***************************************************************** 03/20/01 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 9.72 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER CONTENTS 1 Health groups address contaminants of concern to OR 2 Regulators approve crucial license upgrade for Paducah plant 3 NRC Approves Higher Enrichment-Level Operations At USEC Inc.'s 4 Energy agency halts site project 5 Arctic nuclear shipments just an idea, Powell says 6 U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham Delivers A National Report 7 Resolution on Yucca sparks feud 8 AECL loses bid for vital Korean deal 9 N Korea Hires Uzbek Workers To Build Nuclear Reactors 10 Lax maintenance cited in plant fire 11 ASEAN invites 5 nuclear powers for nuke talks 12 Letter: Senate resolution on nuke waste needs closer look 13 Key Director at Chernobyl Fired 14 Radioactive waste to be reprocessed at Chernobyl 15 Leavitt Will Sign New Tax on N-Waste 16 Activist group to study Bay Area incisors NUCLEAR WEAPONS CONTENTS 1 Where I stand--Brian Greenspun: Casinos vs. nukes 2 Opinion - Dick Smyser: More about housing for blacks: early 3 DOE site upgrades production - 4 U.S. Lags in Nuclear Infrastructure, Weapons Skills 5 Editorial: Penny-wise, bomb-foolish 6 Editorial: No margin for errors 7 Italy Agrees With EU on Uranium 8 Finnish PM won't apologize 9 Lipponen backed down 10 Report lists testing sites for cleanup 11 3 teams submit bids to handle vit project 12 Possible crack spotted in Hanford waste tank 13 Environmental consultant discusses long-term Pantex risk study ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 Health groups address contaminants of concern to OR Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 1:47 p.m. on Tuesday, March 20, 2001 by Paul Parson Oak Ridger staff At least six initial contaminants of concern have been identified as a public health assessment concerning the Oak Ridge Reservation nears implementation. Those contaminants are iodine-131, mercury, cesium-137, uranium, polychlorinated biphenyls and fluorine along with various fluorides. Jack Hanley, environmental scientist with the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, said the contaminants were identified based upon a dose reconstruction study conducted locally in the 1990s and his organization's work at other Department of Energy sites. Hanley presented the information Monday afternoon at the Oak Ridge Reservation Health Effects Subcommittee meeting in the Oak Ridge Mall. The subcommittee consists of citizens primarily from the Oak Ridge area, including Knoxville and Roane County residents, who will work with community members and advocacy groups to offer advice and recommendations to several federal agencies regarding health concerns in Oak Ridge. Subcommittee members are nominated by the public and then appointed by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry based on their backgrounds, technical expertise, ethnicity and diversity of opinion. The public health assessment consists of about seven steps and will entail reviewing information on local hazardous substances and determining whether exposure to them would cause public harm. First off, Hanley said steps one and three will be addressed. That will involve gathering data on the Oak Ridge facilities, newspaper articles and prior studies in order to determine a comprehensive list of contaminants of concern to be further evaluated, he added. Other steps in the public health assessment include: Identifying health concerns, identifying and evaluating exposure pathways, determining public health implications, determining conclusions and recommendations and developing a public health action plan. The subcommittee created a work group Monday for the purpose of assisting the agency with the public health assessment. The group will consist of the following subcommittee members: Al Brooks, Bob Craig, David Johnson, Susan Kaplan, James Lewis, L.C. Manley and Charles Washington. In addition, George Washington University will be working with the agency and the subcommittee on an upcoming community needs assessment. Officials hope this assessment will provide a basis for developing and implementing community health education programs that relate to Oak Ridge. The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry is part of the Department of Health and Human Services. For more information, call the agency's Oak Ridge office at 220-0295 or the Atlanta office at 1-888-422-8737. The agency's Web site is located at www.atsdr.cdc.gov All Contents ©Copyright* The Oak Ridger * ***************************************************************** 2 Regulators approve crucial license upgrade for Paducah plant :30 p.m. EST Monday, March 19, 2001 BY KATHERINE RIZZO *Associated Press Writer * WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Monday upgraded the license of the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Kentucky, rebuffing congressmen who asked that a decision be delayed. Without the license improvements, the U.S. Enrichment Corp. would not have been able to stick to its schedule for ending production in June at its Piketon, Ohio, plant and consolidating operations in Kentucky. Producing uranium at just one plant is intended to save money for the financially ailing company. ``This positions the company to move forward with our business strategy,'' Morris Brown, USEC's vice president of operations, said in a prepared release. The Paducah plant's new license terms allow it to perform a higher level of enrichment. Until Monday, it was licensed to increase the concentration of uranium-235 isotopes only to a level of 2.75 percent. Now, it can enrich to a concentration of 5.5 percent. Power plants typically use concentrations, or assays, of 4 percent to 5 percent, though higher concentrations may be needed by more modern plants in the future. Currently, the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion plant in Ohio completes the job of enriching uranium to the highest concentration. Rep. Ted Strickland, D-Ohio, and the union that represents production line workers in Piketon have repeatedly raised questions about the Paducah plant's ability to handle its new enrichment duties. Strickland and Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., asked the NRC to delay its licensing decision or impose conditions so that the Ohio plant could not be closed until Paducah has proven its ability to handle the extra enrichment and become the nation's only domestic producer of utility-grade uranium. In a letter to Strickland, whose district includes Piketon, the NRC said: ``We believe that it would be inappropriate to condition the Paducah amendment on USEC's maintaining a particular operational status at Portsmouth.'' The letter did not appease the congressman. ``This is not the last word on this issue,'' Strickland said. ``I will continue to explore every available avenue to ensure that our nation's energy needs come before a private company's bottom line.'' Americans get about 20 percent of their electricity from nuclear power. Strickland contends that regulators have moved too fast, perhaps endangering the steady supply of power plant fuel if problems emerge or bugs have to be worked out at Paducah. If Paducah needs more time to produce sufficient uranium at the 5.5 percent level, ``The only alternatives will be to either bring the Piketon facility back online, or rely solely on imported nuclear reactor fuel,'' Strickland said. When the NRC appears before the House Energy and Commerce Committee to discuss nuclear energy issues, ``I assure you that I will hold the NRC's feet to the fire in a very public way,'' he said. A much happier reaction came from Rep. Ed Whitfield, a Republican whose district includes Paducah, Ky. ``This is a vote of confidence in the quality workforce at Paducah and provides a better assurance of our ability to maintain a domestic supply of enriched uranium,'' he said. On the Net: http://www.usec.com http://www.nrc.gov AP-CS-03-19-01 1921EST --> ***************************************************************** 3 NRC Approves Higher Enrichment-Level Operations At USEC Inc.'s Paducah, Kentucky, Plant Monday March 19, 3:48 pm Eastern Time Press Release Kentucky, Plant - Paducah Facility Can Now Enrich to Maximum Levels Needed by Customers - BETHESDA, Md.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 19, 2001--The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) announced today that it has amended the operating certificate for USEC's Paducah, Kentucky, plant to allow it to enrich uranium at higher levels. The Paducah facility will now be able to enrich up to the maximum levels required by USEC customers. Today's decision by the NRC will allow the Paducah plant to enrich uranium at levels up to 5.5 percent U-235. U-235 is the fissionable isotope that enables uranium to be used as fuel for commercial nuclear power reactors. Enrichment at Paducah was previously limited to 2.75 percent U-235, and the company's Portsmouth, Ohio, plant further enriched the uranium to four to five percent. Most nuclear utilities use fuel enriched to 4 to 5 percent U-235. This NRC approval culminates more than 18 months of intensive effort during which company employees put in place the nuclear safety controls, procedure and training enhancements, and physical modifications necessary to upgrade Paducah operations. ``We are very pleased that the NRC has once again demonstrated its confidence in the Paducah facility and our operating team with this certificate amendment,'' said Morris Brown, Vice President, Operations. ``This positions the company to move forward with our business strategy to consolidate current enrichment operations at Paducah and to continue to increase efficiencies and reduce costs. We appreciate the NRC's extensive efforts to conduct the review in a timely manner.'' ``Preparing for this upgrade has been a complex and challenging task for the plant's managers and employees,'' said Howard Pulley, Paducah General Manger. ``But, by keeping safety as our first priority and using outstanding teamwork to solve problems, we were able to meet this objective. Our employees, the labor unions and the management team demonstrated an exceptional commitment to succeed, and they made this achievement possible. They have repeatedly demonstrated their willingness to go above and beyond expectations to make sure the Paducah plant is the safest and most effective enrichment facility possible.'' Plant staff will immediately begin increasing the plant's enrichment level, or ``assay'', as part of a planned enrichment demonstration that is scheduled for completion in late April. USEC announced last June that it would cease enrichment at its Portsmouth plant and reduce costs through consolidating its enrichment processes at the Paducah plant. The Portsmouth plant will continue to provide shipping and transfer functions for the company. USEC Inc., a global energy company, is the world's leading supplier of enriched uranium fuel for commercial nuclear power plants. *Contact:* USEC Inc. Elizabeth Stuckle, 301/564-3399 Charles Yulish, 301/564-3301 Georgann Lookofsky, 270/441-6981 Copyright © 2001 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved. Privacy ***************************************************************** 4 Energy agency halts site project Augusta Georgia: Metro: *Department stops design work on plutonium disposal plant, cuts funds from 2002 budget plan * *Web posted Tuesday, March 20, 2001 By Brandon Haddock *Staff Writer* The U.S. Department of Energy has suspended work on one of three plutonium-treatment plants planned for Savannah River Site. Work on design of the $1.2 billion ``plutonium immobilization'' plant has been halted, and money for its construction was removed from the proposed federal budget for fiscal year 2002, federal officials confirmed Monday. ``The administration is looking at the budget and programs for the next fiscal year and wants to ensure the most effective use of monies available,'' Darwin Morgan, a spokesman for the National Nuclear Security Administration in Washington, said in a prepared statement. ``In this particular program, we are continuing with the MOX (mixed-oxide) facility design and construction, but are opting to look at other aspects, such as the immobilization facility, in