***************************************************************** 05/06/01 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 9.110 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER CONTENTS 1 Tune In, and Learn to Love Nuclear Waste , 2 Chicago Tribune Traditional Version - Nation/World 3 Overlooking the Unit 2 reactor vessel. 4 Protest cuts to Russia in nuke department 5 Wastes piling up while repository debate lingers 6 NRC wants input on plutonium 7 Theories on fruitcake, electricity just make sense 8 99% of deadly waste 'ignored' at Dounreay 9 Russia Scientists Await Nuke Decision 10 Wasting No Time 11 Experts far from agreement on radium's effect 12 RGJ.com - We need a ‘virtuous’ policy 13 Bush energy plan could help TVA; groups worried about its effects 14 Nuclear power plant recess well prepared NUCLEAR WEAPONS CONTENTS 1 India needs to test against nuclear fallout: Expert 2 Plan to dismantle nuclear sub at Rosyth is 'half-baked' 3 Critics Question LANL's Cerro Grande Funds ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 Tune In, and Learn to Love Nuclear Waste , The Salt Lake Tribune -- ** *Sunday, May 6, 2001* BY JUDY FAHYS (c) 2001, THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE Call it the campaign for mom, apple pie and low-level radioactive waste -- the new "public-service" pitch co-sponsored by the Tooele County Chamber of Commerce and the Utah Broadcasters Association. Their six radio spots -- guaranteed to be worth $60,000 in advertising -- remind Utahns about the benefits they enjoy from products containing radioactive material, as well as the responsibility they bear to dispose of the waste safely. The promos, which typically advance infant immunization or military recruitment, also have left some people scratching their heads. The ads are described as public-service messages, only they promote a single, multimillion-dollar business: Envirocare of Utah, which accepted 12 million cubic feet of low-level radioactive waste last year at its 640-acre disposal site about 80 miles west of Salt Lake City; A $15,000 check from the nonprofit chamber paid for the new campaign -- with the help of $15,000 Envirocare donated specifically for the new promotion; and The ad firm that handled the campaign for the chamber, Publicis Dialog, handles Envirocare's publicity, too. The waste company, the chamber, the ad firm and the broadcasters association insist the arrangement is honorable, and they all point out that Envirocare's name is never used in the commercials. "We thought it would be a good opportunity to provide some education about low-level radioactive waste and the benefits it brings to our community," said Jack Howard, executive director of the chamber, which has 200 member businesses. "We're just airing the spots," said Dale Zabriskie, point man for the broadcasters' association. The ads are distributed to Utah radio stations, which can use the spots as filler if and when they choose. The stations later report how much they used the ads and the value of that air time. By making the $15,000 contribution, the Tooele Chamber can expect to receive $60,000 worth of air time within 60 days or it will get a partial refund of its donation, Zabriskie said. The ads evoke compassion and altruism, underscoring the enormous good that radioactive material affords society. A woman named "Elly" tells in two spots how it helped her beat cancers of the lung, liver and colon, and breast cancer twice. "Radiation is a part of our lives, and the safe disposal of radioactive waste is a valuable environmental service," she says, mentioning a disposal site in remote, western Utah. "We all share the responsi- bility." Critics of the campaign see baser motives. Jason Groenewold of Families Against Incinerator Risk, an environmental group that often criticizes Envirocare, said the broadcasters group had been "duped" into doing the company's bidding. "Now that the truth has come out," said FAIR director Groenewold, "the only responsible thing to do is pull the spots immediately." He suggested the spots are misleading because upward of 80 percent of the material shipped to Envirocare comes from decommissioned nuclear power plants, not cancer treatments or university research. "This is an attempt by Envirocare to dress the nuclear wolf in sheep's clothing," said Groenewold. "It's a perfect example of why they can't be trusted." Envirocare is seeking the state's approval for authority to accept "hotter" radioactive waste -- waste hundreds and sometimes thousands of times more radioactive than waste the company now takes. It wouldn't just be a more lucrative business line for the company. Tooele County -- which gets annual payments from Envirocare amounting to 5 percent of company revenues -- would benefit as well. Those permits are now being reviewed by state regulators, and one of them requires approval by the governor and the Legislature. All the public discussion makes it a good time for the ads, the public relations firm said. None of the radioactive byproducts mentioned in the ads would be disposed of at Envirocare: By law, all the radioactive waste generated by Utah companies goes to a landfill in Hanford, Wash. Envirocare spokesman Tim Barney shrugged off that point. "We are not trying to be sneaky," he said. "The fact is, Utah residents benefit from products that generate radioactive waste." He noted that his company is a fixture in the Tooele County business community, so it makes sense Envirocare would contribute to the ad campaign, just as it makes donations for the chamber's Easter egg hunt. One voice in the ads is provided by an employee of Publicis Dialog, the Envirocare-Tooele Chamber firm. Wayne Evans tells how radioactive material played an important role in a heart treatment he received. And Ron Gaynor is an Envirocare consultant who spoke at many of the recent hearings in support of Envirocare's permit requests. Those involved disagree about who initiated the campaign. The chamber's Howard and Envirocare's Barney both said the broadcasters association brought up the idea. The ad firm's Gail Brown said the chamber solicited the campaign as a way to dispel public misperceptions about a Tooele company and its low-level waste business. Zabriskie, of the broadcasters' association, bristled at the assertion. "That is absolutely, positively, 100 percent not true," he said. "We were approached by Publicis." "If Envirocare had turned to us," Zabriskie said, "we obviously would have turned them down." fahys@sltrib.com © Copyright 2001, The Salt Lake Tribune All material found on ***************************************************************** 2 Chicago Tribune Traditional Version - Nation/World [Chicago Tribune] Monday, May 7, 2001 Bush planning agency to direct terrorism response Items compiled from Tribune news services *May 06, 2001* WASHINGTON, D.C. President Bush has drafted an executive order that would create an umbrella office on terrorism to coordinate the government's response to any biological, chemical or nuclear attack, according to a congressional source familiar with the plan. The office would exist under the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and Vice President Dick Cheney would oversee the creation of a national terrorism response plan, the source said Friday night. The office would be at the helm of more than 40 federal agencies that provide emergency services and personnel. Currently, the Justice Department has responsibility for reacting to a terrorist attack. Bush's plan is separate from legislative efforts in Congress to reorganize the nation's anti-terrorism response. The Senate Intelligence Committee will hold hearings on the matter this week. Several emergency management agencies will testify. Andrea Andrews, a spokeswoman for Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) said the president's plan is a "step in the right direction." ***************************************************************** 3 Overlooking the Unit 2 reactor vessel. Inside the reactor The Mercury john gentzel, Mercury Staff Writer May 06, 2001 LIMERICK -- The steam clouds billowing out from Exelon Nuclear’s Limerick Generating Station’s enormous cooling towers represent many things. The clouds of water vapor represent a properly functioning nuclear plant, which in turn, represents a sense of security and safety for all area residents. So when the steam stopped spilling out from one of the facility’s two towers on April 4, the average passer-by might never have noticed, but the knowledgeable person could have had reason for concern. Why did the steam cease? Every year, Exelon Nuclear shuts down one of the plant’s two reactors for a cleaning and refueling session. The outage also turns off the steam, which is the safe, environmental-friendly by-product of producing electricity with nuclear power. Despite the often synonymous reference between cooling towers and nuclear power, the towers are nothing more than 507-foot-tall cement cylinders used to funnel the water vapor toward the upper atmosphere. While work, which cannot normally be completed while a reactor is running at full-capacity, is done on the stacks, the magic of an outage is done in a smaller, oftentimes overlooked building. Maintenance outage is an open opportunity While a reactor is operating, it would be deadly for people to work directly inside its components and see the reactor, which is where the magic of nuclear generation occurs. However, during an outage, the reactor is opened up, which is no easy task considering it’s covered by 110 tons of cement and floor paneling, and more than 250 fuel assemblies are removed, shuffled around and eventually replaced in the core with the utmost skill and precision. People have access to portions of the plant that they would not get a chance to see otherwise, said Lisa Washak, plant spokeswoman. One of those sights is of the engineers suspended on a catwalk immediately above the reactor, which if it were operating, would look like a typical floor. However, during an outage, when the old fuel assemblies are moved from the core to a nearby holding tank with a large crane, the operators of that crane -- the engineers on the catwalk -- are basically suspended over a large, extremely deep and ominous looking lake. And the entire facility is immaculate. No dust or dirt to be found anywhere, another sign, of a healthy, and properly maintained nuclear generating plant, Washak explained. In other places of the reactor building, pipes and tubes used to move steam and water, places that would normally be deadly to immediate human contact, are opened up, allowing workers an opportunity to perform routine maintenance procedures. Officials spend roughly a year planning the minute-by-minute actions of all 2,000 people -- everyone from scientists and engineers to security personnel and janitors -- who will be working during an outage to ensure a safe and smooth operation. The average outage lasts more than a month, but Limerick -- which went back on line operating at full power on April 20-- set a record by doing it in 16 days. Safety is issue number one If you don’t belong in the reactor building, there is no way you’re getting inside the fortress-like complex. If, by chance, you happen to slip through the two barbed-wire covered chain-link fences, and somehow make it inside the inner yard, you are still miles away from where the action occurs. "I’ve been told by some visitors that we’re more secure than some prisons," Washak said proudly. At the Limerick plant, everyone from full-time workers to one-time visitors must pass through bomb detecting devices and metal scanners before passing all their items through an X-ray machine. Then, if you do not have a security clearance card or a guest pass to show the easily identifiable -- and always on duty -- security guards, you are not making it any further. For those people worried about an aerial assault on the facility, the reactor building is ensconced in enough concrete and rebar -- cast-iron