***************************************************************** 10/07/01 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 9.236 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER CONTENTS 1 Fw: secret international nuclear panel meet in SA 2 Germany to step up safety at nuclear storage sites following 3 NU concludes it can't find missing fuel rods, but believes 4 Proposed Utah Nuclear Dump Is Vulnerable to Deadly Attack 5 France sued over Chernobyl disaster 6 British environmental challenge to Sellafield 7 Nuclear Fuel's Location Uncertain 8 Search for fuel rods narrowed 9 British government gives go-ahead for controversial nuclear reprocessing - 10 Northeast Util says missing nuclear fuel rods safe 11 HHS Seeks Public Comment On Rules To Assist Compensation Of 12 Ministers dismissed Sellafield terror risks 13 N-Waste Opponents Stage Rally 14 Plutonium plant verdict 'unlawful' 15 Legal challenge to nuclear plant 16 Workers at Pennsylvania nuclear plant authorize strike 17 Emergency official allays Seabrook fears 18 The meaning of a meltdown 19 $9M later, fuel rods still can’t be located 20 TVA whistleblower claims radiation records missing NUCLEAR WEAPONS CONTENTS 1 [Rfpi-announce] Follow up 2 [southnews] US Strategists Begin to Favor Nukes 3 PREVENTING A TERRORIST MUSHROOM CLOUD 4 THE INSANITY OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS & REALITY OF NUCLEAR WINTER 5 U of I workers coming back to IAAP 6 Work to Recover Kursk Hastens 7 Report suggests test site for plutonium storage 8 Money sought for families of nuclear-arms workers 9 N-BASE MAPS SENT BY POST 10 More victim comp? 11 New storage vaults at Y-12 now urgent 12 Should nuclear arms be part of response? 13 Oak Ridge workers claim danger not revealed ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 Fw: secret international nuclear panel meet in SA Date: Fri, 05 Oct 2001 19:01:36 -0700 >To: "Roger Herried" >Subject: Fw: secret international nuclear panel meet in SA >Date: Thu, 4 Oct 2001 11:44:45 -0600 >X-MSMail-Priority: Normal >X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2314.1300 >X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2314.1300 >X-OriginalArrivalTime: 04 Oct 2001 17:21:17.0069 (UTC) FILETIME=[F9DCEBD0:01C14CF8] > > >----- Original Message ----- >From: Muna Lakhani >To: Jim Phelps >Cc: Linda Gunter ; ; KYNF >; Keep Left ; > >Sent: Thursday, October 04, 2001 1:37 AM >Subject: secret international nuclear panel meet in SA > > >> Please share with all media!! >> EARTHLIFE AFRICA >> Johannesburg Branch >> PO Box 11383 >> Johannesburg >> 2000 >> Tel:(011) 4036056 >> Fax: (011) 339 4584 >> E-mail: muna@iafrica.com >> Website: www.earthlife.org.za >> Fundraising number: 01 100914 0008 >> Media Release >> Secret meeting of international nuclear panel. >> >> In a process reminiscent of the apartheid days, an international panel >> of "experts" are meeting to discuss and debate the feasibility study for >> the proposed Pebble Bed Nuclear Reactor (PBMR), under the aegis of the >> Department of Minerals and Energy. >> >> The process to date has excluded civil society completely, and is being >> carried out behind closed doors. "The first feasibility study was >> withdrawn by Eskom, as we were able to find many flaws in it" says >> Nuclear Energy Costs the Earth Campaign Co-ordinator, Muna Lakhani. "It >> seems that they are afraid that we will do the same to this one. All our >> research to date shows that the PBMR, at best, and getting everything >> right the first time, will cost over R3.3 billion over it's proposed 40 >> year life. This is more than sufficient to install safe and clean wind >> turbines, for example, and easily generate the same amount of >> electricity over the period, with no radiation or long term radioactive >> waste hazard. The alternatives will also create many more jobs than the >> PBMR ever could." >> >> The Department of Minerals and Energy is hosting the panel, who, sources >> say, have had access to the feasibility study for a while. Dave >> Nicholls, CEO of PBMR Pty. Ltd. is on record as stating that he sees no >> reason for civil society to have access to the feasibility study. >> >> The Scoping Report of the ongoing Environmental Impact Assessment is >> also problematic. >> Civil society organisations, such as the Koeberg Alert Alliance, say: >> >> "We cannot exclude the health aspects of radiation from an Environmental >> Impact Assessment, since the whole point is to evaluate the impact on >> human and environmental health. We also know that nuclear power >> generation can affect all of life for many thousands of years to come. >> We therefore insist that the impact of high-level radioactive spent fuel >> must be included in the EIA. We further believe that the financial and >> environmental risks cannot simply be projected into the future, as this >> contradicts completely the principle >> of sustainability." >> >> "The risk capital is using public funds; the profits, if any, will go to >> private companies, including those in the USA and UK; the problem of the >> waste, and a suitable repository that will require monitoring for >> thousands of years, will be paid for by public funds alone. This must be >> seen as immoral," says Lakhani. >> >> Letters have been sent to the NNR, Dept. of Environmental Affairs & >> Tourism and DME for urgent meetings around this issue. >> >> Issued by: >> Nuclear Energy Costs the Earth Campaign - Johannesburg >> Contact: Muna Lakhani 082-416-9160 >> Muna@iafrica.com >> >> Davin Chown - Earthlife Africa Cape Town - Cell: 083-460-3898 >> >> Liziwe McDaid - Earthlife Africa Cape Town - Fax: 021-683-5182 >> >> Koeberg Alert Alliance - C/o Mike Kantey - 021-686-8345 - Cell: >> 082-731-0816 >> >> >> Organisations against a Nuclear Development Path in South Africa who are >> supporting the Nuclear Energy Costs the Earth Campaign. >> (as of 1 October 2001) >> South African Organisations: >> Arcatour (SIC) - Meadowlands >> Brits Bankeveld Bewarings Forum - Pretoria >> Crocodile Ramble - Muldersdrift >> Culterra Pty Ltd - Johannesburg >> Development Action Group - Cape Town >> Earthlife Africa (Jhb) >> Earthlife Africa (Cape Town) >> Earthlife Africa (eThekwini) >> Earthlife Africa (PMB) >> Earthlife Africa (Windhoek) >> EDM - Environmental Development Monitoring - Mohlatlareng >> EJNF - Central Eastern Gauteng >> Environmental Justice Networking Forum - Gauteng >> Environmental Monitoring Group - Cape Town >> Eyakho Environmental Group - Johannesburg >> Greenbelt Action Group - Roodepoort >> GroundWork - Pietermaritzburg >> Hartbeespoort Environment & Heritage Association - Groenkloof >> HIV/AIDS Link - Vereeniging >> Imbali Office Services - Orlando West >> Impilo / Bophelo - Meadowlands >> K.E.G.G - Johannesburg >> Mmabana Day Care - Orlando West >> Munsieville Environmental Task Forum - Johannesburg >> New Eden Foundation - Cape Town >> Northwest Eco Forum >> Nyakallang Marimba Group - Meadowlands >> REACSSA - Ekurhuleni >> Re-baatho - Diepkloof >> Re-baatho - Orlando >> SAAV - South Africans Against Vivisection >> South African Green Revolutionary Council - Witbank >> Southern African Association of Youth Clubs >> Soweto Information Centre - Soweto >> St. Michaels Youth Group - Soweto >> The Crocodile Ramble - Muldersdrift >> The Green Party of SA >> Thuto ke Matla Youth Organisation - Soweto >> Vegetarian Society of South Africa >> WESSA - Wildlife and Environment Society of SA - National >> Women Against Radiation (WAR) >> Youth Development Forum - Diepsloot >> Youth Placement - Meadowlands >> Zakheni Environmental Justice Forum - Sebokeng >> Zakheni Environmental Justice Forum - Sebokeng >> Labour >> National Union of Mineworkers >> SADC >> Centre for Total Transformation - Harare >> Community Technology Development Trust - Zimbabwe >> FONSAG - Botswana >> Livaningo - Mozambique >> Zero Regional Environment Organisation - Zimbabwe >> INTERNATIONAL >> Citizen's Awareness Network - USA >> Communities United for Responsible Energy - New York >> Earthmedia - New York >> Ecodefense! - Russia >> Endorphin Records - New York >> NIRS/ Greenpeace - (Harvey Wasserman) - Columbus, Ohio - USA >> Nuclear Information and Resource Service - Washington DC - 6000 members >> Safe Energy Communication Council - Washington DC >> Sustainable South Bronx - New York >> Upsidedown Pictures - New York >> World Information Service on Energy (WISE) - Netherlands >> World Wildlife Fund (WWF) - Denmark >> Hundred's of individual letters of support have already been received. >> > Roger Herried Abalone Alliance Staffperson Abalone Alliance/energy-net webmaster http://www.Energy-net.org An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind... When asked by a British reporter what he thought about western civilization, Mahatma Ghandi replied: "I think it would be a good idea". ***************************************************************** 2 Germany to step up safety at nuclear storage sites following USA attacks BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Oct 6, 2001 Text of report by German Deutschlandfunk radio on 6 October Following the terrorist attacks in the United States, the safety of planned nuclear interim storage sites has to be stepped up in Germany. The Federal Environment Office has confirmed a corresponding report published by Der Spiegel. The weekly reports that the Federal Radiation Protection Office regards the projected thickness of walls and ceilings at five storage sites as insufficient. The sites in question are those at Biblis, Philippsburg, Grafenrheinfeld, Ohu und Grundremmingen. Source: Deutschlandfunk radio, Cologne, in German 1500 gmt 6 Oct 01 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter All Material Subject to ***************************************************************** 3 NU concludes it can't find missing fuel rods, but believes they are stored safely TheDay.com: Local and National News By Paul Choiniere - More Articles Published on 10/05/2001 Waterford – Northeast Utilities announced Friday it has been unable, despite a 10-month investigation, to determine the exact location of two highly-radioactive spent fuel rods reported missing from the closed Millstone 1 nuclear plant nearly a year ago. In its report NU concludes that the pins are safely stored in one of four locations: radioactive waste disposal facilities in either South Carolina or Washington state, at a General Electric nuclear facility in Pleasanton, Calif, or still in the storage pool at Millstone 1. NU conducted the investigation because it was the owner Millstone Nuclear Power Station at the time the fuel rods were reported missing. Dominion Nuclear Connecticut now operates the nuclear station. Millstone 1 has not operated since 1995 and is permanently closed. Millstone 2 and 3 remain in operation. The investigation also concluded the rods were not stolen. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will now do its own review. Dominion, because it holds the operating license, could face fines and other penalties for having lost track of the fuel rods. NU, however, has assumed all financial responsibility. © 1998-2001 The Day Publishing Co. ***************************************************************** 4 Proposed Utah Nuclear Dump Is Vulnerable to Deadly Attack The Salt Lake Tribune -- October 7, 2001 BY DIANNE R. NIELSON Because of the extraordinary importance of the subject -- the security of nuclear materials facilities -- The Tribune editorial titled "Nuclear Hyperbole" merits a thoughtful response. The background facts are these. A small consortium of utilities (commonly referred to as PFS) proposes placing the nation's entire current inventory of commercially generated spent nuclear fuel on open concrete slabs. The size of that inventory: 40,000 metric tons of highly lethal radioactive material, to be contained in 4,000 casks. (No one site in the United States presently contains more than 50 casks of spent nuclear fuel.) The proposed place: a 99-acre site in Skull Valley, 11 miles from two commercial flight paths, about 45 miles from Salt Lake's busy airport, and therefore just minutes of flight time away for a diverted airliner. The quickly unfolding events of Sept. 11 almost immediately brought to the minds of thoughtful and informed Utahns a horrid scenario very close to home. State officials, in discharge of their duties, began the very next day a careful analysis of that scenario. Although our analysis is not yet complete, some truths are already known, with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) having admitted most of these in its Sept. 21, 2001, bulletin. The casks will not withstand impact from a large aircraft. The casks will not withstand a jet fuel fire of the intensity and duration experienced in the Sept. 11 attacks. The resulting failure of the casks could, at the very least, release lethal doses of cesium or cobalt 60 into the atmosphere. Relative to the proposed Skull Valley nuclear waste dump, neither PFS nor the NRC has analyzed attacks of the kind that destroyed our greatest buildings on Sept. 11. Neither PFS nor the NRC has developed protective measures against such attacks. The unthinkable terrorist acts of Sept. 11 changed many things in this world. One of the most important changes for Utahns is an even greater safety concern about the shipment and storage of spent nuclear fuel in our state. Our analysis of this risk must continue. Dianne R. Nielson is executive director of the Utah Department of Environmental Quality. © Copyright 2001, The Salt Lake Tribune All material found on ***************************************************************** 5 France sued over Chernobyl disaster BBC News | EUROPE | 5 October, 2001, More than 100 people suffering from thyroid cancer have filed lawsuits against the French Government. They accuse it of failing to warn them of the health risks from radioactive contamination, following the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Ukraine. A judicial investigation started in July after 51 French cancer sufferers filed a suit against the government. An independent commission monitoring radioactivity in France says contamination levels from Chernobyl were higher than government estimates. Prosecutors have dismissed accusations against the government of criminal poisoning through negligence. ***************************************************************** 6 British environmental challenge to Sellafield ireland.com - The Irish Times - IRELAND October 6, 2001 By Rachel Donnelly, in London British Nuclear Fuel's planned mixed oxide plant (Mox) at Sellafield was under threat yesterday after environmental groups launched a legal challenge to overturn the British government's approval for the project. Lawyers representing Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth filed an application at the High Court seeking a judicial review of the decision to allow work at the £470 million sterling plant to go ahead. The expansion plan was announced by the Environment Secretary, Ms Margaret Beckett, on Wednesday. British Nuclear Fuels Ltd said the legal proceedings were a matter for comment by the British government; a spokesman for the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs declined to comment. Officials from the Department of Public Enterprise, the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and legal representatives met in London yesterday to discuss procedural arrangements for arbitration relating to Ireland's planned legal action under the auspices of the OSPAR Convention seeking the plant's closure. A spokesman for the Department of Public Enterprise said the meeting was planned before this week's decision. Officials made it clear to to the British Department of the Environment that Ireland was "absolutely enraged" by the decision to approve the Mox plant and that it should be reversed immediately. Mr Phil Michaels, in-house lawyer for Friends of the Earth, told The Irish Times that the judicial review was being sought on the grounds that the economic benefits of the plant had been "distorted" and that there was insufficient evidence potential customers would materialise. When it approved operations at the Mox plant, Mr Michaels said the British government had never suggested there were any other benefits apart from economic, yet it had "totally ignored" the £470 million construction costs. If the costs had been taken into consideration in addition to the potential risk to the environment and the terrorism risk, Mr Michaels suggested it would have been impossible to make the economic case. Casting doubt on Japan's willingness to order nuclear fuel from the plant, he said there was "an enormous amount of anti-Mox feeling in Japan". The director of Friends of the Earth, Mr Charles Secrett, said the decision was "dangerous, uneconomic and perverse" and he predicted the plant would struggle to find customers. "We will challenge ministers to justify this foolish decision in court." The executive director of Greenpeace, Mr Stephen Tindale, said: "Tony Blair's obsession with all things nuclear has forced through a crazy decision. BNFL is hoping its main customer for Mox will be Japan, yet a referendum held earlier this year showed the Japanese public doesn't want Mox." ***************************************************************** 7 Nuclear Fuel's Location Uncertain ctnow.com By AL LARA The Hartford Courant October 06, 2001 Two highly radioactive spent fuel pins missing from the Millstone nuclear power station for more than 20 years are believed to have been inadvertently mistaken for old monitoring equipment by workers and shipped to a nuclear waste site. But despite a 10-month investigation, searchers have been unable to find the 13-foot-long pins or determine their exact location beyond four possible sites. Federal regulators say they will send their own investigators to Millstone on Tuesday to "evaluate the comprehensiveness of Northeast Utilities' investigation" of the only recorded instance of missing fuel pins in the history of the U.S. nuclear program. Despite not being able to account for the pins, Northeast Utilities, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Millstone's new owners say they believe the pins were not stolen, and that they are probably safely stored. Fuel pins, or fuel rods, are long, thin sections of metal containing enriched uranium pellets that are the fuel for a nuclear reactor. During an inventory last December before the Waterford complex was sold to a subsidiary of Dominion Resources, two pins were discovered to be missing from the spent fuel pool of the shut-down Unit 1 reactor. Spokeswoman Deborah Beauchamp said a 20-member NU team spent more than 50,000 hours interviewing nearly 200 former workers and reviewing thousands of documents. Documents revealed that the pins disappeared from plant records in 1980, shortly after monitoring equipment was removed from the Unit 1 pool. Millstone