***************************************************************** 04/03/08 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 16.7 ***************************************************************** 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 Saba Net: Yemen calls for establishing Arab atomic energy agency 2 Reuters: Egypt, Russia draft deal for nuclear power tender 3 US: Athens Messenger: Painful truths about electricity 4 US: Clarion-Ledger: Discuss it before we OK prepaid utility construc 5 Guardian: Dutch opt for coal with carbon capture, not nuclear 6 Scotsman.com: Nationalist nuclear policy 'a disaster' - 7 The Sun News: Nuclear madness must stop 8 Scotsman.com: Risky eight-year nuclear clear-out complete - 9 ITN: Anglo-French 'nuclear deal' anger 10 London Free Press: Editorials - It's time to come clean on nukes NUCLEAR REACTORS 11 US: SFBJ: State OKs new Turkey Point nuclear plants - 12 Scotland: Sunday Herald: Rebuttal Peter Roche On Nuclear Power 13 US: Dallas Morning News: NRG's estimate for Texas nuclear reactors s 14 US: Rutland Herald: Vt. Yankee receives nod for longer license 15 US: EnergyBiz Magazine: Nuclear Energy Slows Down 16 George Monbiot: Jobs are used to justify anything, but the numbers d 17 INQUIRER.net: Gov't eyes 2-year nuclear power study - 18 US: Hartford Courant: Nuclear Plant's Plans Upset Neighbors -- 19 TF: Nuclear fuel to be withdrawn from all reactors of Chornobyl NPP 20 US: redOrbit: Va. Power Plant Application Moves Ahead / Federal Regu 21 US: GloucesterTimes: Nuclear watchdog group raises alarm over Seabro 22 CBS News: Chernobyl, 22 Years Later, Exploring The Rubble Of The Wor 23 US: TheDay.com: 2nd Tritium Leak Found At Millstone 24 Bloomberg.com: Toshiba to Gets Orders for 4 U.S. Nuclear Reactors, N 25 Bloomberg.com: J-Power to Invest 1 Trillion Yen in Plants, Overseas 26 US: TheDay.com: Anti-nuclear Activist Seeks Hearing For Millstone Po 27 US: Public Citizen: Anniversary of Three Mile Island Reminds Us, Nuc 28 WSJ.com: $100 Billion Power Deal Moves Closer in Europe 29 US: Miami Today: FPL customers may be charged to fund new Turkey Poi 30 The Independent: They called Chernobyl "the new Venice" - Commentato 31 US: UCS: Three Mile Island 29 Years Later: Nuclear Safety Problems S 32 US: al.com: Public can address N-plant proposal- 33 Daily Yomiuri: Aging N-reactors face crisis over structural integrit 34 US: New York Times: NRG Energy Sets Up an Entity to Build Nuclear Pl 35 US: Herald Leader: Lawmakers seek end to nuclear power plant ban 36 US: The State: SCE&G takes step toward building reactors 37 BBC NEWS: Nuclear plans attract fresh fire 38 US: Los Angeles Times: Say no to nuclear power - 39 AFP: Greenpeace activists protest new nuclear plant for Rio 40 US: Rutland Herald: Brattleboro hosts boisterous nuclear forum 41 US: Chattanoogan.com: New Group Opposes TVA Nuclear Construction - 42 US: Times Argus: Public shut out of Entergy hearings 43 Independent.co.uk: British Energy takeover talks threaten to disrupt 44 US: Inside Bay Area: Nuclear war in California - 45 US: The York Daily Record: Panic at TMI - 46 US: Brattleboro Reformer: NRC answers letter, 32 years later - 47 US: Scientific American: U.S. Will Approve New Nuclear Reactors NUCLEAR SECURITY 48 US: Esquire: The Secret History of the Impending War with Iran That 49 US: Esquire: Mercenary (The Pallisades security chief is an assassin 50 Guardian: Comment is free: The new nuclear risk 51 Thaindian News: Nuclear reactors in developing nations may cause sec 52 Moscow Times: The New Nuclear Risks 53 FT.com: UK - Taiwan disputes US version of nuclear fuses story 54 US: Times Daily: Man indicted for making car bomb threat at nuclear 55 AFP: Colombia says uranium find points to FARC's dangerous ambition NUCLEAR SAFETY 56 US: knoxnews.com: Dose reconstruction redux 57 US: Rocky Mountain News: Flats compensation case stirs lawmakers 58 Sydney Morning Herald: The stoic victims of the nuclear age - 59 Newsday.com: 'Poisoned by Polonium' -- 60 US: Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: Just compensation - 61 KUAM News: PARS gives update on latest with nuclear fallout compensa 62 US: Bradenton.com: State officials to discuss Tallevast risk 63 US: Bradenton.com: Cancer reports concern Tallevast 64 US: Deseret Morning News: Preparation for a disaster 65 US: AFP: US must fulfil obligations to nuclear test victims - congre 66 Pacific Magazine: Congressman Wants Additional Nuclear Claims 67 US: Boise Weekly: Nuclear Fallout NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 68 US: The Hindu: India seeks uranium from Namibia for enhancing nuke e 69 FT.com: Waste cost threat to UK nuclear plans 70 US: Dallas Morning News: Nuke waste dump operator pays fines for sel 71 US: Daily Record: Uranium exploration faces test 72 US: Daily Record: Uranium drilling fails first test 73 US: Montrose - Daily Press: New uranium mill in county slated for 20 74 US: Montrose - Daily Press: Uranium mill proposed for West End 75 US: RapidCityJournal: Uranium mining worries ranchers » 76 US: The Coloradoan: Beware uranium mining 77 US: Grand Forks Herald: North Dakota has first uranium land lease in 78 US: Saskatoon Star Phoenix: Boyd promotes uranium industry 79 RIA Novosti: Russia proposes Slovakia join intl. uranium enrichment 80 UPI.com: Areva will manage U.K. nuclear waste - 81 US: Kyiv Post: US nuclear fuel firms sign deal 82 St. Petersburg Times: Toxic Train Rolls Into Town 83 Budapest Times: Radioactive cargo turned back from Hungary-Ukraine b 84 Knoxville News Sentinel: Uranium processing facility to reopen 85 US: Fort Mill Times: Bridgeton residents seek action on radioactive 86 US: Los Angeles Times: Time for a mining law update - 87 US: KUER: Uranium Taillings to Leave Moab by Truck 88 US: Mineweb: Exploration near Grand Canyon prompts lawsuit, fed 89 US: North County Journal: BRIDGETON: EPA presents plan to handle nuc 90 Lowestoft Journal: Amount of waste at Sizewell kept secret 91 Whitehaven News: Radioactive leak at sea disposal facility 92 US: Deseret Morning News: Matheson bill would bar nuclear waste impo 93 Seattle Times: State Senate backs tax breaks for Idaho uranium plant 94 The Daily Yomiuri: Active fault exists near Monju 95 Pahrump Valley Times: State estimates record challenges to Yucca 96 US: AU ABC: Govt pushing for more mines in Central Australia - 97 US: AU ABC: SA and Canada to share uranium knowledge - 98 US: AU ABC: Uranium exploration targets Eyre Peninsula 99 US: AU ABC: NT Labor to discuss proposed uranium mine 100 US: New York Times: Energy Dept. Hesitates on Dealing With Uranium - 101 US: Rocky Mountain Chronicle: URANIUM SUPPORT MOVES ABOVE GROUND 102 US: Summit Daily News: Hearing Friday on uranium mining near Grand C 103 US: Buffalo News: Citizens groups in Lewiston and Porter say landfil 104 US: The Tribune: Uranium bill passes state House, heads to Senate 105 US: Pueblo Chieftain: Firm seeks to resume bid to find uranium 106 US: Seattle PI: 53 million gallons in danger of leaking 107 US: AS: West Texas company applies for radioactive waste disposal fa 108 US: Boulder Daily Camera: Uranium mine would tap aquifer 109 US: Houston Chronicle: Official backs radioactive dumping at West Te 110 US: STLtoday: EPA is asked to move radioactive waste 111 US: AAS: radioactive waste data released 112 US: UPI.com: Miners eye new uranium boom - 113 US: Platts: North American uranium producer says spot price at or ne 114 US: Platts: Groups criticize DOE's GNEP program as too costly and to 115 US: The Tribune: House committee says no to second uranium bill 116 US: Las Vegas Sun: Nuclear industry to push stopgap waste sites - 117 US: Gallup Independent: Message: No uranium mining 118 US: Platts: Bodman foresees uranium inventory release to meet 10% of 119 US: Los Angeles Times: Time for a mining law update - 120 US: CNN: Uranium Energy Corp Rejects Claims in Local Lawsuit 121 Press Association: Sellafield admits new waste leak 122 Kolumnen: An International Fuel Bank for Nuclear Power - Atlantic Co 123 US: WP: As Uranium Firms Eye N.M., Navajos Are Wary 124 US: washingtonpost.com: Compensation for Sick Miners - 125 US: NCBR: Mining right-to-know bill dies in committee 126 US: Reno Gazette-Journal: Don't bring us nuclear waste when it's saf 127 US: The Coloradoan: Uranium a bad idea 128 US: Denver Post: Uranium processor pleads guilty to poisoning birds 129 US: Denver Post: New, improved uranium mining - 130 Greenpeace UK: Cost of nuclear waste could kill off plans for a new 131 US: Gazette: Uranium mining raises questions of safety, solitude and PEACE 132 US: [southnews] US nuclear weapons complex: Pushing for a new produc 133 IPS-English POLITICS-US: North Korean Nuclear Deal at Risk? 134 ajc.com: Would-be nuclear nations a risk | 135 BBC NEWS: World's best-known protest symbol turns 50 136 BBC NEWS: Thousands join anti-war protests 137 BBC NEWS: France to reduce nuclear warheads 138 The Independent: Aldermaston protest recalls the birth of CND - 139 AFP: Thousands protest at 50th anniversary nuclear demo 140 Edinburgh Evening News: Anti-nuclear demo targets plant - 141 US: MOTHER JONES: Building a Better Bomb US DEPT. OF ENERGY 142 Federal Times: Funding shortfalls mean missed cleanup milestones for 143 pogo.org U.S. Nuclear Weapons Complex: Livermore Homes and Plutonium 144 Boulder Daily Camera: Flats compensation case stirs lawmakers 145 Rocky Mountain News: Disagreement derails Flats case 146 Knoxville News Sentinel: Reactor cleanup making progress 147 Times-News: Court requires INL to remove nuclear waste 148 Tri-City Herald: Hanford regulators criticize 2010 proposals 149 BO: The "public" discussion about the Energy Department's Complex Tr 150 TheNewsTribune.com: Feds trying to clean up Hanford on the cheap | 151 Seattle PI: Hanford Cleanup: The legal recourse 152 UPI.com: Anti-nuke groups: Government plan costly - 153 Seattle PI: Plan could send Hanford waste to Idaho National Laborato 154 Seattle PI: Cleanup crews at Washington nuclear site find buried rea 155 Dayton Daily News: Senate panel adds funds for Mound, Piketon 156 Inside Bay Area: Lab hearings set for today - 157 DOE: DOE Announces Policy for Managing Excess Uranium Inventory 158 Inside Bay Area: Plutonium makes its way out of Livermore - ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 Saba Net: Yemen calls for establishing Arab atomic energy agency Yemen news agency [30 March 2008] DAMASCUS, March 30 ( Saba)- Yemen called Arab nation to establish an Arab atomic energy agency for nuclear researches and using them for peaceful means, especially generating electricity. In Yemen's speech delivered by Vice President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi in the 20th Arab summit, being currently held in Syrian capital Damascus, Hadi also called for establishing an Arab fund for development for serving development aims in Arab world. He confirmed that the current challenges faced by Arab nation oblige all to boost Arab solidarity and activating joint national work. He voiced Yemen's proposal that Arab League's headquarters must be the permanent and suitable location for holing Arab summits as needed and that any country must be responsible on her delegation's expenditures for avoiding any burdens on the hosting country. He renewed Yemen's call for international community, especially the United States and the Quartet, to exercise pressures against Israel to stop its repeated aggression against Palestinian people and stopping building the separation wall. He stressed the importance of integrating efforts for eradicating terrorism, confirming Yemen's view on terror fighting which stipulate on not depending only on military and security means, but also getting rid of environments encouraging for terror, topped by poverty and means of combating it. MS/AM Saba UPDATED ON : Tue, 01 Apr 2008 11:05:31 +0300 About Yemen News Agency (SABA) | Terms of service | Contact us © Sabanews.net 1999 - 2008 ***************************************************************** 2 Reuters: Egypt, Russia draft deal for nuclear power tender Reuters.com Thu 20 Mar 2008, 6:29 GMT MOSCOW (Reuters) - Egypt and Russia on Wednesday drafted a nuclear energy deal, which could be signed next week in Moscow, to allow Russia to take part in the tender to build nuclear reactors in Egypt, the Egyptian negotiator said. "This agreement is for the usage of nuclear energy for peaceful means. We have concluded all the technical work of it. It is ready for signing," said Egypt's Industry and Energy minister Rachid Mohamed Rachid. Rachid spoke by telephone from Cairo after talks with Russian Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko, who is on a two-day visit to Egypt laying the ground for Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's visit to Moscow early next week. "The agreement could be signed by President Mubarak at that time," Rachid said. Through the construction of several nuclear power plants, Egypt is planning to revive its civilian atomic energy programme, shut down in 1986 in the wake of the Chernobyl disaster. The London-based International Institute of Strategic Studies said the first 1,000-megawatt reactor could be built at Dabaa on the Mediterranean in eight to 10 years if foreign investment was secured. Rachid said the tender for the turnkey construction projects would be concluded this year and would not be biased in favour of any of the potential partners, which also include China and Kazakhstan. "Egypt has made it clear that this will be an open and competitive process. Our intention is to finalize it this year and to launch construction," he said by telephone from Cairo. Russia is one of the global leaders in nuclear energy know-how, and is active in constructing and providing fuel for nuclear power plants, including the controversial Bushehr plant in southwestern Iran. © Reuters 2008. All Rights Reserved. | Learn more about Reuters ***************************************************************** 3 Athens Messenger: Painful truths about electricity opinion : editorial March 18, 2008 3/17/2008 11:30:00 AM WILLIAM COLLINS Celebration here in the Collins household! We finally got an electric bill under 500 kilowatt hours. In the winter! That's common enough in the summer since we lack air conditioning and use a clothesline, but winter is cold, wet, and dark. It probably stems from replacing our rickety washer and dryer with Energy Star models. The freezer goes next. And just so we don't get cocky, last week I met a doctor with four kids who uses only 350 kw/h. If you haven't yet taken up such a frontier-style existence, get ready. Even in states with full electricity regulation, the die is cast. Power generation remains in the grasp of a hand-rubbing cartel (think Enron). Global warming has banished coal as a cheap fuel. Oil is $100/barrel and natural gas is worse. Wind is great, but regional. Sun is also great but takes a big investment. And there's still no feasible solution to nuclear waste or to the atom's unquenchable thirst for subsidies. In short, there's no way out.For awhile it looked as though coal was our best bet. There was plenty, it was cheap, and the Environmental Defense Fund said that with just a little more engineering we could bury all that CO2. But now the feds have given up on burying CO2 and we're back to square one. It would surely be more constructive if Washington were to put its main subsidies into wind and solar, the real hopes for the future. Today, unfortunately, those subsidies go instead to oil, gas, and nukes. That's where the dollars and the lobbyists are. The next election may or may not cancel that relationship, but long-term the future of U.S. energy is no mystery. Some New York friends are onto it even now. That state offers a generous credit to cover your roof with solar panels, which in many cases can take you off the grid entirely, plus paying you for any surplus. (Hint: Buy solar stock.) The other key federal battleground is wind. No, Congress needn't worry about abandoning its oil buddies. They'll soon buy up all the windmills anyway, and thus will lobby to get subsidized once again. What's plainly needed is a giant forest of spinning blades from Minnesota to Texas, and anyplace else where the wind blows annoyingly hard. It should also be a federal obligation to plan out the massive transmission lines needed to carry the juice from where it's windy or sunny to where the light bulbs are. That's too critical a decision to leave to corporate CEOs. In fact, electricity overall is too important to leave to corporations. The whole climate is at stake. Government-run utilities seem to be a better prospect. Many cities and some regions have them now. Public agencies can be and are more creative and generous in promoting conservation measures, while corporate power companies have Wall Street to worry about and CEOs to overpay. Yes, they may greenwash now and then, but their bottom line is always on top. Granted, it does seem a little puny for us to be changing light bulbs while India and China are building new coal plants. Still, that's how change finally comes about, incrementally. The U.S. is far and away the world's biggest CO2 waster, so until we alter our own personal ways we'll have little influence over the rest of civilization. Energy wastage gets personally expensive too. We've used up all our silver bullets, including war, to keep fuel prices down. That's over! Get used to it! Eighty degrees is fine for A/C in the summer. By next year you'll love 82. Either that or you'll only be able to afford Hamburger Helper. If your town has a publicly owned power company to help you with conservation, all to the good. If not, you're on your own. In my youth Mom had clotheslines in our basement. They may be coming back. Columnist William A. Collins is a former state representative and a former mayor of Norwalk, Conn. Copyright © 2008 The Athens Messenger ***************************************************************** 4 Clarion-Ledger: Discuss it before we OK prepaid utility construction | clarionledger.com The Clarion-Ledger ? April 1, 2008 The Mississippi Legislature is considering a bill that may ultimately require utility customers to pay for billions of dollars in costs, even if a power plant is not finished. Senate Bill 2793, if passed as introduced, will put significant constraints on the agencies that protect ratepayers - the attorney general and the Mississippi Public Service Commission - under the auspices of being able to "save money" by passing on costs to customers years before a power plant is even completed. Several key points must also be considered. For Entergy, the fact is that no new nuclear plants have been ordered in the United States for almost 30 years. Also, the technology that Mississippi Power Company is touting - Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle - is not totally proved to be commercially viable. In fact, Southern Company canceled in 2007 a similar type plant in Florida that it was developing. Senate Bill 2793, by design, places all of the billions of dollars of construction cost and technology risk on the ratepayers and not on the utility or its shareholders. This "rush to judgment" for IGCC - or "Clean Coal" - and nuclear plants must be stopped. Instead, this issue should be presented and debated in a public forum with all stakeholders allowed to provide and discuss information that will properly prepare our policymakers the opportunity to make informed decisions. To do otherwise may likely put us on the same path for outcomes similar to Grand Gulf 1: cost overruns of over $2.4 billion and a resultant rate increase of over 60 percent. Wydett Hawkins Jackson ***************************************************************** 5 Guardian: Dutch opt for coal with carbon capture, not nuclear Search: guardian.co.uk Business Web * , Wednesday March 19 2008 By Catherine Hornby THE HAGUE, March 19 (Reuters) - The Netherlands will focus on developing cleaner coal plants and raising renewable energy output to cut carbon emissions rather than expanding its nuclear energy industry at present, the environment minister said. While other European countries like Britain are taking a fresh look at nuclear power due to its credentials as a carbon free energy source, the Dutch government is sticking to an agreement to build no more nuclear plants during its mandate. Despite a recent report from a Dutch advisory body urging the cabinet to reconsider nuclear power in 2010, Environment Minister Jacqueline Cramer said there were too many unresolved issues with the technology to make it attractive. "Some aspects of nuclear energy are positive such as the carbon dioxide level, but the disadvantages are also enormous, such as the waste problem and the safety conditions," Cramer said in an interview with Reuters on Wednesday. Bowing to pressure from environmentalists and the wider public, Dutch authorities have phased out all nuclear power stations except for one, the Borssele plant, which is due to stay operational until 2033. Cramer said the Netherlands was focusing on developing carbon capture and storage (CCS) techniques to build cleaner coal plants, along with increasing its production from renewable energy sources such as wind, solar and biomass. CCS is a pioneering technology which involves trapping carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from industrial processes, such as power generation from fossil fuels, and piping them underground or offshore below the seabed. "If we are able to use the CCS technique then we can at least reduce the carbon emissions of coal plants enormously and in the course of time we can also phase out older coal power plants," Cramer said. She said that coal, the most widely-used but also one of the most polluting energy sources on the planet, was a favoured option for the Netherlands because of its availability and easy access to Dutch ports, but also for security of supply. "We cannot rely on the gas option for decades anymore, in that case we would have to rely on gas from other countries, and it is not so available as coal," she said. The Netherlands has large but falling reserves of natural gas. AMBITIOUS She said the Netherlands was looking at options to store CO2 emissions in empty gas fields and below the sea, and hoped the Dutch would eventually be able to export the technology. "We have chosen to develop a technology which could apply in other countries where they will be using coal for decades, such as China," she said. The Dutch government wants renewable energy such as wind power to make up 20 percent of total energy consumption in 2020 compared with 2-3 percent in 2007. The European Union has set the Netherlands a goal of 14 percent for the same time period. "We are sticking to our own targets because the Netherlands is ambitious in its goals and wants to show the EU that we are confronted with an enormous challenge and potential disaster if we don't act now," Cramer said. The Netherlands is particularly vulnerable to climate change as a quarter of its territory lies below sea level and it is on the flood plains of three big rivers. Cramer said there were plans to double the Netherlands' wind energy output on land to about 4,000 megawatts by 2011 and further by 2020 and also to expand its offshore wind farms and solar energy, and examine geothermal and tidal energy. "Wind power is a well-developed technology which is also rather cost effective compared to other renewable options." Biomass and biofuels were also options but only if produced in a sustainable manner, Cramer said, adding that certification systems were being developed for the various raw materials used in their production. Latest news on guardian.co.uk * guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2008 ***************************************************************** 6 Scotsman.com: Nationalist nuclear policy 'a disaster' - Tuesday, 1st April 2008 By Jenny Percival Westminster Editor THE SNP's non-nuclear policy will be a "disaster" for Scotland, a UK Cabinet minister warned last night. Business Secretary John Hutton said that the Scottish Government's decision to oppose any new nuclear power stations would have a detrimental effect on the nation's economy, with the loss of 10,000 jobs. He also raised concerns that Westminster wants to strip Alex Salmond of his power to veto nuclear power when he insisted that "energy security" – generating enough power to keep the lights on – was a UK matter. "For energy security to work for every part of the UK, we have to work together. We can't have a pick-and-mix approach to energy security in different parts of the country," said Hutton. Mike Weir, the SNP's energy spokesman at Westminster, dismissed Hutton's comments as "nonsense" and promised that the SNP would "fight tooth and nail" to stop the UK Government "grabbing powers back from the Scottish Parliament". A Scottish Government source added: "The Scottish Government's non-nuc lear energy strategy is absolutely right for Scotland, and is based on the responsibilities devolved to the Scottish Parliament. If John Hutton wants to take these powers back to Westminster he had better say so loud and clear and not be mealy mouthed about it – in which case he will get an extremely dusty answer from the people of Scotland." A spokesman for Hutton said later he was not out to undermine the existing devolution settlement. However, as Scotland on Sunday revealed last month, Westminster MPs, including former defence minister Adam Ingram, and the Confederation of British Industry in Scotland want Salmond stripped of his ability to block nuclear power stations. In an online article for Scotland on Sunday, Hutton said: "An energy policy that ruled out one of our key energy sources would be a disaster for both our energy security and for the economy in Scotland." The full article contains 319 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper. Last Updated: 29 March 2008 9:34 PM Rockall 30/03/2008 11:00:16 We already produce a surplus of energy in Scotland, which is why we don't need either nuclear power stations or massive wind farms just to supply power to England. If the English need more power, then they can build all their nuclear power stations and wind farms in and around London. The Nimbys would, of course, squeal loudly if that was to happen; but they are quite happy to have all their junk and detritus dumped in Scotland. ***************************************************************** 7 The Sun News: Nuclear madness must stop By Nwachukwu from Lagos Wednesday, March 26, 2008 Realism sometimes, to some people, is a fantasy world and it is often difficult to determine whether these people are in a true state of mental misalignment whereby one could easily attribute their actions to fantasy effects or whether they are thoroughly clever in shaping events within their environment in calculated moves to force hardship on the masses whom they have cleverly maneuvered to conditions of subservience for their own earthly and materialistic dispositions. Whatever the basis for a misplaced sense of realism, the consequences become realistic in the confusion that will ensue, culminating in the perpetual suffering for the immediately impoverished masses and a postponed anguish for those languishing in the on-going deceit. The existence of National Electric Power Authority (NEPA) electricity and the conceivable birth of nuclear contraptions into our midst throws one’s mind into an aching confusion as events become too unreal for clarity. This write-up will be devoted purely to NEPA whilst atomic energy will serve as a stabilizing reference to realism in so far as its conceivability might expose the ineptitude (if that is the condition) inherent in the unviability of NEPA. Let us first draw a small corollary to events that exist within the world of NEPA and atomic energy. For this, we shall crazily imagine the Americans as some self-proclaimed gods (a dual existence since they are really humans like all of us) who can force random changes within the earth’s peripheral enclosure but not quite able yet to split the earth-core into bits. Hence, they can cause or force artificial earthquakes and storms and hope for the human individual movements and actions to follow their (American) desired directions. It has been impossible for them to achieve the latter. It is therefore rather difficult for us to imagine them able to blow the earth-core to smithereens and have the ability to control the ensuing events thereafter. The atom, made up of its central core and the surrounding electron environ, represents the earth as above. Our knowledge so far, expressed in the meagre endeavours of NEPA, is still on the environ of the atomic periphery whilst that of the splitting of the atom conjures up what will happen if the Americans blasted the earth-core accidentally. Since we in Nigeria are now thinking of the colossal task of splitting the atomic core before mastering the movements of the electrons around this core, one must wonder who is fooling whom. And so now, we shall seriously look at NEPA and survey the reasons why this seemingly simple task of electrons control seems to be beyond NEPA’s capability. The above 7 paragraphs are extracts (introductory) from a Daily Times publication of December 15, 1981 entitled NEPA FIRST AND NUCLEAR POWER LATER, which was written by me then, 25years ago. Now in the year 2008, we are in a worse condition regarding NEPA then. We have been hearing of the government’s intention to go into nuclear power generation for electricity. The status on ground is that we do not have the capability to install and maintain a nuclear energy plant. We do not have the right staff caliber, exposure, experience, quality and quantity. The nuclear arena requires excellence, efficiency and secrecy. Secrecy embodies strong consciousness of its indigenousness, safety and security. Go to Iran, Pakistan, India, North Korea, Japan, China etc,(not to mention USA, Russia, Germany etc) the nuclear actions being taken there are 100% indigenous. This ensures that the safety and security aspects are very maximally, patriotically and nationalistically embraced and tackled. Nuclear power plants exist where there is excellent knowledge of the plant’s systems production and maintenance to ensure that radioactive possible leakages can be immediately controlled or prevented. We have not reached there yet. Japanese nuclear power plant shut down as the water containing radioactive materials leaked from the reactor. A Russian region, Chernobyl, once went through hell as a result of radioactive leakages from their nuclear reactor. The Nigerian nuclear plant will be installed and maintained by non-indigenes and hence, the security and safety of the nation will be in their hands. This is crazy and dangerous and must therefore be stopped from taking off. We proudly shout of our global links and interactions towards becoming one of the first ten greatest economic states in the world by the year 2020. This is of course laughable as the states we want to outpace are amongst those we cry to for assistance in our infrastructural build-up. They are quite comfortable with our myopic traits and they happily and smartly guide us away from our misplaced hopes. We have various natural energy sources for conversion into electric energy. These include coal, crude oil, gas, water etc and we refuse to explore them intelligently and progressively for our own self-reliant national benefits. This write-up is to implore the head of the Nigerian government to wake up to realities and address the safety and security matters of the black masses of this country and protect them from dehumanization and slavery traits. Please, let nuclear energy hypnotism be de-energized to allow us glimpse and hope for a future. © 2008 THE SUN PUBLISHING LTD. ***************************************************************** 8 Scotsman.com: Risky eight-year nuclear clear-out complete - Friday, 21st March 2008 By JOHN ROSS ONE of the most hazardous tasks in shutting down the Dounreay nuclear plant has been completed after a painstaking eight years. All 1,500 tonnes of liquid metal have been drained from the 250 megawatt Prototype Fast Reactor (PFR), once the hub of Britain's fast breeder research and development programme. It operated between 1974 and 1994, when it produced electricity for the national grid. The liquid sodium metal was used as the coolant to transfer heat from the reactor core through three secondary circuits to a steam-generating plant for electricity production. After the plant closed, the nuclear fuel was removed from the reactor. The last batch of hazardous sodium has now been transferred from the base of the reactor vessel and is being destroyed in a £17 million purpose-built chemical treatment plant that extracts the radioactivity and converts the sodium to common salt that can be discharged into the sea. The radioactivity in the sodium is isolated for specialist disposal. James McCafferty, the PFR decommissioning manager, said: "The team behind this achievement is drawn from several different companies but all had one thing in common – to deliver the removal of this hazard from the reactor to the highest standards of personal and environmental safety." Staff were able to see the last remaining few tonnes being removed from the bottom of the reactor by attaching a camera to a purpose-built pump that was lowered into the "heel" of the reactor vessel. This was the most difficult part of the sodium to reach and required innovative design work and extensive testing by the reactor clean-up team to develop a system that would clear the final pools of metal. It was the first time anyone had seen inside the vessel since its construction 40 years ago. Attached to a steel hose, the camera assembly manoeuvred through the complex reactor to reach the bottom. Operating in an extreme radiation environment, with temperatures in excess of 200C, it filmed the p ump removing the final 20 tonnes of the pool of sodium. Billy Husband, who was in charge of removing alkali metal residues, said: "Achieving this project is a major step forward in our programme to decommission PFR. We have worked on this particular stage of the project for two years and it has, without doubt, been a success due to the dedicated team of UKAEA (UK Atomic Energy Authority] and contractor staff working together." Evan Park, the lead operations engineer, who worked at PFR in its infancy and watched the sodium being loaded into the reactor in 1974, said: "When I worked here during the construction of PFR, I never thought I would be standing here today, overseeing such a major phase of its decommissioning." Decommissioning the entire Dounreay complex, which has been built up over more than 50 years, is due to end in 25 years, at a total cost of £2.9 billion. The full article contains 491 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper. Last Updated: 19 March 2008 10:11 PM 20/03/2008 07:04:40 only 2.9 billion and the rest. nuclear is an unaffordable option for energy generation. All rights reserved ©2008 Johnston Press Digital Publishing ***************************************************************** 9 ITN: Anglo-French 'nuclear deal' anger Updated 16.38 Sat Mar 22 2008 Anti-nuclear campaigners have reacted angrily to reports that Britain is about to sign an atomic power deal with France. The agreement to build a new generation of power stations then export the technology around the world will reportedly be sealed next week when French president Nicolas Sarkozy visits the UK. The Government wants to replace Britain's ageing nuclear plants, which are due to be decommissioned in the coming decade, to shift the burden away from the fossil fuels blamed for global warming Prime Minister Gordon Brown is also expected to launch a new Anglo-French initiative to combat illegal immigration with Mr Sarkozy. In 2006 their predecessors Tony Blair and Jacques Chirac created the Franco-British Nuclear Forum to pool technological know-how. Nuclear power supplies almost 80 per cent of electricity in France but just 20 per cent in the UK. The Government wants to replace Britain's ageing nuclear plants, which are due to be decommissioned in the coming decade, to shift the burden away from the fossil fuels blamed for global warming. A Downing Street spokesman refused to discuss the agenda at the Anglo-French summit, to be held at Arsenal football club's Emirates Stadium in north London on Thursday. Friends of the Earth nuclear campaigner Neil Crumpton said: "The idea of selling nuclear power around the world as a solution to climate change is just nonsense. "Nuclear power is limited, dangerous and requires a lot of hi-tech skills to deal with the waste. By far the better technology is renewables, particularly solar power in the deserts and wind power in more northerly climates. "It is these safe, simple, easily constructed technologies that the UK and all other countries should be promoting." © Independent Television News Limited 2008. All rights reserved. Post to Fark Post to del.icio.us Digg this story Post to reddit Post ***************************************************************** 10 London Free Press: Editorials - It's time to come clean on nukes Tuesday, 18 March, 2008 By LORRIE GOLDSTEIN It's time for politicians who say they're serious about fighting global warming to explain where they stand on nuclear power. Practically speaking, nukes are the only available source of energy we have that does not emit greenhouse gases (GHG) and can adequately supply Canada's future energy needs. Especially so, if we're going to achieve GHG emission cuts demanded by environmentalists to fight man-made global warming. Problem is, politicians don't like to acknowledge this since most (but not all) environmentalists rabidly oppose nuclear power. To his credit, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, in charge of the province that is Canada's second-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, has been clear about supporting nuclear energy as a necessary component of going green. He knows conservation efforts and experimental wind farms and solar plants -- all of which Ontario has -- won't be enough to meet future energy needs. Nuclear plants supply half of Ontario's electricity generation and the province is about to invest billions in a new one. It's the only way McGuinty can fulfil his long-delayed election promise, first made in 2003, to close Ontario's four coal-fired plants that supply 16 per cent of the province's electricity, but also spew greenhouse gases and pollution. Nationally, this issue is only going to get bigger. Bruce Power, which runs Ontario's Bruce Nuclear complex, has proposed building Alberta's first nuclear plant. Alberta is Canada's largest emitter of greenhouse gases and hungry for new sources of power. But that will be fought by environmentalists who view nuclear energy with the same contempt they do fossil fuels -- condemning it as unsafe, costly and environmentally unsound. Problem is, if you eliminate fossil fuels and nuclear power as energy sources, what's left (wind, solar, hydroelectric) isn't up to the job. That's why we need to know now from politicians whether they're prepared to use nuclear power to reduce GHG and meet future energy needs. And if not, how will they keep the lights on? Copyright © 2006, Canoe Inc. All rights reserved. Proprietor and Publisher - The London Free Press, P.O. Box 2280, 369 York Street, London Ontario Canada N6A 4G1 ***************************************************************** 11 SFBJ: State OKs new Turkey Point nuclear plants - South Florida Business Journal: Tuesday, March 18, 2008 - 4:27 PM EDT Florida regulators have approved Florida Power & Light Co.'s petition to build two new nuclear plants at its Turkey Point facility. The state Public Service Commission determined that there is a need for the additional power. Turkey Point, located south of Miami, currently has nuclear units, two gas and oil units, and one natural gas unit. The two new nuclear units would come online in 2018 and 2020, and contribute between 2,200 megawatts and 3,000 megawatts of new generation, the PSC said. "Trends indicate there will be a substantial need for more power in FP&L's service territory, and these new nuclear units can help meet that need," PSC Chairman Matthew M. Carter II said in a news release. "The nuclear units will provide a clean, non-carbon-emitting source of base-load power to meet Florida's growing energy needs." The plants still need federal approval. FP&L said it must increase its electrical generation capacity by nearly 33 percent to meet projected growth in electricity demand between 2011 and 2020. It said the two nuclear plants would generate enough power to supply the needs of more than 1 million residential customers. Shares of FP&L parent company FPL Group © 2008 American City Business Journals, Inc. and its ***************************************************************** 12 Scotland: Sunday Herald: Rebuttal Peter Roche On Nuclear Power March 25, 2008 YESTERDAY IT was revealed that Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy will sign an agreement this week to export nuclear technology around the world. Brown hopes Britain can create a skilled labour force working in partnership with France to sell reactors around the globe, supposedly to help combat climate change. But the two leaders will be opening a Pandora's box, which is more likely to damage the solutions to global warming. Only last Wednesday, the prime minister warned us about rogue states obtaining nuclear weapons and terrorist groups unleashing "dirty bombs". Promoting nuclear power as a global solution to climate change is rather a schizophrenic thing to be doing days later. Nuclear power and weapons are like Siamese twins. The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) already embodies an inherent contradiction - seeking to promote "peaceful" nuclear power while trying to restrict the spread of nuclear weapons. Yet, since the treaty was signed, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea have all obtained nuclear weapons. Spreading reactors around the globe will create new terror targets. Most reactors use uranium as a fuel and produce plutonium. A small-scale plutonium separation plant can be built in four to six months, so any country with an ordinary reactor can produce nuclear weapons. Brown and Sarkozy are promoting this Faustian technology as a solution to climate change. Yet nuclear's contribution can only ever be really small. The danger is that by trying to revive this moribund industry we may in fact kill off the real solutions. A replacement UK programme will only reduce carbon emissions by 4% by around 2024 - too little, too late. Globally, for nuclear power to play a role, by 2050, comparable to coal today about 2500 reactors would have to be built - that is one new reactor every six days. Such a massive programme would require a new nuclear waste dump every few years and two or three uranium enrichment plants every year. Ministers are putting more effort into encouraging nuclear power than they have devoted to the entire field of renewables over the last 10 years. The worry is that finances and resources will get diverted from the real solutions to climate change. The question is, not whether there will be a global renewable energy boom, but whether Scotland and the UK will be part of it. While Westminster has conceded no new nuclear power stations will be built in Scotland in the near future, if a substantial expansion of nuclear power takes place in England, it is likely to limit the Scottish government's plans to build a renewable energy manufacturing base. And to reduce carbon emissions by 80% by 2050 Scotland needs to be bringing around 60,000 houses up to a decent standard of insulation every year and installing Low Carbon Technologies, such as solar panels. But we will need Westminster's support to pull it off. With eight old people dying every hour in the UK from cold-related illnesses in winter, such a massive energy efficiency programme would help Gordon Brown meet his commitment to eliminate fuel poverty, too. We can't afford to wait until 2025 to see if a new reactor programme is successful, or whether it turns out to be, to paraphrase what the old Scottish Office said about Torness, a £30 billion mistake. Peter Roche is an Edinburgh-based energy and environment consultant and editor of the website: www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk ©2008 newsquest (sunday herald) limited. all rights reserved ***************************************************************** 13 Dallas Morning News: NRG's estimate for Texas nuclear reactors still climbing | NRG says its plans for South Texas will now cost $8 billion 12:00 AM CDT on Thursday, March 27, 2008 By ELIZABETH SOUDER / The Dallas Morning News esouder@dallasnews.com NRG Energy Inc.'s estimate of the cost to build two nuclear reactors in South Texas keeps climbing. Last summer, officials with the power plant developer said the reactors at the South Texas Project would cost between $6 billion and $7 billion. Then the estimate moved to $7 billion. On Wednesday, executives said the reactors will probably cost $8 billion. Blame higher costs for material used to build power plants, such as steel and concrete, and the weak dollar. U.S. companies no longer make some of the massive parts for nuclear reactors, since the country hasn't built nuclear power plants in decades. So NRG must import about 30 percent of the parts for the reactors from Japan. As the dollar weakens, equipment from Japanese manufacturers costs more. "There's a total absence of the U.S. supply chain" for nuclear parts, said NRG chief executive David Crane in a conference call with analysts Wednesday. Mr. Crane described to analysts a deal with NRG's nuclear equipment vendor, Toshiba Corp., to form a power plant development company. He said the deal settles an important question for the U.S. nuclear industry. "There's a lot of focus in the analyst community about the cost," Mr. Crane said. "There's actually a question that has to be answered before the cost, and that's who is going to build these plants." Some anti-nuclear groups have warned that building a new round of nukes could be very costly. Some existing Texas nuclear reactors ended up costing more than power companies had expected. Since the last round of reactors was built, Texas deregulated its power industry. A nuclear reactor developer can no longer pass along higher costs to consumers in electricity rates. Instead, NRG must pay for the reactors now and hope to recoup the cost when it sells electricity into the Texas power market in a few years. © 2008, The Dallas Morning News, Inc. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 14 Rutland Herald: Vt. Yankee receives nod for longer license Rutland Vermont News & Information March 22, 2008 By Louis Porter Vermont Press Bureau MONTPELIER — The Vermont Yankee Nuclear Plant is another step closer to operating for another two decades after the 2012 expiration of its current license. The Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, an influential group that makes recommendations to federal nuclear regulators, wrote in a letter this week that Entergy Nuclear’s application for a new license for its Vermont Yankee plant should be approved. “The programs established and committed to by (Entergy) provide reasonable assurance that (Yankee) can be operated in accordance with its current licensing basis for the period of extended operation without undue risk to the health and safety of the public,” according to the letter to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The advisory committee’s report is one of the things the commission will consider when it decides whether Yankee should continue to operate. “They have an important say,” said Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the commission. This summer there will be a hearing on the issue and the commission will likely reach its decision by late this year or early 2009, he said. But some who are watching the nuclear licensing process said the NRC — which has not turned down a single relicensing application — does not have an adequate process to ensure safety and reliability. “This is a plant that could not be built today,” said Arnold Gundersen of Burlington. “Yet the (advisory committee) is letting them run for another 20 years.” “This is a very positive decision from the ACRS and it is a major milestone,” Yankee spokesman Rob Williams said. “This was an independent look at the NRC staff’s recent safety evaluation. The independent scientific panel agrees that our long-term maintenance and inspection programs will assure safe operations under a renewed license.” Vermont has a requirement that the state Legislature vote to give approval if Yankee is to keep operating. The Vermont Senate recently passed a bill in the House requiring a detailed inspection of particular components. The administration of Gov. James Douglas has suggested a more limited version of the Senate’s comprehensive vertical audit, in which the NRC would oversee the inspection terms. Douglas said whether he trusts the NRC or not isn’t the point and the Senate approach would take too long. “It really has no bearing on the process. They are the NRC,” Douglas said in an interview with Vermont Public Radio recently. “Rather than be confrontational … we really need to work together.” Sheehan said the NRC is willing to talk to Douglas and the state’s Department of Public Service about the review of the plant. But something like the Senate’s version of the review is not necessary, he said. “We don’t believe an independent safety assessment along the lines of what was done at Maine Yankee in the 1990s is warranted at Vermont Yankee,” Sheehan said. “The current reactor oversight process did not exist then.” However, Bob Stannard, a lobbyist for the anti-nuclear Citizen’s Action Network, said the Senate’s approach is exactly what is needed. “The way it works now is you lie and I will swear to it,” he said. “We would like to have somebody from the outside look at this plant.” The positive ruling from the advisory committee came as lawmakers in Montpelier continued to give headaches to Entergy. The Senate passed a bill that would require Entergy to top off Vermont Yankee’s decommissioning fund before spinning the Vernon reactor, as well as five others into New England, New York and Michigan, off to ownership by a newly created company. Supporters of the bill expressed concern that the new company might not have the money to cover dismantling the plant when it eventually shuts down. Lawmakers had heard in committee testimony that the decommissioning fund is about $260 million short of current estimates of what is needed. Williams disputed this in an interview Friday, saying the fund’s current funding level meets minimum NRC requirements. The Senate gave preliminary approval to a bill that would set up a new sitting authority to find a new location for storage of highly radioactive spent fuel now being stored in dry casks at the plant site in Vernon. Senate President Pro Tem Peter Shumlin, whose Windham County district includes Vermont Yankee and who has been a fierce critic of the plant, has pushed this measure, saying he wants other parts of Vermont to share the risks of hosting the high-level waste. Williams took a dim view of this as well. The Vernon site is “licensed for nuclear operations,” and is under 24-hour guard, making it “obviously preferable” for storage of high-level radioactive waste, he said. The Associated Press contributed to this story. Contact Louis Porter at louis.porter@rutlandherald.com. © 2005 Rutland Herald ***************************************************************** 15 EnergyBiz Magazine: Nuclear Energy Slows Down March 14, 2008 Ken Silverstein, EnergyBiz Insider Editor-in-Chief No one ever said that the re-emergence of nuclear power would take the fast lane. The road, in fact, is filled with potholes that include some high profile deferments and ever-increasing capital costs. Despite the delays, the long-term underlying fundamentals are favorable to the nuclear industry. Newer reactor designs are not only considered to be even more productive but also to have safety redundancies to give communities greater assurances. Emissions from nuclear energy, meantime, are negligible when compared to fossil fuels -- an important factor if one considers that regulatory pressures to limit greenhouse gases that cause global warming will only intensify. While nuclear developers are doing the necessary groundwork to build, they still have not committed themselves. Most immediately, the credit markets are weak and the cost of raw materials such as cement, copper and steel is expensive. Those dynamics have caused Berkshire Hathaway's MidAmerican Energy to put off developing a nuclear plant in Idaho as well as South Carolina Electric & Gas to postpone submitting a combined license application to federal regulators. The South Carolina utility, however, may choose to move forward given that access to generous benefits provided by the Energy Policy Act of 2005 may be limited. That law provides for loan guarantees of up 80 percent of a project's cost, while it also gives a tax credit of 1.8 cents per kilowatt-hour for 6,000 megawatts of capacity from new nuclear power plants for the first eight years of operation. Certainly, the presidential candidates have all reacted favorably to nuclear energy. But proponents are concerned that shifting sentiments in future congresses would lead to the eradication of those financial incentives that are needed to make sure the first few modern reactors actually get built. After that, they say investors will be satisfied and that the industry will create economies of scale to bring down prices. "Nuclear projects are lengthy -- possibly requiring 7-10 years to design and construct -- and there is some concern in the industry that a new administration and more strongly Democratic congress may not be as favorable to nuclear development," says Christine Tezak, regulatory analyst with the Stanford Group. "We agree, and believe that the controversial loan guarantee programs are particularly vulnerable to a change in political winds after the 2008 elections." By 2010, utilities are expected to have submitted applications for 33 new reactors at 22 sites to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for approval. When the first applications were submitted in 2007, the developers had estimated the cost to construct to be in the $4 billion to $6 billion range. Now, though, the price is in the $7 billion to $8 billion range -- the single greatest factor causing MidAmerican to get cold feet. Despite its reluctance, major utilities such as Dominion, Progress Energy and the Tennessee Valley Authority are keeping their eye on the ball. Energy Obligation TVA, which began its forays into nuclear energy in the 60s, says that the fuel source is second only to hydro in terms of cost efficiency. The demand for energy in its southeast region necessitates the expansion of its nuclear portfolio that already comprises 30 percent of its total generation, the company says. Last November, it applied for an operating license to build two modern reactors in Alabama, which is in addition to spending $2.5 billion to complete Unit 2 at its Watts Bar facility in Tennessee. Progress Energy, meantime, says it will file an application to build two nuclear reactors at an existing nuclear plant site in North Carolina. Interestingly, the location was chosen in the 1970s and was designed to accommodate four reactors. But as history unfolded, only one of the units was actually built. The utility has notified federal regulators that if it moves forward with the two new reactors, they would be online around 2018. It says that a final decision is still more than a year away. "The overall demand for electricity is not going to decrease in our fast-growing part of the country and, as a utility, we have an obligation to meet that growing demand," says Progress Energy's CEO Bill Johnson. "Using nuclear power, we can help secure our energy future with a fuel that does not contribute to global warming." Critics of nuclear power, however, say that those nuclear-bound utilities have a fallacious energy strategy. If history is any indication, it would be a monumental task for them to stay on time and on budget. According to Arjun Makhikani, who advised TVA in the late 1970s and who now heads a nuclear watchdog group called the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, says that utilities canceled 121 reactors in the post-1974 period and subsequently wasted $50 billion in 1995 dollars. The TVA, in fact, was the last one to activate a new nuclear reactor -- Watts Bar Unit 1 in Spring City, Tenn. -- in 1996. That reactor ended up costing $6 billion to build after construction and financing in a process that took 20 years. "Enjoying virtually every conceivable advantage at its birth -- from high public popularity to lavish government funding to virtually unanimous political support -- the commercial nuclear power industry in the United States is a moribund one, with virtually every one of its early advantages reversed," says Makhikan. It's a different time now. Nuclear plants in the United States have solid safety and performance records. Last year, they exceeded previous production levels and generated 807 billion kilowatt-hours of power. Those achievements, on top of the current regulatory climate, are adding to nuclear power's new appeal. While the financial risks associated with development remain an impediment, they can be mitigated by continuing along the path that Congress laid out in the 2005 Energy Policy Act. More information is available from Energy Central: * Generation Technologies Topic Center * The Rebirth of Nuclear, EnergyBiz, May/June 2007 * The Nuclear Balance Sheet: Utilities Review Competing Reactor Designs, EnergyBiz, July/Aug 2007 * The Need for Nuclear, EnergyBiz, Nov/Dec 2007 * Respond to the editor: energybizinsider@energycentral.com Copyright © 1996-2008 by CyberTech, Inc. All rights reserved. Energy Central ® is a registered trademark of CyberTech, ***************************************************************** 16 George Monbiot: Jobs are used to justify anything, but the numbers don't add up * Apr 1 2008: Today's paper Search: guardian.co.uk Comment is free Web The credibility of the employment claims made for projects like nuclear newbuild is rarely, if ever, questioned There is no nonsense so gross that it cannot be justified by the creation of jobs. The Ministry of Defence has just announced that it's spending £13bn of our money - via a fantastically complicated private finance scheme - on a fleet of refuelling planes. Do we need them? Only if we intend to attack another defenceless country. But it's worthwhile, because the new contract will "create up to 600 jobs at AirTanker Ltd, and will safeguard up to 3,000 jobs directly at British sites, with thousands more sustained indirectly". John Hutton claims that new nuclear power stations will generate not only the energy we need, but also 100,000 new jobs. When and how? Here, or in France? Northumberland county council has just revealed that it is spending £3.6m on one new roundabout. A staggering waste of public money? No, "it will both attract new jobs to the town [Haltwhistle] and secure existing employment". It is true that investment creates employment. But jobs are used to justify anything and everything. If recession strikes, the political value of any scheme which boosts them will rise. Projects which in more prosperous times might have been rejected by planners or ministers will suddenly find favour. Anyone who stands in their way - however daft the schemes may be - will be walloped as an antisocial Luddite. But the big question is asked very rarely in the press: how reliable are these promises? Whenever a new defence contract or superstore or road or airport is announced, newspapers and broadcasters repeat the employment figures without questioning them. They rarely return to the story to discover whether the claims were true. The Guardian's research service was able to find only two stories that challenged individual claims about job creation. One, from 2003, covered a National Audit Office investigation into the government's grants to companies in deprived areas. The grants cost the taxpayer £1.4bn, and were meant to have created or protected 300,000 jobs. But the auditors found only 45% of these jobs were additional: the remainder would have been saved or created if the grants hadn't existed. Of these, 11% displaced other jobs in the same region, even when the multiplier effect of jobs creating further jobs was taken into account. The schemes had worked, but not as well as the government had claimed. The other story, in February this year, reported an odd but quite common phenomenon: a private equity boss attacking his own industry. Jon Moulton, the founder of Alchemy Partners, berated his own trade body for using "very dodgy statistics". The British Venture Capital Association had claimed that jobs at private equity firms have risen by 8% a year over the past five years, while in publicly listed companies, jobs have grown by only 0.4% a year. Speaking at the industry's SuperReturn 2008 conference, Moulton pointed out that the association's figures excluded the private equity firms that had gone out of business. "If you use an adjusted figure, the number should be more like zero. We're putting these things out as fact and we shouldn't." Many of the published figures have to be wrong. At the beginning of his nuclear speech, John Hutton praised the efforts of Dougie Rooney, the energy officer for the trade union Unite, for his "unique contribution to nuclear's renaissance in the UK". But they can't get their story straight. Rooney has claimed that the nuclear programme will generate 10,000 new jobs: one tenth of Hutton's figure. Ten years ago, a research organisation called the National Retail Planning Forum - financed by Sainsbury, Tesco, Marks & Spencer, Boots and John Lewis - published a report on the superstores' impact on employment. It found that there is "strong evidence that new out-of-centre superstores have a negative net impact on retail employment up to 15 km away". The 93 stores the forum studied were responsible for the net loss of 25,685 employees: every time a large supermarket opened, 276 people lost their job. This is hardly surprising. The New Economics Foundation has calculated that every £50,000 spent in small local shops creates one job. You must spend £250,000 in superstores for the same result. But the press - especially the local papers - reports Eldorado every time a new store opens. In the past few days the Telegraph & Argus claimed that Marks & Spencer will create 2,500 new jobs in Bradford; the Halifax Evening Courier announced that the local B&Q will hatch an extra 60 jobs by moving to bigger premises; the BBC published a story headlined "Morrisons site creates 1,000 jobs". Seldom is there a word about the employment these schemes will destroy. To produce a definitive account of the gap between the claims made by companies promoting new schemes and the jobs they really deliver would take years. Instead, I asked a researcher, Nicola Cutcher, to conduct a rough sampling exercise. She took the lastest year for which job figures broken down by the size of employer are available - 2006 - and selected the middle week of each quarter. She then went through all the stories that mentioned the word "jobs" in a press database, selecting those that reported new openings or closures by large enterprises (more than 250 staff) which were definitely taking place. She ensured that each claim was counted only once. To produce a rough average for the year, she multiplied the four weeks by 13. The government reports that the number of jobs among large enterprises rose by 189,000 between 2005 and 2006. Our rough sample suggests a net gain of 1.4m, or 7.4 times the official rate. If the same exaggeration applied to the whole economy, there would be 218 million workers in the UK. This exercise has severe limitations. Job figures tend to be quite lumpy. Some of the posts take several years to create, so they won't show up in the 2006 figures; though 2006, of course, harvested the jobs announced in previous years. But the gains among large employers this decade have fluctuated between 160,000 and 330,000: in no year has anything like 1.4m net jobs been created. Should we be surprised by such exaggerations? Of course not. Though the papers are generally good at reporting job cuts, they rely for the good news on companies and government departments that have an interest in talking up the benefits of their schemes. There is also plenty of confusion, often cunningly sown in corporate press releases, about whether the new jobs are being created directly or indirectly. When claiming wider benefits for their schemes, employers use the most generous possible multiplier effects. The indirect employment claimed by one company is the direct employment created by another. As they all declare responsibility for work created elsewhere, new jobs in this wacky world are generated several times over. We need some reliable research into the reporting of employment claims. We need journalists to start asking questions about the figures they are fed, perhaps to refuse to print them unless they have been independently audited. And we all need to make a simple demand whenever a shiny new scheme promises to solve the community's problems: prove it. monbiot.com * guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2008 * Registered in England and Wales. No. 908396. Registered office: Number 1 Scott Place, Manchester M3 3GG ***************************************************************** 17 INQUIRER.net: Gov't eyes 2-year nuclear power study - Energy Nuclear power By Abigail L. Ho Philippine Daily Inquirer First Posted 23:04:00 03/23/2008 MANILA, Philippines--The Department of Energy is considering undertaking a comprehensive study on the feasibility of delving into nuclear power generation, upon the recommendation of a United Nations-sanctioned body. Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes said the eight-person delegation from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had recommended the conduct of a thorough feasibility study before deciding whether or not to go into nuclear power generation. "The study should be comprehensive, all-encompassing. It will take us two years to do that, but that will put us in a position to make an informed judgment to say go or no go. The (government) core group is still undertaking research," he told reporters. The core group is composed of key experts from the DOE, National Power Corp. and the Philippine Nuclear Research Institute of the Department of Science and Technology. The IAEA group came to the Philippines in January to visit the mothballed 620-megawatt (MW) Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) in Morong and help the government in deciding whether or not to pursue nuclear power generation. In an earlier interview, Reyes said the group would not decide for the country on this matter. The IAEA team would merely make a recommendation on what could be the best options for the government—whether to rehabilitate and refire the BNPP, to convert it to a plant that used another type of fuel, or to just scrap it altogether. "In other words, they will not recommend to us to either open it or not open it, or rehabilitate or not rehabilitate. They will just advise us on what we have to do to arrive at that decision. But we are not compelled to accept any of their recommendations," he said. Copyright 2008 Philippine Daily Inquirer. All rights reserved. This ***************************************************************** 18 Hartford Courant: Nuclear Plant's Plans Upset Neighbors -- Industries, Haddam, Connecticut River -- Courant.com By PENELOPE OVERTON | Courant Staff Writer March 27, 2008 HADDAM - — For years, the people living in the shadow of the Connecticut Yankee nuclear power plant consoled themselves with thoughts of when the building would be torn down, the soil deemed safe and the wooded, riverfront land returned to nature. That might not happen under a plan that Connecticut Yankee unveiled Wednesday to about 50 feisty plant neighbors from Haddam Neck, the small borough of Haddam that has been host to the plant for 40 years. Connecticut Yankee President Wayne Norton announced the company is getting ready to advertise about 500 acres of the property for sale. Connecticut Yankee will soon start soliciting confidential "expressions of interest" from qualified developers, Norton told residents. The firm would keep control of about 75 acres of the site for storage of spent nuclear fuel. Some residents called the plan to sell the land to the highest bidder an "act of betrayal." "CY tempted the town of Haddam to get dry cask storage by telling us the land would be conserved," said resident Bill Harris. "You sold us a bill of goods to get what you wanted. Now you're telling us you're going to go to the highest bidder." The closure of Connecticut Yankee, the sixth nuclear power plant built in the nation, was completed in July. The plant began generating power in 1967 and produced 110 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity before it ceased operations in 1996. Residents said that Connecticut Yankee had all but promised them to conserve the land, which includes 7,500 feet of frontage on the Connecticut River and a part of the Lower Salmon River Watershed, dubbed "one of the world's last great places" by environmental groups. The state Department of Environmental Protection has said it wants to protect the parcel. Haddam wants to buy a few acres at a bargain price to turn into a playground. Norton said the disposition process outlined Wednesday doesn't rule out conservation. He apologized for any past "representations" made by now retired company officials, but said state and federal regulations prevent Connecticut Yankee from simply giving the property away. Norton described the "expression of interest" process as a key step in meeting Connecticut Yankee's fiduciary responsibilities to investors and ratepayers, who funded its multimillion-dollar decommissioning of the plant. Norton said most of the process would remain private, but he agreed to consider what the community of Haddam Neck wants to do with the land, and a citizen's request for formal public participation in the disposition process. A court settlement requires Connecticut Yankee to give Haddam and the state the right to match any offer for the land, Norton said. The final decision on how to dispose of the land must eventually be reviewed by state and federal regulatory agencies, he said. Connecticut Yankee has hired Vita Nuova, a Sandy Hook company that specializes in the redevelopment of "complex sites." Contact Penelope Overton at poverton@courant.com. Copyright © 2008, The Hartford Courant ***************************************************************** 19 TF: Nuclear fuel to be withdrawn from all reactors of Chornobyl NPP 15/03/2008 11:09 (2 Day 23:37 minutes ago) The FINANCIAL -- The Ukrainian Ministry of Emergency plans to withdraw nuclear fuel from all reactors of the Chornobyl nuclear power plant by April 26, in line with the program of stopping the operation of the NPP. According to an UNIAN correspondent, Emergency Minister Volodymyr Shandra claimed this to a press conference in the Cabinet of Ministers on March 14. “A plan of actions was worked out to stop the operation of the Chornobyl NPP. I guess as early as in April we will withdraw the last fuel elements from the plant’s reactors. Thus, by the 22rd anniversary of the catastrophe, all the reactors, except for the fourth, will be without any nuclear fuel. It will be a very serious step towards providing the security of the Chornobyl NPPâ€, V.Shandra said. The Minister also pointed out that in autumn of 2008, the building of a confinement over “Shelter†object will begin. “The financing of design works has already opened. I believe this autumn the design works will be completed, and the building will kick offâ€, he added. © 2007 The FINANCIAL, Business News & Multimedia. ***************************************************************** 20 redOrbit: Va. Power Plant Application Moves Ahead / Federal Regulators Set Dates for Reports on 3rd North Anna Reactor - Posted on: Sunday, 16 March 2008, 02:00 CDT By GREG EDWARDS Federal regulators this week set a review schedule for Dominion Virginia Power's application to build and operate a third reactor at its North Anna Nuclear Station. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission also published a notice in the Federal Register advising anyone interested in intervening in the license application to contact the commission by May 9. Those people whom the NRC allows to intervene will be able to participate in a hearing near the end of the project review. The public also will get a chance to comment at that hearing. Aug. 29 is the target date for the agency to complete its preliminary safety evaluation report of the project. A final safety evaluation should be completed by August 2010. The target for the agency to send a draft environmental-impact statement to the Environmental Protection Agency is December, with a final environmental report to be sent the following December. The NRC noted that the schedule is dependent on the agency staff's certification of a new General Electric reactor design that Dominion Virginia Power has selected for the plant. The North Anna reactor application is one of 11 the NRC has received since July for reactors at seven locations. Rich Zuercher, a Dominion Virginia Power spokesman, said the company is pleased the NRC has accepted the company's application as complete and looks forward to working with the agency in its review. The proposed reactor at the Louisa County power plant would generate 1,500 megawatts of electricity, or almost twice as much as the two existing reactors at the North Anna combined. The plant, if built, could supply the needs of about 375,000 homes. Dominion Virginia Power's application and other details about the proposed plant and the licensing process can be found online via the NRC Web site. Contact Greg Edwards at (804) 649-6390 or gedwards@timesdispatch.com. Originally published by Times-Dispatch Staff Writer. (c) 2008 Richmond Times - Dispatch. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved. Source: Richmond Times - Dispatch © 2002-2008 redOrbit.com. All rights reserved. All other copyrights ***************************************************************** 21 GloucesterTimes: Nuclear watchdog group raises alarm over Seabrook plant - Gloucester, MA Published: March 19, 2008 06:57 am PrintThis Staff Writer SEABROOK, N.H. — A local watchdog group is raising new concerns about the safety of Seabrook Station after the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission found cracked weld alloys on water pressurizers similar to those at the New Hampshire nuclear plant. The latest discoveries come after the NRC last week noted the flaw and said some plants — including Seabrook — may need to shut down in order to repair the problem. The plant is located off Route 1, about five miles north of downtown Newburyport. "Our research activities recently gave us new information that raises some questions about whether the eight plants can continue to run until their next scheduled shutdown," James Wiggins, acting director of the NRC's office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, said in a press release. "New data from inspectors of similar welds indicates those plants may need to take action sooner." The Newburyport-based C-10 group, which monitors radiological emissions from the plant, is asking why the NRC didn't shut the plant down immediately, noting the problem is something well documented throughout the power industry. "The NRC has known about this problem since 2000," C-10 spokeswoman Debbie Grinnell said. "They have not had the kind of inspection like they had at the St. Lucie Plant (in Florida)." The St. Lucie Plant in Hutchinson Island, Fla., is owned by the same company that owns the Seabrook plant. It suffered problems with reactor coolant pumps and was shut down in January. The NRC said the severity of the problems could compromise the running of the plant. Though C-10 is calling for answers from the NRC, spokesman for the NRC Scott Brunell said the decision to keep Seabrook open came after comprehensive evaluation of the problem. "The NRC has looked at the issue at a significant level of detail, and our staff is satisfied Seabrook is safe and can safely continue until the scheduled outage in a few weeks," Brunell said. "We were looking at certain welds in the reactors. When the plants were built, they had to attach two different kinds of steel and used a certain alloy, which over time has shown under some conditions it can crack, and of course we don't want those cracks to affect safety." The NRC Thursday held an executive meeting, after which NRC officials decided the welds of the pressurized water reactors could wait until Seabrook's spring shutdown before any modifications need to be made. "We always want safety first, but we don't want to make a decision on incomplete data," Brunell said. "After receiving additional information a couple of days later, we decided there is no safety issue and we will wait until spring to do any studies. We are very sure things will stay safe until our scheduled shutdown." Seabrook Station, like stations across the country, has scheduled shutdowns every 18 months in order to perform routine maintenance. The shutdowns alternate between spring and fall months and are kept classified in order to stay competitive, according to spokesman for the plant Al Griffith. At Seabrook Station, Griffith said, the problem with the welds is an industry issue that has been monitored over the years, and no safety issues are present. "We are one of the plants entering our refueling outage, and we received an extension based on the fact our outage is in the spring," Griffith said. "Further analysis and work on the pressurizers will be done then, but no repairs will be made. We are performing modifications on the welds." Brunell notes the NRC inspectors at the plant constantly monitor the plant for safety and compliance to NRC codes and that the public is under no risk. But Grinnell and C-10 say it is the enforcement of the safety codes that is not happening. "We are a public watchdog group, and the NRC is not requiring Seabrook to comply with American industry standards," Grinnell said. Welds on the pressurizers, which allow a small amount of steam to escape in order to keep the reactor's coolant system at the appropriate pressure, are the cause for concern at Seabrook as well as seven other power plants across the United States. Alloys holding the weld together have shown evidence of degradation over time and stress. According to NRC data, power plant components are made of both carbon and stainless steel, two metals not typically welded together. Because of this, the two metals used two different types of alloys, which in the past have been susceptible to cracking due to the intense pressure the alloys receive from daily operating, welding and their chemical makeup. "We don't shut down unless there is a reason based on sound engineering," Griffith said. "If there was a reason to shut down, we would. We have in the past, and we will again. We are not shy about doing that, but it's not the case here." PrintThis Gloucester Daily Times, 36 Whittemore Street, Gloucester, MA 01930 - 978-283-7000 © Copyright Eagle Tribune Publishing Company. All rights reserved. 100 Turnpike Street, North Andover, MA 01845 978-946-2000 ***************************************************************** 22 CBS News: Chernobyl, 22 Years Later, Exploring The Rubble Of The World's Largest Nuclear Disaster - CHERNOBYL, Ukraine, March 31, 2008 Chernobyl nuclear power plant's damaged Reactor No. 4 is seen from Pripyat on March 1, 2006. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky) Chernobyl Still Draws Concern It has been over 20 years since the world's worst nuclear disaster, but Chernobyl is still generating dangerous radiation levels. As Bill Plante reports, a new steel arch could provide a solution. | Share/Embed * Chernobyl Still Draws Concern (1:58) * Sealing Chernobyl's Reactor #4 (3:10) Interactive Nuclear Disasters Review some of the worst accidents in the history of nuclear power, see how the body responds to radiation exposure and find out if there's a nuclear plant near you. Interactive Nuclear: Harnessing The Atom Nuclear power has become a prominent energy source in the U.S. Find out more about this controversial resource. (CBS) Twenty-two years after the world's worst nuclear accident, radiation danger at Chernobyl is still so severe that a 16-mile area remains sealed - reached only through two checkpoints. CBS News correspondent Bill Plante was allowed inside with a camera crew. The meltdown left a simmering stew of toxic radioactivity under the rubble, covered by a hastily built shelter that's crumbling. "There's still a massive inventory of radionucleides inside the shelter - and the shelter is far from being airtight," said project manager Laurin Dodd. Work is finally underway on a permanent solution, but Chernobyl today is still a very dangerous place. Special protective clothing is required. The radiation level is so high that you can't stay long. The construction equipment cabs have lead sheeting; every bucket of rubble is monitored for radiation. The solution, 10 years in the planning, is an enormous steel arch, to be built in sections, then moved on tracks over the reactor. At 345 feet, it'll be taller than the statue of liberty - and wider, at 840 feet, than the St. Louis Gateway Arch. Not only is the project huge, but so is the cost: almost $1.5 billion. And the United States is the largest-single country donor. Why? Not just to help Ukraine, but also to help guarantee the future of nuclear power. "Nuclear power will always have a shadow over it as long as Chernobyl is a message of concern," said U.S. ambassador to Ukraine William B. Taylor. CBS News was on the site less than 10 minutes when one member of the group went over his exposure limit. "Right now the dose rate is 200 times the background of what you'd have in Washington, D.C.," Dodd said. The steel arch is supposed to keep the radiation contained for at least 100 years - while future generations figure out how to dispose of the mess. © MMVIII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 23 TheDay.com: 2nd Tritium Leak Found At Millstone [ Welcome to theday.com ] By Patricia Daddona Published on 3/21/2008 A second low-level tritium leak has been found near the Unit 3 reactor at Millstone Power Station after an initial leak was first detected last November. The new leak, discovered March 5, was found in water dripping from a gauge on a tank used to store used borated water, said Nadia Glucksberg, a hydro-geologist with MACTEC, an engineering and consulting firm with offices in Portland, Maine. Boron is added to water in spent fuel pools to help stabilize used radioactive fuel rods. Dominion has replaced the gauge and is monitoring the area, Glucksberg said. Tritium, a naturally occurring radioactive isotope, is a form of hydrogen that is a common byproduct of electricity generated through nuclear power. The low-energy isotope emits a weak form of radiation and can be harmful to humans if ingested in large doses. The skin can also absorb it. Glucksberg presented her analysis for both leaks to Dominion officials over the past two weeks and provided a synopsis to The Day on Thursday. The leaking equipment is about half a mile from the nearest residence, and groundwater flows away from those homes in a southern direction toward Long Island Sound, said John Doroski, a Dominion senior health physicist, and Dominion spokesman Pete Hyde. The tritium concentrations were found in sump wells after dripping water traveled through a network of curtain drains. But wells near the reactors at Millstone tested clean for tritium, and much of the groundwater near the leaking equipment is lined with bedrock and flows into the Sound, Glucksberg said. Edward Wilds, director of the state Department of Environmental Protection's radiation division, and his staff monitor tritium levels at discharge points into Long Island Sound. “At my last meeting with (Dominion), they confirmed all those findings are non-detectable — below the detection limits of the instrumentation they use,” Wilds said in a telephone interview Thursday. “And given the fact that it's non-detectable in the discharge, there's no public health and safety issue.” Like the first leak, this new leak registered minute amounts of tritium, which is a radioactive isotope. The levels, according to MACTEC, DEP, and the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, are so low that they pose no harm to human health or the environment. For both leaks, the amount of the radioactive isotope is substantially less than the 20,000 picocuries per liter allowed in federal drinking water standards. The gauge leak measured 8,000 picocuries per liter. In the first November incident, condensation from a pipe scaling the outside of a reactor water-storage tank originally measured 34,000 picocuries per liter of tritium, but is now below 2,000 picocuries, Glucksberg said. Each of those readings is less than the 1 million picocuries allowed by federal law to be released into Long Island Sound, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Nonetheless, due to heightened sensitivity in the industry after high tritium levels were found at a residence near an Illinois reactor owned by the Exelon Corp., Dominion is voluntarily monitoring the leaks, collecting and disposing of water containing unplanned tritium releases, and working to find permanent fixes, Hyde said. Any leaking water that is collected will be sent to an out-of-state regulated waste facility, said Hyde, even though the NRC has said the waste could be dumped in Long Island Sound because the tritium levels are so low. “This is an issue that people are concerned about, where we feel the right thing to do is to take whatever steps are necessary to ensure public confidence in how we do business on site,” said Hyde. The company has also started planning to redesign the end of the water tank pipe so it dumps directly into a container for radionuclide wastes, as occurs at the Unit 2 reactor, which was built earlier than Unit 3 using a different design. The company is hoping to complete the work sometime this fall and add eight more monitoring wells in late spring. “Their repair work is following a similar progression to the kind of repairs that were done in other plants,” added Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the NRC. “We've seen evidence that they're trying to be aggressive, and we're tracking it” through NRC inspectors on site at Millstone. p.daddona@theday.com Privacy Policy | Contact Us at 1 (860) 442-2200 | New London, CT | © 1998-2008 The Day Publishing Co. 101 ***************************************************************** 24 Bloomberg.com: Toshiba to Gets Orders for 4 U.S. Nuclear Reactors, Nikkei Says Japan By Linda Shen April 2 (Bloomberg) -- Toshiba Corp. will receive orders to build four nuclear power plants in the U.S. valued at a total 1.4 trillion yen ($13.7 billion), Nikkei English News reported. Utilities Scana Corp. and Southern Co. are expected to commission two plants in Georgia and two in South Carolina that will have reactors capable of generating 1.1 million kilowatts, Nikkei said. Toshiba has won 1 trillion yen in orders for nuclear plants in China since buying Westinghouse Electric Co. for $4.2 billion in 2006, and the Scana and Southern contracts will be Westinghouse's first within the U.S. since the purchase, Nikkei wrote. Nuclear power demand is growing as the price of crude oil continues to rise, and 30 new reactors are planned for the U.S. in the next 20 years, Nikkei said. The two utility companies filed applications with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in March and may sign a contract with Toshiba as early as April, with the facilities anticipated to be running between 2016 and 2019, Nikkei said. To contact the reporters on this story: Linda Shen in New York at lshen21@bloomberg.net. Last Updated: April 2, 2008 15:29 EDT ***************************************************************** 25 Bloomberg.com: J-Power to Invest 1 Trillion Yen in Plants, Overseas Projects Updated: New York, Apr 01 05:04 By Megumi Yamanaka March 31 (Bloomberg) -- Electric Power Development Co., Japan's largest electricity wholesaler, will spend 1 trillion yen ($10 billion) in the five years from April to expand capacity and invest in overseas power and mining projects. ``This spending is necessary to give fruitful returns to our shareholders and investors,'' President Yoshihiko Nakagaki told reporters in Tokyo today. ``We will expand power projects overseas, seek opportunities to acquire stakes in coal mines and also try to enter the wind power business abroad.'' Electric Power Development, known as J-Power, plans to boost pretax profit by 28 percent to more than 60 billion yen by the financial year ending March 2011, from 47 billion yen estimated for the fiscal year that ended today, the company said in a statement. J-Power is building its first nuclear reactor to be completed by March 2012. Under the spending plan, J-Power will invest 340 billion yen in a new 1,383 megawatt nuclear reactor in Oma in northern Japan. The company plans to finish building the 600 megawatt No. 2 coal- fired power plant in Isogo near Tokyo by July 2009. The power wholesaler will allocate 270 billion yen for expanding businesses overseas and about 100 billion yen for renewable energy projects and acquiring coal mines. The company owns and operates plants in Thailand, Taiwan, the Philippines and the U.S. The output of these plants is sold to local utilities. To contact the reporter on this story: Megumi Yamanaka in Tokyo at myamanaka@bloomberg.net. Last Updated: March 31, 2008 06:50 EDT ***************************************************************** 26 TheDay.com: Anti-nuclear Activist Seeks Hearing For Millstone Power Boost Proposal [ Welcome to theday.com ] Friday, Mar 21, 2008 By Patricia Daddona Published on 3/19/2008 A proposed 7 percent power boost for Millstone exceeds the federal limit and should be subjected to an extended and more rigorous review, according to the Connecticut Coalition Against Millstone. Millstone owner Dominion is seeking a power boost for Unit 3, known in the nuclear industry as a “stretch power uprate.” In January, the NRC determined that an uprate that increased the electric output of the reactor by 80 megawatts above the 1,165 megawatts currently produced would be safe, but has not made a final decision on the proposal. Relying in part on the expertise of a former Millstone lead engineer, coalition Director Nancy Burton argues in a petition filed Monday with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that Dominion “understates and misrepresents” the proposed power level increase, which by federal rules must not exceed 7 percent. Burton, of Redding Ridge and Mystic, and the coalition are seeking to intervene in the application and are calling for a hearing before the NRC. The power boost “has grave potential to increase safety risks and diminish safety margins” at the reactor, the petition states. It cites an estimated 9 percent or higher increase in the levels of radionuclide releases to the environment, which petitioners contend would increase “unacceptable” human health risks to Burton herself and the public at large. Burton, coalition member Cynthia Besade of Uncasville and physicist Dr. Ernest Sternglass assert that Millstone emissions are already known to cause cancer, a view Dominion has disputed in the past. The petitioners state the proposed power boost would put added stress on the reactor, which could increase the risk of a nuclear accident. They also contend that the reactor is already “stretched” for added power, leaving too small a margin of safety. Also cited is an absence of NRC standards of review, incompleteness of the application, and detrimental environmental impacts. Dominion spokesman Pete Hyde declined comment on the petition. Privacy Policy | Contact Us at 1 (860) 442-2200 | New London, CT | © 1998-2008 The Day Publishing Co. 104 ***************************************************************** 27 Public Citizen: Anniversary of Three Mile Island Reminds Us, Nuclear Power is Still Not the Answer March 27, 2008   Statement of Tyson Slocum, Director, Public Citizen’s Energy Program The anniversary of the Three Mile Island nuclear accident is a somber reminder of the fatal flaws of nuclear power and the unresolved dangers nuclear energy poses. However, despite the lessons learned from that catastrophe, the Bush administration is attempting to jump-start an industry that has been stagnant for almost three decades. It’s almost as if the Bush administration forgot what happened March 28, 1979, when feedwater pumps failed at Three Mile Island nuclear plant near Harrisburg, Pa., leading to a partial core meltdown and the release of significant amounts of radiation. Prior to this event, mounting public concern and disastrous cost overruns led to the cancellation of most proposals for new reactors. Three Mile Island was the final blow. Almost 30 years later, the flaws that halted interest in nuclear power have not changed. Cost, security, safety and waste proliferation are lingering problems that have yet to be resolved. Nuclear power is still dependent on taxpayer handouts for survival; plants still face safety shortcomings and lack of protection from terrorist attacks. Nuclear power is not a clean energy source, producing low- and high-level radioactive waste at every step of the process – from uranium mining to energy production. What has changed since Three Mile Island? The nuclear industry has targeted not just ratepayers to bear the financial risk of these boondoggles, but is looking to saddle all taxpayers with the cost of guaranteeing the loans used to build new nuclear reactors. Despite the president’s endorsement, nuclear power is not a solution to global warming. We have a 10-year window before global warming reaches its tipping point and major ecological and societal damage becomes unavoidable, says NASA scientist James Hansen. Even if a nuclear energy project was given government approval today, it would take about 10 years for the plant to start delivering electricity. The attempt to revitalize nuclear power is distracting us from cleaner, safer alternatives, such as renewable energy and energy efficiency. Let’s remember Three Mile Island so that we don’t make the same mistakes. ### ***************************************************************** 28 WSJ.com: $100 Billion Power Deal Moves Closer in Europe By Matthew Karnitschnig, Dana Cimilluca and Rebecca Smith Word Count: 874 | Companies Featured in This Article: Iberdrola, E.On French and Spanish companies are in advanced discussions about pursuing a tricky $100 billion deal in the Spanish utility industry that could reshape the European energy landscape. Électricité de France SA, one of Europe's largest utilities, is in talks about forming a bidding duo with Actividades de Construcción y Servicios SA, a Spanish construction company. The team would make simultaneous bids for two of Spain's largest utilities -- Iberdrola SA, the country's largest by market value, and Unión Fenosa, the third-largest, according to people familiar with the matter. Adding debt, the combined value of the transactions would be about $134 ... ***************************************************************** 29 Miami Today: FPL customers may be charged to fund new Turkey Point reactors Week of March 27, 2008 Lou Ortiz Florida Power & Light customers will likely finance for the next 12 years construction of the utility's plans to build two new nuclear reactors at Turkey Point. Those monthly payments of up to $6 per month could begin as early as next year, depending on approval by the state's Public Service Commission, FPL officials said. The utility cleared a big hurdle last week when the state commission approved the $12 billion to $24 billion project to build the new reactors. The commission is expected to take up what customers would pay in late spring this year. The rate would be based on what FPL will spend on the project, which is expected to be completed in 2021, if all approvals are secured by the utility, said FPL spokesman Mayco Villafana. "The highest amount customers will pay throughout this project is less than $6" per month for the construction period, he said. In December, Miami-Dade County commissioners approved FPL's expansion, despite environmental concerns. The project still requires the approval, in part, of the state's Department of Environmental Protection and the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Florida Gov. Charlie Crist and his cabinet also get to vote on the project. Gov. Crist is on the side of the Public Service Commission. "I applaud the Public Service Commission for securing Florida's energy future by taking a major step toward increasing our use of nuclear power," the governor said in a statement on March 18, when the state commission issued its approval. Mr. Villafana said all of the county's concerns would be answered and the public will be heard at the various agencies as the utility goes through the permitting process. The Development Impact Community, a seven-member panel comprised of Miami-Dade staff, has tied numerous conditions to FPL's plans. They include not allowing FPL to draw water from the Biscayne Aquifer, requiring a wastewater discharge plan, and preserving wildlife habitats. Environmental groups say they fear harm to mangroves, wetlands, native birds and animals ó such as the Florida panther, crocodiles and woodstorks ó and question where FPL would get the 30 million to 90 million gallons of water the plant would need daily to operate. "The county issues will be reviewed and answered," Mr. Villafana said. He added that FPL is currently deciding on one of two technologies for the proposed expansion. One option includes two reactors with a total of 2200 megawatts of power, and the other would be comprised of two reactors with 3040 megawatts. The technology with the lower megawatts will cost $12 billion to $18 billion, and the other $16 billion to $24 billion. "That decision has not been made yet," Mr. Villafana said. "It will be made this year." "Once it's built," he said. "It will be a tremendous savings in fuel." If the utility had opted to build a fossil-fuel or natural gas plant "there wouldn't be a savings," Mr. Villafana said, because of the price volatility of those fuels. FPL estimates that the project will create more than 3,000 construction jobs. If completed, the 12-year project would generate $135 million a year in property taxes and hundreds of permanent high-wage jobs, besides serving the growing energy needs of 35 counties in the state, the utility said. FPL said the company needs the new plant because 85,000 new customers are being added yearly to its list of 4.3 million, and consumption has increased 30% over the past 20 years among its current customers. The last nuclear plant to be built in the US was the Watt's Bar reactor near Spring City, TN., which opened in May 1996 and is operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority. There are 104 commercial nuclear plants in 31 states licensed by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, according to federal statistics. © Copyright 2008 Miami Today ***************************************************************** 30 The Independent: They called Chernobyl "the new Venice" - Commentators, Opinion - Independent.co.uk Web Sunday, 30 March 2008 Hurrah, hurrah! A new dawn! Except that we have heard it all before, and are yet to catch a glimpse of the previous bonanza we have been promised. I'm not anti-nuclear power, merely sceptical about its supposedly magical benefits. It became the answer to our problems over 50 years ago, when the Queen opened the world's first nuclear power station, Calder Hall at Windscale. Eight years later, Fred Lee, Minister of Power under Harold Wilson, told the Commons: "I am quite sure that we have hit the jackpot ... We have the greatest breakthrough of all time." He was announcing another "new generation" of nuclear stations based on the British designed advanced gas-cooled reactor. He went on to say: "As we now know, there is something like a 10 per cent advantage in this development, and it could be greater ... Certainly a 10 per cent saving is involved." The first station of this new generation was to be built at Dungeness in Kent; Dungeness B was ordered a few months later, in August 1965. The reactor eventually started up, 10 years late, in December 1982. It cost more than five times the 1965 estimates. Another exciting new dawn came shortly after Margaret Thatcher took office in 1979. David Howell, the Secretary of State for Energy, announced another new generation of reactors: this time a US-designed pressurised water reactor would be built at Sizewell in Suffolk. His junior minister, Norman Lamont, soon declared "the government's intention to build at least one nuclear power station a year for the next 10 years". One – Sizewell – was built. Eventually, in 1995, it produced electricity for the grid, 15 years after Howell's announcement, costing 50 per cent more than the original estimate. The Times remarked in 1957: "Atomic energy has the power to evoke fantasies ... as a fairy godmother source of cheap energy." Indeed so, but the delusions are not uniquely British. In the States in the 1950s, they talked of nuclear electricity "too cheap to meter". Robert Hutchins, president of the University of Chicago, predicted: "Heat will be so plentiful that it will even be used to melt snow as it falls." In the Soviet Union, a new nuclear power station would create a new Venice, with warm-water effluent attracting wildfowl to winter in the canals. That "Venice" was Chernobyl, the site of the world's worst nuclear accident. So don't hold your breath. On past form, the early days of Heathrow's Terminal 5 seem a more likely guide to the future than John Hutton. Norman Dombey, Emeritus Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Sussex, advised the Commons Select Committee on Energy in 1979 Search Query: Independent.co.uk The Web Go ©independent.co.uk ***************************************************************** 31 UCS: Three Mile Island 29 Years Later: Nuclear Safety Problems Still Unresolved March 27, 2008 Adding New Plants to Aging Fleet Will Increase Risk Without Safety Reform, Science Group Says WASHINGTON (March 27, 2008) — The partial meltdown at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant began on March 28, 1979. Since the accident, not a single new nuclear power plant has been ordered in the United States. Indeed, 74 plants under construction at the time of the accident were cancelled. But in just the past year, the nuclear industry has stepped up its efforts to secure government funding for a new fleet of nuclear power plants. Unfortunately, over the last three decades, neither plant owners nor the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) have adequately addressed the basic flaws in U.S. nuclear safety that led to the Three Mile Island accident, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). "Three Mile Island was almost 30 years ago so perhaps the industry and the NRC have forgotten about it," said Dave Lochbaum, the director of UCS's Nuclear Safety Project. "But you can bet that even the people who welcome new plants in their communities will want to know if what happened at Three Mile Island could happen to them. As of right now, the industry and the NRC haven't done enough to ensure them it won't." The Three Mile Island accident was triggered by a loss of reactor cooling water. Before the accident, the plant's cooling system valves had broken down 10 times over the preceding year. Instead of replacing the faulty valves, workers opened them manually to keep the plant operating. When other equipment problems occurred during the eleventh valve failure in March 1979, control room operators were overwhelmed and the plant suffered a partial meltdown. Since then, the NRC and plant owners have focused more on keeping nuclear plants running over the short-term than ensuring their safety, Lochbaum said. That strategy has allowed a number of safety problems at plants to build up over time. When the accumulated problems cause enough interruptions to harm a plant's profitability, owners shut them down for extensive safety overhauls. Since Three Mile Island, utilities have had to shut down 41 plants for a year or more, a total of 51 times. Nuclear accidents are most likely to occur at the beginning or end of a plant's operating lifetime, Lochbaum pointed out. When a plant first goes on line, workers have to acclimate to new equipment that has not been tested in real-world situations. Meanwhile, at the end of a plant's life, workers have to compensate for increasingly degraded hardware. Three Mile Island and other major nuclear accidents, including ones at Chernobyl, Browns Ferry in Alabama and Fermi near Detroit, occurred shortly after the plants started operating. Now most of the 104 currently operating U.S. nuclear power plants are entering the high-risk period at the end of their originally intended 40-year lifespans. If the nuclear industry constructs a new fleet of power plants, Lochbaum said, there will be at a higher risk for a nuclear accident because nearly all of the plants in the United States will be either very new or very old. "If the industry wants to build a new generation of nuclear plants, it first should prove that it can safely operate the ones currently in operation," he said. "And before the NRC approves any new plants, the agency should make sure the industry isn't as careless with its new plants as it was with its old ones." Reporters: Join our notification list to receive breaking news from UCS. General media inquiries can be directed to our media office line at 202-331-5420. If you are calling about a specific issue, contact the appropriate press contact below. Press Contacts: Energy, Food, Scientific Integrity MEGHAN CROSBY Assistant Press Secretary 202-331-6943 mcrosby@ucsusa.org Climate, Global Security, Vehicles, Invasives AARON HUERTAS Assistant Press Secretary 202-331-5458 ahuertas@ucsusa.org Climate, Scientific Integrity LISA NURNBERGER Press Secretary 202-331-6959 lnurnberger@ucsusa.org Energy, Food EMILY ROBINSON Press Secretary 202-331-5427 erobinson@ucsusa.org ELLIOTT NEGIN Media Director 202-331-5439 enegin@ucsusa.org © Union of Concerned Scientists Page Last Revised: 03/27/08 ***************************************************************** 32 al.com: Public can address N-plant proposal- Thursday, April 03, 2008 By DAVID BREWER Times Staff Writer david.brewer@htimes.com 2 hearings today in Scottsboro on new TVA reactor SCOTTSBORO - The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission will meet with the public today to discuss environmental concerns over a proposed second nuclear plant at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Bellefonte site near here. The Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League will be there to oppose the project because of the danger it would pose to the public, said Lou Zeller, science director for the league. An accidental radiation leak "would endanger over a million people within 50 miles of the plant," he said Wednesday from his office in North Carolina's Blue Ridge Mountains. But TVA spokesman John Moulton said the utility's three nuclear plants (Browns Ferry near Athens, Sequoyah near Chattanooga and Watts Bar near Spring City, Tenn.) are safe. "They are very controlled and regulated," he said last week. To accommodate the public, the NRC will hold a pair of meetings at the Scottsboro Goosepond Civic Center - 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. and 7 to 10 p.m. Each meeting will begin with an hour-long open house where anyone can talk one-on-one with NRC officials about the project. The next segment will include the NRC's brief overviews of its combined construction/operation licensing process for a nuclear plant and environmental review process followed by 2 1/2 hours of remarks to the NRC about the proposed plant. Although the NRC had set a March 27 registration deadline for anyone wanting to speak at today's meetings, it's also allowing people to register just before the start of each session. NuStart, a consortium of nuclear utilities including the TVA, wants to build the proposed plant next to the TVA's unfinished Bellefonte Nuclear Plant, which also has two units. After investing $4.2 billion in the plant, the TVA stopped construction in 1988 because of debt and a reduced demand for electricity at the time. © 2008 The Huntsville Times. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 33 Daily Yomiuri: Aging N-reactors face crisis over structural integrity OSAKA--Reactor vessels at a number of nuclear plants in operation for more than 30 years will soon run out of test strips used to measure their structural integrity. To ensure safe reactor operations, the government and electric power companies have been urged to take measures such as recycling used test strips and revising safety standards for nuclear power stations. Reactor vessels gradually become brittle due to their exposure to radiation. To measure the degree of deterioration, electric power companies generally use test strips measuring about five centimeters long and one centimeter thick, made from the same material as the vessels. Three or more sets of dozens of such strips are installed in heat shields and in other places inside reactor vessels when they start operation. A set is removed at least once every 10 years, and the degree of embrittlement is measured by breaking the pieces. The temperature of the test strips rises gradually the longer they are in the reactors, with brittleness increasing in line with temperature. The temperature at Kansai Electric Power Co.'s Mihama nuclear power plant's No. 1 reactor was minus 1 C when it began service in 1970. However, the temperature has progressively risen to 45 C, 51 C, 71 C, and 74 C in subsequent tests. The Daily Yomiuri, The Yomiuri Shimbun ***************************************************************** 34 New York Times: NRG Energy Sets Up an Entity to Build Nuclear Plants - Haruyoshi Yamaguchi/Bloomberg News NRG Energy wants to build an advanced boiling water reactor similar to this one run by Hokuriku Electric Power in Japan. By MATTHEW L. WALD Published: March 26, 2008 A second company planning to build nuclear plants has established a partnership with a reactor vendor to play a major role in building reactors around the United States. NRG Energy, based in Princeton, N.J., which wants to build two reactors adjacent to the South Texas Project, 90 miles from Houston, said it had established a company, Nuclear Innovation North America, to market, develop, finance and invest in reactors. Toshiba, which makes the reactor that NRG wants to build, will invest $300 million, half for the South Texas Project reactors and half for development of additional reactors in North America, NRG said. Toshiba will get a 12 percent stake in Nuclear Innovation. “This is Toshiba putting their money where their mouth is,” said David Crane, the chief executive of NRG. Toshiba builds a reactor initially designed by General Electric, called an advanced boiling water reactor. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved the design in the 1990s, and last September, NRG asked the commission for approval to build in Texas. The company later asked for part of its application to be held in abeyance, and Mr. Crane said Tuesday that it would be amended to make the South Texas proposal identical to Toshiba projects already operating in Japan. In addition, he said, the design approved by the commission included a control room using computers of mid-1990s vintage, so various changes would be needed. The industry and the government are struggling to develop standard designs that can be reproduced economically. Design variations among the approximately 125 reactors that eventually entered commercial operation contributed to huge cost overruns and operating difficulties; scores more were canceled. The idea behind Nuclear Innovation is that Toshiba will function as the prime contractor, with the owners gaining the benefit of the Japanese company’s experience. Toshiba has committed to building two twin-unit reactor projects in addition to the South Texas project, NRG said. In 2005, Constellation Energy formed a partnership with Areva, a French-owned nuclear company, to build one reactor of Areva’s design for Constellation, and then additional reactors with other utility partners. The joint company, UniStar Nuclear, would operate the reactors once they were completed. The French national utility, Électricité de France, later bought into the partnership. One reactor of Areva’s design is under construction in Finland, and another is planned in France. Mr. Crane, in a phone interview Monday, said the Energy Policy Act of 2005 had provided loan guarantees, production tax credit and some risk insurance for new plants. But, he said, “the one principal risk you cannot lay off is who’s going to build this thing on time and on budget.” Referring to the South Texas reactors, he said, “On an $8 billion project, even if it is 80 percent debt, that still leaves $1.6 billion of equity, and people aren’t going to risk the $1.6 billion unless you find someone who says, ‘I’ll build that, for X million and in Y months.’ ” Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company ***************************************************************** 35 Herald Leader: Lawmakers seek end to nuclear power plant ban Posted on Fri, Mar. 28, 2008 CONSTRUCTION FORBIDDEN BEFORE FEDERAL WASTE DISPOSAL SYSTEM READY By John Cheves JCHEVES@HERALD-LEADER.COM FRANKFORT -- Some lawmakers hope to lift a longstanding ban on construction of nuclear power plants in Kentucky. Senate Bill 156 would repeal a 1984 law that prohibits new nuclear plants until the federal government finalizes a nuclear waste disposal system. So far, the government has not, despite controversial plans to establish Yucca Mountain in Nevada as a national radioactive waste disposal site. Rather than wait for a federal solution, Kentucky should simply allow its Public Service Commission to begin the approval process for nuclear plants, said Sen. Bob Leeper, an Independent from Paducah and the bill's sponsor. His district includes the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant, the only operating uranium enrichment facility in the nation. Without a national disposal site, plants in Kentucky would have to make their own plans for waste storage. About 30 companies are currently considering whether and where in the United States to open nuclear plants that could result in $4 billion investments each, Leeper said. "I just want to put Kentucky on the map," Leeper told the House Committee on Natural Resources and the Environment on Thursday. Chairman Jim Gooch, D-Providence, said he likes the bill and considers coal and nuclear to be America's energy future, while wind and solar power offer "false hopes." However, Gooch's committee could not approve the bill Thursday because too few of its members attended the hearing to provide a quorum. A special hearing might be called in the final days of the 2008 session to adopt the bill and allow it the House vote it needs to reach the governor's desk and be signed into law, Gooch said. In the audience, environmental activist Tom FitzGerald said he opposes the bill because it "would send the wrong message" on nuclear power, particularly as the national debate over radioactive waste does not appear settled. ***************************************************************** 36 The State: SCE&G takes step toward building reactors Posted on Wed, Apr. 02, 2008 Utility tells supplier to begin gathering parts for new units By BEN WERNER - bwerner@thestate.com SCE&G gave a nuclear power plant supplier the go-ahead Tuesday to start gathering parts for the power company’s proposed new reactors in Fairfield County. The utility, the largest subsidiary of Columbia’s SCANA, and Santee Cooper want to open up to two new nuclear power units in 2016 at the existing V.C. Summer Nuclear Station near Jenkinsville. To do this, Westinghouse Electric Co. and The Shaw Group — the partnership that will build the two generating units — need to start acquiring the nuclear plant materials now because they take a long time to purchase and assemble, said Eric Boomhower, SCE&G spokesman. The agreement with Westinghouse and Shaw is not a final contract, Boomhower said. If the proposed expansion is canceled or a permit is denied, SCE&G will not have to pay a penalty for the equipment bought at this point, he said. SCE&G and Santee Cooper have discussed the additional nuclear generators for more than two years. On Monday, the two power companies formally filed an application with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, a necessary step to move forward. The NRC review takes three to four years. The plan also must be approved by the S.C. Public Service Commission. Final construction cost has not been released, but early estimates put it at about $2 billion. SCE&G has started working on a payment plan. On Tuesday, the utility told state regulators it soon would formally ask permission to pay the carrying costs of the proposed expansion when the construction starts. Power companies cannot start paying for projects’ carrying costs until they come online. An exception was made for nuclear plants under a law change last year. By paying the carrying costs early, SCE&G hopes to shave hundreds of millions of dollars off the plant’s price tag and lessen the burden on ratepayers. Reach Werner at (803) 771-8509. ***************************************************************** 37 BBC NEWS: Nuclear plans attract fresh fire Last Updated: Saturday, 22 March 2008, 12:38 GMT France has already begun to build next generation reactors Anti-nuclear groups have expressed their disappointment at reports that the UK is poised to join France in creating new nuclear generators. The Guardian newspaper reported that plans for the joint venture are to be announced when French President Nicolas Sarkozy visits the UK next week. Friends of the Earth says developing nuclear technology was "nonsense" when it comes to tackling climate change. Nuclear power is limited, dangerous and requires a lot of hi-tech skills to deal with the waste. By far the better technology is renewables Friends of the Earth According to the Guardian, the plan calls for the UK to tap into France's nuclear expertise to create both a skilled workforce and technology that can be exported worldwide within the next 15 years. Renewables The paper says the UK is eager to come up with alternatives to fossil fuels. But Friends of the Earth campaigner Neil Crumpton said: "The idea of selling nuclear power around the world as a solution to climate change is just nonsense. "Nuclear power is limited, dangerous and requires a lot of hi-tech skills to deal with the waste. By far the better technology is renewables." Mr Crumpton said desert climates need to look to solar energy, while more northerly countries should embrace wind power. "It is these safe, simple, easily constructed technologies that the UK and all other countries should be promoting." World leader Prime Minister Gordon Brown wants to limit reliance on imported natural gas from Russia at a time when the UK's North Sea oil reserves are beginning to dwindle. Currently, the UK derives only 20% of its electricity from an ageing stock of nuclear plants, compared with 79% in France - a recognised world leader in nuclear power. The UK has begun the process of licensing newer nuclear reactor designs as a first step towards building more reactors. Sellafield is one of Britain's aging nuclear facilities News of the venture comes just days after British Energy, the country's biggest nuclear provider, announced it was in talks that could lead to a "business combination or an offer" for the firm. A spokeswoman for British Energy, which operates eight nuclear stations in the UK, said she could not comment further on whether or not there is a link with the government's plan to join forces with France. * BBC Copyright Notice ***************************************************************** 38 Los Angeles Times: Say no to nuclear power - The governor sees atomic power as a response to global warming. We need to look at the big picture. March 25, 2008 Californians might have thought the subject of nuclear power was laid to rest in 1976, when the state banned construction of new plants. But 32 years is a long time, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger can now be counted among a rising number of people who think that the threat of global warming provides a good reason to reconsider our distaste for radioactive waste. If he's sending up this idea as a trial balloon, we'd like to borrow Schwarzenegger's Harrier jet from "True Lies" to blow it out of the sky. In a recent speech in Santa Barbara, Schwarzenegger decried environmentalists who use scare tactics to "frighten everyone that we're going to have another blowup and all of those things." He was referring to the Chernobyl and Three Mile Island disasters, which thoroughly soured Americans on the concept of nuclear power. It's true that Chernobyl was an ill-maintained monstrosity, and nuclear safety has improved since the 1979 Three Mile Island meltdown. It's flatly wrong to conclude that this means nuclear plants are safe. Nuclear waste remains highly toxic not for a few years but for millenniums; if the ancient Egyptians who built the Great Pyramid had also built nuclear plants, the waste would still be deadly. This material is being stored on-site at nuclear plants, including the two in California (San Onofre and Diablo Canyon) because Congress has been unable to agree on the location for a national repository. As these plants age, the chance of a system failure increases. "There's no greenhouse gas emissions" with nuclear plants, Schwarzenegger told the Sacramento Bee. This is a constant refrain of the nuclear power industry, but it isn't true. Nuclear plants are fueled by uranium, which is becoming harder to find; uranium mining generates a good deal of carbon, which increases as we dig deeper for the radioactive material. Although nuclear power is considerably cleaner from a greenhouse-gas standpoint than alternatives such as coal-generated power, those mining emissions are nonetheless significant. More compellingly, given the cost and time frame for building nuclear plants, it would be impossible to build them quickly enough to make an impact on global warming. There are safer, quicker, cheaper and cleaner alternatives, such as solar and wind power, greater efficiency measures and decentralized power generators that produce electricity and heat water at the same time. Let's exhaust them before even considering the nuclear option. Copyright 2008 Los Angeles Times ***************************************************************** 39 AFP: Greenpeace activists protest new nuclear plant for Rio 11 hours ago RIO DE JANEIRO (AFP) — Greenpeace activists set up lines of toilet seats with radioactive symbols on them in Rio de Janeiro Monday to protest the "waste" of public funds for the construction of a new nuclear power plant. Around 20 protesters stood over the toilet installation in front of a state electricity office to show that nuclear power was "expensive, dirty and dangerous," according to a spokeswoman for the group, Beatriz Carvalho. She said Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva's decision to build a third nuclear plant in Rio "is transforming public money into radioactive waste." Two activists dressed in protective gear underscored that message by placing giant coins in the latrines. The protest coincided with the release of a report by Sao Paulo University showing that the Angra III nuclear plant, which is to be built by 2014 after two decades of delays, will cost 1.7 billion dollars more than forecast. The Brazilian government had put the cost of the plant at 4.1 billion dollars. Nuclear energy currently accounts for 4.5 percent of the energy produced in Brazil. Brasilia is aiming to increase that to 5.7 percent in 2010. Most of the country's power comes from hydro-electric plants. Copyright © 2008 AFP. All rights reserved. More » ***************************************************************** 40 Rutland Herald: Brattleboro hosts boisterous nuclear forum Rutland Vermont News & Information April 3, 2008 By Susan Smallheer Herald Staff BRATTLEBORO — The Department of Public Service got a rough reception Wednesday from a roomful of area residents who said they came looking for answers about the future of Vermont Yankee nuclear plant, and not more talk. The session at the Red Roof Inn was the last of four public meetings held by the Douglas administration on the future of the nuclear reactor, and Wednesday’s session was the most emotional, according to Steven Wark, director of consumer affairs for the department. There was even comic relief in the form of street theater. A couple dressed up as “The Nuclear Industry” and “Vermont Public Service,” walked around the room, holding hands and at one point pretending to “fornicate,” as they put it. The crowd peppered Wark and Uldis Vanags, the state engineer assigned to the plant, with questions. Wark said the meeting was not designed to answer questions, but to hear what was on people’s minds. “You’ve done it to us again,” said Philip Allard of South Deerfield, Mass., whose wife works as a teacher within the 10-mile emergency zone surrounding the plant. “We’re not here to talk to each other. We want answers. We want honest talk and honest answers.” The state is considering a future without Vermont Yankee, whose federal license expires in 2012, and along with it, its contracts with Vermont utilities. About half of Vermont Yankee’s production is sold to Vermont utilities, with the rest sold out of state. The state Legislature holds the future of Vermont Yankee in its hands, Wark said, since the Legislature must approve the plant’s continued operation. A vote on the matter isn’t slated until 2009. Wark tangled with anti-nuclear activist Gary Sachs of Brattleboro, who continued to shout out questions about Yankee, despite Wark’s request that he be quiet. “Gary, I’m going to ask you to leave. This is your last warning or I’m going to call the police,” said Wark, who until 18 months ago was a member of the Burlington Police Department. Wark didn’t call the police and Sachs stopped asking questions. Vanags, who came to Vermont from Maine state government, where he was involved in the decommissioning of the Maine Yankee nuclear plant, got his share of questions during his brief presentation, too. Vanags gave a presentation that had been described as “Nuclear Power 101,” but that was also met with criticism. “We know this,” people shouted at Vanags, who was giving an elementary overview of the plant’s history. “This is a waste of time.” “This is a complete sham,” said Sally Shaw, a member of the New England Coalition. People stood up holding signs saying “Time to Wean” and “Get off the Corporate Teat.” People appeared to be the most upset when Vanags talked about the high-level radioactive nuclear waste produced at Vermont Yankee, and the fact that it would remain deadly for thousands of years. Many people complained that the five small-group discussion questions appeared to be slanted in favor of nuclear power. But Wark said afterward that the five questions came from his boss, Commissioner David O’Brien, the wording of Act 160, the legislation that mandated the Yankee hearings, the staff and some legislators. For Vanags, it was all part of the process. “People feel strongly. Nuclear power is a very polarizing issue. You are either for or against it. It’s understandable,” Vanags said. “I expected this.” But eventually the department’s process took hold, and people broke into the small discussion groups, with people listing their concerns about the plant and what type of energy could take the place of Vermont Yankee’s 300 megawatts of base-load power. While the vast majority of the comments were against any future for nuclear power in Vermont, there was a small contingent of pro-nuclear residents, some of whom were employees from the nearby reactor. In the section calling for alternatives to Vermont Yankee, several people cast their votes for “another nuclear plant” along with energy efficiency. Contact Susan Smallheer at susan.smallheer@rutlandherald.com. © 2005 Rutland Herald ***************************************************************** 41 Chattanoogan.com: New Group Opposes TVA Nuclear Construction - posted March 20, 2008 NewA group with members from Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia has announced a campaign to oppose TVA’s plans to expand nuclear power. Area residents formed the Bellefonte Efficiency & Sustainability Team, also known as BEST, to organize local and regional opposition to the proposed nuclear plant at Bellefonte near Scottsboro, Ala. The group’s concerns include high construction costs, radioactive releases into the air and water, reduction of water supply, security concerns and dangerous radioactive wastes. Bill Reynolds, one of the founders of BEST, said, “Nuclear power has been touted as a solution to global warming, but BEST members have learned that there are better, cheaper and quicker alternatives for achieving that goal, including for example, more efficient production of electricity, conservation and reduction of energy demand. “We have a lot of questions. Particularly we are gravely concerned about the legacy nuclear reactors would leave to our children and their children when they are in the prime of their lives. Such a legacy will be huge in cost burdens, radiation monitoring, and radiation-caused sickness for generations to come.” Another BEST founder, Dr. Ross McCluney, is a physicist, author, and principal research scientist at the University of Central Florida, who recently retired to Chattanooga. He said, “I’m wondering if TVA has ‘lost its mind’ in trying to introduce new nuclear power plants into its system. “Nuclear reactors are very expensive to build and operate safely, and the real threat of terrorism means that every nuclear reactor has the equivalent of a terrorist bull’s-eye painted on it.” BEST has members from the Tullahoma/Sewanee and greater Chattanooga areas as well as from Huntsville, Ala., and Cohutta, Ga. The group’s campaign will include public education, public meetings, fund raising, a membership drive and other events, it was stated. Members plan to speak at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission public hearing in Scottsboro on April 3. In October 2007 TVA applied to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a license to build two Westinghouse AP1000 nuclear reactors on the Bellefonte Nuclear site in Hollywood, Alabama near Scottsboro. The application was accepted by the NRC on Jan. 28. BEST recently sent a letter to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission calling for the suspension of TVA’s license application. TVA’s replied in a letter to NRC on March 12 and a response from NRC is expected. BEST is a chapter of the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League. The League was founded in 1984 in opposition to a nuclear waste dump and has many chapters in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. More information may be obtained at the website www.bredl.org. news@chattanoogan.com (423) 266-2325 © 2004 Site designed and copyrighted by HD ***************************************************************** 42 Times Argus: Public shut out of Entergy hearings March 25, 2008 The Vermont Legislature requires the Department of Public Service to convene a series of public hearings so they might gather the views of Vermonters regarding extending the life of Vermont Yankee for another 20 years. The board also is required to provide the public at least three weeks notice of these hearings. An article in the Brattleboro Reformer discussing the hearing to be held this very afternoon in St. Johnsbury is the very first time any word of these of hearings has appeared in a Vermont newspaper, according to a Google search. A search of the Web site of St. Johnsbury's newspaper, The Caledonian Record, shows no mention of the hearing to be held in their city today. That the board would announce a public meeting in a way that the public could not know of the meeting is totally unacceptable. It is only one more sign that the Douglas administration — like the NRC and the Bush administration — has little interest in the public's concerns about pushing aging nuclear plants beyond their expected life-span. When Entergy was allowed to up Vermont Yankee's output 20 percent the public had little knowledge or input. As we learned about that and saw the consequences we were outraged. Now the public is extremely anxious that Entergy will be allowed to run this plant at top speed long after it was to be mothballed. We will be even more outraged if the DPS and the Douglas administration continues to play these cheap games. Mary Field Belenky Montpelier ***************************************************************** 43 Independent.co.uk: British Energy takeover talks threaten to disrupt new nuclear build Independent.co.uk Web By Danny Fortson, Business Correspondent Tuesday, 18 March 2008 The company's revelation it was in discussions that "could lead to a business combination or an offer for the company" came after it emerged the Government had approached at least five utility companies about buying some or all of the 35.2 per cent stake it holds in the producer of a fifth of the UK's power. The group has been in talks over the past year with at least 14 companies to partner on the building and operation of a new generation of nuclear reactors. News that those talks may now lead to an outright takeover by one of them raised concerns that such a deal would throw that selection process into jeopardy or lead to it being scrapped altogether. "Our concern is what happens on the new build process if someone takes them out. Things could get pushed back. We have been working on this for a long time now but now we don't have clarity," said an energy company source. The Government has appointed UBS to advise it on the sale. Chief executive Bill Coley was expected to reveal his two preferred partners to build up to six reactors on four sites by the end of this month. The purchase of the company could put the UK's nuclear energy industry into the hands of one operator, an option not likely to be favoured by the Government, which wants to reduce the risk that comes with being dependent on one reactor design or operator. Under takeover rules, the sale of its entire holding to one suitor would trigger an offer for the entire company. EDF, France's state-owned utility and the world's largest nuclear operator, is thought to be among the most likely buyers. It had already partnered with reactor designer Areva and Amec, the UK engineering group, to put forward bids to build up to four UK reactors. The other favourite is RWE, the German giant that owns npower in the UK. Centrica, the owner of British Gas, is understood to have expressed an interest in taking equity stakes in new nuclear projects. It would be willing to join a British Energy suitor as a junior equity partner in a full takeover bid. Others in the running are E.On, Scottish & Southern, Iberdrola, Vattenfall of Sweden, French giant Suez and Fenosa, a smaller Spanish utility. Lakis Athanasiou, an analyst at Evolution Securities, said the Government would most likely sell its stake to the two companies British Energy chooses to build the new reactors. John Hutton, the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR), will play a central role in any deal. In the past few weeks, the Government has approached Iberdrola, RWE and E.On of Germany, EDF and Centrica about buying some or all of its stake in the company, a remnant of the bail-out orchestrated several years ago to save it from insolvency. The Government hinted yesterday it would not approve a deal that would delay the new build process, which it has put at the heart of its plan for reducing carbon emissions and meeting the country's growing energy needs. All but one of the UK's 19 reactors are set to be decommissioned by 2020. The Government said yesterday it was "monitoring developments closely and will consider its position in relation to any proposal in the public interest, having regard to its objectives in relation to energy policy and its obligations to the taxpayer." British Energy owns the most desirable sites – mainly those where current power stations are located – for new reactors. It has been in talks with potential partners for six reactors at Dungeness in Kent, Sizewell in Suffolk, Hinkley Point in Somerset and Bradwell in Essex. The reactors would likely be 1,600mW stations, meaning they could essentially replace all of the company's current nuclear production. Search Query: Independent.co.uk The Web Go ***************************************************************** 44 Inside Bay Area: Nuclear war in California - By Janis Mara Contra Costa Times Article Created: 03/26/2008 01:51:46 PM PDT BERKELEY — As concerns about greenhouse gases and global warming mount, nuclear energy is getting a second look in California, with supporters ranging from the governor to at least one environmental activist. "I have changed my mind from being mildly anti-nuclear to mildly pro-nuclear because carbon dioxide is now the most dangerous pollution and it is endangering the natural environment," said Stewart Brand, who in 1968 created the Whole Earth Catalog, which covered subjects including alternative energy. "Global warming is affecting the fisheries in northern California and creating drought to the south. Like a number of other environmentalists, I have had to change my tune," said Brand, who lives on a houseboat in Sausalito. Indeed, nuclear is an energy alternative that produces fewer greenhouse gases than coal, generates cheap round-the-clock electricity and creates roughly 1 million times the energy released by the burning of oil. But it faces a number of obstacles. Even as government officials, utilities and universities search for new ways to generate electricity, nuclear energy is about as welcome in California as a former spouse at a wedding. Utilities are prohibited from building new plants by law in California; Pacific Gas & Electric has no plans for new facilities; four of the state's six commercial plants have long since closed, and experts say it'll take some doing just to keep the two remaining reactors going. Despite these obstacles, a small group of determined business representatives, passionate advocates and elected officials are fighting to launch a renaissance of nuclear energy in California — and recent comments by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger suggest that he's on board. Love you, love you not The state's relationship with nuclear energy resembles a once-blissful romance gone wrong. Initially, California was dazzled with the prospect of harnessing the atom to light homes and businesses. The first civilian nuclear plant in the country came online in the small Southern California town of Santa Susana in 1957, a harbinger of the so-called Atomic Age. That same year, the nearby city of Moorpark enjoyed a shining hour as the first U.S. city to be powered by nuclear energy, albeit briefly, in an event covered by national news media. But the glow began to wear off as early as 1958. Ironically, it was not nuclear weapons, but power plants, that led to the birth of the anti-nuclear movement in California. A bitter battle began in Bodega Bay in 1958 opposing PG&E's attempt to build a plant there — a struggle that ended with the utility abandoning its plans in 1964. Things really heated up in the mid-1960s and 1970s, with Pacific Gas & Electric Co.'s Diablo Canyon plant near San Luis Obispo helping to fuel the fire. "It was rebuilt several times because of serious mistakes," said Roger Herried, a 28-year member of antinuke group Abalone Alliance, which led one of the largest anti-nuclear-power demonstrations in the U.S. at Diablo Canyon in 1981. In 1976, the California legislature enacted a moratorium on new nuclear reactors until there is a place to put the waste. At the time, there wasn't any such place, and despite efforts by the Department of Energy to create one in Nevada, more than 30 years later there still is nowhere to store it. The result: a ban on new nuclear plants in California. To all appearances, the marriage was over and the divorce was final. Marriage meltdown A nuclear accident at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island in 1979 and the subsequent Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster in 1986 seemed to reinforce the decision. But now, more than 30 years have passed, and attitudes are changing. One of the most important indications of this shift is Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's comments this month that nuclear power has "a great future" and that it is time to "relook at that issue again rather than just looking the other way and living in denial," made at the Wall Street Journal's ECO:nomics Conference in Santa Barbara. Moreover, in a 2007 poll, while 54 percent of Californians opposed building more nuclear power plants, 37 percent favored the idea and 9 percent were undecided, according to the San Francisco-based Public Policy Institute of California. Another possible good sign: even antinuke activists seem to have little trouble accepting California's two remaining operating nuclear plants, Diablo Canyon and San Onofre, which is midway between Los Angeles and San Diego. The two plants supply about 13 percent of California's electricity. In worldwide terms, France gets a higher percentage of its energy from nuclear power than any other country, at 78 percent; Lithuania is second highest at 72 percent; and Slovakia comes in third, getting 57 percent of its energy from nuclear power, according to a 2006 study by the World Nuclear Association. On the national front, currently the U.S. has more than 100 reactors generating 19 percent of the nation's electricity. Supporters of nuclear power include President Bush and the Republican presidential front-runners; the top Democratic contenders see it as worth consideration. This fiscal year, more than $1 billion in federal research and development spending was devoted to nuclear power research. Though no new nuclear plants are yet under construction, three applications landed at the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission this year. Much of the action is happening in Southern states seeking relief from the cost and pollution of coal plants. No welcome mat here But that's not the case in California. "We aren't even looking at the possibility of building any more nuclear power plants. We have no plans to do so," said Emily Christensen of PG&E. PG&E may not be interested, but a group of Fresno businessmen has a different take. "The people of Fresno pay PG&E 16 to 22 cents a kilowatt hour for energy. We can make it for two," said John Hutson, chief executive of Fresno Energy Group. The group's plan: To build a $4 billion, 1,600-megawatt nuclear energy plant in Fresno. Hutson's group has signed a letter of intent with UniStar Nuclear Development LLC, a subsidiary of Baltimore's Constellation Energy, to design, build and operate a plant. Fresno has about 500,000 residents, according to U.S. Census projections for 2007. Since one megawatt of energy can power some 750 California homes under normal conditions, the consortium would be able to sell its power to the city at cost and then make a profit selling to other cities or utilities, Hutson said. "We can give them energy until the cows come home and we'll probably have 700 to 900 megawatts left," said Hutson, who got the idea after his appointment to the city's utilities commission by Fresno Mayor Alan Autry, who supports the proposed nuclear plant. However, nuclear energy costs 8 to 11 cents a kilowatt hour according to a June 2007 study by the independent Colorado-based Keystone Center, which was performed by a diverse group including nuclear plant owners, environmentalists and consumer advocates. Energy cost estimates and the way to calculate them vary widely, but in a different study, solar energy costs were roughly pegged at 20 cents a kilowatt hour (though this is anticipated to eventually drop to 10 or 15 cents), 8 to 10 cents a kilowatt hour for wind, and coal 7 cents a kilowatt hour, according to Arjun Makhijani, president of the Maryland-based Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, a nuclear watchdog group founded in 1987. The price of natural gas fluctuates between nine to 111/2f cents per kilowatt hour, according to industry sources. The cost of hydroelectric power varies depending on the age of the plant, with hydro from older plants costing just over 3 cents a kilowatt hour and hydro from newer plants costing as high as five cents. "What kind of future will our children have if we don't stop this gluttonous cycle of global warming?" Hutson asked. "Nuclear can't do it alone. Wind can't do it alone. Solar can't do it alone." Hutson's group has raised $2 million so far and has obtained a site permit and property for the plant, he said. According to Hutson, the plant could be a source of jobs and a force for social good in the area. "I'm on the board of directors for (Fresno's) Marjaree Mason Center for Domestic Violence. Domestic violence went up 60 percent in our community over the last ten years," Hutson said. "We have the highest pockets of poverty in the nation. We have domestic violence because when men don't have jobs, they lose their self-worth and harm the people they love. We need to attract businesses and jobs.'" Legislator plugs in California Assemblymember Chuck DeVore, R-Irvine, agrees. In April 2007, he introduced a bill, AB719, seeking to lift the ban on new nuclear plants in the legislature. His bill was shot down in committee - within five minutes, he ruefully recalls — but his efforts are continuing. The assemblyman seems to be on a genuine crusade: he frequently posts about nuclear energy on his blog, www.chuckdevore.com/blog/index/php. DeVore introduced two more nuclear-related bills this year, AB1776 and AB2788. He said AB 1776 was written with the Fresno group in mind. Speaking of the proposed plant, "You're probably looking at 1,000 jobs after the plant is built," DeVore said. "He has just told you after spending $4 billion, you'll have 1,000 jobs?" responded Ralph Cavanagh, energy program co-director for environmental group National Resources Defense Council, or NRDC. "A nuclear plant is not a job-intensive use of money. Most of your money is going to equipment and a small number of operators," Cavanagh said. "If you really want to create jobs, the best thing for Fresno would be to run a massive energy-efficiency campaign and cycle the dollars through Fresno's economy." Brand and DeVore point out that while the sun doesn't always shine and the wind doesn't always blow, nuclear power is generated constantly. "Nuclear is not 24/7 either. It has a habit of going off all at once," replied Cavanagh, referring to a Florida blackout that stretched from Miami to Daytona Beach in February, the country's largest power outage since August 2003. "It's true that you need a mix of resources, but you can back up sun and wind with geothermal, biomass and high-efficiency natural gas generation," Cavanagh said. "Nuclear is too big, too expensive, too risky. I don't think any utility would order a nuclear plant today. I'm not anti-nuclear; we have nuclear plants, they're part of the fleet. But it is just too risky from a financial perspective," Cavanagh said. Dollars and sense A group of academics at a UC Berkeley energy symposium March 7 reinforced Cavanagh's assertion. "The big issue is construction costs for new plants," said Per Peterson, a UC Berkeley nuclear energy professor and nuclear energy advocate. "The probability you are going to make money without subsidies is zero," said Geoffrey Rothwell, a senior lecturer at Stanford University, referring to government subsidies offered for building nuclear power plants. "There is not going to be a renaissance (of nuclear power) before 2021, I can guarantee that." DeVore isn't concerned with issues of cost. "Nuclear power plants do cost a lot of money up front, but you can recover that pretty quickly when you compare it with natural gas turbines," the assemblymember said. Hutson isn't concerned either. He said if his group can get the state's moratorium on new plants lifted, they will be able to attract venture capitalists to fund the project. In addition to high capital costs, uncertain construction timelines, regulatory issues and most of all, waste disposal are obstacles to new plants, said Susanne Garfield of the California Energy Commission. "It can take 20 years or much more to construct a nuclear power plant," Garfield said. "The Wats Bar project in Tennessee began in the mid-1990s, took 23 years to complete and cost $6.9 billion. Where's the Dumpster? "The biggest issue is waste disposal. The law says we must find that a high-level waste disposal technology has been found and approved and we have not found that in our analysis. We found this in 1978 and again in 2005," Garfield said. "The (California Energy Commission) asked me what I would do with the spent fuel. We have a railroad line to the Delta which we would use to ship our fuel to France for recycling just like the Japanese have done. France said they would recycle it for free," Hutson said. Indeed, despite the obstacles, it's clear even to their opponents that DeVore and Hutson are hanging tough. "We're assuming next February there will be another round of battles. They'll start trying again," said Herried of Abalone Alliance. "The rest of the world is waking up to nuclear power and is building nuclear plants as fast as it can," said DeVore. "We want to get a modern nuclear plant built in California before it's too late. We're not giving up." Janis Mara can be reached at (925) 952-2671 or jmara@bayareanewsgroup.com. Check out her Energy Blog at www.ibabuzz.com/energy. Diablo Canyon nuclear reactor timeline n Site selected: 1966 n Facility approved: 1968 n Cost estimate of $350 million: 1968 n Construction begins: 1968 n Earthquake fault found two miles from plant: 1972 n Some 1,500 people protest facility onsite: August 7, 1977 n Some 20,000 people protest onsite: Sept. 10, 1981 n Mirror image reversal in blueprints found: 1981 n Construction begins to correct error: 1981 n Costs total $5.5 billion: 1985 n Unit One comes online: May 7, 1985 n Unit Two comes online: March 13, 1986 n License to operate Unit One expires: Sept. 22, 2021 n License to operate Unit Two expires: April 26, 2025 Sources: Pacific Gas & Electric Co.; California Energy Commission © 2000-2008 ANG Newspapers | Privacy Policy | Contact Us | Help | About Bay Area News Group ***************************************************************** 45 The York Daily Record: Panic at TMI - York residents recall their fear following the near meltdown in 1979. By BETH VRABEL Daily Record/Sunday News Article Last Updated: 03/31/2008 10:22:17 AM EDT This 1979 photo of Three Mile Island shows steam rising from the unit that was damaged by a near meltdown two weeks later. (Daily Record / Sunday News - File) If you can't see it, it isn't there. That was the reassurance bridesmaids and family gave bride-to-be Stephanie (Deardorff) Merrifield as she prepared to marry on March 31, 1979 - three days after the worst nuclear accident in U.S. history. On March 28 the plant in Middletown experienced a partial meltdown. A 20-mile radius around the town was put on alert for a possible evacuation. Pregnant women and young children were advised to leave. Gov. Dick Thornburgh canceled appointments that day, without explanation, including one with West Manchester Township resident James Shindler, who later packed up to leave with his wife. Teachers closed classroom windows and pulled down the blinds. They refused to let the students go outside, Friends decorated Stephanie and James Merrifield's car with a sign on which they printed, 'Just Married and Already We Have Fall-Out.' The couple was wed in York on March 31, 1979, three days after the nuclear accident at Three Mile Island. (Submitted) much less home, for several hours. If you can't see it, it isn't there. For some, the threat was as clear as the plumes that usually flowed from the power plant's towers. Karl Kuykendall of East Manchester Township saw fear in his junior high school teachers' faces when school was dismissed without explanation. He saw the fear again when he got home and found both parents talking about meltdowns and explosions. "They didn't know what to do. Should we get in the car and leave? Should we wait and see?" Kuykendall said. "It was powerful, but scary. I remember the look on my dad's face." Jill Thompson of Spring Garden Township, who was working at a local radio station, kept listeners up-to-date with news wire releases, but desperately wanted to go home. "I was scared," she said. "I wanted to run." Pet owners flooded Yorkshire Animal Hospital, dropping off their animals as they headed out of town in bumper-to-bumper traffic, car windows and air vents closed. No one asked what would happen to their pets if the caretakers left. But Merrifield's bridesmaids refused to see the fear. Staunch in their support of the young bride, they sunbathed outside. They couldn't see it, so it wasn't there. But at the reception, they partied as though they could see no future. Here is Merrifield, 49, of York Township's memory: "I got married on March 31, 1979. So on the 28th, I was having my college roommates fly in from various areas of the U.S. I thought that my wedding wouldn't happen because we were all going to die. But they were really great and they said, 'If you can't see it, it isn't there.' And everyone came. My brother and sister-in-law had a 6-month-old baby. They thought about leaving, but they were both in the wedding so they chose to stay. It turned out that only two people that said they were coming, didn't come and the rest of the people invited to Despite taking place three days after the nation's worst nuclear accident - or perhaps because of it - Stephanie and James Merrifield's York reception was a huge party. 'I don't know why, I guess we all thought we were going to die the next day,' Stephanie said. (Submitted) the wedding came. . . . We had one of the biggest parties ever. I don't know why, I guess we all thought we were going to die the next day. One of our friends made signs for our car that said: Just married and already we have fall-out. But we're still married." Veterinary hospital filled quickly Clients and nonclients were rushing in to board their animals. The facilities became quickly over-full. I do not recall even one animal owner present asking me on admission, "If and when you leave your premises, what happens to my animal you now have?" . . . I do not recall when above animal owners returned for pick up, but it was brief, like a couple of days. Dr. Harold C. Neibert of Yorkshire Animal Hospital At the time of Three Mile Island, I was 9 years old. It was the day before my birthday. . . . I was going to say goodbye to all of my friends. We were packing up to go stay with relatives in Georgia. It was not only a day to remember, it was not a very good birthday. Also very scary for a 9-year-old. Dawn Neff, Spring Grove Bank dealt with angry customers I was teaching in York City in the elementary school at McKinley. . . . Information came forward that we were to dismiss the students and that they were to go directly home. I also worked part time at a bank. I went to my family, got them together, and we decided to exit the town. I . . . worked my shift at the bank. We had a deluge of people that wanted to get their money, all of it out, and we started to comply with that, until the money started to run out. The decision was made that we ought to arrive on Saturday morning, that we were responsible to the people of York, to be there for their money. . . . I got my family out of the area, and I returned. To stave off the rush of the withdrawal of money, we limited the amount of money at the branch that people could withdrawal. I believe it was $250 at the time. Dealt with a lot of angry customers who indicated that this was their money, they deserved (it). Although, we said that in order for there to be enough for everybody, we're sorry, but this was how it needed to be done. . . . It was a startling event for all of us, a waking call. Harry Carnahan, 59, Springettsbury Township Student told to stay inside classroom March 28, 1979, is one of those days in my life that I will never forget. I was 12 years old and a seventh-grade student at Eastern High School. . . . At the time of the announcement . . . I was sitting in third period science class with my teacher. . . . At that time, the teachers were instructed to close all of the window blinds, and at first we were not permitted to leave the classroom we were in. After awhile, we were permitted to leave that class. And a few hours after that announcement was made, we were told we'd have to remain in the class for the rest of the day. I remember being very, very scared and all I wanted to do was to go home and be in the comfort of my family. Eventually, the notice did come down from the school that we could go home. I think I was more afraid of not being able to go home than I was of a nuclear explosion. I mean, I was 12 years old, what did I know what a nuclear explosion was. Jamie Raffensberger, 41, Springettsbury Township 8-year-old's mom packed their suitcases to leave I remember that day very well. I was 8 years old. I was in second grade. We were released to go outside to recess. When we got outside, we were the only classroom to be released, which was wonderful. That means we got to get to the slides first, the swings first, before anyone else. We were surprised by that because usually you had to wait your turn for everything. So we were out there on the blacktop, thinking we were very lucky to be out there first, when one of the school staff looked out the window, saw us, opened the door, and yelled, "What are you doing outside? The teachers weren't to be releasing you." . . . The next thing I remember about the incident then was that same day. We were released from school early and I was at home, and my mom had my just not-quite-1-year-old sister on her hip, rushing around with a suitcase, packing a suitcase, saying we had to go. We actually did never end up going, but our suitcases stayed packed for days and days. Erin Gibson, 37, Glen Rock Mom feared she wouldn't see home again I was working that day, I was working at an orthodontist office. I heard it on the news about the possibility of a meltdown. My children at the time were 9 and 11, and I rushed home . . . We were really, really frightened. Amazingly so, we took nothing except our children, and got in the car and left, and went to go to our family's home in New Jersey. Interestingly enough, my husband wasn't alarmed as I was. He said, "Well, if you really want to leave, you drive." And I never did that before, but I did anyway. . . . We weren't sure we'd ever see our home again. Adele Naglieri, Springettsbury Township Copyright ©2008 York Daily Record/Sunday News 1891 Loucks Road, York, PA, 17408. (717) 771-2000 ***************************************************************** 46 Brattleboro Reformer: NRC answers letter, 32 years later - BRATTLEBORO, VT By BOB AUDETTE, Reformer Staff Tuesday, April 1 BRATTLEBORO -- It appears the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has its own version of a dead-letter office. In a letter dated March 11, 2008, the NRC responded to a petition filed in November 1975 by the New England Coalition on Nuclear Pollution, in which the anti-nuclear group asked the NRC to reevaluate the calculations used to determine the allowable amount of radiation released during the life cycle of uranium. "NEC took issue with NRC's calculations for the amounts of radioactive pollution likely to be released from uranium mine and mill tailings and the potential effects of those releases on human health," stated Ray Shadis, NEC consultant, in an e-mail announcing the release of the letter. When the NRC came up with its radiation exposure estimates, wrote Shadis, "It was apparent to the coalition's consulting experts that the NRC's numbers were unrealistically low." In its 1975 petition, NEC stated the health effects of radon-222, krypton-85, tritium and carbon-14 released during the fuel cycle were underestimated by the NRC. It asked the NRC to halt the licensing of reactors and to reopen all proceedings where construction or operation had already been authorized. While it might appear that it took the NRC 32 years to resolve the issue, said Neil Sheehan, spokesman for the NRC, "We essentially resolved all of the petition within about 3 years of its submittal." "The NRC took the petition under advisement for future consideration and quietly raised the NRC number values for all of the radioactive substance emissions listed in the coalition's petition save one, radon-222, which it held aside pending a generic determination on radiation impacts from the fuel cycle," stated Shadis. "There was no vital need to close out the radon-222 issue at that time because there were no new reactor applications being filed," said Sheehan. "Since then, regular reviews of outstanding petitions and available resources placed the radon-222 issue at the bottom of the list. The arrival of new reactor applications led the NRC staff to revisit the issue, and they determined earlier license renewal generic Environmental Impact Statement decisions covering radon-222 resolved the petition's final point." While the NRC had received no new license applications since 1975 and therefore saw no need to revise its radiation tables in support of licensing, wrote Shadis, "Recently it has received applications for two new power reactors and so has moved to clear away any impediments, including the health impact considerations in the 32-year-old New England Coalition petition." In resolving issues raised by NEC, in 1978, the NRC "added carbon-14 to the table and revised the release values for krypton-85 and tritium upwards," according to a document filed in the Federal Register on March 20. "In this revision, the commission differences in the petitioner's release estimates and those of the NRC staff were due to differences in the models used." As far as the health effects of those radioactive materials, wrote the NRC, "the commission resolved the petitioner's ... issue ... by amending Footnote 1 to Table S-3 to indicate that health effects are not covered in the table and may be litigated in individual cases." The release of radioactive particles such as radon-222 from tailing piles near uranium mines is prevented by the design and implementation of radon cover and erosion protection features which are "the primary reliance for maintaining radon emissions within (regulatory) limits and significant failure of the coverings for stabilized mill tailings piles is considered highly unlikely," according to the NRC. The NRC is wrong to rely on the sealing qualities and durability of mill tailing pile earthen covers, stated Shadis. "They are notorious for eroding and collapsing and have been implicated in the poisoning of streams, rivers and drinking water aquifers," wrote Shadis. "Radon seeps through soil, is dissolved in water and released into people's homes. While spent fuel produced by Vermont Yankee is stored on site in Vernon, said Diana Sidebotham, former president of NEC, the location of mine tailings for fuel used in the plant is unknown. "The agency doesn't wish to address the waste problem in all its many guises," she said. "All of them pose a risk to the human, animal and natural environment." Bob Audette can be reached at raudette@reformer.com or 802-254-2311, ext. 273. ***************************************************************** 47 Scientific American: U.S. Will Approve New Nuclear Reactors SciAm.com > News > Technology & Innovation March 28, 2008 British official says she's been informed the U.S. will approve at least three new nuclear power plants NEW NUCLEAR?: New nuclear power plants may be built in the U.S. in coming years for the first time since the meltdown at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant, pictured here, in 1979. ©ISTOCKPHOTO.COM One of the U.K.'s top nuclear officials said today that she was told the U.S. will okay plans to build the first nuclear power plants since the accident at Three Mile Island nearly three decades ago. Lady Barbara Thomas Judge, chair of the U.K. Atomic Energy Authority, said that the chair of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission informed her that the NRC will approve three applications for new nuclear reactors that it's currently considering. "Dale Klein told me that those three nuclear applications will be approved," she told the State of the Planet conference at Columbia University today, the 29th anniversary of the accident at Three Mile Island in Middletown, Pa. (Subsequently, a reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the then Ukrainian Soviet Republic melted down in April 1986 in what would become the worst nuclear power accident in history, spreading radiation as far away as North America and leading to the evacuation and resettlement of more than 336,000 people). "The politics is changing," she added, noting growing enthusiasm for nuclear power as the clean alternative to coal-burning plants. Even some environmentalists have begun to embrace nuclear power, because of its potential to reduce the greenhouse emissions that are blamed for global warming. But critics question the safety of nuclear power, citing such concerns as the potential for catastrophic meltdowns, their potential vulnerability to terrorists, the lack of workable evacuation plans in the event of accidents as well as the problem of dealing with radioactive waste. Among the pending applications: a plan to build two additional boiling-water reactors at the South Texas Project power plant near Houston. As many as 29 other reactors could be built, according to Bill Borchardt, director of the NRC's Office of New Reactors. But neither the South Texas facility nor the applications for new reactors at Calvert Cliffs in Maryland and the Shearon Harris nuclear plant outside Raleigh, N.C., have completed the NRC's long design safety and feasibility evaluation, which could take years to complete. The commission does not expect to complete its review of the new reactors at the South Texas plant before 2011, according to NRC spokesman Scott Burnell. "Once you build the power plants, it just keeps producing energy," Judge said, noting the potential benefits of electricity generation from nuclear fission. "It is part of what we have to do to deal with energy security and climate change." © 1996-2008 Scientific American Inc. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 48 Esquire: The Secret History of the Impending War with Iran That the White House Doesn't Want You to Know Two former high-ranking policy experts from the Bush administration say the U.S. has been gearing up for a war with Iran for years, despite claiming otherwise. It'll be Iraq all over again. In the years after 9/11, Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann worked at the highest levels of the Bush administration as Middle East policy experts for the National Security Council. Mann conducted secret negotiations with Iran. Leverett traveled with Colin Powell and advised Condoleezza Rice. They each played crucial roles in formulating policy for the region leading up to the war in Iraq. But when they left the White House, they left with a growing sense of alarm -- not only was the Bush administration headed straight for war with Iran, it had been set on this course for years. That was what people didn't realize. It was just like Iraq, when the White House was so eager for war it couldn't wait for the UN inspectors to leave. The steps have been many and steady and all in the same direction. And now things are getting much worse. We are getting closer and closer to the tripline, they say. "The hard-liners are upping the pressure on the State Department," says Leverett. "They're basically saying, 'You've been trying to engage Iran for more than a year now and what do you have to show for it? They keep building more centrifuges, they're sending this IED stuff over into Iraq that's killing American soldiers, the human-rights internal political situation has gotten more repressive -- what the hell do you have to show for this engagement strategy?'" But the engagement strategy was never serious and was designed to fail, they say. Over the last year, Rice has begun saying she would talk to "anybody, anywhere, anytime," but not to the Iranians unless they stopped enriching uranium first. That's not a serious approach to diplomacy, Mann says. Diplomacy is about talking to your enemies. That's how wars are averted. You work up to the big things. And when U.S. ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker had his much-publicized meeting with his Iranian counterpart in Baghdad this spring, he didn't even have permission from the White House to schedule a second meeting. The most ominous new development is the Bush administration's push to name the Iranian Revolutionary Guards a terrorist organization. "The U.S. has designated any number of states over the years as state sponsors of terrorism," says Leverett. "But here for the first time the U.S. is saying that part of a government is itself a terrorist organization." This is what Leverett and Mann fear will happen: The diplomatic effort in the United Nations will fail when it becomes clear that Russia's and China's geopolitical ambitions will not accommodate the inconvenience of energy sanctions against Iran. Without any meaningful incentive from the U.S. to be friendly, Iran will keep meddling in Iraq and installing nuclear centrifuges. This will trigger a response from the hard-liners in the White House, who feel that it is their moral duty to deal with Iran before the Democrats take over American foreign policy. "If you get all those elements coming together, say in the first half of '08," says Leverett, "what is this president going to do? I think there is a serious risk he would decide to order an attack on the Iranian nuclear installations and probably a wider target zone." This would result in a dramatic increase in attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq, attacks by proxy forces like Hezbollah, and an unknown reaction from the wobbly states of Afghanistan and Pakistan, where millions admire Iran's resistance to the Great Satan. "As disastrous as Iraq has been," says Mann, "an attack on Iran could engulf America in a war with the entire Muslim world." Mann and Leverett believe that none of this had to be. Flynt Lawrence Leverett grew up in Fort Worth and went to Texas Christian University. He spent the first nine years of his government career as a CIA analyst specializing in the Middle East. He voted for George Bush in 2000. On the day the assassins of Al Qaeda flew two hijacked airplanes into the World Trade Center, Colin Powell summoned him to help plan the response. Five months later, Leverett landed a plum post on the National Security Council. When Condoleezza Rice discussed the Middle East with President Bush and Donald Rumsfeld, Leverett was the man standing behind her taking notes and whispering in her ear. Today, he sits on the back deck of a house tucked into the curve of a leafy suburban street in McLean, Virginia, a forty-nine-year-old white American man wearing khakis and a white dress shirt and wire-rimmed glasses. Mann sits next to him, also wearing khakis. She's thirty-nine but looks much younger, with straight brown hair and a tomboy's open face. The polish on her toenails is pink. If you saw her around McLean, you wouldn't hesitate: Soccer mom. Classic soccer mom. But with degrees from Brandeis and Harvard Law and stints at Tel Aviv University and the powerful Israeli lobby known as AIPAC, she has even better right-wing credentials than her husband. As they talk, eating grapes out of a bowl, lawn mowers hum and birds chirp. The floor is littered with toy trucks and rubber animals left behind by the youngest of their four children. But the tranquillity is misleading. When Mann and Leverett went public with the inside story behind the impending disaster with Iran, the White House dismissed them. Then it imposed prior restraint on them, an extraordinary episode of government censorship. Finally, it threatened them. Now they are afraid of the White House, and watching what they say. But still, they feel they have to speak out. Like so many things these days, this story began on the morning of September 11, 2001. On Forty-fifth Street in Manhattan, Mann had just been evacuated from the offices of the U.S. mission to the United Nations and was walking home to her apartment on Thirty-eighth Street -- walking south, toward the giant plume of smoke. When her cell phone rang, she picked it up immediately because her sister worked at the World Trade Center and she was frantic for word. But it wasn't her sister, it was a senior Iranian diplomat. To protect him from reprisals from the Iranian government, she doesn't want to name him, but she describes him as a cultured man in his fifties with salt-and-pepper hair. Since early spring, they had been meeting secretly in a small conference room at the UN. "Are you all right?" he asked. Yes, she said, she was fine. The attack was a terrible tragedy, he said, doubtless the work of Al Qaeda. "I hope that we can still work together," he said. That same day, in Washington, on the seventh floor of the State Department building, a security guard opened the door of Leverett's office and told him they were evacuating the building. Leverett was Powell's specialist on terrorist states like Syria and Libya, so he knew the world was about to go through a dramatic change. As he joined the people milling on the sidewalk, his mind was already racing. Then he got a call summoning him back to Foggy Bottom. At the entrance to a specially fortified office, he showed his badge to the guards and passed into a windowless conference room. There were about a dozen people there, Powell's top foreign-policy planners. Powell told them that their first job was to make plans to capture or kill Osama bin Laden. The second job was to rally allies. That meant detailed strategies for approaching other nations -- in some cases, Powell could make the approach, in others the president would have to make the call. Then Powell left them to work through the night. At 5:30 a.m. on September 12, they walked the list to the office of the deputy secretary of state, Richard Armitage. Powell took it straight to the White House. Mann and Leverett didn't know each other then, but they were already traveling down parallel tracks. Months before September 11, Mann had been negotiating with the Iranian diplomat at the UN. After the attacks, the meetings continued, sometimes alone and sometimes with their Russian counterpart sitting in. Soon they traded the conference room for the Delegates' Lounge, an airy two-story bar with ashtrays for all the foreigners who were used to smoking indoors. One day, up on the second floor where the windows overlooked the East River, the diplomat told her that Iran was ready to cooperate unconditionally, a phrase that had seismic diplomatic implications. Unconditional talks are what the U.S. had been demanding as a precondition to any official diplomatic contact between the U.S. and Iran. And it would be the first chance since the Islamic revolution for any kind of rapprochement. "It was revolutionary," Mann says. "It could have changed the world." A few weeks later, after signing on to Condoleezza Rice's staff as the new Iran expert in the National Security Council, Mann flew to Europe with Ryan Crocker -- then a deputy assistant secretary of state -- to hold talks with a team of Iranian diplomats. Meeting in a light-filled conference room at the old UN building in Geneva, they hammered out plans for Iranian help in the war against the Taliban. The Iranians agreed to provide assistance if any American was shot down near their territory, agreed to let the U.S. send food in through their border, and even agreed to restrain some "really bad Afghanis," like a rabidly anti-American warlord named Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, quietly putting him under house arrest in Tehran. These were significant concessions. At the same time, special envoy James Dobbins was having very public and warm discussions in Bonn with the Iranian deputy foreign minister as they worked together to set up a new government for Afghanistan. And the Iranians seemed eager to help in more tactical ways as well. They had intimate knowledge of Taliban strategic capabilities and they wanted to share it with the Americans. One day during the U.S. bombing campaign, Mann and her Iranian counterparts were sitting around the wooden conference table speculating about the future Afghani constitution. Suddenly the Iranian who knew so much about intelligence matters started pounding on the table. "Enough of that!" he shouted, unfurling a map of Afghanistan. Here was a place the Americans needed to bomb. And here, and here, he angrily jabbed his finger at the map. Leverett spent those days in his office at the State Department building, watching the revolution in the Middle East and coming up with plans on how to capture the lightning. Suddenly countries like Syria and Libya and Sudan and Iran were coming forward with offers of help, which raised a vital question -- should they stay on the same enemies list as North Korea and Iraq, or could there be a new slot for "friendly" sponsors of terror? As a CIA analyst, Leverett had come to the view that Middle Eastern terrorism was more tactical than religious. Syria wanted the Golan Heights back and didn't have the military strength to put up a serious fight against Israel, so it relied on "asymmetrical methods." Accepting this idea meant that nations like Syria weren't locked in a fanatic mind-set, that they could evolve to use new methods, so Leverett told Powell to seize the moment and draw up a "road map" to peace for the problem countries of the Middle East -- expel your terrorist groups and stop trying to develop weapons of mass destruction, and we will take you off the sponsors-of-terrorism list and start a new era of cooperation. That December, just after the triumph over Afghanistan, Powell took the idea to the White House. The occasion was the regular "deputies meeting" at the Situation Room. Gathered around the table were the deputy secretary of state, the deputy secretary of defense, the deputy director of the CIA, a representative from Vice-President Cheney's office, and also the deputy national security advisor, Stephen Hadley. Hadley hated the idea. So did the representatives from Rumsfeld and Cheney. They thought that it was a reward for bad behavior, that the sponsors of terrorism should stop just because it's the right thing to do. After the meeting, Hadley wrote up a brief memo that came to be known as Hadley's Rules: If a state like Syria or Iran offers specific assistance, we will take it without offering anything in return. We will accept it without strings or promises. We won't try to build on it. Leverett thought that was simply nutty. To strike postures of moral purity, they were throwing away a chance for real progress. But just a few days later, Condoleezza Rice called him into her office, warming him up with talk of how classical music shaped their childhoods. As he told her about the year he spent studying classical piano at the Liszt Academy in Budapest, Leverett felt a real connection. Then she said she was looking for someone to take the job of senior director of Mideast affairs at the National Security Council, someone who would take a real leadership role on the Palestinian issue. Big changes were coming in 2002. He repeated his firm belief that the White House had to draw up a road map with real solutions to the division of Jerusalem and the problem of refugees, something with final borders. That was the only remedy to the crisis in the Middle East. Just after the New Year, Rice called and offered him the job. The bowl of grapes is empty and the plate of cheese moves to the center of the table. Leverett's teenage son comes in with questions about a teacher. Periodically, Mann interrupts herself. "This is off the record," she says. "This is going to have to be on background." She's not allowed to talk about confidential documents or intelligence matters, but the topic of her negotiations with the Iranians is especially touchy. "As far as they're concerned, the whole idea that there were talks is something I shouldn't even be talking about," she says. All ranks and ranking are out. "They don't want there to be anything about the level of the talks or who was involved." "They won't even let us say something like 'senior' or 'important,' 'high-ranking,' or 'high-level,'" Leverett says. But the important thing is that the Iranians agreed to talk unconditionally, Mann says. "They specifically told me time and again that they were doing this because they understood the impact of this attack on the U.S., and they thought that if they helped us unconditionally, that would be the way to change the dynamic for the first time in twenty-five years." She believed them. But while Leverett was still moving into the Old Executive Office Building next to the White House, Mann was wrapped up in the crisis over a ship called the Karin A that left Iran loaded with fifty tons of weapons. According to the Israeli navy, which intercepted the Karin A in the Red Sea, it was headed for the PLO. In staff meetings at the White House, Mann argued for caution. The Iranian government probably didn't even know about the arms shipments. It was issuing official denials in the most passionate way, even sending its deputy foreign minister onto Fox News to say "categorically" that "all segments of the Iranian government" had nothing to do with the arms shipment, which meant the "total government, not simply President Khatami's administration." Bush waited. Three weeks later, it was time for his 2002 State of the Union address. Mann spent the morning in a meeting with Condoleezza Rice and the new president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, who kept asking Rice for an expanded international peacekeeping force. Rice kept saying that the Afghans would have to solve their own problems. Then they went off to join the president's motorcade and Mann headed back to her office to watch the speech on TV. That was the speech in which Bush linked Iran to Iraq and North Korea with a memorable phrase: "States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world." The Iranians had been engaging in high-level diplomacy with the American government for more than a year, so the phrase was shocking and profound. After that, the Iranian diplomats skipped the monthly meeting in Geneva. But they came again in March. And so did Mann. "They said they had put their necks out to talk to us and they were taking big risks with their careers and their families and their lives," Mann says. The secret negotiations with Iran continued, every month for another year. Leverett plunged right into a dramatic new peace proposal floated by Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. Calling for "full normalization" in exchange for "full withdrawal" from the occupied territories, Abdullah promised to rally all the Arab nations to a final settlement with Israel. In his brand-new third-floor office at the Old Executive Office Building, a tiny room with a very high ceiling, Leverett began hammering out the details with Abdullah's foreign-policy advisor, Adel Al-Jubeir. When Ariel Sharon said that a return to the '67 borders was unacceptable, Al-Jubeir said the Saudis didn't want to be in the "real estate business" -- if the Palestinians agreed to border modifications, the Saudis could hardly refuse them. Al-Jubeir believed he had something that might actually work. But the White House wasn't interested. Sharon already rejected it, Rice told Leverett. At the Arab League meeting, Abdullah got every Arab state to sign his proposal in a unanimous vote. The White House still wasn't interested. Then violence in the Palestinian territories began to increase, climaxing in an Israeli siege of Arafat's compound. In April, Leverett accompanied Colin Powell on a tour that took them from Morocco to Egypt and Jordan and Lebanon and finally Israel. Twice they crossed the Israeli-army lines to visit Arafat under siege. Powell seemed to think he had authorization from the White House to explore what everyone was calling "political horizons," the safely vague shorthand for a peaceful future, so on the final day Leverett holed up in a suite at the David Citadel Hotel in Jerusalem with a group of senior American officials -- the U. . ambassador to Israel, the U. S. consul general to Jerusalem, assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs Bill Burns -- trying to hammer out Powell's last speech. Then the phone rang. It was Stephen Hadley on the phone from the White House. "Tell Powell he is not authorized to talk about a political horizon," he said. "Those are formal instructions." "This is a bad idea," Leverett remembers saying. "It's bad policy and it's also humiliating for Powell, who has been talking to heads of state about this very issue for the last ten days." "It doesn't matter," Hadley said. "There's too much resistance from Rumsfeld and the VP. Those are the instructions." So Leverett went back into the suite and asked Powell to step aside. Powell was furious, Leverett remembers. "What is it they're afraid of?" he demanded. "Who the hell are they afraid of?" "I don't know sir," Leverett said. In the spring, Crown Prince Abdullah flew to Texas to meet Bush at his ranch. The way Leverett remembers the story, Abdullah sat down and told Bush he was going to ask a direct question and wanted a direct answer. Are you going to do anything about the Palestinian issue? If you tell me no, if it's too difficult, if you're not going to give it that kind of priority, just tell me. I will understand and I will never say anything critical of you or your leadership in public, but I'm going to need to make my own judgments and my own decisions about Saudi interests. Bush tried to stall, saying he understood his concerns and would see what he could do. Abdullah stood up. "That's it. This meeting is over." No Arab leader had ever spoken to Bush like that before, Leverett says. But Saudi Arabia was a key ally in the war on terror, vital to the continued U.S. oil supply, so Bush and Rice and Powell excused themselves into another room for a quick huddle. When he came back, Bush gave Abdullah his word that he would deal seriously with the Palestinian issue. "Okay," Abdullah said. "The president of the United States has given me his word." So the meeting continued, ending with a famous series of photographs of Bush and Abdullah riding around the ranch in Bush's pickup. In a meeting at the White House a few days later, Leverett saw Powell shaking his head over Abdullah's threat. He called it "the near-death experience." Bush rolled his eyes. "We sure don't want to go through anything like that again." Then the king of Jordan came to Washington to see Bush. There had to be a road map for peace in Palestine, the king said. Despite the previous experience with Abdullah in Crawford, Bush seemed taken by surprise, Leverett remembers, but he listened and said that the idea of a road map seemed pretty reasonable. So suddenly they were working on a road map. For moderate Arab states, the hope of a two-state solution would offer some political cover before Washington embarked on any invasion of Iraq. In a meeting with the king of Jordan, Leverett made a personal promise that it would be out by the end of 2002. But nothing happened. In Cheney's and Rumsfeld's offices, opposition came from men like John Hannah, Doug Feith, and Scooter Libby. In Rice's office, there was Elliott Abrams. Again they said that negotiation was just a reward for bad behavior. First the Palestinians had to reject terrorism and practice democracy. Finally, it was a bitter-cold day just after Thanksgiving and Leverett was on a family trip to the Washington Zoo, standing in front of the giraffe enclosure. The White House patched through a call from the foreign minister of Jordan, Marwan Muasher, who said that Rice had just told him the road map was off. "Do you have any idea how this has pulled the rug out from under us, from under me?" Muasher said. "I'm the one that has to go into Arab League meetings and get beat up and say, 'No, there's going to be a plan out by the end of the year.' How can we ever trust you again?" On Monday, Leverett went straight to Rice's office for an explanation. She told him that Ariel Sharon had called early elections in Israel and asked Bush to shelve any Palestinian plan. This time Leverett couldn't hide his exasperation. "You told the whole world you were going to put this out before Christmas," he said. "Because one Israeli politician told you it's going to make things politically difficult for him, you don't put it out? Do you realize how hard that makes things for all our Arab partners?" Rice sat impassively behind her broad desk. "If we put the road map out," she said, "it will interfere with Israeli elections." "You are interfering with Israeli elections, just in another way." "Flynt, the decision has already been made," Rice said. There was also an awkward scene with the secretary of defense. They were in the Situation Room and Leverett was sitting behind Rice taking notes when suddenly Rumsfeld addressed him directly. "Why are you laughing? Did I say something funny?" The room went silent, and Rumsfeld asked it again. "Why are you laughing? Did I say something funny?" "I'm sorry Mr. Secretary, I don't think I know what you're talking about." "It looks to me like you were laughing," Rumsfeld said. "No sir. I'm sorry if I gave that impression. I was just listening to the meeting and taking notes. Didn't mean to disturb you." The meeting continued, message received. By that time, Leverett and Mann had met and fallen in love. They got married in February 2003, went to Florida on their honeymoon, and got back just in time for the Shock and Awe bombing campaign. Leverett quit his NSC job in disgust. Mann rotated back to the State Department. Then came the moment that would lead to an extraordinary battle with the Bush administration. It was an average morning in April, about four weeks into the war. Mann picked up her daily folder and sat down at her desk, glancing at a fax cover page. The fax was from the Swiss ambassador to Iran, which wasn't unusual -- since the U.S. had no formal relationship with Iran, the Swiss ambassador represented American interests there and often faxed over updates on what he was doing. This time he'd met with Sadeq Kharrazi, a well-connected Iranian who was the nephew of the foreign minister and son-in-law to the supreme leader. Amazingly, Kharrazi had presented the ambassador with a detailed proposal for peace in the Middle East, approved at the highest levels in Tehran. A two-page summary was attached. Scanning it, Mann was startled by one dramatic concession after another -- "decisive action" against all terrorists in Iran, an end of support for Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, a promise to cease its nuclear program, and also an agreement to recognize Israel. This was huge. Mann sat down and drafted a quick memo to her boss, Richard Haass. It was important to send a swift and positive response. Then she heard that the White House had already made up its mind -- it was going to ignore the offer. Its only response was to lodge a formal complaint with the Swiss government about their ambassador's meddling. A few days after that, a terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia killed thirty-four people, including eight Americans, and an intelligence report said the bombers had been in phone contact with Al Qaeda members in Iran. Although it was unknown whether Tehran had anything to do with the bombing or if the terrorists were hiding out in the lawless areas near the border, Rumsfeld set the tone for the administration's response at his next press conference. "There's no question but that there have been and are today senior Al Qaeda leaders in Iran, and they are busy." Colin Powell saw Mann's memo. A couple weeks later he approached her at a State Department reception and said, "It was a very good memo. I couldn't sell it at the White House." In response to questions from Esquire, Colin Powell called Leverett "very able" and confirms much of what he says. Leverett's account of the clash between Bush and Crown Prince Abdullah was accurate, he said. "It was a very serious moment and no one wanted to see if the Saudis were bluffing." The same goes for the story about his speech in Israel in 2002. "I had major problems with the White House on what I wanted to say." On the subject of the peace offer, though, Powell was defensive. "I talked to all of my key assistants since Flynt started talking about an Iranian grand bargain, but none of us recall seeing this initiative as a grand bargain." On the general subject of negotiations with Iran, he responded with pointed politesse. "We talked to the Iranians quietly up until 2003. The president chose not to continue that channel." That is putting it mildly. In May of 2003, when the U.S. was still in the triumphant "mission accomplished" phase of the Iraq war, word started filtering out of the White House about an aggressive new Iran policy that would include efforts to destabilize the Iranian government and even to promote a popular uprising. In his first public statement on Iran policy since leaving the NSC, Leverett told The Washington Post he thought the White House was making a dangerous mistake. "What it means is we will end up with an Iran that has nuclear weapons and no dialogue with the United States." In the years that followed, he spoke out in dozens of newspaper editorials and a book, all making variations on the same argument -- America's approach to rogue nations was all sticks and no carrots, all economic sanctions and threats of war without any dialogue. "To bring about real change," he argued, "we must also offer concrete benefits." Of course states like Iran and Syria messed around in Iraq, he said. Iran was supporting the Iraqi opposition when the U.S. was still supporting Saddam Hussein. It was insane to expect them to stop when the goal of a Shiite Iraq was finally in reach. The only way to solve the underlying issues was to offer Iran a "grand bargain" that would recognize the legitimacy of Iran's government and its right to a role in the region. But that was an unthinkable thought. The White House ignored him. Democrats ignored him. The Brookings Institution declined to renew his contract. Then he started talking about the peace offer. By then it was 2006 and the war wasn't going well and suddenly people started to respond: You mean Iran isn't evil? They helped fight the Taliban? They wanted to make peace? He summed it all up in a long paper for a Washington think tank that happened to be scheduled for publication last November, a vulnerable time for the White House, just after the Democrats swept the midterm elections and the Iraq Study Group released its report calling for negotiations with Syria and Iran. When he submitted the paper to the CIA for a routine review, they told him the CIA had no problem with it but someone from the NSC called to complain. "You shouldn't have cleared this without letting the White House take a look at it," the official said. Leverett told them he wasn't going to let White House operatives judge his criticisms of White House operatives and distilled his argument into an op-ed piece for The New York Times. This time he shared a byline with his wife, who had experienced the peace offer up close. They submitted their first draft to the CIA and the State Department on a Sunday in early December, expecting to hear back the next day. The next morning, Leverett gave a blistering talk on Bush's Iran policy to the influential conservatives at the Cato Institute. The speech was carried live on C-SPAN. Later that day, he flew to New York and made the same arguments at a private dinner with the UN ambassadors of Russia and Britain. He was starting to have an impact. By Tuesday, he still hadn't heard from the CIA review board. They called on Wednesday and told him that there was nothing classified in the piece as far as the agency was concerned, but someone in the West Wing wasn't happy with it and would be redacting large sections. "You're the clearing agency," Leverett said. "You're the people named in my agreement." They said their hands were tied. After consulting a lawyer, Leverett and Mann and a researcher worked through the night to assemble a list of public sources where the blacked-out material had already been published. They also took out one line that might have been based on a classified document. But the White House wouldn't budge. It was a First Amendment showdown. On Thursday, Leverett and Mann decided to publish the piece with large sections of type blacked out, 168 words in all. Since the piece had been rendered pretty much incomprehensible, they included a list of public sources. "To make sense of our op-ed article, readers will have to look up the citations themselves." As they tell their story, Mann rushes off to pick up one of their sons from a play date and Leverett takes over, telling what happened over the following months: Bush sent a second carrier group to the Persian Gulf. U.S. troops started to arrest Iranians living in Baghdad, accusing them of working with insurgents. Bush accused Iran of "providing material support" for attacks on U.S. forces, a formulation that suggested a legal justification for a preemptive attack. Senator Jim Webb of Virginia pushed through an amendment requiring Bush to get congressional authorization for an attack. Colin Powell broke his long silence with a pointed warning. "You can't negotiate when you tell the other side, 'Give us what a negotiation would produce before the negotiations start.' " Even Henry Kissinger started giving interviews on the need to "exhaust every possibility to come to an understanding with Iran." From inside the White House, Leverett was hearing a scary scenario: The Russians were scheduled to ship fuel rods to the Iranian nuclear reactor in Bushehr, which meant the reactor would become operational by this November, at which point it would be impossible to bomb -- the fallout alone would turn the city into an urban Chernobyl. The White House was seriously considering a preemptive attack when the Russians cooled things down by saying Iran hadn't paid its bills, so they would hold back the Bushehr fuel rods for a while. That put things into a summer lull. But by August, tensions were rising again. U.S. troops in Baghdad arrested an official delegation of Iranian energy experts, leading them out of a hotel in blindfolds and handcuffs. Then Iran said that it had paid its bills and that the Russians were ready to deliver the Bushehr shipment. In Time magazine, former CIA officer and author Robert Baer quoted a highly placed White House official: "IEDs are a casus belli for this administration. There will be an attack on Iran." Mann steps back out on the deck and starts collecting the scattered toys to prepare the house for a dinner party, the typical modern American mother multitasking her way through a busy day. "The reason I have to be so careful now is that I'm legally on notice and they will prosecute things that I say or do," she says, picking up a plastic truck. "Because of that one article?" "Yeah." Outside, it's getting warmer. There's a heavy haze and floating bugs and for a moment it feels a bit ominous, a gathering silence, one of those moments when giant pods start to sprout in local basements. "We're tired," Mann says. "Nobody listens." Find this article at: http://www.esquire.com/features/iranbriefing1107 ***************************************************************** 49 Esquire: Mercenary (The Pallisades security chief is an assassin) If you learned that the man in this photo -- a professional assassin -- was the head of security at one of our nation?s most vulnerable nuclear facilities, would it trouble you? Or would it sound like one hell of a story? Related Links: • Read the transcript of an interview with William Clark, a/k/a. "Zeke." • Listen to audio clips of an interview with Zeke. The Palisades Nuclear Plant in Covert, Michigan, is real. It produces 778 megawatts of electricity, and the electricity keeps the lights burning for about half a million residents. The nuclear reactor inside the nuclear plant is also real. It gets really hot, and anyone driving on Interstate 196 on his way to Grand Rapids or St. Joe can see thin clouds of steam rising from its cooling towers, as constant a presence as the weather. The steam is real; it?s water from Lake Michigan, pumped in to keep the reactor cool. The nuclear power plant is on the shore of Lake Michigan, right next to the tourist town of South Haven and about eighty miles from Chicago as the crow flies. Lake Michigan is real, definitely, though it comes off as an illusory ocean, offering the horizon as its only boundary. South Haven is real, too, although it empties out in the cold of winter. And Chicago? As real as the millions of people who live there, and the strange American fervor they generate. Chicago is so damned real, and so damned American, that it?s hard to imagine an American reality without it -- it?s hard to imagine an American reality if, say, a terrorist attack on Palisades Nuclear contaminated the big lake for the next thousand years or so and emptied out Chicago, not to mention St. Joe and South Haven and Covert. Which is why it?s a good thing that the security manager at Palisades Nuclear for the last year and a half is real, too, with real qualifications for the job. His name is William E. Clark, and he has been in the Army, he?s been a cop, he?s done some contracting work for the Department of Energy, he?s gone to Kosovo on a diplomatic mission, and after Katrina, he worked for Blackwater, the security company, outside New Orleans. He started at Palisades in early 2006. He has a new house and a new wife and has told people, ?I would shed blood to keep this job.? As a statement of determination, this is reassuring...but what if he means it as a statement of fact? What if William E. Clark has told people -- told me -- that he has in fact shed blood many times, in many places, over the course of many years? What if William E. Clark says that he worked for Blackwater in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as in New Orleans and killed so many people that he considers himself a cold-blooded murderer? What if he says that his job as the security manager of a nuclear plant on Lake Michigan is both a reward for all the killing he?s done and a means for keeping him quiet about it? The guilt is real. The shame is real. He is not proud of the things he?s done, although that doesn?t stop him from talking about them. He?s not proud of what he had to do in Vietnam, his son says. He?s not proud of having to kill someone in New Orleans, his ex-wife says. He wakes up with nightmares, his new wife says, because he?s starting to see the faces of the human beings he once saw through the rifle scope. And so this story represents his attempt to come clean. He is a bad person, he says, but he wants to be a good person -- he wants to be thought of as a good person. He wants to be purified, shriven. He is telling his story because he knows it will destroy him. He is telling his story because he knows it will set him free. He has kept stuff, over the years, because he knows that nobody will believe him. He has kept the stubs from all the boarding passes, the keys from all the hotel rooms. There are hundreds of them, and he keeps them in thick wads and piles. He has kept a business card for one of his aliases, Zeke Senega, a reporter for The Irish Times in Dublin. He has kept his passports, including the diplomatic one that was required for the work he did for the State Department. And he has photographs. He has a folder full of photographs from what he calls an ?operation? in Iraq -- an operation that ended with two jihadists slumped dead in the front seat of an Opel, their car windows spiderwebbed with the ghosts of two precision gunshots. He also has a photo album, which he calls the Book. The Book is not very different from a lot of photo albums -- it is a record, in snapshots, of the places he?s been and the people he?s met -- except that the mostly unsmiling men staring at the camera are usually wearing camouflage and armed to the teeth. And in the middle of the Book, there is one photo, black-and-white and larger than the rest, of William E. Clark cradling a rifle to his chest in what appears to be a jungle. He does not seem to be posing, and indeed he looks a little sick -- his mouth slightly slack and his long face droopy with exhaustion. And yet when he remembers the circumstances of the photo, he relishes them: ?That picture was taken in El Salvador in 1996. I wasn?t supposed to be there. Nobody was. Suddenly this UPI photographer shows up, taking pictures. I said, ?If you don?t put that camera down and give me the film, I?ll shoot you. I?ll kill you and get away with it. Because I don?t exist.??? Somewhere along the line, Bill Clark from Tulare, California, became Zeke, the "shooter" in his prized photograph, above. The volunteer is real -- so real that her name cannot be disclosed, nor any identifying details. She is one of the Americans who volunteered their time after Hurricane Katrina flooded the Gulf Coast in 2005. She worked at a makeshift shelter where people were very sick and couldn?t be evacuated. There were drugs at the shelter, a store of narcotics, to keep the sick people comfortable. There had to be protection, and Blackwater USA supplied it, through a government contract. The volunteer was happy that Blackwater was there, because she kept hearing stories of what was happening in New Orleans -- its descent into lawlessness. It was a very scary time. In fact, one night one of the Blackwater contractors at the shelter said he had received intelligence to the effect that a New Orleans gang had found out about the drugs at the shelter and was on its way. He assured her that she would be safe, because he had just come from Iraq, and after what he?d been through there with the jihadists, he wasn?t about to be scared by American lowlifes. He was a senior member of the Blackwater team, and he made sure that if anyone so much as even parked around the block from the shelter, there was a Blackwater contractor in his face. Nothing happened that night, and nothing ever happened, for she had her own personal protector. His name was William E. Clark, but he told her to call him what everyone called him -- Zeke. She was struck by the apparent contradictions in him. He made her feel secure, but he seemed so terribly wounded, both literally and metaphorically. He had a problem with his neck, an injury that occasionally caused him to pass out. When she asked him how he got it, he told her that he couldn?t say, that he was prohibited from saying. Little by little, though, it came out, because secrets come to light during the night shift, and stories get told in the dark. He?d done terrible things for his country. He?d had to do terrible things, but that was because of his willingness to do them. He wasn?t so willing anymore. He was doing the worst thing someone like him could do: He was growing a conscience. No, worse than that: He was talking about it. He was talking to her. He had never talked to anyone about the terrible things he?d done, not even his wife of thirty years. He felt safe with the volunteer, as she felt safe with him. He scared her a little, of course. She had never met anyone like him. He showed her how to use one of his guns. She had never fired a gun before and was surprised how much she liked it. But she also felt that he was watching her. He even said that he was. He would call her on her cell phone, in the middle of the night, when she couldn?t see him. ?I?m sick of just watching you,? he would say and describe everything she was doing, so that she knew she was being watched. It was obsessive, and once they came together, they came together obsessively. She was in thrall to him, as he was in thrall to his stories and his terrible past. She didn?t know whether to believe his stories, but when she got home, he sent her videotaped footage of people being executed in what he said was Iraq. There were voices on the video, and one of them sounded exactly like Zeke?s. Death is real. Its reality is unsurpassed, and the people at the disaster-relief conference in Houston last July were on intimate terms with it. They were morticians, they were forensic anthropologists and forensic dentists, they worked suicide hotlines, and they handled the public relations when airplanes went down. Now they were all standing up and saying who they were and where they came from and why they were interested in doing work that few people wanted to do -- why they wanted to take care of the dead left behind by mass disasters. As the attendees were introducing themselves to one another by both name and profession, a man stood up and said, ?My name is William Clark, and I?m a designated marksman for Blackwater.? He stood out as soon as he stood up. He was lean and he was lanky, with his face and everything else about him aligned on a vertical axis -- he had a full head of springy hair rising straight up off his scalp in a kind of modified brush cut and a Fu Manchu mustache bracketing his rabbity front teeth. There was an arrogance in his military bearing and a desire to shock secreted in the monotonal nonchalance of his voice. I was one of the people who gave him the reaction he was looking for, and when I asked him if I could speak with him, he seemed as though he?d been waiting for me to ask the question. We met in a small room away from the main auditorium and away from the other attendees of the conference. I was well aware of Blackwater and its reputation as a private security company whose armed contractors had changed the rules of engagement in Iraq and elsewhere, even in New Orleans. I was also well aware of the reputation its contractors had for not talking, and so I was surprised when William Clark sat down and, in the same manner he used when he was introducing himself in the auditorium -- a manner at once matter-of-fact and challenging -- he started not only talking but confessing. Yes, he said, he was one of them -- a ?merc,? or mercenary, for Blackwater. He was a sniper. He had been a countersniper for the security details assigned to protect Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan and Paul Bremer, the former American proconsul, in Iraq. He did overwatch, which meant he sat up on rooftops and shot people who looked dangerous. ?Hey,? he said, ?thirty-seven Al Qaeda and twenty-one Baathists can?t be wrong.? At first, he was blithe on the subject of killing, saying that the Blackwater contract was ?perfect for a guy like me -- a thousand bucks a day, and you get to kill people legally.? Then he said that he must be ?missing a chromosome or something -- I don?t have the moral firewall that keeps normal people from killing.? He had met people doing body-retrieval work when he was in New Orleans for Blackwater, and when they told him what they did, he said, ?You?re a taker-outer? That?s funny -- I?m a putter-inner. Maybe we can work together.? It was a joke, of course -- the kind of bitterly defensive joke he liked to make -- but then he?d started giving the matter some thought. He was fifty-three years old. He was old for the kind of life he led, the life, in his words, of ?an operator,? ?a shooter,? ?a trigger puller.? In effect, he had given his life to take lives, and it had cost him almost everything, including, he said, as he held up his left hand and displayed a denuded ring finger, his thirty-year marriage. He was trying desperately to adjust to civilian life, but a lifetime habit of chasing headlines didn?t die easily. He was at the conference because he was hoping that maybe there was a way to chase headlines without having to kill anybody. False IDs and other work tools on Zeke's kitchen counter I called the number he gave me a few days later and asked for William Clark. ?Who?? a voice said. ?William Clark.? ?Who is this?? I told him I was the reporter he met at the disaster-relief conference. ?Oh, yeah,? he said. ?I remember. You just threw me off, asking for William.? ?Your name isn?t William?? ?It is. But everybody calls me Zeke. The only person who doesn?t is my mother, and she calls me Billy.? There was a story he told about his first day at Palisades. He was already at his desk when his boss came in. His boss said, ?I just want you to know you?re not my first choice for the job, so if you?re in over your head, please tell me.? Zeke couldn?t help himself. He answered, ?Well, you?re my first choice to throw out the window.? The boss beat an immediate retreat, and later, it had to be explained to Zeke that threats are taken very seriously in the modern corporate workplace. ?But yeah, he knew who he was hiring,? Zeke said when I asked him if his boss at Palisades knew what he had done for a living. ?He knew he hired an assassin.? He had been screened, and the screening was real. He had been checked and vetted. The screening was standard but rigorous -- it was the same screening everyone got when they were applying for a job that gave them complete freedom of movement and access at a nuclear power plant. His piss was checked, and so were his finances. He was given a psychological test and a polygraph. His references were called. Zeke claimed to have extremely high-level security clearances -- a TS/SCI with the Department of Defense and a Q clearance with the Department of Energy -- but Randy Cleveland, who?s in charge of employee screening for the company that operates Palisades, said that he doesn?t generally check security clearances, because he?s in the business of granting security clearances of his own. Besides, he said, ?I don?t know how much work Zeke did that by its nature you wouldn?t be able to validate. Some of these operations, he tells us, were of such a covert nature that you have to do an extreme amount of digging to find out about them, if you can find out at all.? So they knew. What?s more, they all seemed to know. On the first day I visited Zeke at Palisades, some of his security guards were receiving special-operations training at the plant?s practice range, and all day long the people who came to observe the training seemed to know not only Zeke but also his history. The idea for the training was based on his history -- based on his certainty that the jihadists he?d fought against in Afghanistan and Iraq would be able to take Palisades without much of a fight if the security guards weren?t given the proper training. He wound up convincing the owners of Palisades to pay $50,000, he said, for the creation of an elite strike force from the ranks of his security guards, which he would call the Viper team. He wound up inviting Aaron Cohen, a former Israeli commando Zeke had seen giving commentary on Fox News, to come to Michigan and provide Viper training. He wound up convincing a local agent from the FBI and a local agent from the Department of Homeland Security to participate in the training and become members of the Viper team. He wound up convincing representatives from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to come and observe the training, which he called the first-ever partnership between a private security team and federal law-enforcement agents for the purpose of critical-infrastructure protection. And so they all came to the practice range, and they all gave Zeke credit for making Viper training happen, although a senior manager at Palisades confided that Zeke was far better at creating elite strike forces than he was at doing paperwork and dealing with corporate politics. But this was not surprising, the manager said, given who Zeke was and where he?d been -- given that Zeke had gone to Afghanistan and Iraq looking to die and had instead wound up a security manager at Palisades. He was still new to his house. On his refrigerator door, he still had a drawing a little boy down the block had sent him, a stick figure emblazoned with the words mr. zeke, welcome to the neighborhood. He hadn?t met the little boy yet, nor any of his other neighbors. After all, he had not bought the house because he wanted to make friends but rather, he said, because it was at the end of a dead-end street and offered an advantageous line of fire. The house was two stories, with dormer windows, and contained a small arsenal. There were bullets everywhere -- in boxes, in the bathroom, on bookshelves, a few scattered on the floor -- like candy in the home of a fat man. There were a lot of knives, too, the fighting kind, with handles like brass knuckles. There was a handgun secreted away in the couch that faced the forty-three-inch TV screen, another next to the computer keyboard, and another on top of the refrigerator. In Zeke?s bedroom, there were two handguns on his nightstand and a black pump-action shotgun propped in the corner. In one of the spare bedrooms, there was an empty black case, very long and designed to carry the long rifle -- Zeke said he preferred a Remington 700 -- that snipers use. There was a Ruger .22-caliber Mark II long-rifle target pistol. There was a scope next to a pair of black gloves. There were a dozen empty magazines, a magazine half filled with bullets, and three magazines that were fully loaded. There were a couple of holsters, a stock, a shooting brace, and a metal case filled with 7.62mm shells. On the floor, there was a pair of handcuffs and a big box filled with smaller boxes of bullets. On the shelf bracketing another wall, there were two Kevlar helmets, a set of pads for a shooter?s knees and elbows, and a long coiled rope. In the corner, there was a backpack, ready to go, and then a duffel bag, olive-green and already packed with clothing and gear, so that if Zeke ever got called on a mission, he would be able to leave -- and leave everything behind, including his new house and his new wife and his very real job at the nuclear plant -- at a moment?s notice. He lived in fear, because he was not in control of his life. He had a handler, he said. Did I know what a handler was? A handler was a person who handled him and who handled things for him. He?d had a handler since 1984. He?d been in the Army, been in Vietnam, been a Ranger, with marksman as his particular skill set. He?d gotten into some trouble, so he?d gotten out in 1977. He?d become a cop, outside of L.?A. He was SWAT. He was, by his own description, ?hard charging,? maybe too aggressive. He made a lot of arrests. He also spent a lot of time at the range. One night, he said, the phone rang at his house. ?Friend of a friend. ?We hear you?re a hell of a shot. Why don?t you come and talk to us???I told him I had a job. He said, ?Don?t worry, we?ll pave the way.? The next day I got to work and was told to take a leave of absence. I went for training in northern Virginia, and six months later I was in Honduras. ?There?s your target. Handle it.??? He handled it, and from then on he had a handler. It wasn?t always the same guy, and one time, about five years ago, it was a woman. But the handler always did the same thing. Made sure he was current on his piss test. Made sure he was current on his polygraph. Made sure he could get insurance and a mortgage. Made sure that Zeke had a reference when he went for a job and had to explain the gaps in his résumé. Made sure that Zeke knew where to go and knew what to do once he got there. Made sure that Zeke followed orders. Made sure that Zeke was still handling it, which meant that he wasn?t talking to anyone -- whether wife or friend or shrink or reporter. Handling it was what Zeke was good at, until he wasn?t. Now, for the first time in his life, he was scared. He couldn?t sleep at night. He had nightmares. He was afraid that he was too old. He was afraid that no one was going to call him with another mission. He was afraid that he was going to get called on another mission tomorrow. He was afraid that he was never going to go back to Afghanistan or Iraq. He was afraid that he was going to go back to Afghanistan or Iraq and die there. He was afraid of losing his job at the nuclear plant and winding up on a park bench. He was afraid that he was going to spend the rest of his life at the nuclear plant, a washed-up old operator ?with a lot of stories that no one believes till they see the scars.? He was afraid of being betrayed, afraid of disappearing, afraid of being afraid forever. ?I?ve hurt a lot of people, Tom,? he said. And he knew he would hurt a lot of people again if he didn?t burn his bridges to the handler who ordered him to hurt them. ?And there?s only one way I?m going to burn my bridges, and that?s by talking to someone like you.? He had the most amazing things to say about hurting people, about the reality of sitting up on high and hunting them, about the quiet deliberation of it, about the stillness of it, about watching a man ?through the glass? -- the scope -- about watching him smoke and drink coffee and talk to friends even as you know the order is in and he?s already dead, about taking aim at his lip or his teeth -- ?teeth are always good, because you can always see them? -- or between his buttons and concentrating only on the shot, on the tumbling piece of paper that helps you determine which way the wind is blowing, and then on the soft squeeze of the trigger, only that, before the kick of the rifle brings you back to life with almost more adrenaline than you can bear. He?s always lived for the adrenaline. We were watching an NFL game one night at his house, and he got up and assumed the stance of a defensive back, but with his elbow up high, as if ready to drop the hammer. He said that he?d been a cornerback in high school, all county, and that he still remembered what it was like, watching a play develop, watching the whole field, the movement of the ball both chaotic and marked by a sense of inevitability, because it had to come to an end, and it came to an end when he made the hit. He was the end. He was a hitter, and nothing could match that feeling of intervention -- that feeling of being the instrument of inevitability -- until later in his life, when he felt the kick of the Remington 700 and heard his spotter say, ?Man down.? One night his mother called his cell phone. She called him almost every day. He was closer to his mother than he was to anybody, and once, when I asked him if he had any code of conduct, he said, ?No women. No children. And I don?t lie to my mother.? Now he talked to her for a few minutes and handed me the phone. ?Well, I?m glad someone?s finally writing about Billy, because he?s an American hero,? she said, in a strong old-woman?s voice. Then I handed the phone back to Zeke, but he was sitting on the couch, looking sick to the soul. ?She?s so happy that I have this job at the plant,? he said. ?I don?t have the heart to tell her that I hate it. So I lie to her, like I lie to everyone else.? I stayed at his house three times. The first time, last August, I stayed with him for two nights. I stayed with him for two nights again in September. When I visited in December, I cut my trip short -- I stayed one night instead of two -- but by that time the process of revelation that he?d started in the summer threatened to go out of control. He had revealed secrets about himself from the moment I introduced myself to him, and yet over the course of four months he had always managed to up the ante, to suggest that behind every secret there loomed another whose revelation would prove dangerous not only to him but to me. In August, he told me about his handler and about the remorselessness his handler expected of him. He detailed his methods as a sniper and called himself an assassin. And he told me that he lived in fear of being arrested for what he?d done for Blackwater -- and, by extension, his country -- in Afghanistan and Iraq. In September, he said that it was in Iraq where he had crossed the line that had made him lose ?the stomach? for killing. ?In all my years as a professional, I?ve seen a lot of conflicts,? he said. ?I never committed murder until I went to Iraq.? When I pressed him about what he meant, he said, ?You?re going to get me indicted, Tom.? And when I asked him why, he replied, ?War crimes, man. War crimes.? And yet he kept talking, driven by his guilt and his compulsive need to tell me that he was not like mere contractors -- that he was both better and far worse. In November, I sent him a book about Blackwater and asked him to read it. When I called for his comments, he said that it was accurate, but only so far as it went. ?The guys in that book are really sort of knuckle draggers,? he said. ?I operate on a much higher level.? ?What do you mean?? I said. ?I?ll tell you the next time you come up.? And so I visited him again, one last time, in December. It was 12 degrees in Michigan, and the phone books and old cardboard boxes that had littered his driveway in the summer were now stuck there, frozen solid. He was wearing all black, black jeans and a black ribbed mercenary sweater, and he told me that something had changed since the last time I spoke to him. He told me that he had gotten married. The people who love him are real. He has a mother and father, still alive. He has two brothers. He has an ex-wife, Linda, to whom he was married for thirty years. He has a son, Rick-- -- Linda?s son, whom Zeke adopted when he was four years old. And he has a new wife, a woman he calls Baby Doll. They all love him, but he is afraid they wouldn?t if they knew who he really was and what he had really done. Does he love them in return? He said he did, while acknowledging that a man who couldn?t tell the truth about himself to those closest to him was going to have trouble with his relationships. He had, for instance, a photograph of one of his brothers on his bookshelf, but he said that he hadn?t seen or spoken to him in years. And he hadn?t spoken to his son, Rick, since the divorce, and although Rick lived on an Air Force base not five hours away, Zeke had never met his grandchildren. And although he still spoke to Linda as often as twice a day -- as often as he spoke to his mother and Baby Doll -- he viewed his divorce from her as the ultimate cost of his lifestyle and its necessary secrets. In his darkest moments, he even intimated that his handler had gotten to her, had called her and told her, well, everything, for why else would he have come home from the hell of New Orleans and heard from his wife that she wanted out after thirty years? He had met her in high school, in Tulare, California, in the Central Valley, south of Fresno. She was his English teacher his senior year. She was eleven years older than he was. They got married in 1975, when he was still in the Army. They did not live together at first -- he was at Fort Stewart, in Georgia, and she remained in Tulare, teaching -- but she was always available to him, as she had to be, for even as a young man he was haunted by his past, he said, and in this case his recent past was Vietnam. These were the last shadowy years of the war. There was a period when he just disappeared -- when neither his mother nor Linda knew where he was -- and when he resurfaced, he had a story to tell, except that he couldn?t tell it. He was bound not to tell it, though of course it leaked out over the years, both to Linda and to Rick, as did all the others. It was hard on Linda, Zeke said, because she had to guard his secrets as closely as he did. She was even liable to be polygraphed, as he was, and so after a while he made it easy for her -- he stopped telling her things, and she stopped asking questions. She just knew -- and it was her unspoken knowledge of who he really was that led him to say that she was his ?real wife,? no matter what, and to keep the gold band from his wedding with Linda up on his bookshelf, right next to the picture of Baby Doll. Baby Doll was his nickname for a woman he met on eHarmony in 2006. Her real name was Terri, but she had a small, breathy voice, so he called her Baby Doll. She was divorced, living with two teenaged sons, and she described herself as a ?wounded soul,? for she had multiple sclerosis. Zeke was a wounded soul, too, she said, and their relationship seemed to enter a new stage with each visit: In August, they met; in September, she?d just visited him in Michigan for the first time, and he was deciding whether to ?take on? a woman with such a debilitating illness; in December, he?d just married her, because she?d saved his life. He?d been all alone on Thanksgiving 2006, eating a frozen pizza, waiting for the phone to ring and determined to ?eat the barrel? of one of his handguns if it didn?t. It did, and it was Baby Doll. Her voice gave him something to live for, and he married her a week later. She wasn?t living with him, but she called his cell phone all day long, and one night, when we were out to dinner, he passed the phone to me. Terri?s voice was just as Zeke said it was, and in answer to my question, she confirmed that she had met Zeke on eHarmony. Then she said that she had a question of her own: ?Is he wearing his ring?? I told her that he was, although as soon as she hung up, he said he was going to take it off when he got home and put it on the bookshelf next to the ring from his marriage to Linda. Zeke tried to continue the affair with the volunteer he met in New Orleans after they both returned home. One day, she even received an e-mail from Zeke?s wife, Linda, while Linda and Zeke were still married. It was an admission of failure -- an admission that Linda had never been up to the adventure of living with someone like Zeke, an admission that she simply wasn?t as passionate as he was. Linda wished the volunteer luck and expressed hope that Zeke had finally met a woman who was his equal. How extremely gracious, the volunteer thought, and how extremely odd, for the e-mail was marred by elementary misspellings and grammatical errors. Wasn?t Linda Clark an English teacher? Then she realized something, in a flash of alarm: The letter had been written by Zeke, from his wife?s account and in his wife?s name. She began trying to extricate herself from the relationship, but there was a problem: He threatened her and he threatened her husband. He said that he had no qualms about killing women -- that when he was in Iraq, the locals had been prohibited from doing so by their religious scruples, and that the dirty business had fallen to him and had become a specialty. He even told her exactly how he?d kill her, sticking the knife above her collarbone and flicking it toward her feet, so that, with just the barest nick, her jugular and carotid would bleed out. And then, when threats failed, he said he was going to kill himself. He told her he was spending Thanksgiving 2005 alone, eating frozen pizza, and that he was going to eat the barrel of one of his handguns if he didn?t get a call from the volunteer, whom he called his Baby Doll. He made a lot of threats. Some of them were just avowals of lethal capacity -- ?Hey, I?m a trigger puller,? he said when I first met him. ?I?ll put a round in your eye.? Others were the result of him playing around, as when I was watching TV in his living room in August and the red dot of a laser pointer started dancing around the walls. He was standing behind me, in the kitchen, pointer in hand, and when I said, ?Um, Zeke?? he answered, ?Oh, sorry. But don?t worry -- if I ever wanted to kill you, you?d never see the red dot.? Others were more specific. When he first told me about his handler, he said that he?d told his handler about me -- with the assurance that if I revealed information he didn?t want revealed, ?I?ll hunt you down and kill you.? Another time, on the subject of journalistic betrayal, he said, ?Never betray someone who can kill you from a thousand yards away.? And yet for a long time I was not scared of him, because on some level he was not a scary guy. He was a lonely guy. He was a pathetic guy. He was a recently divorced guy who, like every other recently divorced guy in America, had a George Foreman grill in his kitchen and a stack of DiGiorno pizzas in his freezer. He was too hangdog to be threatening, and when he finally did scare me, it was not because he threatened me. It was because I thought he was going crazy. He had a photograph of a sniper on his living-room wall. It was poster sized, and it was framed, and the man it portrayed was carrying a gauze-wrapped long rifle and wearing a hood that hid everything but his eyes and the bridge of his nose. He looked like a primordial executioner, rising out of the swamp, and as soon as I saw the photo, I thought it was Zeke. He had always said that I would never be able to trace him to Afghanistan or Iraq -- that his participation there, though ostensibly part of a Blackwater contract, was a ?black op,? with no paper trail. Now there was a poster in his living room whose copyright line -- ?Steve Raymer, National Geographic Image Collection, 2005? -- made me think that I had found an image linking Zeke to Iraq, right there on his wall. He was cagey when, during my September visit, I asked who it was. ?A friend,? he?d said. ?Misunderstood. You?d like him if you got to know him, but not too many people get to know him.? And so I went home and did a search for Steve Raymer. His name came up right away, and so did the photograph, which was available for sale, tagged with the following information: ?French Soldier, 13th Demi-Brigade of the French Foreign Legion, Djibouti, Horn of Africa, 1988.? I called Steve Raymer, and he said yes, he was sure of the photo?s provenance -- that he remembered being out in the desert on a Foreign Legion training exercise and all these snipers rose up all around him, in terrifying silence. Raymer didn?t say a word to the sniper, and the sniper didn?t say a word to him -- he just took his picture, and eventually National Geographic put it up for sale. It was the first thing I asked Zeke about when I visited him in December, because -- even though he?d made no claims for the photo -- now I thought I?d somehow caught him in a lie. ?Tell me about the guy in the poster,? I said. ?You don?t want to know that guy,? he answered. ?He?s a guy going through a very bad time.? ?Zeke, I know who it is.? ?You do?? ?It?s a soldier with the French Foreign Legion in the Horn of Africa.? He didn?t miss a beat. Standing in front of the poster, he said, ?Second Para, out of Corsica,? meaning the Legion?s Second Paratroop Regiment, which is indeed out of Corsica. ?That?s where we mobilized out of.? ?You were in the French Foreign Legion?? ?Among other things,? he said. ?So that?s you?? ?That?s me.? ?I don?t get it. I don?t get why you?re so coy about it.? ?I don?t like talking about Africa. Those were the bad years.? ?Zeke, what are you afraid of?? ?I?m afraid of going to jail, man. Have you ever been arrested?? ?No.? ?Well, I have. I was arrested for attempted murder when I was a Ranger. McIntosh County, Georgia. You can look it up if you want to. It?s a matter of public record.? He was defending a friend, he said. The friend had gotten beaten up at a notorious brothel called the S&S Truck Stop. With a few other soldiers, Zeke had gone back and put an incendiary device on the roof, with the intention of ?burning up everyone inside, including the whores.? The bomb didn?t go off, he said, but he and the others were arrested anyway and spent nine days in jail before an FBI agent investigating the S&S for drug trafficking set them free. The incident ended his career as a Ranger, but he said it also might have played a role in the call he received a few years later: for he had demonstrated a willingness not only to kill but to incinerate a room full of undesirables. ?Do you have things in your life that you?re ashamed of?? Zeke asked. He had gone from the photo of the sniper to the couch and was stretched out on it, with his hands covering his face. I told him I did; of course I did. He said, ?Well, you probably don?t do them anymore. But I do. I keep doing them. I seek them out.? He was finally paying the price; he?d had a mild heart attack the month before, on account of the stress of living with his secrets. I told him that maybe he had received a sign that he should begin talking, starting with Africa. He said, ?You might not like me very much after I do,? and asked if I thought he was a bad person. ?I think you?re trying to be a good person,? I said, ?or else I wouldn?t be here.? He got up and told me to follow him. He opened the door to his basement and turned on the light. He went halfway down the stairs and then stopped and looked at me over his shoulder. ?Have you ever been around pure evil?? he asked. I paused. I?d been around pure evil before. I had just never followed pure evil down to the basement, and when I got there, I expected to be greeted by the grinning ricti of other journalists who?d pursued Zeke?s story and wound up preserved in pickle jars. But no: It was just a basement, and Zeke couldn?t find the photographs of the evil he had done in Africa. He did find, however, a big cardboard box full of the plays and screenplays he?d been writing since he got out of the Army, some of them faded with the passage of time. The wind was making noises. The noises were making Zeke jumpy. He was sitting up on the couch, doing what he was always doing -- watching Fox News on the big-screen TV and revealing his secrets. On this night, however, he was saying that everything had changed since he?d married Baby Doll. ?I have something to lose now, man,? he said, by which he meant Baby Doll, by which he also meant his house, his job, his life. He had told me about everything. He had told me about Africa, about Afghanistan and Iraq. He?d also told me about the Philippines, about Indonesia, about Somalia, about Yemen, about Angola, about Nigeria, about Guatemala, about Haiti and El Salvador and Honduras. He had continued raising the stakes on his secrets until they all bled together. Indeed, he really had only one secret, because over the last twenty years he?d had only one job. He did not really work for Blackwater, and he did not really serve in the French Foreign Legion, and he wasn?t a missionary for World Vision, and he wasn?t a diplomatic observer for the State Department. Those jobs were just covers for his real job, which was something he called ?direct sanction.? No matter where he was, he worked for his handler, and his handler paid him to kill people. He was, in his words, ?a national-security asset,? ?one of the best in the world at what I do? -- a one-man death squad. He had revealed his secrets in order to survive them, but now he thought he had made a mistake. He wondered if I had endangered him, and if it was the revelation, not the secrets, that would be impossible to survive. I told him that he had no choice now but to go all the way -- that going public was the only way he could protect himself. ?Do you mean testify?? he said, like a snake handler who had fallen from his trance and realized what he had been holding. ?No way, man. I have nightmares about Charles Schumer asking me questions. You ever raise your right hand? I have, and it?s a life-altering experience. My mother couldn?t stand it....? Suddenly he stood up. The wind had gusted, and there was a noise. He went to the refrigerator and came back with a handgun. He cocked it and went to the garage door, peeking outside while standing next to the jamb, his back pressed against the wall. When he returned to the couch, he did not uncock his gun. Instead, he started transferring it from hand to hand and told me that I didn?t know who I was dealing with: ?If they want to get you, they get you. Or they don?t get me. They get Baby Doll. They rape her, they sodomize her. It?s called a break-in. Random violence. But it?s not, and I know it?s not. So no fucking way. I?m not going to get my Baby Doll raped and sodomized so Charles Schumer and Hillary Clinton can make political hay!? His handlers were real. Zeke was talking to them on the phone. I was sitting across the table from him. It was the next day, and we were having breakfast at a restaurant in South Haven. At 9:30, he picked up the cell phone and dialed. He said, ?Clark, William,? and then a number, 553. Then he said what sounded like a last name. And then he was talking to his handler, whom he called Larry. He was telling Larry that he was sitting with the writer from Esquire. He cringed at his handler?s response. Then, as he explained later, he was transferred immediately to his handler?s subordinate, who read him his secrecy oath and threatened him with the penitentiary. The subordinate?s name was Kyle. Zeke complained about the way he was being treated by Kyle, then he began complaining about the way he was being treated by Larry. When he was finally transferred back to Larry, he said this: ?Hey, Larry, thanks for the kick in the balls.? He said that if he ever saw Kyle in the street, he?d ?take him out,? and then he promptly apologized for the threat. He hung up, and when he called back, a secretary answered and told him that Larry was at a meeting. ?I just talked to him two minutes ago,? he said, and she put him through. ?Larry, how much longer do I have to be in purgatory?? he said, and accused Kyle of selling him out years earlier. His tone softened after that; he said, ?Hey, I?ll do it, I?m a good soldier,? and hung up. He finished his coffee but not his eggs, and when we got back to the car, he said, ?I fucked myself. I stayed in too long, now they have their hooks in me. I have a new house, a new wife, a new job, and it?s all fake. They can punch through it whenever they want to, and they just did. The thing is, you don?t know what they can do -- so they can do anything. If you ever hear that I?ve committed suicide, investigate the hell out of it.? A few days later, the phone in my home office rang at eight o?clock in the morning. I didn?t run to get it, though I knew it was Zeke. All that week I?d been on the phone with him, trying to get him to go public with his story, trying to convince him to allow me to use his name. He kept saying that he was going away. He was going back to Afghanistan. He was taking a job with a company that provided security for firms trying to do business in Kabul. He was leaving in January and didn?t know when or if he was going to be back. He hadn?t told Baby Doll, he said, then asked: ?Do you think she?s going to be mad?? When the phone rang, I knew I?d lost him. And sure enough, when I checked the message, this is what it said: ?Hi, Tom, this is Zeke. Hey man, I couldn?t sleep at all last night, thinking about this story and stuff. And I gotta tell you, man, I have nothing to do with Iraq or Afghanistan, I have no operational knowledge of Iraq and Afghanistan, I have no knowledge of any operational plans that have taken place in Iraq or Afghanistan, there?s no record of me ever being in Afghanistan or Iraq, I?m a nonentity, I just don?t exist in any of that kind of thing, I have nothing to do with Iraq or Afghanistan. Anything else is fine, but I have no knowledge of, there?s no witnesses, there?s nothing that ties me to Iraq or Afghanistan, never been to Iraq or Afghanistan, I just don?t have anything to do with that, I can?t have anything to do with that, and I?m sorry, I don?t want to have anything to do with my name at all with Iraq or Afghanistan, I don?t exist in that arena, never have, never will, and I just had a sleepless night last night, so I wanted to call and tell you that I don?t know anything about Iraq or Afghanistan and never have been and never will. I hope you?re okay, your family?s okay. I just had to tell you that. So. Thanks, Tom. Bye-bye.? Was it a denial or a confirmation? Was it the lie that told the truth or the truth that told the lie? I called Blackwater, and it was exactly as Zeke had foretold: A spokeswoman said there was no such thing as a ?designated marksman? for Blackwater: ?It?s not a term we would use, because all our missions are defensive.? She confirmed that a William E. Clark had worked for Blackwater in Louisiana in the wake of Katrina, but that he was ?never, ever, ever in Iraq or Afghanistan for us. He was never there on a Blackwater contract.? And then she said, ?My understanding is also that he is prone to give false information and is not to be considered a trustworthy source.? Blackwater, of course, had an interest in proving him a liar, since he?d come home from Louisiana and told his wife and son that he?d killed someone there. Zeke was still married to Linda then. He was still talking to Rick. He pulled both of them aside and told them that some dope addict made a play for the narcotics in storage, and he?d shot him. It wasn?t something he was proud of, because it wasn?t clean. It wasn?t precise. He?d shot him in the dark, and he?d hit him without killing him. The addict died eventually, but still. He was pretty shaken up about it, Rick said -- and that?s what gave the story its legitimacy. Rick had grown up with his father?s stories. He?d come to doubt a lot of them, but there were certain ones he believed, because his father wasn?t playing the hero. Ever since Rick was a little boy, his father had told him stories about Vietnam -- but the story he believed was the one where the Vietnamese captured and broke him. Why, Rick thought, would someone tell a story like that if it wasn?t true? What kind of man would try to make you believe what he was ashamed of? Dennis Collins met William Clark in El Salvador in the mid-nineties. He will not say what he was doing there; he is, he says, prohibited from saying what he was doing there. All he will say is that he was there, and that when he was there, he met William Clark, who called himself Zeke. They were in El Salvador for different reasons, he says, but they became friends, and when they came home, Collins started getting Zeke work. Collins was associated with Nuclear Security Services Corporation, or NSSC. It provided security training for nuclear facilities, and it employed a lot of former operators. Zeke was a perfect fit, because he was so enthusiastic, such a great motivator and storyteller -- when clients gave their evaluations, ?the number-one guy they talk about is Zeke,? Collins said. Zeke?s success with NSSC led him to find work with DynCorp, the security company that provided manpower for the Kosovo Diplomatic Observer Mission in 1998. And his success with DynCorp led him to find work with a company that contracted with the Department of Energy to provide assault teams -- adversary teams, as they?re known -- that would stage mock attacks on nuclear facilities for the purpose of exposing their vulnerabilities. Zeke never would have gotten any of these jobs without Dennis Collins -- Collins was a critical reference -- nor would he have gotten the security-manager job at Palisades, for it was one of Collins?s associates who recommended Zeke for the position. Zeke called Collins ?my best friend in the business,? and Collins knew that Zeke was struggling at Palisades. Zeke was a ?shooter and operator,? he said, and like a lot of shooters and operators, he was having trouble accepting that he had become ?a desk jockey.? That was why Zeke was so desperate to get to Iraq. He and Collins had gone to Camp Pendleton, California, for counterterrorism training about five or six years ago, and Collins had seen how some of the young marines had responded to Zeke?s stories -- they were enthralled. A few years later, when they went back, everything had changed. There was a war on. Now there were young marines who had been to Fallujah, and when Zeke told his stories, they were like, You don?t know what you?re talking about, old man. Zeke couldn?t take it. He became obsessed with getting to Iraq, but then, during one of the training exercises, he hit his head against a wall and passed out. People thought he was playing around, but he wasn?t. He had a neck injury that occasionally cut the flow of blood to his brain. And so he washed out. Nobody?s going to hire a guy with an injury like that. ?Believe me, he?s not going to Iraq,? Collins said. ?Because if he does go, he?s either going to get killed or get somebody else killed. But it?s tough, because he?s having a real hard time. If you ask me, what happened at Camp Pendleton cracked him.? Last October, Zeke ?ew to Washington, D.?C., and gave a presentation to the Department of Homeland Security. He went with one of his superiors from Palisades, and with Al DiBrito and Mike Moll, the agents from the FBI and the DHS who had become part of Zeke?s Viper team. That?s what the presentation was about: Viper. It was Zeke?s brainchild, and now he was proposing to create Viper teams at every nuclear power plant in the United States. The presentation was attended by Craig Conklin, the head of the DHS?s nuclear-hazards branch, as well as by other representatives from the FBI and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission -- ?about ten people in all,? Conklin says. Zeke did most of the talking and was impressive enough for some of the participants to consider Viper training as a ?best practice,? in which case Zeke would be able to take his program nationwide. Zeke got shot in Kosovo. Everybody knew about it: He told some of the shooters and operators he?d met when he was staging the mock assaults on nuclear plants. It was part of Zeke?s legend. He?d gone to Kosovo for DynCorp, which had contracted to provide personnel for the State Department?s Diplomatic Observer Mission. He had a diplomatic passport. But he says he was also there as a cover. He was an operative whose mission was to determine the war-fighting capacity of the Kosovo Liberation Army. He would hike into KLA camps with not much more than a box of Marlboros and a medical kit. He should have been shot, but people would line up as soon as they saw him. He would spend all day stitching wounds and get the information he needed. Then he did get shot, and the only thing that saved him was his flak jacket. When he got home, he showed Linda the sweater with the hole in it. Did she believe him? Well, she loved him, she said. And besides, she?d seen the sweater; she?d put her finger in the hole. That was the first thing Linda Clark said to me, the first thing she wanted me to know. They were divorced, but she still loved him. She had known him for so long that being married to him ?was almost like raising another child.? He used to ride motorcycles with her first husband, and when she was divorced and became a single mother, he protected her. ?He always made me feel secure,? she said. They were baptized together before they were married. But around 1984, he lost his job as a policeman in Visalia, California, for having an affair with another officer?s wife, and they struggled. They struggled financially, as he wrote the six novels that never got published and wrote the stack of plays and screenplays that never got produced -- well, one did, at a community theater. And he did make a movie. Did I know that he made a movie? He did, he really did, in the early nineties, with a friend?s workmen?s-compensation check. But of course it never went anywhere, and what kept Bill and Linda afloat, she said, was Bill?s job as a chimney sweep. For twelve years, from ?84 to ?96, he worked as a chimney sweep in his hometown of Tulare, down the road from Visalia. ?I?ll bet Bill didn?t tell you about that, did he?? No, I said, he didn?t. It?s not on his résumé, either, those twelve years representing the gap only his handler could explain. But wait a second -- didn?t he go by Zeke? ?Oh, I don?t know where he got that,? she said. ?Everybody I know calls him Bill. But then he went on that trip to El Salvador and everything changed. He was always big into skydiving, and though we didn?t have a lot of money, he wanted to go skydiving with the El Salvadoran army. I let him go, because it was so important to him, and that?s where he met Dennis Collins. And when he came home, he wanted me to call him Zeke. I couldn?t do it. He?s still Billy to me.? Their finances got better after that, Linda said, because Bill started doing work for Dennis, and the work for Dennis led to work for the DOE, and the work for the DOE led to work for security companies like Vance and Blackwater. What got worse was Bill?s...well, his problem, Linda said. He has to make himself more interesting than he is. He can?t bear to be just plain old Bill Clark from Tulare, California, because plain old Bill Clark had dyslexia, and really suffered in school.... ?Did he ever play football?? I asked. ?Junior varsity,? she said. ?He was too small for varsity.? Well, was he ever in Afghanistan or Iraq? I asked. ?Oh, heavens no,? Linda said. ?He told you that?? ?He also told me that he was in the Horn of Africa with the French Foreign Legion.? ?Well, he did go to Nigeria, back in the early eighties. A Nigerian minister came to Tulare, and Bill went to Nigeria with him as a missionary. He didn?t like it very much, though. He came back in about two or three weeks.? She said this without malice. Indeed, she was praying for him to see the error of his ways, so that their marriage could be repaired and they could reconcile. She still loved the man. She still spoke to him. As a matter of fact, she had spoken to him just the day before, and he was saying that he wanted to break off his engagement with Terri so that he could remarry Linda. ?Linda, I hate being the one to tell you this, but he and Terri aren?t engaged. They?re married.? ?Oh, my God,? Linda Clark said. An official at one of Zeke?s former employers confirmed that he did have a Q clearance with the DOE, which gave him access to top-secret information at nuclear plants. But when two officials with access to Department of Defense databases -- one in the DOD, the other a screener for a private security company -- checked Zeke?s TS/SCI clearance, they found no record of William E. Clark having DOD ?eligibility or access.? That is, they found no record of William E. Clark holding the high-level DOD security clearance he included on his résumé at Palisades Nuclear. He had never talked about his life before, Zeke said, and he was always disdainful of people who did. He was always disdainful of both the ?cowboys? who liked to brag and the ?wannabes? who were endemic to the world of covert operations. Real operators, he said, never talked about their exploits when they got together. They talked about their wives, they talked about their families, they talked about how much they missed home. It was strange, then, that about seven years ago he held the ultimate wannabe job -- he was an auxiliary cop in Kingsburg, California, an unpaid position that called on him only to ?assist officers on duty.? And it was even stranger when, last year, he called a cop he knew from Kingsburg named Kevin Pendley. ?He tried to recruit me to go to Iraq,? Pendley says. ?He called out of the blue. He said he?d been over there for Blackwater and that he?d just gotten back. He said he killed sixty-nine people.? Rick Clark knew instinctively that his father had remarried. He had, in fact, warned his mother that his father had remarried, although he hadn?t spoken to his father in a year and a half. It was just something he felt, from a lifetime of experience -- the familiar vibrations of his father?s falsehoods. ?He?s living a movie in which he?s the flawed but sympathetic central character, a really deeply interesting central character,? Rick said. ?He?s smart enough to show his flaws, because when he does, he becomes believable, and you become an accomplice in the movie of his life.? Was Rick one of Bill Clark?s accomplices? ?I grew up with the mythology and to some extent defined myself by it,? he said. ?One of the reasons I went into the military was to carry on the tradition.? Rick is thirty-five now, about to leave the Air Force, and he doesn?t consider himself an accomplice anymore. ?If my father told me the sun was shining, I wouldn?t believe him -- even if I lived in the next town over, for God?s sake.? But he did want to know one thing. He wanted me to find out the truth of one story, because he?d been hearing it since he could remember and had built his life around it. He wanted to know if Bill Clark had been a Ranger and had been in Vietnam. ?I really need to know that, Tom,? he said. ?Because I need to know whether everything has been a lie.? There was no incident on Zeke?s first day at Palisades; no threat to throw his boss out the window. That?s what the senior manager said, the same one who had told me that Zeke had gone to Afghanistan looking for a high-velocity round between the eyes. When I told him that Zeke had never actually been to Afghanistan or Iraq, he said, ?He wasn?t?? And then he said, ?You know, I?m really glad you called, because he?s been trying to get me to quit my job and go into business with him. He said that I had the know-how, and he had all the contacts from his years in covert operations.? The movie was called Team Dragon. Bill Clark got the idea for it when a B-movie company came to Tulare to reshoot some footage on the cheap, and he went out to get some stunt work. He thought it looked pretty easy, making a movie, so he started watching movies obsessively on his VCR, with a notebook in his lap. When he felt ready to direct, he began shooting bits of a script he?d written, featuring guys he knew from Tulare. One of them, Ken Washman, was bothered by the suspicion that if what Clark was shooting ever did become a movie, he wouldn?t get paid a dime, and so he began asking Clark what it would cost to get cut in -- to make a real movie whose profits he could share. Clark came up with a figure, which happened to be the amount of the check Washman had recently received in compensation for a workplace accident. And so, in 1990 and 1991, Bill Clark shot Team Dragon in and around Tulare, with Ken Washman as his star. It was about a Vietnam veteran who had to face his demons when he found out that the NVA was selling opium in California, and it cost $25,000 to make. ?My wife wasn?t real happy about it,? Washman says now. ?She didn?t really like me spending that much time with Bill Clark, and she wanted me to put the money in a piece of property or something. I guess I would have had a better return on my investment if I did, but I wouldn?t have had as much fun as I did running around and shooting guns out there in Tulare. And it was a real movie, you know. We had a premiere at the Elks club in Tulare. Bill showed it and said, ?Well, Ken, what do you think?? ?I said, ?Well, Bill -- it?s a movie.? There was not a whole lot much more you could say about it, other than that.? Zeke didn?t kill anyone in Louisiana. A former marine who was on Zeke?s Blackwater team said that no one even discharged his weapon, because it was well known that if you did, Blackwater would fire your ass. Besides, they were in the sticks. They weren?t in New Orleans. It was quiet where they were, really sort of boring, except when Zeke told the story that a gang was coming to get at the narcotics. Even then, the former marine listened with half an ear. That guy was always telling stories. The volunteer from the shelter in Louisiana received a call one day from Linda Clark. Linda told the volunteer that she?d been speaking to the Lord, and the Lord had instructed her to forgive the volunteer for breaking up her marriage to Bill. By this time, the volunteer was living in fear of the man she knew as Zeke, and so she asked Linda the one thing she really wanted to know: Is he dangerous?Oh, I don?t think so, Linda said. But what about the video footage he sent? the volunteer asked. What about the footage of him executing people?And that?s when the volunteer found out about Team Dragon. That?s when she found out about everything, including the fact that he had never been to Afghanistan or Iraq. She was hoping that she could keep the affair from her husband, but she wound up confessing it all, and once she did, he forgave her, as the victim of a skilled predator. ?So I dodged a bullet,? she told me. ?And so did you.? It was embarrassing to think of it that way, of course -- embarrassing to think that Zeke had singled me out the way he?d singled out so many others, embarrassing to think that I was one of his victims. ?Hey, look at it this way,? the volunteer said. ?At least you didn?t have sex with him.? The old soldier was surprised to hear Zeke?s name when I called him on the phone. ?William Clark from California?? he asked, and when I told him what I was calling about, he responded immediately. ?Well, if he?s the security manager at a nuclear plant, he bullshitted his way into it. He was like that as a teenager. He was one of the most grandiose, storytelling individuals I?ve ever met.? Indeed, in May 1975, the soldier had been arrested for the sake of one of Clark?s stories. At the time, the most famous mercenary in the world was a man named Michael Hoare, who had raised private armies in the Congo and the Seychelles. Clark said he had been a Ranger, but now, like the soldier, he was in the 34th Infantry. He and a friend told the soldier that they knew somebody who worked for Michael Hoare, and that Hoare was looking for new recruits. First, though, they had to prove that they were brave and that they were ruthless. And so one night, Clark convinced the soldier to throw a bomb at the window of the S&S Truck Stop. It bounced off the bulletproof glass and exploded in the parking lot. They were arrested, along with three others, and spent the night in jail, before their CO got them out the next morning. There was no friend they were defending; there was no FBI agent. There were only a bunch of ignorant kids beguiled by a shot at glory, and in the story the old soldier tells, ?I disassociated myself from William Clark as soon as I got back to the base.? So he was living it, even then -- the fantasy that has consumed his life, as well as the lives of everybody who has trusted him. Court records from McIntosh County indicate that there were no charges of attempted murder, as Zeke had said; the charge was ?criminal attempt,? and it was dropped when it came to the docket. His military records indicate that although he might have gone to Ranger School, he did not graduate, and although he was assigned to a Ranger battalion, he finished out his career in the 34th Infantry, with an undistinguished rank and without a Ranger tab. There was no career as a Green Beret, as he had told his son; nor had he ever served in Vietnam. The gooks had not broken him, but he had come damned close to breaking Rick, who, when I told him the military records con?rmed that he?d been lied to since he was four years old, said simply, ?I want to put my head through a wall.? When Zeke had the cell-phone conversation with his handlers in the restaurant, I knew that his story had only two possible outcomes, and that both were monstrous. If Larry and Kyle were real, then Zeke was an assassin in the employ of a secret governmental agency that had seen fit to give him a job at a nuclear plant just as he was starting to go crazy with guilt and shame. If they weren?t real, then Zeke was not just a liar; he was a liar who was willing to engage in complicated three-way public conversations with people who didn?t exist. He was a liar with an alias and fake passports, a liar who maintained extensive stocks of boarding passes and hotel-room keys, a liar who packed a duffel bag and kept it in his house in order to further the fiction that his next mission was one phone call away. He was a liar who conflated his lies with threats so that skepticism would be conflated with fear. He was a deranged liar, and he was the security manager of a nuclear plant on Lake Michigan. I have a pretty good idea of what the answer is. After all, Zeke told the volunteer the exact same things about the handler that he told me, with the exact same proviso: that this was the first time he had talked about him to another living soul. And Linda Clark said that when Zeke got phone calls from his girlfriends, he often told Linda that his handler was on the line, and that he had to take the call in private. There is no handler. There was no Larry or Kyle. And yet sometimes I find myself wishing that there were, because the alternative is harder to accept. In the four months I spent with Zeke, he told me exactly two signi?cant facts, two plain truths uncomplicated by falsehood and fantasy: first, that he was security manager of Palisades Nuclear. And second, that last October he had gone to Washington, D.?C., in the company of two federal agents and presented his vision of nuclear security to the head of the nuclear-hazards branch of the Department of Homeland Security. He was wondering if he should tell her. He was wondering if she would love him if he did. I urged him to. It was last December, and he had been married less than two weeks. I was saying goodbye to him for what turned out to be the final time, and I urged him to tell his new wife who he really was, so that he wouldn?t make the same mistakes he?d made with Linda. And then the phone rang. It was Baby Doll. He handed the phone to me, and I asked her why she?d married him. She told me that he was tall, that he was not fazed by her multiple sclerosis, and that he was, in her mind, ?a gentle protector. He?s afraid that if I found out what he did, I wouldn?t love him. But that?s not the part of him that I care about. The part that I care about is the courageous part, the part that came to Michigan to start a new life without knowing a soul. The rest -- he did what he had to do, what he was asked to do for his country. Others did it, too, and are still doing it. I know he has bad dreams about it. But I want to hold him through his bad dreams. He told me when we first met that we?re both wounded souls, and he?s right. But that?s why I love him.? It is easy to think of lying as a victimless crime, akin to storytelling, akin to performance -- after all, wasn?t Zeke performing when he was speaking to his handlers? All those unpublished novels, all those unproduced plays and screenplays; and now, at fifty-three, the chimney sweep finds his true métier, telling tales to a complicit reporter. And yet his victims number more than those whose feelings he?s hurt, whose lives he?s wrecked. When I called Blackwater about William E. Clark, I asked if Blackwater prohibited its contractors from having sex with the people they were supposed to be protecting. ?What?? the spokeswoman answered, in disbelief. ?Yes. Of course. It?s the ?rst thing they?re prohibited from doing. It?s the worst thing they can do. Does that answer your question?? When I called DynCorp to see if William E. Clark was part of DynCorp?s Kosovo Mission -- he was, but he wasn?t shot; no diplomatic observers were -- the spokesman was chiefly concerned with Zeke?s claim that he was really in Kosovo for American intelligence. ?He?s saying DynCorp was his cover?? he said. ?You have to understand -- that?s the kind of claim that can put all our guys in jeopardy.? And when I called an FBI agent who until recently had been one of the chief liaisons between the bureau and the CIA, he listened to what I told him about Zeke, then said: ?Fuck this guy. Expose him. He?s an asshole. Guys like that make it much, much harder for the guys who are legit.? A story about a liar always turns out to be about one thing: He lied. Zeke says he doesn?t talk to his brothers anymore? He lied. Zeke says that he threatened a UPI photographer who took his picture in El Salvador? UPI says it never had a photographer in El Salvador at the time in question. And yet what haunts me are not Zeke?s lies but the truths he told, or tried to tell, from the moment I met him. He was confessing, after all, and though his confession was a failed one, the impulse behind it brought a psychological truth -- the momentum of a man unraveling -- to his most outrageous falsehoods. He said that he was a nobody. He said he lacked a moral firewall. He said he lied to his mother like he lied to everyone else. He said that his life was a fake. He said that he?d been a lot of people, and that he?d hurt a lot of people. He even said, at length, in a phone message, that he?d never been to Afghanistan or Iraq. I listened, but I didn?t believe him, because as invested as I was in telling his story, I was even more heavily invested in proving him a killer and not just a liar. I was aware, all along, that he was one or the other, but somehow I could not bear to think that he was just a liar, and neither could he. It was too shameful. So he said he was a killer instead, because he knew that somehow human sympathy extends to killing even as it ends at lying. He said that he was talking to me because he needed to burn his bridges; because he needed to be stopped; because he didn?t want to hurt any more people. I believed him then. I believe him now. In April, Palisades Nuclear was bought by another firm, and Zeke?s future status was unclear. He told a colleague at the plant that he was going abroad again. He said he had to go to Afghanistan to ?counsel? someone who had displeased the government. By ?counsel,? he meant ?kill,? and he asked if he could borrow the colleague?s gun. The colleague wondered why Zeke would want a gun, when he already had so many. ?Plausible deniability,? Zeke said. Find this article at: http://www.esquire.com/features/mercenary0607 ***************************************************************** 50 Guardian: Comment is free: The new nuclear risk guardian.co.uk/commentisfree > Joschka Fischer Global disarmament must start at the top - with the US and Russia. But first we need to update the non-proliferation treaty Joschka Fischer March 31, 2008 11:30 AM | Printable version Humans love to suppress abstract dangers. They react only after they get their fingers burned. In handling nuclear risks, however, we can hardly get away with such childlike behaviour. To begin with, the old system of nuclear deterrence, which has survived particularly in the US and Russia since the cold war's end, still involves lots of risks and dangers. While the international public largely ignores this fact, the risks remain. To be sure, in the 1990's the US and Russia reduced their nuclear arsenals from 65,000 to approximately 26,000 weapons. But this number is still almost unimaginable and beyond any rational level needed for deterrence. Moreover, there are another 1,000 nuclear weapons in the hands of other nuclear states. A second cause for worry is that the world is poised to enter a new nuclear age that threatens to be even more dangerous and expensive than the cold war era of mutually assured destruction. Indeed, the outlines of this new nuclear age are already visible: the connection between terrorism and nuclear weapons; a nuclear-armed North Korea; the risk of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East triggered by Iran's nuclear program; a new definition of state sovereignty as "nuclear sovereignty", accompanied by a massive increase in the number of small and medium-sized nuclear states; possible collapse of public order in nuclear Pakistan; the illegal proliferation of military nuclear technology; the legal proliferation of civilian nuclear technology and an increase in the number of "civilian" nuclear states; the nuclearisation of space, triggering an arms race among large nuclear powers. Important political leaders, especially in the two biggest nuclear powers, the US and Russia, know today's existing risks and tomorrow's emerging ones all too well. Yet nothing is being done to control, contain, or eliminate them. On the contrary, the situation is worsening. Vital pillars of the old arms-control and anti-proliferation regime have either been destroyed - as was the case with the anti-ballistic missile (ABM) treaty - or substantially weakened, as with the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT). Responsibility for this lies largely with the Bush administration, which, by terminating the ABM treaty, not only weakened the international control systems for nuclear weapons, but also sat on its hands when confronted with the NPT's imminent collapse. At the beginning of the 21st century, proliferation of military nuclear technology is one of the major threats to humanity, particularly if this technology falls into terrorists' hands. The use of nuclear weapons by terrorists would not only result in a major humanitarian tragedy, but also would most likely move the world beyond the threshold for actually waging a nuclear war. The consequences would be horrific. Nearly equally worrisome is the nuclear redefinition of state sovereignty because it will not only lead to a large number of small, politically unstable nuclear powers, but will also increase the risk of proliferation at the hands of terrorists. Pakistan would, most likely, no longer be an isolated case. An international initiative for the renewal and improvement of the international control regime, led by both big nuclear powers, is urgently needed to meet these and all other risks of the new nuclear age. For, if disarmament is to become effective, the signal must come from the top - the US and Russia. Here the commitment to disarmament, as agreed in the NPT, is of prime importance. The NPT - a bedrock of peace for more than three decades - is based on a political agreement between nuclear and non-nuclear states: the latter abstain from obtaining nuclear weapons while the former destroy their arsenals. Unfortunately, only the first part of this agreement was realised (though not completely), while the second part still awaits fulfilment. The NPT remains indispensable and needs urgent revision. However, this central pillar of international proliferation control is on the brink of collapse. The most recent review conference in New York, in May 2005, ended virtually without any result. The essential defect of the NPT is now visible in the nuclear dispute between Iran and the United Nations Security Council: the treaty permits the development of all nuclear components indispensable for military use - particularly uranium enrichment - so long as there is no outright nuclear weapons program. This means that in emerging nuclear countries only one single political decision is required to "weaponise" a nuclear program. This kind of "security" is not sufficient. Another controversial issue also has also come to the fore in connection with the current nuclear conflict with Iran: discrimination-free access to nuclear technology. Solving this problem will require the internationalisation of access to civilian nuclear technology, along with filling the security gap under the existing NPT and substantially more far-reaching monitoring of all states that want to be part of such a system. Leaders around the world know the dangers of a new nuclear age; they also know how to minimise them. But the political will to act decisively is not there, because the public does not regard nuclear disarmament and arms control as a political priority. This must change. Nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation are not questions of the past. They need to be addressed today if they are not to become the most dangerous threats tomorrow. In cooperation with Project Syndicate, 2008. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007. Registered in England and Wales. No. 908396 Registered office: Number 1 Scott Place, Manchester M3 3GG ***************************************************************** 51 Thaindian News: Nuclear reactors in developing nations may cause security and proliferation risks - Indians in Thailand London, March 14 (ANI): The US government is continuing with its plans to design small nuclear reactors for deployment in developing countries, despite ongoing fears about security and proliferation risks. According to a report in New Scientist, the Bush administration has already ear-marked 20 million dollars in its 2009 budget toward the US Department of Energy’s efforts to design nuclear power plants in the 250-to-500 megawatt range as part of its Global Nuclear Energy Program (GNEP). These nuclear reactors are far more affordable and practical for developing nations than the typical 1,300-megawatt commercial light-water reactor. This is because these nations have smaller power grids and less well-developed technical infrastructures. GNEP, which now includes 21 member countries, hopes to begin construction of its first reactor in a country currently without nuclear power in 2015, saying the plants will provide a clean, safe source of electricity. “These will be deployed in a responsible way that is safe and secure and offers the lowest possible risk for proliferation,” said Daniel Ingersoll of GNEP and the US Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory. According to the GNEP, countries that build the reactors would have to agree to use nuclear power for civilian purposes only and to forego uranium enrichment and reprocessing activities that can be used to develop nuclear weapons. Nations with established nuclear capacity would supply fuel and collect spent material for reprocessing to ensure no fuel went missing. “Fourth generation” reactors could be built with a sealed load of fuel that lasts the lifetime of the reactor. But Elena Sokova of the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in California, US, is sceptical. “At this point, there are no proliferation-proof reactors,” said Sokova. “If a country develops a reprocessing program, they then have the ability to turn the fuel into the plutonium needed to make a nuclear bomb,” she added. According to Sokova, the GNEP plans may burden developing countries with challenges and responsibilities they are unprepared for. “If you are start pushing this technology, many countries are not ready for it in terms of highly trained personnel, maintenance, and security against terrorist threats,” she said. Countries worried about relying on others for fuel may want to develop reprocessing capabilities of their own, she added. o Grid-appropriate reactors to power developing nations (March 13, 2008) - 63% Match o US takes nuke energy research into virtual zone (November 27, 2007) - 50% Match o Task force on India’s nuclear stand did not review 123-agreement, says Pranab (November 22, 2007) - 50% Match o IAEA report says nuke power as a prominent energy source will continue for decades (November 14, 2007) - 49% Match o Nuclear power renaissance is just a myth: report (November 26, 2007) - 48% Match o N-deal would help India export its small reactors: Anil Kakodkar (November 14, 2007) - 48% Match o India, China will outpace other countries with the help of nuke power by 2027: IAEA official (November 14, 2007) - 47% Match o Government plans to exploit uranium, thorium reserves (March 14, 2008) - 46% Match o Pachauri supports India’s nuclear power quest (January 6, 2008) - 45% Match o New power plants might cannibalize energy produced by earlier nuclear power plants (March 5, 2008) - 44% Match ***************************************************************** 52 Moscow Times: The New Nuclear Risks Friday, April 4, 2008. Issue 3876. Page 08. By Joschka Fischer The Moscow Times welcomes letters to the editor. Letters for publication should be signed and bear the signatory's address and telephone number. Letters to the editor should be sent by fax to (7-495) 232-6529, by e-mail to oped@imedia.ru, or by post. The Moscow Times reserves the right to edit letters. Humans love to suppress abstract dangers. They react only after they get their fingers burned. In handling nuclear risks, however, we can hardly get away with such childlike behavior. To begin with, the old system of nuclear deterrence, which has survived particularly in the United States and Russia since the Cold War's end, still involves lots of risks and dangers. While the international public largely ignores this fact, the risks remain. To be sure, in the 1990s the United States and Russia reduced their nuclear arsenals from 65,000 to around 26,000 weapons. But this number is still almost unimaginable and beyond any rational level needed for deterrence. Moreover, there are another 1,000 nuclear weapons in the hands of other nuclear states. A second cause for worry is that the world is poised to enter a new nuclear age that threatens to be even more dangerous and expensive than the Cold War era of mutually assured destruction. Indeed, the outlines of this new nuclear age are already visible: • The connection between terrorism and nuclear weapons; • a nuclear-armed North Korea; • the risk of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East triggered by Iran's nuclear program; • a new definition of state sovereignty as "nuclear sovereignty," accompanied by a massive increase in the number of small and medium-sized nuclear states; • a possible collapse of public order in nuclear Pakistan; • the illegal proliferation of military nuclear technology; • the legal proliferation of civilian nuclear technology and an increase in the number of "civilian" nuclear states, implying military proliferation risks; • the nuclearization of space, triggering an arms race among large nuclear powers. Important political leaders, especially in the two biggest nuclear powers, the United States and Russia, know today's existing risks and tomorrow's emerging ones all too well. Yet nothing is being done to control, contain or eliminate them. On the contrary, the situation is worsening. Vital pillars of the old arms-control and anti-proliferation regime have either been destroyed -- as was the case with the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty -- or substantially weakened, as with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Responsibility for this lays largely with the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush which, by terminating the ABM Treaty, not only weakened the international control systems for nuclear weapons, but also sat on its hands when confronted with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty's imminent collapse. At the beginning of the 21st century, proliferation of military nuclear technology is one of the major threats to humanity, particularly if this technology falls into terrorists' hands. The use of nuclear weapons by terrorists would not only result in a major humanitarian tragedy, but also would most likely move the world beyond the threshold for actually waging a nuclear war. The consequences would be a nightmare. Nearly equally worrisome is the nuclear redefinition of state sovereignty, because it will not only lead to a large number of small, politically unstable nuclear powers, but will also increase the risk of proliferation among terrorists. Pakistan would, most likely, no longer be an isolated case. An international initiative for the renewal and improvement of the international control regime, led by both big nuclear powers, is urgently needed to meet these and all other risks of the new nuclear age. For if disarmament is to become effective, the signal must come from the top --the United States and Russia. Here, the willingness of nuclear powers to implement their commitment to disarmament, as agreed in the nonproliferation treaty, is of prime importance. The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty -- a bedrock of peace for more than three decades -- is based on a political agreement between nuclear states, which are committed to destroy their arsenals, and non-nuclear states, which are committed to abstain from obtaining nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, only the first part of this agreement was realized (though not completely), while the second part still awaits fulfillment. The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty remains indispensable and needs urgent revision. But this central pillar of international proliferation control is on the brink of collapse. The essential defect of the nonproliferation treaty is now visible in the nuclear dispute between Iran and the United Nations Security Council. The treaty permits the development of all nuclear components indispensable for military use -- particularly uranium enrichment -- so long as there is no outright nuclear weapons program. This means that, in emerging nuclear countries, only one single political decision is required to "weaponize" a nuclear program. This kind of "security" is not sufficient. Another controversial issue also has also come to the fore in connection with the current nuclear conflict with Iran: discrimination-free access to nuclear technology. Solving this problem will require the internationalization of access to civilian nuclear technology, along with filling the security gap under the existing Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and substantially more far-reaching monitoring of all states that want to be part of such a system. Leaders around the world know the dangers of a new nuclear age. They also know how to minimize them. But the political will to act decisively is not there, because the public does not regard nuclear disarmament and arms control as a political priority. This must change. Nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation are not questions of the past. They need to be addressed today if they are not to become the most dangerous threats tomorrow. Joschka Fischer, Germany's foreign minister and vice chancellor from 1998 to 2005, led Germany's Green Party for nearly 20 years. © Project Syndicate. © Copyright 2006. The Moscow Times. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 53 FT.com: UK - Taiwan disputes US version of nuclear fuses story Financial Times FT.com By Kathrin Hille in Taipei, Richard McGregor in Beijing,and Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington Published: March 27 2008 02:00 | Last updated: March 27 2008 02:00 Taiwan yesterday disputed Pentagon claims that it had notified the US of an accidental shipment of nuclear missile components more than a year after the parts had arrival. The Pentagon revealed on Tuesday that the US had mistakenly sent electrical fuses for intercontinental ballistic missiles to Taiwan in 2006. Defence officials said Taiwan informed the US of the mistaken shipment only earlier this year. * © Copyright The Financial Times Ltd 2008. "FT" and "Financial ***************************************************************** 54 Times Daily: Man indicted for making car bomb threat at nuclear plant | TimesDaily.com | | Florence, AL The Associated Press DOTHAN, Ala. Last Updated:April 01. 2008 7:17AM Federal authorities say a Houston County man is under federal indictment for threatening to drive a car bomb into Farley Nuclear Plant. 43-year-old Paul Vincze of Cottonwood allegedly made the threat and another by telephone on February 18th after security guards would not allow him to visit his ex-wife, who is employed at the facility. The indictment charges Vincze with false information and hoaxes. He also faces a state charge of making terrorist threats. Vincze has remained in custody since his arrest February 19th. The indictment was returned in mid-March. The Farley plant is on the Chattahoochee River near Dothan. Tuscaloosa News | The Gadsden Times | Tide Sports © Copyright 2008 TimesDaily. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 55 AFP: Colombia says uranium find points to FARC's dangerous ambition Demonstrators hold a huge Colombian flag during a march to protest against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia 8 hours ago BOGOTA (AFP) — Colombia's FARC rebels may have intended to use low-grade uranium in a "dirty bomb" to bill themselves as international terrorists, the government said Thursday after announcing it found a stash of the radioactive material. The Colombian Defense Ministry said 30 kilograms (66 pounds) of uranium were found along a roadside in a Bogota slum after two rebels tipped authorities to their whereabouts. On Tuesday, a laboratory said a sample it analyzed was depleted uranium. The find confirmed earlier government reports that the rebels were looking to buy uranium, after computer files seized in a rebel camp inside Ecuador yielded messages to that effect. The files were captured in a Colombian cross-border raid on March 1. Armed with the computer evidence, Colombian Vice President Francisco Santos, a few days later at the UN Disarmament Conference in Geneva, accused the rebel group of seeking radioactive material "to make dirty weapons to destroy and terrorize." National Police Chief Oscar Naranjo said "FARC are taking crucial steps in the world of terrorism to make themselves known as a great international, global aggressor. "We're not just talking about a domestic guerrilla group," he said, before calling for a "continental effort ... to neutralize FARC's terrorist activities." The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the country's largest rebel group, has been fighting to overthrow the Bogota government for more than 40 years, and recently struck a relationship with leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Chavez, who backed Ecuador in its week-long row with Colombia over the cross-border raid, sympathises with the FARC, which he claims have legitimate "belligerent status," instead of the terrorist label the United States, Europe and Colombia give it. After Colombia's cross-border raid, which according to Bogota was carried out with US intelligence support, Chavez accused the United States of provoking the crisis. On Thursday, Chavez during a visit to Brazil dismissed the uranium find, and implicitly referring to the United States warned that "there are still some flames flickering (from the earlier crisis). "We're certain there are powerful interests wanting to destabilize our regions ... we're still getting statements ... provocations," he said, noting with irony that the information on the uranium stash had conveniently come from "that magical computer." The director of the Ingeominas laboratory, Mario Ballesteros, said a proper reading of the radioactive level of the seized uranium would come over the weekend, adding that the population was not at risk from the mere presence of depleted uranium. Depleted uranium can be used in a "dirty bomb" to disseminate cancer-causing radioactivity, although France's Institute of International and Strategic Relations Director Georges Le Guelte said: "Nobody really knows how efficient a device of that sort can be." The material is a residue of the enriching and reprocessing of uranium. It has a low-level of radioactivity and can be used to make missiles capable of penetrating armor and then bursting into flame. The two informants who led Colombian authorities to the uranium were close to a rebel leader known as "Belisario," who is also mentioned in the captured computer belonging to FARC's second-in-command Raul Reyes, said Armed Forces Commander General Freddy Padilla. Reyes was killed in the March 1 raid. A FARC statement issued after the raid dismissed Bogota's uranium allegations. "Only developed countries like the United States and others have the required conditions and technology to process uranium, and not a guerrilla group that is still fighting for the dignity of a people with rifles and even sticks," it said. Copyright © 2008 AFP. All rights reserved. More » ***************************************************************** 56 knoxnews.com: Dose reconstruction redux Frank Munger's Atomic City Underground I'm sure this is nowhere close to a record, but ORAU confirmed today it had received a seventh (7th) extension of its dose-reconstruction contract with NIOSH, which apparently is still considering the bids received on a new contract. The latest extension is good through May 31, said Oak Ridge Associated Universities spokeswoman Pam Bonee. The dose-reconstruction work supports NIOSH in the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Program. It appears that NIOSH is struggling with a decision on a new contract, atlhough Larry Elliott of NIOSH was unavailable for comment this afternoon. Oak Ridge Associated Universities performs the work in partnership with MJW Corp. and Dade Moeller & Associates. The radiation dose evaluations are used to determine whether sick workers and their families can collect from a fund set up by Congress to help cancer victims who worked at the nuclear weapons sites, including those in Oak Ridge. ORAU's original contract with NIOSH expired Sept. 11, 2007. It was extended to Oct. 5, then to Nov. 16, Nov. 30, Dec. 28, Feb. 15, March 28 and now May 31. Posted by Frank Munger on March 19, 2008 at 04:57 PM NIOSH/OCAS/ORAU has become a huge empire. The integrity of ORAU is questionable due to conflict of interest. Regardless of conflict of interest policy, the system is rife with it. Posted by: Rosemary Hoyt at March 20, 2008 12:26 AM How can any one with a brain do a DR accurately and refuse to put in all the information or refuse to get and put in and where records are contaminated and buried never to see light again say they can do an accurate calculation? All that's being done is giving these people (High Dollar)a job for already 8 years and continuing their existence to receive a pay check, ans screw the Sick Nuclear Workers with Cancers and other problems. These people don't even know if they were given a Dose Badge that had all the correct reading elements in it to register the proper readings for the area they were working in because all Badges weren't fitted with elements for all locations of their Plant Site for there were cold and hot badges and make up was not the same, and they don't have have the Badges to verify the readings are correct. There is no way possible to reconstruct a person's amount of Radiation that they received, PERIOD ! ! ! Posted by: Charles Saunders at March 20, 2008 09:39 AM © 2008 The E.W. Scripps Co. ***************************************************************** 57 Rocky Mountain News: Flats compensation case stirs lawmakers Rocky Flats Nuclear Workers Deceased worker's daughter's appeal strikes a chord By Laura Frank, Rocky Mountain News (Contact) Wednesday, April 2, 2008 Christopher Tomlinson / Special To The Rocky Loa Richards, left, and her daughter, Donna DeKruger, hold a photo of Warren Richards, who died of severe stomach cancer in 1991 at age 52 after working at Rocky Flats. * PDF: Letter to Secretaries Chao and Leavitt Donna DeKruger never intended to stir things up like this. Last month, she fired off a letter to her congressman and called up a newspaper reporter to tell her story - things she'd never done before. She had only intended to help her mother, the widow of a Rocky Flats nuclear weapons worker who got shut out of federal compensation when the government changed the rules midstream. Now, DeKruger might just wind up helping a lot more people. Tuesday, three Colorado congressmen - Democrats Mark Udall, John Salazar and Ed Perl mutter - sent a letter to the U.S. secretaries of Labor and Health lambasting their agencies for thwarting Congress' intent for the program. They cited the experience of DeKruger's family as an example. Members of a White House panel overseeing the program will discuss Thursday whether her family's case is proof that the new rules are making it harder for sick workers and their survivors to qualify for compensation. "I feel like Erin Brockovich," says DeKruger, who, like the heroine of movie fame, is blond, determined and now bent on helping others. "That's what the lady at the post office calls me now." 'Open and shut case' The congressmen's letter says, in part, that unnecessary steps have "added costs to the taxpayers and months of uncertainty to a claim that . . . should be an open and shut case." By changing the rules, it says, "it appears that the Department of Labor, once again, is attempting to deny proper compensation to the Cold War veterans who worked at Rocky Flats." A Health Department spokeswoman said the agency would respond to the letter. Labor spokesman Loren Smith said his department was committed to following the law. "We will continue to work . . . to ensure that Rocky Flats workers and their families have accurate information about eligibility and the claims process," Smith said. DeKruger's father, Warren Richards, made tools that created the plutonium spheres at the heart of America's atomic bombs. He died in 1991 at age 52 of stomach cancer. After Congress created a compensation program in 2000 to atone for lost lives and harmed health among nuclear weapons workers, DeKruger helped her mother apply, having watched her sell her farm and struggle with her own health after taking care of her dying husband. Twice in six years, the government said the family failed to prove a link between Richards' cancer and his work. Then, a few days before Christmas, the family learned that program officials in Denver had recommended they receive $300,000 compensation. But that changed again after Labor officials changed the rules. This latest controversy in an ongoing saga is over how Labor officials determine who deserves a fast track to compensation and who must endure a years-long process of trying to link their illness to their exposures. High-risk buildings To decide who gets on the fast track, Labor officials are relying on old work records to determine if employees were irradiated or, if unmonitored, worked in buildings where they were at high risk of irradiation. Among other issues, the new rules require that the employee spent at least 250 days in one of those buildings. In the case of Warren Richards, his work records show the tool engineer was not officially assigned to one of the high-risk buildings. But Richards' boss, Joe Farmer, told the Rocky Mountain News that Richards' job often required that he work in high-risk areas. "He would definitely have met that criteria" of 250 days in the plutonium buildings, Farmer said, "but it was never in the record." Furthermore, the congressmen say the law does not require 250 days in a specific building. Farmer planned to send the Labor Department a sworn statement about Richards' work situation this week. Critical flaw cited Rocky Flats workers and their advocates say the Richards case shows a critical flaw in the way Labor officials are deciding who gets compensation and who doesn't: The work records don't reflect what employees actually did. And not all employees or their survivors would be able to find someone such as Farmer who could swear to their work from nearly five decades ago. That's the situation in which Andrea Blocher finds herself. Blocher's father, Franklin Chilton, died in 1994 at age 59 of cancer that invaded his esophagus and stomach. But Blocher knows of no one still living who would know how many days her dad worked in specific buildings. Her mother, who also worked at Rocky Flats, might have been able to, but a brain tumor has left her memory sketchy. Like the Richards' case, Blocher's family was notified this month that a December recommendation for compensation was being rescinded. "This is so frustrating," said Blocher, of Franktown. Donna DeKruger has talked to Blocher and at least one other Denver-area family in a similar situation. She said she hopes her fight will make it easier for others. "How many people are out there and just have said enough is enough?" DeKruger said. "I hope this helps them, too." frankl@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5091 Donna DeKrueger, you rock! The government is behaving worse than the insurance company in "The Rainmaker." Everyone who worked at Rocky Flats should be covered without question. Posted by lcdrjjxant on April 2, 2008 at 6:59 a.m. (Suggest removal) Posted by vudumom on April 2, 2008 at 7:07 a.m. (Suggest removal) Absolutely agree! , kathyM. The way these people have been treated is disgusting. Everyone who worked at Rocky Flats should be compensated,without question. If the Labor Department thinks for one minute that anyone who worked there was not affected they should put radioactive materials throughout their own building and homes and see how comfortable they are working around it, bringing it home to their families and having their families live around the toxic materials. Then we will see who gets sick and deny them compensation saying they were just destined to get sick anyway. Posted by lcdrjjxant on April 2, 2008 at 7:08 a.m. (Suggest removal) The Salazar brothers "voted for", and got their own federal welfare payments. These bros pocketed $484K in federal farm subsidies, where they now pay the wages of their criminal illegal Mexican employees. The eyes of the Vatican, LA RAZA, Mexican gov., and LULAC, are smiling. I simply wanted to start a business where I could employ disabled military veterans, across all racial lines. Mucho thanks. Posted by ABlock35 on April 2, 2008 at 12:21 p.m. (Suggest removal) As former examiner inside at the Seattle EEOICP Office, I would like to share a story that still disgusts me today, because like many of you, I had a different perspective about the federal government before working there. It was fiscal year end and the Seattle Asst. Director Tracy Johnson called a meeting to tell us (examiners) that the Seattle EEOICP Office had 200 + Aging claims that we needed to get out the door by fiscal year end. From my notes, I quote " We have 200 + cases showing up on our Aging Lists, and I know that 99.9 % of those claims are denials, so I would like each examiner to pump out at least 4 RDs denials a day". The problem with that statement was how did she know that the all 200+ cases were denials? After all, it takes at least 1/2 the day for any examiner to go through one file, and since Asst. District Director is seldom in her office, I found that statement to be an arbitrary command to deny claims so that Seattle's stats would look the best in the US. I have been in contact with the Senator Salazar's Office and I have formally requested permission to speak, under oath, at the next EEOICP Hearing. I am awaiting his answer and will keep my many friends inside various DOE victims networks posted if my request has been granted. Today, my opinion of the federal government has changed and I now believe that the federal system has turned into a place where people get jobs because of the federal managers they know not because of the education, skills and experience necessary to apply the laws according to the true intent of Congress. The federal employee system has turned into a system of hiring friends of friends; great example: all high ups inside the Seattle EEOICP Office are friends of District Director, Christy Long (now in Denver). I have faith that the Senate will do the right thing by taking away federal employees qualified immunity, which will allow claimants to sue any federal employee who unjustly denies their claim. If this were a corporation, they would have already been sued, thus corrective acitons would have already been taken. Anne K. Block is a former federal examiner who worked for Christy Long ( now in Denver) at the Seattle DOL EEOICP Office, is a licensed WA Attorney, and a writer. Anne K. Block welcomes all letters and stories and can be reached at lifeisgood357@comcast.net Scripps Newspaper Group — Online © 2008 The E.W. Scripps Co. ***************************************************************** 58 Sydney Morning Herald: The stoic victims of the nuclear age - smh.com.au Robert McFarlane April 2, 2008 * Nuclear Devastation In The Former Soviet Union RUSSIANS say nuclear power is a smart hat for stupid people, says the Dutch photographer Robert Knoth. His exhibition Certificate No. 000358/ at the Australian Centre for Photography documents the effects of nuclear pollution - from weapons testing, fuel production to the 1986 Chernobyl disaster - on the stoic citizens of the former Soviet Union. The centrepiece of the exhibition and a book that accompanies it is a photograph of a Chernobyl victim called Anna Pesenko, but the main story lies elsewhere, Knoth says. He was speaking on a recent visit to Sydney. "Chernobyl wasn't strictly an accident," he maintains, "but an experiment that got out of control - they knew what kind of risks they were taking - that their nuclear power plants were unsafe and then … they just proceeded. "But in Kazakhstan over 7 million people were affected by Russia testing more than 400 nuclear weapons." His formal portrait of the Sultanat family, who still farm only kilometres from Lake Balapan, where more than 100 nuclear tests took place, shows people now afflicted by radiation sickness and birth defects. "Testing in Kazakhstan was very calculated," Knoth notes. "The old Gulag system under Stalin was comparable with what happened [there]." Knoth's serene portrait of the 15-year old tumour victim Pesenko dominates the exhibition and the accompanying book, produced in collaboration with the photographer's wife, the journalist Antoinette de Jong. The book's title refers to the number Pesenko was given as a victim of Chernobyl. "I was looking for an icon," Knoth admits, "someone really special. Many villages we visited were half empty … trying to make the best of a very bad situation … it wasn't uplifting. "But as soon as I entered Anna's house I knew she was the story I needed. But at the same time I just wanted to leave. The only reason I stayed is that without her it wouldn't have been the same book. "It took us two weeks to convince Anna's nurses to introduce us to her family - we spoke to them for a morning and explained what we wanted. And they agreed. But when I came to take her photograph I hardly dared enter the room. Then Anna became very relaxed … she was briefly without pain and enjoying the moment … and attention. That was when I shot the photo." As our conversation ends, Knoth makes a surprising admission. "When I walked on ground zero in Kazakhstan - where Russia's first nuclear bomb was detonated in 1949 … if someone had given me a red button and said one would go off safely and I could witness it - I would have been tempted. A nuclear explosion is quite beautiful in a macabre sort of way." Certificate No. 000358/ is at the ACP until April 26. * Nuclear Devastation In The Former Soviet Union ***************************************************************** 59 Newsday.com: 'Poisoned by Polonium' -- March 21, 2008 BY JOHN ANDERSON | Newsday Staff Writer Although a first-rate investigative documentary on its own, Andrei Nekrasov's "Poisoned by Polonium" also serves as a sequel to 2004's "Disbelief," in which the director made a rather indisputable case that the notorious 1999 Moscow apartment bombings were the work of Vladimir Putin and Russia's FSB (the heir to the KGB). In "Polonium," Nekrasov examines the 2006 London assassination - via sushi laced with radioactive Polonium 210 - of FSB whistle-blower Alexander "Sacha" Litvinenko, and indicts the Putin regime, using in-depth interviews with the victim and his wife, Marina, and building a solid, if circumstantial, murder case against the oligarchs of the contemporary Kremlin. Nekrasov's latest is both a work of journalism and cinema. His juxtaposition of archival footage and recent black-and-white scenes, for instance, creates a visual echo of Nekrasov's plaint that nothing in the motherland ever changes, and that the Putin regime rivals the worst. ***************************************************************** 60 Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: Just compensation - Thursday, March 20, 2008 pittsburgh_tribu:http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_5580 63.html Hundreds of Apollo-area residents will soon receive thousands of dollars each in compensation for radiation exposure from living near two nuclear fuel plants. U.S. District Judge Donetta Ambrose signed a $27.5 million settlement this week with one of the former plant owners, Atlantic Richfield Co. ARCO owned the plants in Apollo and Parks from 1967 to 1971, after NUMEC, the first owner. Babcock & Wilcox, a later owner and a co-defendant in the federal lawsuits, was not part of the settlement. It operated the Apollo plant until it closed in 1983. About 250 area residents were part of the lawsuits, most claiming personal injury and others property damage from the radiation releases. The first of the federal lawsuits were filed in 1994, 14 years ago. A jury ruled in favor of eight residents in 1998, but that ruling was overturned. And the cases in recent years have been complicated by B&W's bankruptcy. In fact, two trials were ordered for this year to determine when uranium and plutonium exposure causes cancer. But after facing the prospects of those lengthy trials, ARCO decided to settle. The lawsuits do not include workers at the plants. Employees who developed radiation-related cancers, and their survivors, are being compensated under legislation passed by Congress in 2000. About 60 cases of wrongful deaths are included in this settlement. One of the attorneys said some plaintiffs died from radiation exposure, others from cancers they developed later. This has been a long journey for these families. Obviously, after the end of World War II and during the first years of the Cold War, no one knew the very serious health dangers of exposure to uranium or plutonium. Apollo-area residents were the guinea pigs. We hope this settlement can help compensate for this very painful chapter in our region's history. Tribune-Review Publishing Co. ***************************************************************** 61 KUAM News: PARS gives update on latest with nuclear fallout compensation by Jason Salas, Tuesday, March 25, 2008 The Pacific Association for Radiation Survivors will hold a general membership meeting this Sunday. President Robert Celestial says participants will get an update on how close Guam is to being included in compensation for those who may have been exposed to nuclear fallout from tests conducted during and after World War II in the Marshall Islands. Celestial told KUAM News, "That brings us within the same realm with the downwinders from Utah, Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico. So they would be receiving their compensation through the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act since 2002. Certain amendments were done in between and we were forgotten, however in 2005 we were recommended to be included." A 2005 National Research Council report recommends that Guam be considered downwinders for inclusion in the Act. Eligible applicants may qualify for a $50,000 tax-free grant, with anyone having lived on Guam between the years 1946-1974 may apply. If you'd like to attend and get more information, the PARS meeting has been scheduled for 1pm at the Tamuning Community Center. A $25 donation is requested. KUAM.com: KUAM-TV8 | KUAM-TV11 | i94-FM | Isla61-AM | Familiar Faces Copyright © 2000-2008 by Pacific Telestations, Inc. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 62 Bradenton.com: State officials to discuss Tallevast risk 03/22/2008 | By DONNA WRIGHT dwright@bradenton.com Tallevast leaders meet with state health officials at 11:30 a.m. Monday at Mount Tabor to review the latest findings regarding health risks posed by a 200-acre plume of contamination beneath their community. Randy Merchant, who led the state's public health assessment, called the meeting a "nuts and bolts" session to discuss how health risks were assessed and what the findings mean. The study, now in its fourth year, has found that contaminated ground water under the former American Beryllium Co. plant site and throughout the Tallevast community is a public health hazard. "Past long-term use of groundwater with the highest measured concentrations of ticholorethylene, (an industrial solvent used at the plant), for drinking and showering could have resulted in anywhere from a 'low' to a 'very high' increased theoretical risk of kidney cancer, liver cancer, leukemia and lymphoma," the report states." While the toxic contamination that leaked from the plant was discovered in 2000, residents did not learn about the pollution until the fall of 2003. Many of those residents depended on private wells as their only source of water for drinking, cooking and bathing. Some residents had also received soil from the plant site which may have been contaminated. In May, 2004, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and Manatee County Health Department tests 17 private drinking water wells. They found toxic chemicals in 13 of those wells, with five wells having levels above safe drinking water standards. In the summer of 2004, all of the households on private wells were switched to county water. Lockheed Martin Corp, which owned the plant when the contamination was first discovered, paid to close those wells and compensate owners. While Lockheed no longer owns the plant site, the company is responsible for cleaning up the mess, which may take up to 100 years to complete. Merchant and his team presented a preliminary draft of their findings in July. Tallevast residents and their technical advisers raised more than a dozen concerns with the report that Merchant says have been addressed in the final draft to be discussed Monday. Merchant and his team plan to review the latest draft with leaders of residents' advocacy group called FOCUS (Family Oriented Community United and Strong), along with Rep. Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton, and staff from U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan's office. "Tallevast leaders requested a technical review of the science and our methodology," Merchant said. "We are working with a FOCUS leaders to set up an open house at a later date where people can come and talk to us." Tom Larkin, supervisor of environmental health for the Manatee County Health Department, plans to attend. "It's our objective to make sure that the community gets the best access to resources available," Larkin said. "We want to make sure that happens." Laura Ward and Wanda Washington, leaders of FOCUS, did not return requests for comment. The public will have until May 30th to make comments on this draft report, Merchant said. Comments can be sent to Florida Department of Health, 4052 Bald Cypress Way, Bin A-08, Tallahassee, Fla., 32399-1712. Residents can also call the state health department's toll-free number at (877) 798-2772. A copy of the Tallevast Public Health Assessment draft report can be found on the Florida Department of Health's website at www.myfloridaeh.com/community/SUPERFUND/ ***************************************************************** 63 Bradenton.com: Cancer reports concern Tallevast Posted on Tuesday, March 25, 2008 BRIAN BLANCO Dr. Timothy Varney, of Environ, addresses those in attendance at Monday's meeting, to discuss the latest Tallevast area public health assesment, at Mount Tabor Missionary Baptist Church in Tallevast. BRIAN BLANCO/bblanco@bradenton.com By DONNA WRIGHT dwright@bradenton.com TALLEVAST -- Tallevast leaders stunned state health officials Monday when they unveiled a map showing 86 cases of cancer throughout the historic community. And that's just the count so far, based on interviews with 109 residents, said Laura Ward, president of the residents' advocacy group Family Oriented Community United and Strong, or FOCUS. One family alone reported 10 brain cancers and four neurological disorders within the same household, Ward said. Florida Department of Health has only found four cancer cases so far in its three-year health risk assessment of the Tallevast plume of underground toxic waste traced back to the former Loral American Beryllium Co. plant. The sharp discrepancy was just one of many concerns Tallevast consultant Tim Varney pointed out in a review of the state report with Randy Merchant, head of the DOH team conducting the risk assessment, at Monday's meeting at Mount Tabor Church. The most serious: Merchant's team used the wrong zip code to define Tallevast's boundaries and population in retrieving data from the Florida Cancer Registry, which has been tracking cancer cases since 1982, Varney said. Merchant noted the error and said it would be corrected. He attributed the zip-code mistake to the difficulty of finding the right designation for rural communities that do not have home delivery. Varney stressed that the FOCUS cancer data have not been verified, but nonetheless, the FOCUS tally thus far cannot be dismissed. "When compared to the DOH report, the FOCUS map leads to considerable concerns," said Varney, an environmental consultant with more than 30 years experience in health risk assessment. Varney called for the state to assign an epidemiologist to Tallevast to conduct a door-to-door study to compile the incidence of cancer and other diseases and conditions among residents that may have been related to exposure to the toxic waste. "Let's reach a reasoned, scientific agreement on whether there is an excess of cancer cases in Tallevast," Varney said. Varney estimated the cost of the project would run close to $125,000. Varney won the enthusiastic support of state Rep. Bill Galvano, who attended Monday's meeting. "This is the most important question we need to answer," said Galvano, R-Bradenton. "We will find the money somewhere. Let's get the epidemiologist on the ground. I will be talking about this with the governor this weekend." U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan's office will research federal funding options, said spokeswoman Sally Tibbetts. Jeanne Zokovitch, an environmental law attorney with WildLaw, Inc. cited other problems with the cancer registry data. Frequently, death certificates cite other medical problems such as respiratory failure even when the patient had cancer, Zokovitch said. Moreover, the zip code of the place of death is often used to record the death with the state, she said. * About Bradenton.com | ***************************************************************** 64 Deseret Morning News: Preparation for a disaster Published: Friday, March 21, 2008 1:33 a.m. MDT SLCC nursing student and "earthquake victim" Kelly Anderson is borne to an ambulance from St. Mark's Hospital as the hospital's staff performs a disaster drill. Staffers practiced organizing patients and transporting them to a safe location in Thursday's drill. Lots of make-believe bad things happened during a large disaster drill conducted by St. Mark's Hospital. Thursday morning, patients and would-be rescuers dealt with the aftermath of a powerful fictional earthquake. The two-hour, duo-location disaster ? they spilled over to Millcreek Elementary School ? included a radioactive spill, evacuation of dozens of patients, a cracked MRI scanner and its devastating effect on room pressure and the people in that room, and more. Injured moms left the Women's Pavilion by Paraslides and newborns were evacuated using special transport vests. The multi-entity drill included hospital staff, Salt Lake County Sheriff staff, Unified Fire Authority's Hazmat, Heavy Rescue and Fire Department, as well as Gold Cross Ambulance, Valley Emergency Communications Center, Amateur Radio Emergency Services and Utah Transit Authority. deseretnews.com: Home ***************************************************************** 65 AFP: US must fulfil obligations to nuclear test victims - congressman The cloud from an experimental thermonuclear bomb test in the Pacific 1 day ago MAJURO (AFP) — The United States must fulfil its obligations to victims of its nuclear weapons testing programme in the Marshall Islands, a US congressman said. Eni Faleomavaega, who represents American Samoa in Congress and chairs the House Subcommittee on Asia, Pacific and the Global Environment, was in the Marshalls capital Majuro last week for hearings on the island nation's nuclear claims. "The United States has a moral obligation," Faleomavaega said Friday. "As a member of Congress, I want to ensure we make good (on our obligations). "I will work with my colleagues to make good on our promises made to Marshallese more than 50 years ago when we started nuclear testing." The US tested 67 nuclear weapons at Bikini and Enewetak atolls, including many large hydrogen bombs, from 1946 to 1958. "It was like 1.7 Hiroshima bombs going off every day for 12 years," Foreign Minister Tony deBrum told the hearing. Between 1986 and 2003, the US government provided a 150 million dollar trust fund to compensate all clams past and future. The State Department in a report to Congress last year said bluntly that the US had no legal obligation to provide more funding. But the Marshall Islands Nuclear Claims Tribunal, set up under an agreement between the former US territory and Washington, had to suspend compensation payments three years ago when the US funds ran out. There are about two billion dollars in outstanding compensation payments from the tribunal. Tribunal official William Graham said since the nuclear test compensation agreement was negotiated in the early 1980s, "overwhelming evidence" had emerged to dispute the US contention that only four atolls were affected by fallout. "The original settlement amount (150 million dollars) was pulled out of the air," Graham said. Since the Marshall Islands filed a petition for additional nuclear test compensation in 2000, it has received no formal response from either the administration of President George W. Bush or Congress. Hosted by Copyright © 2008 AFP. All rights reserved. More » ***************************************************************** 66 Pacific Magazine: Congressman Wants Additional Nuclear Claims Payments For Marshallese By Giff Johnon on Majuro Sunday: March 30, 2008 The United States nuclear test legacy in the Marshall Islands and an impasse over future American use of Kwajalein Missile Testing Range were put in the spotlight this past week with the visit of a U.S. Congressman to the Marshall Islands. American Samoa Delegate Faleomavaega Eni Hunkin, who chairs the House International Relations Subcommittee on Asia, Pacific and the Global Environment, held oversight hearings in the Marshall Islands through Friday -- the first such hearings by a member of the U.S. Congress since the late U.S. Rep. Patsy Mink of Hawaii did so in the mid-1970s. Faleomavaega spent nearly a week in the RMI before departing today to the U.S. “My visit is to establish a record for my subcommittee to better assess problems that have plagued the Marshall Islands ever since we started nuclear testing more than 50 years ago,” Faleomavaega told the hearing in Majuro Friday, which was nationally broadcast by the government. Faleomavaega visited Kwajalein, Ebeye and Majuro during his six-day stay. The U.S. tested 67 nuclear weapons at Bikini and Enewetak atolls from 1946 to 1958. “It was like 1.7 Hiroshima bombs going off every day for 12 years,” Foreign Minister Tony deBrum told the hearing Friday. He said a Marshall Islands petition for additional nuclear test compensation lodged with the U.S. Congress in 2000 has languished since, receiving no formal response from either the Bush Administration or the Congress. “The United States has a moral obligation (to nuclear test victims), Faleomavaega said. “As a member of Congress, I want to ensure we make good (on our obligations). I will work with my colleagues to make good on our promises made to Marshallese more than 50 years ago when we started nuclear testing.” But Faleomavaega said the Marshall Islands will have to help him convince other members of Congress that compensation is still due. The situation is further complicated by budget cuts forced by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Between 1986 and 2003, the U.S. government provided a $150 million trust fund to compensate the Marshall Islands for all clams past and future, and the U.S. State Department in a recent report to the U.S. Congress said bluntly that the U.S. has no legal obligation to provide more funding. “The (compensation agreement) was woefully inadequate,” Nuclear Claims Tribunal official Philip Okney told Faleomavaega. Both personal injury and land damage claims have been adjudicated by the Tribunal, which was established by the Compact of Free Association between Washington and Majuro to address compensation needs. But about $2 billion in awards issued by the Tribunal remain unpaid for lack of compensation from the U.S. “There are about $2 billion in total claims outstanding,” Bikini official Jack Niedenthal said. “Take the weekend off from the Iraq war and all the claims can be cleared.” “The challenge before me is to come up with information to convince (key members of Congress),” Faleomavaega said. “How do I convince the U.S. Congress to fulfill its responsibility?” Tribunal official Bill Graham said since the nuclear test compensation agreement was negotiated in the early 1980s, there is now “overwhelming evidence to dispute (the U.S. contention) that only four atolls were fallout-affected. The original settlement amount ($150 million) was pulled out of the air.” Graham, who is an advocate for test-affected islanders at the Tribunal, said the Tribunal already determined that more than $500 million is needed just to clean up nuclear fallout-affected islands that the U.S. recognizes to the same standard as the U.S. EPA would use in the U.S. But the U.S. message in refusing to act on Marshall Islands requests for additional funding is, “We don¹t deserve the same level of clean up as in the U.S. I’m not talking about compensation or health care. This is just clean up to protect future generations.” Health Minister Amenta Matthew, who represents Utrik islanders exposed to fallout from the 1954 Bravo hydrogen bomb, said that after a brief relocation immediately after Bravo, several hundred islanders were moved back to Utrik by the U.S. authorities within three months of the 15-megaton blast. “This had fatal consequences,” she said. “It subjected people to high levels of radiation exposure (from living and eating food grown in a radioactive environment) thousands of times higher than allowed in the U.S.” She asked Faleomavaega to help establish a trust fund to support a nuclear clean up of her atoll. Faleomavaega said he will continue to advocate for Marshall Islanders and if he’s re-elected in November will take matters up with the new U.S. president in 2009. “It took over 50 years before my government offered a full apology to Japanese Americans for putting them in concentration camps during World War II,” he said, adding it took over 100 years for a formal U.S. government apology to Hawaiians for the U.S. Marine-led overthrow of the Hawaiian Queen Liliuokalani in 1898. On the prospects for a new long-term agreement for use of the Reagan Test Site at Kwajalein Atoll, Foreign Minister deBrum said the landowners are open to negotiation a new “land use agreement” (LUA) needed to implement a government-to-government agreement giving the U.S. use of Kwajalein through 2066 and options to extend its use of the key missile range. “The new government has pledged to conduct negotiations to arrive at a new LUA,” he said. But the U.S. must change its offer to the landowners, he indicated. The U.S. and the landowners are deadlocked by a mere $4 million annually for rent. “It¹s not conducive for achieving a new LUA to go back with the same offer,” deBrum said. But the Kwajalein picture has been complicated by the large-scale layoffs of Marshallese workers happening this year and planned for next year. The approximately 100 jobs to be cut this year will “affect 1,000 others on Ebeye,” deBrum said. “Life on Ebeye is already intolerable. This is going to exacerbate an already bad situation.” Copyright © 2002 - 2008 TransOceanic Media ***************************************************************** 67 Boise Weekly: Nuclear Fallout MARCH 19, 2008 BY BW STAFF After becoming a pivotal figure in Owyhee County's effort to draft a powerful new energy plan (in lieu of a decent state plan), Joe Weatherby resigned his post as a county planning and zoning commissioner last week. According to the Owyhee Avalanche, Weatherby said his resignation, just two years into a three-year term, has nothing to do with his battle against nuclear power in Owyhee County (BW, Features, "The Nuclear Option," Jan. 16, 2008). In drafting his energy plan, Weatherby quickly gathered high-placed opposition, including some from Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter's administration. "I'm trying to do this without blowing the county up," Weatherby told the Avalanche. "I've worked my butt off to try to do the right thing for the county, and most of the time I get kicked in the teeth." His plan, which de-emphasized nuclear power, also pissed off Alternate Energy Holdings, the newly formed nuclear energy company that is hoping to build a small nuclear power plant in Owyhee County. Powered by Gyrosite © Copyright 2008, Boise Weekly - Idaho's Only ***************************************************************** 68 The Hindu: India seeks uranium from Namibia for enhancing nuke energy Thursday, March 27, 2008 : 1835 Hrs RSS Feeds Windhoek (Namibia) (PTI): In its global search for fuel to enhance nuclear power generation, India on Thursday asked Namibia to supply uranium from its vast reserves. India's request for sourcing uranium from the south-west African nation was conveyed to Namibian Prime Minister Nahas Angula by Minister of State for Commerce Jairam Ramesh, who called on him here. "India and Namibia could explore a long-term relationship in uranium," Ramesh said after his meeting with Angula. He also informed the Namibian Prime Minister that the coalition Indian Government was trying to sign a civil nuclear deal with the US. Ramesh, leading an Indian business delegation, is on a week-long tour to Namibia and Angola. Nuclear energy contributes less than three per cent of the country's installed generation capacity. India targets to add 78,577 MW power generation capacity during the 11th five year plan. Of this, about 3,800 MW is sought to be generated by nuclear plants. Namibia, which is not a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), has 8-9 per cent of the world's uranium resources. It can help India in meeting its energy requirements, he said. He said as India would be expanding its nuclear generating capacity, there was a need to explore sourcing uranium from countries across the globe. While there are uranium reserves in India, they cannot be explored fully due to the ecologically sensitive locations of the areas. Copyright © 2008, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the ***************************************************************** 69 FT.com: Waste cost threat to UK nuclear plans Financial Times FT.com By Jean Eaglesham, Chief Political Correspondent Published: March 26 2008 19:19 | Last updated: March 26 2008 19:19 Energy companies cannot be charged a fully commercial price by the government for disposing of nuclear waste without “killing the prospect†of a new generation of reactors, a government adviser will warn on Thursday. The analysis will fuel opposition to the government’s contentious and aggressive drive to expand the UK’s nuclear capacity. Gordon Brown will on Thursday underscore his determination to attract investors to build reactors, at his summit with Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president. The leaders are expected to agree to Anglo-French co-operation on nuclear skills and regulation. Last UK research reactor set for closure - Mar-25 Agency follows Sweden on nuclear clean-up - Mar-17 British Energy to benefit from nuclear revival - Mar-07 MoD to break up peace camp - Mar-07 Hutton’s nuclear future for UK power - Mar-05 Hutton speeds up low-carbon resurgence - Mar-05 * © Copyright The Financial Times Ltd 2008. "FT" and "Financial ***************************************************************** 70 Dallas Morning News: Nuke waste dump operator pays fines for self-reported violations dallasnews.com 03/21/2008 By JIM VERTUNO / Associated Press The Dallas company operating a radioactive waste storage and disposal site in far West Texas said Friday it has agreed to pay the state $151,000 in penalties for violations in 2005 and 2006. The penalties stem from incidents in Andrews County, near the New Mexico border, where Waste Control Specialists operates a commercial waste transfer, treatment, storage and disposal facility for Cold War-era radioactive waste. Neither of the chemical contamination incidents endangered the public, the company said. According to an enforcement agreement with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, in 2005 the company allowed radioactive materials, including Plutonium-239 and Americium-241, to get into an administration and laboratory septic system. That system was within a quarter-mile of a well used for drinking water. A spokesman for the company said small amounts of the chemicals got into the septic system when a lab worker broke a beaker over a sink and the contamination was found in samples routinely collected for state review. According to radioactive material information on the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Web site, Plutonium-239 and Americium-241 would not appear to pose significant public health risk in the Waste Control Specialists violations. Plutonium-239 is byproduct of nuclear reactor operations and nuclear bomb explosions. It is most dangerous when inhaled and presents little danger if ingested in food or water because it will pass through the body without being absorbed by the stomach or intestines. Americium-241 is a metal produced from plutonium that can cause long-term health risks such as cancer when ingested or inhaled in powder form. It is used in industrial and commercial measuring devices and is also used in smoke detectors. In the 2006 incident, state investigators also found elevated amounts of metal contamination in the railcar unloading area. In a statement, a company official said the problems have been corrected and there was no danger to the public or the environment. "Operating a safe and secure site is our primary goal at WCS," said Linda Beach, vice president and general manager of WCS. "There was no threat to the public or environment from the actions that resulted in the notice of violation. WCS is proud of our safety and compliance history and strives to improve these areas to be the best in our industry." The enforcement order with the fines was drawn up by TCEQ officials and is nonnegotiable, said agency spokeswoman Andrea Morrow. It is not final until approved by the commission, which could take several months. According to the enforcement order, the incidents violated state water and health and safety codes. The enforcement order notes the company disconnected the lab discharge from the septic system, built two tanks to manage lab wastes, plugged the septic tanks to prevent further discharge, and covered the drain field with plastic to prevent migration of contaminants. © 2008, The Dallas Morning News, Inc. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 71 Daily Record: Uranium exploration faces test Cañon City and the Royal Gorge Region Publish Date: 3/31/2008 Page: A1 Debbie Bell The Daily Record The Australian company that wants to explore for uranium in the Tallahassee area faces its first local test on Tuesday. Black Range Minerals is seeking a Conditional Use Permit to continue drilling test holes on Taylor Ranch properties to determine the economic viability of mining and then milling the uranium. Fremont County Planning Commission will hear the request at its 7 p.m. meeting Tuesday evening. If the board approves the CUP, the Fremont County Commissioners would schedule a formal public hearing, most likely on May 13. If the permit receives the county’s consent, the exploration drilling phase would likely last between three and five years before the company could move to the next stage, recovering and milling the uranium. The submitted plan asks for a 10-year period to drill an estimated 800 holes across 8,169 acres. Managing Director Mike Haynes said BRM eventually could move more than half a million tons of uranium ore per year. Ultimately, BRM hopes to invest time, money and effort to create a technologically-advanced facility, including its own mill to process the uranium. BRM began exploration drilling on more than 8,000 acres of leased public and private property last year, drilling about 70 test holes between 800 and 1,400 feet deep. Those holes were filled and then reclaimed. The Colorado Division of Reclamation, Mining and Safety had issued three Notices of Intent to conduct prospecting. Because of confusion surrounding county regulations, the company was not told a conditional use permit also was required. County officials closed the operation until a permit could be issued. The CUP issue now before the Planning Commission would allow test drilling to begin again. BRM hosted a public forum March 14 to bring transparency to the process. Dozens of residents turned out to question Haynes and other company officials. Neighbors to the exploration site formed Tallahassee Area Community, Inc., explicitly to fight the exploration activity. The group said 44 people own property within 500 feet of the active exploration site that lies within the Taylor and Boyer ranches. The area is located generally south of CR 2 and west of the intersection of CR 2 and CR 21. The Planning Commission will review the technical aspects of Black Range’s exploration plan, but will not conduct a formal public hearing. The board may elect to take limited public comment, but citizens are encouraged instead to submit concerns in writing. Letters should be mailed or delivered to the Planning Department, Room 210, 615 Macon Ave., Cañon City, CO 81212. Tuesday’s meeting begins at 7 p.m. and will be held in the commissioners board room, LL-3, of the County Administration Building at 615 Macon Ave. Debbie Bell may be reached at dbell@ccdailyrecord.com. All contents Copyright © 2007 The Cañon City Daily Record. ***************************************************************** 72 Daily Record: Uranium drilling fails first test Cañon City and the Royal Gorge Region Publish Date: 4/2/2008 Page: A6 Commission recommends denial for Tallahassee area Debbie Bell The Daily Record Critics of exploratory uranium drilling in the Tallahassee area broke into resounding applause Tuesday night, when the Fremont County Planning Commission recommended denial of the required Conditional Use Permit by a split 4-3 vote. Black Range Minerals, the Australian company seeking to drill about 800 test holes on the Taylor and Boyer ranches, next will seek the blessing of the Fremont County Commissioners despite Tuesday’s outcome, which was a non-binding recommendation. Citing potential adverse impact on property values, noise, unsightly views, water contamination, increased traffic, and even county liability in the unlikely event of a catastrophic incident, panel members Tom Doxey, Tom Piltingsrud, Mike Schnobrich and Dean Sandoval voted to deny the permit. Commissioners Bill Jackson, Keith McNew and Herm Lateer cast votes in favor of the exploratory drilling. “I feel we don’t have a legal way to turn the permit down,” McNew said. However, Doxey took issue with BRM neglecting to apply for the CUP in a timely manner. The company began exploration last year, drilling about 70 test holes, before the county stepped in to stop the operations. “I’m disappointed this company… forgot to check with little Fremont County if there were any licenses or permits” required, Doxey said. BRM Managing Director Mike Haynes apologized for the oversight during the meeting. “We did obtain what we believed were the only necessary permits” from the state, Haynes said. Although BRM is an international company, he said it never has been required to obtain a local permit when the state had issued appropriate licensing. In compliance with new county regulations, BRM was charged double the typical amount for the local application process because of the oversight. Although the 3 1/2-hour marathon meeting was not a formal public hearing, the Planning Commissioners allowed input from the capacity crowd. They got an earful, both for and against the BRM permit request. Tom Pool, a mining engineer from Golden, presented petitions signed by the owners of some 80 parcels of land, who were in favor of the exploration drilling. “Our general view is that uranium exploration contributes to the energy independence of the United States of America,” Pool said, “and uranium exploration, developing and mining contribute to the mitigation of global warming.” However, for every positive opinion, property owners presented additional negative views. “This is where we came to spend the rest of our lives,” said Nancy Seger. “We can hear the noise 24 hours a day. We can see it. Our quality of life is going to be changed.” Michael Meyrick submitted a five-page memo outlining legal concerns, including potential liability to the county. “If you approve it and they contaminate it, the jury determines the amount of damages you and they – if they’re even still around – are responsible for,” Meyrick said. “I urge you not to approve this.” BRM’s submitted plan asks for 10 years to drill an estimated 800 holes across 8,169 acres generally south of CR 2 and west of the intersection of CR2 and CR 21, while actually using only about half that land. The property is zoned Agricultural-Forestry, which is the county’s lowest-density zone and permits activity such as uranium mining. If the appropriate permits are eventually received, and the exploratory drilling proves to be economically viable, BRM hopes to create a state-of-the-art facility, including a new mill to process the uranium. Residents again will have the opportunity to voice their opinions when the Fremont County Commissioners host the required, formal public hearing on the permit. That forum could take place during the May 13 regularly-scheduled meeting. Piltingsrud acknowledged the Planning Commission acts merely as an advisory panel to the County Commissioners. “They sometimes follow our lead,” Piltingsrud said, “and they sometimes don’t follow our lead.” Debbie Bell may be reached at dbell@ccdailyrecord.com. All contents Copyright © 2007 The Cañon City Daily Record. ***************************************************************** 73 Montrose - Daily Press: New uranium mill in county slated for 2010 (Montrose, CO) Last Updated on Tuesday, Mar 25, 2008 - 04:12:46 am MDT By Staff Published/Last Modified on Tuesday, March 25, 2008 4:12 AM MDT MONTROSE — Plans for a new uranium mill on the Western Slope will be introduced to the area through two public open houses this week. The Piñon Ridge Mill will be the first uranium mill constructed in the United States in more than 25 years, according to a news release. “It will be a modern and state-of-the-industry facility, providing a safe working environment for employees and a multitude of protections for the area’s air, water, wildlife and other natural resources,” said George Glasier, Naturita rancher and president of Energy Fuels Resources Corp. Energy Fuels will host two public open houses. One is today in Naturita from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Naturita Community Building, 411 W. Second Ave. The Montrose open house will be held Wednesday from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Montrose Pavilion, 1800 Pavilion Drive. Both events are open to the public. They are designed to give people an opportunity to offer comments and ask questions. The mill is in its early planning stages, leading to the submittal of applications to Montrose County and the state. Energy Fuels is conducting “baseline” studies on a range of issues including water and air quality. The company anticipates all will be approved and construction can began by the second quarter of 2010. The mill is designed to accept up to 1,000 tons of uranium ore per day at full capacity. More information on Energy Fuels is available at www.energyfuels.com. Print this story Email this story Post a Comment (registration required) Copyright © 2008 Montrose Daily Press ***************************************************************** 74 Montrose - Daily Press: Uranium mill proposed for West End (Montrose, CO) Last Updated on Wednesday, Mar 26, 2008 - 09:24:58 pm MDT By Lisa Huynh Daily Press Writer Published/Last Modified on Wednesday, March 26, 2008 9:24 PM MDT MONTROSE — An energy company is proposing to build a uranium and vanadium mill west of Naturita at the eastern end of Paradox Valley. Energy Fuels Resources Corporation’s proposed Pinon Ridge Mill would accept uranium ore extracted from local mines and process it into partially processed uranium or “yellowcake,” which is further processed into fuel rods used in nuclear power generation. Major comments and concerns raised about the mill at a Wednesday open house in Montrose centered primarily on public and environmental health. Uranium mill tailings or nuclear waste pose potential hazards to health. Location of Energy Fuels Resources' Piñon Ridge uranium mill in the West End of Montrose County. (Barton Glasser / Daily Press) Energy Fuels is proposing to create four waste storage cells that together would measure roughly 60 acres, said Alan Kuhn, a project consultant from Kleinfelder. He said the tailings or waste would be in these cells forever. The company is designing a cell lining and leak detection system aimed at preventing leaks into air and water. Transportation of material from the mill, both yellow cake and ore, is another prominent concern about the project. Depending on level of production, yellow cake in drums could be transported on secured trucks once a month, said Rich Munson, a project consultant. These trucks could go to conversion facilities in the Eastern U.S., Canada or abroad, he said. Ores would be trucked between Naturita and mines in areas such as Gateway and San Juan County, Utah. Chad Kennard, Colorado Environmental Coalition wilderness organizer, said his group is concerned about how the mill will impact air and water quality, and the environment. “What they tell us and what they do are two different things,” he said. “Bonds cover some of the cost (of reclamation) but not all of the cost.” Although the project poses potential hazards, it would feed the economy by generating hundreds of jobs. “I see this as a much-needed economic boost to that part of the county,” said Montrose County Commissioner Allan Belt. Many places have talked about building mills but none have gotten on track except for this one, he said. If established, it would be the first in the country in more than 25 years. “For the West End, this would be good thing from an economic sense,” said Montrose County Commissioner Bill Patterson. But project managers will have to address all the mill-related issues, he said. The project also needs dozens of federal, state and county permits. Fourth-generation miner Jay Castle, of Olathe, said the environmental concerns are unfounded. “Of course there are (potential health concerns); it’s just something that needs to be managed, not avoided.” He said he would love to see mining come back to the state. Another open house was held Tuesday in the West End. Nucla Mayor Roxy Allex said it was well received. “One of the things I’ve found very comforting is the state will require them to have a bond,” she said. “Should they close the mill, the bond will cover any cleanup.” Recently, the price of uranium has rapidly increased from $9.70 per pound in 2002 to more than $90 per pound in 2007, according to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. This jump in prices has led to the resurgence of the industry. Contact Lisa Huynh at lisah@montrosepress.com Daily Press senior writer Katharhynn Heidelberg contributed to this report. Print this story Email this story Post a Comment (registration required) Copyright © 2008 Montrose Daily Press ***************************************************************** 75 RapidCityJournal: Uranium mining worries ranchers » * RapidCityJournal.com » Engineers say it’s safe By Kevin Woster, Journal staff Thursday, April 03, 2008 Belle Fourche rancher Tom Davis said Wednesday afternoon that he was better educated but still worried about his water supplies following a state Water Management Board meeting about in situ uranium mining. Davis said his ranch, parts of which have been in his family for 107 years, is far from the uranium exploration near Edgemont but close to similar work near Aladdin across the border in Wyoming. That makes Davis worry about the three wells he counts on for drinking and livestock water. "We're down in the Lakota aquifer, and what happens if that stuff gets into the Lakota?" he said after a day-long meeting of the South Dakota Water Management Board. "Is it going to end up in our outfit?" That's unlikely to occur, according to the state Department of Environment and Natural Resources resource specialists who spent most of Wednesday explaining Black Hills hydrology and planned uranium mining to the water board and citizens. The board is working on amendments to existing rules that uranium companies would need in South Dakota to extract the valuable mineral through injection-and-recovery well systems. Those systems must be permitted by both the water board and the state Board of Minerals and Environment. The rules must be in place before the permitting process can begin. About 100 people gathered for the meeting at the Radisson Hotel. Many testified before the board. Board members will reconvene at 8:30 a.m. Thursday, April 3, to work on the rules amendments. Water board chairman Jim Hutmacher of Oacoma said the amended rules will be just part of the extensive state and federal network of regulations designed to assure that uranium mining will be safe. "It's just getting started," Hutmacher said. "Our board has been given this authority as part of the rules process to protect aquifers and the environment and make sure it is all done right." Powertech USA, a Colorado-based company owned by Powertech Uranium Corp. of Vancouver, B.C., is already exploring in the Edgemont area, with plans to mine uranium with the injection-well process. Powertech also is exploring across the Wyoming border from the Edgemont project as well as in the Aladdin area in Wyoming. In South Dakota, the company would have to adhere to state water board rules as part of its injection-well permit and also meet stipulations under a mining permit from the state Board of Minerals and Environment. Both permits have rules designed to reduce environmental damage. Each board also can require uranium companies to post financial surety bonds to cover the costs of reclamation of the mining operations, remediation of environmental damage and years of aftercare. Hutmacher said the water board wants to update the 27-year-old rules to protect the environment while still allowing a mining process that has been approved by the state Legislature to proceed. Mining engineer Mike Cepak of the state Department of Environment and Natural Resources in Pierre said the in situ leach mining process in South Dakota will involve a solution of well water, oxygen and carbon dioxide that is injected into wells to collect uranium from permeable geologic seams, such as sandstone. Those seams are in between more impermeable formations, such as shale. More water is withdrawn from the well field than is pumped in. That creates negative pressure, and the uranium-saturated solution is recovered in another well without the "pregnant solution" escaping the mining field, Cepak said. Test wells will watch for signs that it has, he said. "This creates kind of a cone of depression, where the water in the aquifer will be moving toward the mine unit, minimizing migration away from the recovery field," Cepak said. Mark Hollenbeck of Edgemont, area project manager for Powertech, said the board gave citizens ample opportunity to express their concerns and learn more about the in situ leach mining process. Edgemont Mayor Jim Turner, a group of students and other residents attended the hearing. Hollenbeck said they have a deep personal investment in the outcome of the rules amendment and permitting process to come. "People in Edgemont want to see the water resources protected, as I do," Hollenbeck said. "And they also want to see responsible mineral development." Contact Kevin Woster at 394-8413 or kevin.woster@rapidcityjournal.com Copyright 2008, Rapid City Journal, Rapid City, SD | ***************************************************************** 76 The Coloradoan: Beware uranium mining www.coloradoan.com - Ft. Collins, CO. Monday, March 24, 2008 After attending public hearings on the uranium mining controversy in Colorado, here's what I've learned: The mining industry is salivating over the rising value of uranium. The price has risen because China and India are building nuclear power plants. It is also rising because Dick Cheney and the Bush administration like nukes. I think it is part of Cheney's secret energy plan. Why secret? Nukes can kill a lot of people or make them very sick. Frail memories have faded. The disasters at Chernobyl and Three Mile Island never happened. Uranium industry lobbyists are in bed with sympathetic politicians because nuclear power plants can't be built without billions in taxpayer subsidies. They are too expensive for private corporations to build and operate. Looking at the big picture, there are currently 4,000 uranium mine applications pending in Colorado alone. These mines will consume and contaminate millions of gallons of our water per month. Water travels underground for hundreds of miles. It will pass through every crack and crevice in the rock. No mining company can guarantee it won't. Bloated on the usual propaganda, industry cheerleaders are trying to convince us how safe and wonderful nukes are. It reminds me of the DDT experiment in the 1950s. People were soaking their hair in that poison. This time, with rising cancer rates, most people aren't buying it. For more information, go to www.nunnglow.com. Help stop this potential disaster. Jim Vassallo, Fort Collins Originally published March 23, 2008 Print this article E-mail this Copyright ©2008 The Fort Collins Coloradoan. ***************************************************************** 77 Grand Forks Herald: North Dakota has first uranium land lease in three decades By JAMES MacPHERSON Associated Press Writer The Associated Press - Monday, March 31, 2008 BISMARCK, N.D. A California uranium exploration company has leased more than 1,000 acres of land in Slope County, in southwestern North Dakota. It is the first such lease in the state in about 30 years, said Ed Murphy, the state geologist. La Jolla, Calif.