***************************************************************** 06/14/01 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 9.149 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER CONTENTS 1 EPA Adds to Superfund List 2 NRC Assigns New Senior Resident Inspector to Salem Nuclear Plant 3 NRC to Meet with TXU Electric to Discuss Safety Performance at 4 NRC to Meet with Entergy to Discuss Safety Performance at River 5 EPA Adds to Superfund List 6 Emergency officials share ideas, experiences to cope with 7 Ireland to seek arbitration over new Sellafield plant 8 NRC reports Browns Ferry operating safely 9 Nuclear plant falls behind on refueling schedule 10 Cheney argues case for nuclear plants 11 Revisiting nuclear power on the road to Kyoto 12 Russia Atomic ministry explores nuclear fuel market 13 Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission: Revised Notice of Public Hearing 14 Nuclear Power Plants Considered As Possible Answer to Mongolia's 15 New challenge to Sellafield planned 16 Bury hot waste deep underground, scientific committee recommends 17 Nuclear plants squeeze power as critics fret - 18 Exelon to slash 292 jobs at nuke plants, ComEd 19 Environment, energy watchdogs howl at Bruce Power chief's new 20 NRC to Meet with Detroit Edison Company to Discuss Safety 21 University reactors pose risk 22 Government revives proposal to inspect waste 23 ADAMS: Items of Interest - Thursday, June 14, 2001 24 Cheney says nuclear power can succeed if waste issue resolved 25 NRC to Meet with Entergy to Discuss Safety Performance at 26 NRC to Meet with Entergy Nuclear Northeast 27 NRC to Meet With OPPD to Discuss Safety Performance at Fort 28 NRC SR. Resident Inspector at Peach Bottom Receives Meritorious 29 NRC to Meet with Energy Northwest to Discuss Safety Performance NUCLEAR WEAPONS CONTENTS 1 SUN: Navies That Fired on Vieques Absent 2 Bush Decides to End Vieques Bombings 3 Warning on beryllium issued in '48 4 Town nears end of thorium saga 5 UK 'tampered with evidence of nuclear tests' 6 Experts spotlight Nevada Test Site's contamination 7 Inside the Nuclear-Security Tent 8 Bush Extends Order on Russia Uranium Sales 9 BAY STATE NUCLEAR WORKERS GET COMPENSATED 10 Greenpeace concerned by reports of rainforest bomb detonation 11 Experts debunk north Qld nuclear bomb theory 12 CROET is trouble spot for advisory group 13 Health subcommittee seeks sick-resident member 14 Safety improvements needed at Y-12 15 Oak Ridge laboratory could get facility for nanoscience 16 Setting SNS in 'stone' 17 Superpowers' fail-safe fails to materialize_ 18 Papers reveal 'nuclear' test 19 US to withdraw from Vieques **************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 EPA Adds to Superfund List Today: June 14, 2001 at 10:30:19 PDT WASHINGTON (AP) - One is a creek contaminated with PCBs in Darby Township, Pa., flowing into the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge where federal officials caution people against eating the fish. Another is a 150-acre former hazardous waste storage site in Texas City, Texas, leaking chromium and lead into 600-mile Galveston Bay - seventh-largest estuary in the nation and major commercial and recreation fishery. Then there is the abandoned copper mine in Strafford, Vt., closed in 1958, but still pumping metals and sulfides into the Copperas Brook and West Branch of the Ompompanoosuc River. They are among 10 new sites - six in New England - being added Thursday to the Environmental Protection Agency's Superfund list of most hazardous toxic waste sites in the nation. The EPA, spending as much as $1.5 billion a year for Superfund cleanups, also proposes adding another 10 sites to the list. The public has 60 days to comment on those. With these latest actions, being announced in the Federal Register, the EPA's Superfund program has 1,236 sites and 67 proposed for agency action. The combined 1,303 includes 166 federal facilities The other new sites include four acres with recycled oil company drums at Cooper Drum Company in South Gate, Calif., and an intersection where groundwater is contaminated with perchloroethylene (PCE) in Las Cruces, New Mexico. There are two New York sites, an inactive junkyard in Newburgh and 60 homes with PCE-contaminated wells along Shenandoah Road in East Fishkill. In Sheridan, Ore., soil laced with hazardous chemicals from pressure-treated wood and preservatives has been found up to a half-mile away from a lumber plant. There also are two plants in Massachusetts, where groundwater at a 46-acre plant in Concord once run by Nuclear Metals, Inc., contains uranium and thorium and a former 50-acre landfill known as the Sutton Brook Disposal Area in Tewksbury has buried drums and contaminated groundwater. Only about 15 percent of the nation's Superfund sites have been cleaned and removed from the list since it was created two decades ago. The Superfund program's aim is to try to force polluters to pay to clean up toxic sites they either created or made worse, but critics say Superfund often relies on litigation to recover cleanup costs. And that, say industry representatives, often means ensnaring innocent business owners. Last month, the House passed a bill to protect small businesses from big polluters trying to make them share Superfund costs. EPA Administrator Christie Whitman said the Bush administration supports the bill, since multiplying lawsuits have diverted resources from cleanup. "The less litigation we have, the more likely we finish the job of cleaning up Superfund sites," Whitman said. The EPA puts sites on the list based on its studies of the risks to human health and the environment from uncontrolled hazardous substances in ground and surface water, soil and air. States also have a say in deciding priorities. In December, the Superfund program turned 20 years old. Congress passed the legislation in 1980 in the wake of the Love Canal toxic waste crisis. The Niagara Falls, N.Y., neighborhood had been built on and around a former chemical dump, and by the 1960s and '70s contaminated groundwater was leaching into back yards and school grounds. Love Canal has since become a Superfund success, with the cleanup making habitable the outer rim of the contaminated area and more than 200 homes there have been built or renovated. The EPA is proposing 10 new Superfund sites in Casmalia, Calif.; LaSalle, Ill.; Louisville, Miss.; Central Islip, N.Y.; Hazle Township and West Hazleton, Pa.; Richland Township, Pa.; Deer Park, Texas; San Antonio, Texas; Eureka, Utah; and Vershire, Vt. On the Net: EPA Superfund site: http://www.epa.gov/superfund/index.htm All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 2 NRC Assigns New Senior Resident Inspector to Salem Nuclear Plant Press Release - Region I - 2001- 33 - _UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION_ _OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, REGION I_ _475 Allendale Road, King of Prussia, Pa. 19406_ No. I-01-033 June 14, 2001 CONTACT: Diane Screnci (610)337-5330/ e-mail: dps@nrc.gov Neil A. Sheehan (610)337-5331/e-mail: nas@nrc.gov The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Region 1 Office has announced the assignment of a new senior resident inspector for Salem Station Units 1 & 2 in Hancock's Bridge, N.J. Raymond K. Lorson was the senior resident inspector at the Seabrook nuclear power plant in New Hampshire before coming to Salem. Lorson was the resident inspector at the Salem nuclear plant from February to October 1997 and also was a resident inspector at the Peach Bottom nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania. Prior to that he worked as a reactor engineer for the Division of Reactor Projects at the Region 1 Office in King of Prussia, Pa. He joined the NRC in 1991. From 1984 to 1991,_ _Lorson served as a nuclear submarine officer in the U.S. Navy. He is a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh, with a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering. Each U.S. commercial nuclear power plant has at least two NRC resident inspectors. They serve as the agency's eyes and ears at the facility, conducting regular inspections, monitoring significant work projects and interfacing with plant workers and the public. Lorson joins Resident Inspector Jeff Laughlin at Salem. They can be reached at 856/935-5151. ***************************************************************** 3 NRC to Meet with TXU Electric to Discuss Safety Performance at Comanche Peak Region IV -- 2001- 33 -- _UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION_ _OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, REGION IV_ _611 Ryan Plaza Drive, Suite 400, Arlington TX 76011_ No. IV-01-033 June 14, 2001 CONTACT: Breck Henderson Phone: 817-860-8128 Cellular: 817-917-1227 e-mail: bwh@nrc.gov The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will meet with officials of TXU Electric on Thursday, June 21, to discuss the results of NRC's annual assessment of safety performance at Comanche Peak, a nuclear power plant near Glen Rose, Texas. The meeting will be held at 1:30 p.m. in the Comanche Peak Support Service Building, Training Room, on 8th Ave. The public is invited to observe the meeting. NRC officials will be available after the meeting to answer questions. A letter sent from NRC Region IV to TXU Electric, which addresses plant safety performance during the previous year and forms the basis of the meeting discussion, is available from the Region IV Office of Public Affairs or on the NRC web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/OPA/ppr/. Current safety performance information for Comanche Peak is available on the NRC web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/CP1/cp1_chart.html. ***************************************************************** 4 NRC to Meet with Entergy to Discuss Safety Performance at River Bend Region IV -- 2001- 34 - _UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION_ _OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, REGION IV_ _611 Ryan Plaza Drive, Suite 400, Arlington TX 76011_ No. IV-01-034 June 14, 2001 CONTACT: Breck Henderson Phone: 817-860-8128 Cellular: 817-917-1227 e-mail: bwh@nrc.gov The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will meet with officials of Entergy Operations Inc. on Thursday, June 21, to discuss the results of NRC's annual assessment of safety performance at River Bend Nuclear Station, a nuclear power plant near St. Francisville, La. NRC to Meet with Entergy to Discuss Safety Performance at River Bend The meeting will be held at 2 p.m. in the River Bend Station Training Center, 5485 US Highway 61, St. Francisville. The public is invited to observe the meeting. NRC officials will be available after the meeting to answer questions. A letter sent from NRC Region IV to Entergy, which addresses plant safety performance during the previous year and forms the basis of the meeting discussion, is available from the Region IV Office of Public Affairs or on the NRC web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/OPA/ppr/.Current safety performance information for River Bend is available on the NRC web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/RBS1/rbs1_chart.html. ***************************************************************** 5 EPA Adds to Superfund List Today: June 14, 2001 at 10:30:19 PDT WASHINGTON (AP) - One is a creek contaminated with PCBs in Darby Township, Pa., flowing into the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge where federal officials caution people against eating the fish. Another is a 150-acre former hazardous waste storage site in Texas City, Texas, leaking chromium and lead into 600-mile Galveston Bay - seventh-largest estuary in the nation and major commercial and recreation fishery. Then there is the abandoned copper mine in Strafford, Vt., closed in 1958, but still pumping metals and sulfides into the Copperas Brook and West Branch of the Ompompanoosuc River. They are among 10 new sites - six in New England - being added Thursday to the Environmental Protection Agency's Superfund list of most hazardous toxic waste sites in the nation. The EPA, spending as much as $1.5 billion a year for Superfund cleanups, also proposes adding another 10 sites to the list. The public has 60 days to comment on those. With these latest actions, being announced in the Federal Register, the EPA's Superfund program has 1,236 sites and 67 proposed for agency action. The combined 1,303 includes 166 federal facilities The other new sites include four acres with recycled oil company drums at Cooper Drum Company in South Gate, Calif., and an intersection where groundwater is contaminated with perchloroethylene (PCE) in Las Cruces, New Mexico. There are two New York sites, an inactive junkyard in Newburgh and 60 homes with PCE-contaminated wells along Shenandoah Road in East Fishkill. In Sheridan, Ore., soil laced with hazardous chemicals from pressure-treated wood and preservatives has been found up to a half-mile away from a lumber plant. There also are two plants in Massachusetts, where groundwater at a 46-acre plant in Concord once run by Nuclear Metals, Inc., contains uranium and thorium and a former 50-acre landfill known as the Sutton Brook Disposal Area in Tewksbury has buried drums and contaminated groundwater. Only about 15 percent of the nation's Superfund sites have been cleaned and removed from the list since it was created two decades ago. The Superfund program's aim is to try to force polluters to pay to clean up toxic sites they either created or made worse, but critics say Superfund often relies on litigation to recover cleanup costs. And that, say industry representatives, often means ensnaring innocent business owners. Last month, the House passed a bill to protect small businesses from big polluters trying to make them share Superfund costs. EPA Administrator Christie Whitman said the Bush administration supports the bill, since multiplying lawsuits have diverted resources from cleanup. "The less litigation we have, the more likely we finish the job of cleaning up Superfund sites," Whitman said. The EPA puts sites on the list based on its studies of the risks to human health and the environment from uncontrolled hazardous substances in ground and surface water, soil and air. States also have a say in deciding priorities. In December, the Superfund program turned 20 years old. Congress passed the legislation in 1980 in the wake of the Love Canal toxic waste crisis. The Niagara Falls, N.Y., neighborhood had been built on and around a former chemical dump, and by the 1960s and '70s contaminated groundwater was leaching into back yards and school grounds. Love Canal has since become a Superfund success, with the cleanup making habitable the outer rim of the contaminated area and more than 200 homes there have been built or renovated. The EPA is proposing 10 new Superfund sites in Casmalia, Calif.; LaSalle, Ill.; Louisville, Miss.; Central Islip, N.Y.; Hazle Township and West Hazleton, Pa.; Richland Township, Pa.; Deer Park, Texas; San Antonio, Texas; Eureka, Utah; and Vershire, Vt. On the Net: EPA Superfund site: http://www.epa.gov/superfund/index.htm All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 6 Emergency officials share ideas, experiences to cope with disasters _By Caroline BrustadThe Herald_ *(Published June 8, 2001)* In the event of dealing with hurricanes or nuclear plant meltdowns, local and state emergency professionals and York County officials gathered Thursday to exchange ideas on handling natural and technological disasters. Cotton Howell, York County's director of emegency management, told about 50 people at the Baxter Hood Center at York Technical College, "Disaster is not business as usual." Howell, who organized the conference, stressed that prevention is one of the most important parts of the disaster "cycle." Emergency personnel and community leaders have "a personal and professional responsibility to our citizens and our families" when disasters occur, Howell said. Preparing for the next Hugo Outlining the natural disasters that York County could face, Howell focused on hurricanes, which pose numerous threats to the county - from masses of coastal residents seeking shelter, to flooding, to hurricane-force winds. As far inland as York County is, Howell said hurricanes pose a real danger. "We've seen it. We know it can happen," Howell said, referring to Hurricane Hugo, which uprooted trees and toppled power lines with damaging winds and heavy rains in 1989. Howell also highlighted the county's technological threats, including the manufacture, storage and transportation of hazardous materials; infrastructure disruptions such as power outages; terrorism or weapons of mass destruction; aircraft or rail accidents; and the Catawba Nuclear Station on Lake Wylie. The county's 24-hour Emergency Operations Center, located in the basement of Rock Hill's City Hall, is the central coordination location for all emergencies in the county, Howell said. Easing nuclear concerns Conference attendees also heard presentations from representatives of the S.C. Emergency Preparedness Division and from the Catawba Nuclear Station. Duke Energy officials were on hand to discuss the company's mixed-oxide fuel, or MOX, program. Duke plans to fuel its two nuclear power plants on the Catawba River - the Catawba plant on Lake Wylie and the McGuire plant on Lake Norman north of Charlotte - with reprocessed weapons-grade plutonium beginning in 2007. The plan still needs to be heard in public meetings and be licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission before its approved. The MOX fuel would be produced at the Savannah River Site near Aiken and be transported to the Duke plants. Tom Beadle, planning manager of the Catawba Nuclear Station, said Thursday's event offered an opportunity to strengthen relationships between the different "links" in the emergency planning chain. "I hope they get an understanding that we're very closely linked as far as emergency coordination," Beadle said. Howell said he hoped that the conference would help those involved "understand the pitfalls of disaster response" and would lead to emergency information sharing. "We don't want to make mistakes here that have already been made somewhere else," he said. Contact Caroline Brustad at 329-4082 or cbrustad@heraldonline.com. Copyright © 2000 The Herald. Rock Hill, South Carolina ***************************************************************** 7 Ireland to seek arbitration over new Sellafield plant Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Special report: Britain's nuclear industry _Tania Branigan Thursday June 14, 2001 The Guardian_ Ireland is to take the British government to arbitration over proposals to open a new plant at the nuclear reprocessing centre at Sellafield, it emerged last night. The action, which is thought to be the first case of one state taking another to an international tribunal for violating freedom of information rules, is likely to exacerbate tensions with London following years of arguments over the Cumbrian complex. It was prompted by Britain's refusal to release details of the controversial development of a £300m mixed oxide fuel (Mox) plant which would reprocess nuclear rods from Germany, Switzerland and elsewhere. The UK has yet to give the plant the go-ahead but is expected make a decision following a recent public consultation. Announcing the action yesterday, Joe Jacob, minister with special responsibility for nuclear safety, said the British government had withheld information needed to assess the justification for opening the plant on the grounds of commercial confidentiality. He said Dublin believes the development is neither economically nor socially justified. The case will centre on what is covered by commercial exemptions to the right to access information in a convention covering pollution in the north-east Atlantic. The Ospar (Oslo-Paris) convention was opened for signature in Paris in 1992 and has been signed or ratified by 15 European nations. Dublin is thought to believe that the extent of the information withheld - which may even include how much fuel would be reprocessed at the Mox plant - makes it impossible to assess the risks. Mr Jacob told the Irish Times that the Irish government was taking the action under the Ospar convention because it had exhausted all other avenues for opposition. Sellafield has long been a source of contention between Britain and Ireland and has been the subject of several high-level talks between Irish prime minister Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair. Successive Irish governments have campaigned for the closure of the plant and have pressed BNFL to stop discharging radioactive waste, including plutonium, into the Irish sea. They made some progress in 1998, when Britain signed up to an international agreement to cut discharges to almost nothing by 2020. Last night, the London-based Ospar commission said it had not yet received formal notification of the action. Under Ospar rules, the two countries must undergo an attempt at conciliation before proceeding to a tribunal. Ireland and the UK would each be able to appoint one arbitrator and the two people selected would then choose a third. Should they fail to agree, the International Court of Justice in The Hague would choose the final arbitrator. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2001 ***************************************************************** 8 NRC reports Browns Ferry operating safely [The Birmingham News] _06/14/01 KENT FAULK News staff writer_ _ ATHENS - The Browns Ferry Nuclear Power Plant has gotten a good report card from the federal agency that oversees the nation's power plants. Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials on Wednesday discussed their annual report with the Tennessee Valley Authority officials. "Overall, Browns Ferry operated in a manner that preserved public health and safety and fully met all cornerstone objectives," Paul E. Fredrickson, a branch chief of reactor projects for the NRC in Atlanta, said reading from the recent report he sent TVA. Browns Ferry had a checkered early history after it opened in the mid 1970s. In 1985, TVA shut the plant to make changes after a series of problems. Two of the plant's three reactors came back on line in the 1990s and in recent years it has ranked as a top performing plant. R.G. Jones, plant manager at Browns Ferry, said he was pleased with this year's report based on inspections between April 2, 2000 and March 31, 2001. He noted that in April 2000 one of its reactors completed a TVA record 547-day run without interruption, followed by a refueling outage of only 18 days, a record at that time. During a later meeting with state and local emergency management officials, NRC officials fielded questions about the low level and high-level nuclear waste that continues to pile up at Browns Ferry, as well as other U.S. nuclear plants. Kirksey Whatley, director of the Alabama Department of Public Health's office of radiation, said the piling up of radioactive waste at Browns Ferry and sites around the country increases the potential for problems. A national storage site for high-level radioactive spent fuel is still bogged down in debate and lawsuits; meanwhile, one of the country's two low-level nuclear waste sites will be closing in three years. Whatley serves as one of Alabama's two commissioners on the Southeast Compact Commission for Low Level Radioactive Waste Disposal. Browns Ferry, like many other nuclear plants, store their spent radioactive fuel rods in deep pools of water. But space in the pools is running out, and TVA announced earlier this year it plans to begin storing fuel rods outside the plant in concrete containers with steel inner canisters beginning in 2005. The dry casks are already being used at 15 nuclear plants around the country. Whatley said dry casks are a viable option but should be considered only a temporary measure until a permanent national disposal site can be found. It will cost TVA an estimated $21.5 million to design, build and implement the dry storage facility, plant spokesman Phillip Harris said after Wednesday's meeting. TVA is negotiating with a company that sells the storage devices, he said. Fredrickson said the NRC will have to issue a separate license and monitor construction of that storage facility. © The Birmingham News. Used with permission. ***************************************************************** 9 Nuclear plant falls behind on refueling schedule _Station's shutdown goal was ambitious -- less than 30 days_ *Thursday, June 14, 2001* _By LINDA ASHTON_ THE ASSOCIATED PRESS YAKIMA -- The refueling at the Columbia Generating Station was four days behind schedule yesterday, the 25th day of what was supposed to be a 29-day, 22-hour shutdown of the nuclear power plant. The shutdown has been tracked with some interest in this year of high electricity prices and drought and as the Bush administration touts nuclear energy as a possible source of new generation for the country. "It's unclear how long the scheduled restart will be delayed," said Ed Mosey, a spokesman for the Bonneville Power Administration. The BPA sells electricity from 29 federal hydroelectric dams on the Columbia-Snake river system and from the 1,200-megawatt nuclear power plant, which sits on leased land on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in south-central Washington. "We have enough water to meet the loads. There's no reliability problem, and we don't expect any long-term impact on price," Mosey said. "There's a reason we take it down in the spring. It's the most advantageous time to have that unit off-line." The plant disconnected from the BPA transmission grid just before midnight May 18. The goal of shutting down for less than 30 days was an ambitious one for the power plant, which 18 months ago shut down for 36 days for refueling and maintenance. Historically, refueling has occurred annually and the shutdowns averaged about 60 days. This time around, Energy Northwest, the 13-utility power consortium that owns the plant, is preparing the Columbia Generating Station to operate for 23 months without refueling. A lightning strike two weeks ago damaged a transformer at the plant and threw the schedule off by about 24 hours. The BPA acknowledged the delay as a circumstance beyond Energy Northwest's control and agreed to a 24-hour extension in determining incentive payments offered to the nearly 2,000 people staffing the round-the-clock shutdown. But small errors, such as an improperly installed gasket, have also contributed to the delay. "We have to focus on error-free work. The errors are killing us. We have to do it right the first time," shutdown manager John Dabney said yesterday in the in-house publication, Energy Northwest News. * [Seattle Post-Intelligencer] 101 Elliott Ave. W. Seattle, WA 98119 (206) 448-8000 Send comments to newmedia@seattle-pi.com ©1999-2001 Seattle ***************************************************************** 10 Cheney argues case for nuclear plants [ASSOCIATED PRESS] *PHOTO/ASSOCIATED PRESS* _Vice President Dick Cheney_ gestures while addressing the 12th annual Energy Efficiency Forum Wednesday at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C._ Vice president notes benefit on global warming By CRAIG GILBERT of the Journal Sentinel staff *Last Updated: June 14, 2001* _Washington _- Vice President Dick Cheney called on those concerned about global warming to support more nuclear power plants, which don't produce the greenhouse gases that contribute to warmer global temperatures. __We like nuclear power because we think it's another way to address the global warming question. _ __*- Vice President, Dick Cheney *_ "The same people who yell loudest about global warming and carbon dioxide emissions are also the first ones to scream when somebody says we ought to use nuclear power," said Cheney, speaking Wednesday at an energy conference here. Cheney also defended U.S. opposition to a global warming pact in his comments. He said the accord would have "devastating economic consequences" for this country and cited unresolved scientific questions about the causes of global warming. President Bush's recent rejection of the 1997 Kyoto treaty on climatic change has drawn fire in Europe, where Bush is traveling this week for the first time since taking office. Cheney spoke Wednesday afternoon at the National Press Club. The gathering was co-hosted by Milwaukee-based Johnson Controls Inc. The vice president was taking questions from the invited audience when someone in the balcony interrupted, yelling out a comment about Kyoto. Johnson Controls chairman and CEO James Keyes tried to move on, but Cheney interjected, saying: "I'd like to talk about the Kyoto protocol. Thank you for asking." Cheney said Bush had rejected the pact because "it's flawed," noting that standards for cutting emissions wouldn't apply to such huge nations as China and India. "That's over half the world's population right there," said Cheney. "The burden fell basically on the United States and on a few other developed countries." Cheney also reiterated the administration's argument that scientists still don't know how much of the Earth's warming trend is man-made and how much is "natural." "And the president's not prepared to proceed, with as much question as currently exists, to go now and put the hammer down," said Cheney, referring to fossil fuel restrictions that he said would damage the economy. Amid international criticism over the issue, Bush has remained firm in his opposition to the pact. But aides have second-guessed their political handling of the matter. In a lunch with reporters Monday, White House chief of staff Andrew Card likened the pact to the emperor with no clothes. But he said the White House "did not do a good job of setting the stage for the obvious flaws of Kyoto." Before leaving for Europe, the president said the U.S. takes some responsibility for the role of human activity in global warming, and he promised more research and cleaner technologies. Cheney pointed to nuclear power as part of the solution. "We like nuclear power because we think it's another way to address the global warming question. No carbon dioxide emissions, no emissions of any kind," he said. The vice president said that while the administration wanted more reliance on nuclear power, that wouldn't happen unless the issue of storing nuclear waste is resolved. And he chided Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) for ruling out a proposed permanent storage site in Nevada, home to the Senate's No. 2 Democrat, Harry Reid. Appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on June 14, 2001. Copyright 2001, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. All ***************************************************************** 11 Revisiting nuclear power on the road to Kyoto Wednesday, June 13, 2001 Two news items this week illustrate the divergence among major Western economic powers on the future of nuclear energy. Yesterday, the chairman of British Energy, the U.K. power company that recently took over operations of the Bruce nuclear plant in Ontario, said it is considering whether to build new nuclear power facilities in the province. Just a day earlier, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder signed a deal with major energy companies to shut all 19 of Germany's nuclear plants within 20 years. Germany joins a growing list of European countries abandoning nuclear power. This divergence of opinion on nuclear power has at its heart a difference in environmental priorities. Environmental goals are not always harmonious, and their costs and benefits must be weighed in the cold light of day. At an air pollution summit on Monday, Environment Minister David Anderson reiterated Canada's commitment under the Kyoto protocol to slash greenhouse gas emissions to 6 per cent below 1990 levels by 2012. Given that we produce about 13 per cent more greenhouse gases than we did in 1990, we have a huge mountain to climb to meet our Kyoto targets. Nuclear power could help. Nuclear power generation doesn't emit greenhouse gases. Considering our Kyoto commitments and some of the other options that Canada faces for fuelling new power plants -- most notably heavy polluter coal and no-longer-inexpensive natural gas -- that's a factor that's hard to ignore. The International Energy Agency, an arm of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, argues in a recent report that Kyoto requirements "could have a dramatic positive effect on the prospects for nuclear power over the coming decades." Nuclear power plants are relatively cheap to operate. Despite the tragedy of Chernobyl, they have generally proved to be reliable and safe. And substantial progress has been made over the past 20 years on storage and disposal of nuclear waste, long a major downside to nuclear energy. In fact, the IEA said the high cost of constructing nuclear plants, rather than environmental concerns, will be the biggest obstacle to developing more nuclear facilities in the future. Ontario well knows the crippling expense of nuclear construction, having seen the mountain of debt from government-owned Ontario Hydro's nuclear program. But the introduction of competitive electricity markets will open the door for private companies such as British Energy to take over that financial risk, which they will do under the right market conditions. Assuming the federal government implements tough emissions standards that drive up the cost of other power alternatives, this should create the sort of conditions that make those risks bearable. Governments will certainly have to remain vigilant to ensure that private enterprises maintain the highest safety and quality standards on future nuclear facilities. But given the potential environmental upside of nuclear, we shouldn't let old-fashioned fears and biases cloud our view of the bigger picture. ; 2001 Globe Interactive, a division of Bell Globemedia ***************************************************************** 12 Russia Atomic ministry explores nuclear fuel market [ITAR/TASS News Agency] Story Filed: Thursday, June 14, 2001 9:04 AM EST MOSCOW, Jun 14, 2001 (Itar-Tass via COMTEX) -- Russia's Atomic energy ministry is looking into the possibility of storaging and processing of spent nuclear fuel from Eastern Europe, Asia and Finland. However, no negotiations on possible contracts are now being held, the press secretary of the ministry, Yury Bespalko, told Itar-Tass on Thursday. Amendments to the law permitting the above activity, were approved by the State Duma last week and are now pending approval by the Federation Council and the president, so pre-contract negotiations are yet premature, the official said. According to Bespalko, changes in the legislation are first of all focused on the domestic producer of fuel for nuclear power plants. Such changes allow exports of nuclear fuel and "complex" services including the processing of spent nuclear fuel. Proceeding from this, the Atomic ministry counts primarily on the work with the foreign nuclear power plants built by the former USSR and those currently being constructed by Russia. "We do not neglect other countries as well, but competition is rather strong on this market," Bespalko said. Atomic ministry experts have "carried out an informal probe" into the possibility of accepting spent nuclear fuel from Germany, but "it would be an exaggeration" to view this as an official contract proposal, he said. By Veronika Voskoboinikova (c) 1996-2001 ITAR-TASS. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 13 Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission: Revised Notice of Public Hearing [Canadian Corporate News] Story Filed: Wednesday, June 13, 2001 4:35 PM EST OTTAWA, ONTARIO, MAY 31, 2001 (CCN Newswire via COMTEX) -- The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) announces that the public hearing on a licensing application by COGEMA Resources Inc., Saskatoon, Saskatchewan for the McClean Lake Mining Facility previously scheduled for May 29 and June 28, 2001 will now be heard on the following days: Hearing Day One: June 28, 2001 Place: CNSC Public Hearing Room, 14th floor, 280 Slater Street, Ottawa, Ontario Hearing Day Two: August 9, 2001 Place: CNSC Public Hearing Room, 14th floor, 280 Slater Street, Ottawa, Ontario Public hearings begin at 8:30 a.m. and follow the order listed in the agenda published prior to the hearing dates. The public is invited to participate either by oral presentation or written submission on Hearing Day Two. Requests to participate and the text of oral presentations or written submissions must be filed with the Secretary of the Commission by July 10, 2001. c/o Ms. Carmen Ellyson Commission Operations Officer Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission 280 Slater St., P.O. Box 1046 Ottawa, Ontario K1P 5S9 Tel.: (613) 996-2026 or 1-800-668-5284 Fax: (613) 995-5086 E-mail: interventions@cnsc-ccsn.gc.ca Members of the public are welcome to observe public hearings. For current agendas and information on the hearing process, visit the CNSC web site: . CONTACT: Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission Sunni Locatelli Media and Community Relations Communications Division (613) 996-6860 E-mail: media@cnsc-ccsn.gc.ca Copyright (C) 2001, Canadian Corporate News. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 14 Nuclear Power Plants Considered As Possible Answer to Mongolia's Energy Problems Welcome to The PMA OnLine Power Report ( June 13, 2001 ) Text of report in English by Mongolian E-mail Daily News service on 13 June Unuudur reports that a conference under the theme, "The Feasibility of Constructing a Nuclear Power Station in Mongolia" took place at the Mongolian National University (MNU) yesterday. The conference was organized by MNU and Mongol-300 Co. Ltd. and was attended by experts and some legislators. Delegates agreed that increased air pollution and climatic changes were likely to continue in the future, polluting the environment; giving rise to the consideration of nuclear power stations in Mongolia. Nuclear energy can cause great damage without appropriate controls. The tragedy of Chernobyl is a clear demonstration of this, writes Unuudur. However, nuclear power is badly needed to meet the increased demand for energy, yet causes less damage to the environment. Mongolia consumes 800 MW of energy a year. A nuclear power station running on 1,000 MW (MWt [megawatt tonne]) would guarantee countrywide energy supplies. An atomic power station of 1,000 MWt would consume 27 tonnes of uranium as fuel and emit eight tonnes of waste, which would be stored in isolation. A thermo-power station of 1,000 MWt would consume 2.6m tonnes of coal and emit 6.5m tonnes of carbon, 300,000 tonnes of ash, 20,000 tonnes of sulphur and 400 tonnes of heavy metals. The conference delegates concluded that the construction of small- medium-sized atomic power stations would solve the energy deficit. www.powermarketers.com_ ***************************************************************** 15 New challenge to Sellafield planned ireland.com - The Irish Times - IRELAND June 14, 2001 _By Mark Hennessy, Political Reporter _ The Government is to challenge a new Sellafield nuclear fuel reprocessing plant before an international arbitration tribunal, a move that could create significant tensions with London. The unprecedented action before the 14-nation OSPAR Convention, which monitors pollution in the north-east Atlantic, has been prompted by Britain's refusal to release papers about the controversial plant. Yesterday, the Minister of State for Public Enterprise, Mr Joe Jacobs, said the Irish case is that the plant is neither economically nor socially justified, and should be closed. The £300 million plant will reprocess nuclear rods from Germany, Switzerland and elsewhere. Last night, the London-based convention said it had, as yet, no formal notification from Dublin. Under its rules, a conciliation effort will first have to be made using its offices before an arbitration tribunal can begin. If that fails, Ireland and Britain will each be able to appoint one arbitrator. The two selected will then choose a third. If they fail to agree, the International Court of Justice in The Hague will supply a person. The Government has already begun preparations to challenge Sellafield's existence under EU law. "We have hired a Queen's Counsel and work on that case is ongoing," Mr Jacobs said yesterday. British Nuclear Fuels Ltd's reputation was damaged internationally after the company admitted in September 1999 that it had falsified quality controls records about a shipment of reprocessed fuel to Japan. ***************************************************************** 16 Bury hot waste deep underground, scientific committee recommends - 6/13/2001 - ENN.com Wednesday, June 13, 2001 Yucca Mountain, Nevada A new report by the National Academy of Sciences says that countries should move forward with the development of deep underground repositories for the safe storage and disposal of spent fuel from nuclear reactors and other high-level radioactive waste from processing this fuel for military purposes. The report issued June 6 by an international committee of the academy's National Research Council, says four decades of study have determined that the geological repository option is the only scientifically credible, long term solution for safely isolating waste without having to rely on active management . Focused attention by world leaders is needed to address the challenges posed by disposal of spent nuclear fuel, the committee said in its report, "Disposition of High-Level Waste and Spent Nuclear Fuel: The Continuing Societal and Technical Challenges." "Difficulties in garnering public support have been seriously underestimated, and opportunities to increase public involvement and to gain trust have been missed," said committee chair D. Warner North, president of NorthWorks Inc., Belmont, California, and consulting professor in the Department of Engineering-Economic Systems and Operations Research at Stanford University. "Waste management programs around the globe should direct their efforts beyond technical development to emphasize public participation in the decision making process," North said. The Research Council initiated the study after observing that many nations were encountering significant difficulties and delays in their plans for geological disposal of nuclear waste. The world's inventory of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste is growing because of the continued use of nuclear energy, the dismantling of nuclear weapons, and an emphasis on cleaning up sites where these weapons were built. This waste needs to be secured to protect people and the environment from radiation and to prevent material that can be used to build nuclear weapons from falling into the wrong hands, the committee emphasized. And in many countries, a consensus that waste can be managed safely is a prerequisite for the use of nuclear power. "Properly disposing of this waste will require international collaboration," said committee vice chair Charles McCombie, consultant, Gipf-Oberfrick, Switzerland. "Collaboration at the technical level already exists, but coordination at the strategic and political levels should intensify." "Although there are still some significant technical challenges, the broad consensus within the scientific and technical communities is that enough is known for countries to move forward with geological disposal," the committee said. This approach is sound, the committee said, as long as it involves a step-by-step, reversible decision making process that takes advantage of technological advances and public participation. Geological repositories, such as Yucca Mountain in Nevada, are intended to be controlled and monitored for many decades throughout and some time beyond their operational phase, during which retrieval of waste would be possible if required. Yucca Mountain, the only site being considered by the United States for the long term storage of high-level nuclear waste, is now being studied to see how likely radioactivity is to travel out of the containment area and reach air or groundwater. The high-level radioactive waste that would come to Yucca Mountain is now stored at commercial nuclear power plants and research reactor sites in 43 states. The committee noted that while the United States, Finland and Sweden have plans to begin placing waste in geological repositories early in this century, other countries, such as Russia, have no timetable set for the construction and use of deep repositories. The committee said that spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste have been kept at storage facilities on or near the Earth's surface since the nuclear age began more than 50 years ago. But it said the amount of waste, particularly spent fuel, is exceeding the current capacity of existing facilities in many countries, and some storage sites have not performed up to acceptable standards. In a related development, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last week announced final public health and environmental standards for the proposed geologic repository at Yucca Mountain. The standards correspond to a dose limit of no more than 15 millirem per year for residents who would be closest to the repository - which is about twice the amount of radiation an individual would be exposed to living in a brick house for a year. But a coalition of environmental groups said the radiation standard is not protective enough. The coalition charges that by arbitrarily limiting the standard to the first 10,000 years of operation, the dose limits for the repository do not account for the maximum radionuclide exposures that will be caused by Yucca Mountain, which are projected to occur much later. "This is another example of the Bush administration weakening environmental regulations to keep a bad project alive," said Lisa Gue, policy analyst with Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program. The coalition includes: Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, Clean Water Action, Citizen Alert, Committee to Bridge the Gap, Georgians Against Nuclear Energy, Greenpeace International, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program, the Sierra Club, and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. Copyright 2001, Environmental News Network All Rights Reserved ***************************************************************** 17 Nuclear plants squeeze power as critics fret - CNN.com - June 13, 2001 _SAN FRANCISCO, California (Reuters) -- __Blocked by public opinion from building new nuclear plants, operators have been squeezing more electricity out of existing nuclear plants in an effort to meet demand in California and other parts of the country._ But critics warn that the steps -- which range from running a reactor for longer to building new cooling towers -- are putting stress on the plants and could endanger the public. Although no new nuclear power plant has been built for 20 years, the nation's nuclear fleet -- which accounts for about a fifth of total power production -- has added about 2,200 megawatts in the last decade, the equivalent of two large new plants or enough electricity for 2 million homes. The Nuclear Energy Institute, a pro-nuclear trade group, expects at least 2,000 megawatts more in the next few years, an institute spokesman said. But anti-nuclear groups say that coaxing more power out of the nuclear fleet puts more wear and tear on reactors, turbines, cooling systems and the tens of thousands of other pieces of equipment in a plant. "The industry is running reactors longer and hotter while shortening refueling and maintenance schedules, and this means it is reducing safety margins," said Paul Gunter, a director with the Nuclear Information and Resource Service. "Age-related deterioration is inevitable in reactors and other equipment," Gunter said. "Power capacity is going up, but this is increasing the risk to public health and safety." Safety agency The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which oversees the nation's atomic plants, must approve power increases, which are known in the industry as "uprates," and permits can take a year or longer to process. The NRC has 18 projects pending. An NRC spokeswoman said the agency closely examines "safety barriers" protecting nuclear fuel, reactor coolant systems and "containment" buildings housing the reactor. The power uprates come from a variety of methods. Operators can make turbines spin generators faster by removing heavy moisture from steam passing over a turbine's blades. This can add 5 to 10 megawatts per generating unit, and over the next four years the company expects to add between 70 and 90 megawatts to the units' capability. Another uprate involves building new cooling towers to improve plant efficiency on hot days. New towers at the Exelon Corp.'s Dresden nuclear plant in Illinois saved almost 300 megawatts. Yet another improvement uses more precise measuring instruments so control room operators can run units closer to their peak capabilities. Exelon Nuclear, a unit of Chicago-based Exelon Corp., is the nation's largest nuclear operator, running 17 reactors in the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic states. Through uprates, Exelon said it expects to add about nine million megawatt hours by 2003, the equivalent of building a new 1,200 megawatt plant at a fraction of the cost. Exelon's uprates carry a construction cost of $300-$400 per kilowatt, well below the $500 to $700 per kilowatt for a new combined-cycle plant fueled by natural gas, and $1,000 to $1,250 per kilowatt for so-called clean coal technology. Sunnier nuclear outlook under Bush While the Bush administration has given new life to the nuclear industry -- which was put in cold storage by the near meltdown of the Three Mile Island reactor in Pennsylvania in 1979 -- industry executives caution that it may be years before a new reactor is built. Bush's new energy policy calls for more nuclear power and suggests many of the existing 65 plant sites, scattered throughout 31 states, have room to accommodate more reactors. In addition to lingering fears about plant safety and "not-in-my-backyard" opposition to new plants, the problem of where to store highly radioactive nuclear waste remains a big obstacle. California, for example, in 1976 outlawed construction of any new nuclear plants until there was a "demonstrated and approved" technology for a permanent dump site for used fuel rods. "The outlook for nuclear power in California is pretty dismal," Robert Glynn, chief executive officer of San Francisco-based PG Corp., recently told the company's annual meeting of shareholders. PG's Pacific Gas &Electric subsidiary runs the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant on California's central coast, which is among the plants boosting production. "I'm a huge believer that nuclear power should play a part in our energy needs," Michael Morrell, president and chief operating officer of Allegheny Energy Supply Co., a unit of Allegheny Energy Inc. (AYE.N), of Hagerstown, Maryland, said at a recent conference. "But I don't believe there will be a nuclear plant built in my lifetime," the 53 year old executive added. Copyright 2001 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may ***************************************************************** 18 Exelon to slash 292 jobs at nuke plants, ComEd HERALD NEWS STAFF Exelon Corp. will lay off 292 union workers from its Illinois nuclear plants and ComEd utility division. The company said the layoffs are among 2,900 job cuts planned when Exelon was created by a merger last year. "This is part of that plan," said Neal Miller, a spokesman at the Braidwood Nuclear Station who noted that 630 management jobs had been cut previously. The layoff announcement also comes five days after Local 15 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers ratified a new contract with the company. "We signed our contract last week, so you can guess what this is all about," said Local 15 President William Starr. "They didn't get the concessions they wanted." Starr called the layoffs "sour grapes" and said he expected the company to try to seek concessions before the layoffs are scheduled to begin July 13. The union refused a company proposal during negotiations that workers get regular pay rather than overtime for Saturday and Sunday work, he said. The company, which also has operations in Pennsylvania, has about 30,000 employees, including 7,500 from Local 15. During contract negotiations the prospect of job cuts was discussed. "This is in no way retaliation," Miller said. "We said all along there would be reductions." The layoffs include 138 jobs from the Exelon Nuclear Division and 154 workers from ComEd. Miller said the company would not discuss publicly how many workers would be laid off from which nuclear plants until those numbers are presented to the union. Exelon Nuclear's power plants include Braidwood and the Dresden Nuclear Station outside of Morris. The nuclear layoffs will come from maintenance and clerical staffs. The ComEd layoffs will come from the ranks of meter installers, clerical workers, drivers and billing center employees. "This will not affect Exelon's ability to safely operate our plants or deliver electricity to our customers," Miller said. The company will be able to reduce staff without affecting operations, Miller said, because of improved efficiency, including a reduction in maintenance backlogs at the nuclear plants. ***************************************************************** 19 Environment, energy watchdogs howl at Bruce Power chief's new nuke hint --> LFP Local News: June 14, 2001 _By PETER GEIGEN-MILLER, Free Press Reporter_ There's no way another nuclear power plant will be built in Ontario, a Sierra Club of Canada official vowed yesterday after Bruce Power's chairperson hinted one was in the works. "If they ever try to site another reactor anywhere in Canada . . . they'll have a huge fight on their hands and won't be able to build it," John Bennett said yesterday. He was reacting to a speech in which Bruce Power chairperson Robin Jeffrey spoke of perhaps building another nuclear plant in the province. Bruce Power is the British firm leasing the two Bruce nuclear power stations from the province, a deal finalized in May. Jeffrey said in an interview yesterday there are no plans to build another nuclear plant. But he did not rule it out if market conditions were favourable and construction costs could be reduced. He said nuclear power is gaining acceptance, with U.S. plants being bought and sold and the possibility of new plants back on the agenda. But Bennett said the industry is just testing public opinion. Norm Rubin of Energy Probe, an energy industry watchdog, said economics make building a new nuclear plant almost impossible. "Even if you can continue to make a buck acquiring nuclear generating stations at five cents on the dollar -- as British Energy has done so far -- it's a heck of a leap . . . to think you could come out ahead by paying the real price of building one," said Rubin. "The history of nuclear power in Ontario has always been that real plants lose money and theoretical plants make money hand over fist." Dave Martin, the Sierra Club's nuclear consultant, estimates lifetime costs for a nuclear plant are double the price of a high-efficiency gas-fired power plant. "They have a very big hill to climb . . . to make a nuclear plant competitive," he said. "They will have to cut at least half the costs." Jeffrey said to attract investment, new reactors will have to be much cheaper and quicker to build than current plants. The industry will also have to demonstrate the safety of nukes and solve the problem of what to do with their radioactive waste. He said Bruce Power's priorities are to get the Bruce B plant running at capacity and to restart a couple of Bruce A reactors. That would add 2,000 megawatts of generating capacity, he said. Jeffrey said it's too early to discuss where a new nuclear plant might go. Martin said the sprawling Bruce site and the Darlington plant on Lake Ontario are possibilities. London Free Press. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 20 NRC to Meet with Detroit Edison Company to Discuss Safety Performance at the Fermi 2 Nuclear Power Station Region III -- 2001 - 24 - _UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION_ _OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, REGION III_ _801 Warrenville Road, Lisle IL 60532_ No. III-01-024 June 14, 2001 CONTACT: Jan Strasma (630)829-9663/e-mail: rjs2@nrc.gov Pam Alloway-Mueller (630)829-9662/e-mail: pla@nrc.gov The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will meet with Detroit Edison Company officials June 21 to discuss the NRC's annual assessment of safety performance at its Fermi 2 Nuclear Power Station in Newport, Michigan. The meeting will begin at 6 p.m. EDT and will be held at the Monroe City Council Chambers in Monroe City Hall, 120 East First Street in Monroe. The public is invited to observe the meeting. NRC officials will be available after the meeting to answer questions. The annual assessment, referred to as the End-of-Cycle assessment, evaluates safety performance at Fermi 2 from April 2000 through March 2001, and informs plant officials of the NRC's plans for future inspections at the facility. The Fermi 2 assessment letter and inspection plan are available at http://www.nrc.gov/OPA/ppror from the Region III Public Affairs Office. Current performance information for the plant is available at http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/index.html. ***************************************************************** 21 University reactors pose risk 06/14/01 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has cited several universities in recent months for improperly handling campus nuclear reactors and the radioactive materials they produce.--> Last modified at 12:49 a.m. on Thursday, June 14, 2001 _By Thomas Hargrove _ *Scripps Howard News Service * The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has cited several universities in recent months for improperly handling campus nuclear reactors and the radioactive materials they produce. A contractor hired to clean up a spill of americium-241 in a basement vault at Southeast Missouri State University was exposed to more than five times the safe level of radioactivity last June. Texas A University faces disciplinary action for improperly shipping a package of radioactive capsules to the Virgin Islands in early December. Technicians in St. Croix found the radioactive materials outside the containment vessel when the package was opened. University of Missouri officials have made staff changes at their research reactor facility after two so-called "unplanned radiation field events" occurred while servicing and refueling their 10,000-kilowatt plate-fuel reactor on April 12 and June 12 last year. The mistakes resulted in radiation leaks that could have been dangerous had anyone been standing near the reactor at the time. _Universities with nuclear reactors_ The following is a list of the 27 universities (Texas A has two) that operate nuclear reactors regulated by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The numerical watts refer to the heat each unit is capable of producing. Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. Š 500 kilowatts Kansas State University, Manhattan Š 250 kilowatts Idaho State University, Pocatello Š 0.005 kilowatt Mass. Institute of Technology, Cambridge Š 5,000 kilowatts North Carolina State, Raleigh Š 1,000 kilowatts Oregon State University, Corvallis Š 1,100 kilowatts Ohio State University, Columbus Š 500 kilowatts Penn State University, University Park Š 1,000 kilowatts Purdue University, West Lafayette, Ind. Š 1 kilowatt Reed College, Portland, Ore. Š 250 kilowatts Rensselaer Polytechnic, Schenectady, N.Y. Š 0.1 kilowatt Texas A, College Station Š 1,000 kilowatts Texas A, (second unit) Š 0.005 kilowatt University of Arizona, Tucson Š 100 kilowatts University of California, Davis Š 2,000 kilowatts University of California, Irvine Š 250 kilowatts University of Florida, Gainesville Š 100 kilowatts University of Maryland, College Park Š 250 kilowatts University of Massachusetts, Lowell Š 1,000 kilowatts University of Michigan, Ann Arbor Š 2,000 kilowatts University of Missouri, Columbia Š 10,000 kilowatts University of Missouri, Rolla Š 200 kilowatts University of New Mexico, Albuquerque Š 0.005 kilowatt University of Texas, Austin Š 1,100 kilowatts University of Utah, Salt Lake City Š 100 kilowatts University of Wisconsin, Madison Š 1,000 kilowatts Washington State University, Pullman Š 1,000 kilowatts Worcester Polytechnic, Worcester, Mass. Š 10 kilowatts Source: Nuclear Regulatory Commission -- Scripps Howard News Service "That was a real wake-up call for us," University of Missouri spokeswoman Mary Jo Banken said. "Since then, we have hired a chief operating officer with more than 25 years' experience, a new reactor manager with more than 20 years' experience and we undertook an extensive self review." The Nuclear Regulatory Commission oversees 28 so-called "non-power" atomic reactors currently operated by public and private universities in the United States. The reactors don't generate electricity and primarily are used to produce low-level radioactive isotopes for medical treatment and research. Apparently no one has been injured in any of the recent incidents, but authorities consider each to be serious violations of nuclear safety procedures. "We might have one significant problem a year with these facilities," said Marvin Mendonca, senior project manager for the commission. "But, generally, these reactors are acceptably managed for the risk involved." Most of the academic facilities are small, producing only one-thousandth the heat and radiation of commercial nuclear power reactors. But unlike the commercial plants, university reactors often are located in urban areas or have large student populations near them. The commission also oversees the use of nuclear materials generated within the reactors. Federal regulators on Monday met with Southeast Missouri State officials to discuss apparent safety violations at its Cape Girardeau campus following efforts to clean up contamination of radioactive americium-241, commonly used in smoke detectors. "We hired a contract employee who came in last summer and there was a potential overexposure," said Southeast Missouri spokesman Ann Hayes. A radiation clean-up expert from Engelhardt and Associates of Madison, Wis., was asked to decontaminate the area around the vault where the americium was stored. Afterward, the university discovered the contamination extended well beyond the area around the safe. Nuclear Regulatory Commission technicians estimate the worker was exposed to up to 263 rems of radiation, or more than five times the permissible annual limit. "The individual wasn't too thrilled about it," said Engelhardt's chief physicist, Josh Walkowicz. "But for an individual to be really hurt, he'd have to be exposed to a massive level. We have to wait to see what will happen, if anything." The commission last month recommended a $2,400 civil penalty against Texas A for its shipment of capsules containing bromine-82 and copper-64, both radioactive materials, to technicians employed by Tru-Tec Services, Inc., working in St. Croix. "The Tru-Tec personnel found that the radioactive material was resting on top of the shipping container in an unshielded configuration," wrote Jon Johnson, deputy director of the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. "Tru-Tec personnel took immediate action to return the radioactive material to its shielded container and restored the container to an authorized configuration." Authorities warn that the package was stored for three days at a transportation facility in Memphis, Tenn., and briefly during a change of planes in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Federal regulators have concluded that A failed to adequately train its workers who use hazardous materials, to independently examine the radioactive materials container, and to maintain adequate attention to detail for the shipment. Texas A officials haven't yet responded to the proposed penalty. Mendonca said it is difficult to determine whether universities are more prone to make mistakes than are operators of commercial reactors. He said that rarely are any errors related to the involvement of students with reactor systems. "Students are allowed, as part of their class work, to observe and participate with a senior staff operator. But there are controls and provisions for security," Mendonca said. "It is not very often that there is any problem with a student operator's lack of training or experience." The Topeka Capital-Journal/CJ Online. All ***************************************************************** 22 Government revives proposal to inspect waste _ Casper Star-Tribune Casper, Wyoming June 14, 2001 CARLSBAD, N.M. (AP) - The Energy Department has revived a plan to analyze drums of radioactive waste at its underground dump in southeastern New Mexico. Under the plan, the contents of waste shipments would be confirmed at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad rather than at the sites where they had been temporarily stored. The government asked the state Environment Department to approve the plan last summer, but the request was withdrawn after regulators and watchdog groups objected. The new request has been changed to address the criticism, officials said. Public meetings on the plan will be held next month in New Mexico. In an effort to be more efficient, federal officials want to create a centralized facility at the dump for determining exactly what is inside each drum. The government calls the current system of analyzing drum contents before they are moved cumbersome. The Energy Department contends the whole process could be sped up by doing most of the complex analysis when shipments arrive. The dump currently accepts waste like clothing, tools and rags that has been contaminated with plutonium and other hazardous substances that remain radioactive for thousands of years. The Carlsbad facility is the only one authorized to receive that kind of waste. ***************************************************************** 23 ADAMS: Items of Interest - Thursday, June 14, 2001 ADAMS - Items of Interest Recent Released Documents Added - Thursday, June 14, 2001 These documents and others may be retrieved at the NRC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Item ID: 011640013 Accession Number: ML011560572 Date Added: 6/13/01 10:11:16 AM Title: 06/18/2001 meeting with Nebraska Public Power District, Cooper Nuclear Station to discuss status of Cooper Nuclear Station and other pertinent topics. Author Affiliation: NRC/RGN-IV/DRP/RPB-C Document/Report Number: _________________________________________________________________ Item ID: 011640327 Accession Number: ML011640471 Date Added: 6/13/01 5:11:39 PM Title: 06/25/2001, Forthcoming Meeting with Carolina Power & Light Author Affiliation: NRC/NRR/DLPM Document/Report Number: _________________________________________________________________ Item ID: 011640331 Accession Number: ML011640215 Date Added: 6/13/01 5:12:04 PM Title: 06/26/01 Forthcoming Meeting with Entergy Operations, Inc to discuss scope of power uprate request, overview of Caldon CheckPlus Systems and tentative project schedule for GGNS, RBS, Pilgrim and W3. Author Affiliation: NRC/NRR/DLPM/LPD IV-1 Document/Report Number: _________________________________________________________________ Item ID: 011640234 Accession Number: ML011630154 Date Added: 6/13/01 12:14:38 PM Title: 06/27/2001 Public Meeting Announcement - Annual Assessment - Shearon Harris Nuclear Power Plant - Docket No 50 - 400. Author Affiliation: NRC/RGN-II/DRP/RPB4 Document/Report Number: _________________________________________________________________ Item ID: 011640328 Accession Number: ML011640450 Date Added: 6/13/01 5:11:52 PM Title: 07/02/2001 Meeting with the Nuclear Management Company and Duane Arnold Energy Center for the NRC to present the End-of-Cycle assessment results. Author Affiliation: NRC/RGN-III/DRP Document/Report Number: _________________________________________________________________ Item ID: 011640254 Accession Number: ML011630160 Date Added: 6/13/01 2:11:35 PM Title: 07/11/2001 Public Meeting - Annual Assessment H. B. Robinson Steam Electric Plant Unit 2 - Docket No. 50-261 Author Affiliation: NRC/RGN-II Document/Report Number: _________________________________________________________________ Item ID: 011640236 Accession Number: ML011630497 Date Added: 6/13/01 12:14:48 PM Title: 07/16/2001 EOC meeting notice Author Affiliation: NRC/OCIO/IMD Document/Report Number: _________________________________________________________________ Item ID: 011640235 Accession Number: ML011630484 Date Added: 6/13/01 12:14:43 PM Title: 07/16/2001 meeting with Monticello Nuclear Generating Plant for NRC to present EOC assessment results. Author Affiliation: NRC/RGN-III/DRP/RPB2 Document/Report Number: _________________________________________________________________ Item ID: 011640232 Accession Number: ML011640176 Date Added: 6/13/01 12:14:26 PM Title: Discrimination Task Group Meeting to Solicit Public Comment of the Draft Task Group Report Author Affiliation: NRC/OE Document/Report Number: _________________________________________________________________ Item ID: 011640341 Accession Number: ML011590492 Date Added: 6/13/01 5:12:50 PM Title: Radioactivity in Consumer Products from 10/13/99, Pre-hearing Conference Handout. Author Affiliation: NRC Document/Report Number: _________________________________________________________________ Item ID: 011640352 Accession Number: ML011590533 Date Added: 6/13/01 5:13:47 PM Title: RAI for Army based on 1/28/99, meeting, dated 02/02/99. Author Affiliation: NRC/NMSS/IMNS/MSB Document/Report Number: _________________________________________________________________ Item ID: 011640353 Accession Number: ML011590539 Date Added: 6/13/01 5:13:51 PM Title: RAI from NRC to the Army on M22/GID-3 dated 10/26/98. Author Affiliation: NRC/NMSS/IMNS/MSB Document/Report Number: _________________________________________________________________ ***************************************************************** 24 Cheney says nuclear power can succeed if waste issue resolved update 16:38:52 GMT_ WASHINGTON (AFX) - U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney said that the Bush administration's aim to boost nuclear generating capacity can succeed, but that the issue of nuclear waste, and where to store it, needs to be resolved beforehand. Cheney, in remarks to the 12th Annual Energy Efficiency Forum at the National Press Club, said the nuclear power industry is unlikely to attract the level of investment it needs to get new plants off the ground if the issue of waste is not addressed. "Twenty percent of our electricity is being generated by nuclear, we'd like to increase that, it ought to be increased," Cheney said. Democratic support will be needed to take forward the administration's plans to boost nuclear power generation which reduces carbon dioxide emissions and thus also cuts global warming, the vice president said. Cheney said that Democratic Senate Leader Thomas Daschle has voiced opposition to the federal government approving a nuclear waste disposal site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, but "if we don't deal with the waste problem, then my guess is that we won't get the investment in new facilities." "We must move forward to get that issue addressed and get if off the table," Cheney said. The Department of Energy is due to decide by the end of this year whether or not to approve the construction of a permanent nuclear waste storage facility at Yucca Mountain, some 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The site could potentially hold thousands of tons of nuclear waste from the nation's power plants. The White House is also seeking Congressional renewal of the Price Anderson Act, which shields utilities from unlimited liability in the event of an accident or shutdown at a nuclear reactor. jjc/gc Copyright 2001 AFX News All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 25 NRC to Meet with Entergy to Discuss Safety Performance at Waterford 3 Nuclear Power Plant Press Release Region IV - 2001- 30 - _UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION_ _OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, REGION IV_ _611 Ryan Plaza Drive, Suite 400, Arlington TX 76011_ No. IV-01-030 June 14, 2001 CONTACT: Breck Henderson Phone: 817-860-8128 Cellular: 817-917-1227 e-mail: bwh@nrc.gov The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will meet with officials of Entergy Operations, Inc. on Wednesday, June 20, to discuss the results of NRC's annual assessment of safety performance at the Waterford 3 nuclear power plant near Taft, LA The meeting will be held at 3 p.m. in the James M. Cain Energy Education Center, LA Highway 3127, Killona, LA. The public is invited to observe the meeting. NRC officials will be available after the meeting to answer questions. A letter sent from NRC Region IV to Entergy, which addresses plant safety performance during the previous year and forms the basis of the meeting discussion, is available from the Region IV Office of Public Affairs or on the NRC web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/OPA/ppr/. Current safety performance information for Waterford 3 is available on the NRC web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/WAT3/wat3_chart.html. ***************************************************************** 26 NRC to Meet with Entergy Nuclear Northeast Press Release - Region I - 2001- 30 - _UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION_ _OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, REGION I_ _475 Allendale Road, King of Prussia, Pa. 19406_ No. I-01-031 June 13, 2001 CONTACT: Diane Screnci (610)337-5330/ e-mail: dps@nrc.gov Neil A. Sheehan (610)337-5331/e-mail: nas@nrc.gov Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will meet with representatives of Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation on Tuesday, June 19, to discuss the results of the agency's annual assessment of safety performance at the Nine Mile Point 1 and 2 nuclear power plants. The meeting, which will be open to the public for observation, is scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. in the Nine Mile Point Training Center at the plant, located on Lake Road in Scriba, N.Y. NRC officials will be available afterwards to answer questions. The performance period to be discussed is April 1, 2000, to March 31, 2001. Overall, the NRC found that the plants operated in a manner that preserved public health and safety and fully met all cornerstone objectives during the period. A letter sent from the NRC Region I office to Niagara