possible future budget cycles,'' Mr. Morgan said. The immobilization plant was one part of the Energy Department's ``dual-track'' approach to disposing of surplus plutonium - a dangerous, radioactive metal used in nuclear weapons. The agency also planned to use plutonium in MOX fuel for nuclear-power plants. The immobilization plant, once scheduled to open later this decade, would treat about 19 tons of surplus plutonium by baking it into ceramic pucks. The site's Defense Waste Processing Facility then would encase the pucks inside stainless-steel canisters full of highly radioactive glass. The canisters' extreme radioactivity would make it dangerous and difficult for anyone to retrieve the plutonium inside for use in nuclear weapons. The plant would employ about 350 people, according to Energy Department estimates. Construction of the plant would create as many as 1,000 short-term jobs, according to estimates. Construction would cost an estimated $680 million, according to Energy Department figures. Operation of the plant for 10 years would cost another $585 million, according to estimates. Many nuclear watchdogs had supported the immobilization project, even pushing for the nation to immobilize all 55 tons of its surplus plutonium. Instead, the Energy Department plans to use about 36 tons of the radioactive metal in MOX fuel - an endeavor that many activists regard as risky and dangerous. Some observers expressed concern Monday about the decision to shelve the immobilization project. ``It's tragic that a very vital program to U.S. security is being hastily abandoned in this way,'' said Arjun Makhijani, the president of Institute for Energy and Environmental Research. ``Right now, there would be no backup plan to MOX, and the MOX program has many, many problems. ``I can't understand why, at a time when there are enormous budget surpluses, such vital programs costing so little would be cut.'' The move could backfire, especially because agreements with Russia require the United States to immobilize some plutonium, said Tom Clements, the executive director of the Nuclear Control Institute in Washington. Halting the immobilization program would require amending those agreements and could alienate U.S. allies in Europe, Mr. Clements said. ``This is going to, very much in my opinion, disturb some of our European allies,'' he said. ``The Energy Department's defunding of immobilization will reveal to the European allies that the United States is not as committed to plutonium disposition as it's been telling its partners. ``The United States has committed itself to a dual-track approach to plutonium disposition. We feel it's essential that immobilization be fully funded.'' Reach Brandon Haddockat (706) 823-3409. All contents © 1996 - 2001 *The Augusta Chronicle*. All rights ***************************************************************** 5 Arctic nuclear shipments just an idea, Powell says Anchorage Daily News - LETTER: Secretary addresses concerns about Japan's plans. By Don Hunter Anchorage Daily News *(Published March 20, 2001)* Talk about shipping nuclear materials through the Arctic Ocean is just an idea at this point and "clearly years away" from fruition, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell says in a letter to Alaska Gov. Tony Knowles. Knowles spokesman Bob King said Monday the governor is relieved to learn that "this is just in the early conceptual stages, where hopefully it can be quashed." "Our concerns are still there," King said. Knowles wrote to Powell and other officials in the United States and the Russian province of Chukotka last month after reports about the discussions between Russian shippers and Japanese power companies appeared in newspapers in the United States, Europe and Russia. According to the news accounts, Russian shippers have offered to use icebreakers to escort freighters carrying nuclear materials, bound from England and France to Japan, via a Northeast Passage along Russia's Arctic Coast. Echoing concerns voiced by North Slope Borough Mayor George Ahmaogak, Knowles warned that spills of radioactive substances into the polar maritime environmental could have disastrous consequences. "Any accidental release of this material could have a devastating effect on the fragile Arctic environment and the health and welfare of the people who live there," Knowles said. In his response, received by the governor's office last week, Powell said the talks so far appear to be limited to private interests. "The Government of Japan has told us informally that, while it has heard of the preliminary discussions within the industry, it has never been consulted by the industry, and that any decision . . . to adopt such a route would require concurrence by the Japanese government," Powell's letter says. "We have no reason to believe that any decisions on adopting an Arctic route are imminent." Japan uses nuclear fuel to power some utilities and sends spent fuel to reactors in France and Britain for reprocessing. The new fuel and wastes from the reprocessing are returned to Japan. The exchange has been going on for about a decade, with freighters transiting traditional routes around South Africa and South America, but resistance has been growing among nations near those shipping lanes. In his letter, Powell says the State Department will monitor the progress of the talks. "If it happens at all, any use of the Northeast Passage route for shipments of radioactive nuclear waste is clearly years away, given the preliminary nature of the industry discussions," Powell says. "If this does become a matter of consultation between governments, we will be in contact to make sure the Department is able to represent the concerns you expressed effectively. "In any case, we would expect, and seek to ensure, that sea shipments of radioactive materials over any route would comply with relevant international rules and standards, and that they would be carried out safely and without significant risk to the environment." Reporter Don Hunter can be reached at dhunter@adn.comor 257-4349. The Anchorage Daily News ***************************************************************** 6 U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham Delivers A National Report energy.gov - Headquarters' Press Release RELEASE DATE: Monday, March 19, 2001 [Print Friendly On America's Energy Crisis *Commercial Success Shows Benefits of Clean Coal Investment* Washington, D.C.- America faces a major energy supply crisis over the next two decades according to United States Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham. He outlined the challenges America faces in solving its "energy crisis" in remarks today to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce "National Energy Summit." His speech includes highlights from an interim report that will be submitted to President Bush today when Secretary Abraham, and other members of the Energy Task Force, meet with the President. The report includes the Department of Energy's assessment on the current state of the country's energy supply and demand, resources and infrastructure, and the impact on the nation's economy. "The failure to meet this challenge will threaten our nation's economic prosperity, compromise our national security, and literally alter the way we live our lives," said Secretary Abraham. "This Administration is fully prepared to face this dire situation, which we inherited, by developing something this country hasn't seen in years – a comprehensive, long-term national energy policy." Secretary Abraham cited three overriding facts defining the challenge of America's energy needs over the next two decades in his speech: + Demand for energy is rising across the board, but particularly rapidly for natural gas and electricity; + Supply of energy isn't keeping up with demand. Supplies are being limited by a regulatory structure that, in many respects, has failed to keep pace with advances in technology and an uncertain political environment that often discourages investment in desperately needed facilities; and + Our energy infrastructure – the network of the generators, transmission lines, refineries and pipelines that converts raw resources into usable fuel – is woefully antiquated and inadequate to meet our future needs. "Our national energy policy will be comprehensive, hemispheric, and balanced. It will also stress the need to diversify America's energy supply," said Abraham. President Bush has asked the National Energy Task Force to define a clear energy strategy that will allow environmentally responsible exploration and recovery of U.S. domestic resources; enhance the United States' commitment to conservation and energy efficiency; and encourage investment in new technology to further the development of renewable energy sources. Media Contact: Jeanne Lopatto/Joe Davis, 202/586-4940 Release No. R-01-042 ***************************************************************** 7 Resolution on Yucca sparks feud March 20, 2001 By Cy Ryan SUN CAPITAL BUREAU CARSON CITY -- Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa says a transportation resolution by Sen. Bill O'Donnell "sends the wrong message that Nevada is willing to accept a high-level nuclear waste repository" as long as the material is hauled by rail outside of Las Vegas. O'Donnell says the state must make every effort to avoid the "real and terrible threat" that trucks hauling the deadly waste will travel through metropolitan Las Vegas. He said that is why he sponsored Senate Joint Resolution 4. "It is not the intent of SJR4 to send a message to the federal government that Nevada is caving in on the repository issue," O'Donnell said. "However, it is the intent of the resolution to plan ahead to protect the most populated region in Nevada if the repository is forced upon us." Del Papa, through her solicitor general, Tony Clark, sent letters to O'Donnell's Transportation Committee urging the defeat of the resolution. "It is imperative that the state continues to present a unified front to the nation that Nevada does not accept the inevitability of the Yucca Mountain Project," said Clark, noting the Legislature passed a resolution calling on Congress and the president to reject Yucca Mountain. Clark said no decision has been made by the Energy Department to recommend Yucca Mountain. The resolution, said the solicitor general, not only sends the wrong message, but it is unnecessary. "The state already has the authority to designate alternative routes for the transportation of radioactive materials under the Hazardous Materials Uniform Safety Act," Clark said. If Nevada is unsuccessful in its fight against Yucca Mountain "there will be at least 10 years to consider and to address the transportation issues," Clark said. Clark also said putting the rail transportation route in rural Nevada would "transfer the risks of accidents to those areas ill-equipped to handle a radiological disaster." O'Donnell questioned what message Del Papa wanted to send to Washington, D.C. "Would you prefer to send the message that it is perfectly all right to ship the deadly nuclear waste over our highways and through our neighborhoods in Southern Nevada? Do you really want to allow truck after truck loaded with this hazardous cargo to be stuck in traffic on the Spaghetti Bowl in Las Vegas? "Well, that will be the situation if we do not recognize the real and terrible threat this state faces if we do not immediately make every effort to prevent the shipment of nuclear waste on our highways and streets in the Las Vegas Valley. Anything less would be irresponsible and a dereliction of our duty as public servants to protect the health and safety of our citizens." O'Donnell said Del Papa is ignoring the fact that Yucca Mountain is the only site being studied. "Are we to wait and pretend that there is no chance that the Yucca Mountain site will be designated for the national nuclear waste repository? I think not." If the state has the authority to designate the routes, why hasn't it done so, O'Donnell asked. "Rather than criticizing my proposal, you should be supporting the construction of a railroad to keep these highly dangerous materials outside the most populated area in Nevada," he told Del Papa. O'Donnell, noting the state has 10 years to decide the transportation issue, said that allows time to develop properly trained and equipped emergency response teams. "Although I will continue to pray that no site in Nevada is chosen to store nuclear waste, I urge you and my fellow citizens to be pragmatic and require that the best plans be made to deal with the transportation of this hazardous material," O'Donnell said. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 8 AECL loses bid for vital Korean deal Ottawa Citizen Online Tuesday 20 March 2001 Crushing blow leaves little hope of export business in next decade Randy Boswell Defeat extends Candu losing streak Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. has lost the competition to supply two nuclear reactors to South Korea, essentially scuttling the Crown corporation's export business for the next decade. AECL's $4.7-billion bid to build the Candu reactors at Wolsong -- where four other Candus have been successfully operated since 1983 -- had long been considered one of Canada's best hopes for more international sales of its flagship nuclear product. But in December, the Korean Electric Power Corp. decided to construct two light-water reactors proposed by the former ABB Combustion Engineering -- now part of the U.S. electricity giant Westinghouse -- rather than the heavy-water Candus that AECL planned to supply. "Losing Korea is unpleasant, no two ways about it," said Colin Hunt, director of policy with the Ottawa-based Canadian Nuclear Association. "It was, for the immediate prospect, one of the last new reactor projects that had potential." Mr. Hunt said the loss of the South Korean project is particularly stinging after the crushing blow Canada received last summer when Turkey pulled the plug on plans for a $4-billion reactor despite stringing AECL and other potential suppliers along for years. On top of that, said Mr. Hunt, AECL recently lost another bid to an Argentina-based company to construct a research reactor in Australia. AECL has two Candu reactors under construction in China, but those projects are expected to wrap up in less than a year. Romania is still weighing whether to complete a second Candu reactor, Cernavoda-2, as planned several years ago. Beyond that, AECL has no immediate prospective customers for a Candu reactor anywhere in the world. AECL spokesman Larry Shewchuk says countries such as Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines are probably "a decade away" from training regulators and improving their infrastructure enough to construct a nuclear power plant. In an interview last month with Nucleonics Week, a U.S.-based nuclear industry newsletter, former AECL president Allen Kilpatrick said "prospects are exceedingly dim" for further sales in South Korea and that China has "made it clear there won't be any more business for us" for several years. Mr. Kilpatrick was replaced as AECL's CEO in January by Robert Van Adel, a former executive with the federal Export Development Corporation. In lieu of a viable export market, AECL has turned its attention to repairing and refurbishing existing reactors in Canada and around the world. Mr. Shewchuk says growth in the nuclear servicing business is coming close to maintaining AECL's annual revenues at about $500 million. But the dearth of Candu sales abroad has forced AECL to restructure its operations. An announcement of layoffs at AECL's Chalk River Laboratories is expected today, and union representatives have been told that about 50 workers will lose their jobs. Dave Martin, an anti-nuclear campaigner with the Sierra Club of Canada, said the loss of the South Korean bid and other recent setbacks at AECL should force the federal government to withdraw its annual $100-million subsidy to the Crown corporation. "What is the point of throwing good money after bad?" he said, pointing out that by 2005 AECL will have fallen eight reactors short of the goal it set in 1995 to sell 10 Candus in 10 years. But Mr. Hunt said growth in the nuclear service sector will allow AECL to prosper until new markets emerge for Candus. He added that supporters of atomic energy are anxiously awaiting a federal decision on whether it will fund the construction of a new, $500-million nuclear research reactor at Chalk River. He also stressed that South Korean officials have made it clear they are pleased with the performance of their existing Canadian-made reactors. According to Asian media reports, AECL appears to have lost the chance to build Wolsong reactors No. 5 and No. 6 despite underbidding its chief competitor by nearly $500 million. A story published in October by the World News Connection said the Commerce, Industry and Energy Department in South Korea was planning to reconsider the Canadian bid because of its lower cost. But, according to Nucleonics Week, the December decision in favour of Westinghouse appears to have been based partly on the fact that South Korea has adopted light-water systems as the country's "standard" reactors and that the Candu produces more spent fuel than South Korea can make use of with its current fleet of reactors. [UP] Copyright © 2001 CanWest Interactive, a CanWest company. All ***************************************************************** 9 N Korea Hires Uzbek Workers To Build Nuclear Reactors Tuesday, March 20 10:52 AM SGT SEOUL (AP)--A group of 207 workers from Uzbekistan left for North Korea Tuesday to help build two nuclear reactors under a 1994 agreement with the U.S. The Uzbeks left South Korea's eastern port of Sokcho by ship and will replace 200 North Korean workers who went on strike in October, demanding pay hikes. A U.S.-led consortium called the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization is building two 1 million-kilowatt reactors in Kumho, a remote seaside village in the northeast of North Korea. The $4.6 billion reactors, designed to alleviate the North's severe energy shortages, are a reward for its agreement to freeze its suspected nuclear weapons program. The first reactor was supposed to be completed by 2003 and the second the next year. But the project is way behind schedule because of funding and other problems, prompting angry threats from North Korea to pull out of the nuclear deal. Some Republican lawmakers in the U.S. have said the deal is no longer viable, and should be replaced by a plan to build conventional energy plants in the North. A labor dispute hit the project last year when 200 North Korean workers demanded that their monthly pay be raised from $110 to more than $600. The consortium rejected their demands and resorted to a clause in the agreement that allows it to hire workers from other countries. Consortium officials said North Korea hasn't objected to their decision to hire the Uzbek workers. Copyright © 1994-2001 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 10 Lax maintenance cited in plant fire The Taipei Times Online: 2001-03-20 March 20th, 2001 PLANT ACCIDENT: After inspecting the Third Nuclear Power Plant yesterday, Minister of Economic Affairs Lin Hsin-yi suggested that there was 'room for Taipower to improve' in terms of its maintenance checks on the plant By Richard Dobson and Kevin Chen STAFF REPORTERS Minister of Economic Affairs Lin Hsin-yi (ªL«H¸q) said yesterday that replacing damaged insulators on power lines and increasing the frequency of maintenance would reduce the likelihood of a repeat fire at one of the nation's nuclear power plants. Lin yesterday traveled to the state-run Taiwan Power Co's (Taipower, ¥x¹q) Third Nuclear Power Plant (®Ö¤T) in Pingtung County to get to the bottom of the incident that shut down the plant's No. 1 and No. 2 generators early on Sunday morning. Accident appraisal * Lin said it would take three weeks to repair the damage and additional time after that to run tests. Source: Taipei Times The minister confirmed that thick, seasonal fog that rolls in from the sea had caused a build-up of salty crystals on insulators covering transmission lines and led to a malfunction at the plant, sparking a fire when back-up generators were engaged. "Although Taipower had scheduled a clean-up of the current insulators between March 17 and March 20, it was caught by surprise by the incident on the night of March 17," Lin said. Indeed, Lin was at pains not to describe the incident as a nuclear accident, instead preferring to call it a power transmission problem, adding that there was no radiation leak. While not blaming Taipower directly for the incident, he did say there was "room for Taipower to improve" and suggested increasing the frequency of maintenance work on transmission lines and replacing damaged insulators. Power supply was restored to the plant within two hours of the stoppage, according to Taipower. Lin said it would take three weeks to repair the damage and additional time after that to run tests. This latest incident was likely to spark renewed debate over whether Taiwan should rely on nuclear power for energy. In February, President Chen Shui-bian's (³¯¤ô«ó) anti-nuclear government bowed to opposition pressure and decided to resume construction of a US$5.5 billion nuclear plant, the nation's fourth. Chen Chao-yi (³¯¬L¸q), executive secretary of the Energy Commission, said that although this was the first time in the nation's 22-year history of using nuclear power that a 3A emergency had been declared, the incident would make the government's job of convincing the people that nuclear energy is safe "a whole lot tougher." A category four emergency could lead to an overall evacuation of local residents, according to Taipower's security guidelines. Taipower said it had declared a category 3A emergency because the power outage lasted more than 15 minutes. Hsi Shih-chi (®u®ÉÀÙ), chairman of Taipower, said that given that this was the first time such a severe incident had struck Taiwan's nuclear power generation system, it provided the state-run utility a good opportunity to prepare to better cope with similar incidents in the future. "This incident will strengthen Taipower's ability to deal with such events," Hsi said, adding that with improved maintenance measures it was unlikely such an incident would occur again. KMT lawmaker Chu Fong-chi (¦¶»ñªÛ) said the accident reflected the inflexibility of Taipower's management of the power plant. She warned that this poses a grave risk to the future management of the nation's Fourth Nuclear Power Plant. Lin, however, said the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant will be much safer than the other three, and said he would not give an order to stop construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant, despite the incident. This story has been viewed 583 times. URL=[http://www.taipeitimes.com/news/2001/03/20/story/0000078263] Copyright © 1999-2001 The Taipei Times. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 11 ASEAN invites 5 nuclear powers for nuke talks BANGKOK March 19 Kyodo - The 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has decided to invite five nuclear powers that are permanent members of the U.N. Security Council -- China, Russia, France, Britain, and the United States -- to a direct negotiation in May in Hanoi, a Thai foreign ministry official said Monday. At an ASEAN Senior Official Meeting held last Thursday and Friday in Ho Chi Minh City, officials agreed that Vietnam, as this year's ASEAN chair, will invite the five nuclear powers to their next meeting scheduled for May, in the hope they will eventually agree to the protocol measures attached to the Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone (SEANWFZ) Treaty. The treaty, which was signed by ASEAN leaders in Bangkok in December 1995, took effect in March 1997. It stipulates that Southeast Asia should prevent the manufacturing, testing or storage of nuclear weapons in or outside the region. Treaty parties also undertake not to dump or allow other states to dump radioactive material or waste in the zone. ASEAN wants the nuclear powers, who have been reluctant to acknowledge the treaty, to agree to protocol measures attached to the treaty. The meeting will be the second formal meeting between ASEAN and the five nuclear states. The two sides previously met in Kuala Lumpur in early 1997, shortly after the treaty took effect. In 1999, China expressed its readiness to agree to the protocol, but no accession has since been made. In July last year, Russia showed its willingness to participate by promising to send officials to the Hanoi meeting on the nuclear-free treaty, but it remains unclear whether Russia will in fact accede to the SEANWFZ protocol. It has been reported that the five nuclear powers forwarded a written statement to ASEAN to clarify their concerns with the proposed protocol. They want ASEAN to narrow the SEANWFZ area, which currently includes territories, continental shelves and the exclusive economic zones of the 10 signatories. They also expressed concern that acceding to SEANWFZ as it now stands would affect the navigation rights of their nuclear-armed vessels and would impact their nuclear strategy. ASEAN comprises Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. 