***************************************************************** 06/20/01 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 9.154 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER CONTENTS 1 ENERGY AND WATER DEVELOPMENT APPROPRIATIONS BILL 2 Police guard German nuclear waste 3 Eastern Ontario to get $260 million radioactive waste clean-up 4 Does Nuclear Power Have a Role As An Additional Energy Source? 5 E.ON's Hartmann eyes U.S. nuclear power plants 6 Plant in Murmansk to reprocess radioactive waste 7 NRC, AmerGen to meet on Three Mile Isl. nuke safety 8 Abraham's Long, Hot Summer Supply Deficit at the Root of 'Looming 9 EU's Monti to monitor investment, state aids in nuclear sector 10 House panel erases Bush energy cuts 11 Nuclear waste disposal: A safer solution? 12 US faults Seabrook shutdown 13 NRC to Discuss Preliminary "White" Finding on TMI 1 Corrective 14 Atomflot LRW facility enters testing period 15 NRC to Meet with Constellation Nuclear to Discuss Performance at 16 NRC to Meet with Entergy Nuclear Generation Company to Discuss 17 NRC to Meet With Exelon Generation Company to Discuss Performance 18 NRC to Meet With Amergen Energy Company to Discuss Performance at 19 NRC to Meet With PPL Susquehanna to Discuss Performance at NUCLEAR WEAPONS CONTENTS 1 Bush Urged to Abolish Nuclear War Plan 2 Pakistan Envoy Vows Nuclear Restraint 3 Russia: Analysis from Washington -- Another Dying Sea 4 Accident launch wake-up call -- The Washington Times 5 Nuclear Scientists Warn Of The Increase Of Environmental Disaster 6 Was mystery explosion a secret nuclear test? 7 Norwegian PM Visits Moscow 8 Senator OK with compensation plan 9 The U.S. Nuclear War Plan 10 Metro:Sick-worker payment plan faces doubts 11 SNS on track for full funding 12 K-25 water records missing 13 Michaels to help with sick-worker compensation plan 14 Sick plant workers could get state aid 15 Al Brooks commentary: Government has broken its covenant with 16 Technology:3 more leaks turn up in tank 17 NRDC Report Finds Current U.S. Nuclear War Plan Main Barrier to 18 Putin threatens defensive boost to nuclear arsenal - 19 Confusion surrounds mystery nuclear test 20 Pasko case postponed - **************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 ENERGY AND WATER DEVELOPMENT APPROPRIATIONS BILL FY 2002 Press Release - Committee on Appropriations - U.S. House of Representatives Vernon Hammett Vernon Hammett 2 2 2001-06-06T22:49:00Z 2001-06-06T22:49:00Z 3 924 5271 House Appropriations Committee 43 10 6473 9.3821 90 [US House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations] "No money shall be drawn from the Treasury but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time" - US Constitution Article I, Section 9, Clause 7. Chairman C.W. Bill Young, R-FL For Immediate Release: Contact: John Scofield June 19, 2001 (202) 226-5828 APPROPRIATORS APPROVE FY 2002 FUNDING LEVELS: The bill provides a total of $23.7 billion in new discretionary spending authority for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers-Civil, the Department of Interior including the Bureau of Reclamation, the Department of Energy, and several Independent Agencies. This bill is $147.7 million above fiscal year 2001 and $1,187 million above the President’s budget request. CORPS OF ENGINEERS: The Committee has maintained a vigorous civil works program. By concentrating resources on those traditional missions such as flood control, shoreline protection, and navigation which yield the greatest economic benefits for the nation, the Committee has acted to ensure the highest possible return on taxpayer investment. The recommendation of $4.468 billion is $568.2 million over the President’s budget request and $72.8 million below fiscal year 2001. BUREAU OF RECLAMATION: The Committee has provided the funding necessary to maintain, operate, and rehabilitate Bureau projects throughout the western United States and protect the considerable Federal investment in western water infrastructure. The Committee did not provide funding for the CALFED Bay-Delta project in fiscal year 2002 because the project’s authorization expired in 2000. Funding for the Bureau of Reclamation is $842.9 million, an increase of $23.2 million over the President’s request and $26.3 million over last year. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY: The recommendation of $18.7 billion for the Department of Energy is $640.8 million over the President’s request and $444.2 million above fiscal year 2001. Funding for the Department of Energy was increased over the President’s request primarily in three areas—renewable energy technologies, environmental cleanup, and nuclear nonproliferation. · The bill includes $376.8 million for renewable energy programs, an increase of $100.2 million over the budget request and $1 million over fiscal year 2001. · Nuclear energy programs are funded at $224.1 million, an increase of $1 million over the budget request and $35.8 million below fiscal year 2001. The Committee has funded the Nuclear Energy Plant Optimization (NEPO) program at $5 million, and the Nuclear Energy Research Initiative (NERI) at $23 million. · DOE science programs are funded at $3.166 billion, an increase of $6.5 million over the budget request and $13.9 million below fiscal year 2001. High energy physics is funded at the request level of 716.1 million. Nuclear physics is funded at $361.5 million, an increase of $1 million over the request level. Biological and environmental research is funded at $445.9 million, an increase of $2.9 million over the request. Funding for basic energy sciences is $1 billion, an increase of $2 million over the request. The Advanced Scientific Computing Research initiative is funded at $163 million, the same as the request. Fusion is funded at $248.5 million, the same as the request. The Nuclear Waste Fund program to determine the suitability of the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada as a permanent geologic repository for spent nuclear fuel is funded at $443 million, a decrease of $2 million from the request. This amount will keep the program on schedule to prepare the site recommendation report in fiscal year 2002. The Power Marketing Administrations are funded at $207.8 million, an increase of $2.7 million over the request level and $7.7 million over last year. The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), which includes the nuclear weapons program, defense nuclear nonproliferation, naval reactors and the office of the administrator, is funded at $6.667 billion, an increase of $90.2 million over last year, and $109.5 million less than the budget request. Weapons activities are funded at $5.124 billion, an increase of $117.7 million over last year and $176.1 million less than the budget request. The Committee provided the budget request of $245 million for construction of the National Ignition Facility. Defense nuclear nonproliferation programs are increased to $845.3 million from the budget request of $773.7 million. Funding of $7,031.9 billion is provided for environmental management cleanup activities, an increase of $699.2 million over the budget request and $253.4 million over last year. The recommendation reflects the Committee’s effort to restore funding in order to maintain cleanup schedules and meet compliance agreements at sites throughout the country. The Committee provided a total of $42 million to improve the deteriorating facilities and infrastructure at the Department’s science laboratories and nuclear weapons complex and to reduce the inventory of excess facilities currently being maintained in minimal safe conditions due to lack of funding to demolish them. The President’s budget had requested no funding for these activities. This is in addition to the $30 million recommended in the fiscal year 2001 supplemental appropriations bill for facilities and infrastructure improvements. INDEPENDENT AGENCIES: Funding for Independent Agencies is $136.5 million, a decrease of $45.2 million from the President’s request and $34.9 million below fiscal year 2001. No funds are provided for the Denali Commission or the Delta Regional Authority while funding for the remaining agencies is slightly above fiscal year 2001 levels. The proposed funding levels are: the Appalachian Regional Commission--$71.3 million; the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board--$18.5 million; the Nuclear Regulatory Commission--$516.9 million offset by revenues of $473.5 million; the Office of the Inspector General of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission--$6.2 million offset by revenues of $5.9 million; and the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board--$3.1 million. ***************************************************************** 2 Police guard German nuclear waste BBC News | EUROPE | Wednesday, 20 June, 2001, 12:26 GMT 13:26 UK A big police operation is under way in northern Germany to guarantee the safe passage of a shipment of nuclear waste from the Unterweser power plant in Lower Saxony . Several hundred officers have been deployed and the route of the train carrying the waste has been kept secret to avoid confrontations with anti-nuclear protesters. The authorities say there have been no incidents so far. Germany resumed the transport of nuclear waste for reprocessing abroad earlier this year, and the first shipments were severely delayed by demonstrations. The waste from the Unterweser plant is to be transported through France to the Sellafield reprocessing plant in Britain. ***************************************************************** 3 Eastern Ontario to get $260 million radioactive waste clean-up June 19, 2001 Eastern Ontario to get $260 million radioactive waste clean-up PORT HOPE, Ont. (CP) -- The federal government announced Tuesday it will invest $260 million into radioactive waste clean-up in eastern Ontario.  Natural Resources Minister Ralph Goodale has signed a 10-year agreement that calls for the construction of three long term storage facilities.  Two will be in Port Hope and one in Clarington.  Thousands of tonnes of the waste are being stored in temporary facilities in the area.  The waste has been there for over 20 years, since the federal government owned the Eldorado nuclear plant.  The plant, which refines uranium, is now run by Cameco Corporation, a private company. 2001, Canoe Limited Partnership. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 4 Does Nuclear Power Have a Role As An Additional Energy Source? Nuclear Power Is a Clean Solution Welcome to The PMA OnLine Power Report ( June 18, 2001 ) The electricity that powers one out of every five homes nationwide is generated by nuclear power. In some regions the ratio is as high as every other house. This is a testament to the success of nuclear power as a safe, reliable source of electricity in the United States. Our country could not and should not do without nuclear power in the foreseeable future. But let's back up. America has only 2 percent of the world's known oil reserves. We consume 25 percent of the oil produced worldwide and import close to 60 percent of the oil we use - far more than during the Arab oil embargo of 1973. Energy experts agree America can never produce enough oil domestically to meet current or future demand. Exacerbating the situation are price spikes in recent years for home-heating oil, natural gas and gasoline, the energy crisis affecting most of California, and a growing scientific consensus that global warming is worsened by greenhouse emissions from fossil fuels. All are dramatic evidence of why it is imperative that the United States develop a national energy strategy. Without one, it is no exaggeration to say that our national security and economic prosperity are at risk. That is why I am grateful to President Bush for making energy policy one of his administration's top priorities. Without the President's commitment and Vice President Cheney's National Energy Policy Development Group report as a foundation, there would be no hope that Congress could develop a national energy strategy. That is not because there is a lack of interest among Members, rather it is a reflection of the institutional difficulties posed by the split jurisdiction over energy policy among many committees and subcommittees in both the House and Senate. Everyone should recognize the importance of conservation and increased energy efficiency as the first, easiest and quickest means of reducing our energy consumption. But California's crisis proves this is not a complete solution. Ranking member Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.) and I are united in our commitment to the use of and continued research and development of renewable energy sources, such as solar power, and long-term alternatives, such as hydrogen and fusion. However, it's undeniable that even though this country is the most productive energy user in the world, our growing population requires, and continued economic prosperity depends upon, increasing our energy supply. I support increasing our use of nuclear energy as a safe, reliable source of a balanced energy supply that also contributes to environmental protection because it does not produce greenhouse gases. Next to hydroelectric power from dams, nuclear power is the only technologically feasible, economically cost-effective substitute for conventional fossil fuels in the short term. There are 103 nuclear power plants in the United States. These are our second-largest source of electricity (20 percent) and our largest source of greenhouse gas-emission-free electricity (69.2 percent). By those measures nuclear power dwarfs hydroelectric at 29.1 percent, geothermal at 1.3 percent, wind at 0.34 percent and solar at 0.1 percent. During the 1990s technological improvements in efficiency at our nuclear plants increased electricity production by 23,000 megawatts. That's equivalent to building 23 large power plants and was enough to meet 30 percent of the growth in demand for electricity during the past ten years of economic expansion. In 1999 nuclear power electricity generation also cost less than competing sources -1.83 cents per kilowatt-hour compared with coal at 2.07 cents and natural gas at 3.52 cents. Nuclear fuel is less expensive and less volatile than natural gas. It is a valuable hedge against price swings for gas and oil. The current fleet of nuclear plants will be able to operate through the middle of this century. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has established a license renewal process to extend the licenses of existing plants for up to another 20 years. The owners of two-thirds of operating nuclear plants have indicated they intend to apply for license extensions. New plant construction is also feasible because the NRC has already reviewed and approved three standard light-water reactor designs that are ready to go. There's no getting around the fact that there is a trade-off between every form of energy and the environment. Nuclear power offers the advantage of producing electricity efficiently and in a way that eliminates the environmental effects of comparable conventional fossil fuels. Nuclear power produces no greenhouse gas emissions. Since nuclear power is compact and isn't burned, it also poses none of the potential environmental damage and detrimental health effects associated with producing, transporting or burning oil, natural gas and coal. Nuclear power in the United States has an unmatched safety record. There has never been an injury or fatality from nuclear power electrical generation. No nuclear plant incident, including Three Mile Island, has ever jeopardized public health and safety due to the release of radiation. It's true that nuclear power generates highly concentrated radioactive waste. This is the basis for most of the opposition to nuclear power. It is a legitimate and relevant subject for debate. However, the fundamental question is, can nuclear waste be stored and transported safely and for long enough to protect the environment? The answer is yes; commercial nuclear power generators have been doing so for 40 years. Multiple engineered barriers ensure against the release of radiation into the environment at every stage - from loading fresh fuel at plants to moving used fuel out of reactors to shipping used fuel to repositories. Spent fuel containers are safely stored at plants, and every used fuel container has withstood rigorous tests against impact, puncture, fire, and submersion far in excess of regulatory requirements in the United States, Europe and Japan. As for shipping, during the past 40 years, 3,000 shipments of spent nuclear fuel have been moved safely. In the past two years, the federal government has safely transported more than 80 shipments of nuclear waste to the Department of Energy's Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. The government began research on the geological disposal of used nuclear fuel in the 1950s. More than 20 years of on-site research has been conducted at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. This potential repository for high-level waste is in one of the least populated, most remote and desolate areas in the country. On June 14 the energy subcommittee of the House Science Committee, which I chair, held a hearing to examine how nuclear energy and hydrogen can contribute to a national energy plan. As part of that hearing, we considered proposed legislation, including H.R. 1679 introduced by Rep. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and H.R. 2126 introduced by Rep. Judy Biggert (R-Ill.). H.R. 1679 is a comprehensive nuclear energy research-and-development bill that is a companion to legislation introduced by Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.). H.R. 2126 is meant to be a companion to S. 242 introduced by Domenici and Sens. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) and Mike Crapo (R-Idaho). The Subcommittee will mark up our portion of national energy strategy legislation on June 28. Nuclear power has been demonized in this country by misinformation, Hollywood dramatizations and irrelevant comparisons to the Chernobyl disaster. Nuclear power has quietly succeeded precisely because it is a safe, clean and reliable source of electricity. The great wisdom in our country lies outside the beltway. I am confident that with a vigorous debate about all of the relevant facts, the public and Congress will embrace nuclear power as an important component of a comprehensive national energy strategy. Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.) is chairman of the Science subcommittee on energy. Public Rightly Skeptical About Nuclear Safety We have all seen the recent headlines: "Nuclear Power May Be Making a Comeback" and "Nuclear Power Industry Sensing Political Shift." The nuclear-power industry and its White House allies must be licking their chops at the prospect of such a revival. The industry claims that nuclear power is safe, but the fact remains that people are skeptical of it. That's why community protest led to the shutdown of New York's Shoreham nuclear plant in 1987 and years of delays in building California's Diablo Canyon plant. Americans see nuclear power differently, and with good reason #TDespite a massive new PR campaign, the facts about nuclear power remain unchanged. It is dangerous, expensive and has not delivered on decades-old promises of energy security and independence. The unresolved issues of nuclear-waste management, safety, and environmental and economic costs have severely undermined its credibility. In spite of massive financial and scientific investments, nuclear power is not an acceptable answer for our energy future. One of the biggest problems with nuclear power is what to do with radioactive waste. Radioactive waste is produced at every stage of the nuclear fuel cycle, so even if all plants were closed tomorrow, about 40,000 metric tons of waste already exist and must be dealt with. For many years the nuclear industry and Congress have wrestled with how and where to safely dispose of nuclear waste. Burying waste is often promoted as the best option, but no community will back such a plan. Just ask the Nevadans who are fighting to keep radioactive waste out of a proposed dump site at Yucca Mountain. Who can blame them? This nuclear waste will be hazardous for thousands of years, leaving a radioactive legacy for generations of children to come. Whether in Nevada or not, burying our waste is a bad idea because it would have to travel through communities all across the country to reach the dump site. Accidents happen in every industry, but nowhere else are the consequences so severe and so far-reaching as in the nuclear industry. Transporting waste over road or rail in order to bury it involves great, unjustifiable risks to human health and the environment. That is one reason communities, environmentalists and politicians all over the world oppose nuclear power. Environmentalists have long known the truth that nuclear power is a bad deal. Recently, the nuclear industry has been trying to jump on the environmental bandwagon by declaring nuclear energy "clean" and therefore "green." They may claim nuclear power pollutes less than other non-renewable power sources, but the big drawback is that the byproduct of nuclear power kills people, and a nuclear accident is the ultimate environmental polluter. Everyone who works in government knows about scarce resources and trade-offs. This is why making nuclear power an important part of our energy strategy is a misplaced priority. A strong argument for moving away from nuclear energy is that the money and political capital needed to advance nuclear power inevitably means detracting from measures to promote renewable energy sources. These "smart energy" sources - such as solar, wind, geothermal and fuel cell technologies, as well as energy efficiency and conservation measures - must be featured prominently in any future national energy policy. The House Science Committee's energy subcommittee, of which I am ranking member, has heard many witnesses speak about the increased role renewables and energy efficiency must play in meeting our nation's growing long-term energy demand. Scientists, economists and other experts have testified, and most Americans agree, that we cannot continue to increase our dependence on fossil fuels and nuclear energy, as the administration intends. This dependence is what helped lead us into an energy crisis in the first place. Instead, we must invest in "smart energy" to prevent future energy crises. Renewable technologies have progressed and are on the verge of mass commercialization. With a meaningful federal financial commitment, far more can be achieved in public benefits than we ever realized from nuclear energy. And unlike nuclear energy, these are energy sources that are embraced by mainstream Americans who want clean, renewable options that will protect our environment. That is why I am drafting legislation that would expand federal support for these important technologies to position them prominently in addressing our energy future. We need 21st-century federal public policy and priorities, not old 20th-century technology that community after community refuses to have in its back yard and that other nations are now reconsidering. Our constituents want a national energy policy that will guarantee a safe, healthy future for our children. The time has come to move away from nuclear power for many reasons: the danger of radioactive contamination, the unsolved problem of nuclear waste, the threat of accident, the threat of air and water pollution, resource depletion and nuclear proliferation. However, the most compelling reason is that today we have the opportunity to create a truly sustainable energy source. If we miss this opportunity, the consequences will certainly be expensive - and possibly deadly. Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.) is the ranking member on the Science subcommittee on energy. www.powermarketers.com ***************************************************************** 5 E.ON's Hartmann eyes U.S. nuclear power plants [AFX News - Europe] Story Filed: Wednesday, June 20, 2001 4:47 AM EST DUESSELDORF, Jun 20, 2001 (AFX-Europe via COMTEX) -- E.ON AG would still buy companies in possession of nuclear power plants, as part of its expansion plans in the U.S., said chief executive Ulrich Hartmann in an interview with Focus Money, to be published tomorrow. "If we find a company that fits our profile, we would not give up the opportunity just because it uses atomic power," said Hartmann. Last week, Germany's major energy companies, including E.ON, signed an agreement with the government to shut down nuclear power stations after being operational for 32 years. E.ON has also decided to annul its contract with the Czech Electricity Company (CEZ), after coming under pressure from politicians and environmentalists, who oppose it using electricity from CEZ which runs the Temelin nuclear plant. However, Hartmann added that in his opinion, "what happens in the U.S. is of little interest to German environmentalists." das/shw Copyright 2001. AFX News Ltd. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 6 Plant in Murmansk to reprocess radioactive waste [ITAR/TASS News Agency] Story Filed: Wednesday, June 20, 2001 8:31 AM EST MURMANSK, Jun 20, 2001 (Itar-Tass via COMTEX) -- An international ecological non-commercial project for the modernisation and expansion of an installation to reprocess liquid radioactive waste has been implemented at Atomflot repair technological enterprise. It took five years to implement the project. The facility capable of reprocessing virtually all such waste of nuclear-powered naval ships and civilian vessels had started its operation. The participants in the project -- experts from Russia, Norway and the United States -- announced this at a conference in Murmansk on Wednesday. Robert Dyer, head of the United States Environmental Protection Agency, said the project is an example of cooperation of our countries in ensuring safe environment. He said the effort made for better mutual understanding which will come in handy in further cooperation. Dyer noted particularly that the project uses the best technologies not only of western countries but also of Russia. He said he was pleasantly surprised by many programmes worked out by Russian colleagues whose novelty and reliability attest, in his opinion, to Russians' successes in the area. By Vasily Belousov (c) 1996-2001 ITAR-TASS. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 7 NRC, AmerGen to meet on Three Mile Isl. nuke safety Wednesday June 20, 9:08 am Eastern Time NEW YORK, June 20 (Reuters) - The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) said late Tuesday its staff will meet with management of the Three Mile Island 1 nuclear power plant on Monday, June 25, to discuss safety concerns. The NRC said in a statement it gave Three Mile Island 1 a preliminary ``white'' finding regarding an apparent failure by plant operators to promptly identify and resolve problems affecting a safety-related pump. The plant located in Middletown, Pa. is owned and operated by AmerGen Energy Co. AmerGen is a joint venture between Exelon Corp. (NYSE:EXC - news) of Chicago, the parent of Exelon Nuclear, and British Energy Plc (quote from Yahoo! UK & Ireland: BGY.L) of Edinburgh, Scotland. Under the NRC Reactor Oversight Program launched in April 2000, the agency uses several tools to assess plant performance. Among those tools are performance indicators, which utilize different colors to depict increasing safety significance. The colors range from ``green,'' which means performance within an expected range, rising to ``white,'' which is considered performance outside the expected range, to ``yellow'' and finally ``red.'' During an inspection on Feb. 12, the NRC said its inspectors determined the bearing oiler on one of the plant's three emergency feedwater pumps was empty. Subsequent reviews by plant staff revealed that loose bolts on the pump bearing housing had resulted in an oil leak and vibrations on the pump shaft bearing that, in turn, had caused the pump to become inoperable for 39 days. The NRC said its assessment of the utility's performance during the events leading up to the discovery identified a number of deficiencies in the identification and resolution of equipment performance issues. As a result of the preliminary ``white'' finding, the NRC said AmerGen has requested the meeting with the NRC to discuss the issue. The meeting is scheduled to begin at 9:00 a.m. EDT in the public meeting room at the NRC Region I office in King of Prussia, Pa. It will be open to the public for observation. The NRC said its officials will remain afterward to answer questions. --Scott DiSavino, New York Power Desk, +646-223-6072, fax +646-223-6079, e-mail scott.disavino@reuters.com More Quotes and News: Exelon Corp (NYSE:EXC - news) Related News Categories: oil/energy, utilities Copyright © 2001 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 8 Abraham's Long, Hot Summer Supply Deficit at the Root of 'Looming Energy Crisis,' Says Former Senator Welcome to The PMA OnLine Power Report ( June 18, 2001 ) Eight months ago, Spence Abraham seemed to be a good bet to return to the Senate for a second term. Considering that his re-election campaign became a debate over immigration reform and prescription drugs, few people thought that the issue dominating the discussion in Washington this year would be a burgeoning energy crisis. Fewer still expected Abraham to be one of the key players tasked with finding solutions to the problem. Abraham wound up losing his re-election battle to Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.). Although his background is mostly in politics - he chaired the Michigan GOP, was a top aide to Vice President Dan Quayle and co-chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee -President Bush made Abraham his choice to head the Department of Energy. He has since immersed himself in the details of the nation's energy policy, and sat down with Roll Call Executive Editor Morton Kondracke to offer his assessment of what is shaping up to be a long, hot summer. ROLL CALL: Do you think, and does the administration think, that we have a true energy crisis at the moment? SECRETARY OF ENERGY SPENCE ABRAHAM: Yes, I think we have an energy crisis looming over the next 20 years that has to be addressed, and it's the difference between what we project to be increases in energy demand versus - if at least current policies stay in place - a virtually flat level of supply. Right now our energy supply, for the last 10 years in fact, has been pretty much flat. As a consequence, we only produce about 82 quads of energy per year - we use 98 - and therefore our imports have risen to 16 quad. We expect, even after major gains in efficiency and conservation, that over the next 20 years the demand is going to go from 98 quads to 127. And there's just no way to offset that kind of increase with imports unless we want to become so dependent on other countries that we in effect are really in an unstable situation. So for energy security reasons as well as a variety of other obvious reasons, we need to increase supply. If we don't, then there will be, I think, a crisis, because people won't have the kind of affordable and plentiful supply that they're used to. ROLL CALL: That's the 20-year projection. We've got California blackouts happening now. How soon will the rest of the country begin to feel the bite? ABRAHAM: Well, California has obviously triggered a lot of focus on this because they have not increased supply in 10 years in terms of their electricity, while their demand has been skyrocketing. And the same in the broader area of the Western electricity grid - there's been a lot of growth, and so the supply just hasn't been able to keep up. In terms of the future for the rest of the country, you have areas where the growth compared to the current supply is such that you can see down the road that you'll start to encounter challenges. This summer in New York City, you have challenges because they're virtually on the margin. We believe there's probably enough supply to get New York through the summer without an incident. But all it would take is one facility to go down or an excessive summer of heat that could perhaps put too much demand on systems. New York faces a problem, as do other parts of the country, because of the bottlenecks in transmission. They can't import additional supply; they're virtually at the limit in terms of what they can get into the city. We have other regions of the country that have this problem because our energy problems are not just simply supply and demand - there are also infrastructure limits that make the problems worse. ROLL CALL: Why have we not built new supply in the past 10 years? ABRAHAM: Well, there's a lot of reasons that are given. At least with respect to electricity, part of the problem is that the communities themselves in which new generators were to be built have said no, the "not-in-my-back yard syndrome." California itself has had a couple of incidents just in the last year or so in which communities where a plant was announced, where every concession that had been asked for was essentially made, and yet at the last minute, city councils or voters rejected them. So that's one part of the problem. Another part of the problem is that we have some various issues that relate to regulation. The permitting process can sometimes be very slow, and obviously we want to make sure that we maintain the proper standards of health, safety and the environment as we build any new construction. Sometimes, just as a matter of bureaucracy, the process takes too long. And we need to make sure that we're moving the process much faster so that companies can make decisions with some predictability. We've had a lot of uncertainty in terms of other kinds of factors that deal with the regulatory process, and I've got a lot of companies say to me ... "We just need it to make a decision because we can't plan a facility, we can't go out and begin seeking licenses or permits until we know what we have to build." And so there's been a lot of regulatory red tape that's been a factor. There are other things as well. I think also there's been a lot of states experimenting with the idea of deregulation. Companies have waited to see where those deregulatory plans will end up. And there's been a lot of talk that there'd be a federal electricity restructuring legislation that hasn't happened yet, reliability legislation hasn't happened yet - reviews of PURPA, repeal of PUHCA. ROLL CALL: What are PURPA and PUHCA? ABRAHAM: Public Utility Holding Company Act is PUHCA. PURPA is the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act. The Public Utility Holding Company Act is one that we've talked about repealing in Congress several times in recent years, and we've come in close but not done it, and that meant having people awaiting decisions, waiting to see what would happen on those fronts, legislatively. We also kind of put things on back burners. That combined with transmission limitations, the grid limitations, people might want to build a facility, but if there isn't sufficient interconnectivity, they can't move electricity from point A to point B, so there's not an incentive to build there. ROLL CALL: California is now taking steps to build supply, right? In view of that, why should there not be some sort of price relief, since it's not an issue any longer where they're not taking action - they are taking action. ABRAHAM: First of all, in the last decade, announcements for some 14,000 megawatts of new construction have been made, and zero has actually made it to the finish line because factors have interceded to cause decisions by companies who were going to build these new plants to be changed. The same could happen here - it's not too late - nothing is actually so close to the finish line that the decisions can't change. We think, first and foremost, that if you impose price controls in California right now, you'll make the blackouts much worse. We believe price controls will do that - they will neither increase supply nor