***************************************************************** 03/11/01 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 9.63 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER CONTENTS 1 Where I stand 1985: Nuke waste poses threat to Nevada 2 No nukes ... or coal 3 Investigators question government uranium deal 4 Millstone power plant sale gets NRC approval rzho 5 Taking Tour, Federal Official Says Nuclear Plant Is Safe 6 Regulators give Kewaunee nuclear plant low marks 7 Department of Health's Release of Sherwood Uranium Mill Site 8 China's threat forced India to go nuclear 9 The Halden Nuclear Reactor closed after serious fault 10 German Greens urge members not to block nuclear waste 11 Barbara Greenspun Remembers 1985: Sun nuke stance unwavering 12 Rise and Fall of a Region's Anti-Nuclear Movement 13 Gov't Questioned on Uranium Deal 14 The Domenici Deception: Nuclear Energy Bill Is an Atomic Waste 15 Group seeks home for N-waste 16 EPA chief has ties to Shattuck 17 It all went well: Nuclear plant dealt with nor’easter 18 TVA's nuclear cleanup fund dips on roller-coaster stock market - 19 Federal agency: Water levels fell too low at nuclear 20 N-power generation to touch 20000 MW by 2020 21 'Key role for BHEL in building fast breeder reactor' 22 German Greens Accept Nuclear Waste Transports 23 German Minister Chides Green Party 24 Controversial water sovereignty proposal heats up NUCLEAR WEAPONS CONTENTS 1 Legacy issues haunt DOE, BWXT officials 2 Pantex contamination 3 CIA overstated speed of Soviet nuclear growth 4 DOE told not to cut nuke site cleanup 5 New bills may rain down $3 billion on nuke labs 6 Legacy of Nevada nuclear tests explored in fiction, non-fiction work 7 Livermore lab review isn't new, say critics 8 Hanford battles Russian invaders: Radioactive plants cost plenty 9 Moral duty to clean up Flats 10 Rocky Flats sends 2 more waste loads 11 Production potential upsets some activists 12 Mock disaster tests agencies 13 U.S. May Have Been Cheated in Uranium Sale, Auditors Say 14 Pak doesn't want its top N-scientists anymore - 15 Revealed: more DU shells misfired 16 Kursk salvage op delayed by lack of cash-Interfax 17 A Challenge To Israel's Nuclear Blind Spot ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 Where I stand 1985: Nuke waste poses threat to Nevada March 09, 2001 Mens sana in corpore sano. The Latins had a word for it. Literally translated, it means a sound mind in a sound body. Our university, community college, school district and churches are all in the business of building sound minds in our children. But if the bodies of our precious young people are not sound -- if we permit them to become polluted with poisonous cancer producing elements that will cause them lifelong misery, then the sound mind will be of little worth in their efforts for a better life or any life at all. An editorial in the Friday edition of the Sun explained what our future portends if the railroad is permitted to bring in untold carloads of radioactive soil that has contaminated New Jersey and which the former Garden State would like to unload on Nevada. The mind of the average citizen is not able to fully comprehend what this soil contains, so we must turn to the scientific brainpower for enlightenment. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates there will be another 30,000 lung cancer deaths from radon gas trapped inside houses like those in New Jersey. Radium and its radon gas aren't considered safe by any reasonable scientist. Dr. John Gofman, the co-discoverer of plutonium -- a radioactive material used in nuclear reactions from bombs to reactors -- estimated that 450,000 new cases of lung cancer each year could be expected from nuclear plant emissions containing radon gas. There is no way to contain the radon gas that will be shipped in here with each trailer full of contaminated soil from New Jersey. And federal officials even question the safety of the containers that would be used to ship deadly radioactive packages. Radon gas trapped in a closed space keeps on producing radiation for decades. Radon gas changes into other dangerous particles that definitely create lung cancer. No matter how they package it, no matter how they camouflage it and no matter how the government agencies and the railroad bamboozle the public, Southern Nevada will become a gigantic hell-hole of poisoned air of death-creating propensity. This message must be read from every pulpit in every church and temple in Southern Nevada. It must be brought before the students in the schools and it must be yelled from the rooftops if our community is to survive. The Sun will continue to print the coupon addressed to the County Commission each day. Centel has decided to forego much compensation by withdrawing its application for a dial-a-porno message. We can reward their consideration for the public's feelings and supplement the telephone company's income by dialing a telegram to the Clark County Commission informing them of our abhorrence at the thought of southern Nevada becoming a dumping ground for New Jersey and the rest of the nation. Teacher's groups, unions, social clubs and business groups must make their protests known. Other communities have committed hari-kari, just as New Jersey has by not speaking up when the chemical polluters contaminated its soil and waters. It will now take billions of dollars to undo the harm and it can only come about by dumping the entire load on Southern Nevada. Is that what our future portends? Is Clark County suicidal or will our citizens react now before the first trainload arrives? Shout it from the pulpits. Yell it from the campuses. Stop it from the corporate offices. We want our children to have sound minds in sound bodies. We owe it to them. And Southern Nevada will be the better for it. Stop the dirty trains. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 2 No nukes ... or coal *March 09, 2001* It looks like it's back to the future for the nation's "energy policy" under the Bush administration. Faced with a growing nation that's hungry for power and fuel, the new administration and Congress are looking to some old standbys -- energy sources that were already fossils during the elder Bush's tenure. Clean coal and safe nukes. Those terms almost sound like oxymorons today, but that's where the administration apparently thinks our future lies. President Bush's proposed budget would reportedly cut the Energy Department's spending on energy efficiency and developing renewable power resources by 30 to 40 percent. Instead, he wants to spend federal money developing coal as a power source, and on renewed domestic oil and gas production. And some prominent members of Congress want to give the nuclear power industry a shot in the arm. U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., recently introduced the Nuclear Energy Electricity Supply Assurance Act. Neither idea seems like a particularly inspired approach to the nation's future power needs. And here in York County, we have enough experience with "clean coal" technology and supposedly safe nukes to be deeply skeptical of both concepts. Remember the cogeneration plant proposed a few years ago for North Codorus Township? That was an example of what was touted as clean, efficient coal-burning power production -- just the sort of government-subsidized technology demonstration project the new administration is touting. But intense analysis of that project showed the plant wasn't actually clean at all -- that, in fact, it would significantly increase air pollution in York County. Nor was it especially cheap or efficient. The power it produced would have been expensive, yet under the old electricity regulatory system (since abolished in Pennsylvania) GPU would have been forced to buy it and pass the excess costs along to consumers. The plant was never built, thank goodness. Now does this sound like the future of power production in our country? Using tax dollars to subsidize plants that use one of the dirtiest fuels we know of? Granted, Pennsylvania is a coal state. But emphasizing coal as a power source just doesn't seem wise. Nor does the effort to rejuvenate the nuclear power industry. There are two good reasons no new nuclear power plants have been built in this country in decades: nearby Three Mile Island, the site of the America's worst nuclear accident, and Chernobyl, site of the word's worst accident. Proponents tout nukes as a cheap power source that produces no air pollution. Well, nuclear power may be cheap in theory. But building the plants is extremely expensive. And the stringent government regulation of their operations further drives up the cost. Nuke boosters say the new generation of plants, known as pebble bed reactors, are even more efficient, cheaper to build, and so safe they could be right next door to a day care center. But that's what they said about the first generation of nuke plants, too -- before TMI and Chernobyl. What community in its right mind would accept a lightly regulated nuke plant in its backyard? The biggest problem with nuclear power plants is not air pollution but radiation pollution. What do you do with the radioactive spent fuel? Currently, it's piling up at the plants themselves because a proposed federal storage facility in the Nevada desert has yet to be built. Nuke proponents say that once that facility is built, all the industry's problems will be solved. The waste site will be impregnable, a safe place to store the spent fuel for the 10,000 years it takes to decay. But just ponder that figure for a moment: 10,000 years. That's longer than most recorded human history. Isn't it supreme arrogance to assume we can safeguard anything for that long? Or that a dramatic escalation of transporting radioactive material across country to the storage facility won't result in "spills" and other deadly accidents? It's a frightening thought. So what is the future of the power industry? While reports of a new hydrogen-powered engine to be unveiled next year are intriguing, we have no definitive answers -- but slashing funding for energy efficiency programs and research into renewable energy sources doesn't seem like the best way to find out. Not if the plan is to divert those resources to coal and nuclear power. NewsChoice.com ***************************************************************** 3 Investigators question government uranium deal By H. Josef Hebert, Associated Press, 3/10/2001 01:06 WASHINGTON (AP) When the government put enriched uranium estimated to be worth $10 million up for sale, it expected a good return. Instead, the U.S. Treasury received a scant $76,051, raising the ire of Energy Department investigators. A private contractor, who handled the sale, reaped millions of dollars, according to auditors. After a review of the sale, the department's inspector general concluded that the contractor, who prepared and packaged the uranium and negotiated the deal, was paid $3.4 million for ''questionable costs'' that should never have been allowed. On top of that, Fluor Fernald Inc., received a $675,430 fee for handling the deal, nearly 10 times what the government made on the 1997 sale, said the inspector general's report recently made public. Still, the deal was vigorously defended Friday by the contractor and by the Energy Department office at the Fernald weapons plant near Cincinnati, where the uranium was located and is being disposed of as part of a general cleanup project. ''We don't think the sale was a bad deal. We told the IG (inspector general) that and that's still our position,'' said Glenn Griffiths, deputy director of the DOE site office at the Fernald facility. He said the alternative to the sale was to declare the uranium a waste and face huge disposal costs. Under the sale agreement, neither the name of the buyer nor the specific sale price can be made public for five years, said Griffiths. Other department sources said the company is a foreign uranium fuel provider. According to the IG investigation, Fluor Fernald Inc., the managing contractor for environmental cleanup at Fernald, estimated the sale would get the government $5 million to $7 million. Instead, the government received $76,051 after all fees and other costs were calculated, according to the IG report. There were contradictory explanations Friday on how much money actually was paid for the 978 metric tons of uranium, which the buyer resells after it is diluted as commercial reactor fuel. Ken Morgan, a spokesman for the DOE's Ohio field office, said the amount was ''substantially less'' than the $10.5 million ''projected sales revenue'' cited by the IG report. Griffiths said the number was essentially corrected, but included all of the costs involved, including preparing the material, which was in many different forms and not properly packaged or analyzed. But Griffiths said the $5 million to $7 million profit projections were made in 1990 before the market for uranium softened dramatically. He said the material was advertised as early as 1992, but no buyer was found for five years. Still, the inspector general's report questioned the millions of dollars that were awarded to Fluor Fernald for cost recovery and the additional $675,430 ''award fee'' since the project ''was not completed within budget.'' ''In our judgment, had this process been effectively managed, the department could have returned an additional $3.6 million to the Treasury,'' Inspector General Gregory Friedman wrote Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham. Fluor Fernald spokesman Jeff Wagner said the IG report ''takes a very narrow view'' of the sale. ''We feel that we fulfilled our obligation in the project and did it very well and safely,'' said Wagner. While Abraham had not yet seen the report, his spokesman, Joe Davis, said that the secretary is taking the IG's findings seriously. ''We're going to make sure we take a close look at it,'' said Davis. While the uranium deal, reached more than three years ago, raises concerns, Friedman wrote that ''the more pressing issue'' is how the department will handle future uranium sales, including one expected at Fernald as early as this summer. That sale again is expected to be handled by Fluor Fernald Inc. Two years after the uranium sale agreement was signed, Fluor Fernald, a subsidiary of the Fluor Corp., a $12.4 billion energy and construction conglomerate, had its DOE contract renewed for managing the environmental cleanup of the Ohio facility. For copy of report: http://www.ig.doe.gov Fluor Corp.: http://www.fluor.com ***************************************************************** 4 Millstone power plant sale gets NRC approval rzho Boston Globe Online By Associated Press, 3/9/2001 17:54 WASHINGTON (AP) The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved the $1.3 billion sale of the Millstone nuclear power plant to Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, Inc., the commission announced Friday. The approval clears another hurdle for the Richmond, Va. company's purchase, the highest price ever paid for a nuclear plant. Connecticut Light and Power and The United Illuminating Company, majority owners of the power complex, were required to sell their interest under the state's electric deregulation law. The deal for the Waterford plant must still be approved by the Internal Revenue Service and state regulators in New Hampshire and New York. The Connecticut Department of Public Utility Control gave final approval to the deal on Jan. 24. The NRC said they considered decommissioning funding, insurance and Dominion's technical and financial qualifications before granting the approval. Notice of the request for approval and for an opportunity for a hearing was published in the Federal Register on Oct. 24. The Commission received no comments or requests for a hearing, the NRC said. Dominion hopes to close on the sale in April. The Connecticut Coalition Against Millstone and other groups, which wants to see the reactors shut down, has argued that Dominion had a poor track record of running nuclear plants in Virginia. Other critics of the nuclear industry and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said that Dominion has among the best records for the safe, efficient operation of nuclear plants. ***************************************************************** 5 Taking Tour, Federal Official Says Nuclear Plant Is Safe March 10, 2001 By WINNIE HU • Inspectors Find Lapses but Declare Nuclear Reactor Safe (Mar. 3, 2001) • Engineer at Indian Point 2 Quits in a Dispute Over a Safety Issue (Mar. 1, 2001) • Study to Take Stock of Reactor's Long-Term Health (Feb. 27, 2001) BUCHANAN, N.Y., March 9 — The top federal regulator overseeing nuclear reactors sought today to dispel any doubts about Indian Point 2, and toured the plant with several officials who had once openly questioned its safety. In his first inspection of the plant, the regulator, Richard A. Meserve, chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, was joined by Senator Charles E. Schumer and United States Representative Sue Kelly, among others. Although Mr. Meserve plans to visit all 103 commercially operated nuclear reactors in the nation, he said he was particularly interested in Indian Point 2 because of community concerns. The Indian Point 2 plant, 35 miles north of Manhattan, closed in February 2000 after a small leak of radioactive water. The plant was restored to full power on Jan. 28 of this year, but has been plagued by minor leaks and mishaps that, while posing no immediate threat, have eroded the credibility of the plant's operator, Consolidated Edison. Mr. Meserve stressed today that Indian Point 2 was safe over all, though he acknowledged that "there continue to be challenges." Last week, nuclear inspectors cited a backlog of reports about problems at the plant and a lack of preventive maintenance. "After a very extensive effort of inspecting the plant," Mr. Meserve said, "the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is comfortable that this plant is safe and has an adequate margin of safety." Mr. Meserve also said that the reactor protection system, which triggers shutdowns during equipment failures, was functioning acceptably, even though it had been wired differently from the way it was designed. An engineer working for a contractor at the plant quit recently in a dispute over the reliability of the system. Mr. Meserve's conclusions were echoed by Senator Schumer and Representative Kelly, both of whom had raised questions about the plant's safety as recently as two months ago. Although Senator Schumer noted that Con Edison was "initially not vigilant enough," he said that the utility was now "doing a very good job." Representative Kelly, one of the most outspoken critics of the plant, also said that Con Edison had made improvements. But when asked whether she had changed her mind about Indian Point, Ms. Kelly said she had not. "There are still some things here at the plant to be concerned about," Ms. Kelly said. "The thing is, as we get people like Chairman Meserve here, Senator Schumer walking through the plant, we get a higher level of understanding at a place where it will make a difference." Nuclear regulators and several elected officials called upon Con Edison to address perceptions of dangers at the plant. Stephen Quinn, a vice president at the utility, said it had sent daily status reports to elected officials since January, and had established a toll-free hot line to answer questions and allow people to sign up for tours. He said that the company would also hold public meetings. "We've got to get word out that we're taking care of business," he said, "so that people can have confidence in us." >Copyright 2001 The New York Times ***************************************************************** 6 Regulators give Kewaunee nuclear plant low marks Duluth Tribune | Associated Press MADISON -- The Kewaunee nuclear power plant got unsatisfactory marks for its efforts to correct problems with an emergency siren and emergency response system, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission reported Friday. The commission inspects nuclear plants and gives them ratings from "green,'' which means the plant is safe and efficient, to "white,'' "yellow,'' and then "red.'' The Kewaunee plant was given a yellow rating for inadequate efforts to fix the emergency siren system, which was reliable less than 90 percent of the time in January 2000. The problem has since been fixed, said Maureen Brown, a spokeswoman for the Nuclear Management Company, which runs the plant owned by Wisconsin Public Service Corp. The plant also was given a white rating because it took too long to fix staffing problems that caused the plant to fail 16 or 18 emergency drills between January 1999 and July 2000. The drills were to test whether it could have all emergency response employees in place within 30 minutes, commission spokesman Jan Strasma said. The plant now has a policy so that anyone who is "on call'' in case of