***************************************************************** 08/09/01 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 9.192 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER CONTENTS 1 New Platts Report Takes in-Depth Look at Leading U.S. Wholesale 2 Argentina signs nuclear deal 3 TEPCO to take over plan to build EPDC power plant 4 Nuclear is Back: Deregulation Powers Nuclear Industry Renaissance 5 San Onofre Nuclear Plant Being Inspected 6 Japan wants controversial MOX sent back to UK 7 Cold War Uranium Mine 8 Richard W. Deese Named NRC Resident Inspector at Grand Gulf 9 Major New Order for Teleca - Modernization of Software for 10 Crucial BNFL Pay Ballot 11 New Reactor Would Create 100s Of Jobs 12 Nuclear critics relay Vermont Yankee complaint to NRC 13 NRC Appoints Jeffrey Cruz Resident Inspector at Wolf Creek 14 Agency to ease qualifying 15 DOE seeks comments on wind farm at NTS 16 NRC Seeks Public Comment on Proposed Rule Allowing Parts of 17 Chao Event in Portsmouth, Ohio Postponed NUCLEAR WEAPONS CONTENTS 1 In pictures: Nagasaki A-bomb remembered 2 Victims ousted by atom bomb project keep town memories alive 3 "KURSK" Lifting Operation: British Radioactive “Track” in the Northern Seas 4 Islands of concern 5 Perma-Fix begins Oak Ridge operations 6 Kentucky woman receives first check for sick nuclear workers 7 Worker's safety allegations filed with nuclear agency 8 Hydrogen theory in Kursk disaster - 9 Group Studies Radiation Risks 10 S.C. congressmen may halt SRS plutonium shipments 11 Technology:SRS changes plan for waste treatment 12 NCI RELEASES DOE PLUTONIUM DISPOSAL COST STUDY WITHHELD FROM CONGRESS 13 Sick Nuclear Workers Receive Checks 14 Chao to Hold Ceremony for Energy Workers Program 15 Peace House endures 16 Navy Ends Vieques Exercises 17 SRS engineers say they can treat some of the site's most **************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 New Platts Report Takes in-Depth Look at Leading U.S. Wholesale Electric Power Companies Welcome to The PMA OnLine Power Report Business Wire ( August 09, 2001 ) WASHINGTON, Aug 9, 2001 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Platts, the energy market information division of The McGraw-Hill Companies (NYSE: MHP), has completed a new report offering competitive intelligence on the leading industry players that buy, sell and trade electric power in the U.S. wholesale market. The report, Wholesale Power 2001: Strategies, Assets and Trading Patterns of 50 Leading Energy Companies, was the result of extensive research and reporting by the editors of Platts Power Markets Week. The 50 profiles detail each company's strategy, power and gas assets, position in the wholesale power and gas markets, retail customer bases in electricity and gas, and retail marketing operations. Other key information includes each company's organizational structure, number of employees, corporate histories, partnerships, financial relationships and key contacts. The report's introduction, with industry-wide findings, noted that the top 10 wholesale power marketers, in descending order, are: Enron North America, AEP Energy Services, PG National Energy Group, Duke North American Wholesale Energy, Reliant Energy Wholesale Group, Mirant Americas Energy Marketing, Aquila, Edison Mission Energy, Cinergy Power Marketing &Trading, and Constellation Power Source. Orders are now being accepted for the report, which will be ready for delivery later this month. To order, send a check for $545 to Power Markets Week, Two Penn Plaza, 5th floor, New York, N.Y., 10121-2298. For credit card orders, call 1-800-223-6180 or 212-904-6410. For more information, call (877) 286-8897 or (212) 438-3054. Platts is the world's largest and most authoritative provider of energy market information, with 14 offices worldwide and products ranging from real-time and Internet-based news services, to newsletters, market reports, databases, magazines and conferences. Platts services cover the oil, petrochemical, natural gas, electricity, nuclear power, coal and metals markets. Every day more than $10 billion of trading activity and term contract sales are based on Platts' price assessments. Additional information is available at www.platts.com and www.plattsmetals.com. Founded in 1888, The McGraw-Hill Companies is a global information services provider meeting worldwide needs in financial services, education and business-to-business information through leading brands such as Standard &Poor's, BusinessWeek and McGraw-Hill Education. The Corporation has more than 300 offices in 33 countries. Sales in 2000 were $4.3 billion. Additional information is available at www.mcgraw-hill.com. CONTACT: Platts, New York Richard Schwartz, 212/438-3020 richard_schwartz@platts.comchwartz@platts.com or RF Binder Partners, New York Melissa Emmett, 212/593-5807 melissa.Emmett@rfbinder.com URL: http://www.businesswire.com News On The Net - Business full file on the Internet with Hyperlinks to your home page. Copyright (C) 2001 Business Wire. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 2 Argentina signs nuclear deal BBC News | BUSINESS | Wednesday, 8 August, 2001, [Proposed new nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights] Waste from the reactor could be sent to Argentina Australia and Argentina have signed a nuclear energy treaty allowing nuclear waste to be shipped to and processed in the South American country. The deal comes after an Argentine company INVAP last year won the contract to design and build a A$286m ($148m) replacement for an ageing nuclear research reactor in Lucas Heights, Sydney. Officials said the new reactor, like the old one, would be purely a research facility. Argentina has agreed to accept spent fuel rods from the new reactor if they can no longer be sent to France after court action earlier this year temporarily stopped shipments. Atomic fears The proposal to build the new reactor faces opposition from both local residents and a Senate committee, which has said its construction could not be justified on any grounds. Lucas Heights has been in operation since 1958 But the Australian government insists medical and scientific research would be impeded if the old reactor was not replaced. The CAREM (advanced small nuclear power plant) reactor being developed by INVAP is capable of producing 25MWe of electrical power. Lucas Heights, which is run by the state-owned Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, is the only functioning nuclear reactor in Australia and has been operational since 1958. Argentine nuclear industry The contract, which was awarded to INVAP in July 2000 by the government of John Howard, gives the company its first client for a reactor in the industrialised world. INVAP has built reactors in Algeria, Cuba and Egypt, but had to pull out of a contract with Iran to supply nuclear materials after objections from the US. The company was rejected by Thailand as a bidder on a similar research reactor to that planned for Australia, and its order book was almost empty before it won the Lucas Heights contract. INVAP has faced court proceedings in Argentina for running tests which were allegedly illegal on the new prototype reactor. ***************************************************************** 3 TEPCO to take over plan to build EPDC power plant Daily Yomiuri On-Line Yomiuri Shimbun Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) has decided to take over a plan to build a power plant from the government-funded Electric Power Development Co. (EPDC) in line with the public corporation's efforts toward privatization, sources close to TEPCO said Wednesday. The public corporation--two-thirds of its capital comes from the government--had been planning to build the No. 2 power plant at the coal-powered Hitachinaka Thermoelectric Station in Tokaimura, Ibaraki Prefecture. The two companies are negotiating on the understanding that TEPCO will pay about 90 billion yen that the EPDC had spent on the plan, including compensation to local fishermen and on land development, the source said. Actual construction of the plant has not started. If realized, this will be the first case in which the public corporation has transferred one of its power plants to an electric power company--even though the plant is still on the drawing board. The EPDC is aiming to strengthen its financial foundations in preparation for its privatization scheduled for 2003. Therefore, the source said, it had decided to subcontract the project to TEPCO because it been drastically delayed. Analysts said the move will set a precedent for the reform of public corporations initiated by the government of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. The government is seeking to privatize as many public corporations as possible, and private industries that have depended on the government for the development of certain areas of their business will now be forced to consider promoting such development on their own, the analysts said. The two companies planned to build two plants at the station on reclaimed land --No. 1 by TEPCO and No. 2 by the EPDC. The planned start of operation is December 2003 for No. 1 and December 2005 for No. 2. The EPDC was to sell electricity from the No. 2 plant to TEPCO. However, TEPCO announced in February a freeze on new construction of power plants for three to five years except for nuclear power plants for reasons including a nationwide decline in electricity demand, and the start of the No. 2 plant's operation was delayed at least until 2010. The No. 1 plant, construction of which is already under way, will be put into operation as scheduled. But TEPCO concluded that it might need power supply from the No. 2 plant in the future given a possible increase in power demand and decided to go ahead with the construction of the plant, the sources said. Copyright The Yomiuri Shimbun ***************************************************************** 4 Nuclear is Back: Deregulation Powers Nuclear Industry Renaissance Yahoo - Thursday August 9, 7:41 am Eastern Time Press Release SOURCE: NHI Publications, Atlanta ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 9, 2001--Policymakers and political leaders, now dealing with deregulation, higher prices for fossil fuels, and global warming, are becoming reacquainted with the virtues of nuclear energy. And nuclear power advocates are finding themselves in a position to benefit from the problems slamming other parts of the energy industry. As reported in the August issue of Energy Competition Strategy Report (ECSR), published by Atlanta-based NHI Publications, energy experts say a definite revival of interest in nuclear power can be seen on the horizon. According to experts interviewed in the report, nuclear is enjoying a higher profile among the country's policymakers -- and among power company executives -- for several reasons: + Improvements in performance and capacity, along with reductions in operating and maintenance costs, have made nuclear one of the lowest cost electricity sources in deregulated wholesale markets. + Nuclear's forward price stability exceeds that of any other electricity source, making it highly attractive in a market that's been hammered by high price volatility. + Nuclear power plants are the nation's largest source of emission-free generation, a fact becoming more important under the Clean Air Act. Several energy companies featured in the report reveal the growing importance being on nuclear, which is accounting for an increasing percentage of total generation. Other highlights of August's Energy Competition Strategy Report include: + Can technology help resolve the power crisis? The Electric Power Research Institute recommends a number of actions to help address immediate issues posed by the California power crisis, while also providing technology solutions that would ultimately create a power delivery system capable of meeting the demands of the 21st century. + In a revealing look at Pennsylvania's deregulation, ECSR reports on the results from The Keystone Research Center's study, ``Pennsylvania Utilities in Crisis.'' + Smart metering technology allows utilities and their customers to manage and conserve power, thereby reducing costs for everyone. Moreover, utilities that use the technology can differentiate themselves in a competitive market. ECSR reveals the benefits to both utilities and consumers from a fast-growing Mississippi-based developer of the technology who thinks smart meters can have an immediate impact on the energy crisis. Free three-month trial subscriptions to Energy Competition Strategy Report are available by sending an e-mail with your full mailing address to nhi@nhionline.netor calling 800-597-6300. Contact: NHI Publications, Atlanta David Schwartz, 404/607-9500 Copyright © 2001 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved. Privacy ***************************************************************** 5 San Onofre Nuclear Plant Being Inspected KGTV TheSanDiegoChannel.com | San Diego Daily Transcript Thursday August 09 02:39 AM EDT Tiny cracks in the shell of a nuclear reactor in South Carolina have put operators of the San Onofre nuclear power plant on notice. