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                    NUCLEAR POWER CONTENTS
 
 1  Western Governors Attack N-Waste Risks
 2  Stock Watch Man Acquires Patented Process for Nuclear Remediation
 3  Widespread uranium contamination could drain fund for new water lines
 4  Anti-nuclear activists fed up with promises
 5  US Clarifies Move On SA Nuclear Containers
 6  Minutes to meltdown
 7  Entergy Will Buy Vermont Yankee for $180 Million
 8  Kazakhstan-ideal conditions for radioactive waste burial
 9  Earthweb IT Management: Data Warehousing &Business Intelligence: 
10  Repairs on reactor 2 at Zaporozhye NPP extended for 1 month
11  Power Plants Show Signs Of Strain 
12  Just how safe is our nuclear scrap?
13  World Nuclear Association | News Briefings | Nuclear Energy News | News
14  Perma-Fix begins accepting waste 
15  ADAMS: Items of Interest - Tuesday, August 14, 2001
16  ADAMS: Items of Interest - Wednesday, August 15, 2001
17  Nuclear power a safe, inexpensive, clean energy source
18  Total Production of Uranium Concentrate in the United States
19  Lucas Heights opponents jostle Howard
20  Professor advocates test reactor 
21  Idle plants attract suitors
22  NRC SCHEDULES CONFERENCE TO DISCUSS SUMMER NUCLEAR PLANT
23  NRC ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON NUCLEAR WASTE
24  NRC Announces Opportunity for Hearing for License Renewal 

                    NUCLEAR WEAPONS CONTENTS
 
 1  DOE reconsidering disposal plans for 55 tons of plutonium
 2  Russian Nuclear Recycling Test Held
 3  24 Hanford tanks to close out Sen. Ron Wyden's watch list
 4  Beryllium firm agrees to pay $145,000 fine
 5  VA Proposes Additional Aid for 'Atomic Veterans'
 6  Injustice of Wen Ho Lee 
 7  Lab gets new test facility
 8  Russian radioactive devices stolen - August 15, 2001
 9  DOE to meet with EPA on Roane contaminations 
10  EQAB seeks city help with cleanup talks
11  DOE rejects board suggestions 
12  Activist nuns causing a stir in Illinois prison
13  Practice planned to halt plutonium
14  Hodges fights SRS plutonium plan 
15  EPA: More data on OR pollution needed
16  Activists unveil new battle strategy at Y-12

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                     NUCLEAR POWER ARTICLES
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 1 Western Governors Attack N-Waste Risks

The Salt Lake Tribune -- 

     Wednesday, August 15, 2001   

BY JUDY FAHYS
THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE 

   Western governors, fearful that spent-fuel shipments will attract
terrorists or sabotage, have asked the federal government to update its
studies on the risks of transporting nuclear waste. 

    Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt and Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn persuaded other members
of the Western Governors Association to back their nuclear waste resolution on
Tuesday, the final day of the association's annual meeting, held this year in
Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. 

    The resolution thrust the governors into the contentious national debate
about nuclear power. While nuclear-power advocates are pushing to stow the
nation's nuclear wastes in facilities proposed for Utah and Nevada, the two
states have tried to highlight the risks involved in hauling lethally
dangerous waste past the homes of about 50 million Americans on its way to
national storage and disposal sites. 

    A consortium of eight utilities is seeking a federal license to store
spent nuclear fuel at the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation, about 45
miles southwest of Salt Lake City in Tooele County. The site would be a
parking lot for waste en route to a permanent disposal facility, presumably at
Yucca Mountain, Nev., about 100 miles north of Las Vegas. 

    Industry and many federal energy policy-makers support the sites as a way
to deal with nuclear waste and to expand the nuclear-power industry. 

    The governors' resolution is, in effect, only a suggestion because the
governors' group does not have any legal authority. Still, it will be sent to
some of Washington's most influential policy-makers, the secretaries of Energy
and Transportation, as well as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). 

    The governors' group pointed out that a contractor report prepared in the
1970s estimated a spent fuel shipment sabotaged in an urban area "could result
in hundreds of early fatalities and thousands of latent cancer fatalities, and
economic losses in the billions." 

    They also said current analyses fall short because they do not account for
modern weaponry nor radiation releases that might result from a terrorist
attack. 

    "The NRC should conduct a comprehensive assessment of the consequences of
attacks that have the potential for radiological sabotage," the resolution
says, "including attacks against transportation infrastructure used by nuclear
waste shipments, attacks involving capture of a nuclear waste shipment and use
of high-energy explosives against the cask, and direct attacks upon a nuclear
waste shipping cask using anti-tank missiles." 

   fahys@sltrib.com 
    
  © Copyright 2001, The Salt Lake Tribune All material found on 
*****************************************************************
 2  Stock Watch Man Acquires Patented Process for Nuclear Remediation
                                       
Press Release

SOURCE: Stock Watch Man Inc.
 
LAS VEGAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 14, 2001--Stock Watch Man Inc. 
(OTC BB: SWCH- news) Tuesday announced the appointment of a new 
board of directors and officers in conjunction with the announced 
agreement to acquire exclusive worldwide license for a patented 
process that remediates nuclear waste. Dr. Paul M. Brown, an 
internationally known nuclear physicist and researcher, has been 
appointed as the company's president and chairman of the board. 
The other officers are Patrick Herda as vice president, Jackie 
Brown as secretary/treasurer. 

The majority of company shareholders have authorized a name 
change to Nuclear Solutions Inc. 

The company has entered into an asset purchase agreement for the 
exclusive worldwide license of a patented process that remediates 
nuclear waste. An important feature of the process is the 
possibility of remediating waste on-site without the need to 
transport it through our cities, while eliminating a 
multibillion-dollar storage burden. 

This process potentially produces significantly more electrical 
energy than it uses, thus becoming an inexpensive source of green 
power. 

This press release may be deemed to contain forward-looking 
statements which could affect the financial condition and results 
of operations of the company and its subsidiaries. Further 
information on potential factors which could affect the financial 
condition, results of operations and expansion projects of the 
company are included in the filings with the Securities and 
Exchange Commission. 

contact: Stock Watch Man Inc., Las Vegas Dr. Paul M. Brown, 
303/881-5878
*****************************************************************
 3  Widespread uranium contamination could drain fund for new water lines
     		     		     	
GREENVILLE (AP) — As officials discover more areas contaminated 
with uranium, the Greenville Water System says it may not have 
enough money to provide new water lines to all the affected 
homes.

 Federal, state and local agencies already earmarked $3 million 
to run water lines to homes with contaminated wells in southern 
Greenville County.

 "But the size of these ink blots continues to grow," said water 
systems general manager Lynn Stovall, pointing at a map showing 
where elevated levels of uranium have been found in wells farther 
west of Simpsonville.

 The water system continues to install lines along Jenkins Bridge 
Road, where the first uranium-contaminated wells were discovered 
in January. The state Department of Health and Environmental 
Control has found elevated levels in 61 of 176 wells tested in 
the area.

 Doris Boyke, who has a contaminated well outside the scope of 
the Jenkins Road project, said she hopes there is enough money to 
build water lines to her home because of health concerns.

 Uranium has been linked to kidney disease, and experts can't 
rule out its potential for causing cancer.

 "You don't know from one day to the next," Boyke said. "It would 
be devastating if they didn't get water to everybody."

 U.S. Rep. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., has been assured of receiving $2 
million in federal funds, while Gov. Jim Hodges has committed 
$850,000 in state funds, and Greenville County, $150,000.

 In addition, Lt. Gov. Bob Peeler and state Sen. David Thomas, 
R-Fountain Inn, have asked the governor to release an additional 
$5 million in tobacco settlement money.

 Hodges' spokeswoman Cortney Owings said the governor supports 
that idea but is unsure if it's allowed under the tobacco 
settlement requirements. Hodges first will seek extra money from 
the state Budget and Control Board's local government fund or 
from the federal government, Owings said.

 Greenville County Councilman Bob Cook, who represents the 
contaminated area, said the county would look at the funding 
issue again if it is necessary to find more money.

 "I think this is going to be bigger," he said.

&Permissions © Copyright 2001 The State-Record Company                                      
*****************************************************************
 4  Anti-nuclear activists fed up with promises

The Taipei Times Online: 2001-08-15
 
August 15th, 2001   

By Chiu Yu-Tzu
STAFF REPORTER

Anti-nuclear activists say they're giving up on politicians who 
advocate a nuclear-free Taiwan but fail to pursue policies that 
support that ideal.

 The nation's anti-nuclear movement suffered a setback Friday 
after the Cabinet refused to hold a non-binding referendum on the 
Fourth Nuclear Power Plant (®Ö¥|) during the year-end elections.

 According to Pan Han-chiang (¼ï¿«Ã¦), vice secretary-general of 
the Taiwan Environmental Protection Union, until now, the 
strategy of the anti-nuclear movement has been flawed.

 "We used to work closely with political figures," Pan said.

 Instead, activists now plan to take their case to straight to 
the public, holding workshops to spread anti-nuclear ideas and 
training hundreds of volunteers.

 "Now is the time to awaken the public to form an overwhelming 
majority that can force the government to review environmental 
policies," Pan said.

 In explaining its Friday decision, the Cabinet said holding a 
non-binding referendum on the controversial plant would create 
unnecessary uncertainty at a time when the nation is in the midst 
of an economic downturn.

 The announcement has infuriated anti-nuclear activists. Kao 
Cheng-yen (°ª¦¨ª¢), convener of the Taiwan Green Party, 
criticized the DPP and the government for being "unduly" 
influenced by President Chen Shui-bian (³¯¤ô«ó).

 Before coming to power, Chen and many other senior DPP officials 
were comrades-in-arms with anti-nuclear activists.

 But the relationship has come under strain, and Kao said 
yesterday anti-nuclear activists would abandon politicians who 
didn't keep their promises.

 Shih Shin-min (¬I«H¥Á), convener of the Nuclear Free Country 
Association, said the Cabinet's "reactionary decision" would lead 
the public to doubt whether the DPP continues to support the 
ideals of "democratic rights" and "progress."

 Disappointed in elected officials, anti-nuclear activists feel 
their energy could be better spent on public education officials.

 According to Pan, the Taiwan Environmental Protection Union 
plans to launch several information campaigns to coincide with 
the year-end elections. The group will hold two anti-nuclear 
workshops by the end of September.

 "We plan to train more than 100 activists to support 
anti-nuclear legislative candidates and oppose pro-nuclear 
candidates," Pan said.

 The activist said the workshops would target university students 
and teachers at the elementary or high school level.

 In addition, members of the group plan to attend the annual 
meeting of the No Nukes Asia Forum in Seoul next month.

 On the frontlines in Kungliao (°^¼d) township, Taipei County, 
where the controversial plant is being built, hope diminishes 
with each additional setback.

 Lai Wei-chieh (¿à°¶³Ç), secretary-general of the Green Citizens' 
Action Alliance, said it was difficult for Kungliao residents to 
keep a positive attitude.

 "Why do they have to suffer from the uncertainty created by a 
controversial policy?" Lai asked.

 Lai also said that resumption of the plant's construction has 
created controversy in Japan.

 Generators made by Japanese firms for the plant are scheduled to 
be exported to Taiwan next year.

 Several Japanese lawyers opposed to Japan's export of nuclear 
technology plan to visit Kungliao this week to meet with 
anti-nuclear activists.

This story has been viewed 202 times. 
URL=[http://www.taipeitimes.com/news/2001/08/15/story/0000098621] 

Copyright © 1999-2001 The Taipei Times. All rights reserved. 
*****************************************************************
 5  US Clarifies Move On SA Nuclear Containers

allAfrica.com: 

Business Day (Johannesburg)
 
August 14, 2001 
Posted to the web August 14, 2001 

Washington US authorities have told SA's National Nuclear 
Regulator that no criticism was implied by their refusal to 
approve as safe containers made by the Nuclear Energy Corporation 
of SA for transporting hazardous radioactive material.
 
In a public letter dated May 25, the US Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission said it would not "revalidate" for use in the US the 
SA regulator's July 1999 approval of containers for carrying hot, 
gamma ray-emitting Cobalt-60. Design and test data submitted with 
the application were full of "inconsistencies".
 
Rebecca Karas of the US authority's nuclear material safety 
office said the problem was with paperwork supplied by the 
licence applicant and not at this stage with the containers. 
Commission staff found that documentation was not complete or 
clear enough for them to proceed to a full technical review. This 
did not mean the commission believed the containers to be unsafe, 
or that the SA regulator was in error. A revised application 
would be considered.
 
The US licence was sought by Reviss, a UK-based company that 
markets internationally Cobalt-60 produced in Russian power 
reactors. The isotope, which is not made in SA, is used for 
cancer therapy and sterilising food and medical products.
 
Reviss said it was not responsible for the paperwork, and acted 
as "postman", merely adding a covering letting to the "safety 
case" supplied by the maker, the SA corporation.
 
In its response, the corporation said licensing the containers 
outside SA was the "customer's responsibility".
 
LD Hyslop, GM of Pelindaba Technology, the corporation's division 
that makes containers for Cobalt-60 and other radioactive 
materials, said the licence rejection was not a setback for the 
corporation or SA's nuclear industry. The corporation was "paid 
in full" for the containers and the customer had not complained 
or asked for help in resubmitting the US application.
 
  Copyright © 2001 Business Day. Distributed by AllAfrica Global 
Media (allAfrica.com).   
*****************************************************************
 6  Minutes to meltdown
 					
  How America came close to a nuclear catastrophe [Image: Three 
Mile Island plant] The cooling towers at the Three Mile Island 
nuclear generating plant.
        
  NBC News
  
  Aug. 14 —  Today, it almost looks peaceful: Pennsylvania’s 
Three Mile Island nuclear power plant. But 22 years ago, beneath 
the puffs of smoke, America came close to a nuclear catastrophe — 
tens of thousands of people fled their homes and the health and 
safety of hundreds of thousands hung in the balance. Dateline NBC 
correspondent Dennis Murphy reports on why we were closer to the 
brink than many ever thought.  

IT WAS AN accident so unthinkable that scientists and engineers 
assured us it couldn’t happen. If you remember the name Three 
Mile Island, you may not know how close we really came. This is 
that story. 

       In the beginning, people in Pennsylvania were as proud as 
they could be of this technical achievement rising from a bend in 
the Susquehanna River — 100 miles from Philadelphia, 180 miles 
from New York. Not one, but two, nuclear power reactors, towering 
over the river like modern day cathedrals. 

       “It was just awesome. You could really feel how small you 
were when you looked up and saw how huge those things were,” says 
Middletown’s mayor Robert Reid.

        And when in the 1970s oil prices soared, the half-million 
people living as neighbors to the plant could pat themselves on 
the back that our friend the atom brought them clean nuclear 
power at dirt cheap prices. 

       “It was new,” says Reid. “Not too many people in the world 
had a nuclear plant in their backyard.” 

       But just before dawn on the morning of March 28, 1979 — 
only three months after the plant had started pumping power to 
the local communities — inside reactor number two, in the 
labyrinth of pipes, a tiny valve gets stuck. Such a simple thing.       

      3D mockup of the stuck valve inside reactor number two.

        [Graphic: Mockup of reactor valve]         The clock is 
running on what will turn out to be the worst nuclear accident in 
American history — one that could have turned a swatch of 
Pennsylvania into a radioactive wasteland, uninhabitable into the 
distant future.

        They built it, of course, with safety system on safety 
system. Back-ups for the back-ups: All sealed inside a four-foot 
thick concrete structure called the containment building.
        
 BEDLAM IN THE CONTROL ROOM

        Accident proof, but at 4 a.m. on that Wednesday morning 
something has gone wrong.

        The reactor suddenly turns itself off. In seconds, the 
three men running the control room on the graveyard shift are 
flooded with data, and shrieking alarms.       
  
[Eye on Energy] 

“These alarms are winking lights on panels up above the 
instruments that ring this huge control room,” says Mike Gray, an 
engineer who wrote a book about Three Mile Island.

        “Try to imagine landing a plane in a rainy night at 
LaGuardia. And the cockpit is full of bells and whistles and 
flashing lights and warnings and people screaming at you to do 
one thing and another. It’s not conducive to making intelligent 
decisions.”

        Inside this sprawling plant, inside the containment 
building, a small valve in a collection of pipes — not unlike the 
kind you might see in your own basement — has gotten stuck open: 
a minor plumbing problem. 

       Maybe a $1,000 worth of parts? “Yeah, at that point it was 
$1,000 worth of parts,” says Gray.

        That small stuck valve is letting steam and water escape 
from the reactor core. But no one catches it. It’s critical that 
the uranium fuel rods that make up the reactor core stay under 
water. Unless those fuel rods are constantly cooled the core will 
start to cook. And that’s what was happening inside reactor 
number two. 

       Harold Denton was one of the federal government’s top 
nuclear power experts.

        “The water was leaking out that valve and during that 
time the automatic systems that come on and fill the plant back 
up with water had kicked in and were running,” he says.

        In other words, the emergency back up system is working 
just as planned in the case of a plumbing leak. But Gray says, 
“Nobody thought what would happen if humans intervened anyway, 
and that’s exactly what happened. Imagine you are sitting in the 
control room and all of a sudden all hell breaks loose, you’re 
supposed to sit there on your hands and let the plant take care 
of itself? Of course not.”

        The operator thinks — from looking at his monitors — that 
there’s too much water going into the core, when, in fact, just 
the opposite is true. The water is plunging dangerously low.

        A yellow tag covers an important light.
        
 A HUGE MISTAKE

        Four minutes into the accident, he shuts down the 
emergency cooling system. It is a huge mistake. Now no new water 
is reaching the tons of uranium below. The temperature in the 
reactor core is beginning to soar.

        “The open valve just let more and more water out,” says 
Denton. “And as the core kept boiling water down, it got lower 
and lower in the core.”     
 
      If the entire core reaches more than 5,000 degrees, there 
won’t be enough water in the ocean to slow the chain reaction. It 
could become an unstoppable radioactive mass melting right 
through the containment-building floor. 

As each moment ticks by, the core is getting hotter and hotter: 
2,500 degrees, 3,000 degrees. If the entire core reaches more 
than 5,000 degrees, there won’t be enough water in the ocean to 
slow the chain reaction. It could become an unstoppable 
radioactive mass melting right through the containment-building 
floor. 

