***************************************************************** 04/17/01 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 9.94 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER CONTENTS 1 Nuclear power earns fresh look, despite past woes 2 Need for nuclear is passé 3 Time may be right for nuclear power 4 Nuclear Power Plants - You'll Miss Them Soon 5 Rutgers Physicists Tackle Plutonium Complexities 6 Nuclear power aids energy mix 7 Vermont Yankee formally goes up for auction 8 YUCCA MOUNTAIN: Nuclear waste fight raises some concerns 9 Nuclear power is not the answer 10 Database on pollution ready soon 11 GE said to seek $50 mln compensation from Taipower 12 Taipower issues warning that energy prices may require increase 13 Norway farmers sold nuclear sewage - 14 Norwegian protesters in Sellafield waste pipe protest 15 Access to Information Project 16 Reactor unit no.1 shutdown at Smolensk NPP 17 Second reading of spent nuclear fuel import bills 18 Nuclear Minister Pushes for Spent Nuclear Rod Imports 19 Ten Years of the Chernobyl Era: April 1996 20 Lecture to cover ecology after fire 21 Senators: Take a look at finishing WNP-1 22 Smolensk power plant's unit one halted, no threat - minister 23 Russia plans to build nuke power plant in India, allays fears 24 Energy Task Force Works in Secret (washingtonpost.com) 25 Other states to feel rate shock over power prices 26 Forces briefing on radiation risk riles MP 27 New nuclear minister pushes for spent nuclear fuel imports 28 Text of Letter from Jared L. Cohon, Chairman, NWTRB, to Lake NUCLEAR WEAPONS CONTENTS 1 Uranium plant workers can't sue their employer, judge says 2 'Safe' atoll re-examined for radioactivity 3 First Step To Nuclear-Free World Is Supporting Green Bill 4 N-sub ready to leave Gibraltar 5 Belgian anti-nuke protestors arrested 6 US reviewing aid for non-proliferation programs in Russia 7 Study of K-25 water ills must deal with flood of info as closes 8 -UT-Battelle seeks safeguard against nuclear liability 9 Opinion - 'Atomic tourism' 10 Both sides see gains in DOE site ruling - By Joe Walker 11 Saving Landmarks Hazardous to Your Health / Historians want to 12 Labs have mixed feelings about laser facility's future 13 'Clean' Nuclear Weapon Isn't; Small Earth- Penetrating Nuclear **************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 Nuclear power earns fresh look, despite past woes On the surface, nuclear power has had a bad couple of decades. The last permit for a new power plant was issued in 1979. The last new plant went online in 1996. Because of attrition, the number of reactors in service has fallen almost 10% in the past decade. Yet despite that, the amount of energy generated by those plants has been increasing quietly to almost 20% of the nation's total supply today, from 11% in 1979, with hardly a peep about health or safety problems. So despite some raised eyebrows, the Bush administration is on the right track in reviving nuclear as a potential energy source. Vice President Cheney, who is fashioning an energy policy due next month, is already championing a return to nuclear power. While several questions would need answers first, the current energy crunch proves the nation needs more power. Why not give nuclear a new hearing? The debate has been largely foreclosed since 1979, when a reactor at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island leaked radioactive steam into the atmosphere. And it was hammered shut after the 1986 meltdown at the Soviet Union's crude Chernobyl reactor, an event that killed 40 and exposed hundreds of thousands more to harmful radiation levels. For all of that, with shortages causing energy prices to spike, the United States cannot afford to reject any potential source of safe, clean, affordable power. And although the nuclear industry still has much to prove and much to live down, it also has made considerable progress toward resolving at least a few of its worst first-generation problems. Among them was the lack of uniformity among power-plant designs. Unlike France, Canada and other nations, the United States imposed few limits on reactor design. This allowed American utilities to custom-build their plants, with calamitous results. Because each plant was different, operators were unable to share the cost of training personnel or of developing expensive modifications. Federal regulators meanwhile were swamped by the variety. Costs skyrocketed, and amid constant stories about construction flaws, unreliable federal oversight and inadequate safety design, public confidence plummeted. The learning curve has been steep and punishing: 22 plants closed since 1971; plans for 124 others canceled. Through the 1970s and 1980s, the industry rarely ran above 60% of capacity, and investors, taxpayers and ratepayers shelled out billions for partially built plants that were abandoned, and finished plants that never went online. Today, though, remaining plants are running at almost 90% capacity and producing energy at just over half the cost of natural gas, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry lobby. And they do so while producing virtually none of the gases that cause climate change. This makes them, like alternative energy sources such as the sun and wind, an attractive alternative to plants that burn dirty, costly fossil fuels. The industry has had less success with its other major millstone: waste disposal. Nuclear plants have generated about 35,000 tons of radioactive waste, most of it stored at the plants in special pools or canisters. But the plants are running out of room, and even if approval is granted this year, a permanent storage facility at Yucca Mountain in Nevada won't open for a decade or more while construction and permitting are completed. Still to be resolved are questions about the transportation of waste, Yucca's capacity and what to do in the interim. Anxiety over storing spent fuel (which can remain radioactive for tens of thousands of years), combined with lingering fears of a catastrophic accident, continues to inspire strong resistance to nuclear plants. Even in California, where energy prices are jumping 50%, a recent *Los Angeles Times *poll found opposition to more nuclear power plants running almost 2 to 1. In response, the industry points out that other industries are even more dangerous. No one has ever died as a result of an accident at an American nuclear power plant. But 54,000 have died in civil-aviation plane crashes. Whether such comparisons are fair or not, the fact remains that since 1979, the industry has had an admirable, even enviable, safety record. Ultimately, of course, the marketplace will decide when nuclear energy returns to favor. And it doesn't seem that will be any time soon. Construction costs are still far too high; it's cheaper and faster to build natural-gas plants. Any Bush plan will also need to fully address the waste issue. That's essential to any expansion of capacity. Still, the nation's energy demands invariably require a mix of energy sources, and there's no compelling reason nuclear shouldn't be a candidate.Today's debate: Nuclear energy Changes since Three Mile Island argue for Bush plan. ***************************************************************** 2 Need for nuclear is passé By Amory B. Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins The nuclear industry wants to resuscitate its product. Sorry -- it already died of an incurable attack of market forces. Overwhelmed by huge construction and repair costs, the industry achieved less than 1/10th the capacity and 1/100th the new orders that proponents predicted, the greatest disappointment in industrial history. Only centrally planned energy systems (Russia, Taiwan, the Koreas, Japan) still propose nuclear plants. ''If a thing is not worth doing,'' said economist John Maynard Keynes, ''it is not worth doing well.'' Even ignoring risks -- proliferation, waste storage and disposal, and uninsurable accidents -- nuclear power is uncompetitive and unnecessary. After a trillion-dollar taxpayer investment, the energy delivered to consumers by nuclear power is little more than that delivered by wood and waste. Globally, nuclear power produces less energy than renewables. In the 1990s, its capacity rose by 1% a year vs. 17% for solar cells and 24% for wind power. Enthusiasts claim hypothetical new reactors might deliver a kilowatt-hour of electricity for 6 cents vs. 10-plus cents for post-1980 plants. (Nearly 3 cents pays for delivery to customers.) But super-efficient gas plants or wind farms cost 5 cents to 6 cents; co-generation of heat and power often 1 cent to 5 cents. The cost of saving a kilowatt-hour through efficient lights, motors and other electricity-saving devices is under 2 cents. They're all getting cheaper. So are the next winners: fuel cells and solar cells -- where a pound of silicon can produce more electricity than a pound of nuclear fuel. Efficient use is the nation's largest and fastest-growing energy source: bigger than oil, growing 3.1% a year. Just electricity efficiency can save four times' nuclear power's output, at one-sixth its operating cost. Those faster, cheaper, safer options emit little or no pollution, and most are climate-safe. But replacing power from coal-fired plants with nuclear power, as usually proposed, is the least-effective solution to global warming. Why? Suppose delivering a new nuclear kilowatt-hour cost 6 cents, while saving a kilowatt-hour through efficient use cost 3 cents (both assumptions favorable to the nuclear power industry). Then the 6 cents spent on the nuclear kilowatt-hour could instead have saved two kilowatt-hours through efficiency investments. That's a two-for-one savings. Nuclear salesmen scour the world for a single order; makers of alternatives enjoy brisk business. Let's profit from their experience. Taking markets seriously, not propping up failed technologies at public expense, offers a stable climate, a prosperous economy and a cleaner and more peaceful world. *Amory B. Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins are **co-CEOs of the Rocky Mountain Institute. *It's too costly and too risky. More energy-efficient alternatives exist. ***************************************************************** 3 Time may be right for nuclear power HoustonChronicle.com *April 16, 2001, 10:36PM* By JIM BARLOW Would nuclear power plants be coming back? Twenty-two years after the partial meltdown of Reactor 2 at the Three Mile Island plant, it appears we're moving in that direction. The Bush administration's task force addressing America's energy problems is focusing on nuclear power, along with increased drilling of natural gas and building more gas pipelines. But before we move forward on nuke plants, questions about them must be addressed. Some of those questions: · Q. Didn't Three Mile Island demonstrate that nuclear power is unsafe? A. Well, actually no one died or was injured because of the release of radioactive material from the plant. More than 2,000 personal injury claims were filed. But after 15 years of litigation, none was upheld. · Q. What about Chernobyl in the former Soviet Union? A. That was indeed the worst nuclear plant disaster, brought on by the arrogance and stupidity of those running it. However, the kind of plant at Chernobyl isn't used here. Nor did Chernobyl have its reactors contained in a shielded building as do those here. What about cost of plants? · Q. Given the experience of seeing our electric bills soar to pay for nuclear plants, how can we build more of them? A. Let's use a local example, the South Texas Project in Bay City. It cost hundreds of millions more than anticipated. Reliant Energy HL&P, the project's manager, says most of that overrun came from a blizzard of new directives after the Three Mile Island meltdown. Contributing to that cost, however, was the way South Texas and other such plants were built. Every utility designed and built its own plant. That increased the regulatory pressure. Those who favor nuclear power say the answer to building economical nuke plants is simple. Find a design and stick to it. They point to the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor in South Africa. An international consortium is expected to start construction of the plant by the middle of 2002, with completion in 36 months. The plant's small, simple design helps reduce construction time and cost and allows generators to add reactors to sites when needed. If this kind of change allows the building of nuke plants quickly with reasonable costs, then the economic picture changes. In 1999, the cost of producing power -- fuel, operations and maintenance -- was 1.83 cents per kilowatt hour for nuclear plants, 2.07 cents for coal, 3.8 cents for oil and 3.52 cents for natural gas. And this was before the recent huge increase in the cost of natural gas. Recycle or store waste? · Q. What about the fact that wastes from nuclear plants are dangerous for hundreds of years? A. That's the big question. In 1977, President Carter rejected the solution used by the rest of the world -- reprocessing wastes into new fuel. He feared that the reprocessed fuel could be stolen and used to build nuclear weapons. Unless we change our collective minds on reprocessing, then we're going to have to go to long-term storage. The federal government has a storage answer. For two decades it has studied the Yucca Mountain Site in Nevada as a long-term storage site. It's probably the most-studied piece of real estate in the history of the world. It found the environmental impact of the site would be so small as to have essentially no adverse impact on public health and safety. That study was completed in February of last year, and nothing more has occurred. It remains to be seen if there is the political will to implement it. · Q. Will the American public allow any nuclear plants to be built? A. Public opinion seems up for grabs. We are a risk-averse society. Foes of nuclear power will have plenty to talk about by playing to that aversion. But proponents also have a real chance. A public opinion survey in January by proponents found 51 percent agreeing we should definitely build nuclear energy plants -- compared with 42 percent in 1999. Another survey the year before showed the most effective argument proponents can use. This one, only of college graduates, found that support for nuclear power went up 15 points -- to 79 percent approval -- after pointing out that nuclear power already supplies 20 percent of the power in this country and that nuke plants do not emit any greenhouse gases or other air pollutants. *Comments? Telephone 713-220-2000 and touch code 1000. E-mail to jim.barlow@chron.com* ***************************************************************** 4 Nuclear Power Plants - You'll Miss Them Soon ctnow.com COMMENTARY AND OTHER OPINION --> By DONALD A. DUBE April 17, 2001 Nuclear energy remains the safest and most environmentally benign form of electrical production. Yet regulatory strangulation has practically killed any chance of a new nuclear reactor coming to New England. There will come a time when the region will regret the premature shutdown of the Maine Yankee, Connecticut Yankee and Millstone 1 nuclear power plants. The next energy crisis is as near as the hands of the OPEC ministers on the stop valve of the Mideast oilfields. There is no question of the increasing need for nuclear energy. Rotating power blackouts in California this past winter proved the need for an expanded if not diverse source of electricity. There is a good chance that this plague could expand to the Pacific Northwest and desert Southwest. Throw in ever-growing concerns about global warming and problems with acid rain here in the Northeast. But there will never be a groundbreaking for a new nuclear plant in this state unless the regulatory environment changes. No orders for new plants in this country have been placed in more than two decades. Much of the know-how for constructing nuclear reactor parts is nearly nonexistent. In fact, steam generator replacement parts for existing plants have been largely manufactured overseas or in Canada. Nearly a dozen nuclear engineering programs at leading universities have been consolidated or phased out altogether. Leading universities, such as the University of California at Los Angeles, have permanently shut down their training reactors. In my nephew's nuclear engineering courses at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, he is usually the only person not from the nuclear Navy program. The institutional challenges facing the nuclear power industry are even more daunting. The permanent shutdowns of the Maine Yankee, Connecticut Yankee and Millstone Unit 1 reactors were unquestionably related to the scrutiny, if not wrath, that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission turned on the facilities after Time magazine exposed their problems in 1996. For a fraction of the nearly $2 billion that was ultimately spent for the Millstone shutdown and restart, the same level of improvements could have been achieved by focusing on the issues most important to nuclear safety. I still recall a situation in which two contractors together spent an entire morning trying to track me down at Millstone. They wanted to verify firsthand that a routine procedure was deactivated, as I had written it was in an office memo, and clearly documented in official records. That's why I left the nuclear industry. It broke my heart to see hundred of millions of dollars poured down the drain for consultants and paperwork during the 1996-98 period, when the NRC went after Northeast Utilities. Many technical and institutional changes have been made to improve nuclear safety since then. But the documentation and regulatory burdens continue to overwhelm the industry. There are endless technical and administrative programs - including training, quality assurance, oversight, fire protection, drug testing, environmental qualification of equipment and on and on - which have resulted in dramatic increases in staffing. No longer are the small and intermediate reactors of the vintage of Connecticut Yankee (600 megawatts) or even Maine Yankee (nearly 900 megawatts) able to compete in the marketplace. Unless this environment changes, the next generation of reactors - such as the 100-megawatt pebble-bed reactor - is doomed by regulatory strangulation, regardless of quantum leaps in their safety. *Donald A. Dube of Farmington is a former manager of safety analysis in the nuclear engineering department at Northeast Utilities. He is now an analyst for a global energy services company in Hartford.* ***************************************************************** 5 Rutgers Physicists Tackle Plutonium Complexities ScienceDaily Magazine -- *Source:* *Rutgers, The State University Of New Jersey (http://www.rutgers.edu/)* 4/16/2001* NEW BRUNSWICK/PISCATAWAY, N.J. – Three physicists, members of Rutgers' Center for Materials Theory in the department of physics and astronomy, have devised the first reliable method to predict the physical properties of plutonium. This development is important for the long-term storage of plutonium, an issue of worldwide concern. As stockpiles of plutonium-based nuclear weapons age, their reliability and safety come into question. In a paper appearing in the April 11 issue of the journal Nature, Rutgers' Sergej Y. Savrasov, a postdoctoral associate; Gabriel Kotliar, professor of physics; and Elihu Abrahams, director of the Center for Materials Theory, present a novel electronic structure method for predicting stability changes in plutonium, potentially a landmark achievement in solid-state physics. Plutonium is regarded even by scientists as a complex and mysterious element, rarely occurring in nature, and made artificially for the first time in 1940. "Just as water has phases – liquid, solid and gaseous – so does plutonium," explained Kotliar. "In plutonium, there are many more solid phases, ranging from a dense and unstable alpha phase to a much more extended and stable delta phase. The potential decomposition into the unstable phase over time is a matter of concern in old, stored nuclear warheads, where this could ultimately result in changes in the mass that could lead to a chain reaction. "While the search for answers about plutonium phases generally has been through experimental methods, we employed analytical and computer calculations to predict changes in the structure of the solid states of plutonium," said Kotliar. "We felt a strong need for theoretical methods that are accurate. This element is far too toxic for extensive experimental procedures in the laboratory, and the use of theoretical methods is mandatory if we are to deal with problems over long time scales. Experimental methods do not work for predicting changes 100 years into the future." In developing its new method, the team employed Rutgers' High-Performance Computing Cluster, a computational grid comprising more than 80 computer processors configured as a distributed resource, and a Department of Energy supercomputer. The researchers can now predict volume and stability changes in plutonium while gaining insights into where and when the transition between the alpha and delta phases occurs and under what conditions. "We are dealing with an extremely delicate balance between the two phases, and which one wins and when this happens is information that is necessary to assure the safe storage of this important material," added Kotliar. *Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by Rutgers, The State University Of New Jersey for journalists and other members of the public. If you wish to quote from any part of this story, please credit Rutgers, The State University Of New Jersey as the original source. You may also wish to include the following link in any citation:* * http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/04/010412081719.htm *Copyright © 1995-2001 ScienceDaily Magazine | Email: ***************************************************************** 6 Nuclear power aids energy mix Oklahoman Online Point of View 2001-04-17 *By Joe F. Colvin* LISTEN to U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici speak about the importance of energy supplies, and even the most casual follower of recent events in California and the energy sector can understand quickly the troubling situation in which we find ourselves. "Reliable, affordable electricity is America's lifeblood," said Domenici, R-N.M. "Without it we have no future in terms of prosperity, growth and jobs." For all the talk about the nation's energy woes in recent months, Domenici presents perhaps the most articulate and passionate case for a diversified energy strategy that uses nuclear power to strengthen the United States and improve the lives of people worldwide. "We cannot afford to lose the nuclear energy option," he warned, "until we are ready to specify with confidence how we are going to replace 22 percent of our electricity with some other source offering comparable safety, reliability, low cost and environmental attributes." Domenici observes, quite rightly, that economic growth and electricity are inextricably linked. California, the world's sixth-largest economy, is a case in point. Amid this winter's electricity woes, Intel chief executive Craig Barrett said there was "not a chance" that the state's second-biggest company by market value would expand its California operations. Barrett said that while he judges nuclear energy to be politically incorrect, "nuclear power is the only answer." Suffice it to say that in the few months since Barrett uttered those words, nuclear energy has become more politically acceptable than some may have thought. How else to explain that in recent weeks, Vice President Dick Cheney, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, Commerce Secretary Donald Evans and other noteworthy figures were seen on television or at other forums discussing the need for nuclear energy? Having spent 40 years in the nuclear field, including a naval career on nuclear-powered submarines, it is heartening to see policy-makers, business leaders and the public rediscovering nuclear energy's benefits. The industry's future is bright because its record of meeting society's electricity needs safely, reliably and economically is unsurpassed. For the past two years, the 103 reactors that operate in 31 states have produced record amounts of electricity -- 755 billion kilowatt-hours in 2000. The industry's average capacity factor -- a measurement of actual output compared to potential output from round-the-clock operation -- reached an impressive 89.6 percent last year. During the 1990s, by operating so efficiently, these same power plants generated the electricity equivalent to adding 23 new, 1,000-megawatt power plants to the electrical grid. Along with these reliability gains have come economic efficiencies that position nuclear energy as a crucial source of stable, low-priced electricity for consumers. Air quality concerns, maintaining stable, modest electricity prices and outstanding plant performance -- all these factors are converging to make nuclear energy a vital part of our nation's energy future. As good as that may be for the industry, it's far better for U.S. citizens and our friends around the world. Just ask Pete Domenici. Colvin is president and chief executive of the Washington-based Nuclear Energy Institute. Search the archives of the Oklahoman Online for similar stories. You will not be charged to look for stories, only to retrieve one. *All content copyrighted 2001 The Oklahoma Publishing Co.