***************************************************************** 02/06/01 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 9.34 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER CONTENTS 1 Bush energy advisory team short on environmentalists 2 Nuclear industry offers itself to help power crunch_ 3 Nuclear revival 4 Westinghouse's CEO says latest energy crisis highlights need for 5 Calif. San Onofre nuke unit seen down "several weeks" 6 Nuclear Plant Fire and Shutdown Contribute to California's Electricity Woes 7 Nuke Plant Talks Bog Down in Taiwan 8 Taiwan gov't-opposition compromise threatens to collapse 9 Cabinet cave-in over nuclear plant likely 10 Opposition urges restart of project 11 Anti-nuclear activists vow to spill blood 12 Rocky, City Council agree — no N-waste can go through S.L. 13 Editorial: Plumbing the depths of politics 14 Will the government let Taiwan decide? 15 Temelin Dominates Discussion in Upper Austria 16 German Greens battle over nuclear waste shipments_ 17 BNFL challenges Cogema for French nuclear contracts_ 18 Duma to hold second nuclear fuel import hearing 19 Pebble bed partnership talks skip to a halt 20 Taiwan set to OK restart of nuclear plant project 21 State Orders Study of Fire Radiation 22 3rd full-fledged delivery of spent fuel arrives in Rokkasho NUCLEAR WEAPONS CONTENTS 1 R. Cathey Daniels -- Real issue: Is DOE inclusive of its public? 2 New England EPA to study Nuclear Metals Contamination sites 3 DOE's Beryllium investigation by researcher 4 Correction on Kelly AFB Beryllium exposure story 5 War crimes of the West 6 Sequels of War 7 Forces fight to debunk health fears 8 Beware the Mod Plod 9 Berkeley Lab Poses Health Risk, Says Study/Fire could release 10 Key Hanford cleanup late, short 11 Lab Safely Shuts Down Reactor 12 K Basins work behind schedule, short funds 13 Hanford Advisory Board wants Fluor to aid those facing layoffs 14 Flats' high-risk area shrinks_ 15 Safety violations slow Flats operations ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 Bush energy advisory team short on environmentalists RGJ.com - *Mike Madden and Doug Abrahms* GANNETT NEWS SERVICE Tuesday February 6th, 2001 WASHINGTON — Environmental groups say they were shut out from giving input on a sweeping energy plan soon to be released by the Bush administration, which instead relied mostly on oil, gas and nuclear power industry executives who donated generously to GOP campaigns. Citing those who advised Bush energy officials, ‘green’ activists say it is no accident that a GOP draft bill circulating in Washington emphasizes new production of natural gas, nuclear power and oil drilling — including in a sensitive Arctic wildlife refuge — over conservation efforts. Industry executives dominate the transition team appointed to help the Bush administration take over from President Clinton, and many of President Bush’s aides, the president himself and Vice President Dick Cheney have worked for oil companies. “As far as we can tell, the transition team of more than 60 has exactly one member that is in favor of saving energy,” said Dan Barry, president of the Clearinghouse on Environmental Advocacy and Research, or CLEAR. “The signals seem to be that environmental policies on energy and other issues seem to be more and more contentious.” By CLEAR’s count, members of the transition team, their families and their employers gave more than $8 million to the Bush campaign and other Republican political committees. The nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics found that energy transition advisers gave $857,232 to Republicans and $26,450 to Democrats, but that figure includes only individual contributions, not family members or political action committees that those advisers may support. In discussing the West’s ongoing power crunch, White House officials have called for dramatically increasing domestic energy production, laying new pipelines to move natural gas and oil around the country, and reducing reliance on foreign energy sources. A bill to enact the proposals could be introduced in Congress as soon as this week. “It’s becoming very clear to the country that demand is outstripping supply, that there are more users of electricity and natural gas than there is new units being found, and we’ve got to do something about that in the country,” Bush said last week before convening an energy policy meeting here that Cheney chaired. “This administration is concerned about the people who work for a living, concerned about people who struggle every day to get ahead. And we understand — fully understand — what high energy costs can mean to people in America.” The White House press office did not return calls to discuss the plan or respond to environmentalists’ charges that they were being excluded. Under former President Clinton, environmental groups frequently had the ear of White House aides, which often infuriated industry representatives who said Clinton appointees cut them out of policy decisions. Now, activists say the opposite is true. It is hardly unusual for businesses that will be affected by legislation to weigh in as it is written, environmentalists concede. But the narrow range of opinions being sought by the White House leaves the impression among some critics that the balance of power in the new administration is heavily slanted toward industry. “Anytime you include more interested stakeholders and you try and incorporate their views into federal policy or law, you’re bound to end up with a better final position,” said Keith Ashdown, a spokesman for Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan watchdog group that frequently sides with environmental organizations in policy disputes. “I think they’re going back to their base: ‘These are the places where we had the most support, and this is who we’re going to call upon.’ ” It is not entirely clear exactly how much input the business representatives had on the plan, because most members of the transition team contacted by Gannett News Service declined to discuss their role on the panel. A lobbyist for the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America, Martin Edwards, said Bush officials had solicited advice from his organization on how to speed up development of new underground pipes. An association lobbyist, Gay Friedman, serves on the transition team. Another member of the panel, Bob Loux, who heads Nevada’s Agency for Nuclear Projects and opposes building a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain there, was one of the few members not representing industry. But his name was added to the list very late, and Loux’s first conference call with the group was its last. “I never even spoke or had the opportunity to,” Loux said. “I’ve never had a piece of paper from them.” _ Back to Local News Index | Back to Top _ _©2001 Reno Gazette-Journal_ ***************************************************************** 2 _Nuclear industry offers itself to help power crunch_ Planet Ark _WASHINGTON - The US nuclear power industry Friday offered itself as a "low-cost" alternative for helping to solve energy shortages hitting California and other parts of the nation, while predicting that new nuclear power plants will be built later this decade to meet demand. _ In a statement, the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) said they briefed Wall Street analysts Friday on their industry's ability to produce large amounts of low-cost bulk electricity, which has increased the value of nuclear power plants. California is in the midst of an ongoing battle to stave off power blackouts and utility bankruptcies, as it revamps an industry hurt by a failed effort at deregulating retail markets. Other parts of the nation, notably New York, were expected to battle against power shortages this coming summer. Nuclear officials said both the safety of plants, and the fact facilities are emission-free generation, back their efforts to promote nuclear power. Christian Poindexter, chairman, president and chief executive of Constellation Energy Group and chairman of the NEI's board of directors, said "the value of nuclear power plants in today's market has increased significantly in the last year." Constellation was the first company to renew an operating license for a nuclear power plant, winning last year a 20-year extension for its Calvert Cliffs facility in eastern Maryland. The NEI said average nuclear plant capacity factor was at an all-time high. The industry averaged over 86 percent in 1999 and estimated that number would rise to 90 percent in 2000. NEI also predicted that year 200 production would top 1999's output record of 728 billion kilowatt-hours by 5 percent. Nuclear production costs declined to 1.83 cents per kilowatt-hour, dropping below the average for coal-fired production costs for the first time since 1987, NEI said. Environmentalists disagree with claims by the industry that nuclear power is emissions-free, saying the source fuels needed to eventually produce power comes from nonrenewable, emitting sources. REUTERS NEWS SERVICE ***************************************************************** 3 Nuclear revival Power woes renew interest in 'pebble-fuel' reactors _By Ross Kerber, Globe Staff, 2/6/2001_ fitting atop a filing cabinet at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, they look no more exciting than a pair of graphite-colored eight balls. But if experiments go well, the two spheres could lead to a new generation of nuclear power plants across the country. The balls represent a form of uranium fuel for a proposed nuclear plant design, known as a pebble-bed modular reactor, which is gaining currency in nuclear industry circles. At a time when California is suffering from rolling blackouts, a demand for new generating sources is reviving interest in the pebble-fuel concept, which dates to the 1950s. Such a reactor was fired up in December at China's Tsinghua University. At MIT, a team including nuclear engineering professor Andrew Kadak has received research grants of more than $1 million and hopes to build a demonstration reactor in Idaho. The group also plans to cooperate with the Chinese researchers. And Chicago-based Exelon Corp. has invested $7.5 million in a pebble-fueled reactor project in South Africa, in hopes the design will prove commercially viable. New reactors in North America would help rehabilitate an industry staggered by safety problems in the mid-1990s - including some at the nuclear-engineering company where Kadak was once chief executive. But now he and other advocates hope pebble-fuel designs will prove suitable for scores of existing nuclear sites, among them several in New England. They also hope the concept will prove simpler, safer, and cheaper to operate than today's aging fleet of commercial reactors. For one thing, they say, the fuel spheres would be meltdown-proof. ''We wanted to get rid of the big boogeyman of the technology,'' Kadak says of the design, which he refers to as ''the politically correct reactor.'' ''If it can be made to work reliably, it could blow the pants off any competing electric source,'' said Exelon vice president Ward Sproat. The fuel spheres that form the basis of the design are made from uranium particles. Each sphere might power a 100-watt light bulb for a dozen years. That output might not seem like much. But a reactor filled with 400,000 such pebbles could produce the same energy as a gas-fired power plant, potentially for similar costs. Nobody thinks such a plant could open in the United States for at least five years, since a host of questions remain. Most obviously, the pebbles themselves would become hard-to-dispose-of radioactive waste. Some earlier-generation plants like Maine Yankee have vowed never to host nuclear power sources again. Other nuclear-power utilities like Southern Co. are noncommital toward pebble-bed designs, or say they would prefer to build larger nuclear plants with designs the government has already approved. Said Southern vice president Louis Long, ''We're not out there to prove new concepts. We're out with proven products to put on the ground to generate electricity.'' But for utilities to publicly contemplate the construction of any new nuclear plants demonstrates what a turnaround the industry has undergone since just a few years ago. Then, in addition to safety issues, new natural-gas supplies and the deregulation of the generating industry led to a gas-plant construction boom. Rising fossil-fuel prices have changed the economic picture significantly since then, however. Reactors such as Vermont Yankee, which once seemed like white elephants, are now the subjects of bidding wars as generating companies look to secure long-term power sources. Last week, representatives from Exelon met with officials at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to discuss the process of licensing a pebble-fuel design. The meeting coincides with a renewed lobbying initiative by a utility trade group, the Nuclear Energy Institute, which hopes to speed the development of new reactors. Ron Simard, a senior director at the institute, cites the changed economics and says the problems with power deregulation in California have been exacerbated by the lack of new generating capacity there. Simard's group has been reluctant to discuss its lobbying plans in the past, but now, he said, members hope public opinion and the Bush administration might prove more receptive. Entergy Corp. executive Jerry Yelverton made a similar point in an October interview with the National Journal: ''If the US sees a hot summer next year, like the South did [in 2000], and electric prices go real high, nuclear could be a much more acceptable option.'' Most American nuclear plants today use 12-foot-long rods of radioactive fuel to heat up water, which is then used to transfer energy to electric turbines. A pebble-fuel reactor would contain hundreds of thousands of fuel spheres cooled by flowing helium. Technically, each fuel sphere would be made up of about 15,000 uranium particles, each about half a millimeter thick and coated with silicon carbide. The spheres could be removed from the reactor, a few at a time, to be inspected and retired as their energy output is depleted over several years. Designers say the feature would eliminate the costly refueling shutdowns big reactors now require every 18 months or so. The concept of fuel pebbles dates to the 1950s and drew much attention in Europe. In Germany, a pebble-based reactor built for research ran 22 years, and a commercial version ran for four years before the government stopped funding it in 1987. The halt was due partly to technical problems and partly to antinuclear sentiment following the Chernobyl accident in Ukraine. Still, the results of the German project were encouraging enough to come to the attention of energy planners in South Africa, who wanted to reduce the country's dependence on coal-burning plants. Today a utility there, Eskom Enterprises, is weighing whether to build a pebble-fueled reactor in a suburb of Cape Town. Construction could begin as soon as 2002. Along with Exelon, other investors in the Eskom project include British Nuclear Fuel and the Industrial Development Corporation of South Africa. Meanwhile a 10-megawatt Chinese reactor, at Tsinghua University near Beijing, began operating Dec. 1. Last March, MIT obtained Energy Department permission to work with researchers at Tsinghua. Kadak, who has visited the site, said substantial cooperation can't begin until China agrees to restrict the export of nuclear technology. __Few environmental groups endorse nuclear power because of waste issues and the industry's recurring safety problems. For instance, in 1999, Connecticut's Northeast Utilities pled guilty to 25 felonies and paid $10 million in penalties for lying to regulators and dumping chemicals near its Millstone plant. On the other hand, nuclear generation doesn't create the emissions believed to cause global warming. At MIT, Kadak became interested in reviving the pebble-fuel design about three years ago when he helped lead a seminar on how nuclear power might address environmental and economic concerns. In 1998, Kadak's group began receiving grants that have totaled more than $1 million from the Energy Department's Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory to study fuel-performance and safety issues. The Universities of Tennessee and Cincinnati are also involved. The project represents a new career move for Kadak, who from 1989 to 1997 was chief executive of the Yankee Atomic Electric Co., a consortium of utilities that operated the now-retired Yankee Rowe power plant in Rowe, Mass. Yankee Atomic also provided services to other reactors, including Maine Yankee. In 1998, regulators cited the plant for using faulty engineering calculations performed by Yankee Atomic, problems that contributed to the plant's closure. Yankee Atomic's current owner, Duke Engineering &Services, says regulators never cited the company for wrongdoing. While he cautions technical difficulties remain with the pebble-fuel design, Kadak is enthusiastic that such a plant could become financially viable. For instance, he imagines several reactors could be built on a single site, at costs low enough they could be financed by venture capitalists rather than public bonds. He also cites Eskom's estimates its plant could generate power at around 1.7 cents per kilowatt hour, versus 3 cents or more for the same amount of gas-fired generation in the US. Kadak's current research involves the reactor's safety. He says a pebble-based fuel core is ''virtually impossible to melt'' because, even if the helium coolant escaped from the reactor vessel, German experiments suggest the fuel pebbles wouldn't heat beyond 1,650 degrees Celsius - below the 2,000-degree level at which the spheres would begin to deteriorate. This leads to some conclusions that could become controversial. For instance, Kadak suggests new pebble reactors could be built without the expensive emergency-cooling systems and safety zones that now surround nuclear plants. South Africa's Eskom makes a similar point on its Web site: ''The inherently safe design of a PBMR [pebble-bed modular reactor] renders the need for safety grade backup systems and off-site emergency plans obsolete and is fundamental to the cost reduction achieved over other nuclear designs.'' Dave Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer for the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington, says the company has a point. In theory, pebble-based designs wouldn't need complicated machinery to cool fuel during an emergency, since the fuel would be cooled by contact with the atmosphere. In practice, safety would depend on the quality of the fuel's manufacture, Lochbaum said. He also voiced concern that if the graphite in the pebbles was to catch fire, it couldn't be extinguished by denying oxygen to the blaze because air would still be needed as a coolant. Lochbaum said he plans to attend the NRC's upcoming meetings on the issue. If the plants prove safer and they lead to the shutdown of existing reactors, Lochbaum said, he might support their construction. Then again, he said, ''if you keep the existing fleet of reactors and you're adding more, I'm not sure that's the right answer. You aggravate your waste issues and you don't gain anything in the bargain.'' *Ross Kerber can be reached by e-mail at **.