***************************************************************** 04/24/01 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 9.100 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER CONTENTS 1 STATEMENT OF U.S. SENATOR HARRY REID ON THE DEPT. OF ENERGY'S 2 OPINION: Ignore Scare Tactics 3 Radiation Distortions 4 Stalled talks over nuclear shipments may close MU reactor 5 Homesteaders blame cleanup for damage 6 Inspector general says DOE not biased toward Yucca Mountain 7 But Millstone 1 fuel rods are still unaccounted for 8 Anti-Nuke Rally Highlights Earth Day in New York 9 USEC Inc. to Hold Investor Conference Call Thursday, April 26 at 10 In praise of nuclear energy -- The Washington Times 11 Industry Gives Nuclear Power a Second Look 12 State: penalize CVPS for not squeezing more power from Vermont Yankee 13 Opinion - Bush's environmental hostility 14 YUCCA MOUNTAIN: Report dismays delegation 15 Turbine Work to Extend Nine Mile 1 Outage; Refueling Complete 16 Statement of Secretary of Energy Abraham on Release of Inspector 17 Nuclear cargo heads for Britain 18 JCO, employees open trial with guilty pleas 19 Japanese anger at Cunningham visit 20 Narora reactor chief allays radiation fears 21 German Waste Shipment Held Up 22 Report: Trust in Yucca project falters 23 German nuclear waste heads for UK 24 Germany's nuclear waste headache 25 Protests precede German nuclear shipment 26 Science Museum takes on £5.5m Sellafield revamp 27 New storage for nuclear waste 28 New Chernobyl Cover Would Cost 1.5-2.5 Billion Dollars 29 More water is found in site for repository 30 Two Russian Chernobyl-affected Regions Remain Dangerous 31 Bryansk, Kaluga regions worst hit by Chernobyl accident 32 Nuke boss pleads guilty on fatal accident 33 Elkoans tour Yucca Mountain site 34 Boulder City decides on project featuring renewable energy NUCLEAR WEAPONS CONTENTS 1 Hanford contractor facing bankruptcy 2 Hanford budget frustrates Hastings 3 ABQjournal: Senator Seeks to Restore Funding for Nuke Pits 4 Board prepares letter opposing cuts at SRS 5 Technology:Backers push for timely aid to nuke workers 6 New Nukes 7 Ten Year Study Reveals Nuclear Weapons Unlawful 8 Gorbachev optimistic after Bush meeting 9 War Veteran Windfall 10 Test Veterans Still Want Compensation 11 Hard Times, Scary Choices in Russia 12 Russian Navy Denies Sub Accident 13 Uranium cleanup unfunded 14 Labor Department to Delay Nuclear Worker Compensation ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 STATEMENT OF U.S. SENATOR HARRY REID ON THE DEPT. OF ENERGY'S INSPECTOR GENERAL'S REPORT ON THE YUCCA MOUNTAIN PROJECT [Sen. Reid Press Release] April 23, 2001 Washington, D.C. – NevadaSenator Harry Reidtoday released the following statement today in response to findings by the Department of Energy's(DOE) Inspector General into allegations of bias regarding on-going siting work on the proposed high-level nuclear wasterepository at Yucca Mountain. "This report has raised the issue of potential bias in the study of the suitability of Yucca Mountain and has put the DOE and their contractors on notice that we are watching very, very carefully. While the Inspector General'sinvestigation did not find that process was tilted in favor of approving Yucca Mountain, it acknowledged that the overview contained statements which were biased in favor of the proposed repository. The report also says that public confidence in the whole site selection process has 'eroded' and calls on the Energy Department and its contractors to reaffirm their commitment to objective science. From the beginning, we in Nevada have always said that thorough science will trump nuclear politics and prevent the siting of a Yucca Mountain because of fundamental questions about hydrology and the ability to safely store this waste for 10,000 years. That is why it is extremely important that the EPA establish a stringent groundwater standard that can protect Nevadans from deadly radiation in their drinking water supplies." The Inspector General's report was requested by Reid in December 2000, to determine whether there was evidence of bias in the evaluation of the suitability of Yucca Mountain on the part of DOE and its contractors. ***************************************************************** 2 OPINION: Ignore Scare Tactics The Salt Lake Tribune -- Tuesday, April 24, 2001* Having worked in the low-level radioactive waste industry for more than 20 years, I would like to respond to the letter by Robin Jenkins (Forum, April 1). Contrary to Ms. Jenkins' allegations, Envirocare has presented truthful, accurate information about the hazardous lifetime of Class B &C low-level radioactive wastes. Ms. Jenkins appears to be confusing "half-life" with "hazard." All of us contain trace amounts of Carbon-14 (half-life of 5,700 years) and Potassium-40 (half-life of 1.3 billion years) in our bodies. This does not make us hazardous, now or for a billion years into the future. In the same fashion, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the "experts in the state Division of Radiation Control" have limited these long-lived radioactive elements to those amounts which will be safe to any intruder after 500 years. As stated on page 87 of the Final Environmental Impact Statement produced by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission: "Waste that will not decay to levels which present an acceptable hazard to an intruder within 100 years is designated as Class C waste . . . A maximum concentration of radionuclides is specified for all wastes so that at the end of the 500-year period, remaining radioactivity will be at a level that does not pose an unacceptable hazard to an intruder or public health and safety." The scientific fact is that wastes that may remain hazardous for longer than 500 years will not be allowed to go the Envirocare facility for disposal. Hopefully, Utahns will base their opinions on such facts, and ignore the scare tactics and unfounded claims of people like Ms. Jenkins. RONALD GAYNOR Engineering Consultant to Envirocare of Utah Loomis, Calif. © Copyright 2001, The Salt Lake Tribune All material found on Utah OnLine is ***************************************************************** 3 Radiation Distortions The Salt Lake Tribune -- April 24, 2001* The opinion piece by Pamela Jo Brubaker ("Plutonium Wastes . . . ," Tribune, March 30) contains accurate information about the plutonium content of spent fuel rods, but astounding distortions of the concomitant health risks. Accurate information on such radiation issues is readily available from the Health Physics Society, a non-profit scientific professional organization whose mission is to promote the practice of radiation safety. This is an international organization with approximately 6,000 members. The following information is from their position paper on "Deadly Plutonium" found on their Web site, www.hps.org, along with a wealth of other information pertaining to radiation risks and protection. "The radiological hazards of plutonium are of the same types and magnitudes as those of such naturally occurring radioactive elements as radium and thorium, which are now and always have been present in the food we eat, in the water we drink, and in trace amounts in our bodies. However, the potential for public exposure to plutonium is negligible compared with thorium, which is found everywhere in soil and rock; it is three times as abundant as uranium and about as abundant as lead in the Earth's crust." Several of the 39 members of the Health Physics Society living and working in Utah, including myself, have professional experience with plutonium and are available to help anyone interested to find peer-reviewed scientific information about radiation issues. Unfortunately, we are not as adept as Ms. Brubaker, a graduate student in mass communications, in reaching the public! KEITH SCHIAGER Salt Lake City ***************************************************************** 4 Stalled talks over nuclear shipments may close MU reactor STLtoday - news BY DARREN FREEMAN Of the Post-Dispatch 04/23/2001 A nuclear reactor at the University of Missouri at Columbia might have to shut down June 30 because of stalled negotiations between the state and the federal government about the shipment of nuclear waste through Missouri. Since last spring, when former Gov. Mel Carnahan blocked a shipment of nuclear waste from passing through the state, the university's reactor program has been unable to send its spent nuclear fuel to U.S. Department of Energy storage facilities. Now, after a year of stockpiling nuclear waste, the facility's uranium stock is nearing the maximum amount the federal government allows the university to store on-site. University officials declined to comment Monday. But research reactor personnel told state officials last month that the facility would close June 30 and remain out of commission until the Energy Department accepts a shipment of the reactor's spent fuel. Such a closure would halt the university's production of radiopharmaceuticals, including a widely used pain-management treatment for people with bone cancer. In a series of letters to the Energy Department, reactor director Edward A. Deutsch stated that cancer patients would suffer if the reactor stopped production. "Since the University's research reactor is the sole approved U.S. provider of isotopes used in three cancer therapies, patients will not receive these therapies," Deutsch wrote in an April 19 letter to the Energy Department. "Literally, patients will die who otherwise would live. Moreover, thousands of cancer patients who depend on our radioisotopes ... will not receive pain relief." U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, had told Gov. Bob Holden in an April 17 letter that his agency wanted to resume shipments out of the university and was working to schedule a meeting between state and department officials. Holden earlier this month accused the Energy Department of blocking shipments out of the university as leverage to force the state to allow three trucks carrying nuclear waste to travel through Missouri this summer via Interstate 70. The trucks would depart from South Carolina and carry 126 spent nuclear rods from German research reactors to a treatment and storage facility in Idaho. State officials maintain that I-70 has too much construction and could be accident-prone. "On its face, it appears there's a connection that amounts to an abuse of power on the part of the DOE," said Ron Kucera, deputy director of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources. Kucera pointed out that the last shipment from the university to the Energy Department's Savannah River, S.C., storage facility was sent in March of last year, two months before Carnahan had blocked a prior shipment of trucking waste through the state by the Energy Department. In a letter to Deutsch written on Dec. 21, David G. Huizenga of the Energy Department's Office of Environmental Management, said the safety issues raised by state officials had not been resolved and that the university's shipments "were also postponed as a result of their concerns." Kucera said it was unfair for university shipments to be blocked for the same reasons because trucks carrying waste out of the university can't avoid using I-70. Energy Department spokesman Joe Davis said the two issues were not linked. ***************************************************************** 5 Homesteaders blame cleanup for damage [deseretnews.com] April 23, 2001 MONTICELLO, San Juan — The owners of a homestead are saying in federal court that activity at the Monticello Uranium Mill Tailings Superfund site ruined their property. In a suit filed Friday, the U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Bureau of Land Management and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission are named as defendants. Cleanup of contaminated soil on property abutting the homestead is being blamed for $1 million in damage. The owners of the property say the cleanup, which began in 1987, damaged the actual structure of their home as well as the surrounding land and wildlife. Some of the waste, the plaintiffs said, was deposited on their property, requiring remediation. They also say the project caused long-term, low-level exposure to radioactive materials. © 2001 Deseret News Publishing Company ***************************************************************** 6 Inspector general says DOE not biased toward Yucca Mountain CARSON Tuesday, April 24, 2001 Associated Press LAS VEGAS (AP) - A four-month investigation by the Energy Department's inspector general has found no bias on the part of the DOE in the Yucca Mountain site selection process. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham issued a statement Monday saying the inspector general concluded ''that there was no evidence to substantiate the concern that bias compromised the integrity of the site-selection process.'' In the wake of the inspector general's conclusion, Abraham said he remained committed to moving forward in a fair manner with the process to select a site to store the nation's radioactive waste. ''I am today reaffirming our commitment to a site suitability evaluation process which is objective, unbiased and based on sound science, and conveying that reaffirmation of policy to all relevant parties.'' Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., who with former Energy Secretary Bill Richardson requested the investigation, called the report ''a mixed bag.'' While it acknowledges that some have lost confidence in the site selection process, Reid said he was disappointed in the report's overall findings. ''We have the General Accounting Office working on their own report,'' he added. The inspector general's investigation was prompted by documents suggesting the DOE was collaborating with the nuclear industry to recommend Yucca Mountain as the site to store 77,000 tons of the nation's high-level nuclear waste. Yucca Mountain, the only site under study, is 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Federal law prohibits the DOE from taking sides in the selection process. The inspector general absolved the DOE of any wrongdoing after conducting more than 200 interviews in the past four months, Abraham said. He acknowledged that the DOE did not get a total clean bill of health. The investigation, he said, found that some statements attached to DOE documents in the selection process ''could be viewed as suggesting a premature conclusion regarding suitability of Yucca Mountain.'' *Copyright tahoe.com. Materials contained within this site may ***************************************************************** 7 But Millstone 1 fuel rods are still unaccounted for By Paul Choiniere Published on 4/24/2001 King of Prussia, Pa. — Millstone 1 officials told representatives of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission Monday that they are investigating 27 plausible scenarios as to what may have happened to two missing fuel rods last accounted for at the closed plant more than 20 years ago. It is also possible, said the Millstone officials, that the fuel rods may never be located. The meeting was held at the NRC's regional headquarters in King of Prussia. The two fuel rods were first reported missing back in November during an inventory of the high-level radioactive waste stored at the Millstone 1 plant, which last operated in 1995. It is one of three plants — the other two remain in operation — at Millstone Nuclear Power Station in Waterford. Bob Fairbank, project manager for the investigation, said 20 scenarios involve the possibility that the fuels rods were moved to a different location in the storage pool, but the transfer was not documented. Seven scenarios involve the possibility that the fuel rods were mislabeled as low-level waste and transported to a low-level waste dump. Four of those potential off-site scenarios involve the transporting of the waste to the Chem-Nuclear low-level waste facility in Barnwell, S.C., while three scenarios deal with the possible transfer to the U.S. Ecology facility in Hanford, Wash. The list was whittled down from an initial compilation of 72 possible scenarios that could explain what happened to the fuel, Fairbank said. Forty-five scenarios were rejected as implausible or were investigated and ruled out. Frank Rothen, vice president of nuclear services for former Millstone owner Northeast Utilities, said a final report is expected by mid-June. At that point, Rothen said, investigators will either have determined where the fuel rods are or will offer an educated conjecture on where they most likely are. It is possible they will never be found, he said. The fuel rods could be located somewhere within the storage pool that is inaccessible or they could have been sent off-site, but where cannot be determined, Rothen said. Bruce Hinkley, who heads up a five-member independent review team that is monitoring the investigation into the missing fuel rods, said chances that the fuel rods are in the pool are equal to the chances they were transported off site. Hinkley is a former nuclear executive who worked at the now closed Maine Yankee plant. “The likelihood of one location over another is dead even,” he said. Hubert Miller, NRC regional administrator, said at the conclusion of the nearly two-hour-long meeting that the potential of the fuel rods posing a threat to public health “is extremely low to negligible.” All the evidence points to the fuel rods still being in the pool or, if they were shipped off site, that they are contained in a lead-lined container that shields the radiation, according to investigators. Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, which took control of Millstone station earlier this month, has regulatory responsibility for the missing fuel. Its parent company paid $1.3 billion for the nuclear station. The former owner, NU, has agreed to pay the cost of the investigation and any NRC fines that may result. If the fuel rods were moved or cannot be accounted for, it would be a violation of federal nuclear power regulations. There is a project team of 21 people working full-time on the investigation,, so far having collectively devoted 16,000 staff hours, the NRC was told. The storage pool is a hostile environment, filled with fuels rods from a quarter-century of plant operations, and with discarded radioactive parts and storage racks. Searching must be done using remotely-controlled cameras. Investigators have also had to visit a half-dozen facilities where they felt the rods could have potentially been moved. NU did not reveal the estimated cost of the investigation. “We're as frustrated as you are, believe me,” Rothen told the NRC. “(The search) is very painful and very slow.” The slender metal fuel rods are filled with enriched uranium pellets, about a half-inch in diameter and 13 feet long. They were removed in 1972 after spending about 500 days in the reactor. Slightly bent, the two rods were left out when the bundles of fuel rod assemblies were returned to the reactor. The two rods were last referred to in documents in 1980. Company investigators are also trying to determine what mistakes that led to the fuel rods being misplaced. Investigators told the NRC that they have determined that the federal guidelines in place at the time, had they been followed, would have assured that the location of the rods was monitored. It was the failure to follow those regulations that led to the problem, but exactly what happened has not been determined, said the investigators. © 1998-2001 The Day Publishing Co. ***************************************************************** 8 Anti-Nuke Rally Highlights Earth Day in New York Environment News Service: NEW YORK, New York, April 20, 2001 (ENS) - Anti-nuclear and environmental activists will hold a march and rally in New York's Times Square on Sunday, to protest the categorization of nuclear energy as a sustainable power source. The Earth Day event will draw attention to an ongoing United Nations meeting on sustainable development, which is considering whether nuclear power should be included on a list of sustainable energy sources. The United States has 103 nuclear power plants operating at 65 sites, far more than any other country in the world. The Bush administration, as part of its pro-nuclear policies, is supporting language that would label atomic energy as sustainable and thus eligible for various international benefits. [powerplant] Nine Mile Point nuclear power plant on the New York shore of Lake Ontario, sold last December to Constellation Energy by the Niagara Mohawk Power Corp., began commercial operation in March 1988. (Photo courtesy U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission) "At the Kyoto negotiations in the Hague in November, the world's nations - including the United States - rejected nuclear power as an appropriate solution to global climate change," said Michael Mariotte, executive director of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service. "Now the U.S. government has turned on its heels and is embracing the nuclear industry. But the public, both here and abroad, have quite rightly rejected any expansion of nuclear power as an energy source. It's time the Bush administration learned that lesson." The Earth Day march will kick off from Times Square at noon on Sunday, and wend its way to Dag Hammarskjold Plaza at United Nations Headquarters, bearing a 20 foot inflatable power plant and a full size mock radioactive waste transport cask. The 1 pm rally will feature leaders from the grassroots environmental/clean energy movement, including long time environmentalist and former presidential candidate Barry Commoner. Authors and activists Harvey Wasserman and Karl Grossman will join a host of environmental leaders in addressing the rally. Music will be performed by East Coast favorite Patti Rothberg, modern traveling troubadour David Rovics, Sharon Abreu and Tom Neilsen, whose song "Radiation Trains" has become an anthem for nuclear power protestors. [Monticello] Monticello Unit 1 is on the Mississippi River about 30 miles northwest of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Operated by Northern States Power Company, it began commercial operation in 1971. (Photo courtesy NRC) Anti-nuclear activists are concerned about the risk of radiation escaping if a nuclear power plant malfunctions. They are concerned about the safe storage of highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel and the safe transport of this spent fuel over the nation's roads and rail lines. "The Bush administration is shaping up to be the most determinedly anti-environmental in history," said Mariotte. "While Bush's EPA says OK to arsenic in drinking water, Vice-President [Dick] Cheney is leading a closed door energy task force that will promote the construction of new nuclear power reactors in the United States." "In just four months," Mariotte said, "this administration has alienated our European allies on global climate change and outraged millions of Americans with its destructive policies. This Earth Day, we're taking the first steps toward reclaiming the environment from the corporate polluters and their White House allies." For detailed information about the U.S. government's Nuclear Regulatory Commission, visit: http://www.nrc.gov/OPA/ For the latest on plans for storage of high level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, log on to: http://www.nrc.gov/NMSS/DWM/hlw.htm © Environment News Service ***************************************************************** 9 USEC Inc. to Hold Investor Conference Call Thursday, April 26 at 10 a.m. ET Monday April 23, 10:03 am Eastern Time Press Release BETHESDA, Md.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 23, 2001--USEC Inc. (NYSE:USU - news) will broadcast its next conference call with the financial community over the Internet on Thursday, April 26 at 8:30 a.m. ET. The call follows the release of USEC's third quarter earnings at the close of the market on April 25, 2001. This call is being webcast by CCBN and can be accessed at USECs Web site at www.usec.com. The webcast is also be distributed over CCBN's Investor Distribution Network to both institutional and individual investors. Individual investors can listen to the call through CCBN's individual investor center at www.companyboardroom.comor by visiting any of the investor sites in CCBN's Individual Investor Network such as America Online's Personal Finance Channel, Fidelity Investments® (Fidelity.com) and others. Institutional investors can access the call via CCBN's password protected event management site, StreetEvents (www.streetevents.com). StreetEvents allows institutional investors to identify, organize, and track the hundreds of conference calls that occur each day during earnings season, to download events of interest to their Outlook calendar, and to RSVP to events online. USEC Inc., a global energy company, is the world's leading supplier of enriched uranium fuel for commercial nuclear power plants. *Contact:* USEC Inc. Steven Wingfield (media), 301/564-3354 wingfields@usec.com Copyright © 2001 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved. Privacy ***************************************************************** 10 In praise of nuclear energy -- The Washington Times EDITORIAL • April 24, 2001 The not so-well-known subtext to the current energy problems in California is the abandonment of nuclear power as a source of electrical generating capacity. Since the 1970s, the needlessly difficult process and endless legal challenges from anti-energy environmental groups have made it uneconomical to build new plants. Few have been built, particularly in the Western states. In fact, no new plant has been built since 1979. However, up till now, the consequences of failing to make provisions, in terms of greater power generating capacity, have not been made manifest to the people who irrationally object to nuclear power. Now, the chickens have finally come home to roost, and the time has come to confront the bogeyman ginned-up by environmental zealots. Abundant, affordable and clean energy is just what nuclear power could provide. No fossil fuels are consumed, no "greenhouse gasses" are emitted. And modern safeguards make nuclear power at least as safe, if not safer, than other forms of generating power. Indeed, the fact is that despite the hype surrounding the accident at the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania more than 20 years ago, not a single person has been harmed, let alone killed, by nuclear power in this country. This contrasts mightily with the tens of thousands who have been killed, and the hundreds of thousands afflicted with diseases such as black lung and emphysema as a result of coal mining and other "dirty" means of developing energy. Fact is beginning to win out over fiction. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which oversees the license process, says that existing plants will seek to renew their operating licenses instead. "We have even seen the first stirring of interest in the possibility of new nuclear plant construction in the United States, a thought that would have been inconceivable even a year ago," NRC Chairman Richard Meserve told The Washington Post. The Bush administration can speed things along by supporting a proposal to create a safe underground storage facility for spent nuclear fuel rods in a remote area of Nevada called Yucca Mountain. Activists have fought for years to prevent the opening of such a facility, but their objections are based on either irrational fears, an inability to understand the safeguards that have been designed, or an outright hostility to any solution that would reduce energy costs for average Americans. Liberal intellectuals such as Amory Lovins have stated publicly that giving Americans access to cheap, abundant and renewable energy would be the equivalent of "giving an idiot child a machine gun." It was this hostility to an improved quality of life for average Americans that throttled nuclear power in the 1970s. Let´s hope that in the dawning century, clearer thinking prevails. ***************************************************************** 11 Industry Gives Nuclear Power a Second Look April 24, 2001 By MATTHEW L. WALD Evan Richman for The New York Times The energy policy of the Bush administration is expected to support nuclear plant construction. But obstacles remain to a resumption of building reactors. The Associated Press One obstacle to nuclear plant construction has been delays in finishing the proposed waste site at Yucca Mountain near Las Vegas. [C] AMBRIDGE, Mass., April 20 — Some regions of the country are short of electric power, and the price of natural gas, the most popular fuel for new power plants, has doubled. Windmills look promising but still produce only a tiny amount of power; solar power is even less significant. Nuclear reactors are now so desirable that when old ones go on sale, bidding wars have broken out. And the Bush administration's energy plan, scheduled for release soon, is expected to include strong support for new reactor construction. Does that mean it is time to order new ones? Not quite, according to a number of experts gathered at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology here to talk about the role of technology in a time of growing electric demand and increased concern about pollution. But after a 30-year hiatus, the time may be drawing closer. "There's some change in the wind," said Charles M. Vest, president of M.I.T., helping to open a two-day International Symposium on the Role of Nuclear Energy in a Sustainable Environment, sponsored by the university's Center for Advanced Nuclear Systems. Experts from France, Japan, Russia and the United States discussed designs that might be feasible in 30 years, or in 3 years. The group acknowledged obvious problems, like the fact that this country has still not decided what to do with reactor waste, but presumed that either a burial spot would be found or plants would be built to break down the waste or reuse it. The industry's trade association, the Nuclear Energy Institute, has assembled a task force on new nuclear deployment, which has met four times to draw up a business plan for new reactors. Participants include five companies that either operate or have recently bought plants — Dominion Resources of Virginia, Entergy of New Orleans, Exelon of Chicago, Constellation Energy of Maryland and the Southern Company of Georgia. Industry executives say that the first new order for a reactor, if it comes, is likely to be at a site where other plants are already operating and the neighbors are used to a nuclear installation. As for what a new plant might look like, a great deal has changed since 1973, when the last plant that was not later canceled was ordered, and even since 1996, when the last one was finished. Experts say the designs or construction techniques of the 1970's are no more likely to return than other wonders of that era, like the Boeing 727 or the Saturn V rocket. One possibility is the "pebble bed" design, which circulates uranium fuel pellets shaped like billiard balls through the reactor and generates only about one-tenth as much heat per square foot as a conventional reactor. As a result, supporters assert that it cannot have a meltdown. The fuel balls in the pebble bed design are replaced as needed, but the reactor never has to shut down for refueling. The Exelon Corporation, which owns 17 reactors in this country, joined a partnership with a South African utility, Eskom, another South African company and BNFL, formerly known as British Nuclear Fuels, to build one in South Africa. Exelon has asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to look at this design, but has not announced plans to build one in the United States. Other possible new designs range from simplified, refined versions of the Westinghouse and General Electric models in service today to the pebble bed. The regulatory commission approved new Westinghouse and General Electric designs in the late 1990's, and that, in itself, is a change; designs for the current generation of plants were not approved until the plants were built, sometimes leading to licensing delays. The nuclear division of Westinghouse, now owned by BNFL, says that its design has 60 percent fewer moving parts — with fewer pumps, wires and pipes — and that there is less to build and less to go wrong. It also has stairs in places where older designs had ladders, to accommodate an aging nuclear power plant work force. A new General Electric design is also meant to be simpler and safer. In 1996 a utility in Japan completed a reactor that resembled the design approved by American regulators. But other changes since the 1970's do not bode well for new reactor construction. In those days, the utilities that built generating stations were regulated monopolies that could take on large projects with the assurance that their customers would pay the price almost no matter what it was. "Somebody else was paying for your mistakes," said David Lochbaum, a nuclear reactor expert at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit safety group, who did not attend the meeting here. Now, most power plants are built by unregulated suppliers that could be bankrupted by the cost overruns that were common when the last of the 103 reactors still running were completed. The unregulated companies prefer plants that can be put up quickly, with less financial risk. Nuclear waste is a more pressing problem than when the first plants were built. California, for example, has made it illegal to begin new reactors until the waste problem is solved. In every state, that will be an argument. The Energy Department was supposed to begin accepting spent fuel from reactors in 1998, but work on its proposed permanent repository, Yucca Mountain, near Las Vegas, has been slow. So far scientists have not ruled on its suitability. In addition, there are promising competitors, including windmills and fuel cells. Even though President Bush's budget proposes cuts in money available to research alternative forms of energy, many researchers are pursuing new technologies. And energy planners have been wrong for decades in prematurely predicting the end of oil, gas and coal. "When everybody in this room dies, fossil fuels are going to be abundant and inexpensive," said Michael W. Golay, a nuclear engineering professor here, to a gathering of about 40 nuclear experts. Supporters say that with improved reliability and design, the new generation of reactors will be less expensive to operate than the competing sources of electricity, coal and natural gas. But the numbers remain somewhat speculative. Still, the industry is getting a second look, for some of the same reasons nuclear power seemed attractive in the 1960's and 70's. Supporters argue that fossil fuel supplies are limited, that the United States should be developing technology to help the world electrify, and that pollution, especially emissions linked to global climate change, is a concern. Still, the industry was not helped by Mr. Bush's decision to drop the Kyoto accord on limiting carbon dioxide emissions. But another recent development has helped: the rise in the price of natural gas. About 90 percent of the plants built in the last 10 years use natural gas, but in California last winter, the price of that fuel reached $60 per million British thermal units, equivalent to oil at about $350 a barrel, or about seven times the current price, and some analysts expect it to stay in the range of $4 to $6 per million B.T.U., up from $2 to $3 a year ago. In response, some companies have announced plans to build coal-burning plants, but these require costly pollution controls, and even then, they will emit sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, which cause acid rain and smog. The plants also produce carbon dioxide, which may eventually be regulated as a contributor to global climate change. Environmental advocates call for investments in efficiency, and in "renewable" sources like wind and solar, but so far those sources are tiny compared with demand. The Chernobyl nuclear accident in Ukraine was 15 years ago, and Three Mile Island was 22 years ago; meanwhile, American reactors are operating with a record low level of minor incidents, and producing more power than ever. Plants are having their 40-year licenses extended for 20 years. The result, said Paul Jaskow, a former chairman of the economics department at M.I.T. and an expert on regulated industries, is that "there has not been a better time for nuclear power in the last 25 years." But Mr. Jaskow, analyzing the recent power plant sales and separating the components, like long-term power purchase agreements, trust funds for reactor decommissioning, and sale of nuclear fuel, concluded, that "none of these deals even comes close to covering the book costs." "You couldn't justify paying $2,000 or $3,000 per kilowatt for those plants," he said, referring to the price per unit capacity. Supporters say they could build plants for about $1,000 per kilowatt of capacity, but similar claims in the 1960's and 70's were way off, and nearly bankrupted some utilities. The regulatory commission has simplified the licensing procedure, to reduce the possibility of lengthy delays, but industry experts are skeptical because the new procedure has not been used. Investors would have to expect a huge competitive benefit from nuclear plants to risk putting money in a new