***************************************************************** 10/28/07 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 15.253 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** Send News Stories to news@energy-net.org with title on subject line and first line of body NUCLEAR POLICY 1 US: THERECORD.COM: Energy producers challenged to help battle global 2 US: Dallas Morning News: Texas senators block energy bill | 3 Reuters: IAEA chief criticizes Israel over Syria raid NUCLEAR REACTORS 4 The Hindu: First commercial PFBR completes fabrication of crucial SV 5 TheStar.com: Tories tight-lipped on nuclear plan 6 US: Burlington Free Press: What's the alternative to Vermont Yankee? 7 US: Seacoastonline.com: Power plants get little-known subsidies 8 US: Rutland Herald: Relying on Yankee is foolhardy 9 US: toledoblade.com: Davis-Besse jurors end 2nd day without verdict 10 US: baltimore sun: Generating more power -- 11 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Study nuclear issues 12 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Green River: Nuke plant could spoil more than 13 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Rebecca Walsh: A nuclear double standard 14 Hindustan Times: Fall of N-deal would affect US outlook on India - K 15 US: MPR: Turning from coal means more demand for nuclear and alterna 16 US: Boulder Daily Camera: 'Clean coal': Are we betting on the wrong 17 US: Topeka Capital-journal: Renaissance for nuclear plants may be ne 18 US: MuskogeePhoenix.com, Muskogee, OK - Don’t delay any longer 19 US: MySA.com: Nuke plant revival debated 20 US: New Haven Register: Cleanup at Yankee plant complete 21 MNNW: Malaysia Mulls Nuclear As One Of The Options 22 Sunday Business Post: Nuclear plant to restart 23 US: Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: Running on empty - 24 US: AFP: Drought in southeast US fuels battle over water resources - NUCLEAR SECURITY 25 TIL: Revealed: Poisoned ex-Russian spy Litvinenko WAS a paid-up MI6 NUCLEAR SAFETY 26 US: ReviewJournal.com: Nellis incidents take toll 27 Earth Times: UAE calls for safeguards against nuclear threats - US 28 US: Pahrump Valley Times: New setbacks for former NTS workers 29 US: newsobserver.com: Train cars derail at Harris nuclear plant 30 US: Brattleboro Reformer: Doctors, nurses and patients key to positi 31 UPI: Report: Poisoned Russian was British agent - 32 GlobalResearch.ca: Cancer in Iraq vets raises possibility of toxic e 33 US: CBS News: Were Nuke Pills Floated Just To Scare Us?, 34 US: Reid: Reid Testifies At Committee Hearing Regarding Nevada Test 35 US: ReviewJournal.com: Nellis officials say development's creep NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 36 ReviewJournal.com: Boxer invites Gibbons to speak about Yucca 37 US: ReviewJournal.com: Nuclear revival skirts pesky issue of waste d 38 US: Sydney Morning Herald: Speculators aid uranium price - 39 AU: The Age: Dispute flares over nuclear dump site - 40 US: Bradenton.com: Tallevast at a crossroad 41 de.indymedia.org: Nuclear waste transport across shonky bridges 42 US: Carlsbad Current-Argus - NMED: Expect six figure penalty for err 43 US: The Hindu: Uranium isotope ratios are not invariant, researchers 44 US: Boston Globe: Land more tainted than first thought - 45 Wigan Today: MP lands £110,000 nuclear job - 46 US: Gallup Independent: Udall lambastes BIA; Congressman: Agency has 47 US: MyWestTexas.com: Waste Control gets draft license to store radio 48 Brandon Sun: Canada's nuclear industry should take more responsibili 49 US: Tribune-Review: Tainted lagoon cleaning wraps up - 50 US: Gallup: Independent: Panel rips into feds; Tells them they've ha 51 Las Vegas SUN: Nevada governor gets belated invitation to Yucca PEACE 52 No evidence Iran is making nukes: ElBaradei 28 Oct 2007 53 US: The Nuclear Bombshell That Never Went Off 54 [NYTr] Brazil & Nukes: Lula Wants His Yellow Submarine 55 [NYTr] Dowd: WMD in Iran? 56 [NYTr] IAEA: No evidence Iran working to build nuclear weapons 57 The Hindu: S Africa not softening anti-nuclear stance: minister 58 Times of India: 'Pak was preparing to use nuke missiles during Kargi 59 US: Houston Chronicle: Panhandle plant at the heart of new nuclear w 60 Guardian Unlimited: When is a nation not a nation? When it can't say 61 Brazzil Magazine: Behind Brazil's Nuclear Dream Is a Perceived 62 AFP: Olmert apologised to Turkey over Syria raid - 63 Independent.ie: Nuclear safety fears over sub - 64 AFP: IAEA chief lashes out over Israeli raid in Syria - US DEPT. OF ENERGY 65 Charlotte Observer: Exterior of Core Lab 90% done 66 Hanford News: PNNL contract to disallow private work: Up to 400 jobs 67 Tri-City Herald: Cantwell seeks hearing with DOE on Richland's PNNL 68 Tri-City Herald: First containers of VX nerve agent arrive at Umatil 69 Knoxville News Sentinel: ORNL scientist hotel in works ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 THERECORD.COM: Energy producers challenged to help battle global warming BEN GELINAS WATERLOO At a high-profile energy conference in Waterloo yesterday, the head of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development challenged old-school power producers to evolve or pay the price. "A number of countries have focused their climate change policies on subsidizing 'good' solutions, rather than on taxing the bad'," the organization's secretary-general Angel Gurria told an audience of more than 200 at the Centre for International Governance Innovation. The established energy producers have the power to change, Gurria said. But they must be prepared to take a financial hit now to quell global warming caused by their carbon dioxide production. "Energy is also a fuel for economic growth, particularly in the fast developing countries of the world," Gurria said. "The challenge is to maintain economic growth while reducing the carbon content of energy and increasing the efficiency of its use." Subsidizing green innovations can be risky, he said, citing the excitement over biofuels as an example of governments jumping on an emerging solution with haste. "Tax subsidies alone to support biofuel production amount to about $15 billion according to the latest information we've got. "Our analysis suggests, however, that current biofuels production is generally not economically viable in OECD countries without significant subsidies, and the environmental benefits are uncertain," he said. "It's like the Steve McQueen phrase: 'It seemed like a good idea at the time.' " The taxing of CO2 producers, however, provides incentive for increased efficiency and innovation, Gurria told the crowd of energy bigwigs and policy-makers -- among them former prime minister Paul Martin and former foreign affairs minister Bill Graham. "I was foreign minister at a time when the climate change issue was just on the cusp, if you like, of achieving broad recognition," Graham told the Record prior to Gurria's speech yesterday. Graham said that discussions among foreign affairs ministers in the years following the 9/11 attacks were centred upon other issues, among them the threat of nuclear conflict between India and Pakistan and the fallout of the first Iraq war. The environment minister, then David Anderson, was concerned with Kyoto, Graham said. Martin said his government did a lot to fight climate change while in power. "But when you look at the nature of the problem, I think that virtually every country should have done more and has to make up for lost time," Martin said. Gurria told leaders not to exaggerate the cost of change. Putting energy production on a sustainable path is "one of the greatest challenges facing mankind." Gurria's speech was the keynote in two days of panel discussions and networking among politicians, energy industry leaders and experts put on by the Jim Balsillie-chaired Centre for International Governance Innovation. The conference continues today. bgelinas@therecord.com 160 King Street East, Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, N2G 4E5 519-894-2231 ***************************************************************** 2 Dallas Morning News: Texas senators block energy bill | DallasNews.com Repeal of tax incentives for oil, push for ethanol draw objections 08:24 AM CDT on Saturday, October 27, 2007 By DAVE MICHAELS / The Dallas Morning News dmichaels@dallasnews.com WASHINGTON – Texas' two senators have blocked Congress' ambitious energy legislation from moving forward, arguing the ethanol-friendly bill would hurt dominant industries in their home state. The massive energy bill has provisions that have attracted the scrutiny of virtually every special interest group. But Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, who last week placed a procedural hold on the bill, argues that it would be particularly bad for Texas' oil and gas and agriculture sectors. Oil companies are fighting the bill's attempt to repeal tax incentives that were intended to spur domestic oil production. Texas' agriculture interests worry that a proposed doubling of the mandated use of ethanol, which mostly comes from corn, would make commodity prices skyrocket and hurt ranchers and feedlots. "There are some things here that are huge problems," said Matt Mackowiak, Ms. Hutchison's spokesman. "She feels very strongly that it's bad policy and would be very bad for Texas." Democratic leaders have called energy legislation one of their top priorities. As proposed, it would dramatically increase alternative-fuel production, boost vehicular fuel-efficiency standards, and mandate that 15 percent of utilities' power come from wind, solar and other renewable sources of energy. None of those are particularly appealing to Texas businesses, which argue that subsidies for ethanol help Midwestern farmers, not Texas drivers. Utilities, such as Energy Future Holdings, the former TXU Corp., argue the 15-percent "renewable electricity standard" is unrealistic unless nuclear power is allowed to be counted as a renewable source. Several other pieces of the energy bill have been caught in the crosshairs of interest groups in Washington, and it is unclear whether any legislation will pass this year. The Senate's proposal to increase the average vehicular fuel economy to 35 miles per gallon is unappealing in the House, where both Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, and Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., oppose it. Mr. Dingell has taken up with Detroit automakers, which argue the target is unrealistic. In addition to Ms. Hutchison and Sen. John Cornyn, three other Republican senators – Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, Larry Craig of Idaho and Jim DeMint of South Carolina – have held up the bill. Brian Walsh, a spokesman for Mr. Cornyn, said the senator opposes rolling back the tax incentives. "Those are costs that would be passed on to consumers," Mr. Walsh said. The maneuver puts Ms. Hutchison at odds with other Republican senators who favor parts of the bill and want to move it forward. Democrats blamed Ms. Hutchison and the others for stalling progress. "There was a lot of huffing and puffing and complaining and tantrum-throwing about how dare the Democrats reconcile these bills among themselves," said Bill Wicker, a spokesman for Democrats on the Energy Committee. "Now we see where the objection really is." If Ms. Hutchison and other Republicans maintain their opposition, the bill could still be worked out by Democratic leaders behind closed doors and presented to lawmakers later. "We'll do it one way or the other," Majority Leader Harry Reid said Thursday. In particular, Ms. Hutchison objects to the repeal of tax incentives and tax relief for oil and gas producers that became law in the last several years, her spokesman said. The total amount of tax incentives is more than $15 billion over 10 years, which would be redirected to promote ethanol, biodiesel and energy-efficiency technologies. "She hopes that can be taken out of the bill altogether," Mr. Mackowiak said. Senate tax-writers are working on their own package. Mr. Reid said Thursday that it was nearly complete but declined to share details. Some critics insist the tax incentives were gifts to the oil industry and never should have been awarded in the first place. Oil companies now benefit, for instance, from a manufacturer's tax deduction for domestic production from oil and gas wells. The elimination of that credit would raise $11.4 billion over 10 years. "Never before had someone thought of labeling oil and gas as a manufacturing sector," said Tyson Slocum, director of Public Citizen, a watchdog group with offices in Washington and Austin. "This was a giveaway to Big Oil at a time of record profits." Ms. Hutchison was correct to oppose a mandated expansion of ethanol production, said Ross Wilson, president and chief executive of the Texas Cattle Feeders Association in Amarillo. Until ethanol is produced from sources other than corn, the government should not favor it with subsidies that hurt ranchers and feedlots, Mr. Wilson said. Corn prices paid by Texas Panhandle feedlots have risen 40 percent since August 2006, according to the Cattle Feeders Association. Feedlot owners fear they could go even higher, as they were last winter, Mr. Wilson said. "One of our significant concerns is that we'll have a hiccup or a dry year, and we could see corn prices go far beyond what they have," Mr. Wilson said. © 2007, The Dallas Morning News, Inc. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 3 Reuters: IAEA chief criticizes Israel over Syria raid Sun Oct 28, 2007 4:31pm EDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog criticized Israel on Sunday for attacking a suspicious Syrian site last month, saying the "bomb first and then ask questions later" undermined global atomic monitoring work. In his first public comment on Israel's mysterious bombing run on what some analysts suggested was a nascent Syrian nuclear reactor, Mohamed ElBaradei, the chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, called on the Israelis and other countries to share information with IAEA. "That to me is very distressful because we have a system," he told CNN in an interview. "If countries have information that the country is working on a nuclear-related program, they should come to us." Israel has given no details on the target of the September 6 air strike. Syria denied having such a facility. Citing satellite images, a Washington-based atomic research institute said Israel appeared to have bombed a facility in northern Syria resembling a North Korean gas graphite nuclear reactor. The Syrians razed the site after the raid, the Institute for Science and International Security said. ElBaradei told CNN's "Late Edition" the IAEA has not received information about any clandestine nuclear activities in Syria. He said the Vienna-based agency had the authority and capacity to investigate any such information. "But to bomb first and then ask questions later, I think it undermines the system and it doesn't lead to any solution to any suspicion," said ElBaradei. The IAEA chief said was he told by the Syrians the site hit by Israel was a military facility with "nothing to do with nuclear." The IAEA was comparing commercial satellite photos of the site before and after the September 6 raid, ElBaradei said. Continued... "But in addition to us buying commercial photos, I would very much hope that countries will come forward if they have information so we'll do -- go through a due process," he said. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Sunday that he apologized to Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan during a meeting in London last week because Israel's air force may have flown over neighboring Turkey during the sortie. Since 2003, the IAEA has been investigating Western suspicions of secret attempts by Iran, an ally of Syria, to build atom bombs. Iran says its nuclear energy program is intended solely to provide an alternative source of electricity. ***************************************************************** 4 The Hindu: First commercial PFBR completes fabrication of crucial SV Sunday, October 28, 2007 : 1635 Hrs Mumbai (PTI): India's first 500 MW commercial Prototype fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR), which is under construction, has reached an important milestone by completing the fabrication of its crucial and first of its kind Safety Vessel. The Safety Vessel will be placed in its position in the reactor in a month's time, top scientist and Project Director Prabhat Kumar told PTI from Kalpakkam on Sunday. The construction of the Rs 3492 crore PFBR, to be commissioned in 2010, started in October 2004 and is the first commercial plant of the country's second stage nuclear programme using Plutonium-Uranium Oxide as its fuel and liquid metal sodium as a coolant. The PFBR is under the new company Bharatiya Nabhikiya Vidyut Nigam (BHAVINI) of the Department of Atomic Energy at Kalpakkam and has achieved several milestones in the last three years and "now the Safety Vessel assembly has been completed and we have also completed civil structure including Reactor Vault," Kumar said. Safety vessel has a thin wall of 316 LN (Low carbon Nitrogen stainless steel alloy). It is 13 metre in diameter and 13 metre tall with a dish ending, Kumar said adding this vessel will be hanging from top of the reactor vault. "The most difficult Safety vessel erection will be undertaken soon after the crane which is being assembled for this purpose is tested. The safety vessel along with its `evener beam' will weigh 165 tonnes and will have to be lowered from distance of 57 metre," Kumar said. Copyright © 2007, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the ***************************************************************** 5 TheStar.com: Tories tight-lipped on nuclear plan Sunday, October 28, 2007 | Today's Toronto Star Bruce Cheadle THE CANADIAN PRESS OTTAWA – Last January, Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn gave a speech to the Economic Club of Toronto in which he touted the virtues of nuclear energy, including a new breed of next-generation reactors. "As a nation of energy consumers we must be prepared to have an open discussion about nuclear power," Lunn said. That was then, this is now. An open discussion appears to be the last thing the minority Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper is prepared to have when it comes to an issue that, in Australia, is now being called the N-word. That's because a developing new international nuclear club reopens the politically radioactive subjects of proliferation and nuclear waste. More than a month after senior Canadian officials took part as observers in a Vienna meeting to discuss the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, or GNEP, the Prime Minister's Office is refusing to permit cabinet ministers to speak publicly about the U.S.-led initiative. Requests for a media interview with Lunn – specifically to discuss the pros and cons for Canada of the partnership as spelled out in Vienna – were passed along, unanswered, to Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier. After checking with Harper's PMO, Bernier's office ended up issuing the following statement in lieu of an interview: "Canada has been invited to join this international partnership. The government is carefully considering this invitation before making a decision, which will be announced at a later date." It was a brush-off with all the subtlety of a palm held up to a camera lens. The GNEP was initially proposed by President George W. Bush in February 2006 as a "cradle-to-grave" system for dealing with nuclear waste by reprocessing it, while promoting and disseminating a new generation of nuclear reactor technology to lessen dependency on fossil fuels. It was touted as an anti-proliferation initiative, although the GNEP reverses a three-decade U.S. policy barring the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel. Canada, the world's biggest uranium exporter and a country with a long, taxpayer-subsidized nuclear technology industry, appeared to be ideally positioned for charter membership in the GNEP. Internal government documents from 2006 expressed enthusiastic support for Canadian involvement. But the partnership, as proposed, has at least two observable sticking points from a Canadian perspective: – It proposes that fuel-exporting countries take back nuclear waste for reprocessing and disposal. – It wants to develop a new reactor system that, at least on paper, does not involve heavy water reactors or Atomic Energy of Canada Limited's massively subsidized CANDU technology. Last week, Foreign Affairs finally approved a partial release of documents under an Access to Information request that was made by The Canadian Press in January. The 139 pages of briefing notes are so heavily censored that single-sentence paragraphs under the heading "The Issue" are uniformly blacked out. So is any discussion of policy implications of the GNEP for Canada, and even many of the proposed "talking points." All the documents really show is: – A series of meetings between Canadian and U.S. officials have taken place on both sides of the border to discuss the GNEP and other nuclear issues. There have also been trilateral discussions among Canada, Australia and the Americans. – Briefing documents have been prepared on the subject for the prime minister himself. – Another bilateral meeting with Australia was initially proposed for this autumn. One of the documents also reveals that Harper and Australian Prime Minister John Howard discussed the GNEP "at length" during a meeting in Canada in May 2006. Last month, after The Canadian Press reported that Harper would be secretly discussing the GNEP during a trip to Australia for a summit of Asia-Pacific leaders, his office issued a furious denial in letters to media outlets. Sandra Buckler, Harper's communications director, wrote of the story's "unjustified premise that this government is secretly holding talks about the GNEP." Buckler noted that following his May 2006 meeting with Howard, Harper publicly stated that Canada and Australia planned to work closely together on the nuclear proposal. Yet in the newly released government documents, most characterizations of the 2006 bilateral – even partial sentences – are blacked out. Australia formally joined the GNEP in September and the ensuing silence from the Howard government on the agreement has become a major issue during the general election campaign currently taking place there. Harper himself responded to a single media question on the GNEP during the APEC summit in Australia, intriguingly suggesting that the commercial benefits must be weighed against nuclear non-proliferation concerns. No follow-up questions are permitted during the prime minister's media availabilities and, since that date, no ministers have been permitted to expand on Harper's cryptic observations. It all raises the question: just why can't the Harper government openly discuss the benefits and pitfalls of such an important international and domestic policy question? The nuclear industry contributes approximately $5 billion a year to Canada's economy and 20,000 direct jobs. Uranium exports are worth $600 million annually and "growing quickly," according to government reports. The proposed GNEP could impact on all this economic activity and Canada's industry leaders say they're keen for this country to take a leadership role in the partnership's development. But a public opinion poll commissioned last February by Natural Resources Canada suggests nuclear power is a tough sell. The Ipsos-Reid survey found general support – 71 per cent – among Canadians for nuclear power remaining as a part of the energy supply, but considerably less support in Quebec (46 per cent). That's one broad consideration for a Conservative government fixed on making a breakthrough in Quebec. But the survey suggested deeper concerns that go to the heart of the GNEP proposal. A large majority of Canadians, 82 per cent, said no new nuclear plants should be built until the problem of dealing with nuclear waste is resolved. Again, concern was highest in Quebec. An even bigger majority, 85 per cent, said it's important that the nuclear industry in Canada be controlled and owned by Canadians. And seven in ten said any new nuclear facilities must be based on Canadian-developed technology. The GNEP – which already has 16 countries signed on including Australia, China, France, Japan and Russia – poses potential challenges to these heartfelt preconditions of Canadian public support. And, as an international plan proposed by an unpopular U.S. president dealing with the charged subject of nuclear waste, the whole issue gives government critics a bulls-eye the size of a barn door, said one energy policy consultant from Ottawa. "It's a difficult technological issue that involves nuclear waste . . . . Every step of the way is controversial," said the consultant, whose government business makes him reluctant to speak on the record. The consultant understands the Harper government's reticence, but believes the Canadian public should start getting informed about a critical policy question in an age of curbing greenhouse gas emissions. If nuclear energy is indeed part of the solution, what is to be done with the nuclear waste? The whole issue of reprocessing and re-using spent fuel is fraught with controversy – which is the reason most western governments had followed the U.S. lead of banning the practice since the 1970s. Here's why. Most spent fuel from current nuclear power generation is so highly radioactive that anyone who tried to steal the material would be fatally poisoned almost immediately. The waste provides its own security perimeter. Reprocessing to use up all that unspent energy makes the waste less deadly, but potentially more portable. "What's safer?" asked the consultant. "Depends on how you look at it." "Do you run (the fuel) once through the cycle and it sits in the pond until we figure out where to bury it?" Or, he asked, do you "make it a little bit more possible for some nutcase to come in with a suicide team and steal plutonium and bring it back – they all die – but he's got plutonium and can still build a bomb? "Those are crazy scenarios, but that is what people think about when we talk about nuclear proliferation." It's the kind of profound conundrum that makes a minority government in constant election readiness as skittish as a cat. "There's no pay-off for the Conservatives in this right now," said the consultant. "They're not going to get elected on something like this. They're only going to get defeated." © Copyright Toronto Star 1996-2007 | ***************************************************************** 6 Burlington Free Press: What's the alternative to Vermont Yankee? Opinion burlingtonfreepress.com | Burlington, Vermont Sunday, October 28, 2007 Published: Sunday, October 28, 2007 In the ongoing debate about Vermont Yankee's role in the state's energy future, those for and against the continued operation of the nuclear power plant have something to prove. Nuclear energy opponents must come up with a reliable and affordable alternative to the power Vermont Yankee supplies. Those who support Vermont Yankee -- especially owner Entergy Nuclear -- must show that the plant can operate safely for another 20 years. A problem with a pressure valve that triggered an automatic shutdown and the collapse of a cooling tower, both in August, have put the spotlight on safety at the state's sole nuclear power plant. The grave consequences of a nuclear accident call for making sure that Vermont Yankee and the way the plant stores radioactive spent fuel are safe. Yet no one has come up with a reasonable alternative for the reliable power provided by Vermont Yankee. Conservation and efficiency efforts are insufficient to reduce the state's energy demand by a third within five years. Nor can Vermont develop wind and solar capacity to provide the base load power to make up for Vermont Yankee's output. Powering down Vermont's economy is not an option, nor is a dramatic increase in electricity rates. Vermont Yankee supplies about one-third of the state's electricity at a stable price that has proven key to keeping overall electric rates down. There's no assurance renewing Vermont Yankee's license will mean low electric rates, but closing the plant virtually guarantees a spike in power bills. Entergy Nuclear seeks to renew the operating license for Vermont Yankee for 20 years beyond 2012. While the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has the final word on licensing, an agreement with Entergy gives Vermont regulators and lawmakers a say. For lawmakers, the goal must be a safe, affordable and reliable supply of electricity for the state. The uncertainty hovering over the energy debate already poses a risk to the state. Businesses often make decisions about how to invest, where to move and whether to expand years in advance. Uncertainty about the reliability and cost of electricity can influence decisions by businesses today that could have an impact on Vermont's economy for years. Here's an example of what's at stake: If IBM were to supply its own electricity, it would be the fourth-largest power company in the state. On that scale, even a rate change of a few pennies has a big impact on costs. In fact, IBM said the company moved one of its more power-hungry processes a few years ago to Canada, where electricity rates are much lower. For just about everyone else, higher electricity costs mean more than a bigger power bill. The price of electricity likely will work its way into just about everything we pay for, from services to the restaurant tab to items on store shelves. The debate over Vermont's energy future will only escalate during the coming legislative sessions and spread throughout the state. Every Vermonter has a vested interest in the outcome of this debate. We all need to be engaged fully aware of how much is at state. Copyright ©2007 Burlingtonfreepress.com All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 7 Seacoastonline.com: Power plants get little-known subsidies Sunday October 28, 2007 By Chris Dornin While paper mills close and Cabletron spins off its remnants out of state, power plants from the Seacoast to Whitefield enjoy the perks of a poorly understood, $100-million subsidy program just for energy producers. It has a bureaucratic name: the forward capacity market. There are two economies, folks. One plays by the strict rules of business. You know about those. In the other, you will find the so-called deregulated merchant power jungle. It turns out to be more protected and regulated than anyone dreamed. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission came up with its little-publicized energy incentive to prevent California-style price spikes and rolling brownouts after the feds capped the price of electricity artificially low. That revenue supplements what a power plant earns by selling electricity into the daily New England spot market or by contracting with large customers. That corporate aid program, funded by customers on their electric bills, strikes some people as especially ironic this month. Dave Atkinson, the vice president of operations for Wausau paper in Groveton, has some emotional work to do this week — hammer out severance packages for 300 members of the steelworkers union. The mill will close by Dec. 31, along with its 13-megawatt power plant. Meanwhile, the 1.2-megawatt Lochmere hydroelectric dam in Tilton, the 20-megawatt wood-fired Pinetree Power facility in Tamworth, and the 1,244-megawatt nuclear reactor in Seabrook all get $30,000 or more per megawatt per year under a complex payment formula to keep them in business. A megawatt can power about a thousand homes. This kind of bailout propped up the 720-megawatt Granite Ridge plant in Londonderry during its amicable foreclosure three years ago on a $300 million investment. The similar natural gas-fired Con Edison plant in Newington was on the selling block a couple of years ago amid rumors of financial stress. Nobody held down the cost of natural gas when the feds capped the price of electricity. If Junior Whoppers had to sell for 50 cents, somebody might have to subsidize Burger King, too. The collective dole for dozens of New Hampshire energy producers, if that is the right word for it, dwarfs the state's $30 million Temporary Aid to Needy Families program to keep single parents and their kids out of homeless shelters. The power plants just have to maintain their boilers and turbines in working order to claim their money. Those forward capacity payments will change after an auction on Feb. 4-8, conducted by the ISO-New England power grid, based in Holyoke, Mass. The stakeholders will rehearse the event in a pair of daylong, online mock auctions. The quasi-governmental regulatory agency wants to ensure New England has at least 32,305 megawatts of power by 2010. All the plants will bid for their stay-in-business payments in a marathon competition, round after round, until the subsidy they accept per megawatt falls enough to ensure the target capacity. That's 60 megawatts more than today. Ellen Foley, a spokeswoman for the grid, said energy-saving projects that reduce demand can enter the auction, too. For the purposes of keeping the lights on, demand reduction is just as good as supply. "And I wouldn't call the payments subsidies," she said. "For quite some time, we've had limited investment in traditional power plants. Interest has picked up considerably since the forward capacity payments." Sandi Hennequin, of Constellation Energy, works out of Portsmouth and heads up the company's government relations for New England. Her firm buys electricity and sells 220 megawatts of it to New Hampshire customers. She doesn't see the power plant payments as subsidies either. They emerged, she said, from a settlement agreement that followed litigation over those price caps. "The natural gas plants were having so much trouble," Hennequin said. "Some of them would have gone out of business under the price caps. The ISO told them, 'We really need you.' Otherwise, there could have been a power reliability crisis." Rockingham County project An unidentified 600-megawatt, gas-fired power plant project somewhere in Rockingham County is blocked behind half a dozen North Country renewable energy projects in the ISO-New England regulatory queue. The waiting list policy is first-come, first-served. A plant like that would typically pay its host community $4 million or more in property taxes, with few smokestack emissions. But those wind- and wood-fired projects at the front of the line are all in limbo. The Public Service power lines in the region are too small. Most of the players can't even bid into the upcoming ISO auction, because yet-to-be-built plants have to ante millions of dollars as a sort of performance bond. And the ISO doesn't make forward capacity payments for transmission line upgrades. State Sen. Martha Fuller Clark, D-Portsmouth, leads the energy policy in the Senate and has gotten all the stakeholders brainstorming this fall about ways to upgrade those lines. She's looking at the wait list policy. She's watching the big subsidy. "If you need a solid commitment on your renewable energy project before you can get this (ISO-New England) funding, clearly that's a huge barrier to building it," she said. She suggested some new criteria for a project's place in the regulatory wait list. It should matter if a future plant will pay significant taxes, create a lot of jobs or use renewable fuels. "I don't know who is talking about those issues," she said. Grid spokeswoman Foley said no reporter had ever called her office before trying to learn how the forward capacity market works. A Google search for news stories on the topic drew a blank. Speaking of California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is rounding up hundreds of sex offenders all across California in a rush to put them behind bars before that state's Supreme Court overturns Proposition 83. It bans these ex-cons from living near a school or day-care center. The law is similar to a Dover ordinance several towns in the Lakes Region have copied. The California high court recently imposed an injunction against the residency ban for four sex-offender plaintiffs, but their suit was not a class action representing all parolees in the same situation. Rockingham County Attorney Jim Reams opposes these bans, but said they have withstood constitutional challenges in other states so far. "The federal circuit court in Iowa upheld it," Reams said. "The county attorneys opposed it because there were literally towns where those people could not live. There just isn't any research to suggest it's an effective way to protect children." Hudson and Manchester are considering the same restrictions. So is Newmarket. "Newmarket called me the other day and asked about it," Reams said. Defense attorney Patrick Fleming of Portsmouth said huge numbers of people are getting ruined for no good reason. "The few really horrible people will refuse to register as offenders. They'll fly under the radar," he said. State Rep. Lee Quandt, R-Exeter, is a retired parole officer who believes the monitoring system worked pretty well prior to these ordinances. "Arnold is still playing the terminator," Quandt said. "I choose not to live in California. Communities can't dictate where people should live." Cost of health care State Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-Exeter, sits on a commission to identify the drivers in the rapid medical cost inflation. She also heads a group looking into the escalation in health-insurance premiums for small businesses. It's a fascinating window into an industry in some ways as turbulent and oddly regulated as the energy sector. State and federal policymakers have tried for years to control and pay for the rising health care costs of an aging population. Their main solution? Pay less than actual cost under Medicare and Medicaid, knowing full well that hospitals and other providers have to stay in business. They can only do it by shifting their unfunded costs onto private insurance. Hence, the double-digit premium hikes despite a series of health insurance reform laws. Hassan has supported some recent government mandates generally unpopular with the insurance carriers. Cover college kids on their family plans until age 26, for example. She'd like to see better coverage for rehab for stroke victims, too. "Who pays for that cost if the employee becomes disabled instead of getting back to work?," she asked. Stat Sen. Jackie Cilley, D-Barrington, sits on the small business insurance costs study. "Covering 26-year-olds increases the size of the risk pool with healthy young people and lowers the premiums for everyone," Cilley said. Palmer Jones, the executive director of the Medical Association, said 40 percent of its member doctors and small practices are using health savings accounts. That's up from 13 percent in 2006. An HSA shifts some cost burden onto employees and gives them incentives to save money on their care. Those plans have high deductibles and co-payments in exchange for low premiums. "It's affordable," Jones said. "It makes the patient ask if I can wait until tomorrow instead of going to the emergency room tonight." Copyright © 2007 Seacoast Media Group. The Seacoast Media Group ***************************************************************** 8 Rutland Herald: Relying on Yankee is foolhardy October 27, 2007 In an article entitled "No invite for Gov. Douglas to renewable energy conference" published in The Rutland Herald on Thursday, Oct. 18, Gov. Jim Douglas was reported as saying, "It is foolish of advocates to argue that the state could replace large sources of power — like the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant — with wind turbines in any case." I like to think I follow the energy debate in Vermont very closely. I have never come across any organization advocating replacing the 250 megawatts of Vermont Yankee power we use in state solely with commercial wind power. That said, installing some commercial wind power could certainly provide a significant amount of cost-effective, environmentally acceptable power. Additionally, increased investment in end-use efficiency can continue the impressive work of Efficiency Vermont. Efficiency Vermont is the most cost-effective, pollution-free means for meeting a portion of our electrical energy needs. Beyond conservation, more wood-burning plants, like the McNeil facility, fired by a well-managed, sustainable fuel supply could make a significant dent in replacing Vermont Yankee's output. Add to this mix grid-tied small-scale wind, solar photovoltaics (yes, it really works in Vermont), micro-hydro and more landfill- and farm-fired methane projects, and it becomes clear that we can create the safe, renewable energy that we need to replace the outdated and dangerous nuclear plant in Vernon. It would appear that one of the state's largest utilities might have its own non-renewable contingency plan for replacing a large amount of Vermont Yankee's power output. An examination of the membership of Green Mountain Power's board of directors shows that representatives of the new owners, Gaz Metro of Montreal, now occupy two seats. These folks already have a natural gas pipeline running into northwestern Vermont. A reliable combined cycle combustion turbine of significant generating capacity could be up and running in a relatively short period of time. Proponents of keeping Vermont Yankee going until it completely collapses insist we need "base-load" power plants, the type that run most of the time. The fact is, and most Vermont Yankee supporters know this, Vermont is part of the New England power grid, our part of the eastern interconnect portion of the national grid system. Our region has about 32,000 megawatts of installed generating capacity. An organization called the New England Independent System Operator sees to it that the region as a whole is always supplied with a balanced, constant flow of quality power day and night. When Vermont Yankee goes down for refueling, stuck valves, collapsing cooling towers, or a litany of other mechanical failures, Vermont does not go dark. With the veto of the omnibus energy bill this past legislative session, any movement towards an energy future without Vermont Yankee after its license expires on March 23, 2012, has been temporarily forestalled. We have many options available that could result in cost-effective, environmentally acceptable, Vermont-scaled, safe electric generation. Developing new, safe methods of creating electricity would also be a big economic development boon to Vermont. A plant that is old and failing is not only a bad option for power generation; it is not good for Vermont's tourist economy. Ask yourself how many more failures at this plant will it take before our much needed tourists decide that Vermont may not be the pristine place that it once was? Continuing to rely on one of the oldest, experimental nuclear power plants in the nation, which as we have recently witnessed, is collapsing before our very eyes, with no truly safe, viable long-term storage plan for the most toxic waste known to man, is at the very least, foolhardy. CHRISTOPHER WILLIAMS Hancock © 2007 Rutland Herald ***************************************************************** 9 toledoblade.com: Davis-Besse jurors end 2nd day without verdict Article published Saturday, October 27, 2007 A second day of deliberations produced no verdict in the Davis-Besse criminal trial in U.S. District Court in Toledo, a case viewed by some as having potential ramifications for the nuclear industry’s work force. The jury is to reconvene Monday. It is weighing evidence of what former engineers David Geisen and Rodney N. Cook knew about the Ottawa County nuclear plant’s old reactor head in the fall of 2001. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission suspected something was wrong at the time, but FirstEnergy Corp. talked the agency out of serving the nation’s first mandatory shutdown order since 1987. The two could be imprisoned for five years and fined $250,000 each if the jury finds them guilty of withholding critical information from the NRC. Andrew Siemaszko, an engineer indicted by the government as a co-conspirator, is to be tried later. © 2007 The Blade. By using this service, you accept the terms of our privacy statement and our visitor agreement. Please read them. The Toledo Blade Company, 541 N. Superior St., Toledo, OH 43660 , (419) 724-6000 ***************************************************************** 10 baltimore sun: Generating more power -- Nuclear plants might be run past their allowed maximum Constellation Energy's Calvert Cliffs nuclear station in Lusby. (Sun photo by Doug Kapustin / August 18, 2005) By Paul Adams | Sun reporter October 27, 2007 Faced with the competing threats of global warming and a looming energy shortfall, federal regulators are contemplating whether another 20 years of service can be squeezed out of the nation's aging nuclear power plants without compromising safety. Many say they believe that the 104 nuclear reactors operating in the U.S. will be forced to retire faster than industry can replace them, unless regulators act to extend their lives to 80 years from the current 60-year maximum. The discussion is of particular interest in Maryland, where Constellation Energy Group owns two aging nuclear reactors and is considering whether to build a third to meet the state's growing energy needs. Though it will be years before any licenses expire, the debate has urgency because utilities are making decisions that will affect how many nuclear plants will be built during the next 20 years. The issue might prove critical to efforts to keep the lights on without adding polluting greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. Nuclear plants produce 20 percent of the nation's energy supply but account for more than 70 percent of the electricity from all sources classified as emissions-free. The plants also dispatch some of the cheapest electricity to the power grid, making them critical to keeping the nation's utility bills in check, proponents argue. "The practical reality is that if those plants are determined not to be viable for an additional 20-year operating cycle, then we need to start building new generation today," said Alex Marion, executive director of operations and engineering for the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's trade group. "Twenty percent of the nation's capacity is a tremendous amount of energy to make up with non-nuclear facilities." The concern is acute in Maryland, where state officials worry about a power shortfall in coming decades. The operating licenses for the two reactors at the Calvert Cliffs nuclear station in Lusby - the backbone of the region's power supply - are set to expire in 2034 and 2036, respectively. Nationwide, the first plants will hit mandatory retirement under current regulations as early as 2029. That's a blink of an eye, given that it could take 10 years to come up with regulations for extending the licenses. Also, experts point out that it can take a decade to plan, build and license a new plant. Some 30 nuclear projects are proposed, but no one has committed to construction. There is widespread concern that the industry lacks the financial backing, infrastructure and manpower to replace all of the existing nuclear plants before time runs out on their current licenses. The infrastructure required to build new plants in the U.S. largely disintegrated after the 1979 Three Mile Island accident raised concerns about the safety of nuclear power. Yet industry analysts say they expect demand for nuclear energy to increase if Congress reaches agreement on legislation placing limits on carbon emissions - a move that would spur demand for emissions-free generation. Congress also included a package of tax breaks and loan guarantees in the 2005 energy bill. "Policymakers may come back and say, 'We need you guys to build many, many more plants at a higher rate of construction,'" said Gary Vine, an executive director in the nuclear section of the Electric Power Research Institute. "When that happens ... you're going to probably find our ability to build new plants just to support U.S. energy security is going to be well beyond our capacity." The Energy Information Institute, the statistical arm of the Energy Department, estimates that demand for electricity will grow by 40 percent by 2030 - about the time nuclear licenses start to expire. The industry would have to build up to 300 conventional plants by then to keep pace. More will be needed if existing nuclear facilities are phased out. To buy time, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is teaming with scientists and engineers to study what kind of maintenance and equipment monitoring are needed if nuclear plants are made to last 80 years. The agency said the effort is in the planning phase, but it has a workshop on the topic scheduled for February. Reactors require extensive monitoring and upkeep as they age. Major components, such as steam generators, can break down, costing hundreds of millions of dollars to replace. One major focus will be whether reactor vessels - massive structures that contain the reactor core and coolant - can stand up to intense pressure, heat and radiation for another 20 years. Reactor vessels are exposed to significant neutron radiation over time, which can cause the metal to become brittle. "The technical question is how long can they go," said Revis James, director of EPRI's energy technology assessment center. "I don't believe anyone has ever done that study or calculation." Critics of the industry say the stakes are high for regulators. Experience has proven that mistakes can be made even when the industry is trying to take initiative. The most recent example involved the Davis-Besse nuclear plant near Toledo, which had to be temporarily shut down in 2002 after technicians discovered that acid used in cooling water had almost eaten through the reactor vessel's lid. Early evidence of the corrosion had been detected a few years before, but not acted upon until it grew worse. "The downside is there have been a number of aging-related failures, because, despite everybody's best efforts, we've missed them," said David Lochbaum, director of the nuclear safety project for the Union of Concerned Scientists, an advocacy group that follows nuclear issues. Lochbaum, who has been critical of federal regulators, said the NRC has limited resources and can't watch over every worker's shoulder or keep track of every piece of equipment. But regulators have been down this path before. U.S. nuclear plants were originally given 40-year licenses to operate. The NRC published regulations in the mid-1990s allowing plants to operate another 20 years if owners met strict safety requirements designed to catch age-related mishaps. Constellation's Calvert Cliffs plant was the first to do so in March 2000. A new nuclear reactor at Calvert Cliffs under consideration would cost an estimated $4 billion or more. Still, many say energy from both the new and old reactors will be needed to meet the state's energy needs without adding pollution. Michael J. Wallace, executive vice president of Constellation Energy, said the company would be interested in extending Calvert Cliff's operating license another 20 years but will need to weigh the economics when the time comes. Maintaining a nuclear plant is like car care - at some point, it becomes cheaper to buy a new one rather than keep fixing the old model. "The economics are pretty compelling when, for $20 [million] to $30 million, which would be the typical cost of the license extension, you can get a 1,000- to 1,100-megawatt nuclear plant that can run for 20 years," said Per F. Peterson, a nuclear engineering professor at the University of California, Berkeley. One megawatt is roughly enough to power 1,000 average homes. Rising electricity prices have made existing plants highly profitable for the industry. Peterson said there are few components inside a plant that can't be replaced economically. The exception would be the reactor vessel. Peterson said the size and cost likely would make replacing a vessel impractical. But few say it will come to that. "We have done a lot of research on reactor vessel toughness," said Vine, the EPRI nuclear expert, "and I think the belief we have now, both in the industry and on the NRC side, is that most of these vessels are OK for well into 80 years and beyond." paul.adams@baltsun.com Copyright © 2007, The Baltimore Sun ***************************************************************** 11 Salt Lake Tribune: Study nuclear issues Public Forum Letter Article Last Updated: 10/27/2007 12:31:58 PM MDT Americans are generally outdated in their information, holding on to fears of problems that no longer exist. Like science in every area, nuclear technology has seen many advances, making it much safer for us and the environment. You get more radiation from flying in an airplane than from working in a nuclear power plant. A nuclear meltdown is virtually impossible with modern reactor designs. The "nuclear power waste water" mentioned in Martin Wilcocks' Oct. 25 letter will be no more than regular warm water. No "waste" will be in that water at all. It is used simply to cool the rods by slowing down neutrons. Even storage of the waste is not a major problem, especially if we can get lawmakers to allow us to recycle it until there is very little radioactivity left. There are many benefits to be had in establishing nuclear power in Utah, from cheaper energy to many new jobs and a better economy in the area where it is built. Let's study the issues before we oppose them. Jeff and Mary Brown Orem ***************************************************************** 12 Salt Lake Tribune: Green River: Nuke plant could spoil more than the view Tribune Editorial Article Last Updated: 10/26/2007 06:35:18 PM MDT Details about plans for a nuclear power plant in Utah keep trickling out. And with each new disclosure, the arguments against this poisonous industry become a little stronger. According to a contract between Transition Power Development LLC and the Kane County Water Conservancy District, the tiny town of Green River in Emery County could be cursed with the state's first nuclear power facility. The dual-reactor plant would draw up to 10 billion gallons of precious water per year from the vital and scenic river of the same name. The proposed site is still tentative. And construction is contingent on TPD receiving a permit from the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, then finding a partner or buyer to build and operate the plant. But the mayor of Green River would welcome the project. "Anything that would provide good-paying jobs would be excellent for our community," Mayor Ed Bentley told The Tribune. Presumably, pig farms, landfills and whorehouses would also meet with the mayor's approval. They'd be a lot less destructive to the environment and the tourism industry, not to mention more morally correct. While climate change has sparked a renewed interest in nuclear power generation, there hasn't been a new plant built in the United States in decades, and for good reason. They're expensive to build and costly to operate. Still-lethal spent fuel must be stored on site; hot fuel must be shipped to the plant. And every plant is a potential terrorist target, and a nuclear catastrophe waiting to happen. Those risks exist everywhere; others - demands on limited water resources, seismic activity that could rupture reactors, the potential for the resumption of environmentally suspect uranium mining, and the increased possibility of the state becoming a nuclear dumping ground - are added concerns for Utah. Unfortunately, the state has little say in the permitting process, with one exception. The Utah Division of Water Rights must sign off on the water deal. Hopefully, the division will find a way to keep the Kane County water district from selling the state down the river. When it comes to job creation, southeastern Utah needs to put its eggs in the tourism basket. And when it comes to the production of electricity, renewable energy sources like solar, wind, hydro and geothermal power are cleaner, better bets. ***************************************************************** 13 Salt Lake Tribune: Rebecca Walsh: A nuclear double standard Tribune Columnist Article Last Updated: 10/28/2007 08:32:11 AM MDT Nuclear waste somehow doesn't smell so bad when it's being dumped by two self-serving state legislators rather than an impoverished American Indian tribe. Republican Reps. Aaron Tilton and Mike Noel want to build a nuclear power plant somewhere along the Green River. And for some reason, all those Utah politicians who trotted out downwinders for show and tell, screeched about Divine Strake and promised to lie down on the tracks to block spent nuclear fuel rods have gone silent. Lawrence Bear, leader of the Skull Valley Band of Goshutes, wonders why his tribe's nuclear waste dump wasn't good enough for the state, but Noel's and Tilton's nuclear reactors are okey-dokey. "Why are they doing it?" he asked. State Director of Native American Affairs Forrest Cuch has an answer: hypocrisy. How quickly Utahns' sensibilities change with race, money and a little time. For a decade, state leaders from Gov. Mike Leavitt to Sen. Orrin Hatch strategized ways to thwart the Goshutes' plans for a nuclear waste dump in Tooele County. Gov. No-way, No-how Huntsman Jr. jumped on the wagon three years ago. Meanwhile, Tilton and Noel quietly started laying the groundwork to get Utah in the nuclear power and fuel-rod storage business. Tilton, an all-purpose consultant and three-year "veteran" of the state Legislature, parlayed his vast experience into a partnership in Transition Power Development with former nuclear regulator Nils Diaz. Then he pulled Noel, a rancher and manager of the Kane County Water Conservancy District, in on the deal. Nuclear power takes lots and lots of water. And Noel lined up 30,000 acre feet of it - a contract worth $100,000 a year up to $1 million when the power plants come on line. But this plan seems to have been in the works much earlier. Over the past two years, Tilton and Noel drafted legislation that looks more rotten by the day. Noel amended the state Energy Policy Act to include nuclear power as an option. And Tilton drafted a bill Huntsman eventually vetoed that would have required environmentalists to post pricey bonds when they sue to stop controversial projects - like nuclear reactors. Together they took campaign donations from Pacificorp, Pacific Power, the Utah Rural Electric PAC and nuclear waste stockpiler EnergySolutions for their 2006 campaigns. Tilton and Noel insist that if you connect those dots, you'll end up with a tangle of nothing. "Each of us has a life outside the Legislature," Noel told the Deseret Morning News. "Mine happens to be with the Kane County Water Conservancy District and my cows down in southern Utah." Convenient that ranching and water dovetail so nicely with developing nuclear power. Huntsman may be the dupe in all this. Tilton formed his business last February, but didn't disclose his new job until eight months later - even lying to reporters about his involvement in nuclear power. At the same time, the governor appointed Tilton to his Blue-Ribbon Advisory Council on Climate Change. Then earlier this month, just three days before changing his House conflict of interest form, the lawmaker and the rest of Huntsman's advisers released a report listing nuclear development as a "medium priority" option for the state. Now that Tilton's business plan is on the table, the governor isn't peeved. He actually seems open to the idea. Perhaps he's caught between his greenhouse gas compact with California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and a coal-fired power plant. "The problem a lot of us had with it before is we were not benefiting from clean energy, but being dumped on by those who were," he said. In other words: Utah won't take anybody else's radioactive crap, but we will make our own. Like the rest of America, this state needs to find energy sources other than oil and coal. Wind and solar power have limits. So nuclear power's risks and benefits have to be debated. But not this way, with two state lawmakers on the nuclear payroll. "It's a public policy disaster for this state to defeat the [Goshutes'] proposal only to have a nuclear reactor built on our riverbanks," said Vanessa Pierce, director of the Healthy Environmental Alliance of Utah. For their part, the Goshutes are thrilled with this situation. The tribe sued the federal government earlier this year, claiming their project was scuttled by politics, not policy. Hard to argue that point now. walsh@sltrib.com ***************************************************************** 14 Hindustan Times: Fall of N-deal would affect US outlook on India - Kissinger- Monday, October 29, 2007 India's failure to implement the civil nuclear deal with the US can lead to questions over its trustworthiness and may impact upon New Delhi's quest for a permanent seat in the UN Security Council, former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has suggested. Kissinger said other countries, from whom India has been seeking support for the deal, could also wonder "what is going on and what that reflects. Does it reflect an immediate Indian internal problem or does it reflect the fundamental choice which makes it difficult to cooperate with India on these issues." "It (failure of the deal) would certainly, in an intangible way, affect calculations because when an American leader goes down a certain road, he stakes his prestige on the ability to get it executed. So in that sense, it would undoubtedly be a setback," he told a TV channel. "Definitely, people would make that argument," Kissinger said, when asked whether questions could be raised in the US regarding India's reliability if the nuclear deal fails to get through. He said there would "undoubtedly be disappointment and also there would be a question as to what extent one can calculate Indian reaction to the negotiations on other subjects," he said. Insisting that India should ratify the deal for "its own reasons", he admitted that the failure of the deal "would certainly be a disappointment" for the Bush administration which "has put a lot of effort behind it." Kissinger said other countries, from whom India has been seeking support for the deal, could also wonder "what is going on and what that reflects. Does it reflect an immediate Indian internal problem or does it reflect the fundamental choice which makes it difficult to cooperate with India on these issues." Asked whether the failure of the deal could have an impact on India's ambition for a permanent seat at UN Security Council, Kissinger said: "I would anyway be in favour of India joining as a permanent member of UNSC because of the magnitude of the country. But it would certainly be one argument opponents might use to what is in any event, a complicated issue because of issues of veto and expansion."Asked whether the failure of the deal could have an impact on India's ambition for a permanent seat at UN Security Council, Kissinger said: "I would anyway be in favour of India joining as a permanent member of UNSC because of the magnitude of the country. But it would certainly be one argument opponents might use to what is in any event, a complicated issue because of issues of veto and expansion." Stating that the deal would be an "important landmark" if it were to happen, he said: "It would signify that India has emerged from its isolation for 30 years and that in a major field (nuclear) of activity, it is now re-entering the international community in a cooperative manner." Kissinger, who was US Secretary of State from 1973 to 1977 under President Richard Nixon, insisted that politically, "the cooperation between India and US would facilitate matters in a degree" no other such relationship could. "The basic attitude in America is that US and India have parallel goals in many areas..Therefore, it would be unnatural to keep India under a sanctions regime. That's why this effort (deal) was made to enable India to enter this (nuclear) field in a way bigger than before," he said. Responding to a question on the timeline for the nuclear deal to get a final approval from the US Congress, Kissinger warned: "Anything which is not ratified by next July is unlikely to be dealt with before 2009. ***************************************************************** 15 MPR: Turning from coal means more demand for nuclear and alternative energy sources The Prairie Island nuclear power plant near Red Wing in southeastern Minnesota. Xcel energy is considering expanding the plant and the nuclear generating plant at Monticello. (MPR file photo/Erin Galbally) by Stephanie Hemphill, Minnesota Public Radio October 28, 2007 Minnesota utilities are planning to invest in wind and and other renewable sources, but they're also taking another look at nuclear power. And that could mean expanded or even new nuclear plants in Minnesota down the road. St. Paul, Minn. — Every two years electric companies file plans with the state, showing how they intend to meet the ever-increasing demand for electricity in Minnesota. The Next Generation Energy Act of 2007 is forcing a second look at those plans. The law requires Minnesota to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050. For Xcel Energy, the biggest electricity supplier in the state, that means no more coal-fired power plants, given the limitations of existing technology, according to Beth Engelking, manager of resource planning and bidding for Xcel. "Three years ago in our resource plans in Minnesota and Colorado, we both contemplated constructing new coal plants. We now have CEO who says that we will not construct a coal plant that doesn't capture and sequester carbon," she says. Xcel is already on track to reduce carbon emissions, Engelking says. The company is converting two plants in the Twin Cities to natural gas, and works with customers to reduce demand by operating more efficiently. Wind machine But she says Xcel also plans to boost production at its nuclear plants in Monticello and Prairie Island. That means more fuel storage at Prairie Island, an issue that's bound to generate resistance. But concern about climate change is prompting some legislators to view nuclear power more favorably, Engelking says. "As a company right now, we're not looking at new nuclear plants, but we do expect that our policy-makers are going to take the carbon factor into account when they consider whether or not to extend the lives of our current plants," she says. Many environmentalists in Minnesota continue to oppose expansion of nuclear plants in the state. J. Drake Hamilton with St.Paul-based Fresh Energy is one of them. "There will be additional nuclear waste storage needs, it's highly toxic, and we haven't seen any information to suggest that it will ever leave Minnesota, so we will have to isolate that from the biosphere for many thousands of years," she says The state's new goal of reducing 1.5 percent of its electricity use every year should level out the need for new power plants, Hamilton says. Not so, says Jon Brekke, vice-president for member services for Great River Energy, the second-largest utility in Minnesota. He says in 20 years, Great River will likely look for a partner to build a new nuclear plant. "Homeowners are putting new loads in their home all the time. They're buying new computers, new televisions, they're putting in a second refrigerator. Those things are all adding to the sales (of electricity); meanwhile we've got efficiency that's reducing the sales. There's no great way to measure how much of the sales increase caused by new loads in home versus how much savings by putting in CFLs," he says. CFLs are compact fluorescent lights. Great River Energy is asking its customers to switch five regular light bulbs to CFLs. That could save 6.5 percent of the energy demand from its residential customers. It will take years to achieve that goal, Brekke says. Besides conservation and carbon emission reduction goals, Minnesota is now requiring its utilities to use renewable sources for 25% of their electricity by 2025. For Xcel, that means nearly three times as much wind power as previously planned. Since wind is intermittent, the company will need plants that can fill in to meet peak demand. And the company will probably turn to natural gas plants for that power. Building renewable sources of energy has taken on added urgency as recent research indicates climate change is happening faster than many scientists had predicted as recently as five years ago. Minnesota Public Radio ©2007 All rights reserved : Terms of use ***************************************************************** 16 Boulder Daily Camera: 'Clean coal': Are we betting on the wrong horse? Guest Opinions : By Anne B. Butterfield Sunday, October 28, 2007 Rising like the sound of cicadas on a blazing hot day, the buzz is that the days of "Big Coal" are over. With 16 coal-fired power plants having been squelched in the past few years and dozens more being challenged by surprising coalitions like ranchers joining with environmentalists, the energy landscape of 2007 is no longer riding high in Dick Cheney's Oldsmobile. Still, the coal-fired utility sector has furtively patched together recommendations for the Western Governors' Association to see a way to near-zero emissions for coal plants. New sincerity about global warming is clearly shown by executives as the industry tries mightily to stitch the seam between a carbon-weathered world and their long-held conceit that only fossil fuels can provide the base-load power that America needs. "Clean coal," which many dismiss as an oxymoron, refers to a group of technologies for capturing carbon dioxide from ultra-modern coal-fired power plants and storing it deep in the ground (thus the acronym CCS for "carbon capture and sequestration"). This means extraordinary hurdles in several dimensions. Put simply, the amount of CO2 coming from coal-fired power plants in America is astonishing, at least 1.5 billion tons annually, and the sequence of technical and regulatory feats in capturing and storing that gas is equally astonishing. The CO2 needs to be separated from the combustion process, which requires specialized plants or added scubbers that increase capital and operations costs. Then the gas needs to be compressed and transported through miles of new pipelines to sites that are geologically examined and legally permitted. There, it is to be injected nearly two miles into the earth's crust into saline aquifers under intense competing pressure. When mixing with water, the CO2 acidifies it, in turn dissolving minerals and toxins that may well migrate. For these reasons, testing needs to commence in several geological regions. Finally, the regions with injection sites will need monitoring for eternity, not only to detect and cap possible leaks, but also because carbon dioxide is an asphyxiant able to kill animals when released in concentrations. Vessels filled with carbon dioxide will make very attractive terrorist targets. Beyond the research and pilot project phase the next step for "CCS" is to retrofit (or retire) hundreds of coal plants around our nation, an engineering roll out on par with inventing a whole new natural-gas industry. Will it be worth it to devote such a massive infrastructure to one fuel that is mined through an increasingly barbaric use of land and the price of which has increased by 30 percent in the past two years? Coal's price cannot go down, as coal caches are sought deeper into the ground and transported on railways that are fatigued from 100 years of use. This juxtaposition of new technologies with old ones reminds sharply that the Bible warns not to sew new patches onto old wine skins. Another challenge unnoticed by utility executives is water as a vanishing resource. Thermo-electric plants (such as nuclear and coal) use 39 percent of our nation's total freshwater withdrawals. In separate, recent reports, The New York Times and Marty Hoerling of NOAA have raised alarm on the already visible degree of water loss we're seeing around the American West, caused by decreased snow and rain as well as increased evaporation. Intense drought is not just a western concern; Atlanta is now crippled by the chance of having no water in the tap in three months should weather not come to the rescue. In recent decades, thermo-electric power has used over half of Georgia's water budget. As our nation grows and water recedes, it will be ridiculous to allow competition for fresh water from thermo-electric power plants, while renewable energy uses nearly none. "Clean coal" has appalling challenges to surmount before large amounts of CO2 can be stored, and still utility executives say with entirely straight faces that it is renewable energy that cannot handle our nation's energy future. Maybe these executives have been "gotten to" by coal lobbyists who met early this September at the Broadmoor Hotel to raise money for the public relations of their industry group known as Americans for Balanced Energy Choices, composed of mining and railroad interests. They amassed $30 million when $8 million had been sufficient for the previous several years. A reasonable person would ask if the utility industry and Congress are "putting good money after bad" by devoting billions to "clean coal" research. Common sense and a bit of research into the billions of private-sector money going in to renewable energy suggest that by the time clean coal is ready for commercial and wide-spread application, many modes of renewable energy such as concentrating solar with storage, geothermal, distributed solar and plug-in-to-wind, will have proved their readiness to serve large portions of electric power and transportation sectors. One silver lining in the push for "clean coal" is that when the costs become known to rate payers and utility commissions, the costs for renewable energy will appear to be a bargain, and renewable energy requires no mountaintop-removal strip mining, nor everlasting security monitoring, nor water. Venture capitalist Vinod Kholsa, a renowned developer in renewable energy, claims, "if you're a rational investor and you did your homework, you wouldn't fund a coal plant." Citigroup, which downgraded coal stocks earlier this year, seems to agree. Half the polar ice cap disappeared this summer, so sequestration appears to be a "must" whether we like it or not, with leading environmentalists like David Hawkins of NRDC hedging their bets for the planet by accepting "clean coal." Dr. James Hansen summed it up with gritty clarity this summer in Iowa: "As of yet there is no 'clean coal' in reality, and commercial availability is probably at least 10 years away with current efforts. If a requirement is placed that coal can only be used if it is truly clean, that will stop increased use of coal. Efficiency and renewable energies are likely to be the big winners from such a constraint." At this precious time in history, will our nation's search to "save" coal prove to be a fair use of our opportunity? By the time that power plant CO2 is sequestered in the millions of tons, it might be 2017 and getting mighty toasty around here. We might wish we'd put all that extra effort and funding into renewable energy instead. Anne B. Butterfield is a Boulder resident who steadily tracks energy and climate issues, and she is a member of the Camera's editorial advisory board. © 2007 The E.W. Scripps Co. ***************************************************************** 17 Topeka Capital-journal: Renaissance for nuclear plants may be nearing By Tim Carpenter Published Sunday, October 28, 2007 The Capital-journal Published Sunday, October 28, 2007 BURLINGTON - Uranium fuel assemblies withdrawn from Wolf Creek's nuclear reactor trigger a weird and wonderful royal blue light show in a 40-foot-deep stainless steel storage pool. This brilliant consequence of radiation absorption in water offers a glimpse of what nuclear power advocates mean when they speak of scientific virtuosity required to tame atoms for electricity production. Even the researcher who explained the blue-glow phenomenon won a Nobel Prize. Print Reply E-mail Thad Allton / The Capital-Journal Wolf Creek nuclear power plant operator Terry Romig shifts a 14-foot-tall nuclear fuel assembly in a stainless steel storage pool. The blue glow occurs when high-energy particles travel through water at a velocity greater than the speed of light. Thad Allton / The Capital-Journal The containment dome at Wolf Creek is the site's most noticeable feature. The dome encloses the reactor and is designed to prevent the escape of radiation to the outside environment. Thad Allton / The Capital-Journal An exact replica of the power plant's master control center is used to do the intense training required for those working in the control room. Thad Allton / The Capital-Journal Pipes 6 feet in diameter carry water from the plant lake through the main condenser to condense the steam back into water. The lake water makes six passes through the condenser in an enclosed system before it is discharged back into the lake at 500,000 gallons per minute. The condensed steam is pumped back into the steam generators to begin the process again. Thad Allton / The Capital-Journal Wolf Creek nuclear power plant operator Terry Romig shifts a 14-foot-tall nuclear fuel assembly in a stainless steel storage pool. The blue glow occurs when high-energy particles travel through water at a velocity greater than the speed of light. This is a close-up view. Click Thumbnails to View THE SERIES In this series of special reports, The Topeka Capital-Journal is exploring the state's effort to craft a new public policy balancing energy, environmental and economic needs. SEPT. 16: Goodland struggles to resolve its long-term power needs with $60 million in investments in ethanol and coal plants. SEPT. 23: Sunflower Electric proposes the largest expansion of a coal-fired power plant in state history. OCT. 7: Rural communities are at the center of wind energy development in Kansas. TODAY: Attitudes begin to shift on the future of nuclear power. NEXT: The ramifications of the growth of ethanol in Kansas. For the anti-nuke crowd, the storage pool's ghostly appearance hints at potential catastrophic fallout from reliance on an energy source with a waste stream so toxic it must be guarded for centuries. Images of achievement and apocalypse don't weigh down Wolf Creek technical adviser Seth Bell, who recently spent a day shuffling a portion of 1,100 nuclear fuel assemblies on the checkerboard-bottomed storage pool containing every uranium pellet consumed in more than 20 years of operation. He is proud Wolf Creek lights up the equivalent of 800,000 homes without exposing him to more radiation than Kansans absorb in the natural environment. "I was up here all day and didn't get 1 millirem," Bell said while working at the pool's edge. "You get that much every day living in Kansas." The nation's tolerance for atomic power is about to be tested by an industry intent on welcoming a new wave of nuclear plants and drowning memories of accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. Legions of activists will surface to obstruct the flow of this nuclear gambit. The exchange is likely to spark a relapse into polarizing environmental, political and regulatory debates that dominated nuclear power's emergence at Wolf Creek and plants carrying the names Copper Station, Turkey Point, Vermont Yankee, Peach Bottoms, Beaver Valley, Comanche Peak and Grand Gulf. Renaissance Power producer NRG Energy, of Princeton, N.J., got the ball rolling last month by submitting the first complete construction and operating license application for a new U.S. nuclear reactor in three decades. The company wants the nuclear revival to begin with construction of two units at its facility in Bay City, about 90 miles southwest of Houston, costing at least $5.4 billion. It is the first fresh submission to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission since the Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania in 1979. The freeze on nuclear expansion explains why the United States fell short of the Atomic Energy Commission's prediction in 1959 of more than 1,000 U.S. nuclear plants by the turn of the century. The nation's nuclear fleet stands at 104. "It's bold for us as a company, but for energy and the industry, it's a good step," said David Crane, NRG's president and chief executive officer. The NRC is preparing to receive applications for 30 new reactors by the end of 2008. Construction of these units could cost $90 billion, which explains why applicants are competing for billions of dollars in federal incentives and loan guarantees. If federal regulators resolve permit issues for the Bay City project by 2010, NRG hopes to have the two 1,350-megawatt units in commercial operation by 2015. The nuclear industry is striving to quench the country's anticipated thirst for electricity. A forecast by the federal Energy Information Administration suggests U.S. demand for power will climb 40 percent by 2030. Nuclear plants, while capital-intensive to build, are viewed as a viable addition to a company's "baseline" power portfolio because of low operational costs. Volatile natural gas prices and the prospect of government constraints on greenhouse pollutants are making gas- and coal-fired plants a less-coveted option for juicing the grid. Emerging wind and solar systems are too fickle to meet constant, large-scale demand for electricity. Rick Muench, president and CEO of Wolf Creek Nuclear Operating Corp., which manages the Burlington plant for three utility companies, said the time was right for a nuclear renaissance, but he predicted expansion wouldn't occur with the gusto some imagine. He said more than a dozen nuclear plant applications were being submitted annually when he entered the field more than 30 years ago. Cost overruns, protests and safety issues conspired to block growth in the industry, he said. History makes the veteran energy executive cautious in his optimism. "This is kind of deja vu for us," Muench said. "Out of the 30 or so plants you see being discussed, I don't think that many will be built in the next 10 years. But there will be plants built, and it is exciting to see." Kansas' role? The Wolf Creek facility - owned by Westar Energy, of Topeka; Kansas City Power & Light, of Kansas City, Mo.; and Kansas Electric Power Cooperative, of Topeka - was built next to a man-made 5,000-acre cooling lake less than an hour's drive south of Topeka. The site was configured to accommodate two reactor units. Muench said he would be "tickled pink" if a second concrete reactor dome emerged at Wolf Creek. The Kansas Legislature enacted a 10-year tax break for any developer willing to invest in a new unit at Burlington. There wouldn't be much complaint from residents of Coffey County, where about half of Wolf Creek's 950 employees live. The plant contributes $165 million annually to the local and state economy in payroll, purchases and taxes. "It has provided a stable work environment and promoted economic development," said Jim Hills, a Burlington auto parts store owner. "Money in the working man's pocket can influence his opinion of the industry that provides food on the table." Executives at all three companies with a stake in Wolf Creek aren't ready to ride the nuclear expansion bandwagon. There is eagerness to extend Wolf Creek 1's operating license, which would expire in 2025, another 20 years. But there is reluctance to commit to Wolf Creek 2 because it would require an investment of billions of dollars. "We don't expect, our customers shouldn't expect, us to be on the cutting edge, maybe the bleeding edge, of that movement," said Jim Ludwig, an executive vice president at Westar. "We'll keep a close eye on it." Ludwig said the next generation of nuclear power in the United States would be led by the industry's heavyweights. For example, Constellation Energy Group, the largest U.S. shareholder-owned electricity wholesaler, is proposing to build seven reactors through a joint venture with Electricite de France, Europe's largest electricity utility. Rep. Carl Holmes, R-Liberal, chairman of the House Energy and Utilities Committee, said this financial reality convinced him to personally lobby distant utilities and investors about doubling capacity at Wolf Creek. "I've been in discussion with out-of-state companies to try to get them interested," he said. "If this country is serious about greenhouse gases and serious about global warming, nuclear has to be part of the solution." Expect a fight Topeka lawyer Bob Eye said he would dust off his legal briefs and protest signs to oppose expansion of nuclear power in Kansas. He was on a legal team that challenged proposed 100 percent rate hikes tied to Wolf Creek's opening. Eye said there was no justification for adding a second unit at Wolf Creek or for multiplying the number of reactor units across the country. The nation ought to invest in dispersed solar and wind power projects, as well as energy conservation programs, instead of dumping billions of dollars into nuclear power, he said. "We should look very carefully at any technology that concentrates that much capital in one spot," Eye said. "The other aspect is painfully clear: These are large, stationary, high-value lethal targets for terrorists." Michael Mariotte, executive director of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service in Washington, said problems of global warming and climate change were too urgent to wait for conclusion of another debate on nuclear power. "If we spend the next 10 years putting our money into that basket and not into the technologies that can work, and work quickly, we're going to be in trouble," he said. Mariotte disputed the claim of pro-nuclear lobbyists that pressure to reduce emissions from coal-fired plants had convinced environmental organizations to embrace nuclear power. "If they find somebody, I hope they'll let us know," Mariotte said. Shelf life Lack of a permanent storage facility for high-level radioactive waste remains a thorn in the side of the U.S. nuclear power industry. The proposed Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada was to open in 1998, but the site is mired in legal and political wrangling. It is unlikely to open prior to 2017, but even that date isn't firm. That will leave much of the nation's radioactive waste in wet or dry storage at nuclear plants, including Wolf Creek, where it was consumed to create electricity. Jon Block, nuclear energy and climate change project manager for the Union of Concerned Scientists, said construction of nuclear power units should follow resolution of storage problems. "In over 50 years of operating experience," he said, "the nuclear industry has not managed to solve the problems of safety, security and disposal of highly dangerous radioactive waste. Until that happens, we're much better off investing in safer, cleaner energy sources." Tyson Slocum, director of energy policy for the lobbying group Public Citizen, said there would be no nuclear renaissance without "unprecedented" federal subsidies. Multibillion-dollar subsidies drafted by Congress and approved by President Bush in the 2005 energy bill include taxpayer loan guarantees for new reactors, tax credits for the first half dozen reactors built, a limitation on utility liability for nuclear accidents and risk insurance to cover possible delays in the licensing process. "If you had a program like this for wind and solar," Slocum said, "wind and solar would be the biggest energy sources in the next 20 years." Going nuclear Scott Peterson, of the industry-backed Nuclear Energy Institute, said the pendulum started swinging back to nuclear power a handful of years ago in Washington. Evidence can be found in growth of federal incentives for development of new reactors and streamlining of federal licensing procedures, he said. "Support for nuclear power became a lot more bipartisan than it had been," Peterson said. "It's a sea change up on the Hill." Case in point: Veteran Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., and rookie Rep. Nancy Boyda, D-Kan., agree the nation must develop a more robust nuclear power industry. "It's part of the whole package we're going to have to look at if we want to stop being dependent on foreign oil," Roberts said. Boyda concurs, saying, "I have said that nuclear should be on the table." Peterson said this sentiment was part of a trend in which Americans' negative attitudes toward generation of electricity by nuclear power facilities appeared to be thawing. He shared an opinion poll conducted by Bisconti Research indicating two-thirds of 1,000 Americans surveyed favor use of nuclear power to make electricity in the United States. Four of five people interviewed agreed operating licenses of existing nuclear plants should be renewed, and 71 percent suggested utilities should prepare now to build more nuclear facilities in the next decade. A separate poll published in July by Massachusetts Institute of Technology's advanced nuclear center offered a less-rosy snapshot of attitudes on nuclear power. Thirty-five percent of 1,200 people surveyed favor more nuclear power. That was up from 28 percent in a similar survey five years ago as part of an MIT study. Stuart Lowry, a Topeka lawyer who works with power cooperatives and serves on the Kansas Energy Council, said he didn't need surveys to grasp that nuclear power had to play a larger role in the nation's energy future. "We will need to see much more nuclear over the next 30 years," he said. Placing new units at existing nuclear plants and addressing the waste storage dilemma are keys to gaining support for nuclear power, he said. "The public needs to know how the fuel will be disposed of or reused," Lowry said. Some in the nuclear industry believe the United States should copy other nations in reprocessing "spent" nuclear fuel. Currently, U.S. power plants can't recycle nuclear fuel, which retains 95 percent of its potential energy content. The drawback to recycling is that a byproduct is weapons-grade plutonium. Human element Today's college students will color the next chapter of U.S. nuclear power. Ken Shultis, a professor of mechanical and nuclear engineering at Kansas State University, said too few students understand the career potential of nuclear power. Nuclear industry leaders say they need 550 new nuclear engineers annually, but U.S. schools graduate 350 each year. Half of the nation's nuclear-oriented work force is expected to retire in the next 15 years, just as demand for these skilled people is likely to rise at universities, government agencies and nuclear stations. "I get calls all the time. Our students are in high demand," said Shultis, who conducts research with Kansas State students using a small nuclear reactor located on the Manhattan campus. Just as personnel issues complicate efforts to widen the footprint of nuclear power, NRC chairman Dale Klein said the industry's expansion could overwhelm manufacturing companies making parts of nuclear reactors. There is only one firm in the world forging reactor vessels, and it is located in Japan. "Right now," Klein said, "the lead time for delivery of reactor vessels is upwards of four years, and other key components have equally long backlogs." These issues will fight for oxygen with environmental, economic and political points of contention. Each will be weighed in context of America's demand for electricity, interest in energy security and attitudes about carbon emissions. William Downey, president and chief executive officer of KCPL, said he was convinced scientific challenges of nuclear power could be overcome. He is less confident Americans will wrap their arms around a new generation of nuclear power plants. "I think, technically, we can do it," he said. "It's the public acceptance that is the question mark." Tim Carpenter can be reached at (785) 295-1158 or timothy.carpenter@cjonline.com. Topeka Capital-Journal ***************************************************************** 18 MuskogeePhoenix.com, Muskogee, OK - Don’t delay any longer Sun, Oct 28 2007 Published October 28, 2007 06:54 pm - Fourteen years should have been enough time to take care of the Sequoyah Fuels mess at Gore. Fourteen years should have been enough time to take care of the Sequoyah Fuels mess at Gore. Sure, the decommissioning of the former uranium conversion plant involves environmental studies, bureaucratic red tape and millions of dollars. But the longer the delay, the more the cleanup will cost and the greater the chance that contaminated waste may migrate off the site in the meantime. Of course, Oklahoma should make a prudent decision, but in some ways we are no further along in the process than we were a few years after the plant closed in 1993. A little more than a week ago, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission met with Gore residents and laid out four plans for disposal of contaminated materials and soil. The four alternatives are the same alternatives that have been discussed for years: • Burial of the materials on site in a contained disposal cell, $31.9 million. • Off-site disposal, $189.9 million to $253.7 million. • Combination of the two plans, $38.5 million to $44.4 million. • Continue current maintenance operations, $19.3 million. The fourth proposal was not acceptable years ago, and it’s not acceptable now. Sequoyah Fuels doesn’t have the money to transport the contaminated materials to disposal sites hundreds of miles away, or it would have done it or the government would have forced Sequoyah Fuels to do it years ago. And Oklahomans and the rest of the country have been reluctant to let loose of their money for off-site disposal, too. That leaves basically one choice. Oklahoma may not want a disposal cell containing materials with low radiation sitting on a bank of the Illinois River, but Oklahoma didn’t complain when the multi-million dollar plant was built there, and it didn’t complain when workers earned good salaries at the plant and the state took in tax revenue. We only started complaining loudly when a worker was killed in an accident and we found out escaped uranium, thorium and metals contaminated the groundwater. An on-site disposal cell may not be ideal, but the alternative is many more years of doing little to resolve the environmental crisis and watching the cost of a cleanup increase. © 2007, The Muskogee Phoenix P.O. Box 1968; Muskogee, OK 74402 (918) 684-2828 Email News tips & feedback ***************************************************************** 19 MySA.com: Nuke plant revival debated Web Posted: 10/27/2007 11:44 PM CDT Anton Caputo Express-News If CPS Energy's board decides Monday to throw the utility's money behind two new reactors in South Texas, it will be leading the charge in what's being touted as a national nuclear renaissance. Buoyed by the need for an energy source that doesn't add to global warming and propped up by various federal subsidies, an industry considered stagnant for more than two decades is undergoing a resurrection. But the industry's expansion is dogged by a bundle of issues that opponents are beating on like a drum to slow the charge. With the specter of the accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, safety questions linger in many minds. There's still no long-term solution to waste storage, meaning that each reactor is the de facto repository for thousands of tons of radioactive material. And the multibillion-dollar cost of each plant along with the massive federal subsidies being employed to jumpstart the industry has opponents charging that energy companies are just looking to get fat off federal tax dollars. "I think there is a renaissance in promises made by the nuclear industry, but there is no indication their promises aren't as full of hot air as they were a generation ago," said Tom Smith of the Texas office of the environmental and consumer group Public Citizen. "There are people who have been nuclear advocates forever, and climate change has come along at the last second to save them from oblivion," he said. "The advantage