2001 Kyodo News (c) Established 1945. ***************************************************************** 12 Letter: Senate resolution on nuke waste needs closer look March 20, 2001 I recently read Senate Joint Resolution 4. This resolution requests that the governor ask the Department of Energy to construct a train route that ensures that high-level nuclear waste is not routed through Las Vegas. On the surface the resolution seems reasonable, but when one examines the message, it indicates that some of our leaders of Nevada are splitting with the majority of Nevada citizens. The resolution plays into the hands of the DOE. Nevada is in the planning stage of informing the citizens of other states on the safety of transporting the waste through their cities. This resolution infers that if a railroad were constructed to remove the safety hazard from the streets of Las Vegas, Nevada citizens would be satisfied. Northern Nevada cities such as Reno are not included. If safety is a serious problem, as the resolution makes it out to be, why are we saying that this Band-Aid approach is the solution? The resolution should state that it supports the governor's approach of putting together a publicity campaign to inform the people of the other states of the dangers of the DOE transportation plan. Sens. Bill O'Donnell, Joe Neal, Lawrence Jacobsen, Ray Rawson, Mark Amodei, Terry Care, Maggie Carlton, Mike McGinness, Ann O'Connell, Mike Schneider, Ray Shaffer and Maurice Washington, and Assembly members Don Gustavson, Bob Beers, Vonne Chowning, Morse Arberry Jr., Tom Collins, John Marvel and David Parks should reconsider this resolution and join with the entire congressional delegation in spreading the word of the danger of the transportation of the high-level hazard waste material. Our elected officials should not be a pawn of the DOE lobby. LOU de BOTTARI Carson City All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 13 Key Director at Chernobyl Fired March 19, 2001 KIEV, Ukraine (AP) - The director of the concrete-and-steel sarcophagus that encases Chernobyl's ruined nuclear reactor has been fired, an official said Monday. Following international pressure, Ukraine closed down the Chernobyl nuclear plant for good in December, but work to prevent further environmental damage is continuing at the station. The chief of the sarcophagus, Valentyn Kupny, was dismissed on Thursday due to a "gross violation of labor duties," Stanislav Shekstelo, Chernobyl's spokesman, said, without specifying what Kupny allegedly did. Chernobyl was the site of the world's worst nuclear disaster, when its No. 4 reactor exploded and caught fire in April 1986, sending a radioactive cloud over much of Europe. The reactor was later covered by a haphazardly constructed concrete-and-steel sarcophagus, a leaky structure believed to contain tons of nuclear fuel and dust. A $750 million international project to make the structure environmentally safe is presently under way. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 14 Radioactive waste to be reprocessed at Chernobyl Compiled by KPnews staff KPnews.com -- News about Ukraine Category: NATION 19 Mar 2001 KYIV, Mar. 19 - A plant to reprocess liquid radioactive waste will be built at the site of Chernobyl nuclear power station, ITAR-TASS reported on Friday. The construction plan was endorsed by the government committee for industrial policy and fuel-and-energy complex, the news agency said, citing the government's press service. The plant will annually process 2,500 cubic meters of liquid radioactive waste. The construction of the plant will make it possible to process radioactive waste at Chernobyl and to provide a number of jobs for the station's personnel who became redundant after the station was closed on Dec. 15 last year. Chernobyl became the site of the world’s worst nuclear accident in 1986 after a reactor at the station exploded sending a cloud of radiation over Ukrainian, Belarusian and Russian territory, as well as over much of Europe. © 2000 SputnikMedia.net ***************************************************************** 15 Leavitt Will Sign New Tax on N-Waste Tuesday, March 20, 2001* BY JUDY FAHYS and DAN HARRIE THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE Envirocare of Utah has lost its hard fight against a new tax on the radioactive waste shipped to its Tooele County landfill. Gov. Mike Leavitt said Monday he will sign the tax bill, which would raise about $3 million for the state over the next two years from fees on out-of-state companies that use the landfill and a tax on the waste itself. "He is signing the Envirocare bill," Leavitt spokeswoman Vicki Varela said Monday. The decision was not news to Envirocare, which says the tax will hurt business. "We were pretty sure he's going to sign it," said company spokesman Tim Barney. "We haven't asked him not to sign it." But Rep. Jeff Alexander, R- Lindon, who sponsored the bill, said it was a surprise to him. He had not heard of Leavitt's decision, saying "that's good news for me -- we got it through." Leavitt's decision comes during a delicate time in the political season. Today is the final day for gubernatorial action on bills passed by the 2001 Legislature, including some that bene- fited particular companies and others that disappointed businesses. Later this week, invitations will go out for the April 28 Governor's Gala, Leavitt's biggest fund-raising event of the year. Leavitt has been saving judgment on a few measures until the deadline of his bill-decision window. Envirocare was in that category until Monday, when The Salt Lake Tribune started asking questions about whether there was a conflict between his political staff and Envirocare's public relations payroll. As it turns out, two key political aides to Leavitt have been doing public-image work lately for Envirocare. Allyson Bell, who ran Leavitt's re-election bid last fall and who is working on this year's gala, wraps up a three-month contract with the waste company at month's end. And Eddie Mahe, a national public relations and political strategist who did $100,000 worth of consulting for Leavitt's campaign, also lists Envirocare as a client. Both consultants are helping Envirocare with its request to expand into a new business line that involves taking so-called "B" and "C" waste, which is more concentrated with radiation than what the company currently accepts. Envirocare is poised to get an OK from state regulators this spring to accept B and C waste, but the company cannot actually take shipments until the Legislature and Leavitt sign off on the plan. Both consultants insisted they did not lobby Leavitt on the tax issue. "I have never gone to the Capitol for Envirocare; there is no connection there," said Bell. "And I don't solicit Envirocare for [gala] contributions." Bell has organized Envirocare employees and other supporters to go to public hearings on the B and C waste proposal -- sometimes on tour buses paid for by the company. She also has helped shape the public-education campaign geared toward making the case that Envirocare performs an essential public service for the nation safely. Mahe also denied making Envirocare's case to the governor. "Not in any policy way," said the Washington, D.C., consultant. "We do not do any lobbying" at the Eddie Mahe Co. "Neither Eddie nor Allyson have talked to the governor about the Envirocare issue," agreed Varela. She said the governor has "lots of people" help on his campaigns and fund-raising efforts and there is no vetting of potential conflicts. Varela added that she saw no conflicts involving Mahe and Bell. Mahe is not working on the gala, said Varela. But Bell is one of four paid consultants involved in fund-raising and other aspects. Last year, Leavitt held the fund-raising extravaganza, which brings in upward of $500,000, during the bill-veto- and- signing period. He later said that was a mistake because of the perception of monied influence. But last month, he quietly helped kill legislation that would have banned him from soliciting political donations during the lawmaking session and the 20-day gubernatorial action period. Alexander declined to comment on the Leavitt political aides working for Envirocare. He said he had not before heard about Bell. "I had heard [Mahe's] name a few times during the session," Alexander said. "There was some talk of him lobbying, but that was all speculation and I never saw him." While the tax issue was an important battle for Envirocare, a more significant one is the decision over allowing "hotter" radioactive wastes into the Utah facility. Sometime in the next year, Envirocare hopes to get authority to take B and C waste, which would make the 640-acre landfill facility one of three in the nation that accepts low-level nuclear waste from commercial sources. The low-level waste, some of it with radiation levels considered dangerous for up to five centuries, includes everything from dirt contaminated with radioactivity, to medical and research waste and rubbish from nuclear-power plants. Critics have said there is no guarantee the state can ensure adequate oversight for that long a period. ***************************************************************** 16 Activist group to study Bay Area incisors Tuesday, March 20, 2001 2:36 AM MST Members are searching for signs of radiation By Glenn Roberts Jr. STAFF WRITER An activist group is playing the role of the Tooth Fairy to extract information about radioactivity from teeth collected in California. Members of the Radiation and Public Health Project have launched the "Tooth Fairy Project" in California to collect thousands of teeth from residents living in the Bay Area and in the Sacramento and San Luis Obispo regions for a national study. The radiation health group is a nonprofit educational and scientific organization dedicated to studies of low-level nuclear radiation. "The Bay Area is a very critical area to the study," said Leuren Moret, a coordinator for the study. "We want teeth from the '70s, '80s and '90s, anywhere in the Bay Area . . . and from all over California." This effort revives decades-old studies of radioactive strontium levels in teeth. These studies, conducted at the height of the U.S. nuclear testing program, gave momentum to a national environmental movement against atmospheric nuclear tests. Strontium-90, a metallic element that occurs naturally in the environment and also as a byproduct of nuclear weapons tests and other nuclear activities, collects in bones and teeth when ingested. It is one of the fastest travelling radioactive elements, and nuclear tests have dispersed the radioactive element around the world. Strontium-90 has a half-life of about 30 years, meaning a one-pound lump would weigh a half-pound after that amount of time. Members of the radiation health group have suggested that nuclear power reactors may be the source of some modern releases of radioactive strontium. Critics of the radiation health group say its Tooth Fairy study is grounded in faulty science and draws erroneous conclusions about the sources and dangers of strontium-90. Otto Raabe, past president of the Health Physics Society and an emeritus toxicology and environmental health professor at University of California, Davis, said present levels of strontium-90 in the environment are "absolutely trivial" and pose no health risks. "There's nothing remarkable about what (levels) they're seeing," Raabe added. "It's real easy to scare people with radiation." Ernest Sternglass, an emeritus professor of radiological physics at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and a member of the radiation health group, said he believes that