***************************************************************** 12/09/01 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 9.290 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER CONTENTS 1 Senator Reid vs. Yucca Mountain 2 Since Sept. 11, safety of nuclear plants is inflaming emotions 3 Access to information is declining after Sept. 11 4 EU Commissioner backs battle against Sellafield 5 Deer Hunter Uncovers Failure of Grid Security 6 Congress Urged to Safeguard Nuclear Reactors Against Terrorism 7 Energy review blows out nuclear power in favour of wind and waves 8 EXCLUSIVE: Blair report to veto more nuclear plants 9 Editorial: It's no wonder why they're getting antsy 10 District, Other Cities Preparing Crisis Evacuation Plans 11 Russia hopes to build NPP in four countries 12 Going dark at San Onofre 13 Recent safety hazards at aging nuclear plants 14 San Onofre's safety record 15 Public Service Board favors releasing auction documents 16 Safety more than a positive spin to Pilgrim's hometown spokesman 17 No more nukes, say public 18 Power companies plan a sea of wind turbines 19 Waste-site clash to go to trial 20 Safety issues raised over OPPD plant plan NUCLEAR WEAPONS CONTENTS 1 Lockheed loading up 2 Nuclear Experts in Pakistan May Have Links to Al Qaeda 3 DOE tries to avoid waste-cleanup agreement 4 Booming Business For Bomb Shelters 5 TIME.com: The Nuke Pipeline 6 Lee Wen-ho says in US court he was used as scapegoat 7 Washington job is dream come true for former aide to Nevada governor 8 U.S. monitors mainland nuclear weapons tests 9 The 'Dirty Bomb' and the Alert 10 Pentagon Presses Speedy Radiation Drug Approval 11 Pakistan Detains Nuclear Scientist Group's Associates 12 Letter: re: Hanford budget 13 Senate OKs $40 billion anti-terror measure 14 Technology:SRS plant will stabilize waste 15 Vladivostok News :: Journalist asserts FSB will pressure court **************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 Senator Reid vs. Yucca Mountain Nevada Appeal December 9, 2001 By Guy W. Farmer Nevada Sen. Harry Reid, an amateur boxer in his youth, delivered what appears to be a knockout blow to the Energy Department's badly mismanaged Yucca Mountain Project earlier this month. And if he did, we owe him and the rest of Nevada's congressional delegation a huge debt of gratitude on behalf of our children and grandchildren. When I endorsed our senior senator for reelection in 1998, I wrote that we needed him in Congress in order to protect our state's vital interests and to block the DOE's fatally flawed plan to store more than 77,000 tons of deadly radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain only 90 miles northeast of Las Vegas. I say "fatally flawed" because the nonpartisan and highly respected General Accounting Office (GAO) has just urged the Bush administration to postpone indefinitely a decision on whether to establish the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. The GAO report was a direct result of relentless efforts by Nevada's congressional delegation, headed by Sen. Reid, over the past few years. At times, they appeared to be fighting a lonely, uphill battle against the entire Washington establishment and the powerful nuclear energy lobby. According to a draft GAO report obtained by the Washington Post, the Energy Department "is unlikely to achieve its goal of opening a repository at Yucca Mountain by 2010 and has no reliable estimate of when, and at what cost, such a repository could be opened." The report went on to say that it would take at least five more years to complete detailed research and cost estimates, and to resolve 293 outstanding technical issues before the administration could responsibly designate the southern Nevada site for the repository. And this despite the fact that the federal government has already spent $8 billion worth of our tax money on a giant nuclear boondoggle. "I think it's the beginning of the end of Yucca Mountain," Reid declared. "This (GAO) report is a damning indictment of a process Americans relied upon to protect their health and safety." Gov. Kenny Guinn said the DOE project is "doomed to failure" and urged the Bush administration to suspend plans for the nuclear waste repository, while Reid's Republican colleague, John Ensign, reminded the administration of President Bush's campaign promise to base his final decision on "sound science." Fortunately, any Bush administration decision on the project must be approved by Congress -- and that's where Reid and Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., will act to kill the measure. Ironically, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, called the GAO report "fatally flawed" and vowed to press ahead with the project and make a recommendation to the president by next February. Of course a favorable recommendation has been inevitable ever since Congress passed the so-called "Screw Nevada" bill in 1987, designating Yucca Mountain as the only potential site to be studied. Ever since, the DOE has been going through the motions to support a pre-determined conclusion. Adding even more irony to his response, Abraham also objected to the GAO's "pre-determined conclusion" on the Yucca Mountain project. Recently, DOE has extended the public comment period in a continuing effort to mask its blatant hypocrisy on this issue. When I sent my previous Yucca Mountain columns to the DOE project office in North Las Vegas, they thanked me for my comments and assured me that they would be taken into consideration as part of the site recommendation process. But many of us remember the public hearings in Carson City earlier this year, where DOE officials smirked and nodded knowingly to each other as the local yokels expressed their points of view. Before the GAO report became public, the Energy Department's own inspector general confirmed press reports that the high-powered Chicago law firm representing the DOE project had close ties to the nuclear energy industry, proving once again that this project is much more about politics than about science. Otherwise, why would Congress have eliminated all other potential sites from consideration before "scientific" tests were conducted? The IG report revealed that Winston & Strawn, the law firm hired to give the federal government "impartial advice" on the nuclear waste licensing process, lobbied for the Nuclear Energy Institute on its licensing application to the DOE. Thus, the same attorneys who provided legal advice to the DOE on Yucca Mountain also worked for the Institute. Can you say conflict of interest? Winston & Strawn then withdrew from the project because of its obvious conflict and a money-grubbing Washington law firm claimed the $16.5 million contract to help prepare DOE's nuclear waste licensing procedure. I'm surprised that we haven't heard from former Nevada Gov. Bob List, who signed on as a nuclear industry lobbyist a few months ago. Other sell-outs include former White House Chief of Staff John Sununu and ex-vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro, who are lobbying Congress in favor of the Nevada site for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Alliance for Energy and Economic Growth. Moral of the story: When in doubt, go for the money. So despite serial mismanagement of the Yucca Mountain project and flagrant conflicts of interest by DOE legal advisers, Energy Secretary Abraham will submit a favorable recommendation on the project to President Bush by next February. It just goes to show that in our democratic process, money is more important than public opinion. But let's not forget to thank Sen. Reid and his congressional colleagues for defending Nevada against the DOE and a well-financed lobbying effort by the nuclear power industry. Copyright Nevada Appeal. Materials contained within this site may ***************************************************************** 2 Since Sept. 11, safety of nuclear plants is inflaming emotions STLtoday - news By Bill Lambrecht Post-Dispatch Washingtion bureau 12/08/2001 12:24 PM Senate Assistant Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., right, announces introduction of legislation to increase security at nuclear power plants during a news conference in November. (Dennis Cook/AP) WASHINGTON - A short while ago, the nuclear industry enjoyed a friendly Congress and the backing of Americans for building the first new atomic power plants in a generation. In heady moments that had been rare for his industry, a lobbyist last summer likened nuclear power's turnaround to the story of Cinderella. In May, the Gallup Organization reported that most Americans favored additional nuclear power. But like the clock striking midnight, the Sept. 11 attacks have interrupted nuclear power's turnaround. An industry that was enjoying resurgence after two decades of perception problems is being held out as a drain on public finances and a symbol of homeland vulnerability. Rather than supporting the industry's revival, Congress has sounded more like the fairy tale's cruel stepsisters in demanding security makeovers and aggressively questioning nuclear plants' readiness to repel terrorist attacks. Boisterous hearings are breaking out in communities where plants are situated. In Brattleboro, Vt., a town of 12,000, more than 600 showed up last week to question safety at the Vermont Yankee plant and the storage of spent fuel there. A Gallup Poll in November showed that survey numbers had flipped: By 52 percent to 42 percent, Americans opposed nuclear expansion. Last week, the National Governors Association reported that by the end of the year, states will have paid $58 million for security at the nation's 103 nuclear reactors since Sept. 11. That is higher than the cost of security at dams and bridges ($46 million), coal-fired plants and gas pipelines ($28 million) and water and sewer plants ($11 million). "If we have to turn these reactors into impregnable fortresses to withstand kamikaze attacks, it begs the question of whether it's worth it," asserted Robert Alvarez, a former Energy Department official who is executive director of the New York-based STAR Foundation, which is critical of nuclear power. Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., another critic, contended that nuclear power has been falling out favor because using it to produce energy costs more using than coal and natural gas. The events of Sept. 11, he said, "represent an additional complicating factor that utility executives will need to take into account" before they considering building more nuclear plants. Nuclear power officials acknowledge their setback but insist that it will be temporary and pose no lasting obstacle to their industry. They argue that nuclear power produces energy without the types of air pollutants that are fueling growing concerns about global warming. "We need to get through the current post-Sept. 11 situation both in terms of the security and the attacks from the anti-nuclear people and their friends in Congress," said Marvin Fertel, a vice president of the Nuclear Energy Institute in Washington. "That may take a little while." In Illinois, the Exelon Corp., which operates the Clinton Nuclear Power Station and a total of 11 reactors now generating power, says it still plans to proceed late next year in picking a site for a new nuclear facility. With a total of 17 reactors in three states, Exelon is the nation's biggest nuclear operator. The company has given no clue as to whether it might seek to build in Illinois or elsewhere. Critics in Illinois have speculated that Clinton would be an appealing choice because of the relatively sparse population in central Illinois. No matter where Exelon attempts to build, spokeswoman Ann Mary Carley said that the Sept. 11 fallout could make her company's task more challenging. "If you look at it from public perception, I'm sure there will be more work involved in trying to explain it," she said. Stockpiling pills A bioterrorism bill introduced last week by the House Energy and Commerce Committee calls for stockpiles of potassium iodide pills that would be distributed to people within 50 miles of a nuclear plant in the event of a radiation release. Potassium iodide protects the thyroid, a gland that helps to regulate the body's growth and is particularly sensitive to radiation. A willingness by a Republican-run committee to acknowledge such ominous threats is a measure of new congressional concern, often from members who paid little attention to nuclear power in the past. At a closed hearing of the Energy and Commerce oversight subcommittee last week, members grilled the chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Richard Meserve, about the security standards for the mothballed plants where spent fuel from reactors remains stored, according to sources. Rarely before now had members of Congress concerned themselves either with plants being decommissioned or with the used but still highly radioactive fuel rods that have been removed from the reactor cores. Congress started getting cranky when the Nuclear Regulatory Commission changed its assessment about the threat to nuclear plants from terrorists turning jetliners into missiles. Just after Sept. 11, the commission said that plants could withstand the impact of commandeered aircraft. Later, the commission said it was possible that such a crash would cause damage "that would result in the release of radiation." Senate Majority Whip Harry Reid, D-Nev., is among sponsors of a wide-ranging new bill that would toughen the security standards for defending against an array of assaults on plants and would federalize the security guards who work there. "If they can fly planes into the World Trade Center, they can mount attacks on nuclear power plants," Reid said. As it stands, a nuclear plant has to demonstrate a capacity to repel what is known in the industry as a "three and one attack" - three well-trained and heavily armed terrorists with one person inside the plant providing assistance. Reid's bill would require plants to be able to defend against attacks by multiple large teams being assisted by several people inside. Plants also would need to demonstrate the ability to repel attacks from the air and water. The legislation has drawn opposition both from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the nuclear industry. In a letter to Reid on Nov. 28, Meserve, the commission chairman, protested what he said would be "radical change" from present practice. Meserve said it was unfair for Congress to separate nuclear plants from chemical plants, oil refineries, dams and other potential targets in assigning risk and asked Congress for time so that the commission could finish its own new security plan. The Nuclear Energy Institute's Marvin Fertel said he doubted whether plants could comply. "If they passed that bill, we would essentially be required to have an army, a navy and an air force that would be able to shoot down planes," he said. Bait shop woes AmerenUE, which operates Missouri's Callaway nuclear plant, is not among the handful of companies in the United States that have gone public with tentative plans to build new nuclear plants. Nonetheless, Gary Randolph, AmerenUE's senior vice president for generation, says the recent "bump in the road" would not prevent his company from considering all options in the future. Randolph blamed anti-nuclear groups for seizing on the September attacks. "What bothers me the most is that those people will use any opportunity to further their cause," he said. "It's disappointing because this is a time when we as a nation need to demonstrate loyalty to our country and seek betterment of all." Groups dedicated solely to fighting nuclear power have grown scarce over the years with other issues, such as global warming, occupying activists' time. In Illinois, only the Evanston-based Nuclear Energy Information Service remained despite Illinois' reputation as the nation's nuclear leader with 11 operating reactors, a spent-fuel repository in Morris and an aggressive Exelon hoping to expand. David Kraft, the group's director, said his phone and e-mail traffic had picked up markedly with bigger and better-funded environmental groups like the Sierra Club wanting to help. "For a long time, a lot of people wouldn't touch the nuclear issue with a 10-foot fuel rod," he remarked, predicting a spirited debate ahead. For now, some people living near nuclear plants are less concerned about the politics of nuclear power than about the effects of the new security already in place. From National Guard troops patrolling plant perimeters to jet fighters flying protective missions overhead, nuclear security already has taken on a new dimension even without the changes Congress wants. Near the Clinton plant last week, Ed Jurgens, operator of the Good Times Bait and Tackle Shop, was experiencing fresh disappointment after having just turned away a carload of would-be fishermen from Peoria, Ill. Most of the 5,000-acre Clinton Lake adjacent to the nuclear plant remained closed to boats for security reasons, a precaution that has sent his business reeling. On a single day, 35 parties stopped at Good Times to buy supplies - but left instead with no hope of fish to fry. Jurgens, 50, believes that in figuring plans for future security at the plant, authorities should decide what is really necessary and what is not. The boat restrictions, he said, make no sense. "If you're in your car, you can just drive right by the plant." Reporter Bill Lambrecht: E-mail: blambrecht@post-dispatch.com Phone: 202-298-6880 ***************************************************************** 3 Access to information is declining after Sept. 11 OrlandoSentinel.com: Opinion December 9, 2001 By Eric Lichtblau | National Correspondent WASHINGTON -- The document seemed innocuous enough: a survey of government data on reservoirs and dams on CD-ROM. But then came this past month's federal directive to U.S. libraries: "Destroy the report." So a Syracuse University library clerk broke the disc into pieces, saving a single shard to prove that the deed was done. The unusual order from the Government Printing Office reflects one of the hidden casualties of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks: the public's shrinking access to information that many once took for granted. Want to find out whether there are any hazardous waste sites near the local day-care center? What safety controls are in place at nuclear power plants? Or how many people are incarcerated in terrorist-related probes? Since Sept. 11, it has become much harder to get such information from the federal government, a growing number of states and public libraries as heightened concern about national security has often trumped the public's "right to know:" At least 15 federal agencies have yanked potentially sensitive information off the Internet, or removed Web sites altogether, for fear that terrorists could exploit the government data. The excised material ranges from information on chemical reactors and risk-management programs to airport data and mapping of oil pipelines. Several states have followed the federal government's lead. California, for example, has removed information on dams and aqueducts, state officials said. Members of the public who want to use reading rooms at federal agencies such as the IRS must now make an appointment and be escorted by an employee to ensure that information is not misused. The Government Printing Office has begun ordering about 1,300 libraries nationwide that serve as federal depositories to destroy government records that it says could be too sensitive for public consumption. Federal agencies are imposing a stricter standard in reviewing hundreds of thousands of Freedom of Information Act requests from the public each year; officials no longer have to show that disclosure would cause "substantial harm" before rejecting a request. Watchdog groups say they have already started to see rejections of requests that likely would have been granted before. The trend reverses a decades-long shift toward greater public access to information, even highly sensitive documents such as the Pentagon Papers or unconventional manifestos such as the Anarchist's Cookbook, a compilation of recipes for making bombs. The popularity of the Internet has made sensitive information even easier to come by in recent years, but the events of Sept. 11 are now fueling a new debate in Washington: How much do Americans need to know? The swinging of the pendulum away from open records, supporters of the trend say, is a necessary safeguard against terrorists who could use sensitive public information to attack airports, water treatment plants, nuclear reactors and more. In an Oct. 12 memo announcing the new FOIA policies, Attorney General John Ashcroft said that, while "a well-informed citizenry" is essential to government accountability, national security should be a priority. But academicians, public-interest groups, media representatives and others warn of an overreaction. "Do you pull all the Rand McNally atlases from the libraries? I mean, how far do you go?" asked Julia Wallace, head of the government publications library at the University of Minnesota. "I'm certainly worried by what I've seen," said Gary Bass, executive director of OMB Watch, a nonprofit group in Washington that monitors the Office of Management and Budget and advocates greater access to government data on environmental and other issues. "In an open society such as ours, you always run the risk that someone is going to use information in a bad way," Bass said. "You have to take every step to minimize those risks without undermining our democratic principles. You can't just shut down the flow of information." The Sept. 11 hijackers, using readily accessible tools such as box cutters, the Internet and Boeing flight manuals, hatched a plot too brazen for many to fathom. It forced authorities to consider whether a range of public sites and sensitive facilities was much more vulnerable than they had realized -- and whether public records could provide a playbook for targeting them. Officials acknowledge there are few examples of terrorists using public records to glean sensitive information, but they say the terrorist attacks prove the need for extraordinary caution. The first directive by the Government Printing Office, made last month at the request of the U.S. Geological Survey, ordered libraries to destroy the water resources guide. While the depository program has pulled documents before because they contained mistakes or were outdated, this was the first time in memory that documents were destroyed because of security concerns, said Francis Buckley, superintendent of documents for the printing office. Because the water survey was published and owned by the U.S. Geological Survey, the libraries that participate in the depository program said they had little choice but to comply. Some librarians asked if they could pull the CD from shelves and put it in a secure place, but federal officials told them that it had to be destroyed. "I hate to do it," said Christine Gladish, government information librarian at Cal State Los Angeles, which has pulled the water survey from its collection and is preparing to destroy it. "Libraries don't like to censor information. Freedom of information is a professional tenet." Peter Graham, university librarian at Syracuse University, said: "Destruction seems to be the least desirable option to me. . . . We're all waiting for the other shoe to drop. Are we going to see a lot more withdrawals (of documents)? That's my fear." Some have resisted the push to limit access, even on such nerve-rattling subjects as anthrax. The American Society for Microbiology, for one, has on its Web site certain details on how to produce an antibiotic-resistant strain of anthrax. After the anthrax attacks, "we had an internal discussion and decided not to remove it," said Dr. Ronald Atlas, president-elect of the prestigious scientific organization. "The principle right now is one of openness in science. . . . If someone wants to publish (a legitimate research paper), we're not going to be the censor." But that position has drawn scorn from some of Atlas' scientific colleagues. "We have to get away from the ethos that knowledge is good, knowledge should be publicly available, that information will liberate us," said University of Pennsylvania bioethicist Arthur Caplan. "Information will kill us in the techno-terrorist age, and I think it's nuts to put that stuff on Web sites." Chemical- and water-industry groups are lobbying the Bush administration to curtail regulations providing public access to the operations of public facilities, data that environmentalists say are critical to ensuring safety. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is reviewing publications that it has made available to the public, and it is almost certain to ask for the destruction of some of its titles. And nongovernment entities such as the Federation of American Scientists have begun curtailing information. Copyright © 2001, Orlando Sentinel ***************************************************************** 4 EU Commissioner backs battle against Sellafield The Irish Independent Date: Sun December 9th 01 IRELAND has found a powerful new ally in its battle to shut the Sellafield nuclear facility. The European Commission will back an Irish legal action against Sellafield if the case stands up in the Court of Justice, said the EU's Environment Commissioner. Urging Britain to provide information on the controversial plant, Commissioner Margot Wallstrom said it must ensure the highest possible protection against terrorist attacks and co-operate with other countries. The unexpected support from the Commission will boost the Government's legal strategy against Sellafield. Legal and political sources say mounting an EU case has always been the long-term agenda of the Government in its bid to stop the Mox plant becoming operational and to undermine the commercial viability of the entire facility. In an exclusive interview with the Sunday Independent, Margot Wallstrom also admitted that she personally did not believe nuclear power was a sustainable source of energy but defended the Commission's demand that Ireland drop two other international cases against the new Mox plant and instead take an action to the European Court of Justice. The request, she said, was purely "legalistic" and that she fully respected the concerns felt by Irish people about the complex in Cumbria, on the coast of the Irish Sea. She urged the Government to co-operate with the Commission. The Commissioner confirmed that should the Irish Government have assembled enough information to mount a fresh challenge against any of the multiple facilities at the Sellafield complex, the Commission would enthusiastically back its case to the Court of Justice in Luxembourg. "I have the greatest respect for the fears of the Irish people," Ms Wallstrom said. The UK or other member states have to respect those concerns and give information out to the public. This is why the Irish should come to us and we'll see. We're willing to look at the information and the case from Ireland." Recognising the fears felt in Ireland about the terrifying implications of any terrorist attack on the site closer to Dublin than London, she said, "there is no person in Europe or the US who is not afraid of the worst-case scenario." The Commissioner stepped back from condemning Britain for not installing surface to air missiles and enforcing a no-fly zone over Sellafield both steps taken by the French authorities to protect a similar nuclear facility in La Hague on its northern coast from terrorist air attack. Britain, she said, must also co-operate fully within the EU and a newly established system to ensure every country meets the best practices. The EU, she said, had limited power to force Britain tofollow the French example.The Commissioner urged the Government to seek a solution to its concerns about Sellafield within the EU framework and frankly expressed her own misgivings about the nuclear energy. At the same time, she admitted that the EU has limited powers over the sector. "I have a personal view on the use of nuclear energy. I don't consider it a sustainable source of power quite the opposite. We're sending the bill to our children and grandchildren," said the Swedish Commissioner. Her support comes just days after the Government succeeded in winning an international court order against Britain to provide sensitive information on the Mox plant, due to become operational on December 20. Although the Government failed to get an injunction, the 21 judges from the International Tribunal for the Court of the Sea did accept jurisdiction for the case and crucially, claimed authority to insist Britain share information with Ireland. Irish officials believe this will expose the empty order book that undermines Britain's argument that the £475m facility is commercially viable. They believe that despite Britain's claims, it will show that it only has orders at present for 11 per cent of the plant's capacity. The Mox plant, which will create nuclear fuel from plutonium and reprocessed waste at the adjoining Thorp plant, will become highly expensive, if not impossible to decommission, once the radioactive substances are exposed in the facility. Ireland's Energy Minister Joe Jacob last week warned that the facility had enough stored nuclear waste to keep it busy for 15 years. EXCLUSIVE, CONOR SWEENEY © Copyright Unison ***************************************************************** 5 Deer Hunter Uncovers Failure of Grid Security Friday, December 07, 2001 By Brian Wilson DICKERSON, Md. — A deer hunter in the woods of suburban Washington ripped into his target earlier this week, and came up with more than he bargained for — insight into the region's lax security of its power plants. Earlier this week in the woods near Dickerson, Maryland, Mike Edwards shot a small buck. The deer took off through a thicket and Edwards tracked him — all the way into a clearing in the middle of an operating power plant. "I was just following my deer through the woods, being an ethical hunter, next thing you know, I'm standing in the middle of a power plant with a shotgun," Edwards, a car mechanic, told Fox News. Edwards, who needed to retrieve the deer, went walking through the plant looking for help, and ended up in the Potomac Energy and Power Company's control room, startling two employees. Edwards said nobody tried to stop him as he walked into PEPCO's power plant with a shotgun, wearing blaze orange hunting gear. The plant, which provides 835 megawatts of electricity to the nation's capital, is not a nuclear plant, but it's output is enough to light up nearly 14 million 60 watt lamps. It operates on steam turbine engines and feeds its power into the mid-Atlantic operating grid which feeds the capital, said company spokesman Steve Arabia. He said that Mirant Corporation, which owns PEPCO and several other power companies, is in the midst of a system-wide security evaluation, but Edwards did not penetrate the high-level corridors of PEPCO's system. "We have different levels of security at different places in the facility, and the really critical areas are manned and they have a higher level of security." In the wake of Sept. 11 attacks, the question of how vulnerable America is to attack has been brought to bear time and again. Congress has been grappling with airline security, bioterrorism, border control, and has even conducted hearings on nuclear power plants, but to date, no measures have been taken to safeguard traditional power plants. Prior to Sept. 11, Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-La., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, did request the Federal Energy Regulatory Committee, the Department of Energy and other agencies to examine the reliability of the nation's energy infrastructure. Since Sept. 11, that request was updated to recommend legislative proposals, but so far none has been made public. Fox News Network, LLC 2001. All rights reserved. All market data ***************************************************************** 6 Congress Urged to Safeguard Nuclear Reactors Against Terrorism Environment News Service: WASHINGTON, DC, December 7, 2001 (ENS) - A House subcommittee reviewing security issues at the America's nuclear facilities was warned Wednesday that there are "unresolved vulnerabilities." Legislation has been introduced which would federalize security at nuclear power generators and fuel processing plants by directing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to establish a security force for "sensitive" facilities, including the nation's 103 operating nuclear power plants. The Commission "strongly opposes" the enactment of such legislation, but the head of a concerned citizens' group says immediate anti-aircraft protection at each reactor site is needed to deal with possible attacks by aircraft in terrorist hands. "Put simply," said Paul Leventhal, founding president of the Nuclear Control Institute, "the nation’s nuclear power reactors are vulnerable to attack by terrorists, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and other government entities have failed to move decisively to impose the further security measures that are needed to prevent a successful attack and avert catastrophic radiological consequences." [plant] Missouri's Callaway Nuclear Plant operated by the Union Electric Company (Photos courtesy NRC [http://www.nrc.gov] ) The Nuclear Control Institute, a non-profit organization based in Washington and concerned with security against nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism, Leventhal was invited by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce" Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations to give testimony concerning the security of these power plants. He spoke also on behalf of the Los Angeles based nuclear policy organization, the Committee to Bridge the Gap. For 17 years, the two organizations have been warning the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) "to act responsibly and to protect these facilities adequately," Leventhal said. "We submitted petitions for rulemaking, met with Commissioners and their staffs, submitted scholarly studies. With one partial exception, a truck bomb rule of insufficient effectiveness, our efforts have been repeatedly frustrated." But now the time has come to act, Leventhal urged. "The horrendous attacks of September 11 have now made NRC foot dragging intolerable. The new threat should now be evident to all, and the country can afford to wait no longer," he said. "The vulnerabilities at these plants can and must be closed, now." He said the American people "have a right to know the dangers and to demand the prompt corrective actions that we propose to protect nuclear power plants from terrorist attacks and the unthinkable consequences that could follow." "It is prudent to assume that the terrorist adversary knows that the plants are vulnerable," Leventhal testified. He cited recent trial testimony confirming that Osama bin Laden’s terrorist training camps "were offering instruction in ‘urban warfare' against ‘enemies’ installations’ including power plants." But under current regulations reactor operators are not required to protect against attacks by an “enemy of the United States,” be it a nation or a person, Leventhal pointed out. "In the absence of the federal government taking responsibility for security of these nuclear sites against attacks by 'enemies,' it is clear that protection of the public in this regard is falling through the cracks." Twenty-five years ago, Congress split the Atomic Energy Commission into two separate agencies in order to end the inherent conflict between promotion and regulation of nuclear energy, Leventhal explained. As a member of the staff of the Senate Government Operations Committee, he was "intimately involved" in preparing the law that created the Nuclear Regulatory Committee and the present day Department of Energy. Leventhal says the two sides - promotion and regulation of nuclear power - have once again become too close and the regulatory side is too close to the nuclear industry for effective regulation. The subcommittee heard from NRC Chairman Richard Meserve that since September 11 the commission has maintained a round the clock operation of NRC’s Emergency Operations Center. A safeguards team receives "a substantial and steady flow of information from the intelligence community, law enforcement, and licensees that requires prompt evaluation to determine whether to advise licensees about any changes in the threat environment in general or for a particular plant." Meserve gave the lawmakers an example of threat readiness. "The NRC received information in the early evening in mid-October about an impending air attack on the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant that could not be discounted by the law enforcement and intelligence communities," the chairman said. "This resulted in immediate notification of the licensee for Three Mile Island, the establishment of a no-fly zone by the Federal Aviation Administration, and the deployment of military assets. Although by early the next morning a determination was made that this threat was not credible, NRC, other federal agencies, and the licensee were obliged to act quickly because no one was able initially to discredit the threat," he said. [plant] Ft. Calhoun nuclear power plant in Nebraska That level of readiness is not enough for Leventhal who called for anti-aircraft protection at each reactor site to deal with possible attacks by aircraft. "We note the French government has deployed anti-aircraft measures at sensitive nuclear facilities in France. Why has this not been done here, when we are the country that was attacked on September 11?" he asked the subcommittee. Since the terrorist attacks of September 11 on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, it is clear that a greater threat exists than provided for in the current Design Basis Threat regulations for nuclear power plants. "The new 'design basis threat,' made manifest by September 11," said Leventhal, "is at least 19 sophisticated and suicidal terrorists attacking from at least four different directions. Mr. Chairman, we ask that this Subcommittee inquire of the Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission whether any nuclear power plant today is capable of repelling an attack of that magnitude. If the answer is no, as we suspect it will be, he should be asked why he has not promptly ordered an immediately effective upgrade of the NRC security rules to meet such a threat, and why, in the meantime, he has not advised the President that military protection of these plants is needed to deter and defeat such an attack." Each the power plants should be protected with at least 30 National Guard personnel to provide a visible show of force and a credible deterrent to attack, Leventhal said. He called for a thorough re-evaluation of all nuclear power plant personnel, including the "hundreds of outside contractors who are onsite during refueling outages and for routine maintenance," for potential security risks and establish "an immediate strict two-person rule to reduce risks of insider attack." The NRC's Meserve has somewhat different proposals for Congressional action. He says federalizing the security at nuclear facilities could cost over $1 billion a year, and is not needed. In the Commission’s view, "the qualified, trained, and tightly regulated private guard forces at nuclear plants should not be replaced by a new federal security force." The commission is asking Congress to make federal prohibitions on sabotage apply to the operation and construction of nuclear reactors, enrichment and fuel fabrication facilities. It should be a federal crime to bring unauthorized weapons and explosives into NRC licensed facilities, Meserve said. Some state laws currently preclude private guard forces at facilities regulated by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission from utilizing a wide range of weapons, so the commission is asking Congress to authorize NRC guards to carry and use firearms. Ralph Beedle, chief nuclear officer at the Nuclear Energy Institute, a nuclear industry association, told the subcommittee that the nation's nuclear plants are secure right now. "Nuclear plants are the most secure commercial facilities in the United States, even exceeding the protection found at most military installations," he said. "Reactor fuel is protected by a combination of 12 feet of concrete and steel between the exterior of the building and the fuel itself." "Nuclear power plants assumed the highest level of readiness immediately after the events of September 11," Beedle assured the subcommittee. "Our plants continue to maintain the highest level of security. This heightened state of alert means that the industry has added security posts and expanded the physical barriers where needed, increased patrols of our grounds and perimeters, and restricted access by the general public, among other things." But this level of increased security is not enough, Leventhal warned, "We must move quickly to prevent attacks on nuclear power plants that could release immense amounts of cancer causing, radioactive contamination over large, densely populated areas. We all would have trouble living with ourselves if the worst happened and we had we not taken every possible step to prevent it. We must act now." © Environment News Service (ENS) 2001. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 7 Energy review blows out nuclear power in favour of wind and waves Sunday Herald By Rob Edwards [rob.edwards@sundayherald.com] Environmental Editor SPUN out of control, the story has been everywhere. For months newspapers across the land have been reporting that the government's energy review will 'pave the way' for up to 15 new nuclear power stations, two or three of which could be destined for Scotland. This may be what the nuclear industry and its ministerial cheer-leaders want, but it bears no resemblance to what the long awaited review initiated by Prime Minister Tony Blair will actually say. The review, which is being finalised by the Cabinet's Performance And Innovation Unit (PIU) this week, will show that it is possible to meet the UK's energy needs and cut its climate-wrecking carbon pollution by improving energy efficiency and expanding renewable energy from the wind, waves and tides. This is cheaper, easier and more publicly acceptable than building new nuclear reactors. The review has identified two scenarios which could meet the target of cutting carbon emissions by 60% over the next 50 years recommended by the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution. One -- 'global sustainability' -- assumes an annual growth rate of 2% and involves increased energy efficiency, combined heat and power stations and renewable sources providing 30% of electricity needs. The other -- 'local stewardship' -- assumes an annual growth of 1%, a 20% contribution from renewables and no increase in the use of private cars. Neither scenario envisages building any new nuclear power stations. Their only role accorded by the PIU review is as a back-up, with methods of containing carbon emissions from fossil fuels known as 'sequestration', in case something goes wrong with plans to increase reliance on renewable energy sources. 'Our overall conclusion for the new capacity in the electricity supply sector by 2020 is that it can best be delivered, consistent with all energy policy objectives, using energy efficiency, combined heat and power and renewable energy, provided that the last of these can be built at acceptable cost,' one PIU study has concluded. Insiders say that the review will suggest that techniques for removing carbon emissions for coal should be tested in a pilot plant. A permanent sustainable energy policy unit within government will also be proposed. As was widely predicted, PIU will favour removing nuclear generation from the climate change levy, but on its own this will not be enough to make new reactors economic enough to build. The power company British Energy estimates that this would only be worth £2 million a year, and has said that it requires other public subsidies and financial changes before it will invest in a new nuclear plant. The review will not recommend any other subsidies. Cost estimates by PIU experts suggest that nuclear power, at 3-4.5p per unit of electricity, is more expensive than onshore wind power at 1.5-2.4p per unit, combined heat and power at 1.6-2.4p and gas generation at 1.8-2.1p. The PIU has come to its conclusions despite the fact that its review is chaired by Brian Wilson, the energy minister who has never made a secret of his enthusiasm for nuclear electricity. He is the MP for Cunninghame North which includes the Hunterston nuclear power station on the Clyde coast. Sources have told the Sunday Herald that Wilson has clashed with the PIU's expert advisers and demanded that a draft be rewritten so that it was less negative about nuclear power. Last week he warned the nuclear industry not to expect too much from the review . 