support beams -- to withstand a direct hit from a 747. The plant is safe, and the hundreds of workers in-and-out of Limerick every day work hard to keep it that way. In the control room, employees are monitoring the two reactors, with knobs, monitors and an equipment setup similar to something NASA might use to launch a flight to the moon. Control room operators are licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, not Exelon, and must past an exam once a year, in addition to completing hundreds of hours of work in the plant’s simulator. "We all have a vested interest in the safe operation of this plant," said Washak, who like many of her fellow workers, lives in one of the many communities surrounding the plant. Willie Harris is another one of those workers. He is well known to the residents of the Daniel Boone Area School District. When he’s not monitoring and protecting plant workers from overexposure to radiation, Harris is a sitting member of the Daniel Boone School Board. And there are others, people who serve as fire chiefs in neighborhood fire departments, volunteer in home-and-school associations or live in neighboring municipalities. "This is our community also," Washak explained. Radiation: the invisible foe It’s not easy protecting hundreds of people from an invisible enemy, like radiation. Every person on the planet comes in contact with radiation, in weaker forms, all the time. But in a nuclear facility, where radiation is concentrated, there are more safety precautions in place. All employees have monitoring devices -- similar in size to a beeper or pager -- that keeps track of their exposure to radiation. When moving from one section of the plant to another, everyone is required to scan for radiation by placing themselves in a tall, telephone booth-like device. And everyone is required to wear anti-contamination suits -- or ordinary hospital scrubs for visitors. The amount of the protective clothing varies depending on the area, and the types of materials or levels of "contamination" the individual will be in contact with. For example, the people cleaning a duct or repairing a fan might not have to wear full suits, but only protective gloves and boots, while the people repairing a turbine or generator might be forced to ensconce themselves in a full-body contamination suit. The decision for what protective garb is required in a particular area isn’t left to the individual employee. Signs -- with pictures of people wearing the clothing required in that area -- are posted throughout the plant, an idea that was brought back from a tour of another nuclear facility, Harris said. "We’re always looking to incorporate the best practices available," Harris explained. Limerick is one of 17 Exelon nuclear units, and while in the past, the plants in three states would never have talked and shared practices with one another, now they work together. During the second week of Limerick’s outage, a group of engineers from Three Mile Island were on hand, touring the facility. Their goal was to bring back some of Limerick’s successful tactics and incorporate them in future outages at their plant outside of Harrisburg. John Gentzel’s e-mail address is jgentzel@pottsmerc.com *©The Mercury 2001* Copyright © 1995-2000 PowerAdz.com, LLC. Zwire!, AdQuest, ***************************************************************** 4 Protest cuts to Russia in nuke department KnoxNews.com - News - Latest International News *By STACEY ZOLT* *Scripps Howard News Service* *May 03, 2001* WASHINGTON - Nuclear defense officials and senators are questioning President Bush's judgment in proposing a massive missile defense system while simultaneously cutting more than $60 million from programs aimed at combating nuclear weapon development in Russia. "I don't think it makes any sense to cut these anti-proliferation programs at a time when we're worried about nuclear threats," said Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M. Many of the cuts target programs aimed at providing civilian research jobs to Russia's Cold War-era nuclear scientists. Without these programs, Bingaman said he fears the scientists will "sell their services to the highest bidder." A bipartisan report issued in the final days of the Clinton administration argued for more funding for these non-proliferation programs. "The most urgent unmet national security threat to the United States today is the danger that weapons of mass destruction or weapons-usable material in Russia could be stolen and sold to terrorists or hostile nation states and used against American troops abroad or citizens at home," wrote former Senate Republican leader Howard Baker of Tennessee and former White House Counsel Lloyd Cutler, a Democrat, in the January 2001 report. Baker and Cutler, co-chairs of the Energy Department's Russia Task Force, said even the current funding level "fall(s) short of what is needed to adequately address the threat." Although the cuts don't wipe out the programs' funding completely, Dori Ellis of the Sandia National Laboratories said they will be "severely wounded" as a result. The International Materials Protection, Control and Accounting program at Russian Navy sites was cut by nearly $40 million. The program funds physical protection - such as doors, fences and sensors - around sites storing nuclear warheads. The Energy Department's budget explains that the cuts "reflect completion of ... upgrades at the majority of sites." Another program, the Initiative for Proliferation Prevention, was cut by just $2 million. But Ellis said the cut guts out the entire Russian component of the effort to couple displaced nuclear weapons scientists with companies conducting scientific work in their region. A program to create civilian jobs for nuclear workers in Russia's 10 closed nuclear cities was cut by $20 million, and now will fund current work in just one city. "The idea is to prevent any desire on the part of nuclear workers who are unemployed to go to other states or parties who want to develop nuclear weapons," said Ellis. Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M., has pledged to restore the money cut from the Energy Department when congressional appropriators iron out the details later this year. "Speaking generally, the Energy budget got cut pretty hard in the president's budget," Domenici said. "We're trying to give appropriators some latitude to restore (the money.)" The administration has justified the cuts by saying that it is reviewing the Russian nonproliferation programs and will then determine their future direction. "I think what we're seeing is an overall reevaluation of our relationship with Russia with the new administration, and perhaps it's timely. What you hope is that the good work that's being done doesn't get sidetracked in the process," Ellis said. Bingaman said the debate is an issue of perspective. "I think unfortunately you've still got some people around Washington ... that have a Cold War mentality and think that funding these programs is more of a help to Russia than to us when the truth is that it's a benefit to both of us," he said. (Visit SHNS on the Web at http://www.shns.com.) [E.W. Scripps] Copyright © 2000 Scripps Howard News Service Copyright © 1999-2000, The Knoxville News-Sentinel Co. All Rights ***************************************************************** 5 Wastes piling up while repository debate lingers This story appeared in The Times Free Press on Sunday, May 6, 2001 *First of two parts* By Dave Flessner *Staff Writer* *© Chattanooga Times Free Press* Nuclear power may be making a comeback in the Tennessee Valley two decades after TVA scrapped most of its nuclear plant construction. Encouraged by an energy policy being shaped this month from the Bush administration to promote more nuclear power, TVA and other utilities are taking a new look at splitting atoms to generate electricity. But the utilities still are faced with a decades-old problem: What to do with the dangerous radioactive wastes that nuclear plants generate. While operation of nuclear plants has become more efficient, radioactive wastes continue to pile up in underwater storage containment areas of the plants with no permanent method of disposal yet in place. "It's time to put energy back on the front burner," said U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, the Chattanooga Republican who serves on the House appropriations panel that oversees energy projects. "But you can't really bring nuclear power back in until you address responsibly the issue of where the waste is going to go that is now stored on site," he said. "That has always been the biggest obstacle." Although operating only five of the 19 reactors TVA once envisioned, the federal utility piles up about 136 tons of spent nuclear fuel each year to generate about a third of its electricity. To date, some 2,002 tons of highly radioactive spent TVA nuclear fuel lies in underwater storage in East Tennessee and North Alabama. Nationwide, the 103 operating nuclear reactors have generated more than 44,000 tons of nuclear wastes that could remain dangerously radioactive for more than 240,000 years. Some plants, including the local ones, are running out of underwater storage space and are making preparations to store spent nuclear fuel in above-ground concrete dry casks at the nuclear plants. In Tennessee, Gov. Don Sundquist has vowed to fight any attempt to store more nuclear wastes in the state. But for now, he may have no choice. The federal government was supposed to have a permanent dump ready for the nuclear wastes three years ago. The Department of Energy has designated Yucca Mountain in Nevada as the best site for a permanent repository. But politicians remain deadlocked over the site, and it will be at least until 2010 before Yucca Mountain could be tested and prepared for waste storage. Ultimately, TVA officials hope to ship the concrete, above-ground casks to Yucca Mountain or another such site on highways and railroads which go through Chattanooga and much of America. Lisa Gue, a policy analyst for Public Citizen, an anti-nuclear group formed by Ralph Nader, said that DOE's own estimates suggest that at least 50 and as many as 310 accidents could occur during shipment of radioactive waste. A severe accident in a rural area could contaminate a 42-square-mile area, require 462 days to clean up and cost $620 million. Under preliminary transportation plans from the DOE, some of the nuclear wastes from Sequoyah, Watts Bar and Vogtle plants could pass through Chattanooga. TVA nuclear chief John Scalice said the risk from a transportation accident is small. "These casks are designed to withstand accidents and safely contain the spent fuel rods," Mr. Scalice said. "There is always a risk in anything you do, but the transportation risks have been carefully considered and are very, very low." In the meantime, TVA and other nuclear operators prepare for more on-site storage. "Unfortunately, the nuclear plants on the banks of the Tennessee River are becoming defacto nuclear dumps," said Dr. Stephen Smith, executive director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy. NUCLEAR REVIVAL Despite the lingering dispute over where to store nuclear wastes permanently, support for nuclear power appears to be growing. Vice President Dick Cheney, who is heading a task force expected to develop the Bush administration's energy policy by the end of the month, has suggested that nuclear plants should be among the 65 new power plants built each year to meet rising energy demands. TVA finished the nation's last nuclear power plant at Watts Bar near Spring City, Tenn., five years ago. The near meltdown in 1979 at the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania and the nuclear explosion seven years later at the Chernobyl reactor in the Ukraine soured public support of nuclear power and forced costly new regulations on the industry. Only one of the two reactors planned at Watts Bar was finished, and its $6 billion cost run-up