even low doses of strontium-90 can be harmful to humans. When ingested, the radioactive chemical can affect the body's production of cancer-fighting cells and lower a person's immunity to diseases such as cancer, he said. Sternglass, who contributed to nuclear testing-era strontium-90 studies, said that according to early results of the Tooth Fairy study, some areas of the country have experienced an apparent increase in the level of strontium-90 in the 1990s above levels found in the 1980s. "When we see a rise in the 1990s, long after bomb-testing ended, there can only be one source: nuclear facilities of any kind," he said. "It can't be old bomb-testing rising from the ashes." Raabe said, though, that is not unusual to see swells in the level of radioactive strontium in humans because of the cycling of the radiation into the food supply. Sternglass said that the radiation health group is hoping to study teeth from places like San Luis Obispo, home to the active Diablo Canyon nuclear plant, and Sacramento, home of the now-inactive Rancho Seco nuclear plant, to see if there is a correlation between strontium-90 concentrations in teeth and nuclear plant operation. In a study of 900 teeth from children who live near nuclear facilities, "we find that the larger the strontium-90 is (in an area), the higher the rate of childhood cancers," Sternglass said. The teeth study in California is supported by actor Alec Baldwin and George Zimmer, CEO of the Men's Wearhouse clothing store chain. Mitchell Singer, a spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, a nuclear power industry organization, said the radiation health group "has basically violated every scientific precept." Its members apparently "came up with a conclusion and looked for the data to prove it," he said. "Very little strontium-90 is produced at the nation's nuclear power plants," according to a fact sheet produced by the institute, and constant monitoring of nuclear plants assures that these releases "are so small as to be undetectable when compared to amounts already in the environment." ©1999-2001 by MediaNews Group, Inc. and ANG Newspapers ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 Where I stand--Brian Greenspun: Casinos vs. nukes March 20, 2001 "AS FAR as you know, has the gaming industry in Las Vegas taken a position regarding the Yucca Mountain project and the nuclear waste shipments through Clark County?" That's a fair question. It, along with a couple dozen others, is being asked of gaming leaders throughout the Las Vegas community in an effort by the Nevada Waste Division of the Clark County Department of Comprehensive Planning to prepare an impact report on the proposed Yucca Mountain dump. The answer to that question, by the way, is "no." That doesn't mean that individual hotel properties and owners are not adamantly against the federal government's full-court press under way to ship 80,000 tons of radioactive waste to Yucca Mountain, because they are opposed. But if the question is: Has the gaming industry opposed it, then the answer must be a negative one. And, that which we do not oppose, we support. While I applaud Clark County for its survey efforts, I find it hard to believe that the industry or any other thinking Nevadans -- and, yes, that includes our state legislators who claim to have been hornswoggled into supporting a resolution that practically invites that radioactive garbage into our back yard (ask them why they haven't backed away from that hairbrained idea) -- even need to be questioned about where they stand on this issue. It is not as if we asked which kind of breakfast cereal people like. This one is simple. Do you want what no one else on the planet wants in their back yard, in ours? In order to get a complete picture of gaming industry leaders' concerns, the questioners created three assumptions upon which their questions were based. Here's what they said in the most conservative one: "Over the next 24 years, beginning July 2007, the U.S. Department of Energy plans to ship high-level nuclear waste through Clark County to a repository to be built at Yucca Mountain, Nevada." There will be 49,500 truck loads, which will average 5.7 shipments per day through our community. They will all move across the interstate system which means I-15, the northern and southern legs of the Las Vegas Beltway and U.S. 95. That pretty much covers where everybody down here lives. In the most conservative we are to assume no accident of any kind will have occurred and any chance of an accident is remote. But the adverse publicity that will be generated will cause property values to drop 3.5 percent within 1 mile on the transportation routes, which covers most Clark County residents. That is a small percentage drop unless you consider the fact that for the past 50 years property values have done nothing but increase. By very big numbers! The middle scenario assumes no accidents for three years until a driver, just after New Year's Day, turns his truck over at U.S. 95 and the northern beltway. Fortunately, no radioactivity escapes and the container cask remains intact. The roads are reopened in one day and no harm is done. The national attention, however, is nonstop as we know it can be. The result is property values drop almost 8 percent. The third scenario, and the one I believe is most likely simply because I know that accidents do happen, has a truck involved in a major accident at U.S. 95 and the northern beltway. This time, though, a fully loaded gasoline tanker crashes into the overturned radioactive transport and bursts into flames, which burn for over two hours. The winds carry the fire plume toward populated areas, dispersing radioactive materials over a wide area. Five people receive fatal cancer-causing doses of radiation. In that case, property values fall almost 34 percent. Given those scenarios, the respondents are asked what they think the impact would be on their businesses, their customers and tourism generally. It is obvious, or at least it should be, that just by thinking about the answers, the gaming leaders should come to the conclusion that Nevada will not be a safe place for children and other living things should any scenario occur. And if it is only one of the first two scenarios, then the leadership on the Strip will have to conclude that their business values will plummet along with the property values of the people who live and work in the valley. How much do you think you can get for your $100,000 house that is situated just a half mile from the accident site? And how much will that casino stock be worth when the tourists stop coming because the news reports about radioactive accidents become front page materi al for weeks in every newspaper in the country following the accident? And that's only if scenario three doesn't happen. If property values drop almost 40 percent, how much will the $2 billion Bellagio be worth? Two dollars? No one in their right minds would pay good money knowing full well that the first accident will not be the last. Oh, I didn't tell you that the cleanup effort could take up to a year. How many tourists are going to come a visiting in that time? Here's another question: If shipments of nuclear waste as described here occur, do you anticipate any adverse impacts on your own hotels? As my friend John says, "big red truck!" which is a nicer way of saying "duh." Or what about this set of questions: "Do you have insurance coverage for nuclear related problems?" Heck, Lloyd's of London wouldn't even insure that one. "Is there a corporate plan for a serious downturn in visitations?" Yeah, bankruptcy protection. "Is there a plan for short term disruption?" Sure, it is called long-term aggravation stemming from countywide panic. "Do you have plans for evacuating guests?" Are you kidding? "Do you know if there is a plan for evacuating the Strip?" Now there's a really good question. So where does the gaming industry stand on the nuclear waste issue? I guess we'll know soon enough when Clark County is through with its survey. It's a shame, though, that we even have to ask these questions to learn the answer. The industry should have been leading the charge against the federal government's efforts to bury Nevada under the nation's nuclear garbage ever since it was first announced. It isn't too late, at least not yet, for the money players to place their bets. Let's hope that they are betting with the house. Yours and mine! All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 2 Opinion - Dick Smyser: More about housing for blacks: early years, now In response to the letter to the editor by R.L. Ayers published Wednesday, March 14, I do not think the letter writer and I are in serious disagreement. The letter took issue with some of the comments I had made in a Tuesday, March 1, column headlined "City's black residents weren't coerced to live near Y-12." I wondered on reading the letter if the writer had read my follow-up comment in this column on Tuesday, March 7. It read in part: "I've had second thoughts about the headline on this column in Thursday's edition ... . I wrote it myself, but on second reading I wish I had stated it differently." I went on to acknowledge that, to the extent that all housing in Oak Ridge then was officially racially segregated, there was coercion. The earliest black residents were required to live in hutments located in part of the area where now are the Woodland homes. Later, and until housing throughout the city became integrated, they were required to live in what is now Scarboro Village. My March 1 column tells of the deplorable living conditions tolerated by community officials in the black housing area from the city's origins in 1943 through early 1949. It made reference to dirt floors in the hutments. On that, I was wrong, and I thank the letter writer for correcting me. The hutments were miserably crowded (four persons in a 14- by 14-foot space), had leaky roofs and drafty walls, but there were no dirt floors and I am contrite about the error. The letter writer also, however, disputes my writing that the hutment area was known as Scarboro Village. It was -- at least it was in early 1949 when The Oak Ridger began publication and, in our April 7 issue, carried two front page articles describing and deploring the state of housing there. There are seven different references in these articles to "Scarboro Village." Examples: "Three Oak Ridger staff members took a tour of Scarboro Village Wednesday afternoon and evening ..." "The people of Scarboro are living in surroundings unfit for human beings." "Inside his family hut, of which there are 77 in Scarboro Village ..." "Policemen assigned to Scarboro ..." There are numerous other news, headline and letters to the editor references to "Scarboro Village." (See in particular issue of April 11, 1949.) I agree fully that the area was frequently referred to simply as "the Hutments" or "the black hutments." (There had earlier been a hutment area occupied by whites located west of "the black hutments.") But officially, whatever officially might have meant then, it was called Scarboro Village, at least it was when I first came to Oak Ridge. The name Scarboro was logical since Scarboro Road then ran south off Oak Ridge Turnpike roughly where Lafayette Drive does now. After the Woodland homes were built and the decision was made to name streets in that area for colleges and universities (in accordance with Oak Ridge's early plan of street name patterns), what had been Scarboro Road from the Turnpike to South Illinois Avenue became Lafayette Drive, Scarboro Road then beginning south of South Illinois. (Until mid-1949, Scarboro Road was the main access road into and out of town for traffic coming or going via Solway Bridge -- what is now Highway 62 and what was then known mostly as Solway Road. The road up over the Overlook and past the Arboretum did not exist until 1949. Thus the recent detour via Scarboro Road while South Illinois was being widened was "like old times" for early Oak Ridgers.) Scarboro Road's name is consistent with the location of the pre-Oak Ridge Scarboro community with its Scarboro School, the building now part of Oak Ridge Associated Universities. The school was a pre-Oak Ridge school that then became the original elementary school for Oak Ridge's black children, this possibly adding