* This story ran on page D1 of the Boston Globe on 2/6/2001. © Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company. ***************************************************************** 4 Westinghouse's CEO says latest energy crisis highlights need for more nuclear power [Photo Journal: Post-Gazette photos] [AP Wire: News and sports from the Associated Press] Remember us? Tuesday, February 06, 2001 By Frank Reeves, Post-Gazette Staff Writer Westinghouse Electric's Charlie Pryor is bullish about the nuclear energy business these days, and it's not hard to understand why. In the wake of skyrocketing electric prices and rolling blackouts in California, public opposition to nuclear power appears to have weakened. If the nuclear industry's own polls are to be believed, an increasing number of Americans support the building of nuclear power plants as a way to satisfy the nation's seemingly insatiable appetite for electricity. Between October 1999 and January 2001, the percentage of Americans who support building more nuclear power plants in the future rose from 42 percent to 51 percent, according to a survey sponsored by the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's Washington, D.C., lobbyist. The most dramatic swing in public opinion was in the West, where the percentage of those who support building new nuclear plants rose from 33 percent in October 1999 to 52 percent last month. Although there are no current plans to build any new nuclear energy plants in the United States, "we're starting to get a lot more interest. People are asking more questions," said Pryor, president and chief executive officer of Westinghouse, the Monroeville-based subsidiary of British Nuclear Fuels PLC that employs some 3,000 locally and 9,300 worldwide. And Pryor is convinced that interest in nuclear energy will increase as the Bush administration and Congress attempt to craft an energy policy that balances cost, safety, reliability and environmental concerns. As Pryor sees it, nuclear power looks good when compared with the most frequently touted alternatives: increased drilling for oil and natural gas off the California and Florida coasts and in protected wilderness areas of Alaska; development of technology that would allow for cleaner burning of coal; and increased pressure on the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to produce more oil. The latter alternative would further increase the United States' dependence on foreign oil. Of course, Westinghouse has sounded optimistic notes before about nuclear energy, only to see those hopes dashed. During the energy crisis years of the Ford and Carter administrations, Westinghouse was banking on a slew of nuclear plant orders, citing nuclear's comparatively low cost to produce and its environmental friendliness to boot. Then in 1979, came Three Mile Island and "The China Syndrome," a movie about a possible nuclear plant meltdown. Orders for new nuclear plants froze almost overnight, putting a major crimp in the mainstay business at Westinghouse, which designed or built roughly four in every 10 nuclear plants operating worldwide. The American public always has had a love-hate relationship with nuclear power. At times, the public has enthusiastically supported nuclear power as a revolutionary technology capable of generating electricity at such a low cost that it would be "too cheap to meter." At other times, especially in the wake of Three Mile Island, the risks of possible nuclear power reactor meltdowns have been foremost in the public debate. As Pryor tells it, the fate of one nuclear power plant -- Rancho Seco, about 25 miles southeast of Sacramento, Calif. -- is a cautionary tale that Americans shouldn't forget. Capable of generating 917 megawatts of electricity, the nuclear power plant began operation in 1974. But 15 years later, Sacramento voters approved a referendum, 53 percent to 43 percent, to close the facility. The power plant became the first facility of its kind in the United States to be voted out of operation. The reasons for the voters' ire were mixed, as the Sacramento Bee newspaper noted at the time. Some voters opposed nuclear power, claiming they wanted to find safe, clean alternatives to nuclear energy. Others weren't as opposed to nuclear power as they were dissatisfied with the way the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, or SMUD, had managed the facility. With California authorities scrambling to buy every megawatt of electricity they can, Pryor wonders what Sacramento residents think today about their decision to shut down Rancho Seco in 1989. For both economic and environmental protection reasons, many of the electric generating plants recently built in the United States have been natural gas-fired. Such plants are cheaper to build and emit less pollutants into the air than coal-fired plants -- although many analysts believe the increased use of natural gas to generate electricity has contributed to the recent spike in natural gas prices. Pryor believes that economic equation is beginning to shift in favor of nuclear power. Changes in nuclear plant design, such as Westinghouse Electric's AP 600, have reduced the time and cost of constructing nuclear plants, although the cost is still much higher than for natural gas plants, largely because of the high level of regulatory review and approvals associated with nuclear power use. Still, what is beginning to make nuclear power more cost effective, in Pryor's view, is that nuclear fuel is significantly cheaper than natural gas. For all his bullishness, Pryor acknowledges that the nuclear industry faces some difficult obstacles. For one, neither Westinghouse nor any other nuclear plant designer has received a U.S. order in nearly two decades. Even though a larger number of people say they favor building nuclear power plants, many would still oppose the construction of one in their community. With this in mind, Pryor said he expected that nuclear plants in the United States would likely be built on the sites of existing plants, where presumably it would be easier to get the necessary licenses and environmental protection approval for construction. Indeed, one California lawmaker recently proposed using abandoned military bases for the site of any new power plants -- nuclear-driven or otherwise -- to avoid the NIMBY -- or "not in my back yard" factor. Another major issue is the disposal of spent nuclear fuel. "I wouldn't build a nuclear plant if I couldn't dispose of the nuclear fuel," Pryor said. "I think it is important that the depository be built off site." But that has proved easier said than done. Nevada political leaders and residents have fiercely opposed a federal proposal to build a nuclear fuel depository in Yucca Mountain. Former President Bill Clinton vetoed a bill that would have designated the Nevada site as a nuclear fuel depository, and Congress failed to muster enough votes to override his veto. Pryor acknowledges that conservation could play role in reducing the demand for electricity, and thus reduce the need to construct as many new power plants in the future. But Pryor believes that only if Americans are willing to drastically alter their standard of living is conservation likely to significantly reduce the need for more power -- and more power plants. He said because electric appliances are so much more efficient now, conservation isn't likely to achieve the same degree of savings as happened in the 1970s, when people started turning off the lights and cutting back on their use of appliances following the Mideast oil embargo and the subsequent spike in energy prices. For the moment, despite apparently greater public acceptance in the U.S. of nuclear power, Westinghouse Electric is placing most of its bets on overseas orders for new plants and nuclear services to boost its fortunes. China and South Korea are expected to be two major markets for some of Westinghouse Electric's newly designed nuclear plants, Pryor said. Indeed, confronted with growing criticism for its antiquated coal-fired power plants and with soaring demand for electricity, China has indicated it's all but certain to rely on nuclear power in the future as a key source of new power. Pryor's enthusiasm for nuclear power isn't shared by everyone, however. David Hughes, who heads Squirrel Hill-based Citizen Power, thinks nuclear power is still too dangerous despite changes in the technology. He said the nation's energy policy should emphasize the development of alternative sources of power, such as solar energy and fuel cells, as well further conservation efforts. John Hanger, president of the public interest group Penn Future and a former Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commission member, noted that, "Nobody is stopping [utilities] from building nuclear power plants, if they can find private investors willing to put up their money. But the market won't back them." This, Hanger argues, despite the fact that "nuclear power is the most subsidized energy industry in the United States." Hanger said the nuclear power has received millions in federal research dollars as well as federal laws limiting the liability nuclear power plant operators would face in the event of nuclear accident. Hanger said the industry also has failed to alleviate public concern about the disposal of spent nuclear fuel. "The nuclear industry has been promising since its inception to find a safe, permanent place to store nuclear waste," he noted. ***************************************************************** 5 Calif. San Onofre nuke unit seen down "several weeks" [Reuters] _Monday February 5, 1:05 pm Eastern Time_ Calif. San Onofre nuke unit seen down "several weeks" (*UPDATE: updates throughout with additional background, company quotes, reworks throughout*) LOS ANGELES, Feb 5 (Reuters) - A small fire at the 1,080 megawatt Unit 3 at the San Onofre nuclear power plant in southern California is expected to shut it down for several weeks, a plant spokesman said on Monday. While the operator of the plant, Southern California Edison (SCE), acknowledged the outage is not good news for a state in the grips of a severe power shortage, it stressed that the fire caused no injuries and posed no radiation risks whatsoever. ``Our initial forecast is that the plant will be down for several weeks,'' said Ray Golden, an SCE spokesman. An electrical fault sparked a small fire in an electrical cabinet in the early hours of Saturday morning. The fire damaged some equipment including electrical breakers which will have to be replaced. ``No one was injured, there was no release of radiation and no impact on the public,'' Golden said. The fire was a major blow to the already power-starved state. When operating at full capacity the unit provides enough electricity to power more than one million homes. It was also another setback for SCE, which has been driven to the brink of bankruptcy by soaring wholesale electricity prices which it cannot currently pass on to its 11 million customers under the terms of California's much criticized power deregulation legislation. California remained in its highest level of alert on Monday, the so-called stage three emergency which raises the threat of rolling blackouts. The unit had just returned to service after a refueling outage when the fire occurred and was operating below full capacity, producing about 380 MW of electricity. The outage, which began on January 2, had been planned to last 45 days and the unit was in the process of returning to service well ahead of schedule. ``We are disappointed. We had completed the outage ahead of schedule. That would have helped California's electrical needs. We will do what we can to get the plant back as soon as possible but obviously safety is the first priority,'' SCE spokesman Golden. SCE is a unit of Edison International (NYSE:EIX - news). The adjacent 1,070 MW Unit 2 at the plant was not impacted and is continuing to operate at full power, Golden said. The San Onofre nuclear power complex is located on the edge of the Pacific Ocean between Los Angeles and San Diego, and is adjacent to Camp Pendleton, the U.S. Marine Base. SCE owns 75 percent of the plant while Sempra Energy (NYSE:SRE - news) unit San Diego Gas &Electric has a 20 percent stake. The balance is owned by the cities of Anaheim and Riverside. Copyright © 2001 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy - Terms of ***************************************************************** 6 Nuclear Plant Fire and Shutdown Contribute to California's Electricity Woes [pclogo.gif (4633 bytes)] *_Feb. 5, 2001_* _ Breaker Explosion Shows Flaws in NRC’s Industry-Friendly Maintenance Rules*_ WASHINGTON, D.C. – The emergency shutdown this weekend of San Onofre nuclear reactor No. 3 not only exacerbates California’s energy crisis but provides a disturbing example of why the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) industry-friendly maintenance rules are inadequate to stave off catastrophic failures, Public Citizen said today. The reactor, located on U.S. 5 between San Diego and Los Angeles, had been shut down for about a month for refueling and maintenance. It was in the process of being brought back into operation on Saturday when one of the electrical breakers in the plant "failed catastrophically," according to an NRC event report. The breaker exploded, causing a short and a fire that forced the reactor to be shut down. It will likely remain down for several weeks. The reactor generates approximately 1,100 megawatts, or enough to power 1.1 million homes, according to published reports. The NRC’s maintenance rule requires utilities to do preventive maintenance of "important equipment" to ensure there are no catastrophic failures. But the NRC and the nuclear industry have been cutting back on the amount of time a nuclear reactor is taken out of service for refueling and maintenance by narrowing the scope of work conducted and allowing more maintenance to be conducted while the reactor is operating. The idea is to increase the utility’s profitability by decreasing the time reactors are down. The breaker that blew on Saturday is not considered "important equipment," so it is not covered by NRC’s maintenance rule. "The NRC and the nuclear industry have been skimping on maintenance during refueling to improve the profitability of nuclear reactors," said Jim Riccio, senior policy analyst for Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program. "The nuclear industry's shortsightedness and greed may extend California's electricity woes for several more weeks as the nuclear plant recovers from the fire. Rather than providing relief to California's electricity crisis, the nuclear industry is contributing to it." The utility declared Saturday’s explosion and fire to be an "unusual event" -- the lowest level of the four emergency event classifications used by the NRC. ### ***************************************************************** 7 Nuke Plant Talks Bog Down in Taiwan _Las Vegas SUN_ February 06, 2001 ASSOCIATED PRESS TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) -- Negotiations over resuming construction of a nuclear plant became bogged down Tuesday as powerful opposition lawmakers insisted that the government restart the project before talks continue. The feud over the plant, which the government wanted to scrap, had appeared to be close to a settlement. Officials sent a new proposal to the opposition on Tuesday morning, offering to reinstate the $5.4 billion project with conditions. But hours later, the opposition complained that the proposal failed to say that the government was following a resolution the legislature passed demanding that construction begin immediately on the plant, one-third complete. The government's proposal also said that lawmakers chosen in year-end elections should be able to decide whether new funds could be spent to complete the project. This would effectively give lawmakers the power to cancel the plant. But opposition lawmakers have insisted that once the project is reinstated, it must be completed to avoid wasting more of taxpayers' money. The plant was the pet project of the former Nationalist Party government, and the legislature approved the budget. In a brief statement, the president of the legislature, Wang Jin-pyng, rejected the government's proposal. Three months ago, when the government announced it would unilaterally cancel the project because it was unsafe and unnecessary, the opposition was furious because the legislature was not consulted about the decision. Last month, Taiwan's highest court ordered the government to discuss the issue with the legislature. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 8 _Taiwan gov't-opposition compromise threatens to collapse TAIPEI Feb. 6 Kyodo - _A tentative compromise between Taiwan's minority Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government and opposition parties on a conditional resumption of construction of a controversial nuclear power plant threatened to collapse Tuesday. Following talks among opposition parties, Parliamentary Speaker Wang Jin-pyng indirectly rejected a four-point agreement drafted by the cabinet, demanding it first resume construction of the plant before the accord is discussed. ''To prevent any further delay of construction work over talks, we demand that the government immediately resume construction. Once construction has restarted, we will immediately open the door to negotiations,'' Wang said. He said, however, the opposition parties do not have major difficulties with the content of the government's proposal. Chou Po-lun, the DPP's legislative whip, blasted the opposition's response as ''very regrettable,'' accusing the parties of retreating from an earlier acceptance of government offers. ''What they are saying now is resume construction unconditionally,'' Chou said. ''This is unacceptable.'' On Monday, the two sides agreed in principle that the state would resume construction and implement the project's budget, which was cleared by the legislature under past Nationalist Party (KMT) governments. But passage of a required follow-up budget for the plant would be put off until public opinion is gauged through a year-end general election. At the same time, the opposition parties would cooperate with the government in enshrining the goal of eventually phasing out nuclear energy in Taiwan in a new energy law. Hopes had been high that Premier Chang Chun-hsiung would announce resumption of construction Monday night, laying to rest the nuclear controversy that has grabbed headlines in the past months. But a related four-point agreement drafted by the opposition parties met with fierce opposition from the DPP and Chang due to some harsh wording. Most unpalatable to Chang was a sentence that infers that the government ''accepted'' a resolution passed by the legislature last week demanding the immediate resumption of construction at the plant, which is one-third complete. Chang faces the complex task of having to publicly reverse his own decision to halt the 2,700-megawatt power plant project. While the opposition insists the resolution is binding, the government denies it. In a bid to save face, the government has been trying to present the about-face as the result of talks with the opposition rather than bowing to the legislature. Earlier Tuesday, the cabinet presented the opposition parties with its own version of the four-point agreement, modifying the disputed passages. 