***************************************************************** 09/16/01 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 9.220 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER CONTENTS 1 Nuclear energy is clean 2 Nuclear reactors labelled sitting ducks 3 GSE awarded $6.7 million job - 4 Japan minister wants more security for nuclear reactors 5 Disease, radiation concerns arise 6 Japan minister wants more security for nuclear reactors 7 Troubled Czech nuclear power reconnected to grid 8 Russian spent nuclear fuel storage to open soon 9 Terrorist fear over Blair nuclear plan 10 UK signs up to nuclear power pact 11 Blair warns of nuclear risk from terrorists 12 University fined for radioactive leak at science building 13 Beg warns of threat to nuclear installations -DAWN - 14 Scots call for delay on nuclear plant 15 Threats to Hoover Dam assessed 16 David Templeton's Seldom Seen: Behind the gates of Acid Dump Road 17 Government to start from scratch on new radioactive waste policy 18 BNFL chief urges Government to build more nuclear plant NUCLEAR WEAPONS CONTENTS 1 Bin Laden sought nuclear matter 2 Children of Atomic Vets, Nuclear Test Site Chart 3 The disease that defies description 4 Blair warns of nuclear risk from terrorists 5 Aleksandr Nikitin wins in Supreme Court 6 Berkeley lab loses funding, will close 7 Senator delays New Mexico trip 8 Sessions: No talk of nuclear attack -- Senators say conventional ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 Nuclear energy is clean Editor, the News-Sentinel: I was gratified to see in the Aug 6 paper the article, "TVA considers reviving idle nuclear facilities." It's about time - long past time, and if Stephen Smith of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy is incredulous that TVA is looking to this venue to supply its energy needs, I'm incredulous at his incredulity. Environmentalists can't have it both ways. If we're to scale back the use of fossil-based fuels in the interest of protecting the environment, then we must pursue environmentally clean methods of energy production that are economically viable, and at this time solar energy and windmills do not fit that description. Charles Lee Knoxville September 16, 2001 The Knoxville News-Sentinel Co. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 2 Nuclear reactors labelled sitting ducks By MARTIN MITTELSTAEDT Thursday, September 13, 2001 – Print Edition, Page A5 If the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center caused havoc and possibly killed thousands, just think of another frightening scenario: assaults on atomic-power plants. Nuclear stations are vulnerable to terrorists, who could cause panic far more severe than an attack on an office building if they succeeded in breaching reactors' containment systems, warns a prominent U.S. nuclear expert. Tom Clements, head of the Washington, D.C., Nuclear Control Institute, an independent non-proliferation watchdog, says the security systems at atomic-power facilities can easily be breached by determined terrorists. "Potentially, it could be many times worse than what we've seen [in New York] because it could result in radiation and fallout over a vast area that would have a devastating economic effect," Mr. Clements said. Mr. Clements said threats from the air -- such as missile attacks and crashing airliners -- haven't been given much thought, and that these installations are just as defenceless to such an attack as the Pentagon and other office buildings. "Aerial attack is not really considered and we think that the plants are vulnerable, even though they have a thick containment dome," he said. In Canada, all four of the utilities that operate reactors took their stations to higher security levels after the attacks, according to an official. Jim Leveque, spokesman for the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, the federal nuclear watchdog body, said the country's four nuclear operators -- Ontario Power Generation, Hydro Quebec, New Brunswick Power, and Bruce Energy -- all instituted additional security measures in response to the U.S. attacks. Although authorities express confidence in their security measures, most of which are classified information and not public, some independent critics are not so sure. Mr. Clements says one worrisome development is that in simulated attacks at U.S. reactors, security systems are frequently breached. "It's quite apparent that the facilities are very difficult to defend," Mr. Clements said. "I mean [terrorists] can just go right in, over the fence, take out the guards and get in." In the simulations, security systems failed at about 50 per cent of the plants tested, meaning the mock attackers would have been able to disable enough plant systems to cause significant core damage. Mr. Clements said Canadian reactor security may be even more lax than in the U.S., which is considered to have the world's best safeguards. He said he was stunned by the low security levels he observed in Canada during a tour of Atomic Energy of Canada's Chalk River research facility in Ontario. "I was appalled by the lack of security in that control room," he said. Boston Globe ***************************************************************** 3 GSE awarded $6.7 million job - 2001-09-14 - Washington Business Journal Sean Madigan Staff Reporter GSE Systems said today it landed a $6.7 million contract to provide hardware and software to Westinghouse Savannah River Co., which manages the Savannah River Site, a South Carolina facility that prepares radio active chemicals for use in nuclear weapons. The Columbia, Md.-based company says Westinghouse Savannah River will buy hardware and a three-year license to use GSE's D/3 simulation and process control software. The first phase of the contract will be delivered over the next few months. Additional phases will come in 2002 and 2003. In response to the recent terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center, the Savannah River Site is closed for security concerns. The site is one of South Carolina's largest employers and was built in the 1950s to manufacture the basic chemicals used to make nuclear weapons. In addition to its Columbia headquarters, GSE also has offices in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, North and South Carolina, Pennsylvania and Texas. The company's other customers include Miller Brewing, Eastman Chemical and Cargill. [Get Copyright Clearance] Copyright 2001 American City Business Journals Inc. Click for permission to reprint (PRC# 1.1668.482981) Washington Business Journal email: washington@bizjournals.com ***************************************************************** 4 Japan minister wants more security for nuclear reactors BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Sep 16, 2001 Japan's Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Takeo Hiranuma said on Sunday that the country needed to increase the security of its nuclear reactors in the wake of Tuesday's attacks in the USA, the Japanese news agency Kyodo reported. It quoted him as saying that, while Japan's nuclear reactors had been designed to withstand earthquakes, there had been no preparations made for them to survive attacks by missiles or aircraft. "We would like to learn a lesson from the terrorist attacks in the United States," he said, and suggested that fighters from the Air Self-Defence Force could be sent to intercept suspicious aircraft approaching any of the country's nuclear reactors. Kyodo said there were 51 commercial nuclear reactors in Japan. Source: Kyodo News Service, Tokyo, in English 1146 gmt 16 Sep 01 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter All Material Subject to ***************************************************************** 5 Disease, radiation concerns arise ContraCostaTimes.com Published Saturday, September 15, 2001 By Laurie Garrett, Graham Rayman and Sean Gardiner NEWSDAY NEW YORK -- As New York enters Day Five of its terrorist catastrophe, health and police officials are stepping up efforts to protect the living and deal with the dead. Rescuers are racing the clock, trying to disinter bodies before rot sets in, which could be a source of disease and render body parts unidentifiable. Friday's cool rains, which could promote decay, raised worries about the status of the bodies and the safety of rescuers. "I don't think it's an urgent public health issue as much as it is a search and recovery issue," New York City Health Commissioner Neal Cohen said. "I know it impacts on the time it will take to execute recovery." But as time goes by, Cohen said, "longer range we have to look at water as a potential source for (health) concerns. And we're going to address it." Concerns about infectious diseases -- both in terms of rotting bodies and potential bioterrorism -- have led health officials to create an aggressive citywide disease surveillance net. And fears that radiation devices may be in the rubble have prompted special surveys around ground zero. In recent days, the city Health Department and the medical examiner's office have been supplemented with federal and regional staff. Friday, for example, 34 Epidemic Intelligence Service officers arrived from the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta to help track city disease trends. A CDC officer will be posted in each major hospital in the city. City health workers, along with the recently arrived CDC scientists, are monitoring every hospital in the five boroughs for unusual disease trends. In particular, they are looking for signs of clusters of encephalitis, pneumonia, respiratory disease and acute neurological problems. "We are most concerned about those brave souls who have to be down there 24 hours a day, in rescue operations, and will be for weeks to come," said Dr. Marcelle Layton. "We are starting today to set up a special surveillance to look at diseases in those (rescue) groups." Dr. Patrick Meehan, director of the CDC's National Center for Environmental Health, arrived Friday to assist Layton. He said the key disease concerns for rescue workers are bloodborne pathogens, such as hepatitis and HIV. To prevent exposure to a body's contaminants, Meehan said, all rescue workers should wear latex gloves, goggles and hepafilter masks. Another potentially serious problem is radioactivity, said Health Associate Commissioner Kelly McKinney. "We didn't have a registered radiation sources list," which would list dental X-ray machines, CT scans and other possible radiation devices that might have been in the ruined buildings, McKinney said. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission flew radiation surveillance missions over the area Thursday, finding nothing worrisome. But such airborne detection systems are less than ideal, so McKinney said they will step up radiation monitoring today. ContraCostaTimes.com ***************************************************************** 6 Japan minister wants more security for nuclear reactors BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Sep 16, 2001 Japan's Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Takeo Hiranuma said on Sunday that the country needed to increase the security of its nuclear reactors in the wake of Tuesday's attacks in the USA, the Japanese news agency Kyodo reported. It quoted him as saying that, while Japan's nuclear reactors had been designed to withstand earthquakes, there had been no preparations made for them to survive attacks by missiles or aircraft. "We would like to learn a lesson from the terrorist attacks in the United States," he said, and suggested that fighters from the Air Self-Defence Force could be sent to intercept suspicious aircraft approaching any of the country's nuclear reactors. Kyodo said there were 51 commercial nuclear reactors in Japan. Source: Kyodo News Service, Tokyo, in English 1146 gmt 16 Sep 01 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter All Material Subject to ***************************************************************** 7 Troubled Czech nuclear power reconnected to grid BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Sep 16, 2001 Text of report by Czech radio on 16 September [Presenter] Temelin nuclear power station is supplying electricity to the grid again. In the morning technicians connected to the grid the generator of the first reactor disconnected as scheduled on Monday [10 September]. The power station staff resumed the fission reaction in the first reactor yesterday. The power station's press spokesman, Milan Nebesar, told us about expected developments in Temelin: [Nebesar] Tests carried out at the 55-per-cent output level continue. Ahead of us are the most important dynamic tests. It is expected that failures of turbogenerator or possibly even of the whole reactor may occur during these tests. Source: Czech Radio-Radiozurnal, Prague, in Czech 1200 gmt 16 Sep 01 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter All Material Subject to Copyright ***************************************************************** 8 Russian spent nuclear fuel storage to open soon BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Sep 15, 2001 Text of report in English by Russian news agency Interfax St PETERSBURG, 14 September: The first Russian facility for interim storage of spent nuclear fuel will be commissioned on 20 December, the director of the inter-departmental coordinating research and technical centre of nuclide production, Nina Yanovskaya, told a press conference in St Petersburg. The first installation, capable of accommodating up to 19 metal and concrete containers for storing spent nuclear fuel, is currently being constructed in Murmansk Region. It will cost 600,000 dollars, of which 270,000 dollars are being provided by Norway, 200,000 by Russia and 130,000 by the US. Yanovskaya recalled that Norway, Russia, and the US in 1998 signed the Arctic Military Environmental Cooperation (AMEC) programme, whose implementation is estimated to cost 23m dollars. Under the agreement, the US and Norway will provide a third of this sum. The programme is chiefly designed for scrapping nuclear submarines. It is expected that Russia will scrap some 180 decommissioned nuclear submarines by 2008, over 100 of them in the Northern Fleet. Source: Interfax news agency, Moscow, in English 1310 gmt 14 Sep 01 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter All Material Subject to ***************************************************************** 9 Terrorist fear over Blair nuclear plan © 2001 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd 16 September 2001 22:37 GMT+1 By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor 16 September 2001 Internal links UK signs up to nuclear power pact Ministers are about to approve plans that would put enough plutonium to build hundreds of terrorist nuclear bombs into public circulation, The Independent on Sunday can reveal. The plans are being pushed through by Tony Blair, despite opposition from Michael Meacher, the Environment minister. Yet the Prime Minister warned Parliament on Friday, in the wake of the destruction of the World Trade Centre, that terrorists would use nuclear weapons "if they could" and called for their attempts to obtain them to be "exposed, disrupted and stamped out". Senior strategic experts yesterday accused him of being "either ignorant or irresponsible" in pressing ahead with the plans, which they said made it "virtually inevitable" that terrorist groups would get the atomic bomb. The approval, expected early this week, is to allow a controversial new plant at Sellafield to start operation. The mixed-oxide (Mox) plant is designed to make fuel for nuclear reactors out of a mixture of uranium and plutonium ­ the raw material for nuclear bombs ­ which would then be exported around the world. The £473m plant was built nearly four years ago by British Nuclear Fuels, which has been seeking government permission to start it up ever since. But approval has been held up, partly by Mr Meacher's opposition and partly because of a collapse in confidence in Japan, its main prospective customer, after The Independent revealed that data on fuel from a pilot plant had been falsified. Mr Meacher has argued both that transportation of the fuel to Japan and elsewhere could be intercepted by terrorists and that the plant was unlikely to make money. But sources say that detailed papers prepared by his department to support his objections have not even been read by senior colleagues. Under heavy pressure, especially from Mr Blair, who enthusiastically supports Sellafield, he has finally been forced to give way. Yet Mr Blair told the specially reconvened House of Commons: "We know that these groups are fanatics capable of killing without discrimination. The limits on the numbers they kill and their methods of killing are not governed by morality. "The limits are only practical or technical. We know that they would, if they could, go further and use chemical or biological or even nuclear weapons of mass destruction. We have been warned by the events of September 11. We should act on that warning." The Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, sounded a similar alarm. Yesterday Dr Frank Barnaby, a former nuclear-weapons specialist at Aldermaston who became director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, said that starting up the plant would "make it virtually inevitable that terrorists will acquire the plutonium they want from the fuel, and make nuclear weapons with it". He said that it was "not technically demanding" to separate the plutonium out of the mixed fuel, or to make it into a bomb. A "second-year undergraduate" would be able to master the concepts involved. ***************************************************************** 10 UK signs up to nuclear power pact © 2001 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd 16 September 2001 Terrorist fear over Blair nuclear plan Britain has joined a major global project organised by the US government to build nuclear power stations, despite ministers' claims that they are neutral about the need for new reactors. The UK is a key partner in a nine-nation programme to construct new-generation efficient reactors, set up last year by the US government's Office of Nuclear Energy, Science and Technology. The project, called the "Generation IV International Forum", says nuclear power will play a major part in meeting future global energy needs as fossil fuel use is heavily cut under the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. The Government's involvement has never been announced – the revelation provides the strongest clue yet that the Government is to propose the development of scores of UK nuclear power stations as a result of its energy review. Britain's participation is a major fillip to state-owned British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL), and its initiatives to design advanced reactors, and to British Energy. Both companies have told ministers that the UK should build up to 20 stations to replace existing reactors to be phased out by 2020, and to help replace coal-, oil- and gas-burning power stations. Nuclear energy currently meets 23 per cent of Britain's baseload electricity supply. However, the news has led to accusations of hypocrisy from senior environmentalists. Charles Secrett, director of Friends of the Earth, said it confirmed his suspicions that Tony Blair and Brian Wilson, the pro-nuclear Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) minister who is leading the energy review, were already privately committed to allowing new nuclear stations to be built. He said Labour was guilty of "deep cynicism ... their message has been unequivocal: there is no economic case for new nuclear stations ... it is quite clear now that the Government is preparing for new build." Stewart Kemp, secretary of the Nuclear Free Local Authorities group, whose members will be expected to give new stations planning permission, said this suggested the energy review was a "window-dressing" exercise. The nine governments, which include Canada, Japan, Brazil, South Africa, France. Korea and Argentina, signed a charter six months ago in Paris. The British Government has admitted, in an oblique reference to the forum published by the Cabinet Office Performance and Innovation Unit, that one "Generation IV" reactor project involving BNFL is "currently exciting some interest". The Pebble Bed Modular Reactor is being developed by South Africa's Eskom, in which BNFL has a minority stake. Plans are underway to construct a prototype reactor, which uses a cheap and easily built "off-the-shelf" design. Britain is represented on the forum by two DTI civil servants. A spokesman for Mr Wilson insisted that the UK was simply "keeping its options open". The Government had made no specific commitments to the forum, and was initially taking part in a two-year review of the state of the global industry and existing technology. ***************************************************************** 11 Blair warns of nuclear risk from terrorists The Times SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 15 2001 BY PHILIP WEBSTER, POLITICAL EDITOR TONY BLAIR gave warning yesterday of nuclear strikes from the next generation of terrorists as he made plain that the war against terrorism could be extended to the states that harboured them. The Prime Minister and Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, said that the world would be laying itself open to biological, chemical and nuclear attack if it failed to counter the menace of terrorism now. As both Houses of Parliament united behind the Government’s readiness to join a military response to Tuesday’s outrages, Mr Blair said that the action being prepared might change the present world order. In a clear warning to countries such as Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, he said that those who harboured or helped terrorists had a choice: either they could cease their protection of the West’s enemies, or they would be treated as an enemy themselves. Mr Blair is known to be anxious that the Americans take their time to identify the perpetrators of the attacks so that there can be no room for criticism. Pointedly he praised Mr Bush and the US Government for proceeding with care. “They did not lash out. They did not strike first and think afterwards. Their very deliberation is a measure of the seriousness of their intent.” Mr Straw gave a warning that Britain must develop its defences against copycat attacks. He called the assault on America a “deliberate act of war” and cautioned against appeasement. Using some of the most hawkish language heard from a British minister, he said that “turning the other cheek” would not appease the