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                    NUCLEAR POWER CONTENTS
 
 1  NRC Extends Comment Period to September 6 for Turkey Point 
 2  NRC Order Halts Shipment of Large Radioactive Sources by JL 
 3  Nuclear cargo hits Iowa
 4  Taiwan and other countries reach deal on radioactive waste treatment
 5  Cooperation eyed on nuclear waste   
 6  Nuke site reaches milestone 
 7  Texas A University: Nuclear waste disposal -- A safer solution?
 8  EU energy commissioner calls for new generation of clean nuclear reactors
 9  NRC to Meet with Exelon Generation Company to Discuss Safety 
10  Maine Yankee gives tour of nuclear storage facility
11  Is the Nuke paying off?
12  Operator of nuclear plants in settlement with Delaware 
13  BNFL Reports Huge Losses
14  Law Allows Pacts on A-Plant Taxes
15  BNFL Cover-Up Alleged Over Thorp Fuel Incident
16  Political Fight Heats Up Over MOX
17  Your Views: More on trust of government - Susan Arnold Kaplan
18  NRC to Meet with FirstEnergy Company to Discuss Safety 
19  Revival of nuclear power faces several hurdles
20  Nuclear fuel plant closes but waste remains
21  Protesters march against radioactive waste discharge into the 
22  EPA rule for Yucca Mountain faces two lawsuits - 
23  NRC to Meet with Exelon Generation Co. To Discuss Safety 
24  Yakima nuclear plant back on line
25  NRC to Meet with Exelon Generation Co. To Discuss Safety 
26  NRC to Meet with Entergy Nuclear Northeast to Discuss Performance 
27  NRC to Meet with FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company to Discuss 

                    NUCLEAR WEAPONS CONTENTS
 
 1  Resource center for Nevada Test Site workers opens in Las Vegas
 2  Scientist raises new radiation fear
 3  The Navy's mess | July 4, 2001 | SFBG News
 4  Hunter's Point Contamination: in this issue 
 5  Alameda Naval Installation Contamination: Hot property 
 6  Crew Of Soviet Nuclear Submarine K-19 Saves World From Nuclear 
 7  Discounted Casualties book 
 8  Budget increase may allow more staffing in inspector general's 
 9  Kursk salvage operation gears up - July 4, 2001
10  British atomic test subjects urged to register with Veteran Affairs
11  Updated facilities are in DOE's future
12  Commentary: DOE must fess up, clean up and pay up if we are to 
13  Whatever happened to Israeli 'atomic spy' Vanunu?
14  Row brewing over nuclear compensation payments
15  Industry chief to visit SRS 
16  Amarillo Voices: Environmental ignorance keeps going and going... 

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                     NUCLEAR POWER ARTICLES
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 1 NRC Extends Comment Period to September 6 for Turkey Point 
License Renewal Draft Environmental Impact Statement 

   Press Release 2001 - 078 - 

 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION   
    Office of Public Affairs     Telephone: 301/415-8200   
    Washington, DC 20555-001     E-mail:   
    Web Site:   

  No. 01-078     July 03, 2001  

Seeking to increase stakeholder input, the Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission is extending the public comment period to 75 days on 
the draft environmental impact statement for the Turkey Point 
Nuclear Plant license renewal application. Earlier, the agency 
had announced the comment period would be 45 days. The statement 
is now open for public comment until September 6, and, as 
previously announced, will be the subject of public meetings July 
17 in Homestead, Florida, near where the facility is located. 

The NRC has been reviewing the application for extension of the 
Turkey Point operating licenses since Florida Power & Light 
Company, which operates the plants, filed it in September 2000. 
Under NRC regulations, the original operating license for a 
nuclear power plant is issued for up to 40 years. The license may 
be renewed for up to an additional 20 years if NRC requirements 
are met. The current operating licenses for Turkey Point will 
expire July 19, 2012, for the facility's Unit 3, and April 10, 
2013, for Unit 4. 

On Tuesday, July 17, the NRC staff will hold two meetings to 
obtain comments on the draft environmental statement. The 
meetings will be held at the Harris Field Complex, Homestead 
YMCA, 1034 Northeast 8th Street in Homestead, from 1:30 to 4:30 
in the afternoon, and from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m., or until all 
interested people have an opportunity to speak. An open house is 
scheduled to begin one hour before the start of each meeting. 

Written comments on the draft statement will also be considered 
by NRC staff. Comments should be submitted either by mail to the 
Chief, Rules and Directives Branch, Division of Administrative 
Services, Mail stop T-6 D 59, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 
Washington, D.C. 20555-0001, or by Internet to . At the 
conclusion of the extended public comment period on September 6, 
the NRC staff will consider and address the comments provided and 
issue a final supplement to the agency's Generic Environmental 
Impact Statement for License Renewal of Nuclear Power Plants, 
(NUREG-1437). That supplement will contain a recommendation 
regarding the environmental acceptability for license renewal.
*****************************************************************
 2  NRC Order Halts Shipment of Large Radioactive Sources by JL 
Shepherd & Associates
 
Press Release 2001 - 079 - 

 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs     
Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 20555-001     E-mail: 
opa@nrc.gov Web Site: http://www.nrc.gov/OPA  

  No. 01-079     July 5, 2001  

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued an order, 
effective immediately, that essentially halts the shipment of 
large radioactive sources in certain packages by JL Shepherd & 
Associates, a manufacturer of industrial and research irradiators 
and instrument calibrators located in San Fernando, California.
 
The NRC action follows complaints from foreign authorities that 
Shepherd irradiators were not packaged for shipment in 
conformance with NRC regulations, which initiated an NRC 
inspection at the Shepherd facilities May 29-31. NRC inspectors 
identified several concerns with the manner in which the company 
conducted its approved quality assurance program, which is 
designed to assure safe design, use, maintenance, and repair of 
transportation packages for large radioactive sources. These 
deficiencies resulted in the shipment of packages that did not 
meet NRC requirements established to prevent them from breaking 
open should they be involved in a transportation accident. As a 
result, the order states that NRC officials "lack the requisite 
reasonable assurance that [Shepherd's] current operations can be 
conducted . . . in compliance with the Commission's requirements" 
and are protective of the health and safety of the public, 
including the [company's] employees. 

The order withdraws NRC approval of Shepherd's quality assurance 
program. Without this approval, the company will not be allowed 
to package and ship large radioactive sources in certain 
packages. The company can continue to ship some smaller 
quantities of radioactive materials.
 
The irradiator involved in the shipment contained large 
quantities of highly radioactive materials, 18,000 curies of 
cobalt-60, which has the potential to cause serious injuries or 
death if the shielding is breached; however, no one was exposed 
to radiation as a result of an improperly packaged irradiator. 

The company must, within 20 days, submit an answer to the order, 
either consenting to it or explaining why it should not have been 
issued. The company may also request a formal hearing to 
determine whether the order should be sustained. 
*****************************************************************
 3  Nuclear cargo hits Iowa

DesMoinesRegister.com | News
 		 			 			 			 			 			 			 			 			 		 
Secret convoy said to haul waste safely
 By 
Register Staff Writer

07/04/2001

 The federal government secretly sent a convoy of three trucks 
hauling nuclear waste through southwest Iowa last week, state 
officials confirmed Tuesday.

The radioactive cargo was placed in heavily protected containers 
built to withstand crashes without leaking, said Tom Sever, 
hazardous materials coordinator for the Iowa Department of 
Transportation. The convoy was escorted by a state hazardous 
materials specialist and passed through Iowa without incident, he 
said.

Sever said there have been five to six shipments of significant 
amounts of radioactive materials through Iowa this year and about 
150 to 200 such shipments over the past decade. Some of the 
convoys have passed through the Des Moines area on Interstate 
Highway 80, he said.

The recent convoy crossed the Missouri state line into southwest 
Iowa on Thursday and headed north on Interstate Highway 29, Sever 
said. Upon reaching the Council Bluffs and Omaha area, the trucks 
followed a circuitous route in which they headed northeast on 
Interstate Highway 80 to Interstate Highway 680, then west into 
Nebraska around the most populous parts of the metro area.

The radioactive waste came from a German nuclear reactor plant, 
Sever said.

The convoy traveled through the United States on the interstate 
highway system from South Carolina to the U.S. Department of 
Energy's National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory in 
Idaho.

Lisa Cutler, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Energy in 
Washington, D.C., said spent nuclear fuel is sent to the United 
States from research reactors in foreign countries to make 
certain it will not be used to produce nuclear weapons. Uranium 
in the spent fuel was originally enriched in the United States, 
she said.

Federal energy officials work with state and local officials to 
determine the best and safest routes for transporting nuclear 
waste, Cutler said.

The timing of such shipments is not disclosed to the public for 
security reasons, she said. The shipments are monitored by a 
satellite tracking system.

Ellen Gordon, administrator of the Iowa Division of Emergency 
Management, said her agency has done extensive planning on public 
safety in the event of an accident involving such convoys. State 
public health experts also have been involved.

"We have made a really strong effort over the last few years to 
equip and train first responders," Gordon said. Those first 
responders include regional hazardous materials teams.

Kevin Kamps, a spokesman for the Nuclear Information and Resource 
Service in Washington, D.C., said his watchdog group has concerns 
about the shipment of radioactive waste on interstate highways.

"Just to give some perspective on the radioactive content, these 
containers hold many times the radiation that was released by the 
Hiroshima atomic bomb," Kamps said.

He calls such convoys "mobile Chernobyls," referring to a 1986 
explosion at a nuclear reactor in Ukraine.

The frequency of such shipments across Iowa could increase 
dramatically if plans are approved for a proposed Yucca Mountain 
nuclear waste repository in Nevada, Kamps said.

Jim Johnson of Des Moines, an anti-nuclear activist, thinks the 
public should be worried about such shipments across Iowa.

He questions whether the shipping containers can withstand a 
catastrophic accident, and he wonders whether security is 
sufficient.

"Boy, this would be a big fat target of opportunity for any 
terrorist," Johnson said.

Cutler said over the past 40 years there have been more than 
2,500 shipments of spent nuclear fuel in the United States.

"Although there have been some incidents, there has never been a 
release of radioactive materials," she said.

There are two types of shipping containers, and both have 
undergone extensive testing, Cutler said.

One weighs 17 tons and has 9-inch walls. The other weighs 8 tons 
and has 8½-inch walls. "They are all designed and constructed to 
retain their contents in the event of an accident," she said.                 

Copyright © 2001, The Des Moines Register. Use of this site 
*****************************************************************
 4  Taiwan and other countries reach deal on radioactive waste treatment

The Taipei Times Online: 

  Thursday, July 5th, 2001   

OUT OF SPACE: A US Department of Energy spokeman said that the 
program will focus research on topics related to underground 
nuclear waste burial

CNA, TOKYO

Taiwan, the US, Japan, South Korea and China have reached a basic 
consensus on cooperation in radioactive waste treatment research, 
a Japanese newspaper reported yesterday.

 The Asahi Shimbun said in a dispatch from Washington that the 
basic consensus was forged among representatives from major 
nuclear energy research institutes in the five countries at a 
recent meeting held in the US.

 The report quoted a spokesman for the US Department of Energy as 
saying that the cooperation program will focus research on topics 
related to underground nuclear waste burial and that a joint 
research center will be opened in Las Vegas.

 According to the spokesman, nuclear energy specialists, 
administrative staff and legal experts from the five countries 
will meet in South Korea in August to discuss concrete research 
items, cost-sharing, intellectual property rights and other 
relevant issues.

 Noting that burying radioactive waste hundreds of meters beneath 
the earth is widely believed to be the most practical way to 
handle such hazardous waste, the spokesman said which kind of 
stratum of earth is most suitable for accommodating radioactive 
waste and how to prevent nuclear waste from contaminating 
underground water are key subjects for future technical study.

 The spokesman further said if the new cooperative project 
proceeds smoothly, China would be likely to handle Taiwan's 
radioactive waste under its so-called "one China" policy.

 Nevertheless, the spokesman said the just-concluded five-way 
meeting didn't touch on such issues as whether radioactive waste 
should be disposed of in each country's own territory or should 
be shipped abroad for permanent disposal.

 Taiwan has had a hard time finding suitable sites to store 
radioactive waste from its three existing nuclear power plants as 
its current storage facility on Orchid Island will reach its 
capacity in the not-too-distant future.

 Taiwan's state-owned Taipower company had at one time reached an 
agreement with North Korea on shipping its low-level radioactive 
waste to the reclusive communist country for permanent disposal, 
but the agreement has so far not been implemented due to 
complicated political issues.

 Taiwan has also explored the possibility of cooperating with 
Russia or China in handling nuclear waste, but none of these 
efforts have borne fruit.

 
This story has been viewed 242 times. 

Copyright © 1999-2001 The Taipei Times. All rights reserved. 
*****************************************************************
 5    Cooperation eyed on nuclear waste   

asahi.com news
 
The Asahi Shimbun 
By TORU OMUTA 
July 5, 2001 

WASHINGTON-Researchers in five countries and regions have agreed 
in principle to take part in a joint research project on 
disposing of spent nuclear fuel deep underground. 

The agreement was reached by the Lawrence Livermore National 
Laboratory in the United States, the Japan Nuclear Cycle 
Development Institute, the (South) Korean Atomic Energy Research 
Institute, the Beijing Research Institute of Uranium Geology and 
Taiwan's Institute of Nuclear Energy Research. 

Although China and Taiwan often clash on diplomatic issues, the 
need to deal with the ever-growing mountain of spent nuclear fuel 
has pushed the two traditional rivals together in a cooperative 
venture, observers said. 

According to officials of the U.S. Department of Energy, who have 
played a leading role in preparing for the project, a joint 
research center is expected to be built near Las Vegas, Nevada. 

Whether the spent nuclear fuel is disposed of untreated or 
reprocessed by having its plutonium extracted, it will have to be 
buried several hundred meters underground. The aim of the 
research project is to tackle such issues as determining what 
type of rock foundation is most suitable for disposal and 
preventing radioactive material from contaminating underground 
water supplies. 

A meeting is scheduled for August in the Republic of Korea (South 
Korea) to discuss funding for the project and how to deal with 
any intellectual property that results from it. South Korean 
officials have already proposed that joint research be conducted 
at an underground experimental facility that Seoul plans to 
build. Chinese and Taiwanese officials have expressed interest in 
participating. 

Officials from the Japan Nuclear Cycle Development Institute and 
the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have proposed 
providing academic papers and computer programs for the joint 
research project. 

A joint statement was issued at a meeting in the United States in 
the fall of 1999 calling for international cooperation on 
underground disposal of spent nuclear fuel. 

Cheng-Kong Chou, associate director of the Energy and Environment 
Directorate at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, said: 
``The United States has already spent about $5 billion (625 
billion yen) for an underground disposal project at Yucca 
Mountain, Nevada. We want to take advantage of that knowledge. 
Nations with advanced nuclear power generation technology have a 
responsibility to propose a way to dispose of spent nuclear fuel, 
while also promoting nuclear reactor safety.'' 

Sources close to the project said there was a possibility China 
would accept spent nuclear fuel from Taiwan from the standpoint 
of the one-China policy if negotiations on the project proceed 
smoothly. 

However, the project is not expected to deal directly with the 
disposal policies of each of the five participants, some of which 
dispose of spent fuel within their borders, while others send it 
to other countries.     

  Copyright 2001 Asahi Shimbun. All rights reserved. No 
*****************************************************************
 6  Nuke site reaches milestone 

©2001 MassLive

Tuesday, July 3, 2001
By BETSY CALVERT 

ROWE   —   

After 4½ years of planning, the Yankee Nuclear Power Plant has 
finished building 16 110-ton casks to store plutonium-laced, used 
fuel rods that have been cooling on the site for as long as 30 
years. 

This milestone, reached on June 22, marks the completion of $20 
million in design and construction costs for an outdoor storage 
system to replace the indoor, heavily guarded underwater system. 
So-called dry storage is expected to save Yankee and electric 
ratepayers an estimated $2 million a year once the 
decommissioning plant is completely dismantled. 

The remaining task involves moving the most hazardous element of 
a nuclear power plant, the so-called spent fuel rods. Transfer is 
expected to begin this fall, Yankee spokeswoman Kelley C. Smith 
said yesterday. 

Old fuel is more dangerous than new fuel   —   uranium   —   
because it has been bombarded and destabilized by nuclear 
particles to produce heat. In an elaborate and slow-moving 
process, the spent-fuel will soon be moved a few hundred feet 
away in 13-foot hollow casks made of 21 inches of concrete and 3½ 
inches of steel. 

The only holdup now, Smith said, is waiting for auxiliary 
equipment to arrive, and for carefully choreographed procedures 
to be finalized. Also, she said, two dry runs must be completed 
as well before an actual transfer. One dry run will be in-house, 
and the second will be done before staff from the U.S. Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission. 