       There’s still time to turn the accident around, but the 
control room is in chaos.

        The overloaded computer — as baffled as the operators — 
spits out page after page of question marks.

        “Things were going wrong so fast they never had the 
chance to figure out what really was happening,” says Denton.

        It’s 6:50 a.m. — almost three hours into the accident — 
and the crisis is growing. Now radioactive-tainted water from the 
leaky valve spills into the building next to the reactor. An 
emergency siren sounds.

        Radiation would seep into the control rooms of both 
reactors throughout the day. The operators are more aware than 
most of the occupational hazards. Excessive amounts of radiation 
can damage human tissues and possibly cause cancer. 

       NRC audiotape: “We are experiencing an airborne problem in 
the unit one control room.” 

       “We are probably going to be putting on respirators 
shortly.”

        “It’s got to be a gripper. It’s got to be a heart stopper 
for these guys because they know what the implications are, and 
if it is bad now how much worse is it going to get?” says Gray.
        
 GOING TO WAR

        The operators pull on their respirators and go to war. 

       “It was like a battle scene on the bridge of the 
Enterprise in the battle of Midway,” says Gray. “The adrenaline 
is pumping and they’re concentrating on trying to save the ship.”       

      Meltdown, what scientists call the China Syndrome, is some 
700 degrees away — and once that chain reaction starts there is 
no way to stop it. 

At 7:24 a.m. — first light over Three Mile Island — and by now 
the overnight crew of operators has called for help. The plant 
manager races in and declares the first general emergency ever 
called at an American nuclear power plant. The men at the 
controls have no idea what’s happening to the reactor.

        “The only thing that the operators know is that they 
can’t make sense out of the instruments,” says Gray.

        They are convinced that the core — those critical uranium 
rods — are covered by water. Little do they know that by now 
thousands of pounds of water and steam have escaped from the 
reactor core.

        “Nobody had told them that this could happen,” says Gray. 
“In fact they had been told this could never happen.”

        They don’t know it but the core temperature is hovering 
at 4,300 degrees — if it goes much beyond 5,000 degrees, they’re 
finished.

        Gray says, “They were within 30 minutes of the China 
Syndrome.”

        Meltdown, what scientists call the China Syndrome, is 
some 700 degrees away — and once that chain reaction starts there 
is no way to stop it.

        “We’re talking about something of a truly catastrophic 
scale,” says Gray. “It would melt through the pressure vessel, 
through the concrete floor. It would fracture the earth for a 
quarter of a mile in all directions. And you would have geysers 
of radioactive steam blowing up through the parking lot.”

        But it isn’t until four hours after the first alarm rings 
in the control room that anyone in the towns that circle Three 
Mile Island has a clue that a crisis of potentially epic 
proportions is unfolding.
        
 ‘WE’VE GOT A PROBLEM’ 

       Mike Pintek, then the 27-year-old news director at the 
local radio station, gets a call from his traffic reporter 
monitoring the police frequencies. “He says, ‘I hear on the 
scanners that there’s some kind of emergency. People are 
mobilizing in Middletown.’ Now, Middletown is where the reactor 
is.”       
      
        Reid says there was a lot of anger mixed in with that 
fear. It was all like a page out of a movie script. And, 
amazingly, it was.
        
 THE CHINA SYNDROME

        One woman with a baby says, “Well I saw the movie the 
‘China Syndrome’ and I’m scared to death and I just want to get 
out of town, and I’m scared for my children too.”

        “The China Syndrome” had just opened at the local movie 
theater. Starring Jane Fonda and Jack Lemmon, it was the story of 
a nuclear nightmare in full Hollywood Technicolor. 

       What few realized was that in the mob of reporters 
clamoring for information outside the plant was a freelance 
journalist assigned to cover the unfolding drama for “Rolling 
Stone magazine.” He was Mike Gray, and he — irony of ironies — 
had written the screenplay for “The China Syndrome.”

        “At the New York Daily News, the managing editor stood up 
on his desk and shouted ‘who here has [seen] the “China 
Syndrome,”’ he says. ‘You, you and you, you’re going to 
Harrisburg.’”

        Gray’s movie even becomes a source of gallows humor in 
the control room. 

       “I don’t know if it makes any difference, but I haven’t 
seen Jane Fonda here yet.”

        “Jack Lemmon’s on his way up.”

        Laughter breaks out in the control room. But to Gray this 
is no joke. He understands the danger he’s facing. He knows the 
reactor is a ticking time bomb.

        “I can tell you that was the last place on earth I wanted 
to be,” he says. 
       
 TWO DOOMSDAY SCENARIOS       

      The hydrogen bubble could block the flow of water to the 
core and cause it to melt down or it could become explosive and 
blow a hole right through the concrete roof — blasting 
radioactivity straight into the air. 

               But as scared as everyone is, few outside the 
inner circle of the men trying to save the plant know the half of 
it. They have now determined what that frightening shaking of the 
plant was that had jolted them on Wednesday afternoon. And it 
tells them they have a whole new arena of fears to worry about.

        “An explosion had taken place inside the containment 
building which had a force of some 200,000 tons,” says Gray.

        The reason for the concern? Had there been a faulty weld 
or mediocre concrete work, all of that radioactive material would 
have been in the wind right then and there. Now, a huge bubble of 
hydrogen is forming right inside the reactor vessel.

        Why is that bad? Think of the Hindenberg. Hydrogen is 
volatile and unstable stuff. Mix it with too much oxygen and you 
can get an explosion.

        So now there are two new Doomsday scenarios. The hydrogen 
bubble could block the flow of water to the core and cause it to 
melt down or it could become explosive and blow a hole right 
through the concrete roof — blasting radioactivity straight into 
the air.

        Scranton says, “This is more than a remote possibility — 
the total catastrophe.”

        Inside the reactor vessel, a volatile mix of chemicals is 
brewing. A team of scientists is beginning to worry that a bubble 
of hydrogen gas in the reactor vessel could soon marry up with 
enough oxygen to reach catastrophic levels.

        Would the hydrogen bubble block the flow of cooling and 
cause the already severely damaged core to melt down further? 
Could it reach explosive levels and burst through the containment 
building, sending potentially deadly radiation into the wind?
        
 HOW BAD IS THE BUBBLE?

        That Friday afternoon, Lt. Governor Scranton hears the 
first rumblings of this new terrifying scenario — the Bubble.       

      ‘We’d been up late at night, early in the morning under a 
lot of pressure and this was the most serious scenario with 
regards to the ultimate meltdown that anybody talked about.’ 

— BILL SCRANTON

 Former Pennsylvania lieutenant governor                

“I will tell you that personally, and this is probably true for 
everybody in the inner circle, that was the most frightening 
time,” he says.

        It’s now almost 60 hours into the crisis, and every time 
his phone rings the news seems to get worse. Scranton is 
bone-tired.

        “We’d been up late at night, early in the morning under a 
lot of pressure and this was the most serious scenario with 
regards to the ultimate meltdown that anybody talked about,” he 
says.

        In his most exhausted moments, Scranton was facing his 
largest catastrophe, and had to make the most extraordinary 
decisions. He quickly began to sketch out a plan for governing in 
the radioactive wasteland he had once called home. 

       Scranton admits there were plans to move the seat of 
government from Harrisburg. Some of the staff would go and some 
would stay. 

       The news from Washington isn’t reassuring. Some of the 
government’s top experts believe it is just a matter of time 
before “The Bubble” equals disaster. They are racing against the 
clock.

        In an audiotape one of the government’s top engineers 
urges the chairman of the NRC to get people out of the area near 
the plant now.

        “How the hell do we get those non-condensables out of 
there?” 

       “Do we win the horse race or lose the horse race?”

        “I don’t know what we are protecting at this point.”

        “I think we ought to be moving people out of there.”

        “How far?”

        “I’d get them downwind. I don’t think they’re going to 
kill any people after 10 miles.”
        
 WHO KNOWS WHAT’S HAPPENING?       

      Desperate for information, Governor Thornburgh teams up 
with the reporters who’ve flocked to the scene. Together they try 
to learn the arcane language of nuclear fission on the fly 

               The five commissioners who make up the Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission — all political appointees — are hamstrung 
by their own rules: the majority must agree or they cannot act. 
As the plant inches toward possible disaster, discussions among 
the chairman and some of his top lieutenants are going nowhere.

        Desperate for information, Governor Thornburgh teams up 
with the reporters who’ve flocked to the scene. Together they try 
to learn the arcane language of nuclear fission on the fly.

        “Half the time I didn’t know what I was reporting to be 
honest with you,” says Pintek. “And I am ashamed to say, but I 
didn’t know. In our news room we were ripping and reading.” 

       The governor, meanwhile, the chief executive of the state, 
making life or death decisions, is reading the same wire copy, 
underlining these stories as he goes, trying to figure out what’s 
happening on the island. “It was a tense time,” he says. “And it 
was a tense one for everyone.”

        And in one recording, the chairman of the Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission is talking to his men, strategizing on how 
to handle the governor, admitting how little they know.

        “We’re operating almost totally blind with the 
information.”

        “You’ve got to tell him what you’ve got.”

        “I don’t, you know, a couple of blind men staggering 
around making decisions.”

        Finally, Thornburgh, sensing a potentially fatal 
information blackout, talks to then-President Jimmy Carter. He 
asks Carter to send someone he can count on. 

       “I said, ‘I’m sick and tired of getting these erroneous 
recommendations and getting false information. I need somebody 
here as your personal representative who can provide us with 
reliable information,’” he says to the president.
        
 SORTING THINGS OUT       

      ‘You didn’t know whether it was time to abandon ship or 
not. And that was the position they were in. They were operating 
totally in the blind because nobody could go near the containment 
building.’ 

— HAROLD DENTON

 Point man for President Carter                

Harold Denton, one of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission 
division’s most seasoned managers, becomes President Carter’s 
point man at the reactor.

        “When I got to the control room Friday it was just jammed 
with people,” says Denton. “I mean there must have been 80 to 100 
people in this control room.”

        Denton tries to bring order to the plant but, as in any 
nuclear reactor, he is handicapped by its sheer, impenetrable, 
design.

        “It would be like you were at sea and you had information 
that you had a fire in the engine room but nobody could go down 
there and find out how bad it was,” says Gray. “You didn’t know 
whether it was time to abandon ship or not. And that was the 
position they were in. They were operating totally in the blind 
because nobody could go near the containment building.” 

       By Friday night, the communities around the plant are 
ghost towns.

        “The streets were deserted,” says Gray. “It looked like 
you expected to see tumbleweed coming down the main drag and yet 
there was this presence of just palpable danger.”

        A sense of danger had reached into every living room in 
the country.

        That Friday night, Denton and his men frantically work 
around the clock, from makeshift trailers across from the plant. 

       On Saturday, Thornburgh, Scranton and his very pregnant 
wife visit the shelters in nearby Hershey, Pennsylvania, trying 
to comfort the families who’ve fled from their homes.
        
 AN EXPLOSIVE BULLETIN       

      Even the men who were trying to save the plant are starting 
to think of escaping. They’re even talking about getting out of 
the control room and leaving behind a robot with a camera so 
they’ll have pictures of the reactor as it blows. 

               And then at 8:23 Saturday night, the Associated 
Press sends out an urgent bulletin.

        Federal officials are saying tonight that the gas bubble 
inside that crippled nuclear reactor at Three Mile Island is 
showing signs of becoming potentially explosive.

        The story hot off the wires is as explosive as its 
content. The bubble of hydrogen in the reactor vessel could soon 
trigger a massive explosion.

        “I’m sitting there reading, and I’m thinking I’m going to 
die,” says Pintek. “We’re going to die.”

        On Sunday morning — more than fours days into the crisis 
now — a Catholic priest gives the parishioners left behind 
general absolution — forgiveness of sins in the face of imminent 
death.

        Denton’s right hand man, Vic Stello, left the control 
room to attend mass.

        “Vic Stello came back clearly shaken by that service,” 
says Denton. “Most people had left by that point. Everybody said 
we got to get out of there while we can.”

        Even the men who were trying to save the plant are 
starting to think of escaping. They’re even talking about getting 
out of the control room and leaving behind a robot with a camera 
so they’ll have pictures of the reactor as it blows. 

       NRC Audio tape: “It might help us in a core melt sequence 
— yeah.”

        “If that robot were placed in the control room in unit 
2.”

        “In case you have to evacuate?”

        “In case you wanted to evacuate.”
        
 THE ENGINEERS DISAGREE       

      The Washington camp, led by Roger Mattson and his team of 
some 50 blue-chip experts, run the numbers and are convinced that 
the plant is going to blow to bits. 

Is the end near? By Sunday morning two distinct camps have formed 
in the ranks of the nuclear engineers. The Washington camp, led 
by Roger Mattson and his team of some 50 blue-chip experts, run 
the numbers and are convinced that the plant is going to blow to 
bits.

        Gray says, “He was concerned that literally there could 
be an explosion at any moment.”

        On the other side, Denton’s top lieutenant, Vic Stello, 
who is at the plant, believes that there isn’t enough oxygen yet 
to make the hydrogen bubble an immediate threat.

        Will the plant blow or not? Thousands of lives hang in 
the balance.

        The night before, with this debate reaching a critical 
mass, President Carter had decided to visit the plant. The 
country is facing a crisis like it has never seen before.

        “The situation was so dicey that he felt the only way 
that he could keep the public from just simply panicking was to 
arrive on the scene himself and try to reassure everyone,” says 
Gray.

        But Roger Mattson, the Washington engineer, believes this 
is a suicidal photo-op.

        With the chairman of the NRC riding shotgun, Mattson 
races to Harrisburg to press his case in person.

        “He was arguing for a full evacuation of the area and 
nobody would pay any attention to him,” Gray says.
        
 THE PRESIDENT ARRIVES       

      ‘It had to have been a stunning moment. The president was 
treated to an argument over whether or not the place was about to 
blow up at the very instant he was driving on his way down 
there.’ 

— MIKE GRAY

 Author and engineer                And at that very moment, with 
nothing yet resolved, with the engineers locked in a bitter 
debate, the helicopter carrying the president and the first lady 
is about to land.

        Gray says, “Just then, ba ba ba ba ba bum, the 
president’s helicopter arrives. Carter comes in and he’s ready 
for his briefing.”

        The president is a former nuclear sub man, and now, he 
has to make a snap decision. Gray says there’s a virtual 
fistfight going on with two experts over whether they are going 
to die in the next three or four minutes.

        “It had to have been a stunning moment,” he says. “The 
president was treated to an argument over whether or not the 
place was about to blow up at the very instant he was driving on 
his way down there.”

        As Carter listens to the debate, the consensus is that 
the numbers run by the engineers in Washington arguing that the 
plant is going to blow are theoretical and don’t match what the 
operators are seeing inside the plant. The debate is resolved for 
now.

        Reassured, President Carter’s entourage takes off for the 
towers.

        “It was amazing to see people standing in their yards 
applauding the president as he came by, some visceral connection 
because they were angry, confused and terrified,” says Gray. “And 
he was the president of the United States, so he had a 
tremendously calming effect on the whole scene.” 

       Mike Pintek agrees. “It was like the heavens opened,” says 
Pintek. “The cloudy, overcast day and the clouds parted and the 
sun came out. It was like a new morning.”

        In the public’s mind, the arrival of the president marked 
the end of the immediate crisis but in the control room the 
symbolic visit hadn’t rectified any of their long-term problems.

        “By Sunday night there was no doubt in anyone’s mind: (A) 
this plant would never run again, and, (B) they were not sure 
they were going to be able to cool it,” says Gray. “They did not 
know how to turn it off.”

        But with the reactor core once again underwater, with the 
hydrogen bubble not getting any worse, they’d bought some time to 
think it through. Just hours after the president left, they found 
a flaw in the Washington camp’s hydrogen bubble calculations. The 
threat had been overstated. 

       In the days ahead, the best brains in the field of nuclear 
power would come to Pennsylvania to tweak the once raging core 
into submission. It took a month to shut the reactor down. But 
finally unit 2 was stone cold dead.
        
 WHAT REALLY HAPPENED?       

      In the end, when we look back at this brush with nuclear 
catastrophe we tend to think of the Three Mile Island accident as 
a failure of technology. But it wasn’t so much the machine that 
failed, as it was the humans overseeing it all. 

In the end, when we look back at this brush with nuclear 
catastrophe we tend to think of the Three Mile Island accident as 
a failure of technology. But it wasn’t so much the machine that 
failed, as it was the humans overseeing it all.

        “It was the Titanic syndrome,” says Gray. “The engineers 
had convinced themselves that they had thought of everything and 
in fact, they pretty much had in other words. The plant was 
designed to save itself without human intervention.”

        So if they had done nothing that morning it would have 
shut itself down and we never would have heard of Three Mile 
Island.

        “Three Mile Island would have remained an obscure, 
unknown sand bar in the Susquehanna river,” he says.

        Three years after the accident, when it was finally safe 
enough to go near the reactor, they dropped a camera down inside.       
    
      Three years after the incident at Three-Mile Island, a 
camera shows the damage inside reactor number two.

        [Image: Inner Core] 
        
        And these are the pictures taken by that video probe. 
Astounding stuff to trained eyes. The accident that could never 
happen, had. 

       How close did we get to the big catastrophe at Three Mile 
Island?

        “We came about as close as you can imagine when half the 
core melted,” says Denton.

        Since the accident, control rooms have been reconfigured, 
operator training has increased greatly, and the Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission has put a staff expert at every reactor in 
the country.

        The half-life of that experience on a bend in the 
Susquehanna River has been even more lasting. No new nuclear 
plants have been built in this country since that little valve 
failed at Three Mile Island.       
      
       “Any confidence that people have that technology is benign 
ended right then and there,” says Scranton. 

       He admits that was the obituary for the commercially 
generated nuclear power industry. “Having lived through it, I 
understand why,” he says. “You can’t go through that again. You 
just can’t.”

        President Carter commissioned a comprehensive study 
shortly after the accident at Three Mile Island. 

       The report was critical of both government regulators and 
the utility during the crisis.

        The Bush administration supports the development of 
nuclear power as a future energy source and earlier this month, 
the House passed a bill providing for tax breaks to extend the 
operation of existing nuclear power plants.
               
