***************************************************************** 02/20/01 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 9.47 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER CONTENTS 1 Nevada to launch campaign to fight transport of high-level nuclear waste 2 SRS prepares first plutonium shipment for New Mexico waste site 3 NRC Tables CP&L Spent Nuclear Fuel Plan 4 Nuclear power makes a comeback 5 Radioactive waste came through Spaghetti Bowl eight times 6 Premier's future at stake 7 'Kakarapar workers receive higher radiation' 8 India says Russian nuclear fuel approved by IAEA 9 Pakistan raps Russian nuclear fuel shipment to India 10 Russia offers 4 more N-reactors to India 11 Sweden chooses copper for nuclear waste disposal 12 IBA buys 80 pct of Eastern Isotopes 13 Panel fumes over Yucca lobbyist 14 Gas plant may replace Germany's Stade nuke reactor 15 UPDATE - Czech nuke plant due on stream after shutdown 16 EBRD mulls setting up Baltic environmental fund 17 A graveyard for nuclear waste 18 Protesters Slam Nuclear Waste Bill 19 Nuclear plan sparks Russian protest 20 Nuke dump foes celebrate victory 21 Firm proposes nuclear-waste disposal option NUCLEAR WEAPONS CONTENTS 1 City picks Baker Donelson to go after DOE funds 2 Our View: Fallout risks in city's fight for federal funds 3 Paducah cleanup funds face big cut 4 Rising anger hits Pentagon's DU use 5 IEER: A Chinese Perspective on National Missile Defense 6 Depleted uranium response slow 7 Web site, e-group launched for Gulf War veterans - 8 NORTH KOREA WILL PAY FOR SUSPECT BEEF BY TAKING TOXIC WASTE 9 Police have anti-nuclear protestor's numbers 10 MoD inquiry into 'privacy breach' 11 DU shell test-firing resumes 12 Dundrennan: Under friendly fire 13 Scots fear ill wind 14 MoD resumes controversial uranium shell test firing 15 Britain test fires depleted uranium into the sea 16 Site list opens door to aid 17 Sen. Cantwell gets lesson on science of PNNL, DOE 18 Popularity, position of Wamp on rise **************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 Nevada to launch campaign to fight transport of high-level nuclear waste Associated Press February 20th, 2001 Lawmakers were told Monday that Nevada will use some of a $5 million appropriation sought by Gov. Kenny Guinn to warn other states about hazards of Nevada-bound trucks hauling nuclear waste on their highways. “Transportation press conferences have had an impact,” Robert Loux, executive director of Nevada’s Nuclear Projects Office, told the Assembly Ways and Means Committee. “Transportation is the Achilles’ heel of the nuclear waste project. It’s a volatile issue out there.” Loux said his office has targeted major routes through 43 states that would be affected if the federal government designates Nevada’s Yucca Mountain as the nation’s high-level nuclear waste dumping ground. The site 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas is being studied to determine its suitability to store 77,000 tons of the nation’s nuclear waste. Loux said his office plans to use the money for news conferences, rallies and other programs to inform people in other states about the impacts and dangers they face by living along the routes that trucks would travel to bring waste to Yucca Mountain. “We want to ask elected officials in other states if the DOE has contacted them about emergency response training, what would happen in the event of an accident, if they’ve thought about property values declining,” he said. Loux said the campaign hopes to get people to pressure Congress to vote against the site. “People do contact their congressional representatives. There are editorials in newspapers,” Loux said. “Everybody’s pretty sensitive about this issue.” Loux said the governor also wants businesses to join the fight and he already has a commitment from Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt, who has included $1 million in his budget for the effort. Committee members’ reactions to the governor’s plan were mixed. “The only problem I have with it is if the message from those other states is ‘don’t send it through us’ as opposed to ‘don’t send it to Nevada’, ” said Assembly Minority Leader Lynn Hettrick, R-Gardnerville. Assemblywoman Chris Giunchigliani, D-Las Vegas, said an education campaign is a good idea but it must be well-planned and carefully worded so it doesn’t diminish tourism. A few panelists voiced concern about eight shipments of low-level waste that have been disposed at the Nevada Test Site 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas. “This is extremely concerning and offensive. Eight shipments went through … Las Vegas and one went over the Hoover Dam,” said Assemblywoman Vonne Chowning, D-North Las Vegas. “This should serve as a huge warning throughout the country. It just boils down to the trust factor. We just can’t trust them,” Chowning said. “We were supposed to be notified.” Loux was joined in his appearance before the Senate Finance Committee with the governor’s deputy budget director, Don Hataway, who said some of the $5 million anti-nuclear waste dump fund might be needed for legal costs. Loux estimated that the federal Department of Energy will make its recommendation on Yucca Mountain to President Bush by the end of this year or early next year. © 2001 Reno Gazette-Journal ***************************************************************** 2 SRS prepares first plutonium shipment for New Mexico waste site Published Monday, February 19, 2001, in The State. *The Associated Press* AIKEN -- The Savannah River Site plans to ship its first load of plutonium waste to a New Mexico nuclear repository as early as next month, with eight to 12 shipments by January. Critics say transferring the plutonium, which will be driven on Interstate 20 through Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Texas, is dangerous and unnecessary. The old nuclear weapons site has more than 55,000 barrels of the radioactive metal. The waste will be sent to the Energy Department's Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in southeastern New Mexico, and buried in a salt bed about 2,100 feet below the desert. Supporters of the effort call it a milestone in nuclear cleanup, a chance to concentrate some of the nation's radioactive waste where it won't threaten the public. Federal officials also note that none of the 141 waste shipments already sent to the New Mexico site has leaked from trucks. But critics say the plutonium transfer is risky and useless, needlessly endangering thousands of people who live along I-20. "The wastes that are being sent to WIPP are relatively safely stored where they are," said Arjun Makhijani, president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research in Maryland and a longtime critic of the shipments. "WIPP is a political project. It's not a cleanup project. People along the way are being subjected to transportation risks for political reasons, not scientific reasons," he said. Over the next 34 years, energy officials hope to send up to 4,300 such shipments to the site from four sites east of the Mississippi River now used for storage. The waste is hazardous leftovers from nearly four decades of Cold War bomb production -- radioactive tools, rags, clothing and debris exposed to plutonium. To prepare for the shipments, Westinghouse Waste Isolation Division, which runs the WIPP, has been training emergency workers along the route since 1991. More than 2,500 such workers have been trained in Georgia, including more than 1,000 in metro Atlanta, and 140 in metro Augusta, said Orllynn Eaton, Westinghouse's manager of external emergency management. About 100 people have been trained in South Carolina. Although traffic accidents have occurred during shipments of radioactive material, none has caused a death attributed to radiation exposure, he said. "We just don't want this stuff to get out," Eaton said. Emergency management agencies in towns along the route will be notified when the shipments are approaching, with many equipped with equipment to monitor radiation levels. "We've had training for the last 10 years," said Pam Tucker, director of the Columbia County Emergency Management Agency, just west of Augusta. "We've been trained and trained, and we keep waiting on those shipments." Backto Local News thestate.com | realcities.com | marketplace ***************************************************************** 3 NRC Tables CP&L Spent Nuclear Fuel Plan + Feb. 19, 2001—The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Friday told Carolina Power & Light Co. that it needed more information before it could allow the company to store spent nuclear fuel in two unused pools at its Sharon Harris nuclear power plant in Raleigh, N.C. + The 900 megawatt Harris plant was originally designed for four reactors, but only one was completed. However, the plant's fuel handling building has four spent fuel pools, as originally planned. The plant's operating license issued in 1987 authorized CP&L to use two of those pools for storage of spent fuel from the Harris plant and from three other reactors owned by the company. + The Harris plant, like nuclear power plants throughout the United States, is choking on its spent fuel due to the failure of the federal government to make good on its obligation to provide permanent storage beginning in January 1998. + In December, the NRC staff had approved the company's request to put the two unused spent fuel pools to use. But the Board of Commissioners of Orange County, N.C., has asked the NRC for an immediate stay of that approval and has made legal filings to back up its request.. + While the NRC rejected the Orange County petition, it says it will now reconsider whether to hold oral hearing on CP&L's proposal. The NRC staff has 14 days to provide additional information on the matter. + In the meantime, the agency has ordered CP&L to hold off on using the two unused, but available, spent fuel pools. EnergyOnline Forums Copyright © 2001 LCG Consulting. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 4 Nuclear power makes a comeback Silicon Valley News Posted at 10:54 p.m. PST Monday, Feb. 19, 2001 As electricity demand surges, so does interest in controversial industry BY Mercury News Spurred by unsatiated electrical demand, a booming economy and deregulation, the nuclear power industry is enjoying a national resurgence after decades in the economic and political dungeons. Nuclear power's comeback, however, is also spurring another revival -- calls of ``Remember Three Mile Island.'' Critics of nuclear energy, who nervously are watching the industry's nascent resurgence, say public opposition to nuclear energy remains as strong as ever. But after years of being reviled for safety concerns and costs, and plagued by memories of the accident at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania and the meltdown of the Chernobyl plant in the former Soviet Union, beleaguered nuclear power is getting a new look from the energy industry. Plants that once sold for bargain-basement prices are now drawing billion-dollar bids. In a power industry that is rapidly consolidating, the plants are now seen not as white elephants but as cash cows. Energy companies aren't rushing to build new nuclear power plants -- the last one was ordered in 1978, and no new plants are being proposed in California. But new ones are being considered, mostly in the East, according to some observers. And the companies that own a large number of existing plants, which are getting closer to the end of their 40-year licensed life spans, are seeking to re-license them for an additional 20 years. Why the renewed attention? Despite its rocky history and widespread concerns about safety and disposal of radioactive waste, nuclear power has turned out to be a highly efficient way for some power companies to produce electricity. ``People realized there's money to be made from nuclear power,'' said Mitchell Singer, spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, the nuclear power trade organization in Washington, D.C. Because it does not burn fossil fuels, he said, ``it's the greatest source of emission-free electricity. It's environmentally friendly.'' Critics disagree, as strongly as ever. The nuclear power industry is the ``largest managerial disaster in U.S. business history,'' said Paul Gunter, director of the Reactor Watchdog Program of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service in Washington, D.C. ``It has been built on the myth of the peaceful atom and resulted in the most expensive way ever to boil water to make electricity,'' Gunter said. ``It is a `clean' energy that has resulted in timeless nuclear waste.'' In addition to voicing concerns about storage and transportation of used nuclear fuel, critics worry anew about the risk of accidents. Extending the lives of aging power plants after years of exposure to intense heat and radiation, they say, could invite disaster. A nuclear power plant is simply a device to heat water to create steam, which turns a turbine attached to a generator to produce electricity. Instead of burning fossil fuels such as oil, coal or natural gas, a controlled nuclear reaction involving uranium heats the water. The plants use a series of steel and concrete barriers to prevent the release of radioactive material into the outside environment. Today, 103 nuclear power reactors of two types are operating in 31 states. Only two -- the Diablo Canyon plant near San Luis Obispo and the San Onofre plant in northern San Diego County -- are in California. Voters 12 years ago shut down the Rancho Seco plant near Sacramento. Nuclear power generates about 20 percent of the electricity in the United States, with coal-fired plants producing about half of the nation's power. In California, nuclear and coal account for less than 20 percent of the electricity generation; natural gas and hydropower provide the bulk of our energy. The resurgence of nuclear power is a recent development. ``Over the past six to eight months, there has been a convergence of factors -- rising demand, deregulation, growing economy, improved performance of plants,'' Singer said. ``There is an estimate the economy is expected to increase electrical demand 30 to 35 percent by 2010,'' he said, while the Energy Information Agency of Department of Energy ``forecasts 1.8- to 2.5-percent increases per year over the next 20 years.'' In California, Singer said, ``half the growth is the result of the digital economy. Power consumption in Silicon Valley is growing three times faster than in the rest of the United States.'' And this has sent values of nuclear plants, depressed for decades and selling for far less than they cost to build, rising faster than Bay Area housing prices. ``The first transfers were selling for a tenth of a comparable coal plant,'' said Ted Marston, vice president and chief nuclear officer of the Electric Power Research Institute, a non-profit research consortium in Palo Alto. ``Now, prices are going up to levels of other generating assets.'' Singer, of the Nuclear Energy Institute, offered several examples. Last year, he said, Dominion Electric Co. in Virginia spent $1.3 billion to buy a three-reactor plant in Connecticut, even though one of the reactors will be decommissioned. In November, Entergy Corp. of New Orleans bought two nuclear plants in New York for $976 million after bidding started at about $600 million. AmerGen Energy Co. tried to buy a one-reactor plant in Vermont for $23.5 million, Singer said. But with interest from Entergy and others, AmerGen had to increase its bid to $93.8 million, and the deal still isn't done. Probably the biggest success story against the longest odds in the nuclear power industry is that of Pacific Gas &Electric Co.'s Diablo Canyon plant, which began operating in 1985 -- 11 years behind schedule and $5 billion over budget. It had a history of design blunders that included reversed blueprints and late discovery of a nearby earthquake fault. So in 1988, the California Utilities Commission allowed PG to charge artificially higher rates for electricity from the plant because it was assumed Diablo Canyon would have only a short life and operate far short of its capacity. But Diablo Canyon turned out to be a fantastically efficient and profitable nuclear power plant. Although it lost money in its first three years of operation, it has produced more than $3 billion in profit for PG since. When both reactors are operating, Diablo Canyon generates nearly 2.2 million kilowatts of electricity, enough the meet the needs of 2 million people, PG says. Although nuclear plants are the most expensive to build, they are the cheapest to fuel. It costs about $1,300 per kilowatt output to build a nuclear power plant, Singer said, compared with $1,000 for a coal-fired plant and just $440 for a natural-gas plant. However, the payoff comes in operating costs. In 1999, the latest year for which the institute has complete figures on fuel prices, natural gas cost 3.52 cents per kilowatt-hour, oil was 3.18 cents, coal was 2.07 cents and nuclear fuel was 1.83 cents. So it makes economic sense to extend the lives of older nuclear plants at a cost of $10 per kilowatt vs. $1,300 per kilowatt to build a new plant, Singer said. Nuclear power plants were initially licensed by the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission to operate for 40 years. Last year, two plants in Maryland and three in South Carolina were given 20-year renewals. ``Another 25 have filed or announced their intentions,'' Singer said. ``It's conceivable that most of today's 104 plants will be relicensed.'' That's in sharp contrast to just a short time ago, said Marston of the power research institute. ``Five years ago, the attitude of the utility companies was, `We're going to run these plants, but maybe not as long as we can, and decommission them prematurely,' '' he said. Now the industry has consolidated, too. As many as 50 different companies and utilities once operated nuclear plants. ``There are 33 now, and it will be down to six to 12 in the next five years,'' Marston said. ``People who want to be in the business know how to run them.'' Over the years, reactor operators have learned how to squeeze more electricity from their power plants, increasing output more than 20 percent as plants were upgraded and maintenance procedures revised. In the late 1980s, nuclear power plants operated on average of 63 percent of their capacity, with a lot of downtime for maintenance and replacement of a third of their fuel every 18 months. ``Last year, plants ran close to 90 percent capacity,'' Marston said. ``It's a mature industry. We've learned a lot in the last 30 years.'' The average downtime, Singer said, was 101 days in 1990; two years ago it was 41 days, with a number of plants shutting down for as few as 25 days to refuel. The increase in electrical generating capacity for those reasons is the equivalent of building 23 additional power plants, Singer said. But critics such as Gunter, of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, say increased output threatens safety, as it may result in plant operators shortchanging critical maintenance. ``The industry is not only increasing the running times from 15 to 18 or even 24 months between maintenance outages, it is running them 15 percent hotter to get more electricity out of them,'' Gunter said. This, he charged, ``pits profit margins against safety margins.'' Marston disagrees. ``You could always say the glass is half empty or half full,'' Marston said. ``Much of that maintenance is being done while the plant is operating.'' Nuclear reactors have what Marston called ``two or three different trains of equipment to provide a function. You can take one out and maintain it without adversely affecting safety of the plant.'' Ultimately, even with license extensions, nuclear reactors have a limited lifespan and some day will be replaced. Singer predicts new nuclear plants will be built in the next five to 10 years. Economics will drive the decisions, Marston said. With natural gas prices soaring, the energy industry will look at coal-burning and nuclear-fired technologies. ``And with global climate change, is coal the best option?'' he asked. ``We may see a new nuclear plant being ordered in the next few years.'' *Contact Frank Sweeney at or (408) 920-5675.* online from SiliconValley.com is protected by the copyright laws of the United ***************************************************************** 5 Radioactive waste came through Spaghetti Bowl eight times Tuesday, February 20, 2001 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal Lawmaker says shipments stir doubts about Yucca Mountain promises By SEAN WHALEY DONREY CAPITAL BUREAU CARSON CITY -- After learning that eight shipments of low-level radioactive waste "inadvertently" traveled through the Spaghetti Bowl interchange in the last quarter of 2000, a lawmaker Monday questioned how the U.S. Department of Energy could be trusted to safely transport high-level waste if Yucca Mountain becomes a nuclear dump. One of the eight shipments to the Nevada Test Site also traveled via Hoover Dam, another route that is not supposed to be used for transport of low-level waste. "If we can't trust the oversight ability and promise of the U.S. Department of Energy, who can we trust?" said Assemblywoman Vonne Chowning, D-North Las Vegas. "They obviously did not do their job. This, to me, is just a sign of what unfortunately, possibly, is going to come in the future." Chowning made her comments at a meeting Monday of the Assembly Ways and Means Committee to review the budget for the state Agency for Nuclear Projects. Bob Loux, executive director of the agency, provided a letter to lawmakers from the Nevada Operations Office of the U.S. Department of Energy concerning the shipments of low-level radioactive waste to the Nevada Test Site from October through December. The letter and accompanying report showed that eight of 134 shipments during the