'Supposing the PIU recommended acceptance of the nuclear industry's entire shopping list, it would not guarantee the building of a single new nuclear station,' he said. Senior executives of the nuclear industry have made clear that they regarded the review as make-or-break time. 'It is no exaggeration to say that British Nuclear Fuels and nuclear power are at the cross- roads,' said BNFL's chairman, Hugh Collum. 'Ahead of us lies either a long managed decline or a period of renewed growth.' The PIU report, which is expected to be published early in the new year, will not embody the government's view. It will only be a recommendation to the government. The policy to pursue will be decided by the Cabinet, after the issue has been considered by its energy sub-committee chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott. There will also be a public consultation . Environmental groups will urge the Cabinet to abide by the PIU's nuclear-free scenarios. For once they will have an ally in the Scottish Executive, whose support for renewables and opposition to new nuclear stations is said to have been influential in the PIU's deliberations. But even if Blair were to decide to subsidise the building of a few nuclear reactors, it is very unlikely that any of them would end up in Scotland. Aside from the huge potential for wind, wave and tidal energy north of the Border, senior Scottish ministers have made it clear that they are unwilling to accept new nuclear stations while the problem of disposing of the radioactive waste they would create remains unsolved. ©2001 smg sunday newspapers ltd. no.176088. all rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 8 EXCLUSIVE: Blair report to veto more nuclear plants Sunday Herald But wind and waves can power Britain By Rob Edwards [rob.edwards@sundayherald.com] Environment Editor NUCLEAR power? No thanks. That's the message Tony Blair's advisers will give the nuclear power industry this week when its shopping list of subsidies for up to 15 new power stations is rejected. The Sunday Herald can reveal that the Prime Minister's much-heralded energy review will bitterly disappoint the multi- million pound industry and its supporters in government. But it will be welcomed by Scottish ministers who have been pressing for a non-nuclear energy strategy. Insiders say the review, which is being conducted by the Prime Minister's Performance and Innovation Unit (PIU), will show the UK can meet its energy needs and cut pollution without building any new nuclear stations. 'The reality is that the nuclear industry is facing extinction,' said Stewart Boyle, an expert from the specialist journal, Energy Economist. 'The PIU is rapidly moving towards a conclusion that renewables, combined heat and power and conservation, alongside a strong role for gas, can take the UK energy economy forward successfully over the next 20 years while meeting economic, security and sustainability criteria.' This is a major setback for the pro- nuclear energy minister Brian Wilson who has been chairing the review. He has been fighting a rearguard action in support of nuclear power, which has resulted in private clashes with experts on the review team. In public Wilson is now beginning to distance himself from the review, warning the nuclear industry last week not to expect too much from it. The only concession he has won is that nuclear stations should be exempt from the climate change levy as they do not produce the pollution that causes global warming. But this will not be enough to save nuclear power, which is more expensive than other forms of generation because of the high costs of dealing with radioactive waste. The only role for new reactors envisaged by the PIU team is as an insurance if the planned expansion of renewable energy falters. However, the gigantic potential of power from the wind, waves and tides is about to be given an unprecedented boost by the Scottish Executive. Tomorrow environment and rural development minister Ross Finnie is publishing the first full assessment of the contribution that renewable sources could practically make. The results, which have taken aback even die-hard renewable enthusiasts, are revolutionary. Thousands of wind turbines on land and at sea, wave power machines and underwater tidal generators could provide 10 times more electricity than Scotland needs. The study, by energy consultants Garrad Hassan, concludes that renewables in Scotland could produce a massive 60 gigawatts of power, three quarters of the installed generating capacity of the UK as a whole. This could be done taking into account all the technical and economic barriers and without damaging any scenic or nature conservation areas. Environmentalists say the potential is 'staggering' and shows how Scotland's renewable energy capacity has been seriously underestimated in the past. It also kills off the hopes harboured by the power company British Energy of building new reactors to replace those at Hunterston in Ayrshire and Torness in East Lothian. 'This report sounds the death knell for nuclear new-build in Scotland,' said Kevin Dunion, chief executive of Friends of the Earth Scotland. 'Environmentally nuclear plants cannot compete, for although they produce no carbon dioxide emissions in generation, they leave a legacy of radioactive wastes which have to be safely contained for thousands of years.' A British Energy spokesman said: 'There's been a lot of speculation about what may or may not come out of the review. Let's wait and see what the report says when it comes out.' The review is due to be delivered to Blair before Christmas and published in the New Year. ©2001 smg sunday newspapers ltd. no.176088. all rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 9 Editorial: It's no wonder why they're getting antsy Las Vegas SUN December 07, 2001 Last week a U.S. Chamber of Commerce business coalition stepped up its pressure on the Bush administration to make a decision on the Yucca Mountain Project. The group, fronting for the nuclear power industry, said that within 30 days Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham should recommend to President Bush that nuclear waste be stored in Nevada's Yucca Mountain. In light of the events a week ago it's not surprising that the nuclear power industry and its friends in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce would want a quick decision. After all, a draft report from the General Accounting Office said the Yucca Mountain Project should be delayed indefinitely due to the Energy Department's flawed scientific investigation. In more bad news, a law firm working for the Energy Department's Yucca Mountain Project canceled its contract with the department because of a conflict of interest: The Winston &Strawn law firm also had a lobbying contract with a nuclear power industry trade group. Yes, we can see why supporters of a nuclear waste dump want the administration to act fast: They're afraid that the longer this drags out, even more damaging information will be revealed that could doom the dump's fate. If anything, the Bush administration should immediately stop the work at Yucca Mountain considering how badly this project has been bungled. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 10 District, Other Cities Preparing Crisis Evacuation Plans (washingtonpost.com) By Eric Pianin and Spencer S. Hsu Washington Post Staff Writers Sunday, December 9, 2001; Page A34 Heeding repeated Bush administration warnings of imminent terrorist attacks, the District of Columbia and many other cities are preparing detailed plans for evacuating residents to limit casualties in the event of another massive assault. State and local officials are preparing to be able to carry out evacuations on receipt of credible and compelling warning that their cities are about to be struck or, in a more likely scenario, to manage the chaos of a spontaneous exodus after an attack. The unknownnature of the threat defies any fail-safe master plan, but officials want to be better prepared than they were before the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The need seems even more compelling following reports that Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network may have made greater strides than was previously thought in developing crude radioactive weapons. "These are unthinkable scenarios, and now you have people thinking about them," said John Czwartacki, a spokesman for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). State and local officials met in Pittsburgh recently to begin drafting new downtown evacuation and traffic control plans. Chicago has a plan in place for evacuating the Loop in a crisis, and Mayor Richard M. Daley has proposed new measures to force high-rises to developevacuation plans. District officials have prepared a comprehensive plan that includes updated evacuation routes, overhauled communications and transportation strategies and legal memos on the line of authority if Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) becomes incapacitated and cannot make decisions. Cabinet aides to Williams have been given kits of special Nextel telephones, two-way pagers and codes that they must carry with them at all times to commandeer communication lines in a crisis. "It is not out of the realm of the possible that something major would happen in Washington and we would have to actually implement all of these plans, and we would have to get people out," said Margret Nedelkoff Kellems, the deputy mayor for public safety. "It's a fairly small risk, but the consequences would be so enormous it's a risk you have to prepare for." While the Homeland Security Office, FEMA and other federal agencies advise state and local governments on evacuation policy, decision-making is left largely to local officials. Tom Ridge, director of homeland security, has said virtually nothing publicly about the question of evacuation, and his aides have declined to speculate on whether the administration would urge evacuation if a city received corroborated intelligence that it was being targeted with weapons of mass destruction. District and federal emergency and homeland defense leaders have stockpiled equipment, medicine and protective gear at several locations around the city in case they must orchestrate the movement of hundreds of thousands of people well beyond the Beltway. Any emergency order could be broadcast via the Internet, by radio and television through the Emergency Broadcast System and to 75 local government agencies through a land telephone network. Washington officials have taken the old bare-bones evacuation plans and outdated regional maps and updated them, identifying 70 critical intersections in the city where District police have recently been drilled to take charge. Transportation chiefs from the region met last week to review designs for new, hot-pink evacuation route signs for about 10 major roads, such as New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and Wisconsin avenues and Canal Road. "We've gotten further in six weeks integrating various regional transportation agencies' information than in the last six years," said D.C. Transportation Director Dan Tangherlini. The massive logistical requirements of an evacuation would test any city. A terrorist attack using biological, chemical or nuclear weapons -- or merely the threat of such an attack -- could trigger an exodus that would likely result in gridlock and panic. The Sept. 11 attacks have inspired conversations among families and friends about escape plans. "This is something that needs to be thought through by everybody, from large cities to small communities," said Rep. C. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), chairman of a House Intelligence subcommittee on homeland security. "We need to encourage local officials to consider every possible contingency." Depending on the type and location of an attack, officials would confront myriad tough decisions. For example, massive explosions or the use of nuclear or radioactive weapons likely would prompt efforts to get people out of town, but a biological attack such as a smallpox outbreak might mean enforced quarantines and population controls. "Once something has happened, there's a set amount you can do," Kellems said. "You're responding, you're in a reactive mode. The trick is how much can you do in advance, and that's largely contingent on how much advance notice you have." There was no advance notice on Sept. 11, but about 1 million people were evacuated from lower Manhattan by boat that day, according to a U.S. Coast Guard estimate. They were moved out by the Coast Guard, the New York Harbor Police and a fleet of commercial mariners who responded to calls for help. Many thousands of others fled on foot or by car or public transportation. It was a successful evacuation, but officials had to improvise in coordinating it. Since then, the New York City Mayor's Office of Emergency Management has been updating and revising its disaster evacuation plans on a regular basis, according to spokesman Frank McCarton. The mechanics of evacuation may be especially difficult in Washington, where the federal government has nearly 200,000 employees and occupies 40 percent of the real estate. Power to order a mandatory evacuation of local government, businesses and residents rests solely with the mayor. Yet any citywide evacuation order would have to be made in consultation with Ridge, director Kay Cole James of the Office of Personnel Management, congressional leaders and law enforcement and intelligence officials, Kellems said. Metro general manager Richard A. White warned in mid-October that evacuation plans for the larger region were a patchwork of ideas, complaining, "The region simply doesn't have an evacuation plan per se." The Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, a regional planning group, is preparing an emergency response and evacuation plan but has a way to go. "They have made significant progress in trying to put together some kind of regional framework," Ray Feldmann, a Metro spokesman, said yesterday. © 2001 The Washington Post Company ***************************************************************** 11 Russia hopes to build NPP in four countries [ITAR/TASS News Agency] Story Filed: Friday, December 07, 2001 3:19 PM EST MOSCOW, Dec 07, 2001 (Itar-Tass via COMTEX) -- Russia hopes to build nuclear power plants in Finland, Vietnam, Egypt and Kazakhstan. Preliminary negotiations are underway, but contracts may be signed approximately in five years, Atomstroiexport General Director Viktor Kozlov told Itar-Tass on Friday. Atomstroiexport is a subsidiary of the Russian Atomic Energy Ministry. The four countries have asked Russia for information about its atomic energy industry and possible construction of NPP abroad. The information has been supplied, and the possible clients are considering it. Some of the countries may abstain from signing contracts with Russia right now, Kozlov said. There may be international tenders for the construction of new power plants, and Russia will take part in them. For instance, a contest of the sort will start in Finland in 2002. Atomstroiexport will present an NPP unit with the VVER-1,000 reactor at the contest. Atomstroiexport has become a leader by the portfolio of orders from abroad, Kozlov said. It has contracts to build two NPP units in China, two in India and one in Iran. Larger exports to the world atomic energy market support domestic producers, because 80 to 90 Russian plants are taking part in the production and supplies of equipment for nuclear power plants under construction abroad. The price of one NPP is 1.5 billion dollars on the average. "The technical servicing of power plants also brings stable revenues," Kozlov said. By Veronika Voskoboinikova (c) 1996-2001 ITAR-TASS. All rights ***************************************************************** 12 Going dark at San Onofre Orange County Register - Top News Sunday, December 9, 2001 A February fire that led to four-month closure of nuclear power plant fits a pattern of industry failures. December 9, 2001 By CHRIS KNAP The Orange County Register San Onofre -- It was 3:18 on a quiet Saturday afternoon when the control panel went dark at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. The date was Feb. 3, and operators were bringing Unit 3 back to full power after installing fresh uranium fuel. When the reactor reached 40 percent power, an alarm horn suddenly blared. As its jarring 'BOOOP! BOOOP! BOOOP!" echoed through the control room, operators rushed in to diagnose what was happening. All across the plant, circuit breakers were popping. The coolant pumps had slowed and the reactor's computer, sensing danger, had begun to shut down. The room-sized instrument panel that warns of malfunctions was spangled with red. Then a rogue blast of current popped safety breakers and the warning panel shut down too. Inside the control room, operators scrambled for a computer printout that would tell them what was happening. Outside, something was on fire. While operators struggled in the dark, a 20-year-old circuit breaker was about to cost troubled Southern California Edison more than $100 million. The fire would shut down the reactor for four months at the height of California's energy crisis and contribute to statewide rolling blackouts. No one was hurt on Feb. 3. But in a worst-case scenario, a series of failures such as those that day could lead to a meltdown of the nuclear core. According to documents filed by Edison when the plant was first licensed, a meltdown could kill 130,000 people, cause 300,000 cancers and create 600,000 birth defects. Nuclear power has a good safety record in the United States. But it is not impeccable. Leaks and accidents happen every month, but the general public rarely learns of them. Since 1999, corroded pipes, leaking valves and other worn-out safety equipment has caused more than 50 fires, leaks, and safety hazards serious enough to require an emergency reactor shutdown. In three of the incidents - in New York and Pennsylvania - radiation was released into the atmosphere. September's suicide bombings raised fears that terrorists might attack U.S. nuclear plants. But Nuclear Regulatory Commission inspection reports and technical bulletins show that another danger lurks every day within these 20- to 40-year-old plants. "These reactors were built at a time when the impacts of prolonged radiation exposure on materials wasn't known. We now know some of these components are deteriorating more quickly than expected," said Anna Aurilio, an engineer with the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, which opposes nuclear power. "There is no question that as reactors get older, more and more equipment will become degraded," said Dan Hirsch, former director of the Adlai Stevenson Program on Nuclear Policy at UC Santa Cruz and president of Committee to Bridge the Gap, a Los Angeles nuclear-watchdog group. "The San Onofre incident is troubling because it suggests there are other accidents waiting to happen with equipment that hasn't been adequately maintained or checked." THE HEAD OF the Nuclear Energy Institute, the lobbying group for the nation's commercial nuclear reactors, agrees that aging equipment is "an issue," but says the industry is working hard to address it through preventive maintenance. Overall, the industry is proud of its record and believes more nuclear plants should be built in the United States. "Existing plants are operating safely and reliably. From a nuclear standpoint, the record is pretty impeccable over the last 20 years," says Marvin Fertel, executive director of the institute. The NRC's top officials agree, saying U.S. atomic power plants are safer than they've ever been. The NRC's own statistics aren't as clear on that point. For instance, after a decade of improvement, the number of incidents that could lead to a serious nuclear accident has increased since 1999, NRC reports show. Regulators don't think those increases are significant and have already given 20-year extensions to three nuclear plants approaching the expiration of their 40-year licenses. Shortly after the extensions were approved, two of the three, Oconee in South Carolina and Arkansas 1 in Russellville, Ark., were found to have cracks in their nuclear reactors at the point where graphite rods are inserted to shut down the reaction. The NRC has warned 69 nuclear plants, including San Onofre, to check for similar cracks, which could lead to an accident that melts the uranium core and releases toxic radiation outside the plant. "When we relicense a plant, we are not saying that aging effects will not show up," said Jack Strosnider, director of engineering in the NRC's Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. "Machines and mechanical components age. Power plants age. We have requirements for the plants to do inspections on all the important equipment. They have to do testing for corrosion, for cracking. They may not find these problems early in every case, but the people are out there looking," he said. But some experts say regulators are not doing enough. David Lochbaum, a nuclear-safety engineer with the Union of Concerned Scientists, testified before Congress in May that the NRC has allowed plant owners to cut back on safety checks and to operate with dangerously worn equipment. Lochbaum's group does not oppose nuclear power but argues that regulation should