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has told all plants to check and double check to make sure no radioactive waste is leaking. "We haven't seen any cracking (at San Onofre), but we're going to keep watching it," Southern California Edison ( - ) representative Ray Golden told 10News. The typical reactor is about 48-feet tall and 20-feet wide. Checking a reactor for even the tiniest of cracks can be a time consuming job. In the case of the South Carolina plant, a small hairline crack was found at the top of the reactor and small amounts of radioactive water had escaped. Fortunately no one was hurt by the incident, but Golden says it emphasizes the importance of regular checks. Golden says that San Onofre is subject to detailed inspections on a regular basis. "We've been operating here since 1968, and in that time we've never had a spill that impacted members of the public," Golden said. Golden says that the mandate by the NRC should not make people worry. He claims that SoCal Edison's standards are higher than those of the NRC. Meanwhile, a federal task force wants the public's input on how to improve the treatment of whistleblowers in the nuclear industry. A task force created by the NRC will hold a meeting in San Luis Obispo on Thursday. The group was formed to evaluate and improve the agency's handling of discrimination allegations made by nuclear industry workers who raise safety concerns. Some employees at the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant have criticized the NRC for being unresponsive to complaints brought to it alleging retaliation against whistleblowers. The task force has drafted a report containing 40 recommendations for improving the NRC's procedures for handling cases of alleged discrimination. Copyright © 2001 Yahoo! and . ***************************************************************** 6 Japan wants controversial MOX sent back to UK Thursday August 9, 10:57 AM TOKYO (Reuters) - Tokyo is seeking permission to return a consignment of controversial MOX nuclear fuel to Britain after safety concerns prevented the government from using it, a Japanese power company has said. MOX -- a blend of uranium and plutonium recycled from spent nuclear fuel -- created an international furore in 1999 after revelations that quality control data on the batch sent to Japan had been falsified. The revelation coincided with Japan's worst nuclear incident and ignited smouldering public distrust of the nuclear industry. Pressure from the public and environmental groups subsequently prevented the use of MOX fuel. Plans by Tokyo Electric Power to load it at a plant in the country's rural north were derailed in June this year after residents in a nearby village voted against its use. The Japanese government has now asked Washington for a green light to ship the consignment, part of which originated in the United States, back to Britain. Under a bilateral agreement, Washington must approve the transfer of any nuclear fuel containing U.S.-made material, in this case uranium. Britain's state-owned BNFL agreed last July to take back the fuel after Kansai Electric discovered accompanying data had been falsified. It also agreed to pay compensation of 40 million pounds. Masahiro Takasugi, Kansai Electric's deputy general manager, told reporters the company hoped U.S. approval would come by the end of the year. The utility aims to return the MOX between April and December, although no schedule has been set, he said. "The shipment cannot be made in winter because the sea is too rough then," Takasugi said. Kansai Electric could not comment on future MOX contracts until the consignment was returned to Britain, he said. The government and nuclear industry say they will continue to seek the public's understanding on the use of MOX, which they argue is an important resource for energy-hungry Japan. A third of Japan's electricity comes from nuclear power. Comments to: news-admin@uk.yahoo-inc.com Copyright © 2001 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 7 Cold War Uranium Mine By Robert G. Kaiser Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, August 8, 2001; Page C01 KRASNOKAMENSK, Russia – Look down into the enormous hole and play a mind game: From this giant excavation into the rolling Mongolian steppe, less than 25 miles from the spot where the Russian, Chinese and Mongolian borders intersect, came the uranium that went into most of the Soviet Union's thermonuclear warheads, the ones aimed at the United States during the Cold War. The thought occurs that this gigantic hole, nearly a mile long, three-fourths of a mile wide and 330 yards deep, would resemble the holes that exploding hydrogen bombs might have created in downtown Washington. But that's just a daydream. In reality this hole, a giant pockmark in the steppe, is visible evidence that this remote corner of Siberia has been home for three decades to one of the world's largest uranium mines and processing plants. Mountains of tailings – mining waste – scattered across the steppe are another piece of evidence. The company town of Krasnokamensk, built from nothing at all to house 65,000 isolated people, is a third. Uranium mining isn't what the Russian adventurers who conquered Siberia had in mind. They came for furs – sable and fox. Sable was the most prized accessory in the courts of Europe. Two pelts of black fox could be traded in 17th-century Russia for 50 acres of land, a cabin, five horses, 10 head of cattle, 20 sheep and dozens of chickens. Most of those adventurers were Cossacks, a hardy breed of Russians who had pioneered the fertile south in earlier centuries, where they (alone among their countrymen) avoided the system of serfdom that helped hold back Russian development for so long. Cossacks elected their own leaders, and took great pride in their self-sufficiency and energetic determination. Amazingly, the Cossacks who conquered Siberia did so in less than 70 years, moving 3,000 miles from the Ural mountains to the Pacific Ocean, across an expanse that in the modern world spans five time zones. They reached the Pacific in 1648. There are still fox and sable in Siberia, in much smaller numbers than 300 years ago. But today's wealth is in Krasnokamensk's uranium, Chita's forests, Buryatia's gold, Irkutsk's natural gas, Norilsk's palladium and Surgut's huge reservoirs of oil. Siberia's wealth is Russia's wealth; without it, Russia's future would be grim. But with it the Russians have a chance to regain a considerable part of the stature and influence in the world they have lost in the last 10 years – provided they can learn how to exploit these riches effectively. Poisonous Lakes If anyone ever offers you a day trip to Krasnokamensk, the wise response might be "nyet, spasibo" – no thanks. Not that it isn't a great adventure to come to this moonscape on the edge of the world, where the grassy steppe looks like split-pea soup spiced with flakes of pepper (the brown spots caused by a terrible drought this year). But to make the trip to and from the nearest outpost of civilization – Chita, capital of the gargantuan Chita Oblast of southernmost Siberia – you need an uninterrupted 20-hour day. (Most of Russia's provincial jurisdictions, many of them bigger than powerful countries, are called oblasts.) We set out from Chita at 4 a.m. Chita Oblast is part of the great expanse of Russian territory that was closed to foreigners in the Soviet era. Westerners in Moscow used to wonder if the Soviet authorities closed such places out of fear that traveling foreigners might learn real state secrets, or out of embarrassment for what they might see. Our trip here lends support to the "embarrassment" camp. The view from the window of our van was considerably worse now than it would have been 10 years ago. Like most of Siberia, Chita is in the midst of an economic depression fully the equal of America's in the 1930s. Seventy percent of the oblast's economic enterprises have collapsed since the Soviet Union disappeared. Abandoned factories, crumbling before your eyes, are a common sight. Even the surviving enterprises look like they are crumbling – reminders of the staggering infrastructure problems the new Russia faces. The road to Krasnokamensk is a narrow ribbon of asphalt most of the way, its surface varying from smooth to potholed to a jaw-rattling washboard and back to smooth again – except during the last 100 miles or so of a trip about 450 miles long. That last stretch, leading to what was recently the world's largest uranium processing and mining facility (it now ranks fifth), is a dirt road, and not even a good one. Most travelers, we learned, use the train to get to Krasnokamensk, a 15-hour journey from Chita, but a smooth one. (Soviet-era air service to the city is now a dim memory.) This could be the Russian definition of a company town. Without "the enterprise," as everyone here calls it (its real name is the Krasnokamensk Hydroelectrical Factory), this would be pristine steppe, as it was before the 1960s. And when the uranium runs out, perhaps in as little as 25 years, it will likely be impossible to sustain this community at all. We were met by German Kolov, 42, the deputy administrator of the city and until several years ago the chief engineer of the operation. Wary at first – the enterprise was still closed to outsiders, he said – he agreed that we could tour key installations from the outside. But without the general director's permission we could not be shown any interiors, and the general director was out of town. That tour took us to the big hole, the first mine in Krasnokamensk, which was exploited for 20 years until almost fully depleted. Now ore is mined from underground seams, more than two dozen of them in the area. The hole, dry and empty, looks like the foundation for an enormous unbuilt building. (Environmental activists in Chita say there are persistent rumors that some of the nuclear wastes Russia has agreed to accept, for large fees, from other countries could end up here.) Nearby, vast hills of tailings, at least 500 feet high, dominate the landscape. From another high vantage point on a hill several miles from the hole we could see three big lakes created to hold the liquified waste produced by uranium processing. These wastes contain sulfuric acid used to separate uranium from its ore, and radioactive traces of uranium and other heavy metals. According to Paul Robinson, research director of the Southwest Research and Information Center in Albuquerque and an expert on uranium extraction who was invited to Krasnokamensk in 1996, the enterprise's then-chief ecologist acknowledged there was a problem with leakage from the ponds (lined with clay and plastic) that hold these wastes. The city's drinking water was threatened, Robinson was told. The enterprise was badly burned by a documentary made in 1994 by a team from Greenpeace, which came to Krasnokamensk pretending to be journalists from Swedish television. Greenpeace alleged that the enterprise flagrantly violated accepted norms for dealing with uranium, exposed its workers to unnecessary danger, and allowed some residents of the city to live in homes whose radon levels were many times higher than is considered tolerable for humans. Robinson concluded that while the enterprise has significant environmental problems, the Greenpeace report was exaggerated. (Click here for Robinson's report on ) In their conversations with us, city and enterprise officials spoke at length about the extensive safety precautions they take. But they also acknowledged that people still live in a part of town where radon levels are sometimes astoundingly high, and said that for years the enterprise has been trying to get authorities in Moscow to pay to relocate those people. Vodka and Dancers Administrator Kolov, a six-footer who could easily tip the scales at 300 pounds, insisted that we accept his hospitality, and his insistence carried a good deal of weight. So on to the Alfa Restaurant, a city-owned operation recently spiffed up. In the big cities now, the restaurants are in private hands, sometimes very talented ones, but capitalism is moving slowly in Siberia. In Krasnokamensk the Soviet Union still survives, in spirit if not in fact. When the enterprise recently celebrated its 30th year in full operation, the most productive workers won cars – the modern version of a Soviet medal. Enterprise employees are still sent on free vacations. The spread at the Alfa was extensive. Kolov, it soon became evident, welcomed the visit by foreigners as an excuse to tuck into some local specialties himself, including a