Mohawk addresses plant performance during the period and will serve as the basis for the meeting discussion. It is available on the NRC web site at: www.nrc.gov/OPA/ppr/nine_eoc2001.pdf Current performance information for the Nine Mile Point 1 plant is available on the NRC web site at: www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/NMP1/nmp1_chart.html Performance information for the Nine Mile Point 2 plant is available at: www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/NMP2/nmp2_chart.html ***************************************************************** 27 NRC to Meet With OPPD to Discuss Safety Performance at Fort Calhoun Station Press Release Region IV - 2001- 31 - _UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION_ _OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, REGION IV_ _611 Ryan Plaza Drive, Suite 400, Arlington TX 76011_ No. IV-01-031 June 14, 2001 CONTACT: Breck Henderson Phone: 817-860-8128 Cellular: 817-917-1227 e-mail: bwh@nrc.gov The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will meet with officials of Omaha Public Power District on Wednesday, June 20, to discuss the results of NRC's annual assessment of safety performance at Fort Calhoun Station, a nuclear power plant near Fort Calhoun, Nebraska. The meeting will be held at 1:30 p.m. in the Training Center auditorium at Fort Calhoun Station. The public is invited to observe the meeting. NRC officials will be available after the meeting to answer questions. A letter sent from NRC Region IV to OPPD, which addresses plant safety performance during the previous year and forms the basis of the meeting discussion, is available from the Region IV Office of Public Affairs or on the NRC web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/OPA/ppr/. Current safety performance information for Fort Calhoun Station is available on the NRC web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/FCS/fcs_chart.html. ***************************************************************** 28 NRC SR. Resident Inspector at Peach Bottom Receives Meritorious Service Award For Inspector Excellence Press Release - Region I - 2001- 32 - _UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION_ _OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, REGION I_ _475 Allendale Road, King of Prussia, Pa. 19406_ No. I-01-032 June 14, 2001 CONTACT: Diane Screnci (610)337-5330/ e-mail: dps@nrc.gov Neil A. Sheehan (610)337-5331/e-mail: nas@nrc.gov Anthony C. McMurtray has been honored by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for superior performance at its Twenty-fourth Annual Awards Ceremony. McMurtray is the senior resident inspector at the Peach Bottom nuclear power plant in Delta, Pa. McMurtray was presented a Meritorious Service Award for Inspector Excellence at the awards ceremony in Rockville, Md., on June 7. The Meritorious Service Award is the Commission's second highest honor and is given for meritorious achievement or service of unusual value which substantially contributes to the accomplishment of the agency's mission and has agency-wide significance. The citation accompanying the award read, "In recognition of his extraordinary performance as the Senior Resident Inspector at Peach Bottom and as a member of a team that observed the Indian Point Unit 2 licensee during an extended outage in 1998. Mr. McMurtray's professionalism, his deep understanding of complex technical issues associated with nuclear power reactors, and his ability to communicate his findings have won him the respect of licensees and his colleagues. His inspection skills have also enhanced the NRC's reputation for integrity and independence. In 1998, he pointed out the link between managerial and operational deficiencies at Indian Point Unit 2, providing the basis for NRC actions after the steam generator tube burst at the plant in February 2000. He was a member of the task force that evaluated the pilot implementation of the revised reactor oversight process. His coaching of the Peach Bottom resident inspector staff has enormously improved inspection skills at the plant." McMurtray was assigned to Peach Bottom in November 1997. He began his NRC career in 1993 in the Region III office in Lisle, Ill., as a rector engineer. He was appointed resident inspector at the Point Beach Nuclear Power Station, near Two Rivers, Wis., in 1994. McMurtray was promoted to the Point Beach senior resident inspector position in 1996. Prior to joining the NRC, McMurtray worked at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth, Va., for 12 years. He earned a bachelor's of science degree in civil engineering from the University of Maryland. McMurtray, his wife, Suzanne, and their three sons reside in Bel Air, Md. ***************************************************************** 29 NRC to Meet with Energy Northwest to Discuss Safety Performance at Columbia Generating Station Region IV -- 2001- 32 -- _UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION_ _OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, REGION IV_ _611 Ryan Plaza Drive, Suite 400, Arlington TX 76011_ No. IV-01-032 June 14, 2001 CONTACT: Breck Henderson Phone: 817-860-8128 Cellular: 817-917-1227 e-mail: bwh@nrc.gov The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will meet with officials of Energy Northwest on Thursday, June 21, to discuss the results of NRC's annual assessment of safety performance at Columbia Generating Station, a nuclear power plant near Richland, Wa. The meeting will be held at 5 p.m. in the Walkley Room, Energy Northwest Multi-purpose facility, 3000 George Washington Way, Richland, Wa. The public is invited to observe the meeting. NRC officials will be available after the meeting to answer questions. A letter sent from NRC Region IV to Energy Northwest, which addresses plant safety performance during the previous year and forms the basis of the meeting discussion, is available from the Region IV Office of Public Affairs or on the NRC web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/OPA/ppr/.Current safety performance information for Columbia Generating Station is available on the NRC web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/WASH2/wash2_chart.html. ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 SUN: Navies That Fired on Vieques Absent Today: June 14, 2001 at 2:30:29 PDT SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico- As U.S. Navy ships assembled in the Caribbean for what could be one of the last rounds of maneuvers off Vieques island, they were without the foreign navies that once helped bombard the Navy's prized Atlantic firing range. In past years, exercises like the one that began Wednesday might have involved the Germans or other allied forces training their troops by firing on Vieques - sometimes for a fee. But controversy over the exercises has ended foreign navies' training on the small, inhabited island. "Sixty years have gone by with the Navy using the area, renting it out to foreign governments and damaging the environment," Puerto Rico's Gov. Sila Calderon told The Associated Press recently. "The environment has suffered but most importantly, the health conditions are atrocious." Before long, U.S. training could end as well. The Pentagon was to announce Thursday that bombing exercises would end as early as 2003, a senior Bush administration official said on condition of anonymity. The Navy says the exercises haven't caused harm and that it hasn't rented out the range but charged for the use of equipment and "range refurbishment" - repairing old planes and tanks that serve as targets and removing shrapnel and unexploded ordnance. But the fee issue has engendered resentment in Puerto Rico, feeding opposition that has made it difficult for the Navy to continue the exercises. Between 1996 and 1999, the Navy says it received $148,548 for use of the range. Countries that have trained on Vieques include Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, Ecuador, Britain, Greece, Italy, Canada, Spain, Norway and the Netherlands, Navy spokesman Lt. Corey Barker said Wednesday. "There are no places in Europe or elsewhere where you find such a balanced variety of essential facilities," the commander-in-chief of the Royal Netherlands Navy, C. van Duyvendijk, said in a 1999 letter. But allied navies have not been invited since 1999, when a civilian security guard was killed by two bombs dropped off-target on the range by a U.S. Marine jet. "We don't want to subject the foreign navies to the controversy," Barker said. "It's better for them not to train there at all." Before, navies practiced with live bombs and exercised an average 180 days a year. Now, only inert bombs are used and exercises are limited to 90 days a year, and foreign navies hold exercises in the "outer range," a 486,000-square-mile area that begins miles from Vieques and extends far out to sea. Germany, the last foreign force to use the bombing range - in March 1999, a month before the fatal accident - held exercises in the outer range this year. "We had the aircraft with us but consciously renounced using Vieques to avoid this problem," said Gerhard Deisenroth, spokesman for the German fleet command. On the Net: U.S. Navy site: www.navyvieques.navy.mil Anti-Navy site: www.viequeslibre.org All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 2 Bush Decides to End Vieques Bombings Today: June 14, 2001 at 12:40:28 PDT WASHINGTON- President Bush said Thursday the Navy will end its bombing exercises on Vieques Island off the coast of Puerto Rico, a decision that may play well with Hispanics but not the military. The exercises are to end by May 2003. "These are our friends and neighbors and they don't want us there," Bush said at a news conference in Goteborg, Sweden, during a European Union gathering. "My attitude is the Navy ought find somewhere else to conduct its exercises," Bush said. In Washington, Pentagon and Navy officials would reveal few details about the idea. Pressed by reporters at the Pentagon, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said little more than: "I am in full agreement with the president of the United States." Though officials were expected to announce the establishment of a panel to look for an alternative to training on Vieques, none materialized and the Navy and Department of Defense each referred reporters to the other. Around the Pentagon, officials said Bush's decision was a big disappointment and they wondered why he didn't just wait for a November referendum when residents of the island are to vote on the question of Navy presence. The Navy has called Vieques the "crown jewel" of its Atlantic training sites, using the range on the island for six decades. It has said repeatedly that the site is vital to national security. Critics say the bombing poses a health threat to the island's 9,100 residents, which the Navy denies. Earlier, a Defense Department official said on condition of anonymity that Navy Secretary Gordon England recommended to Bush that planning begin for an end to the bombing within two years. He said Navy officials wanted to make the decision public because they felt the situation was growing more volatile. Ending the bombing has been a hot, top-priority issue for Latino activists who represent a quickly growing political constituency. Asked whether politics influenced Bush's decision on Vieques, White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said, "It was a decision made on its merits." Fleischer emphasized that Bush was only accepting a recommendation by the Navy and said the president had two main goals in this matter: ensuring that the Navy remained adequately trained for combat and "listening to the legitimate concerns of the people of Puerto Rico." Officials said England can't promise a replacement range will be found within two years. The Navy owns two-thirds of Vieques and its bombing range covers 900 acres - less than 3 percent of the island. It used live bombs until two went astray in a 1999 practice and killed a civilian guard on the bombing range, igniting protests and calls for the military to leave. It since has used dummy bombs. About 75 protesters demonstrated peacefully outside Camp Garcia's gates on Vieques Wednesday as a fresh round of Navy exercises began offshore. In earlier demonstrations in April and May, 180 people were arrested on trespassing charges during previous bombing exercises. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., who was arrested in one of the earlier protests, said Bush's move offers little new to Vieques residents in light of the scheduled referendum and falls well short of their demands that the bombing stop immediately. "My position has been - and remains - that not one additional bomb or bullet should fall on the island of Vieques," Gutierrez said. The administration's decision was cemented at a meeting that senior White House political strategist Karl Rove convened Wednesday with England, deputy national security adviser Stephen Hadley and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, a senior White House official said. In seeking to retain the Vieques training range, the Navy has argued that it is the only means of providing the training to ensure that battle groups begin their overseas deployments fully ready for combat. The Navy has said exercises there are vital to national defense because they uniquely combine air, sea and land maneuvers that cannot be done elsewhere in nearby Atlantic waters. A Navy retreat from Vieques could run into opposition from conservatives in Congress. Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga., said on CNN's "Wolf Blitzer Reports" Wednesday that he would be "surprised, dismayed" by such a move "and would fight it." But Rep. John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat, said he thought the Navy should end the Vieques training and said: "I don't think we should wait two years either." Puerto Rico's governor, Sila Calderon, a strong opponent of the exercises, arrived on the small island Wednesday afternoon to attend a prayer ceremony with residents who want the bombing to stop. It was her first time on Vieques for the maneuvers since she took office in January. "I wanted to be here to express to the people of Vieques that the Puerto Rican people are with you and that you are not alone," she said. The new round of exercises, which include the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, began more than 50 miles off the coast of Vieques on Wednesday with 11 ships and 10,000 sailors practicing attack formations, evading submarines and tracking torpedoes and planes. On the Net: Navy Atlantic Fleet: http://www.atlanticfleet.navy.mil Links to Vieques activist groups: http://www.viequesvive.com/ All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 3 Warning on beryllium issued in '48 Rocky Mountain News: Local Documents in trial show scientists said it should be handled same way as radioactive material _By Ann Imse, News Staff Writer_ As early as 1948, scientists were recommending that beryllium "should be handled under the same conditions as radioactive material," according to documents introduced in court Wednesday. By 1960, scientists were saying the metal should be handled like plutonium, a highly carcinogenic material that also was used to build nuclear weapons at the Rocky Flats plant. Yet today, the federal government still allows people to work in beryllium dust of up to 2 micrograms per cubic meter of air. Former Rocky Flats workers are suing the nation's only remaining beryllium producer, Brush Wellman Inc. of Cleveland, in Jefferson County District Court. They claim the company conspired with the federal government to hide the dangers of beryllium throughout the Cold War because it was needed to produce nuclear bombs. The workers have chronic beryllium disease, a wasting lung ailment. Brush Wellman began its defense Wednesday, presenting evidence that Rocky Flats allowed exposures of more than 2 micrograms, which was against the company's advice. Brush Wellman contends that any responsibility for the workers' illness rests with Rocky Flats and its operators, Rockwell International and Dow Chemical. Plaintiffs' attorney Allen Stewart presented notes from a 1948 beryllium conference where scientists recommended treating the metal like it was radioactive. Then he asked witness Mike Hattel, a Rocky Flats worker who is not a plaintiff, if knowing about that recommendation would have caused him to handle the beryllium he routinely unpacked differently. "Probably the whole plant would have handled it differently," Hattel replied. Then Stewart told Hattel about a 1960 government memorandum on beryllium suggesting that "equipment comparable to that used for handling plutonium would be necessary to meet the present standards" -- the 2-microgram limit. The memo went on to state the government rejected that idea. "One, this would increase the cost of beryllium by ten times; and two, the plants would have to be shut down and rebuilt," the memo read. "The extra cost would be undesirable," the memo stated, and shutting down factories "is unacceptable because of need for the metal." Handling beryllium like plutonium meant building glove boxes, so the workers would never come into direct contact with the metal. Brush Wellman attorney Sydney McDole later asked witness Jerry Harden, longtime president of the steelworkers union local at Rocky Flats, about the beryllium foundry. "How do you fit a foundry into a glove box?" she asked. Harden admitted he'd never seen a glove box that large. Brush Wellman drew testimony from Hattel that he routinely removed Brush Wellman's warning labels from the rough-cut beryllium pieces as they arrived at Rocky Flats. Hattel agreed that the labels read, "Danger -- Dust or Fumes Hazardous if Inhaled," plus fine print on the hazards of beryllium. Hattel said he replaced them with Rocky Flats-produced labels that read, "Caution Beryllium." But he could not remember if the warnings went into further detail. Throughout Wednesday, Brush Wellman attorneys ignored charges their client conspired to cover up the danger of extremely low doses of beryllium. Instead, they presented evidence that some warnings did get published -- and the workers should have known about them. Cigarette manufacturers have used a similar defense. "A huge issue in this case is whether they exercised reasonable diligence" in learning the hazards in their jobs and taking precautions to limit their exposure, said Brush Wellman attorney Jeff Joyce. Company attorneys then presented the report of a 1984 government investigation into beryllium hazards at Rocky Flats, conducted after the first case of chronic beryllium disease was diagnosed there. The probe found the 2-microgram standard had been violated at the beryllium machine shop 1,500 times, industrial