***************************************************************** 10/14/01 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 9.242 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER CONTENTS 1 Canada's NPPs On Security Alert 2 Anxiety echoes at final hearing on Nevada nuclear waste dump 3 Revealed: the government's 27 excuses to hide the truth 4 EDITORIAL: Keep nukes in check 5 Ahern attacks Blair over Sellafield 6 Sellafield closure call 7 Letter: `Green' nuclear power 8 Terror attack at Indian Point would put 20M people at risk 9 Nuclear storage opponents want Mormon church's backing 10 Yucca Mountain anxiety echoes at final hearing 11 Revealed: the government's 27 excuses to hide the truth 12 UK nuclear and sewage emissions on-line 13 Nuclear waste shipments postponed 14 Candu reactors seen at risk 15 Ahern singles out Sellafield 16 More Fears Over Yucca Dump Plan 17 NDP to stand amid claims of nuclear threat 18 Nuclear plant secure, say officials 19 Pataki orders National Guard to protect nuclear plants 20 Suit filed to block nuclear site regulations 21 Churches Silent on Storing Nuclear Waste in Utah 22 Nuclear firms not fearful of terrorism 23 Nuke waste delay is dangerous 24 Nuclear chiefs refuse to halt trains 'at risk' 25 Blocked Nuclear Data Seen Lifting Power Prices 26 Deadly Mox cargo is headed for Irish Sea 27 Chancellor promises Czech premier Germany not to block EU 28 UK nuclear and sewage emissions on-line 29 Ukraine: Reactor at power plant stopped by automatic switch NUCLEAR WEAPONS CONTENTS 1 Sick nuclear workers can get help with claims 2 Security increased at ports near nuclear facilities 3 Officials think al Qaeda has some type of nuclear arms 4 Nuclear research institute is Moscow’s most dangerous 5 Nuclear disaster looms 6 Seaborg's legendary life, in print 7 Act offers lump-sum handouts for workers exposed to toxins 8 Report raises criticism at Flats 9 Nuclear research institute is Moscow’s most dangerous environmental hotspot 10 PERSPECTIVES: 'It was as if the earth had been killed': ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 Canada's NPPs On Security Alert Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2001 05:09:48 -0400 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal http://www.tmia.com/sabter.html & http://www.nci.org These people, like NRC, are asleep at the wheel. Nothing to be overly concerned about? These are radiological nuclear weapons waiting to be detonated. If it happens what are they[assumming they haven't been killed & media infrastructure is still viable] going to say? We made a mistake? We're sorry? Where are the NO FLY ZONES & anti-aircraft batteries? Where is massive military security both on & off site? http://news.excite.com/news/r/011011/15/attack-can ada-energy Canada's nuclear plants on security alert Updated: Thu, Oct 11 3:47 PM EDT By Scott Anderson TORONTO (Reuters) - Canada's nuclear power generators have boosted security following last month's attacks on the United States, but the agency responsible for protecting the country's key infrastructure said Thursday there was little to fear. The Office of Critical Infrastructure Protection and Emergency Preparedness, a division of the country's Department of National Defence, said there was little to indicate that Canada's nuclear plants would become targets for attack. "To date we have no information that would suggest there's a specific threat to nuclear power plants," said Max London, a spokesman for the agency. "At the same time, as a member of the coalition that's moving against terrorism, we really can't afford to be complacent," he added. Ontario Power Generation Inc. and Bruce Power, which both operate nuclear plants in Ontario, stepped up security immediately following the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon near Washington. These measures remain in effect, the companies said. Security plans were revisited earlier this week after the United States began retaliatory strikes in Afghanistan. "Beginning on September 11, Ontario Power Generation moved to enhanced security for all of its facilities," said John Earl, a spokesman for OPG. Earl declined to outline the additional measures but said the company had been working closely with federal, provincial and municipal officials. Bruce Power, a partnership between British Energy Plc and Cameco Corp., which operates two nuclear plants in southwestern Ontario, said they had also stepped up security. "Immediately following the attacks, Bruce Power security went into enhanced alert security mode... We are continuing in this mode, on advice of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission," the company said in a statement. The company was not immediately available for further comment, but said in its statement that the extra measures included the on-site presence of police, searches of vehicles entering the plants and the cancellation of all public tours. The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, the federal regulator, has also recommended increased vigilance. "There has been no direct substantiated threat," said Jim Leveque, a spokesman at the commission. "What happened on the eleventh has increased everybody's awareness and also has indicated a need for a greater degree of prudence." "Things have changed in that direction for everybody on the face of the planet, and not just for people who work at nuclear plants." ***************************************************************** 2 Anxiety echoes at final hearing on Nevada nuclear waste dump Las Vegas SUN October 13, 2001 PAHRUMP, Nev. (AP) - Residents in rural Nye County echoed fears of radioactivity tainting groundwater, terrorists striking transportation routes and corroding storage canisters if the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump opens in Nevada. Resident Sally Devlin said Friday she isn't swayed by government scientists' findings after nine years of study that the nation's 77,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel can safely be contained for at least 10,000 years in a maze of tunnels about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Devlin said during the final formal hearing on the federal government's proposal that Nevada and especially Nye County is unprepared for a nuclear accident. Anxiety echoes at final hearing on Nevada nuclear waste dump Las Vegas SUN October 13, 2001 PAHRUMP, Nev. (AP) - Residents in rural Nye County echoed fears of radioactivity tainting groundwater, terrorists striking transportation routes and corroding storage canisters if the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump opens in Nevada. Resident Sally Devlin said Friday she isn't swayed by government scientists' findings after nine years of study that the nation's 77,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel can safely be contained for at least 10,000 years in a maze of tunnels about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Devlin said during the final formal hearing on the federal government's proposal that Nevada and especially Nye County is unprepared for a nuclear accident. "I have grandchildren and great-grandchildren," Devlin said. "I don't want them to die from radiation poisoning." The Department of Energy hearing was the last before Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham recommends to President Bush whether the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository should be built at the western edge of the Nevada Test Site. It is the only site under consideration. Thirty-one other hearings were held in September and October in each Nevada county and in neighboring Inyo County, Calif. Officials estimate more than 430 people offered comments during the sessions. Nye County Health Officer Maureen Budahl testified Friday that the Energy Department should extend its studies beyond the geological suitability of the Yucca Mountain site. "It is imperative the Department of Energy be prepared to assist us," she said. Outside the meeting, she told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that since Nye County has no hospital, it would take about an hour to set up an emergency response in the event of a nuclear accident. Las Vegas is about 50 miles away. "That's every bit as important as the geological suitability," Budahl said. Mary Wilson, vice chairwoman of the Pahrump Town Board, said Nye County's rural communities would be affected most by a Yucca Mountain repository. Nye County is geographically Nevada's largest county - a sprawling 18,064 square miles. It has about 30,000 residents. "Pahrump, Amargosa Valley, Beatty, Tonopah, Goldfield and Mercury - they are all much more affected by Yucca Mountain than is Las Vegas," Wilson said. She said she also worried about the integrity of nuclear waste shipping casks. "Events on Sept. 11th proved once and for all that we don't live in a logical world," Wilson said, referring to the terrorist attacks. Nevada's Paiute and Western Shoshone tribes have staunchly opposed the government's plans to dispose of nuclear waste on their native lands. But a representative of the Prairie Island Indian Community in southeastern Minnesota testified Friday in favor of Yucca Mountain. Doreen Hagen, a Prairie Island tribal council member, said nuclear waste stored by operators of the Xcel Energy reactor in Minnesota threatens the health and safety of her community. "We believe that storing nuclear waste in a remote, military secure location, in a facility designed for permanent storage, is a better solution than leaving it where it sits, virtually unguarded and only yards away from a vulnerable community with limited evacuation routes," Hagen said. General Counsel Lee Otis, the highest ranking Energy Department official at Friday's hearing, said Abraham will review all the comments and responses before his recommendation to the president. "The secretary will make this decision on what science shows and what he thinks is in the best interest of the country," Otis said. Information from: Las Vegas Review-Journal All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 3 Revealed: the government's 27 excuses to hide the truth Sunday Herald home Outraged campaigners bid to fight secrecy and force Scottish Executive to close loopholes in new information bill By Rob Edwards Environment Editor Government officials keen to keep embarrassing secrets hidden from the public will be given 27 excuses to make by the Scottish Executive's proposed new Freedom of Information Bill. Requests for information under the bill can be rejected if they are vague or vexatious, or result from an organised campaign. Government agencies or local authorities can refuse to answer if it is going to cost them more than a suggested £500. Information can also be withheld if it is about the formulation of government policy or a communication from a minister, or if it could 'substantially prejudice the effective conduct of public affairs'. Even applying on the phone or in person instead of in writing could justify a refusal. The list of 27 excuses has been compiled by Friends of the Earth Scotland, which is campaigning for the bill to be amended to close its loopholes. Backed by the Sunday Herald, the environmental group has organised a public meeting on freedom of information in Glasgow on October 27. 'Of course we accept that there must be information which is not divulged but, as it stands, the proposed legislation is open to abuse by those officials who are prepared to employ the letter of the law to thwart the spirit of the law,' said Kevin Dun ion, chief executive of Friends of the Earth Scotland. 'There is no point in proclaiming a new culture of openness yet at the same time providing ample scope for freedom of information to be denied. The bill should be amended at this stage to close these loopholes and to provide Scotland with a genuinely liberal statute that we can take pride in.' Ironically, members of the public who ask for environmental information under the Freedom of information legislation could be turned down because this is covered by a different set of regulations. Other reasons for refusal include commercial con fidentiality, contempt of court and national security. The process set out in the draft bill gives officials who want to be obstructive plenty of chances for procrast ination. They have 20 days to reply to an initial request and another 20 days to reply to requests for rejections to be reviewed. Then, if the independent Information commissioner is called in to adjudicate, there could be a wait of another four months or more. The result is that members of the public, even if they do everything promptly, could end up waiting six months for an answer. The Scottish Executive, however, defended the bill by arguing that to talk about 27 potential loopholes was misleading. 'Many of the provisions referred to are technical in nature and would not on their own result in the information not being publicly available,' said an Executive spokes woman. Public authorities would be under a legal obligation to help people making requests for information and would have to consider the public interest in most cases. The information commissioner will have the power to order the disclosure of information. 'Legislating on freedom of information is not simply a case of making all information available. It would be wholly irresponsible to do this,' the spokeswoman said. 'Every freedom of information regime must find the right balance between openness and properly protecting sensitive information. We believe that our bill finds the right balance for Scotland.' But there have recently been a series of examples that demonstrate the problems that simple requests for information can run into. The Liberal Democrat MSP for Glasgow, Robert Brown, asked the Scottish Executive for information on how individual local authorities were meeting their targets under the Home Energy Conservation Act. His request was refused by Jackie Baillie, the minister for social justice, on the grounds that the data were not recorded separately for each local authority. When Brown asked how the executive compiled its summary figures, the minister confessed it was from individual local authority returns. When Brown pointed out the contradiction in the executive's position, Baillie ordered civil servants to review whether the information could be released. 'Previous ministers took the view that the provision of information on individual local authorities would result in an unhelpful league-table approach,' she explained. The Sunday Herald and Friends of the Earth Scotland have been refused access to reports on emergency exercises held at the Grangemouth petrochemical complex. The Health and Safety Executive, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency and Falkirk council have refused to provide the reports on the grounds that they belong to a committee set up by the private companies at Grangemouth. In recent weeks the Scottish Executive has refused to tell the Sunday Herald which laws the Executive has been accused by the European Commission of breaching, on the grounds that the proceedings are confidential. This is despite the fact that some of the cases are already in the public domain and a list of others has been leaked. The Freedom of Information conference is at Renfield St Stephen's Church, Glasgow on Saturday October 27. Contact Kirstie Shirra on 0131-554 9977 or kshirra@foe-scotland.org.uk www.foe-scotland.org.uk ©2001 smg sunday newspapers ltd. no.176088. all rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 4 EDITORIAL: Keep nukes in check OrlandoSentinel.com: Opinion Posted October 13, 2001 Our position: The war against terrorism makes a strong case for keeping a tight lid on technology. The advent of a war against terrorism places even greater importance on the need to keep nuclear weapons and the technology to produce such devices away from troublemakers and rogue states. U.S. efforts to prevent nuclear nonproliferation, therefore, deserve higher priority. Critics who argued that people ought not worry when Pakistan and India acquired nuclear weapons a few years ago now should understand the folly of their words. The concern wasn't simply the nuclearization of South Asia, the possibility of nuclear war between Pakistan and India, and the danger of fallout in neighboring countries. It was the risk that nuclear weapons, once developed, might fall into the wrong hands. That problem has come into sharp focus as the United States takes after the perpetrators of September's violence, and Pakistan struggles with internal dissidents who sympathize with the terrorists' cause. Pakistan's leaders should have the means to keep those protestors at bay, but what if they were to gain strength and topple the government? Then terrorist sympathizers would have nuclear weapons -- a frightening prospect. Even if that extreme case never materializes, though, the availability of nuclear weapons provides temptation to terrorist sympathizers who might be inside Pakistan's government or military. Such dangers complicate matters for everyone. Better to ensure that nuclear weapons and related technology don't spread. Copyright © 2001, Orlando Sentinel © 2001 OrlandoSentinel.com ***************************************************************** 5 Ahern attacks Blair over Sellafield online.ie : News The Irish Examiner 13 Oct 2001 By Fionnán Sheahan and Ann Cahill THE Tao is each last night accused British Prime Minister Tony Blair of abusing the international security crisis to sneak through the MOX extension to Sellafield. In his strongest ever attack on the British Government's decision, the Taoiseach said Sellafield posed the single most serious threat to Ireland's environment and demanded the plant be shut. "We are appalled by the MOX plant decision. It has all the hallmarks of a bad news story hastily released in the midst of a momentous international crisis in the hope that most people would be distracted," Mr Ahern said. The Taoiseach's interpretation of the MOX decision timing comes as Tony Blair is under pressure to sack his transport minister whose top adviser urged colleagues on September 11 to use the news fallout from the US terrorist attacks to bury bad news. Ten