bit of vodka. At his instruction, members of a famous local dance company had been invited to the restaurant to demonstrate their considerable talents for the visitors. They went through half a dozen costume changes and danced to blaring recorded music in impressive synchronicity. Over dinner Kolov disclosed a secret. "We're building a church," he revealed, an ambitious Russian Orthodox cathedral with seven onion-shaped cupolas, right in the heart of downtown. It will cost 400 million rubles (or about $15 million), the cost to be shared equally by four backers: the church, the enterprise, the city government and the oblast government. Kolov expects the church to cause quite a sensation when people realize what it is. Return Viktor, our driver, went out in search of two new spare tires, to replace those that blew out on the way here, and at 8 p.m., after much jovial conversation involving Kolov, his press secretary and a local journalist who could not stop bragging about the tomatoes that grow in Krasnokamensk, we were back in the van. About 20 miles out of town on the dirt highway back to Chita, a colossal moon the color of pale butter appeared suddenly above the rolling steppe, rising in the gray dusk of a long Siberian day. Under the nearly full moon, the pale green and brown steppe – part of the land that nurtured Genghis Khan and his descendants, once the world's greatest warriors – seemed for that moment to be boundless, infinite. But it wasn't – in barely nine hours, we were back in Chita. © 2001 The Washington Post Company ***************************************************************** 8 Richard W. Deese Named NRC Resident Inspector at Grand Gulf Nuclear Station Region IV -- 2001- 43 - UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, REGION IV 611 Ryan Plaza Drive, Suite 400, Arlington TX 76011 No. IV-01-043 August 8, 2001 CONTACT: Breck Henderson Phone: 817-860-8128 Cellular: 817-917-1227 e-mail: bwh@nrc.gov The U.S. Nulear Regulatory Commission has named Richard W. Deese to the post of resident inspector at the Grand Gulf Nuclear Station near Port Gibson, Miss. Mr. Deese joins senior resident inspector Timothy Hoeg. Mr. Deese received a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering, with honors, from North Carolina State University in 1986. Following college, he worked at Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory, one of the U.S. Navy's primary contractors for nuclear engineering support, for more than 12 years. He worked as a nuclear plant engineer and instructor at Navy submarine nuclear prototype reactors in Idaho and at a nuclear training ship in Charleston, South Carolina. He also worked as a shipyard engineering resident in Newport News, Virginia, during the refueling, construction and acceptance testing of nuclear powered aircraft carriers. Since joining the NRC in 1999, Mr. Deese has served as a reactor inspector in the Engineering and Maintenance Branch of Division of Reactor Safety at Region IV in Arlington, Texas. Mr. Deese, his wife Stephanie and their four children will reside in Vicksburg. ***************************************************************** 9 Major New Order for Teleca - Modernization of Software for Nuclear Energy Industry Welcome to The PMA OnLine Power Report Hugin Online Financial Announcements ( August 09, 2001 ) CLAB stores spent uranium from the Swedish nuclear power plants in water-filled basins. These are expected to be full by 2004 and CLAB is therefore currently being expanded. In connection with this, the fuel-handling machine, which transports cassettes of spent nuclear fuel within the central storage facility, is being modernized. The assignment for the modernization of the software that guides and positions the machine was awarded to Teleca subsidiary, Benima Sydost AB. "In order to utilize the cutting-edge expertise of the bidders, they were granted a relatively large degree of freedom in their selection of technology," says Börge Thörn, project manager at the Oskarshamn nuclear power plant (OKG), which operates CLAB. "Teleca offered the best combination of technical solution and price." "Our tried and tested concepts for operator interfaces, driver systems, selection of system and high-speed radio communications were appreciated by the team at OKG," says Ingvar Jahnson, project manager at Benima Sydost AB. "We have been involved with the nuclear industry for a long time and the contract that has now been signed involves a further large step on the road from the purchasing of resources to the purchasing of functions." The assignment is valued at approximately SEK 9 M. In total, the refurbishment of the fuel-handling machine is expected to cost approximately SEK 16 M. The expansion of CLAB is scheduled for completion by the beginning of 2004. To see more of Hugin's leading financial information and full-text news release services, go to www.huginonline.com Copyright 2001 Hugin AS. All Rights Reserved. www.powermarketers.com ***************************************************************** 10 Crucial BNFL Pay Ballot THE WHITEHAVEN NEWS Thursday, August 09, 2001 Sellafield workers are being given the choice of taking BNFL's latest pay offer or taking on the company for a better deal through industrial action. Ballot papers have gone to the homes of the site's 4,000 manual workers with a recommendation from national union leaders that they should accept the two-year deal giving a rise of 2.75 per cent on basic pay and allowances plus bonuses and talks on other issues. However, a straw poll taken by shop stewards indicated a rejection by most of the workforce, giving rise to the ballot and raising the threat of possible industrial action. The ballot papers say the company's final offer is the best to be achieved by negotiation and "the only way to make further progress would be by way of sustained and effective industrial action." The result of the secret ballot is expected to be known around August 23. A "no" vote will lead to another ballot over whether to take industrial action. The staff at all the BNFL sites have already accepted, saying they recognised BNFL's "exceptional circumstances" and the need to show a united front for getting the Mox plant licences and showing government its support for a viable nuclear industry. Industrial workers claim BNFL has let them down for failing to deliver promises in the new site "equality" contract two years ago. Independent consultants have put the gloss on Mox. The consultants, Arthur D Little, are advising the government that there is a positive economic case for going ahead with the long-delayed plant which is needed to underpin Sellafield's future. The plant has so far cost £460 million without being able to operate but the consultants expect it to be worth £216 million to the national economy. The consultancy firm says "there is a robust economic case for proceeding with the plant." Copeland MP Jack Cunningham said that as a result he had written to Margaret Becket, the government minister, saying that once the final four-week consultation process was over, the plant should be licensed without further delay. ***************************************************************** 11 New Reactor Would Create 100s Of Jobs THE WHITEHAVEN NEWS Thursday, August 09, 2001 Hopes that Sellafield will get a modern nuclear reactor to replace Calder Hall have brightened. It could cost up to £2 billion but would provide a massive boost to the local economy with the creation of several hundred jobs. While BNFL and the workforce wait anxiously to hear whether the Mox will plant will get the government's go-ahead before the autumn, the Department of Trade and Industry announced: "There are prospects for new (nuclear) build to be economic." The DTI made its admission in a first response to Prime Minister Tony Blair's wide-ranging energy review. Apart from meeting the country's future energy needs, the DTI said that having no nuclear power stations would lead to an increase in carbon dioxide greenhouse gases. Nuclear trade unions are set to lobby nationally and locally for the building of new nuclear reactors as part of the energy review. They say that at Sellafield a new reactor will help sustain the site's long-term viability, providing employment for hundreds of construction workers and later hundreds more BNFL permanent jobs to operate the station. Calder Hall, with its four electricity-producing reactors, will be closed in five years' time. Site GMB convenor John Kane warned: "If we don't start moving now we will miss the boat." Leading Tory councillor Mike Graham, who first mooted the idea, said: "It would be an economic boon to this area - and the time is right to start. "The government should give Sellafield first priority for building a a reactor." Publicly, BNFL remain tight-lipped on whether it wants to build new nuclear reactors, even though the seven Magnox stations it owns are due to close in 2010. Mr Graham criticised the company. "BNFL should come off the fence, stop adopting such a coy attitude and give its wholehearted backing," he said. Mr Kane said: "We must go along the lines of replacement rather than new build on nuclear sites which already have a licence. "The last thing we want is another Mox scenario, where we spent £460 million on a plant and still can't get it licensed. "Just look at Thorp, it took 17 years to finish from conception. We can't afford to wait that long. "It could take only five or six years to build a nuclear reactor but we have to start now because there will be planning permission to get, a public inquiry to go through and maybe a legal challenge from the anti-nukes to overcome. ***************************************************************** 12 Nuclear critics relay Vermont Yankee complaint to NRC Boston Globe Online: Print it! By Associated Press, 8/8/2001 17:08 BRATTLEBORO, Vt. (AP) Two groups critical of nuclear power say they have relayed to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission a whistleblower complaint from a worker at the Vermont Yankee plant. Citizens' Awareness Network and the Union of Concerned Scientists said the whistleblower had complained of unauthorized individuals being able to enter sensitive areas of the plant, and that problems with the plant's circulating cooling water system had not been reported properly. ''We lack the means to confirm or refute the validity of the concerns,'' the groups said in a joint letter asking the NRC to do that. The groups said the unidentified worker had contacted CAN to express the concerns, and that CAN had sought advice from UCS officials on how to respond. Vermont Yankee spokesman Robert Williams said he did not know the status of the investigation but added: ''It's in everyone's best interest that such concerns be addressed. And our process involves a thorough investigation of any specific issues cited so that we can assure ourselves that the plant is operated conservatively and that we are within the regulations.'' NRC spokeswoman Diane Screnci would not comment in detail. ''We have a process for dealing with safety concerns that involves evaluating those concerns to determine what course of action we take,'' she said. ***************************************************************** 13 NRC Appoints Jeffrey Cruz Resident Inspector at Wolf Creek Region IV -- 2001- 44 - UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, REGION IV 611 Ryan Plaza Drive, Suite 400, Arlington TX 76011 No. IV-01-044 August 8, 2001 CONTACT: Breck Henderson Phone: 817-860-8128 Cellular: 817-917-1227 e-mail: bwh@nrc.gov The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has appointed Jeffrey Cruz resident inspector at Wolf Creek Generation Station, a nuclear power plant near Burlington, Kansas. He joins senior resident inspector Frank Brush. Mr. Cruz holds a master's degree in nuclear engineering with emphasis in health physics from the University of Missouri in 1994. He earned a bachelor's degree in general studies with emphasis in mathematics in 1991, also from the University of Missouri. Mr. Cruz joined the NRC in 1995 as a radiation specialist in the Region IV offices in Arlington, Texas. He became a senior health physicist in 1999, also at Region IV. While at Wolf Creek, Mr. Cruz and his family will reside in Ottawa, Kansas. ***************************************************************** 14 Agency to ease qualifying [Las Vegas Review-Journal] Thursday, August 09, 2001 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal Those harmed by radiation exposure might benefit from disability rule changes By STEVE TETREAULT DONREY WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- Thousands of veterans exposed to cancer-causing radiation at the Nevada Test Site and other atomic testing sites might have an easier time qualifying for government disability under a proposal Wednesday by the Department of Veterans Affairs. The