***************************************************************** 09/05/01 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 9.213 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER CONTENTS 1 Russian official sees prospects for further nuclear orders 2 Nevada gives up challenge; Yucca Mountain hearing set Wednesday 3 Japan: Mitsubishi, Westinghouse to develop 1,000 MW nuclear 4 Forcing Atoms In A Pellet To Fuse Aids Nuclear Power 5 Listen up! The federal boss is telling you nuclear waste is coming 6 YUCCA MOUNTAIN: Energy secretary skipping hearing 7 Public rates nuclear waste risks high 8 Nevada Congressional Delegation Urges Secretary Abraham to 9 REID URGES SECRETARY ABRAHAM TO EXPAND PUBLIC ACCESS TO YUCCA 10 Editorial: Just say no to dump for nuclear garbage 11 County proposes funds to fight dump 12 Public urged to attend Yucca hearing 13 Abraham won’t be at Yucca Mountain hearing 14 Daily Events Report 15 IAEA Daily Press Review 16 Thousands concerned about new nuclear reactor 17 State officials skeptical about businessman's claims 18 ADAMS: Items of Interest - Wednesday, September 05, 2001 19 Letter: Setting it straight on waste, casks - Lou deBottari 20 NRC Staff to Hold Public Meeting at Turkey Point To Discuss 21 Nuclear Insurance Policy 22 Nuclear waste site fills its first room 23 Olivier appointed president of CL York. 24 Opinion - One tough act for Leah Dever 25 DOE Continues Meetings with South Carolina Officials 26 Last Chance for Public Comment on Yucca Mountain 27 State's nuclear council weighs in 28 Exposing the power failure in devolution deal 29 European Parliament resolution includes possible closure of NUCLEAR WEAPONS CONTENTS 1 Knock, knock, knocking on Bush's door 2 Bones 'stolen' for A-bomb research 3 GAO: Military Cleanups Exaggerated 4 Toxic Sites Being Cleaned Up Slowly 5 Alaska Asks Feds for Radiation Tests 6 No Support to Criminalize Leaks 7 Goshute Rivals Agree to Meet Again 8 NTS houses germ factory 9 US Says China Nuke Buildup Unnecessary 10 EPA schedules two meetings on Scarboro sampoling 11 Animal disease is reminder of bioterrorism danger **************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 Russian official sees prospects for further nuclear orders from China BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Sep 4, 2001 Text of report in English by Russian news agency ITAR-TASS Moscow, 4 September: Yevgeniy Reshetnikov, the Russian deputy minister of atomic energy, has told ITAR-TASS on Tuesday [4 September] in an exclusive interview that his ministry does not rule it out that China may place an order with Russia to build new nuclear power generating units in addition to two ones which are already under construction. Negotiations to build new nuclear power units are likely to begin after the current construction projects are completed, Reshetnikov emphasized. He said the two nuclear power units are being built in China strictly on schedule. The first power unit is to come into operation in 2004 and the other one in 2005. Reshetnikov pointed out that the ministry regards cooperation with China in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy as highly productive and promising. Source: ITAR-TASS news agency, Moscow, in English 0452 gmt 4 Sep 01 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter All Material Subject to Copyright ***************************************************************** 2 Nevada gives up challenge; Yucca Mountain hearing set Wednesday Las Vegas SUN September 04, 2001 LAS VEGAS (AP) - An extra digit on an official public notice won't stop a key Energy Department public hearing Wednesday on a plan to bury the nation's high-level nuclear waste in the Nevada desert. Elected officials fired verbal darts Tuesday at Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham and his department, but gave up trying to block the first of three hearings on the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump. State officials had threatened to sue. Instead, lawmakers, business interests and environmentalists said they will protest plans for the nuclear repository at Wednesday's hearing. "This doesn't even have the appearance of neutrality," U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., complained Tuesday after the Energy Department announced it would press forward. "The books have been cooked," Reid said. "This doesn't pass the smell test." Nevada lawmakers and Gov. Kenny Guinn had asked Abraham to postpone the meeting for 90 days to let the public learn more about the project and offer comment. They complained that after $7 billion and 19 years of study, the critical hearing was scheduled last month on short notice and then moved when the first site became unavailable. "You have them preparing for a hearing for almost 20 years, but they can't get a place to hold it," Reid said from Washington, D.C. "Then, they publish the wrong address." Allen Benson, an Energy Department spokesman in Las Vegas, said Abraham won't attend the hearing at the Energy Department office in North Las Vegas. It was switched there last week after the Suncoast hotel-casino backed out, saying it didn't have the capacity for a long and contentious hearing. Benson said a typographical error - adding a digit to the hearing site address published Friday in the Federal Register in Washington, D.C. - made no difference. "The citizens of Nevada were notified through notices and the media," Benson said, referring to legal notices, newspaper, radio and television news reports. "The notification was done correctly in Nevada." Benson responded to criticism that the building is too remote - in an industrial area well away from downtown Las Vegas and the Las Vegas Strip - and too cramped. It has 250 seats in a main meeting room and 150 seats in a cafeteria that officials plan to equip with closed-circuit television. "No one is going to be shut out," the Energy Department spokesman said. "No one is going to be discouraged from attending." Reid spokesman Nathan Naylor said Reid and the other three members of Nevada's congressional delegation planned to take part in the hearing by teleconference from Washington. Guinn, planning Tuesday to fly to Las Vegas to testify, issued a statement urging heavy participation in what he called "a crucial opportunity to let the Department of Energy know ... that we as Nevadans remain opposed to the shipment of high-level nuclear waste to our state." Wednesday's meeting is the first of three. Others are scheduled Sept. 12 in the Amargosa Valley, the Nye County community nearest the site, and Sept. 13 in Pahrump, a larger community between the site and the California state line near Death Valley National Park. Complaints from Reid and other officials prompted the DOE to promise to teleconference the hearings to three other Nevada cities - Reno, Elko and Carson City. An Internet webcast also is planned beginning at 6 p.m. Benson said people who don't attend the hearing will have until Sept. 20 to submit comments by mail, fax and e-mail. Abraham is expected to review those comments, the hearing transcript and a final site environmental report before recommending to President Bush by the end of this year whether to go forward. If Nevada protests, as expected, approval for the Yucca Mountain plan would be left to Congress. The state Legislature has put up $1 million for an anti-dump public relations campaign. Clark County Commissioner Myrna Williams said Tuesday that the board will vote in two weeks whether to put $1 million of the county's $750 million annual budget toward that effort. Opponents say they intend to highlight the dangers of transporting nuclear waste by truck and train through 43 states to Nevada. The Energy Department said last month that the volcanic ridge at the edge of the Nevada Test Site, some 90 miles from Las Vegas, would meet Environmental Protection Agency radiation exposure standards of 4 millirem per year. Overall radiation from all sources from the site would be capped at 15 millirem. A standard chest X-ray emits 10 millirem or less. Yucca Mountain is the only site under study for the nuclear dump, which is projected to cost $58 billion to complete. It would begin accepting waste no earlier than 2010 and remain open for three decades. On the Net: Energy Department's Yucca Mountain project: http://www.ymp.gov All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 3 Japan: Mitsubishi, Westinghouse to develop 1,000 MW nuclear reactor BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Sep 5, 2001 Text of report in English by Japanese news agency Kyodo Tokyo, 5 September: Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd (MHI) said Wednesday [5 September] it has reached a basic agreement to join a project by Westinghouse Electric Co of the United States to develop a new 1,000-MW nuclear reactor. MHI said in a press release that Westinghouse is aiming to receive design certification for the new advanced pressurized water reactor, called the AP1000, from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission by the end of 2004. The two companies will finalize the contract by the end of this year, MHI said. The AP1000 will be based on Westinghouse's existing 600-MW reactor, the AP600. MHI also said the development programme involves Electricite de France and British Nuclear Fuels PLC, and that MHI will be involved in the development and design of the AP1000's reactor core, system and equipment. Source: Kyodo News Service, Tokyo, in English 0310 gmt 5 Sep 01 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter All Material Subject to Copyright ***************************************************************** 4 Forcing Atoms In A Pellet To Fuse Aids Nuclear Power [UniSci - Daily University Science News] To create high-yield nuclear fusion that will ultimately produce cheap electric power from sea water, researchers must be able to evenly compress a BB-sized pellet so that its atoms are forced to fuse. In its first try as a Sandia National Laboratories diagnostic tool, the third-biggest laser on earth, Z-Beamlet, confirmed that Sandia's Z machine -- the most powerful laboratory producer of X-rays in the world -- spherically compressed a simulated fusion pellet during a firing, or "shot," of the giant accelerator. "The beam compressed the pellet by a factor of 2," says project leader John Porter, "and demonstrated an encouraging uniformity. Our results show we're moving in the right direction." Uniform 3-D compression is an essential step in creating controlled nuclear fusion. It means that almost none of the X-ray energy delivered to the pellet squirted uselessly away. Weapons simulation work (the alternative to nuclear testing) conducted on supercomputers by Sandia for the US Department of Energy is expected to benefit from data from high-yield explosions, as should, further down the pike, energy production. Until now, Z researchers had to be content with electronic images of smoother and smoother Z pinches -- the tool of compression. The pinch -- a vertical magnetic cylinder -- with increasing smoothness impels ions of tungsten toward its vertical axis at a considerable fraction of the speed of light. But knowing that the tool is good and getting better isn't definite information about the pellet upon which the tool is operating. Only direct data is entirely convincing, or, to put it in a more homely way, seeing is believing. Z-Beamlet images the pellet in a kind of giant dental X-ray, says Porter. In a burst of energy only a fraction of a billionth of a second long, it takes a snapshot by creating a shadow on a piece of X-ray film placed behind the BB-sized pellet inside the central chamber of the firing Z machine. The shadow, like the picture taken of a tooth, accurately depicts what is going on in the "mouth" of Z. The comparison with the dental X-ray process is closer than it might appear. The laser's light itself is not used to create the pellet image. Higher frequencies of light are needed to produce better information. So the beam, after traveling horizontally 75 yards from a former warehouse adjacent to the Z building, is turned downward 90 degrees into the maw of Z, where it is focused to a small spot about the diameter of a human hair. Because the duration of the pulse is about 300 picoseconds -- about enough time for light, which can travel around the earth seven times in a second, to travel about four inches -- an extremely powerful beam is created because of the short time duration in which its energy is expended. The powerful beam striking the metal plate causes the plate to release X-rays. It is these X-rays, as they emanate from a single point, that have the accuracy and intensity to image the pellet. While pulsed lasers are not new, they normally produce mere millijoules of energy in university research labs. "The Department of Energy (DOE) wants lots of energy," says Porter, and Z-Beamlet delivers kilojoules of laser energy for its diagnostic work. (Z itself, firing, delivers megajoules.) Light starts its voyage humbly enough in Z-Beamlet with picojoules (10 to the minus 12 joules) of energy in its initial beam. On a simple metal table -- using an assortment of small mirrors, lenses, beam splitters, and polarizers -- researchers develop as perfect a "seed" beam as possible. Then, like a pimply teenager drafted for a Hollywood makeover, the little beam is amplified and smoothed to clear up any spatial nonuniformity. Then it is passed through a vacuum chamber in which it is focused into a point source from which it opens again. The entire laser system is run and monitored by an elaborate computer control system residing on five desktop computers. (This is one enhancement of many incorporated into Z-Beamlet to modernize the mid-1990s vintage laser.) After a final smoothing from an adaptive optics system (a flexible mirror that is continuously pushed and pulled by an array of 39 electromechanical actuators), yet more energy is added to the laser pulse by flash lamps that look like fluorescent tubes. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory originally built the Beamlet laser to serve as the scientific prototype of the National Ignition Facility. The California lab decided to remove the laser to make room for those of the NIF. The entire project to reassemble the recycled Livermore laser cost $12.875 million, took three years to complete, and required the talent and dedication of scores of individuals from Lawrence Livermore and Sandia, says John. "Now we're more optimistic than ever," says John. "Instead of seeing the outside of Z science -- the instabilities in the compressing magnetic field -- we can now see the inside, the pellet at the center of the million-degree furnace -- the interior of the sun, if you will -- and we can accurately describe what's happening there." Sandia is a multiprogram laboratory operated by Sandia Corporation, a Lockheed Martin company, for the U.S. Department of Energy. With main facilities in Albuquerque, N.M., and Livermore, Calif., Sandia has major R responsibilities in national security, energy and environmental technologies, and economic competitiveness. - By Neal Singer [Contact: John Porter, Neal Singer] 05-Sep-2001 webmaster@unisci.com. Copyright © 1995-2001 UniSci. All rights ***************************************************************** 5 Listen up! The federal boss is telling you nuclear waste is coming LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL: NEWS: COLUMN: John L. Smith Wednesday, September 05, 2001 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal COLUMN: John L. Smith "What we have here is a failure to communicate." -- Strother Martin, boss man in "Cool Hand Luke" Forget the silly crime you committed or the length of sentence received. You're pulling a stretch at the Nevada Work Farm, and around here we have rules -- rules that supersede the law of the land in actual states of the union. Around these parts, we do what we're told on the subject of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump or face the consequences. Most of you say you don't want to provide the storage site for 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste transported from other states to Yucca Mountain. I say, you've got to get your mind right. There's no better place to start than today's scheduled hearing, set to commence at 6 p.m. at the National Nuclear Security Administration at 232 Energy Way. To ensure widespread citizen participation in the superior understanding of the Department of Energy's Yucca Mountain Preliminary Site Suitability Evaluation, two other meetings are scheduled. One in downtown Pahrump, another in the greater Amargosa Valley. For those unfamiliar with the state's geography, these are officially suburbs of Southern Nevada. Don't believe me? You've got to get your mind right. Take, for instance, the so-called safety issue with regard to transporting thousands of tons of deadly waste across country. You may ask, "If it's so safe, why not just keep it in your own damn back yards?" I say, what we have here is a failure to communicate. That's why your attendance at the meeting is strongly suggested. Fact is, the trucks are substantially more safe than the average bus that transports your children to school. That should make you feel better. Besides, those trucks will carry insurance. Then there's the problem with not believing the story about those tons of nuclear waste providing Nevada with a 21st century Comstock Lode once scientists work out the bugs associated with reprocessing. Some of you don't believe the boss man, and a few of you have asked, "If it's such a bonanza, why don't you keep it in the states of origin?" Because the federal government decided long ago that Yucca Mountain was the only site worth studying and has invested billions into the proposition that it is the best place. And if that's not good enough and you're skeptical that Nevada was singled out unfairly, well, then you've got to get your mind right. Besides, haven't you heard about the potential riches the federal government might just heap on Nevadans in exchange for acceptance? What did I hear you say? That focusing on the Yucca Mountain compensation issue is like being proud of having a sister in a whorehouse because she makes good money? What we have here is a failure to communicate. You'll surely be hearing from former Gov. Bob List soon on the subject. List, on retainer to the Nuclear Energy Institute trade organization, espouses the gospel according to the industry -- but only because he has the best interests of all Nevadans in mind, you understand. And if you doubt this man, may I remind you that he is a former governor of the great Silver State. And as we all know, former governors never lie and always have the best interests of the people in mind even after entering into hog-fat consulting agreements. Man's gotta eat. Besides, if you're envious of his ability to cash in on Yucca Mountain, there's nothing stopping you from following him to glory. Other than your conscience, maybe. Something tells me your mind still ain't right. I'm running out of patience. You ask, "What about state's rights? What about the fact we don't want it? What about science?" Have a head slap on the house: This ain't about science. It's about high-level nuclear politics, the kind in which states of substantial influence (most others) force states of minimal influence to do their bidding. The federal government is in the process of officially reminding recalcitrant Nevadans that it never has been about what you want. It's about what you get rammed down your throat like 50 rotten eggs, understand? John L. Smith's column appears Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday. E-mail him at Smith@lvrj.com or call him at 383-0295. webmaster@lvrj.com Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - ***************************************************************** 6 YUCCA MOUNTAIN: Energy secretary skipping hearing LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL: NEWS: FREE BUS RIDES TO YUCCA MOUNTAIN HEARING To boost attendance at today's hearing on the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project, Clark County commissioners are offering free bus rides to the Energy Department's facility in North Las Vegas. Buses will leave the Clark County Government Center, 500 Grand Central Parkway, at 5 p.m. and return at 9 p.m., according to a statement from county officials. The buses will transport people who want to participate in or observe the hearings at the DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration, 232 Energy Way. The hearing is one of the last chances in Nevada to comment on the federal government's plan to make Yucca Mountain the final resting place for 77,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel, primarily from commercial power reactors. "DOE's meeting location is somewhat obscure and difficult to locate," Commissioner Myrna Williams says in the county's statement. "By offering residents free bus transportation to the event, we hope to make it easier for people who are interested in expressing their views on this vital subject." The commission opposes the proposed repository at Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Today's hearing, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., will be carried on remote videoconference sites in Reno, Carson City and Elko. It also will be broadcast via the Internet at www.ymp.gov, and on Cox cable Channels 1 and 39. Hearings also are scheduled for Sept. 12 in Amargosa Valley and Sept. 13 in Pahrump. -- REVIEW-JOURNAL Wednesday, September 05, 2001 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal YUCCA MOUNTAIN: Energy secretary skipping hearing Speakers opposed to nuclear waste facility in Nevada expected to pack tonight's NLV meeting By TONY BATT DONREY WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, citing a scheduling conflict, will not attend today's public hearing in North Las Vegas on the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, a spokeswoman said Tuesday. Jeanne Lopatto said Abraham will remain in Washington to participate in a Cabinet meeting with visiting Mexican President Vicente Fox. Nevada lawmakers sent a letter to Abraham on Saturday, urging him to attend the hearing and sessions next week in Pahrump and Amargosa Valley. Lopatto said she did not know Abraham's schedule for next week. "Whether Secretary Abraham attends the hearing is not the issue," Lopatto said. "The issue is that public comments are an important part of the information-gathering process, and all that is reported to the secretary." That explanation did not sit well with Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev. "I would hope President Bush would weigh in on this and tell Secretary Abraham where he should be," Reid said. "There is no reason for him to be back here (in Washington). President Fox will be in for many days. His (Abraham's) presence can be handled by some other official." White House spokesman Ken Lisaius declined to comment on Reid's suggestion. Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said he was disappointed Abraham would not be attending. "Obviously, President Fox is important, but this (Yucca Mountain) is the most important issue to the state of Nevada," Ensign said. "Seeing what is going on at the hearing and hearing how adamant Nevadans are against this site would be very good for the secretary." Neither Reid nor Ensign will attend the hearing, citing Senate conflicts. Both hoped to participate via teleconference from the Senate recording studio. Also Tuesday, Nevada Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa demanded the federal government postpone the hearing, saying key documents related to the project have not been completed. "Without the benefit of final siting guidelines or a final environmental impact statement as a foundation for its tentative decision, the Department of Energy is, in effect, depriving the public of the opportunity to provide meaningful input into a decision which has potentially huge impacts for Nevadans and the nation as a whole," according to a statement the attorney general's office intends to present at the hearing. Environmental groups said Tuesday they plan to file a lawsuit against the Energy Department if today's hearing is not postponed. The groups contend the public needs more time to review the latest Yucca Mountain report, which was issued Aug. 21. On Sunday, "we sent a letter to the secretary giving him notice that this meeting violates constitutional protections of due process and redress against grievances," said Judy Treichel, executive director of the Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force watchdog group. Citizen Alert, a Nevada-based public advocacy group, has scheduled a rally at 4:30 p.m. today outside the hearing site at the National Nuclear Security Administration building, 232 Energy Way in North Las Vegas. The rally will be followed by a news conference at 5 p.m., featuring Assemblywoman Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, and representatives of the United Transportation Union, the Western Shoshone, the Amargosa town board and Public Citizen, a Ralph Nader-founded organization. Jack Finn, a spokesman for Gov. Kenny Guinn, said the governor will testify. "This is a crucial opportunity to let the Department of Energy know, directly and forcefully, that we as Nevadans remain opposed to the shipment of high-level nuclear waste to our state," Guinn said in a statement. Citizens will be allowed into the building at 5 p.m. to talk to department advisers about nuclear waste and Yucca Mountain, which is 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Those who want to speak at the hearing can sign up at that time, Yucca Mountain Project spokeswoman Gayle Fisher said. The formal hearing begins at 6 p.m. Comments from the audience will begin at 6:30 p.m., and each speaker will have a five-minute time limit, Fisher said. The capacity of the meeting room is 250 people; an overflow room can fit 150 people. The meeting is scheduled to conclude at 9 p.m., but Fisher said, "We're prepared to stay as long as it takes." Review-Journal writer Keith Rogers contributed to this report. webmaster@lvrj.com Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - ***************************************************************** 7 Public rates nuclear waste risks high LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL: NEWS: Wednesday, September 05, 2001 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal REVIEW-JOURNAL A survey of more than 300 Southern Nevadans indicates they perceive the health risk of hauling nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain to be thousands of times greater than what federal scientists say it is, according to a study released Tuesday by two state professors. Calculations by federal scientists for the Department of Energy indicate that 0.02 deaths per 100,000 residents would result from transporting 77,000 tons of high-level waste from reactor sites across the nation to the proposed Yucca Mountain repository, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. But the survey by two University of Nevada professors indicates that, on average, survey participants perceive the increased risk of death associated with transporting the waste would be 734 deaths per 100,000 residents. The study was conducted by Mary Riddel, associate director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and Douglass Shaw, associate professor in the Department of Applied Economics and Statistics at the University of Nevada in Reno. It was funded through a UNLV-sponsored grant. "What we think is really important is that DOE has never taken the time to understand how people perceive risk. They've done a poor job of communicating what the real risks are," Shaw said by telephone Tuesday. Energy Department officials did not respond to claims in the study Tuesday. The study involved a survey by telephone and mail of 343 randomly selected Southern Nevada residents. The study contains no margin of error for the disparities in perception of risk. webmaster@lvrj.com Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - ***************************************************************** 8 Nevada Congressional Delegation Urges Secretary Abraham to Extend Comment Period on Yucca Mountain Report August 30, 2001 Washington, D.C. -- In a letter to U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham today, Governor Kenny Guinn and Nevada*s Congressional delegation urged the Secretary to delay hearings on the Yucca Mountain Preliminary Site Suitability Evaluation report and extend the public comment period by 90 days. Despite issuing the report for the first time on August 21st, the Department of Energy announced hearings would begin on September 5th and the public comment period would close on September 20th. "The Department is providing fewer than 15 days for the public to prepare comment on a report about the most critical decision in this program," U.S. Senator Harry Reid, the Assistant Senate Majority Leader, said. "This is unreasonable and unnecessary since the program is already more than 12 years behind schedule. The people who will be most affected by this decision should be allowed to thoroughly review the report and then voice their concerns. "Fifteen days notice of the first public hearing does not provide adequate time for review and travel arrangements to be made by citizens wishing to attend the hearing in person." The letter, signed by Governor Kenny Guinn, U.S. Senators Harry Reid and John Ensign, and U.S. Representatives Jim Gibbons and Shelley Berkley, is attached. In addition, Senator Reid applauds the decision by department of Energy officials to honor his request and provide video conferencing at the first hearing in North Las Vegas. "Interested members of the public, local governments, and other affected parties from around the state need to be able to participate in the hearings and