Transferring fuel to the casks will take more than a week per 
cask, Smith said. The process requires placing 36 fuel assemblies 
in a transfer cask using underwater robotics. A crane will then 
move the 40-ton transfer cask to a storage cask and then to the 
fuel transfer enclosure building. 

In that building, workers will weld on tons of lids, again using 
robotics to limit their exposure to radiation. Water from the 
spent-fuel pool is evacuated and later de-contaminated by 
evaporation. The cask is filled with helium, and then moved 
slowly by truck the short distance to the storage pad. 

Yankee Rowe is one of the nation's first nuclear power plants, 
and one of the first to undertake the decommissioning process. 
The plant shut down in 1992 when its owners decided it was not 
economical to keep the aging and undersized plant running. 

Despite a recent surge of renewed interest in nuclear power, 
Smith said she believes Yankee Rowe was too small to be viable in 
today's market. It was designed as a prototype, she said. 

The plan for Yankee Rowe is to remove all evidence of a nuclear 
power plant, and return the site to its rustic look of 1958. The 
buildings cannot go, however, Smith said, until the old fuel is 
safely out of the pool. 

Even when the buildings are gone, the 16 casks could remain, in 
theory, for centuries. The company, however, is hoping that the 
U.S. government will take over responsibility before then. 
Currently, the U.S. Department of Energy hopes to open a site in 
Nevada in 2010, Smith said. Environmental arguments could hold 
that up. 

© 2001 UNION-NEWS. Used with permission.
*****************************************************************
 7  Texas A University: Nuclear waste disposal -- A safer solution?
 
[M2 Communications Ltd.]   
  
Story Filed: Wednesday, July 04, 2001 3:52 AM EST 

COLLEGE STATION, Jul 04, 2001 (M2 PRESSWIRE via COMTEX) -- 
Disposal of nuclear waste has always been a hot topic, but a 
Texas A University chemist`s new approach could lead to new waste 
treatment procedures - and even a boost to nuclear medicine. 

A main component of President George W. Bush`s energy policy is 
to increase use of nuclear energy. However, according to Abraham 
Clearfield, a professor of chemistry at Texas A, "to accept this 
part of Bush policy, the general public must be confident that 
nuclear waste disposal will be effectively dealt with." One of 
the most common ways to dispose of highly radioactive waste is to 
use devices similar to water softeners called ion exchangers, 
which are either inorganic - mineral-type - compounds or 
synthetically produced organic resins. 

An ion exchanger usually contains a harmless element such as 
sodium, present in ordinary salt, which is exchanged for a 
harmful element such as cesium 137, present in radioactive waste, 
says Clearfield. 

Clearfield has been developing inorganic ion exchangers for more 
than 30 years. 

He has been studying their role in nuclear waste for 10 years in 
collaboration with Pacific Northwest National Laboratories and 
the Savannah River Site, a weapons research facility based in 
South Carolina. 

Nuclear waste coming from nuclear weapons plants is made of 
highly radioactive elements, mainly strontium 90, cesium 137 and 
plutonium 239 and 240, as well as other less radioactive 
elements. 

The highly radioactive waste is either extracted by a solution 
that does not mix with the waste solution - a process called 
solvent extraction - or is removed by ion exchangers. 

The high-level wastes are then to be immobilized in a special 
glass, placed inside steel drums and buried about 1,000 feet deep 
in salt mines, in sites to be designated. The remaining low-level 
waste may then be encased in cement and stored on site at 
Hanford, Wash., and the Savannah River Site, S.C. 

The inorganic ion exchangers remove cesium and strontium 90, 
while plutonium is handled separately. Clearfield and his 
collaborators have devised more than a dozen of these exchangers. 
Among them is a class of crystals called titanium silicates that 
have tunnel structures containing sodium ions. 

One of the most important was developed at Sandia National 
Laboratory, by the late Robert Dosch and Rayford Anthony of Texas 
A`s Department of Chemical Engineering. 

"In these tunnels, sodium ions are very loosely held," explains 
Clearfield. "Because cesium ions are bigger than sodium ions, 
when a cesium ion goes in and replaces a sodium ion, it cannot 
move around like the sodium ion. 

Instead it gets trapped." In other inorganic ion exchangers, the 
ingoing and outgoing ions can each have different charges or the 
channels have different sizes. To study the exchangers` 
properties, Clearfield and his collaborators study their crystal 
structure by X-ray diffraction before and after the exchange of 
different types of ions. 

"We try to make compounds in which either a sodium or a potassium 
ion is exchanged, and then we do the crystal structure," says 
Clearfield. "We try to exchange a given ion species with these 
crystals and then we do the crystal structure again, and we see 
what has happened to the ingoing and outgoing species. It can 
take from a few weeks to many months before we understand what 
happened." Inorganic ion exchangers can also be used in nuclear 
medicine.

Radioactive elements with short half-lives currently are used to 
determine blood flow or to locate a tumor. With the ion 
exchanger, it might be possible to better target the tumor by 
sparing surrounding healthy cells. "If you could target a 
radioactive species directly into the tumor," says

Clearfield, "and the health physicist would calculate, from the 
size of the tumor, how much radioactivity to inject, you would 
not damage the healthy tissue around." Work is in progress and 
part of a project with Lynntech, Inc., a technology development 
company based in College Station, where most of the scientists 
are Texas A alumni. 

"The first phase of that work has just been completed," 
Clearfield says. "We are now waiting for a second phase of 
funding on the project." Clearfield has shown that inorganic 
materials exchange ions more efficiently than organic materials, 
and they can better withstand radiation as well. 

"For applications in nuclear waste and nuclear medicine, organic 
exchangers can only do part of the job," he says," because 
radioactivity may destroy the carbon-carbon bonds, which are 
essential in organic compounds." Clearfield is eager to 
participate in a major project currently being set up by the 
European Commission, called the European Consortium. Focusing on 
the many applications of inorganic ion exchangers, the project 
will be led by the University of Helsinki in Finland, with groups 
at the University of Aveiro in Portugal, and the University of 
Salford in the United Kingdom, and four industrial firms. 

Clearfield says that work on inorganic exchangers is far from 
being over. 

"There are thousands of naturally occurring inorganic materials 
that can be used," he says. "Some of them are clays, others are 
natural minerals. Having solved their structure, we can use the 
information to synthesize materials that could select, by 
removing them, harmful species from the environment or industrial 
processes." 

CONTACT: Abraham Clearfield Tel: +1 979 845 2936 e-mail: 
clearfield@mail.chem.tamu.edu 

*****************************************************************
 8  EU energy commissioner calls for new generation of clean nuclear reactors
 
[AFX News - UK]   
  
Story Filed: Thursday, July 05, 2001 1:00 PM EST 

BRUSSELS, Jul 05, 2001 (AFX-UK via COMTEX) -- EU energy 
commissioner Loyola de Palacio said the EU should develop a new 
generation of clean nuclear reactors, without which it will be 
impossible to meet its goals for energy production and the fight 
against climate change. 

In a speech prepared for delivery at the French Institute of 
International Relations in Paris, she said nuclear energy has 
prevented the production of 300 mln tonnes of harmful gas 
emissions, as well as producing 35 pct of Europe's electricity. 

But to maintain the nuclear energy option, there must be 
transparency towards public opinion, heightened research efforts 
for radioactive waste management, as well as the development of 
new, clean, reactors, she said. 

This is a priority of the EU's scientific research programme, she 
said. To meet its energy needs, the EU must make use of all 
energy sources in an integrated single EU policy, she said. 

An important part of the policy is to explain to the public that 
while fossil fuel supplies remain an important component of total 
supply, they are limited. Alternative energy sources also have 
only limited potential and are not competitive, whereas the 
nuclear option has many advantages for price stability, energy 
independence and in emissions reduction. 

On fossil fuels, she stressed the need for the EU to ensure it 
gains access to all the nearby sources such as the Caspian Sea, 
and to "work to disenclave resources in the Middle East which are 
under political or economic embargo - (such as Iraq, Iran and 
Libya.)" 

It should also concentrate on building the infrastructure to 
transport the oil and gas by pipeline, she said. bm/kgd 


Copyright 2001. AFX News Ltd. All rights reserved. 
*****************************************************************
 9  NRC to Meet with Exelon Generation Company to Discuss Safety 
Performance at the Lasalle Nuclear Plant
 
Region III -- 2001 - 033 -- 

UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, REGION III
801 Warrenville Road, Lisle IL 60532  

  No. III-01-033     July 5, 2001  

  CONTACT:     Jan Strasma (630)829-9663/e-mail: rjs2@nrc.gov
 Pam Alloway-Mueller (630)829-9662/e-mail: pla@nrc.gov  

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will meet with Exelon 
Generation Company officials July 11 to discuss the NRC's annual 
assessment of safety performance at the LaSalle County Station 
near Seneca, Illinois.
 
The meeting will begin at 9:30 a.m. CDT and will be held at the 
Brookfield Township Hall, 2099 E. 27th Road near Seneca, 
Illinois.
 
The annual assessment, referred to as the End-of-Cycle 
assessment, evaluates safety performance at the LaSalle plant 
from April 2000 through March 2001, and informs plant officials 
of the NRC's plans for future inspections at the facility.
 
The LaSalle assessment letter and inspection report are available 
at http://www.nrc.gov/OPA/ppror from the Region III Public 
Affairs Office. Current performance information for the plant is 
available at http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/index.html.
*****************************************************************
 10  Maine Yankee gives tour of nuclear storage facility
 
  Jul 05, 2001     "

Vol. 126-No. 27   

Greg Foster
 
 Maine Yankee gave media and area officials a chance Friday to 
view first hand the $60 million spent nuclear fuel facility going 
up at the site for supposedly temporary storage. The company is 
having to store the high level radioactive waste before 
transporting it elsewhere because of the U.S. Department of 
Energy's lack of provision of a federal depository. 

Known formally as the Independent Spent Fuel Storage 
Installation, construction continues along the plant's 
preparation to transfer the greater than class C (GTCC) level 
waste and radioactive spent fuel rods from the spent fuel pool 
for placement in 64 concrete silos or casks surrounded by two 
security fences and earthern berm. There are currently 1,432 
spent fuel assemblies, each containing 176 spent fuel rods. 

Security at the ISFSI, which has caught media attention lately, 
although largely top secret much to the chagrin of people who 
would like to know specific plans, is high tech enough to pick up 
the slightest movements at the site, Project Manager Paul Plante 
said   "We have a system that will pick up on animals," he said. 
"I suspect it will be mostly squirrels or other such animals, 
possibly foxes." A command center inside the security operation 
building, originally designed for storage of low level nuclear 
waste before shipping is somewhere, monitors and screens any 
movement detected to determine the nature of it. 

The building features such electronic devices like a piece of 
equipment right out of a sci-fi film that identifies authorized 
personnel when they place the palm of a hand on it. Also inside 
is an emergency communications area. The concrete structure 
itself is actually a building within a building, affording added 
security, Operations Director Bill Odell said. He told media 
people there is one floor of the building which has nothing in it 
except surveillance equipment monitoring the entire ISFSI. 
Although mostly empty Friday, Odell said the building will be 
ready for operations within two weeks.

Double security metal fencing is attached to the building and 
circles the entire area where the 28 inches thick, 17 feet high 
casks with steel liners will house the metal canisters, each of 
which contain many spent fuel rods. Between the two fences is a 
stip of pavement known as the isolation zone. "No one is supposed 
to be there," Odell said. The outer fence is known as the 
"nuisance fence" and the inner fence will have surveillance 
equipment in use on it, according to Odell. 

There are four rows of concrete pads on which four of the 64 will 
rest on each one. This month Maine Yankee will begin removal of 
the GTCC waste material from the spent fuel, place the cannister 
in casks designing for transporting them and lifted via crane 
aboard a specially-designed truck made to travel at very low 
speeds, according to Odell. 

As for the spent fuel, which will occupy most of the dry casks, 
Odell said that transfer will begin in late August. The entire 
project of transferring of all the radioactive waste from the 
spent fuel pool will take about 18 months, according to him. 

Manufacture of the casks is done on site and takes about a week 
for two casks, according to Plante. He explained that the casks 
have inlet vents at the bottom of the casks and outlet vents at 
the top. The design of the casks provides for a passive air 
cooling system between the steel liners and concrete. Air enters 
through the bottom vents and rises through the top where it is 
monitored for temperature. 

Each of the steel canisters contains helium, instead of air, to 
eliminate the possibility of a reaction with oxygen. Helium makes 
a suitable gas for the canister since it is inert, according to 
Plante. "If oxygen were in there, there could be a reaction with 
the fuel pins and pellets," he said. "There are a lot of unknowns 
with that." 

Odell reported that to date, Maine Yankee has removed 32 million 
pounds of waste representing only 14 percent of the total that 
has to be removed, mostly non-radioactive material. Low level 
radioactive material goes to Barnwell, S.C. where is it buried in 
a shallow disposal area. That is where the reactor vessel will be 
transported via barge later this year, thanks to water levels 
increase enough to now make it possible, according to officials. 

While construction continues at the ISFSI, Maine Yankee is moving 
ahead with its $508 million decommissioning process, which is 
supposed to be nearly 50 percent complete, based on benchmarks 
the company uses to determine the progress. Target date for total 
completion is the fall of 2004, according to Odell. 

Lincoln County News Editor@LCNews.Maine.Com Lincoln County News    
PO Box 36,    Damariscotta, ME    04543    Tel: 207.563.3171 
http://lcnews.maine.com/2001-07-05/maine_yankee.html rev 
2001-07-05 
*****************************************************************
 11  Is the Nuke paying off?

Austin American Statesman
 
Wednesday, July  4 
 
By Leah Quin
 American-Statesman Staff
 Wednesday, July 4, 2001
 
Depending on your politics and tenure in Austin, an item in the 
shiny flier folded inside this month's utility bill could prompt 
a raised eyebrow, a guffaw or a satisfied nod. At the very least, 
the headline -- "Nuke Big Money Saver" -- deserves a double take. 

The Nuke? The $5.9 billion South Texas Project that cost sixfold 
its original price, took eight years longer to build than 
promised and was shut down half the time during its first few 
years of operation? 

The one that prompted five major lawsuits, federal 
investigations, protesters on the steps of City Hall, comparisons 
to Vietnam and a final price tag that still eats up 35 percent of 
every bill mailed out by Austin Energy? 

Yes, that Nuke. Thirty years after the twin-reactor plant was 
conceived as a means to get cheap, reliable electricity in an age 
of rising natural gas and coal prices, the South Texas Project 
may finally be living up to that oft-broken pledge. 

In the flier, Austin Energy is claiming that the Nuke has saved 
customers $5 million over the past year. 

"From a fuel standpoint, it's always been the cheapest," said 
Andy Ramirez, vice president of power production for Austin 
Energy. 

That much is undisputed. The Nuclear Energy Institute estimates 
that one 7-gram uranium pellet contains as much energy as 3 1/2 
barrels of oil, 21,200 cubic feet of natural gas or a ton of 
coal. 

But utility officials refused this week to release the Nuke's 
annual debt payments and operating costs, citing a need to keep 
the data private as the state prepares to open many of its energy 
markets next year. So, it's difficult to answer the question: Is 
the Nuke really saving us money? 

Nationwide, nuclear energy is enjoying a public relations boost 
not seen since the days before the Three Mile Island partial 
meltdown in 1979. 

Natural gas prices soared exponentially in the past year and were 
followed by rising coal costs and blackouts across California. 
Meanwhile, nuclear projects have reduced accident rates and 
shutdowns, and they now provide 20 percent of the country's 
electricity. 

On the Texas coast, the Nuke is quietly churning out electricity 
for cities across the lower half of the state without the 
horrendous headlines that marked its construction and startup. 

Since 1994, it has improved its up-and-running time to 90 
percent, according to the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 
which has also given the South Texas Project high marks for 
safety. 

Skeptics say they're still not comfortable with the potential for 
environmental hazards, particularly the nagging question of where 
to put radioactive waste. And without the numbers behind Austin 
Energy's claim, there's no way to make sure its $5 
million-in-savings figure is accurate. "I hope that flier's 
right, but if it is, well, that's one beneficial year out of 25 
or more," said Shudde Fath, a veteran member of the citizen 
Electric Utility Commission and a longtime Nuke opponent. "It's 
kind of a joke." 

Cheap power 

Indeed, much of Austin's history with the South Texas Project 
reads like a comedy of errors. 

In 1973, Austin voters -- drawn by a slogan of electricity "too 
cheap to meter" and scared by a near citywide blackout because of 
a lack of natural gas -- narrowly decided to invest in a nuclear 
plant co-owned by utilities in Houston, San Antonio and Corpus 
Christi. 

For its 16 percent share, voters authorized the city to borrow up 
to $161 million to pay for the estimated $964 million plant, 
consisting of two reactors that would open in 1980 and 1981. 