*****************************************************************
 7  Entergy Will Buy Vermont Yankee for $180 Million
                                       
    [PR Newswire]   

Wednesday August 15, 11:01 am Eastern Time
Press Release
SOURCE: Entergy Corporation
 
NEW ORLEANS, Aug. 15 /PRNewswire/ -- Entergy Corporation (NYSE: - 
news) and the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corporation have 
reached an agreement to sell the Vermont Yankee nuclear power 
plant in Vernon, Vt., to Entergy for $180 million.

Vermont Yankee will become Entergy's 10th nuclear unit and its 
fifth in the Northeast. Entergy Nuclear has operated five nuclear 
units in Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana for more than 20 
years and began buying its properties in the Northeast in 1999.

The $180 million in cash represents $145 million for the plant 
and related assets and $35 million for nuclear fuel.

``We expect to realize significant operating efficiencies since 
Vermont Yankee is a sister plant to our Pilgrim plant in 
Plymouth, Mass., and our FitzPatrick plant in Oswego County, 
N.Y.,'' said Wayne Leonard, Chief Executive Officer of Entergy. 
All three are boiling water reactors designed by General Electric 
and, as a result, many resources such as inventories and spare 
parts, best safety practices, group purchasing, specialized 
technical skills, manpower, key management, and financing can be 
shared.

Ross Barkhurst, President and Chief Executive Officer of Vermont 
Yankee, said, ``We are pleased to be selling this outstanding 
nuclear plant to a national leader in nuclear plant operations 
with a strong track record of safe operations. We are very 
pleased that the auction process run by JPMorgan has been so 
successful. We were able to execute the auction on a timely basis 
with a process which garnered significant interest and clearly 
maximized the value of the plant.''

In addition to paying $180 million, Entergy will retain the 
plant's 450 employees at their same salary and comparable 
benefits.

Entergy will also receive nuclear fuel and all materials and 
spare parts inventory as well as the plant, switchyard, and 
related real estate in nearby Brattleboro. Entergy will also 
assume decommissioning liability for the plant and the plant's 
decommissioning trust fund, which is required by the U.S. Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission. No decommissioning top-off or any other 
financing by Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corporation is 
anticipated with the transaction.

The deal includes a power purchase agreement requiring Entergy to 
sell all the plant's power to present Vermont Yankee sponsors 
through 2012, the remaining years of the plant's operating 
license, at average annual prices ranging from $39 to $45 a 
megawatt-hour.

The agreement includes a ``low market adjuster'' that protects 
Vermont Yankee owner-utilities and their power consumers in case 
power market prices drop significantly. If a prior year's average 
market price of power is more than five percent below the annual 
agreement price for the current year, the agreement price would 
drop to 105 percent of the previous year's average market price.

The Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corporation is owned by 12 New 
England utilities. The largest shareholder is Central Vermont 
Public Service Corp. in Rutland, Vt., 31.3 percent, and the 
others are New England Power Co., 22.5 percent; Green Mountain 
Power Corp., 17.9 percent; Connecticut Light and Power Co., 9.5 
percent; Central Maine Power Co. and Public Service Company of 
New Hampshire, 4 percent each; Burlington Electric Department, 
3.6 percent; Cambridge Electric Light and Western Massachusetts 
Electric Co., 2.5 percent each; Vermont Electric Cooperative, 
Inc., 1 percent; and Washington Electric Cooperative Inc. and 
Village of Lyndonville Electric Department, 0.6 percent each.

Entergy Nuclear Chief Executive Officer Jerry Yelverton said the 
power purchase agreement benefits Entergy as well as New England. 
``New England power consumers will have a reliable source of 
electricity with built-in price stability. That reduces our risk 
and allows us to focus our time and attention on increasing the 
plant's capacity factor, achieving cost synergies with other 
plants, and maintaining the highest level of safe operations.''

The sale is subject to the approval of the Public Service Board 
of Vermont, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Federal 
Energy Regulatory Commission, and other regulatory authorities. 
After their approvals, a closing is targeted for the spring of 
2002.

Vermont Yankee is the largest power generator in Vermont, 
producing about 30 percent of the power used by Vermont 
consumers. With a 510-megawatt capacity, the unit can produce 
enough power to supply about 500,000 homes.

The plant has been an excellent performer with an average 
capacity factor of 89 percent over the past 10 years, the second 
highest of all boiling water power reactors in the nation.

``The men and women of Vermont Yankee have worked hard fulfilling 
our commitment to a high standard of operations,'' said 
Barkhurst, Vermont Yankee's president. ``Entergy's purchase is a 
clear indication that our hard work is valued by a nuclear 
industry leader. Our employees' culture of excellence will be 
welcomed by Entergy's successful national operation.''

Yelverton, Entergy Nuclear's CEO, said Entergy will be committed 
to high environmental standards and close, supportive relations 
with local communities, as the current Vermont Yankee owners have 
been.

Vermont Yankee Chairman Robert Young said, ``This agreement 
preserves the economic benefits that Vermont Yankee provides the 
state and the region, and the price stability inherent in the 
purchase power agreement helps protect New England's electric 
consumers from the volatility of the electricity market. We look 
forward to bringing this agreement before our regulators for a 
thorough review in the coming months.''

The plant and related assets will be transferred to Entergy 
Nuclear Vermont Yankee LLC, an Entergy subsidiary, and will 
become part of the Entergy Nuclear Northeast fleet.

In addition to the three boiling water reactors mentioned, 
Entergy also owns and operates the Indian Point 3 unit, purchased 
from the New York Power Authority last November, and is preparing 
to close the purchase of the Indian Point 2 plant from Con Edison 
this fall. Both are Westinghouse pressurized water reactors and 
located on the same site in north Westchester County, N.Y. The 
nuclear businesses of Entergy Corporation are headquartered in 
Jackson, Miss. As a global energy company, Entergy, based in New 
Orleans, is the third largest power generator in the nation with 
more than 30,000 megawatts of generating capacity, about $9 
billion in annual revenue and over 2.6 million customers in 
Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas.

Entergy Nuclear South operates five nuclear units from its 
regional office in Jackson, Miss. Its newly acquired units are 
managed from its Entergy Nuclear Northeast regional office in 
White Plains, N.Y. Entergy Nuclear also manages decommissioning 
activities and furnishes license renewal engineering services to 
the U.S. nuclear power industry.

JPMorgan acted as exclusive financial advisor to Vermont Yankee 
on the sale and has been advisor on the sale of 11 of the last 13 
nuclear units sold in the U.S., including Millstone, Nine Mile 
Point, Indian Point 3, and James A. FitzPatrick.

Entergy's on-line address is Vermont Yankee's on-line address is 

The following constitutes a ``Safe Harbor'' statement under the 
Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: Investors are 
cautioned that forward-looking statements contained herein with 
respect to the revenues, earnings, performance, strategies, 
prospects and other aspects of the business of Entergy 
Corporation, Entergy Arkansas, Inc., Entergy Gulf States, Inc., 
Entergy Louisiana, Inc., Entergy Mississippi, Inc., Entergy New 
Orleans, Inc., and System Energy Resources, Inc. and their 
affiliated companies may involve risks and uncertainties. A 
number of factors could cause actual results or outcomes to 
differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking 
statements. These factors include, but are not limited to, risks 
and uncertainties relating to: the effects of weather, the 
performance of generating units and transmission systems, the 
possession of nuclear materials, fuel and purchased power prices 
and availability, the effects of regulatory decisions and changes 
in law, litigation, capital spending requirements, the onset of 
competition, including the ability to recover net regulatory 
assets and other potential stranded costs, the effects of recent 
developments in the California electricity market on the utility 
industry nationally, advances in technology, changes in 
accounting standards, corporate restructuring and changes in 
capital structure, the success of new business ventures, changes 
in the markets for electricity and other energy-related 
commodities, changes in interest rates and in financial and 
foreign currency markets generally, the economic climate and 
growth in Entergy's service territories, changes in corporate 
strategies, and other factors. SOURCE: Entergy Corporation 

  Copyright © 2001 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved. Privacy 
*****************************************************************
 8  Kazakhstan-ideal conditions for radioactive waste burial
 
[ITAR/TASS News Agency]   
  
Summary:        - Kazakhstan has ideal conditions for the burial 
of medium-activity and low-activity waste, Zhabaga Takibayev, 
scientific supervisor of Kazakhstan's national nuclear centre, 
told a news conference in Almaty on Wednesday.   

Story Filed: Wednesday, August 15, 2001 10:12 AM EST 

ASTANA, Aug 15, 2001 (Itar-Tass via COMTEX) -- Kazakhstan has 
ideal conditions for the burial of medium-activity and 
low-activity waste, Zhabaga Takibayev, scientific supervisor of 
Kazakhstan's national nuclear centre, told a news conference in 
Almaty on Wednesday. 

He said chiefs of the national nuclear centre go along with 
president of the Kazatomprom national nuclear company, Mukhtar 
Dzhakishev, who believes that it is necessary to amend 
Kazakhstan's legislation and permit the import of radioactive 
waste to be buried. 

Dzhakishev said on July 25 that Kazakhstan can accept radioactive 
waste and materials for the burial in its territory. 

He said this will give Kazakhstan funds to implement the 
programme for the burial of its own radioactive waste and for the 
recultivation of contaminated lands. Kazakhstan needs 1.11 
billion dollars to implement the project. 

Dzhakishev suggested that quarries of worked-out uranium deposits 
be used as storages. He believes that in 30 years radioactive 
elements will disintegrate and the storages will be absolutely 
safe. 

At the same time Dzhakishev objected to the shipment of 
high-activity waste to Russia to be reprocessed. He believes this 
will require a sum of 450 million dollars while setting up 
long-term storages in the territory of the Semipalatinsk range 
will cost the treasury one-fifteenth of the sum. 

According to the information of Kazatomprom company over 237 
million tonnes of radioactive waste accumulated in Kazakhstan. 

By Oral Karpishev 

(c) 1996-2001 ITAR-TASS. All rights reserved. 
*****************************************************************
 9   Earthweb IT Management: Data Warehousing &Business Intelligence: 
Case Study:

Bringing Nuclear Science Into the Digital Age
 

CIO Information Network
Intranet Journal
  
By Beth Cox

Passing on the knowledge of grizzled veterans to future employees 
has always been a knotty problem for large organizations -- an 
especially noteworthy consideration at a time when layoffs and 
early-retirement packages are scouring many workplaces of their 
histories. Developing technology to solve this "institutional 
memory" problem has become a significant part of a growing sector 
known as digital content management. 

One entity eager to keep its employees' recall on call is Sandia 
National Labs, a national security laboratory operated in New 
Mexico for the U.S. Department of Energy by Sandia Corp., a 
Lockheed Martin subsidiary. Sandia designs all non-nuclear 
components for the nation's nuclear weapons, carries out a wide 
variety of energy research and development, and works on 
assignments that respond to national security threats, both 
military and economic. 

Several years ago the lab began to videotape conversations with 
many of its retired and soon-to-be-retired nuclear weapons 
engineers. The idea was to let future engineers and scientists 
see and hear these veteran specialists describe, in their own 
words, the systems and technologies they'd developed. "Many of 
the weapons and systems in use today will be around long after 
the original designers are gone," said John Tissler, leader of a 
unit Sandia calls its Knowledge Preservation Project. "We wanted 
the next generation of scientists and engineers, many of whom 
will be tasked with maintaining or disassembling these systems, 
to have information at their disposal that goes far beyond the 
basic manuals and diagrams." 

But as the lab's stockpile of videos grew, so did the problem of 
how to make thousands of hours of tape readily searchable and 
usable. In addition to taping veteran engineers, Sandia also 
records exercises for a training program on the safe handling of 
nuclear weapons. It wanted make all the videos more accessible to 
personnel by digitizing them and making them available on 
classified internal networks and, for unclassified data, on its 
intranet. 

Tissler said the lab initially spent a great deal of time and 
several hundred thousand dollars trying to build its own video 
content management system, "but the results had been 
disappointing." 

Shopping for a Vendor

 After deciding to shop for an outside vendor, Sandia settled on 
Screening Room, a product made by Convera Inc. (NASDAQ:CNVR) of 
Vienna, Va. The lab is now using Screening Room to convert to 
digital format its libraries of training videos and the taped 
scientist interviews; to index and annotate key frames and clips; 
and to enable users to quickly search for and retrieve clips 
using a standard Web browser. 

Converawas formed last December when Intel's Interactive Media 
Services division and Excalibur Technologies joined forces to 
create a new enterprise aiming to help businesses manage digital 
content. 

"Knowledge preservation efforts are gaining considerable traction 
within both government and corporate entities," said Ben Plummer, 
Convera's senior vice president for marketing. 

Among competing applications Sandia considered was Virage's video 
capture and management technology. Other players in the field are 
Eloquent, Loudeye, Verity, Liquid Audio, and Reciprocal. 

With Screening Room, users can capture video; browse visual 
summaries (called storyboards); catalog content using metadata, 
annotations, closed caption text, and voice sound tracks; search 
for precise clips using text and image clues; and create rough 
cuts and edit decision lists for further production. Easy User 
Interface

 Screening Room is rich with help features and employs a user 
interface designed to be mastered in a matter of minutes. Sandia 
system administrators who digitized, indexed, and annotated the 
video clips were trained in a scant two days. 

Sandia says that dozens of its employees are now using Screening 
Room, primarily nuclear weapons scientists within Sandia and the 
Department of Energy. 

The solution has three basic modules: Video Capture Server, which 
performs "ingestion," or conversion for system use, of either 
analog or digital content; Video Asset Server, which allows the 
content to be organized, managed, enriched, and edited; and a 
User Interface Module, which provides search, retrieval, and 
preview capabilities through a Web browser. 

Sandia said it spent approximately $125,000 for full 
implementation of Screening Room, including multiple licenses. 
Would the lab do it again? "Definitely!" said Tissler in an 
e-mail exchange. "I have long been a proponent of government 
agencies using off-the-shelf products, as opposed to trying to 
develop something in-house. Only if there is absolutely no 
commercial solution available should a government agency attempt 
to develop something in-house. Even then they might be better off 
working with potential suppliers to develop solutions, instead of 
spending the taxpayers resources to develop something that the 
government will never be able to recoup its investment on. 

"While Screening Room didn't do everything that we envisioned for 
our in-house development effort," Tissler continued, "it did 
about 90 percent. (And) as a customer, you couldn't ask for 
better service." Beth Cox is a freelance writer. 

  August 13, 2001
       
       Copyright 2001 INT Media Group, Incorporated All Rights 
*****************************************************************
 10  Repairs on reactor 2 at Zaporozhye NPP extended for 1 month
 
[ITAR/TASS News Agency]   
  
Story Filed: Wednesday, August 15, 2001 10:28 AM EST 

ENERGODAR, Zaporozhye region, Aug 15, 2001 (Itar-Tass via COMTEX) 
-- Repairs on reactor No. 2 at the Zaporozhye nuclear power plane 
have been extended for another month till October 22. 

The plant management explained the delay by the need to change 
elements of the USB-1 and ASUT-1000 automated systems. Besides, 
there are plans to begin repairs on reactor No. 5 from August 17 
to October 21. 

Europe's largest atomic power station has five operating 
reactors. Their combined capacity is 4,280 megawatt. By August 
15, the plant had generated 23,777.7 million kilowatt since the 
beginning of the year. 

The level of radiation at the station is 12 microroentgen per 
hour, which matches the natural level of radiation in the area 
where the station is located. 

By Dmitry Gordeyev (c) 1996-2001 ITAR-TASS. All rights reserved. 
*****************************************************************
 11  Power Plants Show Signs Of Strain 

The Hartford Courant 
August 15, 2001 

Days after extreme heat produced unprecedented energy demand in 
New England, several nuclear power plants in the region have 
suffered unexpected outages and reductions in power production.

On Monday, the 670-megawatt Pilgrim Unit 1 reactor in Plymouth, 
Mass., was abruptly shut down during the testing of a reactor 
system. 

The cause of the shutdown is being investigated. 

Also Monday, the 1,158-megawatt Seabrook Unit 1 reactor in 
Seabrook, N.H., was operating at 60 percent of its power capacity 
for repairs of what was initially reported to be a small steam 
leak. 

On Tuesday, the Seabrook reactor was operating at half its 
capacity to repair a digital controller on a heater drain system, 
according to reports by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. 

In recent days, power has been reduced slightly at the 
870-megawatt Millstone Unit 2 reactor in Waterford to reduce the 
temperature of water discharged by the plant. 

On Friday, a station biologist discovered 50 dead tautog or 
blackfish, in a quarry where the reactor discharges water. 

The fish had passed through a fish barrier, then evidently cooked 
in waters heated to more than 90 degrees by last week's high 
temperatures, plant officials said. 

Last week's heat wave produced a record demand for electricity. 

According to regional power manager ISO New England, power 
consumption reached a record 24,615 megawatts on Tuesday, Aug. 7; 
24,634 megawatts on Wednesday; and a now official record peak of 
25,158 megawatts on Thursday before cooler weather eased demand. 

A megawatt is enough electricity to power about 1,000 average 
homes. 

©2001 MyWay Corp.
*****************************************************************
 12  Just how safe is our nuclear scrap?
                                      
  [enquirer.com] 
    
  Wednesday, August 15, 2001 

Recycling metal from dismantled weapons plants debated
 
By Tim Bonfield

 The Cincinnati Enquirer

During the next 35 years, the federal government expects to 
generate more than 1 million tons of slightly radioactive scrap 
metal as crews dismantle unneeded parts of America's nuclear 
weapons complexes. 

        Most of that scrap will come from uranium enrichment 
plants near Portsmouth, Ohio; Paducah, Ky.; and Oak Ridge, Tenn. 
Some will come from the former Fernald plant near Ross; the Mound 
plant near Dayton, Ohio; and other sites nationwide. 

TO SUBMIT COMMENTS 
  
     The Department of Energy will accept written comments about 
recycling radioactive scrap metal until Sept. 10.

    Another comment period will open after January, when a draft 
policy is expected to be issued.

    Send comments to Kenneth G. Picha, Office of Technical 
Program Integration, EM-22, Attn: Metals Disposition PEIS, Office 
of Environmental Management, U.S. Department of Energy, 1000 
Independence Ave. SW, Washington, D.C. 20585-0113.