decrease demand - they will have the opposite affect. Thank God there hasn't been a tragedy yet. But when these blackouts happen and traffic lights go out or home electricity goes out -and there are people dependent on those things - you run a huge health and safety risk. We don't believe we should make those risks any greater. ROLL CALL: But aren't prices going to so skyrocket that California is likely to be plunged into a recession, which will have a dampening affect on the entire national economy? ABRAHAM: California's blackouts are going to cause California to have far greater economic problems than the prices that we're talking about here in a market-driven price system. In fact, in the last couple of weeks prices for wholesale electricity have come down. The governor's under - according to him at least - a variety of long- term contracts now, which he would at least argue are good rates, so the future in terms of prices is being addressed. The problems with prices were largely in place long before we came into office, and I found it very frustrating. I didn't see any of this outcry when our predecessors were here, when nobody at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission was in charge. No refunds were ordered for excessive prices until we came into office. This complaining about prices from California - we don't want to see prices be unjust and unreasonable; we totally support FERC's efforts to order refunds, and I think they should be as vigilant as possible. ROLL CALL: Why doesn't the following analogy apply to California: A community neglects to dig wells. A drought hits. Everybody's dying of thirst. Along comes a man with a water wagon who starts charging a thousand dollars a gallon for water because the market will bear it. Is that fair and is that reasonable? When you have a federal regulatory commission, should it not be able to force things to be fair? ABRAHAM: They should not be able to charge any more than is just and reasonable. But we certainly don't want to take an action that causes the water to go away so that more people die of thirst, and that's what will happen if price controls are imposed. ROLL CALL: What about temporary price controls or circuit breakers or something? ABRAHAM: Well, first of all they've got a circuit breaker system that FERC's already put in place for stage two and stage three situations. Let me, if I can, just take a minute, because I think it's important for people to understand the way FERC works. Unlike the claims, FERC does not have authority over all the entities that are selling electricity in California. It only controls these interstate sellers, which constitute in the Western regional grid where they want these price controls, half the market. The other half is not within our jurisdiction to order price controls. Interestingly, they are within the jurisdiction of the state of California, in the case of the municipal authorities and the co-ops in that state. They're charging the same prices. Yet California's not done anything to put price controls on the part of the market it controls - it keeps coming to Washington saying, "Control the prices on the part you control." Well, if we put price controls in place - let's assume we just did it tomorrow - and 50 percent of the market was controlled, the other half would not be, and the other half would then be able to buy the cheaper electricity of the controlled half of the market and resell it at higher prices. So I don't think the price controls would work, point number one. Point number two: 13 percent of the Western electricity sales are sales from Canadian entities into the United States. We have no ability to compel them to sell at capped prices because they can turn around and sell within Canada. ... In my judgment, that combination of factors means that you're not going to have the same level of supply; you will drive supply away. In fact, that's sort of what has happened to California already with what they call the "qualifying facilities," the QFs. Those are cogeneration and renewable energy entities that were selling in the state on bilateral contracts with the utility companies. When the utilities stopped paying them, they stopped supplying, so they started trying to come up with a plan to give them a so-called cost-based price cap to sell to the state of California, and these companies just can't afford - they won't sell at that amount. They lose money. ROLL CALL: The President has announced that global warming is something that you're all serious about and that there's a combination of approaches involved, including use of alternative fuel sources. Yet the budget for the Department of Energy in both R and alternative fuel sources has been cut. Why? ABRAHAM: Well, our '02 submission in terms of renewable energy was approximately $90 million less than the previous year. As I explained to the committees when I testified, we did not try to prejudge the results of the Cheney task force when we put together our budget. We increased areas where the President gave us clear guidance from his campaign and his platform. For example, in the area of energy efficiency, we doubled the weatherization program because he had already made that commitment. In the area of clean-coal technology, we increased $150 million over the previous year because that was a clearly stated position. What I told the committees was, where we had guidance, we employed it. Where we didn't, we maintained programs at what we considered to be their core competency levels, subject to changes that might be brought about when the energy plan was released. If you'll look in the plan, you'll see that in the section on renewables ... there's a clear directive now to me to review the programs. I've already launched the review. By July 10 we'll have a response. I've given clear directive in that area as well as in conservation to review the programs and make new budget recommendations as a consequence of those reviews. ROLL CALL: So does that mean that both renewable and conservation are likely to get more money than you called for in the budget or that was spent last year? ABRAHAM: I don't know what the final numbers will be, but it's definitely going to change. Let me just put in perspective: In terms of renewables, what we submitted was $90 million below last year, but if you take out Congressional-directed projects, it's about a $50 million reduction. One of the areas we primarily reduced, at least at this point, were the areas of geothermal, solar and wind research. Let me tell you a little background on that. Over the last 20 years, the federal government in current dollar terms has spent six billion dollars, over 20 years on research in these areas. The research in these areas and the technology is largely mature. What we're focusing on is how to translate it. We know how to make the mousetrap; now we need to figure out how do we convert it to use. And if you'll look in both the energy plan as well as some of the things the President separately has recommended - we're talking about, for example, in the area of solar, extending the tax credit that currently applies to commercial use to residential use. We know how to make photovoltaic solar energy panels; we now need to get people to use them. We need to look at other components that have impeded, I think, the application of these technologies, whether it's citing problems that are regulatory in nature - and we have several recommendations on that - or metering problems where people don't really get credit if they've got solar energy panels, when they're, in fact, generating more energy than they need. But after 20 years and six billion dollars of research, the current contribution to total energy production in this country of solar, wind and geothermal is less than 1 percent. The policies that had been in place under the analysis of this department's energy information administration said that in 20 years from now, they would only account for slightly over 1 percent. That's not good enough, and we've got to do a better job of it, and I don't think more money on research in some of these areas is as important as tax credits for their implementation, new systems of regulation so that we can get on federal lands, we can get some of these kinds of programs more efficiently operating and more expeditiously operating. I think you're going to see after we do our review that we now, in response to the policy guidance of the plan, will be beefing up these areas. ROLL CALL: What does Congress have to do to put your energy plan into effect? What are the key priorities? ABRAHAM: There's about 20 of the about 105 recommendations that are ones that involve legislation. Some of the others call upon the various departments to do certain kinds of reviews that could theoretically yield further legislative recommendations. Among the sorts of things that Congress would work with this department on, in addition to the budget items, would be such things as electricity reliability legislation to try to put some teeth into the whole process by which electricity is transmitted. We have 11 regional reliability councils around the country; there's no national one. They don't have any enforcement teeth, and when people engage in bad practices, nothing happens to them. That contributes to some of the problems we have with infrastructure limitations. So that's an area. The plan calls for also, as I mentioned with regard to electricity-restructuring legislation, for this department to produce legislation for Congressional consideration. We'll be working with the House and Senate committees as we pull that together. We're considering what components to include in that legislation. One thing that I'm very excited about is the need for us to look at the transmission grid. Right now we've got a problem. If there's a shortage in California and a surplus in the Midwest, there's no way to move the electricity within the United States because we don't have a national grid - they're not interconnected. Consequently, you could have areas with great surpluses, areas where they've literally got blackouts happening, and you can't help the people who need help. You also have, we miss out because of the limits of the infrastructure, - we miss out on the chance, for instance, to give communities who would like to be more of a hub for electricity generation - the chance to be that, because we don't have an adequate transmission capability from those areas. We had a lot of communities that already had nuclear power or where they already have a lot of generation, and they would like to do more and, in fact, benefit as a community from it. ROLL CALL: Which of your legislative proposals looks like it's going to be in trouble in Congress? ABRAHAM: Actually there's about 30 areas of what I guess I would call legislative ideas - there's 20 recommendations, but some of them have multiple components to them. There are 30 areas where [Senate Energy Committee ranking member] Frank Murkowski's [R-Alaska] bill, [Senate Energy Chairman] Jeff Bingaman's [D-N.M.] bill and our plan all have in common, so I think a lot of it can. The areas where there's clearly going to be a debate, like ANWR, have always been out there. We knew that there would be that distinction. But on moving ahead in the area of nuclear energy generation or relicensing, there's common ground there; there's common ground, I think, with respect to low income energy assistance programs. ROLL CALL: But the Democrats clearly say the way to solve this problem is largely by conservation and renewables, and you say the way to solve this problem is mainly with nuclear power, natural gas and oil. ABRAHAM: We say there has to be a balance. I hear a lot of Democrats saying we need a balance, as well. I think we can find common ground in that balance. Just to put some numbers on the table: Our Energy Information Administration - and that's an independent arm Congress created of this department to give objective review - forecasts that over the next 20 years, the amount of quads, as they're called, or energy that we use will increase from the current level, 98, to 127. That's what demand will do. That's after major gains in efficiency and conservation. If you didn't have those gains, you would go from using 98 to 175 quads. We think over half of the difference can be made up on the energy efficiency and conservation side. That leaves about 29 quads, roughly a third of the difference, that has to be made up of increased supply. Some of that can be met simply through a better infrastructure, but some of it clearly will require us to generate more energy, whether it's fossil fuel, renewable, natural gas generated, nuclear. What we've argued is, we need more balance. The EIA says that electricity demand is going to increase by 45 percent, and it's almost all going to be natural gas generated if current policies remain in effect. We think that's risky. We think if you just increase everything with natural gas that the market for natural gas will become extremely tight, the dependency on foreign imports will become greater, and as a consequence of that, we'll find ourselves perhaps in a situation where our security in terms of energy is diminished. We want a balanced approach. I think there's a lot of ground to work together with Democrats to find that balance. ROLL CALL: What is the future of nuclear? We have not built very many nuclear plants, if any, recently. ABRAHAM: We haven't even issued a permit since the 1970s. I don't think we've built since 1972. ROLL CALL: Do you think Congress will permit nuclear to go forward? ABRAHAM: I don't think Congress, in fairness, has taken action to prevent nuclear-energy development. In fact, in 1992 the Energy Policy Act streamlined the licensing process. What we call for in our plan is taking actions that will move to the next stage. It calls for an emphasis on relicensing those facilities that meet the higher safety goals the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has set up and supplying the NRC and this department and others with more resources to make sure we monitor safety. The question of expanding - there are sort of two issues. First, can we keep the existing facilities online through their natural life expectancies? To the extent we can, that, I think, can be accomplished - I don't see Congress taking action to the contrary on that. The question whether we can build more, I think, is marked to some extent - largely in fact - a function of whether or not we can deal with the waste issue. ROLL CALL: What are you going to do on the waste issue? ABRAHAM: Here's where it stands. This year we expect, and I hope I will receive from the Civilian Waste Division of the department, the results of a multiyear, multimillions of dollars research project to characterize the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada. That science will be the basis of whether or not I make a recommendation favorable to the President to move ahead with licensing. I haven't seen it, and I won't even prejudge it. My job is to take that characterization study and evaluate it and decide whether or not we can safely store waste in Yucca Mountain, and two whether or not we can meet the very stringent standards that will be called upon for us to meet with respect to the nuclear regulatory commission's evaluations. ROLL CALL: Thank you so much. www.powermarketers.com ***************************************************************** 9 EU's Monti to monitor investment, state aids in nuclear sector BRUSSELS (AFX) - European competition commissioner Mario Monti said the commission will examine state aid to investment and operations in the nuclear sector to see if it distorts competition. Monti was answering questions at a news conference and after previous comments from commission officials that the EU's Euratom treaty does not clearly cover state aids for the nuclear sector. Under the Euroatom treaty "any investment in the nuclear area has to be notified to the commission and authorised. We are going further in the same vein and want that to be topped up and want more information," said energy commissioner Loyola de Palacio. "There may be distortions in the electricity market," she said. "The Euratom treaty -- and this is not just my view -- sees instruments in the treaty to analyse that. There is close cooperation with competition officials." Monti added that the scrutiny will cover "a deepening of investment aids. It may be interesting in operating aid." Closer monitoring of state aid and tougher use of competition powers are outcomes of a commission debate on the uneven liberalisation of energy markets in the EU, the commissioners said. "There is a clear need for monitoring of every type of state aid being given to electricity and gas producers, including in the nuclear sector," Monti said. He confirmed that the commission will also look at the use of competition directives to open up energy markets along the lines of those used in the late 1980s and 1990s to open up telecom markets. The commissioners said they had not discussed any particular companies or markets and De Palacio said on nuclear aid that "it is not just France in the nuclear industry. This is a general approach." nt/bam Copyright 2001 AFX News All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 10 House panel erases Bush energy cuts Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 11:56 a.m. on Wednesday, June 20, 2001 House panel erases Bush energy cuts by Alan Fram Associated Press WASHINGTON -- A House subcommittee voted Tuesday to spend $1.2 billion more next year than President Bush proposed for energy and water programs, underlining lawmakers' sensitivity to the West's power problems and their desire for home-district projects. The $23.7 billion measure, approved by voice vote by a panel of the House Appropriations Committee, is normally one of the more routine of the 13 annual spending measures Congress must approve. But with this year's escalating battle between Bush and Democrats over energy policy, the measure's profile has been raised. The bill would provide $18.7 billion for the Energy