***************************************************************** 08/31/07 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 15.205 ***************************************************************** 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 NUCLEAR REACTORS 1 The Hindu: Not a victory or defeat for any side: Karat 2 US: Charlotte Observer| Progress Energy gets $65,000 fine 3 Calgary Sun: Fallout over nuke plant hits B.C. legislature 4 US: Houston Chronicle: Meeting Set on Ala. Nuclear Problem | 5 The Hindu News: Uproar in Parliament over panel on n-deal 6 US: toledoblade.com: Ohio's goal of 'advanced energy' by 2025 deemed 7 US: Palm Beach Post: FPL bids to boost wattage 8 US: NRC: NRC to Hold Public Meeting on Palo Verde Nuclear Generating 9 US: Asbury Park Press: Lobbyists see green in Oyster Creek deal | 10 US: Journal News: Indian Point could face daily fine for blowing sir 11 US: Brattleboro Reformer: Cooling tower failure may delay VY extensi 12 Hindustan Times: N-deal on hold, 'crisis over' but confusion stays- 13 US: OpEdNews : Vermont Yankee Power Plant in Extremis 14 US: NRC: NRC Staff Proposes $65,000 Civil Penalty at Harris Nuclear 15 Vietnam: Vietnam nuclear establishment meets to chart plans 16 US: NRC: NRC Issues Final Supplemental Environmental Assessment for 17 icCheshireOnline: Nuclear clean-up is a national example NUCLEAR SECURITY 18 Korea Times: Government Finds No Traces of Missing Uranium 19 US: ENS: Nuclear Plant Misses Public Emergency Notification Deadline 20 US: London Times: Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA review 21 US: GG: Pike EMA head: County is ready for emergencies at USEC plant 22 Guardian Unlimited: Russia Stores Plutonium With U.S. Help NUCLEAR SAFETY 23 US: DaytonDailyNews.com: Cancer-stricken Mound workers seek special 24 US: KJCT8.com: Report: 4,000 died after working on nuclear projects 25 Reuters: Japan halts nuclear research units on safety -Kyodo 26 US: Rocky Mountain News: Rocky: U.S. nuke work afflicted 36,500 Amer NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 27 Idaho Statesman: International conference on nuclear fuel to be held 28 Las Vegas SUN: Editorial: Potentially deadly mistake 29 US: The Tribune: Musgrave: NRC to allow more time to comment on uran 30 RIA Novosti: U.S. Senators to inspect CTR Program implementation in 31 US: Tri-City Herald: Mercury-tainted soil dumped in Hanford landfill 32 ReviewJournal.com: Opinion - EDITORIAL: Runaway train 33 ReviewJournal.com: Tanker owner didn't call 911 34 US: San Bernardino County Sun: Rialto may see more of the EPA 35 US: NRC: Revised Notice of Intent To Prepare a Generic Environmental 36 Las Vegas Now: Las Vegas Officials React to Runaway Railcar 37 CanWest: Canada contemplates nuclear solution to quell climate chang 38 National Post: Canada invited to join controversial nuclear club 39 barrow in furness: Sellafield finds more radiation on beach 40 US: NRC: NRC Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste and Materials to Me 41 Las Vegas SUN: Officials seek answers after Las Vegas chlorine tank PEACE 42 US: Guardian Unlimited: Tracking of Nuclear Parts Faulted 43 Reuters: Should the West fear Russia's military build-up? US DEPT. OF ENERGY 44 DOE: DOE Selects U.S. University-led Teams for $30.7 Million in 45 DOE: D’Agostino Sworn-In as the Energy Department’s Under 46 Seattle PI: Mercury-tainted soil dumped in Hanford landfill 47 Tri-City Herald: IsoRay expanding into new facility in Richland 48 Knoxville News Sentinel: Trio touts $48 billion initiative 49 Ventura County Star: Agency reaches cleanup pact for Field Lab 50 Knoxville News Sentinel: USEC wants 50% tax break ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 The Hindu: Not a victory or defeat for any side: Karat Friday, August 31, 2007 : 1710 Hrs Kolkata-New Delhi, Aug. 31 (PTI): The CPI(M) today said the truce between the Left parties and the Congress on the nuclear issue is not not a victory or defeat for any side. It also said the Left parties behaved responsibly during the crisis and that it did not not precipitate it. "This is not a victory or defeat of any side," said CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat when asked by reporters whether the Centre had got a reprieve following the truce with the Left parties. He said a committee has been formed to go into the concners raised by the Left parties and and "let it do its work. Then we will see." The party would closely study the functioning of the Commitee, he added. His party leaders in Parliament said in Delhi that the Left has behaved responsibly during the crisisi. "The Left parties have behaved very responsibly. There was a crisis facing the nation and the Left did not not precipitate it. We never said 'stop this or scrap that'. We only said ally our apprehensions," party leader Mohd Salim told reporters. Copyright © 2007, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the ***************************************************************** 2 Charlotte Observer| Progress Energy gets $65,000 fine 08/31/2007 | Nuclear regulators determined that guards for its nuclear plant were given test answers by supervisors, which the utility earlier denied John Murawski (Raleigh) News & Observer Federal nuclear regulators fined Progress Energy $65,000 Thursday for an incident involving security guards cheating on tests, handing a rare victory to critics who have long challenged the safety of the utility's Shearon Harris plant. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission found that supervisors slipped answers to guards during a qualification exam, potentially compromising safety at the plant in southwestern Wake County. The allegations stemmed from a whistle-blower complaint that Progress Energy originally denied after conducting its own investigation. The NRC interviewed 91 security contractors at Shearon Harris as part of its probe last year. The NRC also cited three managers at Securitas Security Services, the nationwide security company whose armed security guards patrol the Shearon Harris plant, for willful wrongdoing in the 2005 cheating incident. The three supervisors have since been dismissed by Securitas. "The NRC views this matter to be significant because security officers potentially could have performed security-related duties or been involved with radiologically hazardous material without the requisite knowledge," the NRC wrote Thursday in an enforcement letter to Securitas. "In addition, the deliberate misconduct of security supervisors calls into question the integrity of Securitas' qualification process for security officers." Neither Progress Energy nor Securitas will contest the NRC's findings, the agency said. Left unchallenged, the proposed fine becomes final in 30 days. The $65,000 penalty is minuscule for Progress Energy, a corporation that last year reported $9.6 billion in revenue. But it comes at a time that Progress Energy is touting a sterling safety record at the nuclear plant. Shearon Harris is up for a 20-year license extension and the company also expects to seek permission to build two new reactors at the site. In the early 1990s, the company's nuclear plants were fined almost every year, but the penalties have been a rarity in the past decade. The NRC last fined Progress Energy in 2004 for a retaliatory firing of an official five years earlier who refused to lie to a federal investigator about flaws with security clearances at the company's nuclear plants. In the present case, Progress Energy concluded that "the violations were caused by a lapse of integrity on the part of the contract supervisors and inadequate management oversight," the NRC summarized in a notice to the Raleigh-based utility. As a result of the cheating incident, numerous armed guards were not properly tested or qualified to protect the nuclear plant from intrusion or attack, the NRC said. But the violations did not result in actual harm because Securitas and Progress Energy promptly re-tested the security guards, the NRC said. Some of the security guards also alleged retaliation for speaking out against misconduct at the nuclear plant, but those allegations were not confirmed by the NRC. The NRC did not fine Securitas. The agency regulates nuclear operators but has limited enforcement powers against third-party contractors, said spokesman Kenneth Clark. The NRC has the authority to bar contractors from working at U.S. nuclear plants, but the agency did not take the severe action against the three supervisors. Securitas officials did not return calls seeking comment. The matter was brought to light in 2005 by several security guards who alerted Durham-based N.C. Waste Awareness and Reduction Network, a group that has long criticized the safety performance at Shearon Harris. N.C. WARN brought the matter to the NRC with the assistance of another nuclear watchdog, the Union of Concerned Scientists in Boston. "There was a small group of heroic, brave guards early who brought it to us," said N.C. WARN's director, Jim Warren. "We are very pleased that the NRC confirmed so many allegations because it led to Progress making substantial corrections." Since the cheating was exposed, Progress Energy no longer relies on Securitas to administer and proctor exams to security guards. Instead, a Progress Energy supervisor oversees the testing, said spokeswoman Julie Hans. Securitas continues to provide security services at the Shearon Harris nuclear plant. "They're the largest security contractor in the country," Hans said. "We have every reason to believe this was an isolated incident. It's unfortunate that the actions of three individuals would taint the reputation of the entire security force that works here every day." ***************************************************************** 3 Calgary Sun: Fallout over nuke plant hits B.C. legislature Fri, August 31, 2007 UPDATED: 2007-08-31 01:43:05 MST By DOUG MCINTYRE, SUN MEDIA Debate is starting to mushroom in the B.C. legislature over a nuclear power plant proposed for just outside its border in northern Alberta. The NDP is leading the charge against Calgary-based Energy Alberta's plan to build a nuclear power plant 30 km west of Peace River and 70 km from the B.C. border, with energy critic John Horgan calling on the ruling Liberals to register opposition with Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach. "British Columbians don't want a nuclear power plant next door and our government needs to make that crystal clear to the premier of Alberta," said Horgan yesterday. B.C. Energy Minister Richard Neufeld, however, said the nuclear option isn't a surprise, adding his Alberta colleague, Mel Knight, previously informed him the idea was on the table. "All this company has done is say 'we might build a plant in Peace River' -- it may get built and it may not," said Neufeld. "That's not British Columbia's jurisdiction -- Alberta can do what it wants to do in its own borders. "In a world of greenhouse gas abatement, quite honestly what else can Alberta do?" B.C. Green party boss Christopher Bennett, while opposed to the use of nuclear reactors, conceded the technology presents a more environmentally sound option for generating the massive electricity required for Alberta's oilsands extraction. "The byproduct, the toxic waste, is really the primary cause of concern," said Bennett. However, the proximity of the proposed site to B.C. had him questioning why the project couldn't be located closer to the oilsands boomtown of Fort McMurray. Previous story: Mountie shot by fellow officer during raid near Sundre Next story: Steady Eddie has finally figured out 'tis better to feed the Rottweiler. Toward that end ... has he got a deal for Bronco. Copyright © 2006, Canoe Inc. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 4 Houston Chronicle: Meeting Set on Ala. Nuclear Problem | Chron.com - Aug. 31, 2007, 3:48PM DOTHAN, Ala. — Workers knew of a possible safety problem with a cooling system at Farley Nuclear Plant but failed to correct it for months, leading to a potential citation against Southern Nuclear, a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulator Commission said Friday. The public never was in danger, officials said, and a plant spokeswoman said proper corrective action was taken promptly. Plant employees discovered a problem with a valve at the plant during tests in April 2006, but they didn't fix it until the fault showed up again during another test nine months later, according to the NRC's Ken Clark. The valve _ part of a system used to remove residual heat from the Unit 2 reactor _ did not pose a public safety threat, Clark said, but it could have been a problem had an emergency shutdown been required. "It's already been fixed, but it wasn't handled the way it should have been," said Clark. Regulators and Southern Company officials will hold a public meeting in Atlanta on Sept. 12 to discuss the problem, which could result in a citation against the company, Clark said. A citation would not necessarily result in a fine, he said, but it would mar the plant's record. Southern Nuclear spokeswoman Gina Warren said later Friday that when a valve did not open on the first stroke as expected during routine testing in April 2006, plant personnel did some diagnostic tests, conducted testing one a week, then once a month and back to quarterly, without any problem. In January 2007, during a quarterly test, they found a similar valve with a similar problem, she said, and made modifications to fix it. "We did do corrective actions immediately following those instances," she said. She said all valves on the units were tested and there were no other problems. Like Clark, she said at no time was there a public safety issue. She said the Sept. 12 meeting will give plant officials an opportunity to discuss with the NRC the corrective actions that have been taken. Southern Nuclear Operating Co. is a division of the Atlanta-based Southern Co., which includes Alabama Power Co. ***************************************************************** 5 The Hindu News: Uproar in Parliament over panel on n-deal Saturday, September 1, 2007 : 0330 Hrs New Delhi, Sept. 1 (PTI): The UPA-Left decision to set up a committee on the Indo-US nuclear deal on Friday stirred a hornet's nest in Parliament with Opposition NDA and Third Front seeking a Joint Parliamentary Committee, a demand rejected by the Government. It was trouble from the word go in both the Houses, with the BJP giving a notice of breach of privilege in Lok Sabha against the government for announcing the formation of the committee outside Parliament when it is in session. Both Houses saw two adjournments each till after lunch. "It is not a family matter. It is an insult to the House. The proposal (to set up a committee) should be withdrawn," BJP leader V K Malhotra said, demanding that a JPC be set up on the issue. Rejecting his contention, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee said the committee did not have any official status and was an "internal arrangement" between the UPA and its allies. The Parliamentary Affairs Minister, P R Dasmunsi, sought to take a dig at the BJP telling the saffron party to "form an internal committee" to remove the "confusion" on the issue. Speaker Somnath Chatterjee said he has received the notice by Deputy Leader of Opposition V K Malhotra and said he would take a decision on it. The BJP members remained undeterred in their protests and came to the well of the House raising slogans against the government, forcing the Speaker to adjourn the proceedings till 1530 hours. Similar scenes were witnessed in Rajya Sabha also with the NDA and Third Front members demanding formation of JPC. Chairman Hamid Ansari adjourned the House for an hour. When the House re-assembled, the matter was raised again and the House had to be adjourned twice. Taking strong exception to the announcement of the committee outside Parliament, senior BJP members Sushma Swaraj and M Venkaiah Naidu said it amounted to contempt of the House. Members of NDA and Third Front trooped into the well and shouted slogans "JPC lao, Desh Bachao (set up JPC, save country)" and "Nuclear Deal down, down". Amid the din, papers and special mentions were tabled and Minority Affairs Minister A R Antulay laid a copy of the Action Taken Report on Sachar Committee recommendations on social, economic and educational status of minorities. The Opposition members also did not allow Home Minister Shivraj Patil to reply to the debate on flood situation in the country. As noisy scenes continued, Khan adjourned the House first till 12:30 hours and then till 14:30 hours. There was no let up in anger in the Opposition BJP and Third Front benches when the House re-assembled at 1430 hours. The BJP and Third front MPs remained adamant on their stand for setting up of a Joint Parliamentary Committee and did not let private business to be conducted. When P J Kurien, who was in the chair reminded that no other issue could be raised during Private Members' business, they trooped into the well of the House and raised slogans, following which the Vice Chairman adjourned the House for the day. Copyright © 2007, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the ***************************************************************** 6 toledoblade.com: Ohio's goal of 'advanced energy' by 2025 deemed achievable Article published Friday, August 31, 2007 By JIM PROVANCE BLADE COLUMBUS BUREAU COLUMBUS - Gov. Ted Strickland's energy proposal calls for Ohio's electric utilities to invest heavily in renewable and advanced energy, but it remains to be seen how much of a hammer the state would swing to make it happen. The administration has not said what would happen to a utility if it fails to meet the requirement that 25 percent of its power supply come from "advanced energy'' by 2025. That category would include fuel cell, clean coal, and nuclear technology as well as "green'' sources like solar, wind, hydroelectric, geothermal, and landfill gases. "We want that standard to be firm, but we also understand that it would be desirable for us to have a kind of flexibility as we move toward achieving that standard,'' Mr. Strickland said. "I would expect the [Public Utilities Commission of Ohio] to continue to monitor the efforts toward achieving that standard.'' In addition to the broader 25 percent-by-2025-standard, the much-anticipated plan the governor unveiled Wednesday requires at least half of that, or 12.5 percent, to come from renewable sources. And half of the total advanced energy standard must come from power generated in Ohio. While most of the discussion about renewable-related job creation has focused on wind power, including an announced $2 million grant yesterday for a Wood County project, Mr. Strickland's plan includes a specific push for solar technology development. That's a nod to the photovoltaic solar panel research going on at the University of Toledo. "We think it's achievable,'' PUCO Chairman Alan Schriber said. "2025 is a long way off. A lot can happen. We could have 50 percent advanced energy by 2025. On the other hand, if we find there's an economic or technical struggle, we would have the ability to revisit it.'' Utilities and heavy industry oppose making the standard mandatory. Environmental organizations have sought an even stiffer mandate, and have questioned the governor's decision to include nuclear power in the mix. "Illinois - a state much like Ohio in that it is a large manufacturing state, a big coal state, and a big nuclear state - just passed a renewable energy standard that is 25 percent all clean renewable energy by 2025,'' Erin Bowser of Environment Ohio said. "It's one of the most aggressive in the country.'' Players on all sides are waiting to see the specific details when the plan is submitted as proposed legislation. There is some resistance among the Republican-controlled General Assembly about stretching the bar beyond the immediate issue of addressing how Ohio puts some of the electricity deregulation genie back into the bottle to avoid the anticipated rate shock that consumers in some other states have experienced. Absent a new law, Ohio is set to enter the open-electricity market on Jan. 1, 2009, a market in which true competition has not materialized to maintain downward pressure on prices. Mr. Strickland said Ohio must resist temptation to separate debate over rates and regulation from advanced and renewable portfolio standards. "I think that would be a huge mistake,'' he said. "That would be like saying to [Henry] Ford back in 1903, we shouldn't make cars because we have lots of really nice carriages.'' The Ohio Department of Development yesterday approved incentive grants totaling $5 million for two wind-power projects, including one in Wood County. The JW Great Lakes Wood County Wind Farm will receive $2 million toward production of a wind farm capable of producing 49.5 megawatts, enough electricity to meet the demands of 15,000 homes. The project is expected to be operational by June 30, 2009. Contract Jim Provance at: jprovance@theblade.com, or 614-221-0496. The Toledo Blade Company, 541 N. Superior St., Toledo, OH 43660 , (419) 724-6000 ***************************************************************** 7 Palm Beach Post: FPL bids to boost wattage By KRISTI E. SWARTZ Palm Beach Post Staff Writer Friday, August 31, 2007 Florida Power & Light Co. wants to produce an additional 500 megawatts of electricity at its planned natural gas-fired West County Energy Center near 20-Mile Bend, the company said Thursday afternoon. One of the units is expected to be up and running in 2009, the second a year later. FPL has not said when it would pursue the third unit. If approved, FPL would be producing 3,800 megawatts of electricity instead of 3,300, Davis said. "Because of the efficiency of the technology, we will be able to produce more power with greater efficiency and no increase in our overall emission rate compared to what was previously planned," Davis said. Nearby residents, however, don't want to hear it. Even though natural gas is a clean-burning fossil fuel, residents are concerned about the plant's impact on the Everglades and the Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge. "Do you have any idea how much damage that's going to do?" asked Sharon Waite, a Loxahatchee resident and self-proclaimed conservationist who drove to Tallahassee three times to fight the plant. The impact of power plants on the environment has risen to the forefront in Florida as Gov. Charlie Crist has set the state on a path to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050. Even though the West County Energy Center has secured all of its approvals, some continue to challenge it. "We already know that it's going to unleash millions of tons of greenhouse gases, and that is totally unacceptable," said Barry Silver, an attorney for the Palm Beach County Environmental Coalition, which is suing the state over the plant. "If they plan to add any more to that, that would be devastating to the environment." FPL contends that it needs the juice to serve the number of people who keep moving to Florida, and that energy efficiency, conservation and renewable fuels won't cut it. FPL, owned by FPL Group Inc. (NYSE: FPL, $58.47) of Juno Beach, adds 87,000 to 95,000 residential and business customers a year. Part of the utility's answer to supporting that growth had been a proposed 1,960-megawatt "clean coal" plant in Glades County, but the Public Service Commission rejected the project in June. The state's largest utility said two weeks ago that it was going to upgrade its four nuclear units to add 414 megawatts of power to the grid as well as build two units at its Turkey Point plant in Miami-Dade County. Copyright 2007 The Palm Beach Post. All rights reserved. By using PalmBeachPost.com, you accept the terms of our visitor ***************************************************************** 8 NRC: NRC to Hold Public Meeting on Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station