during 23 years of construction was the most expensive of any power plant in the country. The expense and delay in building nuclear plants put the construction of new plants on hold. The last order for a new nuclear plant by an American utility came in 1973, and more than a third of the nuclear plants once planned were scrapped or deferred. But rising energy demand and fossil fuel prices, combined with greater performance and efficiency from nuclear reactors, are reviving interest in atomic power. "Two years ago with low natural gas prices and plenty of electricity, it looked like only a minority of utilities with nuclear plants would even try to get license extensions on their existing plants," said Dave Lochbaum, a former TVA nuclear engineer who now works as a safety engineer for the Union of Concerned Scientists. "With the run-up of natural gas prices and the power problems in California, the balance has shifted, and nuclear power is now competitive." TVA is evaluating whether to restart its oldest nuclear reactor and is spending $157 million to boost the power output at its main nuclear plants. Directors of the federal utility also continue to maintain three unfinished nuclear reactors -- two units at the Bellefonte plant in Hollywood, Ala., and the second unit at Watts Bar -- even though they have been mothballed for 13 years. "I think nuclear generation has a bright potential for growth as part of our overall portfolio," TVA Director Glenn McCullough said. "We're looking at all of the options for these plants. But we want to ensure that the Valley continues to grow and that we keep the lights on." TVA estimates it could restart the Browns Ferry Unit 1 reactor -- the first nuclear unit TVA built in 1974 -- for less than $1.5 billion. The TVA board is also considering putting a coal gasification plant at its Bellefonte site, in addition to keeping the option open for finishing the half-done nuclear plant. TVA critics contend the agency's massive $26 billion debt should prevent TVA from embarking on costly new building programs. "For TVA to embark on a new wave of new construction when it hasn't yet paid for its projects in the past would be completely irresponsible," said John Howes, executive director of TVA Exchange, a lobbying group supported by private utilities that border TVA's service territory. Despite cost overruns at TVA nuclear projects in the past, TVA Director Skila Harris said she has confidence in the current management of the utility's nuclear program. In the past five years, TVA has cut the average cost of generating electricity from nuclear power by 19 percent while boosting generation more than 32 percent. Last year, TVA derived 31 percent of its power from its nuclear plants. "The decision on our nuclear plants is going to be a business decision," Ms. Harris said. "When it makes business sense for TVA, I think it is a very viable option. But I think that the nuclear industry has an opportunity now, not only because of changing public attitudes but also because the economics look different." Some utilities are even looking at ordering new nuclear plants, although TVA is no longer actively studying that option, officials said. New plant designs are simpler and could be built in smaller units to ensure quicker construction and more flexibility in timing and location. Former TVA Chairman Marvin Runyon was negotiating with both General Electric and Westinghouse in 1993 to develop a new 500-megawatt nuclear plant, which he hoped to get preapproved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Mr. Runyon, who also wanted eventually to finish the Bellefonte plant, left TVA to become postmaster general eight years ago. "We need to look at nuclear power for our future," Mr. Runyon said. "It is cleaner than any other source you can use." But Mr. Runyon said the federal government needs to help standardize and preapprove plant designs to prevent state regulators from blocking nuclear projects and avoiding costly differences in each nuclear plant design. "Every reactor today is different, and that's no way to run an industry," he said. WHERE TO STORE NUCLEAR WASTE Mr. Runyon said he is confident nuclear waste can be safely stored at Yucca Mountain, "but the public still has to be convinced." Ms. Harris, who recently visited Yucca Mountain, said storage of nuclear waste remains an obstacle to developing nuclear power, even though she is confident in the underground storage method. Critics of nuclear power suggest that the industry can't keep piling up more waste, which may already exceed the capacity of Yucca Mountain. "Why generate more nuclear wastes when we don't have a place to put what we already have?" asked U.S. Rep. John Badacci, D-Maine. Since 1982, electricity consumers have paid one-tenth of a cent for every nuclear-generated kilowatt-hour of electricity consumed to pay for the transportation and storage of nuclear wastes. TVA has paid more than $516 million into the federal government's nuclear waste fund. Nationwide, more than $17 billion has been collected, but no site or transportation plans have yet been finalized. With no permanent repository, TVA is piling up spent nuclear fuel at a rate of 136 tons a year. The Sequoyah plant will run out of room in its underwater storage facility by 2004, so TVA has hired a contractor to begin building dry storage casks just outside the reactor building. The dry cask storage method is already used at 15 other nuclear plants. The containers use materials like steel, concrete and lead as a radiation shield and can usually hold from seven to 56 12-foot-long fuel assemblies. "It's a proven technology that we believe is safe and cost-efficient," said Mr. Scalice, TVA's nuclear chief. Some environmentalists remain skeptical. "Wherever nuclear wastes are stored, there are going to be risks," said Ms. Gue. "This is still a relatively recent technology and a major concern remains about how these wastes will be transported." *E-mail Dave Flessner at dflessner@timesfreepress.com* Email this ***************************************************************** 6 NRC wants input on plutonium charlotte.com - - - - - Published Sunday, May 6, 2001 *Meeting will focus on making of mixture headed to nuclear plants * By BRUCE HENDERSON Charlotte-area residents get their first chance Tuesday to influence a groundbreaking plan to fuel two local nuclear power plants with reprocessed weapons-grade plutonium. Duke Power's McGuire plant on Lake Norman and Catawba plant on Lake Wylie would become the first in the United States to use surplus bomb material. European reactors have used a different form of plutonium fuel for two decades. The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the agency in charge of assuring the project's safety, will require a labyrinth of studies, licensing decisions and public meetings before the new fuel goes into Duke's reactors in 2007. Based on experience in Europe, Duke says it is confident the mixed-oxide, or MOX, fuel is safe. Duke said using the new fuel will help keep plutonium out of enemy hands. The company also expects to save money on fuel costs, but won't say how much. Critics, including anti-nuclear power and weapon groups, depict a frightening scenario. Breaching the decades-long barrier between civilian and military nuclear programs, they say, will lower the margins of error in producing power, increase risks to the public and invite unforeseen surprises. The U.S. Department of Energy, which owns the plutonium, has signed off on the project. Officials OK'd a $116 million contract in 1999 with a consortium led by Duke Engineering &Services to design, build and operate a plant to produce MOX at the Savannah River Site near Aiken, S.C. But the NRC, which says it is neutral on the project, has to license both the production plant and Duke's use of the fuel. At Tuesday's meeting in Charlotte, the agency wants to hear public comments on what to include in its environmental impact study of the plant, and on alternatives. Those alternatives include encasing all surplus plutonium in terrorist-proof tombs of highly radioactive waste, a tactic the Energy Department recently suspended. In the MOX plan, plutonium would be shipped to Savannah River, mostly in the form of softball-sized "pits" from nuclear weapons stored in Texas. The Energy Department would convert the highly toxic, radioactive metal into a powder. The MOX fabrication plant would mix one part plutonium with about 20 parts of enriched uranium, the usual nuclear fuel, and seal it in half-inch pellets. The pellets fill 12-foot rods that are bundled together for loading into reactors. MOX fuel would make up about 40 percent of a reactor's load. Tests of MOX are expected at McGuire in 2003. Is it safe? The Energy Department said "yes" last year. "While the Department acknowledges that there are differences in the use of MOX fuel compared to (uranium) fuel, these differences are not expected to decrease the safety of the reactors," it said. The use of MOX fuel would change the results of a severe reactor accident, the department said, but not necessarily make them worse than one involving only conventional fuel. In its worst-case scenario, the Energy Department projected the number of total deaths within 50 miles could decrease by 4 percent or increase as much as 14 percent. Such a scenario has a 1-in-4.2 million chance of happening, it said. The Nuclear Control Institute, which opposes nuclear arms, believes the government estimate is low. The group says that a severe accident involving MOX would kill up to twice as many people within 10 miles and cause 27 percent more cancer deaths. Differences from Europe The Nuclear Regulatory Commission says it has not analyzed the MOX plan in detail. But a 1999 agency paper spelled out differences between MOX and conventional fuels, as well as between the types of MOX used in Europe and the fuel planned for use here. Weapons-grade plutonium is mostly plutonium-239, the type used in bombs because its atoms split so easily. Europe uses reactor-grade, which is derived from the plutonium produced in all nuclear reactors. Compared with conventional fuel, MOX fuel "burns" at higher temperatures and releases slightly more energy. This makes reactors somewhat harder to control, such as when boosting or shutting down power - an issue the NRC called perhaps the most important technical problem. Duke expects approval In an accident, MOX fuel could release different concentrations of radioactive, toxic elements. The fuel isn't expected to increase the likelihood of an accident, the government says. Critics have seized on the higher risks that MOX fuel could prematurely age the metal surfaces of reactor vessels. The NRC says it doesn't believe it to be a major problem, but has promised to review the issue. Overall, the NRC says that the experience in Europe suggests all of the issues can be resolved so the fuel can be used. Duke says it expects the fuel to prompt few changes at McGuire, on the south end of Lake Norman, and Catawba, six miles northwest of Rock Hill on Lake Wylie. Most will involve security, fuel handling and the boron solution that helps control the chain reaction inside reactors. Officials say they don't expect any problem in winning approval. Duke says worst-case accident risks at McGuire and Catawba are now 10 to 100 times safer than NRC guidelines. "Any changes that we might anticipate developing from the use of mixed-oxide versus enriched uranium is not enough to change that conclusion," said Steven Nesbit, Duke's MOX fuel manager. Critics see transporting the material as an Achilles' heel of the plan. The Energy Department estimates 2,500 shipments of radioactive material would be needed over the life of the project, including about 60 trucks carrying fuel to Catawba and McGuire every 18 months. The department says its Safe Secure Transport system has never had an accident leading to a fatality or release of radioactive material in nearly 100 million miles of transport since 1975. But in a report last week, the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League said more than 1,190 safety infractions, accidents or other "occurrences" have been reported in the transport system. An accident during transit would pose greater health risks to people nearby, the group said, while terrorists could target MOX shipments. Equipped with a simple lab, critics claim, terrorists could separate the plutonium in fuel assemblies into bomb material within 24 hours. "If it wasn't relatively easy, there would be no safeguards," said Don Moniak of the group's Aiken office. Duke and federal officials say it would take a facility similar to the MOX-production plant to convert the fuel back into bomb material. "If the terrorists wanted a bomb, why not just take a bomb?" said Rick Ford, an Energy spokesman at the Savannah River Site. *Reach Bruce Henderson at (704) 358-5051 or .