***************************************************************** 04/05/01 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 9.85 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER CONTENTS 1 GIBBONS BLOCKS DOE ATTEMPTS FOR EXTENDED ACCESS TO LAND NEAR 2 Rancho Seco Project Suffers Setback 3 Lawmakers Address Calif. Energy Woes 4 Panel hears pros, cons of waste disposal 5 Judge Blasts USEC s 1998 Privatization 6 The Anti-Pollution Fight Heats Up in Williamsburg 7 Tests to determine scope of tainted water problem 8 Yucca proposal-Domenici 9 Isolyser Reports Successful Demonstration of The OREX Technology 10 Point Lepreau leak has implications for nuclear industry 11 Nuclear institute lied about staff to pay salaries 12 Radiation Contamination in Thailand 13 Pakistan's new plant fuels nuclear debate 14 EU Commission to send France to court over lack of radiation 15 Commission refers France to the Court of Justice over radiation protection 16 Sellafield link to Down's births dismissed 17 Letter: Radiation Standard Sign-on 18 Nuclear birth fears eased 19 Baby teeth clues to 'nuclear cancer' 20 Sellafield shipment hit by farm disease 21 Manager Disciplined 22 £5.5m to Be Spent on Visitors Centre 23 Final Decision to Be Made on MOX Plant 24 1957 Nuclear Fire Legacy Goes On 25 Nuclear reactor shut down after leak from generator NUCLEAR WEAPONS CONTENTS 1 Hastings seeks reprieve for FFTF 2 Getting rid of radioactive weeds 3 Full Metal Solid 4 Let's not go back to the bad old days 5 Linus Pauling (1901-1994): Scientist and crusader 6 Energy Department Releases Historical Studies of Recycled Uranium 7 GIBBONS CONTINUES BATTLE TO KEEP DOE WORKERS COMPENSATION PROGRAM 8 Kursk Had Atomic Weapons Aboard-Report 9 Moscow: No Nuclear Weapons on Kursk 10 Difference of opinion re Kursk weapons 11 Duma source denies nuclear warhead rumours 12 Budget has funds for sick miners 13 Bush backs ill miners 14 Nuclear workers' compensation program shouldn't move, Strickland says 15 STRICKLAND INTRODUCES LEGISLATION TO PLACE NUCLEAR WORKERS 16 Whistleblower Carson awarded consequential damages ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 GIBBONS BLOCKS DOE ATTEMPTS FOR EXTENDED ACCESS TO LAND NEAR YUCCA MOUNTAIN Gibbons (NV02) - Press Release - April 5, 2001 Washington, D.C.— Today, U.S. Congressman Jim Gibbons (R-Nev.) announced that the United States Air Force has rejected requests made by the Department of Energy (DOE) to extend the time frame on its permit for use of land owned by the Air Force and located near Yucca Mountain. The DOE wanted an additional four years of access to the land and requested a seven year permit instead of the current three year agreement. Gibbons, a former Air Force combat pilot, actively encouraged the Air Force to deny the seven year extension request. “There is absolutely no reason for the DOE to receive preferential treatment and be granted an extension on its permit to access Air Force land near Yucca Mountain,” stated Gibbons, a member of both the House Resources and Armed Services Committees. “The request of the DOE to extend its access to land near Yucca Mountain shows, yet again, that the agency is relentlessly committed to creating a nuclear waste repository in Nevada. I am pleased that the United States Air Force understood the importance of this matter and did not agree to a special permit deal.” Currently, the DOE has a Right-of-Way (RoW) permit to Air Force land for the specific purpose of continuing site characterization of the Yucca Mountain area. The DOE’s RoW is valid for a three year period only, and the present permit agreement came up for renewal this month. In applying for a permit renewal, the DOE also sought to change the agreement to allow the DOE access to the land for a seven year period. Gibbons expressed his serious concern regarding the possible permit change to Air Force officials. Consequently, the Air Force rejected the DOE request and agreed to maintaining the current permit agreement. ***************************************************************** 2 Rancho Seco Project Suffers Setback KCRA TheKCRAChannel.com Thursday April 05 01:22 AM EDT A major project at Rancho Seco involving the transfer of several hundred nuclear fuel rods has been set back after the discovery of a faulty seal. Since Rancho Seco, in southern Sacramento County, closed in 1989, 493 fuel rods that carry uranium pellets have sat in water in the plant's fuel building. SMUD crews are now working around the clock to pull the rods out of the water -- so-called wet storage -- and into stainless steel containers, which will be stored in concrete. A seal that slipped out of place in one of those steel containers has caused SMUD crews to undo the work they had accomplished in the last three days. Officials estimated a total setback of four or five days in the project, which is expected to last nine months. Dry storage is somewhat safer, SMUD officials said, but the primary reason for the transfer is to save money. SMUD officials said that they will save between $8 million and $10 million a year if the rods can be stored outside, unguarded, rather than inside the plant. Copyright © 2001 Yahoo! and . ***************************************************************** 3 Lawmakers Address Calif. Energy Woes April 04, 2001 WASHINGTON (AP) - House Republicans are working on a plan to waive some clean air provisions and direct the use of more federal portable generators to ease California's summer power crunch. But Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, chairman of the subcommittee that would write the legislation, said he remains opposed to temporary price controls to dampen high wholesale electricity prices in the West. "Price caps don't work," said Barton, although he told an energy conference Wednesday, "We can't just say let California take care of California." Democrats, joined by some western Republicans, have sought temporary regulation of wholesale electricity prices, which they say are beyond what is reasonable in the West. Legislation introduced Wednesday by a group of House Democrats would require prices to reflect costs of power production plus a reasonable profit. It would get the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which regulates wholesale electricity prices, "to its job" and provide relief from high power costs in the West, said House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo. In response, Rep. Billy Tauzin, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Commission, said the price-cap idea was a "knee-jerk reaction (that) would only wind up as a kick in the pants for Californians" who need more energy. He said he wanted "commonsense" proposals to help California this summer. Barton, chairman of the energy and air quality subcommittee, circulated an outline of legislation to address this summer's power crunch in the West. It ranges from directing the Environmental Protection Agency to waive some clean air rules to allowing states to adjust daylight-saving time and direct the military to make available portable power generators. The draft proposed that the Pentagon "explore" docking some of the Navy's nuclear-powered ships offshore to supply the California grid with electricity. But Barton told reporters Wednesday that idea had been scrapped because of problems of getting the electricity to shore and that the ships might be needed elsewhere. "It was an idea," he said. Barton said he hoped to have the legislation ready for a vote within a few weeks. He has sent a copy to the White House, but has not gotten a response. Other proposals in the legislation include: -The Federal Emergency Management Agency would develop an emergency plan in response to blackouts -Federal facilities in California would use 10 percent less energy than last year. -The federal EPA would waive some of its clean air requirements to boost power production from older plants. Barton's draft was criticized by a number of California Democrats as an attempt to "undermine" the Clean Air Act when it has not been shown that air pollution requirements are responsible for California's power shortages. The GOP draft also includes a number of programs that would do little to ease this summer's power problems such as making federal lands available to build power plants and a provisions to make it easier to restart mothballed nuclear power plants. Several other provisions of the Barton draft raised concerns from environmentalists. Those included a proposal to delay a river restoration plan on California's Trinity River, and a requirements to maximize power generation at federal hydroelectric dams in the Pacific Northwest at the request of a governor. That requirement was viewed as a potential threat to salmon recovery programs. The Democrats' bill would force the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to cap those prices in the Western power markets until March, 2003 with new generation facilities exempt from controls. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 4 Panel hears pros, cons of waste disposal Amarillo Globe-News: By JANE ALDRED Morris News Service AUSTIN - Legislation that would create a low-level radioactive waste disposal site in Texas was supported and opposed Tuesday at the House Committee on Environmental Regulation. Two bills by the committee's chairman, Rep. Warren Chisum, R-Pampa, allow Texas to fulfill its obligation under a federal compact agreement with Maine and Vermont to store the waste. House Bill 3420 provides for the state to enter into a contract with a private business to build a facility. Then, the state pays the private company to run it with fees collected from those whose waste is being disposed. The measure is sponsored in the Senate by Sen. Robert Duncan, R-Lubbock. Chisum's House Bill 3283 provides for a facility to be built, but specifies it would be an assured isolation facility, which is built aboveground of reinforced concrete and managed by a staff to test for leakage. It does not provide for burying the waste. The bill also does not delegate responsibilities to a private corporation. Instead, the state would build and manage the facility. Bud Norton, a radiation safety officer at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, spoke in support of the bills. He said his facility has to store radioactive waste on-site until it can be shipped to a disposal site in South Carolina, which is very expensive. Dale Klein, vice chancellor for Special Engineering Programs for the University of Texas System, said Texas should allow the residents of the host region to vote on the issue. "We need one site where this waste can be disposed of," he said. "This is both an emotional issue and a technical issue and it seems the emotional issues are more difficult to address." Alfrado Raza, a West Texas resident, told the committee that burying radioactive waste is the equivalent of a cat burying its "excrement in a litter box." ***************************************************************** 5 Judge Blasts USEC s 1998 Privatization THE ELECTRICITY DAILY April 5, 2001, Thursday A federal judge in Washington late last month labeled the 1998 privatization of the U.S. Enrichment Corp., formerly part of the U.S. Department of Energy, a sweetheart deal for insiders. Gladys Kessler of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia said internal documents obtained from USEC and DOE "reveal the ways in which bias, self-interest, and self-dealing can influence the decision-making process, especially when that process is kept entirely secretive." The former government uranium enrichment monopoly faced three possibilities for privatization in 1998. There were two offers to buy the operation on the table, one by a consortium led by the Carlyle Group, the other by a consortium of Texas Pacific Group and General Atomic. The third path was an initial public stock offering. USEC chose the IPO. In choosing a stock offering, said Kessler, many of the USEC board members "were forced to rely largely upon information provided by parties with potential conflicts of interest, all of whom strongly, not surprisingly, recommended the IPO." She said that J.P. Morgan was serving as the board s independent financial advisor, "yet it stood to make an additional $7.5 million if the IPO went forward." USEC s outside law firm ended up getting $15 million for services rendered during the privatization. "Most importantly," wrote Kessler, "USEC s CEO, Nick Timbers who dismissed all concerns about the viability of the Avlis technology and strongly pushed the IPO option ended up receiving for the 1999 year a $617,625 bonus and stock options valued at $1.7 million, " quoting an article in U.S. News and World Report. The case before Kessler was whether to award attorneys fees to the lawyers who represented the Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers International Union in a successful Freedom of Information Act suit. OCAW sought board meeting transcripts and other documents related to the privatization. USEC turned over only part of the material and then, once it became a private-sector organization, left DOE with the decision to release the material. DOE settled with the union and released the material in 1998. Kessler agreed to award fees, which will come to more than $100,000, according to her opinion. Copyright 2001 Elsevier Science THE ELECTRICITY DAILY ***************************************************************** 6 The Anti-Pollution Fight Heats Up in Williamsburg village voice Waste land: Williamsburg’s overburdened waterfront Week of April 4 - 10, 2001 Power Mad by Coco McPherson tand at the waterfront near Kent Avenue and Grand Street in Williamsburg, and you get an eyeful of both the neighborhood's vitality and its industrial congestion. On one corner sits Radiac, a tidy one-story building that just happens to be a low-level radioactive waste facility. Across the street is Domino Sugar, its Dickensian brick building home to a bitter, nearly two-year union strike over issues that included accusations of asbestos poisoning. To the south there is the Norval Cement Plant and the Schaeffer Brewery. About a mile to the north is the Newtown Creek Sewage Treatment Plant. Along the waterfront, there are high levels of lead in the ground and extensive contamination from waste-transfer stations, dry-cleaning plants, and coal-tar deposits. According to the the city's Department of Health, the incidence of asthma in Brooklyn is four times the national average; of the five boroughs, it has the highest rate of two kinds of childhood leukemia. Yet Williamsburg, home to thriving Hasidic, black, Polish, and Latino communities, a much-hyped new artists' bohemia, multiple public and parochial schools, city parks, and several huge public housing complexes, has been targeted by the New York Power Authority—a state agency whose job it is to build power plants—and a private company that hopes to quietly site a power turbine and a power barge in the already beleaguered neighborhood. In its environmental assessment, the Power Authority described the neighborhood as "industrial" and lacking "open space," as if Williamsburg's environmental travails justified even greater exploitation—it's dirty, so let's build more dirty things here. The privately funded power barge, NISA, is scheduled for Wallabout Channel nine blocks from the NYPA turbine. If the Power Authority and NISA succeed, they will bring the total number of power plants within a 10-block radius to three. These plants will annually blow hundreds of tons of additional airborne pollutants over preschools, yeshivas, public and parochial schools, and Independence Towers, home to an estimated 11,300 people. The Power Authority argues that these plants, and additional ones planned for other working-class neighborhoods, are urgently needed to forestall a California-sized power crisis come summer 2001. But a burgeoning coalition of local activists disagrees. A borough-wide network of neighborhood groups has formed to take on both the Power Authority and the agencies that issue the siting and air permits allowing them to fast-track turbine construction. Organized city-wide as CURE (Communities United for Responsible Energy), member organizations in Williamsburg include Williamsburg Watch, El