News Release - Region IV - 2007-032 - U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, Region IV 611 Ryan Plaza Drive, Suite 400, Arlington TX 76011 www.nrc.gov CONTACT: Victor Dricks Phone: 817-860-8128 E-mail: opa4@nrc.gov The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will meet with Arizona Public Service Co. officials on Sept. 6, to discuss performance improvements at the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station. Palo Verde, which is operated by APS, is located 55 miles west of Phoenix. The meeting, which will be open to public observation, will begin at 9 a.m. in the NRC’s Region IV office in Arlington, Texas. Conferees will discuss the status of Palo Verde’s performance improvement plan and the readiness for NRC’s comprehensive inspection at the site. The public will have an opportunity to observe and ask questions of NRC staff before the meeting is adjourned. Members of the public can listen to the meeting via a special telephone line by calling 1-800-952-9677, and requesting ext. 472 for the Palo Verde meeting. NRC news releases are available through a free list server subscription at the following Web address: http://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/listserver.html. The NRC Home Page at www.nrc.gov also offers a Subscribe to News link in the News & Information menu. E-mail notifications are sent to subscribers when news releases are posted to NRC's Web Site. August 31, 2007 ***************************************************************** 9 Asbury Park Press: Lobbyists see green in Oyster Creek deal | APP.COM - Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 08/31/07 Salmon Ventures is a public relations and lobbying firm that specializes in representing the interests of business and industry that come under regulatory control on the state and national levels. Earlier this month, they became the "front" for Exelon in its attempt to cloud the real concerns surrounding the operational, environmental and age-related safety problems surrounding its Oyster Creek nuclear power plant in Lacey. Under the guise of a new coalition, the New Jersey Affordable, Clean Reliable Energy Coalition (notice the lack of the word "safe"), Edward Salmon and his band of merry lobbyists are mounting a campaign to promote Oyster Creek as an important part of New Jersey's energy future with ratepayers' money. Exelon has paid the upfront money to create this coalition. The principal members of this coalition are pro-nuclear industry groups and the three unions that seek or have jobs directly related to these plants. There is no disclaimer to these facts on its Web site. Salmon says that he and his colleagues' reputations are on the line. I agree. As a former state Board of Public Utilities president, a former legislator and as a member of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, I would have expected more from Salmon. I would have expected such an esteemed person to be deeply concerned about Exelon's refusal to erect cooling towers, thus violating the Clean Water Act for nine years and continuing to degrade the Barnegat Bay. I would have expected such an esteemed person to have major concerns with the testimony presented by Exelon, Sandia Laboratories and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission at the last two Atomic Committee on Reactor Safety hearings with regards to the corrosion of the drywell liner of the reactor. I would have expected such an esteemed person to be as deeply troubled by the beliefs of the Ocean County freeholders and 20 surrounding towns that emergency evacuation is impossible, and the risk of terrorist threat is real. I would have expected such an esteemed person to wait until the scheduled Atomic Safety Licensing Board hearing in September allowed citizens — for the first time — to challenge the NRC and Exelon with their experts and paid for by T-shirt sales and pass-the-hat donations. And I would have hoped that if the opinion of such an esteemed person was that nuclear power is a part of the solution to our energy needs, that he would be advocating for relicensing of plants when, and only when, they are not in heavily populated areas with insufficient infrastructure; are not obsolete, corroding and embrittled; are operating within the margins of safety, and do not violate environmental laws already on the books. I would have hoped that he would have joined his voice with ours, the counties of Westchester, Putnam, Rockland in New York state and the attorneys general of New York and Connecticut in our suit in the 2nd U.S. District Court that seeks to hold the NRC accountable to the communities and people surrounding these old plants, instead of the industry lap dog it has become. But sadly, and as usual, money talks. Peggi Sturmfels is a program organizer for the New Jersey Environmental Federation, Belmar. Copyright © 2007 Asbury Park Press. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 10 Journal News: Indian Point could face daily fine for blowing siren deadline Friday, August 31, 2007 By MICHAEL RISINIT THE JOURNAL NEWS BUCHANAN - Indian Point's owner said yesterday that it would supply whatever information federal regulators need to sign off on its new emergency notification system, even as its main oversight agency is contemplating daily fines against the nuclear power company for missing the project's third deadline. "The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is still considering what level of enforcement is appropriate. That would suggest to me they might think it's not as cut and dried as it seems," said Jim Steets, a spokesman for Entergy Nuclear Northeast. Steets was referring to the NRC's reprimand yesterday concerning its missed deadline last week. Entergy had notified the NRC and the Federal Emergency Management Agency that its new siren system was up and running two days before the deadline. FEMA, however, must sign off on the system before the NRC declares it operable. In a letter last week asking the NRC for extra time, Entergy Senior Vice President Michael Balduzzi said FEMA needed at least 45 days to conduct its review. The NRC rejected the request. "It was known that FEMA still had multiple concerns," NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said. "(FEMA) may not have spelled out an exact time frame (earlier in the process.)" Marlene Phillips of FEMA said yesterday her agency didn't know how much time it needed for its "detailed review." "We're going to take as much time as we're going to take," she said. In issuing Entergy a notice of violation yesterday, the NRC told the company it was considering imposing daily fines because of its "repeated failure to comply with an NRC order on the siren system." The appropriate enforcement action, the NRC said, will be determined after the sirens are approved. The new system was supposed to have been in place by the end of January. The company received a 75-day extension from the NRC but missed its April 15 deadline, resulting in a $130,000 fine. It then declared its updated system ready to go as of late Aug. 22, save for FEMA's review. Rep. Nita Lowey, D-Harrison, last week said the NRC should fine the company for missing the deadline. Yesterday, she said she was pleased the NRC was holding Entergy accountable. "I hope that they will assess a stiff fine to make it clear that Entergy must start taking seriously its responsibility to protect the safety and security of the plant and the surrounding area," she said. The sirens in the 10-mile emergency planning zone around the Buchanan plants are meant to alert residents to turn on radios and televisions for more information in an emergency. The delay, the NRC said, doesn't threaten public safety because the current siren system still works. Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y, said she would ask the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general to evaluate Entergy's failure to meet the deadline. The updated system was developed to improve on the decades-old air-raid-type sirens. A series of siren failures in 2005 led to elected officials calling for the NRC to require a better system. "Our only interest is to make sure we have the new system up and running properly," said C.J. Miller, spokeswoman for Rockland County Executive C. Scott Vanderhoef. Reach Michael Risinit at mrisinit@lohud.com or 845-228-2274. There are other ways for Entergy to make up for the money they spend on sirens. They could FIRE public relation machine Burston Marsteller. Or Entergy Vice President Fred R Dacimo could auction off his yacht " The Orient Express " or Entergy could just neglect maintenance. What remedy do you suppose Entergy will choose? Randall K. Wolf/The Journal News Copyright © 2007 The Journal News, a Gannett Co. Inc. newspaper serving Westchester, Rockland and Putnam Counties in New York. ***************************************************************** 11 Brattleboro Reformer: Cooling tower failure may delay VY extension approval BRATTLEBORO, VT By BOB AUDETTE, Reformer Staff The aftermath of the collapse of a cooling tower at Vermont Yankee. Friday, August 31 BRATTLEBORO -- The collapse of a cooling tower at Vermont Yankee could mean a delay in the nuclear power plant receiving approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to extend its operating license from 2012 to 2032. "Nine of 11 of the cells in the cooling tower bank where the partial collapse occurred were not determined by Entergy to fall within the scope of license renewal reviews," wrote Neil Sheehan, NRC spokesman, in an e-mail to the Reformer. "We're asking whether that conclusion and the basis for that are still valid." Even if the NRC determines Entergy was correct in leaving the cooling towers out of its license renewal review, it has asked the company to send it more information on the collapse. "This will likely result in an additional extension of the time we need to complete our review of the application," wrote Sheehan. "However, we believe we need to be as thorough as possible in considering all the ramifications of the tower failure." Vermont's new nuclearengineer said the NRC's request is appropriate at this time. "I think it's a very good question that the NRC is asking and we are happy to see them asking it," said Uldis Vanags. "We'll be reviewing that letter and providing a response as requested within the next 30 days," said Yankee spokesman Rob Williams. In January 2006, Entergy applied to the NRC for an operating license extension. Recently, the NRC announced it had found no environmental reasons that would prevent the license extension. It had planned to issue its final report late next year. A revised schedule for completion of the license renewal application review will be issued after the NRC has received a satisfactory response to its request for additional information. Entergy has 30 days from receipt of the letter to respond. The NRC issues general guidelines that energy companies must follow when filing licensing applications, said Sheehan Thursday afternoon. "They are supposed to include all the safety systems, structures and components." "The license renewal application is truly a fill-in-the-boxes kind of form," said Ray Shadis, technical advisor for the anti-nuclear group New England Coalition on Nuclear Power. "While there are criteria for the things you need to review and the things that you don't, there is some wiggle room." Earlier this week, NEC asked the NRC to conduct an evaluation not on the condition of the towers, but rather on "how Entergy allowed this to happen," said Shadis. Entergy and the NRC have their work cut out for them proving to the general public that the cooling towers are safe, said Shadis. "Our sense is the whole thing could go down like a house of cards." And Shadis said this is not an isolated incident and might point out that Entergy needs to reevaluate its maintenance procedures. "They had a series of starts and stops, all of which were maintenance related," he said, including fires in 2004 and 2005. The request for additional information is a routine function of any licensing action requested of the NRC, said Sheehan Thursday afternoon. "We are constantly asking for more information," he said. "This one we believe is warranted based on the fact they had the cooling tower failure." "Please provide the results of the review performed to determine the impact of the circulating water piping, pipe supports, and west cooling tower cell failures on license renewal scoping, screening, and applicable aging management programs," wrote Jonathan Rowley, license renewal project manager for the NRC, in a letter to Entergy. The plant has two banks of 11 cooling towers. The bank that suffered the failure Aug. 21 is known as the west bank. Two of the bank's 11 cooling fans are considered safety related, and would be used to cool the power plant's reactor in an emergency. They are seismically rated to withstand a geological event such as an earthquake and have piping independent of the rest of the cooling towers. If it is determined all the towers should be included in the license review, wrote Rowley, Entergy must provide a report on "the potential effect of a circulating water piping, pipe supports or structural failure of the nonsafety-related west cooling tower cells, which were not included within the scope of license renewal, on safety-related systems, structures and components." Bob Audette can be reached at raudette@reformer.com or 802-254-2311, ext. 273. ***************************************************************** 12 Hindustan Times: N-deal on hold, 'crisis over' but confusion stays- Last Modified: August 30,2007 The dragging standoff between the government and its Left allies ended on Thursday with ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) agreeing to put on hold the operationalisation of the India-US nuclear deal till a political panel comes out with its findings on the pact. The dramatic breakthrough came after a series of meetings through the day between UPA and Left leaders, among UPA leaders and among Left leaders, and also within the Congress hierarchy including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. At one stage of the standoff, it almost seemed as if the Left, with its crucial 60-odd seats in the Lok Sabha, was set to withdraw support to the government.In the evening, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee announced that a joint committee of UPA and Left representatives would look into "certain aspects of the bilateral agreement, the implications of the Hyde Act on the 123 agreement (between New Delhi and Washington) and (on) self-reliance in the nuclear sector, the implications of the nuclear agreement on foreign policy and security cooperation. "The operationalisation of the deal will take into account the committee's findings," said Mukherjee, who came out of the prime minister's 7, Race Course Road residence accompanied by Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) politburo member Sitaram Yechury. Mukherjee and Yechury have taken the lead in most of the key close-door discussions that finally buried what turned out to be the worst political crisis for the Congress-led UPA government since it took power in May 2004. At one stage of the standoff, it almost seemed as if the Left, with its crucial 60-odd seats in the Lok Sabha, was set to withdraw support to the government. However, confusion continues over the definition of "operationalisation". The Left claimed that this meant that all the negotiations on implementing the deal were now on hold. But Congress sources said the formation of the committee was meant to buy more time from the Left to convince them about the desirability of the nuclear deal - and that its so-called freeze was temporary. Amid the confusion, both sides claimed victory. Forward Bloc leader G Devarajan told IANS that the government had assured them that no negotiations would take place until the concerns voiced by the communists were addressed. "The nuclear deal is on hold. We are satisfied," CPI-M general secretary Prakash Karat announced at his party headquarters. The decision to form the UPA-Left committee was finalised after four hours of discussions at the prime minister's office in parliament house. Besides Manmohan Singh, those who attended the meeting included Congress president Sonia Gandhi, Mukherjee, Defence Minister AK Antony, Congress leader Ahmed Patel apart from Manmohan Singh. Yechury joined them later. After the meeting, Yechury conveyed the government's decisions to a hurriedly convened meeting of the four-party Left grouping. The formal announcement came after the UPA-Left meeting at the prime minister's residence. The government was not forthcoming about the status of the scheduled discussions with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) next month on India-specific safeguards. Left leaders argued that the government decision to hold the operationalisation of the deal would put the future of the agreement into uncertainty. "The government cannot proceed with any negotiations. Even if it goes ahead with the talks, New Delhi will not be in a position to press for it forcefully as there is internal opposition. No country will be ready to take it seriously," a Left leader told IANS. The Left parties have said that Indian officials could attend the IAEA board meeting as it has in the past but there should be no talks on India-specific on nuclear safeguards. This stand of the Left is worrying a section of the government, which says this would only mean that the path-breaking deal is more or less scrapped. But Congress and official sources do not agree with the general assessment that an end of the Bush presidency would automatically kill the nuclear pact unless India goes ahead with it now. "If we can make Bush agree to this, we can also persuade the Democrats if they win the presidential elections," said a senior Congress leader. "But we know it may not be that easy." (Inputs by Sutirtho Patranobis and Saroj Nagi) Whither nuclear deal? ***************************************************************** 13 OpEdNews : Vermont Yankee Power Plant in Extremis August 31, 2007 at 14:57:37 by Citizens Awareness Network Page 1 of 1 page(s) http://www.opednews.com Vermont Yankee "scrammed"-automatically shut down Thursday, Aug 30th in the afternoon. The most dangerous time for a nuke is when it is starting up or shutting down; when something goes wrong, the reactor trips to stop any cascading events. VY had the highest rate of reactor scrams in the country in the 1990's. I believe that Indian Point in NY now holds the record- another Entergy reactor and part of its dubious flag ship. What's interesting is NRC's decision to look at the tower fiasco as part of relicensing. Entergy is of course objecting since the towers are on the "cool" side of the reactor complex and do not involve radioactivity. It is not under NRC's regulations- so says Entergy. These problems are created by Entergy's lack of maintenance of the reactor complex. Copyright © OpEdNews, 2002-2007 ***************************************************************** 14 NRC: NRC Staff Proposes $65,000 Civil Penalty at Harris Nuclear Plant; Issues Violation Notices to Security Contractor and Supervisors News Release - Region II - 2007-041 - U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, Region II 61 Forsyth Street SW, Atlanta, GA 30303 www.nrc.gov CONTACT: Ken Clark (404) 562-4416 Roger D. Hannah (404) 562-4417 E-mail: opa2@nrc.gov The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff has proposed a $65,000 civil penalty against Progress Energy for a 2005 violation in which contract security officers were provided answers by three contract security supervisors during required re-qualification tests at the Shearon Harris nuclear power plant, operated by the company near Raleigh, N. C. The NRC also announced enforcement actions in the form of notices of violation against the security contractor, Securitas Security Services, USA, Inc., and against the contract security supervisors. NRC officials said the enforcement action followed the agency’s completion of its review of security concerns at the Harris plant. Those concerns were provided to the NRC in December 2005 by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) and the North Carolina Waste Awareness and Reduction Network (NC WARN). In a letter dated March 22, 2006 to UCS and NC WARN, Victor M. McCree, then Director of the NRC’s Division of Reactor Safety in the agency’s Region II office in Atlanta, advised of the results of the agency’s review of 16 of the 19 discrete issues that were identified in UCS’ and NC WARN’s December 2005 letter. In that letter, the agency confirmed the validity of a number of the issues raised. In an Aug. 30 , 2007 letter to UCS and NC WARN, Joseph W. Shea, Director of the NRC’s Division of Reactor Safety in the agency’s Region II office in Atlanta, advised of the results of the agency’s review of the remaining three concerns. Shea said the NRC was able to establish the validity of one of the remaining three concerns resulting in enforcement action being taken against Progress Energy, Securitas Security Services and three individuals. Shea stated that the other two concerns were not substantiated and that all 19 concerns are now considered closed. The letter further stated that “unless the NRC receives additional information that suggests our conclusions should be altered,” the NRC plans “no further action on the concerns.” ### EDITORS: Interested parties may obtain a summary of the NRC’s previous review of security issues at the Harris plant at www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/for-the-record/2006. A summary of the NRC’s latest review of Harris security issues may be obtained at www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/for-the-record/2007. Copies of the enforcement letters and violation notices to the utility and the contractor will be available on the NRC web site at www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html . The ML numbers are: ML072420240, ML072420251 and ML072240255. Information on letters to the three individuals will not be publicly available until the NRC has confirmed their receipt by the individuals involved. Information can also be obtained via email or facsimile by calling the NRC Region II Public Affairs office at (404) 562-4416 or 4417 or by email at OPA2@nrc.gov NRC news releases are available through a free list server subscription at the following Web address: http://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/listserver.html. The NRC Home Page at www.nrc.gov also offers a Subscribe to News link in the News & Information menu. E-mail notifications are sent to subscribers when news releases are posted to NRC's Web Site. August 30, 2007 ***************************************************************** 15 Vietnam: Vietnam nuclear establishment meets to chart plans Thanh Nien Daily Vietnam opened its 7th national conference on nuclear science and technology in Danang Thursday with a focus on research and naming the tasks for the next three years. The two-day conference is being attended by nearly 300 Vietnamese scientists and 20 others from Japan, France, and South Korea. It will also discuss implementation of a national strategy on the peaceful use of atomic energy for until 2020, recently approved by Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung. Deputy Minister of Science and Technology Le Dinh Tien said his ministry had drafted a Code on Atomic Energy and would present it to the National Assembly for consideration next November. In a related development, the Vietnamese government has approved the setting up of three nuclear power plants by 2025. The project is expected to cost US$16 billion and add 8,000 MW to the national power grid. Work is underway on the country's first nuclear power project which is expected to be operational by 2020. Reported by Huu Tra - Translated by Thu Thuy Copyright © 2004 Privacy policy ***************************************************************** 16 NRC: NRC Issues Final Supplemental Environmental Assessment for Diablo Canyon Spent Fuel Storage Facility News Release - 2007-110 - U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 20555-0001 E-mail: opa@nrc.gov www.nrc.gov The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued its final supplemental environmental assessment for a spent fuel storage facility under construction at the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant in San Luis Obispo County, Calif., concluding that construction, operation and decommissioning of the facility will not result in a significant effect on the human environment, even when potential terrorist attacks are considered. The NRC staff conducted the supplemental assessment by order of the Commission, in response to last year’s ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace v. NRC. A draft of the supplement was published May 31 for public comment. The supplemental assessment considers the potential radiological impacts of terrorist acts on the Diablo Canyon spent fuel storage facility. It concludes that the probability of a successful terrorist attack resulting in a significant radiation release is very low. This conclusion is based on the NRC’s continual evaluation of the threat environment and coordination with other federal, state and local agencies; protective measures currently in place that reduce the chances of any terrorist attack being successful; the robust design of dry cask storage systems, which provide substantial resistance to penetration; and NRC’s security assessments of potential consequences of terrorist attacks at these facilities. Although the agency concludes the likelihood of a terrorist attack on the facility resulting in a substantial radiological release is very low, the supplement also describes the potential impacts of such an event at Diablo Canyon. It concludes that any radiation dose to members of the public near the plant from a successful terrorist attack on the facility would likely be well below 5 rem, even in the most severe plausible threat scenarios. In many scenarios, the hypothetical dose could be substantially less than 5 rem, or none at all. (Five rem is the maximum annual occupational dose limit for workers in the nuclear industry and the regulatory dose limit for persons outside the boundary of a spent fuel storage facility to receive from accidents.) The NRC received 32 comment documents regarding the draft supplement, of which 12 were nearly identical. The staff grouped the comments into 17 general topics, and included its responses as an appendix to the final supplement. The supplemental environmental assessment will be available on the NRC’s Web site at http://www.nrc.gov/waste.html, by selecting “Diablo Canyon” in the “Quick Links” box. The supplement and related documents can also be viewed in the NRC’s ADAMS online documents system at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams/web-based.html NRC news releases are available through a free list server subscription at the following Web address: http://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/listserver.html. The NRC Home Page at www.nrc.gov also offers a Subscribe to News link in the News & Information menu. E-mail notifications are sent to subscribers when news releases are posted to NRC's Web Site. August 31, 2007 ***************************************************************** 17 icCheshireOnline: Nuclear clean-up is a national example Aug 31 2007 By David Holmes, Chester Chronicle WORK to safely decommission a redundant nuclear enrichment facility and associated buildings at Capenhurst has won a top acclade. The site has come out top of all UK decommissioning sites for its safety record, progress against schedules and costs. Capenhurst, which is bidding to become the first UK decommissioning site to complete its clean-up in 2009, was judged to have attained this accolade by the site's owner, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, in its quarterly review. Phil Malem, head of Capenhurst's decommissioning site, said: 'This is a big endorsement of the effort and diligence of everyone on site as we move from being a decommissioning site to focusing solely on the continued safe storage of uranic materials. 'The business environment for nuclear decommissioning is very challenging and I'm pleased we've been able to demonstrate the safety and value for money that we're delivering to our customer, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and the UK taxpayer. 'Due to the fact that we are significantly ahead of all other nuclear decommissioning sites, Capenhurst is fast becoming the blueprint for nuclear clean-up management in the UK - that's something of which we're extremely proud.' Capenhurst's achievement was secured by its world-class safety record and fast-track demolition work, which is the final stage of the clean-up process. It has been four years since there was an accident at site resulting in an employee spending time away from work and all that while demolition and clean-up has progressed at a prolific rate, with an approximate area of 18 football pitches cleared in the last few years. Urenco Capenhurst Ltd continues to operate a centrifuge enrichment business on the site. Capenhurst also houses modernised and upgraded facilities in a former diffusion plant to store uranic materials prior to their long-term re-use within the nuclear fuel cycle. icCheshireOnline™ is a trade mark of Trinity Mirror North West & North Wales Limited. ***************************************************************** 18 Korea Times: Government Finds No Traces of Missing Uranium 08-31-2007 20:06 By Cho Jin-seo Staff Reporter The government said Friday it failed to retrieve 2.7 kilograms of uranium samples accidentally sent to a garbage incinerator in May, leaving worries and suspicions on its loose control of radioactive materials. The Ministry of Science and Technology said that the lost uranium is believed to have been taken out of the research facility by a garbage disposal company on May 17, and was burned and buried in a landfill two days later. The uranium samples are harmless to humans as they emit very little radioactivity, the ministry said. But afraid of protests from residents nearby, it didn't disclose the locations of the incinerator and the disposal site. ``We believe that most of the uranium shattered into minuscule particles in the furnace and was buried in the ground along with other garbage,'' the ministry's official Park Jin-sun said in a release. ``Some of it could have been sucked into the dust collector. The buried particles could have dissolved as there was heavy rainfall in the region after the accident.'' The Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, located in Daejon, lost the samples in May when an unidentified employee removed the uranium container from the laboratory during maintenance work. Thinking it was garbage, cleaners moved it to a waste dump and later to the incinerator. The state-run institute said it learned of the blunder on Aug. 6, a day before the planned inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Only the copper container was retrieved from the garbage disposal company, it said. Uranium is used to fuel nuclear power plants, or in the making of ammunition and nuclear weapons. One kilogram of enriched uranium can theoretically produce as much electricity as 1,500 tons of coal. A large intake of uranium can cause kidney failure. Included in the missing package were 1.9 kilograms of natural uranium and 0.8 kilograms of depleted uranium as well as 0.2 grams of enriched uranium. They were all under the supervision of the IAEA. The ministry said that the radiation level would be only a fraction of what a person can be exposed to in over a year. But the issue would be taken up by the IAEA's regular safety inspection conference to take place next week in Vienna, it said. indizio@koreatimes.co.kr ***************************************************************** 19 ENS: Nuclear Plant Misses Public Emergency Notification Deadline WASHINGTON, DC The Nuclear Regulatory Commission today issued a Notice of Violation to Entergy for its repeated failure to meet established deadlines to achieve operability of a new alert and notification system for the Indian Point nuclear power plant. Entergy operates the plant, which is located in Buchanan, Westchester County, New York. Twenty million people live within the 50 mile "peak injury" zone of Indian Point, located on the banks of the Hudson River, just 24 miles north of the Bronx, the most northerly of New York City's five boroughs. Riverkeeper and a broad-based alliance of environmental, health, public policy, and civic groups united as the Indian Point Safe Energy Coalition, warn that the plant lacks a workable evacuation plan, and is vulnerable to terrorist attack. On July 30, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, NRC, ordered the plant's operator, Entergy, to complete installation and testing of the new alert and notification system. Entergy was ordered to receive approval from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, prior to an August 24, 2007 deadline to declare the new emergency notification system operable. On August 23, Entergy wrote in a letter to the Commission that it had completed all pre-operability activities required by the order but had not received FEMA’s approval. As a result, the NRC has entered its enforcement process to determine the appropriate actions to take against Entergy. In a letter issued today to Entergy, the NRC stated that it is considering imposing daily civil penalties for Entergy’s failure to meet the August 24 deadline. The NRC said that it will determine the appropriate enforcement action after Entergy comes into compliance and will consider Entergy’s due diligence in resolving this matter with FEMA. The NRC said it believes that Entergy’s primary focus should be on supporting the FEMA review of the new emergency notification system. Indian Point's existing siren system has been maintained and tested, and remains operable, providing what the NRC called "reasonable assurance" that the public would be alerted in the event of a radiological emergency at the plant. "Unfortunately, Entergy has missed another NRC mandated deadline to have the new Emergency Notification System operable," said Cynthia Carpenter, NRC director of enforcement. "This is the second violation of an NRC Order and warrants escalated enforcement action." Like other U.S. commercial nuclear power plants, Indian Point is required to have an emergency notification system within the 10-mile-radius emergency planning zone around the facility. An outdoor warning system, it is designed to promptly notify the public should a serious incident occur at the plant so that citizens can listen to emergency broadcast stations for information and instructions. The existing system meets this requirement; however, it does not have the capability to sound during an electrical power outage as the new system does. Citizens and elected representatives in the area around Indian Point are calling for a shutdown of the nuclear plant on safety grounds. Riverkeeper's call for closure is supported by over 400 elected officials, including 11 members of Congress, and the Indian Point Safe Energy Coalition. Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2007. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 20 London Times: Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA review Non-fiction book reviews - Times Online Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA By Tim Weiner Reviewed by Christopher Andrew TIM WEINER’S well-written but polemical history of the CIA seeks to demonstrate that its first 60 years consist of a virtually unbroken run of failures – a “legacy of ashes”. The positive part of the agency’s record is brushed aside. Weiner grudgingly acknowledges, for example, the striking successes of 21st-century CIA operations (in alliance with British Intelligence) in halting nuclear proliferation by the hitherto dangerously successful A. Q. Khan network and persuading Colonel Gaddafi to abandon his nuclear ambitions. Legacy of Ashes, however, devotes only one sentence to these operations, before moving on to excoriate further failures in much greater detail. Many of the complex problems faced by the CIA since its foundation in 1947 come from the fact that few presidents have grasped how to make constructive use of it. Harry Truman was initially bemused by the very idea of US foreign intelligence. His White House lunch to inaugurate the Central Intelligence Group (predecessor of the CIA) was probably the most bizarre in presidential history. Truman presented each guest with a black cloak, black hat and wooden dagger, then stuck a large moustache on the upper lip of his chief of staff. Weiner quotes the succinct definition of the agency’s main Cold War mission by Richard Helms, its head (DCI) from 1966-73: “To beat the goddam Russians!” A balanced understanding of the CIA’s record thus requires a serious examination of the KGB operations that it set out to defeat. Legacy of Ashesdoes not provide it. At times it resembles a history of Allied operations in the Second World War that pays little attention to the deployment of enemy forces. By the time that the CIA was founded, Soviet Intelligence had used covert action on a huge scale to rig elections and destroy opposition in the newly established Soviet Bloc. It was largely in reaction to such operations by the KGB that a secret inquiry ordered by Eisenhower reached the alarming conclusion that “long-standing American concepts of ‘fair play’ must be reconsidered. We must develop effective espionage and counter-espionage services, and must learn to subvert, sabotage and destroy our enemies by more clever, more sophisticated and more effective methods than those used against us.” Legacy of Ashes fails to do justice to the CIA’s role, despite its excessive use of covert action, in preventing the Cold War turning hot. It took the agency’s innovative U2 spy-plane programme, and the intelligence that it provided, to convince a fearful Washington that Moscow’s strategic bomber and nuclear missile forces were not outstripping its own. And it was the U2 that, in 1962, alerted the White House to the construction of Soviet missile sites in Cuba before they became operational, thus giving President Kennedy the time to find a peaceful resolution to the most dangerous crisis of the Cold War. Weiner acknowledges the role of the DCI, John McCone, as the clearest thinker in the crisis, but fails to give sufficient credit to the CIA as a whole, which on this occasion quite outclassed the KGB. For all its flaws, Legacy of Ashes contains some fascinating material – much drawn from on-the-record interviews with ten former DCIs and other retired intelligence officers. Weiner shows, for example, that President Clinton’s many strengths did not include management of the intelligence community. His first DCI, James Woolsey, was rung up 15 minutes before his appointment was to be announced by the President-elect’s press secretary and addressed as “Admiral”. Woolsey explained that he had never risen above army captain. “Whoops,” came the reply. “We’d better change the press release.” Over the next two years, Woolsey met Clinton only twice – an all-time low in the history of the DCI’s access to the President. During these same years, Weiner claims, on plausible evidence, Clinton “ordered up dozens of covert-action proposals”. When Woolsey resigned, Clinton found it difficult to find others willing to be DCI. In sum, Legacy of Ashesis a readable but disappointing book by a writer of obvious talent. Waiting in the wings is a new generation of less polemical intelligence historians with a greater capacity for balanced interpretation of the CIA’s record. Due this month is an outstanding work by the young Canadian Kristian Gustafson, Hostile Intent, which lays to rest a number of myths about CIA operations in Chile. I recommend it as a corrective to Legacy of Ashes. LEGACY OF ASHES: The History of the CIA by Tim Weiner Allen Lane, Ł25; 720pp The Sunday Times Times Online, The Times and The Sunday Times. © Copyright 2007 Times Newspapers Ltd. ***************************************************************** 21 GG: Pike EMA head: County is ready for emergencies at USEC plant Portsmouth man arrested for making bomb threat Chillicothe Gazette - www.chillicothegazette.com - Chillicothe, OH Friday, August 31, 2007 By LOREN GENSON Gazette Staff Writer A bomb threat at the Piketon uranium enrichment plant is enough to give most citizens cause to raise an eyebrow. The sensitive material housed on site means threats are taken very seriously, said Bill Taylor, a public affairs spokesman for the Energy Department. "We have procedures we follow, the facility has it's own emergency response team with fire departments and security," Taylor said. "We take any threat very seriously." A Portsmouth subcontractor was arrested Wednesday after he allegedly made a bomb threat to another employee. John E. Morris was charged with inducing panic. The plant was shut down for about two hours as a result of the threat. The emergency response team is made up of representatives from Uranium Disposition Services, LATA/Parallax, United States Enrichment Corp. and Energy Department officials. "For an emergency response we absolutely team up," said Sandy Childers, a spokesperson for LATA/Parallax. "There are more than a few contractors on the site and we have to work together." Although on-site security handled the initial threat Wednesday, sheriff's deputies from Pike County were called to the plant to arrest Morris. Local emergency response crews respond to the plant only if they are summoned by plant officials, said Pike County Emergency Services director Don Simonton. "They're very well covered by their own internal system," Simonton said. "Since it is the federal government, they take care of their own incidents. We only provide outside support if it's a mutual aid type of situation." Simonton said the county is prepared should a large scale threat occur in or near the plant that would affect local residents. "If, for some reason a threat should go off site, there is a siren warning and pre-planned responses from local law enforcement and EMS personnel," Simonton said. "We definitely have a plan for it." (Genson can be reached at 772-9369 or via e-mail at lgenson@nncogannett.com) Originally published August 31, 2007 Copyright ©2007 Chillicothe Gazette All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 22 Guardian Unlimited: Russia Stores Plutonium With U.S. Help Friday August 31, 2007 7:31 PM By DOUGLAS BIRCH Associated Press Writer YEKATERINBURG, Russia (AP) - Amid tense relations between the United States and Russia, two prominent American arms control advocates Friday toured a storage facility designed to hold tons of plutonium and enriched uranium from dismantled Russian nuclear weapons. Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., and former Sen. Sam Nunn, co-authors of the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program, were escorted through the high-security Mayak Fissile Materials Storage Facility - built to withstand assaults from terrorists and a direct hit from a jet. Russia plans to store up to 25 metric tons of plutonium from dismantled nuclear weapons at the facility, completed by the Defense Department in 2003 at a cost of $309 million. Nunn and Lugar came to Mayak, in part, to gently push Russian officials to conclude months of negotiations by the end of the year on American inspections of the facility. Congress has required Russia to confirm that Mayak is being used for what it was designed for - to serve as a permanent storage center for nuclear materials that could be used to make bombs, and keep them out of the hands of criminals and terrorists. Nunn and Lugar spent four days this week touring Russian sites - including Mayak and a massive U.S.-built chemical weapons destruction plant in western Siberia. While nonproliferation topped their agenda, the pair said they also sought to help halt the drift in U.S.-Russian relations toward acrimony and diplomatic confrontation. The United States and Russia face conflicts over the status of Kosovo, and the eastward expansion of NATO. Moscow is opposed to a U.S. missile defense system in central Europe, while the U.S. is concerned over what many in the West regard as Russia's drift toward authoritarianism. These concerns have resulted in harsh rhetoric from the Kremlin about U.S. dominance of global affairs, and fears in the U.S. of a new Cold War. ``I think we are at a very important crossroads,'' Nunn said. It has not yet become a crisis, he said, but there is danger of further deterioration. ``I think it's more political than it is military now,'' he said. ``But over time, it will become more military if we don't turn it around.'' The Nunn-Lugar program has helped deactivate 6,982 nuclear warheads, destroyed 653 intercontinental ballistic missiles, eliminated 485 ICBM silos, dismantled 101 mobile ICBM launchers, and improved security at nuclear, biological and chemical materials storage sites across the former Soviet Union. Both Nunn and Lugar said their program has become a lifeline for maintaining Russia-U.S. relations. ``This is the strongest bridge we've built, because we've worked together and taken action together,'' Nunn said. ``We've formed working relationships at the laboratory level and at the military-to-military level. Those bridges are strong and I think they can withstand this turmoil in the relationship, this tension in the relationship.'' There is concern that the post-Soviet era of U.S.-Russia cooperation on arms control could be threatened if the rift between the nations widens. Lugar called last week for President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin to extend the START strategic arms control treaty's provisions for transparency and verification. Nunn was part of a group of prominent Americans, including former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who met with Putin in Moscow in July to talk about Kosovo, Iraq, missile defense and other divisive issues. Nunn said he believes the U.S. has been too eager to criticize Putin's consolidation of power, pointing out that many Russians prefer the current political stability to the chaos of the 1990s. ``There's no lack of Americans on the left and the right telling Russia that they're concerned about the rollbacks of freedoms,'' he said. But criticizing Russia's domestic politics ``can become very counterproductive,'' creating hostility instead of encouraging reform. ``You don't ever give up your values,'' he said. ``But there are times when you use judgment and discretion about how much free advice another country wants.'' At Mayak, Nunn and Lugar were escorted through the concrete storage facility, a hulking structure designed to be impregnable. Reporters were barred from the site, but Nunn and Lugar described walking into a room the size of a football field, where plutonium-packed canisters are stacked into wells in the concrete designed to dissipate heat. The facility replaces other storage sites, Lugar said, where plutonium and weapons-grade highly enriched uranium is stored in portable buckets that could easily be carried away. As part of an effort to rebuild trust between the U.S. and Russia, Nunn and Lugar have suggested that the two nations create teams of nonproliferation experts to work in places such as North Korea, which has pledged to end its nuclear program. Lugar called on both sides to disclose all of their defensive bioweapons work to each other, to allay concerns about that research in an era when the design and creation of dangerous new organisms is becoming possible. Nunn, meanwhile, said the U.S. should seriously consider Putin's offer to develop a joint missile defense program. ``Russians need to be partners and leaders and not just recipients of American assistance,'' he said. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007 ***************************************************************** 23 DaytonDailyNews.com: Cancer-stricken Mound workers seek special status By Tom Beyerlein Staff Writer Friday, August 31, 2007 A federal health agency announced Friday it will evaluate a petition requesting special status for cancer-stricken former atomic workers at Miamisburg's Mound Plant that would make it easier for them to get government compensation and medical benefits. "Mound developed a culture of haphazard, administratively controlled monitoring of workers without regard to employee input," the worker wrote. There was "a pattern of one incident after another of radioactively contaminated materials in non-controlled areas for storage and shipment." The petition seeks "special exposure cohort" status for all Mound workers, 1949 to the present. The status nearly eliminates employees' burden of proof in showing that their cancers were caused by occupational exposure to radioactivity. Sick atomic workers and some survivors can get cash payments and medical benefits under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program. Of 1,308 cases filed by 791 sick Mound workers under the program, 182 have received compensation to date, according to the Labor Department. DaytonDailyNews.com: Copyright 2007 Dayton Daily News. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 24 KJCT8.com: Report: 4,000 died after working on nuclear projects Report: 4,000 died after working on nuclear projects Associated Press - August 31, 2007 6:34 PM ET DENVER (AP) - A newspaper report says at least 4,000 people died as a result of working on nuclear projects during the Cold War, and 36,500 became ill with radiation-related disease. The Rocky Mountain News said it collected the numbers from federal records, which did not include workers who became ill but never filed claims or had their claims rejected. The newspaper said the country manufactured 70,000 nuclear bombs starting in 1945. About 15,000 people worked at Rocky Flats, west of Denver, making plutonium triggers for the bombs. Some of the uranium used in the bombs dropped on Japan came from Uravan, Colo. Information from: Rocky Mountain News, http://www.rockymountainnews.com/ All content © Copyright 2000 - 2007 WorldNow and KJCT. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 25 Reuters: Japan halts nuclear research units on safety -Kyodo 31 Aug 2007 14:07:25 GMT Source: Reuters TOKYO, Aug 31 (Reuters) - Japan has halted work at three nuclear research units run by its Atomic Energy Agency due to concerns over the handling of fuel material and other problems, Kyodo news agency said on Friday. The Science and Technology Ministry suspended activities at the units in Tokaimura, Ibaraki prefecture, after the agency reported 46 problems including procedural flaws, Kyodo said. The ministry had ordered the Atomic Energy Agency to investigate after an anonymous whistle-blower revealed in June that a shared duct at its Nuclear Science Research Institute in Tokaimura was contaminated with radioactive material. Kyodo said the ministry did not believe the reported problems threatened the safety of the facilities concerned, but told the agency to examine them and report back. One of the units is a critical testing facility for the fast breeder reactor, and safety rods there had not been checked and approved by the government, Kyodo quoted the ministry as saying. At the other two units, nuclear fuel material has been stored for about a decade in containers meant for temporary storage, it said. Japan's nuclear industry has been shaken up by a series of scandals and safety incidents. Its biggest reactor was shut down in July due to a leak after it was hit by an earthquake. URL: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/T286851.htm http://www.alertnet.org ***************************************************************** 26 Rocky Mountain News: Rocky: U.S. nuke work afflicted 36,500 Americans Radiation sickened 36,500 and killed at least 4,000 of those who built bombs, mined uranium, breathed test fallout Barry Gutierrez © The Rocky Thomas Atcitty, 78, left, and his brother, Chester, 73, recall hauling uranium ore in a 1950 Ford dump truck. The U.S. nuclear weapons program has sickened 36,500 Americans and killed more than 4,000, the Rocky Mountain News has determined from government figures. Those numbers reflect only people who have been approved for government compensation. They include people who mined uranium, built bombs and breathed dust from bomb tests. By Ann Imse, Rocky Mountain News August 31, 2007 The U.S. nuclear weapons program has sickened 36,500 Americans and killed more than 4,000, the Rocky Mountain News has determined from government figures. Those numbers reflect only people who have been approved for government compensation. They include people who mined uranium, built bombs and breathed dust from bomb tests. Many of the bomb-builders, such as those at the Rocky Flats plant near Denver, have never applied for compensation or were rejected because they could not prove their work caused their illnesses. Congressional hearings are in the works to review allegations of unfairness and delays in the program for weapons workers. The Rocky calculation appears to be the first to compile the government's records on the human cost of manufacturing 70,000 atomic bombs since 1945. It is based on compensation figures from four federal programs run by the Departments of Labor, Justice and Veterans Affairs. Many people have been paid only recently. More than 15,000 of the 36,500 are workers who made atomic weapons. They were exposed to radiation and toxic chemicals that typically took years to trigger cancer or lung disease. Others were civilians living near the Nevada test site during above-ground nuclear tests; soldiers and workers at test sites; and uranium miners and millers who breathed in radioactive dust until 1972 when the government stopped buying uranium. At least 4,000 of the 36,500 died. This number reflects cases where survivors could be paid only if their relative died of the covered illness. Many more of the 36,500 likely also have died of the deadly diseases triggered by their work. But in most of the compensation programs, the government does not track deaths or cause of death, so the true number who gave their lives to support the nuclear bomb program probably will never be known. Some were contaminated through accident or ignorance. But government documents have revealed that officials at times risked the health of civilians, soldiers and workers because they believed national security demanded it. One early Atomic Energy Commission director, Lewis Strauss, wrote to a civilian who had been downwind of atomic test fallout that the danger of fallout was "a small sacrifice compared to the infinite greater evil of the use of nuclear bombs in war." Well into the 1960s, hundreds of thousands of American troops were placed within a few miles of nuclear tests to determine their ability to march and fight shortly after a blast. The Atomic Energy Commission barred them from being closer than 7 miles, but the military cut that by more than half. "In those days, we were training military personnel to fight a nuclear war. The Department of Defense had to know the effect on soldiers, sailors and airmen who moved within hours into a hot zone," said R.J. Ritter, who now runs the National Atomic Veterans Association and lobbies for aid to those contaminated troops. "Nobody had a clue what would happen years later from inhaling those particles." One of those servicemen was Howard "Howdy" Pierson. He had no idea when he was trucked into the desert from California in 1957 that he was about to watch a nuclear blast from just three miles away. The Marine gunner was dropped into a trench and told to turn around and cover his eyes, according to his widow, Deb Pierson, of Loveland. It was the day after Independence Day, and "Shot Hood" filled the pre-dawn sky with a bright light seen in Los Angeles and a towering orange mushroom cloud. It was a hydrogen bomb - the biggest nuclear weapon ever detonated inside the U.S., five times more powerful than the one at Hiroshima. Three miles from ground zero at Hiroshima, nearly every building was damaged, according to the U.S. government. Howdy Pierson's trench caved in. Dirt - already contaminated by previous tests - poured down on them, he told his wife years later. An airman who was at the same test said in the book American Ground Zero that the blast wave threw him 40 feet. He said it felt like being cooked. A Marine who was marched toward the mushroom cloud said he wondered why anyone would be assaulting Ground Zero minutes after a blast. "What's to assault?" he said in a posting on a Web site for nuclear veterans. About 200,000 troops were brought in to witness and work on U.S. nuclear tests over the years, according to the Pentagon. For decades, they were barred by national security from telling anyone what they had seen. Pierson died of lung cancer in 2000. Deb Pierson, who works for Larimer County helping veterans apply for benefits, didn't win a widow's compensation for her husband's lung cancer until Congress revised the law in 2002. The change granted compensation to any veteran who developed lung cancer after breathing radioactive dust at the nuclear tests. The Veterans Administration, however, is fighting Pierson's attempt to get benefits back to the day he filed his claim. Lawsuits by contamination victims uncovered evidence over the years that many officials knew the dangers, and ignored them or covered them up. Officials blocked safety standards for uranium dust and beryllium and promised residents above-ground tests posed no danger. "A lot could have been prevented if they had given the least bit of warning" said J. Turner, of www.downwinders.org. The U.S. did not begin to admit that Americans were sickened by the weapons effort until the 1980s. The first compensation programs had such tough standards that few people were paid. Under the Clinton administration, with the Cold War over, previously secret information became public. Americans successfully lobbied for compensation. But the programs remain complicated by the difficulty of finding exposure records. Cliff Hemphill, 67 ? Home: Adams County ? Exposure: On the deck of an aircraft carrier in the South Pacific during nine nuclear tests ? Compensation: Given a monthly 50 percent disability payment and veterans medical care for 140 skin cancers and post-traumatic stress disorder. Cliff Hemphill, of Adams County, still carries the bulldog frame, fierce pride and "Semper Fidelis" tattoo on his arm from his days as a Marine. But his memories are seared with images of himself curled up on the deck of a small carrier, his head buried in his arms, as heat and noise slammed into him. When he looked up, he saw the sky lit with brilliant streaks of pink and blue. Nine times he witnessed nuclear tests from the deck of the USS Princeton in the South Pacific in the 1960s. That caused so many health problems that his wife of 43 years was finally driven away, he believes. It was the 140 skin cancers that caused the U.S. government to finally give him a disability payment, after it revised his estimated radiation dosage to 550 rem - 110 times the current annual federal maximum for nuclear workers. He blames the nuclear tests for a long list of other health problems as well, from scarred lungs to unusual back-of-the- eye cataracts. He figures either the skin cancer or diabetes will do him in. "I'm just waiting for the hammer to fall," he says. He's certain officials knew they were risking the health and lives of servicemen who witnessed the tests. It was 17 years after the U.S. dropped a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima, after all. "We were used as guinea pigs," he says. "Most of my shipmates have the same problems." He says the film in the Marines' dosimeters for measuring their radiation exposure turned black after the blasts. The government said natural heat and humidity spoiled the readings. "I don't believe they were false readings at all," says Hemphill. Hemphill won additional disability payments for post-traumatic stress disorder after pointing to a study by Dr. Henry Vyner that diagnosed PTSD in servicemen who witnessed nuclear tests. The study said they harbored "anger at the government because it knowingly placed them in a dangerous situation and now is refusing to accept responsibility." Thomas Atcitty, 78 Chester Atcitty, 73 Home: Shiprock, N.M. Exposure: Both hauled radioactive uranium ore on 300-mile daily round trips from a mine in northwestern New Mexico to a mill in Utah; Chester also mined uranium. Compensation: Thomas was denied compensation because he was paid in cash and doesn't have pay stubs. Chester has collected $150,000 in compensation. Thomas Atcitty was a 21- year-old Navajo with only three months of education and no hope of a job in 1949 when a friend told him about a rare opportunity for work. For the next several years, Atcitty filled his 2-ton dump truck with ore for the trip from New Mexico to Utah. "There's no work, so I just helped a friend. He gives me a little money - three, four dollars a day," Atcitty said. "I would load it by hand when I first started. His son-in-law, Jim Hamilton, of Denver, says Atcitty told him that when a cooling rain splashed onto the radioactive ore in the searing desert heat, it gave off a wonderful fragrance. The smell enticed Atcitty to crawl on top of his load and nap, to rest for his daily trip. "I like the smell of uranium," Atcitty said, his face brightening at the memory. Atcitty's younger brother, Chester, who had just a year of schooling, also hauled ore with the truck. Later, Chester was one of hundreds of Navajos who worked the uranium mines without masks, breathing radioactive dust. Children on the Navajo Reservation played on tailings, and waste from local mines was dumped into riverbeds, contaminating the water supply. Ore fell off the trucks, and roadsides were littered with uranium. Chester Atcitty worked 10 years for the Climax uranium mine in Grand Junction, so he was able to prove his work history and collect compensation. "It's gotten really hard to breathe," said Chester, leaning on the old truck. "My body is really weak." But Thomas has not been able to collect, according to Hamilton, who teaches at Skyview High School. "He qualifies in every aspect, except now they need his pay records from 1950." They don't exist. Jim Turner, 63 ? Home: Denver ? Exposure: Beryllium, plutonium at Rocky Flats nuclear weapons factory ? Compensation: Paid $150,000 compensation and a monthly disability payment he did not disclose. In the 1970s, Jim Turner crawled into the ventilation system at the sprawling Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant outside Denver to change out contaminated air filters. He'd listened to the safety lectures and knew he had to be careful not to be contaminated with plutonium. Nobody mentioned beryllium. Workers in the beryllium machine shops were so unconcerned that they ate snacks at their work stations, Turner recalls. "It was, 'Hey, this stuff won't kill you.' " But decades earlier, in 1948, scientists had warned that beryllium was so dangerous that it should be handled only inside glove boxes so workers would never breathe even a microscopic bit. No one told the workers at Rocky Flats. Protecting their lungs from scarring would have meant building an entirely new structure and production line, according to documents revealed in a trial in Golden several years ago. Rapid-fire production of nuclear bombs would have stopped at the height of the Cold War, and that was "unacceptable," according to a memo from the 1960s. As a result, hundreds of former Flats workers suffer from beryllium disease, which can be fatal. Turner struggles to breathe. "I've coughed till it feels like my head is going to explode." The coughing started in the 1970s, but no one told Turner that it was caused by beryllium until 1988, he says. "They knew, but they never did say anything about it, and I continued to work in these contaminated areas," says the 26-year veteran of Rocky Flats. For officials, he believes, it was "anything so they could win the Cold War." Unlike most weapons workers, Turner did not need to find records to prove how much he was irradiated. Beryllium disease is caused only by exposure to beryllium. Dennis Nelson, 64 ? Home: Raised in St. George, Utah; now in Bethesda, Md. ? Exposure: Downwind from the Nevada nuclear tests ? Compensation: Family granted $50,000 for each parent; nothing for sister because parents were deceased. Dennis Nelson was a 7- year-old sleeping outdoors in the hot summers of St. George, Utah, when the U.S. set off the first "special weapon" at the Nevada test site in 1951. Repeatedly through his childhood, the predawn sky would light up in the west. No one thought it was dangerous. Nelson remembers only one doubt, the day he watched men wash radioactive fallout off cars on St. George's main street. He thought, "If they are washing poison off these cars, why are they letting it run into the water, where we water our gardens?" In one of the first alarms, 4,500 sheep in a herd of 14,000 died in 1953. Government scientists at the time insisted there was no connection, but documents uncovered in 1980 said those scientists actually found lethal doses of radiation in the dead sheep. Nelson's aunt, Irma Thomas, began marking a map of St. George with the names of everyone with cancer or other unexpected illnesses, including her sister and her husband. "Back then, it was not wise to speak against the government," said Nelson's wife, Denise. "She was quickly called a Communist." Then Nelson's mother died at 47 of a brain tumor. His father succumbed to bone and lung cancer. Next came his sister, an assistant U.S. attorney in Salt Lake City who died of colon cancer. Nelson's brother has fought lymphoma and bladder cancer. Nelson has survived skin cancer. The Nelsons have read thousands of pages of evidence and concluded that the irradiation of St. George was deliberate. "It was clearly an experiment," says Denise Nelson. Officials wanted to find out what clothing or buildings might offer protection from fallout, she says. "There was dosimeter data collected, listing people's names, jobs and wall thicknesses." Officials delayed the tests until the wind was blowing toward St. George - and not toward Los Angeles or San Francisco, her husband says. "They said it was a virtually uninhabited portion of the country - except there were a lot of virtual uninhabitants." Some people who lived downwind of nuclear tests eventually won damages in a lawsuit. But an appeals court in Denver overturned that decision in 1987, saying the federal government cannot be held liable for its deliberate actions - in this case, a decision to put national security over public safety. Arguments that the number is too low ? More than 30,000 sick nuclear weapons workers have been denied compensation because they cannot prove the amount of contamination they suffered and whether it was enough to cause their illnesses. Workers say many in this group should have been approved. More than 10,000 additional workers are still awaiting a decision and thousands more may not have applied because they think the process is too difficult. ? The Veterans Benefits Administration admits it has not kept a good count of how many soldiers it has paid for radiation-related illness out of the 400,000 veterans exposed during weapons tests and in occupied Japan after World War II. The VA counted 483 as of 1998. The number is "woefully low" and out of date, said Tom Pamperin, deputy director for compensation and pensions. Recently, 1,200 atomic veterans with skin cancer won reconsideration, and 266 of them were approved, Pamperin said. ? The National Association of Atomic Veterans says up to 25,000 former soldiers have applied. ? Some members of Congress are trying to expand the program to compensate "downwinders" - people who lived downwind of the Nevada nuclear tests. They point to a National Cancer Institute study showing that the radioactive fallout was far greater and more widespread than previously believed. Radioactive iodine, which is linked to thyroid cancer, contaminated grass and then cows milk across the country for a period in the 1940s and 1950s. Especially affected were large parts of Montana and Idaho, as well as six counties in Colorado: Gunnison, Conejos, Hinsdale, Archuleta, Mineral and Grand. Because rainstorms washed fallout onto the ground in concentrated pockets, these areas had more contamination than any of the 22 counties in Nevada, Utah and Arizona, where compensation is paid. ? A National Cancer Institute study in 2004 estimated that another 265 Marshall Islanders would come down with cancer due to the nuclear tests there, on top of the 265 that already had occurred. ? No one has studied the effect of fallout from the Pacific tests, which were far larger than the tests in Nevada. Arguments that the number is too high ? The weapons workers program is required by law to lean in favor of compensating too many claimants rather than too few. Officials of the program say it does favor approval and pays too many, though workers scoff at that. ? President Reagan said when he signed the veterans compensation bill in 1988 that it was not a judgment that radiation caused their diseases. Instead, he said, it was recognition for their unusual service - being exposed to bomb radiation. ? Some downwinders were paid for cancers that would have occurred even without being exposed to radioactive fallout. The downwinders program requires no proof of radioactive dose and simply pays anyone with certain cancers in the 22 counties closest to the test site that are listed in the law. A National Research Council committee recommended tightening the downwinders program, requiring proof of radiation dose and connection to the particular cancer, said Thomas Borak, a radiation physics professor at Colorado State University who was a committee member. Congress has not made the recommended changes. "We had very emotional testimony" from sick people just outside the compensation zone, Borak said. But he is opposed to giving aid without proof. imsea@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5438 © 2007 The E.W. Scripps Co. ***************************************************************** 27 Idaho Statesman: International conference on nuclear fuel to be held in September Stephanie Eddy - Idaho Statesman Edition Date: 08/31/07 Don Gillispie, president of the company working to build a 1,600-megawatt advanced nuclear power plant in Idaho, will speak Sept. 10 at GLOBAL 2007, one of the largest international conferences held on advanced nuclear fuel cycles and systems. This new plant will be the first reactor built on a new site in the US in more than 25 years. GLOBAL 2007 will be Sept. 9-14 at Boise Centre on The Grove. Gillispie will give an overview of the Idaho Energy Complex and its biofuels cogeneration component. Other scheduled speakers include Dale Klein, Chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission; Shunsuke Kondo, Chairman of the Japan Atomic Energy Agency; Jacques Besnainou, Senior Vice president of AREVA; Jacques Bouchard, Chairman of the Generation-IV International Forum; and John Grossenbacher, Director of the Idaho National Laboratory. Worldwide experts will highlight recent developments in advanced integrated fuel cycle concepts; spent nuclear fuel reprocessing; advanced fuels and materials; repository development; advanced reactors; developments in nuclear nonproliferation technology, policy, and implementation; and sustainability and expanded global utilization of nuclear energy. More information, call Mike Goff at 