be tighter. "These aging-related failures indicate beyond a reasonable doubt that the aging- management programs are inadequate," Lochbaum said. NRC reports confirm that cooling pipes, valves and other safety systems have failed in service weeks or months after their poor condition was documented. The NRC's inspector general criticized Strosnider's office last year for failing to follow up on engineering reports that showed a dangerous condition at Indian Point 2, which later leaked radioactive gases into the air near New York City. Strosnider acknowledged in an interview that the agency had made mistakes. Aurilio, the citizens group lobbyist, said, "There is a consistent pattern of wanting to promote the industry and protect its profits instead of being a watchdog for the citizens. It's very troubling." The industry and the NRC argue that nuclear plants have so many safety systems that these types of accidents don't threaten public safety. The amount of radiation released last year at Indian Point, they say, was so small it was difficult to measure. But some health scientists argue that even small releases of radiation can endanger pregnant women and babies - leading to higher rates of cancer. Studies that document higher cancer rates have been made at Turkey Point in South Florida, at Trojan Nuclear Station in Oregon and Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania. Scientists still disagree on the cause and significance of those findings. "I've been very skeptical," said Lyn Harris Hicks, a San Onofre watcher who has lived in San Clemente's Cypress Shores, less than three miles from the plant, for 30 years. "During the licensing hearing, they told us they couldn't have any accidents at San Onofre because there were so many backup systems. Later we learned they have accidents all the time. They just don't call them accidents, they call them incidents. The general public accepts that we're not vulnerable, and that's wrong." MOST OF THE time the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station is a quiet giant, slumbering peacefully by the ocean. Two massive concrete containment domes form its chest. Its legs are the cooling pipes sending heated water a mile and a half out to sea. Its arms are the transmission towers pumping 2,200 megawatts of electricity to a power-hungry state. Together with the 2,300-megawatt Diablo Canyon plant in Central California and the 4,200-megawatt Palo Verde in Arizona, this nuclear family provides about 20 percent of the power used in California on an average day. All three plants are high-performance designs called pressurized-water reactors. That means they make extra power from their reactors by pressurizing water in their steam generators to 2,200 pounds - about 200 times the pressure of your car radiator. NRC reports show these highly-stressed plants are six times as likely to have a serious accident as the simpler but less powerful boiling- water reactors. The weak point of these reactors is the pressurized steam generator, which separates radioactive cooling water from clean water drawn from rivers or oceans. A half-dozen of these steam generators have failed in the past 20 years, most recently at Indian Point 2. Consolidated Edison, which operated the Hudson River plant, had inspected its steam-generator tubes in 1997 using an electronic device. The test results - which everyone agrees are difficult to read - showed that the tubes had deep cracks. NRC inspectors allowed the company, which is not affiliated with Southern California Edison, to put the device back in service - and then granted the company an additional one-year extension before it had to retest or replace the tubes. On Feb. 2, 2000, the steam generator failed, contaminating 20,000 gallons of cooling water and releasing radioactive gases into the air. Palo Verde similarly failed to identify a tube defect during an inspection in 1998 and put a flawed generator back in service, NRC records show. That defect held until 2000, when it was discovered and repaired. San Onofre, like Indian Point and Palo Verde, has been delaying the multimillion-dollar cost of replacing its steam generators. Eight percent of the tubes in Unit 2 and 6 percent of the tubes in Unit 3 have had to be removed from service and plugged because of cracks and leaks, according to Southern California Edison. Once 10 percent of the tubes are plugged, Edison will have to replace the generators - or cut back power. "We are trying to nurse these as long as we can," Edison's Ray Golden said. WHILE SAN ONOFRE operators struggled that winter afternoon to restore power to their control panel, the plant's firefighters rushed to the Unit 3 switchroom, finding it filled with heavy smoke. Plant engineers would later discover that a circuit breaker installed when the plant was built 25 years earlier had failed to close properly, likely due to wear, NRC reports show. When plant operators began to power up Unit 3, the partially closed contacts created a 4,000-volt arc that melted the breaker and filled the switchroom with smoke and ozone. Like a welder out of control, that single breaker wreaked havoc. Nearby circuit breakers shorted or popped, cutting off power to safety systems throughout the plant. Operators were able to cool the nuclear core by powering cooling pumps from Unit 2. But other safety systems were crippled. A backup cooling tank flooded its valves and could not be used - a violation of NRC rules. The emergency oil pumps for the Unit 3 turbine never started, apparently due to another bad breaker. The 200-ton generator continued to spin without oil, grinding its precisely- machined shaft into junk. "It's analogous to being in your car on the highway and losing all your oil at 80 mph," said Edison's Golden. Although the generator was destroying itself, it was still putting out enough power to fuel a stubborn blaze inside the refrigerator-size cabinet where the breaker was vaporizing. Firefighters repeatedly doused the cabinet with fire extinguishers. The blaze repeatedly restarted. After arguing with control-room operators, firefighters finally received permission to use water on the fire at 5:40 p.m. At 6:11 p.m., just shy of three hours after it started, the fire was out. Repairs to the generator and the electrical system would eventually cost $40million, although Edison's insurer would pay for all but $2.5million. The big hit was the cost of replacement power for 117 days - $98million. IN THE PAST three years the NRC has found eight violations at San Onofre related to old or worn-out equipment. In December 1999, Southern California Edison admitted having an "inadequate equipment status control program." Less than eight months later, NRC regulators found another "pattern of delayed maintenance" including electrical relays that weren't properly tested and failed when finally checked. But Edison says the fire in February was not caused by inadequate maintenance. Prior to the fire, breakers that didn't control safety functions were cleaned, lubricated and adjusted every six years, the company says. Breakers that control safety circuits were cleaned and adjusted every four years. Breaker 3A0712, which sparked the fire, was cleaned, and adjusted on May 8, 1997, according to documents - three years and eight months before the fire. More than 150 identical breakers are still in operation at San Onofre, dozens of them protecting critical safety systems. Golden said the company has no plans to change its maintenance schedule. "This was original equipment," Golden said. "For 20 years it operated properly. If (engineers) see reoccurrence, it potentially could lead to a change in (maintenance) frequency. But right now that wouldn't be the case." The NRC has found nothing wrong with Edison's breaker-maintenance schedule. Hirsch, the nuclear-safety activist, disagrees. "The PR spokespeople for nuclear power plants seem to have a button on their computer; they push it and out comes the phrase: "There's no evidence of unsafe conditions," Hirsch said. "I would be much more relieved if they sometimes said, 'This is a problem, and we're going to take steps to fix it.'" Copyright 2001 The Orange County Register ocregister@link.freedom.com--> ***************************************************************** 13 Recent safety hazards at aging nuclear plants Orange County Register - Top News Sunday, December 9, 2001 In the past three years, old or worn-out equipment has caused dozens of incidents requiring plants to shut down. BY CHRIS KNAP The Orange County Register Since January 1999, worn-out equipment at U.S. nuclear power plants has caused more than 50 fires, radiation or steam leaks, or other serious safety hazards requiring shutdown of the nuclear reactor. Here are details of some of the most serious accidents: January 1999: Inadequate maintenance led to a six-hour hydrogen fire on the roof of the control building at J.A. Fitzpatrick in Syracuse, N.Y., forcing a plant shutdown. August 1999: A cooling- water drain line in Callaway, Mo., broke because of severe corrosion, forcing a reactor shutdown. A subsequent inspection revealed at least 10 areas where pipes had decayed and were in danger of breaking. 1999-2000: Millstone in Waterford, Conn., had to repeatedly shut down due to failures of the reactor control-rod drive system, including control rods that came loose and dropped into the reactor. The plant operator blamed failed insulation and damaged electrical leads. February 2000: A steam generator tube ruptured at Indian Point 2 in New York, contaminating 19,000 gallons of cooling water and releasing radioactive steam into the atmosphere. May 2000: A failed electrical conductor at Diablo Canyon 1 in San Luis Obispo County triggered a fire that cut power to the coolant and circulating water pumps that keep the nuclear core from overheating. August 2000: Peach Bottom Unit 3, in Pennsylvania, was forced into emergency shutdown when an instrument valve failed and caused a leak of contaminated reactor cool ant outside of primary containment. A similar valve failure and leak of radiation had occurred May 28, 2000, but the valves were not replaced. October 2000: At V.C. Summer, in South Carolina, a 29- inch diameter coolant pipe, with walls more than 2 inches thick, suffered a crack due to water stress corrosion, creating a leak of radioactive cooling water. Crack indications were later found at four more reactor inlets. November 2000 to April 2001: After receiving a 20-year license extension, operators of Oconee 1, in Seneca, S.C., found 19 cracks in the reactor where control rods pass through to the nuclear core. Radioactive cooling water had been leaking into the containment sump. In February nine leaks were found in Oconee 3, which had been taken down for refueling. Oconee 2 was later found to have four leaking control-rod nozzles. January 2001: Failure of an 18-year-old valve at North Anna, Va., created a leak of radioactive coolant of more than 10 gallons per minute, forcing a shutdown of the reactor. February 2001: A 20-year-old circuit breaker at San Onofre 3, near Camp Pendleton, failed to close, creating a 4000-volt arc and fire that cut power to coolant control systems, drowned emergency switching valves and shut down emergency oil pumps, destroying the Unit 3 generator shaft. Currently, 150 identical breakers remain in service at the plant. February 2001: After Arkansas 1 was re-licensed for 20 years, extensive cracking was found on the control-rod drives and thermocouple nozzles entering the nuclear reactor. August 2001: Failure of a valve at Palo Verde 3, in Arizona, caused a leak of radioactive cooling water from the irradiated fuel-cooling pool into the reactor containment building, forcing a reactor shutdown. Source: Nuclear Regulatory Commission inspection reports, incident reports and technical bulletins. Copyright 2001 The Orange County Register ***************************************************************** 14 San Onofre's safety record Sunday, December 9, 2001 By Chris Knap The Orange County Register Although the safety record and performance of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station has improved in recent years, the plant had a poor record in the 1980s. Here's a look back: • 1968: Southern California Edison and its minority partner, San Diego Gas & Electric, open San Onofre Unit 1, a 400-megawatt nuclear power plant on the beach near Camp Pendleton. San Onofre is touted as a demonstration plant for pressurized-water reactors. • 1980: With Unit 1's steam generator badly dented and leaking from corrosion, Edison brings in 600 workers to patch 7,000 faults in the radioactive steam tubes. Edison is later fined $100,000 for allowing 66 workers to become exposed to dangerous amounts of radiation. • 1981: San Onofre workers excavating for a walkway across the beachfront adjacent to the Unit 1 reactor discover 700 cubic yards of radioactive sand, apparently contaminated by water that leaked from the cooling system at Unit 1. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission lists San Onofre among 10 U.S. reactors whose safety record is "far below average." • 1982: San Onofre Unit 2, a pressurized-water reactor rated at 1,070 megawatts, comes on line. • 1983: San Onofre Unit 3, the twin of Unit 2, comes on line. • 1984: Defective fuel rods disintegrate during refueling, scattering radioactive particles that are tracked throughout the plant. The contamination is so widespread that protective clothing on the ready-to-issue shelves is found to contain radioactive particles. San Onofre reports release of 40,000 curies of airborne radioactivity in 1984, 10 times average. The NRC fines Edison $100,000. • 1986: Edison reports 236 worker contaminations, about 100 more than the industry annual average. SCE internal documents, unearthed during a lawsuit by a worker who later died of cancer, suggest that the true number of contaminations between 1984 and 1987 was as high as 500 workers per year. • 1987: San Onofre workers are found to have carried radioactive fuel particles out of the plant on their jackets, shoes, and other personal articles. One health technician finds a radioactive fuel fragment embedded in his home carpet. • 1992: Facing problems with leaks and cracking of the reactor vessel after 24 years in operation, Edison decides to close Unit 1; decommissioning begins. • 1994: Edison agrees to a multimillion-dollar settlement with Rung Tang, a nuclear-safety monitor at San Onofre in the '80s who allegedly contracted leukemia from exposure to microscopic particles of highly irradiated fuel. The exact amount of the settlement is kept secret. • 1998: NRC cites Edison for losing a Safeguards Contingency Plan, which details how the plant would respond to security breaches. • 2000: NRC extends the operating licenses for San Onofre Units 2 and 3 from 2013 to 2022. Edison obtains a coastal permit to store irradiated fuel in concrete casks because it has run out of room in its cooling ponds. • 2001: Failure of a 20-year-old breaker sparks a stubborn electrical fire that forces an emergency reactor shutdown, floods backup water supply valves and damages the generator shaft on Unit 3. No one is injured and no radiation is released, but damage tops $40 million and the reactor is shut down for four months. Replacement power costs financially weakened Edison $98 million. Reporting by Chris Knap / The Register. Sources: NRC documents, federal court files, The Orange County Register, The Associated Press, other published reports. [http://www.ocregister.com] The Orange County Register ***************************************************************** 15 Public Service Board favors releasing auction documents By Associated Press, 12/8/2001 11:36 MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) The Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corp. is likely to lose its fight to keep secret details of an auction of Vermont's sole nuclear reactor. In a preliminary ruling Friday, the Vermont Public Service Board said it was on the verge of ordering the release of all documents pertaining to the auction of Vermont Yankee to groups opposing the sale. Such a release would break confidentiality agreements Yankee signed this summer with the bidders and Entergy Corp., which agreed to buy the plant for $180 million. Energy company attorneys said that it would have a ''chilling'' effect on other nuclear sales. The board told Vermont Yankee and Entergy officials that it was not convinced that irreparable harm would follow the release. Anti-nuclear and consumer groups, including the New England Coalition on Nuclear Pollution, had sought access to the auction documents. They said they needed the information about the other companies and their bids to properly analyze the Entergy sale. The auction ended with a plan to sell the plant to Entergy Nuclear Corp. for $180 million. Also seeking the documents were the Conservation Law Foundation and Citizens Awareness Network. While Board Chairman Michael Dworkin said the ruling by the three-member board was preliminary, it was clear that it was just a formality before the ruling was put in writing. ''We do think that the nongovernment groups have a right to see it,'' Dworkin said. Yankee and Entergy had sought a special protective order from the Public Service Board to keep the documents sealed, saying the sale would be in jeopardy if details were disclosed. Robert A. Miller Jr., an attorney for Yankee, said that confidentiality agreements had been signed between Yankee, JP Morgan, which handled the auction, and its bidders, as well as Entergy. He said he was afraid Yankee would be sued or worse if those agreements were broken. ''We're plowing new ground here,'' he said. Yankee and JP Morgan also want to keep the information about the other bidders from Entergy, out of fear that Entergy will try to get out of the deal, according to testimony. But Dworkin noted that state law required such information to be public. He ordered Yankee to meet with the three environmental groups to work out an agreement on how the documents would be handled. The three environmental groups had agreed to keep the information confidential and not release it to the public. ***************************************************************** 16 Safety more than a positive spin to Pilgrim's hometown spokesman PLYMOUTH By Mark Pothier, Globe Staff, 12/9/2001 People used to joke about fishing near the Pilgrim nuclear power plant. It was a good place to drop a line, they said, because the catch came precooked. David Tarantino knows the joke, and he knows the waters off Manomet. He has gone lobstering there since 1958, when his father decided a 14-year-old boy in a 15-foot dory should make money. Tarantino, 57, still works the coast, but most of the time he is in an office instead of a boat. He has been the Pilgrim nuclear power plant spokesman for so long it is easy to imagine quotation marks floating above his head when he talks. Just as it is easy for some to imagine a cloud of invisible poison billowing above the plant. ''I'm extremely confident that it's safe,'' Tarantino said. ''There is a great bunch of people here and their highest priority is safety. It's not just the PR guy saying safety's our big thing. It's how they live and I know it.'' Ken Tavares, chairman of Plymouth's Board of Selectmen, said he trusts Tarantino: ''If David didn't believe in it, he wouldn't be able to live with himself.'' Duxbury's Mary Ott, founder of Citizens Urging Responsible Energy, said it is Tarantino's job to play down risks. ''He's paid to put a positive spin on Pilgrim's bad news,'' she said. ''I hope he's paid well for it.'' Before Sept. 11, anti-nuclear activists' cries had become whispers. The warning speakers that blossom like big black orchids atop poles throughout the 10-mile evacuation zone got as much attention from locals as yellow lights at intersections. The business of making electricity for 600,000 houses was business as usual. On Sept. 10, the spokesman was not answering questions about what would happen if an airliner rammed the reactor containment building. Last month, he was quizzed on national television. ''I can't sit here and tell you it could resist any force imaginable,'' Tarantino told ABC News correspondent Jay Schadler. ''But it's a rugged structure.'' Friends say he is a rugged spokesman, too. In 16 years Tarantino survived four plant managers, an ownership change (Boston Edison sold Pilgrim to Louisiana-based Entergy for $80 million in 1999) and a public relations meltdown. For 32 months starting in April 1986, the plant did not produce enough electricity to make a night-light flicker. It was offline and under fire from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for poor management. The PR department stuffed five 5-inch thick binders with clippings during each of the dark years. It was all bad news. Boston Edison brought in new managers and hired John Fidler as a spokesman. Fidler knew trouble - he came from Three Mile Island. Edison also wanted a local guy with political connections to convince the public that its reactor was as benign as the Mayflower. Tarantino remembers a lunch interview at Bert's restaurant with Elaine Robinson, a Pilgrim spokeswoman at the time. ''As soon as I got home, my mother called and asked, `Who was the blonde you were with at Bert's?' It was still a small town.'' He has lived in Plymouth all his life, never on the waterfront, but always close enough to smell salt air. These days, weeks after national television trucks left and newspapers demoted Pilgrim stories to inside pages, heightened security is routine. Like everyone else who works at the plant, Tarantino starts his day by passing a security gauntlet. National Guard troops patrol the access road in camouflage gear, their rifles in plain view. Around his neck, Tarantino wears a radiation detector, a card key, a ''human performance'' reminder list, a ''Team Pilgrim'' badge, and a Level 2 identification card, which allows him access to the reactor building. His small office is decorated with pictures of what matters most to him: family and the ocean. He has been married to his wife, Pat, for 32 years. She teaches kindergarten in Duxbury. They raised three children - David, Tom, and Kathryn - in