    Or, send a fax to Metals Disposition PEIS at (301) 903-9770.

    Or, send e-mail to: Metals.Disposition. PEIS@em.doe.gov.
   

        The big question: Is it OK for the government to sell 
that scrap metal to recyclers, who in turn could melt it down and 
resell it for use in making any number of consumer products — 
from construction materials to braces for a teen-ager's teeth? 

        Deciding the fate of radioactive scrap metal was the 
focus Tuesday of a public hearing at the Omni Netherland Plaza 
Hotel downtown. The hearing was one of several to be held before 
the Department of Energy sets a new recycling policy, expected by 
July 2002. 

        Proponents of recycling, primarily from within DOE, say 
large amounts of metal from former weapon-making sites barely 
register above normal background radiation emanating from the 
soil. They say there is no need to ship such metal to special 
waste sites intended for much more radioactive materials. 

        Opponents, however, say the government cannot be trusted 
to follow its own rules. They predict that scrap recycling will 
result in exposing an unwitting public to potentially dangerous 
metals. 

        “We have serious concerns about this,” said Lisa 
Crawford, president of FRESH, a citizens group that has been 
raising concerns about Fernald. Mrs. Crawford planned to testify 
at an evening session of Tuesday's public hearing. 

        The metals involved are not the enriched uranium, 
plutonium or other highly radioactive materials produced for 
bomb-making. Instead, the new DOE policy would address the steel, 
nickel and aluminum from plant buildings, tanks and equipment; 
copper from electrical wiring and pipes; and small amounts of 
gold and platinum used in discarded equipment. 

        Several thousand tons of scrap metal have accumulated at 
the Fernald plant, where dozens of buildings have been torn down 
since 1989. 

        The debate will have little, if any, impact on the 
Fernald site because the cleanup is so far along, said Fernald 
DOE spokesman Gary Stegner. Nearly all of Fernald's scrap is 
destined for on-site burial or for disposal at the Nevada Test 
Site, he said. 

        But as other DOE sites are dismantled, the issue will 
grow. 

        Between now and 2035, the Department of Energy predicts 
it will generate 942,071 tons of scrap carbon steel, another 
37,070 tons of stainless steel, 2,928 tons of iron and 
unspecified amounts of nickel, copper, aluminum, lead and other 
metals. 

        Nearly 84 percent of the steel will come from facilities 
in Oak Ridge, Paducah and Portsmouth, according to Ken Picha, DOE 
program manager for the scrap-metal disposition plan. 

        The DOE is seeking public comment about whether to 
dispose of the waste or allow some or all of it to be recycled, 
Mr. Picha said. 

        So far, the response has been against recycling. 

        “We do not believe that metals from DOE sites should be 
permitted to be released into unrestricted commerce, based on our 
firsthand experience at a major DOE site,” said Mike Gibson, vice 
president of PACE Local 5-4200, a union that represents cleanup 
workers at the Mound plant in Miamisburg. 

        Despite detailed policies already in place, Mr. Gibson 
said, materials from the Mound and Oak Ridge facilities that were 
assumed to be safe were shipped to foundries or landfills, only 
to be found to be contaminated. 

        Even more problems can be expected if scrap recycling is 
expanded in years to come, Mr. Gibson said. 
        
Copyright1995-2001. The Cincinnati Enquirer, a Gannett Co. 
Inc.newspaper. 
*****************************************************************
 13  World Nuclear Association | News Briefings | Nuclear Energy News | News
                                Briefing 01.33
 
  WNA NEWS BRIEFING 01.33 | 8 - 14 August 2001   
  
A weekly summary of international news relevant to the nuclear energy
industry. 

[NB01.33-1] US: 'A thorough analysis of existing nuclear power 
and the potential for new and continued generation' in 
Pennsylvania has been recommended by an energy task force in the 
state. The group said Pennsylvania should consider nuclear as a 
means of diversifying the state's energy mix in the long term. 
Nuclear energy accounted for 73.5 TWh (36%) of Pennsylvania's 
electricity production in 2000. (NucNet News, 253/01, 9 August) 
Meanwhile, the role of nuclear-generated electricity as a 
critical component of the USA's energy mix has been endorsed in a 
national energy policy plan by the US National Governors 
Association. The policy supports 'efforts to resolve nuclear 
power issues including the oversight of operations, licensing, 
plant life extension and decommissioning of nuclear facilities'. 
(NucNet News, 252/01, 9 August; Nuclear Energy Overview, 13 
August, p1; see also News Briefing 01.32-2) 

[NB01.33-2] The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) expects to 
process 46 applications for nuclear power plant uprates over the 
next five years, boosting electricity production from nuclear 
power plants by about 1600 MWe. Nuclear power plant uprates have 
increased electricity output by some 2500 MWe since 1977. (NucNet 
Business News, 67/01, 10 August; Nuclear Energy Overview, 13 
August, p5; see also News Briefing 00.33-5) 

[NB01.33-3] Canada: Uranium mining company Cameco Corp is 
considering investing in the restart of shut down and unfinished 
nuclear power reactors in the USA, according to CEO Bernard 
Michel. He did not disclose whether the company was already 
negotiating with plant owners. Michel sees US commercial nuclear 
power capacity growing between 10 000 and 50 000 MWe over the 
next 20 years. Cameco already owns a 15% stake in Bruce Power in 
Canada. (Ux Weekly, 13 August, p2; FreshFUEL, 13 August, p2; 
Nuclear Market Review, 10 August, p2; Reuters, 8 August; see also 
News Briefing 00.42-2) 

[NB01.33-4] Australia and Hungary have signed a bilateral 
agreement on cooperation in the peaceful use of nuclear energy 
and the transfer of nuclear material. According to the Australian 
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the agreement 
'stipulates strict safeguards, verification and physical 
protection measures of Australian uranium that might be supplied 
to Hungary for nuclear power generation'. The agreement will 
enter into force after both countries complete their own 
'domestic and constitutional requirements'. Also, a nuclear 
cooperation and safeguards agreement signed by Australia and 
Argentina earlier in 2001 has now been finalised. The agreement 
will facilitate collaboration between the nuclear agencies in 
both countries and enable the transfer of technology and 
equipment for the replacement research reactor project at Lucas 
Heights, being built by INVAP of Argentina. It also allows 
Australian exports of uranium to Argentina under IAEA safeguards 
and provides an option involving Argentina for management of 
spent fuel from the new reactor. (NucNet News, 256/01, 10 August; 
FreshFUEL, 13 August, p4; see also News Briefings 01.32-4 and 
00.29-17) Australia has also signed an agreement with the USA, 
which will facilitate the sale of Australian uranium to Taiwan. 
Under the agreement, uranium will be exported from Australia to 
the US, where it will be enriched, and then transported to 
Taiwan. Australian uranium destined for the Taiwan market will 
thereby be covered by the nuclear safeguards agreement between 
Australia and the US. (Australian Department of Foreign Affairs 
and Trade, 13 August) 

[NB01.33-5] Uzbekistan: Cogema has quit from a project with Navoi 
Mining & Metallurgical Complex (NMMC) to develop the Sugraly 
uranium deposit (38 000 tU, 44 813 tonnes U3O8), according to 
Kabar news agency. NMMC will start the project alone in October 
2001. (Ux Weekly, 13 August, p3; see also News Briefing 98.16-5) 

[NB01.33-6] Russia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgystan have agreed to a 
joint venture to develop the Zarechnoye uranium deposit in 
western Kazakhstan, scheduled to be commissioned either later in 
2001 or in early 2002. Uranium from the deposit will be processed 
at the Kara Balta Mining Co. An estimated 700 tonnes U3O8 will be 
produced annually from the project. (Ux Weekly, 13 August, p3; 
see also News Briefing 01.16-8) 

[NB01.33-7] Czech Republic: The Temelin nuclear power plant has 
reportedly restarted operations after being shut down since May 
for repairs to the turbine and replacement of several parts. The 
reactor could be reconnected to the grid by 15 August. A poll 
conducted in July by CVVM polling agency showed that 22% of 
Czechs opposed the restart of Temelin operations, compared with 
16% in a poll conducted in October 2000. The number in favour of 
Temelin, however, changed little, with 69% in July compared with 
71% last October. (BBC News Online, 12 August; Ux Weekly, 13 
August, p4; see also News Briefing 01.19-10) 

[NB01.33-8] Slovakia: The government should reconsider its 
commitment to close Bohunice-1 and -2 nuclear power reactors 
ahead of schedule as a pre-condition for starting EU membership 
negotiations, the Slovak Nuclear Society (SNUS) said. Ministers 
should insist that the Bohunice reactors remain in operation for 
their designed lifetime as there are 'neither safety, 
environmental or economic reasons for the closure'. Meanwhile, a 
10-year continued operating licence has been issued by Slovakia's 
nuclear regulatory authority for Bohunice-1. This followed a 
periodic safety review conducted by international experts, 
including representatives of the International Atomic Energy 
Agency (IAEA). (NucNet News, 255/01, 10 August; see also News 
Briefing 99.40-7) 

[NB01.33-9] Germany: A hearing was held on 6 August by the 
federal government on the Atomic Consensus - a new law phasing 
out nuclear energy in the country. The hearing was held to air 
the views of concerned organisations. The German Industry 
Association (GIA) told the panel that phasing out nuclear power 
would deprive Germany of vital electricity supplies that could 
not be replaced by a planned expansion of renewable energy. (Ux 
Weekly, 13 August, p3; Nucleonics Week, 9 August, p9; see also 
News Briefing 01.29-7) 

[NB01.33-10] Taiwan will not hold a referendum on whether to 
complete the Lungmen nuclear power plant, the government 
announced. It said a referendum could create tension with the 
opposition party in parliament and cause economic uncertainty. 
(Nuclear Market Review, 10 August, p2; Ux Weekly, 13 August, p4; 
see also News Briefing 01.31-5) 

[NB01.33-11] US: The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is 
evaluating an investor group's proposal to finance US$1.3 billion 
for the restart of Brown Ferry-1, which has been shut down since 
1985. Property developer Franklin Haney heads the group, Nuclear 
Leasing. Under the Haney proposal, TVA would lease the unit to 
Nuclear Leasing, which would simultaneously lease it back to TVA. 
Nuclear Leasing would issue US$1.3 billion in bonds for terms up 
to 56 years secured by TVA lease-payment obligations. TVA is also 
considering whether to resume construction of the two reactors at 
the Bellefonte nuclear power plant (one of which is 80% 
complete). The estimated cost of completing both reactors is 
US$2.5 billion. Haney's Nuclear Leasing has also indicated that 
it could provide the funding for this project. (FreshFUEL, 13 
August, p1; Nuclear Market Review, 10 August, p3; Nucleonics 
Week, 9 August, p1; see also News Briefing 00.50-11) 

[NB01.33-12] The Green-led German federal regulators have 
suddenly, and quietly, restored decision-making autonomy to the 
pronuclear-ruled state of Hesse, two years after they issued a 
federal restraining order. The move clears the way for an 
anticipated licensing by Hesse of simple and inexpensive backfits 
which will save RWE Power AG the expense of building an 
independent bunkered control room for the Biblis nuclear power 
plant at a cost of some DM1 billion (US$455 million). (Nucleonics 
Week, 9 August, p1; see also News Briefings 99.45-18 and 00.51-4) 
Meanwhile, there was no release of radiation, regulators 
confirmed, in an incident on 6 August at RWE Power's Biblis B, in 
which part of a fuel assembly broke off and fell into the spent 
fuel pool. Initial investigations suggest that the base of the 
assembly became trapped in the pool while a crane was raising it. 
(NucNet News, 254/01, 9 August) [NB01.33-13] UK: The mechanical 
bracing fixed to 32 steam pipes at the Wylfa-1 Magnox reactor is 
'performing exactly as expected', British Nuclear Fuels plc 
(BNFL) reported on 7 August as the reactor steadily increased 
power after a 16-month shutdown. (Nucleonics Week, 9 August, p4; 
see also News Briefing 01.32-6) 

[NB01.33-14] US: The Nebraska Public Power District (NPPD) is 
evaluating whether or not to shut down the Cooper nuclear power 
plant. The move follows the loss in June of a lawsuit filed by 
Mid Atlantic Energy Co of Iowa, with whom NPPD had a deal, which 
expires in 2004, to provide half of Cooper's power production in 
exchange for paying half of the plant's operating costs and half 
its decommissioning costs. However, Mid Atlantic claimed it 
should not have to pay towards the decommissioning costs if NPPD 
decided to continue operating the plant after the contract 
expires. Lincoln Electric Systems, which gets 12.5% of its 
electricity from Cooper, has since also refused to pay any 
decommissioning costs. Unless NPPD can get the ruling overturned 
on appeal, it will either have to close Cooper in 2004 or pay Mid 
Atlantic's half of the estimated US$550 million in 
decommissioning costs. (Ux Weekly, 6 August, p4; StoreFUEL, 6 
August, p4) 

[NB01.33-15] British Energy has reportedly approached the UK 
government about the possibility of buying British Nuclear Fuels 
plc's (BNFL's) nuclear fuel manufacturing and reactor services 
division, estimated to be worth some 1.5 billion UK pounds 
(US$2.13 billion). Any sale would have to wait until the UK 
government decides how it will partly privatise BNFL. (Nuclear 
Market Review, 10 August, p2; Ux Weekly, 13 August, p2; see also 
News Briefing 00.46-8) 

[NB01.33-16] Japan is seeking permission to return mixed-oxide 
(MOX) fuel to the UK. As the fuel contains uranium that 
originated in the USA, the Japanese government and the European 
Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) have had to ask the US 
government for permission to return eight MOX fuel assemblies 
imported by Kansai Electric Power Co between July and October 
1999 from British Nuclear Fuels plc (BNFL). (Ux Weekly, 13 
August, p4; SpentFUEL, 13 August, p2; see also News Briefing 
00.28-2) Previous News Briefing NB01.32 

Prepared by the WNA Information Service. All news and views are 
*****************************************************************
 14  Perma-Fix begins accepting waste 

Oak Ridger Online --> 

Story last updated at 12:28 p.m. on Tuesday, August 14, 2001

by Paul Parson 
Oak Ridger staff 

Perma-Fix Environmental Services Inc. has opened and has begun 
accepting radioactive and hazardous waste at its recently 
purchased treatment facility in Oak Ridge.

 Perma-Fix has three subcontracts from the Department of Energy 
and other federal agencies amounting to more than $100 million 
for the treatment of mixed waste stored at Oak Ridge, as well as 
wastes shipped in from 40 other governmental sites.

 In June, Perma-Fix completed the acquisition of East Tennessee 
Materials and Energy Corp. and its low-level radioactive and 
hazardous waste treatment facility. Materials and Energy Corp. 
was awarded the three contracts to treat DOE mixed waste in 1998.

 The contracts cover treatment of millions of cubic feet of 
legacy, operational and demolition nuclear waste, both solids and 
liquids, not only at Oak Ridge, but also from more than 40 other 
DOE facilities.

 Perma-Fix's 125,000-square-foot treatment facility, which is 
located at the Oak Ridge K-25 site, processes radioactive and 
hazardous materials without using incineration, according to a 
Perma-Fix press release. Company officials said this treatment 
process significantly reduces the impact on the environment.

 K-25, which was built in the 1940s, contains one of the nation's 
largest single stockpiles of nuclear waste, including large 
amounts of waste from various technologies used in enriching 
uranium.

 Perma-Fix, which began in 1991, operates 10 waste treatment 
facilities across the country. The company's headquarters is in 
Gainesville, Fla., and it maintains a corporate office in 
Atlanta, Ga.
         
