***************************************************************** 6/10/01 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 9.145 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER CONTENTS 1 Making Dzerzhinsky Proud 2 Croatia, Slovenia Settle Nuclear Plant Issue 3 Former Reagan secretary abandons controversial project. 4 Taipower mulls sending radioactive waste to Russia 5 Nuclear's not so clean when entire cycle is considered 6 Former lawmaker on state nuclear projects panel 7 The future of Monju fast-breeder reactor needs to be reconsidered 8 Powerful feelings on nuclear plants 9 Turkey Opposes Nuclear Wastes Passing Through Straits: Minister 10 Regulators conclude oversight of nuclear plant's restart 11 Environmentalists Praise US Position 12 Big Differences 13 Nuclear Power More Popular 14 Controversial Czech nuclear power plant suffers leak 15 Nuclear company fined £100,000 after “poor management” leads to 16 Power plant to debut makeover 17 Bush Policies Could Make Utah One Big Nuclear Waste Dump 18 Radioactive waste storage license OK'd 19 Nuke Agency Evicts Greenpeace From Web Site 20 South Korea: Bush Will Give Pyongyang Nuclear Reactors 21 Bingaman: Cool Customer in the Hot Seat 22 Belarusian Children to Visit Local Families 23 Nuclear nirvana? Hidden costs may render option impractical 24 Senate switch good for Nevada NUCLEAR WEAPONS CONTENTS 1 Scientist Confirms Nuclear HK Baby Tests 2 The bones of Cold War contention 3 Richland meetings to outline Hanford compensation 4 Dead Trees Standing 5 Town Meetings to be Held on Energy Employees Compensation 6 Western n-assistance to India, Pak.? 7 US use of dead babies for nuclear experiments is well-documented 8 Meetings in July for nuclear workers 9 Maralinga veteran denies fabricating story 10 DOE lawyers may delay whistle-blower lawsuit 11 The body snatchers 12 Cleanup review draws criticism 13 Hanford board decries budget 14 Energy Department Nominee Pledges to Work with Carnahan on 15 No level of beryllium safe, Flats workers' expert says 16 Beryllium stories fake, expert says 17 Dr.: Early test went unfunded 18 INEEL braces for upcoming fire season **************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 Making Dzerzhinsky Proud Jun. 9, 2001. Page 11 By Russell Working VLADIVOSTOK, Far East — On Monday, Grigory Pasko — a former military journalist, alleged traitor and embodiment of the security risks that occur when loose lips blab about the navy's dumping of nuclear waste in the sea — showed up at a military court for his retrial on high treason charges. The judge and prosecutor couldn't make it. The judge was sick, his office announced, but there are times when the sniffles come before national security. The prosecutor missed the hearing for "family reasons"; presumably a brawl with his curlers-wearing, frying pan-wielding wife prevented him from lancing the dragon of alleged treason. Thus, Pasko still walks the streets a free man. I wanted to know just how this could happen. True, no judge should have to preside over a trial while honking his nose and stuffing used tissues into his socks. Nor should a prosecutor be expected to arrive in court with a black eye and sit there scribbling hateful notes to leave on his wife's pillow. But however we may sympathize with those suffering from such problems, the worrisome possibility persists that the prosecution has stumbled. The defense would have you believe that the absences were part of a strategy to undermine interest in the Pasko case. Patriots can only hope the prosecution's disinterest doesn't mean the case has nothing to it. For readers who are as angry as I am but don't quite know why, a quick review. Pasko, a former navy captain who wrote for the military paper Boyevaya Vakhta, is accused of repeatedly betraying Russia. For example, he filmed sailors dumping liquid radioactive waste from a navy ship into the Sea of Japan (scientists insist that this is the best way to get rid of nuclear waste, anyway), then passed on the videotapes to the Japanese TV station NHK, which aired them. Pasko also knowingly reported on preparations for navy war games after a group of admirals allowed him to cover their planning meeting. Some might insist that the brass should be tried instead for letting a reporter sit in on the meeting. But let's not cast stones. The real task at hand is to stuff Pasko into a prison cell before he takes advantage of other naive admirals. The first time Pasko was tried, in 1999, a panel of military judges found him not guilty of treason charges. The best they could cook up was a conviction for "unmilitary conduct," and they released Pasko for time served: 20 months in jail. The navy branch of the Federal Security Service, or FSB, sought to correct this mistake, and the Supreme Military Collegium ordered a retrial. With any luck, the FSB agents involved will be awarded an F.E. Dzerzhinsky Medal for Heroism, and this time the verdict won't be botched. Yes, yes, there will be an outcry. Foreigners, as they are wont to, will meddle. Amnesty International named Pasko a prisoner of conscience last time around, and they are likely to howl once the trial gets under way June 20 (assuming the judge's bunions don't flare up). The Committee to Protect Journalists has been fighting for Pasko since his arrest, and on Monday it brought two known foreigners to town for a news conference. One of them, the former CNN journalist Peter Arnett, said the trial was a danger signal. "Russia's progress as a nation will be damaged if freedom of the press is curtailed," he claimed. This shows just how off base foreigners can be. Everybody knows that curtailing freedom of the press is one of President Vladimir Putin's primary goals in his drive to make Russia more like a modern European state. State Duma Deputy Viktor Cherepkov, a candidate in the Primorye gubernatorial race, isn't a foreigner, but he showed up at the news conference anyway to declare his support. "This is not a trial of a journalist," he said. "This is a trial of [state] power, which has become obnoxious through impunity." Luckily, the reporters defended the nation against such slurs. Dmitry Kashirin of Interfax all but debated a Russian representative of the international writers' group PEN with his combative questions about Pasko. And virtually everybody — TV and print journalists alike — edited out Cherepkov's presence. At least one group of foreigners had the good sense to butt out. NHK has distanced itself from Pasko since the day of his arrest. Maybe somebody should give NHK a Dzerzhinsky medal as well. *Russell Working is a freelance journalist based in Vladivostok.* //www.moscowtimes.ru ***************************************************************** 2 Croatia, Slovenia Settle Nuclear Plant Issue Sunday, June 10, 2001, updated at 11:36(GMT+8) Croatia and Slovenia on Saturday reached agreement concerning the ownership of a jointly owned nuclear plant in Krsko, Slovenia, clearing a major stumbling block to bilateral relations. Croatian Prime Minister Ivica Racan and his Slovenian counterpart, Janez Drnovsek, made the announcement after a meeting in the northern Adriatic city of Rijeka, saying only some technical issues remain to be settled before a final agreement could be signed on July 20. The two leaders agreed on equal ownership of the Krsko plant, joint responsibility for the nuclear waste, and the compensation of mutual claims. The joint management of the plant begins on January 1, 2002 and the plant is expected to start supplying Croatia with electricity by July 1, 2002 at the latest, they said. Headway was also made in two other major issues concerning bilateral relations. On the border issue between the two former Yugoslav republics, the two leaders agreed that another meeting on the matter should be held in two to three weeks after additional consultations with experts from both states. They decided to resolve the debt problem in negotiations on asset distribution of the former Yugoslavia and in bilateral talks on improving economic and financial relations. Slovenia's Ljubljanska Banka owes a debt to Croatian depositors. Copyright by People's Daily Online, all rights reserved | ***************************************************************** 3 Former Reagan secretary abandons controversial project. The Earth Times/ENVIRONMENT: By Duane A. Gallop *© Earth Times News Service* The former deputy secretary of the Department of Energy has abandoned a Yucca Mountain, Nevada nuclear waste repository project that he once approved of, aligning himself with other organizations also opposed to the project, according to the advocacy group Public Citizen. W. Kenneth Davis, who was a deputy secretary of the DOE during the Reagan administration, said that a high-level nuclear waste repository cannot be safely licensed and the DOE should abandon its “irresponsible” and “wasteful” efforts to recommend the site. He also sent a letter to the White House where he was quoted on May 30, in the Las Vegas Sun and the Associated Press as saying that the Yucca Mountain project should be, “mothballed.” According to Public Citizen, Davis expressed concern about transporting high-level waste across 43 states to Nevada and about the likelihood of radiation leaking from the repository. Davis’ thought coincides with William Reamer, chief of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) who questioned the DOE’s projections of how long storage canisters would be able to keep radioactive material from contaminating the environment. According to Reamer, the DOE underestimates by 12 times the expected radiation dose in the event of a volcanic eruption. But should Congress and President Bush approve the Yucca Mountain proposal, the NRC would be responsible for its license. “Although Congress has yet to vote on the proposal for a permanent repository at Yucca Mountain,” Lisa Gue, Public Citizen’s Critical Mass Energy &Environment Program policy analyst said, “the NRC appears to be using all its powers to assist the DOE in developing the technical aspects of a potential license application.” According to Public Citizen, an advocacy group that claims 150,000 members across the US, the DOE has a long history of technical, policy, safety and scientific errors concerning the Yucca Mountain project. Public Citizen says that although the DOE has pledged to review it calculations, it’s their unacceptably high levels of uncertainty that make the Yucca Mountain project a project the government should not take on. “The nation cannot afford the inherent failings of this industry driven approach to disgorge their financial liability onto the taxpayer by dumping their waste at Yucca Mountain,” Gue said. Useful Links http://www.citizen.com http://www.ymp.gov/ http://www.epa.gov/radiation/yucca/ Copyright © 2000 The Earth Times All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 4 Taipower mulls sending radioactive waste to Russia The Taipei Times Online: 2001-06-08 By Chiu Yu-Tzu STAFF REPORTER Officials of the Taiwan Power Company Taipower, said yesterday that the company will consider signing an official contract for the export of nuclear waste to Russia based on an existing memorandum of understanding, as long as Russia finishes legalizing the import of such waste. On Wednesday, the Russian Duma, the lower house of parliament, approved a bill allowing the import and storage of high-level nuclear waste from abroad. Although the bill must be approved by both the Federation Council, the upper house and President Vladimir Putin, Taiwan's state-run Taipower is preparing to sign an official contract with Russia. "As long as the new law is enacted, Taipower will reconsider an existing memorandum of understanding with Russia in order to sign an official contract," Huang Huei-yu, division head of Taipower's public affairs department, told the Taipei Times yesterday. Huang, however, said that details of the future contract were unavailable. Last July, when Taipower documents were first displayed by a Russian environmental group, Taipower officials confirmed that the company had signed the memorandum with the Kurchatov Institute, Russia's largest nuclear weapons research center. But the officials stressed that the memorandum was just a preliminary plan involving just 5,000 barrels of nuclear waste. But according to Taipower documents written in Chinese and brought to public attention by Russia-based Ecodefense on the Internet, the project incorporates technology provided by Japan-based Asia Tat Trading Co Ltd. Profits from the project have been estimated as likely to run to US$10 billion. The documents, dated May 19, 1998, show that 200,000 barrels nuclear waste will be shipped to Russia via Japan within 10 years. Taipower will pay US$800 million, or an average of US$4,000 per barrel. Ecodefense activists have sought to prevent the legislation authorizing the imports from passing. In Taiwan, environmentalists from Taiwan Environmental Protection Union told the Taipei Times yesterday that they had allied with their counterparts in Russia by signing a petition, which had been circulated on the Internet. Taipower officials told the Taipei Times yesterday that its policies on nuclear waste management had not been revised. The environmental impact assessment for Taipower's project to build a final depository for nuclear waste at Wuchiu island, near Kinmen, is still being reviewed. Disposal of nuclear waste has long been a difficult question for Taipower, which operates Taiwan's three nuclear power plants. It is estimated that Taipower has produced approximately 300,000 barrels of radioactive waste, including around 100,000 barrels on Orchid Island, Taitung County, which awaits disposal. This story has been viewed 190 times. URL=[http://www.taipeitimes.com/news/2001/06/08/story/0000089121] Copyright © 1999-2001 The Taipei Times. All rights ***************************************************************** 5 Nuclear's not so clean when entire cycle is considered The Seattle Times: Editorials &Opinion: Letters to the editor June 09, 2001 - 12:00 a.m. Pacific Power building *Editor, The Times:* President Bush has renewed the debate about nuclear power by making it a vital component of his energy plan. The Bush/Cheney team proclaims nuclear power is clean because it does not produce any greenhouse gases. While such a claim might be accurate if applied to only the operation of the nuclear reactor, the Bush administration's claim borders on deceit when the entire nuclear fuel cycle is considered. The whole truth is that large amounts of greenhouse gases are released by the generation of electricity required to operate the plant that enriches the uranium before the fuel can be used in the reactors. The United States has one enrichment plant in Paducah, Ky., deep in the heart of coal country. Most of the 3,040 megawatts used in the Paducah enrichment facility is generated by coal-fired plants. To generate 3,000 megawatts requires the equivalent of three nuclear power plants the size of WNP 2 at Hanford. Nuclear power is not a clean source of energy. *- Jim Thomas, Seattle *We need it now We have seen how price caps worked in California and the only conservation you will get that will amount to anything will be when the power companies shut off a grid. Brazil is in a similar situation right now; if you don't conserve 20 percent, they shut off your power for six days. That's how you really conserve. The only real solution to an energy shortage is to produce more energy. So how can that be accomplished and keep everybody happy. It can't - if the nuclear power opponents are right and nuclear energy is too costly and too dangerous; if the hydro-electric opponents are right and we must breach the dams to save the salmon; if the fossil fuel opponents are right and that type of generation is too dirty and we wreck the ozone. That leaves solar and wind. Solar is about 30 times more expensive than nuclear and takes 15 square miles to produce 1,000 megawatts of power. That is about the power of one Columbia River dam. Wind is about three times more expensive than nuclear and takes about 90 square miles. So to be realistic, we need a little extra power now; we must gear up the sources we have online, such as Bush has suggested with his energy policy. Seattle is going to add another half million people in the next 10 years. That is three Bellevues. Where is it going to get the power and water? If it's handled like light rail, it will still be debated 10 years from now. Somebody should start thinking about that. seattletimes.com home ***************************************************************** 6 Former lawmaker on state nuclear projects panel LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL: NEWS: YUCCA MOUNTAIN: Bryan returns to battle Glenn Carroll, right, listens Friday to Corbin Harney, executive director of the Shundahai Network. Harney was discussing the proposed nuclear waste repository, which is targeted for his native Western Shoshone land, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Carroll of Georgians Against Nuclear Energy joined other out-of-state citizens groups to plot strategy for defeating the dump. Photo by Jim Laurie. Former U.S. Sen. Richard Bryan sits Friday at a meeting of the state Commission on Nuclear Projects at the Las Vegas City Council chambers. Photo by Jim Laurie. Saturday, June 09, 2001 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal YUCCA MOUNTAIN: Bryan returns to battle By KEITH ROGERS REVIEW-JOURNAL Richard Bryan, the former Nevada governor and longtime U.S. senator who spent most of his political life battling federal plans to bury nuclear waste inside Yucca Mountain, returned to the trenches Friday. This time, as an appointee to the state Commission on Nuclear Projects, Bryan -- a Democrat and private attorney -- sat alongside his old nemesis, former Republican state Attorney General Brian McKay, the commission's chairman. "For a change," McKay quipped, Bryan was to his right on the panel. Joined by four other commissioners, Bryan and McKay came to hear testimony from citizens groups opposed to "the dump" and to plot strategies for launching a nationwide awareness campaign. The campaign will be funded in part by some of the $4 million state lawmakers approved for the cause. "I began the fight the first month I was governor," Bryan, 63, said as he was preparing to hear a contingent of anti-nuclear activists from across the nation offer their insights for rousing opposition to the repository. "It is