Puente, Neighbors Against Garbage, and Stop the Barge. Together, they have filed suit in state supreme court to stay the building of the turbines pending environmental impact studies. In so doing, the issue of environmental justice has been placed front and center, as has the longtime practice of siting industry in low-income neighborhoods that already bear enormous industrial hardships. "There has always been a lot going on in Williamsburg because things are so bad here environmentally," says Deborah Masters, an artist and activist who is director of Stop the Barge and community liaison at the Newtown Creek Sewage Treatment Plant. "But the power plants have lit up people I would never have thought would be interested. We're meeting all kinds of different people, and together we're working on this thing that's very important. It's been a fabulous experience for me. "I had experienced a lot of health problems myself as a result of pesticide poisoning," says Masters. "Then I became an artist and I got cadmium poisoning from grinding paint off sculpture, which I had no idea about. Then I got lead poisoning from the Manhattan Bridge when they sandblasted it. That's when I got really sick. I realized at some point that because I lived in a certain part of Brooklyn, basically I was poor, so the quality of the air I was breathing didn't matter to anybody. I got empowered over the incinerator." Masters's neighborhood has a history of environmental activism: For the past 20 years, community groups have been fighting battles throughout Williamsburg and Greenpoint, a combined area considered by the Department of Environmental Conservation and the Department of Environmental Protection to be one of the most environmentally burdened 4.8 square miles in the nation. In the '90s, residents from the area's Hasidic and Hispanic communities formed an unlikely alliance to block construction of a garbage incinerator at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The Toxic Avengers, part of the Latino community organization El Puente, drew attention to Radiac. The Watchperson Project, an organization formed to map environmental data in the area, was established after the state Department of Environmental Conservation fined the city $850,000 for leaking waste into Greenpoint's already anaerobic Newtown Creek, a violation of the Clean Water Act. Neighbors Against Garbage (NAG) formed to fight waste transfer stations. The illegal lead-paint removal from the Williamsburg Bridge prompted a successful five-year lawsuit, though not before, according to two department of health studies, 375 Brooklyn children had been poisoned. The New York Power Authority has gone to great lengths to reassure the public that the turbines are clean-burning, but what power plants emit and what the cumulative impact of those emissions will be on the air quality of a neighborhood are two very different things. Eddie Bautista, director of Community Planning at New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, whose attorneys are representing the community groups in their court cases, thinks the entire system needs an overhaul. "Groups have fought for years for environmental justice, against environmental racism. However you want to characterize it, it's not enough to do a project-by-project environmental statement if you don't determine cumulative impact." Though local news sources have characterized opposition to the turbines as just another NIMBY—Not in My Backyard—debate, Bautista vehemently disagrees."It's NIMBY when communities that are not overloaded environmentally don't want a facility that's polluting in their community because of property values. I'm not judging that, but there's a clear difference between that and areas where there is worse air quality and higher asthma rates. This is the case with all of the neighborhoods in this suit." In other words, it's not NIMBYism if your backyard is already a Superfund site. Ashok Gupta, a senior energy economist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, manages to remain both an optimist and a realist. "There's a failure somewhere in the system. It's always been easier for elected officials to get behind a building project than to get lots of people to change their behavior. We used to have a phrase: 'Real men build power plants, real men don't do energy efficiency.' " Gupta agrees with activists in Williamsburg and across the city who say that additional electricity can be accessed without building new power plants. In response to power authority claims that the city is 380 megawatts short of anticipated power needs for summer 2001, he says, "To the extent that the state can say, 'Let's build turbines,' and get it done, the state could choose to say, 'We can look at all the state and city buildings in New York City and change the cooling systems and lighting and refrigerators and save 200 megawatts just like that.' It can be done, it needs to be done, it has to be done. That's part of what the fight is about." editor@villagevoice.com ***************************************************************** 7 Tests to determine scope of tainted water problem [charlotte.com] Published Thursday, April 5, 2001 *Associated Press * GREENVILLE -- Health officials will expand their testing to try to determine if uranium is in drinking water across the Upstate or just in a neighborhood near Simpsonville. "When we finish our preliminary investigation, we'll have a better handle on whether it's a local anomaly or regional in scope," said Daphne Neel of the Department of Health and Environmental Control. Concerns began in early February when as much as 50 times the allowable amount of the radioactive metal were found in three Simpsonville-area drinking-water wells. Out of a total of 80 wells within a two-mile radius that were tested, 13 had unsafe uranium levels. Uranium is considered potentially harmful when it exceeds the federal standard of 30 micrograms per liter. Prolonged exposure can cause kidney problems or cancer. DHEC officials think the uranium is in bedrock from Georgia to North Carolina, but they won't know for sure until more tests are done. Furman University geologist Ken Sargent said the granite rock in the Upstate is favorable for elements such as uranium. "When these rocks weather, they release these minerals that can contain uranium," he said. Geology maps show the potential for uranium throughout the Piedmont, said Jim Furr of Kubal-Furr &Associates of Simpsonville, who first detected uranium in a well. An additional 20 to 30 tests from private wells near Simpsonville will be conducted this week to see how widespread the contamination is. "We keep finding more and more. I'm not going to guarantee anyone they're not impacted," Neel said. The state has earmarked $250,000 in addition to $100,000 from DHEC to help pay to extend water lines to the area with the affected wells. Residents will have to pay a $1,000 tap fee. ***************************************************************** 8 Yucca proposal-Domenici Washington (Inside Energy EXTRA) – 5Apr2001 Sen. Pete Domenici urged the Environmental Protection Agency to abandon radiation standards for a potential nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev., that were proposed under the Clinton administration. In a letter to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Christine Todd Whitman Wednesday, Domenici, R-N.M., expressed hope that under the Bush administration, EPA and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission “will move toward consensus on national radiation standards that have thus far eluded final agreement.” Both NRC and DOE have criticized the proposed standards, in particular, for setting a separate standard for groundwater. Meanwhile, Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., and nine other lawmakers wrote to President Bush today expressing concern that DOE and NRC have asked that the proposed rule be weakened. “This is unacceptable to us and to the people we represent,” the letter said. ***************************************************************** 9 Isolyser Reports Successful Demonstration of The OREX Technology to the Nuclear Industry NORCROSS, Ga., April 5 /PRNewswire/ -- Isolyser Company, Inc. (Nasdaq: OREX) reported today that the nuclear industry demonstrations conducted last week using the CERTIFIED SOLUBLE(TM) products in the MICROBasix(TM) processor were a success and that key people in the industry showed enthusiastic interest. On March 26 and 28, 2001, Isolyser demonstrated the full scale processing system to a number of nuclear industry professionals and decision makers at the Nevada Test Site. Don McLemore, Executive Vice President of Research Development and President of OREX Technologies (OTI), a division of Isolyser, stated, "These demonstrations represent the first step in our sales cycle for the market in the nuclear industry that should ultimately lead to orders for our product and service offerings that would bring us to a commercial success for the OREX technology. Although it is hard to predict how quickly the market can be penetrated, we estimate its size with our current product line to be between $60 and $100 million in North America." Isolyser's MICROBasix(TM) processor reduces low level radioactive waste (LLRW) volume through a mechanical, chemical and biological approach in a system that processes Isolyser's CERTIFIED SOLUBLE(TM) products, which are a line of products based on Isolyser's OREX(TM) technology. The MICROBasix(TM) process results in by-products that are fundamentally innocuous and consist primarily of water and carbon dioxide. The achievable reduction in LLRW volume using this process is unprecedented in the nuclear industry with expected volume reduction ratios of 10,000 to 1 based on results achieved in laboratory tests. This can represent a large cost savings for the nuclear industry where waste disposal costs are among the highest in the world. This press release contains forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including potential orders to purchase Isolyser products and services, commercial success for the OREX(TM) technology, the ability of Isolyser to penetrate the nuclear industry market, cost savings to the nuclear industry, and other statements about Isolyser's expectations or predictions. Such statements may be significantly affected by risks and uncertainties described in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K and elsewhere, including without limitation, the risks described in Risk Factors in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2000 under the captions "-History of Net Losses"; "-Marketing Risks affecting OREX Products"; "-Manufacturing and Supply Risks"; "-Protection of Technologies"; "-Risks of Technological Obsolescence"; "-Regulatory Risks"; and "-Environmental Matters". The Company's actual results could differ materially from such forward-looking statements. Isolyser has developed and manufactures OREX(R) Degradables, a series of ecologically safe products made from a thermoplastic, hot water soluble polymer that can be configured into an array of products such as woven and nonwoven fabrics, film, and thermoformed and extruded items. These products can be dissolved after use, in hot water in a specially designed OREX(R) processor similar to a commercial washing machine, for safe disposal through municipal sewer systems. The Company believes that its products provide protection to people and the environment while providing cost-effective solutions to the problems associated with waste reduction and disposal. The Company also manufactures infection control products. For More Information, Please Call (800) 476-5973. SOURCE Isolyser Company, Inc. Web Site: http://www.orex.com ©1996-2001 PR Newswire. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 10 Point Lepreau leak has implications for nuclear industry CBC News: *WebPosted Thu Apr 5 01:09:34 2001 * POINT LEPREAU, N.B. - A cracked pipe in New Brunswick may have implications for the entire Canadian nuclear power industry. Five weeks ago, a leak was discovered at the Point Lepreau nuclear power plant just outside Saint John. Inspectors found three damaged pipes. The CANDU reactor has been shut down ever since, costing NB Power millions of dollars and raising questions about the future of the industry. The heavy water seeping out of the tiny crack would have taken days to fill an entire sink. But the implications of that crack are big, because a reactor has to be shut down if it's leaking. NB Power is spending $650,000 per day to buy replacement electricity from Quebec. And because this is the second time pipes that aren't supposed to crack have cracked at Lepreau, utilities around the world are taking another look at their CANDU reactors. "I think this pipe problem could spell the ultimate demise for (CANDU) reactors," said David Coon of the Conservation Council of New Brunswick. Pat Tighe, the head of the CANDU Owners Group, says Coon's assertion is "silly." The Owners Group is an organization that does research for the reactors' owners all over the world. He says the cracks in the pipes are simply an aging issue. "Lepreau is the oldest plant in terms of full operating hours, so its feeder pipes have seen the greatest duty. So it's not too surprising it would happen there first," said Tighe. Both the Ontario and Quebec utilities that have CANDU reactors are watching what's happening in New Brunswick. They have to decide soon whether to refurbish their nuclear plants, which would cost millions. If older plants are out of commission for weeks at a time, the question is whether it's worth it. NB Power has asked to be allowed to start up again on Thursday. The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission makes that decision, and Jim Blythe, who is with the safety evaluation division, says that decision hasn't been made yet. "We have not committed to that. I'm reluctant to speculate, but I think it will probably take us more time," he said. Blythe says Lepreau won't restart until the Commission is convinced the plant is safe. That's Coon's biggest fear. "This kind of degradation is very, very dangerous potentially, because it's so unpredictable. It's called stress corrosion cracking, and it can result in a break before a leak." That would mean a dramatic loss of water coolant and a huge increase in reactor power. It's the kind of thing that caused the explosion at Three Mile Island. Experts say that's unlikely. But Coon says experts didn't think any of the pipes would ever crack in the first place. Written by CBC News Online staff ***************************************************************** 11 Nuclear institute lied about staff to pay salaries [The Japan Times Online] Wednesday, April 4, 2001 Executives of state body claim funding has been insufficient for staffing needs MITO, Ibaraki Pref. (Kyodo) The Japan Nuclear Cycle Development Institute claimed excessive personnel expenses by padding the size of its workforce in a report to the government, institute officials said Tuesday. The institute, a foundation of the Education, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry, reported in fiscal 1999 that it had a workforce of 2,676, 139 more than its actual 2,537, and used the extra money to increase employees' salaries, the officials said. Officials explained that funds for personnel outlays allocated for the true number of its staff were insufficient to cover actual salaries and so decided to declare its peak staff strength, including those who were temporarily assigned to other bodies. Based on the reported number of officials, the institute was allocated 23 billion yen for personnel expenses in fiscal 1999, and on average about 500,000 yen extra was paid to each of its employees, the officials said, adding that the institute is doing the same this year. The press office of the institute, based in the village of Tokai, Ibaraki Prefecture, said the government's calculation of salary allotments for foundations is based solely on the number of employees and does not take into account such factors as older employees receiving higher salaries. As the institute has many older officials, it would not have enough money to pay their salaries. It added that the institute will