Department, $641 million more than Bush requested and $444 million more than this year. Fiscal 2002, which the bill covers, begins Oct. 1. It also includes nearly $4.5 billion for the Army Corps of Engineers and the hundreds of water projects it has under way across the country, $568 million more than Bush proposed but $73 million less than this year. One member of the subcommittee, Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen, R-N.J., took credit for winning 47 water projects for his state worth $150 million for dredging, beach protection and other activities, plus $248 million for fusion energy research at Princeton University. "I make no apologies for fighting for New Jersey's fair share," Frelinghuysen said in a written statement. The measure was approved shortly after top members of the committee met with Bush at the White House. Participants said Bush and the lawmakers reaffirmed their goal of keeping the price tag of the 13 bills to $661 billion, which is one-third of the overall federal budget. That would be a 4 percent boost over 2001, which many Democrats -- and some Republicans in private -- say is too low. "He said there would be attempts to raise this as we go through the process, and let's stick with him," said Rep. Sonny Callahan, R-Ala., chairman of the energy and water subcommittee. Illustrating the pressures Republicans face, David Sirota, spokesman for the Democrats on the committee, said the bill lacked the new spending needed for renewable energy and other programs that could help alleviate power shortages. Under the bill approved Tuesday, renewable energy programs would get $377 million, $100 million more than Bush wanted and $1 million more than this year. Nuclear energy, basic energy sciences, biological and environmental research and a study of whether spent nuclear fuel should be stored at a Nevada site would all get about what Bush proposed. The bill's $7.03 billion for environmental cleanup is $699 million more than Bush proposed. Programs aimed at containing the nuclear arsenals of former Soviet states would get $845 million, $71 million more than Bush's plan. Members voted to hold the brief meeting behind closed doors after citing the national security sensitivity of publicly discussing some of the nuclear weapons programs covered by the bill. On the Net: House Appropriations Committee: http://www.house.gov/appropriations/news/2002/02enrgyh2o.htm All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 11 Nuclear waste disposal: A safer solution? FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 19 JUNE 2001 Contact: Patrice Pages patrice-pages@tamu.edu 979-845-4618 Texas A&M University COLLEGE STATION - Disposal of nuclear waste has always been a hot topic, but a Texas A University chemist's new approach could lead to new waste treatment procedures - and even a boost to nuclear medicine. A main component of President George W. Bush's energy policy is to increase use of nuclear energy. However, according to Abraham Clearfield, a professor of chemistry at Texas A, "to accept this part of Bush policy, the general public must be confident that nuclear waste disposal will be effectively dealt with." One of the most common ways to dispose of highly radioactive waste is to use devices similar to water softeners called ion exchangers, which are either inorganic - mineral-type - compounds or synthetically produced organic resins. An ion exchanger usually contains a harmless element such as sodium, present in ordinary salt, which is exchanged for a harmful element such as cesium 137, present in radioactive waste, says Clearfield. Clearfield has been developing inorganic ion exchangers for more than 30 years. He has been studying their role in nuclear waste for 10 years in collaboration with Pacific Northwest National Laboratories and the Savannah River Site, a weapons research facility based in South Carolina. Nuclear waste coming from nuclear weapons plants is made of highly radioactive elements, mainly strontium 90, cesium 137 and plutonium 239 and 240, as well as other less radioactive elements. The highly radioactive waste is either extracted by a solution that does not mix with the waste solution - a process called solvent extraction - or is removed by ion exchangers. The high-level wastes are then to be immobilized in a special glass, placed inside steel drums and buried about 1,000 feet deep in salt mines, in sites to be designated. The remaining low-level waste may then be encased in cement and stored on site at Hanford, Wash., and the Savannah River Site, S.C. The inorganic ion exchangers remove cesium and strontium 90, while plutonium is handled separately. Clearfield and his collaborators have devised more than a dozen of these exchangers. Among them is a class of crystals called titanium silicates that have tunnel structures containing sodium ions. One of the most important was developed at Sandia National Laboratory, by the late Robert Dosch and Rayford Anthony of Texas A's Department of Chemical Engineering. "In these tunnels, sodium ions are very loosely held," explains Clearfield. "Because cesium ions are bigger than sodium ions, when a cesium ion goes in and replaces a sodium ion, it cannot move around like the sodium ion. Instead it gets trapped." In other inorganic ion exchangers, the ingoing and outgoing ions can each have different charges or the channels have different sizes. To study the exchangers' properties, Clearfield and his collaborators study their crystal structure by X-ray diffraction before and after the exchange of different types of ions. "We try to make compounds in which either a sodium or a potassium ion is exchanged, and then we do the crystal structure," says Clearfield. "We try to exchange a given ion species with these crystals and then we do the crystal structure again, and we see what has happened to the ingoing and outgoing species. It can take from a few weeks to many months before we understand what happened." Inorganic ion exchangers can also be used in nuclear medicine. Radioactive elements with short half-lives currently are used to determine blood flow or to locate a tumor. With the ion exchanger, it might be possible to better target the tumor by sparing surrounding healthy cells. "If you could target a radioactive species directly into the tumor," says Clearfield, "and the health physicist would calculate, from the size of the tumor, how much radioactivity to inject, you would not damage the healthy tissue around." Work is in progress and part of a project with Lynntech, Inc., a technology development company based in College Station, where most of the scientists are Texas A alumni. "The first phase of that work has just been completed," Clearfield says. "We are now waiting for a second phase of funding on the project." Clearfield has shown that inorganic materials exchange ions more efficiently than organic materials, and they can better withstand radiation as well. "For applications in nuclear waste and nuclear medicine, organic exchangers can only do part of the job," he says," because radioactivity may destroy the carbon-carbon bonds, which are essential in organic compounds." Clearfield is eager to participate in a major project currently being set up by the European Commission, called the European Consortium. Focusing on the many applications of inorganic ion exchangers, the project will be led by the University of Helsinki in Finland, with groups at the University of Aveiro in Portugal, and the University of Salford in the United Kingdom, and four industrial firms. Clearfield says that work on inorganic exchangers is far from being over. "There are thousands of naturally occurring inorganic materials that can be used," he says. "Some of them are clays, others are natural minerals. Having solved their structure, we can use the information to synthesize materials that could select, by removing them, harmful species from the environment or industrial processes." Contact: Abraham Clearfield, 979-845-2936 or clearfield@mail.chem.tamu.edu. ***************************************************************** 12 US faults Seabrook shutdown By Robert Schlesinger, Globe Staff, 6/20/2001 WASHINGTON - The shutdown of the Seabrook nuclear power plant during a March blizzard was complicated by failures of safety equipment that could have been prevented, federal investigators say. According to a report by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Seabrook operators ''failed to fully address some previous equipment problems which contributed to this event.'' The investigation resulted from a request by US Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Malden, who released the results yesterday. ''The NRC's assessment of safety procedures at Seabrook raises some disturbing safety questions,'' said Markey, who sits on the House Energy Committee. But a Seabrook spokesman dismissed the report as old news. ''There's certainly nothing new there,'' said Alan Griffith, a spokesman for the facility. The plant shut down during the March 5 blizzard. The storm knocked out power lines. The facility also has a diesel generator. ''Nuclear power plants require reliable supplies of off-site power to operate safety systems, combined with on-site emergency power generators,'' Markey said. ''Seabrook has experienced reliability problems with its diesel generators. ... If both systems were ever to go down at once, we would be facing a potential nuclear catastrophe.'' This story ran on page A15 of the Boston Globe on 6/20/2001. © Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company. ***************************************************************** 13 NRC to Discuss Preliminary "White" Finding on TMI 1 Corrective Actions Press Release - Region I - 2001- 36 - UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, REGION I 475 Allendale Road, King of Prussia, Pa. 19406 No. I-01-036 June 19, 2001 CONTACT: Diane Screnci (610)337-5330/ e-mail: dps@nrc.gov Neil A. Sheehan (610)337-5331/e-mail: nas@nrc.gov Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will meet with management of the Three Mile Island 1 nuclear power plant on Monday, June 25, to discuss an area of performance at the Middletown, Pa., facility. Specifically, the discussion will center on a preliminary NRC finding regarding an apparent failure by plant operators to promptly identify and resolve problems affecting a safety-related pump. The plant is owned and operated by AmerGen Energy Company. The meeting is scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. in the Public Meeting Room at the NRC Region I office in King of Prussia, Pa. It will be open to the public for observation. NRC officials will remain afterward to answer questions. Under the NRC Reactor Oversight Program launched in April 2000, the agency uses several tools to assess plant performance. Among those tools are performance indicators, which utilize different colors to depict increasing safety significance. The colors range from "green," which means performance within an expected range, rising to "white," which is considered performance outside the expected range, to "yellow" and finally "red." In the case of Three Mile Island 1, it has received a preliminary "white" finding in the area of "mitigating systems." During an inspection on Feb. 12, NRC inspectors determined that the bearing oiler on one of the plant's three emergency feedwater pumps was empty. Subsequent reviews by plant staff revealed that loose bolts on the pump bearing housing had resulted in an oil leak and vibrations on the pump shaft bearing that, in turn, had caused the pump to become inoperable for 39 days. The NRC's assessment of the utility's performance during the events leading up to the discovery identified a number of deficiencies in the identification and resolution of equipment performance issues. As a result of the preliminary "white" finding, AmerGen has requested the meeting with the NRC to discuss the issue. Further information on the plant's performance indicators and inspection findings is available on the NRC's web site at: www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS ***************************************************************** 14 Atomflot LRW facility enters testing period It took seven years to construct, but today the new Atomflot liquid radioactive waste cleaning facility was officially handed over. Now it enters one year testing period. Atomflot's technical project leader at the new LRW facility, Stanislav N. Pitsjugin. Photo: Norwegian Radiation Protection Authorities Thomas Nilsen, 2001-06-20 13:47 Since the construction started back in 1994/95, the liquid radioactive waste (LRW) cleaning facility at Atomflot in Murmansk has been visited by the Norwegian King, the foreign ministers of both Norway and the United Kingdom, and an unknown number of official delegations from Europe and the United States. Norway and the United States provided the financial aid for the construction of the plant, which aim is to push Russia into signing the London Dumping Convention. The convention prohibits radioactive waste discharge into seas. The total cost of the plant is more than $4 million. The new plant will enhance the capacity and the treatment capabilities of LRW atAtomflot up to 5,000 cubic meters annually. The old treatment plant at Atomflot has a capacity of 1,200 cubic meters. When the new plant enters normal operation, the old plant will be shut down. The new treatment facility use a Russian technology, based on the use of filters, electrolysis and sorbent. These filters are back washable while the sorbents become contaminated and must be stored as solid radioactive waste at Atomflot. With its capacity to treat 5,000 cubic meters annually starting from next year, the plant can teoretically take all liquid radioactive waste generated from both by Murmansk Shipping Company's nuclear icebreakers fleet and by the Northern Fleet. However, this is only teoretical, since the question about, who is going to cover the expences of the treatment of navy's liquid radioactive waste at the plant is still unaswered. 2001-01-11 Nuclear Waste Managment Murmansk LRW facility overruns new deadline1999-06-29 Nuclear Powered Icebreakers Navy LRW takes one year's capacity at Atomflot Publisher: Bellona Foundation, President: Frederic Hauge Information: info@bellona.no, Technical contact: webmaster@bellona.no Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62 * P.O.Box 2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway Menu system java script courtesy of Peter Belesis at the Dynamic HTML lab. ***************************************************************** 15 NRC to Meet with Constellation Nuclear to Discuss Performance at Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant Press Release - Region I - 2001- 37 - UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, REGION I 475 Allendale Road, King of Prussia, Pa. 19406 No. I-01-037 June 19, 2001 CONTACT: Diane Screnci (610)337-5330/ e-mail: dps@nrc.gov Neil A. Sheehan (610)337-5331/e-mail: nas@nrc.gov Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will meet with representatives of Constellation Nuclear on Tuesday, June 26, to discuss the results of the agency's annual assessment of safety performance at the Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant in Lusby, Md. The meeting, which will be open to the public for observation, is scheduled to begin at 2 p.m. at the Calvert Cliffs Visitor and Education Center at the plant, which is located off Routes 2 and 4. NRC officials will be available afterward to answer questions. The performance period to be discussed is April 1, 2000, to March 31, 2001. Overall, the NRC found that the plant operated in a manner that preserved public health and safety and fully met all cornerstone objectives during the period. A letter sent from the NRC Region I office to Constellation Nuclear addresses plant performance during the period and will serve as the basis for the meeting discussion. It is available on the NRC web site at: www.nrc.gov/OPA/ppr/calvert_eoc2001.pdf Current performance information for the Calvert Cliffs 1 plant is available on the NRC web site at: www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/CALV1/calv1_chart.html Information for the Calvert Cliffs 2 plant is available at: www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/CALV2/calv2_chart.html ***************************************************************** 16 NRC to Meet with Entergy Nuclear Generation Company to Discuss Performance at Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant Press Release - Region I - 2001- 38 - UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, REGION I 475 Allendale Road, King of Prussia, Pa. 19406 No. I-01-038 June 19, 2001 CONTACT: Diane Screnci (610)337-5330/ e-mail: Neil A. Sheehan (610)337-5331/e-mail: Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will meet with representatives of Entergy Nuclear Generation Company on Tuesday, June 26, to discuss the results of the agency's annual assessment of safety performance at the Pilgrim nuclear power plant in Plymouth, Mass. The meeting, which will be open to the public for observation, is scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. in the Carver Fireside Room at the John Carver Inn, 25 Summer Street, Plymouth, Mass. NRC officials will be available afterwards to answer questions. The performance period to be discussed is April 1, 2000, to March 31, 2001. Overall, the NRC found that the plant operated in a manner that preserved public health and safety and fully met all cornerstone objectives during the period. A letter sent from the NRC Region I office to Entergy Nuclear addresses plant performance during the period and will serve as the basis for the meeting discussion. It is available on the NRC web site at: Current performance information for the Pilgrim plant is available on the NRC web site at: ***************************************************************** 17 NRC to Meet With Exelon Generation Company to Discuss Performance at Limerick Nuclear Power Plant Press Release - Region I - 2001- 39 - UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, REGION