an issue I feel strongly about. It's a threat to the health and safety of Nevadans," Bryan said before the meeting at the Las Vegas City Council chambers. "You kind of tell people what your priorities are, and this is my priority," he said. Bryan, who was Nevada's governor from 1982 to 1988 and a U.S. senator for the next 12 years until retiring in January, said Tuesday's announcement by the Environmental Protection Agency setting radiation standards for the proposed repository makes it "a very propitious time" for the state. The EPA's standards, which are more stringent than those suggested by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, were challenged in a lawsuit by a nuclear industry trade group hours after they were announced. "Those will be very difficult for the nuclear industry to meet or they wouldn't have filed suit," he said. "This is really a marvelous opportunity for us to work with Governor (Kenny) Guinn," Bryan said about the commission's task. Commissioner Michon Mackedon said Bryan's remarks six years ago that Yucca Mountain "is like Swiss cheese," with cracks and fissures where nuclear materials could escape, fits with comments made Thursday by longtime dump proponent Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska. "Do we want to continue looking down that rat hole or do we want to look at something else?" said Murkowski, who continues to support a Yucca Mountain repository but was acknowledging that the shift in power in the Senate will stall efforts to bring the repository to Nevada. If built, the repository would bring 77,000 tons of nuclear waste to Nevada, most of it spent fuel rods stored at commercial power reactors. The waste would have to be shipped along roads and railroads through towns and cities across the United States. Michael Mariotte, executive director of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, told the panel, "People all over the country support you." Founded in 1978, the citizens watchdog group is based in Washington, D.C. "Yucca Mountain is not inevitable," he said. "It can be stopped. Working together we can stop it." webmaster@lvrj.com Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - ***************************************************************** 7 The future of Monju fast-breeder reactor needs to be reconsidered asahi.com news June 9, 2001 Procedures are under way for restarting the Monju prototype fast-breeder nuclear reactor, off-line since a serious accident in December 1995. Fukui Prefecture and the city of Tsuruga, where the reactor is located, have agreed to allow the government to perform a safety review on the plan to modify the reactor drawn up by the operator, Japan Nuclear Cycle Development Institute. There are, however, many hurdles still to be cleared. Even if the plan passes the safety review and local communities agree to the modifications, it is generally believed that Monju will not go onstream again for at least three years. The cost of upkeep during the period will be nothing to sneeze at. Maintaining the facilities will set taxpayers back 10 billion yen per year in various expenses like the electricity bills for keeping sodium, used as a coolant, warm. The reactor was shut down 5 years ago following a sodium-coolant leak caused by a malfunctioning thermometer. The planned steps include upgrading the thermometer and partitioning rooms to make it easier to seal off any fires from possible sodium-leak accidents. Use of sodium, an alkali metal that explodes on contact with water, is the chief concern of local residents. No effort should be spared to ensure that the safety measures and the review are sufficient. Ensuring the facility can withstand a major earthquake is another consideration. This was the central issue in a suit brought by local residents seeking to shut down Monju. Their request was rejected. However, a recent strong earthquake that rocked large parts of western Japan has inspired the Nuclear Safety Commission to start making nuclear power plants more earthquake-resistant. The safety review of Monju should be consistent with this move. But safety is not the only problem with Monju. A more fundamental question concerns its necessity. A series of accidents and a weakened economy have blighted the prospect of the envisioned nuclear fuel cycle in which plutonium is used as fuel at fast-breeder reactors. The government's long-term plan for nuclear-power development, revised last year, has downgraded the project to a ``future alternative.'' The plan for a field trial of Monju's successor has been left on the drawing board. The Monju project has virtually no chance of reaching the commercial stage. It is probably too early to pronounce Monju a white elephant. But sticking to the original plan of making Monju a major component of a nuclear fuel cycle is unreasonable. Monju's future should be decoupled from the cycle and totally reinvented. One worthwhile idea is to use the experimental reactor for international research into reducing the amount of radioactive waste of a long half-life. This and other options should be thoroughly discussed while the safety review is going on. Liberal Democratic Party members of the Fukui prefectural assembly called for more measures to bolster the local economy, such as a special government subsidy, before voting to approve the plan to resume Monju's operation. The pledge by Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Minister Atsuko Toyama to make ``maximum efforts'' to supply such aid reportedly sealed the deal with the locals. It is a fact of life that nuclear-power facilities that supply energy to large cities are concentrated in just a few areas. The traditional ``money-for-trouble'' approach to building nuclear power facilities, in which government spending is promised as compensation for the acceptance of such facilities, will not bring any long-term benefits to the local communities. The basic principle should be to use the persuasive power of safety and necessity to make progress. (The Asahi Shimbun, June 8) Copyright 2001 Asahi Shimbun. All rights reserved. No ***************************************************************** 8 Powerful feelings on nuclear plants *Published Friday, June 8, 2001 * THE BUZZ IN BRENTWOOD: ED ARNOW TALK ABOUT the state's energy problems tops all other conversation these days. And speculation about nuclear power as the way out of California's energy crisis is gathering momentum with each passing day. Like everywhere else in the state, people in the Brentwood area are outspoken on the subject with feelings that definitely are mixed. A question about nuclear power was posed to locals, followed up with a zinger. What if they wanted to build a nuclear reactor on Vasco Road? No one is suggesting any such thing, but people's feelings can change when they contemplate a nuclear power plant in their own back yard. Victor Grilli of Byron is all for nuclear power, and if a plant were built on Vasco Road it wouldn't faze him one bit. "Nuclear is a smart idea," he says. "It's good, cheap, efficient energy, and it's been proved safe." Mary Henderson of Brentwood feels different. "I don't think nuclear power plants are a good idea. "It's just one more thing we'd have to worry about, not only for us, but for the next generation as well." Oakley's E.V. Woolover is as enthusiastic as anyone can get. "I worked in nuclear subs, and you better believe that nuclear energy is a good idea," he says. "I'm all in favor of it. Steam is the most efficient source of power, and a nuclear reactor is simply a glorified steam boiler. If it's designed and run right, it's perfectly safe. They can put it on Vasco Road or anywhere else they think it might make sense." Brentwood's Paul Repetto says he's a realist, with qualms. "We surely need something. We have to look at all the options because something simply must be done about energy for California." How about a reactor on Vasco Road? "No way -- pick an area with a lot of open space." But Gus Amador, a visitor to the area, wants no part of nuclear energy. In his words, "The risk is so great that it outweighs the benefits. There just are too many problems." Amador says all of us in California are too spoiled in our energy demands. "What we need is for people to change their wasteful habits. What we don't need is any nuclear power plants." John Sawatzky of Byron favors nuclear power, "but they have to do it differently than before. They should build multiple small reactors rather than building a few huge ones." His wife, Sandy Sawatzky, definitely is in dissent. "Nuclear power scares the hell out of me," she says. "No way, not on Vasco Road or anywhere else." June Schlichter of Brentwood is all for nuclear power, but agrees that the power plants should be put in unpopulated areas. "I don't want one in my back yard," she says. "Energy shortage is a problem for the whole country, not only California. We simply have to do something." Is she uneasy about it? "Nope -- intelligent people aren't going to make stupid mistakes." Brentwood's Brett Hanberg agrees it's a good idea, "as long as they're careful about it. We must do something, because we can't depend on other states any more." Even Vasco Road is OK with him. And Brentwood's Brian Ashworth says, "It's no big deal if they build one on Vasco Road. I'm for anything that will help. You have to think we've learned a few things since the Three Mile Island disaster." Brentwood's Sue Oort, agrees. "With our more modern technology, it's probably a lot safer than before." But she has reservations. She sums up what probably is the majority opinion. "I'd have to know a lot more than I do to have an educated opinion about a nuclear reactor anywhere in the state, including Vasco Road."* Ed Arnow can be reached at BrentwoodBuzz@aol.com. ContraCostaTimes.com ***************************************************************** 9 Turkey Opposes Nuclear Wastes Passing Through Straits: Minister Saturday, June 09, 2001, updated at 11:10(GMT+8) Turkey Opposes Nuclear Wastes Passing Through Straits: Minister Turkish Environment Minister Fevzi Aytekin said that his ministry is strongly opposed to the passage of ships carrying radioactive material through the Turkish straits, reported the Anatolia News Agency on Friday. The statement came after the Russian State Duma, or lower house of the Russian Parliament, adopted a resolution allowing 20,000 tons of nuclear wastes to be imported and stored in the Russian territory in return for 20 billion U.S. dollars. It is not clear yet by which way the radioactive material will be shipped to Russia. The Turkish Straits, consisting, from southwest to northeast, of the Dardanelles, the Sea of Marmara and the Bosphorus, link the Mediterranean and the Black Seas. Evaluating the risks to Turkey if the nuclear wastes find their way through the Turkish waterway, the minister said that his ministry would contact relevant institutions and start certain sanctions that are in line with international laws. Aytekin urged national and international environmentalist organizations to take precautions against the scenario, warning that the wastes would not only pollute the straits, but also the seas of the Aegean and the Mediterranean. "The people living in the countries along these coasts will also be affected. We're calling on all the volunteer organizations to oppose the destroying of the nuclear wastes in Siberia," he said. The Duma on Wednesday approved a controversial package of three bills permitting the import of spent nuclear fuel for disposal and storage in Russia.¡¡ If the bills are adopted by the Federation Council, or upper house of the parliament, and signed by the president, Russia may import up to 20,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel for disposal and temporary storage in the next 10 years. Copyright by People's Daily Online, all rights reserved | ***************************************************************** 10 Regulators conclude oversight of nuclear plant's restart - 06/09/01 June 9, 2001 The Detroit News. By Associated Press BRIDGMAN -- The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has concluded its review of the D.C. Cook Nuclear Power Station's restart, the agency said Friday. The NRC ordered the plant's two reactors shut down in September 1997 after a design inspection raised questions about key plant emergency systems. The following year, the agency fined American Electric Power Co. $500,000 for various design-related violations. AEP, based in Columbus, Ohio, owns and operates the plant. The NRC established the restart panel to review the plant's outage activities and preparations to restart the reactors. The panel held public meetings and inspected the reactors during the restart preparations. On June 25, the Unit 2 reactor was the first to be restarted by the utility company after it had implemented design changes to increase safety. It reached full power July 5. Unit 1 was restarted Dec. 18 and reached full power Jan. 4. James E. Dyer, Region III administrator for the NRC, said in a statement Friday that the plant "has established an effective long-range improvement program ... has demonstrated safe plant operation and overall improving performance, and has established an effective program to update and maintain the plant's design basis." On the Net: U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission: http://www.nrc.gov/ ***************************************************************** 11 Environmentalists Praise US Position June 08, 2001 MOSCOW (AP) - Environmental groups on Friday praised U.S. hesitance toward approving exports of American-made nuclear fuel to Russia after recent passage of a controversial new bill by Russian legislators. The bill, approved Wednesday by the lower house of parliament, would allow Russia to import spent nuclear fuel, which proponents say would bring in revenues to help clean up radioactive pollution across the country. Opponents question if the money would be used as promised, and whether Russia is equipped to safely handle the foreign fuel. More than 90 percent of the potential imports would need U.S. approval, because most of the world's nuclear fuel includes material of U.S. origin. In a statement after the vote, the U.S. State Department said that before granting consent, "The U.S. would want to be assured that the transfer was for eventual disposal, and not for reprocessing, in order to avoid increases in civil stockpiles of separated plutonium." It continued: "The U.S. would need to be assured that the planned transportation, storage, and disposition of the fuel complied with appropriate standards of safety and security. An especially important factor would be the nature of Russia's nuclear cooperation with third parties." Washington has been particularly concerned about Russia's nuclear cooperation with Iran, which the United States says sponsors terrorism. "The U.S. conditions make (Russia's) plans impossible," Tobias Muenchmeyer of Greenpeace International said in a statement Friday. "Russia is neither able or willing to fulfill the U.S. conditions, which amount to a de facto veto of this dangerous nuclear waste import scheme." The bill must still pass the upper house, the Federation Council, and be signed by President Vladimir Putin. Despite public opposition, passage is considered likely. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 12 Big Differences The Salt Lake Tribune -- June 10, 2001* In Lisa Church's coverage of the recent Division of Radiation Control Board meeting held in Moab (Tribune, June 3), there were several comparisons drawn between the current environmental situation at the Atlas tailings site and the environmental protections at the White Mesa Mill. In fact, there are numerous significant differences between the Atlas and the White Mesa sites. The Atlas mill was sited and constructed in the mid-1950s and situated in an "ideal" location based on milling economics; that is, it was situated close to the mines, a water source, a power grid, and a qualified labor pool. Some 20 years later, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's site selection criteria changed significantly. In 1977, when a site was being selected for the White Mesa Mill, environmental issues, and in particular protection of the groundwater, were the key considerations in determining the current location, approximately six miles south of Blanding. Other important differences between the Atlas and White Mesa Mill: The tailings material from the Atlas mill was stored on alluvial soils next to a large river. It had no synthetic liner under the material to control seepage of tailings liquids into and through alluvial soils into the groundwater. In fact, in those days, tailings piles were constructed to allow seepage as a form of water management in tailings. The White Mesa Mill, in contrast, is not near any streams or rivers (the closest river is more than 20 miles away), and all of the White Mesa tailings cells are lined with synthetic liners, which prevent seepage from the tailings. In addition, the nearest aquifer is over 1,300 feet below the land surface at the White Mesa Mill site and is separated from the mill by over 1,200 feet of low-permeability rock. The Atlas Mill's surety was based on its approved reclamation plan, which was updated and approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) after Atlas was in bankruptcy. In contrast, the NRC approved the latest updated reclamation plan for the White Mesa Mill in 2000. In addition, the reclamation board for the White Mesa Mill is reviewed and updated annually to reflect inflationary adjustments and any other cost adjustments as indicated by the current circumstances. There are many other differences between the Atlas and the White Mesa Mill sites and I have attempted to highlight a few of the more significant ones. I should also like to note that there are numerous mill tailings piles that are or have been reclaimed in accordance with the NRC site closure requirements by private entities. The siting, design and operation of the White Mesa Mill takes advantage of all of the lessons learned from the previous history of uranium milling in the United States. Environmental protection was the crucial factor in siting the mill and continues to be our primary consideration. RON F. HOCHSTEIN International Uranium (USA) Corporation Denver, Colo. © Copyright 2001, The Salt Lake Tribune All material found on ***************************************************************** 13 