***************************************************************** 08/03/01 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 9.188 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER CONTENTS 1 NRC Discrimination Task Group to Hold Meeting in San Luis Obispo 2 Truck carrying nuclear waste passed through several cities 3 He's celebrating a nuclear victory 4 Miners' advocate Key dies 5 Will the Senate Unplug Bush's Energy Plan? 6 Dounreay contamination controversy 7 Chinese Customers Satisfied With Tests Of A Russian Turbine For 8 Peeler seeks $5 million from tobacco settlement fund for uranium aid 9 German nuclear waste crosses France 10 Guinn points to law firm in bid to halt Yucca work 11 NEVADA SENATORS UNVEIL ROUTE TAKEN BY TRUCK TRANSPORTING CRACKED 12 Temelin Reactor Safety Report Renews Austrian Fears 13 DOE official promises probe into alleged conflict 14 TMI change gains officials' approval 15 In the End, Energy Bill Fulfilled Most Industry Wishes 16 Republican senators offer Kyoto treaty alternative 17 World Wide And Nuclear Fuel Resources File Appeal Brief With 18 China Sets New Target for Nuclear Fusion Study 19 Duratek Q2 profit rises 20 Prairie Island Reactor Shut Down 21 Meetings draw varied opinions on recycling of scrap metals 22 PACE votes no strike for now 23 ADAMS: Items of Interest - Friday, August 03, 2001 24 House Energy Bill is Consumer Ripoff 25 GIBBONS STATEMENT ON PASSAGE OF HIS AMENDMENT TO HOUSE ENERGY 26 Workers at Paducah plant vote on contract proposal 27 GIBBONS VOTES FOR COMPREHENSIVE NATIONAL ENERGY POLICY 28 Nuclear-spill training to be held in March 29 Yggdrasil Institute: Uranium Enrichment Project Newsletter 30 Greens Attack Funding of St. Pete Nuke Plant 31 Tribe, environmentalists fear uranium mine planned near Grand 32 SEC Blasts House for Passing Energy Plan 33 Ky. Uranium Workers Reject Contract 34 Guinn asks Abraham to stop work at Yucca Mountain NUCLEAR WEAPONS CONTENTS 1 Group launches isotope use effort 2 Report critiques Hanford technology development 3 DOE examines proposal to lease FFTF 4 Tensions Flare Over Bomb Exercises 5 Legal Action Possible For Veterans 6 Atomic bombings topic of discussion 7 IAAP radiological survey 'remarkably clean' ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 NRC Discrimination Task Group to Hold Meeting in San Luis Obispo Region IV -- 2001- 42 - UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, REGION IV 611 Ryan Plaza Drive, Suite 400, Arlington TX 76011 No. IV-01-042 August 2, 2001 CONTACT: Breck Henderson Phone: 817-860-8128 Cellular: 817-917-1227 e-mail: Public comments on proposals to improve the U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's handling of discrimination concerns will be accepted by members of an NRC task group at a public meeting scheduled for Thursday, August 9, in San Luis Obispo, Calif. The session will take place from 7 to 9 p.m. at San Luis Obispo Public Library, 995 Palm St., San Luis Obispo. The NRC formed a Discrimination Task Group in April 2000 to evaluate and improve the agency's processes used in the handling of discrimination allegations made by nuclear industry workers. The task group subsequently prepared a draft report containing about 40 proposed recommendations. A copy of the report can be found at under the link for the Discrimination for Raising Safety Concerns. To obtain public feedback on the proposals, the task group is holding a series of public meetings across the country, including the session in San Luis Obispo. At the conclusion of the meetings, the task group will develop final recommendations for consideration by the five-member, Presidentially appointed commission that heads the NRC. Those members of the public who are unable to attend the San Luis Obispo meeting but who would like to make comments on the draft report can submit them by Aug. 17 to the NRC's Office of Enforcement web site, at or in writing to Barry Westreich, Office of Enforcement, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, D.C., 20555-0001. ***************************************************************** 2 Truck carrying nuclear waste passed through several cities Las Vegas SUN August 02, 2001 WASHINGTON (AP) - A truck carrying low-level nuclear waste to the Nevada Test Site passed near Chicago, Cleveland, Des Moines and Omaha before its driver discovered a container was damaged, Nevada's U.S. senators said Thursday. Sen. Harry Reid, a Democrat, and Sen. John Ensign, a Republican, traced the route taken by the truck to call attention to the potential dangers of transporting hazardous materials. "We have to do a better job of telling people in America what's going to be on their highways," Reid said at a news conference outside the Capitol. Federal and state officials said Wednesday that no radioactivity escaped from the truck, which was in West Wendover, Nev., when its driver on Monday discovered foam around one of seven containers of contaminated pipes and valves he was hauling to the test site. The materials came from a dismantled nuclear-waste reprocessing project near Buffalo, N.Y., Monday. The truck traveled Interstate 90 from West Valley, N.Y., to Erie, Pa. It picked up I-80 outside Cleveland and crossed most of the country on that major east-west highway. The two senators head a Nevada congressional delegation fighting a proposal to transport the nation's 77,000 tons of high-level commercial and military nuclear waste to the Nevada Test Site. It would be entombed at Yucca Mountain, about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 3 He's celebrating a nuclear victory Legislation: Bill seeks to safeguard Russian stockpiles 8/2/01 By RHONDA PARKS MANVILLE NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER In op-ed pieces and research papers, Santa Barbara policy wonk Brett Wagner has warned of the dangers that Russia's nuclear materials pose to the U.S. and he has extolled the possibilities of transforming nuclear weapons into nuclear energy. This week he had reason to celebrate, as legislation bearing the imprint of his advocacy work was introduced in Congress on Wednesday by Sen. Pete Domenici, R-New Mexico. "I felt like opening a bottle of champagne," said Mr. Wagner, 41, who runs a nonprofit think tank based here, the California Center for Strategic Studies. "This is a great first step." A graduate of UCSB and a former national security specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., Mr. Wagner has been working on U.S. nuclear arms reduction policy since 1995. Among his chief concerns is that the United States take immediate steps to secure the hundreds of tons of excess weapons-grade uranium and plutonium scattered throughout Russia, so that the materials do not end up in the hands of terrorists. "When the Soviet Union collapsed, they had nothing in place to secure and safeguard these scattered stockpiles," Mr. Wagner said. "The warehouses that contain them are sometimes unattended (because) soldiers (are) wandering off to find food. The sad and ironic thing is, we were probably better protected when the missiles were in silos pointed at us, than we are now, because at least they were in the protective custody of the military. The safeguards today are minimal at best." It would take less than 20 pounds of weapons-grade uranium or plutonium to level an area the size of Manhattan, said Mr. Wagner, adding that officials from Iraq and the terrorist group Islamic Jihad have allegedly offered Russian nuclear workers millions of dollars for small quantities of the materials. Under Sen. Domenici's legislation, the Russian Fissile Materials Disposition Loan Guarantee Act of 2001, the U.S. government would guarantee loans to Russia in exchange for placing nuclear materials into a mutually agreed upon, safeguarded facility. The materials would serve as collateral for the loans, and would remain in secured facilities until they are disposed of or used as fuel. It is Mr. Wagner's hope that the U.S. eventually succeeds in buying the nuclear materials directly from the Russians, to produce energy using a new nuclear reactor core -- developed by the U.S. firm Thorium Power Inc. -- which is safer and creates less waste than nuclear power plants currently operating. Thorium Power is working with the Russians and the U.S. Dept. of Energy to establish commercial uses for the new technology in both countries, Mr. Wagner said. Sen. Domenici's legislation has the potential to evolve into policy which turns Russian stockpiles into a source of U.S. nuclear power, Mr. Wagner said. His privately funded, tax-exempt think tank, drawing on the expertise of 25 volunteers around the world, aims to elevate this issue and assist members of Congress, businesses and the diplomatic corps in resolving the logjams that have prevented such a proposal from taking place. Mr. Wagner believes that the public's low level of awareness of the issue is part of the problem. His think tank (www.thecaliforniacenter.org) is committed to "creating the momentum necessary to purchase Russia's excess nuclear stockpiles and resolving forever the issue of whether these stockpiles are safe and secure. We will not rest until these goals are achieved and the most dangerous legacy of the Cold War is put to rest once and for all," he said. Although the proposal to buy nuclear materials from Russia has been around a few years, it initially was stymied by the budget deficit, he said. Then the surplus emerged, and the issue remained low-priority. "There was a fragile bipartisan coalition dealing with these issues, and when Russia collapsed, the coalition fell apart, right when we had an opportunity to do something," he said. Whether the Bush administration will support the Domenici proposal remains to be seen, especially since the president is currently focused on a missile defense proposal. Growing up, Mr. Wagner watched the Vietnam War unfold on television. At UCSB he studied political science before heading to Georgetown University for its program in National Security Studies. "I saw nuclear weapons as the greatest threat of all time," he said, noting that the book, "Avoiding Nuclear Anarchy" was pivotal in inspiring his work. "I had never been a fan of nuclear energy, but the idea of taking the nuclear weapons supply and turning it into energy seemed like one of the most promising ideas in arms control," he said. ***************************************************************** 4 Miners' advocate Key dies Rocky Mountain News: Local Fruita man with IOU loses lung disease fight By M.E. Sprengelmeyer, News Washington Bureau WASHINGTON -- Former uranium miner Bob Key lost his battle to a lung disease Saturday, just days after President Bush signed a bill to pay his long overdue government IOU. The 61-year-old Fruita resident was an outspoken advocate for fellow miners and others with radiation-related illnesses who had been waiting since last year with unpaid IOUs under the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act. The Justice Department program issued only IOUs for up to $100,000 to hundreds of nuclear test participants, downwind residents and Cold War uranium miners such as Key. Congress took action in a supplemental appropriations bill last month, and Bush signed it into law two weeks ago. Lawmakers were prodded to act by stories of suffering from ailing victims such as Key, who was featured in a Rocky Mountain News story earlier this year. "I think it's a broken promise," Key said in March, telling how he had to back out of some medical treatments because he could not afford to travel. "The fact that these miners stepped forward and put a human face on this issue was crucial," said Rep. Mark Udall, D-Boulder, who was one of several Colorado lawmakers to lobby for the funds. "It's certainly what moved me over the past few years." Key worked in the mines near Gateway from 1958 to 1963. Like a lot of miners, later he contracted pulmonary fibrosis, which required him to use portable oxygen 24 hours a day. He died Saturday at St. Mary's Hospital. After Congress took action: "He was glad, but he was also saying, 'I'll believe it when I see my check,' " said his son, Jerry Key. The check is due in several weeks to his wife of 40 years, Phyllis. Although current IOU holders will be paid, future claims are still subject to year-to-year budget wrangling. "I don't want to be in a position to read any more obituaries of miners who haven't been compensated," Udall said. August 2, 2001 2001 © The E.W. Scripps Co. ***************************************************************** 5 Will the Senate Unplug Bush's Energy Plan? TIME.com: Nation -- The production-heavy blueprint gets through the House mostly intact. But it's all downhill from here BY TIM SLOAN/AFP Loaded for W: Daschle Thursday, Aug. 02, 2001 Well, George W. Bush got his "victory" headlines. "Bush’s Energy Bill Is Passed In House In A GOP Triumph — Environmentalists Lose," moaned the New York Times. "Bush’s Energy Plan Endorsed By House," said the Washington Post. The L.A. Times went straight to the hot button: "House Votes To Allow Oil Drilling in Alaska." But how much did he actually win? By the time the House GOP leadership drummed up the 240 votes to pass its energy bill after midnight Wednesday, the 1.5 million-acre swath of the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge Bush had earmarked for exploration had been shrunk by compromise to 2,000 acres — and backers had to stroke the labor unions (salivating over construction jobs in the tundra) to get that. The Republicans also adjusted Bush’s plan to include more money for conservation and alternative energy sources than the president had originally sought, and added requirements for improved efficiency of heating and air conditioning systems in federal buildings. And they simply abandoned some of Bush’s more radioactive proposals, like the measure limiting nuclear-plant liability and a broad initiative to restructure the nation’s electricity system. All in all, said House Republican Conference Chairman J.C. Watts before the vote, they’d only tackled "80 to 85 percent" of Bush’s plan. And wait until the Senate gets its hands on it. Sensing fertile ground for political disagreement in Bush’s poll numbers on energy and environmental issues, Democrats in charge there will be designing their own, opposite-polarity energy legislation for a face-off with Bush in the fall. Some key issues: ANWR drilling: This proposal has long been presumed a non-starter in the Senate, even by the White House, and it’s not likely that the 2,000-acre version — given the way it still gets reported as a major Bush victory — has any better chance of making it past Tom Daschle and his Jeffords-installed committee chairmen. Cross it off. CAFE standards: A arduously negotiated, ever-so-slight increase in SUV and light-truck fuel efficiency did make it into the Republican bill, which requires Detroit to set standards that would save 5 billion gallons of oil between 2004 and 2010, but doesn’t specify those standards (most number-crunchings have it at a measly extra 1 mpg). In the context of a Democrat-led, moderate-steered Senate, that seems destined to be the low end. The House did beat back a meeting-of-the-moderates proposal by Reps. Sherwood L. Boehlert (R-N.Y.) and Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) that would have required the combined passenger and light truck fleet to achieve an average of 26 mpg by 2005 and 27.5 mpg by 2007. (The current SUV requirement of 20.7 mpg dates back to 1983.) But the proposal may have set a precedent for selling the increased standards as a replacement, freedom-from-foreign-oil-wise, for ANWR drilling. The whole damn thing: With even GOPers like Boehlert charging that the bill remains top-heavy with aid to the oil and gas industry, the Senate seems certain to try to turn the entire thing on its head: Less production, more conservation, more stimulation of cleaner alternative fuels. The House bill currently includes $33.5 billion in tax breaks and other incentives for the power industry aimed at increasing oil and gas exploration, developing new coal-burning technologies and promoting nuclear energy. Politically and substantively, the funds for conservation and alternative energy sources remain the afterthought rather than the centerpiece. Daschle’s version will doubtless reverse that proportion, betting that by the time summer is past and the Senate digs into energy this fall, public opinion will be in his favor. It may be already. According to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, Bush’s personal approval ratings are up again to 63 percent, but his handling of "the energy situation" scored only 43 percent and his handling of the environment 45 percent. Two-thirds of respondents still felt oil and gas companies, large corporations and wealthy people have too much influence in the Bush administration. And when asked who they trusted more, Bush or the Democrats, Bush trailed 49-41 on energy and 54-37 on the environment. So if the House version emerged with "80 to 85 percent" of what Bush originally wanted, figure the Senate to come in around 35-40 percent. (The labor unions have really started to lean toward Bush on anything that involves increased production and infrastructure.) Throw the two sides together in House-Senate conference, and expect something like, say 55 percent — less tax breaks for production and more for conservation, no ANWR and a few more mpg on CAFE standards. Politically, neither side will be hurt by delivering moderation on an issue that the public has yet to accept as an urgent matter. But Bush, in his eagerness to keep ANWR alive and give his House Republicans something to brag about when they head home for summer recess, has put himself in a somewhat unprofitable position. And when energy hits the Senate in a month or two, he’ll be facing little but "Defeat" headlines from then on. Copyright © 2001 Time Inc. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 6 Dounreay contamination controversy DOUNREAY personnel will be banned from this morning from going on to Sandside Beach and searching for radioactive particles because its owner believes they are failing to detect 99% of them. For months a debate has raged in the local press and radio between the UK Atomic Energy Authority and Geoffrey Minter, owner of the 40,000-acre Sandside Estate a couple of miles to the west of Dounreay. The UKAEA insists that its approach to monitoring is effective, meets the requirements of its regulatory bodies, and that spending more public money would not be justified, given the level of risk. Mr Minter, however, has hired his own independent expert, Dr Philip Day, an environmental chemist from Manchester University who believes Dounreay's approach may be capable of locating only 1% of the particles. UKAEA has even gone to the lengths of offering to buy Sandside Beach from Mr Minter, but he says he does not want to sell. He says: "It is a bit like having a vintage motor car which is your pride and joy and somebody keeps bashing into it and when you complain, they say OK we will buy it. It is not the point. "There is a huge conflict of interest here. There is a polluter, the UKAEA. There is a monitor, the UKAEA. There is a regulator who sets the monitoring programme, the UKAEA. "The whole thing is like getting a burglar in charge of a neighbourhood watch scheme." But the UKAEA has defended its approach. A spokesman said: "The monitoring we do complies with the requirements of the Scottish Environment Protection Agency." -Aug 1st ***************************************************************** 7 Chinese Customers Satisfied With Tests Of A Russian Turbine For Emerging Tianwan Nuclear Power Plant Pravda.RU Aug, 03 2001 Chinese customers are satisfied with the results of tests of a 1,000-megawatt turbine for the Tianwan nuclear power station, being built in the Chinese city of Lianyungan. The tests passed at the Leningradski Steel Plant. This was said to journalists by Valeri Kondratiev, acting director of the Leningradski works, reports the RIA Novosti correspondent. The 130 million-dollar contract for the supply of equipment for the first two units was concluded in 1997. In March 2003 Leningradski plans to end contract shipments. Negotiations are under way on equipment supplies for the third and fourth power units of the emerging electricity station. After the success of the July 30-31 tests of the millioner turbine for the Chinese facility, the Leningradski works stands a good chance of winning a contract for the manufacture of another two turbines, said Valeri Kondratiev. Copyright ©1999 by "". When reproducing our materials in whole ***************************************************************** 8 Peeler seeks $5 million from tobacco settlement fund for uranium aid GREENVILLE (AP) — Lt. Gov. Bob Peeler has asked Gov. Jim Hodges for $5 million from tobacco settlement funds for aid in parts of Greenville County where elevated levels of uranium have been found. Peeler, a Republican candidate for governor, wants to add water line extensions in the affected areas. In a letter written Tuesday, Peeler said the funds could be used by local officials to aggressively address the uranium problem in private wells. The letter also was signed by Sens. David Thomas, R-Fountain Inn, and Danny Verdin, R-Laurens, and Rep. Mike Easterday, R-Simpsonville. Hodges, a Democrat running for re-election, has committed $850,000 in state funds and U.S. Rep. Jim DeMint, R-Greenville, has promised $2 million in federal funds for the project. Of the $800 million in tobacco settlement funds, $573.6 million is earmarked for health care, $117.9 million for aid to tobacco growers, $78.6 million for economic development programs and $15.7 million for local governments. Hodges' spokesman Morton Brilliant said the governor hadn't yet seen the letter and he doubts tobacco settlement money will be available for the impacted Simpsonville area homes. Copyright 2001 The State-Record Company ***************************************************************** 9 German nuclear waste crosses France BBC News | EUROPE | 2 August, 2001, 06:20 GMT 07:20 UK German A Greenpeace protester tries to stop the train's progress Germany's biggest-ever rail shipment of nuclear waste has arrived at its destination at La Hague in western France after a delay of several hours caused by environmental protesters. The shipment for reprocessing was held up when police removed five protesters who had chained themselves to the track at Bischeim station on the French border. Several demonstrators scuffled with police on the platform but nobody was injured. The convoy was delayed again near Valognes when one protester attached himself to the track with a steel tube. The convoy was the largest to have crossed Germany The train consisted of 12 containers carrying 21 spent nuclear fuel rods. Three containers were separated from the convoy at Amiens and were put aboard a ship destined for the Sellafield reprocessing plant in the UK. The rods are from five plants across Germany, including Brunsbuettel in northern Schleswig-Holstein state and Stade in Lower Saxony. Since Germany restarted shipments earlier this year trains have faced serious delays caused by hundreds of protesters chaining themselves to the tracks along the route. On Tuesday, German police detained six protesters in Karlsruhe and removed 17 others who had sat down on the line in Hamburg. The environmental group Greenpeace said that "rarely has so much radioactivity been put on the rails". Nuclear-free future Germany stopped transporting spent fuel in 1998 when containers were found to have leaked radiation. The decision to restart the shipments angered many environmentalists, particularly as the Green party now forms part of the ruling coalition. Germany does not have the capacity to reprocess spent fuel itself, but the waste is returned to Germany after processing abroad. In June Chancellor Schroeder signed an agreement with the nuclear industry to decommission the country's nuclear plants over the next 20 years. ***************************************************************** 10 Guinn points to law firm in bid to halt Yucca work Friday, August 03, 2001 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal DONREY WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- Gov. Kenny Guinn has asked the Bush administration to halt work at the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository while investigators examine whether a government-hired law firm had a conflict of interest that could compromise the program. Guinn added his voice to those of Nevada Sens. Harry Reid and John Ensign, who called this week for the Energy Department inspector general to look into Winston &Strawn, an influential law firm that had performed work for the department's nuclear waste program at the same time it was registered as a lobbyist for the nuclear power industry. "I believe this situation warrants an immediate halt to the site evaluation and suitability process pending a complete and independent investigation," Guinn wrote in a letter sent Wednesday to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham. The department had no immediate comment on Guinn's letter. Earlier, spokeswoman Jill Schroeder said Winston &Strawn was contracted to work on a repository license application while it was lobbying for the Nuclear Energy Institute on a variety of issues. "We don't have any reason to believe there's any conflict at this point," Schroeder said. "We have not found any conflict of interest given the nature of our relationship with them, which was to look into the licensing." A Winston &Strawn spokesman at firm headquarters in Chicago did not respond to a call Thursday. Earlier this week, company Chairman James Thompson said the firm was running an internal check of the matter, but he did not believe there were conflicts. In his letter, Guinn reminded Abraham of the secretary's comments following an investigation earlier this year of the nuclear waste project. At the time Abraham said the department "must ensure that our work does not even raise the perception of possible bias." Because of its ties to nuclear power, Guinn said Winston &Strawn should be declared unqualified to represent the Energy Department in license proceedings before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The NRC must consider a license application to open a radioactive waste repository at Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. ***************************************************************** 11 NEVADA SENATORS UNVEIL ROUTE TAKEN BY TRUCK TRANSPORTING CRACKED NUCLEAR WASTE CONTAINER FROM NEW YORK TO NEVADA, CROSS COUNTRY ROUTE PUTS MILLIONS OF HOME WITHIN TRUCK'S PATH August 2, 2001 [Sen. Reid tracing the route the truck took.] WASHINGTON, D.C. – Highlighting the latest incident involving the transportation of dangerous waste, United States Senators Harry Reid (D-NV) and John Ensign (R-NV) today unveiled the route taken by a truck carrying a cracked nuclear waste container on its cross country path from New York to Nevada. The senators called for this incident, combined with the recent hazmat train accident in Baltimore, to serve as a wake up call to the nation about the dangers of transporting dangerous materials. "This truck passed through hundreds of communities across the country," Senator Reid said. "A cracked container carrying radioactive waste was transported through large cities in the East, small communities in America's heartland, and over the Rocky Mountains in the West. Millions of people live along the route taken by this truck. The Department of Energy has suspended shipment for two weeks from the West Falls, New York site, but I am concerned about the hundreds of trucks carrying dangerous materials from other sites across the country. Accidents happen, and it's time we understand the very real and immediate danger of transporting radioactive waste." "There have been two hazardous waste accidents in the past two weeks. Americans have the right to know if nuclear waste is being transported near their homes, schools and playgrounds. I want to make sure that when an accident happens, like the one in West Wendover, the first responders to the scene, such as the police officer that comes upon a crash, are equipped to effectively handle the situation," Senator Ensign said A removal truck was transporting seven containers holding low level nuclear waste from the Department of Energy's West Valley, New York, reprocessing plan to the Nevada Test Site when the driver of the truck discovered white foam on the truck bed and called authorities. After inspectors found an inch long crack in one of the containers, the DOE suspended shipments from the NY site for two weeks to conduct a review. DOE reports that a preliminary test showed no radiation was detected around the truck. The truck departed West Valley, NY, and headed West on I-90 to Erie, PA, then picked up I-80 outside Cleveland, OH. The truck stayed on I-80 through Toledo, OH, South Bend, IN, and probably stopped for the night less than 50 miles south of Chicago, IL. The next day the truck continued on I-80 through the Quad Cities area, Des Moines, IA, Omaha, NE, as well as Lincoln, Grand Island, and North Platte, NE before stopping for the night. The next day the nuclear waste traveled through Laramie, and Rock Springs, WY before stopping in Salt Lake City, UT where we know the truck stopped for the night on July 29. The following day the truck crossed over the Utah / Nevada border and pulled over at a truck stop in West Wendover, NV, as it made its way to the Nevada Test Site for disposal. ***************************************************************** 12 Temelin Reactor Safety Report Renews Austrian Fears Environment News Service: BRUSSELS, Belgium, August 1, 2001 (ENS) - The Czech Republic has "fully and satisfactorily implemented" a safety agreement reached last December with neighboring Austria regarding the country's Temelin nuclear plant, according to a leaked draft report from the European Commission. The revelation sparked a new round of Austrian discontent over the controversial power station. [Temelin] Czech authorities say the Soviet designed nuclear power plant is safe. After sustained protests from its neighbors, the Czech and Austrian governments signed the so-called Melk agreement last December, promising to undertake a full environmental impact assessment and allow foreign inspections of the nuclear power plant. Pressure for the assessment was exerted by the European Commission after vigorous allegations by Austria and Germany that the Temelin nuclear plant did not match western safety standards. The first of the power station's two 981 megawatt reactors began running at test levels last October. The startup triggered a week-long blockade of their Austrian border with the Czech Republic by anti-nuclear demonstrators in Austria. The European Union took on a mediation role after politically explosive demands by Austria's right-wing Freedom Party for the Czech Republic's accession to the EU to be blocked over Temelin. The party has launched a plebiscite to back its demands. Austrian groups reacted with alarm to the Commission's apparent endorsement of Czech actions since the Melk deal. The environmental group Global 2000 alleged "another attempt to brainwash peoples' minds on Temelin." Meanwhile, a leading member of Austria's official Temelin team claimed a lack of impartiality on the part of key European Commission figures behind the leaked report. Neither the Czech nor the Austrian authorities have yet reacted officially to the leaked report. [protesters] Austrian Freedom Party members lobby for a referendum vote against a European Union entry of the Czech Republic, if Temelin is not shut down. (Photo courtesy Austrian Freedom Party) According to an Austrian environment ministry official last December, the Czech authorities voluntarily extended an ongoing Environmental Impact Assessment to broaden its scope and enable participation by outside experts. He told reporters that the revised procedures would be in line with the European Union environmental impact directive and would also comply with rules in the United Nations Espoo treaty on Environmental Impact Assessments in a transboundary context. This involves participation by citizens potentially affected, including people in neighboring countries, as well as multilateral consultation at government level. But protesters of the Austrian Freedom Party say "countless breakdowns" at the Temelin nuclear plant, as well as risk assessments, have given rise to "horror scenarios filling Austrians with concern for their own future and the future of their children." The Melk process did not reduce this concern, the Freedom Party protesters say. On July 21, Austria decided to hold a referendum on blocking the entry of the Czech Republic into the European Union if their environmental concerns over Temelin are not resolved. But even the proponents of legal steps estimate the chances of referendum success as small, Freedom Party protesters acknowledge. {Published in cooperation with ENDS Environment Daily, Europe's choice for environmental news. Environmental Data Services Ltd, London. Email: envdaily@ends.co.uk} ***************************************************************** 13 DOE official promises probe into alleged conflict August 03, 2001 By Mary Manning LAS VEGAS SUN The inspector general of the Department of Energy today promised Nevada Sens. Harry Reid and John Ensign a full, fair and unbiased investigation into an alleged conflict of interest involving the DOE and a Chicago-based law firm. Inspector General Gregory Friedman said he may go further into other areas of the project. "The law firm should have developed a 'Chinese Wall' between the DOE and the nuclear industry," Friedman said. On Wednesday, Reid and Ensign sent a letter to Friedman asking for a "prompt" investigation of Winston &Strawn. The senators say the law firm simultaneously represented the DOE and the nation's nuclear industry. The DOE hired Winston &Strawn for $16.5 million in September 1999 to complete legal work related to licensing issues involving Yucca Mountain while the law firm lobbied for the nuclear industry, according to the senators' letter. The law firm represented the Nuclear Energy Institute -- the nuclear power trade group -- from 1996 until terminating its lobbying duties on July 11, congressional records show. "This is patently unfair to allow this to happen," Reid said today. "All we want is a fair fight." The DOE has spent $7 billion over a 20-year period studying Yucca Mountain, a volcanic ridge 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Yucca is the only site proposed to store 77,000 tons of high-level radioactive waste. "We believe the conflict is so egregious that it merits the immediate termination of this tainted contract," Reid and Ensign said. "At a minimum we want an immediate suspension of the contract while our concerns are evaluated and addressed." Winston &Strawn has begun an internal examination into the charges, the law firm's chairman, James Thompson, a former Illinois governor, told the Sun. He denied the senators' allegations. "We're currently looking at every document we have regarding this, just to double-check," Thompson said Monday. "We don't want to embarrass the Department of Energy or the administration. But as of now, we are convinced that there is not a conflict of interest." Phone calls to Thompson's office in Chicago on Thursday were not returned. In a separate letter Wednesday Gov. Kenny Guinn asked Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham to order the DOE to suspend the Yucca Mountain project because work done by Winston &Strawn for former site contractor TRW Environmental Safety Systems, Inc. posed a conflict of interest. Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., asked Friedman last year to expand an investigation into alleged bias involving the repository to include Winston &Strawn. Friedman denied the request. A rival law firm has sued Winston &Strawn over the contract with DOE. The lawsuit is pending. Berkley asked the inspector general to broaden an investigation launched last year after the Sun obtained a copy of a two-page, anonymous memo attached to a draft scientific report to Congress. The memo suggested that the report could be used to help the nuclear industry sell the viability of a repository to Congress, despite rising costs. Friedman concluded that there was no bias. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 14 TMI change gains officials' approval The Patriot-News 08/03/01 By Brett Marcy Plans to move the emergency operations facility of Three Mile Island to Chester County are apparently back on track with the newfound support of some midstate officials. Officials from Exelon Nuclear Corp., the plant operator of TMI, gave a detailed tour of its Coatesville emergency operations facility to about 25 midstate officials Wednesday in an attempt to garner support for the move. The effort was at least a partial success, as some local officials -- who earlier this summer blasted the company for not being forthcoming about its plans to move the facility out of the midstate -- now say they support the relocation. "They've really opened up the lines of communication and made the misconceptions go away," said Mike Wertz, the Dauphin County director of emergency management. "The move of the emergency operations facility will have positive effects for this area." Exelon wants permission from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to consolidate the TMI emergency center in Susquehanna Twp. with one in Coatesville that serves its Limerick and Peach Bottom plants. Officials planned to submit the request to the NRC in June and complete the move by early January. Once the plan became public, community and local emergency management officials chastised the company for not consulting them before moving ahead. Exelon officials later admitted they blundered by not gaining input from the local community. "What we didn't anticipate is that the public would take this as a cost-cutting initiative and that Exelon was pulling out of the community," said William Jefferson Jr., director of generation support for Exelon's Mid-Atlantic Regional Operation. "We missed an opportunity to communicate this on the front end." Exelon spokesman Ralph DeSantis said the move is designed to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the company's emergency preparedness operations. It is expected to cost between $500,000 and $700,000, he said. In an attempt to heal its fractured relationship with the community, Exelon sent 253 invitations to elected officials and their representatives for a tour of the company's Coatesville facility. Members of the media were not invited or permitted to take part. After taking the tour, Wertz said he is confident the company can effectively manage a TMI emergency from the Coatesville site. "Their facility is excellent," he said. "They are capable of handling multiple incidents at one time. It was really quite impressive." Bolstering his support were Exelon's assurances that there will be no job cuts in the emergency preparedness area of TMI and the media information center will remain in the Harrisburg region. Currently, both the information center and the emergency operations facility are in one building. Exelon officials have decided to keep the media center in that building for now, possibly later moving it to a smaller space in the local area. Brett Marcy may be reached at 255-8454 or bmarcy@patriot-news.com. ***************************************************************** 15 In the End, Energy Bill Fulfilled Most Industry Wishes ( washingtonpost.com) _____ Energy Bill Highlights _____ • $33.5 billion in tax cuts and incentives over 10 years to encourage oil, gas, "clean" coal and nuclear energy production and conservation measures. • Authorizes drilling for oil and gas in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and provides royalty relief incentive for deepwater leases in central and western Gulf of Mexico. • Eases restrictions on energy production on federal lands, but does not open any particular national park, monument or wilderness area to drilling or mining. • Commissions the National Academy of Sciences to study optimizing oil and gas supplies and establishes review of impediments to onshore federal lands oil and gas leasing. • Makes a modest increase in the fuel economy standards for sport-utility vehicles and other light trucks and imposes mandatory energy efficiency for federal buildings. • Increases funding for the home energy assistance and weatherization programs for low-income families. • Funds nuclear energy research, including fuel reprocessing. By Eric Pianin and Glenn Kessler Washington Post Staff Writers Friday, August 3, 2001; Page A01 There was nothing in President Bush's energy proposals in the spring to directly assist oil and gas companies, which were enjoying record profits, yet by the time the House finished work on the president's plan this week, Big Oil was the beneficiary of $13 billion in new tax credits and spending. In similar fashion, Bush offered only modest incentives to the coal industry -- $2 billion over 10 years for research on clean coal technology. But the bill that emerged from the House early Thursday included three times that amount -- including millions more added by Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman W.J. "Billy" Tauzin (R-La.) to establish clean coal technology "Centers of Excellence." The GOP portrayed the energy bill as a tool for stimulating domestic energy production after years of neglect by the Clinton administration. But Democrats and other critics saw it differently. They said the measure was designed primarily to reward the oil, gas, coal and nuclear industries for their cooperation in the spring, when they helped to ease passage of the president's tax cut bill by not insisting that it include tax breaks of their own. By winning more than $30 billion in tax incentives -- three times the president's request -- in the energy bill, industry received much of what it wanted. But its success raised questions about how lawmakers and the administration plan to pay for it in a period of declining budget surpluses, according to lawmakers who opposed the bill and budget analysts. White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said yesterday that, while the president did not propose any tax incentives for oil and gas production or many of the other provisions that turned up in the legislation, "we're pleased with the overall bill." "There were some different things in the House bill as it relates to the tax incentives . . . and we're going to continue to work with the Congress as the bill moves through the Senate," Buchan said. "But it reflects the priorities the president put forward." But Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Tex.), a member of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, complained that House GOP leaders went overboard in responding to industry's pent up demand for tax breaks. "The purpose of this bill is to reward those businesses that got behind the Bush tax package who couldn't get involved in round one," he said. The 511-page bill that passed the House 240 to 189 early Thursday includes $33.5 billion in tax breaks over 10 years and other incentives for the power industry aimed at increasing oil and gas exploration, developing new coal-burning technologies and promoting nuclear energy. It also includes funding for conservation efforts and the development of alternative energy sources. The bill would open up the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil and gas exploration, a top priority of the Bush administration. House Republicans pushed through an amendment that would limit the area open for exploration to 2,000 acres, down from the 1.5 million acres outlined in the president's energy proposal. But opponents of Arctic drilling said the amendment was merely an attempt to put an environmentally friendly gloss to the bill, arguing that since he released his energy plan in May the president himself has focused on plans to use no more than 2,000 acres as a staging area for probing the coastal plain. Senior Democrats, including Sens. John F. Kerry (Mass.) and Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.), vowed yesterday to block the drilling plan when the Senate takes up its energy bill. "I will filibuster any effort to drill in the refuge," Kerry told reporters. "It will never pass the Senate." A Democratic analysis of the tax provisions of the energy bill concludes that only 17 percent of the total would go for strictly conservation efforts while the remainder would go to oil, gas, coal and nuclear power interests. Administration officials have expressed some concern about the overall cost of the bill's tax provisions, estimating that they would reduce the budget surplus by at least $30 billion over the next decade. While the bill would put the budget in technical noncompliance with rules that require tax cuts to be offset with spending cuts, Congress in recent years has routinely waived those rules. Still, some budget experts say the bill continues a pattern this year of passing additional tax cuts with long-term implications when the near-term budget picture is looking increasingly uncertain with the slowing economy. The budget surplus this year may be as low as $160 billion, leaving little room if the administration wants to meet its pledge of not touching the surpluses generated by Social Security payroll taxes. The situation for fiscal 2002 looks even more problematic. Some Democratic and Republican lawmakers and environmental groups monitoring the energy debate say the problem has been exacerbated by the approval of narrow special-interest provisions or provisions that were conceived as important environmental efforts but were altered at the last minute as a favor to industry. One of the tax credits, for energy-efficient appliances, would reduce revenue by nearly $300 million and benefit essentially four companies -- Maytag, General Electric, Whirlpool and Frigidaire. The provision would pay the manufacturers $50 or $100 per clothes washer or refrigerator if they met certain production and energy-efficiency thresholds. Douglass C. Hortsman, a Maytag lobbyist, said the provision grew out of negotiations last year between the appliance industry and environmental groups on setting higher standards for the energy efficiency of washers and refrigerators. He said it was designed to encourage the companies to develop the appliances earlier than the 2007 effective date for the new standards. "It is more expensive to produce a more energy-efficient machine," he said, but companies are so competitive that they "rarely are able to pass the costs through in price increases." Environmental leaders thought they had an agreement with the auto industry and lawmakers over more than $2 billion in alternative motor vehicle credits to encourage long-term fuel efficiency and lower fuel consumption. But they complained yesterday that the industry extracted last-minute concessions that drastically reduced the effectiveness of the credits. "They weakened it to the point where we can't be assured public health will be adequately protected or that large amounts of the credits won't flow to inefficient vehicles," said Kevin Mills, a lawyer with Environmental Defense. © 2001 The Washington Post Company ***************************************************************** 16 Republican senators offer Kyoto treaty alternative August 2, 05:54 AM By Chris Baltimore WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A trio of conservative Republican senators have rolled out a bill they say is the U.S. answer to the Kyoto global warming treaty rejected by the Bush administration. The legislation proposed by Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, Frank Murkowski of Alaska and Larry Craig of Idaho would spend $2 billion (1.39 billion pounds) over 10 years on new technology to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The bill, which faces opposition among congressional Democrats, would also earmark $1 billion to sell the technology to developing nations like China and India, and would create a national registry to track private companies' voluntary actions to reduce emissions. The results would bring "greater gains in the overall impact of global gases than if we had followed Kyoto," Hagel told reporters. The Kyoto treaty calls for industrialized states to trim output of greenhouse gases to an average of 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. REPUBLICANS OFFER ALTERNATIVE While the rest of the world celebrated last week's meetings in Bonn, Germany that settled the terms of the treaty, the United States has become more isolated on the issue. It was the only major world power to pull out of the pact. President George W. Bush rejected the treaty in March, saying it would be too costly and harmful to the U.S. economy. Bush announced his position in response to lobbying by Hagel and several other Republicans. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on a 19-0 vote, approved an amendment to a State Department funding bill calling on the Bush administration to return to international climate change talks this fall. The amendment, sponsored by Democrats John Kerry of Massachusetts and Joseph Biden of Delaware, the panel chairman, called on the White House to bring a proposal to the talks to secure U.S. participation in a revised Kyoto protocol or future climate change agreements. The United States is the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, which have been blamed by virtually all climate scientists for gradual temperature increases. But the effects of rising temperatures remain the subject of disagreement among scientists. While many agree the warming threatens to melt polar ice caps and inundate island nations, disagreements are sharp over whether warmer temperatures cause radical weather changes. Republicans have sought to develop an alternative to the Kyoto treaty amid public opinion surveys showing many Americans are uneasy with the Bush administration's environmental policies. The Republicans' proposed plan would "allow us to lead the world instead of being led by the world," Craig said. The bill, however, faces an uphill battle in the Democratic-controlled Senate. Democrats have sharply criticised Bush's decision to drop out of the Kyoto treaty. Last week, California Sen. Dianne Feinstein said the United States appeared to be "really backward" by removing itself from the global treaty. A bipartisan bill was offered last week to promote carbon sequestration, the process of absorbing carbon dioxide through forest and agriculture-based efforts. NUCLEAR POWER NEEDS FRESH LOOK A key flaw of the Kyoto treaty was its failure to address the future importance of nuclear power generation, Murkowski said. Kyoto has "driven us so far off track ... that we really need to take this matter into our own hands," the Alaska Republican said. Nuclear generation will be important to U.S. energy supplies because it "can generate electricity with no impact ... on global warming." Republican Pete Domenici of New Mexico said there could be new applications for new U.S. nuclear power plants within the next three to five years. No nuclear plants have been built in the United States since the 1979 accident at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island plant, where the failure of the plant's water cooling system led to the partial melting of a reactor's uranium core. Nuclear power currently produces about 20 percent of all U.S. electricity. Copyright © 2001 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 17 World Wide And Nuclear Fuel Resources File Appeal Brief With Federal Court Of Appeals In $1.0 Billion Lawsuit Thursday August 2, 4:45 pm Eastern Time Press Release SOURCE: WORLD WIDE MINERALS LTD. WASHINGTON, D.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 2, 2001--World Wide Minerals Ltd. and its subsidiary, Nuclear Fuel Resources Corporation, announced today that they had filed the Appellants Brief with the Federal Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. This filing complies with the mandatory schedule set by the Court; the three defendants have 30 days to respond to the Brief. The judicial panel selected to hear the appeal consists of Judges Ginsburg, Rogers and Garland of the D.C. Circuit and they will review the briefs and hear oral argument on November 8. 2001. World Wide and Nuclear Fuel Resources filed the appeal against a lower Court decision dismissing their action against Kazakhstan, its uranium company and an American company, Nukem, Inc., itself a subsidiary of the German energy conglomerate, RWE AG. The lawsuit claims repayment of loans made to Kazakhstan amounting to over $25 million and for damages of over $1.0 billion for breach of contract, theft of property, tortious interference with contractual rights and violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Practices Act (RICO) and other anti-trust statutes, all arising out of the commercial activities of Kazakhstan. After the appeal was filed in October, 2000, the defendants attempted to have the Court of Appeals rule that the appeal was not well founded in law and should be dismissed. In March 2001, the Court of Appeals rejected that assertion on the basis that it was ``not so clear'' to the Court that the defendants would win the appeal. Accordingly, the Court of Appeals set the fixed hearing date and ordered the parties to prepare formal briefs and to proceed with the appeal. Paul Carroll, Chairman of World Wide, stated ``what happened to us with our good faith investment and operations in Kazakhstan should be a warning to all international investors. The ruling of the lower Court was to the effect that a sovereign state can refuse to repay its debts and cancel commercial contracts, without compensation. To sustain this lower Court ruling would invite ''international highjacking`` with impunity. It is not the law. It is not common sense. It would be terrible public policy that would shut down world trade and investment. We are very confident that the Court of Appeals will reverse this ruling.'' Contact: World Wide Minerals Ltd. Paul A. Carroll Tel: 416/369-7217 Fax: 416/369-6088 E-mail: Copyright © 2001 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved. Privacy ***************************************************************** 18 China Sets New Target for Nuclear Fusion Study Friday, August 03, 2001, updated at 14:18(GMT+8) Authorities from the United States, Germany and Japan, together with Chinese experts, recently had a discussion on the physical target of the experimental unit of China HL-2 A which is about to be completed in Chengdu and fixed a new target for China nuclear fusion study. To be completed by the year-end, China HL-2 A is the largest and the most representative nuclear fusion experimental installation. Experts set the physical target as follows: Carry out physical study on the filters and scraping levels in the Tokamak Device, promote improving and restricting technology of plasma under the condition of near-reactor, and develop plasma heating technology, electronic current driving technology, feeding technology and plasma measure technology under the condition of plasma reactor. Experts believe that the target fixed is in line with the focus of present world study on nuclear fusion technology. China's study will contribute to the development of world nuclear fusion study and international fusion program. The final target of nuclear fusion study is to set up fusion power plants to provide the human beings with inexhaustible new energy. China started its study on nuclear fusion in the mid-1980s. The completion and operation of HL-2 A will advance its study to a new height. By PD Online Staff Member Du Minghua Copyright by People's Daily Online, all rights reserved | ***************************************************************** 19 Duratek Q2 profit rises Yahoo - Duratek Q2 profit rises [Reuters] Thursday August 2, 2:58 pm Eastern Time COLUMBIA, Md., Aug 2 (Reuters) - Hazardous waste treatment firm Duratek Inc. (NasdaqNM:DRTK - news) on Thursday said its second-quarter profits rose, as recent contract awards in its Federal and Commercial Field Services segments and a continued recovery of its Commercial Processing segment boosted results. The company said it expects continued improvements for the remaining quarters of the year. The Columbia, Maryland-based company, which treats radioactive and other hazardous wastes for nuclear power plant operators, hospitals, labs and the U.S. Department of Energy, said net income totaled about $2.3 million, or 13 cents per share after provisions for preferred dividends, up from $1.3 million, or 7 cents per share, a year earlier. Revenue rose 47 percent to $74.6 million from $50.9 million, driven by the integration of the former