that nuclear has is that you can generate electricity with no carbon emissions in the process. And as we get more serious about global warming we would have to cut back on carbon emissions." New Jersey-based NRG Energy, with CPS Energy as a likely partner, has made the first official application in the country and wants to build two new reactors at its South Texas Project near Bay City. Those would be the first new reactors in this country since 1996. Also in Texas, TXU Energy is expected to follow suit soon with plans to build two more units at its Comanche Peak nuclear facility; while Exelon Energy, which owns property in Matagorda County, and Amarillo Power, are also considering building nuclear plants. Nationally, 17 companies have expressed interest in building at least 31 more reactors. "The interest levels and the movement are certainly an indication that we are in a revival or a renaissance," said Mitch Singer, spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute. Attraction to nuclear comes on the heels of a similar revival in interest in coal plants. CPS Energy is building the first coal-fired power plant in Texas in nearly a generation. Other utilities in power-hungry Texas have had similar plans, but worries abut global warming and pollution seemed to have slowed the coal rush while fueling the nuclear one. A question of money As local history illustrates, nuclear has always been an economically risky proposition. When the current South Texas plants came on line in 1988 and 1989, they were eight years late and cost six times as much as originally promised. This type of economic uncertainty and the fear caused by the Three Mile Island accident in 1979 helped bring the industry to a near standstill. A new plant hasn't been ordered since 1978, and that one was canceled. It's been more than a decade since the last new nuclear reactor came on line in this country and it took 24 years for that one, the Tennessee Valley Authority's Watt's Bar reactor, to make the journey from permitting to operation. Still, there are 104 nuclear plants operating in the United States, providing about a quarter of its energy. But the 2005 Energy Act drastically changed the landscape and reduced the economic risk. So would some kind of tax on carbon dioxide, which the United States is increasingly likely to impose. Carbon dioxide is a global warming-causing pollutant emitted by most power plants but not nuclear. The 2005 Energy Act offers roughly $13 billion in tax breaks and incentives as well as federal loan guarantees for 80 percent of the cost of new reactors and $2 billion in risk insurance to pay for construction or permitting delays for the first six reactors. And a new energy bill that passed both houses, but is caught in conference between the two, would increase the loan guarantees. "This is not a revival of nuclear power, but the revival of the hunt for subsidies," said Geoffrey H. Fettus, senior project attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental action organization. The new generation of plants being proposed is touted as safer then the old, although industry proponents are quick to point out there has never been a major accident at a nuclear power plant in the United States. The famous accident at Three Mile Island was contained before a catastrophic meltdown. Nuclear engineer David Lochbaum, who also is director of the Union of Concerned Scientists nuclear safety project, said the new plants are thought to be safer largely because they rely on the same systems of pumps and motors to cool the reactor in case of an emergency or accident that they use in day-to-day operations. Most older plants have a second set of equipment that kicks in during an emergency but sits unused the majority of the time. This means, said Lochbaum, that, except for scheduled tests, the equipment is rarely operated and could therefore be unreliable during an emergency. In theory the new method should be safer, Lochbaum said, but there's not much of a work history to judge. "This can be cheaper and safer because your reliability goes up, but it's somewhat hard to tell because they have only been tried out in cyberspace," he said. "None has melted down in its first week, which is great." The units being proposed for South Texas are new models called Advanced Water Boiler Reactors (AWBR). Four have been built in Japan and three more are under construction in Taiwan and Japan. Two of the Japanese ABWRs were part of a nuclear power complex that was hit by an earthquake in July. As a result of that earthquake, what has been described as a "small amount" of radioactive water leaked. CPS officials said that, from what information they have, the reactor's safety features worked correctly. But they're sending an official to tour the plant. The waste problem To many, the most daunting problem with nuclear power is what to do with the radioactive waste that needs to be safely stored for thousands of years. As of 2005, there were more than 53,000 tons of nuclear waste in the country from nuclear power plants and another 22,000 canisters of waste from military activities, according to the U.S. Energy Department. By 2035, this amount is expected to more than double — and that does not account for new reactors. Currently, there is no long-term solution to the problem. Some countries reprocess the waste to use again, but that makes the material highly radioactive, which is a security concern that has hampered reprocessing in this country. As it is, the waste is stored at nuclear plant sites in either large pools or 20-foot-tall steel and lead containers. The South Texas and Comanche projects alone have more than 1,500 tons of spent nuclear fuel stored on site. The most commonly touted long-term solution is the proposed federal repository under Yucca Mountain in southern Nevada, about 100 miles from Las Vegas. The president and Congress have approved this plan, but the state of Nevada is fighting the licensing process at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Jon Block, nuclear energy and climate change project manager for the Union of Concerned Scientists, said it likely will be years until the agency makes a decision. Last time he checked, the filings in the case totaled more than 1 million pages, and that was at least six years ago. But nuclear backers see the waste issue as far from a showstopper. CPS Energy CEO Milton Lee said waste storage at the Bay City facility has been done safely throughout its history and is an acceptable method for the new units until a long-term solution is found. Wilcoxen took a similar view. "Basically climate change is going to force us to do something that is acceptable even if it isn't ideal," he said. Smith couldn't disagree more strongly. "There's a real moral question of whether it is appropriate for one generation to leave behind a mess that will take 10,000 years to go away," he said. acaputo@express-news.net About Us: MySanAntonio.com | Express-News | KENS 5 Portions © 2007 KENS 5 and the San Antonio Express-News. ***************************************************************** 20 New Haven Register: Cleanup at Yankee plant complete By Luther Turmelle, North Bureau Chief 10/27/2007 HADDAM - The Connecticut Yankee nuclear power plant moved a step closer to its ultimate end Friday when state officials announced that environmental cleanup of the plant is complete. The state Department of Environmental Protection approved Connecticut Yankee's application for a stewardship permit, meaning the agency concurs "that the environmental remediation of the site has been completed subject to long-term groundwater monitoring," said Bob Capstick, spokesman for the consortium that owns the plant. "Connecticut Yankee is still awaiting approval that the plant has been decommissioned in accordance with the federal regulations," Capstick said. Decomissioning approval from the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission is expected in the next several months, he said. Diane Duva, assistant director of the DEP's waste engineering and enforcement division, said the agency's certification of the cleanup "is good for Connecticut and good news for Connecticut Yankee. It's very significant because it documents how far they've come." Connecticut Yankee officials began their cleanup of the 550-acre plant in 1999, three years after the plant stopped operating because it was no longer economically feasible to run. The plant's most visible element - the containment tower - was demolished in 2006, but other elements of the cleanup continued through the first few months of this year. Remediation of the site included the cleanup of soil tainted with petroleum hydrocarbons, lead and other contaminants. As part of its stewardship permit with the state, Connecticut Yankee has agreed to pay for groundwater monitoring at the site through 2011, which is estimated to cost about $800,000, Duva said. Groundwater testing will take place both on the plant site and across the Connecticut River in Haddam Meadows State Park, she said. The DEP will evaluate the testing results in 2011 to determine whether the test period should be extended, Duva said. "This is an extra safety net so that we can document that the condition of the site," she said. Groundwater sampling began in June, and results from the first two rounds of test samples collected from Haddam Meadows State Park wells showed no radioactivity related to the plant, Duva said. In addition, the DEP sampled 126 water supply wells near the plant and across the river and found no Connecticut Yankee-related radioactivity, she said. ©New Haven Register 2007 ***************************************************************** 21 MNNW: Malaysia Mulls Nuclear As One Of The Options Malaysian National News Agency :: BERNAMA October 27, 2007 18:05 PM From Abdul Rahman Ahmad LONDON, Oct 27 (Bernama) -- An energy road map for the country, which includes nuclear, is being prepared to ensure a sufficient supply in view of the increasing world oil price which has passed US$90 (US$1=RM3.34) per barrel and will probably touch US$100 by year-end. Science, Technology and Innovation Minister, Datuk Seri Dr Jamaludin Jarjis, said the ministry and the Energy, Water and Telecommunications Ministry had been directed to prepare and present a joint paper on the energy road map to the cabinet after taking into account the limited energy resources in the country and the increase in oil price. "Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has instructed the two ministries to present a paper, to look at Malaysia's energy options for the future in view of the rising oil prices," he told Malaysian journalists after delivering a keynote address entitled, "Mobilising Science and Technology: Malaysia's Path to the Future" at the Commemorative Conference of 50 years of Malaysia-British Partnership here yesterday. A member of the audience, during question time, had asked Jamaludin on Malaysia's reaction to the oil price increase and its energy options in the future. Jamaludin said Malaysia was looking at other energy resources and the government would decide on whether or not to use nuclear energy to offset the usage of oil which has burdened the public with rising prices. "Our only option will be hydro but it has its limitations. The prime minister has asked us to look at the renewable. "If other nations are going for the nuclear, the government has to consider, but for now we are sticking to the non-nuclear option," he said. Jamaludin expected the paper be submitted to the cabinet before year-end or early next year. -- BERNAMA Copyright © 2007 BERNAMA. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 22 Sunday Business Post: Nuclear plant to restart Irish Business News 28 October 2007 By Pat Leahy, Political Correspondent The Thorp plant at Sellafield, which was closed more than two years ago after a radioactive leak, is to start reprocessing nuclear waste early next year. Environment minister John Gormley warned that the re-opening of Thorp will ‘‘contribute further to the continuing discharge of radioactive material into the Irish Sea. ‘‘Discharges result directly from reprocessing operations and have been of concern in Ireland for many years’’. The Thorp plant recycles spent nuclear fuel from other plants in Britain and overseas, producing waste products, as well as uranium and plutonium that can made into fresh fuel. In April 2005, the plant’s operator, British Nuclear Group, admitted that 83 cubic metres of radioactive acid had leaked from a holding tank into a concrete containment shell. The leak had gone undetected for months. Though BNG insisted there was no danger, the plant was shut down. Following an investigation, the British Health and Safety Executive had given permission for Thorp to restart operations this year, but problems with some equipment have led to delays. In a statement issued last week, Sellafield said it hoped technical problems would be solved soon and reprocessing would begin in the new year. British Nuclear Fuels is in the process of being broken up and privatised, and the company running Thorp has recently been rebranded. Most of Britain’s nuclear waste is located at Sellafield, and successive Irish governments have sought to have the plant closed down. Gormley said he would seek a meeting with John Hutton, the secretary of state in the Department of Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform in Britain, to discuss matters of mutual interest. ‘‘I can assure the Irish people that I will use this forum to voice their continued concerns about reprocessing and the reopening of Thorp,” he said. The Irish government has commissioned a team of American experts, coordinated by a Washington law firm to marshal efforts to close Sellafield. The experts – from legal, nuclear engineering, medical physics and environmental fields - are managed by Washington law firm Egan, Fitzpatrick, Malsch and Cynkar. © Post Publications Limited, 97 South Mall, Cork. Registered in Ireland: 148865. ***************************************************************** 23 Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: Running on empty - By Jack Spencer Sunday, October 28, 2007 Tuesday last, a group led by singers Jackson Browne, Graham Nash and Bonnie Raitt delivered a petition to the Senate denouncing nuclear energy. Their spurious arguments are off-key to say the least. They confuse nuclear weapons with nuclear energy, claim nonexistent dangers and misrepresent nuclear power's economics. Otherwise, it was quite a show. Browne & Co. masquerade as environmentalists, pushing what they describe as environmental justice. But their agenda would deny Americans, especially the poorest Americans, access to one of the cleanest, most secure and economically stable sources of energy available today. They don't seem to realize that things have changed since the old No-Nuke movement packed up its placards. Today, the nuclear industry's safety, environmental and economic record ranks among the best in the energy (or any other) industry. In an effort to devalue nuclear power's environmental advantages, Browne's warriors include the pollutants and carbon dioxide released during the construction and fueling process in their evaluation, without fully acknowledging that other energy sources have similar impacts. No apples-to-apples comparisons for this crowd. For example, 2 million tons of concrete, about double what a nuclear plant requires, must be produced and delivered to anchor enough windmills to match one nuclear plant's energy production. Just producing this concrete emits the carbon-dioxide equivalent of flying a 747 from New York to London 450 times. Carbon-free fairies do not magically drop windmills onto mountaintops. Every windmill or solar panel started as a raw material that was mined, transported and manufactured using fossil fuel. We live in a fossil-fuel-based society. Carbon dioxide is released by almost any activity, whether building a windmill or a nuclear power plant. Ultimately, however, nuclear technology provides the world an opportunity to make its energy profile less fossil-fuel-centric. The new No-Nuke crowd then warns of the ripe targets that nuclear plants provide terrorists. Really? Now Jackson Browne is a terrorism expert? But his credibility is, we must say, "Running on Empty." Nuclear plants were among the nation's most protected assets before 9/11 and have had numerous security upgrades since. But none of the world's 443 nuclear power plants have been attacked. Why? Simply put, they're not easy targets. Nuclear plants are built to withstand airplane impacts, are heavily guarded and are under constant review. If risks are discovered, the answer is to fix the problem, not shut down the industry. But what about the disposal of nuclear waste, the No-Nukers ask? Actually, industry solved that problem decades ago. Spent fuel is removed from the reactor. The reusable portion is recycled by separating it and re-using it; the remainder is placed in either interim or long-term storage, in remote locations such as Yucca Mountain, Nev. Other countries, including France, safely do this every day. Politicians and bad public policy prevent it from occurring in the United States. Waste transportation is another favorite target. The truth is that nuclear waste has been transported on roads and railways worldwide for years without incident. Indeed, more than 20 million waste packages are transported globally each year, and more than 20,000 shipments have traveled 18 million miles since 1971. It's just not a problem. The No-Nukers argue that nuclear power is bad economics. Back in the 1970s, they successfully drove the costs of nuclear power up by forcing delays and instigating superfluous regulation. Though affordable, nuclear power is as expensive as it is today because of that success, not because the technology is uncompetitive. The situation is much different today. Streamlined regulation, better designs and greater efficiency make the economics of today's nuclear plants much more predictable. Nuclear energy is among the least expensive energy sources today. Indeed, numerous studies have shown that new nuclear power is very competitive in a carbon-constrained economy. The anti-nuke crowd already nearly killed the nuclear industry once; America is paying for it today with higher energy prices. This time the stakes are higher and consequences are greater. Sadly, the environment and the poorest Americans will be hardest hit if they succeed. Nuclear energy is the only realistic and affordable option if we hope to cap carbon dioxide. The old rock stars of the world may be able to afford higher electricity prices. But the single mothers of the world cannot. It's time for a Browne-out. Jack Spencer is an economics research fellow at The Heritage Foundation. L. Brent Bozell III is off today. Tribune-Review Publishing Co. ***************************************************************** 24 AFP: Drought in southeast US fuels battle over water resources - by Patrick Moser Sat Oct 27, 10:36 PM ET CUMMING, United States (AFP) - An extreme drought in the southeastern United States has fueled a bitter tri-state battle over dwindling water resources that pits man against mussels. Millions of people in the state of Georgia fear their taps could run dry, while environmentalists in Florida say freshwater mollusks protected under the US Endangered Species Act risk dying off. Hoping to guarantee no one will go thirsty, Georgia authorities want to drastically reduce the outflow from a reservoir that supplies drinking water to three million people. But neighboring Alabama claims that would have devastating economic effects on its population, while Florida says a reduced flow would threaten fragile ecosystems. "You'd think people would come before mussels," said Bob Leamy, 55, walking on caked mud that was once under Lake Lanier's waters. The man-made lake is at the frontline of the battle of words. It supplies drinking water for more than three million people in the city of Atlanta, feeds the Chattahoochee river that runs along the border with Alabama and flows into Florida's Apalachicola river. Because of the drought, the 38,000 acre reservoir is almost five meters (15 feet) below average levels, and officials say the water will continue to dwindle. Georgia has filed a legal motion seeking to force the US Army Corps of Engineers, which manages the reservoir, to limit the release of water. Alabama and Florida both oppose the motion. "The State of Georgia is suffering a drought of historic proportions and is facing potentially dire and irreparable consequences if the United States Army Corps of Engineers does not immediately stop depleting the reservoir storage," Georgia state Governor said at a recent news conference on the banks of the receeding lake. Perdue asked US President George W. Bush to temporarily exempt Georgia from the Endangered Species Act, under which outflow from the reservoir is linked to the survival needs of the purple bankclimber and fat three-ridge mussels in the Apalachicola River. The governors of Alabama and Florida have asked the president to reject Perdue's request. Alabama Governor Bob Riley warned the measure sought by Georgia would "have dire consequences on people and their livelihoods downstream in Alabama" and could lead to the shut-down of a nuclear power plant and industries along the Chattahoochee River. Florida's Charlie Crist insists the measure would have a devastating effect not only on protected mollusk species but also on the multi-million fishing industry in the area where the Apalachicola River flows into the Gulf of Mexico. Many Georgia residents, particularly in Atlanta and along the shores of Lake Lanier, are furious over their neighbors stance. "Our problem is that the lake has become political," said Leamy, a retired building contractor who lives in the small town of Cumming, near Lake Lanier. Residents say the sinking reservoir level threatens numerous jobs linked to recreational use of the lake. Most boat ramps have had to shut down, and many boaters stay away from the lake because of the navigational hazards posed by the low water. "There's this guy who'd just bought a 500,000-dollar boat, tried it out and hit a reef. It was a total loss," said Ken Smith, whose company sells second-hand motorboats. Echoing the feelings of many locals, John Linder, a Republican congressman for Georgia says the choice authorities face is between "the health and safety of the people who live in Georgia or protecting species that will now be endangering our welfare." But others say the battle should serve as a wake-up call in a region where population growth is putting increasing pressure on natural resources. "We all must change the way we think about and use our fresh water resources," says Brigadier General Joseph Schroedel, who commands the Corps of Engineers division that oversees the Lake Lanier water system. Copyright © 2007 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 25 TIL: Revealed: Poisoned ex-Russian spy Litvinenko WAS a paid-up MI6 agent | News | This is London 27.10.07 Deathbed: Alexander Litvinenko in hospital shortly before his agonising death The former Russian spy poisoned in a London hotel was an MI6 agent, the Daily Mail can reveal. Alexander Litvinenko was receiving a retainer of around £2,000 a month from the British security services at the time he was murdered. The disclosure, by diplomatic and intelligence sources, is the latest twist in the Litvinenko affair, which has plunged relations between London and Moscow to their lowest point since the Cold War. On the day of the poisoning, November 1, former KGB agent Mr Litvinenko met prime suspect Andrei Lugovoy at the Millennium Hotel in Grosvenor Square, London. Mr Lugovoy claims that Mr Litvinenko tried to recruit him to supply information to MI6. The businessman, another former KGB agent, also alleged that his ex-colleague asked him to find candidates for political asylum here. He left Britain for Russia soon after, and has never returned. Mr Litvinenko had defected to Britain in 2000 and was granted political asylum the following year with his wife Marina, 44, and son Anatoly, 12. Sir John Scarlett: Recruited Litvinenko for MI6 It is understood that Sir John Scarlett, now the head of MI6 and once based in Moscow, was involved in recruiting him to the Secret Intelligence Service. The fact that the 43-year-old ex-Russian spy was actually working for Britain when he died could provide the key to his extraordinary killing. After an exhaustive Scotland Yard investigation, the Crown Prosecution Service announced earlier this year that there was sufficient evidence to charge Mr Lugovoy with 'deliberate poisoning'. Britain has called for his extradition so he can stand trial at the Old Bailey, but the Kremlin refused the request in July. In an echo of the Cold War era, Britain then expelled four Russian diplomats from London. Days later, Moscow responded with a tit-for-tat expulsion of four Britons. Intelligence sources have told the Daily Mail that they do not expect a trial will ever take place. They also said there remains a 'perceived threat' against Mrs Litvinenko, who lives with her son at a safe house in the Home Counties. Mr Litvinenko died in hospital on November 23 after three agonising weeks in which his hair fell out, his skin turned yellow and his organs failed. Scroll down for more... Suspect number 1: Russian agent Andrei Lugovoy A photograph taken on his deathbed shows the devastating effect the poison had on his body. Investigators believe that a fatal dose of radioactive polonium 210 was slipped into a teapot when the two men met at the hotel. Significant traces of polonium were found on at least one aircraft boarded by Mr Lugovoy around the time of the murder, as well as in some of the hotel rooms where he stayed. Mr Litvinenko was very critical of Vladimir Putin, and in the days before he died he accused the Russian President - another former KGB officer - of ordering his killing. Moscow denies the claim. Scroll down for more... Standing firm: Marina Litvinenko, 44, denies her husband was working for MI6 Mrs Litvinenko flew to Portugal last Thursday, on the eve of the EU-Russia summit, to call on European leaders to put pressure on Russia to hand over Mr Lugovoy. 'President Putin is providing Mr Lugovoy with his personal endorsement and backing in the eyes of the world,' she said. 'This indicates that Russia has something to hide and adds credence to Alexander's deathbed statement naming Mr Putin as the instigator of his murder.' Associates of Mr Litvinenko have suggested his slow and painful death was a deliberate 'message' from the Kremlin to those in exile - warning them there could be no hiding place. Moscow has accused Britain of harbouring some 16 Russian emigres including billionaire Boris Berezovsky, a fierce critic of the current Russian government. He provided Mr Litvinenko with a home after his defection. Mr Litvinenko fled to Britain after accusing the Russian security service of involvement in the 1999 bombings of two apartment buildings, in which 300 people died. He had also been investigating the murder of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who spoke out against the Putin government. Scroll down for more... Russian dissident: Billionaire Boris Berezovsky gives a press conference Mr Lugovoy has admitted meeting Mr Litvinenko, a former lieutenant colonel in the FSB, the re-styled KGB, several times in the months before his death. But he claimed he was being made a scapegoat for the death. He said that he believes MI6 was involved in the murder because agents had been unhappy at the way Mr Litvinenko had boasted of his links to them. Mrs Litvinenko has dismissed the claim as 'nonsense' and also denied that her late husband was working for MI6. A book about the murder, Death of a Dissident: The Poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko and the Return of the KGB, written by Mrs Litvinenko and a friend of her husband, Alex Goldfarb, was released this week. A film version is planned. Part of the Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday, Evening Standard & Metro Media Group © 2007 Associated Newspapers Limited ***************************************************************** 26 ReviewJournal.com: Nellis incidents take toll Oct. 28, 2007 Since 1991, at least 13 crashes, mishaps have involved F-16 By KEITH ROGERS REVIEW-JOURNAL Nellis Air Force Base personnel from the 57th Wing Safety Office identify and preserve parts of a crashed F-16 in March 2005. Roughly 80 F-16s are stationed at Nellis in its weapons school, aggressor squadron, test units, fighter squadrons and the aerial demonstration team. Photo by Clint Karlsen. At a rate of nearly one per year for the past 16 years, an F-16 jet from Nellis Air Force Base has crashed or has been involved in a mishap, archives from the Review-Journal show. Inherently, some of the crashes are related to aerial combat training exercises or training flights that take place routinely over the sprawling Nellis range. Others are linked to the risks involved with the Thunderbirds, the Air Force aerial demonstration team which is based at Nellis. In all, there are roughly 80 F-16s stationed at Nellis in its weapons school, aggressor squadron, test units, fighter squadrons and the aerial demonstration team, a base spokesman said Wednesday. At least 13 crashes or mishaps involving F-16s from Nellis Air Force Base have occurred since 1991. Eight of them occurred between 1991 and 1994. They are: ? March 13, 2007: The pilot of an F-16C Falcon ejected safely near the Tonopah Test Range Airfield before the jet crashed on its approach. ? Aug. 20, 2005: A pair of Thunderbirds touched in a midair maneuver and sent a missile rail from one plane into Lake Michigan during the Chicago air show. ? March 18, 2005: A Nellis pilot ejected safely before his F-16C fighter jet crashed at the base as he tried to land it following a malfunction shortly after take-off. ? Sept. 14, 2003: A Thunderbirds' F-16 exploded in a fireball on impact during an air show at Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho. The pilot thought he was about 1,000 feet higher than his aircraft actually was when he began what's called a "split-S" maneuver after takeoff. ? Aug. 8, 2000: A pair of Nellis F-16s collided in midair during a training mission over the Nellis range, causing one of the planes to crash after the pilot ejected safely. The other pilot flew his fighter jet back to the base and landed without incident. ? Feb. 14, 1994: A Thunderbirds pilot was injured when his F-16 crashed after he executed one more spiral turn than planned near the Indian Springs airfield. ? Nov. 8, 1993: A pilot was killed when his F-16 crashed on the Nellis range complex, 35 miles west of Alamo. ? Aug. 10, 1993: A Nellis pilot was killed when his F-16 crashed during a joint Army, Navy, Air Force training mission on the range, 125 miles northwest of Las Vegas. ? May 18, 1993: The pilot of an F-16 from Nellis ejected before the plane crashed, near Glendale, 40 miles northeast of Las Vegas. ? May 31, 1992: An F-16 pilot ejected from his aircraft before it crashed near Pahrump. ? Oct. 7, 1991: A Nellis pilot was killed when his F-16 crashed during a training mission 20 miles west of Rachel in Lincoln County. ? July 31, 1991: A pilot from Hill Air Force, Utah, was killed when his F-16D fighter jet crashed on a training mission northeast of Ely in White Pine County. ? Jan. 28, 1991: A Nellis pilot ejected before his F-16 jet crashed in a remote area 75 miles north of Las Vegas. Contact reporter Keith Rogers at krogers@reviewjournal.com or (702) 383-0308. Links powered by inform.com Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2007 ***************************************************************** 27 Earth Times: UAE calls for safeguards against nuclear threats - US World Posted : Sun, 28 Oct 2007 10:02:02 GMT Author : IANS New York, Oct 28 - The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has called for developing effective safeguards for non-nuclear states against the growing threats or risks from nuclear weapons.Addressing the 62nd session of the UN General Assembly Saturday, UAE's delegation member Hind Abdulaziz Alowais observed that nuclear disarmament has suffered a serious set-back, and urged a bigger role for the UN nuclear watchdog, WAM news agency reported Sunday.Alowais pointed out that nuclear technology has been acquired by some states through bilateral cooperation with nuclear weapon states outside the control of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) while nuclear states have been working to make their arsenals more lethal.'Some nuclear states have improved and developed nuclear weapons and their delivery system with a view to making these weapons more effective, while some others have introduced new types of offensive weapons in contravention with the non-proliferation system', he said.Alowai also emphasised what he called attempts by certain nuclear states to develop a new concept for the strategic-defence doctrine based on nuclear weapons. 'The new concept is built on an offensive strategy, not a defensive one', he added.'Therefore, we stress the importance of developing a universal, unconditional instrument that provides the necessary safeguards for non-nuclear states against any threats or risks that might result from the use of existing nuclear arsenals,' Alowai said. (c) Indo-Asian News Service (c) 2007 Earthtimes.org, All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 28 Pahrump Valley Times: New setbacks for former NTS workers Oct. 26, 2007 RECORDS TRUSTWORTHY? By STEVE TETREAULT STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- Hundreds of former Nevada Test site workers seeking a fast track for health claims after being exposed to radiation and toxic substances on their jobs have encountered a new setback. A federal agency is recommending that people who worked at the nuclear proving ground from 1963 through 1992 not be granted a special classification that would streamline $150,000 compensation and medical payments if they contracted certain cancers or lung diseases as they grew older. Workers from earlier years at the test site, when atomic bombs were exploded in the atmosphere and radiation exposure records were spotty, already qualify for what is known as special exposure cohort status for the payments distributed by the Department of Labor. But the director of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health said Tuesday his agency believes there are sufficient records available from the later years -- when weapons were detonated underground -- for the government to weigh health claims individually. "For the underground ones we think there is enough monitoring data. That is the one we recommended be denied," said NIOSH director John Howard. "We have enough data, that is the bottom line." The NIOSH report, issued Sept. 24, is not the final word although it is expected to carry some weight when the Presidential Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health issues a formal recommendation, possibly early next year. The board is scheduled to meet in Las Vegas Jan. 8-10. A final decision subsequently would rest with Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt. Lacking any special treatment, former test site workers must wait along with thousands of other nuclear workers nationwide for NIOSH and the Department of Labor to evaluate their health claims, a process that sometimes takes years and has sparked enormous frustration among families. Under the main compensation program, former test site workers have filed 4,002 claims, with 1,339 denied and 787 paid to a total $79 million, according to figures provided by the Department of Labor. For an associated workers comp-style program, 2,856 test site claims have been requested, with 669 denied and 283 paid so far for a total $33 million. Oscar Foger of Las Vegas, a miner who excavated blast holes at the Test site and who worked on tunnel re-entry teams, said he lost a kidney to cancer earlier this year. He worked at the site from May 1959 through Nov.16, 1995. Foger, 65, said he began pursuing compensation In January. He said the idea that test site records are trustworthy "is not true at all, and anybody who files a claim can attest to the same thing. Half the records have been destroyed and the other half, I would not say they were falsified, but they are not correct." Lynn Anspaugh, a health physicist who formerly worked at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and who has studied the test site, said the NIOSH findings appear based on a test site evaluation that may have been incomplete. "The site profile is undergoing revision and they have made some very substantial changes that have not been approved by the board," Anspaugh said. "Any evaluation that says it is based on information in the site profile, I think is very premature." A petition seeking special exposure cohort status for the test site workers was filed with NIOSH in February by a group of former employees with help from Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev. Trying another strategy, Reid prepared an amendment for Congress to fast-track the test site workers but was unable to get it added to a defense bill earlier this month. "We knew it was going to be difficult to secure special exposure cohort status for all NTS workers," Reid spokesman Jon Summers said, adding the senator is "concerned" about the agency's recommendation. "NIOSH's report is far from a final decision," Summers said. On Tuesday, Reid urged a Senate committee to fix the compensation program, where the biggest complaint is over how long it takes to render decisions, particularly when a person's exposure records need to be reconstructed. "I think this program has the right intentions but it is clearly failing thousands of Americans who helped us win the Cold War," Reid said at a hearing of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, Sen Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., said later he will explore a bill that automatically would fast-track claims for workers whose cases cannot be processed within a set time period. "There are still too many examples and stories of delay and frustration on the part of claimants," Alexander said. "I am considering legislation that would put a time limit on how much time can be taken on dose reconstruction." webmaster@pahrumpvalleytimes.com Copyright © Pahrump Valley Times, 1997 - ***************************************************************** 29 newsobserver.com: Train cars derail at Harris nuclear plant Saturday, October 27, 2007 No spill, no public threat, officials say John Murawski, Staff Writer An empty flatbed car and the caboose on a slow-moving freight train carrying radioactive waste derailed Thursday evening at the Shearon Harris nuclear plant. However, Progress Energy and regulatory officials said Friday that the nuclear-waste containers were not damaged, no one was injured, and there was no threat to public safety. Two cars ran off the tracks after rolling over a security device that plant workers mistakenly left on the tracks, officials said. The device -- a derailer -- is designed to prevent an attacker from ramming a train into the nuclear plant site, which is about 25 miles southwest of Raleigh. The train was traveling about 5 mph at the time of the accident, Progress Energy spokeswoman Julie Hans said. It remained upright after two cars ran off the tracks. "There was no threat to public safety whatsoever," said Phil O'Bryan, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission resident inspector at the plant. "The reason it turned out to be so minor is that when the train approaches the plant, it's going very slowly." The NRC is reviewing the incident for potential safety violations. A public emergency would have been declared if there had been a potential release of radioactive material, Hans said. "Precautionary testing was done, and there was no radiological release," Hans said. "The rail car wasn't impacted; it didn't shift or fall." The electric utility, based in Raleigh, said the accident was caused by company workers and security contractors who were responsible for clearing the derailer from the tracks. The iron bar diverts rail wheels up and away from the tracks to keep an unauthorized train from entering the Shearon Harris compound. The train was backing up, caboose first, after it had arrived to deliver a load of nuclear waste to the spent-fuel handling area, O'Bryan said. The caboose was lifted off the track. An empty flatbed car following the caboose was partially derailed. The train was delivering waste from the company's Brunswick nuclear plant, south of Wilmington. Progress Energy transports about a dozen shipments of spent nuclear fuel every year from Brunswick for long-term storage at Shearon Harris, traversing 220 miles under armed escort. When transported by rail, nuclear waste is protected by reinforced concrete casks weighing 75 tons. The casks are designed to withstand high-speed crashes. For security reasons, Progress Energy and the NRC are providing limited information about the accident. Federal law prohibits releasing information related to the scheduling, destination or origin of nuclear-waste transports. The train jumped the tracks 6:57 p.m. Thursday, according to a state regulatory agency that was notified of the accident. Progress Energy contacted the NRC and the N.C. Department of Crime Control and Public Safety, as required by law. The state agency in turn contacted other state emergency-preparedness officials. Because the incident posed no public threat, no local emergency response was required, said Lee Cox, manager of the radioactive materials branch of the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources. This is not the utility's first accident with rail transport of nuclear waste. In December 1995, four of the eight wheels of an empty spent-fuel shipping rail car left the tracks on the Shearon Harris property, Hans said. The shipping car remained upright. The accident happened when the tracks spread slightly because of deteriorated crossties. In 2002, two prison escapees hopped aboard one of Progress Energy's rail transports, apparently hoping to ride the rails to freedom. The fugitives were caught, but industry critics cited the incident as an example of the nuclear plant's vulnerability. "The shipments are impossible to secure from a potential attack," said Jim Warren, director of the N.C. Waste Awareness and Reduction Network, a nuclear watchdog group in Durham. "The key thing is [that] there haven't been many accidents, because there hasn't been much of this stuff shipped around the country." Progress Energy issued a brief announcement about the derailment shortly before noon Friday. News of the accident slowly made its way through New Hill, a small community near the plant. Residents are accustomed to living amid emergency-warning sirens and evacuation-route signs. One lifelong resident is skeptical about safety at the nuclear plant. "They seem to keep things undercover," said Hal Lawrence, 53. "They want to keep everything quiet." (Staff writer Sarah Ovaska contributed to this report.) john.murawski@newsobserver.com or (919) 829-8932 Staff writer Sarah Ovaska contributed to this report. Fog shrouds the Harris nuclear plant Friday. Rail cars on a train carrying spent radioactive fuel derailed Thursday. newsobserver.com ***************************************************************** 30 Brattleboro Reformer: Doctors, nurses and patients key to positive health care Letter Box Saturday, October 27 Editor of the Reformer: As a patient who has been hospitalized numerous times and undergone open-heart surgery twice, I would like to comment on Richard Davis' article "BMH goes gently into a better night with hospitalist service." I can't imagine that having a physician in hospital through the night will not benefit patient care at BMH. However, that hospitals are initiating costly services like the hospitalist role and Rapid Response Teams points to a longstanding and much larger problem That "fearful" nurses ever did (and still do) agonize over communicating with a physician "about a change in a patient's condition" reveals the source of the problem and is an indictment of nursing education, a hospital's administration, and a facility's nursing leadership. Brattleboro Memorial Hospital is not an exception here. Several comprehensive policy reports aimed at the federal level, such as the Institute of Medicine's "Keeping Patients Safe: Transforming the Work Environment of Nurses;" "To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System," as well as, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations' "Health Care at the Crossroads: Strategies for Addressing the Evolving Nursing Crisis" address the reasons nurses are reticent to do what they are legally, morally, and ethical mandated to do; speak to the best interests of the patient, not the physician, or themselves for that matter. The reason is a medical and hospital administration power hierarchy that punishes bedside nurses who do not honor it, as Davis makes clear in the article as creating the need for the hospitalist role. Nurses at Brattleboro Memorial Hospital are expected to read and interpret heart monitoring telemetry data, push intravenous medications, monitor and assess changes in a patient's condition, administer the right medication in the correct dose via the right route to the right patient at the right time, be vigilant for medication side effects, and perform CPR if necessary, to name only a very few of their clinical responsibilities. Yet, according to a past BMH employee newsletter (April 21, 2005) they are "honored" during "National Nurses Week" with a pot luck supper and Nursing Awards that recognize professional nurses for being "Best at holding it the longest (without the benefit of a (urinary) catheter", or one who "Wears most snazzy scrubs", and is "Best team player." As a patient dependent on the intelligence, clinical competence and ability to speak to my needs and safety, I am not impressed with a nurse's ability or willingness to hold it, to color coordinate, or his/her willingness to remain silent when my clinical condition changes. In addition to the authors of the policy reports cited above, observers of nursing work culture have long noted the absence of feminist thinking and labor history in modern nursing education and practice. It has been argued that programs such as the hospitalist role and Rapid Response Teams are necessary because nurses often do not speak up, and when they do, they are silenced or ignored, much to the detriment of the patient. In short, implementation of the hospitalist role at BMH will only be as successful as the professional interactions between the hospitalist physician, the professional nurses who work at the patient bedside and the hospital administration. Barry L. Adams, RN Brattleboro, Oct. 22 How safe is nuclear power? Editor of the Reformer: In his column in the Oct. 18 Reformer, Rob Williams, Entergy Vermont Yankee spokesperson, claimed the poll that Entergy commissioned Charlton Research Company to conduct proved again that "the more factually informed a resident is, the more likely to be in favor of continued plant operation." What factual information are we talking about here? Mr. Williams isn't going to inform residents about the highly radioactive waste Vermont Yankee produces that will remain deadly for 250,000 years. Nor will he point out that that's 10,000 human generations condemned to build countless new and improved Yucca Mountain depositories and untold numbers of replacement dry cask storage units. VY is not going to come clean with residents about the inextricable link between its operation and the U.S. military. Nuclear reactors produce plutonium for bombs. In 2000, 310 tons of plutonium were produced by U.S. nuclear power plants, enough for 34,000 nuclear weapons. Exactly how many of those came from Vermont Yankee? Entergy is silent about the "depleted" uranium generated during the process of uranium enrichment for its fuel rods. The U.S. military has used DU in the 1991 Gulf War, the Balkans conflict, Afghanistan, and again in Iraq. The United Nations calls DU a Weapon of Mass Destruction. When DU explodes, it produces nano particles of radioactive uranium oxide that are carcinogenic and mutagenic. Cancers and deformed babies now abound in Iraq where we have exploded over 2,000 tons of DU munitions. Note that our military veterans are not immune. Airborne DU dust is now contaminating the planet. Any living thing possessing DNA is vulnerable. DU's half-life is 4.5 billion years. One price to be paid for our "cheap" energy. Vermont Yankee does not advertise the fact that it routinely releases over 100 radioactive chemicals into the air and water. Each chemical can cause cancer. Just one decaying radioactive atom can cause permanent mutations in a cell's genetic molecules. Windham County's death rate from cancer for people of all ages is now, some 35 years after VY commenced operations, 10 percent above the rate for the rest of the state. Death rates from cancer for infants, children, and young adults are 13 to 35 percent higher. Another price to be borne for VY's energy. The nuclear industry isn't going to inform you that U.S. taxpayers have provided subsidies of $150 billion over the past 60 years. Had safe, clean, green, and renewable forms of energy received that kind of money, we'd now be living contentedly with wind and solar power minus the Wackenhut firing ranges, emergency sirens, and evacuation plans. Depending upon which facts you subscribe to, Vermont Yankee's power is safe, affordable, and reliable; or it is morally, fiscally, and environmentally indefensible. Isn't it odd that Entergy's polls only tell it what it wants to hear? Let me suggest to Mr. Williams that he ask Charlton Research to poll members of the New England Coalition, Citizens Awareness Network, and all those factually informed folks who attend Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) hearings at Brattleboro's Latchis Theatre. That would provide a more balanced perspective on whether residents favor the continued operation of Vermont Yankee. Join the ongoing debate about Vermont's energy future and Vermont Yankee's license extension. Attend one of the workshops the Department of Public Service has scheduled around the state. The workshop closest to Brattleboro will be held Monday in Springfield at the Howard Dean Education Center cafeteria, 307 South Street, beginning at 5 p.m. Registration is required. Call 802-828-2332 or go online at: www.raabassociates.org/webcomponents/vtsignup/welcome.htm Bill Pearson, Brattleboro, Oct. 22 Kudos to coach, BF boys soccer Editor of the Reformer: It can be very challenging to coach youth sports with the central purposes of education and health and sportsmanship too often having to confront pressures to win. Sadly, too many of our professional athletes let their integrity fall victim to the desire to win at all costs. Coach Slason deserves congratulations to leading his Bellows Falls Boys Soccer Team to their best season in years. Sadly, before the playoff game that should have been one of the highlights of his coaching career, two of his star players chose to not live up to team expectations, putting him in the very difficult position of having to make hard decisions about doing what is right versus doing what would most help the team achieve victory. The integrity he showed in keeping these two boys on the bench for the first half of the playoff game showed his players that the lessons of life are more important than the results of a game. His leadership and responsibility is a tribute to keeping perspective on the proper priorities in sports and in life. As a soccer player, coach, and parent, I want to honor Coach Slason for representing his team, school, and sport with the highest level of integrity. And congratulations to BF Soccer for a great season. Rick Gordon, Westminster, Oct. 22 ***************************************************************** 31 UPI: Report: Poisoned Russian was British agent - UPI.com Published: 27, 2007 at 2:32 PM LONDON, Oct. 27 (UPI) -- A former Russian KGB agent was on the payroll of Britain's secret intelligence service when he was fatally poisoned in a London hotel, a report says. Alexander Litvinenko was being paid about $4,000 a month by MI6, The Daily Mail reported in an exclusive published Saturday. Litvinenko, 43, who died Nov. 23, 2006, was recruited as an MI6 agent by Sir John Scarlett, who now heads the intelligence service and previously was based in Moscow, the Mail reported. Andrei Lugovoy, believed by British agents to have poisoned Litvinenko, has said Litvinenko tried to recruit him to supply information to MI6 when the two met Nov. 1, 2006 at the Millennium Hotel in London. Lugovoy, a businessman, and a former KGB agent himself, has denied killing Litvinenko and refuses to return to Britain for prosecution. The Kremlin has refused Britain's extradition request, causing a diplomatic chill between the two countries. British authorities believe radioactive polonium 210 was slipped into a pot of tea when Litvinenko and Lugovoy met at the hotel. © 2007 United Press International. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 32 GlobalResearch.ca: Cancer in Iraq vets raises possibility of toxic exposure Centre for Research on Globalization by Carla McClain Global Research, October 28, 2007 Arizona Daily Star After serving in Vietnam nearly 40 years ago - and receiving the Bronze Star for it - the Tucson soldier was called back to active duty in Iraq. While there, he awoke one morning with a sore throat. Eighteen months later, Army Sgt. James Lauderdale was dead, of a bizarrely aggressive cancer rarely seen by the doctors who tried to treat it. As a result, his stunned and heartbroken family has joined growing ranks of sickened and dying Iraq war vets and their families who believe exposures to toxic poisons in the war zone are behind their illnesses - mostly cancers, striking the young, taking them down with alarming speed. The number of these cancers remains undisclosed, with military officials citing patient privacy issues, as well as lack of evidence the cases are linked to conditions in the war zone. The U.S. Congress has ordered a probe of suspect toxins and may soon begin widespread testing of our armed forces. "He got so sick, so fast" Jim Lauderdale was 58 when his National Guard unit was deployed to the Iraq-Kuwait border, where he helped transport arriving soldiers and Marines into combat areas. He was a strong man, say relatives, who can't remember him ever missing a day of work for illness. And he developed a cancer of the mouth, which overwhelmingly strikes smokers, drinkers and tobacco chewers. He was none of those. "Jim's doctors didn't know why he would get this kind of cancer - they had no answers for us," said his wife, Dixie. "He got so sick, so fast. We really think it had to be something he was exposed to over there. So many of the soldiers we met with cancer at Walter Reed (Army Medical Center) complained about the polluted air they lived in, the brown water they had to use, the dust they breathed from exploded munitions. It was very toxic." As a mining engineer, Lauderdale knew exactly what it meant when he saw the thick black smoke pouring nonstop out of the smokestacks that line the Iraq/Kuwait border area where he was stationed for three months in 2005. "He wrote to me that everyone was complaining about their stinging eyes and sore throats and headaches," Dixie said. "For Jim to say something like that, to complain, was very unusual. "One of the mothers on the cancer ward had pictures of her son bathing in the brown water," she said. "He died of kidney cancer." Stationed in roughly the same area as Lauderdale, yet another soldier - now fighting terminal colon cancer - described the scene there, of oil refineries, a cement factory, a chlorine factory and a sulfuric acid factory, all spewing unfiltered and uncontrolled substances into the air. "One day, we were walking toward the port and they had sulfuric acid exploding out of the stacks. We were covered with it, everything was burning on us, and we had to turn around and get to the medics," said Army Staff Sgt. Frank Valentin, 35. Not long after, he developed intense rectal pain, which doctors told him for months was hemorrhoids. Finally diagnosed with aggressive colorectal cancer - requiring extensive surgery, resulting in a colostomy bag - he was given fewer than two years to live by his Walter Reed physicians. He is now a couple of months past that death sentence, but his chemo drugs are starting to fail, and the cancer is eating into his liver and lungs. He spends his days with his wife and three children at their Florida home. "I don't know how much time I have," he said. Suspect: depleted uranium None of these soldiers know for sure what's killing them. But they suspect it's a cascade of multiple toxic exposures, coupled with the intense stress of daily life in a war zone weakening their immune systems. "There's so much pollution from so many sources, your body can't fight what's coming at it," Valentin said. "And you don't eat well or sleep well, ever. That weakens you, too. There's no chance to gather your strength. These are kids 19, 20 and 21 getting all kinds of cancers. The Walter Reed cancer ward is packed full with them." The prime suspect in all this, in the minds of many victims - and some scientists - is what's known as depleted uranium - the radioactive chemical prized by the military for its ability to penetrate armored vehicles. When munitions explode, the substance hits the air as fine dust, easily inhaled. Last month, the Iraqi environment minister blamed the tons of the chemical dropped during the war's "shock and awe" campaign for a surge of cancer cases across the country. However, the Pentagon and U.S. State Department strongly deny this, citing four studies, including one by the World Health Organization, that found levels in war zones not harmful to civilians or soldiers. A U.N. Environmental Program study concurs, but only if spent munitions are cleared away. Returning solders have said that isn't happening. "When tanks exploded, I would handle those tanks, and there was DU everywhere," said Valentin. "This is a big issue." The fierce Iraq winds carry desert sand and dust for miles, said Dixie Lauderdale, who suspects her husband was exposed to at least some depleted uranium. Many vets from the Gulf War blame the chemical used in that conflict for their Gulf War syndrome illnesses. Congress orders study As the controversy rages, Congress has ordered a comprehensive independent study, due in October, of the health effects of depleted uranium exposure on U.S. soldiers and their children. And a "DU bill" - ordering all members of the U.S. military exposed to it be identified and tested - is working its way through Congress. "Basically, we want to get ahead of this curve, and not go through the years of painful denial we went through with Agent Orange that was the legacy of Vietnam," said Rep. Ra£l Grijalva, D-Ariz., a co-sponsor of the bill. "We want an independent agency to do independent testing of our soldiers, and find out what's really going on. These incidents of cancer and illness that all of us are hearing about back in our districts are not just anecdotal - there is a pattern here. And yes, I do suspect DU may be at the bottom of it." What's happening today - growing numbers of sickened soldiers who say they were exposed to it amid firm denials of harm from military brass - almost mirrors the early stages of the Agent Orange aftermath. It took the U.S. military almost two decades to admit the powerful chemical defoliant killed and disabled U.S. troops in the jungles of Vietnam, and to begin compensating them for it. Doctors flabbergasted Whatever it was that struck Jim Lauderdale did a terrifying job of it. Sent to Walter Reed with oral cancer in April 2005, he underwent his first extensive and disfiguring surgery, removing half his tongue to get to tumors in the mouth and throat. A second surgery followed a month later to clear out more of those areas. Five months later, another surgery removed a new neck tumor. Then came heavy chemotherapy and radiation. Shortly after, he had a massive heart attack, undergoing another surgery to place stents in his arteries. Two weeks later, the cancer was back and growing rapidly, forcing a fourth surgery in January 2006. By this time, much of his neck and shoulder tissue was gone, and doctors tried to reconstruct a tongue, using tissue from his wrist. He couldn't swallow, so was fed through a tube into his stomach. Just weeks later, four external tumors appeared on his neck - "literally overnight," his wife said. Suffering severe complications from the chemo drugs, Lauderdale endured 39 radiation treatments, waking up one night bleeding profusely through his burned skin. The day after his radiation ended, new external tumors erupted at the edge of the radiation field, flabbergasting his doctors. "As this aggressive disease grew though chemoradiation, it was determined at this point there was no chance for cure," his oncologist wrote then. By then, the cancer had spread to his lungs and spine and, most frightening of all, "hundreds and thousands" of tumors were erupting all over his upper body, his wife said. "The doctors said they'd never seen anything like it - that this happens in only 1 percent of cases," she said. Efforts to contact his doctors at Walter Reed were unsuccessful, but a leading head-and-neck cancer specialist at the Arizona Cancer Center reviewed the course of Lauderdale's disease. "This a a very wrenching case," said Dr. Harinder Garewal. "This is unusually aggressive behavior for an oral cancer. I would agree it happens in only 1 percent of cases." When oral cancer occurs in nonsmokers and non-drinkers, it tends to be more aggressive, he said. "My feeling is the immune system for some reason can't handle the cancer," he said. Jim Lauderdale died on July 14, 2006, and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Dixie and their two grown children still feel the raw grief of loss, but not anger, she said. "But I am convinced something very wrong is happening over there. Is anyone paying attention to this? Is the cancer ward still full?" she asked. "I would hate to see another whole generation affected like this, but I'm very afraid it will be." Global Research Articles by Carla McClain © Copyright 2005-2007 GlobalResearch.ca Web site engine by Polygraphx Multimedia © Copyright 2005-2007 ***************************************************************** 33 CBS News: Were Nuke Pills Floated Just To Scare Us?, The Skinny Weekend Edition: Readers Smell Something Toxic In About-Face On Iodide - NEW YORK, Oct. 27, 2007 Los Angeles County firefighters battle a fire in a house in the famed "Malibu Colony" in Malibu, Calif., Sunday, Oct. 21, 2007. Malibu was one of the areas where private firefighters for AIG offered services. (AP) Boy, what a cynical bunch we've become. Readers of this week's Skinny generated reams of comments on Monday's column's news that the government was backing away from its post 9/11 plan to distribute anti-radiation pills to residents near nuclear reactors. Responses ranged from those who saw the original plan as a political ploy meant to pump up fear of imaginary terrorists, to those who think the whole thing is silly because if the apocalypse comes, pills won't help much. The story came from USA Today's report that the Bush administration may scrap a plan to give anti-radiation pills to millions of people, five years after Congress ordered that the tablets be made available to anyone living within 20 miles of a nuclear reactor. Congress issued the order based on fears that terrorists could attack a nuclear plant. The once-a-day pills protect the thyroid against ingested radioactive iodine by saturating it with harmless potassium iodide, thus guarding against thyroid cancer following radioactive exposure. Back when the White House was focused on conjuring images of mushroom clouds to sell the Iraq war, it called potassium iodide pills crucial to preventing thyroid cancer. But now that it's looking like we might actually need all those nuclear reactors - plus a whole lot more of them - to power the country, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is arguing against distributing the pills. Commenter brianbwb thought the original plan to distribute the pills was pure political theater. "The fact is that the dissemination of information about stockpiling the pills was part of Bush''s terror campaign, to make the suckers out there think that fictional "terrorists" out there somewhere in the Middle East were "coming to get you", armed with nuclear waste," he wrote. "Now that the scare has worked and is now counter productive to the interests of the power companies'' wish to go nuclear, they backtrack and say 'Oops, we scared the suckers too much, lets back it off a little.'" Meanwhile, commenter chfin5 thought the pill distribution program wasn't such a bad idea, if only the government had stuck to it. "When certain kinds of information comes from the government you just have to learn to 'eat the grass' and 'leave the briers alone,'" chfin5 wrote. "However since some of the government warnings of us being attacked by terrorists with something radioactive say 'when' and not 'if,' I see no reason to doubt them. And for the government to stop making these iodine pills because of some offense to the nuclear power plant plans sure doesn''t make a lot of common sense to me. Go ahead and build your plants! … Anything to get our country self sufficient from the Middle East would be fine and dandy with me." Commenter ridingwoman put a reality check on the whole debate by pointing out that people near nuclear reactors are pretty much doomed if there's a meltdown, pills or no pills. "Having worked many years in a nuclear industry, let me explain something," she wrote. "The pills will do NOTHING to prevent radiation exposure. They are only a way of protecting the thyroid, somewhat. A radiation spill or meltdown or catastrophic failure will be another story entirely. We are bombarded with radiation every day from the sun. Imagine a massive sunburn cooking you all the way through your body, slowly over days. Archive photos from the Chernobyl spill in Russia to see what could happen." Got that, kids? A massive sunburn cooking you all the way through your body, slowly over days. With that image in mind, arguing whether the pill plan was political or not seems a little beside the point. Come to think of it, just about everything seems beside the point. How The Rich Differ From You And Me: The Wildfire Edition Hurricane Katrina horrified America by showing what happens to poor people when disaster strikes. The take away message of the California wildfires is still emerging from the smoke, but one theme has already begun to appear. The California wildfires displayed how wildly differently disasters affect - or more accurately, don't affect - the rich. For the just plain doing-pretty-well, the key to avoiding the incineration of your Southern Californian house seems to be to buy inside one of the new highly planned developments, that include strict firesafe building codes and brush-clearing homeowners associations. Wednesday's column focused on these developments, and how their residents fared better than their neighbors. For example, the Los Angeles Times reported that at Stevenson Ranch, a 5,000-home planned community in Santa Clarita that has emerged unscathed by fire, a 200-foot greenbelt with fire-resistant planting rings the property. Additional buffers of stone and concrete culverts were constructed behind properties adjacent to canyons and other open land. A homeowners association makes sure the area is clear of brush. But for the downright wealthy, insurance companies offer private something extra-special. The Los Angeles Times reports on Firebreak Spray Systems, which partners with the insurance company American International Group Inc. to "protect the mansions of the moneyed." About 2,000 policy holders, who pay premiums of at least $10,000 a year and own homes with a value of at least $1 million, can call up Firebreak and have them rush to the scene to coat their meticulously clipped hedges and rooftops with foam that stops advancing flames. The company is, in a way, the Blackwater of the firefighting business, private contractors hired by those who can afford it to do the jobs everybody else leaves up to the government. The services are not available to just anyone willing to shell out. AIG's Wildfire Protection Unit, part of its Private Client Group, is offered only to homeowners in California's most affluent ZIP codes - including Malibu, Beverly Hills, Newport Beach and Menlo Park - and a dozen Colorado resort communities. Far from being outraged by this trend, some Skinny readers thought it made sense. "Private fire protection is a great idea," wrote random_radar. "If the insurance company is on the hook to pay for your house if it burns down, you can bet they will have the personnel and equipment to save it. If the government is in charge, they just won''t ever quite use your tax money efficiently to save you or your house. People ought to get a clue about the fact that paying their taxes gets them nothing, but private enterprise delivers what you pay for. Did any of the homes insured by AIG burn down? Probably not... " Actually, AIG did lose a few houses, the Los Angeles Times reported, but not many. Another Skinny reader just thought the whole business was entirely too typical. "This may be the perfect example of having it both ways. Our taxes go into that pit in Washington and then comes out in AIG''s pockets, who probably belong to Haliburton, who counts Bush and Cheney among their stockholders. Meanwhile, AIG is collecting from their policyholders too. Don''t you love free enterprise?" We do, but not as much as we love weekends, which is why we wish you a restful one before heading out of here. A NOTE TO READERS: The Skinny is available via e-mail. Click here and follow the directions to register to receive it in your inbox each weekday morning. ©MMVII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 34 Reid: Reid Testifies At Committee Hearing Regarding Nevada Test Site Workers October 23, 2007 Washington, D.C. – Working to secure compensation for Cold War veterans at the Nevada Test Site, U.S. Senator Harry Reid of Nevada testified at the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee’s oversight hearing on the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program (EEOICPA). “There are serious problems with the implementation of EEOICPA, which became law in 2000, that have prevented thousands of former workers at the Nevada Test Site and other nuclear facilities from receiving compensation for work related illnesses, including cancer,” said Reid. “This is an important issue to Nevadans. We must do more to help our Cold War veterans. I am committed to doing all I can to provide them the compensation they deserve and the medical benefits they need. I will not rest until this issue is adequately addressed.” This hearing and Reid’s testimony will push the Department of Labor and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) to improve their procedures for reviewing claims for compensation, and identify ways to provide more sick atomic weapons workers with the compensation they deserve. Reid’s remarks, as prepared for delivery, are below. Statement of Senator Harry Reid Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions EEOICPA: Is the Program Claimant Friendly for Our Cold War Heroes? Thank you Chairman Bingaman for holding this hearing today. Securing compensation for sick atomic weapons workers is something that we’ve been working on together for a long time. There is no doubt that our country has made progress over the past decade. But, the energy employees compensation program is still failing thousands of our Cold War veterans who now have cancer and other illnesses. We must fix this program, and I think this hearing is a step in the right direction. Eight years ago, I joined my colleagues to pass bipartisan legislation to recognize the sacrifices made by atomic weapons workers and help them live with terrible diseases caused by exposure to radiation and other hazardous materials. We passed this law, the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act, to provide workers and their survivors with compensation and medical reimbursement in some cases. Sadly, eight years after EEOICPA was created, I still hear from many Nevadans who have cancer caused by their service on government nuclear weapons programs. They tell me that their sacrifices are still being ignored. I am confident we can begin to find some solutions for them today. Of nearly 117,500 covered applications – covered applications are from applicants whose employment and sicknesses are covered by EEOICPA – fewer than 35,000 have received compensation nationally. That is less than 30 percent. The situation is even worse for atomic weapons workers in Nevada. Fewer than 20 percent of Nevada Test Site workers with qualifying illnesses have received compensation. Chairman Bingaman, I think this program has the right intentions, but it is clearly failing thousands of Americans who helped us win the Cold War. When EEOICPA was crafted, we knew that the Department of Energy did not consistently monitor atomic weapons workers for exposure to radiation. These classified programs were highly secretive, and over the years records have been lost or even thrown away. It is also nearly impossible to estimate radiation exposure from some nuclear tests, and monitoring for certain cancer-causing radionuclides was simply inadequate. Information about nuclear testing is held so tightly, it’s sometimes difficult to verify workers’ stories. And I’ve heard the same terrible stories time after time. For example, workers near ground zero at the Nevada Test Site would be instructed to not wear their dosimeter badges so they could continue working, even after they’ve already received a full year’s dose of radiation. Think about that… the government knew these atomic workers were exposed to cancer-causing materials. And these men were encouraged to – sometimes ordered – to cover up information about their radiation exposure levels. We cannot change what has already happened, but we can right our government’s wrongs. We can give workers and their survivors an easier path towards compensation. EEOICPA made sure that streamlining the process was an option for special classes of claimants. Under this Program, atomic workers can apply for Special Exposure Cohort status. If they receive SEC designation, workers with qualifying cancers are paid benefits without undergoing complicated dose reconstruction. Reconstructing dose is difficult – especially with limited radiation monitoring data and lost records. And we all knew when we passed EEOICPA that there could be tens-of-thousands of nuclear weapons workers who fit in this category. I strongly believe that all Nevada Test Site workers should have SEC status. 928 nuclear tests took place in Nevada – the last one in 1992. Men and women who served at the Test Site after 1963 still have to struggle through the program’s red tape to be considered for compensation for their cancers. Only half of these claims have even received a final decision. NTS workers helped America win the Cold War, and now that we finally have a program to recognize their sacrifices, thousands of sick atomic weapons workers are still being ignored. While I think that NTS workers should receive SEC status, I also recognize that the government’s implementation of the rest of Parts B and E should be drastically improved. One reason we are here today is because there are serious concerns that the existing adjudication process is failing to uphold the statutory mandate that the process be claimant friendly. I am troubled by the lack of quality assurance and transparency of the Labor Department’s claims adjudication procedures. It is unacceptable that a government program of this magnitude and significance has so few quality controls in place. We need to restore faith in the claims adjudication process. A significant obstacle for sick atomic workers is the burden of proof they face to receive compensation. Under EEOICPA, a claimant has the ultimate burden to prove that his or her illness was “at least as likely as not” related to radiation or hazardous materials exposure at work. This might seem like a standard burden; but remember, it is the government and its contractors’ responsibility to maintain employment records and information about the radiation to which workers were exposed. Even with the Labor Department’s assistance in developing their cases, sick claimants ultimately pay the price – if their employment or medical records are insufficient to meet the high burden of proof, or the government lost their records, these workers probably will never receive compensation. I don’t think any of us intended for EEOICPA to be this unforgiving to our Cold War veterans. Workers were placed in harms way by the government, yet they are asked to work through a complex process and shoulder a substantial burden in showing that their cancer or other illnesses were work-related. I think the least we can do is find a way to give sick workers a better chance of meeting this burden so the program actually works in their favor. Recently Labor Secretary Elaine Chao acknowledged the need to improve the processing of EEOICPA claims. She noted that “time is running out” for many families. It is simply taking too long to compensate many workers. Chairman Bingaman, again I appreciate you giving me this opportunity to address the Committee. I think EEOICPA has a good purpose, but it has the potential to be so much more helpful to our nation’s atomic weapons workers. I look forward to working with you and our colleagues to improve EEOICPA and to secure compensation for Cold War veterans in Nevada and throughout our country. Reno Bruce R. Thompson Courthouse & Federal Bldg 400 S. Virginia St, Suite 902 Reno, NV 89501 Phone: 775-686-5750 Fax: 775-686-5757 Las Vegas Lloyd D. George Building 333 Las Vegas Boulevard South, Suite 8016 Las Vegas, NV 89101 Phone: 702-388-5020 Fax: 702-388-5030 Carson City 600 East William St, #302 Carson City, NV 89701 Phone: 775-882-REID (7343) Fax: 775-883-1980 Washington, DC 528 Hart Senate Office Bldg Washington, DC 20510 Phone: 202-224-3542 Fax: 202-224-7327 Toll Free for Nevadans: 1-866-SEN-REID (736-7343) ***************************************************************** 35 ReviewJournal.com: Nellis officials say development's creep threatens base Oct. 27, 2007 Air Warfare Center commander expresses concern about continued ability to operate By VALERIE MILLER REVIEW-JOURNAL Fast-growing development threatens the survival of Nellis Air Force Base and its annual economic impact of $4.2 billion, top Nellis officials believe. One of those officials, Maj. Gen. Michael Worden, says encroaching development threatens the base's existence by making it harder to keep potentially dangerous flights away from neighborhoods. "We are concerned about losing our ability to operate," Worden, the commander of Nellis' Air Warfare Center, told about 125 members of the North Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday. The Air Force facility is already "choked off" by development to the south, and it now faces possible barriers to the north and northwest. That presents tough choices, he said. "I can't let our guys take off over the south and fly over homes with a live bomb. I can, but I won't give them permission," he said. "I can't afford a loose (bolt on the bomb) and live with my conscience." The Air Force base's economic impact, which jumped from $3 billion in fiscal year 2004, is important to many local businesses, Col. Michael Bartley, Nellis' installation commander, said. The base buys construction materials and supplies from local companies. Nellis boosts local hotels and motels, too, because the air base uses them to temporarily house service members. "We also buy fuel, food, parts and electrical supplies, and those are all from local vendors," Bartley said. Also, another 313,000 military retirees live in the valley, many of whom moved to Southern Nevada to be near Nellis and its services. That means Nellis accounts for an active-duty payroll of $850 million a year and another $520 million annual in retiree payroll. The base also accounted for $186 million in job creation in 2006. Growth could derail that economic impact. The University of Nevada, North Las Vegas campus is being built under the air base's flight path, and a high-rise proposal near the Las Vegas Motor Speedway poses another concern. Development at Coyote Springs already forces Nellis pilots to "hit the breaks before they reach California," Worden said. The federal government secured land around Sunrise Mountain to keep the base from being sealed off in the past. This time, at least talks with UNLV are going in the right direction, he said. "For UNLV, we are all for it, but we say, 'Don't build skyscrapers, because we'll be voted out of office in five to 10 years.'" The encroachment of new homes near the base is more likely to make the base close. "Residential is what worries me," Worden said. "We draw some lines. It can't be rampant, typhoon-type growth. If they grow near where we are, when we fly over, it will be noisy. They might have airplanes with bombs on them fly over and they'll have to assess that risk." Contact reporter Valerie Miller at vmiller@businesspress.com or (702) 387-5286. Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2007 ***************************************************************** 36 ReviewJournal.com: Boxer invites Gibbons to speak about Yucca Oct. 27, 2007 By STEVE TETREAULT STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU Jim Gibbons Governor hinted partisan politics may have been a factor in excluding him WASHINGTON -- A Senate chairwoman changed course and invited Gov. Jim Gibbons to speak at a hearing next Wednesday about Yucca Mountain, officials confirmed on Friday. Sen, Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., issued the invitation on Thursday evening, a Gibbons spokeswoman said. It came a day after the Nevada governor complained to Boxer that he was left off a witness list for the hearing. In a letter to Boxer, Gibbons hinted partisan politics may have been a factor in excluding him. The Boxer-led Environment and Publilc Works Committee invited Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto, a Democrat, to speak on behalf of Nevada. Organizers denied that Gibbons was snubbed, but decided to invite the governor to avoid a political mess, according to a Senate official familiar with the matter. Others said prominent Republicans including Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., and senior committee member Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., urged that Gibbons be included. Now that Gibbons has secured an invite, he is examining his schedule for the coming week, which otherwise will be dominated by budget meetings in Carson City, spokeswoman Melissa Subbotin said. "We do have a couple items on our schedule that have been there for quite a while but we will do our best to rearrange those," Subbotin said. "It is a really tough time for us to leave in the middle in the week. "It is such a critical time on the budget process, and that is our No. 1 priority, but we will do everything we can to participate one way or another," Subbotin said. The committee reshuffled its speaker lineup to make room for the Nevada governor, and finally released its witness list Friday. The hearing was organized by Boxer at the request of Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., who has made her opposition to the nuclear waste project a major element of her campaign in Nevada for the Democratic presidential nomination. The meeting will be the first Democrat-assembled examination of the Yucca project since the party took control of the Senate at the beginning of the year. With leading Yucca Mountain critic Harry Reid, D-Nev., as Senate majority leader, the nuclear waste program is expected to face tougher scrutiny. Besides Gibbons, the witness list includes Reid, Ensign, Masto and Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C.; Ward Sproat, Yucca Mountain project director; and representatives from the Environmental Proection Agency and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Also scheduled to speak are Ken Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group, which has been critical of the repository; and James Y. Kerr II, a North Carolina public utilities commissioner representing the pro-repository National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners. Contact Washington Bureau Chief Steve Tetreault at stetreault@stephensmedia.com or (202) 783-1760. Links powered by inform.com Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2007 Stephens Media, LLC Privacy Statement ***************************************************************** 37 ReviewJournal.com: Nuclear revival skirts pesky issue of waste disposal Opinion - GEOFF SCHUMACHER: Oct. 28, 2007 I'm an environmentalist, but not of the self-hating ilk who detests any and all human effects on the earth. Eco-diehards are automatically opposed to most forms of development, industry, technology, large-scale agriculture. For these folks, even many passive forms of outdoor recreation, traditionally linked with environmentalism, are frowned upon. Rather than view environmental questions through a strict ideological lens, a pragmatic approach would be to consider each issue on its merits. Weigh the pros and cons and eliminate the hypocrisy, and you might find that not all development, industry, technology and agriculture is bad. It's possible to hug trees and appreciate the benefits of the industrial revolution at the same time. In this light, nuclear power creates an interesting problem. For environmental ideologues, nuclear power is absolutely out of the question. Nightmare visions of Chernobyl and Three Mile Island eliminate even the remote possibility that nuclear power could ever be an acceptable enterprise. Yet a fairly compelling case can be made that nuclear power is more "green" than traditional methods of generating electricity. Unlike coal and natural gas power plants, nuclear facilities do not generate greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming. What's worse for the environment: global warming or the fairly low risk of a nuclear plant meltdown? It's a question that some pragmatically inclined environmentalists are asking these days. The Bush administration is pushing for construction of new nuclear power plants, and the nuclear industry, which hasn't built a new plant in years, is playing the trendy green card in an effort to sway a skeptical public. Earlier this month, the Nuclear Energy Institute opportunistically came out in support of federal legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, arguing, of course, that nuclear power is the best method to make this happen and is therefore deserving of billions in government subsidies. Last month, the authors of the best-selling book "Freakonomics" wrote an essay for The New York Times magazine (reprinted in last Sunday's Review-Journal) suggesting that nuclear power is poised to make a big comeback -- if Hollywood doesn't resort to a new round of fear-mongering. The anti-nuke movement of the late '70s was fueled, they point out, by the popular Jane Fonda movie "The China Syndrome." But the Achilles' heel of all this newfound enthusiasm for nuclear power's greenness should be particularly evident to Nevadans. What about the waste? Conveniently, the "Freakonomics" authors, Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt, make only a passing mention of the waste problem. But the reality is that the thousands of tons of deadly radioactive material generated by nuclear plants seriously diminish the "green" tag. To hear nuclear advocates talk these days, you'd think the waste issue had been solved, that it's old news not worthy of being brought to the fore. The NEI's lengthy "policy position" on greenhouse gases, which highlighted nuclear power's absence of air pollution, failed to acknowledge the counterbalancing solid pollutants created by the fission process. Nevadans know better. After all, Nevada is where the nuclear industry and its lapdogs in the U.S. Department of Energy intend to bury the waste. And Nevadans know that plans to dump the waste beneath Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, are laced with problems and risks. Managers of the proposed nuclear waste repository have done a miserable job over the years of building public confidence in their ability to safely store the waste for centuries. Further, Nevadans know that transporting all this waste through 43 states is fraught with peril from accidents and terrorists. For many years, the plan was to bury a total of 77,000 metric tons of radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain. But the DOE recently revealed that it wants to build a dump that can hold 135,000 metric tons of waste. As Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., noted at the time, "Doubling the size of Yucca Mountain will only double the danger." But think about it: If the nuclear industry succeeds in building several dozen more plants, it will need even more storage space in Nevada for its radioactive refuse. Basically, it would never stop coming. One could argue that nuclear power -- even considering the waste -- is better for the environment than coal-fired power plants that befoul the air, create acid rain and accelerate global warming. That certainly is the argument gaining favor with the likes of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. Not being irrationally afraid of nuclear power, I have been tempted by this argument in recent months. But for those pondering this position, don't conveniently forget that the waste issue remains unsolved, and that it is not a minor problem. Experts have yet to dream up anything more sensible than burying the waste in a porous, earthquake-prone mountain. And they still haven't come up with a convincing plan to keep the deadly waste out of contact with living beings for at least 10,000 years. One more thing: Critics of renewable energies such as solar, wind and geothermal typically complain that these projects require massive taxpayer subsidies to be economically viable. But nuclear plants are no different, requiring the same huge subsidies to get off the ground. If American taxpayers are going to spend billions to increase the nation's power capacity, why not invest the money in renewable projects that don't have nuclear's inherent drawbacks? On balance, nuclear may beat coal, but solar beats nuclear hands down. Geoff Schumacher (gschumacher@ reviewjournal.com) is Stephens Media's director of community publications. He is the author of "Sun, Sin & Suburbia: An Essential History of Modern Las Vegas" and, coming in February, "Howard Hughes: Power, Paranoia & Palace Intrigue." His column appears Sunday. Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2007 Stephens Media, LLC Privacy Statement ***************************************************************** 38 Sydney Morning Herald: Speculators aid uranium price - www.smh.com.au Christopher Donville and Miriam Steffens October 29, 2007 THE price of uranium has risen for three consecutive weeks as speculators rekindled their interest in the raw material in nuclear reactor fuel. The metallic element rose $US4, or 5 per cent, to $US84 a pound, said TradeTech LLC, a Denver-based publisher of price assessments. The equivalent of at least 350,000 pounds were sold in just two transactions, the company said on Friday in a weekly report. "Renewed buying interest on the part of speculators and hedge funds is contributing to the upward price pressure," TradeTech said. "However, this demand remains predominantly discretionary." Purchases by hedge funds and other non-consumers of uranium helped lift the spot price to a record $US138 a pound in June. But the price tumbled to as low as $US75 by the end of September as speculators sold the material to free cash, and some nuclear power operators temporarily withdrew from the market. Deutsche Bank analysts said late last month that the price decline was overdone and posed an "opportunity to re-enter the uranium space". E. Peter Farmer, president of the Canadian speculative uranium buyer Uranium Participation Corp, said last week he expected a "continuing strong market, but a more rational market". On September 28, his company bought 217,230 kilograms of uranium hexafluoride, of UF6, at the equivalent uranium price of about $US75 a pound. "We thought $US75 represented the current floor price," Mr Farmer said. He expects the volume-weighted spot price of uranium to average $US90 to $US110 a pound next year. Shares of Cameco, the world's largest supplier of uranium, rose $C1.65 to $C48.70 in Toronto on Friday. Its chief executive, Gerald Grandey, said last month prices were likely to rebound to more than $US100 next year. Rio Tinto's chief financial officer, Guy Elliott, said at a uranium presentation in May that the material presented one of the company's "most exciting short-term growth stories". The miner wants to almost triple production to 20,000 tonnes a year by 2020. Rio and BHP Billiton control the three biggest uranium deposits in Australia. Rio's stock jumped $2.57 to $107 in Sydney on Friday, while BHP shares closed $1.02 higher at $45.76. The Howard Government signed a nuclear pact with Moscow last month, allowing the companies to sell uranium to Russia. It has also paved the way for $250 million of uranium shipments to China, and agreed to exports to India. with Bloomberg Copyright © 2007. The Sydney Morning Herald. ***************************************************************** 39 AU: The Age: Dispute flares over nuclear dump site - www.theage.com.au Elder Sammy Sambo of the Milwayi clan. Photo: Bryan Obrien Lindsay Murdoch, Tennant Creek October 29, 2007 ABORIGINAL owners of land surrounding the proposed site of Australia's first national nuclear dump have changed their minds about allowing trucks carrying waste to enter, as bitter argument rages among indigenous groups in the area about the Federal Government's plans. "I won't sign any agreement because my mob disagree with building the dump there," says Sammy Sambo, senior elder of the Milwayi clan, which owns the only road to the site on Muckaty cattle station, 120 kilometres north of Tennant Creek. "We are upset about the way those government fellas have gone about trying to convince us and are confused and worried about what to do next." Senior elders of two Aboriginal clans owning parts of Muckaty have told The Age they have not been properly consulted, contradicting federal Science Minister Julie Bishop who said last month that potentially affected Aboriginal groups had had "adequate opportunity to express their views". Ms Bishop also said that nomination of the site "accords with the wishes of the traditional Aboriginal owners of that land". Milwayi elder Janet Thompson said that most of those present at a recent meeting to discuss an offer of $2 million to allow trucks carrying waste to cross their land did not know what was being proposed. Many of the elders do not speak English as their first language and were not offered translators. "I walked out," Ms Thompson said. "The process wasn't fair." Mr Sambo said he and other elders had second thoughts because "they tell us the dump will only be for low-level waste, like gowns and blood from hospitals. But we are worried because we hear it will eventually become a dump for nuclear waste from around the world." Under a deal secretly negotiated by the Northern Land Council, the 70-member Ngapa clan will receive more than $10 million from the Commonwealth for allowing 5000 cubic metres of nuclear waste to be stored on their land for more than 300 years. In its only public comment, the Ngapa clan said in May the money would "create a future for our children with education, jobs and funds for our outstation and transport". Dianne Stokes, senior elder of the Yapa Yapa clan, which owns land on Muckaty, said the dump proposal had put enormous pressure on clan groups, most of whom were unhappy about it. Ms Stokes was among a group of Muckaty elders taken to Lucas Heights when the deal was being negotiated in 2006. "After four days in Sydney I fell for it ? I said I supported the dump," she said. "They showed us videos about how safe it would be." But Ms Stokes said she became strongly opposed to it when she began to think: "Well, if it is so safe, why don't they put it in Sydney?" Experts are studying the site to see if it is scientifically suitable for the dump, which would store spent fuel from Australian research reactors and waste from around the country. Natalie Wasley, an environmentalist with the Beyond Nuclear Initiative in Alice Springs, said that although the Northern Land Council, an indigenous organisation, nominated Muckaty on behalf of traditional owners "there is definitely not unanimous agreement". Copyright © 2007. The Age Company Ltd. ***************************************************************** 40 Bradenton.com: Tallevast at a crossroad 10/28/2007 | By DONNA WRIGHT dwright@bradenton.com TALLEVAST -- Rep. Bill Galvano has sent Lockheed Martin Corp. a detailed plan to relocate the entire town of Tallevast, which now sits atop an underground plume of toxic waste that covers the village and more than 200 acres. "We need to move these people away from the contamination," Galvano said. "The more that is known about the contamination and what is required in addressing the cleanup, the easier it is to see the big picture." For Robin Darville, who suffered another migraine Friday as crews dug more monitoring wells in front of Mount Tabor church, relocation is past due. "Why is it taking so long?" Darville asked as she tried to control the seizures that were causing her arms to shake. The contamination beneath Tallevast has been traced to an underground leak at a beryllium plant Lockheed once owned. Because the spill was discovered under Lockheed's ownership, the defense company is responsible for cleaning up the pollution under the state's supervision. "I sense all around that the longer this issue lingers, the more willing all the parties are to do what is necessary to come to a fair and reputable solution," Galvano said. Galvano's letter to Lockheed lobbyists Mike Huey and Gary Robinson, dated Oct. 10, calls for Lockheed to bear most of the cost of relocation with an unidentified developer building a new community on a property selected by Tallevast residents. In return, Galvano wants Tallevast residents to drop their property damage and personal injury lawsuits against Lockheed and others. A Lockheed spokeswoman said Galvano's plan is under consideration. "We are currently reviewing the proposal and will get back to Representative Galvano in due course," said Lockheed spokeswoman Gail Rymer. "We remain committed to our partnership with the Tallevast community and will continue to invest in the environmental, health and economic needs of the community." Huey and Robinson, members of the Tallahassee law firm of Gray/Robinson, could not be reached for comment. Attorneys and consultants representing Tallevast also are considering Galvano's plan, said Laura Ward and Wanda Washington, president and vice president of FOCUS, a residents advocacy group. "We want out," Ward said. "Lockheed's remedial plan calls for drilling more wells and putting in miles of ditches through the community. All of that digging is going to increase exposure." 