I 475 Allendale Road, King of Prussia, Pa. 19406 No. I-01-039 June 20, 2001 CONTACT: Diane Screnci (610)337-5330/ e-mail: dps@nrc.gov Neil A. Sheehan (610)337-5331/e-mail: nas@nrc.gov Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will meet with representatives of Exelon Generation Company on Tuesday evening, June 26, to discuss the results of the agency's annual assessment of safety performance at the Limerick nuclear power plant. The meeting, which will be open to the public for observation, is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. at the Limerick Energy Information Center, 298 Longview Road, in Linfield, Pa. NRC officials will be available afterwards to answer questions. The performance period to be discussed is April 1, 2000, to March 31, 2001. Overall, the NRC found that the plant operated in a manner that preserved public health and safety and fully met all cornerstone objectives during the period. A letter sent from the NRC Region I office to Exelon addresses plant performance during the period and will serve as the basis for the meeting discussion. It is available on the NRC web site at: www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/LETTERS/lim_2001q1.pdf Current performance information for the Limerick plant is available on the NRC web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/LIM1/lim1_chart.html ***************************************************************** 18 NRC to Meet With Amergen Energy Company to Discuss Performance at Three Mile Island 1 Nuclear Power Plant Press Release - Region I - 2001- 40 - UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, REGION I 475 Allendale Road, King of Prussia, Pa. 19406 No. I-01-040 June 20, 2001 CONTACT: Diane Screnci (610)337-5330/ e-mail: dps@nrc.gov Neil A. Sheehan (610)337-5331/e-mail: nas@nrc.gov Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will meet with representatives of AmerGen Energy Company on Wednesday, June 27, to discuss the results of the agency's annual assessment of safety performance at the Three Mile Island 1 nuclear power plant in Middletown, Pa. The meeting, which will be open to the public for observation, is scheduled to begin at 2 p.m. at the plant's training center, located on Route 441, behind the visitors center, in Middletown. NRC officials will be available afterwards to answer questions. The performance period to be discussed is April 1, 2000, to March 31, 2001. Overall, the NRC found that the plant operated in a manner that preserved public health and safety and fully met all cornerstone objectives during the period. A letter sent from the NRC Region I office to AmerGen Energy addresses plant performance during the period and will serve as the basis for the meeting discussion. It is available on the NRC web site at: www.nrc.gov/OPA/ppr/tmi_eoc2001.pdf. Current performance information for Three Mile Island 1 is available on the NRC web site at: www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/TMI1/tmi1_chart.html. ***************************************************************** 19 NRC to Meet With PPL Susquehanna to Discuss Performance at Susquehanna Nuclear Power Plant Press Release - Region I - 2001- 41 - UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, REGION I 475 Allendale Road, King of Prussia, Pa. 19406 No. I-01-041 June 20, 2001 CONTACT: Diane Screnci (610)337-5330/ e-mail: dps@nrc.gov Neil A. Sheehan (610)337-5331/e-mail: nas@nrc.gov Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will meet with representatives of PPL Susquehanna, LLC, on Thursday afternoon, June 28, to discuss the results of the agency's annual assessment of safety performance at the Susquehanna nuclear power plant. The meeting, which will be open to the public for observation, will begin at 1:30 p.m. in the Information Center, on 634 Salem Boulevard, in Berwick, Pa. NRC officials will be available afterwards to answer questions. The performance period to be discussed is April 1, 2000, to March 31, 2001. Overall, the NRC found that the plant operated in a manner that preserved public health and safety and fully met all cornerstone objectives during the period. A letter sent from the NRC Region I office to PPL Susquehanna addresses plant performance during the period and will serve as the basis for the meeting discussion. It is available on the NRC web site at: www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/LETTERS/susq_2001q1.pdf. Current performance information for the Susquehanna plant is available on the NRC web site at: www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/SUSQ1/susq1_chart.html. ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 Bush Urged to Abolish Nuclear War Plan washingtonpost.com: Environmental Group Opposes Targeting Nations, Backs Arsenal Reductions By Walter Pincus Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, June 20, 2001; Page A08 An environmental advocacy group yesterday called on President Bush to abolish the secret U.S. nuclear war plan directed against Russia, China and other potential enemies, saying it is "a recipe for unceasing arms requirements by the Pentagon and a continuing competition with Russia." The Natural Resources Defense Council recommended reducing the U.S. arsenal to a few hundred nuclear weapons and transferring nuclear war planning to a civilian-military staff with congressional oversight. The study is a reflection of the ferment taking place inside the Pentagon and among arms control groups since the Bush administration launched a major review of U.S. nuclear strategy. That review is expected to be completed this summer. Some scientists at U.S. weapons laboratories have called for a resumption of underground nuclear testing and the development of new types of warheads. Other experts have argued for mutual reductions in the American and Russian arsenals. Bush has held out the prospect of unilateral U.S. reductions, along with efforts to build missile defenses and to develop a new strategic framework for the post-Cold War era. The nuclear war plan, known as the single integrated operation plan, or SIOP, was first developed in 1960 at the height of the Cold War. It called for thousands of warheads to be aimed at Soviet targets, including factories, command bunkers, and nuclear and conventional military forces. Under the latest SIOP, approved by President Bill Clinton in 1997, more than 2,000 warheads are kept on constant alert on land- and sea-based missiles. They are able to respond within 30 minutes in the event of a surprise attack on the United States from Russia, China or another nation. "At this stage in the disarmament process," the NRDC contended in a report released yesterday, "a U.S. stockpile numbering in the hundreds is more than adequate to achieve the single purpose of deterrence." The organization's two-year study of simulated nuclear effects predicted that even a U.S. strike that avoided big cities but attempted to knock out Russian missile silos and other nuclear forces -- a "counterforce" attack -- would kill 8 million to 12 million Russians. A separate NRDC study concluded that a single U.S. Trident missile submarine, which carries 192 nuclear warheads, could inflict "in excess of 50 million casualties" if the missiles were aimed at Russian cities. Referring to Bush's repeated statement that Russia is not an enemy, the environmental group urged the administration to drop the SIOP and place nuclear targeting on a "contingency" basis. This would mean the United States would "not target any country specifically, but create a contingency war planning capability to assemble attack plans in the event of hostilities with another nuclear state," it said. Robert S. Norris, a senior analyst for the NRDC, said, "Any proposal by the Bush administration that does not abandon counterforce as the ruling assumption and strategy for the war plan is flawed and dangerous." The process of developing the SIOP begins with formal guidance from the president on the broad goals of U.S. nuclear planning. The secretary of defense then produces a policy on the use of nuclear weapons. The Joint Chiefs of Staff refine that into a document that sets targeting and damage criteria. Finally, the U.S. military's Strategic Command writes the SIOP, setting specific targets and the number and type of warheads aimed at them. The NRDC described the Strategic Command's war planners as "a self-perpetuating constituency that needs fundamental reform." Noting that the SIOP "has its own level of classification" far above top secret, it said Congress "has been powerless" to affect or even scrutinize the war plans. For example, former senator Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.) tried during his last two years in office to legislate a reduction in the number of U.S. nuclear weapons and limit those on alert, but was repeatedly denied access to information about the SIOP. © 2001 The Washington Post Company ***************************************************************** 2 Pakistan Envoy Vows Nuclear Restraint June 19, 2001 WASHINGTON- Pakistani Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar said Tuesday that his country will refrain from further nuclear testing so long as India shows similar restraint. Sattar met with Secretary of State Colin Powell for 90 minutes, hoping to reverse the decline in Pakistani influence in Washington after the Cold War-era partnership between the two countries. U.S. relations with Pakistan have been damaged by a number of factors, including the close ties Pakistan maintains with the Taliban militia in Afghanistan. The Taliban is harboring terrorist suspect Osama bin Laden, who is wanted in the bombing of two U.S. embassies in East Africa in 1998. Powell indicated he was satisfied with the meeting. "There was no issue we could not discuss in a spirit of openness and candor, reflecting the great respect that we have for Pakistan," he said. He added that he was encouraged by Sattar's account of the preparations Pakistan is making for restoring democracy next year. The country has been under military rule since October 1999. Later, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher was asked about the nature of the discussion between Powell and Sattar on Pakistan's support for the Taliban. "The secretary made quite clear that the relationship with the Taliban was a matter of great importance to the United States," Boucher said. Afghanistan is under United Nations Security Council sanctions because of its harboring of terrorists. On the nuclear issue, Sattar said he told Powell that "Pakistan will maintain the moratorium on further tests, that Pakistan will not be the first country to resume testing in the future, as we were not the first country to conduct tests in the past." Boucher said Powell welcomed that commitment. He also indicated that the United States is no longer exhorting Pakistan and India - as the Clinton administration did - to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. This is an apparent reflection of the administration's own reservations about that treaty. Powell said he informed Sattar of what Pakistan must do to get out from under sanctions, some of which have been in effect for more than a decade. Others stem from the 1998 period when first India, then Pakistan, carried out a series of underground nuclear tests. The Bush administration hopes to phase out sanctions against both countries over time - to the extent permitted by law. Sattar said, "This is a moment of hope in relations between Pakistan and India," a reference to the upcoming Kashmir summit meeting between the leaders of the two countries. Powell said he supports the meeting. "Any time leaders of two great countries get together to discuss issues of enormous complication, it's got to be a good thing," he said. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 3 Russia: Analysis from Washington -- Another Dying Sea By Paul Goble Washington, 19 June 2001 (RFE/RL) -- The Sea of Azov is dying, but none of the prescriptions being recommended by experts to save it appear to be either economically or politically possible. Russian scholars told a Moscow newspaper last week that the Sea of Azov in southern Russia is now at the point of catastrophe. The amount of water flowing into the sea has declined by 15 cubic kilometers over the last 40 years, the salinity of its waters has increased by three percent, and the amount of petroleum and heavy metal pollution has increased as well, with large amounts of radioactive materials now being recorded. As a result, the scholars told "Vremya MN" that the sea's formerly rich biological diversity is being destroyed. Commercial fishing yields have fallen 97 percent since the 1970s, and many unique species have become extinct. If current trends continue, the Sea of Azov will become yet another dead sea, a body of water that cannot support either life within it or the lives of the people who live around it. According to the scholars that work at the Azov Fisheries Research Institute, people and governments have long known what was happening but have been unable or unwilling to do something about it. More than 20 years ago, scholars there and in Moscow developed a mathematical model of the Sea of Azov, one that accurately predicted both what would happen to the sea and what human beings needed to do to save it. According to the newspaper, several steps must be taken now if this body of water is to avoid a premature death. Commercial fishing should be prohibited for about 20 years, and poaching prevented. Moreover, the government must insist that any industrial waste being discharged into the sea be processed so as not to harm the environment. Shipping must also be reduced, and any oil and gas exploration and processing simply banned. But as the paper notes, "everyone understands that the realization of such plans is unrealistic." No one is going to be willing to stop the construction of a major terminal on the Sea of Azov or close the existing Taganrog port. For even the minimal steps, such as cleaning industrial discharge, "there are no means," the experts said. And because of the economic hardships the region is suffering, there is little willingness to crack down hard on poaching. As a result, the experts told the paper, about the only thing the Russian government can be expected to do is to control and regulate the amount of fish harvested each year and try to save a few of the species now threatened with extinction. Such steps will not save the sea, but they may prolong its life for a few additional years. The sad fate of the Sea of Azov is especially disturbing because of the matter-of-fact way the newspaper reports it. Many people have been agitated for a long time about the pollution of Lake Baikal in Siberia and about the drying up of the Aral Sea in Central Asia. Indeed, both of these developments have helped to power environmental and even political movements. But the Sea of Azov has not attracted equal attention or generated an analogous political response. Instead, a small group of scholars has complained to a single newspaper, and both the scholars and the newspaper seem convinced that Moscow does not have the necessary funds to act and that nothing is likely to be done. Given Russia's various problems, they may be right. But the problems in the Sea of Azov are likely to have an impact on other countries as well. The Sea of Azov drains into the Black Sea, and consequently, its problems are likely to become problems for that larger body of water, affecting fishing and commerce for all the littoral states. And because the Black Sea connects to the Mediterranean, its problems can in turn affect an enormous area. Fifty years ago, few thought that the drying up of the Aral Sea would happen or would matter. Now, as the body of water approaches its end, the disappearance of the Aral is affecting the health of people across Central Asia and weather around the entire northern hemisphere. Now, as the article in the Moscow newspaper last week makes clear, few people seem to care about the fate of the Sea of Azov. But the problems the newspaper describes strongly suggest that the impact of the death of that sea will be seen far sooner than 50 years from now. © 1995-2001 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc., All Rights Reserved. http://www.rferl.org ***************************************************************** 4 Accident launch wake-up call -- The Washington Times June 20, 2001 James Hackett Twice in the past month accidents involving Russian missiles and missile warning systems have served to remind us that the possibility of a nuclear accident still exists. In the most recent incident a surface-to-air missile complex in the Moscow region´s Ramenskoye district exploded on June 8, destroying three S-300 missile launchers and 12 missiles. Eyewitnesses said they saw what appeared to be a missile launch following the explosion and Moscow television reported two missiles were launched. But a Russian Air Force spokesman said there were no launches. Whether a missile was launched or not, one or more might have been. A short-circuit in a missile engine is believed to have caused the explosion and resulting fire. Windows were broken in a nearby town, where witnesses said they counted six loud explosions and saw a mushroom cloud rising over the forest. But it was not a nuclear explosion these missiles normally are not nuclear-armed. The S-300 is Russia´s counterpart to America´s Patriot, a solid-fuel missile designed to intercept aircraft, cruise missiles, and short-range ballistic missiles. It is in widespread service in Russia, and Moscow is eagerly trying to sell it abroad. Less than a month earlier, on May 10, a major fire broke out at a mission control center of Russia´s military space forces near Kurilovo, some 60 miles southwest of Moscow, causing a loss of contact with four military satellites. The fire, reportedly caused by a short-circuit in a power cable, broke out at 2:30 in the morning and was so severe that the three-story command center was still burning at noon. The function of the military satellites that were out of