***************************************************************** 01/21/01 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 9.19 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER CONTENTS 1 YUCCA MOUNTAIN: Equal voice 2 Uranium shells held 'cocktail of nuclear waste' 3 Guest column-- Southern Nevadans must resist nuclear waste 4 NUCLEAR SHIPMENT ROUTE TO BE CONFIRMED TODAY 5 NUCLEAR DUMP FIGHT AT END SOON 6 IMPARTIALITY OF SANDIA DUMP STUDY QUESTIONED 7 Editorial: Local Stake - USEC still plays valuable role 8 GREENPEACE CONDEMNS NEW PLUTONIUM THREAT TO SOUTHERN AFRICA AND NUCLEAR WEAPONS CONTENTS 1 The Age: Gulf War troops added to health test 2 Diggers to get uranium checks 3 Australians to be tested for 'Balkans syndrome' 4 Protest against nuclear submarine 5 Gibraltar halts repair of nuclear submarine 6 Revealed: how just one single atom of DU can trigger cancer 7 German Official Faults US on Uranium 8 Portugal Surprised at NATO Use of Depleted Uranium in Yugoslavia 9 Spaniards protest in song 10 Bid to Bury Plutonium Factor Dismays NATO 11 DOE details work at 2 companies 12 Search may resume for nuclear bomb lost off coast in 50s ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 YUCCA MOUNTAIN: Equal voice Sunday, January 21, 2001 Copyright c Las Vegas Review-Journal The rural Nevada perspective is missing in nuke repository debate SPECIAL TO THE REVIEW-JOURNAL In the Jan. 14 Review-Journal, columnist Steve Sebelius exposes the negative consequences of our state leadership's insistence on keeping their heads in the sand when it comes to dealing with the reality of Yucca Mountain. Many rural elected officials, as well as rural chambers of commerce and service clubs, have privately agreed with the premise that the effort to stop nuclear waste is futile and that benefits should be sought. Unfortunately, no one is about to make a public statement to this effect after having witnessed our current attorney general and previous governor try to remove certain Lincoln County and city of Caliente officials for daring to publicly consider opening the door to negotiations. It is important for all concerned to understand that the rurals have the greatest cause for worry, as nuclear garbage will be stored here, not in Las Vegas. Nye County is the situs, not Clark County. It is already understood that the political clout of Clark County ensures that transportation of the waste will not be by truck or rail through Las Vegas--it will come through Caliente, Beatty, Goldfield and Tonopah. Or maybe through Hawthorne or Smoky Valley or even Ely. It will not skirt the towns, it will go right by our schools, post offices and hospitals -- and it will ultimately end up right next to the town of Amargosa Valley, not Henderson, Summerlin or North Las Vegas. Despite these facts, our towns and counties don't have a voice equal to those of state and urban leaders. Money received thus far from the Department of Energy finds its way to those least in jeopardy. Workers at both the Nevada Test site and Yucca Mountain commute to Las Vegas, not Amargosa Valley or Pahrump. These workers earn two and even three times the local wage rates, and it all heads south, while at the same time raising our average income statistics so they are above the state average wage. Because of this disparity, we don't qualify for grants and/or low-interest loans to provide basic infrastructure needs to our citizens. As oversight funds are divvied up, Clark County cries the loudest when not receiving the lion's share, even though it is our counties that must perform early warning drills and disaster mitigation planning. Someone keeps forgetting that it's our hills which will glow in the dark, not Sunrise Mountain. We remember well our state leaders' attempt to tap every dime of the money with the creation of Bullfrog County years ago. Mr. Sebelius is right in wanting something in return, and he has a good idea about getting money for things such as a new rail system. But the rail system should rightfully run on the old Las Vegas-Tonopah Railroad or Tonopah-Tidewater Railroad rights-of-way, connecting to the old Tonopah-Goldfield Railroad right-of-way. This will probably be the route the stuff is shipped on anyway, so why shouldn't we share in the economic windfall? After all, our towns are land-locked--more than 95 percent of our land is federally owned--which impairs economic growth or even sustainability without improved infrastructure and transportation. Believe it or not, people live in rural Nevada, and have since before Clark was a county--or even part of our great sovereign state. We provide your meat, vegetables, oil and minerals. We provided a place for testing and development of the Stealth fighter. We are forced to provide a place for nuclear testing and atomic trash. All with little or no positive economic benefit to our impacted communities. All we're asking for in return is a little fairness and our right to exist and prosper. Sandy Harmon is president of the Goldfield Chamber of Commerce and the former executive director of the Economic Development Authority for Esmeralda and Nye counties. ***************************************************************** 2 Uranium shells held 'cocktail of nuclear waste' THE SUNDAY TIMES: NEWS January 21 2001 BRITAIN JONATHON CARR-BROWN SHELLS fired in the Gulf war and Kosovo were made out of material contaminated by a potentially lethal cocktail of nuclear waste, according to a book published this week. The claim, supported by American army and government documents, suggests that the military in Kosovo and Iraq used depleted uranium (DU) shells containing traces of elements that indicate the probable presence of plutonium and other highly toxic nuclear by-products. The allegations contained in Depleted Uranium: The Invisible War will embarrass the British and American governments, which have consistently denied DU is harmful, and enrage veterans of the Gulf and Kosovo. Martin Messonnier, Frederick Loore and Roger Trilling, the authors of the book, are convinced that the Pentagon has misled the world with claims that its DU is safe. Until now, the Pentagon has maintained that DU shells are safe because they contain only mildly radioactive uranium. But the authors claim the shells were made with uranium contaminated with more toxic elements. DU was first used in the Gulf war where the dense metal proved deadly against Iraqi tanks. The American army is determined to keep the shells in its arsenal despite the fact the American navy has withdrawn them on health grounds. The authors' claims are based on papers that have led them to three nuclear plants in Paducah, Kentucky; Portsmouth, Ohio; and Oak Ridge, Tennessee - the main makers of DU. Last January Bill Richardson, the energy secretary, accepted after decades of denials that thousands of workers at Paducah "had been exposed to radiation and chemicals that produced cancer and early death". Most of the victims display symptoms similar to Gulf war veterans - particularly chronic fatigue and joint pain. The authors claim the workers had been handling uranium contaminated with plutonium, which was then used to make DU. Documents from August 1999 show that workers at Paducah had been inhaling plutonium as part of a "flawed government experiment to recycle used nuclear reactor fuel". The first sign was employees with a string of cancers in the 1980s. In October 1999 the energy department reported that "during the process of making fuel for nuclear reactors and elements for nuclear weapons, the Paducah gaseous diffusion plant . . . created depleted uranium potentially containing neptunium and plutonium". Plutonium can cause cancer if ingested even in minute quantities. What the workers at Paducah and its sister plants were dealing with were recycled uranium stocks already contaminated during the enrichment process at other nuclear plants. The workers, like the soldiers in Iraq and Kosovo, were not equipped to deal with these hazards. Paducah was designed to handle uranium, not plutonium, which is about 100,000 times more radioactive per gram. Last week United Nations officials investigating the effects of DU in Kosovo confirmed they had found traces of elements indicating plutonium. According to the authors, the only possible source for DU containing plutonium are Paducah, Portsmouth and Oak Ridge, which used the contaminated uranium. The Sunday Times, ***************************************************************** 3 Guest column-- Southern Nevadans must resist