quarter used the inappropriate routes. The shipments came from several federal sites, including Lawrence Livermore Lab in California and Rocky Flats in Colorado. The quarterly report is provided to the state after the shipments occur. The report provided to lawmakers was received in Loux's office earlier this month. "In reviewing the data submitted, we have determined that eight shipments inadvertently went through the I-15 and U.S. 95 interchange and one shipment went across the Hoover Dam," said Kathleen Carlson, manager of the agency's Nevada Operations Office. "We have discussed this matter with the generating sites, and indicated that failure to initiate corrective action may result in the (Nevada Test Site) refusing to accept future waste shipments for disposal." Loux agreed that the improper use of routes for low-level waste probably is not helping the agency build trust with Nevada residents. "If the Department of Energy is trying to engender trust, they would do a much better job in trying to ensure these shipments didn't go through he valley or over the dam as we negotiated, and they indicated they would halt," he said. If the waste dump is built at Yucca Mountain, as many as 3,000 shipments of high-level nuclear waste per year would be taken to the site over 35 years, Loux said. No decision has been made about whether highways or railways would be used to ship the waste. Low-level waste, including medical waste such as X-ray materials and contaminated soils, probably is not harmful unless it is ingested, Loux said. But Chowning said an accident involving high-level waste at the Spaghetti Bowl, the name given to the Interstate 15 and U.S. Highway 95 interchange, could contaminate the downtown core of Las Vegas for many years. Loux told lawmakers that raising the transportation issue with other states is a major strategy Nevada officials will pursue in trying to stop President Bush and the U.S. Congress from selecting Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, as the permanent storage site for 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste. The Department of Energy is expected to announce its decision regarding Yucca Mountain late this year or early in 2002, he said. Gov. Kenny Guinn has proposed spending $5 million to spread word to other states about the dangers of transporting high-level waste along the nation's highways, Loux said. ***************************************************************** 6 Premier's future at stake The Taipei Times Online: 2001-02-20 February 20th, 2001 NUCLEAR FALLOUT: KMT legislators say they will force Chang Chun-hsiung to step down for his decision to halt construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant By Lin Mei-chun STAFF REPORTER KMT lawmakers, who have long championed the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant as Taiwan's only energy solution, yesterday vowed to push the government further on the matter, making clear their intentions to force Premier Chang Chun-hsiung (±i«T¶¯) to step down as a new session of the Legislative Yuan begins today. KMT lawmakers say that Chang should step down from his post for the government's decision to cancel the plant, thereby taking political responsibility for the decision. Chang will face questions today from legislators after he delivers an administrative report to the Legislative Yuan. The ruling DPP announced its decision to scrap the power plant last Oct. 27, but was forced to reverse the policy decision on Feb. 14 under tremendous pressure from an alliance of opposition lawmakers. "The power plant issue will still be the focus of the interpellation... KMT lawmakers will focus their questioning on the political responsibility [concerning the plant] of related government officials ... as well as the financial losses incurred during the period of interruption," said Hong Yuh-chin (¬x¥É´Ü), executive director of the KMT's Policy Committee, who acts as leader of the majority KMT caucus in the legislature. PFP takes a different stance While a recent meeting between KMT Chairman Lien Chan (³s¾Ô) and People First Party (PFP) head James Soong (§º·¡·ì) has brought renewed hope to the possibility of cooperation between the two parties, PFP lawmakers took a differing stance yesterday. They said that they would not request the premier step down, but that executive officials should consider why such ideas were gaining momentum in the legislature. "Relevant officials ought to show themselves to be responsible statesmen and receive punitive measures for the turmoil they created because of their capricious policies," said PFP lawmaker Diane Lee (§õ¼y¦w). Rumors of cabinet shuffle In addition to the power plant issue, opposition lawmakers said they would focus on possible Cabinet adjustments. Speculation was rampant yesterday in the Chinese-language media that the Cabinet would undergo a small-scale reshuffle to move around certain officials judged as unfit for their positions. PFP spokesperson Hwang Yih-jiau (¶À¸q¥æ) said that the selection of Cabinet members should hinge more on their professional capacity than their willingness to cooperate with the Cabinet over politically sensitive issues. Hwang said he disagreed with rumors that Cabinet officials would be replaced for holding political views that differed from those of the government. "I don't think it appropriate to label the officials as "uncooperative" when they are just trying to maintain their professional integrity," he said. In Hwang's opinion, Cabinet members should have the professional capability to cope with emergencies in today's vacillating political arena. "Those who should be removed are uncreative officials who only follow the old paths, as well as those who insist on clinging to outdated political ideologies and fail to map out beneficial long-term plans for the country," he added. This story has been viewed 655 times. URL=[http://www.taipeitimes.com/news/2001/02/20/story/0000074401] Copyright © 1999-2001 The Taipei Times. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 7 'Kakarapar workers receive higher radiation' rediff.com: Atomic Energy Regulatory Board Chairman Prof S P Sukhatme Tuesday said the collective radiation dose received by workers in Kakarapar Atomic Power station in Gujarat was three times more than international standards even as Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Dr Anil Kakodkar asserted that the safety culture of the atomic energy department was total. Addressing the four-day International Conference on 'Radiation Protection Measurements and Dosimetry: current practices and Future trends,' in Bombay Sukhatme said though the individual exposure to the workers in the 220 MW pressurised heavy water peactors at Kakrapar was found to be 30 millciverts which was much below the internatioanl standards (50Mc), the collective dose received was three times more the international standards. He urged the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd to improve and modify the design for their PHWR so that the amount of tritium leakage from the heavy water is minimised and collective exposure is reduced considerably. However, Kakodkar while inaugurating the conference said the actual exposure at work place is negligible compared to the natural background exposure. "We want to bring down the exposure level as low as possible," he said. (c) Copyright 2001 PTI. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution ***************************************************************** 8 India says Russian nuclear fuel approved by IAEA Tuesday February 20, 8:49 PM NEW DELHI, Feb 20 (AFP) - India denied Tuesday a recent shipment of nuclear fuel for one of its atomic power plants was part of a secret deal with long-time military partner Russia. India's statement came four days after the administration of United States President George W. Bush accused Moscow of breaking an international nuclear non-proliferation regime by shipping the fuel to India. Indian foreign ministry spokesman R.S. Jassal said the latest shipment for the Tarapore Atomic Power Plant near Bombay was in line with regulations laid down by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). "All imports of fuel for Tarapore Atomic Power plant has always been under the IAEA safeguard regime. "India has consistently and impeccably observed these safeguards. The latest import from Russia is similarly covered, IAEA having been informed about it," Jassal told a news conference. Washington Friday said it regretted the supply of nuclear fuel for the Tarapore reactors, built with US technology, and argued the step amounted to a violation of Russia's commitments to non-proliferation. Russia shipped low-enriched uranium fuel to India, which the US said violated a pact among the 39-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group which requires countries to have IAEA standards on nuclear facilities. It also argued that India did not have IAEA-standard safeguards on all of its atomic facilities and that it was overtly pursuing a nuclear weapons programme. The United States also urged Moscow to cancel the supply arrangement and "live up to its non-proliferation obligations." Russia is helping India construct atomic power stations at Kandankulam in southern Tamil Nadu state, and Russian President Vladimir Putin pledged to extend further cooperation during a visit to India last year. India carried out a string of underground nuclear tests in May 1998, prompting Pakistan to carry out its own tests in response. Since then, Washington has been worried that the decades-old conflict between the two neighbours over Kashmir could escalate into a nuclear standoff. During Putin's trip Russia made a distinction between India's pursuit of nuclear power plants and its weapons program, urging it to sign up to an international test ban. Copyright © 2000 AFP. All rights reserved. All information ***************************************************************** 9 Pakistan raps Russian nuclear fuel shipment to India February 20, 7:44 PM ISLAMABAD, Feb 20 (AFP) - Pakistan on Tuesday expressed concern over a Russian shipment of nuclear fuel to India and warned that Msocow's arms supply would further widen South Asia's conventional weapons imbalance. "We are concerned at the reported shipment of nuclear fuel by Russia to India for its Tarapur reactor," foreign office spokesman Riaz Muhammad Khan told reporters. The fuel would be used for the growth of Indian nuclear capability which is outside the purview of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), he said. He slammed the Russian decision as another example of "discriminatory practices" by individual nuclear states in contrast to their policy towards Islamabad. Pakistan, he pointed out, had been denied equipment required for the safety of its nuclear power reactors operating under the IAEA safeguards. Moscow's decision has also come under attack from Washington. "We deeply regret that the Russian Federation has shipped nuclear fuel to