***************************************************************** 03/14/01 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 9.66 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER CONTENTS 1 Plan revived to bury waste in West Texas; This time, the leading 2 TVA plans for nuke waste storage ripped 3 Point Beach gets OK to store spent fuel 4 B. Ferry to store spent fuel on ground 5 Dry casks OK'd for nuke plant 6 San Onofre to Store Nuclear Waste 7 Resources Are Inadequate to Run Nuclear Plants, a Group Claims 8 Geologists Learning Uranium Containment From Nature 9 Reactor sale focus of hearing 10 Scientist speaks on warming 11 Critics Force a First-Ever Public Hearing on Indian Point 3 Sale 12 Court date on lawsuit attempting to block Millstone sale draws near 13 New law doesn't halt N-waste plans 14 Rio may go ahead with Jabiluka mineCompanies 15 2 MOX fuel carriers to arrive at Niigata port March 24 16 BRITISH Energy is drawing up firm plans to build a new nuclear 17 ENVIRONMENTALISTS last night branded plans to build a new nuclear 18 Anger at plans for new Ayrshire nuclear plant 19 Nuclear power may answer UK demand before the lights go out 20 New Scientist: Heavy water 21 Kola Peninsula "nuclear hazard for all north Europe" 22 Letter: Not all nuclear issues the same 23 Sorry, but trinkets won't do 24 Envirocare Forum to Focus on Hot Issue NUCLEAR WEAPONS CONTENTS 1 State asking Energy Department to find elusive water solutions 2 What to do with 3.5 million pounds of nickel? 3 Thompson pushes for nuclear weapons complex upgrades 4 Responds to Smyser's column on black residents 5 $5 Billion to Repair Nuclear Plants Sought 6 Pantex brings pros, cons 7 SRS faces budget cut under president's plan 8 Bush administration studying changes to nuclear arsenal 9 Selling Nuclear Fear 10 Christmas Island Test Claims 11 Nuclear "Bomb" Discovered in Romanian Capital 12 Rocky to host radioactive-waste forum Thursday 13 EU's nuclear fusion programme - an example for ERA? 14 Kosovo uranium threat remains - 15 Depleted Uranium Left in Kosovo Could Contaminate Water 16 UN SAYS DEPLETED URANIUM IS RADIATION THREAT 17 Water in Kosovo could be poisoned with depleted uranium, says UN 18 Depleted uranium risk insignificant, says UN 19 Pasko-case to be heard March 22, 2001 20 Israeli author queried on nuclear security 21 'Burping' tank solution lands CH2M Hill regional award 22 Fluor shuffles managers as K Basins work progresses 23 New energy czar tells delegation he knows Paducah plant's needs ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 Plan revived to bury waste in West Texas; This time, the leading site is in Andrews County and the state would license the facility. Star-Telegram.Com Updated: Tuesday, Mar. 13, 2001 at 22:39 CST By Neil Strassman Star-Telegram Staff Writer The controversy over burying low-level radioactive waste at a permanent Texas disposal site is heating up again. Two years after the state was unable to establish a radioactive waste disposal site in Sierra Blanca, the Texas Legislature is once again considering a law to create such a site in West Texas. Supporters say the state needs to consolidate radioactive waste at a single site where it can be safely stored. The bill's critics say the waste could eventually contaminate groundwater and warn that the state could become a dumping ground for radioactive waste. "We need the ability to achieve permanent disposal. I think we can do this safely," said Sen. Bob Duncan, R-Lubbock, author of a bill that would allow a state-licensed private company to store and permanently dispose of radioactive waste in West Texas. The front-runner for the site is in Andrews County, northwest of Midland, home of the only company licensed to handle radioactive waste in Texas. The low-level radioactive waste is generated by medical, research and industrial activities and nuclear power plants; it can vary tremendously in radioactivity and the hazard it poses. Some of it can remain dangerous for hundreds or even thousands of years. "West Texas will be sacrificed in a dangerous bill that opens Texas up to become a national dumping ground, " said Erin Rogers, outreach coordinator for the Sierra Club's Lone Star chapter. "If the waste leaks into the groundwater, it could contaminate the Ogallala Aquifer, the largest aquifer in North America." The bill calls for creating a waste disposal site that would be an "assured isolation facility" capable of isolating waste from the environment for hundreds of years, yet preserving the opportunity to retrieve and move it. The site must also be convertible into a permanent disposal site and be in an area that receives less than 26 inches of annual rainfall, according to the bill. Texas is a partner in a radioactive waste compact with Vermont and Maine and is the "host" state for a disposal site. Over the next 35 years, 2.7 million cubic feet of waste -- 75 percent from dismantled nuclear power plants in the three states -- must be dealt with, according to state estimates. The Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission would license the permanent facility. The Texas Department of Health would have regulatory authority over the processing and storage of the waste. "It requires extra sensitivity and additional safeguards. A competent individual company can manage the waste; it will just require strict regulatory oversight," said Jeff Saitas, executive director of the state environmental agency. But the provision to allow the private sector to hold the license instead of the state, which owns the waste, caused the bill to be scuttled in the 1999 Legislature. "The bottom line is if the government holds the license, then there's never any question about who's in control, because there's a responsible party," said Rep. Warren Chisum, R-Pampa, author of another radioactive waste bill. If the state wants to limit other kinds of radioactive waste coming in, it's best to do it with the government holding the license, he said. "I'm willing to listen to anybody's argument. I want to get something done about compact waste. We've spent 20 years -- $60 million dollars -- and we haven't done anything. It's time to make this thing start happening," he said. The bill allows for expansion of the waste disposal site and creation of a second site. Under the compact, the three states can vote to bring in other waste. The U.S. Energy Department, which has an estimated 93 million cubic feet of radioactive waste to dispose of nationally, will contract only with private companies that hold state licenses, and Rogers and others worry that a private company will accept out-of-state waste. "We're afraid this is going to turn into an atomic megamall, drawing all kinds of toxic waste and industry to the area," Rogers said. Rep. Lon Burnam, D-Fort Worth, said that under the bill the private sector would get the profit and the state the liability for "Cold War leftovers" that could last for generations. "This bill clearly opens Texas up to be the nation's waste dump," Burnam said. Duncan, however, said that the state doesn't have anyone with expertise to run a waste site, and that a private operator could provide financial assurance. Eric Peus, chief executive officer of Waste Control Specialists, the only Texas company that processes and stores radioactive waste, said a private company would be "held to the same rigor and standards" as the state. "We have a site licensed by the state, and we have a community that wants to have it," Peus said of the 16,000-acre facility in Andrews County, on which 1,350 acres are permitted to take waste. "The Legislature is not handing our company or any other company a license," Peus said. Duncan said he believes that there will be competition for a license. The state appeared to have solved the waste problem when Sierra Blanca was named as a disposal site, but residents there objected. Sierra Blanca is about 85 miles southeast of El Paso. State environmental commissioners cited insufficient analyses of a fault line under the 250-acre Sierra Blanca site and of the project's social and economic impact as reasons for denying the license. Staff writers R.A. Dyer and John Moritz contributed to this report. Neil Strassman, (817) 390-7657 DEL-IVER. © 2000 Star-Telegram, Fort Worth, Texas -- Terms and ***************************************************************** 2 TVA plans for nuke waste storage ripped March 14, 2001 By The Associated Press ATHENS, Ala. -- Tennessee Valley Authority officials said they plan to begin storing radioactive spent uranium fuel rods at Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant in large, above ground concrete containers in 2005. TVA officials said the storage process will be safe. But Stephen Smith, executive director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, a watchdog group in Knoxville, said the plan is disturbing. "It's just one of the consequences of choosing nuclear power as an option, that you will have nuclear waste piling up on the banks of the Tennessee River," Smith told The Birmingham News for a Tuesday story. Used uranium fuel rods from the plant's two operating reactors are currently stored in specially designed racks at the bottom of steel-lined, 40-foot-deep concrete pools inside the plant. Room in the pools, which were originally meant for temporary storage, is expected to begin running out in several years. TVA and other utilities around the country are looking for ways to store nuclear waste while waiting for the Department of Energy to build a permanent national nuclear waste storage facility. The proposed site for the facility, which has been met with opposition, is deep inside Nevada's Yucca Mountain. "Until such time as DOE accepts the spent fuel, evaluations of available storage expansion technologies have demonstrated that the safest and most cost-effective option for Browns Ferry is dry storage -- the use of above ground, concrete containers with steel inner canisters," TVA said in a statement. "Dry storage of spent fuel is a proven technology that already is used at 14 U.S. nuclear power plants." Copyright © 2000, The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved ***************************************************************** 3 Point Beach gets OK to store spent fuel [ ] Published Wednesday, March 14, 2001 MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- State regulators will allow a utility to spend $38.4 million on more above-ground storage containers to hold used fuel at the Point Beach nuclear power plant. The Public Service Commission' s 3-0 vote Tuesday means the nuclear plant near Two Rivers will not close prematurely. Wisconsin Electric Power Co. wants to build up to 36 more storage units at the plant to accommodate the growing amount of spent nuclear fuel the plant is unable to store inside its facility. Wisconsin Electric said the decision lets the plant operate at a time when utilities are under pressure to add new power generation capacity. Without the approval, Point Beach would have closed by 2005, officials said. The utility estimated replacing Point Beach' s capacity with natural gas-fired plants and energy conservation would have cost consumers $1.82 billion more. Lake Michigan Coalition, an environmental group, opposes storing nuclear fuel near the shore of Lake Michigan. Attorney Frank Jablonski said closing the plant would not cost the utility as much as it estimates. The 1, 022-megawatt plant provides about 20 percent of Wisconsin' s electricity. The plant' s two reactors are licensed to operate until 2010 and 2013, respectively. In recent years, Wisconsin Electric and other utilities were forced to find new places for spent nuclear fuel. Utilities have stored used radioactive fuel in deep pools inside their plants, but the practice is a temporary measure because it is expected the U.S. Department of Energy will eventually take over the responsibility for storing the fuel. On the Net: Wisconsin Electric Power Co.: http://www.wisconsinelectric.com/ Wisconsin Public Service Commission: http://www.psc.state.wi.us/ Copyright 2001 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This ***************************************************************** 4 B. Ferry to store spent fuel on ground MARCH 13, 2001 From Staff, AP Reports ATHENS -- Tennessee Valley Authority officials said they plan to begin storing radioactive spent uranium fuel rods at Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant in above-ground concrete containers in 2005. TVA officials said the storage process will be safe. But Stephen Smith, executive director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, a watchdog group in Knoxville, said the plan is disturbing. "It's just one of the consequences of choosing nuclear power as an option, that you will have nuclear waste piling up on the banks of the Tennessee River," Smith said. Used uranium fuel rods from the plant's two operating reactors are currently stored in specially designed racks at the bottom of steel-lined, 40-foot-deep concrete pools of water inside the plant. Room in the pools, which were originally meant for temporary storage, is expected to begin running out in several years. Tennessee Valley Authority and other utilities around the country are looking for ways to store nuclear waste while waiting for the U.S. Department of Energy to build a permanent national nuclear waste storage facility. Opposition to site The current proposed site for the facility, which has met with opposition, is deep inside Nevada's Yucca Mountain. U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Mobile, said while visiting Browns Ferry and the Decatur Rotary Club two weeks ago that he supports the U.S. Department of Energy's efforts to build a safe permanent waste storage in Nevada. Sessions' press secretary Mike Brumas said today that Sessions is still convinced that nuclear power is the "safest and best way to go to solve this nation's energy crisis. He supports DOE in its proposal to build the facility in Nevada." Brumas said DOE has not told Sessions when work is expected to begin on the proposed national storage facility. "He is getting ready to introduce legislation that will give companies a tax break if they build or restart nuclear facilities," Brumas said. "The senator is convinced that nuclear energy is the cleanest and safest way to go in trying to trying to solve this nation's energy crisis," Brumas said. TVA, in a statement issued Monday, said "until DOE accepts the spent fuel, evaluations of available storage expansion technologies have demonstrated that the safest and most cost-effective option for Browns Ferry is dry storage -- the use of above-ground, concrete containers with steel inner canisters." "Dry storage of spent fuel is a proven technology that already is used at 14 U.S. nuclear power plants," TVA said. Phillip Harris, TVA spokesman at Browns Ferry, said the casks will sit outside while waiting for a national storage site, as is already done at some other nuclear plants. The issue of storing the spent rods was raised at a recent public hearing on an environmental report that TVA is preparing for the plant. The report may be used as part of a possible TVA request to extend the licenses for Browns Ferry's three reactors another 20 years. TVA so far has not decided to seek extension of the licenses for the three reactors. The licenses expire in 2013, 2014 and 2016. Copyright 2001 THE DECATUR DAILY. All rights reserved. AP contributed to this report. Copyright 2001 Associated Press. All rights THE DECATUR DAILY 201 1st Ave. SE P.O. Box 2213 Decatur, Ala. 35609 (256) 353-4612 webmaster@decaturdaily.com ***************************************************************** 5 Dry casks OK'd for nuke plant The Herald Times Reporter - Regional News [The Herald Times Reporter] Wed 14-Mar-2001 From staff reports MILWAUKEE - The Public Service Commission of Wisconsin voted unanimously Tuesday to approve Wisconsin Electric's request to build and load additional dry shortage containers for used fuel at the company's Point Beach Nuclear Plant. The company requested permission for enough containers, not to exceed 36, to allow the plant's two generating units to continue operating through the end of their licenses, which expire in 2010 and 2013. The U.S. Department of Energy has failed to comply with federal law that requires it to remove the used fuel from Point Beach and other reactor sites, and to dispose of it in a geologic repository, Wisconsin electric officials said. In February 1995, the commission authorized the construction of a storage facility to hold used fuel, and the construction and loading of 12 containers. The commission noted that all conclusions support the company's contention that shutting down the plant would be substantially more expensive than continued operation. Point Beach generates 1,022 megawatts of low-cost electricity and contributes about 20 percent of the power used in the state without emitting greenhouse gases. The premature shutdown at Point Beach would have forced WE to purchase replacement power from other sources. The cost difference between continuing plant operation until the end of licensed life versus a premature shutdown is at least $1 billion. "We believe it is important to rely on diverse fuel resources to meet the needs of our customers and to minimize the price and delivery risks associated with only one fuel source," WE president and chief operating officer Dick Grigg said. "We appreciate the commission's action today and look forward to years of continued safe, reliable operation of our Point Beach Nuclear Plant." © Copyright 2000, The Herald Times Reporter. All Rights ***************************************************************** 6 San Onofre to Store Nuclear Waste Wednesday, March 14, 2001 From a Times Staff Writer The California Coastal Commission reluctantly agreed Tuesday to allow nuclear waste to be stored for 20 years at the San Onofre power plant south of San Clemente. The federal government's inability to find a permanent repository for used nuclear fuel makes the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station one of a growing number of nuclear power plants facing the issue of what to do with their spent uranium rods, which will be radioactive for thousands of years. The commission voted unanimously to approve construction of a new, permanent facility to hold the waste, despite pleas from residents and environmental groups. They attached several conditions to the permit, including requiring Southern California Edison, owner of the plant, to provide an upfront guarantee that it could afford lifetime monitoring of the waste. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is expected to sign off on the project, and construction would start at the latest by 2006. "I understand the public's concerns about nuclear safety issues, and I may be in sympathy with them," said Sara Wan, commission head. "But this commission's jurisdiction is limited." The state agency is precluded by federal law from ruling on issues of nuclear safety, but its approval was still needed for the construction of facilities to store the waste. San Onofre has two reactors that provide energy for 2.2 million homes and are licensed until 2022. 2001 Los Angeles Times ***************************************************************** 7 Resources Are Inadequate to Run Nuclear Plants, a Group Claims March 14, 2001 By WINNIE HU [W] HITE PLAINS, March 13 — A group opposed to nuclear power told federal regulators today that the company that has acquired two reactors in New York and is negotiating to buy the troubled Indian Point 2 plant has not provided adequate resources to run the plants. Testifying at a hearing here, members of Citizens Awareness Network said Entergy Nuclear had not pledged enough money to the Indian Point 3 plant in Buchanan, about 35 miles north of Manhattan, and the James A. FitzPatrick plant in Oswego County, to cover problems that could interrupt power production for six months or longer. "It's a cat's cradle," said Tim Judson, a member of the group. "If more than one string gets loose, the whole thing falls apart and that's not the way to run nuclear reactors." The group presented its objections during a seven-hour public hearing before an administrative judge for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Charles Bechhoefer, at the White Plains Public Library. Though the Indian Point 3 and FitzPatrick plants were sold by the New York Power Authority in November for $967 million, the regulatory commission approved the transfer of the plants' operating licenses with the condition that a public hearing could be held afterward, and that if warranted, the earlier approval could be modified or even rescinded. The Citizens Awareness Network is expected to raise similar questions about Entergy's proposal to buy the more controversial Indian Point 2, which is also situated at the Buchanan site but is operated by Consolidated Edison. That plant closed in February 2000 for nearly a year after radioactive water leaked from a cracked tube. It has been plagued by a series of minor leaks and mishaps since returning to full power on Jan. 28. Mr. Judson said his group would examine financial information about Entergy's deal for Indian Point 2. "We'll raise related and different questions," he said. "With Indian Point 2, there's also a question about whether it's safe to operate." Entergy has pledged $90 million for operations at the Indian Point 3 and FitzPatrick plants, and has insured them against equipment failures and accidents, said Jim Steets, communications manager for Entergy. "We're not envisioning that more is needed than that," he said. "That's a pretty healthy sum. Entergy is financially committed to running Indian Point 3 and the James A. FitzPatrick through the licensing periods." But Edward Smeloff, executive director of the Pace Law School Energy Project, said Entergy's financial resources would be strained by an extended outage at one or both plants and the resulting penalties from being unable to sell power back to the power authority. "They don't have enough funds available for a six- month outage" he testified on behalf of the citizens' group. The citizens' group also questioned whether there was enough money to dismantle the buildings and dispose of residual radioactive elements at the two plants when they are eventually closed. Under the sales agreement, the power authority would retain control of a multimillion-dollar trust fund for that purpose. Officials with Entergy and the power authority have said the money would be available when needed. The New York Times ***************************************************************** 8 Geologists Learning Uranium Containment From Nature BLACKSBURG, Virginia, March 13, 2001 (ENS) - One of the richest uranium deposits in the U.S. lies beneath Coles Hill in rural Virginia - forming a perfect natural laboratory for studying radioactive waste containment. "You would expect ground water in this type of natural system to have carried the uranium away from the site into the surrounding environment, but we don't see that," said Virginia Tech Ph.D. student Jim Jerden. "We think we can learn something from this site that can be applied to existing contaminated sites and nuclear waste repositories." As geologists, Jerden and his advisor, A. K. Sinha, professor of geological sciences, are looking at the natural system that contains the Coles Hill uranium deposit as a unique geologic analog for uranium contaminated sites and nuclear waste repositories. "Nature may present a model for the scientifically sound management of nuclear wastes and contaminated sites," said Jerden. "We have discovered that the abundance of phosphorous and its interaction with uranium is likely the cause for the lack of migration." Jerden presented some of his research from Coles Hill this morning at the 36th annual meeting of the Northeastern Section of the Geological Society of America (GSA) in Burlington, Vermont. Scientists from the University of Georgia's Savannah River Ecology Laboratory have already been experimenting with phosphorous and uranium in the laboratory. "The goal of these experiments was to develop new cost effective technologies that can be applied for remediation of uranium contaminated sites," explained Jerden. "So they were very interested when we told them we were researching a natural system in which uranium and phosphorus are combining to naturally limit uranium transport." © Environment News Service (ENS) 2001. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 9 Reactor sale focus of hearing >ROGER WITHERSPOON THE JOURNAL NEWS March 13, 2001 The federal agency that regulates nuclear power plants will hold a hearing in White Plains today to determine whether the company seeking to buy the Indian Point 3 nuclear reactor and another reactor upstate for a combined $525 million has the assets to operate them. The hearing at 9:30 a.m. in the White Plains Public Library will be the first of its kind, said Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The hearing was called to investigate questions raised by civic groups about t he economic viability of the corporations trying to buy the Indian Point reactor in Buchanan and the James A. FitzPatrick plant in Scriba on Lake Ontario. The major concern is that the three pertinent subsidiaries set up by the company — Entergy Corp. of Louisiana — each have only $20 million in operating capital and not enough money in reserve to withstand long shutdowns. The hearing was called in response to questions raised by civic groups, and has stalled the license-transfer process fo r the two plants, which Entergy is buying from the New York Power Authority. Entergy's purchase of Indian Point 1 and Indian Point 2, which are owned by Consolidated Edison, also is stalled. The state Department of Public Service also is seeking proof that the subsidiaries that Entergy has set up to buy and operate Indian Point 1 and Indian Point 2 have the financial strength to safely run the power plants. In addition, the two agencies want to examine the health and management of the decommission ing fund, a pool with more than $400 million reserved to remove radioactive waste stored at the plants and to clean up the sites after they shut down. The hearing is the result of a challenge to the license transfers by the Citizens Awareness Network and the town of Cortlandt. The hearing will be conducted by Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Judge Charles Bechhoefer at the library at 100 Martine Ave. "The hearing is going to be on the issue of whether Entergy is really going to have the wh erewithal to be able to run these reactors and have the money and capital they need to do it," said Deb Katz, founder of the network. "This is the first time that a license transfer has been held up pursuant to a petition from a civic group," Sheehan said. "The commission has decided the questions raised need to be explored further, and that is what we are doing," he added. "The sale of Indian Point 3 and James FitzPatrick was approved with an asteris k. If the petition submitted by CAN was found t o have merit, they could issue an order modifying the approval or rescinding the approval. This is an unresolved issue." Rejecting an appeal from Con Edison, the commission ordered the utility last week to turn over all of its proprietary financial data on the operation and sale of Indian Point 1 and Indian Point 2 to the Citizens Awareness Network and the town of Cortlandt by this week. After reviewing the data, the group and the town wil l have 20 days to file new challenges to the proposed license transfers. Both Entergy and Con Edison previously had been ordered to turn over financial data involving the purchase of Indian Point 3. Entergy and the New York Power Authority had provided the group and the town confidential data involving the proposed purchase of James A. FitzPatrick. The commission and the state Department of Public Service have asked Con Edison to provide detailed information on the ability of Entergy to operate the plants in the event of extended shutdowns. The regulators also asked ConEd to disclose details about the management of money that has been set aside to decommission the plants. The financial issues stem from the complex structures set up by Entergy Corp. to buy and manage the four New York plants, as well the Pilgrim nuclear plant in Massachusetts. Entergy is an international power conglomerate with reported 1999 revenues of $8.7 billion. It has set up a network of more than 20 subsidiaries to buy the four power plants in New York and the one in Massachusetts. Each of the plants is to be owned by a limited liability corporation, said Joe Blount, Entergy's corporation counsel. "The lower company is a tax structure," Blount said. "The company is allowed flexibility in moving income into and out of the company. None of the companies are operating companies. They are structures to facilitate things." The companies established to own the three functioning nuclear power plants — FitzPatrick, Indian Point 3 and Indian Point 2  1; each would receive $20 million in operating capital from Energy International Holdings, a subsidiary that purchases power plants worldwide. Indian Point 1 is closed, but still stores spent nuclear fuel. The companies — Entergy Nuclear Fitzpatrick LLC and Entergy Nuclear Indian Point 3 LLC — would share a $50 million letter of credit from Entergy Global Investments, a funding arm and a subsidiary of Entergy International Holdings. Entergy Global Investments a lso would provide a $35 million letter of credit for Entergy Nuclear Indian Point 2 LLC, which would own both Indian Point 1 and Indian Point 2. These letters of credit are intended to provide money to meet capital needs and emergencies, such as shutdowns. The owning companies would have no employees. They would be transferred to another subsidiary, Entergy Nuclear Operations Inc., which would share the operating licenses and provide personnel based on separate staffing contracts. This staffing company would have no fixed assets. "The re sources these limited liability corporations have are the assets themselves, and the revenues they collect from operating and selling power," said Ed Smeloff of the Pace (University) Energy Project, who analyzed Entergy's financial arrangements for the civic opponents of the sale. "In my view, that is not sufficient to withstand a significant outage of six months or more." In addition, he said, Entergy would have to pay the New York Power Grid for replacement power if Indian Point 2 operated at less th an 80 percent power. The grid is a cooperative that distributes electricity from various power companies around the state directly to consumers. "And Entergy International Holdings has never been audited, or rated by Moody's or Standard and Poor's rating services. So we don't know what are its assets and what other obligations are there on these assets," Smeloff said. Commission documents state that Indian Point 2 operated at an average annual rate of only 66.2 percent of capacity from 1994 throug h 1999, yet the new company would have to operate the plant at 85 percent to break even. The purchases are to be financed by the new companies, which means each opens for business with hundreds of millions of dollars in debt. Jim Steets, Entergy spokesman at Indian Point 3, said, "Historically, Indian Point 3 has always performed less than Indian Point 2. Our average from 1991-95 was only 35 percent. But we instituted improvements in everything — work processes, training, planning, maintenance  51; and averaged 92 percent for the last three years." Marilyn Elie, head of Westchester Citizens Awareness Network, said, "I don't see how Entergy will be able to improve Indian Point 2 enough to make money, given how badly it has been run by Con Edison. And with the structure Entergy has created, it is hard to figure out who will be responsible for the safe operation of the plant. When there are holding companies with limited liabilities, it makes nobody responsibl e for what could happen." "http://www.nyjournalnews.com ***************************************************************** 10 Scientist speaks on warming 03/14/01 *SRS meteorologist concedes that temperatures are rising but downplays severity of threat * *Web posted Wednesday, March 14, 2001 By Brandon Haddock *Staff Writer* Global warming won't bring doomsday but will have a discernible effect on the world's climate, a Savannah River Site meteorologist said Tuesday. ``The United States will probably fare very well as a nation, but there will be other countries that suffer more dramatically,'' said Robert Addis, manager of the atmospheric technologies group at the federal nuclear-weapons site's Savannah River Technology Center. Dr. Addis spoke to about 50 people at a breakfast in Aiken sponsored by the group Citizens for Nuclear Technology Awareness. Global warming is a gradual increase in the world's temperature that is caused by a number of natural and man-made catalysts, including the release of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. During Tuesday's lecture, Dr. Addis downplayed scenarios put forth by some scientists who have said global warming will be catastrophic, causing extreme increases in sea levels and bringing forth an onslaught of natural disasters. ``We have to look at the facts and not just the scaremongering,'' Dr. Addis said. Nevertheless, some global warming already has been documented, and analysis suggests that global temperatures could rise by 3 to 5 degrees during the next century, he said. Although that increase seems slight, it is important to note that warming will cause more extreme temperatures, leading to increased droughts and floods, Dr. Addis said. ``What's important is not that the average temperatures change, but that you have more extremes,'' he said. Those extremes could cause some regions of the country, particularly those that rely on agriculture, to suffer, but the agriculture and economy of the nation as a whole should adapt, Dr. Addis said. Warming also could adversely affect air and water quality and cause health problems for the poor and elderly, but those issues can be addressed with better health care, Dr. Addis said. ``We can mitigate these effects, and usually we can do a lot more than we're already doing,'' he said. Reach Brandon Haddockat (706) 823-3409. All contents © 1996 - 2001 *The Augusta Chronicle*. All rights ***************************************************************** 11 Critics Force a First-Ever Public Hearing on Indian Point 3 Sale Nuclear Reaction Posted March 13th, 2001 2:00 PM EST villagevoice.com exclusive by Ginger Adams Otis Of the three atomic reactors housed in Buchanan, New York's Indian Point Nuclear Complex (35 miles north of Manhattan), only one is garnering much attention these days: the beleaguered Indian Point 2 plant, which suffered a series of accidents, from minor to potentially major, during the last year and a half. The plant's apparent fragility worries activists, especially since it's next in line to be bought by Entergy Nuclear, one of the fastest-growing for-profit nuclear management companies in the country. Activists are worried that in the rush to sell off power plants to private operators, regulators are allowing deals to go through with too little scrutiny and too few safeguards. Opponents of the IP2 sale had hoped that a Nuclear Regulatory Commission report, released this month, would at least slow down the sale of the creaky reactor. Instead the NRC, which conducted a three-week investigation of IP2 last December, declared it fully operational and safe, pausing briefly to chide current owner Con Ed for falling behind with routine repairs. But the fight to derail the sale of IP2 isn't over yet. Concerned parties have turned their attention to a little-noticed but nevertheless landmark NRC hearing scheduled for March 13 in White Plains. The forum will address the sale of the Indian Point 3 atomic reactor, which for the past several decades has been owned and operated by the New York Power Authority (NYPA). Although the sale of IP3 to Entergy Nuclear is basically a fait accompli (the company has been running the plant since last November), activists hope their criticisms may goad the NRC to take a tougher stance—if not on the Indian Point sales, then on other deals down the road. "This is the first time the public has ever gotten an NRC hearing on the sale of a reactor," exults Tim Judson of Citizens Awareness Network, the group that petitioned for the meeting. (Neil Sheehan, a spokesperson for the NRC, says the agency "routinely holds meetings in its Washington headquarters," but concedes this is the first time the NRC has gone into a concerned community and invited testimonials.) Even though it's unlikely to change the final outcome, CAN has experts ready to present grievances about the small print in Entergy Nuclear's two recent atomic acquisitions from NYPA: the Fitzpatrick nuclear reactor in Oswego County and the aforementioned IP3 plant. Entergy Nuclear and NYPA worked out their deal for both reactors last March. NYPA made no bones about wanting to unload them as quickly as possible. Its board of trustees rapidly approved the $967 million sale, as did the Federal Energy Regulatory Committee (FERC). The only thing still missing is the NRC's stamp of approval, which it appeared to be tacitly giving when it transferred the plants' operating licenses to Entergy management and allowed the company to take over day-to-day operations last November. The NRC usually takes six to eight months to review a reactor sale. CAN originally petitioned for a hearing on the NYPA/Entergy sale back in July, and as winter grew near with no concrete response from the NRC, activists began to despair. Which is why the NRC's surprise January announcement that there would be a public forum left activists euphoric—as well as curious to know what caused the NRC's about-face. One hypothesis: The NRC felt obliged to air anxieties inspired by California's energy crisis, which was precipitated when California's newly deregulated power providers jacked up prices so high the utilities began crying bankruptcy—and turning down the lights. However, that's a less than illuminating theory for some. "New York is not poised to become the next California," says Kyle Rabin, an energy specialist with Environmental Advocates, an Albany-based nonprofit watchdog organization. He would prefer to think the NRC scheduled the hearing because it has genuine concerns about Entergy Nuclear's finances—a theory CAN also endorses. "We've posited all along that Entergy Nuclear is financially unable to operate these two reactors safely," says CAN's Judson, "and the NRC apparently saw enough proof to at least hear our argument." As part of its deal for IP3 and Fitzpatrick, Entergy Nuclear will pay NYPA $108 million a year in financing and nuclear fuel payments for the next seven years—and $20 million a year for other expenses for eight years after that. Activists fear that kind of fiscal pressure will mean the profit factor—not the human factor—will drive Entergy Nuclear's approach to safety issues. The NRC's Sheehan acknowledges that one of the issues the agency wants to study carefully is Entergy Nuclear's plan to set up two limited liability companies to run IP3 and Fitzpatrick. In layman's terms, that means these subsidiaries can't stick their hands into Entergy Nuclear's deep pockets every time something goes wrong. This protects Entergy Nuclear—which claims to be the largest nuclear management company in the U.S., with revenues topping $11 billion—from financial ruin, but doesn't do much to reassure the public. This is a fairly common strategy in the deregulated nuclear industry, but Ed Smeloff, director of Pace University's energy project and a speaker at the hearing, doesn't like it. "Let's say one of these plants unexpectedly goes down for 60 days," he argues, which isn't that unusual with temperamental reactors. "Payroll expenses alone could be $15 million a month, not to mention the $500,000 a day these companies lose by being off-line. I'm not convinced they've got the money to shut down when unexpected safety hazards present themselves." The party line about deregulation is that it actually increases reliability, because for-profit companies can't afford to be off-line for long periods of time. Recent NRC data suggest plants with good safety records suffer significantly less downtime. Carl Crawford, Entergy's manager of nuclear communications, says the company budgets for expected shutdowns—such as seasonal refueling—and looks for ways to cut costs without cutting corners. And he says it spends plenty on research and new technology—precisely so it can avoid those nasty glitches that impact the bottom line. As the players get set to square off next week, underdog CAN is going to lead with its biggest gun—the convoluted agreement between Entergy Nuclear and NYPA about the plants' billion-dollar decommissioning fund. "Normally," explains Sheehan, "when there is an operating license transfer, the decommissioning fund gets handed over to the new owner, and they assume responsibility for it." Every nuclear reactor in the U.S. has one of these funds, created by years of ratepayer and owner contributions. At the end of a reactor's lifespan, this money should be used to "decommission" the site—in other words, to clean up hazardous radioactive remains. But reactors are now being bought by private companies, which means Uncle Sam applies a sizable capital gains tax every time a fund changes hands. Until now, Entergy Nuclear has convinced the IRS to waive the tax, but the IRS is carefully avoiding setting permanent policy. Perhaps suspecting that its lucky streak might be over, Entergy Nuclear decided to ask NYPA to "hold" the Fitzpatrick and IP3 fund out of the IRS's reach—and activists believe some of the long-term payments to NYPA are in exchange for the favor. This is unorthodox by anyone's standards, even the NRC's. "We definitely want to gather more information about this agreement," says Sheehan. "We've never seen this before, and so obviously it bears investigating." According to CAN, if the fund continues accruing interest at its expected rate, it will contain upwards of $1.9 billion by 2015 (since IP3's current operating license is good for another decade, decommissioning won't start much before then). The NRC estimates $1.1 billion will be needed to clean up the site. What happens to the estimated $800 million left over? Does it go into NYPA's pocket? Or does it go into Entergy Nuclear's? Or will it be returned to ratepayers—the people who paid into the fund for so many years? The NRC doesn't have any answers yet—and until next week's hearing Entergy Nuclear isn't talking. "We haven't thought about how or when we'll decommission," says Crawford, "because it's at least 10 years away." The NRC says Entergy Nuclear will likely ask to extend IP3's license for another 20 years, in which case decommissioning will be delayed even further. Under federal law, the company has 60 years to finish cleaning up. Nobody knows how big the fund will be by then. Given the uncertainties, CAN hopes the NRC will at least send Entergy Nuclear back to the financial drawing board before handing over Fitzpatrick and IP3. And it hopes that if there are new guidelines, they may also be applied to Entergy's deal with Con Ed for IP2. Ultimately, says Rabin of Environmental Advocates, CAN and other activists are performing a vital public service by asking the questions that should be coming from FERC and the NRC. "We're only saying to go slow and investigate these sales carefully," he insists. "After all, Entergy Nuclear is just a company, and it makes mistakes like any other." editor@villagevoice.com ***************************************************************** 12 Court date on lawsuit attempting to block Millstone sale draws near [Geoff Hausman] By Published on 3/14/2001 Waterford — Officials at Dominion Resources Inc. say they are on schedule to finalize the company's purchase of Millstone Nuclear Power Station next month, despite some eleventh-hour attempts to block the sale. A New Britain Superior Court judge is expected to rule by the end of the week on a motion filed by the Connecticut Coalition Against Millstone asking that the sale be delayed. The coalition, representing several anti-nuclear and environmental groups, wants the sale delayed until its appeal is heard. The appeal challenges the Department of Public Utilities approval of the sale. Dominion won the right to purchase Millstone through a bidding process, offering a $1.3 billion bid. In another court action, the coalition, joined by two Long Island environmental groups and New York state Assemblyman Fred Thiele, challenges the sale on environmental grounds. Environmental concerns The lawsuit notes that the environmental permit to discharge water and chemicals from the nuclear station into Long Island Sound expired in December 1997. Since then the application to renew the permit has been pending and the State Department of Environmental Protection has allowed the current owner, Northeast Utilities, to continue operating through a series of emergency