days ago the British Government gave the go-ahead for the controversial nuclear reprocessing facility to start operating at Sellafield. A blend of plutonium and uranium extracted from spent fuel rods will be produced at a plant on the Sellafield site. Opening the Fianna Fáil Árd Fheis in Dublin, the Taoiseach said the Government has repeatedly conveyed its opposition to the opening of MOX, which he said was the surviving dinosaur of a defunct military-industrial complex being kept alive by British taxpayers. "It poses a significant additional and totally unacceptable threat to our environment and to our national security. "In the context of the heightened threat from terrorism, the existing risks from Sellafield are unacceptably increased," he said. The opening of the MOX plant will mean the Irish Sea is used as a highway for the transport of highly dangerous nuclear fuel to and from nuclear plants around the world, the Taoiseach said. This was in addition to existing unacceptable activities in Sellafield. The Government's implacable opposition to the decision to proceed with the MOX plant was conveyed personally to Mr Blair, the Taoiseach said. "It is not acceptable that the Irish Sea is used as the kitchen sink by the nuclear industry," Mr Ahern said. The Taoiseach warned the issue will not be allowed to rest and the campaign to close Sellafield had only begun. "It is a campaign that will be waged ceaselessly until it is won," he said. Mr Ahern's choice of the FF Árd Fheis for these outspoken remarks will be seen as a clear attempt to stake out a more radical and assertive national policy. His hard-hitting statement came as Defence Minister Micheal Smith announced the Government is considering purchasing £10 million high-speed jets which could intercept suspect private planes or airliners. ***************************************************************** 6 Sellafield closure call The Scotsman Online - scotsman.com > IRISH Prime Minister Bertie Ahern last night demanded the closure of the controversial Sellafield nuclear power plant. With the threat from terrorists greater than ever before, Mr Ahern said the risk from the site was "unacceptably increased" with the announcement of the new MOX fuel operation. Mr Ahern accused Tony Blair of burying the announcement while world attention was diverted by the terrorism crisis. And he described the plant, which is being "kept on a life support machine" by the British taxpayer, as the biggest threat to Ireland's environment. "It has all the hallmarks of a bad news story hastily released in the midst of a momentous international crisis in the hope that most people will be distracted," he said. ***************************************************************** 7 Letter: `Green' nuclear power The Independent - United Kingdom; Oct 13, 2001 BY TED SCHAETERS Sir: Bernard Ingham's fulsome endorsement of mixed oxide fuel and nuclear generation per se (letter, 8 October) is on a par with his support for rail privatisation, the poll tax and other Tory holy cows. The economics of nuclear generation is an area where so many lies have been told for so long that most of our younger politicians have lost track of the subject. But the claim that nuclear generation is a "green" activity is patently false, since every activity leading to it and undertaken because of it is extremely power-hungry. I refer, of course, to processing of uranium ores and the extraction of uranium 235 from uranium metal fluoride in diffusion plants or centrifuges. But also to fuel manufacture, with its requirement for great precision and high-grade stainless steel or zirconium cans. Nor does the story end there. There are no facilities in the UK to build the thick pressure vessels needed for the pressurised water reactors. The Sizewell B one came from France. Processing of used fuel demands masses of power, and the active and dangerous wastes will have to be stored, guarded and continuously cooled for a few thousand years. No nuclear kilowatt cost claim has this charge factored into it. That is being left for our grandchildren and their descendants. TED SCHAETERS Exmouth, Devon All Material Subject to Copyright ***************************************************************** 8 Terror attack at Indian Point would put 20M people at risk October 14, 2001 07:40:25 PM By ROGER WITHERSPOON THE JOURNAL NEWS (Original publication: Oct. 14, 2001) A catastrophic terrorist attack on the nuclear power plants at Indian Point could leave more than 20 million people in a 50-mile radius trying to flee lethal radioactive clouds without clear guidance from federal and state emergency officials. A meltdown of the nuclear fuel and a fire at the two plants, 24 miles north of New York City on the Hudson River's eastern bank, would affect all of New York City as well as Westchester, Rockland, Putnam, Orange, Sullivan, Ulster, Dutchess, Nassau and Suffolk counties. In New Jersey, Bergen, Passaic, Sussex, Hudson and Essex counties would be threatened. So would Fairfield County and parts of New Haven County in Connecticut, and eastern Pennsylvania around the Delaware Water Gap. Though Nassau and Suffolk counties are outside the 50-mile zone, their 2.7 million residents would be cut off on the eastern end of the 120-mile Long Island unless they fled through New York City to New Jersey, or through Westchester to New England. All would have to travel a limited number of bridges and roadways to leave in a matter of hours. "An evacuation could not work around New York for that kind of radioactive release," said Paul Leventhal, head of the Nuclear Control Institute in Washington, D.C. "The kind of panic that would result from people deciding whether to flee or seek shelter should be avoided. It would make the response to the World Trade Center look like a picnic." "There is no way we can evacuate this region if there is a nuclear emergency here," Westchester County Legislator Thomas Abinanti, D-Greenburgh, said last week, following a security briefing with other state and county officials at Indian Point by Entergy Corp., the plants' owner. "We try to evacuate White Plains every day, and the infrastructure is so limited that we are choked with traffic during a normal rush hour. Gov. George Pataki yesterday ordered National Guard troops to begin protecting Indian Point and the state's other nuclear power plants. For decades, federal officials, nuclear power operators and emergency planners believed that the prospect of destroyed containment buildings, a runaway nuclear meltdown and fire was too remote for which to realistically plan. They planned, instead, for the possible need to evacuate people within one mile around the plants' site in Buchanan, and up to 10 miles within the direction that wind would carry radioactive particles. This "Ingestion Emergency Pathway Zone" or IPZ, is all planners believed they needed to prepare. The plan depends on an orderly withdrawal, with school and public buses making repeated trips to Westchester to remove children and others from the affected area over several hours. Only since the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon has the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission acknowledged that the huge, reinforced concrete containment domes around American nuclear reactors are not designed to withstand the impact of a hit by modern, wide-bodied jets. The attacks also showed the plants' vulnerability, as both jets that slammed into the Twin Towers flew south along the Hudson River, directly above or not far from IP2. Current emergency evacuation plans are not designed to handle the result of such a terrorist action, and only envision the release of a radioactive cloud over a short time period. The plans do not envision a destroyed containment building, a nuclear reactor meltdown or a prolonged fire that would spew radioactive particles into the atmosphere for weeks, like the one that engulfed the Ukrainian nuclear plant at Chernobyl in April 1986. That left a permanent lethal zone of contamination around the city for 50 miles. Winds and waterways also deposited long-lasting radioactive material hundreds of miles away. American emergency plans for nuclear accidents do not contemplate the need to move the public from such a wide region, as would be necessary in New York. The plans assume residents will wait patiently in their homes for instructions and follow directions to move out of the path of wind-borne radiation. "Our evacuation plans are for a 10-mile zone," said Don Mauer of the New York State Emergency Management Office. "There are no detailed evacuation plans for the miles 10 through 50. The public is notified within the areas that require evacuation. We have the police to establish traffic control points for an orderly flow of people out of the area." If radiation should spread, he said, "Those folks would be notified by public announcement that they have to leave the area." The state's plans envision orderly, controlled evacuations from individual segments within the 10-mile zone around the plants. Those regions would depend on the prevailing winds at the time of the accident. Nowhere do the plans contemplate the widespread movement of millions of people fleeing the uncontrolled release of radiation over several days, traveling in several directions. "There has long been discussion in the emergency management community as to whether or not you could evacuate New York," said William Waugh, professor of public administration and urban studies at Georgia State University in Atlanta. "That's particularly true of places like Manhattan, where you have limited access to bridges and tunnels. How do you move so many people in New York who don't have automobiles and rely on mass transportation? It could injure more people than you save." It would be difficult to maintain order, Waugh said, even though the existing plans depend on it. "There has been talk about fear management," he said, "and how do you contain a population at risk when you want to keep them quarantined and want to avoid panic? In a panic response, a lot of people would be injured trying to get out of the area. I imagine it is not possible to evacuate that many people." Critics of the NRC, which regulates the nuclear industry's actions during an accident, and other emergency management agencies have long disputed the planned cutoff at 10 miles. "I don't think the basis for the 10-mile zone was quantitatively linked to anything," said Ed Lymann, a physicist and scientific director of the Nuclear Control Institute in Washington. "It would have been smaller if the industry had had its way. They were afraid it would alarm the public." NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan pointed out that evacuations are the responsibility of federal and state emergency agencies. "We look at the on-site response," he said, "because people at the plant are making decisions that greatly impact decisions on evacuations, like determining the level of emergency." Lymann said there was validity to the industry's argument that the most lethal radioactive particles would fall closest to the site of the accident. But that does not mean people farther away would be safe. "You can get pretty high assurances that you won't have acute radiation exposures far away," he said. "But broader contamination, causing death from cancer, can happen hundreds of miles from the plant. If you look at Chernobyl, there are areas of contamination a hundred miles away that are almost as high as right near the plant because of the prevailing wind patterns." The prevailing winds in this region are from the northwest, blowing across Indian Point down to New York City and Long Island. During the course of several days, however, the winds shift in all directions. "If you have a fire like they had at Chernobyl," said Tom Bevan of the Georgia Tech Research Institute, "the contamination went hundreds of nautical miles away." A 10-mile evacuation, Bevan said, would be potentially effective only if radioactive steam was released. Radioactive material caught in a petroleum or other fire goes high into the atmosphere and spreads, said Bevan, who headed the U.S.-Ukraine Land Management Resource Center in Kiev, Ukraine, to oversee the assessment and cleanup of Chernobyl. The situation in Chernobyl was complicated by the fact that Ukraine was then part of the Soviet Union, and the Communist government wasn't willing to admit to the unfolding catastrophe. "The Soviets weren't willing to tell anyone that the stuff was blowing north," Bevan said. "They evacuated people away from the reactor and right into the path of where the fallout was going." It took more than 600,000 emergency workers to cover the fire with sand and cement; up to 80,000 of them died, according to Sergei Korsunsky, science attache at the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington. "In the civilian population," Korsunsky said, "we estimate about 3.5 million people were exposed to harmful doses of radiation. What is most terrible is that at least 1.5 million children were exposed." The biggest long-term problem that resulted from the contamination was thyroid gland cancer, triggered by radioactive iodine isotopes. "With my own eyes," Korsunsky said, "I saw villages where there were several hundred children and all of them — each and every single child — had thyroid problems. They had some kind of cancer or were on the way to getting cancer." David Lochbaum, a former consultant to Indian Point 3 and a nuclear safety expert with the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington, said the NRC is still reluctant to consider a catastrophe in its planning. Lochbaum attended a two-day meeting on nuclear plant security at NRC headquarters in Maryland last week. "The issue of a plane crashing into a dome wasn't discussed," he said. "They didn't do anything to address trucks, boats, airplanes or whatever. They are only dealing with ground threats, which was their concern all along." Lochbaum said the refusal of emergency planners to consider the destruction of a nuclear plant's containment building "was a fault even before Sept. 11." "The containment can fail from the inside," he said. A full meltdown would cause steam explosions with enough force to break open the containment buildings, he said, and "our containment structures aren't designed to handle that scenario." An external attack, Lochbaum cautioned, would also threaten the storage pools of spent fuel at Indian Point 2 and 3. The pools are not housed in the containment buildings. Radiation from a meltdown of the reactor's nuclear fuel in a destroyed containment building would have the same effect on the population as radiation from ignited fuel in the storage pools. "The difference is, a reactor accident causes more fatalities in the first year," Lochbaum said. "With the radiation from spent fuel, more fatalities occur after one year from cancer than acute radiation exposure." Copyright 2001 The Journal News, a Gannett Co. Inc. newspaper. ***************************************************************** 9 Nuclear storage opponents want Mormon church's backing Las Vegas SUN October 13, 2001 SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - Opponents of a plan to store of spent nuclear fuel on the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation want the backing of the Mormon church. So far, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints declined to get involved. "They said it was a political issue, and they have not yet taken a position," said Maryann Webster, an active Mormon. Instead, the church told her to work with her state legislator on the issue. But Webster said it's an issue their church might condemn as loudly as it now criticizes threats to families and loosening alcoholic-beverage controls. Webster is joined by a U.S. senator in seeking the support of the church, which claims 70 percent of Utah residents as members. Calling high-level radioactive waste "nuclear poison," Sen. Harry Reid has led the opposition against the Utah storage site, as well as a permanent repository in the desert about 100 miles north of Las Vegas. "It's very hard to get them involved in the politics of things," said the Nevada Democrat and Mormon. "But it would be nice if they could" weigh in. When asked about that possibility, Mormon church spokesman Dale Bills said simply that the faith has taken no position on the question of storing nuclear waste in Utah. The church officials have previously said the church only gets involved in political issues it considers to have moral implications, which have included gay marriage initiatives and alcohol control. Local Catholics have not issued a statement either, but two representatives are members of Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah, a public health and environment group opposed to radioactive waste in Utah. Bishop George Niederauer and Dee Rowland, the Salt Lake diocese's government liaison, have been monitoring debate over high-level nuclear waste as advisory board members. Two issues make taking a stand difficult, Rowland said. One is U.S. Catholics have long supported Native peoples' right to conduct their own affairs on sovereign lands. The second concern is that nuclear waste policy is a national issue about which U.S. Catholics would typically weigh in on as a group, rather than parish by parish, she said. Aside from these considerations, Rowland maintains that the question of what to do with nuclear waste is a moral one and worthy of attention by the religious community. Proponents of the storage facility say this is not a religious issue, but a matter of national energy policy, scientific suitability and public safety. Private Fuel Storage, a coalition of eight utility companies based in the East, Midwest and California, has proposed parking spent nuclear fuel on 125-acres leased from the Goshutes, about 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. Assuming the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission grants the consortium a license, the above-ground storage would hold about 4,000, thick steel-and-concrete casks filled with used-up nuclear rods until a permanent disposal site is secured, probably at Nevada's Yucca