Five years later, the openings were pushed back a year, and the 
final price had doubled to $2 billion. In 1979, just days after 
the Three Mile Island accident, voters approved spending $215 
million more on the South Texas Project, thanks in part to a 
pro-Nuke media blitz by then-Mayor Carole McClellan (now state 
Comptroller Carole Keeton Rylander). 

But delays and overruns continued, as did other bad news items 
ranging from the appalling to the bizarre, detailed in 
American-Statesman stories from 1979 to 1996: "FBI investigates 
Nuke complaints," "Nuke inspectors fired for taking pep pills," 
"Tales of buried Nuke worker denied," "Weekly Nuke cost put at 
$2.1 million," "Austin's bill tops $1 billion mark." 

That bill didn't include the city's legal fees. Between 1978 and 
1996, Austin was embroiled in five major lawsuits over the Nuke, 
including two against Houston Lighting &Power, the plant's 
managing partner. 

The final suit, filed after the reactors lay idle for more than a 
year in the early '90s, was settled during trial in Houston in 
1996. Austin got $20 million from HL, plus a promise that the 
Houston utility would step down as manager. Since 1997, the Nuke 
has been run by the STP Nuclear Operating Co., a nonprofit 
founded by all four owners. 

Technically, Austin's share of the plant has been up for sale 
since 1988, when a jubilant City Council voted unanimously to get 
rid of it. Despite ads in the Wall Street Journal, the city got 
no serious offers -- nor would it accept them now, utility 
officials said. 

"There are no plans to sell it," said Bob Kahn, a lawyer for 
Austin Energy. "The Nuke's a good deal right now." 

In debt till 2025 

Austin Energy's premier watchdog says that won't last long, given 
the volatility of the gas market -- nor is $5 million that 
impressive, given last year's annual budgeted revenue of more 
than $769 million. 

"Even if you grant them all these charitable assumptions, $5 
million out of $700 million -- I mean, big deal," said 
environmental activist Paul Robbins. Actually, a straight fuel 
comparison -- uranium to gas -- yields an annual savings of $146 
million, according to the flier. 

The rub is the construction bill, a debt Austinites won't finish 
paying off until 2025. Until last year, when natural gas prices 
shot into orbit, that debt easily eclipsed any fuel savings. 

But right now, the fuel difference is extreme: Austin Energy 
officials calculate that the same amount of energy would cost $5 
in gas or 50 cents in uranium, Ramirez said. 

So the Nuke, which supplies a third of the city's year-round 
power needs, is economical for once, he said. 

Apart from the savings claim, others point to specific 
improvements in the past few years as the South Texas Project 
became Austin's energy source of first resort. 

"It's not that it was unsafe," said Bill Cottle, the Nuke's CEO 
since 1993. "There just wasn't very good cooperation between 
departments, and the plant wasn't reliable." 

Since 1994, the Nuke has reduced a maintenance backlog from 3,000 
items to 300, Cottle said. The time it takes to refuel and 
maintain the reactors every 18 months -- which takes one or the 
other out of commission -- has shrunk from three months to three 
weeks. 

Officially, all nuclear plants have lifespans of 30 to 40 years, 
but a handful have received 20-year extensions after creating 
schedules for replacing aging parts, said Breck Henderson, 
spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's region west of 
the Mississippi River. Some cities are considering adding 
reactors to existing plants, he said. 

More troublesome is radioactive waste disposal. 

Two possibilities, Nevada's Yucca Mountain -- on which $4 billion 
to $5 billion has already been spent -- and a request by a Utah 
Indian tribe to store waste on their reservation, are bitterly 
opposed by their respective states. 

With such clouds on the horizon, "Nuke Big Money Saver" may be 
the plant's brief moment in the sun -- particularly if gas prices 
settle down further. But Ramirez predicts that the plant will 
consistently be economical as the debt spirals to a close in the 
next quarter-century. 

"Once that debt stream is gone, we'll have a powerful unit online 
that no one will be able to touch for cost-effectiveness," he 
said. 

You may contact Leah Quin at lquin@statesman.com or 445-3621. 

*****************************************************************
 12  Operator of nuclear plants in settlement with Delaware 
                                       	
Thursday, July 5, 2001
 
The operator of three nuclear power plants in South Jersey has 
agreed to give Delaware $8 million to protect fisheries and other 
Delaware River habitats.

 Fish, plants, and other aquatic life are sucked up with the 3 
billion gallons of river water used each day to cool the Salem 
plants.

 The settlement satisfied Delaware's objections to conditions in 
a renewed water-discharge permit for the plants and is similar to 
an earlier five-year agreement signed in 1995.

 "The fish lost at Salem don't belong to the state of New Jersey 
alone," said Roy Miller, fisheries manager for Delaware's 
Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control 
(DNREC). "They're our fish along with everyone else's fish."

 PSEG Nuclear LLC agreed to pay $5.7 million for aquatic habitat 
restoration, construction of additional artificial reefs in the 
bay, monitoring of fish species, and other programs.

 The company will spend $2.3 million more to monitor and maintain 
fish ladders, which give migratory river herring access to other 
spawning habitats, and to build two additional ladders.

 The money also will help control phragmites weeds in southern 
New Castle County, Del.

 PSEG agreed to nominate two representatives from DNREC to serve 
on the Estuary Enhancement Oversight Committee, which advises 
PSEG on natural resource and biological monitoring programs.

 "We worked very hard to meet all the conditions of the existing 
permit, and we think the settlement is a reasonable resolution," 
company spokesman Neil Brown said.

 The utility has three 1,100-megawatt plants at its complex along 
the Delaware River in Lower Alloways Creek Township, about 35 
miles south of Philadelphia across the river from Port Penn, Del.

 The reactors, which employ about 1,800 people, supply power to 
parts of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland.

 In 1994, Delaware objected to conditions that New Jersey 
proposed for an operating permit for the plants. The conditions 
called for some environmental monitoring and enhancement 
programs.

 Delaware threatened to sue, and PSEG settled for a little more 
than $10.5 million.
 
   Copyright © 2001 North Jersey Media Group Inc.
*****************************************************************
 13  BNFL Reports Huge Losses
 
The Whitehaven News
 
Thursday, July 05, 2001
 
BNFL says it must improve performan-ces in order to protect jobs 
- following another huge operating loss of £210 million. 

Sellafield only managed to break even last year on what should be 
its biggest earner - fuel reprocessing.
 
BNFL's anxiety to get its expensive Sellafield Mox plant in to 
production and safeguard Cumbrian jobs comes over loud and clear 
in an annual financial report. The government has to give the 
go-ahead before production can start.
 
Reprocessing from Thorp and Magnox is part of BNFL's spent fuel 
management and business engineering group. The latter, according 
to the company, "produced a significantly worst financial 
performance in comparison to the previous record output year".
 
Low throughputs in the Thorp and Magnox plants, caused by 
"technical difficulties" which halted reprocessing, are being 
blamed.
 
New chairman Hugh Collum said there has been significant success 
in rebuilding customer confidence, following the Mox fuel data 
falsifications.
 
However, chief executive Norman Askew said: "We are determined to 
keep raising our game.
 
"I am pleased we have made substantial pro-gress but we cannot 
afford to become complacent about the challenges that lie ahead.
 
"BNFL has an important strategic role to play in the UK energy 
market and we are determined to turn the business around as 
swiftly as possible.
 
"A good start has been made.
 
"The company is also a major employer and many thousands of jobs 
depend on its success.
 
"This is particularly true of Cumbria and is another important 
reason why agreement to open the new Mox plant at Sellafield is 
vital."
 
BNFL made an overall pre-tax loss of £66 million (£46m net). 
Although the actual operating loss amounted to a massive £210m 
before tax and "exceptionals" (one-off payments on the debit 
side), most of this - £199m - came from the shutdown of Wylfa, 
the company's biggest nuclear power station.
 
Only £3 million profit was achieved in the spent fuel 
(reprocessing group) on a turnover of £549m - a £50m drop.
 
BNFL has recorded a good performance in its fuel manufacture 
business as well as much improvement in decommissioning and 
nuclear clean-up work.
 
But Mr Collum warn-ed: "Although there has been a significant 
im-provement in operating performance in some parts of the 
business there are areas where performance was unacceptable."
 
He describes the longer-term picture for the global nuclear 
industry as being brighter.
 
"In the short term, as we build on more robust foundations we 
must continue to improve our operating performance and agree the 
way forward," he said.
*****************************************************************
 14  Law Allows Pacts on A-Plant Taxes
       
July 4, 2001 

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
                   
ALBANY, July 3 — Gov. George E. Pataki signed legislation today 
allowing local governments to make long-term payment deals with 
the new owners of nuclear power plants in the state.

The law lets the local entities collect payments in lieu of taxes 
negotiated with the new owners of power plants. The payment 
arrangements can last 10 to 15 years.

"It is just a tool," said the chief sponsor of the legislation in 
the State Assembly, Sandra Galef, Democrat of Westchester County. 
"They don't have to do it."

Ms. Galef's district includes the three nuclear power plants at 
Indian Point. The New York Power Authority has sold its Indian 
Point 3 reactor to Entergy, which is also buying the other 
reactors from Consolidated Edison. 

The local taxing entities around the plant have sought to 
establish payments in lieu of taxes with Entergy rather than 
charge property taxes based on the assessed value of the 
properties.

In recent years, utilities and industries in New York have won 
cases challenging the assessments as too high.

The alternative payments would be advantageous for nuclear plant 
owners because they will almost certainly make agreements to pay 
less than under an assessment process, Ms. Galef said. Local 
governments benefit because the payments mean stable and 
predictable revenue, she said. 

Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company | Privacy Information 
*****************************************************************
 15  BNFL Cover-Up Alleged Over Thorp Fuel Incident
 
The Whitehaven News
 
Thursday, July 05, 2001
 
A Sellafield "whistleblower" has claimed that BNFL tried to cover 
up an incident involving a highly radioactive fuel element in 
Thorp.
 
The worker, who regularly gives tips to the anti-nuclear group 
CORE about Sellafield incidents, has made another allegation that 
the fuel element was left dangling from a machine in Thorp's fuel 
handling plant.
 
Says the mystery source, in a letter to CORE: "The machine 
collided with a fuel container, causing it to lift from its 
tracks, while the fuel element was bent against the container 
taking the weight of the machine.
 
"This operation was supposed to be under managerial and operator 
supervision at the time of the incident. It shows that BNFL are 
still operating carelessly even though there is a 'new' safety 
regime in place and management are attempting to keep quiet any 
thing that happens in the interest of getting back business."
 
Martin Forwood, for CORE - Cumbrians Opposed to a Radioactive 
Environment - said BNFL had failed to report the incident in the 
weekly (public) Sellafield Newsletter or at last week's 
Sellafield Local Liaison Committee meeting.
 
Mr Forwood has written to Sellafield's chief Brian Watson asking 
for an explanation and that the incident will not be repeated.
 
Sellafield spokeswoman Tracey Riley said: "There was an incident 
but nothing like it has been made out. The fuel element was 
travelling along, tilted and caught the fuel removal machine, 
jamming the process. The machine was not derailed and neither was 
the fuel rod trapped or bent.
 
"The rod was not damaged and a few days later it was chopped up 
ready for reprocessing.
 
"There was appropriate managerial supervision at all times." 

The Nuclear Installations Inspectorate was informed but the 
incident was not serious enough to be reported publicly as any 
event with radiological implications. 
*****************************************************************
 16  Political Fight Heats Up Over MOX
 
The Whitehaven News
 
Thursday, July 05, 2001
 
Copeland's MP Jack Cunningham has been accused by local Tories of 
trying to make them scapegoats if the Government gives the thumbs 
down to Sellafield's Mox plant which holds the key to thousands 
of local jobs.
 
Tory councillors are incensed by a "venomous" claim by Dr 
Cunningham that Copeland Conservatives had shunned the recent 
public consultations over whether or not Sellafield's £460 
million Mox production plant should get the go ahead after a 
four-year wait.
 
The MP alleged: "A list of respondents to the fourth round of 
public consultations has revealed that Copeland's Conservative 
representatives failed to express their support for BNFL in its 
efforts to get the go ahead for the plant from government - they 
are sending out extremely worrying signals regarding BNFL, 
Sellafield and the nuclear industry."
 
He also claimed that "no Copeland Conservatives wrote in support 
of the Mox plant" during the crucial consultations.
 
One of Copeland's leading Tories, David Moore, dismissed the 
claims as untrue. 

"We have always supported Mox. It could be that Jack is looking 
for scapegoats, people to blame if things go pear shaped. 

"All his own efforts appear to have been fruitless so far."
 
Mike Graham, Copeland's Tory candidate in the last General 
Election, said Dr Cunningham had made a dreadful mistake.
 
"We were part of Copeland Council's formal response to the latest 
consultations and separately wrote in support of Mox to Claire 
Herdman, the government official dealing with the 
representations. She confirms that our letter was received.
 
"This is the latest in a series of venomous press releases from 
Dr Cunningham.
 
"He is putting up verbal smokescreens and shouldn't be playing 
politics with people's jobs. I have no idea why. 

"I do know that our community has great expectations of Mox but 
some people are worried over whether or not the plant will 
actually get licensed. 

David Moore, chairman of the Sellafield Local Liaison Committee, 
said: "We have always supported Mox because we know how 
absolutely vital it is. I have also made representations, both as 
a parish and district councillor. At Copeland Council's meeting 
last week I succeeded in getting the council to agree to send a 
letter expressing our concerns about the latest delay."
 
Coun Moore revealed that BNFL was in "a very precarious position" 
with customers over two of the Mox contracts.
 
"The longer this thing drifts away the more likely it is that 
BNFL will lose out to its main competitor, the French. 

He warned: "There is a real danger if the plant is not licensed 
very soon that orders will start to disappear and blow a hole in 
the financial case. 

"This plant is not just vital to BNFL but to the whole of the 
area because we are talking about thousands of jobs at stake." 

nJack Cunningham said he was hoping to get new energy minister 
Brian Wilson to have an inspection of the Mox plant shortly. "I 
will continue to do everything in my power to ensure it is given 
the green light." 
*****************************************************************
 17  Your Views: More on trust of government - Susan Arnold Kaplan
 
  Story last updated at 11:34 a.m. on Thursday, July 5, 2001

More on trust of government

 To The Oak Ridger:

 In a previous letter, I discussed reasons for the public's 
distrust of the government and other large bureaucracies. Here I 
will continue the discussion of government and organizational 
ethics that are the source of the distrust, and will discuss why 
public oversight is so important to maintaining ethics, which are 
necessary for trust.

 Is it naïve to believe that ethics apply even when money is 
involved, that lying is wrong, and that governments and 
corporations need to be overseen by independent parties who 
cannot be controlled by threats of loss of funding?

 Perhaps it is, and maybe I learned the simplistic childhood 
lesson of "The Golden Rule" a little too well for my own good. 
While I do realize that nothing is black or white, but rather 
many different shades of gray, I strongly believe an individual's 
goal is to try to stay as light gray as possible.

 I also believe it is our job as members of a democracy to 
challenge authority -- even the government's -- despite the risk 
of economic sanctions from those being challenged (or from others 
who are susceptible to pressure from them as well).

 It is important to realize that government agencies and other 
bureaucratic organizations hate to fund watchdog organizations 
such as the Oak Ridge Reservation Local Oversight Committee, 
which they view as making trouble for them.

 For those oversight groups that are funded, the organizations 
being overseen desperately try to keep them under control with 
threats of loss of funding, which are generally quite effective 
since other sources of oversight funding are practically 
non-existent.

 As a result, many oversight efforts are extremely ineffective 
and often become rubber stamp groups simply doing an agency's 
bidding.

 Shying away from asking the difficult questions is a 
characteristic of ineffective oversight groups who are afraid of 
retribution.

 Regarding how to regain public trust, the government must allow 
members of the public to oversee them and to ask the hard 
questions without invoking economic sanctions and other penalties 
against them.

 It must provide effective whistleblower protections for workers 
who speak out about problems.

 In addition, employees in a government agency must strive to 
enable the public to obtain what it needs (and certainly not 
obstruct their obtaining it), even if it is not in that 
particular agency's best interest regarding funding and 
maintaining full-time equivalents.

 Finally, the government must truthfully answer our questions and 
provide the data we request, and perhaps even some information 
not requested -- despite being counseled not to by their lawyers.

 Only by doing these things will the government (and government 
employees) ever regain the public's trust.

 Unfortunately, trust reconstruction is going to be much, much 
harder than the incredibly difficult task of dose reconstruction.

 Susan Arnold Kaplan Knoxville
   
All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger 
*****************************************************************
 18  NRC to Meet with FirstEnergy Company to Discuss Safety 
Performance at the Perry Nuclear Plant
 
Region III -- 2001 - 034 -- 

UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, REGION III
801 Warrenville Road, Lisle IL 60532  

  No. III-01-034     July 5, 2001  

  CONTACT:     Jan Strasma (630)829-9663/e-mail: rjs2@nrc.gov
 Pam Alloway-Mueller (630)829-9662/e-mail: pla@nrc.gov  

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will meet with FirstEnergy 
Nuclear Operating Company officials July 11 to discuss the NRC's 
annual assessment of safety performance at the Perry Nuclear 
Power Plant in Perry, Ohio.
 