* ***************************************************************** 7 Vermont Yankee formally goes up for auction [The Concord Monitor online Tuesday, April 17, 2001 MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) -- The Vermont Yankee nuclear plant was formally put up for auction Monday, two months after state regulators rejected a Pennsylvania firm's bid to buy the Vernon reactor. Plant officials said they had hired J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., a New York investment banking firm, to handle the auction and directed interested parties to contact that company. Morgan recently auctioned off the Millstone nuclear station in Connecticut with the winning bidder, Dominion Resources Inc. of Richmond, Va., paying $1.3 billion, the highest price ever paid for a nuclear plant. "We look forward to executing a timely process which will maximize the value of Vermont Yankee," said the nuclear plant's chief executive officer, Ross Barkhurst, in a statement. "We are pleased that potential bidders have already come forward to express an interest in Vermont Yankee." Vermont Yankee officials referred questions to Morgan, where an official said the company would not comment. The sale is expected to be similar to that of the Millstone plants, though the price is not likely to be as high for the 540-megawatt Vernon reactor as it was for the twin Connecticut reactors, each one bigger than Vermont Yankee. Vermont Yankee officials said earlier in the winter that they hoped to have the auction completed by the end of the year. It was eight months between when the buyer was chosen for the Millstone plants last August and when the deal closed at the end of March, while regulators reviewed the deal. It is expected that a regulatory process of similar length would occur with the Vermont Yankee sale, which could result in the deal closing around August of 2002. The decision to auction Vermont Yankee came after a two year process in which AmerGen Energy Co. of Pennsylvania sought to purchase the plant for a price that it eventually bumped up to about $93 million. With Public Service Board review of that deal all but completed in January, another company that has been buying nuclear plants, Entergy Nuclear of Jackson, Miss., made an offer for Vermont Yankee that was somewhat higher than AmerGen's. That prompted the board and parties to the proposed sale to conclude that the national market for nuclear plants was heating up and that it would be wise to go back to the market and look for a better price. Critics of the Vermont Yankee sale have argued that with energy supplies tightening, it might be wise for the Vermont and other New England utilities that own the plant to hang onto it. But several states in the region have restructured their power industries, requiring utilities to sell off their generation assets. Vermont has not done that, and Mark Sinclair of the Conservation Law Foundation is among those who have questioned the wisdom of selling the plant when electric restructuring does not appear to be moving forward in Vermont. © and New Hampshire Patriot P.O. Box 1177, Concord NH 03302 603-224-5301 ***************************************************************** 8 YUCCA MOUNTAIN: Nuclear waste fight raises some concerns [Las Vegas Review-Journal] Tuesday, April 17, 2001 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal Senate panel hears pitch for $5 million fund to oppose site By SEAN WHALEY DONREY CAPITAL BUREAU CARSON CITY -- A lawmaker expressed concern Monday that a plan to take Nevada's fight against a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain to residents of other cities and states could backfire. Sen. Ray Rawson, R-Las Vegas, said too much discussion about the transportation of nuclear waste across the country to Southern Nevada could hurt tourism in Las Vegas. Pointing out the dangers of nuclear waste to residents in other states where the material is being stored could also work against Nevada, Rawson said. Residents elsewhere might decide Nevada is right and work even harder to get the waste out of their back yards and to Yucca Mountain, he said. "I think we have a great nervousness about anything that ultimately casts a bad light on Nevada." Rawson said. "I would just caution that, assuming this will pass, that the governor uses great care in what is developed. It is a very dangerous issue for us." Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is the only site being studied to entomb the nation's highly radioactive waste. The comments came as the Senate Finance Committee heard testimony on a proposal from Gov. Kenny Guinn to establish a $5 million fund to fight creation of the high-level radioactive waste dump. Marybel Batjer, Guinn's chief of staff, told the panel that $4 million of the fund is proposed for use in hiring expert legal help to fight Yucca Mountain's designation as a repository by the Energy Department. The other $1 million would be used to educate residents in other states about the dangers of having nuclear waste shipped through their communities if the dump was to be built at Yucca Mountain, she said. Batjer said the governor is aware of the potential risks in such a campaign and will proceed carefully. The campaign's intent is to focus on the risks in other communities on the nuclear shipment routes, not the transportation of waste through Nevada itself, she said. "The governor feels very strongly that protecting Nevada from nuclear waste is the most important issue facing Nevada now and into the future," Batjer said. The measure creating the Nevada Protection Account, Senate Bill 494, was not immediately acted on by the committee. The proposal was supported by Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa and Brian McKay, a former state attorney general who is chairman of the Commission on Nuclear Projects. McKay said the commission agrees that educating residents in other states about the dangers of transporting nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain is an important way to gain allies in Congress to stop the project. Del Papa said the state must be ready to defend its position as the Energy Department readies its decision on whether to find Yucca Mountain suitable for the dump. "Simply stated, Nevada is gearing up for the fight of its life," she said. This story is located at: http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2001/Apr-17-Tue-2001/news/15883218.html ***************************************************************** 9 Nuclear power is not the answer Montreal Gazette - Tuesday 17 April 2001 - Letter to the Editor Canadians are right to recognize that the U.S. withdrawal from Kyoto has provided a golden opportunity to take the lead on climate change (Gazette, April 3, "Opportunity for Canada") and wrong to suggest the answer, as Fred Nagy argues (Letters, April 11), is "building thousands of atomic power plants." Aside from the impracticality and expense of such a massive nuclear construction program, the proliferation dangers this would present would be unacceptable. In order for nuclear power to make an impact on climate change, approximately two new reactors would have to be built every day for 60 years worldwide. The waste from these reactors would easily provide enough commercial plutonium to make many hundreds of crude nuclear weapons. Thousands of uranium-enrichment plants would also be needed to provide reactor fuel, each such facility also gaining the tangential capacity to manufacture atomic bombs. Support for a wide-scale nuclear- power program would nullify Canada's role as a leader in global peacekeeping. New energy technologies such as solar and wind power are ready and waiting, lacking only the financial and political commitment to ensure success. Even more simply, every Canadian (and American) can help reduce carbon-dioxide emissions today by adopting affordable energy-efficiency measures that will not only wean us from our wasteful energy habits but save us money while cleaning up our air and water. Linda Gunter Communications Director, Safe Energy Communication Council Washington Copyright © 2001 CanWest Interactive and The Montreal Gazette Group Inc., a ***************************************************************** 10 Database on pollution ready soon thestar.com.my > News Tuesday, April 17, 2001 LANGKAWI: A database will be established soon to provide information on the pollution and radioactive levels in the busy stretches of the Straits of Malacca. Malaysian Institute For Nuclear Technology Research director-general Datuk Dr Ahmad Sobri Hashim said such data would be useful as reference for monitoring and managing the waterway for future development. An oceanographic expedition involving the institute and 38 scientists from 17 other countries was launched last week to collect the data, he told reporters after attending a dinner for the expedition participants here on Sunday night. The participating countries include China, India, Pakistan, Vietnam and the Philippines. The expedition, jointly organised by the institute, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Fisheries Department, is being conducted off Port Klang, Johor and Kedah. The team has taken samples of water sediment, temperature and plankton in seven locations in the Straits of Malacca for analysis. The database would be established once the results were compiled in about three to four months, Dr Ahmad Sobri said. "The Straits of Malacca is a frequently used waterway as all the bordering states are industrialising. So, of course the pollution level is higher than it was before,'' he said. At the end of the expedition on Thursday, the scientists would make the samples preparation before harmonising the methods of analysis among the participating countries. Expedition organising chairman Nahrul Khair Alang Md Rashid said the scientists have to establish the correct sampling techniques using the standard procedures verified by the Vienna-based IAEA. "A lot of people talk about pollution in the waterway but there is no real data on it,'' he said. Nahrul Khair, who is the institute's deputy director-general (Research and Technology Development), said the findings could also be used to plan follow-up expeditions. Correct sampling procedures were necessary to save the data as the analysis itself was very costly, he said. "After harmonising the data through intercomparison between the participating scientists, we could get reliable data,'' he said. "We feel the first expedition is useful in terms of trying to identify and look for pollution sediment in the waterway,'' he said.--Bernama © 1995-2001 Star Publications (Malaysia) Bhd (Co No 10894-D) Managed by I.STAR Sdn Bhd (Co No 422871-T). ***************************************************************** 11 GE said to seek $50 mln compensation from Taipower [Reuters] Tuesday April 17, 1:13 am Eastern Time TAIPEI, April 17 (Reuters) - General Electric Co (NYSE:GE - news) has demanded Taiwan Power pay US$50 million in compensation for losses the U.S. company incurred during a temporary halt in construction of a controversial nuclear power plant, a newspaper said on Tuesday. The Chinese-language China Times said the compensation covers losses suffered by General Electric associated with the nuclear reactor, while the company has not yet asked for compensation for losses associated with fuel engineering equipment, Officials at Taiwan Power and GE Taiwan declined to comment on the report. Total compensation demands would expand to more than T$3.5 billion if domestic contractors also asked for reparations from the state-run power company, the newspaper added. Taiwan's cabinet announced in February it would resume construction of the plant -- already one-third complete when the cabinet unilaterally shelved the project last October. The decision to scuttle the plant infuriated lawmakers and eroded investors' confidence in the new government's ability to rule. Premier Chang Chun-hsiung said the decision to resume construction was made for the sake of ``political stability and economic development''. The cabinet would restore the budget for the nuclear plant and resume construction ``with the highest safety standards,'' he said. (US$ equals T$33) Copyright © 2001 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved. Privacy ***************************************************************** 12 Taipower issues warning that energy prices may require increase The Taipei Times Online: 2001-04-17 April 17th, 2001 STAFF WRITER Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, ¥x¹q) repeated yesterday its almost annual threat of possible increases in power prices, saying revenue targets for 2001 would be unattainable due to high oil prices and losses resulting from halted construction on the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant (®Ö¥|). Taipower Chairman Hsi Shih-chi (®u®ÉÀÙ) told lawmakers that while he could assure consumers that power prices would not increase before July, he was concerned it may be necessary in the future. Taipower's revenue estimates for this year will be the lowest in six years, Hsi said, blaming the poor performance on high oil prices, which have meant higher operating costs for both Taipower's plants and those of independent power producers. The independent producers must sign 25-year power purchase agreements with state-run Taipower, who while selling power to end users at fixed prices must buy the power at a rate determined by the cost of fuel. "Due to the rigid pricing system, Taipower is unable to pass on its increased costs to consumers," one analyst said. Another major factor behind possible price hikes cited by Hsi was the around NT$3.48 billion in losses from the 101-day suspension of construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant. Taipower has threatened for years that prices would have to be raised due to mounting costs but strong opposition in the legislature to any power price hike has kept average prices fixed. Taipower has not raised prices in 18 years, and according to one analyst, isn't likely to do so this year. "The legislature will hold elections at the end of the year, which means no lawmaker is going to want to see prices rise," said the analyst who requested anonymity. This story has been viewed 241 times. URL=[http://www.taipeitimes.com/news/2001/04/17/story/0000082096] Copyright © 1999-2001 The Taipei Times. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 13 Norway farmers sold nuclear sewage - CNN.com - April 17, 2001 OSLO, Norway -- Nuclear waste from a research reactor in Norway leaked into a city sewer for nine years after a pipeline mix-up, authorities said. The Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority (NRPA) said on Tuesday there had been a pipe-line mix up and some of the sewage sludge was sold as fertiliser to farmers near Halden, in southeast Norway. Officials said there had been no danger to human health from the low-level radioactive waste. Sverre Hornkjoel, a Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority (NRPA) scientist, said cooling water from the 42-year-old reactor had ended up in the Halden sewers between 1991-1999 after the municipality tied the drainage to the city's sewerage system instead of leading it out to sea. Norway has no nuclear power plants and no nuclear weapons,and the reactor was part of a research project operated by the Institute for Energy Technology (IFE). "The municipality made the howler, but it is still IFE which is responsible," Hornkjoel said. "In principle, this is a serious incident, but the emissions were very small." IFE spokesman Viktor Wikstroem said the cooling water had undergone tests before leaving the Halden reactor -- part of an international project to test fuel rods for nuclear reactors -- which showed emissions to be below the safety limit. "Our annual emissions are 4,000 times lower than what you and I and everyone are exposed to each year," Wikstroem said. "It is the municipality which made the error." Nuclear waste from the reactor's cooling water then ended up as sludge sold to farmers in the area who used it as fertiliser. The pipeline has now been correctly connected so that the waste ends up in the sea. "It is frightening that IFE has so little control over its emissions," said Nils Boehmer, a nuclear physicist with the ecological organisation Bellona. Boehmer said IFE was "cowardly" in trying to push the responsibility onto the municipality and should offer free radiation tests to farmers in the area rather than trying to play down what had happened. Reuters contributed to this report. ***************************************************************** 14 Norwegian protesters in Sellafield waste pipe protest April 17, 12:59 PM Norwegian environmentalists are protesting against the release of radioactive waste into the Irish Sea. Activists from the Neptun Foundation anchored their former Coastguard vessel next to waste pipes from the Sellafield nuclear re-processing plant in Cumbria. They want to stop technetium-99 being pumped into the sea. The group says the radioactive isotope, a by-product of nuclear reprocessing, is posing a real threat to Scandinavian marine life. A spokeswoman for the Oslo-based organisation said, "We are taking some documentation of the discharge coming from the waste pipes and want to stop the discharge with a non-violent protest. The first traces of technetium-99 were found off Norway in 1996 and the levels have increased since then. We are becoming really concerned about the build-up in our ecosystem. There is no danger in eating Norway's fish or shellfish at the moment, but if these levels do not decline we are concerned they will be badly contaminated." Green Party spokesman Dr Chris Busby, a nuclear biologist, said studies he conducted for the Irish Government linked the discharge of radioactive waste with cancer on both sides of the Irish Sea. He said concentrated levels of technetium-99 had been found in lobster, and the substance could be inhaled after it was brought ashore on fine particles of silt. A spokeswoman for Sellafield said the nuclear plant had spent 750 million pounds on the treatment of waste in recent years and the amount of technetium-99 discharge would be reduced by 80pc in 2012. The radiation caused by the waste was "dwarfed" by that created by everyday activity, she said, adding, "The effect on people is non-existent. We would not be allowed to discharge it if we were having health effects on local people, let alone people thousands of miles away." Comments to: news-admin@uk.yahoo-inc.com Copyright © 2001 Doras. ***************************************************************** 15 Access to Information Project St Petersburg Environmental Rights Center is going to lodge a complaint with the Russian Supreme Court against an unconstitutional decrees of the Russian president and Defence Ministry. Rashid Alimov , 2001-04-17 17:54 St Petersburg Environmental Rights Centre is preparing a complaint to the Russian Supreme Court to repeal some regulations, hampering citizens’ right to access information. Presidential Decree no. 763 and Defence Ministry's decree no. 055 are among these regulations. This complaint will be carried out as a part of a project, named as Ensuring Citizen’s Free Access to Illegally Classified Information of Public Significance, Concerning Environmental Conditions, Accidents and Catastrophes, Threatening Citizen’s Security and Health, and Their Consequences.” The purpose of the project is to secure constitutional rights to open socially important information for Russian citizens. Director of the Environmental Rights Center, Ivan Pavlov, speaks about the project and the Centre’s activities. What is project’s background? How access to information is regulated in Russia today? In the USSR access to information was regulated not by laws, but by various classified decrees and instructions. The scaring term 'state secret' was not properly defined. The state used this gap for suppression of the dissidents, and legal defence in such cases was almost impossible: cases were closed for public, with selected judges and even with selected defence attorneys. Passed in July 1993, the Law On State Secrets determined the term 'state secret'. The democratic Constitution, adopted in December 1993 stated that human rights can be restricted only by laws. The Constitution confirmed that list of the information pertaining to the state secret is defined by the law, not by sub-legal legislation. Also, article 29 proclaimed everyone’s right to seek, receive, produce, reproduce and distribute information freely. But since the Law On State Secrets had passed before the Constitution was