the Tarapur power reactors in India in violation of Russia's non-proliferation commitments," State Department spokesman Philip Reeker said on Friday. Russia had shipped low enriched uranium fuel to India in violation of an agreement among the 39-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group which requires countries to have IAEA standards on nuclear facilities, Reeker said. "India does not have such safeguards on all of its facilities and is indeed pursuing a nuclear weapons program," Reeker said in a statement. "We join other nuclear suppliers in calling on Russia to cancel this supply arrangement and live up to its nonproliferation obligations." Russia last week also signed an 800-million-dollar deal to supply 310 T-90 battle tanks to India. The tank deal followed a three-billion dollar contract in December for the licensed production of 140 Sukhoi SU-30MKI fighters by India over a 17-year period. "Such massive supply of armaments to India will widen the conventional imbalance which already exists in the region," Khan said. "This is not good for peace and security in South Asia." India conducted a series of nuclear tests in May 1998 and Pakistan responded with similar detonations less than two weeks later, triggering international condemnation and sanctions against the two South Asian rivals. Pakistan and India have fought three wars since 1947, two of them over the divided Himalayan state of Kashmir. Copyright © 2000 AFP. All rights reserved. All information ***************************************************************** 10 Russia offers 4 more N-reactors to India February 20, 2001 Silicon Valley Saga Series JYOTI MALHOTRA Russia is willing to help in the construction of four more nuclear reactors for the Kudamkulam power plant in Tamil Nadu, ignoring the objections of the international community on transferring nuclear material to a non-NPT signatory country like India. According to highly-placed sources, Moscow made a new formal proposal to help construct four more reactors at the plant -- bringing the total to eight -- during the Indo-Russian joint commission meeting last month in the Russian capital. The Indian side at the meeting was led by Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha. Incidentally, the chief of the Atomic Energy Commission, Anil Kakodkar, has been recently quoted as saying that Moscow had offered to build four reactors at Kudamkulam. But both sides as of now are playing safe, keeping the details of the new offer close to their chests, especially since Moscow has in the last few days come under considerable fire from the US over the supply of nuclear fuel to India's Tarapur nuclear power plant. Interestingly, Russian sources in Moscow told this reporter that the US had so far ``not said anything to us, either verbally or through a demarche'' on this deal and felt that the critical comments by the US State Department were just diversionary tactics. The deal to supply Kudamkulam's first two reactors was formally signed in 1988 but revived only in 1997 when the ``supplement'' to the agreement was signed. Last October when Russian President Vladimir Putin came to town, the offer to build two more reactors came up. Last month at the bilateral joint commission, the offer for another four was made by Moscow. It is not clear, however, whether the additional four reactors will be part of the MoU on Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy signed between the two sides during Putin's visit -- under which the Tarapur fuel supply will start later this summer -- or whether it will be tagged on to the 1988 agreement which predates the 1992 Nuclear Suppliers Group rules. The Russian sources admitted however that at last month's meeting of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (an international body that regulates the transfer of nuclear material to countries, proscribing those such as India which are not NPT signatories) in Vienna, ``western countries, with the exception of France'' had been highly critical of the Russian decision on Tarapur. ``But we argued that according to the NSG rules, a specific amount of nuclear fuel could be supplied to countries if the safety of the reactor is involved. That Tarapur was an exceptional case and, therefore, Russia was not violating the NSG rules. We also told them that we would go ahead with the deal with India,'' the Russian sources said. MEA sources, meanwhile, rejecting the US criticism of the Russian supply, pointed out that Tarapur was fully under IAEA safeguards -- as is Kudamkulam -- and that the Americans had themselves once supplied it fuel. It was also said that in recent years the French and the Chinese had been doing so. Copyright © 2001 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd. ***************************************************************** 11 Sweden chooses copper for nuclear waste disposal [Reuters] Tuesday February 20, 5:59 am Eastern Time By Eva Sohlman STOCKHOLM, Feb 20 (Reuters) - Sweden, leading the way on long-term nuclear waste handling, will soon keep used radioactive uranium out of harm's way in new oxygen-free copper canisters with a life span guaranteed at 100,000 years. ``We chose it because it is the best material against corrosion,'' said Peter Nygards, chief executive at the Swedish nuclear waste and fuel handling company, Svensk Karnbranslehantering (SKB). SKB was set up in 1984 by the power industry to run the disposal of the uranium which remains dangerously radioactive for 100,000 years. Sweden is phasing out nuclear power and plans to start the used uranium storage programme by 2015, burying 8,000 tonnes of waste underground in rock in 4,000 caskets made of 60,000 tonnes of the new oxygen-free copper. The special copper has been in use only for 15 to 20 years, and will be made into containers 50 millimetres (two inches) thick and five metres (16.5 feet) long. The uranium sticks will be placed into steel inserts inside the canisters. Copper, which is a recyclable metal and used traditionally for building roofs, water pipes, air conditioning and electrical devises to improve conductivity, has been treated for total removal of oxygen to acquire the longevity. ``The oxygen-free copper has a life-time of 100,000 years but could last up to five times longer,'' said Perti Makinen, product manager at Finnish Outokumpu Copper Products , a major European copper producer which is developing the canisters and is vying for the Swedish business. And copper, which competes with titanium, stainless steel and glass on anti-corrosiveness, has added benefits in that it is one of the more resistant as well as cheapest materials. Nygards also said the choice of copper, which typically is recycled every 30 to 50 years, fits the bill as a natural material found in nature's circulation. ``About 80 percent of the copper ever to have been produced is still in use and will continue to be recycled again without any effect on its properties,'' he said. Sweden is not alone as a future buyer of the oxygen-free copper, with interest growing in other countries. Neighbouring Finland, which has four nuclear reactors, has already decided to use the material to build containing barrels. ``We are looking to Canada, France and east Asia for future prospects,'' said Makinen. Copyright © 2001 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy - Terms of Copyright 2001 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or ***************************************************************** 12 IBA buys 80 pct of Eastern Isotopes Monday February 19, 11:24 am Eastern Time By Katie Nguyen LOUVAIN, Belgium, Feb 19 (Reuters) - Belgium's Ion Beam Applications (IBA) said on Monday it bought 80 percent of Eastern Isotopes (EII) in a deal worth up to $23 million to increase its foothold in the growing U.S. market for radioactive drugs. ``We will have a big focus in (this) U.S. field in the short term,'' IBA Strategic Committee Chairman Pierre Mottet told a news conference. ``The United States is the most profitable and fastest grower in FDG (and) EII is definitely the fastest grower in FDG,'' he said, referring to the sugar-based drug, fludeoxyglucose, made by EII. Based in Virginia, EII controls about a third of the U.S. market for FDG, which is used to detect cancer. ``(The acquisition) makes perfect sense with our general interest in cancer treatment,'' said Mottet. EII Chief Executive John Zephner said the market for FDG was expected to grow to $1 billion in five to 10 years. IBA, maker of particle accelerators used in cancer treatment and food and medical sterilisation, said it had paid between one and two times EII's sales, putting the value of the deal at between $11.5 million and $23 million. It said it would raise an additional $5 million via a capital increase to pay off EII's debt. Mottet said IBA had an option to buy the remaining stake within a few years. He said the deal, completed earlier this month, would make a minimal contribution to IBA's earnings in 2001. IBA, scheduled to release 2000 results on March 16, is to consolidate EII results by mid-February. Injected into a cancer patient, FDG helps doctors using new PET scanning technology to diagnose cancer more quickly than the traditional method of using a CT or Computed Tomography scanner, Zephner said. ``A tumour takes up FDG because it's growing on glucose. PET shows that functioning,'' he said. PET or Positron Emission Tomography, can also detect effective cancer treatment in five to 10 days, instead of one to three months with the CT scanner, he said. Copyright 2001 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or ***************************************************************** 13 Panel fumes over Yucca lobbyist February 20, 2001 Despite concerns, D.C. firm approved By Benjamin Grove and Adrienne Packer LAS VEGAS SUN Faced with the difficult task of keeping nuclear waste out of Southern Nevada, the Clark County Commission today chose a nationally recognized lobbying firm to lead it through the war. However, a question still remains whether the new battle chief is truly an ally. The commission was given a choice between two lobbying companies that in the past have represented nuclear power interests eager for Southern Nevada's Yucca Mountain to open as the nation's nuclear waste dump. Commissioners voted 4-2 to end its agreement with Alcalde and Fay and give a $60,000 contract to the Washington-based Cassidy and Associates. The decision was heavily opposed by the commission's foremost authority on nuclear waste -- Commissioner Myrna Williams. "I am very concerned about the whole idea of changing people at the most critical point in years in our battle against the Yucca Mountain site," Williams said. "I have a lot of questions about this and why it would be done now." Commissioner Yvonne Atkinson Gates said the county doesn't hire lobbying firms to simply zero in on just one issue. "Our focus is trying to deal not only with nuclear waste but a variety of other issues that need federal