one, Mr. Jaskow said, "because of the significant possibility of coming up with a dry hole." NYTimes.com ***************************************************************** 12 State: penalize CVPS for not squeezing more power from Vermont Yankee By David Gram, Associated Press, 4/23/2001 20:45 MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) Central Vermont Public Service Corp. passed up $2.7 million in savings for ratepayers by failing to squeeze extra power from the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant, a state agency says. In written testimony, the Department of Public Service charges that CVPS should have pushed to ''uprate'' Vermont Yankee when it had the opportunity, in early 1999. A utility official testified to the Public Service Board that CVPS and Vermont Yankee's other utility owners decided not to spend roughly $10 million needed to increase the plant's power output because they were in the middle of talks on selling the plant to AmerGen Energy Co. That deal that has since fallen through. The department urges that the board trim the profit the regulated CVPS is allowed to earn by about three-quarters of 1 percent. Utilities typically are allowed to earn profits in the 11 percent range. Kent Brown, CVPS senior vice president for engineering and operations, told the board that his company and Vermont Yankee's owners concluded they would not be able to recover the $10 million investment in the sale price. ''AmerGen had made clear that it was not interested in a power uprate by Vermont Yankee . . . and would not pay the cost of such an uprate in the purchase price,'' Brown told the board. But the Department of Public Service, which represents ratepayers before the board, contends it was highly speculative to think the plant would be sold AmerGen and therefore, Vermont Yankee owners should have gone ahead with the upgrade. The department is also contesting a 7.6 percent rate increase request by CVPS. The result of the sale would have been about eight megawatts of new power for CVPS. That would be power it could have produced for as little as a penny per kilowatt-hour and sold for five times as much, using the profits to offset other power costs and passing the savings on to ratepayers, the department says. William Steinhurst, planning director for the department, reminded the board that in 1994 it had penalized CVPS for its management of its power import contract with Hydro-Quebec. The board also at that time ordered the company to ''eliminate the excessive power costs imposed on customers by ineffective and improvident management decisions.'' William Sherman, nuclear engineer with the department, told the board that nuclear plant power uprates are becoming common in the industry. Twenty or 30 years ago, when most plants began operation, they were licensed to run at less power than they were capable of in order to provide an extra margin of safety. More recent calculations by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission concluded that a plant like Vermont Yankee can produce about 5 percent more than the 540 megawatts of electricity that it has historically produced. CVPS officials have expressed clear annoyance, if not anger, at the department's contention that the company should be penalized for passing up the opportunity to get more power from Vermont Yankee. Company spokesman Steve Costello said Monday that CVPS officials worried at the time of the power upgrade decision that if they had gone ahead with it, sold the plant to AmerGen and failed to recover their investment in the sale price, the department might later argue the company should be penalized for imprudence. ***************************************************************** 13 Opinion - Bush's environmental hostility Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 12:47 p.m. on Tuesday, April 24, 2001 Ellen Goodman BOSTON -- And you always thought it wasn't easy being green. It took Bush less than a week to change into a costume colorful enough for a St. Patrick's parade and an Earth Day charade. Early in this administration's growing season, the Bush folk had shocked environmentalists right down to their grass roots. He rejected the global warming treaty, lusted after the Arctic refuge and chose arsenic as his favorite beverage. Carbon Dioxide 'R Us became his motto. Now, faster than a sprouting bean, the administration has taken its hands off the regulations for toxic lead and wetlands, and retreated on arsenic. On Thursday, the President even held a ceremony in the environmentally correct Rose Garden to sign a treaty reducing pesticides and industrial chemicals. Frankly, I am happy to see any hint of celadon in Bush country. But in the Earth Day flourish of attention, how did we manage to overlook the greatest environmental danger of all -- the mushroom cloud over the green space? Did you miss the small news report revealing that the Defense Department is mulling over the development of mini-nukes? These are what supporters describe so benignly as "precise,'' "clean,'' low-yield,'' and "usable.'' They are little nuclear bombs designed to strike deeply buried targets. The story went through a news cycle and into oblivion. It's proof that we don't (like to) think much these days about that instant global warming, the conflagration that preoccupied the Cold War psyche. I share this reluctance. Like everyone in my duck-and-cover generation, I breathed a sigh of relief at the end of the Cold War, thinking we needn't worry about nuclear weapons anymore. But now every day brings another blast from the past. We've already seen how the White House deals with Russia. Today, says Joe Cirincione, director at Carnegie's Non-Proliferation Project, "The No. 1 concern is still Russia. Not because it's strong, but because it's weak.'' In its post-Cold War chaos, Russia not only has the most nuclear missiles and materials but also a crop of broke and alienated nuclear scientists. Nearly 14 percent of them, a Carnegie survey shows, are ready to work for a foreign country. Perhaps nearby Iraq or Iran? Our biggest security bang for the buck -- or should I say "non-bang'' for the buck -- has been the $500 million targeted to dismantle and secure Russian nuclear weapons and materials as well as to help their scientists find jobs. But the Bush budget would cut $100 million out of that piece of self-protection. Instead, the same budget substitutes self-defense by fantasy. Funding for the Star Wars project would go up to $5.5 billion. The only practical success from the son-of-Reagan's shield would be to unravel international treaties. And those chic little mini-nukes? If you think a heavenly missile defense over America is a flight of science fiction, try an underground attack warhead. In an imaginary world, mini-nukes, operating with "pinpoint accuracy,'' could "take out'' Saddam's bunker without taking out Baghdad. Well, let's not even talk about pinpoint accuracy. (Remember the 1999 bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade?) Even if it hit the spot, a Federation of American Scientists report predicts, the so-called earth-penetrating warheads could only go 20 feet down, spreading radiation hundreds of miles wide. Mini-nukes can't "safely'' hit the bull's-eye of, say, a chemical warfare lab. But they could do lethal damage to such ancillary targets as treaties against nuclear testing and proliferation. After all, if the United States needs such tactical weapons, why doesn't every other country? But most importantly, minis would loosen the taboo, and erase the bright line between nuclear and other weapons. In many ways, the attitude of this White House toward new weapons is remarkably similar to its environmental policy. At stake are two philosophies. As Carnegie's Cirincione describes them: "Do we have to protect ourselves from the world? Or do we protect ourselves in the world?'' Whether making policy around energy or bombs, our new leaders seem to prefer acting alone. Yet, if there is anything that tribes and nations have in common, it's self-preservation. In fact, two great threats -- environmental pollution and nuclear war -- make us understand we are one world. Here, we share both a planet and the capacity to destroy it. Evenafter Earth Day, peace is also colored green and humans are still the most endangered species. (c) 2001, The Boston Globe Newspaper Co. ***************************************************************** 14 YUCCA MOUNTAIN: Report dismays delegation LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL: NEWS: "What it does seem to me is they've done a pretty good job of covering their tracks." SEN. HARRY REID, D-NEV. Tuesday, April 24, 2001 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal Inspector general finds no bias By KEITH ROGERS and STEVE TETREAULT REVIEW-JOURNAL Much to the dismay of Nevada's congressional delegation, investigators said Monday they found no evidence that bias hurt the integrity of the Yucca Mountain program despite internal documents that were "inappropriate" for the nuclear waste disposal project. "We could not substantiate the concern that bias compromised the integrity of the site evaluation process, or that the (Department of Energy) or its contractors considered a formal or informal strategy for supporting the site characterization recommendation in violation of the law," read the 14-page report from DOE Inspector General Gregory Friedman. The probe, however, found several statements "that could be considered ... to be prematurely conclusive, or inappropriately advocating a position by the department." The four-month-long investigation, which involved 20 inspector general personnel who interviewed 200 federal and contractor officials, was launched near the end of the Clinton administration. It focused on internal, draft documents prepared by JK Research Associates, a Las Vegas company that worked for the former Yucca Mountain Project contractor, TRW Environmental Safety Systems Inc. When a 59-page draft overview of the Site Consideration Recommendation Report surfaced late last year, Nevada's congressional delegation -- who strongly oppose the dump project -- were outraged that the document, which the energy secretary was supposed to use in deciding whether to recommend Yucca Mountain for a nuclear waste repository, jumped to conclusions about the site's suitability. The document stated that "all evidence to date indicates that Yucca Mountain is a suitable site for a repository." Attached to it was a "note to reviewers" that said "the technical suitability of the site is less of a concern to Congress than the broader issue of whether the nuclear waste problem can be solved at an affordable price in both financial and political terms." Nevada lawmakers said results of the investigation failed to persuade them that the Energy Department is fairly considering the Yucca Mountain site. They noted the General Accounting Office, an investigative arm of Congress, still is studying the same issues. "As I read the inspector general's report, they could not confirm or deny they were doing things that were wrong," said Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev. "What it does seem to me is they've done a pretty good job of covering their tracks." Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., who on Monday toured Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, said bias in the documents "was self-evident" and that it appeared government contractors were using employees to lobby for a Yucca Mountain repository before scientific studies are completed. The inspector general consulted the Justice Department on the lobbying allegation and was told that no violation had occurred. Gov. Kenny Guinn said he, too, was disappointed with the inspector general's findings. "It is my hope that this report will refocus this all-important debate on science," he said in a statement. "The idea that political concerns could, in any way, affect a process with such severe health and safety ramifications for the people of Nevada is shocking and disheartening," he said. Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., and Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., were en route to Washington and could not be reached. In a statement through his office, Ensign said he disagreed with the inspector general's conclusion. "I am disappointed with the interpretation of the evidence," he said. JK Research is now a subcontractor for the project's current prime contractor, SAIC Co., a company spokeswoman confirmed. A call Monday to JK Research was not returned. The inspector general's report said neither the Site Consideration Recommendation Report nor its overview will be issued. Instead, a document titled "Yucca Mountain Science and Engineering Report" will replace those draft documents. Department officials added little Monday about where the Yucca Mountain program stands now that the report has been completed. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham reiterated his agency's stance, saying that the department objected to the statements in question during its own review. Abraham circulated a memo to nuclear waste program workers expressing confidence in their "scientific integrity and fundamental fairness." But noting questions raised by the inspector general, he cautioned them to remain committed to "world-class science." "We will all remain vigilant in ensuring that we perform our work without any preconceived opinions or bias," Abraham said. "We must ensure that our work does not even raise the perception of possible bias." webmaster@lvrj.com Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - ***************************************************************** 15 Turbine Work to Extend Nine Mile 1 Outage; Refueling Complete Tuesday April 24, 10:49 am Eastern Time Press Release *SOURCE: Niagara Mohawk Power Corp.* SYRACUSE, N.Y., April 24 /PRNewswire Interactive News Release/ -- The current refueling and maintenance outage at the Nine Mile Point Unit 1 nuclear plant will be extended approximately two weeks to complete work on the plant's turbine, Niagara Mohawk Power Corp. officials said today. Reactor refueling and reassemble is complete. A scheduled inspection of turbine during the outage determined the need to replace selected turbine blades and repair other components. Start-up preparation and testing continues on other areas of the plant. Niagara Mohawk Power Corp. is the owner and operator of Nine Mile 1, a 609-megawatt plant. The plant is located in Scriba, N.Y., approximately 40 miles north of Syracuse. Niagara Mohawk Power Corp., a wholly owned subsidiary of Niagara Mohawk Holdings Inc., (NYSE: NMK- news), provides electricity to more than 1.5 million customers across 24,000 square miles of upstate New York. The company also delivers natural gas to more than 540,000 customers over 4,500 square miles of eastern, central and northern New York. http://tbutton.prnewswire.com/prn/11690X43730352 *SOURCE: Niagara Mohawk Power Corp.* Copyright © 2001 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy - Terms of ***************************************************************** 16 Statement of Secretary of Energy Abraham on Release of Inspector General’s Report on Yucca Mountain energy.gov - Headquarters' Press Release RELEASE DATE: April 23, 2001 [Print Friendly Version] I am pleased that the Department’s Office of Inspector General’s review of concerns regarding potential bias in the evaluation of the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada has concluded that there was no evidence to “substantiate the concern that bias compromised the integrity of the site evaluation process.” The Inspector General’s conclusion is based on a review of documents associated with the evaluation, including the draft Site Recommendation Consideration Report. The Inspector General also conducted over 200 interviews of knowledgeable Federal and contractor officials, including the membership of the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board. The Board is an independent body established by Congress charged with evaluating the technical and scientific validity of the department’s efforts to study Yucca Mountain. While the Inspector General found a limited number of statements in a “Note to Reviewers” which appeared in an early, never issued, working draft Overview which the Inspector General concluded, “…could be viewed as suggesting a premature conclusion regarding the suitability of Yucca Mountain,” it should be noted that the Department objected to those statements during its own review of the documents and those statements were removed from subsequent drafts. It is my firm belief and Departmental policy that all Federal, laboratory and contractor employees must perform their work in a manner that reflects the fundamental fairness and science-based approach necessary to produce studies and support analytical conclusions in which the public can have full trust and confidence. Accordingly, I am today reaffirming our commitment to a site suitability evaluation process which is objective, unbiased, and based on sound science, and conveying that reaffirmation of policy to all relevant parties. Media Contact: Joe Davis 202/586-4940 Release No. R-01-058 ***************************************************************** 17 Nuclear cargo heads for Britain news.com.au - [ 24apr01 ] From AAP 16:45 (AEST) A SHIPMENT of highly radioactive nuclear waste left today for treatment in Britain three hours behind schedule after anti-nuclear protestors again tried to block the shipment. Police detained about 60 people in a crowd of 100 demonstrators who tried to block the road to the train station to protest against the resumption of waste transports to Sellafield. Three wagons carrying the nuclear waste eventually left the nuclear power plant in this southwestern town at 6:30 am headed for Walheim, where the waste containers were being transferred to rail wagons to begin a journey to the British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) reprocessing center at Sellafield. A second convoy is scheduled to leave Biblis in central Germany tomorrow and will join the first in the border town of Woerth before heading through France on its way to Sellafield as a single train, the Hesse state government said yesterday. ***************************************************************** 18 JCO, employees open trial with guilty pleas [The Japan Times Online] April 24, 2001 Safety measures were skipped in fatal nuclear accident in Tokai MITO, Ibaraki Pref. (Kyodo) The trial over Japan's worst nuclear accident opened Monday with six JCO Co. employees pleading guilty to charges of negligence resulting in death and the company pleading guilty to violating the Nuclear Reactor Regulation Law. The trial over the 1999 