a well-kept home off Sandwich Street. Tarantino pointed to a photo of a 62-pound striped bass. ''Caught it off Saquish,'' he said. ''A lot of people told me not to come here because they said it would never open again,'' he said. ''Pilgrim enjoyed a wonderful reputation from when it opened in '72. It took a long while for that reputation to slide downhill. It was a long battle to bring it back again.'' In 1971, Tarantino was generating his own power base. He put a Providence College political science degree to use by running against two incumbents for selectman. ''I went door-to-door-to-door,'' he said. ''I think everybody was looking for a change and I won.'' Tarantino was reelected four times and served 15 years. Roger Silva was on the board with him in the '70s. They became friends on a board dominated by a local political legend, Cozy Barrett. According to Silva, Tarantino was quick to establish his presence. ''He didn't hold back any punches when it came to people who appeared before us,'' said Silva. ''He was always one to speak his mind,'' said David Malaguti, a current selectman who also served on the board with Tarantino two decades ago. ''He had a temper and he let you know where he stood.'' ''I'm not the kind of person you give a hard time to,'' Tarantino said. ''Sometimes I'm not as sensitive to other opinions as I should be and I work on that. Sometimes that hurts you in relationships with people.'' Tavares, who was first elected to the Board of Selectmen in 1975, said Tarantino ''knew where to position himself and how to get his point across. David is a man of principle ... and he's tempered with age. You do things more diplomatically than you did 30 years ago.'' Tarantino taught European and American history at Plymouth-Carver High School for 15 years. He spent three years at the state cable television commission and quit when Governor Ed King was defeated. ''I didn't think I had a big future under Mike Dukakis, which I'm very proud of,'' he said. ''Next to David I look like a flaming liberal,'' said Tavares, a self-described conservative. A job with the local cable company ended after lunch with the blonde woman. At Edison, he dealt with another woman, Mary ''Pixie'' Lampert, a Pilgrim critic since she moved to Duxbury in 1987. She said Tarantino used his position in town government to get the Pilgrim job. He does not disagree. ''The fact I was in state and local government was an incentive for Boston Edison to hire me,'' he said. ''That's just the way the world works.'' And it helped to have Silva as a friend - he worked as a maintenance engineer at the plant from 1977 to 1987. Six and a half miles of shimmering sea separate Lampert's home and the plant. She wishes it were a thousand. Lampert tried to escape in 1990 by moving, but pricey houses on Washington Street did not sell during the recession. ''That shows you how stupid they are at Pilgrim,'' she said. ''They could have just bought it and been done with me.'' Tarantino said he has ''never really had a problem with our local activists'' and that he understands the barrage of questions since Sept. 11. ''I think that reporters I've dealt with for years and years know that I'm going to tell the truth. '' Lampert hears it differently. Tarantino ''misrepresents the facts,'' she said. ''He has chosen to do this just like a spin doctor talking about how cigarettes are not harmful. I find that ethically wrong. '' His beeper is quieter now than in the weeks following Sept. 11, and the phone does not interrupt sleep as often. But some people consider how the unthinkable became real in New York, and they wonder about a potential target in ''America's Hometown.'' Take, for example, the Boston woman who called Tarantino recently. ''She works on the street with drug addicts,'' he said. ''I told her, `Now, you're the one with a dangerous job.' She said she knew what she was doing. Well, I kind of feel the same way.'' Mark Pothier can be reached by e-mail at mpothier@globe.com [ mpothier@globe.com] . This story ran on page S1 of the Boston Globe on 12/9/2001. © Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company. ***************************************************************** 17 No more nukes, say public Independent NewsNews By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor 09 December 2001 Fewer than one in 10 Britons support the Government's plan to build more nuclear power stations, according to a new opinion poll. And only three per cent oppose the construction of wind farms, despite a vigorous public campaign against them. A poll carried out by BRMB International will shock the Government as it puts the finishing touches to its new energy policy, due to be revealed next month. It will also strengthen the case for a reordering of priorities. It shows that only eight per cent of Britons support the building of new nuclear power stations, and 60 per cent oppose them. By contrast, three per cent of the public oppose wind farms on land. Offshore wind farms are even more popular, with only one per cent against. A second poll, commissioned by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), also shows that 19 out of 20 Britons have heard of global warming and that three-quarters are concerned about it. Yesterday Sir Bernard Ingham, a paid consultant to British Nuclear Fuels, called the poll "valueless''. He said that his campaigns had succeeded in stopping two-thirds of applications to build wind farms in Britain. But Mark Avery, of the RSPB, said: "The poll demonstrates that the public has a sophisticated appreciation of the advantages and disadvantages of different ways of generating power. Let's hope the Government takes more notice of the views of British people than of Sir Bernard's opinions.'' © 2001 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd ***************************************************************** 18 Power companies plan a sea of wind turbines Independent Independent News By Severin Carrell 09 December 2001 Power companies plan to build huge offshore wind farms, each covering more than 77 square miles, under government plans for more use of renewable energy. Shell, British Energy, Powergen and Scottish Power are secretly drawing up schemes to build a series of "super wind farms" with up to 400 turbines off eastern and south-east England, Wales, the North West and South Coast. Large areas of shallow water in Cardigan Bay off west Wales, the Irish Sea off Lancashire and Cumbria, and several hundred miles of inshore waters from Flamborough Head south to Dover, have been identified as potential sites. Smaller stretches have been identified off Hastings, Brighton and Bournemouth on the Channel, along the Bristol Channel, and off north-eastern England and eastern Scotland. These schemes will dwarf the first commercial wind farms, which will be built around Britain after Crown Estates, the government agency which owns the coastal seabed, announced in April that 18 wind farms had been approved. Crown Estates expects to unveil its plans for the new "superfarms" next year, when it will also announce that another batch of small offshore wind farms will be built and existing sites expanded by 2005. The vast wind farms will be at the centre of the Government's plans under a Department of Trade and Industry review to double the amount of renewable energy used in Britain to 20 per cent of the total electricity supply by 2020. To reach that target up to 5,000 turbines would be needed, generating 14 gigawatts of electricity. The vast majority will be offshore, generating electricity equal to 10 large nuclear power stations or 14 large coal-fired ones. "Serious studies are under way for very large offshore wind farms, which will certainly be looking at 300 turbines at least," said David Still, chairman of the British Wind Energy Association and owner of Britain's first offshore scheme, at Blyth, Northumberland. British Energy, the nuclear power company, has emerged as a front-runner in wind energy. "Schemes with around 250 to 300 turbines are the sort of size we would be looking at," said Andrew Mursin, director of British Energy Renewables. But the developers and ministers at the DTI and the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs face stiff opposition from ministers at the Ministry of Defence and the Royal Air Force. The MoD has objected to five of the 18 schemes unveiled in April, claiming that three projects at Shellflat off Blackpool will interfere with flight-testing of the Eurofighter being built at Warton. It claims that bombing ranges at Dundrennan in Dumfriesshire will be affected by the scheme planned for the Solway Firth and that low flying off Norfolk will be harmed by a scheme off Cromer. The power companies face other hurdles. The DTI could block proposals because they interfere with shipping lanes, gas and oil pipelines, traditional fishing grounds and military sites. The effects on areas of natural beauty will also have to be considered. © 2001 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd ***************************************************************** 19 Waste-site clash to go to trial Omaha.com December 9, 2001 BY ROBYNN TYSVER WORLD-HERALD BUREAU LINCOLN - A settlement appears unlikely in a $94 million lawsuit over Nebraska's refusal to license a low-level nuclear waste site. A key sticking point is the state's opposition to allowing an independent entity to review its licensing decision. In turn, the five-state compact that filed the lawsuit refuses to back down from its commitment to build a regional waste facility in Boyd County. The hard stances by each side mean both are headed toward a summer trial in U.S. District Court that is expected to last six or seven weeks. The trial has the potential to be a budget-buster for Nebraska taxpayers if the state is found liable. High-profile witnesses will include U.S. senator and former Gov. Ben Nelson, former Lt. Gov. Kim Robak and Randy Wood, the former director of the Department of Environmental Quality. "The parties have briefly discussed settlement but are so far apart, at least at this time, that the prospect is very, very dim," said Alan Peterson, a Lincoln attorney who represents the five-state compact that has sued Nebraska. The legal wrangling began in 1998, when Nebraska rejected a license for the regional facility near the village of Butte. The state said the proposed site was on a wetland and posed a potential health risk. The case stems to 1983, when Nebraska joined with four other states - Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Kansas - to develop a regional facility for low-level radioactive waste such as contaminated tools and clothing from nuclear power plants and hospitals. The idea of regional facilities was being urged on the states by the federal government. In 1987, Nebraska was chosen as the host state. Some Nebraskans, especially in Boyd County, objected. Eleven years later, after a lengthy and expensive process, the state said "no" to a license for the facility. The five-state compact sued, arguing that the decision was made for political reasons and not based on sound scientific or environmental concerns. To this day, the compact remains committed to building a regional facility in Nebraska, said James O'Connell, the Kansas representative and chairman of the Central Interstate Low-Level Radioactive Waste Compact. O'Connell said the compact believes Nebraska should honor its contractual commitments. "One of the things that has been lost in this controversy is that low-level radioactive waste continues to be generated in the five states and there is still no good long-term solution on how to dispose of it," he said. The compact is seeking $94million in damages incurred over the licensing process. It also is asking for interest to be paid, which could total an additional $50million. More crucial than the money, perhaps, is the request by the compact for an independent review of Nebraska's licensing process. What that potentially means is that an outside entity could license a Nebraska facility. O'Connell said he doesn't understand why the state would have a problem with an independent review, especially if it was comfortable with its licensing decision. "We want the court to find some independent means to conduct a review that is free of bias and political pressures," he said. The State of Nebraska objects on the grounds that it should not turn over such an important decision, which could affect the safety of citizens, to an outside agency. It's a question of state sovereignty, said Brad Reynolds, the Washington, D.C., attorney who is representing the state. "This notion that we can solve this really easy by putting in some independent reviewer," he said, "and letting the state who is going to site this radioactive facility sit on the sidelines while someone determines its fate, I think, is bizarre." ©2001 Omaha World-Herald. ***************************************************************** 20 Safety issues raised over OPPD plant plan Omaha.com December 9, 2001 BY HENRY J. CORDES WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER FORT CALHOUN, Neb. - The safety of nuclear power in the face of the new terrorist threat appears to be at the center of debate as OPPD moves to extend the life of its nuclear plant here. The Omaha Public Power District's elected board is expected to vote this week to ask federal regulators for a license extension for the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Station, just north of Omaha in Washington County. The extension request, which would keep the plant running through at least 2033, has been in the works for more than two years and has long been expected. But a coalition of environmental and anti-nuclear groups is fighting the move, saying the events of Sept. 11 demand new thinking. Given the catastrophic potential of a terrorist attack at the plant, they say, shouldn't the utility look again to safer alternative sources of power? "We thought they'd get it after the terrorist attacks, that that's the end of nuclear power," said Frances Mendenhall of Omaha, representing the Nebraska Green Party. "The plant is a prime terrorist target." OPPD officials said they have re-examined security issues at the plant since Sept. 11 and see no reason not to proceed with relicensing of Fort Calhoun. "Obviously the world has changed and we have looked at that," said OPPD spokesman Jeff Hanson. "We believe it is an area that is well taken care of." The OPPD board will discuss the relicensing issue in committee meetings Tuesday and then will formally vote at its monthly meeting Thursday at the utility's downtown headquarters. Until recently, most of the discussion on relicensing of the plant has hinged on economics. If OPPD were to allow Fort Calhoun's current license to expire in 2013, the utility would lose a third of its base power load. Building a new coal-burning plant to produce that much power could cost up to $1 billion, the utility has said. "It is a very vital plant to OPPD," Hanson said. "We have continued to review this and find nothing that is a show-stopper." Mendenhall said the utility could find one if it examines the events of Sept. 11 and the potential threat posed by such terrorist attacks. She said one study has suggested that had the terrorists gone after a New York nuclear plant instead of the World Trade Center, the results would have been even more catastrophic. "It's like Hiroshima," Mendenhall said. She said there is nothing in OPPD documents related to the license renewal that reflects that the utility has examined all the issues raised by Sept. 11. The utility at least needs to take more time and allow for more public discussion, she said. That's why the opposition group is calling itself "No to the Nuclear Fast Track." Hanson said Fort Calhoun was built to withstand the crash of a jetliner, a consideration when the plant was built because of its location within Eppley Airfield flight paths. He said the plant's large and well-armed security force has also performed well when federal regulators have staged mock commando raids. Hanson said the board's vote this week will hardly be the last word on the licensing issue. It will mark the beginning of a Nuclear Regulatory Commission review process that will take at least 18 months. So far, all six nuclear reactors nationally that have gone through the relicensing process have been given new leases on life. The OPPD application would join 14 others that are pending before the NRC. ©2001 Omaha World-Herald. ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 Lockheed loading up sunspot.net - Missile mission: Lockheed Martin has developed a missile-launch system that would enable one Trident submarine to carry "a huge number of Tomahawk missiles." Now, if it can just get the contract. By Robert Little Sun Staff Originally published December 9, 2001 The missile launchers that Lockheed Martin builds in Middle River will fire almost anything. You can throw in an anti-submarine rocket, a little Sea Sparrow, one of those new SM-4 land attack missiles, it doesn't matter. The MK-41 will light it off. Now the engineers on Eastern Boulevard hope to prove they can not only launch anything, but they also can launch anywhere - specifically, underwater. Lockheed Martin's Marine Systems unit, manufacturer of the premier missile launching system for the U.S. Navy's surface ships, is trying to convince the Pentagon that it knows how to fire missiles from submarines as well. The company is competing with rival Northrop Grumman Corp. to build as many as 88 launchers for four Ohio-class submarines, whose nuclear weapons might be replaced with conventional ones to comply with the START II disarmament treaty. A decision should come next month. A win is no certainty for Lockheed Martin. The local plant's expertise is in fire-and-smoke "hot launches" of missiles, not gas-fired launches from underwater submarine tubes, which demand different specifications and techniques. But the submarine work could reap rewards for Lockheed Martin's Baltimore-area plant far beyond the $100 million in new contracts and the dozens of new jobs it would create. The contract would cement the plant's relationship with one of the U.S. Navy's favorite and deadliest weapons - the Tomahawk missile. Those sophisticated cruise missiles promise to play a prominent role in the Pentagon's evolving war on terrorism, and Lockheed Martin Marine Systems wants to be the unrivaled expert at launching them, whether above or below the ocean surface. "The more we thought about it, the more we realized how transferable these skills are; we can do this," said R. Robinson Harris, director of business development for the local Lockheed Martin plant. "Whether they're launched from a ship or a launched from a submarine, we know how to make these missiles work." Three years ago, Lockheed Martin's Marine Systems unit employed about 500 people and made only one product - the MK-41 vertical launch system. Installed below deck on Navy surface ships, the MK-41 looks like a cluster of hatch covers and can fire a barrage of 61 missiles of all sizes and designs. The launchers were introduced in the mid-1980s and are now the world standard, used on 160 ships in 11 navies. More than 70 of the U.S. Navy's Aegis destroyers and Ticonderoga-class cruisers have the MK-41, the rest want one. The Middle River plant has broadened its workload in recent years, taking on vessel design projects and land-launched systems, but firing missiles for the Navy remains its main business. So in April last year, when the Russian Duma ratified the START II treaty, the local executives at Lockheed Martin saw an opportunity. The treaty requires the United States to scrap much of its nuclear arsenal, and many of its submarine-launched ballistic missiles in particular. To comply with the treaty, the Navy must retire several of its 18 Ohio-class submarines, each of which is equipped with two dozen Trident intercontinental nuclear missiles. Often called "boomers," the 560-foot nuclear-powered submarines are designed to hide in the oceans for months at a time, deterring a potential nuclear attack on the United States by promising to survive and respond. Since those submarines are less than 20 years old, the Navy wants to outfit them for conventional weapons rather than banish them to the Cold War junkyard. It plans to remove the nuclear warheads on the four oldest subs and reconfigure the vessels' interior spaces to create underwater command platforms. Each boat would accommodate 66 special operations troops and their equipment, and two missile tubes would be converted into docking chambers for small, eight-man submarines used by Navy SEALs for covert underwater operations. The remaining missile tubes would be fitted with new launch canisters to fire seven Tomahawk conventional cruise missiles each, rather than a single nuclear-tipped Trident missile. Each converted submarine could hold 154 Tomahawks - more than twice the firepower of some Navy destroyers - and fire them all in six minutes. Conversion of all four vessels would cost about $3.3 billion, with roughly $100 million of that for the new launch canisters. The Tomahawk cruise missile, with its long range, 1,000-pound payload and satellite-guided accuracy, is a favorite at the Pentagon. More than 300 were fired on Iraq during Operation Desert Fox in 1998, another 160 in Kosovo a year later. Several have been used in Afghanistan. And no company fires more Tomahawk missiles than Marine Systems, part of Lockheed Martin's Electronics and Surveillance Systems division. A team of roughly 15 engineers in Middle River has been at work designing a cylindrical launch canister that can slide inside a Trident missile tube. Resembling the cylinder in a revolver, each canister must hold and protect seven Tomahawk missiles and interface with the submarine's computers and fire-control system during launch. Much of the technology used on surface ships is helpful in designing the submarine canister, Harris said. But the process is far more complicated than simply plunging the company's MK-41 underwater. The missile is different, for one thing. Surface-launched Tomahawks use rocket motors, while submarine-launched versions are encased in launch capsules that