adopted, it contained a list of the data which “could be considered” as state secrets. Composition of the list of data “considered” as state secrets was entrusted to the President. Due to the parliament crisis in 1993, President Yeltsin issued the appropriate decree only in the end of 1995. Only in October, 1997, the list of the data, pertaining to state secret was introduced in the Law. By the end of 1997 a structure of the legislation on state secrets, more or less accurate, had been introduced in Russia. The Law defines in general the categories of the classified information, the presidential decree divides the categories into smaller subgroups. The ministries have to classify specific data they have in accordance with the presidential decree. What happens in reality? The idea of the project emerged during the Nikitin case. We faced the restrictions on citizens’ access to environmental information. Not the Law, but departmental decrees hamper the access. For example, the List of the Information to be Classified in the Military is enforced by Defence Minister's order no. 055 from 1996. Instead of itemising specific data, this list includes categories, more general than the ones in the Law and in the decree. According to this list, almost everything is secret, and pretty harmless information may be considered classified. On top of everything, the minister’s list itself is secret. This list was the legal foundation for the charges against Alexander Nikitin during the whole period of investigation. We can also add, that order no. 055 has been never published and even has not been registered in the Ministry of Justice. But article 15 of the Russian Constitution states, that decrees cannot be applied, unless officially published. Order no. 055 was so secret, that the investigating bodies refused to let Nikitin and his defence attorneys to read it. Only in 1998 the Federal Security Service, former KGB, presented the order after the court’s demand. We believe this order violates the Constitution and the Law On State Secret not only in its form, but in content as well. Among the categories of the order’s list, for example, are numbers of casualties in the military in the time of peace. No wonder then, that navy chiefs and the government held back the fact of the Kursk incident. The order’s regulations are hampering the access to Kursk information until now. Does Presidential Decree no. 763 violate the Constitution? Presidential decree no.763 issued in May 1996, concerns publishing of decrees of the government, ministries, and the president. The Decree reserves the right not to publish decrees in violation of the Constitution, on the one hand, pertaining to human and citizen rights, and on the other hand, containing state secrets. We believe the things should be cleared out. If an act, pertaining to human rights, is published, then all the state secrets must be excluded before publishing. If a decree has to be classified, then all line items, referring to human rights, must be taken away. Today ministries and departments are using this Decree as a cover to issue secret regulations, restricting human rights on information. We think, we have all the reasons to lodge a complaint with the court to outlaw the Decree. How the procedure will be followed? Before bringing it to the court, we need to carry out some preliminary work, analysing all the acts on access to information. We are going to examine court precedents on the cases, where these acts have been applied. After that, a complaint will be lodged directly with the Supreme Court. In the complaint, we will demand to abolish several decrees, including Presidential Decree no. 763 and Defence Ministery order no. 055. The complaint will be lodged on behalf of Alexander Nikitin, because such acts were applied in his case. I think, this work is important not only for the citizens, but also for the state. The state should learn to observe its own rights. No doubt, every state has a right to have secrets. But this right is valid only when there are clear procedures, well defined and transparent for the citizens. This complaint is the fundament of the project, which may help us to acquire a court precedent, showing the way further, and whether Russia’s citizens have the right for information, guaranteed by the Constitution today. How the envirogroups can use the results of the project? This project requires several seminars for those, who is concerned about the problems of access to information. These problems are especially important for envirogroups, for their effective work. After breakdown of the Soviet Union, the citizens began to demand the needed environmental information from the state more actively, than before. Such information is often used for carrying out independent environmental evaluations. There is a number of precedents when ex-USSR citizens demand from the state to offset disadvantages caused to their health by nuclear accidents. But in the most cases, such demands fail. The difficulty of such arguments lies in the infringement of private interests by a state ministry or a department. Also in the project we plan to publish a brochure, describing the way a citizen may acquire socially-important information. In this brochure we are going to integrate the experience gained in the course of the project, and to examine court precedents. Are there connections between the Access to Information and other Centre’s projects? Today we work on the initial stage of the project, but the complaint to the Supreme Court is almost ready. Minister’s order no. 055, mentioned in the Nikitin’s case, forms the foundation of espionage charges against Grigory Pasko, military journalist in the Russian Pacific Fleet. We hope, that the implementation of our project would echo in his case. Now our Centre does take active part in the coming Pasko trial. Access to Information Project is fundamental for our Centre’s work. If we manage to get the answers to all our questions, put in the project, we will be able to use these answers in other projects. At present the Centre participates in Sergey Kharitonov case. Green World organisation’s member, Mr Kharitonov, was illegally sacked from Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant for his environmental activities. Unpublished department instructions were applied in his case too. St Petersburg Environmental Rights Centre St Petersburg Environmental Rights Centre was founded in 1998, in the middle of the Nikitin case, when human rights defenders, journalists, attorneys and envirogroups decided to join forces to win the case. In 1999, Ivan Pavlov, one of Nikitin’s defence attorneys, became director of the Centre. Bellona rendered active assistance in founding and co-ordinating the Centre’s activities. By the end of 2000, after Nikitin’s acquittal, the Centre began to participate in several environmental and envirorights projects. Today the Centre takes part in the Pasko case. Along with other organisations (Citizens’ Watch, Soldiers’ Mothers and Gagarin Fundation), the Centre is working on creation of a juridical school for human rights lawyers. The Centre takes part in creation of All-Russian Environment and Human Rights Coalition, departments of the organisation are active today in Chelyabinsk, Moscow and St Petersburg. "We are going to broaden environmental information net and to share our experience," Ivan Pavlov said. 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 Reuse and ***************************************************************** 16 Reactor unit no.1 shutdown at Smolensk NPP The failure caused by a human error. Rashid Alimov , 2001-04-17 16:45 Reactor unit no.1 at Smolensk NPP was shut down after a malfunction at its electrical system on April 16th at 8:45 a.m., RIA Novosti reported, referring to Rosenergoatom press service. Reactor unit no.1 had been under scheduled repair for the past five months. On Monday it was started up, but soon after the reactor reached the rated capacity of 1000 MW, it had to be shut down. Press service said that power reduction had been made correctly, radiation levels were reported to be normal. The press service also said the malfunction was caused by an operator error. Smolensk NPP operates on three units with RBMK-1000 type reactors. Its total capacity is 3,000 MW. This year Smolensk NPP has already produced 4,968mn kW/hour, which is exceeding the planned rates by 105mn kW/hour. But malfunctions have already occurred lately: a failure was revealed in steam generator no.3 of the second reactor unit on March 6th. 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 ***************************************************************** 17 Second reading of spent nuclear fuel import bills The lower house of the Russian parliament, the State Duma, has postponed the second reading of the bills favouring spent nuclear fuel imports to Russia to April, 18. Rashid Alimov , 2001-04-16 23:18 The State Duma has postponed the second reading of the bills, favouring spent nuclear fuel imports to Russia, scheduled to April, 11. The Duma speaker Gennadiy Seleznev said, that the Duma Council decided to examine the bills on April, 18, RIA Novosti informed. This proposal had been submitted by leaders of some fractions. In the end of March, nuclear minister Yevgeny Adamov, who had been actively promoting the idea of the spent fuel import, retired. Journalists and public were puzzled over, whether Adamov's dismissal meant change of the Ministry for Nuclear Energy, Minatom, policy, or it was only a "steam discharge". An opinion was voiced, that Adamov was sacked, having failed to ensure the bills passing. By the previous week, Minatom resumed its harsh propaganda for changing Russia into radioactive dumpsite. "Spent fuel issue is very important, high technologies must be brought out to the world market", new minister Rumyantsev said. Russian President Vladimir Putin is still keeping silence about the spent fuel issue, but he thanked ex-minister Adamov for his successful management of Minatom. This year Minatom "reached the best levels of the Soviet period", Putin said. No evaluation of Adamov's public activity has been done. Rumyantsev's first steps "The contracts for building nuclear power plants abroad correspond to all the international norms and Russia's interests, and the works will continue", Rumyantsev said. Russia has contracts for building three NPPs in Iran, China and India. The first important step minister Rumyantsev is going to take, will be Minatom's assets transfer from commercial Konversbank and MDM-bank to the State Bank, Sberbank. This step is said to be the main difference between Rumyantsev and his predecessor Adamov. In this connection, one can recall Rumyantsev's self-appraisal as a "Tsar's man", which became wide-known recently. Earlier, because of the ministry's closeness, Minatom was repeatedly accused of manipulations with the money and bribing MPs. Rumyantsev does not seem to make changes. He will keep Minatom's commercialisation, began by Adamov, as he is firmly confident, that it is necessary for the nuclear industry survival. That means, that the new minister will not change Adamov's approach to the spent fuel imports issue. Manipulating public opinion Current events, including shut-down of the independent NTV channel, show that the Kremlin political technologists have to a certain extent lost the sense of reality. They believe Russia has no public society today and the state-controlled mass-media would convince people of anything. As it was public opinion, which caused Adamov's dismissal, they decided to make a new "correct" public opinion voiced by the "correct" environmentalists. On April, 7, two days before the Parliament hearings, a sensation emerged from the Kremlin political technologist Pavlovsky's site: "All-Russian environmental organisations support spent fuel import." “All” turned out to be only two organisations: Kedr party and Russian Ecological Congress (REC). But — who cares? — in the course of a propaganda campaign this circumstance is not so important as the news agencies have already called these two organisations "Russian environmental representatives" and even proclaimed "unity of environmentalists and nuclear scientists". The reality is as following: after the petition to the President against spent fuel import, submitted in the middle of March by 672 organisations — among them Greenpeace, WWF, Social-Ecological Unity, — a letter appeared, signed only by two organisations, but loyal to official initiatives. The plan was that during the weekend the greens would not be able to respond, but this "letter of the environmentalists in support of spent fuel import" would be already wide-spread in the press. It was even easier to do, because NTV channel, which used to say truth about Minatom's deal, was compelled to defend itself. Social-Ecological Unity mentioned, that the side-effect of the letter of the two organisations would discredit environmental movement. The public would think that environmentalists urged to protest first, collecting 2.5 million signatures for anti-nuclear referendum, and then later changed their minds. Who would pay much attention to the names, eventually mentioned in the document? Moreover, Kedr and REC really set a condition: "products of reprocessing of the spent fuel must be returned to the countries where it was produced." The letter begins with a phrase: "Being professionally engaged in environmental safety problems, we understand that, in case of passing of the bills, our country will be able to get essential funds, about $20 billion during 10 years." In the Social-Ecological Union report this phrase is called not only boastful, but disgusting and cynical: "If the authors of the letter were really engaged in environmental safety problems, hearing about spent nuclear fuel, they would not mention dollars, but radiation-crippled children from Muslyumovo, Chelyabinsk and other "nuclear sites". $20 billion are also known to be enough only for building storage facilities and spent fuel reprocessing plants, but not for contaminated areas purification or environmental and social programmes". On Wednesday, members of Green Cross ecological organisation, member of Russian Ecological Congress, said that their name was used for a "false-letter". The members of the Congress did not depute director of the Congress Pimenov to make such an appeal. Not a single organisation, out of 148 REC participants, would sign a letter, favouring radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel imports. "This story stinks" Larisa Skuratovskaya, Jemma Firsova and Alla Yaroshinskaya, members of the Green Cross Trustee Council said about the letter. The Green Cross environmentalists demand a REC Trustee Council conference to examine this situation. Nuclear scientists' open letter An open letter of the environmentalists was published soon after the open letter of the nuclear scientists to the State Duma MPs. The letter demanded to pass the nuclear bills. The letter was signed by academicians Evgeny Velikhov, Nikolay Lavernov, Vladimir Frotov, Nikolay Ponomarev-Stepnoy and others. Last Saturday, in interview to Echo of Moscow radio, Nikolay Ponomarev-Stepnoy said to have not signed up these documents. Speaking about the bills, the academicians wrote in the letter: "we are confident, that the decision must be taken and that should be done immediately." At the same time, Minatom and Kurchatov Institute representatives keep saying, they do not need immediate decisions. In his interview for "Russia" TV-channel minister Rumyantsev said: "Someone thinks there are trainloads [of nuclear waste] ready to go to Russia as soon as the bills are passed. It is absolute nonsense." The same was stated by Kurchatov Institute external activities director Andrey Gagarinsky to Radio of Russia: "All we have today is [the reprocessing plant] "Mayak", we are talking about a long-term program". Several famous scientists objected to the spent fuel imports. One of them is academician Alexey Yablokov, arguing that building the reprocessing plants would take much time, while spent fuel would be already in Russia. Nuclear State Regulatory position Soon after minister Adamov's dismissal, head of the Nuclear State Regulatory (GAN) Yury Vishnevsky held a press conference to "dispel the myths, created by the ex-minister". Speaking about radioactive waste imports, Vishnevsky said, that Adamov and people like him "sell their own country, while pretending they sell new technologies". According to Vishnevsky, spent fuel import will not bring profit: one third of the money will be spent for taxes, the other third for storage exploiting, and the remaining part "is said to be for environment, but it is obvious that something would be stolen". The Minatom representatives argue, that nuclear waste can be reprocessed into uranium- 235, needed by Russian NPPs. According to Vishnevsky, Russia has already from 500 to 700 thousand tonnes of radioactive waste without foreign import. Moreover, one kilogram of uranium, extracted from the waste would cost about $1000, while one kilogram of newly extracted uranium costs only $18. "There are no technical conditions for imported spent nuclear fuel storage in Russia today", Vishnevsky said. But during the parliament hearings held on April, 9, head of the GAN proposed the MPs to allow imports and storage of the spent nuclear fuel, produced in Russia.Vishnevsky claimed, such addition to the bills would promote developing of the Russian producers. Reaction in the regions Social Ecological Union informs, the State Duma's decision to accept the bills during the first reading in December, has been denounced by the Dumas and Legislative Assemblies of the following regions: Sverdlovsk, Saratov, Volgograd, Kemerovo, Kostroma, Altai, Bryansk, Novosibirsk, Yaroslavl and Vologodsk regions. The Legislative Assemblies of the cities of Murmansk, Khabarovsk, Yekaterinburg, Kaliningrad and North-West parliament Association also fight the nuclear bills. In the end of March the State Department of the Tatarstan Republic objected to radioactive waste imports, declaring Minatom's idea to be "an extremely dangerous initiative, which contradicts to the interests of Russia's multi-national people." Tatarstan Anti-Nuclear Society issued an open letter to Russian citizens, criticising spent fuel imports from the national patriotic positions. It should be mentioned that until now, the state and Minatom have used national patriotic rhetoric, proclaiming environmental groups to be agents of the West, who are interested in Russia's failure in this profitable market. Tatarstan Anti-Nuclear Society claimed, that Russia's engaging in the process of radioactive waste import and reprocessing would result in total control over Russian nuclear industry by multinational, mostly American companies. It means, the loss of the state independence, the open letter states. Legislation analysis Ecodefence! group carried out a comparative analysis of the current legislation. The group questions Minatom's statement, that passing of the bills is needed to remove a ban on foreign radioactive waste reprocessing. The laws currently in force allow temporary import and reprocessing of foreign spent fuel, which, in fact, has never been prohibited. Special governmental decree no. 773 from July, 29, 1995, regulates the procedure, which is identical to how it is established in other countries, engaged in this unpopular business, e.g. UK and France. "Probably, new minister is not aware of this document", Ecodefence believes. Like his scandalous predecessor, Adamov, minister Rumyantsev keeps supporting the idea of changing Russia into radioactive burial ground. New bills, in contrast to the old regulations, lift the ban for long-term storage of the foreign radioactive waste. In fact, they allow eternal storage of them in Russia. During spent fuel reprocessing a lot of additional waste is generated. In the current legislation there is a demand to send the waste to the home countries of the spent fuel. New bills allow the waste of reprocessing to be kept and stored in Russia. Disposal of the waste in Russia land is provided in the feasibility study of the bills. Today only Mayak plant in Chelyabinsk region is engaged in reprocessing of the spent fuel of nuclear power plants. According to GAN statistics, an amount of radioactive waste, equal to 400 mln Curie, or 8 Chernobyls, is stored at Mayak plant. The waste is being illegally dumped in the Karachay lake, the most contaminated place on the Earth, according to the UN experts. In spite of the fact that, foreign waste reprocessing has never been prohibited for Minatom, the ministry has failed to sign contracts with the “rich“ countries, capable of paying for that. On the contrary, during the 90s, Minatom lost almost all the contracts with the Eastern Europe “poor” countries. That means lack of the demand for reprocessing services. "Comparing the new bills with the laws currently in force, one sees, that the undertaking is directed not for Russia's positions consolidation in allegedly existing market, but for changing the country into radioactive dumpsite", Ecodefence! co-chairman Vladimir Slivyak said. The vote results are already known? Deputy chairman of the State Duma Mrs. Lubov Sliska assumes, that the bills, favouring spent nuclear fuel imports, will pass in the lower chamber of the Russian parliament on April, 18. "The attitude of the leaders of the MPs' fractions shows, there is no controversy about the bills", she said at a press-conference yesterday. Publisher: , President: Frederic Hauge Information: , Technical contact: Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62 * P.O.Box 2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway ***************************************************************** 18 Nuclear Minister Pushes for Spent Nuclear Rod Imports Apr. 17, 2001. Page 3 The Associated Press New Nuclear Power Minister Alexander Rumyantsev on Monday pushed for the country to import other nations' spent nuclear fuel rods for reprocessing, two days before parliament takes up legislation on the divisive proposal. Rumyantsev, whom President Vladimir Putin appointed last month, said the legislation was essential for Russia to be able to export new nuclear fuel. "If other countries know that we can accept spent nuclear fuel for storage and processing, it will help expand our market opportunities," Rumyantsev told a news conference. He said that Russia faced increasing competition from French and British companies that are eager to provide nuclear fuel to the former Soviet republics and Eastern European countries, which have Soviet-built nuclear reactors. The British and French offer to accept the spent fuel, he said. Rumyantsev also argued that the $20 billion plan to import up to 20,000 metric tons of nuclear fuel was good for Russia because it would generate to clean up radiation-polluted territories and deal with other legacies of the nuclear era. Spent nuclear fuel imports will also allow Russia to process up to four times more of its own nuclear waste, which has been piling up because of a lack of funds to build new storage and