criticality accident at a JCO facility in Tokai, Ibaraki Prefecture, that killed two JCO workers is being held before the Mito District Court. Kenzo Koshijima, 54, former head of the uranium processing plant in Tokai, and five other employees pleaded guilty to negligence. JCO President Tomoyuki Inami entered a guilty plea on behalf of the company, saying, "I know it's too late for regret. I can only pray for the souls of the dead." The six employees are charged with allowing other workers to skip lengthy procedures and instead use buckets to manually mix a uranium solution, leading to the Sept. 30, 1999, accident at the plant. The five other employees who pleaded guilty are Hiromasa Kato, 61, chief of production at the time; Hiroyuki Ogawa, 43, leader of the planning group when the accident occurred; and three senior workers -- Hiroshi Watanabe, 49, Kenji Takemura, 32, and Yutaka Yokokawa, 56. Koshijima and other officials allegedly approved the illegal procedures at an in-house safety committee in 1995, leading to the compilation of an unauthorized manual in 1996 that recommended buckets be used to make the solution. According to the indictment, the accident and subsequent nuclear fission chain reaction occurred when three workers poured too much of the solution into a processing tank that already contained another component, bypassing several required procedures. Two of the three workers have since died from radiation sickness -- Hisashi Ouchi, 35, in December 1999, and Masato Shinohara, 40, last April. Yokokawa was also initially hospitalized but was later released. Koshijima, Kato, Ogawa and JCO are also charged with violating the Nuclear Reactor Regulation Law by compiling the manual without informing the government. Operators of nuclear facilities are required by law to obtain the prime minister's approval before changing their production methods. Koshijima and JCO are also charged with failing to instruct plant employees on matters of safety. JCO started using illegal methods to process uranium at the plant in 1993, prosecutors said. They said at the hearing that JCO had conducted an in-house survey in 1987 and ordered the plant to devise means of hiding illegal equipment and production methods in the event of inspections by the then Science and Technology Agency. The prosecutors also said the crisis-management committee at JCO's Tokai office in 1992 had compiled secret documents in which the risk of a criticality accident at the plant was noted. As a result of the accident, some 600 people -- including more than 200 Tokai residents -- were exposed to radiation, mostly in minor doses. The six workers were arrested in October. JCO, a nuclear-fuel processor, is a subsidiary of Sumitomo Metal Mining Co. The Japan Times: Apr. 24, 2001 ***************************************************************** 19 Japanese anger at Cunningham visit Independent By Richard Lloyd Parry in Tokyo 24 April 2001 Science Museum takes on £5.5m Sellafield revamp The Labour MP Jack Cunningham was given an angry reception in Japan yesterday as he arrived on a mission to win back business for BNFL's discredited Sellafield plant. Dr Cunningham, whose Cumbrian constituency includes Sellafield, was greeted by citizens' groups campaigning for Japan to cut its ties with BNFL after the revelation that safety data was falsified on reprocessed nuclear fuel from the mixed oxide (Mox) fuel plant. Representatives from Japanese consumer, religious, environmental and lawyers' organisations will send a letter to Dr Cunningham, saying that his visit will do nothing to dispel the irreversible distrust of the Japanese towards BNFL. Dr Cunningham is to meet Japanese ministers and the chairman of Tokyo Electric Power, one of BNFL's largest potential customers. Before leaving Britain he said: "This visit is of the utmost importance ... It is essential the confidence of BNFL's Japanese customers is restored, not only for the Sellafield Mox plant but the whole of the Sellafield site, the workforce and the economy of west Cumbria." BNFL is desperate to put into operation a £460m Mox plant at Sellafield, but a falsification of safety records by BNFL workers 18 months ago provoked distrust and outrage among Japanese. ***************************************************************** 20 Narora reactor chief allays radiation fears 24 April 2001 : The Times of India ALIGARH: The high level radioactivity in the Ganges basin is in ``no way whatsoever'' connected with the Narora Atomic Power Plant, according to senior officials of the plant, which is located on the banks of the Ganga, about 40 km from here. Talking to reporters, V.K. Chaturvedi, chairman of the Nuclear Power Corporation of India, said that regular monitoring of groundwater supply at Narora had confirmed this fact. Chaturvedi was speaking on the occasion of the release of a report on ``effects of low doze ionizing radiation among employees at the Narora Atomic Power Station''. Chaturvedi also allayed fears regarding the safety of the plant with reference to earthquakes. He said that adequate provision had been made to ensure the safety of the plant in case of a major earthquake along the Moradabad-Delhi fault line. Earlier on Saturday, Speaker of the UP assembly K.N. Tripathi released the report on the radiation effect on the atomic power station employees at a function at Aligarh Muslim University. The report was based on a study covering 1,598 employees of the Narora plant, their spouses and offspring. The report said: ``Cancer prevalence in radiation workers was in no way different from the prevalence seen in non-radiation workers.'' The report also said that the prevalence of cancer among the study population was less than the normal incidence of rate of cancer registered in the country. The study was conducted by the Jawahar Lal Nehru Medical College, AMU, and the Tata Memorial Centre, Mumbai. ***************************************************************** 21 German Waste Shipment Held Up April 24, 2001 NECKARWESTHEIM, Germany- Anti-nuclear protesters holding a sit-in on a road briefly held up a German shipment of nuclear waste headed for Britain on Tuesday, the first such shipment since 1998. Police removed about 70 protesters from the road and took them into temporary custody, delaying the transport of three containers of waste from the Neckarwestheim power plant in the southern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg by about an hour. Protesters chanted anti-nuclear slogans and held signs with a yellow "X" - a symbol of the activists - as they sat on the road. They vowed to take further action to hinder the waste shipment. Police, with about 2,500 officers backed up by helicopters, lined the road as the containers were taken by truck to a train station three miles away in Walheim to be checked for radioactivity emissions and loaded onto rail cars. It was the first leg in the shipment of the waste to the Sellafield reprocessing plant in northwest England. Germany had halted dealings with the plant after a scandal over the falsification of records there last year. It says it has now been assured that standards have been raised. Separately, Germany suspended shipments of atomic waste in 1998 after it was discovered radioactive emissions from the transport containers had exceeded safety limits for years. Authorities lifted the ban last year, saying those regulations were also tightened. But German anti-nuclear and environmental campaigners remained unconvinced. Last month, they staged massive demonstrations and caused serious delays to a shipment of reprocessed waste returning from France to Germany. "Reprocessing is a crime," said Dirk Hofmeister, a spokesman for the protesters at Neckarwestheim. He pointed to allegations that water from the Sellafield plant is poisoning the Irish Sea and causing cancer scares near the plant. Germany plans to stop reprocessing its spent fuel within five years under an agreement between the government and power companies last year to phase out Germany's 19 nuclear plants. It could take more than 20 years before the last is closed. Anti-nuclear groups want reprocessing stopped immediately. The current shipment will be taken Wednesday to Woerth, near the French border, and joined with a similar containers from another German nuclear power plant. The cargo will then head by train to French port of Dunkirk and shipped to England. Werner Zaiss, technical director of GKN, the operator of the Neckarwestheim plant, said another three shipments of spent fuel should depart for Sellafield this year. "We have no choice, there's a huge backlog," he said. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 22 Report: Trust in Yucca project falters April 24, 2001 By Jeff German LAS VEGAS SUN Public trust in the Yucca Mountain site-selection process is waning, the Energy Department's inspector general concluded in a just-released report. "From the outset, the focus on the Yucca Mountain site as the potential repository for the nation's high-level nuclear waste has been controversial," Gregory H. Friedman wrote in his 14-page report Monday to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham. "Based on correspondence received by the Office of Inspector General, it is fair to observe that, at least in some quarters, public confidence in the department's evaluation of Yucca Mountain has eroded." But Friedman also said a four-month internal investigation by his office could not substantiate concerns in Nevada that bias on the part of the DOE and its contractors had compromised the selection process. And that led Nevada leaders to call his report "superficial" and "shallow." "My concern is that there obviously was open and clear bias, and the inspector general didn't come up with that," said Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., who requested the investigation. Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., added: "To suggest anything but that there is a bias toward site suitability is ludicrous." Reps. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., and Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., also voiced their displeasure. "This does nothing to allay my suspicions," said Berkley, who toured the site Monday. "I think the tenor of the report reflects our opinion that the process has been tainted from the beginning." Gibbons described the report as "terribly inadequate," and he charged that there appears to have been an effort on the part of DOE contractors to withhold information from the inspector general. Friedman urged Abraham to take steps to restore public confidence in the site-selection process amid the barrage of criticism against the DOE in Nevada. The inspector general suggested Abraham renew the DOE's commitment to a fair and unbiased evaluation of Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Abraham quickly heeded Friedman's words in a memo Monday to all employees and contractors of the DOE's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, the agency overseeing the selection process. "We will all remain vigilant in ensuring that we perform our work without any preconceived opinions or bias," Abraham wrote. "In addition, we must ensure that our work does not even raise the perception of possible bias. Public trust in the fundamental processes of government is crucial to the fulfillment of the department's mission." Abraham also issued a public statement driving home his directive. "Accordingly," he said, "I am today reaffirming our commitment to a site-suitability evaluation process which is objective, unbiased and based on sound science, and conveying that reaffirmation of policy to all relevant parties." Gov. Kenny Guinn said he hoped Friedman's report would cause the DOE to refocus the debate over Yucca Mountain on science, not politics. "While I'm disappointed in the conclusion that bias could not be proven, aspects of the inspector general's report enhance my belief that Nevada has, in fact, been unfairly targeted during the site-selection process," Guinn said. "I hope that this report forces the Department of Energy to put a new emphasis on the scientific integrity of its investigation into the suitability of Yucca Mountain." Guinn said the notion that "political concerns" could affect the selection process is "shocking and disheartening." The inspector general's investigation was prompted by a Dec. 1 Sun story suggesting that documents showed the DOE was collaborating with the nuclear industry to recommend Yucca Mountain as the site of the nation's first high-level nuclear waste repository. Federal law prohibits the DOE from taking sides. "We could not substantiate the concern that bias compromised the integrity of the site evaluation process, or that the department or its contractors considered a formal or informal strategy for supporting the site characterization recommendation in violation of the law," Friedman wrote in his report. But he added that the investigation found that some statements attached to DOE documents in the selection process "could be viewed as suggesting a premature conclusion regarding suitability of Yucca Mountain." Those statements were made primarily by a DOE subcontractor in a two-page memo attached to a 60-page draft overview that concludes that Yucca Mountain is safe to store the deadly radioactive waste even though scientific studies of the site aren't complete. The memo, obtained by the Sun last year, suggests the overview could be used to help nuclear industry officials sell the Yucca Mountain project to Congress. Friedman said the memo appeared in an October draft of the overview but was pulled by the DOE in subsequent drafts. Both the overview and memo were written by JK Research Associates, a Colorado-based company owned by John E. Kelly, a longtime DOE subcontractor. A spokeswoman for Kelly said this morning that the subcontractor was not commenting on the inspector general's report. "We're making no comments at all," the spokeswoman said. "As we've said before, it's a DOE matter." All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 23 German nuclear waste heads for UK BBC News | EUROPE | Tuesday, 24 April, 2001, Dozens of protesters were carried away A controversial shipment of German radioactive waste destined for reprocessing in Britain has finished the first leg of its journey amid fresh protests. It will be the first such cargo bound for Britain since the German government halted all nuclear transports in 1998. Despite the protests in which there were many arrests, the five-kilometre road journey from Neckarwestheim nuclear power station to a rail terminal in south-western Germany took just 45 minutes. The trucks finally rolled out later than scheduled Dozens of demonstrators staging a sit-in on the route had forced a delay before the cargo finally rolled out in a convoy of trucks. The shipment will be joined with waste from another German plant, at Biblis, before being taken by rail and sea to Sellafield in north-west England. The German government suspended shipments of waste three years ago when high radiation levels were discovered on the outside of waste containers. Sellafield was then hit by a scandal over the falsification of records, but the German government says it is happy that procedures have now been tightened. Expensive transport About 60 demonstrators who tried to block the road near the Neckarwestheim plant were detained by police, and the shipment was driven through more than an hour later than scheduled. The 21 highly radioactive used fuel rods in three protective containers were transferred from road to rail and will commence their journey onward to the German border town of Woerth on Wednesday, before crossing France and travelling to the port of Dunkirk. Protesters have vowed to disrupt the journey at other locations, and say their goal is to make nuclear transport so hard to police that it becomes prohibitively expensive. Sellafield was hit by safety scandal On Monday, at least a dozen protesters chained themselves to railway tracks ahead of the shipment. The Sellafield plant itself has been the centre of controversy for many years. In 1957, a reactor at the site was the scene of Britain's worst nuclear accident, and there have been long-standing accusations that its waste water has contaminated sea life. The plant was prosecuted twice last year for breaches to safety rules. German policy German campaign groups recently staged huge protests against reprocessed fuel returning to Germany for storage and also disrupted the resumption of waste exports to France. The German government is committed to ending nuclear reprocessing by 2005 but it has allowed the power generators to honour their existing reprocessing contracts. Water cannon was used against previous protests In advance of the current shipment, Fritz Kuhn - co-leader of Germany's Green Party which is junior partner in the federal government - wrote to the management of Neckarwestheim power station accusing it of breaking the spirit of the agreement between government and industry to limit nuclear transports as part of the plan to phase out nuclear power within 30 years. He called on the company to halt the shipment, which he described as unnecessary after permission was granted to store waste at the power station itself. A hostile reaction is also expected in the UK when the shipments arrive, although it is not clear what form any protest will take. ***************************************************************** 24 Germany's nuclear waste headache BBC News | EUROPE | 23 April, 2001, 14:10 By Rob Broomby in Berlin Five containers of highly radioactive waste are about to begin their slow journey by road, rail and sea from two power stations in Germany to the UK's nuclear reprocessing plant at Sellafield in Cumbria. In March there were protests at the transport of waste from France It is the first German waste to go to the UK since the previous Christian Democrat-led Government halted all nuclear shipments in 1998, after radioactive contamination was discovered on the outside of the containers. The new delivery has focused attention once again on an activity many within the German Government and the industry have begun to question. Big money The government wants to end nuclear reprocessing by 2005 but will allow shipments until then. The object of reprocessing is to separate out plutonium and uranium from used nuclear fuel rods - in theory to reuse the stuff as fuel. British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL), which owns the Thorp reprocessing plant at Sellafield, says the German reprocessing business has netted them £1bn over the last 20 years. Germany work accounts for 10% of their orders, making it their largest European customer. The question is whether it makes sense to operate a huge and expensive facility to