Waste Management Inc. (NYSE:WMI - news) Nuclear Services business. Duratek's revenues also include $4 million from the sale of some rights on vitrification, or conversion to glass, technology at Hanford, Washington, where it operates several plants treating liquid and nuclear waste. Its shares gained 4.87 percent, or 23 cents, to $4.95 in afternoon trading on Nasdaq. Copyright © 2001 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved. Privacy ***************************************************************** 20 Prairie Island Reactor Shut Down Channel 4000 - [Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN] Electrical Failure Forces Shutdown RED WING, Minn., 7:27 p.m. CDT August 2, 2001 -- One of the two reactors at the Prairie Island nuclear plant remains off line after a failure in an electrical panel triggered an automatic shutdown. . Unit No. 1 stopped as designed about 7 a.m., Wednesday. Plant officials say the shutdown ensured that there was no safety risk to the public or workers. Operators continue to investigate the shutdown. The Unit No. 2 reactor was unaffected and continued to operate at full power. Minneapolis-based Xcel Energy owns the plant near Red Wing. It is operated by Nuclear Management Company, based in Hudson, Wis. Copyright 2001 by Channel 4000.The Associated Press contributed to this ***************************************************************** 21 Meetings draw varied opinions on recycling of scrap metals Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 11:31 a.m. on Friday, August 3, 2001 by Paul Parson Oak Ridger staff Varying opinions were expressed Thursday to the Department of Energy on the controversial issue of recycling radioactive scrap metals. The federal agency hosted two public meetings at the American Museum of Science and Energy in an attempt to determine the scope of an environmental impact statement about the recycling issue. "Scrap metal is basically excess metal from DOE activities that cannot be reused in its original form," said Ken Picha, program manager for the environmental impact statement. This metal comes from decontaminating and/or decommissioning facilities and from routine work, Picha said. In the proposed investigation, DOE will look at four alternatives for dealing with its radioactive scrap metal, including lifting suspensions that prohibited the material from being released for recycling. "From a lay person's point of view, this just sounds like a really bad idea," said Monica Miller, a Knoxville resident. Paloma Galindo, a member of the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance, agreed. She said she doesn't want to worry if the fork she is eating with is safe to use. The Coalition for a Healthy Environment released an official statement Thursday regarding the recycling issue. "[The coalition] believes that no radioactively contaminated metal should be released into commerce for unrestricted reuse without provisions for 100 percent verification of the released metals and labeling and recall of the released materials," according to the statement. "DOE and its contractors have shown many times they disregard the rules of operations from health and safety to contracting and following environmental regulations." However, Susan Gawarecki, executive director of the Oak Ridge Reservation Local Oversight Committee, and Jenny Freeman, executive director of the East Tennessee Environmental Business Association, said their groups see no harm in the recycling effort. "Recycling is an integral part of the metals industry," said Freeman, whose organization represents around 100 businesses in Oak Ridge. Currently, the scope of the environmental impact statement is to address metals with residual surface radioactivity -- mainly carbon steel and stainless steel in addition to smaller amounts of copper, aluminum, lead and precious metals. Picha said 83.7 percent of DOE's projected 980,000-ton quantity of surface-contaminated carbon steel and stainless steel is generated in Oak Ridge. Norman Mulvenon, chairman of the Citizens' Advisory Panel of the Oak Ridge Reservation Local Oversight Committee, urged DOE to add nickel to its list of metals to investigate. He also said DOE should broaden its scope to include volumetrically contaminated metals, which are permeated with contamination rather than having it just on the surface. The Citizens' Advisory Panel has been investigating the suspensions of metals recycling for over a year now. The group provides advice to local, state and federal officials regarding DOE environmental management decisions. DOE hopes to have a draft environmental impact statement released by January 2002, a final version by July 2002 and a record of decision filed shortly afterward. All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 22 PACE votes no strike for now The Paducah Sun Paducah, Kentucky Friday, August 03, 2001 The union strongly rejected USEC's contract offer, citing Russian plans and other issues, and work is on a day-to-day basis. By Joe Walker jwalker@paducahsun.com--270.575.8650 BARKLEY THIELEMAN/The Sun--Can strike on one-day notice: Election committee members Steve Lewis (left) and Leroy Branham escort Daryl Belt and the ballot box after the vote. Nearly 670 union workers at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant will keep working, at least temporarily, after overwhelmingly rejecting a contract offer from USEC Inc. In balloting from 7:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday, members of Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers (PACE) Local 5-550 voted by perhaps greater than a 99 percent margin against the offer, said David Fuller, local president. Their old five-year contract expired Tuesday. "We barely cracked double figures on those that wanted to accept it," Fuller said, adding that the bargaining committee recommended against the offer. "It was an extremely high turnout." He said the union has about 700 members, representing almost half the plant work force. The union includes various trades from maintenance workers to mechanics. Fuller said the union decided temporarily not to strike, and plans to resume talks with USEC next Wednesday with the help of PACE international bargainers. "We intend to work day to day, at least for the time being," he said. "It's important to let all our members know that they are to report for work on their regular schedules without interruptions." Fuller said the old contract is extended by agreement with USEC. "One of the understandings with that is we may strike at any time with a day's notice to the company." Prospects for a quick resolution are shaky because the union vigorously opposes USEC's linking the contract to its successfully buying Russian uranium taken from dismantled nuclear warheads, he said. The new five-year contract would have terminated after the first year if USEC did not achieve any of three goals: remaining sole agent for the Russian uranium, securing better prices, and getting federal approval to buy Russian commercial uranium, aside from the warhead material. "Hopefully we'll get these Russian provisions off the contract proposal and back in Moscow and Washington where they belong," Fuller said. "And, get some better wages and benefits for what we're rightly talking about." Amid voting, PACE held three informational meetings at the union hall on Cairo Road. Fuller said the offer failed because of the Russian issue and "substandard" wages and benefits. He said the union was asked to make "concessions" in medical benefits and overtime pay. USEC had proposed wage increases of 4 percent the first year, 3.5 percent the second year and 3.2 percent during years three through five. Asked if USEC will consider removing the Russian stipulations and improving wages and benefits, company spokeswoman Elizabeth Stuckle declined to speculate. "It would be inappropriate to talk about the details of upcoming negotiations, but we will work with the union to try to achieve a satisfactory contract," she said. Union leaders have long worried that USEC wants to close the plant and broker uranium, a claim the company denies. Although PACE supports the goals, it has been unable to get USEC to guarantee keeping the plant open at certain production levels, Fuller said. USEC officials say the union has not backed the goals and they merely want a way to reopen the contract if any part of the Russian deal falls short. Controlling the flow of Russian uranium stabilizes prices, they say, and blending the cheaper Russian material with higher-cost uranium enriched at Paducah helps hold down expenses and keep the plant running. But the Russian issue alone did not defeat the contract offer, some workers said after waiting at the union hall for what they saw as an inevitable outcome. "In the 24-plus years I've been out at the plant, this proposal is worse than anything I've seen," said Mike Turner, an instrument mechanic from Calloway County. "It's totally ridiculous. It just stinks." Older workers, especially, opposed the wage-benefit provisions and tying "the Russian deal" to the contract, he said. Fuller said the union had no problem recently approving new contracts with three firms for more than 100 environmental workers. Those pacts, with cleanup firms Bechtel Jacobs, Swift and Staley, and Weskem, provide pay increases of 4 percent in the first and second years, 3.8 percent in the third year and 3.5 percent in the fourth. They also contain "substantial" pension and benefit increases, he said. "We would think at the very least that USEC could match the offers of these other companies ... but they have failed to do that," Fuller said. In a prepared release, he said the union finds USEC's actions "even more unfair," considering that it granted $50,000 and $24,000 bonuses for 24 of the top 25 executives of the company, plus a $7.8 million compensation package reportedly paid to USEC Chief Executive Officer William Timbers. USEC has said several times that Timbers' compensation is in line with top executives of other utility firms. ***************************************************************** 23 ADAMS: Items of Interest - Friday, August 03, 2001 ADAMS - Items of Interest Recent Released Documents Added - Friday, August 03, 2001 These documents and others may be retrieved at the NRC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Item ID: 012140187 Accession Number: ML011720602 Date Added: 8/2/01 3:12:02 PM Title: 07/09/2001Meeting with Nuclear Management Company, LLC to discuss the results of the NRC's annual assessment of the performance of the Point Beach Nuclear Plant. Author Affiliation: NRC/RGN-III/DRP/RPB5 Document/Report Number: _________________________________________________________________ Item ID: 012140158 Accession Number: ML012140017 Date Added: 8/2/01 12:15:54 PM Title: 07/17/2001 Statement of Sen. Jim Jeffords Press Conference. Author Affiliation: US SEN Document/Report Number: _________________________________________________________________ Item ID: 012140113 Accession Number: ML012050337 Date Added: 8/2/01 12:11:05 PM Title: 07/18/01 Senate Governental Affairs Hearing on Personnel Flexibility in Federal Agencies (7/17/01). Author Affiliation: NRC/OCA Document/Report Number: _________________________________________________________________ Item ID: 012140159 Accession Number: ML012120262 Date Added: 8/2/01 12:15:59 PM Title: 07/18/01 Statement of Sen. Jim Jeffords as New Chair of Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Author Affiliation: NRC/OCA Document/Report Number: _________________________________________________________________ Item ID: 012140188 Accession Number: ML011770269 Date Added: 8/2/01 3:12:07 PM Title: 07/19/2001 Letter Announcing Public Meeting with Exelon Generation Company, LLC and Quad Cities to discuss End-of-Cycle plant performance assessment. Author Affiliation: NRC/RGN-III/DRP Document/Report Number: _________________________________________________________________ Item ID: 012140189 Accession Number: ML011770265 Date Added: 8/2/01 3:12:12 PM Title: 07/19/2001 Meeting with Exelon Generation Company, LLC and Quad Cities Nuclear Station to discuss the Quad Cities End-of-Cycle plant performance assessment. Author Affiliation: NRC/RGN-III/DRP Document/Report Number: _________________________________________________________________ Item ID: 012140042 Accession Number: ML012070089 Date Added: 8/2/01 10:15:10 AM Title: 07/25/01 letter to R Osborne expressing appreciation for the professional support provided by the Emergency Preparedness Division during the conduct of the recent V. C. Summer Emergency Exercise which was conducted on July 18, 2001. Author Affiliation: NRC/RGN-II/ORA Document/Report Number: _________________________________________________________________ Item ID: 012140191 Accession Number: ML012120402 Date Added: 8/2/01 3:12:20 PM Title: 07/26/01 Renomination of Commissioner Diaz. Author Affiliation: NRC/OCA Document/Report Number: _________________________________________________________________ Item ID: 012140192 Accession Number: ML012140121 Date Added: 8/2/01 3:12:24 PM Title: 08/06/2001 - 09/10/2001 Commission Meetings - FRN. Author Affiliation: NRC/SECY Document/Report Number: _________________________________________________________________ Item ID: 012140276 Accession Number: ML012140425 Date Added: 8/2/01 6:11:02 PM Title: 08/07/2001 - Cancellation of Public Meeting with Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) and Other NRC Stakeholders on the Implementation of the Electronic Fingerprint Submissions. Author Affiliation: NRC/NRR/DRIP Document/Report Number: _________________________________________________________________ Item ID: 012140277 Accession Number: ML012140261 Date Added: 8/2/01 6:11:07 PM Title: 08/09/01 - (ERRATA: Time change) Meeting Notice - State of New Jersey, Department of Environmental Protection to discuss NJ-DEP comments and questions submitted by letter dated 07/27/2001, on the NUHOMS-61BT dry spent fuel storage system. Author Affiliation: NRC/NMSS/SFPO Document/Report Number: _________________________________________________________________ Item ID: 012140156 Accession Number: ML012130377 Date Added: 8/2/01 12:15:44 PM Title: 08/15/2001 Public Meeting to Discuss Revisions to NEI 99-02, Regulatory Assessment Performance Indicator Guidelines. Author Affiliation: NRC/NRR/DIPM/IIPB Document/Report Number: _________________________________________________________________ Item ID: 012140115 Accession Number: ML012140035 Date Added: 8/2/01 12:11:12 PM Title: 08/16/01 Meeting with Combustion Engineering Owners Group and Nuclear Energy Institute to Discuss Licensee Self-Assessment within the New Reactor Oversight Process. Author Affiliation: NRC/NRR/DLPM/LPD4 Document/Report Number: _________________________________________________________________ Item ID: 012140116 Accession Number: ML012140055 Date Added: 8/2/01 12:11:17 PM Title: 08/21/01 Meeting with General Electric to Discuss Relaxation of the 1600 degree F Limit. Author Affiliation: NRC/NRR/DLPM/LPD1 Document/Report Number: _________________________________________________________________ Item ID: 012140183 Accession Number: ML003775602 Date Added: 8/2/01 12:20:02 PM Title: 12/11/2000 - 01/15/2001 Commission Meetings - FRN Author Affiliation: NRC/SECY Document/Report Number: _________________________________________________________________ Item ID: 012140048 Accession Number: ML012110260 Date Added: 8/2/01 10:15:51 AM Title: Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards Joint Meetng of Materials & Metallurgy and Plant Operations Subcommittees - Continuous of ACRS Transcript. Author Affiliation: NRC/ACRS Document/Report Number: ACRST-3164 _________________________________________________________________ Item ID: 012140199 Accession Number: ML011860393 Date Added: 8/2/01 3:13:05 PM Title: E-mail from A. Nelson, Nuclear Energy Institute, to D. Jackson, NRR, Re: Crane Status/Loading Summary. Author Affiliation: Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) Document/Report Number: _________________________________________________________________ Item ID: 012140200 Accession Number: ML011860417 Date Added: 8/2/01 3:13:18 PM Title: E-mail from A. Nelson, Nuclear Energy Institute, to W. Huffman, NRR, Re: Decommissioning Technical Working Group Schedule. Author Affiliation: Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) Document/Report Number: _________________________________________________________________ Item ID: 012140219 Accession Number: ML011870360 Date Added: 8/2/01 3:15:11 PM Title: Handwritten Notes Re: Seismic Phone Call with NEI. Author Affiliation: NRC Document/Report Number: _________________________________________________________________ Item ID: 012140089 Accession Number: ML012060070 Date Added: 8/2/01 10:21:19 AM Title: LER 01-003-00 for Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station Regarding Denial of Unescorted Access Authorization Due to Withholding Information. Author Affiliation: Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corp Document/Report Number: LER 01-003-00 _________________________________________________________________ Item ID: 012140092 Accession Number: ML012060073 Date Added: 8/2/01 10:21:31 AM Title: Letter re NRC Regulation of the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant. Author Affiliation: US Dept of Energy (DOE) Document/Report Number: _________________________________________________________________ Item ID: 012140228 Accession Number: ML012140059 Date Added: 8/2/01 3:16:28 PM Title: Memo 07/25/01 For Immediate Release - Nominations Sent To The Senate. Author Affiliation: NRC/OCA Document/Report Number: _________________________________________________________________ Item ID: 012140229 Accession Number: ML011870087 Date Added: 8/2/01 3:16:32 PM Title: Memo from G. Holahan, NRR, to J. Craig, RES, Re: Request for Review of Draft Technical Study of Spent Fuel Pool Accidents for Decommissioning Plants (TAC# MA5099). Author Affiliation: NRC/NRR Document/Report Number: _________________________________________________________________ Item ID: 012140013 Accession Number: ML012050356 Date Added: 8/2/01 10:12:03 AM Title: Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant Reply to Inspection Report (IR) 70-7001/01-01, Notice of Violations. Author Affiliation: U.S. Enrichment Corp Document/Report Number: IR-01-001 _________________________________________________________________ Item ID: 012140264 Accession Number: ML012140141 Date Added: 8/2/01 4:12:44 PM Title: PREHEARING CONFERENCE ORDER (Telephone Conference, 7/19/01) Author Affiliation: NRC/ASLBP Document/Report Number: _________________________________________________________________ Item ID: 012140233 Accession Number: ML011870074 Date Added: 8/2/01 3:17:55 PM Title: Public Comments/Staff Commitments, November 8, 1999 Commission Meeting. Author Affiliation: NRC Document/Report Number: _________________________________________________________________ Item ID: 012140234 Accession Number: ML011870356 Date Added: 8/2/01 3:18:21 