-based Prospect Uranium Inc. said it has reached a deal on three, 10-year leases from private landowners near Amidon, in what the company is calling the Conners Uranium Project. President Jeff Janda said Monday the company acquired the leases after studying test holes that had been drilled in the region decades ago. The company said in a statement that it is leasing 1,026 acres at $10 an acre, and that it already has prepaid more than $90,000 in rental fees to the landowners, who were not identified. "It looks pretty promising," Janda told The Associated Press. Royalties also will be paid on any uranium found, the company said. Prospect Uranium is the majority partner in Secure Energy LLC, which acquired the leases. Prospect is a subsidiary of Tonogold Resources Inc., which also is based in La Jolla, Ca. Janda said the lease area could be expanded in time. "We think the deposit extends into neighboring property," Janda said. Secure Energy spokesman Galen Andersen of Bismarck said the sites leased by his company are about seven miles south of Amidon. High levels of radon and uranium in groundwater have been found in the region, "which leads us to believe there is a source," he said. A uranium mine could create 50 or more jobs in the region, but establishing such a facility could be years away, Andersen said. "This is just the beginning," he said. "You have regulations from here to Washington, D.C. And it takes years to determine what you have and whether it can be mined or not." Uranium was mined from at least nine sites in southwestern North Dakota, Murphy said. North Dakota's mines produced about 592,000 pounds of uranium oxide while they were in operation between 1962 and 1967. In the 1970s, some 2,000 test holes were drilled in southwestern North Dakota in anticipation of more mining activity, Murphy said. But nuclear energy fell out of favor with Americans after the Three Mile Island reactor accident in 1979. "After Three Mile Island that was it - nobody pursued uranium exploration in North Dakota after that, Murphy said. Pushed by worldwide demand for nuclear power, uranium prices have increased from about $7 a pound in 2002 to about $135 by last summer. The price now has "settled out at between $70 to $80 a pound," Murphy said Monday. Janda said he did not know when his company would seek a state permit for permission to mine. "We're still doing geologic work on it," he said. The state has issued no permits to mine uranium for three decades, but Murphy said he expects companies to begin applying for them this year. "Given the level of interest, we anticipate there will be some," Murphy said. © 2008 Forum Communications Co. Fargo, ND 58102 ? All rights reserved G rand Forks Herald 375 2nd Ave. N. Grand Forks, ND 58206-6008 ***************************************************************** 78 Saskatoon Star Phoenix: Boyd promotes uranium industry The StarPhoenix Published: Tuesday, April 01, 2008 Energy and Resources Minister Bill Boyd is set to deliver a keynote speech at a uranium industry conference in Vancouver this week. Boyd will be speaking on Saskatchewan's uranium strengths and potential at The Canadian Uranium Symposium, a new conference organized by the Canadian Institute and junior exploration company Ucore Uranium Inc., according to a government news release. "As both Canada's only producer and the world's largest producer of uranium, Saskatchewan has a great story to tell," said Boyd. "It is a story that is still being written, as we explore new value-added activities for our province in the nuclear fuel cycle." Saskatchewan supplies about one-quarter of world uranium production and has 800 million pounds of uranium reserves, according to the release. Uranium mines in Saskatchewan have ore grades 100 times richer than the global average. Boyd will be speaking to approximately 70 mining executives, investment leaders and government officials on Wednesday. © The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2008 © 2005 - 2008 Canwest Digital Media, a division of Canwest ***************************************************************** 79 RIA Novosti: Russia proposes Slovakia join intl. uranium enrichment center 21:56 | 03/ 04/ 2008 BRATISLAVA, April 3 (RIA Novosti) - Russia has proposed Slovakia join the international uranium enrichment center in Angarsk, East Siberia, the Russian prime minister said after talks with his Slovak counterpart in Bratislava Thursday. The center, part of Moscow's non-proliferation initiative to create a network of enrichment centers under the UN nuclear watchdog supervision, will be based at a chemical plant in Angarsk, Siberia. The center will also be responsible for the disposal of nuclear waste. "We propose our Slovakian partners join the international uranium enrichment center that is being built by Russia," Viktor Zubkov said. Russian President Vladimir Putin first raised the idea of joint nuclear enrichment centers early last year, in a bid to defuse tension over Iran's controversial nuclear program. The president said the centers would give countries transparent access to civilian nuclear technology without provoking international fears that enriched uranium could be used for covert weapons programs. The Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico said, in turn, that the two countries had also discussed re-exporting spent nuclear fuel to Russia. He added that Russia would be involved in the completing the construction of two nuclear reactors at the Mochovce Nuclear Power Plant in southern Slovakia. The plant currently has two operating reactors, but work to build a further two stalled in 1992. In 1980 Russia and Slovakia signed an intergovernmental agreement on building the NPP powered by four VVER-440 pressurized water reactors. Its first nuclear unit went into operation in October 1998, while the second - in March 2008. Italy's Enel currently holds a 66% stake in the power plant. "We reiterate our readiness to cooperate in the construction of the third and fourth nuclear units at Mochovce," Fico announced. An unnamed source in the Russian delegation said that Russia is also interested in decommissioning two outdated reactors at the Jaslovske Bohunice NPP in western Slovakia and modernizing other two. During the meeting between the two prime ministers in the Slovakian capital an agreement was also reached to draft new treaties on oil and gas supplies before the current ones expire in 2015 and 2008, respectively. "Both sides reaffirmed their political readiness to continue long-term oil and gas supplies to the Slovak Republic," Fico said. RIA Novosti ***************************************************************** 80 UPI.com: Areva will manage U.K. nuclear waste - Published: April 2, 2008 at 11:48 AM PARIS, April 2 (UPI) -- French firm Areva is one of three groups set to operate a British low-level nuclear waste site. The nuclear power group announced it will take part in a five-year consortium with URS's Washington Division, Studsvik U.K. and Serco Assurance. The contract requires the group to manage and operate the Britain's low-level nuclear waste repository in West Cumbria. The $93.6 million contract is the first for the operation of a nuclear site awarded by the British Nuclear Decommissioning Authority since it was established in 2005. The contract could possibly be extended for up to an additional 17 years, which would bring its price tag to more than $1 billion. The contract also covers the implementation of a national strategy to manage additional low-level waste expected to be generated when the NDA decommissions 20 additional nuclear facilities across the country. Areva and URS's Washington Division, along with Amec, are also bidding for management of the Sellafield nuclear complex as part of a consortium called Nuclear Management Partners. The result of that competition is expected to be announced later this year. © 2008 United Press International. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 81 Kyiv Post: US nuclear fuel firms sign deal Fri, Apr 04. 10:33 by Nazar Kudrevsky, Kyiv Post Staff Writer Kris Singh Two major US companies are getting a slice of Ukraine's vast atomic power market, offering a chance to reduce its dependency on Russia, currently its monopoly supplier of nuclear fuel. On March 30, Westinghouse Electric Co. and Holtec International sealed contracts with Energoatom, the national nuclear power company, without disclosing details. Westinghouse won a five­year contract to provide nuclear fuel supplies to three Ukrainian nuclear power plants starting in 2011, according to a company statement, and will fill about a quarter of Ukraine’s nuclear fuel needs. “The efforts of these two internationally known companies will go a long way to assuring that Ukraine has greater energy independence,” said Morgan Williams, president of the US­Ukraine Business Council, referring to the deals as strategically important for both the US and Ukraine. Currently, Ukraine gets 50 percent of its electricity from nuclear power, but it relies heavily on Russia’s TVEL nuclear fuel manufacturer for imports. The contract “represents one of the largest energy supply diversification commitments in the history of Ukraine, greatly increasing the country’s overall energy security,” said Aris Candris, Westinghouse senior vice president. Energoatom and New Jersey­based Holtec International signed an amendment to their 2005 contract for the certification, manufacturing and testing of the American company’s spent fuel management system called HI­STORM 190 in Ukraine. The deployment of HI­STORM 190 in the country will store used fuel from the Khmelnitsky, Rivne and South Ukraine nuclear power plants. The Holtec project will help Ukraine reduce dependency on its Russian neighbor, to which it currently pays more than $100 million annually for accepting, processing and storing spent nuclear fuel. “Holtec and Ukraine will together insure that Ukraine’s used fuel management is second to none in terms of the quality of technology and its inherent safety,” said Kris Singh, Holtec president and chief executive officer. The signing of the contract on nuclear fuel supply is “a good sign since it involves the diversification of energy resources in the global dimension,” said Volodymyr Saprykin, director of energy programs at the Kyiv­based Razumkov Center for Economic and Political Studies. “It is good to have two supply sources of nuclear fuel.” A nuclear fuel supply contract between Energoatom and TVEL will expire in 2010, he added. “Of course, Ukraine will continue its cooperation with TVEL and will buy fuel from it. However, the contract with Westinghouse will allow Ukraine to negotiate lower prices for nuclear fuel.” According to market experts, TVEL has sharply raised prices for fuel supplied to Ukraine in recent years. Saprykin emphasized that Ukraine’s cooperation with Westinghouse enables the country to improve its energy security. “One needs to pay for security,” said Saprykin. “When a full­fledged market of nuclear fuel is created (in Ukraine), then prices for both American and Russian fuel can decrease.” Referring to prices that Ukraine currently pays to Russia in terms of cooperation in the nuclear sphere, Saprykin said, “Every year prices for nuclear fuel and storage of spent nuclear fuel are increasing.” Ukraine needs its own spent nuclear fuel storage facility, said Saprykin, adding that “additional jobs will be created for Ukrainian people who will be working at the storage facility.” © 2004 - 2008, BIGMIR-Internet. Contact Kyiv Post ***************************************************************** 82 St. Petersburg Times: Toxic Train Rolls Into Town Issue #1357 (21), Tuesday, March 18, 2008 By Irina Titova Staff Writer Radiation levels near a stationary train in the city’s Avtovo residential district were 30 times higher than the accepted norm, city ecologists said after they took measurements next to it on Saturday. The train was loaded with radioactive waste from Germany. “Background radiation levels near the train measured 680 microroentgen an hour, when the norm is 12 microroentgen an hour,” said Rashid Alimov, a member of the St. Petersburg branch of the ecological organization Bellona. The siding where the train stood is where local residents regularly cross the railroad tracks so as not to walk across an elevated railroad bridge, Alimov said. Alimov said exposure to radiation at these levels is not deadly but could still have negative effects on the health of people exposed to it. Activists from Bellona and other Russian environmental groups were met by a guard carrying a machine gun, which he cocked and pointed at the environmentalists as they took measurements near the train, Alimov said. The ecologists unfurled a banner reading “No to the Import of Nuclear Waste!” at the railway platform where the cargo train was located. Bellona and Ecodefence have been following 1,000 tons of depleted uranium hexafluoride since it arrived at the St. Petersburg port from Germany’s Urenco enrichment facility in Gronau. The radioactive waste is to be sent by train to the Urals for burial. Alimov said the transport of such cargo is very dangerous and an accident during transit would have serious consequences. “It is much safer to leave such waste where it was used — its transportation increases the risk of emergencies,” he said. Alimov said the train was still in Avtovo on Sunday but had gone on Monday. Bellona was not sure if it had left the city. On Sunday, Bellona, EcoDefence, Green Wave and Green World environmental groups also held a protest in the center of the city against the uranium imports. Demonstrators held photographs of children with deformities caused by radiation and pictures of radioactive disasters. At the meeting the environmentalists gathered about 300 signatures from the city residents in a letter of protest addressed to Russian Atomic Energy minister Sergei Kiriyenko. “In the letter we demanded the revocation of the treaty on the import of radioactive waste to Russia,” Alimov said. Alimov said the ecologists also demanded that the Emergency Situations Ministry provide official measurements and research about the condition of the containers in which it is transported. © Copyright The St. Petersburg Times 1993 - 2008 ***************************************************************** 83 Budapest Times: Radioactive cargo turned back from Hungary-Ukraine border Hungary Thursday, 20 March 2008 Budapest, March 20 (MTI) - Ukrainian border police stopped a wagonload of radioactive materials near Hungary's border with Ukraine on Thursday, local border guards spokesman Vasil Yarmeliuk told MTI. The train was carrying 60.5 tonnes of zirconium from Italy to Russia, but was stopped at Solovka, near the Hungarian border, as a test showed higher-than-acceptable radioactivity levels in its shipment. The cargo had no legal documents for hazardous materials pertaining to transit through Ukraine, Yarmeliuk said. This has been the second violation of its kind in a month, he added. Powered by AkoComment Tweaked Special Edition v.1.4.6 AkoComment © Copyright 2004 by Arthur Konze - www.mamboportal.com © 2008 The Budapest Times - Hungary‘s leading English Language ***************************************************************** 84 Knoxville News Sentinel: Uranium processing facility to reopen No start-up date set; operation closed since September '06 By Frank Munger (Contact) Tuesday, March 18, 2008 OAK RIDGE - Federal officials have approved the restart of a key uranium process at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant, a spokesman confirmed Monday. Mike Monnett of B&W Technical Services, the government's managing contractor at Y-12, said readiness reviews at the Oxide Conversion Facility were completed recently by B&W and the National Nuclear Security Administration's Oak Ridge staff. "Both reviews concluded that the process is ready for safe operation, and we received restart authorization March 14 from the (National Nuclear Security Administration) site office," Monnett said. The processing facility, which converts uranium oxide to uranium tetrafluoride, has been shut down since September 2006. It is considered an essential part of the uranium recycling operation that ultimately purifies uranium for use in nuclear weapons. The start-up plan for the operation is still under evaluation and no start-up date has been set, Monnett said. The Oxide Conversion Facility has beset by problems for years. After an accidental release of hydrogen fluoride in 1992, a new facility was designed and constructed. But operations didn't resume until 2005 - and then only on a sporadic basis. More recent delays have been associated with revision of the safety documents at Y-12's production facilities and maintenance issues, including a leaky roof that caused "potentially hazardous" ceiling materials to fall into the processing area. The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board has raised numerous issues with the uranium-processing operations at Y-12, and last year the board's chairman, A.J. Eggenberger, wrote a stern letter questioning the long-term safety of the uranium activities. There are plans to replace the plant's uranium manufacturing hub, known as the 9212 complex, but the proposed complex - known as the Uranium Processing Facility - is still in the early design stages and has not been fully approved by National Nuclear Security Administration or funded by Congress. Senior writer Frank Munger may be reached at 342-6329. © 2008, Knoxville News Sentinel Co. ***************************************************************** 85 Fort Mill Times: Bridgeton residents seek action on radioactive landfill BRIDGETON, Mo. Bridgeton residents are pushing for removal of a landfill that contains radioactive waste. The landfill has been in the north St. Louis County town for decades, and the Environmental Protection Agency wants to keep it there forever. EPA officials have told residents that the landfill just north of Lambert Airport is safe. They have proposed a plan that would keep it covered. But many residents at a recent meeting worried, saying the landfill sits in a flood plain, making water contamination a major concern. The EPA says it will review public comments before making a final decision. Tuesday, April 1, 2008 the Times Bridgeton residents seek action on radioactive landfill (Published March 28, 2008) Information from: KMOV-TV, http://www.kmov.com The Fort Mill Times is owned by The McClatchy Company Copyright © 2008 Fort Mill Times, South Carolina ***************************************************************** 86 Los Angeles Times: Time for a mining law update - As claims encroach on cities, an 1872 law isn't protecting us from environmental and health threats. March 14, 2008 In 1872, Hawaii's King Kamehameha V died and ended a dynasty, Apache leader Cochise agreed to retire to a reservation, Susan B. Anthony was arrested for voting in the presidential election, and a dusty California outpost known as Los Angeles opened its first public library. A few things have changed in this country since then, but not the law that regulates hard-rock mining on federal lands. When President Grant signed the General Mining Act of 1872, the intent was to encourage settlement of the untamed Western frontier. The law accomplished this by essentially giving away federal lands, selling territory to miners for what was even then a very low price and allowing them to take all the minerals they wanted without paying royalties to the government. Further, it dictated that mining would take top priority for use of these lands -- more important than, say,recreation or wildlife conservation. That gavecommunities or environmentalists very little recourse to challenge mining claims. Astonishingly, this law has remained on the books for 136 years despite clear and widespread evidence of vast environmental harm and threats to public health. Hard-rock metals mining was the top source of toxic pollution in the United States in 2006, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Mining is responsible for more Superfund sites than any other industry, leaving behind polluted water, deadly air and, in the case of uranium mining, radioactive waste. It seems inconceivable that this could go on for so long, but the mining industry benefits from its relative invisibility. Until recently, most mines were on lands far away from cities, so few people witnessed the environmental damage they wreak. That's starting to change. A worldwide shortage of metals and uranium has caused prices to skyrocket, leading to an explosion of mining claims -- many of them close to urban areas. According to a report from the nonprofit Environmental Working Group, the number of claims has doubled in the last five years, including more than 16,000 within five miles of cities and towns throughout the West. This is increasing conflicts over land use and raising awareness that the government has long been abrogating its responsibility to regulate a highly polluting industry. The House has passed a bill that would reform the 1872 mining law, imposing royalty payments on miners and giving regulators more power to block claims in environmentally sensitive areas. The Senate has been holding committee hearings on the issue, but no bill has yet been introduced. It's long past time that Congress laid Grant's mining legacy to rest. Copyright 2008 Los Angeles Times ***************************************************************** 87 KUER: Uranium Taillings to Leave Moab by Truck (2008-03-21) Last updated: 3:33AM ET March 25, 2008 MOAB, UT (2008-03-21) The U-S Department of Energy recently announced it will speed up the removal of uranium tailings near Moab using trucks instead of railroad cars. The D-O-E also downgraded its safety concerns over using heavy trucks to haul the radioactive tailings along Highway 191. For years, the plan involved trains. The Moab rail spur passes near the 130-acre disposal site at Crescent Junction. What changed everything is the high price Union Pacific wants to use its tracks. Jon Kovash reports from Moab. © Copyright 2008, kuer ***************************************************************** 88 Mineweb: Exploration near Grand Canyon prompts lawsuit, fed legislation to ban mining VANE MINERALS DRILLING PROGRAM Opposition to uranium exploration near Grand Canyon has generated a lawsuit, prompted a proposed federal mining ban on 1 million acres in Arizona, and again raised the call for U.S. mining law reform. Author: Dorothy Kosich Posted: Monday , 31 Mar 2008 RENO, NV - Uranium drilling exploration on the Tusayan Ranger District within two miles of the Grand Canyon National Park has prompted both federal legislation and a lawsuit seeking to ban exploration and mining on 1 million acres in Arizona. Final plans of operation were signed this month, subject to 21 mitigation measures designed to minimize or eliminate potential impacts. A hearing of the House Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands Friday in Flagstaff, Arizona, drew more than 200 people Friday. Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Raul M. Grijalva (D-AZ) has introduced the Grand Canyon Watersheds Protection Act of 2008 (HR 5583) to withdraw 1 million acres near the Grand Canyon from mineral exploration. The bill would withdraw from mining 628,886 acres in the Kanab Creek area, 112,655 acres in House Rock Valley (both of which are managed by the Bureau of Land Management), as well as 327,367 acres in the Tusayan Ranger District of the Kaibab National Forest south of the Grand Canyon. Meanwhile, the Center for Biological Diversity, the Grand Canyon Trust, and the Sierra has also filed a lawsuit against the District Ranger for the Tusayan Ranger District on the Kaibab National Forest and the U.S. Forest Service, challenging the agency's decision to authorize the exploratory drilling program of Vane Minerals. The UK-based company is comprised of former members of the international exploration team for Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold. In their lawsuit, the plaintiffs claim that their aesthetic, recreational, scientific, educational, religious and procedural interest "have been and will continue to be adversely affected and irreparably injured if the Forest Service allows the proposed exploratory drilling for uranium to proceed in the Tusayan Ranger District." The NGOs contend the Forest Service should have required an environmental impact statement or an environmental assessment for the Vale Minerals drilling project, thereby violating the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The suit also accuses the Forest Service of refusing to allow, review and decide administrative appeal prior to authorizing the project. In testimony before the House subcommittee Friday, Kristopher Hefton of Vane Minerals said, "The modern exploration and mining operations of the era from 1980 to present have had no significant negative impacts to the community nor to the environment in or near Grand Canyon National Park." He estimated that Vane Minerals has spent more than $1 million in the area. "The economic benefits of the uranium activity [in northern Arizona] are already being felt and will be substantial," he warned. "To impose closures or suspensions of these activities will negatively impact people employed by the industry and the area's economy far more than the impact the operations will have on the Grand Canyon or the groups who claim to be effective. Considering our country's current energy concerns and the concerns with consuming fossil fuels, it would be short-sighted to impose actions that would stall the development of such an ideal resource and threaten us with more dependence on foreign energy sources." "The present call for immediate and far-reaching changes by politicians and environmental groups is without merit. ...Vane does not believe that current or future activities constitute the actions requested by Governor Napolitano and Congressman Grijvala," he concluded. Representative Grijalva insisted, however, that the exploration programs being conducted near the Grand Canyon National Park call for the reform of the 1872 Mining Law. "While the reform effort dallies, claims in our national forests and on public lands are skyrocketing. In particular, uranium claims around the Grand Canyon National Park are spiking. There were only 10 miles within five miles of the Park in 2003; as of July 2007, there were 1,130. In 2003, there were only 35 claims within 10 miles of the Park, but as of Jan. 2007, there were 2,840. These statistics should give us pause." Mining opponents are also fearful of discussions between Kaibab National Forest officials and Denison Mines regarding re-opening the Canyon mine and future operations. However, geologist Karen Wenrich told the House subcommittee that "uranium mining in the region around the Grand Canyon has clearly demonstrated that it can be done with no impact on the Grand Canyon watershed. Hence, there is no mining to protect the Grand Canyon watershed from, and the Grand Canyon Watersheds Protection Act of 2008 is frivolous legislation." "Mining was done for 15 years followed by a 13-year hiatus of no mining. During this hiatus no water analyses from in and around the Grand Canyon have detected any contamination with elevated radionuclides concentrations," she asserted. Nevertheless, Carl Taylor of the Coconino County Board of Supervisors told the subcommittee that his board "supports the permanent withdrawal of lands in Coconino County from uranium development on the Tusayan Ranger District and House Rock Valley. In addition to the permanent withdrawal, Coconino County supports providing federal land managers with the authority to assess cultural and economic impacts when making decisions under mining and reclamation laws." Kane County Commissioner Daniel Hulet, however, asserted that "a strong and stable economy does not come from the places people can see, touch, or experience; a strong and stable economy is not based on tourism and recreation. It has been proven in our region, a tourism and recreation-based economy can and will collapse in an instant through acts of terrorism, a high dollar abroad, weather conditions, passage of restrictive laws, over-inflated fuel costs, and other activities that keep the travel public at home." "Kane County strongly supports the multiple use mandates of both the Bureau of Land Management and the National Forest Service; we also support the current mining laws in effect at this time, and believe that access to those activities are just as important as the activities themselves," he added. "I am aware that there currently exists in Coconino County 2,734 mining claims north and south of the Grand Canyon National Park, and 12,008 mining claims in Mohave County, north and south of Grand Canyon National Park. However, it is important to note that not one of these mining claims is located within the boundaries of the Grand Canyon National Park, or inside of a wilderness area, a wilderness study area of game preserve," according to Hulet. "In fact, there are no reasons to shut down an industry which provides the region with much needed jobs and the country with a clean and economical energy source. This is indeed a unique situation where we can all benefit from the treasures that nature provides and still maintain a healthy, viable environment," he concluded. Nevertheless, Charles Vaughn, Chairman of the Hualapai Tribe of northwestern Arizona, said his tribe does not "consider uranium as an energy alternative that we should explore to provide economic benefit to our tribe. ...We do not want to see the by-products of uranium production stored in places like Yucca Mountain for the remainder of our lifetimes and leave others with the concern of potential harm this would bring our progenitors Grandfather Water and Mother Earth." © Mineweb Holdings Limited, 1997 - 2007 | ***************************************************************** 89 North County Journal: BRIDGETON: EPA presents plan to handle nuclear waste at landfill Residents worry about flooding at contaminated site By Scott Bandle Tuesday, April 1, 2008 11:58 AM CDT A plan to put a cap over the radioactive waste in the West Lake Landfill has too many what-ifs for some North County residents. The fear of floods washing away or undermining the landfill are the main concerns about the Environmental Protection Agency's plan. The landfill is in Bridgeton near Earth City and the Missouri River. At a public hearing Thursday, EPA officials presented their plan, which calls for putting layers of concrete rubble and clay over the waste at the 200-acre landfill. The $22 million project calls for gas monitoring and control, groundwater monitoring, and limits to land and resource use.Opponents worry about the landfill's proximity to the Missouri River. They fear flooding would undermine the cap and carry the radioactive waste into the county's drinking water. "It's not going to get less radioactive in our human time frame," said Kathleen Logan Smith of the Missouri Coalition for the Environment. "Some of this waste will be radioactive for thousands of years. Will the levees last for 10,000 years?" The opposition wants the EPA to remove the waste and take it to a federally licensed dump site. EPA representatives said removing the waste risks putting radioactive particles into the air. "The preferred remedy is not fundamentally changed," said Gene Gunn, Missouri branch chief for the EPA Superfund program, after the meeting. "We feel (capping) is still the safest method to handle this problem." Others disagreed. The Missouri Coalition for the Environment maintains there are ways to excavate the soil without causing dust to escape. One method is to build a temporary shelter over the site that would capture radioactive waste and gases, Smith said. "It will be expensive to clean up," she said. "It's not appropriate to use conventional (capping) methods. There's nothing common about this waste." The radioactive material came from rich uranium ore mined in the Belgian Congo. It was used to build two atomic bombs during World War II. The same material was stored at Lambert International Airport. Workers are still removing radioactive waste at that site. Some of the waste was illegally dumped at the West Lake Landfill in 1972. Several residents are upset about the waste at the landfill, but they also are worried about the dangers of excavating it. One is Matthew Boenker, whose family has owned Boenker Farm next to the landfill for years. "We're against digging it up," he said. "All of those microparticles go up in the air and don't even land." Bridgeton Ward 2 Councilwoman Linda Eaker has received comments from residents on both sides of the issue. "Some want it removed, while others say cap it until we find a safer way to move it," she said. This was the last public hearing on the issue. The EPA is accepting written comments until April 9. A final decision will be announced later this year. Residents can mail comments to Debbie Kring, Community Involvement Coordinator, EPA Region 7, 901 N. 5th St., Kansas City, Kan. 66101, or e-mail them to kring.debbie@epa.gov. ***************************************************************** 90 Lowestoft Journal: Amount of waste at Sizewell kept secret Tuesday, March 25, 2008 | 08:18 BRITISH Energy is refusing to reveal the amount of high level radioactive waste stored at the Sizewell B nuclear power station for "reasons of security". It has previously refused, for the same reason, to discuss the risk to the public posed by the presence of the waste, which is contained in spent uranium fuel elements stored under water on site. The request for information on the amount of high level waste on site was made at the last meeting of the Sizewell Stakeholder Group (SSG) - set up to try to improve liaison between the local community and the nuclear site and its official watchdog agencies. Brian Dowds, Sizewell B station director, states in a written reply that he can reassure SSG members that the amount of spent fuel stored at Sizewell B is "considerably less than the thousands of tonnes quoted by Charles Barnett of the Shut Down Sizewell Campaign". "However, the exact figure is not in the public domain and for reasons of security it is felt that it is prudent not to release the figure," he said. Mr Dowds said nuclear reactors used a relatively small amount of fuel, especially compared with fossil fuels such as coal. Sizewell B produced about three per cent of the UK's electricity from around three kilograms of uranium a day, an amount equivalent to three bags of sugar. To produce the same amount of electricity from coal would take 10,000 tonnes of fuel per day. "The only high level waste stored at Sizewell B is safely contained within the fuel, as it arises directly from fission of the uranium fuel," Mr Dowds said. But Mr Barnett said last night: "He is not responding to real community concerns. Why doesn't he tell us what is being stored at Sizewell B and the danger involved," he said. Pete Wilkinson, an independent Suffolk-based environment consultant who is a former member of the government committee on radioactive waste, has failed to persuade British Energy to reveal details of the risk to the local community of an accident or terrorist strike involving the spent fuel store. The company's security advisers have warned that such information could be useful to terrorists. Mr Wilkinson said: "The inexorable increase in the waste year on year increases the risk, increases the potential impact of an accidental or deliberate release and demonstrates the indescribable short-sightedness of British Energy." The company is currently considering the future of spent fuel storage on site and has pledged to consult the local community. The current store can accommodate spent fuel from 18 years of operation. The plant has already been generating electricity for 13 years. One option being considered is "double racking" the fuel elements, effectively doubling the existing storage capacity. Mr Wilkinson claims this will further concentrate the radioactivity and the heat produced. Copyright © 2006 Archant Regional. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 91 Whitehaven News: Radioactive leak at sea disposal facility Last updated 15:52, Wednesday, 02 April 2008 A CORRIDOR in the Sellafield nuclear waste sea disposal facility became contaminated after a leak. On Wednesday, March 19, liquid deriving from Sellafield's sea discharge plant overflowed from holding tanks into a concrete room designed to contain and deal with overflow incidents. A small amount of liquid was also discovered in an adjacent concrete corridor. All material was recovered and radiation monitoring confirmed that the liquid was of such low radioactivity that no further work was required to decontaminate the area. An investigation is underway to understand more about how the incident happened and any findings will be shared with our safety regulator, the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate, and the Environment Agency. The incident has been classified as Below Scale on the International Nuclear Event Scale. ***************************************************************** 92 Deseret Morning News: Matheson bill would bar nuclear waste imports He calls it a 'simple' measure, hopes for prompt approval By Stephen Speckman Deseret Morning News Published: Friday, March 14, 2008 12:34 a.m. MDT A bill introduced Thursday in Congress seeks to prohibit the Nuclear Regulatory Commission from authorizing any company in the U.S. to accept foreign-generated nuclear waste. The bill's inspiration came from the pending EnergySolutions application to accept waste from decommissioned nuclear reactors in Italy. U.S. Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, joined fellow House Energy and Commerce Committee members Reps. Bart Gordon, D-Tenn., and Ed Whitfield, R-Ky., in sponsoring legislation that would ban import of nuclear waste unless it was originally produced in the U.S. An exception would be U.S. military waste generated abroad. Matheson said on the phone that it would be too speculative to guess whether the bill, which still needs to be scheduled for a committee hearing, could be passed in time to impact the EnergySolutions proposal. He called it a "simple" bill that Congress may be able to act on quickly. "I don't think Utah should be a dumping ground for the world's waste," Matheson said. He said licenses have been granted to accept waste from other countries, but it was on a much smaller scale than the current EnergySolutions application. When national policy was set on storing low-level radioactive waste from overseas, Matheson said no one considered that larger volumes and an increasing amount of requests would be coming from other countries. Mainly, the requests are coming from countries where nuclear reactors that will soon be decommissioned and in need of a place to store the resulting waste. "The notion of waste coming from around the world just wasn't on the table," he said. "This is really about the broader policy issue." A press release from Gordon's office said President Bush could allow an exemption from the ban "if an application showed importation would serve a national or international policy goal, such as a research purpose." Any license to accept foreign-produced nuclear waste that was approved before passage of the bill would be grandfathered in and allowed. EnergySolutions wants to import about 20,000 tons of low-level radioactive waste produced in Italy for processing in Tennessee. Less than 1,600 tons of waste left over after processing would be shipped for storage at the EnergySolutions site in Clive, Tooele County, about 80 miles west of Salt Lake City. The company already disposes of about 90 percent of the low-level radioactive waste produced in this country. In a statement released Thursday, EnergySolutions noted its track record for safety and said the bill was dealing with an issue that should be left with the NRC. "We believe that Congressman Gordon's legislation stripping the Nuclear Regulatory Commission of its jurisdiction over an issue within its purview is unwise, unwarranted and unnecessary," the statement read. "The NRC has the scientific and technical expertise to make thoughtful decisions based on facts." The Utah group Healthy Environment Alliance (HEAL) praised the new bill. "Not only does this bill address the immediate need to block EnergySolutions' request to dump Italian waste in Utah, but if passed, it would prevent the U.S. from becoming the world's nuclear garbage dump," HEAL director Vanessa Pierce said in an e-mail Thursday. "We expect Governor Huntsman as well as the rest of Utah's congressional delegation to join this national bipartisan effort to prevent Utah and the U.S. from becoming the world's nuclear garbage dump." Gordon said EnergySolutions' current proposal before the NRC to process and store waste from decommissioned nuclear reactors in Italy only serves interests of the company and not the country. The NRC is accepting public comments on EnergySolutions' application until June 10. Critics of the proposal have been many, including the Utah Radiation Control Board, which last week approved a letter to the NRC requesting that EnergySolutions' application be denied. Concerns have been over the precedent that some feel would be set by possibly becoming the world's dumping ground for nuclear waste. Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. is likely to draft a cover letter to accompany the state's Radiation Control Board's document, spokeswoman Lisa Roskelley said last week. EnergySolutions spokesman Tye Rogers told the state board last week that his employer has "no plans to open the gates of Clive for wholesale disposal of the world's nuclear waste." There is also the worry that the Clive facility would lose valuable space to store this country's own low-level radioactive waste if it accepted foreign waste. Previously Gordon has lobbied the Northwest Interstate Compact on Low-Level Radioactive Waste Management and its eight member states, including Utah, to weigh in on the issue. The governor of member-state Wyoming, Dave Freudenthal, suggested that Italy find its own solution to its waste problem. E-mail: sspeckman@desnews.com deseretnews.com: ***************************************************************** 93 Seattle Times: State Senate backs tax breaks for Idaho uranium plant seattletimes.com Tuesday, March 18, 2008 - Page updated at 08:39 AM By JOHN MILLER Associated Press Writer The Senate on Monday passed a pair of big tax breaks meant to help lure a proposed new $2 billion uranium enrichment complex to a site near the Idaho National Laboratory outside Idaho Falls. Lawmakers voted 27 to 7 to extend a sales tax exemption for production equipment that handles nuclear fuel. They also voted 23 to 11 to cap property tax valuations at the plant to $400 million if Areva Inc. invests at least $1 billion in the next seven years. Together, the tax breaks could save the French company tens of millions annually. Proponents _ particularly those from eastern Idaho _ have argued the state needs such incentives to land the plant, which would produce uranium fuel for a new generation of commercial nuclear reactors. Without breaks, Areva has said it could opt to build instead in Washington state, Ohio, Texas or New Mexico. "Other states are offering huge economic incentives to win this company," said Sen. Brent Hill, R-Rexburg. "This is an important bill for Idaho." The Areva plant is like money lying on the ground, and all Idaho has to do to get its share is bend over and pick it up, said Sen. Jeff Siddoway, R-Terreton. The measures previously cleared the House and now go to Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter. Also on Monday, lawmakers began efforts to unwind a 2005 break meant to keep Albertson's Inc. in Idaho. The grocery chain was sold the next year to Supervalu, based in Eden Prairie, Minn. With 104 existing U.S. nuclear reactors, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission received applications for seven new reactors in 2007 and expects dozens more in coming years. Meanwhile, uranium fuel shipments from Russia are due to be cut roughly in half by 2013 and a 56-year-old enrichment plant in Paducah, Ky., currently the only one in the U.S., is due to be closed. Companies like Areva, along with Bethesda, Md.-based USEC Inc. and Europe's Urenco Ltd., are rushing to get a share of the action. USEC is building a new plant in Ohio and Urenco is doing the same in New Mexico. At hearings in Idaho earlier this month, Areva environmental chief Robert Poyser told lawmakers he'll make a site recommendation to his company's board of directors in Paris by the end of March. Whatever state gets it, the company has promised thousands of construction jobs and 250 regular workers who will earn an average of up to $70,000 annually once the facility begins operations by 2014. Sen. David Langhorst, D-Boise, and other opponents said the bills were tantamount to "giving away the farm." Some asked about the chance that uranium waste could remain at the site for three decades. A few Republicans also opposed the tax cap as poor policy, saying $400 million was an arbitrary figure with unproven effect. Sen. Joe Stegner, R-Lewiston, said companies now doing business in the state would likely make similar demands. For instance, he noted, Micron Technology Inc., the state's largest employer, three years ago had its property valuation near Boise capped at $800 million but could ask for a lower figure. "How in the world will we look them in the eye and say 'No?' " Stegner said. "I would love to have this company come to Idaho, but how far are we going to reach to attract these companies? It's not like we're a depressed state. We're one of the fastest growing states in the country." Another foe, Sen. Brad Little, R-Emmett, said tax concessions don't guarantee anything. Even with the incentives, Areva could build the plant elsewhere and leave Idaho with a legacy of failed incentives, Little said. Copyright © 2008 The Seattle Times Company ***************************************************************** 94 The Daily Yomiuri: Active fault exists near Monju FUKUI--A 15-kilometer-long active fault zone exists near the Japan Atomic Energy Agency's Monju fast-breeder reactor in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture, according to an agency report submitted Monday to the government. The government and the agency previously said the fault in question was not an active fault zone. But after reexamining it under revised standards for earthquake resistant designs, the agency reversed its decision. "Even with the active fault zone, there's no problem in the reactor's seismic resistant design," the agency said. The Shiraki-Niu fault zone, stretching north to south about two kilometers west of the Monju reactor, had been considered a lineament--a geological feature only suspected of being an active fault zone. Earthquake resistant designs are not thought to be affected by such land features. However, after the 2006 revision of the standards, a reexamination found the fault zone could cause an earthquake of magnitude 6.8. When local citizens filed a lawsuit in 1985 seeking revocation of the government's approval for setting up a nuclear reactor, the plaintiffs claimed the land form should be considered an active fault zone, while the government argued it was not. In 2005, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the government, saying its safety screening for the reactor was not seriously at fault. The agency hopes the Monju reactor will resume operations in October. The Daily Yomiuri, The Yomiuri Shimbun ***************************************************************** 95 Pahrump Valley Times: State estimates record challenges to Yucca Apr. 02, 2008 By STEVE TETREAULT STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- Nevada could launch between 250-500 license challenges to Yucca Mountain, state officials said, making the proposed radioactive waste repository by far the most contentious issue ever weighed by nuclear safety regulators. Attorneys for the state presented the Nuclear Regulatory Commission with the ballpark estimate this week as the federal agency prepares to launch its review of a construction application the Department of Energy says it will file in June. Other participants in the licensing hearings, such as Clark County and Nye County, reported they each may introduce between 11 and 25 "contentions" to be debated before administrative judges during the licensing process. All told, "We could be looking at about 650-plus proposed contentions from 11 parties," NRC spokesman David McIntyre said in an email, adding that would be the most ever filed in a licensing case since the agency revised its rules in 1989. It is likely that some will be combined or weeded out. Among other high-profile cases, McIntyre said 138 contentions were submitted when the NRC considered the private fuel storage application to temporarily store nuclear waste on the Goshute Indian Reservation in Utah, although only 25 were admitted into the hearing. About 100 contentions were filed in an ongoing license renewal case for the Indian Point nuclear power station in New York, he said. Nevada officials said they are preparing technical challenges to DOE's science research and engineering designs for the Yucca site. Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, said the state also plans to object to DOE's fitness as an operator. He said the state will point out DOE has struggled with quality assurance over the years and for a time did not adequately control harmful dusts that were ingested by tunnel workers. The planned challenges reflect the scope of the first-ever attempt to license underground high-level nuclear waste storage. DOE will try to persuade safety regulators that specially designed waste canisters and the warren of tunnels it wants to build a thousand feet below the surface and a thousand feet above the water table will prevent decaying nuclear particles from leaking into groundwater and seeping into the neighboring valley. It also shows the intent of Nevada leaders to pull out the stops to kill an unpopular project that was forced on the state. "Nevada has suggested for some time that it would be filing a lot of contentions," said Michael Bauser, deputy general counsel of the Nuclear Energy Institute. "This is a first-of-its-kind proceeding and we expected it to be hotly contested.I would imagine it would be as much of a challenge as any proceeding the NRC has undertaken so far." If the NRC agrees to docket the application after an initial three-month examination, the agency would perform internal safety studies and convene public hearings where controversies surrounding the decades-long project are expected to be aired in a courtroom-style atmosphere. The NRC by federal law must render a decision within three years, with an option to add a fourth year. Many experts believe the undertaking will test the agency, which has assigned 120 engineers and scientists to review an application that DOE officials say will be 8,000 pages long and backed by 200 supporting references totalling another 50,000 pages. Loux earlier had been reported as saying Nevada could present as many as 2,000 contentions, a number so high it caused industry and government officials to bolt up and take notice. webmaster@pahrumpvalleytimes.com Copyright © Pahrump Valley Times, 1997 - ***************************************************************** 96 AU ABC: Govt pushing for more mines in Central Australia - (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) Posted March 18, 2008 15:35:00 * Alice Springs 0870 The Territory Government is courting major resources companies at a conference in Alice Springs today. More than 200 delegates are at the Annual Geoscience Exploration Seminar at the Alice Springs Convention Centre. The Minister for Mines and Energy Chris Natt says the Territory is under-explored in terms of mining, and the Government wants more companies to begin operations. "Everyone must understand that mining is the largest contributor to our economy at the moment and the resources industry virtually underpins much of the Territory's strong economic growth. "So we're trying to get out there just to let everyone know that really the Territory is a vast expanse of land, there's a lot of prospective areas and really the Territory remains under-explored." Exploration licences were recently granted for uranium and petroleum in Central Australia, and Mr Natt says more mining activity can be expected in the region. © 2008 ABC Privacy Policy ***************************************************************** 97 AU ABC: SA and Canada to share uranium knowledge - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) Posted March 18, 2008 16:26:00 An agreement will soon be signed between South Australia and a Canadian province that will see a sharing of knowledge on uranium and other minerals. (AFP: BHP Billiton/SkyScans) An agreement will soon be signed between South Australia and a Canadian province that will see a sharing of knowledge on uranium and other minerals. The Primary Industries Department says the proposed collaboration is with Saskatchewan in central Canada, which has a similar geology to South Australia. The Department's geological survey manager, Mark McGeough, says a lot can be learned from the province, especially about uranium, which is less controversial there. "I think from an Australian perspective we could learn a lot from how uranium and the issue of uranium is handled in Canada," he said. "There's a number of provinces where they accept both uranium mining, processing and some states or provinces in Canada actually have nuclear power." © 2008 ABC Privacy Policy ***************************************************************** 98 AU ABC: Uranium exploration targets Eyre Peninsula ABC North and West SA - Posted April 2, 2008 14:03:00 * Darke Peak 5642 A major exploration push for uranium is set to begin on Eyre Peninsula. Marmota Energy will conduct the exploration, which will include airborne geophysical surveys in regions including Mount Hope, Darke Peak and Wadikee. Marmota managing director Dom Calandro says the company is happy to offer the information to local farmers. "The application of the data that we'll be acquiring has applications beyond mineral exploration," he said. "The airborne electromagnetic data is used quite successfully in salinity, in land use and management processes. "Elsewhere in the state our radiometric data acquisition can be used quite effectively for soil mapping, particularly at the resolutions we'll be acquiring the data at." ***************************************************************** 99 AU ABC: NT Labor to discuss proposed uranium mine ABC Alice Springs - Posted April 4, 2008 10:01:00 The outgoing president of the Northern Territory Labor Party will not say whether he will reject a proposal for a new uranium mine south of Alice Springs when it is discussed at the party's conference this weekend. The Arid Lands Environment Centre says it expects delegates from Alice Springs to use the conference to raise health concerns about the close proximity of the deposit to the town's water supply. The Territory Government recently granted exploration rights to joint venture companies Paladin and Cameco for the Angela and Pamela deposits. Warren Snowdon is not revealing whether he supports the development of a uranium mine there. "I'm looking forward to having the discussion," he said. "I haven't been part of the discussion here in the local branch, but I'll be there on the weekend. "'ll be listening to the debate intensely and we'll see what the outcome is after there's been a discussion about it and a debate amongst the party members." ***************************************************************** 100 New York Times: Energy Dept. Hesitates on Dealing With Uranium - By MATTHEW L. WALD Published: April 1, 2008 WASHINGTON ? The government is sitting on an inventory of partly processed uranium that could be sold for billions of dollars while prices are high, but the Energy Department is dawdling in deciding what to do with it, according to the Government Accountability Office. The stockpile was formerly regarded as unwanted waste that would cost hundreds of millions of dollars to stabilize. But a steep increase in the price of uranium has made it valuable. “Recent dramatic gains in uranium prices present the U.S. government with an opportunity to gain some benefit from material that was once considered a liability,” the G.O.A. said a report to Congress issued today. “Unfortunately, D.O.E. has not completed a comprehensive assessment of its options with sufficient speed to take advantage of current market conditions,” the auditors found. The Energy Department has said it would not sell too much of the uranium at once because that would hurt uranium producers. Processors and electric utilities, however, would benefit from lower prices for the raw material that ends up in nuclear power plants. The department said last month that it would complete an analysis of what to do with the partly processed uranium “during the coming year.” In a statement, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said, “We will manage this commodity in a prudent manner that recognizes a variety of factors including our national security interest, departmental missions, realities of the global marketplace and impacts on domestic industry.” He promised to “yield the best economic value” for the department and taxpayers Uranium hexafluoride, the chemical form in which the material is stored, has gone from $21 a kilogram in November 2000 to $360 in the middle of last year, and $200 a kilo in February of this year. The current value is about $7.6 billion, according to the auditors, but they said that it is not clear what direction prices will turn next. The stockpile could end up being worth as much as $20 billion or next to nothing. Experts say the current high prices are likely to stimulate the opening of new mines and new processing plants, increasing supplies and tending to drive prices back down. On the other hand, a resurgence in nuclear power, if it comes, would tend to push prices higher in the long run. At Evolution Markets, a brokerage firm in White Plains, N.Y., Joe Kelly, the head of the nuclear fuel division, said that for the Energy Department, “it’s certainly a fine line to walk.” Start-up companies, he said, were trying to raise money to begin mining uranium deposits that had been ignored as uneconomic. “If those pounds in the ground become less valuable, the incentive becomes less,” Mr. Kelly said. But Jack Edlow, a uranium consultant in Washington, said that utilities would like lower prices, but they would also like security of supply, which would come from prices at which mining firms could turn a profit. The stockpile could be sold “in a way that supports everybody’s requirements, I believe, but it’s a bit of a balancing act,” Mr. Edlow said. According to the auditors, nuclear utility companies are interested in buying the material. The material could also be sent to the sole American company now processing uranium, USEC, formerly the United States Enrichment Corporation, which used to be part of the Energy Department but was privatized. When the company was spun off from the Energy Department, the department kept the partly processed material because it was considered too much of a burden for the new firm. Representative John Dingell, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, who requested the G.A.O. report, said in a statement that the Energy Department “needs a concrete strategy to take advantage of the current market conditions so that taxpayers can benefit from the sale of this asset.” Representative Bart Stupak, a Michigan Democrat who is chairman of the panel’s oversight and investigations subcommittee, said, “We intend to motivate DOE to take action for American taxpayers instead of pushing off decisions to the next administration.” Congress would probably have to change the law to allow the material to be sold without further processing, Mr. Dingell said, but that could be worked out on a bipartisan basis. The G.A.O. said it would take years to process the material for resale. Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company ***************************************************************** 101 Rocky Mountain Chronicle: URANIUM SUPPORT MOVES ABOVE GROUND By JOSHUA ZAFFOS Thursday, 03 April 2008 Mine opponents say one Loveland lawmaker is playing dirty at the statehouse. Don Marostica was alone among Northern Colorado representatives opposed to uranium-mining controls. Before Don Marostica was a state lawmaker or a successful commercial real-estate broker, he was a high school science teacher, schooling teenagers in geology. Class was back in session for Mr. Marostica on March 28, when he tried teaching the state House of Representatives about uranium mining. But Marostica is receiving failing grades from landowners fighting the uranium operation after he defended in-situ mining — the process that Powertech Uranium Corp. would like to use to get at over nine million tons of uranium oxide near Nunn, less than ten miles from Fort Collins — and hurled a few gaffes during a debate over proposed state legislation. The in-situ method injects water underground to carry uranium to the surface, and then returns the water and, possibly, contaminated materials and heavy metals, back underground. House Bill 1161 would require companies to demonstrate they can restore groundwater resources to pre-mining quality, or meet state standards. After Fort Collins Democrat and bill sponsor John Kefalas spoke on the House floor and mentioned a petition with eight thousand signatures supporting strong regulations on uranium mining, Marostica referred to “those eight thousand fake signatures.” The Loveland Republican also remarked that he didn’t “see the credibility” in a letter from Republican Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave that expressed her opposition to Powertech’s plans. “It showed me how dirty politics can be,” says Robin Davis, a member of Coloradoans Against Resource Destruction (CARD) whose land overlies mineral rights owned by Powertech. Davis says Marostica’s implication is insulting to landowners who signed the petition and that slides he presented to his House colleagues are among the same ones that Powertech has shown at meetings. The bill passed the House by a vote of 49 to 16, with Marostica as the only Northern Colorado lawmaker in the minority. He insists that mining opponents are misconstruing his stance. “What I said is that a lot of those signatures are not from this area,” Marostica says, although that distinction wasn’t actually made. Regarding Musgrave’s credibility, the legislator says he was questioning Democrats’ use of the letter, not the congresswoman. “Everyone else is tiptoeing, because they want to get elected. I’m the only one in Northern Colorado who is taking this view,” Marostica continues. He is also up for election this November, but in terms of mine opposition in his district, Marostica claims he has received only seven emails from constituents, and a whole lot more from people in Longmont and Fort Collins. “I’ve studied the in-situ science, and I’m very comfortable with how they set up the monitoring wells. I think that the method that Powertech is using is as good as anything out there. All I’m trying to do is present the other side of the story. Do I want to protect our water? Absolutely.” Marostica thinks the legislation could set an unrealistic standard for restoration, considering uranium already causes radioactivity in parts of the groundwater aquifer. “This is such a simple bill to hold mining companies to their word that they can restore the groundwater,” Davis replies. James Warner, a Colorado State University engineering professor and former industry consultant, says water quality near uranium deposits contain radioactivity, but companies should be able to restore the aquifer, although it’s not cheap. “They could clean it up if they really wanted to,” Warner says of the pre-mining restoration standards. He adds that no other in-situ mine has proceeded with such close proximity to people. The bill now moves to the Senate, and the House will consider bill 1165, legislation that could extend the authority of the state Mined Land Reclamation Board to include more environmental and health matters. Rocky Mountain Chronicle 316 W. Mountain Ave. Fort Collins, CO 80521 © 2008 Rocky Mountain Chronicle ***************************************************************** 102 Summit Daily News: Hearing Friday on uranium mining near Grand Canyon for Breckenridge, Keystone, Copper and Frisco Colorado - News By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS March 28, 2008 FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — A Tucson congressman sponsoring a bill to ban uranium mining near the Grand Canyon holds a congressional field hearing Friday in Flagstaff on the issue. Democrat Raul Grijalva says the hearing will focus attention on the need to buffer “this icon, the Grand Canyon, from very harmful activity around it.” Grijalva wants a ban on a million acres surrounding the canyon from mining activity. He’ll be chairing a House subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands hearing. Earlier this month, environmental groups sued the U.S. Forest Service for giving approval to a British mining company to drill in pursuit of uranium at up to 39 sites on the Kaibab National Forest near the canyon. All contents © Copyright 2008 summitdaily.com Summit Daily - 40 West Main Street - Frisco, CO 80443 P.O. Box 329 · Frisco, CO 80443-0329 E-mail: news@summitdaily.com ***************************************************************** 103 Buffalo News: Citizens groups in Lewiston and Porter say landfill officials have ignored their concerns Watchdog organizations say area will end up with too much hazardous waste Updated: 03/31/08 8:06 AM Charles Lewis/Buffalo News Walter D. Garrow, former chairman of the Lake Ontario Ordnance Works Restoration Advisory Board, says the group is considering legal action against the Army Corps of Engineers. * MAP: Locating the landfill and Ordnance Works What happens when two citizens groups ask a lot of questions about long-standing issues at a pair of Western New York hazardous waste dumps? You pretend they don’t exist. That’s the tactic being used by a federal agency and a company that owns the only commercial hazardous waste landfill in the Northeast against groups dedicated to helping monitor high-profile sites in the towns of Lewiston and Porter, north of Niagara Falls. One of the groups advises the Army Corps of Engineers on a site that, among other things, contains nuclear materials from the Manhattan Project. The federal government once considered the site temporary, and the advisory group is leaning toward keeping it that way — but now corps officials have indicated the site could be used for 200 years. The other group advises CWM Chemical Services, which operates a landfill that contains PCBs, mercury and other hazardous wastes. Thousands of truck shipments crisscross highways in Erie and Niagara counties, and other parts of the region, each year on their way to the site. Waste Management, the international parent company that owns the CWM landfill, wants to expand it. Most members of the advisory group have deep concerns about that idea — so CWM officials have stopped meeting with the group. Without input from the two groups, the region will end up with more hazardous waste than might otherwise be necessary. And the lingering contamination that already has been the subject of numerous cleanup attempts may not be handled to the satisfaction of those who live closest to it, members of the groups say. “Apparently public participation is good until it gets to impact what they do,” Walter D. Garrow, former chairman of the Lake Ontario Ordnance Works Restoration Advisory Board, said about the corps’ dismissal of his organization. The corps, overseeing an investigation into radioactive and chemical wastes at the former ordnance works, announced in January it wants to organize a new community group. Group members say corps officials have been sending the message that they’re asking too many questions and seeking too much background information. The federal government took 7,500 acres of land for the ordnance works during World War II as part of the war effort. The government gathered and buried radioactive elements, including radium, thorium and uranium, in a 10-acre cell — an “interim waste containment structure” — in the 1980s. Various chemicals, including PCBs, volatile organic compounds and TNT, have been found elsewhere on the large site. Hazardous waste disposal operations at the neighboring CWM site started in 1972, with CWM taking over in the early 1980s. The Balmer Road landfill is one of 17 of its type in the country and the only active commercial facility in the Northeast. Today, more than 60 years after the contamination first took hold, interested and outspoken community members are more knowledgeable about environmental issues at both sites than they’ve ever been. But the corps and CWM only want to deal with the public on their terms, group members say. Garrow and University at Buffalo chemistry professor Joseph A. Gardella Jr., the advisory board’s newly elected chairman, both have long histories of participation in environmental issues across Erie and Niagara counties. They say the corps’ decision is troubling. “You can’t pick and choose which part of the community you want to listen to,” said Gardella, who represents the Lewiston- Porter School District on the advisory board. Advisory board members say they’ve wanted to have meaningful, technical discussions about what kind of contamination has been found, but the corps rescinded access to its experts. Corps officials have to follow guidelines established in May 2006, said Bill Kowalewski, the corps’ project manager for the ordnance works investigation. The current group, which he calls “a community group,” isn’t being disbanded, rather the agency is “starting from scratch” to create a new Restoration Advisory Board and will gauge community interest in forming a new group, Kowalewski said. For Garrow, the advisory board’s former chairman, the timing is critical and has caused the group to consider legal action, he said. “This would not be tolerated if the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was a chemical company caught with a historical hazardous waste site,” Garrow said. “Imagine a company having the power to say what is said, what is planned and what is spent on the remediation of their own site.” Meanwhile, officials from CWM Chemical Services last year withdrew the public’s access to the company’s technical experts during quarterly Community Advisory Committee meetings because, a company official said, applicable portions of a contract establishing the group have expired. Company officials, who assert their operations are state-of- the-art, said they broke off working with the current committee because the company wanted to talk about issues related to the planned landfill expansion and the committee didn’t. “It’s time to start a new [Community Advisory Committee],” said Lori Caso, a company spokeswoman. But the company’s actions haven’t dissuaded state environmental officials, who continue to participate in the community group’s meetings and who will decide whether the CWM landfill can expand. Town of Lewiston Councilman Alfonso Bax, chairman of the advisory committee, said, “As a citizen, I would think that CWM would want to come to the table and at least let everyone know that they are concerned for the safety of the towns of Lewiston and Porter.” abesecker@buffnews.com Copyright 1999 - 2008 - The Buffalo News copyright-protected material. ***************************************************************** 104 The Tribune: Uranium bill passes state House, heads to Senate Staff Reports April 1, 2008 A bill that would impose stricter standards for uranium mining in Colorado passed the state House on Monday morning. The bill -- HB 1161 -- stipulates that uranium mining companies in Colorado clean up groundwater after they finish mining. The bill now goes to the Senate for consideration. A companion bill -- HB 1165 -- would give increased power to the Mined Land Reclamation Board to consider public health and the environment when considering a uranium mining operation. That bill will be heard in a House committee meeting Wednesday. Powertech Uranium Corp., a company with plans to open a uranium mine near Nunn, lobbied to amend the bill and loosen language in the bill before it was heard in the entire House. Opponents of the mine say uranium miners are never able to restore groundwater to pre-mining levels and that uranium mining is dangerous. Powertech officials have said the in-situ -- literally "in-place" -- leach mining technique they are proposing to use at the mine near Nunn is safe and that groundwater will be protected. The House passage comes after a group against the proposed Nunn mine sent a letter to legislators this week detailing violations at a uranium mine in Wyoming and urging them to vote for the uranium regulation bills. The Wyoming mine -- which is not owned by Powertech but rather by a different company, Power Resources Inc. -- has had trouble cleaning up groundwater, has had about 80 spills of chemically treated water, leaks and other shortcomings, according to an investigation by the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality. March 31, 2008 - Uranium mining bill passes state House, heads to Senate March 29, 2008 - If there is a will, there will be ways February 29, 2008 - Marilyn Musgrave sends Larimer commissioners letter urging opposition of uranium mine February 28, 2008 - Musgrave sends Larimer commissioners letter urging opposition of uranium mine February 26, 2008 - Larimer Commissioners to consider resolution against proposed uranium mine February 12, 2008 - The science behind uranium mining February 11, 2008 - Texas residents say their ground will never be the same after uranium mining January 26, 2008 - Ensuring clean water in Colorado January 21, 2008 - Before company said No Nukes, Platteville plant was nuclear December 27, 2007 - Powertech using 'attack' language December 5, 2007 - Fort Collins council opposes uranium mining November 14, 2007 - Salazar presses EPA to address concerns about mining November 6, 2007 - Get an expert on uranium mining; letter to editor filled with errors, allegations October 23, 2007 - UNC group will host meeting on mining tonight October 18, 2007 - Uranium mining in Colorado: Focus on facts, not fear October 17, 2007 - What a uranium mine will really do to Nunn October 14, 2007 - Musgrave, residents, speak out against uranium project October 12, 2007 - Two meetings this weekend about uranium mine October 9, 2007 - We must stop PowerTech before plans go any further September 20, 2007 - Uranium, JFK and the Warren Commission All contents © Copyright 2008 greeleytrib.com The Greeley Publishing Co. - P.O. Box 1690 - Greeley, CO 80632 ***************************************************************** 105 Pueblo Chieftain: Firm seeks to resume bid to find uranium Tuesday April 01, 2008 Area residents plan to speak tonight against the exploration. By TRACY HARMON THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN CANON CITY - A request to resume looking for uranium in the Tallahassee area goes before the Fremont County Planning Commission today. Black Range Mineral of Australia wants to resume exploration for uranium on Taylor Ranch properties off County Road 2 northwest of Canon City. Black Range previously started uranium exploration on the ranch, but stopped several weeks ago when the company learned it needed a county permit for exploration, according to Ed Norden, Fremont County commissioner. The company wants to conduct exploratory drilling on about half of the 8,200-acre site that consists of leased private land. The goal is to determine if there is enough uranium to profitably mine at the site. If approved by the planning commission today and the Fremont County Commission at its May 13 meeting, exploratory drilling would run through 2013. Norden said the planning commission may accept limited public comment at a meeting beginning at 7 p.m. today at the Fremont County Administration Building, Sixth and Macon, but would prefer written letters of comment. A group of between 40 to 50 families that live in the area is expected to speak out against the plan. Letters may be mailed to the planning department, Room 210, 615 Macon Ave., Canon City, CO 81212. ***************************************************************** 106 Seattle PI: 53 million gallons in danger of leaking seattlepi.com Last updated March 20, 2008 11:31 p.m. PT Transfer of waste to safer containers is lagging By LISA STIFFLER P-I REPORTER The wastes stored in underground tanks at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation are so dangerous that their fumes give people headaches, nosebleeds and sore throats and make them nauseated. An unfortunate few have been doused with the deadly stuff in accidents; one now is dying of cancer. Called by state regulators "the most toxic waste known to this environment," the 53 million gallons of waste sit in 177 massive, buried tanks near the Columbia River. Intended for short-term use, some of the tanks are more than a half-century old. They were built of carbon steel -- an alloy prone to corrosion. They are cocooned in concrete that in places has cracked and crumbled. The contents historically boiled and exploded, and the tank bottoms buckled. More than one-third leaked. The tanks are supposed to be emptied and the waste safely trapped in glass, but those plans keep getting pushed back. At the current rate of funding, tanks at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation won't be emptied for decades -- maybe even a century. Those delays are raising a question no one dared ask a few years ago: Is it time to build new tanks? It's a proposition that has been avoided for fear that it would cost too much and give the Energy Department, the agency responsible for Hanford, license to further drag its feet in cleaning up the waste. But most of the existing tanks should have been decommissioned years ago. The older ones are 30 to 50 years past their intended lifetime. Even the newer tanks -- the last ones were built in 1986 -- likely will be years past their life span before they're taken out of use. "These things are falling apart in the ground while we speak," said Tom Carpenter, executive director of Hanford Challenge, a watchdog group. "You've got to do something. You can't just hope that something bad is not going to happen." Some of the risks are catastrophic -- tanks so rotted that they collapse under the weight of pumps and other gear used to remove the waste, or shake apart in an earthquake. "We have reminded (the Energy Department) that a collapsed tank out there would just be a devastating issue," said Russell Jim, manager of the Environmental Restoration/Waste Management Program for the Yakama Nation. A much more likely threat is continued leaking, or leaking triggered when the tank contents are blasted with liquids to loosen up solid chunks so they can be pumped out. Already about 1.2 million gallons of waste have leaked from the tanks. The waste hasn't reached the Columbia River, but it has seeped into pools of groundwater deep beneath the tanks. There is a lot of uncertainty as to when the polluted groundwater will reach the river -- estimates range from 30 to 200 years. Liquid waste was moved in recent years from the 149 older, single-shell tanks to the 28 newer, double-shell tanks. The single shells now hold about 30 million gallons of sludge and chunky salt cakes, and about 3 million gallons of liquid that couldn't be extracted. The risk of leaks was significantly reduced -- but not eliminated. "We could not tell you that there are no leaks happening today based on the monitoring they have," said Jane Hedges, the nuclear waste manager for the state Ecology Department, which is responsible for making sure the cleanup is done right. The strategy for dealing with the tanks is to transfer all of the waste -- not just the liquids -- from the single-shell to the double-shell tanks. Then that waste is treated in enormous plants where it is "vitrified," or turned to glass. The glass would then be stored for thousands of years. Over the past two decades, plans for the vitrification plant have repeatedly been scrapped and reworked. The cost of building the plant has nearly tripled in recent years to $12.2 billion. Administrators say that it should be running by 2019 -- an eight-year delay from earlier estimates. At risk is the Columbia River, home to salmon and other fish that play a key role in the diet and customs of the Yakama Indians. A study by the Environmental Protection Agency found that fish caught near Hanford had the highest concentrations of PCBs, metals, dioxins and other contaminants in the Columbia River Basin. It concluded that tribal people who ate fish from the Hanford Reach had up to a 1 in 50 lifetime risk of contracting fatal cancers. "We do have a very big concern as to what is in the system, what is in the river, what is in the sediment, where does it come from?" said Jim, the Yakama environmental manager. Those questions are unanswered, and the tribe doesn't fish that stretch of river. To protect the Columbia, Ecology officials said they would consider building new tanks, though they worry that it would take money and attention away from other aspects of cleanup. It could cost about $150 million and take up to a decade to build just one tank. And while no one likes the risk posed by the tanks, it does provide an urgency to act. Energy Department officials said new tanks are not an option. "We don't recommend, and we aren't discussing, building new double-shell tanks," said Delmar Noyes, acting department manager for tank cleanup. The agency maintains that the tanks are safe. This year, however, they are convening a panel of experts to examine their integrity for continued storage. The department believes that current engineering data show that the tanks "structurally are sound and not in danger of any near-term collapse or failures," Noyes said. For now, work emptying the single-shell tanks is stopped until at least next month because of a spill last summer of 85 gallons of radioactive waste during its removal. The accident was reviewed by Energy investigators, who made numerous recommendations for improving safety, planning and spill response, and those fixes are being implemented. Besides, there's room in the double-shell tanks for just 2 million gallons more of waste, Noyes said. Evaporation can create a little more space. Engineers and structural workers recently gave the green light to safely fill some of the double-shell tanks to higher levels than previously allowed. But it's only a short-term fix. "It's untenable, unsupportable to have these wastes ... sitting in tanks some unknown, indefinite period of time," said Bob Alvarez of the Institute for Policy Studies, a think tank in Washington, D.C., and former senior policy adviser to the federal energy secretary. "We're dealing with a problem," he said, "where the contents of those tanks could conceivably and irreversibly harm a major river system in the United States." P-I reporter Lisa Stiffler can be reached at 206-448-8042 or lisastiffler@seattlepi.com. Read her blog on the environment at datelineearth.com. Send comments to newmedia@seattlepi.com Send investigative tips to iteam@seattlepi.com ©1996-2008 Seattle Post-Intelligencer ***************************************************************** 107 AS: West Texas company applies for radioactive waste disposal facility Alicia Mireles AMERICAN-STATESMAN Rodney Baltzer pre-dicts no long-term effects on people. Despite misgivings from state environmental staff, commission may sign off By Asher Price AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF Thursday, March 20, 2008 Hoping to end two years of back-and-forth about its plan to bury radioactive waste in West Texas, the company Waste Control Specialists organized a meeting in September 2006 with state regulators and its engineering consultant, Washington Group International. In the balance were lingering health and environmental issues and a lucrative radioactive waste market. The company and its consultant sought to change the approval process for the disposal of radioactive byproducts of Cold World era uranium processing, but they were unsuccessful, according to an internal memo written by a state radiation expert after the meeting. "Staff listened to their ideas and agreed that discussions were always welcome, but the review process and regulatory rules that we work under were not open to negotiation or change," wrote Gary Smith, one of the people responsible for assessing radiation safety for the state health department. But WCS continued submitting material to the state, and in October 2007, Glenn Shankle, executive director of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, issued the company a preliminary license. He did so despite warnings as late as September from state staff members that the politically connected company had not satisfactorily addressed issues relating to the geology, groundwater and high winds of West Texas. A final decision on the byproduct dump must come by the end of this year. The staff reports were part of an American-Statesman open records request filed in January. Shankle issued a preliminary decision supporting