funding," Atkinson Gates said. "Based upon what I've read, Cassidy in my opinion offers a wider variety (of expertise). From that point of view, they would be an asset to the county." Cassidy and Associates, recommended by Commissioner Erin Kenny, last year represented U.S. Enrichment Corp. (USEC), the world's largest supplier of enriched uranium for commercial nuclear power plants. According to its congressional registration form that all lobbyists must submit, Cassidy began working for USEC in May. Cassidy's form says it lobbied for the USEC on "issues related to uranium enrichment and worker safety, health and compensation." USEC leases buildings from the Energy Department at facilities in Kentucky and Ohio, where it enriches the uranium. The uranium treated by USEC supplies three-quarters of the nation's nuclear reactors, according to the company's annual report. Mark Day, spokesman for Cassidy, said this morning that the lobbying firm represented the uranium-enrichment company from May to December and concentrated on one issue: the future closing of USEC's Ohio enrichment plant. "We have a very thorough vetting process to prevent any conflicts of interest," Day said. "So I can assure you there would be no conflict of interest if we did represent (USEC), which we don't." Kenny said she prefers Cassidy because of the firm's successful record in securing federal grants for other Las Vegas Valley entities. Cassidy drummed up $13.5 million in grants for UNLV and $1.5 million for the University Medical Center, she said. "I think, and a number of us think, it's time to change the group," Kenny said. "The Cassidy group has been extremely successful for other Southern Nevada entities." Williams and Kincaid, who also voted against changing lobbying firms, were upset that Kenny placed the item on the consent agenda -- which the board decides with one vote. Williams also said simply because Cassidy has been successful with other projects doesn't mean it will be effective in the fight against bringing high-level nuclear waste to Southern Nevada. "It's different than trying to get health money or university money, since Washington has pretty much determined not to give us money," Williams said. Alcalde and Fay, which has had a contract with the county and the city of Las Vegas for about five years, isn't a stranger to criticism from county commissioners. Former Commissioner Lorraine Hunt tried to get rid of the firm in 1996, saying it was essentially invisible in the Yucca Mountain fight. Atkinson Gates agreed Monday, saying the county has seen little progress. Alcalde and Fay isn't a stranger to the nuclear power industry either. Alcalde has represented Edison Electric Institute and Northern States Power Co., but Alcalde representative Jim Bilbray said this morning that those companies haven't been Alcalde's clients for about three years. Edison Electric is a giant industry association that represents 200 U.S. energy companies, including the nation's leading nuclear power producers. It has been a vocal proponent of the Yucca Mountain storage site. Northern States Power owns a nuclear power plant in Minnesota and has sued the Energy Department for breaking its contract to haul the waste to Yucca Mountain by 1998. Bilbray said that at one point the company represented the county and Northern States Power at the same time, but the firm's work with the two companies had nothing to do with nuclear waste issues. Bilbray said he was stunned to learn the county was considering replacing Alcalde. "We think we've done a good job helping our delegation," Bilbray said. "I don't think that they would want to change horses in the middle of the fight. Cassidy is a newcomer to this issue." All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 14 Gas plant may replace Germany's Stade nuke reactor February 20, 2001 FRANKFURT - German utility E.ON is studying the feasibility of a new gas plant project to replace its 640 megawatt (MW) nuclear facility at Stade, which is due to be shut down in 2003. Company spokeswoman Petra Uhlmann told Reuters the costs and likely demand for the power and steam captured from the generation process needed to be assessed. But E.ON at this stage was leaving open whether it would be building the plant itself, she said. "If industrial customers demand a gas plant and if competitive gas prices can be achieved in the market, we would be prepared to build the plant," she said. The closure of the 29-year old Stade plant is part of the strategy worked out between the industry and the German government to end nuclear power generation by the mid-2020s. Its closure would not create a tight power supply situation in the northern parts of Germany's Lower Saxony state, where Stade is located, because of a general oversupply of power capacity, Uhlmann said. But local industrial clients, including chemicals plants operated by international groups Akzo Nobel and Dow Chemical had signalled interest in the steam from the plant. The snag was the higher price of such gas-generated steam - steam from the nuclear reactor is currently being marketed as a cheap by-product. A spokesman for the Lower Saxony government in Hanover said the state was very interested in the gas plant project, as it would help to safeguard local jobs and tax revenue after the nuclear plant was closed. Norwegian state gas company Statoil had contacted Lower Saxony, expressing an interest in supplying the natural gas for the plant, he added. REUTERS NEWS SERVICE ***************************************************************** 15 UPDATE - Czech nuke plant due on stream after shutdown REPUBLIC: February 20, 2001 PRAGUE - The controversial Czech nuclear power plant Temelin, fiercely opposed by neighbouring Austria, will be brought back on line later this week after a month-long shutdown, a spokesman said yesterday. The latest shutdown started ahead of planned revisions due to vibrations and a crack on steam piping on Temelin's turbine, in the non-nuclear, power-generating part of the station. "The repair is basically complete. The final completing works are underway now," Temelin's spokesman Milan Nebesar told Reuters. The failure has delayed by one month the planned launch of a full trial operation, originally planned for May. The $2.6 billion plant, built just over 50 km from Austrian borders, has had a rocky start. Austrian protesters have staged border blockades demanding its closure, and a series of minor failures forced repeated shutdowns since it was first launched last October. Austria says the station, which combines a Russian VVER-1,000 reactor with a US-made control system by Westinghouse, may be unsafe. Its operator, the government-controlled power company CEZ insists it is a state-of-the-art project. The Czech government has agreed to conduct an environmental impact study at the station to appease the Austrians. US lawyer Ed Fagan, who made a name representing compensation-seeking Nazi victims and is now representing Austrian opponents of the plant, demanded that Westinghouse submit documents on the delivery of control and safety systems to Temelin. Speaking to reporters on the Austro-Czech border earlier on Monday, Fagan said that he would "cause pain in the senior management ranks" if Westinghouse failed to comply by March 20. He did not elaborate on what further measures would be taken. REUTERS NEWS SERVICE ***************************************************************** 16 EBRD mulls setting up Baltic environmental fund FINLAND: February 19, 2001 HELSINKI - The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is considering setting up an environmental fund to coordinate environmental projects in the Baltic region and northwestern Russia, its head said on Friday. "We would like to consider the idea...of creating by the EBRD and I hope...other institutions such as the Nordic Investment Bank what we call a Northern Dimension environmental fund," EBRD President Jean Lemierre told a press conference. The Northern Dimension project, which aims to boost cooperation between the EU and Russia, was one of Finland's policy arms during its six-month stint holding the rotating European Union presidency in the second half of 1999. "We think it could be a useful common tool...for us and co-financiers to bring skills and money together in partnership with the various countries concerned - mainly thinking of Russia - and work together in certain projects," Lemierre said. He said the fund's idea was still at an initiative level, with the capital base and timetable still unclear, but it would pay attention in particular to nuclear waste and other environmental problems in Russia. Lemierre said the EBRD was planning to invest a total of 700 million euros ($638.7 million) in various projects in Russia this year, substantially up from the 2000 level of 580 million. For 2002, the bank wants to raise Russian investments to over one billion euros, he said. Lemierre said no decisions had yet been made on a $250 million loan request made by Russian giant Gazprom as the bank was still waiting for replies to questions it had asked from Gazprom. REUTERS NEWS SERVICE ***************************************************************** 17 A graveyard for nuclear waste Arizona Daily Star Tuesday, February 20, 2001 Yucca Mountain proposal is staggering A graveyard for nuclear waste The Associated Press **Workers with one of the tunneling machines *being used to create a maze of tunnels up to 100 miles long 1,000 feet under the crest of the flattop ridge of Yucca Mountain to store the nation's nuclear waste. * THE ASSOCIATED PRESS LAS VEGAS - Scientists are designing a system of tunnels with the best possible chance of safely entombing high-level nuclear waste inside Yucca Mountain for 10,000 years. Yucca Mountain Project scientists are looking far into the future to anticipate how geological conditions could change, a process they call "design evolution," to develop their repository design, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported yesterday. Located about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, Yucca Mountain is the only site being studied to entomb 77,000 tons of the nation's high-level nuclear waste, mostly metal rods containing spent fuel pellets from commercial power reactors. Of key importance will be taking into account surface water that could trickle down through cracks in the volcanic-rock ridge, potentially corroding waste canisters. Scientists must also calculate how far apart packages of the decaying, radioactive waste must be spaced so the repository can operate at a cool enough temperature to avoid triggering unpredictable water movement in the rock. The scientists are trying to convince an independent, presidentially appointed panel of experts that the highly radioactive waste can be safely contained in the mountain by keeping it cool enough and dry enough for at least 10 millenniums. That will be done, they say, in a maze of tunnels up to 100 miles long, 1,000 feet beneath the crest of