Mountain. "We do not believe this is or should be a moral issue," said PFS spokeswoman Sue Martin. "It should not be a political issue at this point." All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 10 Yucca Mountain anxiety echoes at final hearing LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL: NEWS: MORE TESTIMONY Although public hearings on the Yucca Mountain Project have concluded, Nevadans still have a week to comment on the federal government's plan to bury nuclear waste 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. A court reporter works at the Yucca Mountain Science Center, 4101-B Meadows Lane, across from the Meadows mall in Las Vegas. The reporter takes statements from the public from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. weekdays and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturdays. The reporter takes a lunch break from 1 to 2 p.m. Residents should reserve time slots for their testimony by calling (800) 967-3477. Testimony is limited to 10 minutes, and people are encouraged to arrive no later than 15 minutes before their reserved time. Walk-in testimony is allowed as the reporter's schedule permits. In addition, residents can visit DOE Science Centers in Pahrump, at 1141 S. Highway 160, and Beatty, at 100 N. E Ave., to submit comment cards on the project. The public comment period ends Oct. 19. -- REVIEW-JOURNAL Saturday, October 13, 2001 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal Yucca Mountain anxiety echoes at final hearing Federal officials listen to more concerns about proposed nuclear waste depository By KEITH ROGERS REVIEW-JOURNAL PAHRUMP -- Radioactivity tainting groundwater supplies. Terrorists with rocket launchers hiding along transportation routes. Canisters filled with the nation's most lethal nuclear waste corroding after thousands of years. Those were some of the fears citizens expressed Friday at the final formal hearing on the federal government's plans for entombing spent fuel from nuclear reactors in Nye County's most famous volcanic-rock ridge, Yucca Mountain. Pahrump resident Sally Devlin said she has not been swayed for nine years by government scientists' claims that the 77,000 tons of waste can be safely contained for at least 10,000 years in a maze of tunnels in the mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Devlin said Nevada and especially Nye County is unprepared for a nuclear accident. "We are at the mercy of one agency, the Highway Patrol," she said. "I have grandchildren and great-grandchildren. I don't want them to die from radiation poisoning," Devlin said. Bill Green, a 17-year Pahrump resident, said he wonders if the casks for hauling the waste aboard trucks and trains "have been tested against hand-held rocket launchers." Getting these weapons into the United States by a foreign adversary "wouldn't be too hard," he said. Pahrump resident Art Solie agreed there is such danger. "The immediate danger is transporting the nuclear waste here," he said. "It could be spread by terrorists or accidents." Nye County Health Officer Maureen Budahl said the Energy Department should extend its studies beyond the geological suitability of the site. "It is imperative the Department of Energy be prepared to assist us," she told the hearing panel. Outside the meeting, she said since Nye County has no hospital, it would take about an hour to set up any form of emergency response in the event of a nuclear accident. "That's every bit as important as the geological suitability," she said. Mary Wilson, vice chairwoman of the Pahrump Town Board, said Nye County's rural communities will sustain the most impacts from a repository at Yucca Mountain. "Pahrump, Amargosa Valley, Beatty, Tonopah, Goldfield and Mercury -- they are all much more affected by Yucca Mountain than is Las Vegas," she said. Wilson was skeptical about the integrity of nuclear waste shipping casks. "Events on Sept. 11th proved once and for all that we don't live in a logical world. Please test these casks to failure," she said. Calvin Myers, tribal council chairman of the Moapa Band of Paiutes, said he wondered if his testimony will be taken seriously by Energy Department officials. "It's very serious to us," he said. "I prayed last night that the land will be well, the air will be well, and the water will be well." But while Nevada's Paiutes and Western Shoshone tribes have staunchly opposed the government's plans to dispose of nuclear waste on their native lands, an out -of-state tribe -- the Prairie Island Indian Community in southeastern Minnesota -- urged the government to approve building a repository in Yucca Mountain. Doreen Hagen, a Prairie Island tribal council member, said nuclear waste stored by operators of the Xcel Energy reactor drew strong objection from her community. Without a repository to put the waste, she said, "our health and safety concerns continue to be ignored. "We believe that storing nuclear waste in a remote, military secure location, in a facility designed for permanent storage, is a better solution than leaving it where it sits, virtually unguarded and only yards away from a vulnerable community with limited evacuation routes," Hagen said. Pahrump Town Board Chairman Tim Leavitt read a statement for Gov. Kenny Guinn that reiterated the views the governor expressed at last month's hearing in North Las Vegas. At that hearing, Guinn equated the Yucca Mountain Project to the government's atmospheric nuclear weapons tests that spread fallout across the Southwest. "I am not talking about casualties of war in some distant country. I am talking about the small farmers in neighboring Utah, who tragically suffered from contaminated nuclear air," the statement read. "And we just learned that germ warfare testing was conducted at the same test site without any knowledge whatsoever by our own congressional delegation or my office," Guinn's statement said. "Given the history, I trust you can understand why I view this proceeding as morally illegal if not technically so." Since Sept. 5, as required by law, the Department of Energy has held three formal hearings in areas that would be most affected by the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. In addition, 29 field hearings were held in Nevada's counties and Inyo County, Calif. Officials estimate that more than 430 people testified at those hearings, including the required ones in Las Vegas, Amargosa Valley and Pahrump. General Counsel Lee Otis, the highest ranking Energy Department official at Friday's hearing, said Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham will review all the comments and responses before he decides whether or not to recommend constructing a repository at Yucca Mountain. "He will take these comments very seriously," Otis said. "The secretary will make this decision on what science shows and what he thinks is in the best interest of the country." webmaster@lvrj.com Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - ***************************************************************** 11 Revealed: the government's 27 excuses to hide the truth Sunday Herald Outraged campaigners bid to fight secrecy and force Scottish Executive to close loopholes in new information bill By Rob Edwards Environment Editor Government officials keen to keep embarrassing secrets hidden from the public will be given 27 excuses to make by the Scottish Executive's proposed new Freedom of Information Bill. Requests for information under the bill can be rejected if they are vague or vexatious, or result from an organised campaign. Government agencies or local authorities can refuse to answer if it is going to cost them more than a suggested £500. Information can also be withheld if it is about the formulation of government policy or a communication from a minister, or if it could 'substantially prejudice the effective conduct of public affairs'. Even applying on the phone or in person instead of in writing could justify a refusal. The list of 27 excuses has been compiled by Friends of the Earth Scotland, which is campaigning for the bill to be amended to close its loopholes. Backed by the Sunday Herald, the environmental group has organised a public meeting on freedom of information in Glasgow on October 27. 'Of course we accept that there must be information which is not divulged but, as it stands, the proposed legislation is open to abuse by those officials who are prepared to employ the letter of the law to thwart the spirit of the law,' said Kevin Dun ion, chief executive of Friends of the Earth Scotland. 'There is no point in proclaiming a new culture of openness yet at the same time providing ample scope for freedom of information to be denied. The bill should be amended at this stage to close these loopholes and to provide Scotland with a genuinely liberal statute that we can take pride in.' Ironically, members of the public who ask for environmental information under the Freedom of information legislation could be turned down because this is covered by a different set of regulations. Other reasons for refusal include commercial con fidentiality, contempt of court and national security. The process set out in the draft bill gives officials who want to be obstructive plenty of chances for procrast ination. They have 20 days to reply to an initial request and another 20 days to reply to requests for rejections to be reviewed. Then, if the independent Information commissioner is called in to adjudicate, there could be a wait of another four months or more. The result is that members of the public, even if they do everything promptly, could end up waiting six months for an answer. The Scottish Executive, however, defended the bill by arguing that to talk about 27 potential loopholes was misleading. 'Many of the provisions referred to are technical in nature and would not on their own result in the information not being publicly available,' said an Executive spokes woman. Public authorities would be under a legal obligation to help people making requests for information and would have to consider the public interest in most cases. The information commissioner will have the power to order the disclosure of information. 'Legislating on freedom of information is not simply a case of making all information available. It would be wholly irresponsible to do this,' the spokeswoman said. 'Every freedom of information regime must find the right balance between openness and properly protecting sensitive information. We believe that our bill finds the right balance for Scotland.' But there have recently been a series of examples that demonstrate the problems that simple requests for information can run into. The Liberal Democrat MSP for Glasgow, Robert Brown, asked the Scottish Executive for information on how individual local authorities were meeting their targets under the Home Energy Conservation Act. His request was refused by Jackie Baillie, the minister for social justice, on the grounds that the data were not recorded separately for each local authority. When Brown asked how the executive compiled its summary figures, the minister confessed it was from individual local authority returns. When Brown pointed out the contradiction in the executive's position, Baillie ordered civil servants to review whether the information could be released. 'Previous ministers took the view that the provision of information on individual local authorities would result in an unhelpful league-table approach,' she explained. The Sunday Herald and Friends of the Earth Scotland have been refused access to reports on emergency exercises held at the Grangemouth petrochemical complex. The Health and Safety Executive, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency and Falkirk council have refused to provide the reports on the grounds that they belong to a committee set up by the private companies at Grangemouth. In recent weeks the Scottish Executive has refused to tell the Sunday Herald which laws the Executive has been accused by the European Commission of breaching, on the grounds that the proceedings are confidential. This is despite the fact that some of the cases are already in the public domain and a list of others has been leaked. The Freedom of Information conference is at Renfield St Stephen's Church, Glasgow on Saturday October 27. Contact Kirstie Shirra on 0131-554 9977 or kshirra@foe-scotland.org.uk www.foe-scotland.org.uk ©2001 smg sunday newspapers ltd. no.176088. all rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 12 UK nuclear and sewage emissions on-line Edie weekly summaries 12/10/2001 Information on emissions from UK nuclear sites and large sewage treatment works can now be obtained via the UK Environment Agency’s web-based Pollution Inventory. A total of 28 nuclear sites have voluntarily provided data on radioactive releases; and of these, all were within authorised limits. The Environment Agency stated that radiological assessments and environmental monitoring confirmed that the impact of discharges is well within national and international dose limits and constraints. The inclusion of large sewage treatment works - those serving populations greater than 150,000, was a requirement of a UK Government Ministerial Direction, issued to English water companies in March 2001. Initial figures cover the annual measured emissions of pollution inventory substances in water effluent in the year 2000. Progressively small sewage treatment works will be included in subsequent years. These are the two latest industry groups to be added to the database that was established in 1999, and now has information on over 150 different pollutants from around 2000 of the largest industrial processes in England and Wales. Users can find out the emissions profile for any local area by providing the postcode or clicking on a map. “Data from major industry overall continues to show a good downward trend with many of the most important pollutants to air and water showing significant reductions from 1999 to 2000,” said Environment Agency Head of Chemicals Policy Steve Killeen. © Faversham House Group Ltd 2001. This article may be copied or ***************************************************************** 13 Nuclear waste shipments postponed Island Packet Online: Southern Beaufort County's Daily Newspaper BY ANDREW KORFHAGE WASHINGTON -- Responding to U.S. military action in Afghanistan and the threat of additional terrorism within the United States, the Department of Energy halted shipments of nuclear materials nationwide this week, giving South Carolina a temporary reprieve from accepting controversial plutonium shipments that were slated to arrive mid-October. Gov. Jim Hodges, who opposes the federal plan for relocating waste from Rocky Flats, Colo., to the Savannah River Site 90 miles upstream from Hilton Head Island, greeted the delay with renewed opposition and without optimism, said Cortney Owings, the governor's spokeswoman. "As long as the (Department of Energy) is bringing that plutonium to South Carolina at any time in the future, without honoring their agreement to provide processing facilities, then the governor is not comfortable," Owings said. She said aides in the governor's office remain in constant contact with the Energy Department, but that South Carolina "will not negotiate" without clear plans to process any waste that enters the state. She said the governor last met with Energy Department officials two weeks ago, but reiterated that Hodges had not agreed to accept the waste, despite the approach of the target shipment date. The department does not need the governor's approval to begin shipments, Owings said. Federal officials confirmed shipments remain imminent, pending suspension of the nationwide moratorium. "It's a priority," said Joe Davis, a department spokesman in Washington. "Rocky Flats is on an accelerated timetable. Our shipments will be ready to leave once the national situation changes." Owings said the governor's office originally agreed to accept the Rocky Flats plutonium based on Department of Energy promises that processing facilities would be built in South Carolina to render the plutonium less volatile. When the department informed the governor in March that budget cuts would force plutonium shipments to be sent without immediate processing plans, Hodges decided the new agreement was unacceptable, she said. After August negotiations with Department of Energy officials failed to produce a timetable for building processing facilities, Hodges said he would lie in the road to block plutonium shipments into the state. The governor's hard-line stance remains solid, said Owings, adding that Hodges is more committed than ever to keeping Rocky Flats' waste out of South Carolina. "It's definitely become an even bigger issue now, considering the recent attacks," Owings said. "Gov. Hodges is at least twice as anxious about such a volatile material coming into our state." Owings said the governor was prepared for "exercises with the Department of Public Safety at the border of South Carolina," if the previously scheduled shipment date next week were to arrive without the moratorium. She said the Department of Energy is not obligated to inform the state about exact shipment times, because of security concerns, but the governor is nonetheless ready to act. "We do have ways to prevent the plutonium from coming into South Carolina," she said. Patrick Etchart, an Energy Department spokesman in Rocky Flats, said the Colorado site has "adequate storage space for the time being" to deal with the unexpected delay, but he added there is no clear sense of how long a delay Rocky Flats could endure. Legislation designed to compel the department to develop a timetable for plutonium processing by February 2002 remains stalled in Congress, said Chuck Fant, press secretary to U.S. Rep. John Spratt, D-S.C. Spratt offered the legislation in August as an amendment to the defense authorization bill for 2002, which the House approved. The Senate passed a different version of the bill without Spratt's amendment; negotiations between the two houses of Congress will decide the amendment's fate. The Savannah River Site was established in the early 1950s to produce materials for nuclear