terrorists but lead to a still greater danger. He said that governments should draw lessons from the experience of appeasement in the 1930s. Copyright 2001 Times Newspapers Ltd. This service is provided on ***************************************************************** 12 University fined for radioactive leak at science building News Tribune - 09/15/01 091501 state 6 The Jefferson City News Tribune CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. (AP) -- Southeast Missouri State University has agreed to pay an $11,000 fine from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission because of radiation overexposure to a man working at the university. --> Saturday, September 15, 2001 CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. (AP) -- Southeast Missouri State University has agreed to pay an $11,000 fine from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission because of radiation overexposure to a man working at the university. "We are in agreement with the findings of the NRC," Chris McGowan, dean of science and mathematics, said Friday. The contamination occurred to a contract worker in June 2000. The man was hired to remove radioactive material stored in a safe in the basement of Magill Hall, the university's science building. The contamination has since been cleaned up, university and NRC officials said. The man, whose name was not released, was exposed to airborne americium-241, a man-made chemical found commonly in household smoke detectors. When inhaled, the chemical is largely deposited in a person's bones. The man received a radiation dose of 263 rems to the bone surface, exceeding the NRC annual dose limit of 50 rem. It was not immediately known how the exposure affected his health. The material had likely been on campus since the 1960s, but university officials thought it had been removed in 1991. The university was cited for failing to determine the hazards were present, failing to control activities to avoid exceeding NRC radiation dose limits, and possessing radioactive material that was not authorized in its NRC license. The amount of the fine was doubled because the university took four months to determine the contents of the safe once it was questioned by an NRC inspector, because it possessed the material for 10 years without an authorized license, and for failing to implement an effective radiation protection program. All Contents ©Copyright 2001 News Tribune Co. All rights ***************************************************************** 13 Beg warns of threat to nuclear installations -DAWN - Top Stories; 16 September, By Our Staff Reporter LAHORE, Sept 15: Pakistan cannot afford to allow the United States to use its facilities for attacks on Kabul, former army chief Gen Mirza Aslam Beg (retired) said here on Saturday. Talking to newsmen, he said if the government took such a decision, the nation would reject it and rise against it. He warned that there was a serious threat to Pakistan's nuclear installations. Gen Beg recalled that Pakistan had twice cooperated in the past with the United States. He said on both occasions it was a net loser. He said Pakistan had extended the fullest cooperation to the US against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. But the day the defunct USSR pulled out its troops, the USA turned its back both on Pakistan and Afghanistan. Then, he said, Pakistan stood on the side of the US during the Gulf War, but the result was no different. According to him the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon had exposed the vulnerability of the security system of the United States and exploded the myth of the so-called super power. A country which could not challenge the aircraft hitting the WTC nor could take any other step to prevent the damage had implicated Afghanistan and Osama Bin Laden within 24 hours. He said the US had no evidence against Osama or Afghanistan, but the media had created an atmosphere against them. "This is a trick to achieve a particular objective". He said it was not fair on the part of the United States to treat Pakistan like a client state. CONDEMNED: Leaders of various Muslim and Christian organizations on Saturday condemned the plane attacks in America, urged the government to support all American steps against terrorists and asked the US administration to protect its Muslim citizens. Speaking at a news conference at the Lahore Press Club, they urged the government to support the American government at all levels in fighting the terrorists and stick to its resolve of extending cooperation in this connection. The religious leaders urged President Gen Pervez Musharraf to announce a day's mourning over the tragedy in America. They also urged the American government to ensure protection of its Muslim population and their religious places. The news conference was addressed by Pope John Paul's Advisor for Asia Father James Channan, Universal Peace and Harmony chairman Maulana Abdul Qadir Azad, Jamiat Ahle Sunnat Punjab president Maulana Husain Ahmad Awan, Tehrik Huqooq-i-Jafria chairman Maulana Mushtaq Jafri, Tehrik-i-Wahdat Islami amir Maulana Javed Akbar Saqi and Universal Peace and Harmony general secretary Bishop Azad Marshal. Meanwhile, leaders of a number of parties here have received invitations for an all-party conference to be held by the government in Islamabad on Sunday. ARD President Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan is among them. The invited leaders will first participate in the JI's APC conference at Mansoora and then proceed to the federal capital to take part in the government-sponsored conference. © The DAWN Group of Newspapers, 2001 ***************************************************************** 14 Scots call for delay on nuclear plant The Times FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 14 2001 BY ANGUS MACLEOD, SCOTTISH POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT THE Scottish Executive yesterday called for a five-year delay on any decision by Westminster to build a new nuclear power station in Scotland. The stance, outlined in a submission to the British Government’s energy review consultation, comes after reports that Whitehall is in favour of the construction of a new nuclear plant north of the border. In its submission, the Executive said that no decision should be taken until a review of radioactive waste management policy has been completed — a process expected to take five years. The Executive pointed out that two major nuclear stations at Hunterston B in Ayrshire and Torness in East Lothian account for more than 53 per cent of electricity demand in Scotland. Hunterston B, it said, may well, with life extension, run until 2016 and Torness until 2029. The submission added: “While the nuclear retiral issue is not an exclusively Scottish one, its implications are intensified by the higher degree of dependence on nuclear power than the UK average of 23 per cent. ” The Executive said all the present indicators pointed to nuclear power being too expensive to compete with other sources of generation for some time to come. If an application for a new nuclear station in Scotland was to be made, development consent would have to be sought from Executive ministers, under the terms of devolution, and would involve planning authorities. Brian Wilson, the UK Minister of Energy, said that the Executive was “entirely right” to draw attention to the issue of waste management. He added: “It is an integral part of the whole debate about the future role of nuclear power.” Under devolution, nuclear power is a reserved issue for Westminster while waste management policy is devolved to Holyrood. Copyright 2001 Times Newspapers Ltd. This service is provided ***************************************************************** 15 Threats to Hoover Dam assessed LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL: NEWS: Attack on America A sign spells out security restrictions for Hoover Dam and the Visitor Center. An expert on dam safety and a commercial airline pilot doubt that a hijacked jet slamming into Hoover Dam would penetrate the solid, concrete structure. Photo by John Gurzinski. Visitors to Hoover Dam last week were allowed to park on the Arizona side, but the parking garage and parking area for recreational vehicles were shut down as a safety precaution. Photo by John Gurzinski. A Nevada Highway Patrol trooper directs trucks to bypass Hoover Dam last week after security was tightened in the wake of terrorist strikes on the East Coast. Photo by John Gurzinski. The massive Hoover Dam is 660 feet wide at its base, 726-feet-high, and has 3.5 million yards of solid concrete. It has been rated by the American Society of Civil Engineers as one of America's Seven Modern Civil Engineering Wonders. It also ranks among the top five targets in the West. Photo by Jim Laurie / REVIEW-JOURNAL FILE PHOTO. Sunday, September 16, 2001 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal Threats to Hoover Dam assessed Experts: Kamikaze attack unlikely to succeed By KEITH ROGERS REVIEW-JOURNAL Since 1942, the concrete-and-steel bunker has baked in the sun high atop an Arizona hill overlooking Hoover Dam. Although the guns that it housed are gone, the "pillbox," as it was called, is a reminder of the security concern defense officials had then for the dam's vulnerability to a kamikaze-style attack in the aftermath of Japan's aerial assault on Pearl Harbor. Built by a military police battalion soon after the attack, the 24-foot-long bunker and its rock facade had six gun ports. It is the last standing of several gun-emplacements that were built to protect the dam from being attacked, since it was a major hydroelectric power supplier for the defense industry. Fifty-nine years later, the dam is still a military target but for different reasons. Because it is an essential structure for agriculture and drinking water supplies in the Southwest, Hoover Dam ranks among the top five targets in the West that experts believe would be in the cross hairs of a long-range missile attack, from as far away as 5,000 miles. Experts have taken into account many scenarios that could cause a structural failure, but little thought has been given to what might happen in the case of an attack similar to that waged last week on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Shortly after Tuesday's strikes, the solid, concrete structure that holds back the nation's largest man-made reservoir was closed to all traffic and visitors. Passenger traffic on U.S. Highway 93 across the dam resumed the next morning but commercial vehicles and trucks with trailers continue to be detoured. Bureau of Reclamation officials said last week the impacts from a hijacked jetliner slamming into the dam haven't been analyzed. "That's something we never thought about," said Jim Bayne, dam safety program manager for the Boulder City region. But trying to navigate a commercial jetliner through the canyon would be a difficult task, he said. The canyon walls or the transmission towers and lines "would probably tear the wings off before you hit." Even if a plane were able to make a direct hit, "I don't think it would do anything to (the dam)," Bayne said. "It's very massive," he said. Unlike the hollowness of high-rise buildings constructed of steel and concrete such as the fallen World Trade Center towers, Bayne said Hoover Dam is made