-serving political leadership has derailed the federal nuclear waste program. The current stalemate began 21 years ago, when Maine itself was in the crosshairs of the federal government's search for high-level nuclear waste disposal sites. The U.S. Department of Energy had just identified potential sites for an eastern nuclear dump, including sites within the state's Sebago Lake and Bottle Lake regions. Cries of foul play and outrage from Maine's governor and elected officials could be heard from sea to shining sea. Subsequently, Maine was part of a concerted effort that derailed the objective, science-based site selection process established by the original Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 and replaced it five years later with the blatantly political designation of Nevada's Yucca Mountain as the only location to be studied for a national nuke dump site. Now, as they say, the chickens are coming home to roost. Because Yucca was singled out for political reasons, with little thought given to the fundamental and un-fixable technical and scientific deficiencies of the site, there is today virtually no chance the Nevada site can be licensed as a nuclear waste repository. In addition, Nevada's political vulnerability in the 1980s that made it such an attractive scapegoat has been transformed over the ensuing two decades into a position of significant political clout. Once a political weakling with just one seat in the House of Representatives and two newly elected senators, Nevada now has three members of Congress as well as the majority leader of the U.S. Senate. As the fastest-growing state in the union for much of the past two decades and now a major player in presidential candidate selection, Nevada stands to gain even more influence in Congress and in the national political arena during the coming years. The old saying that those who refuse to learn from the past are bound to repeat it is surely relevant to the course of action Pray and others in Maine are promoting. The last time Congress acted in a knee-jerk fashion trying to "fix" the country's nuclear waste program, it set in motion a chain of events that led directly to the current sorry state of affairs. By acting out of political expediency -- i.e., the need in 1987 to mollify Eastern states like Maine in the run-up to the 1988 elections by letting them off the hook with respect to potential nuclear waste sites within their borders -- Congress left the nation with just one fatally flawed alternative, Nevada's Yucca Mountain. If Maine and the other states that successfully ganged up on Nevada two decades ago had, instead, insisted that the federal government adhere to the scientifically based and objective siting process set up in the original nuclear waste legislation, it is more than likely the country would today have a national solution to the problem of spent fuel and high-level radioactive waste. By urging Congress to again seek a political rather than scientific "fix" to the crippled nuclear waste program, Maine and other pro-Yucca parties are repeating the mistake made in 1987. The only way the country will reach a workable solution to the nuclear waste problem is through a federal program based on sound science and objective decision-making. Moreover, the political landscape has changed. The policy of involuntary site selection was wrong to begin with, and now the political realities in Nevada dictate that forced siting must be abandoned. There is simply no way forward while Yucca Mountain remains the focus of the nation's nuclear waste program. Copyright © 2007, Blethen Maine Newspapers, Inc. ***************************************************************** 31 Las Vegas SUN: Editorial: Bye, bye Johnny Today: June 24, 2007 at 7:29:27 PDT Energy Department pushes for Yucca canisters; House axes funding of project's promotion Last week the Energy Department announced general design requirements for canisters to carry high-level nuclear waste to Nevada for burial in the proposed, but not yet approved, Yucca Mountain repository - just one day before the House voted to kill the project's cartoon mascot. A story by the Associated Press on Tuesday says the transportation, aging and disposal canisters - or TADS - are to be 15 1/2 to 17 1/2 feet long and weigh no more than 54 1/4 tons each. About 7,500 of the canisters would be needed to store the 77,000 tons of nuclear waste that the federal government wants to ship by rail to Nevada. Yucca Mountain was originally set to open in 1998, but the federal government's failure to heed scientific evidence that such storage would be unsafe is one of the reasons that has prevented the Energy Department from acquiring a Nuclear Regulatory Commission license to open it. The agency intends to apply for the license next year, and the soonest it could open - if at all - is 2017. Energy Department officials told AP that they intend to go forward with the license application even if final designs for the TADS canisters aren't ready. We wonder how federal regulators can seriously consider the application if the Energy Department cannot show