***************************************************************** N/03/01 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 9.259 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER CONTENTS 1 LETTER NEEDED NOW TO STOP DOE FROM "RECYCLING" RAD WASTE INTO CONSUMER PRODUCTS 2 MAIL IRRADIATION BEGUN: DAMAGING/UNKNOWN EFFECTS 3 Taguchi: PETT, YMP oversight funding appear secure 4 Too Much Cancer In Prairie Grove 5 Conquer the fear 6 Nuclear police force will gain new stop-and-search powers 7 Ukrainian nuclear engineers sacked after rise in emergencies 8 Bulgaria: Counter-terrorism drill planned at Kozloduy nuclear 9 Experts Agree on the Need to Safeguard Nuclear Sites 10 Is Koeberg terrorist proof? 11 Flight ban lift spurs exodus 12 Race against time on N-safety 13 The nuclear ghostbuster 14 No reactor under Labor: Beazley 15 AP A target? The Three Mile Island nuclear power plant 16 NRC Staff Proposes $3,000 Fine Against the University of 17 NRC Cites Nuclear Management Company For Safety Violation At 18 Government call for closure of Sellafield 19 NRC Seeks Public Input on Environmental Statement For Proposed 20 Two Gauges Containing Radioactive Material Reported Stolen in 21 NRC Sends Special Inspection Team to TMI 22 NRC Concurs on Doe's Proposed Final Siting Guidelines for Yucca 23 Rep. Wants More Nuclear Plant Guards 24 Experts Urge Nations on Nuke Security 25 Nuclear terror newest worry 26 Threat of Nuclear Terrorism Is Growing, Experts Warn 27 Experts Discuss Chances of Nuclear Terrorism 28 St. Clair and Cockburn: Atomic Trains Grounded 29 N-terror: 'Clear and present danger' - 30 Abraham Praises Important Progress on Reauthorization of Price-Anderson Act 31 Call for no-fly zones over nuclear power stations 32 Fed Govt called to define 'co-location' in nuclear waste dump 33 US awakens to a rogue nuclear threat 34 'Dirty' bombs latest fear 35 Nuclear terrorism a new public concern 36 UN warns of nuclear terror threat 37 Increased fears over Sellafield 38 Race against time on N-safety NUCLEAR WEAPONS CONTENTS 1 Russian minister takes Kursk documents away for "extremely 2 FAA bans most flights at airport 3 National Security Order Shuts Down San Jose, Calif.-Area Airports 4 US offers nuclear protection to Pakistan 5 Pakistan Releases 3 Scientists Questioned on Ties to Taliban 6 Opinion: Threat to (Pakistani) nukes 7 Film: France Gave Israel Nuclear Bomb 8 Missiles may guard nuclear facilities, Minister says 9 Four in 10 Muslims in UK justify Osama 10 DOD Issues Information Paper on Depleted Uranium in Balkans 11 Secretary Abraham Highlights Converting Weapons-Related Legacy 12 Kursk's Dents Said Not From Crash 13 Radioactive theft 14 'US commandos forced to flee back' ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 LETTER NEEDED NOW TO STOP DOE FROM "RECYCLING" RAD WASTE INTO CONSUMER PRODUCTS Date: Sat, 3 Nov 2001 05:19:29 -0500 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal ONGOING THREAT OF NUCLEAR WINTER IS THE BEST ARGUMENT FOR NUCLEAR ABOLITION: http://www.mothersalert.org/nuclearwinter.html MOTHERSALERT HOME PAGE: http://www.mothersalert.org & http://www.mothersalert.org/moreinfo.html USA SPACE COMMAND & "Vision 2020," THE US PLAN TO DOMINATE EARTH FROM SPACE & PROMOTE MORE TERRORISM: http://www.spacecom.af.mil/usspace (apologies for multiple posting) Dept of Energy Comment deadline NOV 9 Here is quick action you can take to help stop and prevent nuke waste getting dispersed and mixed into everything around us: A) Comment to the Department of Energy (DOE) by NOV 9, 2001 on their environmental impact statement 'scoping' process. AND B) even more importantly, SEND A COPY TO YOUR FEDERAL AND STATE elected REPresentative and SENATORS so they know what you think of what DOE is up to!! ALERT: NOW is our chance (UNTIL NOV 9 2001) To tell DOE How Much Radioactive Contamination from nuclear weapons sites we want Dispersed, "Recycled," Released into our daily-use items, raw materials and regular trash. Comment deadline is now NOV. 9, 2001 Send comments and resolutions by EMAIL to: Metals.Disposition.PEIS@em.doe.gov By Fax to: 301-903-9770 ATTN: Radmetals Disposition PEIS (Send NIRS and your Congressmembers a copy too!) The US Department of Energy (DOE): 1) has been "releasing"/dispersing some radioactively contaminated materials into general commerce for decades: Mixed radioactive and hazardous wastes have gone to facilities designed to take only hazardous materials. An early 1990's temporary moratorium on releasing mixed wastes was subsequently silently lifted (allowing contaminated materials out again). Radioactive concrete, metal, soil, plastics, chemicals, asphalt, buildings and properties and more have been permitted to be released from DOE controls on a "case-by-case" basis at the discretion of the DOE field office managers, regional DOE offices and, in some cases, DOE Environmental Health officials at headquarters. Sometimes the materials would be released directly to unlicensed waste facilities or recyclers; sometimes they would go to Nuclear Regulatory Commission and NRC Agreement State-licensed processors who can then release them. 2) placed a moratorium on the release of volumetrically contaminated metals in January 2000 and a suspension on the recycling of potentially surface contaminated metals in July of 2000. Although these were steps in the right direction, some metals and all other types of contaminated materials continue to be released. DOE wants to lift the moratorium and suspension and resume releasing contaminated metals. 3) has been using 1974 Atomic Energy Commission guidance (Regulatory Guide 1.86) with DOE's own internal adaptations to justify releasing radioactively contaminated materials and wastes into unregulated commerce: DOE silently adopted revisions to its internal Order 5400.5 in the early 1990s that allow DOE at various levels to "authorize" the release from controls of contaminated materials. (Chapters 3 and 4 of DOE internal Order 5400.5) DOE considered but put off adding two more chapters to its internal Order in late 2000, in an effort to justify lifting the moratorium and suspension on radioactive metal release/recycling. 4) decided to do a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement on the release of radioactive metals, the goal being to end the suspension on their release-that is resume letting them out. Comment deadline is now NOV. 9, 2001 Federal Register announcement of the proposed PEIS 66 FR 134: 36562-36566 Thursday July 12, 2001; FAX comments to 301-903-9770 ATTN: Radmetals Disposition PEIS MAIL comments to: Kenneth Picha Jr. EM-22 /Office of Technical Program Integration/ Attn: Metals Disposition PEIS/Office of Envtal Management/US Dept of Energy/ 1000 Independence Ave SW Washington, DC 20585-0113 EMAIL: Metals.Disposition.PEIS@em.doe.gov 5) is only looking at the narrow issue of recycling metal from "control" areas in the Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement, and assuming that its existing 'release' practices are acceptable. This must be challenged. NIRS Concerns: All options listed in the draft scope of the PEIS allow radioactive metals out. All options allow other radioactive materials out of DOE and contractor sites into everyday commerce. An option must be added that completely prohibits release of all contaminated materials and wastes from DOE and contractor sites. PEIS should cover all radioactive waste and materials released for disposal or recycle or reuse from any part of DOE sites...And should prohibit such releases. Time-line is too short (even with extension to Nov. 9th) -Request additional extension. Call on DOE to include evaluation of health effects, pain and suffering, costs and concerns by all exposed and potentially exposed members of the population in this and all future genertations. Demand projection of synergistic health effects (from being exposed to radioactive and other poisons simaltaneously). Demand evaluation, not dismissal impacts of reduced immunity due to low, continuous doses. Demand whatever you think DOE should consider in evaluating the impacts of radioactive materials randomly and routinely in contact with us, our kids and grandkids and theirs, our pets, wildlife, our food, whatever scenarios you can imagine. Public Meetings were nearly all in DOE areas and with minimal public notice--Impacts will be on the rest of the country as well, so should hear from other areas that will receive the wastes as garbage or daily use items! **Demand DOE come clean on the bias already shown in this PEIS process--by releasing the information on the contractors hired and the approach being taken on this whole review. (DOE originally hired a company that makes money from nuclear materials being released into commerce to evaluate whether or not to allow the practice (SAIC)!! They cancelled that contract but have refused to provide any information on how that company was selected and what conflict-of -interest reviews were done. They have since hired another contractor and THAT contract is being legally challenged--yet they proceed with this process regardless. To get on DOE's list for further notice on this PEIS contact Metals Disposition PEIS More info: Diane D'Arrigo Nuclear Information and Resource Service 1424 16th St NW Suite 404 Washington, DC 20036; 202 328-0002 ext 16; dianed@nirs.org www.nirs.org (see second yellow URGENT icon for more info and NIRS comments). Diane D'Arrigo Nuclear Information & Resource Service 1424 16th Street NW Suite 404 Washington DC 20036 USA Fax: 202 462 2183 Work: 202 328-0002 ext 16 ***************************************************************** 2 MAIL IRRADIATION BEGUN: DAMAGING/UNKNOWN EFFECTS Date: Sat, 3 Nov 2001 09:23:38 -0600 (CST) This article doesn't mention the following effects (from an earlier message via the Organic Issues list entitled simply "Mail irradiation?"): Staples and paper clips could become "unacceptably" radioactive, and the process may not even be effective at all. Food sent in the mail, especially meat, cheese or fruit, could turn into mush. And workers would have to be protected from lung-damaging ozone, which is released in the radiation process. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Biotech Activists (biotech_activists@iatp.org) Posted: 11/03/2001 By lhopwood@earthlink.net ============================================================ PLEASE FORWARD: The USPS has already started to irradiate our mail. It is using 3 million rads for this process. The maximum allowable dose of irradiation used on food products ranges from 1 t0 30 kilogreys. One grey equals 100 rads. 30 greys equals 3000 rads. 30 kilogreys equals 3,000,000 rads. To give a comparison, the government allows 1 kilogrey to be used on pork products, which is the equivalent of 100,000 rads. This means the government is requiring the mail to be irradiated at the maximum allowable level for food products. At the present time, the USPS has employed Titan Corporation for the irradiation process. The following is a list of materials that will be effected by "beam effects" of irradiation. (This is what "is known." A question might be, what isn't known??) Initial Beam Effects Summary Titan Corporation San Diego HQ phone number: 858-586-6666 PHARMACEUTICALS: Pharmaceuticals respond differently to e-beam irradiation based on their structure and the radiation stability that such structure implies. Since anthrax destruction requires a fairly high dose, due to the inherent radiation resistance of the anthrax spores, **it is likely that many pharmaceuticals will show a reduction in their efficacy and/or stability.** SMART CARDS, CHIPS: In general, controlled applications of low dose e-beam irradiation have been successfully used in semiconductor manufacturing to increase switching speeds as an alternative to gold doping. High dose effects are expected to be deleterious. Specifically, with respect to the effect of higher-dose e-beam irradiation on Smart Cards, in a 1997 Bellcore study, researchers discovered that applying ionizing radiation to a smart card's embedded chip can make it vulnerable to reverse engineering, allowing the data on the chips to be stolen. The radiation is apparently likely to cause voltages inside the card to fluctuate, thus causing code execution faults and rendering it vulnerable to the mathematical techniques used by cryptographers to extract information stored in the card, including the key used to authenticate the legitimacy of that card. DATA STORAGE: **Irradiating magnetic data storage media (e.g., floppy disks, data tapes, VHS tapes) will erase their data,** whereas irradiating digital storage devices (e.g., CD's) will not. Some data suggests that not all credit card magnetic strips may be negatively impacted. In terms of physical properties (e.g., warpage, tensile properties) of the media, CD's and DVD's are typically made of polycarbonate, a radiation-resistant polymer (in the type of dose range being used for anthrax). However, polycarbonate-based materials, **including some eyeglass lenses,** will develop coloration, typically of the yellow/orange/brown variety. PHOTO FILM: E-beam irradiation **will, in fact, expose unprocessed photographic film in a similar manner as sunlight.** However, unlike sunlight, highly energetic electrons have the ability to **penetrate even opaque packaging materials and affect their contents.** Developed negatives are likely to show coloration, typically of the yellow/ orange/brown variety, upon irradiation. GLASS & GEMSTONES: Irradiation will produce coloration of glass and gemstones, the exact color and intensity being dependent on the nature of the mineral impurities within the matrix. E-beam irradiation is currently used commercially to convert colorless topaz to deep blue using very high doses. At lower dose levels, most glass/crystal will turn a shade of gold or brown. HEAT GENERATION: Heat effects of e-beam irradiation are dependent on dose and the inherent specific heat of the material in question. For example, polyethylene irradiated to doses high enough to deactivate anthrax would heat up by about 17 degrees C. ***************************************************************** 3 Taguchi: PETT, YMP oversight funding appear secure Pahrump Valley Times By RICH THURLOW, EditorNovember 02, 2001 The likelihood that Dept. of Energy funding for the Yucca Mountain Project won't be as high as requested by the Bush administration does not necessarily mean Nye County will suffer, Commission Chairman Jeff Taguchi said Wednesday. Taguchi, in Washington, D.C., along with Commissioner Henry Neth to lobby on Nye's behalf, said he has not reason to believe the Dept. of Energy's Payment Equal to Taxes agreement will be impacted if the lower budget figure is approved. Taguchi is also optimistic Nye County will continue to receive funding to conduct its own independent site characterization study on Yucca Mountain. Yucca Mountain is the only site being studied as a repository for 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste. The Bush administration was seeking $445 million for YMP issues, which would be used for site recommendation and a license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Congressional negotiators this week settled on $375 million. Nye County is in the middle of a four-year, $38 million PETT agreement. PETT is the theoretical amount that would be paid in taxes if work at Yucca Mountain were being conducted by a non-government entity. The bulk of the $10 million Nye received in January was placed in a number of endowment funds, and another $10 million is expected in January. Nye County has also used federal funds to conduct its own oversight on the geology at Yucca Mountain, and now uses much of the money to drill wells designed to trace the possible flow of contaminants from the Nevada Test Site into Amargosa Valley. Taguchi said PETT hadn't been specifically addressed in talks he's had. "I can't speak for DOE, but I believe it (the agreement) will be honored." Oversight funding should also continue to flow to the county, Taguchi said, "simply because we are getting closer and closer to site recommendation." Nye's lobbying efforts have focused on the successes of its own oversight program, and "the fact we have a different relationship" regarding Yucca Mountain. The commissioners have adopted a position of neutrality in regard to the YMP, Taguchi noted, which is almost universally opposed by other government bodies in the state. "We feel that relationship keeps the doors open and the lines of communication very, very clear," Taguchi said. "I believe we'll be OK with oversight funding and PETT. There hasn't been any indication in the meetings that they are in jeopardy." ©Pahrump Valley Times 2001 ***************************************************************** 4 Too Much Cancer In Prairie Grove KARK-TV: One Too Many Cancer Cases In Prairie Grove Story by Deanna Durante Posted 11/2/01 5:01:00 PM Too many cancer cases too close to home. One Washington County town has asked the health department to investigate. State health workers say a cancer cluster is unusual, but the people of Prairie Grove say they have more than their fair share of cancer cases. Now, the Health Department has to do a little detective work. Reed Smith and his friend Blu Green have more in common than just a love of basketball; both teens are friends, both live in the same town, and both have cancer. The difference is Blu has leukemia, Reed, testicular cancer. And while they try to forget, their parents and the town want to make sure we don't. Fourteen-year-old Austin died last summer from a brain tumor, and people in the town have pushed for an investigation. Is there a reason why so many young people have cancer? Sue Casteel, and environmental epidemiologist, says "nuclear waste, abandoned wells in the enviroment...," those are some of the concerns...and after talking to more than 100 people, the Health Department says now its detective work will begin. As for Blu and Reed, they're worried this news will give a bad wrap to the town, the two also share of love for. "I don't want anybody to be scared to come here it's a good place to live." Ten health workers were at Prairie Grove talked with people Thursday night. They have the job of going through the data submitted by more than 100 people. The information from those people will be matched up with the state's cancer registry and information from local doctors as well. All content © Copyright 2000, 2001, KARK-TV, Little Rock, Arkansas. ***************************************************************** 5 Conquer the fear The Guardian - United Kingdom; Nov 3, 2001 He detailed his mission: "We must be bold enough to ensure that the facts of what we do conquer the fear of what we are thought to do." His goal: to resurrect abandoned government plans to take BNFL to the market. And he is confident that this can happen some time in 2004 or 2005. Or he was. The controversial decision to put Railtrack into administration, industry insiders say, has set back the public-private partnership for BNFL - which would see 49% of the company sold off - for an indefinite period. That gives Collum more time to push through his root and branch reforms. "It's been a very challenging and fascinating two years," he says coyly of why he took on the poisoned chalice. "I believe we have had the opportunity to start to change this company and we have built a much stronger management structure and appointed a completely new board . . . a management that is much more accountable and knows where its responsibilities rest." That completed task is just the start, and one imposed by ministers who had lost all confidence in BNFL. Collum admits that he and his team have a long way to go, not least in convincing the government of their strategy. "If the company is going to be privatised - and that's still our objective - we have to restructure the balance sheet and sort out the liabilities issue," he says. BNFL's discounted - because they can be deferred for up to 100 years - liabilities amount to a massive pounds 16bn; they are largely caused by the costs of decommissioning the ageing Magnox reactors which are to be closed by 2010 and were imposed on BNFL. Brian Wilson, the fourth energy minister Collum has had to deal with, is known to favour restructuring these liabilities. "The government acknowledges that the responsibility for the liabilities has got to be more clearly defined," says Collum. "Either they are taken off our balance sheet or positioned