All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger 
*****************************************************************
 15  ADAMS: Items of Interest - Tuesday, August 14, 2001
 State of Nevada
Agency for Nuclear Projects

ADAMS - Items of Interest Recent Released Documents Added - 
Tuesday, August 14, 2001 

These documents and others may be retrieved at the NRC PERR web 
site

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Item ID: 012250142 Accession Number: ML012220337 Document Date: 
8/10/01 Title: 07/26/2001, Meeting summary with Westinghouse on 
Power uprates Re to discuss recent licensing experience and 
lessons learned with uprates and plans for future power uprates. 
Author Affiliation: NRC/NRR/DLPM/LPDIV Document/Report Number: 
_________________________________________________________________ 
Item ID: 012250140 Accession Number: ML012220526 Document Date: 
8/10/01 Title: 08/01/2001 Meeting Summary-Palisade's Control Rod 
Drive Upper Housings, Enclosures 2 &3. Author Affiliation: 
NRC/NRR/DLPM Document/Report Number: 
_________________________________________________________________ 
Item ID: 012250145 Accession Number: ML012220531 Document Date: 
Title: 08/01/2001 Meeting with Nuclear Management Company, LLC Re 
ASME Code Case N-504-1 for Weld Overlay on Control Rod Drive 
Upper Housings. Author Affiliation: Document/Report Number: 
_________________________________________________________________ 
Item ID: 012250141 Accession Number: ML012200486 Document Date: 
8/10/01 Title: 08/01/2001 Meeting with Nulcear Management 
Company, LLC Re ASME Code Case N-504-1 for Weld Overlay on 
Control Rod Drive Upper Housings. Author Affiliation: 
NRC/NRR/DLPM/LPD3 Document/Report Number: 
_________________________________________________________________ 
Item ID: 012250222 Accession Number: ML012250214 Document Date: 
8/8/01 Title: 08/22/01 - Mtg w/ Dept of the Army, to discuss a 
possible exemption from 71.5(b) to allow transportation of 
certain products w/o compliance to NRG regulations (agenda 
attached). Author Affiliation: NRC/NMSS/SFPO Document/Report 
Number: 
_________________________________________________________________ 
Item ID: 012250139 Accession Number: ML012220500 Document Date: 
8/10/01 Title: 08/24/2001 Meeting with United States Enrichment 
Corporation to discuss of status of Part 76 Standard Review Plan. 
Author Affiliation: NRC/NMSS/FCSS/SPB Document/Report Number: 
_________________________________________________________________ 
Item ID: 012250211 Accession Number: ML012250173 Document Date: 
8/10/01 Title: 08/29/01 - Mtg w/ Dominion Virginia Power, to 
discuss planned license renewal application for the Surry 
Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation. Author Affiliation: 
NRC/NMSS/SFPO Document/Report Number: 
_________________________________________________________________ 
Item ID: 012250138 Accession Number: ML012220579 Document Date: 
8/10/01 Title: 09/05/2001 Meeting with Progress Energy to Review 
CRDM Nozzle Inspection Commitments at Crystal River Unit 3 Author 
Affiliation: NRC/NRR/DLPM/LPD2 Document/Report Number: 
_________________________________________________________________ 
Item ID: 012250056 Accession Number: ML012150141 Document Date: 
1/28/85 Title: Funding of NRC's High Level Waste Management 
Program Costs Under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 - Use of 
Nuclear Waste Fund (SECY 84-0456). Author Affiliation: NRC/EDO 
Document/Report Number: 
_________________________________________________________________ 
Item ID: 012250012 Accession Number: ML011980350 Document Date: 
8/3/01 Title: Public Version of the July 2001 Director's 
Quarterly Status Report on Generic Activities. Author 
Affiliation: NRC/NRR Document/Report Number: 
_________________________________________________________________ 
Item ID: 012250027 Accession Number: ML012140421 Document Date: 
7/26/01 Title: Submittal of a Supplement to the Safety Analysis 
Report (SAR) Changed Pages for the UMS Universal Storage System 
Amendment #2 for Maine Yankee Atomic Power Company Site Specific 
Spent Fuel. Author Affiliation: NAC International Document/Report 
Number: 
_________________________________________________________________ 
Item ID: 012250029 Accession Number: ML012140427 Document Date: 
7/25/01 Title: Submittal of NAC International Topical Report 
790-TR-001, Revision 0, "Requirements for Dry Storage of High 
Burnup Fuel." Author Affiliation: NAC International 
Document/Report Number: 790-TR-001, Rev 0 
_________________________________________________________________ 
Item ID: 012250066 Accession Number: ML012150201 Document Date: 
7/27/01 Title: Total Dose Contributions TDOSE (i,p,t) for 
Individual Radionuclides (i) and Pathways (p) as mrem/yr and 
Fraction of Total Dose at t = 3.000E+02 Years. Author 
Affiliation: Nuclear Fuel Services Inc Document/Report Number: 
_________________________________________________________________ 
Item ID: 012250054 Accession Number: ML012150128 Document Date: 
5/7/01 Title: Transcript of Proceeding, 2.206 Petition on 
Wacken-Hut Security FFD Issue, pages 1-5. Author Affiliation: 
Court Reporter Document/Report Number: 
_________________________________________________________________ 
Item ID: 012250058 Accession Number: ML012150147 Document Date: 
12/28/84 Title: VR-SECY-84-0456, "Funding of NRC's High Level 
Waste Management Program Costs Under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act 
of 1982 - Use of Nuclear Waste Fund." Author Affiliation: 
NRC/OCM, NRC/SECY Document/Report Number: VR-SECY-84-0456 
_________________________________________________________________ 
Item ID: 012250053 Accession Number: ML012150123 Document Date: 
9/24/85 Title: VR-SECY-84-0456A, "Funding of NRC's Costs of 
Licensing Dept of Energy (DOE) Under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act 
of 1982 (NWPA) - Use of Nuclear Waste Fund for NRC/NWPA 
High-Level Waste (HLW) Activities." Author Affiliation: NRC/OCM, 
NRC/SECY Document/Report Number: VR-SECY-84-0456A 
*****************************************************************
 16  ADAMS: Items of Interest - Wednesday, August 15, 2001
 State of Nevada
Agency for Nuclear Projects

ADAMS - Items of Interest Recent Released Documents Added - 
Wednesday, August 15, 2001 

These documents and others may be retrieved at the NRC PERR web 
site

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Item ID: 012260036 Accession Number: ML012180048 Document Date: 
8/3/01 Title: 08/03/01 House and Senate Action on Energy Bills. 
Author Affiliation: NRC/OCA Document/Report Number: 
_________________________________________________________________ 
Item ID: 012260114 Accession Number: ML012190415 Document Date: 
8/7/01 Title: 08/23-24/2001 Notice of NRC participation at 
workshop sponsored by NEI on control room habitability. Author 
Affiliation: NRC/NRR/DRIP Document/Report Number: 
_________________________________________________________________ 
Item ID: 012260311 Accession Number: ML012260326 Document Date: 
8/8/01 Title: 08/23/01 - (REVISED from 8/22) Mtg w/ Dept of the 
Army, to discuss a possible exemption from 71.5(b) to allow 
transportation of certain products w/o compliance to NRC 
regulations (agenda attached). Author Affiliation: NRC/NMSS/SFPO 
Document/Report Number: 
_________________________________________________________________ 
Item ID: 012260158 Accession Number: ML012250163 Document Date: 
8/10/01 Title: 08/30/2001 - Notice of Meeting with Nuclear Energy 
Institute (NEI) and Other Stakeholders on the Physical Protection 
Significance Determination Process & Performance Indicators. 
Author Affiliation: NRC/NRR/DRIP/RGEB Document/Report Number: 
_________________________________________________________________ 
Item ID: 012260159 Accession Number: ML012250397 Document Date: 
8/10/01 Title: 08/30/2001 - Notice of Meeting with Nuclear Energy 
Institute (NEI) Regarding Seismic Qualification of Equipment. 
Author Affiliation: NRC/NRR/DRIP/RGEB Document/Report Number: 
_________________________________________________________________ 
Item ID: 012260266 Accession Number: ML012260217 Document Date: 
8/14/01 Title: 09/05/2001 Notice of Meeting with Exelon 
Generation to discuss PBMR. Author Affiliation: 
NRC/NRR/ADIP/NRLPO Document/Report Number: 
_________________________________________________________________ 
Item ID: 012260134 Accession Number: ML012210090 Document Date: 
8/7/01 Title: 2001 Annual Assessment Followup - Three Mile 
Island. Author Affiliation: NRC/RGN-I/DRP Document/Report Number: 
_________________________________________________________________ 
Item ID: 012260005 Accession Number: ML012110289 Document Date: 
6/18/01 Title: Part 1 Letter Forwarding "Site Hydrogeologic and 
Geochemical Characterization and Alternatives Assessment for the 
Moab Uranium Mill Tailings Site, Moab Utah". Cover Letter Through 
Page 2-68. Author Affiliation: Shepherd Miller Inc 
Document/Report Number: 
_________________________________________________________________ 
Item ID: 012260003 Accession Number: ML012060208 Document Date: 
8/6/01 Title: Public Disclosure Determination of BWXT Documents. 
Author Affiliation: NRC/NMSS/DWM Document/Report Number: 
*****************************************************************
 17  Nuclear power a safe, inexpensive, clean energy source
 
The Paducah Sun
Paducah, Kentucky
Wednesday, August 15, 2001

By Travis Norsen Knight Ridder News Service

As Congress ponders how the country can avoid an energy crisis 
like the one that has affected California, many people believe 
that only science-fiction can offer a long-term solution — a 
solution in which discoveries in theoretical physics would lead 
to some new energy-producing technology. The fuel for this 
technology, as they imagine it, would be abundantly available, 
safe, inexpensive and clean. 

It may surprise those people to learn that the only fiction here 
is the belief that this is some future fantasy. Actually, the 
relevant discoveries in physics happened nearly a century ago, 
and the resulting technology — nuclear power — is now almost 50 
years old. But the fact that this valuable technology is playing 
a diminishing role in our economy reveals something very 
important — not about nuclear power itself, but about the motives 
of its militant opponents. 

Nuclear power provides a cheap alternative to fossil-fuel-based 
sources of electricity. With comparable capital and operating 
costs, and a mere fraction of the fuel costs, it can provide 
electricity at 50 percent to 80 percent of the price of 
traditional sources. It is extremely reliable, and is by far the 
cleanest of any viable energy source known. 

Its safety record is also exemplary. In America today, the 
nuclear industry ranks among the safest places to work. It 
experiences only 0.34 accidents resulting in lost work time per 
200,000 worker-hours, compared with a 3.1 average throughout 
private industry. While during the past 40 years, hundreds of 
thousands have died as a result, directly and indirectly, of coal 
mining and other means of energy production, there has not been a 
single fatality, or even a serious injury, resulting from the 
operation of civilian nuclear plants in the United States. The 
annual probability of radiation leakage for the newest reactors 
is estimated at less than one in a billion — a level of safety no 
other source of energy can even approach. 

Why then is opposition to nuclear power so strong? 

The loudest objection raised by the anti-nuclear groups is that 
there is ‘‘no safe level of radiation.’’ It is also the phoniest. 
The major sources of radiation are natural and ubiquitous: we are 
continuously bombarded with radiation from cosmic rays in the 
upper atmosphere and from naturally occurring radioactive 
elements in the earth. Compared with these background sources, 
the radiation from nuclear power plants is negligible. 

The average annual radiation dose received by Americans is 360 
millirems (or ‘‘mrems’’), about 300 of which come from naturally 
occurring sources like radon. By contrast, you would get only 
0.01 mrems per year as a result of living 50 feet from a nuclear 
power plant. Even a single annual cross-country airplane flight 
exposes you to 3 mrems, while a medical X-ray gives you a dose of 
20 mrems. 

Yet the hysterical claims of the anti-nuclear activists continue 
to shape government policy, leading to absurd licensing standards 
for nuclear plants. For example, the radiation levels in 
Washington’s Capitol building (due to uranium in the granite 
walls) would legally prevent the structure from being licensed as 
a nuclear plant. People who work full time at the Capitol are 
exposed to radiation levels thousands of times higher than those 
produced by nuclear plants. 

Similar irrational standards apply to the Yucca Mountain 
nuclear-waste disposal site that is being developed in the Nevada 
desert. In the 1980s the Environmental Protection Agency 
arbitrarily insisted that radiation at the site must cause no 
more than 1,000 deaths in 10,000 years — compared with the 
thousands of deaths per year the EPA was then predicting from 
exposure to natural radon. Yucca Mountain is now being further 
delayed as environmentalists seek even more arbitrary limits on 
allowable radiation. No wonder not a single license for a new 
nuclear plant has been granted in over two decades — and no 
wonder the country faces insufficient supplies of electricity. 

The opposition to nuclear power represents a political, not a 
scientific, viewpoint. The anti-nuclear groups, and the broader 
environmentalist movement of which they are a part, are 
fundamentally hostile to capitalism and production. They are 
against nuclear power, not on any sound scientific grounds, but 
for the same reason they consistently oppose logging and oil 
drilling and dam construction — because they want to reverse the 
progress we have made in conquering nature to serve man’s 
interests. 

They do not seek a better means of generating energy — they want 
us to ‘‘conserve’’ and to do with less. Their goal is to turn out 
the lights on our industrial society. What the defenders of 
nuclear energy need, therefore, is to defend that industrial 
society — by upholding man’s moral right to produce the wealth on 
which his values and life depend. 

Norsen, a doctoral candidate in theoretical nuclear physics at 
the University of Washington, is a writer for the Ayn Rand 
Institute. 
*****************************************************************
 18  Total Production of Uranium Concentrate in the United States
  
Total Production of Uranium Concentrate in the United States as 
of June 30, 2001   

  [Uranium Concentrate Production in the United States, First 
Quarter 1996-2001]   

  [Uranium Concentrate Production in the United States by 
Quarter, 1996-2001] 
 
  Total Production of Uranium Concentrate in the United States 
(Pounds U3O8)   

  Calendar-Year Quarter     1996     1997     1998     1999     2000     2001P
  
  1st Quarter     1,734,427     1,149,050     1,151,587     1,196,225    
1,018,683     700,400   
  2nd Quarter     1,460,058     1,321,079     1,143,942     1,132,566    
983,330     746,724   
  3rd Quarter     1,691,796     1,631,384     1,203,042     1,204,984    
981,948     NA   
  4th Quarter     1,434,425     1,541,052     1,206,003     1,076,897    
973,585     NA   
  Calendar-Year Total     6,320,706     5,642,565     4,704,574     4,610,672 
   3,957,545     --   
  
P = Preliminary data.
 NA = Not available. -- = Not applicable.

 Notes: Totals may not equal sum of components because of 
independent rounding. Next update is approximately 45 days after 
the end of the third quarter 2001.

 Source: Energy Information Administration, Form EIA-851 
"Domestic Uranium Production Report."
   
  Number of Operating Uranium Mills and Plants in the United States   
  Uranium Concentrate
Processing Facilities     Operating at End of 
1996     Operating at End of 
1997     Operating at End of 
1998     Operating at End of 
1999     Operating at End of 
2000     Operating at End of 
June 2001   
  Mills - conventional milling 1     0     0     0     1     1     0   
  Mills - other operations 2     2     3     2     2     2     1   
  In-Situ Leach Plants 3     5     6     6     4     3     3   
  Byproduct Recovery Plants 4     2     2     1     0     0     0   
  Total     9     11     9     7     6     4   
  
1 Milling uranium-bearing ore.
 2 Not milling ore, but processing uranium concentrate from other (non-ore)
materials.
 3 Not including in-situ leach plants that only produced uranium concentrate
from restoration.
 4 Uranium concentrate as a byproduct from phosphate production.
 Source: Energy Information Administration, Form EIA-851 "Domestic Uranium
Production Report."
   
CONTACTS 
For questions about content, please contact the
 National Energy Information Center:
infoctr@eia.doe.gov
Phone: (202) 586-8800
 
or 

Douglas Bonnar
 douglas.bonnar@eia.doe.gov 
(202) 287-1911 

                                       
phone: 202-586-8800 
email: infoctr@eia.doe.gov
For help with technical problems, 
please contact the webmaster:
 wmaster@eia.doe.gov
Phone: (202) 586-8959
*****************************************************************
 19  Lucas Heights opponents jostle Howard
 
[ninemsn home] 

Dozens of angry anti-nuclear protesters heckled Prime Minister 
John Howard as he arrived at a Liberal Party fundraising function 
in Sydney's south.

Protesters waving placards and beating drums jostled the Prime 
Minister, screaming, "no reactor, no waste".

The protesters are angry at federal government plans to build a 
second nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights.

Security officers and NSW police were forced to clear a path for 
Mr Howard, who is due to address a lunch in aid of the local 
member Danna Vale.

Ms Vale, who was unfazed by the demonstration, said a report 
commissioned by Sutherland Shire Council, which disputed the need 
for a second reactor, lacked credibility.

She said she stood by the government's plans to develop the 
reactor even if it meant losing votes at the coming federal 
election.

"If it's in the best interests of Australia then I stand by 
Australia," she told reporters.
				
©AAP 2001  
*****************************************************************
 20  Professor advocates test reactor 

Augusta Georgia: Technology:

08/15/01
 
MIT teacher tells SRS group that experimental nuclear-power plant 
would offer reliability, low overhead 

Web posted Wednesday, August 15, 2001
 
By 
Staff Writer 

Dr. Andrew Kudak says his work might represent the nuclear-power 
plant of the future. On Tuesday, some Savannah River Site 
boosters said they hoped the professor's work would be part of 
the future of the site.

Dr. Kudak, a nuclear-engineering professor at the Massachusetts 
Institute of Technology, is leading an effort to design a 
''pebble-bed'' reactor - a nuclear reactor that he says could be 
built quickly, operated cheaply and have no chance of meltdown.

 ''We're trying to develop a product that is cheaper than natural 
gas, better than coal, and has less environmental impact than 
those alternatives,'' Dr. Kudak told more than 200 people who 
attended a breakfast in Aiken.

 The breakfast was sponsored by Citizens for Nuclear Technology 
Awareness, a pro-nuclear group that is studying the idea of an 
energy park at SRS.
 
Some of the group's leaders said Dr. Kudak's concept might be a 
natural fit for such a park - especially because, according to 
proponents, pebble-bed reactors are adept at burning 
plutonium-based fuels.

 A proposed $2.4 billion plant at SRS would make plutonium-based 
nuclear-reactor fuels using surplus plutonium from the nation's 
nuclear-weapons stockpile.

 But Dr. Kudak said the Energy Department's Idaho Engineering and 
Environmental Laboratory would likely be the first choice for a 
test reactor.

 ''It is supplying about half of our research,'' Dr. Kudak said. 
''It would be the logical first choice.''

 The professor dubbed his effort ''the politically correct 
reactor.''

 Unlike current reactor designs, which are fueled by long, thin 
rods filled with pellets of radioactive uranium, the pebble-bed 
concept would use graphite ''pebbles,'' about the size of 
billiard balls, filled with thousands of uranium particles.

 The reactors would use 360,000 pebbles to heat helium, the 
pressure of which would spin the turbines needed to produce 
electricity. The gas also would act as a coolant, much as water 
acts in most current reactors.
 
But where a loss of water in current reactors would likely lead 
to an accident, loss of helium in a pebble bed would not cause a 
meltdown, Dr. Kudak said.

 The graphite shells surrounding the uranium fuel would prevent 
that, the professor said.

 But the graphite is what concerns Dr. Edwin Lyman, the 
scientific director of the Nuclear Control Institute in 
Washington.

 Graphite can burn, Dr. Lyman said, raising the possibility of a 
fire in a pebble-bed reactor under some accident scenarios. The 
Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Russia was fueled by flaming 
graphite, Dr. Lyman said.

 ''There are a lot of serious unresolved questions with the 
reactor,'' Dr. Lyman said in a telephone interview conducted 
after Dr. Kudak's speech. ''I think it's premature for the people 
who are promoting it to make a lot of the claims that they are 
making.''

 Reach Brandon Haddock at (706) 823-3409 or .
 
All contents 1996 - 2001 The Augusta Chronicle. All rights
*****************************************************************
 21  Idle plants attract suitors

ChattanoogaNow | Chattanooga Times Free Press
 	 	 
  Wednesday, August 15, 2001   				 			
 
By Dave Flessner
 
Business Editor
 
For the past decade and a half, TVA's oldest and newest nuclear 
reactors have sat idle -- the costly victims of an overly 
ambitious nuclear program that left the federal utility deep in 
debt.
 
Now, buoyed by energy shortages in California and the renewed 
push for nuclear power in Washington, D.C., TVA suddenly is being 
inundated with calls from financiers and other power companies 
interested in the idle units at the Browns Ferry and Bellefonte 
nuclear plants in North Alabama.
 