reason for the name Scarboro Village. Now to some points on which I fully agree with the letter writer. Indeed, when housing for blacks was moved to what from pre-Oak Ridge days had been known as Gamble Valley and then, in Oak Ridge's first years, became a trailer park area for whites known as the Gamble Valley trailer area, the black housing area was also widely referred to as Gamble Valley. Police, in particular, would speak of "the Valley" in police reports. And, yes, city buses, which operated until the early 1960s, did have "Gamble Valley" displayed on the lighted signs in the front. But they had had Gamble Valley on their fronts when that was a white housing area and simply did not change when it became a black housing area. The letter writer is correct that many in the then black community disliked the name Gamble Valley because it seemed to suggest lawlessness. Thus they asked that their housing area retain the earlier name Scarboro Village. The letter writer cites the Rev. C.C. Fuller as leader in the successful effort to expunge Gamble Valley and readopt Scarboro Village. I remember Mr. Fuller well and it would be interesting to document just when this happened, not just officially but in common usage. Surely the renaming of what had been Gamble Valley Elementary School (for whites) and now became Scarboro Elementary School (for the black children from the new black housing area) helped make the change. Also, naming Scarboro Recreation Center was a factor. Whatever, Gamble Valley is only rarely heard now. On one point relative to segregated black housing, I wish R.L. Ayers would write -- tell -- more. In my March 1 column I referred only vaguely to meetings held in 1948-49 between officials of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission and the Roane-Anderson Co., the AEC's housing contractor, to discuss the new housing for blacks to replace the Hutments/Scarboro Village area. I have located only sketchy accounts of these meetings in the early issues of The Oak Ridger and in "City Behind A Fence," the excellent book about the community area from 1942 to 1946. More detailed accounts, particularly as regards the decision to locate the new housing for blacks where earlier had been trailer housing for whites, would serve local history well. They would add perspective especially to questions about Scarboro's location and both real and alleged environmental dangers to residents there. The federal government's policy of racial segregation in Oak Ridge's earliest years was wrong and discriminatory. The housing conditions in the original black housing area were shameful. Blacks WERE "coerced" into living there and subsequently also, by segregation, "coerced" to live in what is now Scarboro Village. This acknowledged, I stand by my contention that there is no evidence that the decision to locate black housing where Scarboro Village is now was a deliberate official move to house blacks in the community location most likely to be perceived to be hazardous to one's health. -- 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 * ***************************************************************** 3 DOE site upgrades production - Bill Bartleman bbartleman@paducahsun.com--*270.575.8650* The Paducah Sun Paducah, Kentucky Tuesday, March 20, 2001 *The Paducah plant has been authorized to produce reactor-grade nuclear fuel, instead of stopping short of that.* Workers at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant are making the changes necessary to produce reactor-grade nuclear fuel, a major milestone for the plant. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission authorized the higher production level on Monday in amending the plant's operating certificate. The change, which had been expected, was approved after 18 months of review and testing. Until now, reactor-grade fuel has been produced in two stages, requiring work at both the Paducah and Portsmouth, Ohio, enrichment plants. The Paducah plant enriched the uranium up to 2.75 percent and then sent it to Portsmouth for enrichment to the maximum 5.5 percent level needed in nuclear power plants. With Paducah capable of operating on its own, the Portsmouth plant can be shut down in June by USEC Inc., which operates the plants under lease from the U.S. Department of Energy. The gaseous diffusion process involves heating uranium hexafluoride to a gas and pumping it through a membrane with tiny openings that separate the uranium isotopes. The gas that escapes through the membrane barriers becomes enriched. Increasing the production level involves technical changes in the way the uranium is fed into processing equipment, and slowing the speed at which it passes through the barriers, said Georgann Lookofsky, USEC spokeswoman at the Paducah plant. She said nuclear reactors require uranium to be enriched to a level of 4 percent to 5 percent. She said production levels will be based on customer needs. "We are very pleased that the NRC has once again demonstrated its confidence in the Paducah facility and our operating team with this certificate amendment,” said Morris Brown, vice president of operations. “This positions the company to move forward with our business strategy to consolidate current enrichment operations at Paducah and to continue to increase efficiencies and reduce costs.” The NRC rejected a request by several members of Congress to delay the approval in an apparent effort to keep the Portsmouth plant open. The NRC said it had no reason to reject the amendment because Paducah met all requirements for the new permit, including new safety procedures and training. "Preparing for this upgrade has been a complex and challenging task for the plant's managers and employees," said Howard Pulley, Paducah general manager. Lookofsky said reaching a maximum 5.5 percent enrichment level should be completed by late April. ***************************************************************** 4 U.S. Lags in Nuclear Infrastructure, Weapons Skills NewsMax.com Wires* *Tuesday, March 20, 2001* WASHINGTON (UPI) – For all the talk about how the Russian nuclear weapons complex is falling to pieces, the United States should not be casting stones, two officials told a Senate committee Monday. It will take between $300 million and $500 million a year for the next 10 years to rebuild the facilities where nuclear weapons are housed and monitored for safety and reliability and $700 million to complete a backlog of maintenance, former Energy and Defense Secretary James Schlesinger told the Senate Armed Services Committee. It is a $5 billion bill that cannot be avoided, Schlesinger said. The roof is crumbling on workers' heads at the Y-12 facility in Oak Ridge, Tenn., said Steven Guidice, a former Energy Department official who is serving with Schlesinger on a congressionally appointed panel to review the health and safety of the nuclear stockpile. Workers have been issued hard hats to wear while working in one of the decaying buildings, Guidice said. There are more than 500 workers in the Y-12 complex, which was built in 1943 as part of the Manhatten Project. The Energy Department stores almost 172 metric tons of enriched uranium. "Irrespective of the size of the stockpile, we will have to revive the infrastructure," Schlesinger said. The United States is helping Russia with almost $900 million a year to disassemble nuclear weapons and store the missile material in safe places, under the Cooperative Threat Reduction program created by Congress. Some of that money goes to support scientists with experience in chemical and biological weapons manufacturing and to transform weapons industries into civilian businesses. The United States has not produced a nuclear warhead for a decade, and it has not conducted a nuclear explosive test for almost eight years. These former manufacturing plants now are in the business of stockpile stewardship – maintaining the safety and reliability of the weapons, the average age of which is now 20 years, according to Schlesinger. President Bush has said he wants to reduce the number of U.S. nuclear weapons – unilaterally if necessary – to improve security. Russia is presumed to be in favor of the idea, as it has sought to arrange for further reduction to already agreed upon cuts to the arsenal, mostly for cost reasons. But Schlesinger's panel advocates the United States building a modern facility capable of constructing plutonium cores that begin the reaction in nuclear warheads. That effort will take 10 years – time enough, Schlesinger believes, for the aging stockpile to degrade enough for the United States to have to build replacements, or at least have the option. "I do not think we need to worry about declining safety of the stockpile, but the question of reliability is a concern," he said. "In the decade that has passed, confidence in the weapons has declined. ... In the face of inevitably declining confidence, do we have a deterrent that will deter others? "As a simple caution, we must have the ability to produce primaries," he said. "Any deterioration in the nuclear heart of a weapon is of some considerable concern. We ought to have the ability to produce those primaries even if we don't have to use it." Guidice warned that the generation of scientists with practical experience in building the weapons is retiring. "If we continue to push that [date] out, we will not be able to transfer those skills to the new generation," he said. Copyright 2001 by United Press International. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 5 Editorial: Penny-wise, bomb-foolish The Cincinnati Post The Bush administration is making a grave mistake by cutting funds from a program designed to dismantle and safeguard Russian nuclear and chemical weapons. The Clinton administration had proposed a 50 percent increase, to $1.2 billion, and a bipartisan, blue-ribbon commission had recommended spending even more, $30 billion over 10 years. Instead, Bush plans to cut the $872 million annual program by almost 10 percent, apparently not out of any strategic consideration but to save money. The decision may be penny-wise. Unlike the hazy promise of a hypothetical missile defense, this program buys the United States security from the immediate threat of a terrorist or rogue nation laying hands on a nuclear warhead. The program helps Russiadismantle, store and secure its nuclear arms and helps pay for the conversion of weapons-grade plutonium to peaceful uses and the destruction of chemical weapons. The idea is to stop Russia's widely dispersed and poorly guarded nuclear and chemical arsenals from being stolen or sold off on the black market. The program also funds jobs for Russia's nuclear scientists who otherwise might be tempted to seek employment in Baghdad or Tehran. Cutting the program would also violate what the Russians took to be an implicit U.S.promise. While Bush might be understandably skeptical of initiatives bequeathed him by the Clinton administration, the non-proliferation program has impeccable Republican origins. It is the brainchild of Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar, one of the party's pre-eminent foreign-policy experts, and is strongly endorsed by GOP elder statesman Howard Baker, the former Republican Senate leader and Reagan chief of staff. Baker was co-chairman of the commission that recommended more than tripling the program's funding. Bush should restore and, if possible, increase funding to mothball Russia's weapons. The program may not fit the conventional definition of defense spending, but that is in fact what it is. * Publication date: 03-19-01 Copyright2001 The Cincinnati Post, an E.W. Scrippsnewspaper. ***************************************************************** 6 Editorial: No margin for errors The Taipei Times Online: 2001-03-20 March 20th, 2001 It was not long ago that Taiwan emerged from the political battle which raged for more than three months over the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant (®Ö¥|). The key issues in that dispute -- the safety of nuclear power, Taiwan's supply and demand of electricity, and alternative power sources -- were totally eclipsed by political considerations. Construction of the plant was halted -- and then resumed -- because of politics. The highly-charged atmosphere prevented any consensus from being reached on the development of nuclear