differently. We've got an undertaking from the government about the Magnox business." The Magnox business, he hints broadly, will be split off and put into another, state-owned, company - clearly central to BNFL's plans. "If we can sort out the balance sheet then you get BNFL in shape for privatisation in 2004-05. The government supports privatisation but has not yet said what the timing will be . . . we can't go public unless we have performed reasonably well and can see a future for the business." One significant hurdle was crossed when ministers finally approved BNFL's plans to operate its pounds 462m Mox - mixed oxide (uranium and plutonium) - plant at Sellafield, Cumbria, six years after it was completed and following five separate public consultations. Sellafield, which Collum in his pre-nuclear days saw as "a dangerous place" and now as somewhere "very good at managing potential dangers effectively", remains at the core of BNFL's strategy even though some, notably British Energy, the privatised nuclear operator, would prefer to see an end to reprocessing because it costs them too much. Collum believes he can win back Japanese customers for the Mox plant's output despite renewed fears about terrorist attacks on shipments and local opposition. "Japan is committed to nuclear, and the atmosphere there has changed in the last six months despite some small village votes against Mox." He claims to have the backing of the Japanese premier, Junichuri Koizumi, and insists that BNFL is slowly rebuilding its reputation - central to his stewardship of the company."I believe our customers appreciate what we are doing and we are winning approval from them. ***************************************************************** 6 Nuclear police force will gain new stop-and-search powers Independent NewsNews War on Terrorism: Security By Ian Burrell Home Affairs Correspondent 03 November 2001 David Blunkett is to increase the powers of Britain's 500-strong nuclear police force amid increased fears of terrorist attacks. The Home Secretary plans to give the specialist force, which includes highly trained firearms officers, powers to mount patrols and stop and search for up to three miles outside nuclear sites. The UK Atomic Energy Authority Constabulary (UKAEAC) will be authorised to make arrests at other civil sites, including sea ports, airports and railway stations, to prevent terrorists attempting to seize nuclear materials in transit. Mr Blunkett's plans, which will form part of an Emergency Anti-Terrorism Bill to be presented to Parliament this month, coincide with warnings of terrorist attacks by the world watchdog for nuclear security. The International Atomic Energy Agency, based in Vienna, warned on Thursday of the danger of terrorists "targeting nuclear facilities or using radioactive sources to incite panic, contaminate property and even cause injury or death among civilian populations". Britain's nuclear police are stationed at eight sites, including Sellafield in Cumbria, Harwell in Oxfordshire and Dounreay in Caithness. The sites are owned by three nuclear power companies: BNFL, UKAEA and Urenco. Mr Blunkett, who hopes his Bill will become law by early next year, plans to give the force further powers to police nuclear power stations such as those at Dungeness in Kent and Sizewell B in Suffolk, which are patrolled by private security companies. A Home Office source said: "The Home Secretary feels these powers are needed for the proper protection of nuclear sites, material and technology against the risks from terrorists and others. "In the light of the threat that is prevalent at the moment he hopes the Bill will have a speedy passage." Sources at the UKAEAC said the force intended to sign memorandums of understanding with neighbouring forces to allow its officers to patrol and search within a three-mile radius of nuclear sites. The changes are likely to mean that the size of the nuclear force is increased so that resources are not overstretched at existing sites. The nuclear force, which has its headquarters at Abingdon, Oxfordshire, was set up in 1955 with an initial complement of 320 officers and has grown with the expansion of the nuclear industry. Last night Bill Pryke, Chief Constable of the UKAEAC, said that he and his team had been "working closely" with the Government to draw up the proposed increase in powers. He said: "We look forward to working with the Government and the director of civil nuclear security, Michael Buckland-Smith, to implement whatever measures come forward from this proposed legislation." There are additional concerns regarding the security of small amounts of nuclear material kept for medical and scientific use at hospitals and research sites. Even small amounts of radioactive material could be attached to a normal high-explosive device to create a so-called "dirty bomb", which could contaminate whole cities. Mr Blunkett is also proposing to give increased authority and powers to the British Transport Police to allow members to make arrests outside their current jurisdiction of railway property. © 2001 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd ***************************************************************** 7 Ukrainian nuclear engineers sacked after rise in emergencies BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Nov 2, 2001 Text of report in English by Russian news agency Interfax Kiev, 2 November: Ukraine's nuclear energy company Enerhoatom has sacked the chief engineer of the Zaporizhzhya nuclear station, his assistant in charge of power engineering equipment, the chiefs of the electric and automatic heat supply workshops, and power engineering service executives for the violation of operational procedures in October. This was reported at a session of the Fuel and Energy Ministry's collegiate by Yuriy Nedashkovskyy, president of Enerhoatom. He said the sacking followed an investigation by an Enerhoatom commission into the reasons for the sharp rise in the number of personnel-created emergency situations in October. Nedashkovskyy said 49 violations were registered at national nuclear plants over nine months this year, four times less than over the same last year period. At the same time, the number of errors jumped to 11 in October, seven of this number at the Zaporizhzhya plant, three of which were blamed on personnel. Yet another two malfunctions were registered at the Rivne and Khmelnytskyy stations, one at the Rivne plant through personnel fault. Source: Interfax news agency, Moscow, in English 1352 gmt 2 Nov 01 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter All Material Subject to ***************************************************************** 8 Bulgaria: Counter-terrorism drill planned at Kozloduy nuclear plant BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Nov 2, 2001 Text of report in English by Bulgarian news agency BTA web site Vratsa, 2 November: A training exercise in countering possible terrorist acts will be held at the Kozloduy Nuclear Power Plant, said Vratsa (northwestern Bulgaria) Regional Governor Luchezar Borisov. The exercise is expected to take place before the end of this year. It will involve the Ministries of Defence and the Interior, Civil Protection and the N-plant's emergency unit. Agreement on the drill was reached at a meeting of the Interdepartmental Commission on Physical Protection of the Kozloduy N-Plant with the Committee for the Use of Atomic Energy for Peaceful Purposes. The purpose of the exercise is to check the interaction of various units in the event of a risk of terrorist attacks, Borisov said. He stressed that the physical protection of the N-plant is well organized and quite adequate. As an added security precaution, the airspace within 30 km of the facility has been designated off limits to civil aviation flights. Source: BTA web site, Sofia, in English 2 Nov 01 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter All Material Subject to Copyright ***************************************************************** 9 Experts Agree on the Need to Safeguard Nuclear Sites November 3, 2001 By JOHN TAGLIABUE VIENNA, Nov. 3 — Experts at a conference here on nuclear safeguards were divided today on whether the use of nuclear materials fits into the plans of Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda. But they agreed that improved safeguards of fissionable material and nuclear power stations were urgently needed. Some experts at the conference, which was convened by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations body that monitors nuclear programs, said a danger more immediate than that facing nuclear power stations or from the theft or pilferage of fissionable material stemmed from the potential destabilization of Pakistan. A coup by Islamic fundamentalists opposed to President Pervez Musharraf's support for American strikes against the Taliban, the experts suggested, threatened to deliver the country's nuclear weapons arsenal into the hands of a Muslim fundamentalist government. "There is the risk of a general destabilization of large areas," said Aleksandr K. Nikitin, a Russian environmentalist and an expert on nuclear safeguards. "That danger is clear and present." The secretary general of the agency, Muhammad el-Baradei, said no information was available on whether Mr. bin Laden and Al Qaeda had nuclear weapons. Speaking at a news conference, he said: "We are not addressing only the issue of Al Qaeda. We are addressing the whole phenomenon of nuclear terrorism." He said there was also no evidence that nuclear scientists were cooperating with terrorists like Al Qaeda. But other experts stressed that religious militants as exemplified by Mr. bin Laden and Al Qaeda did not appear to share the inhibitions of other Middle East terrorist groups on weapons of mass destruction. American intelligence experts have said Al Qaeda, which enjoys the Taliban's protection in Afghanistan, had made repeated attempts over the years to acquire fissionable material to construct a bomb. One such attempt was documented this year in a trial in New York of a suspected associate of Mr. bin Laden who said he had been involved in an attempt in 1993 to buy fissionable material. A terrorism expert at George Washington University, Dr. Jerrold M. Post, said Mr. bin Laden and Al Qaeda showed in September "that they are capable of mass destruction with conventional weapons." "It is striking that he is quite creative and imaginative," Dr. Post said. "One thing we know with certainty — whatever comes next, we will be surprised by it." Iqbal Ahmed, director of the Institute for Atomic Energy in Islamabad, who attended the conference, seemed to reflect concern in Pakistani scientific circles over the president's helping the American effort. "The world has been taken aback, we are very disturbed," he said, referring to Sept. 11. Referring to Pakistan's struggle with India over Kashmir, Mr. Ahmed added: "Everybody cannot be looked at in the same way. Who are the people who are a danger to society, and who are fighting for their own cause?" Pakistan exploded its first nuclear bomb in May 1998, responding to a similar test by India days earlier. Mr. Ahmed said safeguards at Pakistani power plants were open to agency inspection, including a Canadian-built reactor in Karachi and one built by the Chinese in Chesnupp that was commissioned last year. But the military program is closed to outside monitoring, he said. Some experts said the United States was trying to help Pakistan in safeguarding its military nuclear materials, despite constraints on the American effort by the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which prohibits participating states from assisting with the control of materials by states, like Pakistan, that have rejected the treaty. "It's a fine line," said George Bunn, an expert from Stanford University. Intelligence officials have said that the betrayal, possibly by Pakistani intelligence officials, and execution by the Taliban of Abdul Haq, the Afghan opposition leader, has caused concern in the United States over the loyalty in Pakistani military and intelligence circles toward General Musharraf. "Yes, of course, there is always the danger of a breakdown," Mr. Baradei said, adding, "As far as I know, Pakistan has a good system of accounting and control." Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company | Privacy Information ***************************************************************** 10 Is Koeberg terrorist proof? South Africa Gauteng Western Cape 02/11/2001 23:41 - (SA) Wolfram Zwecker The Koeberg nuclear plant at Melkbosstrand. (Antonie Robertson, Die Burger) Johannesburg - Nuclear power stations are not built to withstand a deliberate "flying bomb" attack by a gigantic passenger airliner. Nobody thought of such terrorist attacks when nuclear power stations were designed, but since the September 11 attacks in the US, they cannot be ruled out. An announcement in the US this week stipulates that no aircraft may fly within a 20km radius of a nuclear power facility, or lower than 5 500m above it. At the Koeberg nuclear power station, South Africa's only nuclear power facility, a radius of 8km and a flight height of 600m have always been off limits. National Nuclear Regulator (NNR) spokesperson Phil Nkhawashu says safety and security standards and requirements are constantly being re-evaluated. The NNR is aware of developments in the US and closely watches the situation, he adds. International conference The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Friday concluded a special conference in Vienna on nuclear plant safety with an appeal to member countries to proceed with the utmost caution, especially as terrorists were prepared to sacrifice their lives in attacks. IAEA Director-General Mohamed Elbaradei said not only nuclear power facilities posed a risk, but also nuclear material used for medical purposes and research. Radiation knew no boundaries and terrorists could for example mix explosives with nuclear material, creating a so-called “dirty bomb” he said. Should this kind of bomb explode, the nuclear material and its associated radiation would disperse over a wide area. It might not cause a high death toll, but would result in panic and chaos. Large areas would have to be cordoned off and evacuated. For sale Elbaradei said nuclear weapons were tightly guarded, but the almost 10 000 devices used in radiation therapy were cause for great concern to the IAEA. Thousands of devices were simply forgotten somewhere or had vanished and were unaccounted for. IAEA radiation and waste director Abel Gonzalez said there were few security measures and little control over nuclear equipment available for sale. A sore memory of inadequate security measures was recalled: In 1987 scrap metal collectors broke into a deserted clinic in Goiania, Brazil and stole a cylinder with 20g of extremely radioactive caesium 137. They sold it to a scrap metal dealer. The cylinder was opened up and the shiny caesium 137 capsule was sawn into pieces and given to family and friends. Four people died of radiation, 249 were treated for radiation and 110 000 were monitored over a long period. To "disinfect" the area 85 homes were demolished and 1257nbsp;000 drums of contaminated material destroyed. Was Three Mile Island targeted? ***************************************************************** 11 Flight ban lift spurs exodus Rocky Mountain News: Local After brief search, planes at Jeffco allowed to leave By Kevin Flynn, News Staff Writer With the national security lid briefly lifted, owners of more than 70 private planes took advantage of a four-hour departure window to leave Jefferson County Airport on Friday. The Federal Aviation Administration earlier in the week grounded all general aviation flights within 10 nautical miles of the nation's nuclear facilities. The Jeffco airfield is near the former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant. Although shut down and in a cleanup phase, Rocky Flats still holds an undisclosed amount of weapons-grade plutonium. Planes were lining up to leave Jeffco as early as 6 a.m. Under rules approved by the FAA, each plane was subjected to a search -- including one by bomb-sniffing dogs from the Boulder County Sheriff's Office -- before they were allowed to leave. The Jefferson County Sheriff's Office conducted the searches with help from the Broomfield Police Department. At 9 a.m., when departures were permitted, 10 small propeller planes and nine jets already were lined up by the runway. "The flights took off without any problems, and we were able to conduct thorough security checks with minimal delays," said Jeff Price, the airport manager. "Thanks to help from local law enforcement agencies, a lot of pilots and companies can now get back to business." The ban was lifted to allow owners to take their planes to other airfields unaffected by the ban. The general aviation flight ban is in effect at least until Wednesday and also affects flying near the Fort St. Vrain power plant near Platteville. The power plant was converted to natural gas in 1989, but the former nuclear power plant still has a radioactive waste vault on site. The general aviation ban also has grounded flights at Boulder Municipal Airport and Tri-County Airport in Erie. November 3, 2001 2001 © The E.W. Scripps Co. ***************************************************************** 12 Race against time on N-safety Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Atomic power UN warns of urgent task Kate Connolly in Berlin Saturday November 3, 2001 The Guardian [http://www.guardian.co.uk] Governments must act swiftly to protect the world's nuclear facilities and radioactive material from being sabotaged by terrorists, the head of the UN's atomic agency warned yesterday. Mohamed ElBaradei told delegates from the 132 members of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) meeting in Vienna that countries have a race against time to secure the potentially deadly materials and to prevent terrorists from getting there first. "We need to act quickly to protect ourselves," Mr ElBaradei said, outlining new and realistic nuclear terrorism scenarios in the wake of the September 11 attacks on the US. The obvious readiness of ter rorists to sacrifice their lives to cause huge damage had dramatically increased the threat of nuclear-related attacks, Mr ElBaradei said. "The willingness of terrorists to commit suicide to achieve their evil aims makes the nuclear terrorism threat far more likely than it was before September 11," he said. The IAEA, which normally keeps a relatively low profile, has stated that its two main concerns are the possibility of lost or stolen nuclear material getting into the hands of terrorists, and the potential threat of terrorists crashing large passenger airliners into nuclear containment facilities. The IAEA's foremost concern before September 11 - that governments might divert nuclear materials into secret weapons programmes - was now secondary to the terrorist threat. In the case of a facility being penetrated and the cooling system being seriously damaged or destroyed, "meltdown" would start within minutes, and could release lethal radiation. Mr ElBaradei stressed that poorer countries, especially of the former Soviet Union where nuclear power stations are numerous, would have to work particularly hard to stop nuclear material from falling into the hands of criminal gangs. Tightening border controls was imperative, he said. He said it was not known whether any specific terrorist groups had the ability to build nuclear explosives, but that no chances could be taken. The IAEA has called for an international approach to deal with the threat of radiation. The safety conference drew together representatives from around the globe, including China, France, Russia, Britain, the US, India, Pakistan and Israel, all of which are known or believed to have nuclear weapons technology. According to agency figures, there have been 175 cases of trafficking in nuclear material since 1993. Only 18 of these involved the materials necessary to create a nuclear bomb. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2001 ***************************************************************** 13 The nuclear ghostbuster Guardian Unlimited Interview: Hugh Collum, chairman, BNFL David Gow Guardian Saturday November 3, 2001 When Hugh Collum, chairman of British Nuclear Fuels, visits the United States this coming week for talks with the United Nations and Congress, he will find, clearly, a country in a heightened state of alert and insecurity, not least within his own industry. On Tuesday the Federal Aviation Administration imposed a temporary ban on private planes from flying within 11.5 miles of 86 nuclear power plants "for reasons of national security". Now there are calls for the ban to be made permanent. Mr Collum has already presided over increased security measures at BNFL's operations, including its Magnox reactors, the Sellafield reprocessing plants and even group headquarters at Risley, on the command of the office of civil nuclear safety in the Department of Trade and Industry. Last weekend two RAF jets were scrambled over Sellafield after an alert. The increased controls have seen barriers installed to prevent unwanted traffic entering the site while an aerial exclusion zone - 2,000ft above each nuclear plant and two miles in diameter - has been maintained as BNFL is put on the highest state of alert. It is another hurdle for Mr Collum to cross as he seeks to allay public fears about nuclear safety and reinvigorate plans for BNFL to be partially privatised. "Around the world, governments, politicians and public opinion are recognising the role that the nuclear industry can play in meeting the world's energy and environmental concerns." Two years ago, when Mr Collum was asked to take over as chairman of British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL), those comments would have been like a red rag to a bull among ecological groups. Governments and the public, too, would have seen them as ill-placed and ill-timed bravado. Collum, still a relative outsider in the hermetically sealed world of nuclear power, decommissioning and reprocessing, has nonetheless found himself confronted with evidence of the industry's ugly side. Between agreeing to do the job and taking over, the storm over falsification of quality data by two BNFL technicians for reprocessed fuel being shipped to Japan broke. A soft-spoken, mild-mannered executive, Collum has had to put himself at the head of a public relations offensive to bring about a nuclear renaissance. Earlier this year, at the annual nuclear congress, Collum, former finance director at SmithKlineBeecham, admitted candidly that "a public perception exists that the price of nuclear power in environmental and safety terms is unacceptably high". Much of that concern, he added, was "quite understandable", given the past record of the industry had been "patchy, to put it mildly". Conquer the fear He detailed his mission: "We must be bold enough to ensure that the facts of what we do conquer the fear of what we are thought to do." His goal: to resurrect abandoned government plans to take BNFL to the market. And he is confident that this can happen some time in 2004 or 2005. Or he was. The controversial decision to put Railtrack into administration, industry insiders say, has set back the public-private partnership for BNFL - which would see 49% of the company sold off - for an indefinite period. That gives Collum more time to push through his root and branch reforms. "It's been a very challenging and fascinating two years," he says coyly of why he took on the poisoned chalice. "I believe we have had the opportunity to start to change this company and we have built a much stronger management structure and appointed a completely new board ... a management that is much more accountable and knows where its responsibilities rest." That completed task is just the start, and one imposed by ministers who had lost all confidence in BNFL. Collum admits that he and his team have a long way to go, not least in convincing the government of their strategy. "If the company is going to be privatised - and that's still our objective - we have to restructure the balance sheet and sort out the liabilities issue," he says. BNFL's discounted - because they can be deferred for up to 100 years - liabilities amount to a massive £16bn; they are largely caused by the costs of decommissioning the ageing Magnox reactors which are to be closed by 2010 and were imposed on BNFL. Brian Wilson, the fourth energy minister Collum has had to deal with, is known to favour restructuring these liabilities. "The government acknowledges that the responsibility for the liabilities has got to be more clearly defined," says Collum. "Either they are taken off our balance sheet or positioned differently. We've got an undertaking from the government about the Magnox business." The Magnox business, he hints broadly, will be split off and put into another, state-owned, company - clearly central to BNFL's plans. "If we can sort out the balance sheet then you get BNFL in shape for privatisation in 2004-05. The government supports privatisation but has not yet said what the timing will be... we can't go public unless we have performed reasonably well and can see a future for the business." One significant hurdle was crossed when ministers finally approved BNFL's plans to operate its £462m Mox - mixed oxide (uranium and plutonium) - plant at Sellafield, Cumbria, six years after it was completed and following five separate public consultations. Sellafield, which Collum in his pre-nuclear days saw as "a dangerous place" and now as somewhere "very good at managing potential dangers effectively", remains at the core of BNFL's strategy even though some, notably British Energy, the privatised nuclear operator, would prefer to see an end to reprocessing because it costs them too much. Collum believes he can win back Japanese customers for the Mox plant's output despite renewed fears about terrorist attacks on shipments and local opposition. "Japan is committed to nuclear, and the atmosphere there has changed in the last six months despite some small village votes against Mox." He claims to have the backing of the Japanese premier, Junichuri Koizumi, and insists that BNFL is slowly rebuilding its reputation - central to his stewardship of the company."I believe our customers appreciate what we are doing and we are winning approval from them. Shortcomings Even though Collum insists that the German, Swedish and Swiss clients for Mox are sufficient to make the plant viable, the Japanese remain critical, and there's a long way to go in winning them over. BNFL has to deliver on 41 separate health and safety executive recommendations - it has so far implemented five in full, though Collum says it has three more years to do so. Then it has got to take back the old shipments of fuel at the centre of the scandal, and that means winning approval from several governments - not least the US, where Collum claims to be winning praise from the department of energy for BNFL's clean-up operations. "Our target is to try to bring that fuel back in 2002," he says. But there are other hurdles in the way of cleaning up BNFL's reputation. The scandal exposed serious management shortcomings at Sellafield and the chairman admits that changing management is not enough. "What's more difficult is to change the culture, and you can't do that in five minutes and it can't just rest at the top, but we are getting a more focused approach." Sellafield, however, remains afflicted by problems and, recently, the Thorp reprocessing plant and its nearby sister, Magnox, had to be closed down for "routine maintenance" because of rising levels of high-level nuclear waste. The normally unflappable Collum shows signs of discomfort as he admits that Sellafield is "an integrated and fragile site" and has problems with its vitrification plants - which turn the waste into glass blocks. Two are closed "for maintenance and other issues" and the third is due to be commissioned by the end of the year. He just hopes the work under way will lessen the problem. "If you have good, new management in position they have got to realise that if we don't run this business efficiently we are not going to be able to privatise the company and there's no fairy godmother waiting up the road to bail you out," he says. Last year BNFL lost £210m before exceptional gains, largely because of problems with the Magnox reactors. Though Collum talks of having regained credibility with government, he admits the trading results have been poor. "If we can start delivering what we promise on trading then the government will have that confidence and trust. We've brought in a management that's got ability and now we have to make sure the plants deliver and perform according to the standards we have set," he says, citing improvements across the business. "I am hoping that this year we will deliver pretty well on budget." If he's wrong, Collum's dreams could go badly awry and his hopes of a nuclear renaissance turn to dust. "The world has moved on since the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl technology: better safety, lower prices; more competitive ... if you look forward you've got to stop harping on about the ghosts of past." Yet it remains a legacy BNFL has still to overcome. The CV Born Tavistock, June 1940 Education Eton Career Joined Coopers &Lybrand, 1959, qualifying as chartered accountant; entered brewing industry, becoming group finance director, Courage, 1973-81; joined Cadbury Schweppes as deputy finance director, serving as group finance director 1983-87; took on same post at Beecham's, then serving as chief financial officer, SmithKline Beecham, 1989-98; chairman, BNFL since October 1999 Other interests Non-executive director at Invensys, South African Breweries, Safeway and Whitehead Mann; chairman of Chiroscience Family Married, two daughters Hobbies Most sports and opera [UP] Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2001 ***************************************************************** 14 No reactor under Labor: Beazley Daily Telegraph: 03 November 2001 From AAP LABOR would stop the Jabiluka mine in Kakadu, better protect the Great Barrier Reef and build no new nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights, Opposition Leader Kim Beazley said. He said under Labor there would be no new uranium mines and no new nuclear waste dumps. Labor would establish a commissioner for the environment and a national sustainability council. It would overhaul environment laws and create a whole-of-government approach through the prime minister's office of sustainable development. "A Labor government will establish a long-term strategy to achieve a sustainable Australia and to preserve our environment for our children and grandchildren," Mr Beazley said. "Labor will put in place the legal and institutional framework to achieve this." The environment measures announced today - at the Spectacular Wetlands at Kwinana, south of Perth in his electorate of Brand - would cost $21 million over four years. © 2001 Mirror Australian Telegraph Publications ***************************************************************** 15 AP A target? The Three Mile Island nuclear power plant TIME.com: The "Dirty Bomb" Scenario Talk of radioactive bombs and the safety of nuclear power facilities has raised fears of nuclear terrorism. Just how realistic is it? BY TONY KARON [tkaron@timeinc.net] TIM SHAFFER Friday, Nov. 02, 2001 Osama Bin Laden has made no secret of his ambition to join the nuclear club — he has even proclaimed it a "religious duty" for Muslim states to acquire nuclear, chemical and biological weapons to attack the West. But intelligence officials believe that the best he has managed to achieve, thus far, is a limited membership of that club, in the form of radioactive material that could be dispersed using conventional explosives — the so-called "dirty bomb." WHAT IS A 'DIRTY BOMB'? TIME Pentagon correspondent Mark Thompson explains: "Dirty nukes are what you may choose to build if you're unable to create a real nuclear bomb, i.e. one whose explosion is based on a nuclear reaction. A dirty bomb is a conventional explosive salted with radioactive isotopes in order to spew out that nuclear material and contaminate a wide area. The military usefulness of such devices have always been in dispute. In fact, the TNT in such a bomb may still be more dangerous than the nuclear material. Its destructive power would really depend on the size of the conventional bomb, and the volume and nature of the nuclear material. "The assumption has been that forces who would build a dirty nuke would do so because it's far, far easier than to build a nuclear bomb. It's unlikely to kill 10,000 people, but any bomb that killed people and set off Geiger counters would terrify a whole city. It's ultimately a pure terror weapon." Speculation over a possible al Qaeda nuclear threat has mounted since the Times of London last Friday reported that Western intelligence officials believe bin Laden's organization has acquired nuclear materials, allegedly from Pakistan. Although the Pakistani government pooh-poohed the reports and insists its nuclear program is in safe hands, it had earlier placed two of its best-known former nuclear scientists in "protective custody." One had been an outspoken supporter of the Taliban. Concerns over Pakistan's nukes aren't limited to the possibility of small amounts of nuclear waste finding its way into the hands of Al Qaeda. Know-how remains an essential component of any nuclear weapons program, and Western intelligence services are plainly concerned over the possibility of bin Laden's network attracting sympathetic individuals from among Pakistan's nuclear scientists. Both Pakistan and the U.S. deny a report in this week's New Yorker magazine suggesting that American and Israeli commandos are already training for a scenario in which General Musharraf's government is overthrown by pro-Taliban elements and Pakistan's nuclear warheads have to be kept out of the hands of his successors. But even if Al Qaeda is in possession of nuclear material, it need not necessarily have come from Pakistan. Unsubstantiated rumors have abounded for much of the past decade about the possibility of small nuclear bombs being lost by Moscow during the breakup of the Soviet Union, and possibly being sold by criminals to terrorists. In the past eight years, 175 cases have been recorded worldwide of nuclear materials (not bombs) being smuggled out of former Soviet territories and other countries. Such material could have reached bin Laden through criminals — intelligence officials reportedly believe Al Qaeda operatives have been stung more than once by con men offering them relatively harmless spent fuel disguised as weapons-grade radioactive material — or by sympathizers in Chechnya. Bin Laden operatives reportedly also tried in 1993 to buy enriched uranium produced in South Africa on the black market. While it may be far from inconceivable that bin Laden's network may have the capability to create a dirty bomb, operating a nuclear program would be a Herculean challenge for an organization whose survival depends on its relative invisibility. Even fully-functioning states such as Pakistan have needed decades of research and the assistance of nuclear-capable allies to develop their bomb programs, and they haven't had to hide the extensive scientific and industrial infrastructure required to build nuclear weapons. And given that a dirty bomb's function is primarily to spread terror through contamination, terrorists may be inclined to view chemical and biological weapons as a more attractive investment. But just as the September 11 terrorists created fearsome weapons out of America's own civilian transport system, their successors may seek to do the same with the U.S. civilian energy infrastructure. The International Atomic Energy Agency warned this week that "we have been alerted to the potential of terrorists targeting nuclear facilities or using radioactive sources to incite panic, contaminate property, and even cause injury or death among civilian populations," and called for massive new investment in the security of the world's nuclear energy facilities. Indeed, the first order of business in defending against an Al Qaeda nuclear threat may simply involve rendering America's atomic energy plants safe from attack. Copyright © 2001 Time Inc. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 16 NRC Staff Proposes $3,000 Fine Against the University of Missouri-columbia for Violating Regulations Region III -- 2001 - 047 -- UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, REGION III 801 Warrenville Road, Lisle IL 60532 No. III-01-047 October 23, 2001 CONTACT: Jan Strasma (630)829-9663/e-mail: [rjs2@nrc.gov] Pam Alloway-Mueller (630)829-9662/e-mail: [pla@nrc.gov] The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff has proposed a $3,000 fine against the University of Missouri-Columbia in Columbia, Missouri, for violating NRC regulations associated with employee protection requirements. An NRC investigation found that a former research scientist at the University of Missouri Research Reactor (MURR) was given an oral warning after he talked to a Department of Energy official about the level of commercial activity done at the university's research reactor. The scientist was told that he was "not authorized to discuss MURR management, priorities, etc. with any government (state or federal) officials." The NRC staff found that this statement would prohibit, restrict and discourage the scientist from raising safety concerns. "This violation is of concern to the NRC because of a similar violation which was identified by the NRC in 1994...involving discrimination against employees for raising safety issues at MURR," said David B. Matthews, Director of the NRC's Division of Regulatory Improvement Programs. "The NRC is concerned that lasting corrective actions be implemented to ensure that safety questions are freely raised and addressed at MURR." As a result of a second NRC investigation, the NRC staff concluded that MURR management had created a potential chilling effect on employees reporting safety concerns. The NRC earlier this year required the university to assess the freedom university employees have to report problems without fear of retaliation, and to assess its corrective actions program. In issuing the $3,000 fine, the NRC staff noted that the university had taken a number of additional corrective actions including establishing an ombudsman program to receive safety concerns. The university has until November 21, 2001, to pay the fine or protest it. If the fine is protested and subsequently imposed by the NRC staff, the university may request a hearing. ***************************************************************** 17 NRC Cites Nuclear Management Company For Safety Violation At Palisades Nuclear Plant Region III -- 2001 - 048 -- UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, REGION III 801 Warrenville Road, Lisle IL 60532 No. III-01-048 October 29, 2001 CONTACT: Jan Strasma (630)829-9663/e-mail: [rjs2@nrc.gov] Pam Alloway-Mueller (630)829-9662/e-mail: [pla@nrc.gov] The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has determined that a violation of NRC regulations at the Palisades Nuclear Power Plant should be characterized as "white," meaning that it is an issue with low to moderate safety significance, but one which may require additional NRC inspections. The plant, located near Covert, Michigan, is operated by the Nuclear Management Company. The violation concerned the inadequate number and spacing of smoke detectors in the plant's cable spreading room. Under the safety significance determination process, NRC officials classify certain conditions at nuclear power plants as being one of four colors which delineate increasing levels of safety significance, beginning with green and progressing to white, yellow or red. The violation was identified during an NRC inspection that was completed on August 17, 2001. The Nuclear Management Company did not contest the "white" characterization of the safety significance of this finding and officials chose not to meet with the NRC staff. The Nuclear Management Company has taken compensatory measures to address the problem until permanent corrective actions are completed. The NRC plans to conduct a follow-up inspection on this issue early next year. The company has until November 9 to appeal the NRC's finding. ***************************************************************** 18 Government call for closure of Sellafield online.ie 03 Nov 2001 The Minister with responsibility for Nuclear Safety has told a public forum on Sellafield that Ireland is determined to have the threat removed once and for all. Joe Jacob, speaking at the forum in