* ***************************************************************** 7 Theories on fruitcake, electricity just make sense [deseretnews.com] Sunday, May 06, 2001 By Dave Barry Recently I was going through my December mail (I like to let my mail age for several months, in case it contains scorpions) when I came across a letter from a Mr. Fred Jellin, who identifies himself as a vice president for Baker Maid Products, "the largest producer of Fruit Cake of the finest quality." Mr. Jellin was unhappy with a column I wrote about a Christmas tradition that my mom and I invented, in which we celebrated the annual arrival of a gift fruitcake by slamming it in our kitchen door. Mr. Jellin allowed as how this column might have been "written tongue in cheek," but states, "we don't accept this kind of humor when the subject is fruit cake." He further states that "we bake and ship 2,000 cakes a day!" I was frankly shocked by this letter. Like most people, I have long believed that nobody actually MAKES fruitcakes. I believed that all fruitcakes were formed thousands of years ago by some kind of horrible natural catastrophe involving (1) fruit, (2) cake and (3) a radioactive meteorite. I subscribed to the widespread theory that these ancient fruitcakes had been circulating as "gifts" ever since, being passed from person to person, with nobody ever actually eating them. And now I find out that there is an organized conspiracy, calling itself "Baker Maid Products," that is deliberately making MORE fruitcakes and putting them into circulation at the rate of 2,000 a day, and BRAGGING about it! Here's my question: You know how scientists claim that global warming is causing the oceans to rise, and if something isn't done, eventually North America will be covered by water as far inland as Mason City, Iowa, the result being that — among other disasters — the nation's entire pig population could be stung to death by jellyfish? Well, what if the real problem is NOT that the oceans are rising? What if, in fact, the continents are sinking, under the weight of all these new fruitcakes, which are the densest objects on earth, other than World Wrestling Federation fans? When is the Food and Drug Administration going to recognize what is happening and take some kind of firm regulatory action against "Baker Maid Products" involving nuclear missiles? And wouldn't "The Pig-Stinging Jellyfish" be a good name for a rock band? Speaking of fruitcakes: I also received some unhappy mail from an "L. Edwards," who got his (or possibly her) dander up over a column I wrote about the California power shortage. "L. Edwards" was particularly upset about my explanation of where electricity comes from, which was that when lightning strikes the earth, it goes underground and hardens into coal, which is then burned in generators to form electricity. "SHAME ON YOU!" wrote "L. Edwards" across my column in large letters with a marking pen. "Electricity does not harden into coal! I think you should be wary of telling untrue scientific facts." "L. Edwards," you are certainly entitled to your opinion, and far be it from me to suggest that you are a great big wienerhead. But it just so happens that my theory that coal is hardened electricity fits perfectly with the thinking of some of the world's leading scientific minds. And when I say "some of the world's leading scientific minds," I am referring specifically to Mr. Harold Jones of Tulsa, Okla. In response to my electricity column, Mr. Jones sent me a letter explaining his theory, which he summarizes as follows: "ELECTRICITY IS SMOKE!" Mr. Jones contends that electrical circuits work by means of smoke traveling from place to place inside wires. By way of proof, he points out: "Every time you let the smoke out of an electrical circuit, it no longer works. You can test this at home. If you have a wall outlet that is black where the smoke has leaked out, plug something in, and you will see that it no longer works." I would like to see "L. Edwards," or any other so-called "critic," poke a hole in Mr. Jones' tightly reasoned theory. It is probably the most important scientific breakthrough since Albert Einstein discovered the "Theory of Relativity," which states that time and space are relative, which explains why time goes slower, and space gets smaller, when you are with your relatives. I assume that Harold Jones will soon be receiving the Nobel Prize, which comes with a nice cash award. Plus, you get a fruitcake. *Dave Barry is a humor columnist for the Miami Herald. Write to him c/o The Miami Herald, One Herald Plaza, Miami FL 33132.* © 2001 Deseret News Publishing Company ***************************************************************** 8 99% of deadly waste 'ignored' at Dounreay Sunday Herald - www.sundayherald.com 7 May 2001 Owner of beach near nuclear plant to sue environment agency over monitoring of radioactive fragments. By Rob Edwards Environment Editor Publication Date: May 6 2001 More than 99% of the dangerous fragments of radioactive waste contaminating a beautiful Scottish beach have been overlooked by the Dounreay nuclear plant and by the government's green watchdog, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa). An independent scientific study commissioned by Geoffrey Minter, the owner of Sandside beach near Dounreay in Caithness, concludes that attempts to monitor the beach have been "grossly inadequate" and "deeply flawed". Both Dounreay's operator, the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA), and Sepa are blamed for breaching the government's instruction to protect the public and the environment from the pollution. Now Minter, enraged by the attitude of the two organisations, is threatening to sue for compensation, petition the Scottish parliament in Edinburgh, and lodge a complain with the European Commission in Brussels. His wife, mother, children, staff and their families have suffered "mammoth stress and frustration", he claimed. "It has been a very revealing but anxious four years of fiction and fact-finding. If we could spin yarns of similar quality at the local woollen mill with which I am involved we would be making a fortune," he said. "UKAEA and Sepa give me every appearance of being joined at the hip, with UKAEA as the dominant partner. Because in their eyes we have had the audacity to challenge them and control their activities, they have treated us like the culprits instead of the victims." Sandside is an attractive beach, open to the public, 3km west of Dounreay on the north coast of Scotland. Fifteen fragments of radioactive waste from the nuclear plant have been found there since 1984, 12 of them in the past two and a half years. The last one turned up in February this year. Hundreds more have been discovered on the enclosed foreshore of Dounreay and on the seabed offshore, leading to a ban on fishing within 2km of the Dounreay discharge pipe since 1997. But neither the UKAEA or Sepa is sure exactly where the particles are leaking from, and they have been unable to stop them coming ashore. Alarmed about the financial and environmental impact on his 40,000-acre Sandside estate, Minter last year commissioned Dr Philip Day, a respected chem ist from the University of Man chester, to study the contamination. Day's reports, two of which have been passed to the Sunday Herald, are devastating. Monitoring of the beach requested by Sepa and carried out by the UKAEA recovered only "significantly less than 1% of the total number of radioactive particles present". Monitoring took place only once a month, only a third of the foreshore was covered, and to depths of only 10cm in sand - much less deep than children dig to make sandcastles. "The particles are potentially harmful," Day pointed out. Yet the monitoring programme was agreed by Sepa and the UKAEA because it was the most practical - not because it fulfilled an instruction from ministers to ensure that all particles be promptly detected and removed. "It is surely unacceptable to continue to take this approach as a means of reaching the level of monitoring for public safety," Day added. "I am at a loss to understand their lack of concern at the particle situation on Sandside beach." Sepa accepts that the monitoring may not pick up all the particles, but denies it is going soft on Dounreay. Day's reports, according to the agency's chief executive, Patricia Henton, "raise some interesting questions which we will look at closely". However, she dismisses his estimate that only 1% of the contamination had been found as "exaggerated", and insists that the monitoring is adequate. "We are confident that the frequency of the monitoring will ensure there is rapid detection of the particles and their removal," she said. "We regulate Dounreay fairly and firmly ." Dounreay says that it had recently received copies of Day's reports in confidence and did not wish to comment on them in detail. "We are doing what we have been asked to do by Sepa and we being open and honest," said UKAEA spokesman Derrick Milnes. He also declined to talk about Minter's threat of legal action, saying only: "I can confirm that we have been in discussion with Mr Minter for some time." Minter, however, was more forthcoming. "Ever since my first complaints and challenge to UKAEA on their failure to protect the public's safety, our uninsurable liability and the damage to our land and our lives, we have been subjected to scorn and disdain. I have had the audacity to challenge their arrogant assertions and seen through their language of reassurance," he declared. The UKAEA has rejected independent mediation and, unless the monitoring improves, Minter promises to launch a claim for compensation for damage to his property under the Nuclear Installations Act 1965 as well as claims for personal injury and costs. Sepa is guilty of being "secretive" and having "double standards", he says. "Monitoring covers too little ground, too fast, too shallowly and too infrequently. The effectiveness of the current monitoring regime can be likened to a CCTV system set up to detect crime in a town centre, whereby removing more than half the cameras, restricting their depth and field of vision, and switching them on very briefly once a month, the crime rate is reduced by under 1%." ***************************************************************** 9 Russia Scientists Await Nuke Decision May 05, 2001 MOSCOW- A thief or terrorist trying to get at the seven nuclear reactors at Moscow's Kurchatov Institute will have to break through a sophisticated, $3 million set of safeguards financed by American taxpayers. The research center's security system is just one result of a 10-year-old U.S.