The meeting will begin at 10 a.m. EDT and will be held at the 
plant's Training and Emergency Center, 10 Center Road, Perry. The 
public is invited to observe the session. NRC officials will be 
available afterwards to answer questions.
 
The annual assessment, referred to as the End-of-Cycle 
assessment, evaluates safety performance at the Perry plant from 
April 2000 through March 2001, and informs plant officials of the 
NRC's plans for future inspections at the facility.
 
The Perry assessment letter and inspection report are available 
at http://www.nrc.gov/OPA/ppror from the Region III Public 
Affairs Office. Current performance information for the plant is 
available at http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/index.html.
*****************************************************************
 19  Revival of nuclear power faces several hurdles

ContraCostaTimes.com 
   
Published Wednesday, July 4, 2001 

+ Lowering the cost of generating capacity and finding a safe 
place to store radioactive waste are important factors 

By Matthew L. Wald

 NEW YORK TIMES 

WASHINGTON -- To provide more electricity and less carbon 
emission, the Bush administration has revived talk of nuclear 
power, with top officials discussing the possibility of hundreds 
of new reactors.

 But it has been nearly 30 years since the last plant was ordered 
in the United States, and whatever policy-makers say, ending that 
drought will depend largely on three numbers, industry experts 
contend: natural gas at about $5 per million Btu, capital 
expenses of $1,000 per kilowatt of generating capacity, and 
ability to store 77,000 tons of radioactive waste. There is 
substantial doubt that any of those numbers is realistic.

 The last item, waste storage, has received new attention as the 
Energy Department tries to finish its determination of whether 
Yucca Mountain, about 90 miles from Las Vegas, is suitable for a 
long-term repository. And the change of power in the Senate 
brings a fierce Yucca opponent, Harry Reid, D-Nev., to the 
position of deputy majority leader.

 But whether Yucca can be built and can accept 77,000 tons of 
waste -- the amount it is supposed to accept in coming years -- 
is not the only prerequisite for the industry to get started 
again.

 "Yucca is a necessary, but insufficient, condition," said David 
Morris, a Minneapolis electricity expert who does not favor 
nuclear power. He and others, including people who do want new 
reactors, say the industry needs a licensing system that will not 
subject them to the last-minute problems that increased costs on 
the current batch of reactors. But most of all, they say, it 
needs plants that are far cheaper to build than even the 
optimistic current estimates.

 A permanent increase in the price of natural gas would be nice 
too, along with a consensus that the other competing fuel, coal, 
is too dangerous for the global climate.

 For the nuclear industry, the problem most under its control is 
the price of a reactor. The people who want to sell reactors do 
not yet have an acceptable new design on the market but say they 
can develop one to compete with natural gas.

 The Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry trade association, 
figures that reactors would have to sell for no more than $1,000 
for each kilowatt of generating capacity -- an industry measure. 
(A kilowatt is the amount required to keep 10 100-watt bulbs 
lighted; a kilowatt-hour, the typical unit on a homeowner's bill, 
would keep those bulbs lighted for an hour.)

 That $1,000 is substantially higher than the cost of natural gas 
plants, which make up about 90 percent of the power plants built 
in the last five years and which sell for $500 or $600 per 
kilowatt of capacity.

 But reactors are less costly to run, because uranium is cheap, 
while a million Btu of gas -- enough to generate about 170 
kilowatt-hours in the most efficient plant -- will sell for $4 to 
$5 over the next few years, the nuclear industry believes. In 
briefings for Wall Street analysts, the trade group has said that 
reactors at $1,000 a kilowatt produce electricity more cheaply 
than gas plants when gas hits $5. Westinghouse says the figure is 
$4.

 Not counting some sharp spikes in California lately, gas has 
been in the $4 range lately, double what it was two years ago, 
and has sometimes topped $5. But some people doubt that it could 
say so high for long.

 Among them is William T. McCormick Jr., chairman and chief 
executive of CMS Energy Corp., which operates the Palisades 
nuclear plant in Michigan, and runs an extensive system of 
natural gas pipeline and distribution companies. CMS owns the 
largest terminal in North America for unloading ships that carry 
liquefied natural gas from abroad, in Lake Charles, La., which it 
is doubling in size; it is also trying to build additional 
terminals in Mexico.

 If the price stays at $5, "on a long-term basis, you can find an 
awful lot of gas," he said in an interview. And if drillers find 
a lot of gas, he added, the price will come back down. "And you 
can find LNG at a little over $3."

Indonesia, Australia, and countries in the Persian Gulf and on 
the west coast of Africa will all drill, liquefy and export for 
that price, he said, and their supplies are vast.

 And is it possible to build a reactor for $1,000 a kilowatt? 
Some of the 103 reactors now in service cost more than triple 
that -- even more in today's dollars. But proponents are counting 
on more efficient building techniques and lower interest costs.

 Westinghouse Electric spent much of the 1990s designing a 
reactor that would be easier to build and operate, with fewer 
moving parts, and more parts that could be assembled at a factory 
instead of in the field, cutting construction costs and problems 
of quality. The plant, called the AP-600 -- for advanced passive, 
600 megawatts -- would have cost $1,400 to $1,500, the company 
said, but the real number is uncertain because nobody ordered 
one.

 Similarly, General Electric designed an Advanced Boiling Water 
Reactor that it said would sell for $1,400 to $1,600, "depending 
on the host country," but nobody in the United States ordered one 
of those, either.

 Now Westinghouse is redesigning the AP-600 as a 1,000-megawatt 
plant. That increase in capacity, it says, will raise capital 
costs only 10 percent, bringing the capital cost per kilowatt 
down to $1,000. But that cost, Westinghouse says, can be brought 
so low only after builders get practice in putting plants up 
efficiently.

 "We're quite comfortable in competing with both gas and coal," 
said Charles W. Pryor, chief executive of Westinghouse Electric 
-- now a subsidiary of BNFL, the former British Nuclear Fuels. 
The plants would largely be built in factories, to cut costs and 
quality problems; legal questions would be settled before 
construction started, he said. In fact, the Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission has already reformed its licensing process, although 
no one has tested it yet.

 "We've learned a lot," Pryor said.

 There is some belief that not all the energy eggs should go in 
the natural gas basket. In Georgia, for example, the Public 
Service Commission requires utility companies to regularly ask 
for bids from outside companies to provide new plants; this year 
the commission demanded that Georgia Power mention nuclear energy 
and coal in its requests for proposals.

 One idea, said Daniel R. Cearfoss, a staff engineer, is fuel 
diversity. The commission would like to know how much extra it 
would cost to hedge the state's energy bets by building plants 
that would use uranium or coal. But Cearfoss said that he doubted 
anyone would propose a nuclear plant, and that even if someone 
did, the bid would be hard to evaluate, because there is no 
modern track record for construction costs. The state uses a 
computer program that asks for estimated fuel cost, construction 
cost, refueling time, plant reliability and other items, and 
spits out an estimate of the best mix of choices.

 But at least for the first few orders, nuclear plants present a 
problem beyond those of coal or natural gas. "It's how much 
confidence you've got in that number," he said. Planners can plug 
in a number, he said, but "it's garbage in, garbage out."

 Georgia is often cited as a possible ice-breaker for nuclear 
power; its twin-unit Vogle plant has space for four reactors, and 
the betting among experts is that if another reactor is ordered, 
it will go next to an existing one.

 At Southern Co., which owns Georgia Power, along with Alabama 
Power, Mississippi Power and Gulf Power, and operates six 
reactors, Laura Gillig, a spokeswoman, said, "Even though it is 
going through some sort of renaissance, it still needs that 
public support. And it does need to be competitive."

*****************************************************************
 20  Nuclear fuel plant closes but waste remains

Augusta Georgia: Technology:

Web posted Wednesday, July 4, 2001
 
By Tim Rowden and William Allen 
St. Louis Post-Dispatch/Scripps Howard News Service 

A Missouri facility that produced fuel rods for the nation's 
nuclear reactors for decades closed down last week, but its 
legacy of radioactive waste could trouble its neighbors for 
decades to come.

 State and federal officials are concerned about possible health 
and environmental threats posed by the Westinghouse Electric 
Co.'s nuclear fuel processing plant in Hematite, Mo.

 At the core of their worries is a mystery surrounding a 
radioactive contaminant known as technetium-99, whose origins at 
the site remain unknown.

 The plant, located about 35 miles south of St. Louis, ceased 
operations Friday. Workers there made nuclear fuel-rod assemblies 
for commercial power plants and the military starting in the 
1950s.

 Westinghouse spokesman Vaughn Gilbert said the company was 
consolidating its production at the company's plant in Columbia, 
S.C., in response to overcapacity in the industry.

 As part of decommissioning the plant, Westinghouse will work 
with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to identify and deal with 
radioactive materials and byproducts left behind from more than 
four decades of operations. Officials said the cleanup is 
expected to cost several million dollars and could take five to 
six years.

 State and federal regulators say tests on the plant's monitoring 
wells in the early 1990s detected a low-level presence of 
technetium-99, a fission product occurring in uranium that has 
been irradiated. Subsequent tests on drinking water wells around 
the plant show no contamination.

 To understand how technetium might have gotten to Hematite, it's 
important to understand a bit about the steps in the uranium fuel 
cycle.

 Put simply, uranium is mined, milled, converted chemically, 
enriched and fabricated into fuel rods. The fabrication step is 
where Hematite fit in.

 After fabrication, the rods are used in a nuclear reactor. The 
fission reaction in the reactor produces traces of technetium, 
plutonium and other highly radioactive materials.

 When the uranium fuel is spent, the radioactive waste left over 
is disposed of. During part of the Cold War, the U.S. government 
often reprocessed - or recycled - the spent fuel and used it 
again.

 The technetium apparently came to Hematite from Paducah, Ky., 
where the federal government ran a program to recover uranium and 
other materials from spent nuclear reactor fuel. The aim of the 
program was to reuse the recycled materials in reactors, weapons 
and tank armor.

 This unanswered question remains: How did the technetium get to 
Hematite? Missouri officials didn't learn about the presence of 
technetium until decades after it was released at Hematite.

In 1996 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission notified the Missouri 
Department of Natural Resources that technetium had been found in 
test wells at Hematite. The NRC said a private contractor working 
for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had found it five 
years earlier.

 The delayed notification was shocking enough to state officials. 
Even more shocking was the fact that technetium isn't supposed to 
be present in Missouri soil or water, said Ron Kucera, deputy 
director of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources.

 ''There was considerable folly in what happened down there,'' he 
said. ''We tried to reconstruct the history of how this got into 
Missouri ground water.''

 State investigators analyzed public and private drinking water 
wells in the area and found that technetium had not moved into 
those wells.

 The NRC told the state that the technetium came from 
contaminated equipment or containers from the U.S. Department of 
Energy uranium reprocessing facility in Paducah. It also could 
have come from contaminated enriched uranium itself, the 
commission said.

 That was significant because the Paducah facility was part of 
the nation's nuclear weapons complex. It also meant the Energy 
Department bears some responsibility for cleanup of the Hematite 
site, at least in the eyes of Missouri officials.

 Energy Department records showed that thousands of pounds of the 
enriched uranium had been shipped to Hematite in the 1950s, '60s 
and '70s.

 Federal officials speculate that the technetium contaminated the 
soil at the plant when workers washed off cylinders that had 
contained uranium. The NRC allowed the Hematite workers to 
dispose of waste in a way that could affect the ground water, 
officials say.

 Records showed that the technetium levels in test wells at 
Hematite violated federal drinking water standards.

 Missouri wants the characteristics of the waste pits and the 
rest of the site determined in detail. That would ''tell us what 
all the radiation and hazardous waste risk is out there so we can 
determine what to clean up and how and when, as well as to 
establish adequate long-term monitoring,'' Kucera said. ''It 
gives you a glimpse into a page of history on the nuclear weapons 
complex,'' he said.

 Westinghouse officials say the Hematite property is safe, and 
they are committed to cleaning up the site.
 
All contents ©1996 - 2001 The Augusta Chronicle. All rights
*****************************************************************
 21  Protesters march against radioactive waste discharge into the 
Tamar 

BBC Online - Devon - News - 

  Wednesday 4th July 2001
  
  Campaigners say that the nuclear discharges could pose a threat 
to public health and to the environment   

Around 150 protesters marched across the Tamar Bridge today in a 
battle against plans to increase nuclear discharges into the 
River Tamar. 

Traffic was brought to a standstill by the residents and 
environmental campaigners who are opposed to a new refit 
programme for nuclear submarines at Devonport Dockyard.
 
  The marchers make their point as they cross the Tamar Bridge   


The protesters were marking the final day for public consultation 
over plans by DML to increase the amount of tritium discharged 
into the river. 

DML plans to increase the discharge of tritium by five-fold to 
re-fit the new generation of nuclear submarines at the Plymouth 
dockyard. Tritium is highly radioactive. It is said to occur 
naturally in water. 

Health officials say that the plans would pose little threat to 
public health. But this afternoon, the protesters handed in a 
5,000-signature petition to the Environment Agency, calling for a 
public inquiry. 

  Devonport is base to several of the Royal Navy's fleet of 
submarines   

One of the campaigners, Ian Avent, said that if there was any 
element of doubt concerning safety, then the agency should air on 
the side of caution.
 
DML said that the firm had taken part in the consultation process 
and was now awaiting the agency's decision.
 
The agency says that could take some months. Meanwhile, it has 
promised to give the petition to the Secretary of State 
responsible. 

*****************************************************************
 22  EPA rule for Yucca Mountain faces two lawsuits - 

7/3/2001 - ENN.com
 
 Tuesday, July 03, 2001 By Environmental News Network 

Diagram of tunnels within Yucca Mountain where radioactive waste 
would be stored.   

The state of Nevada Nuclear Projects Agency and a coalition of 
national and Nevada-based environmental and public interest 
groups filed separate lawsuits June 27, challenging the new 
radiation protection standards for the proposed Yucca Mountain 
nuclear waste repository. 

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's radiation protection 
rule, which takes effect July 13, sets the standards by which the 
site's suitability to contain radioactive waste will be 
determined. At issue is where the standards will apply and for 
how long.

 The petitions for judicial review were filed in the 9th Circuit 
Court of Appeals in San Francisco, by the state agency and the 
Citizen Action Coalition of Indiana, Citizen Alert, Natural 
Resources Defense Council, Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force, 
Nevada Desert Experience, Nuclear Information and Resource 
Service, and Public Citizen. 

They allege that the EPA was wrong to set radiation protection 
standards for Yucca Mountain that last for only 10,000 years. The 
standards should be set for hundreds of thousands of years 
because the waste will be radioactive for at least that long, the 
plaintiffs claim.

 Department of Energy scientists have estimated that peak 
emissions of radiation can be expected up to 800,000 years into 
the future.

 John Hadder, northern Nevada coordinator with plaintiff group 
Citizen Alert, said, "This undermines the purpose of radiation 
protection standards, by presuming that a repository at Yucca 
Mountain will not contain nuclear waste throughout the thousands 
of years it remains dangerous."

 Another source of contention is the 11 mile radius from the site 
where a dose of no more than 15 millirems per year is mandated. 
The 11 mile radius allows repository designs "to rely on dilution 
and dispersion rather than containment of radioactive waste," the 
groups said. 

They don't want the repository in Nevada at all, but as standards 
are set, the radius of containment should be much smaller, they 
believe. 

"Exposure limits are built around expected levels of radioactive 
contamination leaking from the dump, thus establishing a 
regulatory framework for legalized nuclear pollution in Nevada," 
Hadder said. 

In the state's lawsuit, executive director of the Nevada Agency 
for Nuclear Projects Robert Loux, says the EPA's standards fail 
to satisfy the agency's duty to protect the health and safety of 
the people of Nevada from releases from radioactive materials 
stored or disposed of at the Yucca Mountain repository. 

Loux said the rule ignores Nevada's advice to the EPA that people 
may one day live much closer to Yucca Mountain than they do now. 
"It is not reasonable to assume that for even hundreds of years 
into the future that people will continue to live only where 
people live today," the suit says. 

Loux's suit complains that EPA language expressing the "intent of 
isolating it [radioactive waste] for as long as reasonably 
possible" in the Yucca Mountain Rule "is arbitrary and capricious 
and violates the letter and intent of the Nuclear Waste Policy 
Act to the detriment of public health and safety." 

Yucca Mountain is the only site under consideration by the 
Department of Energy as a potential repository for high-level 
nuclear waste from weapons facilities and commercial nuclear 
power plants across the country. The waste is now stored on-site 
at these facilities. 