nuclear waste January 20, 2001 Guest column--Stephen J. Cloobeck: Southern Nevadans must resist nuclear waste Stephen J. Cloobeck, who is president of Diamond Resorts International, is organizing a valley-wide campaign against the Yucca Mountain Project. --- We are all blessed to live in Southern Nevada. We enjoy a living standard and a business environment that are the envy of the rest of the nation. Many visionary leaders, past and present, have worked very hard to create today's Las Vegas, the most unique and exciting vacation resort destination the world has ever seen. We have all benefited from this "miracle in the desert," and we should all be proud to call it home. Yet it could all become a whimsical memory if we allow the federal government to make our home a nuclear dump. Just listen to these facts: The federal government wants us to allow high-level nuclear waste to travel through our main traffic routes, U.S. 95 and Interstate 15. You may be sitting next to a truck filled with deadly nuclear radiation while stuck in traffic, as we all are from time to time. And what if one of those trucks is involved in a traffic accident? Proponents will tell you that it's all fine and safe, but I don't buy it. Think about it. Nuclear waste right here in our back yard. Real estate values, instead of rising, would plummet by 50 percent. Or perhaps you'll be one of the unlucky ones who can never sell your home, period. If there is an accident, which there most probably will be, will your homeowner's insurance cover your damage? No! It is excluded on your homeowner's and business policies. Would the county step in to help? Nope. It doesn't have adequate insurance either, and would face bankruptcy if it had to pay. And who would clean up this mess? The nearest response team is in California! Most importantly, think about our children. Our innocent children who trust us and our government to do the right thing. Imagine them playing at their school or their favorite playground and, a couple times a week or a month, being subjected to radiation from the "canisters" that the government does not even have a prototype of. And how do we continue to attract those millions of tourists who are the lifeblood of our great economy? Not by exposing them to nuclear radiation ... that's for sure! These are just some of the issues that citizens of this community should be thinking about. I urge you to become informed. Get active. Get involved. Join the fight. Sound your voice in disgust, and protect this fine community and world-class vacation resort town that we call home. It is, perhaps, the most important thing you can do for yourself, your family and your community. ALL CONTENTS COPYRIGHT 2001 LAS VEGAS SUN, INC. ***************************************************************** 4 NUCLEAR SHIPMENT ROUTE TO BE CONFIRMED TODAY New Zealand Herald Online - Newspaper - IRN Breaking News 21.01.2001 13:45 British Nuclear Fuels Limited is expected to confirm the route of a shipment of nuclear fuel, sometime today. It is widely speculated the shipment may pass through the Tasman Sea, while on its way from France to Japan. Green Party leader Jeanette Fitzsimons says international laws allow the the shipment to travel anywhere. She says our own 'nuclear-free' law of 1985 does not cover this type of shipment, and the ship could even choose to dock in one of our ports if it wanted to. Jeanette Fitzsimons currently has a bill before select committee, which seeks a ban on such shipments from entering New Zealand's 2000- mile exclusion zone. ***************************************************************** 5 NUCLEAR DUMP FIGHT AT END SOON BY ERIC BAILEY LOS ANGELES TIMES, 1/21/2001 [I]NDIAN SPRINGS, Nev. - For more than two decades, scientists have poked and prodded a hump of rock in western Nevada known as Yucca Mountain, perhaps to find a burial ground for nuclear waste. The long years of study, the court battles and the political wrangling in Washington may be headed toward a final chapter with the inauguration of George W. Bush. The new president's leanings on nuclear issues, and his choice for energy secretary, Spencer Abraham, a longtime backer of a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, worry Nevada residents who are weary of being the atomic wastebasket for the United States. Abraham's confirmation hearings began on Friday before the Senate Energy Committee in Washington. His nuclear-waste views were likely to be among the concerns, although most of the first questions involved California's electricity crisis. In Nevada, Yucca Mountain, sitting astride the Nevada Test Site, ground zero for hundreds of nuclear explosions, has galvanized the state as few issues have. Politicians from both parties almost unanimously oppose the plan. As envisioned by backers, highly dangerous radioactive waste would be sheathed inside thick steel casks tucked in tunnels deep inside the mountain. The enclosures are expected to survive 1,000 years at most. After that, the rock of the mountain itself would be counted on to encase the waste for the 10,000 years needed to reduce its radiation to safe levels. Opponents say this bone-dry mountain is too porous to shield the waste. Over the millenniums, they say, surface water would trickle down to wash radioactive particles into the water table, compromising the sparse water in a dry region. Some also voiced worry about the links between Bush and the energy industry, as well as the unabashed support that Abraham, the energy secretary nominee, showered on the Yucca Mountain project while a US senator from Michigan. ''The future looks scary,'' said Kalynda Tilges, nuclear issues coordinator for Citizen Alert, a Nevada environmental group. ''We made some headway with the Democratic administration. But I don't see anything but lip service from Bush.'' Abraham, who lost his reelection effort in November, has consistently sided with Republican-led efforts to open up Yucca Mountain, despite questions about its suitability. Aides to Bush reject the idea that Bush, who developed Texas oilfields, might be biased, and say he will make a final decision on the nuclear repository based on science and policy, not politics or prejudice. ''I don't think it's a fair assumption that because the president- elect has a background in a particular industry, it means he's going to be favorable one way or another,'' said Angela Flood, a Bush spokeswoman. ''He's going to base his decisions on good policies.'' Congress may be asked to explore radiation standards for the site, analysts say. The US Environmental Protection Agency has established a standard about half as high as that proposed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Environmentalists say the tighter restrictions may weaken the site's chances for passing muster. Operators of nuclear power plants are raising concern about the growing stockpiles of nuclear waste. About 40,000 metric tons of highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel have piled up at the more than 100 nuclear reactors in the United States. A federal law approved in the 1980s had expected that Yucca Mountain would be running in time to accept spent nuclear fuel from power plants and waste from weapons labs by January 1998. To finance the scientific studies, utility companies were tapped for billions of dollars. Faced with the delays and mounting stockpiles, 14 utilities filed suit against the federal government, alleging a breach of contract and estimating that the total liability could be as high as $50 billion. But under the most ambitious timetable, the Energy Department does not expect to have Yucca Mountain ready to accept waste until 2010. Meanwhile, a simmering debate continues over how big the storage problem is at the nation's power plants. Opponents of the Yucca Mountain project say the power plants have room for storage at each nuclear facility until a permanent solution is found. Utilities say that they are running out of room, and that the mounting costs of adding storage space are being passed on to consumers. This story ran on page A20 of the Boston Globe on 1/21/2001. ***************************************************************** 6 IMPARTIALITY OF SANDIA DUMP STUDY QUESTIONED Albuquerque Tribune Online: News TRIBUNE REPORTER A congressionally-authorized independent study of the controversial mixed waste landfill at Sandia National Laboratories is being challenged by citizen watchdogs as "suspicious" and "rigged." The landfill, a 2.6 acre enclosed site, was used by Sandia