of solid layers of concrete and is essentially as thick as it is tall. It is 726-feet tall, 45-feet wide across the top, 660-feet wide at the bottom and weighs 6.6 million tons. The worst-case scenario that experts analyze takes into account what would happen if the dam structure suddenly was demolished -- either by a natural or other event. "It's like saying you'd have to yank the whole dam out instantaneously," he said. But there's no way that would happen, Bayne said. Portions of the dam would remain and massive fragments from the structure itself would impede water flow to some degree through the narrowness of the canyon. In addition, Davis Dam is a mile north of Laughlin, which would further negate a massive flood. A commercial airline pilot from the Las Vegas Valley, who flies the same type of jetliners as those involved in last week's terrorist strikes, said he too has doubts that a fully fueled Boeing 757 or 767 would compromise Hoover Dam's structural integrity. "I'm not sure if an airplane hit it, it would breach it. It's pretty thick," said the pilot who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "Breaching a building is a lot easier than breaching a solid, concrete dam. Whether it would hit wire and cause it to hit a canyon wall first would be another question," the pilot said. He said he doubts that the resulting explosion would penetrate the face of the dam. "It's so solid right there the blast would be reflected back." Then again, he said, before Tuesday's terrorist hijackings, "A lot of people didn't think a lot of things were possible." Experts say the dam would need an anti-ballistic missile system to knock out nuclear-bomb-tipped missiles. So would four other targets listed in 1999 by the California-based Claremont Institute think tank as being the highest risks for attack in the West. Those are: Los Angeles, because of its population; Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, where one-quarter of U.S. oil reserves are kept; chemical weapons depots in Oregon and Washington, which could release deadly toxins; and Port Valdez, Alaska, a key location for delivery of Alaskan oil. Bureau of Reclamation officials said while contingency plans are in place, and periodically rehearsed, for the unthinkable event that the dam would fail, there would still be a three- to five-hour window to evacuate Laughlin and downstream communities before the area is deluged. The leeway is attributable to a wide flood plain that begins 12 miles downstream, which would slow down the spread of water. Bob Walsh, a spokesman for the bureau's Boulder City office, said there's "no black-and-white" answer to what would happen if, for example, a powerful earthquake struck. "It depends on the epicenter, how much water is in the reservoir and the wave action," he said. "In the event of a massive failure, an extremely unlikely event, there would be several areas downstream underwater," he said. "We have emergency action plans and guidelines for the kinds of actions we would take to notify emergency agencies in the communities." Currently, Walsh said, Lake Mead contains more than 20 million acre-feet of water and is 78 percent full. An acre-foot is 326,000 gallons or the amount of water that would cover an acre to a depth of 1 foot. webmaster@lvrj.com Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - ***************************************************************** 16 David Templeton's Seldom Seen: Behind the gates of Acid Dump Road Sunday, September 16, 2001 By David Templeton, Post-Gazette Staff Writer Seldom Seem, David Templeton's whimsical perspective on life and times in and around Washington County, appears weekly in Washington Sunday. I fanned the blue flames of controversy recently when I visited Hanover's offices to inquire about Acid Dump Road. Seeing the name on a Washington County map, I wondered if anyone lived there. If so, did the residents wear grasshopper masks? As it turns out, Acid Dump is a mysterious little byway running almost parallel to Route 22. The fact that gates block both ends of the road connecting Hanlin Station and Laurel roads heightened my curiosity. It made me wonder what was behind those gates, and the only thing I could figure was, well, acid -- bubbling pools with smoke rising across a haunting moonscape with black trees and the obligatory buzzard circling overhead through a chemical haze. Not one to leap gates and ignore "No Trespassing" signs, I headed to Hanover's municipal office to inquire about this riddle of rural roadway whose name befits a horror film. I was envisioning Nightmare on Acid Mine Road. My inquiry struck a nerve. Hanover Supervisor Herb Grubbs said the township named it Acid Dump to comply with 911 requirements that each road be named so fire, police and emergency medical technicians could respond to emergencies. Besides, Grubbs said, Acid Dump Road was what everyone always called it. "It's private, and we only named it for 911 and the police department," he said. "It was a road built by Starvaggi [Industries Inc.] to haul coal out of there. It's a truly beautiful area down there, but when they put that name on it, I said, 'That's gonna come back and haunt us.'" Now it's come back to haunt them. That's because I contacted Don Donell, president of Starvaggi Industries Inc., the Weirton, W. Va., company that owns the property. He agreed with me that Acid Dump Road is a name that would make people living on Shades of Death Road in Jefferson or Pole Cat Hollow Road in Blaine stand up to cheer their good fortune. Donell was not happy with the news. First, the road is private, so the township had no right naming it. To rub acid in the wound, the township erected a road marker with the horrible name on it. "When you and I finish talking, I'm calling the township." Indeed, Donell "raised hell" with township officials for naming the private road without his company's permission. "If he requests us to change it, no problem," Grubbs said. "I can't imagine not considering it." Starvaggi Industries and its foundation, Starvaggi Charities, may be the largest landholder in Washington County with tracts in Hanover, Jefferson and Smith. My 1996 plat book indicates the company and foundation own about 6,015 acres, although several hundred acres have been sold since then. Starvaggi Industries was a coal producer in the tri-state area but hasn't mined coal for six to eight years. The company holds no coal reserves in southwestern Pennsylvania. The company has concrete and trucking businesses and operates a river port. It also is working to develop the 10,000 acres it amassed during decades of strip mining in Ohio, West Virginia and Washington County. Starvaggi Charities has donated property for Hanover to build its municipal building and its park along Steubenville Pike. It also donated 27 acres for construction of the Weirton Medical Center. It leases property to the Post-Gazette Pavilion and has donated money to churches, schools and hospitals. While angry with Hanover, Donell also expressed frustration with the real-estate market in Washington County. Lack of water is the problem. In the 1970s, Budweiser wanted to build a brewery on Starvaggi property and employ 600 to 900 people but bowed out because of the lack of public water. The property's proximity to Route 22 and the Greater Pittsburgh International Airport attracts developers. "Believe me, an important key is [a sewage system] and water," Donell said. For now, he's continuing discussions with a party interested in buying a large portion of the 3,000 acres along Acid Dump Road. But Acid Dump Road has its own history with which to contend. Years ago, Starvaggi held a state permit to neutralize spent pickle liquors from Weirton Steel in a lagoon on the property. That operation ended 30 years ago. Donell said the lagoon was reclaimed "according to what [the state] asked us to do." But Patrick Shuster of the Department of Environmental Protection said there's no record of Starvaggi reclaiming the lagoon to department standards. DEP has the property listed as a site that may require cleanup. In 1980, the U.S. Department of Energy proposed using Starvaggi property as the permanent disposal site for low-level radioactive waste from the Vitro Rare Metals Plant site in Canonsburg. It made some bureaucratic sense. Take the nearly half-million tons of radioactive waste from populated Canonsburg and bury it on 120 remote acres in Hanover buffered by thousands of undeveloped acres. But residents from northwestern Washington County threatened riots if the plan went through, and Donell told the DOE that if it bought 120 acres for radiation disposal, it better buy its thousands of acres, because it would be rendered worthless. DOE dropped that plan and decided the radioactive waste would spend the rest of its half-life in Canonsburg. Today, 22 military units use the 3,000 acres along Acid Dump Road for training. The Boy Scouts and search-and-rescue units also use the property. I see why. In a tour of the property Wednesday, I discovered unexpected beauty -- abundant trees, open fields, a water-control dam, a few fat groundhogs and some giant ant farms. A mound of hydrated lime represents the only hint that an acre-sized acid dump existed on the vast, remote property. No bubbling lagoon. No poisoned moonscape. Not even one obligatory buzzard. David Templeton can be reached by e-mail at: dtempleton@post-gazette.com ***************************************************************** 17 Government to start from scratch on new radioactive waste policy Environment Minister Michael Meacher has announced a long-term public consultation and research programme on how UK nuclear waste is treated, but any decision on the outcome will not be made until at least 2007. More than 10,000 tonnes of radioactive waste are currently stored in the United Kingdom, pending a decision on their long-term future. Even if no new nuclear plants are built, and the Government has not ruled this out in its recent launch of an energy review (see related story), and reprocessing of spent fuel ends when existing plants reach the end of their working lives, another 500,000 tonnes of waste will arise during their clean-up over the coming century, the Government says. Meacher says that a new “wide-ranging and comprehensive” consultation document, Managing Radioactive Waste Safely will help stimulate thorough public debate on the options for managing the UK’s radioactive waste, including whether any or all of the nation’s plutonium should be regarded as a waste product and therefore be included in the management strategy. In this initial consultation on the management of low, intermediate and high-level radioactive wastes, which will last for six months, the Government and the devolved administrations wish to involve as many as possible in order “to inspire public confidence in the decisions and the way in which they are implemented”. Through opinion polls, the internet, workshops, citizens’ juries, consensus conferences, stakeholder dialogues, local authority and community groups and research panels, hundreds of thousands of the UK’s population could give their views on managing radioactive waste over the coming centuries. In addition, an on-line debateis also being held on the subject . To ensure that all the information provided is accurate, objective and complete, the Government proposes