weapons, focusing primarily on tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen, as well as a form of plutonium, according to the Energy Department. Though the site ceased production of nuclear material in the mid-1990s, it continues to process retired weapons components for future use as reactor fuel. The site covers 310 square miles along the Savannah River in parts of Aiken, Barnwell and Allendale counties. Copyright © 2001 The Island Packet ***************************************************************** 14 Candu reactors seen at risk [Thestar.com] Sun Oct 14, 2001 - Updated at 07:30 PM Peter Calamai SCIENCE REPORTER OTTAWA — The unusual design of Candu nuclear power stations like Pickering makes them peculiarly vulnerable to a terrorist attack, says the author of an accident risk study prepared for a Senate committee. Consultant Gordon Thompson said in an interview Friday that Ontario's nuclear stations were "susceptible" because the multiple reactors at each station rely on common systems for emergency core cooling and for vacuum containment. Most of the world's 400 nuclear generating stations have individual safety systems for each reactor unit, even at stations with two or more reactors. But the shared Candu safety systems mean that a severe earthquake or an act of malice such as a terrorist attack could cause breaches at all eight nuclear reactors that make up the 2,300-megawatt station, Thompson said. "The scenario of an eight-reactor accident has never been examined by anyone in Canada, basically because it is too uncomfortable, I imagine," he said. A self-described nuclear skeptic, Thompson heads the Institute for Resource and Security Studies, a small think-tank in Cambridge, Mass. He studied Ontario reactor safety in 1988 for a provincial government inquiry and also for an environmental coalition in 1993. Thompson said risk assessment studies are necessary to estimate the consequences of a multi-reactor accident at an Ontario nuclear plant. Depending on the robustness of fire and electrical systems, radioactive debris could be released, he said. He agrees with an American assessment that existing reactors — either U.S. or Canadian — were not designed to withstand the explosive force of a commercial aircraft laden with jet fuel. The aircraft could knock out the shared safety systems or overload them by causing ruptures, he said. In June, the Senate committee recommended that Ontario Power Generation be ordered by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission to conduct a full-scale analysis of probable risks at Pickering. Both the federal agency and the utility said a study was unnecessary. The nuclear safety commission is just now finishing an analysis of the enhanced security measures that it ordered on Sept. 11 for about 30 Class One nuclear installations across Canada, including Candu power reactors in Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- `The scenario of an eight-reactor accident has never been examined by anyone in Canada, basically because it is too uncomfortable, I imagine.' - Gordon Thompson -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Commission president Linda Keen plans to meet operators of the power reactors and other major nuclear installations in Ottawa within the next few weeks to discuss even more stringent security measures, according to officials at the federal regulatory agency. These new measures will be based in part on two security reports that the agency commissioned in late 1999 and early 2000. The reports deal with possible sabotage at nuclear power plants and identifying vital areas within Candu reactors. The commission is initially focusing on short-term safety improvements, said Jim Blyth, manager of the agency's terrorism response. "We're certainly not ruling out design changes, but they need to be carefully considered," Blyth said. Thompson stressed that an eight-reactor accident wouldn't necessarily be eight times worse than the rupture of a single reactor elsewhere, because of differences in the production of radioactive materials. He estimated that a hypothetical Pickering catastrophe could release twice as much cesium-137 as the 1,000-megawatt reactor that exploded at Chernobyl in 1986. This isotope is the longest-lived of the radioactive contamination released at Chernobyl, with a half-life of 30 years. Ontario also has another eight-reactor station at Bruce on Lake Huron and a four-reactor station at Darlington, 75 kilometres east of Toronto. In Ottawa yesterday, the RCMP weren't saying much about a report of a Kuwaiti man found with documents detailing an Atomic Energy Canada building and a federal disease- and virus-control site, Canadian Press reports. U.S. agents were briefed in Canada, according to the Los Angeles Times. "It's part of an ongoing investigation and we're not in a position to provide any details right now," said Serge Lalonde, an RCMP spokesperson in Ottawa. It is unclear which buildings the documents may have detailed. ***************************************************************** 15 Ahern singles out Sellafield ireland.com - The Irish Times - IRELAND Saturday, October 13, 2001 By Mark Hennessy Sellafield is the single most serious threat to Ireland's environment, the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, said in one of the strongest criticisms of the nuclear reprocessing plant. Opening the Fianna Fail Ard-fheis in Dublin, Mr Ahern said: "This survival dinosaur of a defunct military-industrial complex is being kept on life-support by the huge write-offs of British taxpayers' funds. "It has no stand-alone economic justification. It is the triumph of vested interest over economic reality." He said the Government was "appalled" by the British government's decision to finally clear the way for the opening of Sellafield's new mixed oxide (MOX) reprocessing plant. "It has all the hallmarks of a bad news story hastily released in the midst of a momentous international crisis in the hope that most people would be distracted," said the Taoiseach. The heightened threat from international terrorists in the wake of last month's attacks on the US meant the existing risks from Sellafield to Ireland were "unacceptably increased". "The opening of the MOX plant will mean that the Irish Sea is used as a highway for the transport of highly dangerous nuclear fuel to and from nuclear plants around the world," said Mr Ahern. He had personally conveyed the Government's "implacable opposition" to the decision to proceed with the MOX facility in a conversation last week with British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair. "It is not acceptable that the Irish Sea is used as a kitchen sink by the nuclear industry," Mr Ahern told Fianna Fáil Ardfheis delegates at the Citywest Hotel. Ireland's legal action against Sellafield would be prosecuted with full vigour before the OSPAR convention, a coalition of 14 countries with an interest in pollution levels in the north Atlantic. Besides OSPAR, the legal action would also be taken to the European Court of Justice and the United Nations. "This issue will not be allowed to rest. The campaign to close Sellafield - the campaign to stop the MOX plant in its tracks - is only begun. "It is a campaign that will be waged ceaselessly until it is won," Mr Ahern declared. The Taoiseach insisted that Aer Lingus had to survive, despite its economic woes in the wake of the September 11th attacks. "Sooner rather than later I hope and believe that the world will recover from September 11th and its ongoing aftermath. "We cannot allow a situation to arise where Ireland is no longer readily accessible to and from our main trading and tourism centres," he said. Six thousand delegates are expected to attend the ardfheis for Mr Ahern's presidential address at 8 p.m. tonight. ***************************************************************** 16 More Fears Over Yucca Dump Plan October 14, THE NATION From Associated Press PAHRUMP, Nev. -- Residents in rural Nye County echoed fears of radioactivity tainting ground water, terrorists striking transportation routes and corroding storage canisters if the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump opens in Nevada. Resident Sally Devlin said she isn't swayed by government scientists' findings after nine years of study that the nation's 77,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel can safely be contained for at least 10,000 years in a maze of tunnels about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Devlin said at the final formal hearing on the federal government's proposal that Nevada and especially Nye County are unprepared for a nuclear accident. The Department of Energy hearing Friday was the last before Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham recommends to President Bush whether the nuclear waste repository should be built at the western edge of the Nevada Test Site. It is the only site under consideration. Nye County Health Officer Maureen Budahl testified that the Energy Department should extend its studies beyond the geological suitability of the Yucca Mountain site. "It is imperative the Department of Energy be prepared to assist us," she said. Mary Wilson, vice chairwoman of the Pahrump Town Board, said Nye County's rural communities would be affected most by a Yucca Mountain repository. Nye County is geographically Nevada's largest county--a sprawling 18,064 square miles. It has about 30,000 residents. "Pahrump, Amargosa Valley, Beatty, Tonopah, Goldfield and Mercury--they are all much more affected by Yucca Mountain than is Las Vegas," Wilson said. For information about reprinting this article, go to http://www.lats.com/rights/register.htm Copyright 2001 Los Angeles Times ***************************************************************** 17 NDP to stand amid claims of nuclear threat ABC News - This Bulletin: Sat, 13 Oct 2001 11:54 AEST The Nuclear Disarmament Party has registered two candidates in the Federal election, as an anti-war protest. Party founder Dr Michael Denborough will stand with community activist Yvonne Francis for the Senate in New South Wales. Dr Denborough says the NDP lost its seats in parliament after the fall of the Berlin Wall, as most people thought the threat of nuclear weapons had gone. But he says since last month's terrorist attacks in the US, the use of nuclear arms has been raised three times. © 1999 Australian Broadcasting Corporation ***************************************************************** 18 Nuclear plant secure, say officials In a letter meant to allay fears, the vice president of the Florida Power facility outlines how they are guarding it. By ALEX LEARY © St. Petersburg Times, published October 13, 2001 CRYSTAL RIVER -- In an unusual move prompted by unusual times, the vice president of Florida Power's nuclear plant on Friday sought to calm fears concerning plant safety. In an open letter to the public, faxed to the Citrus Times, Dale Young said many of the security measures enacted since Sept. 11 have to remain secret, implying that to do otherwise would compromise the plant. But faced with media reports and concern from the public, he sketched a faint outline of the line of defense. Other than noting the close coordination with federal, state and local law enforcement, the letter mainly focuses on protections in place before the attacks. Young calls attention to the structural integrity of the plant, the armed guards who patrol the grounds 24 hours a day and emergency contingency plans. "Nuclear plants are among the most secure industrial facilities in the world," Young wrote. Florida Power spokesman Mac Harris said the letter was an attempt to "pull together in one readable piece" information that had been released to the media in spurts. The nation's 103 nuclear plants have been on high alert since the attacks. Initially after the jetliners were used to ram the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, fear spread that terrorists would do the same to a nuclear facility. Young noted the plant's thick concrete walls and steel reinforcements but does not go as far as to suggest the nuclear reactor containment building could withstand the impact of a jet. In recent weeks the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has acknowledged that nuclear plants were not designed to withstand such crashes, so it is unknown how the reactor containment building here would fare. Though the letter provides few specifics, Harris has said that the plant's security force is augmented with sheriff's deputies and that the Coast Guard is patrolling the nearby Gulf of Mexico. In addition, access to the nuclear and coal complex has been restricted to those with essential business. "It's as if we had received a direct threat," Harris said earlier this week. "It's that level of awareness we're in." ***************************************************************** 19 Pataki orders National Guard to protect nuclear plants By Ben Dobbin, Associated Press, 10/13/2001 22:36 ONTARIO, N.Y. (AP) On Gov. George Pataki's orders, Army National Guard troops dressed in camouflage fatigues and toting M-16 rifles took up posts Saturday at a half-dozen nuclear reactors around New York. At the Robert E. Ginna atomic plant, one of America's oldest, soldiers with the state's 27th Brigade stood at the ready at several entrances and patrolled the perimeter. They declined to answer questions about their mission. The 470-megawatt plant, which sits on the shore of Lake Ontario 16 miles east of Rochester, uses 60 tons of uranium a year. It supplies half of operator Rochester Gas &Electric Corp.'s electricity enough to serve between 200,000 and 300,000 homes. Pataki said that no specific threats had been made against New York's nuclear plants but ''deploying our Guard troops to augment existing security ... will provide added peace of mind to New Yorkers and an added deterrent.'' The deployment ''is a prudent action ... in light of the continuing general threats being made by terrorist groups'' since hijacked planes toppled New York's World Trade Center towers and destroyed part of the Pentagon on Sept. 11, the governor's office said in a statement. The brigade also was ordered to deploy soldiers at five other nuclear plants two Indian Point reactors in Westchester County north of New York City and the James A. Fitzpatrick, Nine Mile 1 and Nine Mile 2 plants along Lake Ontario in Scriba, north of Syracuse. The soldiers will provide relief for state and local police who have been helping guard nuclear plants in the last month. They will remain on duty there as long as needed to augment security, Pataki said. Last week, troops from the same brigade were ordered to boost security at 19 airports across the state, and guardsmen also have been placed at train stations, tunnels and bridges in New York City. Ginna, which opened in 1970, was refitted with new generators in 1996 and its license expires in 2009. [Boston Globe ***************************************************************** 20 Suit filed to block nuclear site regulations ContraCostaTimes.com Published Friday, October 12, 2001 By Don Thompson ASSOCIATED PRESS SACRAMENTO -- Three nuclear watchdog organizations are suing the California Department of Health Services to block new regulations governing acceptable amounts of radioactivity at contaminated sites. The groups sued to stop regulations that could win final approval Monday and take effect in 30 days. The regulations track guidelines from the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission that have been in place since 1998, when the permissible amount of annual exposure was lowered from 100 millirems to 25 millirems, said Ed Bailey, the department's chief of radiological health. "What we adopted, essentially, is the current national standard for cleanup of a nuclear-contaminated site," Bailey said. The state has been following that standard for three years but only now is putting it into formal regulation, he said. The suit by the Committee to Bridge the Gap, Southern California Federation of Scientists and the Los Angeles chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility alleges the California version of the regulations could still permit exposures of 100 millirems or even 500 millirems. Twenty-five millirems are the equivalent of 170 chest X-rays over a lifetime, while the opponents say the pending regulations would permit radioactivity at nuclear sites the equivalent of 3,500 lifetime X-rays. That's enough to cause cancer in one of every 60 people exposed, far higher than the one in a million cancer risk usually required by the Environmental Protection Agency, the opponents allege in the suit filed Tuesday in Sacramento Superior Court. Bailey said it would be rare to allow the higher level, which would be strictly regulated. Just five sites across the nation are seeking to use the higher standard, he said. The groups also cite letters from the department to state Sen. Sheila Kuehl, D-Santa Monica, and U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., they say show the department intends to allow shipments of nuclear waste to landfills and other facilities that are not licensed to handle radioactive materials. "Disposing of low-level radioactive waste in a facility that's not licensed to handle radioactive waste is very dangerous," said Kuehl, who said the proposed regulations "are going in the entirely wrong direction." Low-level waste can have a cumulative effect as it builds up in landfills, said Kuehl. She has a bill awaiting legislative action next year that would set a much stricter standard, one the department's Bailey said would be "prohibitively expensive." Bailey countered that the radioactivity levels of the material that could be shipped to landfills and other sites would be so low as to have a negligible effect. The suit also alleges the department is violating environmental laws by not requiring an environmental review of the regulations. Bailey said there was an environmental review when the regulations were adopted at the national level. ContraCostaTimes.com ***************************************************************** 21 Churches Silent on Storing Nuclear Waste in Utah The Salt Lake Tribune -- Saturday, October 