-Russian program to reduce the threat of weapons of mass destruction. The joint effort has also brought much more dramatic achievements, including eliminating nuclear weapons stockpiles in the former Soviet republics of Kazakstan, Belarus and Ukraine, and deep cuts in Russia's own vast nuclear arsenal. But some U.S. Congress members are questioning the cost and value of the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program. President Bush has ordered a review - and that's making Russian nuclear scientists nervous. On a broader front, trust has been undermined over such issues as NATO expansion, Moscow's ties with Iraq and North Korea, and the Bush administration's missile defense plans. Also, some U.S. officials involved in the arms reduction program are being expelled from Russia as part of a wider, tit-for-tat spy scandal between Washington and Moscow. "We've achieved very important results, which are visible not just on paper but in the physical (security) systems," said Nikolai Ponomaryov-Stepnoi, the vice president of the Kurchatov Institute, named for the father of the Soviet atomic bomb. Over the past five years, the institute has won contracts to develop security systems for the Russian Navy, one of the institutions that Russian and U.S. officials had considered most vulnerable to theft and potential leaks of weapons-grade nuclear materials. "The risk of proliferation of nuclear materials is lessening significantly," Ponomaryov-Stepnoi said. The joint threat reduction program was launched in December 1991 in the final days of the Soviet Union with a law authored by U.S. Sens. Sam Nunn and Richard Lugar that sought to seize a rare opportunity to cut strategic weapons arsenals. The program is aimed broadly at cutting Russia's nuclear arsenal, preventing the leakage of nuclear and biological weapons technology to terrorists or other countries, and destroying stockpiles of chemical weapons. Those aims are being promoted through more than two dozen separate projects that have cost the United States some $4.7 billion so far. "It's a very effective defense by other means: Spending relatively little money, you seriously decrease the military potential of your probable enemy or rival," said Ivan Safranchuk, the nuclear arms control project director at the independent PIR institute in Moscow. According to the Pentagon program's director, Jim Reid, the United States has helped to junk 300 of Russia's intercontinental ballistic missiles, 2,000 nuclear warheads, 52 ICBM silos, 308 submarine launchers, 18 submarines and 42 bombers. The program helped accelerate Russian disarmament and put Russia on track to meet the Dec. 5, 2001 deadline for arms cuts under the 1991 Start I treaty, which should bring each side down to 1,600 strategic missiles and bombers and 6,000 warheads. Considering Russia's economic difficulties, "it would have taxed them significantly to try to use those funds to meet the treaty themselves," Reid said. Other goals have been partially met. Sensored fences, the first step in comprehensive security systems, have been built around more than half of Russia's nuclear weapons storage places, Reid said. The rest haven't been secured, and the Soviet-era protection systems have broken down, leaving potentially serious security breaches. Two of the highest-profile projects - to build a fissile materials storage plant in the town of Mayak and a pilot plant for destroying nerve agents stored at Shchuchiye - have been stalled by U.S.-Russian differences over how they should be run. The spy scandal hardly helps. An analyst who has seen the list of 50 U.S. diplomats to be sent home by July said about a dozen are involved with the Pentagon's threat-reduction program. He spoke on condition of anonymity. Scientists at the Kurchatov Institute said they were already feeling the effects, with American partners introducing new financing procedures that could set back some projects. "I don't know who's pulling the strings, but we already feel that the work is facing difficulties," Ponomaryov-Stepnoi said morosely. "It seems they feel they have to introduce a tougher line." The harshest U.S. critics question whether the program should be continued at all, especially in light of Russia's increasing cooperation with such potential nuclear proliferators as Iran. In general, U.S. aid programs to Russia face increasing American criticism for inefficiency and vulnerability to corruption, and Russians complain that much of the money ended up in U.S. contractors' pockets. In the arms reduction field, the Russian security service may feel the U.S. monitors are getting too intrusive. The program gives the monitors "unique access," said Alexander Pikayev, an arms control expert at the Moscow office of the Carnegie Endowment. "If political relations deteriorate, Russia will be less interested in transparency." Gennady Khromov, a Russian negotiator, said the Americans demanded only plutonium from weapons be stored at Mayak. "But to prove that, we're being asked to strip naked and show everything we have," he said. Reid rejected the criticism, saying there were demonstrated ways of providing those guarantees without revealing Russian secrets. The National Security Council is supposed to wind up its review of the program in mid-May, according to Reid. On the Net: Russian-American Nuclear Security Advisory Council: http://www.ransac.org All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 10 Wasting No Time Sunday, May 6, 2001 Albuquerque Journal--> By Tania Soussan *Journal Staff Writer* CARLSBAD — At the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant southwest of here, shipments of nuclear waste just aren't rolling in fast enough for Jack Gilbert. Gilbert is in charge of day-to-day operations at the huge underground site where the U.S. Department of Energy is burying radioactive waste from the production of the nation's nuclear weapons. He has 10 empty "rooms" 2,150 feet below ground level. They are ready to be filled with drums and boxes of waste; each room can hold roughly 7,000 drums. "I have all the space," Gilbert said. WIPP is the nation's first permanent underground repository for nuclear waste. It opened in March 1999 and accepts what's called transuranic waste — clothing, tools, rags and other items contaminated with plutonium and other elements that remain radioactive for thousands of years. Low- to mid-level waste and mixed waste — which includes both radioactive and hazardous materials — are allowed at WIPP. Congress has forbidden commercial and high-level waste at the southern New Mexico site. Shipments from 24 DOE sites around the country, where nuclear waste has accumulated over decades, have been slow in coming. Two years after receiving its first truckload, WIPP is far short of its goal of 17 shipments a week. "What we're averaging is seven," Gilbert said. But DOE has a sweeping plan to speed up shipments and cut costs. Taking advantage of new technologies is one thing that WIPP managers think will help. "WIPP will then be operating at full potential," said Inés Triay, manager of the DOE's Carlsbad field office. "The goal is to fulfill the DOE mission and serve the country in the safest, most efficient manner. It is the best possible return on the taxpayers' investment." WIPP cost more than $2 billion to open. DOE also is under pressure to speed up shipments because of impending deadlines to clean up some of the sites where nuclear waste was generated. For example, the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant in Colorado must ship out all of its waste by 2006. Waste analysis The cornerstone of DOE's plan to become more efficient is the creation of a centralized waste "characterization" facility at WIPP. Characterization, in DOE terms, is the process of analyzing drums of waste to determine exactly what is inside. A key problem in getting shipments on the road to WIPP, according to DOE, is the cumbersome system for analyzing the contents of waste shipments before they are moved from storage sites to WIPP. DOE contends the whole process could be sped up by doing most of the complex analysis when shipments arrive at WIPP. Other problems contributing to what DOE thinks is a too-slow shipment schedule is a shortage of the TRUPACT containers used to ship the waste from nuclear weapons research and production facilities around the country. DOE has about two dozen but needs twice that many. The TRUPACTs are 10-foot-high domed cylinders made of two layers of stainless steel with polyurethane foam and ceramic fiber sandwiched in between. They take a long time to manufacture, and DOE didn't order them until it was sure when WIPP would open. DOE is now receiving an average of one new TRUPACT a month. A number of other roadblocks are preventing shipment of almost 70 percent of the waste that eventually is supposed to be buried at WIPP. Some waste is too radioactive for the TRUPACT shipping containers. Other waste, such as machine parts, is simply too big to fit in the containers. Lastly, some of the waste at other DOE sites contains elements prohibited at WIPP by state and federal regulations. In addition to a central characterization facility, DOE is proposing to speed up shipments by building new waste repackaging facilities; developing a device to capture hydrogen in waste drums to reduce the risk of fire or explosion; and winning "regulatory" fixes, such as getting permission to store new kinds of waste at WIPP. WIPP's critics Watchdog groups say DOE lacks clear priorities and aims to give WIPP new responsibilities before it masters its current role. "WIPP's not doing anything well right now from my perspective," said Southwest Research and Information Center staffer Don Hancock, who has been opposing WIPP and following it closely for decades. Hancock and others charge DOE wants to change the rules rather than find a way to comply with the state permit and federal regulations that govern WIPP's operation. "As has been typical of DOE for the last 20 years, they constantly are wanting to move ahead before they have done the basic work," said Deborah Reade, research director for Citizens for Alternatives to Radioactive Dumping of Albuquerque. "They want to write the great American novel before they learn their ABCs." The activists are gearing up for a fight. "We're not going to let them just further water down the permit," Hancock said. "... This is going to be a big deal." Proposed permit changes To implement its plan, DOE has asked the New Mexico Environment Department to make a number of changes to its state-issued permit for the storage of hazardous waste — some of them controversial. But WIPP officials say permit changes are nothing unusual. The central characterization facility is the most important of those changes, DOE officials say. Ninety-seven percent of the waste destined for WIPP will come from six large sites — including Los Alamos National Laboratory, Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site in Colorado, Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state and Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory. The rest will come from 18 "small-quantity" sites that have as few as five drums of waste to ship. All 24 of the sites now must perform sophisticated tests to analyze the waste drums before sending them to WIPP. It takes $3 million to $5 million to set up a "characterization" facility at each site and another $1 million to $2 million a year to run one — much more than DOE ever envisioned. It would be safer, less costly and more efficient to establish a $10 million central facility at WIPP to test the drums once they arrive, Triay said. Current rules require the waste generator sites to gather existing information about what is in each drum. Then, they must X-ray each drum to verify the contents and take a sample of gases inside the drum to check for potentially flammable or explosive material. In addition, 1 percent of the drums must be opened and the contents visually examined. "You don't need all that to ship it," said Kerry W. Watson, assistant manager for the DOE in Carlsbad. "It just flatly doesn't have to be done." DOE proposes to determine the contents of a drum by relying on existing records dating to the time the drum was packed. X-rays and other tests would be done at the small sites only when there is some uncertainty about a drum's contents. "We believe these are going to be the exception, not the rule, which is why we believe this is a good way to go," Triay