***************************************************************** 06/07/01 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 9.143 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER CONTENTS 1 Panel sees no need to rush in building nuclear dump 2 Limit for Radioactive Leaks Is Set for Nuclear Waste Site 3 Nevada Nuclear Sites Faces LimitsNevada Nuclear Sites Faces 4 EPA Sets Tough Ground-Water Standard for Nuclear Waste Site 5 Radiation Standards Finalized for Yucca Mountain Waste RepositoryFree 6 Report: U.S. nuke storage plan is safe - June 6, 2001 7 Subcommittee to address I-131 releases in meeting 8 Plan could bring back nuclear power 9 Visa costs may stop Chernobyl children's trip 10 EPA Radiation Standards Offer Inadequate Protection from 11 What Yucca offers...for 10,000 years 12 Nuke lobby sues EPA 13 No notice alleged in radiation find 14 Cleanup crew didn't report radioactive grit 15 DOE waste sites at half capacity for last 2 years 16 Hazardous Radio Activity 17 Utah citizens protest nuclear waste dumping 18 Utilities, aluminum state case 19 Editorial: Questions remain over radiation rule 20 Fight over nuclear waste site health standards heads to court 21 GROUNDWATER SAFEGUARDS TO COME IN 10 MONTHS 22 INEEL receives certification from New Mexico Environment Department 23 Radiation: It's The Pits 24 Emergency! Nuclear simulation staged to prepare various agencies 25 Infocast Announces Conference on 'Building New Nuclear Power 26 Nevada hopes EPA standard will kill Yucca Mountain plan 27 Ottawa urged to probe uranium-illness link 28 Taipower denies plant pollution 29 Taiwan Approves $94 Mln Compensation to Nuclear Plant Builders 30 Industry sues to stop Yucca radiation limits 31 New Terrorist Bomb Fears Over MOX Fuel 32 Japan Delays Use Of MOX 33 Analysis: Soviet legacy -- A liquid Chernobyl 34 Duma Approves Nuclear Fuel Imports 35 Russia backs nuclear waste dump plan 36 Russian Duma Votes to Allow Nuclear Waste Import 37 Russia closer to taking the world's nuclear waste 38 Nuclear waste deal with Taiwan denied 39 To Come Out With Project Of The World's First International 40 Council backs soil plan NUCLEAR WEAPONS CONTENTS 1 Stillborns In Atomic Tests 2 Worker testifies in injury lawsuit 3 U.S. feared loss of beryllium 4 Energy Official, GAO Testify on DOE Threat Reduction Efforts 5 Vets were exposed to uranium: study 6 Bush to resume talks with N. Korea 7 Bones of Australian Babies Used in Nuclear Tests 8 US Use of Dead Babies for Nuclear Experiments Is Well-Documented: 9 New Technology Helps Reduce Worker Radiation Exposures 10 Lawmakers join protesters in charging abuse by Navy 11 Baby bones shipped to US for studies as late as 1978 12 Stillborn babies snatched for nuclear tests **************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 Panel sees no need to rush in building nuclear dump Las Vegas SUN Today: June 07, 2001 at 11:43:17 PDT By Mary Manning Deep geological disposal of high-level nuclear waste, such as a proposed repository at Yucca Mountain, is a long-term goal, but radioactive waste can be temporarily stored, an international scientific panel concluded. Most current surface storage sites are intended to keep waste safe for 50 to 100 years, the 12-member National Research Council committee said in a report released on Wednesday. "However, they could be a feasible waste management option for even longer," the panel's report said of keeping radioactive waste in pools of water or in dry cask storage containers above ground. The panel concluded that there is no need to rush building permanent disposal sites as long as the waste is managed responsibly under safe and secure conditions, but the only long-term solution to radioactive waste is deep geological disposal. Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is the only site being studied for such long-term geological storage. If it is approved as a site for a repository, it would hold 77,000 tons of commercial and defense nuclear waste for up to 10,000 years. The biggest obstacle to burying nuclear waste from commercial reactors and defense activities is public opposition, the report noted. Nevada officials and residents are vehemently opposed to the Department of Energy's plans for a repository. "Difficulties in garnering public support have been seriously underestimated, and opportunities to increase public involvement and to gain trust have been missed," said committee Chairman D. Warner North, president of NorthWorks, Inc., Belmont, Calif. "Waste management programs around the globe should direct their efforts beyond technical development to emphasize public participation in the decision-making process," North said. Committee member Jane C.S. Long, dean of the Mackay School of Mines at the University of Nevada, Reno, agreed with North's assessment. "There's been a significant lack of concern in paying attention to public participation," she said. The committee report said significant technical challenges remain for burying nuclear waste, but countries should take a step-by-step approach to permanent disposal. The United States is the only country as far along in studying a site. The National Research Council began the study after noticing many nations delaying plans for permanent burial, while the spent nuclear fuel and other high-level radioactive waste continues to grow because of continued use of nuclear energy, dismantling nuclear weapons and cleaning up sites where the weapons were built. The report was sponsored by the Department of Energy, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and organizations responsible for managing radioactive wastes in eight countries. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 2 Limit for Radioactive Leaks Is Set for Nuclear Waste Site June 7, 2001 By MATTHEW L. WALD Nuclear Waste Dump in Nevada Is Dead for Now, Daschle Says (June 2, 2001) WASHINGTON, June 6 — The Environmental Protection Agency announced today that it had set a standard on how much radioactive waste could be allowed to leak from from a proposed repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev., opening the way for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to decide whether the site, about 100 miles north of Las Vegas, is suitable. Setting the rule is seen as an essential step before the Yucca Mountain site can be opened, and supporters of nuclear power say the repository is necessary before anyone can order a new power reactor. The Bush administration favors such power plants. The burial site still faces numerous challenges. The environmental agency stuck with its draft standard, which it proposed in the Clinton administration. It says the dump should be allowed if, during the first 10,000 years, leaks will result in annual exposure to members of the public of no more than 15 millirem, an amount equal to what the average American receives in about two weeks from natural and man-made sources. In a statement, Christie Whitman, the agency administrator, said, "As a nation, we must address our nuclear waste disposal problem, but we must do so in a way that protects public health and the environment." The agency also said that no more than four millirem of exposure should come from water. This might turn out to be the more stringent standard, because releases into underground water are expected to be the biggest pathway to exposure. Nevada's senators, Harry Reid, a Democrat who today became the assistant majority leader, and John Ensign, a Republican, said the rule was a victory in their efforts to block the dump. Mr. Reid praised Ms. Whitman for "not bowing to the wishes of those who sought to limit the E.P.A.'s role." Last year Congress passed a bill that would have prevented the agency from setting standards for Yucca, but President Bill Clinton vetoed it. An environmental group that specializes in nuclear waste, the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research in Washington, complained that the agency had created an exclusion zone of about 11 miles around Yucca Mountain, within which the water standard would not apply. "This is the first time that the E.P.A. has exempted a portion of a currently used aquifer from the Safe Drinking Water Act," said Arjun Makhijani, president of the institute. In the future, Mr. Makhijani said, the government could establish such zones its land all over the West. But at the environmental agency, Stephen D. Page, director of the Office of Radiation and Indoor Air, said that in 1992 Congress gave his agency the authority to set a rule for Yucca Mountain that would neither be bound by precedent nor set one. "If you have a source of groundwater and it is going to be used for drinking water, what you care about is what comes out of the tap," Mr. Page said. No taps are in the immediate area, because it is the Nevada Test Site, where the government has exploded hundreds of nuclear bombs. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission chairman, Dr. Richard Meserve, has argued that there is no reason for a separate water standard, since what matters is the total dose, not the amount that comes from water versus the amount from air. But Mr. Page said that the Safe Drinking Water Act applies and that the four millirem limit was the law. NYTimes.com ***************************************************************** 3 Nevada Nuclear Sites Faces LimitsNevada Nuclear Sites Faces Limits washingtonpost.com: By H. Josef Hebert Associated Press Writer Thursday, June 7, 2001; 12:01 AM WASHINGTON –– The Bush administration agreed to tougher health protection requirements for a proposed nuclear waste site in Nevada, ignoring pleas from the nuclear industry and Republican allies in Congress. The requirements announced by the Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday would limit radiation exposure from the Yucca Mountain site to no more than 15 millirems a year for people 11 miles away, including no more than 4 millirems from groundwater. A millirem is a measurement of the biological effects of radiation on human tissue. According to the EPA, the standard would mean a person living 11 miles from the waste site would absorb every year a little less radiation than a person would get from two roundtrip transcontinental airline flights. By comparison, background radiation exposes people to about 360 millirems of radiation annually. Three chest X-rays expose a person to about 18 millirem, the agency said. The Nuclear Energy Institute responded with separate lawsuits in two federal courts challenging the EPA standard. The industry had sought less stringent standards, arguing that recommendations from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission of a 25 millirems overall limit and no groundwater standards would provide safety to people living near the site. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, who has favored the NRC proposal, said the EPA standards were "tough and challenging" and that "we believe we can meet the requirements." The government's health standards for the Nevada site have been considered crucial in determining whether the federal underground storage facility at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, can be built. The scientific review of the site has not been completed. Abraham is expected to make a recommendation to President Bush this year with a final decision by the president likely in early 2002. The plan is to keep 70,000 tons of used reactor fuel now at commercial power plants in canisters 600 feet below the surface. Nevada officials say the federal government has failed to prove that the waste, which will stay highly radioactive for tens of thousands of years, would not contaminate an aquifer running through the area and surrounding countryside. The state also has protested transportation plans for thousands of shipments of waste, including some traveling near Las Vegas. The EPA standard is designed to limit public exposure to any contamination over the next 10,000 years. "Under these standards, future generations will be securely protected," Christie Whitman, the EPA administrator, said in a statement. She said the limits were designed "to ensure that people living near this potential repository will be protected now and for future generation." The nuclear industry moved quickly to challenge the standard, suing in U.S. District Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. "The nuclear industry is extremely disappointed," said Marvin Fertel, director of business operation at the NEI, the industry trade group. He said the added groundwater exposure limits "will cost taxpayers and electricity consumers billions of additional dollars to license and build the repository without making the facility any safer." Some environmentalists and nuclear watchdog groups said the standards were inadequate. "The EPA has created an exclusion zone to safe drinking water," said Arjun Makhijani, a nuclear physicist involved in the anti-nuclear movement. Makhijani said that people live within several miles of the site, but the groundwater tests will be taken 11 miles away. Also, he and other critics said, the standard would apply for 10,000 years, while the maximum radiation exposure from decaying isotopes is projected to be many years beyond that. In a related development, a National Academy of Sciences report Wednesday said deep geological disposal "remains the only long-term solution" for dealing with nuclear waste despite the difficulty in winning public support for a repository. The report said wastes can be kept above ground safely, but that the major uncertainty would be "in the confidence that future societies will continue to monitor and maintain such facilities" for tens of thousands of years. On the Net: Energy Department's Yucca Mountain project: http://www.ymp.gov/ National Academy of Sciences: http://www.nas.edu/ © 2001 The Associated Press ***************************************************************** 4 EPA Sets Tough Ground-Water Standard for Nuclear Waste Site Thursday, June 7, 2001 | Print this story Safety: Action is key to licensing for proposed repository at Nevada's Yucca Mountain. By ELIZABETH SHOGREN, Times Staff Writer WASHINGTON--The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday set a stringent ground-water protection standard for the proposed repository for spent nuclear fuel at Nevada's Yucca Mountain. The announcement of public health and safety standards for the site was a key step in the process that must be completed before President Bush announces his decision on whether to start a licensing process for Yucca Mountain. "As a nation, we must address our nuclear waste disposal problem, but we must do so in a way that protects public health and the environment," said EPA administrator Christie Whitman in announcing the standards, which closely track a Clinton administration proposal on the topic. On the same day, an international panel of scientists and nuclear industry representatives reported that underground repositories like the one proposed for Yucca Mountain represent the only practical solution to long-term nuclear waste storage. The advisory group urged governments to undertake campaigns to convince their wary public of what technical communities have believed for 40 years. The two developments were timely, given that, after a 20-year process of planning and preparing for possible long-term storage of nuclear wastes at Yucca Mountain, the administration will likely make pivotal decisions on the site's future over the next several months. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham plans to give Bush his recommendation by the end of this year, according to Joe Davis, his spokesman. The president's decision may come soon after that. Congress may also have a say because, if Bush approves of the project, Nevada is expected to veto it. Then, by law, Congress could overturn that veto and push the project ahead. The EPA standards, which are designed to protect residents closest to the repository, limit radiation exposure to 4 millirem per year for ground water, which is consistent with the Safe Drinking Water Act. The average person receives about 450 millirems a year from natural radiation sources. The standards addressed all potential sources of radiation, including ground water, air and soil. For all potential pathways of exposure, the standards set the limit of no more than 15 millirem per year. Naturally occurring radioactive materials are found everywhere. This standard is about twice the exposure a person gets from simply living in a brick house. Abraham said that the new standards are "tough and challenging" but that his agency can "meet the requirements." But the nuclear energy industry immediately blasted the ground-water standard as too costly and not beneficial for health. "The nuclear energy industry is examining its options, including a possible legal challenge," said Marvin Fertel, vice president of the Nuclear Energy Institute. Some environmentalists, however, stressed that the standard did not go far enough to protect Nevadans from radioactive contamination from ground water. "We see this as legalizing the leakage of radiation into the environment," said Kevin Kamps of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, a watchdog group. "It's dooming future generations to radioactive contamination by law." The waste would be stored in a facility built at Yucca Mountain, about 240 miles northeast of Los Angeles. Cost of the project has been estimated at $35 billion. Members of Congress from Nevada applauded Whitman for maintaining the separate ground-water standard but remained dead set against the project. "Far too many questions remain about the future of Yucca Mountain for anyone to declare that the site is safe or acceptable to the people of the Silver State," said Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), a staunch opponent of storing nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain. Reid fought to ensure that EPA weighed in on the safety provisions and promises to continue to put every roadblock he can in the way of the project. As chairman of the appropriation subcommittee with control of the Energy Department's purse, Reid plans to starve the project for funds, according to David Cherry, his spokesman. He also intends to use the new heft he has as a member of the Democratic leadership of the Senate--now in the majority--to aid his fight. The state's Republican senator, Sen. John Ensign, is an ally in this battle. "I will never be satisfied if these regulations lead to nuclear waste being shipped to Nevada," Ensign said. Cherry said he fears that the new National Research Council report will be used by politicians to make the case that the nation needs to move forward and store wastes at Yucca Mountain, since the country has not developed other long-term deep geological repositories. The report, however, stressed that the public should be given alternatives so people do not feel backed into irreversible decisions. In 1987, Congress limited considerations for deep geological repositories for high-level waste and spent nuclear fuel to one site:Yucca Mountain. "After four decades of study, geological disposal remains the only scientifically and technically credible long-term solution available to meet the need for safety without reliance on active management," the report stated. "It also offers security benefits because it would place fissile materials out of reach of all but the most sophisticated weapons builders." However, the 157-page report fleshed out ways that government leaders can encourage public participation in decision making on permanent repositories, to deal with the strong societal resistance to the facilities. "Difficulties in garnering public support have been seriously underestimated, and opportunities to increase public involvement and to gain public trust have been missed," said D. Warner North, president of NorthWorks Inc., chairman of the committee that produced the report. The report was compiled by an international committee of the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Engineering. It was sponsored by the Energy Department, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and organizations responsible for nuclear waste management in eight other countries. Copyright © 2001 Los Angeles Times ***************************************************************** 5 Radiation Standards Finalized for Yucca Mountain Waste RepositoryFree Environment News Service: Environment WASHINGTON, DC, June 6, 2001 (ENS) - Final health and safety standards for the amount of radiation that could escape from a permanent high-level nuclear waste repository proposed for Nevada were disclosed Tuesday by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. If approved, the Yucca Mountain facility 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas would store spent fuel from the nation's commercial nuclear power plants. U.S. EPA Administrator Christie Whitman (Photo courtesy EPA) Calling the 15 millirem per year standard "very stringent," U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Christie Whitman said, "EPA's Yucca Mountain environmental standards are the world's first to address long-term storage and disposal of this type of radioactive waste. "These are strong standards and they should be," Whitman said. "We designed them to ensure that people living near this potential repository will be protected - now and for future generations." The standards address all potential sources of radiation exposure from groundwater, air, and soil. They are designed to protect the residents closest to the repository at levels that are within the agency's acceptable risk range for environmental pollutants. Whitman said the dose limit of no more than 15 millirem per year from all pathways is "about twice the exposure of just living in a brick house for a year." But environmental groups said the radiation standard is not protective enough. "This is another example of the Bush administration weakening environmental regulations to keep a bad project alive," said Lisa Gue, policy analyst with Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program. Aerial view of Yucca Mountain, Nevada (Three photos courtesy U.S. Dept. of Energy) The EPA says the fundamental Yucca Mountain requirements for protecting people and groundwater are not weaker and have not changed from previous drafts approved under the Clinton administration. When Clinton era EPA Administrator Carol Browner proposed the 15 millirem standard in January, she said it was "at the upper bound of what EPA considers to be an acceptable risk." The proposed repository sits above an aquifer that is a critical source of water for irrigation, dairy cattle farming and drinking water, and Whitman announced a separate four millirem per year standard to protect groundwater. This is the same level of protection applied to current and future sources of drinking water across the country, she said. "Under these standards future generations will be securely protected. Our standards require that a person living in the vicinity of Yucca Mountain and drinking untreated water at the site 10,000 years from now, will have less radiation exposure than