"These plants are gold mines," said Franklin L. Haney, the 
Chattanooga businessman who wants to help finance the restart and 
completion of the Alabama nuclear plants. "TVA has invested 
billions in these plants, and we're convinced that we have a way 
to allow TVA to get the power it needs, pay down its debt and 
still have billions of dollars left over. It just makes sense to 
utilize these plants."
 
Mr. Haney, who has proposed a $1.3 billion leaseback plan to help 
affordably finance the restart of the Unit 1 reactor at Browns 
Ferry, said Tuesday he will make a similar, though even bigger, 
lease proposal next month to finance completion of the unfinished 
Bellefonte plant.
 
Despite opposition by anti-nuclear activists, Mr. Haney is hardly 
alone in his interest in the mothballed plants. On Tuesday, TVA 
officials heard another proposal to finance work on its nuclear 
plants from Cecil M. Phillips, an Atlanta businessman who has 
financed and developed more than 8,000 units of college campus 
housing, including the new dormitories for the University of 
Tennessee at Chattanooga.
 
"Competition is always good, and there certainly seems to be a 
lot of it for these plants all of a sudden," said Mr. Phillips, 
president of Place Collegiate Properties LP. "But I'm confident 
at the end of the day, we can deliver the best package to meet 
the financial needs of TVA."
 
TVA also has been approached by five other energy companies about 
possible purchase or joint ventures for its idled nuclear plants, 
officials confirmed this week.
 
Some environmentalists insist that nuclear plants remain overly 
expensive and dangerous.
 
"TVA has a poor record in running its nuclear facilities, and 
it's time for us to be transitioning away from these old plants 
which generate dangerous wastes we still don't know how to 
dispose of," said Wenonah Hauter, director of the anti-nuclear 
group Public Citizen Critical Mass Energy Project in Washington.
 
Mr. Haney and Mr. Phillips want to act as financing conduits, 
allowing TVA to activate the mothballed plants without running up 
its own $26 billion debt. Under the proposals, TVA would pay the 
financiers' lease payments, which would not be counted as part of 
the utility's politically sensitive debt.
 
"In the past six months, there has been an increased interest in 
Bellefonte from the outside, partly in response to the 
electricity shortages in California and partly in response to 
President Bush's call for more nuclear energy," said Jack Bailey, 
vice president of engineering and technical services at TVA. 
"Nearly all of the new power plants being built today rely on 
natural gas, and when gas prices began to rise, the major players 
are much more interested in balancing their power portfolios with 
more nuclear."
 
Mr. Bailey said TVA isn't interested in selling its idle reactor 
at Browns Ferry, which hasn't generated power since it was shut 
down for repairs in 1985. TVA restarted its other two units at 
Browns Ferry in the early 1990s, and Mr. Bailey said it would be 
impractical to spin off the other adjacent unit, which shares 
equipment and staff with the other reactors.
 
TVA plans to make a decision on whether to restart Browns Ferry 
Unit 1 by early next year, Mr. Bailey said. 

TVA is considering all of its options at Bellefonte, which was 
mothballed in 1988 after the nuclear plant was more than half 
finished. At the time, TVA determined it wouldn't need the power 
from Bellefonte.
 
TVA has invested $4.6 billion in the twin-reactor plant. It tried 
unsuccessfully during the 1990s to sell Bellefonte to another 
utility or to entice the Department of Energy to use it to make 
tritium for nuclear bombs.
 
Mr. Bailey was appointed this spring to head an effort to look at 
everything from selling the plant, finishing it as a TVA-owned 
nuclear plant or using the site to build a coal gasification 
plant. TVA consultants estimate it would take 56 months and at 
least $2.6 billion to finish Bellefonte.
 
But with the improved reliability of nuclear plants today, power 
generated at Bellefonte could more than pay for such an 
investment, according to estimates prepared by Stone and Webster 
Engineering Corp., a consulting company.
 
"The delivered costs from nuclear power is now lower than coal in 
many instances," Mr. Phillips said. "That sort of economics 
drives some new thinking."
 
TVA and other utility officials declined to identify which 
companies have approached TVA about Browns Ferry and Bellefonte. 
But representatives of Dominion and Entergy, two power utilities 
which previously have purchased other troubled nuclear plants, 
said Tuesday their companies may be interested in buying other 
nuclear plants.
 
"We're always interested in any nuclear plant that may be for 
sale anywhere in this country," said Carl Crawford, a spokesman 
for Entergy Nuclear. "We are also interested in other 
arrangements that may be more beneficial to an owner, and we are 
talking about that everyday."
 
Alabama lawmakers are eager to see the plants activated and new 
jobs and power generated. U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., has 
urged TVA to restart Browns Ferry Unit 1 and finish Bellefonte. 
Sen. Sessions has even introduced legislation to provide tax 
credits for construction and upgrades of nuclear facilities.
 
"It would be prudent before you leave Browns Ferry Unit 1 idle or 
convert the Bellefonte facility to non-nuclear that you consider 
a sale or partnership to bring these reactors on line," Sen. 
Sessions wrote to TVA earlier this year.
 
In Hollywood, Ala., home of the mothballed Bellefonte plant, city 
leaders are eager for TVA or any other power company to finish 
the nuclear plant.
 
"It would be one of the best things that could happen to our 
area," said Bill McClendon, a Chevron jobber who serves as mayor 
of Hollywood. "We need the jobs it would create. We need the 
power, too."
 
E-mail Dave Flessner at dflessner@timesfreepress.com
 
Chattanooga Times Free Press
*****************************************************************
 22  NRC SCHEDULES CONFERENCE TO DISCUSS SUMMER NUCLEAR PLANT

Press Release Region II - 2001 - 34 -

UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, REGION II
61 Forsyth Street SW, Atlanta, GA 30303
 Web Site: http://www.nrc.gov/OPA  

  No. II-01-034     August 13, 2001  

  CONTACT:     Ken Clark (404)562-4416/e-mail: kmc2@nrc.gov
Roger D. Hannah (404)562-4417/e-mail: rdh1@nrc.gov  

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff has scheduled a 
predecisional enforcement conference with South Carolina Electric 
& Gas Company officials in Atlanta on August 17 to discuss 
regulatory concerns regarding the V. C. Summer commercial nuclear 
power plant, operated by the company near Jenkinsville, about 30 
miles north of Columbia.
 
The meeting will be held from 10:00 until 11:30 a.m. in the NRC 
offices located on the 24th floor of the Sam Nunn Federal Center 
at 61 Forsyth Street, S. W. It will be open to observation by 
interested members of the public and news media representatives. 
NRC officials will be available at its conclusion to answer 
questions from observers who attend.
 
NRC officials said the conference, which was requested by the 
company, is being held to discuss an apparent violation at the 
plant due to a past practice of disabling special doors to a 
switchgear room near high energy steam lines during maintenance 
activities without first performing a required safety evaluation. 
NRC officials said the practice, discontinued in February of 
1999, had the potential to render emergency AC power to 
safety-related equipment inoperable during an accidental break in 
one of these lines while the doors were removed. 

The decision to hold a predecisional enforcement conference does 
not mean that a determination has been made that a violation has 
occurred or that enforcement action will be taken. The purpose is 
to discuss apparent violations, their causes and safety 
significance, to provide the licensee with an opportunity to 
point out errors that may have been made in the NRC inspection 
report and to enable the company to outline its proposed 
corrective actions.
 
No decision on the apparent violations or any contemplated 
enforcement action, such as a civil penalty, will be made at the 
conference. Those decisions will be made by NRC officials at a 
later time.
*****************************************************************
 23  NRC ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON NUCLEAR WASTE

Press Release - 2001 - 102 - 

 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs     
Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 20555-001     E-mail: 
opa@nrc.gov Web Site: http://www.nrc.gov/OPA  

  No. 01-102     August 13, 2001  

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Advisory Committee on Nuclear 
Waste (ACNW) has elected Dr. George M. Hornberger as Chairman and 
Dr. Raymond G. Wymer as Vice-Chairman.
 
Dr. Hornberger is presently the Ernest H. Ern Professor of 
Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia. His 
research includes work in catchment hydrology and 
hydro-chemistry, as well as the transport of colloids in 
geological media. He received his Bachelor of Science and Master 
of Science degrees in civil engineering from Drexel University in 
1965 and 1967, respectively. In 1970, Dr. Hornberger received a 
Ph.D. in hydrology from Stanford University.
 
Prior to his retirement in 1991, Dr. Wymer was Director, Chemical 
Technology Division, at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. His 
consulting experience includes the areas of radioactive waste 
management, site remediation and nuclear non-proliferation. He 
received a Bachelor of Science degree from Memphis State 
University, and his Master of Science and Ph.D degrees from 
Vanderbilt University.
 
The ACNW is an advisory group established by the NRC in 1988 to 
provide the agency with independent technical review and advice 
on management and disposal of nuclear waste. Members are 
appointed part-time for four-year terms, and may serve for two 
consecutive terms. Dr. Hornberger was appointed to the Committee 
in September 1996, and prior to being elected Chairman, he served 
as Vice-Chairman for the three previous years.
 
Other members of the ACNW are:
 
Dr. B. John Garrick , retired President and Chief Executive 
Officer of PLG Inc., an international engineering, applied 
science and management consulting firm.
 
Mr. Milton Levenson, a former Vice President of Bechtel 
International and an internationally known nuclear engineering 
consultant. 

*****************************************************************
 24  NRC Announces Opportunity for Hearing for License Renewal 
Applications For Mcguire, Catawba Nuclear Power Plants
 
Press Release - 2001 - 103 - 

 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs     
Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 20555-001     E-mail: 
opa@nrc.gov Web Site: http://www.nrc.gov/OPA  

  No. 01-103     August 15, 2001  

 
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has announced the opportunity 
to request a hearing on an application for renewal of the 
operating licenses for the McGuire Nuclear Station, Units 1 and 
2, and Catawba Nuclear Station, Units 1 and 2. 

Duke Energy Corporation, the operator of the four units, 
submitted applications for the renewal of all the operating 
licenses on June 13. A notice of receipt was published by NRC in 
the Federal Register on July 16. The staff has determined that 
Duke Energy Corporation has submitted sufficient information for 
the NRC to formally "docket," or file, the applications and 
conduct a detailed review. 

The deadline for hearing requests is September 14. By that time, 
requests must be filed by anyone whose interest might be affected 
by the license renewals and who wishes to participate as a party 
to the proceeding. 

The McGuire nuclear facility is located 17 miles north-northwest 
of Charlotte, North Carolina, in Mecklenburg County. The 
operating licenses for Units 1 and 2 expire on June 12, 2021, and 
March 3, 2023, respectively. 

The Catawba nuclear facility is located 18 miles southwest of 
Charlotte, North Carolina, in York County. The operating licenses 
for Units 1 and 2 expire on December 6, 2024, and February 24, 
2026, respectively. 

Requests for a hearing must be filed with the Secretary of the 
Commission, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 
20555-0001, Attention: Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff. They 
may also be delivered to the NRC Public Document Room at 11555 
Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland. A copy of the request should 
also be sent to the Office of the General Counsel, U.S. Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, and to Michael 
S. Tuckman, Executive Vice President, Nuclear Generation, Duke 
Energy Corporation, 526 South Church Street, P.O. Box 1006, 
Charlotte, NC 28201-1006. Additional information about the 
opportunity for hearing may be found in the Federal Register 
notice. 

Copies of the application are available on the NRC web site at 
http://www.nrc.gov/NRC/REACTOR/LR/index.html, and are also 
available through the NRC's Agencywide Documents Access and 
Management System (ADAMS). Help in using ADAMS is available by 
contacting the NRC Public Document room staff at 301-415-4737 or 

1-800-397-4209, or by sending a message to pdr@nrc.govvia e-mail. 
The application is available for public inspection at the NRC's 
Public Document Room. 

In addition, copies of the license renewal applications for the 
McGuire and Catawba nuclear stations are available at the J. 
Murrey Atkins Library at the University of North Carolina - 
Charlotte, in Charlotte, NC, and at the Rock Hill Public Library 
in Rock, SC, respectively. 
*****************************************************************
*****************************************************************
                     NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARTICLES
*****************************************************************
 1 DOE reconsidering disposal plans for 55 tons of plutonium
 
This story was published Sat, Aug 11, 2001
 
By The Associated Press and the Herald staff
 
WASHINGTON -- The Department of Energy is revamping a Clinton-era 
plan to dispose of 55 tons of surplus plutonium amid cost 
overruns, prompting threats from South Carolina's governor to 
block shipments into that state.
 
That would include 4.4 tons of Hanford plutonium, scheduled to go 
to South Carolina sometime between 2010 and 2014.
 
The 4.4 tons are mixed within 19.6 tons of scrap at Hanford's 
Plutonium Finishing Plant. DOE is extracting the plutonium and 
converting it into safer forms before shipment.
 
A DOE report, made public Thursday by a private group, concludes 
the cost of disposing of the plutonium will be at least $6.6 
billion over 22 years, about 50 percent more than estimated two 
years ago.
 
At the same time, the Bush administration put on hold part of the 
program that called for some plutonium to be fused into glass 
logs for eventual burial at the Yucca Mountain nuclear repository 
in Nevada.
 
That decision brought complaints from South Carolina officials, 
who are concerned DOE will ship tons of plutonium from its 
weapons facilities into the state for processing with no 
assurance the material will ever leave.
 
"When South Carolina agreed to accept plutonium, DOE agreed that 
there would a clear exit strategy," South Carolina Gov. Jim 
Hodges said recently.
 
Hodges, a Democrat, said the "shifting nature" of the 
government's plan suggests DOE "plans to renege on many of its 
prior commitments."
 
Energy Department spokesman Joe Davis said Energy Secretary 
Spencer Abraham, who talked with Hodges earlier this week, is 
eager to resolve the dispute.
 
In 1999, the Clinton administration announced a "dual strategy" 
for getting rid of excess plutonium from Cold War-era warheads 
and plutonium found at various weapons facilities. Under the 
plan, 33 metric tons would be converted into a mixed-oxide, or 
MOX, fuel for burning in civilian power reactors. Another 17 
metric tons, thought too impure for conversion, would be 
immobilized in glass containers and eventually buried in Nevada.
 
But earlier this year, the administration stopped funding the 
immobilization program and announced the entire plutonium 
disposal plan was being reviewed.
 
Abraham said that it was too expensive to pursue both programs 
and that the department would focus for now on building the MOX 
conversion facilities at the Savannah River complex. He suggested 
the immobilization track would be resumed later. 

Copyright 2001 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This 
*****************************************************************
 2  Russian Nuclear Recycling Test Held
 
Las Vegas SUN
 
Today: August 14, 2001 at 11:50:22 PDT 
 
MOSCOW (AP) - A Russian facility selected to process spent 
nuclear fuel that Russia plans to import has carried out the 
first test of a furnace for recycling the waste, an official said 
Tuesday. 

President Vladimir Putin signed a law last month allowing Russia 
to import spent nuclear fuel, despite protests by liberals and 
environmentalists who insist it will turn Russia into the world's 
nuclear dump. Proponents say it will create jobs and bring in 
money. 

For a fee, spent fuel will be sent by armored train to the Mayak 
facility near Chelyabinsk in the Ural Mountains. The recycling 
process extracts useable nuclear material from the spent nuclear 
rods, while improving safety by reducing the material's potential 
to be used in weapons, the Russian nuclear ministry has said. 

Mayak has staged the first tests of a furnace for turning 
radioactive waste that remains after fuel processing into glass, 
the facility's deputy chief Yevgeny Kyzhkov told the Interfax 
news agency. 

Engineers used ordinary glass in place of spent fuel during the 
trial run, but later this month will stage tests using solutions 
that imitate radioactive waste, Kyzhkov said. He did not specify 
when the test took place. 

Mayak has done no vitrification - or processing into glass - of 
nuclear waste since 1997, the report said. 

Mayak has been the site of several accidents, including a 1957 
waste facility explosion that contaminated 9,200 square miles. 
The region has been called the most radioactive place on the 
planet due to accidents and Soviet-era nuclear waste dumping into 
lakes and rivers. 

All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
 3  24 Hanford tanks to close out Sen. Ron Wyden's watch list
 
This story was published Wed, Aug 15, 2001
 By John Stang Herald staff writer 

The final 24 Hanford radioactive waste tanks are being removed 
from a federal watch list that calls for extra monitoring.
 
That will close the "Wyden watch list" of potentially extra 
dangerous tanks after 11 years.
 
That list had included Hanford's two most troublesome tanks -- 
SY-101, which used to routinely "burp" flammable hydrogen, and 
C-106, whose wastes used to spontaneously heat up.
 
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and U.S. Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., 
are scheduled to announce closure of the Wyden watch list at 
Richland's Hampton Inn at 12:30 p.m. Friday.
 
The Department of Energy declined Tuesday to discuss closing out 
the list, saying it wanted to wait until Friday's announcement by 
Hastings and Wyden, who created the watch list.
 
The final 24 tanks were on the Wyden list because of suspicions 
they might contain flammable gas buildups. However, DOE and CH2M 
Hill Hanford Group, which manages Hanford's tank farms, 
tentatively had believed the wastes in those tanks were less 
hazardous than they originally were considered.
 
Under the Tri-Party Agreement, DOE has a legal deadline of Sept. 
30 to remove all radioactive waste tanks from the Wyden list.
 
Six weeks before that deadline, DOE and CH2M Hill have apparently 
proved those 24 tanks are not as dangerous as they were once 
believed.
 
Hanford has 53 million gallons of highly radioactive wastes in 
177 underground tanks. Sixty of those tanks were on the Wyden 
list at one time or another.
 
In 1990 Wyden, then in the U.S. House, got Congress to pass 
legislation that required Hanford's tanks with extra potential of 
exploding or leaking to undergo additional monitoring and to have 
emergency plans in place.
 
Meanwhile, studies began on those tanks to figure out how 
dangerous they really were.
 
The reasons to put a Hanford tank on the watch list included a 
potential to release flames or dangerous gases, a presence of 
potentially flammable organic chemicals, a presence of 
potentially explosive ferrocyanide gas or wastes that 
spontaneously heat up.
 
Gradually through the 1990s, Hanford either fixed the problems in 
the wastes or proved the wastes were safer than originally 
believed.
 