the flattop ridge. The conceptual design will be part of a report that the Energy Department secretary will review to determine whether the site is safe for storing the waste. Geologists consulting for the state of Nevada have been critical of the mountain's natural setting. They contend hot ground water from beneath the repository could shoot upward, loading the waste caverns with thermal water laced with radioactive materials. Federal scientists disagree and say the evidence from minerals inside the mountain means the greatest threat from water is in it percolating down from the surface of the ridge. To prevent a disastrous situation, the federal team must forecast what mix of metals surrounding the ceramic nuclear fuel pellets will withstand corrosion the longest, even though rainfall and climate conditions or earthquakes and volcanic activity can't be predicted. Last month, the 11-member panel of Clinton appointees, known as the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, expressed concern that the designs presented so far by the Energy Department could create problems. One problem could occur if the waste heats the rock to a temperature of 300 degrees Fahrenheit, causing water to move inside the mountain. Water boils at 205 degrees at the repository's elevation. The panel, which makes recommendations to Congress and the Energy secretary on the technical aspects of the proposed repository, offered a suggestion to the designers. "We asked DOE to look at a cooler design to compare with the hot design," explained one engineer on the board's staff, Carl Di Bella. A "cooler" design - one that lets decaying waste heat up surrounding rock walls to about 180 degrees, or 25 degrees less than water's boiling point - would give the panel more confidence that water inside the mountain won't rapidly corrode waste canisters and carry off potentially deadly radioactive materials. Yucca Mountain Project nuclear engineer Dan Kane said Energy Department scientists are drawing up plans that he expects will satisfy the panel's concerns. "We have studied - among other things - a hot repository design, a moderate temperature design and a cool design," Kane said. If the site is found to be suitable for safely containing waste - based in part on a recommendation from the Energy secretary expected this year or next - and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission deems the design fit for licensing, plans call for the first spent fuel rods to be entombed in 2010 with closure of the repository in 2060. The process could be delayed by other issues. The Department of Energy's inspector general is investigating whether its employees or contractors have been biased during the site selection process. Nevada's congressional delegation also has asked the General Accounting Office to investigate charges that the Yucca Mountain site has been mismanaged. ***************************************************************** 18 Protesters Slam Nuclear Waste Bill Feb. 20, 2001. Page 3 The Associated Press Environmental activists from across Russia gathered outside the State Duma on Monday to protest a bill that would allow the government to import nuclear waste for profit. The bill would allow Russia to accept spent nuclear fuel from other countries for processing or storage. Proponents argue that it would allow Russia to earn billions of dollars. Opponents argue that the risk of contamination is made even higher by Russia's spotty nuclear safety record. The bill "can only be described as a national humiliation," said Igor Artemyev, a member of the Duma's liberal Yabloko faction, which organized the rally. "The country … will be turned into the world's nuclear waste dump," Artemyev told a news conference. The bill received tentative approval in December and is scheduled to come up for a second reading this week. The 100 or so environmental activists lined up outside the Duma came from about 20 regions, the rally organizers said. "People's health is more valuable than profit," read one poster. Another read: "Mr. President, show will and courage — stop the insanity of the State Duma, don't allow Russia to be turned into a nuclear waste dump." *© 2001 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be ***************************************************************** 19 Nuclear plan sparks Russian protest BBC News | EUROPE | 19 February, 2001, 18:33 GMT [Poster reading ] Protesters' banners warned against the nuclear bill Anti-nuclear campaigners have staged a demonstration outside the Russian parliament to protest against government plans to import nuclear waste. The protest was timed to mark the second reading of a bill which would end a long-standing ban on spent nuclear fuel coming into the country for disposal. Supporters claim that nuclear disposal would earn billions of crucial dollars for Russia's struggling economy. Moscow's nuclear record is too poor for new ventures, say protesters But environmentalists insist that Russia's record on nuclear safety makes it an unsuitable host for further nuclear ventures. "The country will be turned into the world's nuclear waste dump," said MP Igor Artemyev, a member of the liberal Yabloko party which helped organised the protest. He described the bill as a "national humiliation". The protest was attended by dozens of people from regions across Russia. Siberian campaigner Nikolai Zubov said importing waste would create problems for thousands of years, while the money would run out in just a few years. Protesters from across Russia joined the demonstration The bill, which won backing at its first reading, still has to survive two more readings in the lower house, and one in the upper house, before being signed by President Vladimir Putin. The law is being sponsored by the state nuclear company, Minatom, which says earnings from overseas waste could top $20bn. If the plan goes ahead, it is thought that spent fuel from Taiwan would be shipped up Russia's far eastern coast, and taken thousand of miles by rail to its final destination. Documents leaked by a Russian anti-nuclear group, Ecodefence, appear to suggest that the US would play a major part in tracking the waste to ensure none of it ended up being diverted into nuclear weapons use. BBC News Online ***************************************************************** 20 Nuke dump foes celebrate victory [Mohave Valley News] Tuesday, February 20, 2001 NEEDLES - It resembled a homecoming: people gathered to remember a challenge met, a common goal accomplished. "We won," yelled Phil Klasky of the BANWaste Coalition, pumping a fist in the air, leading the cheer until the dozens around him did the same. "Doesn't it feel great?" There was even a school bus painted with campaign slogans for 2000 Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader and a solar collector slouching against a front fender. It was a homecoming with tears and tension as well: tears of fond remembrance for comrades fallen; tension over the future. The assemblage was gathered to celebrate the defeat of a proposal to bury radioactive waste in a valley Native Americans hold as sacred and environmentalists describe as sensitive. Ward Valley, Calif., about 25 miles west of Needles, would have held wastes generated in Arizona, California, North and South Dakota. The occasion was the third anniversary of an 113-day occupation of the site. Led by Native Americans, many of them elderly; supported by environmentalists, many of them wealthy and famous; and fueled by media attention focused on the chanting, singing, praying group shivering in the harsh desert winter, the occupation seems so far to have had its desired effect. Further testing of the site's suitability was called off. The proposal has seen no progress since. Tears came when Betty Barrackman, of the Fort Mojave India Tribe, led singing for Geneva Evanston, one of the ladies leading the occupation; and when Jane Williams accepted a posthumous tribute to her mother, "Stormy' (Norma) Williams, a prominent dump opponent whose ashes rest at the site. Tension was felt when Vernon Foster, national deputy field director for the American Indian Movement, expressed suspicion of the Bush administration and promised vigilance against a Republican raid on the environment. Bradley Angle, of Greenaction, claimed a victory for the environment over the interests of the nuclear industry and the government; promising that environmentalists were both watching and prepared for action. On the day, with dozens of hands of every age and ethnicity joined in a prayer circle on the floor of the mountain-rimmed valley, those concerns seemed very far away. As several speakers repeated: "Our prayers are too powerful. Our medicine is too strong.' ***************************************************************** 21 Firm proposes nuclear-waste disposal option Company criticized for plan to store it far beneath Gulf The Dallas Morning News: Metro 02/20/2001 By Bill Lodge / The Dallas Morning News John Leivia sits confidently in the Dallas office of Strategic Environmental Technologies and says the firm will dispose of high-level nuclear wastes in salt formations beneath the Gulf of Mexico. That's news to officials with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Department of Energy. Those agencies plan to send the nation's deadliest garbage to underground storage sites at Yucca Mountain in Nevada and the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. Mr. Leivia's declaration also is a surprise to nuclear watchdogs with the nonprofit organization Public Citizen in Washington, D.C., who for years have targeted their research and analysis at Yucca Mountain and the WIPP. Mr. Leivia's announcement Friday in Dallas brought immediate criticism from officials of the International Maritime Organization in London. Since 1996, the maritime organization has promoted a resolution that would ban such ocean disposal under international law. The proposed ban has been signed by the United States and 12 other nations. The organization's officials predicted that the proposal would become law by early 2003. But none of the opposition to subseabed disposal of nuclear wastes appears to have an effect on Mr. Leivia. "We're not some kind of two-bit outfit here," Mr. Leivia said. The director and 10 percent owner of Strategic Environmental Technologies predicted that the firm would successfully raise the $20 million to $50 million it needs to begin injecting thousands of canisters of poisonous plutonium beneath the waters that regularly provide Gulf states with tons of red snapper and blue crab. Federal records show that Mr. Leivia and SET's president and 90 percent owner, Robert Gardes of Lafayette, La., notified the Energy Department two years ago that they wanted to become the world's first ocean disposers of high-level nuclear wastes. Both said Friday that they believe the Bush administration will be more receptive to the idea than former President Bill Clinton's. But so far, federal officials have