separate out materials that have no economic value Mycle Schneider, energy consultant It was an appealing idea when the new generation of fast breeder reactors burning plutonium seemed a viable prospect. But the programme has been scrapped and uranium - once thought to be in short supply - has turned out to be far from scarce. Its value has plunged on the world market, destroying the economic argument for reprocessing. It is simply cheaper to use fresh uranium. The real reason nuclear waste is sent to Britain and France is to "buy time", said Mycle Schneider of the Paris-based energy consultancy WISE which has worked for the German Government . [One of the victims of Chernobyl disaster weeps at a rally in Kiev] Memories of the Chernobyl disaster are still strong He pointed to a 20-year gap between sending used fuel rods abroad to the French reprocessing plant at La Hague and getting back the real waste for final storage. British Nuclear Fuels said the plutonium separated out by reprocessing would be "stored safely and securely at Sellafield for future customer use". But officials at the German power plants have confirmed there are no fixed plans to take the products back. BNFL maintains it is in the contracts that Germany must take it back eventually. Asked whether his company still believed in nuclear reprocessing, one senior manager at a German power station told the BBC: "We have never believed in it". Legal bind Environmentalists have always maintained the waste should go straight into permanent storage without being reprocessed. The German Government is committed to phasing out nuclear power within 30 years, but it is allowing the German power generators to honour existing contracts with BNFL, and with Cogema in France. BNFL predicts a further 40 shipments from Germany to the UK. If past experience is anything to go by, each shipment is likely to be accompanied, on the German leg of its journey at least, by angry protests. It is all very embarrassing for Chancellor Schroeder's Red-Green coalition in Berlin. The reason for the continuation is simple - Germany does not have the storage capacity for its waste. The waste is being sent to Britain because the contracts have to be honoured. It would cost German utilities too much to break them, even if they too have begun to question why they are doing it. ***************************************************************** 25 Protests precede German nuclear shipment BBC News | EUROPE | 23 April, 2001, 13:56 GMT 14:56 Protests also dogged the last shipment to France German environmental activists have begun protests against the sending of a shipment of spent nuclear fuel for reprocessing in Britain. Twelve people chained themselves to railway tracks in the western town of Mannheim, to stop carriages from being used for the transport, due to begin on Monday evening. The managers of the power stations who are sending their nuclear waste to Sellafield are unscrupulous Greenpeace spokesman Police said they had unchained and removed the protesters by early afternoon, but more demonstrations are expected. The protesters will be charged with dangerous interference in rail transport, an offence that could mean a fine or a jail sentence of up to five years. The fuel is being transported from power stations at Neckarwestheim and Biblis to the Sellafield reprocessing plant in north-west England. It will be the first such shipment to Britain for more than three years. The move follows the resumption earlier this month of nuclear shipments to France for reprocessing. 'Irresponsible politicians' Five containers are expected to be shipped from the two power stations. Sellafield has also been a centre of controversy Demonstrations have been banned along the route of the shipment. A spokesman for the environmental pressure group Greenpeace, Veit Buerger, described managers of power stations sending the waste as "unscrupulous" and said politicians who approved the transports were "acting irresponsibly". A hostile reaction is also expected in the UK when the shipments arrive, although it is not clear what form any protest will take. The Sellafield plant itself has been the centre of controversy for many years. In 1957 a reactor at the site was the scene of Britain's worst nuclear accident, and there have been long-standing accusations that its waste water has contaminated sea life. And the plant was prosecuted twice last year for breaches to safety rules. Water cannon was used against previous protests The shipment will meet resistance among environmental campaign groups who recently protested against nuclear waste exports from Germany to a reprocessing plant in France, and against reprocessed fuel returning to Germany. More than a third of Germany's electricity comes from its 19 nuclear reactors, which generate hundreds of tonnes of radioactive waste a year. But German nuclear facilities do not have the space to store the used fuel within the country. Spent German nuclear fuel is sent abroad for reprocessing, but the contracts oblige Germany to take back the resulting waste. ***************************************************************** 26 Science Museum takes on £5.5m Sellafield revamp Independent By Louise Jury, Media Correspondent 24 April 2001 Japanese anger at Cunningham visit British Nuclear Fuels has finally caved into criticism that its visitors' centre at Sellafield is an apologia for the nuclear industry and has asked the Science Museum to undertake a £5.5m revamp. The London museum has been hired with a promise of full editorial independence to redesign the permanent exhibit in Cumbria which attracts 150,000 visitors a year. Although the centre was last updated in 1995 and was in need of refurbishment, the decision now will be seen as an acknowledgement of the need to improve the public image of the site. Until two years ago, British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) management believed it was beginning to win the arguments on the safety of nuclear energy. But public confidence was rattled by *The Independent*'s disclosure that records of safety tests on nuclear fuel pellets had been falsified. The Health and Safety Executive ordered improvements in safety standards and the chief executive, John Taylor, resigned. Yesterday, Hugh Collum, BNFL's chairman, said that hiring the Science Museum demonstrated BNFL's desire "to provide the public with an impartial, informative and balanced view". Dr Lindsay Sharp, director of the Science Museum, said they were delighted they had been appointed to the project. "The museum's mission is to promote the public's understanding of science and we are uniquely placed to put forward the different points of view that surround contemporary issues," he said. Although no decisions have yet been made on content, both BNFL and the Science Museum stressed the museum would be focusing on the science of nuclear power and not on BNFL's business activities. A BNFL spokesman said they thought it was logical to bring in an authoritative and creditable organisation to present the science. He said: "We would not expect the Science Museum to endorse anything of what we do. That's our business." The Sellafield visitors' centre has received more than 2 million visitors since it was opened in 1988, with a current average of about 150,000 a year. Visitor centres at the Magnox reactors at Oldbury, Dungeness, Bradwell, Trawsfynydd and Wylfa attract a further 150,000 between them and will also be updated by the Science Museum. The Science Museum has carried out work for other institutions in the past. It organised an exhibition on the physics of sound for the British Council which opened in Hong Kong yesterday and is currently working on a "classroom of the future" for Bedfordshire County Council. ***************************************************************** 27 New storage for nuclear waste Bucharest Business Week 23 April, 2001 Vol. 5, Nr. 15 *by Tim Judy* Nuclear waste from the Cernavoda reactors will have a new home after Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) won an international bid to build a new storage facility. Another five companies from France, Italy, Canada, England and Argentina submitted offers. “The project will be finalized in 27 months,” Teodor Chirica of Nuclearelectrica told BBW. “It’s a turnkey project and under the contract the initial capacity will be 10,000 spent fuel bundles and the final capacity would amount to 300,000 that would accommodate both Unit 1 and Unit 2.” The new above ground facility uses the Modular Air-Cooled Storage System (Macstor) and would be about 8.2 meters wide, 20.4 meters long and 6.4 meters high. The spent fuel was previously stored in pools for seven to ten years before it was removed and put in dry storage for 50 to 80 years. Under both systems the final disposal is geological. In related news, Chirica said they are very close to finalizing the commercial contract with AECL and Ansaldo of Italy over the completion of the Unit 2 reactor. “The contract could be signed in the next week or two,” he said. “We would then need to have all the approvals from the ministries, which we expect to secure by mid-May.” The project would need about 700 million USD in financing. The prime minister had said the Government would give about 37 million USD. Unit 2 is a 700-megawatt reactor. Unit 1 went on stream about four years ago and supplies about ten per cent of the country’s energy needs. ***************************************************************** 28 New Chernobyl Cover Would Cost 1.5-2.5 Billion Dollars Russia Today - MOSCOW, Apr 23, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) Building a new casing around the entombed nuclear reactor at Chernobyl to replace the present "unsafe" sarcophagus would cost between 1.5 billion and 2.5 billion dollars (1.7 billion and 2.8 billion euros), a Russian nuclear expert said Monday. The present sarcophagus "has never been safe," Vladimir Asmolov of the Kurchatov Nuclear Institute in Moscow told the ITAR-TASS news agency. Asmolov, who took part in building the original shell in 1986, said almost a dozen projects had been drawn up to either strengthen security of the old sarcophagus or replace it with a new one, but that they had all been sidelined for lack of funds. The cost of the project would be equivalent to building a new power station, he said. Earlier this month Valentin Kupny, a former nuclear security chief at Chernobyl, told the German magazine Focus that the present sarcophagus was in danger of imminent collapse. "The sarcophagus is so porous that radioactivity escapes each day," he said. "We don't even have the ability to measure the amount. If we could see the radioactivity there would be a cloud of smoke above the sarcophagus." However Asmolov said there had been no radioactive leaks since 1986 and dismissed suggestions there was any risk of "another global catastrophe." Last year, donor nations provided 715 million dollars at a meeting in Berlin to finance the building of a new sarcophagus. Chernobyl's reactor number four exploded 15 years ago on Thursday, spewing radioactive contamination over much of Europe. The power station's last functioning reactor was closed down last December. *((c) 2001 Agence France Presse)* LAS VEGAS SUN Water has moved quicker than expected -- more than 6 feet in two months -- through tiny fractures inside Yucca Mountain's volcanic rock, Energy Department scientists said during a tour Monday. Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is the only site being studied to bury 77,000 tons of nuclear reactor and weapons waste. Water is a concern because the area's mineral-laden ground water could corrode containers holding the waste, releasing radioactivity into the environment. The DOE predicted that radiation in ground water would move a fraction of an inch at most in a year and not move off the site in 10,000 years. One criterion for the repository's approval is ensuring that contaminated ground water will not reach the nearest populated area, Amargosa Valley, 12 miles away. Federal scientists downplayed the significance of the water. "We've known there was water in the mountain since the first borehole was drilled there in 1978," Yucca Mountain project manager Russ Dyer said. He said the water was from condensation, not the mineral-laden ground water. But Nevada officials, who oppose burying the commercial and defense wastes at Yucca, remain concerned. "Ground water is the most important thing at the site," said Robert Loux, executive director of the Agency for Nuclear Projects, a state agency that oversees DOE's work at Yucca Mountain. "Ground water is the way radiation will escape from the repository," Loux said. "It is clear (DOE officials) do not have a handle on how much water is inside the mountain or how fast it moves." Federal scientists believe the water they collected began as vapor inside tiny cracks of the mountain's volcanic ash layers. The latest finding came from an experiment that heats rock to water's boiling point to determine how the mountain will react under the heat expected from radioactive waste. The heat apparently drove the vapor to cooler rock, where it condensed, scientists say. Up to five gallons of water were recovered in an air duct 6 feet from the heater, DOE scientist Mark Peters said. The heat test is one of several studies to determine the path of water through the mountain and how fast it travels. If water has invaded the repository level, 1,000 feet below the surface, in the last 10,000 years, the site could be disqualified as a dump. The water table at Yucca Mountain is 1,000 feet lower than the repository site. Chemical tests on the water indicate it came from condensation, not liquid tainted with minerals from the mountain, Dyer said. Steve Frishman, technical coordinator, went underground on the tour requested by Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev. "The state has maintained all along that water moved through fractures and earthquake faults faster than the DOE was predicting it would," he said. It was Berkley's first trip to the mountain. She has consistently opposed any storage or permanent burial of radioactive wastes in the mountain. The daylong visit did not convince her the repository project was safe, she said. "I am still not convinced that that mountain doesn't hold an excessive amount of water that will compromise the integrity of the storage containers buried there, nor that anyone can guarantee that the mountain will be safe at 10,000 years or even 50 years from now," Berkley said after the tour. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 30 Two Russian Chernobyl-affected Regions Remain Dangerous [Xinhua News Agency] Story Filed: Tuesday, April 24, 2001 2:35 PM EST MOSCOW, Apr 24, 2001 (Xinhua via COMTEX) -- Most of the 14 Russian regions worst hit by the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster now have normal radiation level, except two western regions of Bryansk and Kaluga still remaining dangerous, Russian Chief Sanitation Doctor Gennady Onischenko said Tuesday. The average radiation levels in the country's 12 Chernobyl-affected regions stay within one millisievert, as no special protection steps or restrictions on economic activities are needed. But in some areas, chiefly in the western part of the Bryansk region and many parts of the Kaluga region, the radiation level is still high, Onischenko told a conference here on the 15th anniversary of the disaster. In all, 56,000 square kilometers in Russia and 100,000 square kilometers in Ukraine have been affected by radioactive contamination after the Chernobyl accident. In Russia, a total of three million people have been affected by the nuclear Catastrophe, the chief sanitary doctor said. According to Onischenko, sickness rates among the grown-up population in polluted areas are 20 to 30 percent higher than in other Russian region, and sickness rate among children is even 50 percent higher. Onischenko attributed these higher sickness rates to the polluted "food chain". Although people living in the contaminated areas are offered better medical conditions, they still eat contaminated food. Around 35 percent of meat, butter, mushrooms and berries growing there have proved radioactive, he added. Leading Russian environmentalist Alexei Yablokov also warned Tuesday that in generations to come, over 500 million people would suffer from the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster. According to Yablokov, more than 40 large-scale accidents have occurred during past 10 years at Russian nuclear fuel and power facilities. And If calculated within the past 50 years, the number will reach 385. Copyright 2001 XINHUA NEWS AGENCY ***************************************************************** 31 Bryansk, Kaluga regions worst hit by Chernobyl accident Story Filed: Tuesday, April 24, 2001 8:39 AM EST MOSCOW, Apr 24, 2001 (Itar-Tass via COMTEX) -- The radiation level in most of the areas contaminated as a result of the Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986 has stabilized now, but the situation remains dangerous southwest of Bryansk and in the Kaluga region, Chief Sanitary Doctor Gennady Onischenko told a press conference held at Itar-Tass on Monday. The radiation level exceeds the average annul norm in 500 settlements of the Bryansk and Kaluga region with a population of more than 150,000. In the other 12 members of the Russian Federation affected by the Chernobyl accident the average annual radiation level does not exceed the norm, he said. All-in-all, 56,000 square kilometers in Russia and 100,000 square kilometers in Ukraine have been affected by radioactive contamination after the Chernobyl accident. In Russia, a total of three million people have been affected by the nuclear catastrophe. At present, the zone of radioactive contamination on the Russian territory comprises 14 members of the Russian Federation populated by 1,714,822. People exposed to radiation when conducting clean-up operations after the Chernobyl accident number 184,175, Onischenko said. By Veronika Voskoboinikova (c) 1996-2001 ITAR-TASS. All rights ***************************************************************** 32 Nuke boss pleads guilty on fatal accident April 23, 2001 at 19:00 JST Over 200 police raided JCO Co after the worst ever nuclear accident in 1999. REUTERS NEWS PHOTO TOKYO _ A Japanese uranium processing company and six staff all pleaded guilty on Monday to charges of negligence resulting in death as the trial opened into Japan's worst nuclear accident. The pleas were entered at the initial hearing at the Mito District Court. Among the six staff who pleaded guilty was Kenzo Koshijima, 54, the former head of JCO Co, the plant in Tokaimura, in Ibaraki Prefecture, 140 km northeast of Tokyo where he accident occurred