The ferrocyanide and organic chemical problems eventually were 
proved safe enough to be taken off the Wyden list.
 
Tank C-106's wastes were pumped to a better-designed tank that 
prevents the material from spontaneously heating up.
 
The notorious Tank SY-101 would routinely "burp" huge amounts of 
hydrogen gases that had collected at the bottom of the waste to 
periodically erupt through the surface in potentially explosive 
bursts. Hanford fixed that problem by installing a mixer pump in 
1993. 

Copyright 2001 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This 
*****************************************************************
 4  Beryllium firm agrees to pay $145,000 fine
 
Tucson, Arizona  Tuesday, 14 August 2001

 By Mitch Tobin 
ARIZONA DAILY STAR 

Beryllium manufacturer Brush Wellman said Monday that it will pay 
a $145,000 fine for violating air quality regulations at its 
controversial plant on Tucson's South Side. 

The agreement between the Ohio-based company and Pima County 
stems from a September 2000 inspection that revealed a clothes 
dryer was illegally venting air to the outside. 

The dryer laundered worker uniforms tainted with toxic beryllium 
dust. 

Company officials say the venting of the clothes dryer was due to 
an "administrative error" and posed no risk to the public. They 
say air tests on the dryer vent didn't detect any beryllium. 

County regulators agree that the public's health wasn't 
jeopardized and say the problem was fixed. 

Some people who work with beryllium are at risk of getting sick 
from breathing particles of the gray metal, which is prized for 
its lightweight strength and conductivity. 

At least 27 former employees of the Brush Ceramic Products plant, 
6100 S. Tucson Blvd., have contracted chronic beryllium disease, 
an incurable and potentially fatal illness that slowly suffocates 
its victims. 

Public health experts say that since emissions standards were 
adopted in 1949, cases of beryllium disease in neighborhoods 
surrounding plants have virtually disappeared. 

A 1999 Arizona Daily Star investigation found that Brush Wellman 
moved the most dangerous part of its beryllium business to Tucson 
just as it helped kill a federal safety plan that could have 
reduced the hazard to workers. 

Brush Wellman's activities were also scrutinized that year in 
investigations by the Toledo (Ohio) Blade and ABC's "20/20" TV 
program, which concluded the U.S. government knowingly risked the 
lives of thousands of workers in defense work with beryllium. 

Kirk Keithly, Brush Ceramics Products president and general 
manager, said in a statement Monday that "there has never been a 
concern about us violating emission standards." 

"We're still emitting at a level that's a fraction of what we're 
permitted to discharge, a level that 50 years of data shows is 
safe. Protecting the health of our employees and neighbors is our 
highest priority." 

The plant's neighbors live in a predominantly Hispanic and 
economically disadvantaged area that already has suffered the 
ravages of the ground-water contaminant TCE, a solvent used by 
local aircraft companies. 

Many neighbors have criticized Brush and called for stricter 
monitoring of its air and soil since seven schools are within a 
mile radius of the plant. 

But extensive testing of the soil in the neighborhood done by 
Pima County and the Sunnyside Unified School District hasn't 
found beryllium elevated above natural background levels. 

South Side activist Rose Augustine said she was "shocked" that 
Brush was fined at all, since previous problems "have been swept 
under the rug." But she said the fine was still "peanuts." 

"I wonder how much they would've charged them if they were in a 
community up in the Northeast Side of town. It would have been 
two or three times what they're charging on the South Side," said 
Augustine, president of Tucsonans for a Clean Environment. 

Kathi Lawrence, field services manager for Pima County's 
Department of Environmental Quality, said the agency used federal 
guidelines in determining the fine. Those policies consider, 
among other things, a violator's ability to pay, its cooperation 
in the case and the severity of the infraction. 

All content copyright © 1999, 2000, 2001 AzStarNet, Arizona Daily 
*****************************************************************
 5  VA Proposes Additional Aid for 'Atomic Veterans'
                                       
    [PR Newswire]   

Monday August 13, 1:47 pm Eastern Time
Press Release
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
 
WASHINGTON, Aug. 13 /PRNewswire/ -- The Department of Veterans 
Affairs (VA) announced proposed regulatory changes that would add 
several new cancers to the list of illnesses presumed to be 
connected to the military service of veterans exposed to 
radiation.

Under the proposed rules, veterans diagnosed with cancer of the 
bone, brain, colon, lung, or ovary would be able to apply for and 
receive compensation for these illnesses. Survivors of veterans 
who died from these diseases would also be eligible for benefits.

Veterans who participated in ``radiation-risk activities'' while 
on active duty, during active service for training or for 
inactive duty training as a member of a reserve component are 
eligible. Those activities include the occupation of Hiroshima or 
Nagasaki, internment as a POW in Japan, or onsite involvement in 
atmospheric nuclear weapons tests.

The proposed changes would also expand the definition of 
``radiation-risk activity'' to include exposure to radiation 
related to underground nuclear tests at Amchitka Island, Alaska, 
before January 1, 1974, and service at gaseous diffusion plants 
in Paducah, Ky.; Portsmouth, Ohio; and Oak Ridge, Tenn. (area 
K25).

Veterans are currently presumed to have service-connected 
illnesses if they participated in a radiation-risk activity and 
later developed one of the following diseases: leukemia (other 
than chronic lymphocytic leukemia); cancer of the thyroid, 
breast, pharynx, esophagus, stomach, small intestine, pancreas, 
gall bladder, bile ducts, salivary gland, or urinary tract; 
multiple myeloma, lymphomas (except Hodgkin's disease), primary 
cancer of the liver (except if cirrhosis or hepatitis B is 
indicated), or bronchiolo-aveolar carcinoma.

Veterans and other interested parties have 60 days to submit 
comments to: Director, Office of Regulations Management (02D), 
Department of Veterans Affairs, 810 Vermont Ave., NW, Room 1154, 
Washington, D.C. 20420; or fax comments to 202-273-9289; or 
e-mail comments to OGCRegulations@mail.va.gov. The proposed 
regulations are located in the Federal Register at

http://www.access.gpo.gov. 

SOURCE: U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs 

  Copyright © 2001 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved. Privacy 
*****************************************************************
 6  Injustice of Wen Ho Lee 

August 15, 2001 
  
ONE OF the great witch hunts of recent times, the espionage case 
against scientist Wen Ho Lee, has dissolved even more completely. 
A federal study of the government's stumblebum inquiry has turned 
up a cascade of errors and wrong turns. 

This postmortem makes for a puzzle. Who is more to blame for the 
wrong-way charges: federal agencies including the FBI and 
Department of Energy, a panicked mind-set among spy sleuths, 
political timidity by Washington in admitting error, or a 
credulous media swept along by the accusations? There is plenty 
of blame to go around. 

The study by the Justice Department doesn't cover the whole cast 
of characters. It sticks with the government's own conduct, which 
was the flawed core of this misbegotten case. 

In the mid-1990s, the Energy Department sensed China was privy to 
secret nuclear warhead designs. But when the FBI stepped in to 
investigate these suspicions of espionage, it never 
double-checked the details it was handed. Lee was presented as a 
prime suspect while other leads and theories went unexplored, the 
report said. If there was theft, the real bad guys got away. 

The case took on other overtones as relations with China 
worsened. Lee, a Taiwanese-born U.S. citizen, became a lightning 
rod for racist doubts about Asian-American loyalty. 

On this latter point, the report found no evidence that race was 
a factor in the minds of spy hunters. Many of his supporters have 
vigorously disputed this conclusion, claiming he was singled out 
because investigators thought he would sympathize with Chinese 
spymasters. 

Lee, who spent nine months in jail, eventually pleaded guilty to 
a single charge of mishandling nuclear secrets while 58 other 
charges were dropped. The judge in the case apologized to Lee for 
the government's abusive mishandling of the episode. 

The report may be a vindication for Lee, but his troubles 
persist. An as- told-to book by Lee is in the works, and 
government security censors are taking ample time in reviewing it 
for classified information. This process needs wrapping up. 

The bungled investigation of Wen Ho Lee has become a factor in 
pledges to restructure the FBI. Beyond that, it has become a 
cautionary tale to authorities everywhere about what can happen 
when stereotypes pervade, perhaps even drive, a criminal 
investigation. 

The country is left without knowing if harm was done to national 
security. All it obtained was the ruination of one man.     

©2001 San Francisco Chronicle   Page A - 16 
*****************************************************************
 7  Lab gets new test facility
 
Published Tuesday, August 14, 2001 

+ Lawrence Livermore Laboratory's site in the Altamont hills will cut noise
and nuisance of past tests, which were outdoors 

By Daphne Hsu
 CONTRA COSTA TIMES 

TRACY -- Scientists conducting diagnostic explosives tests first 
had to build tents to shelter those explosives. But they now have 
a new building in which to conduct their tests.

 This fall, the Contained Firing Facility at Lawrence Livermore 
Laboratory's Site 300 will be ready for testing explosives. Lab 
officials said these tests, conducted in the Altamont hills 
between Livermore and Tracy, help ensure the safety and 
reliability of nuclear weapons in the stockpile.

 Outdoor explosives tests have been performed since 1955. In the 
past, the blasts from the outdoor detonations could cause nearby 
car windows to shatter; windows were rolled down and car keys 
remained in ignitions in case the scientists' cars needed to be 
moved prior to experiments.

 Although outdoor experiments will continue, tests done in the 
$49.7 million facility have several advantages. The new facility 
will reduce noise, blast pressures and hazardous waste. Also, 
tests can be done regardless of weather conditions or time of 
day. Precision experiments also will be easier to set up.

 The contained center replaces the existing open-air testing 
area.

 The building can handle explosions using up to 60 kilograms of 
"high explosives," stronger than dynamite, according to Mark 
Sueksdorf, construction project manager. That amounts to the 
world's largest operational amount.

 The new facility can withstand forces equivalent to the 
detonation of 2,000 hand grenades.

 "[We] validate simulations ... by carefully diagnosing real 
experiments," said Bruce Goodwin, associate director for defense 
and nuclear technology. "Without that check on reality, science 
is basically a whole lot of fancy thinking."

 Detonations at Site 300 are carefully monitored using X-ray 
radiography and cameras capable of recording 2.5 million frames 
per second among other instruments. 

The X-rays used at the site are one hundred billion times 
stronger than a dental X-ray. A linear accelerator, needed to 
make the X-ray beam, removes electrons from a piece of black 
velvet and throws them at a target, which scatters high-energy 
light particles. The light will not go through dense areas of 
explosives. Thus, the radiography film is not exposed in those 
areas.

 The scientists use velvet because of "the fuzziness of it." It's 
like "lots of little lightning rods," said Jan Zentler, engineer 
for the X-ray project.

 Only the primary, non-nuclear components of nuclear weapons are 
tested at Site 300. Those non-nuclear components are composed of 
high explosives surrounding fissionable material. Detonation 
compresses the fissionable material, leading to a nuclear 
reaction in which nuclei split other nuclei. Although nuclear 
physics is complex, the building which contains the explosion is 
not. The cavernous 21/2-story building is made of enough steel 
and concrete to make a 60-story skyscraper. 

The tests that go on inside can be expensive. 

"It's a one-time thing," said Alan Wiltse, electronics 
technologist and primary console operator. "We don't allow 
'oops.'"

 "A major experiment (can cost) $1 million from conception to 
firing," said Larry Simmons, program operations project engineer.

 Reach Daphne Hsu at 925-847-2119 or dhsu@cctimes.com.
*****************************************************************
 8  Russian radioactive devices stolen - August 15, 2001

CNN.com - 

MOSCOW, Russia -- Thieves have stolen radioactive devices from a 
depot at a Siberian airport. 
			 		 
The burglars took the devices, which measure the level of icing 
on aeroplane flights, from the airport's depot in Ulan-Ude, a 
city in southern Siberia on the border with Mongolia. 
			 		 
Although it is the latest in a series of thefts of radioactive 
equipment, it is likely the thieves took the 36 gauges which 
contain radioactive stontium-90, for its metal value. 
			 		 
Vitaly Skripko, a spokesman for the local branch of the ministry 
for emergency situations, said the aluminum-covered gauges did 
not pose any danger because their level of radioactivity was 
extremely low. 
			 		 
He said the thieves had apparently wanted to sell the metal for 
scrap. 
			 		 
An investigation will be held into security at the depot, Skripko 
told The Associated Press. 
			 		 
Thefts of metal have become increasingly widespread amid poverty 
and slackening government controls after the collapse of the 
Soviet Union in 1991. 
			 		 
Hundreds of people are electrocuted every year while trying to 
pilfer communication wires, electric cable and train and plane 
parts for selling them as scrap metal. 
			 		 
Large areas are left without electricity after power lines are 
looted. 
			 		 
But Russian officials have said that no weapons-grade nuclear 
material have been stolen. 

*****************************************************************
 9  DOE to meet with EPA on Roane contaminations 

Oak Ridger Online --> 

Story last updated at 12:31 p.m. on Tuesday, August 14, 2001

Department of Energy officials plan to meet this week with 
Environmental Protection Agency representatives to discuss 
examining possible off-site contaminations in three Roane County 
communities.

 "This is an important issue," DOE spokesman Walter Perry said 
Monday evening.

 EPA has requested that DOE detail a plan to address the possible 
contaminations in the Sugar Grove Valley, Dickey Valley and 
Dyllis communities, which border the Oak Ridge K-25 site. EPA's 
request stems from concerns voiced recently by the Coalition for 
a Healthy Environment.

 K-25, which is a Superfund, or contaminated, site, falls under 
EPA's scope for investigation. K-25, where uranium-235 was 
separated from uranium-238 through a gaseous diffusion process, 
occupies 4,689 acres (7.6 square miles) or 14 percent of the Oak 
Ridge Reservation and is located in the Roane County portion of 
Oak Ridge.

All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger 
*****************************************************************
 10  EQAB seeks city help with cleanup talks
 
Oak Ridger Online --> 

Story last updated at 12:31 p.m. on Tuesday, August 14, 2001

by Amy L. Lee 
Oak Ridger staff 

"The federal government has a moral obligation to help clean up 
the community," Ellen Smith, chairman of the city's Environmental 
Quality Advisory Board, told Oak Ridge City Council during a work 
session Monday night at the Central Services Complex.

 "But (the Department of Energy) and the federal government may 
have lost the political will to clean up (contaminated sites)," 
she said.

 Members of the Environmental Quality Advisory Board asked for 
the cooperation of council and city staff in getting the city to 
be represented at cleanup negotiations among environment 
stewards. Smith identified the stewards as the Environmental 
Protection Agency, the Tennessee Department of Environment and 
Conservation and DOE.

 EQAB members said that under current conditions, the stewards 
maintain they are holding privileged discussions and that the 
city is barred from participating.

 Smith said EQAB members feel that council and city staff "need 
to become actively involved with stewardship ... to counter the 
rumor in some circles that the city is not interested in 
stewardship." She added that the city may take a position not on 
specific sites but rather on its role regarding cleanup.

 Mayor David Bradshaw agreed the city needs to "restate, confirm 
or affirm its position.

 "If we agreed it's important for us to be at the table, it's up 
to EQAB to tell us how to get there. We're all saying it's 
impossible, but I believe EQAB should ask how we get there," 
Bradshaw said.

 EQAB member Kenneth Haerer said he feels Oak Ridge has to be 
represented in the negotiation meetings involving the EPA, DOE 
and the state.

 "We can get participation, but we have to demand participation," 
he said. "But the activity has to happen, and it's council's 
responsibility."

 Haerer took one step further and called for a city staff member 
to be dedicated full-time to overseeing the city's representation 
in the negotiations.

 "We all work part-time (on the issue)," Haerer said, "I don't 
see anyone here who can pull all the pieces together."

 Smith said, "The reality is that there is going to be 
contamination, even after DOE completes the current cleanup.

 She said it would be impossible to get rid of all the 
contamination, as well as impractical from a financial 
perspective.

 EQAB has taken another step at fighting the stigma attached to 
the city by producing a brochure that EQAB members hope will 
counteract "some of the negative publicity" and allay fears 
outsiders hold regarding the Oak Ridge community.

 "The stigma is never completely going to go away," Smith said, 
noting that it has also negatively impacted the city's economic 
development.

All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger 
*****************************************************************
 11  DOE rejects board suggestions 

Amarillo Globe-News: Local News: 

08/15/01
 
2001 Amarillo Globe-News  

By Jim McBride

The Energy Department has rejected a Pantex Plant Citizens 
Advisory Board proposal that would have allowed board members to 
continue issuing recommendations on Pantex's nuclear weapons 
operations.<P>

Ralph E. Erickson, DOE's acting associate administrator for 
facilities and operations, told board members in a July 28 letter 
that the department will not expand the board's charter to 
include health, safety and operational concerns.<P>

"The PPCAB needs to focus its resources on environmental concerns 
faced at Pantex rather than defense programs and operations," 
Erickson's letter said.<P>

For several years, the board has given DOE advice and 
recommendations on topics ranging from plutonium storage to 
environmental cleanups.<P>

But in May, local and national DOE officials told advisory board 
members the board's charter did not include Pantex operations. 