an emergency cannot be more than 30 minutes away from the plant, Brown said. © 2001 Duluth News Tribune. ***************************************************************** 7 Department of Health's Release of Sherwood Uranium Mill Site License Marks End of Nine-Year Reclamation Project Friday March 9, 6:03 pm Eastern Time Press Release *SOURCE: Washington State Department of Health* Department of Health's Release of Sherwood Uranium Mill Site License Marks End of Nine-Year Reclamation Project Is First in U.S. to Receive License Termination Approval By NRC OLYMPIA, Wash., March 9 /PRNewswire/ -- A uranium mill site on the Spokane Tribe of Indians Reservation has been reclaimed with native plants, and is once again available to tribal members for traditional and historic uses. Wildlife has already returned to the reclaimed area. The Sherwood uranium mill near Wellpinit, operated by Western Nuclear, Inc. from 1978 to 1984, today received license termination by the state Department of Health. It's the first state-regulated conventional uranium mill closure in the country to be approved by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. ``Working on this project with the Spokane Tribe of Indians and Western Nuclear has gone very well,'' said Secretary of Health Mary Selecky. ``Our mission is to improve and protect public health, and this project does that with a heavy soil cover over mill-tailings and by returning native plants to the site so tribal members can use the land in traditional ways.'' After ceasing operations in 1984, Sherwood remained in standby status until 1992 when the company permanently closed the site. Reclamation work on the mill began in 1992 following approval of the closure plan by the Department of Health. Reclamation of the associated open-pit mine was substantially completed in 1992 and was released by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management in 2000. The mill-site closure plan was designed specifically for Sherwood to account for the unique geography, type of operation and geology. It incorporates a thick soil cover over the tailings and contaminated soil rather than one of compacted clay, and uses native plants to remove moisture. The bio-engineered cover was developed for long-term stability and will require little maintenance. ``We're extremely proud to leave this project knowing we accomplished everything we promised,'' said Mike Schern, president, Western Nuclear, Inc. ``This experience was a textbook case of government agencies at the state and federal level working in partnership with each other and industry. This collaborative effort was the key to the success of this project.'' By regulation, the U.S. Department of Energy assumes responsibility for perpetual care and maintenance of the mill site, which includes periodic monitoring. Regulatory oversight will continue to be provided by the NRC. Western Nuclear is a wholly owned subsidiary of Phelps Dodge Corporation, based in Phoenix, Arizona. The firm has a 24-hour media information line, 602-234-8008. *SOURCE: Washington State Department of Health* Copyright © 2001 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved. Privacy ***************************************************************** 8 China's threat forced India to go nuclear -DAWN - Top Stories; 10 March, 2001 10 March 2001 NEW DELHI, March 9: Indian Defence minister George Fernandes on Friday said India had launched its nuclear programme almost four decades ago due to threats from China, after New Delhi failed to get nuclear security from the West and the erstwhile Soviet Union. "What happened to the north of us (1962 Sino-Indian conflict and Chinese nuclear test in 1964) alerted us ..... When nuclear security was not available (for India), we chose our step to go nuclear," Fernandes said after releasing a book, "The Pakistan Trap". He quoted paragraphs from a chapter in the book by defence analyst K. Subrahmanyam on the efforts made by India to get nuclear cover from the US, USSR, Britain and France and all of them refused. It was only then that Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri gave a go-ahead to India's nuclear programme, he said, while referring to a strong plea by Subrahmanyam, who was also present on the occasion, that the government should explain to the people why it decided to go nuclear even after having forcefully supported the cause of nuclear disarmament. Fernandes agreed with Subrahmanyam on another issue that the government should make the people aware of the "activities' of Pakistan's ISI. However, the minister said in making people aware, the government should take care of "the fear in the minds of the Muslim community in India that ISI activities could expose them to great danger". Speaking on the occasion, Subrahmanyam, who is convener of the National Security Advisory Board and had chaired the Kargil review committee, sought a white paper by the government on ISI activities in India saying "if we do not sensitize the people, it is not easy to succeed in neutralizing or countering these (ISI) attacks". Referring to this, Fernandes said while doing so, "we should prevent falling into the trap that creates an atmosphere in which the Muslim community in India is pushed into a corner for crimes perpetrated from across the border".-PTI ***************************************************************** 9 The Halden Nuclear Reactor closed after serious fault The Norway Post - Doorway to Norway 10. Mars 2001 A technical fault resulted in a serious release of radioactive uranium at the Halden nuclear reactor in January. The fault resulted in a level of radioactive radiation inside the reactor which was 100 times higher than normal. However, the radiation outside the reactor never reached a danger level, according to the Institute for Energy Technology. Director Ole Harbitz of the Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority says that although the accident was serious, the leak occured in a pipe in the internal cooling system, and was therefore never of any danger to the outside environment. The environmental organization Bellona says the reactor is too old, and ought to be closed down permanently. The radiation level is now back to normal, but the reactor remains closed down, NRK reports. (NRK) Rolleiv Solholm Share this article with others ***************************************************************** 10 German Greens urge members not to block nuclear waste - 3/9/2001 - ENN.com Friday, March 9, 2001 By Mark John Leaders of Germany's Greens party, torn between traditions of environmental protest and new responsibilities in government, appealed to the grass roots on Friday not to disrupt atomic waste shipments. Their appeal came as police said metal hooks had been placed overnight on overhead railway power lines in northern and eastern Germany in an apparent bid to disrupt traffic around nuclear storage facilities there. No major damage was caused. As activists gathered for a party congress in Stuttgart, where an important regional election will be fought in two weeks time, the talk was of a long-delayed resumption of nuclear waste transports — a traditional focus of Greens protests — once the ballots in two southwestern federal states are out of the way. Hardliners are already preparing to hinder the movement of waste. But Greens leaders, savoring national power for the first time in coalition with Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats, fear that could derail a hard-won deal reached last year with the power industry to phase out reactors. Greens activists were in the thick of sit-ins, scuffles and sometimes sabotage to halt the rail shipments — known as "Castor" transports — when they were last made to the Gorleben storage site, between Berlin and Hamburg, between 1995 and 1997. Party leaders will urge delegates in Stuttgart not to support blockades against expected shipments of German waste due back from reprocessing in France in a few weeks because they had been expressly permitted under the nuclear pull-out deal negotiated by Green Environment Minister Juergen Trittin. "A party cannot call for a blockade of a policy which it formulated," said Claudia Roth, a hardliner who is due to be confirmed by congress as the second of two party co-leaders. "Above all, the Greens must not jeopardise the nuclear agreement," Roth, who has previously attacked the phase-out accord as too slow, told the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper. With some regional party branches insisting they will take part in blockades, Greens officials are anxious to avoid an embarrassing party row over the issue before the state elections in Baden-Wuerttemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate on March 25. The shipments to Gorleben are expected to start days after the two state elections, where the Greens hope to do well. Party leaders have proposed a motion that Greens refrain from blockades but join marches calling for a swift nuclear shutdown. "Yes, it's a messy compromise," conceded parliamentary floor co-leader Kerstin Mueller. "But it will get a big majority." Kept on a tight lead by Schroeder, the Greens have had to be content with modest results from their federal government debut. Having called for an immediate withdrawal from nuclear power, which supplies around a third of Germany's electricity, they had to settle for a phase-out lasting at least two decades. The deal also allows waste shipments until 2005, including the return of fuel rods from France's La Hague reprocessing facility which Paris insists must go before it takes any more. Copyright 2001, Reuters ***************************************************************** 11 Barbara Greenspun Remembers 1985: Sun nuke stance unwavering March 09, 2001 The Las Vegas Sun has been steadfast in its opposition to the storing of high-level nuclear waste in Nevada, as Hank's many columns and editorials on the subject prove. Just as recently as last week a story in the Sun related the efforts of our neighboring state of Utah to prevent storage or transport of nuclear garbage there. Anti-nuclear waste bills have been introduced in the Utah Senate and have the blessing of Gov. Mike Leavitt. During the recent rainstorms, a huge semi loaded with gasoline jack-knifed and brought traffic to a standstill on our public highways. What if it had been loaded with hazardous nuclear waste material? No matter how officials try to assure us that nothing can go wrong shipping the waste by truck and railroad, we are constantly aware of accidents happening daily on the nation's highways. We must do everything in our power to stop the shipping and storing of these dangerous nuclear waste products in our beautiful state. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 12 Rise and Fall of a Region's Anti-Nuclear Movement F.A.Z. - English Version [Frankfurter Allgemeine] [Leser] * By Reiner Burger *DANNENBERG. From the west, the roads to the Wendland region run through large forests. The seemingly endless woods of pine and beech are unusual in this part of northern Germany, which is otherwise dominated by heath and marshland. And even when the land finally opens up again, trees line roads that fade away in the morning mist. But at this point in the journey, strange signs appear, large yellow crosses and posters with slogans like: "We will defeat them with a smile." That continues until you reach the Elbe River, near the towns of Gorleben and Schnackenburg, where the softly undulating landscape changes into riverbanks and sandy moorland. The yellow X is found on most barn doors here, and sometimes you can spy locals touching up the yellow paint. This folkloric anti-nuclear symbol seems to have taken over the area. People in the Wendland are making preparations for "X day," for the next Castor transport, the nuclear waste containers with burnt-out fuel rods from the French reprocessing plant at La Hague, expected to be sent here in late March. This time, the local citizens' initiative, with its 1,000 members, and X a Thousand Times Across, a civic action group, want to do more than just block the transport on its road stage from Dannenberg station to the intermediate nuclear storage facility in Gorleben. A spokesman for X a Thousand Times Across says that there are plans to build six "resistance camps" along the 50-kilometer- (30-mile-) long railroad between Lüneburg and Dannenberg, in an attempt to block the transport at that early stage. There are many familiar rituals that will be repeated: Farmers will blockade lanes with their tractors, roads are being holed out, and trees are being cut down. Once again, the line between non-violent and violent resistance will be fluid. But police and border guards will once again make sure that the containers reach Gorleben. But this time, the anti-nuclear Alliance 90_The Greens party is siding with the authorities. And that is why appearances are deceiving with regard to X-day. This time around, things are indeed different from the many previous occasions. The Wendland was for many centuries the only surviving linguistic island of a Slavic people that is said to have had a strange and warlike mentality. The scattered remnants of the Wenden still puzzle ethnologists. Why, for instance, did these people sometimes group their houses like corrals in radial villages? The present inhabitants of these houses don't know. Like many others, they mostly arrived in the Wendland in the 1970s, when East Germany's border fortifications sealed it off on three sides. This artificial remoteness, together with low property prices and unspoiled nature, attracted dropouts. Pottery workshops, galleries and meditation centers dot the area. But the Wendland only became a nationally famous biotope of alternative ideas when, in the late 1970s, the state government in Lower Saxony chose the Gorleben salt mine as a potential permanent disposal site for highly radioactive nuclear waste. This launched northern Germany's anti-nuclear movement, which in its turn gave birth to important elements of the Greens. Until about a year ago, the Greens were popular with virtually all the Wendland's population. During the 1996 local elections, the Greens gained nearly 30 percent of the vote in some places, and they had such a big influx of new members that, relative to population size, they for a while had more members in the Lüchow-Dannenberg district than in the state capital, Hannover. But things changed last year. At the national party conference last March, the party rank and file, including the delegate from Lüchow-Dannenberg, district chairwoman Marianne Tritz, supported Environment Minister Jürgen Trittin. And the June congress in Münster approved the agreement with the power companies on phasing out nuclear power. This time, Ms. Tritz withheld her support. After that, people left the Wendland branch of the party in droves. The mass exodus cost the party not only more than half of its regional membership, but also the defection of several party groups on local councils, including the Green group on the Lüchow-Dannenberg district council. One of them was Kurt Herzog, the district's deputy administrator. Mr. Herzog said he felt unable to distinguish between "bad" Castors that had reached the Wendland earlier and the "good" Castors due to arrive after the nuclear consensus. He charges the Greens with betraying their own best interests. The party had always demanded a speedy end of nuclear power, but he says that when nuclear power stations received permission to continue for more than 30 years, it meant that the nuclear industry had won. Thus, his protest against this transport will also be directed against his former party. "Yes, in my opinion, Trittin is a traitor and liar," Mr. Herzog says. Mr. Trittin, he adds, used to play a leading role in the protests. As recently as 1997, they had sat together in his kitchen. Mr. Herzog referred to a letter that Mr. Trittin sent to the Green district parties in Lower Saxony in late January. The environment minister wrote that phasing out nuclear power on the basis of the consensus reached with the nuclear industry was one of the party's aims, and asked his party colleagues more or less directly not to take part in any protests against the transport. The party council, too, thought that demonstrating was a political mistake, Mr. Trittin added. Lower Saxony's Greens reacted angrily. The Greens' national cochairman, Fritz Kuhn, attempted to settle the dispute in February at a secret meeting in Hannover with Mr. Trittin and the leaders of Lower Saxony's Greens. The attempt ended in failure. The Greens seemed at the breaking point -- until Mr. Kuhn had a long meeting with the Wendland's Greens last Sunday. On Monday, the party council in Berlin passed a resolution that soothed Wendland's Greens. In contrast to Mr. Trittin's letter and an earlier resolution by the Greens' party council, the new resolution does not question members' rights to demonstrate against nuclear energy, and speaks out against establishing a permanent nuclear waste disposal site in Gorleben. When the executive and some members of the Lüchow-Dannenberg Greens met this week, they saw grounds for celebration. They had successfully stood up to the "party grandees." The key difference, they said, was that the new resolution stated that Gorleben was not suitable as a permanent disposal site, something the January resolution had omitted. "This is the basis of our whole protest," Ms. Tritz said. Thus, when the time comes for transports, the Wendland's Greens will have permission from their national party council to protest against the establishment of a permanent disposal site, but not against the transports and not against German government policy. Ms. Tritz has an inkling of this contradiction and says, "Every new transport will reopen this wound." Meanwhile, the citizens' initiative and the action group X a Thousand Times Across have long since rejected the Greens as their partner. For them, the party has joined the enemy. Ms. Tritz's resignation as chairwoman of the district party that evening was unconnected to the transport. She explains that she wanted to start a new career as an event manager in Berlin, and as a farewell present was given a yellow X made from chipboard, with thank-you messages and signatures from the members of the district association. It must feel like a memorial to the Greens, one to their best days in the Wendland, when large anti-nuclear demonstrations gave their existence meaning and a sense of identity. But now it has become another historical remnant, adding to puzzles that might stump future ethnologists who travel to the Wendland. Mar. 9, 2001 © Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 2001 All rights ***************************************************************** 13 Gov't Questioned on Uranium Deal March 09, 2001 WASHINGTON (AP) - When the government put enriched uranium estimated to be worth $10 million up for sale, it expected a good return. Instead, the U.S. Treasury received a scant $76,051, raising the ire of Energy Department investigators. A private contractor, who handled the sale, reaped millions of dollars, according to auditors. After a review of the sale, the department's inspector general concluded that the contractor, who prepared and packaged the uranium and negotiated the deal, was paid $3.4 million for "questionable costs" that should never have been allowed. On top of that, Fluor Fernald Inc., received a $675,430 fee for handling the deal, nearly 10 times what the government made on the 1997 sale, said the inspector general's report recently made public. Still, the deal was vigorously defended Friday by the contractor and by the Energy Department office at the Fernald weapons plant near Cincinnati, where the uranium was located and is being disposed of as part of a general cleanup project. "We don't think the sale was a bad deal. We told the IG (inspector general) that and that's still our position," said Glenn Griffiths, deputy director of the DOE site office at the Fernald facility. He said the alternative to the sale was to declare the uranium a waste and face huge disposal costs. Under the sale agreement, neither the name of the buyer nor the specific sale price can be made public for five years, said Griffiths. Other department sources said the company is a foreign uranium fuel provider. According to the IG investigation, Fluor Fernald Inc., the managing contractor for environmental cleanup at Fernald, estimated the sale would get the government $5 million to $7 million. Instead, the government received $76,051 after all fees and other costs were calculated, according to the IG report. There were contradictory explanations Friday on how much money actually was paid for the 978 metric tons of uranium, which the buyer resells after it is diluted as commercial reactor fuel. Ken Morgan, a spokesman for the DOE's Ohio field office, said the amount was "substantially less" than the $10.5 million "projected sales revenue" cited by the IG report. Griffiths said the number was essentially corrected, but included all of the costs involved, including preparing the material, which was in many different forms and not properly packaged or analyzed. But Griffith said the $5 million to $7 million profit projections were made in 1990 before the market for uranium softened dramatically. He said the material was advertised as early as 1992, but no buyer was found for five years. Still, the inspector general's report questioned the millions of dollars that were awarded to Fluor Fernald for cost recovery and the additional $675,430 "award fee" since the project "was not completed within budget." "In our judgment, had this process been effectively managed, the department could have returned an additional $3.6 million to the Treasury," Inspector General Gregory Friedman wrote Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham. Fluor Fernald spokesman Jeff Wagner said the IG report "takes a very narrow view" of the sale. "We feel that we fulfilled our obligation in the project and did it very well and safely," said Wagner. While Abraham had not yet seen the report, his spokesman, Joe Davis, said that the secretary is taking the IG's findings seriously. "We're going to make sure we take a close look at it," said Davis. While the uranium deal, reached more than three years ago, raises concerns, Friedman wrote that "the more pressing issue" is how the department will handle future uranium sales, including one expected at Fernald as early as this summer. That sale again is expected to be handled by Fluor Fernald Inc. Two years after the uranium sale agreement was signed, Fluor Fernald, a subsidiary of the Fluor Corp., a $12.4 billion energy and construction conglomerate, had its DOE contract renewed for managing the environmental cleanup of the Ohio facility. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 14 The Domenici Deception: Nuclear Energy Bill Is an Atomic Waste *March 9, 2001* WASHINGTON, D.C. – A sweeping nuclear energy bill introduced this week in the Senate would promote an increased reliance on nuclear power under the guise of environmentalism and would improperly give the nuclear industry a $100 million subsidy, according to Public Citizen’s analysis of the bill. Promoting nuclear power is risky because questions about its safety still abound and we still cannot guarantee safe storage of nuclear waste for the duration of its hazardous life. The bill, introduced by Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) and entitled "The Nuclear Energy Electricity Supply Assurance Act of 2001," would encourage the construction of new nuclear plants, subsidize the completion of unfinished reactors that have lain fallow for years and promote the development of reactor designs that lack containment structures to prevent the release of radiation into the environment and surrounding communities. "Senator Domenici's nuclear energy bill is yet another misguided attempt to subsidize this most dangerous and unforgiving technology," said Wenonah Hauter, director of Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program. "It is thoroughly irresponsible to promote the use of nuclear power when there is still no technically feasible means of assuring that long-lived radioactive wastes can be isolated from the environment. Further, this will do nothing to solve the current predicament we have with rising electricity costs." The Domenici bill also would approve a shift from formal hearings – which give the public the right to obtain documents through discovery and to cross-examine hearing participants – to informal hearings, in which the public can do neither. This would curtail the ability of citizens to adequately participate in the licensing hearings on a proposed "high-level" waste repository at Yucca Mountain, in Nevada, and on safety issues at more than 100 U.S. nuclear reactors. "Senator Domenici wants to turn Americans into second-class citizens by limiting our public hearing and participation rights," said James Riccio, senior analyst for Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program. "Shielding the nuclear industry from public scrutiny will further undermine confidence in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the industry. If the nuclear industry cannot withstand the rigors of formal hearings, their reactors and nuclear waste dumps should not be built." The Domenici bill would extend the Price Anderson Act, which indemnifies the nuclear industry against the financial consequences of a nuclear accident. The bill also would encourage the construction of more reactors while limiting the liability of the nuclear industry in the event of an accident. The bill would allow foreign corporations to own and operate nuclear reactors in the United States, which would mean that U.S. taxpayers would be subsidizing foreign corporations while exercising limited controls over their operations. "I fail to see why the American taxpayer should indemnify foreign corporations whose nuclear reactors threaten the lives and livelihoods of American citizens," Hauter said. "Foreign and domestic corporations that expose the public to the risk of a nuclear disaster should be held financially accountable for their actions. Shielding nuclear corporations from the consequences of their actions will only result in more dangerous nuclear plants and waste dumps." The Domenici bill also would create an Office of Spent Nuclear Fuel Research to promote dangerous and discredited technologies such as the reprocessing of radioactive waste, which would cost $10 million alone in 2002. "This does nothing to solve the nuclear waste problem but instead introduces a host of new environmental and safety problems," Hauter said. "It merely serves as a smokescreen to mask the problems that would be exacerbated by the increased reliance on nuclear power that this bill promotes." The bill's proposed remedy for the failure of electricity deregulation – taxpayer subsidizing of the operation of more nuclear reactors – simply would complicate this country’s self-inflicted power crisis, Hauter said. By propping up a dangerous and failed technology, the legislation ignores proven alternatives such as wind, solar and energy conservation, she said. "The massive subsidies and radioactive waste clean-up costs are so staggering that nuclear power will only increase already sky-high wholesale electricity prices," Hauter said. "The prescription for the failure of electricity deregulation is to re-establish public authority over profiteering power producers." Finally, the overarching problem with the bill is that nuclear reactors are neither clean nor safe, Riccio said. For Senate Republicans to promote nuclear power as environmentally friendly is at best deceptive and constitutes the worst kind of corporate welfare, he said. Public Citizen Home Page ***************************************************************** 15 Group seeks home for N-waste FT.com By Charles Clover Published: March 9 2001 22:18GMT | Last Updated: March 9 2001 22:32GMT At first glance, the mission of the Non-Proliferation Trust, a Delaware-registered company that consists mainly of a website (www. nptinternational.com) and the goodwill of a number of prominent US Republicans, seems a little far-fetched. The trust would like to ship 10,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel rods to remote sites in Russia for permanent storage, generating $15bn (£10.2bn), which it would then administer as aid to Russia through its Bermuda subsidiary, "which is similar to a non-profit organisation, though not really non-profit", admits Joseph Egan, the trust's spokesman. Intriguingly, it is not the first attempt to combine prominent Republicans, thousands of tons of nuclear waste, an exotic locale and a slightly screwball plan. But this one, against all odds, might just work. All told, the trust's management includes two admirals, a former director of both the CIA and the FBI, a former head of the US Marine Corps, a former chief of staff when George Bush was vice-president, and a host of high-powered lawyers and lobbyists. One of the main hurdles to the project could be removed this month, when the Russian parliament is expected to vote on a law that would allow the country to import vast quantities of spent nuclear fuel from around the world. If it is passed and the amendments are approved, the vote would be a big victory for Russia's minister of atomic energy, Yevgeny Adamov, who recently said that Russia "should fight for its share" of the spent nuclear fuel market, which he estimates could be worth $150bn over the next few decades. Mr Adamov would like to charge nuclear utilities $1,000-$2,000 a kilogram to reprocess or store permanently spent fuel in facilities at Krasnoyarsk-26 and Mayak, two nuclear dumping sites in Siberia. The ministry calculates that the two sites can store or reprocess 20,000 tons of spent uranium over the next 10 years, roughly 10-15 per cent of the world's total accumulation. For Russia, working with the Non-Proliferation Trust (NPT) could negotiate one big obstacle, if it helped win the US State Department's approval for the re-export of the spent fuel from countries such as Taiwan and South Korea. These countries - and most of Russia's other prospective customers - use nuclear fuel made in the US, which has put restrictions on its re-export, in order to prevent potentially fissile material from falling into the wrong hands. "NPT's project is an essential US catalyst to make spent fuel imports to Russia a reality," says Mr Egan, "The vast majority of spent fuel is subject to US consent rights." Mr Egan says NPT has been in talks with Taiwan, South Korea, Switzerland and Italy on the export of spent fuel to Russia. Environmentalist groups complain that the plan is setting a dangerous precedent by opening up an international market for nuclear waste that would be difficult to regulate. So far, neither Washington nor Moscow has officially endorsed NPT's plans, although Yuri Bespalko, spokesman for the Russian ministry of atomic energy, confirms the ministry has been in talks with the group. The US State Department says only that NPT's plans appear to meet its criteria for re-export of spent nuclear fuel. However, they still require an agreement with Russia for peaceful nuclear co-operation for plans to go ahead. But the project enjoys the support of powerful Republicans, notably Jesse Helms, head of the Senate foreign relations committee, who has written a letter to the State Department in support of the project. NPT is the latest in a series of proposals making the rounds in Washington in the last decade aimed at storing spent nuclear fuel in remote foreign locations. In the mid-1990s a similar proposal to store fuel on South Pacific atolls was pitched by US Fuel and Security Group, headed by Admiral Daniel Murphy, the former commander of the US Sixth Fleet, whose corporate counsel was James Baker, the former US secretary of state. The plan fell through in the face of opposition from the islanders. ***************************************************************** 16 EPA chief has ties to Shattuck DenverPost.com - News: Colorado and Denver By Mike Soraghan Denver Post Washington Bureau Mar. 11, 2001 - WASHINGTON - When new Environmental Protection Agency chief Christine Whitman makes decisions on Denver's most notorious Superfund site, the Shattuck Chemical Co., her choices might also affect her family finances. Her husband, John Whitman, is managing partner of a venture capital firm spun off and backed by Citigroup, the banking giant that owns Shattuck. The company's south Denver location is a Superfund site where EPA officials are deciding how they should remove tons of radioactive waste encased in concrete. Whatever the EPA decides could affect Citigroup's bottom line. The costs associated with different options for removing the waste vary by millions of dollars, and who will pay for it is still an open question. Citigroup's representatives have said they don't think the company should have to pay. EPA Region 8 officials in Denver are negotiating with Citigroup and its Shattuck subsidiary. But some question whether Whitman's family ties to Citigroup also might be causing her to drag her feet on deciding the fate of the EPA national ombudsman, who has hounded EPA managers about its Shattuck mistakes, but has been threaten ed with a loss of independence. "Christine Whitman raises the kind of questions that have been raised by the Clintons," said Hugh Kaufman, the bluntspoken EPA employee who investigated Shattuck for the ombudsman. "It is in Citigroup's financial interest to have the National Ombudsman's Office continue to be crippled while they are negotiating this consent agreement with Region 8." John Whitman worked for Citigroup from 1972 to 1987, and still has as much as $250,000 in stock in the company, according to financial disclosures filed by Christine Whitman when she was nominated by President Bush. Officeholders are required to disclose their spouse's financial interests because the financial affairs of married couples are often intertwined. John Whitman is now a managing partner of Sycamore Ventures. Last year, John Whitman got a bonus of unspecified size from Citigroup for past work. The EPA says it's not a conflict, because Christine Whitman doesn't have a direct hand in local Superfund decisions. "Superfund sites in general are not before the administrator at this time for any reason," Whitman spokeswoman Tina Kreisher said. "If that changes, and it does rise to her level, we will apply the appropriate ethics and conflict standards, and the administrator will seek advice from the EPA counsel on how to proceed." But Whitman's decisions will affect the ombudsman's office, and that in turn could affect the outcome at Shattuck. It was Ombudsman Robert Martin who discredited the EPA's 1991 decision to leave the Shattuck waste on-site, in the middle of Denver's working-class Overland Park neighborhood. From the 1920s until the early 1980s, Shattuck processed radium and made chemicals containing uranium, molybdenum and rhenium. It was one of nearly a dozen areas in Denver where radioactive metals were processed. All were made Superfund sites. But Shattuck, 4 miles south of downtown, was the only place where the EPA decided against removing the contaminated soil and sending it to a dump in the Utah desert. Martin's investigation raised questions about whether Shattuck's corporate owners - Salomon Smith Barney at the time - had bullied regulators in secret meetings. The regulators, worried that Shattuck would sue to block a more expensive cleanup, agreed to store radioactive waste at the site rather than shipping it to a Utah facility. The ombudsman's investigation forced the EPA to admit it goofed and ordered the waste removed. Citigroup bought Salomon Smith Barney several years ago. Company representatives say the pile of waste at Shattuck is safe. Because the company already has paid for the first cleanup, they say, it shouldn't have to pay again. Martin wanted to keep watchdogging the regional office's plans for moving the waste, in part because of concerns that more hazardous waste is at the site. But since then, top EPA officials announced new rules limiting his independence and reassigned his investigator, Hugh Kaufman, who dug into the Shattuck case. Supporters of the ombudsman's office, including prominent Republican lawmakers, accuse the EPA of trying to muzzle a watchdog that's been nipping at its heels. The EPA officials who drafted the new rules and reassigned Kaufman were appointees of President Clinton and have since moved on. When Whitman came in, some leading Republican lawmakers asked her to restore independence to the ombudsman's office and reassign Kaufman to investigations. So far, Whitman has declined to do so and refused to authorize Kaufman's travel to investigate another case in Pennsylvania. Kaufman sees that as a sign that Whitman does not intend to reverse the decisions made by her Clinton administration predecessors. "Her husband's strong financial ties to Citigroup may be the reason, or provide incentive, for her to not have the ombudsman have the same degree of freedom to do his job, because of the tremendous financial liabilities to Citigroup from the Shattuck site," Kaufman said. "I am optimistic that administrator Whitman will put aside her financial relationship with Citigroup and allow Bob and I to get back to work despite that. I think she's above that." The financial relationship is also causing concern in the neighborhood around Shattuck, where neighbors are fearful that the EPA will let Citigroup "off the hook." "I do not believe you can ethically make an objective decision if you have a conflict like this," said neighborhood activist Deb Sanchez. "I would hope whenever she is going to be in a position to make a decision on a site, that she would remove herself and put someone else in charge." But Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., who has been deeply involved in the Shattuck situation, said he's not concerned about Whitman's family financial ties to Shattuck's owner. "I wouldn't expect it to be a problem. She'll do her job," Allard said. Kaufman's detractors say he was taken off the case with good reason. Some say the blunt-spoken and aggressive investigator has occasionally veered over the line to being abrasive. Published reports have indicated that Kaufman's supervisors' records indicate he has a history of "bullying, abusive tactics." Kaufman, a longtime critic of the EPA who once won a whistleblower case against higher-ups at the agency, said he's done what needed to be done to battle the "entrenched bureaucracy," a term he invokes frequently. He also says that his performance evaluations always have been outstanding. The question of what effect spouses' financial entanglements have on high-level officials is a thorny one, said Peter Eisner, managing director of the Center for Public Integrity. "Does a spouse have a right to an independent income and independent professional life? The answer is yes," Eisner said. "But in the real world of politics, nothing exists in a vacuum." It's important, he said, for officials to disclose their family interests and recuse themselves when there is a conflict. Whitman hasn't recused herself. She has been questioned before about her husband's business ties and what influence he may have over her decisions. When Christine Whitman was governor of New Jersey, John Whitman invested heavily in an Internet company called Mail.com, which then won a $1.6 million grant from the state. Two of the board members on Mail.com were directors of Parsons Corp. and Aetna Inc., companies that won Whitman administration approval for transactions worth hundreds of millions of dollars. "It's an issue that we're going to have to deal with more and more across the country, particularly as more and more women become officeholders," Christine Whitman told The New York Times regarding the Mail.com deal at the time. Copyright 2001 The Denver Post. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 17 It all went well: Nuclear plant dealt with nor’easter Editorial - Saturday, March 10, 2001 The nor’easter that muscled through New England this week caused more than its share of inconvenience and consternation along the Seacoast. With up to 32 inches of snow, schools and businesses were forced to close. And some areas of the Seacoast lost power, including the Seabrook Nuclear Power Station. At no time was there a problem with keeping the nuclear reactor cool, and Seabrook and the surrounding area was never placed in peril during the outage. It wasn’t even close. Despite the power loss, everything that was supposed to happen at the power station, indeed, happened. This is because Seabrook uses two backup power systems for times when power cannot be furnished from the electrical grid. When three high-voltage lines to the plant to run its systems went down, a power generator run by diesel kicked on to operate equipment that keeps the reactor cool and other safety features through the storm. There are those who so oppose Seabrook and the concept of nuclear power that they’ll use any event to raise fear needlessly over the safety of the plant. Not surprisingly, the nor’easter and resulting power outage was used as a vehicle for the anti-nuclear crowd’s propaganda. To them, Seabrook "dodged a bullet," when in fact, the plant reacted to the circumstances exactly in the way it was designed. Seabrook’s success in dealing with the brunt of a powerful storm ought to inspire confidence — and not fear — in the engineering and design of a very important player in the New England power grid. ©2001 Geo. J. Foster Co. ***************************************************************** 18 TVA's nuclear cleanup fund dips on roller-coaster stock market - Saturday, 03/10/01 By DUNCAN MANSFIELD *Associated Press* KNOXVILLE — Tennessee Valley Authority investments intended to pay for the cleanup of its nuclear reactors took a $53.7 million hit in the stock market last year. Still, the trust fund is almost twice as big as when it began only four years ago, and, despite the losses, outperformed a key market index. The fund was $772.5 million at the end of 2000. That was down from $826.2 million at the conclusion of 1999, but up substantially from the $396 million where it began on Sept. 30, 1996. ''Last year was a difficult year for anybody with any investment portfolio across the country,'' David Smith, TVA's chief financial officer, said yesterday. ''But having said that, I am well pleased with our performance last year.'' The bulk of TVA's portfolio is managed by 15 professional money managers, while $1.9 million was carved out in 1998 for a real-world student investment program at 19 universities. Last year, TVA's professional managers produced an average loss of 6.5%, compared with a 9% loss by the Standard & Poor's 500 index. The students averaged an 18.5% loss. ''You are always going to have ups and downs,'' Smith said, ''but it is always great when your down results are less severely down than the market is in general.'' Even with last year's performance, the fund has grown by an average 16.6% annually since 1996. That is well ahead of TVA's projected annual requirements of 5% growth above inflation. Ultimately, the trust fund will pay to decommission TVA's three nuclear plants in Tennessee and Alabama. The intent is to build the fund without further contributions from TVA ratepayers. TVA has projected it will need $2 billion to retire Browns Ferry in 2017; $1.4 billion to decommission Sequoyah beginning in 2022, and $1.4 billion to close Watts Bar starting in 2037. TVA is expected to update those estimates in a biennial report to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission later this month. The federal utility also may seek a 20-year extension on Browns Ferry's operating licenses, which could push back the decommissioning dates. Some of TVA's investors have done better than others. Performance by professional managers in the past two years has ranged from gains of 4.2%-22.5%. Smith acknowledged four managers have been dropped by TVA since the program began. © Copyright 2001 The Tennessean A Gannett Co. Inc.newspaper Use ***************************************************************** 19 Federal agency: Water levels fell too low at nuclear plant 03/09/01 theIndependent.com News: On the Net: Nuclear Regulatory Commissionand the Nebraska Public Power Distirct By Kevin O'Hanlon The Associated Press LINCOLN -- The Nebraska Public Power District is investigating a March 3 mishap at its Cooper Nuclear Station near Brownville where water levels fell to unusually low levels in the reactor's cooling system. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission confirmed Friday that water levels fell too low while the plant's generating power was being reduced. Problems then arose in trying to use pumps to bring the water levels back up. "The operators always maintained the reactor within safe bounds, but our concerns were that operator performance was not up to standards. said David Loveless, a commission spokesman. "The swings in the water levels they got were not normal." The public was never at risk, said Dave Simon, a spokesman for the power district. "We are reviewing both the event and the human side," he said. "We'll look at ... the role that people's performance played and if we need to prescribe any corrective action." Loveless said water levels in the plant are given numerical values ranging from 1 to 8, with 8 being the highest. Level 2 is when an emergency cooling system kicks in. "Level 1 is still a considerable distance above the top of the core," Loveless said "They never got much below Level 3 during the event." He said the risk to the public was "nominal." Emergency procedures go into effect when the water drops below Level 1. If water levels fall that low, the reactor's core could overheat and lead to the release of radioactivity. Water inside the cooling system dropped for 45 minutes, during which time one pump failed, Loveless said. A second pump failed to operate properly so operators finally used a third pump to restore the water levels, he said "But they didn't use it, in my personal opinion, early enough," Loveless said. "This leads us to question operator performance and that's what we're looking at now -- it was not up to standards." The agency will wait for the power district to conduct its review before deciding what, if any, action to take. NPPD has operated the Cooper plant, the state's largest power generator, for 26 years. The state's only other nuclear plant is operated near Fort Calhoun by the Omaha Public Power District. The two plants were among 13 in the nation found to have no significant performance problems in a federal report released in December. Both plants' federal licenses are set to expire 2013, but both utilities are considering applying for 20-year extensions. • On the Net: Nuclear Regulatory Commissionand the Nebraska Public Power Distirct © 2001 The Grand Island Independent ***************************************************************** 20 N-power generation to touch 20000 MW by 2020 11 March 2001 : The Times of India TIRUCHIRAPALLI: Nuclear power generation was projected to reach an installed capacity of 20000 MW by 2020 from the present capacity of 2800 MW, S B Bhoje, director, Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research, Kalpakkam, said on Saturday. All the 14 reactors in the country, on an average were generating to 81.5 per cent of the installed capacity and according to Bhoje it is well above the efficiency of thermal or hydel power generation average plant load factor. On the Kudankulam nuclear project with Russian collaboration, he told reporters that Russians would submit a detailed project report by month-end. "All the necessary clearances have been obtained for the six-year power project and currently tenders for water desalination plants were getting processed," he said. Construction work on the prototype of the 500 MW fast breeder reactor at IGCAR, would commence by this December, he said, adding the Centre had allotted Rs 50 crore towards R and D component of the Rs 3500-crore project and another Rs 100 crore towards project costs for 2001-02. "It's a totally indigenous project and the major contributor of components will be BHEL," he said. IGCAR had developed a new range of sensor guns which could help assess Oxygen contents in the atmosphere, he said, adding it was in the process of transferring the new technology to industries which would go a long way in 'correcting ecological balances' of a town having numerous habitats and industries. (PTI) ***************************************************************** 21 'Key role for BHEL in building fast breeder reactor' The Hindu on indiaserver.com : Sunday, March 11, 2001 By Our Staff Reporter TIRUCHI, MARCH 10. The Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) would have a key role to play in the construction of the completely indigenous proto-type fast breeder reactor (PFBR) of the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR), Dr. S. B. Bhoje, Director, IGCAR, Kalpakkam, said here today. Speaking to Presspersons after flagging off an ``Inner Vessel,'' manufactured by the BHEL, Tiruchi, for the IGCAR's fast breeder reactor, Dr. Bhoje indicated that orders worth about Rs. 1,200 crores for the supply of various components for the PFBR project could be placed with the BHEL. The Tiruchi unit of the BHEL could supply nuclear steam system components, while the Hardwar unit could supply the turbine set. Various other components including electrical components could also be supplied by the BHEL. The IGCAR has already held discussions with the BHEL in this regard and the tie-up arrangements would be finalised by June this year, he added. Construction of the 500 MW (electrical) proto-type fast breeder reactor would commence in December this year as the Planning Commission has already approved the project. The detailed project report would be submitted to the government shortly. Once the proto-type was commissioned the IGCAR has planned to go in for four more reactors of the same capacity. After the technology demonstration, the country would even be able to sell the technology to other countries, he added. The installed capacity of the country in the atomic energy sector was expected to go up to 20,000 MW by 2020 from the current level of 2,800 MW. By the same period, the IGCAR Kalpakkam was expected to have a capacity to generate about 2,500 MW, he added. Maintaining that atomic energy was safe and efficient, Dr. Bhoje said the 14 nuclear reactors in the country was operating at a high plant load factor of 81 per cent. Earlier flagging off the Inner Vessel, Rs. 1.30 crores for the PFBR, Dr. Bhoje said atomic energy sector would have to play a major role in meeting the country's power requirements in view of the limited natural resources. Mr. V. K. Gopinath, Executive Director, BHEL, Tiruchi, said the BHEL was gearing up to meet the fabrication requirements of the nuclear sector as it formed an important component of the BHEL's business. Mr. T. R. Ramadurai, General Manager, Nuclear Division, BHEL, Tiruchi and other senior officials of BHEL and IGCAR were present on the occasion. Copyrights © 2001 The Hindu & indiaserver.com, Inc. ***************************************************************** 22 German Greens Accept Nuclear Waste Transports Saturday March 10 3:30 PM ET By Mark John STUTTGART, Germany (Reuters) - Germany's Greens voted on Saturday not to support blockades of upcoming atomic waste shipments, putting government responsibilities before their tradition at the heart of the anti-nuclear movement. Delegates at a congress in Stuttgart in southern Germany, where Greens hope to revive their flagging national poll ratings in two state elections on March 25, voted in favor of a motion put forward by the party leadership. It argued the party could not send members into potentially violent clashes with police over a series of rail shipments from France, due shortly after the state votes, that are expressly permitted under the nuclear phase-out plan agreed last year by Green Environment Minister Juergen Trittin. ``When we made the agreement, we knew shipments back to Germany would be necessary,'' said Trittin in an appeal to the congress before it voted overwhelmingly against blockades. ``We have legal and political obligations. We can't simply dump our waste on our next-door neighbor's doorstep.'' Under the agreed motion, the Greens -- since 1998 junior partners in Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's government -- ``will not encourage protests, blockades or other actions'' but can join peaceful demonstrations near the shipments. Six so-called ``Castor'' rail containers of reprocessed German waste are due in coming weeks to travel from the La Hague reprocessing plant in France to the Gorleben interim storage facility in northern Lower Saxony state. Anti-Nukes Lobbyists Kept Out Castor transports have been suspended for three years following a radiation scare. The last shipments in 1998 involved one of the largest security actions in postwar Germany as riot police used water cannon to prevent protesters from mounting rail sit-ins and other blockade bids. Aware of the potential damage to their already flagging poll ratings by being associated with such protests, top Greens had successfully persuaded some rebellious regional branches to join their motion before the party congress. In an unusual move for a Greens congress, anti-nuclear lobbyists who turned up for the meeting were refused entrance and had to be content to demonstrate outside. ``They won't let us in -- they think we are too dangerous,'' said a 20-year-old protester from Munich called Theresa, who said she was prepared to sit on rail tracks and demonstrate ``as peacefully as possible'' in Gorleben. ``We are not saboteurs or terrorists,'' she said. Under a hard-fought deal with Germany's power industry, the country's 19 nuclear reactors -- which produce around a third of its electricity -- are to be gradually phased out over about two decades. Nuclear waste transports for reprocessing are permitted until 2005 under the deal. After that, it is envisaged that a central storage facility will be created for remaining waste. While the congress decision marks yet another victory for Greens moderates over the dwindling number of so-called party ''Fundis,'' or fundamentals, some delegates feared it could drive a core group of traditional voters away from the Greens. ``We can't appear to have split away from the anti-nuclear movement,'' said one. ``But now it looks as if we have.'' ***************************************************************** 23 German Minister Chides Green Party Saturday March 10 5:58 PM ET *By TONY CZUCZKA, Associated Press Writer * STUTTGART, Germany (AP) - Germany's foreign minister chided his own party Saturday after it chose a co-leader critical of U.S. military policy, saying that being part of the government means making compromises. At a Greens party convention, Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer avoided directly challenging Claudia Roth, who resoundingly won one of the party's two top leadership posts Friday after criticizing U.S. plans for a national missile defense and the bombing of Iraq. But Fischer said a party that grew out of Germany's peace and anti-nuclear movements in the 1980s needs to face up to tough choices now that it's in government. ``We shouldn't fall into the reflex of thinking that when we are against something, it simply won't happen,'' Fischer told delegates. Fischer has also voiced strong reservations about the U.S. administration's plans for a missile shield, but he has recently held talks in Moscow and Washington to try to smooth over European and Russian objections to the idea. Fischer's appearance at the three-day convention was a classic effort to bridge the gap between his party's soul - represented by a strong left wing - and the reality of governing. One of Germany's most popular politicians and Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's deputy, Fischer in many ways has outgrown his party. He was the only party leader wearing a necktie Saturday, a contrast with the informality of other speakers who referred to him by his first name. But the Greens showed that they cherish their star even though he raises painful points about their self-image, rewarding him with a long round of applause. On another sensitive point for the Greens, Fischer urged party activists to accept that Germany is obligated by international contracts to allow the return from France of reprocessed radioactive waste from German nuclear power plants. Nuclear waste shipments are to resume this month, raising the prospect of a revival of violent environmentalist protests that accompanied such transports in the 1990s. But delegates later backed a motion disapproving blockades of the rail shipments, one method used by protesters in the past. The decision followed warnings by Fischer and other party leaders that endorsing violent protests would endanger the government's consensus plan with German utilities for phasing out nuclear power - one of the Greens' proudest achievements since joining the government in 1998. The motion, passed overwhelmingly by a show of hands, allows party members to take part in peaceful protests against nuclear energy. Copyright © 2001 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 24 Controversial water sovereignty proposal heats up The Salt Lake Tribune -- *Sunday, March 11, 2001* BY FAITH BREMNER GANNETT NEWS SERVICE WASHINGTON -- Idaho's congressional delegation is pushing for legislation that water experts say would radically change Western water law and make it harder for the federal government to get water for endangered species, wilderness areas and Indian tribes. The so-called State Water Sovereignty Protection Act could also give the state of Nevada more ammunition in its battle to keep the Department of Energy from building a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain. If it ever opens, the repository will receive highly radioactive waste that is temporarily being stored all over the United States. Sen. Mike Crapo, who practiced water law before coming to Congress in 1992, introduced the bill in the Senate last week on behalf of himself and Sen. Larry Craig. Rep. Mike Simpson plans to introduce an identical bill in the House next week that is co-sponsored by Rep. Butch Otter. All four legislators are Republicans. "This bill would have a dramatic impact on how easily the federal government could meddle in water supply," said David Haddock, who litigates environmental and constitution law cases for the conservative Pacific Legal Foundation in Sacramento, Calif. "It's a two-edge sword. "It's great for farmers and those who use water. But it's possible that those who care more about fish protection may be left in the lurch." Crapo and Simpson introduced the same bill in previous years but it never made it out of committee. They're hopeful of gaining momentum this year, but don't expect passage. "It's difficult, with Congress being divided as it has been for the last few years, to move ahead on such a significant piece of legislation," Crapo said. "This is going to be a very tall order to fill." Historically, states have controlled how water is used and distributed within their borders, and in the early 1900s largely ignored water needed for wildlife and recreation. Since the 1970s, the federal government has gotten more involved in how states, particularly arid Western states, manage their water. Using myriad federal laws -- including the Endangered Species, Clean Water and Federal Land Policy Management acts -- federal agencies have twisted arms to get Western states and their big water users -- namely farmers and cities -- to set aside water for wildlife and recreation. Sometimes states voluntarily surrendered the water, sometimes the federal government had to sue to get it. The Crapo-Simpson bill would require the federal government to stand in line like everyone else to get a water allocation. Abolished would be the concept of federal, implied water rights, carved out by federal courts to ensure that federally reserved lands get the water they need to serve the purposes for which Congress and presidents set them aside. Federally reserved lands include Indian reservations, military and Department of Energy facilities, national parks, monuments, wildlife refuges and wilderness areas. Crapo said he did not intend to include Indian reservations in the list of federal lands that would lose their implied reserved water rights and said the bill may have to be amended. In an attempt to exclude Indian reservations, the bill says it does not interfere with any "treaty or other international agreement to which the United States is a party." But, not all Indian reservations were created by treaties; in Nevada and California, they were created by executive order, for example. But the rest of the bill would put the federal government at the mercy of the states whenever a federal entity wanted to create a new park or facility that needs water. That could make it difficult, if not impossible, for the federal government to build projects that face strong local opposition, such as nuclear waste dumps or military testing facilities, said Joseph Sax, a professor of water law at the University of California, Berkeley. "It would be like saying no federal project will go forward in any state unless the state wants it," Sax said. "In essence it would shut down the constitutional notion of federal supremacy." A case in point Nevada offers a case in point. Last year, the state's water engineer denied the Department of Energy ground water needed to build and maintain the nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, citing threats to public health, safety and the state's tourism-based economy. DOE appealed the decision to a federal court, which last fall ruled that state courts should decide the matter. The decision is a victory for Nevada because it is believed no state judge -- all of whom are popularly elected -- will ever overturn the state engineer's decision. Simpson said Nevada and other states should have sovereignty over their water, even if it means the Yucca Mountain repository isn't built and states, including his own, must continue to store their high-level nuclear waste. "If it interrupts it (Yucca proposal), that's the way it is," Simpson said. "I suspect the federal government will have to do some serious negotiating with the state of Nevada." Crapo said if the bill becomes law, Congress could still force Nevada to hand over water in the case of the repository because it is a national priority. While the federal government could still help itself to the states' water from time to time, Crapo said, "I'm trying to get Congress to do so less regularly and to do it in thoughtful ways." Steve Malloch, a lawyer for Trout Unlimited, said the bill is a back-door attack on parks, national monuments and wilderness areas. Because water is so precious and contentious in the West, Congress and presidents seldom specify that such areas are entitled to water and they have had to rely on the implied reserve water right, he said. ---- REST OPTIONAL Idaho has been hostile toward setting aside water, and the water sovereignty bill will make things worse, Malloch said. On Feb. 22, the Idaho Supreme Court ruled the Deer Flat National Wildlife Refuge, parts of which were first set aside in 1909, does not have an implied federal reserve water right. If that decision stands, the federal government will have to ask the state for a water right that is junior to those owned by farmers. During dry years, the refuge would get little if any water. The Justice Department has yet to decide whether to appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States. "Trout Unlimited is very interested in trying to promote healthy rivers and the biggest threat to rivers is the lack of water," Malloch said. "Idaho is an extremely difficult state to work in and to try to protect flowing rivers." Simpson said the Idaho Legislature has been responsive to federal requests for water for the Snake River and for salmon recovery, allowing the federal government to lease water from willing sellers. "The people of Idaho care about clean water, salmon recovery, our national parks and wilderness," Simpson said. "That's why we live here, because we want clean water." ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 Legacy issues haunt DOE, BWXT officials Amarillo Globe-News March 11, 2001 By JIM McBRIDE Globe-News Courts Writer For more than 40 years, the Pantex Plant played a pivotal role in America's silent nuclear war against the Soviet Union, knocking out thousands of atomic warheads, bombs and artillery shells. The race to build the Bomb produced massive amounts of hazardous and nuclear wastes across the nuclear weapons complex, but bomb-builders then were focused on the weapons that kept the Russian Bear at bay. aquifer - Geological formation, group of formations or part of a formation capable of yielding a significant amount of groundwater to wells or springs. burning grounds - An area of the Pantex Plant where solvents once were burned in open pits. Linked to solvent contamination in the Ogallala Aquifer on Pantex's northern boundary. cone of depression - The depression of the surface of a water table caused by withdrawal of water form an aquifer. gross alpha-beta particle activity - Total radioactivity due to alpha or beta particle emissions. high explosive - Any chemical compound or mixture which, when subjected to heat, impact, friction, shock or other suitable trigger, undergoes a rapid change and expands to exert pressure. legacy issues - Contaminated soil, groundwater and debris remaining from the Cold War. maximum contaminant level (MCL) - Maximum permissible level of a contaminant in water delivered to any user of a public system. Ogallala Aquifer - The principal aquifer and major source of water within the vicinity of the Pantex Plant. The depth to the Ogallala groundwater beneath Pantex is about 430 feet below ground surface. The thickness of the Ogallala under the Pantex Plant is about 150 feet. perched aquifer - Groundwater separated from the underlying main Ogallala Aquifer by unsaturated rock. According to Pantex, the perched aquifer is fairly continuous beneath a portion of the Pantex site and areas bordering the site to the south and southeast. The perched aquifer generally is not used as a source of drinking water. picocuries per liter - A unit of measure for levels of radon gas. Also is used for measurements of radioactivity in groundwater. plume - A space in air, water, or soil containing pollutants released from a point source. pump and treat - A groundwater treatment system used by Pantex to pump contaminants out of the perched aquifer, clean the water with filters and reinject the water back into the subsurface. radionuclide - Radioactive particle, man-made or natural, with a distinct atomic weight number. Can have a long life as a soil or water pollutant. radioactive substances - Substances that emit ionizing radiation. solvent - A substance, usually a liquid, that can dissolve another substance. volatile organic compounds - Any compound containing hydrogen and carbon in combination with any other element that is characterized by being highly mobile in groundwater and is readily volatized (vaporized) into the atmosphere at a relatively low temperature. During Pantex's nuclear heyday, environmental laws mostly were non-existent, and what now would be considered sloppy practices often were commonplace. Today, the Energy Department refers to the polluted leftovers of the Cold War as "legacy issues." The DOE's weapons plants are tackling the toxic inheritance that has seeped into the land and water bordering once-bustling atomic factories. At Pantex, the state of Texas has identified at least three separate plumes of groundwater contaminants. Contaminated groundwater from the perched aquifer - an upper-level aquifer the DOE says is not normally used for drinking water - has crept onto the property of at least five landowners. Water samples have indicated high-explosives in a private Ogallala Aquifer well just south of the plant, but plant officials say repeated samplings have not confirmed earlier traces of contamination. "Extensive monitoring of the Ogallala has found no constituents attributable to Pantex operations beyond the boundaries of the plant that exceed applicable regulatory standards," according to information compiled by Pantex officials. Ray Brady, a geologist with the Panhandle Groundwater Conservation District, said he disputes DOE's contention that high-explosives have not been detected in Ogallala groundwater off the site. In the past, Pantex officials have detected high-explosives off the Pantex site to the southeast, but officials have said the contamination has not shown up in repeated samplings. "They have said 'we will clean up to such and such a level.... They haven't detected it at levels above the cleanup levels, but that doesn't mean it's not there," Brady said. "High explosives are not naturally occurring compounds. I don't think the landowners contaminated their own wells with explosives." On the northern edge of Pantex, three types of solvents have turned up in Ogallala monitoring wells at the plant's burning grounds, a site where workers once routinely flash-burned chemicals in open pits. Thirteen volatile organic compounds have been detected in the Ogallala Aquifer. Pantex officials said only one type of solvent contamination - trichloroethylene - has been confirmed to have exceeded federal drinkingœ water standards. Southeast of the plant in the perched aquifer, 27 types of VOCs, 15 high-explosives and one type of metal have been linked to Pantex operations. Another plume of hexavalent chromium - a toxic chemical made infamous by the movie "Erin Brockovich" - has been detected in perched groundwater near the site of some former cooling towers. On the plant's southeast side, a massive pump-and-treatment system now pumps out contaminated groundwater and removes high explosive and chromium contamination. According to the state, high-explosive perched groundwater contamination exists up to a half-mile east of Pantex's boundaries. Last year in March, neighbors' concerns about the Ogallala Aquifer reached a fever pitch when plant and state officials acknowledged a nine-month delay in publicly reporting TCE contamination in the Ogallala. TCE is an industrial solvent that is a probable carcinogen linked to liver and kidney damage, birth defects and childhood leukemia. Later that month, Pantex and state officials called a public meeting to field questions about the contamination. A crowd of concerned landowners greeted them with folded arms and pointed questions. "Quite frankly we had a breakdown" in reporting procedures, said Ben Pellegrini, then-plant manager for former Pantex contractor Mason & Hanger Corp. Some Pantex critics claimed the plant tried to cover up the contamination incident, a charge that plant officials, DOE officials and Texas regulators flatly denied. "It's moving farther and faster than people expect," Beverly Gattis, president of the Amarillo environmental group Serious Texans Against Nuclear Dumping, said of off-site groundwater contamination. "Too much has been said to persuade people that things are OK when they actually didn't know enough to make that kind of claim." In the wake of the contamination reporting incident, Pantex officials began mending fences with their neighbors and started providing more information to nearby landowners. Dan Glenn, manager of the Energy Department's Amarillo Area Office, said he wanted to establish a fresh rapport with landowners. "There was a mistrust between the information we were providing and what the neighbors were believing, perceiving," he said. "Our first focus was to get the facts out as we know them." Glenn said plant officials want to locate the full extent of contamination, and speed efforts to clean up the plant's groundwater and soil problems. "Trust takes a long time to build," he said. "We're not hiding anything." Pantex officials, he said, will remain mindful that they must keep landowners and the public informed of the groundwater situation. Just northwest of Pantex, neighbor Doris Smith's drinking water wells are routinely sampled under a new well testing program. She praises Glenn and efforts by Pantex's new contractor, BWXT, to provide more information to landowners, but wants more facts and figures. Smith says landowners and citizens' groups have pressured DOE into doling out more data. "I would say that the sampling program is just inadequate," she said. "It is not what we have envisioned as a protective measure for the neighboring water wells for the landowners and the neighbors to know that their water is quality water and that they do not have contamination problems emanating from Pantex." Smith says meetings between DOE and landowners have improved because neighbors now have more say in setting the agenda and tone of the gatherings. "We are making headway. I think it is like baby steps we are making. It seems like you make a couple of steps forward and then you go back a little," she said. Amarillo Globe-News ***************************************************************** 2 Pantex contamination Amarillo Globe-News March 11, 2001 By JENNIFER LUTZ Globe-News Staff Writer Farms, ranches and houses share the soil with the Pantex Plant, where workers assemble and disassemble nuclear warheads. Yellow signs outline the Pantex boundaries. Barbed wire cuts through the flat landscape. Off in the distance are crumbling bunkers - leftovers from another era. It's not so different from any rural Panhandle neighborhood. But some landowners have kept a wary eye on the plant since they learned their neighbor's work leaked into the water. Since Oct. 1, the Energy Department has taken water samples from the 33 adjacent landowners' wells. Each sample is analyzed for 274 different substances. In the most recent well samples, vanadium and thallium levels exceeded regulations. Pantex continues to investigate how the substances found their way into the water. The two contaminants can occur naturally and through man-made processes such as burning fuel oil, making steel and in hazardous waste sites, according to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Diseases Registry. But officials want to know why levels exceeded those of drinking water standards. They promise to keep neighbors informed. Pantex officials announced trichloroethylene findings last year in March, a delay of nine months from when the solvent was located in a well. The plant now supplies bottled water for six families. Pantex officials are considering alternatives such as filters instead of the never-ending supply of blue bottles. "I don't think that I would like to live in my home for an extended period of time, surviving only on bottled water," said Denny Ruddy, general manager for new contractor BWXT Pantex. "It's reassuring to be able to go to the tap and drink some water." Words and phrases such as hexavalent chromium, volatile organic compound and maximum contaminant level have become part of the vocabulary of the Pantex neighbors. These terms describe the quality of their drinking water. Some neighbors draw the short straw and continue to live with contaminants in their private wells. Others stay lucky, and their water remains clean. Now, they must wait and see. An undesirable neighbor Dave and Lori Henderson bought their dream house in March 1998. They liked that their children could grow up riding motorcycles in the back yard. The land provided a great place to explore the outdoors without worrying about cars or city noises. Soon after they moved, Pantex began setting off high-explosive blasts that shook their ivory-colored farmhouse. Cracks formed, and they watched their house settle on its foundation in unusual ways. But that was not the worst of it. A year later, they heard reports of contamination in nearby wells. They wanted to move. "I sure wouldn't live out here if I had to do it again," Lori Henderson said. "I'd tell people not to move out here, definitely." They put their house on the market in February 2000, but only five days later the DOE reported traces of the toxin TCE in a nearby well. "As far as the water is concerned, probably in the future it is going to get to us," Lori Henderson said. "It's not here now, they say, but they're the only ones testing." The couple, their 15-year-old son, Aaron, and 13-year-old daughter, Brittany, now must cook with and drink water provided by Pantex. For bathing, laundry and every other use, they still rely on the tap. The Henderson well is tested every month. No health issues can be concretely connected to the water, but fears about the water are beginning to show. "There still are some concerns on the part of our neighbors that, aside from drinking the water, there may be other health effects," Ruddy said. Dave and Lori Henderson have had cysts removed. When Lori Henderson takes showers, her back and chest break out. "It never has before," she said with a smile. "But there's supposed to be nothing in the water." So, the family is stuck with a house they don't want and no potential buyers. Only a few years after moving in, they want to take their children away from their dream home and nuclear neighbor. "If this house wasn't next to here, it would be all right," Lori Henderson said. "But it is." 'They've always been pretty good' Tall, block letters spell out the family name above the entrance to the Kincade driveway. Farm trucks and tractors line the gravel road. The arched gateway that is one of the last for the cattle to see is the first for neighbors and guests. "I just like living out here," said Charles Kincade, sitting at his kitchen table. "It's better than in town." Across the paved road, a yellow sign warns passers-by the government owns that land. "We've never had any problems at all," Kincade said, throwing his thumb toward the Pantex Plant. "They've always been pretty good." Charles and Debra Kincade live on the west side of the government weapons plant. DOE now samples their drinking water, and so far the Kincade wells are clean. "I'm sure they might have a small contamination in a small area, but they seem like they keep everything cleaned up good," Charles Kincade said. "I feel as safe here as I would next to ASARCO. Any major deal could have some kind of pollution, but I think as much safety stuff as they do, I feel a lot safer with them." And Charles Kincade understands some of the details of the Pantex operation. He worked on the Texas Tech Research Farm, on the south side of the Pantex Plant, for more than 10 years. "I remember a long time ago, some of the protesters when I worked over here on the research farm, they stopped me coming out of the gate and they thought maybe I could tell them animals were dying and neighbors were dying early, but none of that was happening," he said. "So they weren't very happy with my answer." Charles Kincade has leased land from the government on the north part of the plant for his cattle operation. He said he is thankful Pantex has improved its relationship with nearby landowners and shares more about what goes on behind the closed gates. "For so many years, it was too secret where if there was something going wrong you wouldn't have known about it anyway because they kept it too secret," he said. "I think it does need to have an oversight of another regulatory deal besides just DOE, like TNRCC. But you just can't completely strangle the deal either." 'All I want is clean water' Lee Cockrell can rope a calf in eight seconds, and he learned how to take a shower in the same amount of time. DOE has found various levels of high explosives on Cockrell's land southeast of the plant, in his drinking well that draws water from the Ogallala Aquifer. He developed hives, and his doctor linked the condition to the water. Cockrell was told to keep his showers short. "First thing, I was the best ol' boy in the world for about three or four years," he said. "Then when they found out there was true pollution out there, they start doing a number on you." In 1998, former contractor Mason & Hanger told the rancher not to drink his water. Instead, the plant offered to supply Cockrell with bottled water. "I couldn't think of anybody that I would rather not drink their water than something Pantex would provide you," he said. "I think it would be the dumbest thing you could do." In 1890, Cockrell's ancestors homesteaded the 960 acres that surround the house and barn. Cockrell keeps detailed records of his dealings with Pantex stuffed in a blue and pink bag. He wrote to government officials for several years, asking for only one thing - the truth about his water. "All I want is clean water," Cockrell said. "I don't want to sue anybody." The rancher has seen dozens of DOE, Pantex, Mason & Hanger, and government officials come and go. "That's one of my frustrations," he said. "They get somebody in there, and as soon as they get knowledgable, they ship 'em off to a chicken farm in El Paso." Cockrell receives a $1,000 check each year for the monitoring wells DOE placed on his property. The government tests his water four times a year, looking for high explosives and other contaminants. Cockrell said he is keeping his distance from his nuclear neighbor. "The least you have to do with them, the better. That's the advice I tell all the neighbors," Cockrell said. Even with his strong feelings about Pantex's spreading contamination, Cockrell still supports the plant and its workers. The atomic bomb saved almost 100,000 Americans from dying in World War II, Cockrell said. Inherited problems Sometimes Jeri Osborne forgets. Each night she goes into the bathroom and almost automatically turns on the tap water. She knows she should not reach for the faucet, but it is a habit. Jeri and Jim Osborne live on the north side of the Pantex Plant, sandwiched between the site's burning grounds and Amarillo's city water wells. Like the Hendersons, the Osbornes keep Pantex-supplied bottled water on hand. Their house was passed down from Jim Osborne's father, who bought the property in 1929. In 1941, government officials began to scout land for the Army Ordnance Corps. "They thought they were lucky because they didn't take this place," Jeri Osborne said about her in-laws. "They probably would have been lucky if they had." The family of five moved into the house in 1962. "If I knew then what I know now, I certainly wouldn't have raised my family here," Jeri Osborne said. The couple filed a lawsuit in 1997, seeking money for property damages they allegedly received as a result of a high-explosives test in 1995. The case is still pending. The Osbornes regularly attend the public meetings held by DOE and Pantex. They want to learn all they can about their groundwater. ***************************************************************** 3 CIA overstated speed of Soviet nuclear growth ContraCostaTimes.com *Published Saturday, March 10, 2001 * + Experts disagree on the reasons for the mistaken Cold War forecasts, which likely influenced U.S. plans and defense spending By Jonathan S. Landay KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS WASHINGTON -- For more than 10 years during the Cold War, U.S. intelligence forecasts greatly exaggerated the pace at which the former Soviet Union would improve its long-range nuclear forces, a newly declassified CIA document indicated Friday. The summary of a 1989 CIA internal review said that every major intelligence assessment from 1974 to 1986 -- a period covering at least three presidencies -- "substantially" overestimated the Kremlin's plans to modernize and expand its strategic nuclear arsenal. The document raised new questions about how well the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies judged the Soviet Union's aims and intentions, and the extent to which mistaken analyses influenced U.S. military spending and Washington's defense and foreign policies. The persistent errors also raise troubling questions about the intelligence community's ability to collect reliable information on today's targets, which are more diverse and even harder for spies to penetrate than the Soviet Union was. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union's force of nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarines and long-range bombers was the U.S. intelligence community's primary target. But today's spies must try to keep track of international terrorists, rogue nuclear- weapons programs and computer hackers, and also plumb the minds of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and North Korea's Kim Jong Il, all of which is much harder than counting missile silos in Kazakhstan or estimating the wheat crop in Ukraine. The study is part of more than 19,000 pages of documents that have been declassified for a two-day conference on the CIA's analysis of the Soviet Union from 1947 to 1991, which opened Friday at Princeton University in New Jersey. The documents were scrubbed of material still considered important to national security. Titled "Intelligence Forecasts of Soviet Intercontinental Attack Forces: An Evaluation of the Record," the study reviewed the U.S. intelligence community's projections of efforts to modernize Soviet nuclear forces in the 1960s, '70s and '80s. The forecasts, known as National Intelligence Estimates, were intended to guide the president and his top aides in setting defense and foreign policies, including military spending and the size of U.S. nuclear forces. An NIE represents the consensus of 13 agencies, including the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency, which frequently disagreed about the severity of the Soviet threat. The study found that predicting the rate of Soviet nuclear-force modernization "has proven to be the most difficult aspect of Soviet strategic forces to project." As an example, it cited a 1975 forecast that said by 1985 more than 90 percent of Soviet long-range missiles and bombers would be replaced. "In reality, the Soviets replaced less than 60 percent of them," the study said. "This tendency to substantially overestimate the rate of (Soviet) force modernization occurred in every NIE published from 1974 to 1986, and it was true for every projected force -- whether it assumed high, moderate or low levels of effort," the study continued. In another example, it said an NIE published in 1985 -- the beginning of former President Reagan's second term -- "projected that virtually the entire (Soviet) ICBM force would be replaced within 10 years." But by 1989, "more than one-third of the projection period has passed, and so far only about 10 percent of the force is new," the study said. Another document showed that inaccurate forecasting continued in a 1988 NIE. This one projected that Moscow could field up to 18,000 intercontinental nuclear weapons by the late 1990s if the United States deployed Reagan's proposed space-based national missile-defense system, known as the Strategic Defense Initiative, or SDI. In fact, the cash-strapped Russian military has struggled in recent years to maintain an aging force of some 6,000 nuclear warheads and a deteriorating command and control system. The study attributed the tendency to overestimate Soviet nuclear-modernization plans to a number of reasons, including the intelligence community's failure "to correctly understand Soviet military requirements." Intelligence analysts also relied on the rate of a massive Soviet missile buildup in the late 1960s "as a guide for future deployment rates, but that rate of deployment was never approached again," the study said. Melvin Goodman, a former senior CIA Soviet analyst, said the study bolstered criticism that intelligence assessments of the Soviet threat were deliberately inflated to justify increases in U.S. defense spending and nuclear forces, as well as SDI. "This is the first time that the CIA has gone on the record confirming the exaggeration of (Soviet) force modernization," said Goodman, who teaches at the National War College in Washington. Other experts disagreed, saying the overestimates were due to intelligence analysts' habit of using "worst-case" scenarios to protect themselves from later accusations that they had underestimated a threat to the nation's security. Fritz Ermarth, another former senior CIA Soviet analyst, said U.S. defense budgets and nuclear force levels in the 1970s and '80s were driven more by actual deployments of Soviet nuclear forces than by forecasts. ***************************************************************** 4 DOE told not to cut nuke site cleanup *March 09, 2001* By Glenn Roberts Jr. STAFF WRITER LIVERMORE -- Anti-nuclear and environmental groups, following the lead of a group of 10 congressmen, are urging Energy Department officials not to cut cleanup spending at nuclear labs and production sites. Members of the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, a national network of about 30 nuclear watchdog groups, on Wednesday sent a letter to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham expressing "grave concern" about possible reductions to the Energy Department's cleanup budget. The letter also questions whether money will be stripped from environmental cleanup in favor of increases for defense-related programs. Marylia Kelley of Livermore-based Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment said Thursday that budget cuts for cleanup could be bad news for contaminated sites at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory and its high-explosives test site near Tracy. Both sites are on the federal Environmental Protection Agency's Superfund list, which includes some of the most heavily contaminated sites in the nation. Joseph Davis, an Energy Department spokesman, said Thursday that the Energy Department's proposed budget will be released April 3. "The secretary appreciates the interest shown by stakeholders concerned about funding for ongoing cleanup at (Livermore Lab) sites." Abraham "is committed to protecting the environment where our sites are located, as well as the health and safety of residents and employees," Davis said. On Feb. 14, a group of congressmen led by Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., sent a letter to Abraham urging adequate funding for nuclear waste cleanup programs. The letter cited a concern based upon "recent press reports that (cleanup programs) may receive a funding cut or level funding." In the 2002 budget year, the Energy Department's environmental cleanup program "must realize a significant increase to continue to meet its legally binding cleanup commitments with our states in order to reduce long-term costs," the congressional coalition stated in a letter to Abraham. The letter also states that cleanup activities are "at a critical point next year" and a lack of spending could lead to environmental health risks and lawsuits from states that are home to Energy Department waste sites. Other members of the congressional coalition, called the House Nuclear Cleanup Caucus, include Reps. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., Tony Hall, D-Ohio, Arno Houghton, R-N.Y., Rob Portman, R-Ohio, Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, Ted Strickland, D-Ohio., Mark Udall, D-Colo., Zach Wamp, R-Tenn., and Ed Whitfield, R-Ky. NewsChoice.com ***************************************************************** 5 New bills may rain down $3 billion on nuke labs Planned facilities include nanotechnology research *March 09, 2001* By Glenn Roberts Jr. STAFF WRITER LIVERMORE -- Legislation introduced this year proposes spending $3 billion over the next five years to support supercomputing, nanotechnology, recruitment and technology commercialization at Energy Department national laboratories. Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., has pitched a volley of bills since Jan. 22 that would benefit national labs such as Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories in Livermore and New Mexico, and Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico. The most expensive initiative proposed by Bingaman is the Advanced Scientific Computing Act, which would cost a total of about $1.5 billion over five years, beginning in 2002. This bill, coauthored by Sens. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, and Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., would pay for supercomputer research and development and would support advances in computer technology that could help to "solve grand-challenge science problems." Climate predictions The research program, which would cost $250 million in its first year, could lead to better predictions of global climate, a clearer picture of the structure and function of proteins in human DNA, and improved efficiency in combustion systems, among other aims, the bill states. Another bill proposed by Bingaman, the Nanoscale Science and Engineering Research Act, would cost $1.36 billion over five years, and $160 million in its first year. Nanotechnology is the manipulation of atoms and molecules to create micro-machines, such as tiny motors or computers. "Significant advances" in some areas of nanotechnology are necessary before the emerging field can benefit energy and manufacturing industries, the bill states. The legislation would support the development of new scientific instruments and new facilities for the nanotechnology research. The next generation Bingaman, along with Sens. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., and Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, introduced a bill Feb. 1 that would authorize spending of $239.8 million over five years to bolster fellowships, grants, outreach programs and training for the next generation of nuclear scientists and engineers. Titled the University Nuclear Science and Engineering Act, the bill cites a "serious decline" in university nuclear science and engineering programs, with a 50 percent drop in the number of four-year nuclear engineering degree programs. "The supply of bachelor-degree nuclear science and engineering personnel in the United States is at a 35-year-low," the bill states. Bingaman said in a statement, "If we lose the industry (programs) that now train nuclear-capable scientists and engineers, our national will find it much harder to meet the challenges of improving our health, maintaining our energy supplies and dealing with the legacies of the Cold War." At Livermore Lab and Sandia lab in Livermore, a higher-than-expected rate of retirements and other attrition has led the labs to launch more aggressive recruitment programs in an effort to hire hundreds of needed nuclear engineers. "Future neglect in the nation's investment in human resources for the nuclear sciences will lead to a downward spiral. As the number of nuclear science departments shrink, faculties age, and training reactors close, the appeal of nuclear science will be lost to future generations of students," the legislation states. The proposes $30.2 million for the program in 2002, reaching a high of $64.1 million in 2006. On Feb. 6, Bingaman, Domenici and Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., introduced legislation that seeks to improve the transfer of national laboratories' technology to private industry. Among the aims of this initiative is to encourage collaborations between national labs, industry, academia and other government agencies. The legislation also seeks to stimulate the development of clusters of technology companies to support lab missions. And the bill would authorize labs to offer technical assistance to small businesses. NewsChoice.com ***************************************************************** 6 Legacy of Nevada nuclear tests explored in fiction, non-fiction work *Susan Skorupa* Reno Gazette-Journal Sunday March 11th, 2001 Mushroom clouds were everywhere in Nevada in the 1950s. Postcard skies splashed with deadly white puffs were photographed from the tops of Las Vegas casinos. Beauty queens in southern Nevada and southwestern Utah posed in costumes or on props that looked like anvil-shaped clouds. Businesses within the sprawling reach of the Nevada Test Site northwest of Las Vegas, where the U.S. tested its nuclear arsenal, tacked the words “atomic” or “nuclear” onto their names to cash in on the excitement. Nuclear tests were tourist attractions. Clark County, not to be outdone by beauty queens, designed an official seal with a drawing of a mushroom cloud. Now it’s a new century and we know better. In line with the 50th anniversary of the first nuclear explosion at the Nevada Test Site on Jan. 27, 1951, you can read a fiction thriller set in southwestern Utah with tentacles that reach back to the Nevada Test Site in 1952 and the resulting “downwind” cancer claims. Or you can revisit the era with a reissued and updated account of the culture and politics that brought about the controversy and litigation that today surround the test site, written by a Nevada state senator. “Downwinders” (Black Ledge Press, $14.95 paperback) by Curtis Oberhansly and Dianne Nelson Oberhansly is due in mid-April. It’s a thriller that takes place in modern-day Utah with flashbacks to the Nevada Test Site of the 1950s, where above-ground nuclear testing sent radiated fallout into the atmosphere where winds carried it east. The plot involves classified documents, murder, espionage, cancer victims and testing secrets. “Bombs in the Backyard” (University of Nevada Press, $21.95 paperback) was published first in 1986 and involves its share of documents, secrets and victims. Nevada Sen. A. Costandina “Dina” Titus, D. Las Vegas, wrote it and has updated the new edition with the lawsuits, legislation and anecdotes generated by nuclear testing since the first publication. Titus’s first exposure to nuclear testing in Nevada and to downwinders came in 1982 when U.S. Sen. Howard Cannon, D. Nev., put her to work researching the issues and the test site. “The more I researched, the more interested I became,” Titus said in a recent interview. “I had some trouble doing research because so much information was still classified. In fact, questioning the Department of Energy made me kind of an enemy of the government. Kind of suspect.” She requested a lot of information through the Freedom of Information Act. With one request -- at a cost of about 25 cents a page -- she received about 300 pages with most of the information neatly blacked out. Things have changed since 1986, she said. Since that time, court cases involving compensation for exposure to radiation due to testing are closed. Laws have been enacted surrounding the issues, although the results of all the years of testing are far from settled. “Some people still have not received compensation,” Titus said of the lawsuits and laws that have struggled through the courts and Congress for years. “The questions still are on the table in many cases about who and what illnesses are covered. The issue has not gone away.” Titus has summarized the 15 years since “Bombs” first was published in a chapter titled “Transitions of the 1990s.” In it, she summarizes the legislation and legal actions involving downwinders and military personnel exposed to radiation through testing and other maneuvers during the Cold War. She explains the effect the end of the Cold War had on nuclear testing. It explores the history of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, negotiated by President Clinton and signed by more than 150 countries, but not by the U.S. Titus also covers the television and film projects that appeared in the late 1980s and 1990s that took on nuclear armament, war, and nuclear power. On March 1, 2001, Titus proposed a bill in the state legislature for a Nevada license plate featuring a mushroom cloud. Sales would raise money for the Nevada Test Site Historical Foundation, which is trying to create a museum at the site. Without approval of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, Titus said, nuclear testing could again occur there. Meanwhile, high-tech aerospace industries are attempting to locate on the complex. The great population growth within the state -- more than 4,000 new residents a month in southern Nevada alone -- will affect the site’s future, Titus said in the book’s epilogue. Those newcomers have, Titus writes, “values and beliefs very different from the political culture of independence, isolation, and individualism that characterized the state for so many years and fostered support or at least tolerance for ‘bombs in the backyard.’” “Downwinders” Curtis and Dianne Nelson Oberhansly both come from downwinder backgrounds where residents living downwind of the testing watched the fallout-laden clouds roll through the sky after a nuclear test. Curtis is a lifelong Utah resident who was a kid when the fallout clouds rolled over, Diane Oberhansly said. “I was born on a homestead ranch 90 miles from ‘ground zero’ (the Nevada Test Site),” she added. “I remember stories my parents told me about the clouds coming over. Of course, they did not realize the dangers.” The idea for “Downwinders” came from a story about the West that Dianne was writing. Curtis Oberhansly made some suggestions and the couple realized this was a book they could write together. Their downwinder experiences are things the Oberhanslys feel strongly about. “Even though a specific population considers themselves downwinders in connection with the Nevada Test Site, we’re all downwinders,” Curtis said. “We all live around power plants or contaminated water. We think the story has implications for not just Western residents, but for everyone in the U.S. and for those in the future too.” Writing a story as popular fiction about the test site and its effects broadens its appeal, Curtis said. “There’s a great deal written about this as non-fiction,” Dianne said. “But in fiction we’ve not found many well-written depictions of this experience. Fiction has a certain reach that non-fiction does not. I think that motivates us to tell a big full story.” ©2001 Reno Gazette-Journal ***************************************************************** 7 Livermore lab review isn't new, say critics ContraCostaTimes.com Valley Times *Published Sunday, March 11, 2001 * + Environmental groups say a favorable Energy Department report on the lab's laser project rehashes one they're fighting in court By Peter Felsenfeld TIMES STAFF WRITER LIVERMORE -- Three weeks before an important congressional evaluation, the U.S. Department of Energy has drafted a new progress report for the National Ignition Facility that critics say is designed to sidestep their legal challenge of a previous project review. DOE officials characterize the new review, conducted between Feb. 27 and March 7 at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, as a routine inspection. However, environmental groups say the report amounts to a cleverly disguised rework of a previous review now tied up in court. "This is just a normally scheduled six-month review," said DOE Oakland spokesman John Belluardo. The report is in its draft stage and has not been released. Critics charge the latest examination is nothing more than a slick redo of the so-called "Carlson-Lehman Review" completed late last year, which found that lab officials had overcome numerous managerial issues that have become lightning rods for the laser facility's critics. The Natural Resources Defense Council and Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment challenged the Carlson-Lehman Review in federal court, arguing it violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act. The federal open meetings law seeks to ensure outside advisors hired by a federal agency remain impartial and immune from agency influence. Under the law, if advisers sit on standing review committees, the meetings must be open to the public and documents made available upon request. The suit filed in October alleges eight non-government employees sat on subcommittees during the Carlson-Lehman review, thus triggering open meeting law requirements. Because of the alleged violations, the Natural Resources Defense Council has asked a judge to keep the Energy Department from using the report to bolster its position before Congress. The new review, conducted by largely the same people who did the earlier examination, includes five of the eight advisers in question: Michel Andre of the French atomic energy commission; consultants Gene DeSaulnier and Perry Wallerstein; and Robert McCrory and Steve Loucks of the University of Rochester. Only this time, they are listed as advisors and not committee members, according to a DOE list of review participants. Christopher Paine, a senior researcher for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the DOE found a clever way to avoid the public accountability required by law. "They've simply created a semantic distinction," Paine said. "These people were committee members a few months ago and now they've been re-listed as consultants. Aside from that, the format is basically the same, as far as we can tell." Paine said his group will probably challenge the new review, as well. "The DOE has come up with an interesting FACA evasion strategy and it's an open question whether the courts will buy it," Paine said. By March 31, the Energy Department must present Congress with a progress report on the laser project, which is $1 billion over budget and four years behind schedule. If legislators decide the project is back on track, they will release $69 million held back from this fiscal year's budget. The 192-beam laser project is designed to simulate the temperature and pressure conditions found only in nuclear reactions and the sun. The National Ignition Facility, which will be one of the world's largest lasers, represents a cornerstone of the country's Stockpile Stewardship Program, which seeks to test the reliability of nuclear weapons without exploding them.