13, 2001 BY JUDY FAHYS Jim and Maryann Webster tried to enlist their church last year in a fight to block storage of spent nuclear fuel on the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation. At stake, they said, was nothing less than the health, safety and well-being of their family and of fellow Utahns. But the East Bench couple was disappointed when The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints declined to get involved. "They said it was a political issue, and they have not yet taken a position," said Maryann Webster, an active Mormon. The church urged her to work with her state legislator on the issue. The Websters, who plan to seek the church's endorsement again, consider storing nuclear waste in Utah an issue that converges public policy and ethical principles. To them, it's an issue their church might condemn as loudly as it now criticizes threats to families and loosening alcoholic-beverage controls, as plainly as it denounced the MX missile two decades ago. But the LDS Church -- as well as other faiths -- has remained silent so far. In fact, a coalition of political leaders, environmental groups and dissident Goshute tribe members opposing the facility, called Utah's High-Level Nuclear Opposition, hasn't sought its support. When asked to comment for this story, LDS church spokesman Dale Bills issued a statement that said: "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has taken no position on the question of storing nuclear waste in Utah." The LDS Church officials have previously said the church only gets involved in political issues it considers to have moral implications, which have included gay marriage initiatives and alcohol control. Wiley Rinaldi, spokesman for Utah's Baha'is, and the Rev. Steven Epperson, minister of the South Valley Unitarian Universalist Society, say the question of the Goshute facility just has not been raised, although both faiths have general statements on environmental issues. Local Catholics have not issued a statement either, but two representatives are members of Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah, or HEAL, a public health and environment group opposed to radioactive waste in Utah. Bishop George Niederauer and Dee Rowland, the Salt Lake diocese's government liaison, have been monitoring debate over high-level nuclear waste as advisory board members. "We have never taken a position," said Rowland. "I never asked for it." Two issues make taking a stand difficult, she said. One is U.S. Catholics have long supported Native peoples' right to conduct their own affairs on sovereign lands. Given that, the church would back the Goshute leaders who have signed a contract to store nuclear waste on the reservation. The second concern is that nuclear waste policy is a national issue about which U.S. Catholics would typically weigh in on as a group, rather than parish by parish, she said. And, while the subject has come up at national gatherings of Catholics, no position has been taken. Aside from these considerations, Rowland maintains that the question of what to do with nuclear waste is a moral one and worthy of attention by the religious community. She notes that the Salt Lake City Diocese's former leader, Bishop William K. Wiegand, was an active member of the Don't Waste Utah campaign, which fought to keep nuclear waste of southeastern Utah. "We would certainly call it a health issue and a strong environmental justice issue," she said. Despite the LDS Church's silence, opponents of the facility -- including a U.S. senator -- want the church's backing. Calling high-level radioactive waste "nuclear poison," Sen. Harry Reid has led the opposition against the Utah storage site, as well as a permanent repository in the desert about 100 miles north of Las Vegas. "It's very hard to get them involved in the politics of things," said the Nevada Democrat, a Mormon like all five members of Utah's congressional delegation. "But it would be nice if they could" weigh in. Proponents of the facility wonder why anyone would seek endorsements from religious leaders on an issue concerning national energy policy, scientific suitability and public safety. They insist the Goshute facility would pose virtually no risk to the public -- in Utah or anywhere else -- while serving larger patriotic goals of providing storage for an energy source that protects the nation's air quality and helps fuel the national economy. Private Fuel Storage, a coalition of eight utility companies based in the East, Midwest and California, has proposed parking spent nuclear fuel on 125-acres leased from the Goshutes, about 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. Assuming the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission grants the consortium a license, probably next year, the above-ground storage would hold about 4,000, thick steel-and-concrete casks filled with used-up nuclear rods until a permanent disposal site is secured, probably at Nevada's Yucca Mountain. The licensing process, proponents say, will ensure the project is safe from possible catastrophes, including a stray missile strike from the nearby Air Force test bombing range, a diesel-fuel fire that might engulf a train or truck transporting the stuff or the up-and-down and sideways jostling of an earthquake. The questions now are scientific ones, said PFS spokeswoman Sue Martin. "We do not believe this is or should be a moral issue," she said. "It should not be a political issue at this point." Opponents insist safety, politics and ethics are relevant. They point to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York City as evidence that steel and concrete structures are not invulnerable. They point to the risks posed by errant aircraft and question why the storage pad does not meet the same earthquake-safety standards as an Interstate-15 overpass. Opponents need only to look at the LDS Church's role in derailing Congress' plans to put MX missiles in Utah's desert 20 years ago to grasp the LDS Church's political sway, even in national policy. University of Utah law professor Ed Firmage recalls that it took awhile for church leaders to agree that the placement of nuclear missiles in the Mormon homeland was "a deep ethical and spiritual issue." A statement by the First Presidency on May 5, 1981, detailed the church's concerns. President Spencer W. Kimball, First Counselor N. Eldon Tanner and Second Counselor Marion G. Romney talked about the Saint's beloved Zion becoming a first-strike target for a nuclear attack and how the presence of the MX missiles threatened the people and ecology of Utah and Nevada. "Our fathers came to this western area to establish a base from which to carry the gospel of peace to the peoples of the earth," the statement said. "It is ironic, and a denial of the very essence of that gospel, that in this same general area there should be constructed a mammoth weapons system potentially capable of destroying much of civilization." The statement continued with a plea that political leaders "marshal the genius of the nation to find viable alternatives which will secure at an earlier date and with fewer hazards the protection from possible enemy aggression." Said Firmage: "The statement literally killed MX." Although Firmage has not contacted church leaders on the Goshute facility, he views the question of nuclear missiles and nuclear waste as being "on the same footing" in the moral traditions of all faiths. "This is an issue that cries out for an ethical statement from religious figures," he said. Anti-nuclear activists in Washington would be pleased to see religious leaders -- especially those from Utah's predominant faith -- weigh in on their side. "It would make all the difference in the world if the Church took a stand," said Kevin Kamps of the Nuclear Information Resource Service, a non-profit group based up the street from the White House. "That's what it would take to put a stop to this" PFS-Goshute proposal. For the Websters, though, the waste storage is much less about Washington politics than it is about the protection of the wholesome environment where they hope their children will someday raise their grandchildren. "We feel strongly that Utah, the world center of Mormonism, should not also be known as the world's largest nuclear waste dump," the couple said a year ago in a letter to LDS Church President Gordon Hinckley. © Copyright 2001, The Salt Lake Tribune All material found on ***************************************************************** 22 Nuclear firms not fearful of terrorism Sunday, October 14, 2001 Japan's electric power companies are continuing to allow the public to visit their nuclear facilities despite security concerns in the wake of last month's terrorist attacks on the United States, company officials said Saturday. Officials from nine power companies from Hokkaido to Kyushu told Kyodo News that they still open their facilities to local residents and others who wish to visit as part of their efforts to promote the safety of nuclear power. However, Japan Atomic Power Co. said it has halted tours of its nuclear power plants, including one in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture. A spokesman for Tokyo Electric Power Co. dismissed concerns that terrorists could disguise themselves as visitors, saying, "It is natural for us to take all possible measures to ensure the safety (of facilities and visitors)." The number of visitors to Tepco's three nuclear power plants in Fukushima and Niigata prefectures in October was the same as the previous month, the spokesman said. A spokesman for Tohoku Electric Power Co. also said he does not believe the number of visitors to the firm's Onagawa nuclear power plant in Miyagi Prefecture has fallen due to the suicide airliner attacks on New York and Washington. However, the power companies have apparently stepped up measures to ensure the safety of the nuclear facilities they operate, with Hokkaido Electric Power Co. conducting more stringent identity checks and Tohoku Electric Power inspecting visitors' baggage with metal detectors. Chubu Electric Power Co. said it no longer allows visitors to enter the central control room of its nuclear power plant. The Tepco spokesman said the company wants to continue to open its doors to visitors at its nuclear power plants as it has in the past. The Japan Times: Oct. 14, 2001 ***************************************************************** 23 Nuke waste delay is dangerous Denver Post.com >Gail Schoettler Sunday, October 14, 2001 - Every terrorist in the world wants a tiny piece of plutonium, the trigger he needs for a nuclear weapon - a nuclear weapon that would be far more devastating to the United States than the four hijacked airplanes that became fiery missiles. At this time of significant terrorist threats, we need to put a higher priority on solving the problem of plutonium disposal and security. Throughout the Cold War, Rocky Flats produced plutonium triggers for nuclear bombs. Today, it is on an accelerated cleanup schedule, and will supposedly be a showcase for how to clean up the country's entire nuclear-weapons complex. As part of the Rocky Flats cleanup, plutonium is being shipped to several treatment and storage facilities outside Colorado, including sites in New Mexico and Texas. More plutonium was scheduled this month to go to the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. This piece of the plan is now in jeopardy, as South Carolina has balked at accepting Rocky Flats' waste without certain federal guarantees. Earlier this year, Undersecretary of Energy Robert Card - the former CEO of Kaiser-Hill, the cleanup contractor at Rocky Flats - assured both South Carolina and Colorado that it had a plan to guarantee each state would get what it wanted. The Rocky Flats project would continue on schedule. South Carolina would get plutonium treatment facilities and the jobs they would bring and a timeline for ultimate disposal of the waste outside South Carolina. But the Bush administration derailed the plan. During the Clinton administration, agreement was reached on storing and treating plutonium at Savannah River. Given the politics of shipping and storing nuclear waste, it was a fragile agreement. The Bush administration then dumped parts of the plan, thereby collapsing the entire deal between South Carolina, the federal government and states with nuclear weapons facilities, including Colorado. As a result, the Rocky Flats cleanup faces indefinite delays. It's time to put the deal back together, with strong, focused leadership and the money to back it up. Here's why: No one wants nuclear waste stored in their states. Given the tense security environment following the Sept. 11 attacks, transporting nuclear waste is even riskier than before. Nonetheless, having plutonium scattered at numerous sites around the country is an even greater security risk. There are simply more places for a terrorist to get plutonium. The United States needs to treat and store plutonium in a limited number of locations with the highest security. Given the political unpopularity of accepting another state's waste, the federal government will have to sweeten the pot to persuade any state to take the nuclear materials. For South Carolina, this means the jobs that treatment facilities could offer and a commitment to remove the plutonium from the state by a specific date. Next, the secretary of energy, with the backing of President Bush, must get all the affected states together, including those on the transportation routes, to hammer out solutions to the political, security, transportation and ultimate disposal problems. This is no easy task. Any set of solutions will be very expensive. They will generate significant protests by citizens, environmentalists and politicians. The alternative, however, is to leave plutonium and other nuclear waste scattered around the country. Security will be much more difficult and expensive. Accounting for all the waste will be far more complicated. The risk of theft will be much greater. We can no longer afford a NIMBY attitude about plutonium. We can't afford a federal government that breaks its promises. We risk a catastrophic attack or accident if nuclear materials are not stored safely and securely. If the Bush administration doesn't take immediate leadership on this critical issue, the governors of the affected states should use their political influence to force the federal government to act. To wait and hope for a solution endangers all Americans. Gail Schoettler (gailschoettler@email.msn.com) has been a U.S. ambassador, Colorado lieutenant governor and treasurer, and a school board member. All contents Copyright 2001 The Denver Post or other copyright ***************************************************************** 24 Nuclear chiefs refuse to halt trains 'at risk' Independent News © 2001 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd By Geoffrey Lean 14 October 2001 Britain is continuing to run trainloads of nuclear waste through London and other cities, despite the danger of terrorists blowing them up. The US government last Monday stopped all movements of potentially dangerous nuclear materials, but British Nuclear Fuels told The Independent on Sunday last week that it would go on running its trains, which carry used nuclear fuel from reactors to its controversial Sellafield reprocessing plant. The Greater London Authority will issue an inquiry report tomorrow which will highlight the danger to the trains from terrorists. It will also show that no emergency response exercise has been undertaken in the capital. Darren Johnson, Mayor Ken Livingstone's environmental adviser, who chaired the inquiry, said: "The nuclear industry has always said that it did not consider terrorist attack a real threat. But we believe it is a matter of great concern." John Large, a nuclear consultant who has carried out several studies into transport of the spent fuel by train, said that an attack on the trains in a town or city could cause "hundreds to thousands of deaths" as the waste caught fire. He said: "It used to be thought that this would not attract much interest from terrorists because it would be a hazardous operation in which they would risk their own lives." But 11 September demolished that illusion, and showed how terrorists were prepared to adapt the power of technology to their ends. Patrick van den Bulck of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament added: "It was bad enough when the greatest risk was the remote possibility of an accident to a train. But, in the new atmosphere, continuing with the transport is irresponsible." BNFL said that it would continue with the transport unless told to stop by the Office of Civilian Nuclear Security. But, as The Independent on Sunday reported last week, this supposedly "independent" body is part of the Department of Trade and Industry – the company's sole shareholder. ***************************************************************** 25 Blocked Nuclear Data Seen Lifting Power Prices Posted at 12:53 p.m. PDT Friday, October 12, 2001 NEW YORK (Reuters) - A federal agency's decision to stop posting potentially sensitive nuclear power plant data on its Web site following the Sept. 11 attacks could push up wholesale electricity prices, traders said on Friday. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which oversees the use of all radioactive materials in the country, suspended its Web site on Thursday, as part of a general tightening of security nationwide. ``Our site is not operational at this time. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has taken the action to shut down its web site,'' the NRC said in a statement posted on the site (). ``In support of our mission to protect public health and safety, we are performing a review of all material on our site. We appreciate your patience and understanding during these difficult times.'' Among information previously shown on the Web site was the plants' locations, including longitude and latitude, and general design specifications for each facility. Several electricity traders, who look daily to the federal agency's plant status report for fundamental market supply data, told Reuters not knowing whether a plant was operating raised uncertainties that would be reflected in higher prices. ``It's amazing how Sept. 11 has affected things you would never expect,'' one Houston-based trader said. The daily plant status report lists the operating status of each of the 103 U.S. nuclear reactors, which provide about 20 percent of the country's electricity. ``If they find some reason this information would be dangerous in the hands of a terrorist, then I'm all for keeping it off the Web site,'' the trader said, echoing the views of all the power traders Reuters surveyed. They warned, however, that keeping the information from the marketplace would give reactor owners and the local utilities they supply a big advantage over energy marketers who have no power plants in the area. Nuclear reactors are among the lowest cost sources of electricity in the United States. When a nuclear plant shuts, the region's grid operator tells generating companies to fire up more expensive oil- and gas- fired plants to cover the shortfall. ``You take in all the information available, process it and make a best guess at what the price of power will be each day based on what plants are available, what the weather is, what the cost of fuel is. Not knowing where the nukes are is just another unknown that will cost money,'' one trader said. ContraCostaTimes.com ***************************************************************** 26 Deadly Mox cargo is headed for Irish Sea Irish Newspapers - Date : Sun October 14th 01 The Taoiseach has accused British PM of breaking agreement on developments at Sellafield , write Kevin Moore and Jerome Reilly A DEADLY cargo of highly radioactive mixed oxide fuel (Mox) described as a "floating nuclear bomb" will be on the Irish Sea within months, despite tense exchanges between the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, and the British prime minister Tony Blair last week. A shipment of the material was sent to Japan in July 1999, but it is being sent back following its rejection by Japanese electricity utilities backed by their government because British Nuclear Fuels Ltd (BNFL) had falsified quality control standards for the Mox fuel. Its return early next year will spark huge protests by Greenpeace and other environmental groups, which are seeking the closure of the state-owned facility at Sellafield in Cumbria. Greenpeace International, which is monitoring the situation, says the shipments invite terrorist attack, as does the main complex, which is contaminating the Irish and North Seas and releasing toxic waste into the atmosphere. Despite the normally cordial relations between Mr Ahern and Mr Blair, the Taoiseach pulled few punches during a lengthy phone call on Monday night. He accused Tony Blair of rushing out a decision on a new Mox plant at Sellafield and said that he had broken an agreement between the two governments to discuss the sensitive issue before a decision was made. In Britain, the decision has given rise to allegations that the British government has been using the "war on terrorism" as a smokescreen to "bury" controversial announcements. It follows the row over the e-mail sent by Jo Moore, special adviser to the Secretary of State for Transport, Stephen Byers, suggesting her department rush out "bad news" in the wake of the terrorist attacks in America so that they would receive little media coverage. An Irish Government spokesman said: "The Taoiseach spoke quite clearly about our concerns in relation to the commissioning of this Mox plant, and particularly because it was the subject of arbitration proceedings between Ireland and the UK under the Ospar Convention [for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic]. "It was agreed that they will discuss the matter again at some length. We had specifically asked that no decision would be made while the arbitration process was still going on but they just went ahead with it," the Government spokesman said. Gordon Thompson, executive director of the Institute of Resource and Security Studies at Cambridge, Massachusetts, calculates that if a Boeing 747 ploughed into Sellafield the impact would break open several of its 21 concrete and steel tanks. These contain more than 5,300 cubic feet of high-level radioactive liquid waste. These dangers and others will be considered at a conference of environment ministers from the Nordic countries in Copenhagen on October 29 and 30. The Irish Government is hoping to forge an alliance with the Nordic states. This will be a top priority at the Copenhagen meeting. Mr Ahern, has warned that Britain's decision in the last month to open another stg£473m nuclear plant at Sellafield heightens fears. This will make fuel for nuclear reactors from a mix of uranium and plutonium with the fuel transported by ship through the Irish Sea to other countries. The Mox plant has been lying idle for four years, during which time BNFL was rocked by a scandal involving the falsification of Mox data, relating to the trade with Japan. Mr Ahern had specifically asked Mr Blair not to sanction the start-up of the complex pending the outcome of a legal challenge to the reprocessing facility. The Attorney General, Michael McDowell, is examining the prospect of taking a case under EU law. Frank Barnaby, of the Oxford Research Group of scientists, said it would be relatively easy for terrorists to make crude nuclear devices from stolen Mox fuel by separating out its plutonium content. The size of the nuclear explosion from such a bomb is impossible to predict, but even if it were only equivalent to a few tens of tons of TNT, it would devastate the centre of a large city, Dr Barnaby warned. In a statement, BNFL made it clear that it had taken into account the risk of a passenger jet hitting its facilities at Sellafield. "Major nuclear facilities, including, for example, reactors and highly active waste stores, are constructed to extremely robust engineering standards and incorporate large quantities of reinforced concrete as an integral part of the construction," the statement pointed out. "These facilities are resistant to many terrorist threats, including aircraft impact. Safety cases and contingency plans take these events into account." THE DANGERS SHAUN BURNIE, Scottish-born research director for Greenpeace International, who works in East Asia, including Japan, was in Dublin last week to discuss BNFL developments with activists. When asked what the organisation planned for the return of the rejected Mox fuel and its passage up the Irish Sea he told the @@STYL cf,ggli Sunday Independent: "We are working on that at the moment." Mr Burnie's organisation and other environmental groups have a long history of demonstrations at BNFL, highlighting its vulnerability not only to peaceful protests but also terrorist attack. * In 1999, the MV Greenpeace @@STYL cf,ggbld blocked the channel at Barrow-on-Furness as the Mox fuel shipment was leaving for Japan, causing a delay of 12 hours, despite the presence of the Royal Navy and troops; * In 1998, Greenpeace went "underwater" at the Sellafield pipeline to get samples on the seabed and survey marine life; * In 1995, more than 200 Greenpeace activists invaded Sellafield through the front gate and climbed to the top of the Mox plant beside the store for plutonium, the raw material for nuclear bombs; * In 1988, the pipeline from Sellafield, which pumps radioactive waste into the Irish Sea, was blocked by protesters in a flotilla of boats. Mr Burnie said that these protests, which included serious breaches of security, were all carried out by "ordinary people". What might be achieved by dedicated terrorists? he asked. And he pointed out that the demonstrations, dating back to 1988, came after the Chernobyl nuclear power station disaster in 1986, making nonsense of a BNFL claim to have introduced "effective" security in the last 15 years. Mr Burnie said: "There are four reactors operating at Sellafield as well ... not just plutonium facilities. You can see most of the pipework from outside, as there is no secondary containment." He added that you did not have to use an aircraft as a flying bomb, as happened in New York on September 11. "You could do some serious damage with an air pistol." A direct hit by a passenger jet would contaminate Britain and Ireland with nearly three times more radioactivity than escaped during the Chernobyl disaster, scientists predict. Up to 2,646lb of the highly radioactive and long-lasting isotope caesium-137 would escape into the atmosphere, contaminating Britain, Ireland and western continental Europe. © Copyright Unison ***************************************************************** 27 Chancellor promises Czech premier Germany not to block EU energy chapter BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Oct 13, 2001 Berlin, 12 October: Germany will not delay closing the nuclear energy chapter within the Czech Republic's EU accession talks, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder (SPD) said today after meeting Czech Prime Minister Milos Zeman (Czech Social Democrats, CSSD). Germany will not try to do so although its way of assessing of the Temelin nuclear power plant's safety is different from Prague's, Schroeder said. Temelin is a new nuclear power plant in southern Bohemia. There is widespread opposition to it in Austria, Germany's neighbour and EU member. Its opponents say the plant is not safe because it combines Soviet design and Western fuel and safety technology. The launch of the plant began a year ago. "Germany supports the Czech Republic's entry into the EU massively, without any reservations. This concerns the energy chapter as well," Schroeder said at a joint press conference with Zeman. "Although individual aspects of the energy policy are assessed differently, these differences do not affect Germany's wish that the energy chapter be closed as soon as possible," Schroeder said. He said EU Enlargement Commissioner Guenter Verheugen shared the opinion. Schroeder described German-Czech relations as problem free and friendly. The two prime ministers said their meeting had concentrated on the international situation and agreed on its assessment. Zeman said the Czech Republic was closely watching German bills concerning financial aspects of the fight against terrorism and found them inspiring. Schroeder said he hoped that the international coalition against terror would remain united and continue firmly siding with the USA. Schroeder expressed "respect" to economic results achieved by Zeman's government. Zeman thanked Schroeder for his view of the Czech energy chapter. Zeman also said he expected the free movement of labour chapter to be closed soon within Prague's EU accession talks. Germany seeks a seven year transitional period on workforce migration after new members' accession. Zeman said the labour migration chapter should be closed by the end of this year... Source: CTK news agency, Prague, in English 1601 gmt 12 Oct 01 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter All Material Subject to ***************************************************************** 28 UK nuclear and sewage emissions on-line Edie weekly summaries 12/10/2001 Information on emissions from UK nuclear sites and large sewage treatment works can now be obtained via the UK Environment Agency’s web-based Pollution Inventory. A total of 28 nuclear sites have voluntarily provided data on radioactive releases; and of these, all were within authorised limits. The Environment Agency stated that radiological assessments and environmental monitoring confirmed that the impact of discharges is well within national and international dose limits and constraints. The inclusion of large sewage treatment works - those serving populations greater than 150,000, was a requirement of a UK Government Ministerial Direction, issued to English water companies in March 2001. Initial figures cover the annual measured emissions of pollution inventory substances in water effluent in the year 2000. Progressively small sewage treatment works will be included in subsequent years. These are the two latest industry groups to be added to the database that was established in 1999, and now has information on over 150 different pollutants from around 2000 of the largest industrial processes in England and Wales. Users can find out the emissions profile for any local area by providing the postcode or clicking on a map. “Data from major industry overall continues to show a good downward trend with many of the most important pollutants to air and water showing significant reductions from 1999 to 2000,” said Environment Agency Head of Chemicals Policy Steve Killeen. edie newsroom © Faversham House Group Ltd 2001. This ***************************************************************** 29 Ukraine: Reactor at power plant stopped by automatic switch BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Oct 13, 2001 Text of report by Ukrainian news agency UNIAN Zaporizhzhya, 13 October: The No 1 generating set at the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant was stopped over a fault in the external electricity lines at 1016 [local time, 0716 gmt] today, UNIAN learnt at the information department of the power plant. A switch in the 750 kV electricity lines outside the power plant was automatically switched off causing the generating set to stop. The reason for the disconnection is being investigated. Safety requirements were not violated and the event did not affect the radiation level at or around the power plant, the information department said. Three out of six generating sets currently work at the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant: No 2, No 4 and No 6. Their aggregate output is 2,850 MW. The generating sets No 3 and No 5 are under regular repairs. The No 3 reactor was stopped for repairs at 0136 today [2236 gmt on 12 October]. Source: UNIAN news agency, Kiev, in Ukrainian 1342 gmt 13 Oct 01 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter All Material Subject to ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 Sick nuclear workers can get help with claims Amarillo Globe-News: Local News: Web posted Saturday, October 13, 2001 The U.S. Labor Department will have a traveling resource center in Amarillo next week to help handle worker claims under a new workers compensation law to benefit nuclear weapons workers sickened by working on atomic weapons. The labor and energy departments will host open-door sessions at the Amarillo Ambassador Hotel. Workers can schedule appointments by calling toll-free, (866) 272-3622, or drop in between 9 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and between 8 a.m. and noon on Friday. The new federal law provides $150,000 in lump-sum compensation as well as related medical expenses to workers who are seriously ill because they were exposed to beryllium, silica or radiation while working for the Department of Energy, its contractors or subcontractors in the nuclear weapons industry. It also provides benefits to some survivors. © 2001 Amarillo Globe-News ***************************************************************** 2 Security increased at ports near nuclear facilities Published Saturday, October 13, 2001 Statewire TWO CREEKS, Wis. (AP) -- The U.S. Coast Guard has increased security at ports near two nuclear plants in the state, creating security zones that could prevent ships from approaching the plants. Coast Guard boats have enhanced patrols in the waters around the Kewaunee and Point Beach nuclear power plants and will prohibit ships from entering nearby waters if officials perceive a potential threat to the plants' security, officials said. " We' re setting up contingencies in case the threat around there grows higher, " said Lt. Cmdr. Tim Sickler, Coast Guard captain for the Port of Milwaukee. " It' s a precautionary step more than anything else." More than 90 similar security zones have been established in ports across the United States, and the Wisconsin facilities have been on the highest level of alert since the terrorist attacks Sept. 11. Employees are subjected to background searches and daily searches, said Doug Day, a spokesman for Nuclear Management Co. of Hudson, which operates the plants. Wisconsin Electric Power Co. owns Point Beach; Wisconsin Public Service Co. and Alliant Energy Corp. own the Kewaunee plant. " We' re protecting against sabotage at the plants, " Day said. The visitor center at Point Beach is closed for tours, and a 100-acre public park in the town of Carlton near the Kewaunee plant is closed until further notice. Lake Michigan fishing piers near the plants also are closed. But experts say radiation leaks are unlikely anyway, as nuclear reactors are encased in heavy steel and concrete and sunk deep in the earth. The plants can withstand major natural disasters or deliberate attacks, said Michael Corradini, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of engineering physics. He called a radiation leak " a very low probability." Nuclear power critics remain worried. Dan Hirsch, president of Committee to Bridge the Gap, a nonprofit group devoted to closing nuclear plants, said half of the country' s 103 nuclear plants failed mock drills in the ' 90s in which teams were able to penetrate security. " For 15 years, we have warned the Nuclear Regulatory Commission its security regulations are grossly inadequate compared to the magnitude of the terrorist threat, " Hirsch said. Both Wisconsin plants passed those tests, said Nuclear Management Co. spokeswoman Maureen Brown. " Our plants are physically robust, we have armed and expertly trained security people to detect and repel any kind of incursion, " she said. Day said even a worst-case attack would not endanger Wisconsin residents. Nearby residents seemed unconcerned about a potential terrorist hit on the plants. Bert Shefchek, owner of Two Creeks Garage, a heavy machinery repair shop near the power plant, said the area near the facilities was too sparsely populated be a terrorist target. " They' re not going to strike here because there' s hardly anybody living here, " he said. Copyright 2001 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This ***************************************************************** 