authorizations. The lawsuit contends the DEP did not have the authority to transfer the expired permit and emergency authorizations to Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, the Dominion subsidiary that was created to run the Millstone plants. Jim Norvelle, a spokesman for Dominion, said he was not familiar with the environmental challenge, but said officials at his company remain confident that there are no obstacles that will delay the closing of the Millstone sale during April, as long planned. Joining the coalition in the lawsuit are the North Fork Environmental Council and Standing for Truth About Radiation (STAR), both based in Long Island. Nancy Burton, the attorney representing anti-nuclear groups in both lawsuits, said if the groups can successfully block the sale, it could ultimately lead to NU's decision to close the plants, the ultimate goal of all the organizations involved. There were also reports that a group calling itself the Millstone Station Employees Association, concerned about pension benefits, was considering litigation in an attempt to delay the sale. Two association members discussed the potential litigation, but declined to give their names. Leaders of the association could not be reached for comment. Dominion has made several concessions to improve the pension package it will offer. Some employees, however, are concerned that they could lose substantial pension payments if they are laid off by Dominion a year from now. Dominion is obligated under the terms of the sale not to lay off anyone for a year. Pete Hyde, a Millstone spokesman, said Dominion's plan is to gradually reduce workers through attrition and said the company has no plans for layoffs, even after the year-long prohibition expires. © 1998-2001 The Day Publishing Co. ***************************************************************** 13 New law doesn't halt N-waste plans [deseretnews.com] March 14, 2001 By Donna Kemp Spangler Deseret News staff writer Utilities consortium Private Fuel Storage is proceeding with plans to ship high-level nuclear waste to Goshute tribal lands despite a new law that makes it illegal. "At some point, these laws will have to be clarified by the courts," PFS spokeswoman Sue Martin said. "They have serious legal flaws." Her response came after Gov. Mike Leavitt on Tuesday signed into law two Senate bills, SB81 and SB198. SB81 does several things, including a provision that would bar Tooele County from providing municipal-type services to the site where 40,000 tons of nuclear fuel rods are proposed to be stored on the reservation, about 70 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. Dianne Nielson, executive director of the state Department of Environmental Quality, said the first step to enforce the law is to work with Tooele County to draft an ordinance that would prohibit such nuclear waste storage facilities. "The law is pretty clear," Nielson said. "If there are contracts in place, they are illegal. . . . We will notify entities they are in violation of the state law." PFS officials have made it clear there are problems with the law, but Martin said it's uncertain when or if they will take the state to court. "Our lawyers are looking at the options," she said. Besides prohibiting highly radioactive waste from being shipped to Utah, the new law also would require PFS to pay the state billions of dollars in cash up front, and impose taxes on any business that provides goods or services to the site. A portion of that money would go into a fund that would pay to compensate workers or victims in cases of an accident. SB198 directs various state agencies to study economic development needs on all Native American reservations within Utah. "We want to make it clear with these bills," Leavitt said, placing a red sticker on the bills, "Utah says no to high-level nuclear waste." Anticipating the legislation will come with a price tag, lawmakers set aside $1.1 million in the state budget should the state have to defend the law in court. Leavitt thanked a number of people who have fought to block the PFS proposal, including Margene Bullcreek, a Goshute who stands in opposition to the tribe's lease agreement with the utilities consortium. "The bill stands on its own merits," said Bullcreek. "I really feel what's inside the nuclear casks is (dangerous) and it's a sacrifice of our native lands." The bill's sponsor, Sen. Terry Spencer, R-Layton, said Utahns need to get involved if they want to kill the proposal. "We need citizen assistance to make sure this stuff doesn't come here," he said. But, he added, it's also the intent of the Legislature to find an economic alternative for the Goshute tribe. "We want to be good neighbors," Spencer said. Goshute tribal leader Leon Bear, who signed a 1997 lease with PFS for the $3 billion facility, was out of town and unavailable for comment. But he has spoken against the bills, including the economic development assistance, because state officials haven't talked to the tribe about it. Rep. Stephen Urquhart, R-St. George, who introduced Spencer's bills in the House, said the concerns mirror those when the federal government said not to worry about the nuclear testing fallout. "We're a lot safer if this waste stays where it is and stays out of Utah," he said. Nuclear power facilities say they are running out of space to store the waste and are moving along to seek approval with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board. PFS has asked for more time to update its analysis of issues related to seismic activity and aircraft-crash safety. That means the next round of hearings before the board, originally anticipated in July, will be done in November, Martin said. The new law won't stop them, Martin said. "We are going forward," she added, "to continue with the licensing process." © 2001 Deseret News Publishing Company ***************************************************************** 14 Rio may go ahead with Jabiluka mineCompanies Mar 14 09:49 AFR wires Rio Tinto may push ahead with the Jabiluka uranium mining project, acquired through its takeover of North Ltd, managing director Mr Leigh Clifford said on Wednesday. Environmentalists and traditional Aboriginal owners have asked Rio Tinto not to mine. Rio Tinto is still assessing whether to keep the mine, among a swag of recent acquisitions, but Mr Clifford indicated the company may go ahead and operate the mine. "We are assessing the way forward as regards [North subsidiary] ERA," he told ABC Radio. "We've certainly had approaches from other players about potentially selling it, but at the end of the day we've got to look at the economics of that whole project." Mr Clifford said ERA's environmental performance appeared very solid. He said Rio Tinto was talking to several Aboriginal parties involved with the Jabiluka area, adjoining the Kakadu world heritage area in the Northern Territory. "We're a mining company. We are quite capable of running mining operations profitably and with sensitivity for the environment and the people involved," Mr Clifford said. "We're pretty proud of our record in terms of running mining operations and some of those have been in quite unusual environments and we're satisfied that any operation which we decide to retain we can hold our head up high. "We have a good relationship with Aboriginal communities in Australia and whenever we go forward with any project we'll be talking to all the parties involved." Echoing comments by Shell in its bid for Woodside Energy, Mr Clifford said Australia benefited from international investment rather than borrowing. "If there aren't sufficient savings in Australia to make the investments which ultimately are going to employ young Australians, I can't see any problem," he said. "In fact, I think it's desirable." Mr Clifford said there was insufficient investment available in Australia, so major projects needed direct foreign equity investment. fairfax.com.au ***************************************************************** 15 2 MOX fuel carriers to arrive at Niigata port March 24 Power Online News for power industry professionals -->3/13/2001 NIIGATA, Japan, Mar 13, 2001 (Kyodo via COMTEX) -- Two armed British cargo ships carrying recycled mixed oxide (MOX) nuclear fuel processed in France will arrive at a port in Niigata Prefecture on the Japan Sea coast around March 24, sources familiar with the shipments said Tuesday. The vessels, carrying the fuel comprising plutonium and uranium for Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s (TEPCO) Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant in the prefecture, are scheduled to dock at a port at the plant, the sources said. The ships left the northwestern French port of Cherbourg in January. The cargo, 28 MOX fuel rods produced by the Belgian company Belgonucleaire from plutonium reprocessed by the French state-owned company COGEMA, is expected to be loaded into the No. 3 reactor of the TEPCO plant. The two British ships, specially fitted for the transport of nuclear fuel, are armed with machine guns as protection against piracy. Guards from the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority are also on board. The shipment will be the second time MOX fuel has been shipped to Japan using commercial armed vessels. The previous shipment took place in 1999. 2001 Kyodo News (c) Established 1945 ***************************************************************** 16 BRITISH Energy is drawing up firm plans to build a new nuclear power plant at Hunterston in Ayrshire. The proposal prompted huge controversy, with environmentalists describing it as "expensive madness" which would generate public outrage. It has also sparked a political row, with the SNP accusing Brian Wilson, the local MP and foreign office minister, of using the situation for electoral gain. Labour's 1997 manifesto pledged that there was "no economic case for the building of any new nuclear power stations", but the government is under pressure to met Kyoto targets to reduce the carbon dioxide omissions that cause global warming, and is said to be "relaxed" about British Energy's plans. The nuclear giant has confirmed it is looking at ways to replace "some or all" of its existing plants and the Hunterston B station, near West Kilbride, is one of its first priorities. The scheme would require approval from the nuclear installations inspectorate and would take around 10 years to complete: five years for design and planning and five for construction. If the programme is approved, it will be the first time Britain has built a nuclear plant since the pressurised water reactor, Size-well B, in Suffolk, in 1995. Robin Jeffrey, British Energy's chairman designate, said yesterday: "In all probability, Hunterston B will retire somewhere between 2010 and 2015 and, assuming the business case is robust, we would intend replacing it. "This obviously makes enormous sense from the viewpoint of employment continuity, re-use of the transmission system and other infrastructure, such as cooling water inlets and outfalls." Mr Wilson, MP for Cunninghame North, is already consulting his constituents about the plans for a Hunterston C, which would secure at least 400 local jobs. He told The Herald: "I'm personally in favour of a Hunterston C because of the enormous employment and economic benefits it would bring." Mr Wilson has written to the local authority and community councils to ask if a local consensus could be established in favour of a replacement strategy to maintain the energy capacity of the existing site. The rise in the cost of natural gas, and concerns over the security of gas supplies from the North Sea, have again made nuclear power a viable option for generating electricity. British Energy is expected to deliver a blueprint to the government and industry watchdogs, detailing how it would replace all seven of its advanced gas-cooled reactors as soon as possible. A company spokesman said any new plants would utilise the most hi-tech equipment available and would be far in advance of the pressurised water reactor at Sizewell B. But with at least a 10-year build period, the spokesman warned: "No announcements are imminent." In a written statement, British Energy said: "As the advanced gas-cooled reactors work towards their current planned closure dates, we are considering how to replace some, or all, of that capacity." The company said nuclear power had a key role to play in combating global warming, that the performance of its power stations were considerably improving, and that "nuclear is the only realistic alternative to fossil fuels". The Conservatives are likely to back the scheme. Eleanor Laing, Tory spokeswoman on Scottish affairs, said: "We would certainly consider the proposals. The Hunterston plant is a big energy provider and brings with it many benefits for the Scottish economy and jobs." Raymond Robertson, chairman of the Scottish Conservative Party, said: "Obviously, this is an issue that needs attention, but it is something that needs the attention of the new government." But Martin Campbell, the SNP's prospective Westminster parliamentary candidate for Cunninghame North, accused Mr Wilson of "misleading" Hunterston workers. "There are no plans for a third nuclear power station at Hunterston. Brian Wilson's only interest in this matter has been self interest," he said. "The only job he has been trying to secure, this close to the Westminster election, has been his own." The "green lobby" has long campaigned against the creation of any further nuclear power stations, pointing to a string of environmental disasters. More than 15 years since a nuclear reactor exploded in Chernobyl, one in 16 Ukrainians suffer cancer and other diseases caused by radiation. In Japan, three years ago, workers accidentally set off an atomic reaction. It left two workers near death, drove people from their homes, shut down schools and trains, and virtually sealed off a town. The 310,000 people living within a six-mile radius were told not to leave their homes. Closer to home, the Dounreay plant at Caithness has been the subject of much controversy following a catalogue of safety breaches. In 1977, a shaft containing radioactive waste exploded, blowing off a huge concrete lid and blasting scaffolding poles up to 40 miles away. It is estimated that, between 1979 and 1999, some 380 radioactive particles, some lethal, leaked on to foreshore, into the sea and on to a public beach. The government was forced to ban fishing within two kilometres of the plant. Leader *- March 14* ***************************************************************** 17 ENVIRONMENTALISTS last night branded plans to build a new nuclear power station at Hunterston in Ayrshire "expensive madness" which would generate public outrage. The charge was led by Greenpeace. Spokesman Pete Roche said: "I would be shocked and horrified if the plan goes ahead. "Tony Blair's recent green speech said he wanted to see Britain at the forefront of renewable energy technology and Scotland is well placed to create new industries in wind and wave power. "It goes against the grain now to build a new nuclear power station. If British Energy announces a new reactor, it's almost certain to upset shareholders. I would be very surprised if the City will wear this. "It would be ridiculous, expensive madness to proceed with a new station, especially as we have yet to decide how to deal with the nuclear waste we have created." The chairman of Fairlie Community Council, on Hunterston's doorstep, said it would be calling a public meeting. Steven Graham said he had no scientific proof about people's views. "However, I would guess they would be against it." Kevin Dunion, chief executive of Friends of the Earth, was dismissive of the plan. He said: "The legacy of Dounreay and Sellafield is proof that nuclear power is definitely not a safe, environmentally friendly or a zero-emission option. "The nuclear industry has successfully managed to contaminate almost every part of the world, including Scotland's coastline, and has yet to find a safe disposal option for its wastes. "It should be remembered that if the Romans had introduced nuclear power, we would still be guarding the waste." Mr Dunion said the nuclear industry's renewed optimism came from its "opportunistic" stance that it had a part to play in helping to tackle climate change. He added: "They are engaged in what can only be described as environmental ambulance chasing, offering to be a saviour to the victims of climate change. "If only a fraction of the money wasted over the years on nuclear power had been better invested in energy efficiency and renewables then we would not even be having to contemplate a new-build of dangerous nuclear plants. "As the first plants are not due to close until 2014, there remains a window of opportunity for us to prevent a wholesale return to nuclear power. "The government must grab this opportunity and deliver a truly sustainable energy future for the country. "Scotland does not need more nuclear power - we can't afford it and the risks just aren't worth it." Robin Hunter, the Green party's MSP, said: "I would be dead set against it. We have not got near solving how to deal with waste from such sites." The convener of Scotland Against Nuclear Dumping, Lorraine Mann, said nuclear technology belonged to the past. She added: "It has proved to be dangerous as well as expensive. The government should be investing in alternative renewable energy and taking us away from the dirty energy forms we have used. "I would be surprised if the nuclear power station went ahead. There will be outrage over the direction the government seems to want to take us if Brian Wilson's view is the government's view." She said Mr Wilson had been very vocal on the pro-nuclear side since he got his constituency in Ayrshire. "Before that he was a voice in the wilderness, and it would be a shame if that changed." Hunterston B was built between 1967 and 1976 and started generating power on February 5, 1976. Along with Torness, it provides about 50% of Scotland's electricity. It currently employs 350 people. *- March 14* ***************************************************************** 18 Anger at plans for new Ayrshire nuclear plant The Scotsman Online - Scotland's best selling quality national newspaper ENVIRONMENTAL campaigners and politicians have reacted angrily to proposals for a new nuclear power plant at Hunterston, Ayrshire. Brian Wilson, the Labour MP for Cunninghame North, in whose constituency the reactor is based, has controversially lobbied for a scheme to replace the existing Hunterston B plant, with a “Hunterston C” nuclear station. British Energy has confirmed it is looking at ways to replace some or all of the existing power stations in Scotland. It is understood that the rise in cost of fossil fuels has made nuclear power the favoured option. Mr Wilson, a long-standing supporter of nuclear power, has written to Robin Jeffrey, the chairman of British Energy, urging him to support the plan. We wrote: “If the timetable for Hunterston C is to be achieved, planning has to start soon. “I am writing to the local authority and community councils to see if a local consensus can be established in favour of a replacement.” But Mr Wilson’s stance flies in the face of the Labour Party’s stance on the issue. In its 1997 manifesto, the party stated there was no economic case for the building of new nuclear power stations. His support last night drew criticism from Campbell Martin, the Scottish National Party candidate in the constituency. Mr Martin said: “Hunterston is an important employer in the constituency but it should be replaced with new forms of renewable energy sources. “Brian Wilson is presenting it as if a new nuclear station is the only opportunity to secure the jobs, but their are other alternatives.” The proposal provoked a volley of criticism from environmental groups. Kevin Dunion, chief executive of Friends of the Earth, said: “The legacy of Dounreay and Sellafield is proof that nuclear power is definitely not safe or environmentally friendly. “The nuclear industry has successfully managed to contaminate almost every part of the world, including Scotland’s coastline, and has yet to find a safe disposal option.” Mr Jeffrey last night hinted that nuclear power was being considered for the site. He stated: “In all probability, Hunterston B will retire somewhere between 2010 and 2015 and we would intend replacing it. This obviously makes enormous sense from the viewpoint of employment continuity, re-use of the transmission system and other infrastructure, such as water inlets and outfalls.” Robin Harper, Scotland’s only Green MSP, said: “I would be dead set against it. “We have not got near solving how to deal with waste from such sites.” ***************************************************************** 19 Nuclear power may answer UK demand before the lights go out The Times MARCH 14 2001 TNL If the UK is serious about Kyoto, the Government will need to consider building replacements for plants such as Sellafield BY CARL MORTISHED ROLLING blackouts are a bad thing and this country needs to figure out an energy policy.” Scott McNealy speaks from experience. He is the chairman of Sun Microsystems, a pillar of California’s digital economy and good quality, reliable power is the cornerstone of not just his business but the entire electronic economy. California’s energy shortage is provoking some hard thinking and not just about blackouts. “There’s a real shock going on in California right now as people are getting their energy bills,” said McNealy recently. “This is taking an amazing amount of discretionary spending off the table. That is problem number one.” At a time when American confidence is withering, anything that hinders spending power is bad and the high-tech gurus have radical solutions to America’s electricity shortage. “I’m going to do the politically incorrect thing and tell you the answer’s going to be nuclear power. And we’d better just, like, get over it and figure it out and understand that’s the only way we’re not going to have rolling blackouts.” McNealy’s outburst is not a lone voice from a radioactive wilderness. He echoed almost identical comments from Scott Barrett, the boss of Intel, who announced that no future expansion of Intel would be made in California because of the threat of power shortages. The king of microprocessing is not keen to plug some of the world’s most sophisticated electronic equipment into a dodgy fuse box. “Nuclear power is the only answer,’’ he said. “but it's not politically correct.’’ California is a long way off and Britain currently enjoys an electricity generation surplus but its security from “brown-outs’’ and soaring bills is not absolute. It depends on taking tough decisions today and the toughest decision is about nuclear power. Unfortunately, the Government is adopting a very Californian posture. Over the next ten years, British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) will shut down most of its old Magnox reactors, taking about three gigawatts of power from the grid, reducing nuclear’s current capacity of 13.7 GW to just under 11 GW. From 2010 to 2015, the decommissioning process accelerates and nuclear power generation halves to just 5.5 GW. The Department of Trade and Industry’s projections for overall energy demand agree, showing demand for nuclear power reduced by 50 per cent by 2015 as British Energy’s reactors are shut down. No one is yet addressing the more important question: “What fills the gap?’’ Ask the DTI where the new power is coming from and there is a shocked silence. “The Government does not build power stations,” says a spokesman. “We provide consents.” In other words, the private sector decides what is built and where. “We cannot go and tell people to build power stations. It is for the generators to bring forward proposals,” says the DTI. “The energy policy is to ensure secure, diverse and sustainable supplies of energy at competitive prices.” According to the DTI, the deregulated market will provide a solution but the question is whether it will be sustainable. The Government’s energy demand projections suggest that by 2020, gas will account for half of all energy demand in the UK. Fossil fuels will make up an even greater percentage of energy demand than they do today. As nuclear plants are decommissioned, gas takes up the slack. Renewables, the Government reckons, optimistically, will triple in their contribution but the UK will keep the lights on by burning more carbon. Today, fossil fuels account for 89 per cent of demand, says the DTI. By 2020, it will be 93 per cent. This is not a sustainable policy if we have regard to the impact on the climate. Nuclear power is emission-free but gas, oil and coal are carbon fuels and we have made a commitment under the Kyoto Protocol to reduce climate-changing greenhouse gas emissions. It is also a high-risk policy in its dependence on gas imports. UK reserves are rapidly depleting. Before 2005 the country is likely to become a net importer of natural gas. The largest source of foreign gas is and will remain Russia, and its monopoly Russian supplier, Gazprom. The trouble with a market-based solution is that it could lead to the sort of violent swings that are currently jolting the Californians from their air-conditioned slumbers. Markets do not plan, they just react to gluts and shortages. California deregulated its industry but perversely has not built a power station for ten years. The huge cost of planning deterred investors. They are now paying the price. Britain’s nuclear industry is lobbying discretely in the wings. They are confident that they provide the best solution. “If we are thinking about replacing existing stations, the debate must be engaged now,” says a British Energy spokesman. It could take seven or eight years to bring a new nuclear power station online. “The planning enquiry for Sizewell B sat for 360 working days. Then you have five years of construction and a year of commissioning.” British Energy admits the £2.5 billion cost of building nuclear stations cannot currently compete with the gas alternatives. However, that assumes that carbon emissions are cost-free. “Nuke stations must pay for everything from cradle to grave, including decommissioning and waste disposal. Gas and coal stations just pump it up the chimney.” In the US, the political debate is already engaged over nuclear power. A senator from New Mexico is tabling a bi-partisan Bill asking for $400 million (£275 million) of government funding for new nuclear stations. The last time nuclear issues were on the agenda in the UK, the Conservatives were in power and a permanent nuclear waste disposal site was being mooted in Cumbria. On the day John Major called for a general election the waste project was shelved. It has yet to be revived. Another election is brewing and no politician will even dare to whisper the word nuclear. There are other issues to be debated. Someone else can turn off the lights. Copyright 2001 Times Newspapers Ltd. This service is provided on ***************************************************************** 20 New Scientist: Heavy water A UN report says depleted uranium contamination is not widespread in Kosovo, but warns drinking water could be affected in future Drinking water in Kosovo could end up being contaminated with radioactive uranium at levels in breach of safety limits, warns the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). A new study by an international team of scientists says the water should be monitored and the uranium cleaned up. Over 30,000 shells containing nine tonnes of depleted uranium (DU) were fired by US A-10 aircraft at 112 sites in Kosovo during the conflict in 1999. The material is very dense and helps the shells penetrate armour. Because of controversy over how this might endanger the health of local people, 11 of the sites have been examined for UNEP by 14 scientists from the US and Europe. Their report, published on 13 March, concludes that there is "no widespread contamination" by DU and hence no significant risk to health. It points out, however, that the water from wells in heavily shelled areas could be polluted in years to come as the uranium dissolves and leaches into the groundwater. 100-fold increase The report says a thousand DU shells buried in the ground could increase uranium levels in water by 100 times. This would push them over the two micrograms per litre limit recommended by the World Health Organisation. An A-10 fires up to 150 rounds in a single dive, which can penetrate seven metres into soft soil. Pekka Haavisto, chairman of UNEP's DU assessment team, stresses that there are "considerable scientific uncertainties" about the safety of the groundwater. "Additional work has to be done to reduce these uncertainties and to monitor the quality of the water," he says. The UNEP report also recommends that all the sites in Kosovo contaminated with DU should be cleaned up. "DU can still pose risks," cautions UNEP executive director, Klaus Töpfer. "Our report highlights a series of precautionary measures that should be taken to ensure that the areas struck by DU ammunition remain risk-free." Plutonium traces Scientists also confirm that the seven and a half DU shells they found in Kosovo last November contained traces of plutonium. Although the amounts were too small to add any significant radioactivity, they did suggest that the uranium had been burnt in nuclear reactors. The 19 members of NATO, which co-ordinated the military action in Kosovo, are currently discussing whether a DU clean-up is necessary and, if so, how it would be conducted and funded. "The UNEP report adds further information to the public debate about DU," a spokesman for NATO told New Scientist. More at: UNEP report Correspondence about this story should be directed to latestnews@newscientist.com 1630 GMT, 13 March 2001 Rob Edwards New Scientist Online News Sign up for our free newsletter ***************************************************************** 21 Kola Peninsula "nuclear hazard for all north Europe" [ITAR/TASS News Agency] Date: 03/14/2001 08:04 Story Filed: Wednesday, March 14, 2001 8:04 AM EST MURMANSK, Mar 14, 2001 (Itar-Tass via COMTEX) -- The far north Kola Peninsula has more nuclear reactors than anywhere else in Russia and is a serious radiation hazard for all northern European, Murmansk Governor Yuri Yevdokimov said on Wednesday. He told a meeting of the regional Barents-Euro-Arctic Council that during the 40 years of operation of civil and military nuclear reactors, more than 10 million curies of radioactive substances had accumulated in radioactive waste and used nuclear fuel stored in the Russian North. Half of it was kept in an environmentally-dangerous way, he said, noting that to ensure full radiation security in the region required an investment of 1,5 billion U.S. dollars. Russia had no such funding and hoped for aid from the international community. But Russia's leadership was taking impressive measures to solve the problem, he said. The Northern State Company SEVRAO had been set up and all coastal radiation-technical bases of the northern naval fleet were being transferred to that company. Construction of a facility to process liquid radioactive waste was nearing completion at the Murmansk repair company, Atomflot, and a plant to process solid radioactive waste would be built in the city of Polyarny. Construction was well in progress for other regional projects but a solution to the entire problem was still far away, the governor said. Foreign ministers from Russia, Norway, Finland and Sweden, and observers from other Western countries meeting in Murmansk on Thursday, will discuss how neighbouring Nordic countries and the world community as a whole can work together on the problem. By Vassily Belousov (c) 1996-2001 ITAR-TASS. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 22 Letter: Not all nuclear issues the same March 14, 2001 A March 4 letter, implying that the Hanford facility in Richland, Wash., is similar to the proposed repository at Yucca Mountain, couldn't be further from the truth. Hanford is plagued with serious contamination from leaking tanks that pose a threat to the environment. At least 67 of the tanks have leaked an estimated million gallons of waste into the ground. The mission of the Hanford site was that of production of nuclear materials like many other Cold War production facilities around the nation. Spent nuclear fuel assemblies that would be stored at Yucca Mountain are solid and cannot leak. The integrity of shipping casks and those intended for long-term storage of the spent fuel should not be compared to the Hanford tanks, which were not intended for long-term storage of radioactive liquids. It has been determined that deep geologic storage of highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel rods is the safest protection for humans and the environment. Further, these materials should not be considered as total waste. As recycling techniques are refined, much of the remaining value of the stored rods will be usable, thus reducing the amount of radioactive material to be stored. Weigh the issues and facts before leaping to a conclusion regarding anything regarding nuclear issues. RICHARD G. TELFER All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 23 Sorry, but trinkets won't do [deseretnews.com] March 14, 2001 I was overwhelmed by a recent proposal and the generosity of the state's Legislature to make $2 million available to the Skull Valley Goshutes, of which I am a member. This is asinine. Why don't they just give us bobbles, trinkets and $24 like they used to in the good ol' days? The $ 2 million is just pocket change. Realistically the carrot on the string should be equal to or near the amount for the spent nuclear storage facility to provide financial growth that can be enjoyed by the Goshute Tribe. I also read the article concerning the rail line from Lowe to the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation. Sounds good. Although the project is in its preliminary stage, it's slowly taking shape. Can't wait to see what will transpire next. Lawrence Bear Member, Skull Valley Goshutes © 2001 Deseret News Publishing Company ***************************************************************** 24 Envirocare Forum to Focus on Hot Issue Wednesday, March 14, 2001 BY REBECCA WALSH and JUDY FAHYS THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE Normally, Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson's opposition to nuclear waste storage can be assumed. He goes out of his way to slam plans to store spent nuclear fuel rods on the Goshute tribe of Skull Valley Indian Reservation, driving to public hearings and throwing a monologue on the issue into his "State of the City" address. "There can be no good reason for exposing the people of Utah to the enormous risks of accidents, terrorist attacks, failure of the waste storage casks and natural hazards inherent in the transportation and storage of nuclear waste," he said in January. Still, the mayor is undecided about Envirocare of Utah's plans to haul low-level radioactive waste on trucks and trains through Salt Lake City to a landfill 80 miles to the west. So, Anderson has scheduled a public forum on the issue. Thursday night, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., representatives of the waste storage company and opponents will debate in Salt Lake City's Main Library Auditorium, 209 E. 500 South. Author Chip Ward and Salt Lake Valley doctor David Smith will represent opponents. "It's a good opportunity to clarify some of the misinformation that has been given about [Envirocare's] proposal," said Jason Groenewold, from Families Against Incinerator Risk. "It's a good opportunity for the public to learn more and see through the smoke screens Envirocare has been putting up." For their part, Envirocare officials figure, the better educated people are, the more likely they are to support the idea. "We have been willing to talk to any group that is willing to listen," said company spokesman Tim Barney. "The mayor has assured us it will be a fair and impartial forum in which education will be the goal, and that the discussion will be based on fact." Envirocare has asked the state for permission to accept "hotter" low-level radioactive waste at its 640-acre Tooele County landfill. The so-called B and C waste includes contaminated cleanup materials and reactor rubbish from nuclear power plants, as well as waste from research institutions and hospitals. Class B and C wastes are hundreds -- and sometimes thousands -- of times more radioactive than the Class A wastes Envirocare has been disposing for more than a decade. But all the waste proposed for Envirocare is considered "low-level," compared to the "high-level" waste proposed for the Skull Valley Band Goshute Indian Reservation, also in Tooele County. High-level waste proposed for the reservation, about 45 miles from Salt Lake City, includes spent nuclear fuel that remains dangerously radioactive for 10,000 years or longer. Despite his vehement opposition to the Goshutes' plans, Anderson wants more information from Envirocare. Last month, Anderson invited Envirocare owner Khosrow Semnani to City Hall for a meeting. "Each side independent of the other makes some very reasonable claims," said Deeda Seed, Anderson's chief of staff. "Now, we're bringing both sides together. We hope to have a comprehensive discussion of the science behind this, how dangerous this radioactive material is and the state of the technology used to store it. "We haven't made a decision regarding our position or what the city should do about it," Seed added. Semnani is a generous political benefactor, giving cash to state and local candidates from both political parties. State lawmakers have accepted about $90,000 from the company for the past two elections. And Gov. Mike Leavitt, another outspoken opponent of the Goshute plan, has accepted more than $36,000 from Semnani and his company since 1993. During the 1999 mayoral race, Semnani gave several candidates donations, including former County Commissioner Jim Bradley, former state Rep. Dave Jones and former city Community and Economic Development Director Stuart Reid. And Anderson took $2,000 from Envirocare's owner. "We certainly hope the campaign contributions would not influence him or impact his decision," Groenewold said. Councilman Dave Buhler, who has also accepted money from Envirocare, isn't sure of Salt Lake City's stake in Envirocare's plans. But, he says, more information always helps. "This is an issue of concern to people in the region," Buhler said. "Why not?" The Goshute proposal, led by a consortium of eight utility companies, is under review by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The state government and a bipartisan coalition are fighting that proposal as a danger to the public's health and safety. Leavitt Signs Bill Banning High-Level N-Waste Gov. Mike Leavitt took his best shot Tuesday to try to keep nuclear waste out of Utah, signing a law that bans high-level nuclear waste from the state. The law is a reaction to a plan by the Goshute tribe to generate revenue by allowing utilities with nuclear power plants to store spent fuel on tribal lands. A companion bill to the nuclear waste prohibition directs state agencies to study American Indian tribes' economic development needs. While acknowledging the "extreme economic burdens" faced by the tribe, "Utah says 'no' to high-level nuclear waste," Leavitt said, after signing the bills into law. ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 State asking Energy Department to find elusive water solutions Amarillo Globe-News: Special Section: The final fix 03/13/01 March 13, 2001 By JIM McBRIDE Globe-News Courts Writer The state's environmental agency has asked the Energy Department to submit a Pantex groundwater compliance plan that state officials say will set deadlines for environmental investigations, help thwart potential contamination of Amarillo water wells and help secure federal cleanup funds. Robert Musick, project manager in the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission's corrective action section, said the state sought a formal compliance plan from the Energy Department after solvent contamination turned up in one of Pantex's Ogallala Aquifer water wells. Last year, Pantex and state officials acknowledged a nine-month delay in reporting trichloroethylene contamination of a Pantex Ogallala well located near city of Amarillo water wells. "That is the one incident that has initiated the compliance plan," Musick said. "Definitely, we're trying to stop the contamination from getting to the municipal water supply. There's a reason for the compliance plan." In November, state officials cited concerns about various groundwater problems and told the DOE to obtain a compliance plan that sets up a monitoring or corrective action program. Musick believes the compliance plan should have been established long ago, but said his agency now must pursue the groundwater issue. "With the TCE hit, as an agency, we think that it's necessary at this point in time to step up and require an additional enforceable contract," Musick said. Pantex officials said they now are preparing the proposed compliance plan, but say the plan is too preliminary to discuss at this time. The plan is expected to be submitted to the TNRCC in three months. But Dan Glenn, manager of the DOE's Amarillo Area Office, said Pantex is trying to determine the extent of contamination and work toward eventual cleanup. "We are accomplishing work that needs to be done to address the contamination issue that we're finding. There is a lot of work that has been done this past year," he said. Glenn said DOE is actively attempting to locate sources where contamination originated. "The final fix and the technology that can most effectively remediate the entire situation is going to take some time," he said. "It takes time with the regulators. We have to assure ourselves that the final fix would do what we need it to do and not cause any other problems." Glenn acknowledges that some neighbors think DOE's cleanup efforts have been slow. "That final fix is long-term, and that I think is a point of frustration for the neighbors in the community," Glenn said. "We continue to analyze and evaluate it. . . . There is more coming out all the time than there was the day before." Other groups also are concerned about Pantex's future. In November, the Pantex Citizens Advisory Board, which makes recommendations to the DOE, adopted a resolution endorsing a DOE report "Protecting the Ogallala II" that calls on the department to protect the aquifer from further contamination. The board includes a cross-section of area residents, Amarillo officials and other interested parties dubbed "Stakeholders" by the DOE. Earlier, the citizens advisory board endorsed a plan calling for experts to review data on contamination emanating from Pantex's southeast side. "We consider it imperative that essential new funding be provided for environmental restoration activities at Pantex - so that the nature and extent of the contamination can be defined, cleanup activities identified and remedial technologies aggressively pursued and implemented," the board said in a recent statement to new Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham. Beverly Gattis, president of Serious Texans Against Nuclear Dumping, an Amarillo-based environmental group that has closely watched Pantex groundwater issues, said she remembers assurances from Pantex officials that contamination would not seep off the plant site. "I remember when I first got into this, the perched (aquifer) was completely on-site and it wasn't going to get offsite. And then now you've got landowners that indeed have been impacted, " she said. Gattis said the discovery last year that Pantex and state officials failed to publicly report solvent contamination detailed shortcomings in the TNRCC's oversight of Pantex groundwater. "It is a weak agency to depend on, and they missed it too. So that you have less protection than you think you have," she said. "That is really far less effective than you'd like to think because your agencies are too often paper tigers, underfunded, understaffed, overworked." Musick said he has met with DOE mid-level management staff that handle funding issues and believes the DOE will budget much-needed cleanup money under the compliance plan. "We want an agreement so DOE can budget the money," he said. "'We know that DOE is not in a position to propose a final corrective remedy. We're still in the investigation mode out there. We're requiring DOE to expedite their investigations. We can only go as fast as DOE's money will allow them to go based upon their funding." Denny Ruddy, general manager of new Pantex contractor BWXT, said he wants landowners and others to know that Pantex is working to clean up the messes the Cold War left behind. "We want them to know that we are aggressively trying to find out and acknowledge the legacy issues that are here. Second of all, there is not going to be any gap in the information that we have versus what they have," he said. "We're aggressively trying to find and pursue any means