comment on this very important decision impacting every citizen in Nevada," Senator Reid said. Senator Reid also criticized the Department*s decision to relocate the first hearing to the National Nuclear Safety Administration building. "Holding the meeting there would be unfair," he said. "It would be like having an election and having the only voting booths at the Democratic headquarters or the Republican headquarters. It would intimidate people." Senator Reid ***************************************************************** 9 REID URGES SECRETARY ABRAHAM TO EXPAND PUBLIC ACCESS TO YUCCA MOUNTAIN HEARINGS Says Current Hearing Schedule Excludes Many Nevadans August 31, 2001 Washington, D.C. - In a letter to the Department of Energy this week, Nevada Senator Harry Reid, the Assistant Majority Leader, urged Secretary Spencer Abraham to allow Nevadans from across the state access to public hearings on the Yucca Mountain Preliminary Site Suitability Evaluation report. The Department of Energy announced last week that three hearings would be held in: * Las Vegas Valley, NV on September 5, 2001 * Amargosa Valley, NV on September12, 2001, and * Pahrump, NV on September 13, 2001 Senator Reid expressed concern that the three locations chosen for the DOE hearings only include a fraction of Nevada*s population effected by the proposed waste site. Many communities are located hundreds of miles from the hearing sites and the lack of accessibility could limit a full accounting of public debate. Senator Reid has previously stated that he is "gravely concerned" about the potential of hundreds of trains and trucks carrying radioactive materials from other states across the country and Nevada. He has reminded the DOE that "accidents happen," and anyone living along transportation routes in Nevada should have the opportunity to comment on the potential waste repository. Senator Reid*s comments from the letter follow: "I request that you provide video conferencing at the September 5, 2001 public hearing on the possible recommendation by the Secretary of Energy to the President of the Yucca Mountain Site in Nevada for development as a spent nuclear fuel and high-level nuclear waste geologic repository," Senator Reid said in the letter. "Remote video sites should be provided around the State of Nevada for interested members of the public, local governments, and other affected parties to participate in the hearing and to comment on this very important decision which impacts all citizens of the state. Remote sites should be included at a minimum in Reno, Elko, and Carson City." "The information in the Yucca Mountain Preliminary Site Suitability Evaluation is technical in nature and there is intense public interest and concern about the Yucca Mountain project. Fifteen days notice of the Las Vegas public hearing does not provide adequate time for review and travel arrangements to be made by citizens and public officials to attend the hearing in person. All three scheduled public hearings are being held in the vicinity of Yucca Mountain. However, the entire state will be affected by future decisions concerning Yucca Mountain. These are the last public hearing scheduled before the Secretary of Energy's recommendation to the President." Senator Reid ***************************************************************** 10 Editorial: Just say no to dump for nuclear garbage [Las Vegas SUN] [Click here!] September 05, 2001 at 9:43:46 PDT Finally, it's our turn. Tonight, from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m., the U.S. Department of Energy will hold a public comment hearing in North Las Vegas on plans to bury 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The DOE has done a poor job in its suitability studies of Yucca Mountain, so it's not surprising that it also has bungled this public hearing. Last week a hotel-casino said it couldn't hold the hearing because of overcrowding concerns. Instead of postponing the hearing until a more suitable, neutral site could be found, the DOE opted to hold the hearing inside the agency's North Las Vegas office, which is ringed by barbed wire. Talk about inviting. It appears likely that the DOE will recommend Yucca Mountain to President Bush, but this process is far from over. The DOE still would have to get the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's approval, and the NRC's staff recently has begun to question some of the scientific work to date. Nevadans overwhelmingly oppose the dump, and those who can make it to the DOE's Nevada Operations Office in North Las Vegas at 232 Energy Way, should go and let the federal government know once again that we don't want this garbage shoved down our throats. All contents © 1996 - 2001 Las Vegas Sun, Inc. ***************************************************************** 11 County proposes funds to fight dump Las Vegas SUN Today: September 05, 2001 at 11:09:46 PDT Clark County commissioners on Tuesday proposed $1 million to join the state in its fight against storing high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain. Commissioner Myrna Williams said the money will come from board members' discretionary funds and will help the state battle the federal government over the proposed nuclear waste repository. The board will vote on the funding Sept. 18. Gov. Kenny Guinn earlier this year pledged $5 million toward the fight. "We are not being treated fairly; we're the victims of politics," Williams said Tuesday. Williams' proposal comes seven months after Commission Chairman Dario Herrera pitched the idea. While the board supported Herrera's plan, commissioners emphasized the need to know exactly where the money would come from and how it would be spent. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 12 Public urged to attend Yucca hearing Las Vegas SUN Today: September 05, 2001 at 11:09:46 PDT By Mary Manning Gov. Kenny Guinn said residents need more information to properly comment on the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain. "There are several key pieces of scientific evidence that the public has not had the opportunity to consider, so public hearings at this point are premature," Gov. Kenny Guinn said, noting that scientific studies at the mountain 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas are incomplete. Nevertheless, Guinn urged residents to attend a public hearing on the project scheduled tonight at 5 at the Department of Energy's Nevada Operations Office at 232 Energy Way, west of Losee Road, in North Las Vegas. The public comment period begins at 6 p.m. Public testimony will begin after 6 p.m., and speakers will be limited to five minutes. Hearings are also scheduled Sept. 12 in Amargosa Valley and Sept. 13 in Pahrump. The governor plans to testify during tonight's hearing. "I urge all Nevadans to participate and make your feelings known on this all-important issue," Guinn said. He said tonight's hearing is the final opportunity for residents to tell the DOE that Nevada opposes the Yucca Mountain Project. Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa said the state is protesting the DOE hearings because they do not comply with a 1982 law that applies to proposed nuclear waste repositories. "On behalf of the state of Nevada, I respectfully protest this hearing and demand that the DOE comply with the provisions of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act," Del Papa said in a prepared statement. Nevada Solicitor General Tony Clark, who will represent the attorney general's office, also will testify tonight. Clark, according to a press release, will testify that "without the benefit of final siting guidelines or a final environmental impact statement as a foundation for its tentative decision, the Department of Energy is, in effect, depriving the public of the opportunity to provide meaningful input into a decision that has potentially huge impacts for Nevadans and the nation as a whole." Assembly Majority Leader Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, said the Legislature this year sent a strong message to the DOE regarding its opposition to the prospect of burying 77,000 tons of nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain. "We believe all Nevadans who are concerned about the future safety and health of their families and loved ones should take this opportunity to yet again send that message loud and clear," Buckley said. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, expected to recommend Yucca Mountain as the nation's nuclear waste repository later this year, has declined invitations from Nevada's officials to attend the hearing in North Las Vegas. "I'm disappointed," Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said, referring to Abraham's decision not to attend. Tonight's public hearing was originally scheduled to be held at the Suncoast, but hotel officials, citing security concerns, canceled the meeting after learning that more than 300 people would attend. Clark County is offering free shuttle bus service for residents who want to attend. Buses will run between 5 p.m. and 9 p.m., taking residents from the County Government Center on Grand Central Parkway. The DOE on Aug. 21 issued a 370-page Preliminary Site Suitability Evaluation on the Yucca project. The period set aside for the public to comment on the project ends Sept. 20. Reid has asked President Bush to extend the comment period. Neither Bush nor the DOE has responded to the senator's request. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 13 Abraham won’t be at Yucca Mountain hearing By DOUG ABRAHMS Reno Gazette-Journal Wednesday September 5th, 2001 WASHINGTON — Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham has declined invitations by Nevada’s top elected officials to attend today’s public hearing in Las Vegas on making Yucca Mountain the nation’s nuclear waste dump. Instead, Abraham will attend a Cabinet meeting in Washington. “I’m disappointed very much by his decision,” said Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev. The head of the office of civilian radioactive waste management and other Energy Department officials will hear the public’s views, said Joe Davis, a department spokesman. “The agency will be there.” So will protesters and state officials, many of whom oppose building a nuclear waste repository in Yucca Mountain about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Residents of northern Nevada can take part in the hearing through teleconference hookups in Reno and Carson City. If Nevada protests, as expected, approval for the Yucca Mountain plan would be left to Congress. The state Legislature has put up $1 million for an anti-dump public relations campaign. Clark County Commissioner Myrna Williams said Tuesday that the board will vote in two weeks whether to put $1 million of the county’s $750 million annual budget toward that effort. Opponents say they intend to highlight the dangers of transporting nuclear waste by truck and train through 43 states to Nevada. All four of Nevada’s Washington lawmakers and Gov. Kenny Guinn sent a letter to Abraham last week asking him to attend the public hearing on a decision that could affect the Silver State for generations and could be one of the most important decisions he makes as energy secretary. The public meeting was to be in the Suncoast Hotel, but the hotel cancelled after discovering that more than 300 people would attend. The hearing was relocated to the department’s National Nuclear Safety Administration building. “The hotel cancelled on us,” Davis said. “We moved it to our federal facility, which has space” for up to 500 people. But the swiftness with which the Energy Department made the venue change is just another illustration that the agency is determined to place a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain as fast as possible, Reid said. “They can’t even find a place to hold (the public hearing),” he said. The department only released its site-suitability report Aug. 21, giving critics less than a month to analyze it and make suggestions, he also noted. “What’s the rush?” said Reid, who asked President Bush to extend the public comment period beyond 30 days. The Associated Press contributed to this story ********** 14 Residents of northern Nevada can participate in the hearing through teleconference hookups between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. at the following locations: •Desert Research Institute, conference rooms A and B, 2215 Raggio Parkway, Reno. •Nevada State Legislative Building, Room 1214, 401 S. Carson St., Carson City. •Elko Convention and Visitors Authority, 700 Moren Way, Elko. © Reno Gazette-Journal ***************************************************************** 15 Daily Events Report U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Operations Center Event Reports For 09/04/2001 09/05/2001 ** EVENT NUMBERS ** 38263 38264 38265 Power Reactor Event Number: 38263 FACILITY: WATTS BAR REGION: 2 NOTIFICATION DATE: 09/04/2001 UNIT: [1] [] [] STATE: TN NOTIFICATION TIME: 16:54[EDT] RXTYPE: [1] W 4 LP,[2] W 4 LP EVENT DATE: 09/04/2001 EVENT TIME: 13:04[EDT] NRC NOTIFIED BY: RODEN LAST UPDATE DATE: 09/04/2001 HQ OPS OFFICER: CHAUNCEY GOULD PERSON ORGANIZATION EMERGENCY CLASS: NON EMERGENCY JOHN MONNINGER R2 10 CFR SECTION: ARPS 50.72(b)(2)(iv)(B) RPS ACTUATION CRITICA AESF 50.72(b)(3)(iv)(A) VALID SPECIF SYS ACTUAT UNIT SCRAM CODERX CRITINIT PWR INIT RX MODE CURR PWR CURR RX MODE 1 M/R Y 100 Power Operation 0 Hot Standby EVENT TEXT REACTOR MANUALLY TRIPPED FROM 100% POWER DUE TO STEAM GENERATOR LEVEL APPROACHING THE LO LO LEVEL SETPOINT While operating at 100% power, the Watts Bar Unit 1 reactor was manually tripped at approximately 1304 EDT on September 4, 2001 due to steam generator (SG) level approaching the Lo Lo level setpoint. Just prior to the manual trip of the reactor, an abnormal voltage alarm was received on 125V Vital Battery Board 1 1. The immediate cause of the trip is considered to be the loss of the 1 1 Vital AC Inverter which caused a feedwater regulating valve to close. Subsequently, the maintenance power supply was used to restore power to the 1 1 vital AC bus. All control rods inserted properly in response to the reactor trip. The Auxiliary Feedwater (AFW) System actuated as expected. However, subsequent to the initial actuation signal, additional operator action was required to[manually] start 1B motor driven pump. After the 1B pump was successfully started, the motor driven AFW pump 1A was secured based on instrument indications available to the operating staff. After power was restored to the vital AC bus, the 1A pump was subsequently started and performed properly. Inspections are currently underway to determine the exact cause of the loss of the 1 1 Vital Inverter and basis for the 1B pump failing to [auto] start. No ECCS injection occurred, but the steam generator atmospheric relief valves lifted and fully reseated. The manual actuation of the Reactor Protection System (RPS) is being reported as a four