If the Yucca Mountain repository is built, the hot waste would be 
transported by road and rail to Nevada. Nevada Congresswoman 
Shelley Berkley, a Democrat, has begun a campaign to learn the 
exact routes by which nuclear waste would travel on its way to 
Yucca Mountain. 

"We have advocated a protective standard at all stages of the 
process leading up to this rule being finalized. We are now 
bringing this issue before the courts because our concerns have 
not been addressed," said David Adelman, senior attorney with the 
plaintiff Natural Resources Defense Council. "We cannot accept a 
rule that sets artificially weak standards to allow a 
fundamentally flawed project to move forward," he said. 

Meanwhile, the EPA's national ombudsman, an independent 
investigator within the agency, began an inquiry June 25 into the 
scientific basis for the EPA's Yucca Mountain radiation health 
standards. 

Nevada Governor Kenny Guinn is opposed to the location of the 
repository in Nevada as are most state elected officials. In 
April, the governor said a new report by the U.S. Inspector 
General's office showed evidence that the process to find a 
scientifically suitable site for the storage of high-level 
nuclear waste has been tainted by bias targeting Yucca Mountain. 

"The idea that political concerns could, in any way, affect a 
process with such severe health and safety ramifications for the 
people of Nevada is shocking and disheartening," Governor Guinn 
said. "The only acceptable standards for the evaluation of 
high-level nuclear waste storage are scientific." 

Copyright 2001, Environmental News Network
*****************************************************************
 23  NRC to Meet with Exelon Generation Co. To Discuss Safety 
Performance at the Dresden Nuclear Plant
 
 Region III -- 2001 - 035 -- 

UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, REGION III
801 Warrenville Road, Lisle IL 60532  

  No. III-01-035     July 5, 2001  

  CONTACT:     Jan Strasma (630)829-9663/e-mail: rjs2@nrc.gov
Pam Alloway-Mueller (630)829-9662/e-mail: pla@nrc.gov  

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will meet with Exelon 
Generation Company officials July 11 to discuss the NRC's annual 
assessment of safety performance at the Dresden Nuclear Station 
near Morris, Illinois.
 
The meeting will begin at 1:30 p.m. CDT and will be held at the 
plant's Training Center in rooms 101-103, 6500 N. Dresden Road 
near Morris. The public is invited to observe the session. NRC 
officials will be available afterwards to answer questions.
 
The annual assessment, referred to as the End-of-Cycle 
assessment, evaluates safety performance at the Dresden plant 
from April 2000 through March 2001, and informs plant officials 
of the NRC's plans for future inspections at the facility.
 
The Dresden assessment letter and inspection report are available 
at http://www.nrc.gov/OPA/ppr or from the Region III Public 
Affairs Office. Current performance information for the plant is 
available at http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/index.html.
*****************************************************************
 24  Yakima nuclear plant back on line

The Spokesman-Review.com - 

Wednesday, July 4, 2001

Energy crisis brings Columbia out of 15-year retirement 

Linda Ashton - Associated Press 

YAKIMA _ The Northwest's only nuclear power plant returned to 
service Tuesday, 15 days behind schedule, at a time when the 
West's electricity supplies have been taxed by drought, high 
prices and high temperatures.

The 1,200-megawatt Columbia Generating Station should be at 100 
percent power by midnight today, said Gary Miller, a spokesman 
for Energy Northwest, which owns the plant on leased land at the 
Hanford nuclear reservation.

Over the next year, the plant will provide about 10 percent of 
the electricity in the hydropower-dependent Northwest.

Energy Northwest, a 13-utility consortium, had an ambitious 
schedule to refuel the nuclear reactor for a 23-month operating 
cycle in just 29 days and 22 hours.

It was to be the shortest refueling outage in the plant's 17-year 
history while preparing it for the longest operating cycle -- 
almost two years.

But a number of problems, including an electrical storm that set 
the schedule back a full day, stretched the outage two weeks past 
its planned mid-June return to the power grid.

"It is with a heavy heart and disappointment that I tell you we 
couldn't make the 29 days, 22 hours or Energy Northwest's 
corporate vision ... for the shortest outage ever," John Dabney, 
outage manager, said in a statement to employees.

"This has been a long, tough outage."

The Bonneville Power Administration -- a federal power marketing 
agency that sells all of the plant's electricity along with 
electricity from 29 federal dams on the Columbia-Snake river 
system -- purchased replacement power in advance of the refueling 
and maintenance outage.

The delayed outage "hasn't been catastrophic," said Mike Hansen, 
a spokesman for the BPA in Portland.

But it was a factor in BPA's announcement last Friday that it 
couldn't afford to spill water over federal dams this summer to 
help young fish migrate to the Pacific Ocean, he said.

With the nuclear power plant down and near-record lows flows 
forecast for rivers in the Columbia Basin, BPA said it needed 
every drop of water for electricity generation or to store to 
avoid rolling blackouts come winter.

Spills this summer would reduce the power system reliability to 
an unacceptably low level, said Steven Wright, the agency's 
acting administrator.

"We simply could not take that risk," Hansen said.

BPA also had to purchase some additional replacement power 
because of the delay, but he could not say how much or what it 
cost.

Columbia Generating Station disconnected from BPA's electrical 
transmission grid on May 18, and had hoped to be back on line 
June 18.

Efforts to return the plant to service last week were thwarted by 
some mechanical problems, and discovering and fixing them takes 
time as the plant is powered up and then back down for work, 
Miller said.

*****************************************************************
 25  NRC to Meet with Exelon Generation Co. To Discuss Safety 
Performance at the Braidwood Nuclear Power Plant
 
 Region III -- 2001 - 036 -- 

UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, REGION III
801 Warrenville Road, Lisle IL 60532  

  No. III-01-036     July 5, 2001  

  CONTACT:     Jan Strasma (630)829-9663/e-mail: rjs2@nrc.gov
Pam Alloway-Mueller (630)829-9662/e-mail: pla@nrc.gov  

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will meet with Exelon 
Generation Co. officials July 12 to discuss the NRC's annual 
assessment of safety performance at the Braidwood Nuclear Power 
Plant near Braidwood, Illinois.
 
NRC to Meet with Exelon Generation Co. To Discuss Safety 
Performance at the Braidwood Nuclear Power Plant
 
The meeting will begin at 1 p.m. CDT and will be held at the 
plant's Training Building in Room 53, 35100 S. Route 53, near 
Braidwood. The public is invited to observe the session. NRC 
officials will be available after the meeting to answer 
questions.
 
The annual assessment, referred to as the End-of-Cycle 
assessment, evaluates safety performance at the Braidwood plant 
from April 2000 through March 2001, and informs plant officials 
of the NRC's plans for future inspections at the facility.
 
The Braidwood assessment letter and inspection report are 
available at http://www.nrc.gov/OPA/ppror from the Region III 
Public Affairs Office. Current performance information for the 
plant is available at 
http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/index.html.
*****************************************************************
 26  NRC to Meet with Entergy Nuclear Northeast to Discuss Performance 
at Indian Point 3 Nuclear Power Plant
 
Press Release - Region I - 2001- 46 - 

UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, REGION I
475 Allendale Road, King of Prussia, Pa. 19406  

  No. I-01-046     July 5, 2001  

  CONTACT:     Diane Screnci (610)337-5330/ e-mail: dps@nrc.gov
Neil A. Sheehan (610)337-5331/e-mail: nas@nrc.gov  
 
Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will meet with 
representatives of Entergy Nuclear Northeast on Wednesday, July 
11, to discuss the results of the agency's annual assessment of 
safety performance at the Indian Point 3 nuclear power plant.
 
The meeting, which will be open to the public for observation, 
will begin at 1 p.m. in the Training Center at the plant, located 
at Broadway and Bleakley Avenue in Buchanan, N.Y. NRC officials 
will be available afterwards to informally answer questions from 
meeting observers.
 
The performance period to be discussed is April 1, 2000, to March 
31, 2001. Overall, the NRC found that the plant operated in a 
manner that preserved public health and safety and fully met all 
cornerstone objectives during the period. A letter sent from the 
NRC Region I office to Entergy Nuclear Northeast addresses plant 
performance during the period and will serve as the basis for the 
meeting discussion. It is available on the NRC web site at: 
www.nrc.gov/OPA/ppr/ip3_eoc2001.pdf.
 
Current performance information for Indian Point 3 is available 
on the NRC web site at: 
www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/IP3/ip3_chart.html.
*****************************************************************
 27  NRC to Meet with FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company to Discuss 
Performance at Beaver Valley Nuclear Power Plant
 
  Press Release - Region I - 2001-047 - 

UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, REGION I
475 Allendale Road, King of Prussia, Pa. 19406  

  No. I-01-047     July 5, 2001  

  CONTACT:     Diane Screnci (610)337-5330/ e-mail: dps@nrc.gov
Neil A. Sheehan (610)337-5331/e-mail: nas@nrc.gov  

Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will meet with 
representatives of FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company on 
Wednesday, July 11, to discuss the results of the agency's annual 
assessment of safety performance at the Beaver Valley nuclear 
power plant.
 
The meeting, which will be open to the public for observation, 
will begin at 2 p.m. in Conference Room A of the Emergency 
Response Facility at the plant, which is located in Shippingport, 
Pa. NRC officials will be available afterwards to informally 
answer questions from meeting observers.
 
The performance period to be discussed is April 1, 2000, to March 
31, 2001. Overall, the NRC found that the twin-reactor plant 
operated in a manner that preserved public health and safety and 
fully met all cornerstone objectives during the period. A letter 
sent from the NRC Region I office to FirstEnergy Nuclear 
addresses plant performance during the period and will serve as 
the basis for the meeting discussion. It is available on the NRC 
web site at: www.nrc.gov/OPA/ppr/beaver_eoc2001.pdf

Current performance information for Beaver Valley Unit 1 is 
available on the NRC web site at: 
www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/BV1/bv1_chart.html

Information for Beaver Valley Unit 2 is available at: 
www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/BV2/bv2_chart.html
*****************************************************************
*****************************************************************
                     NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARTICLES
*****************************************************************
 1 Resource center for Nevada Test Site workers opens in Las Vegas
 
Today: July 05, 2001 at 15:50:33 PDT 
 
LAS VEGAS (AP) - After years of being turned away, sick workers 
from the Nevada Test Site now have a place to go to seek 
assistance and file claims for government compensation. 

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and officials from the Labor and Energy 
departments were on hand Thursday for the opening of one of 10 
resource centers that will operate nationally. They were joined 
by about a dozen former workers - including one with a lung 
transplant and others with oxygen tanks - who trace their 
illnesses to time spent helping the nation develop and test 
nuclear weapons. 

"These people deserve compensation. They are very sick," Reid 
said. "They are due. It's been too long." 

Reid, who was instrumental in passing the legislation that 
provides the compensation, called the former test site workers 
"foot soldiers in the Cold War." 

"After working out there all these years and being guinea pigs, 
they haven't compensated us," said Chuck Alger, 70, who worked in 
the mines at the Test Site from 1958-91. 

Alger suffers from silicosis, a respiratory disease that develops 
from prolonged exposure to airborne crystalline silica, which 
comes from the rock at the test site. 

"We're hoping they'll do something before we all die," Alger 
said. Hank Peluaga, 73, who worked with Alger the same 33 years 
in mining, drilling and blasting, also remains skeptical. 

"I also lost my hearing out there," he said. Peluaga also suffers 
from silicosis. "I doubt we'll get anything out of them." 

Labor Secretary Elaine Chao opened the first of the centers in 
Paducah, Ky. on Monday. The centers are jointly operated by the 
federal Labor and Energy departments as part of the Energy 
Employees Occupational Injury Compensation Program Act. 

Resource centers are scheduled to open in Denver; Richland, 
Wash.; Espanola, N.M.; Idaho Falls, Idaho; North Augusta, S.C.; 
Oak Ridge, Tenn.; Anchorage, Alaska; and Portsmouth, Ohio. 

The program offers lifetime medical care and $150,000 to ailing 
workers who were employed at nuclear test sites in Nevada and 
Alaska, in the government's nuclear weapons plants or at 
factories that contracted with the Energy Department. 

It was approved by Congress last year ending 50 years in which 
the government had denied any link between workers' illnesses and 
their jobs in the nation's nuclear weapons complex. 

"I'm proud the nation is finally repaying its debt," said Kathy 
Carlson, manager of the DOE's Nevada field office. 

The government will begin accepting claims July 31, and officials 
hope to mail the first compensation checks in late August or 
early September, said Pete Turcic, director of the division of 
Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program. There 
is no deadline for filing a claim, which may also be submitted by 
heirs of deceased workers. 

The government has hired contractors to operate the resource 
centers. Diseases covered include cancer caused by radiation, 
chronic beryllium disease and chronic silicosis. 

An estimated 800 workers who worked in underground tunnels at the 
test site from 1951 to 1992 when the bombs exploded developed the 
lung disease silicosis, but the legislation doesn't apply to all 
silicosis victims. 

"They've got to change the law so more workers can be covered," 
said Ray Slaughter, who worked at the test site about six years. 

The 66-year-old, who has been diagnosed with silicosis, said he 
isn't eligible for compensation. 

"I was tested three years ago," he said. "I probably meet the 
standard now." In a related matter, Reid invited Yuri V. Ushakow, 
a Russian ambassador, to tour the Desert Research Institute of 
Las Vegas and the Nevada Test Site. 

"He wants to see what we're doing and I wanted him to see Las 
Vegas," said Reid, adding that Russia has a similar test site 
that Reid would like to visit. 

All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
 2  Scientist raises new radiation fear

BBC News | HEALTH | 
 			 
Thursday, 5 July, 2001, 13:22 GMT 14:22 

[Plymouth march ] 
People in Plymouth are fighting plans to dump tritium 

A scientist has warned that radioactive materials being released 
in Britain are many times more dangerous than previously 
believed. Dr Chris Busby says he has found that low-level 
radiation from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster caused a sharp rise 
in infant leukaemia in Wales and Scotland. 

His warning comes as the Environment Agency considers whether to 
allow Devonport Dockyard to dump tritium from submarines into the 
River Tamar in Plymouth. 

Campaigners had been assured that low-level radiation would not 
be a health hazard - the same advice given after the Chernobyl 
disaster in 1986. 
	 		 			
Devonport Dockyard processes tritium from submarines 

Leukaemia rates in Plymouth were recently shown to be 25% above 
the national average among males and 29% above average in 
females. 

Some tritium - a weak radioactive form of hydrogen - is already 
released into the Tamar from the city's historic naval dockyard. 

Dr Busby says the risk of people contracting cancer from 
low-level radioactivity could be far greater than calculated by 
the Environment Agency's advisers. 

He told BBC News Online: "We have sent the Environment Agency a 
solicitor's letter saying they can no longer accept risk levels 
are safe. 

"So if they go into court saying they didn't know, this letter 
will show they were warned." Their model fails to predict all 
sort of risks. Their understanding of radiation risk is faulty.
   	 		
Last month Dr Busby, from Aberystwyth, presented a paper at a 
World Health Organisation conference on Chernobyl in Kiev. 

He said the Chernobyl findings cast serious doubt on the 
internationally-adopted model used to calculate health risk. 

His paper says the increased danger comes from radiation absorbed 
into the body through food and drink. 

zThat makes that health risk many times greater than from 
external exposure. Radiation levels in the UK after Chernobyl 
were considered too low to have a measurable effect on health. 
	 		 			
Infant leukamia increased in the UK after Chernobyl 
		 		 		  
Dr Busby's paper says: "Government advice was that food was safe 
to eat and water and milk safe to drink." 

He said: "The models being used to calculate risk to health from 
low-level radiation are out by a factor of between 100 and 1,000. 

"When they apply this risk model they find hardly anybody will 
become ill - the figure is point-zero something. 

"But their model fails to predict all sort of risks. Nuclear 
reactors 

"The whole basis of their understanding of radiation risk is 
faulty. Dr Busby has been advising anti-radiation campaigners who 
live close to the

River Tamar, which divides Devon and Cornwall. 

They launched Cansar - Campaign Against Nuclear Storage And 
Radiation - when the Environment Agency announced a public 
consultation on Devonport Dockyard. 
	 		 			
Low-level radiation can be absorbed through food and water 
		 		 		  
DML, the operating company, has applied to increase tritium 
emissions by 700%. 

The tritium is a created in submarine reactors but cannot be 
dumped legally in international waters. 

On Wednesday about 150 people marched across the Tamar Bridge 
from Saltash to the dockyard and handed a 5,000-name petition to 
an Environment Agency official. 

They want the government to call in the application and hold a 
public inquiry. Agency's 'dilemma' 

A spokesman for the Environment Agency said Dr Busby's warning 
would need to be explored "to ensure that what we are looking at 
is accurate". 

She added: "The Environment Agency is not an expert on health. 