service was not reported. Whether missile early warning satellites or military communications satellites, they could play an important role in Russia´s ability to maintain control of its nuclear missiles. Remember 1995, when a sounding rocket launched from Norway caused Russian nuclear missile forces to go on alert and President Boris Yeltsin´s nuclear briefcase was activated, ready to launch a missile attack on the U.S.? Even a brief, unexpected interruption in the functioning of Moscow´s early warning satellites could be dangerous. These two recent incidents are only the latest in a string of accidents that reflect Russia´s declining infrastructure, diminishing military effectiveness, and lack of funds. Last August, the explosion and sinking of the Kursk nuclear submarine was followed by a major fire in the Ostankino TV tower that knocked out Moscow television. With infrastructure that has not been modernized for 20 to 30 years, more disasters are waiting to happen. The Russian economy has been buoyed this year by the high price of oil on the world market, but the next downturn in price could produce an acceleration of Russia´s infrastructure decline. Last year an article in the paper Komsomolskaya Pravda claimed that the unnatural Soviet economy had forced technological expansion beyond the country´s means. Now, with few resources to modernize the aging infrastructure the chance of a nuclear disaster or crisis involving Russia´s huge stockpile of nuclear weapons will increase. All of Russia´s intercontinental and sea-launched ballistic missiles, except for the 26 new SS-27s produced over the past three years, will be obsolete by 2010 and should be retired. Since Russia is not an enemy, there has been a tendency to forget its nuclear-armed missiles. The main reason for a national missile defense is to prevent missile-armed countries from using their weapons to blackmail or intimidate, and to stop any missile that a rogue state may launch. But another important reason is to stop an accidental or unauthorized launch from any country. The main concern in this regard has to be the 736 intercontinental ballistic missiles and hundreds of submarine-launched missiles still operational in Russia and carrying some 6,000 aging nuclear warheads. The decline of Russia´s command and control network, with equipment that tends to have "short-circuits," is sending us a warning. The time is short to deploy at least an initial missile defense to deal with an accidental launch, and to accelerate the disassembly of nuclear weapons, both here and in Russia. President Bush is on the right track in seeking a new strategic framework that moves away from mutual suicide, toward deep reductions in nuclear weapons, and deployment of a national missile defense. The plan to put even a handful of interceptors in silos in Alaska by 2004 or 2005 should be pursued with vigor. Moscow´s deteriorating missile control system may not wait. James T. Hackett is a contributing writer to The Washington Times based in San Diego. All site contents copyright © 2001 News World ***************************************************************** 5 Nuclear Scientists Warn Of The Increase Of Environmental Disaster Threat Pravda.RU Jun, 20 2001 Russian nuclear scientists warn of an impending environment disaster in case of non-adoption of bills to regulate import to Russia, storage and processing of irradiated nuclear fuel. On Tuesday a meeting of the Board of the Central Committee of trade unions of workers of the Ministry of Atomic Energy adopted a unanimous statement addressed to members of the Federation Council (parliament's upper house) and the Russian public which emphasized that "nuclear bills are of key importance for the industry as they permit to direct revenues to ensure their safety, to develop special ecological programmes aimed at preservation of public health in dozens of regions of the country". As the statement indicated, irradiated nuclear fuel was the fuel of the 21 century, application of which would allow to replace exhausted reserves of oil and gas, and achieve significant economy. Atomic scientists are of the opinion that eventually the extraction of such raw material will permit to sharply reduce the load on ecologically unclean production operations. Failure to solve this problem will lead to significant increase of risks associated with the elimination of consequences of nuclear accidents and utilization of irradiated nuclear fuel. The statement stresses that "the country will simply lack resources to ensure normal storage of domestic spent nuclear fuel accumulated in the recent years. The risk of ecological influence will raise to an inadmissible level within a mere 5 to 7 years". The statement of the Central Committee of trade unions of workers of the Atomic Ministry emphasizes that "thirty years of experience in dealing with irradiated nuclear fuel permits us to state that the planned operations will be conducted safely for the personnel, population and the environment". Pravda.RU:Society ***************************************************************** 6 Was mystery explosion a secret nuclear test? New Scientist Monday June 18, 07:35 PM By Rob Edwards WESTERN governments may have detonated a nuclear bomb in a pristine area of Australian tropical rainforest at the height of the cold war. Declassified documents reveal that in 1963, Britain, the US and Australia set off a 50-tonne bomb in the rainforest at Iron Range in north Queensland as part of a secret military experiment codenamed Operation Blowdown. That is about 25 times more powerful than the explosion Timothy McVeigh triggered six years ago in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people. The blast tested how the rainforest would react to such an impact. Iron Range, a haunt for parrots, cockatoos and cassowaries, is the largest area of lowland rainforest in Australia. Australian documents describe it as a nuclear explosion, but the British government claims it was a conventional bomb designed to simulate an air-detonated nuclear device. Britain's Ministry of Defence insists it was a conventional bomb made of TNT. It was detonated close to the ground to simulate the effects of a 10-kilotonne nuclear explosion in the air, an MoD spokeswoman says. "There was no radiation hazard." However, declassified records in the National Archives of Australia in Canberra describe Operation Blowdown as "an investigation into the effect of nuclear explosions in a tropical forest". And a medal citation for an Australian sergeant in charge of the operation explicitly refers to it as "an airburst nuclear device". Brian Stanislaus Hussey was awarded the British Empire Medal in 1965 for supervising army equipment during Operation Blowdown. Three years later he died from multiple cancers, aged 45. His daughter, Marie Strain, blames the operation for her father's death. "I want to know why the nuclear tests had to be done," she says. Comments to: news-admin@yahoo.co.uk ***************************************************************** 7 Norwegian PM Visits Moscow June 20, 2001, updated at 16:05(GMT+8) On the final day of his visit to Russia, Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said Tuesday that he had brought Russian officials a package of proposals on joint responses to naval accidents such as the explosion and sinking of the Kursk nuclear submarine, Russian media reported. The Norwegian leader was also interested in increasing bilateral cooperation in developing energy, fisheries and environmental protection, he told reporters on arrival in Moscow on Monday evening. Stoltenberg met Tuesday morning with Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, and Russian President Vladimir Putin was scheduled to receive him in the Kremlin later Tuesday. Norway's ministers of defense, environmental protection, railways and transport accompanied Stoltenberg to the Russian capital. In spite of improved ties following the end of the Cold War, the two northern neighbors are divided by a number of disputes. Moscow has objected to proposed Norwegian environmental restrictions on activities on the Arctic Svalbard archipelago, which Oslo controls but where other countries are allowed to conduct non-military activities. Russia operates a mining company on one of the islands, Spitsbergen, and about 900 Russians live in a mining town there. Norway is concerned about nuclear waste on the Kola peninsula, where northwestern Russia borders Norway and where more than 100 aging nuclear submarines are stored at Russian Northern Fleet bases. Most are rusted hulks, often with nuclear fuel on board, according to Bellona, a Norwegian environmental group. ITAR-Tass and Russian state television said Stoltenberg intended to propose establishment of joint early warning systems and rescue operations to respond to crises such as the sinking of the Kursk nuclear submarine last summer. Copyright by People's Daily Online, all rights reserved | ***************************************************************** 8 Senator OK with compensation plan June 20, 2001 By Frank Munger News-Sentinel senior writer [Frank Munger] Sen. Fred Thompson was in Oak Ridge this week in the company of Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, his friend from their years together in the Senate. Sen. Fred Thompson was in Oak Ridge this week in the company of Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, his friend from their years together in the Senate. During a break on their tour, I asked Thompson about the status of the compensation program for sick workers at federal nuclear facilities in Oak Ridge and elsewhere. Some former workers have complained that the plan being implemented by the Labor Department is too restrictive and provides financial assistance to a relatively small percentage of those made sick by workplace exposures. Should the plan be broadened? "I think a little farther down the road," Thompson said. "But we better get what we've got in our position first. We went from zero to where we are, and although none of us feel like it is absolutely everything we want, it's a whole lot better than anybody ever thought we'd get or what we've had in the past. "So let's get that in operation and get those claims processed. It's going to cover a lot of people adequately. Some it may not. But we'll have time to address those." * EEEK: No, folks, they don't allow strip-mining in the city of Oak Ridge (not even for uranium), it just looks that way. Where once visitors were greeted by wooded hillsides as they entered the Atomic City via Highway 62 (Illinois Avenue), they now get to see a ridge top being whacked to the dirt line to make way for a group of storage buildings or some other contemporary business venture. For those who remember a pretty view of years ago, well, hold that thought -- it's disappearing fast. * DON'T DO IT: The scientific staff at Oak Ridge National Laboratory got another security reminder recently, this time warning them not to send anything -- even research results published in the open literature -- to terrorist states. "Although openly published literature is not subject to export control, DOE's policy does not support interaction with seven terrorist countries: Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan, Syria," the memo said. "Simply put, government funds should not be used to reproduce, mail, ship, or e-mail open published literature or fundamental research to these countries; therefore, DOE funds should not be used to support any interaction." ORNL Director Bill Madia said he did not think any incident prompted the warning. "Nothing specific, but over the past three to six months, we've been monitoring materials going out of the country -- just because of the general concern .... This is a regular reminder that these kinds of communications are embargoed." Oak Ridge counter-intelligence chief Fred Evans said there is a need to continuously refresh workers about the rules and regulations. Although the recent warning wasn't necessarily prompted by a security incident, Evans said he does recall a situation several months ago where workers in the ORNL mailroom saw a package addressed to someone in one of the forbidden countries. The mailroom folks contacted the counter-intelligence folks, who in turn talked with the lab staffer. It turned out to be an innocent situation, where the guy was simply fulfilling a request for information and didn't remember that rule, which bars any communications with federal resources. In other words: no pen pals in Damascus or Havana. * BACKTALK: John Mitchell, the president and general manager of BWXT, the contractor at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant, said he doesn't worry about people talking about him behind his back. "My style is such that people normally don't have to talk behind my back," he said. "I'm more than willing to deal with them up front." He has an interesting perspective of Oak Ridge, coming to the Atomic City last year when the partnership of Bechtel and BWX Technologies won the big contract at Y-12. "Oak Ridge is a very good community. It's got a lot of history, and we need to help it get more future. One of the things you find with people like me, when you show up we know about the history, but we didn't live it. But the future is really real because we're going to live that. So, sometimes what we focus on is slightly different from other people." He said Y-12's relationship with the city of Oak Ridge is different than what's he seen at any other DOE location, partly because of the plant's physical presence so close to town. "It's a much closer relationship, and therefore you have to participate in it that way .... Every employee I have at the site, as far as I know, has at least four relatives who've worked at Y-12 before .... That means, like everything else, if the relationship is much tighter, there's stresses and strains and pulls and priorities and stuff." Senior Writer Frank Munger covers the Department of Energy for the News-Sentinel. He can be reached at 865-482-9213 or at twig1@knoxnews.infi.net. This column is also available on the Web at www.knoxnews.com/editorsview/munger/ ***************************************************************** 9 The U.S. Nuclear War Plan NRDC: Natural Resources Defense Council - Nuclear Weapons & Waste: In Depth: Report A Time for Change This June 2001 report from NRDC's nuclear program offers an independent assessment of the U.S. nuclear war planning process and the assumptions and logic of the SIOP, or Single Integrated Operational Plan, a Cold War relic that continues to guide U.S. nuclear war plans. Using customized computer software and a vast aggregation of declassified and open-source data to closely approximate the tools that SIOP planners use, NRDC has simulated a U.S. attack against Russian nuclear forces and attacks against Russian cities. The report includes a description of the history, evolution and working process of SIOP; detailed descriptions of the NRDC nuclear war simulation model and target database; and policy recommendations. This report is available in full in pdf format. Clicking on a pdf link will open the file in your browser window. If you plan to save the files on your own computer, we recommend right-clicking instead to save time by saving without first viewing the files. See note re printing. The Executive Summary is also available as an html webpage. Table of Contents PDF Files Executive Summary TOC to Ch. 2 - 103k Chapter One: Purpose and Goals Chapter Two: U.S. Single Integrated Operational Plan and U.S. Nuclear Forces Chapter Three: The NRDC War Simulation Model Ch. 3 - .99M Chapter Four: Attacking Russia's Nuclear Forces Ch. 4 - 2.91M Chapter Five: Attacking Russian Cities: Two Countervalue Scenarios Ch. 5 - 1.16M Chapter Six: Conclusions and Policy Recommendations Ch. 6 to End - 273k Appendix A: Functional Classification Codes Appendix B: Data Fields in the NRDC Russian Target Database Appendix C: NRDC Russian Target Database Target Classes, Categories and Types Appendix D: Nuclear Weapons Effects Equations About the Authors Note regarding printing: Chapters 3, 4 and 5 are large files and contain many maps, photos, charts, and other images. Older printers or printers with limited memory may have difficulty printing these files. We recommend printing page-by-page or in batches. ***************************************************************** 10 Metro:Sick-worker payment plan faces doubts 06/20/01 Web posted Wednesday, June 20, 2001 By Brandon Haddock Staff Writer Former SRS employee Wayne Chandler of Lexington, S.C., speaks about on his health problems. A public meeting was held Tuesday to discuss a worker compensation plan. ANNETTE M. DROWLETTE/STAFF For some people, the assurance that the federal government finally plans to compensate sick nuclear-weapons workers was enough. For others, a payment will be the only proof. ''If they ever give us anything, I'll believe it when I see it,'' said Eloise Roberts, a former Savannah River Site worker who attended a public meeting Tuesday in North Augusta about the federal plan to compensate sick workers at SRS and other nuclear-weapons sites. More than 400 people attended the two meetings about the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act. The act, which will take effect July 31, will provide lump-sum payments of $150,000 to some current and former sick workers. Eligible workers also will receive compensation for medical expenses from the date their claims were filed. Many people who attended Tuesday's meetings indicated that they might file claims because of cancer. Such claims will be screened using guidelines developed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said Jeffrey Nesvet, a deputy associate solicitor for the U.S. Department of Labor. If the department finds a 50 percent or greater chance that a person's cancer was caused by nuclear-weapons work, then that employee or survivors would become eligible for benefits, Mr. Nesvet said. Some studies suggest that a few SRS workers also might qualify for benefits because of beryllium sensitivity. The condition, similar