we get today in about two round-trip flights from New York to Los Angeles," Whitman explained. Those flights equal an exposure of about 14 millirem. But a coalition of environmental groups charges that by arbitrarily limiting the standard to the first 10,000 years of operation, the dose limits for the repository do not account for the maximum radionuclide exposures that will be caused by Yucca Mountain, which are projected to occur much later. The coalition consists of the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, Clean Water Action, Citizen Alert, Committee to Bridge the Gap, Georgians Against Nuclear Energy, Greenpeace International, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program, the Sierra Club, and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. The EPA final standard changed the compliance point for determining conformity with the four millirem per year groundwater standard from 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the site to 18 kilometers (11 miles) to enforce protection one mile closer to the repository. But the environmental groups that is still too far away and compliance should be enforced within the site boundary. The EPA's final standard was changed from the draft to require the Department of Energy to determine the level of radiation in 3,000 acre feet of water, as compared to 12.85 acre feet in the earlier draft. The environmental coalition says that the EPA's dilution factor and distant point of compliance for the groundwater standard are contrary to the requirements of the federal Safe Drinking Water Act. Inside Yucca Mountain a researcher prepares to test the rock for its ability to contain radiation. The EPA does not take into account the substantial radiation sources at the nearby Nevada Test Site, which the Department of Energy estimates could have impacts on groundwater quality comparable to those of Yucca Mountain, the coalition points out. John Hatter of Las Vegas based environmental lobby group Citizen Alert says that containment of the radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain hinges on the ability of a specialized alloy known as C-22 to resist corrosion. The nickel-chromium-molybdenum alloy would be used to contain the waste because it shows enhanced resistance to pitting, crevice corrosion and stress corrosion cracking. The hot waste would be contained in a 10 centimeter (3.9 inch) thick outer barrier of carbon steel surrounding a two centimeter (.78 inch) thick inner barrier of alloy C-22. Hatter says the studies done on this alloy were done over a period of months and then extrapolated to 10,000 years. If these calculations are wrong, the groundwater could be contaminated much sooner, he says. "We at Citizen Alert would like to see no escape of radiation, no contamination at all." Nevada politicians of all parties strongly oppose the Yucca Mountain repository, but most took a wait and see approach to the new radiation standards. U.S. Senator Harry Reid, a Democrat, said it would take some time to analyze the new standards for their effect on the entire Yucca Mountain proposal. Researcher examines cores drilled from the interior of Yucca Mountain. The high-level radioactive waste that would be come to Yucca Mountain is now stored at commercial nuclear power plants and research reactor sites in 43 states. No other site is being considered for a permanent high-level waste repository. Before the site can open and accept radioactive waste, the Secretary of Energy must recommend, and the President must approve Yucca Mountain as a safe repository for nuclear waste. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission must determine that the Department of Energy can meet EPA's standards and other licensing requirements. DOE is responsible for the construction, management and operation of the repository. The earliest date the Yucca Mountain repository could be licensed and approved to accept radioactive waste is in 2010. For more information about EPA's final public health and environmental protection standards for Yucca Mountain, go to http://www.epa.gov/radiation/yucca. The Yucca Mountain Project is online at: http://www.ymp.gov/ © Environment News Service (ENS) 2001. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 6 Report: U.S. nuke storage plan is safe - June 6, 2001 CNN.com - June 7, 2001 Posted: 4:32 AM HKT (2032 GMT) From David George (CNN) -- One of the issues the new U.S. Senate Majority Leader, Tom Daschle, may find on his plate almost immediately is the question of what to do with nuclear waste. Just last week, Daschle went on record against the underground nuclear waste repository under construction for more than a decade at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Critics say there are questions about the site's safety and reliability. But on Wednesday, the day Daschle became the Senate's most powerful member, a committee of the National Academy of Sciences has released a report urging speedy, international action on nuclear waste disposal, including underground storage. The scientists -- from seven nations -- say the problem of nuclear waste disposal isn't a problem at all from a scientific standpoint. The problem, they say, is that many people view nuclear waste management to be a purely technical issue. It's a message the scientists say they hear all the time. The report asserts that current methods of nuclear waste disposal are safe and that now is the time to move ahead. "The inventory of spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste is growing worldwide, and in some places there is quite an urgent need to move forward to find solutions," said Warner North, chairman of the committee that produced the report. For example, the United States has slightly more than 100 nuclear power plants. Together they produce about 2,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel annually. If all the spent fuel ever produced by those plants were laid end-to-end, the industry says it would cover a football field to a depth of about five feet. 'Need to be properly maintained' All that highly radioactive waste is in storage near the plants where it was produced over the past 40 years. The academy report says it's safe right where it is for another 50 years or so, if plant operators are careful. "These facilities need to be properly maintained and renewed to insure continued integrity," North said. North and his scientific colleagues say underground disposal in a place like Yucca Mountain is the only "scientifically credible" long-term solution. But every nuclear nation may not be able to build a Yucca Mountain-type facility. "Around the world there are very many small countries that do not have the resources or the capability to have the deep geological repository for spent fuel," Charles McCombie, committee vice chairman. "And somewhere down the line there will be shared facilities." That could mean that the "haves" may have to share with the "have-nots." What's needed most right now, says the national academy report, isn't more science, but a selling job, to get politicians involved and win over a skeptical public. Back to the top© 2001 Cable News Network LP, LLLP. ***************************************************************** 7 Subcommittee to address I-131 releases in meeting The Oak Ridger Online -- Area News -- June 7, 2001 by Paul Parson Oak Ridger staff A discussion on past radioactive iodine-131 releases in Oak Ridge will be part of a local health advisory panel's upcoming meeting. Several officials are expected to participate in the discussion at the June 11 meeting of the Oak Ridge Reservation Health Effects Subcommittee. They include Owen Hoffman of SENES Oak Ridge Inc., an organization that analyzes health risks related to radiation exposure, and Tom Widner, who participated in a dose reconstruction report that looked at I-131 releases locally. The dose reconstruction report was released in 2000 and was prepared by scientists working under contract with the Tennessee Department of Health. One of the things the study investigated is the possible risks of thyroid cancer from releases of I-131. The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry recently had a technical review conducted on the I-131 portion of the dose reconstruction report. That review will be presented at Monday's subcommittee meeting. The subcommittee consists of citizens primarily from the Oak Ridge area, including Knoxville and Roane County residents, who are working with community members and advocacy groups to offer advice and recommendations to several federal agencies regarding health concerns in Oak Ridge. The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, part of the Department of Health and Human Services, is responsible for appointing subcommittee members. The subcommittee will be meeting from 12:30 to 7 p.m. on Monday and from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Tuesday at the Crown Conference Center Club Room (Suite 216) in the Oak Ridge Mall. The iodine-131 discussion will take place from 2:30 to 6:30 p.m. on Monday. Other agenda items include a discussion on basic epidemiology and an update on the health needs assessment for Oak Ridge. That assessment is being conducted in part by George Washington University. The subcommittee meetings are open to the public. Audience members will be given an opportunity to make comments from 2 to 2:15 p.m. and from 6:30 to 7 p.m. on Monday and from noon to 12:15 p.m. and from 4:15 to 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday.Advertising Information All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 8 Plan could bring back nuclear power The Oak Ridger Online -- State News -- June 7, 2001 by Dave Williams Morris News Service ATLANTA -- No American utility has even come close to building a nuclear power plant since the reactor meltdown at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island in 1979, followed a few years later by the disaster at Chernobyl in the former Soviet Union. But the Bush administration's newly minted energy policy has the industry buzzing over the possibility of bringing nuclear power back from dormancy. The president openly embraces nuclear plants as a major component in a diversified portfolio of energy sources. Yet, none of the utilities with major investments in nuclear power is going beyond the talking stage. Georgia Power Co., which operates two nuclear plants near Augusta and Baxley, isn't eager to build a third. Neither is Progress Energy, the parent company of Carolina Power & Light, which operates two nuclear plants in the Carolinas and one in Florida. "We have no plans to build any new nuclear units until the country comes to grips with the issue of spent nuclear fuel," said Keith Poston, a spokesman for the utility. Poston said any movement back toward nuclear power is being held up by longstanding opposition in Congress to a proposal to build a permanent national repository for high-level radioactive waste beneath the Nevada desert. Without a disposal site for the waste created by nuclear power generation, utilities can't afford to create more of the material, he said. "We're running out of space to store (spent) fuel," he said. Bush's allies in Congress are working to create a better atmosphere for revitalizing the nuclear industry. zU.S. Rep. Lindsey Graham is sponsoring legislation that would offer tax credits to utilities using nuclear power to create additional generating capacity. The Republican's South Carolina district includes the Savannah River Site, a former nuclear-weapons production facility that hopes to parlay civilian nuclear projects into new jobs. Current federal law allows tax credits for other alternatives to fossil fuels, but not nuclear energy. "It's environmentally the cleanest form of energy, equivalent to solar and wind power," said Graham. But opponents of nuclear power argue that not only is it inherently dangerous, it's also an inefficient source of energy. "It requires a large capacity of electricity to supply the generation of nuclear energy," said Rita Kilpatrick, executive director of Georgians for Clean Energy. "Why would you promote a highly resource-intensive source of supply when you're claiming there's a shortage of supply in the first place?" For years, public opinion on nuclear energy has come down on the side of the environmental advocates. But Graham said public perceptions are based on old technology that has long since been upgraded. "It's like comparing a computer today to a computer in the 1970s," he said. "Three Mile Island is an excuse that no longer bears scrutiny. ... When logic is applied to the nuclear power industry, we'll do fine." All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 9 Visa costs may stop Chernobyl children's trip ISSUE 2204Thursday 7 June 2001 By Nicole Martin Camps for Children of Chernobyl A GROUP of children suffering from life-threatening illnesses as a result of the Chernobyl disaster cannot get vital care in Britain because the Government will not waive their £1,000 visa fees. The 18 children, aged between seven and 15, are said to have developed brain tumours, leukaemia and other cancers as a result of living just 10 miles from Chernobyl, the scene of the world's worst nuclear accident 15 years ago. Identified by doctors as needing urgent care and attention, they were due to arrive in Britain next month as part of a programme organised by the British-based charity Camps for Children of Chernobyl. But the group now faces an uncertain future following a decision by the British embassy in Kiev. In a letter to the charity, the Foreign Office said the embassy in Kiev had reviewed the situation and concluded that "they would have no basis for waiving the fees on this occasion". It added: "We operate a strict policy of recovering visa costs through the fees charged to ensure that the cost to the British taxpayer is kept to a minimum. This is applied worldwide." The charity fears that it will have to cancel the two-week visit if it cannot find the money by next week. Last year a group came to Britain and the travel costs were paid for by the charity's American branch, headed by the actor Paul Newman. Dave Chatfield, the charity's director, criticised the embassy's decision as "absolute lunacy" and said it seriously reduced the children's chances of survival. He said: "These children are very seriously ill and by bringing them here we will actually extend their lives. "To be told that the waiving of these fees will be a burden on the British taxpayer is a joke." He said the charity's programme, which does not involve hospital treatment, would allow the children's immune system to become stronger. After 14 days away from Ukraine the level of radioactivity in their body could fall significantly. A spokesman for the Foreign Office said: "There are cases in which the head of mission can issue discretionary gratis visas but these are also very carefully controlled. Each case is treated on its own merit." 15 April 1996: Visa fees stay for Chernobyl adults www.telegraph.co.uk. ***************************************************************** 10 EPA Radiation Standards Offer Inadequate Protection from Proposed Yucca Mountain Nuclear Dump Press Release EPA Yucca Standards Alliance for Nuclear Accountability - Clean Water Action - Citizen Alert - Committee to Bridge the Gap - Greenpeace - Natural Resources Defense Council - Nuclear Information and Resource Service - Physicians for Social Responsibility - Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program - Sierra Club - U.S. Public Interest Research Group June 6, 2001 Important Precedent for Groundwater Protection Undermined by Rule's Deficiencies WASHINGTON, D.C. –The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today finalized radiation protection standards for the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository that establish a regulatory framework for legalized radiological contamination in Nevada, said environmental, public interest, and consumer advocacy groups today. "This is another example of the Bush Administration weakening environmental regulations to keep a bad project alive," said Lisa Gue, policy analyst with Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program. Yucca Mountain, located near Las Vegas, Nev., is currently the only site under consideration for a potential dump for high-level radioactive waste generated by U.S. commercial reactors and weapons facilities. Yucca Mountain sits above an aquifer that is a critical source of water for irrigation, dairy farming and drinking water. The EPA is required by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act to set radiation protection standards for the site. The agency released a proposed rule for comment in 1999. The final rule was issued today. The final EPA rule retains a standard for multiple pathways of 15 millirem per year and a separate 4 millirem per year standard for exposure from groundwater. The separate groundwater standard was a central focus of public comments to the agency during the rulemaking process. However, the measures for implementing these standards continue to be inconsistent with basic scientific and regulatory principles. For these reasons, we oppose the final EPA rule. The central weaknesses of the EPA standards include: By arbitrarily limiting the standard to the first 10,000 years of operation, the dose limits for the repository do not account for the maximum radionuclide exposures that will be caused by Yucca Mountain, which are projected to occur much later. The compliance point for determining conformity with the 4 millirem per year groundwater standard is located 18 km from the site, rather than within the site boundary. EPA’s dilution factor and distant point of compliance for the groundwater standard are contrary to the requirements of the Safe Drinking Water Act. EPA does not take into account the substantial radiation sources at the Nevada Test Site, which the Department of Energy estimates could have impacts on groundwater quality comparable to those of Yucca Mountain. "While we view the inclusion of a separate groundwater standard for Yucca Mountain as a very important precedent, the EPA standards for Yucca Mountain will not adequately protect the public," said David Adelman, senior attorney with Natural Resources Defense Council. Moreover, the Bush Administration’s standards undermine the Safe Drinking Water Act by significantly weakening the implementation requirements for the groundwater standard. Public interest, environmental, and consumer advocacy organizations have closely followed EPA's rulemaking process for this standard, and have consistently emphasized the need for a stringent standard given the extremely toxic nature of high-level radioactive waste and the lack of experience with geologic disposal. "EPA's final rule does not address many of our significant health and safety concerns associated with the Yucca Mountain repository proposal," said Ruth Swanson, Associate Executive Director of Physicians for Social Responsibility. Although the rule issued today contains a separate groundwater protection standard, the final EPA standards for Yucca Mountain threaten public health and promote reliance on dilution—rather than containment—of nuclear waste to meet regulatory requirements. "From the beginning, the process for devising standards for Yucca Mountain has been driven by the intent to fit the standards to the site, rather than to ensure that the public and the environment are adequately protected," said John Hadder, northern Nevada coordinator with Citizen Alert. "The standard issued today continues this tradition." Critical Mass Home ***************************************************************** 11 What Yucca offers...for 10,000 years -- The Washington Times June 7, 2001 Charles Rousseaux Last of two parts. When was the last time you bought a product guaranteed to last until 12001? And how would you get a refund if it didn´t? As noted in yesterday´s article, high-level nuclear reactor waste will remain harmful to humans for eons, and so a repository holding it needs to be untouchable and unharmful to even potential Indiana Joneses thousands of years from now. Over the past two decades, 2,000 scientists have spent 20 years and $2 billion attempting to determine if Yucca Mountain is just such a site. Specifically, according to the administration´s just-released health and safety standards, the repository is allowed to give off no more than 15 millirems, less than 5 percent of natural background radiation, per year. Can that standard be met at Yucca? The answer is an empathetic neon-blinking spotlight-blinding jackpot-winning "yes." thanks to Yucca Moutain´s unique mix of geological and geographical features, not to mention the man-made barriers that will be engineered into the repository. Jim Niggemyer, a project mining engineer called Yucca Mountain one of the best-studied hunks of rock on the planet, and he´s probably right. Certainly its contours have been more thoroughly (and more expensively) studied than that of any Vegas showgirl. Practically every -ologist worth a science Ph.d. has studied the place, including geologists, seismologists volcanologists, climatologists, and even hydrologists. Aside from its potential use as a repository (and the fact it is probably the only place in Nevada without a slot machine), it is hard to imagine why anyone would want to go near the place. Yucca Mountain is an undistinguished basaltic ridge covered with sand and scrubrush located in the middle of the Amargosa Desert. It is so isolated that it is easy to imagine even Willie E. Coyote attempting to hitchhike away. He would probably have his tongue hanging out too, since the area only receives about 7 inches of rain each year. In fact, it´s more likely he would have an another anvil drop on his head out of the clear blue than that he will see anyone since the nearest settlement, Amargosa Valley, is nearly 20 miles away. Nor are settlements likely to move any closer, since, like nearly 90 percent of the land in Nevada, Yucca Mountain and the area surrounding it are owned by the government. Nor would anyone want to move much closer, since the potential repository is not too far from where nuclear devices (bombs), once were tested. Yucca Mountain was formed from another cataclysmic event a titanic series of eruptions that rocked the region about 12 million years ago. Since then, things have calmed down a bit. A few volcanoes dot the region and minor earthquakes rock the region just as infrequently as good taste is displayed on the Las Vegas Strip. Scientists believe there is an extremely low chance of volcanic action erupting in the area any time soon, and engineers are confident they can build the repository to withstand any possible ground-shaking event. In fact, water is the most likely candidate to ruin the repository, even though less than 5 percent of the precipitation that falls on the area will actually percolate into the mountain. Eventually, scientists foresee, water will drip into the repository, rust through the extensive shielding surrounding the waste containers, and then, laden with radioactive particles, eventually