PM Title: Review of Draft NRC Staff Report: "Draft Technical Study of Spent Fuel Pool Accidents For Decommissioning Plants." Author Affiliation: NRC/NRR Document/Report Number: _________________________________________________________________ Item ID: 012140235 Accession Number: ML011870335 Date Added: 8/2/01 3:18:26 PM Title: Review of NEI Comments Dated August 30, 1999. Author Affiliation: NRC Document/Report Number: _________________________________________________________________ Item ID: 012140148 Accession Number: ML012080247 Date Added: 8/2/01 12:14:44 PM Title: Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance's (SUWA) Request to File it's Response to Applicant's Motion for Summary Disposition Late Author Affiliation: Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance Document/Report Number: _________________________________________________________________ Item ID: 012140279 Accession Number: ML012140387 Date Added: 8/2/01 6:11:27 PM Title: SRM-M010720A - Briefing on Results of Reactor Oversight Process Initial Implementation, 9:30 A. M., July 20, 2001, Commissioners' Conference Room, One White Flint North, Rockville, Maryland (Open to Public Attendance). Author Affiliation: NRC/SECY Document/Report Number: SRM-M010720A _________________________________________________________________ Item ID: 012140280 Accession Number: ML012140392 Date Added: 8/2/01 6:11:31 PM Title: SRM-M010720B - Briefing on Risk-Informing Special Treatment Requirements. Author Affiliation: NRC/SECY Document/Report Number: SRM-M010720B _________________________________________________________________ Item ID: 012140281 Accession Number: ML012140398 Date Added: 8/2/01 6:11:34 PM Title: SRM-SECY-01-0121 - Industry Initiatives in the Regulatory Process. Author Affiliation: NRC/SECY Document/Report Number: SRM-SECY-01-0121 _________________________________________________________________ Item ID: 012140150 Accession Number: ML012080278 Date Added: 8/2/01 12:15:01 PM Title: State of Utah's Opposition to the Nuclear Energy Institute's Motion for Leave to File an Amicus Brief on the Regulatory Standard for Aircraft Crash Hazards at Spent Fuel Facilities Author Affiliation: State of UT, Attorney General's Office Document/Report Number: _________________________________________________________________ Item ID: 012140155 Accession Number: ML012060419 Date Added: 8/2/01 12:15:40 PM Title: Witness list for Hearing Before the Senate Subcomm on Oversight of Government Management, Restructuring, and the District of Columbia on "Expanding Flexible Personnel Systems Governmentwide." Author Affiliation: - No Known Affiliation Document/Report Number: ***************************************************************** 24 House Energy Bill is Consumer Ripoff Aug. 1, 2001 Billions to profitable energy companies, no guarantees of lower prices WASHINGTON, D.C. — The energy bill (H.R. 4) scheduled for a vote tonight in the U.S. House shells out billions in subsidies to energy companies that have enjoyed record profits, but does nothing to protect consumers from price-gouging and profiteering by energy companies. The legislation would dole out nearly $4.4 billion in subsidies to the nuclear industry, more than $7 billion to the coal industry and $24 billion to the oil and gas industries. "All the billions in wasted taxpayer dollars still can’t buy the nuclear industry a decent safety record or dispose of its radioactive waste securely," said Wenonah Hauter, director of Public Citizen’s Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program. "And throwing billions more at the coal, oil and gas companies at the same time these sectors are enjoying record profits is terrible policy." The legislation is filled with ill-advised public giveaways to corporations that don’t need and don’t deserve corporate welfare, Hauter said. These subsidies include nearly $11 million to a uranium mining company with a deplorable safety and environmental record, and billions more to the coal industry to develop unproven and dirty new coal technologies. Taxpayers would also lose millions in royalty payments, because the House legislation allows some oil companies to drill on public lands without compensating taxpayers. "President Bush’s election campaign was heavily financed by nuclear, oil and coal interests, and now it’s payback time," Hauter said. "Many elements of this House legislation mirror the president’s objectives. Unfortunately for consumers, it gives billions in subsidies to profitable corporations without lifting a finger to protect consumers from profiteering natural gas and electric power generators this winter." Instead of corporate welfare to rich corporations, Public Citizen advocates increased consumer protections through stronger anti-trust laws, more diligent policing of dysfunctional energy markets, and tougher fines for price-gouging. Public Citizen ***************************************************************** 25 GIBBONS STATEMENT ON PASSAGE OF HIS AMENDMENT TO HOUSE ENERGY BILL Gibbons (NV02) - Press Release - FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE August 1, 2001 Provision will ensure Yucca Mountain Budget remains under Congressional control, not DOE Washington, D.C.— Today, U.S. Congressman Jim Gibbons (R-Nev.) released the following statement upon passage of his amendment to the rule for the Securing America’s Future Energy Act, striking provisions which would have allowed the Nuclear Waste Fund to be taken off-budget and consequently, avoid strict Congressional oversight. “The move to take the Nuclear Waste Fund off-budget was a terribly misguided, fiscally irresponsible effort from the start. My amendment will ensure that the Nuclear Waste Fund will remain under the strict oversight of Congress. I am pleased that the House leadership, Committee chairmen, and Budget leaders all supported my amendment to assure Congressional fiscal restraint and discipline over the Nuclear Waste Fund. “The debate concerning the safe, permanent storage of high-level nuclear waste is as controversial an issue as any other facing this nation. Removing the Nuclear Waste Fund from the strictest, most ardent congressional oversight would prove to only escalate the controversy surrounding this issue. “The overall Energy bill will provide a comprehensive and responsible policy to address our nation’s growing energy needs. This important legislation should not be complicated by irresponsible efforts to ship and store nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain. The passage of my amendment today will assure that Congress maintains its ability to oversee the Nuclear Waste Fund.” ***************************************************************** 26 Workers at Paducah plant vote on contract proposal Evansville Courier & Press Thursday, August 02, 2001 On the Net: U.S. Enrichment Corp.: http://www.usec.comPaper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers International Union: http://www.paceunion.org PADUCAH, Ky. - With the possibility of a strike looming, hourly workers at Paducah's U.S. Enrichment Corp. plant voted Thursday on whether to accept a five-year contract proposed by the company. A key issue is whether USEC has the right to terminate a proposed five-year contract with workers within one year if it is not successful in meeting certain terms to buy uranium from Russia. Workers could go on strike Friday, but David Fuller, president of Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy (PACE) Workers Union Local 5-550, said the decision won't be made until all votes are counted Thursday night. Returning to the bargaining table is also an option if the contract is rejected, Fuller said. The results of the vote are expected to be made public late Thursday. The union represents the more than 700 hourly workers at the plant -with the exception of the guards. A total of about 1,500 workers are employed at the plant. Officials from the Bethesda, Md.,-based company have maintained it can only remain competitive if it remains the sole executive agent and receives a market-based-pricing contract with Russia to buy uranium. Fuller has called the concession in the proposed contract pertaining to Russian uranium "a little bit of a slap in the face" for workers. Other disputed issues in the proposed contract pertain to overtime compensation and medical benefits. Production was stopped at USEC's uranium enrichment plant in Piketon, Ohio, early this summer because of a market glut for nuclear plant fuel. USEC, created in the early 1990s as a government corporation with the mission of restructuring the government's uranium enrichment operation, was made private in 1998. Federal law creating USEC made it the agent for a 20-year, $8 billion deal to buy 500 metric tons of uranium taken from Russia's dismantled nuclear warheads for use by nuclear power plants. USEC is 40 percent ahead of schedule on the deal with Russia, but is paying prices higher than it costs the Paducah plant to enrich uranium. ***************************************************************** 27 GIBBONS VOTES FOR COMPREHENSIVE NATIONAL ENERGY POLICY Gibbons (NV02) - Press Release - August 2, 2001 Plan Promotes Conservation and Production Washington, D.C.— Late last night, U.S. Congressman Jim Gibbons (R-Nev.) joined his colleagues in the House of Representatives to support the Securing America’s Future Energy (SAFE) Act. This bill, which passed by a bipartisan vote of 240 to 189, aims to prevent the volatile gasoline and electricity prices of earlier this year from happening in the future. “America’s energy problems didn’t happen overnight and we can’t fix them overnight,” stated Gibbons, a member of the House Resources Committee which crafted parts of the legislation passed today. “This bill is a balanced plan to ensure that our nation has a safe, reliable energy supply to fuel our economy in the 21st century.” “Nevadans deserve to know that when they flip their light switch that their lights will go on,” continued Gibbons. “This plan will strengthen our economy, lower consumer prices, create jobs, reduce our dependency on OPEC, and protect the environment.” The SAFE Act, modeled after President Bush’s national energy policy unveiled earlier this year, would: • Encourage greater domestic energy production; • Help modernize America’s aging energy infrastructure, including pipelines and electric grids; • Promote conservation by establishing: – Higher fuel standards for sport utility vehicles (SUVs), saving over 5 billion gallons of gasoline; – Incentives for new and cleaner energy sources, including hydroelectric power, geothermal, and clean-coal technology, as well as for alternative fueled vehicles like gas-electric hybrid cars; – Requirements on the federal government to lead by example on conservation by setting stricter standards for energy use in federal buildings. ***************************************************************** 28 Nuclear-spill training to be held in March Augusta Georgia: Technology: Web posted Friday, August 3, 2001 By Preston Sparks Columbia County Bureau Although emergency officials say there have been no major problems with the transportation of nuclear wastes from Savannah River Site through the Augusta area this year, authorities concede that the potential for danger is there. That's why, as a precaution, local and state emergency workers have begun planning a nuclear hazardous materials training exercise to take place in Columbia County in March. ''We've already had our first-responder training,'' said Chuck Ray, a field coordinator for the Georgia Emergency Management Agency, after Thursday's Columbia County Local Emergency Planning Committee meeting. ''So now what we need to do is provide an exercise for that training.'' Mr. Ray said the details of the mock disaster have not been determined. It probably will be a state-sponsored event and take place on Interstate 20. The exercise is being spurred by several shipments of nuclear wastes to a New Mexico site as part of a recent nuclear cleanup at SRS. So far, Mr. Ray said, the transferral - set to take place for the next few years - has been successful. ''The only problem that we've had is one of the trucks had an alternator problem in a rural area of McDuffie County a few months ago,'' he said. At Thursday's meeting, Mr. Ray gave the following list of remaining shipment dates for the year through Columbia County on I-20: today; Aug. 10, 17 and 24; Sept. 14; and tentative dates of Aug. 29 and Sept. 8. The shipments are expected to enter Columbia County about noon. Reach Preston Sparks at (706) 868-1222, Ext. 110, or prestonsparks@newstimesonline.com. All contents ©1996 - 2001 The Augusta Chronicle. All rights ***************************************************************** 29 Yggdrasil Institute: Uranium Enrichment Project Newsletter [[Yggdrasil Institute]] Uranium Enrichment Newsletter The Uranium Enrichment Newsletter, an electronic monthly, summarizes events in the US uranium enrichment establishment during the preceding month. Topics covered include developments within the United States Enrichment Corporation (USEC), contamination and cleanup at the gaseous diffusion plants, compensation for harmed workers and residents, the US-Russian High Enriched Uranium Agreement, and disposal of depleted uranium and contaminated scrap metal. 1999 + DECEMBER 2000 + JANUARY + FEBRUARY + MARCH + APRIL + MAY + JUNE + JULY + AUGUST + SEPTEMBER + OCTOBER + NOVEMBER + DECEMBER/JANUARY 2001 2001 + FEBRUARY + MARCH + APRIL + MAY + JUNE + JULY + AUGUST Uranium Enrichment Newsletter August 2001 The Uranium Enrichment Project publishes a monthly online newsletter summarizing events relating to the US uranium enrichment establishment. The newsletter is edited by Mary Byrd Davis, who can be contacted at francenuc@francenuc.org. A grant from The John Merck Fund makes the newsletter possible. 1. Oak Ridge 2. Portsmouth 3. Paducah 4. US Department of Energy 5. US Nuclear Regulatory Commission 6. United States Enrichment Corporation 7. Fuel chain 8. Russia 9. Iran 10. Scrap metal I. OAK RIDGE Disposal costs The staff of the US Environmental Protection Agency has noted discrepancies in the figures for disposal costs in decision documents for the Oak Ridge Reservation. Apparently two figures are used for disposal at the Environmental Management Waste Management Facility: $227/yd3 and $165/yd3. Also, US Department of Energy appears to be using what EPA regards as an inflated figure for off-site disposal: $1800/yd3. EPA believes that DOE/Tennessee Department of Environmental Conservation and EPA need to agree on figures for on-site and off-site disposal and that these figures need to be incorporated into the relevant documents. (Memo from John Blevins circulated to the Paducah Site Specific Advisory Board) Fire at K-25 About 6:30 am July 25 a small fire broke out in the K-25 building where three workers were cutting up a container shell with a torch. The fire was extinguished shortly before 8 am, and nobody was injured. (J. J. Stambaugh, Knoxville News-Sentinel, 7/25/01) (See also US Department of Energy below) II. PADUCAH Recycling California-based ToxCo is interested in recycling fluorine at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant. However, the facilities reuse committee of the Paducah Area Community Reuse Organization (PACRO) is insisting that the company create local jobs. If ToxCo does not agree to process the fluorine in Paducah rather than to take it elsewhere for processing, PACRO may begin negotiations with another group of firms. In regard to recycling contaminated scrap metal, PACRO anticipates a proposal from Chemical Vapor Deposition Manufacturing, a Canadian firm, with which it has been negotiating. Actual recycling of the metal cannot occur unless DOE lifts its moratorium on release of volumetrically contaminated metals. (Joe Walker, Paducah Sun, 7/19/01) Workers’ contracts A five-year contract between USEC and the Paducah plant’s hourly workers (except the guards) represented by the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers Union (PACE) Local 5-550 expired July 31. USEC wants the right to terminate the proposed five-year contract after its first year unless USEC remains the sole executive agent for the US-Russian High-Enriched Uranium Agreement and unless USEC receives a market-based price in a new contract with Russia. Workers find this limitation unreasonable. Other issues at dispute are overtime pay and medical benefits. The informal circulation of a leaked list of FY 2001 bonuses for USEC managers has not sweetened the negotiations. Some thirty-three officials will reportedly collect a total of some $2.6 million. The union will voted August 2. Workers "overwhelmingly" rejected the contract but chose to continue to negotiate rather than to go on strike immediately. (Associated Press, 8/1/01 and 8/2/01) Earlier in July PACE secured what it regarded as favorable contracts for more than a hundred environmental workers at the Paducah plant from cleanup contractors Bechtel Jacobs, Swift and Staley, and Weskem. (www.platts.com 7/27/01) 1. PORTSMOUTH (See US Department of Energy and Fuel Chain below) IV. US DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY (DOE) Double billing The US Court of Federal Claims ruled June 29 that DOE billed utilities twice for the future decontamination and decommissioning (D&D) of its enrichment plants, between September 1992 and June 1993, when enrichment services were being transferred from DOE to the then-government-owned US Enrichment Corporation. DOE included a charge for D&D in the price of its Separative Work Units (SWU) and also charged utilities using its service a separate fee for D&D. The case was brought by nine utilities, about 10% of those using DOE’s enrichment service; but will apply to the remaining 90%, an industry source said. The source estimated the overcharge at roughly $20 per SWU. (www.platts.com, 29/6/01). Energy and Water Legislation President Bush has signed a 2001 Supplemental Appropriations Act, which provides an additional $18 million for cleanup at the Paducah plant and an additional $10 million for cleanup at K-25 in Oak Ridge; adds kidney cancer to the list of cancers for which workers at the enrichment plants and at an Alaska site are automatically covered under the Energy Employees Occupational Injury Compensation Program Act; and sets up direct planning and communications on financial matters between the Paducah plant and DOE’s assistant secretary of environmental management in Washington, DC. The latter provision saves Paducah staff from having to go through DOE’s operations office in Tennessee. Senator Mitch McConnell (R-Ky) spearheaded the measure on kidney cancer and Senator Jim Bunning (R-Ky), Kentucky that on communications. (Padcah Sun, 20/7/01; Associated Press, 7/19/01) The US Senate and House have each passed an Energy and Water Development Appropriations Bill for FY 2002. The Senate version, S. 1171, allocates $20.06 billion to the DOE, $7.2 billion of which is earmarked for the Environmental Management