Drogheda today, said the Government is totally opposed to the continued operation of Sellafield and there is no reason we should have to live in the shadow of its threat. The Head of Safety at British Nuclear Fuels, John Clarke, is among those attending the special conference. ***************************************************************** 19 NRC Seeks Public Input on Environmental Statement For Proposed Peach Bottom Nuclear Power Plant License Renewal Press Release - Region I - 2001-061 - UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, REGION I 475 Allendale Road, King of Prussia, Pa. 19406 No. I-01-061 October 26, 2001 CONTACT: Diane Screnci (610)337-5330/ e-mail: dps@nrc.gov [opa3@nrc.gov] Neil A. Sheehan (610)337-5331/e-mail: nas@nrc.gov [nas@nrc.gov] NRC SEEKS PUBLIC INPUT ON ENVIRONMENTAL STATEMENT FOR PROPOSED PEACH BOTTOM NUCLEAR POWER PLANT LICENSE RENEWAL Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will accept public comments on Wednesday, November 7, regarding an application submitted by Exelon Corporation to renew the operating licenses for its Peach Bottom nuclear power plant in York County, Pa. Members of the public are invited to attend and comment on which environmental issues the NRC should consider in its review of the application. There will be two sessions held on November 7 at the Peach Bottom Inn, 6085 Delta Road (Route 74), Delta, Pa. The first session will convene at 1:30 p.m. and continue until 4:30 p.m. The second session, which will be a repeat of the first session, will get under way at 7 p.m. and continue until 10 p.m. The NRC will host an open house beginning one hour before the start of each meeting to provide members of the public with an opportunity to talk informally with agency staff. Both sessions will begin with identical overviews. The NRC staff will provide a presentation on the license renewal and environmental review processes. Exelon will then discuss its application and possible environmental impacts from license renewal. Under NRC regulations, the original operating license for a nuclear power plant has a term of 40 years. The license may be renewed for up to an additional 20 years if NRC requirements are met. The current operating license for Peach Bottom Unit 2 is due to expire on August 8, 2013, while the current operating license for Peach Bottom Unit 3 is scheduled to terminate on July 2, 2014. (Peach Bottom Unit 1 has been permanently shut down since 1974.) Exelon submitted its license renewal application in early July. As part of its application, the company submitted an environmental report. Copies are available for review at the NRC Public Document Room, located at One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Md., 1-800-397-4209, and at the following two libraries: + Harford County Public Library, Whiteford Branch, 2407 Whiteford Road, Whiteford, Md. 21160; and + Collinsville Community Library, 2632 Delta Road, Brogue, Pa. 17309. An existing NRC document, "Generic Environmental Impact Statement for License Renewal of Nuclear Power Plants" (NUREG-1437), assesses the scope and impact of environmental effects that would be associated with license renewal at any nuclear power plant site. The document for which NRC will gather information at the November 7th meeting will be a supplement to that generic environmental statement that is specific to Peach Bottom. It will contain a recommendation regarding the environmental acceptability of the license renewal action. At the conclusion of the information-gathering process, the NRC staff will prepare a summary of the conclusions reached and significant issues identified. A copy will be sent to each person who participated. The summary will also be available at the agency's Public Document Room and at the previously mentioned libraries. The NRC staff will then prepare a draft environmental impact statement (EIS) supplement for public comment and will hold a public meeting to solicit comments. After consideration of comments on the draft, the NRC will prepare a final EIS supplement. Interested individuals may register to attend or present oral comments at the November 7th meetings by contacting Duke Wheeler at 1-800-368-5642, ext. 1444, or by e-mail at dxw@nrc.gov [dxw@nrc.gov] no later than November 1. Members of the public may also register to speak at the meeting within 15 minutes of the start of each session. Individual oral comments may be limited by the time available, depending on the number of persons who register. In addition, members of the public may send written comments on the environmental scoping process for the supplement to the GEIS to: Chief, Rules and Directives Branch, Division of Administrative Services, Office of Administration, Mailstop T-6 D 59, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington D.C., 20555-0001. Written comments should be postmarked by November 26. Comments can also be sent via e-mail to Peach_Bottom_EIS@nrc gov no later than November 26. ***************************************************************** 20 Two Gauges Containing Radioactive Material Reported Stolen in Greater Philadelphia Region Press Release - Region I - 2001-062 - UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, REGION I 475 Allendale Road, King of Prussia, Pa. 19406 No. I-01-062 October 29, 2001 CONTACT: Diane Screnci (610)337-5330/ e-mail: dps@nrc.gov [opa3@nrc.gov] Neil A. Sheehan (610)337-5331/e-mail: nas@nrc.gov [nas@nrc.gov] Two portable moisture density gauges containing sealed sources of radioactive material were reportedly stolen in separate incidents last week. Anyone with information is asked to contact the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Headquarters Operations Center at (301) 816-5100. The first incident occurred on October 22 at about 7:45 in the morning. In that case, a gauge was reported stolen from the back of a pick-up truck parked near a work site on Ruan Street, off Frankford Avenue, in Philadelphia. Underwood Engineering Testing Company, Inc., of Mt. Ephraim, N.J., told the NRC the gauge had been secured to the bed of the truck with a chain locked to an "eye" hook. The gauge, chain, lock and hook were all missing. The gauge contains approximately 8 millicuries of cesium-137 and 40 millicuries of americium-241. The gauge makes its measurements by projecting the radiation from the two radioactive sources into the ground and then displaying the reflected radiation on a dial on top of the gauge. The gauge, which reportedly was in its transportation case, consists of the shielding container with a plunger-type handle protruding from the top to be used to extend and then retract the radioactive source from the shielded position. When not in use, the handle is normally locked, with the source in the retracted, safely shielded position. In the second incident, a gauge belonging to Trap Rock Industries of Kingston, N.J, was reportedly stolen from a job site near the intersection of Route 31 and Interstate 95 in Hopewell, N.J., on October 24. It happened at about 10:30 at night. The company told the NRC that a worker had set the gauge aside for a short time and when he returned, it was gone. The gauge contains 8 millicuries of cesium-137. In both cases, the sources were locked in the shielded position inside the gauges and present no hazard to the public in that configuration. However, any attempt to tamper with the radioactive sources in the gauge would subject the person to radiation exposure. Handling of the unshielded sources outside their container would carry a risk of potentially dangerous radiation exposure. ***************************************************************** 21 NRC Sends Special Inspection Team to TMI Press Release - Region I - 2001-063 - UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, REGION I 475 Allendale Road, King of Prussia, Pa. 19406 No. I-01-063 October 29, 2001 CONTACT: Diane Screnci (610)337-5330/ e-mail: dps@nrc.gov [opa3@nrc.gov] Neil A. Sheehan (610)337-5331/e-mail: nas@nrc.gov [nas@nrc.gov] A Nuclear Regulatory Commission special inspection team has arrived at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant to review the circumstances surrounding the separation of a steam generator tube. The plant is located in Middletown, Pa., and is operated by Amergen Energy Company, LLC. During an in-service inspection of the steam generator tubes at TMI last week as part of the refueling outage, Amergen found that a plugged tube had separated from the tube-sheet and caused wear on several adjoining tubes. During the prior period of operation, there was no indication of a problem. The cause of the separation is still being evaluated. Steam generators are components that transfer heat from the reactor systems to the power-generating portion of a nuclear power plant. In accordance with NRC requirements, Amergen conducts inspections and tests of the tubes in the plant's two steam generators during plant outages to assess the structural integrity of the tubes. Tubes with flaws or degradation above specified limits are plugged (taken out of service by installing plugs in both ends of the tube) or repaired in another manner. The four-member NRC team will independently develop an understanding of the separation, and review the company's root cause determinations and corrective actions. The team also will perform an independent risk assessment. NRC inspectors also will ensure appropriate corrective actions are taken before the plant restarts from its refueling outage. An inspection report will be issued about 45 days from the end of the inspection. As a separate matter, NRC inspectors are also reviewing Amergen's work to identify and repair small cracks associated with control rod drive mechanisms (CRDM) nozzle penetrations in TMI's reactor vessel head. CRDM leaks have occurred at other B plants. That work also will be completed before the unit restarts. ***************************************************************** 22 NRC Concurs on Doe's Proposed Final Siting Guidelines for Yucca Mountain Press Release - 2001 - 126 - U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 20555-001 E-mail: opa@nrc.gov [opa@nrc.gov] Web Site: http://www.nrc.gov No. 01-126 October 23, 2001 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has concurred in the Department of Energy's draft general siting guidelines for evaluating the suitability of Yucca Mountain, Nevada, as a site for development of a possible nuclear waste repository. This concurrence is conditional on DOE's agreement to notify NRC of any changes to the draft final guidelines, including any changes to the supplemental information, and its agreement to retransmit the revised rulemaking package to the Commission, if any substantive changes are made, for a determination as to whether re-concurrence is needed. The revised draft guidelines, which would be contained in Part 963 of DOE's regulations, focus on the criteria and methodology to be used for evaluating relevant geological and other related aspects of the Yucca Mountain site. They are based on NRC's recently revised Part 63 regulations for licensing a nuclear waste repository. The NRC noted that DOE has addressed NRC's March 2000 comments submitted as part of the 1999-2000 public comment process on an earlier version of Part 963. DOE amended its siting guidelines to recognize NRC jurisdiction over resolution of differences between the siting guidelines and NRC's geologic disposal regulations. DOE further committed to obtain NRC concurrence on any future siting guideline revisions that relate to NRC jurisdiction. The DOE has indicated that, using the criteria set forth in Part 963, the Secretary of Energy will make a decision on whether to recommend Yucca Mountain to the President as the repository site for highly radioactive materials. The Secretary will base this decision on the site characterization studies performed at Yucca Mountain. ***************************************************************** 23 Rep. Wants More Nuclear Plant Guards Las Vegas SUN November 02, 2001 WASHINGTON- Rep. Edward Markey, a vocal critic of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, asked President Bush on Friday to immediately station National Guard units at all operating or decommissioned nuclear reactors to improve security. Markey, D-Mass., said the United States was in an "absurd situation," with the U.S. Coast Guard defending reactors near waterways, but no comparable military force defending the plants by land. "Right now, we know that the nation's 103 currently operating reactors are vulnerable to terrorist attacks," Markey said at a news conference Friday. Nuclear power plants, already on high alert, have ratcheted up security even more in light of this week's new terrorist alert. At least seven states are using National Guard troops to help secure reactors. They are Arkansas, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Arizona and Kansas. But Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge and the NRC have left the decision on using the military up to the states, although Ridge suggested in a conference call with the governors on Monday that they consider added police protection at nuclear and other energy plants. Federal officials and nuclear industry spokesmen have emphasized that there has not been a specific threat against any of the country's reactors. Markey said it's inadequate to leave such a decision up to the states. He said the federal government should deploy Guard units with anti-aircraft weapons to reactors. Many of the 31 states with nuclear plants have reported increased police presence at reactor sites, but most governors have not felt a need to use national guardsmen. --- On the Net: NRC: http://www.nrc.gov/ [http://www.nrc.gov/] Rep. Markey: http://www.house.gov/markey/ [http://www.house.gov/markey/] Homeland Security: http://www.whitehouse.gov/homeland/ [http://www.whitehouse.gov/homeland/] All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 24 Experts Urge Nations on Nuke Security Las Vegas SUN November 02, 2001 VIENNA, Austria- The U.N. atomic agency's chief urged world leaders on Friday to act quickly to safeguard radioactive materials, pleading for governments to impose stringent new controls to avert nuclear catastrophe. Citing new fears of nuclear terrorism in wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, Mohamed ElBaradei, the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told reporters attending a special safety conference that nations must secure radioactive materials before terrorist networks obtain them. ElBaradei said the willingness of terrorists to commit suicide and inflict massive damage makes the possibility of a nuclear-related attack much more likely now. "We need to act quickly to protect ourselves," he said. Seeking to minimize the risk of nuclear terrorism, delegates from most of the IAEA's 132 member states are discussing what can be done to secure the world's radioactive materials. The agency sets world standards for atomic safety and provides help to countries in case of a radiological disaster. Pleading for international unity in creating universal and stringent controls on nuclear materials, ElBaradei said some governments - especially in poor countries - need to do more to prevent nuclear material from falling into the hands of terrorists. He said it is unclear whether terrorist groups have the capability of building a nuclear bomb, but warned that governments must act quickly to prevent that from happening. "We don't have any information that al-Qaida or any other terrorist organization has nuclear material," he said. "We are not directing our attention against any particular terrorist group, just protecting against any possible attack." Before Sept. 11, the agency was worried most about the risk of governments "diverting nuclear materials into clandestine weapons programs," ElBaradei said. Now, however, experts are more concerned about terrorists attacking nuclear plants directly or releasing radioactive material into the environment. With terrorists now willing to inflict unprecedented destruction, experts worry that terrorists could now resort to a so-called "dirty bomb." Unlike more sophisticated nuclear weapons, a "dirty bomb" is a crude device using radioactive material taken from industrial sites or hospitals and detonated by conventional explosives. When a "dirty bomb" explodes, radioactive material is dispersed. Such a crude weapon may not kill many people, but would touch off panic, ElBaradei said. Government regulation of some sources of radiation - such as that used for radiotherapy in hospitals - is very weak. Some governments - such as those in the former Soviet Union - must do more to regulate nuclear materials, ElBaradei said. ElBaradei also stressed that all nuclear sites are vulnerable - particularly if a fuel-filled jumbo jet slams into a nuclear reactor. Nuclear facilities were not built with this threat in mind, he said. He said he welcomes the U.S. and French decisions to place anti-aircraft batteries near some nuclear facilities. "We can't wait until something happens," he said. "We must take preventive measures now." All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 25 Nuclear terror newest worry | Columbus Ledger-Enquirer Knight Ridder Newspapers November 3, 2001 U.S. officials concerned that arrested Pakistani scientists might have given al-Qaida bomb instructions BY DANIEL RUBIN Knight Ridder Newspapers -- VIENNA, Austria - After a month of dealing with anthrax fears, counterterrorism experts have their eyes on an even more ominous threat, a crude but effective nuclear attack. U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials say they have no evidence that Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network or any other terrorist group has managed to build, buy or steal a nuclear weapon. Terrorists, they say, are more likely to make a "dirty" bomb by mixing radioactive material together with a conventional explosive or to attack a nuclear reactor with a truck bomb, an airplane or a boat. The vulnerability of power plants moved to center stage after last Sunday, when Canadian authorities monitored a phone call from an alleged al-Qaida member to Afghanistan. Two targets, he said, would be attacked this week "down south," including an unnamed nuclear facility. "We now see nuclear terrorism to be a real possibility," said Mohamed El Baradei, the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, who Friday addressed a special United Nations session on nuclear terrorism in the Austrian capital. The IAEA is calling for international standards to protect radioactive materials from falling into the hands of extremists. U.S. officials are concerned that two Pakistani nuclear scientists arrested by the Musharraf government might have given the al-Qaida network instructions how to build a dirty bomb with radioactive waste or enriched uranium, which associates of bin Laden reportedly have sought to acquire. "If something like that had been on one of the planes that hit the World Trade Center, it would take 100 years to clean the place up," said a senior Bush administration official who requested anonymity. The most probable terrorist device could contain radioactive materials easily stolen from U.S. hospitals, research labs and industrial sites, said George Bunn, a professor at the Stanford University Center for International Security &Cooperation. "If you explode a dirty bomb, you might not even kill anyone," he said, "but you would give everyone a real scare." There is evidence that al-Qaida already has contemplated such an attack. At the 1994 sentencing of four of the six men indicted in the first World Trade Center bombing, U.S. District Judge Kevin T. Duffy said the bomb that exploded in the center's underground garage had been packed with sodium cyanide, which vaporized when the bomb detonated. Convicted bomber Ramzi Yousef, one U.S. intelligence official said, had wanted the bomb to spew radioactive poison. According to the Vienna-based IAEA, a watchdog agency that until Sept. 11 had focused on safety and keeping nuclear materials out of the hands of rogue nations, terrorists have never used a nuclear bomb, and bin Laden is not known to possess nuclear capability. But nuclear materials have a habit of disappearing. Eighteen times since 1993, people have been found to be trafficking in highly enriched uranium or plutonium, the materials needed to make a nuclear bomb, the agency reported. During that period, nuclear material was sold 175 times and in another 201 cases, radioactive sources such as those used in industry or medicine were trafficked. Nuclear reactors| Less likely than dirty bombs, but far more devastating, would be attacks on nuclear reactors, said Bunn, who spun a disturbing, post-Sept. 11 scenario of teams of terrorists attacking a site at once. "One team would crash the gate, another would go for the spent fuel pond, another for the cooling system," he said in an interview. "If a facility could withstand that sort of attack," he said, "I don't know about it." In a recent Stanford survey of countries with peaceful nuclear programs, not one of the six respondents reported any plans for dealing with truck bombs. "Sabotage that causes radiological impact beyond (the protected areas) is simply perceived as a threat that they need to deal with," Bunn said. Another threat, he said, could come from the air - an armada of private planes dive-bombing a reactor is most likely since the FAA has barred commercial jets from flying directly over nuclear power plants. While such facilities are built to withstand accidental crashes of small airplanes, a precision strike is another thing, Bunn said. Another expert in nuclear terrorism, Matthew Bunn, an assistant director at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, said he was most worried about "insiders" at nuclear facilities in Pakistan. "It doesn't matter how many rings of men with guns you have around the place if an insider is working with terrorists," said Bunn, whose father is the Stanford professor. "When you have a country rounding up guys from its nuclear program for having ties to the Taliban, you have to be concerned," he said. He also voiced concerns about the loyalties of scientists in the former Soviet Union who live in 10 "nuclear cities" and earn the equivalent of $300 a month. Asked which countries might unwillingly become unwitting sources for nuclear materials, he mentioned Yugoslavia, which he said has enough high-energy plutonium for a bomb, as well as Uzbekistan, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Latvia. Speaker after speaker Friday talked about how the rules changed on Sept. 11. In the past, many terrorists would find their cause hurt by creating too much harm, said Jerrold M. Post, director of the political psychology program at George Washington University and a former CIA analyst. The 19 suicide hijackers aimed for maximum casualties. "They aren't attempting to influence the West. They are trying to expel the West ... More important, they do not need an audience here on earth. Their audience is above. 