setting up an independent advisory body, which would, for example, help seek the public’s views on whether waste should be put in an underground repository, or be stored until more is known about its risks and better ways of dealing with it. “Protecting the public, workers and the environment now and in the future is the top priority for the Government and devolved administrations,” Meacher said. “Any decisions made on managing radioactive waste cannot and must not be rushed. The legacy of a wrong decision could be catastrophic.” In the same week, the governmental Radioactive Waste Management Advisory Committee (RWMAC) published its advice to the Government on the way in which it believes future policy for the long-term management of the UK’s solid radioactive waste should be decided. RWMAC is suggesting a fresh approach, based on openness, accessible decision-making and fairness and is keen that for the first time all the practicable solutions need to be evaluated on, as far as possible, a common bases, both openly and transparently, to decide what is best. The committee is also suggesting that the process is overseen by an independent or, at least, balanced interest body that is widely perceived as being capable of representing the broader public interest. © Faversham House Group Ltd 2001. This article may be copied or forwarded for ***************************************************************** 18 BNFL chief urges Government to build more nuclear plant edie news: The Chief Executive of BNFL, Norman Askew, has said that the continued use of nuclear power is essential for an environmentally-friendly supply and the company is to call on the Government to put the right enabling mechanisms in place which will allow nuclear plant construction. “Nuclear energy must continue to play a significant role in the UK’s baseload electricity generation - without nuclear’s contribution this country cannot have a continued secure, diverse and environmentally-friendly energy supply,” Askew warned an international audience of energy industry leaders and policy makers at the World Nuclear Association Conference in London. In its submission to the Government’s Energy Policy Review (see related story), BNFL said it will call on the Government to put the right enabling mechanisms in place which will allow new nuclear generation by the market, which must include: + modifying climate change mechanisms to recognise that nuclear generation should benefit from the fact that it emits virtually no greenhouse gases; + improving planning and regulatory approval processes to ensure replacement nuclear plant construction can be delivered effectively and efficiently; + reviewing how long-term electricity supply contracts, for all baseload generators, can be implemented; + providing an overall policy for radioactive waste management (see related story in this week’s UK news); and + encouraging provision of nuclear education, training and research and development. BNFL’s submission to the Energy Policy Review also considers the challenges ahead and concludes that retaining “the important contribution that the UK nuclear industry makes is the only way to ensure security of baseload supply in the future whilst addressing the serious problem of climate change”. Clearly, renewables have an important role to play in restricting greenhouse gas emissions but cannot fulfil baseload requirements, BNFL says. Nuclear generating capacity will fall from 23% to only 5% by 2020 if new nuclear construction does not take place, and with UK gas reserves close to depletion the country will be overly dependent on imported gas resulting in an insecure supply, volatile electricity prices and an inability to meet the UK’s greenhouse gas emission reduction targets, the company says. BNFL, with 23,000 employees worldwide, is perfectly positioned to compete in a future market place with its new generation of reactor designs, it says. New nuclear power station designs, such as the BNFL-owned Westinghouse AP600 or AP1000, have shorter construction times and lower capital costs, and are expected to be competitive with all other forms of baseload generation. The AP600 is already licensed in the USA. Additionally, BNFL services its nuclear utility customers world wide with its capability in fuel manufacturing, management of spent fuel and ultimately decommissioning the reactors at the end of their lives. At the end of last year BNFL’s Chairman Hugh Collum called for an informed and open public debate on the future of nuclear energy. The announcement of a UK Government Energy Review is, he believes, an important first step in that process. A spokesperson for the Department of Trade and Industry told edie that no comment could be made on a return to nuclear build until the Government’s review of energy policy was completed at the end of the year. “The BNFL Chairman’s statements are part of the Government’s consultation process in its review of energy policy, and so the DTI will not comment on them until the review is complete,” he said. © Faversham House Group Ltd 2001. This article may be copied or ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 Bin Laden sought nuclear matter Officials have not confirmed the purchase By Elizabeth Neuffer, Globe Staff, 9/16/2001 NEW YORK - Accused terrorist Osama bin Laden and associates in his Al Qaeda organization have tried several times to buy nuclear weapons, including one 1994 attempt to buy uranium, according to federal prosecutors. Since then, several Arabic newspapers have reported that bin Laden, now considered the chief suspect by the Bush administration for last week's attacks in New York and Washington, has succeeded in obtaining nuclear material. In 1998, the Saudi-owned, London-based Arabic newspaper, Al-Hayat, declared bin Laden had obtained nuclear weapons - a report that was never confirmed. But several months later, the Arabic newsmagazine Al-Watan reported bin Laden, working with organized crime sources in the former Soviet republics, had obtained nuclear material. The Saudi exile reportedly gave Chechen gangsters $30 million in cash and two tons of opium in exchange for about 20 warheads, the magazine said. Although officials have not confirmed the purchase, bin Laden's interest in the deadly weapons is not out of character for a man CIA director George Tenet, in congressional testimony earlier this year, called one of America's greatest national security threats, both at home and abroad. As bin Laden told Time magazine in a 1998 interview, acquiring weapons ''for the defense of Muslims is a religious duty. If I have, indeed, acquired these [nuclear, biological, or chemical] weapons, then I thank God for enabling me to do so.'' The first sign that bin Laden wanted to buy nuclear weapons was in 1998, with the arrest of Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, a key aide and co-founder of Al Qaeda. Arrested in Munich, Germany, Salim was charged with acting on behalf of bin Laden to obtain nuclear materials, including highly enriched uranium. That same year, Salim and four other suspects were accused of plotting the deadly bombings of two American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Salim pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges and his case was separated from the other defendants. He is scheduled to stand trial next week on a separate stabbing case involving a prison officer. During their trial earlier this year, federal prosecutors portrayed Al Qaeda as a vast and sophisticated network dedicated to following through on bin Laden's decrees, including a call to eliminate all Americans. A star witness in the case, Jamal Ahmad Al-Fadl, a Sudanese national, described how he had been assigned the task of buying uranium for bin Laden in Khartoum, Sudan. He was offered a 2- to 3-foot canister of uranium, with South African markings, for a price of $1.5 million, he said. He testified he often told merchants the quality of the uranium was far more important than the cost. He then handed off the transaction to a higher-up. Although he did not know if the uranium was ever purchased, he said he received $10,000 for his efforts, and an associate later told him the uranium would be tested in Cyprus. Al-Fadl, who split with bin Laden over money disputes, is now in the FBI's witness protection program after turning himself in at an American Embassy in 1996. At that time, he demanded protection and said he knew of plots against the United States. ''They try to make war against your country,'' he recalled telling officials at the time. When officials asked what he meant, Al-Fadl answered, ''Maybe they try to do something inside the United States and they try to fight the United States Army outside, and also they try to make bomb against some embassy outside.'' The 1998 embassy bombings left 224 dead, including 12 Americans. Two of the men convicted in that plot have been sentenced to life in prison. The other two, convicted of conspiring in the attack, have yet to be sentenced. © Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company. ***************************************************************** 2 Children of Atomic Vets, Nuclear Test Site Chart TEST SERIES, DATES, LOCATIONS AND YIELDS; Hiroshima , Japan .......August 5, 1945......15,000ton of TNT yield power Nagasaki, Japan...........August 9, 1945......21,000ton of TNT yield power These 2 occurances are not technically classified as tests TRINITY 07/16/1945 Alamogordo, New Mexico 21 kt tower Originally the Pacific Proving Grounds (PPG) was also referred to as the Bikini Proving Grounds or the Enewetak Proving grounds. NTS stands for Nevada Test Site, originaly referred to as the Nevada Proving Grounds or NPG. OPERATION CROSSROADS : Able 06/30/1946 Bikini (PPG) 21kt. airdrop Baker 07/24/1946 Bikini (PPG) 21kt underwater OPERATION SANDSTONE: X-ray 04/14/1948 Enewetak (PPG) 37kt tower Yoke 04/30/1948 Enewetak (PPG) 49kt tower Zebra 05/14/1948 Enewetak (PPG) 18kt tower OPERATION RANGER: Able 01/27/1951 NTS 1kt airdrop Baker 01/28/1951 NTS 8kt airdrop Easy 02/01/1951 NTS 1kt airdrop Baker-2 02/02/1951 NTS 8kt airdrop Fox 02/06/1951 NTS 22kt airdrop OPERATION GREENHOUSE: Dog 04/07/1951 Enewetak (PPG) 81kt tower Easy 04/20/1951 Enewetak (PPG) 47kt tower George 1st thermonuclear 05/08/1951 Enewetak (PPG) 225kt tower Item 1st boosting principal 05/24/1951 Enewetak (PPG) 45.5kt tower OPERATION BUSTER: Able 10/22/1951 NTS <0.1kt tower Baker 10/28/1951 NTS 3.5kt airdrop Charlie 10/30/1951 NTS 14kt airdrop Dog 11/01/1951 NTS 21kt airdrop Easy 11/05/1951 NTS 31kt airdrop OPERATION JANGLE: Sugar 11/19/1951 NTS 1.2kt surface Uncle 11/29/1951 NTS 1.2kt crater OPERATION TUMBLER-SNAPPER Able 04/01/1952 NTS 1kt airdrop Baker 04/15/1952 NTS 1kt airdrop Charlie 04/22/1952 NTS 31kt airdrop Dog 05/01/1952 NTS 19kt airdrop Easy 05/07/1952 NTS 12kt tower Fox 05/25/1952 NTS 11kt tower George 06/01/1952 NTS 15kt tower How 06/05/1952 NTS 14kt tower OPERATION IVY: Mike 1st hydrogen 10/31/1952 Enewetak (PPG) 10.4Mt surface King 11/15/1952 Enewetak (PPG) 500kt airdrop OPERATION UPSHOT-KNOTHOLE: Annie 03/17/1953 NTS 16kt tower Nancy 03/24/1953 NTS 24kt tower Ruth 03/31/1953 NTS 200ton tower Dixie 04/06/1953 NTS 11kt airdrop Ray 04/11/1953 NTS 200ton tower Badger 04/18/1953 NTS 23kt tower Simon 04/25/1953 NTS 43kt tower Encore 05/08/1953 NTS 27kt airdrop Harry 05/19/1953 NTS 32kt tower Grable 