department said it plans to ease compensation requirements for veterans who contracted cancers of the lungs, bone, colon, ovaries, and brain and central nervous system after being present at nuclear detonations or after serving in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, after World War II. "Atomic veterans" already qualify for disability compensation if they show they have contracted any of 16 cancers and were stationed where radiation-causing activities occurred. About 200,000 Defense Department personnel were exposed to atmospheric radiation between 1945 and 1963, when above-ground nuclear testing ended. The new proposal will expand the list to 21 cancers that are designated "presumptive" for disability coverage. The designation is important because to prove radiation-induced ailments stemmed from military service is difficult, veterans advocates said. "We're elated the five cancers were added, but there's still a lot more," said Dale Howard, executive director of the New Mexico-based National Association of Atomic Veterans. Jack Nelson, the association's Nevada commander, said the cancers are just "the tip of the iceberg" of what the government ought to cover. Nelson was an Army sergeant in Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the United States dropped atomic bombs on the cities near the end of World War II. "There's a whole list of what is caused by radiation," he said, and he named rheumatoid arthritis and other connective tissue diseases. Nelson, 74, a Las Vegas resident who has had a legal battle with the government over disability claims, said he plans to protest Aug. 28 when Veterans Affairs Director Anthony Principi visits Southern Nevada. In a notice published Wednesday in the Federal Register, Veterans Affairs said the expansion is being proposed to make its disability program consistent with laws passed in recent years extending benefits to civilian victims of radiation exposure at government facilities. Howard said atomic veterans had been pressing for 10 cancers to be added to program, but the Bush administration agreed to five. Veterans with rectal cancer, skin cancer and several forms of thyroid disease and cataracts will continue to face difficulties persuading the VA their illnesses are linked to their service, he said. Veterans Affairs projected it would receive 91,567 disability claims from veterans under the new program and would grant 10,998 of them, about 12 percent if claims history remains consistent. Also expected are 48,050 claims from dependents, with some 5,766 expected to be granted. The new benefits will cost taxpayers $769 million over 10 years. Besides adding five cancers, the government is proposing to cover former service members who before 1992 were at uranium enrichment plants in Paducah, Ky., Portsmouth, Ohio, and Oak Ridge, Tenn. Also proposed for coverage are military personnel stationed on Amchitka Island, Alaska, before 1974. Underground nuclear detonations were conducted in 1965, 1969 and 1971 at the island. Publication of the proposal starts a 60-day public comment period, after which Veterans Affairs officials could amend the regulation. Then the proposed rule would undergo another 60-day comment period before becoming final. ***************************************************************** 15 DOE seeks comments on wind farm at NTS Las Vegas SUN Today: August 09, 2001 at 8:32:18 PDT The Department of Energy is asking the public to comment on a proposed wind farm at the Nevada Test Site that could generate 600 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 300,000 homes. The DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration will accept comments until Aug. 24 on possible environmental impacts from running up to 545 wind turbines on more than 1,000 acres at the Test Site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The first meeting is scheduled from 5 to 8 p.m. on Aug. 16 at the Nevada Operations Office, 232 Energy Way, North Las Vegas. The second meeting is set for 6 to 9 p.m. on Aug. 17 in Pahrump's community center. Written comments may be sent to Kevin Thornton, National Nuclear Security Administration, Nevada Operations Office, P.O. Box 98518, Las Vegas, NV 89193-8518 or e-mail them (). All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 16 NRC Seeks Public Comment on Proposed Rule Allowing Parts of Reactor Sites to Be Released for Unrestricted Use Press Release - 2001 - 98 - U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 20555-001 E-mail: opa@nrc.gov Web Site: http://www.nrc.gov/OPA No. 01-098 August 8, 2001 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is seeking public comment on a proposed rule that will standardize the process for permitting nuclear power plant licensees to release parts of their facilities or sites for unrestricted use before the reactor operating license has been terminated. At present, NRC regulations do not directly address the release of part of a reactor facility or site before the NRC approves a license termination plan. The license termination plan describes the steps to be followed to decommission a reactor facility and to satisfy radioactive exposure criteria in NRC regulations in order to allow release of the site for other uses. Recently, several NRC reactor licensees have expressed interest in releasing parts of their sites. The proposed rule is directed at operating and decommissioning reactor facilities and does not include other nuclear facilities, such as those engaged in fuel fabrication. NRC has issued a Regulatory Information Summary (RIS 2000-19) that provides interim guidance to licensees pursuing partial site releases before the rule is issued. Licensees that follow the RIS would provide information to the NRC to support case-by-case reviews of proposed releases. Under the proposed rule, the NRC will conduct reviews and inspections to ensure that strict radiological criteria will be met. The NRC will publish a public notice when it receives a licensee's proposal for a partial site release, seek public comments, and hold a public meeting in the vicinity of the power plant. The NRC believes that the proposed rule will help maintain safety by establishing a consistent process for considering partial site releases. The proposed rule will add a new section to Part 50 of Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations. Interested persons are invited to submit comments on the proposed rule within 75 days after publication of a Federal Register notice on this subject, expected shortly. Comments may be sent to the Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, Attention: Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff. Comments may also be submitted electronically via the NRC's interactive rulemaking web site at: http://ruleforum.llnl.gov. ***************************************************************** 17 Chao Event in Portsmouth, Ohio Postponed -- Due to an unexpected scheduling conflict the ceremony surrounding the presentation of the compensation check has been postponed. However, Ohio's first compensation check will be delivered as scheduled, and a statement from Secretary Chao will be released Friday. Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao will present Ohio's first compensation check under a new program for sick nuclear weapons employees, former employees and survivors in Portsmouth, Ohio on Friday, Aug. 10, at the Comfort Inn in Piketon, Ohio. Tim Gannon, a cancer victim who worked at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, submitted the first complete claim at the Portsmouth center for compensation under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Act. Gannon will be the first person in Ohio to receive compensation under this new program. The Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act went into effect Tuesday, July 31. Congress passed the new law to compensate nuclear weapons employees of the Department of Energy and its contractors or subcontractors who became seriously ill because of exposure to radiation, beryllium or silica on the job. It also compensates some surviving family members. -- The following event has been postponed. Contact: Sue Hensley, 202-693-4650 EVENT: Presentation of compensation check under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act by Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao DATE: Friday, Aug. 10 TIME: 11:30 a.m. LOCATION: Comfort Inn hotel in Piketon 7525 US 23 Piketon, Ohio 45661 --- U.S. Labor Department news releases are accessible on the Internet at www.dol.gov. The information in this release will be made available in alternative format upon request (large print, Braille, audio tape or disc) from the COAST office. Please specify which news release when placing your request. Call 202-693-7773 or TTY 202-693-7755. Copyright © 2001 Yahoo! Inc. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 In pictures: Nagasaki A-bomb remembered BBC News | ASIA-PACIFIC | 9 August, 2001, 15:14 GMT 16:14 UK In pictures: Nagasaki A-bomb remembered Nagasaki's mayor has attacked the lack of progress in eliminating nuclear weapons. Marking the 56th anniversary of the US attack on his city Mayor Itcho Ito said despite agreements to eliminate nuclear arsenals, 30,000 warheads remain and the nuclear threat is now on the point of expanding into space. He also accused "one superpower" of "insinuating" it may renege on international commitments on nuclear disarmament. [Nagasaki pictured shortly after 1945 nuclear attack] About 70,000 people died on the morning of 9 August 1945 when a US plane dropped a nuclear bomb named "Fat Man" on Nagasaki [PM Koizumi and girl and woman attend memorial ceremony] Several thousand people including Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi attended a ceremony at the city's Peace Park [Congregation praying in Uragami Church in Nagasaki] Across the city many observed a minute's silence and prayed as a bell rang out and an air-raid siren sounded [Boy lighting candles] Candles were also lit in remembrance [Peace Monument in Nagasaki's Peace Park] Nagasaki's mayor made a plea that the city should "forever remain the last place to have suffered nuclear attack" ***************************************************************** 2 Victims ousted by atom bomb project keep town memories alive Thursday, August 9, 2001 By LISA STIFFLER SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER "One morning while eating breakfast, we looked out the window to see a huge earth-moving machine come crashing through the pasture fence, up through the orchard and straight toward the house ... stopping just under the breakfast nook window. ... "Everything was mystery and confusion. No one knew why (we were) being evicted. My father guessed that they might be using the area for poison gas manufacturing -- and that turned out to be an idea not quite sinister enough." -- Helen Wheeler Hastay, former resident of White Bluffs RICHLAND -- In the early spring of 1943, farmers in White Bluffs and Hanford eagerly awaited the harvest of cherries, plums and apricots. They had weathered the Great Depression and fruit prices were up. The future seemed as bright as the surrounding chalk-white cliffs and the sparkling Columbia River water that nourished their desert orchards. Suddenly their dreams were squashed like an overripe peach. On March 6, the federal government ordered them to evacuate their homes, no questions asked. Their Eastern Washington utopia was needed for a top-secret government project essential to the war effort. About 1,500 residents, including Wanapum Indians who had been there for thousands of years, were evicted in the name of the Manhattan Project. The military quickly built a new security-cloaked city, where workers produced plutonium for the atomic bomb that dropped on Nagasaki 56 years ago today, killing 70,000 people instantly and thousands more from radiation-related diseases. The war ended. The world changed. The fields dried up. The people torn from their farms grew old. [Touring the remains] Former residents of Hanford tour the remains of the high school during a reunion last weekend. The Manhattan Project chased about 1,500 people from Hanford and White Bluffs. Phil H. Webber / Seattle Post-Intelligencer Click for larger photo But today, they still deeply cherish their former towns. And last weekend, more than 100 former White Bluffs and Hanford residents and their descendants gathered in Richland for a 58th reunion. "It was such a tight community. Everyone helped each other," said Margaret Coburn, a former Hanford resident. "The bond is so strong." The project site was chosen for its proximity to dams that could provide cheap energy, its easy access to water needed to cool the nuclear reactors and the isolation that would hide the endeavor from prying eyes. Coburn, 83, lamented that the isolation that made the towns so special and