208-533-7084. IdahoStatesman.com ***************************************************************** 28 Las Vegas SUN: Editorial: Potentially deadly mistake August 31, 2007 Runaway rail tanker car emphasizes the peril of transporting nuclear waste to Nevada A runaway tanker car filled with chlorine barreled across the Las Vegas Valley on Wednesday, hitting 50 mph and traveling 22 miles before it stopped. The car had broken free from a Union Pacific Railroad yard near Blue Diamond as workers were trying to move it to another track. None of the potentially deadly chlorine leaked from the car, and no one was injured. Federal authorities are investigating the incident , which Union Pacific Railroad officials on Wednesday said posed "no danger to public safety." We disagree. Although the Las Vegas Valley escaped a potentially disastrous event this time, it remains unclear how a tanker car loaded with a dangerous chemical could slip away from workers - a car that, once disconnected from a train, is virtually uncontrollable until workers can find a way to stop it. And there is essentially no way to ensure that it could never happen again. We cannot help but wonder: What if this car had been carrying high-level nuclear waste? The Energy Department and Bush administration officials who are pushing to bury the nation's high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain say trains would bring the toxic substance across the country to Nevada. The idea of a runaway train car loaded with nuclear waste rolling down the tracks at 50 mph is nothing short of horrifying. Add to this a Government Accountability report released on Thursday that says the federal government's role in overseeing the safety of the nation's railroad tunnels and bridges is limited because the Federal Railroad Administration "has determined that most railroads are sufficiently ensuring safe conditions" of their own accord. And the agency has no consistent, systematic method of selecting the railroad facilities that it does inspect, the GAO says. Bad things can happen in tunnels, as illustrated by a 2001 fire in a CSX railway tunnel in Baltimore. Tunnel temperatures topped 1,500 degrees as chemicals aboard the train fed the flames. That tunnel was along one of the Energy Department's proposed transport routes for high-level nuclear waste. As a runaway tanker car reminded Las Vegas residents Wednesday, mistakes happen - potentially deadly mistakes. There is no way to safely shuttle lethal nuclear cargo across our nation - to Nevada or anywhere else. All contents copyright 2005 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 29 The Tribune: Musgrave: NRC to allow more time to comment on uranium mine By Rebecca Boyle, (Bio) rboyle@fortcollinsnow.com August 31, 2007 Northern Coloradans worried about a proposed uranium mine near Nunn will have another month to tell the Nuclear Regulatory Commission what’s on their minds. U.S. Rep. Marilyn Musgrave got the NRC to extend its comment period regarding a proposed mine that has raised concerns about groundwater contamination, property values and other topics. The deadline was initially next Tuesday, but Musgrave said Friday she convinced the NRC to accept comments until Oct. 8. “I’ve spent the last few weeks meeting with residents around northern Colorado and I’ve heard serious concerns about the impacts a uranium mine could potentially have on local water,” Musgrave said. “I am pleased the NRC is giving residents more time to speak up; however, I will remain vigilant. I want to make sure the safety of the local water is preserved and property rights are protected.” Powertech Uranium Corp. recently was granted permits to drill test wells and core holes at its Centennial Project site, north of Nunn and between that town and Wellington. Although residents can see drills and bright lights illuminating the site at night, no mining is taking place yet. The site contains 5,760 acres of land to which Powertech has purchased mineral rights, hoping to extract an estimated 9.7 million pounds of radioactive resources. The site is 11 miles from Fort Collins, seven miles from Wellington and 16 miles from Greeley. It is also over the massive Dakota-Cheyenne aquifer, which spreads beneath much of the populated areas of the north Front Range. In a letter to Dale Klein, chairman of the NRC, Musgrave said more time was necessary for residents to address their concerns about that aquifer and other topics. “The potential impacts to the rural communities of northern Colorado are simply too significant to not allow area residents ample time to study the ramifications of this project on their health, property, and livelihood,” she wrote. She sent the letter Aug. 22, saying it was a response to residents’ concerns. “After all, it's not like they’re talking about widening a road. They want to harvest a radioactive product,” she said. To submit comments to the NRC, visit the agency’s Web site at www.nrc.gov and search under “contact us.” All contents © Copyright 2007 greeleytrib.com The Greeley Publishing Co. - P.O. Box 1690 - Greeley, CO 80632 ***************************************************************** 30 RIA Novosti: U.S. Senators to inspect CTR Program implementation in the Urals 23:23 | 30/ 08/ 2007 CHELYABINSK, August 30 (RIA Novosti) - Two American Senators, Richard Lugar and Sam Nunn, who initiated the Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) Program will visit the Mayak nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in Chelyabinsk, a source in the plant's press office told RIA Novosti. The Senators will visit facilities reprocessing nuclear submarine fuel waste. Lugar and Nunn will visit Russia's Urals Region on the 15th anniversary of the CTR Program. A total of 26 nuclear submarines have been utilized over those 15 years owing to the U.S. contribution, Russia's Federal Nuclear Power Agency (Rosatom) said. A $120 million project financed by the United States has been completed recently. In particular, the U.S. provided $15 million as part of its technological assistance for the construction of a nuclear materials storage tank at the Mayak facility. REDTRAM.COM RIA Novosti ***************************************************************** 31 Tri-City Herald: Mercury-tainted soil dumped in Hanford landfill Published Friday, August 31st, 2007 By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer Soil contaminated with mercury was mistakenly disposed of this spring at a Hanford landfill where other troubles were discovered in January. A report on the incident was uncovered by the Government Accountability Project, a worker advocacy and whistleblower protection group, through a Freedom of Information Act request. Citing the incident and other problems involving work done by Washington Closure Hanford, GAP asked the Department of Energy to open an independent, full-scale investigation of the contractor and to hold the company accountable. "We take any safety-related allegation very seriously," DOE spokeswoman Colleen French said Thursday. "On first review, the issues raised in the letter appear to be ones we're aware of and have dealt with already. But we are looking at it in detail and discussing appropriate next steps." Most of the problems, particularly many of the most serious incidents, that were outlined in GAP's 18-page letter occurred before Chuck Spencer stepped in as president of Washington Closure in January. He was named after a week marred by serious problems that included a discovery that a subcontractor's employee had falsified test results at a large landfill used for radioactive and hazardous chemical waste that is operated under Washington Closure's contract. However, on May 17 an additional problem occurred at the landfill, the Environmental Restoration Disposal Facility. In that case, employees of S.M. Stoller Corp., a Washington Closure subcontractor, emptied two loads of mercury-contaminated soil marked for treatment into the landfill. The loads were part of 72 roll-off truck containers staged together to be picked up by tractors. The two containers with mercury contamination and 10 others had been dumped at the landfill and compacted before a Stoller teamster preparing to transport another container noticed its tracking form. It said "Hg TREATMENT REQUIRED -- DO NOT UNLOAD WITHOUT APPROVAL OF THE WASTE MANAGEMENT OFFICER." Another teamster, hearing the radio communication, checked tracking forms for containers already dumped that day and discovered that two containers with mercury-contaminated waste already had been dumped, according to a DOE report. "Workers at the ERDF had become accustomed to ignoring the warnings on (tracking forms) because many had attachments that took precedence over the warnings and approved the containers for burial," the report said. The waste has been removed, Spencer said in a message to Washington Closure employees about the GAP letter. "It was a serious operational lapse," said Dave Einan, environmental engineer for the Environmental Protection Agency. But "they responded appropriately once they found it. They have taken the right kind of steps to prevent it happening again." EPA fined DOE $1.14 million over earlier problems at the landfill. However, EPA has seen continued improvements at the landfill since the first of the year for safer and more effective operation, said Nick Ceto, EPA Hanford program manager. That includes doing compaction testing correctly and the purchase of landfill compactors. The falsified data discovered in January was for compaction testing designed to make sure the landfill would not later settle and harm a cap that will be placed over the landfill when it is closed to keep water out. Other problems listed in the GAP letter included sodium dichromate spills into the soil last summer that were not immediately reported to regulators and not handled correctly, a spread of radioactive tritium outside of a work area in January and electrical safety near-misses prior to September 2006. Washington Closure also missed a legal deadline to have a required safety plan in place this spring after Spencer concluded the plan needed more work and decided to delay some high hazard work until the plan was ready. "Postponing our high-risk work until we could do it safely was the right thing to do for you despite the negative financial consequences to the company," Spencer told employees in the memo. Washington Closure could lose $1 million in pay because it failed to have the plan ready after taking over cleanup of Hanford along the Columbia River about two years ago. As the contractor plans all-employee meetings next month, it wants to continue to hear employee suggestions about how to do work better and more safely, Spencer said. GAP said in its letter to DOE it will continue gathering information relative to WCH's behavior at the site, "and take appropriate steps consistent with our mission of fostering government accountability and transparency in government operations." -- On the Net: www.whistle blower.org © 2007 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press & Other Wire Services ***************************************************************** 32 ReviewJournal.com: Opinion - EDITORIAL: Runaway train Aug. 31, 2007 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal EDITORIAL: Runaway train Tanker full of chlorine takes unexpected trip through Las Vegas A railroad worker backs an engine at Union Pacific's Arden switch yard on Wednesday. Earlier in the day a tanker car containing chlorine rolled away from Arden. Photo by K.M. Cannon. Last year, UNLV's Institute for Security Studies completed a vulnerability analysis on various threats to the state. A number of natural and man-made disasters were assessed to help policymakers and emergency responders plan and prioritize training and funding requests. The worst scenario the institute could come up with? Not a hijacked jetliner crashing into a Strip resort. And not a breach of a high-level nuclear waste shipment to the planned Yucca Mountain repository northwest of Las Vegas. No, the biggest single threat to the population and economy of Southern Nevada is a chlorine gas accident. According to the report, if a railroad tanker carrying 34,500 gallons of chlorine crashed and spilled near the Union Pacific overpass at Charleston Boulevard in downtown Las Vegas, the toxic release could kill between 74,000 and 91,000 people under worst-case conditions. Such a disaster would dwarf the American death toll of the Vietnam War. So imagine the fear local authorities felt when they got word Wednesday morning that a tanker carrying chlorine gas had escaped the Arden train yard southwest of Las Vegas and was rolling toward the city, picking up speed. Las Vegas police units sped to railroad crossings, and a department helicopter followed the tanker on its path through the valley. The runaway tanker sped through the new neighborhoods around the southern Las Vegas Beltway, right past the Strip and over the Charleston bridge. After traveling about 20 miles at speeds up to 50 mph, the tanker finally slowed on an uphill grade, allowing Union Pacific maintenance workers to board it and pull the hand brake. "Las Vegas dodged a bullet there," said Steve Calanog, chief of emergency response for the federal Environmental Protection Agency's Southwest region. "Had the train car released its contents in a residential area, the results could have been tragic." Now come the urgent matters of finding out how the tanker got free and putting into place procedures to prevent such a high-risk situation from ever happening again. In addition to Union Pacific's internal inquiry, the Federal Railroad Administration and the Public Utilities Commission of Nevada have launched investigations of the incident. Union Pacific spokesman Mark Davis and other officials said Wednesday that it's too soon to say exactly how the tanker escaped the train yard, how much chlorine gas was in the tanker and whether Union Pacific could have done anything else besides let the car cruise all the way to North Las Vegas. Whatever Union Pacific and these agencies learn, they must release their findings to the public. Las Vegas residents deserve to know what happened this week and whether anyone will be held accountable for the accident. That said, it's worth noting here that rail shipments of chemicals such as chlorine gas are routine all across the country. For every accidental release of a hazardous material, tens of thousands of shipments are completed safely and without any notice from the population. "Those kinds of things go through here from California up to Utah every day," Las Vegas Fire Department spokesman Tim Szymanski said. Wednesday's incident also puts into proper perspective the doomsday shrieks of politicians and environmentalists opposed to the Yucca Mountain Project. Regardless of whether the high-level nuclear waste repository is good public policy, the threats presented by transporting high-level nuclear waste across rural Nevada pale in comparison to the level of risk associated with chemical deliveries made daily via road and railroad in urban Las Vegas. Las Vegans can be thankful that no one was hurt by Wednesday's runaway tanker, and that so many private-sector and public-sector leaders are taking it so seriously. Links powered by inform.com Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2007 Stephens Media, LLC Privacy Statement ***************************************************************** 33 ReviewJournal.com: Tanker owner didn't call 911 Aug. 31, 2007 Utility crew first to notify police By LISA KIM BACH REVIEW-JOURNAL A long row of tankers sit on Union Pacific tracks near Ash Grove Cement in North Las Vegas. The location is near where a runaway tanker carrying chlorine gas was finally stopped Wednesday morning after a run through the Las Vegas Valley that began south of state Route 160. Photo by Craig L. Moran. A railway tanker containing toxic chlorine gas rolled unchecked out of the Arden train yard on Wednesday, and apparently no one there noticed. Or if they did, they failed to notify police that a tanker with the potential to set off Nevada's worst-case disaster scenario was on a fast-moving and uncontrolled northbound tear through Clark County's urban center. "Our first notification came from a utility company survey crew," Metropolitan Police Department spokesman Bill Cassell said Thursday. That call to 911 was made at 8:49 a.m. Wednesday. Cassell said police then contacted Union Pacific officials on the railroad company's emergency line, which is answered in Nebraska. "On our first call, they told us it wasn't their train," Cassell said. Four minutes later, Cassell said, Union Pacific officials called back to say it was indeed their tanker that was on the loose. By then, Cassell said, police had already responded to the 911 call from the survey crew and dispatched units to train crossings. It wasn't until eight minutes after the initial call that police were informed the runaway car was loaded with a lethal substance that could pose a community-wide hazard should the tanker spew its contents during a crash or derailment. A 2006 study by the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Institute for Security Studies identified a chlorine gas accident as the deadliest potential disaster foreseeable in Nevada. "We were doing what we could," Cassell said. "But at one point, the train was running at 50 miles per hour. There wasn't a whole lot of time to put together a plan and implement it." Cassell said the Police Department's emergency management staff was in the process of calling other emergency responders, ranging from local fire departments to the Clark County Health District, when Union Pacific officials informed them that the tanker had come to rest on the opposite end of the valley, 20 miles from its point of origin just south of state Route 160. According to the police timeline, everything was over by 9:11 a.m. Local government officials Thursday were outraged, demanding explanations for what went wrong at the train yard and why Union Pacific was not on point in informing local entities about the potential threat of the runaway chlorine gas tanker. Union Pacific spokesman Mark Davis said workers at the Arden yard did send out a priority radio signal to alert Union Pacific dispatchers in Omaha, Neb. A dispatcher then contacted Union Pacific railroad police, also in Nebraska. However, Davis's recounting of events differs with that of police on a key point: Davis said Union Pacific did notify local authorities, including the police, of the runaway car. "This all happened literally within seconds," said Davis, who was in Las Vegas on Wednesday and back in Nebraska on Thursday. Clark County Manager Virginia Valentine acknowledged that a Union Pacific official notified her of the runaway tanker on Wednesday. Valentine said she got the call mid-afternoon, hours after the incident took place. "It was completely unacceptable," Valentine said Thursday. "You can't respond to an emergency you don't know about." Valentine said Clark County Commissioner Rory Reid has asked her to write a demand letter to Union Pacific requesting a full investigation and its results, an explanation for how the incident occurred and a plan for preventing it from ever happening again. "Chlorine gas is an extremely toxic substance," Valentine said of the substance used in waste water treatment and disinfection. "Our emphasis has to be on prevention." An investigation into the runaway tanker is already under way. Investigators from the Federal Railroad Administration are conducting it, with support from the Public Utilities Commission Of Nevada. A final report will not be available for at least 30 days. During a Thursday news conference, Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman went so far as to suggest that a city ordinance banning the transport of high-level radioactive waste through the city be expanded to include other hazardous materials, such as chlorine gas. "I've been very critical of the government for not advising us when the shipments are taking place," Goodman said. "Without notifying the authorities. .. I don't think they should be allowed to come through." Goodman's assertion touches on the growing national debate on rerouting trains carrying hazardous materials around urban centers instead of allowing them to pass through. Larry Mann, an attorney who helped draft the Federal Railroad Safety Act of 1970 and is a national consultant on railroad issues, said the current Congress has authorized the U.S. Department of Transportation to conduct a study on the routing of hazardous materials. One of the things that will be examined is whether it's reasonable to reroute trains around metropolitan areas. Mann also said railways are urging Congress to either relieve them of the responsibility of transporting hazardous materials, which is their onus as a designated "common carrier," or free them of liability when accidents occur. Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev, plans to bring the discussion on railway transport of hazardous materials to Las Vegas in the next few weeks. Porter wants to hold a public hearing that includes officials from the Department of Transportation and the Transportation Security Administration. Both federal agencies are working on new regulations for transporting chemicals on railways and trucks. "We need to look at the whole supply chain," Porter said. "How are these chemicals transported and routed? How are they handled? We want to make sure that first responders have proper training." Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., seized on the runaway tanker incident to highlight the danger of shipping nuclear waste to be stored at a government facility at Yucca Mountain. The Department of Energy has not made decisions about routes to carry nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain but has not ruled out the possibility that some radioactive spent fuel encased in steel canisters might travel through Las Vegas. "Railways go directly through the heart of Las Vegas and many other cities and towns across America," Reid said in a statement. "Fortunately, (Wednesday's) rail car was stopped without incident and without the release of the dangerous chemicals it was carrying." Federal and state investigators were unable to provide any additional information on Thursday about how the chlorine tanker escaped the Arden yard in the first place. Mann said railways have significantly reduced their workforces in the last decade and that he wouldn't be surprised to learn that lean staffing was a contributing factor. "What has happened is that employees are pushed harder and harder to perform the work with fewer and fewer people," Mann said. "You're very lucky you didn't have a derailment," Mann said from California. "Chlorine gas moves rapidly, and anyone who has prolonged contact with it is likely to die." Mann was an expert witness for residents of Graniteville, S.C., who took legal action after being exposed to a toxic release of chlorine gas in 2005, when two freight trains collided. Review-Journal writers Beth Walton and Alan Choate and Stephens Washington Bureau Chief Steve Tetreault contributed to this report. Links powered by inform.com neal wrote on August 31, 2007 02:58 PM: HOW WILL LAS VEGAS RECEIVE GASOLINE IF OSCAR BANS ALL HAZARDOUS SUBSTANCES? hOW WILL THE SWIMMING POOLS OBTAIN THEIR CHLORINE? Manny wrote on August 31, 2007 01:39 PM: More than 15 minutes and 20 miles later, the train slowed down and was stopped because of the rail incline. It could have been a big disaster and most likely, a big mess. Good job by the Metro police for blocking streets and warning motorists. But for Union Pacific, how could you not know you are missing a rail car? And with the dangerous cargo, not notify the authorities immediately? Las Vegas, the luck is on our side. Manny wrote on August 31, 2007 01:39 PM: More than 15 minutes and 20 miles later, the train slowed down and was stopped because of the rail incline. It could have been a big disaster and most likely, a big mess. Good job by the Metro police for blocking streets and warning motorists. But for Union Pacific, how could you not know you are missing a rail car? And with the dangerous cargo, not notify the authorities immediately? Las Vegas, the luck is on our side. Miguel wrote on August 31, 2007 09:34 AM: You would think that in this day and age of "supposed" elevated levels of threat and security, that at a minimum, extremely dangerous transports of any material should have some type of basic satelite tracking and atleast a remotely controlled emergency braking system. With the train yards knowledge of the runaway railcars contents, something should have been done prior to just allowing it to cruise on through the valley on its way to Nellis AFB. Rolling at 50mph we are fortunate that there weren't any turns or obstructions that could have derailed it. Is there anybody in government, local or national, with an ounce pro-active thinking? Why is it that american society has become complacent with mearly reacting to catastrophic events as if they've never occurred before. CS wrote on August 31, 2007 08:49 AM: WHO THE HELL ARE YOU V SNOW... IS THAT A LITTLE BIT OF JEALOUSY I HEAR THAT YOU DONT LIVE IN THE GOOD OLD U.S.A. YOU MUST BE TRAILER TRASH SO GO AWAY AND HAVE ANOTHER BEER OR PILL OR WHAT EVER YOU TAKE... Bob wrote on August 31, 2007 07:12 AM: Good morning V Snow Your opinion regarding rail shipments makes no sense. Oscar has no such authority. References to Lake Meade and stealing stealing oil are wildly irrelevant. I challenge you to provide the source of your one hundred trillion dollar debt to China. Envy of America is based on jealousy for our success. You are the one who hates "White trash America" and wants to nuke Clark County. I suspect you "composed" your rantings while high on drugs or booze. Sober up and seek professional help for your problems. JH wrote on August 31, 2007 06:45 AM: Where did you come from v snow? Perhaps maybe it would be a good idea if you went back to wherever that was. You appear to be a racist idiot, and we already have enough of those here to keep us septic for a good long time. v snow wrote on August 31, 2007 04:09 AM: let oscar ban shipping any chemicals on the rail system.if i where up i would halt shipping any chemicals.but what will las vegas do?after all las vegas is a septic tank clark county needs to be nuked to get rid of all the white trash.that have turned lake mead into lake septic.now i see why las vegas is on the top of the list by the people we are trying to steal there oil.face it white trash america is hated everywhere even in london they they hate americans the ones that owe china one hundred trillion dollars. Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2007 Stephens Media, LLC Privacy Statement ***************************************************************** 34 San Bernardino County Sun: Rialto may see more of the EPA Jason Pesick, Staff Writer Article Launched: 08/31/2007 12:00:00 AM PDT RIALTO - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is likely to play a larger role in cleaning up drinking water contaminated with perchlorate around the city. That's the word after a meeting on Thursday in San Francisco of city and EPA officials. "We haven't made up our mind," Superfund project manager Wayne Praskins said of how the EPA plans to move forward. "Proposing to add the site to (the Superfund program) is on the table here, and an increased EPA role in working with the (potentially responsible parties) is on the table." The Superfund is a federal program to clean up the nation's uncontrolled hazardous waste sites. Rialto officials have resisted becoming a Superfund site. Councilman Ed Scott, who attended the meeting, said his preference is not to go the Superfund route. But he is looking for a way for all sides to work together. "No matter who takes the lead, there has to be a leader," Scott said. The EPA's plans should be clearer by the end of September, Praskins said. Perchlorate is used in the production of explosives and can harm humans by interfering with the thyroid gland. High concentrations of perchlorate are flowing through the city from industrial sites on the city's north end. It was first discovered in 1997, but state regulatory agencies have been unable to get it cleaned up. In recent weeks, three of the suspected polluters - Goodrich, Black & Decker and Pyro Spectaculars - were able to get a court to call a temporary halt to state water board hearings after raising concerns about the board's bias against them. At a separate meeting Wednesday between state officials - including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's deputy chief of staff, Dan Dunmoyer, and City Council members - Dunmoyer broached the idea of declaring a state of emergency in the city. In two weeks, the state will complete an analysis of the pros and cons of declaring a state of emergency. The city will also examine the idea. "Actually, right at the moment it doesn't sound like there's a whole lot of cons," said Councilwoman Winnie Hanson, who attended the Sacramento meeting along with Mayor Grace Vargas and a host of other officials. If Rialto and the governor agree to declare the city in a state of emergency because the current drought plus perchlorate contamination have drastically reduced the city's water supply, it will be easier for Rialto to snag state funds. There's a downside to this strategy, however. It could be more difficult to approve future developments as the city must guarantee a 20-year water supply for new projects, said Scott Sommer, one of Rialto's lawyers. Regardless of the decision on the state of emergency issue, Rialto's water plight and the cleanup delay has started to attract statewide attention. On Wednesday, state Senate President Pro-Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland, held up Senate Rules Committee confirmation hearings on two of Schwarzenegger's water board nominees. "But what has become absolutely clear is the state is woefully inept at enforcing its clean water laws," Perata wrote in a letter to Schwarzenegger on Wednesday that mentioned the Rialto contamination. The state board is working to address some of Perata's concerns and hopes the courts will allow the perchlorate hearing to quickly move forward, said its spokesman, Bill Rukeyser. Bill Maile, a spokesman for Schwarzenegger, said the governor wants to see the nominees confirmed. "The governor shares Sen. Perata's priorities for California to have the best possible water quality, and he looks forward to working with the Legislature to improve water quality throughout the state," Maile said. Scott said Rialto's contamination is becoming a more sensitive political issue in Sacramento. "I really think that water should be the No.1 priority of this state right now," he said. Contact writer Jason Pesick at (909) 386-3861 or via e-mail at jason.pesick@sbsun.com. Copyright © 2007 Los Angeles Newspaper Group ***************************************************************** 35 NRC: Revised Notice of Intent To Prepare a Generic Environmental Impact Statement for Uranium Milling Facilities FR Doc E7-17276 [Federal Register: August 31, 2007 (Volume 72, Number 169)] [Notice] [Page 50414-50416] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr31au07-142] NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION AGENCY: United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). ACTION: Revised notice of intent (NOI). SUMMARY: This notice revises a notice published on July 24, 2007 in the Federal Register (72 FR 141) which informed the public of the NRC's intent to prepare a Generic Environmental Impact Statement (GEIS) in accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and NRC's NEPA implementing regulations contained in 10 CFR part 51. The purpose of this revised notice is to (1) Announce that an additional scoping meeting will be held in Gallup, New Mexico on September 27, 2007 and (2) extend the scoping comment period to October 8, 2007. The GEIS will assess the potential environmental impacts associated with uranium recovery at milling facilities employing the in-situ leach (ISL) process. The GEIS may also assess the potential environmental impacts of alternative methods of uranium recovery (including the conventional milling process). DATES: The NRC has recently held public meetings in Casper, Wyoming and Albuquerque, New Mexico as part of the public scoping process required by NEPA. In response to public requests, the public scoping period for the GEIS has been extended to October 8, 2007. Written comments submitted by mail should be postmarked by that date to ensure consideration. Comments mailed after that date will be considered to the extent possible. In addition, the NRC will conduct a third public meeting in Gallup, New Mexico to assist in defining the appropriate scope of the GEIS, including the significant environmental issues to be addressed. The meeting date, time and location are listed below: Meeting Date: September 27, 2007, 7 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. Meeting Location: Best Western Inn and Suites, 3009 West Hwy 66, Gallup, NM 87301-6813, Phone (505) 722-2221. For this meeting, members of the NRC staff will be available for informal discussions with members of the public from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. The formal meeting and associated NRC presentation will begin at 7 p.m. For planning purposes, those who wish to present oral comments at the meeting are encouraged to pre-register by contacting Carol Walls of the NRC by telephone at 1-800-368-5642, Extension 8028, or by e-mail at CAW@nrc.gov no later than September 21, 2007. Interested persons may also register to speak at the meetings. Depending on the number of speakers, each speaker may be limited in the amount of time allocated for their comments so that all speakers will have an opportunity to offer comments. ADDRESSES: Members of the public and interested parties are invited and encouraged to submit comments to the Chief, Rulemaking, Directives, and Editing Branch, Mail Stop T-6D59, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001. Also, the NRC encourages comments to be submitted electronically to URLGEIS@nrc.gov. Please refer to the ``Uranium Recovery GEIS'' when submitting comments. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For general information on the NRC NEPA process, or the environmental review process related to this GEIS, please contact: Paul Michalak, Project Manager, Division of Waste Management and Environmental Protection (DWMEP), Mail Stop T-8F5, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, by phone at 1-800-368-5642, Extension 7612, or by e-mail at PXM2@nrc.gov, For general or technical information associated with the safety and licensing of uranium milling facilities, please contact: William Von Till, Branch Chief, Uranium Recovery Branch, DWMEP, Mail Stop T-8F5, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, by phone at 1-800-368-5642, Extension 0598, or by e-mail at RWV@nrc.gov. Information and documents associated with the GEIS are available for public review through the NRC electronic reading room: http:// [[Page 50415]] www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. Documents may also be obtained from the NRC Public Document Room at U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Headquarters, 11555 Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville, Maryland, 20852-2738. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 1.0 Background The NRC is expecting numerous license applications for in-situ leach (ISL) uranium milling facilities in the coming 2-3 years. This GEIS is intended to address the common issues associated with environmental reviews of such milling facilities located in the western United States. Because there are environmental issues common to ISL milling facilities, the NRC staff will be addressing these common issues generically to aid in a more efficient environmental review for each separate license application, if and when these applications are submitted. ISL milling facilities recover uranium from low grade ores that may not be economically recoverable by other methods. In this process, a leaching agent, such as oxygen with sodium bicarbonate, is added to native ground water for injection through wells into the subsurface ore body to dissolve the uranium. The leach solution, containing the dissolved uranium, is pumped back to the surface and sent to the processing plant, where ion exchange is used to separate the uranium from the solution. The underground leaching of the uranium also frees other metals and minerals from the host rock. Operators of ISL facilities are required to restore the ground water affected by the leaching operations. The milling process concentrates the recovered uranium into the product known as ``yellowcake'' (U3O8). This yellowcake is then shipped to uranium conversion facilities for further processing in the overall uranium fuel cycle. One alternative to ISL milling is the conventional uranium milling process that extracts uranium from mined ore. At conventional mills, the ore arrives via truck and is crushed, ground, and leached. In most cases, sulfuric acid is the leaching agent, but alkaline leaching can also be done. The leaching agent not only extracts uranium from the ore but also several other constituents (e.g., vanadium, selenium, iron, lead, and arsenic). Conventional mills extract 90 to 95 percent of the uranium from the ore. These mills are typically in areas of low population density, and they typically process ores from mines within 50 kilometers (30 miles). Conventional mills may also produce significant quantities of waste materials, known as mill tailings, from the ore processing. These tailings are contained in impoundments which can be as large as 250 to 300 acres in extent. It is estimated that roughly 95% of the incoming ore ends as mill tailings. These mill tailings contain most of the radioactive progeny of uranium and may be a significant source of radon and radon progeny releases to the environment. The GEIS will focus on the construction, operation, and decommissioning of ISL mills and also assess alternative methods of uranium recovery. It is noted that the hardrock mining associated with conventional uranium milling is regulated by other entities (e.g., the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, and various state agencies) For more information on the uranium fuel cycle, please see Regulating Nuclear Fuel, NUREG/BR-0280, Rev. 1, (which can be found online at: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/nuregs/ brochures/br0280/). 2.0 Alternatives To Be Evaluated No action--The no-action alternative would be to not build nor license potential uranium milling facilities. Under this alternative the NRC would not approve future license applications. This alternative serves as a baseline for comparison of the potential environmental impacts. Proposed action--The proposed action is the construction, operation, and decommissioning of an ISL uranium mill. Implementation of the proposed action would require the issuance of an NRC license under the provisions of 10 CFR part 40. Alternatives--The conventional milling process is one alternative. Other alternatives not listed in this notice may be identified through the scoping process. 3.0 Environmental Impact Areas To Be Analyzed The following resource areas have been tentatively identified for analysis in the GEIS: --Public and Occupational Health: addressing the potential public and occupational consequences from construction, routine operation, transportation, and credible accident scenarios (including natural events), and decommissioning; --Waste Management: addressing the types of wastes expected to be generated, handled, stored and subject to re-use or disposal; --Land Use: addressing land use plans, policies and controls; --Transportation: addressing the transportation modes, routes, quantities, and risk estimates; --Geology and Soils: addressing the physical geography, topography, geology and soil characteristics; --Water Resources: addressing the surface and ground water hydrology, water use and quality, and the potential for degradation; --Ecology: addressing wetlands, aquatic, terrestrial, economically and recreationally important species, and threatened and endangered species; --Air Quality: addressing meteorological conditions, ambient background, pollutant sources, and the potential for degradation; --Noise: addressing ambient noises, sources, and sensitive receptors; --Historical and Cultural Resources: addressing historical, archaeological, and traditional cultural resources; --Visual and Scenic Resources: addressing landscape characteristics, man-made features and viewshed; --Socioeconomics: addressing the demography, economic base, labor pool, housing, transportation, utilities, public services/facilities, education, recreation, and cultural resources; --Environmental Justice: addressing the potential disproportionately high and adverse impacts to minority and low-income populations; and --Cumulative Effects: addressing the impacts from past, present, and reasonably foreseeable actions at and near the site. The examples under each resource area are not intended to be all inclusive, nor is this list an indication that environmental impacts will occur. The list is presented to facilitate comments on the scope of the GEIS. Additions to, or deletions from, this list may occur as a result of the public scoping process. 4.0 Scoping Meetings This NOI is to encourage public involvement in the GEIS process and to solicit public comments on the proposed scope and content of the GEIS. NRC will hold public scoping meetings as described above to solicit both oral and written comments from interested parties. Scoping is an early and open process designed to determine the range of actions, alternatives, and potential impacts to be considered in the GEIS, and to identify the significant issues related to the proposed action. Scoping is intended to solicit input from the public and other agencies so that the analysis can be more clearly focused on issues of genuine concern. The principal goals of the scoping process are to: [[Page 50416]] --Identify public concerns; --Ensure that concerns are identified early and are properly studied; --Identify alternatives that will be examined; --Identify significant issues that need to be analyzed; and --Eliminate unimportant issues. The scoping meetings will begin with NRC staff providing a description of NRC's role and mission followed by a brief overview of NRC's environmental review process and goals of the scoping meeting. The bulk of the meeting will be allotted for attendees to make oral comments. 5.0 Scoping Comments Written comments should be mailed to the address listed above in the ADDRESSES section. Scoping comments may also be submitted electronically via e-mail to URLGEIS@nrc.gov. The NRC staff will prepare a scoping summary report in which it will summarize public comments. The NRC will make the scoping summary report and project- related materials available for public review through its electronic reading room: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. Further, an NRC Web site will be established in the near future to keep the public abreast of the current schedule and to post important documents. 6.0 The NEPA Process The GEIS will be prepared according to NEPA and NRC's NEPA implementing regulations contained in 10 CFR part 51. After the scoping process is complete, the NRC will prepare a draft GEIS. The draft GEIS is scheduled to be published by April 2008. A 45- day comment period on the draft GEIS is planned, and a public meeting(s) to receive comments will be held approximately three weeks after publication of the draft GEIS. Availability of the draft GEIS, the dates of the public comment period, and information about the public meeting will be announced in the Federal Register, on NRC's Web page, and in the local news media. The final GEIS is expected to be published in January 2009 and will incorporate, as appropriate, public comments received on the draft GEIS. Dated at Rockville, Maryland this 22nd day of August, 2007. For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Gregory Suber, Branch Chief, Environmental Review Branch, Environmental Protection and Performance Assessment Directorate, Division of Waste Management and Environmental Protection, Office of Federal and State Materials and Environmental Management Programs. [FR Doc. E7-17276 Filed 8-30-07; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P ***************************************************************** 36 Las Vegas Now: Las Vegas Officials React to Runaway Railcar Edward Lawrence, Reporter Richard Brenner, Clark County HAZMAT Coordinator Also on LasVegasNow.com Reaction and the fallout from Wednesday's runaway railcar containing the deadly chemical chlorine has come from just about everywhere. From changes the city of Las Vegas will make, to how the Clark County HAZMAT team could respond to a chlorine leak. The railcar coasted freely from south of Blue Diamond to North Las Vegas. The scariest thing for HAZMAT experts who looked at this incident is how close the railcar came to a lot of people. The track took it right behind the Mirage, Treasure Island, Fashion Show Mall, and Circus Circus. The runaway car went as fast as 55 miles-per-hour past the Clark County Government Center and downtown Las Vegas. That angered the mayor and left HAZMAT fire crews pondering what if. The runaway tanker looked harmless enough as it sat in North Las Vegas Wednesday. Union Pacific workers threw wood boards under the wheels to stop the car. But this sight angered Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman. "I think it's outrageous," he said. Mayor Goodman says the railroad never called his office about the incident. He first heard about it from new reports. In response, the mayor never wants to be blindsided by a runaway car again. He says he will amend a city ordinance so the railroad must notify authorities before chlorine or any toxic chemical will be shipped through the city. "Cities need to be notified to be prepared to meet these kinds of potential dangers with HAZMAT facilities," said Goodman. The uncontrolled car sped past hundreds of thousands of people not only downtown, but also on the Las Vegas Strip. A leak or crash could have been disastrous in that stretch of track. "What we try to do is prepare ourselves," said Richard Brenner, Clark County HAZMAT Coordinator. Clark County HAZMAT crews say they would have been ready because of specialized training using replicas of the tank car's lid, which is where most of the leaks happen when transporting chlorine. So the Clark County crews have valve caps. With any leak near the large hotels, HAZMAT coordinator Richard Brenner says he would have kept people inside and had the ventilation system shut off because chlorine dissipates in the wind. "It's going to try to escape. It's going to try to go up in the environment. That is what we want it to do. We don't want to put people out in that environment," said Brenner. Had there been a crash or leak in the side of the tank, HAZMAT crews have a giant bag to throw over the car and trap any chlorine gas. Senator Harry Reid released the following statement: "The incident involving a runaway railcar yesterday is just the latest example of the serious danger that Yucca Mountain poses to Nevada and the rest of the nation. Railways go directly through the heart of Las Vegas and many other cities and towns across America. They travel past our schools, our businesses and our homes. Fortunately, yesterday's railcar was stopped without incident and without the release of the dangerous chemicals it was carrying. However, this incident brought to light the very real threat we face if the DOE begins to transport nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain. That is why I will continue to leverage my leadership position in the Senate to ensure the dump is never built." All content © Copyright 2000 - 2007 WorldNow and KLAS. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 37 CanWest: Canada contemplates nuclear solution to quell climate change Randy Boswell, CanWest News Service Published: Friday, August 31, 2007 Canada is poised to join an elite club of "advanced nuclear nations" that -- led by U.S. President George W. Bush -- plans to promote nuclear energy as a key solution to global warming and to control the international movement of enriched uranium and radioactive waste, CanWest News Service has learned. Canada's membership in the controversial Global Nuclear Energy Partnership would open a new battlefront in the already divisive national debate over what this country should do to help avert a planetary climate change crisis. And joining the partnership -- initiated by the Bush administration last year, and now counting Russia, China, Japan and France as members -- could raise thorny questions about the costs and benefits to Canada, including potential impacts on the country's thriving uranium export industry, its CANDU reactor sales and its capacity to dispose of nuclear waste. Responding to a CanWest News Service request about Canada's possible involvement in GNEP, a Foreign Affairs spokeswoman said: "Canada has been invited to join the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership and to participate in the next meeting scheduled to take place on September 16 in Vienna." The statement added: "Canada is reviewing the proposed GNEP Statement of Principles and a decision on Canadian participation will be made shortly." One of the key components of the partnership is its push for the development of "fast-cycle reactors" - not yet proven to work commercially -- that would produce less nuclear waste, but could compete internationally with the CANDU. The cornerstone commitment of the partnership is its "cradle-to-grave" plan to have all spent fuel from the world's reactors shipped back to GNEP uranium-supplier nations for secure disposal at nuclear waste sites. But the GNEP initiative has two other goals: to reduce the chances of nuclear power spawning the development of nuclear weapons by rogue states or terrorists; and to create a more secure international regime for the disposal of radioactive waste. Experts in the U.S., though, are divided over whether GNEP will accomplish those goals or -- because the partnership is predicated on promoting more nuclear power -- stoke global security risks. The GNEP initiative came to light in Canada in May 2006 when Prime Minister John Howard of Australia -- like Canada, a major world supplier of uranium - visited Ottawa and voiced interest in the U.S. proposal, but also concerns about its possible effect on the mining and export industries. At the time, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said: "Australia and Canada, as the two major uranium producers in the world, have considerable interest in whatever the United States and the international community have in mind in terms of future uranium development, production and marketing." He added that he and Howard had "agreed we're going to collaborate very closely together to make sure Australian and Canadian interests are closely protected while the Americans and others discuss the future of that industry." A Greenpeace spokesman argued then that joining GNEP would make Canada "an international waste dump." Howard now appears determined to join the U.S.-led consortium, igniting a debate in Australia - which does not have nuclear power plants - over whether GNEP will contribute to a safer, cleaner world, force Australia to become a nuclear waste repository, distract nations from cutting greenhouse gases, or put the U.S. and its partners at odds with other countries eager to develop nuclear energy. The Australian debate has also fired speculation about Canada's possible role within GNEP. Dennis Spurgeon, assistant secretary for nuclear power at the U.S. Department of Energy, told The Australian newspaper last year that the U.S. might consider inviting Australia and Canada to join the partnership. "I think Australia, and Canada for that matter, play a special role in world nuclear affairs," Spurgeon said at the time, "because obviously you are two countries that have the majority of economically recoverable uranium resources." Nuclear energy's role in fighting climate change is being hotly debated in Australia and elsewhere in advance of next week's APEC summit of Asia-Pacific countries, including Canada and the U.S., which begins in Sydney on Sept. 8. A draft version of the planned APEC leaders' declaration on the environment, leaked last week in Australia, touted the merits of nuclear energy as a non-polluting alternative to fossil fuels and proposed - controversially - a vague, unenforceable "aspirational" goal for cutting greenhouse gases in the Asia-Pacific region. Environment Minister John Baird dismissed criticism in Canada as premature, saying the APEC declaration had not yet been finalized. Harper is scheduled to address the Australian parliament days after the APEC summit, a speech that's expected to highlight the convergence of Canadian and Australian interests on the world stage - particularly on energy issues and in designing a post-Kyoto strategy for tackling climate change. Howard - who shares with Harper a broadly conservative political agenda and a generally supportive stance toward the Bush administration - is expected to get a boost from Harper's speech on the brink of an Australian election this fall. "Anything called a Global Nuclear Energy Partnership that is U.S.-led is the wrong way to go," Green party Leader Elizabeth May told CanWest News Service this week. "The way to go in monitoring and controlling nuclear power is to stay with the international agencies that were formed for this purpose, such as the International Atomic Energy Agency." The IAEA, along with Britain, participated as an observer at a GNEP meeting earlier this year. Next month's GNEP meeting in Austria is taking place on the sidelines of the IAEA general assembly. May insisted that even a rapid international increase in nuclear power production won't "make a dent" in the effort to curb global greenhouse gas emissions. And the "self-serving" U.S.-led promotion of nuclear power will come with "a huge risk of more uranium activity around the world. It's going to become a major political item on the agenda. There's already an unprecedented pressure for new uranium mining in Canada." The federal NDP's environment critic Nathan Cullen Wednesday denounced "Harper's secrecy" in exploring what he called the "Bush-Howard scheme" to promote nuclear energy around the world. "The debate has been muted, but it's getting on the radar," Cullen said. "We need to expose this to Canadians, to get these negotiations out into the light of day." c CanWest News Service 2007 © 2007 CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest MediaWorks ***************************************************************** 38 National Post: Canada invited to join controversial nuclear club Sept. 16 Meeting; Aims To Promote Nuclear Power, Control Its Use Randy Boswell, CanWest News Service Published: Friday, August 31, 2007 Canada is poised to join an elite club of "advanced nuclear nations" that -- led by U.S. President George W. Bush -- plans to promote nuclear energy as a key solution to global warming and to control the international movement of enriched uranium and radioactive waste, CanWest News Service has learned. Canada's membership in the controversial Global Nuclear Energy Partnership would open a new battlefront in the divisive national debate over what this country should do about planetary climate change. And joining the partnership -- initiated by the Bush administration last year, and now counting Russia, China, Japan and France as members --could raise thorny questions about the costs and benefits to Canada, including its uranium export industry, its CANDU reactor sales and its capacity to dispose of nuclear waste. View Larger Image Environment Minister John Baird dismissed criticism of the nuclear energy partnership as premature. John McKay, CanWest News Service File Photo Responding to a CanWest News Service request about Canada's possible involvement in GNEP, a Foreign Affairs spokeswoman said: "Canada has been invited to join the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership and to participate in the next meeting scheduled to take place on Sept. 16 in Vienna." The statement added: "Canada is reviewing the proposed GNEP Statement of Principles and a decision on Canadian participation will be made shortly." One of the key components of the partnership is its push for the development of "fast-cycle reactors" -- not yet proven to work commercially -- that would produce less nuclear waste, but could compete internationally with the CANDU. The cornerstone commitment of the partnership is its "cradle-to-grave" plan to have all spent fuel from the world's reactors shipped back to GNEP uranium-supplier nations for secure disposal at nuclear waste sites. But the GNEP initiative has two other goals: to reduce the chances of nuclear power spawning the development of nuclear weapons by rogue states or terrorists; and to create a more secure international regime for the disposal of radioactive waste. Experts in the United States, though, are divided over whether GNEP will accomplish those goals or -- because the partnership is predicated on promoting more nuclear power -- stoke global security risks. The GNEP initiative came to light in Canada in May, 2006, when Prime Minister John Howard of Australia -- like Canada, a major world supplier of uranium -- visited Ottawa and voiced interest in the U.S. proposal, but also concerns about its possible effect on the mining and export industries. At the time, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said: "Australia and Canada, as the two major uranium producers in the world, have considerable interest in whatever the United States and the international community have in mind in terms of future uranium development, production and marketing." Nuclear energy's role in fighting climate change is being hotly debated in Australia and elsewhere in advance of next week's APEC summit of Asia-Pacific countries, including Canada and the United States, which begins in Sydney on Sept. 8. A draft version of the planned APEC leaders' declaration on the environment, leaked last week in Australia, touted the merits of nuclear energy as a non-polluting alternative to fossil fuels and proposed -- controversially -- a vague, unenforceable "aspirational" goal for cutting greenhouse gases in the Asia-Pacific region. Environment Minister John Baird dismissed criticism in Canada as premature, saying the APEC declaration had not yet been finalized. © National Post 2007 © 2007 CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest MediaWorks ***************************************************************** 39 barrow in furness: Sellafield finds more radiation on beach Published on 31/08/2007 THE amount of radioactive material found on west Cumbrian beaches is likely to increase, say Sellafield bosses. It’s all because their new radiation tracking device, known as the Groundhog, operates at half speed and is more likely to pinpoint radioactivity. That is what Sellafield claims in its latest newsletter. Green activists, however, insist the company is attempting to cover up the increase by blaming the sensitivity of the new monitoring equipment used. When the last set of figures came out in July they were questioned by environmental campaigners for showing that the number of radioactive finds had almost doubled in a month. Originally, it showed 35 finds were made. This was later updated by Sellafield to 69. Sellafield will use their Groundhog device to carry out a new survey, but because it will operate at half speed they expect to find more radioactive material on the beaches around the site. Bosses say the beaches will remain safe to use while the work goes on. Martin Forwood of pressure group Cumbrians Opposed to a Radioactive Environment said: “I think the fact they are anticipating the rise in their newsletter is remark able. While we welcome them being more open about it this news points to Sellafield admitting there is a problem which needs addressing. This Groud hog is problematic, as whatever it finds it does not detect alpha radiation like plutonium.” A Sellafield spokesperson said: “This equipment is new, so we thought it prudent to inform staff and members of the public that we were using vehicle mounted equipment so as not to cause alarm if it was spotted on the beach. “The Groundhog monitoring system does not detect alpha radiation but does detect radiation from Americium 241, which is associated with Plutonium isotopes. “We believe that we are being open and transparent by communicating the anticipated finds which we expect during the next phase of monitoring. “The half speed monitoring is designed to find particles at lower activities, if they are present. “It is difficult to predict the number of finds but it is reasonable to expect more finds due to the increased sensitivity of the monitoring equipment at the lower speed.” View this story and the latest newspaper in full digital reproduction, just like the printed copy at www.nwemail.co.uk/digitalcopy ***************************************************************** 40 NRC: NRC Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste and Materials to Meet in Rockville, Maryland, September 18-20 News Release - 2007-111 - U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 20555-0001 E-mail: opa@nrc.gov www.nrc.gov The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste and Materials (ACNWM) will meet September 18-20 in Rockville, Md., to discuss, among other items, corrosion of waste package and drip shield materials in a repository environment, the NRC role in the International Committee on Radiological Protection and regulatory guide revisions. The committee will also be briefed by the Nuclear Energy Institute on low-level radioactive waste minimization strategies and commercial management issues. The ACNWM reports to and advises the Commission on all aspects of nuclear waste and materials management. The meeting will be held in Room T-2B3 of the agency’s Two White Flint North building, at 11545 Rockville Pike. Tuesday’s session will run from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.; Wednesday’s session from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.; and Thursday’s session from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Anyone requiring the use of video teleconferencing to observe the meeting should contact Theron Brown at 301-415-8066 to ensure availability. A complete agenda is available on the NRC’s Web site at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/acnw/agenda/2007 NRC news releases are available through a free list server subscription at the following Web address: http://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/listserver.html. The NRC Home Page at www.nrc.gov also offers a Subscribe to News link in the News & Information menu. E-mail notifications are sent to subscribers when news releases are posted to NRC's Web Site. August 31, 2007 ***************************************************************** 41 Las Vegas SUN: Officials seek answers after Las Vegas chlorine tank car mishap August 31, 2007 LAS VEGAS (AP) - Local officials called for a probe of when and how authorities in Nevada were notified about a runaway chlorine tank car that rolled at 50 mph through Las Vegas this week. No one was hurt, nothing leaked and there was no damage before the tanker stopped on an uphill grade north of the city and crews were able to set its brakes shortly after 9 a.m. Wednesday, authorities said. But local government officials demanded investigations Thursday of what went wrong at the train yard where the tanker rolled away, and whether Union Pacific Railroad officials properly notified police and local authorities. Union Pacific spokesman Mark Davis said workers at the Arden switching yard several miles south of Las Vegas alerted Union Pacific dispatchers in Omaha, Neb., and a dispatcher contacted Union Pacific railroad police, also in Nebraska. Las Vegas police also were notified, Davis said. "This all happened literally within seconds," said Davis, who was in Las Vegas on Wednesday and back in Omaha, Neb., on Thursday. Las Vegas police said the incident end at 9:11 a.m., after police first learned at 8:49 a.m. Wednesday from a utility company survey crew that the runaway tanker was rolling on the Union Pacific main line tracks past the Las Vegas Strip and downtown Las Vegas, said Officer Bill Cassell, a police spokesman. Union Pacific officials initially denied the train car was theirs, Cassell said, adding that eight minutes after the initial call, Las Vegas police were informed by the railroad that the runaway car was loaded with a lethal substance. The Clark County Commission wants an explanation from Union Pacific about how the incident occurred how a similar mishap would be prevented in the future, County Manager Virginia Valentine said. Valentine called it "completely unacceptable" that she received notification of the mishap hours after it was over. "You can't respond to an emergency you don't know about," she said, emphasizing the toxic danger of chlorine. Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman suggested revising a city ordinance banning the transport of high-level radioactive waste through the city to include other hazardous materials, such as chlorine. A 2006 study by the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Institute for Security Studies identified a chlorine gas accident as the greatest potential disaster in Nevada. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid seized on the runaway tanker incident to highlight the danger of plans to ship radioactive waste by rail to a proposed national nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Reid, D-Nev., is Rory Reid's father. "Fortunately, (Wednesday's) rail car was stopped without incident and without the release of the dangerous chemicals it was carrying," the senator said in a statement. Information from: Las Vegas Review-Journal, http://www.lvrj.com All contents copyright 2005 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 42 Guardian Unlimited: Tracking of Nuclear Parts Faulted Friday August 31, 2007 6:46 PM By JOHN HEILPRIN Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - Security officials for the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile sometimes had difficulty locating classified nuclear and non-nuclear components at two of three sites recently inspected by government auditors. Both sites ``could not readily account for or locate some of the items included in our inventory sample,'' the office of the Energy Department's inspector general, Gregory Friedman, said in a summary report on classified weapons parts. The full report was not made public because it contains classified information. It did not include inspections of parts that contain ``special nuclear materials'' such as plutonium or highly enriched uranium. The one-page summary dated July 31 does not say, and Energy Department officials would not disclose Friday, when the inspections were done. Officials in the Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration, which runs the weapons program, disagreed with the report's findings and characterized it as a dispute over paperwork. The agency maintains the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile at eight sites and also operates research laboratories and a nuclear weapons assembly plant. President Bush has ordered a reduction in the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile to between 1,700 and 2,200 by 2012, down from about 6,000 operational warheads in 2001. NNSA spokesman John Broehm said the disagreement is over the level of paperwork required for tracking parts that fall into two different security categories. Broehm said the agency's ``accountability controls are more than enough when protecting 'non-war reserve' parts'' because they are used ``only for routine testing, research and development.'' He characterized the IG's report as saying those parts should carry the same paperwork burden as ``war reserve'' parts for use in working weapons. Some parts, such as the nuclear triggers for setting off an explosion, are always considered ``war reserve'' parts, even in testing. ``It would have been more helpful to us if the IG report would have looked at our controls for ``war reserve'' and ``non-war reserve'' parts separately, instead of applying the same standards for everything,'' Broehm said. --- On the Net: Energy Department inspector general's office: http://www.ig.energy.gov/index.htm Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007 ***************************************************************** 43 Reuters: Should the West fear Russia's military build-up? Fri Aug 31, 2007 3:53PM EDT By Michael Stott - Analysis MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Russian bear is showing its claws again, but how sharp are they? President Vladimir Putin has rattled the West with a wave of dramatic military announcements redolent of the Cold War. Long-range Russian bombers capable of carrying nuclear weapons are back on flying patrol around the world, prompting NATO fighters to scramble in response. New long-range missiles have been test-fired, one streaking from one end of Russia to the other in less than half an hour, according to official accounts. And the former Red Army is re-equipping itself, with defense spending growing 20-40 percent a year since Putin came to power in 2000, albeit from a low base after the ravages of the 1990s. Should be West be worried ? "Overall, Russia's military capability is well below 50 percent of what the Soviet Union had," Peter Felstead, editor of Jane's defense Weekly, said in a telephone interview. "The bombers resuming flights was more a prestige thing and a diplomatic signal than real military posturing." The State Department in Washington dismissed the bombers' reappearance as Russia taking "old aircraft out of mothballs" -- an unflattering reference to the backbone of Moscow's fleet, the propeller-driven Tupolev-95 which first flew in 1952. Continued... ***************************************************************** 44 DOE: DOE Selects U.S. University-led Teams for $30.7 Million in Nuclear Research Grants August 30, 2007 WASHINGTON, DC – The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced the selection of 11 U.S. university-led grant recipient teams for cooperative research projects under DOE’s Nuclear Energy Research Initiative (NERI) for up to $30.7 million over three years (FY’07-’09). NERI is a DOE initiative focused on developing advanced nuclear energy systems and providing state-of-the-art research concerning nuclear science and technology. These grants further engage U.S. university professors and their students in advanced nuclear fuel cycle research and development (R&D), supporting President Bush’s Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) and his American Competitiveness Initiative. “These awards will strengthen DOE’s commitment to expanding the vital role America’s universities play in supporting the advancement and expansion of nuclear power,” Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy Dennis Spurgeon said. “Developing stronger research partnerships with our educational institutions is a priority for developing environmentally responsible, reliable, and safe nuclear power to serve the United States’ future energy needs.” Selected projects include 38 U.S. universities in 22 states, two of which are Historically