the draft license after his staff "performed a thorough technical review of the license application for by-product material disposal," said Terry Clawson, a spokesman for the agency. The dumping of the waste could begin as early as spring 2009. Rodney Baltzer, president of WCS, said about the application, "There was no nefarious plot to change rules to our advantage, and at the end of the day they're the regulators, and they'll make the decision." He said the company has spent at least $3 million since September 2007 to address issues of concern. "It might not be the best, well-organized, easy reading, but all the information is definitely there," he said of the packed binders assembled for the application. "There will be no long-term effects on people in this area. We're not going to do anything that damages our employees or their families." The commission staff disagreed, according to memos. One technical review said the company hadn't thoroughly explained how employees would be tested to determine if they had been contaminated by radiation. "They did not and do not recognize the agency's responsibility to evaluate their application," said Patricia Bobeck, a geologist who retired from the commission in September. Waste Control Specialists wants to bury 3,776 canisters of radioactive waste from an Ohio uranium processing plant at its remote, 14,900-acre former ranch in Andrews, near the Texas-New Mexico border. Each canister is about 61/2 feet high and wide, weighing about 20,000 pounds and covered in a half-inch of steel. Inside is a concretelike mixture of radioactive waste and fly ash. Eventually, WCS could also bury radioactive byproducts from uranium mining on the site. WCS is owned by investor Harold Simmons, whose political contributions to Gov. Rick Perry since 2001 have totaled more than $500,000. Texans for Public Justice, a nonprofit that tracks political donations, says Simmons was the third-largest contributor to Perry in the 2006 election cycle. Perry has appointed all three of the agency's environmental commissioners, who will eventually decide the fate of the canisters. The governor's office said he will not weigh in on the decision. "The governor trusts that the TCEQ commissioners will make the right choice in this matter and all other ones that come before them," said Krista Piferrer, a spokeswoman for Perry. The proposal for the byproduct waste disposal site, paired with an application by WCS to bury low-level radioactive waste on an adjacent piece of property, points to the profitability of disposing of radioactive material. The low-level dump could be used to bury radioactively contaminated trash such as rags, syringes and protective clothing from nuclear plants or hospitals. The federal Environmental Protection Agency predicts about 141 million cubic feet of such waste will be generated nationally between 2010 and 2020. A low-level radioactive waste dump in South Carolina will close this year to most states, opening the way for Texas to get a share of the lucrative market. Chem-Nuclear, which operates the South Carolina site, charges on average $1,500 to dispose of each cubic foot of low-level radioactive waste, company spokeswoman Deborah Ogilvie said. In November, the Sierra Club wrote a letter to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality arguing that the agency had essentially put the cart before the horse, in issuing a license based on "an incomplete and contradictory application, usually taking the applicant's explanation at face value." "The applicant is treating the site as if it were a standard hazardous waste landfill and not a disposal site with long-term radioactive waste material," wrote Ken Kramer, director of the Lone Star chapter of the Sierra Club. But Andrews public officials support the plans, which they say will add to the tax base and bring in high-tech jobs. At the site, WCS now disposes of hazardous waste, and stores and treats some radioactive waste. It employees almost 100 people and has an annual payroll of $4.7 million. In the Andrews area, long an oil-rich part of the state, nuclear power is becoming increasingly important. Across from the WCS property, Louisiana Energy Services is building a uranium enrichment facility. But questions among regulators have persisted. In July 2007, a commission memo said the application submitted by WCS has incomplete erosion monitoring data. The application was pockmarked with "contradictions and data inadequacies," wrote agency consultant Thomas Gustavson in a report that addressed the company's erosion monitoring. A report by two state geologists in late August said the application "contains inconsistencies and contradictions and lack of detailed geologic data," and therefore did not comply with state law. In a third memo, staff engineer Lou Gloystein wrote that the application is "fragmented" and contains "significant errata." "Scenarios presented as worst case impacts relating to the critical issues of rainfall capture and management, and particulate air emission rates appear to be understated, and are difficult to follow," he wrote. Though the design of the byproduct dump presents "no insurmountable civil engineering challenges and should, in fact, prove straightforward to build and operate," Roger Vaughan, another engineer, wrote in September, WCS had not "effectively addressed wind borne particulate issues. In particular, do the high west Texas winds pick up loose byproduct material in the landfill and disperse it around the site? If so, this has the potential of contaminating the entire site and would require all surface run off ... to be handled differently than currently designed." The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has declined to release the entire contents of an October memo from Susan Jablonski, director of the agency's radioactive material division, to Dan Eden, a deputy director in the agency's permitting division before the draft permit was issued. In a letter to the state attorney general's office, the commission said the memo "reflects preliminary advice, opinion, and recommendations of the staff" that are covered by the "deliberative process privilege." The attorney general's office hasn't made a ruling. In a filing Friday that responded to comments about the preliminary license, Shankle defended WCS' application. "No area's geology and hydrology can be known or characterized with 100 percent certainty," he wrote. WCS' application provided "adequate information on the characterization of the meteorology and climate of the proposed site, including wind and rain events." He said West Texas' winds should be of little consequence to the byproduct dump because the draft license requires the material to be in containers. "Wind dispersal and run-off containing radioactive and hazardous constituents should be minimized," he wrote. asherprice@statesman.com; 445-3643 Presented by The Austin American-Statesman. ***************************************************************** 108 Boulder Daily Camera: Uranium mine would tap aquifer Foes fear contamination By Laura Snider (Contact) Wednesday, March 26, 2008 If you go What: Public meeting on the proposed uranium mine in Weld County, sponsored by Coloradoans Against Resource Destruction When: 7 p.m. today Where: Front Range Meeting Room at the Radisson Hotel & Conference Center, 1900 Ken Pratt Blvd., Longmont For more information: www.nunnglow.com Methods of mining There are two major types of uranium mining: Historically, the most common method was to remove the uranium ore using either open-pit mining -- which scrapes off all the land above the uranium deposit -- or underground mining. The uranium-containing rocks were then transported to a mill where the ore was crushed and processed, leaving behind mounds of uranium tailings. More recently, in-situ mining has taken off in Texas, Wyoming and Nebraska. This method mines the uranium in place by flushing the uranium ore with oxygenated water. The water dissolves the now-oxidized uranium and can be sucked to the surface via a well. The surface disturbance for in-situ mining is far less, but there are concerns that the process contaminates nearby groundwater supplies. A proposed uranium mine in Weld County would tap into an aquifer that lies deep beneath the Denver Basin and sweeps through the southeast corner of Boulder County. Opponents of the mine -- who fear massive groundwater contamination -- are holding a public meeting tonight in Longmont. "The aquifer has been used for drinking water for a long time," said Jackie Adolph, spokeswoman for Coloradoans Against Resource Destruction, the group sponsoring the meeting. "There is a real risk of cross-contamination."Canadian-based Powertech Uranium Corp. is part of a new "uranium rush" stimulated by a nearly 2,000 percent increase in the market prices for uranium between 2000 and 2007 and a glut of recently proposed nuclear power plants across the United States. Powertech is studying the feasibility of mining about 4,750 tons of uranium from its claims in Weld County, though the company has yet to apply for a permit. A complex basin The mine would principally use in-situ leaching to remove the ore, a technique that flushes the uranium with oxygenated water, dissolving the uranium before sucking it to the surface. Because the water is drawn from the aquifer surrounding the uranium ore, critics of the process argue that it's impossible to guarantee that the newly mobile uranium won't escape into parts of the aquifer that are tapped by residential wells. The Denver Basin holds four aquifers stacked on top of one another, and the Laramie-Fox Hills Aquifer, which is home to the uranium ore in Weld County, is the deepest. Mine opponents fear that any contamination of the Laramie-Fox Hills aquifer could spread throughout the entire system, which underlies land bounded by Greeley, Golden, Colorado Springs and Limon. "It's a very complex setting subsurface," said Travis Stills, an attorney for the Energy Minerals Law Center in Durango. "You have fissures and all kinds of things going on, including old well bores causing connectivity between the aquifers." Colorado's history of uranium mining digs back to 1971, when the radioactive mineral was discovered at a gold mine in Central City. Now, Colorado is home to thousands of abandoned mine sites, including the Fairday mine outside of Jamestown. As uranium prices crashed in the 1980s, mines across the state closed, leaving only the Sunday mine outside Uravan operating today. Cleaning the groundwater In-situ leaching is a relatively new technique of extracting uranium, which is being used now in Wyoming, Nebraska and Texas. But there are still lingering questions about whether the groundwater surrounding the uranium cores can ever be fully restored to its pre-mining state. Powertech argues that it can and will. "We're required to return the water to the original use category," said Richard Clement, president of Powertech. "That's the goal of restoration. In Texas, especially, approximately 20 mines have been fully restored." In-situ leaching requires a dense network of wells, with outer wells injecting oxygenated water into the aquifer and a central well pulling the water -- now laden with oxidized uranium -- back to the surface. The water is then treated, oxygenated and re-injected. Mining companies claim that the cycling of water will, eventually, flush all the mobile uranium out of the aquifer, leaving the water as safe as it ever was. Critics say the method has never actually worked. The Corpus Christi Caller-Times examined 32 permits from closed south Texas in-situ mining sites and found that the companies only met restoration standards because the standards were changed. "In each case, companies were permitted to leave behind minerals such as uranium, molybdenum and selenium at higher levels than were listed in the original permit," wrote reporter Dan Kelley in November 2006. New legislation Two bills circulating in the Colorado General Assembly would tighten restrictions on in-situ mining. House Bill 1161 would require mining companies to provide evidence of at least five similar mining operations that did not result in groundwater contamination before a permit could be issued. The Energy Minerals Law Center said Powertech is vigorously fighting the legislation. "1161 puts a provision in that requires them, as the Missourians say, to show me," Stills said. "When they're telling folks how well they're doing, they're saying, 'No problem.' When they visit the legislature, they say, 'You can't make me do this.'" Contact Camera Staff Writer Laura Snider at 303-473-1327 or sniderl@dailycamera.com. Scripps Newspaper Group — Online © 2008 The E.W. Scripps Co. ***************************************************************** 109 Houston Chronicle: Official backs radioactive dumping at West Texas site | Chron.com - March 17, 2008, 11:59PM Official backs radioactive dumping Residents near the West Texas site worry about risks to water By JANET ELLIOTT AUSTIN — The executive director of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality is recommending approval of a Dallas company's license to dispose of radioactive uranium waste in Andrews County. The license application, which now goes before the three-member commission, is one of two sought by Waste Control Specialists, a politically connected company that wants to operate the nation's largest privately run radioactive waste dump. The site, on the New Mexico border about 130 miles west of Midland, has been controversial because of the potential risk to groundwater. Four geologists and engineers last August recommended that the license for a low-level radioactive waste dump be denied. WCS officials appealed to TCEQ Executive Director Glenn Shankle, presenting evidence from the company's extensive drilling and computer modeling to argue that water will not intrude into the landfill even if rainfall in the arid region increases dramatically in the future. The company is owned by Harold Simmons, one of the state's top political donors. He has contributed nearly $500,000 since 2001 to Gov. Rick Perry, who appoints the environmental commissioners. The proposed license would require WCS to bore additional wells at the site to monitor soil moisture and report back to the agency before beginning construction. Rodney Baltzer, president of WCS, said that the byproducts license would allow the disposal of 3,776 canisters of material from a Fernald, Ohio, weapons processing plant. They currently are in above-ground storage at the site. Shankle rejected requests for a public meeting from the Sierra Club and 11 residents of Eunice, N.M., which is six miles from the dump. He wrote in comments that because no Andrews County residents made any requests, "there was not a significant degree of public interest." Cyrus Reed, conservation director of the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club, said in a statement that Shankle is ignoring the concerns of Eunice residents, who are much closer to the site than residents of Andrews, who live 30 miles away. "We — and multiple residents of Eunice, New Mexico — maintain that the applicant has not met the basic requirements of Texas law to prove that the geology and hydrology of the site will keep this highly radioactive uranium and thorium waste away from residents' lungs, groundwater, crops and livestock," Reed said. The opponents said they will continue to ask Shankle and the commission to send the case to the State Office of Administrative Hearings for a contested case hearing. The landfill enjoys support in Andrews, where about 400 people attended a March 1 barbecue sponsored by WCS. Texas Tech Chancellor Kent Hance, vice chairman of the company's board, spoke at the event. Glenn Lewis, a writer who worked with the technical team that evaluated the adjacent site for the low-level radioactive waste dump, said additional wells will not solve the problem of nearby groundwater. Lewis resigned from TCEQ last year over the agency's handling of the license applications, and recently drove through Eunice on a family vacation. "Any decision to deny nearby citizens a chance to investigate the details of this proposal is another example of the agency siding with business and political interests over those of citizens," he said. janet.elliott@chron.com ***************************************************************** 110 STLtoday: EPA is asked to move radioactive waste St. Louis Post-Dispatch MONDAY | MARCH 31, 2008 By Kim McGuire ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH 03/28/2008 BRIDGETON — Community members urged federal environmental regulators Thursday to remove radioactive waste from a local landfill which they say is vulnerable to flooding from the nearby Missouri River. Those comments were made during a meeting sponsored by the Environmental Protection Agency, which is once again seeking public input on its plan for the 200-acre West Lake landfill, a Superfund site slated for federal cleanup. The public has until April 9 to give comments on the proposed cleanup plan By-products of uranium ore processing from the old Mallinkrodt Chemical Works' facility near downtown St. Louis were stored near Lambert Field and later blended with soil that ended up in the municipal landfill in the 1970s. Rather than hauling the waste off-site, EPA officials proposed in 2006 to leave it there and place rock and rubble over the landfill to contain the waste. Since then, however, the agency has received many comments regarding the landfill's location in a floodplain. Some have questioned whether the Earth City levee, which is about one mile west of the landfill, might someday fail. Last week's flooding on the Meramec River, "clearly showed us that floodplain sites are in jeopardy," said Dan McKeel, a retired Washington University associate professor in the School of Medicine. Kathleen Logan Smith, director of the Missouri Coalition for the Environment, questioned why the waste at West Lake would be left in place when similar radioactive waste in the St. Louis area was transported to an out-of-state facility for disposal. "It's the same stuff," she said. "And it was illegal and wrong to dump it there in 1973 and it is illegal and wrong to leave it there." EPA officials have said leaving the waste in the landfill is less risky than digging it up and shipping it elsewhere. They plan to monitor groundwater at the site to ensure that pollution is not escaping the landfill. Jerry Leigh, a representative for the Earth City Levee District, said that levee has withstood all the major floods since it was built in 1972 including the record-breaking event from 1993. He showed photos of last week's floodwaters pooling far below the top of the structure. "It was no big deal, folks — not for the Earth City levee," Leigh said. Similarly, Matt Hunn, an engineer with the Corps' St. Louis District, explained the agency's inspection program and added that the levee has received good marks for many years. kmcguire@post-dispatch.com | 314-340-8250 ***************************************************************** 111 AAS: radioactive waste data released COMPILED FROM STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS Saturday, March 29, 2008 AUSTIN Responding to an American-Statesman public information request, the state attorney general's office has ordered the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to release some information about a radioactive waste disposal site in West Texas. The newspaper asked for information in January. After initially releasing information that month, the commission asked the attorney general for a ruling on whether it could withhold other information, citing privileged deliberative process. This week, the attorney general's office agreed that some information could be withheld but ordered the agency to release internal e-mails, legal notes and daily calendars of commission staff members who are involved in regulating radioactive waste disposal. Presented by The Austin American-Statesman. Contact us. Careers. Corrections. Site Requirements. ***************************************************************** 112 UPI.com: Miners eye new uranium boom - Published: March 28, 2008 at 8:01 AM AMBROSIA LAKE, N.M., March 28 (UPI) -- A possible new uranium boom is reported swirling over New Mexico, two decades after the mines shut down. But not everyone who might be involved is happy about it. Officials say global warming and the mushrooming cost of oil have helped renew interest with the prospect of 500 million or more tons of ore, thousands of new jobs and billions in income, The Washington Post reported Friday. But, there is a major drawback. Much of the uranium deposits are on or near Navajo land and the tribe, bitter over memories of serious illnesses that unexpectedly struck its members who mined the ore 20 years ago, banned mining and milling on its land in 2003. The mines meant jobs and royalties for the Navajos but also, for many, such ailments as lung cancer, kidney disease and birth defects. Thousands of tribe members are reported getting federal compensation for past uranium exposure. At least five companies are reported seeking mining permits and another wants to reopen a mill at Ambrosia Lake, the Post said. © 2008 United Press International. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 113 Platts: North American uranium producer says spot price at or near bottom 2008-03-19 Barcelona (Platts)--19Mar2008 The CEO of North American uranium producer Denison Mines on Wednesday said he believes the spot price of uranium, currently at $74/pound U308, has reached or is close to a bottom. "We expect the spot price to recover [during 2008] and to trade at or above the long-term price," which currently sits at $95/pound U308, Peter Farmer, CEO of the Toronto-based company said in releasing the company's fourth-quarter and full-year 2007 financial results. Farmer said uranium supply is not keeping up with demand, adding that there are now 34 nuclear reactors under construction in 12 countries. Uranium supplies from government stockpiles and utility inventories also are failing to keep pace with yearly increases in demand, which Farmer said is increasing at an annual rate of 2%. And increasing production of mine uranium is proving challenging, he said. Farmer said that in the fourth quarter of 2007, Denison's US-sourced uranium sold for an average of $89.84/pound and its Canadian uranium sold for an average price $74.37/pound. Full-year 2007 average sales prices were $99.11/pound for US production and $74.91/pound for Canadian production, he said. Farmer said Denison expects to increase production in 2008 by 200% to 2.1 million to 2.4 million pounds U308. The company expects to sell 1.7 million pounds of that 2008 production "at or near market prices," he added. --David Stellfox, david_stellfox@platts.com For more news, request a free trial to Platts Nucleonics Week at http://www.platts.com/Request%20More%20Information/index.xml?src=story or subscribe now at http://www.platts.com/infostore/product_info.php?cPath=22_41&products_id=67 ***************************************************************** 114 Platts: Groups criticize DOE's GNEP program as too costly and too risky 2008-03-31 Washington (Platts)--31Mar2008 The Global Nuclear Energy Partnership is a poorly-supported program that could pose significant risks to public health and safety, a group of public interest, environmental and policy groups said in a report Monday. The partnership, which began in 2002, involves 21 countries whose goal is to spur the construction of civilian nuclear power plants while ensuring that spent fuel would not fall into the hands of terrorists. Partnership countries would send their spent fuel to be reprocessed in the US. The report sponsored by Friends of the Earth USA, the Government Accountability Project, the Institute for Policy Studies, and Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, said the project is too risk and too costly and should be cancelled. In releasing the report, Robert Alvarez, a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies, said the groups plan to urge Congress to eliminate funding for GNEP. Alvarez, who had been senior policy advisor to former Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, said the groups want spent nuclear fuel to stay where it is, buried at reactor sites. They also want the government to abandon the idea of Yucca Mountain as the nation's nuclear waste repository and start a process for selecting a new site. The report said that none of the GNEP technologies and processes is commercially viable at the moment, adding that the Bush administration's proposed schedule for deploying GNEP is not feasible. For more news, request a free trial to Platts Electric Power Daily at http://www.platts.com/Request%20More%20Information/index.xml?src=story ***************************************************************** 115 The Tribune: House committee says no to second uranium bill Andrew Villegas, (Bio) avillegas@greeleytribune.com April 2, 2008 A bill that would have required mine operators to notify the public about mining prospects without revealing proprietary information died in a state House committee Wednesday afternoon. The bill — HB 1165 — was a companion bill to HB 1161, which places groundwater quality restrictions on uranium mining in Colorado, and passed the full House on Monday. That bill now moves to the Senate. At issue among lawmakers were the public’s right to know what type of mining may occur near their homes versus the desire to keep the business decisions and proprietary secrets of miners safe. Other lawmakers also expressed concern that the bill would apply to all mining, not just uranium mining. All contents © Copyright 2008 greeleytrib.com The Greeley Publishing Co. - P.O. Box 1690 - Greeley, CO 80632 ***************************************************************** 116 Las Vegas Sun: Nuclear industry to push stopgap waste sites - LETTER FROM WASHINGTON: By Lisa Mascaro Sun, Mar 23, 2008 (2 a.m.) Washington ? The lobby of the headquarters of the Nuclear Energy Institute in Washington features the organization’s name glowing in an artsy blue and white light projected on the floor. Walking over the glow to the receptionist’s desk gives an Austin Powers vibe, a mix between what someone thought the future was supposed to look like and what really happened, which may be the predicament the industry finds itself in today. The last nuclear plants were built 30 years ago, but as the nation hungers for new power sources — particularly those that do not increase the carbon footprint — nuclear energy emerges as an increasingly attractive option. But what to do with the nuclear waste is still a problem. Nevadans have fought for more than 20 years the government’s proposal to build the nation’s nuclear waste repository 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Odds are they are winning. The dump was supposed to open 10 years ago, and now isn’t projected to open until after 2017. Patience is wearing thin. The industry wants new nuclear power plants and wants a solution for the waste. Now, the Nuclear Energy Institute, the main trade group representing the industry, is trying a new approach. The institute is quietly talking to communities across the nation to see if they are interested in hosting a temporary waste storage site — perhaps not just a dump, but a nuclear industrial park that could support ancillary businesses and bring in jobs. The institute envisions two, maybe four, sites in rural communities that might see something in it for them. These sites wouldn’t replace the need for a long-term repository at Yucca Mountain, the institute is quick to add, but would be caretakers of the waste for the next 100 years. Since fall, the institute’s new point man on the project, Marshall Cohen, has visited a few communities and is trying to reach out to more. He has spoke publicly at about a half-dozen industry events. He gave a printout of his 12-slide PowerPoint presentation to the Sun. The sign taped to Cohen’s office door reads: “Think outside the Beltway.†He must be reading that sign every day because what he’s about to say next doesn’t sound like the old nuclear industry Nevadans know so well. “It is our belief that this only works if there are some communities who express interest and would be willing to consider and discuss and host this kind of facility,†Cohen says. The bill Congress passed in 1987 that singled out Yucca Mountain as the sole site under consideration for the repository became known as the “Screw Nevada Bill.†When President Bush signed legislation in 2002 that determined the Nevada site would become the dump, he did so over the objections of the state’s governor. Much of Nevada’s antagonism with the government over Yucca Mountain stems from how the deal went down: The small state couldn’t stop what was being forced on it. Cohen wasn’t involved back then. His career was making its own arc, from working on Robert Kennedy’s presidential campaign — he was with him in California the day before the candidate was shot — to becoming a media-turn-around expert. “We’re in the very, very, very preliminary steps saying, ‘How should we do this? Where can we find communities that would be interested in having us come and talk to them?’ †he said. “That’s what we’re doing.†He uses words like “comfort level†as he describes his efforts to find what might make a town want to volunteer as a host site. “It’s going to vary by community,†he said. “Again, that’s the key to it: community.†His own belief: An interim site could be on line and accepting waste within a decade. © Las Vegas Sun, 2008, All Rights Reserved. Job openings. Published ***************************************************************** 117 Gallup Independent: Message: No uranium mining March 31, 2008: Shirley: ?It is unconscionable ... allowing uranium mining to be restarted anywhere near the Navajo Nation? Staff and wire report FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. ? Indian leaders, scientists, local business interests and the superintendent of the Grand Canyon warned Friday of dire consequences if uranium mining is allowed to proceed near the national park, while mining advocates minimized any likely problems. At a congressional field hearing held in Flagstaff, Ariz., proponents of a measure to ban mining around the Grand Canyon said the canyon is a national treasure worthy of protection from the impacts of such activity. Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley, Jr., told the Congressional subcommittee here Friday that the Navajo Nation remains opposed to uranium mining on or near its land, and will take whatever action necessary to prevent it. ?It is unconscionable to me that the federal government would consider allowing uranium mining to be restarted anywhere near the Navajo Nation when we are still suffering from previous mining activities,? he said. ?In response to attempts to renew uranium mining, the Navajo Nation Council passed, and I signed into law, the Diné Natural Resources Protection Act. This law places a ban on all uranium mining both within the Navajo Nation boundary, and within Navajo Indian Country.? Testifying at a joint oversight hearing before the Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands at the Flagstaff City Council Chambers, President Shirley said Navajos ?do not want to not sit by, ignorant of the effects of uranium mining, only to watch another generation of mothers and fathers die.? ?We are doing everything we can to speak out and do something about it,? he said. ?We do not want a new generation of babies born with birth defects. We will not allow our people to live with cancers and other disorders as faceless companies make profits only to declare bankruptcy and then walk away from the damage they have caused, regardless of the bond they have in place.? U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., who chaired the House Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands, has sponsored a bill to ban a million acres near the Grand Canyon from mineral exploration under the 1872 Mining Act. In advance of the hearing, Grijalva said it would focus on ?the need to buffer this icon, the Grand Canyon, from very harmful activity around it.? He said he introduced the legislation because the number of categorical waivers and expedited mining permits has jumped about 10 times in recent years. ?That?s been the process of the Interior Department, to process mining claims,? he said. For the Forest Service to allow such activity within a few miles of such a revered site as the Grand Canyon is outrageous, the congressman said. ?It is something that we depend on for visitors, for tourism, it?s one of the wonders of the world, and here we are as the federal government allowing the distinct possibility of uranium mining around the Grand Canyon,? Grijalva added. Environmental groups sued the U.S. Forest Service earlier this month over its decision granting approval to VANE Minerals Group, a British mining company seeking commercial quantities of uranium ore, to drill at up to 39 sites on the Kaibab National Forest. The Kaibab sandwiches much of the Grand Canyon National Park. Environmental advocates heavily outweighed mining proponents in the audience of more than 200. About 200 people filled the council chamber at the Flagstaff City Hall. Also presenting testimony during the first morning panel with Shirley was Kaibab Paiute Tribal Chairwoman Ono Segundo and Havasupai Tribal Chairman Don Watahomigie. Both also testified that their tribes are opposed to renewed uranium mining in and around the Grand Canyon region. Appearing with Grijalva was Arizona Rep. Ed Pastor and California Rep. Grace Napolitano. Shirley said that as the Cold War raged more than 50 years ago, the United States government began a massive effort to mine and process uranium ore for use in the country?s nuclear weapons programs. Much of that uranium was mined on or near Navajo lands by Navajo hands. ?Today, the legacy of uranium mining continues to devastate both the people and the land,? he said. ?The workers, their families, and their neighbors suffer increased incidences of cancers and other medical disorders caused by their exposure to uranium. Fathers and sons who went to work in the mines and the processing facilities brought uranium dust into their homes to unknowingly expose their families to radiation.? ?The mines, many simply abandoned, have left open open scars in the ground with leaking radioactive waste. The companies that processed the uranium ore dumped their waste in open ? and in some cases unauthorized ?pits, exposing both the soil and the water to radiation.? Asked by Pastor whether the Navajo Nation sees any benefits to come from uranium mining, Shirley the opposite has been true in the past. ?Many of my people have died. Many of my medicine people have died, Congressman,? he said. ?And as a result, our culture has gone away, some of it. Some of the medicine people with the knowledge they have, when they go on, it?s just like a library has gone on. You lose a lot of culture. That has happened to my people.? He said the tragedy of uranium?s legacy extends not only to those who worked in the mines but to those who worked and lived near the mines that also experienced devastating illnesses. Decades later, families who live in those same areas continue to experience health problems. ?The remnants of uranium activity continue to pollute our land, our water, and our lives,? he said. ?It would be unforgivable to allow this cycle to continue for another generation.? Those testifying in favor of the legislation cited concerns ranging from the potential impact of radiation contamination on the watershed to the legacy and historic impact of past mining, which devastated Indian lands. Mining proponents sought to assure congressional panelists that uranium mining today is far safer than how it was practiced more a half-century ago. Kris Hefton, director of VANE Mineral U.S., said the industry needs to be judged on its current performance rather than its history ? emphasizing that mining today is much safer and cleaner. Corbin Newman, regional forester for the U.S. Forest Service, defended his agency?s action in giving the go-ahead to explore on the sites. He said the Forest Service had acted in accordance with the law in granting approval. But when Steve Martin, superintendent of the national park, was questioned whether uranium mining represents a significant threat to the canyon, he replied ?Yes.? And asked to measure the risk on a scale of 1 to 10, Martin said, ?Ten.? Officials also noted that the adverse impacts of previous uranium mining have compelled their tribes to ban new uranium mining development on their lands. Chris Shuey, director of the Southwest Research Information Center in Albuquerque said mining brings uranium to the surface and in the process its concentration is increased many times over its natural level. Shuey said at least five radiological assessments by the National Park Service since the early 1980s at the site of a past mine ? the Orphan Mine ? have shown gamma radiation levels more than 450 times background levels inside the original fenced area and nearly 150 times normal on adjacent lands that tourists and park employees once routinely walked across on the South Rim foot path. A three-strand wire fence encloses the much larger and highly contaminated area, he said. All contents property of the Gallup Independent. Send questions or comments to ga11p1nd@cnetco.com ***************************************************************** 118 Platts: Bodman foresees uranium inventory release to meet 10% of US need 2008-03-12 Washington (Platts)--12Mar2008 Releasing the US Department of Energy's uranium into the marketplace in quantities representing about 10% of total annual fuel requirements "should not have an adverse material impact on the domestic uranium industry," Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said Wednesday. In a policy statement on management of DOE's inventory of excess uranium, Bodman said DOE "anticipates that it may introduce into the domestic market, in any given year, less than that amount, or, in some years for certain special purposes such as the provision of initial core loads for new reactors, more than that amount." Bodman said that in the coming years, DOE expects to downblend "most" of its excess high-enriched uranium into low-enriched uranium, or LEU. The department also is "evaluating the desirability of enriching a portion" of its natural-uranium inventories, Bodman said. The assessment will take into account "costs, market conditions, programmatic priorities and potential uses," he said. --Daniel Horner, daniel_horner@platts.com For similar news, request a free trial to Platts Electric Power Daily at http://www.platts.com/Request%20More%20Information/index.xml?src=story Copyright © 2008 - Platts, All Rights Reserved ***************************************************************** 119 Los Angeles Times: Time for a mining law update - As claims encroach on cities, an 1872 law isn't protecting us from environmental and health threats. March 14, 2008 In 1872, Hawaii's King Kamehameha V died and ended a dynasty, Apache leader Cochise agreed to retire to a reservation, Susan B. Anthony was arrested for voting in the presidential election, and a dusty California outpost known as Los Angeles opened its first public library. A few things have changed in this country since then, but not the law that regulates hard-rock mining on federal lands. When President Grant signed the General Mining Act of 1872, the intent was to encourage settlement of the untamed Western frontier. The law accomplished this by essentially giving away federal lands, selling territory to miners for what was even then a very low price and allowing them to take all the minerals they wanted without paying royalties to the government. Further, it dictated that mining would take top priority for use of these lands -- more important than, say,recreation or wildlife conservation. That gavecommunities or environmentalists very little recourse to challenge mining claims. Astonishingly, this law has remained on the books for 136 years despite clear and widespread evidence of vast environmental harm and threats to public health. Hard-rock metals mining was the top source of toxic pollution in the United States in 2006, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Mining is responsible for more Superfund sites than any other industry, leaving behind polluted water, deadly air and, in the case of uranium mining, radioactive waste. It seems inconceivable that this could go on for so long, but the mining industry benefits from its relative invisibility. Until recently, most mines were on lands far away from cities, so few people witnessed the environmental damage they wreak. That's starting to change. A worldwide shortage of metals and uranium has caused prices to skyrocket, leading to an explosion of mining claims -- many of them close to urban areas. According to a report from the nonprofit Environmental Working Group, the number of claims has doubled in the last five years, including more than 16,000 within five miles of cities and towns throughout the West. This is increasing conflicts over land use and raising awareness that the government has long been abrogating its responsibility to regulate a highly polluting industry. The House has passed a bill that would reform the 1872 mining law, imposing royalty payments on miners and giving regulators more power to block claims in environmentally sensitive areas. The Senate has been holding committee hearings on the issue, but no bill has yet been introduced. It's long past time that Congress laid Grant's mining legacy to rest. Copyright 2008 Los Angeles Times ***************************************************************** 120 CNN: Uranium Energy Corp Rejects Claims in Local Lawsuit March 19, 2008: 07:06 PM EST Uranium Energy Corp (AMEX: UEC)(FRANKFURT: U6Z)(BERLIN: U6Z) today dismissed as groundless allegations in a local lawsuit apparently filed this week in Victoria County, Texas; the Company has not yet been served. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court by Goliad County and an individual landowner and alleges infractions of the Safe Drinking Water Act nearby to areas where the Company is currently drilling. The allegations have previously been investigated and found to be without merit by the Texas Railroad Commission, the senior regulatory agency overseeing uranium exploration efforts in the state. In a September 2007 letter to the Goliad County Groundwater District, the Texas Railroad Commission said, "...the agency's investigation of your complaint has not revealed any practice or activity at UEC's Uranium Exploration Permit 123 that is out of compliance...We consider this investigation to be closed." In addition, the Company's Goliad project has been inspected by the state agency on a monthly basis since the close of the investigation, and no violations have been found. As the state agency noted in an April 2007 letter to the County's attorney, the agency hydrologist "...concluded from the available information that no ground-water contamination has occurred as a result of the drilling activities." The state agency concluded its letter by noting that "(t)o date, the Commission's investigation of your complaint has not revealed any practice or activity within the approved permit area that has adversely affected the wells identified in your complaint or the related aquifer, or is out of compliance with Texas Uranium Mining Regulations...." Uranium Energy Corp has assembled one of the most skilled and experienced teams of experts in the industry, and the Company is dedicated to meeting or exceeding every applicable environmental standard. This case will not hamper the current exploration work. Current programs are approved and administered solely under the jurisdiction of the Texas Railroad Commission. About Uranium Energy Corp Uranium Energy Corp (AMEX: UEC) is a US-based junior resource company with the objective of becoming a near-term ISR uranium producer in the United States. The Company controls one of the largest historical uranium exploration and development databases in the US. Through the use of these databases, the Company has acquired advanced uranium properties throughout the southwestern US. The operational management is comprised of pre-eminent uranium mining and exploration professionals, whose collective experience in this industry gives the Company hands-on uranium mine-finding and development expertise. Contacts: Uranium Energy Corp - Contact North America Investor Relations Toll Free: 1-866-748-1030 (512) 233-2531 (FAX) Email: info@uraniumenergy.com Website: www.uraniumenergy.com © 2008 Cable News Network. A Time Warner Company. All Rights ***************************************************************** 121 Press Association: Sellafield admits new waste leak 1 day ago Radioactive liquid waste has leaked at Sellafield, its owners have admitted. Officials said the effluent, mainly water with a very low level of radioactivity, spilled from holding tanks into a concrete room designed to contain overflows. A small amount escaped into an adjacent concrete corridor. A Sellafield spokesman said: "All material was recovered. Radiation monitoring confirmed that the liquid was of such low radioactivity that no further work was required to decontaminate the area. An investigation is under way to understand more about how the incident happened." Copyright © 2008 The Press Association. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 122 Kolumnen: An International Fuel Bank for Nuclear Power - Atlantic Community - WELT DEBATTE Freitag, 21. März 2008 M. Dupuis 18.03.2008 - 14.38 Uhr On the Atlantic Community: Matt Dupuis: The idea of bringing the production and storage of nuclear fuel under international control is gaining support once again. The US should take the lead in creating a global fuel bank which would make it possible to test countries’ intentions while limiting their access to nuclear technology. Iran's drive to acquire a uranium enrichment capability - and with it the capability to produce materials for nuclear weapons - demonstrates the need to craft more effective controls over the nuclear fuel cycle. By far the biggest hurdle to acquiring a nuclear weapon is producing the fissile materials - highly enriched uranium or plutonium. As such, constraining access to uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing is the most important goal in preventing further proliferation. Tehran's adamant pursuit of enrichment and reprocessing technologies has sparked international concern for several reasons: Iran illegally acquired centrifuge designs and parts on the black market, concealed a deeply buried enrichment facility, and for years has stonewalled the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as it seeks answers to questions regarding the nature of Tehran's past nuclear activities. Iran has now put 3,000 centrifuges in place and is working on a new, more advanced design. Yet Iran has faced only minimal penalties for defying international demands to halt its enrichment program. The challenge of Iran's program has highlighted the fact that no international consensus exists on the extent to which countries can develop nuclear fuel cycle technologies for civilian purposes. All countries that comply with international law have the right to possess the full fuel cycle. But any country that can enrich uranium or separate plutonium from spent nuclear fuel also possesses a breakout capability to pursue a weapon program on short order. If the predictions of a global nuclear power renaissance prove true, then now is the time for the international community to develop a consensus on a new way forward. A first step would be to place the production and storage of nuclear fuels under international control. Doing so would help prevent a world in which several dozen countries could quickly become nuclear-weapon states at the flip of a switch. The idea is not new. The 1946 "Baruch plan" proposed by the United States sought to establish such a global fuel bank. More recently, the Director General of the IAEA, Mohammed ElBaradei, has endorsed a similar concept. The fuel bank idea is gradually gaining international support but has yet to materialize. To work, an international fuel bank would have to be a failsafe, incentive-based consortium under which countries would be 100 percent certain to gain unlimited access to reactor fuel in exchange for forgoing indigenous enrichment and reprocessing facilities and adopting stringent safeguard measures. The devil is in the details, however, and it is not yet clear who will supply the fuel bank and surrender their national right to determine the end user of its contributed fuel. For their part, non-nuclear-weapon states are understandably reticent to surrender additional rights in a world where nuclear disarmament remains an uncertain prospect. Thus any attempt at creating an international fuel bank will encounter stiff resistance, as it will essentially call for revisiting the agreements set out in the 1968 Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons. But nuclear-weapon states will have to be prepared to compromise if they wish to enlist support for the initiative. To be viable, more tangible steps by today's nuclear powers must be made toward verifiable nuclear disarmament, complimented with a new push to implement the stalled Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and negotiations on an agreement banning further production of fissile material. Critics of the fuel bank proposal argue that an international fuel bank is irrelevant from a nonproliferation standpoint because countries that wish to build nuclear weapons will do so anyway. While partly true, two benefits to multinational fuel arrangements remain. First, establishing a fuel bank would be an efficient way to test a country's real intentions. Any state that refused an economically advantageous offer of fuel services to retain fuel cycle capabilities can be assumed to have dubious motives. In such a case, coordinated international pressure to expose and thwart such plans would be easier to sustain. Second, today's government with benign intentions could be tomorrow's next nuclear aspirant. Yet they would find it impossible to do so if the technology necessary to build nuclear weapons were not at their disposal. Recently the US has donated $50 million to the IAEA in support of the initiative. Norway has contributed an additional $5 million. But the next US President should go one step further and take the lead in negotiating the framework for an international fuel bank, beginning by securing key support from developed and developing states alike. Establishing reliable international fuel supplies will not be easy, but it is necessary. The alternative - a world in which any and all states are free to hedge their bets by inching toward a nuclear weapons capability - is simply not sustainable. This article is published in cooperation with Atlantic-Community.org www.atlantic-community.org. 1 Kommentar Von Wahied Wahdat-Hagh, 20.03.2008 - 15:56 Uhr Die Zwangsverschleierung der Frauen wurde mit der islamischen Revolution im Iran eingeführt. Nima mehr... Copyright 2007 WELT ONLINE ***************************************************************** 123 WP: As Uranium Firms Eye N.M., Navajos Are Wary By Kari Lydersen Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, March 28, 2008; A02 AMBROSIA LAKE, N.M. -- Twenty years after uranium mining ceased in New Mexico amid plummeting prices for the ore, global warming and the soaring cost of oil are renewing interest in nuclear power -- and in the state's uranium belt. At least five companies are seeking state permits to mine the uranium reserves, estimated at 500 million pounds or more, and Uranium Resources Inc. (URI), a Texas-based company, wants to reopen a uranium mill in Ambrosia Lake. Industry officials say a uranium boom could mean thousands of jobs and billions in mineral royalties and taxes for the state. But the deposits are largely in and around Navajo land, and the industry's poor record on health and safety as it extracted tons of the ore in past decades has soured many Navajos on uranium mining. In 2005, the Navajo Nation banned uranium mining and milling on its land, and thousands of tribe members are receiving or seeking federal compensation for the health effects of past uranium exposure. Like many Navajos who worked in the mines, Larry J. King didn't know then that there was anything dangerous about it. "We had no respirators; you'd have sweat running down your face with the uranium dust getting in your ears, nose and mouth," said King, who surveyed mine tunnels from 1975 to 1982. "You couldn't help but swallow it." During mining's peak, from the early 1950s to the early 1980s, about 400 million pounds of uranium were extracted from the region. At the end of the boom, around 1984, the price of uranium languished below $10 a pound. Mines shut down, and the United States began importing nearly all of its uranium, with the bulk coming now from Canada, Russia and Australia. But by last summer, the price had rebounded to a record high of $136 a pound. Though the mines created numerous jobs and substantial royalties for the Navajo and Laguna tribes, the decades of extraction took a heavy toll: lung cancer, kidney disease, birth defects and other ailments at notably high levels among miners and families who lived among piles of uranium tailings -- the ground-up waste from milling -- and even used the material to build their homes. All but one of the major companies now seeking to mine in New Mexico are newcomers to the state and have promised to do a better job than their predecessors. In addition, pending state legislation would require them to deposit a small percentage of their profits in a "legacy fund" to clean up existing uranium contamination. But King said, "I don't believe them one bit." He blames his recent health problems on uranium. He remembers July 16, 1979, when more than 90 million gallons of uranium-contaminated water burst through the dam of a tailings holding pond and into the Puerco River running by his land. And he remembers seeing his cattle drop dead from, he thinks, drinking polluted mine runoff. Another former uranium miner, Milton Head, 69, describes similar effects on people and livestock. "Stubby Simpson was a picture of health, didn't smoke or drink, then he got lung cancer and lasted six months," Head said of another former miner. "Steers would turn yellow, their horns and hooves would slough off, like they were just drying up." Head, who is not Navajo, is all for uranium as a fuel source but does not trust the federal government to regulate the industry. He lives a few blocks from a former uranium mill that is now a Superfund site. Teddy Nez, a Navajo, lives near a 40-foot-tall pile of uranium tailings. Little ground vegetation grows in the parched climate. "You're breathing uranium right now," Nez said as dust swirled through the air. There are more than 1,000 abandoned uranium mines and several mill sites in the region, according to the Southwest Research and Information Center, a nonprofit public interest group that focuses on energy development and natural resources. Chris Shuey, director of the group's Uranium Impact Assessment Program, says three-quarters of the sites have not been cleaned up. None of URI's holdings are on the Navajo reservation, though there is some intersection with Navajo private allotted lands. Jurisdiction in the area is a complicated web of mineral and water rights underlying a checkerboard of tribal and nontribal holdings. URI Chief Operating Officer Richard Van Horn said the Navajo tribe's uranium mining ban could limit the company's plans but would not stop mining in the region. Along with conventional mining, in which uranium-laden ore is taken out of the ground and milled, URI plans to use a process called in situ recovery mining. The ore is left in the ground, and oxygenated water is injected into uranium-laden aquifers to essentially bond to the mineral and pump it to the surface. While the process causes much less waste and surface disruption, opponents worry that it will contaminate the water supply since it involves mobilizing uranium within the aquifer. URI's New Mexico operations director, Randy Foote, counters that the area's water is already not potable and that the company would be required to return the aquifer to its baseline state before ending operations. "Uranium is actually relatively benign," Foote said. "All the wells out here have small amounts of uranium in them." © 2008 The Washington Post Company ***************************************************************** 124 washingtonpost.com: Compensation for Sick Miners - washington_po284:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/ 2008/03/27/AR2008032703430.html Friday, March 28, 2008; Page A02 Since 1990, uranium workers and people who live downwind of nuclear weapons test sites have received compensation from the federal government for uranium-related diseases. 1971: Federal standards intended to protect uranium miners from dangerous exposure are passed. 1990: Congress passes the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, allowing payments for health problems related to nuclear weapons testing and uranium mining before 1971. 2000: The program runs out of money; miners reportedly die "with IOUs in hand." Emergency funds are later procured. 2000: Payment for miners is increased from $100,000 to $150,000. 2005: "Post-'71" miners charge that the federal government withheld a study indicating they too should be compensated. 2007: $577 million in payouts have been made to Navajo uranium workers. SOURCES: Justice Department, staff reports © 2008 The Washington Post Company ***************************************************************** 125 NCBR: Mining right-to-know bill dies in committee Northern Colorado Business Report - By Staff April 3, 2008 -- DENVER -- A bill designed to let the public know about possible mining activities near them was killed April 2 in the House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee. The bill, HB 1165, was sponsored by Fort Collins Democratic Reps. John Kefalas and Randy Fischer. Kefalas and Fischer drafted the bill in response to a plan by Powertech Uranium Corp. to mine uranium in western Weld County, and to give state residents more awareness of other possible uranium prospecting in Colorado. The bill died on a 7-to-6 vote largely along party lines after members of the committee could not agree on a version that would protect both the public and mining industry interests. Matt Garrington, field director of Environment Colorado, criticized those who helped kill the bill. "Today our Legislature failed to lift the veil of secrecy that surrounds mining," Garrington said in a statement. "We are disappointed in those representatives who sided with the mining industry over Coloradans and our environment." Garrington said Colorado is the only western state that keeps all prospecting information confidential even when local landowners and the environment could be directly impacted. "Mining exploration activities can come at a huge expense to local landowners, water quality and our unspoiled mountains and prairie landscapes," he said. "Mining companies have a responsibility to inform the public of activities that could directly impact local communities and the environment." Stuart Sanderson, president of the Colorado Mining Association, praised the committee's action to indefinitely postpone the measure. Sanderson said the bill would have "allowed local governments to override uniform state standards for the protection of the environment and set their own reclamation standards for mining operations." "The mining industry has consistently supported strong state regulatory programs for both the Division of Reclamation Mining and Safety and the Colorado Department of Health and Environment," he said in a statement. "We believe that decisions on matters of statewide interest such as development of minerals should remain in the hands of technical experts with solid expertise and funding, rather than scattered throughout the various levels of local government." HB 1165 had been introduced as a companion bill to HB 1161, also carried by Kefalas and Fischer along with other area legislators including Sen. Steve Johnson, R-Fort Collins. That bill, which places groundwater quality restrictions on uranium mining, passed a House vote on March 31 and is now moving to the Senate for debate next week. ©2008 Northern Colorado Business Report. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 126 Reno Gazette-Journal: Don't bring us nuclear waste when it's safe right where it is | www.rgj.com | By Victor Gilinsky Recently, a report titled, "Reappraising Yucca -- Is it Time for Neutral Assessment of the Proposed Repository?" was circulated by a retired Army colonel and a University of Nevada professor advocating that Nevada reassess its opposition to the proposed Yucca Mountain high-level nuclear waste site. The report reflects remarkably misinformed views about the basics of nuclear energy policy, the Yucca Mountain project and the applicable law. The report outlandishly claims that the state's Yucca Mountain watchdog entity, the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, has "enjoyed" funding in the "billions" while opposing the project for purely political reasons. This claim is entirely specious. While the agency has used federal funds for overseeing the Yucca program, what has held up the project most has been DOE's incompetence and mismanagement and the inherent failings of the Yucca site itself. The report urges Nevada to "undertake a neutral, unbiased assessment of the proposed Yucca Mountain Repository." Nevada has examined the repository project in exquisite detail for two decades and determined the Yucca site is unsuitable. To go forward would be both dangerous and foolhardy. The report's authors don't seem to know, or at least never mention, that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will examine the safety issues in an upcoming proceeding. The NRC isn't exactly a forum that tilts against the project. The report naively accepts DOE statements diminishing impacts of the waste. First, DOE's technical work has not been independently tested. Rather, it is more like litigation support for an upcoming NRC licensing board hearing. We'll see how DOE's position stands up to cross-examination. The authors also seem unaware that there is lots of water in Yucca Mountain, more than DOE ever imagined when it chose the site, and that the most vulnerable period for waste container corrosion is in the first hundreds of years, not hundreds of thousands, as DOE propaganda suggests. The point is that this is not Nevada's problem to solve. If, as the report says, spent fuel is less safe stored at the reactor sites and leaving it there "may be creating a nightmare," then the authors want to bring that nightmare to Nevada. In fact, the NRC says the spent fuel is safe where it is. There is no need to respond to the report's argument that Nevada is already so contaminated from bomb testing that it should just accept the waste. Most remarkably, the report asserts that some states have been able to draw "billions" from the congressionally established nuclear waste fund, while Nevada has failed to claim any of that money. In fact, the exact opposite is the case. Inexplicably, the report mistook the amount of money that various utility companies paid into the fund over the past two decades for fund disbursements. The report ends with a futuristic tribute to nuclear energy, which gets a number of facts wrong. Nuclear energy does not replace oil. In fact, the U.S. uses hardly any oil for generating electricity. Nuclear power would replace coal, so it wouldn't more than marginally "reduce our dependence on foreign imports." The report pushes reprocessing -- chemically treating spent fuel to extract plutonium and separate the radioactive waste -- especially as it is done in France. But this doesn't reduce the size of the repository, which depends on heat output. After recycling the plutonium as fuel, you still have spent fuel rods. So it doesn't reduce the volume much, either. All this evades the obvious -- that spent fuel can be safely accommodated at surface storage sites. It doesn't make sense to cart it across the country to a geologically inadequate site. Victor Gilinsky is a former member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. AP/Reno Gazette-Journal Railroad tracks lead into the south portal of Yucca Mountain, the planned site of a national nuclear waste repository near Mercury, Nev. The debate about Yucca Mountain continues and a recent report reflects controversial views about nuclear energy policy. Copyright ©2008 Reno Gazette-Journal. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 127 The Coloradoan: Uranium a bad idea www.coloradoan.com - Ft. Collins, CO. Thursday, March 20, 2008 Evelyn Robinson My drinking water should not contain uranium. Powertech, a Canadian company, has received approval for uranium exploratory drilling in northern Weld County. There are approximately 30,000 people depending on the groundwater that this company could potentially contaminate. The deepest effects would be felt by our children, pregnant mothers and our beloved pets. Powertech has claimed its technique will not harm the groundwater, but this process has been used in other states, and contamination of the groundwater has resulted. This beautiful city that we live in, Fort Collins, might not attract many more businesses if it is felt that this is no longer a desirable place to live with clean air and clean water. Residents might want to move elsewhere rather than deal with uranium exposure. Then housing values could fall and make it harder to move away from the danger posed by the uranium mining. I just want clean water and clean air, like the rest of the residents in this city. Evelyn Robinson, Fort Collins Comments by: archivist Posted: Tue Mar 18, 2008 9:01 pm - Initial Payment: $1 million - Installment Payments: 8 annual payments of $250 thousand - Permit Payment: $1.5 million and all outstanding installment payments upon Powertech's "receipt of all regulatory permits and licenses..." ========= Total sales price for the mineral rights $4.5 million ----- Not sure what happens when Powertech runs out of money. According to Powertech's quarterly financial statements their cumulative losses reached $18 million, their 'cash burn rate' increased to $1.5 million per month, and only $5 million working capital are left as of February 2008. Their stock is in pretty bad shape and according to Greg Burnett, Powertech's Vice President of Administration: "...our opposition in Colorado to the Centennial project have been very vocal ... This has created much uncertainty amongst our shareholders and potential investors about the future of the Centennial project and has caused significant additional selling pressure on our stock..." Comments by: Clint Posted: Tue Mar 18, 2008 4:13 pm archivist, "...BUT Anadarko only gets $1.5 million of it upon Powertechs "receipt of all regulatory permits and licenses..." 1.5 mil now; the balance if Powertech is permitted, correct? Comments by: archivist Posted: Tue Mar 18, 2008 3:38 pm Anadarko (they sold the mineral rights to Powertech) about themselves: "...Anadarko cultivates a strong balance between its business and support for local communities. Our employees live and work in the communities of northeastern Colorado, so we have a natural commitment as responsible citizens and neighbors. Anadarko’s employees support programs ranging from the United Way to the Weld County Special Olympics and Food Bank. Anadarko’s presence in Colorado is also felt more directly through jobs and taxes..." Total 2006 royalties, severance, ad valorem and property taxes $229 million Colorado employees (Denver, Brighton, Evans) 800 2006 Payroll $75 million Colorado contractors 1,100 2007 Capital expenditure budget $190-200 million ------ Total sales price for the mineral rights was $4.5 million BUT Anadarko only gets $1.5 million of it upon Powertechs "receipt of all regulatory permits and licenses allowing production of Uranium from the Subject Premises" Comments by: archivist Posted: Tue Mar 18, 2008 3:00 pm Bob I recommend that you contact the people at http://www.stewards-of-the-land.com The website is only one page but if you call them they can help you with getting your water tested. It is very important to have a 'baseline' for future reference. And only to test for uranium is not enough. Through the process of in-situ mining many other 'substances' get mobilized, like other heavy metals: arsenic, selenium,... The first risk for adults with uranium ingestion is mainly kidney damage, for kids many other problems are likely to occur. And some of the other substances are highly toxic even in small amounts... Comments by: Clint Posted: Tue Mar 18, 2008 2:41 pm Bob, The old coot (and family friend) was a lucky guy, eh! If there are 2 distinct acquifers, it sure makes sense to me that the deepest is the purest. Acquifers and mineral deposits remain so mysterious to me. I think its largely a myster for Powertech too. They're just going to go in and do underground injections willy nilly and gush things up to the surface. Perhaps if they didn't go below 200' all would be well. Originally published March 18, 2008 Print this article E-mail this Copyright ©2008 The Fort Collins Coloradoan. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 128 Denver Post: Uranium processor pleads guilty to poisoning birds - Article Last Updated: 03/14/2008 02:51:16 AM MDT Denver-based Cotter Corp. has pleaded guilty and was sentenced in federal court for poisoning migratory birds at its uranium processing facility near Cañon City. U.S. District Court Magistrate Kathleen Tafoya on Wednesday ordered Cotter to pay a $15,000 fine and an additional $15,000 restitution and placed the company on 12 months' probation. Cotter must prepare and implement a plan to comply with federal environmental laws under a plea agreement. The fines are the maximum allowable under the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act. Cotter attorneys pleaded guilty in connection with a spill of about 4,500 gallons of organic solvent in 2005 from a building at the facility into a catchment pond. About 40 geese and ducks were killed. All contents Copyright 2008 The Denver Post or other copyright holders. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 129 Denver Post: New, improved uranium mining - editorial By The Denver Post Article Last Updated: 03/20/2008 08:49:45 PM MDT The Colorado House of Representatives is scheduled to consider a bill Monday to protect the state's vital water resources in the face of a renewed boom in uranium mining. The Post supports House Bill 1161 in its current form. We had reservations about the bill as introduced, but it has been substantially improved by its sponsors, Fort Collins Reps. Randy Fischer and John Kefalas, after repeated meetings with mining industry representatives, local officials and environmental groups. Colorado has been through a uranium mining boom before, in the 1950s and '60s. Colorado uranium helped build atomic bombs as the U.S. and Soviet Union competed in a frantic arms race and also helped fuel the nuclear power plants that now produce 20 percent of U.S. electricity. Demand for Colorado uranium later lessened as other sources began supplying nuclear power plants and arms limitation treaties capped nuclear arsenals. Since the Soviet Union dissolved, some of its former weapons have even been dismantled to produce fuel for reactors, reducing demand for newly mined fuel. But mounting concerns over global climate change have spurred new interest worldwide in nuclear power. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 authorized subsidies for up to six new reactors in the United States. Meanwhile, China, India and Japan are looking at nuclear to reduce their dependence on coal. That surge in demand has sparked renewed interest in Colorado uranium, especially in a new "in-situ" process that promises to mine uranium more cheaply and with less environmental disturbance than the old open-pit mines. The in-situ process essentially takes water out of the ore-bearing formations, enriches it with oxygen and baking soda, and re-injects it to dissolve the ore. The resulting slurry is pumped out and processed and the water is cleaned before being enriched again to renew the cycle. Slightly less water is re-injected than was withdrawn to encourage surrounding groundwater to migrate into the mine, reducing the risk that contaminated water will seep outward. That sounds like a good plan. The trick is to be sure that the new mines are monitored to ensure they meet water standards. And that's where HB 1161 comes in. "We now have adequate protections in place for the old open-pit mines in the Mined Land Reclamation Act," Fischer told The Post. "Now, it's important to provide adequate protection for ground water as we deal with this relatively new in-situ technology." Fischer, an engineer, and Kefalas have worked diligently to craft a balanced bill that won't ban uranium mining in Colorado but will help ensure that the water supplies vital to agriculture and municipal use aren't sacrificed in a new mining boom. It deserves to become law. All contents Copyright 2008 The Denver Post or other copyright ***************************************************************** 130 Greenpeace UK: Cost of nuclear waste could kill off plans for a new fleet | Posted by tracy on 27 March 2008. The government says the decision on building new nuclear reactors will be entirely up to the market and utility companies will have to pay their "full share" of decommissioning and waste management costs, but Gordon Brown is going to have to cook the books like a cordon bleu chef if wants to attract new investment. While Brown teams up with French president Nicholas Sarkozy at Emirates stadium today to push through his dream of a new nuclear era, a government advisor is publishing a new cost analysis that suggests energy companies cannot be charged a fully commercial price for waste disposal without "killing the prospect" of a new generation of nuclear reactors. The analysis by Ian Jackson, who has worked in the nuclear industry for over 20 years and is a former nuclear regulator, says that a "fully commercial price would make disposal far too expensive, killing the prospects of any new nuclear build programme in Britain". That means that the government could not charge energy companies the rates already being paid by foreign utility companies storing waste at Sellafield - which, commercially speaking, they should be - without scuppering any plans for new nuclear reactors. The government would need to cap costs at six to 12 per cent of their actual commercial value to make it worth while for investors. "The problem is that unfortunately the fully commercial price would make disposal far too expensive, killing the prospects of any new nuclear build programme in Britain," said Mr Jackson. "In plain language, the energy companies want fixed price caps on nuclear waste disposal; an understandable position given that the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority's waste management cost forecasts have escalated by 9 per cent annually in recent years." Storing waste from the new reactors alongside waste from existing reactors in the £10 billion repository would add about another £500m to the cost. Ultimately taxpayers would end up having to subsidise new nuclear power stations contrary to the government's promises. If nuclear power had to stand on its own two feet in a truly liberalised energy market, there's no way anyone would be talking about building new reactors. Now maybe some people will think that £500m is a bit of a bargain for climate friendly energy. But the fact is a new generation of nuclear reactors will not be built within the next eight years which is when scientists agree C02 emissions have to be on a downward trend if we are to have any hope of averting the worst impacts of climate change. The government's own figures show that a new fleet of reactors will only reduce our emissions by 4 per cent sometime after 2025. Worse still, the taxpayer money that will be needed to kick start investment in new nuclear could instead be used for solutions that could deliver greater cuts in CO2 emissions in the time frame needed. You can download an extract from Ian Jackson's book "Nukenomics - The commercialization of Britain's nuclear industry" (pdf) which will be published next month by Nuclear Engineering International. ***************************************************************** 131 Gazette: Uranium mining raises questions of safety, solitude and wealth in Fremont County | fremont, county, miles : March 29, 2008 - 12:59PM By R. SCOTT RAPPOLD THE GAZETTE FREMONT COUNTY - This was Jim Hawklee's dream - a quiet place to retire among the trees and mountains, far from the noise and traffic of the city. It has become his nightmare. Last summer, about the time he was finishing a $1 million home in this rugged area 15 miles northwest of Cañon City, an Australian company was staking claims and drilling holes in these hills, looking for the nuclear fuel uranium. Hawklee and his neighbors in the Tallahassee Creek area learned they live above one of the richest uranium stashes in Colorado, one that was drilled extensively in the 1970s. Black Range Minerals wants to drill 75 test holes. It estimates it could extract 46 million pounds of urani- um and has suggested it could set up a milling operation there. Hawklee and some of his neighbors fear the impact on water, traffic, noise and quality of life. He is president of a group, Tallahassee Area Community Inc., formed to stop it. There are 44 properties within 500 feet, and 570 homes within a few miles, the group claims. It's a story being repeated throughout Colorado, which has the third-greatest uranium deposits in the nation. Expansion of nuclear power abroad has spiked uranium prices tenfold since 2003. It's an old story in many ways, the clash between landowners and miners and prospectors. And some landowners are learning harsh lessons about laws that give mining companies access to their land, and that, when they bought their property, they weren't buying what lies beneath. "Most of the uranium interest has taken off in the past two years, and it's really something that is catching a lot of people offguard," said Dan Grenard, minerals expert with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management in Cañon City, which oversees mineral development. "We haven't had any interest in uranium since the late 1970s." Said Hawklee: "There was no information given to us, as purchasers of property when we bought it, that there were abandoned uranium mines in our area. "It's really tearing our community apart. We bought up here to retire and build homes." Lee Alter thought the pond across the street from his horse ranch was an old fishing hole. He recently found out it is one of 79 abandoned uranium mines in Fremont County, most of which dot the hills of his neighborhood. "When we bought in 1995, the Cold War was over. The nuclear power industry was at a standstill. There was no reason to believe there would ever be a demand for uranium," said Alter, who knew only that there had been some exploration in the area. A global crash in uranium prices, spurred by post-Three Mile Island skepticism about nuclear power, brought exploration to a halt. The drill holes were plugged and abandoned, and weeds and bushes sprouted from the piles of dirt, which became just another part of the landscape. The large ranches were sold off as 40-acre plots for people building vacation lodges and retirement homes. "People said, ‘It's gone away, so why worry about it?'" Hawklee said. "The history of what's happened under your land kind of gets lost." In most cases, residents said they weren't told by the sellers or real estate agents about the mining past. Residents thought neighborhood covenants barring mining provided enough protection. According to the Colorado Division of Reclamation, Mining and Safety, there are 76 uranium exploration projects in eight of the state's counties, including Fremont County. Uranium is selling for $70 a pound - about what it was in the late 1970s, when adjusted for inflation - up from $7 a pound five years ago. In a belt from Cañon City northwest through Teller and Park counties, several companies - most foreign-owned - have bought mineral rights for tens of thousands of acres. Among those staking claims in the area are Royal Resources, also of Australia, Vancouver-based Buckingham Exploration and another Canadian firm, Energy Metals Corp. Another company, Golden-based Horizon Nevada Uranium, Inc., is notifying property owners near Hartsel in Park County that it plans exploration on up to 3,000 acres. "The good thing about the U.S is it's been heavily explored and very well-documented," said Robin Relph, CEO of Buckingham Exploration, which is exploring for uranium on private land on High Park Road in southern Teller County. "You can usually find where you want to be." But there is another factor spurring the exploration: a mill in Cañon City that could process the uranium - the same mill that was behind one of the worst pollution episodes in the region. "The water is not suitable for drinking, but it's suitable for gardening." John Hamrick, vice president of milling at the Cotter uranium mill in Cañon City, is talking about the groundwater downhill from the plant. And the fact that you can garden with it is an improvement. The plant, built in 1958, is one of four uranium mills in the U.S. where uranium can be manufactured into yellowcake, the raw material for nuclear power plant fuel rods. After sputtering along for years, it shut down in 2006. At its peak in the late 1970s, it employed 121 people. Today, it has a skeleton crew of 31, most of whom are involved in environmental monitoring. The mill is a Superfund site, a federal designation reserved for the most serious environmental hazards. Decades of improper storage of uranium tailings - they were thrown into an unlined pit - contaminated the water for an entire subdivision in Cañon City. The company paid to hook residents up to city water. The mill continues to rile neighbors, despite being closed. This month, a federal judge fined the company for a 2005 spill of solvent that killed 40 geese and ducks. The company this month also dropped a plan to import radioactive waste from New Jersey, after losing an appeal of a state health department denial. Critics of uranium exploration point to the Cotter pollution as evidence of the industry's impact on neighbors. Despite its rocky history, Cotter is considering reopening because of high uranium prices and the possibility of fresh ore being pulled from the ground in Fremont County. The company expects to finish a feasibility study this year on whether to launch a $100 to $200 million rebuilding of the plant. The uranium exploration companies are counting on it, since having a mill nearby would cut transportation costs. It is a key point in companies' rush to find investors. Cotter officials said if they reopen, the mill would be completely rebuilt, with modern safeguards to prevent contamination. The raw uranium would not be left outside, as it once was, and the tailings would be dumped in lined pits, as they have been since the early 1980s. "You're never going to make everyone happy," Hamrick said. "You have to be able to at least show people that you are concerned about the effect of the operation on your environment. "When we build a new mill, we'll get to build one the right way," Hamrick said. A Cañon City residents group, Colorado Citizens Against Toxic Waste, has vowed to fight the plan. Its argument is much the same as that of the Tallahassee Creek group: It is too close to where people live. "It's like Pandora's Box. You put a mine in the wrong place or a mill in the wrong place, and contamination gets out into that groundwater, and it's over," said group co-chairwoman Sharyn Cunningham. Steve Tarlton, of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment's radiation management unit, said the mill's license is active. But the mill needs agency approval to resume operations, which would involve public comments, he said. "Our job is to make sure that, if they do move out of the stand-down phase, that it is done properly, with all the appropriate protections in place," Tarlton said. There isn't much that would satisfy Cunningham. "We drank this damned water for eight years, and for the rest of my life, every time I get some illness, I'm going to wonder, ‘Is it from that water I drank?'" she said. Black Range Minerals had a public meeting March 13, a chance to "meet, learn and share" with residents of the Tallahassee Creek area, according to a flier. The company got a mixed reception. "I have friends who will benefit from it and I have friends who will not benefit from it," said resident Dan Ainsworth, who is guardedly neutral. "I think it's a wonderful idea," said property owner Richard Boyer. "It's time this country wakes up and realizes windmills aren't going to get (energy independence) and solar panels aren't going to get it." But he has his own motivation. He owns one of the large ranches Black Range would explore - and he hopes it can someday be mined, with royalty payments to benefit his grandchildren. In southern Teller County, Buckingham Exploration has an agreement with a landowner and an option to buy the land if uranium is found, said CEO Relph. The company doesn't plan to drill in residential areas. "What's the point? We don't want to start World War III in Colorado," Relph said. "We'd rather just find areas where there is nothing, or big ranches, or government land." Modern mining techniques and regulations ensure it is safer, he said, and companies can't just leave open scars on the landscape anymore, like the "fishing hole" across from Alter's ranch. Many Tallahassee Creek residents say the presence of so much uranium drilling so close to their homes is bound to have an impact, the most serious concern being uranium-contaminated runoff washing into their wells. Though Black Range Minerals began exploration last year, the company halted the drilling because it had not gotten a required permit from Fremont County. For now, all the company's exploration is planned with willing property owners or on federal land, though it and other companies own extensive mineral rights under private land in the area. It has submitted an application for a conditional use permit, which the county Planning Commission will review at a public hearing Tuesday. The county commissioners will vote on it in May. If the company finds uranium and wants to mine it, there would be a new permit process. Across the country, some areas have banned uranium mining outright, including the state of Virginia and the Navajo Nation. In Colorado, legislation is pending to put greater restrictions on uranium mining, which would cover former mines and new operations. Meanwhile, some property owners in Tallahassee Creek feel their lives are on hold. Pat and Fred Espenak of Maryland looked all over the West for a retirement spot - somewhere Fred, a NASA astronomer, could build an observatory. Now they worry that lights from drilling rigs will brighten the dark skies he hoped to find and the mining will destroy the aquifer. They have put off their plans to start building a home next year. "I don't know. We're not going to do anything until there's some kind of resolution," said Pat Espenak. "Why put more money into it when we could end up with something we can't sell at all?" Hawklee, the association president, said he doesn't have that option. "We can't do anything with it because all our life savings are tied up in here," Hawklee said. A contractor, he hoped to build many of the new homes expected in Tallahassee Creek. At the March 13 meeting, he confronted Mike Haynes, managing director of Black Range Minerals, about the potential environmental impact of the drilling. The company's financial statements indicate that if uranium is found, it would do underground mining for three to five years, then could move to open-pit mining. "So, you personally wouldn't mind having a residence right on top of where they're doing mine operations?" Hawklee said. "No, I wouldn't," said Haynes. "Government regulations are so stringent there would be negligible impact." Hawklee looked incredulous. "When you moved out there, did you realize there were uranium mines in that district?" Haynes said."The reality is you can explore projects and never come to production." "Thank you for your time, sir," Hawklee said. They shook hands - but not warmly. ***************************************************************** 132 [southnews] US nuclear weapons complex: Pushing for a new production capability Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2008 09:43:11 -0500 (CDT) If the United States isn't prepared to take even this kind of baby step toward fulfilling its NPT obligations, it's difficult to see how Washington could ever play a constructive role in the international cooperation necessary to prevent nuclear nuclear proliferation. The U.S. nuclear weapons complex: Pushing for a new production capability By Greg Mello Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists| 21 March 2008 On January 15, the Wall Street Journal published an op-ed by former secretaries of state George Shultz and Henry Kissinger, former Defense Secretary William Perry, and former Georgia Republican Sen. Sam Nunn, which 37 other national security experts also endorsed. Entitled "Toward A Nuclear-Free World," it was the second such essay in the Journal by these authors in as many years. (See also "A World Free of Nuclear Weapons.") Both essays concerned the benefits--some immediate, others long-term--of specific nuclear policies the authors believe would be best advanced under the nuclear disarmament banner. These authors do not mention that the United States and four other nuclear states (Russia, Britain, France, and China) are already legally bound to "pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament . . ." by Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The opinion of the World Court and subsequent U.S. diplomatic agreements has confirmed the binding character of these twin commitments to end the arms race and achieve nuclear disarmament. 