to an allergy, can develop into chronic beryllium disease, an inflammation of the lungs caused by exposure to beryllium, a metal used in weapons production. In addition, the Energy Department must help employees found to suffer from work-related illnesses not covered by the federal program, such as asbestosis, Energy Department officials said. The agency will help those workers file state workers' compensation claims, said Jeff Eagan, a special assistant in the Energy Department's Office of Environment, Safety and Health. But some attendees questioned whether help truly was on the way. They noted the Energy Department's historic denials that anyone was sickened from weapons work, and the difficulty many employees have faced in receiving complete medical records from the agency and its contractors. ''I don't see any hope for sick people, period,'' said Freddie Fulmer, an Aiken resident who suffers from a multitude of diseases he says were caused by his work at SRS. ''This is just a way to make people happy, to have another meeting. I have been to meetings like this since 1999.'' Eartha Rogers worked at SRS for more than 14 years and said she was unjustly fired shortly after she was diagnosed with lupus. Ms. Rogers plans to file for benefits, but said she is skeptical because officials will determine how much exposure employees suffered, something she says they won't accurately do. ''I can't tell you how many nights I stayed late while they cut our clothes off and scrubbed us down after working,'' she said. Federal officials urged critics to give the program a chance. An Energy Department spokesman acknowledged that some workers' medical records were incomplete, but said that shouldn't prevent anyone from applying for help. ''I'm glad the issue is being addressed, and I would encourage people to apply through whatever program through which they can receive benefits,'' said Bill Taylor, an Energy Department spokesman at SRS. Curtis Young, who attended the Tuesday evening meeting, suffers from heart maladies and other conditions, problems he says are a result of working at SRS for more than 30 years. He said he is glad the compensation plan now exists, but wishes more people qualified. ''There should be no question about it,'' Mr. Young said. ''The government should compensate people for all those years of exposure.'' The Labor and Energy departments will open a resource center in North Augusta to help people seeking to file claims, Mr. Eagan said. The center will be open before July 31, he said. Getting compensation The Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program will provide lump-sum payments of $150,000, plus medical expenses from the date of claim, to some employees sickened from work at nuclear-weapons plants, including Savannah River Site. In some cases, surviving family members of deceased workers also will be eligible for benefits. Illnesses covered by the program include radiation-induced cancers and chronic beryllium disease. People diagnosed with beryllium sensitivity will be eligible for medical screenings. If their condition advances into chronic beryllium disease, they will become eligible for the compensation package. The program also will compensate groups of employees who contracted particular illnesses from work at gaseous diffusion plants, nuclear test sites or uranium facilities. To apply for compensation, employees or their survivors must file a claim. People can request claim forms by calling a toll-free hot line, (866) 888-3322. The forms also are available at the U.S. Department of Labor's Web site, www.dol.gov. Claims must include: A history of the illness or condition A physical examination and its findings Results from clinical laboratory tests A diagnosis and the date it was first documented Completed claims should be mailed to: Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Act; U.S. Department of Labor; P.O. Box 77918; Washington, DC 20013-7918. The Energy Department also is obligated to assist employees who have work-related illnesses not covered by the federal program, such as asbestosis. In such cases, the Energy Department will help workers file state workers' compensation claims. For more information, call the Energy Department's toll-free number at (877) 447-9756. Source: U.S. Department of Labor Other resources The Augusta Building Trades Medical Screening Program for SRS can provide free health screenings to current and former construction and maintenance workers at the site. For more information, call (800) 866-9663. The SRS Former Production Worker Health Project can provide free health screenings to former production workers at the site. For more information, call (888) 286-2588. Staff Writer Teresa Wood contributed to this report. Reach Brandon Haddock at (706) 823-3409 or bhaddock@augustachronicle.com. All contents ©1996 - 2001 The Augusta Chronicle. All rights ***************************************************************** 11 SNS on track for full funding Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 11:42 a.m. on Wednesday, June 20, 2001 by Paul Parson Oak Ridger staff If the preview is any indication, the Department of Energy's Fiscal Year 2002 budget could be a blockbuster for Oak Ridge. Fresh from an Energy and Water Subcommittee meeting Tuesday evening, U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, R-3rd District, said the budget should include full funding for the Spallation Neutron Source project and the new Mouse House. The congressman also said the future looks bright for funds earmarked to do cleanup work. Wamp is a member of the House Appropriations Committee and its Energy and Water Subcommittee, which is an important group for funding key federal activities in East Tennessee and elsewhere in the state. SNS should get its full funding request of $291 million for FY 2002, according to Wamp. The $1.4 billion project will be used for scientific and medical research in addition to the development of a variety of industrial materials. Six DOE laboratories, including Oak Ridge National Laboratory, are collaborating on design and construction of the SNS. "That's our No. 1 priority," said Jeff Smith, deputy director of operations at ORNL. ORNL will be responsible for operating the facility after its scheduled completion in 2006. Also, Wamp said that $11.405 million has been allotted for the construction of a new Mouse House. It's enough money to speed up the construction timetable, the congressman said. "It allows us to commit all the money next year," said Smith. "By doing that, we will be able to remove ourselves from the old Mouse House sooner." The new Mouse House, or Laboratory for Comparative and Functional Genomics, will be located at ORNL. It will replace the current facility, which is more than 50 years old and is located at the Y-12 National Security Complex. More good news for ORNL involved funding for DOE's nanotechnology research initiative, which should receive $3 million, with $1 million slated to go to Oak Ridge. A proposal from ORNL for a new nanoscience facility was one of three recently selected by DOE. Nanoscience involves measuring objects in nanometers, 1 billionth of a meter. For comparison, the smallest features on current computer chips measure about 200 nanometers. And a human hair is 100,000 nanometers thick. Following Tuesday's subcommittee meeting, it also looks as though $536 million has been appropriated for Y-12. That's $34 million more than the president's request. The aging plant, which remanufactures parts for nuclear warheads, is on scheduled to get a facelift. Plans call for the construction of two new facilities: a storage area for highly enriched uranium and a special materials complex. Last, but certainly not least, is the "troubled" environmental management budget. There has been a lot of concern that cleanup funds in DOE's FY 2002 budget would be drastically cut. "We took a strong step forward in the (environmental management) funding," Wamp said Tuesday. "I believe we will be very successful in restoring the money." Though he could not provide the specific total Oak Ridge would receive in cleanup funds, Wamp said that an additional $30 million has been added to the budget earmarked for the Oak Ridge Operations office. Of that new money, $20 million will go toward the work at the Oak Ridge K-25 site, while $10 million will be used for cleanup work in Paducah, Ky. Bechtel Jacobs Co., DOE's environmental manager in Oak Ridge, is also under contract to do cleanup work in Paducah and in Portsmouth, Ohio. The bill that contains the DOE funding is expected to be heard by the full House Appropriations Committee on Monday and make its way to the House floor in about two weeks. Wamp said the specifics will then be hammered out in a conference committee of House and Senate members. All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 12 K-25 water records missing Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 11:43 a.m. on Wednesday, June 20, 2001 by Paul Parson Oak Ridger staff Another potential problem has surfaced in the investigation of historic water contaminations at the Oak Ridge K-25 Site. The project's oversight team has learned that the Department of Energy apparently did not keep any documentation concerning building K-1001 that may be pertinent to sick worker issues. K-1001, which was completely demolished earlier this year, was an administration building in which several sick workers say they worked. "I can't believe this was just an innocent mistake," said Sherrie Farver, who represents the Coalition for a Healthy Environment on the oversight team. "It never should have happened. It's a serious blow to the investigation." The investigation began after concerns were voiced by site workers last August about cross-contaminated water lines at K-25. Initial tests indicated that K-25's current drinking water is safe to consume. Findings stated that there were no contaminants in the drinking water at K-25 whose levels exceeded Environmental Protection Agency- and state-regulated standards. The latest part of the K-25 investigation, which examines historic water contaminations, is being conducted by a project team that includes engineering firms Malcolm Pirnie Inc. and TerraGraphics Environmental Engineering. Opinions vary on how the loss of K-1001 will affect the investigation. Remains from the building, including water pipes, have been disposed of at an undisclosed landfill and may have been contaminated with other materials during the burial, according to officials with Parallax Inc., the DOE contractor for the K-25 investigation. Thus, the project team may never know if various water lines were cross-connected, which could have led to possible contaminations. K-1001 was built in 1944 as part of the World War II Manhattan Project. The 93,700-square-foot building stayed operational until 1999, when it was determined to no longer be suitable for office space. Donzettia Hill, who worked in K-1001 for five years in the early 1990s, says she suffers from illnesses related to her work in the building. Because she is beryllium sensitive, Hill runs the risk of developing berylliosis, a permanent, disabling and incurable lung disease. "I'm really concerned," she said. "We have no way of knowing what could've been in the flooring or in the walls." Hill, who's 46 years old, added that DOE should have had some protocol in place for preserving information critical to people's health. "They have shut the door in my face," she said. "I'm not insurable. By doing this, they could have buried my long-term health care with it (the piping)." The K-1001 incident isn't the only problem the K-25 investigation has endured. It was announced in April that two hard drives were missing from a computer believed to contain information beneficial to the project. Some members of the oversight team felt the computer situation was so troubling that the matter was turned over to the DOE Inspector General's office and Roane County District Attorney General Scott McCluen for investigation, which apparently has not been initiated yet. All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 13 Michaels to help with sick-worker compensation plan Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 1:55 p.m. on Wednesday, June 20, 2001 A former Department of Energy assistant secretary for Environment, Safety and Health has been tapped to help administer the compensation program for job-sickened nuclear workers. David Michaels served in his DOE role from 1988 through the end of the Clinton administration. He will now serve as a consultant for the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act that Congress passed last year. "A month ago, I wrote [Labor Secretary Elaine Chao] asking that she appoint Dr. Michaels to this post and she recognized that he is the absolute best candidate for the job," said U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, R-3rd District. "He was pivotal in creating the legislation that started this sick-worker compensation program, so he would obviously be the ideal person to help carry out the plan." The Department of Labor is running the program, which offers $150,000 plus lifetime medical benefits to workers whose health was ruined by Cold War-era exposure to radiation, silica or beryllium. A series of meetings have been scheduled by the Labor Department to inform the public about the compensation plan. The Oak Ridge meetings are scheduled for 1 and 7 p.m. on June 26 and 27. All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 14 Sick plant workers could get state aid - By Bill Bartleman The Paducah Sun Paducah, Kentucky Wednesday, June 20, 2001 Workers union president David Fuller says he would like to see changes in the appeals process for denied claims and eligibility of survivors. By Bill Bartleman bbartleman@paducahsun.com--270.575.8650 LANCE DENNEE/The Sun Compensation meeting: Ronald Whiteside of Paducah asks a question about dose ratings from exposure to radiation. Kate Kimpan of the Department of Energy's Department of Worker Advocacy listens. Sick Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant workers who qualify for $150,000 in federal compensation also may be eligible to recover lost wages from the state workers' compensation program, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Union Carbide and Martin Marietta — former contractors who operated the plant for DOE — will be instructed not to protest state compensation claims that DOE determines are valid, according to Kate Kimpan of DOE's new Department of Worker Advocacy. "Historically, DOE denied illness claims ... but all of that has changed," Kimpan said Tuesday at a public meeting to outline a federal compensation program for sick workers. She also that workers not eligible for the federal program may qualify for state compensation, which would pay lost wages and medical expenses. "There are toxic illnesses that aren't cancer and aren't covered under the federal program," she said, adding that one of the jobs of the new DOE agency is to help an employees determine the source of an illness. A resource center operated by DOE and the U.S. Department of Labor is expected to open on Memorial Drive near Paducah Community College within two weeks. Walter Perry, a DOE spokesman, said a lease was signed on Monday and telephones and other equipment are being installed. The center will help current and former employees, and survivors of former workers, to file claims not only for the new federal program approved by Congress last year but state worker compensation claims. About 450 people attended the two meetings held at the Julian Carroll Convention Center. Most listened to hourlong presentations made by officials of the Departments of Energy and Labor. Most of the time was consumed with an explanation of the federal program that will managed by the Department of Labor. Labor will begin accepting applications on July 31. Claims filed in Paducah will be processed in its Jacksonville, Fla., office, according to Roberta Mosier of the department's workers' compensation office. "Right now, we aren't sure how long it will take to process the claims," she said. Employees are being hired to process the claims. Current and former workers and some survivors of workers will be eligible to receive a $150,000 lump-sum benefit if they have been diagnosed with specific types of cancer. The program "assumes" that the cancer was caused by exposure at the plant, Mosier said. Also, current and former employees will be eligible for reimbursement of out-of-pocket medical expenses from the date they file their claim. Covered cancers are myeloma and lymphomas, and primary cancer of the thyroid, breast, esophagus, stomach, pharynx, small intestine, pancreas, bile ducts, gall bladder, salivary gland, urinary bladder, brain, colon, ovary or liver, and bone. David Fuller, president of the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers International Union local, said he's confident the program will be administered fairly and swiftly. However, he hopes changes are made in regulations related to appeals of claims of claims that are denied and of the eligibility of survivors. The Department of Labor is accepting comments on the regulations that are scheduled to take effect in August. The proposed appeal process is to an appeals officer in the Department of Labor. Fuller and others think appeals should be made to an independent board. Also, surviving children are not eligible for benefits unless they were under 18 or a college student at the time of the parent's death. He thinks surviving children should be eligible for benefits, regardless of their age. The address for filing comments is Shelby S. Hallmark, director, Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs, U.S. Department of Labor, Room S-3524, 200 Constitution Ave., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20210. Information about the compensation program is available by calling 866-888-3322 or on the Internet at www.dol.com. Government officials estimate that 70,000 claims will be filed each year from nuclear weapons plants across the country and that 11,000 claims