2000 Kyodo News (c) Established 1945. ***************************************************************** 9 Cabinet cave-in over nuclear plant likely The Taipei Times Online: 2001-02-06 , February 6th, 2001_ NEGOTIATIONS: In an effort to end the lingering political struggle over the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant, the Cabinet and legislators are trying to reach a compromise _By Joyce Huang_ STAFF REPORTER The Cabinet will conduct another round of negotiations with an alliance of opposition party lawmakers today -- a step that, if successful, could put an end to the long and heated debate over the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant (®Ö¥|). Speaker of the Legislative Yuan Wang Jin-pyng (¤ýª÷¥­) said yesterday that "the Cabinet will submit a final version for negotiations to the legislature at 9am [this morning] and with that, we, the opposition alliance, will conduct another round of discussions." _"If the Cabinet announces the plant's construction has restarted, the DPP legislative caucus will not support, oppose nor endorse the measure." _ *Chou Po-lun, DPP legislative whip* Wang, on behalf of the opposition alliance, presented Premier Chang Chun-hsiung (±i«T¶¯) yesterday morning with a resolution from opposition party lawmakers for him to review, stating the legislature's insistence that the plant's construction resume before any further negotiations could be conducted. In return, Chang promised to give his response today. If the opposition alliance agrees to accept the Cabinet's resolution today, the Cabinet is likely to announce its final decision soon and is expected to follow with the resumption of the plant's construction. Expressing hope to end the lingering political struggle as soon as possible, Cabinet Secretary-General Chiou I-jen (ªô¸q¤¯) yesterday said that the Cabinet expected the legislature to compromise on the plant's future budgets and the new energy law in today's negotiations. "We hope that the legislature can agree that the plant's following budgets be allocated by the new legislature [to be elected at year-end]," Chiou said at a press conference yesterday evening, adding that the clause should be put in a written agreement and endorsed by the opposition alliance. The opposition alliance had previously stated that the plant's future budgets should be "handled in accordance with related laws" -- a statement that Chiou said the Cabinet found to regulate the plant's future too strictly. Chiou also said that the Cabinet hoped to conduct negotiations with the opposition alliance before it started drafting the energy law to prevent unnecessary disagreement between the Cabinet and the legislature in the future. Many media reports speculated yesterday that the Cabinet was expected to make concessions to the legislature and officially announce resumption of the plant's construction yesterday. One evening paper headline claimed boldly that the decision would be made in the afternoon, the other stated it would be in the evening. It was neither. It was also speculated that the premier might summon a provisional meeting of the Cabinet meeting before its regular Wednesday meeting. By press time such a meeting had not been called. Chang, instead, continued to seek support from DPP leaders to ward off factional discord within the party. He spent much of yesterday exchanging views with DPP heavyweights including legislative leaders Chang Chun-hung (±i«T§»), Ker Chien-ming (¬_«Ø»Ê) and Shen Fu-hsiung (¨H´I¶¯), and party Secretary-General Wu Nai-jen (§d¤D¤¯). But all the DPP heavyweights expressed intense opposition during the meeting, continuing to add to the delay of the possible final decision and putting great pressure on the Cabinet and the president. DPP legislative whip, Chou Po-lun (©P§B­Û), said yesterday that a Cabinet decision to resume construction faces what he called three no's. "If the Cabinet announces the plant's construction will restart, the DPP legislative caucus will not support, oppose nor endorse the measure," he said. Chang Chun-hung, who is also leader of the DPP's New Century faction and an anti-nuclear hardliner, also lambasted the Cabinet's possible compromise, saying "even a compromise won't guarantee any future political stability." This story has been viewed 753 times. Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2001 The Taipei Times. All rights ***************************************************************** 10 Opposition urges restart of project The Taipei Times Online: 2001-02-06 February 6th, 2001_ RESUMPTION: A coalition of opposition lawmakers urged the government to continue with the building of the nuclear power plant _By Lin Mei-chun_ STAFF REPORTER In a bid to end the controversy over the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant, opposition lawmakers yesterday agreed to urge the Executive Yuan to announce the immediate resumption of construction in accordance with the resolution passed by the legislature last week. Opposition lawmakers said that negotiations between the Legislative and Executive Yuans could be started once the executive branch accepted the request to resume the project. The agreement, reached after a two-hour closed door meeting attended by leaders of the opposition parties, also states that the Executive Yuan should first draft a new state energy law to be reviewed by the legislature, the two branches of government should work together to make Taiwan a nuclear-free nation, and the additional budget for the project should be dealt with according to due process of law. Opposition lawmakers subsequently told reporters that the concise statement had gone through six revisions before its final version was finally hammered out. They said the most crucial aspect was to ensure the legality of the legislature's resolution of Jan. 31 that, in accordance with the constitutional system and the ruling of the Council of Grand Justices on Jan. 15, the cabinet would be bound by resolutions passed by the legislature. The opposition's insistence on this point alone provoked severe reactions from the DPP lawmakers, who said that any decision by the cabinet to restart the construction of the power plant could only be perceived as an outcome of negotiations between the two sides. "The wording [in the statement] which says that the Executive Yuan should comply with legislative resolutions, on the authority of the Constitution and ruling of the Council of Grand Justices, needs to be further clarified because legislative resolutions are not legally binding," said Chou Po-lun (©P§B­Û), convenor of the DPP legislative caucus. "Even if [in the future] the stance of the Cabinet were to be changed to coincide with that of the legislature, it could only be viewed as a consequence of negotiations between the two Yuans, [not due to the legitimacy of legislative resolutions."] Otherwise, the Executive Yuan would have to consent to every resolution passed by the legislature, he added. In the face of the pressure by the opposition to restart the project, the DPP legislative caucus called a provisional meeting yesterday afternoon to prevent the cabinet from making any reckless decisions. They called on the executive branch to engage in further negotiations before giving in to the opposition's requests, and stressed that the power of the executive cannot be usurped. "We [DPP legislators] have agreed with the cabinet, that it will negotiate further with the opposition to find a solution that would be satisfactory to both sides," said Chou. "We [the DPP] need to stick to our bottom line -- legislative resolutions are not legally binding to the Executive Yuan. And more importantly, [the Cabinet] cannot decide to resume construction during the negotiation process," DPP lawmaker Chou Ya-shu (©P¶®²Q) said. This story has been viewed 256 times. Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2001 The Taipei Times. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 11 Anti-nuclear activists vow to spill blood The Taipei Times Online: 2001-02-06 _Tuesday, February 6th, 2001_ VEHEMENT OPPOSITION: Kungliao residents who live near the power plant say they feel betrayed by the DPP _By Chiu Yu-Tzu_ STAFF REPORTER Anti-nuclear activists said yesterday they would not give up their struggle against the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant, even if it means spilling blood. The DPP government appears ready to allow construction of the plant to resume, backing off its long-held stance against the project. That has angered hardline environmentalists and Kungliao residents who live near the nuclear plant's location. "When construction resumes, it will be time for Kungliao residents to fight to the death," Wu Wen-tung (§d¤å³q), a Kungliao resident, said at a press conference yesterday. Wu said that Kungliao residents would never forgive the DPP for giving in on the power plant issue. "What did you say during your presidential campaign?" Wu said, referring to President Chen Shui-bian (³¯¤ô«ó). "How did the local media report this issue? Why have the people of Kungliao been fighting against this for so long?" Wu told the *Taipei Times* that many Kungliao residents feel betrayed by the DPP and that the party has cheated voters for years. He said that in light of the party's policy turnabout, past votes in support of DPP members were wasted. "We are resentful at the way we have been treated," Wu said. Wu also said that local media have unfairly characterized anti-nuclear activists, portraying them as a stumbling block to Taiwan's economic development. Earlier yesterday, Chen met with leading anti-nuclear figures and longtime DPP supporters, including Kao Cheng-yen (°ª¦¨ª¢) of the Green Party and Shih Shin-min (¬I«H¥Á) of the Taiwan Environmental Protection Union. According to Kao, Chen said during the meeting that resumption of the nuclear plant's construction was a short-term compromise. The president also said that he hoped anti-nuclear activists would support the DPP during the December legislative elections, according to Kao. But Kao said he could not support any decision to resume construction of the nuclear project. "We cannot accept the Presidential Office's decision to resume construction of the plant," he said. After meeting with Chen, Shih urged the Cabinet to address flaws in the power plant's environmental impact assessment. If Taiwan Power Co (¥x¹q) is asked to redo the assessment, that could further delay construction of the project. Activists plan to launch a new wave of anti-nuclear demonstrations, including a protest scheduled for Feb. 24 in Taipei. Activists from the environmental union say that former DPP chairman Lin Yi-hsiung (ªL¸q¶¯) had promised to join that demonstration. Lin has long been an opponent of nuclear energy. In July 1994, Lin participated in a hunger strike, appealing for a plebiscite on the power plant's construction. During his six-day-long protest in Taipei, he gained support from 120,000 petitioners nationwide. Two months later, Lin walked 1,005km over 35 days with volunteers to promote the idea of letting the people decide whether the plant should be built. But some Kungliao residents yesterday said they were unsure whether or not they would be participating in the planned demonstration. "We're afraid that we will be used by DPP again," Wu wen-tung said. This story has been viewed 332 times. Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2001 The Taipei Times. All rights ***************************************************************** 12 Rocky, City Council agree — no N-waste can go through S.L. [deseretnews.com] Tuesday, February 06, 2001 _Rocky, City Council agree — no N-waste can go through S.L._ Resolution voices most residents' views, Buhler says _By Diane Urbani_ Deseret News staff writer Salt Lake Mayor Rocky Anderson, all seven members of the City Council and Gov. Mike Leavitt have reached common ground on one contentious topic. In a resolution to be made at the start of Tuesday evening's council meeting, the panel and the mayor will express what Councilman Keith Christensen called "shock" and "dismay" at the possibility of nuclear waste being transported through the capital city, en route to a proposed storage site on the Skull Valley Goshute Indian reservation. Echoing the Utah governor's opposition, Anderson has told nuclear power plants to "stay out of our city and our state." Drawing applause during his State of the City address last month, the mayor said, "This administration will continue to fight against the transportation and storage of high-level nuclear waste in Utah, and will work to build opposition along the entire transportation route." That opposition has been building, according to council vice chairman Dave Buhler. Tuesday's resolution "expresses our views, and I think it expresses the views of the majority of the citizens of Salt Lake," he said. The Skull Valley Band of Goshutes began negotiating in 1996 with Private Fuel Storage, a consortium of utility companies, to establish a waste storage site on its reservation 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. Dedicated Union Pacific trains would transport the waste, along its routes next to I-80, from Minnesota, Michigan, Alabama, California and other states. If the Nuclear Regulatory Commission grants a license to Private Fuel Storage, transport could begin in 2004, according to PFS spokeswoman Sue Martin. The proposed capacity for the Goshute site is 40,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel. The next step in the NRC licensing process is the environmental impact statement, followed by public hearings in Salt Lake City, Martin said. The earliest those hearings could take place is this summer. *E-MAIL: durbani@desnews.com* © 2001 Deseret News Publishing Company ***************************************************************** 13 Editorial: Plumbing the depths of politics The Taipei Times Online: 2001-02-06 , February 6th, 2001_ Taiwan is a highly politicized society where a simple issue can be spun into an entangled mass of threads. One good example is the ongoing dispute over whether to resume or scrap construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant (®Ö¥|). Another will be the KMT's mulling over whether to file another lawsuit against James Soong (§º·¡·ì), now that prosecutors have decided not to indict him in the Chung Hsing Bills Finance scandal (¿³²¼®×). The nuclear plant is a public policy issue, and the debate over it should be focusing on the safety of nuclear power, the handling of nuclear waste, the plant's environmental impact assessment, past patterns in the growth of electricity consumption and evaluations of potential future energy resources. There should be an open, transparent process through which the public can participate in debate and decision-making regarding such public policies. Unfortunately, politicians engaging in the plant tussle are only thinking about themselves and their parties, and what they can gain from the debate. The parties are trying to overcome each other by size alone, rather than by trying to win a debate -- a return to the old playground dictum that if you can't win fairly, just squash your opponent. Whether construction is resumed or scrapped, the question of whether Taiwan should continue to develop nuclear power will remain unanswered. Many people believe that the results of last year's presidential election could have been very different if the Chung Hsing scandal had not broken out. The scandal ruined Soong's image as a clean official and exposed a side of him that had been hidden from the public view. The scandal allowed the KMT to whip him relentlessly on both ethical and legal grounds, sending Soong's popularity ratings plummeting. Soong lost the election as his questionable and illegal actions lost him vital votes, allowing Chen Shui-bian (³¯¤ô«ó) to win by a narrow margin. Now re-evaluation of Soong is under way in Taipei's political circles as both Chen of the DPP and KMT Chairman Lien Chan (³s¾Ô) vie to woo their erstwhile rival -- now chairman of the People's First Party and a man of considerable political value -- despite their vehement criticism of him during the campaign. Chen even spoke to Soong by phone before announcing his new, important cross-strait policies on New Year's Eve. Lien and Soong have even become political allies and good friends, something they found difficult when Soong was still in the KMT and the two men were rivals to succeed Lee Teng-hui (§õµn½÷). The image of Soong as corrupt and law-flouting created during the Chung Hsing scandal has disappeared. Some deplore this. For example, yesterday lawyers representing the KMT in the Chung Hsing case said the reasons cited by prosecutors for not indicting Soong were questionable. They suggested that the KMT file another lawsuit. But the KMT is apparently more interested in the political -- rather than legal -- considerations of this case. A lawyer who filed a reconsideration of the case on behalf of the KMT was criticized as a busybody. The party also declared the new lawsuit void, saying it was a personal action and did not represent the party. Apparently, the KMT's interest in the money Soong has deposited with the court far exceeds its interest in justice. The gaping difference between the KMT's pre- and post-election attitudes is one of the clearest indicators of just how low the once-mighty party is willing to go. It is nauseating to watch the DPP government's flip-flopping policy on the nuclear plant and the KMT's contradictory handling of the Chung Hsing case. To those who expected better behavior, the best way to sum up the situation is say, in the spirit of Bill Clinton's famous line: "It's politics, stupid!" This story has been viewed 407 times. Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2001 The Taipei Times. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 14 Will the government let Taiwan decide? The Taipei Times Online: 2001-02-06 _Tuesday, February 6th, 2001_ _By Lee Weng-ying §õ¤å­^_ The storm over the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant (®Ö¥|) tests not only the government, but also the prospects for democracy in Taiwan. We need to break through our old ways of thinking and analyze the matter from the standpoint of social development and political psychology. In the West, the issue of nuclear energy is no longer confined to a traditional polarization with environmental protection at one extreme and economics at the other. Rather, discussions focus on value conflict and scientific controversy. Civil society is gradually replacing traditional idealism with a more rational, knowledge-based self-reflection. Discussions in Taiwan are often confined to efficiency in economic productivity, ignoring difficulties over the verification of knowledge. Professionals are consulted in all crises, ignoring the fact that professional application of knowledge in society is different from application in strictly-controlled labs. Also, these professionals don't always understand the wider issues. From the standpoint of traditional Chinese collectivist thinking the sacrifice of a minority in exchange for the progress of a majority is legitimate. This is in serious conflict, however, with the progressive view of Western society which emphasizes human dignity. Risk appraisal of nuclear energy in Western society has progressed to the point that "prediction of misfortunes takes priority over prediction of fortune." Public referendums are used to minimize the differences between the decision makers and those affected by their decisions. The issue of whether the plant should be built has been buried by the wrestling match between professionalism and politics. What kind of values will be adopted by Taiwan? This is an issue ignored by the media, whose position has made the controversy over the plant even more unclear. In the West, individuals are given the chance to participate in decision-making through referendums, which energize civil society. Can a view based on human integrity under which no risk is tolerated be adopted in Taiwan? This is an index by which Western society judges the progress of a civilization. The approach attaches equal importance to the value judgements of non-professionals and the risk appraisals of professionals, acknowledging the limitations of human technology. It allows citizens to make a collective decision, and rationally appraise benefits and risks. In contrast, the Taiwanese media continues to rely on traditional and simple logic, subconsciously expecting the administration and the president to play the enlightened patriarch and perfect arbitrator. They ignore the fact that civil society bears the risks collectively. The government cannot do everything for us. Let the people think and decide for themselves. This is compatible with the spirit of democracy. Perhaps some people may feel that Taiwanese voters don't understand democracy well enough and are unqualified to participate in a referendum modeled after Europe or the US. But civil society is itself a process, not an easily attainable ideal. We need to give voters the room to grow and the chance to participate. In the West, referendums have become a mechanism to supplement major flaws in the parliamentary system. In Taiwan, we remain hesitant due to an inferiority complex. Relying on professionals and government leaders to lead us to the promised land reflects an immature attitude and neglects our civic duties. A participatory democracy requires a referendum mechanism. Will the ruling party continue to be bound by the traditional political vision, carrying all the risks and responsibilities? Or will it follow Western countries in having the people participate in decision-making? *Lee Weng-ying is the director of the department of social development at the DPP.* This story has been viewed 411 times. Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2001 The Taipei Times. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 15 Temelin Dominates Discussion in Upper Austria Central Europe Online Daily News - VIENNA/KEFERMARKT, Feb 6, 2001 -- (CTK - Czech News Agency) The demands of Austrian opponents of the Temelin nuclear power station dominated a round- table discussion held in Weinberg castle in Upper Austria today. The discussion was attended by chairman of the Chamber of Deputies European integration committee Jaroslav Zverina (Civic Democratic Party, ODS) and Austrian government commissioner for European Union enlargement Erhard Busek. Opponents of nuclear energy gave Busek "thirty pieces of silver" for his alleged betrayal of the anti-Temelin movement as Busek defends the Czech Republic's admission to the European Union and does not see the operation of Temelin as an obstacle for this. Zveriva said at the discussion that the problem of nuclear facilities did not only concern Temelin. He pointed to the decommissioned Russian military ships in the North Sea ports. "It seems to me slightly counter-productive to concentrate anti- nuclear crusade on Temelin, which is a modern nuclear power station," Zverina told CTK after the end of the discussion. He said that a possible renewal of blockades of Czech- Austrian border crossings by supporters of the anti-Temelin movement would not help improve the situation. Busek stressed that the question of safety was an important and decisive topic of all nuclear power stations and especially Temelin, and something the Austrian government was seeking to achieve. Today's discussion also touched on the Benes decrees, another sensitive point in Austrian-Czech relations. "We are not prepared to discuss the abolition of the decrees because... these norms do not have any topical efficiency at present and belong to the past," Zverina said. Under the post-war decrees issued by Czechoslovak president Edvard Benes, about 2.5 million Sudeten Germans were deported from Czechoslovakia after World War Two and their property nationalized. Representatives of different anti-Temelin groups held a meeting in Kefermarkt, Upper Austria, today as a counter-measure to the discussion, at which they stressed that if the Czech side did not produce a plan for an environmental impact assessment of Temelin by next Friday, Austrian opponents of the plant would block some Austrian-Czech border crossings for three days. *((c) 2001 CTK - Czech News Agency)* © 1995-2001 European Internet Network Inc. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 16 German Greens battle over nuclear waste shipments_ _BERLIN - German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Greens coalition partners battled on Friday to prevent a damaging split in their ranks over a government decision to renew nuclear waste shipments. _ The warning comes at a time when the party's two most prominent ministers - now representatives of the establishment - have come under attack for their own past protests in the 1970s. "Demonstrating against the necessary and unavoidable transport is unwise," German Environment Minister Juergen Trittin said. Trittin, who has recently been criticised over his protests in the 1970s, added that he was "understanding" of protests planned by regional Greens party members against the resumption of nuclear waste shipments between Germany and France. A deal struck on Wednesday by Schroeder and French Prime Lionel Jospin will allow Germany to recommence sending used nuclear fuel-rods to a processing centre in La Hague, France. But the deal hinges on Germany agreeing to take back waste that has been stuck in France since Germany banned nuclear waste shipments in 1998 amid concern over radiation leaks. The transport of the waste is particularly sensitive for the Greens, junior coalition partners with Schroeder's centre-left Social Democrats, because they have long opposed the use of nuclear power in Germany. A FLOOD OF WASTE Although they do not dispute the need to bring the waste back to Germany, the Greens from the state of Lower Saxony - where the waste is destined and where Trittin was once a minister - fear the renewed shipments could open up a flood of nuclear waste traffic. The Greens' leaders have accepted the resumption of the shipments as an unavoidable part of the government's plan to phase out atomic energy by the mid-2020s and Trittin believes protesting against them can only hurt the party's image ahead of regional elections in March. "It's a personal decision to protest and the regional chapters can protest against whatever they choose. However, we just want them to consider if demonstrating against this is the image we want the public to see," said Trittin. Heidi Tischmann, head of the Greens in Lower Saxony, criticised Trittin for his stand against the demonstrations, claiming in an interview with Berlin-based InfoRadio that "there were still plenty of reasons to protest against nuclear energy." The more pragmatic Greens leadership has repeatedly clashed with the more radical elements of the party's base since coming to power with Schroeder's Social Democrats in 1998. In addition to Trittin, Green Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer has recently come under pressure for his own militant left-wing past. Trittin last week had to distance himself from a 1970s student publication which had praised the killing of a top German official by the leftist Red Army Faction terrorists and Fischer had to apologise last month after photographs resurfaced showing him beating up a policeman during a street riot in 1973. REUTERS NEWS SERVICE ***************************************************************** 17 _BNFL challenges Cogema for French nuclear contracts_ FT.com | News and Analysis | Business in Brief Article By Matthew Jones in London Published: February 6 2001 09:42GMT | Last Updated: February 6 2001 15:56GMT [sellafield bnfl graphic] British Nuclear Fuels said on Tuesday that it was in preliminary talks with Electricité de France in an attempt to win key atomic services contracts from Cogema, its French competitor. A BNFL official said EdF was considering opening all of its nuclear contracts to competition, including reprocessing of spent fuel, reactor maintenance and atomic fuel supply. "EdF has committed to opening the market. We are having ongoing discussions and are hopeful that some contracts will come out of it," he said. Cogema has been the sole supplier of reprocessing services to EdF up to now and the award of contracts would be an important commercial victory for BNFL, which suffered record losses last year. One industry analyst said: "There are only two companies that do commercial reprocessing, so if BNFL can pinch some business that would be good news for them and very bad news for Cogema." EdF is currently negotiating a reprocessing contract for post 2001 with Cogema but BNFL is hopeful of winning business for the post-2005 period. The award of French reprocessing contracts would help to secure the long-term future of BNFL's Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant at Sellafield in Cumbria, north-west England, which has been threatened by a data falsification scandal for recycled fuel last year. However, environmental groups criticised the negotiations. Shaun Burnie of Greenpeace said French nuclear waste was likely to stay in Britain for years if reprocessing contracts were signed, posing a risk to the environment. "Saving reprocessing through the dumping of French nuclear waste in the UK not a good idea - if EdF has any plans for reprocessing at Sellafield they should be consigned to the scrap heap," he said. more from FT.com Timeline: BNFL BNFL to ***************************************************************** 18 Duma to hold second nuclear fuel import hearing _ABOUT BELLONA_ _RUSSKAYA [Russian homepage] ENGLISH [English homepage] NORSK [Norsk hjemmeside] _ _The Russian State Duma will evaluate in the second reading the nuclear fuel import bills on February 22nd._ Vladislav Nikiforov, 2001-02-01 00:00 The State Duma, lower house of the Russian parliament, will consider in the second reading the bills in favour of spent nuclear fuel import and leasing on February 22nd. Russian environmental groups - Ecodefence and Socio-Ecological Union - have released an update on the situation around the nuclear spent fuel import project. Russian environmental groups and political parties are planning a mass rally on February 19th in the centre of Moscow. The rally will gather activists from across the country to protest against the plan of the Russian Ministry for Nuclear Energy, or Minatom, to import spent nuclear fuel from across the globe. The rally will demand from the Duma members to reject the bills. The activists were supported by local parliaments in the Russian regions, which sent their protests to the Duma against the bills. On January 24th, the local legislative body in Novosibirsk sent an appeal to the Duma calling for rejecting the nuclear import bills. High-level nuclear officials, among them the director of Novosibirsk nuclear fuel producing plant and the manager of the storage for nuclear fuel in Krasnoyarsk-26, participated in the session but failed to convince Novosibirsk Duma to support the import of nuclear waste. The local Duma in Ekaterinburgh, Ural region, the third largest city in Russia, will send a request to the Russian Constitutional Court to examine the new laws submitted by Minatom. All in all, 21 Russian regions out of 89 protested against the bills. Victor Mikhailov, former minister for nuclear energy in Russia, said that he was not in favour of the project. He criticised the present minister, Yevgeny Adamov, for pushing ahead the legislation allowing the import of spent nuclear fuel. Mikhailov said Russia is not prepared to manage such amount of spent fuel. Minatom’s plans suggest importation of 20,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel. On December 21, 2000 the Russian State Duma approved in the first reading bills calling for import of spent nuclear fuel. Before the bills enter force, they must be approved in the second and third readings by the Duma, then by the Federation Council, the upper chamber of the Russian parliament, and finally by the President. The bill can allow the nuclear industry of Russia to import spent nuclear fuel from other countries for reprocessing or up to 50 years of storage. Russian environmental groups assessed this initiative as an attempt to turn the country into an international nuclear dumpsite and started a nation-wide campaign to stop the project. Yabloko party, an opposition minority in the Duma dominated by Kremlin supporters, is strongly opposing the project and has joined the campaign. www.bellona.no : russia : nuclear industry : spent fuel import | Publisher: Bellona Foundation, President: Frederic Hauge Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway ***************************************************************** 19 Pebble bed partnership talks skip to a halt Solomon Makgale *February 05 2001 at 07:40PM*--> February 05 2001 at 07:40PM Johannesburg - Talks between Eskom, the power utility, and a foreign partner about acquiring a 5 percent stake in the developmental stage of the R432 million pebble bed modular reactor (PBMR) project had fallen through. This was said yesterday by Jan de Beer, the chairman of PBMR. De Beer, who is also chief executive of Eskom Enterprises, the unregulated business division of Eskom, declined to disclose the partner's name because the negotiations might resume at a later stage. Had the deal been successful, it would have increased the number of international partners in the project to three. De Beer said this left PBMR's international partners - Exelon, a US-based utility, and British Nuclear Fuel (BNFL) - with an option of increasing their stakes in the project from 10 percent to 12,5 percent and 20 percent to 22,5 percent, respectively. "Everything looks good and I am very confident that they (Exelon and BNFL) will exercise that option," he added. Exelon and BNFL were not available for comment yesterday. Eskom holds 30 percent, while the Industrial Development Corporation, the state-owned financier, has 25 percent of the project. The remaining 10 percent is reserved for an economic empowerment partner, which Eskom plans to introduce later this year. The 10 percent stake is estimated to be worth between R120 million and R130 million. De Beer said a provisional process to be followed when bringing in a black empowerment group on board had just been approved by the board of the PBMR company. He maintained there was still a very strong interest in the project internationally. The company had already received tentative orders. "In fact, with the US running short of generation capacity, were looking at accelerating the international programme," he said. "There is a very strong possibility that the first demonstration plant would be constructed outside South Africa." The PBMR project is still going through a public comments stage and is awaiting an environmental impact assessment. ***************************************************************** 20 Taiwan set to OK restart of nuclear plant project Tuesday, February 6, 2001 TAIPEI (Kyodo) Taiwan's beleaguered minority government will give in to pressure from opposition parties and temporarily resume construction of a controversial nuclear power plant, various sources said Monday. Prime Minister Chang Chun-hsiung was to announce the decision, which is hoped to end the standoff with the opposition-controlled legislature, later Monday, local media reported. However, it appears that the fate of the island's fourth nuclear power plant, which is already one-third complete, is far from decided and that the 2,700-megawatt plant could still be abandoned or be completed but not used. Under a compromise proposal favored by President Chen Shui-bian, the government would execute this year's budget for the project, which was passed by the legislature during the previous Nationalist Party government. But it would put off passing a required followup budget for the plant until after the yearend general election, said officials with an alliance of antinuclear groups, which have been fighting the $6 billion project for two decades. At the same time, the government is seeking the opposition's support for its long-term goal of making Taiwan nuclear-free. Attention is now focusing on whether the opposition parties will go along with the compromise. Parliamentary Speaker Wang Jin-pyng was expected to make a formal response later Monday. Chou Po-lun, spokesman for the legislative caucus of the governing party, the Democratic Progressive Party, said the lawmakers would accept the temporary resumption of construction work for the sake of political stability and economic prosperity. "Whether or not to continue construction after the elections is another thing," Chou said, while vowing to work for an "antinuclear ruling majority" in Parliament. Recent opinion polls suggest that the Nationalists, who hold a slim parliamentary majority, could emerge from the election as only the third-largest political party, behind the DPP and the People First Party of Nationalist renegade James Soong. The Presidential Office scrambled over the weekend to win support from former DPP Chairman Lin I-hsiung, who is opposed to building the plant, and DPP factions advocating a hardline approach in line with the party's antinuclear platform. The president, who earlier offered to mediate between the Cabinet and the opposition parties, is reportedly pushing for a quick decision for fear that the stock market, which has somewhat recovered from last year's tailspin, could plunge again if the nuclear controversy is not put to rest. _The Japan Times: Feb. 6, 2001_ ***************************************************************** 21 State Orders Study of Fire Radiation _February 5, 2001 _State Orders Study of Fire Radiation Risk_ *The Associated Press* LOS ALAMOS — Although Los Alamos National Laboratory officials insisted last summer that airborne radiation from the Cerro Grande Fire emanated from natural sources and posed no significant health risk, the state Environment Department is taking another look. The state agency announced Monday that it has hired a company to perform an independent assessment of risks to the public from exposure to radiation and chemicals that may have been released by the fire that ravaged areas of Los Alamos and the surrounding forest. The prescribed fire that was started in May at Bandelier National Monument raged out of control, charring more than 47,000 acres in and around Los Alamos, including about 9,000 acres of laboratory property. Flames burned across several lab sites known to contain hazardous or radioactive contamination. "Based on current analyses, we believe that none of our neighbors or others who were in the path of the smoke were exposed to any significant additional health risk from