* Peter Felsenfeld covers Dublin and Sunol. Reach him at 925-847-2184 or pfelsenfeld@cctimes.com.* ContraCostaTimes.com ***************************************************************** 8 Hanford battles Russian invaders: Radioactive plants cost plenty to snag as tumbleweeds Seattle Times: Local News: Sunday, March 11, 2001, 12:00 a.m. Pacific by Linda Ashton The Associated Press JACKIE JOHNSTON / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS RICHLAND - The Cold War may be over, but the Hanford nuclear reservation continues to battle Russian invaders - radioactive tumblin' tumbleweeds. Russian thistle is a dead menace here on the windswept desert of south-central Washington. Each winter, the deep taproot on the plant decays, and the spiny brown skeleton above ground breaks off and rolls away. "Our dream is that we have this place tumbleweed-free," says Ray Johnson, a biological-control manager for radiation protection at Fluor Hanford, the contractor managing the U.S. Department of Energy site. But that's about as likely as a Soviet reunion. Less than 1 percent of the tumbleweeds corralled and compacted at Hanford are radioactive, but the ones that are cost a bundle to clean up. Hanford is the most-contaminated nuclear site in the country, built in 1943 for the top-secret Manhattan Project. For 40 years, Hanford made plutonium for the nation's nuclear arsenal, including the atomic bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan. Russian thistle, a nonnative or invader species, is a particular problem at burial sites for radioactive waste, where their taproots reach down as far as 20 feet and suck up such nasty elements as strontium and cesium. A stiff winter wind can send the tumbleweed as far away as four miles, and then "we've lost control of our contamination," Johnson says. But most get hung up within a few hundred yards, usually on sagebrush, fences or in stairwells at the buildings scattered across the site. Two years ago, uncontrolled contamination spread by fruit flies at the site made Hanford a national laughingstock, spoofed by humor columnist Dave Barry and in the syndicated comic strip "Sylvia." The flies had been attracted to a soil fixative with saccharin in the base that was being sprayed on a contaminated site. They flew to a lunchroom and spread the taint to nearby trash bins, which wound up at the Richland municipal landfill. Johnson can laugh - a little bit - about it now, recalling attempts to find the source of the contamination. As crews ran radiation detectors around the lunchroom and passed over a fruit fly, "the contamination flew away," he recalls. The journeys of a few thousand fruit flies cost $2.5 million to clean up. Riding herd on Hanford's tumbleweeds and its flying insects is part of an annual $4 million integrated soil, vegetation and animal control (ISVAC) program, run by DynCorp. for Fluor. Radiation-control specialists survey the tumbleweeds on the 560-square-mile reservation, using Geiger-Müller counters that click when radioactivity is present. If contaminated tumbleweeds are found, a crew is called in for disposal duty. "The weeds are fairly low danger," says Todd Ponczoch, a radiation-control technician, scanning tumbleweeds along a fenceline with a Geiger-Müller counter. None was registering as radioactive on a recent trip. A large, 3-pound radioactive tumbleweed might measure out at 150 millirads, or about a hundreth of the allowable annual dose of radiation per person at Hanford. Radioactive tumbleweeds are pitchforked by specially trained and clothed workers into a regulated garbage truck, compacted and disposed of at an on-site, low-level waste dump. A trail of paperwork is required as well. The sites must be satisfactorily cleaned up and covered with 6 inches of good fill material. Nonradioactive tumbleweeds are territory for the Teamsters. "It's an easy job. It gets us outside," says Joe Aldridge, a Teamster from Richland, as he pitchforks a plant into the garbage truck, which can hold about 1,800 pounds of tumbleweeds. "Digging ditches is a lot worse." The uncontaminated tumbleweeds are dumped in an open pit. Up until five or six years ago, the "clean" tumbleweeds were burned, and the ash was buried. But the state Department of Health put a halt to that practice for fear that some radioactive tumbleweeds might find their way into the mix and disperse contamination into the air. Preventive measures are also part of the control program and include backpack, roadside and aerial spraying with herbicide to kill the thistle. Sometimes a bio-barrier - a costly engineered textile - is laid down to block the formation of thistle roots. "What you've got to do is make sure your contaminated areas are tumbleweed-free," Johnson says. Clearly, this isn't Kansas, where at least two enterprising souls are raising Russian thistles, turning them into tumbleweeds and selling them for home décor. But in the vast, open and uncontaminated portions of the reservation, some areas are simply left to nature. Even Johnson acknowledges their rightful place in the world: "If we didn't have them, the West wouldn't be the West, and we couldn't sing `Tumblin' Tumbleweeds.' " Copyright © 2001 The Seattle Times Company --> --> ***************************************************************** 9 Moral duty to clean up Flats DenverPost.com - Editorials Mar. 11, 2001 - A political battle could leave Colorado stuck with radioactive wastes for a needlessly long time, unless our congressional delegation's members form alliances with their peers from other states. Just a few years ago, federal experts predicted that Rocky Flats, the defunct nuclear bomb trigger factory north of Golden, couldn't be cleaned up before 2070. But Rocky Flats managers revamped the plans to close and cleanse the atomic site by 2010 - then embraced the ambitious goal of finishing by 2006. The 2010 goal is very doable, and the 2006 target looks possible. Even the ever-skeptical General Accounting Office grudgingly acknowledged in its recent, otherwise critical report that Rocky Flats has a better chance today of meeting the 2006 goal than it did just two years ago. But cleaning up the nation's nuclear weapons complex is like a giant jigsaw puzzle, with costly, scary consequences if it's left unfinished. So Rocky Flats' target dates depend on key factors falling into place - and some of those elements now may be in jeopardy. The Bush administration's proposed budget protects the $657 million that Rocky Flats needs this year to make the 2006 goal. But closing Rocky Flats requires other nuclear defense facilities to be able to process and store the atomic wastes and weapons materials. Yet the Bush administration wants a $400 million across-the-board cut back this year in the U.S. Department of Energy. At least $130 million of that reduction will come from nuclear cleanup projects. If that happens, there will be nowhere to ship and process nuclear wastes and bomb-mak ing elements from Rocky Flats, so the radioactive material will just pile up in metro Denver's backyard. That backlog would blow the 2006 goal and could render the 2010 target impossible. Under that scenario, it would be difficult ever to get the Rocky Flats effort back on track. And Uncle Sam would squander an opportunity to prove that the Cold War's nuclear legacy can be cleaned up at all. One example of what's at risk: The DOE complex in Savannah River, S.C., is slated to develop the capabilities for processing and temporarily storing very sensitive atomic materials from Rocky Flats. The elements include plutonium metals and oxides, which haven't been molded into bomb triggers but could be, and highly enriched uranium that could fuel a nuclear device. Both are radioactive risks and potential terrorist targets, so they need to be carefully safe guarded. The U.S. government is supposed to build a special, exceptionally secure vault at Savannah River for some of the high-risk materials. But if the budget cuts go through, the vault's construction will be greatly delayed. In addition, Savannah River is supposed to combine some plutonium with a glass-like material (a process called vitrification) so the plutonium can't be ever used for atomic bombs. That plan is widely supported by peace activists and national security experts alike because it reduces terrorist threats and the risk of nuclear proliferation. Under the budget cuts, though, it's questionable whether Savannah River will have the bucks to operate the program as envisioned. The proposed reductions stir similar concerns at other nuclear facilities, including Los Alamos in New Mexico, Hanford in Washington, Oak Ridge in Tennessee and Lawrence Livermore in California. Ironically, the DOE nuclear cleanup budget cuts are small enough that restoring the funds won't hamstring President Bush's tax cut push or his plans to pour dollars into ongoing military needs. While all other civilian federal agencies no doubt will be scrambling to protect their turf, too, none can truthfully claim to be juggling the safekeeping of so much high-risk material. Moreover, if the cleanup at Rocky Flats is delayed, the government will spend additional sums in the coming years just to protect and store the material in a place that was never designed to keep the atomic wastes on hand for long periods. And postponing construction of better processing and storage facilities elsewhere will just drive up the unavoidable costs later. So in the long run, the proposed $130 million cut in DOE's nuclear cleanup budget will prove financially foolish. What's at stake is far more grave than the usual bickering about who gets the federal dough. What's really at issue is if the federal government will desert its moral duty to clean up its Cold War garbage, so our kids aren't haunted by the unfinished job decades from now. The members of the editorial board are William Dean Singleton, chairman and publisher; Glenn Guzzo, editor; Sue O'Brien, editorial page editor; Bob Ewegen, deputy editorial page editor; Peter G. Chronis, Angela Cortez, Al Knight, Penelope Purdy and Billie Stanton, editorial writers; Mike Keefe, cartoonist; Barbara Ellis, Peggy McKay, news editors. Copyright 2001 The Denver Post. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 10 Rocky Flats sends 2 more waste loads ANG News March 09, 2001 Rocky Flats sent two more shipments of radioactive waste from the former nuclear weapons plant Friday, marking the first time the facility has sent five loads in one week. The waste was shipped for disposal to the underground rooms excavated in ancient salt formations at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M. Kaiser-Hill Co., the contractor hired to clean up Rocky Flats, hopes to ship nine to 10 truckloads a week by the end of the year. "Just two years ago our ability to ship waste to WIPP was viewed as a potential obstacle to closure, and today we sent two shipments in a single day and five in a single week," Kaiser-Hill spokeswoman Jennifer Thompson said Friday. The transuranic waste that was shipped consists of radioactive leftovers, contaminated clothing and debris. WIPP opened in March 1999, and Rocky Flats made its first shipment June 15, 1999. ***************************************************************** 11 Production potential upsets some activists Augusta Georgia: Metro: 03/11/01 *Nuclear weapons facility considers plan to build radioactive ``pits'' with plutonium * *Web posted Sunday, March 11, 2001 By Brandon Haddock *Staff Writer* Not long ago, Savannah River Site was chosen to take apart the radioactive triggers of the nation's nuclear weapons. In the future, it might be responsible for putting them together. Although a decision won't be made for some time, some nuclear activists are concerned about the possibility that the federal nuclear-weapons site could become the nation's next producer of ``pits,'' the radioactive cores of nuclear weapons. The possibility stands in sharp contrast to an activity already planned for the site: dismantling the nation's thousands of surplus pits and using the radioactive plutonium inside to produce mixed-oxide, or MOX, fuel for nuclear-power plants. ``It's very dangerous work,'' Don Moniak, an Aiken resident and community organizer for the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League, said of pit production. ``It's something that's never been done at the site, this plutonium machining, and machining of plutonium is not an easy thing.'' Plutonium machining shapes the raw metal into a component for a nuclear weapon. Andrew Grainger, the site's compliance officer for the National Environmental Policy Act, said last month that SRS officials were prepared to write a report detailing the impact of a pit-production plant on the local environment, economy and public health. But work on a report is not under way, and it is too early to speculate whether the site will be selected for any new plant or even whether such a plant will be built, Mr. Grainger said. The United States' ability to build pits has been limited since 1989, when the Department of Energy stopped production at Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site near Denver. The shutdown at Rocky Flats was driven by environmental issues. But new pits will be needed to replace aging ones in the nation's nuclear-weapons stockpile, according to reports by government researchers and outside observers. New Mexico's Los Alamos National Laboratory was selected in 1996 to produce 20 to 50 pits annually to replenish the stockpile. Savannah River Site was selected as a backup location if the nation needed to build weapons rapidly. SRS officials are involved in a study of whether a new plant will be needed, site officials acknowledged. ``SRS is assisting the Nuclear National Security Administration and the national labs in analyzing the mission needs for a pit-production facility that would have higher capacity than what is currently planned for Los Alamos National Laboratory,'' said Rick Ford, an Energy Department spokesman at SRS. ``The nuclear-weapons council agrees with the NNSA that pit-aging studies should be linked to a final go-ahead decision for a larger pit-production facility,'' Mr. Ford said. ``In addition, the results of the ongoing Department of Defense nuclear-posture evaluation may factor into the need for a modern pit-production facility.'' If the site were to become a producer of pits, it would mark the first time that SRS has made entire components of nuclear weapons. The site produced tritium and plutonium for weapons during the Cold War, but never assembled weapons components. Nevertheless, the site would be a natural choice for a new pit-production plant, some SRS boosters said. ``There really is no doubt that SRS from many perspectives is the site to do that,'' said J. Malvyn McKibben, executive director of Citizens For Nuclear Technology Awareness, an Aiken pro-nuclear group. ``We have all the infrastructure, we have a large physical facility and we have all of the technical expertise to do that better than anybody,'' Mr. McKibben said. ``I really believe that it will happen. ``It would be a very small facility, but it would be very much in the national interest to have that facility. You need to have somewhere in the country to make pits. It's not going to happen at Rocky Flats anymore. ``The only way I think anybody could object to it is if they objected to the nation maintaining a nuclear-weapons stockpile.'' But Mr. Moniak said some local residents might be angered by the prospect of the site becoming a more active producer of weapons materials, particularly after some SRS boosters championed the MOX mission as an effort to reduce the risk of nuclear war. ``A lot of people who were on the fence about the MOX mission were obviously swayed by the rhetoric of nonproliferation and making the world safer,'' he said. ``Most people I have talked to have a hard time understanding why the United States would need new plutonium pits. ``It shows that SRS keeps portraying itself as being in a cleanup mode, but they have gotten more and more into a production mode. It's a production site for tritium as it is, and now they are looking into becoming a production site for plutonium fuel and for pits.'' Reach Brandon Haddockat (706) 823-3409. All contents © 1996 - 2001 *The Augusta Chronicle*. All rights ***************************************************************** 12 Mock disaster tests agencies Augusta Georgia: Metro: 03/11/01 *Web posted Sunday, March 11, 2001 By *South Carolina Bureau* WINDSOR - Windsor firefight-ers rushed to the scene of an acci-dent near the county line between Aiken and Barnwell on Saturday after a frantic call from a passer-by who saw a bus flip over on the side of Hull Road and a truck loaded with radioactive waste burst into flames in a ditch off U.S. Highway 78. Fortunately, the accident wasn't real. Firefighters were at the scene five minutes after the call, finding seven students dead and nine others injured. Sixteen-year-old Paige Jamison's screams pierced the air. The Williston drama student gave a convincing performance that she had lost an arm in the crash that killed several of her friends. For four tense hours, 19 emergency crews from both counties worked as if it all were real, just as they will have to do if anything like Saturday's mock disaster ever really happens. As firefighters from Aiken and Barnwell counties try to enter a school bus, Ann Bass, of the Windsor Fire Department, records the injuries of Sheneke Williams, 15. The fake accident was part of an emergency preparedness exercise. *RON COCKERILLE/STAFF* So there really was an overturned bus, put at the intersection a day earlier along with flashing signs telling motorists to slow down for an exercise. And there really was a truck that really was on fire. Paige was rigged with a container of fake blood to spurt, and the lower part of her arm was wrapped by emergency medical technicians to look like a stump. She was classified as ``load and go,'' a severely injured victim in need of treatment fast. An ambulance took her to the Barnwell hospital, because this was its turn for a mandatory evaluation of how well it can handle serious emergencies with multiple deaths and injuries, said Lynne C. Clarke, public information officer for the Aiken County Department of Emergency Services. In this disaster drill, the containers of spent nuclear fuel did not burst. If they had, a different set of procedures would have gone into play to protect the neighborhood, Ms. Clarke said. As it was, people who live by the intersection were not evacuated, and a hazardous waste team determined there was no contamination. Although they knew their lives were not really at stake, the drama students said the experience was nerve-racking. Jessica Fields, 17, of Williston, didn't hesitate when someone asked what she had learned in the hour or more she was ``dead'' inside the overturned bus while workers sawed an opening in its yellow hide. ``I learned they leave dead people alone,'' she said. The injured, who had practiced symptoms for all sorts of trauma, including fractures and hypothermia, were cared for quickly, she said: ``But I got stepped on and moved all around, and people were pulled out over the top of me.'' Barnwell County Coroner Lloyd Ward and Aiken County Coroner Sue Townsend took part in the transportation emergency preparedness exercise. *RON COCKERILLE/STAFF* It was hard, she said, to stay still so long, and when the saw began cutting metal to open a rescue hole, she had to open one eye. That noise and shaking sensation was ``scary,'' said Michael Amaker, of Williston. The 16-year-old was supposed to be shaking anyway. His assigned