investigate the details of the case. Commenting on the scandal, Nobutaka Machimura, minister of education, sports, science and technology, told a news conference that budgetary management and the quota of employees are within the discretion of the institute. "I have ordered ministry officials to carry out an inspection and report the results within two weeks," he said. In addition to falsifying staff numbers, the institute was found to have kept two account books -- one to be submitted to the government for authorization and another used internally. It used between 4 billion yen and 6 billion yen of its internal budget allocated for "internal adjustment expenses" to pay for supplies, repairs, local promotional efforts and salaries for temporary workers from other entities. Much of this money was taken out from its budget for operating expenses, but some of its uses constitute clerical expenses, which is banned by an internal code. Institute officials acknowledged that spending the money on supplies and repair work may have been inappropriate and that they would look into the matter. However, they denied allegations in some media reports that the money was a slush fund, pointing out that authority over the budget is the responsibility of its head and there is no obligation to report to the central government. They added that in some cases, personnel expenses are included in operational expenses and that their actions were only aimed at securing a more effective use of funds. The Japan Times: Apr. 4, 2001 ***************************************************************** 12 Radiation Contamination in Thailand Contact: Wenonah Hauter, 202-454-5150 Angela Bradbery, 202-588-7741 Feb. 22, 2000 Statement of Wenonah Hauter of Public Citizen on Radiation Contamination in Thailand The life-threatening incident Sunday in Bangkok, Thailand, involving the contamination of scrap yard workers who came in contact with a canister containing radioactive waste, points to the dangers of both the increased use of food irradiation and the push to recycle radioactive metals. Eighteen people from the outskirts of Bangkok have been hospitalized due to exposure to cobalt 60, a radioactive isotope used to irradiate food. Three workers who handled the metal cylinder in the scrap yard may not survive. Medical research shows that exposure to this radioactive element is likely to cause cancer. As the U.S. government gives the green light for more foods to be irradiated, there are an increasing number of facilities using radioactive isotopes for food irradiation here. Not only do these facilities pose a danger to the communities where they are located, but the increased nuclear waste creates unnecessary risk to the public. In addition to reminding us how unsafe and unwise food irradiation is, these accidents demonstrate the risk posed by the recycling of radioactive metal, a practice being promoted by the Department of Energy and Nuclear Regulatory Commission. In Sunday’s incident, the metal cylinder containing cobalt 60 had been taken to the scrap yard for recycling. According to The Bangkok Post, a similar accident happened a year ago in Turkey when a number of people suffered immune system injuries from radiation exposure from a cobalt 60 source that found its way to a scrap metal dealer there. We cannot let similar incidents occur here. Materials that are radioactive must be carefully contained and controlled, not released into commerce. ***************************************************************** 13 Pakistan's new plant fuels nuclear debate Asia Times: April 5, 2001 atimes.com ISLAMABAD - Pakistan's second nuclear power plant became fully operational in late March, making it the fourth developing nation to acquire the technology to build atomic energy stations. Pakistani nuclear energy officials now claim they have the know-how to build another nuclear power plant without external help. However, independent experts are questioning these claims and say that the 325 MW Chashma Nuclear Power Plant (Chasnupp) is not safe. Located at Chashma in central Punjab province, the Chasnupp cost some US$600 million. The China National Nuclear Corp, formerly the China National Nuclear Corp, and the China National Nuclear Construction Corp supplied all of the materials and designed and built the project, with some Pakistani assistance. China's nuclear relationship with Pakistan has been an ongoing concern of the United States government. According to a report in July last year, US intelligence agencies told the then Clinton administration and Congress that China had continued to aid Pakistan's effort to build long-range missiles that could carry nuclear weapons. According to A H Nayyar, an associate professor of physics at the prestigious Quaid-I-Azam University of Islamabad, and US-based Pakistani nuclear physicist Zia Mian, both the site and design of the plant are unsafe. "On the site, we have reasons to believe that it is earthquake prone, and we found out that some experts contracted by the PAEC [Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission] to study the site, advised against building a reactor there," said the two experts. "On the design, our concern was based on the serious design flaw that was discovered in the parent reactor at Qinshan in China," they added in a published statement. The Chashma nuclear plant is the second power reactor constructed by China after the one built in its Qinshan region. "The difference is that while for Qinshan the major components were supplied by the Japanese, Korean and the Western industry, all such crucial components for Chashma were made for the first time by the Chinese," they pointed out. The scientists said that the problem in the Qinshan reactor could not be sorted out by the Chinese themselves and they had to call in international help. The problem at the Chinese reactor was fixed by the United States-based company Westinghouse, which discovered that the problem was caused by "faulty design". "That makes, in our view, complete reliance on the Chinese design and technology - as the PAEC is doing - rather worrisome," the experts said. But Ziaul Hasan Siddiqui, General Manager of Chasnuppp disagreed. "NPPs [nuclear power plants] in general are very benign, in fact friendly for the environment because they do not generate green house gases, their waste is very low in volume and easily contained," he said. Siddiqui said that Pakistan is complying with the highest international nuclear safety norms. The Chashma plant is under IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) safeguards. Pakistan signed the International Convention on Nuclear Safety in 1994. It was in keeping with this that the government set up a Nuclear Regulatory Authority in January to monitor compliance with safety norms. The Chasnupp will add to the existing 137 MW power generated by the Karachi Nuclear Power Plant (Kanupp), built in 1971 with Canadian assistance. The new plant has also increased the share of nuclear power in the energy sector to 3 percent, from 1. "Pakistan should not wait for another 30 years to have another plant. The government is very keen and we hope we will have a third nuclear plant very soon," Ishfaq Ahmed, former PAEC chairman and adviser to military ruler Pervez Musharraf said when the Chashma plant became operational. "We have to see the Chashma Power Project stabilizing power generation, economic turnaround in the country and then we can go for the third plant," he said. According to Pervez Butt, head of the PAEC - the top agency running Pakistan's nuclear power plants - nuclear energy is the answer to the country's growing energy needs. It is estimated that Pakistan will need some 52,000 MW of electricity by 2020, against the present capacity of about 18,000 MW, he said. Pakistan has a potential of about 15,000 MW of hydroelectricity, 15,000 MW of coal-fired, thermal power and another 7,000 MW from natural gas. The balance would have to be met from nuclear energy, the PAEC chief said. Pakistan's first nuclear plant, the Kanupp, is currently undergoing a safety overhaul with help from the IAEA to extend its operational life by another 10 years to 2012. India and Pakistan are among the nine developing nations with nuclear power plants. India has 14 nuclear power plants. In Asia, China, India and North Korea can make their own nuclear power plants. Work on the Chashma plant started in 1992 through a turnkey agreement with China's National Nuclear Corporation. "Now we should try to do it ourselves. It should be our target that the next nuclear plant should be developed without any outside assistance in seven to eight years," said former PAEC chief Ahmed. The Chashma plant was conceived in the mid-1970s as part of a 20-year plan for as many as eight nuclear power stations, including two at Chashma. Fuel for these plants was to come from the nuclear processing plant that was to be set up at the proposed Chashma complex. The United States and France were the leading suppliers of nuclear power plants in those days. But when Pakistan tried to buy equipment for the Chashma plant in the early 1980s, the main suppliers refused to sell, under pressure from the United States. As a result, the project was nearly abandoned in 1985. It remained forgotten until four years later when the then government negotiated a deal with China. (Asia Times Online/Inter Press Service) ((c)2001 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please ***************************************************************** 14 EU Commission to send France to court over lack of radiation safety measures Pharma/Biotech Last update 15:19:02 GMT BRUSSELS (AFX) - The European Commission said it has decided to refer France to the European Court of Justice over its failure to enact measures that would ensure the public is properly informed in the event of a radiological emergency. Under the Euratom directive, France is required to ensure if an accident or incident at a nuclear power plant occurs that the public are immediately informed, it said. French legislation also fails to cover EU requirements concerning rescue workers, and the communication of prior-information to persons likely to be affected in an emergency, it said. France is preparing new legislation to solve these problems, but the commission said because it "has not yet been informed about any new legislation, the infringement persists". ev/wf Copyright 2001 AFX News ***************************************************************** 15 Commission refers France to the Court of Justice over radiation protection Commission Online DN: IP/01/513     Date: 2001-04-05 IP/01/513 Brussels, 5. April 2001 *The European Commission has decided to refer France to the European Court of Justice for failing to respect the Euratom Directive on Informing the Public in the event of radiological emergencies. The Commission considers that France has failed to fulfil its obligations under the Directive, because French legislation does not ensure that if a radiological emergency occurs, such as an incident or accident in a nuclear power plant, the population affected is informed immediately about the facts and the steps to be taken. Furthermore, French legislation does not fully transpose the requirements of the Directive for rescue workers. Finally, French procedures for communicating prior information to the population likely to be affected in the event of an radiological emergency are not in accordance with the requirements of the Directive. * This Directive(1) aims to define, at Community level, common measures and procedures for informing the general public in the event of a radiological emergency. It improves operational health protection in emergency situations, and is important for preparing people to face emergencies. The Commission is aware that France is preparing new legislation, which would help solve the problems in present French legislation. However, as the Commission has not yet been informed about any new legislation the infringement persists. Background As guardian of the Euratom Treaty, which is the basis of Community law in the area of radiation protection, the Commission must make sure that the legal requirements of the Treaty and adopted legislation are respected by Member States. The procedure being followed in this case relates to Article 141, which gives the Commission powers to take legal action against a Member State that is not respecting its obligations. If the Commission considers that there may be an infringement of Community law which warrants the opening of an infringement procedure, it addresses a "Letter of Formal Notice" to the Member State concerned, requesting it to submit its observations by a specified date, usually two months. In the light of the reply or absence of a reply from the Member State concerned, the Commission may decide to address a "Reasoned Opinion" (or second written warning) to the Member State, clearly and definitively setting out the reasons why it considers there to have been an infringement of Community law and calling on the Member State to comply within a specified period (normally two months). If the Member State fails to comply with the Reasoned Opinion, the Commission may decide to bring the case before the European Court of Justice . (1) Council Directive 89/618/Euratom on informing the general public about health protection measures to be applied and steps to be taken in the event of a radiological emergency. ***************************************************************** 16 Sellafield link to Down's births dismissed BBC News | HEALTH | A fire broke out at Sellafield during the 1950s Scientists have dismissed claims that a cluster of Down's syndrome births in Ireland may be linked to a fire at a nuclear plant in Cumbria. Irish researchers studied the causes of a relatively high number Down's syndrome births among a group of women who had attended a school in Dundalk, County Louth in the 1950s. It followed fears that a cluster of Down's syndrome births - 30 times more than normal - was linked to a fire at the Sellafield nuclear plant around this time. However, researchers from the Irish Health Research Board said they found no environmental reasons for the cluster and suggested that it may have occurred by chance. We are unable to rule out chance as being wholly or principally responsible Researchers from the Health Research Board, Dublin They also ruled out a link to the influenza outbreak of 1957. The researchers looked at 387 births to women who had attended St Louis School in Dundalk between 1956 and 1957. Six of these births were Down's syndrome - more than 30 times the expected rate. The study found that none of the Down's syndrome births could be attributed to the fact that the women were older when they gave birth, a known risk. All of these women were young and the oldest had been 31 when she gave birth. The researchers also found that the cluster was not repeated anywhere else in the town or in other schools around the county. The research is published in Occupational and Environmental Medicine, an off-shoot of the British Medical Journal. No link But the study found that not all of the mothers had attended the school at the same time. One of the Down's syndrome births could be attributed to an error during the pregnancy rather than something that had happened before conception. They ruled out a link between the radioactive fallout at Sellafield and the cluster after discovering that three of the women had moved away from Dundalk by the time the fire at the nuclear power plant broke out. The researchers also highlighted recent research which has failed to link infection or exposure to radiation before conception to an increase in Down's syndrome births. The authors of the study said chance was the most likely reason for the cluster at this particular school in Dundalk. Dr Geoffrey Dean, director of the Health Research Board, said: "There is no question that there was a cluster of Down's syndrome births, and it was a surprising cluster. "But there is also no evidence that it was related to the fire at Windscale as Sellafield was called at the time of the blaze. "The cluster was due to some unknown factor, such as a possible infection that we do not know about which may have hit the