exactly how the canisters will work. And it seems agency officials will have to do their explaining without their ill-conceived "Yucca Johnny" campaign. The House cut Yucca Johnny's funding Wednesday. It's about time Johnny took a hike. For more than a year, the Energy Department has used the cartoon character on its Youth Zone Web site to tell children why it's OK - good, even - that the federal government wants to bury 77,000 tons of nuclear poison in Nevada. Of course, burying Yucca Johnny only takes care of one of the characters in this farce. President Bush, fulfilling his role as "Yucca Georgie," visited an Alabama nuclear power plant on Thursday and said that the United States needs to increase its use of nuclear power and build three plants a year starting in 2015 - even though more than 50,000 tons of nuclear waste already has piled up around the country, and the government has made no serious plans for storing it. The Yucca Mountain proposal, like its departed cartoon mascot, is little more than fiction and propaganda. All contents copyright 2005 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 32 Las Vegas SUN: Editorial: Let's listen this time June 23, 2007 A scientist whose views helped start environmental awareness is speaking again A t a time when most scientists were immersed in their specialties and generally averse to communicating outside their peer groups, Barry Commoner dared to speak publicly about what modern society was doing to the forests, the lakes, the air - and to man. It was Commoner who, in the early 1950s, brought widespread publicity to the dangers presented by fallout from nuclear bomb tests at the Nevada Test Site. With his many subsequent books and public appearances, the World War II veteran and Harvard-educated science professor helped raise awareness about the link between human health and the environment. His "first law of ecology," that "everything is related to everything else," was a basic theme in his writing and lectures. He became one of the first scientists to warn about global warming. And he warned of dangers related to rushing progress on the cheap, such as when industries simply dumped their toxic wastes into lakes. Now 90, Commoner recently met with The New York Times for an interview, which was reprinted in this newspaper on Wednesday. On global warming, he said, "The only rational answer is to change the way in which we do transportation, energy production, agriculture and a good deal of manufacturing." In his 1971 book, "The Closing Circle," Commoner made similar points. In the ensuing 36 years, many changes have been made that seemed major at the time, such as switching to unleaded gas and putting scrubbers in smokestacks. They haven't been enough, obviously, as pollution and greenhouse gases still threaten health and lives. Much greater change is needed. Commoner added : "I'm an eternal optimist. I think eventually people will come around." On nuclear power as an alternative to fossil fuels, Commoner said, "Every activity that increases the amount of radioactivity to which we are exposed is idiotic." He noted that no one has solved the problem of nuclear waste. To describe the only proposed solution to the nuclear waste problem - bury it at Yucca Mountain 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas - we have to return to Commoner's word: idiotic. Commoner reached the pinnacle of his influence in the 1970s. We can only hope for a resurgence of interest in this thoughtful and prescient scientist. All contents copyright 2005 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 33 Inside Bay Area: Feds try to reassure lab workers about benefits Officials respond to Livermore Lab employees' flood of angry complaints By Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER Article Last Updated: 06/23/2007 02:39:01 AM PDT Federal nuclear weapons officials tried calming Lawrence Livermore Lab workers Friday after word that new federal requirements could result in lower retirement benefits. With dozens of angry employee phone calls and e-mails pouring into Washington, the National Nuclear Security Administration put out a statement reassuring workers that the agency "listens." As a message, it fell short of a Clintonian "feel your pain" moment but was perhaps as close as a quasi-military bureaucracy comes to "trust us, we care." Employees of the weapons lab are not in a trusting mood. On Thursday, they learned they must choose from two retirement plans, one of which is mandatory for all new hires and could result in 20 percent lower future retirement benefits than employees' current pensions administered by the University of California. "I think everyone's in a real uncertain spot right now," said Sue Byars, a senior official in the Society of Professionals, Scientists and Engineers, a group running a union organizing drive at the lab. The university's pension plan is one of the nation's largest and historically best funded. But the federal government is handing management of the lab over to a private partnership between the university and several corporations, with a requirement to establish