of remediation that we can." ***************************************************************** 2 What to do with 3.5 million pounds of nickel? March 14, 2001 By Frank Munger News-Sentinel senior writer The Department of Energy's moratorium on commercial sales of radioactive scrap metal has not had as much effect on BNFL's Oak Ridge cleanup project as expected. BNFL originally planned to recycle the metals and sell them commercially as one way to offset cleanup costs at three huge buildings once used to process uranium at the K-25 plant. But, after ex-Energy Secretary Bill Richardson banned the commercial release of materials with detectable amounts of radioactivity, DOE agreed to buy the recycled metals from BNFL at the market rate. So BNFL, the American subsidiary of British Nuclear Fuels, didn't lose anything. In fact, the Richardson decision may have made the contractor's job easier because it didn't have to shop for a customer. Besides, as a BNFL official noted recently, the declining cost of nuclear waste disposal has made it cheaper -- in some instances -- to bury the scrap rather than worry with recycling. It's not clear, however, what will happen to the valuable nickel that's been stripped from the K-25 equipment and stockpiled at the site. BNFL earlier acquired a state permit to process the nickel at Manufacturing Sciences, the company's Oak Ridge recycling unit, but it became a moot issue when DOE banned commercial sales of recycled metals. So far, BNFL has filled about 3,500 55-gallon drums and 500 boxes with nickel removed from the uranium-enrichment equipment at the Oak Ridge site. It is projected that the buildings contain a total of about 3.5 million pounds of radioactively contaminated nickel. That's a lot of nickel. * WORDS OF SUPPORT: Kim Rice, a native Oak Ridger who now lives in Morehead, Ky., responded to a recent column about Oak Ridge National Laboratory's plans to produce and process plutonium for the space program. "This may not mean much to those who, like me, would rather that no plutonium production of any kind took place -- at ORNL or elsewhere -- but I worked with Larry Boyd (a manager in DOE's site office) for a number of years, and there is no one I would trust more with such an operation .... Larry's a man of great integrity who doesn't mind telling the truth or fighting for what's right. He's not the blindly loyal, play-nice-and-get-along type when it comes to safety issues and has no use for people who conduct business that way. "He and Bob Wham (nuclear program manager at ORNL) have a good relationship built on mutual honesty and respect. If plutonium production is going to go forward -- and that looks unavoidable -- the management of the program couldn't be in better hands." * NUKE RIGHT: U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, R-Tenn., last month was named co-chairman of the Renewable Energy and Efficiency Caucus -- a bipartisan group of more than 150 congressmen. During a recent visit to Oak Ridge, Wamp suggested his role may include pushing the nuclear option. "Our intent is to have a balanced energy strategy ... and I'm there as the co-chairman kind of from the right to say, don't forget that advanced light-water reactors are a safe, clean alternative to coal-fired emissions. Now some of my friends on the left are not going to like that, but as I said with this caucus, we're going to bounce off the right and the left to establish a consensus in the middle for a balanced strategy." Wamp noted that the United States has only about 2 percent of the planet's petroleum reserves, yet consumes about 25 percent of the petroleum products. "You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure you can't pump your way out of that problem," he said. The congressman said the caucus also will push for greater investments in energy efficiency and other strategies that help real people with real energy concerns. "The poorest people in this country pay the highest percent of their housing costs for electricity and heating and cooling. Well, that's not fair," he said. * WISHING &HOPING: Oak Ridge retirees who wants details of the proposal for a pension adjustment can get copies at the visitors desk at the Oak Ridge Mall or the Oak Ridge Senior Center. Bob Wesley, a spokesman for the Coalition of Oak Ridge Retired Employees, which represents about 13,000 contractor retirees or surviving spouses, said a limited number of copies are available currently, but more are forthcoming. The coalition recently submitted the proposal to BWXT Y-12, the Department of Energy contractor that administers the Oak Ridge pension fund. An announcement on a pension increase is expected by early May. Senior Writer Frank Munger covers the Department of Energy for the News-Sentinel. He can be reached at 865-482-9213 or at twig1@knoxnews.infi.net. ***************************************************************** 3 Thompson pushes for nuclear weapons complex upgrades Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 12:19 p.m. on Wednesday, March 14, 2001 by Paul Parson Oak Ridger staff The current state of the United States' nuclear weapons complex, including an Oak Ridge facility, is inadequate, according to U.S. Sen. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn. Thompson spoke Tuesday before the Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee about the need for funds to perform upgrades at nuclear weapons facilities, including the Y-12 National Security Complex. Funding for the upgrades falls under the jurisdiction of the subcommittee. "I am one who believes that there are some core functions of our federal government -- national defense, infrastructure, parks and roads -- that are being shortchanged as we devote a greater and greater percentage of our federal budget to entitlement programs and mandatory spending," Thompson said in his remarks to the subcommittee. "We keep squeezing that one-third of the budget that we devote to these vital discretionary spending needs tighter and tighter because we don't want to undertake Social Security and Medicare reform. But we aren't going to be able to do that for much longer. That course is not sustainable." Witnesses at Tuesday's hearing included James Schlesinger, former secretary of defense and secretary of energy, and Gen. John Gordon, undersecretary of energy for nuclear security and administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration. The NNSA is the quasi-independent agency within the Department of Energy that oversees the nuclear weapons complex. Gordon has proposed a new initiative that would invest $300 million to $500 million annually in the repair and modernization of the nuclear weapons complex. Both Thompson and U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., who chairs the Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee, have voiced support for Gordon's proposal. Earlier this year, the Department of Energy released a draft site-wide environmental impact statement outlining alternatives for the modernization of Y-12, which is managed by BWXT Y-12. The document proposes the construction of a storage area for highly enriched uranium and a special materials complex as part of the plant's modernization. Existing Y-12 facilities for storage of highly enriched uranium are in buildings that are 35 to 55 years old and require significant maintenance and funding to maintain operations and security protocol, officials have said. Support for the modernization of Y-12 has been voiced by at least six congressman, including U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, R-3rd District, and by Oak Ridge Mayor Jerry Kuhaida, Knoxville Mayor Victor Ashe and county executives from Anderson, Knox, Loudon and Roane counties. However, several environmental activist groups believe money would be better spent on health care, housing, education and cleaning up the environment rather than upgrading Y-12. Members of the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance said the special materials complex will serve as a bomb-building facility, adding that if built, it will violate international disarmament treaties. All Contents ©Copyright* The Oak Ridger * ***************************************************************** 4 Responds to Smyser's column on black residents Online - Opinion - Your Views 03/14/01 Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 1:02 p.m. on Wednesday, March 14, 2001 Your Views To The Oak Ridger: I could not sit back and not say anything after reading Mr. Smyser's column Monday, March 1, 2001, "City's black residents weren't coerced to live near Y-12." No they were not forced to live in Gamble Valley, but it was a take it or leave it situation. If they wanted to live here, that was the only place black people could live. The Atomic Energy Commission made all of the decisions. Yes, the so-called black leaders from the black community were asked to attend a meeting by AEC. At the first meeting, the black people were told that they would be relocated in East Village but at the next meeting with the so-called black leaders, were told that there had been a change in plans. Let me remind you, Mr. Smyser, there were several meetings in between the first and second meeting with black leaders. The choice was, black people would be relocated in Gamble Valley. This was not a choice, as I said in the beginning. It was a take or leave situation. These meetings were to tell the black people what they were going to do. How Gamble Valley's name was changed to Scarboro. The Rev. C.C. Fuller didn't like the name Gamble Valley because only black people would be living over here and he didn't want the name Gamble associated with the black people. The black leaders felt like he was granted his wish to make people think they had a say in what was going on. The earliest black people did live in hutments where the Woodland residents are located now. It was never called Scarboro Village. It was always called the Hutments, and every last one of them had board floors. I have never seen a dirt floor in any hut, and segregated, "yes," to the max. Yes, there was public transportation. The black bus had Gamble Valley on the front to make sure black people would catch the right bus. Mr. Smyser, I can't ever remember seeing your face in the black community, and I don't know how you know so much about this community. I will tell you this, the history of the black people will never be told. R.L. Ayers Oak Ridge More on shopping in Oak Ridge To The Oak Ridger: This letter is in regard to the problem as expressed by Patricia Ballinger in her letter published March 6, 2001. While it is true that some things have been difficult to find in Oak Ridge, some smaller merchants have been trying to ameliorate that situation. Two of the items mentioned by Ms. Ballinger were available at Karen's Jewelers, where silver and baby gifts have been sold for the past 15 years, along with Irish crystal (by Waterford) and Spanish porcelain (by Lladro) as well as other gift items. Further, if the specific item you wanted was not in stock it could be special-ordered for you. It could also be engraved there for you. I hope Ms. Ballinger (and other shoppers too) will give small businesses in Oak Ridge another chance by shopping around by telephone. I am sure many of these merchants would be happy to order special items for you. Andrew Hart Karen's Jewelers Oak Ridge The Vines family expresses thanks To The Oak Ridger: We would like to thank the Oak Ridge Boys Club for establishing an annual college scholarship fund in memory of our son, Jim Vines. He would be proud that this scholarship would go to a deserving Boys Club member to further his education. Again, we want to thank the wonderful people of Oak Ridge for their great support and expressions of sympathy shown to us after Jimmy's death. Our sincere and deepest thanks for all the prayers, flowers, food, telephone calls, cards and visits made to us during their most grief-stricken time in our lives. We also want to thank all of those who made donations to the Family Fund established through TnBank, the Boys Club and the Healthy Start Program in memory of Jimmy. We have truly been touched by the outpouring of affection shown to our son by the community he loved so much. Pete and Kay Vines Oak Ridge He'll buy the waterfront land for $100/acre To The Oak Ridger: Waterfront property for only $54 an acre! Imagine my surprise to learn from The Oak Ridger (Feb. 28,2001) that the Department of Energy had sold 182 acres of shoreline property along the Clinch River to Oak Ridge Land Company. I would have been willing to pay at least $100 an acre for that land. Indeed, I publicly and formally offer DOE $182,000 for the 182 acres. I'm sure many others, given the opportunity to buy prime waterfront property, would pay several hundred to a few thousand dollars an acre. What, I wonder, led DOE to cheat U.S. taxpayers by selling the land for so little? Why didn't DOE conduct a public auction so that others could have had an opportunity to bid on that property? DOE's recent actions show why it is so important that it prepare a thorough environmental impact assessment of the entire DOE reservation. If DOE continues to dispose of the land parcel by parcel all of us will be losers. Eric Hirst Oak Ridge Essay brings nostalgic thoughts To The Oak Ridger: Darla Pelech's essay (from March 1) on "Cracked Asphalt" brought me nostalgia. She barely mentioned the Saturday morning flea market, which could have, by itself, been an essay. That old C-Building parking lot was a symbol to her. Thinking back, I consider it venerable. The new one is functional and sterile. I'd really like to see Darla's final words, omitted at the bottom of the column. Will you please print the whole last paragraph for continuity? Marcay Dickens Oak Ridge All Contents ©Copyright* The Oak Ridger * ***************************************************************** 5 $5 Billion to Repair Nuclear Plants Sought (washingtonpost.com) Energy Dept. Wants to Add $300 Million a Year for 17 Years for Refurbishment *By Walter Pincus* Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, March 14, 2001; Page A26 Weeds are growing through one building and concrete is falling from the roof of another at the nuclear weapons plant at Oak Ridge, Tenn., which enriched the uranium used in the 1945 Hiroshima bomb and still handles every nuclear weapon going into and out of the U.S. stockpile, a top Energy Department official told Congress yesterday. Gen. John A. Gordon, administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, painted a dire portrait of Oak Ridge's Y-12 Plant as he asked a Senate Appropriations subcommittee for an additional $300 million next year for repairs to nuclear weapons production facilities. "We need to spend an additional $300 million to $500 million a year over currently planned levels for the next 17 years . . . to refurbish the weapons complex to perform just its basic mission," Gordon said. Gordon got a sympathetic reception from Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.), chairman of the subcommittee on energy and water development. "We need to make sure that more resources are put in" to the nuclear complex, said Domenici, whose state contains two major nuclear facilities, the Los Alamos and Sandia national laboratories. "This is not a place to save money over the next four years of this president -- and actually, if he tries, it will be harmful in the end." During last year's campaign, President Bush called for dramatic cuts in the U.S. nuclear arsenal, and the administration's initial budget proposal last month contained a $180 million reduction in the $4.5 billion annual allotment for maintaining nuclear weapons, known as the "stockpile stewardship" program. Gordon contended that increased funding is needed "even if the nuclear stockpile is over time made smaller." He said a tentative agreement between the Pentagon and his agency calls for refurbishing the B-61 nuclear bomb, carried by U.S. warplanes, and the W-76 warhead, mounted on submarine-launched ballistic missiles. Noting that those two weapons make up "60 percent" of the U.S. stockpile, Gordon said the existing weapons complex "cannot fully support that schedule and that plan." Gordon also said funding is needed to consolidate nuclear weapons facilities that are "spread throughout the landscape" of the sprawling Los Alamos National Laboratory. "I need to pull together in one location at Los Alamos the nuclear operation so that we can do the safety and the protection of those facilities in one place, instead of having guards and guns at five or six or seven different locations," he said. He did not estimate the cost of such a project. © 2001 The Washington Post Company ***************************************************************** 6 Pantex brings pros, cons Amarillo Globe-News They're your neighbors, friends and relatives. March 13, 2001 BWXT Pantex, the contractor which operates Pantex, has 2,800 people on its payroll with additional workers from the Department of Energy and other contractors. By JENNIFER LUTZ Globe-News Staff Writer Each day they drive east from Amarillo, heading to work with the rest of the rush-hour crowd. But the thousands who pull their cars into the Pantex Plant are different from typical workers. Most are forbidden to talk about their jobs. It's national security on the local level. Their work of assembling and disassembling nuclear warheads must remain confidential. The weapons produced at the plant boost American dominance and the Amarillo economy. "I haven't been here long enough to name all the things it has done for the city,'' Jim Henson, Amarillo Chamber of Commerce vice president of business and development, said about Pantex. "It brought jobs to the Panhandle that otherwise would have not migrated here.'' BWXT Pantex, the contractor that took over the reins from Mason & Hanger Corp. last month, has 2,800 people on its payroll. With the Energy Department added in, the nuclear weapons facility in Carson County employs almost 3,000. Pantex is the city's second-largest private employer, behind IBP Inc., said Michael Bourn, Amarillo Economic Development Corp. executive director. Pantex has the largest payroll in Amarillo. The average annual salary for a Pantex worker is $52,000. Most Pantex workers stick with the plant until retirement because of high wages and a substantial benefits package, Bourn said. "They have been a very stable employer,'' he said. "That means many people who have gotten jobs live in the community and work there their entire working career.'' But not everyone considers the plant a great asset to the area. Dave and Lori Henderson, neighbors to the northeast of Pantex, said they have been hurt by the plant. They have tried to sell their house but cannot find interested buyers because of the threat of contaminated groundwater. Last March, Pantex officials publicly reported the contamination, which narrowly exceeded federal drinking water standards. DOE and state officials later acknowledged delays in reporting the solvent contamination in the Ogallala. The Hendersons could not find a buyer, and they blamed it on the plant. "When we've tried to sell the house, we called an appraiser and they wouldn't even come out here because of the potential water contamination,'' Lori Henderson said. "So, if a person wanted to buy the house, they couldn't get an appraiser out here.'' Mike Darnell, a Carson County appraiser, said he is not sure how houses in the area will be valued with the recent onset of water contamination. "We haven't changed any values out there because of it yet,'' he said. "But then again, we don't have very many sales out there.'' Darnell suggested the Hendersons meet with the county's appraisal review board to discuss what options are available. Jim and Jeri Osborne have also watched their house decrease in value. The Pantex plant in Carson County is the city's second-largest private employer. The couple filed a lawsuit in 1997, alleging that a 1995 high-explosive blast damaged their home. The case is still pending. Carson County did drop the Osbornes' property value because of the creases in the walls, broken sewer lines and foundation cracks, Darnell said. Other than the houses owned by the Hendersons and Osbornes, homes around Pantex have not increased nor decreased in value, he said. "We haven't looked at them any differently,'' Darnell said. "We may in the future, but not yet.'' Bourn does not believe the Pantex mission has given the city an image problem. "When I've talked to companies about locating in the area, Pantex is not something that has ever been a concern to them,'' he said. "I've been here 101/2 years, and I've never once worked with a client who expressed concerns about Pantex.'' ***************************************************************** 7 SRS faces budget cut under president's plan *Web posted Wednesday, March 14, 2001 By Brandon Haddock *Staff Writer* Savannah River Site funding could shrink by as much as $100 million under President Bush's proposed budget for fiscal year 2002, a staffer for U.S. Rep. Lindsey Graham said Tuesday. ``If we can't get that fixed, it's going to impact the site,'' Richard Perry, the chief of staff to Mr. Graham, R-S.C., said after a meeting of the SRS Retirees Association in Aiken. ``In how the site manages that cut, they are going to have to make some tough decisions.'' In recent years, the federal nuclear-weapons site's annual outlay has been about $1.5 billion. If the proposed cuts pass, the site might have to slow cleanup of pollution left by previous SRS activities, Mr. Perry said. The budget also could curtail plans to build new plants at SRS to rid the nation of excess plutonium, he added. Layoffs also are a possibility, Mr. Perry said. A U.S. Department of Energy spokesman at SRS referred inquiries about the budget to the agency's Washington headquarters. An Energy Department spokesman in Washington did not return a telephone call placed late Tuesday afternoon. The budget projections are early, Mr. Perry said, and members of the South Carolina and Georgia congressional delegations plan to meet with Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham to try to reverse some of the proposed cuts. Early reports indicate that SRS reductions would be part of an overall effort to trim $1 billion from the Energy Department's annual budget. The agency received more than $19 billion last year. More than $400 million of the planned $1 billion reduction would come from the Energy Department's ``environmental management'' division, Mr. Perry said. The division funds efforts to clean up pollution and manage