to bury radioactive and chemical wastes for three decades in unlined pits and trenches. The lab says the landfill is no threat to human beings or the environment and that capping and monitoring it will save money. Critics contend there is evidence the landfill has leaked or is leaking and is threatening environmental resources, such as the Rio Grande, Albuquerque's South Valley and Isleta Pueblo. The scientist charged with organizing the review panel insists the panel is not biased, even though his organization has a long-standing collaboration with Sandia and receives 65 percent of its funding from Sandia's overseer, the U.S. Department of Energy. "It's not rigged and we are trying to do everything we can to make it representative," said Abbas Ghassemi, a chemical engineer at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces and executive director of WERC--the Waste Management Education and Research Consortium, which is charged with conducting the study. Headquartered in Las Cruces and founded in 1991, WERC is a New Mexico group organized by the state's universities to do environmental education and technology development. It is staffed by scientists from the state's three research universities: New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque and New Mexico Tech in Socorro. It collaborates with Dine College and with Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratories. Susan Dayton, co-founder of Citizens Action in Albuquerque, said the process looks like an effort to whitewash Sandia's plan to cap the landfill without cleaning it up, a plan opposed by her group and others. "No," Ghassemi says, "that is not our charge. We are not even looking at that issue. We are to look at the (landfill environmental) data to see if it is sufficient or if there is missing data or if there needs to be more data in another area, and then make a recommendation." He said that a panel of impartial faculty members with expertise in environmental matters from the three research universities is to be selected by early February to begin the study. He stressed that faculty members who have been involved in previous analysis of the landfill already have been excluded. He said that he has asked for nominations of technically qualified scientists from Dayton and other representatives of her group, as well as from those at the Southwest Research and Information Center. "So far I have not received any," he said. Dayton said her organization intends to make an issue of the study at two public meetings next week in Albuquerque: Tuesday, from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. at the UNM School of Continuing Education at 1630 University Blvd; and Thursday, from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. at Mountain View Community Center, 201 Prosperity Road. The meetings are sponsored by the New Mexico Environment Department. Dayton said environmental critics are so troubled with WERC's selection to conduct the $25,000 study and the approach being taken that they are protesting directly to U.S. Rep. Heather Wilson, who arranged for the special study. A Wilson news release last fall, announcing the study, indicated it would include new soil samples, but Ghassemi said WERC has informed Wilson's office that such sampling would be costly and could not be achieved within the budget provided for the data study. Much of the content of the landfill is not public knowledge because it was created as the result of classified nuclear weapons research. Some of the known contents of the dump include waste coolant from a small nuclear reactor, radioactive metals, toxic metals, solvents and pieces of equipment contaminated by the testing of nuclear weapons components. The lab began dumping material in the unlined pits in 1958 and quit using the landfill in 1989. Sandia has estimated the cost to excavate and clean the site at $30 million; stewardship, Sandia's preferred option for dealing with the site, would cost about $120,000 a year, the lab estimates. Field studies of whether contaminates are moving out of the site have produced conflicting results. The Citizen's Action Group last year called for an independent review of the existing data, recommending the review be awarded to the University of New Mexico, the National Science Foundation, or the National Academy of Sciences. ©The Albuquerque Tribune. Users of this site are subject ***************************************************************** 7 Editorial: Local Stake - USEC still plays valuable role The Paducah Sun Sunday, January 21, 2001 Paducah, Kentucky LOCAL STAKE Nick Timbers, the president and chief executive officer of USEC Inc., could not offer rosy guarantees for his company's future when he appeared in Paducah last week to speak to the Chamber of Commerce. But Timbers' remarks did provide some needed perspective for the gloom-and-doom scenarios of USEC's critics, including the union that represents workers at the Paducah plant. Clearly, the USEC chief has become a specialist in crisis management since the nation's uranium enrichment industry was privatized in 1998. The company's launch was burdened by a national security agreement that required it to purchase hundreds of metric tons of overpriced uranium from dismantled Russian nuclear warheads. At the same time USEC was importing the Russian stockpiles, the bottom fell out of the world uranium market, causing the price of enriched uranium to tumble. Then came the demise of AVLIS, an experimental technology that was supposed to drastically reduce USEC's production costs. Predictably, the dominoes began to fall: the value of USEC stock nose-dived, the company laid off hundreds of workers at its plants in Paducah and Portsmouth, Ohio; company officials decided to close the Portsmouth plant. All of this has caused a great deal of anguish among plant workers and officials of the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers Union. USEC's woes also have worried people throughout this region of western Kentucky. The uranium processing industry is a mainstay of the local economy, providing attractive technical jobs at relatively high rates of pay. But despite all the turmoil, the Paducah plant is still up and running. In fact, as Timbers stressed during his recent Paducah visit, USEC is investing heavily in plant upgrades as it prepares to produce reactor-grade fuel here. USEC also is attempting to branch out by moving into the waste conversion business. This is a promising move, considering that over a period of 10-to-20 years, hundreds of workers may be needed to deal with the legacy of contamination at the gaseous diffusion plant. Unfortunately, the plant's workforce has been substantially reduced over the past three years, and future reductions are possible, if not likely. No one welcomes layoffs, but Timbers made a point that needs emphasizing: USEC staked itself to this community. The company decided to invest here — a decision that preserved hundreds of jobs and offered hope for the future. "We have made substantial investments in upgrading the Paducah plant, and we see a productive future for it," Timbers said. "The decision to choose Paducah was mostly based on economics, but be assured that this community's support did not escape our attention." Paducah has traditionally supported the uranium enrichment industry. Add to that the generally good labor relations that have prevailed at the Paducah plant and you have two major ingredients of the formula that produced a USEC decision to remain in Paducah. In recent months, union leaders have adopted a hostile attitude toward USEC's management. To some extent, this is understandable, given the toll taken by the layoffs. However, the charges that USEC is acting in bad faith, that it plans to shut down the enrichment operation and become a broker of Russian uranium, strike us as misguided and certainly unhelpful. In all likelihood, Congress would step in and prevent any attempt to shut down domestic enrichment. Timbers is convincing when he insists that USEC's efforts to negotiate a better deal with the Russians are not designed to "supplant our domestic production." From a business standpoint, USEC has been working to make the best of a bad situation. USEC is a private company now and its managers must deal with the competitive realities of the market. USEC cannot force customers to buy high-priced U.S. uranium. It's not clear what the future holds for USEC. It's possible that the company could be acquired by a larger firm. Also, USEC