hour report under 10 CFR 50.72 (b)(2)(iv). The actuation of the Auxiliary Feedwater System (an engineered safety feature) is being reported as an eight hour report under 10 CFR 50.72 (b)(3)(iv). The plant is stable in mode 3. The NRC Resident Inspector was notified. Power Reactor Event Number: 38264 FACILITY: CALVERT CLIFFS REGION: 1 NOTIFICATION DATE: 09/04/2001 UNIT: [1] [2] [] STATE: MD NOTIFICATION TIME: 17:00[EDT] RXTYPE: [1] CE,[2] CE EVENT DATE: 09/04/2001 EVENT TIME: 15:00[EDT] NRC NOTIFIED BY: LAVATE LAST UPDATE DATE: 09/04/2001 HQ OPS OFFICER: CHAUNCEY GOULD PERSON ORGANIZATION EMERGENCY CLASS: NON EMERGENCY HAROLD GRAY R1 10 CFR SECTION: ACOM 50.72(b)(3)(xiii) LOSS COMM/ASMT/RESPONSE UNIT SCRAM CODERX CRITINIT PWR INIT RX MODE CURR PWR CURR RX MODE 1 N Y 100 Power Operation 100 Power Operation 2 N Y 100 Power Operation 100 Power Operation EVENT TEXT FAILURE OF 17 OUT OF THE 49 EMERGENCY NOTIFICATION SYSTEM SIRENS FOR CALVERT COUNTY The licensee reported that 17 out of 49 sirens in Calvert County failed to respond to the scheduled county test.. However, all sirens did respond to a mobile siren test kit which is used locally at the siren. Calvert County Emergency Management was notified to perform route alerting in the affected areas in the event of an emergency. The cause is believed to be a transmission problem. The NRC Resident Inspector will be notified. The county has been notified. Fuel Cycle Facility Event Number: 38265 FACILITY: PADUCAH GASEOUS DIFFUSION PLANT NOTIFICATION DATE: 09/04/2001 RXTYPE: URANIUM ENRICHMENT FACILITY NOTIFICATION TIME: 18:09[EDT] COMMENTS: 2 DEMOCRACY CENTER EVENT DATE: 09/04/2001 6903 ROCKLEDGE DRIVE EVENT TIME: 14:00[CDT] BETHESDA, MD 20817 (301)564 3200 LAST UPDATE DATE: 09/04/2001 CITY: PADUCAH REGION: 3 COUNTY: McCRACKEN STATE: KY PERSON ORGANIZATION LICENSE#: GDP 1 AGREEMENT: Y MARK RING R3 DOCKET: 0707001 M. WAYNE HODGES NMSS NRC NOTIFIED BY: UNDERWOOD HQ OPS OFFICER: CHAUNCEY GOULD EMERGENCY CLASS: NON EMERGENCY 10 CFR SECTION: NBNL RESPONSE BULLETIN EVENT TEXT 24 HOUR 91 01 BULLETIN RESPONSE At 1400, on 9/4/01, the Plant Shift Superintendent (PSS) was notified of an NCSA violation that had occurred at the C 355 air plant. Immediately after switching drying units at the air plant, a high high moisture alarm was received. The alarm indicated air moisture content greater than 1300 ppm water, violating NCSA GEN 10 01. NCSA GEN 010 credits the dry air system for producing dry air with moisture content of less than 1300 ppm. The purpose of this requirement is to prevent exposure of fissile uranium deposits to a moderating environment. No equipment containing fissile material was exposed to high moisture content plant air at the time of the alarm or following receipt of the alarm. Since one leg of double contingency was lost, this is being reported to the NRC as a 24 hr. event report. SAFETY SIGNIFICANCE OF EVENTS: There was no purging of equipment containing fissile material in progress at the time of the moisture excursion. Although a parameter was exceeded, the proper response to the alarm was taken prior to resuming buffering of purging equipment containing fissile material. POTENTIAL CRITICALITY PATHWAYS INVOLVED(BRIEF SCENARIO(S) OF HOW CRITICALITY COULD OCCUR: In order for a criticality to be possible. Operations personnel would have had to fail to respond to the alarm. In addition, a fissile deposit containing greater than a critical mass and absorbing greater than 10 kg of water would have had to be present. CONTROLLED PARAMETERS (MASS, MODERATION. GEOMETRY, CONCENTRATION. ETC: Double contingency for this scenario is established by implementing two controls on moderation. ESTIMATED AMOUNT, ENRICHMENT, FORM OF LICENSED MATERIAL (INCLUDE PROCESS LIMIT AND % WORST CASE CRITICAL MASS): n/a NUCLEAR CRITICALITY SAFETY CONTROL(S) OR CONTROL SYSTEM(S) AND DESCRIPTION OF THE FAILURES OR DEFICIENCIES: Double contingency for this scenario is established by implementing two controls on moderation. The first leg of double contingency Is based on receiving a high high moisture alarm indicating a moisture content greater than 1300 ppm water and ceasing buffering and purging operations in response to the alarm. This control was not violated. The second leg of double contingency is based on the dry air system producing plant air with a moisture content less than 1300 ppm water. Since the moisture content was confirmed to be greater than 1300 ppm, this process condition was exceeded and double contingency was not maintained. Since double contingency is based on two controls on moderation, double contingency was not maintained. CORRECTIVE ACTIONS TO RESTORE SAFETY SYSTEMS AND WHEN EACH WAS IMPLEMENTED: No corrective actions implemented. Proper procedure response was performed. The NRC Resident Inspector was notified. ***************************************************************** 16 IAEA Daily Press Review IAEA Daily Press Review Date 2001-09-05 Number 169 1. Non-proliferation Non-proliferation conference in Geneva remains blocked. US restates its stand on nuclear forces in China. China open to dialogue with US despite its opposition to MD plan. Brazilian company says it will build South America's first cruise missile. (BBC; NYT; NZZ; WP - 4, 5/8) Brazil; China; Switzerland; United States of America 2. IAEA Visit of IAEA's Olli Heinonen to DPRK unlikely to take place in near future. (R - 4, 5/9) Dem. P.R. of Korea; IAEA 3. Nuclear power India to pursue three-stage nuclear power programme aimed at providing long-term energy security. Plan for new NPP in Scotland is being eyed by UK Prime Minister. Russia to give Iran feasibility study for construction of new reactors at NPP Bushehr. France to set up world's largest nuclear industry company. Russian official sees prospects for further Chinese orders to build NPP units. Bashkorstan (Russia) to invest in construction of new NPP; first unit to become operational in 2010. Proposal to build second reactor at Australian NPP Lucas Heights faces strong opposition from local community. (DAW; R - 4/9) Australia; China; France; India; Iran, Islamic Republic of; Russian Federation; United Kingdom 4. Radwaste, fuel Radioactive waste causes environmental danger in Russian region of Chelyabinsk; building of NPP may reportedly lead to solution. (R - 4/9) Russian Federation 5. UN Diplomats try to salvage UN Racism conference. Article on consequences of UN sanctions in Iraq. Iraq expels UN officials. US allows Iraq to purchase telecommunication equipment from France. (BBC; DAW; IHT; WP - 5/9) France; Iraq; South Africa; United States of America 6. Miscellaneous Specific nutritional supplement called Selected Vegetables (SV) based on traditional Chinese medicine was approved to treat lung cancer. Pentagon has built germ factory that could make lethal microbes to wipe out entire cities. US lawyer disputes assertion that global treaty banning biological weapons permits nations to test such arms for defensive purposes. (IHT; NYT; R - 4/9) United States of America; WORLDWIDE ***************************************************************** 17 Thousands concerned about new nuclear reactor theage.com.au, Breaking News Source: AAP|Published: Wednesday September 5, 1:26 PM Thousands of Australians have raised concerns about a new nuclear reactor at Sydney's Lucas Heights, appealing to the nuclear safety regulator to consider its impact on safety and health. A proposal to build the reactor on the site has drawn strong opposition from communities around the nation, with submissions over the plan standing at almost 9,000. The chief nuclear regulator, John Loy, today received 8,700 submissions from people across Australia, concerned about health, safety and waste management issues with building a second reactor at Lucas Heights. The organisation which he heads, the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency, called for submissions on the proposal to build the new reactor at Lucas Heights. Greenpeace, the Maritime Workers Union and Sutherland Shire Council also sent submissions of protest to ARPANSA about safety and radioactive waste management concerns. ARPANSA is set to decide if a construction licence can be granted to Argentinian company INVAP, which was selected by the federal government to build the reactor. In July, the initial safety report for the reactor was given the all-clear from world experts. An application for a licence to build the reactor, from the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, must satisfy safety concerns before a decision is made next February as to whether it is satisfactory. Last May, a Senate committee found the government failed to establish a compelling case for a new reactor in Lucas Heights and recommended an independent review be held. INVAP has been contracted to build the reactor in 2002, to replace the existing installation, once official safety approvals are in place. Greenpeace nuclear campaigner Stephen Campbell said thousands of people had now raised concerns about nuclear waste and spent nuclear fuel. "ARPANSA must take these concerns seriously and not grant a construction licence," he said in a statement. The community was concerned that the French company COGEMA did not have correct licences to reprocess Australian spent fuel. Mr Campbell said the community was also concerned that there had been no environmental impact assessments on any potential waste dump sites. Copyright © 2001 The Age Company Ltd. Any unauthorised use, ***************************************************************** 18 State officials skeptical about businessman's claims Casper Star-Tribune Casper, Wyoming Wednesday, September 05, 2001 CASPER, Wyo. (AP) - Wyoming officials are skeptical about a New Jersey businessman's claims of engines that can run on a variety of fluids and a device to neutralize nuclear waste. About 80 potential investors listened to Diennis Lee speak at Casper's Radisson Hotel recently. "There's a rumor about me that I'm a scamster, a con man, a fraud," he told the crowd. "Well, we're doing things that oil companies and electric companies and gas companies are real scared of," he said. "After you see the show tonight you'll see why they're so scared." Lee discussed how people, for $15, can sign up for memberships in a free electricity program or call a number to become dealers. He promised that his organizations, Better World Technology and United Community Services of America, can offer jobs, a better quality of life and a clean environment. "The bad news is, if somebody here wants to try to resist that, then we're going to do everything we can to put them out of business," he said. Resistance has come from Wyoming and elsewhere. In October 1999, the Wyoming Attorney General's Office urged people to use extreme caution in considering Lee's proposals. Assistant attorney general Christopher Petrie, who issued the warning, remains skeptical. "You'd better think long and hard before you give any money to this guy for a free electricity machine," he said. Some states have taken legal action. Vermont filed a consumer fraud complaint, alleging that the technology does not exist to provide free electricity. Lee has a criminal and civil record, according to a 1999 temporary restraining order filed by the Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance. In 1988, he pleaded guilty in California to fraud and misappropriation of $800,000 from 200 victims. He served two years in prison. He also allegedly has not paid a $31,000 fine for violating Washington's consumer protection act. Eight arrests in New Jersey between 1974 and 1979 alleged fraud, forgery and drug-related offenses. Eric Kreig, an electrical engineer from Philadelphia, has tracked Lee's business practices and claims. Lee has been promising for 15 years to put a device on the market for free electricity but never has, he said. The U.S. Patent Office does not list any patents for Lee for any of his inventions. In one demonstration, Lee handed a beaker he said contained 200 milliliters of gasoline to an assistant, who poured the liquid into a glass jar next to a small engine. Lee then handed the assistant some Pepsi, Coke, red Gatorade, Frappuccino, pickle juice, sugar, salt, A-1 Sauce, Tabasco, Aqua Velva, used transmission oil and a jar of urine to mix with the gasoline. The assistant poured the mix into another jar containing Brillo pads, screwed on a lid with two hoses in it, then pulled a starter cord a half-dozen times. The engine sputtered to life and sucked the mixture through the hoses. Lee put a white handkerchief over an open hose on the device. He then displayed the handkerchief and claimed the engine produced no pollution. He said the engine will also run off a 20 percent gasoline, 80 percent water mixture. "The secret is in the reactor," he said. "Nobody knows how it works. ... Whole universities are studying this." He claims his other technologies include a heating and air conditioning system that runs off septic tank fumes, a device that uses water to produce a flame that will not burn flesh yet can slice through a seven-inch block of steel and a system to neutralize nuclear waste. ***************************************************************** 19 ADAMS: Items of Interest - Wednesday, September 05, 2001 State of Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects ADAMS - Items of Interest Recent Released Documents Added - Wednesday, September 05, 2001 These documents and others may be retrieved at the NRC PERR web site -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Item ID: 012470093 Accession Number: ML012410370 Document Date: 8/27/01 Title: 08/14/01 Summary of Meeting between the US NRC Staff & Exelon Representatives to Discuss the Peach Bottom License Renewal Application. Author Affiliation: NRC/NRR/DRIP/RLSB Document/Report Number: _________________________________________________________________ Item ID: 012470079 Accession Number: ML012420474 Document Date: 8/29/01 Title: 09/13/2001 Meeting with NRC/Nuclear Fuel Services, Inc. to Discuss Schedule for Environmental Review of Future License Amendment for New Facilities. Author Affiliation: NRC/NMSS/FCSS Document/Report Number: _________________________________________________________________ Item ID: 012470084 Accession Number: ML012410004 Document Date: 8/29/01 Title: 09/19/2001 - 09/20/2001 Meeting with Duke Cogema Stone & Webster to Discuss Geological, Seismological, & Geotechnical Engineering Information Associated with Construction Authorization Application for MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility. Author Affiliation: NRC/NMSS/FCSS/FSPB Document/Report Number: _________________________________________________________________ Item ID: 012470049 Accession Number: ML012400383 Document Date: 8/27/01 Title: BWX Technologies, Inc. Amendment 80 - Revisions to High Enriched Uranium Fundamental Nuclear Material Control Plan (TAC No. L31521). Author Affiliation: NRC/NMSS/FCSS/FCLB Document/Report Number: _________________________________________________________________ Item ID: 012470106 Accession Number: ML012360046 Document Date: 8/17/01 Title: LER 01-005-00 for James A. Fitzpatrick Nuclear Power Plant re Safety Relief Valve Setpoint Drift. Author Affiliation: Entergy Nuclear Northeast, Entergy Nuclear Operations, Inc. Document/Report Number: LER 01-005-00 _________________________________________________________________ Item ID: 012470118 Accession Number: ML012360237 Document Date: 8/17/01 Title: LER S01-001-00 for Edwin I. Hatch Nuclear Plant Unit 1 re Inappropriately Authorized Person Enters Protected & Vital Areas. Author Affiliation: Southern Nuclear Operating Co, Inc Document/Report Number: LER 01-001-00 _________________________________________________________________ Item ID: 012470120 Accession Number: ML012360388 Document Date: 8/20/01 Title: LER-01-002-00 Limerick Generating Station Unit 2, June 26, 2001, Failed lug on main Generator Alterex Exciter Protective Relay System Caused Generator Lockout and Reactor Scram. Author Affiliation: Exelon Nuclear Document/Report Number: LER-01-002-00 _________________________________________________________________ Item ID: 012470112 Accession Number: ML012360328 Document Date: 8/20/01 Title: LER-01-003-00 Perry Nuclear Power Plant, July 11, 2001, Loss of Feedwater Scram and Specified System Actuations Including ECCS Injection. Author Affiliation: FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Co Document/Report Number: LER-01-003-00 _________________________________________________________________ Item ID: 012470100 Accession Number: ML012360022 Document Date: 10/16/00 Title: Naval Spent Fuel Canister System Storage Safety Analysis Report - Response to Requests for Additional Information. Author Affiliation: US Dept of Energy Document/Report Number: 99-7, EGG-EP-7184 _________________________________________________________________ Item ID: 012470245 Accession Number: ML012470077 Document Date: 8/10/01 Title: Part 1 - Final decommissioning reports for the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant Building 3A and 600-Yard Bullet Catcher decommissioning efforts. Author Affiliation: US Dept of Army Document/Report Number: 01-3030.03, Rev 3 _________________________________________________________________ Item ID: 012470248 Accession Number: ML012470139 Document Date: 8/10/01 Title: Part 2 - Final decommissioning reports for the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant Building 3A and 600-yard bullet catcher decommissioning efforts. Appendix D: Background survey records. Author Affiliation: US Dept of Army Document/Report Number: _________________________________________________________________ Item ID: 012470249 Accession Number: ML012470166 Document Date: 8/10/01 Title: Part 3 - Final decommissioning reports for the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant Building 3A and 600-yard bullet catcher decommissioning efforts. Appendix F: duplicate sample results. Author Affiliation: US Dept of Army Document/Report Number: _________________________________________________________________ Item ID: 012470198 Accession Number: ML011090448 Document Date: 8/17/01 Title: SECY-01-0156 - 2001 Annual Report - Decommissioning Activities Author Affiliation: NRC/EDO Document/Report Number: SECY-01-0156 _________________________________________________________________ Item ID: 012470140 Accession Number: ML012400179 Document Date: 8/23/01 Title: STATE OF UTAH'S SECOND REQUEST TO MODIFY THE BASES OF LATE-FILED CONTENTION UTAH QQ IN RESPONSE TO MORE REVISED CALCULATIONS FROM THE APPLICANT Author Affiliation: State of UT Document/Report Number: ***************************************************************** 20 Letter: Setting it straight on waste, casks - Lou deBottari Wednesday, September 05, 2001 Two recent letters to the editor have quoted information that is not true. One of the letters claims that the French nations' rivers and air are clean and they know how to handle the high level nuclear waste. This information is totally bogus. This was demonstrated recently when a French prosecutor filed charges against French government officials for their lack of concern for the health of the French people. They have been charged with failing to act in a credible manner after the Russian nuclear power plant had a melt down. All other nations in Europe took action to quarantine the milk supply due to the concern about thyroid cancer. There is a significant increase in thyroid cancer in France. The French government in defense of this action claimed the suit was frivolous because the increase was occurring before the meltdown. The French have more nuclear plants than any other country in Europe. Exposure to radiation is known to be a cause of thyroid cancer. The French government may have a low level radiation standard that may be too high or they have been silent about radiation leaks from either the plants and/or the, transportation of the high level nuclear waste material. The author states that the French know how to handle the waste. The French for years have been dumping the reprocessed highly radioactive waste into the ocean. Countries in Europe have decried this reckless action. The other letter extols the detailed testing of the transportation casks that will be used to transport the high level nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain. The author quotes the DOE standard dribble. The cask that was dropped on spikes, rammed by a locomotive, and exposed to military weapons is not the cask that will be used to transport the high level nuclear waste. The cask tested is too heavy to be transported on the railroads or highways. DOE didn't lie, but like Clinton, used a play on words to distort the truth. I wish the authors of the letters would read the reports, attend the hearings and get the information first hand rather than through the "hired mouthpiece" of the DOE. Proponents of deep geological storage cite the work of the Finns and Swedes. Their leaders unlike the leaders of this country have chosen sites that are located in solid granite. We have a very stable site that is composed of the most stable granite in the world but the leaders of this country have chosen a sieve that DOE is trying to "patch" to make it safe. Transportation issues in Sweden, Finland and France are far less of a hazard because the travel routes are very short. I hope the citizens of this country aren't going to be duped by the strong nuclear power industry whose only goal is near term profits at the expense of future generations LOU deBOTTARI Carson City ***************************************************************** 21 NRC Staff to Hold Public Meeting at Turkey Point To Discuss Inspection of Plant's License Renewal Program Press Release Region II - 2001 - 37 - UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, REGION II 61 Forsyth Street SW, Atlanta, GA 30303 No. II-01-037 September 5, 2001 CONTACT: Ken Clark (404)562-4416/e-mail: Roger D. Hannah (404)562-4417/e-mail: Officials of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission will meet with Florida Power & Light management at 9:00 a.m. Friday, September 14 at the Turkey Point nuclear power plant Nuclear Training Building near Florida City, Florida, to present the results of the NRC's second inspection of the Turkey Point license renewal program. The meeting is open to observation by the public. The NRC conducted a similar meeting at Turkey Point on June 8 to discuss results of the agency's initial inspection of the program. Florida Power & Light filed an application to renew the operating licenses of the two units at the Turkey Point plant in September 2000. NRC officials said there will be a report on the second inspection, which began August 20 and will end September 14. That report will be issued approximately 45 days after the meeting and will be available to the public. The meeting is between the NRC and Florida Power & Light but is open to observation by interested members of the public. NRC officials will be available after the meeting to answer any questions observers may have. ***************************************************************** 22 Nuclear Insurance Policy NucWatch Wednesday, September 05, 2001 Nuke insurance policy renewal to be addressed by House committee The Energy Department's role in federal nuclear insurance policy will be the topic of a House Energy and Commerce Energy and Air Quality Subcommittee hearing Thursday. The hearing, rescheduled from Aug. 3, stems from a similar one on the same subject held earlier this summer. The Price-Anderson Act is set to expire in August 2002 and several pieces of energy legislation in both the House and Senate contain provisions to renew it. The act caps off liability responsibility for nuclear reactors at $9 billion in the event of a nuclear accident. The law also indemnifies DOE contractors from liability for working on DOE nuclear projects, making the department responsible for providing insurance for contractors in the event of a nuclear accident. Although Subcommittee Chairman Joe Barton (R-Texas) said he does support the act's renewal, the reauthorization was not part of the committee's portion of the House's energy bill (H.R. 4) passed right before the August recess. The subcommittee examined the issue in June. Tim Peckinpaugh, who represents American Nuclear Insurers, said he thinks the upcoming hearing will most likely focus on the DOE-contractor elements of the act, since details of that issue were not talked about in depth at the prior hearing (see the 6/28 Environment and Energy Daily). Peckinpaugh explained that private insurance companies will not offer coverage to contractors working at DOE sites since the risk is usually hard to determine at such old facilities. He also said the common belief is that the contractors did not create the contamination problems at sites such as the Hanford in Washington or at Rocky Flats in Colorado, so DOE should be held responsible. Schedule: The hearing is set to take place at 2 p.m., Thursday, Sept. 6 in 2322 Rayburn. Witness:Francis Blake, deputy Energy secretary, is scheduled to testify. ***************************************************************** 23 Nuclear waste site fills its first room September 5, 2001 Associated Press CARLSBAD, N.M. - The first underground room used for nuclear waste storage at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant has been filled after more than two years, the U.S. Department of Energy said Tuesday. The milestone - 10,089 drums of waste - was reached Aug. 24 as crews unloaded radioactive waste from the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory. The next day, WIPP workers installed a chain-link mesh barrier and cloth drape across the entrance to the room to officially declare it closed. "It is exciting to see the progress we are making," said Ines Triay, manager of the Carlsbad DOE office. The first shipment was placed in what WIPP calls "Room 7" on March 26, 1999. The waste represents 352 shipments from five DOE sites - 23 from Los Alamos National Laboratory, 195 from the Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site near Denver, 121 from the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory and nine from the Hanford site in Washington state. The room also contains four shipments from the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. WIPP, excavated from ancient salt beds, will ultimately be the final resting place for about 648,000 55-gallon drums of largely plutonium-contaminated waste. Copyright © 2001 Charleston.Net. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 24 Olivier appointed president of CL York. By Associated Press, 9/4/2001 15:22 BERLIN, Conn. (AP) Northeast Utilities on Tuesday appointed Leon J. Olivier president and chief operating officer of the Connecticut Light and Power Co. Olivier's appointment takes effect Sept. 10. He replaces Hugh MacKenzie, who retired. Olivier's appointment also comes under a new management structure following electric deregulation, under which each of NU's local electric utilities now has a separate president. Previously, MacKenzie headed CL and the other utilities in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Olivier, 52, was formerly the senior vice president and chief nuclear officer for NU. He left NU briefly to become the senior vice president of Indian Point, N.Y., nuclear power plant for Entergy. Prior to joining NU in 1998, Olivier worked on nuclear and fossil fuel operations for Boston Edison for 29 years. He holds a master's degree in business from Northeastern University. Olivier, who lives in Old Lyme, also is on the board of directors for the Eastern Connecticut Symphony. CL is Connecticut's largest electric utility with 1.1 million customers. ***************************************************************** 25 Opinion - One tough act for Leah Dever Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 12:09 p.m. on Tuesday, September 4, 2001 2 Cents Worth R. Cathey Daniels Either Leah Dever is conducting weird psychological experiments using unsuspecting human subjects -- or she's one smart cookie. Dever, manager of the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge Operations office, has officially tossed all the Goliaths of economic development and all the Davids of land preservation and conservation into one room. We spectators get to watch and see what happens. The idea is that no one will be slain. Already the land use focus group -- the twenty-some folks charged with developing a comprehensive plan for the Oak Ridge Reservation that will merge both development and conservation interests -- has met. No sling shots were drawn. In fact, there's a hint and scent of optimism afloat. Then again both groups -- conservationists and developers -- are optimistic by nature. How else would one survive in either world? But both groups are also leery -- OK, downright distrustful -- of the other. Rightly so. Their interests have been pitted against one another nationally since the pre-Earth Day days, and locally each has vehemently planned and schemed and charted war strategy against the other for at least the past five years. Time to disarm, says Dever. Time to talk peace. Time to consider Oak Ridge as a long term, viable city -- not as a developer's dream or a conservationist's refuge. So true. But if the DOE does not recognize the catalyst in the feuding, the new focus group will not stay focused long. That catalyst is the employment of the element of surprise -- a specialty of the DOE's. Let's take our lesson from the text of the past. It would not be overreaching to say that Oak Ridge Reservation conservationists and scientists were enraged when the DOE made the surprise announcement that it would allow parcel ED-1 (formerly environmentally significant land, now Horizon Center Industrial Park) to be developed. Some -- who thought and were told by the DOE that they were a part of the planning process -- first heard that announcement while absently listening to news