nuclear waste at nuclear-weapons sites. Between 85 percent and 90 percent of the SRS budget comes from the environmental management division. The proposed cuts have been a topic of rumors and concern in Aiken for weeks. Last month, the four U.S. senators from Georgia and South Carolina wrote Mr. Abraham to oppose the budget plan. ``While we fully understand the need to cut unnecessary spending, the idea that the Energy Department could be underfunded in environmental management is unconscionable,'' the senators wrote. ``Many of the nuclear-waste cleanup programs would undoubtedly be affected by this proposal.'' Some local SRS watchers also said the plan would hurt the site's cleanup efforts. ``If it comes to pass, that's very bad news,'' Ernest S. Chaput, special-projects coordinator for the Aiken-Edgefield Economic Development Partnership, said Tuesday. ``They didn't have enough money to do everything that needed to be done before. ``It's just that much worse.'' Reach Brandon Haddockat (706) 823-3409. All contents © 1996 - 2001 *The Augusta Chronicle*. All rights ***************************************************************** 8 Bush administration studying changes to nuclear arsenal Copyright © 2001 Nando Media Copyright © 2001 Christian Science Monitor Service By PETER GRIER, The Christian Science Monitor WASHINGTON (March 13, 2001 10:55 a.m. EST) - The Bush administration is reviewing changes to America's arsenal of offensive nuclear weapons that, in their own way, would be as radical a departure from past policies as the erection of a national missile defense. A strategic review ordered by the White House earlier this year is considering whether to reduce the number of U.S. warheads from today's 7,500 to 2,500 or lower. The study also is weighing whether such reductions should be made unilaterally, outside the framework of arms-control agreements that has shaped the nation's nuclear stockpile for so long. Packaging missile defense with arms cuts might make the former more palatable to Moscow, Bush officials say. If it doesn't, the White House insists that it is prepared to move alone toward a more-defense, less-offense doctrine. "While the president will seek to persuade Russia to join us in further reducing nuclear arsenals, he is also prepared to lead by example," according to the Bush administration's newly released budget. The presidential order directing the nuclear review is classified. It's likely, however, that officials are weighing the manner in which targets are selected, plus potential future threats, and comparing that with the number and nature of U.S. atomic bombs and missile warheads. As a candidate, Bush promised to look into "de-alerting," or removing nuclear warheads from ready-to-launch status, so it is probable the review is considering that, too. Officials are tight-lipped about study details. But experts in and outside government point to a recent National Institute for Public Policy (NIPP) report as a rough guidebook to Bush administration nuclear thinking. One of the report's authors, Stephen Hadley, is now deputy national security adviser. Another, Stephen Cambone, has become a special aide to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. U.S. nuclear requirements may, indeed, be met with forces reduced from current levels, the NIPP report concludes. But its primary emphasis is on the need for flexibility. While the U.S. may need fewer warheads today, it would be wrong to lock in those lower levels via arms pacts with the Russians, study authors argue. If the world turns more dangerous in years ahead, America would then be unable to increase its arsenal - or build new types of nuclear warheads. "The ability to adjust the U.S. offensive and defensive force posture to a changing strategic environment is critical," the NIPP study says. For the most part, critics of the Bush administration's proposed nuclear reductions do not object to shrinking the U.S. arsenal, per se. During the Clinton administration, the U.S. and Russia had preliminary START III discussions aimed at cutting warheads to 2,000 or 2,500, about one-third of current deployed levels. Rather, what they object to is the unilateral aspect of the administration's whole approach to nuclear policy. "It gives the illusion that we can control our own destiny ... and that other countries will just have to deal with that," says William Hartung, a nuclear studies fellow at the World Policy Institute in New York. Hartung charges that nuclear-force reduction proposals are simply meant to mask the Bush administration's real strategic desires - missile defense, plus development of a new generation of nukes, such as so-called "bunker-buster" small weapons. Others say that whether that is the case or not, moving alone to reduce nuclear forces is not necessarily a good idea. Unilateral reductions could easily become unilateral additions, in this view. The rest of the world would know that - and worry and watch accordingly. Informal, nation-by-nation moves have played a role in arms control in recent years - witness the moratoria on nuclear tests adopted by the declared nuclear powers in the early 1990s. But in the end, arms-control agreements are meant to both control weapons and ensure predictability. In that regard, binding pacts, however imperfect, are more effective than any alternative. "The whole point of these agreements is to put structure into the world," says Jack Mendelsohn, executive director of the Lawyers Alliance for World Security and a longtime Washington expert on nuclear affairs. The Bush administration's declared interest in arms cuts has received some bipartisan support. Earlier this month, Bob Kerrey, the former Democratic senator from Nebraska who now heads New York City's New School University, called the move "an important step in the right direction" in an opinion piece in The New York Times. But as Kerrey pointed out, such reductions would be illegal under current U.S. law. For years, Congress has voted to bar any unilateral U.S. move to reduce its arsenal below START I levels, pending ratification of the 1993 START II treaty by the Russian parliament. Russia finally ratified the pact last May - but made its approval contingent on the US Senate passing a package of Antiballistic Missile Treaty protocols. This the current Senate is unlikely to do. The result, to this point: arms-cut stalemate. The new Republican president would thus have to persuade the GOP-controlled Congress to reverse itself if he in fact decides upon unilateral reductions. Copyright © 2001 Nando Media ***************************************************************** 9 Selling Nuclear Fear [AlterNet] David Beers, AlterNet March 13, 2001 The graying peace movement is looking for fresh blood to oppose America's latest "Star Wars" scheme. But how do you lure recruits who may have been playing with Cabbage Patch dolls and Transformer toys when the Cold War ended? The answer for an American -- and global -- audience is being test marketed in Canada at the moment. In Vancouver and Toronto, billboards and transit ads project day-glo images of a rave-cool young people dueling with a warhead beneath the words "Don't Blow It." The ads and the Web site they promote are the direct result of a close study of how to sell nuclear fear, and activism, to 18-35-year-olds. Irony works. Tugging at heart strings doesn't. Make plenty of neutral-toned information available to your inherently skeptical audience. And avoid even a whiff of hippy-dippy. If there's one thing youth distrust more than the military industrial complex, it's their parents' nostalgia. These are findings of an agency hired to research and craft a just launched media campaign for the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War. The aim of the campaign is to mobilize youth against support for the U.S. national defense system that sits at the top of President George Bush's agenda. Proponents of NDM say the system will shield North America by intercepting nuclear-tipped missiles fired by "rogue" nations. Opponents claim the unproven technology is an expensive boondoggle in the making, may violate anti-ballistic missile treaties, and will trigger a new global nuclear weapons buildup. "If the U.S. goes ahead on this, China and Russia have said they will respond by heightening the arms race," notes 24-year-old Sarah Kelly, who was one of several Bombs Away campaign spokespeople on hand at the unveiling of the Don't Blow It billboard in Vancouver. "Keep heightening the arms race," reasons the fourth year medical student at the University of British Columbia, "and eventually a nuclear weapon will be used." Articulate, imbued with energy to not only study medicine but wrestle with geopolitics, Kelly is just what the doctor ordered for a flagging movement. Indeed, as the Star Wars debate rekindles, peace activists in North America and Europe see a golden opportunity to replenish their membership, which plummeted as soon as the Berlin Wall came down. Fresh troops are essential, they say, to tackle their larger aim: abolishing nuclear weapons altogether. Seizing public attention for that cause proved daunting in an era when "presidents Bush and Clinton told people that we no longer lived under the threat of nuclear war and that the world was a much safer place," says Lynn Martin, Communications Director for the U.S. branch of IPPNW. "While it is true that the numbers of nuclear weapons decreased under these administrations," Martin says, "there are still 30,000 nuclear weapons in the world today and the nuclear war-fighting plans and strategies remain unchanged. The U.S. and Russia each have about 2,500 strategic nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert status and these are targeted at hundreds of cities. If just one modern nuclear weapon exploded over a large city -- either by accident or intent -- millions of people would die and millions more would be injured. The threat of nuclear war remains the greatest immediate public health threat in the world today." If so, not just politicians, but popular culture fails to reflect such urgency. In 1964, Stanley Kubrick's black comedy Dr. Strangelove made a splash by ridiculing the notion that America's nuclear arsenal was failsafe. In 1983, the television movie The Day After used realism to shock viewers into imagining the consequences of nuclear war. In cineplexes now we find Thirteen Days, a retelling of the Cuban missile crisis that gets good reviews, but implies nuclear doom was confronted 40 years ago and, through cool Kennedy thinking, defused. Sarah Kelly was born 15 years after that near conflagration. She was but nine years old in 1986, when the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War received the Nobel Peace Prize. Forgive her, then, if the anti-nuclear movement of old is little more than a grainy Life magazine photo in her mind. She and her friends "have seen pictures of our parents' generation marching for peace." But for Kelly, the persistent risk of Armageddon comes as a fresh discovery, and she says she is hungry to know and do more about it. The 18 to 35 age group that includes Sarah Kelly is the subject of much scrutiny by marketing types. One research firm, D-Code, has named them the Nexus generation, caught as they are between the Industrial and Information Ages, and sandwiched between the Baby Boom and Echo generations. This demographic is the focus, too, of Amanda Gibbs, whose job at the Institute for Media, Policy and Civil Society (www.impacs.org) is to help put together media campaigns for non-profit organizations. According to Gibbs, the Nexus generation is "realistic, confident, optimistic, activist" and "incredibly media literate. Yet members of the nexus gang are also born skeptics, steeped in the irony of the age." When the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War decided it needed to appeal to the Nexus generation, it hired Gibbs and IMPACS to figure out how. Gibbs developed some campaign approaches, then hired D-Code to run the ideas by a Nexus-aged focus group. Among the group's six carefully selected members: A social activist who'd worked at addiction recovery and sexual assault centers. An arts publicist who'd sailed the Pacific on youth cultural exchange program. A restaurant owner and wine grower who specializes in organic ingredients. A hip-hop artist studying commerce and information technology. A screenwriter/graphic designer. And the founder of her own ecological gardening company. Gibbs herself casually throws around terms like "marketing to the Web" and "fashion forward" and would seem to be naturally in tune with these Nexusers. But at age thirty, she felt a bit dated as the cultural biases of the focus group revealed themselves. For example, Gibbs is in love with atomic kitsch like those 1950s instructional films telling school kids to "duck and cover" at the first sign of a nuclear flash, or that famous Dr. Strangelove scene of Slim Pickens riding a falling H-bomb like bronco. But such retro-iconography doesn't register with the Nexus group. "They thought it was moldy," Gibbs says. A concept called "We said No Nukes" was intended to connect younger people with the peace protests of the past. But it fared no better. "Several of the D-Coders [saw] the activism in the 1960s as largely ineffective and its adherents as sell outs to big business (or worse, their parents)," read the final report. Many in the group liked a concept that blamed corporate greed for driving the nuclear arms industry. But they doubted the broader appeal of that message across their generation. "'Sticking it to the man' is not going to push your 'social hot button' if you work in a bank," said the report. Some might "feel as though the campaign message is attacking them, their lifestyle, etc." More popular was a straightforward approach declaring that we face, even today, immediate risk of a nuclear catastrophe. But again, a caveat specific to those of Nexus age. "The message was traumatic in the eighties when Nexus was growing up. It made them feel vulnerable to powers beyond their control and it could still elicit a disempowering response if not supported by actionable steps," D-Code reported. As the gardening company owner said: "No more missile horror messages for me . . . I still feel traumatized by the nuclear war movies of the eighties. . . . It was such a negative way to be brought up in this world, thinking that it might blow up any second because of power freak grown-ups." Though the billboards are generating productive attention, the real engine of the campaign is the www.bombsaway.ca web site. A month after the site went up, it has had some 25,000 hits, half of them from the U.S., and over 1000 visitors have used the site's capacity to send faxes in opposition to the NMD program. "Before you can activate younger people, you have to educate them," theorizes Gibbs, who grew up on military bases. The younger half of the Nexus generation, those aged 18 to 25, "don't watch, much less trust, TV," Gibbs maintains. Instead, surveys show they get more of their information from the Web than anywhere else. The Web fits their skeptical, hype-averse nature by allowing them to read as deeply and broadly on a topic as they desire, and it can give them timely updates and action advisories. When a notice gets picked up and spread exponentially in cyberspace, Gibbs says, that is a sign that the "viral marketing" approach to "web activism" is working, and very inexpensively. Such buzz phrases were foreign to Dr. Mary-Wynn Ashford, co-president of IPPNW, when she came to Gibbs and IMPACS for help. Ashford, who is 60, intended to hire the group to make a 20-minute video, a standard tool for her group in the past. Now she fully buys into the Web-driven strategy for youth who she's come to see are "information savvy and steeped irony." It did startle Ashford her to see this age bracket reject "our traditional approach: forthright and emotional, based on love for the planet, wanting to protect children. Young people said all this stuff sounds like the 70s and our parents' generation." If veteran nuclear dissenters are having to start from scratch with a new pool of potential activists, the U.S. military establishment suffers no such loss of institutional memory. Vice President Dick Cheney was Secretary of Defense under Dubya's father, and today's point man on NMD -- current Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld -- held the same post in the mid-1970s under President Gerald Ford. Bush vows to up military spending by a third, adding another $100 billion a year, and he made NMD a cornerstone of his campaign. If the program goes forward, firms like Boeing and Lockheed stand to gain at least $60 billion in new contracts, according to a conservative estimate by the Congressional Budget Office. Dr. Ashford expects lessons learned from www.bombsaway.ca to be applied in campaigns in the nine other countries. Top of that list is the United States, where public opinion is the only weapon against well financed lobbyists for military contractors. "We have to affect voting in the U.S. Congress," Ashford declares. "If we do, other countries will fall in line." *Vancouver-based writer David Beers is author of Blue Sky Dream: A Memoir of America's Fall from Grace (Doubleday and Harvest). He can reached at davidbeers@ca.inter.net*[AlterNet] Reproduction of material from any AlterNet.org pages without ***************************************************************** 10 Christmas Island Test Claims By Staff Reporter Matt Rilkoff at 11:53am, 14th March 2001 Some former Navy personal involved in the Christmas Island nuclear tests are filing a multi-million dollar claim against the government in the High Court in Wellington today. The claim alleges their health was ruined by their involvement in the nuclear tests. Trevor Humprey, the chairman of the Rimpac organisation of veterans of the 1957-58 tests, said the total claimed on behalf of the three cases filed today, and another four in preparation, would be between $2 million and $5 million. He said the Government knew of the dangers the men on the New Zealand vessels would be exposed to, and did nothing to protect them. Mr Humprey said all the claimants were sick with a variety of major health problems. © NewsRoom 2001 wapnews.co.nz ***************************************************************** 11 Nuclear "Bomb" Discovered in Romanian Capital Romania Today on Central Europe Online - BUCHAREST, Mar 13, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) Romanian authorities issued an alert Tuesday after the discovery of an obsolete nuclear installation in Bucharest which experts say could prove devastating in case of a fire or earthquake. The deputy mayor of the Romanian capital's second district, Tudor Dan, said the eight-ton installation containing radioactive Cobalt-60, could "seriously contaminate Bucharest if it were damaged." The environment ministry said that the equipment, found in a disused building in the center of the city, posed no danger to the public as it was hermetically sealed in lead cladding. This "rules out any danger, even in the case of an earthquake or a fire," a ministry spokesman said. But experts agreed there is a risk. "The installation does not currently constitute a health risk, but in time is poses an enormous risk," said the laboratory tasked with monitoring radioactivity levels in the city. The equipment, imported from the then Soviet Union in 1974 by Bucharest's Institute of Physics, was used for chemical research but was disused after five years due to a fault, complicated by a deadly earthquake in March 1977. The installation is regularly visited by experts from the national nuclear safety commission, the environment ministry said. According to Dan, dismantling the "nuclear bomb" would cost some 22,000 dollars, which city authorities cannot afford. *((c) 2001 Agence France Presse)* ***************************************************************** 12 Rocky to host radioactive-waste forum Thursday [deseretnews.com] March 14, 2001 Envirocare of Utah's proposal to accept "hotter" radioactive wastes in the state will be the topic of a panel discussion Thursday evening hosted by Salt Lake Mayor Rocky Anderson. The forum, from 6:30-8:30 p.m. on the third floor auditorium of the Salt Lake Main Library, 209 E. 500 South, will include representatives from Envirocare and opponents of the proposal. Currently, Envirocare is seeking a license to expand its business to accept so-called class B and C waste at its landfill about 80 miles west of Salt Lake City. The company estimates it would receive about 20,000 cubic feet of the waste each year. These wastes are hundreds, sometimes thousands, of times more radioactive than the class A waste, which is mainly contaminated soils that the company is now licensed to dispose of. Envirocare must seek Legislative and governor approval. That proposal is much different from a controversial proposal pursued by the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians, who want to store spent nuclear fuel on their reservation about 70 miles southeast of Salt Lake City. © 2001 Deseret News Publishing Company ***************************************************************** 13 EU's nuclear fusion programme - an example for ERA? CORDIS RTD-NEWS/© European Communities, 2000. Published on: 2001-03-14 Record Number: 16436 The European Commission's fusion programme is the sole example of totally integrated European research, and is comparable with the Commission's proposed European Research Area (ERA), states the French opinion paper on the Euratom section of the Commission's proposals for FP6. The paper stresses that the EU will be unable to discard nuclear energy in the foreseeable future, and therefore nuclear research must continue, but must not be limited to those Member States with nuclear facilities Comparing the EU's current nuclear fission policies, the paper notes that nuclear industries and research centres are already engaged in numerous European projects. If an integrated programme like the fusion programme is inappropriate, the classical system of calls for proposals is not adapted for subjects with which only a few institutes have the knowledge to deal. The creation of networks of excellence could solve this difficulty, states the paper. They could be implemented on the basis of the 'bottom-up' principle by the research centres themselves. These networks, united by the common objective of research and development (R&D), could be financed by the fission programme in the Sixth Framework programme to meet their objectives. No one will be side-lined by such a set-up, the paper argues, as the aim of the research framework programme is to encourage cooperation between as many actors as possible involved in nuclear research in both the EU and in the candidate countries. The implementation of the fission programme in the Sixth Framework programme should be based on the structure of EUREKA and should strongly link industrial partners to the management of the programme. This new approach could be promoted through a few R&D themes, a maximum of ten is recommended in the paper. The paper proposes how this new approach should be implemented. An umbrella project, managed by a consortium involving industry and research centres could be created with very precise R&D objectives. This consortium could also prepare a series of side projects involving external partners. This cluster of side projects would come second to realising the objectives of the umbrella project. The safety of nuclear facilities is a French research priority, which the paper highlights as particularly important in view of the EU's imminent enlargement. Prolonging the life of nuclear plants should also be a research priority according to the paper, along with research into effects on the environment and nuclear waste. 