could develop gas centrifuge technology and shift its operation to an existing facility in Portsmouth. Or it could deploy a centrifuge in Paducah. However, the overriding point is that USEC has chosen to make a stand in Paducah. With that it preserved hundreds of good jobs and the economic base of the area. The struggling company's critics need to keep that in mind. ***************************************************************** 8 GREENPEACE CONDEMNS NEW PLUTONIUM THREAT TO SOUTHERN AFRICA AND THE PACIFIC 20 January 2001 Cherbourg, France: Greenpeace today condemned the announcement made by Cogema, British Nuclear Fuels and Tokyo Electric, that a shipment of weapons-usable plutonium MOX fuel to Japan, will travel via South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, the Tasman Sea and the South Pacific. Greenpeace called on the endangered countries to take all possible action to prohibit the transport from entering their seas and to stop the international trade in nuclear weapons-usable plutonium. "The nuclear industry has once again demonstrated its arrogant disregard for the sovereign will and legitimate concerns of en-route nations, " said Shaun Burnie of Greenpeace International. "The countries along this shipment route and other routes have called for prior consultation and the resolution of urgent safety, security and liability issues. What they have got is a clear message that this industry doesn't care about their legitimate rights and concerns." said Burnie. The armed British-flagged vessel, the Pacific Pintail escorted by the Pacific Teal, left Cherbourg, France yesterday following protests from the environmental organisation. The Pacific Pintail is carrying approximately 230kg of plutonium, together with around 4 tonnes of uranium. Greenpeace announced yesterday that the route for this second shipment of MOX fuel to Japan, would be via South Africa and the Tasman. The ships are currently heading south-west towards the northern coast of Spain and west of Portugal in the face of growing opposition. The government of Portugal has sought information from Britain and France on whether the nuclear ships will violate their 200 mile Economic Exclusion Zone (EEZ). In New Zealand, legislation is being proposed that would exclude plutonium and other nuclear ships from its 200-mile EEZ. The acting Foreign Minister of New Zealand, has expressed his governments' firm- opposition to the transport of nuclear materials through the EEZ of New Zealand. Strong public opposition is building in Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific in advance of this plutonium MOX fuel shipment. In December last year it was announced by New Zealand and Australian members of the 'Nuclear Free Tasman Flotilla' that a small flotilla of yachts would protest and bear witness in the Tasman Sea for any future nuclear transports passing through their seas. "In 1999 the Pacific Pintail carried a shipment of plutonium MOX fuel from the UK to Japan. Because the producers of that fuel, British Nuclear Fuels, deliberately lied and deceived their Japanese clients, that cargo of MOX is now to be returned to Britain. There is enough evidence from Japan already to suggest that the Pintail MOX ship may be about to sail into the same scandal this time with Belgian/French MOX fuel. It should never have left France and it may never reach Japan. If it was not so tragic it would be a farce, " said Burnie. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT: Shaun Burnie - Greenpeace International - ++ 31 629 00 11 33 (Dutch mobile) in Cherbourg. Damon Moglen - Greenpeace International - ++ 1 202 319 2409 in Washington. Mike Townsley - Greenpeace International - ++31 6212 969 18 in Amsterdam. nuclear website Video and stills are available from: Footage (+31 20 52 49 543) and stills (+31 20 52 49 580 Notes to editors:1 - On Thursday a Japanese court requested the owners of MOX fuel, Tokyo Electric release quality control data, similar that from the BNFL scandal, to the court. The fuel was shipped in 1999, and is being challenged in the courts by Japanese NGO's, and citizens. The same producers of the 1999 MOX, Belgonucleaire, part of the Cogema dominated, COMMOX group, manufactured the MOX fuel that left yesterday. It is intended for use in the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear reactor in western Japan. ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 The Age: Gulf War troops added to health test By ANNABEL CRABB CANBERRA Monday 22 January 2001 The testing of Australian troops for health problems related to their service in the Balkans has been expanded to more than 1800 Gulf War veterans. The Australian Government yesterday announced details of the tests for 216 Balkans veterans, who will be contacted this week amid international concerns about the health effects of depleted uranium-tipped weapons used by NATO forces in Kosovo. But Veterans Affairs Minister Bruce Scott also revealed that the testing would be extended to 1862 veterans of the Gulf War. In both conflicts, NATO forces used tank-warfare weapons tipped with depleted uranium - a heavy metal by-product of nuclear fission and prized in munitions production for its denseness. An international debate is raging about the dangers of exposure to depleted uranium weapons, with more than 20 deaths among European veterans of the conflict blamed on the so-called "Balkan syndrome" caused by proximity to explosions of the weapons. The Australian Defence Force has not used the weapons since the mid-1980s, but it is believed more than 30,000 rounds were fired during the 1999 Kosovo conflict, in which Australia was part of a joint NATO-coordinated operation. A spokesman for Mr Scott said the international claims of depleted uranium damage were concerned largely with the Balkan conflict, but the testing had been expanded to cover Gulf War veterans "for thoroughness". "The vast majority of our Gulf War veterans were serving on ships and therefore the risk of exposure to depleted uranium for them will be non-existent," he said. "But, because in the Gulf War it is known that stocks of depleted uranium were used, we've just got to be thorough and ensure that we give these men and women absolute confidence that we're doing everything to protect their health and welfare." The Australian Government's advice is that soldiers would need to be close to an explosion or have entered destroyed tanks without breathing gear to be in any danger from the effects of depleted uranium. The 216 Balkan veterans will be sent a questionnaire asking where they served, whether they inspected destroyed vehicles and whether they inhaled dust after an explosion. Labor's spokesman on defence science and personnel, Laurie Ferguson, yesterday said Australian troops should not be sent into conflict situations where weapons not sanctioned by Australia were known to be in use. He said there was no use in Australia deciding not to use the weapons, then sending them to become part of campaigns where Australian allies were using them. "This country stopped using depleted uranium munitions in the 1980s, " he said. "There are going to be more and more joint actions with the United Nations - if we're just going to be a minor figure in those and not know what our people are getting into, then that's just not good enough." Copyright © The Age Company Ltd 2001. Any unauthorised use, ***************************************************************** 2 Diggers to get uranium checks From AAP 21jan01 20:50 (AEDT) AUSTRALIAN soldiers who served in the Balkans will be asked for blood and urine samples under a plan announced today to deal with their possible exposure to depleted uranium. And aid agency CARE Australia, which had about 30 aid workers stationed in the Balkans at various times, is also considering the risk its staff may have been exposed to. Concern over the possible effects of exposure to depleted uranium have mounted following the deaths from cancer of Italian and Belgian veterans of the Balkans conflict. Veterans Affairs Minister Bruce Scott announced the five-point plan which involves identifying and screening personnel, providing counselling, establishing the risk of depleted uranium and monitoring veterans' health for five years. "I am advised that 216 Australian Defence Force personnel have served in the Balkans for periods of 30 days or more, since 1993, in areas including Bosnia Herzegovina, Macedonia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia," Mr Scott said in a statement. "The