program. The House version HR. 2311, provides $24.2 billion to DOE, $6.63 billion of which goes to Environmental Management. A conference committee will meet to iron out the differences after Congress returns from its August recess (Weapons Complex Monitor, 7/23/01) Compensation for workers July 2 Labor Secretary Elaine Chao opened a DOE resource center at Paducah, Kentucky, to help workers file compensation claims under the Energy Employees Occupational Injury Compensation Program Act (EEOICPA). The center is the first of ten US Department of Energy (DOE) centers to be opened for this purpose. Processing of applications for compensation began July 31. Chao told reporters at Paducah that she hopes that the first checks will be mailed by the end of the summer. However, it is possible that the widow of Joe Harding, a Paducah worker who tried for years to get the government to admit that his severe illnesses were work related, may be given her check earlier in order to publicize the program. (Bill Bartleman, Paducah Sun, 7/03/01; Nancy Zuckerbrod, Associated Press, 7/26/01) The program covers qualified DOE employees, uranium miners, and employees of DOE contractors that were beryllium vendors or that processed or produced radioactive material for atomic weapons. To be considered for compensation an employee must have radiation-induced cancer, chronic silicosis, or an illness stemming from beryllium. The bill does not provide benefits for workers who are ill because of other types of work-related illness, such as problems caused by toxic chemicals. Also it does not cover people who lived near the plants but did not work at them, even if they have an illness likely caused by releases from the facilities. People who worked for at least a year at the Oak Ridge, Paducah, or Portsmouth enrichment plants or who worked at Amchitka Island, Alaska, before 1974, belong to a "Special Exposure Cohort," who, if they have certain specific types of cancer, will not need to prove that their cancers were caused by their work. For other workers the burden of proof is on the worker. The Department of Health and Human Services is creating guidelines that will be used to determine the likelihood that a cancer is work related and to estimate radiation doses in the absence of records. Each eligible worker, with the exception of uranium miners, will receive a lump sum payment of $150,000 plus future medical expenses (past medical expenses will not be covered). Survivors of deceased employees will generally receive a percentage of the $150,000 lump sum. The percentages for a given worker’s survivors add up to less than $150,000. Children who were not dependents at the time of the worker’s death will not be compensated. Uranium miners are already eligible for $100,000 in compensation under the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act. They can apply for an additional $50,000 under the new legislation. PACE has pointed out that the draft interim Labor Department regulations give a Final Adjudication Branch of the Office of Workers Compensation Programs (OWCP) the authority to hear workers whose claims have been denied. The Director of this OWCP oversees the appeals reviewer and also the claims reviewer. Claimants should instead be allowed an independent appeal before an Administrative Law Judge, the union states. The DOE has established a Worker Advocacy Program to assist workers who do not qualify for compensation from the federal government or who want to obtain reimbursement for past medical expenses, to file for compensation from state workers’ compensation programs. To obtain benefits from state programs, workers will have to prove the cause of their medical problems, not easy to do since record keeping was often inadequate and since existing records may be secret. Furthermore, USEC, which is self insured and provides the money that its workers receive as a result of state compensation claims, will not certify occupational disease claims without medical examinations and, in the case of Ohio, an Ohio Industrial Commission hearing. (Jonathan Riskin and Jeff Adkins, Columbus Dispatch, 22/7/01) DOE and DOL both have Web sites on worker compensation: http://tis.eh.doe.gov/advocacy/index.htmland http://www.dol.gov/dol/esa/public/regs/compliance/owcp/eeoicp/main.htmrespectiv ely. They include access to the regulations; lists of covered facilities, and illnesses; and claim forms. The Web site http://tis.eh.doe.gov/advocacy/faclist/findfacility.cfmlinks to a variety of information about DOE’s Office of Worker Advocacy. Review of Environmental Management Program As part of the administration’s "top to bottom" review of DOE’s Environmental Management Program, the Energy Facility Contractors Group (EFCOG) has submitted more than thirty recommendations to the department. The Weapons Complex Monitor obtained a copy of a presentation that EFCOG made to DOE at a meeting in late May, and the chairman of EFCOG has told the Monitor that the final recommendations are essentially those described in the presentation. Recommendations in the presentation included establishing multiyear budgets for cleanup projects, streamlining National Environmental Policy Act reviews, ending the moratorium on the release of scrap metal from DOE sites, basing programs to clean up groundwater on "realistic end requirements," and optimizing the use of commercial procurement practices. According to the Web site of EFCOG, DOE pays for the group’s infrastructure. (Weapons Complex Monitor, 7/9/01; www.efcog.org) V. US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION (NRC) Impact of nuclear industry consolidation The NRC has released for comment a "Preliminary Impact Assessment of Nuclear Industry Consolidation on NRC Oversight." The assessment includes a brief overview of consolidation in the fuel chain, including mention of the fact that after USEC stock ownership restrictions expire in July 2001, the company may be a target for acquisition. The agency wants to determine whether changes in the industry necessitate changes in NRC "regulations, policies, processes, guidance, or organizational structure." The comment period on the document ends August 27. A public workshop will be held around October-November 2001. The report can be downloaded at www.nrc.gov/NRC/REACTOR/CONSOLIMPACT/index.html. The Web site includes an online comment form. PACE appeal PACE Local 5-689 has filed an appeal of the NRC Director’s Decision in regard to its request pertaining to the NRC’s March 19 determination to grant to USEC a Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant Certificate Amendment. The amendment allowed Paducah to enrich uranium to 5.5% and therefore made it possible for USEC to shut its Portsmouth plant. PACE requested a review of the NRC staff’s decision to grant the amendment on the grounds that the amendment undermined USEC’s ability to ensure a "reliable and economic" domestic supply of enriched uranium. June 14 the NRC decided not to comply with the request, on the basis that this issue should be addressed by Congress and other executive branch agencies rather than by the NRC. VI. United States Enrichment Corporation (USEC) USEC’s case against Eurodif and Urenco The US Department of Commerce (DOC) issued a preliminary ruling July 5 that European uranium enrichers are guilty of dumping. DOE estimated the resulting import duties—for Eurodif, 17.52 percent of the value of imported low-enriched uranium from France; for Urenco, 3.35 percent for imports from the United Kingdom, but no duty for imports from Germany and the Netherlands. In May DOC had made a preliminary ruling on a separate issue, countervailing duty, and had found that Urenco and Eurodif have been unfairly subsidized by their respective governments. DOC will require that importers from France and the United Kingdom either post a bond or pay cash deposits to cover the preliminary antidumping rates plus the preliminary countervailing duty rates which are 13.4 percent for Eurodif and 2.72 percent for Urenco. DOC is expected to make final determinations in both the antidumping and countervailing duty investigations in late 2001. If DOC finds that duties are warranted, the International Trade Commission will determine if injury occurred and, if so, DOC will determine the final duty. Eurodif and Urenco, supported by the European Commission, maintain that they compete fairly and that, since enrichment is a service, international trade laws do not apply to it. (USEC Press Release, 7/6/01; www.platts.com, 7/12/01; Urenco press release, 7/6/01; Cogema Inc. press release, 7/6/01) The chairman of the World Trade Organization’s General Council says that many members of the organization support putting negotiations of antidumping rules on the agenda of a new trade round. Negotiations would likely focus on clarifying existing rules rather than on reopening the accord. (report from Geneva, forwarded by Stan Planton) Pensions Retirees who worked for the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant complain that they and Portsmouth retirees have not received an increase in benefits since 1992, although on July 1, Oak Ridge retirees received increases of 4%-23%. Behind the discrepancy is the fact that, in 1992, when the then-government-owned USEC became operator of the plants, Oak Ridge workers remained under the original retirement plan, now managed by Oak Ridge operator BWXTY-12; but, by privatization legislation, workers from the other two plants were placed under a new pension plan managed by USEC. A committee of retired Paducah workers appointed to lobby for higher benefits has asked USEC several times for an increase, Art Edwards committee chairman says. Elizabeth Stuckle, a USEC spokesperson, says that USEC is looking into the request. (Bill Bartleman, Paducah Sun, 7/29/01) Stock ownership Restrictions on ownership of USEC stock expired July 28, three years after the government-owned USEC became the privately-owned USEC. Individuals and other investors can now own more than 10% of the stock, but the expiration did not precipitate an immediate rush to purchase. (www.platts.com, 7/31/01) VII. FUEL CHAIN Need for a domestic enrichment industry? The Under Secretary of Energy, Robert G. Card, has sent a letter to the House Energy and Commerce Committee in which he states that DOE has begun a review to "determine whether a domestic uranium enrichment industry is economically feasible or necessary." The review, Card said, "has grown to involve several Cabinet-level agencies." It was prompted by an amendment by Rep. Ted Strickland (D-Ohio) to the Energy Advancement and Conservation Act, which was accepted by the House Energy and Commerce Committee but which Card indicated that the administration opposes. The amendment would have provided $169 million to keep the Portsmouth plant in cold standby through FY 2005; developed a plan to restart the Portsmouth plant if fuel supplies are disrupted or likely to be disrupted; directed DOE to move forward with a plan to deploy advanced enrichment technology ($254 million), and supported cleanup and other activities at the Paducah plant ($169 million). At the urging of the Bush administration, the House leadership removed the amendment from the energy act before the House voted on the act August 1. (, 17/7/01; Matthew L. Wald, New York Times, 7/24/01; Weapons Complex Monitor, 7/23/01; undated release from office of Rep.Ted Strickland) Domestic uranium production DOE’s Energy Information Administration’s Uranium Industry Annual 2000 shows that uranium production in the United States declined to 4.0 million pounds U308 during 2000. This figure represents less than ten percent of the uranium loaded into US reactors in a year. Domestic uranium production is expected to fall to less than 3.0 million pounds in 2001. Train accident The train that derailed and caught fire in a tunnel in Baltimore July 18 carried hydrochloric acid, tripropylene, and hydrofluoric acid. (John Biemer, Detroit News, 7/28/01) Hydrofluoric acid is a staple of the nuclear industry, where it is involved in various processes that convert one material to another. In the production of uranium hexafluoride, the material that is enriched at the gaseous diffusion plants, uranium oxide reacts with hydrofluoric acid. VIII. RUSSIA View of House Appropriations Committee on Russian HEU A House Appropriations Committee report that accompanied DOE’s fiscal year 2002 appropriations bill included a recommendation that the Bush administration increase purchases of Russian high-enriched uranium (HEU). The administration should consider designating a second executive agent; leaving downblended uranium in Russia until it can be sold without adverse effects on the uranium market; and working with the international community to increase purchases of downblended HEU. (George Lobsenz, Energy Daily, 7/11/01) Administration review of nonproliferation programs The Bush administration has "completed or substantially completed" its review of the US program to assist Russia to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction and the material and know-how to make such weapons. The administration concluded that "it is in the US national interest" to continue the program, but will not make decisions about specific projects until Congress has been consulted, officials say. (Agence France Presse, 7/17/01) Chinese gaseous diffusion plant Russian and Chinese members of a subcommission of an intergovernment commission on trade, economic, scientific and technical cooperation will meet to discuss progress in Russia’s construction of a nuclear reactor and an enrichment plant in China. (Tass, 7/01) IX. IRAN Imports for uranium enrichment facility According to Nuclear Fuel, US authorities suspect that a Russian broker recently obtained centrifuge-grade aluminum for Iran, but they have no proof that this occurred. At the request of the United States, the Russian government had the ship thought to be carrying the material searched. The searchers reported that they found only inferior-grade aluminum. Brokers have in the past sold to Iran inferior-grade aluminum that they claimed was centrifuge grade. Since 1993 members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group have been trying to prevent Iran from obtaining three materials that could be used for centrifuge rotors: maraging steel, high-strength aluminum, and carbon fiber composite winding material. Intelligence reports indicate that Iran may have obtained some technical information on the fabrication of centrifuge components. (Nuclear Fuel, 6/25/01) X. SCRAP METAL Preliminary Environmental Impact Statement on disposition July 12, DOE announced in the Federal Register its intent to prepare a Preliminary Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) to evaluate "the policy alternatives for the disposition of DOE scrap metals that may have residual surface radioactivity." DOE planned to hold scoping meetings at six locations between July 31 and August 16. At the time, DOE had a contract with San Diego-based Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) for evaluation of the impact of releasing and recycling radioactive materials. July 25 DOE announced that it had canceled the contract with SAIC. July 23, representatives of several public interest groups had met with DOE officials to raise questions about the SAIC contract. Before DOE halted the recycling of contaminated scrap metal, SAIC had been the "regulatory compliance" partner with British Nuclear Fuels Limited (BNFL), which had a contract allowing it to recycle contaminated nickel from the K-25 plant at Oak Ridge. NRC subsequently employed SAIC to provide independent expertise as part of the agency’s effort to establish standards for recyling, but NRC terminated the contract with the company when it learned that SAIC had a conflict of interest. Public interest organizations have now asked for "full disclosure of the facts surrounding [DOE’s] contract award to SAIC to work on the EIS." DOE is going ahead with its scoping meetings. Apart from the question of the SAIC contract, public interest organizations have criticized DOE’s plans for the PEIS on the grounds that the subject to be covered (surface contamination only) is too narrow and that meetings are taking place during a vacation period and at only a few locations, generally near DOE sites, although recycling of radioactive materials would put all Americans at risk. (Federal Register, Vol. 66, no. 134, p. 36563, 7/12/01); Nancy Zuckerbrod, Associated Press, 7/25/01; Public Citizen, Press release, 7/30/01; Open letter to David Huizenga from Public Citizen and others, 7/27/01; Comments may be submitted in writing through September 10 to Mr. Kenneth G. Picha, Jr., Office of Technical Program Integration, EM-22, ATTN: Metals Disposition PEIS, Office of Environmental Management, US Department of Energy, 10000 Independence Ave., SW, Washington, DC 20585-0113; e-mail: Metals.Disposition.PEIS@em.doe.gov News | Uranium Enrichment Project | France Nucléaire| Home Eastern Old-Growth | Green Tourism | Contact Us| Donate Yggrasil Institute is a project of Earth Island Institute P.O. Box 131, Georgetown, KY 40324 E-mail: marybdavis@earthlink.net· Tel.: (502) 868-9074 ***************************************************************** 30 Greens Attack Funding of St. Pete Nuke Plant Friday, Aug. 3, 2001. Page 7 By Galina Stolyarova Staff Writer A plant official said the high level of LAES’s safety culture has never been questioned. ST. PETERSBURG — Environmentalists sent an open letter this week to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and Baltic-region governments appealing to them not to support additional projects at the Leningrad Nuclear Power Station, LAES, in Sosnovy Bor. The ecologists from the Greenworld environmental group based in Sosnovy Bor, 80 kilometers west of St. Petersburg, accused the plant's authorities of financial mismanagement and routine safety violations. Greenworld's letter claimed, among other things, that the "wet" storage facility for spent nuclear fuel at the plant is currently 40 percent over its design capacity. It also claimed that there have been numerous incidents of theft of non-ferrous metals from the plant, including "important functional components for 40 operating safety control devices." Greenworld further alleges that the telephone hotline to Moscow at the plant has been disabled and that drunkenness among workers is widespread. The report quotes the head of the Sosnovy Bor fire brigade as saying that "there have not yet been serious fires at LAES, which is just sheer luck." He said that about 140 fire-safety violations are registered at the plant each year. Because of these problems and a generally lax safety culture at LAES, the West should cease providing financial support for LAES projects, especially a plan to prolong the life span of LAES's four RBMK-1000 Chernobyl-type reactors. Greenworld's report was primarily written by Sergei Kharitonov, who worked at the plant from 1973 until March 2000 and who is now a