not embraced the company's plan for drilling 8,000 to 10,000 feet into the seabed and then shooting canisters into concrete-sealed tunnels in ancient salt formations. "Ocean disposal has never been permitted," said Sue Gagner, a spokeswoman at the NRC's headquarters in Rockville, Md. At Yucca Mountain, the Energy Department's Allen Benson noted that subseabed disposal was one of several methods of nuclear cleanup considered by the agency in the early 1980s. Another suggestion was to launch loads of plutonium into the sun. "All of them were rejected for safety and health reasons in favor of what we're doing in Nevada," Mr. Benson said. In Washington, Energy Department spokeswoman Jacqueline Johnson was even more insistent that the agency was not seriously considering Strategic Environmental Technologies' proposal. "The United States is a signee to a United Nations treaty, which prohibits ocean disposal of nuclear wastes," Ms. Johnson said. At the company's Lafayette headquarters, Mr. Gardes has patented horizontal drilling equipment and processes that he says will enable him to dispose of nuclear wastes for about a seventh of the costs expected at Yucca Mountain. He said his $7 billion disposal program could be operational within five to seven years. "Plutonium is the deadliest thing ever created by mankind," Mr. Gardes said. "Where else do you place it where it won't damage the biosphere for the next 10,000 years?" The Energy Department disposal site at Yucca Mountain has potential for groundwater contamination, Mr. Gardes said. He added that trucking of waste plutonium from nuclear power plants across the nation would turn interstate highways into potential deathtraps for drivers and residents of cities along those arteries. This year, for the first time in history, the Energy Department will begin trucking plutonium-contaminated wastes on Interstate 20 through Dallas and Tarrant counties. Those wastes will be buried in rock-salt formations at the WIPP. Strategic Environmental Technologies' plan, Mr. Gardes said, would ferry the plutonium in ships down the Mississippi River and along the Atlantic coast to the Gulf of Mexico. Mr. Gardes said public opinion may lean heavily against his disposal plan. But something must be done, he said. "You can't just put this stuff in a cardboard box and bury it in the back yard," Mr. Gardes said. For two decades, subseabed nuclear disposal was championed by Dr. Charles D. Hollister, a senior scientist and vice president at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts. Dr. Hollister viewed such disposal as the safest means of shielding people from plutonium, which remains radioactive for 240,000 years. Dr. Hollister was killed 18 months ago in a hiking accident in Wyoming. Officials at Woods Hole said last week that no researcher was available to comment on Mr. Gardes' disposal plan. In Washington, Lisa Gue, a policy analyst with Public Citizen's critical mass energy project, said the organization hasn't studied subseabed nuclear disposal. But she said that any large-scale radiation leak that contaminated the ocean's food chain "could have disastrous consequences." She added: "Storing anything under the ocean is difficult to monitor and virtually impossible to retrieve. We would advocate against United States' involvement in any plan like that." Mr. Leivia said no leaks would occur. "We've got a first-class operation here," Mr. Leivia said. "This equipment has already been developed. We're not talking about something that is hypothetical." 2001 The Dallas Morning News ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 City picks Baker Donelson to go after DOE funds Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 2:12 p.m. on Tuesday, February 20, 2001 by Amy L. Lee Oak Ridger staff The reputation of law firm Baker Donelson Bearman &Caldwell was enough to overturn a committee recommendation that the law firm of Bass Berry &Sims be hired to seek additional money for the city of Oak Ridge. Oak Ridge City Council, at its meeting Monday night at the Municipal Building, unanimously voted to engage the firm of Baker Donelson. The firm is teaming with Akins Public Strategies to begin seeking alternative avenues for increased federal and/or state funding. City officials say the funding is necessary due to the Department of Energy's long-term presence in Oak Ridge, which has damaged the city's ability to successfully compete for industrial and other economic development. Council members David Bradshaw, Pat Rush and Leonard Abbatiello as the Committee for Enhanced DOE-Related Remuneration interviewed four law firms, finally deciding on Bass Berry &Sims of Nashville. However, following two amendments to the original motion to hire the Nashville firm, council unanimously voted to hire Baker Donelson. Baker Donelson has offered its services for a flat fee of $75,000. Bass Berry &Sims' fee was $235,000. During the discussion, council member Ray Evans said, "If you look at all the strengths and weaknesses ... who has the best access ... Baker Donelson has an edge," citing former Sen. Howard Baker's political ties in Washington, D.C. Bradshaw said he supported Evans' statements because Baker Donelson was his first choice, but that he could also support Bass Berry &Sims. "It was not an easy choice," Bradshaw said. Rush said she felt Baker "will (support Oak Ridge's interests) no matter which firm is hired. He's done it too consistently and too long." In other business, council voted unanimously to hire Kenneth Krushenski as the city's first full-time city attorney. "Thank you very much," Krushenski said. "I promise to do a good job, and I'm ready to go." A unanimous vote also approved the city's goals for fiscal year 2002 and provide that if the goals change due to budget modifications, City Manager Paul Boyer will bring those changes to the attention of council at the conclusion of the budget process. Council member Will Minter made the motion that a goal should be established to hold the city's property tax at a "competitive level," and said a goal is "not a finite position. It's a challenge, range you strive to reach. It documents and reminds us. Industry does it; we should start doing it," he said, adding that it was council's duty to remain "reasonable, cautious and conservative." Boyer recommended against such action, saying that "competitive" is "in the eye of the beholder. We never set a tax rate goal in the past." Rush said in her opinion, it was already an unwritten goal and did not feel it was necessary. The motion was approved with Minter, Abbatiello, Bradshaw and Teresa Harvey voting for it, and Evans, Rush and Mayor Jerry Kuhaida voting against it. Council also voted to proclaim Friday, March 2, as Arbor Day and Read Across America Day for the city, and to approve: * A resolution awarding a contract in the estimated amount of $453,287 to Kesterson Construction Consultants of Maryville for the furnishing of labor, tools, materials, supplies and equipment necessary for the construction of an asphalt greenway trail related to Phase III of the Melton Lake Greenway. * A resolution approving an agreement between the city and Cumberland Utility District for the furnishing of up to 300,000 gallons of potable water per day at a cost of $2 per 1,000 gallons, with a minimum purchase of 50,000 gallons per month, for use by the city at the former Boeing site. All Contents ©Copyright* The Oak Ridger * ***************************************************************** 2 Our View: Fallout risks in city's fight for federal funds Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 1:45 p.m. on Tuesday, February 20, 2001 "This could be precedent-setting," City Councilman David Bradshaw said of the planned legal action by the city against the federal government in order to gain added compensation for alleged but largely unspecified damages surrounding the Department of Energy's presence here. "We're likely to get more attention than we would not get otherwise because of the (notoriety) it could produce," Mr. Bradshaw added, in reference to legal actions contemplated to get more funds for the city. Perhaps. But setting aside any promises by those bidding law firms holding a financial stake in the matter, one nagging question is whether the city seeks this kind of "notoriety," and at what price ultimately to our own image and betterment? Governments generally, and importantly, have enjoyed sovereign immunity against the legal actions taken by one against the other. But proponents of this legal course insist that they are, in any event, after compromise, not courtroom confrontation. Presumably, they feel the best way to win that compromise and any cash settlement that might accompany it is to stand ready to litigate. Others could argue that the best way to assure victory is to have a strong case. And perhaps the city has that strong case. But to make it, and make it publicly, risks producing evidence of neglect, radiation pollution, and potentially more that could carry fallout for a long time for would-be residents and business/industrial prospects. So is this the kind of "notoriety" of which some speak, and seek? We sympathize with the city's effort in all of this, and have said so in this space previously. The call for a more equitable return to the city in lieu of taxes unpaid by DOE and its subcontractors - the city's largest tenants - is, we believe, a call to basic fairness. Similarly, the city should test its authority to levy fees for the risks inherent in storing materials that may carry varying levels of risk. But, as we have also suggested here previously, the kind of hardball strategy that any legal success may render necessarily carries a very different but very real risk of its own. City fathers we trust will weigh these assorted risks thoroughly. And someone, preferably the DOE, will soon enough blink and bring to a just end this disturbing confrontation. All Contents ©Copyright* The Oak Ridger * ***************************************************************** 3 Paducah cleanup funds face big cut The Courier-Journal » Louisville, KY February 20, 2001 Projects at nuclear weapons sites could lose $400 million By JAMES R. CARROLL, The Courier-Journal WASHINGTON -- Kentucky political leaders are alarmed about a plan being considered by President Bush to slash $400 million from cleanup funds for dozens of former nuclear weapons sites, including the Paducah uranium plant. Gov. Paul Patton and the state's delegation to Congress engaged in lengthy negotiations with the Clinton administration last year to boost federal spending to clean chemical and radiation contamination around the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant, which processed uranium for nuclear weapons. Those efforts paid off in an agreement to add nearly $50 million to the Energy Department's $41 million cleanup budget for Paducah. The prospect of a setback in fiscal 2002 has Patton and delegation members writing letters to defend the spending. Meanwhile, the