1 Most observers agree that the collective unwillingness of the five NPT nuclear weapons states to persuasively implement these Article VI obligations has harmed the NPT and the law-based nonproliferation regime it underpins. 2 If the disarmament aspiration expressed in these two essays means anything, it means refraining from long-term investments in the specialized, "responsive" infrastructure needed to make novel warheads. Nuclear weapons infrastructure investments that require large, long-term commitments of capital and skilled technical labor--scarce resources in any country--are good indicators of national nuclear intent. In other words, infrastructure investments make, and are, nuclear policy. The U.S. government says as much. In 2006, Linton Brooks, the then administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), emphasized the importance of long-term manufacturing investments as a foundation of more aggressive nuclear policies a "couple of decades" hence. "We can change our declaratory [nuclear] policy in a day," he said during a speech [PDF] to the East Tennessee Economic Council. "We can make operational and targeting changes in weeks or months. In a year or so we can improve integration of nuclear and non-nuclear offense. By contrast, the infrastructure and the stockpile it can support cannot change as quickly. Full infrastructure changes may take a couple of decades." Brooks is right. The factory complex at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) needed to produce the fissile plutonium cores, or "pits," for RRW or another new warhead isn't expected to be completed until at least 2017. But as long as design and construction of these production facilities proceeds, Congress could "halt" RRW for a few more years, as it did in late 2007, without significantly affecting its final delivery schedule, assuming it were eventually approved. Warhead design and engineering development are short-term activities compared with designing, constructing, equipping, and standing up operations in the facilities needed to actually build RRWs. The new buildings needed are orders of magnitude more complicated than the warheads and there is considerable managerial risk involved in acquiring them. 3 For example, the nuclear explosive portion in a warhead or bomb contains at most a few hundred components, nearly all of which are inert until use. By contrast, a typical automobile has more than 10,000 parts. A plutonium production complex contains millions of parts, and such a complex is anything but inert. To successfully operate it would require training and coordinating at least 1,000 people and would also require some success in meeting safety, security, and environment standards. Construction of the most recent large-scale U.S. pit production facility, Building 371 at Rocky Flats in Colorado began in 1973 and was completed in 1981 at a cost of $225 million ($524 million in today's dollars). It operated for only one month before the Energy Department realized that the technology on which it was based would not work. The repair cost $400 million and took eight years. Energy called it a "fiasco." NNSA describes the proposed new factories at LANL as merely providing "capacity," as if "capacity" could be created and then mothballed. One cannot build, equip, and stand up highly specialized factories that cost billions of dollars and hire and train hundreds of highly specialized technicians over many years without actually making the objects these costly and complex arrangements were meant to produce. The proposed Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement (CMRR) Facility at Los Alamos. The United States has now begun to heavily invest in the specialized manufacturing infrastructure needed for new nuclear weapons, pivotally at LANL. The flagship of this complex is the CMRR project to be built at LANL's Technical Area (TA)-55. NNSA describes the current cost for CMRR as at least $2.2 billion. But if completed, it would probably cost more. 4 The CMRR consists of two buildings--the Nuclear Facility (NF), comprising roughly nine-tenths of the project in dollar terms, and the Radiological Laboratory, Utility, and Office Building (RLUOB). Together, the two buildings would comprise some 400,000 square feet of new interior space, and the NF's 6-metric ton vault would approximately triple LANL's plutonium storage capacity. 5 If completed, the CMRR would be the largest construction project in the history of LANL in inflation-corrected dollars. The two CMRR buildings would be linked by tunnels and connect to LANL's existing 30-year-old plutonium facility (PF-4), which has been modified for production using operational funds over the last decade or more. NNSA has now begun a more extensive renovation of PF-4 in an open-ended, long-term construction line item called the "TA-55 Reinvestment Project." At present, pit production utilizes approximately one-quarter of PF-4's 59,600 square feet of nuclear floor space; the CMRR NF would add at least 22,500 additional square feet of this type, some with greater ceiling height, providing greater operational flexibility. Ceiling height has been a limiting factor regarding manufacturing equipment and production processes in PF-4. RLUOB construction is approximately 40 percent complete, while after four years, the Nuclear Facility is still in preliminary design and it's unclear when, or if, it will be completed or when construction might begin if approved. Physically, the 90,000-cubic-yard pit dug at the NF site, ostensibly to investigate seismic conditions, is now the staging yard for RLUOB construction. Therefore, the earliest possible construction start date for the NF is spring 2009--the earliest RLUOB could be completed. 6 Such a schedule seems optimistic, as a number of significant NF design issues remain unresolved, including seismic design, overall safety design, and building size. (See the summary of the "Draft Complex Transformation Supplemental Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement" [PDF].) As of March 2007, conceptual vault design, including provisions for fail-safe cooling of plutonium stores, hadn't been finalized. 7 It's difficult to predict the ultimate capacity of a LANL pit production complex anchored by a renovated PF-4 and the two CMRR buildings--especially if additional production space or an additional two production buildings were subsequently added, as NNSA suggests might happen. 8 Whether built with just the RLUOB, the RLUOB and the NF as planned, the RLUOB plus a "supersized" NF, or with the whole project doubled in size by subsequent construction, the CMRR is unnecessary to maintain the present nuclear arsenal or any subset of it for several decades. The CMRR is needed, however, to manufacture significant quantities of pits for novel nuclear explosives. 9 How many pits could LANL make--with and without CMRR? LANL has possessed the capability to make pits since 1945. But until last year--when it produced 11 new pits, some or all of which were assembled into W88 Trident warheads at the Pantex nuclear weapons plant near Amarillo, Texas--LANL hasn't made pits for the stockpile since 1949, with one or two possible exceptions. 10 LANL's current pit manufacturing capacity is uncertain and open to interpretation. On the one hand, NNSA could choose to displace or terminate certain programs currently housed in PF-4; on the other hand, some of those programs are likely needed for new-design nuclear explosive package certification, without which pit production has no reason to proceed. At a minimum, successful certification of new-design nuclear explosives requires the use of extensive design, testing, and simulation capabilities. These might not be sufficient; nuclear testing might also be required. So any decision to resume pit production has long coattails, tasking most of PF-4 and much of the nuclear weapons complex as a whole. In February 1996, Energy said LANL's pit production capacity, prior to any investment, was "10 to 20 pits per year." 11 Later that year, Energy stated that LANL pit production of "up to 50 [pits] per year" is "inherent with the facilities and equipment required to manufacture one component [pit] for any stockpile system." 12 In 2005, the Secretary of Energy's Advisory Board (SEAB) Nuclear Weapons Complex Infrastructure Task Force [PDF] said LANL's existing pit production capacity could (and should) be increased by a ratio of "1:20." This twentyfold increase wasn't a rhetorical flourish; rather, it was predicated on producing an RRW or RRW-like pit designed for mass production involving simpler design, broader tolerances, robotic production technologies in some steps, and fewer toxic materials, which would allow greater ease, flexibility, and speed of production. 13 This year, NNSA stated, "A reasonable judgment of the inherent capacity of a production line for nuclear components exceeds 50 per year. A modern factory-style layout could result in a minimum [emphasis added] inherent capacity in the range of 125 components per year." 14 Existing LANL pit production capacity is somewhat predicated on the nine-wing Chemistry and Metallurgy Research (CMR) building in TA-3. Despite extensive recent upgrades, much of the CMR may be nearing the end of its usefulness for this purpose. According to NNSA Administrator Tom D'Agostino, pit production could continue at LANL without either the CMRR or CMR, or possibly with part of the CMR, as NNSA wrote in response to congressional questions in 2007. 15 How many pits per year LANL could produce if CMRR were built is even less clear, as the uncertainties--including uncertainties in CMRR's size and the number of facilities ultimately available at TA-55--are compounded. In addition, as a senior Energy official explained to me in 2002, the achievable production rate in a given number of square feet of plutonium space is a sensitive function of the technology used. It is also a function of the complexity and tolerances required in the type of pits produced. Any capacity cited today isn't necessarily what might be available 10 years from now if technology development were to continue--and RRW were approved. Production capacity is also a function of flexibility, e.g. whether two or more kinds of pits are to be produced simultaneously or in rapid succession. The lowest capacity is governed by what might be called the "fiasco factor." Accidents and malicious acts, previously unknown or undisclosed infrastructure or management inadequacies, enforcement actions, and preventive stand-downs have all occurred at LANL and are real possibilities. A production capacity of zero could easily result from any of them, possibly for a long time. The highest capacity achievable could be significantly greater than the advertised maximum of 200 pits per year. CMRR's congressional funding. CMRR appeared in 2003 as a "project engineering and development" line item, becoming a standalone construction project the following year. Since then the Senate, thanks to New Mexico Republican Sen. Pete Domenici, has reliably backed CMRR funding. The House of Representatives, however, has zeroed out the CMRR in three of the past five years and proposed cuts of more than one-half in the other years. The Senate has largely won these battles. In its most recent markup (for the fiscal year 2008 appropriation), the House Appropriations Committee zeroed out the project and wrote: "Proceeding with the CMRR project as currently designed will strongly prejudice any nuclear complex transformation plan. The CMRR facility has no coherent mission to justify it unless the decision is made to begin an aggressive new nuclear warhead design and pit production mission at Los Alamos National Laboratory." The House as a whole agreed with this assessment by a wide margin, rebuffing an amendment introduced by New Mexico Democratic Rep. Tom Udall to restore funding for the CMRR, pit production operations, and nuclear weapons overall. But Senate appropriators had fully funded the project. When the omnibus appropriations bill finally passed in mid-December, the CMRR was funded at $75 million for fiscal year 2008, about 86 percent of NNSA's request. Neither the bill nor the report contain specific guidance as to which parts of the CMRR project are to receive the abridged funding; project management is privileging RLUOB construction. 16 What dire consequences would occur if the CMRR Nuclear Facility wasn't built? None. Halting the CMRR would not even remotely threaten any existing U.S. nuclear capability--not now and not for many decades to come. But such a step could reflect an aspiration toward disarmament, depending on other policies adopted. In that case, it would express the spirit of the Shultz, Perry, Kissinger and Nunn editorials. If the United States isn't prepared to take even this kind of baby step toward fulfilling its NPT obligations, it's difficult to see how Washington could ever play a constructive role in the international cooperation necessary to prevent nuclear nuclear proliferation. This article has been adapted from a larger piece entitled "Build Warhead Factories Now, Worry About Weapons Policy Later: Will Congress Take Back the Reins?" [PDF], available at the Los Alamos Study Group website. 1 The United States reiterated its commitment to nuclear abolition in the consensus statement of the 2000 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference, agreeing to a set of 13 detailed, "practical steps for the systematic and progressive efforts to implement Article VI." Prior to this, the World Court unanimously ruled in 1996 that "there exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion [Emphasis added.] negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control." 2 The author speaks from personal observations at several NPT preparatory and review conferences but also see the formal conclusions of Lewis Dunn et al, Science Applications International Corporation, "Foreign Perspectives on U.S. Nuclear Policy and Posture" [PDF], December 4, 2006, prepared for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA). Another recent testimony to this view is a speech delivered by IAEA Secretary-General Mohamed ElBaradei on February 11, 2008. 3 Keith Schneider, "U.S. Spent Billions on Atom Projects That Have Failed," New York Times, December 11, 1988, p. A1. 4 Energy Department Congressional Budget Request for FY2009, Vol. 1 [PDF], National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), p. 298. The cost of more than $2.2 billion for the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement Facility (CMRR) is derived from NNSA's estimate of "above" $2 billion for the CMRR Nuclear Facility (NF), its estimate of $164 million for the Radiological, Utility, and Office Building (RLUOB), and an allowance in the low tens of millions for specialized RLUOB equipment and furnishings--carried now in a separate CMRR project account, "Phase B"--bringing the total to "above" $2.2 billion. Construction costs for even ordinary construction are inflating rapidly and can be expected to continue to increase for the next decade. The CMRR NF is a complex project that involves large quantities of concrete and steel. For these reasons, the CMRR can be expected to increase in cost significantly over the nine years NNSA allots for further design and construction. These CMRR costs don't include the required new $240 million Technical Area (TA)-55 security perimeter, which must in part be built twice to accommodate construction, the new Pit Radiography Facility ($47 million), the TA-55 Reinvestment Project (at least $200 million), the Radioactive Liquid Waste Treatment Facility Upgrade ($80 million), or the TA-54 nuclear waste disposal expansion project (at least $60 million). Nor do they include demolition and disposal of the existing Chemistry and Metallurgy Research (CMR) facility ($400 million). All of these projects (save for CMR demolition and disposal) are functionally required for CMRR operation. 5 Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), CMRR briefing slides, p. 8, no date. 6 Personal communication with Steve Fong, NNSA CMRR project staff, January 18, 2007. 7 Oral response to author's questions, CMRR public meeting, Fuller Lodge, Los Alamos, New Mexico, March 2007. 8 See NNSA, "Draft Complex Transformation Supplemental Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement," pp. S34, 35. Similar plans have been internally available at LANL since at least 2001, e.g., LANL 2001 Comprehensive Site Plan, "TA-55 Preconceptual Plan," Los Alamos Study Group files. 9 Neither the CMRR nor Technical Area (TA)-55 as a whole is needed to produce nuclear explosives made with uranium. 10 According to a personal communication with Ken Silver at East Tennessee State University, there are indications LANL's TA-21 site may have briefly resumed quantity pit production in the immediate aftermath of the disastrous 1969 fire at Rocky Flats. 11 Energy Department, Draft Stockpile Stewardship and Management Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (SSM PEIS), Los Alamos Study Group. 12 Energy Department, Final SSM PEIS, Volume 1, pp. 3-4, Table 3.1.1.2-1, note "A," September 1996. Note: "A" is note "1" there. 13 Anonymous congressional source. 14 NNSA, "Complex Transformation Supplemental Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (CTSPEIS)," pp. 2-22, December 2007 15 House Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee, March 29, 2007, supplemental questions for the record, p. 584 in printed version of "Energy and Water Development Appropriations for 2008." The use of CMR as solely a radiological laboratory rather than a nuclear facility, to my knowledge, hasn't been investigated. Neither to my knowledge has there been any comprehensive study of current and planned mission requirements for LANL's nuclear facilities or radiological facilities 16 Personal communication with Steve Fong. http://www.thebulletin.org/columns/greg-mello/20080317.html ***************************************************************** 133 IPS-English POLITICS-US: North Korean Nuclear Deal at Risk? Date: Thu, 03 Apr 2008 16:29:00 -0800 Jim Lobe WASHINGTON, Apr 3 (IPS) - Growing tensions between North Korea and the new, more hawkish South Korean government are spurring concern among U.S. experts that already halting progress toward implementation of a denuclearisation deal with Pyongyang could unravel. U.S. officials, notably Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia Christopher Hill, whose dogged efforts to ensure that the deal goes forward are largely credited with keeping it alive, are hoping that the belligerent rhetoric coming out of the North in recent days represents more bark than bite and does not reflect a fundamental change in policy. Indeed, despite the increasingly nasty exchanges between Pyongyang and Seoul, independent analysts here have been encouraged in recent days by reports that the North has requested a new meeting with Hill to nail down a long-awaited ”declaration” about its nuclear activities which, if accepted by Washington and other members of the ”Six-Party Talks”, could significantly advance what has been a tortuous negotiations process. Quoting informed sources, the Nelson Report, an insider newsletter specialising in U.S.-East Asian affairs, reported Wednesday that ”rumours of an imminent announcement of resumed Chris Hill/(North Korean negotiator) Kim Gae-gwan negotiations... may hint that (North Korean) leader Kim Jong-il has OK'd some form of the Declaration language deal discussed (by the two men) in Geneva last month.” The report stressed that U.S. analysts believe that the North's recent rhetorical belligerence is aimed at influencing next week's legislative elections in South Korea, rather than at either the U.S. or the denuclearisation deal. Still, some observers here are clearly worried. ”At this point, things are in a very parlous state,” according to Selig Harrison, a Korea specialist at the Centre for International Policy. ”The North Koreans are very upset over the new South Korean government, and that could contribute to a collapse (of the deal). Frankly, I think (South Korean President) Lee Myung-bak has queered the nuclear negotiations.” Lee, whose victory in the December elections brought his conservative Grand National Party (GNP) to power for the first time in 10 years, had long promised to take a tougher line toward Pyongyang than that offered by the ”Sunshine Diplomacy” of his two predecessors, Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun. Since taking office at the end of February, Lee has said he will condition food aid and fertiliser and other economic assistance and cooperation provided by Seoul to the North on improvements in human rights and the dismantling of its nuclear programme. The threats to reduce aid and cooperation, on which Pyongyang has become increasingly dependent, comes at a particularly difficult moment for the North, which is already struggling with serious food shortages caused by seasonal flooding and declines in food aid from both China and the cash-strapped World Food Programme (WFP). At the same time, the South's chairman of the armed forces chief of staff, Gen. Kim Tae-young, testified before parliament that if the North appeared poised to attack the South, then Seoul should consider a pre-emptive, particularly on Pyongyang's nuclear facilities. North Korea responded by demanding an apology for Kim's statement, expelling all 11 South Korean officials from the Kaesong industrial park -- a major cooperation project where some 70 South Korean companies employ nearly 25,000 North Korean workers -- and subsequently test-firing a number of short-range missiles, while threatening to turn the South into ”ashes”. A North Korean newspaper this week called Lee -- whose government rejected demands for an apology -- a ”traitor” and a ”U.S. sycophant” and warned that the new president ”is making a mess of the process to de-nuclearise the peninsula.” ”The Lee regime will be held fully accountable for the irrevocable catastrophic consequences to be entailed,” read the editorial in the Rodong Sinmun, the voice of Pyongyang's ruling party. Whether the North's reaction to the South's tougher stance amounts more to posturing than to a genuine policy change regarding last October's Six-Party agreement on Phase Two of the de-nuclearisation process is the subject of much speculation here. The accord included both Koreas, China, Japan, Russia, and the U.S., and required Pyongyang to completely disable its Yongbyon nuclear facility and provide a declaration of all of its nuclear activities -- including any proliferation of nuclear-related equipment in which it may have engaged -- by the end of the year in exchange for enhanced energy supplies and progress toward normalising relations with the U.S. While the timetable has lagged due to logistical problems in the supply of energy and the speed with which Pyongyang has dismantled Yongbyon, the ”declaration” has become the major sticking point in the process, with Washington insisting that it somehow address two key allegations -- that Pyongyang at least acquired equipment for a highly-enriched uranium (HEU) programme and that it provided some form of nuclear assistance to Syria -- that the North has repeatedly denied. Without some accounting for these two issues, according to U.S. officials, Washington would be unable to lift longstanding economic sanctions against North Korea, thus stalling the normalisation process and possibly derailing the Six-Party process. Hill and Kim met in Geneva in mid-March to try to devise a face-saving way to resolve the two outstanding issues and came up with a formula whereby the formal declaration would address Pyongyang's plutonium programme at Yongbyon only, but would be accompanied by separate documents -- possibly secret -- in which the two issues would be addressed. While that formula was initially rejected by Kim Jong-il, according to the Nelson Report, it is hoped that some version of it will be agreed if, indeed, a new meeting takes place. Whether the ongoing contretemps between Pyongyang and Seoul undermines the prospects for a mutually satisfactory deal on the declaration remains unclear. ”I think we're at a testing point, rather than at a critical point,” said John Feffer, a Korea specialist who directs Foreign Policy in Focus (FPIF). ”I think much depends on whether Lee backs up his tougher rhetoric with new policies and what signals (the North Koreans) get from the U.S. in the coming days.” In that respect, the results of a scheduled mid-April summit meeting between President George W. Bush and Lee at the presidential retreat at Camp David -- a venue never before accorded a South Korean president -- could be key, according to experts here. ”The North Koreans are very suspicious,” according to Harrison. ”They think the U.S. is playing a double game with Hill, on the one hand, stressing a diplomatic solution while, on the other hand, Bush is inviting Lee, with whom they're very upset, to Camp David.” ***** + SOUTH KOREA: Youth Apathetic to Reunification With North (http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=40148) + FAR EAST: Koreas in Win-Win Deal (http://www.ipsnews.org/news.asp?idnews=39537) + KOREAS: 'Bilateral Summit - Wrong Place, Wrong Time' (http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=38868) (END/IPS/NA/AP/IP/NU/JL/KS/08) = 04040317 ORP002 NNNN ***************************************************************** 134 ajc.com: Would-be nuclear nations a risk | Atlanta Journal-Constitution Global community needs to train, follow up on countries that are novices in generating power from atomic fission. By Igor Khripunov For the Journal-Constitution Published on: 03/31/08 Against the background of power shortages, continuously rising prices for oil and gas and creeping effects of global warming, the nuclear power renaissance has become a global catchphrase. It is hardly a renaissance but rather a new and alarming reality unless the world community finds a way to develop a mechanism to rationally and fairly manage this process. Any glitch or irresponsible implementation of national nuclear power programs could have a disastrous effect on the perception of other programs just as the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl accidents did in the past. Ironically, existing international law does not impose any restrictions on countries' sovereign right to develop nuclear power as long as they are in good standing under the Nonproliferation Treaty and renounce the development of nuclear weapons. The influx of so many diverse countries anxious to jump on the nuclear renaissance bandwagon clearly requires a more visionary and cautious approach. Much has been already accomplished and is being done by the International Atomic Energy Agency and other institutions. Numerous initiatives, though often competing and disconnected, have been launched by governments, organizations and think tanks. What needs to be stressed is that nuclear renaissance, given its scale and potential consequences, will inevitably take us well beyond the traditional framework of a technical or nonproliferation program. It is imperative to see the forest rather than trees and coordinate far-reaching efforts toward ameliorating cross-cutting problems that plague these countries' industrial infrastructure, public governance, educational systems and private- and public-sector institutions. One analogy may be in order. To get a valid driver's license, a person requires rigorous training, education, awareness and he or she must pass tests based on clearly defined criteria. It is equally important both for this person and all others whom he or she will eventually join in the morning traffic. Who will develop —- and how —- such guidelines and criteria to make the transition to nuclear power generation smooth and predictable for new countries lacking experience, skills, infrastructure and appropriate culture? One forum that needs to focus on this emerging global issue of the 21st century is the forthcoming Group of Eight summit in Japan. Given our country's vast experience in the peaceful use of nuclear energy, its leaders are well-positioned to kick off this initiative and follow up a broad-based decision-making process. It is hard to speculate about the specifics of this endeavor, but one thing is perfectly clear: This mechanism must involve, as equal stakeholders, governments, international organizations and the public. It is also imperative that the ultimate objective would be to avoid putting up barriers before newcomers but rather make their passage along this path safe and secure, even if it takes longer than they may expect. ***************************************************************** 135 BBC NEWS: World's best-known protest symbol turns 50 Last Updated: Thursday, 20 March 2008, 10:49 GMT By Kathryn Westcott BBC News It started life as the emblem of the British anti-nuclear movement but it has become an international sign for peace, and arguably the most widely used protest symbol in the world. It has also been adapted, attacked and commercialised. It had its first public outing 50 years ago on a chilly Good Friday as thousands of British anti-nuclear campaigners set off from London's Trafalgar Square on a 50-mile march to the weapons factory at Aldermaston. The demonstration had been organised by the Direct Action Committee Against Nuclear War (DAC) and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) joined in. I drew myself: the representative of an individual in despair, with hands palm outstretched outwards and downwards in the manner of Goya's peasant before the firing squad Gerald Holtom Gerald Holtom, a designer and former World War II conscientious objector from West London, persuaded DAC that their aims would have greater impact if they were conveyed in a visual image. The "Ban the Bomb" symbol was born. He considered using a Christian cross motif but, instead, settled on using letters from the semaphore - or flag-signalling - alphabet, super-imposing N (uclear) on D (isarmament) and placing them within a circle symbolising Earth. The sign was quickly adopted by CND. Holtom later explained that the design was "to mean a human being in despair" with arms outstretched downwards. US peace symbol American pacifist Ken Kolsbun, who corresponded with Mr Holtom until his death in 1985, says the designer came to regret the connotation of despair and had wanted the sign inverted. Anti-Vietnam protesters at a rally in New York "He thought peace was something that should be celebrated," says Mr Kolsbun, who has spent decades documenting the use of the sign. "In fact, the semaphore sign for U in 'unilateral' depicts flags pointing upwards. Mr Holtom was all for unilateral disarmament." In a book to commemorate the symbol's 50th birthday, Mr Kolsbun charts how it was transported across the Atlantic and took on additional meanings for the Civil Rights movement, the counter-culture of the 1960s and 70s including the anti-Vietnam protests, and the environmental, women's and gay rights movements. He also argues that groups opposed to those tendencies tried to use the symbol against them by distorting its message. How the sign migrated to the US is explained in various ways. Some say it was brought back from the Aldermaston protest by civil rights activist Bayard Rustin, a black pacifist who had studied Gandhi's techniques of non-violence. Vietnam In Peace: The biography of a symbol, Mr Kolsbun describes how in just over a decade, the sign had been carried by civil rights "freedom" marchers, painted on psychedelic Volkswagens in San Francisco, and on the helmets of US soldiers on the ground in Vietnam. The peace sign was adopted by the counter-culture movement "The sign really got going over here during the 1960s and 70s, when it became associated with anti-Vietnam protests," he told the BBC News website. As the combat escalated, he says, so did the anti-war protests and the presence of the symbol. "This, of course, led some people to condemn it as a communist sign," says Mr Kolsbun. "There has always been a lot of misconception and disinformation about it." As the sign became a badge of the burgeoning hippie movement of the late 1960s, the hippies' critics scornfully compared it to a chicken footprint, and drew parallels with the runic letter indicating death. In 1970, the conservative John Birch Society published pamphlets likening the sign to a Satanic symbol of an upside-down, "broken" cross. While it remained a key symbol of the counter-culture movement throughout the 1970s, it returned to its origins in the 1980s, when it became the banner of the international grassroots anti-nuclear movement. Power The real power of the sign, its supporters say, is the reaction that it provokes - both from fans and from detractors. In the UK, the sign is still associated with the Ban the Bomb movement The South African government, for one, tried to ban its use by opponents of apartheid in 1973. And, in 2006, a couple in suburban Denver found themselves embroiled in a dispute over their use of a giant peace sign as a Christmas wreath. The homeowners' association threatened them with a daily fine if they didn't remove it. The association eventually backed down because of public pressure, but a member told a local newspaper it was clearly an "anti-Christ sign" with "a lot of negativity associated with it.". Commercial A US soldier patrols a village outside Baghdad CND has never registered the sign as a trademark, arguing that "a symbol of freedom, it is free for all". It has now appeared on millions of mugs, T-shirts, rings and nose-studs. Bizarrely, it has also made an appearance on packets of Lucky Strike cigarettes. A decade ago, the sign was chosen during a public vote to appear on a US commemorative postage stamp saluting the 1960s. The symbol that helped define a generation of baby boomers may not be as widely used today as in the past. It is in danger of becoming to many people a retro fashion item, although the Iraq war has seen it re-emerge with something like its original purpose. "It is still the dominant peace sign," argues Lawrence Wittner, an expert on peace movements at the University at Albany in New York. "Part of that is down to its simplicity. It can be used as a shorthand for many causes because it can be reproduced really quickly - on walls on floors, which is important, in say, repressive societies." And can its success be measured? Fifty years on, wars have continued to be waged and the list of nuclear-armed states has steadily lengthened. But the cup is half-full as well as half empty. "There are many ways in which nuclear war has been prevented," says Mr Wittner. "The hawks say that the reason nuclear weapons have not been used is because of the deterrent. But I believe popular pressure has restrained powers from using them and helped curbed the arms race. And the symbol of and inspiration for that popular pressure, says Mr Wittner, is Mr Holtom's graphic. Peace: A biography of a symbol is published by National Geographic Books in April. * BBC Copyright ***************************************************************** 136 BBC NEWS: Thousands join anti-war protests Last Updated: Saturday, 15 March 2008, 17:04 GMT Organisers said there were 40,000 people Thousands of people have joined demonstrations in London and Glasgow, to mark the fifth anniversary of the start of the war in Iraq. Demonstrators called for troops to be withdrawn from Iraq and Afghanistan and for Gaza's borders to be re-opened. Organisers said 40,000 people took part in London but police said 10,000. A Stop the War spokesman said Iraq had made the world a more dangerous place. Tony Blair and Gordon Brown should be tried for war crimes Caroline Lucas Green MEP Protesters embrace irony Hundreds march in Glasgow In pictures: London protest In London there were speeches from the leaders of a range of groups including CND and the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign. As well as anger over Iraq and Afghanistan, there were also calls for no action to be taken against Iran. Speaking at the rally in Trafalgar Square, the Liberal Democrat peer Baroness Tongue told the BBC that the war in Iraq had been an illegal act, supported by false documentary evidence. "We feel that there are people who have literally got away with murder. We have people who have made an illegal war happen, and no-one has brought them to book, and it's about time we did." Former Labour cabinet minister Tony Benn said: "The troops in Iraq have caused devastation. It's the same in Afghanistan." 'Hidden war' Green MEP Caroline Lucas called for Tony Blair and Gordon Brown to be prosecuted for war crimes. And a spokesman for the Stop the War Coalition said: "Estimates suggest as many as one million have died violent deaths as a result of the occupation of Iraq. Glasgow hosted another demo "Despite talk of a change of attitude to Bush's wars, Brown is sending more troops to Afghanistan. This hidden war is fast becoming a disaster mirroring Iraq." Peace campaigner Bianca Jagger said it was "astonishing" that former prime minister Tony Blair and US President George Bush had not been called to account for the Iraq war, which she called an "unmitigated disaster". Meanwhile in Glasgow hundreds of protestors also marched through the city, waving placards saying "Troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan" and "Don't attack Iran" and "Freedom for Palestine". A Foreign Office spokesman said Stop The War's description of the situation in Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran was "simply not accurate". No arrests were made "In Iraq, there is clear evidence we are making steady progress, particularly in terms of security. We have also acknowledged that mistakes were made, and drawn the appropriate lessons." In Afghanistan Nato forces are winning the struggle against the Taleban, he said, with 5.4 million children in school compared to an estimated one million children in 2001. "Iran still has many questions to answer over its nuclear ambitions - we are pursuing UN-approved sanctions to encourage Iran to provide greater transparency," he said. "And in Pakistan we are encouraged by initial moves to form a new, democratic government which reflects the will of Pakistan's people." * BBC Copyright Notice ***************************************************************** 137 BBC NEWS: France to reduce nuclear warheads Last Updated: Friday, 21 March 2008, 15:04 GMT Mr Sarkozy spoke at the launch of France's fourth nuclear submarine President Nicolas Sarkozy has said France will reduce its number of airborne nuclear weapons by one third. Mr Sarkozy said the reduction to fewer than 300 missiles would leave France with "half the maximum number of warheads we had during the Cold War". But he also insisted he was committed to France's nuclear deterrent, saying it was its "life-insurance policy". France is believed to have 348 deployed nuclear weapons, including 288 submarine-launched ballistic missiles, 50 air-launched cruise missiles and 10 airborne bombs, according to the Federation of American Scientists. 'Life-insurance policy' In his first major speech on France's nuclear deterrent since being elected president last May, Mr Sarkozy said military spending needed to be re-examined. The cuts would reduce France's airborne force of nuclear weapons by a third, he said, leaving fewer than 300 warheads, mostly on board submarines. After this reduction, our arsenal will comprise fewer than 300 nuclear warheads, that's half the maximum number of warheads we had during the Cold War Nicolas Sarkozy French President "By giving this information, France is fully transparent since it has no other weapons than those in its operational stocks," he told an audience at the northern port of Cherbourg. "Moreover, I confirm that none of our weapons are targeted at anybody." Nevertheless, Mr Sarkozy insisted he remained committed to France's independent nuclear "strike force" and said those who threatened the country's vital interests could expect a "severe riposte". He said that while France no longer faced a realistic threat of invasion, it now faced new threats from the Middle East and Asia. "The security of Europe is at stake," he said, singling out Iran's development of ballistic missiles and its controversial nuclear programme. At the same time, Mr Sarkozy appealed for other nations to scale back their nuclear arsenals and called on China and the US to finally ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty, which they signed in 1996. * BBC Copyright Notice ***************************************************************** 138 The Independent: Aldermaston protest recalls the birth of CND - Yesterday?s protest marked the 50th anniversary of the march on Aldermaston Atomic Weapons Establishment in 1958 Independent.co.uk Web By Jerome Taylor Tuesday, 25 March 2008 The protest was called to mark the 50 th anniversary of the first march to Aldermaston when up to 10,000 people walked from London to the Atomic Weapons Establishment to protest against nuclear testing. The Easter 1958 march coincided with the creation of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and was widely credited with starting the world's first mass anti-nuclear movement. Coaches from 50 different locations brought up to 3,000 activists from as far as Aberdeen and Penzance where they converged on six of the gates leading into the facility, where Britain's Trident nuclear warheads are manufactured and maintained. The protest at each gate was themed to mark a particular decade of anti-nuclear campaigning from the 1950s onwards and was visited by a moving float of speakers who included veterans from the original peace march, anti-nuclear MPs, the designer Vivienne Westwood and one of the few remaining survivors of Hiroshima. Yoshio Sato, 77, lost his family when the US dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, which together with the Japanese city of Nagasaki is the only place in the world to have suffered a nuclear attack. "I lost my mother, brother and younger sister," he said. "My mother died one month after the bombing, my sister took six months to die. Atomic bombs and nuclear weapons must not be allowed to survive." Many of those participating in yesterday's protest were veterans of the original march to Aldermaston. Pat Arrowsmith, now 78 and still a member of CND, was a nurse at the time of the first march and helped organise accommodation for the protesters. "I think Aldermaston was a pivotal moment in the anti-nuclear movement," she said. "It might not have been as dramatic as the demonstrations that involved civil disobedience but we all knew we were partaking in something that was truly significant and historical." Yesterday's protest also focused attention on government plans to ban protests at Aldermaston, a move that would outlaw the Aldermaston's Women's Peace Camp, one of the most famous and potent symbols of protest in British political history. Struggling to stay warm around a fire, veterans of the camp said they would continue to defy any attempts to remove it. "We have a right to protest and we intend to keep it," said Rebecca Johnson, who helped found the camp 23 years ago. "Civil society protest is one of the few ways to initiate change in this country." The poor weather may have deterred many people from travelling but the protest still attracted thousands of demonstrators, including a woman aged 102. Margaret Morton, a Quaker in her mid-seventies who travelled from her home from near Glasgow, said: "I'm not here to celebrate the past. I care about the present and the future. Aldermaston is the centre of Britain's nuclear weapons programme. How can we hope to persuade other countries to give up their bombs when we still have ours?" ***************************************************************** 139 AFP: Thousands protest at 50th anniversary nuclear demo Protesters join hands during the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in Aldermaston Berkshire 13 hours ago LONDON (AFP) — Several thousand people staged a protest on Monday at Aldermaston, west of London, against Britain's nuclear weapons programme on the 50th anniversary of the first such demonstration there. The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, which organised the protest, estimated there were some 5,000 people demonstrating outside the headquarters of the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE), which is responsible for producing and maintaining Britain's submarine-based Trident nuclear deterrent. According to a spokesman for the defence ministry, however, there were approximately 1,600 protesters at the demonstration. It was at the Aldermaston base that around 10,000 people marched to the site from London, protesting against Britain's first hydrogen bomb test on Easter Monday 1958. Walter Wolfgang, 84, who was an organiser of the 1958 march, declared to the crowd outside the AWE's main gate: "There is a general realisation now that there should not be Trident and the nuclear arms race should be ended." "On the one hand, we have made progress, but on the other hand, because of US and UK foreign policy, the danger is greater today than it was during the Cold War -- at least then we were vaguely aware of what the other side was doing." Copyright © 2008 AFP. All rights reserved. More » ***************************************************************** 140 Edinburgh Evening News: Anti-nuclear demo targets plant - Monday, 24th March 2008 Change Date THE Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament was today due to stage what it has billed as the biggest demonstration for 20 years at an atomic weapons plant in rural England. Around 5000 activists were due at the protest, which marks the 50th anniversary of anti-nuclear protesting at the Atomic Weapons Establishment in Aldermaston, Berkshire. The full article contains 59 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper. Last Updated: 24 March 2008 9:27 AM All rights reserved ©2008 Johnston Press Digital Publishing ***************************************************************** 141 MOTHER JONES: Building a Better Bomb By Michael Scherer Since the end of the Cold War, the defense industry and its congressional allies have been quietly campaigning for a new type of nuclear weapon. Rather than relying on big bombs intended to annihilate entire cities, they want to develop "mini-nukes" and other small warheads designed to demolish underground bunkers or buried stores of chemical or biological agents. Warning that the current stockpile was "not developed with this mission in mind," the Defense Department issued a report last summer explaining that "lower yield" weapons could achieve "needed neutralization." Now, in the wake of Sept. 11, the Bush administration is moving to add a smaller bomb to America's nuclear arsenal. The plans became public in March, when the media obtained a classified Pentagon report calling for the development of low-yield weapons for use in battlefield situations. But the news reports did not point out that by then the president's budget already included up to $15 million to study designs for what it calls a Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator -- a weapon envisioned by its backers as a "bunker buster." Although the precise size of its payload has yet to be determined, the Penetrator is intended to give military strategists a new option: a deeply burrowing nuke specifically designed for use in otherwise conventional conflicts. There's only one hitch in the administration's plan: In 1994, Congress banned the research and development of any new low-yield nuclear weapons. Since then, the defense industry has essentially been working around the law, insisting that it wants only to "modify" and "package" existing weapons to deliver small nuclear payloads. Last year, for example, an earth-burrowing "penetrator" that could be equipped with a nuclear warhead was patented by Sandia Corporation, a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin. The company, which runs the Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, claims the weapon can punch through up to 35 feet of reinforced concrete. C. Paul Robinson, the director of Sandia, told reporters that such firepower could be used to destroy underground bunkers in Afghanistan. "By putting a nuclear warhead on one of those weapons instead of high explosives, you would multiply the explosive power by a factor of more than a million," said Robinson, who also chairs an advisory council of the US Strategic Command. At a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee in February, the administration insisted that its plan to study designs for such weapons does not violate the ban on nuclear research. John Gordon, head of the National Nuclear Security Administration, confirmed that he is setting up design teams at each of the nation's three nuclear labs -- Sandia, Los Alamos, and Lawrence Livermore -- but added that the scientists would only "think about and explore what might be possible." When lawmakers expressed concern that the administration is effectively changing weapons policy without consulting Congress, Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith assured them that the design teams will work only on a "straight modification of an existing system that's out there now, packaged in a way that could penetrate." Such carefully phrased distinctions have done little to mollify those who fear that a low-yield bomb will undercut efforts to defuse a new arms race. In February, 76 members of Congress sent a letter to President Bush, expressing concern that any development of mini-nukes would send a signal "that the US is abandoning international efforts to stem the proliferation of nuclear weapons." Lawmakers expect the administration to ask Congress to lift the research ban entirely, enabling designers to move weapons like the Penetrator into production more quickly. Since 1978, US policy has stipulated that nuclear weapons will not be used against nonnuclear countries unless they attack the United States in alliance with nuclear-armed nations. But the classified Pentagon report in March praised the "greater flexibility" offered by low-yield weapons and instructed the military to prepare contingency plans for using nuclear warheads in other conflicts that could involve weapons of mass destruction, including clashes between Arabs and Israelis or North and South Korea. After the report was leaked to the media, the administration quickly backtracked, insisting that the old policy remains in effect. Lost in the debate has been any discussion of the potential effects of smaller nuclear bombs. Low-yield weapons are supposed to reduce collateral damage by delivering warheads of less than five kilotons -- about a third the size of the bomb used on Hiroshima. But even with the smaller payloads, mini-nukes could kill anyone within a few miles of a targeted bunker. Initial tests of Sandia's new earth-burrowing weapon, for example, show that it blasts only 12 feet into concrete -- not nearly deep enough to prevent deadly nuclear fallout. "The physics is simple enough," says Robert Nelson, a physicist at Princeton University's Program for Science and Global Security. "To completely contain a one-kiloton nuclear explosion, you would have to go at least 300 feet." Jail.org - Inmate Search Criminal records, instant public records & people search & current court records. www.jail.org U.S. Public Records Search Search County & State Court Records, Criminal records, Vital and Adoption Records www.PublicRecordsInfo.com Records.com - People Search Public Records and Background Checks. Instantly Search Criminal Records, Addresses and Court Records www.Records.com Court Records & County Records Find Instant Public Records, Criminal Records as Well as County Property Records Search. www.PublicRecordsIndex.com © 2002 The Foundation for National Progress ***************************************************************** 142 Federal Times: Funding shortfalls mean missed cleanup milestones for Energy By TIM KAUFFMAN March 27, 2008 Cleanup of some of the most contaminated nuclear waste sites in the country is behind schedule because of inadequate funding, experts say. While the Energy Department has been able to reduce cost overruns and delays through robust project management, overall progress has been stymied, they say. Funding shortfalls will cause the department to miss 23 of the milestones it has pledged to meet for fiscal 2009. They have already caused completion dates for cleaning up some of the most contaminated sites to be pushed back 20 years or more, said Martin Schneider, editor in chief of Exchange Monitor Publications, which publishes trade journals on the nuclear industry. Cleanup at the 586-square-mile Hanford Site, a former plutonium production facility that left behind decades of contamination along the Columbia River in southeastern Washington state, was projected to be completed in 2035 but now it likely won’t be finished until between 2050 and 2062. The 34,000 civil service and contractor employees who work for the department have about 4,500 facilities remaining to clean up and demolish at 22 sites whose total area equals the size of Rhode Island and Delaware combined, said James Rispoli, assistant Energy secretary for environmental management. There is enough nuclear waste in those facilities to fill the Louisiana Superdome. The department has made a “tremendous accomplishment” in cleaning up sites many once thought were unsalvageable, Rispoli said. However, “the toughest sites are still on the docket,” he said. Since 2001, Energy’s environmental management program has cleaned up and closed 14 sites, including three former weapons production sites. Two of those cleanup efforts — the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant near Denver, and the Fernald uranium processing facility outside Cincinnati — were recognized as the project of the year by the Project Management Institute in 2006 and 2007, respectively. But after seeing its budget increase consistently during the first half of the Bush administration, the program has been getting less support in recent years as the Energy Department has shifted its focus to other priorities, Schneider said. “The department has chosen to place its emphasis on science, and the budget reflects that focus,” Schneider said March 19 at the Energy Facility Contractors Group’s executive council meeting in Washington, where Rispoli also spoke. Since reaching a high of $7.4 billion in fiscal 2005, the administration’s requested funding for Energy’s nuclear cleanup efforts has declined by nearly 35 percent to $5.5 billion for fiscal 2009. Lawmakers are working to add funding to the president’s fiscal 2009 request, although many in Congress are skeptical about whether the department can deliver on its promises to clean up the sites in light of missed milestones and ever-widening time frames, Schneider said. “It’s hard for everyone when the baselines you’re working with are 50 or 60 years. That’s hard to hang your hat on,” he said. Rispoli acknowledges the department won’t be able to deliver on some of the promises it has made to state and federal regulators at current funding levels. Many of those milestones and targets were set years ago with overly optimistic assumptions about the department’s ability to clean up the sites, he said. Since 2005, the department has set up a rigorous project management program for environmental cleanup projects. Rispoli said the rigor has paid off: Only one of 70 ongoing projects reviewed is not on cost or on schedule, compared with 20 in 2005. The department is about to test two different evaluation systems at the Hanford Site that will allow managers to drill down into every activity involved in a project so managers can pinpoint which ones are more than 10 percent off schedule. Based on the results of that test, the department will select a system to deploy department-wide, he said. ***************************************************************** 143 pogo.org U.S. Nuclear Weapons Complex: Livermore Homes and Plutonium Make Bad Neighbors 03/17/2008 Project On Government Oversight Summary Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (Livermore Lab), a nuclear weapons facility located in the greater metropolis of San Francisco, CA, poses the most significant security threat of any such facility in the U.S. Roughly seven million people live within a 50 mile radius of the Livermore Lab, which has approximately one ton of weapons-grade and weapons-quantity of plutonium and highly enriched uranium, DOE’s most dangerous and expensive-to-guard special nuclear material. While the National Nuclear Security Administration pledges to remove the material from Livermore Lab by the end of 2012, POGO has determined that the material can safely be removed by early 2009, saving taxpayers a $160 million in security costs and eliminating a homeland security vulnerability that puts the surrounding population needlessly at risk. Executive Summary Recommendation Highlights Introduction Livermore Lab Surrounded Livermore Cannot Handle Current Security Requirements Does DOE Actually Want to Accomplish its Goal to De-Inventory Livermore Lab? A Poor Track Record: Past Efforts to De-Inventory Livermore Lab No More Excuses Conclusion Recommendations Glossary Appendix Endnotes Full Report in PDF Format Executive Summary Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (Livermore Lab), a nuclear weapons facility located in the greater metropolis of San Francisco, CA, poses the most significant security threat of any such facility in the U.S. Roughly seven million people live within a 50 mile radius of the Livermore Lab, which has approximately one ton of weapons-grade and weapons-quantity of plutonium and highly enriched uranium, DOE’s most dangerous and expensive-to-guard special nuclear material (SNM). If terrorists gained access to this material, they could detonate them, devastating the San Francisco Bay Area and inland regions?the key agricultural areas of California. Yet, POGO has learned, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has given Livermore Lab a waiver so that it does not have to meet the current security requirements devised by the intelligence community. The encroaching residential community surrounding the Lab has made it impossible to properly protect the Lab’s weapons quantities of plutonium and highly enriched uranium. DOE has at times acknowledged the danger of SNM at Livermore Lab, but efforts to address the situation have been negated by simultaneous decisions that increase the likelihood the special nuclear material will remain at the site. In just the past three years, DOE has doubled the amount of plutonium allowed to be stored at Livermore; discarded congressional timelines to remove the material by 2012 by establishing its own timeline to "evaluate" whether the material could be removed by 2014; and pursued plans for new plutonium missions at Livermore. Keeping the nuclear material at Livermore until 2012 will not only cost the taxpayers an additional and unnecessary $160 million, it will also create an unnecessary homeland security vulnerability and put the surrounding population needlessly at risk. Because of the proximity of businesses and residences, the protective forces at Livermore Lab were, until recently, issued far less lethal and less powerful weapons than protective forces at other sites that store the same SNM. But, faced with pressure to demonstrate that the Lab could fend off a terrorist attack, NNSA announced the deployment of the Dillon Aero M134D guns, popularly known as the Gatling gun. This enormously lethal weapon is capable of firing 4,000 rounds a minute with a military “kill-range” of one mile. Within that one-mile range of the Lab are two elementary schools, a pre-school, a middle school, a senior center, and athletic fields, making this weapon unacceptable for Livermore. Even in an accidental firing, the Lab would be spraying lethal bullets into the surrounding neighborhoods. This type of accident is not unprecedented. For example, several years ago there was an accidental firing of a mounted, high caliber machine gun at the Y-12 Complex. The gun, similar in firepower to the Gatling guns, sprayed a building at the facility with bullets, which penetrated walls. Livermore Lab’s SNM could, and should, be moved out of the Lab by early 2009. DOE has the ability to do this. Sandia National Laboratory provides an illustrative comparison. It, too, is located in a metropolitan area?in that case, the city of Albuquerque, New Mexico. In February 2008, the nuclear material was finally removed from Sandia. The same can, and must be accomplished at Livermore. Recommendation Highlights 1) Immediately move the weapons-grade and weapons-quantity special nuclear material out of Livermore Lab. A) Immediately move the plutonium that has already been declared excess at the Lab to Savannah River Site for storage and disposition. B) For the plutonium that has not yet been declared excess, Congress should determine whether there is a credible mission at the Lab for the material: i. If the plutonium is indeed required for this mission, the material should be moved to the Nevada Test Site’s Device Assembly Facility (DAF). If Livermore Lab scientists need to conduct experiments with the SNM, they could easily take the one-hour flight to the DAF as they did for years during the nuclear test program. ii. If Congress deems that the mission is not a national security priority, NNSA should immediately move the plutonium to the Savannah River Site for storage and disposition. C) Because there is no national security priority for highly enriched uranium at Livermore Lab, immediately move the material to the Y-12 National Security Complex for storage and downblending. 2) When the SNM is removed from the Lab, the Gatling guns should be disassembled and transferred to a more appropriate NNSA site. Introduction The Department of Energy (DOE) maintains its stockpile of special nuclear material (SNM)?weapons-grade plutonium and highly enriched uranium?at nine laboratories and production facilities nationwide.1 One of those nuclear facilities is the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (Livermore Lab or Lawrence Livermore). Unlike other facilities, such as the relatively remote and isolated Savannah River Site, Idaho National Laboratory, and Nevada Test Site, the Livermore Lab is surrounded by a growing residential community. Roughly seven million people live within a 50 mile radius of the Lab, which has approximately one ton of plutonium2 and highly enriched uranium that are classified as Category I and II (CAT I and II), DOE’s most dangerous and expensive-to-guard SNM.3 Lawrence Livermore is the only nuclear weapons lab housing CAT I and II SNM located near a major metropolitan area, making it the most attractive target for terrorists and one of the most pressing U.S. nuclear security issues. As such, POGO was surprised to learn that the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the organization within DOE responsible for the nuclear weapons complex, has granted the Lab a waiver from having to meet the current security requirements devised by the intelligence community?the 2005 Design Basis Threat (DBT).4 Noncompliance with the current DBT signals that Livermore Lab, which is managed by the University of California, Bechtel National Inc., and other partners, cannot adequately protect against an attack by terrorists. An extensive investigation by the House Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security concluded in 2006: “Without question, DOE nuclear warhead production plants, test facilities, research labs, storage locations … are attractive targets for terrorists."5 Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN) and former Senator Sam Nunn (D-GA) identified the high priority of securing, consolidating, and eliminating highly enriched uranium, while maintaining rigorous security around plutonium: The gravest danger, however, and the one requiring urgent attention is the possibility that terrorists could obtain highly-enriched uranium (HEU) or plutonium for use in an improvised nuclear device (IND).6 Lawrence Livermore’s own security specialist emphasized the importance of protecting SNM. In 2002, Dr. Harry Vantine, Livermore Lab’s Division Leader for Counter-Terrorism and Incident Response, testified that: the use of an improvised nuclear device is a low-probability event, but it is a high-consequence event. And, for that reason, it’s a high-risk event, and it’s something we need to prepare for …. As has been mentioned many times today, the key to protecting the country against weapons of mass destruction, against INDs, is to protect the materials. And I think no effort should be spared in trying to protect materials ….7 [Emphasis added] In fact, if a terrorist group detonated an IND at the Lab, the San Francisco Bay Area and inland regions?the key agricultural areas of California?could be devastated.8 DOE has at times acknowledged the danger of SNM at Livermore Lab, but efforts to address the situation have been negated by simultaneous decisions that increase the likelihood SNM will remain at the site. For instance, in just the past three years, DOE has doubled the amount of plutonium allowed to be stored at Livermore; discarded congressional timelines to remove the material by 2012 by establishing its own timeline to "evaluate" whether the material could be removed by 2014; and pursued plans for new plutonium missions at Livermore. Each year, securing Livermore Lab costs approximately $80 million?roughly $40 million of which wouldn’t be necessary if the SNM were moved off site. By securing the material through the end of 2012 instead of early 2009, as POGO recommends, DOE will be making the American taxpayer pay at least an additional $160 million for security, and will be continuing to put millions of people needlessly at risk.9 Livermore Lab Surrounded (By Elementary Schools, Day Care, and Senior Centers) Livermore Lab was originally a naval air station in a highly remote area east of San Francisco. The area, however, has changed drastically in the 56 years since the Lab first took over the site. There are now housing developments right up to the security fence lines that surround the site, and the homes sit only 300 yards from Building 332 (the Superblock), which houses the Lab’s plutonium and highly enriched Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory-Current Day Photo click on photo above for larger view of housing area uranium.10 [See photo] Because of several safety lapses over the years, the community surrounding the Lab has grown increasingly vocal against storing SNM there.11 Tri-Valley CAREs (Communities Against a Radioactive Environment), a knowledgeable community-led Livermore watchdog group that has a membership comprised of residents who live around Livermore Lab, including some current and former Lab employees, has to date gathered at least 13,000 signatures from residents opposing the addition of more plutonium at the Lab.12 The surrounding residential community has made it nearly impossible to properly protect the Lab’s weapons quantities of plutonium and highly enriched uranium. In fact, in 2000, DOE security advisors recommended to then-Secretary Bill Richardson that the Lab de-inventory its SNM due to the site’s high level of “encroachment” by the civilian population.13 At other nuclear facilities, officials have responded to new security requirements by expanding their ability to detect intrusions around the nuclear facilities. DOE is in the process of deploying electronic sensors and radar systems around its sites that house SNM so that the protective force can engage adversaries further out from the target. For example, the Department is deploying those systems along the ridgelines at Y-12 National Security Complex. Livermore Lab cannot implement this security improvement because homes and businesses surround it?sensors would be in somebody’s backyard. There is simply no room. In addition, so many residences and businesses, with the resultant heavy traffic and population, make it easier for terrorists to make a concealed attack. At the other DOE sites, intruders have to avoid detection while driving an unidentified vehicle along miles of open country road. They’d be pretty easy to spot. However, whether settling in at a home along the fence-line or parking on neighborhood streets, Livermore Lab provides intruders with a lot of cover. Another problem caused by the proximity of the homes is that protective forces at the Lab were, until recently, issued far less lethal and less powerful weapons than protective forces at other sites storing plutonium and highly enriched uranium.14 However, faced with mounting pressure to demonstrate that the Lab could fend off a terrorist attack, NNSA announced in early 2006, with great fanfare, the deployment of truck-mounted Dillon Aero M134D guns, more popularly known as Gatling guns. “Things like this make it clear that if terrorists try to come here, they will come here for failure rather than success,” said Linton Brooks, then-head of NNSA, as he displayed the weapons at a press conference.15 There is no doubt about how much firepower the Gatling guns can deliver. Yet there are a number of safety concerns with the weapon. The Gatling gun is an enormously lethal weapon: it fires 4,000 rounds a minute, and the official military “kill-range"`16 for such a gun is one mile (although it can actually kill a person up to two miles away). Within that one-mile range of the Lab are two elementary schools, a pre-school, a middle school, a senior center, and athletic fields. “It serves us best when it’s never used, and hopefully it will never be used at all,” Lab spokesman David Schwoegler said.17 Even in an accidental firing, the Lab would be spraying lethal bullets into the surrounding neighborhoods. This type of accident is not unprecedented. For example, several years ago there was an accidental firing of a mounted, high-caliber machine gun at the Y-12 Complex. The gun, similar in firepower to the Gatling guns, sprayed a building at the facility with bullets, which penetrated walls.18 Apart from the proximity of residential neighbors, this weapon?which was installed to compensate for security vulnerabilities?is not the right choice for the Lab. POGO is advised by Army Special Operations personnel that Gatling guns can be effective as long as they have a large area in which to maneuver so that they can avoid being targeted by an adversarial sniper. In small areas, long-term reconnaissance by adversaries would detect a pattern of movement, even if the vehicles are camouflaged. Once detected, snipers with .50 caliber Armor-Piercing Incendiary (API) rounds could destroy both the gun and the vehicle in moments. The rural Pantex Plant and the Los Alamos National Laboratory, for instance, each have miles in which the vehicles can roam, making their pattern of movement much less predictable. But Lawrence Livermore is only one square mile; there is no area to roam, potentially making the guns easy targets. These logistical challenges, arising because of the Lab’s location, make it impossible to comply with the DBT, and contributed to NNSA’s decision to give Livermore Lab a waiver. Livermore Cannot Handle Current Security Requirements Last year, NNSA told the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development that Lawrence Livermore would meet the 2005 DBT.19 Yet, senior DOE and NNSA officials have told POGO that NNSA has given the Lab a waiver exempting it from meeting the security requirements. This action comes at a time when experts warn that the threat of nuclear terrorism is growing.20 The waiver also comes in defiance of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), which stated in 2007: “Sites that store and use weapons grade fissile materials must meet the defined, rigorous Design Basis Threat (DBT) standards for security."21 The last DBT the Lab was able to meet was the 2003 DBT, a much weaker standard than is currently required.22 NNSA argues that Livermore Lab should not have to meet the 2005 DBT because it is a “non-enduring site,” meaning that the Lab has been slated to eventually eliminate the CAT I and II SNM.23 Although DOE has pledged to move the SNM by the end of 2012, POGO is concerned about its commitment to see the move through, given the Department’s ever-shifting stance on de-inventorying Lawrence Livermore. (We discuss these shifts in the next two sections.) In 2007, when the GAO looked into how DOE has progressed in keeping its promises to consolidate SNM, it did not like what it found: “…DOE has spent nearly 2 years developing plans for the consolidation and disposition of special nuclear material, its plans are incomplete; and complexwide consolidation and disposition activities have not begun."24 The GAO report also points out a great weakness in DOE’s implementation plans?a lack of accountability: the plutonium-239 plan states that the committee’s Executive Steering Committee must approve the plan, but does not include any information on which program offices, sites, or other DOE organizations are responsible for carrying out the other actions that the plan identifies as necessary next steps, such as finalizing a schedule for plutonium-239 shipments from Hanford, Los Alamos, and Lawrence Livermore.25 GAO’s conclusions appear to indicate that Livermore Lab will be housing its SNM for much longer than the five years DOE is currently estimating, and at half the protection level deemed necessary by the intelligence community. Does DOE Actually Want to Accomplish its Goal to De-Inventory Livermore Lab? Although NNSA claims weapons-grade nuclear materials will be removed from Livermore Lab by the end of 2012, we suspect there will be significant delays. One reason is that DOE actually increased Livermore Lab’s allowable amounts of SNM in 2005 so that, among other reasons, the Lab could develop new technologies for manufacturing plutonium pits,26 including robotics technology.27 The Lab purchased glove boxes28 and other equipment to create a prototype production line at Superblock. “This new foundry may put the Lab and DOE in position to keep the SNM longer than 2012,” Marylia Kelley of Tri-Valley CAREs told POGO. “In the absence of legislation, that would be legally allowable. We have no law. We want to see a law and see it specify a date sooner than 2012."29 Kelley’s fears that the Lab may push to keep the material longer for its research purposes are indeed warranted. For instance, in 2005, NNSA stated that it is relying on the Lab to conduct research for the Stockpile Stewardship Program, which would “contribute to the need for long-term storage of plutonium."30 [Emphasis added] POGO is concerned by what the duration of “long-term” might actually be. It is unclear whether the delay in removing Livermore Lab’s SNM is coming from DOE, NNSA, or the Lab itself. The Lab’s Principal Public Information Officer, David Schwoegler, said, “The problem we face is that 80 percent of the plutonium we have on site we don’t need, and we’ve had it boxed to be shipped, ready to leave site for the past 12 years."31 Congress needs to ask why the material hasn’t left yet.32 A Poor Track Record: Past Efforts to De-Inventory Livermore Lab Over the last 13 years, DOE has made a series of pronouncements about the need to de-inventory Livermore Lab, and has proposed a number of plans. Yet, the following timeline shows how DOE waffles in its commitment to de-inventory the Lab: 1995 Then-Secretary of Energy Hazel O’Leary establishes “Alternative Futures for the Department of Energy National Laboratories,” a task force of industry and academia leaders, which concludes in its “Galvin Report” that Lawrence Livermore could de-inventory SNM by 2000.33 If this recommendation had been acted upon, DOE would have avoided spending an estimated $350 million in securing SNM at the Lab from 2000-2008.34 ====================================================================== 2000 DOE security advisors recommend to then-Secretary Bill Richardson that the Lab’s SNM be de-inventoried because of the “encroachment” of the civilian population. ====================================================================== 2001 Two protective force officers bring to the DOE Inspector General their security concerns about inadequate training and support of Special Response Teams. The whistleblowers are fired in retaliation. ====================================================================== April to May 2004 In response to DOE’s call for public comments on the Draft Site Wide Environmental Impact Statement, which proposes to double the amount of plutonium at Lawrence Livermore’s Superblock, Tri-Valley CAREs helps organize an estimated 9,000 written comments and 100 community members to testify in opposition to any new plutonium work at the Lab and in support of removing existing plutonium.35 ====================================================================== May 2004 Then-Secretary Spencer Abraham pledges in a speech: “…we will consider whether certain essential work performed at Livermore could be relocated to allow us to remove the Category I and II material stored there."36 ====================================================================== January 2005 Superblock stops operations to resolve a number of safety violations and weaknesses identified by the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB).37 The facility returned to partial operations in October 2005. ====================================================================== March 2005 DNFSB places a notice in the Federal Register stating that Livermore Lab improperly stores plutonium in food storage containers and paint tins, leading to oxidation and leak risks.38 ====================================================================== May 2005 NNSA-commissioned report by retired Navy Admiral Richard W. Mies concludes: DOE/NNSA lack an enterprise-wide plan for consolidation of Special Nuclear Material (SNM).… NNSA is plagued by a number of cultural problems that, until addressed, will erode its ability to establish and provide security consistent with the gravity of its mission.… Disparate views and an underappreciation of security across the enterprise, such that security is not fully embraced as integral to mission.39 ====================================================================== July 2005 The 123-page report of the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board (SEAB) points to Lawrence Livermore as one of the ideal sites for removing SNM because: Any partially successful terrorist attack on these sites may cause collateral damage to the surrounding civilian population and associated public and private assets.40 ====================================================================== November 2005 NNSA declares that the removal of SNM would threaten the “viability” of Livermore Lab.41 NNSA doubles the plutonium material-at-risk limit from 20 to 40 kilograms of fuel-grade equivalent plutonium in each of the two rooms of Superblock?enough for as many as 300 nuclear bombs.42 NNSA also states its reliance on the Lab to conduct research for its Stockpile Stewardship Program, which would “contribute to the need for long-term storage of plutonium."43 [Emphasis added] ====================================================================== March 2006 Testifying before the House Armed Services Committee’s (HASC) Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, Linton Brooks outlines support for the new SNM missions at Livermore Lab: With regard to consolidation, our efforts have primarily been consolidating within facilities. In my view, however, until we look at the long-term range of the complex, Pantex, Y-12, Nevada and Los Alamos absolutely have to retain special nuclear material …. And for the near term, so does Livermore, because we need it for the science.44 ====================================================================== April 2006 POGO testifies before the HASC’s Subcommittee on Strategic Forces that: Currently the only mission for SNM at Livermore is for studying the aging of plutonium, and studying cracked plutonium pits for nuclear warheads. This same work is conducted at Los Alamos National Laboratory. If it is determined by NNSA that it wants to continue the redundant mission at Livermore, the material could be moved to the Device Assembly Facility (DAF) at the Nevada Test Site. The Livermore glove boxes, and any other necessary equipment, could be shipped to the DAF. The scientists could easily take the one-hour flight to the DAF, as they did for years during the nuclear test program, when they need to conduct experiments with larger quantities of SNM.45 ====================================================================== June ? October 2006 Report by HASC recommends that NNSA de-inventory its CAT I and II SNM by 2010,46 despite NNSA’s testimony promising to de-inventory Livermore Lab by the end of 2014.47 The conference committee agrees to 2012,48 and Congress passes and President Bush signs into law the John Warner National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007, which mandates that all CAT I and II SNM be removed by no later than March 1, 2012.49 ====================================================================== December 2006 NNSA sends out a press release announcing: “Special Nuclear Materials Being Drawn Down at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory."50 After making several calls to NNSA, POGO learns that the shipments did not include any CAT I and II quantities of plutonium and highly enriched uranium, but contained mostly waste. ====================================================================== January 2007 NNSA resists Congress’ 2012 deadline, committing only to “evaluate relocating Category I/II inventories from [Livermore Lab] by 2014” or “as rapidly as practical."51 ====================================================================== June 2007 A report of the House Appropriations Committee’s Subcommittee on Energy and Water, which tasked DOE to create the 2005 SEAB, contains not-so-muted outrage for NNSA’s actions to reverse de-inventorying its sites: Instead of working with the Committee to arrive at a realistic plan that has the possibility of garnering bipartisan political support, the NNSA continues to pursue a policy of rebuilding and modernizing the entire complex in situ without any thought given to a sensible strategy for long-term efficiency and consolidation.52 ====================================================================== December 2007 NNSA commits to remove Category I and II quantities of SNM from Livermore Lab by the end of 2012.53 NNSA finally makes its first shipment of CAT I and II SNM out of Livermore Lab to the Savannah River Site (after thirteen years of promising to do so).54 ====================================================================== Current NNSA and Livermore Lab are pursuing a new mission to develop a manufacturing process for plutonium pits, which requires keeping weapons-grade plutonium at the lab.55 ====================================================================== No More Excuses To avoid further delays, POGO wants to clear up some of the myths floating around that have slowed the process of removing SNM from Livermore. Myth #1 ? The Lab needs to keep plutonium in order to develop new methods, including robotics, for manufacturing plutonium pits. Reality ? Research into the aging of plutonium pits ended in 2006 at the Lab.56 Even congressional staff tasked with nuclear weapons facilities oversight are unaware of the new mission to develop methods to manufacture plutonium pits. Myth #2 ? There are no certified shipping containers available to transfer the CAT I and II SNM. Reality ? POGO learned from NNSA officials that, as of December 2007, they had not heard of any problems with securing certified containers for transport. Myth #3 ? NNSA officials claim that it will take nineteen 18-wheel trucks to move the less-than one ton of CAT I and II SNM. The officials state that, as of December 2007, transportation assets were tight because of DOD, DOE, and NRC obligations, making securing transportation for removing the SNM difficult. Reality ? There should be no problem making 19 shipments out of the Lab, as NNSA’s Draft Complex Transformation indicates that Lawrence Livermore is authorized to transport approximately 584 shipments annually. Furthermore, POGO has learned from a knowledgeable source that, as of December 2007, the truckers and security agents of NNSA’s Office of Secure Transport are complaining because of a lack of work. They make more money when they are on the road. Myth #4 ? According to a top NNSA official, the Nevada congressional delegation would be opposed to sending any of the Lab’s material to the DAF at the Nevada Test Site. Reality ? POGO staff inquired of the Nevada delegation and learned that there was no opposition to SNM being moved to the DAF if it turns out that there is a national security mission for the material. Their only opposition would be to transferring and storing nuclear waste there. A knowledgeable congressional staffer had never heard of concerns from the Nevada delegation about transferring SNM to the DAF. Also, a different NNSA official had not heard of concerns from the Nevada delegation, as of December 2007. Myth #5 ? “You can’t move Lawrence Livermore’s material or mission to the DAF because it is full,” says a congressional staffer. Reality ? POGO traveled to the DAF and was assured by NNSA officials there that the DAF has more than adequate space for Livermore Lab’s SNM. A top NNSA official confirmed after a recent visit to the DAF that it is virtually empty. ====================================================================== Conclusion There is nothing more Livermore Lab can do to increase security. As a result, DOE must immediately begin to remove all of the weapons-grade plutonium and highly enriched uranium from the Lab so that it will be de-inventoried of the material by early 2009. DOE has the ability to do this. Sandia National Laboratory provides an illustrative comparison. POGO has been recommending since 2001 that NNSA move the SNM out of Sandia because it, too, is located in a metropolitan area?in this case, the city of Albuquerque, New Mexico. In February 2008, the material was finally removed with no resistance from Sandia. POGO was pleased to hear that the removal occurred “seven months ahead of schedule,” and we believe NNSA can apply a similar timeline to Livermore Lab.57 POGO is not suggesting that the Lab be shut down. In fact, many important breakthroughs are occurring there. However, the risks of storing CAT I and II special nuclear material at the Lab are simply too high, and no amount of additional expenditures on security will reduce those risks to the civilian population. ====================================================================== Recommendations 1) Immediately move the Category I and II special nuclear material out of Livermore Lab. A) The CAT I and II plutonium that has already been declared excess at the Lab and has been sitting packaged and ready for removal should be immediately moved to Savannah River Site for storage and disposition. B) For the Lab’s CAT I and II plutonium that has not yet been declared excess, Congress should determine whether there is a credible mission at the Lab for the material: i. If the mission of developing new methods, including robotics, for manufacturing plutonium pits is a national security priority, and if CAT I and II plutonium is indeed required for this mission, the material should be moved to the Nevada Test Site’s Device Assembly Facility (DAF), which is much more secure and where there is plenty of room. The Livermore glove boxes, and any other necessary equipment, could be shipped to the DAF. If Livermore Lab scientists need to conduct experiments with CAT I and II SNM, they could easily take the one-hour flight to the DAF as they did for years during the nuclear test program. ii. If Congress deems that the mission is not a national security priority, NNSA should immediately move the CAT I and II plutonium to the Savannah River Site for storage and disposition. C) Because there is no national security priority for highly enriched uranium at Livermore Lab, immediately move the material to the Y-12 National Security Complex for storage and downblending.58 2) When the CAT I and II SNM is removed from the Lab, the Gatling guns should be disassembled and transferred to a more appropriate NNSA site. Until the CAT I and II SNM is moved, the following recommendations should be implemented. [See Appendix B for background.] 