laboratory contaminants as a result of the fire," Denny Erickson, director of the lab's Environment, Safety and Health Division, said in June. The Environment Department issued a statement Monday saying it has hired Risk Assessment Corp. to conduct a study. The company had done similar analyses at the former Rocky Flats weapons plant in Colorado and a nuclear site at Hanford, Wash., the statement says. The company also has done an analysis of radiation emissions at Los Alamos National Laboratory as part of a settlement in a lawsuit brought by anti-nuclear activists, the Energy Department said. Initially, lab officials said last year that monitoring data showed radiation normally emitted by burning vegetation measured two to 10 times above pre-fire measurements. The lab acknowledged in June that subsequent measurements were 10 to 20 times above background levels but still from natural sources in the vegetation, principally from the decay of natural radon. "We fully appreciate that people were concerned about the possibility of laboratory-derived pollutants in smoke released by the Cerro Grande Fire," Erickson said. The Environment Department statement also acknowledged those concerns Monday and said there would be opportunities for public participation throughout the assessment, with the first public meeting planned for late March. The state awarded the contract to Risk Assessment Corp. on Jan. 26, the agency said. The U.S. Energy Department gave the state Environment Department and an interagency task force $500,000 to commission the independent risk assessment. The Environment Department statement says Risk Assessment Corp. "will assess risks to the public, emergency response personnel and firefighters from exposure to radionuclides and chemicals transported by air and surface water. The contractor will also summarize lessons learned from the fire regarding monitoring and public information efforts." Last June, Erickson said air-monitoring data during the height of the fire between May 11 and May 14 showed spikes in alpha radiation particles of 10 to 20 times compared with pre-fire periods. The data also showed increases of two to four times in beta radiation. Alpha, beta and gamma are types of radiation that can be emitted by either natural or man-made sources. Alpha is the least dangerous, gamma the most The lab said researchers found nothing in the gamma-radiation analysis to suggest "anything other than natural sources" and that uranium detected in samples appeared to be "from naturally occurring sources." Detection of nonradioactive heavy metals suspended in the smoke was at levels that "would not create any adverse effects on public health," the lab said. Copyright Albuquerque Journal ***************************************************************** 22 3rd full-fledged delivery of spent fuel arrives in Rokkasho _ _ROKKASHO, Japan Feb. 6 Kyodo - _A ship carrying about 31 tons of spent nuclear fuel from plants in Shizuoka and Fukushima prefectures docked Tuesday at a port in Rokkasho, Aomori Prefecture, becoming the third full-fledged delivery in such transportation operations. The shipment aboard the 4,913-ton Rokuei Maru to arrive in Mutsu-Ogawara port comprises about 20 tons of fuel from Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima No. 2 plant and some 11 tons it picked up last week from Chubu Electric Power Co.'s Hamaoka plant in Shizuoka Prefecture. It is so far the largest to be transported in five containers to the northeastern Japanese village of Rokkasho, the site of Japan's first full-scale plant to reprocess nuclear waste. Operations to carry them to the plant, under construction, will take two days until Wednesday. The Rokkasho plant is run by Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd. (JNFL), which is mainly backed by leading Japanese power firms. JNFL plans to receive about 97 tons of spent nuclear fuel from six power plants in the country within fiscal 2000. It has already transported twice about a total of 35 tons in January this year and December last year. Until the plant's scheduled test run in July 2004, it plans to receive about 360 tons of spent nuclear fuel. JNFL also plans to receive an estimated 1,600 tons for the actual run the next year. The facility is set to start reprocessing in July 2005. 2000 Kyodo News (c) Established 1945. All Rights Reserved ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 R. Cathey Daniels -- Real issue: Is DOE inclusive of its public? Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 12:11 p.m. on Tuesday, February 6, 2001 2 Cents Worth _R. Cathey Daniels_ R. Cathey Daniels -- Real issue: Is DOE inclusive of its public? __ There were the suits. And there were the flannel shirts, too, complete with endangered species lapel pins attached. There was the seemingly endless parade of business officials given first-strike advantage at the speaker's podium. And there was the long line of "unofficials" waiting their turn for the microphone. Where are we? You guessed it -- another Department of Energy public meeting, Tuesday a week ago, this time to discuss land use on the Oak Ridge Reservation. Attendance: about 200. Line in the sand drawn over: Whether to develop or conserve parcels of the Oak Ridge Reservation. Real issue: Is DOE inclusive of its public? Sticking point in which there is a chance DOE could be sued: Should the long-range plan for the reservation include an environmental impact statement -- and should impacts be determined prior to cranking up the bulldozers? What we talked about instead: Well, there was much canned rhetoric and business jargon. Followed by great wonderment: What the heck is a land product? (Best guess: Earth that can be exchanged for dollars.) There were honest admissions: "I have been confused myself about this process," from Leah Dever, Oak Ridge Operations manager, breathing what City Council member Pat Rush correctly called a "breath of fresh air" onto the proceedings. There were odd juxtapositions: "We believe a reservation-wide environmental impact statement (EIS) is not appropriate ... ," from a former head of the environmental impact statement division for Oak Ridge National Laboratory, now turned Chamber of Commerce representative. There was the blue-shaded section of the DOE map defining the Oak Ridge Reservation land slated for development. There was the citizen who noted that the DOE map placed his street and his neighbors on the reservation. And yes, there was eye-rolling when the business suits proselytized; there were smug nods and winks when the flannel shirts grew sincere. Missing was: A connection across the aisle. Light bulb: Developers don't understand why giving away the reservation piecemeal is not a good idea -- it's only a measly 2,000 acres out of a vast 34,000-acre tract, for gosh sakes. Light bulb: Conservationists don't understand why more land is needed for housing -- Oak Ridge real estate is sluggish and people are leaving town, for gosh sakes. Obviously, we need to understand each other. We didn't get around to that. Still, Clever Dever (that rhymes) (could be sum total of what I learned at the meeting) made two important decrees. Music to developers' ears: that she would sign the environmental assessment for the DOE flood plain, allowing a large development to proceed on the west end of Oak Ridge. Music to conservationists' ears: that she would "pause" on the Parcel ED-3 giveaway while a "ten-year vision" was set. She's already made good on the first promise. As to the second, conservationists and developers alike are speculating on the definition of the word "pause." For a DOE public meeting, we'll have to call that progress. But for a city -- for the citizens' ability to communicate and work together -- we should expect much, much more. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *R. Cathey Daniels writes a weekly column for The Oak Ridger. You may send e-mail to her at: danielsrcd@aol.com.* ***************************************************************** 2 New England EPA to study Nuclear Metals Contamination sites Pollution Online News for pollution control professionals -->2/5/2001 EPA New England recently announced that it will undertake a limited study (called a Preliminary Assessment/Site Investigation or PA/SI) of two areas suspected of having buried drums at the Nuclear Metals Inc. site in Concord, MA. Since 1972 the site has been owned and operated by Starmet (formerly known as Nuclear Metals, Inc.). EPA New England, through its contractor Roy F. Weston, Assoc., will conduct an investigation of two areas on the Starmet property where Starmet had indicated barrels may have been buried decades earlier. One area abuts the holding basin and the other area is the site of a former landfill adjacent to the sphagnum bog. In November 2000, Starmet performed a magnetometer study to detect metal objects below the surface of the soil in the holding basin area. EPA will conduct a more complete geophysical study of both areas and will also use ground penetrating radar technology to locate buried drums. Soil in both areas will be sampled for metals and radionuclides, including beryllium, uranium, and plutonium. This data will ensure that the soil will be handled properly while ensuring the safety of work crews, Starmet employees, and neighbors. If barrels are located, EPA will then sample soils in the areas being unearthed and sample the contents of the barrels. Based on what is found, EPA will determine next steps to be taken. "A radiation survey was conducted and there were no unsafe levels of radiation coming from the areas where we may be digging, " said Tom Hatzopolous, EPA's on-scene coordinator. "We plan on conducting continuous radiation surveys as we work and will be taking every precaution since Starmet is an operating facility and we do not want to expose anyone to radiation." "A lot of work has already been conducted -- particularly in the holding basin -- at the site," said Ira Leighton, EPA New England acting regional administrator. "The Massachusetts departments of Environmental Protection and Public Health have been working with the company to identify and remove significant amounts of contaminated soil in this known area of contamination. We plan on keeping progress moving and will identify other potential areas where immediate cleanup work should be performed." Work is expected to begin by early February. The Nuclear Metals Inc. Site was proposed for listing on the National Priority List (NPL) in July 2000. It was followed by a 60 day comment period that ended in late September. EPA is reviewing and responding to the comments received. EPA's decision on whether to list the site is expected this spring. Nuclear Metals Inc located on 46.5 acres in West Concord, MA, was a research and manufacturing facility contracted by the U.S. Army to produce penetrators, or bullets, using depleted uranium. It ceased manufacturing penetrators for the military in 1999. *Source: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency* --> www.pollutiononline.com ***************************************************************** 3 DOE's Beryllium investigation by researcher MySanAntonio: Express-News: Roddy Stinson The Beryllium Room mystery and side trails emanating from it continue to fascinate, trouble and bedevil this amateur gumshoe. New information about the room was obtained from Kelly AFB officials last week. But as so often the case, the answers given in response to questions raised by the Express-News didn't lead to satisfying conclusions. The mystery began earlier this month when the U.S. Department of Energy released a list of "facilities that handled beryllium or radioactive materials for the government during the Cold War." Kelly, which was never under the management or control of the DOE, wasn't on the list. But a reference to "the deadly metal beryllium" in an AP report of the DOE's action prompted former Kelly workers to: — Recall the existence of a "Beryllium Room" in Building 1420. — Report that for decades the room was used for mixing "Compound O," which contained depleted uranium and methylethylketone, but no beryllium. So why was it called the "Beryllium Room"? "'The room was once used for the machining of hatch covers made of beryllium," Kelly officials said Friday in a two-page "Point Paper on Beryllium Metal Working at Kelly AFB." "These were hatch covers for ... re-entry vehicles used for ICBMs between 1965 and 1969. The machining involved drilling two holes that were approximately 1/10 inch in diameter in each cover. "Workplace air samples taken in 1966 indicated that levels of airborne beryllium particles were well below current-day OSHA Threshold Level Values (TLVs). "Military health officials established more rigorous safety procedures that were implemented in autumn 1966." Other significant information in the "Point Paper": + Safety procedures for Kelly's beryllium workers included "wearing protective clothing and equipment" and "laundering work clothing in a dedicated washing machine located in the locker room ... workers took showers in this locker room prior to donning street clothes." + Beryllium Room employees received medical exams "in autumn 1966." + Beryllium Room air was tested on 16 occasions between October 1966 and April 1968. ("All air sample results were well below current OSHA TLVs.") + The use of beryllium in the Beryllium Room was discontinued in 1969. ("Records indicate that the room and its exhaust system were used for mixing Compound O starting around 1972.") + Beryllium was used in buildings other than 1420. In 324 and 303, a copper/beryllium alloy was used in the manufacture of bushings for aircraft. This work was done "on a non-routine basis" from 1969 until 1990. Between 1971 and 1998, in the landing gear shop in Building 375, employees worked on brake assemblies that contained beryllium parts. ("Six workplace air samples were taken, and all results were well below current OSHA TLVs.") Kelly officials provided neither lab reports nor other documents to verify their assurances. So when information obtained from other sources casts doubt on the Kelly position, it's hard to know what to believe. Consider, for instance, this paragraph from a recent article, "A Cure for the Common Cold Warrior," by Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist Eileen Welsome: "In 1949, the Atomic Energy Commission decreed that no worker could be exposed to more than 2 micrograms of beryllium per cubic meter of air. But James Heckbert, an attorney who represents former beryllium workers at Rocky Flats (a nuclear weapons plant in Colorado) says the standard was pulled out of thin air by two officials riding in a taxicab." Heckbert's glib contention seems to be supported by these excerpts from a Dec. 16, 2000, AP report, "Beryllium found in workers' cars, homes": — "Ohio Citizen Action said that while there are safety standards for (beryllium) found in the air, there are none for beryllium found in dust form. 'Anything over zero is a potential health risk,' said (an OCA program director)." — "The U.S. Department of Energy has a standard of 2 micrograms of beryllium per cubic meter of air. The department has admitted, however, that it wasn't sure exactly what level is safe." Adding to the questions raised by those statements ... Last week, a former Kelly machinist, who worked in Building 360 (not mentioned in the Point Paper), called to report: "I was once asked to machine some kind of groove on a beryllium part, and I told my supervisor, 'You have no way to filter the air. This is a deadly material.' "He then asked the guy who worked next to me to machine the part, and he did it. "Shortly after, that guy got real sick, and he eventually had to take medical retirement because of some problem with his lungs. "A year or two later, he died." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *To leave a message for Roddy Stinson, call 250-3155, or e-mail rstinson@express-news.net.* 01/27/2001 Portions © 2000 KENS 5 and the San Antonio Express-News. © 2000 MyWay. All ***************************************************************** 4 Correction on Kelly AFB Beryllium exposure story MySanAntonio: Express-News: Roddy Stinson I need to correct two pieces of bad information printed in recent columns about environmental/health hazards at Kelly AFB. + A Jan. 13 column, "Who was exposed to 'deadly metal'?" included this sentence from a report of a 1999 congressional hearing on beryllium workers: *"Beryllium is a radioactive element that is used to harden other metals." *Several readers, including a chemistry professor, wrote or called to say: "The statement from the congressional hearing is either incorrect or refers only to certain isotopes of beryllium. While beryllium is highly toxic, it is not radioactive." To emphasize the point about toxicity, the professor referred me to a Web address for a May 9, 1999, article in the Daily (Tucson) Arizona Star. The news report — "Protection didn't work: So 25 workers poisoned by beryllium now risk death" — described the health problems of employees at a private company that used beryllium in its electronic-parts-manufacturing operation. Some of the worrisome information in the article: — "Beryllium is not known to be dangerous in finished products. But when workers grind or cut the metal, they create a fine dust that can be toxic when inhaled." — "(In one case in Ohio) a 25-year-old woman shriveled to 85 pounds and died after getting the disease by shaking out and hand-scrubbing her husband's dust-covered factory clothes." — "(The government standard) says workers can't be exposed to an average of more than two micrograms per cubic meter of air over eight hours. That amount is shockingly small: Imagine a lead pencil tip dispersed throughout an area the size of a football field, 6 feet high." "... a Yale Medical School study determined that some workers fell ill at levels below the standard." + A Jan. 23 column about activities in Kelly Building 1420's "Beryllium Room" included this statement: *"The process of making Compound O involved mixing depleted uranium oxide and methylethylketone (MEK)." *The retired Kelly chemist I interviewed about the Beryllium Room contacted me to say: "Compound O was a mixture of depleted uranium oxide and a nontoxic sealant. MEK was used as a cleaning agent in the room." Another reader, a local civilian aircraft mechanic, asked me to use the discussion of methylethylketone as an opportunity to "protect local aircraft workers from harm." "Every place I've worked has treated MEK as an all-purpose cleaning solvent and paint remover as though it was no more harmful than water," he said. "Many times I've seen workers, who had no protective equipment or clothing, covered in MEK, and afterward they complained about numbness in their arms, headaches, etc. "Employers do not stress the danger of this chemical." For the mechanic and other aircraft workers (and their bosses), I will repeat what I discovered in my research: MEK is nasty stuff. Chronic inhalation can cause chemical pneumonia, pulmonary edema and numbness in the extremities as well as central nervous system problems characterized by headache, dizziness, unconsciousness and coma. + One more bit of information about the Beryllium Room: A former Building 1420 maintenance supervisor called to say that no air from the room spread into the rest of the building. ("It had its own ventilation system.") "We had to clean the system periodically," he said, "and it was so 'hot' (radioactive) that we had to call in a special team to do the job." + A recent question here about the extent that Kelly workers were exposed to the toxic metal cadmium prompted a former plating shop worker to recall how workers were exposed to cadmium and chromium particles: "Building 259 was the primary chrome-plating shop. Building 258 was used for a variety of processes, including cadmium plating. "The plating shops were very small and quite old, and during the Vietnam conflict they were operating seven days a week around the clock. ... There was no waste treatment system back then, and thousands of barrels of waste were discharged into Leon Creek." + Which brings me to this AP report out of Bell Gardens, Calif.: "Families of eight cancer victims, including three who died, have settled a contamination lawsuit against a chromium plating company next door to two Bell Garden schools. "Twenty-two cancer cases have occurred among students, teachers and residents near the schools. ... "A school sandbox adjacent to the plant and air vents at the school contained traces of cancer-causing lead and hexavalent chromium." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *To leave a message for Roddy Stinson, call 250-3155 or e-mail rstinson@express-news.net. * 01/29/2001 Portions © 2000 KENS 5 and the San Antonio Express-News. © 2000 MyWay. All ***************************************************************** 5 War crimes of the West [Frontline] _Volume 18 - Issue 03, Feb. 03 - 16, 2001_ India's National Magazine on indiaserver.com from the publishers of THE HINDU _Depleted uranium weapons used in the West-sponsored wars in the Gulf and the Balkans have posed serious health hazards to soldiers and civilians, but the Western powers involved show no remorse._ _JOHN CHERIAN_ THE West has finally been forced to react to the trail of devastation left by the depleted uranium (D.U.) weapons it deployed in the wars in the Gulf and the Balkans. But it is not the suffering of poor Iraqi civilians who forced the North Atlantic Trea ty Organisation (NATO) to react; it was the complaints of many European governments that made the United States and NATO to set up a crisis centre to exchange information on health risks that result from D.U. munitions. Last year, Italy started an inquir y into the mysterious illness of 30 of its Balkan war veterans. Seven Italian soldiers have already died of cancer, five of them from leukaemia. French and Portuguese peacekeepers in the Balkans have also been diagnosed with cancer. Italy has now formall y asked for a ban on D.U. munitions. NATO/AP _Delegations from member-countries at a discussion on depleted uranium at NATO headquarters in Brussels on January 10._ Backing the Italian position, German Chancellor Gerard Schroeder said that it was not "right" to use such munitions. All the "facts must be laid on the table", he said. Norwegian soldiers are refusing to sign contracts to go to the Balkans for peacekeepi ng duties; they demand clarifications about the risks posed by D.U. weapons. A group of Belgian soldiers have sued their government for the health problems caused to them by service in the Balkans. Five Belgian soldiers who served in Bosnia and Croatia d ied of cancer. The President of the European Union (E.U.), Romano Prodi, recently admitted that the NATO-ignited war in the Balkans had "created a horrible environmental problem that is for us to take care of". Prodi called for a ban on such weapons "even if there is m inimal risk". The European Parliament voted on January 17 for a temporary ban on D.U. weaponry. Last year, Finland's Environment Minister Sattu Hassi had appealed to his E.U. counterparts for a ban on D.U. weaponry, which "contaminates by its dust the lo calities where it is used and threatens both soldiers and civilians". Less than a month after the war in Yugoslavia ended in 1999, the British National Radiological Protection Board warned British citizens about the dangers from staying in Kosovo because of the contamination of its territories by D.U. weapons. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have already fallen victim to the deadly effects of D.U. weapons employed in the Gulf war. Many American and British veterans of the Gulf war also developed symptoms that were euphemistically called the "Gulf war syndrome" . It manifested itself in many ways, ranging from memory loss to various forms of cancers. Children of many Gulf war veterans were born without limbs and with other birth defects. ENRIC MARTI/AP _An eight-year-old Iraqi boy, who was born blind and suffers from brain tumour and abdominal cancer, at a shop near the Ibn-Gazwan children's hospital in Basra._ Thousands of people in Iraq have the same symptoms too. The incidence of cancer has increased rapidly and at abnormal rates. Leukaemia in children is especially rampant: it has shown a four-fold rise after the Gulf war. The incidence of breast cancer amo ng women below 30 is around four times higher than it was before 1990. Abnormal births have drastically increased since the war. The Pentagon, despite mounting evidence to the contrary, continues to insist that D.U. is only "very, very mildly radioactive" and that the shells are not radioactive enough to be classified as a "radiological weapon". It has argued that tank crews firin g rounds of depleted uranium shells received little radiation, the equivalent of one chest X-ray a day. It is common knowledge that even mild radiation is dangerous and increases the risk of cancer. The health risk becomes greater after the shells are fi red because broken shells emit uranium particles. The particles can enter the body easily and deposit themselves on bones, organs and cells. The shell, developed by the Pentagon in the late 1970s, is a radioactive byproduct of the enrichment process used to make atomic bombs and nuclear fuel rods. The material is provided free of cost to weapons manufacturers by the nuclear arms industry. A c onfidential report by the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, prepared in 1991, described the presence of D.U. in Iraq and Kuwait as a "significant problem". The report concluded that there was enough uranium there to cause "tens of thousands of pote ntial deaths". ENRIC MARTI/AP _A four-year-old Iraqi girl with tumour in the eye._ It was during the Gulf war that tank armour and armour-piercing rounds made of depleted uranium were used in a big way. The weapons proved to be very effective against Iraqi targets. The Tomahawk missiles, which were launched from the very first day of O peration Desert Storm, were tipped with D.U. The U.S. Army reports that a total of 14,000 D.U. tank rounds were used during the course of the Gulf war, while 7,000 rounds were fired during training in the sands of Saudi Arabia. There are indications that the U.S. military establishment had some clues about the lethal nature of D.U. A U.S. Navy instruction manual notes that teams involved in recovering Tomahawk cruise missiles during test rounds must have radiological protection clothing, gloves, respirators and dosimeters. Some 300 tonnes of uranium from spent rounds lies scattered across the battlefields of Iraq and Kuwait. When a D.U. projectile strikes a hard surface, around 70 per cent of the tip is oxidised and gets scattered as small particles. The U.S. Army Armaments, Munitions and Chemical Command (AMCCOM) states: "When a D.U. penetrator impacts a target surface, a l arge portion of the kinetic energy is dissipated as heat. The heat of the impact causes the D.U. to oxidise or burn momentararily. This results in smoke which contains a high concentration of D.U. particles. These uranium particles can be ingested or inh aled and are toxic." A leading American military contractor, Science Application International Corporation, had warned AMMCOM before the Gulf war that "combat conditions will lead to the uncontrolled release of D.U.-aerosol. D.U. exposures to soldiers on the battlefield could be significant with potential radiological and toxicological effects." SAVA RADOVANOVIC/AP _Bosnian Serb children under treatment for respiratory ailments share a hospital bed._ There were reports in the mid-1990s that the toxic effects of D.U. had become evident in the Balkans. In 1996, there were newspaper reports that around a thousand children in Bosnia were suffering from an unknown disease which caused headaches, muscle pa in, abdominal pain, dizziness, respiratory pains and other problems. Similar symptoms were reported in the so-called Gulf war syndrome. In the mid-1990s U.S. combat aircraft used limited amounts of D.U. ammunition against former Yugoslavia. In the war ov er Kosovo in 1999, NATO resorted to saturation bombing of Yugoslavia using D.U. weapons, despite documented evidence of the extremely harmful effects of D.U. piling up in the Gulf region. NATO soldiers were not given any warning about the deadly nature o f the munitions they were using. Bernard Kouchener, the U.N. Administrator of Kosovo and a former head of the humanitarian agency Medecins sans Frontieres, also brought up the issue of the dangers that D.U. posed to the regions. More than 100 places in Kosovo itself have been affected. But NATO, which has now been forced to address the issue, seems worried only about the health of its soldiers stationed in the region and not about the local people. It has issued circulars warning about the lingering "heavy metal toxicity" in armour str uck by D.U. bombs in Kosovo. Only in the second week of January, were signs put up by the U.N. and NATO warning civilians to exercise caution while approaching areas in Kosovo where D.U. was dropped. NATO troops stationed in the Balkans have now been advised to use heavy protection gear while approaching armour struck by D.U.-tipped weapons. Two years since the war against Yugoslavia, the World-Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has found dangerous levels of toxins at the ground level in Kosovo and Serbia. The former government in Yugoslav ia had characterised the NATO war as "ecocide" against the people of the region. NATO has admitted to dropping 12 tonnes of D.U. in Kosovo alone. In all, an estimated 31,000 D.U. shells with a total weight of over 10 tonnes were dropped over Yugoslavia. JOE KLAMAR/REUTERS _In Slovakia's main military hospital, a Slovak soldier who served in Yugoslavia undergoes tests as part of a medical evaluation programme for possible health damage caused by depleted uranium weapons used during the 1999 NATO offensive in Yugoslavia. The newly elected President of Yugoslavia, Vojislav Kostunica, has characterised the use of D.U. weapons as a crime against humanity. He wants the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague to look expeditiously into the matter and apportion blame. T o show his displeasure with the War Crimes Tribunal, he refused recently to meet its chief prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, whose only agenda seems to be to get former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic extradited to The Hague to stand trial for "war crim es". Kostunica has called the War Crimes Tribunal a tool of U.S. foreign policy. The Pentagon, the E.U. and the U.N. have all set up commissions to investigate the risk posed by D.U. but efforts are on to whitewash the investigations. Scientists close to the Pentagon have rushed to judgment saying that it is biologically impossible for D.U. to cause leukaemia. Physicist Frank von Hippel, professor at Stanford University is one prominent academic who has joined the campaign to give D.U . a clean chit. The outgoing U.S. Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, even advised the Europeans to not become "excessively nervous and hysterical" about D.U. After what happened during the Gulf war, countries like Russia had repeatedly warned NATO about the dangers of using D.U. Boris Alexeyev, head of Russia's environmental department in the Defence Ministry, said that following the Desert Storm, the inciden ce of cancer among the people of Iraq had increased almost five-fold. He said that it was a well-known fact but the West did not care. The West woke up only after its own soldiers started dying. By using D.U. ammunition, NATO has wilfully violated the ag reements on radiation security, he said. Copyrights © 2001, Frontline & indiaserver.com, Inc. Copyright © 2001, indiaserver.com, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. ***************************************************************** 6 Sequels of War __February 4, 2001 Sequels of War *Persian Gulf veterans are feeling sick in ways hard to define.* + First Chapter: 'The Irritable Heart' By BERYL LIEFF BENDERLY The Medical Mystery of the Gulf War. _By Jeff Wheelwright. 427 pp. New York: W. W. Norton &Company. $26.95. [T] hough the war in Kuwait ranks among the shorter of America's military ventures, it produced a conflict that has already gone on more than 10 times as long as Desert Shield and Desert Storm combined. The medical and political tangle is now entering its second contentious decade, with veterans and researchers at loggerheads over the nature and source of mysterious illnesses that have plagued thousands who served in the gulf. In an effort to clarify the science and history, Jeff Wheelwright now offers a book in some ways as perplexing as gulf war syndrome itself. The desert campaign was a war of contradictions. Astoundingly brief, staggeringly successful, dazzlingly high-tech, it nonetheless threatened to expose American and allied forces to primeval perils. Our smart missiles virtually stopped for traffic lights, our bombers could disappear from radar, but our ground troops faced an enemy apparently poised to unleash pestilence, poison and flame. Soldiers went about enveloped in both stifling protective suits and apocalyptic predictions. The Pentagon prepared body bags by the thousands while the troops took pills and injections that purported to protect them from invisible chemical and biological attack. In ''The Irritable Heart,'' Wheelwright powerfully conveys the menace of that bizarre battle zone. He was there as a journalist when Saddam Hussein turned Kuwait's oil wells and pipelines into weapons. He saw the hellish fields of flaming towers under banks of inky clouds. He inhaled the gritty, acrid air. He walked the beaches black and sodden with petroleum, heard the heavy plopping of the greasy surf, watched the doomed shorebirds floundering toward their deaths. He helps us feel the soldiers' fears of what might have been happening to their bodies. But the chemical, biological and ecological Armageddon never came, at least so far as Americans could discern, and the allied armies returned home in triumph. Soon, however, veterans began complaining of joint and muscle pain, headaches, dizziness, memory loss, insomnia, diarrhea, fatigue and difficult breathing. And soon after that the wrangling began. Weak and hurting, many veterans surmised that something encountered in the blasted landscape was now making them ill. But instead of being fairly promptly identified as a specific disease or reactions to a particular exposure, their disorders defeated science's standard methods of establishing the identity and etiology of illnesses. Competing theories emerged, including mysterious biological contagions and exposures to smoke, oil, depleted uranium or Iraqi nerve gas. No theory won a widespread medical consensus. Some people began to seek the culprit not in a specific physical insult but in the emotional stress of the desert war. Many suffering veterans, however, rejected any explanation not tied to Arabian exposures. Their nation, they insisted, owed them an explanation, compensation and a cure. Struggling with inconclusive science and aggrieved patients, federal bureaucracies proved neither agile nor sensitive. As conflicting studies multiplied and veterans' groups fixed on particular hypotheses, the debate became increasingly politicized. Charges of deceit and cover-up only added to the acrimony. As Wheelwright astutely observes, the answer probably lies not in one or another of the warring theories but in the realm that stretches between them, in the still largely uncharted borderland where the brain, the emotions, the immune system and the endocrine system intersect. In recent years several similar conditions have emerged from that same terrain. Fibromyalgia, multiple chemical sensitivity and chronic fatigue syndrome all involve clusters of diffuse but sometimes disabling symptoms that overlap with gulf war syndrome. These disorders also have defeated scientific attempts to identify definite organic causes. They too appear to involve not a specific bodily insult but a cascade of interrelated reactions. That such a condition should emerge from Desert Shield and Storm ought to be no surprise, Wheelwright notes. As far back as the Civil War, veterans have contracted mysterious, previously unknown ailments that in many ways resembled the symptoms that came home from the gulf. Each also afflicted large numbers. None yielded a clear-cut organic cause. Wheelwright came to his subtle and sophisticated conclusion through a great deal of highly intelligent research. But in writing a book to explain it, he seems to have fallen into the very trap of a forced choice between ''opposing frameworks'' that he spends hundreds of pages deploring. ''Basically there are two approaches to writing about a public health mystery: the personal and the scientific,'' he begins. ''The personal approach cultivates the narrative. . . . The scientific approach prunes the individual from the story and replaces him or her with medical analysis of the group.'' But the best medical writers recognize no such dichotomy. In the hands of the great epidemiologic explicators -- Berton Roueché, to cite just one -- suffering and science are aspects of the common humanity binding the sick and those struggling to help them. But having laid out this supposed conflict, Wheelwright proceeds to ''reconcile'' it by focusing his story on neither the patients nor the researchers but, astonishingly and self-indulgently, on himself. And then, perhaps to humanize material he considers forbidding, he adopts an irritatingly discursive tone. The reader has to tag along on countless interviews and hospital visits, listen to speculations about Wheelwright's own health and personal life, even watch him worry about his deadlines. The author intrudes everywhere. Introducing a Senate aide who played a crucial role in developing the chemical hypothesis, for example, Wheelwright informs us that, ''like me, Tuite was the oldest of six children. . . . He and I were given the names of our fathers and grandfathers, though I no longer used III after mine.'' It's a shame that Wheelwright made the editorial choices he did. Scattered among the rambling, chatty accounts of his encounters with five sick veterans, the doctors treating them and a variety of researchers and experts are many illuminating ideas and much judiciously gathered information. In extensive source notes he provides crisp, focused discussions of issues that elsewhere appear fuzzy and diffuse. The writer who composed those notes, alas, could have produced a far clearer, more illuminating and altogether better book than this one. *Beryl Lieff Benderly, the author of numerous books, serves on the board of the National Association of Science Writers.