'God knows.'" Many scientists gathered for the conference have been warning about nuclear terrorism for years. However, little money is spent on protecting against such threats, and the agency has no power to investigate the way nuclear materials are handled by the "nuclear weapons states" - the United States, Russia, China, Great Britain and France. And the other countries with nuclear capability - Israel, India and Pakistan - share little if any information. All content © 2000 Ledger-Enquirer ***************************************************************** 26 Threat of Nuclear Terrorism Is Growing, Experts Warn Environment News Service: VIENNA, Austria, November 2, 2001 (ENS) - The ruthlessness of the September attacks against the United States has alerted the world to the potential of nuclear terrorism, making it "far more likely" that terrorists could target nuclear facilities, nuclear material and radioactive sources worldwide, the chief of the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency said Thursday. [IAEA] IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei opens the agency's special session on nuclear terrorism today (Photo courtesy IAEA) "September 11 presented us with a clear and present danger and a global threat that requires global action," said IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei, according to a statement released by the agency at its headquarters in Vienna. "Many of our programs go to the heart of combating nuclear terrorism, but we now have to actively reinforce safeguards, expand our systems for combating smuggling in nuclear material and upgrade our safety and security services." More than 400 experts from around the world have been meeting at the IAEA's Vienna headquarters since October 29 at an international symposium on nuclear safeguards, verification and security. Today, the conferees are holding a special emergency seminar on combating nuclear terrorism. The IAEA says there have been about 400 cases of nuclear smuggling over the past decade, but none have involved anything close to enough fissionable material to construct a nuclear weapon. However, ElBaradei warned, the September 11 attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center point to an additional threat - terrorists willing to die for their cause. The IAEA is no longer convinced that the hazards associated with handling radioactive materials will be enough to deter terrorists. "If the terrorist is willing to die, that changes the security equation drastically," said ElBaradei. [Calvert Cliffs] Nuclear power plant produce radioactive waste that could potentially be used to make weapons, and the plants themselves could be targeted for terrorist attacks. This nuclear plant, Calvert Cliffs in Maryland, recently received approval to operate until 2034 (Photo courtesy Nuclear Regulatory Commission) The IAEA, which helps countries to prevent, intercept and respond to terrorist acts and other nuclear safety and security incidents, has the only international response system in place that would be in a position to immediately react in case of a nuclear terrorist attack. This week, the agency warned of "the potential of terrorists targeting nuclear facilities or using radioactive sources." The agency noted that "radiation knows no frontiers," and warned that, "safety and security of nuclear material is a legitimate concern of all states." "An unconventional threat requires an unconventional response, and the whole world needs to join together and take responsibility for the security of nuclear material," ElBaradei said. To prevent a terrorist nuclear attack, the agency is now proposing a number of new initiatives. It estimates that at least $30-$50 million each year will be needed in the short term to strengthen and expand its programs to meet terrorist threats. Speaking to reporters at United Nations headquarters in New York, Gustavo Zlaufvinen, director of IAEA's office in the U.S., said efforts were under way to secure funding for the new measures. "We are thinking of different ways to get that money, taking into account that our budget is limited by the 'zero-growth' policy for the last 10 years," said Zlaufvinen. [Sellafield] The Sellafield nuclear facility in Cumbria, UK, operated by British Nuclear Fuels Ltd., reprocesses spent nuclear fuel into mixed oxides (MOX) fuel containing both uranium and plutonium (Photo courtesy BNFL) The Nuclear Control Institute (NCI), a Washington DC based research and advocacy center specializing in problems of nuclear proliferation, welcomed the IAEA's new focus on nuclear terrorism, but warned that it is "long overdue." "For more than two decades, we have urged the IAEA and the nuclear power industry to take seriously the risks of terrorists stealing bomb usable nuclear materials and attacking nuclear plants," said Paul Leventhal, president of NCI. "The need for action, not rhetoric, is long overdue." Leventhal said the IAEA should call for a ban on the production and use of all atomic bomb materials, including separated plutonium and highly enriched uranium, in both nuclear power and research programs. In the U.S., projects are now underway to turn tons of weapons grade plutonium into fuel for commercial nuclear power plants. "More separated plutonium has been produced in civilian than military nuclear programs worldwide," Leventhal added. "Unless commercial reprocessing of spent fuel is halted, there will be nearly twice as much weapons usable plutonium in civilian than military programs by the end of this decade. Civilian plutonium, like plutonium removed from weapons, should be disposed of as waste, not used as fuel." The NCI charges that the IAEA's safeguards against the diversion of civilian nuclear materials for use in weapons are "ineffective." A study prepared for NCI by Dr. Marvin Miller of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology concluded that bulk handling plutonium facilities, such as large reprocessing plants for spent nuclear fuel, could lose up to 263 kilograms of plutonium a year without detecting the loss. "That is enough plutonium to make dozens of nuclear bombs," said Levental. "The IAEA is supposed to provide prompt detection of the loss of one bomb's worth of plutonium - officially eight kilograms." NCI called on Director-General ElBaradei to retract his claim that "while we cannot exclude the possibility that terrorists could get hold of some nuclear material, it is highly unlikely they could use it to manufacture and successfully detonate a nuclear bomb." [Leventhal] Paul Leventhal, president of the Washington DC based Nuclear Control Institute (NCI) (Photo courtesy NCI) In fact, Leventhal countered, "Those who have actually designed nuclear weapons do not agree with the IAEA's sanguine assessment." In a study commissioned by NCI for its International Task Force on the Prevention of Nuclear Terrorism, a team of five former U.S. nuclear weapon designers found that terrorists would be capable of making an effective, first generation nuclear weapon if they could obtain enough reactor grade plutonium or highly enriched uranium, Leventhal said. Even without the ability to make nuclear weapons, terrorist groups could still use radioactivity as a weapon. Dr. Edwin Lyman, a physicist and NCI's scientific director, notes that a direct, high speed hit by a large commercial passenger jet on a nuclear plant "would in fact have a high likelihood of penetrating a containment building" that houses a power reactor. "Following such an assault," Lyman said, "the possibility of an unmitigated loss of coolant accident and significant release of radiation into the environment is a very real one." Such a release, whether caused by an air strike, or by a ground or water assault, or by insider sabotage could result in tens of thousands of cancer deaths downwind of the plant. A number of these plants are located near large cities. At least seven U.S. states - Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York - have deployed National Guard troops to protect their nuclear power plants. ***************************************************************** 27 Experts Discuss Chances of Nuclear Terrorism (washingtonpost.com) Tighter Controls on Atomic Materials Urgently Needed, Especially in Russia, U.N. Agency Told By Peter Finn Washington Post Foreign Service Saturday, November 3, 2001; Page A19 VIENNA, Nov. 2 -- A crude nuclear device could be detonated by some terrorist group, including Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda, which would have no qualms about using a weapon of mass destruction, weapons experts told the U.N. atomic agency at a conference here today. Following the Sept. 11 attacks, Western countries, particularly the United States, must accelerate efforts to protect inadequately housed nuclear material that could easily -- and may already have -- fallen into the hands of terrorists, speakers at the conference said. "The only strategy is to protect the material where it is," said Morten Bremer Maerli, a researcher at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs. But, he added, implementation of that strategy "doesn't exist." While building and setting off a nuclear device is technically difficult, those hurdles should not be overestimated. Suicidal extremists bent on mass destruction may be indifferent to the safety standards that mark government weapons programs. One speaker quoted the late Manhattan Project researcher, Luis W. Alvarez, who said, "Most people seem unaware that if [highly enriched uranium] is at hand, it's a trivial job to set off a nuclear explosion . . . even a high school kid could make a bomb in short order." Maerli and other speakers said there is a shocking lack of control at nuclear facilities in numerous countries, especially Russia, to prevent the pilfering and sale of highly enriched uranium and plutonium that can be used in bomb-making. The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, which organized today's conference, reports 175 cases of trafficking in nuclear material since 1993, including 18 cases that involved small amounts of highly enriched uranium or plutonium. What is unknown is whether these numbers represent the extent or just the tip of the problem. In these cases, the material was seized by law enforcement agencies, but records at the facilities, most of them Russian, from which the uranium or plutonium was stolen showed that nothing was missing, officials said. "The controls on nuclear material and radioactive sources are uneven," said Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the agency. "Security is as good as its weakest link and loose nuclear material in any country is a potential threat to the entire world." Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, the United States has spent billions of dollars on anti-proliferation programs, including some to dismantle the nuclear arsenals of such former Soviet republics as Ukraine, employing former Soviet nuclear scientists and beefing up security at their old facilities. But up to 60 percent of nuclear material in Russia remains inadequately secured, according to Matthew Bunn, assistant director of the science, technology and public policy program at Harvard University's Kennedy School. "This is a threat that we know how to fix and it's a matter of writing checks," said Bunn, who criticized the Bush administration for cutting funding for such nuclear programs in Russia after it came to office. "I think it's shocking. There has been a complete lack of leadership." In a letter to the conference, President Bush said, "We will look to the IAEA to continue serving as a critical instrument to help combat the real and growing threat of nuclear proliferation." Today's meeting was intended to drive home the urgency of action and increase the profile of a U.N. agency whose funding has been low for years. The agency wants between $30 million and $50 million to step up its safety work; securing nuclear material worldwide could cost up to $30 billion, according to one study in the United States. Before Sept. 11, the IAEA was primarily concerned about the risk of states believed to sponsor terrorist acts "diverting nuclear materials into clandestine weapons programs," said ElBaradei. Sept. 11 has expanded the dimensions of the threat -- the conference heard that some religious extremists would likely use a weapon of mass destruction, whether nuclear, chemical or biological, if they could get one. "From a psychological point of view, the thresholds have already been crossed," said Jerrold M. Post, professor of psychiatry, political psychology and international affairs at George Washington University and a CIA veteran. "There is no reason to think the choice of weapon would be a constraint." The agency was also warned that terrorists may seek to kill scores and cause widespread panic by dusting a conventional bomb with radioactive material widely in use in civilian life, and that nuclear power plants are not prepared for the kind of multipronged attack employed by the terrorists on Sept. 11. "Suppose that these 19 [hijackers] had formed into teams to drive four vans with large high-explosive bombs into the power reactors and spent fuel ponds for a large nuclear facility," said George Bunn, a professor at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation. "Does any civilian facility's design . . . suggest protection against such threats?" The answer, Bunn said, is no. ElBaradei pleaded for international unity to create universal minimum security standards for nuclear plants and material, standards that are now largely left to individual countries. Such efforts have failed in the past, with poor countries saying they cannot afford them and richer countries, including France, Germany and Britain, saying a new system of international oversight infringes on their sovereignty. The United States, at various times, has supported and then rejected new requirements for the protection of nuclear plants. Those sentiments are changing, U.S. and European officials here said, but any new protocol is still years away, given the pace at which international agreements are reached and ratified. © 2001 The Washington Post Company ***************************************************************** 28 St. Clair and Cockburn: Atomic Trains Grounded [http://www.easycarts.net/ecarts/CounterPunch/CounterPunch_Bookshop.html] and discover how the CIA gave a helping hand to the opium lords who took over Afghanistan, thus ushering the Taliban into power. [http://www.counterpunch.org/] CounterPunch: [http://www.counterpunch.org/wtcarchive.html] Published Oct. 3, 2001 By Jeffrey St. Clair and Alexander Cockburn For years environmentalists have warned that shipping high-level nuclear waste across the country on rails or highways was a program fraught with peril. They pointed to the near certainty that eventually a train would derail or a truck would crash, spilling radioactive material into streams, fields or cities. They warned that the US was embarking on a path that would inevitably led to "a kind of mobile Chernobyl." They even pointed to the possibility that the nuke trains made an inviting target for terrorists, who could turn the locomotives into a high-speed radioactive weapon that could be derailed in the heart of several of the nation's largest cities, putting the lives of millions at risk. These concerns were dismissed as the ravings of anti-nuke Cassandras by the Department of Energy and, to a large extent, the national press corps. Indeed, the atomic boosters had become so confident of their scheme that they were poised to greenlight the largest rail shipment of nuclear waste in US history for a 2,000 mile journey from New York to Idaho. Then came 9/11 and suddenly the anti-nuke organizers didn't seem so hysterical after all. The Department of Energy's nuke train plan came to grinding to a halt, marking yet another salutory reappraisal of US environmental policy following the terrrorist attacks of September 11. The atomic waste train was scheduled to carry 125 highly radioactive nuclear fuel assemblies from West Valley, New York through ten states to Idaho. The move has now been postponed until at least April 1, 2002 "Actions speak louder than words, so although DOE will not admit it publicly, it's clear the West Valley shipment was suspended due to terrorism and security concerns," said Kevin Kamps of [http://www.nirs.org/] (NIRS). "We're relieved DOE has recognized the extreme danger this proposed shipment would have created and chose instead to suspend the shipment. But the threat such shipments pose is not going to go away in a few months. Proposals for shipping tens of thousands of high-level radioactive waste containers by train and truck through 43 States past the homes of 50 million Americans to national dumpsites in Utah and Nevada must be re-examined in light of the potential for terrorist attacks." The twin 20 foot-long, dumbbell-shaped metallic atomic waste containers were scheduled to leave DOE's West Valley Demonstration Project near Buffalo as early as mid-September. But due to concerns about additional potential terrorist attacks, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham suspended DOE nuclear waste and materials shipments the day after 9/11, capitulating to concerns that environmentalists and anti-nuke groups had been raising for years. Even so the DOE's suspensions were only temporary. By the end of September, the Department began raising the possibility that the West Valley shipment might still roll by Halloween. Because metal gaskets on the two containers have not been certified for cold weather conditions, DOE had agreed to deliver the shipment to its Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory no later than Oct. 31 in order to avoid encountering freezing temperatures. Then on October 7, the DOE reinstituted its suspension of nuclear waste