'The role of research in the area of waste is not simply to perfect, investigate further and develop existing procedures in the Member States, but also to contribute to development of new procedures,' states the paper. All of this should go towards creating a 'European culture of safety,' asserts the French paper. Information Source: French government Information Reference: Based on the paper 'Contribution de la France à la preparation du 6ème programme cadre de recherché et de développement téchnologique - volet Euratom' Programme Acronym: FRAMEWORK 6C; ERA; PRESIDENCY-FR Subject Index Codes: Nuclear Fission; Nuclear Fusion; Policies; Coordination, Cooperation; Scientific Research ***************************************************************** 14 Kosovo uranium threat remains - 3/13/2001 - ENN.com Tuesday, March 13, 2001 By Associated Press Contamination from depleted uranium ammunition used in Kosovo is low, but the threat of radiation in the water supply remains, the United Nations Environment Program said Tuesday. In its final report on samples taken from 11 sites across the province last November, the agency said it found low levels of radiation in the immediate vicinity of targets and mild contamination from depleted uranium dust. UNEP reported in February that it had found small quantities of plutonium in penetrators fired by NATO during the 1999 bombing campaign, but Tuesday's report said "the amount of transuranic isotopes found ... is very low and does not have any significant impact on their overall radioactivity." However, remaining radioactive debris could cause contamination above normal health standards, UNEP said. Ammunition buried in the soil could contaminate ground water, leading to anything up to a 100-fold increase in uranium levels in drinking water. "While the radiation doses will be very low, the resulting uranium concentration might exceed World Health Organization health standards for drinking water," the report said. Touching a piece of ammunition would not be dangerous, but if it were kept in a pocket for several weeks the carrier could suffer "quite high local radiation doses," the report said. People were seen collecting ammunition, in some cases wearing bullets around their neck, said Pekka Haavisto, who led the agency's mission to Kosovo. Investigators did not, however, see anyone wearing depleted uranium ammunition, he said. A child swallowing a small amount of contaminated soil also could obtain a dose above normally approved biochemical standards, the agency said. U.S. aircraft used munitions containing depleted uranium, a slightly radioactive heavy metal, during the 78-day air campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999, as well as in Bosnia in 1994 and 1995. A number of European nations also use munitions containing depleted uranium, which has about 40 percent less radiation that natural uranium, which itself is not considered a health hazard. Concerns arose in several European countries earlier this year when Italy started studying the illnesses of 30 veterans of Balkans peacekeeping missions. Seven of the veterans died of cancer, including five from leukemia. Haavisto said the investigations did not cover the effect on soldiers who were on the ground when depleted uranium ammunition struck because the survey was not carried out until 18 months after the end of bombing. UNEP recommended removing ammunition, decontaminating the 112 Kosovo sites where NATO has admitting using depleted uranium munitions and informing residents about the ordnance. UNEP also recommended similar work in other places where the ammunition has been used, including Bosnia and Iraq. Copyright 2001, Associated Press ENN is a registered trademark of the Environmental News ***************************************************************** 15 Depleted Uranium Left in Kosovo Could Contaminate Water Environment News Service: GENEVA, Switzerland, March 13, 2001 (ENS) - Remnants of depleted uranium ammunition used during the 1999 Kosovo conflict were found in eight of 11 sites investigated by a United Nations fact finding mission. Their final report, released today, warns that depleted uranium ordnance remaining in Kosovo presents a risk of future contamination of groundwater and drinking water. In November 2000, a field mission from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) visited 11 of the 112 sites that were identified as being targeted by ordnance containing depleted uranium, including five in the Italian sector and six in the German sector. [Haavisto] Pekka Haavisto, chairman of UNEP's Depleted Uranium Assessment Team (Photo courtesy government of Finland) "There are still considerable scientific uncertainties, especially related to the safety of groundwater," said Pekka Haavisto, chairman of UNEP's Depleted Uranium Assessment Team. A former Finnish environment minister, Haavisto suggests, "Additional work has to be done to reduce these uncertainties and to monitor the quality of water." "No widespread ground contamination was found in the investigated areas. Therefore, the corresponding radiological and chemical risks are insignificant," the mission reports. "There were a great number of contamination points in the investigated areas, but there is no significant risk related to these points in terms of possible contamination of air or plants." The UNEP team, consisting of 14 scientists from several countries, collected soil, water, and vegetation samples and conducted smear tests on buildings, destroyed army vehicles, and DU penetrators. Remnants of depleted uranium ammunition were found at eight sites. Altogether, 355 samples were analyzed, including 249 soil samples, 46 water samples, 37 vegetation samples, 13 smear tests, three milk samples, four ordnance jackets, two penetrators, and one penetrator fragment. [weapon] DU penetrator (Photo courtesy ) Seven and a half depleted uranium penetrators were found during the field mission. Low levels of radiation were detected in the immediate vicinity of the points of impact, and mild contamination from DU dust was measured near the targets. There was also some evidence from bio-indicators of airborne depleted uranium contamination near targeted sites. Depleted uranium is a byproduct of fuel and weapons grade uranium refining. Natural uranium is a mixture of two forms of uranium - about 0.7 percent Uranium-235 (U235) and 99.3 percent Uranium-238 (U238). Nuclear reactors need U235 to produce energy, which is obtained by removing most of the U238 from natural uranium. The Uranium-238 becomes DU, which retains uranium's natural toxicological properties and approximately half of its radiological activity. Since DU has a half-life of 4.5 billion years, there is very little decay of DU materials. The UNEP team found low levels of radioactive transuranic elements in the penetrators. In addition to U-238, the penetrators contained uranium isotope U-236 and plutonium isotope Pu-239/240. The presence of these transuranic elements in the depleted uranium indicates that at least some of the material has been in nuclear reactors, the UNEP mission's report says. But, "the amount of transuranic isotopes found in the DU penetrators is very low and does not have any significant impact on their overall radioactivity." [Kosovo] People in Glogovac, Kosovo (Photo courtesy ) "These scientific findings should alleviate any immediate anxiety that people living or working in Kosovo may have been experiencing," said UNEP executive director Klaus Toepfer. "Under certain circumstances, however, DU can still pose risks. Our report highlights a series of precautionary measures that should be taken to guarantee that the areas struck by DU ammunition remain risk-free," he said. It is highly likely that penetrators are still lying on the ground surface, the UNEP mission scientists warn. "Although the radiological and chemical risks of touching a penetrator are insignificant, if one was put into a pocket or somewhere else close to the human body, there would be external beta radiation of the skin, leading to quite high local radiation doses after some weeks of continuous exposure. Skin burns from radiation are unlikely." If a child were to ingest small amounts of soil contaminated with DU, "the radiological risk would be insignificant, but from a biochemical point of view, the possible intake might be somewhat higher than the applicable health standard," the UNEP team says. "Remaining penetrators and jackets that may be hidden at several meters depth in the ground, as well as any on the ground surface, constitute a risk of future DU contamination of groundwater and drinking water. Heavy firing of DU in one area could increase the potential source of uranium contamination of groundwater by a factor of 10 to 100," the UNEP report warns. While the radiation doses will be very low, the resulting uranium concentration might exceed World Health Organization health standards for drinking water. The report describes specific situations where risks could be significant. There are also scientific uncertainties relating to the longer term behavior of DU in the environment. For these reasons, UNEP calls for precautionary actions. UNEP says workers should visit all depleted uranium sites in Kosovo, remove slightly radioactive penetrators and jackets on the surface, and decontaminate areas where feasible. Information should be provided to local populations on precautions to be taken if depleted uranium is found. [visit] UNMIK chief Dr. Bernard Kouchner watches a demonstration by Italian troops of their techniques in seeking radiation left by depleted uranium. (Photo courtesy United Nations) UNEP's work in Kosovo was carried out in close cooperation with the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) and the NATO Kosovo Force (KFOR), which assisted with logistics, accommodation, transport and security. The samples were analyzed by the Swedish Radiation Protection Institute in Stockholm; AC Laboratorium-Spiez in Switzerland; Bristol University's Department of Earth Sciences in the UK; the International Atomic Energy Agency Laboratories in Seibersdorf, Austria; and the Italian National Environmental Protection Agency in Rome. The assessment work on depleted uranium was financed by the Government of Switzerland. In order to reduce scientific uncertainty on the impact of depleted uranium on the environment, particularly over time, UNEP recommends that scientific work be undertaken in Bosnia-Herzegovina where DU ordnance has persisted in the environment for over five years. This could be done as part of an overall environmental assessment of Bosnia-Herzegovina. © 2001. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 16 UN SAYS DEPLETED URANIUM IS RADIATION THREAT [Chicago Tribune] *March 14, 2001* YUGOSLAVIA Contamination from depleted uranium ammunition used in Kosovo is low, but the threat of radiation in the water supply remains, the UN Environment Program said Tuesday in Geneva. In its final report on samples taken from 11 sites across the province last November, the agency said it found low levels of radiation in the immediate vicinity of targets and mild contamination from depleted uranium dust. This radioactive debris could cause contamination above normal health standards, UNEP said. Ammunition buried in the soil, for example, could contaminate groundwater, leading to anything up to a 100-fold increase in uranium levels in drinking water. "While the radiation doses will be very low, the resulting uranium concentration might exceed World Health Organization health standards for drinking water," the report said. Touching a piece of ammunition would not be dangerous, but if it were kept in a pocket for several weeks the carrier could suffer "quite high local radiation doses," the report said. A child swallowing a small amount of contaminated soil also could obtain a dose above normally approved biochemical standards, the agency said. ***************************************************************** 17 Water in Kosovo could be poisoned with depleted uranium, says UN Independent By Stephen Castle in Brussels 14 March 2001 Depleted uranium used by Nato might have contaminated water supplies in Kosovo, says a United Nations report that calls for a thorough clean-up and an investigation in Bosnia-Herzegovina. A study by a UN Environment Programme (UNEP) team said that levels of contamination at the 11 sites it surveyed in Kosovo were low, but recommended decontamination of all 112 areas targeted with depleted uranium by Nato. The UN administration in Kosovo now faces the task of removing the contaminated shells and ammunition parts – a task which, because of the need for landmine clearance, is certain to involve the Nato-led K-For peace-keepers. Meanwhile, the UN investigators also propose a broad environmental assessment in Bosnia where the effects of the war on health have never been studied. In Bosnia, DU remnants have been present for more than five years and health concerns have been highlighted by *The Independent*. Depleted uranium was used to harden armour-piercing ammunition and UNEP's report said some artillery may still lie underground in Kosovo and "constitute a risk of future DU contamination of groundwater and drinking water". Its findings follow a health alarm in Europe when a number of peace-keepers who served in the Balkans began to develop cases of leukaemia. The document says the analysis of 355 samples of oil, water and plants in Kosovo showed "no cause for alarm" over the radiological risks from depleted uranium ammunition. But while it does not provide scientific support for claims that soldiers were afflicted by a "Balkan syndrome", it warns of "specific situations where risks could be significant" and adds that "there are also scientific uncertainties relating to the longer-term behaviour of DU in the environment". Because of those, wells and drinking water should be monitored and polluted sites decontaminated. The UNEP's executive director, Klaus Töpfer, a former German environment minister, said in a statement: "These scientific findings should alleviate any immediate anxiety that people living or working in Kosovo may have been experiencing. Under certain circumstances, however, DU can still pose risks. Our report highlights a series of precautionary measures that should be taken to guarantee that the areas struck by DU ammunition remain risk-free." ***************************************************************** 18 Depleted uranium risk insignificant, says UN - smh.com.au - World *Environmental risks from contamination by depleted uranium (DU) ammunition used in the war in Kosovo are insignificant, a United Nations report concludes, but its authors remain unsure about the long-term health consequences of DU. The final report of the UN Environment Program (UNEP) on the environmental impact of DU after the Kosovo conflict in 1999 recommended a clean-up of the 112 exposed sites, which appears not to have been carried out despite preliminary warnings issued two months ago. Radioactive and toxic contamination to passers-by was rated as "insignificant to non-existent" following tests based on samples gathered from 11 of the sites last November. This finding, however, did not include cases in which people had had direct contact with fragments or ingested particles. At five sites, UN inspectors found virtually intact DU penetrators, the bullet-shaped core and tip of the shell, which had survived explosions because of soft soil. The report also called for examination of sites in Bosnia, where about three tonnes of DU ordnance used during NATO attacks is thought to have remained untouched for five years, "to reduce scientific uncertainty on the impact of DU on the environment, particularly over time". "There are still considerable scientific uncertainties, especially related to the safety of groundwater in the long term," said the Finnish head of the investigative team, Mr Pekka Haavisto. Samples had established, however, that drinking water was safe so far. Most of the recent science on the behaviour and dangers of DU has been based on natural uranium, but the scientists from five European radiological laboratories on the team found evidence that pieces of DU were more liable to disperse into the soil and to become soluble. Mr Haavisto said reported cases of leukaemia and other illnesses among Western troops in the region were low and could not be linked directly to DU. + Yugoslav security forces have begun moving into a buffer zone near Serbia's boundary with Kosovo, a senior officer told Reuters yesterday. The deployment comes two days after Serbia, Yugoslavia's main republic, agreed a ceasefire with ethnic Albanian guerillas in the buffer zone, set up in 1999 to separate Yugoslav forces from NATO-led peacekeeping troops. The Guardian *[go to top] [ WIDTH=1 HEIGHT=1 ] ***************************************************************** 19 Pasko-case to be heard March 22, 2001 Analysis: The re-trial against journalist Grigory Pasko starts in Vladivostok on March 22. Its outcome might be even more significant for the development of the rule of law in Russia than the Nikitin case. Jon Gauslaa, 2001-03-14 15:57 The Court of the Russian Pacific Fleet in Vladivostok has set the date for its hearing of the case against Grigory Pasko to March 22, 2001 . Pasko is an investigative journalist who worked for Pacific Fleet's newspaper. He was arrested in Vladivostok on November 20th 1997. The Russian Security Police, FSB, accused him of high treason through espionage under Article 275 of the Russian Penal Code, for having collected and handed over to the Japanese TV-channel "NHK" allegedly secret information on nuclear safety issues in the Russian Pacific Fleet. Amnesty International adopted Pasko as a prisoner of conscience in January 1999. In July 1999 the Court of the Pacific Fleet acquitted him of high treason, but found him guilty of 'abuse of his official authority' under Article 285 of the Penal Code. Pasko was sentenced to three years, but released under an amnesty since he had served 20 months in pre-trial detention. The Military Collegium of the Russian Supreme Court cancelled this verdict on November 21, 2000, and sent the case back for a new trial in the Vladivostok Court, with different judges. Observers have considered the decision as a negative signal regarding the future development of the rule of law in Russia. Pasko himself characterised the decision as a "death sentence" to him, and the development of the case does indeed raise concerns. Un-concrete and vague charges The various verdicts' and appeals' rendering of the charges against Pasko, gives the impression of a messy laid-up case, where many of the points attempted "proved" by the prosecution are either irrelevant or lacks significance for the case. The charges also seem far too vague to fulfil the demands of Articles 143 and 144 of the Russian Criminal Procedure Code. According to these provisions the charges shall point out the date and place of the alleged crime, as well as other circumstances related to it. Pasko is, however mostly accused of committing various actions in "approximately 1996", in "the period from 1995 to 1997", or in "the first part of 1997". Moreover, it is also hard to figure out exactly what information Pasko is accused of having collected and transferred to the NHK, and which part of this information that allegedly is secret. When the St. Petersburg City Court returned the Nikitin-case to additional investigation in October 1998, it pointed to the vagueness of the charges. This vagueness, the Court said, did not only make it impossible for the Court to evaluate whether the charges were grounded or not. It also deprived Nikitin from his right to defend himself with legal means. Judged from the available materials, the charges against Pasko actually seem to be even more vague than the charges against Nikitin. The vagueness of the charges implies an obvious hindrance of Pasko's right to defence, as they neither clarifies when the actions he is accused of took place, what these actions were composed of, or what is the alleged secrets in the information he allegedly collected and transferred abroad. Thus, even without evaluating the merits, one can conclude that the charges constitutes a significant violation of Pasko rights under the Russian Criminal Procedure Code, the Russian Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights. Nevertheless these charges are maintained as a result of the decision of the Military Supreme Court. The concerns this decision has raised are therefore highly understandable. Moreover, as it will be established below, none of the conditions for a guilty verdict under article 275 of the Penal Code are fulfilled. The allegedly collected and transferred information is not secret; the receiver of the information did not have the purpose to undermine Russian State security; and Pasko did not have the intent of treason. Thus, the charges against him for treason through espionage should have been dropped. No collection and transferral of secret information A condition for convicting a person for treason through espionage under Article 275 of the Russian Penal Code is that he has collected and transferred abroad information that pertains to state secret according to the Federal law on State Secrets. The verdict of the Court of the Pacific Fleet contains a single reference to Article 5 of this law, which in