Nuclear Power More Popular June 09 01:02 AM EDT *By Gary Langer ABCNEWS.com* While nuclear power ranks last on the public's list of energy preferences, it's not the pariah it once was: Just over four in 10 Americans are open to building more nuclear plants, more than double the number just after the Chernobyl accident in 1986. The proposal lacks majority support, and "strong" opponents outnumber "strong" supporters by 13 points. But overall 42 percent favor more nuclear plants, up from the mid-20s in the early 1980s and a low of 19 percent in May 1986, just after Chernobyl. Indeed opposition to nuclear power has declined slightly from its level in a poll in April, just before George W. Bush released an energy plan that urges nuclear plant construction. Opposition lost seven points, to 52 percent; support gained a scant five points. The change occurred almost entirely among Republicans, suggesting they were rallying behind Bush: Their support for nuclear plants rose from 50 percent in April to 63 percent now. There's been no meaningful change among Democrats or independents. Support For Nuclear Plants NOW APRIL All 42% 37% Republicans 63% 50% Democrats 31% 30% Independents 36% 34% Republicans More Favorable While 42 percent support building nuclear plants, fewer, 19 percent, support it strongly— a third of Republicans, 17 percent of independents and 11 percent of Democrats. Across the spectrum, 32 percent oppose it strongly - 43 percent of Democrats, 34 percent of independents and 18 percent of Republicans. In addition to the shift among Republicans, different questions on nuclear power can produce somewhat different results, also suggesting that not all opinions on the subject are firmly held. This poll asked, "In general, would you favor or oppose building more nuclear power plants at this time?" A separate ABC/Post poll measured support for a variety of steps, including nuclear power, "to address the country's energy needs." That approach found higher "strong" support for building nuclear plants, 29 percent, albeit similar overall support, 46 percent. Bringing up the issue of energy needs may have made a difference. But nuclear power nonetheless was comparatively unpopular, ranking last in public support. Different Types of Power Sources TYPE SUPPORT SUPPORT “STRONGLY” More fuel-efficient vehicles 90% 80% More solar/wind power 63% 50% More conservation by businesses 90% 79% More conservation by consumers 90% 78% More oil/gas drilling 67% 49% More coal mining 54% 33% More nuclear plants 46% 29% Methodology This ABC News/Washington Post poll was conducted by telephone June 1-3, 2001, among a random national sample of 689 adults. The results have a 3.5-point error margin. Field work by ICR- International Communications Research of Media, Pa. Copyright © 2001 Yahoo! Inc., and ***************************************************************** 14 Controversial Czech nuclear power plant suffers leak edie news: The Czech nuclear power plant at Temelin, which led to Austrian border closures before even being fully operational, has leaked several cubic metres of radioactive water. A spokesperson for the plant, Milan Nebesar, said the water escaped during reactor tests but that it was retained within the safety shell of the reactor and that radiation levels were very low. He added that there was no danger to staff or to the environment. He added that the leak was an operational mistake rather than a fault in the system, and that the clean-up had already been completed. “The water was slightly radioactive,” Nebesar told press. “The levels of radiation did not reach even the lowest classification of a radiation event.” The plant was bitterly opposed during construction by neighbouring Austria, and has suffered various technical setbacks. On 5 Jun, German energy giant Eon ended an energy supply contract with Temelin. Although neither party would comment directly, a spokesman for Temelin’s operator CEZ referred to “political tensions between Austria with the Federal Republic of Germany and the Czech Republic in the field of the power industry, ” as the reason for the demise of the contract. Germany’s influential green movement had been urging municipalities to end contracts with Eon if it continued to take power from Temelin. Temelin has been the source of bitter dispute with strongly anti-nuclear Austria and Germany (see ), both with borders less than 50km away. Doubts centred on Temelin’s two Russian-designed, 981 megawatt VVER-1,000 reactors, which were combined with a US-made control system. Ministers from both countries argued that the Soviet-era reactor does not meet Western safety standards. German Environment Minister Juergen Trittin went as far as to suggest the Czech Republic’s imminent entry to the EU might be put in doubt because Temelin had not undergone environmental tests as required in European law. The Czech government has denied the accusations. © Faversham House Group Ltd 2001. This article may be copied or ***************************************************************** 15 Nuclear company fined £100,000 after “poor management” leads to radioactive waste leaks edie news: A judge has fined Magnox Electric plc £100,000 plus £28,000 costs after the company pleaded guilty to six offences relating to unauthorised discharges of radioactive waste from its nuclear power stations at Bradwell in Essex and Hinkley Point A in Bridgwater, Somerset. The case, decided at Taunton Crown Court on 1 June, was brought by the Environment Agency after an in-depth investigation by its inspectors uncovered maintenance problems with the filters in the liquid effluent clean-up facilities at both stations led to unauthorised discharges of low level radioactive waste to the environment. Problems came to light at Bradwell in August 1999 when information from the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate triggered a joint inspection with the Environment Agency into operations at the plant. Inspectors found problems with filters in the liquid effluent discharge system had led to an unauthorised release of low-level radioactive sand into Blackwater Estuary on 2 August 1999. Five days later, during attempts by Magnox, which is part of BNFL, to overcome its filter problem, a further unauthorised discharge was made. Magnox Electric then failed to inform the Environment Agency about either of these events, the Agency says, as they are required to do under the conditions of the current authorisation. Just over one month later, the Environment Agency was alerted by Magnox that during checks it had instigated as a result of the Bradwell filter failure, a fault had been identified in a filter system at its Hinkley Point A Power Station and that consequently radioactive particles may have been discharged into the Bristol Channel. Subsequent investigations by Agency inspectors revealed that the company had failed to maintain the filter system, but that there were no abnormal levels of radioactivity detected. Magnox was fined £10,000 for the unauthorised discharge of radioactive waste from Bradwell Power Station and £20,000 for the discharge from Hinkley Point A as well as £60,000 for two offences of failing to maintain its systems in a good state of repair and £10,000 for two offences of failing to inform the Environment Agency of the unauthorised radioactive waste discharges at Bradwell. “We are very disappointed that such unacceptable failures have occurred at both Bradwell and Hinkley Point A and consider that this points to failure of management systems,” said Jim Gray the EA’s head of radioactive substances regulation. “Although no environmental detriment or harm to the public can be demonstrated, the events should not have happened at all. We will not hesitate to take enforcement action in such circumstances.” A spokesperson for Magnox Electric plc told *edie* that the company regretted its delay in reporting the discharges, but that there had been “no significant reason” for this. “Since both incidents, we have carried out a detailed review of all of our effluent plants,” Colin Bennett said. “This has led to improved training for staff, replaced filters and associated valves and pipeworks and we have installed additional stages of infiltration and an increased frequency of inspections.” The EA has just completed a major public consultation on new authorisations for Magnox power stations, which would include tighter controls on management competence and supervision. © Faversham House Group Ltd 2001. This article may be copied or ***************************************************************** 16 Power plant to debut makeover [www.TheDailyCamera.com] By John Rundell *For the Camera* A one-time ugly duckling of the power industry is about to debut the results of a $283 million makeover. Xcel Energy officials announced Friday that next week will mark the final stage of converting the Fort St. Vrain power plant from nuclear fuel to natural gas. Modifications to the plant, about 15 miles north of Brighton, have also pumped up its capacity. "As a nuclear plant, it put out 300 megawatts — now we are putting out 700," said Steve Roalstad, an Xcel spokesperson. A megawatt is enough energy to power from 500 to 1,000 homes. The 1970s vintage plant generated power sporadically from 1979 to 1989 but was plagued by technical problems. Its closure and decommissioning was a victory for nuclear opponents who staged periodic protests beginning with the plant's inception in the late 1960s. Jody Flemming did not participate in those events but works today as an energy specialist for the Colorado Public Interest Research Group. "We think it is appropriate to convert plants to another source of power," Flemming said. Natural gas is a suitable fuel, he said, but should be considered a bridge to renewable energy technologies. Although the Fort St. Vrain plant's nuclear days are over, part of its atom-splitting legacy remains. While much of the radioactive waste was shipped out of the state, some nuclear material is still stored on the plant's site, Roalstad said. The decision, made in the early 1990s, to recommission the power plant for natural gas was made in part to salvage more than $60 million in equipment. "We took a look at the assets that were there, and we had a choice between mothballing it for 50 years and recommissioning it," Roalstad said. "We thought we could save that money by using the old facility." The remade plant has been running with two gas-powered generators. A third and final one will come on line officially next week, Roalstad said. In addition, the station's designers have created a method to squeeze additional power out of the gas generators. The process, called a combined cycle, capitalizes on the plant's original turbine. "Not only do the gas generators make electricity in and of themselves, but they also create steam," Roalstad said. "The steam is then fed into the original turbine to turn it, and that is where we get the extra electricity from." Fort St. Vrain, the only nuclear plant built in Colorado, was the country's first to be decommissioned. Touted in the late 1960s as potentially one of the world's most modern nuclear plants, the Fort St. Vrain station employed an experimental helium-cooled reactor core. Difficulties with the cooling system plagued the plant over it's decade-long operation — it never ran more than 15 percent of the time. Compounding that problem were cracked pipes, a small fire and legal battles over waste disposal. At one point, the station was on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's list of the 10 worst plants in the nation. It was shut down in 1989. The added power from the converted plant is needed to fuel Colorado's exploding growth, Roalstad said. "What it really boils down to is reliability and making sure we have enough electricity to meet the increasing demands." *June 9, 2001* Copyright 2001 The Daily Camera. All rights ***************************************************************** 17 Bush Policies Could Make Utah One Big Nuclear Waste Dump The Salt Lake Tribune -- June 10, 2001* BY WINSTON C. WEEKS Predictably, the Utah Republican Establishment has given its blessing to the Cheney-Bush energy plan, trumpeting potential benefits to Utah's economy. But in one key area -- reviving nuclear power -- this plan is a prescription for disaster for the state and the nation that Utah's leaders should resist vigorously. The president proposes a massive additional subsidy initiative to build new nuclear power plants to address the worst "energy crisis" since the 1970s. Touting nukes as clean and green, new and improved, stopping just short of "too cheap to meter," Bush promotes construction of enough new reactors to create enough nuclear waste to guarantee that Utah and Nevada will be dumped on for decades. The nuclear industry and the president know that their expansion plans are doomed without a dump site for spent fuel rods. The industry wants to build 50 new nuclear power plants in the next 20 years, which means a 50 percent increase in nuclear waste that will need to be stored and buried. It's widely publicized that Utah's governor says nuclear power plant waste will be stored in Utah over his dead body, that our boys in Congress back him up on that, and that 84 percent of Utahns agree. It hasn't been reported that Bush used the Xcel Energy headquarters as a backdrop for his St. Paul energy policy press conference. Xcel, formerly Northern States Power, is the driving force behind Private Fuel Storage (PFS), the limited liability corporation that wants to park its spent fuel rods on Skull Valley Goshute land until the government rams it down Nevada's throat. The nuclear energy cycle is anything but clean and green. Four Corners uranium miners, millers and transporters suffering from cancer and fighting for compensation can attest to that. Nuclear power is not economically competitive. Studies have estimated that each kilowatt of nuclear power costs $3,000 to $4,000 to produce. New natural gas-fired plants cost $400 to $600 per kilowatt, wind turbines $1,000 per kilowatt. The Cheney-Bush energy package calls for renewal of the Price-Anderson Act, which limits the liability of the nuclear industry in the event of an accident. Taxpayers would pick up the tab above $7 billion (a serious accident could result in more than $300 billion in damages). Without that public subsidy shielding their liability, not even the most pro-nuclear utility would dream of building or operating a new reactor. Last, in spite of industry claims to the contrary, the risks of a catastrophic reactor accident are still quite real. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission testified in 1986 that there was a 45 percent chance of a meltdown at a U.S. reactor by 2006. In 1994, former NRC Chairman Ivan Selin stated that economic pressures give utilities "incentive to cut corners" with safety, increasing the potential for accidents. Utah's leadership may find reasons to back some portions of the Administration's energy plan, but if they support the nuclear initiatives they may some day have to look in the mirror and ask "over whose dead bodies?" Winston C. Weeks belongs to Citizens Education Project, a Utah-based non-profit concerned with environmental and social justice issues. © Copyright 2001, The Salt Lake Tribune All material found on ***************************************************************** 18 Radioactive waste storage license OK'd Rocky Mountain News: State But judge puts limits on Umetco Minerals By The Associated Press URAVAN -- An arbitration judge has renewed the radioactive waste storage license of Umetco Minerals Corp., but imposed conditions. The site was a major producer of uranium during the Cold War, and some of its ore was used in the first atomic bomb dropped on Japan. "We feel that it's 99.9 percent vindication for Umetco. The judge found that all of the environmental, procedural and legal concerns were not valid," Umetco Environmental Manager John Hamrick said. Judge Richard Dana, of Judicial Arbiter Group, Inc., approved the renewal of Umetco's state-issued radioactive material license Friday. He concluded that some fears voiced by an environmental group were unfounded. Western Colorado Congress, which had opposed the license renewal, also claimed victory. It cited license conditions that regulate offsite waste disposal at the facility. "We thought the restrictions he put on it were good and wise," Western Colorado Congress member Art Stephens said. Union Carbide, Umetco's parent company, processed 42 million pounds of uranium and 220 million pounds of vanadium in Uravan for about 80 years. It contaminated local soils and the San Miguel River over the years. June 8, 2001 2001 © The E.W. Scripps Co. ***************************************************************** 19 Nuke Agency Evicts Greenpeace From Web Site *Posted at 9:22 a.m. PDT Friday, June 8, 2001 * GENEVA (Reuters) - Nuclear processing agency Cogema has won a cybersquatting case against Greenpeace International, having the environmentalists evicted from a site bearing the French concern's name. An arbitrator appointed by the Geneva-based World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) ruled that the domain name ``cogema.org'' should be transferred to the French agency, Compagnie Generale des Matieres Nucleaires. Greenpeace registered the name last July, saying it was using the Internet for peaceful protest against the nuclear energy business. The neutral arbitrator, Tony Willoughby, found that the domain name was confusingly similar to the French nuclear fuel agency's 68 trademarks held in 26 countries. Greenpeace had no right or legitimate interest in the domain name which had been registered in bad faith, the Briton added in his ruling. Cogema accused Greenpeace of trying to ``tarnish'' its name with ``systematic denigrations, accusations and actions'' performed while bearing the company's name, according to a statement issued by WIPO, a United Nations agency. Greenpeace argues that Cogema's reprocessing plant at La Hague, on France's Channel coast, is responsible for high levels of radioactive discharge into the North Sea. headlines from ContraCostaTimes.com ***************************************************************** 20 South Korea: Bush Will Give Pyongyang Nuclear Reactors The Salt Lake Tribune -- June 10, 2001* By Jim Mann LOS ANGELES TIMES WASHINGTON -- South Korea's foreign minister said Saturday that he is confident the Bush administration will go forward with