hygienist Mark Van Ert testified. The 1984 investigation also concluded that some people might develop beryllium disease after exposure to less than 2 micrograms, defense attorneys pointed out. But they did not succeed in getting union representatives to say they had ever widely disseminated this information to the workers at Rocky Flats. _June 14, 2001_ 2001 © The E.W. Scripps Co. ***************************************************************** 4 Town nears end of thorium saga Chicago Tribune | Metro -- _June 14, 2001 _ _By Heather Vogell_ Tribune staff reporter June 13, 2001 * Pat Jeslis wouldn't have dreamed of trying to sell her house in West Chicago three years ago, when suited workers were carting away radioactive chunks of the foundation and much of her yard. But as she brushed a fresh coat of paint onto the porch one recent afternoon, Jeslis said she is optimistic she'll find a buyer quickly for the three-bedroom ranch. "The houses stay on the market only a few days out here and they're gone," she said. "So I'm not looking to have any trouble selling." Her house has a clean bill of health from environmental monitors, and so do 630 other residential properties that were part of a massive effort to rid the city in west DuPage County of the tons of contaminated dirt spread throughout yards decades ago. Officials hope to complete the painstaking cleanup by the end of the year. The total of about 660 properties were considered as a group to be one of the nation's most pressing hazardous-waste sites. For more than two decades, West Chicagoans have fought a bitter battle to free their city from pollutants left by manufacturers and federal weapons researchers. Residents worried about their health and property values. They filed lawsuits and lobbied politicians. The cleanup has relieved some lingering concerns about cancer risks associated with thorium. But much remains unclear about the potential threat for residents exposed in the past, and future public health studies are planned. But with its population booming, West Chicago may be shaking off the stigma of contamination. "There's always been this sort of cloud of questions that hung over West Chicago," said Mayor Michael Fortner. "How bad is it? What's the real impact? What does it mean for our property? "Now those questions are [being] lifted," he said. Since 1995, workers have scooped up flower beds and uprooted century-old trees, leveled garages and dug gaping holes in grassy lawns to remove the radioactive dirt. It came from the old factory at 783 Factory St., now owned by Kerr-McGee Chemical, where a thorium extraction facility operated for four decades. The metallic element first was processed to be used in gas light mantles, and then the facility was the main source of thorium for the federal government's nuclear weapons program between 1945 to 1963. The extraction process created waste in the form of thorium-rich sand. Builders, plant workers and residents used the sand over the decades as fill or for landscaping. After several limited cleanups, the Environmental Protection Agency began sending workers to search yard by yard for thorium in 1994. "We thought, `There's no way we're going to have 400,' " said Rebecca Frey, the EPA's project manager. "It was a lot bigger than any of us had imagined." Jeslis' house was an unusual case. To get at contaminated soil in the yard, workers dismantled the front porch and uprooted four trees. But gauges still showed high levels of radiation. Workers discovered that an employee at Lindsay Light &Chemical Co., the factory's former operator, had used contaminated sand to make mortar for an addition to his kitchen more than 50 years before. Contractors jacked up the house and replaced the foundation. They re-landscaped the yard. The whole process took about nine months. "They did everything they said they were going to, and then some," said Jeslis, who lives in Kentucky and rents out the house. In the last seven years, rail cars have carried nearly a million tons of contaminated soil from around the homes, the old factory site and Reed-Keppler Park to a disposal site in Utah, said Kerr-McGee spokeswoman Debbie Schramm. The amount of soil removed from each home has ranged from a few shovels full to nearly 2,900 cubic yards of soil, Frey said. In some, radiation was barely detectable. But in at least two--a house and a plot that is part of the DuPage Airport--readings were more than 100 times above the accepted level. One section of a street near the factory site emitted readings nearly 500 times the standard, Frey said. "Through the pavement, you could get elevated readings," Frey said. "It was pretty hot." Like other radioactive elements, thorium is a known carcinogen that can be lethal at high doses, said Larry Jensen, a senior health physicist with the EPA. But little is known about the danger posed by thorium at the levels found in West Chicago yards. Because it's not strong enough to kill a person directly exposed to it, it's classified as low level, although some is considered "significant" by monitors, Jensen said. Frey said a health risk assessment will be part of the EPA's final report on the homes. The state Department of Public Health also will use EPA data to calculate past and future risks associated with the contamination, said Mike Moomey, the department's section chief for toxicology. Wherever grass or gardens were ripped up to cleanse property, Kerr-McGee contractors have restored the landscape tree for tree. For many residents, the only lasting signs of the cleanup are the new saplings taking root in their yards. Some properties have been hit more than once. Bonnie Zahn, who has lived on the 200 block of Brown Street since 1956, said that Kerr-McGee informed her a month ago that their contractors would be returning four years after their first visit. On Tuesday, workers moved her garage so they could get at the soil underneath. They also have removed her patio. "I have my garage in my front yard," Zahn said. "About half of my back yard is gone." The work has been disruptive, she said. And she isn't convinced it was necessary. "They should have just left it alone in the first place," she said. "That's how I feel and that's the way my neighbors feel." Resident Lora Beth Norton and her family were sad to see workers uproot a half-dozen trees--including a more than 100-year-old oak--from their yard near the corner of Highland and Elmwood Avenues. The contractor agreed to hand dig the area to avoid disturbing other oaks' wide, shallow root systems. Norton said she misses the trees but is glad to know the yard is rid of pollution. "It needed to go," she said. Alarm about the contamination has subsided in recent years, though home buyers still sometimes rush to the library to look up documents after hearing about it for the first time. Alderman Nancy Kifer Assian, a member of the activist Thorium Action Group, said she has been impressed with the cleanup. "Just now, in the last few years, [residents] are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel," she said. But the cleanup will continue at the old factory site, Kress Creek and the sewage treatment plant even after the homes are completed. "We're not going home until it's done," Assian said. ***************************************************************** 5 UK 'tampered with evidence of nuclear tests' Independent News © 2001 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd Home > News > World > Australasia By Kathy Marks in Sydney 14 June 2001 A document given by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to a royal commission into Britain's atomic tests in Australia in the 1950s was doctored to remove details of Australian servicemen exposed to high levels of radiation. The royal commission ­ which reported in 1985 ­ was set up by the Australian government after pressure from test veterans who claimed that they suffer from accelerated rates of cancer and other radiation- induced illnesses. British scientists monitored the exposure of some servicemen to radioactive fall-out after they witnessed nuclear blasts at two sites ­ Maralinga, in the South Australian desert, and Monte Bello, off the coast of Western Australia ­ and worked in contaminated areas. The MoD submitted a 41-page document to the royal commission that was supposed to be a complete list of Australian personnel, with daily radiation dosages recorded against their names. The original classified document, which is held by the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment at Aldermaston in Berkshire, contains a list that runs to at least 75 pages. The Independent has seen a portion of the original document. A comparison with the royal commission's version shows names have been deleted, including those of men who recorded high radiation dosages. The maximum permissible dosage was 0.5 millirems per year of radiation absorbed by the body. Yet some of the servicemen removed from the list received as much as 5.2mrem in a single hit. Those names struck out include members of the Indoctrination Force, a group of officers who watched detonations at Maralinga from close quarters, and personnel who were at Monte Bello for the first test, Operation Hurricane, and who are known to have been exposed to high levels of radiation. Britain exploded 12 atomic bombs on Australian territory between 1952 and 1958, with tests also done on Christmas Island in the South Pacific. Some 22,000 British and 16,000 Australian servicemen took part in the trials. The dosages were based mainly on data from radiation detection badges, which were worn by the men and contained a small piece of negative film. Some people were also swept with Geiger counters after they returned from contaminated areas. Many of the men were informed, misleadingly, that their badges would change colour if they were exposed to a dangerous level of radiation. The royal commission found that only 40 per cent of badges functioned properly. Sheila Gray, secretary of the British Nuclear Tests Veterans Association, whose late husband, Frank, suffered multiple health problems after being sent to Monte Bello in 1952, said the badges were not taken seriously. Mr Gray told her that after he watched one detonation from a ship, the Narvik, "they threw the badges into a bucket, and when the bucket was full, they tipped it into the sea". In Canberra, meanwhile, there were calls yesterday for an investigation into allegations reported by The Independent this week that disabled people were flown from Britain to Maralinga and used in experiments on the effects of radiation. Lyn Allison, a member of the opposition Democrats in the Senate, said: "If it is true that people with disabilities were brought to Australia ... then there are some very serious questions about how they came to be here." A Royal Air Force pilot who claims to have flown disabled people to Australia has been identified as Allen Robinson, who went on to work in disability services in Perth. ***************************************************************** 6 Experts spotlight Nevada Test Site's contamination LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL: NEWS: Thursday, June 14, 2001 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal Nuclear weapons tests polluted groundwater _By KEITH ROGERS _ REVIEW-JOURNAL _ _Widespread contamination from 35 years of underground nuclear weapons tests at the Nevada Test Site poses a more imminent threat to state water supplies than radioactive waste planned for burial in Yucca Mountain, scientists studying the problem said Wednesday. "The releases from nuclear tests in an uncontained environment, this is a problem that exists today," said state Environmental Protection Division federal facilities chief Paul Liebendorfer. "This is real. We have to worry about it. It's in the groundwater," he said during a break in a meeting of a peer-review panel. The panel is to evaluate a strategy by federal scientists for predicting how far the test site's contamination will spread in 1,000 years. In the meeting, Liebendorfer described the test site's problem as "probably the most contaminated groundwater conditions that exist anywhere, at least in the U.S." In 1994, scientists estimated that 300 million curies, units of radioactivity, remained in the subsurface environment at the test site from 908 nuclear devices that were detonated between 1957 and 1992. Of that amount, roughly 130 million curies were in groundwater layers, mostly as tritium, an isotope that will decay to insignificant levels after 1,000 years. Yucca Mountain, the ridge where the Energy Department wants to entomb 77,000 tons of radioactive waste -- primarily spent fuel from commercial power reactors -- sits on the test site's southwestern boundary, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. If a repository is built and the waste is put in a maze of tunnels with engineered barriers, the mountain will contain 120 million curies after 1,000 years, but the bulk of the materials will persist longer than those released from nuclear tests. Earle Dixon, a hydrogeologist who is the technical adviser to the Nevada Test Site Community Advisory Board, said that because the radioactive remnants from weapons tests are not contained, the contamination problem is more imminent than what would be expected from nuclear waste stored in Yucca Mountain after 1,000 years, if the repository's design works. "I think it poses possibly a more near-term risk to Nevada communities than Yucca Mountain," Dixon said. "We released these (curies) into the environment years ago with no engineered barriers. We should be addressing the Nevada Test Site's problem first or simultaneously with Yucca Mountain," he said after the panel's morning session. At the end of the meeting, Dennis Weber, a member of a 1999 panel that found flaws with computer models for forecasting where contamination would migrate at the test site, offered a solution. "You need to characterize at least one of the plumes. You'll know a heck of a lot more than you know right now," said Weber, a physicist at Harry Reid Center for Environmental Studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Weber suggested the National Nuclear Security Administration, which runs the test site, invest in drilling monitoring wells near the test site's northwestern boundary in the direction that groundwater moves from Pahute Mesa. That is where the largest bombs were detonated closest to water-supply wells off the test site. The half-dozen monitoring wells would be placed according to where computer models show contamination most likely would escape from the test site. To be effective, he said, the models must be continually refined. Exploratory wells would have to be drilled for at least one contamination plume from a detonation cavity. The wells would allow the study of the plume's width and depth, direction, radioactive materials and their amounts, and the transportation of the materials. As the models were refined based on the new data, monitoring wells could be placed to serve as an early-warning system. "If you have an early-warning system, then you have time to do remediation," he said. Kathleen Peterson, who leads the Community Advisory Board's Environmental Management Committee, said such a warning system is essential for communities near the test site. "One of the things that is paramount and compelling is that we get enough data in the right areas to support our models," she said. webmaster@lvrj.com Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - ***************************************************************** 7 Inside the Nuclear-Security Tent John L. Perry*_ _*Thursday, June 14, 2001*_ _* This is the first of two articles on the overriding issues confronting the presidents of the United States and Russia this weekend at their first summit.* President Bush's missile shield is just a side show. Within the main attraction lurk accelerating dangers of nuclear war and bureaucratic obstacles blocking its prevention. Most of the major European and American news media, largely leftist in ideology, are myopically focused on cheerleading President Valdimir Putin into sending Bush home with his tail between his legs. They see their best shot in Bush's dogged determination, with or without Russian concurrence, to protect his own cities from one or a few nuclear-tipped missiles fired by a rogue nation, such as North Korea, Iraq or Iran. What they don't see – or calculatingly ignore if they do see – is the far larger issue of what Russia and the United States will do to prevent an accidental launch by one that could trigger an automatic retaliatory launch by the other, thus dooming both to national annihilation. The truth, conveniently ignored by much of the establishment news media, is that although, as Bush keeps insisting, the Cold War has ended, the two nuclear powers still retain enough nuclear warheads and intercontinental ballistic missiles to deliver them with near-pinpoint accuracy and destroy one another many times over. Delivery time, from blastoff to target zero: 30 minutes or less. _The Danger Is Even Worse Now_ That was the crux of the mutually assured, mass-destruction deterrence of the Cold War. But that situation, frightening as it was for half a century, has grown horrifyingly worse in the post-Cold War era, in which Russia is supposed – again according to Bush – no longer to be an enemy. For these reasons: + Russia is too poor to maintain its nuclear retaliatory capability, and growing poorer every day. It takes an enormous amount of wealth to keep missile silos in working order, aging warheads replaced by the latest sophisticated varieties, missile-equipped nuclear-powered submarines at sea and operational, land-based mobile missile-launchers constantly on the move to avoid pre-emptive strikes, electronic missile-detection and retaliatory-guidance systems current with state-of-the-art technology and ... the list is endless. The United States' late-model spy satellites have the whole of Russia under 24-hour surveillance. Aging Russian satellites are good for about 17 hours a day over the United States. It takes money Russia doesn't have to keep aspiring scientists content with careers locked into such obsolescence. Russia is experiencing a serious brain drain. So great is the temptation to cash in on nuclear fuels and armaments left over from the old Soviet days that Russia has been peddling its stocks at a rapid rate to nuclear-wannabe lesser nations with ambitions to harm the United States. + From the point of view of generals commissioned to protect the Russian Motherland, that adds up to nothing but a desperate situation growing only more desperate. They see time running out, a window closing on their ability to strike at America before it's too late to make a difference. + As that