power. The unprecedented "Category 3A" accident that occurred at the Third Nuclear Power Plant (®Ö¤T) in Pingtung on Sunday morning -- Taiwan's worst nuclear plant accident -- finally sounded the alarms that three tumultuous months of political wrangling failed to do. When environmental groups reiterated their doubts about the safety of nuclear power during the uproar over the fourth plant, Taipower officials, with straight faces, guaranteed that the odds of a nuclear accident were almost nil, citing the multi-layer safety designs of the plants. Sunday's accident occurred when Taipower's assurances were still echoing in our ears -- an indication that safety designs do not necessarily translate into safe operations. The accident has been attributed to salty deposits on electric transmission lines that caused two generators to shut down. Two diesel-powered generators that were supposed to power the reactors' cooling systems during emergencies also failed to function. The temperature in the reactors began to rise, melting some steel plates. Fortunately, a third diesel-powered generator was hauled and hooked-up, just in time to prevent a nuclear disaster. Investigators have yet to file a report on the accident, but the information available at this point indicates serious negligence on the part of Taipower and plant staff. First of all, salty deposits have always been a problem in coastal areas. Short circuits caused by such deposits are not rare occurrences. In fact, Taipower had discovered the problem on Saturday and planned a clean-up the next day. The accident came just before the clean-up was to start. Obviously, the shutdown could have been avoided if Taipower had done a solid job of regular maintenance or kept a more vigilant eye on the equipment. The fact that Taipower workers failed to connect the two diesel-powered generators into the reactors' cooling systems -- and even started a fire in the process -- is totally unforgivable. All nuclear power plants have layers and layers of safety equipment. Whenever a shutdown occurs, the diesel-powered generators should be able to start running immediately. The fact that a reactor shutdown developed into a "Category 3A" accident is a clear indication of Taipower's laxity, negligence and, dare we say it, incompetence. Taipower has been able to evade external supervision because of its special monopoly status. As a result, it relies solely on internal controls. Disaster can result when those controls fail to function. This is the main reason why environmental groups and academia cannot bring themselves to trust Taipower, and why the people of Taiwan should now loudly demand a major overhaul in the way the nuclear plants are run and administered. The company should learn quickly from Saturday's lesson and change its corporate culture. It should allow an academic organization to supervise and evaluate its operations, to ensure that it will have a multi-layer safety operations system just as its reactors do. Even though the fourth plant will have a far better safety system than the third one, the Atomic Energy Council still needs to impose very strict standards on Taipower. Meanwhile, it should also consider decommissioning the three other plants ahead of schedule. Taiwan cannot afford to take any chances when it comes to nuclear safety. There is no room for error. This story has been viewed 516 times. Copyright © 1999-2001 The Taipei Times. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 7 Italy Agrees With EU on Uranium March 19, 2001 ROME (AP) - An Italian panel has reached the same conclusion as European Union experts: there is no proven link between depleted uranium and cancer in soldiers. The Italians, however, on Monday recommended the continued monitoring of soldiers' health. The incidence of cancers in soldiers who served in Bosnia and Kosovo was lower than the normal incidence of such tumors in the overall population, said Franco Mandelli, head of the investigative panel commissioned by the Defense Ministry. Earlier this month, EU experts concluded that depleted uranium used in armor-piercing weapons had no link to health problems, findings that concurred with NATO's own studies. U.S. aircraft used munitions containing depleted uranium, a slightly radioactive heavy metal, during the 78-day air campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999, as well as in Bosnia in 1994 and 1995. Concerns arose in several European countries this year when Italy began studying the illnesses of veterans of Balkans peacekeeping missions. The Italian commission studied 28 cases of cancer from late 1995 through January 2001 in 39,450 Italian soldiers. Ten of those cases ended in death. Comparing the incidence of cancer in Italian soldiers to Italians in general, the panel found that the number of cases in soldiers was "significantly lower than the expected" number, the commission said. Mandelli did note that the rate of Hodgkin's disease was higher than expected - nine instead of four cases - as well as that of acute lymphatic leukemia - two instead of the expected incidence of one. But he said those findings were "not statistically significant," given the overall number of cancers and the size of the population studied. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 8 Finnish PM won't apologize Finnish Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen regrets that his using the term "terrorists" caused consternation - but not that he applied the term to Bellona activists. "We can not accept being branded as terrorists. Terrorism is an abominable thing," says Bellona president Frederic Hauge. Cato Buch and Runar Forseth, 2001-03-20 15:30 "I am sorry that the word terrorist causes consternation," says the Finninsh Prime Minister to Norwegian news agency NTB. "Terrorism *should* cause consternation. The term is loaded, and we do not find the PM's apology sufficient. My wish and my challenge is that he produces a real apology so that we can shake hands before he leaves. Then we may work together against environmental threats in the continuation," says Hauge. To Finnish newspaper Hufvudstadsbladet Lipponen says he doesn't see any reason to apologize. "Bellona should apologize to us, for their actions within Finland," he says. Secretary Ari Heikkinen of the Finnish Green party, which holds the Environmental Ministry in the current coalition government, says to Finnish media today that Lipponen's statements about Bellona were "a badly prepared and surprising attack against popular activism." Lipponen owes both Bellona and the Norwegian populace an apology, according to Heikkinen. Wants apology in writing Bellona is preparing a letter to Lipponen, in which the foundation requests a written apology from the Finnish PM. Meets Lipponen at Norwegian Parliament This afternoon, at about 16:00 local time, Bellona President Frederic Hauge is to meet Paavo Lipponen at the Norwegian Parliament in Oslo. Whether the Finnish PM will use the occasion to present an acceptable apology is unknown at the time of writing. Bellona activists killed Finnish fish The incident referred to by Lipponen happened in 1995, at a fish farm in Rovaniemi in northern Finland. The farm, raising rainbow trout, was infested with lethal salmon parasite *Gyrodactylus salaris*; the infestation threatening the future of important Norwegian stocks of wild North Atlantic Salmon. The Fins refused to shut the plant down, even after several pleas from local and central governments in Norway. A team from Bellona then took action, slaughtering some 400 fish at the site before being apprehended by Finnish police. The activists were interrogated and released, later to be fined some 100 USD each. A claim from the fish farm owner to be reimbursed by Bellona in the amount of 100,000 USD was dismissed by a Finnish court (those must have been very expensive fish...). Finnish authorities, enlightened by Bellona arguments as well as feeling the pressure from broad media coverage, shortly thereafter bought the plant and shut it down. The short of it then: What the Finnish PM describes as "destroying a fish farm" amounted to the killing of 400 small fish, a loss at the part of the fish farmer a Finnish court ruled Bellona had no obligation to reimburse; while the acts the PM deems "terrorism" were stipulated by another Finnish court so vicious that the "terrorists" were fined a total of less than 1,000 USD. Bellona's position in Russia threatened Meanwhile, newspapers in Russia have already started quoting the Finnish PM - his wording fitting nicely in with earlier attempts by the Russian secret police of defining Bellona as spies in that country. There's only been a year since the final acquittal of Bellona employee Aleksandr Nikitin by the Russian Supreme Court Presidium, from the FSB accusations of treason and espionage. And in the near future, environmental journalist Gregory Pasko goes on a similar trial. Paavo Lipponen does nothing to help with his unprecedented definition of "terrorism". 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 ***************************************************************** 9 Lipponen backed down In a meeting between the president of the Bellona Foundation Mr. Frederic Hauge and the Finnish Prime Minister Mr. Paavo Lipponen who is on official visit to Norway, Mr Lipponen apologized to Mr. Hauge for his statements to Norwegian press Sunday. The Finnish Prime Minister has accused The Bellona Foundation of terrorism, destruction of private property, and invasion of Finland. The accusations were made in an interview with the Norwegian daily newspaper "Aftenposten". Finnish PM Paavo Lipponen apologized for his terrorist accusations against the Bellona Foundation in a meeting with Bellona President Frederic Hauge outside the Norwegian Parliament. Dag Hotvedt, 2001-03-20 18:07 Earlier, Mr. Lipponen stated that he had no intention to apologize himself to Bellona for these accusations, but during the meeting outside the Norwegian Parliament where he had met with representatives of the parliament's foreign affairs and energy committees, Mr Lipponen said that he had now "checked his dictionary", and found that "terrorism" was a too strong and erroneous expression to use about the kind of important public work carried out by the Bellona Foundation. During the meeting, Frederic Hauge stated that Bellona always emphasizes carrying out their actions in a peaceful way, and that whatever they might be, Bellona always takes the consequences of its activities. He explained to Mr. Lipponen that Bellona's strong reaction to his statement had been amplified by the fact that the organisation only recently had cleared itself from similar accusations put forward by Russian authorities, and that such a statement made by the Finnish Prime Minister now was very unfortunate and in particular damaging to Bellona's further work in Russia. Hauge handed over to Mr. Lipponen the Bellona report on sources to radioactive contamination from the Russian Northern Fleet, and a report containing suggestions for better energy solutions. Paavo Lipponen thanked Mr. Hauge, and said that he now better understands what Bellona is doing, and that he never had meant to call Bellona a terrorist organization "I am aware that The Bellona Foundation is a generally recognized and important organization, and after having checked my dictionary I see that using the term "terrorists" about Bellona activists is absolutely too strong", Mr. Lipponen said. "I have the greatest respect for anyone who can admit to a mistake, and I regard this matter as ended", says Frederic Hauge to Bellona Web. 