* _Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company_ ***************************************************************** 7 Forces fight to debunk health fears National - Ottawa Citizen Online Monday 5 February 2001 Computer analysis to assess Gulf, Balkan syndrome claims _Mike Blanchfield_ The Ottawa Citizen The Armed Forces is using Statistics Canada's formidable computer databases to attempt a sweeping analysis of the health of its soldiers. The military hopes the findings will allow it to dismiss, once and for all, what it considers to be a false perception that large numbers have been mysteriously afflicted with the Gulf War or Balkan syndromes. The project became a priority two weeks ago, partly in response to the growing clamour in Europe over whether NATO peacekeepers are dying of cancer in unusually high numbers from exposure to depleted uranium. The Canadian Forces had already begun to track the health of personnel who participated in the Gulf War 10 years ago. Senior military medical officials hope that if the project is successful, it will give them the tools to respond quickly when concerns arise about other mysterious battlefield ailments, whether they stem from service in the Gulf, the Balkans or any other theatre of operation. "With the huge amount of media attention that's been paid to this for the last 10 years, this has become a significant health-care issue for us to address as a military health-care service," Col. Scott Cameron, the Canadian Forces surgeon general, told the Citizen in an exclusive interview. Col. Cameron, the Forces' senior medical officer, recently attended a meeting of his 18 North Atlantic Treaty Organization counterparts in Brussels, to compare notes on the depleted uranium controversy, which flared in several alliance countries last month after reports that 20 soldiers from various European nations had succumbed to leukemia after postings to the Balkans. Depleted uranium is a radioactive substance used in the tips of anti-tank missiles fired in the Balkans in the 1990s, and in the 1991 Gulf War. The meeting resulted in NATO's top medical committee issuing a statement Jan. 16 that emphasized the lack of a scientific link between exposure to depleted uranium and cancer. However, the NATO medical officers pledged to return to their respective countries to study the issue further because of the concerns raised by some governments and soldiers. The Statistics Canada studies will eventually provide a definitive answer to whether the rates of cancer among Canadian personnel sent to the Gulf and the Balkans is any higher than the accepted average in the overall population, said Col. Cameron. Within two months, computers will cross-reference the names of 4,500 Gulf personnel with two key Statistics Canada databases: one that lists all people who have died from cancer, and another that lists all those living with cancer. Within six months to a year, the Forces will feed thousands of names of peacekeepers deployed to the Balkans in the 1990s through those same databases. The ongoing project will enable the Forces to track the cancer rate among the thousands of soldiers sent to Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo. Col. Cameron said the Forces are compiling detailed lists of personnel sent on other foreign deployments so they can be at the ready in case future controversies flare up about the health of peacekeepers. "What every military in the western world is struggling with is: how do we quickly address these concerns when they get raised?" Col. Cameron said. "Next week, it could be a question of skin cancer in people who deployed to Africa. What you need to quickly address those (questions) is a workable database that you can then run through a computer and come back with the statistics for the specific question, quickly." Because StatsCan has one of the most extensive computer databases in the world, Col. Cameron said the Canadian statistical analysis should add significantly to the body of evidence examining whether such "syndromes" are afflicting western soldiers. "We have the advantage of having this national database which is fairly accurate, which a lot other countries do not have," he said. "Certainly the approach that Canada is taking, in particular exploiting this national database, is a significant advantage in that we'll be able to produce some information that is very reliable." Col. Cameron candidly admits that he fully expects the Canadian study to confirm what he and experts throughout NATO believe: that the cancer rate is no higher among Balkan military personnel than the general population. "If we find -- as we expect we will -- that the rates of these things are exactly the same as other groups of Canadians, then that's another piece of fact that we can bring to the table," he said. "Who knows, we might find that it's elevated. There's absolutely nothing to indicate that we will." Despite the clamour, there has been no scientific study that has categorically linked depleted uranium exposure to cancer. Indeed, many scientists, including Col. Cameron, maintain that the current controversy is the result of ill-informed politicians and news media. "There hasn't been anything really in the realm of fact or study to generate this," Col. Cameron said. "They're sensational, they're interesting, and they get a lot of ink in the papers, but what I have not seen in all of the storm is any new information that would lead us to change our approach to this." One scientist Col. Cameron took to task was Asaf Durakovic, who is currently researching Gulf War syndrome in Toronto. The former head of nuclear medicine at a U.S. veterans hospital says he has turned up traces of a radioactive uranium isotope in the bodies of dozens of British, American and Canadian Gulf War veterans. His research has gained prominence in Europe because it is detailed in a newly published book, Depleted Uranium, Invisible War. Dr. Durakovic has not claimed to have found a definitive link between depleted uranium and sick soldiers, only that he has found traces of radiation in the bodies of some. "There's an overwhelming body of evidence contrary to what he is saying," Col. Cameron said. "We've asked Dr. Durakovic on several occasions, as have several other legitimate scientific bodies and militaries, to present what his methods and results are ... the whole goal of science is to put that knowledge out there, for other scientists to look at." Numerous studies have concluded there is no link between depleted uranium exposure and cancer. The U.S. National Cancer Institute, Britain's Middlesex University and U.S. consultants Rand Worldwide are among the recent institutions to author studies that discount any connection between cancer and depleted uranium. Most naysayers such as Col. Cameron point to the 15 U.S. Gulf War veterans currently under observation by a Veterans Affairs hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. The 15 vets all have depleted uranium fragments in their bodies and elevated amounts of the substance in their bodily fluids. None have developed cancer. Col. Cameron said he's against mandatory testing of Canadian soldiers for radiation exposure, something that has been conducted by some European countries. "Why would we test for something that a large body of science said is not a hazard?" he asks. However, Col. Cameron said the Forces medical establishment does not want to give the impression that it is turning its back on sick soldiers. "We urge them: If you're concerned about something, come in and see us. Let us give you the facts to the best of our ability." Sick personnel, whether or not they are currently serving, will we be referred to specialized clinics if needed. "There's not any science that supports DU (depleted uranium) as a health threat to our personnel," Col. Cameron said. "But, on the other hand, when our troops in the field raise concerns we need to react in a way that takes their concerns seriously and investigates them seriously." [UP] Copyright 2001 Ottawa Citizen Group Inc. ***************************************************************** 8 Beware the Mod Plod Guardian Government plans would let armed Ministry of Defence Police patrol the streets: A case of more spinned against than spinning _Nick Cohen_ _Sunday February 4, 2001_ _The Observer_ That perenially speculative visitor from Mars could have looked at Britain on New Year's Day 2001 and concluded that the country was enjoying a rare period of tranquillity. Crime had been falling for years. Unemployment was close to a million, a blessing those whose lives were stunted by Margaret Thatcher thought they would never witness. The supermarkets provided all varieties of bread. Television was a perpetual circus. Admittedly there were blights which appeared insoluble - global warming, astonishing inequality and Midweek with Libby Purves - but against them could be set the benefits of peace and prosperity. Britain had no external enemy who might invade her territory. The unending Irish conflict had settled into a fractious stalemate. It scarcely seemed the moment to impose military control on civilian life. Needless to add after all we've been through, New Labour is planning to do just that. The Armed Forces Bill currently gliding through Parliament modestly proposes that the 3,500 officers in the Ministry of Defence Police - Mod Plod to its many detractors - should be free to search and arrest any citizen, and to break whatever strikes, fuel protests and anti-nuclear demonstrations upset Ministers. The Government can be confident that a servile Parliament won't stop it, and that journalists and broadcasters who thrive on fraudulent crimes panics won't report that Mod Plod is a Napoleonic institution. While police forces are locally based and accountable, however imperfectly, to councillors and magistrates, the MoD police force is a national squad under the direct control of Whitehall. No independent inspectorate investigates complaints. Its officers are not soldiers, but they are armed and trained to deal with obedient squaddies, not the lippy public outside the barracks. At present, they can investigate only the alleged crimes of servicemen and women and defence contractors. This sensible precaution is now being dismissed as an absurd anachronism. Mervyn Dadd, the force's PR, said that if officers were driving across the Wiltshire Plain and saw a man loitering suspiciously near an empty holiday cottage, they wouldn't be able to search and arrest him for carrying house-breaking tools. Although he admitted to my colleague Martin Bright that the Ministry has not received a single protest from the public about its officers holding back when they should have intervened, his scenario isn't complete fantasy. A few years ago, MoD police stopped a driver they thought could well be drunk. Her breath was tested. She was plastered. The courts threw out the prosecution nevertheless because the Ministry cannot arrest a civilian on suspicion of committing a crime. What a nonsense. Surely giving Mod Plod the same powers as police officers would just be doing what John Humphrys instructs us to do every morning and allowing 'common sense' to prevail? The MoD's bluff reassurances cannot hide the imperatives of a mendacious regime. The barely concealed priority is to save Jack Straw's face - a worthless cause in whose name many liberties have been sacrificed. The Home Secretary, who claimed to have been shocked to the very core of his unblemished soul by Peter Mandelson's difficulties with the truth, was caught lying quite shamelessly about the number of bobbies he was putting on the beat. He needed political help. The unleashing of the Ministry of Defence force was therefore spun as a tough response to rural crime (Remember Tony Martin? How could you forget?) near bases. Nor are the cities being neglected. Soon the Government will allow the 2,500 members of the British Transport Police - another force which takes its orders from the centre - to patrol the streets. These measures may be objectionable in theory but could be presented as benign in practice. If sheep rustlers were robbing Yorkshire farmers, only purists would carp if a few officers were diverted from the Catterick Camp to help the local constabulary. Yet when the brass talk among themselves about lifting Mod Plodders from their low place in the security hierarchy - not even the BBC's cop-fixated drama department has commissioned a series about them - they reveal more alarming ambitions. In October, Walter Boreham, the outgoing Chief Constable of the MoD police, told his subordinates that Ministers had decided to give them police powers when they discovered that MoD personnel could not be set on the fuel protesters. Once the Bill was law, they would 'carry out our duty, irrespective of location, in times of emergency or where there are life-threatening incidents encountered outwith our recognised boundaries'. Times of emergency means legal strikes and legal protests which will now be curbed by an armed, military force under central control which is free to 'outwith' its barracks on the whim of Ministers. Mod Plod is getting ideas above its station, not least because many of its investigations have been sinister failures. It accused Major Milos Stankovic, who served with distinction in Bosnia, of spying, for example. He was born in Rhodesia and brought up in the West Country, but his Serb name was enough to blacken his character. The charges were dropped. General Sir Mike Jackson defended his former comrade as an officer who had 'played a blinder' in Bosnia. The General suggested the groundless accusations were inspired by 'professional jealousy'. Nigel Wylde, a former lieutenant-colonel who was decorated for bravery in Northern Ireland, was hounded for two years for a supposed breach of the Official Secrets Act. As I have mentioned before, the accusation was asinine. He had helped a journalist writing an account of military tactics in Ireland. The book - The Irish War by Tony Geraghty - was not banned and remains on sale to this day. The information on the use of electronic surveillance Wylde and Geraghty discussed was in the public domain. As Wylde was not a serving officer, his arrest by MoD police was probably illegal. For all that, the prosecution was only abandoned days before he was due to go to court after a stunned Attorney General called in the papers and ordered the MoD to back off. Wylde says that although the officers who interrogated him were pleasant enough, they 'seemed as thick as two short planks'. They are not alone. The absence of any public debate about the rise of Mod Plod shows an ignorance of the basics. Free societies rest on the principle that the military is under civilian control and, by extension, that civilians are free from military control. By this measure, and many others, we are slipping into a state which can best be defined by its incompetent authoritarianism. • Alastair Campbell was steaming. Really, really peeved. He sounded as if he wanted to smack someone as he tore into Corus - the preposterously rebranded British Steel - for refusing to talk to Tony Blair about the firing of 6,050 workers. Not that the Prime Minister was prepared to do anything substantial about the outrage - such as giving the British the protection of the EU law which requires companies to discuss closures with trade unions. A stand on principle would perturb big business. In particular, it would discomfort Rupert Murdoch and other patriotic foreigners who own much of the Press. Their hatred of organised labour is matched only by their loathing of Europe. Murdoch's support will be needed in the coming months. Still, the Government was anxious to show the heartlands that it cared deeply about their suffering, even if its actions were limited to having a bash at Sir Brian Moffat, Corus's chairman. Moffat dismissed Campbell's attacks. He told City hacks he couldn't be expected to confide in a party whose spinners leaked with abandon. One spinner was David 'don't call me Dave' Hill, who left Millbank to join the Bell Pottinger Good Relations lobbying firm for a paltry salary of £100,000. Dave's latest brief is to help Moffat and Corus deal with the media in which Campbell condemns the company. Dave's partner, Hillary Coffman, works alongside Campbell. When the election is called, Dave will rejoin the Team Labour and work alongside Campbell. We are told he will have Campbell's ear because he is 'the veteran king of spin' (the Times ) and 'the best in the business' (Charlie Whelan). Meanwhile, Dave's boss, Sir Tim Bell, who, surprisingly, is the only adviser to Margaret Thatcher to have a conviction for flashing, will tell Conservative Central Office how to fight the propaganda of his subordinate in Millbank. When the votes are counted Dave and Tim will retire to Good Relations and earn six-figure bundles by showing conglomerates how a positive gloss can be slapped on mass sackings. Campbell will, on occasion, find it politic to denounce their clients. Nothing personal, you understand, just business. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2001 ***************************************************************** 9 Berkeley Lab Poses Health Risk, Says Study/Fire could release dangerous radioactivity Charles Burress, Chronicle Staff Writer Tuesday, February 6, 2001 _Berkeley_ -- A fire at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory could release far more radioactive tritium than the lab has estimated, according to preliminary findings of an outside study sponsored by the City of Berkeley. The radiation dose from a fire to a hypothetical "female jogger" next to the lab's fence could be hundreds of times greater than the federal recommended level for a year's exposure, says the report by the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research of Heidelberg, Germany. The city released the 52-page study yesterday. The health threat posed by the increased risk, if confirmed, was not spelled out in the technical report, which urged further study of the issue. Lab spokesman Ron Kolb said that the study's analysis appeared to be flawed and that the lab stood by its findings that the risk to the public would be small "even in the worst-case scenario." Tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen used at the lab as a marker in drug research, has been a sore point for several years, particularly since the so-called National Tritium Labeling Facility sits near the popular Lawrence Hall of Science. A citizens group called the Committee to Minimize Toxic Waste has long urged government agencies to close the lab, citing tritium leaks from the lab, residue in the surrounding environment and the threat of a major accident. The federal Environmental Protection Agency and state and local regulatory bodies have all participated in monitoring and investigating the lab. None has found evidence of a significant health risk. The Berkeley City Council has twice voted in favor of shutting the facility down, largely because it is located in a fire, earthquake and landslide hazard zone near residential areas. But the council votes are not binding because the lab is owned by the federal Department of Energy and is administered by the University of California. The City Council hired an independent expert, Bernd Franke of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, to conduct a $30,000 preliminary analysis and present three reports. Yesterday's report was the second, and the third is expected sometime next year. The fire risk was only a small portion of the document released yesterday, but it seemed to be the finding most at odds with the position taken by the lab. The report did not indicate potential serious risks from the low-level leaks of tritium at the lab, but it said the lab needed better monitoring. Franke called for a more comprehensive, independent evaluation to assess actual tritium exposure and risk. Franke said preliminary analysis indicated that the lab's claims about maximum exposures "may be false." He said a jogger 41 meters -- about 123 feet --from a lab fire could get a dose between 2,900 and 18,000 millirems of tritium -- "600 to 3,700 times larger" than the dose calculated by the lab. The EPA recommends a maximum exposure of 10 millirems per year, about the same as a chest X-ray, though it allows exposures of up to 5,000 millirems for workers in nuclear power plants. The risk of getting cancer from a one-time exposure of 18,000 millirems would be about 7 in 1,000, said Mike Bandrowski, EPA radiation program manager in San Francisco. City Council member Polly Armstrong, whose district includes the lab, said she supported the tritium research but wanted it done outside "a fire zone, earthquake zone and landslide zone in a residential area." Pamela Sihvola of the Committee to Minimize Toxic Waste, said, "The catastrophic consequences are endless in this situation." Lab spokesman Kolb said the study's apparent assumptions about the concentrations of tritium that could be released and the presence of joggers next to the fence in a major fire were unfounded. *E-mail Charles Burress at cburress@sfchronicle.com.