a deal negotiated by President Clinton to provide civilian nuclear reactors to North Korea. In an interview here, Foreign Minister Han Seung Soo said his talks here with White House and State Department officials last week convinced him that the administration "will abide by" the agreement the Clinton administration worked out with the government in Pyongyang in 1994. Han's remarks represent the second recent indication the Bush foreign policy team has decided to embrace many of the elements of the Clinton administration's North Korea policy. On Wednesday, the White House announced it was ready to re-engage in a dialogue with Pyongyang. North Korea is to get two nuclear reactors in exchange for freezing its nuclear weapons program and opening it to international inspection. The reactors are being built in South Korea, with South Korea and Japan paying most of the costs. The United States assumed overall responsibility for putting the agreement into effect, and over the past year, Washington's commitment seemed increasingly in doubt. © Copyright 2001, The Salt Lake Tribune All material found on ***************************************************************** 21 Bingaman: Cool Customer in the Hot Seat Saturday, June 9, 2001 Bingaman: Cool Customer in the Hot Seat Albuquerque Journal--> Michael Coleman--> By Michael Coleman *Journal Washington Bureau* WASHINGTON — Sen. Jeff Bingaman has always liked to work behind the scenes, rather than in front of the television cameras. But now, as the New Mexico Democrat takes over as chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, that might no longer be an option. Sen. Jim Jeffords' decision to abandon the Republican Party last month gave control of the Senate to the Democrats. It also vaulted Bingaman from ranking Democrat on the Senate energy committee into the chairman's seat. It is the most powerful post Bingaman, 57, has held in the U.S. Senate. The media have noticed. Over the past two weeks, the low-key senator has appeared on CNN, Fox News and MSNBC. He has also been quoted in The New York Times and Washington Post. Asked to assess his new post this week, Bingaman gave a bemused smile, a slight shrug and a typically understated reply. "It gives you a little more influence than you might otherwise have," he said, as he sipped coffee in his spacious Senate office Thursday morning. "So, to that extent, it's a step up for sure." The truth is, Bingaman's new role gives him enormous influence over energy policy at a time when the issue is hotter than it has been in nearly 30 years. Gas prices are at an all-time high. California is in the midst of an electricity crisis. Home heating bills shot through the roof last winter. Americans are looking to Washington for help. Norman Ornstein, a political scientist with the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute, said Bingaman, a centrist with few enemies in Congress, is perfectly suited to lead the energy committee at this critical juncture. "I have no doubt he'll do well," Ornstein said. "People underestimate Jeff Bingaman because he doesn't fit the stereotype of a senator being a blowhard, shoving people aside to get to the cameras." But, Ornstein added, "He didn't get elected several times in New Mexico under stiff challenges without formidable political skills." As chairman of the energy committee, Bingaman will decide which energy bills get hearings, and when. President Bush, who contends that energy costs could wreck the American economy, recently released a new comprehensive energy policy that calls for a mix of new oil and gas exploration, nuclear power and conservation. Bingaman, a party loyalist, might surprise casual political observers in his dealings with the White House. He actually agrees with much of the president's strategy, including the need for more domestic drilling and building more nuclear power plants. "We can agree there ought to be an effort to encourage more energy production across a wide range of sources," Bingaman said. "I think Democrats as a whole agree with that." But Bingaman said the president's plan lacks many specifics, and the details need to be filled in by Congress. He opposes Bush's plan to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge but also doubts it would pass Congress no matter who was in the chairman's seat. J. Bennett Johnston, a former Democratic U.S. senator from Louisiana and now a Washington energy lobbyist, said Bingaman's views on energy — essentially calling for more production coupled with environmental protections — reflect the mood of the country. "He is a true centrist," Johnston said. "He's not off of the map to the left or to the right. I think this is where the country is." Bingaman hopes his new role, coupled with the White House support for more drilling and renewable energy research, will reap benefits for New Mexico. The state is a leading oil and gas producer and its national nuclear laboratories already perform cutting-edge research into renewable energy. "There is going to be an increased role for natural gas in meeting the country's energy needs in the next several decades," Bingaman said. "There is no doubt we can benefit substantially as a state from that energy production." "I'm optimistic we can do some good things for the country and for New Mexico," he added. Bingaman said he hopes to put together a short-term energy package this summer that can bring immediate relief for those paying high gas prices and to deal with the electricity crisis in California. He wants to find a way to streamline the widely divergent standards for gasoline in different parts of the country, making it easier to address supply shortages. And he has asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to review electricity rates in California. Then, later in the year, he hopes Congress will adopt more comprehensive, long-term energy legislation. "I'm going to make an effort to develop a very balanced approach that tries to have support of both sides of the political spectrum," Bingaman said. "I don't see why most of these energy-related issues have to be partisan issues." He said any legislation he writes or supports will take into account global warming — a phenomenon that has many scientists increasingly concerned. "It would be irresponsible for us to put a comprehensive energy bill together without regard for what our country's policy is or should be on climate change," Bingaman said. If Republicans regain control of the Senate in the 2002 elections, Sen. Pete Domenici, a New Mexico Republican who sits on the panel, would be in line to replace Bingaman as chairman. In the meantime, Domenici said if a Democrat has to control Senate energy policy, he is glad it is his New Mexico colleague. "Senator Bingaman is entitled to the chairmanship and I'm very pleased that he has it," said Domenici, who lost his budget committee chairmanship under the new power structure. "I will try to work with Senator Bingaman to get some things done." But Domenici also said that Bingaman, untested as a chairman, faces a major leadership challenge at a critical time. "There will be a lot of pressure on this committee to get things done for America," Domenici said. Bingaman said if he can help get America's energy woes under control, the spotlight on the issue — and on him — will fade. He said he has no desire to be a Senate majority leader or other high-profile figure in his party. "I don't think that would be a good use of my time," he said. "The most value I bring to this process is working on issues — hopefully issues that matter to people in New Mexico and elsewhere." Copyright Albuquerque Journal ***************************************************************** 22 Belarusian Children to Visit Local Families ABQjournal: June 10, 2001 Albuquerque Journal--> By Renata D'Aliesio *Journal Staff Writer* Claire Nilsson has checked out the summer schedule at the YMCA. She's looked into soccer camps for boys. And she's cleaned out her guest room, taking out all the things that look "girlie." She has done all this in preparation for the arrival of a 13-year-old boy — Viachasiau "Slava" Vasilenka. He is one of eight children, ages 9 to 14, coming to New Mexico from Belarus on June 21 under a program called Belarusian Children of Chernobyl Inc. The children will be in the Albuquerque area for six weeks, spending time with host families like Nilsson and her husband, Jeff. While here, they will attend activities organized by Karen Cotter, president and founder of the nonprofit organization. This is the third year Cotter has undertaken the project. This year's schedule includes a hot air balloon ride, hiking and a trip to the zoo. Their first stop will be at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History on June 28. The children, who come from poor families, will also receive medical and dental care. These services are donated by the host families' doctors and dentists. "I've never had anybody turn us down," Cotter said. Most of the children grew up near Minsk, the capital of Belarus, just 150 miles southeast of Russia's Chernobyl disaster. Cotter says some of their parents even worked for the plant when a nuclear reactor malfunctioned in 1986, spreading radioactive particles around the world. The effects of the disaster are still being felt in Belarus, once a republic of the former Soviet Union. Cotter says all of the children, three girls and five boys, have been exposed to low levels of radiation. And while the children chosen to come to New Mexico in 1999 and 2000 were considered healthy, some in the first two groups were diagnosed with thyroid problems once here. Cotter has hosted the same two boys, Anatoli "Tolya" Seminov and Dzianis "Dennis" Shrynykin, both 14, for the past four years. On Saturday, she was busy preparing her Albuquerque home for their arrival in less than two weeks. She says next year, they'll stay on after the summer with her and her husband and attend an Albuquerque high school for a year. "We want to give them an opportunity most kids there (in Belarus) will never get," she said. Cotter has yet to place one boy, Kiryl Vasilenka, 10, brother of the boy staying with the Nilssons. She says she's confident she will find a host family for him before he arrives. If not, she says she'll take him in. It's this kind of spirit that drew the Nilssons to the program. Nilsson, 45, said she and her husband, Jeff, 49, decided to get involved after reading about Cotter and the children in the Journal. "We saw this as an opportunity to care for someone else, and to learn about their culture," she said. "It just seemed like time to worry about someone else, not just ourselves." All of the children speak some English because they study it at school, Cotter said. An interpreter from Belarus will be available to help the families, she said. If you would like to host a Belarusian youth, call Karen Cotter at 242-5636. Copyright Albuquerque Journal ***************************************************************** 23 Nuclear nirvana? Hidden costs may render option impractical New reactor designs promise to hold down costs and ease safety fears. June 10, 2001* The recent spikes in energy prices for gasoline, natural gas and, in California, electricity have resurrected hopes for nuclear power as a source of clean and abundant energy. Renewing the licenses for the nation's 103 nuclear-generating stations and building more plants are key proposals in the national energy policy unveiled recently by the Bush administration. In theory, nuclear energy is a winner. It produces vast amounts of energy from small quantities of fuel without belching pollution. Way, way back in more innocent times, enthusiasts prophesied that nuclear power would produce electricity too cheap to meter. Instead, subsequent experience showed nuclear energy to be too costly to matter. Nuke-plant cost overruns, shoddy workmanship, financing fiascoes and frequent shutdowns were constantly in the news. In Ohio, the Zimmer power plant in Moscow was intended to be nuclear, but construction problems, regulations and cost overruns induced its builders to convert it to burn coal. The accidents at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island and a few years later at the Soviet Union's Chernobyl plant were nightmares come true. After Three Mile Island in 1979, no nuclear plants were ordered in the United States. Politically and economically, nuclear power appeared to be dead. Those reactors in operation would be allowed to live out their 40-year lives, then would be shut down with no regrets. But once the crippled industry was out of the headlines, something began to happen to it. Construction problems were solved; huge debts were paid or written off; safety, technology, efficiency and management improved. Today, nuclear plants provide a fifth of the electricity generated in the nation, and many plants do so at a cost lower than those fired by natural gas and competitive with those powered by coal. The second, undamaged, reactor at Three Mile Island is one of the most efficient and profitable in the nation. In Europe, nuclear power is even bigger, accounting for 40 percent of the electricity generated there, including in France, which derives 80 percent of its electricity from splitting atoms. In Asia, nuclear power long has been embraced in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. New reactor designs promise to hold down costs and ease safety fears. An experimental "pebble-bed'' reactor to be built in South Africa is intended to test the viability of a reactor whose own physics cause it to slow down the heat-producing nuclear reaction whenever the reactor begins to get too hot. Theoretically, this means the reactor is incapable of meltdown. If the design is commercially viable, it could usher in a nuclear renaissance, based on small, safe and relatively cheap nuclear plants producing electricity at bargain rates. This design uses thousands of tennis- ball-sized graphite spheres with uranium cores to produce a nuclear chain reaction. But unlike conventional reactors, nuclear engineers say, the pebble-bed cannot melt down because the hotter it gets, the more the nuclear reaction creating the heat is slowed down. This makes the unit self- regulating; the reactor gets so hot, then stops getting hotter, always staying well below the melting points of graphite and uranium. During the years when the nuclear-power industry was getting its act together, another important factor came into play: the fear of global warming. Conventional gas and coal power plants produce huge quantities of greenhouse gases believed to be causing the Earth to warm. Nuclear energy does not. And though nuclear energy does produce deadly spent fuel that must be safely stored for thousands of years, the amounts are relatively small: After half a century of nuclear-power generation, there are only 150,000 to 200,000 tons of spent fuel worldwide. By comparison, conventional fossil- fuel plants spew millions of tons of pollutants into the air and water every year. The industry and the technology have matured, proponents argue, so it's time to start building nuclear plants again. But the original questions remain: Can plants be built economically, and will they be safe? Until now, both of these calculations have been difficult. This is because the nuclear-power industry never has been an entirely private-sector affair, where benefits and costs are transparent. From the start, the industry has been heavily subsidized, sheltered and regulated by the government, making true costs difficult to determine. For example, federal law limits the liability of nuclear plants to $10 billion in the event of an accident. The law was passed because in the early days of nuclear power, no private insurer was willing or able to provide the coverage that would be needed in the event of an accident. Take away that artificial and unrealistically low cap and nuclear plants would have to pay full freight for liability insurance. Assuming that they even could find private insurers willing to take the risk, the cost would no doubt be substantial, driving up overhead and raising the cost of the electricity the plant produced. At that point, it might be obvious that nuke-generated electricity simply is not competitive with conventional power plants. And if private insurers flatly were unwilling to indemnify a new nuke plant, this would be a sure sign that significant doubts about nuclear safety remain. No plant should be built if it cannot cope financially with the claims that would result from an accident. The threat of financial accountability for accidents is a powerful incentive for the safe operation of any industrial enterprise. By shielding nuclear plants from full accountability, the government undermines this crucial spur to safety. A similar problem exists over the question of where to store spent nuclear fuel. Currently, there is no permanent storage site for high-level nuclear waste anywhere in the world. Even finding new sites for containing low-level radioactive wastes, large portions of which come from nuclear-power plants, has become nearly impossible politically. What are the environmental, social and economic costs of siting a permanent nuclear-storage facility? We know these costs must be substantial, because no community has volunteered to take them on by offering to host such a site. In this country, the government has proposed to overcome this resistance by fiat, simply imposing the storage place on a geologically suitable site, such as Yucca Mountain, Nev., despite the opposition of nearby residents. This "solution'' would force these residents to bear a hugely disproportionate share of a burden that ought to be borne by the entire nation. Shouldn't they be compensated for that? Shouldn't the cost of this compensation also be counted as part of the overhead of operating nuclear plants? If so, how do you put a price tag on such costs? Surely, all these costs should be counted as part of the overhead of nuclear power. But how to calculate them? One novel proposal from the Libertarian Cato Institute's magazine, Regulation, borrows a leaf from the airline industry. Airlines routinely overbook their flights, knowing that there will be passengers who fail to show up for the trip. But when the number of overbookings exceeds the number of no-shows, the airline has a problem: not enough seats for all the passengers waiting to board. In such cases, the airlines hold a reverse auction, offering to compensate anyone willing to forgo the current flight and take a later one. The airline continues to increase the incentive until enough people agree to give up their seats. This compensation is the "cost'' of inconveniencing these passengers. A similar approach could be used to find a willing site for nuclear-waste storage and to determine the true cost of the burden. The government could make an offer -- cash, tax breaks, free college tuition, etc. -- for any suitable community where the majority of residents are willing to live near the storage center. If no community accepts the offer, the government could keep raising it until a suitable community decides that the benefit offered outweighs the social, environmental and economic costs of hosting such a site. If the resulting deal costs the nation, say, $20 billion a year, then that is the cost of the inconvenience of having a nuclear-storage site in your back yard and that is how much should be added to the overhead of the nuclear industry. If this cost turns out to be prohibitive, this is another indication that nuclear energy is not economically viable and should not be pursued. Insurance liability and waste storage are not the only areas in which the true costs of nuclear power are hidden. Government intervention and subsidies are in play virtually from the moment the uranium is mined until the first electron arrives to power a consumer's television set or refrigerator. All of these costs are part of the nuclear equation. When all such hidden costs are calculated, the nation truly can see whether nuclear power is worth the investment. Twenty years ago, the answer clearly was no. Copyright © 2001, The Columbus Dispatch ***************************************************************** 24 Senate switch good for Nevada [tahoe.com] VIEWS Sunday, June 10, 2001 By Guy W. Farmer No matter what local Republicans say, it was mostly good news for Nevada when Democrats took control of the U.S. Senate last Tuesday. With Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., as assistant majority leader, Nevada's interests should be well protected. I say "mostly" good news because the political agenda of Reid and Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., is well to the left of the national electorate. Politically, Daschle and Reid are much closer to Sens. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts and Hillary Clinton of New York than they are to the more moderate wing of their party, and most Nevada voters. Nevertheless, on two issues of major concern to the Silver State - the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump and maverick Sen. John McCain's, R-Ariz., proposal to outlaw college sports betting in Nevada - the Senate switch makes passage of those dangerous measures much less likely. Daschle, in Las Vegas to attend a Reid fund-raiser last week, pronounced the Yucca Mountain project "dead." "As long as we're the majority, it's dead," he said, and predicted that a proposed ban on college betting won't pass the Senate either. Let's hope that Daschle is right. Last month, McCain's Commerce Committee deadlocked 10-10 on his measure, sending it to the full Senate for a vote without a recommendation. A few days ago Nevada's Republican Sen. John Ensign implied that Reid's new clout on Capitol Hill is somewhat illusory and said that our state will be worse off with Democrats in control of Senate. At the same time, Ensign acknowledged that Reid played a key role in the defection of Vermont Sen. Jim Jeffords, whose switch from Republican to independent delivered control of the Senate to the Democrats. Reid gave up the chairmanship of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, and offered it to Jeffords, to entice the Vermonter across the aisle. For his part, Reid was clearly elated by the new Senate alignment. Our senior senator told the Reno Gazette-Journal that he believes he can rally Democrats to oppose the Yucca Mountain project, obtain funding for a federal cancer cluster investigation in Fallon and champion such natural resource issues as Lake Tahoe and Walker Lake water quality. "I'm sure there are some hard feelings (in the Senate)," Reid said. "It's like a prize fight. It was a great round, but there are other rounds coming up." But in the end, Jeffords' switch had more to do with political realities in Vermont - now the most liberal state in the nation - than with national issues, although he was at odds with the Bush administration over tax cuts, energy policy and other high priority issues. As conservative commentator Tony Snow noted last week in the Baltimore Sun, "Jim Jeffords hasn't been a Republican for two decades.... He comes from a state whose voters consider Democrats a dangerously conservative breed and where Bernard Sanders, the only socialist in Congress, enjoys unparalleled popularity." For the Republicans, Sen. Jeffords' defection isn't all bad. Snow wrote that Jeffords' decision "may be the best break George W. Bush ever got" because it will "liberate" the president and force Democrats to exercise responsible leadership, rather than sitting on the sidelines and sniping at Republican initiatives. For starters, 12 Senate Democrats abandoned Daschle, Reid &Co. to vote for the president's 10-year, $1.35 trillion tax cut, which he signed on Thursday. As Bush said, part of a $5.6 trillion tax surplus is being returned to the people who earned it - the American taxpayers. David Broder, the Washington Post's veteran political columnist, accurately described our divided government. "The Democrats' motto seems to be: Dream big," he wrote. "The Republicans': Smaller (government) is better." That's it in a nutshell. Broder went on to say that President Bush "is out to change the way Americans educate our children, guard the nation's security, meet our energy needs, provide retirees' benefits and organize a large portion of our medical care." This is an ambitious agenda that will require bipartisan compromise in Washington. President Bush recognized that fact immediately by inviting Sens. Daschle and McCain to dinner at the White House last week, and including Sen. Jeffords in a presidential photo-op. Bush might actually learn something from former President Bill Clinton, who moved to the center of the political spectrum after Democrats lost control of Congress in 1994. Clinton quickly cut his party's losses by hiring Machiavellian political consultant Dick Morris and signing on to the Republican drive for a balanced budget and welfare reform. Clinton also pounced on every GOP misstep, which Bush should now do to Senate Democrats every time they do something stupid, like opposing tax cuts. "The Jeffords defection liberates the president from having to mollify malcontents in his midst and having to grovel before Republican grandees," wrote Tony Snow. "Now he can return to basics, such as defining and defending his core ideas - and forcing Congress to march to his tune." And, added David Broder, "There's a lot of explaining ahead for George W. Bush if he is to earn his self-bestowed title of 'reformer with results.'" As far as Nevada is concerned, however, we can breathe easier with Democrats in control of the U.S. Senate. NEVADA LEGISLATURE: Our state lawmakers, in their infinite wisdom, approved medical marijuana and Internet gaming, two of my least favorite proposals. Now let's see how the state enforces and regulates these misguided measures to protect the public. Guy W. Farmer, a semi-retired journalist and former U.S. diplomat, resides in Carson City. *Copyright tahoe.com. Materials contained within this site may ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 Scientist Confirms Nuclear HK Baby Tests Sunday, June 10, 2001, updated at 18:39(GMT+8) A scientist who led Cold War experiments on the effects of nuclear fallout has confirmed that corpses of Hong Kong babies were used, the South China Morning Post reported on Sunday. Lawrence Kulp, a project leader of "Project Sunshine", was quoted as saying that British scientists carried out tests on the corpses of babies, children and adults in Hong Kong, then a British colony. US scientists turned to Taiwan in their search for corpses, Kulp was quoted as saying, though the story did not specify whether any bodies were obtained there. British newspapers reported last week that around 6,000 stillborn babies and dead infants had been sent to the United States and Britain from hospitals in Australia, Canada, Hong Kong and South America over a 15-year period without the permission of parents. Project Sunshine began in 1955 when University of Chicago doctor Willard Libby -- who was later awarded a Nobel prize for his research into carbon dating -- appealed for bodies, preferably stillborn or newly-born babies, to test the impact of atomic fallout, the reports said. Kulp later led the project, the Post reported. Hong Kong was a British colony for more than 150 years before returning Chinese mainland in mid-1997. Kulp was quoted as saying that Project Sunshine had been organised on a "doctor to doctor" basis and that it had drawn the participation of British scientists. It was not a government project, he said. Hong Kong health officials said last week they would not investigate the reports unless specific evidence came to light that local babies had been used in the tests. Health officials were not available for further comment on Sunday. Australian officials on Thursday confirmed that cremated bones from some Australian babies, children and adults had been shipped to the United States and Britain to test for fallout from nuclear tests. Copyright by People's Daily Online, all rights reserved | ***************************************************************** 2 The bones of Cold War contention The Age: + Paul Heinrichs and Steve Dow."> ** By PAUL HEINRICHS and STEVE DOW Sunday 10 June 2001 It was January 18, 1955. The Cold War was very chilly indeed, and out in the Pacific, things were getting rather too hot. Hydrogen bombs of ever-increasing power were being tested in the atmosphere, and the one known as Bravo in March, 1954, accidentally irradiated the Marshall Islands. Along with the mushroom cloud, it seemed the balloon of public opinion had gone up. In this climate, the US Atomic Energy Commission convened a biophysics conference to discuss speeding up the secret projects aimed at acquiring the precise knowledge necessary to predict the effects of radioactive fall-out. The problem was that the research depended upon a plentiful supply of baby bones so that the most dangerous element of radioactive fall-out, strontium-90, could be measured. It was a fateful day. The meeting, partly reported in transcripts on the Internet, made decisions that affected thousands of babies around the world, past, present and future, dead and alive. One of the consequences, it might be argued, was sparing the world future horrors. Data collected helped lead to the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963. But this knowledge was achieved at a human cost. The aftershocks continue today in places as far apart as Britain and Australia, where an outpouring of grief and bewilderment is overtaking some of the mothers who lost babies long ago, and now do not know what happened to them. In Britain, there is newly released evidence that baby bodies were delivered to American laboratories, and in Australia, as authorities now freely admit, an extensive program from 1957-78 saw bones removed from up to 5000 bodies for use in the research. According to this newspaper's research in 1981, and again in the mid-1990s, at least three big public hospitals in Melbourne - the Royal Children's, the Royal Women's and the Queen Victoria Medical Centre - were involved in removing the bones, not all with their parents' consent. The bones were reduced to ash, which was sent to the US and Britain for testing until eventually, in the 1970s, Australian laboratories were able to do the job themselves. It was a well-known topic in scientific circles, as the results were published and discussed widely. Yet from their beginning, there was also a clandestine nature to the research, especially in the US. Known as projects Gabriel and Sunshine, they had proceeded at a leisurely, scientific pace. But just as the pressure came on to get results more quickly, the supply of stillborn babies seemed to end. It was in this context that one of Sunshine's founders, the eminent chemist Willard Frank Libby of the University of Chicago - an AEC commissioner - came to the fore. Dr Libby had been associated with the Manhattan Project from 1941-45, helping to develop a method for separating uranium isotopes. In 1947, he made the discovery for which he was in 1960 to be awarded the Nobel Prize for chemistry - the carbon-14 dating technique, used to date material from former living organisms up to an age of 50,000 years. It was published in 1952, and made it possible to determine such fascinating ancient timelines as the New Kingdom pharaohs of 1400 BC. If Dr Libby was an expert in dry bones, he was a good deal less sensitive when it came to obtaining human bone samples for research. "So human samples are of prime importance and if anybody knows how to do a good job of body snatching, they will really be serving their country," he is recorded as saying on a meeting transcript. Dr Libby recalled that when Project Sunshine was begun in 1953, there had been anticipation that this would be a problem. "I don't know how to snatch bodies," he said. "In the original study ... we hired an expensive law firm to look up the law of body snatching ... It is not very encouraging. It shows you how very difficult it is going to be to do legally." Documents show the scheme had proceeded from the start on the basis of a lie. Medical staff were told that the skeleton collection was being used to measure natural radiation, not fall-out. The worldwide assay, which began in 1953 and took material from 20 countries, was kept a secret. At the meeting, discussion ensued about getting bodies through unofficial "channels" in places where there were not so many rules. Columbia University's J. Laurence Kulp mentioned Houston - "They have a lot of poverty cases and so on ..." - and also that the dean of his medical school had contacts all over the world "where he is sure we could develop similar programs ... in particular, we could develop a program in Australia, South America, Africa, in the Near East, and in Scandinavian countries ...". He advocated overcoming difficulties through good personal relations with the medical personnel. Another suggestion was that overseas collectors should be paid to ensure supply. There were other discussions about whether, if the level of secrecy was dropped, it might be easier to obtain samples. But 18 months later, when another proposal to obtain children's milk teeth was raised, Dr Libby issued a warning. "I would not encourage publicity in connection with the program. We have found that in collecting human samples, publicity is not particularly helpful." But the Sunshine research eventually became public when the Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson raised the issue during the 1956 US presidential campaign. In October that year, Dr Libby also talked about it when opening a new science building in Washington, and Dr Kulp's report on strontium-90 in man, based on data from the worldwide network, was published in the February, 1957, issue of Science. The first congressional hearings and the dangers of fall-out followed in May and June of 1957. In Britain, newspapers last week published details of lists of bodies obtained from hospitals and sent to the US. There were 27 cadavers in one consignment. Files held by Britain's nuclear establishment at Harwell, in Oxfordshire, have not been released, but the evidence has been obtained from minutiae revealed in the 1995 American investigation of the issue ordered by former US president Bill Clinton. In Australia, authorities said there was no evidence that whole bodies of babies were sent for testing, although US authorities are checking their records. Last week, the chief executive of the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Authority, John Loy, confirmed the bone-testing program over 21 years, first written up in a 1962 issue of Science. It had begun, he said, under the auspices of the Atomic Weapons Tests Safety Committee, which reviewed safety issues surrounding British atomic tests in Australia. Under the program, pathologists in Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide, Sydney and Brisbane provided bone-tissue specimens from people up to 40, including babies, which were then reduced to ash and sent abroad for testing. In 1981, this newspaper reported the program, revealing that many of the hospitals involved removed the bones from babies without consent. An official explained that autopsies were performed routinely without consent and "as consent wasn't strictly required, it wasn't always obtained". A spokesman for the Royal Children's said it had provided bones from 200 bodies a year for many years. He said staff collected tissue only when permission for an autopsy had been given by parents or guardians, and staff always gave an explanation of why the tissue was needed and how it would be used. The hospital had "no particular trouble" in obtaining consent. But after 10 years, the hospitals were becoming forgetful, and the Federal Government introduced a payment of $100-$200 a year for the bones they supplied to the Commonwealth X-Ray and Radium Laboratory, later to become the Australian Radiation Laboratory. At the Royal Women's, the money went straight to the mortician. At one Sydney hospital, though, the money was believed to go into the staff fund. There was an inquiry by the NSW Health Commission, which confirmed the bones were mainly from babies, and plastic had been inserted to mask the removal. A federal Health Department spokesman in Canberra said the tests were the only accurate way of finding the accumulation of strontium-90 in the environment, and that there was nothing clandestine about them. "We were aware of the moral and ethical questions raised, but it was up to the hospitals to make their own arrangements," he said. Just how they were made is still a matter of interest to Victoria's Still Births and Neonatal Deaths Support group, whose past president, Janette Reynolds, believes questions need to be asked of the major hospitals. Ms Reynolds said that, since press reports surfaced on