two new, separate retirement plans for lab workers. The National Nuclear Security Administration saidone of the plans had to cap benefits at no more than 105 percent of the market value for benefits for 15 research-intensive corporations such as IBM, Hewlett Packard, Northrop Grumman and AT&T. Many of those companies have been cutting their benefits, widening the gap between the lab's new benefits package and what the university has been paying. Executives for the incoming private management team, led by Bechtel National Inc. and the university, say they fear employees will perceive the lower benefits as a sign of the federal government's waning interest in the lab and its workers. Senior federal weapons officials tried to dispel that notion Friday and tell lab employees that the government cares about keeping Livermore full of talented scientists and engineers. "Livermore National Laboratory is of vital importance to our nation's national security and all of the laboratory's employees are valued team members," said Thomas D'Agostino, the administration's deputy administrator over weapons work. "We are hearing employee concerns, ... and we will be responsive. We have an open process to receive questions and comments, and we are listening." Contact Ian Hoffman at ihoffman@angnewspapers. com or (510) 208-6458. © 2000-2006 ANG Newspapers | Privacy Policy ***************************************************************** 34 Tracy Press: Site 300 meeting rescheduled June 24, 2007 Tracy, CA Tracy Press/Press staff report Friday, 22 June 2007 A meeting to discuss open-air explosions at Site 300 has been rescheduled to next month. Press staff report Press file photo - Signs at the Site 300 explosives testing range warn wayward travelers. A public meeting to discuss open-air explosions that use depleted uranium has been rescheduled for next month. The San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District had originally scheduled the meeting for Tuesday. The meeting is now tentatively scheduled for 7:30 p.m. July 19 at the Tracy Council Chambers, 333 Civic Center Plaza. The district will discuss Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s plan to increase the amount of explosives used at Site 300 in the hills southwest of town. Those explosions would include the use of depleted uranium, which is already responsible for soil and groundwater pollution at the site. The air district will study the potential effects of uranium dust from the explosions, as much as 450 pounds every year, and whether winds from the west would carry that dust toward Tracy. written by Tom Benigno , June 23, 2007 There was and old saying. Billions for defense and not one penny for peace. This is what we have come to. As I stated in another post we have become a Government chewing machine. If it was voted into the budget bills by congress and supported by lobbist, then we must do it for those special interest agendas who lobbyed for it. That's not right we must send a message that we don't want the testing here, they did the Atomic Bomb in the desert they can do this testing in the desert. I'm grateful that the Atomic Bomb was built and saved millions of lives, but this testing is small and should be done some place else. Not to say that it isn't dangerous. Lets use common sense. Benigno written by Diana Milligan , June 23, 2007 We do not want to have this in Tracy...it poses a threat to lives and is not worth the risk. Perhaps they can do some testing on the moon....away from people!!! written by sonora , June 23, 2007 Why do they want any dangerous plants around heavy population? I just don't get the logic of it. Why not use it on already contaminated soil? If they are so safe to work at as they say they are, the employees would not have any problem working in already contaminated soil. Like Nevada, Hawaii, state by state are getting contaminated, I don't understand the thinking of the DEO. written by youbrokeit , June 23, 2007 Was that rain? Nope, that was Lawrence Livermore Lab managers spitting on people who live in Tracy. They hate us and they don't care if they kill our children. written by Clay , June 24, 2007 News 10 from Sacramento, Stockton to Modesto is picking up the Livermore cleanup study. See the report and make place your concerns in the comments at http://www.news10.net/display_story.aspx?storyid=29392 written by sharonbrock , June 24, 2007 This was from January 12, 2007 Tracy Press AND I WAS CONCERNED NOT TO SEE ANY COMMENTS IN THAT SECTION??? "Tucker is Tracy’s only elected representative to have voiced support for a bid to build a Department of Homeland Security laboratory to study fatal diseases with no known cure at the Department of Energy’s 7,000-acre Site 300 southwest of Tracy. Tucker is also the council’s only representative on Tracy Tomorrow, which will recommend next week whether the city should support Lawrence Livermore’s bid to build the anti-biological terrorism facility. According to Tucker, Lawrence Livermore’s public affairs team sent her an e-mail a day after activist Bob Sarvey told the council Dec. 19 that he was worried about the