said. The drums would then be further analyzed at WIPP's new central facility. In addition, DOE proposes replacing X-rays of waste drums with new technology similar to a medical CAT scan. The new scans would be so accurate that they would eliminate the need to open drums to verify the contents, DOE says. A central facility would improve regulation, Triay said, because state regulators could actually monitor tests at WIPP rather than reviewing audits of procedures elsewhere. Paul Ritzma, deputy state Environment secretary, agreed that a central characterization facility would offer opportunities for improved regulation of WIPP. "It seems like a good idea to us with respect to the small generator sites," Ritzma said. "But we don't want them loading up Rocky Flats and bringing it down here." DOE's plan is to continue characterizing waste at Rocky Flats and the other large sites. But WIPP eventually could provide backup for the large sites and even do some characterization for them to speed up shipments. "Could this be utilized to help large sites as well as small sites? The answer is, 'yes,' '' Triay said. But she added that the central characterization facility would be able to handle no more than 6,000 drums a year. As part of the proposed new facility, DOE also wants to increase the amount of waste that can be stored above ground at WIPP by 25 percent and lengthen from 60 days to one year the time it can sit there. Shift in mission? Hancock said the central characterization plan is dangerous and out of line with WIPP's role. "That's not what WIPP is for," Hancock said. "It's not a characterization facility. It's not a storage facility. It is supposed to be a disposal facility ... This is a fundamental shift in the mission." He said prohibited items could be shipped to WIPP by mistake, potentially forcing workers in Carlsbad to undertake the dangerous job of opening drums. Triay said that is unlikely. If a drum that contains a prohibited item — such as a volatile aerosol can — does arrive at WIPP, it could be sent back or safely opened and the problem removed or fixed, she said. Hancock said DOE should follow the plan laid out in its environmental impact statement for WIPP — send waste from small sites to the nearest largest site for characterization. But Triay said DOE no longer likes that option. It prefers central characterization because that is more in line with the way the commercial hazardous waste industry operates, she said. DOE proposed the central characterization facility last year but withdrew it in the face of strong public opposition. The agency plans to resubmit a revised proposal to the New Mexico Environment Department soon. The new proposal will be subject to public hearings. Proposed budget cut Meanwhile, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham wants WIPP to do more with less. He has proposed cutting WIPP's budget by 14 percent — to $164.6 million — in the next fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1. But he wants WIPP to double the number of shipments it receives. DOE's Gilbert said the budget cut does not make sense. "That'd kill us," he said. "We've already cut down to the bone." Another problem DOE is struggling with is a lack of reliable information about how much transuranic waste is out there. "This uncertainty causes the estimate of TRU waste in storage ... to change on a frequent basis," the DOE's national transuranic waste management plan states. "They don't know what waste they have," said Reade of Citizens for Alternatives to Radioactive Dumping. "They don't know the quantities of waste." Copyright 2001 Albuquerque Journal ***************************************************************** 11 Experts far from agreement on radium's effect HERALD NEWS STAFF Clashing theories: Government under fire for concerns about low-level exposure JOLIET — Scientists from around the world dispute the notion that exposure to low levels of radiation can be harmful to the body. Some leading radiation experts oppose the theory used by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to determine the maximum level of radium to allow in municipal water supplies. All agree that exposure to high levels of radiation can cause cancer or other deadly diseases. On the other hand, everyone is exposed to some degree of radiation every day. No one knows for sure what level of exposure should be considered safe. The EPA's ruling relies on a model known as the linear no-threshold theory. The U.N. Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) proposed the theory in 1958. The theory holds that the effects of low doses of ionizing radiation can be estimated by studying the effects of exposure to high doses, then mathematically extrapolating the data. In other words, if exposure to a certain level of radiation kills 100 percent of those affected, then exposure to a level one-tenth as great should result in 10 percent as many deaths. Theory advocates, including Linus Pauling and Andrei Sakharov, pointed out that if the harmful effects of radiation were proportional to dose, the observed effects of high doses would predict millions of cancers and other serious genetic diseases from much smaller individual doses. The theory holds that there is not any safe dose because even very low doses of ionizing radiation produce some biological effect. But opponents argue that the Cold War-era theory is outdated and irrational. "These rigid standards are part of a concerted effort to promulgate false science at the public's expense by EPA and the other regulatory agencies," said Jim Muckerheide, co-director of the Center for Nuclear Technology and Society at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, Mass. Muckerheide is one of many nuclear scientists who formed Radiation, Science and Health Inc., a public policy group that is suing the EPA over radium standards in drinking water. "The enormous direct evidence that low-dose radiation is not harmful, and is indeed beneficial — including explicit evidence that it can prevent and cure cancer and other diseases — must be achieved in the face of a relatively small group of U.S. and international scientists that are funded by the regulators to misrepresent the scientific results," Muckerheide said. Opponents allege that strict radium standards are the result of a conspiracy by scientists working for government-funded agencies like the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements, who want to maintain high levels of federal money for those agencies. "We anticipate challenging the individual scientists on scientific misconduct, specifically falsification, by documenting their misrepresentations on behalf of their funding agencies in order to maintain the scientific veneer for massive radiation-protection funding," Muckerheide said. In a 1999 position statement, the American Nuclear Society concluded that "there is insufficient scientific evidence to support the use of the linear no threshold hypothesis in the projection of the health effects of low-level radiation." The society called for the formation of an independent group of scientists to review the theory. The U.S. Department of Energy has committed $200 million to fund the Low Dose Radiation Research Program. The program's Web site informs visitors that: "We don't know if there are radiation doses or energies below which there is no significant biological change or below which the damage induced can be effectively dealt with by normal cellular processes. If there are, then there should be no regulatory concern for exposures below these thresholds since there will be no increase in risk." Into political arena In light of the mounting evidence that the linear no-threshold theory is flawed, the EPA in 1991 began considering relaxing the standards for radium. But five years into the process, Congress passed the Safe Drinking Water Act, which the EPA interpreted as saying that no existing standard could be loosened. "We were hopeful that the proposal from EPA in the 1990s to raise the radium standards ... meant that some rationality was finally coming into play. However, EPA has interpreted language in the renewal of the (Safe Drinking Water Act) as forcing them to retain the old standards," said Richard Toohey, program director for the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education. Toohey holds a doctoral degree in nuclear physics and is former director of radiation safety at Argonne National Laboratory near Lemont. "There are some legal opinions that indicate the EPA is incorrect in their interpretation, so we can hope that radium will go the way of arsenic in the new (Bush) administration," Toohey said. Radium controversy Radium was discovered in 1898 by Marie and Pierre Curie, who five years later shared the Nobel Prize in physics. Pierre died in 1906 when he was run over by a horse-drawn cart. Marie, who also won the 1911 Nobel prize for chemistry, died in 1934 of leukemia caused by her extensive exposure to the high levels of radiation involved in her studies. Government scientists based their conclusions about radium standards for drinking water on studies about survivors of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and those who licked the tips of brushes dipped in irradiated paint they applied to watches. But both groups were exposed to massive doses of radiation. Critics of the theory argue that using those studies to calculate the risks of exposure to low levels of radiation is simply illogical. Polish scientist Zbigniew Jaworowski presented perhaps the most convincing argument against the linear no-threshold theory. In the article "Radiation Risk and Ethics" published in Physics Today in September 1999, Jaworowski, an UNSCEAR member, wrote that the established worldwide practice of protecting people from radiation costs hundreds of billions of dollars a year to implement and suggested that the current population dose threshold could be 10 times higher. "The concern about large doses is obviously justified. However, the fear of small doses ... is about as justified as the fear that sipping a glass of claret is harmful because gulping down a gallon of grain alcohol is fatal," Jaworowski wrote. Standards likely to stick Even with the Bush administration considering relaxing standards for arsenic in public water supplies, few expect any change in the standards for radium. "As a physicist, I don't agree with that (linear no-threshold) model. I think it has a fatal flaw," said Jim Volk, a city council member in Batavia who holds a doctoral degree in physics and works as a research scientist at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. "But I don't think (Bush is) going to stick his neck out much further on environmental regulations. We have no choice but to comply," Volk said. 05/06/01 ***************************************************************** 12 RGJ.com - We need a ‘virtuous’ policy Sunday May 6th, 2001 President George Bush’s energy-policy decision is disappointing -- to continue relying primarily on oil, natural gas, coal and nuclear power instead of alternative sources and conservation. Particularly unfortunate was Vice President Dick Cheney’s statement that conservation is perhaps “a sign of personal virtue” but not a sound or comprehensive policy. It’s an odd stance for an administration that promised to return virtue to the White House; but it’s also plain wrong. It’s our continued dependence on non-renewable fossil fuels controlled by other nations and unsustainable nuclear power that is not a sound energy policy. Instead of preparing us for the future, the administration has chosen to simply postpone the inevitable shortages. When that happens, we’ll all be wishing for a little “personal virtue.” Back to Editorial/Columnists | Back to Top ©2001 Reno Gazette-Journal ***************************************************************** 13 Bush energy plan could help TVA; groups worried about its effects Power policy: groups worried about its effects By Dennis Sherer Staff Writer May 6, 2001 Email this story. Colbert Steam Plant is part of the Tennessee Valley Authoritys electrical power generating system. TVA could benefit if the energy plan expected to be presented by President Bush next week does include provisions to encourage the building of more nuclear and coal-burning power plants, as it is rumored to do.  *Photo by Photo Editor Matt McKean. * An energy plan President Bush is expected to introduce next week could mesh with the Tennessee Valley Authority's electrical power program. The plan, which is rumored to include provisions to encourage building additional nuclear and coal-burning power plants, would help TVA keep pace with the demand for electricity, said U.S. Rep. Bud Cramer, D-Ala. "I am very encouraged by the president's energy plan," Cramer said. "Even though we do not know the exact priorities and details of the administration's plans, Vice President Cheney has indicated his support for investing more in sources of energy like coal and nuclear." But environmental groups are warning that the plan could reverse years of progress in protecting the environment. TVA spokesman Gil Francis said the utility is withholding comment until the energy plan is announced. Bush is expected to make the announcement around May 16. TVA's power system relies primarily on coal-burning and nuclear plants for power generation. Cramer said the energy plan would prevent TVA from having to spend heavily replacing those plants. "Our communities have already invested millions in these energy sources, and it makes common sense to utilize coal and nuclear power before moving ahead with developing new sources," Cramer said. An energy plan that favors nuclear power could help boost the economy of north Alabama, he said. TVA is considering completing construction of its Bellefonte Nuclear Plant near Scottsboro and restarting Unit 1 at its Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant near Athens. That unit was idled in 1985. Cramer and U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R.Ala., have called on TVA to complete Bellefonte and restart Browns Ferry Unit 1 to guard against shortages of electrical power like those plaguing California. Sessions said he is confident that the president's energy plan will encourage increasing the amount of electrical power produced with nuclear energy. Sessions has asked that the plan include tax incentives to encourage the use of nuclear energy. He said TVA, which as a government agency does not pay federal taxes, could complete Bellefonte and restart Browns Ferry Unit 1 and sell its tax incentives to private utilities. He also wants TVA to take advantage of any incentives in the energy plan that encourage building cleaner-burning coal plants. Sessions said new technology allows utilities to build coal-fired plants that produce less pollution. TVA and many other utilities have come under fire from environmental groups in recent years for operating coal-burning plants that pollute the air. The likelihood the energy plan will encourage increasing the number of coal and nuclear power plants worries Stephen Smith, executive director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy in Knoxville, Tenn. Instead of developing more coal and nuclear power plants, Smith said the plan should encourage utilities to increase efforts to promote energy conservation. He said a nationwide energy conservation effort could eliminate the need for many new power plants. When plants are built, Smith said they should use natural gas. Smith expects natural gas prices to come down soon. He said the fuel produces less pollution than coal and does not create dangerous waste like nuclear plants. Sessions said TVA should search for multiple ways, including natural gas, of generating electricity, but the utility also should look for ways to use nuclear, hydroelectric and clean coal plants. He said alternative forms of energy, such and wind and solar power, should be included in the mix. Dennis Sherer can be reached at dennis.sherer@timesdaily.comor 740-5746. ***************************************************************** 14 Nuclear power plant recess well prepared Tucson, Arizona Sunday, 6 May 2001 The Associated Press The Columbia Generating Station *will not shut down its normal 60 days for nuclear refueling. Luckily, it will only be idle 30 days.* By Linda Ashton THE ASSOCIATED PRESS RICHLAND, Wash. - The Northwest's only nuclear power plant shuts down May 18 for refueling, leaving the Bonneville Power Administration without its workhorse electricity producer for 30 days in the worst drought in a quarter-century. Bonneville and Energy Northwest, the 13-utility public power consortium that owns the Columbia Generating Station, have been planning for the outage for almost two years. "We arranged for power and made purchases to cover that outage months ago," said Ed Mosey, a spokesman for Bonneville in Portland, Ore. "It will have absolutely no effect on reliability or price." The Columbia Generating Station, which typically produces about 5 percent of all the electricity in the Northwest, will contribute about 10 percent of the region's generation over the next year because of diminished water supplies for hydropower. "We rely on it to operate reliably," Mosey said. "If it were to go out for unscheduled maintenance, then we would be thrown into the (spot) market. They have done a very good job of keeping the plant going through this winter." The price of power on the spot market has increase 12-fold in the last year. This is the shortest outage ever planned at the plant, with twice as much fuel loaded to stretch the length of time between outages - plans that seem almost prescient now but were actually made long before the drought of 2001 threatened summer hydropower capacity, salmon survival and irrigated orchards. The board of directors of Energy Northwest understood the power market and believed the plant's weather-independent operation would one day be appreciated, said Scott Oxenford, the general manager of Columbia Generating Station. "We had the foresight that we were going to be needed," Oxenford said. Since the plant came on line in 1984, refuelings typically have been scheduled in the spring, when river water is abundant and power demand is relatively low. But water isn't plentiful this year, although the Northwest Power Planning Council has said it can probably squeak through without rolling blackouts. The 1,200-megawatt Columbia Generating Station, once tarred with the anti-nuclear power brush and a huge municipal bond default in a failed nuclear building boom, generates enough electricity to light a city the size of Seattle. © Arizona Daily Star ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 India needs to test against nuclear fallout: Expert 6 May 2001 : 6 May 2001 [Indiatimes] The Times of India LONDON: India, now conducting its biggest military exercises in about a decade along the border with Pakistan, needs to test its protective mechanism in the event of a nuclear attack, a British military expert said. Measures against the effects of explosive blasts, direct nuclear radiation, direct thermal radiation, electromagnetic pulse and radioactive fall out would have to be tested, said Col. Terry Taylor, deputy director of London's International Institute of Strategic Studies. He was referring to the Indian defense ministry's announcement that Operation Complete Victory is to "evaluate concepts and practice battle procedures during offensive and defensive operations on the future battlefield with a nuclear backdrop." Taylor said, "There's a set of both individual and collective measures that can be taken, which are quite well known in the West. In the more high tech areas would be the protection against electromagnetic pulse, say protecting electronically all the radio equipment and so on which is often built into the design." It's a question of "hardening" electronic equipment so that cabling and internal works is protected as much as it can be from the electromagnetic pulse of the nuclear explosion, Taylor said, adding: "Cabling is more heavily insulated, there are various other technical things you can do." "In NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation), we used to have a standard which added to the cost of the equipment. Certain technical standards had to be met so that the equipment was hardened. Not absolute protection because it depended how far away you were from ground zero, just to enable it as far as possible to withstand this electronic pulse." Talking about individual protection from nuclear attack, Taylor said, "They would have to dig trenches, reinforce them, provide overhead cover of a certain thickness, depending on what the assessment was of what the other side might be able to deliver. "They would have to have sleeping areas underground, similar protection to what would be needed for a high explosive delivery, just have to be more meticulous, provide greater overhead cover than normal. "There would have to be a fire trench and alongside it sleeping trenches with overhead cover with earth, or galvanised iron to provide protection. People outside that protection would only be there for observation purposes. You would try and keep people under cover for as long as you possibly could. "There are plenty of calculations that a shield of earth can provide protection from the effects of a nuclear explosion to people who are not immediately at ground zero. Most people will not be. So what you're doing is providing protection for people some distance from the actual impact or point of explosion above the ground." For collective defense, Taylor said, the Indian Army will need to disperse its forces to avoid what he described as "concentrations." "You would have to have 'hides' where you disperse troops so as not to expose them," he said. "Anyone doing nuclear targeting would be looking for concentrations of troops. So you would be conducting your operations in such a way that troops were dispersed and kept in hides and then concentrated rapidly when you needed to concentrate them. "You would also test command and control procedures. So there would be all the rules for the release of nuclear weapons from political decision making down through the military chain of command. "Inside armoured vehicles, you would have things like air filters that would filter out radioactive material. "You would have to understand how to handle casualties in these situations, casualties would have to be decontaminated before they could be treated. There's a casualty handling system, which deals with all these things. It depends with what degree of seriousness this is being taken." (IANS) ***************************************************************** 2 Plan to dismantle nuclear sub at Rosyth is 'half-baked' Sunday Herald - www.sundayherald.com 7 May 2001 By Stephen Naysmith Publication Date: May 6 2001 PLANS to dismantle the decommissioned nuclear submarine HMS Renown in Rosyth have been derided as "half-baked" by a nuclear expert. John Large, an independent nuclear consultant, said the proposal by Babcock Rosyth Defence Limited failed to address key concerns about the experimental procedure. BRDL, the company which operates Rosyth dockyard, hopes to dismantle Renown's reactor by cutting away the submarine's hull until only the radioactive core remains. Renown is one of seven decommissioned submarines in floating storage at Rosyth, while four more are held at Devonport. All have had their fuel rods removed and reactors shut down but the irradiated cores are classified as nuclear waste, posing a huge problem for the Ministry of Defence which recently initiated a consultation, co-ordinated by Lancaster University, to "define, develop and procure a safe and publicly acceptable method for the interim storage of the radioactive material from decommissioned submarines". T he BRDL proposal has caused anger and controversy in Fife. There are fears that if it is given the go-ahead, Rosyth could become a