'Poison is in us' The little town dates back to the early 1890s, when the Tallevast family built a village of shacks known as the "Quarters" to house black turpentine workers and their family. Today, more than 85 families call Tallevast home. Most residents can trace their roots back to those workers who drew the sap from the pine trees. The village today is surrounded by expanding commercial and industrial development, most of it linked to the neighboring Sarasota/Bradenton International Airport. Donna Wright, health and social services reporter, can be reached at 745-7049. ***************************************************************** 41 de.indymedia.org: Nuclear waste transport across shonky bridges Diet Simon 28.10.2007 11:32 Themen: Atom Militarismus Weltweit Ökologie Heavy German nuclear waste transport across shonky bridges Between 50 and more than 100 people demonstrated in north Germany on Saturday against an impending heavy nuclear waste transport from Rheinsberg to Lubmin from Rheinsberg to Lubmin across shonky railway bridges. Local opponents say more than 100 people walked in procession through the centre of Greifswald, whose population is roughly 55,000, including about 11,000 students of the traditional University of Greifswald. Police said the demonstration went off quietly. Speakers at the rally were from Rheinsberg, from the county of Lüchow-Dannenberg, which has probably Germany’s best-known nuclear dump at Gorleben, and from the port city of Rostock. Protest clowns from Rostock added a splash of colour to a grey autumn day. Accompanied by rolling and clattering poison barrels and drummers the demo made a lot of noise as it wended through the town. “For most of the people watching it was probably the first they learned about radioactive waste to be rolling through the area in the next few days and to be ‘interim’-stored here forever,†wrote the “Anti Atom Initiative Greifswald" at  http://de.indymedia.org/2007/10/197931.shtml. Explaining their reasons for attempts to block the consignment, the group says: “As part of the endless shuffling around of nuclear waste it appears tempting to make this extreme northeast of Germany a nuclear dumping ground. “In past years there has been relatively little protest here against the expansion of the former Lubmin power station into an interim dump. “West Pomerania is one of the structurally weakest regions of Germany and the creation of jobs, no matter how few, has up to now always worked as a beat-opponents-to-death-with argument.†On Tuesday a special 24-axle rail car brought in from neighbouring Austria for the job is to take the 110-tonne, 11-metre-long reactor pressure vessel of a shut-down Soviet-built power station at Rheinsberg, about 75 km north-west of Berlin, to an interim storage near Greifswald close to the Baltic Coast, 240 kms north of the German capital. For the 200-km rail trip the vessel will be clad in 15 centimetres of steel to stop radiation getting out. Opponents of the consignment intend to hold a vigil while it is going on in Kemnitz, a village of 1,200 8 km east of Greifswald. Protesters, police and media will be watching and guarding the route, among them Dietmar Woidke, the Social Democrat environment minister of the state of Brandenburg, which surrounds Berlin. Most people living near it are glad to see the pressure vessel, the former heart piece of the reactor, leave their area for an “interim†dump, the Zwischenlager Nord, consisting of eight halls in Lubmin near Greifswald in the neighbouring state of Mecklenburg-West Pomerania – if protestors don’t stop the consignment. "Our lawyers are looking into the legal possibilities," notes Jan Becker of the "ContrAtom" group. Opponents fear that the transport will run incalculable risks because decrepit bridges in Lindow (Ostprignitz-Ruppin) couldn’t take the weight. "Some bridge bolts are rotted through, in some places screws are loose," says Bernd Ebeling, a building engineer and spokesman of an anti-nuclear group, who inspected parts of the 200-km run. The railway corporation rejects this as unfounded panic stirring. The route is in order and poses no risks “or the heavy transport wouldn’t have been approvedâ€, says a spokeswoman. She says because of the enormous weight two bridges near Lindow have been additionally strengthened and the route wouldn’t be checked again after the warnings of the nuclear opponents – “there’s no reason for itâ€. Punctually at 11 a.m on Tuesday the train would roll out of the compound in Rheinsberg, the spokeswoman says, and arrive at the Lubmin dump in the late evening. That schedule is also assumed by the power company Energiewerke Nord GmbH in Lubmin, which since 1995 has been taking apart the first nuclear power station of the former East Germany . The 70-megawatt teaching and experimental reactor by the Stechlin Lake started operating in 1966. It was taken off the grid in 1990 because of serious safety concerns. By 2012 the operating compound is to be taken out of the jurisdiction of nuclear law. The disassembly has reached the sensitive zone. Inside the vessel now being transported the uranium fuel rods once unfolded their incredible power. Originally experts wanted to cut up the steel colossus. But that would have taken too long and cost too much. The environment ministry says 400 million euros are earmarked for the shut-down. "The high technical and financial outlay that has to be made just for disassembling the relatively small nuclear power station near Rheinsberg again underscores that atomic power is not an energy form pointing to the future,†says Minister Dietmar Woidke. The nuclear opponents also criticise that there is no concept for dealing with the dangerous waste. Experts say it will take about 70 years for the radiation of the pressure vessel to recede enough for it to be used again – for whatever. That is one of the points the environment protesters will be making along the rail route. “We’ll be there,†promises Dirk Seifert of the "Robin Wood" action group. So will the police, whose local spokesperson, Ariane Feierbach, says, “We’re readyâ€. gorleben — möchtegern blockierer ***************************************************************** 42 Carlsbad Current-Argus - NMED: Expect six figure penalty for errant drum By Kyle Marksteiner Article Launched: 10/26/2007 09:21:16 PM MDT Ron Curry, New Mexico Environment Department Secretary, discusses issues at a community meeting held Thursday at the Carlsbad Library Annex CARLSBAD ? Expect a six figure fine for the errant drum, New Mexico Environment Department Secretary Ron Curry said Thursday. Curry and several of his staff members attended a community meeting at the Carlsbad Library Annex. In the summer, a waste drum containing a small amount of liquid was mistakenly delivered to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad. On Aug. 3 Curry ordered the drum's removal, and state officials said the Department of Energy could expect a penalty. At Thursday's meeting, he was asked to provide an update on the expected penalty. "We're working on it," Curry said. "A penalty will be issued. I've talked to folks in Washington about it and James (Bearzi) has talked to Dr. (Dave) Moody about it." Moody is the Department of Energy's Carlsbad Field Office manager. Bearzi is the Environment Department's Hazardous Waste Bureau Chief. Extra effort was being made to make sure the penalty was fair, Curry said, pausing. "It will be six figures," he said. Thursday's meeting was sparsely attended ? state officials and local staff members with the Environment Department outnumbered others in attendance. There did seem to be some measure of olive-branch extending going on between the NMED and local officials present, including Rep. Vernon Asbill, R-Carlsbad. In the past, Asbill and some southeastern New Mexico officials have criticized Curry's decision to order the drum's removal. While he didn't indicate approval of the decision Thursday, Asbill did praise the state for the way the organization handled the matter. "If anyone was ever worried about safety, I think this is a prime example," he said. "It was overkill, but it was overkill for the protection of the community. I commend the department for their safety consciousness." Curry returned the favor. "I just want to recognize everybody at the WIPP organization and Carlsbad," he said, noting that he appreciated both the efforts in the drum retrieval and the updates given to the state. "It was overall superb in the way they responded to that." Curry also later thanked Asbill for helping move along the process in getting the natatorium at Carlsbad High School finished, a process that involved the NMED. Asbill, Curry said, made a "very productive call." "We worked toward a solution. That's the way government is supposed to work," Curry said. Curry said the goal of such town hall meetings was to get out of the main corridor of Albuquerque, Las Cruces and Santa Fe. He then turned the floor over to his deputy secretary, Cindy Padilla. "It is really great for the environment department to get out to the local communities and have an opportunity to have a real conversation," she said. Padilla outlined the Environment Department's mission and programs and then introduced the heads of several of her agencies who would make presentations. The meeting wasn't just about WIPP, but it did come up first. Bearzi included an outline of upcoming WIPP developments, including an expected permit renewal application. "The permit was issued in 1999, so we will be getting a permit application no later than May 2009," he said. "Folks with DOE and Carlsbad have already begun working with our agency." The agency expects to see some changes within the permit, Bearzi said. "After that there are some other big issues, like what to do with tank waste and panel closure," he said. Padilla noted that Bearzi was one of several state officials recognized by Rep. John Heaton, D-Carlsbad, for his efforts last year in the remote-handled waste permitting process. The staff did a good job working with people from different parts of the state with different viewpoints about WIPP, she said. She also praised Asbill for attending the meeting, noting that not all state officials have done so. Asbill also later asked why his bill allowing crop dusters to have above ground storage tanks at their landing facilities was vetoed by Gov. Bill Richardson. He was told the state received feedback that some parts of the bill might have been contrary to federal law. Asbill also spoke on behalf of the oil and gas industry regarding some recent changes related to the industry. Members of the audience asked questions about disposal of waste from restaurants and other facilities. Tom Skibitski, the environment department's DOE Oversight Bureau Chief, delivered a short presentation indicating that there have not been radiation releases related to WIPP. Storage Tank Bureau Geologist Manager Steve Reuter talked about the thousands of storage tanks across the state, all of which are checked once every 15 months. "We don't have the romance of WIPP," he said. "But we make up for it in sheer numbers." ***************************************************************** 43 The Hindu: Uranium isotope ratios are not invariant, researchers show Saturday, October 27, 2007 : 1035 Hrs Sci. & Tech. CHAMPAIGN: For years, the ratio of uranium’s two long-lived isotopes, U-235 and U-238, has been considered invariant, despite measurements made in the mid-1970s that hinted otherwise. Now, with improved precision from state-of-the-art instrumentation, researchers at the University of Illinois unequivocally show this ratio actually does vary significantly in Earth materials,according to Eurekalert, the news service of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The new findings are in line with recent findings in other high-mass isotope systems – such as thallium or mercury – that had been assumed to be invariant. Additionally, the new measurements “could represent the first evidence of the nuclear field shift found in nature,” said U. of I. graduate student Charles J. Bopp, who led the study. What, exactly, causes the variance is not yet clear, though, Bopp said. There are two basic types of uranium ore deposits: magmatic, which develop due to hydrothermal effects; and sedimentary, which develop by chemical reduction of uranium in groundwater in subsurface aquifers. In 1976, scientists George Cowan and Hans Adler analyzed gas mass spectrometry results of uranium hexafluoride (before artificial isotopic enrichment processes took place) derived from uranium ores around the world. This assessment revealed a slight offset in the distribution of the ratio of U-235 to U-238, with magmatic-type deposits having on average higher U-235 percentage weight and sandstone-type deposits having lower. However, the precision of individual analyses remained approximately 3 per mil (3 parts per thousand) while the average offset between deposit types was less than this. With the higher precision now obtainable in the UI geochemistry laboratory, Bopp and UI geology professor Craig Lundstrom have observed the same offset between uranium ores from different geologic settings. The researchers used a technique called multiple-collector inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry to measure the ratio of U-235 to U-238 in three sandstone-type and three magmatic-type uranium ores provided by the Smithsonian Institution. “Repeated analysis of the ore samples shows the sandstone-type ores to be consistently depleted in U-235 relative to magmatic-type ores by approximately 1 per mil, which is a significant amount of variation,” said Bopp, who will present the findings at next week’s annual meeting of the Geologic Society of America. The observed depletion of U-235 is most likely the result of a nuclear field shift effect as isotopes partition between the water and the reduced uranium ore mineral, Bopp said. But what uranium reduction process – biotic or abiotic – is responsible is not yet clear. “We can’t parse that apart at this stage,” Bopp said. “We observe a depletion, and we know there are microbes present in these types of deposits, but we can’t say for sure who’s doing what without a much more in-depth study of a single locality.” Copyright © 2007, The Hindu. ***************************************************************** 44 Boston Globe: Land more tainted than first thought - Report on Arsenal site complicates shift to state By Christina Pazzanese, Globe Correspondent | October 28, 2007 Contamination at an 11.91-acre parcel on Watertown's Arsenal Street is far worse than previously thought, according to a new study that examined a site once used by the US Army to burn depleted uranium. Contaminants, including lead, heavy metals, and PCBs, were found in the soil at higher concentrations and in different locations than had been documented, complicating the planned transfer of the property known as the General Services Administration land from the federal government to the state Department of Conservation and Recreation. "We're discussing the appropriate course of action and the possibility it'll ever become a DCR property," said the state agency's commissioner, Rick Sullivan. In the lengthy report from GEI Consultants Inc. of Woburn, and released by the DCR to state legislators earlier this month, residual traces of uranium, petroleum compounds, metals, and other substances were found in the soil, surface water, and sediment. The land is under the control of the US Army Corps of Engineers, which is legally required by the state Department of Environmental Protection to clean up existing contaminants in preparation for the property to be turned over to the DCR. The department has hoped to convert the land, once it's deemed sufficiently safe, into a public recreation spot, provided the parcel is handed over in a condition that allows for all types of activities, not just a limited array. Saying he has not yet seen the complete DCR study, Mark Anderson, an Army Corps spokesman, said he could not comment on whether new information contained in the report will prompt the Corps to perform additional cleanup of the site, or whether it will be required by the state to do so. Prior to the release of the DCR-funded report, An derson said that the Corps met all of the legal requirements for site cleanup, and is not legally obligated to do more. Though the department is still interested in acquiring the land, Sullivan estimates a total site cleanup would cost in the "multimillion-dollar range," something the department does not have the funds to pay for, he said. Susan Falkoff, a former town councilor and longtime activist involved in overseeing the Watertown Arsenal cleanup, said although she's concerned about the study findings and wants to know how these contaminants were missed in previous studies, she believes the site could still become park land if the Corps is held accountable by the DEP. "I'm not prepared to give up on this property," said Falkoff. The fenced-off property includes some wetlands and contains four vacant sheds and a guardhouse. It was used by the Army to store materials and burn depleted uranium from the 1920s until 1968 in connection with the Watertown Arsenal. The federal government's General Services Administration took over the site in 1968 and has used the land for storage, although the Watertown Police Department once operated a firing range in one of the sheds for an unknown period of time, the report said. Christina Pazzanese can be reached via e-mail at cpazzanese@globe.com. © Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company. ***************************************************************** 45 Wigan Today: MP lands £110,000 nuclear job - A Wigan MP is to be paid £110,000 a year as an adviser to one of the world's largest nuclear companies. Ian McCartney, who left the government last June, will act as senior adviser to managers at Fluor Corporation, a US multinational with close ties to George W Bush and the Republican party. Fluor, in partnership with Toshiba, the Japanese electronics giant, is on a shortlist of four seeking to win a contract worth about £18bn for decommissioning Sellafield nuclear power station. It donated £5,100 to the Labour Party in April this year. Mr McCartney told the Evening Post that he will provide advice on environmental and economic issues, and employment relations. He said that he had the backing of the trade unions to take up the post. He insisted that the job would not affect his constituency workload. According to the MPs' register of interests, annual payments of up to £115,000 from Fluor will go through a company called Aim & Aim, which Mr McCartney set up two weeks ago. He and his wife Ann are the sole directors. The company also pays the salary of Mr McCartney's Westminster assistant, who is from Wigan. Mike Winstanley, the leader of Wigan's Tories, rounded on the Makerfield MP and accused him of hypocrisy for purporting to be a socialist while pocketing a six-figure salary from a multinational corporation. He said: "I remember when Mr McCartney used to go on about being against the nuclear programme and against former ministers taking plush advisory jobs like this. But now the worm seems to have turned. "I think he really should have stopped the pretence of being a socialist when Tony Blair's Labour Party came into power in 1997. I believe people have lost faith in him and his party and this is just another example. It will be interesting to see if, after Mr McCartney's advice, this company manages to get the contract to decommission Sellafield." Fluor employs over 1,800 people in the UK and more than 35,000 around the world. In August it announced that it was building two new nuclear power stations in the US with Toshiba. Fluor's worldwide headquarters is in Texas, President Bush's backyard, and its president of global public affairs is an active Republican in California. Its senior vice-president for government relations was formerly an assistant to two Republican congressmen and the company has backed the president's party's candidates financially in the past. Fluor posted a turnover of £6.89bn last year. But Mr McCartney dismissed the apparent political divide, saying much of his role will be to advise the company on best practice in environmental and economic practices and employment relations. He said: "I have taken the position with the full blessing of the unions and I will not be a lobbyist. The Sellafield contract will be going through a completely open process and I am not involved in that. "I have been a member of the governing party for 10 years and not taken a paid position until now. It absolutely will not affect the job I do for Makerfield. I've been called a workaholic more than once. I'm proud to work a seven-day week for my constituency and this will not change." Last Updated: 26 October 2007 4:51 PM All rights reserved ©2007 Johnston Press Digital Publishing ***************************************************************** 46 Gallup Independent: Udall lambastes BIA; Congressman: Agency has failed to uphold trust responsibility to tribe October 26, 2007: By Kathy Helms Diné Bureau WINDOW ROCK ? Though the Navajo Nation takes in portions of three states and their congressional leaders seldom hesitate to champion causes when it comes to doling out Navajo resources, only Rep. Jim Matheson of Utah and Rep. Tom Udall of New Mexico stood up for the Navajo people this week at a hearing in Washington. Matheson and Udall have worked extensively to amend the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act to compensate Navajo uranium workers and victims of atomic testing, and their concern was obvious when they spoke Tuesday to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on the legacy of contamination and abuse brought on by federal government in the years uranium mining was in full swing across Navajoland. ?It?s interesting if you think about the environment in which all this started back in the 1940s when uranium fever really swept this country. Congress passed something called the Atomic Energy Act in the ?40s and created the Atomic Energy Commission. By one estimate, Americans went out and bought 35,000 Geiger counters in 1953 alone,? Matheson said. ?Native Americans became a big part of the effort to look for uranium supplies because of their knowledge of the land. But what should also be noted, back in the 1940s, is even then the government knew that folks were at risk involved in this activity. ?A U.S. Public Health researcher named Henry Doyle found in 1949 that Navajo workers were not given pre-employment exams and there were no medical programs for miners in those days. Adverse health effects to miners were already of concern at the time, to say nothing of the risks to the public and others in the Navajo Nation,? he said. Matheson, son of a downwinder who lived in southern Utah during nuclear weapons testing at Nevada Test Site, said his father died when he was 61 of multiple myleoma. ?I have worked with Representative Udall extensively on looking at the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act and looking at the ways we ought to be amending that act and expanding it. The important thing about the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act is not necessarily the compensation, but it?s the acknowledgment on the part of the federal government that it did something wrong,? he said. ?Back in this euphoria of the ?40s and ?50s when the Atomic Energy Commission and uranium fever took over this country, a lot of mistakes were made. Folks in southern Utah were referred to by the Atomic Energy Commission as a ?low-use segment? of our population. For those of us who had families there, we didn?t really agree with that statement, much as the Navajo Nation doesn?t agree with that as well.? Matheson and Udall have stepped forward in an effort to see that some of the mistakes of the past are rectified. Following presentations by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Energy, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Indian Health Service and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, members of the House Oversight Committee, chaired by Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and Udall were allowed to question representatives of the federal agencies. New information Stirred by information presented by members of the Navajo Nation regarding contaminated land and water sources, abandoned uranium mines, and homes built of radioactive materials, Udall turned his attention to the BIA and its role in overseeing Indian tribes. Jerry Gidner, director of the BIA, in his presentation to the committee, said the Office of Surface of Mining and the Department of Interior, in cooperation and with some assistance from BIA, did close numerous abandoned mines on Navajo and remediated physical safety hazards. ?BIA has been working for some time negotiating with the Navajo Nation, the Hopi Nation, and EPA on what to do about the Tuba City landfill, which has been contaminated by radionuclides from the Tuba City (uranium mill) site,? Gidner said. ?What we understand is that, over time, mine tailings were used in the Tuba City area. Over time, some of them made their way into the Tuba City landfill. We are remediating that landfill at present. Our role in these remediation efforts has been really very limited,? he said. ?And although we lack specific expertise in cleaning up uranium mines or uranium mill tailings, we do stand in position, ready to cooperate with the other federal agencies, with the Navajo Nation, and with anybody else that we need to, to advance this issue.? Udall asked Gidner, ?You?re the head of BIA, right? You?re very familiar with the trust responsibility that the federal government has to tribes, I?m sure.? Gidner responded in the affirmative. ?As you know, the trust responsibility is something that has existed for a very, very long period of time. The BIA is at the front of that, of looking out for the tribes. The trust responsibility was built around the idea that there were language difficulties and cultural difficulties, and the federal government was going to be out there looking out for the tribes,? Udall said. Trust responsibility ?When you sit here today and listen to this first panel (Navajo) and hear this panel (feds) talk, how do you feel about the fulfillment of the trust responsibility? Do you think that you?ve fulfilled the trust responsibility of the federal government? How do you feel about that?? he asked. Gidner responded, ?I think that?s hard to say ... ? Udall, agitated at the response, interrupted. ?Hard to say? I would hope you?d be outraged! I would hope that you would stand up and say, ?We?re supposed to be protecting these people. We?re supposed to be out there, on the line.? ?Have you asked any of these agencies to put money in their budget? Have you asked them to put money in their budget to remedy these contamination and cleanup problems of radioactive homes as the chairman has talked about?? ?No,? Gidner said. ?You know what, I can?t believe what I?m hearing,? Udall said. ?Tell me if this is really true. This just absolutely amazes me. The BIA staff told the committee staff, our staff here, that you have no responsibility with respect to any aspect of this issue. That?s the position of your agency? This is the agency on the front line for trust responsibility. Is that the position of the BIA?? Gidner told him, ?I would disagree with that broad of a statement. But I would say with regard to this issue, I think you need to travel back in time. This started happening during the development of the nuclear weapons program, continued through the Cold War, and I don?t know what BIA?s role was ...? Again, Udall interrupted. ?Sir, wasn?t there a trust responsibility back during the nuclear weapons program? I thought the trust responsibility went back to the treaty era. We heard Mr. (George) Arthur say the treaty with the Navajo Nation was in 1868. ?So we?ve had 150 years there, where there?s a trust responsibility. Have you all fulfilled it? Do you feel you have fulfilled the trust responsibility to the Navajo Tribe with what you?ve heard today?? Gidner said, ?Well, I?ll return my previous answer, and I?d like to explain if I could. I think it depends, because the trust responsibility is not the responsibility only of the BIA, it?s the responsibility of the entire federal government.? Udall said, however, that it was the BIA that was on the line. ?You?re out there on the Navajo Reservation. A lot of these agencies don?t have people there on the ground.? ?Nope, that?s true,? Gidner said. That being the case, Udall said he interpreted the trust responsibility to be ?your folks on the ground. They contact you. They say, ?People are living out here in radioactive homes. There?s serious contamination.? What is your agency doing about budget issues? What are you doing to aggressively take care of this? Where was the BIA?? he asked. Gidner told him, ?When this began happening, we have to remember, the United States was gearing up its nuclear weapons program ? and I just think we should all wonder about that. ?What would have happened if BIA, at that time, had said, ?Sorry, you can?t mine uranium from the Navajo Nation?? I think we?d still be having this hearing today, with all due respect, congressman. I don?t think BIA raising the trust responsibility argument would have gotten us very far,? Gidner said. Growing more frustrated, Udall said, ?Well, you know what the BIA could have done, sir? You know what the BIA could have done? My father has been involved in this issue for 35 years with a lawsuit and eventually got a law passed by Congress because those uranium miners were treated as guinea pigs. ?The federal government knew they were working in mines that were dangerous. They knew that they were going to get cancer. And guess what? The entire federal government is just like all of you sitting here. ?Oh, you know ... ,? going along merrily. ?If the BIA had spoken up then and said, ?We have innocent people working in uranium mines and they are going down, based on scientific evidence, and based on the European experience where there were specific causes of lung cancer and you?re going to have people die ? if one agency had stood up and said that, maybe, maybe, we would have prevented all of this tragedy and all of these folks here who have lost loved ones and breadwinners and it has put them further into poverty. ?Maybe that would have been prevented. But your version of the trust responsibility is what? I don?t understand it. What is your version of the trust responsibility? Why haven?t you been out there, saying something about this? I give up, Mr.Chairman,? Udall said. Friday October 26, 2007 All contents property of the Gallup Independent. Any duplication or republication requires consent of the Gallup Independent. Please send the Gallup Independent feedback on this website and the paper in general. Send questions or comments to gallpind@cia-g.com ***************************************************************** 47 MyWestTexas.com: Waste Control gets draft license to store radioactive byproducts Ruth Campbell Midland Reporter-Telegram 10/27/2007 Company plans to build addition to Andrews County landfill. Cost has not been determined yet. Waste Control Specialists based in Andrews County has gotten the green light from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to store byproduct material from uranium mining and milling. This is one of two low-level radioactive waste licenses the company has pending with the Austin-based agency. The other, expected in the next couple of weeks, would allow Waste Control to dispose of low-level radioactive waste. With the draft byproduct license, Vice President of Community Relations Tom Jones said plans are to build an additional landfill just north of the existing facility. The new facility will store waste from the Fernald, Ohio, nuclear production facility. Waste Control has 3,776 containers from Fernald, stored in half-inch thick steel tanks that are 6 1/2 feet high and 6 feet in diameter and weigh 20,000 pounds each. This waste has been sitting in storage on site for two years. "Right now we're storing them on specially designed pads north of our existing landfill," Jones said. The pads are "real thick asphalt, curved and sloped in the spill control area so we can sample water from any rainfall event. They had to be specially designed because of the weight (of the containers)," Jones said. The entire Waste Control site is on a 14,000-acre ranch the company purchased in 1993-94, Jones said. The permitted portion is 1,340 acres. It currently has 100 employees and will need at least three more for the new project. The existing landfill is 40 acres and the new one will cover 20. Jones said construction of the new landfill will go quickly and be built in one phase. "A whole lot will depend on what the cost of construction is," Jones said. "We're going to try and fast pace the construction. I think we're probably looking at six to nine months. As soon as we finish construction, we'll start on those containers. We're going to be pretty aggressive getting those in the ground," he added. ©MyWestTexas.com 2007 Copyright © Midland Reporter-Telegram | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy ***************************************************************** 48 Brandon Sun: Canada's nuclear industry should take more responsibility for waste: expert Friday, October 26th, 2007 MONTREAL - Canada's nuclear industry should take a more active role in dealing with the issues related to storing atomic waste underground, says a U.S. environmentalist. In recent years, the industry has promoted nuclear energy as an important source of carbon-free energy and an easy way to lower greenhouse gas emissions. But Canada, like other nuclear energy producing countries, has yet to develop long-term management plan for the waste, said Thomas Cochran, nuclear program director for the American Natural Resources Defense Council. "It's incumbent on the industry to have developed a solution to the waste before they produce a lot of it," Cochran said Friday at a climate on conference change. "This simply hasn't occurred in any country." Cochran was among 400 participants from around the world attending the Climate 2050 conference, a meeting of academics and decision-makers to discuss action on climate change. Ottawa announced last June that it was accepting an industry-led proposal that Canada develop the capacity to store spent fuel underground. Federal Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn has said the government was "decades" away from drafting concrete details on how and, more contentiously, where to store it. Spent fuel from the country's reactors is currently stored on site, first in cooling pools before being moved to dry-cast containers. According to the Nuclear Waste Management Organization, the industry group behind the underground proposal, Canada's nuclear waste only fills about five hockey rinks. "It's not like you have piles of coal ash," said the organization's director of environment, Anda Kalvins, following a plenary on nuclear energy. "The amounts of used fuel that are created can be contained in the pools and dry-storage areas." While there is no urgent need to build long-term processing capabilities given the present output of nuclear energy, Cochran suggested it was time for the industry to stop passing the buck on the issue. "Canada... has failed to develop its repository early, and is sitting here 40 years later with no repository," he said. "The industry will make the argument 'Oh we can store this safely on site,' and push this issue off to future generations, but if you were to triple the global capacity of nuclear power, you would need a new geological repository for waste every few years." Many environmental groups including Greenpeace have already expressed opposition to underground storage, fearing radioactive leaks or accidents. That opposition could become more vocal should Canada choose to join the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, a U.S-led initiative to group nuclear energy using countries and uranium exporting countries. The partnership, which counts such countries as Russia and China among its 16-member states, includes a proposal that could see Canada storing and refining used nuclear fuel from other countries. The idea would be to send the spent fuel back to the original uranium exporting country for disposal, and Canada is the world's largest uranium exporter. © Copyright 2007 Brandon Sun All Rights Reserved. The Brandon Sun is a divison of FP Newspaper Group. 501 Rosser Avenue, Brandon, Manitoba, Canada, R7A 0K4 Ewan Pow, Publisher ***************************************************************** 49 Tribune-Review: Tainted lagoon cleaning wraps up - By Mary Ann Thomas VALLEY NEWS DISPATCH Sunday, October 28, 2007 It took 13 years and a final price tag of almost $4 million, but the grass is finally growing on what was a uranium-contaminated wastewater lagoon at the Kiski Valley Water Pollution Control Authority. "The authority is happy that the project is finally closed," said Bob Kossak, authority manager. "But we think it's unfortunate that the costs escalated. "If the waste would have gone to a (municipal) landfill, it would have reduced costs significantly to our ratepayers. But the project is done, and we are moving on." According to citizens report, the shipping of waste to a facility in Texas spiked total project costs by about $2.8 million. The completion of the project caps more than a decade of clashes over disposal plans, tepid grass roots activism and two government agencies reversing their decision on cleanup plans. The 1-acre lagoon was emptied of its radioactive contents in December. About 13,600 cubic yards of waste hauled away in 572 tractor-trailer truck loads and then transferred to railcars for disposal at a low-level nuclear waste facility in Texas, according to Kossak. The lagoon was backfilled this month and re-seeded. Final costs were tallied: Almost $4 million was spent collectively by the authority ($1.47 million for disposal/regrading and $373,000 for long-term legal and engineering costs), the state ($687,000) and Babcock & Wilcox (estimated at $1.47 million, excluding the company's legal and engineering fees). The former lagoon, at the end of Pine Camp Road near the Kiski River, was contaminated with waste waters containing radioactive materials from the former B&W nuclear fuels processing plants in Apollo and Parks in the 1970s and '80s. The authority has sought to remove the waste since 1993. But efforts were delayed by a number of snags including a regulatory change impacting cleanup plans accepted by the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, questionable financial participation by B&W and public opposition. At first, the NRC deemed the uranium-laden waste dangerous enough to remove and ship to a special handling facility. Then the NRC reversed that decision -- based on another method of measuring contamination -- and concluded that the waste didn't pose unusual danger to people exposed to it. The state then ordered the authority to remove the ash and approved plans to send it to a municipal landfill. That plan was expected to cost about $900,000. Leechburg environmental activist Patty Ameno disagreed vehemently and rallied residents in several Pennsylvania communities. Three landfills withdrew bids to take the lagoon waste. Last year, Ameno, state Rep. Joe Petrarca, D-Oklahoma Borough, and other citizens met with state Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Kathleen McGinty. About a month later, the DEP supported the cleanup option to ship the lagoon waste to a low-level nuclear waste facility in Texas with B&W and DEP picking up part of the tab. Although the project is finally finished, Kossak and members of a citizens' oversight group are still smarting over the extra $2.8 million spent on shipping the waste to Texas instead of a local landfill. "Based on the facts regarding this project and the highly emotional issue of disposal of 'radioactive waste,' it is clear that emotions prevailed and the project cost ratepayers and taxpayers much more than necessary to safely dispose of the slightly contaminated lagoon ash," according to Tom Haley and Lee Blayden. Both men are Allegheny Township residents who wrote the final report on the Kiski Lagoon Project by the Citizens Review Committee. To cover a 10-year loan to pay for the project -- not including legal and engineering fees --- Kiski Valley Water Pollution Control Authority customers saw their bill increase by $1.27 per month in March. "With regard to cost, the sewage authority was not the generator," Ameno said, "and I've always felt that the generator, B&W, should have born the total cost for that cleanup. And what price tag can anyone put on the health and safety of people in a community who already have been in harm's ways for decades?" Ameno said that she is happy with the cleanup, but not with labeling her efforts as "emotional." "The ash lagoon is a success," Ameno said. "I feel, that it shows that even poor communities can get equal access to justice. While it is the passion for my community that has fueled me, it is also the fair application of justice across the board that motivates me." What the report found Here's a look at key points from the final report on removal of radioactive ash from the Kiski Valley Water Pollution Control Authority in Allegheny Township. A citizens group, appointed by the state Department of Environmental Protection, gauged the cleanup of uranium contaminated ash from the authority's lagoon during 2006-07. More than 13,600 cubic yards of waste was surveyed for possible contamination. The DEP approved its temporary transfer to a facility in Lawrence County, where it was transferred to railcars for shipment to a low-level nuclear waste dump in Texas. The Kiski Valley sewage authority hired an independent health physicist to monitor the worksite during the removal. No contamination was found anywhere outside of the lagoon nor in the trucks leaving the lagoon, in air samples taken during the cleanup, nor in personnel dosimeters worn by the cleanup crew. No ash spills during the trip to Texas and the ash unloading was detected. Final tests of the empty lagoon revealed that it was free of any contamination and now is available for other uses. Tribune-Review Publishing Co. ***************************************************************** 50 Gallup: Independent: Panel rips into feds; Tells them they've had 30 years to cleanup uranium waste and have done nothing October 27-28, 2007: By Kathy Helms Diné Bureau WINDOW ROCK ? The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee plans to ?hold feet to fire,? as Rep. Elijah Cummings succinctly put it, to ensure the Navajo people do not have to wait another 60 years to see something done about the contamination across Navajoland from past uranium mining and milling activities. ?I think the federal government has a responsibility, but that?s not just you, it?s us too,? Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., told representatives of the U.S. Environmental Protection Authority, Department of Energy, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Indian Health Service and the Bureau of Indian Affairs at a hearing this week in Washington. ?The Congress has a responsibility for oversight and that?s the purpose of the hearing today,? Waxman said Tuesday. ?But as part of our responsibility, we have to give your agencies the tools you need to carry out your job.? Authority He asked federal agency representatives to think about what authority and funding they need to clean up the contamination of the Navajo Nation and to address the resulting health problems, and to come back Dec. 12 to give a progress report. ?I think we need to have a number of things done simultaneously. I think the federal government needs to conduct a comprehensive health assessment of the risks posed to the health of the Navajo people by the contamination from uranium mining and milling,? Waxman said. ?Secondly, the U.S. EPA should conduct detailed site assessments of the priority mine sites and at least basic assessments at every abandoned mine site. Rigorous sampling of groundwater at these sites is essential. ?Thirdly, where we have the data, we need to conduct cleanups. Work has to be initiated or accelerated and in consultation with Navajo homeowners, U.S. EPA needs to remove occupied radioactive homes and provide replacement homes. ?Major surface and groundwater remediation efforts must begin at the Northeast Churchrock Mine site. The Navajo people shouldn?t have to wait 60 years for groundwater contamination from uranium mills to be cleaned up.? Waxman said that if the Department of Energy needs an extension of statutory authority to clean up the Tuba City landfill, where contamination migrated from the Rare Metals uranium mill, ?it?s our job to get you that authorization, and we?ll do it.? ?I really don?t want to hear EPA say it?s DOE, and DOE say it?s the Indian Health program, and the Bureau of Indian management to say it?s not our job because we don?t? have the expertise or the budget. It?s the federal government?s responsibility. All of us need to take it seriously.? Churchrock levels Waxman asked Wayne Nastri, regional administrator for U.S. EPA-Region 9, about the Northeast Churchrock Mine site. ?USEPA went out and took radiation tests at this site. In the mine areas, the radium levels were as high as 875 picocuries per gram. The EPA?s standard for deciding whether to clean up a site is 3.34 picocuries per gram, so that?s 270 times the EPA standard. ?Even in the back yards of two residences which are farther away from the mine, the radium levels were up to 30 picocuries per gram. That?s nine times the EPA standard. Those radiation levels pose an exceptionally high cancer risk,? he said. ?In response to these exceptionally high levels of radiation, EPA removed the top 6 inches of soil from the few residential yards. Mr. Nastri, that didn?t take care of the whole problem at the site, did it?? ?No, it did not,? Nastri said, adding that EPA removed about 6,500 cubic yards of contaminated soil. ?There?s roughly 140 acres, or roughly 1.4 million cubic yards that need to be addressed.? Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minn., asked Nastri about contamination in Red Valley and Cove areas, ?Because high levels of uranium in drinking water can cause kidney failure, groundwater contamination is a real concern.? She said EPA conducted water sampling in 1998 and 1999. ?You sampled 226 wells and springs and found that one reading taken in the mountains above a school in Cove was over 20 times the EPA standard. Now, the EPA standard, I?m going to assume, is the standard for a white healthy male and not for children. That?s what it usually is, am I correct?? she asked Nastri, who responded, ?I?ll stipulate to your assertion, sure.? ?I want to know if EPA has been back since 1999 to retest this area,? McCollum said. ?Not to my knowledge, no,? Nastri said. ?Has EPA done any groundwater remediation at any of the mine sites at the Navajo Nation?? she asked. ?Not to my knowledge,? Nastri responded. ?Well, this is troubling, because comprehensive groundwater testing is essential,? McCollum said. ?The Navajo, like anyone else in this country, are entitled to clean drinking water for themselves and for their livestock. And I believe the EPA needs to do more than just one round of spotty sampling. ?The NRC is in the process of allowing a company, HRI, to start possibly looking at doing this water slurry type of (uranium) extraction. This is very concerning and troubling to me. You don?t even know currently what the status of the water is and yet the NRC is looking at issuing a mining license and even contaminating possibly more water. And I point out to you, that the U.S. Geological Survey does not share the same confidence that the NRC does on this type of mine extraction,? she said. Passing time Cummings, D-Md., referred to Nastri?s comment that site assessments and cleanup take time. ?I can understand that. But while time passes, Mr. Nastri, people get sick. People die. People develop kidney disease. Babies are born with birth defects. Bone cancer develops and gets worse; lung cancer, leukemia, while we wait.? In reference to a five-year study of Navajo homes believed to have potentially harmful radon levels, Cummings told Nastri, ?Let?s assume there are people living there. What happens to them during that time? And I?m just curious as to whether you would have your families in that environment for five or six years.? Nastri said there are a number of challenges that EPA must consider, including that the Navajo people do not necessarily want to move out from their homes. ?So even though we?ve provided homes ? that doesn?t necessarily mean that we can get somebody to move out,? he said. ?What you?re telling me is you don?t even know if people live in the houses,? Cummings said. ?That?s correct,? Nastri responded. ?And what I?m saying is that the diseases that I just stated ? kidney, birth defects, bone cancer, lung cancer, leukemia ? these people could be suffering from these ailments, but you don?t even know whether they?re in the house. I mean, we do pay you, don?t we?? Cummings asked. Waxman referred to an EPA inspection of Navajo homes in 1975 near an abandoned uranium processing plant in Cane Valley where at least 17 of the 37 homes tested contained radioactive ore or tailings. ?They didn?t ask for more time, they just said they didn?t have enough money so nothing was done,? he said. ?So, I guess I?m still a little perplexed about whether you really need time and that?s all you need, because in 1975, over 30 years ago, EPA knew about the homes and didn?t do anything about it. ...This is really shocking when I hear you need more time, and this was 32 years ago.? 32 years ago McCollum said the Churchrock Spill happened on July 16, 1979, ?and they?re just now getting around to cleaning it up in 2007, so I see your point, Mr. Chair. I even think in this instance, we should be just outraged at how long all this has taken.? DOE?s David Geiser said that when the Tuba City mill site was cleaned up, the radioactive material now found at the Tuba City landfill was not exposed, however, due to erosion, it has surfaced. McCollum told him, ?This site is right across the street from where Ray Manygoats lives. So Mr. Geiser, does the DOE agree that the radioactive material in this vicinity probably came from the Tuba City mill?? ?From the information that we have, yes, it probably did,? Geiser said. ?OK. The DOE hasn?t been able to clean up this property because your statutory authorization to conduct surface remediation expired in 1998. So, have you asked Congress to extend this authority? And if you did, could the DOE clean up this site?? McCollum asked. ?The authority was extended several times to get to 1998. We have not asked since then to reauthorize it. We would have the capability to remediate that site,? Geiser said, adding that DOE is prepared to work with Congress should it decide to reauthorize them to do the work. Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., ranking minority member of the oversight committee, asked Geiser, ?Who is responsible for the cleanup of uranium mines and mills that were left behind?? He said it was the responsibility of DOE to clean up the four inactive uranium mill tailings sites. ?How about the 1,200 mines?? Davis asked, to which Geiser responded, ?That was not the Department of Energy?s responsibility.? ?Who is responsible for that? It?s not Energy,? Davis said. ?The Navajos didn?t cause it, did they?? Geiser said the Environmental Protection Agency is working with the Navajo Nation on the abandoned mines. ?What kinds of health studies have been done on the Navajo Nation to determine the impact of uranium mines on the public health in the area?? Davis asked. Geiser deferred to Indian Health Service. This is the U.S. Robert McSwain, IHS acting director, said there have been a couple of studies done, but nothing large-scale. Cummings remarked, ?It?s so easy to have a conspiracy of silence and do-nothingness. Are any of you outraged by what you?ve heard from the first panel? Anybody?? McSwain said, ?Certainly I wasn?t this outraged,? before coming to the meeting. ?The fact is we have a lot of health care providers out there on the ground, who are attempting to provide the best health care possible. The fact is, people keep coming in and they?re sick and they?re ill.? ?And some of them are dying,? Cummings said. ?Yes, and we can?t stop the reason. That?s not our role,? McSwain said. ?We work diligently on the water side of it within the scope of our authority, but again, not very successful, accepting the fact that we?re doing a lot of dancing out there trying to get around these leavings. ?This is the United States of America. We can do better,? Cummings said. ?These are human beings! They share this land with us. And it?s just not right. I would suggest that if we cannot get more empathy for our fellow human beings, maybe somebody needs to replace you guys and let us have some other people who are outraged by all of this. ?I can understand Mr. (Tom) Udall?s concern. At some point, somebody?s got to holler and say, ?No, no. We?re not going to have it this way.? We can say, ?Let?s wait, let?s wait, let?s wait, let?s wait? ? and people will die. But if it were our families, if it were our children, we would go crazy,? Cummings said. Weekend October 27-28, 2007 Selected Stories: Pelotte photos spark lawsuit, countersuit Panel rips into feds; Tells them they've had 30 years to cleanup uranium waste and have done nothing Thrift or Treat; Local shoppers search for the perfect Halloween costume and find thrift stores offer a ghoulish bargain Spiritual Perspectives; Surprised by Grace All contents property of the Gallup Independent. Any duplication or republication requires consent of the Gallup Independent. Please send the Gallup Independent feedback on this website and the paper in general. Send questions or comments to gallpind@cia-g.com ***************************************************************** 51 Las Vegas SUN: Nevada governor gets belated invitation to Yucca Mountain hearing October 27, 2007 LAS VEGAS (AP) - Gov. Jim Gibbons has been asked to testify at a key U.S. Senate committee hearing on Yucca Mountain next week. A Gibbons spokeswoman says the Republican governor got the invitation Thursday, a day after he complained about being left out of plans to examine the proposed nuclear waste dump. In a letter to California Sen. Barbara Boxer, Gibbons suggested partisan politics may have been to blame. Boxer initially invited fellow Democrat Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto to speak on the state's behalf. The hearing will be the first Democrat-assembled examination of the Yucca Mountain project since the party took control of the Senate. Gibbons' office says the governor has not yet decided if he will attend. All contents © 1996 - 2007 Las Vegas Sun, Inc. ***************************************************************** 52 No evidence Iran is making nukes: ElBaradei 28 Oct 2007 Resent-Date: Sun, 28 Oct 2007 23:11:55 -0500 (CDT) Breaking News and Commentary from Citizens For Legitimate Government 28 Oct 2007 http://www.legitgov.org/ All items are here: http://www.legitgov.org/#breaking_news No evidence Iran is making nukes: ElBaradei 29 Oct 2007 Chief UN atomic watchdog Mohamed ElBaradei said overnight he had no evidence Iran was building nuclear weapons and accused US leaders of adding "fuel to the fire" with recent bellicose rhetoric. "I have not received any information that there is a concrete active nuclear weapons program going on right now," the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) told CNN. Head of UN nuclear agency calls on Bush to ease Iran rhetoric 28 Oct 2007 Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, urged the Bush administration Sunday to soften its rhetoric against Tehran, even as a prominent Democratic senator said he feared that U.S. military action was drawing "precariously close." The comments by ElBaradei and Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut, the senior member of the Foreign Relations Committee, came in response to the regime's recent tough talk, including President [sic] George W. Bush's warning of "World War III" if Tehran obtained nuclear arms, and Vice President [sic] Dick Cheney's caution of "serious consequences" for Iran. U.S. Military Ignored Evidence of Iraqi-Made EFPs By Gareth Porter 25 Oct 2007 When the U.S. military command accused the Iranian Quds Force last January of providing the armour-piercing EFPs (explosively formed penetrators) that were killing U.S. troops, it knew that Iraqi machine shops had been producing their own EFPs for years, a review of the historical record of evidence on EFPs in Iraq shows. The record also shows that the U.S. command had considerable evidence that the Mahdi army had gotten the technology and the training on how to use it from Hezbollah rather than Iran. The command, operating under close White House supervision, chose to deny these facts in making the dramatic accusation that became the main rationale for the present aggressive U.S. stance toward Iran. Bombed Syrian reactor reportedly six years old 28 Oct 2007 The New York Times reported on Saturday that independent analysts have determined that construction of the alleged nuclear reactor on Syrian soil which was bombed last month by Israel may have begun as early as 2001. Iran FM: US should stop supporting terrorism 28 Oct 2007 Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki on Sunday expressed hope that Washington would stop supporting terrorism. Terrorist activities in northern Iraq have increased following the presence of foreign forces in that country, the Iranian said reiterating, "Such activities are carried out through foreign support." Basra fight pointless, says British commander 28 Oct 2007 One of the most senior British commanders in Iraq has claimed that there is no point in fighting on in Basra, likening British troops in the city to "Robocop" and admitting that innocent people were hurt as a result of their actions. The officer, who spoke to The Sunday Telegraph on condition of anonymity, said commanders had concluded that a military solution was no longer viable. "We are tired of firing at people," he said. "We would prefer to find a political accommodation." 'Mafia-like' criminals latest threat in Iraq, Petraeus says 28 Oct 2007 The threat from al-Qaida [al-CIAduh] in several former strongholds in Baghdad has been significantly reduced, but criminals [Blackwater terrorists] who have established "almost mafia-like presence" in some areas pose a new threat, the top U.S. commander in Iraq [Gen. David Petraeus] said today. Rice says 'hole' in U.S. law shields contractors in Iraq [The hole is in her head.] 26 Oct 2007 Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice conceded on Thursday that there was a "hole" in United States law that had allowed Blackwater USA employees and other armed contractors in Iraq to escape legal jeopardy for crimes possibly committed there. In an appearance before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Rice said the administration would support new laws that would apply to contractors but expressed reservations about proposals to bring contractors under the military justice system. [See: Officials balked on '05 Blackwater inquiry 26 Oct 2007.] McConnell earmarked $25M for UK defense contractor: Reported 27 Oct 2007 U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., reportedly tucked $25 million in earmarked funds for British defense contractor BAE Systems into an appropriations bill. McConnell, the Senate minority leader, inserted the money for three BAE systems into the bill that passed the Senate Oct. 3, The Lexington Herald-Leader reported. BAE has given McConnell $53,000 in campaign contributions, while UDI donated $500,000 to his foundation. US to order diplomats to serve in Iraq 28 Oct 2007 In the largest call-up of U.S. diplomats since the Vietnam War, the State Department is planning to order some of its personnel to serve at the American Embassy in Iraq because of a lack of volunteers. Those designated "prime candidates" -- from 200 to 300 diplomats -- will be notified Monday that they have been selected for one-year postings to fill the 40 to 50 vacancies expected next year. Turkey threatens incursion as meetings collapse 29 Oct 2007 The Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has again threatened to order an incursion into northern Iraq to root out Kurdish guerillas after the failure of talks with Iraq aimed at averting a cross-border raid. "The moment an operation is needed, we will take that step," Mr Erdogan told a large flag-waving crowd in Izmit on Saturday. "We don't need to ask anyone's permission." Car bomb rips through bus terminal 29 Oct 2007 A car bomb has exploded outside a bus terminal in the volatile northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, killing at least eight people and setting shops and cars ablaze. A police official said 28 people were also wounded. Protesters call for end to Iraq war 27 Oct 2007 Anti-war demonstrators marched in a dozen U.S. cities on Saturday to call for an immediate end to the war in Iraq and a cut-off of funding by Congress. Thousands march, "die" and rally in SF anti-war protest 27 Oct 2007 On cue from a bullhorn's blast, thousands of protesters fell to the pavement on Market Street today in a symbolic "die-in" as part of a protest staged in cities across the country against the war in Iraq. The protesters then resumed their march from San Francisco's Civic Center to Dolores Park. Afghan Ex-Militia Leaders Hoard Arms 28 Oct 2007 Many former militia commanders and residents in northern Afghanistan have been hoarding illegal weapons in violation of the countrys disarmament laws, giving the excuse that they face a spreading Taliban insurgency from the south that government forces alone are too frail to stop, Afghan and Western officials say. Suicide attack, clashes kill 10 in Afghanistan 28 Oct 2007 A suicide bomber dressed in a military uniform blew himself up near a military base in eastern Afghanistan yesterday killing four Afghan soldiers and a civilian, officials said. The attacker walked up to the main gate of the Bermel barracks in Paktika province before detonating his explosives, said Ghami Khan, spokesman for the provincial governor. Pentagon reels from second major nuclear arms blunder in a month 26 Oct 2007 The Pentagon was reeling last night from the American military's second major nuclear weapons blunder in a month. Congress is demanding a full scale investigation and serious questions are being asked about the competence of the officers in charge of the world's mightiest arsenal. Last month 70 US airmen were demoted after they lost track of six nuclear-armed cruise missiles and allowed them to be flown halfway across America by a bomber crew that didn't even know they were there. Municipalities: Right-Wing More Serious Than Muslim Radicalism 27 Oct 2007 (The Hague) "In their own perception, municipalities have to contend with more right-wing radicalism than Islamic radicalism". This is the conclusion drawn in a study carried out for the Association of Netherlands Municipalities (VNG) and published in its VNG Magazine. Seventy-five municipalities took part in the study by the COT Institute for Safety, Security and Crisis Management. The municipalities combined reported 27 incidents concerning right-wing radicalism and 8 instances of Islamic radicalism. Guantanamo military lawyer breaks ranks to condemn 'unconscionable' detention 27 Oct 2007 An American military lawyer and veteran of dozens of secret Guantanamo tribunals has made a devastating attack on the legal process for determining whether Guantanamo prisoners are "enemy combatants". The whistleblower, an army major inside the military [kangaroo] court system which the United States has established at Guantanamo Bay, has described the detention of one prisoner, a hospital administrator from Sudan, as "unconscionable". 'In short, this is not a public inquiry.' Ottawa wants Syria investigation kept secret --Probe about Canadian officials' actions, not Muslim trio, brief says 27 Oct 2007 The federal government is fighting any move to open up the secret inquiry into how three Canadian Muslim men came to be detained and interrogated under torture in Syria. "In short, this is not a public inquiry," the government says in a written submission to the inquiry led by former Supreme Court justice Frank Iacobucci. Torture is not 'mistreatment,' Arar says --Canada's denial of his ordeal made healing process more difficult 27 Oct 2007 Maher Arar says government delays in acknowledging he was tortured during the 10 months and 10 days he was imprisoned in a Syrian jail have stood in the way of healing his psychological wounds. "For someone who has been tortured, acknowledgement of torture is really the beginning of the healing process," he said in Toronto yesterday. "I was very, very much disturbed when I used to hear the word 'mistreatment.' I was boiling." [Right, the PentaPost and the Whore York Times always cover for the Bush regime by using the word 'mistreatment' instead of torture.] Denounce Waterboarding, Democrats Tell Nominee 27 Oct 2007 The nomination of Michael B. Mukasey as attorney general encountered resistance on Friday, with Democratic senators suggesting for the first time that they might oppose Mr. Mukasey if he did not make clear that he opposed waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques torture that have been used against terrorism suspects. Police track 20 more terror plot suspects 28 Oct 2007 A hard core of 20 Islamic extremists with [alleged] links to foreign terror groups is operating north of the Border and poses a "significant" risk to public safety, Scotland on Sunday can reveal. Scotland on Sunday can also reveal that concern at the terror threat is now so great that up to 1,000 Scottish Asians will be placed under surveillance in coming months because they associate with known radicals. Special Branch, backed by MI5 officers, will carry out checks on the individuals looking for evidence of radicalisation such as changes in clothing and increased mosque attendance. How the spooks keep tabs on Scots would-be bombers 28 Oct 2007 It was the computer specialists at Britain's top-secret listening station, GCHQ, who uncovered the existence of Scotland's first home-grown terror suspect. With Mohammed Atif Siddique's conviction and the subsequent MI5 claims that he was linked to a plot by a supporter of Osama bin Laden to kidnap and behead the Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper [? LOL], the country's benign image has been smashed forever. Now the authorities want to carry out checks on associates of the 200 suspects - up to 1,000 in total - even if they seem to have little or nothing to do with terror. Protesters shout down anti-Islam speaker at MSU --Audience uses chants, obscenities to interrupt British Nationalist's speech 27 Oct 2007 When British Nationalist [Nazi] Nick Griffin took the podium at a Friday night Michigan State University event, he tried to explain how Islam is a threat to Western civilization. Protesters wouldn't have it. Hurling obscenities and using chants to interrupt his address, rambunctious student organizations forced Griffin to abandon his speech and allow an informal question and answer session. [Awesome!] FEMA Official Involved In Staged News Conference Leaving the Agency 27 Oct 2007 PRNewser reports that FEMA's director of external affairs, John "Pat" Philbin is leaving his job just three days after the agency was "outed for a staging a fake press conference" related to the California wildfires. House Records Sought in Abramoff Case 26 Oct 2007 A federal grand jury investigating California GOP Rep. John Doolittle's ties to jailed lobbyist Jack Abramoff has subpoenaed the House official responsible for maintaining lawmakers' old e-mails and other records. The subpoena from the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia went to the House's chief administrative officer, Daniel P. Beard. Michael Mukasey - will you help me? The dubbed D.C. Madam, Deborah J. Palfrey, seeks fairness in a sea of injustice. 26 Oct 2007 I rather suspect that as time marches on, with it will come a multitude of eye-opening disclosures, which will call into question further the practices of the DOJ, the past several years. I believe my case is part and parcel of any such coming revelations. That is of course, if the newly appointed Attorney General - be it Bush nominee, Judge Michael Mukasey or another - chooses to do right by us, the American people; to ally with us and not the current administration. For me in my politically charged case, such a decision by the future Attorney General holds particular weight; quite possibly, whether or not I will spend the remainder of my natural life behind bars or as a free person. Australia faces economic turbulence from U.S. meltdown: PM 28 Oct 2007 Australia, one of the best-performing advanced economies, faced looming economic turbulence from the subprime lending meltdown in the United States, Prime Minister John Howard warned on Sunday. On Friday, Australian Treasurer Peter Costello had warned of an approaching international financial "tsunami," with China at its epicenter. 650,000 would die from bird flu, says Govt. 28 Oct 2007 It is a grisly scenario: 650,000 deaths, with bodies piled up in shipping containers before being buried in mass graves all over the country. That is the nightmare envisaged by the Government in what it describes as the "very likely" event of a bird flu pandemic. The alarming prediction is contained in a confidential Home Office document drawn up to help councils and other organisations deal with a catastrophic outbreak of the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus... Other proposals contained in the paper include suspending exhumation powers and coroner's juries and cancelling inquests into deaths from 'natural causes' in prisons. [Dollars to doughnuts, Blackwater USA, Halliburton and KBR already have their contracts drawn up to assist the Bush dictatorship during martial law in an avian flu pandemic. Recall that Blackwater deposited more than 135 security contractors in New Orleans less than 36 hours after the levees broke exploded. --LRP] GM: The Secret Files --Ministers are funding genetically modified crop projects with scores of millions of pounds every year and are colluding with a biotech company to ease its GM tests, the IoS can reveal. Geoffrey Lean on a murky tale that Whitehall tried to hide 28 Oct 2007 Ministers are secretly easing the way for GM crops in Britain, while professing to be impartial on the technology, startling internal documents reveal. The documents, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, show that the Government colluded with a biotech company in setting conditions for testing GM potatoes, and gives tens of millions of pounds a year to boost research into modified crops and foods. Official: organic really is better 28 Oct 2007 The biggest study into organic food has found that it is more nutritious than ordinary produce and may help to lengthen people's lives. The evidence from the #12m four-year project will end years of debate and is likely to overturn government advice that eating organic food is no more than a lifestyle choice. French muck: Is this the new penicillin? MRSA is the scourge of the country's hospitals, but now the discovery in France of a volcanic clay with miraculous healing properties raises the prospect of a cure for it, and to other dangerous superbugs 28 Oct 2007 Scientists have discovered a new and highly effective weapon against deadly superbugs like the MRSA sweeping through Britain's dirty hospital wards green French muck. Navy Seabees get to work on stopping California wildfires 29 Oct 2007 A team of Navy Seabees is using heavy equipment to build firebreaks to help prevent further spread of one of the worst of the San Diego County fires, the Harris Ranch Fire. The group of about 46 Task Force Bulldozer sailors is from Amphibious Construction Battalion 1, based in Coronado, Calif. CLG needs your support. http://www.legitgov.org/#contribute Or, please mail a check or money order to the CLG: Citizens for Legitimate Government (CLG) P.O. Box 1142 Bristol, CT 06011-1142 Contributions to CLG are not tax deductible. [Previous lead stories:] CIA resumes use of secret prisons 27 Oct 2007 The CIA has resumed its use of overseas secret prisons, The Washington Post reported Saturday. In the last six months, five new terrorism suspects have been transferred to the U.S. base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. One of the new prisoners, Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, spent months in CIA custody overseas, Pentagon officials told the Post. Donald Rumsfeld charged with torture during trip to France 26 Oct 2007 Former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld got an unpleasant surprise during his visit to France today when human rights groups filed a complaint with the Paris Prosecutor before the "Court of First Instance" (Tribunal de Grande Instance) charging the chief architect of President [sic] George W. Bush's "war on terror" with ordering and authorizing torture. Officials balked on '05 Blackwater inquiry --State Department e-mails obtained by ABC News discuss how to deflect a Times reporter's questions about a civilian shooting death. 26 Oct 2007 Even as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice defended her department's oversight of private security contractors, new evidence surfaced Thursday that the U.S. sought to conceal details of Blackwater shootings of Iraqi civilians more than two years ago. In one instance, internal e-mails show that State Department officials tried to deflect a 2005 Los Angeles Times inquiry into an alleged killing of an Iraqi civilian by Blackwater guards. Please forward this newsletter to anyone you think might be interested. Those who'd like to be added to the list can go here: http://www.legitgov.org/#subscribe_clg and add your name. Those who would like to be removed from the list can access the same link and remove your name. Please write to: signup@legitgov.org for inquiries/issues/concerns with your subscription. CLG Newsletter editor: Lori Price, Manager. Copyright ) 2007, Citizens For Legitimate Government . All rights reserved. CLG Founder and Chair is Michael Rectenwald, Ph.D. ***************************************************************** 53 The Nuclear Bombshell That Never Went Off Date: Sun, 28 Oct 2007 22:53:39 -0500 (CDT) http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/102807E.shtml Also see: AOL/Microsoft-Hotmail Preventing Delivery of Truthout Communications b" Go to Original The Nuclear Bombshell That Never Went Off By Jeff Stein Congressional Quarterly Friday 19 October 2007 Say you're a member of Congress, and a Pentagon expert tells you that top officials are secretly letting Taiwan go nuclear, to contain China's The Nuclear Bombshell That Never Went Off Date: Sun, 28 Oct 2007 22:53:39 -0500 (CDT) http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/102807E.shtml Also see: AOL/Microsoft-Hotmail Preventing Delivery of Truthout Communications b" Go to Original The Nuclear Bombshell That Never Went Off By Jeff Stein Congressional Quarterly Friday 19 October 2007 Say you're a member of Congress, and a Pentagon expert tells you that top officials are secretly letting Taiwan go nuclear, to contain China's emerging threat. Do you: (1) start an investigation, with an eye toward hearings to grill officials on the facts, or (2) drop it and stand aside as officials run your whistleblower out of town? In the real-life case of Pakistan and nuclear weapons, the answer from Congress has been (2). Twenty years ago, the House Foreign Affairs Committee learned that officials in the Reagan and Bush administrations were looking the other way while Pakistan acquired U.S. technology for its clandestine nuclear weapons program. Later, the United States allowed Pakistan to tweak its U.S.-supplied F-16s to carry nuclear bombs over India. Why? Because Washington was dependent on Pakistan for arming and supplying the Islamic warriors battling the Soviet Red Army next door in Afghanistan. Congress had passed legislation in 1985, aimed at Pakistan, that required the administration to cut off all military and economic aid to any country that was clandestinely pursuing nuclear weapons. When the last beleaguered Soviet unit withdrew from Afghanistan on Feb. 15, 1989, CIA officials in Langley, Va., clinked champagne glasses. But the glasses were hardly dry when into the vacuum came the Taliban, followed by Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. Talk about unintended consequences. But that wasn't all. Eventually it emerged that Pakistan's mad scientist, A.Q. Khan was running "a nuclear Wal-Mart," as Rep. Gary L. Ackerman, D-N.Y., put it at a hearing of a House International Relations subcommittee last May, "that sold nuclear equipment and related technologies to North Korea and Iran, two-thirds of the axis of evil, and also tried to sell it to the other third," Iraq. Khan also sold nuclear equipment to Libya and Syria. Worse, perhaps, al Qaeda is actively seeking nuclear weapons, in the opinion of U.S. intelligence agencies and most private experts. All this could have been avoided, says Richard M. Barlow, the former CIA and Defense Department expert whose warnings on the acquiescence of Reagan and Bush administration officials in Pakistan's nuclear program were quashed by the Pentagon and avoided by Congress. For his candor, and despite the backing of some top intelligence officials, Barlow was stripped of his Top Secret/Codeword clearances and hounded out of the Pentagon. Now he lives in a motor home, divorced, broke and unemployed. He spends half the year in a campground in Montana, the other half in California, living off the quickly diminishing proceeds of the sale of his house. "I have serious financial problems," Barlow, now 52, told me by phone last week. "I basically live like a vagrant." Forgotten Soldier Barlow's story has been told before in magazine and newspaper articles that are mostly forgotten, even by some experts I talked to who only dimly remembered his name. But if one definition of news is what we've forgotten, then two new books featuring Barlow to one degree or another could well astound the public all over again. Some members of Congress might even be moved to clear Barlow's name and hold officials accountable. Luckily for them, Congress is hardly mentioned in "Deception: Pakistan, the United States, and the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons," by British reporters Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clerk, and "America and the Islamic Bomb: The Deadly Compromise," by David Armstrong and Joe Trento. One reason is that Congress has shown almost no interest in what Barlow has to say. In 1987 then-Rep. Stephen Solarz, D-N.Y., chairman of the House International Relations Committee, "went wild," Barlow says, when he heard that officials were lying. But it never was explored in the open. The closest Congress came to airing Barlow's charges came in the 2001 Senate Armed Services Committee confirmation hearing of Paul D. Wolfowitz to be deputy secretary of Defense. According to Barlow, Wolfowitz knew what Pakistan was doing in the 1980s when he was undersecretary of State and later deputy secretary of Defense for policy in the Reagan and Bush administrations. Barlow's name was never mentioned, but Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., briefly summarized what happened after Barlow told Congress the truth and asked Wolfowitz if whistleblowers should be retaliated against if they provided Congress classified information. "My answer is, absolutely not," Wolfowitz said. He added that he was "aware of the issue" in the 1980s, and sought to distance himself from the decisions of Reagan and Bush administration officials not to tell Congress what was going on. "I specifically sensed that people thought we could somehow construct a policy on a house of cards that Congress wouldn't know what the Pakistanis were doing. I've always thought policies based on withholding information from Congress are going fail in the long run, and in that case there was a clear legal obligation to keep the Congress informed," Wolfowitz told Levin in 2001. Six and a half years later, the House Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade was trying to find out if the Khan network had been closed down or was simply under new management. Pakistan has prohibited U.S. intelligence from asking Khan or other officials if they made nuclear materials available to al Qaeda. Barlow's name never came up. And there are no firm plans to explore his allegations in the near future, said Brad Sherman, D-Calif., who chairs the subcommittee. "The committee does not have plans to hold any hearings on this topic before the end of the year," Sherman said through a spokesman. "We most recently discussed the issue of Pakistan and nuclear weapons in July. We are carefully following the issue, gathering information and if new information warrants we will hold a hearing." Rep. Ellen O. Tauscher, D-Calif., whom an aide described as "the foremost expert on nonproliferation" in Congress, did not respond to a request or comment over three days last week. No Good Deed Goes Unpunished A few senators, in particular, Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, where Barlow used to live, have spent years trying to get the erstwhile nuclear smuggling expert some compensation for his pain and sorrow. Bingaman offered an amendment to the fiscal 2008 Defense spending bill that would consider compensation for wrongful termination. According to multiple sources, Republicans close to the Pentagon have blocked it. "There have been holds on it since day one," sighed Beth Pellet Levine, a spokeswoman for Iowa Republican Charles E. Grassley, a supporter of the provision. "Day one" was a decade ago. Barlow's supporters in the Senate thought they could help him by referring his case to the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, which would sort out the merits of Barlow's quest for compensation. It backfired. CIA and Pentagon officials threw a cloak over the proceedings, declaring the supportive documents and depositions by top officials - including from CIA Deputy Director Richard Kerr and senior State Department arms negotiator Robert Galluci - "state secrets." The Reagan-appointed judge ruled not only that the government had the right to muzzle Barlow, but could withhold classified information from Congress. Lou Fisher, the Congressional Research Service's senior specialist on the separation of powers, called the court's decision "repugnant." "It is my personal judgment that the manner in which the Court of Federal Claims handled the case failed to do what the Senate asked: to get the facts," Fisher wrote in a private letter to Jennifer Hemingway, who in 2005 was looking into the Barlow matter for the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. "The executive branch, by asserting the state secrets privilege, essentially told the court that it was not entitled to know the facts, and the court, in accepting that position, essentially told the Senate - and Congress - that it was not entitled to know the facts." "To me that is deeply repugnant," Fisher continued. "In part, the Barlow case represents a matter of simple justice and fairness to an individual who dedicated his life to public service. More broadly, it ties directly to the institutional integrity of Congress and its right to be informed. Denied essential facts, it cannot perform its constitutional duties." Today the committee has no interest in Barlow's case, because it "generally does not take up individual whistleblower cases in which the relevant agencies and subject matter fall under other committees' jurisdictions," says Leslie Phillips, the committee's communications director. "Instead the Committee focuses on enhancing protections for whistleblowers governmentwide." A spokesman for John W. Warner, R-Va., who has dealt with the Barlow case for years as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, did not return a telephone call and e-mails asking for comment. Steve Aftergood, editor of the authoritative Secrecy News, a publication of the Federation of American Scientists, said he's mystified why Congress hasn't done more. "I don't know the answer," says Aftergood, "except that few whistleblowers find a sympathetic ear in Congress. And if they do, any such sympathy rarely translates into a meaningful remedy." An embittered Barlow would agree. "Congress has done me more harm than the office of the secretary of Defense," he said from his motor home, somewhere between Montana and California. ***************************************************************** 54 [NYTr] Brazil & Nukes: Lula Wants His Yellow Submarine Date: Sat, 27 Oct 2007 15:09:40 -0500 (CDT) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit Council on Hemispheric Affairs - Oct 26, 2007 http://www.coha.org/2007/10/26/lula-wants-his-yellow-submarine/ Lula Wants His Yellow Submarine Nuclear-R-Us: Is Brazil's proposed Construction of a Nuclear Submarine the result of Imperial Ambitions or a matter of diving to the depths of pandering politics on Lula's part? by Alex SC!nchez, COHA Research Fellow * Lula reignites the dream of the military junta: a nuclear submarine of its own. * Washington derides Iran's and North Korea's nuclear plans but mums the word when it comes to Brazil * Is the Brazilian navy expecting to be attacked on the high seas by some far off land, or, is a new militarized geopolitical strategy being evolved by Brasilia, or, is Lula merely being pressured by his military to acquire this trophy weapons system which could cost the nation upwards of a billion dollars, yet do little to augment Brazilian security? * If Brazil goes ahead with its nuclear project, it may violate the spirit of the Treaty of Tlatelolco and the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. * Who is going to provide Brazil with the necessary technology and advice it needs in order to successfully develop a nuclear submarine? Russia or China? Or will it be Brasilia's new sister pact members India and South Africa, or perhaps Iran with whom it has had a decade-long nuclear relationship. What will be the roles of the UN, IAEA and OPANAL? On July 10, Brazilian President Ignacio Lula da Silva announced his intention to fulfill one of the Brazilian Navy's ultimate dreams: to launch a nuclear-powered submarine. This idea was originally hatched during the era of military rule from the 1960s to 1980s but floundered due to a lack of funds and priority status. It resurfaced at a time when there are disturbing signs that much of the subcontinent is moving towards an unintentional arms race. Criticism is mounting both within and outside of Brazil reg arding whether it would be wise for the nation to go ahead with this plan, and what does this say about the Lula presidency. Will it deed itself over to engaging in rhetorical vertigo about becoming one of the world's dominant sea powers, rather than decide to come forth with a serious plan that it intends to implement a naval expansion program that will not break the bank and not ignite an arms race. . As the international community tries to blunt North Korea's and Iran's nuclear ambitions, Brazil (long rumored to be ready in its campaign to fight an all-embracing effort to obtain a permanent seat on the United Nations' Security Council), has put forth a plan to construct a nuclear-powered submarine by 2015. What is surprising about this situation is that Brazil's apparent decision could risk having a highly probable destabilizing impact on the hemisphere because it doesn't factor in the grave consequence s it could generate. Brazil's Nuclear History The genesis of Brazil's nuclear ambitions can be traced back to the 1960s, a time when military governments were a hemispheric plague, with the South American giant being, if anything, a pathfinder for this process. Nevertheless, the Brazilian military junta that ruled from 1964-1985 never managed to nurture concrete plans to construct this super category of sophisticated weapons. According to one AP story, the navy's nuclear program, which actually had begun in 1979, already had mastered part of the uranium enrichment process, but it had lagged in developing and constructing a reactor entirely from Brazilian technology, said Navy Admiral Julio Soares de Moura Neto. According to a July filing by Deutsch Presse-Agenteur, the nuclear submarine project was part of a 1975 agreement between Brasilia and the then Western German government in Bonn. Meanwhile, it should be noted that, in a recent article, the Latin American Weekly Report acknowledged that Brazil has been found to be far behind other regional countries in terms of economic support for its armed forces: "Brazil's armed forces are now far behind, by any aspect of comparison apart from troop numbers, the armed forces of Chile, Peru, and Venezuela." This begs the obvious question regarding what will happen to the country's citizens if Lula decides to allocate the country's economic resource s more toward the country's military operations and away from the people's direct social welfare needs. During the period of military rule, Brazil's neighbor Argentina (if anything, under an even more draconic military regime), was also heatedly developing a nuclear program at its remote facility near Bariloche, Argentina. A Spring 1981 Foreign Affairs article by Gerard Smith (Chief of the U.S. Delegation to the Strategic Arms Limitations Talks (SALT) from 1969 to 1972) and George Rathjens (a Professor of Political Science at MIT) discussed nuclear non proliferation, touching on Latin America. The article men tions the Brazilian-Argentine nuclear arms race which thought to exist at the time, explaining that "despite U.S. pressures and the expenditure of considerable political capital, the Federal Republic of Germany insisted on going ahead with its previous commitments to assist Brazil in acquiring reprocessing and enrichment facilities. And the FRG and Switzerland have recently agreed to provide Argentina with a power reactor and a heavy-water plant." Ironically, Lula protested the construction of the nuclear submarine during the military regime, at a time when he was a fiery union leader with solid leftist credentials, protesting that the country had more important needs for its citizens than something so expensive. It seems now Lula, along with new obsessions, has had a dramatic change of heart. Lula Revives Nuclear Plans To the surprise of only a few, whose knowledge of Lula's value system was formed in the past and who now see him as a parody of the system to which he once so passionately subscribed, the Brazilian leader is a pro-nuke submarine enthusiast, who now emphasizes his intention to pursue his military predecessors' nuclear ambitions. He plans to have the submarine operating by 2015. A July 11 wire story by Agence France Presse quotes the Brazilian president as saying during a visit to the Brazilian navy's Technological Center in Sao Paulo, "Brazil could rank among those few nations in the world with a command of uranium enrichment technology, and I think we will be more highly valued as a nation -- as the power we wish to be." In essence, the new Brazil that Lula ululates over has a different kind of author with a vastly different script than the one he once daily authored as the leader of the metallurgical union in the Sao Paulo industrial belt. Lula's references raise several very tantalizing questions about the nuclear submarine project. Among them are: will it be constructed solely by Brazilian scientists and technicians? Or will scientists by recruited from abroad as consultants? Does the Brazilian navy possess the necessary skill to design, construct, test and operate a vessel which goes far beyond the admirable design and construction technology capacity it has evinced up to now, even after factoring is all of its engineering successes and it s commercial triumphs in the fields of aircraft and weaponry fabrication? Will the crew be sent abroad to gain training on how to operate this kind of super-sophisticated equipment? What kind of design principles will the submarine feature? Will it be a replication of another country's nuclear submarines or will it be a totally new design? While Lula is jaunty, other Brazilians are