in September 1999. Japan's worst nuclear accident occurred when workers ignored proper safety procedures and used buckets instead of a pump to transfer a uranium solution to a tank. The staff were charged with allowing employees to illegally use buckets. Koshijima and other officials allegedly approved the procedures at an in-house safety committee in 1995, leading to compilation of an unauthorised manual in 1996 that recommended the use of buckets to make the solution. Operators of nuclear facilities are required by law to obtain approval from the prime minister before changing production methods. The workers mistakenly loaded 16 kg of condensed uranium into a mixing tank, nearly eight times the proper amount, causing it to reach "criticality", the point at which a nuclear reaction becomes self-sustaining. The first such accident in Japan, it exposed hundreds of residents, plant workers and emergency personnel who responded to the accident to radiation. Two of the plant workers later died. JCO pleaded guilty to similar charges, including violating a law on nuclear guidelines. Company President Tomoyuki Inami pleaded guilty to the charges on behalf of the company. JCO, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sumitomo Metal Mining Co Ltd, still exists although it no longer operates having lost its uranium fuel processing license in March last year. (Reuters News) A pail and shovel is how you measure horseshit not how you measure radioactive materials. Particularily when the level is such that a mistake in measurement can lead to a critical mass reaction. If any of the workers there had an IQ above 80 they should also have been held responsible. I mean come on you don't need a science degree to know thats stupid stupid stupid!!! ***************************************************************** 33 Elkoans tour Yucca Mountain site Elko Daily Free Press: Content Apr 23 2001 12:00AM By By GARY BÉGIN over again from several different spokesmen utilizing the word "if." If the site is chosen and if the Congress votes for it and if the state loses its well-known argument against it and if President Bush signs the law then maybe the site will begin accepting high level nuclear waste in 2005 - if all the transportation issues can be worked out. The only things that seem to be certain at this time are the fact that the site has been studied for the last 20 years and - in figures that would do justice to the late Carl Sagan - billions and billions of dollars have been spent trying to discern if the site is the best possible one based on geography unique to the area. Unfortunately, while scientists and engineers, literally hundreds of them, have studied the actual geography of the land itself, they forgot to take into account the political geography of Nevada as a whole and how, regardless of the quality of the rocks on the mountain, it is too close to the fastest growing metropolitan area in the nation - Las Vegas - to gather support from any major elected official in the state, Democrat or Republican. Virtually every top elected state official is against the site, located 80 miles from the state's largest city yielding the largest revenue for the coffers of all the candidate's campaign war chests. Sens. Harry Reid and John Ensign, Democrat and Republican respectively, and Reps. Shelley Berkley and Jim Gibbons, also Democrat and Republican respectively, are all opposed to the site as well as Republican Gov. Kenny Guinn. Guinn even goes so far as to send teams of anti-site public relations people on tours to county commissions throughout the state to explain the inherent dangers of nuclear waste. One such team visited Elko County last summer. They were preceded by a DOE team with the exact opposite goal. The other politicians issue a steady stream of news releases aimed at convincing their constituents why they intend to vote against the Yucca site, while the state legislature has already gone so far as to issue a resolution against the site. The 30 Elkoans who went to see the site for themselves Saturday were organized by, and members of, the Elko Chapter of the Navy League, a group dedicated to the support of the maritime services, i.e., the Marine Corps, Navy, Coast Guard and Merchant Marine. For those wondering what a desert nuclear waste dump has to do with these ocean-going services, it's partially because modern navy ships, such as submarines and aircraft carriers, use nuclear power instead of diesel fuel and thus create nuclear waste. It is by far the most efficient way to power the huge blue-water force, according to naval engineers. Chapter President Bill Nisbet feels confident about the safety of the Yucca site. "I have confidence in what I saw," Nisbet said after the tour, but he admits the "other side" has launched a sustained and mostly successful scare campaign about the dangers of nuclear waste and the industry as a whole. Ocean burial of the radioactive isotopes with half-lives of 50,000 to 100,000 years has already been ruled out as scientifically inferior to land storage. The legislature, in Senate Joint Resolution No. 6 (SJR-6), issued last month, claims the DOE "continues to make unfounded and biased assumptions about the suitability of Yucca Mountain as a repository for spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste, despite mounting scientific evidence there are serious flaws at the site and that Yucca Mountain cannot meet required health and safety standards." No one on the tour expressed agreement with their state leaders. Elko Mayor Mike Franzoia said noncommittally, "It was a good tour." His was perhaps the most tepid response of the group. Elko County Commissioner Mike Nannini; university system Regent Dorothy Gallagher; Nisbet, who is also on the board of the Elko Convention and Visitor's Authority; and ECVA Executive Director Ralph McMullen, all on Saturday's tour, expressed a desire to see the site become activated. Nannini, ever aware of the county's ongoing fiscal crisis, has been complaining for some time that Elko is one of the few Nevada counties not receiving generous payments from the DOE regarding the Yucca project mainly because Elko County does not border Nye County, site of Yucca Mountain. Nannini and others in Elko County seem to feel payments will eventually come this way once actual waste shipments begin to traverse county lines on their way south to the site. The DOE has expressed a desire to use rail or truck via a specially constructed rail spur, south from Beowawe, or U.S. Highway 93 and/or Interstate 80. Several DOE docents kept mentioning the lack of rainfall in the area, slightly more than 4-inches annually, as one prime reason it is suitable for nuclear waste. The non-porosity of the rocks forming Yucca Mountain was another plus for the site, but the argument isn't necessarily over the site's geography. According to SJR-6, "The promotion of new nuclear power plants under the guise of responding to the electricity crisis facing California ... is irresponsible given that the issue of safe disposal of the waste has not been resolved." Jim Muth, Elko geologist and Navy League member, feels the state should accept the site and the waste, but like Nisbet, his is a lonely voice. Sites in Utah, Washington and Texas have already been ruled out, but despite Nevada's lack of population density per square mile (another factor mentioned by the DOE scientists for favoring the site), the political fallout may prove to be a greater problem than the DOE expected. Senior engineer Patrick Rowe, who has spent the last 20 years with the project, said during the tour that if the Yucca site isn't chosen, it will be closed and the search for another begun, possibly taking another 20 years of arduous study. It is difficult to imagine another site as desolate, dry and lacking in population as Yucca Mountain, but it's easy to find thousands of sites not located 80 miles from the world's largest collection of casinos, which some Nevadans say is the real reason for the state's political opposition to Yucca Mountain. "The gaming industry feels choosing the site will scare tourists away," several Navy Leaguers said. ---------------- *©Elko Daily Free Press 2001* ***************************************************************** 34 Boulder City decides on project featuring renewable energy Business park proposal up for vote [Las Vegas Review-Journal] Tuesday, April 24, 2001 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal REVIEW-JOURNAL A 320-acre business park that would showcase ways to produce renewable energy could be built in Boulder City's Eldorado Valley if the City Council approves the project tonight. The city would lease the land for $1 per year for 40 years to the nonprofit Nevada Test Site Development Corp. The corporation is funded by the Defense Department to create new jobs to replace those lost when nuclear testing ended in Southern Nevada. The park would allow companies from around the world to display methods of creating renewable or alternative energy, primarily solar. Companies exhibiting at the park would have to be Green-e certified by the Center for Resource Solutions, a San Francisco-based nonprofit organization made up of environmentalists, consumer advocates and energy industry representative, said George Ormiston, the company's interim chief executive. The council was originally scheduled to consider the project April 10 but council members had questions. The company then had a workshop where the business park's focus was changed from all renewable energy sources to primarily solar, City Manager John Sullard said. Councilman Bill Smith is "very pessimistic" about the project because he thinks the land could generate more tax revenue for the city if the property was used for future commercial development. Sullard said the city's reimbursement for the park is being revised. Councilman Bryan Nix said the business park is a "good deal" for the city. "It's good to see that Boulder City can play a role in helping develop that source of renewable energy," Nix said. Mayor Bob Ferraro said he thinks the council will approve the park. This story is located at: http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2001/Apr-24-Tue-2001/news/15939768.html ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 Hanford contractor facing bankruptcy This story was published 4/24/2001 By John Stang Herald staff writer Allied Technology Group, operator of a high-tech waste treatment complex in Richland, is in a financial squeeze it fears may force it into bankruptcy. The company notified the Securities and Exchange Commission of that possibility in a Feb. 12 filing. "Since we do not currently have sufficient funds to repay all of our indebtedness under our credit facilities, we may not be able to continue as a going concern if our lenders elect to accelerate payment," the company told the SEC. "In that case, we would likely become insolvent and subject to voluntary or involuntary bankruptcy proceedings." ATG has Hanford contractual connections that it is apparently trying to use to help fight its way back into the black. Federal and court documents show ATG: -- Did not make a $5.75 million payment due June 30, 2000, on a $45 million bank loan made in 1999. -- Did not make four monthly interest payments totaling $1.022 million between Oct. 31, 2000, and Jan. 31, 2001, on the missed $5.75 million loan payment. The money had not been paid as of Feb. 12 -- the latest date for which information is available. -- Did not repay a $1.5 million short-term loan from an unnamed individual made Aug. 11, 2000, with a due date of Oct. 5, 2000. The loan repayment was extended to Dec. 15, 2000, but was not extended beyond that, and remained unpaid on Feb. 12. -- Did not pay Richland-based Hiline Engineering and Fabrication Inc. $92,119 in 2000 for installing a control panel and software at ATG's Richland plant. Hiline filed suit in Benton County Superior Court on Jan. 12, 2001. ATG never replied to the filing, and Hiline won $97,640 in damages and legal costs by default on March 8. Hiline declined to comment. -- Is a co-defendant in two California lawsuits -- one alleging a wrongful death and one alleging three wrongful injuries. The suit was filed after a U.S. Army artillery shell exploded at a scrap dealer in 1997, killing one person and injuring three. ATG had a contract with the U.S. Army to remove spent shells and other scrap metal from Fort Irwin in California. The allegation is that an ATG subcontractor incorrectly declared some shells safe before they were sold to the scrap dealer. The wrongful death suit seeks $8 million in damages. The amount sought in the other suit was not listed in SEC documents. The Army has ended ATG's contract. ATG officials declined to comment on the company's finances. The company -- founded in the 1980s by Doreen and Frank Chiu of San Francisco -- employs 350 people at its Fremont, Calif., headquarters and at operations in Richland, Oak Ridge, Tenn., and Aiken and Columbia, S.C. Commercial companies and some federal Department of Defense and Department of Energy operations hire ATG to take hazardous waste and low-level radioactive wastes to compact, to glassify or to incinerate. The processed wastes are returned to their owners. At least 90 percent of the nation's more than 100 nuclear power plants used some form of ATG's services as of Dec. 31, 1999, according to its SEC filing. A major Hanford-related project apparently contributed to ATG's financial problems. In 1995, ATG signed a 15-year contract with Westinghouse Hanford Co. to build and operate a facility to convert much of Hanford's mixed low-level radioactive wastes into benign glass blocks for storage at central Hanford. Mixed wastes are combinations of hazardous chemical wastes and low-level radioactive wastes. Fluor Hanford inherited that contract when it replaced Westinghouse in 1996. DOE wastes are supposed to make up 25 to 50 percent of the new facility's work -- with commercial companies providing the rest. The contract gives ATG five years to build the glassification facility, five years to glassify wastes, and five one-year extensions if Hanford is satisfied with its work. The glassification work could pay ATG almost $24 million if it obtains five years of extensions, said Fluor spokesman Craig Kuhlman. Under the contract, ATG provided upfront money for the $30 million facility. It is supposed to get paid only for the glass blocks produced -- meaning ATG doesn't get any pay until the plant is running. The glassification plant is built but is in final testing to get approval from state and federal regulators. That testing was supposed to be done late last year. Fluor and ATG are renegotiating the 10- to 15-year contract, aiming to improve ATG's cash flow, Kuhlman said. He declined to elaborate. ATG contends that new and stricter construction regulations kicked in since 1995, which increased construction costs, Kuhlman said. Consequently, ATG filed a claim with Fluor for an extra $5.4 million. Fluor has twice rejected that claim but has agreed to consider it for a third time, Kuhlman said. Meanwhile, Hanford officials plan to piggyback one of the site's high-profile headaches onto the Fluor-ATG contract. That headache consists of about 1,500 barrels of uranium oxide powders and uranium chips stored in oil to prevent spontaneous combustion -- some unearthed and most buried -- at a site next to the 300 Area's northern edge about three miles north of Richland. Last summer's 300-square-mile Hanford range fire came within a few hundred yards of the site -- the closest flames came to exposed radioactive materials. Hanford officials want ATG to glassify the oil-soaked chips, starting in mid-2002, to change them into a safer form to store at central Hanford. Back to top stories Copyright 2000 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This ***************************************************************** 2 Hanford budget frustrates Hastings This story was published Sat, Apr 21, 2001 By John Stang Herald staff writer To paraphrase Cool Hand Luke: What the federal budget drafters and Congress have is a failure to communicate, said U.S. Rep. Doc Hastings. "I'm very frustrated with the OMB (on Hanford's cleanup budget)," Hastings, R-Wash., told the Tri-City Herald's editorial board Friday. Hastings referred to the OMB cutting the Department of Energy's budget from $19.7 billion in 2001 to a proposed $19.2 billion in 2002. That trims DOE's nationwide cleanup budget from $6.267 billion in 2001 to a proposed $5.913 billion in 2002. And DOE's cleanup efforts absorbed $354 million of that $500 million cut. That means Hanford's budget would shrink from $1.456 billion in 2001 to $1.4 billion in 2002 -- falling $400 million to $500 million short of what the site legally needs. Hastings characterized Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham as fighting hard for increased cleanup funding. "Frankly, Spence Abraham got rolled by OMB," Hastings said. The OMB handles the president's annual budget requests to Congress. Hastings said OMB undercut Bush's wishes, with those details lost amongst the $1.9 trillion budget request to Congress. But U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., told the Herald's editorial board Tuesday that Bush is responsible for the OMB's budget figures. DOE's top two Hanford managers, Keith Klein and Harry Boston, briefed OMB before the budget's unveiling. Congressional members interested in nuclear cleanup have formed caucuses in the U.S. House and Senate. They got both chambers to pass nonbinding resolutions to declare DOE's 2002 nationwide cleanup budget to be $6.65 billion -- setting a starting point for months of negotiations as Bush's budget request goes through Congress. Murray speculated that Bush, who's fighting for a massive tax cut and has usually opposed pro-environmental measures, may veto a significant increase in DOE's cleanup budget. But Hastings believes Bush would not veto a major increase. Copyright 2001 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 3 ABQjournal: Senator Seeks to Restore Funding for Nuke Pits Tuesday, April 24, 2001 Senator Seeks to Restore Funding for Nuke Pits Albuquerque Journal--> By Jennifer McKee *Journal Staff Writer* The Bush administration's federal budget will leave our country out of pits, not in the pits, according to Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M. And that's a bad thing. A pit, in this case, is the softball-sized plutonium orb inside every nuclear weapon in the nation's stockpile. Pits cause a nuclear explosion; without them, no nuclear weapon would work. The United States has not built a new pit since 1989, and some scientists fear the aging pits may not work as planned. To ensure the reliability of nuclear weapons as well as maintain a work force with the knowledge to build a pit, the Energy Department launched a campaign several years ago of building replacement pits in small quantities. Los Alamos National Lab was designated the nation's new pit production facility. So far, scientists at the lab have yet to build a certified pit, one that passes rigorous standards and can be placed in an existing weapon. Thanks to cuts in the latest DOE budget, Domenici said the lab never will. "This budget puts off the certification and delivery of a pit to the military indefinitely," the senator said last week. The proposed DOE budget cuts funding for pit production at Los Alamos to $129 million, down from $145 million this fiscal year. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, during a visit to the lab last week, said the cuts will not throw the department off its goal of building a certifiable pit by 2003, DOE's self-imposed pit deadline. According to Domenici, there's a difference between a "certifiable pit," one that is built and could be certified, and a "certified pit," or one that is ready to be delivered to the military and placed into a nuclear weapon. While the department may produce a certifiable pit by 2003, the DOE's proposed budget cuts render any real-life usable pits a pipe dream for the foreseeable future. "The budget request is totally inadequate," the senator said. "Under an earlier plan, a new, certified pit was to be delivered to the military in 2001." That obviously didn't happen, and according to Domenici, the DOE's proposed budget, released earlier this month, "includes no commitment on certification." He estimates Congress must add another $148 million to the pit budget if DOE expects to have a certified, ready-to-use pit delivered to the military by 2009. Abraham said during his Los Alamos visit last week that he takes seriously the importance of pit production, but added that while Domenici was one of his best friends when the two served in the Senate together, Domenici "needs to give us a little time" to figure out the Energy Department ropes. Domenici is already pushing to expand the DOE budget by almost $1.4 billion. Some say DOE doesn't need all that money to make a pit. Greg Mello, of the Los Alamos Study Group, a lab watchdog organization based in Santa Fe, said many countries routinely crank out pits for a fraction of what the United States has already spent with little result. "Ask the North Koreans," Mello said, referring to that nation's young nuclear weapons program. "I bet they can make a pit." Copyright Albuquerque Journal ***************************************************************** 4 Board prepares letter opposing cuts at SRS Augusta Georgia: Metro: April 24, 2001 By Brandon Haddock *Staff Writer* Savannah River Site's Citizens Advisory Board soon will become the latest critic of proposed cuts in the federal nuclear-weapons site's budget. The board is writing a letter to U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham about a proposed $150 million in cuts in the site's budget for fiscal year 2002. The new federal fiscal year begins Oct. 1. ``The objective of this letter is let Mr. Abraham know that we are paying attention to the budget, and that there are certain things that are inviolate to us that must be funded,'' said Karen Patterson, the board's chairwoman, during a committee meeting Monday in North Augusta. ``We want to alert him that the public is aware of what has been proposed, and to this point is not happy with what he has done.'' The board could approve the letter during a meeting today at the North Augusta Community Center. Mark Frei, a deputy assistant secretary for the U.S. Department of Energy, also will brief the board about the budget proposal and its effects on SRS. That proposal, the first budget request submitted by the administration of President Bush, has been criticized by SRS supporters, including members of Congress from Georgia and South Carolina. An economic-development agency released a report last week estimating that the site could lose as many as 2,000 jobs if the proposed budget is implemented. The SRS Citizens Advisory Board, made up of residents from throughout Georgia and South Carolina, monitors the site and its impacts on public health and the environment. The board also recommends specific actions for the Energy Department to take in those arenas. Although the Energy Department is not required to follow the board's actions, the department must respond to the board and justify its decisions to follow or ignore the body's recommendations. Before board members drafted the letter Monday, they received updates about how the budget would slash funding for some specific SRS programs: Funding to improve the site's infrastructure would fall from $31.6 million in fiscal 2001 to $15.7 million under the proposed fiscal 2002 budget, said Jim Buice, the Energy Department's director of planning and budget at SRS. The site requested $53 million, Mr. Buice said. The site's infrastructure, some of which is nearly 50 years old, has received considerable attention in recent months. In February, all four U.S. senators from South Carolina and Georgia sent a letter to Mr. Abraham requesting funding to improve the infrastructure. The proposal would curtail funding for a program to stabilize plutonium at SRS. The site requested $46 million for the program; the proposed budget would provide only $4 million. Plutonium is a radioactive, carcinogenic metal. The federal Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, which advises the Energy Department on safety issues at nuclear-weapons sites such as SRS, has taken a strong stand in favor of the plutonium-stabilization project. Reach Brandon Haddockat (706) 823-3409. www.augustachronicle.com All contents ©1996 - 2001 *The Augusta Chronicle*. All ***************************************************************** 5 Technology:Backers push for timely aid to nuke workers *Web posted Tuesday, April 24, 2001 By Karen MacPherson *Block News Alliance/Scripps Howard News Service* WASHINGTON - Lawmakers promise to monitor closely a new benefit program for sick nuclear workers, after the Bush administration ended a battle last week with Congress over which federal agency should administer it. While members of Congress said they are pleased that Labor Secretary Elaine Chao bowed to their demands that her agency take the lead on the newly passed entitlement program for beryllium workers, some said they are concerned about that she did so with public reluctance. And they said they hope Chao will start the program soon after the July 31 date Congress set for getting it up and running. Last week Chao said her agency wouldn't be ready by July 31 to start the benefits program, which will affect workers at 317 sites in 37 states. Approved last year by Congress, the program offers lifetime medical care and $150,000 each to workers who were employed in nuclear weapon complexes at factories under contract to the Energy Department and at nuclear test sites in Alaska and Nevada. Chao has refused to set a new deadline for starting the program, saying she didn't want to make a promise to workers that she couldn't keep. But she stressed that, whenever the program starts, workers will receive medical benefits retroactive to July 31. Rep. Ted Strickland, D-Ohio, contends that's not good enough. ``A lot of sick people may lose their lives before they ever receive any compensation. It's unnecessary,'' said Strickland, one of the main House sponsors of the program. ``This particular episode is a sufficient reason to have questions about the commitment that the secretary has to the program. We have to watch closely to make sure the workers are treated justly and with dignity.'' But Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, said he doubts that the program will be delayed long beyond the original July 31 date. But DeWine agrees that Congress should monitor the Labor Department's progress in setting up the compensation program, just as lawmakers keep track of any new federal program. Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., said he believes the Labor Department should take the time it needs to set up a solid program. ``If the Labor Department needs more time to do things like solicit input from workers the program is trying to help, I think there will be many in Congress who will be willing to give the agency that time,'' he said. The law allows President Bush to delete silicosis victims from the program, if he acts by April 28. Chao, however, said she has recommended that silicosis victims be included in the program. Congress established the compensation program late last year after testimony from Cold War-era nuclear workers who contracted cancer or lung disease while working on nuclear weapons projects licensed by the Energy Department. All contents ©1996 - 2001 *The Augusta Chronicle*. All ***************************************************************** 6 New Nukes (washingtonpost.com) About the Author • William M. Arkin, a former Army intelligence analyst and consultant, has written extensively about military affairs, including several books on the topic. In 1994, his "The U.S. Military Online: A Directory for Internet Access to the Department of Defense" was published. It's now in its second edition. His launched in November 1998, appears every other Monday on washingtonpost.com. E-mail Arkin at . *By William M. Arkin* Special to washingtonpost.com Monday, April 23, 2001; 12:00 AM The Pentagon is now daring to utter words that were suppressed during the Clinton years: new nukes. Air Force Maj. Gen. Franklin J. "Judd" Blaisdell revealed at a Capitol Hill seminar on April 6 that exploration of a new "Minuteman IV" intercontinental ballistic missile has begun. Meanwhile, the Navy is calculating the longevity of its own submarine missiles and the need for a Trident III. With a Congressionally mandated nuclear posture review, and a nuclear "study" constituted by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld barely beginning, one might think this talk signaled the ascendancy of nuclear forces in the U.S. arsenal. In fact, these blasts of honesty merely reflect the reality that if the United States is going to possess nuclear weapons in the future, current systems will eventually have to be replaced. But some zealots are taking the opportunity to dust off proposals to develop "mini-nukes" for Third World combat. These advocates misread the Bush Pentagon and underestimate the degree to which their new found candor comes at a price. The military services are not likely to support spending lots of money on nuclear weapons because it will likely come out of their conventional weapons budgets. Stagnation as Policy The Clinton Pentagon conducted in its own nuclear posture review in 1994, concluding that they believed nuclear weapons would likely be with us forever. Thus the basic design of forces remained untouched, and a "hedge" force was built in reserve to ensure growth and resurgence were U.S.- Russian relations to sour. Criticism of this de facto policy of nuclear stagnation mounted from all directions. Arms control advocates decried the absence of reductions and the lack of vision. Nuclear advocates denounced the contradiction of an avowed devotion to nuclear weapons while suppressing research and development of new weapons. But none of the flak had much impact. Clinton's policy brilliantly turned nuclear weapons into a non-issue, though not necessarily by design. The American public largely forgot about nuclear weapons, at least American ones. And nuclear issues were more and more segregated, even within the U.S. military. The Air Force, as the service most associated with nukes, has been most affected. The dominating days of the nuclear oriented Strategic Air Command are over. SAC was disestablished in 1991, replaced by U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM), a unified command of all the services. Today, STRATCOM lives or dies by nuclear weapons. The Air Force, on the other hand, is almost completely oriented towards warfare ala Iraq and Yugoslavia, and thus has a greater stake in denuclearization. If some in the Air Force had their way, the hallowed design of the nuclear "triad," the force of land-based intercontinental missiles, strategic submarines, and heavy bombers which have been the core of U.S. nuclear forces since the 1960's, would get an update. B-1, B-2, and B-52 heavy bombers, which have shown their conventional military relevance in the Gulf War and Yugoslavia, would be unshackled from nuclear responsibilities. According to officers on the air staff in the Pentagon, the new triad would include land- and submarine-based nuclear missiles as the first "leg," with missile defenses and non-nuclear forces as the second and third legs. New ways would be found to incorporate bombers armed with precision guided weapons, future "directed energy" weapons, and cyber-warfare techniques into the non-nuclear leg. Resistance Ahead Back in February, when about 60 nuclear specialists and contractors met in Crystal City, Virginia, just blocks from the Pentagon to kick off the Air Forces preparations for a nuclear posture review, there was much discussion about whether such radical redesigns were really going to happen. Even representatives of Space Command, where there is a growing constituency for space weapons, did not use use the word "nuclear." "Nukes are not considered a usable viable weapon by anyone anymore," says a retired Air Force officer working under contract with Space Command. Various laboratory representatives did attend the meeting to market their new "mini-nuke," a low-yield nuclear weapon intended to "deter" rogue nation use of chemical or biological weapons. Their efforts were notable because the pitch went against the now-dominant view that nuclear weapons should be further reduced in number and prominence. Many arms control advocates are expressing alarm that the Bush team is pushing nuclear renewal and mini-nukes. But Dr. Steven A. Maaranen, a Los Alamos laboratory political scientist who has been appointed chair of Donald Rumsfeld's nuclear study, has consistently written about and espoused the view of the importance of conventional forces. "If the United States pursues a course of action that requires some continuing reliance on nuclear weapons," Maaranen wrote in a National Research Council study in 1997, "[it] should do its utmost to retain an adequate conventional force posture and superior conventional force technology." The United States should try to place nuclear weapons in the background, Maaranen said, adding that "few would disagree that conventional forces will play a greater part in deterrence in the future." In a talk given at Los Alamos last December, Maaranen again expressed approval for the "silent role" nuclear weapons have assumed since the end of the Cold War, saying that the threat posed by North Korea and Iran has been overstated. This is not the kind of argument that is used to justify the development of mini-nukes. Given the cost of the Bush administration's coveted missile defense system, hundreds of billions of dollars in nuclear expenses looms over the horizon. The "bill payer" for missile defenses and nuclear renewal, Air Force officers lament, will be conventional military capabilities. In that, nuclear advocates will face strong opposition from the new dominant thinkers in the military services. © 2001 Washington Post Newsweek Interactive ***************************************************************** 7 Ten Year Study Reveals Nuclear Weapons Unlawful And Military Documentation U.S. Newswire 23 Apr 10:30 To: Metro Desk Contact: Barbara Marx-Webber, 301-390-1114 NEW YORK, April 23 /U.S. Newswire/ -- New York litigator and former St. John's law professor Charles Moxley is catching the attention of leaders in the fields of politics, law and international relations due to the provocative conclusions in his recently released book, Nuclear Weapons and International Law in the Post Cold War World (Austin & Winfield, Publishers, University Press of America). Both the Professional's Network for Social Responsibility and the Middle Powers Initiative have invited Moxley to be their keynote speaker at upcoming events in New York (on April 29th and May 3rd). Moxley will discuss the results of his ten-year study on the legality of nuclear weapons as well as implications of the U.S. Administration's Missile Defense Program. He says, "The use of nuclear weapons under established rules of international law is unlawful, even according to official U.S. and military documentation." Moxley will be the keynote speaker at a private strategy conference for the Middle Powers Initiative (April 29th) as well as for the Professional's Network for Social Responsibility. (Thursday May 3, 2001 at 5:30 p.m. 15 Rutherford Place, East of Third Ave.) For press coverage, to arrange an interview or obtain a press copy of the book, contact Barbara Marx-Webber at 301-390-1114. Experts in the fields of politics, law, and national security are calling Moxley's work groundbreaking, comprehensive and of the utmost importance. In an indictment that Columbia Law School Dean David Leebron concludes, "requires a response" and Robert McNamara says should call on the President and Congress to investigate, Moxley expertly challenges the U.S. position on legality. Moxley also reveals that, to stave off an ICJ decision recognizing such total unlawfulness, the United States, acting through State and Defense Department attorneys, resorted to misrepresenting the facts and law to the Court. Robert McNamara describes Moxley's book as "the best exposition I have seen of the irrationality of the U.S. policy in this area, the irrationality of the policies of the other nuclear weapons states, and the irrationality of the human race in permitting the potential use of these weapons to continue." (Note: The April 29th event is closed to the press, however interviews can be arranged and copies of the speech can be made available.) MPI is a campaign of international citizen organizations launched in 1998 to influence and assist middle power governments to encourage and educate the nuclear weapon states to commit to immediate practical steps to reduce nuclear dangers and commence negotiations to eliminate nuclear weapons. PNSR is a non-partisan network for professional organizations that share a concern about human and environmental needs and a desire to build a strong civilian economy through redirection of national priorities away from Cold War militarism and weapons protection. Copyright 2001, U.S. Newswire ***************************************************************** 8 Gorbachev optimistic after Bush meeting [deseretnews.com] April 24, 2001 Associated Press WASHINGTON — Former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev spoke with President Bush on Monday and left the White House assured that, despite a rocky start, Bush wanted "a good and friendly relationship" with Russia. Gorbachev, at the White House for a meeting with national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, spoke briefly with Bush in the West Wing. "It is definitely my impression that President Bush would like to meet with (Russian) President Putin, that he would like that meeting to happen as soon as reasonably possible," Gorbachev told reporters through an interpreter. Bush "wants to work for a good and friendly relationship of cooperation between Russia and the United States," he said. "I am naturally an optimist," Gorbachev said. "Today, I am even more an optimist." Many analysts say U.S.