3 Officials think al Qaeda has some type of nuclear arms -- The Washington Times October 13, 2001 By Bill Gertz THE WASHINGTON TIMES Al Qaeda terrorists in Afghanistan have developed chemical and biological weapons and could have nuclear-related arms, defense officials said yesterday. "What we believe is that they have a crude chemical and possibly biological [weapons] capability," a senior defense official said. "And if there's any nuclear capability, it is liable to be more radiological than fissile," the official said. Radiological weapons are bombs that combine radioactive material with conventional explosives to increase their deadliness. A fissile nuclear device produces a nuclear blast. The chemical weapons al Qaeda is believed to have include simple poison weapons such as chlorine and phosgene. "We're not talking up to sarin," the official said. Sarin is an extremely deadly nerve agent. The chemicals are relatively simple to produce, the official said, noting that "they don't take a lot of mixing." Delivering the weapons could be difficult for the terrorists, but they may resort to "innovative" means, the official said. As for biological weapons, the senior official said it is "probable" the al Qaeda terrorists have developed some type of deadly toxin weapons, possibly including anthrax. "And this could be a bucketful; this could be a ton," the official said. The officials would not discuss the facilities for the development of the weapons of mass destruction inside Afghanistan. Other U.S. intelligence officials have said there have been reports that al Qaeda has secret weapons laboratories in the country. "We have copies of the manuals that they've actually used to train people with respect to how to deploy and use these kinds of substances," Vice President Richard B. Cheney said in an interview yesterday on PBS' "NewsHour with Jim Lehrer." Officials said al Qaeda terrorists in Afghanistan are predominantly "Arab Afghans" and number between 1,500 and 4,000. The Islamic extremist fighters were described as more ideologically motivated than regular Taliban troops. The officials, who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity, said opposition Northern Alliance forces have made several major gains in the past week. A group of 40 Taliban officers and 1,200 Taliban fighters appear to have defected to the alliance, a loose-knit group of northern Afghans who have a total of about 15,000 fighters, the officials said. The defections occurred at the central Afghanistan town of Konduz. "We think it's highly possible that that has happened, although we're not sure about numbers," one official said. Additionally, the alliance has succeeded in taking the key central Afghan town of Chaghcharan in the last two days. "The Northern Alliance has claimed that that has been taken from the Taliban," one official said. "We believe that may very well have happened." The town is significant because it could allow two groups of opposition forces in the east and west to link up. Military clashes between Taliban and Northern Alliance forces have been concentrated in four areas: north of Kabul, near the town of Taloquan, near Chaghcharan in the province of Ghowar and the northern area around the city of Mazar-e-Sharif. One official said that a Taliban military unit known as the 55th Division is "part of the important relationship between Osama bin Laden and Mullah Mohammed Omar and their top commanders," referring to the leader of al Queda and the leader of the Taliban. Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said yesterday that U.S. military forces have damaged al Qaeda terrorists and Taliban military forces during. Mr. Rumsfeld said opposition forces on the ground in Afghanistan are poised to take action against the Taliban after U.S. warplanes finish bombing Taliban military targets. "Clearly, at some point when we feel we have done a certain amount with respect to those Taliban and al Qaeda military targets, it may very well be more appropriate for ground forces to be moving in areas where we previously have been bombing," Mr. Rumsfeld said. Overall, Mr. Rumsfeld said the military campaign is progressing. "We have disrupted their communications somewhat, and we have, we believe, weakened the Taliban military, and damaged but certainly not eliminated their air-defense capabilities," Mr. Rumsfeld told reporters at the Pentagon. "And we have worked over a number if not all of their terrorist training camps," he said. "Those camps have been locations where terrorists that are today spread across the globe have been trained. Threats clearly still exist." Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said military operations are "going according to our plan." "We have made a good first step in the military effort destroying or damaging terrorist training camps, disrupting communications, weakening the Taliban military forces in Afghanistan and damaging their air defenses," Gen. Myers said. On Thursday, Air Force bombers and Navy jets attacked six targets in Afghanistan, including a training facility and camp, military garrison compounds, and motor vehicle and ordnance facilities. Gen. Myers said the military's "sustained effort" will not be limited to conventional military attacks, which he described as "stage-setters for follow-on operations." U.S. and allied special operations commandos are expected to move in to Afghanistan at some point in order to identify and attack terrorists, as well as gather intelligence. "We want to get their Rolodexes," said one administration official of the ground operations. Mr. Rumsfeld said he does not believe the Taliban will surrender bin Laden to the United States. President Bush on Thursday said the Taliban might be able to end the U.S. bombing campaign by turning over bin Laden. All site contents copyright © 2001 News World Communications, Inc. ***************************************************************** 4 Nuclear research institute is Moscow’s most dangerous environmental hotspot Edie weekly summaries 12/10/2001 The alarming quantity of nuclear waste which is inadequately stored at the Kurchatov Institute used for training military and civil nuclear engineers, makes the facility Moscow’s most dangerous environmental hotspot, it has been announced. Talking at a news conference last week about Moscow’s most dangerous environmental hotspots, Leonid Bochin, Head of the City Hall’s Ecological Department, did not hesitate to name the institute, which was founded in 1943 and played a crucial role in the development of the first Soviet nuclear bombs, as the worst offender. Over the decades, the institute, which still operates six of its nine nuclear reactors, has accumulated an alarming quantity of radioactive waste on its site in a residential district 15 km northwest of the Kremlin. Environmentalists claim that a leak from the waste depositories would turn the city into a lifeless desert, and institute officials admit that Stalin-era nuclear waste remains buried in an unsatisfactory way. The waste depositories at the institute contain spent unclear fuel, water used as a cooling agent, and worn reactor parts. The institute’s head, Yevgeny Velikhov, is reported to have sent a letter to President Vladimir Putin last summer, requesting funds to help the institute remove its radioactive waste. According to the letter, there are 2,000 tonnes of solid and liquid waste with a radioactivity potential of 100,000 curies, with 900 nuclear reactor fuel assemblies carrying more than three million curies buried at the facility. It is reported that a brick wall around the facility has collapsed, and there is no evidence of police guards. The radioactive legacy of Soviet nuclear science is a cause for concern among institute officials, according to a spokesman for the institute, although new waste is stored in specialised depositories that are safe. However, the assembly parts were simply placed in iron barrels that were then filled with concrete and buried. “In the post-war period, the main priority was to make the most rapid advances in the military programme,” said the spokesman. “Ecological issues meant much less.” © Faversham House Group Ltd 2001. This article may be copied or ***************************************************************** 5 Nuclear disaster looms October 14, 2001 War on terrorism has potentially catastrophic side effects By Eric Margolis-- Sun Media  NEW YORK -- The mountain of debris that was the World Trade Center still smoulders, spreading over lower Manhattan a toxic miasma of rotting bodies, burned plastic, asbestos and crushed buildings. It took two showers to rid my body of the stink.  America's vengeance has been falling on Afghanistan in the form of B-52 carpet bombing, and 2,272-kg blockbuster bombs. U.S. troops are moving to overthrow the Taliban regime in Kabul, which foolishly offered itself up as a target to American wrath.  While all western eyes are fixed on Afghanistan, the immensely dangerous confrontation over Kashmir between India and Pakistan has just gone critical, as this column warned it would on Sept. 23, when I wrote of the dangers of "an enraged U.S. bull in South Asia's nuclear china shop." The CIA calls the Line of Control (LOC) that divides the disputed Himalayan mountain state between India and Pakistan "the world's most dangerous border."  Last week, Indian officials began to speak openly about nuclear war with Pakistan over Kashmir.  Kashmir is the only Indian state with a Muslim majority. When India and Pakistan were created by Britain in 1947, Kashmir was left divided after bitter fighting between the two hostile neighbours. Kashmiris were to have decided in a UN plebiscite whether they wanted to join India or Pakistan. But India never allowed a vote in the two-thirds of Kashmir it controlled.  In 1989, after decades of corrupt and often brutal Indian rule, Kashmir's Muslims rebelled and began a guerrilla war. Many of the score of Muslim independence groups are based either in the Pakistani-ruled portion of Kashmir (Azad Kashmir) or in Pakistan. The Muslim insurgents are battling 600,000 Indian troops and paramilitary police in a vicious, dirty war that has left at least 50,000 dead.  The Kashmiri independence fighters resort to car bombs, mines, assassinations and occasional massacres of Hindus; Indian forces conduct savage reprisals against civilians, mass executions, widescale torture, gang rapes and arson, acts strongly condemned by Indian and international rights organizations.  India has long branded Kashmiri separatists as "terrorists" and accused Pakistan of sponsoring "cross-border terrorism." Pakistan says it only gives the "freedom fighters" moral support. In fact, Pakistan's intelligence service, ISI, has long armed and sponsored some - but not all - of the Kashmiri mujahedeen, as well as some Sikh separatists and insurgents in India's eastern hill states. India's intelligence service, RAW, plants bombs in Pakistan, stirs up anti-government extremist groups and supports Taliban's foes in Afghanistan.  On Oct. 2, a radical Kashmiri guerrilla group launched a suicide bombing attack on the parliament building in Srinagar, capital of Indian-controlled Kashmir, that left 40 dead.  Washington last week branded Kashmiri and Chechen independence fighters as "terrorists." If the U.S. has the right to attack nations that harbour terrorists, Indians logically insist, so do they. India's Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee says he can't keep resisting public pressure to launch attacks on the insurgent's bases in Pakistani Kashmir, action that has long been urged by India's generals, who are frustrated by their inability to crush the Kashmiri independence struggle.  Last week, India's External Affairs Minister Omar Abdullah warned that Pakistan could use nuclear weapons in any conflict with India. India has about 40-60 nuclear weapons; Pakistan about 20. Both sides' nuclear missiles and strike aircraft are on a three-minute alert. A single false alarm - say a U.S. Tomahawk missile flying off course - could trigger a nuclear exchange that would kill two million immediately and gravely injure 100 million. Indian and Pakistan nuclear reactors are prime targets in any war.  If Washington does not move swiftly to begin resolving the lethal Kashmir dispute, a lot of cities may end up looking like lower Manhattan.  India is also growing uneasy as Pakistan falls increasingly under American control. This past week, Pakistan's besieged leader, General Musharraf, staged a barracks coup, replacing popular nationalist generals with officers who would not oppose U.S. action in Afghanistan. The powerful director of ISI, Pakistani intelligence, Lt. Gen. Mahmood Ahmad, whom I met with last year, was forced out by U.S. pressure, just like his nationalist predecessors, Hamid Gul and Javed Nasser.  Washington is urging restraint on India, a virtue it is hardly following itself in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, the U.S. blitz against Afghanistan is profoundly - perhaps mortally - destabilizing wobbly Pakistan. Pakistan's sprawling army HQ was just burned down. If Musharraf is overthrown by angry, pro-Afghan Pakistanis, or if the nuclear-armed nation dissolves in chaos, India may be tempted to intervene, gobbling up Azad Kashmir, or even making good on the vow of the Hindu fundamentalists who dominate the current government in Delhi to "crush Pakistan" and recreate the united India of the British Raj.  U.S. troops are about to go into action in Afghanistan between feuding India and Pakistan, while a nervous China watches American forces operate on its sensitive western borders. Adding more danger, Russia, the long-time military backer of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, is pushing troops into Afghanistan. After expending $6 billion US and two million Afghan lives to oust the Russians from Afghanistan in the 1980s, the U.S., blinded by anger, is now inviting them back in. + Eric Margolis is Sun Media's foreign affairs feature writer Next Story: Noce turns it up a notch Previous Story: Will the Muslim world meet the challenge? Copyright © 2001, CANOE Limited Partnership. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 6 Seaborg's legendary life, in print ContraCostaTimes.com Published Friday, October 12, 2001 + Autobiography divulges the high-profile tales of a nuclear scientist By J.R. Deaton STAFF WRITER When the late Glenn Seaborg took the night train from Los Angeles to Oakland and then arrived in Berkeley in August 1934, he ate breakfast at a diner near campus where they gave him his change in silver dollars. "Almost a sign of how magical this place was," Seaborg wrote about Berkeley and his new silver dollars. "Because for me Berkeley was a wonderland. And it was a wonderful time in the field of nuclear science." It was a wonderland of top-notch scientists, instructors, atom-smashers, linear accelerators and almost unlimited scientific possibilities. The legendary chemist G.N. Lewis assembled his staff and did not suffer fools gladly at his afternoon seminars. The Radiation Laboratory on campus was filled to overflowing with the apparatus of discovery, and Ernest Lawrence had his 27-inch cyclotron. Seaborg's autobiography, "Adventures in the Atomic Age: From Watts to Washington" ($25 Farrar, Straus and Giroux), written with the help of his son, free-lance writer Eric Seaborg, was the topic of discussion last week at the UC Berkeley Faculty Club. Eric Seaborg was on campus to talk about the book and his father's extraordinary life. Glenn Seaborg and colleague Edwin McMillan jointly won the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1951 for their 1941 discovery of the element plutonium, as well as other work. Seaborg and others at Berkeley before and after WWII used the university's cyclotrons, scientific daring and hard work to enlarge the periodic table of the elements and expand our universe. One of the elements discovered at Berkeley, element 106, was named Seaborgium in his honor in 1997. Seaborg collaborated with Jack Livingood and others to discover and research radioactive iodine isotopes that are used in the nuclear medicine departments in today's hospitals. He also served as chancellor of the Berkeley campus from 1958 through 1960 and was chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission for 10 years from 1961 to 1971. During the Kennedy administration, he helped draft the Limited Test Ban Treaty with the Soviet Union, which banned nuclear weapons tests above ground. He was a tireless arms-control advocate, and an adviser to nine U.S. presidents. In the early 1980s, Seaborg was a guiding force for the "A Nation at Risk," a report on America's crisis in education. As an advocate of civilian nuclear power, Seaborg's comments about its efficacy and safety seem prescient in light of the current energy crisis in California. The book reminds throughout that Seaborg had a front-row seat to events and people of the 20th that others only read about later. Of his time in Chicago during WWII working on the Manhattan Project to develop a nuclear bomb, Seaborg writes "We were fighting for survival, pure and simple, and element 94 (plutonium) might be the one area where we had an edge. We'd kept our discovery secret and the Germans did not have a cyclotron powerful enough to make it." During his tenure at the AEC he got to know presidents, and writes about the annual dinner of black-eyed peas and southern cooking at President Johnson's Texas ranch, helicopter flights over the Nevada Test Site with President Kennedy and strained meetings with President Nixon. During his time as chancellor of UC Berkeley, Seaborg says "I met the leading lights in every field, as well as visiting lecturers and dignitaries ranging from the English writer C.P. Snow to Queen Frederika of the Netherlands." In a lighter moment, Seaborg recalls Clark Kerr's quip that the three main problems of running a campus are "athletics for the alumni, parking for the faculty and sex for the students." At one point in the book, Seaborg recalls President Kennedy's White House dinner for Nobel laureates. "I think that this is the most extraordinary collection of talent that has ever been gathered