on their car radio. Later DOE made another surprise announcement which shook developers from the creases of their billfolds. DOE declared that 3,000 acres of the Three Bend area -- long considered prime residential development land -- would be protected as a scenic and wildlife refuge. These surprise strikes -- likely done in the spirit of what the DOE thought best for itself and for the community at that particular moment -- stirred both sides to battle. Guess what? DOE doesn't know what's best. Guess what else? Leah Dever seems to be the first manager of the ORO in the past two decades that at least has begun to recognize that. So now we have both sides of the land use issue gathered in the same room. Now we have a common goal -- producing a land use plan that does not pit economic concerns against environmental concerns, yet takes both into account. Now we have a collective thought to rub up against -- that both economic and environmental concerns are valid objectives. If everyone in the meeting room would admit that, the focus group might have a chance of succeeding. If some folks refuse to admit that, then Leah Dever could have an interesting psychological study on her hands. Not to mention a mandate to do whatever she thinks best. R. Cathey Daniels writes a weekly column for The Oak Ridger. You may send All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 26 DOE Continues Meetings with South Carolina Officials energy.gov - Headquarters' Press Release RELEASE DATE: August 29, 2001 [Print Friendly Version] WASHINGTON, DC – In addition to last week's positive meetings with Lt. Governor Bob Peeler and Speaker David Wilkins, Department of Energy (DOE) officials from Washington and the Savannah River Site met with Governor Jim Hodges and Rep. Lindsey Graham in South Carolina today to address South Carolina's concerns regarding the disposition of plutonium materials. DOE reiterated that there is every opportunity to reach agreement with the state of South Carolina before mid-October and avoid a financial impact to South Carolina and the rest of the DOE complex resulting from the continued storage of the material at Rocky Flats. As DOE has noted in discussions with South Carolina over the last several months, the Department has a clear strategy to dispose of plutonium materials at Savannah River Site. In the interest of good faith and to address the state's concerns, DOE held a discussion today that will continue with bipartisan dialogue. The Department will meet with any South Carolina elected official concerned about the plutonium disposition program. The DOE and its Savannah River Site facility are working together to address South Carolina's concerns and to develop a strategy that helps ensure the continued viability and mission of the facility. Media Contact: Joe Davis, 202/586-4940 Release No. R-01-151 ***************************************************************** 27 Last Chance for Public Comment on Yucca Mountain Sept. 3, 2001 Kangaroo Court Countdown Alert Nuclear Dump Proposal Two Days to Yucca Mountain Hearing in Las Vegas NOTE: The U.S. Department of Energy is holding a Sept. 5 hearing in Las Vegas on the government’s intention to establish a high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Public Citizen will issue "Kangaroo Court Countdown Alerts" each day until the hearing. For more information about Yucca Mountain and nuclear waste, visit www.citizen.org/cmep . Citizen groups are preparing to deliver a definitive rejection of the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump at the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Sept. 5 Las Vegas hearing on the site recommendation. "We are encouraging the public to attend this hearing to tell the DOE ‘No’ to the ill-conceived repository proposal, ‘No’ to the dangerous transport of radioactive waste, ‘No’ to radioactive contamination from a leaky nuclear waste dump and ‘No’ to the inexcusably flawed process that continues to characterize the Yucca Mountain project," said Wenonah Hauter, director of Public Citizen’s Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program. Citizen Alert, a Nevada-based public interest organization, will host a 5 p.m. press conference with Gov. Kenny Guinn outside the building where the hearing is to be held, the Nevada Operations Office (232 Energy Way, North Las Vegas). Local performers Double Down will provide live music beginning at 4:30 p.m. against the backdrop of Public Citizen’s inflatable model of a high-level nuclear waste transportation cask. Hearings in Nevada are statutorily required under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act before the Secretary of Energy formally recommends the Yucca Mountain repository plan to the president. However, the DOE has scheduled these hearings at the last minute and before many key documents related to the site recommendation are available to the public, thwarting the prospects for meaningful public participation. "The Department of Energy cannot mute public opposition," Hauter said. "We will be at this hearing to show the agency that the public opposes this flawed proposal. The Yucca Mountain project should be abandoned." Critical Mass ***************************************************************** 28 State's nuclear council weighs in Columbia, S.C. Wednesday, September 5, 2001 Panel offered input in plutonium dispute after being inactive many years By AARON SHEININ Staff Writer As S.C. officials worked last month to delay shipments of plutonium to the state, they had a renewed resource for guidance: the Governor's Nuclear Advisory Council. The council was created in 1980, but only in the past year has it been reinvigorated, said council chairman John Stucker. "It had gone out of operation, if not actually out of existence," Stucker said. In June 2000, Gov. Jim Hodges signed the Atlantic Interstate Low-Level Radioactive Waste Compact Implementation Act, which marked South Carolina's entry into an agreement with Connecticut and New Jersey over the disposal of radioactive waste. The act also expanded the council's responsibilities and membership. There were previously five members, all appointed by the governor. Now, the board has nine members: seven picked by the governor, one by the lieutenant governor and one by the speaker of the House. The council offers advice to the governor and General Assembly on the use, handling and management of nuclear materials. This includes the programs of the U.S. Department of Energy, which wants to ship about 50 tons of plutonium to the Savannah River Site near Aiken. The government plans to process the plutonium into fuel for nuclear power plants or to immobilize it for storage elsewhere. Funding problems, however, have jeopardized those plans, and state officials have moved to stop the Energy Department from shipping the plutonium without plans for it to eventually leave the state. That's exactly what the Governor's Nuclear Advisory Council suggested. Earlier in the year, the governor wrote the council and asked it to recommend a course of action, Stucker said. At its July meeting, the group's second, the council voted unanimously to urge Hodges to prevent the plutonium from coming to South Carolina permanently. In the past two weeks, the Energy Department has agreed to suspend those shipments, planned for October. The council cannot dictate state action, or as Stucker said, the council "has no controlling legal authority. Our work and the results of our works are based solely on the quality of the advice we're able to give." Harry Rogers, nuclear issues coordinator for the Carolina Peace Resource Center, is worried that advice might be lacking. The council's members "haven't matured enough to understand that you need a critical voice on there, in order to come up with a good product," Rogers said. "There's no challenging voice there." The law requires the governor to make two "environmental appointments." Hodges has named Kate Billing of the State Energy Office and Carolyn Hudson, an environmental geology professor, to those posts. Both women serve on a new Sierra Club committee on nuclear issues. Billing said her role is to consider environmental impacts, but to work with the council as a whole to find recommendations that are "best for South Carolina." "It's just to make sure that all sides of everything are looked at," Billing said. Aaron Sheinin covers state government. Reach him at (803) 771-8658 or asheinin@thestate.com. ? Copyright 2001 The State-Record Company ***************************************************************** 29 Exposing the power failure in devolution deal The Scotsman Online Fraser Nelson Westminster Editor THE division of powers between Holyrood and Westminster has caused several difficulties and problems over the past two years. But one issue, more than any other, is likely to fuel a major battle in the future: energy production. When plans for the Scottish parliament were set up in 1998, they contained one caveat which has only now become fully evident: it has no say in the destiny of its nuclear power stations. Scots could be forgiven for failing to notice this. Only last week Wendy Alexander, Scotland’s enterprise minister, was standing outside the Dounreay nuclear plant talking about its 60-year decommissioning plan. This gave the clear impression of a minister with power. But Ms Alexander may as well have been standing outside Cape Canaveral for all the direct influence she had in the project. The future of Dounreay, and every nuclear power plant, is reserved to the UK government. By the end of this year the future of Scotland’s, and Britain’s, energy policy will be decided by a UK Cabinet Office review group and a team which does not include any minister from the Scottish executive. The executive does have powers over energy, but they are riddled with anomalies. It controls overhead electricity cables, but not the nuclear power stations these cables are connected to. It is in charge of "renewable energy" but cannot conduct any research into harnessing it. It can also "promote" using energy efficiency, but cannot decide whether to swap nuclear power stations for hydro-electric ones. As the Cabinet Office’s review draws to a close, there is now the real chance of a London-based committee deciding, unilaterally, whether Scotland’s ageing Magnox reprocessing plants are given a second lease of life. The debate has thrown up the gaping holes in Scotland’s powers over energy - and all the reasons why they were retained in London when the devolution settlement was being thrashed out in 1997. Like abortion, nuclear energy is a hugely emotive topic. It was decided at the time that a minority administration would be vulnerable to being bullied by populist opposition parties without a real alternative. The national electricity grid was seen as something which could not be carved up along devolutionary lines. But now Scottish ministers are giving a brilliant impression of being on the horns of their own "windmills or nukes" dilemma. ***************************************************************** 30 European Parliament resolution includes possible closure of Czech nuclear plant BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Sep 5, 2001 Text of report in English by Czech news agency CTK Strasbourg, 5 September: The European Parliament today passed a resolution on the Czech Republic providing for a possible closure of the nuclear power plant in Temelin, southern Bohemia. With the exception of two paragraphs concerning Temelin, the resolution is a standard document quite favourable to the Czech Republic. The 15-page resolution on the state of the Czech Republic's EU entry negotiations says that in the case of Temelin it is still necessary to consider the "zero variant", or the plant's decommissioning in connection with the possible surfacing of further shortcomings stemming from the plant's construction. Source: CTK news agency, Prague, in English 1107 gmt 5 Sep 01 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter All Material Subject to ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 Knock, knock, knocking on Bush's door Tuesday, Sep 4 By Frank Munger, News-Sentinel senior writer As sick nuclear workers and their advocates gathered in Washington last year to lobby Congress for legislative help, there was a sense of urgency because of the impending change of administrations. Many folks felt that gains made during the Clinton administration needed to be consummated or possibly be lost forever. Then-Energy Secretary Bill Richardson had offered the government's first-ever admission that some workers at nuclear weapons facilities were made sick by workplace exposures, and he supported compensation for the afflicted employees or their survivors. The package ultimately approved by Congress was far less than perfect, offering help to a relatively limited group of those possibly affected by the nuclear operations. The bill certainly didn't meet the hopes of those pushing so hard for financial compensation, but it was a start. Worker advocates figured they would go to bat again in 2001 and try to improve the compensation package once things settled down in Washington. At the time, of course, they didn't know whether Bush or Gore would be in the White House. Now that 2001 has come and more than halfway gone, there's concern that the Bush administration isn't going to be in the workers' corner. "What I thought was going to happen has not happened,'' said Roane County's Vikki Hatfield, who serves on a national worker advocacy panel. Her father worked for decades at the government's Oak Ridge nuclear facilities and today suffers from lung cancer and other ailments attributed to his workplace exposures. "I just don't have a good feel for it,'' Hatfield said of the current climate in Washington. "It's frustrating because you want to do the right thing.'' Funds promised for workmen's compensation have not been forthcoming, and Hatfield said she's particularly concerned because the Bush administration's Department of Energy - headed by Secretary Spencer Abraham - does not appear too interested in the plight of workers. She said Abraham has yet to meet with the worker advocacy group, which convened last week in Denver to discuss the situation. "I feel like the secretary should have at least made an appearance and tell us where he's going and how he feels,'' Hatfield said. "We don't know what his feelings are.'' * HIRO$HIMA: Wackenhut, the U.S. Department of Energy's security contractor in Oak Ridge, spent about $31,000 responding to protests Aug. 5 and 6 at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant. DOE spokesman Steven Wyatt said those costs were for overtime paid to guards involved in the security operations at the nuclear facility. The demonstrations, leading to several dozen arrests, were staged by peace activists in conjunction with the anniversary of the A-bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, during World War II. Y-12 enriched the uranium used