* _· _Printer-friendly version _· _Email this article to a friend ©2001 San Francisco Chronicle   Page A16 ***************************************************************** 10 Key Hanford cleanup late, short _Slow start on K Basin spent fuel assemblies raises doubts about future of riverside work _ *Tuesday, February 6, 2001* _By LINDA ASHTON_ THE ASSOCIATED PRESS YAKIMA -- The effort to move corroded nuclear fuel from old, leaky storage pools has fallen behind schedule and is running short of money, threatening an accelerated cleanup plan for the Hanford nuclear reservation's Columbia River corridor. The more money and time it takes the U.S. Department of Energy and its contractors to clean up the K Basins -- just 400 yards from the Columbia River -- the more "the idea that DOE is going to complete cleanup along the river by 2012 is slipping away," Doug Sherwood, Hanford project manager for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, said yesterday. In December, contractor Fluor Hanford began moving the highly radioactive spent fuel from the K Basins to a new dry storage vault in the center of the 560-square-mile reservation in south-central Washington. Under the legal guidelines for cleaning up Hanford, Fluor and the Energy Department are to remove 51 multicanister "overpacks" -- huge steel baskets filled with about 300 fuel assemblies each -- from the K West Basin by Sept. 30. "Now, they're talking more like 21 by September," Sherwood said. "That's what is troubling to us." Michael Turner, a spokesman for Fluor Hanford, said crews are still learning the process, working out problems and trying to determine how better to streamline the operation. "They'll work out the bugs," Turner said. "Obviously, our intent is to step it up. Our full intent is to meet the milestones." Initially, EPA was pleased with the work Fluor and DOE put into the spent nuclear fuel project last year, preparing for the first fuel transfer in December. But $12 million in cost overruns less than halfway through the fiscal year and the fact that only two transfers -- on Dec. 7 and Feb. 1 -- have been made is not sitting well with the federal regulator. "We've got a real budget problem right now, and almost all of the activities that they would take to get back on schedule will end up costing more money," Sherwood said. The $12 million in overspending came during testing and evaluation, originally budgeted for the previous fiscal year, that left Fluor with $171 million to do $183 million worth of work this fiscal year. DOE has asked Fluor to come up with a plan by Feb. 16 to deal with the shortage within the acceptable budget variance of 5 percent and say how it will meet legal deadlines for moving the fuel from the basins, he said. Turner said Fluor is working on an interim plan now and expects to meet the necessary requirements, despite announcing earlier this month that it planned to lay off as many as 300 workers to cut costs. There are 2,300 tons of spent nuclear fuel, including 4 tons of plutonium, in the K West and K East basins. Hanford, which made plutonium for nuclear weapons for 40 years, is the nation's most contaminated nuclear site. Total cost of cleanup is now estimated at $55.6 billion through 2046. ©1999-2001 Seattle Post-Intelligencer ***************************************************************** 11 Lab Safely Shuts Down Reactor EarthVision Environmental News* SCOVILLE, ID, February 5, 2001 - Argonne National Laboratory-West reached a major milestone when it verified that the liquid metal sodium coolant from Experimental Breeder Reactor-II (EBR-II) had been completely drained from the reactor vessel. The reactor was turned off in September 1994, and Argonne has been working to place the reactor permanently in what the US Congress called a "radiologically and industrially safe condition." According to Argonne, completing the sodium drain makes it technically impossible to re-start the reactor in the future. "This has been a complicated process that no one ever has done before," said Paul Henslee, the project director. "Other sodium cooled reactors in the world have been shut down, but none has been done with this level of care and preparation for the future. We not only have assured that this site will be safe, but we have learned a great deal that we can carry forward to other work." The sodium coolant is being chemically reacted with moisture in a controlled environment at a special facility constructed at Argonne for that purpose. The resulting sodium hydroxide is a common compound that will be disposed of in a standard low-level radioactive waste disposal site. Argonne is ahead of schedule for completing EBR-II sodium treatment by April. "I'm very proud of our people and the work they have done on this project," said John Sackett, Argonne-West manager. "They have done a great job under challenging circumstances." According to Argonne, EBR-II operated successfully from 1964 until the 1994 decision to suspend advanced reactor research in the United States and was in prime operational condition at the time of its shut down. ***************************************************************** 12 K Basins work behind schedule, short funds This story was published Sat, Feb 3, 2001 _By John Stang_ _Herald staff writer_ Hanford's K Basins cleanup project is facing a funding shortage and is behind schedule. Fluor Hanford, the contractor in charge of moving highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel from the water-filled basins to a dry storage area, is supposed to give the Department of Energy a plan on how to catch up in a couple of weeks. The problem is caused by a combination of some late testing which brought about a budget shortage and work to move the fuel underwater going slower than expected. "We're significantly behind the schedule that the (Tri-Party Agreement) has envisioned," said Doug Sherwood, the Environmental Protection Agency's Hanford site manager. Sherwood and Phil Loscoe, DOE's K Basins project director, discussed the project's status Friday in Kennewick with the Hanford Advisory Board. The K Basins are two indoor water-filled, leak-prone pools near the Columbia River that hold 2,300 tons of highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel. Plans call for the fuel to be moved underwater into special canisters for transportation and storage that are called Multi-Canister Overpacks, or MCOs. The MCOs are sent to the Cold Vacuum Drying Facility, where all moisture is sucked out and harmless helium gas is inserted. Then, the MCOs go to central Hanford to be stored in a huge underground vault. DOE and Fluor moved the first MCO from the K West Basin to the vault in December. The second reached the Cold Vacuum Drying Facility on Thursday. The Tri-Party Agreement, the legal pact governing Hanford's cleanup, calls for all the K West Basin's 1,210 tons of fuel to be moved by Dec. 31, 2002, and the rest to be moved by mid-2004. The immediate legal deadline is to move 51 MCOs from K West Basin by Sept. 30. But Loscoe and Sherwood said the work is not on pace to meet that deadline. Loscoe said Fluor is still determining how far behind schedule it is. One problem is that moving and processing fuel underwater by remote control is going slower than planned. Another problem is that DOE and Fluor spent $12 million between Oct. 1 -- the beginning of fiscal 2001 -- and early December doing final tests and evaluations before moving the fuel. That work was not in the K Basins' $183 million budget for fiscal 2001, so Fluor faces doing $183 million worth of work with only $171 million, Loscoe said. Fluor is supposed to submit a plan to DOE by the middle of this month on how it will meet the 51-MCO target while dealing with the financial shortfall, Loscoe said. Possible actions include adding more shifts of workers at the K Basins or adding a third vacuuming bay at the Cold Vacuum Drying Facility. But the big question is what those actions would cost. Fluor also is looking at possibly moving fuel from the K East Basin to the K West Basin to avoid the costly duplication of the MCO loading operation already set up at K West. _Copyright 2001 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed._ ***************************************************************** 13 Hanford Advisory Board wants Fluor to aid those facing layoffs This story was published Sat, Feb 3, 2001 _By the Herald staff_ The Hanford Advisory Board wants the Department of Energy to swiftly help Fluor Hanford workers facing layoffs. The board members agreed Friday to send DOE a letter asking the agency to urge Fluor to immediately identify low-priority projects to be affected and to give those workers chances to sign up with the high-priority projects. The letter was prompted by Fluor recently saying it might lay off up to 300 core employees and an undetermined number of workers from small subcontractors by April. The proposed layoffs come from Fluor wanting to shift people to focus on high-priority projects and to save money by trimming low-priority projects. The board noted that Hanford's massive layoffs and reorganizing in the mid-1990s seriously demoralized its workers, so steps should be taken to lessen the effect. _Copyright 2001 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This ***************************************************************** 14 Flats' high-risk area shrinks_ DenverPost.com - News: Colorado and Denver * _Denver Post Staff Writer_ _Feb. 6, 2001_ - The ultra-high security "protected area" at the Rocky Flats former nuclear weapons plant will shrink next month, removing one of the plant's most notorious buildings from the area despite lingering questions about worker safety. Building 771, where workers for decades recycled scraps of plutonium for use in nuclear bomb triggers, and some other formerly dangerous buildings will fall under the moderate security provisions in place on most of the rest of the site by midMarch. "It's an internal milestone that will definitely help facilitate closure of the site," said Jennifer Thompson, spokeswoman for Kaiser-Hill Co., the contractor cleaning up the plant. Reconfiguring the area will allow for faster cleanup, since workers will not have to go through a rigorous check each time they enter, she said. The plan must first win approval from the Department of Energy. At a meeting Monday, several workers and union leaders questioned the move as premature given recent safety lapses at the 6,400-acre site, 13 miles northwest of downtown Denver. "If you don't find it alarming, trust me, the workers out there do," security guard John Whitney told directors of the Rocky Flats Coalition of Local Governments. Last fall, 10 workers were exposed to low levels of radiation at Building 771. A final report on the cause of their contamination is due later this month. And two near-criticality incidents, where workers mishandled radioactive waste, occurred at other buildings in the protected area in December. Paul Hartmann, assistant safety manager with the the Department of Energy, said government officials fear the lapses might be a trend. The DOE fined Kaiser-Hill $410,000 last year for various safety problems. The company has been fined $700,000 since 1996. "They have improved some safety indications, but we felt we had to address this trend before it became more severe," Hartmann said. The size of the protected area will be reduced from 150 acres to about 30. Much of the radioactive material in the area has been shipped out of state or is kept in a nearby building that will remain in the much smaller protected area. Kaiser-Hill officials said the reduced security area will help speed the cleanup process. "What we're being paid to do is reduce risk at Rocky Flats and close the place down," said KaiserHill's Gary Voorheis. "We want to close the site on time." The reconfigured protected area will be eliminated by 2003 when the remaining radioactive material is removed, according to Kaiser Hill's closure schedule for the plant. Cleanup of Rocky Flats is expected to finish in 2006. Workers at Rocky Flats described the current protected area, including Building 771, as having "James Bond 007-style security." The protected area, Thompson said, was designed for security, not safety, concerns. Most of the waste storage and shipment facilities are outside the protected area already, she said. Still, the issue raised a question from Boulder County Commissioner Paul Danish, who chairs the council of local governments. "In other words, you could just put a barrel of something in your trunk and drive out?" he asked. Although the answer was "no, not exactly," Danish said the prospect of reducing the protected area so soon after the safety lapses "certainly causes me to revisit my comfort level about the whole operation out there." _Copyright 2001 The Denver Post. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 15 Safety violations slow Flats operations [www.TheDailyCamera.com] _By Beth Wohlberg_ *Camera Staff Writer* Kaiser-Hill managers have suspended several operations and added more oversight procedures at Rocky Flats because of a series of safety violations. The slowdown has resulted in a delay for reducing the size of the high-security protection area at the former nuclear weapons factory. Union officials said they are encouraged by Kaiser-Hill's cautious work schedule and communication about safety issues, but they say it is too soon to tell if safety operations are getting better. "We've seen an increase in communication between upper-level management and Kaiser-Hill," said John Barton, vice president of the local steelworkers union. "It hasn't gone down to the workers' level yet. Workers still perceive problems with stopping work, and workers fear stopping work for fear of retaliation." Union representatives, Kaiser-Hill staff and Department of Energy officials presented an update on safety issues at Monday's Rocky Flats Coalition of Local Governments meeting. The Department of Energy told the board that it initiated its own safety investigation as well as two independent safety reviews. The Office of Inspector General is also working on two investigations, results from which won't be made public until the reports are complete. Kaiser-Hill, the company in charge of cleanup at the former nuclear weapons plant, issued new work procedures because of recent safety violations. In November, site officials discovered that 10 workers had been contaminated with plutonium. On Monday, they said no direct source for the contamination has been found. An exact dose has not been assigned to each worker. Company officials explained that assigning a dose is difficult when they don't know when workers received the contamination — investigators are studying whether chronic low-level radioactivity in the building could have affected the workers. Two "criticality incidents" occurred in December when workers overpacked drums with radioactive material. A criticality incidents means that one or more of the safety procedures in place to prevent spontaneous reactions that could release radioactivity were violated. The December incidents were the least serious of this type of violation. The Department of Energy has not issued a penalty for the violations, although officials have indicated that Kaiser-Hill will be fined. The agency fined Kaiser-Hill $420,000 for other safety problems in 2000. In response to the safety problems, the cleanup contractor has: _Suspended_ nuclear work in Building 707; _Suspended_ the draining of liquid from pipes in Building 371; _Suspended_ packaging of 10-gallon containers across the site; _Deferred_ the start of infrequent or unusual operations across the site until a thorough management review is complete; _Paused_ all but essential operations until managers are assured that sufficient management and oversight are assigned; _Added_ additional management and oversight resources as appropriate for more routine activities following procedure review; _Enhanced_ briefings with additional management present and _Developed_ a comprehensive safety plan that will be finalized with the energy department. All suspended activities must be approved by the energy department before they resume. Kaiser-Hill's new procedures and operational changes have set the schedule slightly behind. By February, officials had planned to reduce the size of the Rocky Flats protected area, which is a 150-acre piece of land that holds the former production and processing buildings. The area is surrounded by tall fences and several high security measures, such as restricted access and security guards. The new protected area will be 30 acres surrounding Building 371, where the remaining radioactive materials from other buildings have been moved. The reduction could occur by the end of the month. Boulder County Commissioner Paul Danish, the new chair of the coalition, said that the recent safety violations could be a sign that the protected area shouldn't be reduced yet. Kaiser-Hill officials said that the Department of Energy will review and grant permission for the protected area reduction. "If our goal is accelerated closure, our first priority must be safety," said Gary Voorheis of Kaiser-Hill. "Our job is to reduce risk at Rocky Flats. If we don't work safely, we can't work. If we can't work, we can't deliver risk reduction." *Contact Beth Wohlberg at (303) 473-1364 or wohlbergb@thedailycamera.com.* *February 6, 2001* Copyright 2001 The Daily Camera. All rights reserved. Any copying, ***************************************************************** 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: *****************************************************************