processing facilities, he said. The legislation is set to be discussed Wednesday by the State Duma. *© 2001 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may ***************************************************************** 19 Ten Years of the Chernobyl Era: April 1996 Scientific American: Article: Ten Years of the Chernobyl Era The environmental and health effects of nuclear power's greatest calamity will last for generations. by Yuri M.Shcherbak These words were written to me in 1986 by the head of the shift operating the reactor that exploded at the Chornobyl nuclear power plant in northern Ukraine. The explosion and a resulting fire showered radioactive debris over much of eastern Europe. The author of the words above, along with several others, was later jailed for his role in the disaster, although he never admitted guilt. Subsequent official investigations have shown, however, that responsibility for this extraordinary tragedy reaches far beyond just those on duty at the plant on the night of April 25 and early morning of April 26, 1986. The consequences, likewise, have spread far beyond the nuclear energy industry and raise fundamental questions for a technological civilization. Before the explosion, Chornobyl was a small city hardly known to the outside world. Since then, the name-often known by its Russian spelling, Chernobyl has entered the chronicle of the 20th century as the worst technogenic environmental disaster in history. It is an internationally known metaphor for catastrophe as potent as "Stalingrad" or "Bhopal." Indeed, it is now clear that the political repercussions from Chornobyl accelerated the collapse of the Soviet empire. Because of the importance of this calamity for all of humanity, it is vital that the world understands both the reasons it happened and the consequences. The events that led up to the explosion are well known. Reactor number four, a 1,000-megawatt RBMK-1000 design, produced steam that drove generators to make electricity. On the night of the accident, operators were conducting a test to see how long the generators would run without power. For this purpose, they greatly reduced the power being produced in the reactor and blocked the flow of steam to the generators. Unfortunately, the RBMK-1000 has a design flaw that makes its operation at low power unstable. In this mode of operation, any spurious increase in the production of steam can boost the rate of energy production in the reactor. If that extra energy generates still more steam, the result can be a runaway power surge. In addition, the operators had disabled safety systems that could have averted the reactor's destruction, because the systems might have interfered with the results of the test. At 1:23 and 40 seconds on the morning of April 26, realizing belatedly that the situation had become hazardous, an operator pressed a button to activate the automatic protection system. The action was intended to shut the reactor down, but by this time it was too late. What actually happened can be likened to a driver who presses the brake pedal to slow down a car but finds instead that it accelerates tremendously. Within three seconds, power production in the reactor's core surged to 100 times the normal maximum level, and there was a drastic increase in temperature. The result was two explosions that blew off the 2,000-metric-ton metal plate that sealed the top of the reactor, destroying the building housing it. The nuclear genie had been liberated. Despite heroic attempts to quell the ensuing fire, hundreds of tons of graphite that had served as a moderator in the reactor burned for 10 days. Rising hot gases carried into the environment aerosolized fuel as well as fission products, isotopes that are created when uranium atoms split apart. The fuel consisted principally of uranium; mixed in with it was some plutonium created as a by-product of normal operation. Plutonium is the most toxic element known, and some of the fission products were far more radioactive than uranium or plutonium. Among the most dangerous were iodine 131, strontium 90 and cesium 13. A plume containing these radioisotopes moved with prevailing winds to the north and west, raining radioactive particles on areas thousands of miles away. Regions affected included not only Ukraine itself but also Belarus, Russia, Georgia, Poland, Sweden, Germany, Turkey and others. Even such distant lands as the U.S. and Japan received measurable amounts of radiation. In Poland, Germany, Austria and Hungary as well as Ukraine, crops and milk were so contaminated they had to be destroyed. In Finland, Sweden and Norway, carcasses of reindeer that had grazed on contaminated vegetation had to be dumped. Widespread Effects The total amount of radioactivity released will never be known, but the official Soviet figure of 90 million curies represents a minimum. Other estimates suggest that the total might have been several times higher. It is fair to say that in terms of the amount of radioactive fallout-though not, of course, the heat and blast effects-the accident was comparable to a medium-size nuclear strike. In the immediate aftermath of the explosion and fire, 187 people fell ill from acute radiation sickness; 31 of these died. Most of these early casualties were firefighters who combated the blaze. The destroyed reactor liberated hundreds of times more radiation than was produced by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The intensity of gamma radiation on the site of the power plant reached more than 100 roentgens an hour. This level produces in an hour doses hundreds of times the maximum dose the International Commission on Radiological Protection recommends for members of the public a *year. *On the roof of the destroyed reactor building, radiation levels reached a frightening 100,000 roentgens an hour. The human dimensions of the tragedy are vast and heartbreaking. At the time of the accident, I was working as a medical researcher at the Institute of Epidemiology and Infectious Diseases in Kiev, some 60 miles from the Chornobyl plant. Sometime on April 26 a friend told me that people had been arriving at hospitals for treatment of burns sustained in an accident at the plant, but we had no idea of its seriousness. There was little official news during the next few days, and what there was suggested the danger was not great. The authorities jammed most foreign broadcasts, although we could listen as Swedish radio reported the detection of high levels of radioactivity in that country (click here for information on Swedish effects) and elsewhere. I and some other physicians decided to drive toward the accident site to investigate and help as we could. We set off cheerfully enough, but as we got closer we started to see signs of mass panic. People with connections to officialdom had used their influence to send children away by air and rail. Others without special connections were waiting in long lines for tickets or occasionally storming trains to try to escape. Families had become split up. The only comparable social upheaval I had seen was during a cholera epidemic. Already many workers from the plant had been hospitalized. The distribution of the fallout was extremely patchy. One corner of a field might be highly dangerous, while just a few yards away levels seemed low. Nevertheless, huge areas were affected. Although iodine 131 has a half-life of only eight days, it caused large radiation exposures during the weeks immediately following the accident. Strontium 90 and cesium 137, on the other hand, are more persistent. Scientists believe it is the cesium that will account for the largest radiation doses in the long run. All told, well over 260,000 square kilometers of territory in Ukraine, Russia and Belarus (see radar map) of this region) still have more than one curie per square kilometer of contamination with cesium 137. At this level, annual health checks for radiation effects are advised for residents. In my own country of Ukraine, the total area with this level of contamination exceeds 35,000 square kilometers-more than 5 percent of the nation's total area. Most of this, 26,000 square kilometers, is arable land. In the worst affected areas there are restrictions on the use of crops, but less contaminated districts are still under cultivation. The heavily contaminated parts of Ukraine (see maps) constitute 13 administrative regions (oblasts). In these oblasts are 1,300 towns and villages with a total population of 2.6 million, including 700,000 children. Within about 10 days of the accident, 135,000 people living in the worst-affected areas had left their homes; by now the total has reached 167,000. Yet it is clear that the authorities' attempts to keep the scale of the disaster quiet actually made things worse than they need have been. If more inhabitants in the region had been evacuated promptly during those crucial first few days, radiation doses for many people might have been lower. The region within 30 kilometers of the Chornobyl plant is now largely uninhabited; 60 settlements outside this zone have also been moved. Formerly busy communities are ghost towns. The government has responded to this unprecedented disruption by enacting laws giving special legal status to contaminated areas and granting protections to those who suffered the most. Yet the repercussions will last for generations. Multiple Illnesses The medical consequences (described by the World Health Organization) are, of course, the most serious. Some 30,000 people have fallen ill among the 400,000 workers who toiled as "liquidators," burying the most dangerous wastes and constructing a special building around the ruined reactor that is universally referred to as "the sarcophagus." Of these sick people, about 5,000 are now too ill to work. It is hard to know, even approximately, how many people have already died as a result of the accident. Populations have been greatly disrupted, and children have been sent away from some areas. By comparing mortality rates before and after the accident, the environmental organization Greenpeace Ukraine has estimated a total of 32,000 deaths. There are other estimates that are higher, and some that are lower, but I believe a figure in this range is defensible. Some, perhaps many, of these deaths may be the result of the immense psychological stress experienced by those living in the contaminated region. One medical survey of a large group of liquidators, carried out by researchers in Kiev led by Sergei Komissarenko, has found that most of the sample were suffering from a constellation of symptoms that together seem to define a new medical syndrome. The symptoms include fatigue, apathy and a decreased number of "natural killer" cells in the blood. Natural killer cells, a type of white blood cell, can kill the cells of tumors and virus-infected cells. A reduction in their number, therefore, suppresses the immune system. Some have dubbed this syndrome "Chornobyl AIDS." Besides having increased rates of leukemia and malignant tumors, people with this syndrome are susceptible to more severe forms of cardiac conditions as well as common infections such as bronchitis, tonsillitis and pneumonia. As a consequence of inhaling aerosols containing iodine 131 immediately after the accident, 13,000 children in the region experienced radiation doses to the thyroid of more than 200 roentgen equivalents. (This means they received at least twice the maximum recommended dose for nuclear industry workers for an entire year.) Up to 4,000 of these children had doses as high as 2,000 roentgen equivalents. Because iodine collects in the thyroid gland, these children have developed chronic inflammation of the thyroid. Although the inflammation itself produces no symptoms, it has started to give rise to a wave of cases of thyroid cancer. The numbers speak for themselves. Data gathered by the Kiev researcher Mykola D. Tronko and his colleagues indicate that between 1981 and 1985-before the accident-the number of thyroid cancer cases in Ukraine was about five a year. Within five years of the disaster the number had grown to 22 cases a year, and from 1992 to 1995 it reached an average of 43 cases a year. From 1986 to the end of 1995, 589 cases of thyroid cancer were recorded in children and adolescents. (In Belarus the number is even higher.) Ukraine's overall rate of thyroid cancer among children has increased about 10-fold from preaccident levels and is now more than four cases per million. Cancer of the thyroid metastasizes readily, although if caught early enough it can be treated by removing the thyroid gland. Patients must then receive lifelong treatment with supplemental thyroid hormones. Other research by Ukrainian and Israeli scientists has found that one in every three liquidators-primarily men in their thirties-has been plagued by sexual or reproductive disorders. The problems include impotence and sperm abnormalities. Reductions in the fertilizing capacity of the sperm have also been noted. The number of pregnancies with complications has been growing among women living in the affected areas, and many youngsters fall prey to a debilitating fear of radiation. The optimists who predicted no long-term medical consequences from the explosion have thus been proved egregiously wrong. These authorities were principally medical officials of the former Soviet Union who were following a script written by the political bureau of the Communist Party's Central Committee. They also include some Western nuclear energy specialists and military experts. It is also true that the forecasts of "catastrophists"-some of whom predicted well over 100,000 cancer cases-have not come to pass. Still, previous experience with the long-term effects of radiationmuch of it derived from studies at Hiroshima and Nagasaki-suggests that the toll will continue to rise. Cancers caused by radiation can take many years before they become detectable, so the prospects for the long-term health of children in the high-radiation regions are, sadly, poor. The hushing up of the danger from radiation in Soviet propaganda has produced quite the opposite effects from those intended. People live under constant stress, fearful about their health and, especially, that of their children. This mental trauma has given rise to a psychological syndrome comparable to that suffered by veterans of wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan. Among children evacuated from the reactor zone, there has been a 10- to 15-fold increase in the incidence of neuropsychiatric disorders. The catastrophe and the resulting resettlement of large populations have also caused irreparable harm to the rich ethnic diversity of the contaminated areas, particularly to the so-called *drevlyany,* woodland people, and *polishchuks,* inhabitants of the Polissya region. Unique architectural features and other artifacts of their spiritual and material culture have been effectively lost as abandoned towns and villages have fallen into disrepair. Much of the beautiful landscape is now unsafe for humans. The Ukrainian government, which is in a severe economic crisis, is today obliged to spend more than 5 percent of its budget dealing with the aftermath of Chornobyl. The money provides benefits such as free housing to about three million people who have been officially recognized as having suffered from the catastrophe, including 356,000 liquidators and 870,000 children. Ukraine has introduced a special income tax corresponding to 12 percent of earnings to raise the necessary revenue, but it is unclear how long the government can maintain benefits at current levels. Today the Chornobyl zone is one of the most dangerously radioactive places in the world. In the debris of the ruined reactor are tens of thousands of metric tons of nuclear fuel with a total radioactivity level of some 20 million curies. The radiation level in the reactor itself, at several thousand roentgens per hour, is lethal for any form of life. But the danger is spread far and wide. In the 30-kilometer zone surrounding the reactor are about 800 hastily created burial sites where highly radioactive waste, including trees that absorbed radioisotopes from the atmosphere, has been simply dumped into clay-lined pits. These dumps may account for the substantial contamination of the sediments of the Dnieper River and its tributary the Pripyat, which supply water for 30 million people. Sediments of the Pripyat adjacent to Chornobyl contain an estimated 10,000 curies of strontium 90, 12,000 curies of cesium 137 and 2,000 curies of plutonium. In order to prevent soluble compounds from further contaminating water sources, the wastes must be removed to properly designed and equipped storage facilities-facilities that do not yet exist. Cost of Cleanup The two reactors that are still in operation at the Chornobyl plant also pose a major problem (a fire put a third out of action in 1992). These generate up to 5 percent of Ukraine's power; the nuclear energy sector (a map of Ukrainian reactors can be seen herealtogether produces 40 percent of the country's electricity. Even so, Ukraine and the Group of Seven industrial nations last December signed a formal agreement on a cooperative plan to shut down the whole Chornobyl plant by the year 2000. The agreement establishes that the European Union and the U.S. will help Ukraine devise plans to mitigate the effects of the shutdown on local populations. It also sets up mechanisms to allow donor countries to expedite safety improvements at one of the reactors still in use. In addition, the agreement provides for international cooperation on decommissioning the plant, as well as on the biggest problem of all: an ecologically sound, long-term replacement for the sarcophagus that was built around the ruin of reactor number four. The 10-story sarcophagus, which is built largely of concrete and large slabs of metal and has walls over six meters thick, was designed for a lifetime of 30 years. But it was constructed in a great hurry under conditions of high radiation. As a result, the quality of the work was poor, and today the structure is in need of immediate repair. Metal used in the edifice has rusted, and more than 1,000 square meters of concrete have become seriously cracked. Rain and snow can get inside. If the sarcophagus were to collapse-which could happen if there were an earthquake-the rubble would very likely release large amounts of radioactive dust. In 1993 an international competition was held to find the best long-term solution. Six prospective projects were chosen for further evaluation (out of 94 proposals), and the next year a winner was selected-Alliance, a consortium led by Campenon Bernard of France. The consortium's proposal, which entails the construction of a "supersarcophagus" around the existing one, unites firms from France, Germany, Britain, Russia and Ukraine. The group has already conducted feasibility studies. If the project goes forward, design work will cost $20 million to $30 million, and construction-which would take five years-upwards of $300 million. Final disposal of the waste from the accident will take 30 years. One possibility being explored is that the waste might be encased in a special glass. Chornobyl was not simply another disaster of the sort that humankind has experienced throughout history, like a fire or an earthquake or a flood. It is a global environmental event of a new kind. It is characterized by the presence of thousands of environmental refugees; long-term contamination of land, water and air; and possibly irreparable damage to ecosystems. Chornobyl demonstrates the ever growing threat of technology run amok. The designers of the plant, which did not conform to international safety requirements, are surely culpable at least as much as the operators. The RBMK-1000 is an adaptation of a military reactor originally designed to produce material for nuclear weapons. There was no reinforced containment structure around the reactor to limit the effects of an accident. That RBMK reactors are still in operation in Ukraine, Lithuania and Russia should be cause for alarm. The disaster illustrates the great responsibility that falls on the shoulders of scientific and other experts who give advice to politicians on technical matters. Moreover, I would argue that the former Soviet Union's communist leadership must share the blame. Despite then President Mikhail S. Gorbachev's professed support for glasnost, or openness, the regime hypocritically closed ranks in the aftermath of the tragedy in a futile and ultimately harmful attempt to gloss over the enormity of what had occurred. The event offers a vivid demonstration of the failures of the monopolistic Soviet political and scientific system. The emphasis under that regime was on secrecy and on simplifying safety features in order to make construction as cheap as possible. International experience with reactor safety was simply disregarded. The calamity underscores, further, the danger that nuclear power plants could pose in regions where wars are being fought. Of course, all such plants are potentially vulnerable to terrorist attack. Chornobyl has taught the nations of the world a dreadful lesson about the necessity for preparedness if we are to rely on nuclear technology. Humankind lost a sort of innocence on April 26, 1986. We have embarked on a new, post-Chornobyl era, and we have yet to comprehend all the consequences. *Further Reading* *Chernobyl: A Documentary Story. Yuri Shcherbak. Translated by Ian Press. St. Martin's Press, 1989. Chornobyl: Living with the Monster. Mike Edwards in *National Geographic, *Vol. 186, No. 2, pages 100-115; August 1994. Radiation and Human Immunity [in Russian]. Sergei Komissarenko. Naukova Dumka, Kiev, 1994. Caring for Survivors of the Chernobyl Disaster: What the Clinician Should Know. Armin D. Weinberg et al. in Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 274, No. 5, pages 408-412; August 2, 1995. ***************************************************************** 20 Lecture to cover ecology after fire This story was published Mon, Apr 16, 2001 By Annette Cary Herald staff writer Life has returned to near normal for elk and many other mammals burned out of their homes by last summer's wildfire at Hanford and the Hanford Reach National Monument. But some bird species appear to be having a tougher time adapting to the changed landscape of the shrub steppe wilderness. In June, a fatal automobile accident started a fire that raced across 164,000 acres, destroying sage and grassland and 11 homes in the Benton City area. Ten months later, scientists at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the Fish and Wildlife Department are studying the changes to the ecology. Lab scientist Larry Cadwell, who manages the ecosystem monitoring project for Hanford, will discuss the effects of the fire in the next lecture of the Community Science and Technology Seminar Series on Wednesday. Some animals may have been killed in the fire. For instance, a Department of Interior report done last year guessed that fledgling ferruginous hawks in 12 nests within the fire area would not have been