friendships so close also was the reason for their demise. Yet for all of the sadness, the reunion did not focus on what was lost. Mainly, old friends used it to catch up and to reminisce about the wonderful old times -- swimming in irrigation ditches, riding horses bareback across the desert and dancing at Liberty Hall. "I wish everybody could see it as we who lived here saw it." -- Annette Heriford, 80 The air-conditioned tour bus stopped on what used to be the main street of White Bluffs and is now part of the sprawling Hanford Nuclear Reservation, bare except for sporadic cement-block buildings that stopped producing plutonium long ago. Once a pioneer town with about 500 residents, it doesn't look like much now. On both sides of the road, yellow grass sprouts from a cracked sidewalk that disappears into sand and sagebrush. Behind a chain-link fence stands the only remaining structure in town, the First Bank of White Bluffs, built in 1907. Its large windows are covered in plywood and its gray bricks are crumbling along one wall. But when Elroy Wiehl, 85, gazed through the bus windshield, he didn't see scraggly locust trees, windswept tumbleweeds and the decrepit shell of the bank. Taking the microphone, he resurrected for the reunion group fond images of the past. The giant nuclear reactors that loomed in the distance seemed to fade away. From memory, Wiehl mentally walked the bus passengers up and down the old town. He gestured to where Pop English's drugstore used to be, and to where Doc Newton's dentist shop was across from the bank. Heriford piped in, reviving memories of the "little red-haired phone operator" named Josephine. Wiehl recalled "old Ed Anderson's" Liberty Hall, with recycled car seats fixed up for watching movies and moved away for dancing when the orchestra took the stage. "It looks real deserted now, but we had a lot of fun here," Heriford said. "Hundreds of millions of dollars were spent on the Manhattan Project, and a few thousand more, spent justly, would have eliminated the bitterness, if not the hurt." -- Helen Wheeler Hastay The fun ended abruptly in 1943. Residents were given between two days and three months to abandon their homes. In her remembrances, Hastay wrote that there was only one truck for two families to pile their belongings into. Her father had to ride all the way to Seattle on top of the load of clothes, pots and other housewares. Many of the young men were away in the service when their families were evicted. Wiehl left White Bluffs in 1941 for the military. "I never got to go back," he said. Men and their families exchanged confused correspondence over what was happening. The injury of eviction was further insulted by the offers of compensation. [Finding a car door] Dr. Karen Roberts and her nephew Keith Roberts look for the home site at the former town of White Bluffs from which her grandfather, William F. Roberts, was evicted in 1943. They found a car door on the home site. Phil H. Webber / Seattle Post-Intelligencer Click for larger photo Dr. Karen Roberts, a physician who came from California for the reunion, said her grandfather was offered $2,500 for his 10 acres, which included a house and apple and cherry orchards. "He bought this property in 1908, and it was bare land," Roberts said. Her family and many others sued the government for higher reimbursement. William F. Roberts eventually received about $8,200. "He was very bitter," she said. Others received much less. One family reportedly got $500 for 40 acres. Hastay wrote that her family was offered $1,500 for its fruit-rich land -- half what it had paid for an empty lot of sagebrush 35 years earlier. Many begged to stay long enough to harvest their crops, though it appears that few were allowed to. The government reportedly used prisoners, possibly Italian prisoners of war, to pick the crops. A Seattle Post-Intelligencer article from February 1944 reported that the seized farms had yielded 10,000 tons of food for the armed forces. "Residents of this area will be proud of the part they are playing in the war effort when the nature of this project can be revealed." -- Maj. R.F. Ebbs, U.S. Engineers, in the P-I, Feb. 12, 1944 Most left the area in 1943, relocating in other Eastern Washington towns or scattering across the nation. Heriford decided to get a job with the Hanford project, allowing her to remain in her home for 13 months after receiving the eviction notice. She worked in "blueprints," doing secretarial work that required her to drive all around the site. "This was my country, and I wanted to see what they were doing," Heriford said. Almost overnight, the area was transformed. Within a year, a construction crew of 44,000 replaced the 1,500 residents. Hanford ballooned to one of the largest cities in the state. The workers lived in barracks segregated by gender and race or in trailers. It was the world's largest trailer park at the time. Some top brass moved into homes vacated by the former residents. Stores and businesses became government office space. Some buildings were set ablaze and used for firefighting practice. The towns' cemeteries were moved to neighboring Prosser. Rumors flew about the mission of the site. Most believed the project involved poison gas. According to a P-I story on Aug. 8, 1945, the standing joke was that Hanford produced sandpaper, "made simply by hanging out glued paper and waiting for the wind to blow." The truth emerged when the first bomb dropped on Hiroshima. "When I heard the atom bomb was dropped, it went 'click, click, click,'" Wiehl said, "and I knew." "There wasn't anything even resembling a celebration over the disclosure of the secret. The town's single tavern reported it did no more business last night than any ordinary Monday night." -- P-I, Aug. 8, 1945 Even after the bomb was dropped and the secret revealed, former residents were not allowed to visit the old towns for 23 years. During that time, all but the bank in White Bluffs and the high school in Hanford were moved or razed. The orchards were chopped down, but in some places today, their black stumps are still visible in neat rows. [The vault] The vault still stands in the First Bank of White Bluffs, built in 1907 when the pioneer town was home to about 500 people. Nearly all that is left of White Bluffs today are the memories of its one-time residents. Phil H. Webber / Seattle Post-Intelligencer Click for larger photo Heriford and her mother first returned to their old home together in 1968. "I was thrilled to be back," she said. For her mother, "I could tell it was heartbreaking. She'd worked so hard on her yard." All people found were scraps of their past lives. "Grown men would stand there and cry," said Heriford, becoming tearful herself. Roberts visited the Hanford site for the first time during the weekend reunion. Her father died in 1997, and she was eager to find the farm of his childhood. Her nephew, Keith Roberts, used the bank's location to calculate where the farm had been. There, they found a piece of house siding, the rusting remains of barrel rings and part of what might have been a chair. "I'm happy to see this," Karen Roberts said. "We're doing this in my father's honor." Coburn couldn't make it back until the 1970s. Her memories of a verdant farm country clashed with an endless sandy desert. "There was nothing," she said. Now, she and others want to preserve what little is left. Darby Stapp of the Hanford Cultural Resources Laboratory is trying to develop a preservation strategy. But time is running out. Buildings continue to crumble and past inhabitants are aging. "If we don't do some of the stuff now, we'll never be able to recover it," Stapp said. P-I reporter Lisa Stiffler can be reached at 206-448-8042 or lisastiffler@seattlepi.com [Seattle Post-Intelligencer] 101 Elliott Ave. W. Seattle, WA 98119 (206) 448-8000 Send comments to newmedia@seattle-pi.com ©1999-2001 Seattle Post-Intelligencer ***************************************************************** 3 "KURSK" Lifting Operation: British Radioactive “Track” in the Northern Seas A 3-D model of "the Kursk lifting operation" allows the viewer to follow all the stages of the operation in real time (prepared by the Parallel Graphics Limited Company). Kursk salvage operation official comments British Radioactive “Track” in the Northern Seas The Kursk submarine lifting operation keeps attracting scrupulous and sometimes biased attention from the Western ecologists. The findings of numerous ecologists, confirming that the sub’s reactors are completely shut down and do not present any danger for the surroundings, are often doubted. At the same time, the activities of some foreign enterprises that seriously threaten the ecological situation are often left unnoticed. The data, made available to Strana.ru by the state and public ecological organizations Rosgidromet and Goskomprirody, provides the evidence that the main source of pollution in the North and Norwegian Seas come from a British nuclear wastes recycling enterprise in Sellafield. As a result of the activity of this enterprise the radioactive background in the Norwegian coastal waters has increased sixfold since 1996. Dutch Green Peace activists have collected more than 120 kg of radioactive soil from the lands surrounding the plant. Judging by the European standards and the Denmark state Health Care and Nature Institute specialists’ opinion, these samples can be considered a radioactive waste. Dozens of hectares of land around Sellafield are highly polluted and need deactivation with removal of the top soil layer. The removed soil should be buried according to the standards on handling radioactive waste. British experts specializing on ecological problems believe that between 1946 and 1993 the plant managed to dump three times as much radioactive wastes than officially reported by the Great Britain. In the opinion of Belgian ecologists, the annual radioactive waste flow into the North Sea from the Stellafield enterprise and similar French plants is up to hundreds million liters. The evidence of the radioactive substances leaks from these enterprises is found not only in the Irish and North Seas, but also in the North-East Atlantic and the Arctic Ocean. Russian scientists have also been able to detect the evidence of the British plant harmful effects on the surrounding environment. The research done by the specialists from Radievo Institute, named after Khlopin, has helped to disperse the myth about the Russian origin of the most of the radioactive pollution in the European arctic seas. The scientists have established that the “British track” can be found in at least a half of the radioactive plutonium sediment at the bottom of the Barents and Norwegian Seas. Along with the fallouts from testing nuclear devices in the atmosphere and from the burnt American satellite SNAP-9A, the liquid radioactive wastes flow that comes from the Stellafield plant is one of the main sources of plutonium pollution of these sea beds. This conclusion was made by specialists from the radioactive pollution monitoring laboratory in the aforementioned Institute in St. Petersburg named after Khlopin. According to Andrey Stepanov, the leading specialist of the laboratory and an expert of the Helsinki commission on radioactive Baltic Sea environmental pollution studies, it is possible to detect the origin of the radioactive waste using a special method of plutonium isotopes detection developed in the Radiev Institute. This method made it possible to assess the degree of harmful effects of the Tulla (Greenland) and the atomic sub “Komsomolets” accidents, the fallouts from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident, and also the river deposits caused by radiochemical plants in the Urals and Siberia. All of those turned out to be not even close to the harmfulness of the “British Track”. This research started in 1996 as a part of investigation of the “Komsomolets” submarine accident. It has shown that there is no weapon plutonium in the bottom sediments. Half of the water pollution came from the Stellafield plant discharges in the 50’s. With time, North Atlantic currents slowly transported the waste from the British plants into the Arctic seas. At the present time, there is a secondary movement of the waste deposits to the other seas. The rest is what comes form the air in the form of radioactive rain and snow. According to Andrey Stepanov, the laboratory specialists carried out a complex investigation of the radioactivity on the site of the Kursk submarine accident. The samples taken from the surface and the interior of the sub indicate a background level of radiation. Bottom sediment tests did not reveal any additional pollution. Besides, “Sevmorgeo” expedition in December 2000 studied geological hollows and folds in the area around the accident site, where radioactive deposits might accumulate. However, the analysis of this