Department of Defence is currently compiling a nominal role of personnel who performed temporary duty in the Balkans for periods of less than 30 days. "At present, there is no conclusive scientific or medical evidence that exposure to depleted uranium munitions is a health risk." But the government was committed to meeting its duty of care to the ADF personnel who served in the Balkans, Mr Scott said. "All current and former ADF personnel who have served in the former Yugoslavia since the Balkans conflict began will be contacted in writing by the Defence Health Service and asked to complete a questionnaire to participate in blood and urine screening in order to gather baseline clinical and exposure data," Mr Scott said. "An independent review of those questionnaires and and health screening test results will then be carried out by the Repatriation Medical Authority and appropriate independent scientists." A CARE Australia spokeswoman said the organisation had been carrying out research on the level of risk its staff encountered and the matter had been discussed on Friday. "We have definitely been looking at what we'd need to do if there was some level of risk determined," she told AAP. Depleted uranium was used by the United States in armour-piercing weapons during its bombing raids on the Balkans in 1999 and in the Gulf War in 1991. It is feared that radioactive dust spreads in a potentially poisonous cloud when the weapons impact on their targets. Information issued by Mr Scott's office says depleted uranium is 40 per cent less radioactive than natural uranium. About nine tonnes (31,000 rounds) of depleted uranium munitions were fired into around 112 sites in Kosovo in 1999 and around three tonnes (10,000 rounds) were shot into Bosnia in 1994-95. The United Kingdom defence ministry said very little was shot into the British sector of Kosovo, and most Australians who served in that conflict were with the British forces. In contrast, about 320 tonnes of depleted uranium was used during the Gulf War. The federal government is calling for Gulf War veterans to take part in a large-scale study of their health. Mr Scott also urged any Balkans veterans who believed they had a medical condition as a result of their service there to call the Defence Health Service on 1800 502 771. ***************************************************************** 3 Australians to be tested for 'Balkans syndrome' ABC News - 21/01/01 : The Federal Government has announced it will test the health of more than 200 Australian military personnel following concerns about exposure to depleted uranium munitions. The acting Defence Minister, Bruce Scott, says the 216 personnel who have served in the Balkans for a month or more since 1993 will be screened immediately and then monitored every five years. Mr Scott says while the threat of cancer has yet to become real, they are not taking any chances. "At present there's no conclusive scientific or medical evidence that exposure to depleted uranium is a health risk and, at this stage, we do not have any evidence that there's been any claims for undiagnosed or difficult to diagnose conditions of those who did serve in the Balkans," he said. "But nonetheless, we have a duty of care and this five-point plan is going to deal with the issue." Mr Scott says they have devised a comprehensive plan to deal with the potential problem. "We are going to identify and contact [Australian Defence Force] personnel who are potentially at risk," he said. "We're going to conduct a health screening on those personnel. "Importantly, we'll be providing support and counselling service to those members and also their families and, just as importantly, we're going to provide for a continuing health monitoring at least every five years of these defence personnel." US CRITICISED Germany has criticised the United States for failing to inform its NATO partners that depleted uranium munitions could also contain traces of radioactive plutonium. German Defence Minister Rudolf Scharping says the US has apparently known for some time about the possible contamination of uranium used in munitions, with tiny amounts of plutonium. The minister took the usual step of calling in the US minister of affairs in Berlin to seek more information about weapons fired by US forces during the Bosnian and Kosovo conflicts. The US belatedly confirmed a German television report last week that some depleted uranium munitions also contain minute traces of the ***************************************************************** 4 Protest against nuclear submarine "The Royal Navy plans to tow the submarine back to Britain if the cooling system cannot be repaired by the deadline" Britain has secretly agreed with Spain to remove its nuclear- powered submarine HMS Tireless from Gibraltar after protests against its presence there. The submarine docked in Gibraltar nine months ago after a crack was found in its cooling system - but it is now though the sub will be heading back for Britain by May 19. The Royal Navy plans to tow the submarine back to Britain if the cooling system cannot be repaired by the deadline. However, a British Defence Ministry spokesman said that the Royal Navy is sure the submarine will be repaired by the end of March. It would then leave port under its own power. Britain, which intends to start repair work this week, has given Spain assurances the vessel is safe and presents no health threat. But that did not stop thousands of people marching through the southern Spanish town of Algeciras, calling for the HMS Tireless to leave at once. During the two-hour demonstration, protesters rallied behind a banner held aloft by children that read: "For the sake of our future." The crowd shouted "Tireless Out" and sang the Beatles hit Yellow Submarine. A few demonstrators waved signs demanding British authorities tow the submarine to England for repairs. Police said 20,000 people attended the rally, but organisers put the number at 70,000. The presence of the stricken submarine in Gibraltar has provoked concern and anger among Spaniards living nearby and strained the already sour relations between London and Madrid over the British colony. Spain ceded Gibraltar in 1713 and now reclaims sovereignty but Britain refuses to even discuss the issue. ***************************************************************** 5 Gibraltar halts repair of nuclear submarine ISSUE 2067 Sunday 21 JANUARY 2001 BY ISAMBARD WILKINSON IN ALGECIRAS submarine Tireless in Gibraltar after objections from a panel of nuclear experts consulted by the colony. The work, due to start tomorrow, was called off after the panel reported that there were "a number of uncertainties relating to the weld activity . . . which do not at this stage provide the panel with sufficient confidence that the repair will be ultimately successful." The delay heightens uncertainty over the fate of the submarine which reactor cooling system last May, causing stormy relations between London and Madrid. About 14,000 Spaniards marched in a noisy demonstration yesterday in the southern town of Algeciras, across the bay from the Rock, to demand the boat's removal. They waved banners reading "Andalucia - a nuclear free-zone" and shouted "Tireless Get out Now!". Tireless has been the focus of intense opposition since it limped into harbour. Yesterday's demonstration was the latest in a series of protests across Spain and Gibraltar itself calling for the submarine to be removed rather than repaired in Gibraltar. Ten Greenpeace activists were arrested last week after clambering aboard the casing of the submarine to demand its removal. The delay in repairs follows a threat by Peter Caruana, the chief minister of Gibraltar, that his government would do "everything it can to oppose and prevent the work from being carried out" if the colony's panel of nuclear experts warned against it. The Ministry of Defence now denies that there was a fixed date for the welding to begin and says it could still start some time this week. But an MoD spokesman had earlier told The Telegraph that the Government was confident that the panel's report would sanction the repairs and that they would start as scheduled. He said: "We expect them to agree with our findings. What they have said up until now indicates that they will." The delay has created further tension between the British, Spanish between Jose Maria Aznar, the Spanish Prime Minister, and Tony Blair who insists that moving the submarine would be too complex. Britain is officially responsible