school. "I do not exclude some cause that we have not yet found. But it seems extremely unlikely to have been due to a 'flu epedemic that had hit the town or the Windscale fire." The whole premise is based on the fact that a cluster has not appeared after the Chernobyl fire Dr Mary Grehan "We are unable to rule out chance as being wholly or principally responsible and this may well be the most reasonable explanation," they said. A local doctor who has campaigned for the closure of the Sellafield plant has criticised the report. Dr Mary Grehan said the confines of the research are too narrow to form the basis of a judgement. She said the research did not include pupils who attended St Vincent's school or clusters which occurred in Maryfield and Balbriggan. "The whole premise is based on the fact that a cluster has not appeared after the Chernobyl fire. "These were girls who were in St Louis school in Dundalk in 1956 / 57. They did not produce their Down's Syndrome babies until the early 1960s, early 1970s." She said the target group for Chernobyl research would be those who would begin bearing children between 1992 and 2002. "Chernobyl figures are not available yet - it's only happening now." She said the researcher who had undertaken the study had had difficulty in obtaining figures before 1974 from Newry and the south Down area and had consequently narrowed the field of his research. Residents of Dundalk have campaigned for many years to have the Sellafield nuclear plant closed down. They have claimed that the centre poses a risk to their health - claims denied by British Nuclear Fuels which runs the site. ***************************************************************** 17 Letter: Radiation Standard Sign-on This statement was circulated to all House offices in support of a joint letter to the President initiated by Representatives Berkley and Gibbons. ALLIANCE FOR NUCLEAR ACCOUNTABILITY - FRIENDS OF THE EARTH - NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL - NUCLEAR INFORMATION AND RESOURCE SERVICE - PHYSICIANS FOR SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY - PUBLIC Citizen - SIERRA CLUB - SAFE ENERGY COMMUNICATION COUNCIL - U.S. PUBLIC INTEREST RESEARCH GROUP - WOMEN'S ACTION FOR NEW DIRECTIONS - WOMEN'S LEGISLATIVE LOBBY Safeguard Groundwater, a Precious Resource: Support Strong Radiation Protection Standards * As national environmental, public interest, and consumer advocacy organizations, we urge you on behalf of our combined memberships to co-sign the attached letter to President Bush in support of strong radiation protection standards.* What's Happening: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is required by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act to set radiation protection standards for the proposed high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. This process is now in its final stages. We are concerned that the Department of Energy (DOE) and Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) are pushing the administration to further weaken the already inadequate proposed rule by eliminating groundwater protection standards and increasing the "acceptable" individual radiation exposure limit. What's at stake: + Health and Safety - The DOE is expected later this year to recommend the Yucca Mountain site for development as a permanent repository for high-level radioactive waste generated by U.S. commercial reactors and weapons facilities. A favorable recommendation is contingent upon an assessment of whether a Yucca Mountain repository could meet EPA radiation protection standards. An artificially weak standard would skew the suitability assessment and threaten public health and safety near America's fastest growing city (Las Vegas). Protecting groundwater at the site is essential because an aquifer beneath Yucca Mountain provides the only source of drinking water for local residents. + Precedent - Although this rule is "site-specific" to Yucca Mountain, it will set an important precedent for radiation protection at other DOE and NRC-licensed sites. At stake is the EPA's authority in regulating radiation exposures, and the application of Safe Drinking Water Act standards for groundwater protection at Yucca Mountain, nuclear reactor sites, and the DOE weapons complex. WHAT YOU CAN DO: Representatives Shelley Berkley (D-NV) and Jim Gibbons (R-NV) have initiated and circulated a joint letter to President Bush in support of a strong standard that includes groundwater protection and does not weaken individual exposure limits. We urge you to co-sign this letter*. *Signatures will be collected through Tuesday, April 3 at noon. Please contact the offices of Reps. Berkley (5-5965) or Gibbons (5-6155). See Also: Action Alert: Tell your Representative in Congress to support strong radiation protection standards! Press Release: Strong Radiation Protection Standards Essential For Scientific Decision on Yucca Mountain Nuclear Repository ***************************************************************** 18 Nuclear birth fears eased BBC News | HEALTH | Friday, 13 October, 2000, 01:26 GMT 02:26 UK The study is reassuring for the UK's nuclear workers The biggest UK study yet into nuclear workers has found no link between their jobs and birth defects in their children. Earlier studies had suggested that workers' children were more likely to develop childhood cancers such as leukaemia, and that stillbirths and problems such as spina bifida were also more common. It was feared that the doses of radiation received through work might either harm the development of the unborn child, or somehow damage the man's sperm, leading to problems after conception. Radiation may have an effect on sperm However, since 1992, researchers from the London School of Tropical Medicine and Hygeine have looked at more than 11,700 men and 1,900 women who worked in the industry. They found no link between male exposure and either foetal death or congenital malformation. The risk of stillbirth or early miscarriage was higher among women whose radiation dose had been monitored before conception - but the number of women involved in the study was low, making this a less reliable finding statistically. The lead author of the paper, Dr Pat Doyle, told BBC News Online: "From this study, there is no evidence that exposure to radiation at work before conception has any influence on the outcome of pregnancy. 'Powerful study' "It's quite a powerful study, which could be interpreted as reassuring for workers." An earlier study by the same team found no link between parents working in the nuclear industry and childhood cancers such as leukaemia and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. However, research by Dr Louise Parker of the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle, published last year, suggested that workers at the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant in Cumbria had higher than average chances of fathering a stillborn child, or one born with defects. And experiments on mice at the Paterson Institute in Manchester suggested that offspring conceived from irradiated sperm were more prone to cancer. However, Janine Allis-Smith, a campaigner with Cumbria Opposed to a Radioactive Environment (Core), said that more work would have to be done before the general public, as opposed to workers in the industry, would feel reassured. She said: "I certainly think that if the nuclear industry wants to tell its workers not to worry, that's fine." She said people in such industries had the "healthy worker effect", in which constant health awareness made them healthier than the average citizen. This, she said, could well be outweighing the negative effects of radioactive exposure. "I have seen enough of the results of radiation exposure in animals to worry me," she said. ***************************************************************** 19 Baby teeth clues to 'nuclear cancer' BBC News | HEALTH | Thursday, 5 April, 2001, 11:21 GMT 12:21 UK [Turkey Point nuclear power station, Florida] Campaigners believe nuclear power can increase cancers US scientists want British parents to keep their children's baby teeth to help them test a link between nuclear power and cancer. They claim that children who live near nuclear power stations could be at a greater risk of cancer, and that the teeth will reveal how much radioactivity they have received. But the drive has been condemned as "junk science" by one power company in the US. Professor Ernest Sternglass, professor of radiology at the University of Pittsburgh Medical School, has launched "Operation Tooth fairy" to look into the links, but say they need the baby teeth from children living near power stations in Britain, particularly in Somerset and Essex to compare the data. Research in South Florida claims that children there are three times more likely to get cancer than those in other parts of America, although the source of the cancers has yet to be established. We found to our amazement and shock that the levels of strontium 90.....is as high as it was at the height of nuclear bomb testing Professor Ernest Sternglass, of Florida However, a similar study among baby teeth found exceptionally high levels of the radioactive carcinogen Strontium 90. They found the highest levels among children who live down-stream or down-wind from Miami's Turkey Point power station. Professor Sternglass said: "We found to our amazement and shock that the levels of strontium 90 per gram of calcium in the teeth of new born babies...is as high as it was at the height of nuclear bomb testing." Claims dismissed The scientists believe the Strontium 90 is carried down-wind in the water droplets within clouds, then causes contamination when it falls in rain. Professor Sternglass expects British children's teeth to show similarly high levels because of our wet and damp climate. There are calls in Florida for the nuclear power stations to lose their licences following this research, but the power stations strongly denied any links. Rachel Scott, of Florida Power and Light, dismissed the scientists' claims. "I think this is junk science - these folks have a conclusion and they are trying to fit the data to support that conclusion - and it is just not so." ***************************************************************** 20 Sellafield shipment hit by farm disease BBC News | UK | 4 April, 2001, 17:19 GMT 18:19 UK Nuclear shipments have to be escorted to Sellafield The Netherlands has stopped a shipment of used nuclear fuel to Sellafield because of the demands put on the country's resources by foot-and-mouth. So many Dutch officers have been pressed into the fight against the disease that not enough could be spared to escort the consignment. The Netherlands now has 15 confirmed outbreaks and thousands of its police officers are patrolling the country's roads to stop the disease spreading. More than 400 officers would be needed to escort the fuel from Dodewaard nuclear power plant, 50 miles south-east of Amsterdam, to Sellafield in Cumbria. [Site of foot-and-mouth outbreaks in The Netherlands] The Dutch are treating foot-and-mouth as a national emergency In December, Dutch riot police dispersed environmental activists protesting at a shipment of nuclear waste to the plant. The country's prime minister Wim Kok has described the foot-and-mouth outbreak in The Netherlands as a "disaster situation of national importance." The Dutch authorities have also pressed the army into stopping the disease from spreading beyond the Netherlands borders' into adjoining countries. Reprocessing nuclear fuel is one of Sellafield's biggest activities. On arrival, the fuel is put into large storage ponds before being dissolved in acid after a cooling down period. The useful chemicals are then reclaimed and the radioactive waste is stored. It is a controversial process and several countries including Japan, Germany and Switzerland have stopped sending used material there. A BNFL spokesman said the cancellation of the shipment was understandable in the circumstances. "Quite rightly they now have other things on their minds", he added. A second shipment from the Borssele plant in The Netherlands to Cogema's La Hague reprocessing facility in France has also been delayed. ***************************************************************** 21 Manager Disciplined The Whitehaven News Thursday, April 05, 2001 ONE of Sellafield's managers has been disciplined for chewing gum in a radioactive area. It is understood the BNFL employee was reported for the offence by a process worker in the same waste encapsulation plant. Yesterday BNFL said: "We can confirm that an individual has recently been the subject of disciplinary proceedings as a result of an incident involving chewing gum in an active area. The action taken following those proceedings is a matter between the company and the individual. "Disciplinary actions are regularly reviewed to ensure that the rules are applied fairly across the Sellafield site." A meeting today of the site's Fairness Panel was expected to compare the disciplining of the manager and the punishment meted out to a contractor who had his site pass withdrawn for chewing gum in an active area. Eating and smoking is banned from all plants where radioactive operations take place. ***************************************************************** 22 £5.5m to Be Spent on Visitors Centre The Whitehaven News Thursday, April 05, 2001 BNFL has enlisted the help of the Science Museum in London to carry out a £5.5 million refurbishment of the Sellafield Visitor Centre. The Science Museum is being given editorial control of the revamp. BNFL Chairman Hugh Collum said: "The contract with the Science Museum is a new and unique approach to communicating the science of controversial subject matters such as the nuclear industry. "The release of editorial control to the Science Museum demonstrates BNFL's desire to provide the public with an impartial, informative and balanced view.'' The Visitor Centre cost £5 million to build and takes more than £4 million a year in running costs.The centre, which has free admission, attracts 150,000 visitors a year. l Sellafield's annual Technology 2001 exhibition - its biggest yet - will be held on Tuesday. Forty-two companies will take part in the event which is in its eighth year. Members of the public are welcome. During the one-day event in the Learning and Development Training Centre, visitors will see a range of pioneering technology, much of which has the potential to reduce the scale of nuclear waste management and decommissioning problems. Visitors to the exhibition, which is open from 9.30am to 3.30pm, will be able to see hundreds of examples of tried and tested engineering equipment, designed to keep the nuclear industry running on a day-by-day basis. These include hydraulics systems and state-of-the-art mechanical robotic arms ***************************************************************** 23 Final Decision to Be Made on MOX Plant The Whitehaven News Thursday, April 05, 2001 SELLAFIELD's much-delayed Mox plant will be back in the spotlight for the next two months. The government has launched the fourth and final public consultation exercise before deciding whether to give the plant a licence to operate. The plant was built four years ago for £300 million but losses caused by delays to its opening has seen the cost soar to £462 million. The consultation will find out what the public think about BNFL's revised business case. The government will then decide whether plutonium recycling should be allowed. BNFL is desperate to get the thumbs up by July - the cut-off month for meeting at least the first of its contractual obligations to manufacture Mox fuel for European customers. The eight-week long consultation process is due to end on May 23. Chief executive Norman Askew said: "The regulatory process has been going on for over four years, during which time there have been three public consultations. We look forward to an early conclusion. "The project remains economically and commercially justified. The Environment Agency has already concluded that the environmental impact of operating the plant will be negligible. "There is a robust economic case. We have reinforced our market position and secured further customer