Tuesday, volunteers at SANDS had been inundated with calls from families who either could not learn what happened to their stillborn babies or were angry at how they had been treated by hospitals. "We have walked along with families who have gone on that searching trail," she said. "Perhaps some of those babies may have ended up going overseas." Peter Campbell, a former director of pathology at the Royal Children's Hospital who now works for the Victorian Coroner, said he was unaware of stillborns or their bones being sent overseas. But it was certainly true that foetuses under 28 weeks were treated as "waste material". "We're talking years ago when attitudes were different," Dr Campbell said. "I'm not saying they were right, but they were different. It's true that foetuses were discarded or buried anonymously. Certainly some babies were disposed of. At the time there was a lot of anxiety about atomic energy. It was the height of the Cold War, you've got to remember. You could justify all sorts of things." Copyright © The Age Company Ltd 2001. Any unauthorised use, ***************************************************************** 3 Richland meetings to outline Hanford compensation This story was published 6/10/2001 By Annette Cary Herald staff writer Hanford workers and their survivors can take the initial step toward applying for compensation for work-related illness at a series of four town hall meetings this week in Richland. The compensation program went through a series of sometimes confusing changes as it was proposed and enacted into law. But Tuesday and Wednesday, the Department of Labor will kick off a round of meetings to be held across the nation by first offering Hanford workers, former workers and their families answers on what compensation is available and to whom. Workers also will receive a packet of forms to fill out and return. "This is our first opportunity to meet with workers and explain the law in detail," said Labor Secretary Elaine Chao. "It's critical that people know how to fill out these forms properly. The department is anxious to expedite these claims, and correctly completed claim forms will enable us to do so." Meetings are planned at 1 and 7 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday at the Richland Red Lion, 802 George Washington Way. Department of Labor and Department of Energy officials are suggesting everyone attend who believes they or a family member may have suffered ill health because they worked at Hanford since the site began making plutonium for nuclear weapons in World War II. DOE officials also will have information about applying for state worker compensation programs. Even those who don't qualify under the federal program administered through the Labor Department still may be eligible for state aid, such as payment of lost wages. Workers also could find they are eligible for both state and federal benefits. "We're trying to provide as much information as possible," said Pete Turcic, director of the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Task Force for the Department of Labor. The federal program offers $150,000 in compensation to workers who contracted certain types of cancer after exposure to radiation or suffered respiratory illness after breathing in fine particles of the metal beryllium. The government must determine, however, that the illness was as likely as not caused by the exposure. If the worker is no longer living, certain survivors may collect the money. Widows and widowers are eligible to collect, although remarrying may have disqualified some. In other instances, parents or grandparents of the former worker may be eligible if the worker was supporting them at the time of the worker's death. The children of former workers also are eligible, but only under certain circumstances. For instance, a child with no surviving parents may be eligible if the child was under 18 or was a full-time student under 23 when the parent died. Federal officials will explain those and other exceptions and rules at the meetings this week. Those applying for compensation will need to fill out a form for the survivor or ill person and an employment history. They'll also be told what medical records should be provided to the Labor Department with the claim. "The way the regulations are structured, it's very open to what can be used for evidence of work history," Turcic said. Besides checking DOE records for dates, the Labor Department will consider affidavits from co-workers saying who worked with them on various Hanford projects. The federal government also is offering medical care beginning July 31 for ill workers or former workers if a claim is accepted. Workers need to have their claims ready by then to collect maximum benefits, Turcic said. The meetings are intended only to answer questions and help workers and their families get started on the paperwork needed to apply. The Labor Department and DOE will not be accepting comments on potential flaws in the program at the meeting, despite the protests of some union leaders and from the Government Accountability Project, which advocates for nuclear workers. Some parts of the proposed program, such as not compensating most adult children if their parents have died, have been criticized. Turcic said no decision has been made on whether a hearing will be scheduled to take comments on regulations for the program. However, written comments are being accepted. They may be mailed to Office of Workers Compensation Program, c/o Employment Standards Administration, U.S. Department of Labor, 200 Constitution Ave. N.W., Washington, D.C., 20210. In addition, the Government Accountability Project said it plans to record any discussion of concerns at the town hall meetings and will submit them as written comments. n Reporter Annette Cary can be reached at 582-1533 or via e-mail at acary@tri-cityherald.com. Copyright 2001 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This ***************************************************************** 4 Dead Trees Standing Sunday, June 10, 2001 By DANIEL B. BOTKIN SANTA BARBARA--When Vice President Dick Cheney recently proposed that we look to nuclear power to ease the energy crunch, I thought about a little-known, curious experiment conducted in the 1960s and '70s at Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island. During the Cold War, the danger of a nuclear war or the accidental release of radioactive materials seemed real. To examine the effects of radiation on natural ecosystems, the federal government sponsored experiments. At Brookhaven, scientists irradiated an entire forest. I was one of the researchers in this forest of dead trees standing. The forest looked as if it had just burned the day before, though the trees had actually been dead for years. We could work in the forest up to four hours a day because the radiation used, cesium's radioactive isotope 137, was relatively 'clean': Only gamma rays were produced. The laboratory had moved the largest source of cesium 137 that could be safely handled by earth-moving machinery into the forest and mounted it on a vertical, movable pole. The pole had devices that lowered the radioactive material into the ground, where lead shields provided the protection for researchers. A journey to the center of the forest--that is, the source of radiation--after a decade of exposure was surreal. The forest was enclosed by two chain-link fences with locked gates. Just inside the fences, the woods were typical of those found on Long Island: a dense clutch of small pitch pines, scarlet and white oaks, and small shrubs, mostly blueberry and huckleberry. Many plants were quite fragrant. The sounds of crickets and cicadas filled the air. Ovenbirds called. My walk toward the source began as a pleasant stroll through the woods. As I moved closer, more and more pine trees had dead branches and needles. Farther on, all the pines were dead, but many were still standing. Some of the fallen pine trunks were beginning to rot--the bacteria and fungi of decay had survived the radiation. Up ahead, the white oaks looked sick. Soon, they, too, were all dead--and standing. The scarlet oaks proved to be the hardiest of the trees. As I neared the source, I saw some survivors. It was like walking up a mountain. The higher up you climb, the smaller and fewer the trees. Eventually, the trees drop out completely and you reach a zone of low shrubs, then a tundra zone of smaller ground plants and, finally, if the mountain is high enough, no life at all. So it was in the irradiated forest. Blueberries and huckleberries survived the trees, growing among grasses and sedges. Closer to the source, only a patchy cover of sedges. Then you came upon perfect triangles of sedges--green, grass-like, flowering plants--growing behind the trunks of standing dead trees. Just as they do with sunlight, the trunks shaded the sedges from the radiation. It was an eerie demonstration of how light rays travel. Near ground zero, all plants were dead, but they had not decayed. The radiation had killed off the armies of decay: fungus, bacteria, earthworms, etc. I hunted around for any signs of life. Within about six feet of the source, I found, on the back of a sign warning of the radiation danger, a small green patch of the algae Protococcus. The algae grows on damp soils. The sandy soil encircling the source was tinted gray, the color of the dead leaves and twigs that had not decayed. From the air, the forest was an eerily beautiful sight of death radiating outward. You could see the tower containing the radiation, surrounded by a lifeless, gray-tan zone. Then came a circular ring of sedges, one of shrubs, another of oaks without pines and then the healthy forest. Rather than the intricate mosaic of life forms that characterizes normal forests, the one at Brookhaven was a series of concentric circles signifying the stages of death by radiation. The radioactive waste generated at nuclear power plants can create similar landscapes. One idea is to bury it. But the radioactive materials remain dangerous for 10,000 years. A government task force assigned the job of designing a warning system that could be understood by people living 100 centuries from now came up with the idea of constructing solid structures above the waste depository that would emit mournful sounds when the wind blows. The irradiated forest at Brookhaven National Laboratory is mournful indeed. The forest and the problems associated with the transportation and storage of nuclear wastes are also a mournful prospect, one that should make us pause and think carefully before we move in the direction of greater emphasis on nuclear power rather than on energy sources that are more environmentally benign. - - - Daniel B. Botkin, a Research Professor of Biology at Uc Santa Barbara, Is the Author of "No Man's Garden: Thoreau and a New Vision for Civilization and Nature." Los Angeles Times ***************************************************************** 5 Town Meetings to be Held on Energy Employees Compensation U.S. Newswire 8 Jun 16:46 Town Hall Meetings To Be Held On The Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program To: Assignment Desk, Daybook Editor Contact: Sue Blumenthal of the Department of Labor, 202-693-0023 WASHINGTON, June 8 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Town hall meetings in more than 25 communities across the country will be held between now and the end of July to explain the new Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act to nuclear weapons industry employees. The meetings will be hosted by the U.S. Departments of Labor and Energy and will be held in areas near Department of Energy facilities or those of its contractors or subcontractors. "This is our first opportunity to meet with workers and explain the law in detail," said Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao. "It's critical that people know how to fill out these forms properly. The Department is anxious to expedite these claims and correctly completed claim forms will enable us to do so." Passed in October 2000, the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act pays $150,000 lump-sum compensation and related medical expenses to workers who became seriously ill from exposure to radiation, beryllium or silica while working in the nuclear weapons industry for the Department of Energy, including its contractors and subcontractors. Compensation will also be available to some survivors and to uranium employees who are eligible for benefits under Section Five of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act. The Labor Department has primary responsibility under the law and will administer compensation and medical benefits. The Department of Energy's Office of Worker Advocacy will help workers file state workers' compensation claims and list facilities where workers were exposed. A list of town hall meetings, dates and locations follows below. --- Town Hall Meetings The Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Meetings will be held at 1 and 7 p.m. unless otherwise noted. -- Richland, Wa., June 12 & 13 Red Lion Hanford House, 802 George Washington Parkway, Richland -- Bridgeport, Ct., June 12 (7 p.m.) Holiday Inn Bridgeport, 1070 Main Street, Bridgeport -- Hartford, Ct., June 14 The Hastings Hotel, 85 Sigourney Street, Hartford -- Paducah, Ky., June 19 Executive Inn, 1 Executive Boulevard, Paducah -- Aiken, S.C., June 19 North Augusta Community Center, 101 Brookside Drive, North Augusta -- Oakland, Calif., June 19 Marriott Hotel, 1001 Broadway, Oakland -- Portsmouth, Ohio, June 21 Pike County Joint Vocational School Cafeteria, 175 Beaver Creek Road, Piketon -- Clarksville, Tenn., June 21 Austin Peay State University Music/Mass Communications Bldg., Marion Street, Clarksville -- Espanola, N.M., June 26 Northern New Mexico Community College Center for the Arts Theatre, 921 Oaseo De Onate, Espanola -- Albuquerque, N.M., June 27 Marriott Hotel, 2101 Louisiana Blvd NE, Albuquerque -- Oakridge, Tenn., June 26 & 27 American Museum of Science and Energy Auditorium, 300 S. Tulane, Oak Ridge -- Anchorage, Alaska, June 26 Sheraton Anchorage Hotel, 401 E. 6th Ave., Anchorage -- Las Vegas, Nev., June 28 (7 p.m.), June 29 (1 p.m.), Texas Station Casino Hotel, 2101 Texas Star Lane, West Las Vegas -- San Antonio, Texas, July 10 Granada Homes Retirement Village, 111 Villita, San Antonio (corner of S. St. Mary's and Villita) -- Buffalo, N.Y., July 10 & 11 Adams Mark Buffalo, 120 Church Street, Buffalo -- Oakridge, Tenn., July 12 American Museum of Science and Energy Auditorium, 300 S. Tulane, Oak Ridge -- Amarillo, Texas, July 12 Amarillo Civic Center, 401 S. Buchanan, Amarillo -- Burlington, Iowa, July 17 Burlington Memorial Auditorium, The Port of Burlington, Front Street on the Riverfront, Burlington -- Idaho Falls, Idaho, July 17 Shiloh Conference Inn, 780 Lindsay Boulevard, Idaho Falls -- Chicago, Ill., July 18 (7 p.m.), July 19 (7 p.m.), Willow Springs Holiday Inn, 7800 Kingergery Highway, Frontage road, Route 83 & I-55 -- Denver, Colo., July 19 Doubletree Hotel, 8773 Yates Drive, Westminster -- Dayton, Ohio, July 24 Sinclair Community College, Ponitz Center, 444 W. Third Street, Dayton (S. Terry and W. 3rd streets) -- Kansas City, Mo., July 24 Kansas City Convention & Entertainment Centers, 301 W 13th Street, Suite 100E, Kansas City -- Hazelton, Pa., July 24 (7 p.m.) Best Western Hazelton, 309 North Rural Route 2, Hazelton -- Boston, Mass., July 26 Boston Marriott Copley Place, 110 Huntington Ave., Boston -- St. Louis, Mo., July 26 New Millenium Hotel, 200 South Fourth Street, St. Louis -- Cleveland, Ohio, July 26 Holiday Inn City Centre Lakeshore, 1111 Lakeside Ave., Cleveland ------ U.S. Labor Department news releases are accessible on the Internet at www.dol.gov. The information in this release will be made available in alternate format upon request (large print, Braille, audio tape or disc) from the COAST office. Specify which news release when placing your request. Call 202-693-7773 or TTY 202-693-7755. /U.S. Newswire 202-347-2770/ ***************************************************************** 6 Western n-assistance to India, Pak.? The Hindu on indiaserver.com : June 10, 2001 By C. Raja Mohan LONDON, JUNE 9. Signals from the United States of a possible change in its non-proliferation policy towards the subcontinent have triggered a debate within the Western alliance on the merits of assisting India and Pakistan stabilise their nuclear rivalry. Until recently the avowed U.S. nuclear objective in South Asia was to constrain and eventually roll back the nuclear and missile capabilities of India and Pakistan through political persuasion, economic coercion and technology denial. In a departure from this traditional approach, the new national security establishment in Washington may now be ready to acknowledge that a rollback of Indian and Pakistani nuclear capabilities is not feasible. But the U.S. remains concerned about a potential ``nuclear flashpoint''- the subcontinent. Washington strongly believes there is a real danger of military tensions between India and Pakistan escalating to the nuclear level. One view is that the U.S. should drop its punitive measures against India and Pakistan and intensify its engagement with both countries to reduce the threat of early, accidental or unauthorised use of nuclear weapons. The U.S. options could range from sharing ``early warning'' information with New Delhi and Islamabad to transfer of technologies that will allow better control of the nuclear arsenals. The U.S. has a long history of providing ``nuclear stability assistance'' to other nuclear powers. Concerned about the effectiveness of command and control in the Soviet Union, Washington discreetly passed on some nuclear control technologies to Moscow during the 1960s. The U.S. had certainly assisted its allies - France and Britain - to improve their capacity to handle nuclear arsenals. During the mid-1990s there was some talk in Washington of providing similar assistance to China. But the idea of ``nuclear stability assistance'' to India and Pakistan is running into resistance from the non- proliferation lobbies within the Western alliance. Over the last decade, the non-proliferation bureaucracy has expanded its clout in Washington and other European capitals. The guardians of the non-proliferation regime argue that helping India and Pakistan manage their atomic arsenals violates the legal obligations under the Nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty. India