spokesman Pete Hyde said the boiling water reactor used local power range monitors, or LPRMs, in the spent fuel pool. Every few refueling cycles, they were replaced. "At first glance, they look exactly like fuel pins," differing only slightly in diameter, Hyde said. "If you're looking at them through 20 feet of water, you can't tell the difference." Beauchamp said maintenance workers would have cut up the LPRMs for ease of transport and placed them in lead-shielded containers to be shipped to a waste site. If the pins were also shipped, the container's lead shielding would have masked their radioactivity. NU believes the pins were probably shipped to one of three sites: radioactive waste sites in South Carolina or Washington state, or a spent fuel pool at a nuclear facility in Pleasanton, Calif. Or the pins could be still sitting in the Unit 1 pool, never missing in the first place. Although the most likely parts of the pool were searched, a search of all of the pool's 167,000 spent fuel pins "would take years," Hyde said. NU's investigation was monitored by a five-member oversight team of nuclear specialists that included Joseph Callan, former executive director of operations for the NRC. NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan called the two-week on-site review of the NU investigation "routine" for a serious incident. Uranium pellets have gone missing before at a nuclear plant, but never an entire fuel pin, he said. ©2001 MyWay Corp. Portions ©2001 ctnow.com ***************************************************************** 8 Search for fuel rods narrowed New Haven Register Sunday 7 October, 2001 Masha Herbst, Associated PressOctober 06, 2001 HARTFORD — Officials at the Millstone One nuclear plant in Waterford have narrowed their search for two missing fuel pins to one of four sites in the United States, Northeast Utilities said Friday. Northeast Utilities and Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, which owns the Millstone plant, say they are satisfied that the pins, which have been missing for 21 years, have been located. NU investigators concluded that the pins could still be in the spent-fuel pool at Millstone or could have been mistaken for other equipment that was sent to radioactive waste disposal facilities in South Carolina, Washington or a General Electric nuclear plant in Pleasanton, Calif., utility spokeswoman Deborah Beauchamp said. "Documentation associated with those shipments is not sufficient to exclude the possibility that the fuel pins were included inadvertently," she said. The missing rods were damaged in 1972 and removed and placed in the storage pool. The rods, 13 feet long and half an inch in diameter, were last verified to be in the pool in 1980. Documentation of their whereabouts did not exist following 1980, according to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The rods were discovered to be missing during an inventory of Millstone's nuclear waste storage pool last November. The two pins "were the subject of a record keeping error," Beauchamp said. All four of the possible locations are designed and licensed to store the pins safely, and NU's portion of the investigation process is complete. The report was sent to Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, which owns the Millstone plant. Dominion spokesman Peter Hyde said the company was satisfied with NU's research. "We know that (the pins) are safe in one of those four locations — that's really the important thing," Hyde said. "Narrowing it down to one or the other is not as important as knowing that they are safe wherever they are among the four possible locations." Beauchamp said narrowing down the pins' location would take years and expose workers to high levels of radiation. Officials of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said they do not believe the rods pose a health or safety risk at any of the likely locations. A team from the federal agency is scheduled to arrive Tuesday for a two-week visit to the Millstone plant and evaluate NU's investigation results. Regulators will issue a report about 30 days after the inspection is completed. ©New Haven Register 2001 Copyright © 1995 - 2001 PowerAdz.com LLC. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 9 British government gives go-ahead for controversial nuclear reprocessing - 10/5/2001 - ENN.com Friday, October 05, 2001 By Associated Press LONDON — The government gave the go-ahead Wednesday for the start of operations at a controversial nuclear reprocessing plant. Environment Secretary Margaret Beckett and Health Secretary Alan Milburn said work could begin on the manufacture of mixed oxide (MOX) fuel in the plant at the Sellafield nuclear site on the coast of Cumbria, northwest England. Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace immediately attacked the decision, saying the transport of plutonium, which can be used to make weapons, was dangerous, especially at this time of increased concern about terrorism. The Irish government, which has long been concerned about the operation of Sellafield just across the Irish Sea, said the British decision "defied logic in the current climate of international terrorist threats." The MOX plant is intended to make fuel from plutonium and uranium separated from spent fuel that is processed mainly at the thermal oxide reprocessing plant also on the Sellafield site. The MOX plant was completed in 1996, but the commercial go-ahead was held up for financial reasons and because the operators of a MOX demonstration plant at the site admitted to falsifying records. A report last year by the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate also found management incompetence, complacency, and a "lack of safety culture" at Sellafield. The inspectorate said British Nuclear Fuels PLC, the state-owned company that operates Sellafield, regularly failed to perform safety checks on sample rods. Instead, safety records were copied from previous checks. British Nuclear Fuels admitted that a batch of uranium and plutonium mixed-oxide fuel rods that it sent to Japan had false records. Announcing the decision to permit operation, the government said Wednesday that all relevant information had been considered, including comments received in response to five public consultations held since 1997. Beckett said "the wider risks and benefits involved," had both been considered. Ireland, whose coast is approximately 150 miles (240 km) from Sellafield, has repeatedly expressed its concern about nuclear pollution. "In the light of the events of Sept. 11 in America, I find it difficult to comprehend today's decision," said Joe Jacob, the Irish official with responsibility for nuclear safety. "It is a minimum expectation that countries with nuclear installations will now consider the full implications of the recent tragedies and the real and present danger in terms of safety and security." Charles Secrett, director of Friends of the Earth, said, "It beggars belief that the government can give the go-ahead to a process involving the use and transportation of plutonium that could be used to make weapons. Producing MOX at Sellafield will make the world a less safe place." Stephen Tindale, executive director of Greenpeace in Britain, said, "Expanding the global trade in plutonium is dangerously irresponsible, especially at a time of huge global insecurity." Copyright 2001, Associated Press Copyright © 2001 Environmental News Network Inc. ***************************************************************** 10 Northeast Util says missing nuclear fuel rods safe [Reuters] Friday October 5, 2:14 pm Eastern Time NEW YORK, Oct 5 (Reuters) - After failing to locate two missing fuel rods from the Millstone nuclear station in Connecticut after a 10-month search, Northeast Utilities (NYSE:NU - news) said Friday the rods are safe at one of four possible U.S. locations. The company also emphasized the rods could not have been stolen and, in any case, could not be turned into nuclear weapons. ``Our investigation shows the two (rods) are safely stored,'' Northeast Utilities spokeswoman Deborah Beauchamp told Reuters. In a statement, Northeast Utilities of Berlin, Conn. concluded the rods are safely stored in one of four locations: radioactive waste disposal facilities in either South Carolina or Washington state, at a General Electric Co. (NYSE:GE - news) nuclear facility in Pleasanton, Calif., or still in the Millstone Unit 1 spent fuel pool. The company emphasized the rods would not pose a threat to public health and safety or the environment at any of the four locations. ``Due to radiation levels and other security measures, the fuel (rods) could not have been removed from the spent fuel pool in anything other than a specially designed shipping container,'' said Frank Rothen, Northeast Utilities' vice president for nuclear services. ``Any removal other than by authorized personnel using a heavily shielded container would have been detected by a variety of means,'' Rothen added. In a separate statement, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which oversees the safe operation of the nation's nuclear reactors, said: ``The rods would not pose any risk of proliferating nuclear weapons due to their low uranium and plutonium content.'' HOW THE RODS WERE LOST The missing rods are about 1/2 inch in diameter and 158 inches, or about 13 feet long, and are filled with uranium pellets that trigger the atomic reaction that produces heat and powers a reactor's turbines. When spent fuel is removed from a reactor, it is stored in steel-lined cooling pools. From 1972 to 1980, Northeast Utilities' records show the rods, which were slightly damaged, were stored in the pool at Millstone's now-shut unit 1. By September 1980, however, the rods had disappeared from the records, and were no longer where old records said they should have been. Northeast's Beauchamp said it was possible the pins may have been mistaken for another piece of equipment, cut up and removed from the pool and sent to one of the other three locations. She said the rods are similar in size and shape to low power range monitors, which are also stored in the spent fuel pool. ``These are the only locations that nuclear material from Millstone was sent to, so it must be safely stored in one of these locations or still in the spent fuel pool,'' Beauchamp said, noting there were about 167,000 rods and other material in the spent fuel pool. Northeast Utilities sold the Millstone station to Richmond, Va.-based energy giant Dominion earlier this year and turned over its report on the missing rods to Dominion this week. Dominion, in turn, forwarded the report to the NRC for further investigation. The NRC said in its statement it will send a team to Millstone next week for about two weeks to evaluate Northeast Utilities' investigation into the missing rods. Millstone unit 1 was a 660-megawatt (MW) boiling water reactor that began commercial operation in December 1970. The plant ceased operations in 1995. Two other units at the Millstone station are operating -- the 870-MW unit 2 and the 1,154-MW unit 3 -- making Millstone the largest nuclear station in New England. --Scott DiSavino, New York Power Desk, +646-223-6072, fax +646-223-6079, e-mail scott.disavino@reuters.com Copyright © 2001 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved. Privacy ***************************************************************** 11 HHS Seeks Public Comment On Rules To Assist Compensation Of Nuclear Workers For Job-Related Cancers WASHINGTON, Oct. 5 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) today asked for public comment on two rules under which the department will provide scientific expertise to assist in decision-making under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act of 2000. The two rules, "Methods for Radiation Dose Reconstruction" and "Guidelines for Determining the Probability of Causation," are published in today's Federal Register as an interim final rule and a notice of proposed rulemaking, respectively. Under the Compensation Act, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) is administering claims by current and former employees of nuclear weapons production facilities and their survivors who seek compensation for cancers caused by radiation exposures sustained in the performance of duty, chronic beryllium disease, and silicosis. The Act directs HHS to provide scientific information that DOL will use to evaluate claims by workers who seek compensation for certain cancers caused by occupational radiation exposures but are not requesting compensation under the "Special Exposure Cohort" provisions of the Act. The Special Exposure Cohort includes workers with specified cancers who were employed at specific sites designated in the Act. "For a program as important as this, we have to bring the best scientific expertise we can to the table and move as quickly as possible," HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson said. "With today's notices, we are taking steps to put some key processes in place immediately as we proceed with further steps to make sure that our products pass rigorous scientific scrutiny and public review." The interim final rule specifies the methods that HHS will use in developing the scientific information that it will provide to DOL, and the proposed rule presents scientific guidelines that DOL would follow in making use of information from HHS: -- The interim final rule establishes the methods that will be used by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) in estimating claimants' past occupational exposures to radiation, in cancer cases referred to CDC/NIOSH by DOL. That process is called dose reconstruction. The interim final rule allows CDC/NIOSH to proceed with dose reconstructions while public comments are received, reviewed, and incorporated into a final rule. -- The notice of proposed rulemaking specifies the scientific guidelines that DOL would use in determining whether it is at least as likely as not that an energy employee's cancer was caused by occupational exposure to radiation at nuclear weapons production sites. That process is called determining the probability of causation. A final rule on probability of causation will go into effect after the public and an independent expert advisory board have had an opportunity to comment on today's proposal. To the extent that the science and data involve uncertainties, those uncertainties will be handled to the advantage of the claimant. The methods and guidelines rely on well-established scientific procedures and principles for estimating radiation exposures and determining radiation-related cancer risks. They will take into account available radiation exposure and health data, including information obtained from the work sites and from parties with expertise on exposure conditions at the work sites, which includes the employees themselves. CDC/NIOSH is drawing on scientific models developed by the National Cancer Institute. HHS is seeking public comment on the interim final rule on dose reconstruction within 30 days, and public comment on the proposed rulemaking on probability of causation within 60 days. Comments should be sent to the CDC/NIOSH Docket Officer at CDC/NIOSH Docket Office, Robert A. Taft Laboratories, M/S C34, 4676 Columbia Parkway, Cincinnati, Ohio 45226, or may be submitted electronically by e-mail to NIOCINDOCKET@CDC.GOV. The interim final rule and the notice of proposed rulemaking will be available online at www.cdc.gov/niosh. They also may be obtained through the toll-free information number, 800-35-NIOSH (800-356-4674). Copyright © 2001 Yahoo! Inc. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 12 Ministers dismissed Sellafield terror risks © 2001 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd 07 October 2001 23:27 GMT+1 By Geoffrey Lean, environment editor Ministers carried out only a cursory examination of the terrorist threat to a controversial new nuclear fuel plant at Sellafield before giving it the go-ahead, the Independent on Sunday can reveal. They have relied overwhelmingly, since the attack on the World Trade Centre, on "informal" advice from civil servants from the branch of Government which owns British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL), the nationalised industry that runs the controversial Cumbrian nuclear complex. This advice – that the risk of putting enough plutonium to make hundreds of terrorist nuclear bombs a year into public circulation is "negligible" – mirrors BNFL's own position, but flies in the face of the great majority of expert opinion. The revelation will further anger the Irish government which last week undertook to "exploit every legal avenue" to try to stop the new mixed-oxide (MOX) plant from starting up. Mr Joe Jacob, the country's Energy minister, said that he found Britain's decision "incomprehensible" at a time when governments should be tightening security over nuclear facilities. The decision – exclusively forecast in the Independent on Sunday three weeks ago – would allow BNFL to start operating the plant, which will make new nuclear fuel from mixing plutonium and uranium, and to ship it around the world. It was rammed through by Tony Blair, despite his recent warnings about the dangers of terrorists making nuclear bombs, against determined resistance from Michael Meacher, the Environment minister. Upon publication of the Independent on Sunday's article highlighting the terrorist threat, ministers immediately asked for new information on the danger in the wake of the events of 11 September. But it was a hurried exercise, and ministers relied heavily on the view of the little known Office for Civilian Nuclear Security, which dismissed the threat. The Office is presented as an "independent body", but the Department of Trade and Industry, BNFL's sole shareholder, admitted last week that it financed it and staffed it with civil servants. The Department said that the Office had only given "informal advice" to ministers on the issue, rather than presenting a full submission. It refused to reveal for how long the Office had considered the issue, on the grounds that there was "a great deal of sensitivity over this", but it is understood that the process took a few days, at most. The Office's advice is identical to the view of BNFL, which went out of its way last week to insist that it would be extremely difficult for terrorists, who intercepted a shipment of the fuel, to extract plutonium from it for bombs. But the Royal Society, Britain's premier scientific body, reported three years ago that this could be done "relatively easily", and a report by the US Government's Office of Arms Control and Nonproliferation used the same words. Search this site: ***************************************************************** 13 N-Waste Opponents Stage Rally The Salt Lake Tribune -- Sunday, October 7, 2001 BY CHRISTOPHER SMITH SKULL VALLEY -- Hoping to show that many tribal members oppose a contract to dump high-level nuclear waste on their reservation, a group of GoÂshute Indians are holding a weekend campout to rally anti-nuclear allies and to urge new tribal council members to overturn the waste contract. More than 100 people have gathered in a field near homes of some residents of the Skull Valley Indian Reservation, about 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. Elected leaders of the small, impoverished tribe signed a contract in 1997 with Private Fuel Storage (PFS), a consortium of public energy utilities to store spent nuclear fuel from reactors in other states in steel-and-concrete casks on the reservation. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is reviewing a licensing application for the project and is expected to decide next year whether the plan can go forward. State leaders have vowed to block the importation of nuclear waste to the reservation, and a new state road sign on the unnumbered highway leading from Interstate 80 to the reservation is emblazoned with the universal symbol for radioactive materials and reads, "Transportation of nuclear waste prohibited without a permit." In March, Gov. Mike Leavitt signed a bill banning high-level nuclear waste from entering Utah. Last month, a majority of the 73 adult members of the Skull Valley Goshutes reportedly elected three new tribal council members, two of whom say they oppose and a third who is lukewarm to the contract signed by previously elected tribal leaders. But the validity of that election, and the question of whether a new council would have the legal right to cancel the contract with PFS, is under scrutiny and the Bureau of Indian Affairs is negotiating with the opposing sides to conduct another election. One of the newly elected tribal council members opposing the waste repository, Sammy Blackbear, spent Saturday morning hunting to provide venison for the demonstrators' evening meal. "There is red blood in all of us," said Corbin Harney, a Western Shoshone Indian spiritual leader who presided over the group's morning welcoming circle. "Everything survives on this mother earth and we all have to appreciate where the living things come from." Tribal member Margene Bullcreek, who leads the Goshutes' grassroots anti-nuclear dump organization known as Ohngo Gaudadeh Devia (Goshute for "Timber Setting Community") Awareness, says many residents of the remote reservation are suspicious of the unknown details of the 1997 PFS contract. "They never had a vote on this facility and we are learning that money has been paid to certain people but the amount of money has never been revealed to us," she said Saturday, as members of various environmental, peace and American Indian organizations held educational lectures in a campsite dotted with large military tents and brightly decorated RVs. "With a new council, we hope that we will be able to get some of the information about the contract that we have not been told for four years." Supporters of the PFS deal, including ousted tribal chairman Leon Bear, contend the income from the waste dump contract is critical to improving the financial lives of families on the reservation, most of whom live in poverty. In a study prepared last year for the Division of Indian Affairs, of the 18 enrolled tribal members who were employed, four were earning less than $7,000 annually. Tribal government revenues come primarily from lease income on a rocket motor testing site, a stake in a company that sells garbage containers to government agencies and a convenience store. Besides opposition within the Skull Valley Goshutes (which has no official ties to Goshutes on the Deep Creek Reservation to the west), opponents hope to tap into what they believe are additional drawbacks to the plan to store 40,000 metric tons of reactor waste until a permanent repository at Yucca Mountain in southern Nevada is complete. "New evidence has surfaced [that] this is a seismically active area and, also, there has been no study done about the threat of terrorist activity," said Reinard Knutsen of the Shundahai Network, an environmental justice organization that contends the targeting of American Indian reservations by nuclear waste producers is "environmental racism." "This would be the largest above-ground nuclear storage site in the country and one cask by itself has over 200 times the radioactive material that was dropped in the Hiroshima bomb," he said. "We have been saying this is a terrorist threat for many years, but now, given what happened Sept. 11, the government and the public may take that threat more seriously." © Copyright 2001, The Salt Lake Tribune All material found on ***************************************************************** 14 Plutonium plant verdict 'unlawful' Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Paul Brown, environment correspondent Saturday October 6, 2001 The Guardian The government is being taken to court in an attempt to prevent the opening of the plutonium plant at Sellafield which ministers gave the go-ahead on Wednesday after four years of indecision. In a rare joint action Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace today filed papers in the high court asking for a judicial review of the decision which they believe is unlawful. According to European law a plant which increases the radiation dose to the public has to be economic. The government has gone through consultation exercises on this point but has failed to satisfy critics that the £452m plant that employs 300 people is viable. Another 1,600 jobs at the Sellafield plant in Cumbria run by the state owned British Nuclear Fuels depend on the opening of the plant. Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace say the decision is unlawful because the economic "benefits" of the scheme have been distorted. The £472m of taxpayers' money spent so far, mostly on constructing the plant, has been written off and the plant's potential order book of £150m has been counted as profit. Charles Secrett, director of Friends of the Earth, said: "The government's decision to allow the MOX plant to open is dangerous, uneconomic and perverse. The decision makes the world an even more dangerous place. The plant will struggle to find clients and may never make any money." The Irish government has also said it would take Britain to court and a protest letter has been sent to Downing Street. The Department of Environment did not comment. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2001 ***************************************************************** 15 Legal challenge to nuclear plant BBC News | UK | 5 October, 2001, [Mox AFP] Critics doubt there is a market for Mox Environmentalists are taking the UK Government to court after it gave the go-ahead for a nuclear reprocessing plant to start operating. Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace have filed papers in the High Court to try to stop the mixed oxide (Mox) plant at Sellafield - mothballed since it was built in 1996 - from opening. Environment Secretary Margaret Beckett ruled earlier this week that the manufacture of Mox fuel was "justified". But the two environmental groups have applied for a judicial review, saying this decision was unlawful. They said the economic benefits of the scheme have been "distorted", and that there was insufficient evidence that the plant would attract customers. Charles Secrett, director of Friends of the Earth, said the decision was "dangerous, uneconomic and perverse". "The decision makes the world an even more dangerous place. "The plant will struggle to find clients and may never make any money. We will challenge ministers to justify this foolish decision in court," he said. Stephen Tindale, executive director of Greenpeace, said: "Tony Blair's obsession with all things nuclear has forced through a crazy decision." Campaigners have previously said they feared the £460m Cumbria plant, and the ships carrying Mox around the world, could become a target for terrorists. On Thursday Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern demanded that Britain reversed its decision. He said the go-ahead was "difficult to comprehend on a number of grounds", including the risks of pollution and terrorism on the Irish Sea. He said his legal advisers may challenge the decision through the European Court of Justice or a United Nations tribunal. Toxic plutonium Mox is a blend of plutonium and uranium that has been extracted from spent fuel rods already "burnt" in reactors. The nuclear industry believes that such recycling could help reduce the world's growing stockpile of toxic plutonium. Consultants say the plant's operation will be worth £150m to the UK over its lifetime. Local unions have welcomed the decision, which is expected to lead to up to 400 new jobs. But critics believe terrorists may attempt to intercept or blow up shipments of Mox. They believe it would be safer to leave the plutonium in spent fuel and keep it in storage tanks, rather than transport it around the world. ***************************************************************** 16 Workers at Pennsylvania nuclear plant authorize strike The Nando Times: October 5, 2001 Copyright APonline The Associated Press SHIPPINGPORT, Pa. (October 5, 2001 6:31 a.m. EDT) - More than 400 workers at a Beaver County nuclear plant voted overwhelmingly Thursday to authorize their union to call a strike. Of about 460 members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 29, 411 voted in favor of authorizing a strike and 2 voted against it, spokesman Jeff Davis said. All of the members work at the Beaver Valley Nuclear Power Station, about 30 miles northwest of Pittsburgh, owned by Akron, Ohio-based FirstEnergy Corp. Davis said the union won't go on strike immediately. The affirmative vote merely gives union negotiators the option to call a strike if contract negotiations stalled. The workers' contract expired Sunday. FirstEnergy, which bought the plant from Duquesne Light Co. in December 1999, is working on its first contract with the union. The union reached a five-year contract with Duquesne Light in 1994 that was extended by two years before FirstEnergy bought the plant. FirstEnergy spokesman Todd Schneider said the company views the vote as "a procedural step" and plans to continue contract negotiations with the union. Copyright © 2001 Nando Media ***************************************************************** 17 Emergency official allays Seabrook fears Sunday, October 7, 2001 Getting into gear: Survival strategies run the gamut Dartmouth home to anti-terror unit By ROBERT M. COOK Staff Writer CONCORD — As the U.S. inches closer to launching military strikes in Afghanistan, a campaign to create no-fly zones to protect the nation’s nuclear power plants is gaining momentum. If terrorists ever hijacked a commercial jetliner, crashed it into Seabrook Station and caused a meltdown of a nuclear reactor, thousands of people in New Hampshire and Massachusetts could die from radiation contamination. But Seabrook officials caution that it is highly unlikely such an attack could break through the reactor walls, which are reinforced far beyond those of a normal reactor site. Still, Governor Jeanne Shaheen is so concerned about this potential attack target that she has asked her newly formed anti-terrorism task force to look into banning planes over the Seabrook nuclear plant. Next door in Vermont, Gov. Howard Dean has asked the federal government to ban planes over the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant and require all planes flying over Vermont to file flight plans. Pamela Walsh, Shaheen’s spokesperson, said the state cannot afford to take any potential threat for granted. "We now have to look at everything in a new way," she said. "The FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) would have to approve that." Walsh said Shaheen hopes the anti-terrorism task force will report back to her as soon as possible. No-fly zones over nuclear power plants are getting a lot of scrutiny nationwide because not even the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is sure most plants could withstand the impact of a jetliner. The NRC is currently reviewing its design basis threat, which lists what kinds of threats a plant operator must be prepared to guard against as part of a plant license. "What would happen if a large commercial airliner was intentionally crashed into a nuclear power plant?" asked the NRC in a recent press release. "They are among the most hardened structures in the country and are designed to withstand extreme events, such as hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes. ...However, the NRC did not specifically contemplate attacks by aircraft such as Boeing 757s or 767s and nuclear power plants were not designed to withstand such crashes. Detailed engineering analyses of a large airliner crash have not yet been performed." Fortunately, Seabrook Station was designed to withstand such an impact, according to State Fire Marshal Don Bliss, who chairs the Governor’s Commission on Preparedness and Security. When Seabrook Station was constructed during the 1970s, the former Pease Air Force Base nearby was an important strategic base where huge F-11 bombers flew in and out of New Hampshire all the time, Bliss said. Now the largest aircraft that fly in and out of Pease are Pan Am’s commercial jetliners and the Air National Guard 157th Air Refueling Wing’s 10 KC-135 Stratotankers. One of the emergencies that Seabrook officials always took into consideration was the possibility that one of the bombers could crash into the plant, which is why the concrete dome built around the reactor was designed to withstand such an impact, Bliss said. "We’re confident that the kinds of attacks we saw in New York and Washington, D.C., could be repelled," said Alan Griffith, a Seabrook Station spokesman. If terrorists crashed a jetliner into the dome structure, Griffith said that plane would have to pummel through many layers or reinforced steel and concrete. The dome that people see when they drive past the plant is about 200 feet tall and has a 1 1/2 foot steel wall of concrete around it. The inner dome has 4 1/2 feet of reinforced steel concrete, Griffith said. In between the two domes there is five feet of air space known as an annulus, and the two domes never touch one another, he said. Inside the second dome, the steel reactor vessel where the plant’s uranium pellets are stored in encased steel zircaloy rods is nine to 12 feet thick, Griffith said. "It would take a phenomenal impact that is so big and so large that it’s hard to think about," Griffith said. Since Sept. 11, Seabrook Station officials have gone on the highest security alert at the plant and the state has increased Fish and Game patrols on the Brown River and U.S. Coast Guard patrols along the shore. The plant is located on an 889-acre site on the Atlantic Ocean and is powered by an 1,160-megawatt Westinghouse pressurized-water nuclear reactor. The plant received its full-power operating license from the NRC in March 1990 and is an important player when it comes to producing power for the New England power grid. Seabrook Station provides electricity for one million homes, which is more than 8 million megawatt-hours of electricity a year. Bliss said his commission will gather whatever information Shaheen needs to determine whether the state should pursue a no-fly zone to protect the plant. Bliss said his commission will contact all federal and state agencies to learn more about the technical issues that would be involved. Issues such as air space and the potential impact on flight traffic going in and out of Manchester Airport and Pease Tradeport would have to be taken into consideration. Bliss said the commission would also have to consult with the New Hampshire Air National Guard at Pease to see how their operations could be potentially hindered by a no-fly zone. Arlene Salac, an FAA spokesperson for its Eastern Region Headquarters in New York, said her office has received several no-fly zone requests from states for nuclear plants and fresh water reservoirs. "If there is a no-fly zone within controlled air space with radar coverage, we would be able to track planes and get their end numbers," Salac said. Any aircraft that purposely violated the zone and loitered in the area like the hijacked plane that circled around the Pentagon before crashing into it would be quickly detected, Salac said. Salac could not say when the FAA would decide whether to grant any of the formal requests it has received from state and federal officials. Mark Rowell, who serves as airport manager at the Pease Tradeport Airport, said Pease is 15 miles away from Seabrook Station and unless the no-fly zone covered an area far less than that, it would be almost impossible for small aircraft to operate out of the airport. Rowell does not believe Pan Am’s commercial airline service or the Air National Guard’s fuel tankers would be affected because they do not fly in the vicinity of the plant. But if authorities looked at a no-fly zone of 20 miles or greater, Rowell believes Manchester Airport’s flight traffic would definitely be affected. He said another question is how authorities would enforce such a no-fly zone if terrorists hijacked a plane and tried to crash it into the reactor.Would there be enough reaction time for military jet fighters to even shoot down a hijacked plane after it was detected? "A rule is only as good as the enforcement behind it," Rowell added. Robert M. Cook can be reached by calling 742-4455, ext. 5396, or via e-mail at bcook@fosters.com © 2001 Geo. J. Foster Co. ***************************************************************** 18 The meaning of a meltdown 10/7/01 - NCTimes.net Government officials ready to respond to disaster at San Onofre KATIE BURNS Staff Writer Nuclear accidents are rare, and most incidents involve little to no release of radiation. Even in a meltdown, nuclear power plants do not blow up like atomic bombs, creating mushroom clouds that destroy entire areas. Rather, a meltdown can release radioactive material from the site in a sort of toxic fog. At Chernobyl in the Ukraine in 1986, it was a steam explosion that released the radiation that killed, by varying estimates, as many as 30,000 people. The catastrophe occured when engineers performing an unauthorized test disabled backup systems and set off an uncontrolled chain reaction in the reactor core that led to a meltdown. A meltdown occurs if reactor fuel manages to overheat and liquefy the immediate surroundings. If containment is compromised, the radiation escapes via steam or smoke. The wind directs the poisonous cloud. At the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station north of Oceanside, the likelihood of a similar situation is remote due to safety and security measures. In addition, officials