propel the missile through the water with compressed gas. When a sub-launched missile breaks the surface and its engine fires, sheathing and other debris fall into the water, posing another unique challenge to designing a launcher. That debris must not only be prevented from fouling the launch canister, it also must be kept away from the submarine's propeller. The launcher also must be able to fill with sea water and store that water once the missile is fired, to compensate for the lost weight. Building the launch canister also means taking responsibility for protecting the missiles in storage and determining the proper depth, speed and sequence for launching them. All of those calculations are unique for the Ohio-class subs, affected by such considerations as ballast, vessel trim and the wake from its sail. While some of the Navy's smaller attack submarines can launch Tomahawks from torpedo tubes or vertical launchers, no one has ever launched one from a mammoth Trident - much less 154 of them, in seven-missile clusters, packed inside a submarine designed for something else. "It's new for us, but Lockheed Martin is a large company with a long history of designing and building these kinds of systems," said Dale P. Bennett, general manager of Lockheed Martin's Marine Systems unit. "We've never launched from a submarine, but we designed the [Trident] missile," he said. "Within the depth and breadth of Lockheed Martin, there is so much expertise in submarines that we are anyone's equal." Equal won't likely be enough. The competition, Northrop Grumman Marine Systems in Sunnyvale, Calif., has more experience launching missiles from submarines. That Northrop Grumman unit, part of the Electronic Systems Sector in Linthicum, not only built the Trident launch tubes that the Navy wants to replace, it also designed the capsule system that allows Tomahawk missiles to be fired underwater. "We think that gives us a real edge," said Richard Wameling, project manager for Northrop Grumman's bid. "There's a lot more to it than just building a piece of hardware, you're taking responsibility for the entire storage and launch procedure." Both Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman have submitted proposals to the Navy, which is expected to select a winner in January. The first reconditioned submarine is expected to enter the fleet in 2007. But that schedule could accelerate. President Bush is a proponent of the submarine conversions, and the House Armed Services Committee recently proposed increasing the program's budget next year from $86 million to $463 million to hurry it along. With recent conflicts more reliant on precision strike weapons and special operations forces than the brute force of an Army division, interest in the converted submarines is increasing at the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill. "One Trident submarine could carry a huge number of Tomahawk missiles, and you just don't have that capability on the surface platforms," said retired Adm. Henry G. Chiles, a former commander of the U.S. Strategic Command. Cruisers and destroyers are armed with anti-aircraft and anti-submarine weapons to protect aircraft carriers and other surface ships, he noted, limiting the number of land-attack Tomahawk missiles they can carry. "This submarine won't have a fleet defense role, and it won't have to operate in proximity to [an aircraft carrier]," Chiles said. "This is the right thing for the country to be doing right now." Copyright © 2001, The Baltimore Sun ***************************************************************** 2 Nuclear Experts in Pakistan May Have Links to Al Qaeda December 9, 2001 By DAVID E. SANGER This article was reported by Douglas Frantz, James Risen and David E. Sanger and written by Mr. Sanger. The United States is investigating new intelligence reports of contacts between Pakistani nuclear weapons scientists and the Taliban or the terrorist network Al Qaeda, according to Pakistani and American officials. More than a month ago, Pakistan detained and interrogated two nuclear scientists who had contacts with the Taliban and Al Qaeda, but neither had any knowledge or expertise that would have helped terrorists build or obtain a nuclear weapon, the officials said. Since then, however, American and Pakistani officials have received new reports of other possible contacts involving scientists with actual experience in production of nuclear weapons and related technology. The officials in the United States and Pakistan offered different, and sometimes conflicting, accounts of the nature of those contacts and who might be involved. But American officials said the intelligence was credible enough for them to focus new concern on the security of Pakistan's weapons program. Pakistani officials said their government was resisting some of the American efforts to interrogate several of the scientists and engineers, for fear that the intelligence reports may be a ploy by Washington to learn details of Pakistan's secret nuclear program. According to Pakistani officials and news reports in Pakistan in recent days, the United States has asked that two other nuclear experts, Suleiman Asad and Muhammed Ali Mukhtar, with long experience at two of Pakistan's most secret nuclear installations, be questioned. Pakistani officials said George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, discussed this issue with top Pakistani officials while he was in the country last weekend. C.I.A. officials would not confirm that account, but White House officials said Mr. Tenet's trip was related in part to nuclear issues. But in an unusual move, as soon as Mr. Tenet returned to Washington, Pakistani officials volunteered to Pakistani and Western reporters that Mr. Asad and Mr. Mukhtar were the subjects of concern by the C.I.A. The motives of the Pakistani officials for disclosing the information were unclear, but they also said the two men were unavailable because they were sent, shortly after Sept. 11, on a vague research project to Myanmar, formerly Burma, and were not expected home anytime soon. In fact, one Pakistani official said that Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's military president, who met Mr. Tenet during his trip, telephoned one of Myanmar's military rulers to ask him to provide temporary asylum for the two nuclear specialists, offering his assurances that they were not connected to terrorism. A spokesman for Pakistan's Atomic Energy Commission told a Pakistani news service that "we don't want to interrupt them" by returning them to Pakistan for questioning. While much about this latest dispute remains unclear, it underscores the degree to which Pakistan and the United States are at odds over important issues despite recent cooperation in the war against terrorism. The United States is concerned that Al Qaeda is trying to obtain at least a primitive radioactive weapon and has concerns about the security of the Pakistani nuclear weapons program, the officials said. The Pakistani government, for its part, is suspicious that Washington, which is also trying to grow closer to Pakistan's nuclear rival, India, is using its security concerns as a pretext for prying open Pakistan's nuclear weapons program. Pakistan has always barred international inspectors from examining its facilities or taking stock of its production of plutonium and highly enriched uranium, used to make weapons. So far, American officials say, the Bush administration does not believe Al Qaeda has a nuclear weapon, despite its clear desire to obtain one. On Friday Gen. Tommy R. Franks, the American commander heading the Afghanistan operations, said, "We have not yet found evidence of weapons of mass destruction in the sites that we have been in." But officials in Washington remain concerned that Al Qaeda cells elsewhere may be searching for enough material to make a "dirty bomb," in which radioactive material would be wrapped around a conventional explosive and detonated, spreading nuclear contamination. Two Pakistani nuclear scientists who have been detained and questioned by Pakistan did meet with Taliban and Al Qaeda officials in Afghanistan to discuss nuclear issues. But the scientists, Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood and Chaudry Abdul Majeed, were not weapons experts, and therefore of little value to terrorists, American officials say. Under interrogation, Mr. Mahmood and Mr. Majeed have recounted discussions with the Taliban and Al Qaeda, an American official said. The interrogations disclosed that Al Qaeda officials did not have even the most basic knowledge of nuclear weapons and materials, the American official said. "It was the blind leading the blind," the official said. The interrogations have provided new evidence to suggest that Al Qaeda has been lacking in technical expertise, the official added. "If they had been handed the plans for a nuclear bomb, the worst they could have done is use them as kindling to start a fire," the official said. But in the interrogations, one of the two scientists mentioned that he had a personal relationship with a Pakistani, and that the man had also been in contact with the Taliban, an American official said. United States intelligence officials believe that they have identified the man as a weapons expert who has left the Pakistani program and is now in business, an intelligence official said. While unable to confirm that account, another American intelligence official said there were new reports suggesting previously undisclosed connections between Pakistani nuclear weapons experts and the Taliban or Al Qaeda. American and Pakistani officials said that at least some of the scientists the United States is worried about had been involved in the complex of top-secret nuclear facilities southwest of Islamabad where much of Pakistan's rogue nuclear weapons program is concentrated. It remains unclear whether Pakistan plans to detain any of the individuals suspected of involvement. The new American concern over Pakistan's nuclear program highlights what could well become a growing source of tension between the United States and Pakistan as the war against terrorism enters a new phase. Mr. Bush is more focused than ever, his aides say, on preventing any repeat of the Sept. 11 terrorism, and is particularly worried that Al Qaeda, seeking revenge for the American success in Afghanistan, will use any weapon it can find. But in private, midlevel Pakistani officials say that while they share Mr. Bush's concern, they also believe that the United States is trying to leverage the current crisis to discover more about Pakistan's facilities, in case Washington someday feels the need to secure or destroy them. But the American approach, to one Pakistani government official, seems straightforward. Asked in Islamabad about the American requests for cooperation, he characterized the requests this way: "One of the things the U.S. wants is Pakistani knowledge of the market. Could these people have passed on how to acquire technology? Who is selling on the international market?" If the survivors of the American- led military assault on Al Qaeda in Afghanistan are searching for such nuclear technology and materials, there are two natural targets: Russia and Pakistan. The Pakistani program may be particularly tempting, American officials say, because its major facilities are near the Afghanistan border, as far from India as possible. Pakistan has barred international inspections of the facilities, so their security is unclear. While American officials believe that Pakistan has built fewer than 20 complete nuclear weapons, all based on designs that use uranium, they also believe that Pakistan has enough weapons-grade material to build a total of at least 45 nuclear weapons. That figure includes Pakistan's recent production of plutonium, enough for at least five bombs. As one former American official who carefully followed the program until recently said, the estimates of Pakistan's nuclear material are "almost certainly way, way low." The fact of the matter, said another senior Bush administration official in Washington this week, is, "we simply don't know what they've got, how much they've made. That means we can't create a baseline" to determine whether nuclear material is missing. But the most immediate concern is whether Pakistani scientists and engineers harbor sympathies for the defeated Taliban government in Afghanistan, or are willing to carry on for Osama bin Laden. "Is there loose plutonium in Pakistan?" one senior administration official with lengthy experience in Pakistan said on Friday. "I don't think so. Is there loose technology? That's a different question, and everyone there who has knowledge and access to the material needs to be talked to." The interrogations of Pakistani scientists and engineers began several weeks ago. After a tip from the United States, Pakistani authorities last month arrested Mr. Mahmood and Mr. Majeed. Both men were associated with a private foundation that did humanitarian work in Afghanistan, and both apparently had contact with Al Qaeda members within the country. Papers found in the foundation's office in Kabul indicated that someone there was also sketching out designs for a helium balloon that could disperse anthrax. The two men were released and then rearrested, and attempts to reach them have been unsuccessful. They are still being detained without charges. A spokesman for the Pakistani foreign ministry said yesterday that several other associates of the private foundation had recently been detained for questioning, but that none of them were nuclear experts. The families of Mr. Mahmood and Mr. Majeed have said they are innocent of any wrongdoing. Gary Samore, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London and a former senior nonproliferation specialist in the Clinton White House, returned from Pakistan last week with a similar report. "Pakistani officials claim that no sensitive nuclear materials or information was provided by these retired scientists to Al Qaeda, although they acknowledged that there were discussions that were ongoing," he said. "The critical question is whether that is accurate, and whether there are other cases of individual Pakistani scientists willing to sell nuclear or missile information." American intelligence officials are increasingly convinced that Pakistan may become the site of a furtive struggle between those trying to keep nuclear technology secure and those looking to export it for terrorism or for profit. "The Pakistanis themselves have a strong interest in keeping everything locked down," one senior American official said. "But at the same time, they refuse to stop producing new material," because India, Pakistan's nuclear rival, continues its own production. "And there are some in the Pakistani hierarchy who fear a Trojan horse that we are learning about their nuclear program because, in their minds, we may one day need to deal with it." Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company | Privacy Information ***************************************************************** 3 DOE tries to avoid waste-cleanup agreement State regulators say loophole cited does not apply By Frank Munger, News-Sentinel senior writer OAK RIDGE - The U.S. Department of Energy is trying to use a legal loophole to wriggle out of an environmental commitment in Oak Ridge, and state regulators aren't amused. "We're ready to go to court" if necessary, said John Owsley, who heads the Oak Ridge office of the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation. At issue is DOE's responsibility for treating and disposing of some of the most dangerous nuclear wastes in Oak Ridge, a category called "mixed transuranic." The waste category includes highly radioactive materials - such as curium, americium and plutonium - mixed with toxic chemicals. Those wastes are stockpiled at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and, under a 1996 agreement signed by DOE and the state, are supposed to be sent west for disposal at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. Oak Ridge shipments to the underground repository are scheduled to begin in 2003. Foster Wheeler Environmental Corp., under terms of a privatization contract with DOE, is constructing a major processing facility near ORNL to treat the radioactive wastes and package the materials for transportation and disposal. The Department of Energy, however, notified the state Oct. 31 that it was terminating a section of the Oak Ridge Site Treatment Plan that deals with mixed transuranic wastes. The federal agency indicated it would no longer be bound by the requirements or milestones. DOE is claiming an exemption from the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, which governs the treatment, storage and disposal of hazardous wastes. DOE said the exemption for mixed transuranic waste was covered in amendments to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant Land Withdrawal Act. This Oak Ridge action apparently is the result of a "top-to-bottom" review of DOE's environmental management program, which was launched after the Bush administration came into power. DOE reportedly took a look at all existing legal agreements with states hosting DOE nuclear facilities and evaluated which ones were enforceable and which were not. Owsley, however, said the state disagrees completely with the DOE perspective and plans to enforce existing milestones. If DOE doesn't meet its commitments on waste treatment and disposal, there could be fines or other penalties. "The state contends that the exemption does not apply to mixed transuranic wastes in the state of Tennessee," he said, noting that the federal act and amendments were intended to cover wastes at the New Mexico repository. Even if the federal law were interpreted to cover such an exemption, that has no bearing on applicable state laws covering the hazardous waste program, the state wrote to DOE in a Nov. 30 response. "For these reasons, Tennessee will fight vigorously to maintain milestones in the Site Treatment Plan for (wastes) that will be processed and shipped to (the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant," William Childres, manager of the waste program at the state's Oak Ridge oversight office, wrote to DOE. Owsley said DOE was well aware of the WIPP Land Withdrawal Act and its amendments when agency officials signed the Oak Ridge Site Treatment Plan in 1996 and did not seek any exemptions. It is not clear what DOE intends to do if the declared exemptions are held valid regarding the wastes stored in Oak Ridge. Will DOE discontinue the processing plans and simply store the wastes indefinitely to save money? Will the treatment activities go ahead as planned but reduce DOE's liability for fines if it misses any deadlines for shipments to the waste repository? DOE refused to make anyone available for interviews on the subject and a spokesman would not answer any questions. Walter Perry of DOE's Oak Ridge office offered a single-sentence response: "We have received the state's letter on the mixed waste Site Treatment Plan and are reviewing it to prepare a response." Transuranic wastes include long-lived radioactive elements, especially those that emit alpha radiation. There are two classifications of so-called TRU wastes - contact-handled and remote-handled. As the names imply, contact-handled wastes can be handled in containers without significant shielding, while remote-handled wastes are much hotter and require shielding and distance to protect workers. "Oak Ridge currently has the largest inventory of the remote-handled TRU waste in the DOE complex, and a smaller portion of the contact-handled TRU waste," DOE said in an environmental impact report issued a couple of years ago. Owsley declined to comment on what he thought was behind DOE's decision to declare an exemption on the mixed transuranic wastes in Oak Ridge. But the state official did note that DOE's Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico is not yet licensed to receive remote-handled transuranic wastes, and he said he doesn't believe WIPP will have the necessary permits by 2003 - when the Oak Ridge waste shipments are supposed to begin. Copyright 2001 The Knoxville News-Sentinel Co. ***************************************************************** 4 Booming Business For Bomb Shelters CBS News | | Sat, 08 Dec 2001 13:35:06 EST Since the attacks on Sept. 11, fears of a nuclear attack have been raised. Find out how a nuclear bomb can destroy, what effect radiation has on the human body, where nuclear sites are located in the U.S. and what you can do to protect yourself. The terror attacks in the U.S. and air strikes on Afghanistan have forced the nation to toughen its national security. Find out what actions are being taken to protect our nation in the air, water and on land. "People start calling at 5:30 a.m., and I don't go to bed until 11:30 at night" Nuclear engineer Sharon Packer saying the phones are ringing off the hook at her company, Utah Shelter Systems in Heber, Utah (AP) Fearing nuclear terrorism, Americans are building home fallout shelters in numbers unseen since the peak of the Cold War, sometimes even mortgaging homes to cover costs, say shelter makers and designers. Some corporations are giving the shelters to top executives as a perk, one dealer said. Gone are the days when defense experts scoffed and neighbors shook their heads and chuckled. “They're treating me less like a crazy woman than they did before,” says Dr. Jane Orient, of Tucson, Ariz., who promotes home shelters as head of Doctors for Disaster Preparedness. Walton McCarthy, president of shelter builder Radius Defense and Engineering in Northwood, N.H., says he is making almost four times as many of his egg-shaped, fiberglass underground shelters since Sept. 11 - roughly one a day. He is planning a bigger factory. Nuclear engineer Sharon Packer says sales have also quadrupled - to more than four a month - at her company, Utah Shelter Systems in Heber, Utah. “People start calling at 5:30 a.m., and I don't go to bed until 11:30 at night,” she said. The idea of family fallout shelters is not new or uniquely American. Switzerland has mandated them in new housing. In the early Cold