depository for nuclear waste. Others have accused BRDL of undermining and prejudicing the MoD consultation. John Large, who was recently retained by the government of Gibraltar to advise it on repairs to damaged Navy submarine HMS Tireless, said the proposal did give cause for concern. After being asked by local pressure group Rosythwatch to look at BRDL's environmental statement he said it was wholly inadequate. "This is half-baked, and I thought it must just be a preliminary draft," he said. "If you wanted to assess a project like this you might want to know the radiation dose workers would be exposed to, or how good the radioactive waste containment is. You would want to know the history of the reactor itself and what emergency plans were in place for an eventuality such as a fire. "This doesn't tell you any of that. People can't make a confident assessment of the plan." He said that no justification had been given for the dismantling operation. "They don't appear to have looked at the various alternatives or whether this is the best option in terms of cost." Large added that financial considerations might be behind the proposal. "The plant equipment necessary for this would sit idle during gaps in the programme. But it could be used to good effect if Rosyth were to take all the boats. This could be a risk or a prize, depending on how you look at it." George Anderson of Rosythwatch has called for a public inquiry into the proposal. He said: "Our opinion is that if this is successful they will go around the world touting for business." Local councillor Alice McGarry, whose ward includes the dockyard, has backed calls for an inquiry, though Fife council voted against the suggestion. "This has never been done anywhere in the world but we are not just talking about HMS Renown," she said. "This is the thin end of the wedge. Countries all over the world don't know what to do with nuclear submarines which are sitting there waiting to be brought somewhere compliant." Large also questioned Babcock's role in pushing to dismantle HMS Renown while the MoD was still deciding on the best course of action. Murray Easton, managing director of BRDL, said the company had lengthy experience of nuclear engineering. "This proposal is based on sound engineering principles and would only deal with waste already on site in the submarines ," he said. "We would reduce the amount of that waste and store it on land instead of afloat. "There is absolutely no possibility that Babcock would bring more nuclear submarines to Rosyth or that decaying Russian subs would come here for dismantling," he added. A spokesman for the MoD said a decision would be made after regulatory bodies had examined the proposal. The Scottish Environmental Protection Agency has yet to respond while the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate has approved the plans in principle. ***************************************************************** 3 Critics Question LANL's Cerro Grande Funds Sunday, May 6, 2001 Albuquerque Journal--> By Jennifer McKee *Journal Northern Bureau* LOS ALAMOS — The Cerro Grande wildfire of a year ago blackened parts of Los Alamos National Laboratory. Now the fire is bringing in something green — a large windfall of federal money. Ashes still were smoking around the laboratory last summer when lab managers began adding up their losses: * 29 destroyed trailers that had been temporary office space. * 20 computers burned entirely, many more damaged by smoke. * Miles of destroyed power lines. * More than 100 storage sheds burned to the ground, including one which held millions of dollars in scientific equipment that melted into a puddle of aluminum. Congress gave the lab and the Department of Energy, which oversees it, almost $342 million to clean up and repair from last May's Cerro Grande wildfire. A critic says the sum, almost $90 million more than the cost of the Big I construction in Albuquerque, is another example of the lab and DOE spending huge amounts of tax money just because they can. Others, like Everett Trollinger, of the DOE's Los Alamos office, which oversees lab spending, said Congress and the government are scrutinizing how every penny of the LANL's fire money is being used. "They've got a lot of people breathing down their throat," Trollinger said. So far, the lab and DOE have spent $84 million, or about 25 percent, of the fire money. About $8 million went to the Army Corps of Engineers to build a dam in Pajarito Canyon, designed to prevent a flood from washing over sensitive lab buildings there. The fire left hillsides around Los Alamos denuded of vegetation, raising the possibility of flooding or mudslides from heavy rains. Millions more went into cleaning up, clearing out and otherwise preparing the lab to reopen after it was evacuated along with the rest of Los Alamos on May 7, 2000. Almost $92 million more is allocated for big-ticket items, some controversial, such as two new office buildings at $5 million a piece, a new emergency operations center at a cost of $20 million, and $25 million to partially rebuild the lab's electronic fire alarm system. Fire as an excuse? Not everyone is pleased with explanations for the big-ticket items. Although public critics are few, other government agencies — behind the scenes — have questioned the amount doled out to the lab. "It doesn't take a very sensitive nose to smell a rat here," said Greg Mello, of the Los Alamos Study Group, a Santa Fe-based lab watchdog group. Mello questions much of Cerro Grande spending, arguing that it's a way for the lab to pay for things it should have bought a long time ago — but didn't in favor of spending for its nuclear weapon programs. He points to the two office buildings the lab will build, at $5 million each, with fire money. The lab is using the fire as an excuse, he said, to pay for what it should be buying routinely — suitable office space for workers. The lab gets more than a billion dollars every year. This year the lab's budget was $1.46 billion, excluding millions spent on construction. That's just shy of the budget for the state of North Dakota. Mello wants to know why the lab can't build office buildings with money in its annual budget. "What has happened to the lab's ability to manage money?" he asked. One vexing problem for LANL is how to fireproof the 46,000 drums of stored nuclear waste and a liquid radioactive waste treatment plant. The lab has $29.1 million budgeted to deal with those problems, and lab budget experts said last week they still don't know exactly how they'll spend it. Cleaning up Before the lab could reopen after the fire, said Jim Holt, LANL's program director for buildings and construction, crews had to survey all 8 million square feet of lab office and work space. "Everything was dirty inside," said Ming Moy, deputy director of the lab's Cerro Grande Rehabilitation Project, which is planning the rebuilding efforts. Crews shampooed rugs, cleaned windows and in some cases scrubbed the walls, said James Rickman, a lab spokesman. Computers had to be cleaned. Hundreds of air filters were clogged with ash, and some, like those that sift tiny particles of plutonium from the air, don't come cheap, Holt said. In all, the lab has allocated about $100 million over two years to build the dam, repair buildings and prevent erosion. Of that, $48 million has been spent. According to Stephen Mee, one of the project managers for the lab's rehab, that money bought a lot of work. Last year alone, crews tore down 63 old buildings no longer used and at risk to burn in other fires and stacked 20,000 sandbags and 38,000 straw bales and wattles to stop erosion and control potential flooding. The lab also had acres of forest — some of it burned — to deal with. It spent several million dollars last year sawing down 20,000 burned trees, raking 200 acres of soil baked by the fire into a glaze that would repel water unless manually broken apart, and spreading 10 tons of seed. The cost of some of the other plans for the Cerro Grande millions has raised questions — especially when compared to the spending of other agencies with similar projects. Take the lab's forest-thinning project. The lab wants to thin out trees on 10,000 acres, much of it near areas where scientists conduct high explosives experiments. Mee expects the project to cost between $6 million and $9 million, to be paid by Cerro Grande Fire money. Compare that to the Santa Fe National Forest's thinning projects. A typical 8,000-acre thinning project runs about $2.5 million, said Susan Bruin, of the Santa Fe National Forest. The delicate and expensive Santa Fe Watershed Thinning Project will cost around $5 million, she said, far and away the most costly and painfully orchestrated thinning project on the forest. But even that is cheaper than the lab's thinning estimates. The difference, Mee said, is the complicated web of security regulations DOE and the lab must follow to do anything — from working with plutonium to cutting trees — on lab property. Because the thinning crews don't have special security clearances, they'll need to be escorted by someone who does. The rule is one escort for every six noncleared workers. Additionally, the escorts must run through cumbersome security regulations every time the work crews enter and leave the lab. Security delays All that takes time. Mee estimates DOE work crews lose about 31/2 hours of every 8-hour work day going through security. To make up for the delays, Mee plans on working the crews overtime, and that's expensive, he said. He also has to pay the escorts. Further complicating things is a DOE-wide ban on open burning. That means crews can't pile and burn trees culled from DOE lands like they can on the Forest Service. Mee said he plans to get rid of some of the trees as firewood to the public and saw logs for local lumber mills. But that also costs time and money. Because every single person who wanted a cord of lab piñon would have to go through hours of security procedures to fetch it, Mee said he plans on hiring other crews to bundle up and move the firewood to an accessible place, further driving up costs. The lab's proposed $25 million fire alarm system also raised eyebrows. Trollinger explained the cost by saying the lab is buying more than standard office building fire alarms. LANL will use specialized computer panels installed in each building designed to transmit news of a fire and any other emergency to a central command. Critic Mello also questions an effort to catalog archaeological sites that is to be financed with Cerro Grande funds. "Taken as a whole, they couldn't justify this much money any other way," he said. Mello said the lab is spending as much cleaning up from the fire — one that burned hardly any permanent structures — as it did in a whole year during the Manhattan Project days. And that's in dollars adjusted for today's inflation. "What this says is spending money at Los Alamos is considered to be an absolute good by Sen. Pete Domenici and lab leadership," he said. "What this money actually buys is secondary." Lab officials have said they weren't compensated at all for one costly loss from the fire — damage to research that occurred because the lab had to shut down during the fire or when computer records burned. Domenici's office is satisfied with the spending. Every month, DOE officers in Los Alamos send detailed reports to the appropriations committees of both the U.S. House and Senate. Domenici is chairman of the Senate Budget Committee. The lab first requested $408 million for cleanup, said Clay Sell, a Domenici aide. Congress whittled it down from there and has regular oversight over where all the money is going. "It's appropriate for us to make sure the money is being spent in the way Congress intended," he said. "It all looks square." Copyright Albuquerque Journal ***************************************************************** 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: *****************************************************************