lab’s secretive plans to increase Site 300 outdoor test explosions — tests that might contain tritium and depleted uranium — by as much as eight times annually. Tucker cut short debate Jan. 2 while presiding over a City Council discussion regarding the planned blasts. Mayor Brent Ives stepped down from the discussion because he works for Lawrence Livermore. As acting mayor, Tucker ignored activist Sarvey’s plea that the council rule the planned explosions a public nuisance. “We have no action on this item, and I think this was an exercise in gathering data for our own information,” Tucker said as she ended an emotional, 45-minute debate a little before midnight. The discussion was called by Councilwoman Irene Sundberg, but Tucker did not ask Sundberg whether she was ready to end the debate or whether she wanted the council to take any action or vote. Sundberg said Thursday she plans to have a vote on Lawrence Livermore’s planned bio-lab and explosive tests at the next council meeting, scheduled for Tuesday. The city has no jurisdiction over Site 300, which has tested explosives since the 1960s." written by sharonbrock , June 24, 2007 SINCE honesty is not her policy SAY NO TO THE SITE IN TRACY, WE DON'T WANT THE NEW NATIONAL LIVERMORE BIOLAB AND AGROLAB. written by sharonbrock , June 24, 2007 Councilwoman Suzanne Tucker refuses to release Site 300 e-mails John Upton/Tracy Press Friday, 12 January 2007 ***************************************************************** 35 lamonitor.com: Citizens board takes the long view The Online News Source for Los Alamos ROGER SNODGRASS Monitor Assistant Editor A couple of weeks after the National Academies of Sciences released its report evaluating groundwater protection at Los Alamos National Laboratory, some of the first after-effects are being felt. Apart from having played a major role in instigating the report and providing assistance and information that went into it, the Northern New Mexico Citizens Advisory Board is still on the case and undoubtedly will be, as long as there is one. On Thursday, the NNMCAB, the Department of Energy's chartered environmental advisory board for LANL, heard three presentations on subjects included in the report along with additional feedback from participants dissatisfied with the report. Ardyth Simmons of the laboratory's water stewardship project briefly summarized the lab's perspectives and intention. Although no formal response is required, she said, "We will respond to all the recommendations." She said that would be done in the course of preparing work plans and budgets for next year, including how future work would address the recommendations and how the lab would acknowledge that many of the recommendations were already included in the groundwater plans. Bob Gilkeson, the geologist whose papers and critiques of the laboratory's drilling and sampling practices found support from the advisory board and were at least partly affirmed by the NAS study, said the report authored by "volunteers too busy to read a lot of reports" was based mostly on presentations from the people responsible for the problems and had still not addressed the problem that the $100-million project had failed to produce reliable and qualified water data. Joni Arends, of Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety, warned NAS panelists around the country that although their study may have gone through a peer review, "Now you're going through the citizen's review." 'The CAB remembers' It was only a part of another day in the life of the Northern New Mexico Citizens Advisory Board, themselves a group of unpaid volunteers who serve an intermediary role between the public and the federal decision-makers on a wide range of issues related to waste storage, the environment, court-ordered cleanup programs and long-term remediation. The environmental management program, with staying power provided by a formal consent order with the state, has a great deal of work to do over the next eight years. With funding proposed for next year at $200 million, it will be a major item at least until the cleanup deadline in 2015. Waste management committee chair Ralph Phelps, who also serves on the Utilities Board for Los Alamos County, said he volunteered for the CAB after seeing an ad in the newspaper. Having retired to Los Alamos from a career as a nuclear engineer, much of it at Fort Calhoun Nuclear, a power plant in Nebraska, Phelps decided to become an active participant in the community. He said environmental oversight interests him. "People look at the emotional issues around environmental work and sometimes they do not understand the risks and complexity; they raise questions," he said. "The CAB remembers the questions and makes sure the lab is listening." Another prominent Los Alamos figure, Fran Berting recently became vice-chair of the CAB. A long-time member of the board, Berting traces one of the issues in which she is most interested, long-term stewardship, back to the 80s. She keeps an eye on what is now known as legacy management, noting that cleanup and long term management of a site are closely