for Gibraltar's defence and foreign affairs. However, Mr Caruana is determined to do away with the colonial tag and gain more autonomy. A diplomat in Madrid said: "This is obviously a game. Although both parties have genuine safety concerns, this is a God-send for the Gibraltar government to flex some autonomous muscle. They are using this to push the British government around." ***************************************************************** 6 Revealed: how just one single atom of DU can trigger cancer Sunday Herald - www.sundayherald.com BY ROB EDWARDS ENVIRONMENT EDITOR Publication Date: Jan 21 2001 The furious international row over the risks of depleted uranium weapons is set to flare up again with the revelation that a single atom of uranium inside the body is enough to trigger cancer. Scientists from a government-funded medical research laboratory at Harwell in Oxfordshire have produced the first direct proof that a single alpha particle emitted by uranium can damage human cells. The damage, they say, is a crucial step in the development of tumours. Arguments over the health hazards of depleted uranium (DU) have been raging since the UN Environment Programme announced earlier this month that eight out of 11 sites in Kosovo were contam inated with radioactivity. Nearly one million rounds of ammunition containing 300 tonnes of DU have been fired in the Balkans and Gulf wars over the last 10 years, mostly by US forces. The new evidence will reinforce the growing chorus of demands for a ban on the use of DU in weapons, at least until the health risks for soldiers and civilians have been fully investigated. Last week the European Parliament voted 626 to 394 in favour of a moratorium while an independent study into the potential health risks was carried out. Although Nato and the British Ministry of Defence continue to insist that there is no evidence that any ill health has been caused by DU munitions, politicians, war veterans and scientists maintain there is a problem, particularly with excess cancers and leukaemias. Tomorrow the World Health Organisation is sending a team of experts to Kosovo to examine whether there are any links between civilians exposed to DU and cancers. The new British study was conducted by the Radiation and Genome Stability Unit at Harwell in association with Mount Vernon Hospital in London. Groups of human blood cells were exposed to a single alpha particle in the laboratory and left to divide a dozen times or more. Researchers found that 25% of the daughter cells had distinctive patterns of broken and bent chromosomes. This effect, christened "radiation-induced genomic instability", is thought to be part of the complex chain of biological events that can end up as cancer. "This work shows directly for the first time that even a single alpha particle can induce genomic instability in a cell. That may be important in assessing risks of cancer from alpha-emitting radionuclides in the body," said the Harwell unit's director, Professor Dudley Goodhead. "It suggests that even the smallest amount carries some, very small, risk. However, for materials such as low-activity uranium it may well be that the radiation is less harmful than chemical effects of the metal in the cell." Although alpha particles are not a very penetrating form of radiation, when inside the body they can do significant harm to any living cells they happen to pass through. They are emitted by plutonium and other radionuclides as well as uranium. Last week, the Ministry of Def ence admitted that traces of plutonium could also be present in DU weapons, left over from processing by the nuclear power industry. That, experts pointed out, inevitably increased the risk because plu tonium emitted more alpha particles than DU. Mike Thorne, a uranium specialist with AEA Technology, a spin-off company from the UK Atomic Energy Authority, also in Harwell, thought that the new study strengthened the need to find out how much DU had found its way inside people during the conflicts in the Gulf and the Balkans. But he agreed with Goodhead that the chemical effects of DU could be even more dangerous than its radiological impact. "It is a toxic heavy metal," he said. "It would be reasonable to put a moratorium on its use as a munition until we have investigated the amounts to which people have been exposed." Most radiobiologists have dismissed the much highlighted suggestion that soldiers exposed to DU in Kosovo in 1999 could already have developed leukaemia as a result. It was much too soon after the exposure for the disease to be diagnosed, they said. But Sue Roff, a radiation res earcher from the Centre for Medical Education at the University of Dundee, has dug up evidence that suggests the radiation-induced leukaemias can develop surprisingly quickly. The first cases were discovered in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1947 and 1948, just two or three years after the US destroyed the cities with atomic bombs. "In studies of patients who have received radiation therapy, the period of greatest risk for developing leukaemia has been reported as two to five years after exposure. "I am aware of at least six men, most in their 20s, who were diagnosed with leukaemia within five years of their participation in the UK nuclear weapons tests in the 1950s and 1960s," Roff told the Sunday Herald. "In Japan, leukaemia was the first malignancy that appeared among the survivors and this fact triggered a major research study which is still in operation today. "I would have thought that the appearance of leukaemia among soldiers selected for their fitness for active duty would trigger similar studies as part of the government's duty of care." ***************************************************************** 7 German Official Faults US on Uranium January 20, 2001 ASSOCIATED PRESS SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP)--German Defense Minister Rudolf Scharping reiterated his criticism of the United States over depleted- uranium weapons used in NATO missions, suggesting Saturday that Washington has held back information from its allies. Speaking at a German base near the Bosnian capital Sarajevo, Scharping said recent tests have shown the risk to German peacekeepers in the Balkans from weapons containing depleted uranium is minimal. But Scharping said he will "not be satisfied with pages of information pulled out from the Internet," which he said "our American friends" have offered as a response when asked for information about the depleted- uranium munitions. Scharping's two-day trip came amid concerns that illnesses among peacekeepers serving in NATO-led missions in Bosnia and Kosovo could be linked to weapons fired by the alliance--primarily by U.S. warplanes -- containing depleted uranium. On Wednesday, Scharping demanded the United States come forward with all the information it has on the depleted uranium weapons and initiated an investigation into whether they contain cancer-causing plutonium, which is far more dangerous than uranium. The United States was complying, but Germany's defense ministry said Friday that it was still waiting to receive more files. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the United States has been open and clear about its use of depleted uranium ammunition and will continue extensive discussions on the issue. Depleted uranium is a slightly radioactive heavy metal used because of its ability to pierce armor. U.S. forces fired weapons containing depleted uranium in Bosnia in 1994 and 1995, and NATO used them in its 1999 bombing campaign in Yugoslavia. Scharping said Friday that U.S. Army documents show there have been numerous incidents involving depleted uranium ammunition held by U.S. troops stationed in Germany. NATO insists there is no scientific evidence linking cancer cases to depleted uranium. Earlier this month, it rejected an appeal from Germany and Italy to impose a moratorium on its use because there is no armed conflict under way in Europe. NATO and many countries have ordered investigations into the level of radiation around the ammunition as well as of sites where it was used. German troops last week measured the level of radiation in a former military compound near Sarajevo, where boxes with such ammunition were found. The results showed "the risk is minimal," Scharping said. He also said that "so far there is not one indication plutonium is really present" in the ammunition. NATO said Wednesday the organization had always accepted that there were trace amounts of