Mission Statement

Since 1994, the Pantex Citizens Advisory Board, which includes 
Pantex boosters and critics, has operated under a mission 
statement backed by local DOE officials:<P>

"To provide informed recommendations and advice to the DOE 
concerning the health, safety, environmental and waste management 
aspects of all past, present and future Pantex activities, 
including associated costs and benefits."<P>

The board's two co-chairs then asked DOE headquarters to 
intervene in the dispute.<P>

Jerry Johnson, an Amarillo DOE official overseeing the board, 
later told board members that the DOE could no longer sanction 
the work of an advisory board subcommittee studying Pantex 
nuclear issues. <P>

Paula Breeding, one of the board's two co-chairs, said she fears 
the DOE will return to an era of secrecy that once shrouded Cold 
War programs and wonders whether the board will become a DOE 
rubber stamp.<P>

"Look at the contamination that's coming up now. That was from 
previous operations, and we have no guarantee that the operations 
now won't result in contamination," Breeding said. "I know that 
they do better than what they did in the early days - there's no 
doubt about that - but stuff happens, things leak and people make 
mistakes. It's worrisome."<P>

 Amarillo Area Office Manager Dan Glenn said he met with the 
board's co-chairs and looks forward to working with them. Glenn 
said earlier he would continue to provide board members with 
information about storage.<P>

"Our PPCAB has a wide range of viewpoints which will be very 
helpful in making decisions on environmental issues," he said. 
"This is the kind of advice that citizens advisory boards around 
the country were chartered to give, and it is the kind of advice 
that Pantex needs as we make environmental decisions that affect 
the public."<P>

The Globe-News was unable to reach co-chair Walt Kelley, who 
represents the board's pro-Pantex faction.<P>

Breeding said some members are discouraged by DOE's move but said 
she plans to continue serving.<P>

"There's people that are thinking about quitting. We're not 
accomplishing anything right now. We're not getting any work 
done. And for some people it's a waste of time," she said. 
"There's a lot of us that aren't going to quit."<P>

Erickson's letter said the Pantex board now should work on 
groundwater contamination.<P>

"The presence of contamination in the areas is very significant, 
since a number of stakeholders live close to Pantex. I encourage 
the PPCAB to continue providing the department with consensus 
advice and recommendations on environmental management issues 
that affect the Pantex community," Erickson's letter said.<P>
*****************************************************************
 12  Activist nuns causing a stir in Illinois prison
 
  [charlotte.com]       

  Published Wednesday, August 15, 2001 

school of the americas Protest Activist nuns causing a stir in 
Illinois prison Hennessey sisters are jailed for demonstrationat 
military facility

By EVAN OSNOS 
Chicago Tribune 

PEKIN, Ill. -- Prisoner No.90287-020 at the Pekin Federal Prison 
Camp poses a low flight risk. She is an 88-year-old nun who asked 
to be here.

 Sister Dorothy Marie Hennessey is three weeks into a six-month 
prison term for trespassing at the School of the Americas, a 
federal military facility at Fort Benning, Ga., that trained 
Latin American troops. As a prior trespasser, she drew the 
maximum penalty for her role in a mock funeral procession protest 
and rejected the judge's offer of lesser punishment.

 She is joined on the prison roster by her cellmate, sister and 
fellow Franciscan nun, Gwen Hennessey, 68, prisoner No.90288-020.

 For Sister Dorothy, who walked across the United States at age 
73 to protest nuclear arms, then fought for gay rights while 
living with AIDS patients, prison time is only the latest twist 
in a life of activism.

 "The judge offered me house arrest instead," she said in a 
whispery voice one recent morning, ill-fitting green work clothes 
draped over her tiny, stooped frame. "But I said, `I'm not an 
invalid. I want to receive the same sentence as everyone else.'"

 She shares a 9- by 10-foot cinderblock living space with her 
sibling, Sister Gwen, who left for prison not long after 
celebrating her 50th anniversary at their convent in Dubuque, 
Iowa.

 "We've always been taught that obedience to an informed 
conscience was higher than the law of man," Sister Gwen said.

 Since arriving July17 at the minimum-security prison camp south 
of Peoria, Sisters Dorothy and Gwen gradually have adjusted to 
the new life. The 6a.m. breakfast calls. The 7:30a.m. 
inspections. The 4:30p.m. roll calls. The late-night chatting and 
snoring that echoes through whitewashed concrete halls.

 But the food is good, they say. They get to bunk together. Among 
the 200inmates, most of whom are jailed for drug offenses or 
fraud; the quiet silver-haired nuns receive special attention 
despite their insistence against it.

 "I tell everyone I can open doors myself, but they don't 
listen," said Sister Dorothy, stepping out into the courtyard 
under a blistering August sun that made the cornfield horizon 
shimmer.

 The two have caused a stir at the prison, said Richard Engel, 
the assistant in the warden's office who helped handle their 
arrival. "Obviously there is a lot of interest because of their 
age and the reasons they are here."

 A legacy of activism and social conscience is rooted in the Iowa 
farm where the sisters and 13 other siblings watched their 
parents feed and shelter the freight tramps who most people 
ignored.

 By the 1960s, Sister Gwen was marching with Dr. Martin Luther 
King Jr., while Sister Dorothy grew active in the fight against 
nuclear proliferation. In 1986, she walked from Los Angeles to 
Washington in an appeal for nuclear disarmament.

 It was during that time their brother, Ron, a Maryknoll 
missionary priest in Central America, began to describe the 
mounting violence in the region tangled by political conflicts.

 In his letters he wrote of the assassination of Archbishop Oscar 
Romero of El Salvador in 1980, and the slaying in 1989 of six 
Jesuit priests, a cook and her daughter by a Salvadoran army 
patrol.

 In both incidents, soldiers or officers involved were later 
identified by a U.N. panel to have been graduates of the School 
of the Americas, the U.S. Army institute that had trained more 
than 63,000 military personnel in a half-century.

 By 1997, protests marking the November anniversary of the Jesuit 
priests' deaths were drawing peace advocates and religious 
representatives to the school.

 The Hennessey sisters took part in a mock-funeral procession 
that year onto the base, and received "ban and bar" letters that 
prohibited them from returning.

 Last Nov.19, when they staged the procession again with an 
estimated 3,500protesters, the Hennesseys were arrested and 
charged with 24others.

 By the end of this month, 24members of the group will be serving 
time at various prisons, according to School of the Americas 
Watch, a protest organizer.

 Officials at the military school in Georgia defend the law that 
sent the Hennesseys to prison.

 "They conducted a political rally within a military 
installation, which is against Department of Defense 
regulations," said Army Maj. Milton Mariani, a public affairs 
officer at the base. "Fort Benning has procedures set forth. And 
they send any violations to the federal prosecutor's office, 
which determines the ones to take to trial."

 The School of the Americas closed last December, before 
reopening in January under a new name, the Western Hemisphere 
Institute for Security Cooperation. The Army says the school is 
newly focused on human rights and law enforcement, though critics 
charge it is unchanged.

 The sisters are not backing off.

 "Nobody wants to go to prison. But our time here is 
insignificant compared to the suffering of the victims in Latin 
America" said Sister Gwen. "We've always been taught that 
obedience to an informed conscience was higher than the law of 
man." Gwen Hennessey" 
  
*****************************************************************
 13  Practice planned to halt plutonium
 
  [charlotte.com]       

  Published Wednesday, August 15, 2001 

Roadblocks considered 
 Hodges orders troopers to hold exercises near Savannah River Site
 
Associated Press 

AIKEN -- Gov. Jim Hodges has ordered troopers and other public 
safety workers to hold exercises near the Savannah River Site to 
practice what the state might do if the federal government tries 
to send plutonium to the site.

 Hodges' letter to Public Safety Director Boykin Rose was the 
latest salvo on the standoff between South Carolina and the U.S. 
Department of Energy about storing and processing the fuel used 
to make nuclear weapons.

 Hodges has threatened to use troopers to form roadblocks to keep 
the shipments out of the state.

 The exercises will take place Aug. 29 at the nuclear complex 
near Aiken. Hodges says he will attend.

 SRS had an agreement with the Clinton administration to store 
surplus plutonium temporarily. Hodges has said he thinks the Bush 
administration wants to make that arrangement permanent.

 "We must be prepared to stand up to Washington for the health 
and safety of our state's citizens," Hodges wrote in the letter 
released Monday. "These exercises will ensure that we are 
prepared in the event the plutonium shipments reach our state's 
borders."

 Public safety officials have not decided exactly what the 
exercises will entail. "We're looking at all the options we can 
come up with, and we'll make a decision sometime before that 
day," spokesman Sid Gaulden said.

 Troopers and state transport police have surveyed the roads 
leading into the complex, Gaulden said.

 Executing roadblocks might be difficult because shipping 
schedules and routes are kept under wraps, said Rick Ford, a DOE 
spokesman at SRS.

 The department plans to ship about 2,000 drums of plutonium to 
SRS from a site in Colorado, Ford said. The shipments, which 
could begin in October, are scheduled to occur in a two-year 
period, he said.

 Hodges hasn't ruled out suing to stop federal plans to ship the 
radioactive metal to SRS, his spokeswoman said Monday.

 "It's something that our office is looking at," Cortney Owings 
said. "We're keeping all of our options open, but we're really 
hoping that we don't have to go to any last resorts."

 In a letter to the governor Tuesday, state Attorney General 
Charlie Condon reiterated his support for Hodges and asked for a 
meeting this week "so that we can develop a coordinated legal 
plan of action."

 However, Condon said Hodges' staff has told him there is no 
reason to meet. He is urging the governor to fight in the courts 
instead of "lying in the road in front of the trucks."

 The state would have a good chance at winning a court fight 
since the environmental impact studies used to approve the 
agreement involved processing the plutonium instead of storing 
it, Condon said Tuesday.

 Getting troopers to stop a legal shipment would be an 
unprecedented and wrong step for Hodges to make, said Condon, who 
is running for governor.

 The shipments are part of a federal plan to get rid of 55 tons 
of surplus plutonium. Proposed plants at SRS would process the 
radioactive metal for disposal elsewhere.

 But even as it prepares to ship plutonium to SRS, Energy 
officials have suspended work on one of the treatment plants 
planned for the site. Cost estimates for the other plant, the 
mixed-oxide fuel fabrication facility, have risen to $2.4 
billion.
 
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 14  Hodges fights SRS plutonium plan 

Governor orders safety exercises, seeks assurance that storage 
would be temporary 

Web posted Tuesday, August 14, 2001
 
By Staff Writer 

If plutonium makes it to Savannah River Site in coming weeks, 
South Carolina Gov. Jim Hodges wants to make sure the state can 
send it back.

 The governor ordered Public Safety Director B. Boykin Rose on 
Monday to hold exercises Aug. 29 near the federal nuclear-weapons 
site. The order was the latest salvo in Mr. Hodges' standoff with 
the U.S. Department of Energy over the planned shipments.

 ''We must be prepared to stand up to Washington for the health 
and safety of our state's citizens,'' Mr. Hodges wrote. ''These 
exercises will ensure that we are prepared in the event the 
plutonium shipments reach our state's borders.''

 The governor said he planned to attend the exercises.

 The South Carolina Department of Public Safety has not decided 
what the exercises will entail, a spokesman said.

 ''We're looking at all the options we can come up with, and 
we'll make a decision sometime before that day,'' Sid Gaulden 
said.

 Mr. Hodges had ordered Mr. Rose on Thursday to examine the 
feasibility of roadblocks to intercept the shipments.

 The governor has said he fears the Energy Department will turn 
SRS into a de facto permanent storage site for plutonium, which 
can cause cancer if inhaled or ingested in even small doses.

The shipments are part of a federal plan to get rid of 55 tons of 
surplus plutonium. Proposed plants at SRS would process the 
radioactive metal for disposal elsewhere.

 But even as it prepares to ship plutonium to SRS, the Energy 
Department has suspended work on one of the treatment plants 
planned for the site. Cost estimates for the other plant, the 
mixed-oxide fuel fabrication facility, have risen to $2.4 
billion.

 Those conditions mean that plutonium coming into South Carolina 
won't have a clear path out, Mr. Hodges said.

 ''The transitory and shifting nature of the Energy Department's 
decisions is not acceptable to us,'' the governor wrote in a 
letter to South Carolina congressmen Lindsey Graham, Floyd Spence 
and John Spratt.

 ''We relied on prior commitments that South Carolina would not 
become a storage site and that there would be multiple pathways 
for the plutonium to be sent offsite. The Energy Department's 
unwillingness to keep its commitments seriously endangers the 
support that South Carolina has long had for SRS operations.''

 Joe Davis, an Energy Department spokesman in Washington, did not 
return a Monday telephone call seeking comment.

 Executing a roadblock might be difficult because of the 
secretive nature of the shipments. Shipping schedules and routes 
are kept under wraps, said Rick Ford, an Energy Department 
spokesman at SRS.

 The department plans to ship about 2,000 drums of plutonium to 
SRS from a site in Colorado, Mr. Ford said. The shipments, which 
could begin in October, are scheduled to occur in a two-year 
period, he said.

 Mr. Hodges hasn't ruled out filing a lawsuit to stop federal 
plans to ship the radioactive metal to SRS, his spokeswoman said 
Monday.

 ''It's something that our office is looking at,'' Cortney Owings 
said. ''We're keeping all of our options open, but we're really 
hoping that we don't have to go to any last resorts.''

 Reach Brandon Haddock at (706) 823-3409 or .
 
All contents 1996 - 2001 The Augusta Chronicle. All rights
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 15  EPA: More data on OR pollution needed

KnoxNews: Local
 		 		
By Frank Munger, News-Sentinel senior writer

OAK RIDGE -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is pushing 
for more data on pollution possibly linked to health problems in 
communities near the government's Oak Ridge reservation. 

However, a group that raised the concerns is not happy that the 
EPA wants the U.S. Department of Energy to lead the 
investigation. 

"We need the EPA to take an independent look at this situation," 
said Harry Williams of the Coalition for Healthy Environment. 

Williams said residents of Dyllis, Sugar Grove Valley and Dickey 
Valley are experiencing serious health problems that may be 
related to contamination from DOE's Oak Ridge facilities, and he 
said there's an obvious conflict of interest if DOE conducts the 
investigation. 

Wesley Lambert, an EPA spokesman in Atlanta, said DOE has lead 
responsibility for such investigations and also has the resources 
to conduct the environmental sampling. Lambert cited the Federal 
Facilities Agreement negotiated by theDOE, the EPA and the state 
of Tennessee. 

The Roane County communities are located along the Clinch River 
not far from the K-25 plant, a former uranium-enrichment plant 
now known as the East Tennessee Technology Park. 

The federal plant produced nuclear fuel for decades and still 
houses a number of waste-management operations, including an 
incinerator that burns radioactive and hazardous wastes. 

Constance Allison Jones, an official in the EPA's regional office 
in Atlanta, sent a letter to the DOE outlining the complaints 
received from the Coalition for a Healthy Environment and asked 
the Oak Ridge office to come up with a plan to address the 
contamination issues. 

Jones asked the DOE to come up with plan, although she said any 
investigation or sampling program should not be started without 
the concurrence of EPA and Tennessee Department of Environment 
and Conservation. 

Frank Munger can be reached at 865-482-9213 or 
twig1@knoxnews.infi.net. 

Copyright 2001 The Knoxville News-Sentinel Co.               
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 16  Activists unveil new battle strategy at Y-12

KnoxNews: Columnists

By Frank Munger

Recent events in Oak Ridge suggest war has been declared on the 
peace front. Before dawn on Aug. 6, the 56th anniversary of the 
A-bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, demonstrators attempted to 
block traffic as the early shift of workers arrived at the Y-12 
nuclear weapons plant. 

It is one of the few times that peace activists have tried to 
surprise Oak Ridge police and Y-12 security, and clearly this was 
an attempt to up the ante in terms of civil resistance. 

The element of surprise didn't work, either because police 
guessed right or had advance knowledge of the plans through an 
informant. The saw horses and other protest paraphernalia used to 
block Bear Creek Road were quickly thrown to the side by security 
officers, and police wasted no time hand-cuffing and arresting 
the 15 participants, including a Catholic bishop from Michigan. 

All told, the blockade lasted less than 10 minutes and had little 
impact on the early rush hour at Y-12. But it was a signal that 
future protests probably won't be the carefully coordinated 
affairs of the past - some of which included advance discussions 
of plans with Oak Ridge police. * 

FORK IT OVER: The city of Oak Ridge is always looking for more 
money from the U.S. Department of Energy to offset the negative 
impacts of DOE's presence in the Atomic City. 

If ever the city deserved extra compensation, it is for the 
police response to protests at the bomb plant. The city annually 
spends thousands of dollars in overtime and other expenses 
related to the demonstrations at Y-12. 

DOE should reimburse the city for those expenses or bring in 
federal officers to take the responsibility. 

The city is in no position to afford these growing costs. * 

SNS KUDOS: The news continues to be good for the Spallation 
Neutron Source, the $1.4 billion science research facility under 
construction near Oak Ridge National Laboratory. 

The latest review from the so-called Lehman Committee (named 
after its chairman Dan Lehman) suggested everything was pretty 
much shipshape. "In summary, the project was found to be on track 
and well positioned to meet its technical, cost and schedule 
objectives,'' the review team concluded. The SNS features a 
linear accelerator and experimental facilities that use neutrons 
to explore the structure of materials. The project is to be 
completed in June 2006. 

* DUNCE SCHOOL: You would think, after all these years of trying 
to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act, that DOE 
would know how to hold a public meeting. 

Wrong. 

At an Aug. 2 session to gather public comment on an upcoming 
environmental impact statement on radioactive scrap metals, DOE 
made a mess of things. People who attended the meeting had to 
wait for an hour and a half before being allowed to make their 
comments on the review, which will look at the recycling of 
radioactive scrap and other alternatives. 

That's ridiculous. 

A certain amount of background is necessary, of course, but a DOE 
official from Washington basically went over the entire notice of 
intent. Worse yet, DOE permitted an Oak Ridge official to parade 
back and forth across the stage for about 30 minutes to brag 
about what a great job the local program does in surveying the 
nuclear scrap and maintaining health and safety. 

How's that for biasing the process? 

Then there was a question-and-answer session that contributed 
little, except to further delay the public's opportunity to 
comment. It was exercise in arrogance. 

* 

LAND USE: Leah Dever, the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge 
manager, is expected to make an Aug. 29 announcement regarding 
land-use planning on the federal reservation. 

Dever acknowledged earlier this summer that she had backed off 
her plan to conduct a full-scale environmental impact statement 
on future use of federal property in Oak Ridge. 

The business community objected to a lengthy environmental 
review, saying it would needlessly stall development of federal 
parcels already targeted for industrial use. Conservationists 
have challenged DOE's helter-skelter approach to land planning, 
saying the federal agency is jeopardizing a unique environmental 
resource in the region. 

Dever is expected to present a compromise approach that involves 
"stakeholders'' in the planning process. U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, 
R-Tenn., who got involved in the earlier controversy, is 
scheduled to join Dever for the announcement later this month. 


Senior writer Frank Munger covers the Department of Energy for 
the News-Sentinel. He can be reached at 865-482-9213 or at 
twig1@knoxnews.infi.net. This column is also available on the Web 
at www.knoxnews.com/editorsview/munger/ 

News-Sentinel Co. 		
    
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