say, the complex of buildings at the plant has backup upon backup upon backup to keep reactor fuel cool, as well as tons of steel and concrete to hold in radiation. But while a meltdown is extremely unlikely, the consquences could be enormous. Reviewing the reactor Under normal circumstances, a nuclear reactor operates smoothly. The core contains uranium, some forms of which spontaneously break apart. The fission throws off subatomic particles called neutrons. The neutrons break apart more uranium, leading to a chain reaction. The reaction also gives off energy in the form of heat. "We use that heat to essentially heat water, which heats a second supply of water, which turns into steam," said Ray Golden, spokesman for San Onofre. The reaction takes place under pressurized water, which heats without boiling. The heat from the first supply of water boils a second supply of water, which remains free of radiation. The steam turns turbines to make electricity. "You need to have a number of different failures to get into a situation where you could overheat the uranium fuel," Golden said. The water in the reactor cools the fuel with the help of added boron, and control rods can fit between fuel rods to slow the reaction. The plant has redundant cooling systems and fail-safe mechanisms for dealing with anything from broken pipes to severed wires. Even if a catastrophe removed water, the reaction would taper off because water slows neutrons to spur fission. But the fuel might still get hot enough to melt out of its encasement. And while the containment building is made of thick layers of steel and concrete, sufficient damage to the structure might allow a release of radiation. "Then it's that combination of the release of the radioactive isotopes from the loss of integrity of the fuel combined with either fire or steam that provides the lofting of the reactants out of the reactor," said Paul Gunter, director of the Reactor Watchdog Project for the Nuclear Information and Resource Service. "If anything, it's more like an aerosol release than an explosion." If radiation escaped, heavy elements such as uranium and plutonium would fall to the ground near the plant, which would endanger personnel but not the public. The closest residence to San Onofre is about 2 miles away. "What would cause the biggest threat would be radioactive materials like iodine and cesium and strontium," said David Lochbaum, a nuclear safety engineer with the Union of Concerned Scientists. "That can be carried by the winds to people living miles away from the place." The evolution of an emergency Nuclear accidents fall under four emergency classifications: unusual events, alerts, site area emergencies and general emergencies. The classifications grow increasingly serious, as can the situation. The least dangerous incidents are unusual events, which could cause problems if personnel do not respond. The last unusual event happened at San Onofre a few years ago when a fire started in the laundry. Another example would be a nearby hurricane. "Should there be a concern for the safety of the plant, there would be an alert condition," said Ralph Perry of the San Diego County Office of Disaster Preparedness. "If conditions should worsen and there should be a concern about a release of radiation or a loss of safety backup systems, they go to a site area condition." In an alert, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, off-site response might be necessary but no release of radiation is likely. A large earthquake or very strong winds in the area might cause an alert. In a site area emergency, a major failure at the plant threatens the public. A release of radiation is possible, though not a meltdown. An emergency response team mobilizes to protect people, who might need to take action. A site area emergency could exist if the reactor lost cooling water or the plant lost backup safety systems. The final classification for nuclear accidents is a general emergency, which occurs with a possible degradation of nuclear fuel and a breach in containment. The only general emergency in the United States occurred at Three Mile Island, Pa., in 1979, when the cooling system failed, the reactor partially melted and some radiation escaped. No one was hurt. In a general emergency, sirens sound to alert people to an emergency broadcast on radio or television. "If it's a fast-moving event, we may ask the public to stay in place until the radiation blows by," said Mark Johnson, chairman of the Interjurisdictional Planning Committee, which organizes the coordinated response of county, city, military and park officials. A house can block out some radiation if residents close the windows and turn off the ventilation. Evacuation is the next option. Government officials have created traffic routes and pickup points for people lacking transportation. People fleeing the scene can stay in shelters and receive immediate medical treatment if necessary. Dealing with danger In a general emergency, getting out of the area is just the first step. Radioactive elements give off high-energy subatomic particles and electromagnetic waves, which can destroy cells. Often, the radiation simply damages DNA enough to eventually lead to cancer. "Most of the fatalities are not ones that die right away," Lochbaum said. "You receive a dose of radiation, and that increases your risk of cancer." People must have very high exposure to radiation to die immediately. Damage to the genetic code can let cells multiply unstoppably, causing cancer. But the DNA defects rarely cause mutations or pass to the next generation. And government officials drew up the emergency response plans in an attempt to prevent any harm to humans. State and federal agencies will direct clean-up, which might take years. Water absorbs radiation well, so plants and animals in the ocean might do better than flora and fauna on land. A bundle of spent reactor fuel, 8 inches square and 15 feet long, needs 8 feet of water to block radiation. But waves can push radioactive material to shore. In the worst-case scenario, people could die. Gunter cited a 1982 report to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the most recent of its kind, that estimated peak casualties from a San Onofre meltdown to be in the thousands. "A lot of that is highly speculative," said Breck Henderson, spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. "Our knowledge of this has evolved a lot in the past 20 to 30 years." The population near San Onofre has also grown, though most of the area around the plant is still uninhabited. People living more than 10 miles from the plant have even less cause for concern. But a meltdown could occur, even though the reactor fuel cannot melt to China as suggested in the 1979 movie "The China Syndrome." People who fear disaster can keep doses of potassium iodide, which reduces absorption of radioactive iodine. Every local phone book also explains the emergency response plan for a problem at the San Onofre reactors. "They provide electricity, and there is a certain risk," Johnson said. "The biggest thing is keeping the public informed: These are the facts. And we try to address the risks in a factual way and put realistic plans together to deal with them should an accident occur." Protection from the plant While the chance is slim, San Onofre could melt down if something damaged the power plant. Scientists can detail the fallout of such a failure, and officials have plans in place to protect people from a release of radiation ---- but not everyone thinks the strategies are sufficient. "We have a plan that's about 8 feet long," Perry said. "We hope, we pray, that we never do it, but we're prepared if the need should ever arise." Golden said what-if plans literally consist of a 5-foot-high stack of books. An evacuation of the 170,000 people living within 10 miles of San Onofre would take five to eight hours, which critics believe is not a broad enough or fast enough response. "The only relevant protection is prevention," Gunter said. "You're trying to defend yourself from the weather." The ill wind after a nuclear accident blows no good, though residents of the region might escape with their lives. "A lot of people think these things happen in seconds and you don't have time to evacuate," Henderson said. "The kinds of problems that lead to meltdowns evolve more slowly. People have plenty of time to evacuate." Evacuations can run smoothly, as in the case of hurricanes. But no plan is perfect. "You're into a serious game of trying to minimize the casualties," Lochbaum said. "You're not going to be able to prevent casualties. You're doing the best you can under dire circumstances." Contact staff writer Katie Burns at (760) 740-5442 or kburns@nctimes.com. North County Times ***************************************************************** 19 $9M later, fuel rods still can’t be located TheDay.com: Local and National News Report identifies many possibilities By Paul Choiniere - More Articles Published on 10/06/2001 Waterford — Despite a 10-month, $9 million investigation, Northeast Utilities has been unable to determine the location of two highly radioactive spent fuel rods that were reported missing from the closed Millstone 1 nuclear plant almost a year ago. A 59-page report issued by the company Friday concludes that the most likely scenario is that the fuel rods were mistaken for another piece of equipment, sliced into pieces and shipped in a shielded container to the low-level radioactive waste dump in Barnwell, S.C. in May 1988. Plant records last referred to the fuel rods in 1980. The report states it is possible, however, that the two fuel rods were transported to the General Electric Vallecitos facility in Pleasanton, Calif., or to the low-level radioactive waste dump in Hanford, Wash. or perhaps are still in the Millstone 1 storage pool. Investigators found no evidence or reasonable possibility that the fuel rods could have been stolen or otherwise diverted. Reactions to the report's findings were swift and critical. “The more Millstone attempts to explain the missing fuel rods the more inept it seems,” said Nancy Burton of the Connecticut Coalition Against Millstone. “Coupling the missing rods with the threat of terrorism and the community's daily unnecessary exposure to radiation and environmental harm, the only conclusion reasonable minds can draw is that the Millstone menace must be closed now.” David Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer with the Union of Concerned Scientists, said he was surprised to learn that after spending 50,000 hours of research on the problem investigators could not rule out that the fuel rods were still in the storage pool. “The report concludes they are either in the pool or they're not. They could have paid me 50 bucks to come up with that,” Lochbaum said. “I mean, you could say that about Amelia Earhart or Jimmy Hoffa and you'd be correct: They are either in the pool or they're not.” Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said the “complete disappearance of these fuel pins defies logic.” The Nuclear Regulatory Commission should investigate how NU failed to discover the disappearance of the fuel rods for more than 20 years and hold the company responsible for the apparent violation of basic nuclear safety procedures, the attorney general said. The NRC wasted no time in announcing it would dispatch a team to Millstone to evaluate the comprehensiveness of the NU investigation. The four-member team will arrive Tuesday. The NRC said it agreed that the material was not stolen. Both the company and the NRC said the significant security controls place at nuclear plants makes the theft of such material dangerous, difficult and highly unlikely. The report states that there would no incentive to try and steal the fuel rods. “The fissile material contained in those rods is far less than that needed to achieve criticality or to create a nuclear device or weapon,” it states. In a statement released by the NRC, the agency said it was also satisfied that, based on the likely locations cited in the report, the material is safe and does not pose a public health problem. The fuel rods would have been shipped in a shielded container, states the report, meaning their radioactivity would not pose a threat at waste dump designed to handle radioactive material. It would be a violation of federal regulations, which do not allow the shipping of spent nuclear fuel rods because there are no licensed facilities to accept them. The NRC could impose fines and other penalties. Millstone 1 has not operated since 1995 and is permanently shut down, but the nuclear waste it produced remains stored in a spent fuel pool at the plant. Millstone 2 and 3 remain in operation. NU no longer owns Millstone Nuclear Power Station, having sold the facility to Dominion Nuclear Connecticut for $1.3 billion. Dominion took control in April. NU has accepted responsibility for the investigation into the missing fuel pins and its associated cost because it was in control of the facility when the problem was found. Frank Rothen, NU's vice president for nuclear services, directed what became known as the Fuel Rod Accountability Project. Investigators reviewed thousands of records, interviewed nearly 200 former employees and contractors who worked at the plant, and conducted extensive physical and videotaped inspections of the Millstone 1 storage pool. “The investigation team worked tirelessly to reconstruct this 20-year-old situation,” Rothen said. The two fuels rods were among a group of 49 removed from the Millstone 1 reactor in 1972 after seawater entered the reactor system through leaking tubes. When the fuel rods were reassembled and returned to the reactor, two could not be refitted. They were placed in a special container and were last referred to in a 1980 document. In 2000, while preparing for the decommissioning of Millstone 1, engineers could not account for the two rods referred to in the 1979 and 1980 records. An investigation was then launched. The inability to account for missing fuel rods was unprecedented in the industry. The cylindrical rods, 12-feet long the thickness of a man's thumb, are filled with uranium pellets. The most likely scenario, the report said, is that the pins were mistaken for local power range monitors (LPRMs), which are similar in appearance, are used to monitor power levels in the reactor and must to be periodically replaced. In May 1988 workers shipped what records described as between 90 and 98 power range monitors to the Barnwell facility. The devices had been sliced up under the storage pool's water back in 1979. “If the contractors from 1979 mistakenly cut the fuel rods, believing them to be LPRMs, and placed them in containers with LPRMs, it is likely that those cut rods were included in one or all three of the May 1988 shipments (to Barnwell),” states the report. One problem with this conclusion is a 1980 storage pool map that shows the fuel rods still in the pool, impossible if they were cut up in 1979. Investigators determined, however, that it was common practice when a new map of the storage pool was required to simply redraw the old map with known changes, rather than to do a survey of the pool to assure accuracy. The report is filled with references to such lax record keeping. The poor records made it difficult for investigators to determine for sure what happened and left open the possibility of the other scenarios. Bill Matthews, vice president and senior nuclear executive at Millstone, said those kinds of problems no longer happen at the nuclear plant. “The spent fuel pool records for Units 2 and 3 have been checked and we have accounted for the nuclear material from those two operating units. The procedures in place today for the handling of spent fuel would not allow a discrepancy to occur as happened 20 years ago,” he said. Not everyone agrees. The Long Island and Connecticut Coalitions Against Millstone oppose a license amendment that would allow Dominion to store more spent fuel in the Millstone 3 storage pool. The added storage is needed to handle the fuel the plant will produce over the next quarter century. Lochbaum, a witness in those proceedings, said the safety of the plans for Millstone 3 depend on careful administrative control on how the fuel is handled and placed within the storage pool. The lesson learned from Millstone 1, Lochbaum said, is that safety cannot depend on procedures being followed because sometimes they are not. He opposes the license amendment. © 1998-2001 The Day Publishing Co. ***************************************************************** 20 TVA whistleblower claims radiation records missing NC News Wire [newsobserver.com, Raleigh, NC] SUNDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2001 DUNCAN MANSFIELD Associated Press Writer KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP)-- A former Tennessee Valley Authority engineer claims radiation exposure records for thousands of TVA nuclear workers dating back to the 1970s could be missing or wrong. "The problem existed but everyone ran from it," said Ronald Grover, who discovered discrepancies and gaps in the data when he was assigned to co-manage a massive inventory of the personal dose records in 1999. According to Grover, the inventory of records scattered among paper files, microfilm and computer databases found: -- Conflicting dose records for as many as 11,320 TVA workers or contractors for the period 1970 to 1984. -- Missing documentation for as many as 2,088 workers known to have "exceeded dose limits." -- A pattern of missing records from critical times, including a 1975 fire at the Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant in Decatur, Ala., and a major pipe break at the Sequoyah Nuclear Plant near Chattanooga in the early 1980s. The federal utility says all records are in order. "His allegations are either untrue or only tell part of the story because whenever a dose record (with a problem) was identified it was corrected," TVA spokesman Gil Francis said. But the Union of Concerned Scientists, a Washington watchdog group, on Monday formally asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to investigate, saying the allegations suggest "a very serious violation of federal regulations created to protect the health of nuclear workers." "It has entered our allegation process, so we will be reviewing it," said Ken Clark, a spokesman for the NRC's regional office in Atlanta. He wouldn't elaborate. Grover, 47, didn't ask for the inventory project. He contends it was a no-win assignment for supporting another TVA whistleblower. Grover has sued TVA for discrimination over his firing in April. TVA alleges he "misused TVA property (and) conducted personal business on TVA time" while on loan to the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations in Atlanta in 1996 and 1997. Grover claims this amounted to phone