3) Federalize the protective force. By doing so, the Department of Energy and Office of Management and Budget can resolve authority, equipment, training, benefits, and strike issues. Both the Government Accountability Office and the National Nuclear Security Administration should promptly complete their ongoing evaluations of federalization to resolve these issues.59 4) A group of independent scientists should evaluate the risks posed to DOE’s protective force officers by the lack of Self Contained Breathing Apparatus (SCBA) gear. If there is a significant risk, the protective force should be equipped with and trained on SCBA gear. ====================================================================== Acronyms and Glossary API - Armor-Piercing Incendiary Rounds IND - Improvised Nuclear Device CAT I and II - Category I and II Special Nuclear Material SASC - Senate Armed Services Committee DAF - Device Assembly Facility SCBA - Self Contained Breathing Apparatus DBT - Design Basis Threat SEAB - Secretary of Energy Advisory Board DNFSB - Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board SNM - Special Nuclear Material HASC - House Armed Service Committee Tri-Valley CAREs - Tri-Valley Communities Against A Radioactive Environment Armor-Piercing Incendiary Rounds Armor-Piercing Incendiary Rounds is a type of ammunition, which can be fired by 50 caliber sniper rifles to knock down hovering helicopters, pierce armored limousines, and ignite bulk fuel tanks from 10 football fields away. Breacher A “breacher” is a person trained in various methods of barrier penetration, or breaking through to barricaded areas. Category I and II Special Nuclear Material Category I and II special nuclear material is the most dangerous and expensive-to-guard special nuclear material, and includes plutonium and highly enriched uranium, which are used in nuclear weapons and for research and development. Design Basis Threat The Design Basis Threat describes the level of threats a protective force is required to defend against: the number of outside attackers and inside conspirators, as well as the kinds of weapons and size of truck bombs that would be available to terrorists. It is based on the Postulated Threat, which was developed by the DIA, FBI, CIA, DOE, and DOD. Downblending Downblending is the reduction of uranium enrichment levels from 80-90% to less than 20%, a Low Enriched Uranium (LEU), which is of no interest to terrorists and is suitable for use in commercial nuclear fuel. Fissile Fissile materials, mainly plutonium-239 and uranium-235, are composed of atoms that can release enormous amounts of energy from a self-sustaining chain-reaction when split by neutrons. The fission process is controlled in nuclear reactors to harness the energy for the production of electricity, and is released all at once for nuclear weapons to produce a violent explosion. Improvised Nuclear Device An improvised nuclear device can be created using a critical mass (approximately 100 pounds) of HEU and far less of plutonium to trigger a detonation of a magnitude close to that which devastated Hiroshima. Postulated Threat The Postulated Threat is the intelligence community's best estimate of the threat faced by nuclear facilities. This includes the number of adversaries, lethality of their weapons, and the size of a truck bomb that terrorists might use. Special Nuclear Material Special nuclear material, including highly enriched uranium and plutonium, is fissile material used in nuclear weapons and for research and development. Superblock The Superblock, Livermore Lab’s Building 332, is where the Lab’s plutonium and highly enriched uranium is housed. Tri-Valley CAREs Tri-Valley CAREs was founded in 1983 in Livermore, California, by concerned neighbors living around the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, one of two locations where all U.S. nuclear weapons are designed. Tri-Valley CAREs monitors nuclear weapons and environmental clean-up activities throughout the U.S. nuclear weapons complex, with a special focus on Livermore Lab and the surrounding communities. ====================================================================== Appendix Appendix A: Appendix B: Project On Government Oversight, “Protective Force Lacks Necessary Tools," March 2007. ====================================================================== Endnotes 1 The nine DOE sites with Category I and II special nuclear material are Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Pantex Plant, Y-12 National Security Complex, Nevada Test Site, Hanford Site, Idaho National Laboratory, Savannah River Site, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. 2 Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development. Rep. Peter J. Visclosky Holds a Hearing on the Department of Energy’s Fiscal Year 2008 Budget Request for Programs in the National Nuclear Security Administration. March 29, 2007. 3 POGO uses the term “SNM” throughout the report to refer to CAT I and II special nuclear material. However, there are also CAT III and IV SNM, which are not weapons-quantity or weapons-grade and so are of little or no interest to terrorists. 4 The Design Basis Threat describes the level of threats a protective force is required to defend against: the number of outside attackers and inside conspirators, as well as the kinds of weapons and size of truck bombs that would be available to terrorists. It is based on the Postulated Threat, which was developed by the DIA, FBI, CIA, DOE, and DOD. 5 House Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security. Updating Nuclear Security Standards: How Long Can The Department of Energy Afford to Wait? No. 109-435, April 2006. Security experts’ greatest concern is that a suicidal terrorist group would reach its target at one of the facilities and, in an extremely short time, create an improvised nuclear device on site. It is only now becoming known outside DOE how easily this could be accomplished: using a critical mass (approximately 100 pounds) of HEU and far less of plutonium, a terrorist could trigger a detonation of a magnitude close to that which devastated Hiroshima. The possibility of this scenario was a primary motivation for the DOE’s decision to significantly increase the DBT several times over the last seven years. 6 Charles Ferguson, William C. Potter. The Four Faces of Nuclear Terrorism. Monterey, California: Monterey Institute-Center for Nonproliferation Studies Nuclear Threat Initiatives, 2004. Foreword. http://www.nti.org/c_press/analysis_4faces.pdf (Downloaded March 12, 2008). 7 U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Dirty Bombs and Basement Nukes: The Terrorist Nuclear Threat, Senate Hearing 107-575. March 6, 2002. pp. 51-52. http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=107_senate_h earings&docid=f:80848.pdf (Downloaded March 12, 2008). 8 An IND can be created at a number of DOE sites because of the presence of special nuclear material in bomb-grade quality and quantity. Creating an IND with highly enriched uranium is fairly simple and quick. Creating an IND using plutonium is significantly more difficult. INDs can cause nuclear detonations of varying sizes, and, with the right explosives equipment, little time is required to accomplish the act. An IND explosion is qualitatively different from a “dirty bomb,” also known as a dispersal device: detonating plutonium or highly enriched uranium with an explosive would cause a major dispersion of highly radioactive materials, but an IND explosion could cause a chain reaction close to the magnitude of those that devastated Hiroshima or Nagasaki, Japan. 9 Calculated by adding 2001-2007 actual security costs, and dividing by two in order to account for the fact that half of the security expenditures are for securing SNM. These costs were provided to POGO in a February 12, 2008, email by William Desmond, Chief, Defense Nuclear Security at NNSA. We used 2001 costs to estimate those for 2000, and 2007 costs to estimate those for 2008 through the end of 2012. 10 A description of the plutonium-related activities carried out in the Superblock may be found in: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. “Inside the Superblock,” Science & Technology Review, March 2001. https://www.llnl.gov/str/March01/Sefcik.html (Downloaded March 12, 2008). 11 Government Accountability Office. Nuclear and Worker Safety: Actions Needed to Determine the Effectiveness of Safety Improvement Efforts at NNSA’s Weapons Laboratories. (GAO-08-73), October 2007. http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d0873.pdf. (Downloaded March 12, 2008); and Letter to NNSA from the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, March 8, 2005. http://www.dnfsb.gov/pub_docs/llnl/cor_20050308_ll.pdf. (Downloaded March 12, 2008); and Betsy Mason, “Safety concerns halt plutonium work.” Contra Costa Times, February 1, 2005. http://www.trivalleycares.org/news/articledisplay.asp?artid=342 (Downloaded March 12, 2008). 12 POGO phone interview with Marylia Kelley, Executive Director of the Livermore-based Tri-Valley CAREs, December 13, 2007. 13 POGO staff attended this meeting. 14 Other DOE sites such as Y-12, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Savannah River Site have high-caliber machine guns that provide a lot of firepower if the sites are under attack. 15 Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. “The Laboratory Enhances its Security.” Discover LLNL: The Community Newsletter of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Spring 2006. https://publicaffairs.llnl.gov/com/2006/spring_discover_llnl.pdf (Downloaded March 12, 2008). 16 The kill-range is the maximum distance at which a weapon’s fire can be deadly. 17 Henry K. Lee. “Lab Gatling guns frighten some; others feel safe: Weapons designed to protect facility from terrorists.” San Francisco Chronicle, February 4, 2006. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/02/04/BAGM8H2IH5 1.DTL (Downloaded March 12, 2008). 18 POGO interviews with Y-12 protective force officers. 19 Department of Energy. Statement of Thomas P. D`Agostino Acting Under Secretary, Nuclear Security and Administrator before the Committee on Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, April 18, 2007. 20 Sidney Drell and Ambassador James Goodby. “What Are Nuclear Weapons For? Recommendations for Restructuring U.S. Strategic Nuclear Forces.” Arms Control Association, April 2005. www.armscontrol.org/pdf/USNW_2005_Drell-Goodby.pdf (Downloaded March 12, 2008). 21 Senate Armed Services Committee. National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 Report. Report No. 110-77, June 5, 2007. p. 619. http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=110_cong_rep orts&docid=f:sr077.110.pdf (Downloaded March 12, 2008). Hereinafter: National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 Report. 22 The 2003 DBT, which was to be implemented by 2006, required site Protective Forces (PF) to be prepared to repel fewer than half of the attackers during 9/11. The 2004 DBT, which was to be implemented by 2008, was created because the 2003 DBT was not protecting against a realistic threat?the standard was far too weak. The 2004 DBT had the strongest of the security requirements and required site PFs to be prepared to repel close to the 9/11-level of 19 attackers, and stated that the attackers could be expected to be carrying far more lethal weapons and using much larger truck bombs than had been planned for in the 2003 DBT. Unfortunately, in November 2005, DOE concluded the 2004 DBT would cost too much to implement, and replaced it with a weaker 2005 DBT: Department of Energy, Office of Inspector General. Audit Report: The Department’s Energy, Science, and Environment Sites’ Implementation of the Design Basis Threat, DOE/IG-0749. December 2006. http://www.ig.energy.gov/documents/IG-0749.pdf. (Downloaded March 13, 2008). Hereinafter: Office of Inspector General. Audit Report. The 2005 DBT, to be implemented at sites by 2008, required the PFs to be prepared to repel approximately 75 percent of the attackers from 9/11. On January 19, 2006, the NNSA Administrator concluded that even the 2005 DBT could not be achieved because of White House imposed budget caps: “We need to be clear that we won’t meet the requirements.” [Appendix A] 23 There is no clear definition of the term “non-enduring,” yet its meaning can be interpreted from the Office of Inspector General. Audit Report: “Site officials stated that they should not be required to meet the full DBT policy requirements since, according to their interpretation of Departmental guidance, they believe the site is non-enduring as a result of their plan to eventually eliminate the Category I SNM.” 24 Government Accountability Office. Securing U.S. Nuclear Material: DOE Has Made Little Progress Consolidating and Disposing of Special Nuclear Material, (GAO-08-72). October 2007. p. 10. http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d0872.pdf (Downloaded March 13, 2008). Hereinafter: Securing U.S. Nuclear Material. 25 Securing U.S. Nuclear Material, p. 16. 26 A plutonium pit is the plutonium part of a nuclear weapon, and is in the shape of a sphere. 27 Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Report for Week Ending June 29, 2007, DNFSB Memorandum for J.K. Fortenberry, from J. Plaue, Acting DSFSB Site Representative, June 29, 2007, states: “Design activities to support installation of new foundry technologies in the Plutonium Facility are nearing completion.” http://www.dnfsb.gov/pub_docs/llnl/wr_20070629_ll.p df (Downloaded March 13, 2008); and Lawrence Livermore’s 2006 Annual Report states, “Livermore worked on developing plutonium-part manufacturing technologies.” Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Annual Report 2006, UCRL-TR-211126-06. p. 8, https://www.llnl.gov/annual06/pdfs/2006Annual.pdf, (Downloaded March 13, 2008); and National Archives and Records Administration, Federal Register. Department of Energy National Security Administration, Vol. 70, No. 228. November 29, 2005. http://www-envirinfo.llnl.gov/LLNL_SWEIS-SPEIS_ROD.pdf (Downloaded March 13, 2008). Hereinafter: National Archives and Records Administration. NNSA increased the highly enriched uranium administrative limit for the Radiography Facility from 25 to 50 kilograms to support the Stockpile Stewardship Program activities. 28 A glove box is a sealed and windowed container with built-in gloves that allows users to safely handle the materials within, while protecting users from hazardous materials and isolating the materials from outside contamination. Livermore Lab uses glove boxes to handle special nuclear material. 29 POGO phone interview conducted March 10, 2008. 30 National Archives and Records Administration, p. 71491. 31 Jason Barr. “Livermore lab to double on-site plutonium: Part one of an in-depth series on the Livermore Lab,” LCP Express, October 13, 2006. 32 POGO is not only concerned because the material is still at Livermore Lab, but also by how it is stored: The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) found the Lab using food storage containers and paint tins to store plutonium, which increases the risk of oxidation and leaks. Also, Letter from John T. Conway to Secretary Samuel W. Bodman, March 10, 2005. https://www.hss.doe.gov/deprep/2005/FB05M10A.DOC (Downloaded March 13, 2008); and Marylia Kelley. “Plutonium Found in Paint Cans, Food Cans at Livermore Lab.” Citizens Watch Newsletter, April 2005. http://www.trivalleycares.org/newsletters/cwapr05.asp (Downloaded March 13, 2008). 33 Department of Energy. Alternative Futures for the Department of Energy National Laboratories, 1995, Chapter 2.3. 34 Calculated by adding 2001-2007 actual security costs, and dividing by two in order to account for the fact that half of the security expenditures are for securing SNM. These costs were provided to POGO in a February 12, 2008, email by William Desmond, Chief, Defense Nuclear Security at NNSA. We used 2001 costs to estimate those for 2000, and 2007 costs to estimate those for 2008. 35 Marylia Kelley, Loulena Miles and Tara Dorabji. “Public Hearings Challenge Planned Expansion of Nuclear Weapons Activities and Materials at Livermore Lab.” Citizen’s Watch Newsletter. December, 2005. http://www.trivalleycares.org/newsletters/cwdec05.asp (Downloaded March 13, 2008); and Ian Hoffman. “Lab to double plutonium storage,” BNET. November 30, 2005. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4176/is_20051130/ai_n15945614. (Downloaded March 13, 2008); and POGO phone interview with Marylia Kelley, Executive Director of the Livermore-based Tri-Valley CAREs, December 13, 2007. 36 Department of Energy. Remarks prepared for Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham - Security Police Officer Training Competition, May 7, 2004. http://www.energy.gov/news/1796.htm (Downloaded March 13, 2008). 37 Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Annual Report 2006, UCRL-TR-211126-06. https://www.llnl.gov/annual06/pdfs/2006Annual.pdf, p. 37 (Downloaded March 13, 2008); and Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. Letter from Chairman John T. Conway to Ambassador Linton Brooks. http://www.dnfsb.gov/pub_docs/llnl/cor_20050308_ll.pdf (Downloaded March 13, 2008). Hereinafter Letter from Chairman John T. Conway. 38 Letter from Chairman John T. Conway; and Marylia Kelley. “Plutonium Found in Paint Cans, Food Cans at Livermore Lab.” Citizens Watch Newsletter, April 2005. http://www.trivalleycares.org/newsletters/cwapr05.asp (Downloaded March 13, 2008). 39 Admiral Richard W. Mies. NNSA SECURITY: An Independent Review. April 2005. http://www.nnsa.doe.gov/docs/reports/2005-05-02_Mies_Executive_Summary _and_Report.pdf. (Downloaded October 16, 2006). 40 Department of Energy, Secretary of Energy Advisory Board. Report of the Nuclear Weapons Complex Infrastructure Task Force. Nuclear Weapons Complex of the Future, July 13, 2005. http://www.seab.energy.gov/publications/NWCITFRept-7-11-05.pdf (Downloaded March 13, 2008). 41 National Archives and Records Administration, p. 71491. NNSA increased the highly enriched uranium administrative limit for the Radiography Facility from 25 to 50 kilograms to support the Stockpile Stewardship Program activities. 42 Keay Davidson. “Modern Gatling Guns to Defend Against Land, Air Terrorist Attack at Livermore National Laboratory,” San Francisco Chronicle, February 3, 2006. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/02/03/MNGR9H2AM7 1.DTL (Downloaded March 13, 2008). 43 National Archives and Records Administration, p. 71491. 44 House Armed Services Committee: Subcommittee On Strategic Forces. Transcript from Hearing on the FY 2007 Budget for the Energy Department's Atomic Energy Defense Activities, March 1, 2006. 45 Project On Government Oversight. Testimony of POGO’s Peter Stockton, Senior Investigator before the House Armed Services Committee, Subcommittee on Strategic Forces Regarding Future Plans on the Nuclear Weapons Complex, April 5, 2006. http://www.pogo.org/p/homeland/ht-060402-nuclear.html (Downloaded March 13, 2008). 46 "This objective does not preclude the retention of category I and II special nuclear materials at a national security laboratory, if the transformation plan for the nuclear weapons complex envisions a pit production capability at a national security laboratory.” National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007: Report of the Committee on Armed Services House of Representative on H.R. 5122, 109-452. 47 National Nuclear Security Administration, Office of Defense Programs. Complex 2030: An Infrastructure Planning Scenario for a Nuclear Weapons Complex Able to Meet the Threats of the 21st Century, DOE/NA-0013, October 2006, p. 10. 48 John Warner National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007: Conference Report to Accompany H.R. 5122, No. 109-72. 49 John Warner National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007 (Public Law 109-364) Section 4214, A.7. http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h109-5122 (Downloaded March 13, 2008). 50 Department of Energy. Special Nuclear Materials Being Drawn Down at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, December 7, 2006. http://www.nnsa.doe.gov/docs/newsreleases/2006/PR_2006-12-07_NA-06-49. htm (Downloaded March 13, 2008). 51 Department of Energy. Report on the Plan for Transformation of the National Complex, NNSA, 31 January 2007, pp. ii, 8. http://www.nnsa.doe.gov/docs/Trans_of_NNSA_WC_2007-31-07.pdf (Downloaded March 13, 2008). 52 House Appropriations Committee. FY 2008 Energy and Water Development Appropriations Bill Committee Report, June 11, 2007. pp. 96-97. 53 Department of Energy. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL): Nuclear Design and Engineering and High Explosive Research and Development (R&D): Complex Transformation- Preferred Alternative. http://www.nnsa.doe.gov/docs/ComplexTrans/LLNL.pdf (Downloaded March 13, 2008). 54 National Nuclear Security Administration. Consolidation of Nuclear Weapons Materials Continues: Plutonium Moved From Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to Savannah River Site, January 7, 2008. http://www.nnsa.doe.gov/docs/newsreleases/2008/PR_2008-01-07_NA-08-01. htm (Downloaded March 13, 2008). 55 Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Report for Week Ending June 29, 2007, DNFSB Memorandum for J.K. Fortenberry, from J. Plaue, Acting DSFSB Site Representative, June 29, 2007, states: “Design activities to support installation of new foundry technologies in the Plutonium Facility are nearing completion.”; [footnote continued] and Livermore’s 2006 Annual Report states, “Livermore worked on developing plutonium-part manufacturing technologies.” Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Annual Report 2006, UCRL-TR-211126-06. p. 8 https://www.llnl.gov/annual06/pdfs/2006Annual.pdf (Downloaded March 13, 2008); and National Archives and Records Administration, p. 71491. NNSA increased the highly enriched uranium administrative limit for the Radiography Facility from 25 to 50 kilograms to support the Stockpile Stewardship Program activities. 56 Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. “U.S. Weapons Plutonium Aging Gracefully.” Science and Technology Review, UCRL-52000-07-5. May 7, 2007. https://www.llnl.gov/str/May07/Schwartz.html (Downloaded March 13, 2008). 57 NNSA. First Phase of Nuclear Material Consolidation Complete: Work Completed at Sandia Seven Months Ahead of Schedule, February 28, 2008. http://www.nnsa.doe.gov/docs/newsreleases/2008/PR_2008-02-28_NA-08-13. htm (Downloaded March 11, 2008). 58 Downblending is the reduction of uranium enrichment levels from 80-90% to less than 20%, a Low Enriched Uranium (LEU), which is of no interest to terrorists and is suitable for use in commercial nuclear fuel. 59 Originally, the NNSA report was to be completed February 2008, but POGO has learned that it will not be completed until late summer or early fall. The GAO report will not be completed in time for its six-month review deadline. Both agencies should accelerate their ongoing evaluations. © The Project On Government Oversight 2008 ***************************************************************** 144 Boulder Daily Camera: Flats compensation case stirs lawmakers Daughter of former Rocky Flats worker rocks boat By Laura Frank, Rocky Mountain News Thursday, April 3, 2008 Donna DeKruger never intended to stir things up like this. Last month, she fired off a letter to her congressman and called up a newspaper reporter to tell her story -- things she'd never done before. She had only intended to help her mother, the widow of a Rocky Flats nuclear weapons worker who got shut out of federal compensation when the government changed the rules midstream. Now, DeKruger might just wind up helping a lot more people. Tuesday, three Colorado congressmen -- Democrats Mark Udall, John Salazar and Ed Perlmutter -- sent a letter to the U.S. secretaries of Labor and Health lambasting their agencies for thwarting Congress' intent for the program. They cited the experience of DeKruger's family as an example. Members of a White House panel overseeing the program will discuss today whether her family's case is proof that the new rules are making it harder for sick workers and their survivors to qualify for compensation. "I feel like Erin Brockovich," says DeKruger, who, like the heroine of movie fame, is blonde, determined and now bent on helping others. "That's what the lady at the post office calls me now." 'Open and shut case' The congressmen's letter says, in part, that unnecessary steps have "added costs to the taxpayers and months of uncertainty to a claim that ... should be an open and shut case." By changing the rules, it says, "It appears that the Department of Labor, once again, is attempting to deny proper compensation to the Cold War veterans who worked at Rocky Flats." A Health Department spokeswoman said the agency would respond to the letter. Labor spokesman Loren Smith said his department was committed to following the law. "We will continue to work ... to ensure that Rocky Flats workers and their families have accurate information about eligibility and the claims process," Smith said. DeKruger's father, Warren Richards, made tools that created the plutonium spheres at the heart of America's atomic bombs. He died in 1991 at age 52 of stomach cancer. After Congress created a compensation program in 2000 to atone for lost lives and harmed health among nuclear weapons workers, DeKruger helped her mother apply, having watched her sell her farm and struggle with her own health after taking care of her dying husband. This latest controversy in an ongoing saga is over how Labor officials determine who deserves a fast track to compensation and who must endure a years-long process of trying to link their illness to their exposures. High-risk buildings To decide who gets on the fast track, Labor officials are relying on old work records to determine if employees were irradiated or, if unmonitored, worked in buildings where they were at high risk of irradiation. Among other issues, the new rules require that the employee spent at least 250 days in one of those buildings. In the case of Warren Richards, his work records show the tool engineer was not officially assigned to one of the high-risk buildings. But Richards' boss, Joe Farmer, told the Rocky Mountain News that Richards' job often required that he work in high-risk areas. "He would definitely have met that criteria" of 250 days in the plutonium buildings, Farmer said, "but it was never in the record." Furthermore, the congressmen say the law does not require 250 days in a specific building. Farmer planned to send the Labor Department a sworn statement about Richards' work situation this week. Critical flaw cited Rocky Flats workers and their advocates say the Richards case shows a critical flaw in the way Labor officials are deciding who gets compensation and who doesn't: The work records don't reflect what employees actually did. And not all employees or their survivors would be able to find someone such as Farmer who could swear to their work from nearly five decades ago. That's the situation in which Andrea Blocher finds herself. Blocher's father, Franklin Chilton, died in 1994 at age 59 of cancer that invaded his esophagus and stomach. But Blocher knows of no one still living who would know how many days her dad worked in specific buildings. Her mother, who also worked at Rocky Flats, might have been able to, but a brain tumor has left her memory sketchy. Like the Richards' case, Blocher's family was notified this month that a December recommendation for compensation was being rescinded. "This is so frustrating," said Blocher, of Franktown. Scripps Newspaper Group — Online © 2008 The E.W. Scripps Co. ***************************************************************** 145 Rocky Mountain News: Disagreement derails Flats case New rules block compensation to worker's widow By Laura Frank, Rocky Mountain News (Contact) Monday, March 17, 2008 Christopher Tomlinson / Special To The Rocky Loa Richards, left, and her daughter, Donna DeKruger, look over some of the paperwork on Loa Richards' husband, Warren Richards, a Rocky Flats worker who died at age 51 of stomach cancer. * PDF: First letter sent to Loa Richards * PDF: Second letter sent to Loa Richards Just before Christmas, Loa Richards opened a letter from the government and thought her problems were solved. She could fix her roof on her mobile home and stop covering her floor with buckets when rain fell or snow melted. She could replace the water heater the inspector warned could pump out carbon monoxide. She could have a portrait made of herself to give her children as a memento. And she could pick out her own casket for the day she would join her husband, Warren, who died of cancer 17 years ago at age 52. The government's letter said Warren's cancer was likely the result of his work at Rocky Flats, the defunct nuclear weapons plant northwest of Denver. Congress decided in 2000 that the nation's nuclear weapons workers and their survivors were due compensation for sacrificing their health building atomic bombs. The government recommended that Richards, 70, who lives in Clifton, near Grand Junction, receive $300,000. "She thought it was a blessing from God," said Richards' daughter, Donna DeKruger, who helped her mother file for the compensation more than six years ago. Then, this month, another letter arrived. Under new guidelines written by the U.S. Labor Department and published in February, Richards apparently won't be receiving the money after all. "You go through this for years - the ups and downs. I just kind of want to give up," said Richards, who is surviving on Social Security and her husband's Rocky Flats pension of $138 a month. "I don't want to sound like a crybaby. I'm thankful for what I have. It's just so sad." Complicated cases Richards' case illustrates the complications and controversies that have shadowed the government's compensation program since the beginning. The latest disagreement emerged in February, when the Labor Department, which oversees the program, published new rules meant to determine which ill workers or survivors could avoid much red tape and qualify for streamlined aid. Among other things, the rules say a person must have been exposed to a "sufficient" level of neutron radiation to get on the fast track for money and medical help. Today, members of a panel appointed by President Bush to oversee the compensation program plan to review Labor's rules. Mark Griffon, the panel's lead member on Rocky Flats issues, says the rules are not what the Presidential Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health intended. Shelby Hallmark, who directs the compensation program for the Labor Department, disagrees. He says the rules are consistent with what the board has said. He also said the Labor Department's rules did not amount to a new burden of proof for workers. "This is not a new 'significant' level test that somehow makes the process more difficult," Hallmark said. But Loa Richards doesn't see it that way. "I don't think they comprehend at all what this does to us," she said. To qualify for compensation, most sick workers must prove a link between toxic exposures and their illnesses, which takes an average of three years. But if records that could prove this link are missing or faulty, workers with radiation-related cancers can ask for "special exposure cohort" status, making them eligible for streamlined aid. The status of Rocky Flats workers was supposed to have been settled in August. That's when the presidential advisory board determined that reliable records didn't exist to show how much neutron radiation workers had absorbed in the early years of the weapons plant. As a result of that finding, certain ill Flats workers got a big break. Special status was extended to those who were employed between 1952 and 1966 and "were or should have been monitored for neutron radiation." So far, 200 workers have met that definition. In December, Labor officials said Richards qualified for $300,000 because of Warren's "documented exposure to neutrons." But two months later, officials decided that Warren Richards' exposures did not qualify his widow for compensation. The second letter Loa Richards received said government records showed her husband "was not monitored for neutron dose." As a result, she didn't qualify for compensation. There is no explanation why the first letter mentions neutron exposures and the second denies it or what difference the new Labor Department rules made. Building not on list The debate between the Labor Department and the presidential panel is basically over who's eligible for streamlined assistance. Warren Richards' case illustrates the problem. He was a tool engineer officially assigned to Building 444 at Rocky Flats. That's not one of 10 buildings the Labor Department lists as a potential neutron radiation site. Ill workers from those buildings are automatically eligible for streamlined aid no matter what their radiation exposure records show. The Rocky Mountain News reported in November, however, that there were 19 other buildings - including Building 444 where Richards was assigned - where workers had documented neutron exposures. In addition, Richards' family discovered that his job took him to top-secret plutonium buildings, including some of the 10 cited by the Labor Department. Board member Griffon said these kinds of cases, in which workers went from building to building in the course of their job, are at the root of the current debate. Whether they or their survivors deserve compensation, even in the absence of exposure records, is the issue now before the board. But the panel has only an advisory role. The real power lies with the secretary of Health and Human Services, who defines who gets special status at various weapons sites, and the Labor Department, which uses those definitions to write guidelines for determining who qualifies. "I'm not sure what will happen," Griffon said. "We've never had a situation like this before." What's next for Loa Richards is not clear either. Her case will be reviewed again to see if her husband worked at least 250 days - the government's minimum standard to be considered for aid - in one of the neutron buildings on the government's list. She knows his work took him into some of those buildings, but can't prove how many days he spent there. "It's just been hard," she said. "I've reached the point where I just can't deal with things very well." frankl@RockyMountainNews.comor 303-954-5091 Streamlined-aid timeline * February 2005: Rocky Flats workers ask the government to grant them "special exposure cohort" status, saying they deserved that streamlined path to compensation because of faulty or missing work records. * June 2007: After more than two years of debate, the White House Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health agrees that some Flats workers should qualify - those who worked at least 250 days from 1952-1966 and "were or should have been monitored for neutron radiation." * November 2007: The U.S. Labor Department says workers from the top-secret Building 881 were mistakenly left off the list of those who would qualify for streamlined aid. The Rocky Mountain News reported that workers from another 19 buildings had similar exposure records but also were left off the list. * January 2008: Labor officials write new rules for determining which Flats workers qualify for the special status. Posted by vudumom on March 17, 2008 at 6:24 a.m. (Suggest removal) If Colorado people want to help these people who have been treated so unfairly bu our government,here is what you can do. Stop pouring money into political campaigns. Someone should start a fund for these people and there loved ones and all political contributions go to this or the politicians from the state level to the federal level get no money in their coffers from anyone in Colorado until someone steps up to help these people and their families. This is horroble what the government is doing to these people and their loved ones.Yet I haven't heard of any politician stepping up to right this wrong.This is wrong on so many levels it is sickening. Obama wants change and breezes through our state and all the people line up to see him and open their wallets but I haven't heard him mention the Rocky Flats workers and their families. Hillary says she is going to be a strong leader and fight for the American people but she has come through here looking for money and has said nothing about the Rocky Flats workers and their loved ones.McCain I din't remember coming to Colorado but he will and he says he can get things done in Washington because he knows the ins and outs.He has said nothing about the Rocky Flats workers. What the government has done to these workers past and present is disgusting.I think next time some politician has his hand out for a donation you should write a check and tell that politician wheter they be state,federal or presidential that you are going to give your campaign contribution to someone who needs it,The Rocky Flats workers who have been given a death sentence and the runaround by our government,who is hoping they will die and problem solved. People want to help their country should start by helping their fellow citizens and stop buying into a politicians American dream,but your own.Help someone else who really needs it. Scripps Newspaper Group — Online © 2008 The E.W. Scripps Co. ***************************************************************** 146 Knoxville News Sentinel: Reactor cleanup making progress Nuke material removal at Molten Salt almost done after much delay By Frank Munger (Contact) Monday, March 17, 2008 OAK RIDGE - After years of technically challenging work, upsets and schedule delays, and tens of millions of taxpayer dollars, government contractors are about to complete a major milestone at the Molten Salt Reactor. Within the next couple of weeks, workers should have extracted the final quantities of uranium-233 from old fuel tanks at the reactor and shipped the fissile material - of potential use in nuclear weapons - to a secure site at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. "I anticipate that if all goes well, they'll be done the last week in March or the first week in April," Steve McCracken, the Department of Energy's environmental manager in Oak Ridge, said Friday. The U-233 removal, which involved the remelting of the fuel mix and chemical extraction of the uranium, will conclude what is essentially a first phase in the ultimate cleanup of Molten Salt. The 1960s-era reactor has been idle for nearly 40 years at a site about a mile from the main ORNL campus. The reactor was built as an experiment to test new reactor concepts, including the use of lithium and beryllium salts to cool the reactor's fuel. The experiment also substituted U-233 for the more-traditional U-235 to evaluate its fuel capabilities. The Molten Salt Reactor was unique when it operated, and it's been different and difficult to decommission. Work is exacerbated by high radiation fields, which means some complex tasks must be performed remotely. The work is at least a couple of years behind schedule, and there have been multiple work stoppages. Work was restarted last October after being stalled for about a year and a half, and there have been technical issues, even in recent weeks as crews worked 24 hours a day, seven days a week. "We've run into some unexpected problems. We thought we'd be done here at the end of January," said Paul Divjak, the president of Bechtel Jacobs Co., DOE's cleanup manager. "You've got to do it safely." There's much work left to be done, including the removal of nine tons of fuel salts stored in a series of tanks and, ultimately, demolition of the reactor building itself. But that may have to wait for a while. The plan on how to proceed is currently the subject of a dispute between DOE and environmental regulators. DOE already is out of compliance with the existing Federal Facilities Agreement, which required the defueling of the reactor by Sept. 30, 2007. McCracken and John Owsley, the state's environmental oversight chief in Oak Ridge, both indicated last week that there's a tentative agreement that will extend the timetable on salt removal. "We have neither given them an extension nor fined them at this time," Owsley said. Nothing is official until the three parties - including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency - sign a dispute resolution, he said, declining to discuss the new deadlines. Negotiations on this and other cleanup projects have been going on for months. DOE and Bechtel Jacobs encountered problems a couple of years ago when trying to remove salts from one of the tanks and delayed the effort. More recently, federal officials said they wanted to postpone the work until there's a clear option on where to send the hard-to-handle materials for disposal. Meanwhile, preparations are under way at ORNL's Building 3019, where a large inventory of U-233 - including amounts extracted from the Molten Salt fuel - will be processed to remove its weapons capability and prepare it for disposal. Isotek Systems, a partnership headed by EnergySolutions, is leading the $384 million project under a contract with DOE. Ron Shaffer recently was named president of Isotek, replacing Pat Hopper in that position. McCracken said the U-233 project is a high priority at DOE and that preparations are going well, including some design work on shielded hot cells that will be used to process the nuclear material. Processing activities, which will involve down-blending the U-233 with other nonfissionable stocks of uranium, is expected to begin around 2012, according to DOE. The processing of the uranium is expected to take a couple of years, and it will take at least a couple of years after that to ship the converted materials to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. "The shipping is limited to the availability of casks to ship it," McCracken said. "It could take a number of years to get that done." Senior writer Frank Munger may be reached at 865-342-6329. © 2008, Knoxville News Sentinel Co. Posted by deerman on March 17, 2008 at 7:53 a.m. Let me sum up Nuclear waste cleanup. The government hands out large sums of money to politically connected contractors to move waste from one hole to another. That is an over simplification but it is essentially what happens. Scripps Newspaper Group — Online © 2008 The E.W. Scripps Co. ***************************************************************** 147 Times-News: Court requires INL to remove nuclear waste Magicvalley.com, Twin Falls, ID Last modified on Tuesday, March 25, 2008 8:25 AM MDT Decision upheld in circuit court to remove all transuranic waste By Matt Christensen Times-News writer The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed an earlier federal district court decision requiring the federal government to remove all transuranic nuclear waste from the Idaho National Laboratory near Idaho Falls. The ruling is a victory for the state of Idaho, which has pushed the federal government to remove buried nuclear waste from the site since the late 1980s, and a setback for the federal government, which has said removing all the waste is unnecessary and too expensive. "We're happy about this, of course," said Curt Fransen, deputy director of the state's Department of Environmental Quality. The decision from the three-judge panel means the federal Department of Energy will have to remove tens of thousands of cubic meters of nuclear waste from the site by 2018, Fransen said. The DOE had proposed removing just a fraction of the waste. The case stems from a 1995 agreement between the state and the federal government brokered by then-Gov. Phil Batt. In the deal, commonly called the Batt Agreement, the feds agreed to remove all transuranic waste at the site. But shortly after the agreement was reached, the federal government began to question what it had agreed to. "This whole case," Fransen said, "is about the word 'all' - whether 'all' means 'all.'" The DOE argued it was not obligated to remove all the waste. The state of Idaho - and the courts - have disagreed. Last week's decision marked the second time the buried waste question has gone before the 9th Circuit Court. In an earlier review of the case, a three-judge panel remanded it back to the federal district court in Idaho "to consider the parties' extrinsic evidence" of the agreement's interpretation. The case returned to U.S. District Court Judge Edward J. Lodge, who sided with the state's interpretation of the word "all." Then on appeal, the 9th upheld Lodge's ruling. The circuit court's recent decision could mean the DOE will have to abandon a $1 billion proposal that called for removing just some of the waste. Removing all of the waste would cost about $13 billion and unnecessarily expose workers to radiation, Rick Provencher, DOE's department manager for cleanup, has said in the past. The DOE has already sent some of the material to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., for storage. Tens of thousands of cubic feet of nuclear waste was buried at the INL site between about 1950 and 1970, sometimes haphazardly rolled into trenches in barrels off the back of trucks. Since then, nuclear waste has threatened an aquifer beneath the site that's a drinking water source for tens of thousands of Idahoans. Fransen said he hopes the decision will lead to negotiations with the DOE on a plan to begin removing all the waste. Calls to the DOE seeking comment for this story were referred to the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., where an agency spokesman said the department is reviewing the decision. Matt Christensen may be reached at 735-3243 or at matt.christensen@lee.net. What's that? Transuranic means heavier than uranium. Transuranic elements do not produce the amount of heat or penetrating radiation that fission products do, but they take much longer to decay. Transuranic wastes account for most of the radioactive hazard remaining in high-level waste after a thousand years. Source: U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Peter Rickards (id:PeterRickards) wrote on Mar 26, 2008 12:30 PM: " Mikel, You request to know what "all" means. Well, "all" means half! Wish I was kidding, but since you are a nuke engineer, in detail, we are talking about "all" the concentrated plutonium particle waste that meets the definition of TRU or transuranic waste. That means greater than 100 nanocuries per gram of waste material. So it is not low nor near undetectable amounts being debated! The DOE says they will leave the buried plutonium, and claim they only have to remove half the "volume" of above ground waste that fits the TRU definition. The court says they must also remove the half of the volume of buried waste that meets the definition of TRU. But what we were promised was actually "all" the plutonium would be removed! Even what is now labeled as low-level. That "low level" waste adds up to billions of plutonium particles. Over one ton of plutonium is spread out in the dump. It's the same deadly plutonium, despite re-defining it in 1984. So if the court order is followed, the concentrated half of the buried waste must be removed, and DOE is refusing. Our politicians and DEQ are hoping nobody complains that the current plan does not even come close to removing this half of the buried waste! INL = Idaho's Never-ending Lie!! " Grant Uptain (id:x2ox) wrote on Mar 26, 2008 5:38 AM: " Amos, assure us with some evidence other than your word that " The Areva uranium enrichment plant will not bury waste on site." " Peter Rickards (id:PeterRickards) wrote on Mar 25, 2008 7:16 PM: " Amos, Is your memory short, or do you just like to deny everything repeatedly? I have posted for you the NRC documents on finally deciding DOE inherits the low-level waste after the hexafluoride is removed. By DOE order, that gets buried at the nearest DOE low-level dump, and that is INL. Here are the references I provided before. Quit covering up the problems with waste just to protect your stock investments. And why not reveal your real name?? http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/commission/orders/2005/2 005-05cli.html final order http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/commission/orders/2006/2 006-22cli.html " Mikel Mcintosh (id:mikel) wrote on Mar 25, 2008 6:24 PM: " I would like to know the definition of "all" There is a limit to "reasonable" minimum detectable activity below which the confidence level for detection approaches zero, but it cannot be guaranteed that every molecule is removed. " Amos Moses (id:Amos) wrote on Mar 25, 2008 5:01 PM: " The Areva uranium enrichment plant will not bury waste on site. You can relax about that and focus your concern on something real. " Peter Rickards (id:PeterRickards) wrote on Mar 25, 2008 12:52 PM: " Sorry if it's a repost, but seems the blog at my homework! You have to love this ongoing nuclear Mad Hatter's Tea Party! Theater of the Absurd, our politicians and taxes at work! Most curious if the State will ever ask or demand that the CERCLA plan on this very buried plutonium actually meet their rhetoric in court. My point at the clean up hearings was the plan does not meet the State demands in court, and the State was NOT complaining, or mentioning it! The present plan leaves most plutonium buried. So far, the state is happy claiming they are holding the feds feet to the fire, while quietly agreeing to leave most plutonium buried. Please keep in mind that new nuclear projects at INL, like the plutonium-238 production, and treating Hanford transuranic waste, and the French Areva plant at Blackfoot, will bury more waste on site! "Fool us twice, shame on us" We are way past fooling us twice! ...Peter " Peter Rickards (id:PeterRickards) wrote on Mar 25, 2008 9:01 AM: " You have to love this ongoing nuclear Mad Hatter's Tea Party! Theater of the Absurd, our taxes at work! Please keep in mind that new nuclear projects at INL, like trreating Hanford transuranic waste, and the French Areva plant at Blackfoot, will bury more waste on site! "Fool us twice, shame on us" We are way past fooling us twice! " Copyright © 2006, Lee Publications Inc. Magicvalley.com is an on-line division of the Times-News, published daily at 132 W. Fairfield St., Twin Falls, Idaho 83301 by Lee Publications, Inc., a subsidiary of Lee Enterprises. ***************************************************************** 148 Tri-City Herald: Hanford regulators criticize 2010 proposals Posted Thursday, Mar. 27, 2008 By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer The Department of Energy is facing a bow wave of unfunded environmental cleanup needs at Hanford that could exceed $1 billion in the 2010 fiscal year, according to the state. The Department of Energy and its regulators, the Washington State Department of Ecology and the Environmental Protection Agency, held a budget meeting Wednesday in Richland that included the first look at possible budget figures for fiscal year 2010 and discussion of a longer range spending schedule. The Bush administration's budget proposal for fiscal 2009, which begins Oct. 1, is more than $600 million under what's needed to keep cleanup on schedule, according to the state. The cumulative result of DOE's failure to request adequate funding for Hanford again in fiscal 2010 would increase that to more than $1 billion, said Nolan Curtis, program administration section manager for the Department of Ecology. DOE's long-range plan calls for DOE's Hanford Richland Operations Office to spend $1.08 billion in fiscal 2010. But that would need to be increased to almost $1.67 billion, by DOE's estimates, to meet legal cleanup requirements for the year. That compares with the $938 million requested by the Bush administration for fiscal 2009 and under consideration by Congress. At the remainder of Hanford, managed by DOE's Office of River Protection, DOE's long-term plans call for full funding of $690 million for the vitrification plant in fiscal 2010 and $366 million for the tank farms. However, the long-term plan for fiscal 2009 called for $390 million to be spent at the tank farms, while the Bush administration's budget request to Congress was for $288 million. Catching up with legal requirements calling for all of Hanford's leak-prone older tanks -- its 149 underground single-shell tanks -- be emptied of radioactive waste by 2018 is physically impossible, said Delmar Noyes, DOE acting assistant manager of the tank farms. DOE is looking at emptying one tank a year in the near term. That's in part because the sturdier double-shell tanks that would receive the waste are near capacity and DOE is years away from being able to treat the first of Hanford's 53 million gallons of tank waste for disposal. To meet the 2018 deadline, DOE would have to design and build 42 new double-shell tanks to add to the 28 it has now. Once they were ready, 40 tanks would have to be emptied per year from 2016 to 2018, Noyes said. EPA and the state are concerned that too little money for Hanford in 2009 and 2010 will mean generous portions of the budgets going to maintenance and overhead. "There just isn't a lot of money left to do cleanup," Curtis said. For instance, DOE is proposing spending $51 million in 2010 for the K Basins line item, much of that to continue to design a system to treat radioactive sludge now held in underwater containers at the K West Basin. None of that money would actually be spent to treat sludge to prepare it for disposal, said Nick Ceto, EPA Hanford project manager. EPA considers cleaning up the Columbia River along Hanford, which includes the K Basin, a top priority, he said. "It's in our grasp" to have the river corridor open to greater public access in a decade, he said. "But it's slipping." At the tank farms, DOE will be spending money in the near term to develop better technologies to empty tanks. Once treatment systems are operating, including the $12.2 billion vitrification plant in 2019, DOE will be treating waste faster than it can retrieve waste from the tanks with its present technology. The state is calling on DOE to speed up its waste retrieval work from emptying one single-shell tank a year to two tanks a year in the near term. DOE's most recent long-range look at Hanford spending, its certified baseline, shows a steep increase in Hanford funding to about $3.25 billion in fiscal 2016 after recent years, with the budget hovering near $2 billion or a little below. Spending would not drop back to $2 billion and below until fiscal 2038. The long-range outlook includes increasing money for the tank farms from the $288 million in the administration's budget request in 2009 to $924 million in 2014. The increase is to coincide with preparations to start treating the tank waste for disposal, according to DOE. Budget information is posted at www.hanford.gov and the public can comment on the budget online at the website. © 2008 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press & Other Wire Services ***************************************************************** 149 BO: The "public" discussion about the Energy Department's Complex Transformation | The Bulletin Online By Hugh Gusterson | 28 March 2008 On Tuesday, the Energy Department held public hearings in Washington on its plans to "transform" the U.S. nuclear weapons complex. Last time I went to Energy headquarters I was turned away because I wasn't a U.S. citizen. (See "Misadventures at the U.S. Energy Department.") This time they let me in without inquiring about my citizenship; they even let me roam the halls unescorted to look for a bathroom. Go figure. Mandated by the National Environmental Policy Act, the hearing was mainly attended by antinuclear activists waiting their turn at the microphone to condemn Energy's draft environmental impact statement on the planned reconfiguration of the weapons complex. The Energy employee who showed me the way to the hearing room complained that most of the speakers would make big statements about the evils of nuclear weapons instead of speaking to the set of choices evaluated in Energy's report. He was right. Out of the 27 speakers I heard, 23 used the opportunity to attack the fundamentals of U.S. nuclear weapons policy. Ted Wyka, the Energy official who presented the impact statement, sat there listening politely for two and a half hours. He looked the way I feel when getting a root canal. Energy is calling its plan to consolidate and rebuild the nuclear weapons complex "Complex Transformation." The draft environmental impact statement evaluates four transformation options: a status quo option; the preferred option for consolidating functions and an alternative that would concentrate some functions still more; and a "capability-based" option that would assure a "capability to manufacture and assemble weapons at a nominal level," which Energy defines as 50 nuclear weapons a year. Energy's "preferred" option would reduce square footage in the weapons complex by 9 million square feet and cut personnel by 20-30 percent. Like now, it would maintain eight facilities in seven states, but reconfigure some of their functions. For example, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory would lose its plutonium facility and hydrotesting capability, becoming more of a nuclear weapons research and development lab, while Los Alamos National Laboratory would enlarge its plutonium pit production rate by about eight times, but lose the work it does on high explosives and testing of warhead components in simulated environments. The preferred option is largely designed to consolidate highly enriched uranium, plutonium, and tritium (which are toxic and expensive to guard) in fewer places. I admired the activists' tenacity. Many complained that Energy had ignored their criticisms from an earlier hearing about how to shape the study now under discussion. Yet, although their views were clearly unwelcome, they came back to make their criticisms all over again. And, for three hours, they were in Energy's inner sanctum, making stony Energy officials listen. Many of the activists said the new complex would violate U.S. commitments to disarmament under Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The activists also, and this must be a first, kept invoking former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger with approval. (Kissinger recently signed on to two Wall Street Journal op-eds that called for the abolition of nuclear weapons; see "A World Free of Nuclear Weapons" and "Toward a Nuclear-Free World.") The critics were of three (not necessarily mutually exclusive) types: feminist, religious, and policy wonk. Ellen Barfield of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom summarized the feminist position succinctly: "We as women know the preciousness of every human life." Timothy O'Connell of the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns, one of many Christian speakers, said, "No nation should have the power to destroy God's creation." He added that real transformation came from the work his organization does with the poor. Sister Marie Lucy, a Franciscan nun, protested the use of the word "transformation," a word connoting spiritual redemption in Christianity, to describe the perpetuation of nuclear weapons work. The policy wonks engaged more directly with the environmental impact statement that occasioned the hearing. William Hartung of the New America Foundation dismissed Energy's preferred option as "a bailout of the nuclear weapons industry," and complained that Energy's impact statement didn't assess the risk that "Complex Transformation" would "provoke other countries to begin or accelerate efforts to seek their own nuclear arsenals." Pointing out that many retired defense officials have now called for deep cuts in the nuclear stockpile, he excoriated the report for preempting the decisions of the next administration and omitting discussion of a logical and compelling fifth option--curatorship. "Weapons design, development, and experimentation would largely be eliminated under curatorship, while standby production capabilities would be maintained," he said. Chris Paine of the Natural Resources Defense Council pointed out that, in 1995, shortly after the Soviet Union collapsed, the U.S. nuclear weapons complex consisted of eight sites in seven states. By 2020, Energy's preferred weapons complex "will still consist of the same eight sites in the same seven states, but this complex will be maintaining a stockpile that could well be one-tenth to one-twentieth the size." (The eight sites are Livermore in California; Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico; the Nevada Test Site in Nevada; the Pantex Plant in Texas; the Kansas City Plant in Missouri; the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee; and Savannah River Site in South Carolina.) Paine particularly criticized plans to maintain "two nuclear weapons design laboratories and an active test site almost 20 years after the end of the Cold War." He advocated retrenching to a "Southwest Triangle" complex located around Amarillo, Albuquerque, Los Alamos, and the Nevada Test Site. This complex would have a small plutonium pit production capability. Many years ago while writing a book about Livermore, Nuclear Rites: A Weapons Laboratory at the End of the Cold War, I discovered that the lab had written its final environmental impact statement for a new incinerator before holding public hearings and that the hearings were, unbeknownst to most participants, mere public theater. I wonder if the "Complex Transformation" hearings are also just theater. If so, they still serve a purpose, since they're a rare venue today where fundamental questions are being asked about the U.S. nuclear arsenal. The public hearings on Energy's planned "Complex Transformation" have been confined to places that host nuclear weapons complex facilities. However, anyone can submit comments for the public record by e-mail at complextransformation@nnsa.doe.gov or here. They can also send written comments to Ted Wyka at National Nuclear Security Administration, Office of Transformation NA-10.1, 1000 Independence Avenue, SW, Washington, D.C. 20585. All public comments must be received by April 10, 2008. © 2007 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Remote Address: 206.130.124.74 · Server: www.thebulletin.org ***************************************************************** 150 TheNewsTribune.com: Feds trying to clean up Hanford on the cheap | News Tribune, Tacoma, WA - THE NEWS TRIBUNE Published: March 27th, 2008 01:00 AM Washingtonians once counted on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation being cleaned up in their lifetimes. Increasingly, it’s looking like not even their great-grandchildren will live to see the day. The cleanup project long ago veered from the 30-year timeline laid out in 1989 when the federal government committed itself to remedying the toxic legacy of Cold War nuclear production. The work has been stymied by the complexity and scale of the task as well as human error, but its biggest roadblock by far has been money. Hanford cleanup needs a lot of it, and the federal government routinely fails to deliver what the site needs to keep progress on track. Now President Bush has proposed the lowest level of nuclear cleanup funding since 1997. His budget would put the biggest cleanup challenge – disposing of the witch’s brew contained in 177 underground tanks — on pace for completion somewhere around 2150. That date is not a typo. At the rate of one tank a year – the level of funding proposed by Bush – it would take 140 years for the federal government to do what it first promised to complete by 2018. In all, the Department of Energy expects to miss 18 cleanup deadlines at Hanford in the next two year. Earlier this month, the Senate approved a nationwide cleanup budget increase of $500 million over the administration’s proposal, but even that is short of 2006 funding. There is good reason for all Washingtonians to worry. Even some of the double-wall tanks are past their design life; none of them is built to last another century and a half. They will eventually fail, and when they do, the leaking waste will join the plume of contaminated groundwater headed toward the Columbia River. State officials have been trying to negotiate a new cleanup schedule, but haven’t had much success. Their next option is to sue. The last time Washington hauled the Department of Energy into court a decade ago, it won a consent decree that led to the removal of liquid wastes from the site’s leak-prone single-wall tanks. But taking the dispute to a judge also has a considerable downside. An unresolved lawsuit gives Congress an excuse to delay giving Hanford the money it needs. 1950 South State Street, Tacoma, Washington 98405 253-597-8742 © Copyright 2008 Tacoma News, Inc. A subsidiary of The McClatchy Company ***************************************************************** 151 Seattle PI: Hanford Cleanup: The legal recourse Opinion Last updated March 24, 2008 4:33 p.m. PT SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER EDITORIAL BOARD We hope the U.S. Department of Energy is serious about its commitment to clean up the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. But the feds are leaving Gov. Chris Gregoire, Attorney General Rob McKenna and the state little choice but to go to court for results. President Bush's budget falls far short of what the Energy Department needs for cleanup work. As Gregoire and U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell wrote for The Washington Post recently, proposed cuts at Hanford and other states' cleanup sites accompany requests for more money in every other category of nuclear programs, including reactors and weapons. It's obscene for Bush to try to revive the nuclear energy industry and boost weapons spending while downgrading cleanups. Those misplaced priorities are literally sickening, with underground nuclear contamination spreading toward the Columbia River that provides water central to the economies of Washington and Oregon and nourishes salmon and the ecosystem. The federal government already is years and decades behind on some work at Hanford. The risks of accidents endangering workers and the environment continue to mount. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman has provided credible leadership. It's worthwhile for Gregoire to meet with him one more time before deciding on a lawsuit. But if the budget is going to undercut Energy's not-always-effective efforts, the state will have little recourse but to sue. Send comments to newmedia@seattlepi.com Send investigative tips to iteam@seattlepi.com ©1996-2008 Seattle Post-Intelligencer ***************************************************************** 152 UPI.com: Anti-nuke groups: Government plan costly - Published: March 26, 2008 at 6:58 PM WASHINGTON, March 26 (UPI) -- A peace group says a U.S. government plan to move all nuclear weapons manufacture to Los Alamos, N.M., and Oak Ridge, Tenn., is unworkable. "It's like trying to get someone who has a size 12 foot into a size 8 shoe," David Culp of the Friends Committee on National Legislation told the Albuquerque Journal. Under the government plan, a plutonium lab would be built at Los Alamos and a uranium lab in Oak Ridge. The price tag for the Los Alamos facility is estimated at $2 billion, while the Oak Ridge one is put at $1.4 billion to $3.5 billion. The proposal would give the United States the capacity to manufacture 50 to 80 nuclear weapons a year. John Broehm, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration, told UPI though some money will need to be spent, there will be savings in the long-run. "We will be able to do this transformation within projected budgets," Broehm said. "We will realize savings by bringing down other buildings, consolidating our footprint and consolidating weapons materials." The anti-nuclear group Nuclear Watch New Mexico said, however, a consultant's report indicates the two projects would add more than $1 billion annually to the agency's baseline budget at least through 2012, the Journal said. © 2008 United Press International. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 153 Seattle PI: Plan could send Hanford waste to Idaho National Laboratory Last updated March 16, 2008 11:09 a.m. PT RICHLAND, Wash. -- A revised U.S. Department of Energy plan could send up to 9,000 containers of radioactive waste from southcentral Washington's Hanford nuclear reservation to Idaho for repackaging. The Energy Department recently announced it plans to make Idaho National Laboratory the nation's primary processing center for transuranic waste from nuclear sites that don't have their own processing capabilities. The federal government created Hanford in the 1940s as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb. One of its reactors produced plutonium for the bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, in August 1945. Hanford's transuranic waste, which includes building, laboratory and other debris contaminated with plutonium, was temporarily buried after 1970 when Congress ordered that the waste be sent to a national repository. That was before the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant opened in New Mexico for permanent disposal of such waste. The Energy Department believes that sending some Hanford waste to Idaho would allow the waste to be packaged more efficiently than with the manual process that must be used at Hanford. Much of Hanford's retrieved transuranic waste can be surveyed and packaged for shipment at Hanford. But Fluor Hanford, a cleanup contractor at Hanford, is recovering severely corroded 55-gallon metal drums of waste that are so degraded they have to be slipped inside 85-gallon "overpacks." About half of those overpacked drums have to be repacked manually at Hanford because they contain waste not approved for shipping or acceptance at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. The Energy Department expects about 9,000 containers will be retrieved at Hanford and will require an overpack but not need repackaging because of their contents. Those containers will be sent to Idaho for treatment at a facility that can compress several 55-gallon drums into a 110-gallon drum, said Mark French, an Energy Department project director. The overpacked drums are currently being stored at Hanford if their contents do not require repackaging. Although the 85-gallon overpacks could be sent to New Mexico, only a dozen of them will fit in shipping trailers compared to 42 of the 55-gallon drums. Another concern, French said, is that the overpacks make inefficient use of limited repository space, and the New Mexico facility is not equipped to load and stack the drums efficiently. No shipment schedule has been set. Hanford is one of 11 sites that will send transuranic waste to Idaho, and the Energy Department may choose to send waste from smaller sites first so they can be closed. The new plan amends a 1998 Energy Department decision declaring Hanford one of four sites that could receive transuranic waste from facilities that did not have their own treatment and packaging capabilities. In 2006, the Energy Department agreed to resolve a lawsuit Washington state filed to stop transuranic waste from being sent to Hanford at least until a new environmental study is completed. A draft of that report could be ready in August. --- Information from: Tri-City Herald, http://www.tri-cityherald.com Send comments to newmedia@seattlepi.com Send investigative tips to iteam@seattlepi.com ©1996-2008 Seattle Post-Intelligencer ***************************************************************** 154 Seattle PI: Cleanup crews at Washington nuclear site find buried reactor fuel Last updated April 1, 2008 7:30 a.m. PT RICHLAND, Wash. -- Hanford cleanup workers have unearthed more than 40 pieces of highly radioactive fuel. A state Ecology Department official, John Price, says 32 whole and 11 partial pieces of reactor fuel were found in burial grounds for reactor debris along the Columbia River. He adds that more are sure to be found in the excavation at seven of the 11 major burial sites for reactor debris on the nuclear reservation. Without the cleanup, Price says, someone who unwittingly dug up pieces of irradiated fuel 1,000 years from now would be exposed to dangerous levels of radiation. Fuel pieces found to date give off one to more than 100 rad per hour - about 200,000 times the exposure limit set by the Energy Department. --- Information from: Tri-City Herald, http://www.tri-cityherald.com Send comments to newmedia@seattlepi.com Send investigative tips to iteam@seattlepi.com ©1996-2008 Seattle Post-Intelligencer ***************************************************************** 155 Dayton Daily News: Senate panel adds funds for Mound, Piketon Mound and Piketon Budget committee approves an additional $500 million for cleanups at former nuclear sites. By Tom Beyerlein Staff Writer Sunday, March 09, 2008 The Senate budget committee has approved an additional $500 million for the Energy Department's program to clean up former nuclear sites such as Miamisburg's Mound Plant and the old uranium enrichment plant in Piketon. A spokeswoman for U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, who pushed for the funds, said the budget bill is expected to be on the Senate floor this week. The extra funding brings the department's entire environmental cleanup program for fiscal 2009 to $6 billion, still down from 2006 levels of $7.3 billion. The measure restores a quarter of the $2 billion President Bush had proposed cutting from the program. "This administration has systematically shortchanged Ohioans," Brown said in a statement. "With these funds, DOE can and should maintain the jobs it proposed to cut from Piketon this fall." Bethany Lesser, Brown's press secretary, said the senator will advocate for appropriations for the massive cleanup of Piketon's Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, which has yet to begin in earnest. Ohio Environmental Protection Agency officials have said the project could top the $4.5 billion spent on the former atomic plant at Fernald, making Piketon the costliest environmental remediation in Ohio history. "This (money) would go to Mound, too, with the goal of actually finally cleaning up Mound," Lesser said. The $1 billion Mound cleanup project still needs about $7 million to finish work on a landfill. Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2264 or tbeyerlein@DaytonDaily EarthLink Revolves Around You. ***************************************************************** 156 Inside Bay Area: Lab hearings set for today - Watchdog group wants plutonium out of Livermore facility by next year By Betsy Mason, STAFF WRITER Article Created: 03/18/2008 02:34:18 AM PDT With public hearings on the future of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory set for today and Wednesday in Tracy and Livermore, a government watchdog group has released a report calling for plutonium to be removed from the lab by next year. The Department of Energy already is planning to move all but a small amount of plutonium and other weapons-grade nuclear materials from Livermore to Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico by 2012 as part of its plan to shrink and revamp the entire nuclear weapons complex. "We want to reduce the amount of special nuclear materials in the Livermore valley drastically," the DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration Director Thomas D'Agostino said. "You don't have a community growing up around Los Alamos." But the Project on Government Oversightclaims in their report that the timetable safely can be moved up three years, which would save $160million in security costs. The group also contends that the NNSA gave Livermore Lab a waiver on the most recent update to its security guidelines for protection against terrorist threats, which is particularly dangerous because of the lab's proximity to homes, businesses and schools. "This is clearly, by far, the most significant homeland security vulnerability posed by the nuclear weapons complex in the United States," said Danielle Bryan, executive director of POGO, in a news conference in Washington, D.C., on Monday. POGO investigator Peter Stockton said the waiver means that the lab is only protected against half of the potential adversaries currently identified by the intelligence community as threats to the nuclear weapons complex. D'Agostino counters that no such waiver was given but that it doesn't make sense to spend scarce funds on permanent security upgrades for materials that will be gone in four years. "I'd rather spend the money moving it responsibly," he said, which is something that cannot be done before 2012. The reason for this, he said, is a combination of ongoing research on plutonium at the lab and the need to make the move as safely as possible. "This is not stuff you just throw in a truck and drive off," he said. "You have to do it in a methodical, appropriate and safe way." Two shipments have already been made to move some of Livermore's plutonium to the Savannah River Site in South Carolina and Los Alamos. In the meantime, D'Agostino said, "It is properly protected at the lab. Livermore does a very good job on its security force." Moving nuclear materials out of some sites is part of the NNSA's larger plan to update, consolidate and streamline nuclear weapons work at eight sites across the country, including both Livermore and Sandia/California laboratories. The U.S. has been reducing the nuclear weapons stockpile in recent years, and it will soon be just a quarter of its peak size at the end of the Cold War. Part of the motivation for the consolidation of the weapons complex is that a smaller stockpile will require a smaller infrastructure to support it. There are four potential plans, but under the NNSA's preferred option, Livermore Lab would lose some of its nuclear weapons work along with its plutonium, eventually maintaining 30 percent fewer buildings and employing 20 percent fewer people in that area. The NNSA also hopes to stop DOE-sponsored explosives testing at Site 300 near Tracy, though testing could still go on for other agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security. Other changes would include shutting down two testing facilities, at Site 300 and at the Plutonium Facility, that simulate environmental conditions the stockpile is likely to experience to ensure the weapons will last. Despite the changes, the lab will remain a vital part of the DOE's national security mission. "The lab's role is changing to reflect the future," D'Agostino said. Livermore will continue to operate the National Ignition Facility, a multibillion-dollar laser facility, and it is home to several of the fastest computers in the world, which make it the leading center for supercomputing and nuclear weapons simulation. It will still have materials scientists, code workers and other scientists and engineers supporting the nuclear weapons work. And it will play an integral part in counterterrorism work and supporting the intelligence community with capabilities such as nuclear detection. "We're trying to make sure the high-tech work the lab is doing is sustainable," D'Agostino said. "I want to make sure that endures well into the future." Public meetings will be held on the NNSA's plans for the weapons complex tonight in Tracy and tomorrow morning and evening in Livermore. There will be informational posters, a slide presentation and a public comment session. Comments can also be submitted online, by mail or by fax anytime during the 90-day comment period which ends April 10. "I very much want the public's input on this," D'Agostino said. "I'm interested in hearing from the people in the community about how they feel about this." Betsy Mason covers science and the national laboratories. Reach her at 925-952-5026 or bmason@bayareanewsgroup.com. © 2000-2008 ANG Newspapers | Privacy Policy | Contact Us | Help | About Bay Area News Group ***************************************************************** 157 DOE: DOE Announces Policy for Managing Excess Uranium Inventory Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2008 22:27:36 -0400 Angela Hill, (202) 586-4940 For Immediate Release Wednesday, March 12, 2008 WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Secretary of Energy Samuel W. Bodman today released a Policy Statement on the management of the Department of Energy’s (DOE) excess uranium inventory, providing the framework within which DOE will make decisions concerning future use and disposition of its inventory. During the coming year, DOE will continue its ongoing program for downblending excess highly enriched uranium (HEU) into low enriched uranium (LEU), evaluate the benefits of enriching a portion of its excess natural uranium into LEU, and complete an analysis on enriching and/or selling some of its depleted uranium. Specific transactions are expected to occur in the near future. Consistent with applicable law, DOE will review the impacts of particular sales and transfers from its excess uranium inventory on the market and the domestic uranium industry, before undertaking these sales and transfers. “Substantial increases in market prices for uranium in recent years have made the Department’s excess uranium inventory a valuable commodity,” Secretary Bodman said. “We will manage this commodity in a prudent manner that recognizes a variety of factors including our national security interest, Departmental missions, realities of the global marketplace, and impacts on domestic industry, while assuring that transactions involving this inventory yield the best economic value for DOE and the American taxpayers.” The Policy Statement commits DOE to manage its excess uranium inventories in a manner that: (1) is consistent with all applicable legal requirements; (2) maintains sufficient uranium inventories at all times to meet the current and reasonably foreseeable needs of Departmental missions; (3) undertakes transactions involving non-U.S. Government entities in a transparent and competitive manner, unless the Secretary of Energy determines in writing that overriding Departmental mission needs dictate otherwise; and (4) is consistent with and supportive of the maintenance of a strong domestic nuclear industry. The Policy Statement also confirms the position set forth in the draft uranium sales strategy posted by DOE in Fiscal Year 2007. That is, as a general matter, the introduction into the domestic market of uranium from Departmental inventories in amounts that do not exceed ten percent of domestic demand in any one year period should not have an adverse material impact on the domestic uranium industry. The Department has a significant inventory of depleted, natural and enriched uranium that is excess to U.S. defense needs and located at various DOE sites across the nation. This uranium is equivalent to approximately 59,000 m------=_NextPart_237781413819422736283-- ***************************************************************** 158 Inside Bay Area: Plutonium makes its way out of Livermore - Relocation of nuclear material to be completed by 2012 By Betsy Mason, STAFF WRITER Article Created: 03/28/2008 02:35:04 AM PDT LIVERMORE ? Another shipment of weapons-grade nuclear material has made its way out of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the National Nuclear Security Administration reported Thursday. Together with two previous shipments, this brings the total amount of plutonium and highly-enriched uranium down 25 percent. The time and method of such shipments are not released. The lab is on track to completely shed its nuclear material by 2012 as part of the NNSA's plan to consolidate the material at fewer sites to reduce the cost of protecting it. The recent shipment went to the Savannah River Site in North Carolina, but the type of plutonium work that currently is done at Livermore Lab will be done at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico in the future. "I've come to the conclusion that the country only needs one main plutonium capability," NNSA Administrator Thomas D'Agostino said last week. "You don't have communities growing up around Los Alamos." The 2012 goal is two years sooner than the previous plan, and D'Agostino said that is the soonest it can be done because of ongoing research at Livermore Lab and the need to move it safely. In the meantime, the plutonium is adequately protected, he said, but the lab will not get the same permanent security upgrades that other sites are getting, because the material will be moved. But critics contend that it isn't safe now and could all be safely removed two or three years earlier. "The plutonium is vulnerable today to a catastrophic release in an earthquake or terrorist attack," said Marylia Kelley of Tri-Valley CAREs at a public hearing last week on the NNSA's plan to revamp the nuclear weapons complex. "It can be taken out by 2010 safely." The amount of nuclear material the lab currently has is classified, but four years ago it requested to double the amount of plutonium it is allowed to have to 3,300 pounds. Betsy Mason covers science and the national laboratories. Reach her at 925-952-5026 or bmason@bayareanewsgroup.com. © 2000-2008 ANG Newspapers | Privacy Policy | Contact Us | Help | About Bay Area News Group ***************************************************************** 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: *****************************************************************