plutonium in depleted uranium but that the plutonium caused almost no additional radioactivity, pointing to test results reported by the United States last December. ALL CONTENTS COPYRIGHT 2001 LAS VEGAS SUN, INC. ***************************************************************** 8 Portugal Surprised at NATO Use of Depleted Uranium in Yugoslavia Sunday, January 21, 2001, updated at 21:09(GMT+8) Portuguese authorities were surprised to learn that depleted uranium munitions had been used in the attacks by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization against Yugoslavia, Prime Minister Antonio Guterres said Saturday. "It is essential to have a thorough clarification" on the use of DU rounds, Prime Minister Guterres said in a letter addressed to NATO Secretary General George Robertson. International media have reported cancer related ailments suffered by NATO soldiers who served in Kosovo as part of a phenomenon called the "Balkans syndrome." "I have no confirmation of the fact, but I am really surprised at the news related to the presence of plutonium in depleted uranium munitions." Director of the military hospital of Lisbon Col. Bargao dos Santos said that the application of examinations to Portuguese soldiers participating in the peace forces in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo would show if they had been exposed to radioactive pollution. The controversy on the use of depleted uranium started in Portugal after the decease of corporal Hugo Paulino last March, who stayed in Kosovo for six months. Quite a number of servicemen from different countries who were deployed in Kosovo have died of leukemia and other cancer-related diseases. In This Section Portuguese authorities were surprised to learn that depleted uranium munitions had been used in the attacks by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization against Yugoslavia, Prime Minister Antonio Guterres said Saturday. Copyright by People's Daily Online, all rights reserved ***************************************************************** 9 Spaniards protest in song BBC News | EUROPE | Sunday, 21 January, 2001, 00:37 GMT [I] Protestors sang their way through Algeciras Spanish protesters singing The Beatles' song Yellow Submarine have demanded the removal of a British nuclear vessel from Gibraltar. At least 20,000 demonstrators marched through the Spanish port of Algeciras, across the bay from the British territory, two days before repair work is due to start on the nuclear submarine, HMS Tireless. The stricken submarine has been in Gibraltar since May last year, and local people have been demanding that it return to the UK for repairs. The march was led by the head of Andalusia's regional government, and supported by all parties and unions except Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar's Popular Party. Mr Aznar's party has accused the socialists of using the sub as a political weapon against the ruling right-wing party. JUST A CRACK The UK has insisted that repair work will start on Monday, dismissing allegations that damage was more serious than so far revealed. [I] Greenpeace protesters boarded the HMS Tireless The British authorities say the vessel suffered a crack in its cooling system, but is entirely safe and poses no threat to the surrounding population. But last summer a group of Gibraltarians threatened to sue the British Ministry of Defence to force the removal of the submarine. And on Tuesday, a group of 16 activists from the environmental group Greenpeace launched a demonstration against the presence of the submarine. Travelling in dinghies, they evaded the security cordon and managed to hang an anti-nuclear banner on the vessel. Ten protesters from a number of countries were arrested. ***************************************************************** 10 Bid to Bury Plutonium Factor Dismays NATO Central Europe Online Daily News - BRUSSELS, Jan 21, 2001--([*]Reuters) Just when it thought it had the depleted uranium (DU) scare under control, NATO may face a fresh onslaught of concern as the United States belatedly confirms that some DU munitions contain minute traces of plutonium. Uranium is one thing. Plutonium is quite another, especially if it arises from flaws at a problem-plagued U.S. nuclear plant. Plutonium is a heavyweight in the lexicon of scare words--according to media reports, a particle as small as a millionth of an ounce, if inhaled, can cause a fatal cancer. German Defense Minister Rudolf Scharping last Wednesday took the highly unusual step of calling in the U.S. charge d'affaires in Berlin to seek more information--after a German television network reported on the plutonium factor. Washington can rightly claim that the plutonium issue was not a secret -- but its spokesmen have omitted to mention it. U.S. experts brought in by NATO in the past 10 days to calm fears of a cancer risk from DU ammunition used in Kosovo, Bosnia and the Gulf stressed that DU is 40 percent less radioactive than the natural uranium people eat, drink and breathe. What they did not say was that some DU comes from recycled nuclear fuel, not ore, and contains traces not only of highly radioactive uranium-236 but of plutonium as well. A review of transcripts and audio files shows that U.S. Army medical experts flown from Washington failed to mention the word plutonium once. One, asked if DU might contain uranium-236, said: "I can't answer. I just don't know." A NATO spokesman said pointedly that reporters were "getting exactly the same briefings as the NATO ambassadors just got". Two days later, NATO had to issue a statement saying the presence in DU of U-236 and plutonium in minute quantities had "long been established" but was "irrelevant" as it did not increase the extremely limited DU risks openly acknowledged. LINK TO TROUBLED NUCLEAR PLANT The furore erupted over DU munitions in early January, but there has been no mention in NATO public records of serious safety failures at the Kentucky plant which made the material. Last Thursday, as the Clinton administration bowed out, the outgoing Pentagon spokesman was asked about U-236 traces. "As you know, we discovered some stray elements, transuranics they're called, in depleted uranium, the Department of Energy did, a year or so ago," Kenneth Bacon said. "They consisted of plutonium, neptunium and americium. Now these are very, very small amounts and as soon as they were discovered as indicating possibly a flaw in production in the production process, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission suspended the operation at this plant, which is in Paduhac, Kentucky." Bacon said operations resumed after a 90-day examination. "Now, the labs in Europe have found tiny elements of U-236, which is not normally in depleted uranium," he added. These were so small that United Nations scientists said they did not change the very low radiotoxicity of the depleted uranium... "We're looking into how this could have happened." NO DEFENCE AGAINST DOUBT A World Health Organization team is going to Kosovo this week to take more samples in places where DU anti-tank rounds were fired by U.S. planes in the 1999 NATO campaign. If plutonium shows up with any regularity, it may not matter that levels are too small to pose a serious health risk, as the United States and NATO insist: public doubt is likely to grow and opposition to the munitions will rise with it. Even minute levels could fuel speculation that a "bad batch" of DU from Paduhac contained more plutonium than expected, and may have been inhaled in dust kicked up later. The Paduhac plant, which has made nuclear weapons material for 50 years under government contractors, is being sued for $10 billion for concealing health risks from workers and locals. A February 2000 U.S. Department of Energy report said the plant "operated in a climate of secrecy, with a strong sense of national need, and a lack of understanding of a number of environment, safety and health risks". Workers had "become ill because of workplace exposures". The Paduhac plant was cited for scattering plutonium at 1,200 times the normal background level beyond its grounds and attempting to cover up this and other safety violations. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said 1,600 tons of nuclear weapons parts were littered around the grounds below ground and in ground-level storage areas. STILL NO EVIDENCE OF SYNDROME There is no proof of any mystery illness among NATO peacekeepers and no "Balkans syndrome" to be explained, the medical chiefs of NATO's 19 armies all agreed last week after a day of comparing records. But the issue remains one of credibility as much as health. Finger- pointing could proliferate if governments faced renewed charges of not informing the public in good time of what some will suspect they knew all along. The information is all available on the Internet from U.S. newspapers and groups using the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. In a January 2000 letter to the activist Military Toxics Project, the U.S. Department of Energy said it believed minute quantities of plutonium might be contained in U.S. stocks of depleted uranium, but in amounts too low to pose risk. It noted health and safety concerns at Paduhac and said DU test rounds "almost certainly" contained recycled uranium but did not directly answer: did they contain plutonium?. The Department's letter was recently passed on to NATO. Neverthless, European governments appeared unprepared for media "revelations" about plutonium traces in DU rounds and at NATO there are differences about whether Scharping and others facing a media grilling should have known what to expect. U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen had said earlier this month that DU was no more dangerous than "leaded paint", and a U.S. Army briefer assured reporters it was safe enough to eat. Now that the word plutonium has been mentioned, that may have been a public relations miscalculation. (C)2001 Copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 11 DOE details work at 2 companies The Register Citizen NORTHWEST CORNER--THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY HAS DETAILED WHAT TYPE OF NUCLEAR-RELATED WORK TOOK PLACE AT TWO LOCAL COMPANIES DURING THE COLD WAR ERA. Earlier this month the federal government announced that both the Torrington Company in Torrington and New England Line Company in Canaan were among business participating in various nuclear projects in the 1950s and 1960s. The announcement was made in an effort to alert former employees of their possible eligibility for compensation under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Act of 2000. According to a Department of Energy source, New England Line Company supplied magnesium to the Manhattan Project for 12 years and to other atomic energy programs. In 1963 work was also performed on residues that contained uranium. The testing did not last longer than two days during June of 1963, according to the Department of Energy. Officials say that radiation monitoring techniques were in place during the testing. The Torrington Company conducted work relating to uranium rods during this time. The uranium rods were produced at other plants and then shipped to the Torrington company. Experiments included adjusting the diameter of rods and reshaping the rods that would be used in plutonium production reactors. The Department of Energy said a number of smaller, independent firms were used to perform experiments during the Cold War. The Department of Energy is releasing the list of projects to all facilities as they continue to develop the compensation program and attempt to determine where workers who may have been injured were exposed. The Energy Department can be reached at 1-877-447-9756 for additional information regarding the compensation program. cThe Register Citizen 2001 ***************************************************************** 12 Search may resume for nuclear bomb lost off coast in 50s Published Sunday, January 21, 2001 RUSS BYNUM / Associated Press TYBEE ISLAND, GA.--Lost beneath the shallow waters off the Georgia coast lies a Cold War relic that lingered for decades only in vague memories and folklore, a 7,600-pound nuclear bomb dumped by a crippled Air Force plane. Nearly 43 years later, questions raised by a former military pilot and a Georgia congressman have caused the government to consider renewing its search for the bomb lost near Tybee Island, 12 miles east of Savannah. The Air Force insists that the bomb lacks a key plutonium capsule needed to cause a nuclear explosion, though it still contains radioactive uranium and the explosive power of 400 pounds of TNT. "It's a nuclear bomb," insists Derek Duke, a former Air Force pilot who has been researching the case for two years. "It's like if I take the battery out of your car, then I try to convince you it's not a car." "It needs to be found so it moves from the dark, scary realm of lost and unknown and we know where and how it is." Air Force officials aren't so sure. After weighing the potential dangers of leaving the bomb against the cost of finding it, possibly $1 million or more, they plan to decide soon whether a new search is warranted. Duke's own search has revived what had become a largely forgotten tale on Tybee Island, a beach community of 4,000 where rustic bungalows sit beside $500,000 homes. In February 1958, a B-47 bomber on a training mission collided with a fighter jet near Savannah and had to drop the bomb to land safely. It was dumped on the south side of Tybee's uninhabited sister island, called Little Tybee. The military spent weeks searching for the weapon, then gave up. "Savannahians have all kinds of tales and legends," said U.S. Rep. Jack Kingston, who represents coastal Georgia in Congress. "And part of the Savannah lore was there's a bomb off Tybee. And you' d go, 'Is there really?'" Kingston was skeptical until Duke came to him last summer with a proposal to find the weapon himself using a team of former military experts with technology capable of scanning the ocean floor. Newspaper clippings from 1958 and government documents indicated the bomb was real. But how dangerous was it? Duke points to an April 1966 letter to the chairman of Congress' Joint Committee on Atomic Energy by W.J. Howard, then assistant to the secretary of defense. Howard listed four nuclear weapons that had been lost and never recovered. Though two were described as "weapons-less capsules," and thus incapable of a nuclear blast, the Tybee Island bomb wasn't one of them. Howard listed it and a device lost in the deep western Pacific in 1965 as "complete" weapons. At Kingston's urging, the Air Force checked its original records on the bomb and concluded Howard was wrong. "The bomb off the coast of Savannah is not capable of a nuclear explosion, " said Maj. Cheryl Law, an Air Force spokeswoman. As for the uranium still inside the bomb, "to have that hurt you, you would actually have to ingest it." No guarantee That doesn't mean the bomb is harmless. High explosives in the 12-foot cylinder, resembling a large propane tank, could cause serious damage if they detonated with a boat directly overhead. There' s also the environmental threat of an underwater explosion and radiation leakage killing fish and other sea life. But there's no guarantee the bomb could be found. Experts have warned the Air Force that tides and strong weather patterns over the years could have moved the bomb out to sea. Kingston said he's willing to follow the Air Force's lead for now. But he'd like to see some effort, if only a small search covering just a few miles. "Four hundred pounds of TNT to some folks isn't a big deal," he said. "But if it's your family and your boat that hits it, it is a big deal." But an Air Force expert on nuclear weapons who has studied the Tybee Island bomb said damage from an accidental explosion would be minimal. Officials believe the bomb sank at least five miles off the coast, beneath about 20 feet of water and an additional 15 feet of sand and silt, said Maj. Don Robbins, deputy director of the Air Force Nuclear Weapons and Counter Proliferation Agency. If it exploded, the bomb "would create maybe a 10-foot diameter hole and shock waves through the water of approximately 100 yards," Robbins said. "Even boats going over it would not even notice. They might see some bubbles coming out around them." The amount of uranium in the bomb's casing is too low to cause a serious environmental threat, he said. Tybee Island residents, known to ride out hurricane warnings at the beachside bars, haven't been ruffled by the wayward bomb. "It was all over the newspapers and the radio. But nobody worried about it," said city councilman Jack Youmans, 75, who was living on the island when the bomb was dropped. "If it's there, then it's there. That's all." ***************************************************************** NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: *****************************************************************