study concluded that there were no radioactive discharges from Kursk. The difference between Kursk and Komsomolts accidents is that the latter sank while in the on-surface position. As a result, ventilation shafts were left open on Komsomolets and the reactor’s heat-transfer agent was slowly leaking out through them. This lead to a 35-50 percent higher alpha-activity of plutonium than the normal level. But even this increased background radiation cannot be detected from a 100 meters distance to the sunken submarine. At the same time, from the experts’ point of view, the radioactive pollution is caused mainly by the British atomic submarines deployed at the naval bases in Faslaine and Devenport. The nuclear reactors maintenance technology currently approved for the British navy foresees partial discharge of the radioactive liquid coolant into the water. Swedish, Finish and British ecologists also believe that some danger comes from the nuclear power stations that are currently in operation in the Northern European region. © Development and support , 2001 ***************************************************************** 4 Islands of concern [Asia Times Online] August 9, 2001 atimes.com PACIFIC BEAT By Alan Boyd SYDNEY - Meetings of the South Pacific Forum, the annual gathering of small island states from across the Pacific region, have a habit of focusing more attention on participants than their bewildering array of issues. Environmental neglect, nuclear waste shipments, crumbling transport links and cultural marginalization head the official menu. But the side dishes are usually more tasty: ethnic strife in Fiji, human rights abuses in Bourgainvillea, tribal discord in the Solomons. Expect more of the same when Nauru hosts the 2001 forum next week on August 16. Several months ago the tiny coral atoll was threatened with economic sanctions by the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) for failing to clean up its murky offshore banking operations. Mostly branches of overseas financial groups, the 400 banks were said to be laundering billions of dollars for drug-trafficking and terrorist organizations, including US$70 billion in Russian mafia takings that transited through New York. Neighboring Niue, the Cook Islands and the Marshall Islands were also targeted, but these countries have shown a greater commitment to anti-laundering measures. And they are not the hosts of the biggest annual meeting of regional leaders. Viewed from another perspective, Nauru is probably the ideal venue for assessing what has gone wrong with the vision expounded by the forum in 1985, with its objectives of improving living standards, pursuing sustainable development, conserving natural resources and protecting the environment. Failings of government and lack of foresight have left the island nation of 12,000 people at the mercy of its own misguided development frenzy. A systemic raping of the island interior by foreign phosphate mining companies has turned the island of 21 square kilometers into a wasteland that has neither the capital nor the diversified resources base needed for long-term survival. There is no arable land, no forest and limited fishing stocks. Most of the mining base will evaporate when the phosphate runs out in the next year or two. Funds were set aside for the post-phosphate period as part of a 1993 settlement by Australia of compensation claims for the destruction wrought by its mining firms. But much has since been siphoned off to cover burgeoning government budget deficits. Tourism is not a big money-spinner on a barren atoll showered by mining dust that even has to import its water supplies from Australia and has made minimal investment in public services and basic infrastructure. That leaves the much-berated banking scheme, which survives only because of generous tax shelters and a virtual absence of regulatory scrutiny. Money-laundering rules that were rushed out last month to pacify the OECD have put even this business under a cloud. Exploitative investors from Australia, Britain and New Zealand obviously bear a large share of the blame for the tragedy of Nauru; yet there is no escaping the policy vacuum that has allowed the precipitous decline of a community that was once rated among the wealthiest worldwide on a per capita basis. Now it has a foreign debt of $34 million, or $2,833 for every citizen. The global pressure group GATT Watchdog noted several years ago that the South Pacific was pursuing a development model that had proved disastrous for the forum's 16 members. Instead of the 1985 goals of achieving a better quality of life, more self-reliance and greater equality, the region faces unprecedented challenges due to its dependency upon non-renewable resources that benefit a relatively small sector of the population. One hint of what went wrong can be found in the growth vision, which sought to secure "openness, accountability and other principles of good government" by 2010, the target date set for realizing the overall objectives. If openness can be defined in terms of political participation, then the forum could be said to have passed the test, as governments have come and gone with hectic abandon in recent years. Sometimes, without even a hint of military interference. But the frequent changes of leadership have only served to undermine the greater objective of securing stable and sustainable growth that can draw upon the islands' strengths instead of importing capital-intensive Western models. Political maturity is indivisible from equitable economic development, and will continue to be a distant goal until the South Pacific nations end their pursuit of short-term fixes. The 1985 vision says it all. This region needs to nurture its resources "with proper regard for conservation, the legacy of past generations and the future" so that "unity in securing shared interests contributes to the national, regional and global good". As they gather in Nauru next week, forum members might want to ponder whether tax schemes and strip mining really meet these commendable aims, or have merely served to strengthen their reliance upon unpredictable external conditions. And, whether they should be reaching back to a previous era of self-sufficiency, when security was quantified as a state of personal well-being, and not just fleeting financial rewards. ((c)2001 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please ***************************************************************** 5 Perma-Fix begins Oak Ridge operations - 2001-08-09 - Atlanta Business Chronicle Atlanta-based Perma-Fix Environmental Services Inc. (Nasdaq: PESI) has opened and begun accepting radioactive and hazardous waste at its recently purchased treatment facility in Oak Ridge, Tenn. Perma-Fix has three subcontracts from the Department of Energy (DOE) and other federal agencies worth more than $100 million for the treatment of mixed waste stored at Oak Ridge and wastes shipped from 40 other governmental sites. The 125,000-square-foot facility, located on the grounds of the DOE's Oak Ridge K-25 weapons facility, uses Perma-Fix's technology to process radioactive and hazardous materials without using incineration, reducing the impact on the environment. Output from the plant consists of encapsulated radioactive waste ready for long-term safe disposal. The Oak Ridge site was built between 1943 and 1946 as part of the secret Manhattan Project to develop an atomic bomb. Uranium was enriched at Oak Ridge for use in the first atomic bombs and later for use in nuclear power reactors. As a result, it contains one of the nation's largest single stockpiles of nuclear waste, including large amounts of waste from various technologies used in enriching uranium. Copyright 2001 American City Business Journals Inc. ***************************************************************** 6 Kentucky woman receives first check for sick nuclear workers Las Vegas SUN Today: August 09, 2001 at 12:50:49 PDT PADUCAH, Ky. (AP) - With knees trembling, Clara Harding clutched a $150,000 benefit check Thursday as U.S. Labor Secretary Elaine Chao presented the first payment from a compensation program for sick nuclear workers. "I haven't slept in three days, and I was up at 4 a.m. this morning," Harding, 78, said. Her husband, Joe, died more than 20 years ago after being exposed to toxic levels of uranium at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant. The Department of Labor began accepting claims on July 31. The $150,000 lump-sum payments will go to former workers who have certain types of cancer and who worked at the plant before 1992. If the worker has died, the money will go to a surviving spouse, and, in some cases, to surviving children. "There is no more poignant example of how people can transform their trials into triumphs than the tender story of Joe and Clara Harding," Chao said after the presentation. David Fuller, president of the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers Local 5-550, said it was gratifying. "Joe Harding was a member of our union and a co-worker of mine. It's been a long and frustrating battle to get to this day," Fuller said. Before Joe Harding died of cancer in 1980, his bones were found to contain up to 34,000 times the expected concentration of uranium. Yet while he lived, he was denied compensation because official records showed he was only exposed to small levels of radiation. However, his widow and daughter, Martha Alls, continued to fight after his death. Clara Harding said she will continue to work for sick workers. "I'm going to help anyone who needs it so their families can be compensated for what has happened," she said. "But at least the pressure is off of me now." The Energy Department has identified 317 sites that employed more than 600,000 people in 37 states, Washington D.C., the Marshall Islands and Puerto Rico for nuclear weapons-related work during the Cold War. Sick workers employed at those facilities might qualify for compensation under the program, which is estimated to cost $1.9 billion over a decade. On the Net: Labor Department Office of Workers' Compensation Programs: http://www.dol.gov/dol/esa/public/owcp-org.htm Energy Department: http://www.energy.gov/ All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 7 Worker's safety allegations filed with nuclear agency Thursday, August 9, 2001 VERNON, Vt. — An employee's concerns about safety at the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station have been passed on by the Citizens Awareness Network to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. At issue are formal allegations that unauthorized people have been allowed to access some of the plant's equipment; that deficiencies with the plant's water-circulation system have not been reported as required; and that open reporting of safety concerns has been "discouraged or prevented," in some instances. The concerns were reported anonymously to Deborah B. Katz, head of the citizens group, by a plant employee who worked on the circulating water system and is "intimately aware of its faults," Katz said. But the citizens network and its ally, the Union of Concerned Scientists, jointly determined that they did not have the means to properly assess the validity of the information and therefore filed the formal allegations with the NRC, which has inspection and governing power over the nuclear industry. A commission spokesman declined to discuss the filing, but Tuesday issued a guide to how the NRC will respond, including issuing a preliminary response to the filers by Sept. 1. Robert O. Williams, spokesman for Vermont Yankee, said no notification of a filed allegation has been received from the NRC to date, but the company would begin an internal review of the concerns on its own. © 2001 UNION-NEWS. Used with permission. ***************************************************************** 8 Hydrogen theory in Kursk disaster - CNN.com - August 9, 2001 [The Kursk sank after a massive explosion in the front section] The Kursk sank after a massive explosion in the front section By CNN's Mike Harrison LONDON, England (CNN) -- Russia is considering the possibility of a link between the loss of the Kursk nuclear submarine and the sinking of a British submarine 46 years ago. Senior Russian officials suggested the Kursk and the British HMS Sidon may have suffered the same malfunction -- a hydrogen peroxide leak. Sidon, which sank in 1955 killing 13 men, is believed to have suffered a leak of hydrogen peroxide, which is used to propel torpedoes. British Navy investigators believe that a pipe containing the chemical burst, sparking an explosion on board Sidon. Britain stopped using hydrogen peroxide after the accident. But Igor Spassky, who designed the Kursk and almost all of Russia's nuclear submarines, said Russia had continued using it. • 'Giant' bid to raise Kursk • Russia's military plight • Kursk