related. "If you leave something there, you have to remember it's there for a thousand years," she said. As a Los Alamos county councilor, she believes the county needs all the partners it can get to get cleanup done well, with allies in other communities where legacy wastes are also an issue. "Rocky Flats had seven counties that got together and it worked," she said. Another Los Alamos official who also finds time to serve on the CAB, County Clerk Mary Pat Kraemer said Fran Berting had recommended her to the board, as someone who wasn't involved in the technical issues and who was no longer working full time. She said, "It's been a free education for two years and a tremendously positive experience for me." She believes the CAB is increasingly becoming "a player," in environmental discussions at the lab. It's involved in discussions like budget matters at an early stage, she said, and the CAB is now seen as more of a partner in improving things, as well as a watchdog in some respects. Although she is not a scientist or engineer, she values their contributions. "But you can't lose sight of people like me, who are affected by the environment and the cleanup," she said. "Sometimes you need a bridge to the 'technicalese' - somebody who can ask, 'What are you saying?'" The board's next meeting is 2-8:30 p.m. July 25 in the Jemez Complex, Santa Fe Community College 6401 Richards Avenue, Santa Fe. © 2003 Los Alamos Monitor All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 36 Columbian: Its time to rethink Hanford - Columbian.com Serving Clark County, Washington | June 24, 2007 By JULIA ANDERSON, Columbian staff writer The only time westsiders like those of us in Vancouver hear about the Hanford nuclear site is when some update on the massive cleanup of underground nuclear waste there finds its way to the media. To be exact, there are 2,300 tons of the gooey stuff in 177 underground tanks left over from the mishandling of radioactive waste from the 1950s to the 1970s. But what about the Hanford of the future rather than of the past? Hanford offers 560 sagebrush-covered square miles stretching along the Columbia River, 320 miles east of Vancouver near the Tri-Cities (that’s Kennewick, Richland and Pasco). During World War II, Hanford was the secret production site of this nation’s first nuclear bomb. It has remained a federally operated facility and continues to be the nation’s primary source of bomb-making plutonium. In the 1970s, the Washington Public Power Supply System attempted construction of new nuclear plants at Hanford to supply electricity to the region. Costs of the mismanaged project became uncontrollable to the terrible detriment of many investors who had purchased WPPSS investment bonds. The work was never completed. Part of the energy mix? With fossil fuel prices rising and with concerns deepening over global warming, it seems obvious that nuclear energy must be part of the mix of alternatives to hydropower over the next 100 years for this region. Hanford, with its 40 years of nuclear technology experience and because of its remote location in Eastern Washington, is a prime site for such projects. With all the issues facing us, isn’t nuclear energy worth some public discussion? Nuclear plants are zero-emission and once constructed are relatively inexpensive to operate as compared to rail car load after rail car load of coal going into a coal-fired power plant. The fact is that 17 percent of the world’s electricity comes from nuclear power. In France, it’s 75 percent; in the U.S., 15 percent. There are 400 nuclear plants in the world, 100 of them in this country. Because of huge construction costs and a small-but-rabid anti-nuclear contingent, the industry has not seen a new order for a nuclear plant in America in 30 years. At this point, any new plant would cost several billion dollars because of the huge amount of copper, steel and concrete required. Private utility companies can’t put together the long-term construction funding requirements because they’d have to pay interest on billions while plant construction may take 10 years. Meanwhile, waste management technology keeps advancing. If the French can figure it out, can’t we? What the public really wants is a reasonable discussion about our energy future … costs, reliability, environmental impact, resources. Those who know the Tri-Cities know that there are some talented and brainy people living there who continue to work on ways to make nuclear energy safe, reliable and cost-effective. If people want to tear down hydropower dams to save fish, why not consider nuclear, along with renewables such as wind and solar as part of the answer. At least let’s have the discussion. Let’s make Hanford part of that discussion. Julia Anderson is The Columbian’s business editor. She lived in Kennewick for seven years. Reach her at julia.anderson@columbian.com. ©2007 Columbian.com. All Rights Reserved - Use of this site ***************************************************************** NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: *****************************************************************