together at the White house ..." Kennedy told the assembled. "We all puffed up our chests proudly," Seaborg recalls. But then Kennedy added: "With the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone." Eric Seaborg said his father was a lucky man and a hard worker. "He said he was always surrounded by people who were smarter than he was," Eric said. "He found that he could keep up with them by working hard." "I have led a fortunate life," Glenn Seaborg writes in his autobiography. "I was given a chance through an excellent system of public education and I did my best to make the most of my opportunities." ContraCostaTimes.com ***************************************************************** 7 Act offers lump-sum handouts for workers exposed to toxins Sunday, October 14, 2001 3:49 AM MST By Glenn Roberts Jr. STAFF WRITER Proposed criteria for estimating sick Energy Department workers' past exposure to radiation, and gauging whether it led to their illnesses, have been released by the U.S. Health and Human Services Department. The public comment period began Oct. 5 for each of the proposed criteria, which can be obtained online at www.cdc.gov/niosh/ or by calling (800) 356-4674. Congress last year passed a compensation program for ailing current and former Energy Department workers and the families of workers who died from job-related exposure to certain toxins. The Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act, a collaboration of the health, energy and labor departments, was enacted July 31. The act provides for lump-sum payments of $150,000, in some cases, to workers made ill from exposure to silicon dust, beryllium dust or radiation. Other toxins are not specifically addressed in the act. "We are taking steps to put some key processes in place immediately as we proceed with further steps to make sure that (the regulations) pass rigorous scientific scrutiny and public review," said Tommy G. Thompson, health secretary, in a statement. In Bay Area public meetings held to discuss the compensation act, some individuals have expressed worries about the difficulty of estimating radiation exposure in the absence of actual records. The proposed regulations are intended to provide a measure of estimated radiation exposure for sick workers who do not have complete health records, and to determine whether a cancer is "at least as likely as not" related to on-the-job radiation exposure. Former Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, who proposed and promoted the program, had said that the compensation plan would be designed to give the benefit of the doubt to ailing workers, acknowledging that the Energy Department had worked for decades to deny all such claims of work-related health problems. Cancer statistics compiled from atomic-bomb survivors in Japan contributed, in part, to the regulations that will help to predict whether radiation contributed to workers' illnesses. "Scientists evaluate the likelihood that radiation caused cancer in a worker by using medical and scientific knowledge about the relationship between specific types and levels of radiation dose and the frequency of cancers in exposed populations," the proposed criteria states. The public has 60 days from Oct. 5 in which to comment on this proposed regulation, which contains a list of cancers considered to be "non-radiogenic," or unrelated to radiation exposure. The other proposed regulation, which the public may comment on for 30 days beginning Oct. 5, pertains to the formula for reconstructing the radiation dose that ill workers may have received. "The procedures and level of effort involved in dose reconstructions depend, in part, on the quantity and quality of available dose monitoring information, the conditions under which radiation exposure arose, and the forms of radiation to which the individual was exposed," the proposed regulation states. For information about the compensation act, visit www.dol.gov or call (866) 888-3322 or (877) 447-9756. 2001 by MediaNews Group, Inc. and ANG Newspapers ***************************************************************** 8 Report raises criticism at Flats [www.TheDailyCamera.com] By Katy Human Camera Staff Writer A new report by a Washington, D.C., public-interest group titled "U.S. Nuclear Weapons Complex: Security at Risk" has raised the hackles of security experts and officers at Rocky Flats. Spokesmen for the Department of Energy at Rocky Flats said it's a dated document, one that rehashes old problems corrected long ago and is therefore unnecessarily alarming the public. But the authors of the report said they stand by their findings, which suggest persistent and possibly dangerous security problems at sites such as Rocky Flats, a former nuclear weapons plant south of Boulder. Rocky Flats, just a few miles south of Boulder, is now a Superfund cleanup site, but several tons of weapons-grade plutonium are still stored in one building on site. Security there has always been a serious affair, especially after Sept. 11, said Patrick Etchart, a spokesman for the Energy Department at Rocky Flats. In the early 1990s, a series of evaluations rated Rocky Flats security as "marginal," but ratings have been "satisfactory" for the last several years. Etchart said the Project on Government Oversight used memos selectively and unfairly in its report. One memo, for example — written by Richard Levernier, then a Rocky Flats manager — describes an "alarming trend concerning the inappropriate use of deadly force," in security training exercises. But the Government Oversight group's report did not include a memo written in response to that allegation, one that might appear to discredit it. October was a "sensitive" time to publish a report on security problems at the nation's nuclear weapons complex, said Eric Miller, a defense investigator with Project on Government Oversight, or POGO. But after eight months of work and then especially after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, his group decided the public should have access to its information. Pete Stockton, a consultant for POGO and one of the new report's main authors, said he thinks it demonstrates that the Department of Energy has consistently exaggerated security conditions at Rocky Flats and probably continues to do so today. "They will constantly tell you everything is fine now, that maybe it wasn't in'99 or'96," Stockton said. But he said he sees nothing to suggest security has changed. One of Stockton's main concerns is so-called "force-on-force" tests, in which Rocky Flats security officers take on "attackers," played by other security officers, local police and, sometimes, military special forces. "Force-on-force" tests happen at least yearly, sometimes quarterly at Rocky Flats. At Rocky Flats, force-on-force players use extremely sensitive mock weapons and vests, similar to those in laser-tag. "It's a huge thing. It's the premier test of whether the system's going to work," Stockton said. "Can they perform? Can they protect the material?" Not always. In one simulation in 1998, adversaries allegedly broke into the site, grabbed fake plutonium and made it to the perimeter fence surrounding the site, according to the POGO report. "I can tell you we knew where those guys were every minute," said Jody Giacomini, who oversees security for Kaiser-Hill, the company managing cleanup and operations at Rocky Flats. For security reasons she could not elaborate, she said, nor could she describe the results of the test, which were "very different" from the POGO report description. "But it did reveal vulnerabilities," Giacomini admitted. Force-on-force tests would be useless, she said, if they didn't. "We use them to stress the system," she said. "To identify problems." Jennifer Thompson, spokeswoman for Kaiser-Hill, said the tests are not an effective way to evaluate security at Rocky Flats, but are meant to force guards to function in stressful situations. "It really is just an opportunity for the guards to play out different scenarios, for training," Thompson said. She and Giacomini listed several other components to security evaluation at Rocky Flats: alarm system tests, procedural evaluations, knowledge tests, surveys, and "pop quizzes" in which security guards are presented with an unusual situation, not knowing it's not real. POGO consultant Stockton sees the force-on-force tests differently. "These are not training exercises — they're used to make assessments of security," he said. "If they fail, we've got a problem." He and his colleagues are calling for closer security oversight at Department of Energy facilities by independent teams, not internal auditors. Three years ago, then-U.S. Rep. David Skaggs, D-Boulder, called for just that kind of evaluation, but it has not been done since. In 1998, Tina Rowe, U.S. marshal for Colorado, was one of four members of an independent review panel that found security at Rocky Flats to be "adequate" in 1998. "There was nothing lamentable," Rowe said. "There were issues, a lot of issues, but as far as the bottom line ... we thought things were adequate. "The one thing that could happen is what happened at the World Trade Center, and that's impossible to guard against," she said. Rodney Hoffman, classification officer for the Department of Energy at Rocky Flats, said that in security planning there, a plane-accident scenario has been considered a possibility for years. He said he could not discuss if or how that has affected security management at the site. Micky Harlow, Rocky Flats expert with the city of Westminster, said an airplane hitting the plant seems an unlikely scenario. "It's possible, but not really credible," she said. Harlow said she and a representative from Broomfield met with the Energy Department manager at Rocky Flats IN the third week in September for a security briefing. She said her intention in the meeting was to be sure Rocky Flats managers were taking all security precautions in light of the terrorist attacks. "I think they're taking it very seriously," she said. Contact Katy Human at (303) 473-1364 or humank@thedailycamera.com. October 14, 2001 Copyright 2001 The Daily Camera. All rights reserved. Any ***************************************************************** 9 Nuclear research institute is Moscow’s most dangerous environmental hotspot edie news: Edie weekly summaries 12/10/2001 The alarming quantity of nuclear waste which is inadequately stored at the Kurchatov Institute used for training military and civil nuclear engineers, makes the facility Moscow’s most dangerous environmental hotspot, it has been announced. Talking at a news conference last week about Moscow’s most dangerous environmental hotspots, Leonid Bochin, Head of the City Hall’s Ecological Department, did not hesitate to name the institute, which was founded in 1943 and played a crucial role in the development of the first Soviet nuclear bombs, as the worst offender. Over the decades, the institute, which still operates six of its nine nuclear reactors, has accumulated an alarming quantity of radioactive waste on its site in a residential district 15 km northwest of the Kremlin. Environmentalists claim that a leak from the waste depositories would turn the city into a lifeless desert, and institute officials admit that Stalin-era nuclear waste remains buried in an unsatisfactory way. The waste depositories at the institute contain spent unclear fuel, water used as a cooling agent, and worn reactor parts. The institute’s head, Yevgeny Velikhov, is reported to have sent a letter to President Vladimir Putin last summer, requesting funds to help the institute remove its radioactive waste. According to the letter, there are 2,000 tonnes of solid and liquid waste with a radioactivity potential of 100,000 curies, with 900 nuclear reactor fuel assemblies carrying more than three million curies buried at the facility. It is reported that a brick wall around the facility has collapsed, and there is no evidence of police guards. The radioactive legacy of Soviet nuclear science is a cause for concern among institute officials, according to a spokesman for the institute, although new waste is stored in specialised depositories that are safe. However, the assembly parts were simply placed in iron barrels that were then filled with concrete and buried. “In the post-war period, the main priority was to make the most rapid advances in the military programme,” said the spokesman. “Ecological issues meant much less.” The Moscow Times © Faversham House Group Ltd 2001. This ***************************************************************** 10 PERSPECTIVES: 'It was as if the earth had been killed': Khrushchev took the cold war to a new, chilling level with the King of Bombs. Thomas Withington reports Financial Times; Oct 13, 2001 By THOMAS WITHINGTON A Soviet cameraman described the blast as "a powerful white flash" appearing over the horizon, followed by "a remote, indistinct and heavy blow, as if the earth had been killed". He had just witnessed the world's biggest-ever explosion - a blast more powerful than the total of all the armaments used in the second world war. It was the 58 megaton (58m tons of TNT) Tsar Bomba, the "King of Bombs", being tested by the Soviet Union 40 years ago this month. The Tsar Bomba exploded 3,700 metres above the ground and the shockwave from the blast circled the earth three times. One observer commented that "in districts hundreds of kilometres from ground zero, wooden houses were destroyed, and stone ones lost their roofs". The flash could be seen 600 miles away even though heavy cloud covered the site of the detonation - the Arctic island of Novaya Zemlya or "New Land". The mushroom cloud rose more than 43 miles into the sky. But where had such a giant come from? And why? It was largely a result of the cold war chilling steadily throughout 1961. US President John F. Kennedy had responded to Soviet Premier Khrushchev's calls to support wars of national liberation by promising that Washington would "oppose any foe to assure the survival and success of liberty". In April, Washington launched the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, and, in Berlin, a wall was erected that would divide the city for three decades. Khrushchev believed the Soviets should negotiate over Berlin "from a position of strength" - and this was the genesis of Tsar Bomba. In June 1961, Khrushchev met his senior nuclear weapons scientist Andrei Sakharov, and ordered him to develop a 100 megaton hydrogen bomb. Khrushchev wanted the bomb ready for testing in September to create maximum impact at the 22nd Communist Party Congress in Moscow. Sakharov returned to Arzamas-16, a secret Soviet nuclear laboratory, to construct the device, together with four of the country's top nuclear scientists: Victor Adamskii, Yuri Babaev, Yuri Trunev and Yuri Smirnov. Although the bomb was not ready by September, its design and construction took just 14 weeks, and, by mid-October, the giant bomb, weighing 27 tons, was ready for testing. On a cold autumn day, Major Andrei Durnovtsev manoeuvred his Tu-95 bomber towards Novaya Zemlya; his cargo was the Tsar Bomba. Over the island, he dropped the bomb and it fell effortlessly, attached to a parachute so large that the quantity of nylon needed for it had seriously disrupted the Soviet hosiery industry. Years of testing had taught the nuclear powers of the day (US, UK, Russia and France - China would not test until 1964) that nuclear explosions were large affairs, but Tsar Bomba was different. Nuclear bombs produce an electronic disturbance known as the electro- magnetic pulse, which severely damages or destroys electronic circuits, and Tsar Bomba knocked out all long-range communications around the Arctic sea for more than an hour. Staff at the Olenya airforce base where the bomber was scheduled to return had no radio confirmation that the aircraft was safe or that the bomb had been detonated. The arctic terrain of Novaya Zemlya, the area below the explosion, was transformed from a rugged snow- and ice-covered landscape into what one observer called "an immense skating rink". However, there is confusion over whether Tsar Bomba exploded at full power. Although Khrushchev had requested the bomb to have an explosive power of 100 megatons, atomic experts are un-decided as to whether the device tested was a "slimmed-down" version of the weapon, or if the bomb malfunctioned and did not explode at full capacity. However, the military leadership was largely unimpressed: Tsar Bomba might have been a striking scientific achievement but they were unconvinced it was of any strategic value. It is more effective to destroy a city by using many small hydrogen bombs targeted on the periphery, rather than by dropping one large bomb in the centre. Even so, a few of the huge bombs were built and stockpiled. If the military potential was doubtful, the political effect was vivid. Khrushchev chose the Party Congress to tell his party, his citizens and the world of the explosion. Khrushchev teased the west, saying he hoped "we are never called upon to explode these bombs over anybody's territory", but privately he spoke of Tsar Bomba hanging "over the heads of the imperialists, like a sword of Damocles". Washington's response was resolute, despite the tests catching the US off-guard. Kennedy said that "in terms of military strength, the US would not trade places with any nation on earth", and that it was not necessary "to explode a 50-megaton nuclear device to confirm that we have many times more nuclear power than any nation on earth". While the leaders were talking tough, Sakharov was feeling uneasy. He later commented in his memoirs that he was perturbed by the test. The father of Tsar Bomba was convinced that "our work was crucial in preserving the parity necessary for mutual deterrence" but at the same time he was tormented by the environmental and political impact of his actions. Almost exactly a year after the explosion, the US and the Soviet Union were locked in their most bitter stand-off yet, during the Cuban Missile Crisis - and the power of the King of Bombs to "preserve the parity for mutual deterrence" was put to its stiffest test. 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