commitment. "We have letters of support from existing and potential customers in all of the main Mox fuel markets." The Sort out Sellafield campaign which recently went to Downing Street on a Mox lobby described the consultation as "a substantial step forward in achieving full commissioning" of the plant. Copeland MP Jack Cunningham, who heads SOS, said: "I am sure all those who work at Sellafield will regard this process as excellent news as will all those with the long-term interests of West Cumbria and its economy at heart." BNFL submitted its new business case following the Mox fuel scandal which caused world-wide embarrassment for the company, jeopardising lucrative orders due to loss of confidence. The fuel data falsifications took place in the Sellafield demonstration facility which was meant to prove the manufacturing process for the full-scale production plant. Paul Noon, general secretary of Sellafield's biggest union (IPMS), which represents 2,500 scientists and engineers, said: "Sellafield is Cumbria's biggest employer and the region is on its knees because of the impact of foot and mouth on agriculture and tourism. "All the indications are that this plant meets the necessary environmental and industrial criteria and deserves the go-ahead. ***************************************************************** 24 1957 Nuclear Fire Legacy Goes On The Whitehaven News Thursday, April 05, 2001 By Dave Siddall WHILE nuclear inspectors report that BNFL is winning in its task of tackling old atomic waste backlogs, engineers are trying to devise a safe method of dealing with a "black hole" of lethal radioactive debris from the 1957 Windscale fire. Nobody knows exactly how dangerous the mass of nuclear fuel and unclassified high level waste was dumped into the six concrete vaults of B41 at Sellafield. But after a decade of planning, a delicate operation is being drawn up to start to investigate and deal with the problem. In 1996 an Nuclear Installations Inspectorate safety audit said: "In addition to magnox swarf, graphite items from the reactor piles and a variety of wastes including those recovered from the 1957 fire in Pile One remain in this silo. "There is little data on the contents of the vaults in terms of activity or form." It stated the debris would also contain bits of reactor fuel elements. "There is no segregation of the wastes. Wastes were simply tipped into the vaults through a five foot square hole.'' BNFL agreed in 1996 that the storage was "inadequate for the long term". The building was criticised in the 1986 safety audit and after that warning extra fire fighting and warning systems were installed. The NII stated that "At the time when the vaults were filled no details of the wastes were recorded. Therefore, apart from the wastes that can be seen with cameras on the surface, no other information appears to exist.'' Sellafield spokeswoman Ali Dunlop said B41 was regarded as an intermediate level waste store. She said in conjunction with contractors AMEC "an overbuilding would be created over the silos to enable the waste to be safely retrieved and repackaged. "Safety is the priority...it is a long term project.'' nOn Friday the nuclear inspector who criticised the West Cumbrian site in a series of hard-hitting reports last year announced that safety was improving at the complex. But Lawrence Williams, HM's chief inspector of nuclear installations, added that there was still a lot of work to be done, with agreement so far reached on only three of the 28 recommendations drawn up by his independent team. Mr Williams ssaid: "I am pleased so far with the progress. The management changes that have been made have been for the better. It is so far so good but there is still a long way to go yet." He expected the other 25 recommendations to be satisfied by the end of next year. BNFL has already drawn up plans to tackle the three main areas of concern. Mr Williams, who has a team of eight inspectors at Sellafield, added: "If I wasn't sure things at that plant weren't safe. I would take the regulatory action to stop operations." His comments came after a meeting with the Sort Out Sellafield (SOS) group at the West Lakes Science and Technology Park near Whitehaven on Friday. SOS chairman and Copeland MP Dr Jack Cunningham said the progress was making Sellafield a safer place to work in and live near. He said: "It is good news. The company's reaction has been very positive. BNFL was left in no doubt that it had simply been going in the wrong direction in terms of managing the Sellafield site." ***************************************************************** 25 Nuclear reactor shut down after leak from generator Independent News 04 April 2001 A nuclear reactor in western Ukraine was shut down after operators found steam leaking from an electrical power generator, the country's nuclear power monopoly said in a statement today. Workers noticed the steam leak in the number three reactor of the Rivne atomic power plant yesterday, the state–run Energoatom company said. Steam that flows through pipes and feeds the reactor's huge turbine generators is not radioactive, and no radiation leaks were reported at the station. The reactor was expected to be back online by April 10, the statement said. Ukraine was the site of world's worst nuclear disaster in 1986, when a reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded and spewed radiation over much of Europe. ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 Hastings seeks reprieve for FFTF Tri-City Herald Online exclusive: Sign This story was published 4/5/2001 By Annette Cary Herald staff writer U.S. Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., asked Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham on Wednesday for a one-year suspension of the Clinton administration's decision to dismantle Hanford's Fast Flux Test Facility. That year would allow a review of new information on the reactor's potential uses and a formal request for proposals for financial commitments from private companies interested in operating the reactor or purchasing products it produces. "I also requested that Secretary Abraham personally meet this month with local leaders and national experts on FFTF's potential," Hastings said after he and other members of the House Rules Committee spent an hour with Abraham. A coalition of Tri-City area government and private agencies led by Benton County is taking a similar tact. It has spent $10,000 of $101,000 committed to the project to hire former U.S. Sen. Slade Gorton to encourage the Bush administration to reconsider the FFTF decision. Gorton served in the Senate with Abraham, also a former Republican senator, before both were defeated in 2000. The coalition also is concerned the Clinton administration said the reactor should be shut down because it had not received enough definite commitments from private companies, federal agencies and other countries interested in research to justify restarting the reactor. "No formal request for proposal was ever issued to judge the worldwide interest in this unique facility," Hastings wrote in a letter he handed to Abraham. "It's not clear to me how the department arrived at such a conclusion without having formally asked for specific proposals to operate the reactor." Hastings also argued that granting the reactor a reprieve would make financial sense in the short term. "Moving forward with decommissioning will have severe impacts on the department's budget as additional funds will be necessary to move forward with deactivation," Hastings wrote. Supporters would like the reactor, one of the government's largest and most modern, restarted to make isotopes to meet a growing demand in medicine and for other nonmilitary uses, such as testing fuels for new nuclear reactors. Future energy needs must be met in part by nuclear energy, but to increase nuclear power production, the United States will need to test fuels for new types of nuclear reactors being designed, according to Hastings' office. Other research to support the current generation of commercial nuclear power plants also would be reduced. In addition, Hastings is arguing that demand for medical isotopes being used in new ways to treat cancer and other diseases has been underestimated by DOE, which is responsible for ensuring the nation has an adequate supply. The Clinton administration said need could be met by reactors in Idaho and Tennessee. But Hastings is questioning the ability of the Idaho reactor, now doing fuels and materials testing for the Navy, to take on new missions. The Tennessee reactor is currently shut down because of a potential tritium leak and safety system review. FFTF also could play a role in a DOE project to determine whether a new way to deal with nuclear waste, accelerator transmutation, is feasible. FFTF would be ideal for testing of the fuel concept, but instead that would be done in France, according to a briefing paper from Hastings' office. "I recognize that suspending the formal record of decision is difficult, but a review of new information and FFTF's potential to produce life-saving nuclear isotopes is a fair and reasonable step to take," Hastings wrote to Abraham. "The haste with which the record of decision was rushed to completion before President Clinton's term expired warrants an assessment of FFTF that is based on fact and reality, not political or ideological motivation." Back to top stories Copyright 2000 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This ***************************************************************** 2 Getting rid of radioactive weeds 05/04/2001 09:13 - (SA) Richland, Washington - The Cold War may be over, but Hanford nuclear reservation continues to battle Russian invaders: radioactive tumbleweeds. Russian thistle is a dead menace here on the windswept desert of south-central Washington. Each winter, the deep tap root on the plant decays, and the spiny brown skeleton above ground breaks off and rolls away. "Our dream is that we have this place tumbleweed-free," says Ray Johnson, a biological control manager for radiation protection at Fluor Hanford, the contractor managing the US Department of Energy site. But that's about as likely as a Soviet reunion. While less than one percent of the tumbleweeds corralled and compacted at Hanford are radioactive, the cost of the clean-up can run into millions of dollars. Hanford is the most contaminated nuclear site in the country, built in 1943 for the top-secret Manhattan Project. For 40 years, Hanford made plutonium for the nation's nuclear arsenal, including the atomic bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan. The last reactor was shut down in 1986. Russian thistle, a non-native or invader species, is a particular problem at underground burial sites for radioactive waste, where their tap roots reach down as far as 20 feet (six metres) and suck up such nasty elements as strontium and caesium. A stiff winter wind can push the tumbleweed as far away as four miles, and then "we've lost control of our contamination", Johnson says. But most get hung up within a few hundred yards, usually on sagebrush, fences or in stairwells at the buildings scattered across the site. Two years ago, uncontrolled contamination spread by fruit flies made Hanford a national laughingstock, spoofed by humour columnist Dave Barry and in the syndicated comic strip "Sylvia". The flies had been attracted to a soil fixative with saccharin in the base that was being sprayed on a contaminated site. They flew to a lunch room, and spread the taint to nearby trash bins, which wound up at the Richland municipal landfill. Johnson can chuckle about it now, recalling attempts to find the source of the contamination. As crews ran radiation detectors around the lunch room and passed over a fruit fly, "the contamination flew away," he recalls. The journeys of a few thousand fruit flies cost $2.5 million to clean up. Riding herd on Hanford's tumbleweeds, and its flying insects, is part of an annual $4 million integrated soil, vegetation and animal control (ISVAC) programme, run by subcontractor DynCorp for Fluor Hanford. Radiation control specialists survey the tumbleweeds on the 560-square-mile (1450-square-kilometre) reservation, using Geiger-Mueller counters that click when radioactivity is present. If contaminated tumbleweeds are found, an ISVAC crew disposes of them. "The weeds are fairly low danger," says Todd Ponczoch, a radiation control technician, using a Geiger counter to scan tumbleweeds along a fenceline. None registered radioactive on a recent trip. A large, three-pound (1.3-kilogram) radioactive tumbleweed might measure out at 150 millirads, or about 1/100th of the allowable annual dose of radiation per person at Hanford. Radioactive tumbleweeds are pitchforked by specially trained and clothed workers into a regulated garbage truck, compacted and disposed of at an on-site low-level waste dump. A trail of paperwork is required as well. The sites must be satisfactorily cleaned up and covered with six inches of clean soil or gravel. Nonradioactive tumbleweeds are territory for the Teamsters. "It's an easy job. It gets us outside," says Joe Aldridge, a Teamster from Richland, as he pitchforks a plant into the garbage truck which can hold about 1800 pounds (810 kilograms) of tumbleweeds. "Digging ditches is a lot worse." The uncontaminated tumbleweeds are dumped in an open pit. Up until five or six years ago, the "clean" tumbleweeds were burned and the ash buried. But the state Department of Health put a halt to that practice for fear that some radioactive tumbleweeds might find their way into the mix and disperse contamination into the air. Preventive measures are also part of the control program, and include backpack, roadside and aerial spraying with herbicide to kill the thistle. Sometimes a bio-barrier - a costly engineered textile - is laid down to block the formation of thistle roots. "What you've got to do is make sure your contaminated areas are tumbleweed-free," Johnson says. Clearly, this isn't Kansas, where at least two enterprising souls are raising Russian thistles, turning them into tumbleweeds and selling them for home decor. But in the vast, open and uncontaminated portions of the reservation, some areas are simply left to nature. Even Johnson can acknowledge their rightful place in the world. "If we didn't have them, the West wouldn't be the West," he says, "and we couldn't sing *Tumblin' Tumbleweeds*." - Sapa-AP ***************************************************************** 3 Full Metal Solid Beyond 2000 | Science-General | [plutojail] Disposing of and storing nuclear by-products is a controversial and problematic issue for governments around the world. Dealing with such volatile substances can be dangerous, and they must be stored where they will not damage the environment. US researchers have developed a new method of dealing with products such as plutonium and other compounds, that will mean storage is a much more certain process. Chemists at the US department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory have discovered a new reaction process that may prove to be a solution to some of the most serious storage problems. The goal of the team is to create uranium, thorium and plutonium compounds that are environmentally friendly and harder to use as weapons. Plutonium is chemically reactive with water vapour in the air. In fact, plutonium metal powder can catch fire if it's not constantly bathed in an inert gas, such as argon. Plutonium metal can also be easily dissolved in water which means there is a potential for environmental and safety problems if it is not treated and contained properly. To address plutonium's storage challenges, scientists Kent Abney and Anthony Lupinetti are looking at new ways to combine actinides with the element boron. It has long been known that plutonium and boron, could be combined to create a very stable and insoluble compound, plutonium boride. However, until now this could only be done at extremely high temperatures, over 3,000 degrees centigrade.The process was also time-consuming. In order to get the two elements to mix, something they don't do easily, they would have to be melted at very high temperature, cooled, then ground into a powder, then