05/25/1953 NTS 15kt airburst Climax 06/04/1953 NTS 61kt airdrop OPERATION CASTLE: Bravo 02/28/1954 Bikini (PPG) 15Mt surface Romeo 03/26/1954 Bikini (PPG) 11Mt barge Koon 04/06/1954 Bikini (PPG) 110kt barge Union 04/25/1954 Bikini (PPG) 6.9Mt surface Yankee 05/04/1954 Bikini (PPG) 13.5Mt barge Nectar 05/13/1954 Enewetak (PPG) 1.69Mt barge OPERATION TEAPOT: Wasp 02/18/1955 NTS 1kt airdrop Moth 02/22/1955 NTS 2kt tower Tesla 03/01/1955 NTS 7kt tower Turk 03/07/1955 NTS 43kt tower Hornet 03/12/1955 NTS 4kt tower Bee 03/22/1955 NTS 8kt tower Ess 03/23/1955 NTS 1kt crater Apple-1 03/29/1955 NTS 14kt tower Wasp Prime 03/29/1955 NTS 3kt airdrop HA (High Altitude)40,000ft 04/06/1955 NTS 3kt airdrop Post 04/09/1955 NTS 2kt tower Met 04/15/1955 NTS 22kt tower Apple-2 05/05/1955 NTS 29kt tower Zucchini 05/15/1955 NTS 28kt tower OPERATION WIGWAM: Wigwam 05/14/1955 Pacific N29W126 30kt underwater OPERATION REDWING: Lacross 05/04/1956 Enewetak (PPG) 40kt surface Cherokee 2nd hydrogen 05/20/1956 Bikini (PPG) 3.8Mt 1st thermonuclear airdrop Zuni 05/27/1956 Bikini (PPG) 3.5Mt surface Yuma 05/27/1956 Enewetak (PPG) 190tons tower Erie 05/30/1956 Enewetak (PPG) 14.9kt tower Seminole 06/06/1956 Enewetak (PPG) 13.7kt surface Flathead 06/11/1956 Bikini (PPG) 365kt barge Blackfoot 06/11/1956 Enewetak (PPG) 8kt tower Kickapoo 06/13/1956 Enewetak (PPG) 1.49kt tower Osage 06/16/1956 Enewetak (PPG) 1.7kt airdrop Inca 06/21/1956 Enewetak (PPG) 15.2kt tower Dakota 06/25/1956 Bikini (PPG) 1.1Mt barge Mohawk 07/02/1956 Enewetak (PPG) 306kt tower Apache 07/08/1956 Enewetak (PPG) 1.85Mt barge Navajo 07/10/1956 Bikini (PPG) 4.5Mt barge Tewa 07/20/1956 Bikini (PPG) 5Mt barge Huron 07/21/1956 Enewetak (PPG) 250kt barge OPERATION PLUMBBOB: Boltzmann 05/28/1957 NTS 12kt tower Franklin 06/02/1957 NTS 140tons tower Lassen 06/05/1957 NTS 0.5tons balloon Wilson 06/18/1957 NTS 10kt balloon Priscilla 06/24/1957 NTS 37kt balloon Coulomb-A 07/01/1957 NTS zero surface Hood 07/05/1957 NTS 74kt balloon Diablo 07/15/1957 NTS 17kt tower John 07/19/1957 NTS about 2kt rocket Kepler 07/24/1957 NTS 10kt tower Owens 07/025/1957 NTS 9.7kt balloon Pascal-A 07/26/1957 NTS slight shaft Stokes 08/07/1957 NTS 19kt balloon Saturn 08/10/1957 NTS zero tunnel Shasta 08/18/1957 NTS 17kt tower Doppler 08/23/1957 NTS 11kt balloon Pascal-B 08/27/1957 NTS slight shaft Franklin Prime 08/30/1957 NTS 4.7kt balloon Smokey 08/31/1957 NTS 44kt tower Galileo 09/02/1957 NTS 11kt tower Wheeler 09/06/1957 NTS 197ton balloon Coulomb-B 09/06/1957 NTS 300ton surface Laplace 09/08/1957 NTS 1kt balloon Fizeau 09/14/1957 NTS 11kt tower Newton 09/16/1957 NTS 12kt balloon Rainier 09/19/1957 NTS 1.7lt tunnel Whitney 09/23/1957 NTS 19kt tower Charleston 09/28/1957 NTS 12kt balloon Morgan 10/07/1957 NTS 8kt balloon OPERATION PROJECT 58: Pascal-C 12/06/1957 NTS slight shaft Coulomb-C 12/09/1957 NTS 500ton surface OPERATION NEWSREEL: Yucca 04/28/1958 Pacific N12 W163 1.7kt balloon Teak 08/01/1958 Johnson Island area 3.8Mt rocket Orange 08/12/1958 Johnson Island area 3.8Mt rocket HARDTACK I: Cactus 05/05/1958 Eneetak (PPG) 18kt surface Fir 05/11/1958 Bikini (PPG) 1.36Mt barge Butternut 05/11/1958 Enewetak (PPG) 81kt barge Koa 05/12/1958 Enewetak (PPG) 1.37Mt surface Wahoo 05/16/1958 Enewetak (PPG) 9kt underwater Holly 05/20/1958 Enewetak (PPG) 5.9kt barge Nutmeg 05/21/1958 Bikini (PPG) 25.1kt barge Yellowwood 05/26/1958 Enewetak (PPG) 330kt barge Magnolia 05/26/1958 Enewetak (PPG) 57kt barge Tobacco 05/30/1958 Enewetak (PPG) 11.6kt barge Sycamore 05/31/1958 Bikini (PPG) 92kt barge Rose 06/02/1958 Enewetak (PPG) 15kt barge Umbrella 06/08/1958 Enewetak (PPG) 8kt underwater Maple 06/10/1958 Bikini (PPG) 213kt barge Aspen 06/14/1958 Bikini (PPG) 319kt barge Walnut 06/14/1958 Enewetak (PPG) 1.45Mt barge Linden 06/18/1958 Enewetak (PPG) 11kt barge Redwood 06/27/1958 Bikini (PPG) 412kt barge Elder 06/27/1958 Enewetak (PPG) 880kt barge Oak 06/28/1958 Enewetak (PPG) 8.9Mt barge Hickory 06/29/1958 Bikini (PPG) 14kt barge Sequoia 07/01/1958 Enewetak (PPG) 5.2kt barge Cedar 07/02/1958 Bikini (PPG) 220kt barge Dogwood 07/05/1958 Enewetak (PPG) 397kt barge Poplar 07/12/1958 Bikini (PPG) 9.3Mt barge Scaevola 07/14/1958 Enewetak (PPG) zero barge Pisonia 07/17/1958 Enewetak (PPG) 355kt barge Juniper 07/22/1958 Bikini (PPG) 65kt barge Olive 07/22/1958 Enewetak (PPG) 202kt barge Pine 07/26/1958 Enewetak (PPG) 2Mt barge Quince 08/06/1958 Enewetak (PPG) zero surface Fig 08/18/1958 Enewetak (PPG) 20ton surface OPERATION ARGUS: Argus I 08/27/1958 South Atlantic S38.5-W11.5 1-2kt rocket Argus II 08/30/1958 South Atlantic S49.5 -W8.2 1-2kt rocket Argus III 09/06/1958 South Atlantic S48.5 -W9.7 1-2kt rocket OPERATION HARDTACK II: Otero 09/12/1958 NTS 38ton shaft Bernalillo 09/17/1958 NTS 15ton shaft Eddy 09/19/1958 NTS 83ton balloon Luna 09/21/1958 NTS 1.5ton shaft Mercury 09/23/1958 NTS slight tunnel Valencia 09/26/1958 NTS 2ton shaft Mars 09/28/1958 NTS 13ton tunnel Mora 09/29/1958 NTS 2kt balloon Colfax 10/05/1958 NTS 5.5ton shaft Hidalgo 10/05/1958 NTS 77ton balloon Tamalpais 10/08/1958 NTS 72ton tunnel Quay 10/10/1958 NTS 79ton tower Lea 10/13/1958 NTS 1.4kt balloon Neptune 10/14/1958 NTS 115ton tunnel Hamilton 10/15/1958 NTS 1.2ton tower Logan 10/16/1958 NTS 5kt tunnel Dona Ana 10/16/1958 NTS 37ton balloon Vesta 10/17/1958 NTS 24ton surface Rio Arriba 10/18/1958 NTS 90ton tower San Juan 10/20/1958 NTS zero shaft Socorro 10/22/1958 NTS 6kt balloon Wrangell 10/22/1958 NTS 115ton balloon Rushmore 10/22/1958 NTS 188ton balloon Oberon 10/22/1958 NTS zero tower Catron 10/24/1958 NTS 21ton tower Juno 10/24/1958 NTS 1.7ton surface Ceres 10/26/1958 NTS 0.7ton tower Sanford 10/26/1958 NTS 4.9kt balloon De Baca 10/26/1958 NTS 2.2kt balloon Chavez 10/27/1958 NTS 0.6ton tower Evans 10/29/1958 NTS 55ton tunnel Humbolt 10/29/1958 NTS 7.8ton tower Mazama 10/29/1958 NTS zero tower Sante Fe 10/30/1958 NTS 1.3kt balloon Bianca 10/30/1958 NTS 22kt tunnel Gandymede 10/30/1958 NTS zero surface Titiana 10/30/1958 NTS 0.2ton tower OPERATION DOMINIC: Adobe 04/25/1962 Christmas Island 190kt airdrop Aztec 04/27/1962 Christmas Island 410kt airdrop Arkansas 05/02/1962 Christmas Island 1.09Mt airdrop Questa 05/04/1962 Christmas Island 670kt airdrop Frigate Bird 05/06/1962 Pacific (PPG) rocket Yukon 05/08/1962 Christmas Island 100kt airdrop Misilla 05/09/1962 Christmas Island 100kt airdrop Muskegon 05/11/1962 Christmas Island 50kt airdrop Swordfish 05/11/1962 Pacific (PPG) low underwater Encino 05/12/1962 Christmas Island 500kt airdrop Aardvark 05/12/1962 Christmas Island 500kt airdrop Swanee 05/14/1962 Christmas Island 97kt airdrop Chetco 05/19/1962 Christmas Island 73kt airdrop Tanana 05/25/1962 Christmas Island 2.8kt airdrop Nambe 05/27/1962 Christmas Island 43kt airdrop Alma 06/08/1962 Christmas Island 782kt airdrop Truckee 06/09/1962 Christmas Island 210kt airdrop Yeso 06/10/1962 Christmas Island 3Mt airdrop Harlem 06/12/1962 Christmas Island 1.2Mt airdrop Rinconada 06/15/1962 Christmas Island 800kt airdrop Dulce 06/17/1962 Christmas Island 52kt airdrop Petit 06/19/1962 Christmas Island 2.2kt airdrop Otowi 06/22/1962 Christmas Island 81.5kt airdrop Bighorn 06/27/1962 Christmas Island 7.65Mt airdrop Bluestone 06/30/1962 Christmas Island 1.27kt airdrop Sunset 07/10/1962 Christmas Island 1Mt airdrop Pamlico 07/11/1962 Christmas Island 3.88Mt airdrop Androscoggin 10/02/1962 Johnson Island 75kt airdrop Bumping 10/06/1962 Johnson Island 11.3kt airdrop Chama 10/18/1962 Johnson Island 1.59Mt airdrop Calamity 10/27/1962 Johnson Island 800kt airdrop Housatonic 10/30/1962 Johnson Island 8.3Mt airdrop OPERATION SUNBEAM: Little Feller II 07/07/1962 NTS low surface Johnnie Boy 07/11/1962 NTS 500ton crater Small Boy 07/14/1962 NTS low tower Little Feller I 07/17/1962 NTS low shaft OPERATION FISHBOWL: Starfish Prime 07/09/1962 Johnson Island 1.4Mt rocket Checkmate 10/20/1962 Johnson Island low rocket Bluegill 3 Prime 10/26/1962 Johnson Island submegaton rocket Kingfish 11/01/1962 Johnson Island submegaton rocket Tightrope 11/04/1962 Johnson Island low rocket OPERATION ROLLER COASTER: Four storage/transport tests in May & June 1963 as joint US- UK venture at Nellis Air Force Range (NAFR) For additional underground tests through September 1992 see DOE/NV-220 (rev.14) available from U. S. Department of Energy, Nevada Operations Office, P.O.Box 98518, Las Vegas, Nev 89193-8518 ***************************************************************** 3 The disease that defies description ireland.com - The Irish Times - FEATURES Saturday, September 15, 2001 Does Gulf War Syndrome, a collection of symptoms that defies categorisation, really exist? Officially, no. But a new book attempts to uncover the truth behind this medical mystery, writes Muiris Houston 'Loss of fine motor function \hand co- ordination\, back pain, depression, migraine headaches, insomnia, extreme fatigue, blurred vision, trouble walking, joint and muscle pain and shortness of breath." These are just some of the complaints listed in the initial medical assessment of Carol Best, a 45-year-old US Army veteran who spent nine months in Saudi Arabia as part of a Gulf War deployment. Her story is one of five which Jeff Wheelwright, a distinguished science journalist and former science editor of Life magazine, describes in great detail in his recently published book, The Irritable Heart - Medical Mystery of the Gulf War. Wheelwright met Best at the West Los Angeles Veterans' Affairs Medical Centre, the largest medical complex within the largest healthcare delivery system in the US. It had also been the location for the investigation of the original "irritable heart" outbreak among ex-Union soldiers in the aftermath of the Civil War. Veterans with this diagnosis had complained of palpitations, shortness of breath,chest pain on exertion, fatigue, headache, dizziness and disturbed sleep. Even by the standards of the time it was a vague sort of disease. To the military doctors, irritable heart was a mysterious condition. Best was referred to the Veterans' Affairs Medical Centre in May 1997, specifically to be investigated as part of the Persian Gulf Referral Programme. This would take several weeks and involve a broad range of blood tests, X-rays, scans and other tests aimed at pinpointing a possible cause for her multiplicity of symptoms. Best was sent to the Gulf in July 1991, some months after the fighting was over. She worked first as a clerk in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, and then in Kuwait City. As an army reservist, she had volunteered to go; she liked to travel and had a military service ethic. When Wheelwright asked her age, she said: "I'm 45. I only look 65." According to Best's medical chart, her weight had increased since she had been sick, "from 135 to 210lbs". She listed off her medications: "Excedrin extra strength for headaches. Ultram - that's a painkiller. Melatonin to help me sleep. Magnesium oxide to keep my food down; I have acid reflux." Picking up another tablet, she said: "That one's Zoloft for depression. I call it my happy pill. I'm on a reduced dose, only a quarter of a tablet, because I really don't like pills." As Wheelwright tells it, Best is a driven, high-achieving woman who has weathered more than her share of tribulations. Divorced a number of times, she had gone from being her family's "rock" and powerhouse to a disabled and partially dependent individual. She now uses a cane, must rest after