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 ***************************************************************** 10 Report lists testing sites for cleanup Energy department will watch underground contamination *March 19, 2001* By Glenn Roberts Jr. STAFF WRITER A report on long-term management plans at Energy Department sites details monitoring projects and access restrictions at former nuclear weapons and explosives test areas. On Amchitka Island in Alaska, the site of three underground nuclear weapons tests conducted by Lawrence Livermore Laboratory from 1965-71, the Energy Department is planning to begin long-term soil and groundwater monitoring in 2004. Cannikin, the largest U.S. nuclear test, was detonated at the site in 1971. The underground blast was measured at five megatons, the equivalent of five million tons of TNT explosives. A major cleanup effort will begin this year on the remote island, which is at the outer reaches of the Aleutian Islands chain. The Energy Department's report on management plans for polluted sites lists the expected costs and duration of efforts to maintain, monitor and contain contamination following cleanup activities. These long-term projects are expected to continue indefinitely at nuclear test sites, the report states. Soil and groundwater monitoring and the enforcement of access restrictions to underground radioactive contamination will be the major long-term aims of the Energy Department at the Amchitka site, according to the report. Underground radioactive contamination will be left in place and monitored. These activities will cost an estimated $2.87 million through 2070, and an additional $1.4 million after 2070, the report states. The report also notes that contamination at some nuclear test areas has not been fully assessed, and long-term management costs are subject to change. Underground radioactive contamination is expected to be left in place, and the Energy Department "will maintain institutional controls over the subsurface to prevent access to the test cavities, groundwater, and associated subsurface contamination in perpetuity," the report states. The Energy Department anticipates that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will continue to manage the island as a wildlife refuge, the report states. Several contaminated test areas included in the report were ground zero to nuclear blasts conducted for the Plowshare Program, a Livermore Lab effort to test the feasibility of using nuclear explosives for peaceful, earth-moving projects. Gnome, the first nuclear experiment conducted for the Plowshare Program, was detonated in 1961 about 31 miles southeast of Carlsbad, New Mexico. Cleanup of radiation at the surface of the site and other pollution from drilling equipment is expected to be completed by 2005, the report states, and underground radioactive contamination is expected to be left in place and monitored. Long-term management costs at the site, which will pay for groundwater monitoring and access restrictions, will cost an estimated $4.1 million through 2070 and an estimated $2.7 million after 2070, the report states. Gasbuggy, another Plowshare underground test site in New Mexico that will be similarly managed, will cost an estimated $5.8 million through 2070 and $4.3 million after 2070. Rulison, an underground Plowshare test site in Colorado, will cost an estimated $4.3 million for long-term stewardship through 2070, and $2.6 million thereafter. Unlike several other Plowshare sites, which are under the authority of the Interior or Energy departments, the Rulison site is under private ownership, though an Energy Department deed restriction bans digging and drilling activities at the site. Rio Blanco, another Plowshare test site in Colorado, will cost an estimated $3.7 million through 2070 and $2 million thereafter. The report lists the anticipated future of these Plowshare test sites as "open space." ***************************************************************** 11 3 teams submit bids to handle vit project This story was published 3/20/2001 By John Stang Herald staff writer Three corporate teams have submitted bids to be hired to test and assure the operability of plants to be built to handle Hanford's most difficult radioactive wastes. The three teams want the role of "operability and commissioning" contractor for the waste glassification project. The lead contractor for the work, Bechtel-Washington, confirmed it had three bidders but declined to identify them. Its procurement rules forbid releasing bidder identities, said spokesman John Britton. The Tri-City Herald confirmed the makeup of two of the three teams, which include a list of familiar contractors. One is BNFL Inc., which managed the overall contract until it was dismissed a year ago. BNFL spokesman David Campbell said his firm has joined with a couple of unnamed small local firms. The second team is led by CH2M Hill Inc., with Duratek Federal Services and Cogema Engineering Corp. as the major subcontractors, said Mike Rengel, a CH2M Hill spokesman. This team also will contain an unnamed handful of local small firms. Bechtel-Washington leads the overall project, which is to design, build and test plants to convert the site's radioactive tank wastes into glass. Since Bechtel-Washington took over last December, there has not been an "operability and commissioning" subcontractor on the job. While partners Bechtel National and Washington Group International design and build the plants, the operability subcontractor's role is to shepherd and test the construction from the operator's perspective. Hanford's master plan calls for producing the first glass by 2007 and operating at full speed by 2011. Once the plants are fully functional, the plan is for Bechtel-Washington to step aside, with a new contractor operating them until at least 2018. Bechtel-Washington hopes to select a partner from the three applicants and recommend it to the Department of Energy by March 28. DOE aims to pick the new contractor by April 9. DOE fired BNFL late last spring when its cost estimates on the project soared from $6.9 billion to $15.2 billion. BNFL is a subsidiary of British Nuclear Fuels Ltd. of the United Kingdom, which operates a glassification plant in England. BNFL always has wanted to return to the glassification project in a narrower, more focused role -- and sees the operability contract as the way to do it, Campbell said. Meanwhile, the CH2M Hill company leading the second team is a subsidiary of Denver-based CH2M Hill. It is a separate company from CH2M Hill Hanford Group, which manages the site's tank farms and a third small CH2M Hill subsidiary that is part of Bechtel Hanford's environmental restoration team. Duratek Federal Services is a subsidiary of Maryland-based Duratek Inc. The parent Duratek has subsidiaries that built glassification plants at DOE sites at Savannah River, S.C., and Fernald, Ohio. Duratek also was the melter specialist of BNFL's original team. Cogema Engineering is a subsidiary of Cogema, which operates glassification plants near Cherbourg, France. However, Cogema's glassification equipment designs are different from BNFL designs planned for the Hanford project. Back to top stories Copyright 2000 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This ***************************************************************** 12 Possible crack spotted in Hanford waste tank This story was published Fri, Mar 16, 2001 By John Stang Herald staff writer A possible crack discovered by a video camera on the inside of the dome top of one of Hanford's single-shell underground radioactive waste tanks has officials worried it might collapse. The worst-case scenario has the concrete dome collapsing into a tank half-filled with radioactive sludge. Right now, Hanford's experts don't know if this could be the case. This is the first time something looking like a long crack has been spotted in the dome of any of Hanford's 149 old single-shell tanks, said Dana Bryson, director of the operations projects division of the Department of Energy's office of River Protection. The amount of weight allowed on the ground above the tank has been significantly reduced, while experts examine the foot-thick dome's interior, Bryson said. "We're treating this very conservatively," he said. The video camera check found the cracklike feature inside the 200 East Area's Tank C-107. This 530,000-gallon tank's dome is 5 to 10 feet underground. All its pumpable liquids were removed in 1995, and about 257,000 gallons of radioactive sludge remain. During a routine sampling operation, a video camera was inserted into the tank to inspect its visible interior. The camera showed a somewhat straight, though slightly wiggly, line stretching 20 to 30 feet from the dome's edge to one of the pipes sticking through the dome to the surface. Experts cannot tell if that line is a crack, the edge of a block of concrete, a discoloration or something else, Bryson said. So far, no signs of the dome weakening have been spotted, such as pieces of concrete falling off. Tank C-107 is not one of Hanford's 67 suspected leakers, and no new signs of leaks have been spotted in these latest inspections, Bryson said. Hanford plans to tackle several inspections, tests and analyses of the dome this month to try to get a better idea of what the line is. The last video inspection of Tank C-107's dome took place in the 1970s with less sophisticated equipment than is available today, so the old images are not very good, Bryson said. The radiation, the 115-degree heat and moisture in the tank tends to fog up lenses. However, Hanford experts plan to study those old tapes for clues. Hanford traditionally piggybacks video checks of the tanks' interiors with other work done inside the tanks. Officials are now considering conducting those checks more frequently, Bryson said. Copyright 2001 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This ***************************************************************** 13 Environmental consultant discusses long-term Pantex risk study results By JIM McBRIDE Globe-News Courts Writer A draft Energy Department study that examines long-term health risks posed by the Pantex Plant should incorporate new, comprehensive environmental data, consider various risk scenarios and include input from nearby residents, an environmental consultant said Monday. Todd Martin, an environmental consultant, spoke to about 50 people including Pantex officials Monday at the Carson County Square House Museum in Panhandle. Martin recently completed a preliminary review of the DOE's Baseline Risk Assessment, a draft document that examines risks posed by the nuclear weapons assembly plant and considers possible levels of environmental cleanup. Martin was hired by Serious Texans Against Nuclear Dumping under an Environmental Protection Agency program that provides technical assistance funds to citizens groups. Martin plans to meet with Pantex officials to discuss his findings. Martin cited various flaws in the draft baseline assessment, including the use of poor, outdated environmental data and faulty computer modeling of contaminant movement through the groundwater. As an example, Martin cited recent solvent contamination that has been found in the Ogallala Aquifer near Pantex's burning grounds. "Essentially the document does not even calculate where those contaminants go in the groundwater and how they move off," he said. The study assesses long-term risks posed by various solid waste management units - areas at Pantex where contaminants are known or believed to have been released. The most serious risks are posed by seven areas, including former landfill sites, plant groundwater and various drainage ditches that came from Pantex weapons assembly areas, Martin said. These solid waste management areas pose the greatest long-term cancer risk to off-site resident farmers, Martin said. "The risks that are calculated for the offsite resident farmer are extremely high, shockingly high to me," he said. The long-term issue of groundwater contamination also is one that Pantex neighbors should monitor closely, Martin said. According to Pantex officials, a total of 13 chemical compounds have been detected in the Ogallala Aquifer. Pantex officials said only one type of solvent contamination - trichloroethylene - has exceeded federal drinking water standards. Southeast of the plant, at least 27 types of chemicals, various high explosive compounds and one type of metal linked to Pantex have been found in the perched aquifer, an upper-level aquifer plant officials say is not normally used for drinking water. "Groundwater is your big risk factor, now and into the future," Martin said. After his presentation, Martin fielded questions from neighbors and concerned landowners. Martin said that neighbors and concerned landowners should request that the completed study set reasonable environmental cleanup levels and adequately assess long-term Pantex risks. "Demand that you have a credible, comprehensive study of future risks," Martin said. 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