able to fly far enough to escape the flames. Burrowing owls also likely died. During their breeding cycle, they would have retreated to their burrows for protection, even though they could have flown away, the report said. How easily animals that survived adapted has depended somewhat on whether they depend more on the sagebrush or the grass of the shrub steppe ecology. When much of the bunch grass that elk fed on burned, they walked to the nearest place they could find food -- the wheat fields of the nearby ranches. At night, they fed on wheat, coming back onto the security of Hanford land during the day, Cadwell said. As the cheat grass came up in December and January in burned areas, the elk began to spend more time there. "For elk, it was a temporary inconvenience," Cadwell said. "Many other species adapt." Small mammals, such as pocket mice and pocket gophers that burrow in the ground and create mounds of soil, reproduce quickly, and no change should be seen in their population by next year, if not sooner. However, black-tailed jackrabbits, which depend on sage to hide from predators such as hawks and coyotes, may be vulnerable. Cadwell has seen jackrabbits hiding this year in a few patches of sage that the fire missed, each patch about the size of a building. The acres of sagebrush destroyed by the fire would take decades to return without human intervention. The seed drops to the ground in December, and little of the seeds from December 1999 would remain viable this spring. In the months after the fire, Fish and Wildlife began noting changes in the bird population, based on weekly observations made by volunteers Bill and Nancy LaFramboise. "A lot of migrant birds that nest there in the summer tended to leave earlier than they would have (in the past)," said Heidi Brunkal, a wildlife biologist for the federal agency. That included sage sparrows, grasshopper sparrows, curlews and logger-head shrike, she said. Birds, such as the white crown sparrow, which usually stop at the reserve as they migrate in the fall from Canada to the Southwest, Mexico or Central America, also didn't stay as long as they have in the past. This spring, birds that nested in the Hanford area in the past are returning to the burned-over area as usual, Brunkal said. But "a lot of those, especially the shrub-dependent, are not going to do well," she said. "Meadowlarks have shown a big decline in the burn area -- they need shrubs." Most of the shrub-dependent birds nest in the sage, and sage sparrows also rely on sage leaves for almost all their winter diet. However, grassland bird species should do fine. Long-billed curlew, grasshopper sparrows and horned larks, for example, nest on the ground. The native bunch grass of the shrub-steppe ecology is growing back, although there is some concern that non-native cheat grass also is spreading on the bare areas left by the fire. Because it grows in a continuous carpet like a lawn, once a fire gets started in dried cheat grass, it spreads quickly. Historically, the Mid-Columbia has had bunch grass, which as its name suggests, grows in separate bunches. In some areas of central Hanford where the soil is sandy and the sparse vegetation that held it in place is gone, plants are not growing back well as the strong spring wind blows the sandy soil about. "It looks like the Sahara Desert," Cadwell said. Cadwell will discuss more about "Fire, Ecology and the Hanford Site," and show slides at 7 p.m. Wednesday in the Columbia Basin College Theatre on the Pasco campus. The seminar series is sponsored by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and CBC. Copyright 2001 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This ***************************************************************** 21 Senators: Take a look at finishing WNP-1 Published April 15, 2001 When Washington's U.S. Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell visit the Tri-Cities Tuesday, they ought to make sure they include a look, or at least a discussion, of the possibility of completing Energy Northwest's unfinished nuclear power plant. As power costs soar, finishing construction of Washington Nuclear Plant No. 1, left two-thirds complete when construction was canceled in 1982, is gaining some consideration, and not just among those in the nuclear industry. In a national survey of 1,000 adults in early January, 51 percent agreed with the statement, "We should definitely build more nuclear energy plants in the future." According to the Nuclear Energy Institute, that's up from 42 percent who agreed in 1999. Closer to home, Puget Sound-area business leaders apparently are becoming more interested in nuclear power as part of the solution to the energy crisis. A recent Puget Sound Business Journal-Hebert Research Business Confidence survey found that almost 70 percent of 200 chief executives and chief financial officers said nuclear power should be on the table for discussion. Yet, when Energy Northwest officials first broached the topic of finishing WNP-1, many political leaders were lukewarm at best, while many traditionally anti-nuclear factions roared. A March 31 Seattle Post-Intelligencer editorial was headlined, "No nuke plants in Washington." So, it was left to Eastern Washington's Republican congressmen, Reps. Doc Hastings and George Nethercutt, to formally request a study of WNP-1. The study will be completed over the next few months, said Energy Northwest's executive board Chairman Rudi Bertschi. (See his column on Page F1.) Although Democrats Murray and Cantwell likely would take some heat from anti-nuclear constituents, they have an incumbent responsibility as statewide elected officials to consider this unfinished plant's possible role in resolving the ongoing energy crisis. Copyright 2001 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This ***************************************************************** 22 Smolensk power plant's unit one halted, no threat - minister [ITAR/TASS News Agency] Story Filed: Monday, April 16, 2001 7:31 AM EST MOSCOW, Apr 16, 2001 (Itar-Tass via COMTEX) -- Atomic Energy Minister Alexander Rumyantsev said that unit one of the Smolensk nuclear power plant was stopped on Monday by its alarm system. The halt was a "routine working situation," and the unit will soon be re- started, the minister stressed. It was stopped at 8:45 am, Moscow time, when a malfunction was detected in its "electricity section," sources from the Rosenergoatom company told Itar-Tass. Specialists stress that the power plant is operating safely, while radioactivity situation there and in the adjacent area has remained unchanged. Radioactive background stays within the limit of a natural radioactive background for that area, specialists said. By Veronika Voskoboinikova (c) 1996-2001 ITAR-TASS. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 23 Russia plans to build nuke power plant in India, allays fears [ITAR/TASS News Agency] Story Filed: Monday, April 16, 2001 7:20 AM EST MOSCOW, Apr 16, 2001 (Itar-Tass via COMTEX) -- Russia's atomic energy minister confirmed on Monday Russia's plans to build a nuclear power plants in India, adding that a contract for the construction should be coordinated with the world community. "India is Russia's strategic partner," Minister Alexander Rumyantsev told a press conference, and that is why Russia does not renounce its plan to build a nuclear power plant. "We shall hold negotiations both with India and the international community," Rumyantsev stressed. "We must seek to reach an agreement so that the international community had no questions to Russia," he added. Foreign countries express fears that India could get an access to "nuclear secrets" during the construction work. Meanwhile, Russian specialists are finishing a feasibility study. It was earlier planned to have the contract signed this year. By Veronika Voskoboinikova ***************************************************************** 24 Energy Task Force Works in Secret (washingtonpost.com) Like Clinton Health Effort, Cheney Group Aims to Limit Leaks, Flak *By Dana Milbank and Eric Pianin* Washington Post Staff Writers Monday, April 16, 2001; Page A01 The Bush administration's energy task force is something of a secret society. At the start of each meeting with outside groups, task-force members request that the session be off the record. They say they will share no documents, to prevent information from leaking. The members are expected not to talk to the media, and the few who do are not able to talk about policy. "There really isn't anything to talk about," said an official from the Transportation Department. "I'm sorry, but we're not going to discuss process," said an Environmental Protection Agency spokesman who intercepted a call to a task force staffer -- and then asked that his name not be used with his no comment. Why such secrecy? The broad outline of the policy recommendations, after all, is not in doubt. The final proposal, anticipated within the next three or four weeks, will be heavily focused on increased production of oil, gas and coal and investment in new refineries, pipelines and power grids, according to those familiar with the discussions. The silence, rather, is an effort to keep a low-key atmosphere around the task force's deliberations. By limiting exposure, the administration is calculating that it can limit criticism. To close followers of government, the shroud of secrecy may seem familiar: It is precisely the approach taken by Hillary Rodham Clinton's health care task force at the same point in the Clinton administration. Members of the Bush energy task force, headed by Vice President Cheney, say they are determined to avoid the disastrous fate that befell that previous task force. They say that despite some obvious similarities in approach, their goal -- solving the nation's energy supply-demand imbalance -- is more circumscribed and achievable than overhauling America's health care system. "We're not out to reengineer the nation's electric system," said Lawrence B. Lindsey, the president's chief economic adviser and a member of the task force. Still, addressing the nation's energy problems is one of the top priorities for the new administration, and some of the issues the task force plans to tackle could spark the same kind of outcry created by the Clinton health task force. Administration officials familiar with the deliberations say the task force is looking at everything from increased drilling in the Alaskan wildlife refuge and the Rocky Mountains to more emphasis on nuclear power and energy conservation. For Bush's energy team, as for the Clinton health care task force, the problem is less in coming up with a set of recommendations than in selling its ideas to the public. While Clinton's advisers labored in secrecy, out-of-context news reports made wrong impressions, and the feeding frenzy by opponents once the plan was released contributed to its downfall. A similar danger faces the Bush task force as reports come out about controversial elements in its plan, including more drilling and more nuclear power plants. "There will be quite a political reaction to that, and not just from the anti nuclear-proliferation types," said Paul Leventhal, president of the Nuclear Control Institute. "It's from anyone who doesn't want a plant in their back yard." Already, there are signs of the divisions. Environmental groups complain that Cheney won't meet with their leaders while the vice president sits down with a parade of industry officials. The nation's powerful environmental lobby is ready to pounce on any report that will shift policy from conservation toward increased energy production -- a central argument of the Bush report. Some outsiders say the administration is courting trouble with its closed approach. Ira Magaziner, who ran the Clinton health care task force, said it was a "huge mistake" to restrict the news about the health care task force. It didn't work, and it created hostility, he said. "My experience taught me from a political and public policy point of view, it's better keeping things open." Magaziner would know. In 1993, The Washington Post wrote about the Clinton task force's information "blackout," designed "to stop reporters and lobbyists from bothering the staff." The Clinton administration was even sued by critics for keeping its meetings closed to the public. As for its proposals, "the public can't read them, and the staff can't even photocopy them for fear the copies might be leaked," The Post wrote. Bush officials are well aware that the two task forces have similarities, in timing and importance. Both focused on complex, divisive issues that pitted consumers against industry. And both administrations sought to keep their subject confidential to keep the public's attention on other matters (Clinton's economic plan and Bush's tax cut) and to prevent opposition from organizing. The Bush energy advisers say the silent approach is necessary. "We didn't want to make it into a circus," a task force official said. "I don't think this process would be able to get done what needs to get done in a relatively short time frame unless we opened the doors to input, hunkered down, did our due diligence and did our deliberations." Instead, Bush advisers believe the tight structure of their energy task force will prevent some of the public relations problems that plagued the Clinton group. Clinton's was an unwieldy operation of about 15 committees and 34 working groups, relying on about 500 staff members, several of whom weren't even government workers; the Bush task force has a dozen members and a similar number of staffers. Clinton's report exceeded 1,300 pages; Bush advisers are aiming for a less-detailed report of about 100 pages. Keeping with the general tone of the Bush administration, the energy group is small and highly disciplined. The task force has met four or five times since January and now plans to consult on a weekly basis in the vice president's ceremonial office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. It includes the vice president; the secretaries of energy, interior, transportation, agriculture, commerce and treasury; the heads of EPA and the Federal Emergency Management Agency; Bush's deputy staff chief Joshua Bolten; intergovernmental affairs adviser Ruben Barrales; budget director Mitchell E. Daniels Jr.; and Lindsey. Running the effort is Andrew Lundquist, 40, an Alaska native who has worked for both of the state's senators, most recently as staff director of the Senate Energy Committee. His deputy is fellow Alaskan Karen Knutson, and the two, with three other staffers, meet weekly with the people in each Cabinet agency assigned to the task force. The staffers have received thousands of recommendations from hundreds of groups and met personally with many of them. For Bush's task force, the challenge is to present the controversial calls for more drilling, power plants and possibly nuclear power with plans for conservation and renewable energy. "If our demand is outstripping our supply even at the current pace, we will need 1,900 power generating plants to keep up with demand by 2020," said Mary Matalin, a top Cheney adviser. She said that because nuclear power is 20 percent of the nation's supply, the United States must "at a minimum relicense" existing plants. But, she added, "we're looking at a lot of renewables, alternative resources and technology to make existing resources clean and safe." The emerging report is expected to be divided into 10 broad chapters, beginning with several that address supply and demand trends and the competing concerns about health, the environment and the economy. There are also chapters on energy efficiency and renewable fuels, but the bulk of the report is devoted to domestic oil and gas production, investment in technology to find cleaner ways of burning coal, and the need for expanded infrastructure. According to sources familiar with the report, the task force will try hard to put a human face on the issue by including examples of how energy shortages and soaring prices work the greatest hardships on low-income families and minorities. Task force aides have also stressed their interest in "market-based" initiatives and tax incentives to encourage increased domestic production. Suggestions include a "smart" power-grid system with flexible pricing that charges consumers more for power during peak hours -- much as telephone companies do. Another possibility is an "energy ombudsman" to deal with community objections to new power plants. Lindsey said he believes in easing the regulations that have prevented new power plants from being built. "There do seem to be legitimate regulatory hurdles and uncertainty," he said. "We don't want to ease clean air standards or anything like that, but there's a need to ease the uncertainty." Overall, the task force will take energy policy more in the direction of increasing supply than reducing demand, which has been the dominant approach in recent years. Although demand "is a matter of concern, certainly, it's mostly a supply problem," Lindsey said. Cheney and Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham have repeatedly called for measures to expand the capacity of existing nuclear power plants and to bring new ones on line to meet long-term energy needs. Also, as part of his budget submission to Congress, Bush has proposed a 14 percent increase in federal spending for a project studying whether to use Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, as a permanent burial ground for 77,000 tons of high-level waste now stored at nuclear power plants and defense sites nationwide. That proposal has encountered strong resistance in Nevada. Another recommendation sure to cause consternation is domestic drilling. The task force report will include Bush's proposal for oil exploration in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, despite strong opposition from influential Republicans and Democrats as well as the leading environmental groups. Moreover, the Interior Department has submitted recommendations for opening millions of acres of public land to new oil and gas development, much of it in the Rocky Mountains. Balancing those hot-button items, task force officials say they will also have "hidden gems" that will please environmentalists. "We're going to have conservation, we're going to have renewables, and thoughtful pieces on the environment," one said. "There's pieces the renewables crowd and energy efficiency groups will be very supportive of." Task force officials have also said the report would not specify precisely where on public lands to drill for oil and gas, leaving those decisions to future negotiations between the administration, Congress and special interest groups. © 2001 The Washington Post Company ***************************************************************** 25 Other states to feel rate shock over power prices [deseretnews.com] April 16, 2001 By Marianne M. Jennings The 46 percent-plus increases in electric rates in California are decades late. California has done for years, long before deregulation was ever an issue, what I did when I served as an Arizona Corporation commissioner, the body responsible for setting utility rates here: I underpriced electricity so consumers had lower rates. Real prices catch up eventually. Ironic that just a few months ago, Ed Begley Jr. was a California cult hero for demanding mandatory electric cars. Be careful what you wish for. E-Z-Bake ovens now crank out Spago Alfredo. California screaming will come to each state in time; hence I confess my regulatory sins. Public utilities have long operated on grocery store margins with staggering capital investment. Also, commercial users cross-subsidize residential users, giving them artificially low rates. Everyone, from Silicon Valley nerds to home latte-ites, bought and behaved as if electricity costs were low and would remain so. Further exacerbating the underpricing problem is stagnant supply. Because of marginal rates of return, environmental backlash, grief from siting committees, irrational homeowners with the NIMBY syndrome (Not in my back yard) and general hostility toward rate increases, utilities have not been building new capacity or putting dollars into research and development for alternative generation. Aging plants mean shortages will grow more acute. California's deregulation plan was harebrained. Deregulation in a market with insufficient supply and underpricing was daft. But why the underpricing for so long? Rationalizations are always complex but here boil down to the universal human trait of a strong desire to avoid whiners. My tenure as a commissioner required a decision in the first rate case for the Palo Verde nuclear plant, a facility that was completed during the height of both cost overruns in that industry and anti-nuclear fervor. No one could have anticipated then that Palo Verde would become the largest nuclear facility in the United States and one of the world's top three performing nuclear plants. The environment for pro-nuclear regulators such as I was about as friendly as a bonfire reception by loggers for spotted owls. During that rate case, Arizona Public Service (APS) (on whose board I served from 1987-2000) established that even with Palo Verde capacity, it would be at dangerously low margins by the year 2000 (and they are). The day will come when Arizonans, who damned the plant as a California resource they were paying for (several California utilities do own a portion of the plant), will regret their forced cancellation of Units IV and V. Palo Verde capacity was necessary, and the cost overruns were the result of NRC zeal, not mismanagement. Yet I did not place the full cost of the plant in rates. I failed to do so despite better judgment because when I proposed such, the citizenry began a recall. Katherine Harris has nothing on me in terms of cruel and unusual media treatment. There were the hues and cries of "rate shock," shareholders getting wealthy from ratepayers and "pro-business" regulators. Emotions ran high, and hell hath no fury like ratepayers with hot tubs who don't want to pay a dime more for the kilowatts to run them. The inevitability of the laws of supply and demand are lost on those who parade the elderly before you, complete with can openers and budgets. I pledged to work and did work to raise money to aid the working poor and the elderly with their utility bills but warned that the consequences for not paying the actual costs of electricity would be dire. I was booted out of one Rotary meeting for this heresy. California is what underpricing hath wrought. Even a good deregulation plan can't make up for the cold, as it were, realities of a flawed market. With no new meaningful capacity for decades, utilities swapped power, hoped for rain and cheap hydropower and massaged cash flows. The alleged fat in the capital and operating budgets of utilities that California consumer groups decry is long gone. California has teetering electric giants that are victims of those who demand pristine plant-free views from their homes, no nukes and air conditioning to go with it all. The