mixed and melted again. Sometimes this process would have to be done over and over to achieve even mixing. Abney and Lupinetti have short-cutted this laborious task and developed a reactive process that takes place at lower temperatures, between 400 and 800 degrees centigrade and is relatively quick. [hazard] Hazard-disposal "We're using reactive compounds to overcome the problems of working these very complex reactions that involve double-decomposition, or the double-breakdown of compounds into simpler compounds or elements," says Lupinetti. "We've been able to do reactions at much lower temperatures, in the 500-800 degrees centigrade range." The end result of a uranium tetra-chloride reaction with magnesium-diboride is uranium boride mixed with a magnesium chloride. The latter salt is easily washed away, leaving behind the uranium-boride, a compound that is stable and insoluble. In addition, actinides mixed with boron, which readily absorbs neutrons, are not easily converted to their pure form, making them harder to use in weapons. The amounts of material used in the research was small, with the reactions taking place in a small sealed quartz tube. This tube, under vacuum to remove all gases and water vapour, was heated in a small electric furnace over a period of one to five days with a three-day cool- down process. The resultant compounds were later analysed via X-ray. "We're interested in synthesising actinide materials that have well-known properties, and have an important impact on our storage problems, using new methods and new materials," says Abney. "With the goal of finding processes that are easier to do and with end results that provide the country with a better way to store our surplus nuclear materials." "It's a very young field," says Lupinetti. "We're still discovering what the rules are in combining these things, using the entire periodic chart and wide variations of temperature with unusual materials like high-temperature solvents, there are so many variables, we're all really learning this together, so it's very exciting science." Abney and Lupinetti are exploring ways to use readily available compounds to get the actinide-boron reactive temperatures even lower. They're using unique materials as solvents, like lithium chloride and potassium chloride. These melt at temperatures around 350 degrees centigrade when mixed in equal amounts. Copyright © 2001 Beyond Online Limited. All rights ***************************************************************** 4 Let's not go back to the bad old days Orlando Sentinel: Central Florida News Mike Thomas Published April 5, 2001 Nuclear explosions are beautiful things. The flash of light is followed by the fireball. Then the mushroom cloud rises majestically from this fury of careening atomic particles. It stands like a grave marker over whatever has been destroyed below. An underwater test is more surreal. Instead of fire, there is a giant ball of water bursting from the ocean in a millisecond, topped by a halo of smoke and steam. It looks like an entrance by God. I collected pictures of such scenes when I was a kid. In my primitive longhand, I sent letters to the now-defunct Atomic Energy Commission and asked for them. The agency happily complied, sending its youngest fan dozens of glossy photographs not only of the explosions but also of Fat Man and Little Boy. Such cute names for bombs used to incinerate thousands of people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In a fourth-grade art class, the nun asked me why I was drawing a picture of a huge mushroom surrounded by houses and stick people. "That’s not a mushroom, Sister," I said. "It’s an atom bomb!" Why the shocked look? A year earlier, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, we practiced ducking under our desks and covering our heads, sure-fire protection against the end of the world. I was obsessed by the idea of bad men on the other side of the world incinerating us. Now, just when it seems those bad men are gone and my daughter can grow up without ever having to crawl under a desk, more bad men are taking their place. They are the Chinese bad men. We spy on them. Planes collide. Prisoners are taken. Accusations go back and forth. Deja boom. Why are we going there again? Is the world still run by the Cold War generation that knows no other way to behave? Is this all an elaborate conspiracy by our respective military industrial complexes? I can see where all this is leading. More confrontations over Taiwan. Hawks in both countries warning their respective nations of each other’s motives. Chinese threats over American missile defenses, followed by a buildup in their nuclear arsenal to ensure our continued vulnerability. A corresponding call in the United States to build a new generation of nuclear weapons to meet the growing Chinese threat. This game has played out time and again, dating back to tribal warfare 10,000 years ago. It really has nothing to do with communism or capitalism. It has to do with two powerful countries sniffing around each other like wary dogs in the park. Sniff long enough and you sniff a threat. When the Soviet Union was the big dog, that was our threat. Now the Chinese have replaced the former Soviets. I hoped that the New World economy would put an end to such nonsense. Make money, not war. It seems we haven’t gotten there yet. I look at the kids in my daughter’s preschool class. They will have to worry about things we never did. There are guns in schools. There are adult perverts. There is change at light speed. There is the pressure to grow up ever faster. Now we are going to introduce them to our childhood boogey man. Hey, kids, meet The Bomb. Wanna see pictures of what he can do? *Mike Thomas can be reached at mthomas@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5525.* *Copyright © 2001, Orlando Sentinel* ***************************************************************** 5 Linus Pauling (1901-1994): Scientist and crusader Online edition of India's National Newspaper on indiaserver.com Thursday, April 05, 2001 LINUS PAULING was born in a small village in Oregon state (U.S.) on February 28, 1901, the son of a pharmacist. His father died when he was nine years old. He displayed early his interest in science; as a boy, he collected insects and minerals. When he was thirteen, Pauling began experiments at home using materials available from the kitchen. Pauling studied at the Washington high school in Portland but left without taking the diploma, as he had not completed a course in civics. Nevertheless he managed to enroll in the Oregon Agricultural College at Corvallis where he majored in chemical engineering and received a B.S. in 1992. He had to take a break because he had to support his mother by working, during spare hours, as an assistant in the college laboratory. Pauling was first a graduate student and then a teaching fellow in chemistry at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena. He was awarded the Ph.D in chemistry (`summa cum laude' (1925)). For the next two years he was a research fellow at Caltech. During 1925-26 he worked in the laboratories of Sommerfeld (Munich), Niels Bohr (Copenhagen), Schroedinger (Zurich) and William Bragg (London). Schroedinger's wave mechanics and Pauli's exclusion principle were to have profound effects on his study of chemical bonding. Pauling held academic positions in three reputed institutions: Caltech (1927-63), University of California at San Diego (1967- 69), Stanford University (1969-73). Pauling founded in 1973 the Linus Pauling Institute of Science and Medicare at Palo Alto. Science late 1960, he became interested in the use of vitamin C, which he began to advocate for preventing the common cold. He and his wife began taking it regularly. He died at the ripe age of 93 (August 1994). The resonance theory During 1925-27, Pauling employed the techniques of X-ray crystallography to determine the structure of the molecules from the characteristic pattern they produce. He then studied the nature of chemical bonding in benzene and other aromatic compounds. In 1928 Pauling published his resonance theory of bonding which was based on the quantum mechanical concept of electron orbitals. In the older model of benzene, three of the six chemical bonds between adjacent carbon atoms were single bonds and three were double bonds. Pauling postulated a new concept that benzene rings can be viewed as hybrids of their structures. This has proved extremely useful in predicting the properties of aromatic compounds. Chemical structure of blood proteins In 1934 he turned his attention to biochemistry and formulated a theory of protein structure and function. Pauling initiated studies of the atomic and molecular structure of proteins and amino acids. He and Corey published in 1951 the first complete description of the molecular structure of proteins, which was the culmination of 14 years' research. This description of the three-dimensional structure of proteins marked a major advance in biochemistry. He published his ideas in The Nature of the Chemical Bond (1939), perhaps the most influential textbook in the field. For this work, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1954). In 1949, he published a paper identifying the cause of sickle- cell anaemia as a molecular abnormality in hameoglobin. He then turned his attention to DNA, the biological molecule that carries the genetic code. He published a paper on the structure which he incorrectly described as a triple-stranded helix. Second Nobel prize In 1950, as the nuclear arms race gathered momentum, Pauling spoke against the U.S. Government's decision to develop the hydrogen bomb and advocated an end to testing of nuclear weapons. Pauling used his considerable oratorical skill to publicise the biological and genetic effects of radioactive fallout. In 1958 Pauling mobilised the support of over 11,000 scientists from 49 countries and presented a petition to the United Nations, protesting against nuclear tests. His efforts contributed the establishment of the Pugwash Movement (1957) which eventually promoted the nuclear test ban treaty (1963). His pacifist views estranged him from his contemporaries, causing personal suffering and harassment for long periods. Pauling was the sole winner of Noble for Peace, prize, the second time in 1962, an unparalleled record. He was awarded the International Lenin Peace Prize in 1972. Pauling received many honorary degrees and awards: the Davy Medal (1947) the National Medal of Science (1975), Lomonosov Medal of the Soviet Academy of Sciences and (1978) the Priestly Medal of the American Physical Society (1984). C.N.R. Rao, our Distinguished Scientist, has hailed Linus Pauling as ``the first person who made chemical bonding his primary concern through which he changed the course of chemistry. He created modern structural biology. Then he was a crusader for human rights and peace''. (Current Science Vol 67, 10 September 1994) R. Parthasarathy Copyrights © 2001 The Hindu & indiaserver.com, Inc. ***************************************************************** 6 Energy Department Releases Historical Studies of Recycled Uranium EarthVision Environmental News* WASHINGTON, April 4, 2001 - In association with a program that addresses worker concerns associated with the historical use of recycled uranium, the Department of Energy has released nine site-specific studies covering 12 of its sites. The reports, which cover the sites of Hanford, WA; Savannah River, SC; Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, ID; Fernald, OH; (including West Valley, NY; Weldon Springs, MO; and RMI Inc. OH); the Gaseous Diffusion Plants in Paducah, KY; Portsmouth, OH; Oak Ridge, TN; the Y-12 Plant, TN; and Rocky Flats, CO, are released as part of the Department's effort that began in September 1999 related to concerns about the use of recycled uranium at the Gaseous Diffusion Plants in Paducah, Kentucky, Portsmouth, Ohio, and Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The reports, as well as a project overview that describes the approach used to prepare the reports, can be found at http://tis.eh.doe.gov/legacy/reports/reports.html. The reports provide a general understanding of the flow and characteristics of recycled uranium at individual sites and identify where recycled uranium and trace amounts of other radioactive contaminants could have concentrated or been released, including historical periods, activities and concentrations, which may be useful for identifying potential worker exposure. EarthVision Stories ***************************************************************** 7 GIBBONS CONTINUES BATTLE TO KEEP DOE WORKERS COMPENSATION PROGRAM AT LABOR DEPARTMENT Gibbons (NV02) - Press Release - April 4, 2001 *Legislation Mandates Labor Officials Administer New Program for Energy Workers * Washington, D.C.— Maintaining his steadfast support for Nevadans exposed to radiation and other substances during their employment at Department of Energy (DOE) weapons production facilities, U.S. Congressman Jim Gibbons (R-Nev.) joined with a bipartisan group of legislators today in sponsoring legislation to ensure that the Department of Labor (DOL) administers the new DOE occupational illness compensation program. The DOE Worker Compensation Program, created last year by the Department of Defense Authorization Bill, would compensate DOE workers who contracted illnesses and fatal diseases from exposure to radiation, beryllium, silica, and other toxic substances while employed at the Nevada Test Site and other government weapons facilities during the Cold War. “Last year, Congress established the DOE Worker Compensation Program within the administration of the Department of Labor because of that agency’s proven ability to effectively administer medical claims and benefit programs,” stated Gibbons. “Today’s legislation reaffirms the bipartisan intent of Congress to ensure that DOE workers are compensated in a timely manner by a DOL-administered program.” Recently, Labor Secretary Elaine Chao announced her plan for the Department of Justice to administer the new program. “Last year, Congress appropriated $60 million to the Department of Labor to implement the compensation program because the Labor Department has the staff and infrastructure already in place to handle thousands of claims, possibly as many as 25,000 by DOE workers nationwide, in an effective and efficient manner,” continued Gibbons. “The Department of Labor has administered federal worker compensation programs for up to 90 years. Its expertise and network of regional offices will ensure that our Cold War warriors will no longer have to wait for the compensation they need and deserve.” As introduced today, the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Designation of Responsibilities Act would codify the administration of the DOE Worker Compensation Program. The bill boasts broad bipartisan support, including: House Members, Representatives Ed Whitfield (R-Kent.), Zach Wamp (R-Tenn.), John Conyers (D-Mich.), Shelly Berkley (D-Nev.