scenario plays out, America's avowed mortal enemies in the communist dictatorships left – China, Cuba and North Korea – along with Iran, Iraq and Libya, not to mention assorted terrorists such as Osama bin Laden with no reliable forwarding addresses, are calculating their odds for success. They have within their ability at this instant to dock a freighter at any U.S. port or send a nut case with a briefcase into any crowded shopping mall with enough nuclear explosives or bacteriological aerosols to throw this nation into a purple panic. Against that backdrop, George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin start playing "Getting to Know You" this weekend in the capital city of Slovenia with a name designed for mispronunciation. No one is expecting them to make lemonade out of a lemon that immense and sour. Sam Nunn, the Democratic former senator from Georgia who many thought might be asked to head the State or Defense departments for Bush, had some implied advice for the president. _Easier Said Than Negotiated_ Writing in the Tuesday issue of the Washington Post, he said: "President Bush's challenge, which will hover over his efforts this weekend and beyond, is to prepare for the more-remote threats without leaving us more vulnerable to the immediate ones. "His success should be judged not by whether he wins Russian acquiescence on missile defense but by whether he can begin to broaden and strengthen cooperation with Russia in defending against our common dangers. "The goals: ensuring strategic nuclear stability, reducing the risk of accidental launch, cutting the risk of terrorist attack, countering the threat of a rogue nation's attack and limiting the spread of weapons of mass destruction by safeguarding weapons, materials and know-how throughout the weapons complex of the former Soviet Union." Some conservatives are inclined to dismiss almost anything Nunn espouses. After all, he was the senator who shepherded the transfer of ownership of the Panama Canal from the United States into local hands. Now those hands have handed over virtual control of the canal to China. In his Post article, Nunn was wearing his hats as chairman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies and, of more significance, as co-chairman of the Nuclear Threat Initiative. _Enter Ted Turner_ The Post neglected to inform its readers that the NTI is the co-brainchild of Ted Turner, whose unabashed views on just about every subject set many sets of teeth on edge. Last August, Nunn and the founder of CNN got the Center for Strategic and International Studies to support their plans to carry out for a half-year what CSIS called a "scoping study." Its job: "To determine whether to establish an organization designed to lower the threat posed by nuclear weapons and, in the event [Nunn and Turner] decide to establish such an organization, what priority projects it should undertake." The extent to which Turner's possible funding or his expertise in strategic nuclear policy may have been reflected in Nunn's writing was not indicated by the Post. Regardless of whether Nunn is right on the money (no reference to Turner intended) or way out in left field, there is no denying that the ideological, strategic, economic and political differences in the positions of the United States and Russia are staggering. Imposing as they are, however, what may be even more challenging for Bush and Putin to rise above are some of the most idiotic Russian laws and bureaucratic regulations standing in the way of any substantive agreements ever being implemented. *Next: Mole Hills Blocking Peace* *John L. Perry, a prize-winning newspaper editor and writer who served on White House staffs of two presidents, is senior editor for NewsMax.com*. NewsMax.com Privacy Statement ***************************************************************** 8 Bush Extends Order on Russia Uranium Sales _Wednesday June 13 5:07 PM ET_ WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush (news - web sites) on Wednesday extended a year-old order that prevents creditors of Russia from seizing assets related to sales of converted uranium from Russian nuclear weapons to the United States. The order, initially issued by former President Bill Clinton, protects the sales from court liens being pursued by a European firm suing Russia on an unrelated matter. Russia suspended the sales last year before the order was issued out of concern proceeds or uranium could be seized due to the litigation. The sales are covered by a 1993 pact in which Russia agreed to sell to the United States 500 metric tons of highly enriched uranium removed from nuclear weapons and converted to fuel for use in commercial nuclear reactors. The pact aims at making sure such weapons-grade material can never again be used for nuclear weapons. ``It remains a major national security goal of the United States to ensure that fissile material removed from Russian nuclear weapons ... is dedicated to peaceful uses, subject to transparency measures, and protected from diversion to activities of proliferation concern,'' Bush said in the order. ``The accumulation of a large volume of weapons-usable fissile material in the territory of the Russian Federation continues to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States. For this reason, I have determined that it is necessary to maintain in force these emergency authorities beyond June 21, 2001,'' he said. Copyright © 2001 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 9 BAY STATE NUCLEAR WORKERS GET COMPENSATED [States News Service] Story Filed: Thursday, June 14, 2001 10:44 AM EST WASHINGTON, Jun 11, 2001 (States News Service via COMTEX) -- The federal government is looking for several thousand workers in Massachusetts that may have gotten sick from working in 20 of the state's nuclear facilities. Under the first known compensation program for nuclear plants, ill workers are eligible for a lump sum of $150,000 plus future medical costs associated with the disease starting July 31. The Boston area is home to three plants where its employees may have come into contact with radioactive materials. They include the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Franklin Institute and Edgerton Germeshausen &Grier Inc. Watertown Arsenal was one of five plants nationwide most recently added to the list. Since World War II nuclear facilities workers have developed illnesses after being exposed to silica, beryllium, ionizing radiation and other materials unique to nuclear weapons production and testing. The Department of Energy identified 320 plants that employed 900,000 people in 37 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the Marshall Islands. However, the Department of Energy is not aware of how many people are eligible for the reimbursement by jurisdiction. "It's hard to know who is going to get sick. There's long periods of time between exposure and illness," said a Department of Energy employee who did not want to be identified. The agency's occupational illness compensation program was passed by Congress last October to reimburse people who developed cancer and other illnesses from working in facilities that built nuclear weapons or had any contact with radioactive material. Federal workers' compensation programs have generally not included Department of Energy workers even though they have experienced increased risks of dying from cancer and nonmalignant diseases at numerous nuclear facilities. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that, under the new program, DOE workers will receive $1.4 billion in benefits over the next 10 years, and uranium miners and milers will receive an additional $450 million. Concerns about safety and environmental problems, combined with the breakup of the Soviet Union, shut down all major U.S. nuclear weapons complex facilities in the late 1980s. The Department of Labor is holding a meeting July 26 at the Boston Marriott Copley Place to educate people on how they can get compensated. For information about the program, call 1-866-888-3322. Facilities covered under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Act of 2000: Heald Machine Co. - Worcester Reed Rolled Thread Co. - Worcester Norton Co. - Worcester Wyman Gordon Inc. - Grayton, North Grafton La Pointe Machine and Tool Co. - Hudson Fenwal Inc. - Ashland C.G. Sargent &Sons - Graniteville Nuclear Metals Inc. - Concord Watertown Arsenal - Watertown Woburn Landfill - Woburn Winchester Engineering and Analytical Center - Winchester Metals and Controls Corp. - Attleboro Shpack Landfill - Norton American Potash &Chemical - West Hanover Edgerton Germeshausen &Grier Inc. - Boston Franklin Institute - Boston Massachusetts Institute of Technology - Cambridge National Research Corp. - Cambridge Ventron Corporation - Beverly Chapman Valve - Indian Orchard By Tania Anderson Copyright States News Service, all right reserved. *Copyright © 2001, States News Service, all rights reserved.* ***************************************************************** 10 Greenpeace concerned by reports of rainforest bomb detonation ABC News - Greenpeace wants more information about claims in a magazine that a nuclear device may have been detonated in far north Queensland rainforest in the 1960s. The *New Scientist* magazine has reported that de-classified Australian Government documents show Australia, Britain and the United States detonated a 50 tonne bomb at Iron Range in 1963. But a British Ministry of Defence spokeswoman is quoted as saying it involved a conventional bomb used to simulate a nuclear device exploding in the atmosphere. Greenpeace's Stephen Campbell says it is clear the experiment was designed to test the effect of nuclear warfare, but more details are needed to determine if a nuclear device was used. "It is very curious that there are conflicting reports and conflicting documentation coming from various governments," he said. "It would be interesting to see what the US has got and what they have said about it. "This is still is an open question and we're still not exactly sure what happened." 1999 Australian Broadcasting Corporation ***************************************************************** 11 Experts debunk north Qld nuclear bomb theory ABC News - Serious doubts have emerged about claims a nuclear bomb may have been exploded in far north Queensland in the 1960s. The *New Scientist* magazine says documents de-classified by the National Archives of Australia indicate a 50-tonne bomb was detonated in a rainforest at Iron Range in 1963. The documents say the military experiment was to investigate the effect of nuclear explosions in a tropical forest by Australia, Britain and the United States. But a senior Australian Defence Force officer, Peter Day, who was part of the project, says the claims are baseless. "It was to simulate a nuclear explosion. In other words, to give the same effect, but as it was only 50 tonnes, it was well down below the bottom scale of any nuclear explosion. © 1999 Australian Broadcasting Corporation ***************************************************************** 12 CROET is trouble spot for advisory group Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 11:23 a.m. on Wednesday, June 13, 2001 _by Paul Parson _ Oak Ridger staff Is political influence dictating what the Citizens' Advisory Panel of the Oak Ridge Reservation Local Oversight Committee investigates in the future? It looks that way, some members said Tuesday night. The issue at hand is an e-mail that the Department of Energy sent a couple of months ago to 18 members of the LOC board of directors concerning the value of maintaining the oversight group. The LOC's funding comes from money paid by DOE through a grant to the state for oversight of the federal agency's nuclear operations and environmental cleanup activities. In response to DOE's e-mail, some board members earlier expressed concern that the Citizens' Advisory Panel is investigating issues where the group has no apparent interest. Josh Johnson, a Citizens' Advisory Panel member, asked what that meant during the group's meeting Tuesday night at the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation office on Emory Valley Road. Pat Halsey, the DOE official who works with the panel, cited the group's recent review of the Community Reuse Organization of East Tennessee's strategic plan as an example. "This was a justified thing," Johnson said. "I'm bothered that we are being pushed off the subject." Several Citizens' Advisory Panel members agreed that the review was within the group's scope. CROET, which is funded by DOE, is an economic development organization whose purpose is to assist the private sector in creating jobs and accelerating cleanup in the region by using the underutilized land, facilities, equipment, personnel and technologies available on the Oak Ridge Reservation. CROET's strategic plan basically reorganizes the agency, and the Citizens' Advisory Panel has voiced concern about the lack of public involvement in the plan. Ironically, while some LOC board members may feel the CROET investigation was off base, it was the board that charged the Citizens' Advisory Panel with the task. The LOC board of directors consists of local officials representing communities most affected by DOE activities in Oak Ridge. These individuals include the county executives from Anderson, Roane, Loudon and Morgan counties. Halsey said this morning that nine members of the LOC board responded to the DOE e-mail. She would not say which officials responded or how many cited the CROET investigation as a concern. Jerry Kuhaida, a board member and mayor of Oak Ridge, confirmed this morning that he responded to the DOE inquiry, but did not cite the CROET as a problem. The Oak Ridger was unable to obtain comments from other LOC board members this morning. All Contents ©Copyright* The Oak Ridger * ***************************************************************** 13 Health subcommittee seeks sick-resident member Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 11:23 a.m. on Wednesday, June 13, 2001 _by Paul Parson _ Oak Ridger staff The search is on for a "self-identified sick resident" to sit on the Oak Ridge Reservation Health Effects Subcommittee. But there is no guarantee that the person will be chosen. The subcommittee voted Tuesday afternoon to solicit nominations for a new member, giving preference to a resident who believes he or she was contaminated by off-site releases from the Department of Energy. However, there was some debate over the issue. Originally a motion was made to fill the vacancy specifically with a sick resident. It did not receive a majority vote and failed. "There's a segment of the public that feels they aren't represented," said Bob Eklund, the subcommittee member who made the motion. "We need to have someone representing that segment on the board." Several community members and representatives of advocacy groups have been very vocal about getting a sick resident and worker on the board. The new member would fill a vacancy left by Ronald Lands, an oncologist, who resigned from the subcommittee. Several subcommittee members said Lands' expertise should be replaced. "He was there for a purpose," said Bob Craig, a subcommittee member. So the motion was made to seek a new member and give preference to sick resident candidates. This motion passed. It may be a while, however, before the person is able to serve on the board. La Freta Dalton, the designated federal official for the subcommittee, said a federal hiring freeze is still in effect on special government employees. "At this point, we cannot seat another individual on the subcommittee," Dalton said. She added that Lands' replacement would be considered a new member even though funding existed for his position. However, Jack Hanley with the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry said it's worthwhile to go ahead and start the search. He pointed out that it can take up to four months after the person is chosen to get him or her on the board. ATSDR, part of the Department of Health and Human Services, is responsible for appointing subcommittee members. The subcommittee consists of citizens primarily from the Oak Ridge area, including Knoxville and Roane County residents, who work with community members and advocacy groups to offer advice and recommendations to several federal agencies regarding health concerns in Oak Ridge. Also affected by the hiring freeze is the appointment of a "sick worker" to serve the subcommittee. Three people from Oak Ridge applied for the position a couple of months ago, but it appears one of those candidates has resigned. Glenn Bell informed The Oak Ridger that he has withdrawn his name for consideration. He cited his own health problems and concerns about the subcommittee as reasons for his decision. Bell has been diagnosed with chronic beryllium disease. ATSDR has declined to release the names of the other two sick worker candidates. There is another problem that exists if a sick resident or worker is seated on the subcommittee. A person on disability runs the risk of losing benefits by serving for payment. Charles Washington, a subcommittee member, said that is a problem that could be solved. He pointed out that the subcommittee or the individual needs to talk to the Social Security Administration about the issue. Dalton said it should be up to the individual, not ATSDR. She said if ATSDR got involved in the financial issue it could open them up to legal liability. All Contents ©Copyright* The Oak Ridger * ***************************************************************** 14 Safety improvements needed at Y-12 Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 12:33 p.m. on Thursday, June 14, 2001 _by Nancy Zuckerbrod _ Associated Press WASHINGTON -- A federal watchdog agency is urging the Energy Department to make important safety improvements at the Y-12 National Security Complex. Inadequate attention has been paid to the storage of hazardous materials, maintenance needs and fire prevention at Y-12, according to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. A department spokesman, responding to the report, said improvements are being made. The independent group sent its report to energy officials May 29 and asked them to respond within 90 days. This is the third such warning the board has issued about the 811-acre site in three years. The Y-12 plant makes components to upgrade and extend the life of nuclear weapons and stores highly enriched uranium used in warheads. "We believe that attention should be given to the way some of these materials are stored," the board's vice chairman, A.J. Eggenberger, said in an interview Wednesday. "They're just not in the most ideal condition that they should be in." The report said nuclear material and beryllium, a hazardous