its present edition contains a list over information that pertains to state secrets. However, a reference alone does not establish that secret information has been collected and transferred. It takes a thorough evaluation of the disputed information in accordance with the valid legislation on state secrets, to make a conclusion on the issue. In the present case the Court did not itself carry out such an evaluation. In stead it based itself on an expert-evaluation carried out by of the 8th Department of the Russian General Staff. The conclusions of this body are however notoriously known for being unreliable, self-contradictory and in violation with the Constitution and the federal law. It was experts from the 8th Department who made the conclusions that formed the basis of the charges against Aleksandr Nikitin for having collected and transferred state secrets to Bellona. When testifying before the St. Petersburg City Court at the Nikitin-trial in December 1999, the experts said that when they were asked to evaluate whether an item of information pertains to state secrets or not, the sole legal basis for their evaluations were the secret decrees of the Ministry of Defence. They considered both the Federal law on State Secrets and the Constitution as irrelevant in this respect, and had never used any other legal acts than the secret decrees. Their evaluations of the disputed information in the Pasko-case were made before these testimonies were given. Thus, it is more than probable that Pasko - like Nikitin - is charged with having collected and handed over information that is not secret according to the officially published legislation, but only according to various secret military decrees. Such charges are, however, as the Courts pointed out in the Nikitin-case "a blatant violation" of the Constitution. Besides, in that case the Courts established that it first on October 6, 1997 existed a list over information pertaining to state secrets that fulfilled the demands of the Constitution. Thus, the information Nikitin was accused of having collected and transferred to Bellona did not pertain to state secrets. This legal opinion is also relevant in Pasko's case. Practically all his alleged criminal actions took place before the said date. Moreover, the information Pasko is accused of having collected and transferred is related to the radioactive safety in the Pacific Region, and because of its environmental significance it can not be classified as state secrets according to Article 7 of the law on State Secrets. The receiver of the information had no hostile intentions In order to get a conviction for treason the prosecution also has to establish that the receiver of the alleged secret information was a foreign state or organisation whose intention is to undermine Russia's security. The Pacific Fleet Court did not find these demands to be fulfilled, despite the fact that the prosecution had claimed that the FSB and Russian Foreign intelligence had "confirmed" that the purpose of the Japanese TV-company Pasko had contact with was to "endanger the Russian State sovereignty." In its appeal the prosecution claims that the Court made a mistake when it overlooked that the Japanese TV-company had shown interests in military related issues, and that some of its personnel had been apprehended for violating "border regulations". On this occasion one of the Japanese even had a small camera. These vague allegations are however not suited to establish that the persons were engaged in hostile activities towards Russia. It is a long way from being interested in military issues to have hostile intentions. Persons who randomly violate Russian "border regulations" do not necessarily have the purpose to endanger the State sovereignty, even if they are in the possession of small cameras. The prosecution also claims that the Court was mistaken when it did not take into consideration that "the peace treaty between Russia and Japan is not yet negotiated". The reference to the lack of such treaty - 56 year after World War II - as a "proof" of Japan's hostile retaliations towards Russia, should need no further comments. No intent of treason The crime treason through espionage has also a subjective side. To be convicted, the accused must have been aware of the fact that he dealt with information pertaining to state secrets and of the receiver's hostile intention. Moreover, he must have had the intents of treason; that is a wish to undermine the Russian State security with his actions. The information Pasko is accused of having collected and transferred to NHK is, however, only classified in secret legal acts. Consequently, he had no possibility to figure out that it was secret, and especially not when the prohibition of classifying information of environmental significance in Article 7 of the law on State Secrets is taken into consideration. When acquitting Nikitin, the St. Petersburg City Court referred specifically to this provision, as well as Articles 41 and 42 of the Constitution and Article 2 of the law on radiation safety, and stated that these provisions gave the citizens a right to consider such information as open. This legal opinion was later accepted by the Supreme Court. Besides, Russian authorities allowed NHK to have an office and work in Vladivostok and the surrounding areas. Pasko could therefore not realise that the intention of the TV-company was to undermine Russian security, especially not since the company never has had any such intentions, which also is proven by the fact that it still is allowed to operate in Russia. Since Pasko had no possibility to know that he handled state secrets or that he was engaged with persons whose purpose was to undermine Russian State security, he could neither have had the intents of treason with his actions. A verdict full of flaws It follows from the above-mentioned that none of the condition for convicting Pasko under article 275 of the Penal Code is fulfilled, and that there are no contents of crime in his actions. Thus, the Court of the Pacific Fleet came up with the correct conclusion when it acquitted him for treason through espionage. A closer look at its verdict does, however, reveal that it is characterised by a number of flaws and that it is not at all well put together. Unlike for instance the St. Petersburg City Court's acquittal of Aleksandr Nikitin, which was an excellent piece of legal craftsmanship, the verdict of the Pacific Fleet Court is self-contradictory and illogical. The Court does for instance both state that it was not proven that Pasko handed over to NHK information pertaining to state secrets, and that this was proven. Besides, the Court has not fulfilled the demands of Articles 20 and 314 of the Russian Criminal Procedure Code for acquitting the accused; that each piece of evidence that is presented in the indictment must be repudiated. The verdict is also based on suppositions and not on facts, which contradicts Article 309 of the Criminal Procedure Code, and on the testimonies of witnesses that were not interrogated in Court. The latter violates Articles 240 and 301 of the Criminal Procedure Code, and also the accused's right to cross-examine witnesses under Articles 6 (3) d and 6 (1) of the European Convention on Human Rights. Moreover, when convicting Pasko for 'abuse of his official authorities', a crime that demands that the abuse must have lead to "considerable damage of the legally protected interests of the Russian State", the Court only claims that this condition is fulfilled. It gives absolutely no reasons for the allegation, and it does not concretise what the alleged damage consists in, or which legally protected state interests the damage has been inserted to. Most of the above-mentioned errors were recognised by the Military Supreme Court. Thus, it was actually no surprise that it cancelled the verdict of the Pacific Fleet Court. It did however cancel both the convicting and the acquitting part and thus, ruled in accordance with the demands of the prosecution's appeal. More decisive than the Nikitin-case It follows from the above-mentioned, that the prosecution's claim that it was established through the investigation that all the elements of the crime described in Article 275 of the Russian Penal Code are present in Pasko's actions, should be rejected as groundless. The fact that the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court did not do this may therefore seem like an alarming development. However, its decision gives no hint of the final outcome of the case. It also says that several points addressed by the defence is well-grounded, in particular that the Court of the Pacific Fleet gave no reason for its claim that Pasko had inserted "considerable damage of the legally protected interests of the Russian State". Besides, as pointed out above, the verdict of the lower Court was full of flaws and errors, and the Russian Criminal Procedure Code from 1960, gives higher Russian Courts only a limited competence to go into the merits of a criminal case. Thus, given the amount of errors in the verdict of the Court of the Pacific Fleet, the returning of the case to a new trial was perhaps the only option the Military Supreme Court had. Its decision did however, prolong the process against Pasko with months and perhaps years, and as long as this case is pending in the Russian legal system, the future development of the rule of law in Russia is also pending. The above elaboration shows that there are many similarities between the Nikitin-case and the Pasko-case. It is therefore no overstatement to say that first when also Pasko is acquitted the precedence of the Nikitin-acquittal will be fully established. It takes at least two decisions to establish precedence. Until the second decision comes along, the first one will remain a single incident. Thus, the outcome of the Pasko-case will perhaps be even more decisive for the development of the Rule of law in Russia than the Nikitin-case. Publisher: Bellona Foundation, President: Frederic Hauge Information: info@bellona.no, Technical contact: webmaster@bellona.no Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62 * P.O.Box 2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway ***************************************************************** 20 Israeli author queried on nuclear security Boston Globe Online / Nation | World By Dan Ephron, Globe Correspondent, 3/14/2001 EL AVIV - Authorities questioned an Israeli scholar for more than eight hours yesterday on suspicion that he committed security breaches by publishing a book on the history of the country's nuclear weapons program, an issue that the Jewish state shrouds in secrecy. Avner Cohen, who has lived in Takoma Park, Md., for the past 10 years while researching and writing ''Israel and the Bomb,'' was told he would face more questioning and could not leave Israel until the investigation was complete, an Israeli security official said. Cohen arrived in Israel a day earlier for an academic conference. ''He's suspected of committing offenses against Israel's security,'' said Shlomo Dror, the Defense Ministry spokesman in Tel Aviv, where Cohen was interrogated. ''We're checking if the information he got for the book came from inside the defense establishment. If it did, that would be a violation of the law.'' Other officials said Cohen, who has a doctorate in philosophy, could be charged with publishing state secrets, a broad category in the criminal code that carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison. Members of Israel's domestic Shin Bet security agency and a special unit in charge of security breaches inside the Defense Ministry took part in the questioning. Cohen's lawyer, Nahum Oren, said his client broke no laws by publishing his book. Cohen's book, published in the United States two years ago, traces the political and diplomatic maneuvering Israeli leaders conducted in the 1950s and 1960s in establishing the Dimona nuclear plant, where several hundred nuclear weapons are believed to have been built. Cohen describes how David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, decided the Jewish state needed nuclear weapons as an insurance policy against a second Holocaust, how a deal with France was arranged for construction of the reactor and how successive US presidents failed to block Israel's nuclear development. He also explains how Israel decided early on neither to admit nor deny having nuclear weapons. The ambiguity afforded Israel a deterrent against hostile Arab neighbors without inviting US pressure to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The policy remains in effect today. In a country where even the most mundane issues are hotly debated, Israel's nuclear capability is one of the few remaining unmentionables. Israelis know of their country's arsenal mainly from foreign press accounts. The most detailed Dimona report came from a former technician at the plant who told the Sunday Times of London that Israel had built 200 bombs there. Mordechai Vanunu is serving an 18-year sentence for his disclosures. In the book's epilogue, Cohen argues that the secrecy has stifled public debate and marks a striking failure in Israel's democracy. He also suggests it might be time to come clean. Cohen, who refused to be interviewed while the investigation is being conducted, has said his book is based almost entirely on declassified documents and interviews. In an interview last year, he said the real reason Israel's defense establishment was pursuing him had to do with his call to end the hush-hush nuclear policy. ''On the political spectrum there is a national consensus that it would be wrong for the country to hold a debate about it and that it should be left to the bureaucrats,'' he said. Dror, the Defense Ministry spokesman, denied that was the issue. ''Israel doesn't care if someone raises the nuclear issue or criticizes a policy. There are a lot of people who criticize this policy. The question is if he used material that he got from inside. That's what we're checking now,'' he said. Cohen is to deliver the keynote speech at the annual meeting of the Israeli Society for the History and Philosophy of Science today in Jerusalem. His lawyer said Cohen had planned to return to the United States on March 22 but would remain in Israel if the investigation was still underway. This story ran on page 8 of the Boston Globe on 3/14/2001. © Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company. [ | Easy-print version ] ***************************************************************** 21 'Burping' tank solution lands CH2M Hill regional award This story was published Wed, Mar 14, 2001 By the Herald staff Fixing the rising crust problem at Hanford's former "burping" tank won the regional Project of the Year award from the Columbia River Basin Chapter of the Project Management Institute. The announcement came Tuesday evening when about 100 members attended a chapter dinner at the Richland Red Lion hotel. CH2M Hill Hanford Group submitted the winning project's package. Tank SY-101 is one of Hanford's underground radioactive waste tanks. Hydrogen gas used to build up in the bottom of the tank's waste and periodically erupt at the surface in potentially explosive burps. A mixer pump cured that problem in 1993. But the mixer pump created tiny bubbles of gas that got caught in the wastes' surface crusts. That caused the crust to thicken, moving the surface higher and higher. In the winning project, CH2M Hill solved the rising crust problem through a combustion of pumping out wastes, diluting the wastes and breaking up the crust. Other finalists for the chapter's project of the year were: -- An industrial building project by Fluor Hanford and Fluor Federal Services. -- Demolition of an operation and services building by Battelle. -- Certification of Hanford's transuranic waste project by Fluor Hanford. Copyright 2001 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 22 Fluor shuffles managers as K Basins work progresses This story was published Tue, Mar 13, 2001 By John Stang Herald staff writer Fluor Corp.'s two Richland companies have shuffled three of their top managers as a result of Hanford's K Basins project getting under way. Dan Van Leuven, Fluor Hanford's executive vice president, has relinquished his additional K Basins duties, Fluor Corp. announced Monday Bob Heck, 52, Fluor Federal Service's executive vice president and general manager, is taking over as Fluor Hanford's vice president for the K Basins project. Kent Campbell, 58, a Fluor Federal executive director, is assuming Heck's post. Fluor Hanford is the lead contractor in managing Hanford. Fluor Federal Services is an engineering and construction management firm that splits its work between Hanford and elsewhere. The K Basins contain 2,300 tons of spent nuclear fuel in two water-filled indoor pools near the Columbia River. Work is under way to remove the fuel from the pools, make it safer, then store it in a huge underground vault in central Hanford. The work is one of the site's highest-profile projects and went through numerous troubles in the late 1990s. The Department of Energy's deadline to begin moving fuel from the basins was Nov. 30, 2000. Van Leuven came to Hanford in 1996 as president of Fluor subcontractor Rust Federal Services of Hanford, which later became Duratek Waste Management. He eventually became Fluor Hanford's No. 2 man as executive vice president. Several months before the Nov. 30 deadline, Van Leuven temporarily shed many of his executive vice president duties to concentrate solely on getting the K Basins fuel moving in time. The first of the fuel was moved in early December. With the K Basins project now moving fuel, Van Leuven is relinquishing first-hand control of the program and is reassuming all his executive vice president duties, according to Fluor. Heck has managed Fluor Federal's Richland operation, which has roughly 900 people, since January 2000. He has been with Fluor for 21 years. Before moving to Richland, he previously worked for Fluor at DOE's site in Fernald, Ohio. Campbell joined Fluor in 1995, and was part of the team that produced Fluor Hanford's winning bid to start managing Hanford in late 1996. The Nebraska native has a bachelor's degree in political science from Nebraska Wesleyan University and a master's degree in public administration from the University of Colorado. Before joining Fluor, he was a senior manager at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and vice president for operations at BDM International, a Department of Defense contractor, according to Fluor. At Fluor, Campbell has been working on business projects for Tom Roell, Fluor Federal's president who is based in Aliso Viejo, Calif. Copyright 2001 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This ***************************************************************** 23 New energy czar tells delegation he knows Paducah plant's needs Joe Walker jwalker@paducahsun.com--*270.575.8650* The Paducah Sun Paducah, Kentucky Wednesday, March 14, 2001 *Spencer Abraham meets Sen. Mitch McConnell, Sen. Jim Bunning and U.S. Rep. Ed Whitfield.* By Joe Walker jwalker@paducahsun.com--*270.575.8650* New Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham is well aware of the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant's unique funding needs, said three federal lawmakers who met with him Tuesday to get better acquainted. "He, of course, as the secretary of energy, is going to support the president's (budget) number for his department, which the three of us think is likely to be adequate to do the job," said Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Louisville. McConnell said Abraham understands the Kentucky delegation will seek as much congressional funding as it can for Paducah plant worker-health programs and cleanup. McConnell, Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Southgate, and Rep. Ed Whitfield, R-Hopkinsville, held a brief teleconference with reporters after the meeting in Washington, D.C. All have been intensely involved in plant budgetary matters, and criticized Abraham's predecessor, Bill Richardson, when they felt funding was inadequate and projects were lagging. The lawmakers blamed the Department of Energy last year for undue delays in building facilities at Paducah and its sister plant in Piketon, Ohio, to convert tons of hazardous production waste into safer material in hopes of developing commercial uses. Earlier this month, DOE received five bids, and plans to award a contract in August. Asked if that project is back on track, Whitfield said he is still apprehensive. "I do intend to remain pretty vocal about it because I do think it's an important component of cleaning up the site, as well as creating jobs," he said. "All of us talked about that, and stressed its importance." Last month, quoting unnamed government sources, The Wall Street Journal reported plans to cut DOE's fiscal 2002 budget by $1 billion. The budget includes $400 million to clean up nuclear weapons plants in Paducah and at other locations. On Tuesday, Abraham "was receptive" to the needs of the Kentucky delegation and indicated that a final budget had not be compiled, Whitfield said. But the lawmakers anticipate some cuts because DOE's overall budget rose abnormally from $17 billion for fiscal year 2000 and $19.7 billion for 2001, he said. "It's infrequent that you have that kind of an increase in a budget over one year," Whitfield said. "So we're optimistic, yet we are realistic and know that we have a lot of work to do. The important thing is that we establish a rapport with him, and that he is now aware specifically of some of the problems we face at Paducah." Whitfield said Abraham was educated on issues such as Paducah plant operator USEC Inc.'s long-term contract to buy uranium blended down from dismantled Russian nuclear warheads, and how that affects USEC's business. The meeting dealt with a worker-health program that was partially funded last year, Bunning said. He, McConnell and Whitfield led legislation to pay workers and surviving families up to $150,000 for plant-related illness or death. "I think he really knows that we're going to insist on the workers' plan to be completed, and that we're going to insist on the continuation of the funding for the cleanup," Bunning said. "People expect that and I don't think there's any question that he got a full understanding of that at our meeting today." ***************************************************************** 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: *****************************************************************