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), John Duncan (R-Tenn.), and Mark Udall (D-Colo.). ***************************************************************** 8 Kursk Had Atomic Weapons Aboard-Report Wednesday April 4 5:44 PM ET OSLO (Reuters) - The Russian submarine Kursk ( - ) had nuclear missiles aboard when it sank in Arctic waters last year, despite Moscow's assurances it was only carrying conventional arms, the Norwegian independent station TV2 said on Wednesday. Grigorij Tjomtsjin, a member of a Russian commission investigating the accident aboard the atomic-powered Kursk, told the station ``yes, there were'' when asked if it had nuclear weapons on board. ``They are no danger,'' he added, according to a translation of his remarks from Russian. The Kursk sank after an unexplained accident during a military exercise in the Barents Sea last August with the loss of all 118 crew. Twelve of the dead have since been recovered from the wreck. Tests in the water around the Kursk have shown no unusual traces of radioactivity, but the presence of nuclear arms aboard could complicate a plan to lift the wreck. Harald Ramfjord of Global Tool Management, a company working on plans to raise the Kursk, also said he had seen Russian evidence of atomic missiles aboard. ``One of the documents I had access to indicated that there were two atomic missiles aboard the vessel,'' he told TV2, adding that the Russian documents were stamped ``secret.'' Norwegian Foreign Ministry spokesman Karsten Klepsvik said the Russians had repeatedly denied there were nuclear weapons aboard the Kursk. He said the ministry had asked its embassy in Moscow to investigate the TV2 report. Einar Skorgen, a now-retired Norwegian rear admiral who led efforts by Norwegian divers to find survivors in the Kursk after it sank, said Moscow had given a string of misleading information about the Kursk. ``It's clear that it could increase the difficulties of raising the Kursk,'' if there were missiles aboard, he said. TV2 said the missiles aboard the Kursk were apparently cruise missiles designated SSN19 Shipwreck by NATO ( - ). Such missiles could rust and start leaking far more quickly than a reactor, it said. - | Copyright © 2001 ., and Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 9 Moscow: No Nuclear Weapons on Kursk April 05, 2001 MOSCOW (AP) - Russian officials on Thursday denied a Norwegian television report that the Kursk nuclear submarine was carrying nuclear weapons when it exploded and sank last summer, and a lawmaker cited in the TV report said he had been misquoted. The Kursk sank in the Barents Sea during training exercises on Aug. 12, killing all 118 aboard. Russian officials insisted repeatedly that the submarine, one of Russia's most modern, was carrying only non-nuclear practice weapons. Norway's TV-2 on Wednesday quoted a Russian lawmaker involved in investigating the Kursk disaster, Grigory Tomchin, as saying that in spite of the state's denials, the submarine was carrying nuclear weapons. A Norwegian engineer who has helped plan the raising of the Kursk later this year, Harald Ramfjord, told the television station that he had seen secret documents confirming there were two atomic missiles aboard. However, Tomchin said Thursday that he had not made the statements attributed to him. "What was broadcast today about the Kursk and my possible interview with Norwegian TV, that there definitely were two nuclear warheads aboard, it's a lie," Tomchin said. "I did give an interview to Norwegian television, and responding to the question of whether there could be nuclear weapons aboard such a submarine, I answered yes, there could be. But as to that particular submarine, I said there probably would not be," Tomchin said. He added that the state investigating commission did not discuss the question in his presence. Russian naval spokesman Igor Dygalo reiterated the Navy's consistent position that no nuclear weapons were aboard the Kursk. The cause of the Kursk disaster has not been determined. Many experts suspect a torpedo exploded inside the submarine. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 10 Difference of opinion re Kursk weapons Environmental campaigner Bellona does not believe the Kursk submarine had nuclear missiles on board when it sank in the Barents Sea last August, despite Russian claims on Norwegian TV that the sub was indeed carrying atomic weapons. Grigorij Tomtsjin, a member of the Russian team investigating the accident, told commercial channel TV2 on Wednesday that the atomic-powered submarine had nuclear weapons on board when it sank during a military exercise in the Barents Sea. His stance was supported by Norwegian Harald Ramfjord from Global Tool Management who said he had seen documents indicating that atomic weapons were on board the Russian submarine. His company is working on plans to raise the Kursk. But Thomas Nielsen, anexpert from the environmental campaign group Bellona does not agree. He said, after watching the TV report with Russian colleague Igor Kudrik, that TV2 was wrong. He claimed Tomtsjin did not actually say the Kursk was carrying nuclear weapons, but ratherthat the submarine would have had the capacity to do so. The Russian navy also dismissed the media report that the submarine had been carrying nuclear weapons. "I categorically deny this information. From the first day of the catastrophe we said there were no nuclear weapons on board the atomic submarine Kursk," Igor Dygalo, aide to the commander of the Russian navy, told reporters. He said the comments about Kursk's payload, made by Russian politician Grigory Tomchin, were "linked to his personal analysis and personal fantasy." Aftenposten Interactive English Desk /NTB/REUTERS Utgiver: Aftenposten A/S, Oslo, Norge. Telefon +47 22 86 30 00. Alt innhold er opphavsrettslig beskyttet. © Aftenposten. ***************************************************************** 11 Duma source denies nuclear warhead rumours Bellona doubts Norwegian tv rumours about Russian sub *Kursk* The Bellona Foundation has no reason to believe rumours put out by Norwegian tv channel "TV2" this evening; to the extent that Russian submarine *Kursk* carried nuclear weapons when it sank in the Barents Sea last August. Thomas Nilsen , 2001-04-04 21:19 Duma representative Gregory Tomchin, who is also member of the committee Shortly after the story broke on Norwegian tv, he told Interfax reporter Irina investigating the *Kursk* accident, was the tv channel's only Russian source. Gribova that he never ment to state that there actually were nuclear warheads on-board. Tomchin said he answered in general terms, that Russian subs do carry nuclear weapons occasionally. Publisher: Bellona Foundation, President: Frederic Hauge Information: info@bellona.no, Technical contact: webmaster@bellona.no Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62 * P.O.Box 2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway Reuse and reprint recommended provided source is stated ***************************************************************** 12 Budget has funds for sick miners [Las Vegas Review-Journal] Thursday, April 05, 2001 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal $710 million proposed for radiation victims THE ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON -- President Bush will include money in his budget plan to fund a bankrupt program that compensates sick uranium miners and people exposed to radiation during nuclear bomb tests. The White House's Office of Management and Budget confirmed Bush is recommending $710 million for the program, which ran out of money in 2000. "This is really a blessing, and it's really a humane thing that's being done for these people," said Ed Brickey, a former uranium miner and co-chairman of the Western States Radiation Exposure Compensation Act Reform Coalition, based in Grand Junction, Colo. The budget outline Bush released in February did not include the compensation. But a letter last month from the White House office to the Senate Budget Committee said the money will be included in the detailed budget plan being unveiled Monday. Congress passed the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act in 1990 for miners who dug the uranium used in Cold War nuclear weapons and those exposed to fallout from nuclear weapons tests. To be eligible, miners must have worked for at least four years in uranium mines between World War II and 1971 and have lung cancer or another ailment linked to radiation exposure. Many of the mines were in the Four Corners area where Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona meet, and many of the miners were Navajo Indians from the area. Also, fallout from nuclear weapons tests in Nevada drifted into Utah and Arizona. This story is located at: http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2001/Apr-05-Thu-2001/news/15801945.html ***************************************************************** 13 Bush backs ill miners Thursday April 05 08:03 AM EDT *By M.E. Sprengelmeyer, News Washington Bureau* WASHINGTON -- President Bush (news - web sites) is pledging $710 million over 10 years to help ailing miners, nuclear test participants and downwinders waiting for promised government compensation. The money is part of a revised budget proposal that will be unveiled next week, but some worry that the money would not arrive fast enough for the sickest victims. They have radiation-related illnesses dating back to the Cold War era. "It's a start," said Robert Key, 61, a former uranium miner from Fruita, who suffers from a severe respiratory illness. He is one of several hundred people who qualified for $100,000 payments under the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act but who have been waiting since last year with unpaid government IOUs. Copyright © 2001 Yahoo! , and . All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 14 Nuclear workers' compensation program shouldn't move, Strickland says *Thursday, April 5, 2001* Jonathan Riskind *Dispatch Washington Bureau Chief* WASHINGTON -- The decision on which federal department should run the nuclear workers' compensation program would be taken out of the Bush administration's hands under legislation introduced yesterday. Reps. Ted Strickland, D-Lucasville, and Edward Whitfield, R-Ky., are among nine House members co-sponsoring the proposal to mandate keeping the compensation program under the auspices of the U.S. Labor Department. "People are dying while they wait for this compensation,'' Strickland said, referring to the fact that the program is to take effect July 31. "Moving this program to another department will delay it for many months.'' Bipartisan congressional pressure appears to have caused the White House to delay making a decision about whether to shift the program to the Justice Department, Capitol Hill sources said. The Justice Department reportedly has weighed in on the matter, saying that the compensation program is best left with the Labor Department, the sources said. They said the Justice Department's stance was communicated in a recent letter to the White House Office of Management and Budget. Asked to comment, a Justice Department official deferred to the budget office, while a budget office spokesman said it was up to the Justice Department to comment. Neither confirmed nor denied that the letter had been sent. However, Strickland said that during congressional hearings last year, a Justice official said the Justice Department is "not really the one equipped to make determinations based on workers' compensation.'' The compensation program that was passed last fall grants $150,000 lump-sum payments and health care to potentially thousands of Cold War-era nuclear workers who were made ill by exposure to radiation. Several hundred workers at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon could be included in the program. Proponents were angered several weeks ago when Labor Secretary Elaine Chao asked the White House Office of Management and Budget to take the program off her hands and give it to Justice. Doing so entails reversing an executive order issued by President Clinton. Strickland, Sen. George V. Voinovich, R-Ohio, and other lawmakers from states that housed components of the atomic defense program said the intent of the legislation was to have the Labor Department operate the program. That department already runs numerous workers' compensation programs and is best equipped to run this one, proponents said. Strickland said he hopes the legislation requiring that the program be run by the Labor Department wouldn't be needed because the White House would back off from shifting the program. Last week, the budget office circulated a draft executive order moving the program to the Justice Department, and some lawmakers and staffers had expected a formal decision to be announced by now. The delay might mean the White House is rethinking the matter, they said. Copyright © 2001, The Columbus Dispatch ***************************************************************** 15 STRICKLAND INTRODUCES LEGISLATION TO PLACE NUCLEAR WORKERS COMPENSATION UNDER LABOR Congressman Ted Strickland April 4, 2001 WASHINGTON – Congressman Ted Strickland today introduced legislation that will place the nuclear workers compensation program permanently in the Department of Labor (DOL). “This issue can be boiled down to three simple points,” Strickland said. “1) People are dying while they wait for this compensation. Moving this program to another department will delay it for many months;” “ 2) The Labor Department is trying to send this program to a tiny office with a record of denying almost 50% of all claims that they process;” “3) The Labor Department, by comparison, in fiscal year 1999 received 166,544 new claims for federal; workers compensation, 15,926 claims under the Longshoreman’s program, and paid out to 57,000 beneficiaries on a monthly basis under the Black Lung Program. Clearly they are ready and able to quickly get benefits out to sick nuclear workers.” The program, which was signed into law last year, will provide medical benefits as well as a lump sum payment of $150,000 to government workers and contractors who have contracted illnesses due to work related exposure to radiation. In accordance with the programs legislative history, it was placed in DOL. In early March, Secretary of Labor, Elaine Chao, asked that the program be moved from Labor to the Department of Justice (DOJ). She claimed that Labor’s more than 14,000 workers who currently handle workers compensation programs are not as capable of carrying out the program. In contrast, DOJ’s only employs 14 workers who run the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) program. RECA delivers one-time payments to people who were exposed to radiation as a result of US nuclear bomb testing. “With this legislation, Congress has an opportunity to send a clear message about their priorities,” said Strickland. “We can let the American people know that the health of these individuals comes first. We will not let the DOL shirk its responsibility to these sick workers.” ***************************************************************** 16 Whistleblower Carson awarded consequential damages April 1, 2001 From: Joe Carson, P.E., "seven-time prevailing" whistleblower and safety engineer in the Department of Energy (DOE) Subject: Statement about Judge Miller's Initial Decision for my "consequential damages" and DOE's continuing bad-faith representations about "zero tolerance for reprisal." Over a year ago, DOE line management and I agreed on a tentative settlement to resolve me and my family's long ordeal - equitably, comprehensively, and in a way that would contribute to DOE's being characterized by a safety-conscious work environment and trustworthy - ethical, competent and accountable - safety professionals. During the past year, DOE attorneys have repeatedly stymied (and now deny) our efforts. DOE has now paid over $400,000.00 in my legal fees and costs, they have probably paid well over a million for their own costs. I have prevailed an unbelievable seven-times and the end of this legal morass, absent an equitable settlement, is nowhere in sight - I fully expect to "prevail" three more times before the end of the year, if an equitable settlement doesn't happen. As I see it, DOE attorneys want me and my family ruined for my "offense" of putting my professional duty to workplace and public health and safety ahead of my self-interest. To DOE attorneys, Carson v. DOE provides employment justification - it's a profit center. They have no reason to settle, and create pretext after pretext to prevent a meaningful settlement. There is no other explanation for this matter not being resolved over a year ago. As it is now, DOE attorneys have created a catch-22 preventing a settlement - they argue that since the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) has yet determined whether "consequential damages" can include "future pecuniary losses," they can't make a meaningful settlement proposal, even though two federal mediators think MSPB would rule it lawful, if given the opportunity. A positive result of me and my family's suffering would be the term "consequential damages" being changed to "compensatory damages" in the anticipated legistlation to reform and strengthen the Whistleblower Protection Act. In my opinion, nine years of "Carson v. DOE" later, nothing has changed - DOE's evasions and deceptions continue - as