only long-term solution to the California crisis, Arizona's impending one and other states on the wires is a free market in which consumers pay the real cost of their electrons. I hid that cost out of expediency. I blacked out, as it were, on basic economics. My hope in this confession is that policymakers, regulators, politicians and environmentalists don't succumb once again. Rate shock, when consumers finally pay true costs, is inevitable. But Californians should welcome any electric shock — it would mean the watts flow again. *Marianne M. Jennings is a professor of legal and ethical studies at Arizona State University. Her e-mail address is mmjdiary@aol.com* © 2001 Deseret News Publishing Company ***************************************************************** 26 Forces briefing on radiation risk riles MP 15 April 2001 Depleted uranium presentation was unconvincing, says Alliance's Goldring Mike Blanchfield Southam Newspapers; Ottawa Citizen A Canadian Alliance MP says the military has insulted his intelligence by unnecessarily sugar coating the potential health risks of radioactive-depleted uranium. Peter Goldring, the Alliance's veterans affairs critic, says a recent presentation by Canadian Forces Col. Ken Scott before the Commons Defence committee did not provide a balanced view of the possible health risks associated with depleted uranium. Depleted uranium is the radioactive substance that was used in anti-tank missiles used in the Balkans and the Persian Gulf. Goldring said when he attended a committee meeting last month he hoped Scott, the Forces director of health policy, could offer convincing testimony that the substance poses no risk. "His entire presentation was on the safety of depleted uranium, how it was no more radioactive than natural uranium around us," Goldring said in an interview. "In my mind it was rather insulting. It was treating us like school children when obviously depleted uranium is not the same as the earth and the sky around us," the MP said. The unexplained cancer deaths of about two dozen NATO peacekeepers sparked controversy in Europe earlier this year when it was suggested that radiation from exploded missiles, tipped with depleted uranium, might be a serious health hazard to peacekeepers who have served in the Balkans. Some Gulf War veterans have also raised questions about whether the substance is responsible for some of the mysterious symptoms known as Gulf War Syndrome. About 40,000 depleted uranium rounds were fired during bombing campaigns in Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s. No scientific link has been established between cancer and depleted uranium, a position to which NATO and the Canadian government strictly adhere. However, NATO has said further study of the issue is appropriate given the level of concern. Some physicians and researchers maintain that despite the absence of a firm scientific link, a connection between the substance and cancer can't definitively be ruled out. Goldring insists that the Canadian Forces are bending over backward not to publicly acknowledge that other opinion. Goldring added that it was inappropriate for Scott to seek changes to a report by Royal Military College scientists who were asked to review the massive body of literature surrounding depleted uranium. In memos recently obtained by the Ottawa Citizen, Scott tells the scientists to tone down "unnecessarily inflammatory" language to keep from inciting "special interest" groups, "naive" readers or the media. "Any conscientious scientist would not be trying to be an alarmist. They would be trying to reflect what their real concerns are," said Goldring. One of the lead scientists who contributed to the paper said he didn't feel Scott's suggestions were inappropriate and that some of his suggested changes in wording were incorporated into the report's final draft. None of Scott's suggestions affected the content of the paper, said William Andrews, a nuclear engineer at RMC. Andrews said he did not feel "gagged" or that his academic freedom was threatened in any way. He said Scott was probably concerned how the general public would interpret the report. "I guess in one sense he was right that people would read it, and unless the diction was very careful people would read into it what they wanted," said Andrews. "This stuff can be acquired through Access to Information, and read by people who don't have the same background . . .," he said. "Col. Scott has a very sensitive and important job to do, and I'm not in a hurry to trade with him. I think he was concerned we might be causing him some grief further down the road." © 2001 CanWest Interactive ***************************************************************** 27 New nuclear minister pushes for spent nuclear fuel imports MOSCOW - Russia's new atomic energy minister on Monday pushed for th e country to import other nations' spent nuclear fuel rods for reprocessing, two days before parliament takes up legislation on the divisive proposal. Alexander Rumyantsev, whom President Vladimir Putin appointed last month, said the legislation was essential for Russia to be able to export new nuclear fuel. "If other countries know that we can accept spent nuclear fuel for storage and processing, it will help expand our market opportunities," Rumyantsev told a news conference Monday. He said that Russia faced increasing competition from French and British companies that are eager to provide nuclear fuel to the former Soviet republics and Eastern European countries, which have Soviet-built nuclear reactors. The British and French offer to accept the spent fuel, he said. Rumyantsev also argued that the dlrs 20 billion plan to import up to 20,000 metric tons (22,000 tons) of nuclear fuel was good for Russia because it would generate funds to clean up radiation-polluted territories and deal with other legacies of the nuclear era. "It will solve an important social task, allowing us to more actively deal with the consequences of building nuclear weapons," he said. Spent nuclear fuel imports will also allow Russia to process up to four times more of its own nuclear waste, which has been piling up because of a lack of funds to build new storage and processing facilities, he said. The legislation is set to be discussed Wednesday by the lower house of parliament, the State Duma. It approved the bill in the first of three readings in December, but abruptly canceled the second reading last month amid an outcry from environmentalists. They allege the plan could turn Russia into an international dumping ground for nuclear waste, and they accused Rumyantsev's predecessor Yevgeny Adamov of pursuing his own business interests in the deal. Adamov denied the allegations, but Putin ousted him several days after the debate was postponed as part of a sweeping Cabinet reshuffle. On other issues, Rumyantsev said that Russia would continue building a nuclear reactor in Iran despite strong U.S. protests that the project could allow Tehran to develop nuclear weapons. "As for American criticism, we are holding talks and emphasizing that we aren't violating international law in any respect," Rumyantsev said. "I think we will reach a compromise with the Americans." U.S. President George W. Bush's administration also accused Russia in February of violating its nonproliferation commitments by shipping nuclear fuel to India for use in power reactors. India responded that the imports were under international control, and Rumyantsev said Monday that the supplies would continue uninterrupted. "Yes, they criticize us, but the supplies are under way," Rumyantsev said. He added that Russia would hold talks with India and the international community to solve the dispute. russiajournal.com ***************************************************************** 28 Text of Letter from Jared L. Cohon, Chairman, NWTRB, to Lake H. Barrett, Acting Director, OCRWM re: reactions to the presentations made by DOE's Yucca Mounain personnel at the Board's January meeting in Amargosa Valley UNITED STATES NUCLEAR WASTE TECHNICAL REVIEW BOARD 2300 Clarendon Boulevard, Suite 1300 Arlington, VA 22201 March 30, 2001 Mr. Lake H. Barrett Acting Director Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management U.S. Department of Energy 1000 Independence Avenue, SW RW-2/5A-085 Washington, DC 20585 Dear Mr. Barrett: On behalf of the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, I would like to convey our reactions to the presentations made by the Department of Energy's (DOE) Yucca Mountain Project personnel at the Board's January meeting in Amargosa Valley. Overall, the Board was pleased with the quality of the presentations. A wealth of information was conveyed succinctly. Difficult concepts and models were described clearly and in a manner that was easily understood by a broad range of listeners. In particular, the Board commends Gerald Gordon, Gudmundur Bodvarsson, Al Eddebbarh, Robert Andrews, and Paul Harrington, who responded directly and candidly to specific questions posed in advance by the Board. They were all instrumental in making the meeting a success. The Board anticipates using this new format at future meetings. As you will recall, at the beginning of the meeting, I read into the record a statement of Board priorities. I noted that the Board ... has recommended that DOE focus significant attention on four priority areas dealing with managing uncertainty and coupled processes, which, in the Board's view, are essential elements of any DOE site recommendation. (1) Meaningful quantification of conservatisms and uncertainties in DOE's performance assessments (2) Progress in understanding the underlying fundamental processes involved in predicting the rate of waste package corrosion (3) An evaluation and comparison of the base-case repository design with a low-temperature design (4) Development of multiple lines of evidence to support the safety case of the proposed repository. These lines of evidence should be derived independently of performance assessment and thus not be subject to the limitations of performance assessment. In addition to these overarching priorities, the Board has made a number of suggestions about other investigations and studies that can support, complement, and supplement these four areas. Those investigations and studies include research on the unsaturated and saturated zones as well as work to make the performance assessments more transparent and informative. As the Board continues its review of DOE's technical activities, other elements essential to the site recommendation may be identified. Although schedule considerations may preclude completing all work before the site recommendation decision, the Board believes it is reasonable to assume that the more those investigations have advanced, the more likely it is that the technical basis for the decision will be strengthened. In what follows, the Board comments on each area. *Meaningful Quantification of Uncertainties and Conservatisms* The Board is pleased with the efforts made so far to quantify better the uncertainties and conservatisms present in the performance assessments of the proposed Yucca Mountain repository. However, aside from the consideration of early failures of the waste packages, there seems to be no explicit consideration of possible differences that may evolve over time between performance of the engineered barrier systems as they have been designed and their performance as they actually may be built. *Progress in Increasing Fundamental Understanding of Corrosion Processes* The Board commends the project for developing a set of investigations that could lead to improved understanding of the fundamental processes relevant to waste package corrosion, especially the stability of the passive layer of Alloy 22. The Board is pleased that many of these investigations have started and encourages the project to begin the others as soon as possible and to expedite work in this area. *Evaluation and Comparison of Repository Designs* In its June 23, 2000, testimony before the House Subcommittee on Energy and Power, the Board observed: "Understanding the differences in estimated performance and associated uncertainties under different temperature conditions is an important component of our overall understanding of potential repository performance at the Yucca Mountain site." At its January 2001 meeting, the Board made its position more explicit when it called for an evaluation and a comparison of repository designs. We understand that work in this area has begun. The Board is interested in obtaining an evaluation and a comparison of the base-case, high-temperature repository design with a low temperature, ventilated design. Evaluating a possible low temperature, ventilated design could clarify the advantages-and disadvantages-associated with keeping waste package temperatures below, say, 85º C. In particular, the Board believes that DOE should use performance assessment to evaluate a low-temperature, ventilated design concept. If necessary, performance assessment models should be modified to portray accurately the effects of temperature changes on performance. Associated levels of uncertainty in repository performance should be developed for both high- and low-temperature design concepts. The Board realizes that DOE also may want to examine other design-related considerations, including licensability, operations and logistics, flexibility, cost, etc. The more technically defensible and quantitative the evaluation and comparison, the more useful it will be for policy makers. *Development of Multiple Lines of Evidence* The project's latest revision of its Repository Safety Strategy appears to be an improvement over the previous iteration. As was observed in the project's presentation, however, more work needs to be done to identify or develop multiple lines of evidence to supplement and support the safety strategy. The Board is encouraged that the project recognizes the importance of this work and is pleased that the Board and the project will be holding a public meeting on April 13, 2001, in Arlington, Virginia, to explore specifically what further steps might be taken. *Other Issues* The Board also has some specific reactions to several of the presentations (listed here generally in order of increasing specificity). • The Board is concerned that project descriptions of short-term testing are not cast broadly enough. Testing plans mostly appear to be directed at developing better parameter estimates for performance assessment. Although better parameter estimates are necessary, the Board also would like to see testing of fundamental scientific concepts, particularly when such tests can challenge accepted models. Moreover, the project should specify better what it would do with the results of its tests. • The project's development of along-term, comprehensive "test and evaluation" plan is a step in the right direction. The plan, however, appears to be very general in nature. The Board believes that a much more detailed and well-integrated plan would significantly enhance the quality of the site recommendation decision. Such a plan, among other things, should detail how testing after repository closure would occur, including relevant monitoring activities. • The project recognizes the importance of incrementally adjusting proposed repository sign and operations in response to new technical information. Such a strategy makes sense, and indeed, the Board encourages the program to continue thinking along these lines. However, the implementation of such an incremental learning and adjustment process is neither easy nor straightforward. The Board looks forward to hearing more from the project about this issue in the future. • The project needs to continue efforts to reconcile the conflicting chlorine-36 findings. Because DOE seems to believe that the conflict results from different sample-preparation methodologies, the project should develop a technically defensible strategy, implemented in a sound, peer-reviewed process, for deciding which methodology is more appropriate for the problem being investigated and for identifying which findings are more valid. • The Board is pleased that the project will be undertaking a peer review of the performance assessment used in the site recommendation decision as well as a peer review of the project's material testing plans. • There is still some confusion about "degraded" and "neutralized" barrier studies and about the consistent application of these terms to the different components of the repository system. The project should reexamine these studies and consider implementing an approach recommended in the Board's September 20, 2000, letter to Dr. Ivan Itkin. Under such an approach, the analysis would start off by estimating the dose, assuming that the radioactive waste is lying exposed at the earth's surface. Individual elements of the geologic and engineered systems then would be added, and resulting dose estimates would be calculated until the repository system reaches its completed form. • Questions remain about the compositions and corrosion effects of electrolytes that may form on waste package surfaces. The Board urges the project to continue its investigations in this area and to ensure, in particular, that electrolytes chosen for future testing represent environments derived from repository pore water (as opposed to J-13 water) in its evolved state. That evolved state includes the effect of thermally driven processes caused by the decay heat from the waste and interactions with condensate, seepage, dust that may settle on waste packages during ventilation, and the engineered system materials themselves. The Board also reiterates its belief that long-term projections from performance testing in model solutions must be supported by sound mechanistic understanding, including theoretical development and experimental evaluation of theories. In conclusion, the Board appreciates the project's responsiveness to its concerns, especially considering the importance of rapidly approaching project milestones. The Board looks forward in the next few months to commenting on specific project plans for additional technical studies and to interacting productively with project personnel. Sincerely, {Signed by} Jared L. Cohon Chairman ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 Uranium plant workers can't sue their employer, judge says courier-journal.com April 17, 2001 But ruling allows claims against other companies By James Malone, The Courier-Journal PADUCAH, Ky. -- A federal judge has ruled that Kentucky's workers' compensation law bars uranium plant workers from suing their own employer under a $10 billion lawsuit against two former plant operators. But U.S. District Judge Joseph McKinley, in a 38-page ruling on the suit, denied motions to dismiss it, clearing the way for some present and former Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant workers and their families to proceed against companies other than their employer that were involved in the plant's nuclear fuel work. ''It is a big step,'' William McMurry, a Louisville lawyer who helped file the class-action case in 1999, said yesterday. ''We're delighted.'' Workers have brought claims against the Paducah plant's two former operators, Union Carbide and Martin Marietta -- later Lockheed Martin -- and against a number of outside contractors, including General Electric and E.I. du Pont de Nemours &Co., that shipped material to the Paducah plant. The lawsuit alleged that workers were unknowingly exposed to radiation and ''assaulted'' by radioactive material brought to the plant as part of an ill-fated program to revitalize spent fuel taken from nuclear weapons reactors. Under McKinley's ruling earlier this month, employees of Lockheed Martin, which operated the Paducah plant from 1984 to 1999, can pursue claims against Union Carbide, which operated the plant from 1952 to 1984, for dangerous or hazardous substances that were Union Carbide's responsibility. The plant now is operated by U.S. Enrichment Corp. But the ruling appears to close the door on the claims of workers who were employed by both companies, or those who worked for Union Carbide and left before Lockheed Martin took over. However, McMurry said they may still have claims against outside firms that manufactured, processed or shipped reprocessed radioactive fuel to Paducah. Lockheed Martin spokesman Hugh Burns said he had not seen the ruling and did not have a comment on it. A Union Carbide spokesman could not be reached. Government reports have acknowledged the spent fuel sent to Paducah contained highly radioactive traces of plutonium and neptunium that escaped or leaked into the environment during the process to clean and replenish the fuel. The plutonium and neptunium collected in workplace dust and debris and possibly was tracked home on workers' clothing, exposing family members. Plant contractors knew about the dangers and concealed it from workers, the suit alleged. But McKinley ruled that absent evidence such concealment was deliberate, the workers' argument was insufficient to allow their claims to proceed. McMurry said it's unclear how many workers might be affected by the ruling, but he conceded the number of claims would be reduced. In another part of his ruling, McKinley overruled defense arguments that a one-year statute of limitations barred claims. The defendants said they told workers about the radiation dangers in the early 1990s, but the workers disputed that. McKinley said the primary issue in the case ''is the extent of the parties' respective knowledge of the exposure -- and those facts are very much in dispute here.'' Copyright 2001 The Courier-Journal. ***************************************************************** 2 'Safe' atoll re-examined for radioactivity - smh.com.au - World Tuesday, April 17, 2001 *The safety of a remote atoll dusted with fallout from United States hydrogen bomb tests in the Marshall Islands in the 1950s is being evaluated by independent scientists. Ailuk Atoll, a tiny necklace of coral islands in the central Pacific Ocean that are home to about 400 people, is classified by US government agencies as not exposed to nuclear test fallout. However, a US Department of Energy study documents that the atoll was exposed to levels of radioactivity significantly above internationally recognised exposure limits. People living on Ailuk in 1954 received a similar level of fallout to nearby Utrik Atoll from the 15-megaton Bravo H-bomb test at Bikini, but were not similarly evacuated afterwards. A presidential commission on human radiation experiments in 1995 concluded that Ailuk's population should have been evacuated. Ailuk has never been included in any of the special medical or compensation programs afforded to the four atolls, including Utrik, which the US acknowledges were irradiated. The current environmental radiological survey of Ailuk is being funded by the Nuclear Claims Tribunal, an agency established in Majuro to compensate islanders for exposure to the 67 US nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands. The tribunal's Mr William Graham said because