shipments, citing concerns of potential reprisal attacks in response to the initiation of U.S. military action in Afghanistan that day. Despite this, DOE's West Valley site director Alice Williams told the Buffalo News on Oct. 16 that the nuclear train might still roll by the end of the month despite on-going national terrorist threats. However, the very next day, orders were sent to Williams from DOE headquarters in Washington explicitly suspending the shipment until next spring, according to an Oct. 19 Buffalo News article. The two containers will now be off-loaded from the on-site railcars, where they sat outdoors since May, and will spend the winter inside the West Valley facility. "Energy Secretary Abraham's decision to halt this high-level nuclear waste shipment, not once, not twice, but three times clearly shows that the Energy Department itself acknowledges atomic waste trains like this one are potential terrorist targets," said Tim Rinne, State Coordinator of [http://www.nebraskansforpeace.org/] . "Attorney General John Ashcroft and the FBI have warned about additional terrorist attacks. Trucking firms and railroads have been put on highest alert against attacks upon hazardous and radiological shipments. Recently, airports around the Three Mile Island nuclear plant were shut down due to a terrorist threat. The DOE shipment ban should be extended indefinitely, and expanded to cover commercial high-level nuclear waste shipments as well," said Kay Drey of the [http://www.moenviron.org/] . Despite the current shipment ban, Energy Secretary Abraham appears ready to approve the national high-level atomic waste dumpsite targeted at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. DOE closed its public comment period on the Yucca proposal Oct. 19, and has announced Abraham will make his recommendation to President Bush by the end of the year or early next year. In recent days, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission publicly announced its "concurrence" with DOE's Yucca Mountain siting guidelines, and in recent weeks finalized its own Yucca licensing regulations. At the same time, the NRC is reviewing a nuclear power industry license application to "temporarily store" all currently-existing irradiated fuel at the Skull Valley Goshute Indian reservation in Utah, which would launch 200 high-level atomic waste trains per year throughout the country as early as 2004. "It is hypocritical for DOE to put the brakes on the West Valley shipment while rushing ahead to give its thumbs up to Yucca Mountain," said Dave Ritter, policy analyst at [http://www.citizen.org/cmep/] . "Approval of the Yucca Mountain repository proposal would launch tens of thousands of high-level atomic waste trucks and trains onto our roads and rails. Inadequately addressing potential terrorist threats to such shipments is rash, irresponsible, and reckless." DOE studies show that 50 million Americans in 45 States live within a half mile of projected highway and train routes to Yucca Mountain. Critics also point to an Aug. 27, 1998 letter written by Abraham, then a U.S. Senator from Michigan, to then-Energy Secretary Bill Richardson regarding plutonium shipments. In the letter, Abraham wrote "I am sure you will agree that the ramifications of an accident are too serious to consider anything less than the very best emergency response preparedness.". "Just as police and firefighters were on the front line of the 9/11 attacks, so would emergency responders be called upon to protect our communities in the event of an atomic waste transport accident or terrorist attack upon a shipment," said Chris Williams, executive director of [http://www.citact.org/] . "They need to be thoroughly trained and well equipped to deal with radiation emergencies, and not caught off-guard as our government agencies have been by the bio-terrorism attacks." Greens want the NRC to address terrorist threats to atomic waste transport containers. Commercial high-level atomic waste shipments, such as those to Carolina Power and Light's Shearon Harris reactor storage pools in North Carolina, have continued to roll despite the DOE ban. In a Sept. 21 response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission admitted that "the capacity of shipping casks to withstand such a [large aircraft] crash has not been analyzed." In June 1999 the State of Nevada filed a "Petition for Rulemaking" to the NRC, charging that safeguards against terrorist attacks on high-level radioactive waste shipments were woefully inadequate or non-existent. Nine state governments and the Western Governors Association endorsed the petition. Despite officially agreeing to act on the petition in Sept. 1999, the NRC has yet to do so. "Large scale movement of radioactive waste on the roads and rails would create tens of thousands of potential targets, in virtually any scenario a terrorist might choose, whether major metropolitan areas, suburbs, or the agricultural heartland, near schools, hospitals, or water supplies," said Corey Conn of Illinois-based [http://www.neis.org/] . CP ***************************************************************** 29 N-terror: 'Clear and present danger' - CNN.com - November 2, 2001 By CNN's Diana Muriel LONDON, England (CNN) -- Could nuclear facilities and re-processing plants become potential targets for a terrorist attack? The events of September 11 demonstrated just how easy it would be to cause a major disaster at a nuclear installation such as Britain's Sellafield re-processing plant. "An aerial attack by jumbo jet was not really considered part of the security threat in the past," says Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which was meeting in Vienna on Friday for a special session on the prospect of nuclear terrorism. "I mean, we have taken care of threats emanating from sabotage, theft, natural causes like earthquake or hurricane -- but we did not take into the engineering analysis the possibility of an aerial attack by a large aircraft." U.N. discusses nuclear terror threat That is something the U.N.-funded IAEA plans to address as part of a programme to better protect the world's 438 nuclear power reactors. Early estimates put the cost at $50 million a year. Individual governments have already moved to tighten nuclear security. France has installed anti-aircraft batteries around the nuclear re-processing plant at La Hague in northwest France. The United States has, for now, banned planes from flying low and close to the country's 103 nuclear power plants. But the IAEA says that won't eliminate the threat. "I think we have cooperation from the entire international community. I mean they have come to realise that nuclear terrorism is not just a remote possibility -- it's a clear and present danger," says ElBaradei. The danger is made worse by the 380 recorded cases of illicit trafficking in radioactive materials since 1993, according to the IAEA. Experts agree that if terrorists were to get hold of nuclear material, they could turn it into a potentially devastating weapon. [Sellafield] Britain's Sellafield re-processing plant could be the scene of a nuclear disaster "It would be relatively easy for any terrorist group or rogue state to misuse nuclear materials, not as a nuclear bomb but as what's called a dirty bomb, where you mix the materials with conventional explosives," says Mark Johnston of Greenpeace. "Setting that off in a city centre would cause widespread contamination. The city centre couldn't be used for decades afterwards. The victims of the Chernobyl nuclear accident are still living with the effects of that disaster 15 years later. The consequences of a nuclear terrorist attack, experts say, could be on a similar scale. © 2001 Cable News Network LP, LLLP. ***************************************************************** 30 Abraham Praises Important Progress on Reauthorization of Price-Anderson Act energy.gov - Headquarters' Press Release RELEASE DATE: November 2, 2001 [Print Friendly Version] Legislative Measure Outlines Compensation Measures for Nuclear Accident Victims, Key Component of Bush Administration's National Energy Policy Washington, D.C. – U.S. Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham praised the House Energy and Commerce Committee's important progress on moving toward reauthorization of the Price-Anderson Act, legislation outlining compensation measures for victims of nuclear victims. "I want to strongly commend Chairman Tauzin and the Committee for making reauthorization of the Price Anderson Act a priority," Secretary Abraham said. "Congress should move quickly to schedule final action on this important legislative item, a key legislative proposal included in the President's National Energy Policy issued last May." "I urge the House to complete action to reauthorize this legislation by the end of November and I urge the Senate to begin to act on this important legislation in an expeditious manner." The Price-Anderson Act was enacted in 1957 to ensure prompt compensation to the victims of nuclear accidents and promote the development of commercial nuclear power. The Congress has reauthorized the Price-Anderson Act on three separate occasions. It is set to expire in August 2002. Media Contact: Jeanne Lopatto/Joe Davis, 202/586-4940 Release No. R-01-188 ***************************************************************** 31 Call for no-fly zones over nuclear power stations online.ie : News The Irish Examiner 03 Nov 2001 By Matthew Jones BRITAIN'S largest nuclear power generator, British Energy, yesterday, urged the government to put in place no-fly zones over the company's power stations. "We have been telling the government we want no-fly zones over our power stations," said group spokesman Bob Fenton. The issue of nuclear safety has been thrust into the limelight after the September 11 attacks and calls on Thursday by the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency for governments to improve security around installations. Mr Fenton said there was a lot of interest in nuclear safety, especially after several media organisations overflew on Thursday British Energy power stations with small aircraft and helicopters. "There are media stunts going on at the moment, but I am not sure what they prove. We could have told them there are not any no-fly zones," he said. The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said some nuclear sites such as military installations and several power stations operated by State-run British Nuclear Fuels did have no-fly zones. "The CAA can put in place no-fly zones, but the request has to come from the government," a spokeswoman at the authority said. BNFL said it could not comment on security at its plants. A spokesman from the Office for Civil Nuclear Security, the body that oversees issues relating to the security of civilian nuclear sites, said no-fly zones were a safety rather than security issue. "No-fly zones are not there for security purposes, they are there for safety purposes," he said, adding that security at all nuclear installations was under review. Putting in place no-fly zones to cover Britain's 35 reactors is a long way off what other nations with nuclear power stations have done. Last month, France put in place ground-to-air missiles at its La Hague reprocessing site. ***************************************************************** 32 Fed Govt called to define 'co-location' in nuclear waste dump disposal ABC News - This Bulletin: Fri, 2 Nov 2001 7:29 ACDT A South Australian antinuclear party is calling on the Federal Government to clearly define the term "co-location" in its proposal for a second radioactive waste dump in South Australia's outback. SA Nuclear Free Future Party candidate, Ben Aylen, says his party found no supporters of the proposed low and medium level waste dumps during a recent tour of the state's mid and far north. He says while the Federal Government bowed to environmental pressure not to co-locate the dumps, it needs to do more. "That's define what co-location means, so they could still feasibly put the higher level dump a few kilometres away from the proposed lower level dump and still meet their requirements of it not being co-located," he said. © 2001 Australian Broadcasting Corporation ***************************************************************** 33 US awakens to a rogue nuclear threat UNCONVENTIONAL WARFARE By Bryan Bender, Globe Correspondent, 11/3/2001 WASHINGTON - Robert Oppenheimer is well-known as the father of the atomic bomb. But he is less known for his 1950s study, more relevant today than it was then, warning about the dangers of nuclear terrorism in America. Oppenheimer concluded that the only way to fully guard US borders against attacks from illicit nuclear or radiological materials was to dismantle everything entering or transiting the country, and examine it piece by piece - a method that became known as the ''screwdriver'' plan. Since Sept. 11, national and international security officials have been scrambling for just such a tool. After half a century of focusing almost solely on the threat of nuclear holocaust at the hands of the Soviet Union's intercontinental ballistic missiles, the United States has awakened to the growing dangers of novel, or unconventional, means of waging nuclear warfare. High on the danger list are smuggled nuclear weapons that could be detonated on US soil, and so-called dirty bombs that disperse highly toxic radioactive material but do minimal damage otherwise. The targeting of nuclear plants is also an emerging concern. ''We are not just dealing with the possibility of governments diverting nuclear materials into clandestine weapons programs,'' Mohamed el-Baradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog agency, in Vienna. ''Now we have been alerted to the potential of terrorists targeting nuclear facilities or using radioactive sources to incite panic, contaminate property, and even cause injury or death among civilian populations.'' Delegates from most of the agency's 132 member states met in Vienna yesterday for a special session to explore ways to minimize the risk of nuclear-related terrorism. The agency, warning of an increased threat of nuclear terrorism, urged governments to better protect radioactive material, to make sure it does not fall into terrorists' hands. Today's concern focuses less on unfriendly governments developing a nuclear weapon from scratch - Iraq, for example, spent 10 years and $2 billion trying to build a nuclear weapon and failed - and more on the possibility that terrorist organizations such as Al Qaeda could acquire an already-built nuclear weapon, or could assemble one by drawing on the stocks of the former Soviet Union. Specialists say such a secenario is plausible. ''It is conceivable,'' former secretary of defense Caspar Weinberger said Thursday. ''Fissionable material is around. Some undesirable people have nuclear weapons already'' and could be sources for terrorists, wittingly or unwittingly. At the same time, the United States' vulnerability has changed. It's no secret that the Pentagon is increasingly worried about the nuclear threat to its forces, both overseas and at home, from nations as well as non-state terrorists. Over the past decade, the number of US military bases overseas has dwindled, making those that remain higher-value targets for enemies. There are about four dozen such sites in the United States and about half a dozen in each region across the globe where the military conducts operations. Domestically, the United States has several civilian targets vulnerable to attack, a Pentagon study last year found; an example is the small section of Texas Gulf Coast where an estimated 80 percent of American petroleum supplies come into the country. Similarly, making radioactive portions of the Mississippi River or the St. Lawrence Seaway could disrupt the country more than a nuclear attack on people, the Pentagon study concluded. The means for launching such a nuclear attack are diverse. From a suitcase bomb smuggled into the United States, to a detonation in international waters causing a tidal wave, the Pentagon envisions a series of novel ways in which a nuclear weapon could be used. ''The unconventional use of nuclear explosives was in fact deemed an increasing threat,'' said Sandia National Laboratory's Roger Hagengruber, who last year chaired a classified Pentagon study of ''unconventional nuclear warfare defense.'' However, a more likely scenario than a nuclear detonation, and one that is much more difficult to prevent, would be the use of so-called dirty bombs designed to disperse radiological material, specialists believe. While these bombs pose a much more limited threat than a nuclear detonation, they are still tremendously dangerous and far easier for terrorists to come by. Unlike nuclear explosives, the potential sources of radiological material are vast and largely unsecured. From products used in radiotherapy to the preservation of food products and identification of welding errors in buildings and pipes, ''security of radioactive materials has traditionally been realtively light,'' according to Abel Gonzalez, the atomic energy agency's director of radiation and waste safety. A high explosive charge, packed with radioactive material, could have the effect of ''infecting a lot of people with serious leukemia,'' Zbigniew Brzezinski, former national security adviser, said recently. ''It's like Chernobyl writ large.'' An example of what the spread of radiological material could do occurred in 1987 when scavengers broke into an X-ray clinic in Goiania, Brazil, and took what appeared to be valuable-looking scraps of metal. Unknown to them, it was a highly radioactive substance called caesium 137, of which they sold pieces. More than 100,000 people had to be monitored for exposure, four people died, and 289 more were overexposed. Until now the deliberate use of a radiological weapon was considered unlikely because of the health risks to the perpetrators. ''We are dealing with a totally new equation since Sept. 11,'' Gonzalez said. ''These terrorists demonstrated before our eyes their willingness to give up their lives. The deadliness of handling intensely radioactive material can no longer be seen as an effective deterrent.'' Concern about the security of nuclear power plants has also grown in recent days. Some governors have posted National Guard troops at plants, and US Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Malden, urged President Bush on Thursday to make it mandatory. He also proposed that enough potassium iodide be stockpiled to treat everyone within a 50-mile radius of a nuclear plant in the case of an accidental release of radiation. ''These threats are very real, and they require an immediate and effective response,'' Markey said. US Representative Chet Edwards, Democrat of Texas and a member of the Appropriations Committee, this week proposed $130 million more for nuclear nonproliferation efforts. His proposal calls for beefing up antinuclear efforts in Russia through the remote monitoring of facilities and more stringent accounting standards. He said, for example, that monitoring ignores uranium that is enriched less than 20 percent, although it is sufficient to make a crude nuclear bomb. Edwards said in an interview that the Office of Management and Budget planned to slash $100 million from these efforts, claiming the nuclear threat is not an emergency. ''I am appalled by the administration's attitude on this,'' he said. ''This is the kind of threat you want to prevent, not react to after it occurs.'' © Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company. ***************************************************************** 34 'Dirty' bombs latest fear 11/03/2001 - Updated 10:06 PM ET By Dan Vergano, USA TODAY An international nuclear watchdog agency warned Thursday that terrorists may steal radioactive medical or industrial waste materials to build "dirty bombs" aimed at subways, train stations and other public places. Exploded with dynamite, a dirty bomb might kill hundreds through radiation poisoning and could contaminate large areas and stoke nuclear fears. The warning came from the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as it concluded a weeklong meeting in Vienna devoted to combating nuclear terrorism in the post-Sept. 11 world. The meeting was conducted in an atmosphere of growing concern over the safety of nuclear power plants, heightened by reports of Pakistan's detention of two prominent nuclear scientists