"If the experts who give us our information are not accepting 
what Dr Busby says, then that is a dilemma for us." 
*****************************************************************
 3  The Navy's mess | July 4, 2001 | SFBG News
 		 		 		 		
THE UNITED STATES military is knee-deep in what is likely to be 
the most costly, time-consuming pollution cleanup in history: a 
$380 billion, 80-year project to decontaminate some 38,000 
tainted sites, many of them former bases. But the cleanup efforts 
are already looking shoddy – and that has an impact on local 
communities. 

As A.C. Thompson reports on page 15, when the Navy shut the 
Alameda Naval Air Station in 1997 and sailed away, it left behind 
a base full of toxic waste and 25 tainted hot spots. The Navy has 
already spent $86 million in taxpayer money trying to clean up 
the mess and plans to spend another $130 million-plus more over 
the next nine years. The goal is make the property safe again for 
human habitation before turning it over to the city of Alameda 
for redevelopment; homes, shops, offices, parks, and a marina are 
planned. 

But the restoration process is a mess. Thompson's report outlines 
a long list of problems: sloppy (or nonexistent) record keeping, 
large amounts of waste that's unaccounted for, and some 
horrifying incidents that make it difficult or impossible to 
trust the Pentagon officials who say the Navy will ultimately 
clean up its own mess. 

San Francisco faces a similar situation in Hunters Point – and in 
both cases, local officials should resist development pressures 
and refuse to allow the sites to be developed until independent 
(that is, nonmilitary) testing agencies scour every scrap of the 
ground and make public detailed reports that show the sites meet 
the highest environmental standards. Otherwise, these bases may 
turn out to be new Love Canals just waiting to erupt. 


*****************************************************************
 4  Hunter's Point Contamination: in this issue 

| July 4, 2001 | SFBG News
                                                                
THE PUBLIC IS finally focusing on the environmental travesty – 
and the U.S. Navy's role in it – at the San Francisco Naval 
Shipyard at Hunters Point. And that's a good thing. The Hunters 
Point shipyard is proof positive that the government is incapable 
of policing itself when it comes to evaluating and undertaking 
the cleanup of hazardous radioactive material. Thankfully, city 
officials have at last responded to residents' complaints that 
the shipyard was unsafe and polluted. 

But it's not the only story the Navy would rather we not tell. 
Across the bay in the quiet town of Alameda, Bay Guardian 
reporter A.C. Thompson has uncovered what might be an equally 
devastating affront on the environment at the hands of the 
military. For 48 years the Navy operated the Alameda Naval Air 
Station. And not surprisingly, the trail of toxic garbage it left 
behind is staggering. Thousands of tons of hazardous material 
still remain on the 2,600-acre site. And there are other reasons 
to be alarmed. Over the course of a six-month investigation, 
during which he dug through thousands of records,

Thompson discovered that the Navy and the environmental agencies 
set to oversee it failed to keep proper paperwork about the waste 
shipped to and from the station. In all, the whereabouts of more 
than 5.7 million pounds of toxins remain unaccounted for. 

The Navy maintains it's a record-keeping snafu. Considering that 
the property is already classified as a federal Superfund site, 
we wonder if the military is the most reliable source of 
information. 

Today the property sits primed for redevelopment for upscale 
homes with killer views. I hope those new homeowners get more 
answers than those living in Bayview-Hunters Point have. 

Melissa Houston melissa@sfbg.com
*****************************************************************
 5  Alameda Naval Installation Contamination: Hot property 

| July 4, 2001 | SFBG News
 		 		 		 		
 The city of Alameda wants to build homes, offices, and stores on 
the site of a former U.S. Navy base. There's just one problem: 
it's a toxic disaster area. By A.C. Thompson
 
IN 1997 THE United States Navy pulled out of the island town of 
Alameda, shuttering its base after 48 years in operation. As it 
did in dozens of other locations – San Francisco's Hunters Point 
Naval Shipyard, for example – the Navy left behind boatloads of 
toxic garbage. But unlike the shipyard, which has been 
scrutinized by the media for years, the mess in Alameda has 
received little attention. 

City officials have grand designs for the ex-base, including 
plans for more than 2,000 homes, 900 boat slips, 4.1 million 
square feet of offices and retail shops, and, at the tip of the 
island, a wildlife refuge for seabirds. The town of 75,000 has 
already signed a deal with megabuilder Catellus to put up homes 
on one slice of the property. In a few years families with kids 
and cats and dogs and backyard gardens with tomato plants will 
begin living on what was once the Alameda Naval Air Station. 

But before any of that can happen, the Navy will have to 
decontaminate 25 toxic hot spots scattered across the 2,600-acre 
former outpost. Tainted with radiation and an interminable list 
of toxins, the ex-base has been placed on the federal Superfund 
list, which ranks it as one of the most polluted places in 
America. 

The Navy is in the midst of an epic $223 million cleanup project, 
overseen by federal and state environmental authorities. To get a 
handle on the environmental damage – and the efforts to undo it – 
the Bay Guardian dug through a huge pile of technical, 
seldom-reviewed Navy, federal Environmental Protection Agency 
(EPA), and state documents. Emerging from this investigation is a 
not-so-pretty picture of a bumbling naval operation and blind 
federal and state regulators. 

Our investigation found: 

ï The Navy can't account for thousands of tons of hazardous waste 
stored on the Alameda base during the late 1980s and early 1990s. 

ï Government scientists think new housing erected on nearby Navy 
property during the early 1990s may pose a cancer risk for 
residents – but the Navy has done nothing about the possible 
danger (see "Past as Prologue: What Cancer Study?," page 16). 

ï Cleanup crews are ignoring accounts by Navy personnel of 
uranium and mercury spills on the base. 

ï In 1998 the Navy may have blasted dangerous levels of radiation 
into the atmosphere without giving public officials or nearby 
residents any notice. Our findings come as no surprise to Ken 
Kloc, a chemist and public health expert who spent two years 
advising the Navy on the project. "The Navy has got to clean up 
this land, and they're trying to do this in the most economical 
way possible – and the problem is that sometimes they've cut 
corners when it comes to protecting human health and the 
environment," Kloc told the Bay Guardian. "The Navy has to be 
pushed to do a thorough cleanup." 

The artificial isle
 
Alamedans have always had a hands-on relationship with the 
natural environment. Established in 1872 by a pair of businessmen 
who bought the territory for $14,000, Alameda wasn't always an 
island: it was a peninsula until 1902, when city officials 
decided to create a lucrative new shipping channel by hacking the 
landmass away from Oakland. Around that time Alamedans (the 
city's motto: "prosperity from land and sea") began using sludge 
dredged from the Oakland harbor to increase the acreage of their 
new isle. 

The artificial island offered the Navy a strategic port for its 
Pacific fleet and aircraft squadrons. From 1936 on, Alameda was a 
company town, and the U.S. Navy was the company, employing more 
than 17,000 people. Pontoon-equipped seaplanes plopped down in a 
special lagoon carved out of the south side of the island. 
Aircraft carriers and battleships – nuclear-powered after 1966 – 
moored at the docks. F-15s pregnant with missiles screamed 
overhead. Sailors were ubiquitous, bunked in myriad two-story 
apartment houses across the island. 

Then one day in 1997 the Pentagon sent word: budget cuts were 
killing the air station. The news came as no surprise. The cash 
crunch had already closed Bay Area Navy installations at Point 
Molate, Mare Island, and Hunters Point. 

Toxic lifeblood
 
Alameda is tainted today because environmentally perilous 
substances are the lifeblood of the war machine. 

The general public worries about some Gomer Pyle type dropping a 
nuclear warhead or knocking over a vat of anthrax, but ecological 
dangers lurk within everyday weaponry. Conventional ordnance – 
rockets, mines, grenades, and such – is loaded with explosives 
such as cyclonite, a suspected human carcinogen. Perchlorates, a 
family of thyroid-damaging chemicals that spread quickly in 
water, are a major ingredient in jet and rocket fuels. 

Then there are the standard industrial products consumed in bulk 
by the Navy. Gasoline and diesel fuel, for example, have 
carcinogenic components. The solvents used to clean machinery and 
strip paint are classified as hazardous materials by the federal 
government. 

And in Alameda, as in other garrison towns around the globe, the 
Navy's stewardship of these potentially lethal substances has 
been pure Homer Simpson. That fact is well documented in the 1994 
Environmental Baseline report, the Navy's five-volume master plan 
for the cleanup. 

From 1942 to 1978, the document reveals, the Navy abandoned 
somewhere between 45,000 and 500,000 tons of toxic rubbish on the 
extreme western end of Alameda. Nobody knows exactly how much 
detritus was cast off, because the Navy kept no records on the 
subject. Though the exact tonnage will never be pinned down, it's 
certain that sailors did a hell of a lot of dumping out on this 
flat, weedy lot crisscrossed by concrete runways. 

They dumped radium, a radioactive metal that glows green and was 
once used to illuminate landing strips; unexploded bombs; spent 
shells; and 55-gallon drums brimming with virulent gunk. They 
even dumped two decrepit, oil-filled ships. One favored disposal 
technique, as documented in the report, "consisted of digging 
trenches to the water table, filling them with waste, and 
compacting the material with a bulldozer." 

It's this toxic graveyard, one of the most mephitic locations on 
the island, that's now slated to become a permanent reserve for 
the California least tern, an endangered seabird. 

In one surreal 1950s-era episode, sailors piled up a bunch of 
trash, set it ablaze, and then used the charred garbage as 
landfill, pushing the rubbish into the water and eventually 
expanding the size of the island by 52,000 square feet. 

Of course, for the time period, that sort of insanity was normal 
– nobody thought about the long-term environmental consequences 
of radium and all of the other malignants today lingering in the 
soil and oozing into the bay. Far more recently, though, the Navy 
has done amazingly stupid things. In 1994, for example, naval 
personnel came across three open casks of radioactivity-spewing 
uranium in a metal scrap yard. Hauled off of a ship from San 
Diego, the drums were marked "depleted uranium," but the readings 
on the Geiger counter said the contents were anything but 
depleted. A special team clad in haz-mat suits was sent in to 
remove the barrels. 

Then there was a series of flunked inspections in 1997 that led 
to a $104,000 fine from state environmental regulators. The 
California Department of Toxic Substance Control cited the base 
for storing incompatible – that is, combustible – chemicals 
together, keeping toxic garbage in open containers, and failing 
to do regular safety inspections of its hazardous waste facility. 

The list goes on and on; if you want every last detail, you can 
find the reports at the Navy's environmental library out on the 
island. Meanwhile, we've assembled a few telling snapshots of 
what has taken place – and what's going on right now – on the 
land Alameda hopes will some day be used for playgrounds and 
backyards. 

Snapshot no. 1: the hazardous waste that went AWOL
 
The 1976 Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) was a 
landmark environmental bill that was supposed to stop the random, 
deadly dumping of poisonous trash. 

The high-profile federal law was intended to chart the movement 
of hazardous waste from "cradle to grave," ensuring that 
mutation-inducing chemicals weren't surreptitiously buried, 
tossed out on the highway late at night, or flushed down the 
drain. Every gallon of toxic goo is supposed to be monitored by 
the EPA to make sure it's disposed of properly. That's the theory 
anyway. In reality, at least in the case of the Alameda naval 
installation, it's impossible to say what truly happened to 
thousands of tons of deadly chemicals handled by sailors from 
1989 to 1993. 

During those years, according to EPA records, 18-wheelers full of 
some of the worst stuff on earth rolled out of the Alameda Naval 
Air Station on a near-daily basis. The logs give a look at the 
kinds of shipments routinely trucked off the base: 629 pounds of 
mercury; 1,300 pounds of a solvent called cresol, a probable 
carcinogen; 10 tons of incredibly caustic nitric acid; 280 tons 
of methylene chloride, another suspected cancer-causer ... and 
there's plenty more. 

Some of the lethal junk went to special landfills in Washington 
and Tennessee, which are licensed to handle toxic waste. Many, 
many barrels-o-death were trucked right across the street to the 
Navy's Defense Reutilization and Marketing Office, the property 
Catellus intends to turn into a brand-new neighborhood. 

The warehouses of the DRMO were meant to act as a temporary way 
station for hazardous chemicals, discarded vehicles and 
equipment, and heaps of rusting scrap metal. But some of the 
hazardous waste never left the facility; the soil at the DRMO 
site is laden with dangerous levels of PCBs and cadmium. More 
ominously, thousands of tons of the toxic detritus the Navy 
claims to have shipped to the DRMO may not have gone there at 
all. 

Under the RCRA law, hazardous waste facilities are required to 
file voluminous reports with the EPA. The reports reveal what 
substances the facilities have handled during the past 12 months 
and what they've done with the stuff. Both the air station and 
the adjacent DRMO were obligated to send the reports to the EPA 
every other year. 

These records are rife with discrepancies. In 1989 the air 
station claimed to have sent 2,406.08 tons of hazardous waste to 
the DRMO. But the DRMO only reported receiving 12.95 tons from 
the air station. 

The 1991 document is similar. The air station said it shipped 
462.08 tons of waste to the DRMO facility; DRMO reported getting 
only 11.79 tons from the air station. The disparity for 1993 is 
22.38 tons. 

Altogether, more than 2,865 tons of toxins stand unaccounted for. 
So what happened to all of those 55-gallon drums? Are they 
sitting at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, keeping the fish 
company? Were they ditched in an empty lot at the end of deserted 
road somewhere? 

The Bay Guardian went looking for the stuff, but before donning 
the gas masks and acid-proof jumpsuits, we decided to follow the 
paper trail a little further. By law, every hazardous waste 
transfer must be documented with an invoice explaining where the 
junk came from, who hauled it, and where it went. We thought 
these shipping manifests – which are archived by the California 
Department of Toxic Substance Control – might shed more light on 
the case of the missing toxins. 

We focused on 1991, plowing through 477 manifests on file for 
that year. According to those records, the air station sent only 
20 tons of toxic waste to the DRMO that year. That leaves 442 
tons missing just for 1991 – and leaves us at another dead end. 

Naval officials can provide little insight, saying the service 
has destroyed all of the files on the subject – which is legal, 
since hazardous waste handlers have to hold onto their records 
for only three years. Two Navy employees who signed off on the 
shipments didn't respond to repeated phone messages left for them 
by the Bay Guardian. 

The mystery may never be solved, but it looks like the Navy 
either broke federal law over a period of several years by 
illicitly disposing of toxic waste or made major accounting 
errors. And the incident raises serious questions about federal 
and state environmental authorities: do they actually read the 
reports hazardous waste facilities file with them? 

California toxics department spokesperson Ron Baker figures the 
whole thing is just a paperwork snafu. "I can tell you this 
department in our efforts to track hazardous waste disposal – not 
only at the facilities in question but at all facilities – relies 
very heavily on the manifest system," Baker told us. "If there 
were materials that left that facility that were not manifested, 
certainly that's something that we would be concerned about. 
However, I don't know if that's what happened or if there's an 
error in their accounting system. 

"I doubt very seriously if somewhere in this state there is in 
excess of 2,800 tons of hazardous waste floating around. In this 
state that just doesn't happen." 

We asked Steve Armand in the EPA's hazardous waste division to 
review the records. Armand admits he can't say where the stuff 
went but says he thinks the Navy probably just made a series of 
accounting errors. 

That explanation doesn't appease activist Saul Bloom. "When the 
regulators say, 'It's just a paper problem,' they're just 
encouraging lousy record-keeping," retorts Bloom, head of Arc 
Ecology, a nonprofit focused on military-generated pollution. 
"And sloppy record-keeping protects the polluter. Good enough for 
government isn't good enough for public health." 

Snapshot no. 2: never mind the uranium
 
Building 66 stands in a sector of the base set aside for the 
development of new offices. In 1994, Navy consultants looking for 
contamination combed over hundreds of similar structures. 

But Building 66, a 30,000-square-foot hangar once used to test 
and overhaul aircraft engines, has some distinguishing 
characteristics. 

Interviewing a machinist who had worked in the building, the 
researchers discovered some startling info. "Mercury spills 
occurred often over a period of decades," said the machinist, as 
quoted in the Baseline report. Mercury is a neurological toxin. 

Reports from the Navy's Radiological Affairs Support Office 
brought the researchers more bad news, warning of "cesium and 
uranium oxide contamination" in Building 66. Uranium is a central 
component in nuclear weapons and reactors, while cesium, also 
radioactive, is considered one of the most deadly by-products of 
nuclear fallout. 

As part of the Superfund cleanup schedule, another team of 
surveyors – again hired by the Navy – went back to Building 66 
three years later in 1997.

Scraping the stained concrete floors of the hangar and scooping 
soil out of the ground surrounding the structure, the team 
gathered dozens of field samples and ran them through a battery 
of tests. They tested for beryllium. They tested for arsenic. 
They tested for diesel residue. 