charges and business expenses he either repaid or fully reported, and an interest in some rental homes in Connecticut and Kansas City, where his mother lives, that he fully declared. The 1999 assignment to co-manage the records inventory project, which had been dragging on for three or four years at that point, was a setup to get rid of him, his discrimination complaint alleges. "TVA management wanted Mr. Grover to 'take the fall' for the project if he went along with the ongoing cover-up, or, alternatively, to appear as the person responsible for the failure to complete the program in a timely manner," the complaint said. Francis countered that "over the course of this project, we briefed the NRC and we conducted routine and special inspections on this thing. Contrary to (Grover's allegations), we allocated additional time to make sure it was done and done right." A U.S. Naval Academy graduate and veteran of the Navy nuclear program, Grover was chemistry manager in corporate engineering at the New York Power Authority before he arrived at TVA's power offices in Chattanooga in 1994 with high hopes of climbing TVA's nuclear ladder. But his future at TVA apparently began to fade two years later after Grover testified on behalf of whistleblower Gary Fiser, a subordinate who claimed he was passed over for promotion because he raised safety concerns. The NRC believed Fiser and levied a $110,000 fine against TVA in 2000. TVA is appealing. The radiation records inventory project began in the mid-1990s after NRC inspector Eldan Testa asked to see TVA's chart on his personal radiation doses. Testa found the numbers wrong and ordered the inventory. On June 8, 1999, Testa met with TVA officials for an update. Jim Flanigan, TVA's primary numbers-cruncher on the project, told Testa progress was being made in cleaning up the data. "As an example, he pulled up Mr. Testa's dose history to show him," according to Grover's notes of the meeting. "After reviewing the information presented on his dose record, Mr. Testa stated to Jim Flanigan that it was still incorrect." At that point, Testa questioned if there was '"willful misconduct' on the part of TVA in falsifying or not representing the dose records properly," Grover's notes said. Flanigan said none was found. Flanigan referred The Associated Press to Francis for comment. Testa did not a return a call to his Atlanta office. "I can't say there was willful misconduct," Grover said in an interview. "But there was a willful intent not to fully disclose to the NRC what you had." Grover said TVA's top nuclear managers -- Chief Nuclear Officer John Scalice, Senior Vice President Karl Singer and Vice President Jack Bailey -- were aware of the problems with the inventory project but wanted it closed, regardless, by the end of 1999. To do so, TVA had to make assumptions, Grover claims. Zeros were entered for radiation doses of some workers with missing records; others were given the dose numbers of co-workers, he said. On Jan. 11, 2000, TVA filed the results with the NRC. Previous reports "may not have been complete," TVA wrote. "Therefore, TVA is providing this updated occupational radiation exposure information to allow the NRC to update (its own records)." "My dictionary tells me there is a big difference between incomplete and being in error or missing or wrong," Grover said. "And that was my point to them. Just be honest and straightfoward to the NRC. "But nobody wanted to really address the root cause, to get into it and really fix it. They didn't want to. Why? (Because) some of these people (workers) are dead and gone," Grover said. "(Others) don't care about doses and they'll never ask." On the Net: Tennessee Valley Authority: http://www.tva.gov/ Nuclear Regulatory Commission:http://www.nrc.gov/ Union of Concerned Scientists: http://www.ucsusa.org/ © Copyright 2001, The News & Observer. All material found on newsobserver.com is ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 [Rfpi-announce] Follow up Date: Sat, 6 Oct 2001 01:26:44 -0500 (CDT) Dear friends, Over the last couple of weeks you have received documentation on our new 10 week educational program on peace studies and peace journalism as well as a description of a two-day interactive workshop that James and I will be doing conducting under the banner of the International Center for Human Rights in Media. These two projects are of great importance--not only to the world in general, but also to the survival and well being of RFPI. We are looking to develop an income stream from these two projects which will cover the daily operations of RFPI so that we can devote our time to developing the funding to implement the strategic plan. Our message of peace is important, more so now than ever. Please give me your feedback as to who you have contacted with these project descriptions and what the response has been. We need this data so that we don't duplicate efforts and also so we can get some idea of people's opinion of both projects. Your help is most appreciated. Yours in Peace, Gil Carmichael Radio For Peace International P.O. Box 88-6150 Santa Ana, Costa Rica Central America PH: +506/249-1821 Fax: +506/249-1095 e-mail: radiopaz@racsa.co.cr * WWW: http://www.rfpi.org * ON-DEMAND REAL AUDIO: http://www.rfpi.org/webcast.html * LIVE STREAMING IN MP3: http://www.boinklabs.com/ifpi.html _______________________________________________ * Join our mailing list for weekly program previews and more: http://www.boinklabs.com/mailman/listinfo/rfpi-announce _______________________________________________ Rfpi-announce mailing list Rfpi-announce@boinklabs.com http://www.boinklabs.com/mailman/listinfo/rfpi-announce ***************************************************************** 2 [southnews] US Strategists Begin to Favor Nukes Date: Sun, 7 Oct 2001 00:20:39 -0500 (CDT) FREE COLLEGE MONEY CLICK HERE to search 600,000 scholarships! http://us.click.yahoo.com/Pv4pGD/4m7CAA/ySSFAA/7gSolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> ---------- U.S. Strategists Begin to Favor Threat to Use Nuclear Arms Dana Milbank Washington Post Service Saturday, October 6, 2001 WASHINGTON The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on Washington and New York have invigorated national security strategists inside and outside the government who favor using nuclear weapons to deter and respond to chemical or biological attacks. Conservatives outside the Bush administration have been calling on the administration to make an explicit threat to use nuclear weapons to respond to a biological or chemical attack. This would change a long-standing U.S. policy of refusing to rule in or rule out use of nuclear weapons in the event of such an attack. So far, at least, senior administration officials have maintained this policy of deliberate ambiguity, though some administration figures appear to be sympathetic to a change that would entail a more specific threat. A report issued in January by the National Institute for Public Policy declared that "U.S. nuclear weapons may be necessary" to deter regional powers from using weapons of mass destruction or for "providing unique targeting capabilities" against such things as buried targets or biological weapons targets. "Under certain circumstances," the report said, "very severe nuclear threats may be needed to deter any of these potential adversaries." Among the report's authors were Stephen Hadley, now deputy national security adviser to President George W. Bush; Robert Joseph, the head of proliferation strategy at the National Security Council, and two key defense advisers to Mr. Bush, Stephen Cambone and William Schneider Jr. Proponents of the shift in policy said the attacks on New York and Washington had affirmed their views. "Sept. 11 really underscores the need to look at a full range of flexible options," said David Smith, a military consultant who was an author of the institute's report. "What we were trying to get at there is we don't believe the current arsenal of the United States is persuasively deterrent to all comers." Many Bush administration officials have endorsed the notion of switching to smaller nuclear arms that could be used for, among other things, hitting chemical and biological weapons sites and targeting such figures as Osama bin Laden or Iraq's president, Saddam Hussein, who hide in deep underground bunkers. A report in June 2000 by Stephen Younger, who has been named to head the Threat Reduction Agency at the Defense Department, called for smaller nuclear weapons as part of a rethinking of the role of nuclear weapons. Though a shift in the arsenal would take years to implement, an early sign will be the Nuclear Posture Review under way in the Pentagon and due to Congress by year's end. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Richard Myers, in his confirmation hearing on Sept. 13, said that deterrence against weapons of mass destruction was "a critical component" of the review. He also pointed out that the military already had "a number of low-yield weapons in the current stockpile." Another author of the institute's report, William Van Cleave of Southwest Missouri State University, said the review would argue "that we need to regain some capability for some low-yield nuclear weapons." For the past decade or so, U.S. leaders have been deliberately ambiguous about using nuclear weapons to respond to a chemical and biological threat. One example was after Iraq invaded Kuwait. When Dick Cheney was defense secretary, he said in December 1990, "Were Saddam Hussein foolish enough to use weapons of mass destruction, the U.S. response would be absolutely overwhelming and it would be devastating." Administration officials said later that he was not implying a nuclear threat. Some arms control experts say they believe that the Bush administration's statements so far already go beyond past administrations' ambiguity. "That is an implied threat," said Daryl Kimball, the executive director of the Arms Control Association. "They've crossed the line or they're at the line by implying the possible use." Opponents said nuclear threats would encourage nuclear proliferation and worry friendly governments. Joseph Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said, "It would create its own crisis, fracture the alliance and have no military purpose." Copyright ) 2001 The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: southnews-unsubscribe@egroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ***************************************************************** 3 PREVENTING A TERRORIST MUSHROOM CLOUD Date: Sat, 6 Oct 2001 04:17:45 -0400 PREVENTING A TERRORIST MUSHROOM CLOUD By David Krieger The images of the hijacked planes crashing into the World Trade Center are nightmare images of unspeakable horror that will forever be a part of our reality. Imagine, however, another nightmare -- that of a mushroom cloud rising over an American city. This is a threat we can no longer ignore. Perhaps today citizens and leaders alike will better understand the seriousness of the nuclear threat. The destruction of the World Trade Center was a powerful warning. It signals that determined terrorists are prepared to sacrifice their lives to harm us, that future attacks could involve weapons of mass destruction, and that nuclear dangers are increasing because of terrorist activity. Our leaders have failed to grasp that our present nuclear weapons policies contribute to the possibility of nuclear terrorism against our country. We are simply not doing enough to prevent nuclear weapons or weapons-grade nuclear materials from falling into the hands of terrorists. A US blue ribbon commission, headed by former Senate majority leader Howard Baker, has called for spending $3 billion a year over the next ten years to maintain control of the nuclear weapons, nuclear materials and nuclear scientists in the former Soviet Union. The Bush administration had planned to cut funding for this program from $1.2 billion to $800 million next year. In 1998 India and Pakistan both demonstrated their nuclear capabilities. Pakistan, which borders on Afghanistan, is now the only country in the world to recognize the Taliban regime. Should there be a US led war in Afghanistan, it is possible that the Pakistani government could fall to extremists linked to the Taliban, thus putting nuclear weapons into the hands of a regime that might well support and harbor terrorists. Up to now, the Bush Administrations primary response to the nuclear threat has been to push for a national missile shield costing billions of dollars, the technology of which is unproven, and which would at best be years away from implementation. A missile shield would likely do irreparable harm to our relations with other countries, countries that we need to join us in the fight against international terrorism, including Russia. The mad nuclear arms race during the Cold War, and the paltry steps taken to reverse it since the end of the Cold War, have left tens of thousands of nuclear weapons potentially available to terrorists. Today there is no accurate inventory of the worlds nuclear arsenals or weapons-grade fissile materials suitable for making nuclear weapons. Estimates have it, however, that there are currently some 30,000 nuclear weapons in the world. We simply dont know whether these weapons are adequately controlled, or whether some could already have fallen into the hands of terrorists. More than ten years after the end of the Cold War we and the Russians still have more than 10,000 nuclear weapons each with a total of some 4,500 of them on hair-trigger alert, ready to be fired in moments. Russia has been urging the US to move faster on START 3 negotiations to reduce the size of the nuclear arsenals in both countries, but US leaders have been largely indifferent to their entreaties. Large nuclear arsenals on hair-trigger alert are Cold War relics. They do not provide deterrence against terrorist attacks. Nor could a missile shield have prevented the terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center or the Pentagon, or protect against future nuclear terrorism. The Bush administrations foreign policy course has been unilateralism and indifference to international law. It seems now to have recognized, however, that we cannot combat terrorism unilaterally. A multilateral effort to combat terrorism will require the US to change its policies and embrace multilateral approaches to many global problems, including the control and elimination of all weapons of mass destruction. The global elimination of nuclear weapons can no longer be a back-burner, peace activist issue. It is a top-priority security issue for all Americans, and it will require US leadership to achieve. David Krieger, an attorney and political scientist, is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. Other articles on nuclear dangers and other critical issues of peace may be found at the Foundations web site: www.wagingpeace.org. "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction....The chain reaction of evil--hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars--must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation." --- Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength To Love, 1963 "Peace is the only battle worth waging." --- Albert Camus David Krieger, President Nuclear Age Peace Foundation PMB 121, 1187 Coast Village Road, Suite 1 Santa Barbara, CA 93108-2794 dkrieger@napf.org Web site: www.wagingpeace.org www.nuclearfiles.org To subscribe to the Abolition Global Caucus, send an email from the account you wish to be subscribed to: "abolition-caucus-subscribe@egroups.com" ***************************************************************** 4 THE INSANITY OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS & REALITY OF NUCLEAR WINTER Date: Sat, 6 Oct 2001 23:39:14 -0400 X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2919.6700 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2919.6700 X-MIME-Autoconverted: from 8bit to quoted-printable by maynard.mail.mindspring.net id XAA05283 See bottom of post for terrorist threat. http://www.mothersalert.org/nuclearwinter.html Nuclear Winter: The Forgotten Danger You would think that the destruction of the Northern Hemisphere should be a topic that humanity might want to talk about. Yet, for the last ten years, the subject of nuclear winter has been virtually absent from public discussion. The end of the Cold War, the fall of the Soviet Union, and a highly publicized attempt to discredit the ³theory² of nuclear winter by groups with a vested interest in preserving nuclear weapons: these events led to a decade of silence on the subject of nuclear winter. It is imperative that this silence be broken. More than ten years have passed since the last extensive investigations on nuclear winter were conducted (during the period 1983 - 1989). The composition of American and Russian nuclear arsenals has changed significantly since the 1980's studies, with substantial reductions occurring both in the numbers and yields of strategic weapons. Yet no one has asked: Is nuclear winter still a likely outcome should existing or projected nuclear arsenals be detonated in a major nuclear war? This is a question that the nuclear priesthood does not want discussed. Why? Because an answer in the affirmative will completely undermine the legitimacy of maintaining thousands of nuclear weapons on high-alert status. However, the extensive scientific studies of the 1980¹s leave little doubt: nuclear winter is a likely outcome of any nuclear war. Perhaps the most important finding of the 1980¹s studies was that ³. . .only a few hundred nuclear detonations, or less, seem sufficient to bring about at least a nominal nuclear winter. Only 100 small warheads devoted to petroleum refining and storage facilities would suffice. Indeed, with something like a hundred downtowns burning, or the same number of petroleum facilities, even a substantial nuclear winter seems possible.