symptoms were those of hypothermia, exposure to cold. And it was sobering, the students said, to see their friends in body bags - a grim reminder of how fragile life is, after all, even for the young. Dummies were used for the roles that could have caused real injuries to real people, Ms. Clarke said - such as getting crushed under a bus. Coroners from Aiken and Barnwell were there with deputies, and in a real disaster they would likely still be dealing with the news media and distraught families today. But in a test, the aftermath of tragedy was absent. The drill, training and preparedness strategies are part of a nationwide effort developed by the Transportation Emergency Preparedness Program of the U.S. Department of Energy to help local responders be ready for accidents that involve radioactive materials. Because Savannah River Site is in Aiken and Barnwell counties, local emergency units hold four drills a year, some bigger than others, but all geared to thinking about the unthinkable. The drills involve rescue squads, ambulance services, fire departments, medical personnel, law enforcement units, public works, coroners and school districts. Participants evaluated their performance informally Saturday, pointing out glitches and ideas for doing a better job in a real emergency. A formal report on the exercise will come out later this month. Reach at (803) 279-6895. All contents © 1996 - 2001 *The Augusta Chronicle*. All rights ***************************************************************** 13 U.S. May Have Been Cheated in Uranium Sale, Auditors Say The Salt Lake Tribune -- March 10, 2001* THE ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON -- When the government put enriched uranium estimated to be worth $10 million up for sale, it expected a good return. Instead, the U.S. Treasury received a scant $76,051, raising the ire of Energy Department investigators. A private contractor, who handled the sale, reaped millions of dollars, according to auditors. After a review of the sale, the department's inspector general concluded that the contractor, who prepared and packaged the uranium and negotiated the deal, was paid $3.4 million for "questionable costs." On top of that, Fluor Fernald Inc., received a $675,430 fee for handling the deal, nearly 10 times what the government made on the 1997 sale, said the inspector general's report recently made public. Still, the deal was vigorously defended Friday by the contractor and by the Energy Department office at the Fernald weapons plant near Cincinnati, where the uranium was located and is being disposed of as part of a general cleanup project. "We don't think the sale was a bad deal," said Glenn Griffiths, deputy director of the DOE site office at the Fernald facility. He said the alternative to the sale was to declare the uranium a waste and face huge disposal costs. Under the sale agreement, neither the name of the buyer nor the specific sale price can be made public for five years, said Griffiths. Other department sources said the company is a foreign uranium fuel provider. There were contradictory explanations Friday on how much money actually was paid for the 978 metric tons of uranium, which the buyer resells after it is diluted as commercial reactor fuel. ***************************************************************** 14 Pak doesn't want its top N-scientists anymore - The Hindustan Times Mubashir Zaidi (Islamabad, March 11) THE MILITARY Government in Pakistan has decided to terminate the services of top nuclear scientists including the father of the country's nuclear programme Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, *The Nation* disclosed in a report published on Sunday. The report said that the government has in principle decided to terminate the services of Dr AQ Khan as chairman, Kahuta Research Laboratories and Dr Ashfaq Ahmed, who is currently serving as chairman, Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission. Quoting relevant quarters, the newspaper report claimed that the government would ensure that the new chairmen of the Kahuta Research Laboratories and Atomic Energy Commission wind up the process of uranium enrichment. It was stated that the decision was made in line with the conditions levied by international donors that Pakistan's defence budget and other important fiscal matters will be monitored by the International Monetary Fund before the disbursement of new loans. "Moreover, raise in Pakistan's defence budget has been made conditional to the betterment in economic situation by the world creditors," the report added. However, Mr AQ Khan was not immediately available for his comments on the report. ***************************************************************** 15 Revealed: more DU shells misfired Sunday Herald - www.sundayherald.com Test-range contamination may be four times greater Publication Date: Mar 11 2001 FOUR times more depleted uranium (DU) shells than previously admitted have misfired and caused radioactive contamination at a military range in south-west Scotland. The Ministry of Defence confirmation will reignite fears about risks to the health of people who live around the Dundrennan army range near Kirkcudbright. It will also put the MoD under renewed pressure to cancel its plans to test more DU shells over the next few months. Misfired shells can create clouds of toxic uranium dust, which is so dangerous because it can be inhaled. John Large, an independent nuclear consultant who advises the government, said: "I am aghast at this business. I find it alarming that the military think they can get away with it. It is so primitive that they haven't thought this through." He pointed out that no nuclear company would get authorisation to dump DU in this manner on land. "If these shells hit hard rocks, the DU will get red-hot and oxidise in the air. If the wind is blowing in the wrong direction, that can cause a potential respiratory problem for people living nearby." Two weeks ago, defence officials said that up to two dozen DU shells had misfired at Dundrennan since 1982, hitting the ground instead of plunging into the sea and resulting in levels of radioactive contamination in breach of safety limits in some areas. Although the MoD insisted that any contamination had been cleaned up, official scientific surveys unearthed by the Sunday Herald disclosed that it had been impossible to find many of the misfired shells. But now, defence minister John Spellar has admitted that there have been 93 occasions on which DU shells have misfired and caused contamination. Some shells fell short of their targets and others broke into pieces in the air. Spellar said: "A total of 14 projectiles struck the ground prior to reaching the target. Ten such strikes are believed to have occurred in various locations prior to April 1995. Since this time, there was one strike in 1997, one in 1999 and two in 2000. All strikes since April 1995 have been close to the target and have been managed appropriately. "In addition, it is believed that, between 1983 and 1993, there were some 79 occasions on which rounds partially broke up during firing. They were all at the Raeberry firing point, which is 180 metres from the cliff edge. In all cases, though some fragments hit the ground, the majority of the mass proceeded out to sea." Spellar also stated that the MoD-sponsored Defence Evaluation and Research Agency was now conducting a new survey of Dundrennan "to find any previously undetected fragments on the range". A new analysis suggested that the total number of DU shells tested at the range over the last two decades was 6400 instead of 6900. Spellar's admissions came in a letter to the local Scottish National Party MP, Alasdair Morgan, who has been demanding to know the truth about misfired shells. Morgan said yesterday: "The contamination is potentially four times greater than we knew and that is very worrying." Morgan pointed out that people could walk across the range when it wasn't being used. He called on the MoD to be more honest about what had gone wrong there. "It could be either a cock-up or a conspiracy, but one does sense a deliberate desire on the DU story not to give us the whole truth," he said. The MoD also failed last week to find any of the 90 DU samples it had lost at the bottom of the Solway Firth in February. Divers from the nuclear submarine base at Faslane on the Clyde spent two days searching the seabed for them in murky conditions but found nothing. The samples had been put there last year in an attempt to find out how fast the DU would corrode in seawater. But the Sunday Herald reported two weeks ago that a hefty rig containing most of the samples had been badly damaged by storms and the DU had disappeared. The search for the missing DU will resume in May. ***************************************************************** 16 Kursk salvage op delayed by lack of cash-Interfax Reuters | BBC News | Sky News | Photos Sunday March 11, 02:47 PM MOSCOW (Reuters) - A lack of cash has forced Russia to delay an operation to raise the sunken nuclear-powered submarine Kursk from the Arctic seabed, Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov has been quoted as saying. Interfax quoted Klebanov as saying that the Kursk, which sank in the Barents Sea last August killing all 118 men on board, would probably be raised in early autumn, rather than in July-August as was initially planned. "The decision to postpone the operation has been prompted by a delay in signing a contract between the Rubin company, which is in charge of it, and the international consortium, which includes Belgian and Norwegian companies," he said. "There are difficulties with raising cash for the operation," Klebanov added. The cause of the accident on board the Kursk, an 150-metre (492-foot) submarine which now rests 100 metres under the surface, remains unclear. Klebanov said that neither of two main possibilities -- an explosion of torpedoes on board or a collision with another vessel -- could be excluded. But Interfax said he shrugged off media reports that Kursk could have been hit by a stray missile launched during the navy exercise in which it was taking part. Norwegian divers, hired by the Russian government, made an attempt in November to retrieve bodies of dead sailors from the submarine. But they gave up their attempts after pulling out a dozen bodies because of dangerous conditions inside the wreck. Experts believe that raising the Kursk will be an expensive and technically complicated task. The Brussels-based international consortium unveiled earlier this year a $70 million plan to raise the submarine. Klebanov was speaking about $80 million (54 million pounds) on Sunday. The Kursk Fund's experts have said some 20 holes would be cut into the submarine's outer hull and cables attached to a huge crane would be clamped on to it. The Kursk, minus its damaged bow, would then be winched up to just below a barge and transported under escort, with the help of tugs, to the northern Russian port of Murmansk. ***************************************************************** 17 A Challenge To Israel's Nuclear Blind Spot (washingtonpost.com) *By Jonathan Broder* Sunday, March 11, 2001; Page B02 Some years ago, I was riding on a bus in Jerusalem when a woman boarded and sat down, placing her dog on the seat beside her. As the bus filled up, a man asked the woman to hold the dog so he could sit down, too. "The dog has a ticket," the woman snapped, defiantly showing the stub. The man persisted. Before long, the other passengers had taken sides, shouting so loudly that the driver finally pulled over to settle the matter. With great solemnity, we took a vote. The dog won. No matter the subject, Israelis love to debate. On any given day, you can hear a nation of self-styled pundits engaged in ferocious discussion, often at high volume. All topics, from the political to the personal, are fair game. All except one: the nuclear weapons that Israel possesses but refuses to acknowledge. A thick canopy of ambiguity shrouds Israel's nuclear program, held in place by legal restrictions that generally prohibit the disclosure of state secrets -- including public discussion of Israel's nuclear weapons. The only way journalists and academics have been able toaddress the issue is by attributing any facts to "foreign sources" -- a device that allows Israel to pretend it is keeping the world guessing about its nuclear capability. This deliberate policy of obfuscation is called "nuclear opacity." This week that policy will be challenged -- not by some foreign enemy of Israel, but by one of its own. Avner Cohen is an Israeli scholar who has been living in the United States for three years because he fears arrest for publishing a political history of Israel's nuclear weapons program. Today, he plans to leave his home in Takoma Park and fly back to Tel Aviv, where he intends to confront the powerful defense establishment in the name of academic freedom. There is a surreal aspect to this, because the broad facts of the matter are widely known. Israel constructed its first nuclear device on the eve of the 1967 Middle East War, and now, according to CIA estimates, has between 200 and 400 nuclear warheads. Israel refuses to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or any other accord that would require it to account for the nuclear material it produces at its Dimona reactor in the Negev Desert. And yet, publicly, Israel will only say that it will not be the first country to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East. The origins of Israel's nuclear opacity policy go back to a White House meeting between President Richard Nixon and Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir in 1969. Meir confirmed that Israel had developed nuclear weapons, saying they were needed as a hedge against another Holocaust. Nixon and his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger,recognized that the Israeli bomb was already a *fait accompli*. They also agreed that Israel was a responsible nuclear power, having possessed such devices before the 1967 conflict yet opting instead for a conventional war. And they were loath to antagonize America's vocal pro-Israel lobby. Eventually, Washington and Jerusalem came up with a formula that would avoid a bruising political confrontation: Israel would neither test nor declare its nuclear weapons, and the United States would look the other way. For Israel, this policy has provided the best of all possible worlds: It has enabled the country to keep its nuclear weapons, unhindered by U.S.-led non-proliferation efforts that have prevented the development of such weapons by other countries; and it has continued to receive American aid. For the United States, opacity has served as a lesser evil, helping to keep Israel's nuclear thumb out of Arab eyes and thus reduce the potential for regional war. But now, much to Israel's discomfort, Avner Cohen wants to discuss that policy of opacity in public. Cohen hasn't been back to Israel since 1998, when his book about the political history of Israel's nuclear bomb program was published in the United States without the approval of the Israeli censor. The book, "Israel and the Bomb," includes no technical or operational details about Israel's nuclear arsenal, only a meticulously researched history of Israel's decision to go nuclear, based on declassified public documents and Cohen's interviews with key players in the effort. But the book doesn't attribute anything to "foreign sources," and angry Israeli defense officials have threatened in the press to prosecute Cohen if he ever returns home again. Still that is precisely what the 49-year-old Cohen plans to do. Cohen has plans to deliver lectures this week on the question of scholarship and government secrecy to fellow academics at Jerusalem's Van Leer Institute and later this month at Tel Aviv University, but his lawyers have warned him that he's likely to spend more time talking to police. Cohen could face arrest, trial and imprisonment on charges of criminally compromising Israel's nuclear secrets. The Israeli security establishmentviews the return of Avner Cohen as an opportunity to remind other Israeli scholars that challenges to the country's most sacred policy taboo will not be tolerated. But it should instead be an opportunity to permit some public discourse on the issue, lifting security restrictions that can only corrode Israel's democracy. Born in Tel Aviv, Avner Cohen grew up in the affluent suburb of Ramat Hasharon, where his classmates were the children of Israel's top military and political leaders. After earning his doctorate in philosophy from the University of Chicago in 1981, he returned to Israel to teach at Tel Aviv University, publishing scholarly articles on political theory, nuclear ethics and proliferation. In 1990, Cohen won a MacArthur Foundation fellowship and went to MIT to research Israel's nuclear history. With his frequent visits to Israel to conduct interviews and study declassified documents, it wasn't long before Cohen and his work came to the attention of Israeli authorities, who placed him under Mossad surveillance. At MIT, the office of a colleague where Cohen's research materials were stored was broken into. One day, Cohen found that the entire windshield of his car had been carefully removed and politely placed on the roof of the vehicle while the interior was apparently combed for documents. Cohen tried to play by the rules: In 1994, he returned to Israel and dutifully submitted a draft of his book to the Israeli censor -- who banned it. Cohen appealed to the Israeli Supreme Court, but the court chose not to rule, instead urging the two sides to find a compromise. In the face of the censor's continued refusal to sign off on any part of the book,a dispirited Cohen returned to the United States, where he completed work on the manuscript as a fellow at Harvard and the United States Institute for Peace.The book was published by Columbia University Press. Since the book's publication, Cohen, now a senior researcher at the National Security Archive at George Washington University, has become a controversial figure in Israel. Defense officials regard him as a criminal who compromised the country's most closely held secrets. Academics, including some who have been deeply involved in Israel's nuclear effort, say there is nothing in Cohen's book that damages Israeli national security. Reuven Pedatzur, a writer on national security affairs for the Israeli daily Ha'aretz, calls Cohen's story "a classic example of Israeli democracy's black hole: the area of national security where the usual laws of a democratic society do not apply." The time has come for Israel to shine some badly needed light into that black hole. As an independent researcher, Cohen does not speak for the Israeli government, and therefore his book poses no real threat to its policy of opacity. And while no responsible person -- certainly not Cohen -- suggests that the government should go "transparent," which would upset a balance that has lasted well for more than 30 years, there are important ancillary issues that Israelis have a right to explore. These include questions not only of policy but of environment, health and safety. Where is nuclear waste being stored? How safe is that storage? What effect is it having on the country's fragile water table? It took the end of the Cold War for the United States to begin addressing environmental disasters like the Hanford nuclear waste site in Washington state. In theirtiny, crowded country, Israelis don't have the luxury of waiting until peace permits such environmental issues to be discussed. And then there is the right of Israelis to know who they are as a nation. As a piece of scholarship, Cohen's book joins the work of Israel's so-called "new historians," who have used recently declassified documents to reexamine national myths. Their work has provoked furious domestic debate on the degree of Israel's vulnerability in 1948 (and hence, the scope of its victory in the War of Independence), and whether the Palestinians were driven out of Israel or left voluntarily, as the official version claims. Preventing debate about Israel's nuclear history denies citizens an important chapter in the nation's narrative, one that is crucial for understanding what the country has become today. The return of Avner Cohen is more than just a test of the limits of academic freedom. It is a test of the health of the country's democracy. A growing number of Israelis feel they have been denied the freedom to debate one of the government's most fateful decisions. Israeli authorities should accept that granting that freedom is another way to protect the nation's security. *Jonathan Broder is a senior writer for the Jerusalem Report.* © 2001 The Washington Post Company ***************************************************************** NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: *****************************************************************