brazen and unaccountable as they have ever been. On March 21 the Director of DOE's overall employee concerns program represented "in strongest possible terms" the agency's commitment to "zero tolerance" (although DOE has yet to say anything like "DOE broke the law against Carson, this how "zero tolerance" was applied, and this is what we've done to restore and provide restitution to Carson.") and that the agency "is hopeful a satisfactory result" can be reached with me, while a DOE attorney, Isiah Smith, near simultaneously denied the lengthy efforts DOE line management and I made last year to reach such a result and says, in as many words, "there is nothing to talk about." At this point, I don't blame my management for much of the agency's lawbreaking against me during the past six years - I now realize that it was concurred with, if not suggested and/or recommended, by agency attorneys, most specifically, Isiah Smith. DOE attorneys are even trying to turn "client-attorney privilege" on its head to cloak their leading role in the reprisal I've experience. While the purpose of "client-attorney privilege" is to protect the client from having a former attorney testify against him, DOE attorneys invoke it to protect themselves from revealing that they advised DOE managers to break the law against me. Maybe MSPB and/or Federal Court will disallow the cloak of "attorney-client" privilege in my case, somehow I suspect that if they ever do, DOE attorneys will offer a satisfactory settlement the next day. I must say that I was warned though. In 1992, I was clearly told how DOE personnel specialists and attorneys look at the law - "if we get away with it, it's legal." I suggest the DOE attorney credo of "if we get away with it, it's legal," explains much of what is so wrong in DOE, both now and previously. Why are the DOE sick workers sick (if not deceased or disabled?) - while there is more than one reason, the biggest one, in my opinion, is that DOE attorneys, consistent with there credo "if we get away with it, it's legal," created a coercive, repressive, greed and fear-filled culture in DOE, from which they have profited, unaccountably, despite (actually because of) the billions of dollars in tax dollars now needing to be spent to clean up the mess they are so much responsible for. I'm grateful that MSPB Judge Miller acknowledges, in his ruling, the suffering I and my family have endured at the hands of DOE. I respectully disagree about his finding that I did not provide timely and sufficient evidence about my additional tax and accounting costs, I plan to appeal that part of his decision. I think his decision makes clear that the Whisteblower Protection Act does not, at present, permit proper compensation to faithful and competent federal employees who have been victimized and traumatized, as DOE attorneys have tried to harm me and my family, by agency reprisal. When Congress wrote the the Whistleblower Protection Act, it simply didn't anticipate agency attorneys would betray their duty as lawyers, citizens, and federal employees to collude in reprisal against a federal employee. The law isn't strong enough to protect federal employees from such an attorney-led collusion. While lots of things are very disturbing about "Carson v. DOE," - that government attorneys would counsel senior federal managers to break the law, because "if we get away with it, it's legal" and then spend millions of dollars in legal expenses, and try to ruin a man and his family, to evade accountability for their law-breaking, has to be near the top. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA MERIT SYSTEMS PROTECTION BOARD ATLANTA REGIONAL OFFICE PETITION FOR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES JOSEPH P. CARSON, Appellant versus DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY, Agency DOCKET NUMBERS AT-1221-98-0250-P-3 AT-1221-98-0623-P-3 DATE: March 28, 2001 . ATTORNEYS: Gary Howard Simpson, Esquire, Bethesda, Maryland, for the appellant. lsiah Smith. Jr., Esquire, and Gustav Goldberger, Esquire, Washington, D.C., for the agency. BEFORE Stuart A. Miller Administrative Judge INITIAL DECISION INTRODUCTION On June 28, 2000, the appellant timely refiled a motion for consequential damages resulting from his successful individual right of action (IRA) appeals in Carson v. Department of. Energy, Docket Numbers AT-1221-96-0948-W-3, AT-1221-98-0250-W-1 and AT-1221-98-0623-W-1 . The motion was previously dismissed without prejudice because it had been filed prematurely before the Board's decision on his IRA appeals had become final, and again dismissed without prejudice to allow the appellant additional rime to gather his proofs. The Board has authority to award consequential damages. See 5 U.S.C. 1221(g)(1)(A); Roman v. Department of the Army, 72 M.S.P.R. 409, 413 (1996), aff'd, 129 F.3d 134 (Fed. Cir. 1997) (Table) (No. 97-3109), petition for cert. filed. Nos. 97-3109, 97-7847 (U.S. Feb. 6, 1998). For the reasons set forth below, the appellant's motion for consequential damages is GRANTED in part and DENIED in part. ANALYSIS The appellant seeks damages under 5 U.S.C. 1221(g)(l)(A)(ii), which authorizes the Board in specified cases to award "back pay and related benefits, medical costs incurred, travel expenses, and any other reasonable and foreseeable consequential [damages.]" [1] The amount the appellant seeks is $244,700.00 in pecuniary (or out-of- pocket) losses plus restoration of all annual leave and sick leave taken since 1997 and payment for leave without pay taken. In addition, the appellant sought additional sums for other non-pecuniary damages. 1. Non-Pecuniary damages cannot be paid. Much of the litigation in this case concerned the appellant's claim for non-pecuniary damages. This claim cannot be granted, however, and warrants no further discussion because the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has recently held that the term "consequential damages" in 5 U.S.C. 1221(g) is limited to reimbursement of pecuniary losses and does not include non-pecuniary damages. Bohac v. Department of Agriculture, No. 99-3306 (Fed. Cir. Feb. 14, 2001). 2.Certain of the appellant's pecuniary losses are recoverable The appellant seeks the following consequential damages based upon his pecuniary losses: $135,000 Personal time 70,000 Value of spouse's time 5,000 Newspaper advertisements and Web Site 30,000 Additional taxes and accounting fees 4,700 Legal research for amicus brief In addition, the appellant seeks restoration of his annual and sick leave taken since 1997 and reimbursement for leave without pay taken since 1997. a. the appellant's personal time and the value of his wife's time. As for personal time lost, i.e., the appellant's personal time spent in working on his appeal, this is not a cognizable consequential damage. The appellant suffered no pecuniary loss because of it. The loss of free time is more appropriately treated as a non-pecuniary loss which is not recoverable under the Federal Circuit's decision in Bohac. [2] The same is true for the value of the appellant's wife's time. It is sheer speculation that, but for the appellant's IRA appeals, his wife would have been employed and had outside income. The appellant was assisted by counsel in connection with his IRA's and, indeed, the appellant filed a motion for and received attorney fees in connection with this litigation. b. the appellant's web site and newspaper advertisements. I also reject the appellant's claim for costs related to his developing his internet website and taking out newspaper advertisements to "alert" the world as to the agency's misdeeds. While understandable, perhaps, there was no necessity for the appellant to incur these expenses nor do they result as a consequence of the agency's actions. Therefore, I find that these expenses were not any other "reasonable and foreseeable consequential [damages]". 5 U.S.C. 1221(g)(l)(A)(ii). c additional taxes and accounting fees. During a telephonic status conference, I advised the appellant that, with regard to his claim for taxes and accountant fees, it was necessary for him to prove these damages and show how they resulted frore this litigation. During a later conference call, I advised the appellant to submit bills for his claimed damages. See Third Damages File, Tab 15. Although the appellant filed a final submission to support his motion for consequential damages, that submission was substantially devoted to the appellant's argument that non-pecuniary losses should be considered consequential damages. Inexplicably, the appellant failed to present any bills or other evidence to substantiate his bare assertion that, as a result of the agency's retaliation against him for whistleblowing, he incurred any increased tax liability or accounting fees. [3] The appellant has failed to prove this claim. d. the amicus brief. The appellant seeks $4,788.03 for the cost of preparation of an amicus brief to be filed with the Board by the American Engineering Alliance (AEA). The AEA is a private organization with the goal of advancing the professional, economic and social interests of all engineers regardless of field of practice or employment status, while at the same time defending the safety and interests of the public (http://www.aeaworld.org/purpose.htm). An amicus brief can be a highly effective tool of appellate advocacy. See generally, D. Knibb, A Manual on Practice in the United States Court of Appeals, section 32.5 (4th ed. 2000). This is particularly true in a case involving the WPA where conflicting public policy issues predominate. Therefore, I believe that the cost of obtaining amicus briefs in litigation are a reasonable and foreseeable consequence of retaliation for whistleblowing. Because the voice of the AEA in the public policy considerations of protecting professional engineers from retaliation for whistleblowing might well have advanced the appellant's appeal [4], the appellant's $4,788.03 expense for procuring the brief, which he has substantiated with a bill, is compensable. e. annual leave, sick leave, and leave without pay. Lastly, the appellant seeks restoration of the annual leave and sick leave he took from January 1, 1997, to October 2000, as well as payment for the leave without pay he took. As a threshold matter, the appellant does not explain why he sets October 2000 as the end-date for his claim for lost leave. The Initial Decision finding that the appellant was retaliated against for whistleblowing became final on February 3, 2000, and, accordingly, that is the appropriate end date for the appellant's claim. The appellant states in a declaration made under penalty of perjury that he was required to take huge amounts of leave, as well as personal time, due to the stress, fatigue, and resultant illness caused by the retaliation he suffered at the hands of the agency. The appellant explains that he cannot recount each of the hours spent and that, requiring such a detailed record (if it could be done at all), would take many more hours to prepare and further exacerbate his damages. I agree. The agency retaliated against the appellant because of his whistleblowing by taking away critical duties from his job assignments (surveillances), issuing a letter of admonishment, and by reassigning him from his home in Tennessee to Maryland. This retaliation--not unsurprisingly-- resulted in illness and stress, as well as necessitated the appellant to take a large amount of time from work to consult with his attorneys and other advisors. Although the law does not permit me to award non-pecuniary damages to the appellant for his suffering, I can and will award him pecuniary damages for all of the time he was required to spend away from work during this time frame. And, while I acknowledge that the appellant has not and, by his own admission, cannot document each and every hour that he was on leave during the relevant time frame, I believe it appropriate to award the appellant the leave restoration and payment for leave without pay he seeks without reduction [5]. To do otherwise "verges on nit-picking," cf. Freeman v. Department of Veterans Affairs, 66 M.S.P.R. 125, 131 (1995) (attacking an attorney fee petition which appears reasonable on its face with a line-by-line challenge is nit-picking and does not provide a basis for setting aside a fee award), in light of the hundreds of off-duty hours which the appellant lost due the agency's retaliation which cannot be compensated because they constitute non-pecuniary damages. DECISION The appellant's motion for consequential damages is GRANTED in part and DENIED in part. ORDER I ORDER the agency to pay to the appellant by check or through electronic funds transfer $4,788.03 in consequential damages. In addition, the agency is ORDERED to restore to the appellant all annual leave and sick leave taken during the period from January 1, 1997, to February 3, 2000. Lastly, the agency is ORDERED to pay the appellant by check or through electronic funds transfer for all leave without pay taken by him from January 1, 1997, to February 3, 2000, with interest and to adjust benefits with appropriate credits and deductions in accordance with the Office of Personnel Management's regulations. Compliance with this Order must be no later than 60 calendar days after the date this initial decision becomes final. If there is a dispute about the amount of back pay due, I ORDER the agency to pay appellant by check or through electronic funds transfer for the undisputed amount no later than 60 calendar days after the date this initial decision becomes final. Appellant may then file a petition for enforcement with this office to resolve the disputed amount. I ORDER the agency to inform appellant in writing of all actions taken to comply with the Board's Order and the date on which it believes it has fully complied. If not notified, appellant must ask the agency about its efforts to comply before filing a petition for enforcement with this office. FOR THE BOARD: Stuart A. Miller Administrative Judge ENDNOTES: 1. As the Board noted in Hoever v. Department of the Navy, 70 M.S.P.R. 386, 388 n.2 (1996), although the statute refers to "consequential changes," it is apparent from the context that consequential "damages" were intended. The law as set out in the Statutes at large provides for "consequential damages." 108 Stat. 365. 2. My ruling on this issue would be different if the lost time caused a pecuniary loss. For example, if the appellant had previously had a part-time job and, as a result of the time spent on his appeals, had to leave that job, the lost earnings would constitute a consequential damage. The appellant has submitted no proof of such a loss. 3. The appellant did attempt to file such evidence after the close of record. However, the appellant failed to show good cause for the untimely filing and his submission was rejected. See Nixon v. Department of the Navy, 5 1 M.S.P.R. 624, 626 (1991), aff'd, 972 F.2d 1354 (Fed.Cir.1992) (Table) (additional submissions received after the close of record will be considered only if a showing is made that the submissions consist of new and material evidence that was not available before the record closed). 4. The amicus brief was filed with the Board only a few days before the Board ruled in the appellant's favor by short-form order. Because neither the appellant nor the AEA could have known that a short-form order was about to issue, I find the filing of the brief to have been reasonable and foreseeable. 5.. The appellant requested restoration of 400 hours sick leave, 700 hours annual leave, and payment for approximately 200 hours LWOP. And, his estimates are generally supported by his leave and earnings records. However, as noted above, the end date for the period of time in question should be reduced from October 2000 to February 3, 2000. Joseph P. Carson, P.E. Safety Engineer and "Seven-Time Prevailing" Whistleblower in the Department of Energy (DOE) 865-675-0236 H; 865-966-1675 home fax jpcarson@mindspring.com "A Call for Accountability, Competency, and Ethics in DOE" http://www.carsonversusdoe.com ***************************************************************** 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: *****************************************************************