² (from ³A Path No Man Thought², page 203, by Carl Sagan and Richard Turco, 1990, Random House) The 1983 TTAPS nuclear winter study (from ³Case 14²) examined the effects of one thousand 100 kiloton warheads exploded over 100 large cities, creating a ³Class III² nuclear winter. Consider that U.S. Trident subs alone now carry more than three thousand 100 kiloton warheads, which are aimed at ³urban industrial² targets in Russia (targeting and warhead information from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Jan./Feb. 2000, p, 53). This is a description of a Class III "Nominal" nuclear winter (taken from pages 194-195 of ³A Path No Man Thought²): "It carries in its wake significant cooling and darkening, drought, massive quantities of pyrotoxins generated, widespread radioactive fallout, and other atmospheric perturbations. Average land temperature drops would be about 10 degrees C. At noon, the Sun would have about one-third its usual brightness. Months later, sunlight would return to more than its usual intensity, enhanced in the ultraviolet by depletion of the high-altitude ozone layer. Collapse of agriculture, and famine, could be widespread. Within the warring nations, these effects might generate casualties approaching those from the prompt effects of the war. Crop failure--from lowered temperatures, failure of the monsoons, and other causes--are expected in many noncombatant nations in the first growing season following the conflict. The most likely such failures would be in India, China, some African nations, and perhaps Japan. Worldwide, as many as 1 to 2 billion people could be placed in jeopardy of starvation." The 1983 TTAPS study was followed by the ISCU¹s Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment (SCOPE) study, which involved hundreds of scientists from more than a dozen countries working over three years. Meetings were held in Australia, Canada, China, England, France, India, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, the U.S.S.R., the U.S.A., and Venezuela. This is a quote from the 1985 SCOPE document, ³Environmental Consequences of Nuclear War². . . "The total loss of human agricultural and societal support systems would result in the loss of almost all humans on Earth, essentially equally among combatant and non-combatant countries alike. . . .this vulnerability is an aspect not currently a part of the understanding of nuclear war; not only are the major combatant countries in danger, but virtually the entire human population is being held hostage to the large scale use of nuclear weapons . . ." A review of the SCOPE assessment done by the U.S. White House Office of Science and Technology Policy confirmed these findings, and actually stated that the SCOPE analysis had been too conservative. Even under the proposed START III treaty, the United States and Russia will indefinitely keep 3000 to 5000 nuclear warheads on launch-ready status. Should even a fraction of these weapons be exploded over large cities or petroleum refineries, it appears that they would be fully capable of destroying the Northern Hemisphere. Efforts are now being made to promote the creation of an updated study on nuclear winter. Major advances in computer modeling and in the atmospheric sciences have taken place during the last decade. These advances can be utilized in conjunction with current information on nuclear weaponry to demonstrate the enormous threat to the biosphere posed by global nuclear arsenals. If you are interested in participating in this effort, you may contact me by mail or email. If you are a member of any group which might also be interested in promoting an updated nuclear winter study, let them know about this project. Steven Starr 9030 County Road 389 New Bloomfield, MO 65063 email: shadesahoy@socket.net PREVENTING AN ACCIDENTAL NUCLEAR WINTER By Dean Babst Nuclear Winter In a study made by the World Health Organization, they found that a nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia could kill one billion people outright. In addition, it could produce a Nuclear Winter that would probably kill an additional one billion people. It is possible that more than two billion people, one-third of all the humans on Earth would be destroyed almost immediately in the aftermath of a global thermonuclear war. The rest of humanity would be reduced to prolonged agony and barbarism. These findings are from a study chaired by Sune K. Bergstrom (the 1982 Nobel laureate in physiology and medicine) nearly 20 years ago. (1) Subsequent studies have had similar findings. Professor Alan Robock says, "Everything from purely mathematical models to forest fire studies shows that even a small nuclear war would devastate the earth." (2) Rich Small's work, financed by the Defense Nuclear Agency, suggests that burning cities would produce a particularly troublesome variety of smoke. The smoke of forest fires is bad enough. But the industrial targets of cities are likely to produce a rolling, black smoke, a denser shield against incoming sunlight. (3) Nuclear explosions can produce heat intensities of 3,000 to 4,000 degrees Centigrade at ground zero. Nuclear explosions can also lift an enormous quantity of fine soil particles into the atmosphere, creating more than l00,000 tons of fine, dense, radioactive dust for every megaton exploded on the surface. (4) The late Dr. Carl Sagan said the super heating of vast quantities of atmospheric dust and soot will cover both hemispheres. (5) For those who survive a nuclear attack, it would mean living on a cold, dark, chaotic, radioactive planet. A nuclear warhead is far more destructive than is generally realized. For example, just one average size U.S. strategic 250 Kt nuclear warhead has an explosive force equal to 250,000 tons of dynamite or 50,000 World War II type bombers each carrying 5 tons of bombs. The truck bombs that terrorists exploded at the New York World Trade Center and in Oklahoma City each had an explosive force equal to about 5 tons of dynamite. (6) Accidental Nuclear War The U.S. and Russia each have more than 2,000 strategic nuclear warheads set for hair-trigger release. If launched they could be delivered to targets around the world in 30 minutes. They would have an explosive force equal to l00,000 Hiroshima size bombs. (7) Russia and the U.S. have more than 90 percent of the nuclear weapons in the world. The more automated and shorter the decision process becomes the greater is the possibility of missiles being launched to false warnings. The U.S. is trying to decide whether to build an anti-missile star wars defense or not. In order for an anti-ballistic missile to hit another missile traveling at incredible speed that can come from many different directions, it would be necessary to have a very complex computerized system. President Reagan's Defense Secretary, Casper Weinberger, said that since an anti-missile defense would require decisions within seconds, completely autonomous computer control is a foregone conclusion. There would be no time for screening out false alarms and a decision to launch would have to be automated---there would be no time for White House approval. (8) A highly automated defense system that has no time for determining whether a warning is false or not is highly likely to launch to a false warning. There are always false warnings. For example, during 1981, 1982 and 1983 there were 186, 218 and 255 false alarms, respectively, in the U.S. strategic warning system. (9) There have been at least three times in the last 20 years that the U.S. and Russia almost launched to false warnings. Fortunately there was enough time to determine that the warnings were false before decision time ran out. In 1979, a U.S. training tape showing a massive attack was accidentally played. In 1983, a Soviet satellite mistakenly signaled the launch of a U.S. missile. In 1995, Russia almost launched its missiles because of a Norwegian rocket studying the northern lights. (l0) If the U.S. builds an anti-missile defense it appears certain that missiles would be launched to false warnings because no time is available for determining whether a warning is false or not. Preventive Action Needed Plans to build an anti-missile defense need to be carefully researched as to how it could increase the danger of an accidental nuclear war. As the research progresses, the findings need to be widely discussed in the news media. The more widely and clearly the danger is made known the more concerned the public should be for agreements to greatly reduce and eventually eliminate all nuclear weapons from the world. As humanity's safety becomes more and more dependent upon technology, the technological dangers need to be guarded against. Technical errors in one system may trigger errors in others. When researching missile defense dangers the following types of factors need to be included in the assessments, e.g. Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP)), "Dead Hand" control of missiles, High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP), Hazards of Electromagnetic Radiation to Ordnance (HERO). Russia's blind spots in its satellite warning system also need to be included in this research. The U.S. and Russia are in a position where either can destroy humanity in a flash and yet there appears to be little recognition of this peril hanging over the world. Only 71 out of 435 U.S. congressional representatives signed a motion calling for nuclear weapons to be taken off of hair-trigger alert. (11) The U.S. Senate rejected the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1999. (12) Queen Noor al Hussein, of Jordan, said "The sheer folly of trying to defend a nation by destroying all life on the planet must be apparent to anyone capable of rational thought." (13) There is a need to greatly increase public awareness of the danger in order to provide broad, long-term understanding and support for arms agreements ridding the world of nuclear weapons. Reference and Notes 1. Sagan, Carl. The Nuclear Winter, Council for a Livable World Education Fund, Boston, MA, 1983. 2. Robock, Alan. "New models confirm nuclear winter," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist, Septem http://chicagotribune.com/news/chi-0110050267oct05 .story?coll=chi%2Dnews%2Dh ed >From the Chicago Tribune Mock terrorists breached security at weapons plants By Stephen J. Hedges and Jeff Zeleny Washington Bureau October 5, 2001 WASHINGTON -- America's 10 nuclear weapons research and production facilities are vulnerable to terrorist attack and have failed about half of recent security drills, a non-government watchdog group has found. U.S. Army and Navy commando teams penetrated the plants and obtained nuclear material during exercises designed to test security, according to the Project on Government Oversight report, being released Friday. In a drill in October 2000 at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, "the mock terrorists gained control of sensitive nuclear material which, if detonated, would have endangered significant parts of New Mexico, Colorado and downwind areas," the report says. In an earlier test at the same lab, an Army Special Forces team used a household garden cart to haul away enough weapons-grade uranium to build several nuclear weapons. In another test at the Rocky Flats site near Denver, Navy SEALs cut a hole in a chain link fence as they escaped with enough plutonium for several nuclear bombs. They were discovered only as they left the facility. Government security rules require the nuclear facilities to defend themselves against the theft of nuclear materials by terrorists or through sabotage. A spokeswoman at the National Nuclear Security Administration, a branch of the Energy Department, declined Thursday to comment on the report. The report is based on information provided by 12 whistle-blowers, according to Danielle Brian, the non-government watchdog group's director, as well as declassified Energy Department material that describes the security exercises. The repeated security breaches are cause for serious concern, Brian said, because Energy Department employees were warned before each security exercise but still failed to stop would-be terrorists in more than half of the drills. "These are tests where the security forces are necessarily dumbed-down so that they know the tests are coming," Brian said. "They are very restrictive tests [but] they're still losing half of the time. "No one thought it really mattered, until two weeks ago," Brian added. The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon have raised alarms about security concerns, from local community responses to chemical and biological weapons to the security at nuclear power plants. Nine of the weapons facilities are within 100 miles of cities with more than 75,000 people. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is near the San Francisco metropolitan area, which has more than 7 million people. The Rocky Flats site is near Denver, home to 2.6 million people. Eight of the 10 weapons plants contained a total of 33.5 metric tons of weapons-grade plutonium. Experts say it takes only a few pounds of plutonium to craft a nuclear bomb. The study has drawn the attention of the House Reform Committee, which has launched its own review of security measure at the nuclear weapons plants. Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.), chairman of a national security subcommittee in the House, declined to discuss the report. But he issued a statement indicating he was "deeply troubled" that the nuclear facilities failed security tests even though they had been alerted in advance. "We want to know what DOE is doing to resolve this deficiency, both in the short term and in the long term," Shays' statement said. Security tests at the nuclear weapons facilities are simulated on computers and run as drills between an invading terrorist force and the plant's security team. Participants strap on devices similar to those from a laser tag game. When someone is "killed" by an opposing force, they must lie down and end their participation in the exercise. Copyright © 2001, Chicago Tribune ***************************************************************** 5 U of I workers coming back to IAAP The Hawk Eye Newspaper October 5, 2001 Iowa Time: 5:31 PM By Dennis J. Carroll The Hawk Eye • Health survey workers will help former employees with compensation claims. Health survey workers from the University of Iowa will return to Middletown next week to help former nuclear weapons workers complete and file their compensation forms with the Department of Labor. Howard Nicholson, a project researcher for the Burlington Atomic Energy Commission Plant Former Workers Program said aides will set up temporary offices at the machinists union hall on U.S. 34 October 9 and 11. Help for workers will be available from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Nicholson said. A photocopier will be available at no cost for those who wish to make copies of their medical or IAAP records. Nicholson said those wanting help should call his office toll-free at (866) 282-5818 to schedule an appointment. He said the researchers will make future trips to Middletown to accommodate all workers who want the help. The U of I team soon will be helping workers fill out a health and work history questionnaire, pending Department of Energy approval, Nicholson said. Researchers and health experts from the university's College of Public Health are operating under a $500,000 grant from the Department of Energy to find and screen for health problems as many as 5,000 people who helped build nuclear bombs for the Atomic Energy Commission from the late 1940s to the mid-1970s. Former IAAP workers may be eligible for an Energy Department compensation program for former nuclear weapons workers, or their survivors, who were made ill or died from exposure to radiation, beryllium or silica. The compensation package consists of a $150,000 lump sum payment and coverage of some medical costs. The program is administered by the Labor Department. The Hawk Eye 800 S. Main St., Burlington Iowa 52601 319-754-8461 Front Desk · 319-754-6824 FAX · 1-800-397-1708 Toll Free ***************************************************************** 6 Work to Recover Kursk Hastens Las Vegas SUN October 05, 2001 MOSCOW (AP) - Fine weather allowed preparations for lifting the sunken Kursk nuclear submarine to pick up speed Friday. Divers have been working since late Monday to attach cables lowered from a barge with the ultimate goal of raising the submarine 356 feet to the surface of the Barents Sea. High seas were rolling the cables, slowing the effort, and late Wednesday the rough weather forced divers to suspend work. With the seas calming on Thursday, the work picked up and by midday Friday the divers had connected 12 out of 26 cables, said Northern Fleet spokesman Capt. Vladimir Navrotsky. "We are very pleased with the pace of work, which sped up significantly," he said in remarks broadcast by Russian television. By late Friday, 14 of the cables had been attached, the Interfax news agency reported. The lifting was originally set for Sept. 15, but it has been delayed repeatedly because of storms and technical difficulties. Once all the cables are plugged in, raising the submarine will require calm seas and take about 12 hours. Vice Adm. Mikhail Motsak, chief of staff of Russia's Northern Fleet, said the submarine would be raised at a rate of 33 feet an hour, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported. Representatives of the Dutch Mammoet-Smit International consortium working to raise the submarine on a $65 million contract with the Russian government said it could be brought to the surface early next week. However, they wouldn't set a specific target date. But Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov, speaking from a cruiser at the salvage site in the Barents Sea, said the Kursk would be ready for raising in two to three days. The Kursk exploded and sank during naval exercises in the Barents Sea in August 2000, killing the entire 118-man crew. Russian officials said the submarine must be raised because its twin nuclear reactors are a source of potential danger to the environment and its position in shallow water could jeopardize shipping. The navy also hopes that raising the Kursk would give a clue to the disaster's cause. The Dutch consortium has cut off the Kursk's forward torpedo compartment, fearing it could break up and jeopardize the lifting. The Navy says it will try to lift fragments of the bow next year. Once the Kursk is raised and clamped under the barge, it will be towed to a dry dock in Roslyakovo near the port of Murmansk on a long route allowing salvagers to wait out possible storms near the shore. Once the submarine is put in dock, the navy will remove the remains of the crew and 22 Granit supersonic cruise missiles. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 7 Report suggests test site for plutonium storage [Las Vegas Review-Journal] Saturday, October 06, 2001 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal By STEVE TETREAULT DONREY WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- Citing inadequate security at Energy Department plants across the nation, a government watchdog group suggested in a report Friday that the weapons-grade nuclear materials they hold be consolidated for security purposes at the Nevada Test Site. Hundreds of tons of plutonium and highly enriched uranium could be safely kept in a giant earth-covered bunker built to assemble nuclear devices for testing but underused since the United States declared its moratorium on nuclear tests in 1992, according to the Project on Government Oversight. Peter Stockton, a project consultant and former special assistant to Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, described the Device Assembly Facility in Nevada as "one of the most secure facilities in the world." "It's half underground and it's extraordinarily well-protected," Stockton said. "Special operations forces have run tests against that and have gotten virtually nowhere." Enlisting the test site to upgrade nuclear security was among recommendations made by the Project on Government Oversight in a 42-page report that drew from unclassified documents to detail security shortcomings in portions of the nation's nuclear weapons complex and concluded that research and production facilities are vulnerable to terrorist attack. Weapons-grade plutonium and highly enriched uranium in quantities large enough to make nuclear bombs are kept at 10 major government sites. The report did not discuss test site security since weapons materials are not kept there presently, Stockton said. But other weapons facilities have failed about half of recent security drills, the project said. The exact number is classified. At Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico in October 2000, mock terrorists gained control of nuclear materials "which if detonated would have endangered significant parts of New Mexico, Colorado and downwind areas," the study said. Earlier at the same lab, a U.S. Army Special Forces team was able to gain access to weapons-grade uranium and cart the heavy material off on a garden cart bought at Home Depot, according to the report. At the Rocky Flats facility near Denver, Navy SEALS cut a hole in a chain-link fence and "stole" enough plutonium to make several nuclear bombs, the report said. "They were only discovered as they were leaving the facility," it said. Additionally, the Energy Department's transportation security division, which moves nuclear weapons as well as plutonium and weapons-grade uranium along highways, was "defeated" in six of seven exercises in December 1998. "The DOE security force failed to protect nuclear cargo because they had inadequate weapons and insufficient numbers as well as poorly conceived tactics," the report said. Officials with the National Nuclear Security Administration, which oversees the weapons complex, have received the report but would not be commenting on it, spokeswoman Tammy Moore said Friday. The Project on Government Oversight said it began preparing the report eight months ago after a dozen whistle-blowers presented unclassified evidence of vulnerabilities within the nuclear weapons complex. The issue has taken on resonance since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and security follow-ups being conducted by government agencies. The watchdog group noted that nine of the government's nuclear weapons facilities are within 100 miles of cities with more than 75,000 people, including the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in the San Francisco Bay area and the Sandia National Laboratories outside Albuquerque, N.M. Besides the Nevada Test Site, the report authors said a secure underground storage facility at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico could safely hold nuclear materials. The Device Assembly Facility at the test site is a 100,000-square-foot complex -- about the size of 11 football fields -- covered by compacted earth and hardened to contain the detonation of high explosives. It's located at Area 6, in the east-central portion of the test site, about 85 miles north of Las Vegas. The facility was designed and built to assemble nuclear test devices before they would be moved underground for detonation. Since the United States stopped conducting nuclear test detonations in 1992, the facility has been used for the assembly of non-nuclear experiments, according to National Nuclear Security Administration spokesman Darwin Morgan. ***************************************************************** 8 Money sought for families of nuclear-arms workers Omaha.com October 4, 2001 MIDDLETOWN, Iowa (AP) - Thousands of former Iowa Army Ammunition Plant nuclear-weapons workers and their survivors could be getting money from the federal government. The U.S. Senate approved legislation Tuesday that would expand compensation to all survivors of nuclear-weapons workers who died because of exposure to hazardous materials at the Middletown plant. The measure would eliminate a Labor Department rule that restricts survivor compensation only to those children of workers who were younger than 18 when their parent died. The Energy Department is offering former nuclear-weapons workers or survivors whose illness or death was caused by exposure to radiation, beryllium or silica a $150,000 lump-sum payment and coverage of some medical costs. The compensation is being administered by the Labor Department. The expanded measure, pushed by Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, and others, would apply to thousands of former nuclear- weapons workers and their survivors. The Iowa plant was a linchpin in the nuclear weapons industry for 25 years. Many workers suffered lifelong illnesses from their exposure to radiation and hazardous materials but often did not die until later in life, when their children were well into adulthood. Former plant security supervisor Bob Anderson of Burlington, who has suffered illness, said he would be thrilled if the measure becomes law. "The suffering that these people were under when they were sick put a hardship on the families," he said. Anderson wrote a letter to Harkin about three years ago, in which he speculated that his lymphoma and that of other workers may have been caused by exposure to hazardous materials. That unleashed a flood of revelations about working conditions and environmental hazards at the plant. "I am pleased that more Iowans can now be justly compensated for their loss of family members resulting from the ammunition plant in Middletown," Harkin said. "This measure corrects a critical flaw in the Department of Labor rule." The measure still is subject to approval by a conference committee. The House version of the defense authorization bill does not contain the nuclear workers amendment. Other former plant workers have said that the legislation should be expanded even further to cover non-nuclear workers whose illness or death was caused by exposure to hazardous materials. ©2001 Omaha World-Herald. All rights reserved. Copyright | ***************************************************************** 9 N-BASE MAPS SENT BY POST Daily Record October 07, 2001 SECURITY Civil servants hand out details of Sellafield CIVIL servants are posting out detailed maps of nuclear power targets to anyone who asks, the Sunday Mail can reveal. The astonishing security lapse was discovered by one of Britain's top independent nuclear scientists. Dr John Large was horrified after being sent high-quality aerial pictures of the Sellafield power station. He had asked civil servants for background information while researching the terrorist threat to key nuclear installations. But he was astonished when the aerial "terrorist blueprints" were sent to him first-class, with no security checks. The security failure comes amid growing concern that terrorists can easily obtain detailed maps and even satellite pictures of high- security sites, such as barracks, naval bases and royal palaces. According to Dr Large, the photographs were so detailed that they would be valuable to any terrorist who targeted the station. The nuclear expert, who has been enlisted to help raise Russia's sunken Kursk submarine, contacted both the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate and the Environ-ment Agency. He asked for reports about Sellafield which are available to the public. He said: "They arrived the next day, and contained large aerial photographs of the site. "I am very surprised they are available in the wake of the air attacks in America. They are literally a pilot's eye view of Sellafield. "My report is sensitive and confidential, but I can say that Sellafield's main targets at are all in a line. So if a terrorist-piloted plane missed one, it could hit another. "But when Sellafield was built, such anti-terrorist planning was not considered. "There are obviously some potentially devastating consequences from such an attack on Sellafield. That is why it has been identified as one of our main target risks. "It is not only about the buildings at Sellafield - there are open ponds with irradiated fuel in them. "Unfortunately, such sites were built without planning for war or aerial terrorist attack. Also, back then, planes did not carry the amount of fuel they do now. "The site plan for Sellafield shows the targets which would have the most impact and their likely constructional resistance to attack. But this risk is not only about nuclear plants. It is also about other vulnerable installations, such as chemical plants like Grangemouth. "If Sellafield was attacked, it would affect the whole country - including Scotland, depending on the direction of the wind at the time. "Scotland is vulnerable because it has nuclear power stations like Torness, Chapelcross and Hunterston as well as Dounreay, not to mention military installations such as Faslane, Rosyth and Coulport. "There should be an urgent review of what information is available about those sites." A spokeswoman for British Nuclear Fuels admitted that the Sellafield pictures were freely available. She insisted they did not pose a security risk. But she admitted that a no-fly zone operates above and around Sellafield. However, no-fly zones hardly matter any more, because high-quality, detailed shots are available from US firm Space Imaging and an equivalent French company, Spot Image. They can supply shots of almost anywhere in the world taken from the IKONOS satellite. David Barker, the editor of Jane's Space Directory said: "Many of the pictures are available on the internet. But the biggest risk is the high- resolution satellite photo- graphy. It is freely available commercially." In Britain, the company responsible for the country's millennium map boast they can offer overhead pictures of any site in the country. They remain available for sale - despite the fact that some websites in the US have agreed to remove sensitive pictures. Already, the Federation of American Scientists' website has removed all photos of US intelligence facilities. But for British company Getmapping.com which offers an aerial map of Britain, it's business as usual. Site founder Tristam Carey said: "We cleared our project with the Ministry of Defence before we carried it out and they approved it. "They haven't been in contact with us since then, so they can't be too concerned." Last week, a secret EU report warned that a successful attack on Sellafield could lead to hundreds of thousands of deaths. The founder of an Islamic terrorist website exposed by the Sunday Mail has appeared in court in London. Suleyman Zainulabidin, 43, who set up Sakina Security Services, allegedly ran an internet site arranging trips to US camps where Islamic fundamentalists are given terrorist training. Zainulabidin, accused of having links with Osama bin Laden, appeared before Belmarsh Magistrates Court and was remanded in custody until October 12. ***************************************************************** 10 More victim comp? [SuburbanChicagoNews.com] By STAFF WRITER Broader benefits: Rep. Biggert proposes help for families of uranium workers U.S. Rep. Judy Biggert is asking that Congress consider broadening the benefits for families of loved ones who died from working with uranium and other hazardous substances for the government during the Cold War. The U.S. Senate recently approved six amendments to the Energy Employees Occupational Illinois Compensation Program Act of 2000. One of the amendments would make it easier for children of victims to file claims. Biggert initially was concerned about the cost of the compensation program. But she is pushing the amendment because the cost of adding full benefits for children in cases where the spouse has died is minimal, said Jeff Trexel, a spokesman for Biggert. "And it's the right thing to do," he added. Congress last year approved the compensation package, which would provide $150,000 to each affected worker, as well as free medical services for the workers' government work-related illness. Surviving spouses are eligible for the federal compensation if they were married to the eligible worker when he or she died. As it stands, surviving children are eligible if they were younger than 18 or full-time students younger than 23 when their parent died, or they were 18 or older but incapable of self-support when their parent died. Many of the surviving children of the victims who attended an information session sponsored by Biggert in Willowbrook in July were upset they could not make a claim based on the current provisions. They said parents who worked in those facilities, including Blockson Chemical (now Olin) near Joliet, William E. Pratt in Joliet and at Argonne National Laboratories, sometimes brought home the hazardous substances, uranium or beryllium, on their work clothes. At the July meeting, however, Hal Glassman, a U.S. Department of Labor spokesman, said, "This is not an inheritance program. This is a workers' compensation program." But there has been a move in the U.S. Senate to broaden the program, and the result were the six amendments. According to Biggert, R-Hinsdale, the Senate-approved amendments include: Eliminating the requirement that survivors must have been under the age of 18 when the covered worker died to be eligible for compensation. Requiring a study on residual radiation and beryllium contamination in facilities that supplied materials to the Department of Energy for use in nuclear weapons. Clarifying that leukemia will be a covered illness without regard to age of occupational exposure to radiation. The current law covers only those exposed after age 20. Surviving children would be able to file a claim only if the surviving spouse is deceased. And each family still would be able to claim a total of $150,000, not $150,000 for each surviving child. Peter Jeffries, a spokesman for U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Yorkville, said the speaker would consider the amendments. But he could not comment on them specifically since he had not seen them. Margaret Dennison of Plainfield, one of those at the Willowbrook information session in July, was happy to hear about the Senate action and hoped the House would agree. Her late father, Kenny LeGare, worked in Building 55 at Blockson. Thousands from throughout the nation already have filed claims since the program opened July 31. Claim packages still are available between 8:30 a.m. and 5 p.m. weekdays at the front office of The Herald News, 300 Caterpillar Drive, Joliet, or by calling the U.S. Department of Labor at (866) 888-3322. Assistant City Editor Nick Reiher can be reached at (815) 729-6050 or via e-mail at nreiher@scn1.com. ***************************************************************** 11 New storage vaults at Y-12 now urgent KnoxNews: Columnists By Frank Munger, News-Sentinel senior writer In the weeks following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, security at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge has attracted public attention and rightly so. People are asking all sorts of questions. Is Y-12 a potential target? What are the hazards in the event of attack? Is the plant prepared for terrorism? Here's a fact that may come as a surprise to many: There are no airspace restrictions enforced at the Oak Ridge warhead factory. The U.S. Department of Energy and the Federal Aviation Administration confirmed the situation, although officials at each agency weren't very talkative on the topic. A local supervisor with the FAA referred me to her agency's Web site for more information and offered the telephone number of the public affairs office in Atlanta, where staffers apparently are too busy to return telephone calls. Although Y-12's airspace is not off-limits in the strictest sense, the Oak Ridge facility would seem to be covered by a broad-based advisory issued Sept. 28 by the FAA. The so-called NOTAM (Notice to Airmen), includes this language: "In the interest of national security, and to the extent practicable, pilots are advised to avoid the airspace above, or in proximity to, sites such as nuclear power plants, power plants, dams, refineries, industrial complexes, and other similar facilities. Pilots should not circle as to loiter in the vicinity of such facilities.'' This is only an advisory, of course, not a prohibition or even a stern warning to pilots. It's sort of a please-oh-pretty-please approach. But, then, if you have suicide-bound terrorists piloting an airplane it probably doesn't matter much if you have airspace restrictions. It's for sure nobody was asking permission Sept. 11. Oak Ridge airspace has been an issue before. As I recall, DOE argued mightily for restrictions in 1980s, expressing concern that aerial reconnaissance could reveal secrets about nuclear weapons production or plant security. When asked the matter this week, DOE spokesman Steven Wyatt responded, "A restricted air space above and around Y-12 does have some merit from a security standpoint; however, we consider this to be a low priority. We have not taken any steps to pursue this with the FAA.'' Y-12, of course, is not your average, run-of-the-mill industrial site. The plant houses most of the nation's stockpile of bomb-grade uranium. Is the plant vulnerable? Absolutely, and that's not just hype. It should be frightfully obvious to everybody now that even institutions once thought to be impenetrable are at risk. Office towers rising halfway to the heavens always seemed a little precarious. But the Pentagon? It was designed and built as a virtual symbol of U.S. invincibility. Y-12, too, has the look of a fearsome fortress, surrounded by rows of wire-topped fences and lines of guard towers. But its facilities are antiquated. A 1996 DOE report addressed significant vulnerabilities to the precious stockpile of highly enriched uranium, and many of those reflected the deteriorated condition of Y-12's physical plant. There's a good reason why the first project in a $4 billion modernization plan is construction of a new uranium storage vault. Much of the nuclear material currently is housed in wood-frame structures as old as I am. In a Sept. 19 interview, the top federal official at Y-12 emphasized that if an airplane struck the Oak Ridge plant it would not cause a nuclear-type explosion or produce a mushroom cloud - a concern voiced by many area residents. "We do not make nuclear bombs,'' said Bill Brumley of the National Nuclear Security Administration. "There has never been a nuclear weapon at this site. We do not have plutonium. We do not have high explosives ... . We make uranium components (for nuclear warheads).'' The uranium parts by themselves will not