make its way down into the water table and thence out into the ecosystem where biologicals can get at it. The repository at Yucca is being designed with just such a possibility in mind. On average, less than 5 percent of the pittance of precipitation that falls on the area actually makes it into the mountain. The water that does has to percolate through 2,600 feet of rock, nearly one-half mile, before it falls into the water table, a process that can take thousands of years, and perhaps even longer, since heat escaping from the waste storage containers will shunt water away from the area. As planned, the repository will consist as a series of 18-foot diameter horizontal shafts set almost a football field apart running roughly perpendicular to the ridgeline, bored into a dense layer of rock running roughly half-way between the top of the ridge and the water table. Waste packages will be sandwiched by a titanium drip shield above and a drip invert below. The packages themselves will be cylindrical sandwiches of material more unbreakable (and die-harder) than Bruce Willis. The outer layer is set to be built of inch-thick hyper-corrosion resistant Alloy 22, which will in turn protect the inner layer, 2-inch-thick stainless steel. The design will allow safe storage of at least 70,000 metric tons of reactor waste 50 years of nuclear power. "Safe" may be a bit of an understatement, since no radiation is expected to escape from the repository for 10,000 years, according to Richard Craun, a Senior Policy Advisor of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management. DOE estimates that maximum radiation exposure from the repository will come about 300,000 years in the future, at which point a few people in Amargosa Valley (if, at that point, there still is a "valley" and "people" are still there) may experience somewhat higher than average doses of radiation. Building the modern equivalent of a sphinx with radiation storage capacity won´t be cheap, but the entire project has already cost between $5 billion and $6 billion. Besides, if, as Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, South Dakota Democrat, says, the waste should not be stored at Yucca Mountain, then where? Short-term storage is continuing to build into a nightmarish NIMBY ("not in my back yard") problem at more than 100 sites across the nation, and high-level reactor waste needs to go somewhere safe and secure, sooner rather than later. The repository at Yucca Mountain may not be the perfect solution, but its the best by a long shot. You can bet the house on it for 10,000 years. Charles Rousseaux is an editor for the Commentary pages of The Washington Times. All site contents copyright © 2001 News World Communications, ***************************************************************** 12 Nuke lobby sues EPA Today: June 07, 2001 at 11:27:00 PDT By Mary Manning and Benjamin Grove LAS VEGAS SUN WASHINGTON -- The nuclear energy industry sued the Environmental Protection Agency Wednesday in an immediate strike against EPA rules designed to protect Nevadans from nuclear waste stored at Yucca Mountain. On Wednesday, the EPA finalized long-awaited rules that set limits on radiation that would be released into ground water flowing downhill from the desert ridge, which includes the nuclear waste repository site. In a lawsuit filed hours after the EPA rules were unveiled, the Nuclear Energy Institute objected to the ground water standard, saying the rules had little scientific backing and don't comply with current law. The lawsuit asked that the ground water standard be scrapped. Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is the only site under consideration to store the nation's nuclear waste. Nuclear industry executives worry that the rule may be so strict that it could threaten Yucca being licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. NEI lawyers had drafted the lawsuit long before Wednesday. It named the EPA and administrator Christie Todd Whitman as defendants, NEI lawyer Ellen Ginsberg said today. The lawsuit was drafted based mostly on what the EPA standards first publicly proposed in August 1999. NEI did not have any advance information from the EPA or NRC about what would be in the final EPA standards before they were released, Ginsberg said. "As a lawyer, my advice is always be ready for whatever is coming at you," Ginsberg said. The finalized standards were made public Wednesday morning, available on the EPA's website. A Ginsberg assistant immediately downloaded and printed out the 152-page standards, and Ginsberg quickly made final detail changes to the lawsuit to file it Wednesday afternoon, Ginsberg said. "My day was very busy," Ginsberg said. NEI filed the suit in U.S. District Court in Washington and in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Washington-based NEI, the industry's leading trade group that has long waged a lobbying campaign in favor of the Yucca project, represents about 260 companies, including the nation's 42 nuclear energy utilities. One observer, senior attorney David Adelman of the Natural Resources Defense Council, said it would not be difficult for the NEI to sue on the same day EPA issued the rule. A similar lawsuit was filed by the trucking industry on the day EPA issued its diesel emission rule. The EPA unveiled the standards document following a two-year struggle to set the radiation limits and make them official. Two vocal lobbying forces pressed the EPA on the limits: Nevada policy makers teamed with environmentalists who advocated the strictest standards possible; and the influential nuclear industry advocated less strict standards and no separate ground water rule. The NRC also advocated a less strict 25 millirem standard without a ground water radiation limit. There are five millirems in an average X-ray. In the end, the rules were a result of many high-level meetings between officials at the EPA, NRC and White House; a last-minute briefing with three Nevada officials; four public comment hearings -- two in Nevada, one in Washington and one in Kansas City -- and 240 days the public was allowed to submit comments. Despite industry concerns that the EPA standards could threaten the suitability of the site, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham disagreed. "The EPA has issued tough and challenging standards," Abraham said in a written statement, "tougher than the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the National Academy of Sciences considered necessary. But we believe we can meet the requirements." The secretary is so sure the DOE can meet the rule, he told the Detroit News on Wednesday, that he saw no major obstacles for recommending the site to the president and Congress as soon as a final scientific report is issued. "I'm not trying to prejudge this at all, but if that were to all happen and we were to begin moving ahead toward a scientifically safe repository, then I think that has a very relevant impact on decisions that might be made to add new (nuclear) facilities," Abraham said. Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and John Ensign, R-Nev., cautiously praised the EPA standard for including a ground water limit, but said that it did not change their opposition to dumping nuclear waste in Nevada. "From earthquakes, floods and volcanoes to the transportation of nuclear waste, far too many questions remain about the future of Yucca Mountain for anyone to declare that the site is safe or acceptable to the people of the Silver State," Reid said. Ensign said he was pleased that the Bush administration delivered on its campaign promise to let the EPA set the standard. "However, I will never be satisfied if these regulations lead to nuclear waste being shipped to Nevada," Ensign said. "The most important thing here is to ensure that we can do everything that is possible to keep the families of Nevada safe." Gov. Kenny Guinn, who received $4 million from the Legislature to fight the repository, applauded the new radiation standards, but said he has serious concerns about the boundary for measuring radiation escaping Yucca Mountain. At 11 miles from the site, any contaminated water could be diluted in Amargosa Valley's ground water, he said. The state prefers a 3-mile limit. "However, a full review and assessment of the report is still needed and Nevada remains prepared to fight any aspect that would hamper our ability to have the Yucca Mountain site declared unsafe," Guinn said. Public interest, environmental and consumer advocacy groups attacked the EPA rule. Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Physicians for Social Responsibility said the rule will not protect the water. The standards can be downloaded from: www.epa.gov. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 13 No notice alleged in radiation find Capitol Alert: KXPR/KXJZ By Herbert A. Sample Bee San Francisco Bureau (Published June 7, 2001) SAN FRANCISCO -- An environmental group announced Wednesday it intends to sue a Navy contractor cleaning up a portion of the defunct Hunters Point Naval Shipyard after learning that a moderately radioactive substance was found at the site but neither the contractor nor the Navy alerted local authorities. Arc Ecology, which has monitored shipyard cleanup and redevelopment issues, contended the failure to warn local officials violated California environmental laws enacted by the passage of Proposition 65 in 1986. "Proposition 65 says when there is a known hazard, you've got to tell folks," said Saul Bloom, executive director of Arc Ecology. "It's pretty straightforward." The contractor, IT Corp., referred inquiries to the Navy, but the service's base reuse representative did not return telephone calls. Under Proposition 65, Arc Ecology first must file a notice of its intention to sue with a state court. It and the target of the suit then have 60 days to negotiate a settlement. If none is reached, a lawsuit can be filed. The once-thriving shipyard closed in the 1970s and long has been a concern to nearby residents and business owners. In 1982, The Bee disclosed that chemicals used to decontaminate ships anchored near South Pacific nuclear bomb tests in the late 1940s had been dumped into the San Francisco Bay by the Navy. And the San Francisco Weekly recently published articles about the possibility of radioactive contamination at several locations on the base. One of the decontamination methods was sandblasting. In mid-May, the Navy determined that a sample of black sand found at a cleanup site contained moderate levels of radium 226, according to an e-mail from an IT Corp. official. Chris Shirley, an Arc Ecology staff scientist, said the level of radiation was far above what should have triggered immediate disclosure to local authorities. Bloom said after his group obtained the e-mail, they informed city officials, who asked the federal Environmental Protection Agency to investigate. The EPA tentatively found a lower level of radiation, Bloom said. Nonetheless, he added, the contractor and Navy should have warned local officials, given Navy promises last year to improve notification after a base landfill burned for two weeks before local officials were alerted. "We want to know when there is a hint of a problem, not when it is determined that there is no problem," Bloom said. The Bee's Herbert A. Sample can be reached at (510) 625-9983 or hsample@sacbee.com. The Sacramento Bee ***************************************************************** 14 Cleanup crew didn't report radioactive grit S.F. group says it will sue contractors at Hunters Point Jane Kay, Chronicle Environment Writer Thursday, June 7, 2001 San Francisco -- Three weeks ago, contractors hired by the U.S. Navy to clean up San Francisco's Hunters Point Naval Shipyard found radioactive sandblast grit in an excavation pit. But the contractors did not immediately notify residents and the workers that the grit, called Black Beauty, contained radium 226 at 35 times the normal background radiation levels, say environmentalists, tenants and neighbors. Yesterday, ARC Ecology, a San Francisco group that monitors military activities, filed a notice of intent to sue three contractors -- IT Corp., ITSI and Tetra Tech -- in the San Francisco Superior Court. The group alleges that by not warning the neighbors and workers, the contractors violated Proposition 65. The anti-toxics law requires businesses to tell people if they might be exposed to unsafe levels of substances that can cause cancer, birth defects or other reproductive damage. Responding to the concerns, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency tested the excavation site yesterday, and confirmed that the radiation levels were higher than normal. However, the officials assured the public and workers yesterday that the levels were not high enough to pose a danger. But environmentalists were skeptical, saying they have asked the Navy and the EPA to see the testing documents pertaining to the 80-acre "Parcel B" on the shipyard's northern edge, which is scheduled for transfer to the city in 2002. Cleanup of the Hunter's Point shipyard, which is under the national Superfund program for cleaning up the nation's most toxic sites, has been plagued with problems. Nine months ago, the Navy did not report a landfill fire at the site. Saul Bloom, executive director of ARC Ecology, said he was disappointed that the Navy and its contractors "didn't inform their workers, the tenants on the shipyard or the surrounding community that they had uncovered a problem." The elevated readings were found May 17, and the workers were told May 21, he said. On May 24, the Navy had a monthly meeting with the public but did not reveal the results, he said. If it hadn't been for workers' expressing concern, the community wouldn't have known about the radioactive grit, Bloom said. He praised Mayor Willie Brown's office for working with the Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood once it found out about the site. The Navy issued a statement yesterday saying a contractor "followed prudent health and safety procedures and stopped excavation activities in the area" after finding "minimal" radiation levels in the grit. "Contractor activities will not resume until the Navy and regulatory agencies agree on the appropriate procedures to complete the cleanup activities for these areas," the Navy said. The area is fenced off to the public. Representatives of the contractors did not reply to calls. Dan Meer, the EPA's chief of the federal facilities cleanup branch in the Superfund division in San Francisco, called the incident a repetition of a landfill fire nine months ago that the Navy did not report. And he said the Navy would have to dispose of the radioactive grit. "The radiation levels are definitely elevated. This is a rad-waste, and it does warrant removal. But the surrounding community and the workers were in no danger," Meer said. The tests found that the radium 226 came from naturally occurring zirconium in the grit, he said. The EPA did not find cesium, which might indicate the presence of other radioactive materials from past activities at Hunters Point. Ships coming home from nuclear weapons tests in the South Pacific in the 1950s were sandblasted there. But neighbors and workers held a news conference yesterday demanding that the Navy act more responsively. The workers were not informed that there was a possibility of finding radiologic materials in their daily briefings, they said. Even after the contractors found the contamination, they were allowed to continue without protective gear or radiation monitors. "As I looked over my field notes, I see that I've worked in areas where there are radioactive materials on the ground or underground -- like the landfill on the southwestern part of the base," said Mark Bradley, who has worked at the shipyard for the past nine months. Bradley, who worries about workers who might have brought toxic or radioactive materials home to their children, would like testing to make sure they have not been exposed. Over the last century, private industry and the armed services have used the 500-acre shipyard, leaving behind toxic metals, polychlorinated biphenyls, asbestos and other chemicals. After millions of dollars and decades of cleanup, the land will be turned over to San Francisco as part of a larger redevelopment project. E-mail Jane Kay at jkay@sfchronicle.com. San Francisco Chronicle Page A - 22 Chronicle ***************************************************************** 15 DOE waste sites at half capacity for last 2 years Thursday, June 07, 2001 3:05 AM MST Waste stacking up in labs' storage area By Glenn Roberts Jr. STAFF WRITER LIVERMORE -- Major Energy Department disposal sites for low-level radioactive waste have operated at about half capacity for the past two years, while waste stacks up in storage at some department labs and production site, an audit report concludes. The audit focused on whether disposal areas at the Hanford Site in Washington and at the Nevada Test Site are fully utilized. Although the department spent about $15 million to dispose of 1.6 million cubic feet of low-level radioactive waste at these two sites in the 2000 budget year, those sites received about 46 percent of that volume, the report states. This class of waste can include lab coats, cleaning cloths, containers, fluids, hand tools and other materials that were contaminated with low-levels of radioactivity during work at the lab. In addition, the Energy Department spent $15 million to store about 2.1 million cubic feet of waste at its labs and production facilities where the waste is generated, and another $450,000 to send waste to commercial disposal sites. "As a result, the department did not realize the maximum benefit from its $30 million investment," states the report, prepared by investigators for the department's Office of the Inspector General. "Furthermore, risks to workers and the environment from stored waste were increased," the report states, and "without useful performance measures the department was unable to monitor the effectiveness of its disposal operations." Officials at waste-generating facilities acted independently in making decisions about disposal of low-level radioactive waste, the report also states, and investigators recommend the implementation of a standardized program for the entire Energy Department complex. Energy Department officials generally agreed with the findings in the report, and a workshop is expected to be held this month for waste shipping and receiving sites "to develop a strategy for timely and effective use of its waste disposal facilities," the report states. A spokeswoman for the Energy Department's regional office in Nevada said Wednesday that no policy changes in waste disposal have yet been announced for the Nevada Test Site as a result of the report. Lawrence Livermore Laboratory officials typically ship some low-level radioactive waste to the Nevada Test Site for disposal each year, and Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory has shipped waste to the Hanford Site. Both labs also send waste to other Energy Department sites and commercial disposal facilities. In 1999, Livermore Lab sent 2,304 cubic feet of low-level radioactive waste to a disposal area at the Nevada Test Site and 33 cubic feet of low-level waste to commercial facilities and other Energy Department sites. Also that year, the lab added an estimated 1,021 cubic feet of low-level waste to its storage, bringing the on-site total to 5,079 cubic feet, according to an Energy Department waste database. The audit report states that storage of waste at sites that generate the waste "is designed to be a temporary measure," and "most department facilities cannot dispose of all the waste they generate on-site, nor can they store it safely for indefinite periods of time." ©1999-2001 by MediaNews Group, Inc. and ANG Newspapers ***************************************************************** 16 Hazardous Radio Activity The Salt Lake Tribune Thursday, June 7, 2001 Simple fairness demands that the misleading "public service" ads promoting radioactive waste disposal be countered with a few rebuttals from opponents, but Utah radio stations should be careful how those responses are portrayed. While the partisan origins of the first ads should be made clear, the same is true for any follow-ups. The problem with the pro-waste ads produced by the Tooele County Chamber of Commerce was their packaging, not their information. The chamber produced the ads with the help of the public relations firm hired by Envirocare, which is lobbying the state for permission to accept higher-level radioactive waste in Tooele County, and the prejudice of those entities should have disqualified their messages as public-service spots. The Utah Broadcasting Association, to its credit, asked members to pull the ads as soon as it recognized the error. But the misleading label doesn't invalidate the point of the ads, which was that radioactive waste is a byproduct of procedures that benefit millions of Americans. Some of the waste comes from nuclear plants that generate electricity and some from hospitals that fight cancer with radioactive probes, but all of it is a necessary evil that goes hand in hand with the good. Whether Utah should allow Envirocare to accept such waste is a separate issue, which will now be addressed in opponents' ads. Those messages should be clearly labeled as the partisan views of one side in this contentious argument so the public is not left with the impression that opponents' views are the universally accepted truths. Envirocare's backers and its foes have legitimate points in this dispute, and Utahns should hear both sides before making up their minds. But since neither opponents nor proponents of radioactive waste storage are neutral parties, the source of all ads on the issue should be identified. © Copyright 2001, The Salt Lake Tribune All material found on ***************************************************************** 17 Utah citizens protest nuclear waste dumping Thursday, June 7, 2001 Sierra Club and Living Rivers protesters at the entrance to the mill near Blanding. The gentleman third from right is Ken Sleight, legendary environmental activist "Seldom Seen Smith" from Ed Abbey's novel the Monkey Wrench Gang. BLANDING, UTAH — Citizens and environmental groups in southern Utah held a "Walk Against Nuclear Waste" last week. More than 40 individuals walked simultaneously from Blanding (San Juan County) to Moab. The eighty-mile walk, led by longtime San Juan County activist Ken Sleight, followed U.S. Highway 191. Cosponsoring groups included Moab-based Living Rivers, Glen Canyon Action Network, and the Sierra Club Glen Canyon Group, as well as HEAL-UTAH from Salt Lake City. The event was held in conjunction with a Utah Radiation Control Board tour of a mill operated by the International Uranium Corporation (IUC) at a site near Blanding. The mill uses an acid heap leach process to extract uranium and other minerals from the waste. Activists are protesting the recent application by IUC to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which seeks to transport and