of Ailuk's position at the periphery of the fallout belt in the northern Marshalls, information from the survey was expected to shed light on whether other nearby atolls that received low- and medium-level doses of fallout in the 1950s needed similar follow-up environmental surveys. Staff from a US firm took samples from 40 islands in Ailuk Atoll this month, which are now being analysed in Majuro. The survey would determine if any nuclear clean-up was needed, Mr Graham said. A wide range of environmental samples was collected, including coconuts, pandanus, breadfruit, papaya and soil. Chicken, pig and coconut crab samples are also being tested for radioactivity. Last month the tribunal awarded Bikini islanders $US563 million ($1.1 billion) in compensation for the tests. Agence France-Presse *[go to top] [ WIDTH=1 HEIGHT=1 ] In this section Raid puts region on brink: Lebanon Warrant out for slave ship's owner Suspect arrested over Srebenica massacre Navy on standby as US prepares to resume flights US military's two-war plan faces fight to survive Foreign-language ignorance allows terrorists to ply their trade Fanatics ready to lay down their lives for Wahid Estrada posts bail to stay out of jail 'Safe' atoll re-examined for radioactivity Crown Princess Masako may be pregnant Jo'burg soccer stadium cleansed ***************************************************************** 3 First Step To Nuclear-Free World Is Supporting Green Bill NewsRoom - CCN - by Green Party at 5:36pm, 17th April 2001 Correcting By-Line To Green Party "If Prime Minister Helen Clark is serious about campaigning for a nuclear-free world then she has no choice but to fully back my bill which would keep all nuclear ships and shipments out of our waters," Green Party co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons said today. Ms Fitzsimons' Nuclear Free Zone Extension Bill would extend New Zealand's very small nuclear-free zone to the full 200 mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ) over which we have responsibility for fisheries and the environment. It would also ban all ships carrying nuclear weapons, wastes and fuel from that zone. The Foreign Affairs and Trade select committee is currently hearing submissions and is due to report back to parliament on July 5 this year. "The Greens are delighted with Ms Clark's comments - made at Hiroshima - confirming her commitment to a nuclear-free world, and I look forward to her support for my bill," she said. "Passing this legislation would re-establish New Zealand as the global leader in the campaign for a nuclear-free world. If other countries also declare their waters nuclear-free, the global transport of hazardous nuclear material will become very difficult and eventually impossible. "However if this Government is to support the bill, Ms Clark must drive the issue." Ms Fitzsimons said keeping the increasing numbers of nuclear fuel and waste shipments out of New Zealand waters was a basic issue of national sovereignty and most New Zealanders would support this. "Currently nuclear ships and cargoes are classified as 'innocent passage' under the International Law of the Sea, yet the shipments which will increasingly run through the Tasman contain some of the most dangerous substances known to humans," said Ms Fitzsimons. "I know Helen Clark is genuine about wanting a nuclear-free world. She now has the perfect platform to show the world the way to real and significant change," she said. "With the Tasman Sea fast becoming a nuclear highway, the time for talk is well and truly over." ENDS ***************************************************************** 4 N-sub ready to leave Gibraltar Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | April 17, 2001 The Guardian The British nuclear submarine HMS Tireless has been repaired and should leave Gibraltar early next month, a year after limping into dock with a leak in its reactor, the Ministry of Defence said yesterday. Tireless' departure will bring to an end a long-running source of contention between London and Madrid, which has raised concerns over the safety of the repair work just miles from its territory. The discovery of the leak in the coolant system which ensures the reactor operates at a safe temperature led to a multi-million pound overhaul of all 12 of the Royal Navy's hunter-killer subs. Hydrostatic pressure tests were carried out yesterday on the coolant system to check that the repair had worked. An MoD spokeswoman said: "The test is complete and was successful.There is no firm date for her to leave Gibraltar, but it is planned for early May." Tireless' presence in Gibraltar since last May has been hotly opposed by Spaniards living near Britain's Mediterranean enclave, who feared the environmental consequences if the repairs went wrong. Local people demanded that the sub be towed to Britain to be patched up. Protests overshadowed a visit by Tony Blair to meet his Spanish counterpart, Jose Maria Aznar, last October. Press Association Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2001 ***************************************************************** 5 Belgian anti-nuke protestors arrested 17/04/2001 08:36 - (SA) Brussels - Hundreds of anti-nuclear demonstrators were arrested on Monday after storming a Belgian Air Force base where they believe US nuclear bombs are stored, organisers and witnesses said. After marching to the perimeter of the Kleine Brogel base, the demonstrators broke down a wire fence and streamed on to the base, witnesses said. Police and military personnel, who were vastly outnumbered by the demonstrators, tackled some of them and put plastic handcuffs on them. Eventually the demonstrators sat down, awaiting arrest. Kleine Brogel, about 100km northeast of Brussels, has been the target of demonstrations for several years because anti-nuclear activists believe US nuclear bombs are stored there, although the Belgian government has never confirmed this. Hans Lammerant, a spokesman for Forum for Peace Action, one of the groups organising the protest, said that 1 500 people had taken part in the march and between 800 and 900 people had entered the base. "They are arresting everyone. They are sitting in big groups on the landing strips. The idea is to get arrested because we want to have a trial about nuclear weapons," he told Reuters by telephone. "In our opinion they are illegal weapons, so they can never be used without breaking international humanitarian law," he added. Flemish television said between 300 and 400 people were arrested. A police spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment and a Defence Ministry spokesman had no information. There were no reports of injuries. The organisers said in a statement they believed that nuclear weapons were illegal following 1996 advice from the International Court of Justice in The Hague that the use or threat of nuclear weapons in war should be outlawed. ***************************************************************** 6 US reviewing aid for non-proliferation programs in Russia All American aid non-proliferation programs in Russia are being reviewed. Some programs can be sharply reduced or scuttled. The review is expected to last six to eight weeks. Vladislav Nikiforov , 2001-04-17 11:36 US National Security Council initiated broad review of all American aid programs to Russia set up to stop the spread of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. Some programs are likely to change significantly as National Security Council officials have been critical of how $760 million a year are spent in attempt to dismantle and secure Soviet nuclear heritage, New York Times reported. According to New York Times, the senior official said that several of the programs, such as the Department of Energy's $173 million program to strengthen the security and accounting for fissile material at nuclear weapons storage sites, appeared to be "very effective." Others, several administration officials said, may not be money well spent, like the more than $6 billion long- term effort to help Russia and the United States dispose of 34 metric tons of weapons-grade plutonium each. Programs deemed ineffective could be sharply reduced, or even scuttled. "This is not a challenge to Russia or an effort to dismantle non-proliferation programs. This is about enabling the progress we have made to continue and making non-proliferation programs even more effective. We want to strengthen non-proliferation," the senior administration official said to New York Times. The review is examining programs run mainly by the State Department, Pentagon and Department of Energy that have invested millions of dollars into Russia and the former Soviet republics since the end of the cold war. Most were created by the Clinton administration, but a few started as Congressional initiatives supported by former President George Bush. The official praised the Department of Defense's Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) programs, which received $458 million from Congress in this fiscal year. By the end of 2000 those programs, among other things, had deactivated 5,288 missile warheads, destroyed 419 long-range nuclear missiles and 367 silos, eliminated 81 bombers, 292 submarine missile launchers and 174 submarine missiles, and sealed 194 nuclear test holes and sites in Russia and other former Soviet republics. 21 nuclear ballistic missile submarines, SSBN’s, have been dismantled up to date with CTR’s funds or equipment, while six SSBN’s are being eliminated under CTR with work in progress. The official was also positive about the Department of Energy's program that permits the United States to buy and convert 500 metric tons of highly enriched uranium, the equivalent of 25,000 warheads, to low-enriched uranium that can be used as commercial fuel in nuclear reactors. Since the agreement was reached in 1994, about 110 metric tons of such uranium has been purchased and converted. The Department’s $6 billion program to dispose of Russian and American plutonium, to which Congress has allocated $280 million to date, and its Nuclear Cities Initiative, established in September, 1998, to stop the brain drain from Russia's closed nuclear cities was halved by Congress in fiscal 2000, and placed other conditions on spending, New York Times reported. The Russian $2 billion part of the program is to be paid by the West, but only U.S.A. agreed to pay $200 million while Great Britain promised $70 million during 25-30 years, France offered technologies for $445 million provided Russia will not change them, Japan agreed to pay $34 million, Canada is ready to buy only MOX fuel from Russia, and Germany cannot support the program due to the pressure of the greens, Russian daily Segodnya reports. Therefore, significant investment is still needed for the Russian part of the program from the western counterparts. "A prejudiced review that looks at what can be eliminated, and not what can be improved, is missing an enormous opportunity and is likely to further rile relations with Russia," a former Clinton administration official who is executive director of the Russian American Nuclear Security Advisory Council, Kenneth N. Luongo, said to New York Times. 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 ***************************************************************** 7 Study of K-25 water ills must deal with flood of info as closes credibility gaps April 16, 2001 By Frank Munger News-Sentinel senior writer The end results may not satisfy anyone, but there's a major research effort under way to identify historic water problems at the government's K-25 plant in Oak Ridge and to assess the potential health impacts on workers there. The complexity of the project could become almost maddening, especially if the team attempts to reconstruct more than 50 years of operations at the nuclear complex. The focus is expected to be mostly on the past two decades. There are piles of documents to evaluate (some classified, some not), conflicting reports about cross-connections of pipelines that may have allowed radioactive materials and hazardous chemicals to invade drinking-water supplies, and numerous production changes over the years that required the shutdown or alteration of buildings at the sprawling site. And drinking water isn't the only issue. There are concerns that contamination in steam operations and blow down from cooling towers may also have presented exposure hazards to workers at the Oak Ridge plant. One of the real challenges for project organizers has been to rein in the study parameters to the extent possible and not become so broad-based as to become meaningless. Another challenge: maintaining credibility in hopes of gaining the trust of K-25 workers, including a sizable group of sick former workers, many of whom are skeptical of any project sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy. This latter issue is critical because the workers themselves may be the most important source of information, a point that project overseers made repeatedly during a public meeting last week in Oak Ridge. "Our skepticism goes back many years," said Harry Williams, a former K-25 worker and president of the Coalition for Health Environment, which represents many of the sick workers and area residents. Several workers who attended the meeting expressed outrage that project leaders are still trying to confirm the existence of cross-connections that allowed non-sanitary water sources used for fire protection and cooling operations to mix with drinking-water supplies at K-25. J.D. Hunter, a former fire department commander at the site, and others said they thought plenty of evidence in that regard had already been presented. Williams added: "There's no question in our minds that the water was very contaminated." There also were repeated questions about the independence of the project team, with several workers suggesting any study financially supported by DOE may be tainted with bias. DOE and contractors last year completed an evaluation of the current water system at K-25 and declared that drinking water supplies at the Oak Ridge site were safe. At the time, the federal agency promised it would conduct a second phase of the study to evaluate the potential for water contamination in previous years, and that's what taking place now. Parallax Inc., a small, Maryland-based company with expertise in nuclear safety and experience in DOE contracting, is managing the Phase II project. The team includes the JSI Center for Environmental Health Studies (headed by Dr. Richard Bird, a Boston physician involved in earlier evaluations of sick workers); Malcolm Pirnie Inc., an engineering firm with expertise in water evaluations and health-risk assessments; and TerraGraphics Environmental Engineering Inc., which has conducted similar investigations of contaminated water systems. Any K-25 workers, former workers or community members with information about operations involving the plant's water system and possible contamination are asked to contact the project team. Team members have said they will be willing to work with former workers to protect their confidentiality, if that is a concern. The project team has established a "hot line," which can accept messages at any time. That number is 1-865-481-8290. Also, Suzanne Conway of TerraGraphics is listed as a contact person at 1-865-300-9855. THE TITANS: In the March 26 edition of Argonne (National Laboratory) News, somewhere between a story about four lab inventions being cited among the century's best and a brief item regarding the Easter Bunny's planned appearance at a local egg hunt, there's a news report on David E. Moncton. Moncton, of course, is erstwhile executive director of the Spallation Neutron Source who left Oak Ridge earlier this year to return to Chicago after being given an ultimatum to commit himself to one or the other -- SNS or Argonne. After splitting his time at the two institutions for the past two years, Moncton resumed his full-time role as Argonne's associate laboratory director for the Advanced Photon Source (the research facility he birthed in the 1990s). Now, it turns out, Moncton is on the move again, although not so far this time. According to the lab's newsletter, Moncton has "agreed to accept" an appointment as senior scientist and adviser to the laboratory director, Hermann Grunder. "Moncton will lead the research effort for Argonne's Fourth-Generation Initiative, which may lead to a light source many times more powerful than even the APS," the report said. Grunder issued this statement: "The diligence, intelligence and focus of Dr. Moncton and his staff at the APS combined to create a facility that has greatly exceeded expectations. Dr. Moncton has the ability, experience and scientific preeminence to lead the laboratory's research effort in this exciting new area, while also resuming his own X-ray research program." Senior writer Frank Munger can be reached at 482-9213 or by e-mail at twig1@knoxnews.infi.net. This weekly column on science and technology also is available on our Web site at http://www.knoxnews.com/science/munger/. [E.W. Scripps] Copyright © 1999-2001, The Knoxville News-Sentinel Co. All Rights Reserved. Keep informed! Join the KnoxNews.com mailing list. User Agreement| Privacy Policy ***************************************************************** 8 -UT-Battelle seeks safeguard against nuclear liability Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 11:42 a.m. on Tuesday, April 17, 2001 From staff and wire reports CHATTANOOGA -- The University of Tennessee and its partner in the Oak Ridge National Laboratory want some help from Congress in protecting their assets if fined for violating nuclear safety regulations. The university and Battelle Memorial Institute, both nonprofit institutions, have run the laboratory in a partnership since last April and would be liable for any fines levied by the Department of Energy. Currently, seven nonprofit groups are exempted from such fines by law. A UT-Battelle spokesman earlier this year had indicated that the nonprofit company was included in that exemption. However, the spokesman said today that is not the case, and extension of the exemption status to include UT-Battelle is being sought. Battelle and UT are lobbying to be included in that legislation. Meanwhile, Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, is trying to remove those exemptions, but his proposed amendment would cap their liability for fines. Alan Parker, UT's deputy general counsel, said the argument for a cap is simple. Not-for-profits make less money than for-profits, he said. "Primarily, I think the argument is you don't want to subject the assets of Battelle and the University of Tennessee to potentially very large civil penalties," Battelle associate general counsel Guy Cunningham said. Lawmakers have talked about limiting the size of fines for nonprofits to the incentive fees they are paid above the costs of running the laboratories. The General Accounting Office argues that nonprofit groups should not be exempt because they get incentive fees. UT-Battelle receives $7 million for running ORNL. All Contents ©Copyright* The Oak Ridger * ***************************************************************** 9 Opinion - 'Atomic tourism' Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 12:13 p.m. on Tuesday, April 17, 2001 *After New York Times report, can Oak Ridge be less than conscious? * Proud "muddy boot" veterans of Oak Ridge's earliest years who have resented and protested suggestions that our town should consciously soft-pedal its nuclear history; The still relatively new Oak Ridge Heritage and Preservation Association which in recent months has been raising local consciousness to the value of saving what remain of some of the more significant original community structures, like what once was the Wildcat Den at the Turnpike and Robertsville Road and the Alexander Motor Inn (originally Guest House); Officials of the American Museum of Science and Energy who, despite the excising of "Atomic Energy" from the museum's name years ago, have continued to emphasize local nuclear history in museum exhibits-- both nuclear plants and the town; Selma Shapiro who has also been a stalwart for saving our past at her unique Children's Museum in its own historic building -- the former Highland View Elementary School -- up off West Outer Drive; Joe Valentino, who though relatively new as director of the city's Convention and Visitors Bureau has enthusiastically sensed the tourism possibilities in Oak Ridge's rightful designation as one of the prime locations of what has now been hailed as the greatest event of the 20th century -- the coming of the nuclear age; And The Oak Ridger in numerous news articles and editorials (and, modestly, columns) too: All of the above take a bow. You have been ahead of your time, if that can properly be said of those who have been prescient in recognizing the contemporary value in what happened here now getting close to 60 years ago. Timely and prestigious Exhibit A of this foresight: The front page of the Saturday, April 7, New York Times which features an article headlined "Preserving the Birthplaces of the Atom Bomb" and written by Patricia Leigh Brown. * * * Times writer Brown details the growing efforts, led significantly by federal government officials themselves, to assure that the sites where the World War II urgent Manhattan Project happened are not just saved but as nearly as possible made available for public visits, granted that some are still dangerously contaminated. She quotes Dr. F.G. Gosling, the Department of Energy's chief historian: "The department realized that if no one stepped in, we would essentially eliminate the physical property of the Manhattan Project." The Times article also quotes Richard Rhodes, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "The Making of the Atomic Bomb": "Many people think that the Manhattan Project was 30 people building a bomb at Los Alamos, but it was 150,000 -- an effort comparable at the time to the race to the moon. It's our past. Not to preserve it is to censor it." At very least half of Rhodes' "150,000" were here in Oak Ridge, the community's population peaking at 75,000 at the height of plant and community construction here in 1944 and 1945. * * * Much emphasis in the Times article is on preserving the B reactor at the Hanford site in Washington. This is the reactor that produced the plutonium for the Nagasaki bomb, the second to be dropped on Japan (Aug. 9, 1945), the double blow just three days apart ending World War II. The Times also mentions the proposal to designate "a fragment of the building in Oak Ridge that provided uranium isotopes for the Hiroshima bomb (Aug. 6, 1945)." This would be near the East Portal to the Y-12 Plant area where, through the electromagnetic process, E.O. Lawrence's powerful calutrons produced that crucial U-235 in the early months of 1945. The B reactor at Hanford would never have existed, of course, but for what likely is the pioneer nuclear historic preservation site -- the Graphite Reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory which, talk about being ahead of its time, has been open to visitors as a National Historic Landmark for 30-plus years. This was the pilot project which, after completion in less than a year, went critical in November 1943 and signaled the feasibility of proceeding with the reactors at Hanford. The Times article says Keith A. Klein, manager of DOE's Richland office, estimates $10 million beyond the current cleanup costs at Hanford to make the B reactor "museum ready." And while U.S Sen. Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, is a proponent ("I don't want the country to forget what it took to win a war and what this community gave up to win it"), U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, Democrat of neighboring Oregon, told the Times, "I don't see how you can justify spending federal funds to preserve a facility at Hanford and elsewhere where close communities are still at risk." As discussed at a meeting of the Oak Ridge Reservation Local Oversight Committee just last week, also proposed by DOE for preservation is the so-called "Roosevelt Platform" at K-25 (Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant) from which President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was to view K-25 on a visit never made because FDR died in April 1945, just four months before Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Here also opposition has arisen. The Times quotes Ralph Hutchinson of the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance. Because of hazardous wastes there, Hutchinson says, a wiser commemoration "would be a green field and a marker." Hutchinson's negative view to the contrary, the most currently locally significant aspect of Brown's Times report is her reference to the "growing interest in atomic tourism." On the Web, she writes, is atomictourist.com which "directs atom age buffs" to historic nuclear sites. And this summer, she reports, "the Smithsonian Institution is offering a tour of Manhattan Project landmarks in New Mexico." Further, Brown writes, "The most compelling landmarks may be the Manhattan Project towns themselves. Like Richland (Wash.) and Los Alamos, Oak Ridge was once a top secret creation of the government omitted from maps until 1949. Today visitors can take 'atomic train' trips that start at the old guard station and offer scenic views of the K-25 Gaseous Diffusion Building, an engineering marvel that spans over 44 acres." The effort to save the B reactor at Hanford, Brown notes, has been spearheaded by the B Reactor Museum Association, many of whose members worked at Hanford. Numerous former K-25, Y-12 and ORNL workers, of course, volunteer at Valentino's Oak Ridge Convention and Visitors Bureau's Visitors Center and at the American Museum of Science and Energy too. Friends of Oak Ridge National Laboratory has for several years now been providing guides for the museum's bus tours of the Y-12, ORNL and K-25 areas. But in the name of "atomic tourism," might these volunteer numbers swell? And sometime in the not too distant future -- and thanks significantly to earlier efforts and urgings of the local "atomic tourism" pioneers mentioned above -- might the Smithsonian Institution also be sponsoring tours of "Manhattan Project Landmarks in Tennessee"? -- RDS *Richard D. Smyser is founding editor of The Oak Ridger. You can reach him by e-mail at rdsandmps@aol.com* All Contents ©Copyright* The Oak Ridger * ***************************************************************** 10 Both sides see gains in DOE site ruling - By Joe Walker The Paducah Sun Paducah, Kentucky Tuesday, April 17, 2001 *A federal judge said workers' compensation laws usually immunize employers from negligence claims. But there are other aspects.* By Joe Walker jwalker@paducahsun.com--*270.575.8650* Lawyers disagree on the significance of a federal judge's ruling barring current and former Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant workers from suing their employers for job exposure to radiation and toxins. Lead defense lawyer Bob Tait of Columbus, Ohio, called the decision a big victory for former plant contractors Union Carbide and Martin Marietta (later Lockheed Martin), while plaintiffs' attorney Bill McMurry of Louisville described it as a setback that shouldn't change the ultimate outcome of the case. On March 30, U.S. District Judge Joseph McKinley Jr. threw out the claims because state workers' compensation laws generally immunize primary employers from negligence arising from regular business. Although one notable exception is a deliberate intent to hurt workers, there was no basis for that claim in the Paducah case, the judge wrote. "The allegations ... even if true, are insufficient to invoke the exception," the ruling said. Tait, who represents the contractors in several similar suits in Paducah, said defense attorneys will seek to apply McKinley's ruling in those cases. "It's a very significant development to the extent that it establishes, as a matter of law, that these former employees can't sue their employers," Tait said. "In a nutshell, what that means is that anyone who worked for both Union Carbide and Martin Marietta is essentially no longer a plaintiff in the case as it deals with that particular defendant." Tait said the decision does not apply to a whistle-blower lawsuit because it claims an entirely different premise. That suit, which touched off a Washington Post expose and Justice Department investigation, alleges plant contractors conspired to defraud the federal government by obtaining huge performance fees while covering up worker and public exposure. In his ruling, McKinley denied other defense motions to dismiss claims, including one that time had run out. Those victories give the plaintiffs confidence to still win the case, McMurry said. "The most significant result, in our opinion, is the court's refusal to grant the defendants' motion to dismiss based on the statute of limitations ...," he said. "Obviously, that (workers' compensation law ruling) is disappointing, but at the same time, we firmly believe that Union Carbide (and other contractors) will ultimately be held accountable for their misconduct, whether or not it's their own employees who are compensated." The negligence suit, filed in Paducah in 1999 a few months after the whistle-blower action, seeks $10 billion on behalf of current and former workers at the plant, which enriches uranium for use in nuclear fuel. McMurry said the recent ruling does not bar claims against Union Carbide by Martin Marietta employees who never worked for Union Carbide. Carbide was the contractor at the plant from its opening in 1952 until 1984, when Martin Marietta took over. Tait agreed, but said there is only one defendant left in the action who worked for Martin Marietta and not Carbide. The ruling also does not hinder claims against General Electric, DuPont and other firms for allegedly supplying highly radioactive feed material to the plant, or claims by workers' families against any of the defendants for "having been exposed to their material in their homes," McMurry said. Workers' compensation laws generally immunize employers because injured or sick workers are entitled to benefits from employers or their insurance companies, Tait said. Some cases, such as the late Joe Harding, who claimed he was poisoned by the plant, have resulted in paltry workers' compensation benefits. Plaintiffs' attorneys in similar suits have said that protecting employers against negligence claims is unfair because workers' compensation is generally inadequate. ***************************************************************** 11 Saving Landmarks Hazardous to Your Health / Historians want to preserve atomic sites Patricia Leigh Brown, New York Times Sunday, April 15, 2001 Richland, Wash. -- B Reactor rises above the desolate plain here, a windowless, dilapidated and ominous landmark of the nuclear age. The Hanford Nuclear Reservation, which surrounds the reactor, has the country's greatest concentration of radioactive wastes, in underground tanks that have been leaking for decades. Because of the contamination, the byproduct of 50 years of nuclear-weapons production, the government allows only occasional visitors here and nobody younger than 18. Yet this unlikely structure, a crucible of the Manhattan Project, is now being promoted as a potential national landmark. The Energy Department, at the behest of Congress, is studying the feasibility of decontaminating and preserving B Reactor and perhaps one day opening it to the public. The effort reflects the growing realization among government officials and preservationists that the remnants of the earliest days of the atomic age and the Cold War are in danger of disappearing. The concern has intensified in recent years as the Energy Department has dismantled deteriorating buildings at Hanford, in southeastern Washington state; Los Alamos, N.M.; Oak Ridge, Tenn., and other sites around the country where scientists and engineers once raced to plan, build and detonate the atomic bomb. Many of the buildings are contaminated, and most have been off-limits for decades. "The department realized that if no one stepped in, we would essentially eliminate the physical property of the Manhattan Project," said Dr. F.G. Gosling, the Energy Department's chief historian. UNPLEASANT MONUMENTS Nations traditionally make monuments of their grandest and most glorious places. The campaign for B Reactor, which opened in 1944 under the supervision of the physicist Enrico Fermi, reflects a growing willingness to also protect historic sites that evoke unpleasant and painful memories, and, in some cases, are actually hazardous. "The atomic bomb was one of the most significant events of the 20th century, and these are the historic sites associated with it," said John M. Fowler, executive director of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, a federal agency that monitors government properties. "People don't think about these places in the kind of historical terms they think about Gettysburg. But we have to make decisions now that will determine whether these buildings continue to exist." In a report for the Energy Department, the council recently recommended designating eight Manhattan Project sites, including B Reactor, as national landmarks. They also include the site in Los Alamos where components for the first atomic bombs were assembled; a fragment of the building in Oak Ridge that provided uranium isotopes for the Hiroshima bomb, and the Trinity site, south of Albuquerque, where on July 16, 1945, the Atomic Age began in a blast so bright it was said to have reflected off the moon. Of these sites, only the B reactor, which made plutonium for the Nagasaki bomb, is being proposed for eventual year-round tourism. A few sites have already been preserved and made public, including the X-10 Graphite Reactor at Oak Ridge, which was built as a smaller pilot plant for Hanford, and the Trinity site in Alamogordo, N.M., which allows visitors twice a year, on the first Saturday in April and October. But not until now has the Energy Department taken a coordinated approach to preserving atomic sites. FUNDS FROM CONGRESS "I don't want the country to forget what it took to win a war and what this community gave up to win it," said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., who secured $950,000 from Congress last year for the department to make B Reactor safe enough for cleanup workers and to study the feasibility of converting it into a museum. She envisions a place "kind of like the Holocaust Museum," she said. "It's not a place to enjoy a day but where you learn what can happen." Keith A. Klein, manager of the Energy Department's Richland office, which oversees Hanford, said he thought it would be possible to make B Reactor safe for limited access by tourists by eliminating all traces of airborne contamination. Doug Sherwood, Hanford project manager for the Environmental Protection Agency, agreed but pointed out that some might find the expense prohibitive. "There's quite an interest in preserving this facility," he said, but added, "It's a big job and possibly one we should not undertake." MUSEUM STARTUP COSTS He estimated that it could cost $10 million to make B Reactor museum-ready, beyond the costs of the current cleanup of the Hanford reservation, which are expected to total many billions of dollars in the next few decades. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., cautioned that talk about a B Reactor museum was premature until the cleanup was finished. "I don't see how you can justify spending federal funds to preserve a facility at Hanford and elsewhere, where close communities are still at risk," he said. Hanford is about 25 miles from the Oregon border, upstream on the Columbia River. Joe Davis, a spokesman for the Energy Department, said, "We know that sites and workers played an important part of history that should endure" but that no decision had been made on which sites to save. Richard Rhodes, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "The Making of the Atomic Bomb," supports maintaining at least some of what he calls "the physical reality of that time." "Many people think that the Manhattan Project was 30 people building a bomb at Los Alamos," he said, "but it was 150,000 -- an effort comparable at the time to the race to the moon. It's our past. Not to preserve it is to censor it." ATOMIC LANDMARK TOURS Behind the push for preservation is a growing interest in atomic tourism. On the Web, atomictourist.com directs atom-age buffs to places like the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico and EBR1, an experimental breeder reactor outside Arco, Idaho. At the Greenbrier Resort in Warm Springs, W.Va., nearly 200,000 visitors have paid up to $25 to tour the ultimate Strangelovian relic: the cavernous Cold War bunker built to shelter members of Congress from a nuclear attack. This summer, the Smithsonian Institution is offering a tour of Manhattan Project landmarks in New Mexico, including the High Bay building, a ramshackle structure where key components for the Trinity device and the Nagasaki bomb were assembled. Ellen Bradbury, who is leading the Smithsonian tour, calls High Bay "the Manhattan Project equivalent of the Silicon Valley garage." The most compelling landmarks may be the Manhattan Project towns themselves. Like Richland and Los Alamos, Oak Ridge was a once top-secret creation of the government, omitted from maps until 1949. Today, visitors can take "atomic train" trips that start at the old guard station and offer scenic views of the K-25 Gaseous Diffusion Building, an engineering marvel that sprawls over 44 acres. The Advisory Council suggests saving a fragment of K-25, the Roosevelt Cell, intended as a viewing platform for President Franklin D. Roosevelt. But Ralph Hutchison, coordinator of the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance, a watchdog group, noted that K-25 still contains hazardous waste and 23 miles of contaminated pipeline. A wiser commemoration, he said, would be "a green field and a marker." Obstacles to preservation are even more formidable at Hanford. Sixty-eight of its 177 underground tanks are assumed to have leaked. Experts say that much of the Hanford Reservation's 560 square miles can never be made clean enough for unrestricted access, but some say parts of it could be. FORMER WORKERS INVOLVED The move to save B Reactor, which has been idle since 1968, has been spearheaded by the local B Reactor Museum Association, many of whose members worked at Hanford. They are hoping for regular tours of the reactor's face, a looming panel of antique nozzles and tubes, as well as the brass-knobbed control room, whose "you are there" quality is intact, as if Fermi had just gotten up from his chair. For now, Hanford is something of a nuclear ghost town. The Army Corps of Engineers was drawn to this high desert land because of its remoteness and its proximity to the Columbia River, with water for cooling reactors, and sand and gravel banks for making concrete. In February 1943, the government gave residents of the towns of White Bluff and Hanford 28 days to move out. The towns' remnants, including the shell of the old Hanford High School, are reachable only with security clearance down crumbling four-lane roads -- some now leading nowhere -- built for the Manhattan Project. Members of the B Reactor Museum Association who worked at Hanford in the 1940s recall its shroud of secrecy. "We didn't talk about reactors, we talked about 'the unit,' " said Roger Rohrbacher, 80, who was an engineer at B Reactor. "We didn't talk about plutonium, we talked about 'the product.' " Many of them want to honor the technological achievements of Hanford as well as the suffering it brought. "When you're standing in front of the reactor, you realize this is what humans can do if pushed to the limit," said Gene Weisskopf, president of the association. "It's a great place to contemplate war." ©2001 San Francisco Chronicle   Page A - 4 ***************************************************************** 12 Labs have mixed feelings about laser facility's future *April 15, 2001* By Glenn Roberts Jr. STAFF WRITER Officials from the nation's three nuclear labs have pitched alternative proposals for a laser project at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory. A group of Energy Department and lab managers, technical workers and officials from other federal agencies met from Jan. 30 to Feb. 2 this year at Sandia nuclear lab in Livermore, in part to discuss plans for the National Ignition Facility laser project at Livermore Lab. Energy Department officials this week recommended that the National Ignition Facility laser project at Livermore Lab proceed as planned, but a report on the proceedings of the meeting indicates there is discord within the nuclear weapons community about its design and function. A nuclear weapons research tool that federal officials say will cost about $3.5 billion to $4 billion to complete, NIF is an estimated $1.1 billion over budget and six years behind its original schedule. The project is intended to produce thermonuclear explosions on a tiny scale by blasting BB-size capsules of radioactive fuel with 192 ultra-violet laser beams. Livermore Lab officials proposed an accelerated schedule for the project that would require more money per year from 2002-05 but would save $219 million and speed the project's completion by two years. But officials at Los Alamos Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico proposed other alternatives that called for careful, detailed assessments of NIF and promoted another weapons research project in New Mexico. Sandia officials recommended that the NIF project be scaled back to one-fourth or half the number of laser beams to "maximize the benefits" to the Energy Department's nuclear weapons maintenance, reliability and refurbishment program, known as the Stockpile Stewardship Program. Sandia officials also suggested that the full 192-beam NIF could be built if Livermore Lab could provide a sufficient "cost-benefit argument" related to the needs of the stockpile research program, according to an Energy Department memorandum issued this month. Also, Sandia officials asked for $60 million to refurbish the Z-machine, a powerful X-ray weapons research facility at Sandia's New Mexico lab. A renovated Z-machine could support the short-term goals of the stockpile program until the NIF project is built, they proposed. Officials at Los Alamos Lab suggested a comprehensive engineering demonstration of NIF after the first 48 beams are installed, in order to validate the project's final schedule and cost, operating costs, and laser performance. Also, Los Alamos officials asked for an evaluation of the Z-machine renovation proposal at Sandia. The study group members agreed, unanimously, that the NIF project should "proceed toward full completion as quickly as possible," Energy Department officials said in the memorandum. But workshop attendees also concluded that a major aim of NIF -- to achieve fusion ignition, an energy gain generated in thermonuclear weapons and the sun -- has "debatable" value in the project's nuclear weapons research mission. NIF's ability to achieve ignition, as the project's name suggests, was the major selling point when the project was launched. However, officials have not provided any assurances that NIF can, in fact, achieve fusion ignition. NewsChoice.com ***************************************************************** 13 'Clean' Nuclear Weapon Isn't; Small Earth- Penetrating Nuclear Warhead Would Have Lethal Side-Effects [U.S. Newswire] Story Filed: Monday, April 16, 2001 8:30 AM EST WASHINGTON, Apr 16, 2001 (U.S. Newswire via COMTEX) -- Low-yield earth-penetrating nuclear weapons, intended to threaten deep bunkers without killing the surrounding population, would release dangerous fallout, according to an analysis by the Federation of American Scientists. Some nuclear weapons developers have advocated developing and testing new small nuclear weapons as a way to destroy deeply buried bunkers containing enemy leaders or biological weapons. Delivered by a bomb or missile that would strike the ground a high speed and penetrate deeply before exploding, the weapon is intended to destroy the bunker but leave nearby civilians unharmed because the earth over the explosion would contain it. But the study, performed by Princeton University physicist Robert Nelson, finds this to be technologically impossible. "No earth-burrowing missile can penetrate deep enough into the earth to contain an explosion with a nuclear yield even as small as 1 percent of the Hiroshima weapon. The explosion simply blows out a massive crater of radioactive dirt, which rains down on the local region with especially intense and deadly fallout," according to the study. A 1-kiloton explosion, less than one tenth that of the Hiroshima bomb, would need to be under 450 feet of earth to be fully contained. But the U.S. B61-11 deep-penetrating bomb only penetrates about 20 feet. A tactical missile might possibly penetrate to 100 feet, although it would be difficult for a nuclear warhead to function after such an impact. If an underground explosion is not contained, it becomes very "dirty", in that the earth above it is made radioactive and thrown over a large area. Thus, use of even a small earth-penetrating warhead in a populated area would cause significant civilian casualties, according to the study. Scientists who built the first atomic bomb founded the Federation of American Scientists in 1945. More than half of the current American Nobel Laureates today serve on the FAS Board of Sponsors. FAS conducts research, analysis, and advocacy on public policy issues created by advances in science and technology (see www.fas.org). CONTACT: Bob Sherman of the Federation of American Scientists, 301-219-5395 or 202-546-3300; rsherman@fas.org; http://www.fas.org. ***************************************************************** 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: *****************************************************************