War, thousands of Americans built fallout shelters in backyards and basements. The federal government even put out designs. By the late 1960s, though, a new mindset began taking hold. Elaborate civil defenses, the thinking went, could aggravate tensions by stoking Soviet fears of an American first strike. Besides, how could a personal shelter protect against the apocalypse of nuclear war between superpowers? Shelter builders began to seem like eccentrics, and shelters seemed even more superfluous with the breakup of the Soviet Union. Then came the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Even if countries are rational enough to keep a finger off the nuclear trigger, how about terrorists? “What has happened in the current atmosphere is that our opponent is fanatical. He's not rational,” said Ed York, of Kent, Wash., an authority on home shelter design who specialized in hardening targets against attack for Boeing Co. Analysts have warned that terrorists would not need to master the complex technology of a nuclear explosion or intercontinental missile guidance. They could pack radioactive material around a core of conventional explosives for a lesser bang - but lots of contamination. Such a “dirty bomb” attack might well be more survivable with a fallout shelter. “When you had civil defense in the 1960s, that was ridiculous,” says physicist Edwin Lyman, who is scientific director at the Nuclear Control Institute, a research group in Washington, D.C. “Now, in the context of the risks associated with a terrorist who might have a small number of ... radiological weapons, it's not necessarily a bad idea to think if there are procedures that would avert casualties.” Home shelters vary widely in size, degree of protection, and cost. Nearly everyone agrees they should provide a radiation barrier of 3-to-4 feet of dirt or at least two of concrete. Some dealers supply plans for basement shelters that cost as little as several thousand dollars. For maximum protection against biological, nuclear and chemical threats, prices balloon to $40,000 and higher. Such shelters are equipped with air filtration systems and hand-pump toilets, allowing people to hold out from 30 days to several months. Bill Eckhoff, president of Kleen Air Technologies, in Frisco, Colo., sells a home shelter that comes complete with blast-proof doors, backup diesel generator and decontamination area. The roomy 800-square-foot model can cost more than $300,000. “We believe if you have to sit through a transition period, why not maintain a quality of life?” he says. Sound pricey? He says inquiries have doubled to about 30 a day since Sept. 11. Many analysts believe that other terrorist threats are more likely than a nuclear attack. “I would be more concerned about chemical, biological or gas, because they're more in the range of what these groups can do,” said Milton Copulos, a retired Army intelligence officer who is president of the National Defense Council Foundation, a think tank in Alexandria, Va. He keeps a supply of bottled water at home. If someone is still nervous, he suggests not a fallout shelter, but a few emergency provisions for a chemical attack - plastic sheeting, duct tape and bottled oxygen. State and federal authorities are prepared to shelter emergency personnel and government leaders. However, they downplay the value of home shelters. “Maybe there are better ways to protect your family,” says Peter Judge, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency. “Evacuation is still the primary protective measure in the event of a nuclear incident,” adds Don Jacks, a spokesman for the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The new federal Office of Homeland Security is not promoting home fallout shelters either, according to spokesman Gordon Johndroe. Most Americans also remain unconverted. Physicist Marcel Barbier of Herndon, Va., who has consulted with government laboratories on radiation safety, put in his own home shelter in 1985 but says neighbors aren't taking his cue. “The people here need to receive a nuclear bomb on their head before they understand it can happen - and I hope it doesn't happen,” he said. © MMI The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. ©MMI, CBS Worldwide Inc. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 5 TIME.com: The Nuke Pipeline Sunday, December 9, 2001 The trade in nuclear contraband is approaching critical mass. Can we turn off the spigot? BY JEFFREY KLUGER [daily@timeinc.net] Checkpoint guards must watch for smugglers sneaking tiny samples of their wares The six men who gathered at the roadside cafe southeast of Moscow last Thursday did not go there for the food. They went there for the uranium. Some of the men, members of the Balashikha criminal gang, claimed to be in possession of 2 lbs. of uranium 235, the kind of top-shelf radioactive material that can be used to build weapons. They were asking $30,000 for the deadly merchandise. The others--the buyers--seemed prepared to pay it. The deal may actually have gone off had Russian security forces not been watching. They swept in, arrested all six men and were led back to the apartment of a seventh, where a capsule containing the promised uranium was hidden. By that evening, the case--the first officially acknowledged theft in Russia of weapons-grade uranium--was getting big play on local TV. The Russian police had reason to be proud; the rest of the world had one more reason to be nervous. For while the bust was disturbing, it was hardly unique. After 60 years of building nuclear bombs and nuclear reactors, the world is fairly awash in radioactive slag--from spent fuel rods to medical waste and contaminated tools--much of it held under little if any security in labs, hospitals and factories. Even the high-test weapons-grade material that's supposed to be locked down at military installations is not as secure as it ought to be. Some weapons-storage facilities don't even have video monitors. That such deadly material is so loosely guarded has been the source of much anxiety since Sept. 11--most of it focused on Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. Last week reports surfaced of a meeting in Afghanistan at which an al-Qaeda associate waved a canister of what he said was nuclear material in the air to demonstrate to bin Laden and others how much progress had been made in securing the stuff. But bin Laden is only a part of the nuclear terror problem. Since the fall of the Soviet Union and the rise of global terrorist groups, a new market has emerged to manage the increased supply of--and demand for--nuclear contraband. More and more radioactive material has been getting filched, bundled and sent flowing through an increasingly busy pipeline from Russia and the old Soviet states into the hands, it is feared, of people desperate enough to use it. The Russian government alone lists up to 200 terrorist organizations it believes may be trying to obtain nuclear material. In Istanbul last month, Turkish undercover officers arrested two smugglers who attempted to sell them more than 2.5 lbs. of non-weapons grade uranium for $750,000. In July police in Paris raided an apartment in which three men were holding a small quantity of highly enriched uranium and plane tickets to various East European countries. And these busts are only the high-profile ones. Russia has broken up 601 attempted transactions since 1998. The International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna reports 376 since 1993, and Turkey has recorded 104 cases of non-weapons grade smuggling in that same time. Moreover, for every trafficker who has been caught, chances are that many more are still in the game--a fact that has security planners deeply worried. "The global effort to control nuclear weapons is based on control of nuclear material," says Matthew Bunn, a nuclear expert at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and a former adviser to President Bill Clinton. "If that stuff gets on the market, nothing else we do will work." The likeliest source of most radioactive booty is Russia and the surrounding states, and the material they have to offer comes in two varieties. Top-quality, weapons-grade material is the only kind that can used to build a true nuclear-fission bomb, and is both hard to obtain and harder to turn into an explosive. But lower-grade radioactive rubbish is also dangerous. It can be fashioned into a so-called dirty bomb: a conventional explosive packed with waste that spreads radiation in all directions. There are at least 100 facilities around the former Soviet Union that store warheads and weapons-grade material, and most of them are reportedly not properly secured. Along the country's eastern coast, according to some sources, up to 80 abandoned, loosely guarded nuclear submarines are rusting in bays and inlets, their torpedo tubes and other openings providing possible access for intruders and an exit for radioactive leakage. The country's nuclear power plants may be just as porous. At the Leningrad facility near the Gulf of Finland, sources say vodka and drugs flow freely among the workers, most of whom earn barely 3,000 rubles a month--about $100. Poorly paid, highly inebriated men make a shabby line of defense against terrorists and traffickers. Vaclav Havlik, a Czech citizen who was part of a group of uranium smugglers arrested near Munich in 1994, told Time that obtaining material from Russia was no great chore. "It was like going for vacation by the sea and bringing back a sack of shells," he says. At the same time that smugglers are getting better at obtaining their merchandise, they are also getting smarter about transporting it. The first nuclear black marketeers carried their contraband straight out of Russia and into Europe, across some of the best-guarded borders in the world. As customs officials caught wise, the smugglers started shifting their route south, running a flanking pattern through Central Asia, the Caucasus Mountains and Turkey before resurfacing in Europe. This modified buttonhook play allows traffickers to take advantage of established drug routes--a smart strategy, since customs agents in a place such as Tajikistan, where 200 tons of drugs may cross the border on a busy day, can easily overlook a few ounces of nuclear contraband. 1 of 3 Copyright © 2001 Time Inc. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 6 Lee Wen-ho says in US court he was used as scapegoat The Taipei Times Online: 2001-12-09 Sunday, December 9th, 2001 AP, ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO Nuclear scientist Lee Wen-ho (§õ¤å©M) testified that he was used as a scapegoat for US Energy Department security lapses and never knew why. Former Energy Department counterintelligence chief Notra Trulock is suing Lee, claiming the Taiwanese-born scientist defamed him with allegations that Lee was targeted because of his race. Lee made his comments Oct. 10 in a deposition under questioning by Trulock's lawyer. Lee faces further questioning in the suit. US Magistrate Thomas Jones ruled recently that Lee's lawyer had wrongly objected to a number of questions that Lee should have been allowed to answer. The new deposition must be completed by Dec. 21. In the October deposition, Lee denied making any statements about Trulock and said under questioning he didn't know whether he was singled out for selective prosecution, ethnic profiling or racial discrimination. "Even today I don't know why I was investigated by the government," Lee said, testifying for the first time since his release from jail last year. Referring to his only previous public statement about the case -- the CBS-TV 60 Minutes episode aired Aug. 1, 1999 -- Lee emphasized Trulock was not mentioned then. "I don't even think about Mr. Trulock." Lee acknowledged telling interviewer Mike Wallace, "They want to find out some scapegoat. They think I'm the perfect [one] for them to, to blame me. "I don't know who started investigation on me. I'm telling Mr. Wallace I think part of the reason, my best explanation of this, is probably because I'm Chinese," he said during a seven-hour long deposition which was sealed for weeks for classification review. "But I don't know who started this." Lee, a former nuclear scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, was indicted Dec. 10, 1999, on 59 felony counts for transferring nuclear weapons data to unsecured computer terminals or computer tapes. He was held in solitary confinement for nine months. He was not charged with spying and denied giving information to China. He eventually pleaded guilty in September last year to one felony count of downloading sensitive material. The judge in the case said prosecutors misled him, and he apologized to Lee. Then-US president Bill Clinton also said Lee's imprisonment "just can't be justified." Lee's criminal attorneys, Mark Holscher and John Cline, had cited statements by US Department of Energy intelligence officials Robert Vrooman and Charles Washington as evidence that Lee was racially singled out -- and as reason for disclosure of whatever other evidence might exist. This story has been viewed 300 times. URL=[http://www.taipeitimes.com/news/2001/12/09/story/0000115009] Copyright © 1999-2001 The Taipei Times. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 7 Washington job is dream come true for former aide to Nevada governor [Las Vegas Review-Journal] Sunday, December 09, 2001 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal NEVADAN AT WORK: VICTORIA SOBERINSKY: Senior policy adviser to the assistant secretary for environmental management By TONY BATT DONREY WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- Dreams come true on Super Bowl Sunday for some people who don't even play the game. As the Baltimore Ravens pounded the New York Giants on Jan. 28, Victoria Soberinsky got a phone call from the White House to see if she would be interested in a job with the Bush administration. "They called me out of the clear blue sky. I was thrilled. ... You don't find out you're going to work for the White House very often," said Soberinsky, who at the time was deputy chief of staff for Republican Gov. Kenny Guinn. The new administration needed someone who was familiar with Interior Department issues and had a management background. A White House deputy personnel manager from Montana, who had worked with Soberinksy on issues for the Western Governors Association, recommended her for the job. On March 12, Soberinsky started work as the White House liaison to the Interior Department. Despite being stationed at and paid by the Interior Department, she was considered a White House employee. "I was the White House advocate in the (Interior) Department and I was the department's advocate back over at the White House," Soberinsky said. In August, Soberinsky accepted a new job at the White House. Although she was still the liaison to the Interior Department, she also helped in the selection of presidential appointees. On Oct. 29, Soberinsky switched to the Energy Department to become senior policy adviser to the assistant secretary for environmental management. In some ways, Soberinsky's career in Washington has been a reversal of roles. When she worked for Nevada, she often viewed officials from the Interior and Energy departments as opponents. "I'm going to have to deal with friends from states that I worked with when I was in the governor's office, and now they may consider me to be Public Enemy No. 1," Soberinsky said. "But I think everybody needs that in their professional career, to understand what it's like all the way around." Question: The Department of Energy is trying to open a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Will it help the state to have a Nevadan like you in a senior policy position at the department? Answer: I don't have anything to do with Yucca. Our program manages the environmental cleanup of the nuclear weapons stockpile, and there is no stockpile (at Yucca Mountain). There is a little bit of interaction with the Nevada Test Site, but in the grand scheme of things, our focus is on facilities in other states like Hanford (in Washington), which has a $1 billion cleanup program. Question: The Interior Department handles many of the federal issues affecting Nevada. When you were the White House liaison to Interior, did you find yourself dealing with a lot of Nevada items. Answer: Ninety percent of my job was personnel-related. We got that place (Interior) staffed up. We interviewed a lot of folks and put a lot of assistant secretaries and deputies in place. We were about 80 percent complete by the time I left. White House liaisons also work for the office of political affairs, which deals with strategic initiatives. If there would be an issue on something like the Missouri River, then I would sit in on meetings of that sort. Question: You were working at the Old Executive Office Building on Sept. 11. Since you were right next door to the White House, were you worried about being attacked? Answer: It was crazy. The one thing you don't ever want to hear is a Secret Service agent telling you to take your shoes off and run as fast and as far away from the building as you can. You don't ever see Secret Service people panic, but there was panic that day. It really didn't hit me until we came back to work two days later and there was another evacuation. After that second evacuation, that's when I thought I was going to lose my mind. Then the president took us all to the ceremony at the National Cathedral on Friday. That was a big, healing experience for a lot of people. After that, I was fine. Question: Do you plan to continue your career in Washington or do you want to return to Nevada eventually. Answer: I had always wanted the opportunity to live in Washington, D.C. It's a great city; it's a beautiful city; it's a dynamic city. But I'm a Western girl, and I miss Nevada. I tend not to give myself time frames for going back because it seems like every person I've run into in Washington, D.C., who is from Nevada and has said, "Oh, I was only coming for a year," has now been here for 20 years. Question: Did you always know you wanted a career in politics? Answer: When I was 10 years old, I announced to my family that I wanted to be Speaker of the House. My entire family was Democratic except for my uncle and me. After college, I started working for (former Rep.) Barbara Vucanovich (R-Nev.) in 1991, and she became my political mentor. She actually created a position for me as her regional representative and I became very familiar with Nevada issues. When she retired, I worked for (Las Vegas City Councilman) Larry Brown and then I worked on the campaign of the governor (Guinn) before joining his staff. Question: Even with the progress that has been made, how difficult is it to be a woman in politics these days? Answer: The issues I've dealt with -- natural resources and energy -- are predominantly male because that's just the way that it's been. There has to be a certain toughness about you, but you can't lose yourself with that. You can retain your femininity and still be a strong, tough player. There is a balance, but you do have to work at it. This story is located at: http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2001/Dec-09-Sun-2001/business/17499471.html [http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2001/Dec-09-Sun-2001/business/17499471.html] ***************************************************************** 8 U.S. monitors mainland nuclear weapons tests Sunday December 9, 12:00 AM By Chris Cockel, The China Post, Washington D.C. U.S. intelligence agencies are monitoring nuclear weapons-related experiments at the remote Lop Nur test facility in mainland China's western Xinjiang province, said a report in the Washington Times on Friday. The test, according to the report, produced no detectable nuclear yield or blast. Other similar tests were reported from U.S. intelligence imagery in July, according to the paper. The latest tests are part of the mainland's strategic nuclear weapons buildup that includes two new road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missiles, and a new class of ballistic missile submarines, said the report. Copyright © 2001 The China Post. All rights reserved. Copyright © 2001 Yahoo! Inc. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 9 The 'Dirty Bomb' and the Alert (washingtonpost.com) Michael Getler is The Post's ombudsman. He can be reached at (202) 334-7582 or by e-mail at ombudsman@washpost.com [ombudsman@washpost.com] , or c/o The Washington Post, 1150 15th Street, N.W., Washington, D.C., 20071. By Michael Getler Sunday, December 9, 2001; Page B06 The Post had a pretty scary front page Tuesday. At the top of the page, in the lead position, was an exclusive story from three of the paper's top guns -- reporters Bob Woodward, Robert Kaiser and David Ottaway. The main headline said, "U.S. Fears Bin Laden Made Nuclear Strides," and the smaller head underneath said, "Concern Over 'Dirty Bomb' Affects Security." The story reported that U.S. intelligence agencies recently had concluded that Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda terrorist network "may have made greater strides than previously thought toward obtaining plans or materials to make a crude radiological weapon that would use conventional explosives to spread radioactivity over a wide area, according to U.S. and foreign sources." The story also reported that "the worry about al Qaeda's efforts to obtain a nuclear capability was a factor in the decision" by the White House the day before "to issue another national alert about possible terrorist attacks," according to "a senior source." Next to the triple-byline account was the news story about Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge's issuance of that new warning. "Ridge Issues 3rd Alert of New Attack Threat" was the headline. As with past warnings, Ridge said the signs were credible but not specific. But that Post story included a line written into it that repeated the point of the accompanying article, that "there is also increased worry that bin Laden may have made greater strides than previously thought" to make a crude radioactive weapon. Wednesday, an article by Post reporter Guy Gugliotta appeared, explaining that while finding enough radioactive material to make a dirty bomb might be relatively easy, "the effects of such a weapon could never remotely approach those of a nuclear explosion." Inside that same article, it was reported that Homeland Security Director Ridge said that the latest anti-terrorist alert had nothing to do with the threat of a dirty bomb. That story appeared on Page A12. There was no mention of Ridge's comments on the front page, despite the big play of the bin Laden story on Tuesday's front page. Also on Tuesday, Ridge was asked directly by CBS's Bryant Gumbel if the alert, as The Post reported, was tied in any way to the fears about a dirty bomb, and Ridge replied "absolutely not." At the Pentagon, spokeswoman Victoria Clarke said the Defense Department was "not aware of anything new or different. He [bin Laden] made clear his desire to have such weapons, so we need to be very attentive, very concerned. . . . But I don't know what prompted that particular story." Those comments weren't in The Post on Wednesday. The ombudsman has no sources of his own on such matters. So I pay close attention, as a news consumer and Washington resident, to everything Woodward and company report. I trust him and his colleagues. But that was a scary combination of stories, and because the super-sourced Woodward was associated with the lead story, it adds an extra dimension that gets the readers' attention. Considering the emotional baggage that mention of radioactive and nuclear capabilities carries with it, it would have been proper, in my view, to give more prominence to the following day's denials and comments by Ridge and Clarke, and to Gugliotta's more detailed explanation of the difference between a dirty bomb and a nuclear bomb. The initial story did explain that a dirty bomb is made by taking highly radioactive material, such as spent reactor fuel rods, and wrapping it around readily available conventional explosives. That is bad enough, killing by radiation in a zone that could amount to several city blocks. But a real atomic, or fission bomb, is vastly more devastating, killing over a much larger area by blast, heat and a variety of long-lasting radioactive elements. Explaining the difference more thoroughly in the initial story might have helped readers who can be forgiven for thinking of dirty-bomb radiological weapons as atomic bombs. © 2001 The Washington Post Company ***************************************************************** 10 Pentagon Presses Speedy Radiation Drug Approval December 7 1:34 PM ET By Jim Wolf WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Defense Department, fearing new forms of terrorism, hopes to win regulatory approval within three or four years of a novel drug designed to help protect people from radiation, a key researcher said Friday. Rights to the lead candidate drug --a naturally occurring steroid hormone known as 5-androstenediol -- are owned by Hollis-Eden Pharmaceuticals Inc. of San Diego, California. ``I would say probably (in) three or four years, I would hope under ideal conditions ... to have this compound approved for human use,'' by the Food and Drug Administration, said Dr. Thomas Seed, leader for radiation casualty management at the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute in Bethesda, Maryland. The institute is spearheading a drive to protect U.S. military personnel against ionizing radiation injuries and risks amid heightened, post-Sept. 11 fears of terrorist attacks in the United States. Ionizing radiation is the deep-penetrating type from nuclear or radiological blasts that can break bonds in cells and destroy the immune system, leaving victims vulnerable to potentially fatal infections. Other forms, such as ultraviolet, cause other damage. The Hollis-Eden drug is aimed mainly at preventing death in the short term by restoring infection-fighting immune system cells. Such a drug would also be useful for civilians, including nuclear reactor workers and people responding to an accident at a nuclear power plant, Seed said. Shares in Hollis-Eden rose on Friday after the New York Times reported that one of its compounds was the military's leading candidate to give to military personnel in advance of possible radiation exposure. In midday trading, the shares rose $1.90 to $12.25, up 18 percent. Stock in the company, which also develops treatments for infectious diseases and immune system disorders, has ranged from $2.12 to $11.63 in the last 52 weeks. Seed, in a telephone interview with Reuters, said the Hollis-Eden drug so far had been tested only on small animals such as mice and rats. Depending on the dosage, injections have protected up to 100 percent of mice from a level of radiation that killed all the mice in the control group -- ``no question about that,'' he said. Since it would be unethical to expose people to large doses of radiation to test the drug's effectiveness, Seed said he hoped the FDA would approve it under a proposed new rule that would weight more heavily preclinical tests on primates such as monkeys. He said he hoped to wind up preclinical trials within a year or two. Next would come so-called Phase 1 trials on human volunteers to gauge dosage safety and how the drug distributes in the body and is metabolized. Dan Burgess, a Hollis-Eden spokesman, said the drug might be available sooner in light of what he called the pressing need for novel radiation protectants. ``We think there may be opportunities to shorten these timelines,'' he said, citing possible parallel testing rather than consecutive steps. The compound's properties as a potential radio protectant were first identified by Dr. Roger Loria of Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia, Burgess said. Separately, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said it had earmarked $800,000 to buy millions of potassium iodide pills as supplemental protection against thyroid cancer in those exposed to any serious incident at a nuclear power plant. ``We will pay for it and negotiate with manufacturers,'' once the FDA has decided on proper dosage levels, said Susan Gagner, a commission spokeswoman. The pills would be stockpiled by the 40 states that have either active nuclear power plants or ones being cleaned up after permanent shutdowns, she said. They would supplement sheltering and evacuating people if there were a severe nuclear incident, Gagner said. Copyright © 2001 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 11 Pakistan Detains Nuclear Scientist Group's Associates Bloomberg.com : Top World News 12/08 13:48 By Kate Linebaugh and Vernon Silver Islamabad, Pakistan, Dec. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Pakistan authorities have detained at least five people who sat on the board of an organization that marketed its nuclear expertise to the Taliban, a Pakistan government spokesman said. In addition to two nuclear scientists detained since October, ``five or six people who were part of the governing body of the (organization) have also been detained for questioning,'' Army spokesman Rashid Qureshi told a press briefing today. The people were on the board of a consultancy that offered to build an oil refinery in Afghanistan in partnership with the former Taliban government and also said it could provide nuclear skills, according to a 21-page business proposal obtained by Bloomberg News. The consultancy, called Consortium of Experts & Industries, was run by Bashiruddin Mahmood, a Pakistan nuclear scientist who served as director-general of nuclear power at the Atomic Energy Commission and designed the Khushab nuclear reactor. Mahmood along with the others has been in detention since October. Mahmood and Abdul Majeed also worked with a charitable organization with an office in Kabul. Majeed is also in detention. S.M. Tufail, chief executive of F.W Fabrication Ltd. of Lahore, Pakistan, was picked up on Oct. 23 and has been held since, said Rashid Mukhtar, office assistant to F.W. Fabrication's manager of administration, Azhar Chaudhry. Ties to Taliban Mirza Yousaf Beg, director of the International Fabrication Group in Lahore, also was picked up on the same date, according to his son, Sajjad Beg. Beg said three others were also in detention. Mahmood is being questioned by Pakistani authorities about his ties to the Taliban regime, which include running a charity in Kabul called Ummah Tameer-e-Nau. Pakistan says Mahmood and Abdul Majeed, co-founder of the charity and a fellow nuclear scientist, were detained because Ummah Tameer-e-Nau wasn't properly registered. Tufail, the executive from Lahore, is being held in a ``safe house'' by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, his employee, Mukhtar, said in a telephone interview. F.W. Fabrication is in the power generation business and has been operating since 1960, according to a business listing on Pakistan's South Korea embassy Web site. Afghan Oil Tufail and F.W. Fabrication are named in the undated business proposal, which lays out an oil refinery project in Afghanistan and was given to Bloomberg by an associate of Mahmood who asked not to be identified. It was prepared in July and August, said the associate, who said he helped write the document. The group can help prepare ``feasibility reports, projects planning and implementation in nuclear and non-nuclear fields,'' the document reads. The proposal says the oil project in Afghanistan, in which the Taliban also would have been an investor, was desirable because: ``Helping an Islamic state to get up is going to be a great act in the eyes of God. This is our responsibility that we do anything within our resources, whatever the God has given to us, to work for Islam.'' ©2001 Bloomberg L.P. ***************************************************************** 12 Letter: re: Hanford budget Letter from Sen. Smith to Mitch Daniels, Director, Office of Management and Budget November 29, 2001 The Honorable Mitch Daniels Director Office of Management and Budget Old Executive Office Building Washington, D.C. 20503 Dear Director Daniels: As you finalize the Fiscal Year (FY) 2003 budget for the Department of Energy, I urge you to provide at least $1.8 billion for a critical. environmental project in my region, the Department of Energy's Hanford River Protection Project. As you know, 53 million gallons of waste -- sixty percent of the nation's defense nuclear waste -- are currently stored in 177 underground, leaking waste tanks, some as many as 50 years old. At least 1 million gallons of radioactive and hazardous waste have already leaked into the surrounding groundwater, which is moving towards the Columbia River. These underground tanks are all beyond or near the end of their design life, and the waste must be removed and turned into a safer state for long-term storage. For nearly two decades, the federal government has promised the residents of Oregon and Washington a treatment plant that would convert the high-level waste into a more stable glass form. Twice during the Clinton Administration, the project failed to even begin. Like my constituents, I am hopeful that the new team on board at the Department of Energy will be able to live up to this promise. It is my understanding that the President's FY2003 budget currently being prepared by the Office of Management and Budget will recommend dramatically reducing funding for this key environmental project. I believe that the safe and timely execution of the tank cleanup project would save taxpayer dollars and, most important, protect the groundwater, the Columbia River and all of the environmental resources of the Pacific Northwest. It is critical that the FY2003 environmental management budget include $1.8 billion to allow a seamless continuation of Hanford cleanup activities. Thank you for your consideration of this important issue. I look forward to hearing from you soon. Sincerely; (signed) Gordon H. Smith [http://gsmith.senate.gov/] United States Senate [http://www.senate.gov/] ***************************************************************** 13 Senate OKs $40 billion anti-terror measure [charlotte.com] Published Saturday, December 8, 2001 victory for president Bush vows to seek more money next year if Ridge asks for it By JACKIE KOSZCZUK Observer Washington Bureau WASHINGTON -- Ending a bitterly partisan debate over how much was enough to spend on counterterrorism, the Senate late Friday backed a $40 billion anti-terrorism outlay requested by President Bush. Defeated in the process were a group of Democrats led by Robert Byrd of West Virginia, who wanted to spend $15 billion more than the president. The $40 billion will go to pay for the war in Afghanistan, enhanced homeland security and to help New York and other stricken areas recover from the Sept. 11 attacks. The new homeland security money - the most controversial piece of the package - would be spent on activities such as preventing and responding to biological attacks on civilian populations, improving inspections of food imports to detect contamination, bolstering local, state and federal police, fire and public health forces, increasing security at nuclear plants and improving border security. Republicans and Democrats agreed that those kinds of security measures need money but fought over how much. While Democrats wanted $15 billion more, Bush and Senate GOP budget hawks contended it was more than federal agencies could spend or absorb wisely in one year. Bush said he will ask Congress for more money if his new homeland security chief, former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge asks for more next year. Once the Senate decided against expanding the budget, Democrats and Republicans went to work outlining how the $40 billion would be spent. Under the agreement reached late Friday night, the government would spend $10 billion for homeland defense across a broad array of agencies and activities. Much of the money would be spent fighting bioterrorism. About $3 billion would go to preparing local and state health agencies to respond to attack, to stockpile smallpox vaccine and other antidotes and to step up inspections of imported food. Other items outlined in the deal are: $1.7 billion for more federal anti-terrorism police, mostly at the FBI, and $400 million for similar efforts within local and state police forces; $775 million for increased security at nuclear weapons facilities and commercial nuclear generating plants; $530 million for airport security; and $709 million more for U.S. border patrols. In addition to the anti-terrorism items, the two sides agreed to give New York and other states affected directly by terrorism a total of $12.4 billion for cleanup and restoration. The terrorism agreement was tacked onto the defense spending bill, which was expected to easily pass the Senate. The House last month passed a similar defense bill with anti-terrorism money attached. A final bill is likely to reach the president's desk before Christmas. Byrd, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, had tried to attach the extra $15 billion to a $317 billion spending bill for the military. About half the additional money would have been used for homeland defense and the other half for New York's physical and economic recovery after the collapse of the World Trade Center twin towers in the terrorist attacks. ***************************************************************** 14 Technology:SRS plant will stabilize waste Augusta Georgia: 12/09/01 Watchdogs, activists react to facility's opening Web posted Sunday, December 9, 2001 By [bhaddock@augustachronicle.com] Staff Writer A new plant at Savannah River Site is expected to be the key to cleaning some of the site's most hazardous radioactive waste. The plant, located in the site's HB Line atop the massive H-Canyon facility, opened Nov. 26. For the next several years, it will treat leftovers from Cold War weapons production - liquids containing highly radioactive plutonium and neptunium. "It's a key part of the plutonium stabilization plan for the U.S. Department of Energy," said Dave Grimm, HB Line's manager for Westinghouse Savannah River Co. Westinghouse operates SRS for the energy department. "It's the only place right now where we're able to dissolve plutonium materials and stabilize them into an oxide form," Mr. Grimm said. The solutions are considered a top cleanup priority by the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, a federal panel that acts as a safety watchdog at nuclear-weapons sites. According to agreements with the board, the site will treat the solutions by turning them into a more stable, powdered form, Mr. Grimm said. HB Line's Phase II, as the new plant is called, will treat plutonium solutions for the next three years, then begin stabilizing neptunium solutions, Mr. Grimm said. Work to prepare Phase II began in 1999 and costs about $20 million, Mr. Grimm said. Overall, HB Line has about 200 employees and an annual budget of $20 million to $25 million, the manager said. Many nuclear watchdogs said they supported efforts to stabilize the solutions. HB Line operator Randy Temple sits at the distributive control system in the HB Line control room at Savannah River Site. The plant that opened Nov. 26 is located in the HB Line. SPECIAL "I have long supported putting radioactive liquids into solid form and storing them that way, because it's dangerous to store liquid," said Dr. Arjun Makhijani, the president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research in Takoma Park, Md. But many activists said they were concerned about the possibility that HB Line could be used to produce feed for a type of nuclear-reactor fuel called MOX fuel. A new plant is slated to be built at SRS to produce MOX fuel from surplus weapons-grade plutonium. Many observers say the MOX plan is risky, dangerous and expensive. Using HB Line to prepare plutonium for MOX would not only perpetuate that mission, but also unnecessarily extend the life of H-Canyon, some activists say. Although HB Line was built during the 1980s, the "canyon" - so named for its long, narrow shape - began operations in the 1950s. "Anything that would prolong the life of these aging facilities, such as a MOX mission, is something that we would oppose," said Dr. Edwin Lyman, the scientific director for the Nuclear Control Institute in Washington. "Without a MOX mission, I don't think there's any use for HB Line after this mission is completed. They are clearly just trying to use MOX to keep this facility going for 20 years or more." Mr. Grimm said he hoped HB Line could produce MOX feed, but stressed that the energy department had not given his plant that mission. "We're hoping that a good amount of the material will be converted to MOX feed," he said. Mr. Grimm said H-Canyon's age would not hinder the safety of Phase II. "It's not of the 1950s vintage at all," he said of the line. "It's of the 1980s vintage. "Mechanically and physically, it's in extremely good condition. We went through a review and safety analysis as if it were a brand-new facility, and we went through a very exhaustive effort to impose controls to operate this plant safely. "We feel very confident in the safe operation of this facility." Reach Brandon Haddock at (706) 823-3409or bhaddock@augustachronicle. 1996 - 2001 The Augusta Chronicle. ***************************************************************** 15 Vladivostok News :: Journalist asserts FSB will pressure court VLADIVOSTOK NEWS ONLINE :: [http://vn.vladnews.ru] December 4, 2001 By Anatoly Medetsky Photo courtesy of Novosti Grigory Pasko A Russian military journalist on trial for treason asserted Monday that the Federal Security Service, the main successor to the Soviet-era KGB, would pressure the court to convict him. Grigory Pasko and his supporters say the treason charges are retribution by the security service, known by its Russian acronym FSB, for his reporting on alleged environmental abuses by the Russian navy, including dumping of radioactive waste into the Sea of Japan. ``There is no doubt that the FSB will attempt to use its decades-old arsenal of means of illegal pressure on the court with the purpose of obtaining the verdict it favors,'' Pasko said in a statement to the Pacific Fleet military court. Pasko is one of several Russian whistle-blowers and researchers accused of espionage for passing allegedly classified information to foreigners. Arms control researcher Igor Sutyagin is on trial in Kaluga in central Russia on charges of spying for the United States. Pasko is accused of divulging state secrets on the combat-readiness of the Pacific Fleet to Japanese news media. Pasko, formerly a reporter for the Pacific Fleet newspaper Boyevaya Vakhta, or Military Watch, faces between 12 and 20 years in prison if convicted. He was acquitted of espionage in 1999 in the same case, but found guilty on lesser charges of abuse of office. Seeking a full acquittal, Pasko appealed the verdict, as did prosecutors. The Supreme Court in Moscow sent the case back for trial by a different judge. Pasko said he came to the conclusion the FSB was pressuring the court to convict him because the prosecutor did not object to 23 defense motions during the five-month retrial, yet did not agree to drop the charges. A guilty verdict would ``revive the feeling of fear in people and discourage rights advocates, ecologists and my colleagues, journalists, from researching the state of affairs in areas that certain agencies want closed from public monitoring,'' Pasko said. The defense had initially praised the court as impartial but said that was no longer the case. ``The closer the end (of the trial) approaches, the more we can feel the court's nervousness and someone pressuring it,'' defense lawyer Ivan Pavlov said. FSB spokeswoman Natalya Stupnitskaya said the security agency would not comment until the retrial is over. The court recessed until Friday, when the prosecution is expected to make a statement. 13 Narodny Prospect Vladivostok, 690014 Russia Phone: 7 (4232) 415-592, Fax: 7 (4232) 415-615 Published by Vladivostok Novosti, Ltd. ***************************************************************** 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: *****************************************************************