process radioactive lead waste, by truck from a site near San Bernardino, California, for processing into high-grade material. The Sierra Club is fighting the application. "We want this mill closed and the awful mess cleaned up," said John Weisheit, Chair of the Glen Canyon Group. "This multinational corporation is hauling out-of-state nuclear waste through our communities, and dumping it in the backyards of Utahns." As the volume of radioactive materials grows at White Mesa, residents increasingly express concerns that the IUC mill could become "another Moab," a reference to the highly polluting Atlas uranium mill tailings site near that community on the banks of the Colorado River. The mill site, just north of the White Mesa Ute Indian Reservation, has been controversial since its opening in 1980. Currently the mill receives shipments of waste material from a number of toxic and radioactive dumps around the country. The uranium-bearing wastes are brought to the IUC facility--in unmarked containers on trucks and by rail--from sites in New York, New Jersey, and Missouri. Proposals to bring nuclear wastes in from other locations, such as Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, are pending. Meanwhile, the company's annual report indicates that it has lost substantial sums of money in recent years. The company is only responsible for closure costs of ten million dollars. This news has stirred fears that IUC may be intentionally stockpiling large amounts of radioactive and toxic metals and other wastes, with the intention of declaring bankruptcy and closing the facility. A similar situation exists in Moab, where one of the nation's largest uranium tailings piles leaches thousands of gallons of radioactive ammonia into the Colorado River each day. Cleanup estimates of this site, formerly owned by Atlas Corporation, range into the hundreds of millions of dollars. Atlas spun off the Moab mill to a subsidiary, then allowed the new company to go bankrupt, thereby avoiding liability. The latest proposal would bring radioactive sludge material to the IUC mill by truck from Unocal's Molycorp Mountain Pass Mine in San Bernardino County, California. The mine sludge is laced with lead, a potent toxin known to cause a host of serious health problems in humans, as well as environmental damage. The Sierra Club is currently appealing a decision by a NRC administrative law judge, seeking a hearing on the Molycorp license amendment. The judge denied the group's request, saying that the Sierra Club lacked standing in the case. The well-known conservation group may take the NRC to court over the matter. The environmental groups will called on the Radiation Control Board to regulate existing wastes at the mill and to oppose all incoming shipments of additional wastes. "We will march to the Governor's office in Salt Lake City if need be," said Ken Sleight, a San Juan County businessman. "There's no excuse for Utah state government to spend our tax dollars fighting the Goshute Indians who want to dump nuclear waste on their own lands, while sitting quietly and letting white people dump poison next to the White Mesa Ute Indians." Copyright 2001, Environmental News Network All Rights ReservedMore ENN news ***************************************************************** 18 Utilities, aluminum state case This story was published 6/7/2001 By Mike Lee Herald staff writer Hired guns for public power and aluminum companies continued a decadeslong duel Wednesday in Kennewick with their customers' financial futures hanging in the balance. As the Bonneville Power Administration zeroes in on new regional power rates, public utilities and aluminum companies continue to vie for federal favor and public opinion -- just like they have done time and again for 50 years. John Arthur Wilson, spokesman for a consortium of aluminum companies, and Jerry Leone, manager of the Public Power Council, defended their positions before about 200 Rotary members and guests at the WestCoast Tri-Cities Hotel. The Mid-Columbia -- indeed, most of rural Eastern Washington -- is a stronghold of support for public power and harbors resentment against profit-reaping giants that want the region's power. Wednesday's sometimes lively exchange showed just how far apart the groups are in trying to set BPA's priorities. PUDs and aluminum companies play it as an issue of jobs and infrastructure. Without a solution, "There is a very real risk that we could see a regional recession," Wilson said. But if Bonneville forces aluminum companies out of business for two years -- one option for reducing regional power demand -- there's a good chance they will close for good and sink thousands of families in company towns from Spokane to Goldendale, Wilson said. "It doesn't make sense that we take an industry and jettison it," he said. "We have to find a way to preserve existing core industries." Aluminum companies are pressing BPA for a new rate system that would shift about $1.5 billion in power costs to public utilities -- something the PUDs oppose so vigorously that they started a public relations campaign against it last month. "We are gaining support and understanding on the issue," said Karen Miller, government relations manager for Benton PUD. Faced with the possibility of extraordinary rate increases in October, however, both groups of power customers realize the need to cooperate to fend off California and Northeast power vultures. "The region needs to step together," said Jean Ryckman, director of customer service for Franklin Public Utility District. There's also a push to insulate the Northwest from California's power woes, which have been exacerbated by what Leone called a "weird and awful" energy market deregulation scheme. Because of the interconnected West Coast power system, "If they have a hiccup down there, we get barfed on up here," Leone said. Both groups realize the need for new power sources, especially given the possibility that the current drought may extend into next year. "You have two dry winters, and you have reservoirs that are stump farms," Leone said. "We have had no major new generation for a generation in this region," Wilson said. "We don't have an energy crisis in the Northwest. We have a willpower crisis." Neither Leone nor Wilson is betting the power crunch will spur completion of Energy Northwest's nuclear plant No. 1 at Hanford. "I am not particularly optimistic about another nuclear plant being built in the country," Leone said. "I'd be surprised if this one (at Hanford) makes it." The political weight of the environmental lobby also makes new hydropower development unlikely, Wilson said. That leaves natural gas plants, wind farms and a few other power options -- several of which have been proposed across the Northwest. But so far, Wilson said, companies are doing more site speculation than construction. "We've got to start building," he said. Copyright 2001 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This ***************************************************************** 19 Editorial: Questions remain over radiation rule Las Vegas SUN Today: June 07, 2001 at 8:25:17 PDT The good news is that this week the Bush administration has kept intact most of a Clinton administration proposal that would limit the release of radiation from a nuclear waste repository targeted for Nevada's Yucca Mountain. The nuclear power industry, which had claimed that a tough radiation standard might be so costly to comply with that it could make it impossible to build a nuclear waste dump, is upset with the rule and is suing in federal court to challenge the regulation. The bad news is that some state officials are worried that the Environmental Protection Agency still ended up weakening part of the Clinton-era rule. That's because the earlier regulation held that a repository could not allow more than 4 millirems of radiation to be found in 1,285 acre feet of water, but the latest version permits the same amount of radiation to be allowed in 3,000 acre feet before the limit is exceeded. This could dilute the rule and make it easier to meet. Tough radiation standards are essential to protecting the public's health and safety. If a further review finds that this change has softened the previous rule, then President Bush should send the EPA back to the drawing board. Anything less is unacceptable. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 20 Fight over nuclear waste site health standards heads to court June 7, 2001 by H. Josef Hebert The Associated Press WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration agreed to tougher health protection requirements for a proposed nuclear waste site in Nevada, ignoring pleas from the nuclear industry and Republican allies in Congress. The requirements announced by the Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday would limit radiation exposure from the Yucca Mountain site to no more than 15 millirems a year for people 11 miles away, including no more than 4 millirems from groundwater. A millirem is a measurement of the biological effects of radiation on human tissue. According to the EPA, the standard would mean a person living 11 miles from the waste site would absorb every year a little less radiation than a person would get from two roundtrip transcontinental airline flights. By comparison, background radiation exposes people to about 360 millirems of radiation annually. Three chest X-rays expose a person to about 18 millirem, the agency said. The Nuclear Energy Institute responded with separate lawsuits in two federal courts challenging the EPA standard. The industry had sought less stringent standards, arguing that recommendations from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission of a 25 millirems overall limit and no groundwater standards would provide safety to people living near the site. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, who has favored the NRC proposal, said the EPA standards were "tough and challenging" and that "we believe we can meet the requirements." The government's health standards for the Nevada site have been considered crucial in determining whether the federal underground storage facility at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, can be built. The scientific review of the site has not been completed. Abraham is expected to make a recommendation to President Bush this year with a final decision by the president likely in early 2002. The plan is to keep 70,000 tons of used reactor fuel now at commercial power plants in canisters 600 feet below the surface. Nevada officials say the federal government has failed to prove that the waste, which will stay highly radioactive for tens of thousands of years, would not contaminate an aquifer running through the area and surrounding countryside. The state also has protested transportation plans for thousands of shipments of waste, including some traveling near Las Vegas. The EPA standard is designed to limit public exposure to any contamination over the next 10,000 years. "Under these standards, future generations will be securely protected," Christie Whitman, the EPA administrator, said in a statement. She said the limits were designed "to ensure that people living near this potential repository will be protected now and for future generation." The nuclear industry moved quickly to challenge the standard, suing in U.S. District Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. "The nuclear industry is extremely disappointed," said Marvin Fertel, director of business operation at the NEI, the industry trade group. He said the added groundwater exposure limits "will cost taxpayers and electricity consumers billions of additional dollars to license and build the repository without making the facility any safer." Some environmentalists and nuclear watchdog groups said the standards were inadequate. "The EPA has create an exclusion zone to safe drinking water," said Arjun Makhijani, a nuclear physicist involved in the anti-nuclear movement. Makhijani said that people live within several miles of the site, but the groundwater tests will be taken 11 miles away. Also, he and other critics said, the standard would apply for 10,000 years, while the maximum radiation exposure from decaying isotopes is projected to be many years beyond that. In a related development, a National Academy of Sciences report Wednesday said deep geological disposal "remains the only long-term solution" for dealing with nuclear waste despite the difficulty in winning public support for a repository. The report said wastes can be kept above ground safely, but that the major uncertainty would be "in the confidence that future societies will continue to monitor and maintain such facilities" for tens of thousands of years. On the Net: Energy Department's Yucca Mountain project: http://www.ymp.gov/ National Academy of Sciences: http://www.nas.edu/Advertising Information All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 21 GROUNDWATER SAFEGUARDS TO COME IN 10 MONTHS Wednesday, June 6, 2001 By JEFFREY MIZE, Columbian staff writer Vancouver has 10 months to adopt permanent groundwater safeguards before a moratorium prohibiting chrome plating and other hazardous activities expires. The city council this week adopted interim protections, essentially extending the April 9 moratorium on businesses and activities that threaten the city's drinking water supply. State law allows the city to declare a moratorium without advanced notice, as long as it holds a public hearing within 60 days. The council did that Monday night, but no one showed up to testify. The moratorium prohibits startup or expansion of seven activities: chrome plating, wood preserving, chemical lagoons and pits, sewage cesspools, hazardous waste disposal, radioactive materials processing and disposal, and municipal landfills. The city will develop a groundwater protection law that will permanently prohibit these activities inside the city limits. Marian Lahav, a Vancouver senior planner, said the city doesn't know of any existing business that would be affected by the ban. "Some uses have serious potential for contamination, and that contamination is difficult if not impossible to clean up," she said. Since the April 9 emergency action, the city has tinkered with the wording, changing radioactive waste to radioactive material so those provisions would not affect Southwest Washington Medical Center, Lahav said. Councilman Jim Moeller questioned why the city was targeting specific activities instead of chemicals. City Engineer Victor Ehrlich replied that a huge number of chemicals and compounds are used in many different industries. Councilman Jack Burkman agreed it's best to look at land uses. "I think if we get into individual chemicals, the next question is how much is too much," Burkman said. The moratorium will remain in place until April 2002, unless the city council extends it. The council is tentatively scheduled to adopt a permanent groundwater law on April 1, 2002. The moratorium appears to have been partially triggered by an application for a small chrome-plating operation at an existing business. David Scott, Vancouver's development review manager, said the city issued a permit for the project, but it later determined the proposal should go through a more stringent review under the State Environmental Policy Act. In the meantime, the business can do metal plating, as long as it's not chrome, Scott said. Lahav said officials have been working on groundwater protections and felt it was time to close the door. "The longer it goes on, the more exposure we have," she said. "It was time to put a measure in place that protected us against the most serious risks." City Manager Pat McDonnell will send Clark County commissioners a letter asking them to take the same precautions inside the city's urban growth boundary. Vancouver officials don't want to inherit a contaminated area with future annexations. Moreover, some city wells are located outside Vancouver's municipal boundaries. Vancouver draws all of its drinking water out of the ground. The city's 40 wells produce about 9.5 billion gallons a year. Copyright © 2001 by The Columbian Publishing Co. P.O. Box 180, Vancouver, WA 98666. No part of this publication may be ***************************************************************** 22 INEEL receives certification from New Mexico Environment Department Solid Waste .com News for solid waste professionals 6/5/2001 The Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) recently received a key certification that allows the Laboratory to access the majority of transuranic waste in storage at the Radioactive Waste Management Complex for characterization and certification for shipment to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. Certification allows immediate access to over 60 percent -- approximately 9,000 drums -- of the stored transuranic waste that is categorized as inorganic homogenous solids. Certification followed a comprehensive audit of the INEEL’s program by the Department of Energy’s Carlsbad Field Office, the Environmental Protection Agency and the New Mexico Environment Department. The audit looks at INEEL’s implementation of the WIPP permit requirements. The INEEL began characterizing solid waste in March to build a backlog of shippable inventory in anticipation of certification. The buildup in shippable inventory supports increasing the number of shipments to WIPP. The INEEL plans to increase its shipments to seven per week starting in June and move to 10 shipments per week in July. Under an agreement with the state of Idaho, the INEEL must remove 3,100 cubic meters of transuranic waste from the state by Dec. 31, 2002. To date, the INEEL has made a total of 65 shipments, 413.4 cubic meters of transuranic waste. Source: Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory Copyright © 2000-2001, Vert Tech LLC. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 23 Radiation: It's The Pits Beyond 2000 | Engineering-Safety & Security | During the Chernobyl disaster, Ukrainian soldiers were sent out to clear radioactive rubble from the roof area. After 90 seconds of labour in that environment, the men would have received a dose of radiation equivalent to what any other person would have been exposed to in an entire lifetime. Things aren't so bad for workers in the better-regulated American nuclear plants. However, any abnormal radiation exposure is too much, and sometimes there are 'dirty' jobs that require humans to enter highly radioactive areas. To that end, scientists at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) have developed the Pit Viper, a remotely operated cleanup system This device may reduce radiation exposure to personnel working in highly contaminated nuclear tank waste equipment pits by as much as 75 percent. Snake pits The 586 square mile Hanford site in southeastern Washington State produced plutonium for the USA's national defense effort for more than 50 years, and now is engaged in what may be the world's largest environmental cleanup and restoration project. The most dose-intensive work under Hanford's River Protection Program is the repair and refurbishment of hundreds of equipment pits on the nuclear site. These equipment pits are highly radioactive and must be inspected, cleaned, decontaminated and refurbished before the transfer of the tank waste can begin. That means physically entering the hazardous areas and getting rid of the 'hot' material. Workers must repair or remove equipment within the pits, conduct radiation mapping or characterisation, remove debris, repair wall cracks, and clean, prep and paint walls. The Pit Viper uses a hydraulic manipulator arm to perform these tasks. "The arm is capable of lifting 200 pounds (90 kg) while fully extended. It is operated remotely from a console in a control trailer located up to 200 feet away from the equipment pit," says Sharon Bailey, Pit Viper project manager at PNNL. "The operators work in a clean, safe environment while viewing cleanup activities on television monitors captured by four cameras." The manipulator arm is mounted on a backhoe that is maneuvered adjacent to an equipment pit. A variety of tools that attach to the manipulator's gripper are available to perform the many cleanup, repair and maintenance tasks. Glassy knoll The overall concept of the Pit Viper system is to minimise worker exposure in these high radiation zones through the use of remote technology applications. More than 600 tank waste equipment pits are located adjacent to Hanford's 177 underground storage tanks. The rectangular concrete pits lie below ground and contain valves and pipe couplings designed to allow transfer of highly radioactive waste from one to another. This waste transfer will be essential once construction of the site's vitrification plant is complete around 2007. This will seal the waste in a glass medium, a stable form of containment not as prone to degradation as metal and concrete. Millions of gallons of liquid radioactive waste will be transferred through miles of underground piping and numerous equipment pits to be treated and immobilised for disposal. The cumulative effects of so much exposure would have been too much for the bodies of workers to bear. "It is anticipated that the remotely operated Pit Viper system can achieve a 50 to 75 percent reduction in radiation exposure as well as significant improvements in operational processes," enthuses Bailey. "It's simple, but very effective technology based on commercially available components performing multiple tasks. The entire process will be much safer and more efficient than ever before." Copyright © 2001 Beyond Online Limited. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 24 Emergency! Nuclear simulation staged to prepare various agencies June 8, 2001 By Dennis Sherer Staff writer June 7, 2001 DECATUR - Warning sirens wailed Wednesday at Browns Ferry Nuclear Power Plant, and emergency radio frequencies blared reports about an accident at the facility. But residents living near the plant were not alarmed. They knew the alert was part of an annual drill to test the ability of the Tennessee Valley Authority, Alabama Department of Environmental Management and Alabama Department of Public Health to respond to a disaster at Browns Ferry. To add realism to the drill, TVA had some employees portray reporters and other residents calling with concerns about the accident that could have allowed radioactivity to escape from a damaged reactor building. TVA and state officials held mock news conferences throughout the morning at a joint information center at Calhoun State Community College. "We try to make this as real as possible," said Scott Adcock, information officer for the Alabama Department of Environmental Management. "We want it to be extremely realistic so we can test our ability to respond to an actual emergency situation." During the mock news conferences, Jack Baily, vice president of engineering and technical services for TVA, explained the latest developments at the plant and what was being done to prevent radioactive material from being released. He used computer-generated slides to show how the plant operates and where it had been damaged. A steam turbine on the Unit 2 reactor disintegrated, sending chunks of metal flying through the roof of the plant turbine and reactor buildings. A water pipe connected to the reactor supposedly broke, allowing mildly radioactive water to leak onto the floor. The leaking water normally would not have been a problem, Baily said, but the hole in the roof of the reactor building caused by the turbine fragment provided a pathway for radioactive material to escape. "Because of the hole, the radioactive material is free to go out into the environment," he said. Adcock said the media would play a vital role in alerting residents living near the plant of an actual accident. The media would be used to relay information about evacuations. Had the accident been real, residents living within 2 miles of the plant would have been asked to prepare to evacuate in case radioactive material did leak from the building, said Dr. Jim McVay of the Alabama Department of Public Health. An evacuation would be ordered if dangerous levels of radioactive material began escaping from the plant. While the drill was under way, TVA employees at Browns Ferry used the nuclear plant's training center to go through the procedures they would use to cope with an actual accident. The center has a simulator, which is a replica of the plant's control center. About 1,000 TVA and state agency employees and emergency responders from Lauderdale, Lawrence, Limestone, Madison and Morgan counties participated in the drill. The participants did not know the scenario for the drill before it began. The drill was evaluated by the Nuclear Regulatory Agency and Federal Emergency Management Agency. Results of the evaluation will be disclosed next week. A meeting will be held at 10 a.m. June 13 at the nuclear plant's training center to share results of the evaluation with area residents. "We always do well on our evaluations and I am sure we will on this one," Adcock said. "From what I have seen, everything has gone well. While I do not expect to have any glaring problems, I'm sure there will be a few minor ones that we will find solutions to. "That is why these exercises are so important - they show us areas where we need to improve to make us better prepared for a disaster." Dennis Sherer can be reached at dennis.sherer@timesdaily.com or 740-5746. Copyright © 2001 TimesDaily | Privacy Statement ***************************************************************** 25 Infocast Announces Conference on 'Building New Nuclear Power Plants' World Oil.com - Industry NewsSearch entire site: WASHINGTON, June 6 /PRNewswire/ -- On October 1-3, 2001, in Washington, DC, Infocast will bring together key corporate and government executives to discuss building new nuclear electric power generating capacity. As the new Bush Administration energy plan shows, the nation's policy on nuclear generation development has shifted dramatically -- from a virtual moratorium on nuclear plant development to active encouragement of new nuclear capacity. But how much will new nuclear plants cost? How long will it take to get them into service? Can the risks of developing nuclear plants be tolerated in deregulated markets? Where will the staff come from to build and operate the plants? Can the concerns of local groups and environmentalists groups be addressed? "The energy crisis in California and the administration's announced support of nuclear power has opened the door for building new nuclear plants. This is the first time in one place that the sponsors of the new generation of nuclear plants have been brought together with industry experts to address the issues of building these plants," said Dan Keuter, Vice President, Nuclear Business Development with Entergy Nuclear, Inc. The conference will address the changing regulatory environment, the economics of developing nuclear capacity, new reactor technologies, the realities of construction cost and time, and issues involved in dealing with public perceptions of nuclear power. A remarkable group of speakers will include: -- Corbin McNeill, Chairman & Co-CEO, Exelon Corporation -- Barth W. Doroshuk, President & COO, Constellation Nuclear Services, Inc. -- Harry Keiser, President and Chief Nuclear Officer, PSEG Nuclear -- Dan Keuter, Vice President, Nuclear Business Development, Entergy Nuclear, Inc. -- Harold Ray, Executive Vice President, Generation, Southern California Edison -- John Stamos, Associate Director, Nuclear Industry Analysis, Department of Energy -- Jerry N. Wilson, Senior Policy Analyst, Nuclear Regulatory Commission -- Wenonah Hauter, Director, Energy and Environment Program, Public Citizen -- Regis A. Matzie, Senior Vice President, Nuclear Systems, Westinghouse Electric Company -- Thomas A. Christopher, President and CEO, Framatome ANP -- George Edgar, Partner, Morgan Lewis -- Jay E. Silberg, Partner, Shaw Pittman This conference will be a unique opportunity to follow one of the most significant developments in America's energy landscape. For more information visit http://www.nuclear-gen.com, e-mail amys@infocastinc.com, or call (818) 888-4445 ext. 35. Copyright ©2000 WorldOil.com Inc. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 26 Nevada hopes EPA standard will kill Yucca Mountain plan Las Vegas SUN June 06, 2001 LAS VEGAS (AP) - Nevada's two U.S. senators on Wednesday said the Environmental Protection Agency's groundwater radiation standard for Yucca Mountain could help derail plans for the nuclear repository. "We didn't get everything we wanted, but we got the vast majority of what we wanted" said Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev. "This may in the future stop Yucca Mountain from being licensed, even if the site is found suitable," said Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev. However, Department of Energy officials from Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham to J. Russell Dyer, Las Vegas-based Yucca Mountain Project manager, said they were confident they can meet the EPA water quality standard. "We've got to meet whatever the target is," Dyer said at a Tuesday night public hearing in Las Vegas. Joseph Ziegler, DOE senior technical adviser, pointed to the Supplemental Draft Environmental Statement on the Yucca Mountain plan and said the drinking water contamination projections are "practically zero." Reid said he, like the rest of the Nevada congressional delegation, remains steadfastly opposed to accepting the nation's 77,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel and radioactive military waste at the site 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. "I still oppose Yucca Mountain in Nevada," Reid said. "This (EPA standard) will make the scientific determination real." The long-awaited EPA standard set a key target for the Energy Department to meet before Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham makes a site suitability recommendation to President Bush late this year or early next year. Yucca Mountain is the only place in the nation being studied as a repository for the nation's nuclear waste. Under the 1982 act setting a study process in motion, the Department of Energy would build and run the site, the EPA would set the health standards and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission would enforce them. After $7 billion worth of study and site testing, approval is at least a year away. The earliest the first load of nuclear waste could arrive is 2010. The project is expected to cost $58 billion over 100 years. Scientists and engineers have designed a burial zone 1,000 feet below ground and 1,000 feet above groundwater tables. They concede that over the 10,000-year span they're studying, containers will deteriorate and some radioactivity might leach through rock. The new EPA radiation exposure standard for groundwater near the site is not more than 4 millirem per year. Overall radiation from all sources cannot exceed 15 millirem for a person 11 miles from the site. By comparison, three chest X-rays expose a person to about 18 millirem. Background radiation from naturally occurring sources expose most people to about 360 millirem a year. EPA Administrator Christine Whitman said the EPA standards protect future generations. Nevada officials, still sifting through the technical elements of the EPA standard, aren't convinced. "The (Bush) administration has further weakened a standard that was already too weak," said Michael O'Donovan, aide to U.S. Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev. "Nevada remains prepared to fight any aspect that would hamper our ability to have the Yucca Mountain site declared unsafe," said Gov. Kenny Guinn, a Republican. Guinn and Bob Loux, director of the Nevada state Nuclear Projects Office focused on the "point of compliance" portion of the report, which calls for groundwater testing 11 miles from the site. They said the distance could allow radiation to be diluted through the Amargosa aquifer, a water source for farms and residents in the surrounding area. Guinn said that imposing a point of compliance standard of 3 miles from Yucca Mountain - like the standard set at the Waste Isolation Pilot Project in New Mexico - would probably disqualify Yucca Mountain for consideration. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 27 Ottawa urged to probe uranium-illness link Jun. 6, 05:25 EDT New study suggests Gulf War Syndrome tied to depleted uranium HALIFAX (CP) - New research indicating a possible connection between depleted uranium and illnesses suffered by Gulf War veterans should interest Ottawa to study the issue further, says a researcher in radioactive substances. ''It's frustrating the (Canadian) government doesn't take this more seriously,'' said Mary Ripley-Guzman, a research co-ordinator with the Uranium Medical Research Centre based in Washington, D.C. ''We've come up with data that shows there is depleted uranium in these veterans. It's low-level and it's coming out of their urine.'' Ripley-Guzman will present the results of the centre's recent study of dozens of Persian Gulf veterans, from several countries, to a Commons veterans' affairs committee in Ottawa on Thursday. She will be accompanied by Sue Riordan, of Nova Scotia, whose husband Capt. Terry Riordan died in 1999 after a long illness she believes was linked to his service in the Gulf War. It was the first conflict where weapons, coated with a radioactive substance, were used. Ripley-Guzman said while the Canadian government dismisses the research, laboratories in Europe and England are looking into a possible connection. A series of government-sponsored U.S. studies have failed to explain why thousands of soldiers who fought in the 1990-91 conflict have contracted unexplained illnesses. The theory that depleted uranium weapons might be responsible was boosted when tests on the bones of Capt. Riordon showed high levels of the radioactive substance. A civilian doctor said Riordan died of Gulf War Syndrome but it's a conclusion the military refuses to accept. Last August, a senior Canadian military doctor dismissed the alleged connection between depleted uranium and illnesses after 69 other veterans were tested for the substance. Col. Ken Scott said there was no evidence Canadians were exposed to this type of coated ammunition, and said there was no such diagnosis Gulf War Syndrome. Six military panels have also dismissed the existence of the syndrome, concluding that hundreds of different diseases, not a single cause, was behind the illnesses. That conclusion angered Riordon's widow, who obtained her husband's military medical records under the Access to Information Act. She said three separate Department of National Defence medical forms, all dated in the mid-1990's, list the Riordon's clinical diagnosis as Gulf War Syndrome. Riordon said she's going to ask committee to explain what appears to be a contradiction in policy. ''Not only can you be clinically diagnosed through the military with Gulf War Syndrome, it can, and is, an official cause of death,'' said Riordon. Legal Notice:- Copyright 1996-2001. Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All please contact us or send email to Webmaster@thestar.com. ***************************************************************** 28 Taipower denies plant pollution The Taipei Times Online: 2001-06-06Wednesday, June 6th, 2001 Workers continue with the construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in Kungliao township yesterday. Kungliao fisherman blockaded the shipment of two generators to the plant site on Monday demanding compensation for construction-related damage to their fishing grounds. Taiwan Power Company denied yesterday that the work on the plant has damaged the site's marine environment. PHOTO: GEORGE TSORNG, TAIPEI TIMES RESTITUTION: While fishermen contend the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant's construction has damaged waters, Taipower refuted the claim and said they've paid compensation By Chiu Yu-Tzu STAFF REPORTER, IN KUNGLIAO Officials at Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, ¥x¹q) denied yesterday that construction work on the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant (®Ö¥|) had damaged the marine environment near the plant's site. On Monday, Kungliao fisherman blockaded the shipment of two generators to the plant's site, saying that pollution from construction of the plant had spread to waters outside a specially designated zone. The fisherman have been compensated NT$210 million for the loss of fishing rights within the 4.4 hectare special zone, Taipower said."We don't think local fishermen have evidence to illustrate the pollution they described." Tu Yueh-yuan, director of Taipower's department of environmental protection But the Kungliao fisherman say the pollution has spread outside the zone and has resulted in them catching fewer fish. Company officials said yesterday that construction on the plant had no environmental impact on waters outside the zone. Taipower officials suggested that the fishermen consider using the Public Nuisance Disputes Mediation Act (¤½®`ªÈ¯É³B²zªk) to ask for compensation. "If fishermen file a report with the Public Nuisance Mediation Council ... a follow-up could possibly be carried out," said Lee Sun-kuan (§õ¤T©[), a newly appointed vice president of Taipower, who inspected the plant yesterday. Lee said that it was impossible to offer protesting fishermen further compensation without going through appropriate legal channels. Chao Kuo-tung (»¯°ê´É), Kungliao township chief, said that Taipower has never held serious talks with local residents. Chao also said that Taipower treats local residents like outsiders. Tu Yueh-yuan (§ù®®¤¸), director of Taipower's environmental protection department (¥x¹qÀô«O³B), said that the power company would place a new team in charge of communicating with local fishermen by August. "We don't think local fishermen have evidence to illustrate the pollution they described. Our scientific research carried out at the construction site and the surrounding waters show that the environment has not been damaged at all," Tu said. But officials of the Tourism Bureau under the Ministry of Transportation and Communications said they had received complaints from tourists, who reported that the beach at Yenliao Bay (ÆQ¼dÆW) near the site had been damaged. "We've discovered that the beach has been losing sand," said Jason Chung (ÄÁºÖªQ), director of Northeast Coast National Scenic Area Administration. Atomic Energy Council officials, who yesterday inspected the site, said that the council would supervise Taipower to ensure it carried out its environmental protection work. "Local opposition can be regarded as a source of monitoring. We will take criticism into account," said council Vice Chairman Ouyang Min-shen (¼Ú¶§±Ó²±), head of a group supervising the environmental impact assessment of the site. Ouyang said that information pertaining to environmental monitoring and construction safety would be available on the Internet within a week. This story has been viewed 313 times. URL=[http://www.taipeitimes.com/news/2001/06/06/story/0000088842] Copyright © 1999-2001 The Taipei Times. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 29 Taiwan Approves $94 Mln Compensation to Nuclear Plant Builders By George Hsu Taipei, June 7 (Bloomberg) -- Taiwan's parliament awarded compensation to contractors that lost money from the a government decision last year to suspend construction of a nuclear power plant for three months. General Electric Co. and Mitsubishi Electric Corp., the two main contractors, and local builders will receive NT$3.2 billion ($94 million) for the delay, said Cheng Kuan-shan, head of parliament's procedure department. GE was about 95 percent finished with one of two reactors at the plant and 80 done on the other when Premier Chang Chun-hsiung scrapped the project last October, only to restart it three months later following a political firestorm. The ruling Democratic Progressive Party said nuclear power is a threat to the environment and a risk to residents. Chang restarted the plant after the opposition-controlled parliament threatened to recall the president and impeach the premier. The opposition Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang, started the project during its 50 years in power, and party members said the plant was needed to provide power for economic growth. The nuclear plant, located 30 kilometers from the capital Taipei, will be Taiwan's fourth and the first located in the island's north. ©2001 Bloomberg L.P. All rights reserved. Terms of Service, ***************************************************************** 30 Industry sues to stop Yucca radiation limits LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL: NEWS: Thursday, June 07, 2001 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal By STEVE TETRAULT and KEITH ROGERS REVIEW-JOURNAL WASHINGTON -- A nuclear energy industry group filed lawsuits Wednesday challenging new government radiation limits for a proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, just hours after they were announced by the Environmental Protection Agency. The Nuclear Energy Institute -- the trade arm of the nuclear industry -- charged the EPA went too far in proposing a radiation standard for groundwater near Yucca Mountain, in addition to general limits on radiation exposures from a repository. But environmentalists and Nevada's elected officials said they are pleased that the EPA finally set Yucca Mountain standards after eight years in the works, even though some aspects of the standards were criticized as too lenient and ineffective. A consortium of citizens watchdog groups described the standards as "a regulatory framework for legalized radiological contamination in Nevada." "This is another example of the Bush administration weakening environmental regulations to keep a bad project alive," said Lisa Gue, policy analyst for Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program. The nuclear industry, which through ratepayer charges has financed much of the $7 billion spent on the ongoing study of Yucca Mountain, said in a statement the groundwater provision "lacks a sound scientific basis." "It's application to Yucca Mountain will cost taxpayers and electricity consumers billions of additional dollars to license and build the repository without making the facility any safer," said Marvin Fertel, senior vice president for business operations. Lawsuits were filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., and in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, said NEI spokesman Steve Kerekes. They ask the court to set aside the regulations and direct EPA to issue a rule consistent with the 1992 Energy Policy Act "and other declaratory judgments that are lawful." "This reminds me of the automobile manufacturers being against seat belts or air bags," said Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev. "This is just one big cry. (The nuclear industry) has not been able to have it their way, now they want to yell and scream in the courts. These rules will stick," Reid predicted. Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said if the nuclear power industry is unhappy with the regulation, "it's got to be a decent thing for Nevada." Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., said the lawsuit "tells me we're somewhere between where we want to be in terms of safety and where the nuclear industry wants to be in terms of no safety." Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., was generally critical of the standards. "I was not happy last year (with a draft), and I'm less happy now," she said, echoing past state concerns that a repository is supposed to isolate the waste and not let it escape into the environment. The nuclear industry contends EPA disregarded directions from Congress in the 1992 energy bill to develop radiation standards "based upon and consistent with the findings and recommendations of the National Academy of Sciences." In 1995, an academy panel recommended the EPA adopt standards based on risks of people dying from "all pathways" exposure to radioactive contaminants that might escape the proposed repository. "All pathways" means exposure through any means, including air, soil, water and the food chain. The EPA on Wednesday put in place an "all pathways" standard of 15 millirems per year of allowable radiation exposure, plus a separate 4 millirem per year limit for radiation in groundwater. A millirem is one-thousandth of a rem, the measurement of a radiation dose. The standards are more stringent than a 25 millirem guideline suggested by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the point where the standards apply -- 11 miles from Yucca Mountain -- is closer than the 12-mile buffer zone that project scientists were analyzing. "We don't think it will make much of a difference in the calculations," said Joe Ziegler, a Department of Energy nuclear engineer. "It may cause the estimated dose to be slightly higher, but I would expect it to still be close to zero" millirems during the 10,000 year time frame when the limits are in effect, Ziegler said. Frank Marcinowski, director of the EPA Radiation Protection Division, said the 11-mile distance was derived from what his staff considered to be the "accessible environment," which is also the southern boundary of land controlled by the Department of Energy. "The reason we think groundwater protection is important is because it's a scarce resource in Nevada and the repository site sits over a currently used source of drinking water," he said. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said Wednesday the EPA issued "tough and challenging standards, tougher than the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the National Academy of Sciences considered necessary, but we believe we can meet the requirements of environmental and groundwater standards." The legal action came at a crucial time in the process to determine whether a Yucca Mountain repository can be licensed as a safe burial ground for 77,000 tons of the nation's most lethal nuclear waste, most of which is spent fuel currently stored at commercial power plants. zNevada officials also are reviewing the standards with an eye to a possible court challenge, according to Bob Loux, director of the state Office of Nuclear Projects. In a statement, Gov. Kenny Guinn said while the standards "represent a step in the right direction ... Nevada remains prepared to fight any aspect that would hamper our ability to have the Yucca Mountain site declared unsafe." A Nevada lawsuit, officials said, could focus on two issues: The 11-mile buffer that allows groundwater contamination up to the federal safe drinking water limit; and the 10,000 year time frame for controlling radiation from a repository. Nevada Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa said 10,000 years is an unreasonably short compliance period given that federal scientists estimate that peak doses from the waste will occur between 200,000 years and 800,000 years. Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2001 ***************************************************************** 31 New Terrorist Bomb Fears Over MOX Fuel THE WHITEHAVEN NEWS Thursday, June 07, 2001 A nuclear physicist has claimed that Mox fuel produced at Sellafield could be stolen and made into an atomic bomb - even though BNFL has spent millions of pounds arming ships to combat any terrorist hijack. Frank Barnaby, who worked in the atomic weapons laboratory at Aldermaston in the 1950s, before going on to head the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, has told the British government that terrorists could easily make a crude atomic bomb from Mox fuel, a mixture of plutonium and uranium, arising from Sellafield's reprocessing. Dr Barnaby makes his claims in a "confidential" report" sent to the Department of the Environment to try and persuade the government not to licence the full-scale Mox production plant at Sellafield. He warns it would be "sheer irresponsibility" to licence the plant as the theft of the fuel would then become a "terrifying possibility." But BNFL at Sellafield dismissed Dr Barnaby's fears as "Something like a science fiction story." The company claims that any risk is "minimal" because of the tight safeguards and security for the protection of Mox fuel transport by sea. Two ships have been specially equipped with cannon, able to fire 650 rounds per minute, to carry the fuel on the 40-day, 15,000 mile voyages from Barrow to Japan. Sellafield spokeswoman, Ali Dunlop, said: "Frank Barnaby makes it sound so easy, but would need a lot of technology, expertise, plant and equipment to even contemplate doing anything - it is science fiction." She pointed out that converting plutonium into Mox fuel for re-use in nuclear reactors actually cut down the risk of it falling into wrong hands. In his report, Dr Barnaby insists that if terrorists who are intent on mass destruction obtained Mox fuel they would need no more technical knowledge than that used to make the Lockerbie bomb, to build an atomic explosive device. He claimed the chemistry expertise required would be less than that required for the illegal manufacture of designer drugs or that employed by the Aum Sinrikyo cult in 1995, to prepare Sarin nerve gas for release into the Tokyo subway. "If terrorists can get their hands on the Mox fuel it is easy for them to separate the plutonium and build it into a bomb," he declared. Dr Barnaby's report will be considered by the government as part of the public consultations into the economic viability of the £462 million Sellafield Mox plant. The consultation finished last week and BNFL hopes to get a licence to operate, soon after the general election. ***************************************************************** 32 Japan Delays Use Of MOX THE WHITEHAVEN NEWS Thursday, June 07, 2001 Japan's largest electricity utility has agreed to postpone the loading of recycled Mox nuclear fuel at its plant in northern Japan. Tokyo Electric Power Company's decision, made after a meeting with local government officials, follows a referendum in the village of Kariwa last weekend in which more than half of the population - which depends heavily on the power plant for jobs - voted against the use of controversial mixed-oxide fuel (Mox). BNFL's Sellafield Mox plant was largely completed five years ago but will not receive clearance from the British government to start operations until its economic case has been proven. Although some 40 per cent of its capacity has been contracted or reserved by customers in Europe, its most important client is Japan. Nobuya Minami, Tokyo Electric's president, said the group would respect the request to delay the use of Mox. "The time has come for us to pause," he said. Last month BNFL's chief executive Norman Askew said key contracts with overseas customers were "safe''. ***************************************************************** 33 Analysis: Soviet legacy -- A liquid Chernobyl UPI News Article: 6 June 2001 21:29 (ET) By JOHN C.K. DALY WASHINGTON, June 6 (UPI) -- The Russians expect by Sept. 20 to have retrieved from the icy depths of the Barents Sea the damaged hull of the nuclear submarine Kursk, which sank 10 months ago, costing the lives of 118 crew members. But the bad news is what's left in Russian Arctic waters, according to European environmental experts. The Russian Arctic is a mosaic of dumped nuclear reactors, liquid radioactive waste, and contamination from aboveground nuclear testing. The Yablokov Report, commissioned by Yeltsin's government and released in March 1993, estimated that the former Soviet Union in its lifetime dumped 2.5 million curies of radioactive waste into the Arctic, including 16 decommissioned maritime nuclear reactors. The Norwegian environmental group Bellona puts the number at 21, nine of which still contained their fuel rods. Another sunken Soviet nuclear submarine, the Komsomolets, still remains on the bottom of the Barents Sea, after it caught fire and sank in April 1989. This is a transnational problem; indigenous peoples in northern Norway have been found to have radioactive intakes of 50 times normal levels, as a result of eating polluted reindeer meat. Russia has signed contracts with the Dutch firm Mammoet for the raising of the Kursk in a $70,000,000 operation, with a target date of September 20. The bow of the sunken submarine will be cut away, and the remainder with its twin 190 megawatt reactors driving 50,000 horsepower turbines, hoisted by floating cranes. The exercise zone was only a few dozen miles east of the renowned Kildinbaken fishing ground, where a polar front has produced one of the most important fishing grounds for both Russia and Western Europe, and one of the five richest in the world. The operation remains shrouded in controversy, from what sunk the vessel to the munitions it carried. Russia has maintained that the sub's reactors shut down automatically during the disaster, minimizing the risk of nuclear pollution. Russia has also stated that the vessel did not carry nuclear munitions, although a Norwegian engineer involved in an earlier rescue attempt stated that he had seen documents to the contrary, and a Russian lawmaker investigating the accident also reported that the sub carried nuclear munitions. Given naval secrecy surrounding such issues, the real answer is unlikely to ever emerge. Meanwhile, Russian submarine problems continue; in a little-noticed incident on 14 April, a Russian Victor-III class nuclear-powered attack submarine was towed back to port after an apparent propulsion malfunction. The Russian navy, like the rest of the Russian armed forces, has suffered from a dramatic fall in funding since its Soviet glory days. The Kola peninsula was the site of the bases of the Soviet Northern Fleet, and the greatest concentration of military firepower in the world. Radioactive pollution is most severe there, the experts say, and it extends across the northern rim of Russian Arctic territory to the Bering Strait. Novaiia Zemliia, located midway between the Barents and Kara Seas, was the site of the USSR's main above-ground testing range, where weapons up to 50 megatons were tested. The Northern Fleet currently has nearly 60,000 spent nuclear fuel assemblies in storage, with more than 30,000 of these in decomissioned submarines. This number is estimated to grow by another 20,000 within the next six years. According to Russian press reports, they are currently stored poorly onshore, or remain in hulks rusting at quayside. Perhaps the most lethal long-term legacy of the Soviet nuclear program is the Mayak military complex in the Urals, founded in 1948 as the center of Soviet nuclear military acitivity. An artifical lake, Lake Karachai, was created there, and used as a repository for nuclear waste. Mayak would eventually dump more than 1.2 billion curies of radioactive material into the water, an amount equivalent to 24 Chernobyls. More than nine billion gallons of highly radioactive waste totalling 145 billion curies was also pumped directly down 13,000-foot boreholes. Along with dumping into the neaby Techa River, a tributary of the northern-flowing Ob River, radioactive nucleides began appearing 1,000 miles away in the Arctic Ocean. One Russian scientist has termed this groundwater transmission "Chernobyl in slow motion." The West Siberian basin is very wet, and scientists now fear that the waste may percolate vertically as well as horizontally, polluting vast swaths of inhabited Siberia. Certain courageous individuals have tried to draw attention to this environmental catastrophe, provoking a furious governmental response.The successor to the KGB, the FSB state security service, pursued a treason case through the Russian courts for five years, until last September, against one such critic, former Navy Captain Aleksandr Nikitin. Ultimately, the Presdium of the Russian Supreme Court rejected the Prosecutor General's Office appeal against Nikitin's acquital by the City Court of St.Petersburg in December 1999. Nikitin's crime was to document in conjunction with the Norwegian Bellona Foundation the scope and scale of the Soviet military's contamination of the Arctic Kola peninsula, which the security services regarded as revealing "state secrets." The Russian government continues to support the nuclear option; last year Evgenii Adamov, Minister for Atomic Power, proposed that Russia build 23 new nuclear reactors. He also suggested that Russia import foreign nuclear waste for reprocessing. Russian government policies bode ill for further candor. The State Committee on Environmental Protection was recently abolished, its functions transferred to the Ministry of Natural Resources, an action widely condemned by environmental groups in Russia and abroad. The future looks dark indeed. Plutonium is one of the most toxic substances known; one-millionth of a gram is sufficient to cause cancer, and the element has a half-life of 24,000 years. Russian nuclear facilities and the military continue to produce thousands of tons of radioactive waste each year. It is estimated that 3,000 towns and cities with more than 2.3 million inhabitants have already been contaminated. The death rate from Chernobyl is now over 4,000 involved in the operation and its immediate aftermath, with another 40,000 ill or disabled from the lingering toxic after effects. Continued Russian denial of the scope of the problem, combined with cash shortages, guarantees that the problem and its consequences will be with humanity for many generations to come. (John C. K. Daly received his doctorate in Russian and Middle Eastern studies from the University of London and is a scholar at the Middle East Institute, Washington.) -- Copyright 2001 by United Press International. All rights reserved. -- The romantic sounds of classic Cuban music blend with contemporary Spanish guitar in Alicia y Yo, a new CD from Spain. Click here to listen to some tracks and order the CD ***************************************************************** 34 Duma Approves Nuclear Fuel Imports Jun. 7, 2001. Page 1 Combined Reports Demonstrators outside the State Duma on Wednesday protesting legislation that would allow the import of spent nuclear fuel. The State Duma gave final approval in 20 minutes Wednesday to legislation opening Russia to imports of spent nuclear fuel, a project environmentalists say will turn the country into a nuclear dump. Lawmakers voted 243-125 in favor of the package of amendments, which advocates say could earn $20 billion over 10 years and help clean up the nation's existing stock of nuclear waste. "I am voting for this bill because I don't want places in my country remaining dead zones, contaminated by radiation," said Deputy Yegor Ligachev, a Communist and a former member of the Soviet Union's ruling Politburo. The bills now have to win the approval of the Federation Council upper chamber and then be signed into law by President Vladimir Putin. The international environmental group Greenpeace reacted to the vote by calling on Washington to veto any shipments of spent fuel to Russia from U.S.-designed reactors, a move it said could foil the whole project. Environmentalists and liberals have mounted fierce opposition to the bills on grounds that proceeds, rather than going into reprocessing the spent fuel, might be spent in other ways and the radioactive waste would remain buried indefinitely. Grigory Yavlinsky, leader of the Yabloko party and one of the main opponents of the bills, urged the Duma to reject the bill for the sake of future generations. "The vote today can make history," Yavlinsky told deputies. "One hundred million Russian citizens are against it and only 500 people are for — 300 members sitting here and 200 bureaucrats who will be getting the money." Yavlinsky says opinion polls show Russians overwhelmingly reject the plan. Before the debate got under way, Yabloko launched a last-ditch attempt to stall the bills by asking deputies to put off the vote and hold a referendum. The Duma rejected the move. Deputies backing the bills said calls to postpone it or vote it down played in the hands of foreign competitors trying to keep Russia from entering the lucrative market of fuel reprocessing. Under the project championed by the Nuclear Power Ministry, Russia would import about 1,000 tons of fuel a year, roughly the amount produced now by its own power plants and those in neighboring Ukraine, which sends spent fuel for reprocessing. The imported fuel is due to be stored until 2021 while Russia upgrades its crumbling reprocessing facilities with the money earned from prospective exporters, such as Taiwan, Japan, China, Iran and Eastern Europe. Russia is building a nuclear power plant in Iran despite strong opposition from the United States, which sees the development of nuclear technology in Tehran as a threat. Greenpeace immediately called on U.S. President George W. Bush to ban all shipments of spent fuel to Russia from U.S.-made reactors around the world, which would drastically reduce Moscow's prospective customer base since plant designers have a say in how waste from reactors is treated. "Without U.S. support the whole grandiose Nuclear Power Ministry program shrinks down to the simple old Soviet practice of taking back spent fuel from the socialist brother countries," Greenpeace International said in a statement. Nuclear Power Minister Alexander Rumyantsev says France and Britain have already carved up the market for depleted nuclear fuel and Russia will have to fight to secure a share. Reprocessed fuel can be used again, leaving small quantities of unusable radioactive waste. Rumyantsev lashed out at critics of the bills on the eve of Wednesday's vote. "An extremely negative public relations attack is under way. We are constantly being defamed," Rumyantsev said Tuesday night on ORT television. Reprocessing is to begin in 2021 and take place over a 20-year period. Opponents say there are no guarantees that everything will go according to plan and free of accidents. "Mass imports of spent nuclear fuel mean unavoidable catastrophic consequences for the ecology that will threaten the lives of Russians for centuries to come," said a letter by members of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The letter was handed out by demonstrators outside the Duma. A group of about 100 environmental activists and Yabloko members rallied outside the Duma before the vote. Vladimir Slivyak, co-founder of the Ecodefense environmental group, expressed disappointment about the bill's approval. "We have already started to form small environmental groups throughout Russia whose members will block railroads when the nuclear fuel is imported," Slivyak said. "But we still hope that the Federation Council will block the legislation," he said. "We know that about half of the governors are against it, and the vote of only 50 percent of the council's members are needed to block the bills." (Reuters, MT, AP) ***************************************************************** 35 Russia backs nuclear waste dump plan Boston Globe Online: By Maura Reynolds Los Angeles Times, 6/7/2001 MOSCOW - Russian lawmakers gave resounding approval yesterday to a plan that would turn sections of Siberia into one of the world's largest nuclear waste dumps, a project that the United States in effect has the power to veto. The Russian government says it can earn an estimated $20 billion over 10 years by importing spent nuclear fuel from power plants in Europe and Asia, and the money can be used to clean up the environment and safeguard nuclear storage sites. Environmentalists and liberals oppose the proposal, arguing that Russia has enough trouble keeping a lid on its current nuclear materials without importing an estimated 20,000 tons more over the next decade. About 90 percent of the spent fuel Russia could import from Europe and Asia is of US origin, and cannot be transferred to a third country without US approval, which means the long-term success of the Russian plan depends on Bush administration approval. In Washington, the Bush administration expressed doubts about the plan but did not close the door on it. ''For Russia to import irradiated fuel containing US origin nuclear material would require a peaceful nuclear cooperation agreement with the United States, something it does not now have,'' the State Department said. The department noted in its written statement that the United States ''would want to be assured that the transfer was for eventual disposal and not for reprocessing'' and that the fuel be safely and securely transported and stored. ''An especially important factor would be the nature of Russia's nuclear cooperation with third parties,'' the statement noted. Russia's State Duma, the lower house of parliament, voted on three bills to permit the import of nuclear waste. The measures passed by comfortable margins: 266-117, 243-125 and 250-125. The bills must still pass the upper house and be signed by President Vladimir V. Putin. Approval by the upper house, or Federation Council, is usually a formality, especially when legislation is strongly backed by the Kremlin, as in this case. But several members, including Chairman Yegor S. Stroyev, suggested that the chamber may not just rubber-stamp the plan. Stroyev is governor of the Orel region in western Russia, which was contaminated when the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded in 1986. ''We, people living in the Chernobyl zone, are very much afraid of any wrong move here,'' Stroyev said after the Duma vote. ''Russia can't be the world's dump site. If we take this step it should be not for the money but first and foremost for the sake of people's health.` Prime customers for Russia include South Korea and Taiwan, both of which have US-built reactors and are rapidly running out of temporary waste storage. Spent nuclear fuel contains plutonium, which can be separated out and reused for other purposes, either as a means of generating electricity or as fuel for nuclear weapons. As a result, in addition to being dangerously radioactive, spent fuel also poses a strategic security risk. For this reason, US policy has traditionally opposed reprocessing spent nuclear fuel. But in his National Energy Plan released last month, President Bush suggested that this prohibition be reconsidered. © Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company. ***************************************************************** 36 Russian Duma Votes to Allow Nuclear Waste Import Environment News Service: MOSCOW, Russia, June 6, 2001 (ENS) - Today Russian lawmakers approved three controversial bills allowing the import of high-level nuclear waste, which includes spent nuclear fuel from power plants. The lower house of parliament, the Duma, passed the bills by a wide margin. The most important bill amends the Russian law on environmental protection reversing a ban on the import of nuclear waste. It attracted the favorable votes of 243 members, while only 125 were opposed, and seven State Duma deputies abstained. (Photo courtesy Government of the Russian Federation) The measures were backed by the government of President Vladimir Putin, but angrily opposed by environmental groups who argue that the country cannot safely handle the nuclear waste it has now and should not import any more. Some anti-nuclear activists chained themselves to the entrance of the Duma in protest. Now all three bills must be approved by the Federation Council, the upper house of parliament, and President Putin. Dates for these decisions have not yet been set. Speaker of parliament's upper chamber Yegor Stroyev warned before the Duma vote that the upper chamber may have serious concerns about the measure. "We will take our time with this decision," Stroyev told reporters. "First, we have to take a careful look at all the consequences, think about guaranteeing security, and only then make our decision." Before the vote, the Russian Ministry of Atomic Power (Minatom) distributed in the Duma a report discrediting one of the environmental groups campaigning against the nuclear waste import bill entitled, "Anti-nuclear campaign: methods and means of misinformation." Anti-nuclear waste protesters taken into custody by police in Chelyabinsk, August 2000. (Two photos courtesy Ecodefense!) Vladimir Slivyak, director of the anti-nuclear campaign at Ecodefense! said, "When Minatom can't beat our arguments, it start to discredit our name." Members of the Russia's Academy of Science urged Putin to veto the law if it reaches his desk, contending that storage of radioactive waste is a public health danger. "In case of massive [nuclear byproduct] introduction, the inevitable side-effects would endanger the life of Russia's residents for hundreds of years," they wrote in a letter distributed in the Duma. One of the measures allows the reprocessing of imported waste, and Minatom says the import is aimed exclusively at developing the Russian reprocessing industry. None of the bills approved today includes information on how many years the nuclear waste can be stored after it is imported. Anti-nuclear campaigners say that now Western and Asian nuclear industries will be able to dispose of their nuclear waste in Russia. Russia's government contends that over the next 10 years the project could earn the country about US$21 billion. Anti-nuclear activists say that figure is enormously inflated to justify the program. In Moscow, anti-nuclear activists protest the import of radioactive waste. February 2001. "To make such profit there must be approximately 20,000 tons imported at a price of US$1,000 per kilo," says Slivyak. "Such an 'economic program' may hardly be implemented since Minatom was never able to arrange a single contract for reprocessing with price higher than $620 per kilo," he says. "There is chance to stop this legislation when Federation Council will vote on it - it may correct the mistake Duma made," said Alexandra Koroleva, co-chairman of Ecodefense! Whatever the final outcome of the bills, the anti-nuclear activists will undertake to inform Russian voters across the country which Duma representatives voted in favor of waste import. "Duma' members who likes to make nuclear dump site out of Russia must not be elected to Duma again," said Koroleva. According to the poll conducted by the nationwide newspaper "Moscow News" in April, about 75 percent of Russians would join in civil disobedience actions if foreign nuclear waste is brought across Russian borders. © Environment News Service (ENS) 2001. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 37 Russia closer to taking the world's nuclear waste Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Special report: Russia Ian Traynor in Moscow Thursday June 7, 2001 The Guardian Russia took a big step towards becoming the dumping ground for the world's nuclear waste yesterday when parliament scrapped a ban on the import of spent nuclear fuel. Ignoring public opposition, environmentalists' protests, and expert opinion that the scheme is flawed and doomed, the lower house passed a package of amendments in support of a project which the government claims can earn Russia £15bn in the next 10 years by making it the world's biggest repository for other countries' unwanted nuclear waste. The bill now goes to the upper house before President Vladimir Putin signs it into law. The upper house Speaker, Yegor Stroyev, has criticised the scheme as a gift to "madmen and the mafia", but Mr Putin is a fervent believer in capitalising on Russia's nuclear expertise. One of his first acts as president last year was to loosen the regulations governing nuclear exports, raising the fear that he was undermining international efforts to prevent nuclear arms proliferating. Now he is loosening the rules for nuclear imports, and the nuclear lobby is arguing that the profits from storing and possibly reprocessing other countries' spent fuel will be used to clean up the environment and improve safety in the nuclear industry. The claim has been met with scepticism, not least since the atomic energy minister, Yevgeny Adamov, was sacked in March for alleged corruption. The opposition leader Grigory Yavlinsky told the duma: "100m Russian citizens are against it and only 500 people are for: 300 members sitting here and 200 bureaucrats who will be getting the money." But the new atomic energy minister, Alexander Rumyantsev, told a Moscow newspaper that "the lion's share" of the proceeds would be spent on "social recovery programmes". Opinion polls show that up to 90% of Russians oppose the plan. Environmentalists collected 2.5m signatures of protest in an unsuccessful attempt to require a referendum on the issue, and yesterday experts at the Academy of Sciences warned that there would be "unavoidable catastrophic consequences for the ecology which will threaten the lives of Russians for centuries to come". Officials predicted that they could start importing spent fuel for storage at two Russian sites within three years, with a view to reprocessing it from 2020. The Russians hope to import spent fuel rods from Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Mexico, Switzerland and Germany and to outbid the British and the French reprocessing industries. But the US holds the trump card: it has an effective veto on 90% of the potential imports because countries using US-designed reactors are not allowed to export their waste to a third country without US consent. The US opposes reprocessing because of the danger of plutonium becoming more widely available, wants Russia to halt its nuclear cooperation with Iran and India, and is anxious about the state of the Russian storage facilities, all making it unlikely that Washington will let Taiwan, South Korea or Japan send spent fuel to Russia. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2001 ***************************************************************** 38 Nuclear waste deal with Taiwan denied June 08, 2001 MOSCOW - The Nuclear Energy Ministry denied a news report Thursday that Russia had signed a deal with Taiwan for the storage and reprocessing of nuclear waste. Taiwan's Liberty Times reported that Russia had signed the agreement with the state-owned Taiwan Power Co. to take what the Liberty Times said was 5,000 barrels of waste. On Wednesday, the State Duma, the lower house of Russia's parliament, gave approval to a bill that would allow Russia to import spent nuclear fuel for storage and reprocessing. The government says it could earn up to dlrs 20 billion by importing waste, but the bill faces fierce opposition from environmentalists. To become law, the bill must yet be passed by the upper house of parliament and signed by President Vladimir Putin. Ministry spokesman Yuri Bespalko said no agreements had been signed for the import of spent nuclear fuel and no negotiations would be conducted before the bill becomes law. But he said Russia had held "very preliminary" talks with Taiwan five years ago and with Switzerland two years ago in order to study the market. /The Associated Press/ Copyright © 2000 The Russia Journal Design: A. Serebryakova ***************************************************************** 39 To Come Out With Project Of The World's First International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) Pravda.RU Russia ¹Jun, 07 2001 Made in Pravda.ru Pravda.ru comes forward with working out conceptions and creating new corporative representative sites, as well as with promotion of new products in the Net. More in detail ... RUSSIA TO COME OUT WITH PROJECT OF THE WORLD'S FIRST INTERNATIONAL THERMONUCLEAR EXPERIMENTAL REACTOR (ITER) The Russian Ministry of Atomic Energy on Thursday will present in the Russian Academy of Sciences the project of the world's first International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER). As was reported by the Ministry's press service, apart from Russian scientists, specialists from the European Union, the United States, Canada and Kazakhstan took part in the technical development of the reactor. A brand new technological idea of producing electric power underlies the project, explained the press service of the Russian Ministry of Atomic Energy. Earlier, fast or slow neutrons and nuclear fuel form Uranium-238 were used, while in the new reactor thermonuclear energy, accumulated with the help of plasmatic-magnetic traps, will be used for the first time. In this case the warmth yield of nuclear elements will substantially increase and, thus, the efficiency of the new reactor will be higher, reported the Ministry. The project will be presented and discussed at a two-day symposium, ITER Days in Moscow. Its main aim is to inform the Russian and international public of the results of the research and designing work, which made up the foundation of the project of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, and also to give it an insight into the current arrangements for its construction. RIA 'Novosti' Pravda.RU:Society Copyright ©1999 by "Pravda.RU". When reproducing our ***************************************************************** 40 Council backs soil plan Thursday, June 07, 2001 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal By MICHAEL SQUIRES REVIEW-JOURNAL The Henderson City Council passed a measure Wednesday supporting state officials' plan to remove contaminated soil from a 300-acre site and bury the soil in a landfill proposed for an industrial area south of Warm Springs Road. The Nevada Division of Environmental Protection's recommendation follows years of study that considered several alternatives, including leaving the soil in place. "There are fences out there, but they can't keep everyone out," said Doug Zimmerman, chief of the division's Corrective Actions Bureau. Zimmerman attended the council meeting to gauge city officials' opinion of the plan. Under the state's proposal, a conveyor running beneath Boulder Highway would take the soil from its location east of the road to the landfill. The soil was contaminated with benzene, lead, uranium, perchlorate and other industrial chemicals over three decades, starting in the 1940s. Once the soil is removed, LandWell Co. plans to build an 8,000-unit, master-planned community on the land. With the city's blessing, the state is prepared to complete the permits and start the cleanup, Zimmerman said. Henderson Mayor Jim Gibson said the cleanup will benefit the city by providing usable land and a safer environment. "I grew up in Henderson, and this was an area that was supposed to be off-limits," he said. "We've hoped for the day when we could see real remediation, not just fencing." This story is located at: http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2001/Jun-07-Thu-2001/news/16270707.html ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 Stillborns In Atomic Tests CBS News | | Wed, 06 Jun 2001 20:40:03 EDT Paper: U.S. Used Dead Babies In Cold War Radiation Experiments Stillborns From Britain, Canada, Elsewhere Used, Says Report Parents Allegedly Not Told; Hong Kong, Australia Investigating HONG KONG, June 6, 2001 AP The experiments tested the effects of nuclear fallout. (CBS) Hong Kong said on Wednesday it will investigate British newspaper reports that dead babies were sent to the United States and Britain for nuclear experiments between the 1950s and 1970s. "We will look into the claims," a government spokeswoman told Reuters. "These claims date back to half a century ago and we'll need to make checks within the government." The government has not yet decided whether to make inquiries with Washington and London, she said. British newspapers reported this week that about 6,000 stillborn babies and dead infants were sent from hospitals in Australia, Britain, Canada, Hong Kong, the United States and South America over a 15-year span without the permission of parents. The reports said the bodies and some body parts were apparently used by the U.S. Department of Energy for tests to monitor radioactivity levels of the element Strontium 90 in humans. "Project Sunshine" began in 1953 when University of Chicago doctor Willard Libby, who was later awarded a Nobel prize for his research into carbon dating, appealed for bodies, preferably stillborn or newly-born babies, to test the impact of atomic bomb fallout. Britain's Observer newspaper said British scientists also conducted tests on babies from Hong Kong and the research ended only in the 1970s. Hong Kong was a British colony for over 150 years before being handed back to China in mid-1997. Spokesmen for the British and U.S. consulates in Hong Kong were not immediately available for comment. Australia launched an investigation on Tuesday into the reports. In 1994, President Clinton established the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments to study Cold War-era projects. A staff memo from the committee, dated June 9, 1995 and obtained by the nonprofit National Security Archive, said that "As part of Project Sunshine, which sought to measure strontium-90, the (Atomic Energy Commission) engaged in an effort to collect baby bones from domestic and foreign sources. The memo quotes Libby telling a 1955 meeting, "So human samples are of prime importance and if anybody knows how to do a good job of body snatching, they will really be serving their country." "In the summer of 1953, we hired an expensive law firm to look up the law of body snatching, " Libby said. "It is not very encouraging. It shows you how very difficult it is going to be to do legally." Another participant in the meeting said several bodies were already enroute from Houston and Vancouver. "We could easily get them from Puerto Rico and other places," said Columbia University's Dr. J. Laurence Kulp, according to a transcript. The 1955 meeting involved discussions of using military resources from foreign countries. "The possibilities included Germany, a native hospital in Formosa and the Navy unit in Cairo," another participant said. © MMI Viacom Internet Services Inc. All Rights Reserved. This ***************************************************************** 2 Worker testifies in injury lawsuit Denver Post.com - Beryllium's danger kept secret, he says By Stacie Oulton Denver Post Staff Writer Thursday, June 07, 2001 - GOLDEN - Ronald Roerish, a 59-year-old Boulder resident whose job once was to cast beryllium most every day at Rocky Flats, said he wished he'd been told that the metal was considered the most deadly element known to mankind. "I would have had different feelings about working with it," Roerish testified Wednesday in Jefferson County District Court. Suit alleges conspiracy Roerish and three other workers from the former nuclear weapons plant west of Denver are suing Brush Wellman, an Ohio-based company that supplied beryllium to Rocky Flats. The four workers have chronic beryllium disease, a lung disease caused by the metal's dust. Roerish was the first of the four to testify. He never knew that Brush Wellman's own medical director had in 1949 labeled the metal the most deadly element, because the company censored that information from a medical article, and the federal government let Brush do it, according to court records. The lawsuit alleges that Brush and the government conspired to keep such information secret, even from Rocky Flats managers, to protect the production of beryllium for the nuclear weapons industry. Brush denies that. Roerish still works at Rocky Flats. He testified with his oxygen tank resting near his shoulder. When asked if he would have taken the casting job if he had been told beryllium caused lung disease, he said yes. He just would have expected the company to fully inform him about what it knew. "If we would have got all the right information from Brush Wellman, yes," Roerish testified. He knew beryllium was hazardous and followed the plant's procedures of wearing a respirator any time he worked with the metal, he said. He believed the respirator protected him, although that might not have been the case. Break room near shop But the company showed that Roerish and other employees took breaks in a room adjacent to the beryllium shop, where the metal was machined. Workers walked through the machine shop without respirators to reach the break room, where they drank coffee and ate. Roerish also was present when an oven, which was heating metal items, blew a top. He also testified that the Rocky Flats plant never provided any training on how to safely deal with beryllium until he moved on to other jobs at the plant. Brush is blaming the workers' illnesses on Dow Chemical Co., Rockwell International and other companies that operated the plant for the government. Those companies failed to protect the workers because they didn't have safety devices such as proper ventilation in place, Brush claims. All contents Copyright 2001 The Denver Post or other copyright ***************************************************************** 3 U.S. feared loss of beryllium Rocky Mountain News: Local Company drove hard bargain, ex-Brush Wellman exec says By Ann Imse, News Staff Writer The federal government delayed tighter regulation of "the most deadly element of all time" for 20 years, after its sole producer said it would stop making beryllium for nuclear bombs without that protection, according to testimony Wednesday in a Jefferson County courtroom. About 50 people are suing beryllium producer Brush Wellman Inc. of Cleveland for allegedly conspiring with the federal government to hide the metal's dangers. Retired Brush Wellman vice president Steve Zenczak testified Wednesday that after the only other producer quit the business in 1979, defense and energy department officials called a meeting to make sure that Brush Wellman would continue to mine and process beryllium. Rocky Flats needed beryllium to produce nuclear weapons. Company officials told the government officials that to continue production, they needed an immediate 35 percent price hike and relief from OSHA efforts to tighten the safety standard, Zenczak testified on videotape. Zenczak said Brush Wellman told the federal officials it needed help with "OSHA efforts to lower the standard to what was viewed by us as unreasonable, unnecessary and possibly unattainable levels." He said the federal officials promised to talk to OSHA. In fact, OSHA has not tightened the standard to this day. The plaintiffs say they were exposed to beryllium while working at the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant, and they now suffer from chronic beryllium disease, a wasting lung ailment. Plaintiffs also include workers' spouses. Zenczak said Brush Wellman did not directly threaten to quit producing beryllium if OSHA was not stopped. But "the inference could have been drawn," he said. Brush Wellman consistently told employees and customers that workers would be protected from chronic beryllium disease if they were exposed to less than 2 micrograms per cubic meter of air, the government standard set in 1949. The plaintiffs claim Brush Wellman has known for decades that some people suffer chronic beryllium disease after exposure to less than 2 micrograms of the strong, lightweight material. It was only in 1999, about 20 years after Brush Wellman's warning, that OSHA issued an alert stating that the 2-microgram standard might not be sufficient to protect workers, according to court documents. Plaintiffs' attorney Allen Stewart also presented to the jury on Wednesday a 50-year-old document signed by Brush Wellman's then-medical director that said an investigative group believed even then that as little as 2.5 micrograms per cubic meter of air could result in beryllium illness. That level would make beryllium "the most deadly element of all time" on the basis of molecular weight, the letter said. Even 2 micrograms is an extremely small amount. It is equivalent to a pencil tip crushed and dispersed in the air six feet high over an area the size of a football field, according to court documents. The jury also heard from a beryllium disease victim, 59-year-old Ronald Roerish, who walked to the witness stand carrying his oxygen bottle. Roerish testified that Rocky Flats never gave him training in the dangers of beryllium until 1988, after he stopped working in the beryllium foundry. Roerish testified that he wore a respirator in the foundry, but Brush Wellman attorney Roy Atwood drew testimony from Roerish that he did go into the beryllium machine shop without one. Contact Ann Imse at (303) 892-5438 or imse@RockyMountainNews.com. June 7, 2001 2001 © The E.W. Scripps Co. ***************************************************************** 4 Energy Official, GAO Testify on DOE Threat Reduction Efforts Arms Control Today June 2001 Philipp C. Bleek The Energy Department will have to `curtail' its non-proliferation activities at the reduced funding levels proposed by the administration, the head of the department's National Nuclear Security division testified before a Senate subcommittee May 15. At the same hearing, the General Accounting Office (GAO) presented critiques of the Material Protection, Control, and Accounting (MPC&A) program and the Nuclear Cities Initiative (NCI)—two key department non-proliferation programs that the administration has targeted for substantial cuts. In April, the administration submitted a budget proposal to Congress that would reduce Department of Energy (DOE) Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation funding from its current level of about $875 million to $775 million, with the bulk of proposed cuts impacting nuclear non-proliferation efforts in Russia. Intended to secure vulnerable fissile material and assist Russia in safely downsizing its ponderous nuclear complex, the programs face substantial funding decreases from just over $300 million this year to about $200 million in fiscal year 2002. The proposed cuts to programs that traditionally enjoy broad bipartisan support have sparked considerable concern in Congress. (See ACT, May 2001.) The House-Senate conference budget resolution approved by both houses in early May, while essentially mirroring the president's proposed budget and therefore failing to reinstate the proposed cuts, specifically calls on the administration to restore $100 million in funding for DOE's non-proliferation programs. General John Gordon, undersecretary for nuclear security, testified before the Senate Armed Services Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee that, given proposed budget cuts, `it should be apparent and obvious that we will have to curtail efforts in several areas and potentially lose momentum in some.' But Gordon also noted that the programs are under review and held out the possibility that the administration could `request a readjustment of the budget once these reviews are complete.' Gordon stated that he expects the administration to develop an `overarching strategy' that takes a `fresh look' at the initiatives in the context of overall policy toward Russia. At the hearing, the General Accounting Office presented two recent analyses: a May 3 critique of the NCI and an earlier February 28 report on the MPC&A program. Each report praised the programs' efforts to date but raised questions about their ongoing implementation and recommended that strategic plans be developed for both. GAO criticized the `limited success' of the Nuclear Cities Initiative's efforts to establish jobs for weapons scientists in Russia's nuclear cities and recommended the development of a plan with `clearly defined goals' to assist in determining the program's future scope and direction. Noting that to date the bulk of program funds have been expended in U.S. laboratories rather than on-site in Russia, GAO suggested allocating a greater proportion of funds to the nuclear cities. GAO also recommended considering a merger of the Nuclear Cities Initiative with another program working to provide jobs for Russian weapons scientists, the Initiatives for Proliferation Prevention (IPP). Gordon emphasized at the hearing that his department had taken the recommendations to heart and was in the process of both implementing them and reviewing a possible merger of the NCI and IPP programs. Concerning MPC&A, a program designed to safeguard Russia's weapons-usable fissile material, GAO noted that the Energy Department is already developing a strategic plan but recommended that the plan take into account the sustainability of security upgrades in Russia. It also suggested considering the issues of inadequate access to sensitive sites and consolidation of nuclear materials stored at separate locations, which it considers necessary for completion of the program's work. Gordon concurred that `significant work remains to be done' and emphasized his willingness to implement the office's major recommendations. Following repeated queries from Senator Pat Roberts (R-KS), Gordon suggested that the administration's ongoing threat reduction review might wrap up `in a month or so.' After Roberts remarked that he and Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) were getting `a little testy' about the length of the review process, Gordon observed that some of his staff shared the senators' sentiments, noting that those executing the programs were reluctant to undertake actions that might put them `out of sync' with the administration. ACA HomepageSUBSCRIBE TO ACTBACK TO THE TOPArms Control TodayInternship ProgramFact SheetsACA Staff and Board ***************************************************************** 5 Vets were exposed to uranium: study Thursday, June 7, 2001 By CP HALIFAX -- New research indicating a possible connection between depleted uranium and illnesses suffered by Gulf War veterans should interest Ottawa to study the issue further, says a researcher in radioactive substances. "It's frustrating the (Canadian) government doesn't take this more seriously," said Mary Ripley-Guzman, a research co-ordinator with the Uranium Medical Research Centre based in Washington, D.C. "We've come up with data that show there is depleted uranium in these veterans. "It's low-level and it's coming out of their urine." Ripley-Guzman will present the results of the centre's recent study of dozens of Persian Gulf veterans, from several countries, to a Commons Veterans' Affairs committee in Ottawa today. She will be accompanied by Sue Riordan of Nova Scotia, whose husband Capt. Terry Riordan died in 1999 after a long illness she believes was linked to his service in the Gulf War. It was the first conflict where weapons coated with a radioactive substance were used. Ripley-Guzman said while the Canadian government dismisses the research, laboratories in Europe and England are looking into a possible connection. A series of government-sponsored U.S. studies have failed to explain why thousands of soldiers who fought in the 1990-91 conflict have contracted unexplained illnesses. The theory that depleted uranium weapons might be responsible was boosted when tests on the bones of Capt. Riordon showed high levels of the radioactive substance. A civilian doctor said Riordan died of Gulf War Syndrome, but it's a conclusion the military refuses to accept. Last August, a senior Canadian military doctor dismissed the alleged connection between depleted uranium and illnesses after 69 other veterans were tested for the substance. Col. Ken Scott said there was no evidence Canadians were exposed to this type of coated ammunition and said there was no such diagnosis as Gulf War Syndrome. Previous story: Court gets McVeigh say Next story: Di's butler denies theft Copyright © 2001, Canoe Limited Partnership. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 6 Bush to resume talks with N. Korea welcome to Korea Herald!!_National http://www.koreaherald.com Wednesday, June 6, 2001 WASHINGTON - Foreign Minister Han Seung-soo and U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell met Thursday to discuss U.S. plans to reopen diplomatic negotiations with North Korea. Han and Powell met here after U.S. President George Bush announced plans to resume talks with North Korea on Pyongyang's nuclear and missile issues and conventional military threats. Han's aides said that the two reaffirmed that South Korea and the United States would maintain close consultations in engaging North Korea and handling issues related to Pyongyang's nuclear and missiles programs. Bush issued a statement Wednesday that the United States will resume dialogue with North Korea, adding that the talks will focus on verification of North Korea's compliance with agreements on its nuclear activities and missile programs and reducing its threat of conventional military posture. During the one-hour luncheon with Han, Powell explained details of the U.S. government's plan to resume talks with North Korea, which is part of the Bush administration's new approach toward the communist country, a South Korean official said. He said that Han and Powell exchanged their views on the timing, agenda and level of participating officials for the upcoming U.S.-North Korea talks. "The Washington-Pyongyang talks should be 'meaningful' ones that ease tension and promote the peace process on the Korean Peninsula," Han was quoted as saying. (jjhwang@koreaherald.co.kr) zHe stressed that inter-Korean rapprochement should proceed in tandem with an improvement in U.S.-North Korea relations. On Wednesday, Han met with Bush's National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific Affairs James Kelly. "We welcome Washington's decision to reopen talks with the North in that it reflects much of the results of continuous consultations with South Korea so far and that it strongly supports President Kim Dae-jung's engagement policy," Han was quoted as telling the senior U.S. officials. Han arrived in the United States Tuesday for an eight-day visit. He is scheduled to make a speech at a seminar hosted by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) Monday and meet with leaders of Congress foreign relations and security committees Tuesday. (jjhwang@koreaherald.co.kr By Hwang Jang-jin Korea Herald correspondent 2001.06.08 (C) Copyright 2000 Digital Korea Herald. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 7 Bones of Australian Babies Used in Nuclear Tests June 7, 2001 By Michael Perry SYDNEY (Reuters) - Cremated bones of Australian babies were shipped to the United States and Britain from the 1950s to the 1970s without parental consent to test for radioactive fall-out from nuclear tests. An Australian scientific document reveals bones from dead babies a few weeks old, as well as children five to 19 years old and adults up to 39 years were cremated and sent overseas without permission for testing for radioactive Strontium 90. "There were certainly measurements that showed that Strontium 90 from atmospheric nuclear tests had gotten into the bones of people in Australia," John Loy, head of the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency, said on Thursday. The agency released the scientific documents revealing the testing by its predecessor agency after British media reported that bodies of stillborn children from Australia, Britain, Canada and Hong Kong were used in U.S. nuclear experiments. British newspapers said the bodies of stillborn babies and infants were taken from hospitals for use in U.S. Department of Energy tests to monitor levels of Strontium 90. This was the second report of humans being used in nuclear tests to emerge in Australia in the past month. Australia last month raised allegations its troops were used as human guinea pigs during British atom bomb tests in the 1950s to test protective clothing in low-radiation nuclear tests at Maralinga in the South Australian outback. Loy said there was no evidence that stillborn babies were sent from Australia, but the cremated ashes of babies were sent to the United States and Britain without parental consent. BRITISH AGENCY "Bones samples from babies were included in those studies," Loy said. "It is clear that the samples weren't gathered as we would want them to these days... If we were doing such a thing these days, you would want people to give their consent." The scientific document said: "Specimens of bone tissue of all ages up to 40 years are provided by pathologists in Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane... Two sets of representative samples for Strontium 90 analysis are prepared from all specimens collected during each six-month period. "From these data, radiation doses to skeletal tissue may be estimated and hence assessments made of likely affects on the population," it said. The document said these particular bone samples were tested by Britain's atomic energy agency in 1969. Loy said bones were collected and cremated in a Melbourne laboratory and then sent to the United States and Britain. "There had been an enormous numbers of atmospheric nuclear tests taking place in the late fifties and sixties and this was spreading radioactive contamination throughout the world," he said. "The question was how much was affecting Australian people." Loy said that while the tests revealed Strontium 90 in the bones of Australians, it was not at a dangerous level. The tests probably played a role in decisions to end atmospheric nuclear tests, he added. Loy said the bone testing was not secret, but was on the public record in scientific and government documents. Australia also carried out its own bone testing in later years, he said. Australia launched an investigation on Tuesday into the reports that stillborn babies were sent to the United States for nuclear energy experiments. The Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency said it would hand over documents to the government for investigation. Copyright 2001 Reuters News Service. All rights reserved. This sites:ABC.comESPN.comDisney.comMr.ShowbizMovies.com ***************************************************************** 8 US Use of Dead Babies for Nuclear Experiments Is Well-Documented: Official Thursday, June 07, 2001, updated at 10:50(GMT+8) US Use of Dead Babies for Nuclear Experiments Is Well-Documented: Official The United States has acknowledged for years that it used corpses of babies in nuclear experiments conducted for two decades from the 1950s, a US Energy Department official said. Britain's The Observer newspaper said Sunday that between 1955 and 1970 around 6,000 babies from hospitals in Hong Kong, Australia, Britain, Canada and South America were shipped to the United States for use in nuclear experiments. The department official, who asked not to be named, challenged The Observer's claim that its report contained revelations from new documents concerning the project. "We know of no such documents," the official said, adding that all documents had been released in 1995 and the operation condenamed Project Sunshine had been widely reported in the US media at the time. In June 1994, then energy secretary Hazel O'Leary collected some 11,000 documents detailing experiments on stillborn and other dead babies by nuclear researchers working for the US military. The documents were collected at the request of former president Bill Clinton who ordered an investigation into Project Sunshine which was carried out by a group of nuclear experts dubbed the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments. The group's report, along with the documents, were released to the public the following year. "The only Project Sunshine records that this office is aware of were released as part of the 1995 report on human radiation experiments," said the energy department's office of declassification in a statement. According to those records, Project Sunshine began in 1955, when Dr Willard Libby, of the University of Chicago, appealed for large numbers of bodies, preferably stillborn babies, for experiments on the effect of fallout from atom bomb tests. The tiny corpses were needed for tests, conducted by the US Department of Energy, into radioactivity levels of the isotope Strontium 90. The declassified documents show that bodies were sent from hospitals in many parts of the world, including Hong Kong, Australia, Britain, Canada, South America, and the Philippines. Copyright by People's Daily Online, all rights reserved| Mirror in U.S. | ***************************************************************** 9 New Technology Helps Reduce Worker Radiation Exposures EarthVision Environmental News RICHLAND, WA, June 6, 2001 - Personnel working in Hanford's highly contaminated nuclear tank waste equipment pits just got some added safety as the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) has unveiled a remotely operated cleanup technology that should cut worker radiation exposure by 50 to 75 percent. Called the Pit Viper, the technology is based on commercially available components, which makes it easier to deploy and keeps costs down says Sharon Bailey, Pit Viper project manager at PNNL. The work being performed on the equipment pits is essential to the planned treatment system for millions of gallons of radioactive tank waste stored at the Hanford Site. More than 600 equipment pits are associated with Hanford's 177 underground storage tanks. These concrete pits house valves and pipe couplings that allow for the transfer of highly radioactive waste from one underground tank to another. It is this transfer system that will be used to bring the waste to the Hanford's planned vitrification plant, which will turn the waste into a glassified form for safe disposal. However, before the treatment plan can be put into action, these contaminated equipment pits must be inspected, cleaned, decontaminated, and repaired. Workers must repair or remove equipment within the pits, conduct radiation mapping or characterization, remove debris, repair wall cracks, and clean, prep and paint walls. Helping in this effort is the Pit Viper, which uses a hydraulic manipulator arm to perform various tasks. "The arm is capable of lifting 200 pounds while fully extended. It is operated remotely from a console in a control trailer located up to 200 feet away from the equipment pit," says Bailey. "The operators work in a clean, safe environment while viewing cleanup activities on television monitors captured by four cameras." The manipulator arm is mounted on a backhoe that is maneuvered adjacent to an equipment pit. A variety of tools that attach to the manipulator's gripper are available to perform the many cleanup, repair and maintenance tasks. Deployment in the field is anticipated this summer. Business inquiries on this or other PNNL technologies should be directed to 1-888-375-PNNL or inquiry@pnl.gov. ***************************************************************** 10 Lawmakers join protesters in charging abuse by Navy Chicago Tribune | Print Edition -- By Tamara Lytle Washington Bureau June 6, 2001 WASHINGTON -- The Navy physically abused and humiliated people trying to stop bombing practice on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques, Rep. Luis Gutierrez and other demonstrators told the Congressional Hispanic Caucus on Tuesday. . Gutierrez (D-Ill.) along with other politicians, a priest and an actor told their stories during a hearing on the Navy's treatment of protesters arrested April 28. Lawmakers vowed to hold formal hearings with testimony from Navy officials. The congressman from Chicago said he was handcuffed for more than 20 hours, even when he needed to go to the bathroom and on a boat while being transported back to Puerto Rico. Gutierrez also said he was kicked and his face pushed to the ground as a military guard stepped on his neck. A Puerto Rican senator, Norma Burgos, talked about being searched four times even though the protesters were accused only of trespassing, a misdemeanor. Actor Edward James Olmos said he and others were forced to kneel in a gravel-strewn area where rocks punched painfully through his pants. Rev. Nelson Lopez, wearing his clerical garb, said he was tear-gassed, pepper-sprayed and hit with rubber bullets. The Navy was "abusive, disrespectful," he said Navy Lt. Commander Katherine Goode said there was "no basis" to charges that the Navy used excessive force. She said all protesters were treated with dignity. "The security folks did an outstanding job in handling a very difficult situation. There were a lot of people breaking the law that day," Goode said in a telephone interview from the Navy's Roosevelt Island Base in Puerto Rico. The demonstrators were detained for trespassing on the Navy's bombing range in Vieques. Since an errant bomb killed a civilian guard at the training facility in 1999, residents and others have stepped up protests against the Navy's use of the island for bombing practices. The Navy has said the island is crucial to training its Atlantic Fleet. Puerto Ricans have complained that the bombing endangers their health and shuts off economic development. William Molzahn, acting Navy general counsel, appeared at the hearing but said he could not comment on the allegations that were raised because of criminal cases pending against the protesters. Four New York politicians, including Al Sharpton, have been given jail sentences. Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D-N.Y.) and other Hispanic lawmakers had harsh words for the Navy's treatment of the demonstrators. "These actions were outrageous and have absolutely no place in our society. The Navy chose to act like a world-class bully," she said. ***************************************************************** 11 Baby bones shipped to US for studies as late as 1978 - smh.com.au June 7, 2001 By Deborah Smith, Science Writer Autopsy samples from more than 50 Australian children under four were used in American nuclear studies in the late 1950s, scientific papers reveal. Bone samples were taken with the approval of the Federal government, reduced to ash and sent overseas for testing, as part of a project that continued until 1978. The consent of the families was unlikely to have been obtained. Papers from the period also reveal bones from at least 27 children and teenagers and 87 adults from Australia were tested in 1958 and 1959 as part of the United States Atomic Energy Commission research, code-named Project Sunshine. Most State governments, including NSW, have announced inquiries into the issue, after a British newspaper reported that Australian stillborn babies had been shipped overseas as part of the secret program. The chief executive officer of the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency, Dr John Loy, said yesterday the agency had no evidence that stillborn babies were shipped overseas but the government's Atomic Weapons Tests Safety Committee had begun a program of taking bone samples from dead babies and adults in 1957 to be tested overseas for radioactive strontium. He said pathologists in Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney turned the human bone samples to ash before sending them to the US and United Kingdom for testing. The project continued until 1978 and in the later years Australia did its own strontium testing. Project Sunshine, headed by Nobel laureate Dr Willard Libby, began in 1953 to measure the radioactive fallout from nuclear explosions in soil, plants, animals and humans. At a meeting of the project's scientists in 1955, Dr Libby said its supply of stillborn babies had been "cut off". "If anyone knows how to do a good job of body snatching, they will really be serving their country," he said. It would be difficult to do it legally. Dr Laurence Kulp told the 1955 meeting a senior member of the Columbia Medical School with "contacts all over the world" could assist them in obtaining international cadaver samples. "In particular, we could develop a program in Australia" and other countries, he said. Between 1953 and 1959 the project obtained 9,000 samples of human bone, Dr Kulp wrote in the journal Science in 1960. "These have included foetuses, single bone samples from individuals of all ages, and whole skeletons [most from New York]." A spokesman from the University of Chicago, where Dr Libby worked, has said it was unlikely family permission for the samples would have been obtained. Copyright © 2001. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 12 Stillborn babies snatched for nuclear tests CNN.com - - June 6, 2001 By CNN's Kirsty Alfredson HONG KONG, China (CNN) -- Dead babies were snatched and used in nuclear tests during the 1950s and 1960s, an American university spokesman has confirmed. The relevation comes in the wake of a controversy that has gripped Britain, Australia and Hong Kong and sparked government inquiries. Media reports have said 6,000 dead babies were snatched from hospitals in Australia, Britain, Canada, Hong Kong, the United States and South America for over 15 years without parental consent, and shipped to America for atomic tests. "Project Sunshine," the reports said, began in 1955 when University of Chicago doctor Willard Libby, who was awarded a Nobel prize for his research into carbon dating, appealed for bodies, preferably stillborn or newly-born babies, to test atomic bomb fallout. Radioactive fallout University of Chicago's director of communications, Larry Arbeiter, told CNN the tests were carried out because of concern about radioactive fallout at a time when the United States and the Soviet Union were nuclear testing "almost weekly." "The first thing people should know is that no experiments were done on any person despite the headlines they are reading, rather measurements were made of the radioactivity in remains of deceased persons," Arbeiter said. "It was a very important study because it helped lead to the partial test ban treaty of 1963 which prohibited above nuclear ground testing," he said, adding that this story has been public for forty years and resurfaces every five to ten years. Arbeiter told CNN that such tests would require parental consent today, but it was not common practice in the 1950s. "The difference here is that they were cremated at a hospital with a sophisticated laboratory and measured (for) radiation and then disposed of," he said. "So the only distinction is that rather than being cremated locally, they were cremated in at the laboratories in Chicago and a few other places and disposed of in much the same way." Probe But the reports have sparked an outcry in Australia and Hong Kong, where some government officials have said they were not aware of the tests. Australian Federal Health Minister, Dr. Michael Wooldridge, has requested information on the alleged operations. On Tuesday Australian State governments announced they would look into the reports. Further north in Hong Kong, the government is looking into the allegations raised by British newspapers over the weekend, which said the bodies of deceased children were used by the U.S. Department of Energy "for classified nuclear experiments." "We will look into the claims," a government spokeswoman told Reuters. "These claims date back to half a century ago and we'll need to make checks within the government." The Observer report quotes newly declassified documents from the American Department of Energy, including one document relating to a secret meeting in Washington where Libby instructed colleagues to skirt the law in their search for bodies. An investigation into the "body snatching" ordered by former U.S. President Bill Clinton, was scathing, saying that researchers were "deceptive," the report added. Reuters contributed to this report. Back to the top© 2001 Cable News Network LP, LLLP. ***************************************************************** 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: *****************************************************************