namesake • Comparative sizes • Diagram: Last refuge • Damage to the sub • Timeline of sinking • Sub position • Anatomy of Kursk • • • Quick vote • • Courtesy of kursksalvage.com • Vice Admiral Mikhail Barskov, deputy commander in chief of the Russian Navy, told a news conference in London on Wednesday: "We have reviewed the British data. We didn't reject this option." Russian officials have previously said that the first explosion, which sent the Kursk crashing to the bottom of the Barents Sea last August, killing all 118 men on board, was probably caused by a torpedo exploding in one of the nose tubes. But the Russian government is still investigating what prompted the blast. So far 12 bodies have been recovered from the Kursk and Putin has promised that the submarine will be lifted. Officials then hope to determine why it sank. Raising the submarine involves detaching the front compartment. Then the rest of the vessel is due to be connected by cables to 26 hydraulic lifts anchored to a giant pontoon. The Kursk should then be towed to the Arctic port of Murmansk. ***************************************************************** 9 Group Studies Radiation Risks THE WHITEHAVEN NEWS GROUP STUDIES RADIATION RISKS Thursday, August 09, 2001 Environment minister Michael Meacher this week announced a new study would be done into the effects of low level radiation contamination. The study could be significant to operations at Sellafield which generate low levels of radioactive contamination into the local environment. Mr Meacher said the Government's independent advisory Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment has been asked to establish a new, broad-based working group to review the risks associated with internal radiation emitters and the need for further research. Membership of the working group will be announced soon. Mr Meacher said: "There are significant differences of view among experts about the precise impacts of the internal ingestion of radionuclides and these need to be resolved. "This new working group will reach across all parties in the debate on risks of radiation, to assess the impact and reach a consensus on whether the current risk models continue to be valid." ***************************************************************** 10 S.C. congressmen may halt SRS plutonium shipments By SAMMY FRETWELL and LEE BANDY Staff Writers Several S.C. congressmen want to block plutonium shipments to the Savannah River Site next year unless the federal government explains its plans for the deadly radioactive metal. Rep. John Spratt, D-S.C., said Wednesday he proposed legislation that would effectively stop the shipments, as Gov. Jim Hodges had requested in a July 31 letter. Hodges' letter asked Spratt and Republican Reps. Lindsey Graham and Floyd Spence to support the plutonium ban. Graham said he supports the measure to block shipments beginning Feb. 1 if the issue isn't resolved. Spence could not be reached for comment. The Department of Energy plans to start shipping plutonium to SRS in the next few months, agency spokesman Bill Taylor said. The plutonium will come from federal weapons plants across the country for processing at the Aiken County nuclear site. Recent developments have cast doubt about the plutonium program among South Carolina leaders. Their concern centers on what the DOE will do with the material once it is processed. The DOE's long-term plan was to ship plutonium processed at SRS either to Nevada for disposal or to nuclear plants in the Carolinas for use as fuel. Earlier this year, however, the Bush Administration put on hold a plan to process plutonium for disposal in Nevada. Questions also have arisen recently about processing the rest of the plutonium into fuel for Duke Energy Corp. plants across the Carolinas, Graham and Hodges said. The worry is that SRS will become the national dumping ground for leftover plutonium. Plutonium is considered one of the most dangerous radioactive materials. Even small amounts can increase a person's chances of lung cancer, some research has shown. "It is clear that DOE plans to renege on many of its prior commitments on SRS to South Carolina," Hodges said in his letter to Spratt, Graham and Spence. His letter follows months of criticism of the DOE that has included a flurry of complaint letters to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham. Abraham, who met Monday with Hodges,will be at the Savannah River Site today to address employees and tour the former nuclear weapons complex, DOE spokesman Joe Davis said. Davis said the energy department is eager to resolve the dispute "without getting ahead of ourselves emotionally." Spratt's legislation would block shipments after Feb. 1 if the government doesn't establish a schedule for processing the material and a method of disposal elsewhere. Spratt succeeded in getting an amendment added to the defense budget that calls for the Department of Energy to sign an agreement with South Carolina setting forth a clear strategy for moving the deadly fuel out of the state. "There must be a clear exit strategy," Spratt said. The legislation is scheduled for House debate after Labor Day. Another concern among the South Carolina congressmen and Hodges is a proposed facility that would encase some of the excess plutonium into a safer glass form for disposal. Delays in building the facility have South Carolina officials concerned it may be scrapped, which they say increases the chances plutonium will remain at SRS. Spratt's measure calls for a processing facility to be built. About 17 facilities around the country need to ship plutonium, Spratt said. Rocky Flats, Colo, would be the first to ship plutonium to South Carolina, according to plans. Graham said in a news release Wednesday he's "not enthusiastic about the possibility of DOE shipping plutonium to the state when they don't have a concrete plan saying what they are going to do once it's here." Both Graham and Spratt said they also are concerned that the DOE will drop plans to build a mixed oxide fuel facility at SRS.The fuel plant would prepare plutonium for use in commercial nuclear plants. A federal report obtained recently by the Nuclear Control Institute says the estimated cost of disposing of plutonium has risen 50 percent to $6.6 billion since 1999. "The National Security Council questioned whether it would be worth spending the money on MOX," Spratt said. © Copyright 2001 The State-Record Company ***************************************************************** 11 Technology:SRS changes plan for waste treatment Augusta Georgia: 08/09/01 Web posted Thursday, August 9, 2001 By Brandon Haddock Staff Writer After years of delays and dilemmas, Savannah River Site engineers said Wednesday they might have found a way to treat some of the site's most hazardous radioactive waste. Under a plan to be submitted next week to the U.S. Department of Energy, the site would use existing plants to treat about 3,500 gallons of solution containing americium and curium, SRS engineers said during a committee meeting of the site's Citizens Advisory Board. That plan is an about-face from a previous proposal that would have built a new plant to treat the solution. The liquid has been deemed a ''high radiation and contamination hazard'' by the federal Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. ''We haven't identified any showstoppers,'' said Kim Hauer, maintenance and outage manager for Westinghouse Savannah River Co.'s high-level waste division, during Wednesday's meeting. Westinghouse operates SRS under contract with the Energy Department. Using existing plants would cost much less than the $129 million price tag for building a new plant, Mr. Hauer said, although he wouldn't discuss cost estimates for the new proposal before next week's report to the Energy Department. Work to design a treatment plant was suspended in May after cost estimates for the project ballooned again. Under the new plan, engineers would neutralize and dilute the solution. The liquid then would be transferred from a tank inside the site's massive F-Canyon plant to a feed tank for the site's Defense Waste Processing Facility. That facility would turn the solution, by now mixed with liquid wastes generated by other SRS activities, into a radioactive glass suitable for long-term burial. SRS officials said they had evaluated similar options before, but had decided against them because they were considered technically risky and would have had a detrimental effect on site equipment. But research, and a new, simpler path for transferring the waste, have lessened such concerns, site engineers said. Reach Brandon Haddock at (706) 823-3409 or bhaddock@augustachronicle.com. All contents ©1996 - 2001 The Augusta Chronicle. All rights ***************************************************************** 12 NCI RELEASES DOE PLUTONIUM DISPOSAL COST STUDY WITHHELD FROM CONGRESS 8/9/2001 NCI Press Release Contact:  Tom Clements August 9, 2001 202-822-8444, clements@nci.org Dramatic Costs Increases Point to Demise of Plutonium Fuel (MOX) Program Washington, DC---The Nuclear Control Institute today released a Department of Energy (DOE) reportbeing withheld from Congress on the escalating cost estimates for the disposition of surplus weapons plutonium.  DOE continues to withhold the report from Congress despite a legal requirement to provide it by February 15, 2001 to the House and Senate Appropriations Committees.  The report shows that the estimated cost for disposition of plutonium as nuclear fuel has increased dramatically, thus calling into question the viability of this approach. The draft report, required in the Fiscal Year 2001 Appropriations Act, reveals that the estimated cost of U.S. plutonium disposition has risen to $6.6 billion, a 50% increase over 1999 estimates.  The estimated cost of disposition of plutonium as fuel (mixed oxide, or MOX) in commercial nuclear reactors has risen about 50% since 1999 to about $3 billion, while disposition via immobilization of plutonium in high-level nuclear waste has stayed flat since 1999 at about $1.5 billion.  Immobilization and MOX are the components of DOE’s “dual track” plutonium disposition program, a policy to dispose of 50 tons of surplus weapons plutonium. z “We find it contrary to the will of Congress and harmful to the discussion over the fate of surplus plutonium that DOE has withheld release of this report which was required by law,” said Tom Clements, Executive Director of the Nuclear Control Institute, a non-profit non-proliferation research and advocacy center.  The report was withheld even while funding levels for the program for Fiscal Year 2002 were being determined in the House and Senate Appropriations Committees.  “The report confirms that the plutonium disposition program faces great cost increases, with the MOX program being a main driver in those increases.  These startling cost increases call into question the political and economic viability of the MOX program.” The report, prepared by the DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration’s Office of Fissile Material Disposition is entitled Report to Congress on the Projected Life-Cycle Costs of the U.S. and Russian Fissile Material Disposition Programs.  The document, labeled “Distribution Draft, Do not cite or quote,” is being released by NCI in order to ensure that Congress has full access to it and to better inform the discussion about a program which is now encountering greater skepticism.  The report can be found on the NCI web site at http://www.nci.org/new/pucost.pdf.  The report was obtained from documents submitted to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by the MOX consortium Duke Cogema Stone & Webster (DCS) in current proceedings on the construction authorization for the MOX plant. The report anticipates further cost increases, stating that “a large number of uncertainties remain” concerning the cost of the plutonium disposition program and that “regulatory requirements and licensing issues also will add substantial uncertainty to the successful completion of the program.”  The report indicates that immobilization would be the least costly route for plutonium disposition.  In an attempt to reduce costs and make MOX look more attractive, DOE quietly cancelled the immobilization research and development program in March without informing Congress.  Though DOE claims that the immobilization program has merely been “suspended,” most personnel at various labs have now left the program and key equipment at the Plutonium Ceramification Test Facility (PCTF) at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is being dismantled this week.  Ceramic pucks containing plutonium, the form slated to be immobilized in existing high-level waste at DOE’s Savannah River Site, were scheduled to be produced this summer at LLNL as part of a demonstration of the maturity of the immobilization technology. The National Security Council recently completed a staff-level review of the plutonium disposition program which cast doubt over the viability of the entire disposition program.  