desperate, according to O Estada, as cited by the Latin American Weekly Report: "'For a long time the government has abandoned the armed forces to its own luck, in a display of disinterest in national defence and the way of life of Brazilians.' The newspaper goes on to say that the pitiable situation of Brazil's armed forces 'does not match the ambitions' of President Lula da Silva to lead South America in an 'increasingly instable regional strategic environment.'" O Estado zeroes in on musings now taking place in the Brazilian armed forces: "Two-thirds of the air force's planes are grounded due to lack of replacement parts. The air force does not have any medium-range-to-air and air-to-ground missiles, attack helicopters or the so-called 'intelligent bombs' which are part of the equiptment of its Chilean, Peruvian and Venezuelan counterparts. Furthermore, only half of the navy's combat ships are fit for their intended purpose. In the army the situation is no differen t. There is no money for ammunition, Brazilian tanks are all secondhand and most over 30 years old." Does this sound like a country that could spend almost a billion dollars on nuclear submarine project? Nuclear Power for Several Applications The Brazilian president also is saying that his government will complete the long-suspended Angra III nuclear plant in Rio de Janeiro state. "We will complete Angra III, and if necessary, we'll go on to build more (nuclear plants) because it is clean energy and now proven to be safe," Lula ebulliently noted. The plant will cost 3.5 billion dollars over five and a half years, he said. But he did not mention the nuclear waste disposal issue which has been devilled Washington in recent years and still defies easy solution, as seen in the Feral Yucca Mountain debate. Going Nuclear All the Way A June article by Nuclear Engineering International explains that Brazil has always strived for self-sufficiency in nuclear power, but the ambitious plans of the 1970s were never fully realized, leaving Brazil with just Angra I & II and the equipment and technical skills required for a third, all sited at Angra Dos Reis in Rio de Janeiro state. The construction of Angra III was originally contracted out to the German firm KraftwerkUnion (KWU), now part of Siemens, which was taken over by Framatome ANP (now Areva). At the end of 2001, Brazil's National Energy Policy Council (CNPE) was asked to make recommendations on Angra III and authorized preliminary steps to restart the project, with Lula ultimately deciding to go ahead with it. Brazil's two operating nuclear plants, Angra I and Angra II, have an installed capacity of about 2,000 megawatts. Angra III would raise its capacity to 3,300 megawatts, at an estimated cost of about US$3.6 billion (euro2.6 billion). According to several costing engineers, they would be surprised if the plant construction didn't come in at least 50 percent higher than the current estimated figure, with the same being true of the projected costs for the submarine. An October 2004 article in Science by Liz Palmer, entitled "Brazil's Nuclear Puzzle" reported that in 2004 Brazil had plans for a uranium enrichment plant, which, it if configured to do so, could fuel several nuclear weapons annually. It went on to explain that "Brazil has pledged to enrich its uranium to only 3.5% 235U, the concentration required by its two power reactors. This would be too weak to fuel a bomb, which typically requires a concentration of 90% or above. If Brazil should change its mind, its stockpile of uranium already enriched to 3.5 or 5% will have received more than half the work needed to bring it to weapon grade. This would confer what is known as "breakout capability" b the power to make nuclear weapons before the world can react, rendering it a fait accompli. Such a capacity is what the United States and some European countries fear Iran is aiming at." While it is true that Brazil wants to build a nuclear submarine, not a nuclear weapon, the feeling remains about Brazil's potential to become a global nuclear power incrementally, if it chose to do so at all. It certainly has the resources and the personnel to carry out nuclear projects, and if you take Lula's words to heart, he also seems to have the will. But most of the most source of energy currently fueling Brazil's nuclear dream does not derive from nuclear fission as much as it comes from Brazil's gr owing sense of ultimate grandeurbthat it is destined to be a super power this century. And who is the amiable Jingoist stoking the line of "uber alles"bwell, no other than Lula. Yet there is still another chapter to the Brazilian story, and that consists of the corruption that infusesthe nation's public life, the inefficiency, the hypocrisy, the environment chicanery and the unspeakable violence of both the street criminals and their prosecutors, and the drug-trafficking mafia that renders Brazil a hellish state in which to reside, if you are not well to do and strategically positioned. Interestingly, on June 8 there was an article in the International Herald Tribune about the Russian nuclear power company, Atomstroyexport (a former branch of the Soviet atomic energy ministry) and how Russia is becoming an important exporter of nuclear energy and engineering skills. The article explains how the company is currently constructing reactors in countries like China, India and Bulgaria. The core of the article is based on declarations by Sergei Shmatko, chief executive of Atomstroyexport. The bu siness executive speaks of a "nuclear renaissance, with Moscow emerging as a global exporter of nuclear technology for developing nations. He added that his company is already producing a new design for emerging markets; it has a line of mini-reactors more typical of the power plants required for nuclear submarines or ice breakers, then ostensibly for nuclear power plants. Moscow already has proven that it has very few qualms about exporting military technology, as exemplif ied by the multi-billion dollar deals with Venezuela over the past couple of years, even though it hasn't quite overtaken the U.S. as a world leader in the export of weaponry. It is only logical to assume that the Kremlin would be more than willing to provide a nuclear reactor to Brazil for its nuclear submarine if it has the money for it. And, as Lula boasts, Brazil has the cash, even though his admirers and generals claim that only penury is to be found in the PalC!cio da Alvorada. A Nuclear Brazil: Is this Wise? Lula appears to be resorting to the traditional waving the "bloody flag of nationalism" in order to increase his personal popularity and confirm the support of the nation's powerful military establishment, although all is not sound here, and his placating is probably doomed to not be enough. This call to arms comes at a time when his administration was sent reeling by almost daily corruption scandals in his political party and his administration. In the latest round of nationwide discontent, landless workers blocked an iron ore railway (with ore being a key ingredient for the production of steel) owned by Companhia Vale do Rio Doce SA. The company claims only 300 individuals protested, while the Landless Workers Movement insists they were as many as 2,600, according to the Associated Press. Lula's critics insist that, instead of allocating hundreds of millions of dollars to a nuclear submarine program, why not address the multiple social problems pressing Brazil. These include environmental and anti-poverty initiatives to constructively impact Brazil's current social ills. Instead, Lula has decided to turn to acquiring a trophy military weapon that couldn't be less relevant to Brazil's future as a great nation and Latin America's current concerns. But this is unwise and will only further provo ke regional tensions. Among others, one must wonder what will be the reaction in Buenos Aires, with an Argentine military still nursing its wounds over its defeat in the Falklands. If Brazil's nuclear submarine actually becomes operational, might this immediately invoke the concerns of the Argentine navy? One might reply that during the Falkland War with Britain, the Argentine cruiser ARA General Belgrano was doomed by the U.K.'s nuclear-powered submarine, HMS Conqueror. Th e Belgrano was the second largest ship in the Argentine navy at the time and was sunk by two Tigerfish torpedoes from the Conqueror, killing 323 sailors. This was a critical point in the war as it proved to the Argentine navy that it could not compete against the British fleet, including its nuclear submarine. What will the Argentine navy have to say about Brazil obtaining a nuclear submarine of its own? Finally, it is still illogical that Brazil even thinks for a moment that it must have its submarine. The sub-continent, in spite of the arms race it has experience in recent years, has not had an inter-state war since the Peruvian-Ecuadorian border conflict in 1941. Brazil itself fought a war against Argentina in the 1820s when Argentina was known as the United Provinces of Rio de la Plata. The last armed conflict (not counting its involvement in World War II) in which Brazil fought was the War of the Tripl e Alliance when Brazil allied itself with Uruguay and Argentina against Paraguay from 1864 to 1870. If anything, Brazil's security threats today come from drug cartels, the possible infiltration of the Colombian guerrillas known as the FARC into its territory, and the widespread occurrence of gang violence, and not from Argentina or Paraguay (a landlocked border country) Military Politics By deciding to build a nuclear submarine, Lula is reviving the old dreams of the Brazilian military. At the same time, he has certainly given reason to the Argentine navy to push for even a bigger defense budget at a time when the country is still recuperating from the 2001 economic meltdown. Both the Brazilian and Argentine security forces have dark pasts that have sullied their countries' good names. The possession of a nuclear submarine would provide both militaries with an increased status that would be prejudicial to their still not completely stabilized democracies and would allow them to question their subordination to the civilian government. It is ironic that Lula has declared his intention to build a nuclear submarine. While he was a union leader before becoming president, Lula had protested against such nuclear aspirations, but it seems he has now had a change of heart. Why has this occurred? Can this be explained by the growing pressure coming towards Lula from the country's military that never has quite regained the prestige that it had when it ruled the country with an absolutist style? According to a report by the Deutsche Presse-Agentur, Lula has emphasized repeatedly that he sees the use of nuclear power as a source of energy as a bread and butter issue for his administration, and that down the road such power will be essential to meet the country's energy requirements; according to estimates, building the nuclear submarine will cost an annual disbursement of 68 million dollars over eight years, so it will be ready (ideally) not before 2015. Curiously, the aspiration to acquire a nuclear submarine comes at a time when the Brazilian military is going through a process of upgrading. During a September trip to Spain, in spite of the obvious disenchantment with many of his senior military colleagues over the poor condition in which the Brazilian military finds itself, Lula told the Spanish daily El PaC-s "in the 1970s, we had modern factories that built tanks [b&] But they have been dismantled. Brazil must return to what it had. To rebuild our weap onry factories, we must buy." According to various reports, Brazil plans to raise military spending by 50 percent next year and is planning to modernize its submarines, build missiles in cooperation with South Africa and purchase second-hand aircraft. Logically, Lula has the enthusiastic backing of the Brazilian military establishment for his drive to upgrade the military. But this is not necessarily the case.On October 13, there was an article in the Brazilian daily Correio Braziliense, regarding Brazilbs military, which included declarations by General Barros Moreira, a former commander of the War College (Brazil's military intelligence service) and who currently serves as head of the Political, Strategic and International Relations Secretariat at the Defence Ministry. On the question of the nuclear submarine, General Moreira declared: "What is going to happen to a country where 95 per cent of international trade takes place by sea? And our oil, where is it? If we had a nuclear submarine, we would be more secure. If the Argentine navy had had a nuclear submarine, England would not have attacked during the Falklands conflict. A peaceful country such as ours, that has no intention of attacking anyone, has every right to defend itself, because it is growing increasingly richer and more tempting" Of course, it remains somewhat obscure as to which country, if any, would be inclined to attack Brazil for its resources. Opponents of the nuclear submarine and the nuclear plant programs include Lula's Environment Minister Marina Silva. The minister declared that "in the last 15 years, no country has built nuclear power plants because of the problems with the waste [b&] We have other sources of power: a great potential in hydroelectric, and clean energies in which we should invest." In addition, the construction of the Angra 3 power plant is potentially dangerous because it is located in th e state of Rio de Janeiro, near a na tural reserve, where the soil is unstable and has included a history of landslides. Angra already was a subject of considerable controversy because of a flawed geological survey which was originally done on the site, which did not include fault problems that should have been ventilated in public discussion. Lula has ruled out solar or wind plants, arguing that they are more expensive than a nuclear plant. Taking the Arms Race to the Next Level Brazil's renewed coveting of a nuclear submarine comes at a time when the sub-region is already moving towards an arms race. Among other regional countries, Venezuela and Chile are engaged in major military purchases. Most recently, Venezuela has ordered the purchase of five Kilo-636 submarines from Russia. Peru has contracted a number of naval purchases a couple of years ago during the Alejandro Toledo administration, including the purchase of four Lupo-class frigates from Italy. Last year, Bolivian president Evo Morales declared his plans to build a number of military outposts, with Venezuela's help to parallel Bolivia's borders, including one facing its border with Brazil. It is unlikely that other countries, including Argentina, will not feel compelled to follow suit at some point in the near future as a result of pressure coming from its own armed forces With Brazil's neighbors now interested on increasing their military capability, Brasilia arms specialists claim that the country has adopted a posture on its prospective acquisition of a nuclear submarine that, from a strategic point of view, would give it a definite advantage over potential attackers when it comes to naval warfare, even though the strategy is somewhat provocative. An additional issue regarding Brazil's nuclear submarine has to do with the de facto violation of the spirit, or even the letter of the Treaty of Tlateololco. Signed in 1967 and entered into force in 1969, the Treaty was drafted in Mexico City to make Latin America and the Caribbean into a nuclear-free zone. Brazil is also a signatory of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. It seems clear that obligations to these treaty regimes would seem to prevent some problem for Lula's ambitious plans to significantly upscale the navy. And Washington's Reaction is... At a time when the drums of war are beating regarding Washington's tough stand against Iran's nuclear ambitions, and while negotiations continue with North Korea, how will Washington policy makers react to Brazil possessing a nuclear-powered submarine? In 1991, Presidents Fernando Collor of Brazil and Carlos Menem of Argentina signed an accord with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna that provided for IAEA inspection of their respective nuclear programs. At the time, the U.S. State Department praised the decision by both leaders, by issuing a statement issued on December 13, 1991 saying that: "The two South American Presidents have demonstrated exceptional statesmanship in moving to free their continent from the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation." What will the State Department say now? Other institutions that have yet to declare themselves about Brazil's plans include the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Agency for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean (OPANAL), based in Mexico City. Also of note, the other members of the India-Brazil-South Africa Dialogue Forum (IBSA) (who have or have had nuclear ambitions of their own in the past and present), one of the newest cross-continental alliances, has yet to play a large role in the process or come out conclusively for or against Brazil's nuclear plans. The Nuclear Nightmare It could be persuasively argued that Brazil's proposed nuclear submarine is an imprudent foreign policy move for Brazil to take. Conventional weaponry, in addition to the country's geography, which features broad land buffers, should serve, as they have in the past, as a sufficient deterrent to dissuade other countries from attacking Brazil under any conceivable scenario. Some unkind soul might even accuse Lula of engaging in a good deal of hypocrisy for considering to carry out the plans that basically echo the aspirations of the military junta which was responsible for numerous human rights abuses when it held power and which Lula himself once fiercely opposed. Brazil is regionally and globally respected and would be the natural Latin America representative in the UN Security Council should it ever be reformed and expanded. In addition it is presently besieged by a host of domestic problems, including widespread criminal violence and drug trafficking, aside from increasing gang warfare. * ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us Our main website: http://www.blythe.org List Archives: http://blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ Subscribe: http://blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================= ***************************************************************** 55 [NYTr] Dowd: WMD in Iran? Date: Sun, 28 Oct 2007 19:25:28 -0500 (CDT) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit The New York Times - Oct 28, 2007 W.M.D. in Iran? Q.E.D. By MAUREEN DOWD TIM RUSSERT: Mr. Vice President, welcome to bMeet the Press.b VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY: Good morning, Tim. RUSSERT: How close are we to war with Iran? CHENEY: Well, I think we are in the final stages of diplomacy, obviously. We have done virtually everything we can with respect to carrots, if you will. Itbs time for squash. Not to mention mushrooms, clouds of them. RUSSERT: But you squashed Iraq and that didnbt work out so well. CHENEY: Iraq will be fine, Tim. It just needs a firmer hand. We learned that lesson. Webre not going to get hung up on democracy this time. (Expletive) purple thumbs. RUSSERT: Isnbt Secretary Rice still pushing carrots for Iran? CHENEY: The more carrots Condi feeds bem, the better theybll be able to see the bombs coming. RUSSERT: First you threatened to take action if Iran built a nuclear weapon. Now youbre threatening to take action if Iran knows how to build a nuclear weapon. Whatbs next? You threaten to take action if Ahmadinejad dresses up as a nuclear weapon for Halloween? CHENEY: Well, the difficulty here is, each time he has rejected what he was called upon to do by the international community. Ibm not sure now, no matter what he says, that anyone would believe him. Hebs pretending he doesnbt have W.M.D., just like Saddam. RUSSERT: But Saddam didnbt have W.M.D. CHENEY: He did, Tim. RUSSERT: He did? CHENEY: Ever wonder what happened to them? RUSSERT: What happened to them? CHENEY: Think about it, Tim. RUSSERT: The New York Times reported yesterday that the suspected nuclear reactor in Syria bombed by Israeli jets was well under construction in 2003, the same year we went to war with Syriabs neighbor Iraq. Did we go after the wrong country? CHENEY: Syria is not a country, Tim. Itbs a way station run by an eye doctor. RUSSERT: Conservatives are tossing around some lock-and-load language. The president is talking about Iran sparking a bnuclear holocaustb and World War III. Giuliani adviser Norman Podhoretz thinks webre in World War IV. Shouldnbt you at least give the new sanctions against Iran a chance to work? CHENEY: Oh, we have, Tim. The sanctions were announced Thursday. Itbs now Sunday. I think things have gotten so bad inside Iran, from the standpoint of the Iranian people, my belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators. RUSSERT: But what if your analysis is not correct b again? Letbs put up on the screen part of an interview The New York Timesbs Thom Shanker did with the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen: bWith America at war in two Muslim countries, he said, attacking a third Islamic nation in the region bhas extraordinary challenges and risks associated with it.b The military option, he said, should be a last resort.b Your own chairman of the Joint Chiefs does not think the military can handle a third war. CHENEY: If Admiral Mullen wants to be Admiral Sullen, thatbs his business. Ibm not going to be a defeatist or question the courage of our fighting men. RUSSERT: Critics say that if you attack Iran, there will be riots in every Muslim capital, the Iranians will flood Iraq with more explosives and money for the Shiite militias. They say youbll only end up making more enemies for America, and our troops. CHENEY: Why donbt we just give the Islamofascists Sudetenland, Tim? Peace in our time. RUSSERT: The Europeans are upset that you might start another war in their backyard. CHENEY: (Rolling his eyes and muttering under his breath) Eurappeasers. RUSSERT: An Iranian spokesman dismissed the new U.S. sanctions as bworthless and ineffectiveb and said they were bdoomed to fail as before.b And Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, the head of Iranbs elite Revolutionary Guards b a group you have accused of proliferating weapons of mass destruction b also warned that his forces would respond with an beven more decisiveb strike if attacked. CHENEY: Donbt worry about General Ali Baba, Tim. We gave the Israelis his home address. RUSSERT: How will you even know where to bomb, given that all the experts say the Iranians have hidden their real nuclear facilities underground? CHENEY: Can you say magic carpet bombing, Tim? We didnbt build those bunker busters just to stack bem up in a warehouse in North Dakota. RUSSERT: Itbs so close to the next election, Mr. Vice President, shouldnbt you just keep on the diplomatic track and let the next president make this decision? CHENEY: You really want Rudy Giuliani playing with the nuclear button, Tim? Now, thatbs insane. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company * ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us Our main website: http://www.blythe.org List Archives: http://blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ Subscribe: http://blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================= ***************************************************************** 56 [NYTr] IAEA: No evidence Iran working to build nuclear weapons Date: Sun, 28 Oct 2007 15:55:52 -0500 (CDT) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit AP via Yahoo - Oct 28, 2007 http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071028/ap_on_re_us/us_iran Anti-Iran rhetoric raises UN concerns WASHINGTON (AP) -- The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog said Sunday he had no evidence Iran was working actively to build nuclear weapons and expressed concern that escalating rhetoric from the U.S. could bring disaster. "We have information that there has been maybe some studies about possible weaponization," said Mohamed ElBaradei, who leads the International Atomic Energy Agency. "That's why we have said that we cannot give Iran a pass right now, because there is still a lot of question marks." "But have we seen Iran having the nuclear material that can readily be used into a weapon? No. Have we seen an active weaponization program? No." Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice accused Iran this month of "lying" about the aim of its nuclear program. She said there is no doubt Tehran wants the capability to produce nuclear weapons and has deceived the IAEA about its intentions. Vice President Dick Cheney has raised the prospect of "serious consequences" if Iran were found to be working toward developing a nuclear weapon. Last week, the Bush administration announced harsh penalties against the Iranian military and state-owned banking systems in hopes of raising pressure on the world financial system to cut ties with Tehran. ElBaradei said he was worried about the growing rhetoric from the U.S., which he noted focused on Iran's alleged intentions to build a nuclear weapon rather than evidence the country was actively doing so. If there is actual evidence, ElBaradei said he would welcome seeing it. "I'm very much concerned about confrontation, building confrontation, because that would lead absolutely to a disaster. I see no military solution. The only durable solution is through negotiation and inspection," he said. "My fear is that if we continue to escalate from both sides that we will end up into a precipice, we will end up into an abyss. As I said, the Middle East is in a total mess, to say the least. And we cannot add fuel to the fire," ElBaradei added. Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, agreed that the current "hot rhetoric" from the U.S. could prove dangerous. "We ought to make it clear that there's always a military option if Iran goes nuclear, but that we ought to just speak more softly because these hot words that are coming out of the administration, this hot rhetoric plays right into the hands of the fanatics in Iran," said Levin, D-Mich. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said strong action might be needed because he does not believe the United Nations adequately has kept Iran in check. "I think the United Nations' efforts to sanction Iran have been pitiful because of Russia and China vetoing a resolution. The European Union has some sanctions. They're fairly weak." "So in this regard, I agree with the following, that the diplomatic efforts to control Iran need to continue. They need to be more robust but we're sending mixed signals," Graham said. ElBaradei spoke on CNN's "Late Edition," and Levin and Graham appeared on CBS' "Face the Nation." * ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us Our main website: http://www.blythe.org List Archives: http://blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ Subscribe: http://blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================= ***************************************************************** 57 The Hindu: S Africa not softening anti-nuclear stance: minister Saturday, October 27, 2007 : 0940 Hrs Durban (PTI): Dismissing suggestions that it has softened its anti-nuclear stance after the recent IBSA Summit in an effort to strengthen ties with India, the South African government has said it is totally committed to the elimination of all weapons of mass destruction. "South Africa remains totally opposed to all weapons of mass destruction and has called for their total elimination in all international forums," Foreign Minister Nkosana Dlamini-Zuma said in a statement. The foreign minister was responding to an analysis column in The Star newspaper, in which columnist Peter Fabricius wrote that until now, South Africa had always countered India's stance of not abandoning its nuclear programme before others did, by arguing that all countries should disarm. However, he said, the recent India, Brazil, South Africa (IBSA) declaration suggested "that India need not scrap nuclear weapons until the official powers do". "The reason for this shift seems to be because the strategic importance of India within IBSA -- the core of a South-to-South alliance to counter the disproportionate influence of the North -- outweighs SA's disarmament misgivings," he wrote. Dlamini-Zuma in her statement yesterday said after the summit, the three countries had "emphasised" their commitment to the goal of the complete elimination of nuclear weapons. "In so far as the suggestion that the three countries reserve their right to manufacture their nuclear fuel in the future, the suggestion fails to take into account the fact that India has for decades manufactured nuclear fuel whilst Brazil has already embarked on uranium enrichment," the minister said. Dlamini-Zuma, however, maintained that the right to the use of nuclear technology for peaceful purposes is enshrined in Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and this right cannot be "unilaterally abrogated by anyone". "South Africa remains opposed to the view that the right to peaceful nuclear technology should be a preserve of the rich and powerful to the exclusion of the majority countries depriving the have-nots in perpetuity," she said. "In this context, the three leaders of IBSA reiterated the importance of ensuring that any multilateral decisions related to the nuclear fuel cycle do not undermine the inalienable right of states to pursue nuclear energy for peaceful purposes in conformity with their international legal obligations," she said. Copyright © 2007, The Hindu. ***************************************************************** 58 Times of India: 'Pak was preparing to use nuke missiles during Kargil war' 28 Oct 2007, 1008 hrs IST,PTI LONDON: Pakistan was preparing to use nuclear missiles against India during the Kargil war, a new book has claimed, citing a conversation between US President Bill Clinton and Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif eight years back. "When President Clinton met Sharif at Blair House (in July 1999), Clinton asked Sharif if he knew how advanced the threat of nuclear war really was? Did he know, for example that his military was preparing to use nuclear missiles?" the book "Deception: Pakistan, the United States and the Global Nuclear Weapons Conspiracy" says. Answering Clinton's query, Sharif shook his head implying he was unaware of his military's moves, investigative journalists Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark have claimed in their 586-page book. Warning Sharif, the President said he had a statement ready for release that would pin all the blame for Kargil on Pakistan if the Prime Minister refused to pull his forces back. Clinton further questioned Sharif on whether the Pakistani leader could be trusted on anything. The US President reminded Sharif that despite his promise to help bring Osama bin Laden to justice, the ISI had continued to work with bin Laden and the Taliban to foment terrorism and the Americans knew that. The Americans were unsure as to who was really in control in Islamabad, the authors said, as confusion prevailed over whether Sharif was in reality pushed into a war by General Pervez Musharraf, or he attempted to diminish his role in the crisis. Copyright © 2007 Times Internet Limited. All rights reserved. For ***************************************************************** 59 Houston Chronicle: Panhandle plant at the heart of new nuclear weapons | Chron.com - Oct. 27, 2007, 9:31PM Pantex looks to build plutonium cores in addition to disassembly By MARK BABINECK Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle A BRIEF HISTORY A timeline of events at the Pantex Plant: • 1942: Pantex Ordnance Plant built in a field between Amarillo and Panhandle, with the first conventional bombs produced less than 10 months after the Pearl Harbor attacks. • 1945: Pantex closes as World War II ends. • 1949: Texas Tech buys the parcel for $1; military retains the right to take it back. • 1951: Pantex becomes part of the U.S. nuclear weapons complex and evolves into the main assembly site. • 1991: Soviet Union dissolves, Cold War ends. Pantex focus becomes warhead disassembly. • 2007: Warhead disassembly accelerates, with an estimated 13,000-plus plutonium cores in storage. Plant is one of five candidates for production of next-generation plutonium pits. Sources: Pantex Plant, National Nuclear Security Administration, Natural Resources Defense Council, Peace Farm PANHANDLE — The United States ran the Cold War arms race in a fortified pasture on Amarillo's outskirts. The sprawling Pantex Plant is where workers put together nuclear warheads for decades, competing with the Soviets who were doing the same. But once the Iron Curtain fell, the plant kicked into reverse and became the primary atomic bomb disassembly site. In the next few weeks, a unit of the Department of Energy is set to release a plan outlining the future of the nation's arsenal, envisioned to consist of 1,700 to 2,200 newly designed warheads. There's little question they, like their predecessors, will be assembled here. Pantex also is one of five sites under consideration for a new "consolidated plutonium center" to process and build the lethal hearts of nuclear warheads — the plutonium cores that cause the mushroom-cloud detonations when properly triggered. The cores, known as "pits," traditionally have been made at Los Alamos, N.M., and the now-defunct Rocky Flats Plant near Denver. That kind of work hasn't been done at Pantex, and the prospect of it coming to the Panhandle plains has resident anti-nuke activist Mavis Belisle gearing up like the old days. "When you're talking about producing new plutonium or new plutonium cores, it doesn't matter where, we don't want it to happen at all," said Belisle, director of the Peace Farm, a 20-acre spread across the highway from the plant that has served as a permanent vigil against weapons of mass destruction since 1986. There's plenty of local support, though. Gary Molberg wants to see them do a lot more at Pantex, which in addition to disassembly continues to maintain active weapons. President and chief executive of the Amarillo Chamber of Commerce, Molberg is for anything that increases the size of the area's second-largest private employer, with an estimated 3,200 workers. "The mission they're doing right now will continue on, and we hope they get some additional missions and have some expansion out there," he said. The 'soap plant' The 16,000-acre Pantex Ordnance Plant began in 1942 as a conventional weapons site, then closed once the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki — both weapons built at Los Alamos — forced Japan's surrender in 1945. Texas Tech took over the property. But with the Cold War raging in 1951, the Army reclaimed 10,000 acres and contractor Mason & Hanger remodeled the facility to assemble explosives for atomic bombs. Procter & Gamble operated it for a short time, prompting locals to refer to the secret operation as the "soap plant." "Although everyone knew they didn't make soap," Belisle said. By the 1960s, the Atomic Energy Commission had taken over from the Army, making the plant's duties more obvious. Still, Pantex managed to keep a low profile despite the steady flow of conspicuous "white trains" ferrying new warheads out the gates. Pantex drew unwanted scrutiny in March 1977 when three workers died in an accidental plastic explosives detonation, making the general public aware of its peculiar specialty. The Red River Peace Network started protesting outside the gates in the early 1980s, Belisle said, and the Peace Farm started across from the Pantex rail entrance in 1986. Things changed fast after that. Rocky Flats closed in 1989, and the Cold War ended in 1991. The U.S. complex of nuclear weapons sites has been reinventing itself ever since. "Right now, we have buildings that date back to 1945. They're crumbling, unsafe and inefficient," said John Broehm, spokesman for the National Nuclear Security Administration, the DOE unit in charge of bomb-building. "Also, we have special nuclear material — plutonium, highly enriched uranium — spread out over seven of the eight sites. What we want to do is consolidate some of the special nuclear material, get rid of buildings, reduce the footprint physically. "It's 1950s-1960s manufacturing versus 21st century manufacturing. You could do a lot more with a lot less space." Speaking at a Department of Energy public hearing last year, Amarillo Mayor Debra McCartt testified that the estimated 13,000-plus warhead cores in storage (the exact figure is classified) means "virtually all of the nation's plutonium is already here at Pantex," so the site makes sense for a new plutonium operation. "The department could not find a more congenial place for a proposed center," she added, noting high local approval ratings for Pantex in various polls. Longtime Amarillo resident Allen Finegold wasn't so congenial. "We have no experience dealing with plutonium here. Rocky Flats had that experience. It wasn't a very good one," he said. Rocky Flats ceased plutonium work after an FBI probe uncovered environmental violations that resulted in the discovery of rampant contamination and millions of dollars in fines and judgments against contractors. The massive cleanup was only certified as complete by the Environmental Protection Agency on June 11. The government, which is trying to come up with a "Reliable Replacement Warhead" design that can be tested on a computer rather than physically, says it has learned from past mistakes. "This design we know will last far into the future, components in there will last longer, that sort of thing," he said. "The weapon itself will be more secure, safer for workers and the environment." Standing their ground In 2004, President Bush called for the weapons stockpile to be halved by 2012. Beyond that, the idea is to substitute antiquated systems with the new models and maintain a tiny stockpile compared to the peak, which surpassed 32,000 in 1966. The last time intensive plutonium work was proposed for Pantex was in the mid-1990s when it competed for a plant to convert weapons-grade plutonium into fuel for nuclear reactors. Belisle and others fought the so-called MOX fuel fabricator, in part citing existing aquifer contamination from World War II-era activities. The Savannah River Site in South Carolina won the plant. Ironically, Belisle's preferred course for Pantex is for it to keep storing a growing cache of decommissioned plutonium cores, which she said is safer than transporting them half a continent away for MOX processing. While there's no risk of accidental nuclear explosion, Belisle worries that a mishap in transit could cause a release of radioactive plutonium. She hasn't learned to love the bomb, only to live with it. And the Peace Farm will continue to joust with Amarillo's business elite and its nuclear neighbors over the site's future as long as troubling potential new tasks keep cropping up. "We haven't really won any ground," she said, "but we haven't really lost any." mark.babineck@chron.com ***************************************************************** 60 Guardian Unlimited: When is a nation not a nation? When it can't say no to Trident | Special Reports | The oldest peace camp in the world is a good place to consider Alex Salmond's tactics Ian Jack Saturday October 27, 2007 Scotland has its own parliament, flag, legal and education systems, its own sports teams and its own extreme version of the British diet. Increasingly, it enacts social legislation that is different to England's. The English, some of them resentful, will be familiar with the list. Scottish students at Scottish universities pay no tuition fees, the frail elderly get free personal care and bigger subsidies on their heating bills, eye and dental checks are free, certain drugs that England's NHS says are too expensive are available in Scotland on prescription, there are proposals to abolish prescription charges and end tenants' right to buy their local authority houses. This is what devolution means, especially when the source of funding such benefits is still opaque. The powerful instruments - foreign policy, defence, the exchequer - that put the word "state" into the phrase "nation state" were "reserved" for the UK government in Westminster. As the joke among linguists used to go, what's the difference between a dialect and language? Answer, a language is a dialect with an army and a navy. Alex Salmond, Scotland's nationalist first minister, is making the dialect/language and nation/nation state difference visible by attacking government plans to renew the UK's ability to deploy nuclear weapons - by replacing the submarine-launched Trident missile system when the four Vanguard-class nuclear submarines reach the end of their working life in the 2020s. Trident is based at two deep sea lochs that stretch north from the Firth of Clyde. A majority of Scottish politicians, even those at Westminster, don't want it to continue there: not so much an argument about morality or cost as of locality. Last Monday, members of the Scottish government convened a meeting in Glasgow that discussed ways of hampering the Trident programme. Of other parties in the Scottish parliament only the Greens attended and Unionist politicians of all kinds attacked Salmond for his "gesture politics". He is not immune to the charge - witness his demand for a Scottish Olympic team - but with Trident he has hit on a serious cause. Question, when is a nation not a nation state? Answer, when it can't say no to nuclear missiles in its back garden. The peace camp outside Faslane base on the Gareloch is a good place to consider his tactics. Residents reckon it to be "the oldest peace camp in the world": Greenham Common lasted 17 years, this year Faslane celebrated its 25th anniversary. It stretches for a hundred yards and more along the road, a gaudy collection of old buses, cars and caravans, which like a small town has acquired memorials and a history. Down one path stands a cherry tree, planted in 1985 by two survivors of Hiroshima; one hutment displays a photographic record of demonstrations, another a jumbled library. The camp has mains water, flush lavatories and baths and showers, though no electricity. Sewage runs off into the loch (not unusual on the Clyde), and truly ecological campers can use a compost toilet. Food often comes from the waste bins of supermarkets. There are many dogs. What struck me on Wednesday was the cold, and how much energy is devoted to keeping it out with sleeping bags, wood-chopping, open fires and rusty stoves. A changing cast averaging about a dozen people at any one time has lived here for 24 damp and chill Scottish winters, and is about to enter its 25th. You need to be brave as well as righteous. Many, perhaps most, are English. The people I met there, including a vegan who said bashfully she was known as the most-arrested woman in Britain, welcomed the Salmond plan. They said it was imaginative of him to lobby for Scotland's presence at the next nuclear non-proliferation treaty conference in 2010, and that his scheme to block transport of warheads on Scottish roads was no more, after all, than they in the anti-nuclear movement had been trying to do for years. The missiles are American, but the warheads are made and maintained at Aldermaston and Burghfield in Berkshire, and taken to Coulport on Loch Long by a road convoy that runs two to six times a year. At Coulport, warheads are attached to the missiles. Using health and safety legislation, the Scottish government could block the convoys; using planning legislation, it could also prevent changes at Faslane to accommodate new submarines. Salmond, in his shirt and tie and banker's grin, could succeed where dozens of sit-down protests failed. A young woman who wanted to be known as Dave said: "You should just chuck us out." By "you" she meant people in Scotland, by "us" she meant what in her view was the English military. Salmond would have been pleased to have heard her. The British navy, the British deterrent, the common military purpose for the land in common - these notions are fading. Visually, the idea of Faslane and Coulport as chunks of foreign territory is easy to sustain. Miles of razor-wire-topped fences surround them. Surveillance cameras cover every yard. This isn't an American airbase waiting for the wheat to grow again but a colossal fortification: an indented coastline and its hinterland have been conquered by roads, piers, cranes, ship-lifts, an emergency power station, offices and hostels for staff and sailors. From across the Gareloch, Faslane looks like a bristling new town. Building work is continuous - a new generation of attack submarines will also be based here. The sound of pile-drivers carries across the loch as coaches queue at the gates to pick up the day shift. The annual running cost of base and submarines is estimated at £1.7bn. To replace the V-class Trident submarines might cost £10bn, £15bn or £25bn. Not to replace them, and to decommission and decontaminate the base, has an estimated price of £9.7bn. Faslane/ Coulport is easily the largest industrial site in Scotland. It employs 7,000 people and another 3,000 indirectly. As the Scottish National party's campaign picks up, the more Gordon Brown will make of these facts, and of how British warship orders keep another 3,000 shipbuilders in work on the upper Clyde. At Kilcreggan, on the way from Faslane to Coulport, I stopped to look over at Holy Loch, where Trident's predecessor, Polaris, had its base for more than 30 years. Soon after the depot ship arrived in 1961 I went as young CND member to demonstrate. Polaris had a galvanic effect in a country where the Gorbals Young Socialists flourished, Glasgow still published a magazine devoted to anarcho-syndicalism, and the folk-song movement was taking wing. I carried one pole of a banner and the poet Hugh MacDiarmid took the other. He was Scottish nationalist as well as a communist and wore the kilt - an awkward sort of customer. It seemed impossible then that Scottish nationalism would ever amount to anything - a fantasy of neo-Jacobites, inconsequential to the global struggle - and now it threatens the future standing of the British state. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007 ***************************************************************** 61 Brazzil Magazine: Behind Brazil's Nuclear Dream Is a Perceived Call to Be a Super Power Written by Alex Sánchez Sunday, 28 October 2007 On July 10, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva announced his intention to fulfill one of the Brazilian Navy's ultimate dreams: to launch a nuclear-powered submarine. This idea was originally hatched during the era of military rule from the 1960s to 1980s but floundered due to a lack of funds and priority status. It resurfaced at a time when there are disturbing signs that much of the subcontinent is moving towards an unintentional arms race. Criticism is mounting both within and outside of Brazil regarding whether it would be wise for the nation to go ahead with this plan, and what does this say about the Lula presidency. Will it deed itself over to engaging in rhetorical vertigo about becoming one of the world's dominant sea powers, rather than decide to come forth with a serious plan that it intends to implement a naval expansion program that will not break the bank and not ignite an arms race. . As the international community tries to blunt North Korea's and Iran's nuclear ambitions, Brazil (long rumored to be ready in its campaign to fight an all-embracing effort to obtain a permanent seat on the United Nations' Security Council), has put forth a plan to construct a nuclear-powered submarine by 2015. What is surprising about this situation is that Brazil's apparent decision could risk having a highly probable destabilizing impact on the hemisphere because it doesn't factor in the grave consequences it could generate. Brazil's Nuclear History The genesis of Brazil's nuclear ambitions can be traced back to the 1960s, a time when military governments were a hemispheric plague, with the South American giant being, if anything, a pathfinder for this process. Nevertheless, the Brazilian military junta that ruled from 1964-1985 never managed to nurture concrete plans to construct this super category of sophisticated weapons. According to one AP story, the navy's nuclear program, which actually had begun in 1979, already had mastered part of the uranium enrichment process, but it had lagged in developing and constructing a reactor entirely from Brazilian technology, said Navy Admiral Julio Soares de Moura Neto. According to a July filing by Deutsch Presse-Agentur, the nuclear submarine project was part of a 1975 agreement between Brasília and the then Western German government in Bonn. Meanwhile, it should be noted that, in a recent article, the Latin American Weekly Report acknowledged that Brazil has been found to be far behind other regional countries in terms of economic support for its armed forces: "Brazil's armed forces are now far behind, by any aspect of comparison apart from troop numbers, the armed forces of Chile, Peru, and Venezuela." This begs the obvious question regarding what will happen to the country's citizens if Lula decides to allocate the country's economic resources more toward the country's military operations and away from the people's direct social welfare needs. During the period of military rule, Brazil's neighbor Argentina (if anything, under an even more Draconian military regime), was also heatedly developing a nuclear program at its remote facility near Bariloche, Argentina. A Spring 1981 Foreign Affairs article by Gerard Smith (Chief of the U.S. Delegation to the Strategic Arms Limitations Talks (SALT) from 1969 to 1972) and George Rathjens (a Professor of Political Science at MIT) discussed nuclear non proliferation, touching on Latin America. The article mentions the Brazilian-Argentine nuclear arms race which was thought to exist at the time, explaining that "despite U.S. pressures and the expenditure of considerable political capital, the Federal Republic of Germany insisted on going ahead with its previous commitments to assist Brazil in acquiring reprocessing and enrichment facilities. And the FRG and Switzerland have recently agreed to provide Argentina with a power reactor and a heavy-water plant." Ironically, Lula protested the construction of the nuclear submarine during the military regime, at a time when he was a fiery union leader with solid leftist credentials, protesting that the country had more important needs for its citizens than something so expensive. It seems now Lula, along with new obsessions, has had a dramatic change of heart. Lula Revives Nuclear Plans To the surprise of only a few, whose knowledge of Lula's value system was formed in the past and who now see him as a parody of the system to which he once so passionately subscribed, the Brazilian leader is a pro-nuke submarine enthusiast, who now emphasizes his intention to pursue his military predecessors' nuclear ambitions. He plans to have the submarine operating by 2015. A July 11 wire story by Agence France Presse quotes the Brazilian president as saying during a visit to the Brazilian navy's Technological Center in São Paulo, "Brazil could rank among those few nations in the world with a command of uranium enrichment technology, and I think we will be more highly valued as a nation - as the power we wish to be." In essence, the new Brazil that Lula ululates over has a different kind of author with a vastly different script than the one he once daily authored as the leader of the metallurgical union in the São Paulo industrial belt. Lula's references raise several very tantalizing questions about the nuclear submarine project. Among them are: will it be constructed solely by Brazilian scientists and technicians? Or will scientists by recruited from abroad as consultants? Does the Brazilian navy possess the necessary skill to design, construct, test and operate a vessel which goes far beyond the admirable design and construction technology capacity it has evinced up to now, even after factoring in all of its engineering successes and its commercial triumphs in the fields of aircraft and weaponry fabrication? Will the crew be sent abroad to gain training on how to operate this kind of super-sophisticated equipment? What kind of design principles will the submarine feature? Will it be a replication of another country's nuclear submarines or will it be a totally new design? While Lula is jaunty, other Brazilians are desperate, according to daily O Estado de São Paulo, as cited by the Latin American Weekly Report: "'For a long time the government has abandoned the armed forces to its own luck, in a display of disinterest in national defense and the way of life of Brazilians.' The newspaper goes on to say that the pitiable situation of Brazil's armed forces 'does not match the ambitions' of President Lula da Silva to lead South America in an 'increasingly instable regional strategic environment.'" O Estado zeroes in on musings now taking place in the Brazilian armed forces: "Two-thirds of the air force's planes are grounded due to lack of replacement parts. The air force does not have any medium-range-to-air and air-to-ground missiles, attack helicopters or the so-called 'intelligent bombs' which are part of the equipment of its Chilean, Peruvian and Venezuelan counterparts. Furthermore, only half of the navy's combat ships are fit for their intended purpose. In the army the situation is no different. There is no money for ammunition, Brazilian tanks are all secondhand and most over 30 years old." Does this sound like a country that could spend almost a billion dollars on nuclear submarine project? Nuclear Power for Several Applications The Brazilian president also is saying that his government will complete the long-suspended Angra III nuclear plant in Rio de Janeiro state. "We will complete Angra III, and if necessary, we'll go on to build more (nuclear plants) because it is clean energy and now proven to be safe," Lula ebulliently noted. The plant will cost 3.5 billion dollars over five and a half years, he said. But he did not mention the nuclear waste disposal issue which has been deviled Washington in recent years and still defies easy solution, as seen in the Feral Yucca Mountain debate. Going Nuclear All the Way A June article by Nuclear Engineering International explains that Brazil has always strived for self-sufficiency in nuclear power, but the ambitious plans of the 1970s were never fully realized, leaving Brazil with just Angra I & II and the equipment and technical skills required for a third, all sited at Angra Dos Reis in Rio de Janeiro state. The construction of Angra III was originally contracted out to the German firm KraftwerkUnion (KWU), now part of Siemens, which was taken over by Framatome ANP (now Areva). At the end of 2001, Brazil's National Energy Policy Council (CNPE) was asked to make recommendations on Angra III and authorized preliminary steps to restart the project, with Lula ultimately deciding to go ahead with it. Brazil's two operating nuclear plants, Angra I and Angra II, have an installed capacity of about 2,000 megawatts. Angra III would raise its capacity to 3,300 megawatts, at an estimated cost of about US$ 3.6 billion. According to several costing engineers, they would be surprised if the plant construction didn't come in at least 50% higher than the current estimated figure, with the same being true of the projected costs for the submarine. An October 2004 article in Science by Liz Palmer, entitled "Brazil's Nuclear Puzzle" reported that in 2004 Brazil had plans for a uranium enrichment plant, which, it if configured to do so, could fuel several nuclear weapons annually. It went on to explain that "Brazil has pledged to enrich its uranium to only 3.5% 235U, the concentration required by its two power reactors. This would be too weak to fuel a bomb, which typically requires a concentration of 90% or above. If Brazil should change its mind, its stockpile of uranium already enriched to 3.5 or 5% will have received more than half the work needed to bring it to weapon grade. This would confer what is known as "breakout capability" - the power to make nuclear weapons before the world can react, rendering it a fait accompli. Such a capacity is what the United States and some European countries fear Iran is aiming at." While it is true that Brazil wants to build a nuclear submarine, not a nuclear weapon, the feeling remains about Brazil's potential to become a global nuclear power incrementally, if it chose to do so at all. It certainly has the resources and the personnel to carry out nuclear projects, and if you take Lula's words to heart, he also seems to have the will. But most of the most source of energy currently fueling Brazil's nuclear dream does not derive from nuclear fission as much as it comes from Brazil's growing sense of ultimate grandeur - that it is destined to be a super power this century. And who is the amiable Jingoist stoking the line of "über alles"-well, no other than Lula. Yet there is still another chapter to the Brazilian story, and that consists of the corruption that infuses the nation's public life, the inefficiency, the hypocrisy, the environment chicanery and the unspeakable violence of both the street criminals and their prosecutors, and the drug-trafficking Mafia that renders Brazil a hellish state in which to reside, if you are not well to do and strategically positioned. Interestingly, on June 8 there was an article in the International Herald Tribune about the Russian nuclear power company, Atomstroyexport (a former branch of the Soviet atomic energy ministry) and how Russia is becoming an important exporter of nuclear energy and engineering skills. The article explains how the company is currently constructing reactors in countries like China, India and Bulgaria. The core of the article is based on declarations by Sergei Shmatko, chief executive of Atomstroyexport. The business executive speaks of a "nuclear renaissance," with Moscow emerging as a global exporter of nuclear technology for developing nations. He added that his company is already producing a new design for emerging markets; it has a line of mini-reactors more typical of the power plants required for nuclear submarines or ice breakers, then ostensibly for nuclear power plants. Moscow already has proven that it has very few qualms about exporting military technology, as exemplified by the multi-billion dollar deals with Venezuela over the past couple of years, even though it hasn't quite overtaken the U.S. as a world leader in the export of weaponry. It is only logical to assume that the Kremlin would be more than willing to provide a nuclear reactor to Brazil for its nuclear submarine if it has the money for it. And, as Lula boasts, Brazil has the cash, even though his admirers and generals claim that only penury is to be found in the Palácio da Alvorada. A Nuclear Brazil: Is this Wise? Lula appears to be resorting to the traditional waving the "bloody flag of nationalism" in order to increase his personal popularity and confirm the support of the nation's powerful military establishment, although all is not sound here, and his placating is probably doomed to not be enough. This call to arms comes at a time when his administration was sent reeling by almost daily corruption scandals in his political party and his administration. In the latest round of nationwide discontent, landless workers blocked an iron ore railway (with ore being a key ingredient for the production of steel) owned by Companhia Vale do Rio Doce SA. The company claims only 300 individuals protested, while the Landless Workers Movement insists they were as many as 2,600, according to the Associated Press. Lula's critics insist that, instead of allocating hundreds of millions of dollars to a nuclear submarine program, why not address the multiple social problems pressing Brazil. These include environmental and anti-poverty initiatives to constructively impact Brazil's current social ills. Instead, Lula has decided to turn to acquiring a trophy military weapon that couldn't be less relevant to Brazil's future as a great nation and Latin America's current concerns. But this is unwise and will only further provoke regional tensions. Among others, one must wonder what will be the reaction in Buenos Aires, with an Argentine military still nursing its wounds over its defeat in the Falklands. If Brazil's nuclear submarine actually becomes operational, might this immediately invoke the concerns of the Argentine navy? One might reply that during the Falkland War with Britain, the Argentine cruiser ARA General Belgrano was doomed by the U.K.'s nuclear-powered submarine, HMS Conqueror. The Belgrano was the second largest ship in the Argentine navy at the time and was sunk by two Tigerfish torpedoes from the Conqueror, killing 323 sailors. This was a critical point in the war as it proved to the Argentine navy that it could not compete against the British fleet, including its nuclear submarine. What will the Argentine navy have to say about Brazil obtaining a nuclear submarine of its own? Finally, it is still illogical that Brazil even thinks for a moment that it must have its submarine. The sub-continent, in spite of the arms race it has experienced in recent years, has not had an inter-state war since the Peruvian-Ecuadorian border conflict in 1941. Brazil itself fought a war against Argentina in the 1820s when Argentina was known as the United Provinces of Rio de la Plata. The last armed conflict (not counting its involvement in World War II) in which Brazil fought was the War of the Triple Alliance when Brazil allied itself with Uruguay and Argentina against Paraguay from 1864 to 1870. If anything, Brazil's security threats today come from drug cartels, the possible infiltration of the Colombian guerrillas known as the FARC into its territory, and the widespread occurrence of gang violence, and not from Argentina or Paraguay (a landlocked border country) Military Politics By deciding to build a nuclear submarine, Lula is reviving the old dreams of the Brazilian military. At the same time, he has certainly given reason to the Argentine navy to push for even a bigger defense budget at a time when the country is still recuperating from the 2001 economic meltdown. Both the Brazilian and Argentine security forces have dark pasts that have sullied their countries' good names. The possession of a nuclear submarine would provide both militaries with an increased status that would be prejudicial to their still not completely stabilized democracies and would allow them to question their subordination to the civilian government. It is ironic that Lula has declared his intention to build a nuclear submarine. While he was a union leader before becoming president, Lula had protested against such nuclear aspirations, but it seems he has now had a change of heart. Why has this occurred? Can this be explained by the growing pressure coming towards Lula from the country's military that never has quite regained the prestige that it had when it ruled the country with an absolutist style? According to a report by the Deutsche Presse-Agentur, Lula has emphasized repeatedly that he sees the use of nuclear power as a source of energy as a bread and butter issue for his administration, and that down the road such power will be essential to meet the country's energy requirements; according to estimates, building the nuclear submarine will cost an annual disbursement of 68 million dollars over eight years, so it will be ready (ideally) not before 2015. Curiously, the aspiration to acquire a nuclear submarine comes at a time when the Brazilian military is going through a process of upgrading. During a September trip to Spain, in spite of the obvious disenchantment with many of his senior military colleagues over the poor condition in which the Brazilian military finds itself, Lula told the Spanish daily El País "in the 1970s, we had modern factories that built tanks [...] But they have been dismantled. Brazil must return to what it had. To rebuild our weaponry factories, we must buy." According to various reports, Brazil plans to raise military spending by 50% next year and is planning to modernize its submarines, build missiles in cooperation with South Africa and purchase second-hand aircraft. Logically, Lula has the enthusiastic backing of the Brazilian military establishment for his drive to upgrade the military. But this is not necessarily the case. On October 13, there was an article in the Brazilian daily Correio Braziliense, regarding Brazil's military, which included declarations by General Barros Moreira, a former commander of the War College (Brazil's military intelligence service) and who currently serves as head of the Political, Strategic and International Relations Secretariat at the Defense Ministry. On the question of the nuclear submarine, General Moreira declared: "What is going to happen to a country where 95% of international trade takes place by sea? And our oil, where is it? If we had a nuclear submarine, we would be more secure. If the Argentine navy had had a nuclear submarine, England would not have attacked during the Falklands conflict. A peaceful country such as ours, that has no intention of attacking anyone, has every right to defend itself, because it is growing increasingly richer and more tempting." Of course, it remains somewhat obscure as to which country, if any, would be inclined to attack Brazil for its resources. Opponents of the nuclear submarine and the nuclear plant programs include Lula's Environment Minister Marina Silva. The minister declared that "in the last 15 years, no country has built nuclear power plants because of the problems with the waste [...] We have other sources of power: a great potential in hydroelectric, and clean energies in which we should invest." In addition, the construction of the Angra 3 power plant is potentially dangerous because it is located in the state of Rio de Janeiro, near a natural reserve, where the soil is unstable and has included a history of landslides. Angra already was a subject of considerable controversy because of a flawed geological survey which was originally done on the site, which did not include fault problems that should have been ventilated in public discussion. Lula has ruled out solar or wind plants, arguing that they are more expensive than a nuclear plant. Taking the Arms Race to the Next Level Brazil's renewed coveting of a nuclear submarine comes at a time when the sub-region is already moving towards an arms race. Among other regional countries, Venezuela and Chile are engaged in major military purchases. Most recently, Venezuela has ordered the purchase of five Kilo-636 submarines from Russia. Peru has contracted a number of naval purchases a couple of years ago during the Alejandro Toledo administration, including the purchase of four Lupo-class frigates from Italy. Last year, Bolivian president Evo Morales declared his plans to build a number of military outposts, with Venezuela's help to parallel Bolivia's borders, including one facing its border with Brazil. It is unlikely that other countries, including Argentina, will not feel compelled to follow suit at some point in the near future as a result of pressure coming from its own armed forces With Brazil's neighbors now interested on increasing their military capability, Brasília arms specialists claim that the country has adopted a posture on its prospective acquisition of a nuclear submarine that, from a strategic point of view, would give it a definite advantage over potential attackers when it comes to naval warfare, even though the strategy is somewhat provocative. An additional issue regarding Brazil's nuclear submarine has to do with the de facto violation of the spirit, or even the letter of the Treaty of Tlatelolco. Signed in 1967 and entered into force in 1969, the Treaty was drafted in Mexico City to make Latin America and the Caribbean into a nuclear-free zone. Brazil is also a signatory of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. It seems clear that obligations to these treaty regimes would seem to prevent some problem for Lula's ambitious plans to significantly upscale the navy. And Washington's Reaction Is.... At a time when the drums of war are beating regarding Washington's tough stand against Iran's nuclear ambitions, and while negotiations continue with North Korea, how will Washington policy makers react to Brazil possessing a nuclear-powered submarine? In 1991, Presidents Fernando Collor of Brazil and Carlos Menem of Argentina signed an accord with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna that provided for IAEA inspection of their respective nuclear programs. At the time, the U.S. State Department praised the decision by both leaders, by issuing a statement issued on December 13, 1991 saying that: "The two South American presidents have demonstrated exceptional statesmanship in moving to free their continent from the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation." What will the State Department say now? Other institutions that have yet to declare themselves about Brazil's plans include the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Agency for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean (OPANAL), based in Mexico City. Also of note, the other members of the India-Brazil-South Africa Dialogue Forum (IBSA) (who have or have had nuclear ambitions of their own in the past and present), one of the newest cross-continental alliances, has yet to play a large role in the process or come out conclusively for or against Brazil's nuclear plans. The Nuclear Nightmare It could be persuasively argued that Brazil's proposed nuclear submarine is an imprudent foreign policy move for Brazil to take. Conventional weaponry, in addition to the country's geography, which features broad land buffers, should serve, as they have in the past, as a sufficient deterrent to dissuade other countries from attacking Brazil under any conceivable scenario. Some unkind soul might even accuse Lula of engaging in a good deal of hypocrisy for considering to carry out the plans that basically echo the aspirations of the military junta which was responsible for numerous human rights abuses when it held power and which Lula himself once fiercely opposed. Brazil is regionally and globally respected and would be the natural Latin America representative in the UN Security Council should it ever be reformed and expanded. In addition it is presently besieged by a host of domestic problems, including widespread criminal violence and drug trafficking, aside from increasing gang warfare. This analysis was prepared by COHA Research Fellow Alex Sánchez. The Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA) - www.coha.org - is a think tank established in 1975 to discuss and promote inter-American relationship. Email: . ***************************************************************** 62 AFP: Olmert apologised to Turkey over Syria raid - Sun Oct 28, 10:49 AM JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has acknowledged for the first time that Israeli warplanes may have violated Turkey's air space during a raid on Syria last month, an official said Sunday. Olmert apologised to his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan when the two men met in London on Tuesday, the official said. "If in fact Israeli planes penetrated Turkey's air space it was never meant intentionally or in any event to damage or hurt Turkey's sovereignty which we respect," Olmert said, according to an Israeli official present at the meeting. During the meeting Olmert "expressed Israel's apologies to the Turkish government and the Turkish people for any damage caused," the official added. Israel had previously confirmed it launched an air raid against a military target inside Syria on September 6 but has provided no additional details, amid speculation that the target may have been a site storing nuclear materials. Turkey had demanded an explanation from Israel after it was embarrassed by the discovery of jettisoned fuel tanks on its territory in the aftermath of the raid. Foreign Minister Ali Babacan said during a visit to Syria that he was astonished by newspaper reports that Turkey had prior notice of the raid and allowed its airspace to be used by the Israeli jets. Turkey would never allow its territory to be used for an act "hostile to the security of Syria," he said. Copyright © 2007 Yahoo! Canada Co. All Rights Reserved. Privacy ***************************************************************** 63 Independent.ie: Nuclear safety fears over sub - 13° Dublin Hi 13°C / Lo 3°C Saturday October 27 2007 THE commanding officer of the nuclear-powered submarine USS Hampton was relieved of his duty yesterday because of a loss of confidence in his leadership, the US Navy said. Cmdr Michael Portland was relieved of duty after a US Navy investigation found the ship failed to do daily safety checks on its nuclear reactor for a month and falsified records. Actress Hudson's divorce finalised US ACTRESS Kate Hudson's divorce from rocker Chris Robinson was finalised in Los Angeles Superior Court yesterday. Robinson, 40, lead singer of the Black Crowes, cited irreconcilable differences when he filed for divorce last November after nearly six years of marriage. Puppy killer gets three years A MAN who threw a puppy to its death off an apartment balcony was jailed for three years by a dog-loving judge in South Carolina. Javon Morris, 22, apologised for throwing the animal off the balcony during a row with his girlfriend and pleaded guilty to animal cruelty. Belushi in fight over 'lemon' US COMEDIAN Jim Belushi is being sued by the 78-year-old father of his former driver, who has accused him of misleading him in the sale of a second-hand Land Rover Ted Lewandowski claims a 2001 SUV he bought off the star needed more than $6,000 (£3,000) in repairs -- and he demands that Belushi pay. Vietnam suffers bird flu scare VIETNAM has reported a fresh bird flu outbreak, marking the third this month, a government report said yesterday. Samples of some 560 ducks and chickens from 13 small farms in Cao Bang province bordering China tested positive for the H5N1 bird flu virus, the Department of Animal Health said in a report. ©independent.ie Sitemap ***************************************************************** 64 AFP: IAEA chief lashes out over Israeli raid in Syria - by Jitendra Joshi Sun Oct 28, 3:58 PM ET WASHINGTON (AFP) - UN nuclear chief Mohamed ElBaradei Sunday accused the Israelis of taking "the law into their own hands" with a mysterious raid on Syria last month and demanded more information about what was hit. Neither Israel nor the United States has furnished "any evidence at all" to prove that the Syrian site bombed in early September was a secret nuclear facility, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency told CNN. "That to me is very distressful because we have a system: if countries have information that the country is working on a nuclear-related program, they should come to us. We have the authority to go out and investigate," he said. "But to bomb first and then ask questions later, I think it undermines the system and it doesn't lead to any solution to any suspicion, because we are the eyes and ears of the international community." Israel has said it bombed a military target inside Syria on September 6 but has provided no more details, amid speculation that the target may have been a site storing nuclear materials from North Korea. ElBaradei said he had been told by Syria that the site was a military facility and "has nothing to do with nuclear." "And I would hope if anybody has information, before they take the law into their own hands, to come and pass the information on," he said. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has meanwhile acknowledged that Israeli warplanes may have violated Turkey's air space during the incursion into Syria, an official said Sunday. Olmert apologized to his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan when the two men met in London on Tuesday, the Israeli official said. Turkey had demanded an explanation from Israel after it was embarrassed by the discovery of jettisoned fuel tanks on its territory in the aftermath of the raid. US officials have also stayed tight-lipped about the Israeli raid. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said last week that Washington would keep an eye on reports North Korea may be selling nuclear know-how, but declined to discuss allegations Pyongyang had offered nuclear help to Syria. At a congressional hearing Thursday, Hill faced tough questioning by lawmakers who questioned the US administration's diplomatic approach with North Korea in light of the allegations surrounding Syria. Hill said he could not discuss North Korea's alleged role in Syria's nuclear program at an open hearing because that information was "classified." But ElBaradei said that only the IAEA, through inspections of Syrian facilities, was in a position to conclusively say whether the country is pursuing a nuclear program. "If Syria were working on a nuclear program, clandestine program, then we'd obviously be able to draw the consequences. But today I don't know where to go. I didn't get any information," he told CNN. Commercial satellite images appear to show that a building in Syria that analysts believe may have held a nuclear reactor has been razed since the Israeli air strike. The Institute for Science and International Security posted imagery on its website taken October 24 by DigitalGlobe that it said "effectively confirms that this site was indeed the target of the Israeli raid." It said the images raise questions about whether Syria is in violation of its agreements with the IAEA under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. ElBaradei said that the UN agency was still studying the satellite pictures and stressed it was premature to draw a link to North Korea. "But in addition to us buying commercial photos, I would very much hope that countries will come forward if they have information so we'll go through a due process," he said. Copyright © 2007 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 65 Charlotte Observer: Exterior of Core Lab 90% done 10/28/2007 | It's the centerpiece building of the North Carolina Research Campus ADAM BELL Exterior work on the Core Lab building at the North Carolina Research Campus is now 90 percent complete, campus officials said last week. They also are starting to figure out the schedule for when equipment should start to move into the building, which is the centerpiece of the $1.5 billion biotech complex in downtown Kannapolis. The speciality equipment at the lab will be available for rent by campus tenants. That is one of the main selling points of the campus, being developed by billionaire Dole Food owner David Murdock. "In the first quarter (of 2008), boxes will begin to arrive with bubbling and gurgling machines," said Andrew Conrad, Murdock's science adviser for the research campus. The lab also will play a key role in the long-term study of Kannapolis residents' health that Duke University scientists are about to undertake. Medical specimens from other people that Duke has collected over the years will be analyzed at the lab as part of the study. The campus is a collaboration between Murdock and several N.C. universities. One of the bigger machines will be a 20,000-pound, two-story, 900-megahertz nuclear magnetic resonance machine, the only one in the state. It provides very detailed visualizations of molecules and should arrive by the end of March, campus project manager Lynne Scott Safrit said. Besides the lab, which is used for basic research, the building will contain a vivarium for animal testing, a fermentation facility for single-run tests of products and other offices and research facilities. The 311,000-square-foot building is scheduled to open next spring, around the time buildings that will house UNC Chapel Hill and N.C. State University research facilities are scheduled to open. Safrit said Murdock is still negotiating with Duke and RTI International about the role each will play in managing the lab. RTI is a research institute near Raleigh. The Sports Authority recently opened its 42,000-square-foot store across from Concord Mills mall in Concord. The store is at 8094 Concord Mills Blvd. The Colorado sporting goods chain has several stores in the region, including two in Charlotte and one in Gastonia. Other N.C. stores are in Greensboro and Winston-Salem. ***************************************************************** 66 Hanford News: PNNL contract to disallow private work: Up to 400 jobs, millions in contracts could be lost This story was published Friday, October 26th, 2007 John Trumbo, Herald staff writer The Department of Energy announced Thursday that it intends to award a new contract for operating the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory within 12 months, but it no longer will allow private work to be done at the government facility. The decision to exclude so-called "use permit" work in a future contract for the national lab in Richland could mean the loss of up to 400 jobs and about $75 million in private contracts annually. The exclusion of private work from the future PNNL contract would end a unique 42-year special arrangement between the government and Battelle Memorial Institute of Ohio, which has managed the lab since 1965. DOE said removing the use permit from the draft request for proposals would level the playing field for all companies interested in bidding on the PNNL contract. Washington's federal legislators and officials at the Tri-City Development Council (TRIDEC) say deleting the use permit from PNNL's contract also could hurt development of other science and businesses in the Tri-Cities. "DOE's omission of the 'use permit' is completely unacceptable," said a joint statement issued Thursday from Washington's congressional delegation of U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray and U.S. Reps. Norm Dicks and Doc Hastings. Battelle's current contract was extended to Sept. 30, 2008, so DOE could complete the bidding process and select a contractor for the lab. The new contract would be for five years, with a 15-year extension if the contractor's performance is good enough. DOE's announcement Thursday said that the draft request for proposals would be open for public comment for 45 days. "This is very important to our community. It's important for the community to comment," said Gary Petersen, vice president of TRIDEC. Petersen said getting community members and contractors to submit comments before the Dec. 10 deadline would be important to getting the use permit put back into the bidding process. Battelle's contract to operate PNNL for DOE has two parts. The maintenance and operations contract covers work done for the government, while the use permit contract allows Battelle to take on private, or outside, work using government lab facilities and equipment as well as some of the same employees. About 10 percent of PNNL's contract work representing $750 million annually is from research done under the use permit. Battelle has about 4,200 employees at the lab. The congressional delegation's joint statement expressed disappointment and suggested a political fight. "The use permit is responsible for 300 to 400 jobs at PNNL alone, and has led to job and business creation in the Tri-Cities and across our state. It should not be summarily ended as this draft proposes," the statement said. The senators and representatives said they appreciate DOE answering "the call to complete this contract competition by the end of next year, ensuring a change in presidential administrations does not disrupt PNNL's important work." The statement continued: "PNNL has served our country and community well for over 40 years and the process of competing the contract must not result in layoffs and a crippled lab. "The future of PNNL and a vital part of the Tri-Cities community is at stake. We will work together as a delegation to ensure DOE does the right thing and restores the use permit." Carl Adrian, president and CEO of TRIDEC, said TRIDEC will continue to support legislators' efforts to preserve the use permit in a future PNNL contract. The use permit also has made it possible for collaborations between PNNL and Washington State University Tri-Cities, where the lab and university are jointly building and equipping a Bioproducts, Science and Energy Laboratory on the Richland campus. Petersen said Battelle also has made available staff and lab resources to help many private startup ventures such as IsoRay, a local public company that produces a new type of radiation treatments for prostate cancer. "If this goes away, what will north Richland look like? The research park (at Hanford) will take a big hit," Adrian said. DOE announced 21 months ago that it planned to put the PNNL contract out for competitive bids. But the draft request for proposals was slow in coming. Battelle's two-part contract that included the use permit made it difficult to call for new bids from companies because they would not be in a position to assume the private work. PNNL is the only national lab to have an arrangement allowing private work to occur at a government facility. Petersen said DOE's decision to delete the use permit was expected. "But we were hopeful DOE would see the advantage to the government in having the use permit. Unfortunately they apparently don't see it," he said. "This has been a very successful public-private partnership. It could be a model for other labs, but (DOE isn't) listening to us," Adrian said. Battelle officials have said they will compete for the new contract. Other companies that have expressed interest in being a prime contractor for the lab include AECOM Government Solutions in Los Angeles and BWXT Services of Lynchburg, Va. © 2007 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 67 Tri-City Herald: Cantwell seeks hearing with DOE on Richland's PNNL Published Saturday, October 27th, 2007 JOHN TRUMBO HERALD STAFF WRITER A Washington senator has called for a federal hearing on the relationship of the Department of Energy and its national labs, including Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland. Sen. Maria Cantwell's request for the hearing follows Thursday's announcement by DOE that it no longer will allow private work to be done at PNNL as part of the lab's new contract. The "use permit" work represents about 10 percent of PNNL's $750 million annual budget, and losing it could affect up to 400 Tri-City jobs. The hearing would focus on the relationship of DOE and federal labs in the context of research, technology transfers and private sector development, said Cantwell, D-Wash. She announced Friday she was asking Sen. Jeff Bingaman, chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, and Sen. Pete Domenici, ranking member of the Senate Committee on Natural Resources, to organize the hearing. Cantwell's letter to the two senators from New Mexico comes one day after DOE announced in a draft request for proposals that it will not allow private-sector work, also known as "use permit" work, to be part of the new contract to operate PNNL. The new contract is to be awarded next fall. The letter also follows by one day a joint statement from Washington's three other federal legislators who said they were disappointed that DOE plans to eliminate the private work portion of the existing PNNL contract, which has been held for 42 years by Battelle Memorial Institute of Ohio. Cantwell previously joined Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., Rep. Norm Dicks, R-Wash., and Doc Hastings, R-Wash., in June to urge DOE to include the "use permit" in a draft request for proposal on the PNNL contract. But she did not sign Thursday's statement strongly defending the use permit, and Friday's letter on the senate hearing did not mention the use permit specifically. In a prepared statement included with Friday's news release on her letter, the senator said: "The Tri-Cities have long served as a vibrant technology hub for not just Washington state, but for the entire Pacific Northwest. I'm concerned about any move that would remove important tools for scientific research and private development. ..." "The Tri-Cities must continue to have a strong relationship with the federal laboratories to promote economic development and job creation. I hope a Senate hearing will help preserve that important relationship." Cantwell could not be reached by the Herald on Friday. Todd Young, chief of staff for Hastings, said Cantwell was offered an opportunity to join in the statement by the three other members of the Washington delegation. Elizabeth Ferranti, Cantwell's press secretary, told the Herald late Thursday they were working on a statement on the use permit issue, but no statement was released Thursday. © 2007 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press & Other Wire Services ***************************************************************** 68 Tri-City Herald: First containers of VX nerve agent arrive at Umatilla Depot Published Saturday, October 27th, 2007 JEANNINE KORANDA HERALD OREGON BUREAU HERMISTON -- The first container of M55 rockets filled with VX nerve agent arrived at the Umatilla Chemical Depot on Friday with a name attached to it. Depot officials named the reinforced steel shipping container in honor of Bob Flournoy, the longtime chairman of the Oregon Chemical Demilitarization Citizens Advisory Commission. The containers are used to transport chemical weapons stored at the Oregon site from storage bunkers to the incineration plant. "It completely surprised me, I had no idea it was coming," said Flournoy, who saw his name on the giant steel container when he walked out of depot commander Lt. Col. Bob Stein's office. "It's because of his no-nonsense approach and communication skills that citizens surrounding the depot continue to be informed about our efforts to eliminate chemical munitions, and the hazards of doing so. We appreciate that he's a leading voice in the community when it comes to safety," Stein said. Shipping the rockets to the plant is one of the final steps before the plant starts draining, chopping and burning 14,519 rockets. Depot officials plan to start burning the nerve agent-filled rockets early next week, possibly Monday or Tuesday, depot spokesman Bruce Henrickson said. About 2 p.m. Friday, crews moved the first shipment of 30 rockets to the plant, Henrickson said. He wasn't sure how many shipments would be made Friday. When the plant starts up, it will feed 10 rockets through on of the two rocket destruction lines on one shift. On the second shift, crews will feed 10 more rockets through the second rocket line, he said. Like GB sarin, which the incinerator finished destroying in July, VX attacks the central nervous system and can cause seizures, paralysis and even death in extreme cases. While the agents cause the same reactions, sarin is considered more dangerous to the public because it evaporates at the rate of water, while VX -- a clear, oily and scentless liquid -- evaporates more like vegetable oil, according to the Army. Its primary danger is through skin contact. Flournoy, who got involved with depot affairs almost 10 years ago to determine if the incinerator process was safe, said he was pleased to see the start of the new destruction campaign. © 2007 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press & Other Wire Services ***************************************************************** 69 Knoxville News Sentinel: ORNL scientist hotel in works 'Spartan' lodging will be used by researchers visiting SNS laboratory By Frank Munger (Contact) Sunday, October 28, 2007 OAK RIDGE - It won't be fancy, but scientists from around the globe may call it home when visiting the Spallation Neutron Source. Known officially (and blandly) as the User Housing Facility, the little hotel will be built next door to the SNS on Chestnut Ridge - about a mile from the main campus of Oak Ridge National Laboratory. It will have room for about 25 guests, who typically will be scientists doing around-the-clock experiments with materials at the SNS or the adjacent nanoscience center. "It'll be relatively spartan," said Jeff Smith, ORNL's deputy director for operations. "It probably will not have the look and feel of a Ritz-Carlton." A Knoxville company, Partners and Associates, recently won a contract to design and build the $3 million facility, which will have two floors with a collection of single-occupancy rooms. It should be ready for residents by early 2009, Smith said. The ORNL executive said the housing is for scientists who'll be visiting the lab for a few days to a week. "They'll be here longer than overnight, but not long enough to worry about getting an apartment," Smith said. "They're running these experiments 24/7 so they'll want to be close by so they can go check on them." The ORNL executive said he hopes the lab can reach some type of arrangement with the University of Tennessee to manage the housing facility and perhaps provide intern-like experience for students in UT's hospitality education program. That, however, hasn't been worked out yet, he said. Smith said the User Housing Facility may include some type of snack bar, but the lab hopes to complete the cafeteria in the main SNS office building during the next year, which would offer meals and snacks for visitors and staff. The little hotel will be located just a few hundred yards from the SNS research facilities, and so it - and the Joint Institute for Neutron Sciences to be built next door - will be within walking distance for visiting scientists. Construction bids are being sought on the $8 million JINS, a state-funded facility, and that project is scheduled for completion by July 2009. The institute will provide support services and become an "intellectual center" for research teams using the Spallation Neutron Source and the High Flux Isotope Reactor. JINS staff also will coordinate relationships between the national lab and its university partners. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been invested in new facilities at Oak Ridge National Laboratory since 2000, when UT-Battelle - a partnership of the University of Tennessee and Battelle Memorial Institute - took over management of the federal facilities. Much of the work to date has taken place on ORNL's east campus, which features a newly designed entrance and visitor center and a modern plaza surrounded with brick-and-glass research facilities. More projects are being planned as part of the modernization program, and Smith said the next area of emphasis will be on west campus - home to ORNL's biological and environmental sciences programs. Construction of the Joint Institute for Biological Sciences is nearing completion and should be ready for occupancy in November, Smith said. A couple of new greenhouses are in the works to support environmental research activities, he said. Workers soon will begin "hardscaping" the west campus. That will include a new network of sidewalks, plazas and green space to tie together the research facilities with a campus-like ambience. The pre-2000 ORNL looked and felt like an industrial complex, Smith said. "We've been trying to pay attention to that, so it feels more like a world-class research campus," he said. The biggest project on the horizon is a 150,000-square-foot, $95 million facility in the center of the laboratory. It will house many of ORNL's wet chemistry labs, which currently are located in the 1950s-era 4500 complex. Buildings 4500-North and -South are being refurbished. Smith said lab management hopes to get some federal money in 2008 to begin the design work on the new chemistry building, with a tentative construction start in late 2009. Senior writer Frank Munger may be reached at 342-6329. © 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: *****************************************************************