in the "Little Boy'' bomb, and the Oak Ridge plant continues to produce warhead parts for the U.S. nuclear arsenal. MADIA EVENT: During the Department of Energy's on-site review of Oak Ridge National Laboratory last month, ORNL Director Bill Madia had a few folks over to his house. As it turns out, he had quite a few. In fact, Madia hosted a sit-down dinner for 63. "Have you got that much china?'' I asked. "Yeah,'' he replied. Boy, and I thought the laboratory had high overhead costs. NEW LAB LOOK: ORNL last week staged an event to announce the contractor (Colliers Keenan of Columbia, S.C.) that will design and construct three new facilities near the lab's entrance. The three-building research complex is a major part of the modernization plan promoted by UT-Battelle, which replaced Lockheed Martin as laboratory manager last year. Although officials noted the three buildings would be connected by an atrium, etc., it wasn't really clear what they would look like. So I asked. "It's going to be something that's a little more contemporary, but we're very much concerned about having it blend with the existing campus,'' said Jeff Smith, ORNL's deputy director for operations. "It'll have some brick. Most likely it'll be brick veneer in some portions, and the rest of it will be ... architectural concrete panels.'' Like the High Temperature Materials Laboratory? "Hopefully, a little more appealing than HTML,'' Smith responded. Senior Writer Frank Munger covers the Department of Energy for the News-Sentinel. He can be reached at 865-482-9213 or at twig1@knoxnews.infi.net. This column is also available on the Web at www.knoxnews.com/editorsview/munger/ Copyright 2001 The Knoxville News-Sentinel Co. Click for ***************************************************************** 2 Bones 'stolen' for A-bomb research 05 September 2001 news.com.au - [Daily Telegraph] By SUE DUNLEVY 05sep01 THE bones of 21,830 dead Australians were removed and used in a nuclear research program without their relatives' consent. Nearly 5000 bones came from infants and stillborn babies, says a report on the program that ran between 1957 and 1978. Pathologists in major public hospitals were paid to provide the samples and were initially told to keep their participation "confidential". An Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA) report released yesterday reveals Australia ran its own nuclear research program similar to the US "Project Sunshine". And it confirms that the bones of other Australians were sent to the US for use in Project Sunshine, which tested 10,000 bones from 39 countries between 1953 and 1960 for the effects of radiation from nuclear tests. The US researchers had private deals with Australian pathologists to supply the bones and there is no record of the number involved. The ARPANSA investigation was ordered after outrage in June about Australian pathologists sending bones to the US. The report reveals Australia ran its own program established by the Atomic Weapons Tests Safety Committee in 1957 to measure strontium 90 in human bones, soil, vegetation, milk and sheep bones. Strontium 90 is a contaminant resulting from atmospheric nuclear testing and Australia wanted to check whether nuclear weapons tests being carried out on our soil were affecting the population. A letter sent to pathologists in December 1957 requesting their participation stressed the secrecy of the program. "You may consider . . . that the sampling and radiochemical assaying of bones would not be regarded kindly by the general public. Consequently I would be grateful if you could treat this matter . . . as either confidential or personal." More than 400 bone samples were collected in 1958 rising to about 1200 a year in 1962 and about 1000 a year after that. NSW pathologists provided 4598 bones used over the 20-year program. They were asked to concentrate on samples of those under 40, particularly infants and young children. In 1968 as collection of samples fell off pathologists were paid a $50-a-year bonus to encourage them to collect. The committee running the program told hospitals in a letter: "Direct payment by us has unfortunate overtones and too much of the appearance of buying tissue." Instead, the money was paid to a hospital account and passed on by the hospitals. In the mid-1970s the bonus payment was increased to two payments of $50 per year. The research showed that humans were being adversely affected by radioactive fallout from atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons. The program contributed to the eventual banning of atmospheric testing worldwide. Health Minister Dr Michael Wooldridge said yesterday he had asked the Australian Health Ethics Committee to advise how relatives could be contacted and given information about the program. Australian IT ***************************************************************** 3 GAO: Military Cleanups Exaggerated Las Vegas SUN September 04, 2001 WASHINGTON (AP) - The Defense Department is overstating the progress it has made in cleaning up contaminated soil and water and unexploded ammunition at former military sites, congressional auditors said in a report requested by House Democrats. A Pentagon report on the $200 million-a-year program provided "a misleading picture" by claiming that more than half the work had been done when actually only about a third had been completed, the General Accounting Office said. "As a result, it appears that after 15 years and expenditures of $2.6 billion, over 50 percent of the ... projects have been completed," the GAO said in its report, released by Democrats Tuesday. "In reality, only about 32 percent of those projects that required actual cleanup actions have been completed, and those are the cheapest and least technologically challenging." The program, run by the Army Corps of Engineers, targets sites thought to contain hazardous, toxic and radioactive wastes in the soil and water or in containers such as underground storage tanks. Of the more than 9,000 potential cleanup sites across the country as of Oct. 1, 2000, the GAO report found, about one-quarter have cleanup projects. The Corps determined that most did not require or were not eligible for cleanup, according to the GAO. However, the Corps reported many of those projects as having been completed, even though they were closed merely as the result of administrative action rather than any actual cleanup. Spokesman Lt. Col. Eugene Pawlik said the Corps probably would have more to say on the report in the next several days. "We've got to read the report and review the contents," he said. "We know it's a big program, and it seems to get bigger all the time." The GAO noted that Pentagon officials provided oral comments agreeing that they need to clarify their method of accounting for the cleanup efforts in future annual reports to Congress. The Corps estimates the remaining projects will cost more than $13 billion and take at least a half-century more to complete, the GAO said. But those estimates do not account for removing unexploded ordnance - at an additional cost of $5 billion. The GAO's yearlong investigation was done at the request of Democratic Reps. John Dingell of Michigan and Tom Sawyer of Ohio, both members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Copies of the report, which the GAO planned to make available Wednesday, were released Tuesday by the committee's Democratic staff. Dingell, the committee's senior Democrat, criticized the Corps for "tearing down buildings and pulling tanks while many high- and medium-risk properties with toxic groundwater contamination or unexploded ordnance have been left to percolate" in the soil. "These seriously contaminated sites must be addressed in a timely manner before this dangerous brew threatens public health and safety," he said. Dingell believes more than $200 million a year should be put into the program but he does not yet have a specific figure to propose, the committee's Democratic counsel, Dick Frandsen, said. On the Net: House Energy Committee Democrats: http://www.house.gov/commerce-democrats Army Corps of Engineers cleanup program: http://hq.environmental.usace.army.mil/programs/fuds/fuds.html All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 4 Toxic Sites Being Cleaned Up Slowly Las Vegas SUN September 04, 2001 WASHINGTON- Thousands of former military sites with contaminated soil and water or unexploded ammunition are being cleaned up much more slowly than the Pentagon is claiming, congressional auditors said in a report. The General Accounting Office was releasing the report Wednesday, but House Democrats who requested it were making it available and issuing harsh criticism of the military's stewardship of the cleanup program a day earlier. "These seriously contaminated sites must be addressed in a timely manner before this dangerous brew threatens public health and safety," said Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., senior Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The GAO, an investigative arm of Congress, said a Pentagon report on the $200 million-a-year program provided "a misleading picture" by claiming that more than half the work had been done when only about a third had been completed. "As a result, it appears that after 15 years and expenditures of $2.6 billion, over 50 percent of the ... projects have been completed," the GAO said. "In reality, only about 32 percent of those projects that required actual cleanup actions have been completed, and those are the cheapest and least technologically challenging." The Army Corps of Engineers manages the program, aimed at cleaning up sites thought to contain hazardous, toxic and radioactive waste in the soil and water or in containers such as underground storage tanks. Dingell also criticized the Corps for "tearing down buildings and pulling tanks while many high- and medium-risk properties with toxic groundwater contamination or unexploded ordinance have been left to percolate" in the soil. About one-quarter of the more than 9,000 potential cleanup sites across the country as of Oct. 1, 2000 had cleanup projects, the GAO report found, while most of the remainder did not require or were ineligible for cleanup, based on a lack of records. However, the Corps reported many of those projects as having been completed, even though they were closed as the result of administrative action rather than an actual cleanup. Spokesman Lt. Col. Eugene Pawlik said the Corps probably would have more to say on the report soon. "We've got to read the report and review the contents," he said Tuesday. "We know it's a big program, and it seems to get bigger all the time." The GAO noted that Pentagon officials provided oral comments agreeing that they need to clarify their method of accounting for the cleanup efforts in future annual reports to Congress. The Corps estimates the remaining projects will cost more than $13 billion and take at least a half-century more to complete, the GAO said. But those estimates do not account for removing unexploded ordinance - at an additional cost of $5 billion. On the Net: GAO: http://www.gao.gov House Energy Committee Democrats: http://www.house.gov/commerce-democrats Army Corps of Engineers cleanup program: http://hq.environmental.usace.army.mil/programs/fuds/fuds.html All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 5 Alaska Asks Feds for Radiation Tests Las Vegas SUN Today: September 05, 2001 at 7:45:30 PDT ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - Alaska's environmental officials have asked the U.S. Department of Energy to investigate possible radiation contamination on and around Amchitka Island, where the military exploded atomic devices from 1965 to 1971. In a letter to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham last month, the state said a thorough assessment is needed to reassure Alaska natives on other Aleutian islands that subsistence foods are safe. Amchitka is uninhabited, but people who live on nearby islands rely on fishing and hunting. The energy department has said it has found no evidence that buried radiation from the tests may be leaching to the surface or into the ocean. But the agency has conducted no tests for radiation there since the 1970s, state officials say. Two years ago, the energy department agreed to finance a medical surveillance program for people who worked on the island during the atomic era, and Congress has funded a benefits program for former Amchitka workers who later developed radiation-related cancers. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 6 No Support to Criminalize Leaks Las Vegas SUN Today: September 05, 2001 at 10:55:17 PDT WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration isn't ready to support a GOP senator's proposal to criminalize all leaks of classified information, according to U.S. officials. A senior official on Wednesday called the proposal problematic, saying that while the administration is opposed to leaks, a new law isn't needed to safeguard national security. The administration quietly let Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., know it would not support his measure if asked to make a public statement, said the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity. A scheduled Senate Intelligence Committee hearing Wednesday on the matter was postponed indefinitely. Attorney General John Ashcroft and CIA Director George Tenet had been invited to speak. A spokeswoman for Shelby, ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Wednesday that Ashcroft told the senator more time was needed to study the issue. Officials said an interagency working group will be formed to review the matter. Shelby's provision would expand current laws, making it illegal to disclose information on matters beyond those concerning national defense. He said it was intended to clamp down on leaks of classified information to the press - some of which compromised U.S. intelligence operations. Violators would face a felony charge and up to three years in prison. Open-government, civil-liberties and press groups blasted the proposal, saying it could hinder communication between the government and the public. Opponents rejoiced at the lack of administration support. "It's a huge victory for all of us who are opposed to it," said Thomas Blanton, executive director of the National Security Archive, a private group that collects declassified U.S. military and diplomatic documents. Shelby's proposal was vetoed by President Clinton last year. In 2000, it flew through the intelligence committees as an amendment to the annual bill that funds the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies. There was little public debate until it reached the floor in the House and Senate, where it passed over some objections. It had received initial support from the Clinton administration, notably from Attorney General Janet Reno, who said it would close a "narrow" gap in existing law. Clinton said the law might "chill legitimate activities that are at the heart of a democracy." Justice Department spokeswoman Casey Stavropoulos confirmed that Ashcroft was unable to testify, but would not comment on why. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 7 Goshute Rivals Agree to Meet Again The Salt Lake Tribune -- September 5, 2001 BY BRENT ISRAELSEN After a brief meeting on Tuesday, rival leaders of the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians who came to blows last week agreed on just one thing: to meet again in a week. In the meantime, the small tribe, which is vying to become the largest repository for the nation's high-level nuclear power plant waste, will remain without a leader. Its South Salt Lake office, which has been under constant police guard since a fight broke out among the rivals last Friday, will remain locked. "I'm going to bring the [around-the-clock] guard down, but we're going to patrol that area frequently," Assistant Police Chief Beau Babka said. "We will hope nobody will take advantage of the situation." On Tuesday, Tribal Chairman Leon Bear, Vice Chairwoman Lori Skiby and Tribal Secretary Rex Allen appeared in a meeting mediated by a Department of the Interior attorney and David Allison, a Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) superintendent. Allen last week sent the BIA a letter saying he is the leader of the tribe after a resolution presented at a tribal meeting Aug. 25 called for the removal of Bear and Skiby, whom Allen has accused of keeping him out of crucial decisions in recent months. Bear, however, has refused to step down, saying he has not been presented a proper resolution. Most tribal business is carried out through resolutions, which must contain a majority of signatures of tribal members present at the tribal meeting. Saying he feared Allen may remove or alter documents, Bear on Aug. 27 changed the locks to the tribal office. On Friday afternoon, Allen and his sister, Mary Allen, went to the tribal offices to confront Bear and retrieve some documents. A fight broke out and police were called. Mary Allen was treated at a Salt Lake City hospital for minor injuries. The South Salt Lake city attorney is reviewing the case this week for possible criminal charges, Babka said. At next Tuesday's meeting, federal officials hope, the rival factions will resolve their differences or at least agree on another meeting in which the tribe's 73 adult members can decide whom they want for their leaders. Stable tribal leadership is considered critical for the tribe because of a lease it signed in 1997 with Private Fuel Storage, a consortium of eight out-of-state utilities. The lease calls for the utilities to store up to 40,000 tons of high-level nuclear power plant waste on the Goshute reservation, 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. The project, vigorously opposed by the state of Utah, is under review by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. © Copyright 2001, The Salt Lake Tribune All material found on ***************************************************************** 8 NTS houses germ factory Las Vegas SUN September 04, 2001 By Judith Miller NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE NEVADA TEST SITE -- In a nondescript mustard-color building that was once a military recreation hall and barbershop, the Pentagon has built a germ factory that could make enough lethal microbes to wipe out entire cities. Adjacent to the pool tables, the shuffleboard and the bar stands a gleaming stainless steel cylinder, the 50-liter (53-quart) fermenter in which germs can be cultivated. The apparatus, which includes a latticework of pipes and other equipment, was made entirely with commercially available components bought from hardware stores and other suppliers for about $1 million -- a pittance for a weapon that could deliver death on such a large scale. The factory was built by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, an arm of the Pentagon that works to contain the spread of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. Officials said the project was intended to assess how hard it would be for a terrorist or rogue nation to assemble a germ factory. The agency also wanted to see if a small operation produced any telltale "signatures" -- sounds, chemical emissions or patterns of operation that could help intelligence agencies find such plants. "The project also showed us how relatively simple it would be for a terrorist to assemble such a facility without being detected," said Jay C. Davis, the former director of the agency who, with the Pentagon's permission, showed the secret plant to a Times reporter and a team from ABC News. Officials stressed that the plant never made anthrax or any other lethal pathogen. Rather, it produced only harmless biopesticides during two production test runs in 1999 and 2000. Davis declined to say how much was made. But if it had been anthrax germs, he said, it would have made enough to kill at least 10,000 people. Officials said the Pentagon built the plant in this largely deserted camp because it was well guarded. Building 12-7, the former recreation hall and about four dozen other buildings here were abruptly closed in January 1993 after the global moratorium on underground nuclear testing took effect. Between 1951 and 1963, more than 800 nuclear tests were conducted here at the vast Test Site, whose parched sands and eerily quiet, sagebrush-covered mesas and mountains are scarred by giant atomic craters. The interior of Building 12-7 - 120 feet long and 40 feet wide - seems frozen in time. Dusty signs warn visitors not to sit on the pool tables or to talk about secret projects with anyone who has no "need to know." Davis and other officials said the Defense Department's lawyers had carefully reviewed the project to ensure that it did not violate the biological weapons treaty or U.S. law. Because it was purely defensive and never made deadly germs, it was both legal and appropriate, he and others said. But apparently few outside of the agency or even in the Pentagon's upper echelons knew much about the secret project. Davis said the White House was never briefed about it, given its small scale and low cost. When subsequently told about the germ factory, several former White House officials said they were stunned that the agency's lawyers had approved it without having referred it to the White House or congressional oversight committees for legal review. The Pentagon's decision to permit a visit to the site came after the Times requested information about the program, called Bachus. Some officials said the project, with its fermentation aspect, was named for Bacchus, the Greek god of wine. But an agency spokesman said the name was an acronym for Biotechnology Activity Characterization by Unconventional Signatures. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 9 US Says China Nuke Buildup Unnecessary Newsday.com - By ROBERT BURNS AP Military Writer September 5, 2001, 2:07 AM EDT WASHINGTON -- The U.S. plan to build a defense against long-range nuclear missiles is no reason for China to accelerate the modernization of its nuclear forces, Bush administration officials say. Administration officials tried Tuesday to counter a New York Times report that the administration would offer to acquiesce to China's nuclear buildup in exchange for Chinese acceptance of U.S. missile defense plans. The officials said the administration is bothered not only by China's small number of long-range nuclear missiles but also its growing arsenal of shorter-range missiles and its practice of providing missile technology to Pakistan and other countries. China opposes U.S. missile defense because it believes the defenses would negate the deterrent effect of its small nuclear force. Some in the United States have expressed concern that China will accelerate its nuclear force modernization if the Bush administration proceeds with building a missile defense. "It is not correct that the U.S. government has any idea of withholding objections to China's nuclear modernization program in return for China's withholding objections to the U.S. missile defense program," said Douglas Feith, undersecretary of defense for policy. "That is not correct. There's nothing to it. That's not U.S. policy. It's not our attitude." At the White House, press secretary Ari Fleischer issued a written statement making similar points. "The president's policy is to seek to reduce the level of offensive nuclear weapons in the world," he said. Fleischer said administration officials will hold intensive discussions with China shortly and provide the same briefing on the Pentagon's missile defense program that was provided to Russia and to U.S. allies in Europe. "The United States will not seek to overcome China's opposition to missile defense by telling the Chinese that we do not object to an expansion of their nuclear ballistic missile force," he said. "Nor will we acquiesce in any resumption of nuclear testing by China. We are respecting the nuclear testing moratorium and all other nations should as well." As for China's buildup of nuclear forces, Fleischer said, "We will tell the Chinese that it is unnecessary and that it is not good for regional stability or for peace." Victoria Clarke, spokeswoman for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, said it is not true that the administration is unconcerned about China's nuclear weapons modernization, even though it is not directly related to the administration's missile defense plan. "We are worried about it," she told reporters. "We have made that clear before, and we will make that clear going forward." China is believed to have about two dozen nuclear missiles with enough range to strike U.S. territory. Russia, which has a much larger nuclear arsenal, also opposes the U.S. missile defense plan. Feith said he would visit Moscow next week to resume consultations with Russian officials on missile defense and President Bush's intention to "move beyond" the 1972 treaty banning national missile defenses. In a related development, Clarke announced that U.S. and Chinese officials will meet next week in Guam to consult on military maritime issues. The meeting was put off after an incident in April in which a Chinese fighter jet collided with a Navy reconnaissance plane over the South China Sea, resulting in the death of the Chinese pilot and forcing the U.S. plane to make an emergency landing. A Navy admiral from U.S. Pacific Command in Hawaii will lead the U.S. delegation, Clarke said. ___ On the Net: National Missile Defense Organization: http://www.acq.osd.mil/bmdo/bmdolink/html/nmd.html Copyright © 2001, The Associated Press ***************************************************************** 10 EPA schedules two meetings on Scarboro sampoling Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 12:48 p.m. on Wednesday, September 5, 2001 by Paul Parson Oak Ridger staff The Environmental Protection Agency has decided to shed some light on its upcoming project in the Scarboro neighborhood. Next week, the agency will conduct two public meetings in Oak Ridge to inform citizens about sampling efforts that will be conducted the week of Sept. 24. The meetings are scheduled for 6 to 8 p.m. Monday, Sept. 10, at the Scarboro Community Center, 148 Carter Ave.; and for 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 11, at the Oak Ridge Mall Community Room. At both meetings, EPA officials will give an outline of where soil and water sampling will be conducted and what the agency will be looking for. A time will be set aside for attendees to ask questions. The Oak Ridger has made repeated requests over the past week for details about the upcoming sampling effort, but EPA has yet to provide any specific information. However, in a brief press release received this week, EPA stated: "Oversight is required for EPA to ensure data quality of previous sampling by the Department of Energy. DOE conducted sampling between May 18-27, 1998." In 1998, studies done by DOE and Florida A University resulted in a report that indicated the Scarboro neighborhood contained elevated levels of contaminants in the soil. The results showed consistently higher than normal levels of uranium 235 -- enriched uranium -- and uranium 238 in soil samples taken throughout the area that summer. Also, the results showed traces of mercury in some soil samples, and one randomly selected sample showed lead, zinc and pesticides in the soil. Scarboro is located near the Y-12 National Security Complex, a weapons production facility. For more information, contact the EPA at 1-800-241-1754. All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 11 Animal disease is reminder of bioterrorism danger - 9/4/2001 - ENN.com Tuesday, September 04, 2001 By Reuters GLASGOW, Scotland — Britain's foot and mouth crisis shows what can go wrong when a nation cannot deal with a highly infectious disease and should be a reminder of the dangers of biological warfare, a Scottish scientist said on Monday. Since the disease was first detected in late February more that 3.7 million farm animals in Britain have been slaughtered and the country's tourism industry has been badly damaged. "Foot and mouth disease is a real example of what happens when a disease gets out of control," Sir William Stewart told journalists at the launch of a science conference in Scotland. The former chief scientific adviser to the British government and president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BA) said that fortunately foot and mouth was a disease with virtually no direct effect on people. But he feared that advances in molecular biology and the sequencing of the human genome had led to decreased interest in microbiology. This could have left Britain ill-prepared to deal with the threat of bioterrorism and the 30 conventional microbes that are considered biological warfare agents. "There are those who say: the First World War was chemical; the Second World War was nuclear; and that the Third World War — God forbid — will be biological," he told the BA science conference. Although the use of biological weapons is forbidden by international convention, Stewart told the week-long conference that began on Monday that some countries had stockpiled anthrax, a deadly bacterium. "If nuclear weapons and space technology dominate the global defence thinking — what is left for the smaller and rogue nations without them?" he said. "Are we sufficiently and adequately prepared in the UK?" Stewart added. He called for more funding and emphasis on microbiology because of the increased spread of infectious diseases, as well as the threat of bioterrorism. "It is a timely reminder that we must not forget about microbiology. Implications of its effect and how it is used go far beyond the farm gate and countryside," he said. Copyright 2001, Reuters ***************************************************************** 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: *****************************************************************