metal, is kept in a building with a leaky roof. And it said uranium is stored in trailers that don't appear to prevent the material from being released into the environment. "In almost all cases, the board's staff found the trailer doors only partially closed, and observed rainwater flowing through the trailers and potentially carrying contaminants outside," the report stated. Y-12 officials also are not entirely aware of what material they have on site or how to store it. The report stated that three freezers are apparently being used to store material shipped to Oak Ridge more than 20 years ago and that workers don't know what is in them or whether temperature control is required. Also of concern is what kind of releases could take place once the freezers are opened, the report said. Better analysis also needs to be taken to determine the risk of a fire or accident, the report states. It noted that at least one wooden facility holds unnecessary combustible materials. Eggenberger says common sense suggests removing them. "In your house, you shouldn't have a bunch of boxes sitting around the kitchen, because they might catch fire," he said. Energy Department spokesman Steven Wyatt said the contractor that operates Y-12 has started to modernize the facility, including efforts to shutter the building cited in the report for its leaky roof. "The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board raises valid and previously recognized concerns with these issues," Wyatt said. The Energy Department last year selected the contractor BWXT Y-12 to manage and operate the plant, replacing Lockheed Martin. Wyatt said the Bush administration has requested $627 million for Y-12 management next year, a $14 million increase over this year's budget. Local environmentalists praised the board's report. "The Y-12 National Security Complex is in great disrepair, and the safety board has been one of the few entities that have taken seriously the facility status and the risks involved," said Ralph Hutchison, a coordinator for the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance. All Contents ©Copyright* The Oak Ridger * ***************************************************************** 15 Oak Ridge laboratory could get facility for nanoscience Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 12:37 p.m. on Thursday, June 14, 2001 _by Paul Parson _ Oak Ridger staff The Spallation Neutron Source could be getting a neighbor. A proposal from Oak Ridge National Laboratory for a new nanoscience facility was one of three recently selected by the Department of Energy. The other two proposals were from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a partnership between the Sandia and Los Alamos laboratories. However, just because the ORNL proposal was selected doesn't guarantee the facility will be built, according to Jim Roberto, associate laboratory director at ORNL for Physical and Computational Sciences. It all depends on funding. DOE will request funding for the new nanoscience facilities in fiscal year 2003. The need for these new facilities is included in the National Nanotechnology Initiative Research, which is part of DOE's Basic Energy Sciences program. Roberto said the preferred location for ORNL's proposed facility, the Nanophase Materials Sciences Center, is next to the SNS atop Chestnut Ridge. However, he said the building and the research will be independent of SNS. Nanoscience involves looking at things on a small (very small) scale. In nanoscience objects are measured in nanometers, 1 billionth of a meter. For comparison, the smallest features on current computer chips measure about 200 nanometers. And a human hair is 100,000 nanometers thick. If the ORNL facility comes to fruition, Roberto said research there could lead to the development of new parts for sensors and a better understanding of biological membranes. All Contents ©Copyright* The Oak Ridger * ***************************************************************** 16 Setting SNS in 'stone' Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 12:35 p.m. on Thursday, June 14, 2001 Workers Wednesday began to pour concrete at the Spallation Neutron Source site. *Construction projects to impact roads * _by Paul Parson _ Oak Ridger staff Things started to get "set in stone" Wednesday morning at the Spallation Neutron Source site as workers began pouring concrete. "This is the first of a lot of concrete," said Thom Mason, director of the project. "This is important symbolically. We're making a transition from design to construction." Mason said there was a time Wednesday morning when trucks involved in the work were traveling every 20 minutes on Bear Creek Road to the SNS site atop Chestnut Ridge, located between Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Y-12 National Security Complex. Blaine Construction Co. in Knoxville was awarded a $2.2 million contract in April to build concrete structures for two SNS edifices: The Front End building and the Linac tunnel. The Front End building will contain the SNS's ion source while the Linac tunnel will house the SNS's linear accelerator, which will produce proton beams that scatter neutrons by bombarding a liquid mercury target. The $1.4 billion SNS will be used for scientific research and development of a variety of industrial materials. Neutron scattering research has been responsible for improvements in jets, computer disks, shatterproof windshields, and stronger, lighter plastics. Neutrons have also been used in medical research for such studies as determining how bones mineralize during development and how they decay during osteoporosis. The $1.4 billion SNS will be used for scientific research and development of a variety of industrial materials. Six Department of Energy laboratories -- Argonne, Brookhaven, Jefferson, Lawrence Berkeley, Los Alamos and ORNL -- are collaborating on design and construction of the SNS. ORNL is managing the partnership and is integrating each of the labs' design contributions into the facility. After construction is complete in 2006, ORNL will be responsible for operating the facility. The current work on the SNS may have at least one noticeable impact on the community. Frank Juan, a spokesman for the Department of Energy, said it looks like local roadways could be a little busier starting this month due to the SNS and other construction projects related to the federal agency. A significant increase in large-truck traffic is expected to occur on Bethel Valley Road, Bear Creek Road, Highway 95 from Lenoir City and Interstate 40, Union Valley Road, Scarboro Road and Highway 58 from the Oak Ridge K-25 Site. In addition to the SNS work, traffic-affecting projects include work on the Environmental Management Waste Management Facility and shipments of waste to a disposal site in the western United States. Modernization efforts at ORNL and the Y-12 National Security Complex are expected to impact traffic in late summer and early 2002, respectively. All Contents ©Copyright* The Oak Ridger * ***************************************************************** 17 _Superpowers' fail-safe fails to materialize_ _By Peter Baker, Washington Post, 6/14/2001_ MOSCOW - To prevent false alarms about missile launches with catastrophic consequences, the United States and Russia decided to build a joint nuclear early warning center to share information. They liked the idea so much that they announced it twice. Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin first unveiled the plan to ''avert nuclear war by mistake,'' as Clinton put it, in September 1998. When Clinton came back here in June 2000, the two countries pulled out the news release again. ''A milestone in enhancing strategic security,'' said Yeltsin's successor, Vladimir Putin. Yet now, as the presidents of Russia and the United States prepare for another summit, this ''milestone'' remains nothing more than an abandoned kindergarten building surrounded by overgrown shrubbery on the outskirts of Moscow. Planning for the early warning center has ground to a halt, stymied by conflicting priorities, geopolitics, and legal issues. After Clinton and Yeltsin first agreed to the plan, the war in Kosovo the following spring soured Russia on the West and everything was put on hold for nearly a year. After relations thawed a bit, Clinton and Putin signed a memorandum of understanding last June to put it back on track. But it became mired in details - Russians said their law required Americans to pay taxes on the equipment brought into the country and to assume liability for construction, while the US side did not want to set a precedent that would affect larger aid programs. More important, the project lost momentum in the lame-duck days of the Clinton administration and has remained frozen pending the Bush team's review of its Russia policy. The two sides have not met for months. The three-year odyssey of the early warning center that wasn't offers a lesson in how good intentions can go awry when it comes to relations between the world's two major nuclear powers. The failure to establish the center underscores the limitations of international summitry and the difficulty of turning rhetoric into reality. Presidents Bush and Putin will meet for the first time in Slovenia on Saturday with missile defense at the top of the agenda. But if the two countries cannot find a way to jointly build an $8 million center considered noncontroversial by both sides, collaboration on a hotly disputed $100 billion missile defense system promises to be far more problematic. ''This shows very clearly that if it's just a political ploy to make everybody look better, then nobody will move it forward,'' said Pavel Podvig, a researcher at the Center for Arms Control, Energy and Environmental Studies in Moscow. ''We are no longer in that mode where anything cooperative is such a great idea that all the bureaucracies would just clear away.'' Perhaps more ominously, in the view of arms control specialists, the stalemate over the early warning center leaves unaddressed a problem with potentially disastrous ramifications: Russia's huge blind spots in detecting missile launches. A mistaken warning could cause Russian leaders to launch their own missiles and trigger an unintended nuclear conflagration. As it was, the joint warning center was seen by experts such as Podvig as an inadequate response to a serious problem, one that would be useful mostly if it served as a first step to a more meaningful solution. Critics asked whether Russians would really trust American data showing that the United States was not attacking. Theodore Postol, a national security specialist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said that initially he considered the joint plan not serious enough, but at least ''a good thing'' in the context of a broader approach to the issue. Now, given the result, he has come to see it as a propaganda tool by the Americans. ''This has just been a smoke screen to look like they're doing something when they're not,'' Postol said. ''I really lay this at the feet of the Americans because they have the resources.'' The notion of shared early warning information arose shortly after the end of the Cold War. In February 1992, just weeks after the collapse of the Soviet Union, US and Russian officials began discussing the creation of a center where each side would have access to data from the other. The danger of misunderstanding became vividly evident in 1995 when Russian military officials briefly mistook the launch of a Norwegian scientific rocket for a US intercontinental ballistic missile. Yeltsin was brought his black suitcase known as the ''nuclear football'' to make a decision about whether to retaliate, but the Russians came to conclude that they were not under attack. The potential for trouble has only intensified since then with the deterioration of the Russian early warning system. Only two to four of the nine high-elliptical satellites that Russia had in orbit in 1995 are still functioning today, according to arms control experts, and at least seven hours a day Russia is blind to possible launches from US missile fields. Just last month, a fire at a ground control center cut off communications with several military satellites. Russia built seven satellites to reestablish full coverage but has never launched them, apparently for lack of money. The decision to build a Joint Data Exchange Center would create the first permanent US-Russian military facility, modeled on a temporary joint center established in Colorado to deal with the Year 2000 computer bug. According to Pentagon briefing papers, the center would be staffed 24 hours a day by a detachment of 16 US officers joined by a similar number of Russians. US and Russian officers would sit back to back, each with computers linked to their respective early warning headquarters. Officials picked a site for the facility, but today the building sits empty and unrenovated in a leafy residential neighborhood in Moscow. Instead of being in its operational test phase, as planned for this month on the way to a September opening, it serves mostly as a clandestine hangout for young beer drinkers. This story ran on page A30 of the Boston Globe on 6/14/2001. © Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company. ***************************************************************** 18 Papers reveal 'nuclear' test The West Australian + June 14, 2001 LONDON DECLASSIFIED Australian government documents suggest a nuclear bomb may have been detonated in a pristine tropical rainforest in far north Queensland at the height of the Cold War. The documents, reported in New Scientist this week, show that Britain, the United States and Australia set off a 50-tonne bomb in the rainforest at Iron Range, north of Cairns, in 1963 as part of a secret military experiment codenamed Operation Blowdown. The bomb's detonation was designed to test how the rainforest would react to such an impact. The Australian documents describe the blast as testing the effect of a nuclear explosion but the British Government and local sources say it was a conventional bomb designed to simulate an air-detonated nuclear device. National Parks and Wildlife Service ranger Mick Blackman, who has worked near the bomb site at Lockhart River for six years, said yesterday that he was aware of Operation Blowdown but did not believe it involved a nuclear device. Mr Blackman said documents in his office showed the joint exercise used conventional bombs to simulate the effect of a small air-detonated nuclear blast on rainforest. He said the soldiers and scientists involved had built a 42m tower which extended 21m above the rainforest canopy for the experiment. The detonation destroyed old equipment placed at its epicentre. "You can still see the (bomb) containers and the remains of the tower," Mr Blackman said. "It was not a nuclear blast. These rumours surface from time to time. It's been the centre of just about every conspiracy theory on the cape." A British Ministry of Defence spokeswoman said the bomb was made of TNT and detonated close to the ground to simulate the effects of a 10-kilotonne nuclear explosion in the air. "There was no radiation hazard," she said. However, declassified records in the National Archives of Australia describe Operation Blowdown as an investigation into the effect of nuclear explosions in a tropical forest. A medal citation for an Australian sergeant in charge of the operation explicitly refers to it as an airburst nuclear device. Brian Stanislaus Hussey was awarded the British Empire Medal in 1965 for supervising army equipment during Operation Blowdown. He died three years later from multiple cancers, aged 45. His daughter, Marie Strain, blames the operation for her father's death. Reports of the blast follow recent revelations about British nuclear testing in Australia in the 1950s and 1960s. Thousands of servicemen were involved in nuclear testing and the Australian Government is about to begin a health study of veterans and their children following fears of increased cancer rates in both generations. -AUSTRALIAN ASSOCIATED PRESS ***************************************************************** 19 US to withdraw from Vieques BBC News | AMERICAS | Thursday, 14 June, 2001, The US has trained on Vieques for decades President George W Bush has announced that the United States will end its controversial naval bombing exercises on the small Puerto Rican island of Vieques. The US Navy has used Vieques as a testing range for about 60 years, but is facing increasingly vociferous protests from residents and environmentalists. These are our friends and neighbours, and they don't want us there George W Bush Speaking after his talks with European Union leaders in Sweden on Thursday, Mr Bush made it clear that he had little sympathy for the US Navy's long held view that only Vieques could provide it with the training conditions it needs. "My attitude is that the navy ought to find somewhere else to conduct its exercises. For a lot of reasons. One, there's been some harm done to people in the past. Secondly, these are our friends and neighbours, and they don't want us there." _Deadline_ The Navy has been given two years in which to find another site but at the end of that period it will have to leave Vieques in any case. It argues that the island offers unique conditions necessary to ensure US forces are battle-ready, but the island's residents say the exercises have damaged their health, and the island's air and water quality. Our correspondent in Washington, Paul Reynolds, says the Navy's problem is that there is no obvious alternative site. He says that Mr Bush has, from his days as Governor of Texas, showed a certain sensitivity to Hispanic interests and this might partly explain why he has taken this decision - one which will upset the Navy and its supporters in Congress. _Protests_ But it is a major triumph for the local people who have protested against the Navy's presence. Last February, a group of islanders filed a $100m lawsuit over claims that ammunition, including depleted uranium shells, has caused an epidemic of cancers. Opposition has become increasingly active Opposition to the bombing was also spurred by the death of a civilian security guard after bombs went off-course in 1999. In April, protesters succeeded in interrupting training after breaking into the bombing range. About 180 people were arrested. The latest round of Navy exercises began off the coast of Vieques on Wednesday, with 11 ships and 10,000 sailors practising battle formations. Bombing training is expected to start on Monday. _Search BBC News Online_ ***************************************************************** 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: *****************************************************************