linked to the al-Qa'eda network. The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) continues to ask the 103 nuclear plants nationwide to keep security at its highest level. "Everyone concurs now that terrorists have no qualms about what targets they go after," says the agency's Melissa Fleming. In addition to theft of radioactive medical and industrial material, the agency's concerns center on: + Nuclear plants. Sabotage of a reactor could lead to a Chernobyl-size disaster. + Nuclear fuel. Theft or diversion of plutonium or uranium could be used by terrorists to create a nuclear bomb. About 18 pounds of plutonium would be needed to craft a bomb. Since 1993, the U.N. agency has confirmed 376 cases of illicit sales of stolen radioactive materials. Such thefts occur regularly, says Sue Gagner of the NRC. Half the time, thieves abandon the material once they realize what it is they have stolen, she says. When the material isn't recovered, accidental exposure can be serious. In 1987, Cesium-137 scavenged from an abandoned medical clinic in Brazil killed four people. "We're encouraged by the scope of the IAEA's concerns," says nuclear safety engineer David Lochbaum of the Union of Concerned Scientists in Cambridge, Mass. In particular, his group fears the theft of spent nuclear fuel rods kept at 10 decommissioned plants. NRC officials say those facilities have increased security since Sept. 11. At nuclear plants, "we, like the rest of society, are on high alert," says Steve Kerekes of the Nuclear Energy Institute in Washington D.C., the policy organization of the nuclear energy industry. ***************************************************************** 35 Nuclear terrorism a new public concern ireland.com - The Irish Times - WORLD November 3, 2001 From Rachel Donnelly, in London Some might call it the "doomsday scenario" and, with little need for overstatement, the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mr Mohamed El Baradei, said yesterday the prospect of nuclear terrorism had been "catapulted to the forefront" of public consciousness since the September 11th terrorist attacks on the US. The new terrorist threat to nuclear installations presented by hijacked aircraft, highlighted by the agency during a four-day conference in Vienna this week, is no doubt concentrating minds at the Office for Civil Nuclear Security, which regulates security procedures at nuclear sites in Britain. There are 33 operational reactors in Britain providing about 26 per cent of the nation's electricity. Most sites have two nuclear reactors but some, including Calderhall in Cumbria and Chapelcross in Scotland, have four reactors each. There are 12 installations relatively close to Ireland's east coast, such as Wylfa on Anglesey, Sellafield in Cumbria and Trawsfynydd, north Wales, which is undergoing decommissioning but has radioactive material in its reactor hulk. Long-standing safety arrangements at nuclear installations include air exclusion zones around all sites extending in some cases up to two miles and reinforced concrete walls to protect reactors. Armed guards are posted at several nuclear installations and all nuclear operators must have site security and transport plans in place and must liaise with local authorities and the police to meet statutory requirements to guard against accidents, theft of nuclear material and sabotage. Security at nuclear installations is "very stringent" and "kept constantly under review", according to the Department of Trade and Industry, which is the lead British government department for co-ordinating nuclear policy in England and Wales. However, mindful of exaggerating the threat of nuclear terrorism and giving away any advantage to terrorists, the government has refused to discuss the detail of contingency plans and security arrangements. The security services and the government have advised there is no specific terrorist threat against Britain. However, a general uncertainty about the nuclear industry and recent warnings about the vulnerability of some European nuclear installations has led Greenpeace UK to question whether Britain is ready to deal with determined terrorists. "The plans are certainly inadequate and don't make the sites safe," argues Mr Mark Johnson, spokesman for Greenpeace UK, who says even if missiles were placed next to nuclear sites, the speed of an aircraft would make it impossible to launch them in time. "A high-speed airliner flying through an exclusion zone only requires about 20 seconds flying time to reach a nuclear installation. It is almost impossible that an effective defence could be mounted." Whether the missiles now stationed outside the Cap de la Hague nuclear site in France could deter a terrorist attack is unclear. In Britain, the public has been assured that security is "constantly under review" and as recent events at Sellafield demonstrated, the RAF is ready to respond to security alerts in the skies over Cumbria. But in these uncertain times, many are asking, is that enough? ***************************************************************** 36 UN warns of nuclear terror threat online.ie : News The Irish Examiner 03 Nov 2001 THE UN atomic agency's chief yesterday urged governments to impose stringent new controls to avert nuclear catastrophe. Citing new fears of nuclear terrorism in the wake of the September 11 attacks, Mohamed El-Baradei, the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told a special safety conference nations must secure radioactive materials before terrorist networks obtain them. Mr El-Baradei said the willingness of terrorists to commit suicide and inflict massive damage makes the possibility of a nuclear-related attack much more likely now than before September 11. "We need to act quickly to protect ourselves," he said. Seeking to minimise the risk of nuclear terrorism, delegates from most of the IAEA's 132 member states have met in Vienna, the Austrian capital, to discuss what can be done to secure the world's radioactive materials. The agency sets world standards for atomic safety and provides help to countries in case of a radiological disaster. Pleading for international unity in creating universal and stringent controls on nuclear materials, Mr El-Baradei said some governments - especially in poor countries - need to do more. He said it is unclear whether terrorist groups have the capability of building a nuclear bomb, but warned governments must act quickly to prevent that from happening. "We don't have any information that al-Qaida or any other terrorist organisation has nuclear material," he said. "We are not directing our attention against any particular terrorist group, just protecting against any possible attack." Before September 11, the agency was worried most about the risk of governments "diverting nuclear materials into clandestine weapons programmes", Mr El-Baradei said. Now, however, experts are more concerned about terrorists attacking nuclear plants directly or releasing radioactive material into the environment. With terrorists now willing to inflict unprecedented destruction, experts are worried terrorists could now resort to a so-called dirty bomb. Unlike more sophisticated nuclear weapons, a dirty bomb is a crude device using radioactive material taken from industrial sites or hospitals and detonated by conventional explosives. When a dirty bomb explodes, radioactive material is dispersed. Such a crude weapon may not kill many people, but would create major panic, Mr El-Baradei said. ***************************************************************** 37 Increased fears over Sellafield FRIDAY 02/11/01 17:56:41 South Down MP Eddie McGrady has called for the Sellafield nuclear plant in Cumbria to be closed saying it could be a target for terrorists. The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency has warned that since the World Trade Centre atrocity, a nuclear attack by terrorists is far more likely now than it was before September 11. There have been calls for stricter security at sites like Sellafield. The threat of terrorism is just one of the worries about Sellafield. There are also fears over and the amount of radioactive waste that is produced at the site and it`s effects. So health fears are very much in the minds of the people living across the Irish Sea from Sellafield. On 02/11/01 18:13:39, Brian said: McGready is a bit late in calling for the closure of Sellafield. Sinn Fein have been to the forefront both in the South and Occupied zone in advocating for it's closure. Stop playing politics McGready, your a Unionist in sheep's clothing. On 02/11/01 23:37:32, AH from Enniskillen said: To think that the SDLP have shamefully fallen to Sinn Fein's level of jealousy, not to mention stupidity. The British Government is not going to be bothered in the slightest by the complaints of SF/SDLP. We're proud of our nuclear industry, we're a world leader and we're not going to give that up just because an inferior country is jealous. On 03/11/01 01:25:19, Sean said: Who??? On 03/11/01 16:33:06, Desmond Devlin from County Tyrone said: Big up McGrady!!!! Sellafield must go, PRONTO!!!! ***************************************************************** 38 Race against time on N-safety Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Atomic power UN warns of urgent task Kate Connolly in Berlin Saturday November 3, 2001 The Guardian Governments must act swiftly to protect the world's nuclear facilities and radioactive material from being sabotaged by terrorists, the head of the UN's atomic agency warned yesterday. Mohamed ElBaradei told delegates from the 132 members of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) meeting in Vienna that countries have a race against time to secure the potentially deadly materials and to prevent terrorists from getting there first. "We need to act quickly to protect ourselves," Mr ElBaradei said, outlining new and realistic nuclear terrorism scenarios in the wake of the September 11 attacks on the US. The obvious readiness of ter rorists to sacrifice their lives to cause huge damage had dramatically increased the threat of nuclear-related attacks, Mr ElBaradei said. "The willingness of terrorists to commit suicide to achieve their evil aims makes the nuclear terrorism threat far more likely than it was before September 11," he said. The IAEA, which normally keeps a relatively low profile, has stated that its two main concerns are the possibility of lost or stolen nuclear material getting into the hands of terrorists, and the potential threat of terrorists crashing large passenger airliners into nuclear containment facilities. The IAEA's foremost concern before September 11 - that governments might divert nuclear materials into secret weapons programmes - was now secondary to the terrorist threat. In the case of a facility being penetrated and the cooling system being seriously damaged or destroyed, "meltdown" would start within minutes, and could release lethal radiation. Mr ElBaradei stressed that poorer countries, especially of the former Soviet Union where nuclear power stations are numerous, would have to work particularly hard to stop nuclear material from falling into the hands of criminal gangs. Tightening border controls was imperative, he said. He said it was not known whether any specific terrorist groups had the ability to build nuclear explosives, but that no chances could be taken. The IAEA has called for an international approach to deal with the threat of radiation. The safety conference drew together representatives from around the globe, including China, France, Russia, Britain, the US, India, Pakistan and Israel, all of which are known or believed to have nuclear weapons technology. According to agency figures, there have been 175 cases of trafficking in nuclear material since 1993. Only 18 of these involved the materials necessary to create a nuclear bomb. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2001 ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 Russian minister takes Kursk documents away for "extremely detailed analysis" BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Nov 2, 2001 Text of report by Radio Russia on 2 November The bodies of two further dead sailors were recovered overnight from the Kursk nuclear submarine. Since the start of the search following the docking of the submarine at Roslyakovo, 55 submariners' bodies have been found, 39 of which have been returned to their home towns for burial. As of this morning, 16 Granit cruise missiles had been unloaded, eight from each side. On Thursday evening, before flying back to Moscow, the chairman of the government commission investigating the causes of the loss of the nuclear submarine, Ilya Klebanov, told staff from the Northern Fleet's press service that he was taking away a large batch of documents essential for an extremely detailed analysis of the situation on the submarine in more suitable conditions. He said that the best specialists from the Russian navy would be engaged in the work, as well as [the best specialists] from the country's research and design organizations. Source: Radio Russia, Moscow, in Russian 1000 gmt 2 Nov 01 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter All Material Subject to ***************************************************************** 2 FAA bans most flights at airport Chicago Tribune: http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=2589537&BRD=1125&PAG=461&dept_id=99545&rfi=6 From the Chicago Tribune November 3, 2001 WAUKEGAN -- The Waukegan Regional Airport was closed to general aviation Friday due to a Federal Aviation Administration order extending airspace restrictions over the shuttered Zion nuclear plant. The order, which runs from 4 p.m. Friday through 11 p.m. Tuesday, prohibits general aviation except emergency-related flights within a 10-mile radius of the deactivated power plant, said FAA spokeswoman Elizabeth Isham Cory. The order added several new sites to the list of 86 sensitive nuclear sites the FAA already had ordered restrictions on earlier this week in response to the latest terrorist alert. Tom Thompson, a line service technician at DB Aviation at the Waukegan airport, said the order did not affect charters or commercial flights, but would have an impact on the two flight schools at the airport and private planes. The Zion plant is no longer operating, but stores more than 1,100 tons of spent fuel awaiting a site for permanent disposal. Copyright © 2001, Chicago Tribune ***************************************************************** 3 National Security Order Shuts Down San Jose, Calif.-Area Airports San Jose Mercury News - California - KRTBN; Nov 2, 2001 A national security order banning private planes from flying within 11 miles of nuclear power reactors and government nuclear facilities for a week has shut down Livermore Municipal Airport and two other busy Bay Area airfields. The airports are too close to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and nearby Sandia/California Laboratory, government facilities where nuclear weapons are developed and other such research takes place. Tracy and Byron airports also are among the 84 public airports and hundreds of private airfields nationwide that are closed until midnight Tuesday. The order effectively shuts down a number of aviation businesses and grounds private planes at those airports. Law enforcement, firefighting and medical aircraft are exempt from the order, which was issued by the Federal Aviation Administration and affects aircraft flying below 18,000 feet. The areas protected by the FAA order come from a list of 86 facilities drawn up by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which oversees power reactors, and the federal Energy Department, which surveys nuclear weapons. World Reporter All Material Subject to Copyright ***************************************************************** 4 US offers nuclear protection to Pakistan The Pawtucket Times United Press International.November 02, 2001 ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Nov 02, 2001 (United Press International via COMTEX) -- The United States has offered to teach Pakistan how to protect its nuclear weapons and Pakistan has accepted. Quoting Foreign Minister Abdus Sattar, Pakistani newspapers reported Friday that U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell made this offer when he visited Islamabad last month. According to Sattar, Powell invited Pakistan to send its experts to the United States to "see how Americans protect their weapons." Asked about Pakistan's response, he said: "Positive offers are not turned down, at least not from friendly countries." Recent reports in the U.S. media have expressed concerns about the security of Pakistani nuclear weapons. Some reports suggested that Muslim extremists could get these weapons if the ongoing campaign against President Pervez Musharraf gets out of control. Over a dozen Muslim religious organizations are protesting Musharraf's decision to back U.S military strikes into Afghanistan, urging him to support neighboring Muslim nation's Taliban leaders instead. Although still small, the rallies have grown bigger since Oct. 7 when the United States launched military strikes into Afghanistan because Taliban refused to hand over Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect in the Sept. 11 terror attacks on New York and Washington. Quoting official sources, some newspapers reported that the Bush administration was concerned that the agitation may get worse and lead to the collapse of the Musharraf government. They also reported that U.S. and Israeli special forces were already conducting joint exercises to take out Pakistan's nuclear weapons should the Musharraf government collapse. Dismissing these reports as "baseless fears," the Pakistani foreign minister assured that Pakistan's "nuclear weapons already are in secure hands." He said that Pakistan has "a concrete control and command center for its nuclear weapons and nobody except those responsible for their security has access to them." Earlier this week, Pakistan received unlikely support for its position on this issue. Addressing a seminar in New Delhi, India's Defense Minister George Fernandes said Wednesday that "politics aside, we believe Pakistanis are responsible people and quite capable of defending their nuclear assets." Both India and Pakistan tested their nuclear devices in May 1998 and since then have been working on various programs to develop control and delivery systems. ©The Pawtucket Times 2001 ***************************************************************** 5 Pakistan Releases 3 Scientists Questioned on Ties to Taliban November 3, 2001 By JOHN F. BURNS SLAMABAD, Pakistan, Nov. 2 — Pakistan said today that three nuclear scientists arrested 10 days ago for questioning about their relationship to the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan were released on Thursday night. Two scientists had been "looking into land research" on trips to Afghanistan in the last three years, and not passing along nuclear secrets or matériel to the Taliban or Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, an aide to President Pervez Musharraf said at a briefing. The aide, Maj. Gen. Rashid Qureshi, identified the two scientists as Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood and Chaudry Abdul Masheed. General Qureshi said nothing more about the third scientist, Mirza Yusuf Baig. General Qureshi said Mr. Mahmood and Mr. Masheed had never been involved in developing Pakistan's small arsenal of nuclear weapons but had been assigned by its Atomic Energy Commission to research nuclear power plants. Although it has a stockpile of nuclear weapons, believed to number fewer than 20, Pakistan has no nuclear-fueled power plants, although it does have research reactors that, Western intelligence officials say, have produced bomb fuel. "Calling them nuclear scientists suggests as if they were involved in the weapons-production program, and it has repeatedly been told that they were not involved in any weapons program," General Qureshi said. An exchange at the briefing did little to clarify the circumstances that led to the arrests of the men, all picked up for questioning on Oct. 23. Although officials said the three were released on Thursday night, relatives answering telephone calls to their houses said they had no knowledge of the men's whereabouts. General Qureshi sought to explain the response, saying, "I know for a fact that they do not want to meet the press." Mr. Mahmood has been identified by Pakistani officials as a former director general of nuclear power plants for the atomic energy agency. Mr. Masheed was said to be a former director of uranium enrichment laboratories, and Mr. Baig was also identified as a scientist with the atomic energy agency. Earlier in the week, senior Pakistani officials said that the men had been arrested in response to American concerns that they might have passed nuclear secrets or matériel to Mr. bin Laden. But General Qureshi said today that the arrests had resulted from Pakistani inquiries, prompted by the United States, into the activities of several hundred relief organizations run by Pakistanis and active in Taliban-controlled parts of Afghanistan. One organization was Ummah Tameer-e-Nau, a relief agency founded by Mr. Mahmood and said by Pakistani officials to have been involved in agricultural work around Kandahar, spiritual hub of the Taliban. Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company ***************************************************************** 6 Opinion: Threat to (Pakistani) nukes The Frontier Post From Peshawar Pakistan Updated on 11/3/2001 10:47:39 AM The Pakistani nuclear installations are facing threat from the US and its scheming allies. If there has been any intelligence ever in Pakistan, now is the time to put it to real task. The United States is hell bent on creating unrest in Pakistan that can culminate into the ousting of General Musharraf.It is doing so by overruling Pakistan’s concerns of Afghanistan on various Occasions. It has tilted toward India to the extent of officially calling the Kashmir freedom struggle as Pakistan sponsored terrorism. All this can have serious implications for General Musharraf. The opposition groups within the country are also looking to overthrow him; they are walking right into the trap. It is very important for all the groups in Pakistan to realise the gravity of the situation and back General Musharraf all the way because his ouster could mean capture and destruction of nuclear assets. The US has divided the Afghans into two groups and is making them fight each other till the end; this may very much be their strategy for Pakistan too. Pakistani people should set aside their differences and safeguard the sovereignty of the country. A R Jaffar, Dubai Post your Comments © Copyright 2001 The Frontier Post ***************************************************************** 7 Film: France Gave Israel Nuclear Bomb The Salt Lake Tribune -- Saturday, November 3, 2001 THE ASSOCIATED PRESS JERUSALEM -- Israel has made no secret of the fact that it has a nuclear reactor, which it says it uses for peaceful purposes. But a new television documentary says Israel developed nuclear weapons from French technology acquired in the late 1950s. While no Israeli official will confirm or deny such reports, the film has not been stopped by Israel's military censor. It shows a former French Defense Ministry official saying that the head of the French Atomic Energy Commission, Francis Perrin, advised then-Prime Minister Guy Mollet to give Israel a nuclear bomb. Neither Mollet nor Perrin is still alive. Abel Thomas was the chief of political staff for Maurice Bourges-Mounory, France's defense minister at the time. He said the offer came after Moscow threatened nuclear strikes against France, Israel and Britain for having sent troops into the Sinai peninsula. The deployment came after Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal, which had been owned by British and French businesses. The documentary, previewed by The Associated Press, is to be broadcast in Israel on Sunday. It says France supplied a nuclear reactor, scientists and technicians to Israel. In the film, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, then deputy defense minister, acknowledges asking "for a nuclear reactor and other things" in his negotiations with the French. But he does not specifically confirm or deny Israel's possession of nuclear weapons. © Copyright 2001, The Salt Lake Tribune All material found on ***************************************************************** 8 Missiles may guard nuclear facilities, Minister says November 3, 2001 Missiles may guard nuclear facilities, Minister says Defence, police officials look at ways to beef up security Andrew McIntosh National Post OTTAWA - Ralph Goodale, the Natural Resources Minister, yesterday said the federal government is considering whether soldiers armed with surface-to-air missiles should guard Canada's nuclear facilities against terrorist attack. "That is a dimension to this we obviously have under consideration," Mr. Goodale told reporters outside the Commons when asked if Canada would follow France, which has assigned soldiers with such missiles to guard its nuclear facilities since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Mr. Goodale's remarks came after Mohamed el Baradei, the head of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, said Thursday that an act of nuclear terrorism is now "far more likely" after three hijacked jets attacked the World Trade Center and the U.S. Pentagon. Canada has seven nuclear power generating stations at five locations in Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick as well as other smaller nuclear laboratories. The Natural Resources Minister said Canadian defence, police and security and intelligence officials are now studying how to beef up security at the facilities and whether to also impose no-fly zones around them. "That in itself, unfortunately, is no guarantee when you're dealing with what could be a suicide bomber," Mr. Goodale said. "Obviously, there were air space rules over Manhattan that were violated on the 11th of September." "What it means is that we have to do everything we can do, that is humanly possible to be done to protect Canadians against these kinds of incidents," he said. "Quite frankly, could anyone give an absolute, sworn-on-the-Bible guarantee that nothing untoward could ever happen? That's unfortunately beyond human capacity," he added. Copyright © 2001 National Post Online | Privacy Policy | ***************************************************************** 9 Four in 10 Muslims in UK justify Osama -DAWN - LONDON, Nov 4: Four in 10 British Muslims believe Osama bin Laden is justified in mounting a war against the United States while 96 percent think that air strikes against Afghanistan should stop, the Sunday Times reported. A poll for the newspaper found that 11 percent thought there was some justification for his methods. Britain has a Muslim community numbering about two million. Forty percent of those surveyed thought that British Muslims who went to fight with the Taliban were right to do so. And nearly three-quarters - 73 percent - said Prime Minister Tony Blair was wrong to back the Americans in their air offensive. Asked whether it was more important to be British or Muslim, 68 percent chose their faith. The figures are likely to concern ministers, who have repeatedly insisted that the US and its allies were not waging war on Islam, amid fears of growing racial and religious tensions in Britain. The Sunday Times interviewed 1,170 people at random in cities across Britain in what it said was the first large-scale poll of Britain's Muslim community since the start of the bombing of Afghanistan on October 7.-AFP ***************************************************************** 10 DOD Issues Information Paper on Depleted Uranium in Balkans News from the Washington File 31 October 2001 (Outside assessments found no link to health problems) (630) On October 30, the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) issued an information paper intended to provide a basic understanding of the use of depleted uranium (DU) munitions in the Balkans. A DOD news release said the paper summarizes medical and environmental assessments made by the United Nations Environmental Program, the World Health Organization, and the United Kingdom Royal Society. "On the whole," according to the release, "these assessments have not found any connections between depleted uranium exposure in the Balkans and negative health effects." The paper makes several comparisons between DU munitions used during conflicts in the Balkans and those used during the Gulf War. It is available online at: http://deploymentlink.osd.mil/du_balkans/index.html DOD said it would be updated if additional information becomes available. Following is the text of the news release: NEWS RELEASE from the United States Department of Defense No. 552-01 October 30, 2001 DOD STUDIES MEDICAL IMPACT OF DEPLETED URANIUM IN THE BALKANS The Department of Defense released today an information paper, "Depleted Uranium Environmental and Medical Surveillance in the Balkans," which summarizes medical and environmental assessments performed in the Balkans area by a number of countries. On the whole, these assessments have not found any connections between depleted uranium exposure in the Balkans and negative health effects. Most of the work assessed was done independently, by organizations outside the Defense Department. The information paper examines assessments performed by the United Kingdom Royal Society, the World Health Organization, the United Nations Environmental Programme and others. Investigators supporting the special assistant for Gulf War illnesses, medical readiness and military deployments compiled and analyzed those reports and referenced them in the new information paper. Most of the cited references are available in public libraries or on the Internet. The special assistant's support staff is the same organization that previously investigated depleted uranium use in the Gulf War. Both tanks and aircraft employed depleted uranium ammunition in the Gulf War. However, all the depleted uranium used in the Balkans was in the form of 30-millimeter rounds fired from Air Force A-10 aircraft. About 10,000 rounds were fired in Bosnia and approximately 31,000 rounds were fired in Kosovo. That adds up to nearly 13 tons of depleted uranium, much less than the 320 tons of depleted uranium used during the Gulf War. Concerns about possible health effects of depleted uranium in Europe were first raised by newspaper reports. Italian media reports initially tried to link an apparent rise in the incidence of leukemia in Balkan veterans to exposure to depleted uranium. After an extensive scientific study, the Italian government concluded that the incidence of leukemia was not as high in Balkan veterans as it was in the general population. Many other countries started medical screening programs for their Bosnia veterans. So far, none has reported elevated uranium levels in their soldiers' urine, or any negative health consequences they attribute to depleted uranium exposure. Because depleted uranium is a heavy metal, it can be potentially harmful under certain circumstances. For that reason, the NATO nations have instituted training in the safety precautions to use in an area where depleted uranium was used militarily. Much of this training is based on the training programs created by the U.S. ARMY. Information papers are reports of what the Defense Department knows today about military procedures and equipment. This information paper is intended to provide a basic understanding of depleted uranium use in the Balkans. Although not an investigative report, the report will be updated if additional information becomes available. This report is posted on the DeploymentLINK Web site at http://deploymentlink.osd.mil/du_balkans/index.html . [Web version: http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Oct2001/b10302001_bt552-01.html] (end text) (Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov) This site is produced and maintained by the U.S. Department of State's Office of International Information Programs (usinfo.state.gov). Links to other Internet sites should not be construed as an endorsement of the views contained therein. Department of State [http://www.state.gov] ***************************************************************** 11 Secretary Abraham Highlights Converting Weapons-Related Legacy Material into Weapon Against Cancer energy.gov - Headquarters' Press Release RELEASE DATE: November 2, 2001 [Print Friendly Version] Energy Department Issues Request for Proposals to Increase the Supply of Medical Isotopes for Clinical Trials and Cancer Treatment WASHINGTON, DC -- The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced today that it will accept proposals from private companies who are interested in providing a large-scale, long-term source of a promising radioisotope for cancer treatment. The Request for Proposal (RFP) No. DE-RP05-00OR22860 is available at http://www.oakridge.doe.gov/u233seb/ [http://www.oakridge.doe.gov/u233seb/] . "This project will enable the department to proceed with an important cleanup milestone at DOE's Oak Ridge National Laboratory while using our expertise and the legacy materials stored at the site to help fight cancer," Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham said. The Oak Ridge National Laboratory stores 1.5 metric tons of uranium, containing 450 kilograms of uranium-233, that was originally produced at DOE's nuclear defense production plants. The department is requesting proposals that would utilize this material as a medical isotope. For the past two years, the department has provided bismuth-213 -- a decay product of uranium-233 -- for Phase II clinical trials at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City for the treatment of acute myologenous leukemia. Bismuth-213 is also being explored in the treatment of cancer of the lungs, pancreas and kidneys. The isotopes are bound to monoclonal antibodies that attack the site of a tumor, minimizing impact on surrounding tissues. Additionally, the RFP seeks further processing to render the uranium-233 safe for long-term, economical storage and to prepare Oak Ridge's Radiochemical Development Facility, Building 3019A, for final closure. The RFP proposes a cost reimbursement contract using a three-phased approach for design, operations and shutdown. The initial contract award for design is anticipated next summer. Media Contact: Joe Davis, 202/586-4940 Hope Williams, 202/586-5806 Release No. R-01-187 ***************************************************************** 12 Kursk's Dents Said Not From Crash Thursday November 1 2:28 PM ET By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV, Associated Press Writer MOSCOW (AP) - The dents that have puzzled investigators examining the wreck of the nuclear submarine Kursk ( [http://rd.yahoo.com/DailyNews/manual/*http://search.news.yahoo.com/search/news? p=%22Kursk%22&c=&n=20&yn=c&c=news&cs=nw] - [http://rd.yahoo.com/DailyNews/manual/*http://search.yahoo.com/bin/search?p=Kurs k] ) were not caused by a collision with another submarine, a senior prosecutor said Thursday. However, it is still possible a collision caused the two explosions that sank the Kursk, said Yuri Yakovlev, first deputy chief military prosecutor. ``It's wrong to say that the dents resulted from a collision which led to the catastrophe,'' he said, according to the Interfax news agency. He did not say what could have caused the dents, but Russia's deputy prime minister said Wednesday they could be due to the submarine hitting the seabed or to a vacuum effect caused by the blasts. The Kursk sank in the Barents Sea during a naval exercise on Aug. 12, 2000, killing the entire crew of 118. The wreck was raised from the seabed and brought to dry dock last week, enabling the navy to recover 53 bodies in addition to the 12 retrieved by divers from the wreck last fall. Meanwhile, the navy has unloaded 14 of the Kursk's 22 Granit cruise missiles, including six on Thursday from starboard side. Eight others were removed from port side. So far the navy has been was unable to retrieve three other missiles from port side because of their sensitive location near the damaged bow. Navy officials have said they may have to cut the massive weapons from the Kursk together with their containers if they can't be lifted out by crane. Officials say the first of two explosions in the Kursk's bow was caused by a practice torpedo, but they disagree on what triggered it. Most experts suspect an internal malfunction. Russian investigators have not ruled out a World War II mine or a collision with a foreign submarine. Copyright © 2001 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 13 Radioactive theft Broadcast: November 2, 2001 Reporter: Andrew Veitch Who has what: from Federation of American Scientists [http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/] Nuclear sabotage is now "a clear and present danger" according to the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Experts from around the world have gathered in Austria to discuss nuclear security - and to urge governments to spend millions of pounds on improved security. They're now considering the risk of hijacked planes flying into nuclear power plants as well as crude bombs made from stolen radioactive material. Since 1993 there have been 550 incidents of radioactive material being stolen around the world - either from powerplants, industrial sites or medical centres. Eighteen of these have involved enriched Uranium or Plutonium - the elements necessary to build a nuclear weapon. But such a weapon is unlikely to be used by terrorists they say - they're too difficult and expensive to make and use. Instead the more credible danger comes from the so-called dirty bombs: radioactive material wrapped in conventional explosives. In 1987 a capsule containing a few grams of radioactive Caesium-137 was stolen from an old medical centre in Brazil. The capsule was then discarded in the street. The result: four people died, 250 were taken to hospital and a whole neighbourhood had to be evacuated. This was not a terrorist attack, no explosives had been used - but if they had been the contamination would have been vast. [Andrew Veitch] Our science correspondent Andrew Veitch is in Vienna where the nuclear security talks are going on: do they believe Osama bin Laden has nuclear materials? ***************************************************************** 14 'US commandos forced to flee back' -DAWN - WASHINGTON, Nov 4: A crack US Delta Force commando unit had been forced to fight its way back to safety by the Taliban in the wake of a "near-disaster" assault on Mulla Omar's hideout in Kandahar. This has been claimed by an American journalist in a story due to appear in the 'New Yorker' on Nov 12. The report says 12 members of the unit were injured, three of them seriously on the morning of October 20. The "intensity and ferocity" of the Taliban response is said to have "scared the crap out of everyone", Hersch claims being told by a senior military officer. According to the story, the Delta team stormed Mulla Omar's complex, but found little of value and then, "as they came out of the house, the (expletive) hit the fan," one senior officer says. "It was like an ambush. The Taliban were fighting with light arms and either (rocket-propelled) grenades or mortars." The team immediately began taking casualties and evacuated. Writes Hersch, "The Delta team was forced to abandon one of its objectives: the insertion of an undercover team into the area and the stay-behind soldiers fled to a previously determined rendezvous point, using a contingency plan known as an E, for escape and evasion." One Delta Force soldier referring to the operation's military planners said, "Don't put us in an environment we weren't prepared for. Next time, we're going to lose a company." One senior officer is quoted as saying of General Franks, the United States Central Command chief, that he is "clueless". Also criticized by the officers, according to Hersch, was a United States Army Rangers' parachute jump the same day as the attack on Mulla Omar's hideout, "It was a television show. "The Rangers were not the first in - an Army Pathfinder team had already confirmed that the area was clear of Taliban forces". One senior official told Hersch there were serious problems in the war effort thus far, adding, "It's like reading a 600-page murder mystery. "It's solved on the last few pages, but you have to read 598 pages to get there."-APP ***************************************************************** NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: *****************************************************************