-Russian relations are at their worst since the 1991 Soviet collapse. Russia has denounced Bush's commitment to do away with a landmark arms control treaty and develop a missile defense system. Other disputes include Russia's nuclear energy and weapons deals with Iran and a recent spy scandal that resulted in the tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats. Gorbachev quoted Bush as saying "there are no insurmountable obstacles" to a healthy U.S.-Russia partnership, something Secretary of State Colin Powell echoed at a State Department meeting with Gorbachev. "We have many areas in which we have disagreements," Powell said. "But because we are committed to a better future, we will be working very closely together." Gorbachev said he and Bush also agreed that "all obstacles be removed" to increased trade and business between their two countries, and that Russia needs to address corruption in its government. © 2001 Deseret News Publishing Company ***************************************************************** 9 War Veteran Windfall War Veteran Windfall << back By Staff Reporter Matt Rilkoff at 6:25pm, 23rd April 2001 War veterans and their families are in line for up to $9 million in extra support, Prime Minister Helen Clark and Veterans' Affairs Minister Mark Burton announced this afternoon. Most notable are one-off payments of $30,000 to New Zealanders interned in Japanese prisoner of war camps or their surviving spouse, and extra health services for the children of Vietnam and nuclear test veterans. Miss Clark said people imprisoned in Japanese camps during the Second World War suffered terrible conditions, and more than a quarter did not survive. The package will also give extra help for the children of Vietnam veterans who suffer from spina bifida and cleft lip or palate. Children of servicemen and women who witnessed nuclear testing in the Pacific - Operation Grapple - will also receive help for special health needs. The Prime Minister said if links between service in Vietnam or Operation Grapple and other specific health conditions or disabilities in veterans children were established, the Government would consider providing assistance for such conditions. The ministers also announced that the Office of Veterans' Affairs would become a one-stop shop for the provision of most health and other services to veterans. "From now on our veterans will have specific recognition as veterans and will not be regarded as pensioners or beneficiaries. "We will be developing a service charter specifically for the War Pensions Unit, which recognises the special needs and status of veterans and is completed in consultation with veterans' representative groups," said Miss Clark. She said additional assistance for all service veterans included allowing them to earn up to $80 a week before losing entitlement to any of their pension. © NewsRoom 2001 NewsRoom at wapnews.co.nz on your WAP phone! ***************************************************************** 10 Test Veterans Still Want Compensation By Staff Reporter Matt Rilkoff at 1:59pm, 24th April 2001 A group of New Zealand war veterans is likely to pursue compensation for health problems despite the extra $9 million support package announced yesterday by the Government. The veterans have lodged individual claims against the Government for injury, illness and loss of income after taking part in British nuclear tests near Christmas Island in 1957 and 1958. They claim that successive governments have refused to recognise the link between the radiation and the rapidly developing health problems of those who served on the two New Zealand navy ships at the test site. The lawyer for some of the claimants, Roger Chapman, believes the contents of the war veterans' package may not be enough to meet their needs. Additional assistance to be made available to veterans will include coverage of any additional payments for doctors' visits, pharmaceutical charges, and support services. Mr Chapman said his clients had given him no indication that they intended to abandon the action. NewsRoom at wapnews.co.nz on your WAP phone! ***************************************************************** 11 Hard Times, Scary Choices in Russia (washingtonpost.com) *By Richard Morin and Claudia Deane* Tuesday, April 24, 2001; Page A21 In the 1940s and '50s, Russia's 10 "nuclear cities" were places of relative privilege in the former Soviet Union. Scientists living in these isolated, nameless towns not found on any map were rewarded for their work on nuclear weapons development with good wages and access to scarce consumer goods. That was then. Now, six in 10 nuclear experts earn less than $50 per month, and roughly the same number have to moonlight to get by, according to a groundbreaking survey of 500 specialists working in the nuclear cities. The survey was commissioned by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "If you're a top manager at Los Alamos, you make about 100 times more than you make if you're a top manager in Russia," said Jon Wolfsthal, an associate in Carnegie's Non-Proliferation Project. "Their economic hardship dramatically increases the risk that they will be forced to sell their skills or materials at hand to the highest bidder," Wolfsthal and Alexander Pikayev wrote in the report's introduction. More than one in 10 experts said they would like to work outside Russia, and 6 percent said they would move "any place at all." What would they do once they got there? "What they do best, which is make weapons," Wolfsthal said. Aside from the risk of secret-saturated scientists settling in dangerous places such as Iraq or North Korea, there is the problem of whether there would be anyone left to mind the nuclear store. Private business is proving to be an irresistible lure for many specialists, and migration to the nuclear cities is on the wane. The report, authored by Russian sociologist Valentin Tikhonov, is available on Carnegie's Web site (www.ceip.org) and will be officially released in early May. © 2001 The Washington Post Company ***************************************************************** 12 Russian Navy Denies Sub Accident April 24, 2001 MOSCOW (AP) - The Russian Navy on Tuesday denied a newspaper report that one of its nuclear submarines suffered an accident during recent exercises in the Barents Sea and couldn't reach harbor under its own power. The weekly newspaper Versiya's report Tuesday said an unidentified submarine of the Northern Fleet had apparently suffered a reactor shutdown and was towed to its base during naval maneuvers earlier this month. Navy spokesman Capt. Igor Dygalo said a Northern Fleet submarine had indeed been towed to harbor - but, he said, the towing was simply an exercise meant to imitate rescue procedures for a faulty vessel. Dygalo dismissed Versiya's claim that the Navy staged the rescue exercise to cover up the submarine's accident. "The submarine is currently at sea performing a regular training," he said. Dygalo refused to give the submarine's name or type. The Interfax news agency quoted unidentified naval officers as saying it was a project 671 nuclear-powered attack submarine, known as Victor III in the West. The Russian Navy suffered a severe blow last August when one of its most modern nuclear submarines, the Kursk, exploded and sank during Barents Sea maneuvers, killing all 118 crewmen. The government hasn't determined the disaster's cause. It plans to raise the wreck of the Kursk this fall. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 13 Uranium cleanup unfunded [Las Vegas Review-Journal] Tuesday, April 24, 2001 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal Bush budget doesn't address tailings that leach into Colorado River By CHRISTINE DORSEY DONREY WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- President Bush has included no money in his 2002 budget to clean up an abandoned mine site near Moab, Utah, where federal officials have estimated 16,000 gallons of water containing radioactive uranium tailings are leaking into the Colorado River each day. Despite legislation ushered through Congress last year by Utah Republicans giving the Department of Energy authority to begin cleaning up the site, the department has set aside no specific funding to get started. Tom Welch, a DOE spokesman, said the budget does include a $2.8 million line item to fund activities of the office in Grand Junction, Colo., that would oversee the project. An undetermined amount of that will fund a study by the National Academy of Sciences of cleanup options, he said. Most of Southern Nevada's drinking water comes from the Colorado River, via Lake Mead, about 450 miles downstream of the Moab tailings pile. Although federal officials know of no evidence that uranium is traveling down river into water supplies for Nevada or Southern California, Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said water users have expressed concern about reports indicating the tailings are leaking radioactive uranium into the river. "I don't know what we're going to do," said Reid, who sits on the Senate Appropriations Committee that will review the Energy Department budget. Vince Alberta, a spokesman for the Southern Nevada Water Authority, said regular tests for "gross alpha radiation," the test for traces of radioactive substances, have consistently shown less than 6 pico-Curies per liter (pCi/l) well below the 15 pCi/l maximum federal level. Seven members of Congress, including Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., wrote a letter last week to the House Appropriations Committee requesting $10 million for the Energy Department to fund cleanup this year. Gibbons wasn't available Monday, but spokesman Robert Uithoven said Congress will remedy the shortfalls in the appropriations process. "It (Bush's budget) is simply a blueprint," he said. In a March 30 letter, Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt, a Republican, wrote to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham urging him to include "the necessary funding" to move the tailings from where they sit, 750 feet from the river, just outside Arches National Park. Some officials estimate it could cost as much as $300 million to remove the 13 million tons of uranium tailings left behind by Atlas Mining Corp. The Denver-based company mined uranium during the Cold War. The company filed for bankruptcy in 1997, handing cleanup to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Under legislation in a Defense Authorization bill last year, cleanup of the site will handed to DOE in September. The omission of any cleanup funds added fuel to fires being fanned by environmentalists over Bush environmental policies. "All of our efforts to get through to the Bush people didn't work," said Bill Hedden, who follows the uranium cleanup for Grand Canyon Trust, an environmental group that tracks activities along the Colorado River. This story is located at: http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2001/Apr-24-Tue-2001/news/15940832.html ***************************************************************** 14 Labor Department to Delay Nuclear Worker Compensation Environment News Service: By Cat Lazaroff WASHINGTON, DC, April 23, 2001 (ENS) - Labor Secretary Elaine Chao has bowed to Congressional pressure to keep a compensation program for nuclear workers in the Labor Department, where the Clinton Administration put it. But the Bush administration still has until next Sunday to determine which workers can expect compensation, and which may be left out in the cold. [shipping] Cylinders of enriched uranium hexafluoride (UF-6) are loaded into protective overpacks for shipment at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant, one of three uranium enrichment plants covered by the compensation program (Photo courtesy U.S. Enrichment Corporation) Secretary Chao said last week she will end her opposition to managing the compensation program, which covers workers from Cold War era nuclear weapons plants, uranium mines and underground nuclear test sites in Alaska and Nevada, who are suffering from radiation related illnesses. "I think this is a win for workers," Chao said. "This is a priority. We want to take care of the workers, we want to make sure justice is done." However, Chao said the Labor Department will be unable to meet the July 31 deadline for accepting applications from injured parties. That deadline was part of the legislation passed to create the compensation fund, so Chao will need a Congressional act to get an extension. Chao would not say when she thought her agency would be ready to accept applications, saying that she did not want to make a promise she might not be able to keep. [Chao] Labor Secretary Elaine Chao (Photo courtesy Department of Labor) "The first down payment we need to make with affected workers and their families is to tell them the truth," said Chao. "The one thing people have realized is how unlikely the July 31 deadline was from the very beginning, and I hope we can reach agreement on a more reasonable time, while making benefits fully retroactive," to July 31. The Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act (EEOICPA) was signed into law last year after the Energy Department accepted responsibility for exposing thousands of workers to radioactive materials during the Cold War. The program will offer one time $150,000 payments to nuclear workers and others made ill by the government's nuclear weapons program. Eligible recipients will also receive lifetime medical coverage. The Labor Department, which already handles three workers' compensation programs, was given $60.4 million to begin funding the nuclear program. But Chao tried to have the program moved to the Justice Department, which now handles a much smaller nuclear compensation fund. Critics said Chao's attempts to move the program would create unnecessary delays in issuing compensation checks - delays which could find some particularly ill victims dying before aid reaches them. [Rocky Flats] Former workers from the Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site, a former U.S. government nuclear weapons manufacturing facility, could receive compensation under the program (Photo courtesy Department of Energy) The benefits program is expected to affect workers, or their survivors, at 317 sites in 37 states. But the Labor Department has yet to determine the threshold criteria that will determine whether workers from many of those are eligible for compensation. In addition, several categories of workers could still be dropped from the program if the Bush administration decides that there is "insufficient basis" to include them. For example, Energy Department employees or their contractors who worked in the mining tunnels used for underground nuclear weapons testing in Alaska and Nevada are currently covered under the program if they suffer from a condition called chronic silicosis, a degenerative disease that scars the lungs. President Bush has until April 28 to certify that there is not enough evidence that this disease is related to the workers' time in the tunnels, thereby disqualifying them for compensation. Most workers suffering from radiation related cancers will be covered by the new program - eventually. But first, the Labor Department must set criteria for eligibility, including the dose of radiation the workers were exposed to and the length of their employment with the Energy Department or one of its contractors. [craters] Underground nuclear tests leave subsidence craters like these at the Nevada Test Site. 828 underground nuclear tests, including 24 with the UK, were conducted at the site between 1951 and 1992. (Photo courtesy The Brookings Institution) Exceptions include workers exposed to the Long Shot, Milrow or Cannikin underground nuclear tests at Amchitka, Alaska, who later developed one of several types of cancer. Cancer stricken workers from the government's three uranium enrichment plants are also covered regardless of new criteria developed by the Labor Department. Any workers who developed chronic beryllium disease after working at any Energy Department sites where beryllium was used will get coverage if they died or were disabled. Those found to have beryllium sensitivity will be covered for regular medical screenings, but not for the $150,000 pay out. Uranium miners who are already qualified for compensation under the smaller Justice Department program may be eligible for additional compensation and coverage from the Labor Department. Workers exposed to nonradioactive toxic substances, such as cancer causing PCBs, are not covered by this program. [Strickland] Representative Ted Strickland, right, with former Energy Secretary Bill Richardson. Both men worked to ensure that former nuclear weapons workers would be compensated for their illnesses (Photo courtesy Office of Representative Strickland) The government officially estimates that the program will ultimately cover 3,000 to 4,000 workers. However, a Clinton administration study suggested that the number of eligible workers could be closer to 10,000. "I am relieved that we can stop fighting over who will administer this program and focus on making sure workers quickly get compensation that is long overdue," said Representative Ted Strickland, the Ohio Democrat who helped push the program through Congress last year. But, he warned, "a lot of sick people may lose their lives before they ever receive any compensation" if Secretary Chao further delays implementation of the program. The Energy Department's Worker Advocacy Advisory Committee will meet Thursday to discuss plans and priorities for assisting workers who have been diagnosed with work related illnesses, including those still suffering from the effects of the Cold War. © Environment News Service ***************************************************************** 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: *****************************************************************