detonate like a nuclear bomb, he said. But Brumley acknowledged a large airplane crash - officials have studied a scenario based on a military cargo plane loaded with 28,000 gallons of fuel - would result in human casualties at Y-12 and an off-site release of radioactive materials. He declined to say how many lives might be lost or how much radioactivity might be carried away in the smoky plume. "We looked at that as just the absolute worst case that could happen,'' he said. "I'm not sure we would want to tell the bad guys exactly what would happen.'' While details of the plant's various accident analyses were not made public, it's likely that much of the hazard would result from the combination of fire and enriched uranium. About a year ago, Y-12 officials were displaying some preliminary designs for the new uranium storage complex. It showed a facility covered by an earthen berm. Asked if the proposed facility would be hardened, Brumley and others declined comment, citing security concerns. If not included in the design at that time, it would seem imperative that such protection be added now. It also seems likely that new storage vaults, already the top priority in Y-12's modernization plan, just grew in importance. The sooner they're built, the better we'll feel. Senior Writer Frank Munger covers the Department of Energy for the News-Sentinel. He can be reached at 865-482-9213 or at twig1@knoxnews.infi.net. This column is also available on the Web at www.knoxnews.com/editorsview/munger/ Copyright 2001 The Knoxville News-Sentinel Co. Click for ***************************************************************** 12 Should nuclear arms be part of response? Published: Sunday, October 7, 2001 BY DANA MILBANK Washington Post WASHINGTON -- The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York and at the Pentagon have invigorated national security strategists inside and outside government who favor using nuclear arms to deter and respond to chemical or biological attacks. Conservatives outside the administration have been calling on the administration to make an explicit threat to use nuclear weapons to respond to a biological or chemical attack. This would change a long-standing U.S. policy of refusing to rule in or rule out use of nuclear weapons in the event of such an attack. So far, at least, senior Bush administration officials have maintained this policy of deliberate ambiguity, though some administration figures appear to be sympathetic to a change that would entail a more specific threat. NUCLEAR NECESSITY? A report issued in January by the National Institute for Public Policy declared that "U.S. nuclear weapons may be necessary" to deter regional powers from using weapons of mass destruction or for "providing unique targeting capabilities" including buried or biological weapons targets. "Under certain circumstances, very severe nuclear threats may be needed to deter any of these potential adversaries," it said. Among the report's authors were Stephen Hadley, now President Bush's deputy national security adviser, Robert Joseph, the head of proliferation strategy at the National Security Council, and Stephen Cambone and William Schneider, key Bush defense advisers. Proponents said last month's attacks on New York and Washington affirm their views. "September 11 really underscores the need to look at a full range of flexible options," said David Smith, a defense consultant who was an author of the National Institute for Public Policy report. "What we were trying to get at there is we don't believe the current arsenal of the United States is persuasively deterrent to all comers." SMALLER-ARMS OPTION Many Bush administration officials have endorsed the notion of switching to smaller nuclear arms that could be used for, among other things, hitting chemical and biological weapons sites and targeting figures, such as Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein, who hide in deep underground bunkers. A report in June 2000 by Stephen Younger, who's been named to head the Defense Department's Threat Reduction Agency, called for smaller nuclear weapons as part of a "fundamental rethinking of the role of nuclear weapons." Though a shift in the arsenal would take years to implement, an early sign will be the Nuclear Posture Review under way in the Pentagon and due to Congress by year's end. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard Myers, during his confirmation hearing Sept. 13, said deterrence against weapons of mass destruction "is a critical component" of the review. He also pointed out that the military already has "a number of low-yield weapons in the current stockpile." Another author of the National Institute for Public Policy study, Southwest Missouri State University's William Van Cleave, said the review will argue "that we need to regain some capability for some low-yield (nuclear) weapons and particularly earth-penetrating low-yield weapons." Van Cleave, whose colleague, J.D. Crouch, is now assistant undersecretary of defense for international security policy, said some Bush advisers "believe we have marginalized nuclear weapons too much. We have removed them from extended deterrence too much." Among his friends in the administration, Van Cleave said, "there's a sentiment for the view the way I expressed it." PAST POLICY For the past decade or so, U.S. leaders have been deliberately ambiguous about using nuclear weapons to respond to a chemical and biological threat. Then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney said in December 1990 that "were Saddam Hussein foolish enough to use weapons of mass destruction, the U.S. response would be absolutely overwhelming and it would be devastating." Administration officials later said Cheney wasn't implying a nuclear threat. Others defend the ambiguous nature of U.S. policy. "We've purposefully avoided drawing bright lines in the past about when we might use nuclear weapons," said a former senior Clinton administration official. "If we change that now, it would upset a lot of our core NATO allies, not to mention others in the coalition against terrorism we're trying to build." In 1978, President Jimmy Carter declared that "the United States will not use nuclear weapons against any non-nuclear weapon state" that is party to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, unless the United States or its interests are attacked "by such a state allied to a nuclear weapon state." According to the State Department, this declaration has been reaffirmed by every successive administration. So far in the current crisis, top administration officials have continued the ambiguous wording of threats. Asked by Fox News last Sunday whether it would be reasonable for the United States to respond to a chemical or biological attack with nuclear weapons, White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card said: "I'm not going to talk about the operations that might be considered by the Defense Department and the president. But we're going to do everything we can to defend the United States." A week earlier, on CBS News' "Face the Nation," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, asked if he'd ruled out the use of nuclear weapons in the current conflict, replied that the country had never ruled out a first nuclear strike. "What we need to do, it seems to me, as a country, is to recognize how different this situation is, and then the traditional-think of it, the deterrence that worked in the Cold War didn't work," he said. Some arms control experts think the Bush administration's statements so far already go beyond past administrations' ambiguity. "That is an implied threat," said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association. "They've crossed the line or they're at the line by implying the possible use." Opponents said nuclear threats will encourage nuclear proliferation and worry friendly governments. "It would create its own crisis, fracture the alliance and have no military purpose," said Joseph Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. © 2001 PioneerPlanet / St. Paul (Minnesota) Pioneer Press / TwinCities.com- All ***************************************************************** 13 Oak Ridge workers claim danger not revealed KnoxNews: Local David Parten, one of the workers at R Electric Co. in this photo provided by one of the workers demonsrates how he and others used saws to cut asbestos-wrapped electrical coils. The equipment was used deades ago at the K-25 plant. By Frank Munger, News-Sentinel senior writer A half-dozen Oak Ridge workers say they were repeatedly exposed to asbestos -- and probably PCBs -- for several months last year while chopping up old electrical equipment at the government's K-25 plant. The workers are angry and worried about the health effects to themselves and maybe many others, including loved ones potentially harmed by contamination carried off site. "At the end of the day we'd look like we come out of a coal mine," said Les Jones, a self-described "grunt" worker who used concrete saws and other tools to salvage valuable metals from the equipment. "We were black from head to toe. This went on for three and a half months." Only after the fact did Jones and other members of the R Electric Co. work crew learn from sample results that the biggest electrical components -- synchronous condensers, weighing 75 tons each -- contained insulating wraps made of asbestos. Most of the R team had no training or experience in working with asbestos, which can cause chronic and debilitating lung diseases. The exception was Todd Upton, a 38-year-old former University of Tennessee football player who's a trained hazardous materials specialist working on his master's degree in industrial safety management. Upton ultimately led the effort to get the materials tested by an independent lab. The Oak Ridge workers say they feel betrayed because they were assured on numerous occasions that the equipment did not contain hazardous materials and, thus, they did not wear respirators or take other protective measures. "I had never done any type of work like this before in my life," said 31-year-old David Parten, another crew member who said he repeatedly asked if anything hazardous was present in the old equipment. "Somebody screwed up ... Had I been told, yes, there's asbestos -- had I been told, yes, there's PCBs -- I would not have done that work without the proper training and without the proper equipment. No, I would not have touched it. And that's my problem. I wasn't given the choice." The concerns have spawned multiple investigations. With lawsuits looming, there's a lot of finger-pointing taking place in the network of contractors and subcontractors associated with BNFL Inc.'s massive cleanup project at the former uranium-enrichment plant. While there's much dispute about who's to blame and who's potentially liable, no one seems to be contesting the fact that workers over and over again sawed into asbestos insulation -- apparently with none of the normal precautions associated with asbestos work. "When you're cutting this stuff up with a concrete-cutting saw, dust is everywhere," Upton said. "Any number of people could have been exposed to asbestos," he said, noting the work took place in an open-air shed. "The wind would blow. Our fork truck tracked it ... You get re-exposed." Upton said visually there's little difference between asbestos and fiberglass insulating wraps used in electrical components. They look about the same, he said. But he said he grew suspicious of the scrap materials received at the salvage yard -- especially after cutting torches used on transformer cabinets released a sweet smell associated with oils laden with PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls). PCBs are toxic compounds that become even more hazardous when burned and partially decomposed, creating byproducts such as cancer-causing dioxin. Upton said he decided late last year to take samples from the equipment and have them analyzed by an independent lab, even though he reportedly had been guaranteed the scrap equipment was free of hazards. The results from Assay Technology showed some samples had significant asbestos fibers -- up to 80 percent in one case. Oily samples taken from inside a transformer cabinet also reportedly showed the presence of PCBs. Workers said they cut up more than 140 of the cabinets. The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation took samples at the K-1415 work site last month and verified that debris left on the ground contained up to 12 percent asbestos. A state official said he was still waiting to see the results of PCB tests. John Owsley, director of TDEC's oversight office in Oak Ridge, said the state had verbally alerted the U.S. Department of Energy to worker complaints in April and when DOE failed to respond the state took the initiative. The state's role is to address environmental concerns, and the fact that asbestos remains on the ground -- more than a year after the cutting operations took place -- clearly indicates that proper procedures weren't followed, Owsley said. "The conditions are such that if the material is not kept damp, it could become friable or dispersed by the wind," the state official said. The state is pushing for a cleanup, but Owsley acknowledged that it could take a while because of all the legal wrangling taking place. Although the work took place at a DOE installation, it involves private companies working at a facility leased privately through the Community Reuse Organization of East Tennessee. The federal agency has attempted to distance itself from the activities. DOE's Oak Ridge office refused to answer questions on the matter, except to issue a terse statement through spokesman Walter Perry: "We are looking into health and safety concerns regarding this issue." Owsley said the state believes DOE remains responsible for overall safety oversight at K-25. R Electric is a small outfit operating as a second- or third-tier subcontractor at the site, dismantling electrical equipment sold by BNFL -- a DOE contractor that holds a $238 million contract to clean up buildings once used to process uranium for nuclear fuel. Most, if not all, of the equipment involved in the controversy came from the electrical switchyards once used to power the operations inside the K-33 and K-31 buildings. R Electric was working as a subcontractor for American Technologies Inc., which purchased the electrical equipment from BNFL. Efforts to reach ATI officials for comment were unsuccessful. Through its arrangement with ATI, the R team acquired four of the synchronous containers, which are 20 feet long and 12 feet in diameter. Decades ago, they were used to help regulate the enormous amount of electrical power being used at the uranium-enrichment facilities in Oak Ridge. Jerry Reese, the owner of R Electric, said he was told in multiple meetings with officials from DOE, BNFL and other companies at the Oak Ridge cleanup site that there wasn't any asbestos -- except what was clearly labeled -- or liquids or other hazardous elements in the equipment coming to him for dismantlement. Reese said he never would have knowingly exposed his workers to dangerous materials. "I wouldn't do that for love of money," he said, noting he was working with the same stuff as his crew. "Material things I can replace. I can't replace nobody's health. "They said everything coming here was cleared for free release. We're not an abatement company. We're not into asbestos. We're not into PCBs. We were guaranteed, supposedly, and given a piece of paper." BNFL, the American subsidiary of British Nuclear Fuels, says it followed proper procedures and made sure none of the equipment sold had any external contamination. The company also said it provided contractual warnings about the potential for hazards -- including asbestos -- inside the equipment being stripped from the old buildings. "We have never in writing or verbally claimed that there is no asbestos-containing material or hazardous materials in this 50-year-old electrical equipment," Jim McAnally, manager of BNFL's Oak Ridge operations, said in an interview last week. Those comments, however, are hotly disputed. Upton said he asked specifically about the possibility of asbestos being in the synchronous condensers at an Oct. 13, 2000 meeting. He said he was told point-blank by Larry Brede of BNFL that there was none. Reese and others backed up Upton's statements. However, Brede -- BNFL's subcontracts chief -- flatly denied ever making such a statement. "I don't know why they said that." McAnally said the potential for asbestos and PCBs should be obvious to people familiar with electrical equipment, especially of the vintage found at K-25. In addition to the four synchronous condensers sold to ATI and R Electric, BNFL sold four others to a team headed by Coy Construction. Coy reportedly encountered asbestos issues when breaking down those components at another privately leased site at DOE's K-25 complex. The News-Sentinel was unable to reach the company for comment. Much of the Oak Ridge salvage work has been put on hold, partly because of the contamination issues, and some contractors are losing money. Reese, for instance, said he probably has lost more than $200,000 on his investment. "We're always vulnerable to people trying to make us a target with their financial grievances," McAnally said, suggesting a number of companies are simply worried about their own "legal implications" in the matter and trying to blame BNFL. The people who bought the equipment for scrap are responsible for the hazards, the BNFL executive said. He said he couldn't possibly monitor the activities that take place away from BNFL's project. "I have sold thousands of items off this site to (companies) all over the United States," McAnally said. "And it could be sold 15 times after it leaves here." Paul Vance, another member of the R work crew, said he holds the Department of Energy responsible. "I know that DOE had to tell BNFL what they had ... They also have to tell the workers," he said. Jeff Keylon, who joined the salvage team last summer, said he asked about the possibility of using respirators or other equipment. He said he'd had experience with respirators during his 13 years in the military. "I was willing to do it. Train me. Well, I was just told there was nothing here that's going to hurt you ...," Keylon said. "I don't know how much crap I've blown out of my nose that's had the junk in it. I've got a 2-year-old girl, and I'm going around here with this crap because I'm told, 'Oh, it's nothing.' I don't like breathing this crap. I know she doesn't. It all goes around. Everybody kept saying, 'There's nothing here. Nothing going to hurt you.' " Frank Munger can be reached at 865-482-9213 or twig1@knoxnews.infi.net. Copyright 2001 The Knoxville News-Sentinel Co. 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