exertion, suffers bouts of deep depression and is never completely free of pain. As far as Best is concerned, all of these can be traced to her nine months in the Gulf in 1992. She arrived at the Veterans' Affairs Medical Centre with a diagnosis of fibromyalgia. This was confirmed by the rheumatologist attached to the Persian Gulf Referral Programme. But there was disagreement among the specialists about whether she had Gulf War Syndrome or not. What is a syndrome? It is a collection of signs and symptoms pointing to a unique disorder. But it is also a disease waiting to be clarified. If an exact cause is not found, then the collection of medical findings remains a syndrome, a distinct medical entity that can be distinguished from others but which falls short of being a specific disease. There is an important difference between the symptoms and signs associated with an illness. Symptoms are felt by the patient and reported to the doctor. A sign is something that a doctor can determine independently. A doctor's description of a person's rash is a sign, as is the temperature reading given by a thermometer. Generally speaking, when a number of signs are associated with a sickness, it is both easier to diagnose and more likely to carry a definitive disease label. Seventeen per cent of British Gulf war veterans believe they have Gulf War Syndrome, according to research recently published in the British Medical Journal. Not, you will note, that they have the medical syndrome. Merely that about one fifth of the 3,000 soldiers questioned thought they had the condition. So why weren't the authors able to say whether the soldiers had Gulf War Syndrome or not? Wheelwright attempts to pin-point the reasons for such vagueness in his book. The title refers to an US Civil War malady known as "irritable heart". According to Wheelwright, Gulf War Syndrome is simply the latest manifestation of a line of vague and poorly defined illnesses. "Irritable heart" became "shell shock", which later re-emerged as "post-Vietnam Syndrome". All of these had their civilian equivalents. The "neurasthenia" of the early 20th century has metamorphosed into the present-day "post-traumatic disorder". Wheelwright puts forward the thesis that Gulf War illness belongs in the company of chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), fibromyalgia and multiple chemical sensitivity - symptom complexes which are on the increase and which have so far evaded a biomedical explanation. Gulf War Syndrome is a real illness, involving both the body and mind, Wheelwright maintains. But because modern medicine deals with the body and mind separately, the investigation of veterans' illness was always going to fail. "The only way to understand these elusive sicknesses is to consider the mind and body as one suffering system," he says. This remarkable book takes the subject of chronic illness far beyond the medical aftermath of war. Gulf War Syndrome has never been linked to a specific cause. There have been many theories. Did the Iraqi Army use chemical or biological weapons during the conflict? Could the coalition forces' use of depleted uranium shells be at the root of the syndrome? Did Gulf War Syndrome arise as a result of a cocktail of vaccines given to troops to protect them from possible biological exposure in the desert? The British Medical Journal notes that "it is possible that the 17 per cent of veterans who believed they had the syndrome had a unique adverse exposure not experienced by the 83 per cent who did not". But the researchers also say that those who believe they have Gulf War Syndrome do so because of something they have in common - their active service. If it all sounds uncharacteristically vague and unscientific, that is because it is. Which leads us to Jeff Wheelwright's theory of a link between fibromyalgia, CFS and Gulf War Syndrome. According to Wheelwright, "identifying a new syndrome is not just a medical process but something of a social negotiation". Medicine concentrates on a reductive process of finding objective tests to match an illness. But this reductive method, by its very nature, blocks off a holistic approach to disease. Wheelwright and some of the veterans he has interviewed feel that many of the difficulties and uncertainties surrounding Gulf War Syndrome arise from a failure to appreciate that it results from the body and mind suffering together as a single system. There are many similarities between Gulf War Syndrome and CFS in terms of the symptoms described by people with both conditions. People with fibromyalgia syndrome also show many of the same symptoms as those experienced by some Gulf War veterans: fatigue, sleeplessness, stiffness, chest pain, heartburn, irritable bowel syndrome, headache, memory failings, poor concentration and depression. Women with fibromyalgia outnumber men seven to one and there is also an association with less education and lower-than-average income, which mirrors the profile of a typical veteran with post-Gulf symptoms. So much for the standard epidemiological approach. What does Best believe? Her perception is "of being afflicted by a neurological process precipitated by her tour of duty of the Middle East and her understanding that chemical warfare was used during that period of time". As her daughter puts it: "She had many different doctors take a look at her and each one of them came up with the same conclusion. Carol Best indeed had Gulf War Syndrome. Of course they can't call it that, so once again they put it down as fibromyalgia, and also chronic fatigue syndrome". Why couldn't the LA Veterans' Affairs Medical Centre "call it Gulf War Syndrome"? The answer is partly political - to admit Gulf War Syndrome would raise issues of blame and financial compensation. But it is also a reflection of a fundamental weakness in the strict medical model of disease. Because of the lack of "hard" signs, and the preponderance of "soft" symptoms, doctors begin to flounder and become uncertain. This is not a situation for which, by and large, their training equips them. Many doctors will over-investigate in repeated attempts to find even one solid sign which will lead them away from uncertainty. Some will begin the process of diagnosis by negotiation with the patient. Essentially, this means focusing on illness rather than disease. What are the symptoms unique to the patient sitting opposite you? How does this person feel about themselves? What can be done to minimise their symptoms? Because there is no "disease label", a consideration of the physical, psychological and social impact of the person's illness is the way forward. Ultimately, the doctor must become the facilitator through which the person takes responsibility for their health and "wellness". The "irritable heart" debate mirrors the one about Gulf War Syndrome. It reveals a confused picture of many views, and even more theories, as to a cause. Edith Eifran, another science journalist, has written of "dangerous barriers which separate the scientific and humanist cultures". It is to Wheelwright's credit that he has straddled this barrier and introduced the mind-body model of sickness as a means of understanding chronic illness. Cure, even where exact diagnosis is available, will always be elusive. Caring for the mind and body together is far more likely to ease our journey from the cradle to the grave. The Irritable Heart - Medical Mystery of the Gulf War by Jeff Wheelwright is published by W.W Norton ***************************************************************** 4 Blair warns of nuclear risk from terrorists The Times SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 15 2001 BY PHILIP WEBSTER, POLITICAL EDITOR TONY BLAIR gave warning yesterday of nuclear strikes from the next generation of terrorists as he made plain that the war against terrorism could be extended to the states that harboured them. The Prime Minister and Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, said that the world would be laying itself open to biological, chemical and nuclear attack if it failed to counter the menace of terrorism now. As both Houses of Parliament united behind the Government’s readiness to join a military response to Tuesday’s outrages, Mr Blair said that the action being prepared might change the present world order. In a clear warning to countries such as Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, he said that those who harboured or helped terrorists had a choice: either they could cease their protection of the West’s enemies, or they would be treated as an enemy themselves. Mr Blair is known to be anxious that the Americans take their time to identify the perpetrators of the attacks so that there can be no room for criticism. Pointedly he praised Mr Bush and the US Government for proceeding with care. “They did not lash out. They did not strike first and think afterwards. Their very deliberation is a measure of the seriousness of their intent.” Mr Straw gave a warning that Britain must develop its defences against copycat attacks. He called the assault on America a “deliberate act of war” and cautioned against appeasement. Using some of the most hawkish language heard from a British minister, he said that “turning the other cheek” would not appease the terrorists but lead to a still greater danger. He said that governments should draw lessons from the experience of appeasement in the 1930s. Copyright 2001 Times Newspapers Ltd. This service is provided ***************************************************************** 5 Aleksandr Nikitin wins in Supreme Court The Russian Supreme Court has ruled that the secret decree 055 of the Ministry of Defence must be declassified and brought in accordance with the Constitution and federal laws. - This is a major breakthrough, says Nikitin. Jon Gauslaa, 2001-09-14 12:31 The ruling was pronounced by the Military Collegium of the Russian Supreme Court on September 12, after the Court had handled an application from Aleksandr Nikitin regarding the illegal use of decree 055 of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) as a normative act in criminal cases. - The system must be terminated Nikitin, who suffered an almost five year long prosecution for state treason based on the decree before he was acquitted by the Presidium of the Russian Supreme Court on September 13, 2000, explained the background for his application at a press conference on September 11. - In Russia we have a system where each department makes its own top-secret lists over state secrets, which later can be used as basis for filing criminal charges. Although such prosecutions contradict our Constitution, they are still going on in Russia today, said Nikitin and referred to the cases against journalist Grigory Pasko, and academics Oleg Sutyagin, Vladimir Soyfer and Vladimir Schurov. - This remnant of the system that once imprisoned millions without trial must be terminated, he said. Astonishing victory Although Nikitin and his attorneys Yuri Schmidt and Michael Matinov were confident that the legal foundation for their application was more than solid, they were still astonished by the rapidity of the victory. At the press conference on September 11, Schmidt said that he expected the Court to use several days on the case before any ruling would be presented. It took however, less than one day for the Court to make up its mind. First