proposed cut is being met with anger from some Paducah plant neighbors and environmentalists. "You could almost see it coming," said Ronald Lamb, who owns Lamb Alignment, an auto repair shop in Kevil, Ky., near the Paducah site. Rep. Ed Whitfield, a Republican whose district includes the Paducah facility, and Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said they intend to push hard for enough money to keep the decontamination and cleanup project moving ahead at Paducah. "I'm not going to view (the proposed funding cut) as set in stone," Whitfield said. "We're going to continue our efforts to obtain adequate funding to keep the cleanup on schedule at Paducah, and I'm sure that many other people around the country will be doing the same thing." The Energy Department is spending $6.2 billion this fiscal year on its various cleanup projects nationwide. A cut of $400 million represents about 6.5 percent of that total. But Paducah, which ranks 15th in cleanup spending on the department's list of 65 contaminated sites around the country, stands to suffer more because it isn't among the top 10 sites. About three-quarters of DOE cleanup money goes to the 10 worst sites, a list headed by the Hanford nuclear reservation in Richland, Wash. Environmentalists have labeled Hanford the nation's most contaminated nuclear site because about 60 percent of the country's entire volume of nuclear waste is there. At Paducah, the clean up is of contaminants including radioactive plutonium, uranium and technetium, as well as beryllium, chromium, arsenic, PCBs and various other oils. The site has cylinders containing an estimated 486,000 metric tons of depleted uranium, and 52,000 drums of various chemical wastes. Even the current budget's $90 million isn't enough to clean up the Paducah site, government auditors have said. The General Accounting Office, the nonpartisan auditing arm of Congress, has estimated a minimum commitment of $124 million a year would be needed to make notable progress toward ridding the 3,400-acre Western Kentucky complex of the worst radioactive and hazardous materials that threaten the environment and public health. The GAO has said it will take about $1.3 billion to meet a previously agreed cleanup deadline of 2010. The state wants even greater spending, estimating the cleanup cost as high as $3 billion. Patton repeatedly has told Congress that $200 million a year would be needed at Paducah to comply with the 2010 target date. At the end of last week, the governor was preparing a letter to Kentucky's congressional delegation and to the Bush administration reiterating his concern about losing ground on the Paducah project. BUSH, WHOSE budget for fiscal 2002 is expected on Capitol Hill by the end of the month, is looking at various cuts in the Department of Energy, including a recommendation from the White House's Office of Management and Budget that $400 million be trimmed from cleanup spending nationwide. But the administration isn't going public with its budget plans yet. "We are trying to work through issues," said department spokesman Joe Davis. "But we are not commenting on any of the specifics." Whitfield and House colleagues from other states that have contaminated facilities last week sent the second of two letters to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham urging an increase in cleanup spending. "The president obviously is putting additional money into education and the military and some other areas, including tax reduction, and this is just his proposal for his budget," Whitfield said. "I'm sure the compromising will be started soon." In their Feb. 14 letter to Abraham and OMB director Mitchell Daniels Jr., Whitfield and House members of both parties said the decontamination budget "must realize a significant increase to continue its legally binding cleanup commitments with our states in order to reduce long-term costs to the American taxpayer." "A budget request below the necessary amount will result in delays and higher long-term costs to the American taxpayer," the lawmakers said, "not to mention added threats to the environment surrounding these former weapons production sites and legal actions by states against the federal government." McConnell, in a statement released by his office, said the Paducah cleanup "remains one of my top priorities." Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., also issued a statement, saying that reducing Paducah cleanup money "would be completely unacceptable to me." He cautioned, however, that "it's a bit early to get all up in arms about these reports." LAMB, A MEMBER of the Site Specific Advisory Board, a citizen's group that monitors cleanup activities at the Paducah plant, said he wasn't surprised by talk of cutbacks in cleanup funding. "Basically the people (Bush) put in place I don't think will see the same standards of clean up as the Clinton administration had. They don't seem to be that environmentally inclined," Lamb said. But Al Puckett, a Western Kentucky farmer who worked at the plant for 12 years in the late 1950s and early 1960s, said he doesn't think the amount of money is the issue. "I don't think that plant can be cleaned up. I think it's so contaminated," said Puckett, who lives about a mile from the site. "I think what they ought to do is put a fence around that place and just leave it, because any money they spend will be wasted money." But Tom FitzGerald, who heads the Kentucky Resources Council, an environmental group that lobbies primarily at the state legislature, said Paducah's problems aren't hopeless. He warned, though, that a cut in cleanup money now would inflict long-lasting damage on the DOE's standing with the public. "They could undercut and erode overnight whatever modicum of credibility they started to reestablish with communities," he said. "It is not only unwise, but is a slap in the faces of these communities who have already paid more than their share for the defense effort." Copyright 2001 The Courier-Journal. ***************************************************************** 4 Rising anger hits Pentagon's DU use Workers World Feb. 22, 2001: Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Feb. 22, 2001 issue of Workers World newspaper By Paddy Colligan Thousands of people in Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal have recently protested the Pentagon's use of depleted-uranium weapons in Europe. They charge that DU is the cause of a cancer epidemic among European NATO troops who occupied Bosnia and Kosovo, where the U.S. used DU-enhanced weapons. The Labor Center of Athens called thousands to Athens, Larisa and Karditsa in Greece Feb. 8 and 9 to demand that NATO be abolished, its bases and nuclear weapons expelled from the region, and Greek soldiers returned from Yugoslavia. Under pressure from soldiers worried about the health risks of DU, the Greek government has declared that none of its troops will be forced to stay in Kosovo. A demonstration was called by the Clark Tribunal in Italy--the group that organized the anti-NATO war crimes tribunal after the war against Yugoslavia. At this Feb. 3 protest, delegations of soldiers and organizations called for the guilty to be removed from power and held responsible for crimes against the Balkans' people and Italy's soldiers In Brussels, Belgium, a conference titled "Uranium: The Victims Speak" will start March 1. It will bring together soldiers contaminated by DU with people "whose countries have been turned into nuclear and chemical waste dumps." They will strategize with anti-NATO forces about building opposition to DU. DU in Iraq, Vieques, Balkans Where DU has been used--southern Iraq, Bosnia, Kosovo, and bombing ranges in Vieques, Okinawa and south Korea--it presents an enormous and continuing danger for civilians living in the contaminated areas. There has been a documented increase in the rates of childhood leukemia and rare forms of cancer in southern Iraq, where the U.S. used huge amounts of DU materials during the 1991 Gulf War. A lawsuit challenging the U.S. Navy's use of Vieques--a small island off the coast of Puerto Rico--as a bombing range is demanding restitution for people living on the island. Over a third of the island's 9,000 inhabitants suffer from serious illnesses and cancers that doctors have linked to six decades of Pentagon bombing. DU weapons have been tested there. Lt. Gen. Boris Alekseyev, the Russian Armed Forces' top environmental safety officer, has charged that in occupied Kosovo, U.S. "soldiers are stationed in an uncontaminated area that was not hit by a single bomb or missile containing depleted uranium." On the other hand, he said, "the Italians are serving in areas where the bombardment with uranium-containing munitions was the most intensive." Russian troops in the area are being screened for signs of illness. (Kommersant, Jan. 10) The British government admitted "that thousands of British troops serving in Kosovo were placed at risk from the deadly effects of depleted uranium, the substance linked to Gulf War Syndrome, after a health warning failed to reach soldiers during the 1999 NATO conflict." (Guardian, Feb. 8) It has been forced to agree to test any soldier who requests it for DU exposure. The World Health Organization appealed on Feb. 1 for $2 million to fund research into the effects of DU ammunition in the Balkans and Iraq. In West Concord, Mass., a demonstration in January targeted Starmet, one of the two DU munitions producers in the United States. Starmet, now bankrupt, is leaving behind a leaking, unlined waste pit in a residential neighborhood where it buried 400,000 pounds of depleted uranium from 1958 to 1985. The bill for the cleanup is $50 million. Both Lebanon and the Palestinian Authority continue to call for international investigations of Israeli use of DU weapons. Palestinian forces charged the Israeli military with using DU weapons against the latest uprising. At first the Israelis denied the charge. But they were later forced to concede that they had used DU weapons in the past. The anger sweeping Europe about depleted uranium has provided an outlet for NATO rivals to raise their differences with Washington. It also raises other problems for the Pentagon: Will the women and men in the U.S. occupation forces in the Balkans become concerned about their own health? Will they question why they are risking their lives for yet another ill-conceived U.S. military adventure, cynically sold to them as a humanitarian rescue mission? Copies of an International Action Center leaflet informing U.S. service people about DU's dangers and the events in Europe, and asking them to investigate the dangers to themselves and others, were distributed at a demonstration against Plan Colombia at Fort Bragg, N.C., on Feb. 10. - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: ww@workers.org. For subscription info send message to: info@workers.org. Web: http://www.workers.org) *****************************************************************