and Pakistan are considered non-nuclear weapons states under the NPT and are barred from receiving any assistance on the nuclear weapons front. Any transfer of nuclear arms- related technology to India, it is feared, would have a negative impact on the credibility of the global non-proliferation regime. The realists in the Western chanceries, however, reject the legal hair-splitting and point to the importance of stabilising the nuclear situation in the subcontinent. Other analysts on both sides of the Atlantic argue that there might be enough flexibility in the language of the NPT that permits the U.S. to undertake measures that will reduce the risk of a nuclear war in the subcontinent. The debate within the Western alliance, informed sources here suggest, is focussed on two different sets of issues. One relates to the assessment on whether there is a specific problem of effective control over nuclear weapons in the subcontinent. The second grapples with the nature of legal constraints against nuclear stability assistance to India and Pakistan and the possible ways to circumvent them. As the Bush administration seeks to finalise its policy towards South Asia, the debate within the Western alliance on extending nuclear stability assistance to India and Pakistan is expected to sharpen in the coming weeks. Copyrights © 2001 The Hindu & indiaserver.com, Inc. ***************************************************************** 7 US use of dead babies for nuclear experiments is well-documented 8 June 2001 WASHINGTON, Thursday (AFP) The United States has acknowledged for years that it used corpses of babies in nuclear experiments conducted for two decades from the 1950s, a US Energy Department official said. Britain's The Observer newspaper said Sunday that between 1955 and 1970 around 6,000 babies from hospitals in Hong Kong, Australia, Britain, Canada and South America were shipped to the United States for use in nuclear experiments. The department official, who asked not to be named, challenged The Observer's claim that its report contained revelations from new documents concerning the project. "We know of no such documents," the official said, adding that all documents had been released in 1995 and the operation codenamed Project Sunshine had been widely reported in the US media at the time. In June 1994, then energy secretary Hazel O'Leary collected some 11,000 documents detailing experiments on stillborn and other dead babies by nuclear researchers working for the US military. The documents were collected at the request of former president Bill Clinton who ordered an investigation into Project Sunshine which was carried out by a group of nuclear experts dubbed the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments. The group's report, along with the documents, were released to the public the following year. "The only Project Sunshine records that this office is aware of were released as part of the 1995 report on human radiation experiments," said the energy department's office of declassification in a statement. According to those records, Project Sunshine began in 1955, when Dr Willard Libby, of the University of Chicago, appealed for large numbers of bodies, preferably stillborn babies, for experiments on the effect of fallout from atom bomb tests. The tiny corpses were needed for tests, conducted by the US Department of Energy, into radioactivity levels of the isotope Strontium 90. The declassified documents show that bodies were sent from hospitals in many parts of the world, including Hong Kong, Australia, Britain, Canada, South America, and the Philippines. ***************************************************************** 8 Meetings in July for nuclear workers HERALD NEWS STAFF The U.S. Department of Labor will hold two town meetings in July for workers and their families affected by uranium, beryllium and silica contamination during Cold War weapons manufacturing. The meetings will be July 18 and 19 at the Willowbrook Holiday Inn, 7800 Kingery Highway (Illinois 83 at Interstate 55 frontage road), Hinsdale, according to U.S. Rep. Judy Biggert, R-Clarendon Hills. Both meetings will begin at 7 p.m. Congress last year approved the compensation package, which would provide $150,000 to each affected worker or their surviving family members, as well as free medical services for the workers' government work-related illness. The government contracted with some 200 private companies during the Cold War to help with nuclear weapons manufacturing. Among those were the Blockson Chemical Co., now part of the Olin Corp., just south of Joliet, and the William E. Pratt Co., formerly at Cass and Henderson streets. Some workers at Blockson/Olin and Pratt could have been exposed to uranium. The Pratt company ground uranium rods for nuclear fuel for the government from 1943 to 1946. In Blockson/Olin's Building 55, workers separated uranium from phosphorous used to make heavy cleaners and fertilizers. Between 1952 and 1962, Blockson/Olin workers extracted some 2 million pounds of uranium for the government. Most of the building at the former Blockson/Olin plant, including Building 55, have been razed as the company prepares to sell the land near Patterson and Laraway roads in Joliet Township. The compensation program also covers the 2,300 former workers at the University of Chicago/Argonne National Laboratories who could have been exposed to beryllium dust while producing casings for atomic weapons in the 1940s. Beryllium is safe when the strong, lightweight non-radioactive material is part of a golf club or otherwise whole, officials say. But when it's ground to produce the desired thickness, dangerous dust can scatter. Most of the survivor benefits are expected to go to widows and widowers. Children of the dead workers won't qualify unless they were under 18 or still dependents when their parent died. Depending how many people from the Chicago region call the new hotline number beginning Tuesday and how many people show up at the town hall meeting, the Labor Department could add a regional center in this area. As of now, the closest regional center will be set up in Paducah, Ky. Former workers or their surviving family members can call (866) 888-3322 with questions about the program. A Web site also will be set up soon to handle claims via the Internet. Meanwhile, updated information will be available at the U.S. Department of Labor Web site at xxx. Callers also can request forms that people can use to apply for compensation under the program. Although claims can be filed immediately, processing won't begin until July 31. the Net: www.dol.gov ***************************************************************** 9 Maralinga veteran denies fabricating story ABC News - A veteran of the Maralinga nuclear tests has rejected in the Federal Court, assertions he was making up his recollections of what happened to him during his time at the nuclear testing range in 1957. Barrie Dinnison is sueing the Commonwealth for psychological injury over a fear he suffered radioactive contamination which affected his health while serving at Maralinga. Counsel for the Commonwealth, Chris Barry QC, quizzed Mr Dinnison over his evidence in an earlier court hearing, claiming it was inconsistent with his current evidence. But Mr Dinnison maintained that only once during his eight months at Maralinga was he checked with a Geiger counter, or given a decontamination shower. Mr Dinnison told the court his teeth were all removed, his eyesight failed and he bled from the bowel - problems he says stem from his Maralinga service. Asked whether he thought he was used as a guinea pig at Maralinga, he said he now thinks he was, but at the time he said he believes his superiors did not know the areas he was sent to were contaminated. ="0"> © 1999 Australian Broadcasting Corporation ***************************************************************** 10 DOE lawyers may delay whistle-blower lawsuit The Paducah Sun Paducah, Kentucky Saturday, June 09, 2001 *They want time to review a Justice probe into allegations that Lockheed Martin, ex-operator of the Paducah plant, falsified records to earn bonuses.* By Bill Bartleman bbartleman@paducahsun.com--*270.575.8650* Another delay is likely in the whistle-blower lawsuit filed two years ago by three Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant workers claiming a former operator falsified records in order to receive tens of millions of dollars in performance bonuses from the U.S. Department of Energy. The delay is expected because DOE attorneys in Washington want more time to review the results of a U.S. Department of Justice investigation into allegations that Lockheed Martin, which operated the plant from the early 1980s until 1997, falsified environmental records in order to earn bonuses. DOE attorneys received the information late last month and were asked to review the findings and make recommend whether the government should become a plaintiff in the suit. DOJ attorneys who ran the investigation have reportedly found evidence to support the allegations and have recommended to their superiors in Washington that the government become a plaintiff. DOE's views and recommendations are wanted before the office of Attorney General John Ashcroft makes the decision. Sources familiar with the case say DOE's initial reaction was to convince Justice not to intervene. However, DOE's formal response won't come until after the facts are reviewed by officials in Washington. At stake is the potential that Lockheed Martin could be ordered to return millions of dollars to the government. The "whistle-blowers" who initiated the suit would receive up to 25 percent of the amount refunded. Government attorneys already have received five extensions of the deadline for deciding whether to intervene. The current deadline is Wednesday. A spokesman in the U.S. attorney's office in Louisville said a motion would be filed in the case on Monday. He would not disclose the content of the motion, which will have to be approved by U.S. District Judge Joseph McKinley. Another reason for a possible delay is that negotiations are continuing between government attorneys and Lockheed Martin in an effort to resolve the dispute without further litigation. The possibility of an out-of-court settlement was mentioned in two previous requests for delays. ***************************************************************** 11 The body snatchers smh.com.au - News Review June 9, 2001 Fallout ... atmospheric tests led to alarming levels of strontium-90 in humans. Evidence that thousands of dead babies were used to measure fallout from nuclear tests makes chilling reading, Deborah Smith reports. It was January 1955, and none of the scientists working on a top-secret project, codenamed Sunshine, was in any doubt about the urgency of the research. As they gathered in Washington for their annual conference they also knew what they needed most: access to a reliable supply of dead human bodies, particularly those of children, and from places as far away as Australia. The previous year the US Government had staged its biggest and most dramatic series of nuclear tests. In a Cold War battle to keep pace with Soviet technology, the US had repeatedly pounded the Marshall Islands with massive nuclear bombs. Project Sunshine had been established the year before, in 1953, to study the effects of radioactive fallout from nuclear explosions on plants, animals and people around the entire globe. As one member of the project put it simply at the 1955 meeting, they had set out to determine "the number of atomic bombs that can be used without endangering the human race". The project leader was Dr Willard Libby, of the University of Chicago. In 1947 he had developed a carbon-dating method for ancient objects, using a highly sensitive Geiger counter, and had tested it out on 5,000-year-old samples from Egyptian tombs. The discovery led to Libby winning a Nobel Prize in 1960. But in the wake of the dramatic 1954 Marshall Islands explosions, the academic chemist's mind was on much more recently deceased people. At the secret 1955 scientific meeting he made the statement for which he will be remembered most. Obtaining more human samples from around the world to test for levels of radioactive strontium-90 in the bones was a priority for Project Sunshine, he told the 29 assembled scientists. "If anybody knows how to do a good job of body snatching, they will really be serving their country." An expensive law firm had been hired in 1953 to advise the team on the "law of body snatching", Libby went on. "It is not very encouraging. It shows how very difficult it is going to be to do it legally." The project had been fortunate to have obtained a large number of stillborn babies, he said. "This supply, however, has now been cut off also, and shows no sign of being rejuvenated." From discussions at the meeting, and a 1956 paper by Libby on the stillborn research in the journal, *Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences*, the stillborns appear to have all come from the US, mainly from Chicago. The team at that stage, however, had also tested human bones - "usually, ribs, vertebrae, or leg bones" - from England, Japan, India, Chile and Brazil. The testing laboratories were still refining their techniques and the American scientists at the 1955 meeting compared their different strontium-90 results on human material at length, as well as their results on milk, soil, plants and animal bones. Rather than deciding they needed more stillborns, the general conclusion was that they needed samples from young children. Strontium-90 is incorporated into growing bone, so its level in adults is low. And the scientists decided the surprisingly low levels they had detected in stillborns was probably due to exchange of bone between the mother and foetus during pregnancy. To illustrate the point, Dr Laurence Kulp described his results on an "interesting pair", a 29-year-old mother who died in childbirth and her 42-week stillborn. Both had the same strontium-90 levels in their bones, he found. Kulp had a lot more exciting news to tell his team-mates. He announced he had found three "excellent sources of human material", in Vancouver, Houston and New York. The samples were already flowing in, he said. "That is wonderful," exclaimed Libby. Kulp continued. "Down in Houston they don't have all these rules. They claim they can get virtually every death in the age range we are interested in [one to 40]. They have a lot of poverty cases and so on. They have at least one or two of this kind of pair [dead mother and baby] per month." Most of the 10 to 20 bone samples a month would be rib, he said. But "in the case of Houston we have gotten some leg bone because they don't have to worry how the individual looks when they get through". But that wasn't all. Kulp had recently spoken to a doctor at Columbia Medical School. "He has contacts all over the world where he is sure we can develop identical programs. In particular, we could develop a program in Australia, South America, Africa, in the Near East, and in Scandinavian countries if the people here would like." Two years later, in early 1957, Kulp reported in the journal *Science* that 1,500 samples of autopsy bones - mostly ribs - had been received from a worldwide network of 17 collection stations, including Germany, Taiwan and Puerto Rico. Their location had been "limited by our contact with physicians in certain centres", he wrote. Australia was one of four new stations about to come on-line, the paper revealed. By early 1958, analyses had been done on "rib" bones from three Australian babies under four, two older children and 10 adults. By mid-1960, the team had collected 9,000 samples of human bone from 30 locations. "These have included foetuses, single bone samples from individuals of all ages, and whole skeletons [most from New York]," Kulp wrote in *Science*. The Australian samples included 52 from babies under four, 27 from children and teenagers, and 87 from adults. They were the first of thousands more taken over the next 20 years. By 1960, the Project Sunshine team had concluded that plants which had taken up strontium-90 from contaminated rain was the main way the radioactive substance entered the human diet. What the gruesome research had also revealed was that strontium-90 levels in humans around the world was on the rise, increasing 50 per cent between 1958 and 1959. One-year-old babies had the highest amounts - seven times the average - in 1959. But this would drop rapidly "if there is no further atmospheric contamination", Kulp wrote in his 1960 paper. The US Government investigated Project Sunshine six years ago, as part of an extensive inquiry into Cold War research involving humans. Hundreds of documents, including a transcript of the secret 1955 meeting , were posted on the Internet. Horrific experiments, such as dosing pregnant women with radioactive cocktails, and radiating the testicles of prisoners, tended to overshadow the bone-stealing issue when the report was handed down in 1995. But it was revived this week in a British newspaper, with the claim that stillborn babies from Australia were among those "snatched and shipped to the US for classified nuclear experiments". Federal and most State health ministers instigated investigations. The Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency confirmed on Wednesday that the bone collection program had begun in 1957 with Federal Government approval, under the auspices of its Atomic Weapons Test Safety Committee. The program continued until 1978, with bones taken from thousands of dead babies and adults, not always with family authority. According to the nuclear safety agency, pathologists in Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney provided bones from humans aged from zero to 40. They were ashed here and sent to the US and Britain for strontium testing. Later the analysis was also done in Australia. The agency is preparing a report for the Federal Government but has found no evidence so far that bodies of Australian stillborn babies were transported overseas. A *Herald* search of the declassified US documents has also found no mention of this practice. British documents from the 1950s, however, clearly reveal the extent of strontium-90 studies on stillborn babies in that country. The Atomic Energy Research Establishment reports list the many districts from where the stillborns came, and the bones examined - mostly leg bones. The reports thank the assisting pathologists by name. Larry Arbeiter, a spokesman for the University of Chicago, where Libby worked, this week defended the research as necessary because of the large amounts of radioactive material being released into the atmosphere during the arms race. The results put vital pressure on governments to stop above-ground testing, he said. Copyright © 2001. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 12 Cleanup review draws criticism This story was published 6/9/2001 By John Stang Herald staff writer A "top-to-bottom" review of all Department of Energy cleanup projects will likely slow those projects down, the Hanford Advisory Board contends. When Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham unveiled a reduced nationwide nuclear cleanup budget proposal for 2002, he also called for an extensive review this summer of the agency's cleanup programs to see if they should be overhauled. Meanwhile, DOE's proposed 2002 cleanup budget is $5.913 billion, which is down from $6.267 billion in 2001. Hanford's cleanup budget would drop from $1.456 billion in 2001 to $1.4 billion in 2002. Abraham has resisted congressional offers of more cleanup money, saying he wants to wait until the review is done and the overhaul plans are complete. The Hanford Advisory Board sent Abraham a letter Friday, voicing displeasure at the upcoming review. "Since 1989, when cleanup began at Hanford, DOE has conducted many reviews of its cleanup program. For the most part, the end result at Hanford from these various reviews has been repeated delays and a general slow-down in cleanup progress," the letter said. Later, the letter added: "We urge you to resist the temptation to reinvent cleanup, and instead focus efforts to meet the deadlines and schedules DOE is now obligated to meet." The Hanford board recommended that DOE provide all the funds to meet its legal obligations for the next four years, then study whether enough cleanup progress is being made. If Abraham goes ahead with the review, the Hanford board argued study should not interfere with DOE meeting its current legal deadlines. Also, Hanford's numerous constituencies should participate in the review, the board's letter contended. Also Friday, the Hanford board: -- Sent another letter to DOE to protest the proposed budget cuts at the HAMMER training complex. DOE proposes to cut the HAMMER's budget from $5.9 million in 2001 to $1 million in 2002, which would shut down most of its training. -- Received a copy of a May 28 letter that Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber sent to President Bush. Kitzhaber's letter protested Hanford's proposed $1.4 billion budget when it needs at least $470 million extra to meet its legal obligations in 2002. Back to top stories Copyright 2001 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This ***************************************************************** 13 Hanford board decries budget This story was published 6/9/2001 By John Stang Herald staff writer Hanford Advisory Board members put their differences over the Fast Flux Test Facility on hold Friday, uniting to condemn the Department of Energy's proposed cleanup budgets for 2002 and 2003. They agreed to send a letter to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, other DOE officials, the Environmental Protection Agency and Washington's Department of Ecology that says the budget proposals undermine DOE's legal obligations to clean up Hanford. "If we do not protest, we'll certainly drop the ball," said board member Charles Kilbury, representing Pasco. DOE recently sent a proposed 2002 Hanford budget of $1.4 billion to Congress. It would keep Hanford K Basins and Plutonium Finishing Plant projects on schedule but is too little to meet Hanford's other legal cleanup obligations. The biggest shortfall stems from DOE's request of $500 million for Hanford's top-priority waste glassification project in 2002 when the agency's own figures say $690 million is needed. That means a huge but politically unlikely budget increase would be needed in 2003 to put Hanford projects back within schedule. DOE and Hanford Advisory Board calculations show the glassification project falling at least four years behind schedule without major funding increases. The board's letter said existing plans "signal an intent to slow Hanford cleanup progress" and would cause DOE to miss at least 50 percent of its deadlines under the Tri-Party Agreement, the legal pact governing the site's cleanup. If Hanford's 2002 budget does not increase significantly, the letter said: "The (Hanford Advisory Board) insists the Environmental Protection Agency and the Washington Department of Ecology carry out their enforcement responsibilities to restore cleanup progress to the pace committed to in all (Tri-Party Agreement) milestones." The state is threatening to sue DOE over glassification delays. And the EPA said it will fine DOE if the present budget remains unchanged and forces deadlines to be missed. The board -- with strong factions for and against reviving the dormant FFTF reactor -- stalled Thursday on whether to specifically add the FFTF to the cleanup timetables it wants enforced. When former Energy Secretary Bill Richardson signed the paperwork Jan. 19 to shut down FFTF, that reactivated dormant Tri-Party Agreement milestones covering the reactor's shutdown and cleanup. But on April 25, new Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham ordered a 90-day review on whether the reactor should be revived or closed. Board members compromised on not naming the FFTF in the letter, but will stress "all Tri-Party Agreement milestones" should be enforced. That gives the pro- and anti-FFTF contingents a grace period until Abraham's 90-day review is complete. Board member Gerald Pollet, representing the anti-FFTF Heart of America Northwest, said he hopes if DOE decides to shut down the reactor, the pro-FFTF board members would back enforcement of the FFTF cleanup timetable. Back to top stories Copyright 2001 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This ***************************************************************** 14 Energy Department Nominee Pledges to Work with Carnahan on Nuclear Shipment Concerns Senator Asks for Proof That Interstate 70 Is The Safest Route Welcome to The PMA OnLine Power Report ( June 08, 2001 ) Sen. Jean Carnahan, D-Mo., asked an Energy Department nominee Thursday for proof that Interstate 70 "is the safest determinable route" for a cross-country shipment of nuclear waste this summer. "The shipment is scheduled to cross Missouri's I-70, right through two major metropolitan areas of St. Louis and Kansas City," Carnahan told Jessie Roberson, who would oversee the disposal of nuclear waste as assistant secretary of energy for environmental management. "What we have asked DOE repeatedly is, does it really make sense to ship this waste on this route versus shipping it on another route where perhaps the roads are better, or on one that avoids major metropolitan areas?" At a hearing on her nomination held by the Senate Armed Services Committee, Roberson vowed to work with Carnahan. "I'd like to demonstrate to you my commitment to work with you and the governor of Missouri to make sure we address your safety concerns and those safety concerns across the country as we pursue this program," she said. State officials and Carnahan are following the lead of her late husband, Gov. Mel Carnahan, who last year blocked another such shipment of nuclear waste on I-70. That shipment was diverted through Iowa instead. The route that includes Missouri was selected in April, said an Energy Department spokesman, Tom Welch. The three trucks of nuclear waste from German research reactors would journey from South Carolina to the Idaho National Energy and Engineering Laboratory, crossing Illinois on Interstate 64 and traveling on Interstates 255 and 270 in the St. Louis area before making their way west on I-70. The Energy Department stores the waste from Germany as part of an Eisenhower-era program, Welch said. The United States supplied enriched uranium to its allies to help develop "peaceful uses of nuclear energy"- and the United States agreed to accept the waste from the research reactors. In late May, the Energy Department announced it had struck a deal with state officials that would permit Missouri Highway Patrol troopers to escort the trucks through the state. www.powermarketers.com ***************************************************************** 15 No level of beryllium safe, Flats workers' expert says Denver Post.com Stacie Oulton Denver Post Staff Writer --> Friday, June 08, 2001 - GOLDEN - A Boston doctor called as an expert witness in a lawsuit brought by Rocky Flats workers sickened by beryllium testified that any exposure to the toxic metal's dust or fumes can cause illness. "There is no safe level (of exposure) to prevent chronic beryllium disease," a wasting lung ailment, said David Egilman, a professor at Brown University and director of a medical clinic. Egilman testified on behalf of four Rocky Flats workers and their wives who are suing Brush Wellman, an Ohio-based company that supplied beryllium to the former nuclear weapons plant. The lawsuit alleges that the company covered up what it knew about the toxicity of the metal and conspired with the federal government to accomplish that. In articles and books stretching from the 1960s to the 1990s, company officials said that no workers became ill from exposures to 2 micrograms or less of dust or fumes from the metal, which is the federal safety standard. But the company founder and president wrote in his private diary in 1951 that Brush employees were getting the disease when exposed to dust or fumes below the safety standard. That diary and other company documents were introduced earlier in the case. Two of the workers also testified Thursday that the conditions in their work area at Rocky Flats were clean. "They were very clean, I thought," said Salvador Valencia, a 53-year-old who machined the metal at the plant for about eight months in the 1970s. Brush has tried to show government contractors operated the plant under unsafe conditions because workers didn't have proper ventilation and were allowed to eat around the metal's dust. Valencia said that he was never told to wear a respirator when he machined beryllium, and there was no special ventilation. James Tooley, another worker in the lawsuit, testified he was exposed to fumes during an accident while he was distilling dissolved beryllium metal as a lab worker. ***************************************************************** 16 Beryllium stories fake, expert says Rocky Mountain News: Local Maker allegedly planted medical-journal articles By Berny Morson, News Staff Writer GOLDEN -- An Ohio company that produced beryllium planted articles in medical journals saying the deadly metal was safe, a Massachusetts expert testified Thursday. Dr. David Steven Egilman said the false science produced by employees of Brush Wellman Inc. was picked up and included in technical manuals and even textbooks used by many medical schools. Egilman testified during the fourth day of a trial in Jefferson County District Court in which 54 Rocky Flats workers, former workers or their next of kin are seeking damages from Brush Wellman for debilitating lung diseases caused by breathing beryllium dust. They claim the company knew beryllium is toxic, but failed to inform customers, such as Rocky Flats. Some parts of the nuclear weapons produced at Rocky Flats were fashioned from beryllium. Egilman cited a half-dozen publications, including safety manuals and textbooks, written by Brush Wellman employees as early as 1964. Those materials support the federal standard for beryllium in place at the time, which said that beryllium dust was not hazardous in tiny quantities, estimated at 2 micrograms per cubic meter. One article claimed beryllium is safe even in concentrations 15 times the federal standard. But Egilman, who has reviewed the company's own documents, said Brush Wellman knew even as the articles were being written that beryllium was dangerous in concentrations below the federal standard. "There is no safe level to prevent chronic beryllium disease," Egilman said. "The safe exposure level is no exposure." Brush Wellman attorney Sydney McDole fought Thursday to keep Egilman's testimony out of the trial. She challenged Egilman's qualifications as an expert, then threw up numerous procedural roadblocks to the substance of his testimony. In the end, District Court Judge Frank Plaut allowed the jury to hear most of what Egilman had to say. McDole limited her questions of Egilman to the amount of money the plaintiffs paid him to testify as an expert witness. Because Plaut has issued a gag order, the company's lawyers could not speak to the media after the Thursday court session. However, two plaintiffs who testified said Dow Chemical Co., which ran Rocky Flats under a government contract in the 1950s and 1960s, did little to train workers to handle beryllium safely. June 8, 2001 2001 © The E.W. Scripps Co. ***************************************************************** 17 Dr.: Early test went unfunded Rocky Mountain News: Local Lack of industry push killed promising screen for beryllium sensitivity By Sue Lindsay, News Staff Writer A physician testified Friday that he was on the verge of developing a reliable screening test for beryllium sensitivity in the early '70s, but industry showed no interest in funding his research. Dr. Sharad Deodhar testified in the Jefferson County trial of a lawsuit against beryllium supplier Brush Wellman Inc. of Cleveland by four workers now suffering a debilitating chronic lung disease. The workers are among more than 50 workers at the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant who sued Brush Wellman over devastating lung disease blamed on breathing beryllium dust. Deodhar said he developed a test in 1973 that showed that the white cells in some people reacted to beryllium, indicating a likelihood that they would later develop chronic beryllium disease if exposed to even very small amounts. The test, however, needed to be perfected because it showed some false positives and 30 percent of persons with beryllium disease tested negative. "We felt it should be developed as a screening test," Deodhar said. "We felt the major push should have come from industry but it didn't happen." Deodhar's work eventually ceased and the test wasn't perfected for years, after others took up the research. The test is now used to screen workers susceptible to developing beryllium disease. In other testimony, jurors were read the deposition of former Brush safety and environmental control manager Philip Wilson, who said he believed the government standard for beryllium exposure was safe for all workers. Wilson worked for Brush from 1965 to 1989. He said he didn't know about workers, including office workers with minimal exposure to beryllium, who had gotten sick from levels well below the government standard. "I thought the AEC (Atomic Energy Commission) standard was a safe standard and had a safety factor built into it," he said. "My understanding was that the standard protected." The trial, expected to last five more weeks, resumes Monday. June 9, 2001 2001 © The E.W. Scripps Co. ***************************************************************** 18 INEEL braces for upcoming fire season IdahoStatesman.com Friday, June 8, 2001 Energy Department calls for improved communication The Associated Press IDAHO FALLS -- A dusting of weekend snow in the mountains will not be enough to prevent what is shaping up as a long summer of wildfires at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory sites. "We've had a very dry season this spring," INEEL Fire Marshal Steve Thorne said. "But we are ready for the wildland firefighting season." The U.S. Department of Energy site is accustomed to fighting wildfires, sparked every dry year by lightning, blown tires and stray cigarettes. This season, officials have adjusted their approach after an internal review of the agency's firefighting practices. Last summer, major wildfires swept through three Energy Department nuclear sites, burning through contaminated soils, threatening radioactive waste dumps and heightening public concerns about the release of chemicals and radiation. Wind pushed a range fire up to the boundary of the INEEL's nuclear test reactor area last July, igniting grass inside the fenceline. No damages or injuries were caused by the 50,000-acre blaze. Although critics disputed the findings, state and federal officials concluded elevated levels of radiation after the fires stemmed from natural radioactivity and fallout from historic weapons testing, posing no danger. A car wreck last summer also touched off a major brush fire at the Hanford nuclear reservation in Washington state. And a prescribed burn gone awry destroyed historic buildings on New Mexico's Los Alamos National Laboratory, where the atomic bomb was developed. The Energy Department review, among other recommendations, called for better communication between firefighting crews. In some instances, federal and local firefighters were not fully aware of hazards they faced in fighting the fires, it concluded. Thorne said the 900-square-mile INEEL is updating maps showing areas of contamination, locations of unexploded weapons, roads, previously burned areas and power lines. The maps will be distributed to every fire crew. Site officials also plan to issue radios keyed into the same frequency and standardized satellite locators so crews can communicate without confusion and coordinate their efforts. The Energy Department report also recommended better analysis of the hazards from wildfires. Thorne said the INEEL was comfortable it had thoroughly addressed the risks from a fire sweeping through one of the nuclear facilities, where the most dangerous radioactivity is shielded by walls of concrete or pools of water. But the site did evaluate risks from a fire outside fencelines that are known to have contaminated soil and vegetation. That found a firefighter inhaling smoke in the most contaminated area would receive a radiation dose roughly equal to what someone would get during a round-trip, cross-country airplane flight. ***************************************************************** 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. 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