But for some unexplained reason, they didn't break out the Geiger 
counter and check for radioactivity or analyze the samples for 
mercury. At this point, seven years after being alerted to the 
possible peril, the Navy and its consultants have done no testing 
for those toxins in Building 66. 

"Someone dropped the ball," said Patrick Lynch, a chemical 
engineer who has worked on other Superfund projects. "There's a 
significant problem out there, and they just totally overlooked 
it." 

Snapshot no. 3: call in the bomb squad
 
It was December 1998, and Navy scientists were dragging a gamma 
radiation sensor over the west-end landfill. They knew from 
studies dating back to 1991 that radium, PCBs, asbestos, 
pesticides, and a million other things had been buried or burned 
in the area. And they knew that an earlier round of radiation 
readings had come in at more than twice the safe limit. But they 
didn't know about this: buried in the ground were 335 live 
20-millimeter shells. 

The surveyors rushed in unexploded-ordnance specialists from the 
Navy's Vallejo outpost to deal with the shells, each one about 
three inches long, nearly an inch in diameter, and packed with 
high explosive. 

The bomb squad had a simple plan to neutralize the ammo: clear 
everyone out, set an incendiary charge, and blow the little 
missiles sky-high. The technique is known as "open detonation" in 
military parlance. 

There's just one problem with this little scheme. 

At the time of the operation, the Navy hadn't completed its study 
of the terrain and couldn't say precisely what kind of toxins and 
what levels of gamma radiation infected the soil around the 
buried shells – and setting off a sizable explosive charge would 
definitely launch some of that dirt into the atmosphere, 
spreading the contagion. 

Despite the lack of conclusive data, the detachment charged ahead 
and blew up the ammo. A color photo of the explosion, referred to 
euphemistically as an "emergency removal action," shows a dark 
brown tornado of dirt shooting into the air. It looks to be 20 to 
30 feet high. The picture, along with the rest of this info, can 
be found in a pair of naval reports on the subject. 

The soil the Navy blasted into the sky may well have been 
radioactive. Radiation maps of the territory, completed by the 
surveyors after the bomb squad did its thing, show a major radium 
deposit in the area, marked as a fat yellow and red blot. The 
hottest points on the map clocked in at over a thousand times 
higher than acceptable levels. As for the slightly less deadly 
stuff, post-blast dirt samples found lead concentrations 33,000 
times over the legal limit. 

What did the EPA make of all this? Well, the Navy didn't get 
around to telling the agency – or the city – about the operation 
until two weeks after it went down, or more correctly, up. EPA 
spokesperson Leo Kay said, "Had we been notified, we would've 
wanted to ensure that there were no plumes of smoke containing 
hazardous material that could've posed a threat to the 
community." Choice property
 
We'd love to make this story less one-sided. We'd love to tell 
you the Navy has credible explanations for these seeming 
blunders. But when questioned directly about the incidents, Navy 
officials could only mouth vague platitudes. 

The Navy has been "as good a neighbor as it could be," naval 
spokesperson Tom Pinard informs us. "The people I work with are 
dedicated to make sure this happens – the cleanup. They want to 
be able to turn over the installation one day – as soon as they 
can – but with all due regard for not only humans but for flora 
and fauna as well. 

"The items that you've listed – well, we can go back in time in 
any situation, whether it's the Navy or another government agency 
or a private individual, and say, 'Did you do everything you 
could?' " 

Over at the EPA, Kay tells us that a new pact between the agency 
and the Navy will ensure a meticulous restoration job. "Up until 
now we haven't had the authority we need to run a supertight 
cleanup," Kay said. 

The guard post at the gates of what was once the Alameda Naval 
Air Station sits vacant. A few yards away, in the middle of a 
grassy plaza, a vintage Corsair fighter plane stands mounted like 
a stuffed grizzly bear. Connected by an asphalt maze of roads 
with names like Pearl Harbor Street and Midway Avenue are 
hundreds of blocky beige buildings. Some are occupied, some are 
empty, some like Building 66, are off-limits, teeming with 
pollutants. 

It's quiet but not ghost-town quiet. Civilian businesses have fit 
themselves into some of the structures left behind by the Navy. 
Custom-bicycle crafter Bernie Mikkelsen welds and lathes in one 
small workshop; next door is Sal's Inflatable Raft Service. 
CalStart, an electric car company, and the Bladium, a roller rink 
for in-line skaters, are leasing giant hangars. 

Soon these boxy old buildings will be razed. Fresh architecture – 
three-bedroom houses, shopping centers, office hives – will 
arise, a crop of designer structures that don't look like outsize 
Legos, erected on land made safe by the United States Navy. 

Just how safe is the question hanging over this whole endeavor. 
At least $223 million will be poured into demolishing the 
contaminated buildings, into purifying the despoiled earth and 
water. The expected completion date is set for June 2009. Perhaps 
at that juncture the Navy will have mended the world it has 
ripped asunder. Or maybe these snapshots are a harbinger of 
another Love Canal. 

A blinding orange sign juts out of the rocks at the edge of the 
silty seaplane lagoon. "NO TRESPASSING. POTENTIAL ENVIRONMENTAL 
HEALTH HAZARDS PRESENT. DO NOT EAT FISH OR SHELLFISH FROM THIS 
AREA," shouts the warning. The squadrons of bomb-strapped 
aircraft are long gone. There are no fishermen in sight. But 
pelicans, downy, gravel-hued pelicans with six-foot wings, are 
dive-bombing the water, hunting for smelt, hungry for dinner. Who 
knows what the birds will catch. 

The Navy's environmental library is located at 950, West Mall 
Square, Room 141, Alameda. Research assistance was provided by 
Adam Jernigan, Joe Mullin, and Corbett Miller. 

E-mail A.C. Thompson at ac_thompson@sfbg.com. 

*****************************************************************
 6  Crew Of Soviet Nuclear Submarine K-19 Saves World From Nuclear 
Catastrophe

Pravda.RU 

 
Jul, 04 2001   

  16:25 2001-07-04
 
 The crew of the first Soviet nuclear-powered missile-carrying 
submarine cruiser K-19 saved the world from a nuclear catastrophe 
40 years ago. It could have been something similar to the 
accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power station. The above was 
said Wednesday by one-time Soviet Navy Commander-in-Chief Admiral 
Vladimir Chernavin, Chairman of the Russian Submariners Union. He 
spoke at a meeting to mark the 40th anniversary of the accident 
on the first Soviet nuclear-powered missile-carrying submarine 
K-19. Vladimir Chernavin said that the K-19 crew and its 
commander, Captain Nikolai Zateev, had displayed great courage 
and heroism. Up to the last minute, they fought to rescue their 
submarine, then on combat duty in the northern Atlantic. Eight 
sailors died and 23 got heavy dozes of radiation as they were 
trying to cope with the breakdown of the nuclear power unit. 

For his part, Vladimir Bentsianov, the chairman of an emergency 
relief veterans' committee, said at the meeting that his 
committee had asked Russian President Vladimir Putin to 
posthumously confer on Nikolai Zateev, commander of the K-19 
submarine, the Hero of the Russian Federation title.

 RIA 'Novosti'

The Web-site of the Russian Federation administrative bodies The 
official site of the Russian Government
  
  Copyright ©1999 by "Pravda.RU". When reproducing our materials 
*****************************************************************
 7  Discounted Casualties book 

"A persuasive case built story by compelling story. Spread the 
word. Let's ban DU weapons!!" 

CONTENTS   
                                       
Get to the Heart of the Matter   
                                       
  Part I On the Wrong Side of a Superpower

 US Gulf War veterans watch their bodies deteriorate as the 
Veteran's Administration holds fast to its claim that DU 
munitions pose no threat to human health.
 
Part II The Threat in our Backyards

 Evidence is mounting that radioactive uranium has contaminated 
air, soil, and water near the plants that produce DU munitions, 
harming the health of workers and nearby residents.
 
Part III Contaminated Earth

 People living near facilities where DU weapons are test-fired or 
discarded face environmental contamination, mounting cancer 
rates, and an official "stone wall."
 
Part IV Heavy Burden for an Ally

 British Gulf War veterans are also struggling for government 
recognition that they are suffering due to DU exposure.
 
Part V The Scars of War

 Economic sanctions against Iraq pit physicians against 
overwhelming odds in their struggle with the post-war upsurge in 
cancers, stillbirths, and congenital deformities.
 
Part VI Finishing the Story

 Contamination spreads from areas where DU penetrators leach 
toxic uranium with a half-life of 4.5 billion years into the 
ground.Grassroots groups are working steadfastly for a cleanup 
and a ban.   

Some scientists claim depleted uranium is harmless. Some claim 
it's deadly. Others call for more research. Meanwhile, Akira 
Tashiro takes us into the homes, families, and hearts of people 
suffering and fighting the effects of DU. As a journalist from 
Hiroshima, Tashiro knows that conclusively proving radiation 
effects is next to impossible. That's not because there are no 
effects. It's because radiation produces so many different 
effects. It's impossible to get a complete picture of radiation 
damage by counting cases of leukemia or breast cancer. Low levels 
of radiation can get you in so many ways; no one problem rises 
high enough above the horizon to draw attention. Scientists have 
yet to go into communities and look for higher incidences of 
"everything." What happens is, people get sick, then start to 
look around and wonder why so many of their friends, relatives, 
or fellow veterans are also sick. 

The personal experiences you will encounter in this book are more 
convincing than science. They leave little room for doubt that DU 
is a cruel, frightening menace that needs to be treated like the 
chemically toxic radioactive waste it is, not turned into bullets 
and scattered around the world.
 
During the Gulf War, the multinational force combat-tested a 
formidable new weapon--depleted uranium (DU) penetrators. These 
projectiles performed admirably, burning their way through enemy 
tanks on contact. But at what cost?
 
Hiroshima-based reporter Akira Tashiro traveled through the US, 
UK, Iraq, and Yugoslavia pursuing this question. Here is the 
ominous picture that emerged: See contents as left.   

      
                    


*****************************************************************
 8  Budget increase may allow more staffing in inspector general's 
office 

Oak Ridger Online --> 

Story last updated at 11:30 a.m. on Thursday, July 5, 2001

KNOXVILLE (AP) -- The Tennessee Valley Authority's inspector 
general's office could see its first staffing increase in 13 
years following the board's approval of a midyear $1.1 million 
budget increase, the agency's inspector general said.

 "My impression since I arrived has been that this board is 
committed to supporting the inspector general's office," said 
Richard Chambers, who was deputy IG at the U.S. Postal Service 
until he joined TVA last August. "They recognize the importance 
of having an independent and capable IG around. I saw this as 
further evidence of that."

 George Prosser, the agency's previous watchdog, had complained 
in 1999 that TVA management tried to interfere with his office's 
independence. Then-TVA Chairman Craven Crowell was the only 
sitting member on TVA's board at the time, and put Prosser on 
paid leave until allegations concerning his credit card charges 
were investigated by an outside agency.

 Prosser was cleared of any criminal wrongdoing by an FBI review, 
and he returned to TVA for a short time before retiring at the 
end of last year. He now operates a private investigation 
business based in Knoxville. Crowell retired in April.

 TVA spokesman John Moulton told the Knoxville News-Sentinel's 
Washington bureau that the board supports the inspector general's 
independence.

 "The board agreed that the additional funds were needed to 
improve the IG's information technology capabilities and to add 
staff members and to make other improvements," Moulton said.

 The board unanimously approved the higher budget March 5, but 
the action was not disclosed until Chambers noted it recently in 
a report to Congress.

 He said the extra money will allow the hiring of eight more 
staff members, bringing the total to 90. About $700,000 of it 
will go toward hardware and software to upgrade the office's 
computer security, he said.

 Of the eight new staff members, five will be computer 
information specialists. Chambers said a new federal law requires 
inspectors general to assess the information security of their 
agencies and make reports to Congress over the next two years.

 The bulk of TVA's information systems are in Chattanooga, so 
Chambers said inspector general staffing there will be increased 
from two to eight.

 Prosser said he's pleased with the work of his successor.

 "I certainly support anything they are doing," he said. "I've 
heard that Richard Chambers is doing a good job."

 TVA is the nation's largest publicly owned utility, providing 
electricity to 158 distributors serving some 8 million people in 
Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, 
Mississippi and Alabama.

 On the Net: Tennessee Valley Authority: http://www.tva.gov/

All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger 
*****************************************************************
 9  Kursk salvage operation gears up - July 4, 2001

CNN.com - 

  Frans van Seumeren, left, heads the company in charge of the operation      
 
MOSCOW, Russia -- Salvage experts are gathering ahead of the 
operation to raise the Kursk nuclear submarine from the bottom of 
the Barents Sea. 
		 		 
The vessel was ripped apart by two unexplained explosions last 
August, killing all 118 men on board. It sank about 250 
kilometres (155 miles) off the Norwegian coast and is currently 
submerged under 108 metres (355 feet) of water. 
		 		 
According to navy officials in Moscow, Commander Vladimir 
Kuroyedov has arrived in the northern port of Severomorsk to 
oversee preparations for lifting the submarine, Reuters news 
agency reported. 
		 		 
Kuroyedov is due to meet northern fleet commander Admiral 
Vyacheslav Popov to finalise plans to raise the vessel. 
		 
The operation is being overseen by Dutch heavy transport company 
Mammoet, Reuters said. 
		 		 
Kuroyedov will also pay his respects in the town of Vedyayevo, 
where many relatives of the Kursk victims live. 
		 		 
The exact cause of the Kursk disaster still remains a mystery. 
Officials say it may have been the result of a torpedo explosion 
that set off the rest of the arsenal on board, yet the cause of 
the torpedo blast itself has not been identified. 
		 		 
The move to lift the 20,000-ton vessel from the Arctic seabed 
comes on the 40th anniversary of the former Soviet Union's first 
nuclear submarine disaster. 
		 		 
On July 4, 1961, the K-19 -- the country's first nuclear powered 
submarine -- ran into difficulty when its nuclear cooling system 
malfunctioned on its maiden voyage. 
		 		 
Eight crew members died from radiation poisoning after exposing 
themselves to the reactor to prevent a potentially disastrous 
nuclear explosion. 
		 		 
Sergei Chernyavsky, from the central museum of the Russian navy 
in St Petersburg, told Reuters the K-19 ballistic missile 
submarine was dubbed Hiroshima in the wake of the disaster, with 
reference to the 1945 atomic bombing of the Japanese city. 

*****************************************************************
 10  British atomic test subjects urged to register with Veteran Affairs
 
ABC News - 

Anyone involved in British atomic tests in Australia during the 
1950s and 60s is being urged to register with the Department of 
Veterans Affairs.

It is the first step in a process to conduct medical studies of 
these people.

Twelve nuclear devices were detonated in the 1950s off the 
Western Australian coast, and at Maralinga and Emu Field in South 
Australia.

Vietnam veteran and the state member for Heathcoate, Ian McManus, 
says a preliminary list has revealed more than 16,000 Australians 
took part in the tests.

"The Department of Veteran Affairs have produced a nominal role 
of people who were involved in those tests," he said. 

"My suggestion is that these nominal roles indicate that there 
are over 3,000 navel personnel, over 1,500 army personnel, 3,000 
RAAF personnel and up to nearly 9,000 civilians involved in these 
things." 
	
© 1999 Australian Broadcasting Corporation 
*****************************************************************
 11  Updated facilities are in DOE's future
 
Oak Ridger Online --> 

Story last updated at 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday, July 3, 2001

  About 24 new facilities are expected to built at Oak Ridge 
National Laboratory as the facility undergoes an extensive 
modernization effort. This is an artist rendering of what the 
updated lab could look like. -- Photos Submitted
                                       
by Paul Parson Oak Ridger staff 

It's out with the old and in with the new because big changes lie 
ahead for two Oak Ridge Department of Energy facilities.

 Specifically, the Y-12 National Security Complex and Oak Ridge 
National Laboratory will both undergo extensive modernization 
efforts to replace aging infrastructure.

 Here's a recap.

 Over the next 20 years, the modernization of Y-12 is expected to 
cut the facility's size in half.
 
  An artist rendering of the proposed Special Materials Complex 
at the Y-12 National Security Complex. 
                                       
The Y-12 modernization calls for the construction of a storage 
area for highly enriched uranium and a special materials complex.

 Existing Y-12 facilities for storage of highly enriched uranium 
are in buildings that are 35 to 55 years old and require 
significant maintenance and funding to maintain operations and 
security.

 These safety improvements are long overdue, according to a 
federal watchdog agency.

 The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board recently issued a 
report to DOE stating safety improvements at Y-12 had to be made. 
The group said inadequate attention has been paid to the storage 
of hazardous materials, maintenance needs and fire prevention at 
the plant. This is the third such warning the board has issued 
about Y-12 in three years.

 At ORNL, about 24 new facilities could be constructed under the 
plan including 16 DOE-funded structures ($125 million), four 
state-funded buildings ($26 million) and four funded through 
private business (around $50 million).