Greenworld council member. LAES officials, while confirming some of the information in the Greenworld letter, insist that the plant is safe and that none of the violations are significant. They point out that LAES is inspected annually by the Russian State Nuclear Inspectorate, or Gosatomnadzor, and by official delegations from neighboring countries such as Finland and Norway. "There have never been grounds for a scandal," LAES official Nikolai Yesaulov said. "Yes, every time we receive a list of recommendations, but these are nothing more than minor reprimands. Generally, the high level of the plant's safety culture has never been questioned." The power of Gosatomnadzor to issue reprimands and follow through on their enforcement has been significantly reduced in recent months as a result of lobbying by the Nuclear Power Ministry, which is seeking to reduce Gosatomnadzor's authority. According to LAES spokeswoman Valeriya Nikitina, the plant is scheduled to be inspected by the International Atomic Energy Commission in 2002. The IAEC's last inspection of the plant was in 1996. Kim Soderling, project manager of the Finnish Center for Nuclear Safety, or STUK, which monitors LAES, said that his organization would not comment on Greenworld's letter. "STUK doesn't take part in conversations of Russian Federation's energy policy," he said. Erlend Larsen, senior executive officer of the Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority, wrote in a statement to The Moscow Times that her organization "does not have a complete picture of the safety" at LAES and that "there are several areas where the safety is not internationally acceptable." "The general Norwegian attitude is that all plants, including RBMK reactors, that do not meet an internationally acceptable safety level should be shut down," Larsen wrote. Yesaulov confirmed Greenworld's information that the LAES "wet" storage facility is over capacity, but he insisted it was not a problem. "The measures we have taken to compress spent nuclear fuel are sufficient. All our steps have been approved by Gosatomnadzor," he said. Sergei Bavykin, deputy head of the Environmental Safety Department of the Sosnovy Bor municipal administration, agrees that LAES is safe. "I do not have any reasons to doubt the plant's policy or its safety enforcement or to suspect the plant's management of any wrongdoing," he said. "It is not that the ecologists provide falsified information, but their view of the situation is obviously one-sided," Bavykin said. The EBRD is not currently involved in or considering any projects with LAES, said Joachim Jahnke, EBRD vice president for nuclear-safety programs. In 1995, LAES received a grant of 30 million euros ($26.4 million) to support several projects intended to improve plant safety. The money was allocated at a 1995 meeting of the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations, with several other countries later contributing, and the fund was administered by the EBRD. "The 1995 donation was a short-term project, which has already been accomplished," Jahnke said in telephone interview Wednesday. "We realize the sum was very small in comparison to the amount of work that has to be done, and it was never meant to solve all problems facing the station." Jahnke said, however, that the EBRD shares Greenworld's concern about Russia's continued use of Chernobyl-type reactors that will reach the end of their recommended life span in the next several years, the more so since the in-depth safety assessments are continually delayed. According to Jahnke, the risks associated with continued operation of these reactors, which do not and cannot meet international safety standards and have therefore been decommissioned in Ukraine and Lithuania, are a profound concern for the Nuclear Safety Account. "Russia is presently not in line with its obligations under the nuclear-safety agreement with the bank," he said. The EBRD, however, remains committed to a dialogue with Russia to resolve this problem, officials said. Many Russian and international environmental groups have called for Russia to follow the example of Western countries, which have been dismantling their nuclear reactors in recent years. Vladimir Slivyak of the Russian environmental group Ecodefense said Germany is committed to decommissioning all of its nuclear reactors by 2020. Sweden's nuclear industry will be shut down by 2010. "The absurdity is that while the West gives up nuclear energy because it is expensive and dangerous, Russia, which finds itself in a dire financial plight, is planning to construct new reactors," Slivyak said. LAES supplies approximately 40 percent of St. Petersburg's electricity. It employs over 10,000 people in a town of 60,000 and provides up to 80 percent of Sosnovy Bor's revenues. www.moscowtimes.ru TheMoscowTimes.com" ***************************************************************** 31 Tribe, environmentalists fear uranium mine planned near Grand Canyon [The Arizona Republic] Associated Press Aug. 01, 2001 07:31:00 FLAGSTAFF - The Sierra Club claims land near the Grand Canyon that's sacred to the Havasupai Tribe is a target of the Bush administration's plan to expand energy production. The tribe itself is at least equally upset about the possibility, though the company owning the uranium site in question says it has no plan to open the mine. "That's our aboriginal homeland," said Matthew Putesoy, the tribe's vice chairman. "We claim that as our origination, where the very first Havasupai people were born ... from one of our great-great grandmothers. Grandmother Canyon, we call her. "We say were tied to the universe from that area." said Putesoy, whose tribe's lands border the sprawling Grand Canyon on the south. "They're drilling right in the abdomen of our Mother Earth." The Bush energy plan calls for 1,300 new power plants across the country by 2020 and for an expansion of nuclear power. And in a statement dated Monday, the Sierra Club said part of that plan includes operating the Canyon Mine 15 miles from the Grand Canyon in the headwater drainage of Havasu Creek. The site is within the Kaibab National Forest. The mine was been built a few years ago but hasn't been operated. The Forest Service approved its construction after looking into its environmental impact, and the U.S. Supreme Court rejected tribal opposition in upholding the permit. Cathy Schmidlin, a public affairs officer for the Kaibab forest, said the company that built the mine is defunct and that Vancouver, B.C.-based International Uranium Corp., which operates three mines in Arizona, is the current owner. Its U.S. headquarters is Denver, and Ron Hochstein, president and CEO of International Uranium, said there's no immediate cause for alarm. "There is no plan to restart the Canyon Mine at this time," he said. "Uranium prices have to improve significantly before we could consider restarting that operation." Hochstein declined to comment on the tribe's cultural concerns. Nonetheless, Rob Smith of the Sierra Club said mine illustrates the potential for problems for Arizona under the Bush energy plan. "The emphasis on building lots of new power plants means Arizona will stand to be a big loser," Smith said. "Arizona could become an energy sacrifice zone if big power plants are the main thrust of a national energy policy. This means loss of natural and cultural areas, using up our water, polluting our air." Smith, the club's southwestern representative in Phoenix, said Arizona has another of the 21 natural areas nationwide about which the club has great concern. That other one is the recently designated Ironwood Forest National Monument near Tucson in southern Arizona. Asarco Inc., a giant producer of copper and other metals, wants to trade land in order to expand a mine into the monument. Environmentalists contend doing so would harm the habitat of an endangered species, the desert pronghorn antelope. Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity claims the land that Asarco wants is critical to reproduction and survival of the last population of desert bighorn sheep. Additionally, there are plans for a power plant nearby and to run a transmission line through the monument, the Sierra Club pointed out. Mexico City-based Grupo Mexico acquired New York-based Asarco in 1999. The company's mining includes operations in Montana and Arizona. On the Net: International Uranium: http://www.intluranium.com Copyright 2001, The Arizona Republic. All rights reserved Gannett ***************************************************************** 32 SEC Blasts House for Passing Energy Plan U.S. Newswire 2 Aug 14:16 Sustainable Energy Coalition Blasts House Of Representatives For Passing A Shortsighted And Dirty Energy Plan To: National Desk Contact: Jamie Shor of the Sustainable Energy Coalition, 202-299-0577 WASHINGTON, Aug. 2 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The Sustainable Energy Coalition (SEC) today expressed its tremendous disappointment with the energy bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives. The bill sets back national energy policy by giving hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks to oil, natural gas, mining and nuclear power industries despite concerns from business and environmental leaders and technical experts that such actions are substandard public policy. The following are a few examples of why the bill is a dirty energy plan: -- Three-fourths of the $33.5 billion energy tax credits approved by the House go to the fossil and nuclear industries. The Wall Street Journal reported July 30th that the big oil companies are struggling to spend their cash as they reap their largest profits ever. Royal Dutch/Shell Group, for example, is earning $1.5 million in profit an hour and has $11 billion in the bank -- The House defeated an amendment that would have required significant increases in fuel economy standards for cars and light trucks. Instead, the bill includes a token 1-mile per gallon increase in standards for SUVs only. -- The bill would open up the pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drill for what will yield only a six-month supply of oil over several decades. "It is astonishing that in the 21st century we are still relying in many ways on century-old technologies to serve our energy needs," said Susanna Drayne, National Coordinator of the Sustainable Energy Coalition. "The bill 's emphasis on fossil fuels is shortsighted, detrimental to public health and the environment, and is corporate welfare of the worst order. Why spend billions of dollars on the highly profitable dirtiest polluters with the most mature markets? The backers of this plan clearly define nuclear power as an innovative technology rather than the health and safety threat it is." In short, the bill fails to develop a national energy policy that addresses climate change, environmental protection, national security, or economic development. The plan passed by the House calls for insufficient investment in renewable energy technologies such as biomass, geothermal, hydropower, solar, and wind, and inadequate commitment to energy efficiency technologies. This is not a balanced energy policy - it tips a highly unbalanced playing field even further. The Bush Administration's focus on building new power plants and drilling for more oil will not solve the nation's energy problems alone. "Both building and drilling take years until they yield an energy supply, and even then, much of the work is purely speculative." Drayne noted. "Both also contribute significantly to the degradation of the environment. Given the nation's current immediate energy needs and worsening global warming, now is not the time to de-emphasize energy efficiency and renewable energy programs." While the rest of the world has agreed that global warming emissions must be reduced, the House bill would result in increased emissions. The Sustainable Energy Coalition brings together more than 30 national business, environmental, consumer, and energy policy organizations. Founded in 1992, the Coalition promotes increased federal support for energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies and reduced federal support for unsafe or polluting energy resources. Coalition members advocate federal energy policies that will lead to a cleaner environment, safe reliable energy technologies, and a secure, prosperous future for all Americans. /U.S. Newswire 202-347-2770/ ***************************************************************** 33 Ky. Uranium Workers Reject Contract Las Vegas SUN August 02, 2001 PADUCAH, Ky. (AP) - Hourly workers at Paducah's U.S. Enrichment Corp. plant rejected a five-year contract proposal from the company Thursday but will not go on strike immediately, a union official said. David Fuller, president of Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy (PACE) Workers Union Local 5-550, said the workers "overwhelmingly" rejected the offer. Fuller would not give the final tally but said 657 of about 700 union workers cast ballots. "We have notified the company of the rejection of the offer and expressed to them the overwhelming margin by which it was rejected," Fuller said. The main sticking point with the workers was wording in the proposal that said the company would only renew the contract after the first year if it was successful in meeting certain terms to buy uranium from Russia. Fuller said that part of the deal was "a little bit of a slap in the face" for workers and was "an issue that should be decided between governments." The workers were also disappointed in the contract's terms for overtime compensation and medical benefits, Fuller said. "This was a substandard contract proposal regardless of the Russian aspect," Fuller said. Negotiations between company and union officials will begin Wednesday in Paducah, he said. The workers will show up for work on Friday and continue working "as long as there is hope," Fuller said. "We've decided to work day-to-day for some length of time," Fuller said. "But we made it clear we may strike ay any time with one day's notice. The union is angry, somewhat insulted and very unified." USEC spokeswoman Elizabeth Stuckle said the company wants to quickly find a contract proposal "that is satisfactory to all." "We will work with the union very hard," Stuckle said after the vote. She said if the company fails to land the contract with Russia, it would be forced to make concessions "out of economic necessity." The union represents nearly half of the plant's 1,500 workers. Production was stopped at USEC's uranium enrichment plant in Piketon, Ohio, early this summer because of a market glut for nuclear plant fuel. USEC, created in the early 1990s as a government corporation with the mission of restructuring the government's uranium enrichment operation, went private in 1998. On the Net: U.S. Enrichment Corp.: http://www.usec.com Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers International Union: http://www.paceunion.org All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 34 Guinn asks Abraham to stop work at Yucca Mountain Las Vegas SUN August 02, 2001 LAS VEGAS (AP) - Gov. Kenny Guinn has asked Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham to stop work at Yucca Mountain while an independent investigation is conducted into an alleged conflict of interest involving a Chicago-based law firm. Winston &Strawn was hired by the Energy Department to review licensing documents required by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission regarding Yucca Mountain while it also lobbied for the nuclear industry, Guinn wrote in a Wednesday letter to Abraham. The DOE has spent $7 billion studying Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, as the sole site for a proposed high-level nuclear repository for 77,000 tons of radioactive waste over a 20-year period. Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., also on Wednesday called for a DOE inspector general's investigation into the allegations. Inspector general spokeswoman Wilma Slaughter said the agency is independent and conducts fact-finding investigations. "We have no authority to suspend or cancel a contract," she said. Abraham or contracting officer Craig Frame could suspend the contract, Slaughter said. In a separate letter Wednesday, Ensign and Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., asked the DOE to terminate Winston &Strawn's contract. "What troubles me and most Americans who face the potential of nuclear waste rolling through their communities is that this apparent conflict of interest jeopardizes the public trust in DOE's ability to make an unbiased, independent assessment," Reid said. The DOE hired Winston &Strawn for $16.5 million in September 1999 to complete legal work related to licensing issues involving Yucca Mountain. From 1996 to July 11 the firm also represented the Nuclear Energy Institute - the nuclear power trade group - before Congress, the NRC and the Environmental Protection Agency on various nuclear issues, according to congressional records. The law firm also represented former Yucca contractor TRW, a company managing the Yucca project for DOE from 1992 to 1999. "It might be that such a review will conclude DOE's entire program has been so prejudiced that any further consideration of Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waste repository must come to an end," Guinn wrote. DOE spokeswoman Jille Schroeder said the agency received Guinn's letter late Wednesday, but department officials had no comment. The inspector general recently completed an investigation into a conflict of interest charge against the DOE for attempting, in an anonymous two-page memo attached to a Yucca scientific report, to sell the idea for the repository to Congress. The inspector general in April ruled that there was no conflict. Reps. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., and Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., on Wednesday successfully kept DOE's Yucca budget under annual congressional review. The DOE asked to take Yucca funding out of the routine budgeting process, a move that would have allowed the agency to finish its studies by spending the remaining $10 billion in a special fund set up in 1982. Reid has already slashed a $445 million DOE request for this year to $275 million, although a joint congressional committee must still approve DOE's budget. "The best way to delay the program is to cut the funding," Ensign said. Information from: Las Vegas Sun All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 Group launches isotope use effort This story was published Fri, Aug 3, 2001 By Annette Cary Herald staff writer A Tri-City-based group is launching an effort to educate the public and professionals about the promise of using isotopes often produced in nuclear reactors to treat cancer. A CD-ROM prepared by Citizens for Medical Isotopes will be given to political leaders, doctors and others who may not understand the term "medical isotopes." The CD includes national news stories touting medical breakthroughs in cancer treatment using isotopes. "Lifeline tonight -- a radical new treatment for breast cancer that is faster, less traumatic and less invasive," announces NBC anchor Tom Brokaw in one segment. The CD ends with a plug for the reactor that could meet growing demand for the medicine: Hanford's Fast Flux Test Facility. On Wednesday, the Department of Energy announced it will consider a proposal by a consortium of private companies to use the Hanford reactor primarily for making medical and industrial isotopes. Although many in the Tri-Cities support restarting FFTF for such a humanitarian mission, environmental groups want DOE to stick to cleaning up contamination left at Hanford from World War II and the Cold War. Short-lived isotopes, which emit radiation, can be used in very small amounts as medicine to kill cancer cells without killing as many healthy cells as more conventional treatments. "These treatments are much gentler on patients and often work after a 30-second injection," said Marlene Oliver of West Richland of the National Association of Cancer Patients. Medical isotopes have shown promise in treating many cancers, but the CD concentrates on advances in breast cancer and non-Hodgkins lymphoma, the second leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States. Two non-Hodgkins lymphoma treatments may be close to U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval. One uses Yttrium 90 as its radiation source, which usually comes from nuclear waste left by reactors at Hanford or in Russia. In those treatments, the isotope is attached to an antibody that seeks out the cancer. The isotope then bombards the cell with deadly radiation. Some patients are left with no sign of cancer. A similar "smart bullet" treatment for breast cancer has shown promise, although a lack of available copper 67 isotopes has slowed research, said Bob Schenter of Richland, also a member of the National Association of Cancer Patients. But breast cancer also is being treated experimentally using radioactive seeds similar to those used to treat prostate cancer. Women who opt for a partial removal of their breast also often need radiation. But rather than weeks of traditional radiation that can leave burns, some women have been successfully treated with tiny seeds of radiation injected into the at-risk area several times over about a week. Citizens for Medical Isotopes also has produced a public service announcement with the help of Charter Cable that it will ask Northwest television stations to air. Copyright 2001 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This ***************************************************************** 2 Report critiques Hanford technology development This story was published Fri, Aug 3, 2001 By John Stang Herald staff writer Hanford's science and technology development appears to have a good running start, but those efforts still have a long way to go, concluded a National Research Council report released Thursday. The report focused on dealing with Hanford's underground contaminants with a small part looking at preparing to deal with rare, but major disasters. The Department of Energy requested that the nonprofit, independent National Research Council look at how Hanford is developing the technical abilities to analyze and deal with these matters. "Although (Hanford's science and technology) program has made a good start, its success is by no means guaranteed," the report said. The report noted some research efforts are under way at Hanford, but some programs exist only on paper. However, the report said Hanford's experts appear to have identified the important problems and knowledge gaps, so the research efforts are headed in the right direction. The report observed that developing new technologies is a low priority in Hanford's budgeting. In fiscal 2001, science and technology development accounted for $4.6 million out of the site's $1.456 billion budget. That's 0.3 percent of the site's spending in 2001. And the report noted there is no guarantee that this small amount of funding will be stable from year to year. Hanford's subterranean problems are hard for scientists to get a grasp on. The site has 177 underground radioactive waste tanks, the majority of which are prone to leak, plus hundreds of ditches, trenches, cribs and ponds where radioactive and hazardous chemicals were dumped. Overall, at least 1 million gallons of highly radioactive wastes and 440 billion gallons of contaminated water have seeped into the ground at Hanford. So far, more than 100 different radioactive and nonradioactive substances have reached the aquifer to seep toward the Columbia River or are oozing down to the aquifer. About 200 square miles of Hanford's aquifer are contaminated, with about 100 square miles contaminated above drinking standards. Hanford's subterranean contamination is a three-dimensional problem with fluids oozing vertically, horizontally and diagonally at different speeds and mixtures through cracks and different types of soils. Hanford's experts track and map these underground contaminants with data from wells and a lot of educated guesses that are plugged into computer programs. So Hanford's science and technology development efforts focus on better ways to track those contaminants and how to remove them from the soil. Right now, most of Hanford's soil fix-it efforts are stop-gap measures until something better can be developed. The National Research Council's report said Hanford needs to concentrate more on finding cost-effective ways to study, track and map subterranean contaminants, creating barriers to block those substances from seeping to the Columbia River and prioritizing problems to be tackled. The report also said more research is needed on possible major catastrophes that Hanford faces from huge fires, floods, earthquakes and even the next ice age, which should bring glaciers back to Hanford before all the long-lived radioactive substances can decay to benign levels. Copyright 2001 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This ***************************************************************** 3 DOE examines proposal to lease FFTF This story was published Fri, Aug 3, 2001 By Annette Cary Herald staff writer The Department of Energy is considering a proposal by Advanced Nuclear & Medical Systems of Richland to lease Hanford's Fast Flux Test Facility for 35 years. ANMS is proposing using financing provided by organized labor, importing fuel from Europe and providing operations and services by a team of companies experienced in nuclear-related work. Duke Engineering & Services Inc. of Charlotte, N.C., would operate the Department of Energy reactor, said Bill Stokes, president of ANMS. Duke Engineering is one of the largest nuclear engineering companies in the United States and a subsidiary of Duke Energy, which has seven commercial nuclear reactors in the Carolinas. Other team members with Duke and ANMS include Fluor Federal Services Inc. of Richland, Nuclear Fuel Services Inc. of Erwin, Tenn., and Science Applications International Corp. Inc., or SAIC, of San Diego. The Fast Flux Test Facility has been idle since 1992 for lack of a government use for the reactor. In January, the Clinton administration ordered it permanently shut down, saying it had not found sufficient interest from companies that need isotopes to restart the reactor. Maintaining it for a possible restart costs about $40 million a year. However, the Bush administration suspended that decision for 90 days to gather new information, including whether money could be found to offset the government's costs. On Wednesday, DOE announced it was interested in one of the proposals that targeted the reactor's use for commercial medical isotope production. DOE will spend 60 days evaluating the proposal. "The ANMS commercialization approach offers the DOE an alternative approach to dependency on federal funding and shifts significant risk from the government to the private sector," Stokes wrote in a letter to DOE. Money for the project is proposed to come from the Compass Group in Spokane, said Mel Chapman, chairman of the political action committee of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers No. 112. Compass is interested in providing a $200 million construction loan for the project, subject to due diligence, which would validate numbers and review the contract, Stokes said. The money would be used for plant restart and initial operations, according to the proposal. Compass, which is owned by Washington Capital Management Inc., serves as an investment advisory firm to building trade pension trust funds. It provides construction financing to projects using organized labor and permanent financing. In addition, ANMS is in talks with a private company that recently began considering investing, Stokes said. "We felt $200 million is adequate based on the initial analysis," Stokes said. However, the proposal to DOE said ANMS would pursue increasing the construction loan from $200 million to $325 million. The deal also calls for DOE to continue providing $40 million a year in standby costs for three years, until the private team assumes control of the reactor. Money raised by ANMS would provide for all restart costs, according to the proposal. DOE would continue to own FFTF but would transfer the title of the Fuels and Materials Examination Facility, or FMEF, and other related surplus facilities, such as laboratories and offices, to ANMS. ANMS would establish a trust fund of $400 million for deactivation and monitoring of FFTF and FMEF. In place of lease payments, ANMS would reserve 10 percent of reactor capacity to support nuclear science and research programs. After the reactor is operating, ANMS would establish a trust fund tied to isotope revenues to support medical isotope research. The proposal estimates by the fifth year of steady operation, $15 million to $25 million would be contributed to the fund annually. SBK, a consortium representing German, Belgian and Dutch utilities, has signed a letter of intent to provide fuel from a stalled fast breeder reactor project, according to the letter to DOE. The fuel, valued at $125 million to $150 million, would provide FFTF fuel for 20 years after current inventories for the Hanford reactor are used. This is the second time ANMS has proposed private operation of the Richland reactor. ANMS gave DOE a similar proposal unsolicited in 1997, but then FFTF was being considered to produce tritium for weapons, which ANMS proposed as a bridge to using the reactor for medical production. ANMS also proposed importing fuel from Europe then. "Our primary core mission since 1995 has been focused on medical isotope production," Stokes said Thursday. Medical isotopes can be used to deliver precisely placed radiation to treat cancer and other diseases. They also are used widely in medical imaging to make diagnoses of diseases. The reactor also would be used for making other commercial isotopes, such as those used for irradiating food, and as a nuclear materials testing facility, Stokes said. That could include testing of fuel in experiments to reprocess nuclear waste for nuclear energy production in a way that would leave plutonium in a form that could not be used for nuclear bombs. Copyright 2001 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This ***************************************************************** 4 Tensions Flare Over Bomb Exercises Las Vegas SUN August 03, 2001 VIEQUES, Puerto Rico- U.S. Navy security personnel fired rubber bullets and tear gas at protesters and journalists on Vieques island, sparking debate over the military's latest use of force and its resumption of maneuvers on the outlying Puerto Rican island. Protesters tried to break into a restricted area on Thursday night, the Navy said, prompting security personnel to fire tear gas, bean bags and rubber bullets to disperse the crowd. The projectiles were fired only after the protesters fired a flare toward the base, shined bright lights at the officers and tried to break into the fence, the Navy said. Tomas van Houtryve, a photographer for The Associated Press, was hit in the arm by a rubber bullet as he ran away from guards firing tear gas. He had been covering the protests and the start of the maneuvers. Van Houtryve said the protesters only shook the fence and yelled at the Navy when security personnel fired a flare, canisters of tear gas and then three rubber bullets at the fleeing crowd. "There were people cutting the fence (on the range), throwing rocks at the security force and vehicles, and pushing on the fence," said Navy spokeswoman, Lt. Cmdr. Katherine Goode. "As a result the security forces perceived this as threat to harm military personnel." But according to Van Houtryve, protesters didn't have any tools to cut the fence and didn't fire any flares. Photographers did use bright flashes to take pictures, he said. "We are continuously getting second-guessed by people," said Navy spokesman Bob Nelson. "The use of force was appropriate because a flare was launched at them, the protesters were tearing down federal property and rocks were being thrown. The Puerto Rican police department is supposed to help quell this but unfortunately we're not getting that." On Friday morning, authorities detained six protesters who were caught trespassing on Purple Beach, a restricted area on the northern coast of Vieques. The Navy said protesters had thrown homemade bombs and rocks at the base. At least 21 protesters managed to invade Navy land bordering the bombing range to try to stop exercises, according to protest groups. Some activists spoke out Friday against the Navy's use of rubber bullets and tear gas. "This is another act of brutality and violence on the part of the Navy," said Robert Rabin, an anti-Navy activist. "There was no doubt that this was an abuse of power because the military knew that there were journalists (in the crowd)." The latest exercises, which could last until Aug. 10, involve ship-to-shore shelling, air-to-ground bombing and beach assaults, making the maneuvers some of the biggest since a civilian guard was killed by off-target bombs on the range in 1999. His death sparked island-wide protests on the 18-mile-long island of Vieques and on the main island. The Navy has trained on Vieques for every major conflict from World War II to Kosovo, and today uses Puerto Rico as a base to fight drug traffickers. On Sunday, nearly 70 percent of Vieques residents voted for an immediate end to the bombing. Thirty percent supported the Navy remaining indefinitely and resuming bombing with live munitions. President Bush has promised the Navy will leave Vieques by 2003. But in the nonbinding local referendum on the bombing, only 1.7 percent of voters among Vieques 9,100 residents backed his plan. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 5 Legal Action Possible For Veterans NewsRoom.co.nz Agency Story at 5:33pm, 3rd August 2001 There is a possibility New Zealand Navy veterans exposed to nuclear testing could take legal action against the British government. The sailors have suffered health problems which are now thought to be related to their exposure to radiation while witnessing Britain's nuclear bomb testing in the Pacific in 1957 and 1958. The veterans' lawyer, Gordon Paine, said he has sought opinion from legal counsel in Britain to see if a compensation claim could proceed. He said they have agreed such a claim is justifiable. However, Mr Paine said the veterans still face a considerable hurdle as they must decide how their legal challenge, which is likely to be expensive and lengthy, will be funded. (c) NewsRoom 2001 wapnews.co.nz ***************************************************************** 6 Atomic bombings topic of discussion PennLive.com: The Express-Times News More From The Express-Times 08/03/01 Members and friends of the LEPOCO Peace Center today will gather to remember the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that took place in 1945, according to a news release from the organization. The program is scheduled for 7 tonight at Morning Star Center, 1966 Creek Road, Bethlehem. The gathering will include two videos that assess the current danger of the nuclear age. It will also feature music, discussion and reflection. The public is invited. The group Angels Against Star Wars will observe the actual bombing anniversaries, Aug. 6 and 9, by handing out leaflets. LEPOCO is the Lehigh-Pocono Committee of Concern, an organization that has been locally active on peace and justice issues since 1965. MORE FROM THE EXPRESS-TIMES Today's News | Express-Times Links With Us © 2001 PennLive. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 7 IAAP radiological survey 'remarkably clean' The Hawk Eye Newspaper August 3, 2001 By Dennis J. Carroll The Hawk Eye • Report details scrutiny of Oak Ridge lab one year ago. A radiological survey of buildings formerly used to make nuclear weapons at the Middletown munitions plant found the structures to be "remarkably clean" considering what they were used for, the project's manager said Thursday. David Bourne, the Department of Energy's manager for the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant, recently released the final report on the survey conducted about a year ago by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. He said the final report mirrors the preliminary report issued a year ago. That report cited localized minor contamination by depleted uranium in three buildings once used to assemble and ship nuclear weapons, but found nothing deemed to be dangerous. "No immediate threat to human health was discovered during the survey," the final report said. Depleted uranium is the material that occurs when the fissionable isotope is removed from natural uranium, thus its radiation level is much lower than the natural uranium. The only threats in the buildings, Bourne said, would be "the nasty, damp, moldy atmosphere, not radiation," Bourne said. Radiation levels were "much less" than contained in a camping lantern mantle, which contains thorium. Two of the three buildings no longer are used by workers, and the "slightly elevated" radiation level in the third building is confined to a small concrete floor seam, Bourne said. The structure is known as building 1-12 Bay CC. Bourne said the contamination could be left over from the nuclear production work done by the Atomic Energy Commission up until the mid-1970s or the result of past and current munitions work by the Army. The Army continues to use depleted uranium in the manufacturing of 120 mm and 105 mm antitank shells, and Building 1-12 Bay CC has been used for that purpose, Army officials have said. Dan McGhee of the Iowa Department of Public Health's Radiological Bureau concurred with Bourne's assessment of the survey. For the depleted uranium to pose any threat, the concrete would have to be torn up and the uranium inhaled in the dust, McGhee said. The Hawk Eye 800 S. 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