Black Universities: Alabama A&M University and South Carolina State University. Research consortia will help advance the President’s American Competitiveness Initiative (ACI) by broadening the nation’s nuclear research base. The ACI supports investments in the next generation of scientists, engineers and educators so America remains at the forefront of science and innovation. Funding for these projects is expected to begin this fiscal year ($10.3 million) and continue through FY’09, subject to negotiations and appropriations from Congress. These grants are expected to be executed by the end of this fiscal year. In total this fiscal year, the Department will provide approximately $55 million to U.S. universities in support of nuclear energy programs and R&D. This includes the FY’07-portion of today’s announcement ($10.3 million); $3.8 million in GNEP Readiness awards announced earlier this month; $13 million to fund individual researcher awards through NERI; $16.5 million for programs conducted under the University Reactor Infrastructure and Education Assistance Program; and $11.5 million for university R&D. GNEP seeks to close the nuclear fuel cycle by reducing proliferation risks, reducing waste and further increasing energy security around the world. In support of GNEP, today’s announcement also furthers DOE’s Generation IV Nuclear Energy Initiative, the Nuclear Hydrogen Initiative, and the Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI). The Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems Initiative aims to further advance nuclear energy system designs and broaden the opportunities for the use of nuclear power. The Nuclear Hydrogen Initiative seeks to demonstrate the economic, commercial-scale production of hydrogen using nuclear energy. If successful, this research could lead to a large-scale, emission-free, domestic hydrogen production capability to fuel a hydrogen economy. AFCI goals include reducing the long-term radiological impact of waste; enabling development of a simpler, cheaper repository; reducing proliferation risk and improving long-term prospects for nuclear power. Read additional information on these initiatives and selections on the Office of Nuclear Energy website. The University Consortia recipients include: Project Title NERI Consortia Participants NERI Consortium for Real-Time Detection of Actinide Compositions in the UREX+ Process Texas A&M University; Purdue University; University of Illinois, Chicago; ANL Radiation Damage in Nuclear Fuel for Advanced Burner Reactors: Modeling and Experimental Validation University of California, Davis; California Institute of Technology; Northwestern University; University of California, Los Angeles Performance of Actinide-Containing Fuel Matrices Under Extreme Radiation and Temperature Environments University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; Georgia Institute of Technology; South Carolina State University; University of Michigan Advanced Instrumentation and Control Methods for Small and Medium Export Reactors with IRIS Demonstration University of Tennessee; North Carolina State University; PennState University; South Carolina State University; Westinghouse (unfunded) Advanced Aqueous Separation Systems for Actinide Partitioning Washingt on State University; Hunter College (CUNY); Tennessee Technological University; University of New Mexico; University of North Carolina –Wilmington; PNNL; LBNL; INL An Innovative Approach to Precision Fission Measurements using a Time Projection Chamber Georgia Institute of Technology; Abilene Christian University; California Polytechnic State University; Colorado School of Mines; Ohio University; Oregon State University; LANL; LLNL; INL Risk-Informed Balancing of Safety, Nonproliferation, and Economics for the SFR Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Idaho State University; The Ohio State University Deployment of a Suite of High Performance Computational Tools for Multiscale Multiphysics Simulation of Generation IV Reactors Rensselae r Polytechnic Institute; Columbia University; State University of New York, Stony Brook; BNL Cladding and Structural Materials for Advanced Nuclear Energy Systems U niversity of Michigan; Alabama A&M University; Pennsylvania State University; University of California, Berkeley; University of California, Santa Barbara; University of Wisconsin, Madison A Research Program on Very High Temperature Reactors (VHTRs) Universit y of Missouri, Columbia; North Carolina State University; Washington University, St. Louis Advanced Electrochemical Technologies for Hydrogen Production by Alternative Thermo chemical Cycles Pennsylvania State University; Tulane University; University of South Carolina; ANL Note: Lead University is italicized. Media contact(s): Angela Hill, (202) 586-4940 U.S. Department of Energy | 1000 Independence Ave., SW | Washington, DC 20585 1-800-dial-DOE | f/202-586-4403 ***************************************************************** 45 DOE: D’Agostino Sworn-In as the Energy Department’s Under Secretary for Nuclear Security and Administrator of its National Nuclear Security Administration August 30, 2007 WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman today administered the oath of office to Thomas P. D’Agostino as the third Under Secretary for Nuclear Security and Administrator of the Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). “I applaud the Senate’s quick action to confirm Tom D’Agostino as Administrator of NNSA,” Secretary Bodman said. “Tom brings institutional knowledge of the weapons complex and firsthand experience in leading our defense programs to his new position. I am pleased to have him on my senior leadership team as we work to further President Bush’s energy and national security agenda and advance critical nonproliferation goals.” President Bush nominated D’Agostino on May 17, 2007, and he was confirmed by the Senate on August 1, 2007. D’Agostino, who joined the Department in 1991, most recently served as NNSA’s Deputy Administrator for Defense Programs. “I am honored by the opportunity to serve the President and Secretary Bodman as NNSA Administrator,” D’Agostino said. “I look forward to fulfilling the President’s vision of a smaller stockpile, transforming the country’s weapons complex, and continuing to lead the world in combating the spread of nuclear weapons and material around the globe.” D’Agostino has more than 29 years of military service in the United States Navy, retiring with the rank of captain from the U.S. Naval Reserves. He received his bachelor’s degree from the U.S. Naval Academy and his master’s degrees from Johns Hopkins University and the Naval War College. Established by Congress in 2000, NNSA is a separately organized agency within the U.S. Department of Energy responsible for enhancing national security through the military application of nuclear science. NNSA maintains and enhances the safety, security, reliability and performance of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile without nuclear testing; works to reduce global danger from weapons of mass destruction; provides the U.S. Navy with safe and effective nuclear propulsion; and responds to nuclear and radiological emergencies in the United States and abroad. Read more information, and view Administrator D’Agostino’s biography, on the NNSA website. Media contact(s): Julie Ruggiero, (202) 586-4940 NNSA, (202) 586-7371 U.S. Department of Energy | 1000 Independence Ave., SW | Washington, DC 20585 1-800-dial-DOE | f/202-586-4403 ***************************************************************** 46 Seattle PI: Mercury-tainted soil dumped in Hanford landfill Last updated August 31, 2007 2:34 p.m. PT RICHLAND, Wash. -- A government watchdog group is urging an investigation of a contractor at south-central Washington's Hanford nuclear reservation after soil contaminated with mercury was mistakenly dumped in a landfill there. There have been problems in the past at the Environmental Restoration Disposal Facility, a landfill that holds radioactive and hazardous chemical waste. It is operated by contractor Washington Closure Hanford under contract to the U.S. Department of Energy, which manages cleanup of the highly contaminated Hanford site. The latest incident was uncovered by the Government Accountability Project, a government watchdog and whistleblower protection group, through a Freedom of Information Act request. In an 18-page letter, the group urged the Energy Department to open an independent, full-scale investigation of the company and to hold it accountable. "We take any safety-related allegation very seriously," Colleen French, an Energy Department spokeswoman, told the Tri-City Herald for a story Friday. "On first review, the issues raised in the letter appear to be ones we're aware of and have dealt with already. But we are looking at it in detail and discussing appropriate next steps." On May 17, employees of a Washington Closure subcontractor emptied two loads of mercury-contaminated soil marked for treatment into the landfill. The waste has since been removed, Washington Closure said in a letter to employees. "It was a serious operational lapse," said Dave Einan, environmental engineer for the Environmental Protection Agency. But "they responded appropriately once they found it. They have taken the right kind of steps to prevent it happening again." The Environmental Protection Agency fined the Energy Department $1.14 million over earlier problems at the landfill. However, EPA has seen continued improvements at the landfill this year for safer and more effective operation, said Nick Ceto, EPA's Hanford program manager. Other problems cited by the watchdog group included sodium dichromate spills into the soil last summer that were not immediately reported to regulators or handled correctly, a spread of radioactive tritium outside of a work area in January and electrical safety near-misses prior to September 2006. Most of the problems, particularly many of the most serious incidents, occurred before Chuck Spencer stepped in as president of Washington Closure in January. He was named after a week marred by serious problems, which included a discovery that a subcontractor's employee had falsified test results at the landfill. The federal government created Hanford in the 1940s as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb. Today, it is the nation's most contaminated nuclear site, with cleanup costs expected to top $50 billion. --- Information from: Tri-City Herald, http://www.tri-cityherald.com 101 Elliott Ave. W. Seattle, WA 98119 (206) 448-8000 Send comments to newmedia@seattlepi.com Send investigative tips to iteam@seattlepi.com ©1996-2007 Seattle Post-Intelligencer ***************************************************************** 47 Tri-City Herald: IsoRay expanding into new facility in Richland Published Friday, August 31st, 2007 PRATIK JOSHI, HERALD STAFF WRITER IsoRay soon will move the production of its signature product, Proxcelan, to a new facility at the Applied Process Engineering Laboratory in Richland. Proxcelan is the brand name for Cesium-131 brachytherapy seeds used in the treatment of prostate cancer. The production starts Tuesday,said Roger Girard, chairman and CEO of IsoRay. The transition from the former Pacific EcoSolutions facility a few miles away will be complete within two weeks, he said. The expansion adds more than 15,000 square feet of production space -- the current space is about 5,000 square feet -- and will help double the production capacity to about 100,000 medical isotope seeds a month. The company plans to hire about 70 more employees soon, he said. The move comes at a time when about a dozen employees are working 70-hour weeks to meet a high demand for the seeds, Girard said. But no production time will be lost during the move. "It's a seamless transition, " Girard said. The company is looking forward to developing other medical isotopes that could be used to treat other kinds of cancers, Girard said. The move also will help consolidate all of IsoRay's operations under one roof. The new state-of-the-art facility has been designed to improve process efficiency, said Craig Maloney, associate project manager of IsoRay, during a tour of the facility Thursday. The process of making Cesium-131 involves extraction of cesium from nuclear-charged barium carbonate. It's then placed on ceramic cores the size of an uncooked grain of rice, he said. Each "seed" later is encased in a titanium capsule and precision-welded with a laser, Maloney said. It's followed by removal of any residual radioactive materials and sterilization before the "customized" seeds are shipped to doctors and medical facilities. About 100 Cesium-131 seeds are typically used in one implant for treating prostate cancer, he said. The new workspace includes an ultra-clean room where the finished product will be packaged, Maloney said. "It's a building within a building," Maloney said. The project cost about $5 million, said Girard. But the investment inside the existing facility helped the company save $15 million that it would have spent building at a new location. And, IsoRay didn't have to deal with permitting hassles, Girard added. © 2007 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press & Other Wire Services ***************************************************************** 48 Knoxville News Sentinel: Trio touts $48 billion initiative Bill authorizes funds for vital science, math programs, lawmakers say By Frank Munger (Contact) Friday, August 31, 2007 OAK RIDGE — Science is the economic savior, and the United States must embrace that strategy or lose more of its jobs to India and China and other competitors in the global marketplace. Three members of Tennessee’s congressional delegation were spreading those words Thursday and — with an Oak Ridge National Laboratory audience as the backdrop — they were preaching to the choir. U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and U.S. Reps. Bart Gordon, D-Tenn., and Zach Wamp, R-Tenn., came to ORNL to tout the recent passage of the America COMPETES Act, which is expected to have a profound impact on U.S. science initiatives. The bill authorizes up to $48 billion for federal programs that would expand science and math education and support the research infrastructure in the United States, including the work at ORNL. Alexander was a prime architect and promoter of the legislation. Tennessee’s senior senator said it’s among the most important bills of recent vintage, and he said he’s confident Congress will follow up by appropriating the federal funds over the next few years. “This is no time to be pennywise and pound foolish,” said Wamp, whose congressional district includes ORNL and the government’s other Oak Ridge facilities. Gordon, chairman of the House Science Committee, said Alexander’s work to organize bipartisan support for the bill and get dozens of senators to sign up as sponsors “proves that miracles do happen.” Over several years, the bill would double the money available to the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy’s Office of Science — two of the main supporters of science research and science education in the United States. The elected officials said there would be major ramifications in Tennessee, including funds to support hundreds of scholarships for future math and science teachers, science camps and teacher-training academies, partnerships with national labs and broad-based research programs. While in Oak Ridge, the trio visited the ORNL’s supercomputer facilities and the Spallation Neutron Source — the $1.4 billion research center that began operations last year. ORNL Director Thom Mason announced Thursday that the SNS had established a record as the world’s most powerful accelerator-based source for neutrons. According to Mason, the SNS systems earlier this month operated at 183 kilowatts — surpassing the previous record for beam power that was established at the ISIS research facility in the United Kingdom. Construction of the SNS was completed early last year at a cost of $1.4 billion, and the linear accelerator and associated facilities are still ramping up and going through tests and evaluations — although science experiments are under way on a limited scale. The SNS is expected to set records on a regular basis in the coming months as the accelerator’s power is gradually increased to 1.4 megawatts. As the power goes up, so does the production of neutrons, and the number of neutrons produced directly impacts the quality and types of research experiments that can be performed. Scientists use the unprecedented bursts of neutrons at SNS to explore the basic structure and properties of materials of all types, including biological substances, polymers and advanced materials that have been fabricated in nearby nanoscience research labs. Senior writer Frank Munger may be reached at 865-342-6329. © 2007, Knoxville News Sentinel Co. ***************************************************************** 49 Ventura County Star: Agency reaches cleanup pact for Field Lab Report gives deadlines for eliminating pollutants By Teresa Rochester (Contact) Friday, August 31, 2007 An agreement has been reached regarding the cleanup of chemical pollution at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory that sets strict deadlines and financial penalties. The state Department of Toxic Substances Control negotiated the enforcement order this summer with the Boeing Co., U.S. Department of Energy and NASA, and released the final agreement on Aug. 16. The enforcement order, among other things, mandates the entities submit plans proposing cleanup measures for the chemical contamination at the 2,850-acre former rocket engine and nuclear test site south of Simi Valley. State law gives the Department of Toxic Substances Control the right to issue such an order when it determines there "is or has been a release of hazardous waste or hazardous waste constituents into the environment from a hazardous waste facility," the order states. "It describes in great detail the various things the respondents need to do in order to move from the situation we find ourselves in today, toward the completion of the cleanup," said Norman Riley, the department's project director for the Field Lab. "We want them to be very clear on what we want." Cleanup of chemical contamination at the site is expected to be completed by June 30, 2017, Riley said. The 74-page document sets a series of deadlines for work ranging from collecting water sample reports to submitting aerial photographs of the site. Boeing, the Energy Department and NASA must adhere to the deadlines. Any violation of the order's demands will result in a $15,000 fine, per violation, per day. The Department of Energy owns some facilities at the Field Lab, and its contractors carried out nuclear experiments, including the operation of several small nuclear reactors. One of those reactors had a partial meltdown in 1959. The department is tasked with overseeing the cleanup of radioactive contamination at the site and will also be responsible for removing chemical pollution on 290 acres of the site where the agency conducted its work. "We entered these negotiations in good faith," said William Taylor, a spokesman for the department. "It is very typical to work with state and federal agencies on cleanups." NASA administers some land at the Field Lab, which is owned by the federal government and operated by Boeing, which bought the Field Lab in 1996. The aeronautics company owns the bulk of the land. A spokeswoman for the company said it is committed to cleaning up the Field Lab in a timely and thorough manner and will work with agencies overseeing the efforts. The public will also be a part of the process as the entities carry out the order's demands. Once specific methods for removing the contamination are proposed by the entities, a public hearing will be held. The Department of Toxic Substances Control will give final approval on which cleanup measures are adopted. This is the second time the department has issued an enforcement order for the Field Lab. The first order was issued in 1992, Riley said. "It was very brief and nowhere near the level of detail that you see in this order," he said. The new order supersedes the previous one. It also calls for quarterly progress reports from the entities and lays out rules for the swift cleanup of contamination that causes an immediate danger. Dan Hirsch, co-founder of Committee to Bridge the Gap, a nuclear watchdog group, said the new order has teeth. "I think it's acknowledging the last one didn't get the job done," he said. "One hopes that this is going to be different this time." © 2007 The E.W. Scripps Co. ***************************************************************** 50 Knoxville News Sentinel: USEC wants 50% tax break Oak Ridge board to hear centrifuge-building firm's record-setting request By Bob Fowler (Contact) Friday, August 31, 2007 OAK RIDGE — USEC Inc., which intends to build centrifuges in Oak Ridge for a huge uranium-enrichment facility in Ohio, is seeking a 50 percent property tax break on what the company says will be a $105 million investment in the Atomic City. The request for the 10-year tax abatement goes before the Oak Ridge Industrial Development Board Tuesday. If the board approves, it would be the largest tax break ever granted in Oak Ridge under the city’s incentive program for manufacturers and retail concerns. “We knew it was going to be a major investment,’’ City Manager James R. O’Connor said of USEC’s plans for a facility now owned by Boeing Inc. The aviation giant is shutting down its Oak Ridge operations and is negotiating with USEC on the transfer of the Boeing property, according to USEC’s tax break application. Boeing in July started laying off more than 260 employees as it began winding down its 25-year stay in Oak Ridge. USEC, which supplies fuel for commercial nuclear power plants, also intends to expand its payroll in Oak Ridge, according to the application. USEC executives did not return a reporter’s phone calls Thursday. In late June, the firm said it had some 190 employees and about 100 employees working for contractors in Oak Ridge. When centrifuge work is at a peak, the company predicts it will have 200 workers in Oak Ridge and more than 400 employees working for contractors. The company’s average wages “are more than double the average wage for the area,’’ according to the USEC application. USEC intends to make a $30.3 million capital investment in its Oak Ridge operations this year, a $65.3 million investment next year and an $11.9 million investment in 2009, according to its application. New foundations will have to be installed in the existing Boeing facility to support the heavy centrifuges, said Doug Janney, industrial development board chairman. Other upgrades at the Boeing plant are planned, and new personal property there will include precision machining equipment, new computers and testing equipment. USEC now leases a building near the Boeing facility and also at East Tennessee Technology Park, or the former K-25 uranium enrichment site. The company does engineering and design for centrifuges at its leased building on Boeing Road and tests them at K-25. USEC in late May began construction of its American Centrifuge Plant in Piketon, Ohio. That project, expected to cost up to $2.3 billion, will use hundreds of centrifuges made in Oak Ridge to enrich uranium. The amount of the tax break on the company’s planned investments in real and personal property in Oak Ridge will depend on their assessed value, O’Connor said. The firm will continue to pay full property taxes on its existing property and equipment, he said. Bob Fowler, News Sentinel Anderson County editor, may be reached at 865-481-3625. © 2007, Knoxville News Sentinel Co. ***************************************************************** 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: *****************************************************************