 More than half of the buildings at the lab were built during or 
immediately following World War II. Officials say only 23 percent 
of the occupied space at ORNL is adequate for the lab's research 
missions.

 The new facilities would encompass 1.2 million square feet of 
space and include areas for biological, computer and neutron 
sciences research. Proposed construction sites are in Bethel 
Valley near the main ORNL entrance, near the west portal in 
Melton Valley and within the recently established footprint for 
the Spallation Neutron Source. These are "brownfield" sites that 
were previously contaminated and/or developed areas.

 Over a 10-year period, the modernization effort would also move 
ORNL staff from off-site locations -- Y-12 and leased commercial 
spaces -- back to the lab.

All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger 
*****************************************************************
 12  Commentary: DOE must fess up, clean up and pay up if we are to 
move on 

Oak Ridger Online --> 

Story last updated at 11:34 a.m. on Thursday, July 5, 2001

Linda Dalton Gass 

I am writing to encourage Oak Ridgers and Department of Energy 
decision-makers, including Leah Dever upon her recent return, to 
take the long-range view of what is best for our children's 
future health, safety, and environment.

 Specifically, we need an overall plan for all the federal 
property on the Oak Ridge Reservation. We need to consider the 
total environmental impact of many decisions which have so far 
been made piecemeal.

 Piecemeal decisions are our legacy. Failing burial trenches, 
cross-connections of contaminated water, planned and accidental 
releases of toxins to the air, long-term storage of chemical and 
radioactive wastes -- all these separate events have combined to 
have unintended side effects.

 People are sick. Let's move on with Lessons Learned and "'fess 
up, clean up, and pay up." Let the truths of the past be told. 
Clean up and make aboveboard property transfers that maximize our 
children's future prospects.

 Pay fair compensation to deceased and disabled victims' families 
-- not just a cheap buyout of the sickest. Provide treatment -- a 
clinic -- for the ill instead of stalling with studies, 
committees, and public relations campaigns.

 The Land Use Meeting on Jan. 30, 2001, showed that there was a 
great deal of support for "'fess up, clean up, and pay up." Many 
of the standing-room-only crowd waited for hours (6 to 10 p.m.) 
to speak in support of environmental responsibility.

 Dave McKinney, a state of Tennessee employee, spoke regarding 
his role of trying to bring DOE into the era of environmental 
compliance years ago. He challenged DOE to use the scientific 
leadership at Oak Ridge National Laboratory to take a progressive 
stance and be a model for other sites.

 In the early '90s, when McKinney was exerting oversight over the 
Oak Ridge Reservation, I was internally trying to move us toward 
environmental responsbility within Engineering Division as a K-25 
employee (I also worked at Y-12 and ORNL).

 For about the first year in my new position, there was a 
wait-and-see attitude -- would I use my background in 
environmental engineering to rubber-stamp the old way of doing 
business? Or would I take a proactive stance and start doing 
things right on the front end instead of waiting for the poorly 
funded oversight of the state of Tennessee or the Environmental 
Protection Agency to catch us red-handed? Among my coworkers 
there were diversities of attitudes.

 Even during the 1980s, years before there were Material Safety 
Data Sheets, training requirements, and practices to safeguard 
employees, I had supported several hourly employees' efforts to 
protect their health and safety on the job from assignments that 
were clearly out of line.

 I was liked and respected. I was known for loyalty and having a 
heart for individuals and their families. Unfortunately, at the 
time and place when I took a decisive, highly visible stand, my 
career was squelched.

 Leah Dever, an environmental professional, is at a much higher 
level, and there is now much more support both within DOE and 
within Oak Ridge for moving forward and doing the right thing 
than when I tried.

 Hazardous waste often was simply not being identified as such 
because it was easier to manage if we only checked it for 
radioactivity. The long-term storage of mixed waste was then and 
still is a concern. The synergistic health effects of radiation 
and chemicals are some of the major research issues which the 
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry is mandated to 
assure.

 As more of ORR is increasingly turned over to public access, and 
as our body burden of toxics from all sources mounts, we have 
reasons for growing concern.

 I have had a whistleblower complaint ongoing since 1995. Just 
recently DOE headquarters informed me that key evidence in my 
case -- the investigation conducted by the DOE Office of the 
Investigator General, in which an investigator came from 
headquarters and spent a week here on my case -- was destroyed.

 A similar situation recently came to light regarding the 
Parallax investigation into whether and how K-25 employees were 
exposed to toxins in the water and steam. It was found that an 
incriminating utilities computer database had the hard drives 
removed and none of several backups could be found.

 A November 2000 memo from Dever implies that anyone who provides 
information about how exposures occurred will not be retaliated 
against. This information could include field observations of 
utilities, maintenance, sanitary and storm sewers, operations, 
the cooling towers, engineering drawings, land survey 
coordinates, waste disposal, waste management, etc.

 Unfortunately, my personal experience and my following of the 
Joe Carson case speaks too loudly that we cannot believe the 
no-reprisal policy.

 An Oak Ridger editorial, Oct. 6, 2000, "Whistleblower Case 
Erodes DOE Credibility," states: "Carson already has six 
favorable court rulings under his belt to legal issues 
surrounding DOE's refusal to heed his safety concerns and its 
subsequent alleged retaliation against him. He has won previously 
before the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board, which has ordered 
DOE to give Mr. Carson back his job. DOE has instead resorted to 
the all-too-familiar tactic of drawing these matters out, six 
years now, through one court and administrative agency appeal 
after another. Enough is enough. The Joe Carson case reflects 
terribly upon a DOE which already faces a serious crisis of 
public credibility."

 Please, DOE, settle the Carson case. It will contribute 
materially to having people come forward and provide firsthand 
information in order to help those who are sick or families of 
the deceased.

 Some with direct knowledge of how exposures occurred have told 
it; usually they are no longer vulnerable directly (retired or 
left the DOE umbrella). The fact that our social lives and 
families are still intertwined here causes some to be reluctant, 
but others are simply waiting for the right timing to do the 
right thing.

 I am one of at least six confidential contacts to whom 
information can be given anonymously (122 Cavett Hill Lane, 
Knoxville TN 37922, phone 898-4263 or 675-8827 ; fax 675-6337; 
linda99@mindspring.com).

 The Parallax investigation into exposures has cost about half a 
million dollars in the first six months of a project that may go 
on for a couple of years.

 I love Oak Ridge and Oak Ridge people, in spite of what happened 
to me. My years living and working in Oak Ridge are among the 
best of my life.

 Those of us who have raised our children and/or spent our 
productive lives here are inextricably linked to the future of 
Oak Ridge. We do not want another generation to endure premature 
aging.

 For the sake of local reputation and the health and welfare of 
future generations, please, DOE and community leaders, let's 
'fess up, clean up, and pay up, so that we can move on.
 
Linda Dalton Gass is a resident of Knoxville.

All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger 
*****************************************************************
 13  Whatever happened to Israeli 'atomic spy' Vanunu?
 
THURSDAY, JULY 5, 2001 

B. SNYDER OF GREENBELT, MD., ASKS: 
Whatever happened to Israeli 'atomic spy' Vanunu? 

By Adam Cooke 

  CONVICTED SPY: Vanunu in 1998. He is still serving an 18-year 
sentence for revealing Israel's nuclear capability. AP   
    
Mordechai Vanunu is to be released from an Israeli prison in 
April 2004, five months before the end of his 18-year sentence. 
He was convicted of espionage and treason after leaking 
information about Israel's nuclear arsenal to the London Sunday 
Times in 1986.
 
Mr. Vanunu's family emigrated to Israel from Morocco in 1954, 
when Mordechai was a child. After serving in the military from 
1971 to '74, he worked as a technician in the highly secret 
Dimona nuclear research center. He began studies at Ben Gurion 
University in '79, where he became active in politics, opposing 
Israel's invasion of Lebanon and the Dimona center.
 
In 1986, Vanunu went back to work at Dimona. He smuggled in a 
camera and took photos. Then he resigned, taking the pictures 
with him. He traveled through Asia, and ended up in Australia, 
where the Times contacted him.
 
The Times brought him to England, where he disclosed that Israel 
had become an important nuclear power, with some 200 warheads.
 
Soon after Vanunu's exposé, Israeli agents lured him to Italy. He 
was brought to Israel, where he was tried and convicted in 
secret. He spent 11-1/2 years in Ashkelon prison in solitary 
confinement. In 1998 he was moved to a general cell.
 
According to Felice Cohen-Joppa, coordinator of the United State 
Campaign to Free Mordechai Vanunu, "although many Israelis are 
very angry ... [with Vanunu] and what he did, there is growing 
support [for him]." In fact, Israel's parliament recently debated 
the issue of nuclear weapons for the first time.
 
Amnesty International and other organizations support Vanunu's 
actions and have demanded his release. In 1987, Vanunu received 
The Right Livelihood Award. He has also been nominated for the 
Nobel Peace Prize.
 
***
 
Do you suddenly wonder, hey — 'Whatever happened to ...?'
 
Wonder no more! Write and tell us who or what you'd like to catch 
up with. Send ideas to: One Norway St., Boston, MA 02115 or 
e-mail: whatever@csmonitor.com

[bullet] For further information:

 
  + Vanunu may be barred from leaving after releaseJerusalem Post 
(May 29) +    Peacewire.org + US Campaign to Free Mordechai 
VanunuNonViolence.org + Internet Resources on Mordechai Vanunu 
Please Note: The Monitor does not endorse the sites behind these 
links. We offer them for your additional research. 

. Copyright 2001 The Christian Science Monitor. All rights 
*****************************************************************
 14  Row brewing over nuclear compensation payments

Radio Australia News - 4/07/01: 

A dispute is brewing between officials of the Bank of New York 
and authorities in the Marshall Islands over the final 
four-point-five million U-S dollar nuclear test compensation 
payment, due to the Marshall Islands later this year.

Bank of New York, which is the trustee for the Pacific island 
nation's nuclear investment fund, has told Marshall Islands 
officials that the last payment is due next month, bringing the 
total payout over 15 years to 270 million U-S dollars. 

But the Nuclear Claims Tribunal and the Bikini Atoll Local 
Government both dispute this, saying there are two more quarterly 
payments left - one in July and another in October.

The dispute has arisen because the 15-year compensation package 
contained in a treaty between the US and the Marshall Islands, 
known as the Compact of Free Association, comes to an end later 
this year. 

The US established a fund in the mid-1980s to compensate 
islanders affected by the 67 American nuclear tests conducted 
between 1946 and 1958. 

*****************************************************************
 15  Industry chief to visit SRS 

Augusta Georgia: Technology:

Proposed mixed-oxide facility would fall under jurisdiction of 
Nuclear Regulatory Commission 

Web posted Wednesday, July 4, 2001
 
By Brandon Haddock
Staff Writer 

The head of the agency responsible for overseeing the nation's 
nuclear-power industry is scheduled to visit Savannah River Site 
next week.

 Richard Meserve, the chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission, plans to visit the federal nuclear-weapons site 
Tuesday, said Roger Hannah, a spokesman for the commission's 
Region II office in Atlanta.

''The basic purpose is to familiarize himself with the site,'' 
Mr. Hannah said. ''He's just going to take a quick tour.''

 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission oversees civilian nuclear 
facilities, such as power plants, and has no oversight over 
current SRS activities. But a proposed mixed-oxide, or MOX, fuel 
fabrication facility would fall under the commission's 
jurisdiction.

 The $1.45 billion plant would manufacture fuel for nuclear-power 
plants using plutonium once intended for nuclear weapons. Dr. 
Meserve might tour the proposed site for the plant, Mr. Hannah 
said.

 The chairman also is set to visit the site's Savannah River 
Ecology Laboratory, a lab official said.

 Dr. Meserve has served as the regulatory commission's chairman 
since October 1999. Prior to becoming chairman, he was a partner 
in the Washington law firm Covington &Burling.

 He also was legal counsel to the president's science and 
technology adviser from 1977 to 1981 and worked as a law clerk to 
Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun.

 Dr. Meserve holds a bachelor's degree from Tufts University, a 
law degree from Harvard Law School, and a doctorate in applied 
physics from Stanford University.

 Reach Brandon Haddock at (706) 823-3409 or 
bhaddock@augustachronicle.com.
 
All contents ©1996 - 2001 The Augusta Chronicle. All rights
*****************************************************************
 16  Amarillo Voices: Environmental ignorance keeps going and going... 

By Greg Sagan 

According to recent news stories, the U.S. Department of Energy 
wants our local oversight committee, the Pantex Plant Citizens 
Advisory Board, to confine itself to environmental issues and 
keep quiet about operational and safety issues at the plant.

This should make the hackles rise on your neck.

Pantex is one of this area's sacred cows. To criticize Pantex is 
to invite harsh reaction from the DOE, the local Chamber of 
Commerce, the Amarillo Economic Development Corp., and even the 
editorial page of this paper. 

The reason is obvious: Pantex pays those high federal wages, 
funded by taxing every wage-earner in the country, and most of 
that money is spent right here. 

With a work force of 2,800 (as published in our local Chamber of 
Commerce's list of major employers) and an average salary of 
$25,000 a year (a guess, and probably a conservative one), that 
gives Pantex $70 million worth of annual leverage in Amarillo and 
the surrounding area.

Not many here are willing to run off that kind of money no matter 
what principle might be at stake.

But there are some principles at stake. One is our local 
environment.

I sometimes wonder how many people are aware of just how many 
nuclear facilities, both power plants (which are regulated by the 
DOE's Nuclear Regulatory Commission) and weapons plants (which 
are not regulated by the NRC), are located adjacent to rivers, 
large lakes and oceans. Then I wonder how many people know why 
this is done.

These plants are located near water for one simple reason: 
emergency cooling. In the case of a core meltdown, as happened at 
Three Mile Island Unit One in the late 1970s, part of the 
strategy for keeping the resulting radioactivity inside whatever 
containment structure surrounds it is to dump lots and lots of 
water on it.

This is such a serious issue for the nuclear utility industry 
that after the Three Mile Island accident, all of the companies 
in the United States operating nuclear power plants got together 
to form the Institute for Nuclear Power Operations, headquartered 
in Atlanta.

When I was consulting to INPO on human performance issues, I 
asked one of its executives what the INPO mission was. "Simple," 
he said. "To keep the fuel out of the feed water."

Why does INPO want to accomplish this? Because no sane person 
with technical knowledge of radioactivity ever wants to use 
emergency cooling.

One of the first things a knowledgeable person will notice about 
this area is that there is no such source of emergency cooling 
water. And even if there were, if we ever had to rely on it for 
an accident at Pantex, we would owe it to ourselves to ask where 
it would go after it was splashed on a few (or a few thousand) 
plutonium pits.

I'm no geologist, but I suspect it would soak right into the 
ground. Right into the perched aquifer. And later, right into the 
Ogallala.

This is why we need a Citizens Advisory Board.

I have worked for many nuclear utility companies as a consultant. 
These companies tend to have an attitude rather different from 
what you find in the GOCO - government owned/contractor operated 
- facilities which design, test and build nuclear weapons. One of 
the most obvious distinctions is that power plant operators do 
not distinguish between "environmental issues," "operational 
issues" and "safety issues." 

To them, an environmental issue arises from operational and 
safety issues. It's a package deal, known in my line of work as 
"holistic management."

It's a mistake to treat these issues piecemeal, and to do so is a 
bureaucratic tactic generally used to eviscerate a regulatory or 
oversight body without coming right out and dissolving it.

We must all question this trend. It smacks of a shift in the 
political wind, much like the closing of Amarillo Air Force Base 
right after Lyndon Johnson was elected president.

If you recall, this area voted overwhelmingly for Barry Goldwater 
in 1964, and President Johnson soon thereafter decided Amarillo's 
base was strategically redundant. Many here shook their heads 
over this act, coming as it did at the height of the Cold War and 
only a couple years after the Cuban Missile Crisis, but the real 
answer was clear: LBJ was exercising his royal right to punish 
those Texans disloyal to him.

We seem to have something similar, though not precisely 
identical, going on here. 

In George W. Bush, we have elected another favorite son to the 
presidency, one not demonstrably concerned with environmental 
issues. 

And just like that, within the span of six months under a new 
administration, the board tasked with local environmental 
oversight is being told by "our" president to keep its nose out 
of what Pantex is doing unless it can find evidence of trouble 
outside the plant's fence.

Doesn't anyone realize that by then it's just too damn late?

Greg Sagan can be contacted in care of the Amarillo Globe-News, 
P.O. Box 2091, Amarillo, Texas 79166, or <a 
href="mailto:letters@amarillonet.com.">letters@amarillonet.com.</a>

Chamber of Commerce, the Amarillo Economic Development Corp., and 
even the editorial page of this paper. 

copy; 2001 Amarillo Globe-News
    
*****************************************************************

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: 
<http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml> 
    
*****************************************************************