it rejected various formal arguments from the MoD-attorneys, who claimed that Nikitin could not file the suit, since his rights as a citizen had not been violated by the use of the decrees. This argument led one of the judges of the Court to burst out: - Mr. Nikitin was as a civilian prosecuted for having violated military decrees. How can you say that his rights were not violated? The question was left unanswered. The MoD-attorneys also claimed that the decree was not used as a normative act, an argument that even yielded a protest from the Russian procuracy's representative at the lawsuit. After having rejected these formal arguments, the Court went on to handle the merits of the case, and its ruling turned out to be a complete victory for Nikitin. Will affect other cases The short term significance of the victory may at the time of writing seem somewhat unclear, as the legal development in Russia is a slow mover. The ruling is however of a general nature and will without doubt, affect other ongoing cases. At a recent press conference in Vladivistok, Ivan Pavlov, who defends Grigory Pasko whose espionage-charges are based on decree 055, did for instance comment Nikitin's application the following way: - If Nikitin wins, we will knock the ground from under the feet of our opponents. Now Nikitin has won, and although the MoD most likely will appeal the decision to the Presidium of the Supreme Court, there is reason to believe that the decision will stand. - I consider this as a major breakthrough for the legal protection for Russian citizens, and as a long step forward for the Russian society, said Aleksandr Nikitin afterwards. Bellona web will present the full verdict of the Military Supreme Court as soon as it is available. Publisher: Bellona Foundation, President: Frederic Hauge Information: info@bellona.no, Technical contact: webmaster@bellona.no Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62 * P.O.Box 2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway Menu system java script courtesy of Peter Belesis at the Dynamic HTML lab. ***************************************************************** 6 Berkeley lab loses funding, will close Published Saturday, September 15, 2001 + City leaders relieved that conflict surrounding tritium facility will end; scientists mourn the loss By Andrea Widener and Greg Cannon CONTRA COSTA TIMESS BERKELEY -- A Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory medical research facility, long battled here for its use of the radioactive substance tritium, has lost funding and will shut down. The National Institutes of Health, which funds the National Tritium Labeling Facility, announced it will withdraw its annual $1 million, citing lagging research interest and fewer high-level research publications. A five-year debate over community health concerns was not the main reason for the facility's closure, an NIH official said, but it did contribute to the decision to halt research. City officials said they are relieved to be unburdened of the concern, controversy and cost generated by the lab's tritium facility. "The controversy that has swirled around it, I'm glad that that will end," said Mayor Shirley Dean. Scientists associated with the research saw its closure as a tragedy. No other facility of its kind exists outside of industry. "It is actually very sad news because this is a very important scientific resource," said Heinz Floss, a University of Washington professor and a member of the tritium facility's research advisory board. "It is a unique facility in the world." Tritium is a radioactive form of hydrogen found in nearly every element. By replacing the hydrogen inside medicines with tritium, researchers can track where medicine goes inside the body. This is particularly important in tests of new drugs, which may have unanticipated effects inside the body. At the tritium facility, "You could safely label compounds with very high levels of tritium. That is not something you can do in just any laboratory," Floss said. But that safety was disputed by the Committee to Minimize Toxic Waste, a local environmental group, and the City Council has long been unanimous in its support for closing the facility. Members of the committee could not be reached for comment Friday. The Germany-based Institute for Energy and Environmental Research released the latest of several reports on the lab earlier this year. It found that the tritium facility doesn't emit enough tritium to harm humans, but also said the lab needs to improve monitoring and cataloging of the radioactive material. "The biggest blessing for the city, in addition to relieving the fears of the residents, is that we can stop spending tens of thousands of dollars to study this," Councilman Kriss Worthington said. The NIH shared the community's concerns, said Michael Marron, director of the division of biomedical technology at the National Center for Research Resources. It asked that the facility hire a health physicist, but the facility could not find one. In addition, the tritium facility was not attracting as many NIH scientists as in past years or publishing enough high-level research, Marron said. Since other research techniques have become more popular and similar facilities were available in industry, the NIH decided to end the project, he said. It is negotiating the cost to shut the program down. Lawrence Berkeley appealed the NIH's findings, saying many researchers -- especially those in industry -- relied on the facility. Those appeals were denied. "I would characterize our feeling as one of disappointment" for the outside researchers and four facility staff who were laid off, said lab spokesman Ron Kolb. "At the same time, we understand the nature of science in which the directions and the priorities change and programs end." Greg Cannon covers Berkeley. Reach him at 510-262-2713 or . Andrea Widener covers science and the area's national laboratories. Reach her at 925-847-2158 or . ContraCostaTimes.com ***************************************************************** 7 Senator delays New Mexico trip [Las Vegas Review-Journal] Saturday, September 15, 2001 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal DONREY WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., on Friday postponed a trip he was to take next week to the government's nuclear laboratories in New Mexico, a spokesman said. Nathan Naylor, Reid's press secretary, said the trip was called off for now because of anticipated complications in travel. He added that Reid does not want to wander far from Washington in case of developments in any anticipated U.S. response to this week's terrorist attacks. Reid was to join Sens. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., and Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., in security briefings at Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratory. This story is located at: http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2001/Sep-15-Sat-2001/news/17007250.html ***************************************************************** 8 Sessions: No talk of nuclear attack -- Senators say conventional arsenal will be used against terrorists FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2001 By Clay Redden DAILY Staff Writer credden@decaturdaily.com MONTGOMERY -- U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions said Thursday that there's been no talk in Washington of using nuclear weapons in response to Tuesday's terrorist attacks. "The nuclear option has not been talked about," said Sessions, R-Mobile. "We've had enough innocent lives lost, but we know in any war situation innocent people are often lost." Sessions said the United States should try to minimize the danger to innocent people when it responds. "But that's assuming we're dealing with a group of people," he said. "If we've got a nation that's involved, things could get much worse." Alabama's junior senator said the mood in Washington is one of determination to see the matter through "until we have dealt with these people with full retribution." The prime suspect in Tuesday's attacks that left thousands dead and the World Trade Center destroyed is Osama bin Laden. Sessions doesn't think President Bush needs a declaration of war to attack bin Laden or any other terrorist anywhere in the world. War has been officially declared only five times in the nation's history. Sessions said he'd give the idea serious thought. "If it's an appropriate thing, I might support it." Although happy with the support given to the United States by other nations, Sessions said many nations straddle the terrorism fence. They say they're U.S. allies, but they don't stand with the United States against terrorists. "It's time for some of these countries to fish or cut bait. Are they our allies or are they not?" asked Sessions. "Now that this has occurred, it's time for that matter to get confronted straight up." U.S. Rep. Bud Cramer, D-Huntsville, is optimistic that U.S. allies will support any action taken. "In our efforts in Bosnia and Kosovo, Europeans have been lukewarm, hot and cold, up and down," said Cramer. "This (terrorist attack), I think, is appalling to every democracy in the world, and our democratic allies are sounding supportive, and surely they will be supportive." Ironically, the first vote Cramer cast when he arrived in Washington was to commit U.S. troops to the Persian Gulf War. He believes he may soon have to cast another vote to commit troops to the war on terrorism. Like Sessions, U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Tuscaloosa, said the U.S. military response to Tuesday's air attacks will be with conventional weapons. Shelby, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the military response must be directed at the terrorists and the people who harbor them. "This is going to be very complex, very difficult and very protracted but I don't think we have any choice," said Shelby. "It can't be, in my opinion, a political response where we fire a bomb at somebody once or twice and then go and play golf." Sessions said the United States must go on the offensive and be aggressive in pursuing those responsible for Tuesday's attacks, wherever they may be. "Those that have been involved in this dastardly attack ought to be subject every moment of their lives to a military attack from the United States," said Sessions. "They ought not to expect they have any right to attack the United States of America and then go across some border somewhere and be protected." Shelby said the terrorists who orchestrated Tuesday's attack should consider the words spoken more than 60 years ago by Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamomoto. Yamomoto, architect of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor said afterwards, "I fear that we have awakened a sleeping giant and filled him with a terrible resolve." "What the terrorists have done is to really wake up America," said Shelby. Copyright 2001 THE DECATUR DAILY. All rights reserved. AP contributed to this report. --> Copyright 2001 Associated Press. All rights THE DECATUR DAILY 201 1st Ave. SE P.O. Box 2213 Decatur, Ala. 35609 (256) 353-4612 www.decaturdaily.com ***************************************************************** NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: *****************************************************************