The NSC reportedly expressed concern about the MOX program, causing increased Congressional scrutiny of the program.  “It’s no mystery why DOE wouldn’t want Congress to see this report as it points to the conclusion that immobilization is cheaper than MOX,” said Clements.  “Instead of abandoning this promising technology at a critical stage DOE should reverse course and give immobilization its full support.” ### Notes to editors: The March 2001 DOE-MINATOM document, Cost Estimates for the Disposition of Weapon-Grade Plutonium Withdrawn from Russia’s Nuclear Military Programs, which reflects a large increase in the cost estimate for the Russian plutonium disposition program, is available on DOE’s Office of Fissile Material Disposition web site at: http://www.doe-md.com/ru_docs.asp#MOX.  Cost of that program is estimated to be between $1.8 - $2.8 billion, plus operating costs.  Journalists can obtain copies of various DOE, Congressional, and State of South Carolina letters on the plutonium disposition program and e-copies of Congressional amendments requiring new reports on plutonium disposition by contacting NCI. ***************************************************************** 13 Sick Nuclear Workers Receive Checks Las Vegas SUN Today: August 09, 2001 at 12:00:29 PDT PADUCAH, Ky. (AP) - With knees trembling, Clara Harding clutched a $150,000 benefit check Thursday as U.S. Labor Secretary Elaine Chao presented the first payment from a compensation program for sick nuclear workers. "I haven't slept in three days, and I was up at 4 a.m. this morning," Harding, 78, said. Her husband, Joe, died more than 20 years ago after being exposed to toxic levels of uranium at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant. The Department of Labor began accepting claims on July 31. The $150,000 lump-sum payments will go to former workers who have certain types of cancer and who worked at the plant before 1992. If the worker has died, the money will go to a surviving spouse, and, in some cases, to surviving children. "There is no more poignant example of how people can transform their trials into triumphs than the tender story of Joe and Clara Harding," Chao said after the presentation. David Fuller, president of the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers Local 5-550, said it was gratifying. "Joe Harding was a member of our union and a co-worker of mine. It's been a long and frustrating battle to get to this day," Fuller said. Before Joe Harding died of cancer in 1980, his bones were found to contain up to 34,000 times the expected concentration of uranium. Yet while he lived, he was denied compensation because official records showed he was only exposed to small levels of radiation. However, his widow and daughter, Martha Alls, continued to fight after his death. Clara Harding said she will continue to work for sick workers. "I'm going to help anyone who needs it so their families can be compensated for what has happened," she said. "But at least the pressure is off of me now." The Energy Department has identified 317 sites that employed more than 600,000 people in 37 states, Washington D.C., the Marshall Islands and Puerto Rico for nuclear weapons-related work during the Cold War. Sick workers employed at those facilities might qualify for compensation under the program, which is estimated to cost $1.9 billion over a decade. On the Net: Labor Department Office of Workers' Compensation Programs: http://www.dol.gov/dol/esa/public/owcp-org.htm Energy Department: http://www.energy.gov/ All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 14 Chao to Hold Ceremony for Energy Workers Program U.S. Newswire 7 Aug 17:28 Public Event To Be Held in Piketon, Ohio To: Assignment Desk, Daybook Editor Contact: Alecia J. Wallace of the Department of Labor, 202-693-4653 News Advisory: Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao will present Ohio's first compensation check under a new program for sick nuclear weapons employees, former employees and survivors in Portsmouth, Ohio on Friday, August 10, at the Comfort Inn in Piketon, Ohio. Tim Gannon, a cancer victim who worked at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, submitted the first complete claim at the Portsmouth center for compensation under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Act. Gannon will be the first person in Ohio to receive compensation under this new program. The Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act went into effect Tuesday, July 31. Congress passed the new law to compensate nuclear weapons employees of the Department of Energy and its contractors or subcontractors who became seriously ill because of exposure to radiation, beryllium or silica on the job. It also compensates some surviving family members. EVENT: Presentation of compensation check under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act by Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao DATE: Friday, August 10 TIME: 11:30 a.m. LOCATION: Comfort Inn hotel in Piketon 7525 US 23 Piketon, Ohio 45661 /U.S. Newswire 202-347-2770/ ***************************************************************** 15 Peace House endures Mail Tribune / Jim Craven Ali Fulcher, associate director of Peace House in Ashland, talks about the state of the activist group while keeping an anti-nuclear vigil on the plaza in Ashland. Ashland group never runs out of issues to stir social activism By J.T. BUSHNELL Peace House of Ashland no longer has a Cold War to publicly protest. It can no longer hold demonstrations against a war in the Persian Gulf and its members can't rally against United States counter-revolutionary efforts in Nicaragua and El Salvador. As many of the high-profile conflicts around the world have ended, the organization's visibility has waned. But its current leaders says the group's efforts to promote peace and justice have not slowed. "Public protest is only one means of organizing," said Ruth Coulthard, director of Peace House. "It's perhaps the most controversial - it confronts people with visible resistance - but it's only one thing, one strategy. We use many strategies." Peace House, a nonprofit group founded in 1982 to work toward peace and nuclear disarmament, has had to employ those other strategies in recent years. Coulthard said it has broadened its scope and, despite being less conspicuous, has continued to foster activism. That much was evident in a memorial vigil in the Ashland Plaza that started Monday and ends today. The annual vigil, held on the anniversary of the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, acknowledges past suffering and potential future hazards of nuclear weapons and technology. There is no throng of protesters, no angry signs or political chants - just a table, a display and a candle under the shade of a tree. Passers-by can simply look at the exhibit, or they can sign their names to petitions with headings like "Oppose the Cheney energy plan!" and "Oppose the militarization of space!" Drew Crossman of Ashland took the opportunity to add himself to Peace House's 500-person mailing list. "This is nice," he said. "As a parent of two young ones, I haven't had a lot of time to get active." Ali Fulcher, associate director of Peace House, said involvement like that has become more common. She also said she's glad protests haven't been necessary. "We don't want to exchange lives (lost in war) for a greater degree of activism," she said. But both Fulcher and Coulthard said there is no shortage of issues for the organization to confront. "It's less that we're organizing around specific issues than promoting justice and peace in general," Coulthard said. "The issues are countless." Among them are the Bush administration's missile defense plan, the revived interest in nuclear power, the country's increased multi-culturalism and the continuing conflict in Iraq. "We still see the U.S. in an aggressive and belligerent role in the world," Coulthard said. "There's reason for a great deal of concern when you look to our allies and see the concern they're feeling." Besides focusing on controversial issues, Coulthard said Peace House has always acted as a networking and resource center as well as a sponsor of educational programming. Using donations, Peace House has sponsored a number of presentations and lectures over the past few years as well as programs aimed to dispose of unwanted guns. It also runs a program called Uncle Food's Diner to feed homeless and low-income community members. "I think its flexibility is its strength," Coulthard said of Peace House and its reworked agenda. "You see a lot of groups rise up and dissipate. Peace House has a broader vision. We're in it for the long haul." Reach reporter J.T. Bushnell at 776-4468 Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & ***************************************************************** 16 Navy Ends Vieques Exercises Las Vegas SUN August 09, 2001 VIEQUES, Puerto Rico (AP) - Calm returned to the outlying Puerto Rican island of Vieques on Thursday after the U.S. Navy finished a week of contentious maneuvers and protesters went back to their normal lives. The exercises - which involved 21,000 sailors, 2,000 Marines and included ship-to-shore shelling, inert bombing and amphibious landings - ended late Wednesday, Navy spokeswoman Lt. Cmdr. Katherine Goode said. Since the training began last week, the Navy has arrested 65 people for trespassing on federal property. Puerto Rican police arrested four. One man was charged with obstructing justice after breaking through a police line, and three people were arrested after they allegedly threw firebombs at two sailors in a military vehicle. No one was injured in the incidents. This round of exercises drew fewer protesters and arrests than the maneuvers from April 27 to May 1. At least 180 protesters were arrested then, including U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, a Democrat from Illinois who is to appear in court at the end of this month, environmental attorney Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who just completed his 30-day prison sentence, and the Rev. Al Sharpton, a civil rights activist who is serving his 90-day trespassing sentence. "We're already prepared for the next round," said Vieques protest leader Ismael Guadalupe. On one day, about 30 fishermen and protesters using speedboats invaded restricted waters off of Vieques and stalled the exercises. Navy personnel scoured the firing range and detained three protesters the fishermen had dropped off there before training could resume. The Navy conducts training on the Vieques range every few months, but President Bush has promised to end the maneuvers by 2003. Bombing opponents say that's not soon enough. In a July 29 nonbinding referendum, 68 percent of Vieques residents voted to stop the bombing immediately; 30 percent said they wanted the Navy to stay and resume use of live ammunition. The Navy has used Vieques for about 60 years to train its Atlantic fleet, and it owns two-thirds of the island. The small anti-Navy movement gained mass support after a 1999 accident on the range in which a civilian guard was killed by off-target bombs. The Navy has used inert ammunition since the accident. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 17 SRS engineers say they can treat some of the site's most hazardous radioactive waste AIKEN (AP) — Engineers at the Savannah River Site say they may have found a way to treat some of the site's most hazardous radioactive waste without building a new plant, which was the previous proposal. Engineers said Wednesday the site would use existing plants to treat about 3,500 gallons of solution containing americium and curium, which has been deemed a "high radiation and contamination hazard" by the federal Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. The plan will be submitted to the U.S. Energy Department next week. Kim Hauer, maintenance and outage manager for the high-level waste division, would not discuss cost estimates, but said it would cost less than the $129 million for a new plant. Under the new plan, engineers would neutralize and dilute the solution. The liquid then would be transferred from a tank inside the F-Canyon plant to a feed tank for the site's Defense Waste Processing Facility. That facility would turn the solution, by now mixed with liquid wastes generated by other SRS activities, into a radioactive glass suitable for long-term burial. &Permissions ? Copyright 2001 The State-Record Company ***************************************************************** NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: *****************************************************************