will be approved. Preliminary estimates are that over the next four years, the program will cost almost $500 million to administer and that $1.8 billion in benefits will be paid. ***************************************************************** 15 Al Brooks commentary: Government has broken its covenant with citizens 06/20/01 opEd 2 Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 1:07 p.m. on Wednesday, June 20, 2001 And if promised cleanup was not a covenant, it was a con game by Washington During the last decade, public participation in the DOE Environmental Management program has been a significant contributor to the shape and advancement of the necessary planning to produce a sound environmental restoration and stewardship program. Not all members of the public have seen the level of cleanup they felt necessary; some have seen more. It is important that the open and democratic process has produced a set of plans compliant with the Superfund laws, acceptable to the federal and state regulators, endorsed by the public and within the once projected federal funds available to DOE. In a very real sense, these publicly produced plans are a covenant between the federal government and the greater Oak Ridge public to make the federally owned portion of our city clean and safe both in the near term and the long term. If it was not a covenant, then it was a con game from the start. The FY 2002 president's budget reduces the Oak Ridge funding by $91 million from the FY 2001 allocated funds; scarcely more than enough to keep the overhead and waste storage functions going. The projected cuts in the DOE Environmental Management budget along with the reallocation of funds from Oak Ridge to Portsmouth for a cold plant standby are a clear and present danger to the success of the carefully laid plans and promised cleanup. Where the original FY 2002 plans showed 15 items of continuing cleanup work, the new plans under the president's budget show a mere four items of continuing work and three at a reduced level. Where the old plans showed 22 items of new cleanup work, the new plans show 32 cleanup items were eliminated. The public health dangers are not immediate, but as surely as night follows day, the failure to improve and maintain the waste disposal facilities in Oak Ridge will one day unnecessarily send undesirable amounts of radioactive waste down the Clinch River. Lesser amounts will proceed from Y-12 down the Lower East Fork Poplar Creek through the city of Oak Ridge. The city and region will continue to bear its undeserved reputation of being too dangerous to live in or even enter . Very clearly, the federal government has broken its covenant with the citizens of the Oak Ridge region who have every right to be outrageously mad. We accepted the challenges and risks when they were deemed necessary to the security of the country. We acted in good faith in accepting reasonable cleanup at reasonable costs only to be betrayed by the presidential budget. Betrayal demands an appropriate and indignant outcry. The citizens of the Oak Ridge region, especially the down-streamers, should be expressing their concerns and outrage to the president and to Congress now. It will be too late after the waste pits are eroded and breached and the waste outflow has begun. The expression of public opinion had a great effect upon Superfund cleanup planning; it can also cause those plans to be implemented as was promised. Our nest has been fouled; let them clean it up. Al Brooks is a resident of Oak Ridge long active in civic and environmental concerns. All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 16 Technology:3 more leaks turn up in tank Workers must find new place to store nuclear waste after camera reveals additional seepages Web posted Wednesday, June 20, 2001 By Johnny Edwards Staff Writer Savannah River Site must figure out where to put 250,000 gallons of radioactive waste after workers discovered three more leaks in an underground tank. Five days earlier, site workers found a minute leak that let out about a cupful of waste from Tank 5, a carbon-steel tank in the site's F-Area. Using a robotic ''wallcrawler'' mounted with a video camera, they found more holes Tuesday on the opposite side of the 750,000-gallon tank, said Dean Campbell, a spokesman for Westinghouse Savannah River Co., the company that operates SRS for the U.S. Department of Energy. The exposed materials never posed a threat to employees or the environment, Mr. Campbell said. The tank - kept in an area off limits to people - sits over an annulus designed to catch seepage, much like a saucer under a coffee cup. ''It's made to do just what it's doing,'' Mr. Campbell said of the annulus. Tank 5 has been in use since the early 1950s. Before the first leak was found, it held 350,000 gallons of waste. Now it must now be drained to the level of the lowest leak, leaving the tank less than 15 percent full, the spokesman said. The 250,000 gallons must be redistributed into other tanks, and officials at the federal nuclear-weapons site will spend the coming weeks sorting out how. The site already has a shortage of waste space. SRS stores about 34 million galls of radioactive waste in 49 underground tanks. Eleven tanks have leaked in past years. In January, a leak in the site's Tank 6 let out about 90 gallons of waste into a containment vessel. It prompted a new policy requiring tanks to be inspected before and after waste transfers. The leak discovered last week occurred after 80,000 to 100,000 gallons of waste were moved into Tank 5. Reach Johnny Edwards at (706) 823-3225 or johnny.edwards@augustachronicle.com. All contents ©1996 - 2001 The Augusta Chronicle. All rights ***************************************************************** 17 NRDC Report Finds Current U.S. Nuclear War Plan Main Barrier to Reducing Stockpiles Environmental News Network - ENN Direct From Natural Resources Defense Council Tuesday, June 19, 2001 WASHINGTON — NRDC (The Natural Resources Defense Council) today released a major report, "The U.S. Nuclear War Plan: A Time for Change" (available at the NRDC Web site, www.nrdc.org/nuclear/warplan), which calls on the Bush administration to abolish the U.S. nuclear war plan because it is an impediment to reducing nuclear stockpiles. The report is extremely timely given the Bush administration is reviewing basic questions about U.S. nuclear weapons, including how many should be in the stockpile, what kinds and types they should be, and what roles they should play in the nation's security policy. "The Bush administration has a golden opportunity to bring about fundamental change and break with the Cold War thinking that endures more than a decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union," said report co-author Thomas Cochran, director of NRDC's nuclear program. NRDC nuclear experts researched for more than two years to simulate aspects of the U.S. nuclear war plan known as the SIOP (for Single Integrated Operational Plan). The report is the final analysis of their findings. The report analyzed a "counterforce" attack on Russian nuclear forces using almost 1,300 U.S. strategic warheads. "We found that the consequences of attacking these military targets resulted in 11 million to 17 million casualties, of which 8 million to 12 million would be fatalities," said co-author Matthew McKinzie, an NRDC project scientist. "We should demand from our military and civilian officials explanations of the reasoning behind their targeting policy and what would happen if their plan were executed." The report's major conclusion is the assumptions and logic underlying the SIOP, with its demanding requirements, impedes progress towards smaller and safer nuclear forces. The report also concluded that to break with Cold War practices, the United States should stop targeting Russia with thousands of nuclear weapons so that its conciliatory statements about it not being an enemy are meaningful. "Any proposal by the Bush administration for lower numbers of strategic warheads that does not abandon counterforce as the ruling assumption and strategy of the war plan is flawed and dangerous," said report co-author Robert S. Norris, an NRDC senior analyst. "Such proposals actually perpetuate Cold War logic, and neither alter the fundamental calculus of nuclear deterrence nor the condition of 'mutual assured destruction,' or MAD. Plans to abrogate the ABM Treaty and proceed with national missile defense systems only make matters worse." The report recommends that something more fundamental must occur to break with the ideology of the Cold War. Under new presidential guidance, the United States should abolish the SIOP as it currently is understood, implemented and practiced. The policy directive should restrict the roles and missions assigned to nuclear weapons and reduce their geopolitical value, by word and action. A contingency war-planning capability should be substituted that can assemble attack plans in the event of a crisis or hostilities. The Natural Resources Defense Council is a national, nonprofit organization of scientists, lawyers and environmental specialists dedicated to protecting public health and the environment. Founded in 1970, NRDC has more than 500,000 members nationwide, served from offices in New York, Washington, Los Angeles and San Francisco. For more information, contact: Matthew G. McKinzie Natural Resources Defense Council 202-289-2363 Web site: http://www.nrdc.orgENN Toolbox Copyright © 2001 Environmental News Network Inc. ***************************************************************** 18 Putin threatens defensive boost to nuclear arsenal - smh.com.au - World June 20, 2001 Home > World > Article Meeting the commander ... Vladimir Putin and the Chief of Staff of the Russian Army General Anatoly Kvashnin arrive to inspect Russian troops with the NATO-led Kosovo peacekeeping force on the outskirts of Pristina. Photo: AFP By Patrick E. Tyler in Moscow Russian President Vladimir Putin says that if the United States proceeds on its own to construct a missile defence shield for itself and its allies, his country would eventually upgrade its strategic nuclear arsenal with multiple warheads. That outcome would ensure Russia could overcome such a shield, but reverse decades of achievement in arms control. Mr Putin made his comments in a meeting with US news correspondents on Monday night, following his summit meeting with the US President, Mr George Bush, in Slovenia on Saturday. He emphasised that although he welcomed Mr Bush's vow to co-operate with investigations into the ramifications of Mr Bush's vision for a new security framework, Russia was very "alert" to "unilateral" actions by the US. And in response to comments made on Sunday in Washington by Mr Bush's national security adviser, Dr Condoleezza Rice, that the US would proceed with missile defence "with or without Russia", Mr Putin said that Russia would "augment" its nuclear forces without regard to treaties that now require the elimination of multiple warheads. "When we hear statements that the programs would go with us or without us, well, we cannot force anyone to do the things we would like them to," he said. "We offer our co-operation. We offer to work jointly. If there is no need that such joint work is needed, well suit yourself." However, Mr Putin added that "we stand ready" to respond to any unilateral US action even though Russia did not see an immediate threat from a missile shield: "I am confident that at least for the coming 25 years (US missile defences) will not cause any substantial damage to the national security of Russia." But he added that Russia would reinforce its defences by "mounting multiple warheads on our missiles" and "that will cost us a meager sum. Thus the nuclear arsenal of Russia will be augmented multi-fold." He said both the Start I and Start II treaties would be negated by a US decision to build missile defences in violation of the Anti-ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972. Such a step would eliminate all verification and inspection requirements, he said, reviving an era in which Russia would hide its abilities and intentions. Mr Putin said Russia was ready to move expeditiously on talks with Mr Bush's top aides. But he believed the two sides needed to discuss whether serious threats existed or might emerge, then determine what missile defence technologies might be brought to bear against them, and then decide which provisions of the missile treaty came into conflict with such a system. Speaking in the Kremlin library, Mr Putin said for the first time that Russia had taken an interest in ensuring that China's strategic concerns were addressed in the debate. China has a much smaller nuclear missile force and fears its national nuclear deterrent would be nullified by US missile defences. "One must be very careful here," he said. "The transparency of our action is very important, lest none of the nuclear powers would feel abandoned or that two countries are making agreements behind their backs." Asked if he had made a commitment to China, he replied: "There is a commitment to preserve the balance of security that we have now in the world as a whole and, in this sense, China is an important element, and not only China." The New York Times I will not be dragged into war, vows Sharon The sixth coming: Wahid visit is on at last Putin threatens defensive boost to nuclear arsenal Doubts about Bush's missile defence about to increase Tanaka gets top marks for wooing Washington elite Hunger forces Taliban to back down over working women Foreign funding cuts trigger Africa condom crisis Briton jailed after wife tells of sex trip to Cambodia Multinationals to be put in dock in $8m bribery trial Wise heads, mushy brains: a new blow for aging men Leaping to rescue Twain frog ***************************************************************** 19 Confusion surrounds mystery nuclear test UPI News Article: Wednesday, 20 June 2001 1:42 (ET) LONDON, June 20 (UPI) -- Britain, Australia and the United States had exploded a nuclear bomb in a tropical rainforest in Queensland in the 1960s, reports said Wednesday. Quoting declassified Australian cabinet documents, London's New Scientist magazine reported that the three allies detonated a 50-ton nuclear bomb at Iron Ridge in 1963 as part of a secret military experiment codenamed Operation Blowdown. The magazine said that records in the National Archives in Canberra described the operation as "an investigation into the effects of a nuclear explosions in a tropical forest." The records also show that an Australian sergeant, who was attached to the team that supervised the test, got a medal for his role in "an airburst nuclear device." However, both the British Ministry of Defense and the Australian Defense Department said it was not a nuclear test. They said that experts from the three nations had detonated a conventional bomb made of TNT to simulate the effects of a 10-kiloton nuclear explosion in the air. An Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service ranger, Mick Blackman, who is based near Iron Ridge, said records in his office showed that the test used conventional weapons to simulate the effects of a small nuclear explosion. He said soldiers and scientists built a 126 feet observation tower which extended above the canopy of the rainforest, and that its remains could still be seen at the site. Australian journalists who examined the same cabinet papers on Monday said they made no mention of testing a nuclear weapon, but instead discussed a proposal by the United States to use Iron Ridge to test nerve gases. The idea was rejected in 1965, partly because of the difficulties foreseen in keeping the operation secret, says The Independent, London. -- Copyright 2001 by United Press International. All rights ***************************************************************** 20 Pasko case postponed - The espionage trial against journalist Grigory Pasko is developing into a legal farce. Now it has been postponed again - for the third time. Jon Gauslaa, 2001-06-20 17:32 The second espionage trial against Grigory Pasko was originally scheduled to begin at the Court of the Russian Pacific Fleet in Vladivostok on March 22. But the trial was postponed to June 4, then to June 20 because of the prosecutor's "family obligations", and now to July 11, 2001. This time the Court has not given any explanation for the postponement. In a press-release issued June 19, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), who recently declared Russian president Vladimir Putin as one of the 'Ten Worst Enemies of the Press for 2001', denounces the delays. CPJ notes that they are intended to exhaust Pasko's defence and supporters. - The decision to prolong, yet again, the politically-motivated case against Grigory Pasko is a clear example of how the Russian government uses its legal system to silence independent journalists who uncover official corruption and mismanagement, said CPJ deputy director Joel Simon. - We will, however, stand by Pasko until the government's Kafkaesque case against him has been closed and he has been fully acquitted. Russian military authorities have been pursuing Grigory Pasko for nearly four years on charges of treason through espionage and disclosure of state secrets. The authorities' recent postponements of the case are completely unfounded. Thus, Pasko's rights under the European Convention on Human Rights to have the charges against him determined within a reasonable time are being violated. Background: Pasko-case Grigory Pasko was arrested on November 20, 1997, and charged with treason through espionage for having handed over alleged secret information to the Japanese television network NHK about the handling of nuclear waste in the Russian Pacific Fleet. The Court of the Pacific Fleet acquitted him of treason on July 20, 1999, but the Military Collegium of the Russian Supreme Court cancelled this verdict on November 21, 2000, and sent the case back to the lower court for new hearings. Pasko faces a minimum sentence of 12 years in prison if convicted. 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